During these 30 days I’ve written in-depth about the top tactics for getting traffic. It’s essential to work at least the most important methods into your daily focus.
Quality of Traffic
Tons of website owners and bloggers think, “How am I going to get a lot of traffic?”
When really they should be asking themselves, “How am I going to get a lot of quality traffic?”
1 hit from a high source of traffic is often better than 100 hits from a low source. For instance, if a well-respected blogger such as Darren Rowse has provided a link to your site on blogging, he has given his internet stamp of approval for your website.
The visitor is likely to spend time reading what you have to say and he will also trust your products/advertisements. If Darren Rowse is raving about you, you don’t need to do much to sell yourself when that traffic comes through.
However, let’s say someone used a traffic exchange to get to your site. This is such a low quality source of traffic that the visitor may not stay but a few seconds, he immediately doesn’t have a lick of trust in your content or you, and he may have even stumbled upon your site looking for content outside of your niche.
Before you put together your strategy, ponder what I consider to be the highest to lowest quality sources of traffic in relation to the sections above.
Traffic Quality Chart
High:
(Direct Links)
Traffic from your email list
Article Marketing
Forum Marketing
Guest Blogging
Viral ebook
Viral Video
Search Engine Traffic
Pay-Per-Click
Low:
Social Bookmarking
Traffic Exchanges
Your Focus
Unless you work 8-hours-per-day or hire help, it’s unlikely you can do all of these effectively. What we do know, however, is this. On a daily basis you should aim for generating traffic from at least one high quality source.
Objectives #1 and #2 are necessary for long-term traffic:
Your #1 objective should be linkbuilding.
Linkbuilding leads to both high quality direct traffic and long-term search engine traffic. Use all of the methods above, from viral linking campaigns, to guest blogging, to utilizing a blog roll in the right way, etc.
Your #2 objective should be either submitting search engine optimized articles to ezines (Article Marketing) or publishing them at your own website. Pros often do both.
Your #3 objective should be harnessing the traffic power of social bookmarking, creating viral media (ebooks and videos), forum marketing, Squidoo, and other things.
Goal Setting
As part of your strategy, set small goals. You can’t look at your traffic generation in absolutes. For example, vow to double your daily traffic each month instead of be upset that you’re not getting 10,000 visitors every day the second month your site’s up.
In other words, don’t expect these techniques to magically make your site as popular as an authority site that’s been on the net for 5 years over night. Although it’s possible if you generate enough incoming links.
Use these techniques. They work.
Hire Help
If you have the money, the best way to effortlessly drive traffic to your site by hiring help (outsourcing). There are skilled individuals on the net who provide services for building links, connecting you with JV partners… They’ll even write content for you for a low price. You can hire someone to do all the dirty work. I recommend Warrior Forum, an online marketing forum since 1997, for finding a contractor. Elance works well too.
Read more about hiring writers.
Warrior Forum is also a goldmine of knowledge. Talk to the members and use the search feature to find out anything you want to know about online business and generating traffic.
Traffic Building Checklist: Stage 1- Getting Started
Have the right tools for the job (e.g. firefox browser, website stats, autoresponder, etc.)
Pick a name for site & domain that is easy relatively short and is easy to spell & remember
Pay for quality hosting
Have really good content that others will find useful
Have your email visible on your site so people can contact you and ask them for feedback
Make a goal to add new content every so many day
Navigating your site should be simple and straightforward. Ask a couple people not familiar with your site to test it out for you.
Setup stat tracking. I recommend Google Analytics.
Optimize your site for the search engines
Setup an email list and make some sort of short special report to entice visitors to opt in to your list
Traffic Building Checklist: Stage 2- Getting Traffic
Goal Setting- How much traffic do you have, how much do you really want, and how long will it take. A good goal is to have your traffic increase by 1.5 or 2 times each month
Work on getting links to your site:
Find a few reciprocal links. Make a goal to do 1 or 2 a day
Find related blogs and forums and begin contributing to the community. Make a goal to leave 5 or more high quality posts a day.
Using your website stat tracker to figure out what sites are sending you the most traffic.
Traffic Building Checklist: Stage 3- Taking things to the next level
Goal Setting- Make a goal to contact 10-30 website owners in your niche and brainstorm together ways you can work together to get more traffic.
Contact email list owners in your niche and suggest a cross promotional campaign to build both your lists.
If I had to do it all over again…
If I had to do it all over again I would do 2 things differently:
I would start building an email list from day 1
I would have started networking with others in my field from the start
Sep 16, 2008
Day 29: Go where the traffic is
Today’s I want to talk about going where the traffic is.
This may sound like a strange idea but bear with me as I believe it to be a worthwhile concept.
This concept was originally introduced to me by Willie Crawford and basically states that if you want to increase traffic to your site then find related sites and look for ways to leverage their traffic.
For example if you want to get more traffic to your Poodle Manicures site then go find the most popular sites about Poodle Manicures and look for ways to leverage their traffic.
There are numerous ways do this. Here a few of the common ones:
If they have a blog you can:
Post meaningful comments and get a link back to your site
Write an informative guest post and get a link back to your site
Request a link exchange with their blogroll
If they have a forum there are several ways to use this get traffic.
Ask them if you could buy some ad space to advertise your site
If they have an email list offer to write an informative email to be sent to their list and get a link to your site in return. This is similar to the guest posting idea for blogging.
Post a funny video on youtube with a link to your site
What are your thoughts?
This may sound like a strange idea but bear with me as I believe it to be a worthwhile concept.
This concept was originally introduced to me by Willie Crawford and basically states that if you want to increase traffic to your site then find related sites and look for ways to leverage their traffic.
For example if you want to get more traffic to your Poodle Manicures site then go find the most popular sites about Poodle Manicures and look for ways to leverage their traffic.
There are numerous ways do this. Here a few of the common ones:
If they have a blog you can:
Post meaningful comments and get a link back to your site
Write an informative guest post and get a link back to your site
Request a link exchange with their blogroll
If they have a forum there are several ways to use this get traffic.
Ask them if you could buy some ad space to advertise your site
If they have an email list offer to write an informative email to be sent to their list and get a link to your site in return. This is similar to the guest posting idea for blogging.
Post a funny video on youtube with a link to your site
What are your thoughts?
Day 28: Traffic Odds & Ends
Start with a great product
I cannot stress enough how important it is that you start things with a great product.
Whether it’s an email course or a seminar that you are selling or website with baby names you must have a quality product.
Your success in getting traffic depends on this.
Getting others to bookmark your site and come back to it is a difficult task if all you offer is crap.
Google and other search engines are increasingly able to track visitors behavior on various sites including how many pages they visit and how long they stay.
Google can even determine how often visitors hit the back button when visiting your site. This factors in to your sites’ ranking in the search engines.
The point is if you offer crap you will have difficult time getting consistent traffic.
Be Remarkable
Be remarkable – What does this mean exactly?
Most people think that remarkable means neat or really cool, but it also means something is worth making a remark about.
Being remarkable means your product or company does something that causes people to remark about it to someone else. It’s word of mouth advertising. People of their own free will talk to their friends and family about your product or company or web site.
There is great video explaining the power of being remarkable:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/seth-godin-sliced-bread-and-other-marketing-delights/
Remarkable websites get a ton of free word of mouth traffic.
A good example of this is GoogleFight.com which is a silly site that serves no purpose except to entertain. I heard about the site from my wife who heard about it from some 13 year old boys. I have told many people about this and now I am telling you about it because it’s remarkable.
Choosing a Name
Choosing a name for your product, company, and website are very important. You want to choose a name that is memorable and easy to spell. When I buy domains I nearly always purchase a .com as it is easier for people to remember.
Eben Pagan has 3 great videos on marketing and the third video deals almost exclusively with choosing good names.
View all 3 videos:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/3-great-marketing-videos-from-eben-w-pagan/
Choosing the Right Domain
Choosing the right domain is an important decision. But there’s more to it than just picking the right name if you want to rank high in the search engines
In the last decade or so over 300 million domains have been registered:
http://www.domaintools.com/internet-statistics/
Of all the search engines out there Google has risen to be the undisputed 900 pound gorilla when it comes to search engines.
I believe it’s number 1 in large part because of it’s commitment to giving quality search results. Google is constantly refining its ranking process.
The problem facing search engines like Google and other search engines is web spam.
Web spam consists of sites that are put on the Internet with absolutely no valuable content. What they display is total rubbish. Their sole purpose is to get visitors to click on their advertisements.
Their presence degrades search results for everyone.
The last thing you want is for Google to mistake your newly purchased domain for web spam.
In order to avoid this we need take a look at what web spammers do and then make sure we not do those things.
One thing they do is usually register their domains for only 1 year.
I recommend registering your domain for 2 years. If you have money to burn then register it for longer. Registration length is one thing Google looks at in ranking sites.
I also recommend getting a .com and not a .info for your domain. A huge percentage of .info sites are web spam.
Some experts have speculated that it is best not to have secure registration for your website (where your personal information is hidden).
Hiding contact information is something web spammers frequently do.
Learn more about web spam:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051111-230626
In picking a domain, try to get something with your keywords in it.
For my site on Poodle Manicures site I might look for something like:
PoodleManicures.com
BestPoodleManicures.com
A1PoodleManicures.com
Generally speaking, shorter domain names are better. They are easier for people to remember and less prone to people misspelling them.
Avoid fancy spellings or strange names. This is especially important if you are advertising outside the Internet, like on signs, billboards, on radio, etc.
You want people to be able remember your domain. Keep it simple.
Hosting Matters
Picking a good web host that will not go down at random times is very important.
I mean what’s the point of working so hard to get traffic to a site if your hosting is unreliable?
Read about my experience with a bad web host and what I recommend.
I cannot stress enough how important it is that you start things with a great product.
Whether it’s an email course or a seminar that you are selling or website with baby names you must have a quality product.
Your success in getting traffic depends on this.
Getting others to bookmark your site and come back to it is a difficult task if all you offer is crap.
Google and other search engines are increasingly able to track visitors behavior on various sites including how many pages they visit and how long they stay.
Google can even determine how often visitors hit the back button when visiting your site. This factors in to your sites’ ranking in the search engines.
The point is if you offer crap you will have difficult time getting consistent traffic.
Be Remarkable
Be remarkable – What does this mean exactly?
Most people think that remarkable means neat or really cool, but it also means something is worth making a remark about.
Being remarkable means your product or company does something that causes people to remark about it to someone else. It’s word of mouth advertising. People of their own free will talk to their friends and family about your product or company or web site.
There is great video explaining the power of being remarkable:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/seth-godin-sliced-bread-and-other-marketing-delights/
Remarkable websites get a ton of free word of mouth traffic.
A good example of this is GoogleFight.com which is a silly site that serves no purpose except to entertain. I heard about the site from my wife who heard about it from some 13 year old boys. I have told many people about this and now I am telling you about it because it’s remarkable.
Choosing a Name
Choosing a name for your product, company, and website are very important. You want to choose a name that is memorable and easy to spell. When I buy domains I nearly always purchase a .com as it is easier for people to remember.
Eben Pagan has 3 great videos on marketing and the third video deals almost exclusively with choosing good names.
View all 3 videos:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/3-great-marketing-videos-from-eben-w-pagan/
Choosing the Right Domain
Choosing the right domain is an important decision. But there’s more to it than just picking the right name if you want to rank high in the search engines
In the last decade or so over 300 million domains have been registered:
http://www.domaintools.com/internet-statistics/
Of all the search engines out there Google has risen to be the undisputed 900 pound gorilla when it comes to search engines.
I believe it’s number 1 in large part because of it’s commitment to giving quality search results. Google is constantly refining its ranking process.
The problem facing search engines like Google and other search engines is web spam.
Web spam consists of sites that are put on the Internet with absolutely no valuable content. What they display is total rubbish. Their sole purpose is to get visitors to click on their advertisements.
Their presence degrades search results for everyone.
The last thing you want is for Google to mistake your newly purchased domain for web spam.
In order to avoid this we need take a look at what web spammers do and then make sure we not do those things.
One thing they do is usually register their domains for only 1 year.
I recommend registering your domain for 2 years. If you have money to burn then register it for longer. Registration length is one thing Google looks at in ranking sites.
I also recommend getting a .com and not a .info for your domain. A huge percentage of .info sites are web spam.
Some experts have speculated that it is best not to have secure registration for your website (where your personal information is hidden).
Hiding contact information is something web spammers frequently do.
Learn more about web spam:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051111-230626
In picking a domain, try to get something with your keywords in it.
For my site on Poodle Manicures site I might look for something like:
PoodleManicures.com
BestPoodleManicures.com
A1PoodleManicures.com
Generally speaking, shorter domain names are better. They are easier for people to remember and less prone to people misspelling them.
Avoid fancy spellings or strange names. This is especially important if you are advertising outside the Internet, like on signs, billboards, on radio, etc.
You want people to be able remember your domain. Keep it simple.
Hosting Matters
Picking a good web host that will not go down at random times is very important.
I mean what’s the point of working so hard to get traffic to a site if your hosting is unreliable?
Read about my experience with a bad web host and what I recommend.
Day 27: Viral Video
Producing an informative video and submitting it to YouTube along with your website’s URL can send a hurricane of traffic in your direction.
Case Study:
Blendtec makes high-end blenders costing hundreds of dollars. They got a lot of attention with their “Will it Blend?” videos on youtube.com. They have videos of the blenders blending everything from golf balls to credit cards to glow sticks to even an iPhone. The video of the blender blending an iPod ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs ) has been watched nearly 5 million times.
Don’t forget about the other video sites such as veoh.com, MySpace Video, and a South Korean-based video sharing site called CyWorld.com that actually gets more traffic than YouTube.
For a full list of video sharing sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-video-sharing-sites/
Also consider carefully titling your headlines with highly searched keywords and adding a whole lot of search engine optimized content in your description.
Search engines love video sites and so do web surfers.
Your videos don’t always have to informative. Many of the most watched videos are just silly and took very little to produce.
Case Study:
Blendtec makes high-end blenders costing hundreds of dollars. They got a lot of attention with their “Will it Blend?” videos on youtube.com. They have videos of the blenders blending everything from golf balls to credit cards to glow sticks to even an iPhone. The video of the blender blending an iPod ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs ) has been watched nearly 5 million times.
Don’t forget about the other video sites such as veoh.com, MySpace Video, and a South Korean-based video sharing site called CyWorld.com that actually gets more traffic than YouTube.
For a full list of video sharing sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-video-sharing-sites/
Also consider carefully titling your headlines with highly searched keywords and adding a whole lot of search engine optimized content in your description.
Search engines love video sites and so do web surfers.
Your videos don’t always have to informative. Many of the most watched videos are just silly and took very little to produce.
Day 26: Give something away for free
Today I want to talk about how to use free stuff that you give away to get more traffic.
If you have an ebook, special report, piece of software, or any digital info that is of value to others you can give it away to others and get traffic in return.
The goal here is to give away something of real value and get readers to forward it to their friends.
To keep things simple we are going to assume that you’re giving away an ebook though these ideas apply to other things as well.
Creating the ebook
You must start with something of value, cannot stress this enough, people will not forward something to their friends unless it has real value.
In creating the ebook make sure that it contains a link to your site in the header/footer and at the beginning (the most read page).
For software be sure to also place a link to your site in a place where the user can see it and click on it.
NOTE: Make double sure the link is clickable and that your site does come up correctly. Never put a url in it and assume people will open up a new browser wind and type in the url. People are lazy.
Put in a copyright statement encouraging others to pass on the ebook as they wish as well a disclaimer statement.
Here is what I put on the first page of Nick’s Traffic Tricks:
This report is free. You may give it away. In fact, I encourage you to give it away.
This report can be sold but I recommend not selling it as anyone can get for free at NicksTrafficTricks.com/nicks-traffic-tricks-2008/
This guide can be combined with any package or bundle, sold or given away.
The only thing I require is that the report is not modified in any manner.
The strategies in this report can be to generate a flood of traffic to almost any website.
However, what you do with these techniques is up to you. Because I don’t know you, don’t know your skills and – most important of all - don’t know how persistent you’ll be, I can’t make any guarantees.
In the introduction & conclusion portion of you ebook, ask people to send it to others. Sometimes it works best to simply ask others to send it to others.
When you link to your site make sure the link is enticing, promising additional information.
Many ebooks have an appendix at the end. Instead of putting an appendix in your ebook put the appendix on your site and link to it. This not only sends traffic to your site but also allows you to keep your appendix up to date, adding further value to your ebook.
Keep your ebook relatively focused on single subject. If it solves a problem make sure it solves it well and solves nothing else.
Viral ebooks tend to small and easy to download, making it easier for others to download and email to others.
Add page numbers, have fonts be standard size
Have a minimum of 3 people proof read it.
Packaging
If you link to the ebook in pdf format then when people click on the link to the pdf it will automatically load the pdf in the browser.
If instead you link to a zipped file (which contains the pdf) they will be forced to download it to their computer, making it easier for them to read it later and forward it to others.
In the zip file also include a file that links to your website.
To do this open a new file in NotePad and save it.
An example filename might be Traffic_Tricks_Blog.htm
Be sure that the filename contains no spaces, is something that gets the viewers attention, and ends with .htm
Inside the file type the following:
What this chunk of HTML code does is tell the browser to immediately redirect to:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com
Simply replace http://www.nickstraffictricks.com with your own url and then save.
Be sure to test your redirect!
Now everyone unzipping the file will see a file and if they open they will be sent to your site.
You can do this for affiliates stuff too. Just don’t abuse it. If you irritate people they won’t pass on your ebook.
Distribution
Now that your ebook package is ready there a many ways to distribute your freebie and start receiving traffic:
Make a page on your site outlining the ebook and its benefits with a big DOWNLOAD HERE graphic and ask your friends to put it on their sites.
Put a link to your freebie in your email signature
Post on WarriorForum with a link to your freebie
Upload your freebie to Scribd
Use forums to distribute your ebook. Read Traffic From Forums
There are many people with large email lists in your niche. Find out who they are. If my niche was Poodles I would Google poodle email list or poodle newsletter or poodle news and see who comes up in the search results.
Chances are they have a sizable email list. Subscribe to their list and respond to one of their emails.
What you’re going to offer them is to have their affiliate link at the top (header) of every page and you keep the link to your own site in the footer. All the list owner has to do is send an email to everyone on the list with a link to your ebook. The list owner wins by having an affiliate link in the ebook being distributed and you win by having everyone on the list read an ebook with a link to your site!
Find other people selling related products and offer to have your ebook bundled with their product. In return give them a link in the header of your report.
If you have an ebook, special report, piece of software, or any digital info that is of value to others you can give it away to others and get traffic in return.
The goal here is to give away something of real value and get readers to forward it to their friends.
To keep things simple we are going to assume that you’re giving away an ebook though these ideas apply to other things as well.
Creating the ebook
You must start with something of value, cannot stress this enough, people will not forward something to their friends unless it has real value.
In creating the ebook make sure that it contains a link to your site in the header/footer and at the beginning (the most read page).
For software be sure to also place a link to your site in a place where the user can see it and click on it.
NOTE: Make double sure the link is clickable and that your site does come up correctly. Never put a url in it and assume people will open up a new browser wind and type in the url. People are lazy.
Put in a copyright statement encouraging others to pass on the ebook as they wish as well a disclaimer statement.
Here is what I put on the first page of Nick’s Traffic Tricks:
This report is free. You may give it away. In fact, I encourage you to give it away.
This report can be sold but I recommend not selling it as anyone can get for free at NicksTrafficTricks.com/nicks-traffic-tricks-2008/
This guide can be combined with any package or bundle, sold or given away.
The only thing I require is that the report is not modified in any manner.
The strategies in this report can be to generate a flood of traffic to almost any website.
However, what you do with these techniques is up to you. Because I don’t know you, don’t know your skills and – most important of all - don’t know how persistent you’ll be, I can’t make any guarantees.
In the introduction & conclusion portion of you ebook, ask people to send it to others. Sometimes it works best to simply ask others to send it to others.
When you link to your site make sure the link is enticing, promising additional information.
Many ebooks have an appendix at the end. Instead of putting an appendix in your ebook put the appendix on your site and link to it. This not only sends traffic to your site but also allows you to keep your appendix up to date, adding further value to your ebook.
Keep your ebook relatively focused on single subject. If it solves a problem make sure it solves it well and solves nothing else.
Viral ebooks tend to small and easy to download, making it easier for others to download and email to others.
Add page numbers, have fonts be standard size
Have a minimum of 3 people proof read it.
Packaging
If you link to the ebook in pdf format then when people click on the link to the pdf it will automatically load the pdf in the browser.
If instead you link to a zipped file (which contains the pdf) they will be forced to download it to their computer, making it easier for them to read it later and forward it to others.
In the zip file also include a file that links to your website.
To do this open a new file in NotePad and save it.
An example filename might be Traffic_Tricks_Blog.htm
Be sure that the filename contains no spaces, is something that gets the viewers attention, and ends with .htm
Inside the file type the following:
What this chunk of HTML code does is tell the browser to immediately redirect to:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com
Simply replace http://www.nickstraffictricks.com with your own url and then save.
Be sure to test your redirect!
Now everyone unzipping the file will see a file and if they open they will be sent to your site.
You can do this for affiliates stuff too. Just don’t abuse it. If you irritate people they won’t pass on your ebook.
Distribution
Now that your ebook package is ready there a many ways to distribute your freebie and start receiving traffic:
Make a page on your site outlining the ebook and its benefits with a big DOWNLOAD HERE graphic and ask your friends to put it on their sites.
Put a link to your freebie in your email signature
Post on WarriorForum with a link to your freebie
Upload your freebie to Scribd
Use forums to distribute your ebook. Read Traffic From Forums
There are many people with large email lists in your niche. Find out who they are. If my niche was Poodles I would Google poodle email list or poodle newsletter or poodle news and see who comes up in the search results.
Chances are they have a sizable email list. Subscribe to their list and respond to one of their emails.
What you’re going to offer them is to have their affiliate link at the top (header) of every page and you keep the link to your own site in the footer. All the list owner has to do is send an email to everyone on the list with a link to your ebook. The list owner wins by having an affiliate link in the ebook being distributed and you win by having everyone on the list read an ebook with a link to your site!
Find other people selling related products and offer to have your ebook bundled with their product. In return give them a link in the header of your report.
Day 25: Link Swapping
Today I want to talk about link swapping (more commonly called reciprocal linking).
One thing to keep in mind is the difference between one-way links and reciprocal links. Reciprocal links are where two sites link to each other usually for the purpose of boosting each others ranking.
Google has caught on to this and doesn’t value these kinds of links as much as a simple one-way links.
While reciprocal links aren’t as valuable, they are easy to get and can be used in moderation to increase your rank in the search engines, especially when you’re first starting out.
Getting incoming links from search engines is a commonly understood benefit.
But another benefit is that visitors will see the link and if it looks interesting they’ll click on it.
Link Market
A good place to find other people interested in reciprocal links is:
http://www.linkmarket.com
Just make sure that the people you partner with have PR (PageRank) greater than 0 and are related to your site’s topic.
Also visit the site and make sure it’s something you want to link to.
Blogroll Trades
WordPress blogs have something called a blogroll which is a bunch of links that appear on (usually) every page of your blog.
Below is a screenshot of my site’s blogroll that appears on the right side of every page:
You can find people using the blogroll and offer to link to them if they will link to you.
WarriorForum
If you have never been to the WF (WarriorForum) then you are missing out.
WF has a section where you can buy, sell, or swap links with others:
http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=39
What are your suggestions for link trading?
One thing to keep in mind is the difference between one-way links and reciprocal links. Reciprocal links are where two sites link to each other usually for the purpose of boosting each others ranking.
Google has caught on to this and doesn’t value these kinds of links as much as a simple one-way links.
While reciprocal links aren’t as valuable, they are easy to get and can be used in moderation to increase your rank in the search engines, especially when you’re first starting out.
Getting incoming links from search engines is a commonly understood benefit.
But another benefit is that visitors will see the link and if it looks interesting they’ll click on it.
Link Market
A good place to find other people interested in reciprocal links is:
http://www.linkmarket.com
Just make sure that the people you partner with have PR (PageRank) greater than 0 and are related to your site’s topic.
Also visit the site and make sure it’s something you want to link to.
Blogroll Trades
WordPress blogs have something called a blogroll which is a bunch of links that appear on (usually) every page of your blog.
Below is a screenshot of my site’s blogroll that appears on the right side of every page:
You can find people using the blogroll and offer to link to them if they will link to you.
WarriorForum
If you have never been to the WF (WarriorForum) then you are missing out.
WF has a section where you can buy, sell, or swap links with others:
http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=39
What are your suggestions for link trading?
Day 24: Classified Ads
There are many different ways to get traffic to your website quickly, but none work quite as well as getting traffic from classified ads.
There are two different ways that you can accomplish this.
Online classified ads have been popular for almost as long as the Internet has been around.
At one time, these classified ads would send so much traffic to your website that it could bring your server down.
People don’t look at classifieds online quite as much as they used to but it is still a great way to get some targeted traffic on your pages.
There are plenty of free services that have favor in the eyes of Google where you can post your ads and get a decent amount of traffic.
Done correctly, this is well worth the effort.
Putting classified ads in local newspapers is also a great way to get traffic to your website.
Not many people do this, however, but by placing a cheap ad and directing them to a page with a simple offer on it, you can make a killing.
The key to this is to start small and test your ads to see which ones pull the best.
Once you have a winning combination, you can roll your profits back into purchasing additional ads in nationwide newspapers.
Get a list of Classified Ad Sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-classified-ad-sites/
Also checkout:
Day 10: Targetted Craigslist Traffic: Way too easy…
Using Magazine Ads to get Traffic and Build an Email List
There are two different ways that you can accomplish this.
Online classified ads have been popular for almost as long as the Internet has been around.
At one time, these classified ads would send so much traffic to your website that it could bring your server down.
People don’t look at classifieds online quite as much as they used to but it is still a great way to get some targeted traffic on your pages.
There are plenty of free services that have favor in the eyes of Google where you can post your ads and get a decent amount of traffic.
Done correctly, this is well worth the effort.
Putting classified ads in local newspapers is also a great way to get traffic to your website.
Not many people do this, however, but by placing a cheap ad and directing them to a page with a simple offer on it, you can make a killing.
The key to this is to start small and test your ads to see which ones pull the best.
Once you have a winning combination, you can roll your profits back into purchasing additional ads in nationwide newspapers.
Get a list of Classified Ad Sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-classified-ad-sites/
Also checkout:
Day 10: Targetted Craigslist Traffic: Way too easy…
Using Magazine Ads to get Traffic and Build an Email List
Day 23: Twitter
Today I want to talk about a relatively new service called Twitter.
Twitter is a social networking service that asks a very basic question: What are you doing right now?
People are allotted 140 characters to answer this question. It’s a micro blogging service where people can share with each other what they are doing.
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/nick1123
Watch as Sam Harrelson explains the basic functions of Twitter:
If you use the firefox browser then I recommend using the TwitterFox extension:
http://www.naan.net/trac/wiki/TwitterFox
Read more about Twitter on WikiPedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent 7 part series on Twitter:
Twitter Guide Part #1: What is Twitter?
Twitter Guide Part #2: Socialising with Twitter
Twitter Guide Part #3: Using Twitter Properly
Twitter Guide Part #4: Twitter Tools | Platform Specific
Twitter Guide Part #5 - Twitter Tools | Web Applications
Twitter Guide Part #6: Hacking Twitter
Twitter Guide Part #7: Multiply Your Twitter Audience
Twitter is a social networking service that asks a very basic question: What are you doing right now?
People are allotted 140 characters to answer this question. It’s a micro blogging service where people can share with each other what they are doing.
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/nick1123
Watch as Sam Harrelson explains the basic functions of Twitter:
If you use the firefox browser then I recommend using the TwitterFox extension:
http://www.naan.net/trac/wiki/TwitterFox
Read more about Twitter on WikiPedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent 7 part series on Twitter:
Twitter Guide Part #1: What is Twitter?
Twitter Guide Part #2: Socialising with Twitter
Twitter Guide Part #3: Using Twitter Properly
Twitter Guide Part #4: Twitter Tools | Platform Specific
Twitter Guide Part #5 - Twitter Tools | Web Applications
Twitter Guide Part #6: Hacking Twitter
Twitter Guide Part #7: Multiply Your Twitter Audience
Day 22: How to Optimize your Squidoo Lens
What is a Squidoo Lens and How Do You Optimize It?
For all of us who spent years, it seems, learning SEO techniques in order to drive traffic to our sites, Squidoo is a brand new game.
To optimize your Squidoo lens, you cannot rely on the old SEO techniques. And yet, SEO is part of the Squidoo game.
First, a little background will help you understand Squidoo. Squidoo allows you to create a lens that focuses people on a specific topic. When you set up your account, you set up keywords or tags as Squidoo calls them. You don’t have to understand the concept of keyword density.
You don’t have to worry about H-Tags, meta-tags, or long tails either. This is because Squidoo is set up to handle these issues for you. The SquidTeam takes the tags and other information you fill into the automatically set up pages for you and create the html that optimizes your Squidoo site for you.
Anyone who has ever lost sleep trying to optimize their site is in for a real delightful surprise with Squidoo. SEO is built into the site design. All you have to do is use the Squidoo tools and your site basically optimizes itself.
You can add in attractive modules that give you an advertising edge. Among the modules you can add are YouTube, Guestbook, Polls, RSS Feeds, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Plexo. You don’t need to know the first thing about html or coding.
Squidoo is a flip from the way websites used to work. The deal then was to get lots and lots of SEO pages in the hope that the sheer numbers would get the site to Google’s first page. The content mattered so little that there was a booming business in article spinners and automatically generated pages.
Squidoo is all about content and looks at quality over quantity. The lensmaster (that would be you) takes the best of what’s online and using the tools, focuses the reader on the topic by offering the most comprehensive information possible.
The more concise and up-to-date your lens is, the more attention you can attract. Think of a Squidoo page as a minisite. You take a single topic and you focus on that topic, digging deep into the topic.
The secret is to make the site informative. Because Squidoo does the SEO work for you, you can focus on rounding up all the information related to your topic. This makes your readers’ experience comprehensive. Rather than dig through hundreds or thousands of Google pages, the reader can simply get all the information from your Squidoo site.
Optimizing Squidoo’s Lensrank
On Squidoo, the focus in on generating traffic using content and credibility and increasing your lensrank. The higher the lensrank, the higher your credibility.
You can strategize your lensrank to move it up the ranks in Squidoo. There is a special reward for breaking into the top 100. There is a special showcase for the top 100 lensranked pages.
The current top 100 include some pretty narrow subject such as laptop bags, Webkinz, and Coach handbags. In other words, your topic is not nearly as important as your technique.
The winning technique for optimization include letting your personality show through the use of the interactive modules that are part of the Squidoo experience. The end goal is to have your Squidoo site as interactive as possible.
Interactivity gets your lens more attention on the search engines, a high lensrank, and a bigger and better subscriber base.
You should use some of the old-fashioned ways to draw traffic such as participating in online discussions. Forums are a great place to meet people who might be interested in your Squidoo information.
You put your Squidoo lens in your sig file and mention it in your posts. If you have a mailing list, use it to get the word out.
Blogs and email sig files are also excellent places to mention your Squidoo lens.
If you already have a website, write about your Squidoo lens and link it to Squidoo.
This is part one of the traffic exercise – getting the word out. People will go to your Squidoo to see what it is all about. Of course, just like with the old SEO world of regular websites, you have to keep it fresh to have people return. If they don’t return, soon your lensrank will begin to drop.
The bigger the lens, the better. Up to a point. While it only takes 10 minutes to build a Squidoo lens, you need to keep adding to it. Add a module at a time, write a short article. It only takes 250 or 300 words to make a nice entertaining article.
But as I said above, big is only good up to a point. The reason for Squidoo is to keep people from being overwhelmed. If your site is too big, well, it can be overwhelming.
But you have all this interesting stuff! Well, what you do is build another lens and link them together.
Building a Squidoo lens is easy. Because the Squidoo team have all the engineering done for you, you don’t have to play around with creating the site. You can focus on getting the word out.
More traffic begets higher ranking, and in turn this attracts more traffic. It’s a lot easier to have one thing to focus on. With Squidoo, the one thing you need to focus on is getting as many traffic streams as possible flowing into your Squidoo lens.
Using Squidoo’s Optimization Tools
In order to optimize Squidoo, it helps to understand its structure. Once you know how Squidoo functions, you will be able to use it more efficiently and effectively.
When you set up Squidoo, the very first step is to choose a title for your lens. You don’t have to know html or anything about setting up a web site. You simply answer the lens wizard’s first question which is “What is your lens about?”
Your answer will be the title of your page. However, don’t fret about the answer right now because you can always change it at a later date.
The next question will be what your site’s tags are. The tags are nothing more or less than keywords.
You then get to pick a main keyword to use as your lens title – this will be part of your site’s URL. The URL will be like this: www.squidoo.com/yourkeyword. And guess what? You can change this too.
The last question in setting up your lens is if you want to donate any of your page’s revenue to charity.
At this point, you end up in the lensmaster workshop. This is where you get to design your lens with modules. There are dozens of modules so you just have to focus on a few at a time.
You also have a bio section. By the way, this is a very important section so be sure to maximize it. Be clear about what you have to offer here. Be descriptive. Squidoo is a place where personality counts.
The secret to Squidoo is that the whole point is about being the ultimate expert on your topic. This means that you have to let your bio show that you know what you are talking about.
It’s an internet thing. But the reality of the internet is that it’s a great place to be invisible. You can post an avatar and hide behind a screen name and no one while know who you are.
On Squidoo, you have to let the world know who you are. If you don’t come across as knowledgeable you will have trouble convincing people that they should believe anything you tell them.
Once all these things are taken care of, you need to use some of the modules which are Web 2.0-enabled.
It might be a real learning curve for you to realize that it is all right to use outbound links on Squidoo. In the old world way, outbound links were no-nos. After all, they took people away from your site.
Squidoo not only encourages outgoing links but rewards you for them.
Long Tail Techniques for Squidoo
You can use long tail techniques with Squidoo. Long tail is hailed as the new economic model for the internet.
The phrase first appeared in 2004 in a Wired magazine article. Amazon and Netflix (both available as Squidoo modules) are examples. The focus is on selling small amounts of hard-to-find items to many customers.
There is an old phrase that comes to mind. “It is a lot easier to get $1 from a million people than it is to get a million dollars from one person.” This is the essence of the long tail.
The long tail phrase is actually a statistical term. It is also known by other names in statistics. A couple of the more popular other names are heavy tails or Pareto tails. Basically it refers to the few people who tail off from a larger population.
Here’s an example. You go to Amazon and see a best selling book. There is a link to similar books and you follow that link. The linked book has further links. You keep wandering along the trail following the path deeper and deeper into Amazon.
The fact is that most of Amazon’s sales comes from the books outside the top 130,000 titles. What this means is that more people want the harder to find books than want the tops sellers.
Part of this is because in most places, it is just not possible to get these titles. But in Amazon, these books are available and the long tail can leave the crowd and follow the trail of rarer books.
For you on Squidoo, what you need to do is offer the information that is off the beaten path. Find a dozen or so long tail keywords and build a Squidoo lens for each long tail keyword or create a lens with 2 or 3 long tails.
You have to do a little search to see what people are actually searching for so you can answer their questions. This will make you popular because these items and this information is hard to find.
A Squidoo lens can be a one stop shop for all the information available on a topic or it can be used as an entrance point into a smaller world of information.
In the Wired article, Chris Anderson wrote, “If the 20th-century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.”
What this means is that in the world where availablity was an issue, only the best sellers went out to the people. But in the internet world, everything is available so people will reach out for the hard to find.
Because their chances of getting the hard to find in their home towns are slim, they easily turn to the world’s marketplace – the internet – to find the information that they really want.
Anyone can read a bestseller. Only the dedicated shopper can find a rare book. On Squidoo you can benefit from this by doing their searching for them.
Get More Free Squidoo Tips & Tricks
Day 21: Make comments on other people’s blogs
In a previous post we talked about how to get more traffic by placing comments on other peoples blogs.
Today I would like to expand a little on that idea.
Placing relevant and useful comments on others’ blogs can be a great way to share information with others and get traffic to your own site.
When you leave a comment on a blog post you usually supply your web address and name in addition to your comment.
Tips:
Make only relevant and worthwhile comments. Crappy comments get removed and may get your IP banned. If on the other hand you appear to be an expert and leave a comment that is wildly insightful people will likely click on your name and visit your site.
When choosing the name you wish to have associated with your comment, choose wisely. Use good and relevant keywords that will entice people to click on your link.
In your comment include a single link to your own site where the reader can find additional information about the topic at hand. If the link isn’t totally relevant then it doesn’t belong in the comment!
Comments appear on a blog post in the order they were submitted. So the first comment is at the top of the stack and is read most often. Its link will be clicked on more often.
So it pays to be the first commenter. Many blogs offer a way for you to be sent an email whenever a new blog post appears, making it easier to be the first commenter.
Some bloggers (like me most of the time) post stuff at roughly the same of the day each day. Figure out what that time is and being the first commenter will be cake.
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has created an excellent 7 minute video showing the power of leaving good comments on blogs:
Today I would like to expand a little on that idea.
Placing relevant and useful comments on others’ blogs can be a great way to share information with others and get traffic to your own site.
When you leave a comment on a blog post you usually supply your web address and name in addition to your comment.
Tips:
Make only relevant and worthwhile comments. Crappy comments get removed and may get your IP banned. If on the other hand you appear to be an expert and leave a comment that is wildly insightful people will likely click on your name and visit your site.
When choosing the name you wish to have associated with your comment, choose wisely. Use good and relevant keywords that will entice people to click on your link.
In your comment include a single link to your own site where the reader can find additional information about the topic at hand. If the link isn’t totally relevant then it doesn’t belong in the comment!
Comments appear on a blog post in the order they were submitted. So the first comment is at the top of the stack and is read most often. Its link will be clicked on more often.
So it pays to be the first commenter. Many blogs offer a way for you to be sent an email whenever a new blog post appears, making it easier to be the first commenter.
Some bloggers (like me most of the time) post stuff at roughly the same of the day each day. Figure out what that time is and being the first commenter will be cake.
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has created an excellent 7 minute video showing the power of leaving good comments on blogs:
Day 20: Blogging
It’s likely you’ve at least heard of the blogging phenomenon by now. I know it’s likely you even have a blog as we speak. Technorati claims a new blog is created every second.Blogging is like writing an informational diary on the net.
Usually a blogger uses the open source (free) content management system WordPress to write his blog. You can monetize your blog with several revenue generating programs like Google AdSense and/or use it to build your e-mail lists.
Search engines love blogs because blogs have regularly updated content.
It’s amazing how much search engine traffic you generate from long-tail keywords that aren’t even included on the same pages.
For example, say blog post post number one has the words “low-fat diet” and blog post number two has “get cut abs.” A Google user searches for “a low-fat diet that will get you cut abs” and she ends up at the index page of your blog.
You can also expect results from unexpected keyword searches. For instance, ProBlogger Darren Rowse claims one of his highest searched pages comes from the search about me .
For the keywords poodle manicures NicksTrafficTricks.com is at the #1 spot!
Therefore, I think it’s safe to say blogs are naturally search engine optimized.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get surges of traffic, buzz, build your profile, and score one-way incoming links. The idea is to write a highly valuable post that you would normally put on your blog, but instead e-mail it to a blogger who runs a popular blog in your niche. If the blogger likes it, he’ll post it, give you credit for it, and provide a link back to your blog.
Similar to guest blogging, you can contact someone who runs a big newsletter and offer an article in exchange give a link to your blog.
Submitting to Blog Carnivals
Blog carnivals are like online magazines. They’re monthly issues featuring blog posts from all over the web. Write a great post. Go to blogcarnival.com. Find an active carnival in your niche and submit the URL to your entry. If approved, whenever the next issue of that blog carnival is released, you’ll see traffic. Of course, using blog carnivals for traffic is exceptionally easy because you’ve already written and published your post anyway. Just submit the URL to it.
Creating a Blog Roll
When bloggers discover you’ve linked to them, they often link back. If your site is of quality, bloggers are usually generous enough to throw your link in their blog roll piles. This incoming link helps with a little direct traffic. It’s great for raising your Google PageRank, which increases your search engine traffic.
Easily Generate Incoming Links with Odiogo
Here’s a hot new idea on easily getting incoming links I can almost guarantee you’ve never heard of (depending on what part of 2008 you’re reading this).
Odiogo.com is a free service that takes your blog content and instantly turns it into an audio podcast. When the process is through, you get an RSS feed with audio from all of your written content. You’re now a podcaster. You can submit this RSS feed to podcast directories to get massive amounts of incoming links and direct traffic.
Viral Linking Campaigns
A more aggressive tactic than speedlinking became more common in 2007: viral linking campaigns.
Not many want to freely link to “the little guy”/you. So how are you going to get more one way incoming links that both bring in click-through traffic and raise your PR for search engine traffic?
You may have heard of the term “link love.” When you’re giving link love, you’re generously providing an outgoing link from your blog or content page. I want to tell you about link love that also loves in return.
Gather 30 (or so) links to your favorite related blogs. However, make sure these blogs are fairly new or else the bloggers won’t see the benefits of viral linking. Now create a link to your site then pile the rest of the links together separated by commas or bars “|”
You’re going to create a content page that explains viral linking. Something like:
“It’s time for a little link lovin’! Add your link to this batch of quality links to a blog post and pass it on! Get incoming links from all over the net, raise your PR, and get more traffic! Be sure to explain to your readers how they can pass on your links and at the same time benefit by effortlessly gaining incoming links!”
Tips:
Compile links to blogs or sites that are related to your site’s niche.
Contact those you linked to and tell them about your viral linking campaign.
If you have the expertise, display an HTML code with all of the links in your pile that your readers can easily copy and paste to their viral linking content pages.
Case study:
Bryan Clark of onemansgoal.com generated 3,000 plus incoming links in three months in 2007 with one of his methods being viral linking campaigns. His blog had already broken 30k in Alexa at the tender age of 4 months old. Clark sold onemansgoal.com for $8,500 in the winter of 2007. His current blog is at bryansjourney.com.
Pinging
Blogs are one of the easiest ways to get a website up and running. Many people, however, don’t fully understand everything about the blog they are creating. One of the parts of the blog that should never be overlooked is the ping. This is a very simple process which seems, for some reason, to be shrouded in mystery. A ping simply tells some very influential websites that you have new content on your blog.
Because these influential websites have a lot of clout in the eyes of Google, getting traffic from pinging your blog is fairly easy to understand. As new content is added on your website, and your blog is pinged, these other websites will list you in your appropriate category. Google visits their websites on a frequent basis and will follow the link to your blog. Not only will it help you to get listed in Google, it will give you additional weight in their eyes. A simple ping is all that is necessary sometimes to get you rolling toward some free Google traffic.
Pinging your blog does not have to be something that is time-consuming, either. Many people use free services, such as pingoat.com or they set their blog up to automatically ping their favorite services. In this way, you will be able to enjoy all of the benefits of pinging without spending more than a few seconds of your time taking care of the process. If you are consistent with your efforts, you will find that your traffic will continue to grow for a long time to come.
For a huge list of sites to ping:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-ping-sites-for-your-blog/
RSS Traffic
If you’re not already using your RSS feed, it’s time to start. Use the free service from Feedburner.com so those who come across your site can subscribe to your regularly updated content. They’ll read it through a feed reader.
Not only will using your RSS feed bring you traffic from loyal readers, web surfers who use feed readers are often tech savvy website owners themselves. You can expect for them to link to some of your content pages, which will help you in the major search engines and with direct traffic from their sites. You’ll also be saving your site’s monthly bandwidth.
Probably the best place to learn about all aspects of blogging:
http://www.problogger.net
Resources
Start a blog with blogger in just minutes:
https://www.blogger.com
Start a blog with WordPress in just minutes:
http://www.wordpress.com/
Download WordPress blogging software:
http://wordpress.org/
Learn How to Develop Money Making Niche Sites with WordPress:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/nicks-traffic-tricks-2008/nicks_freebies.php
Grow Your Traffic: Turn New Visitors Into Loyal Readers:
http://www.skelliewag.org/grow-your-traffic-turn-new-visitors-into-loyal-readers-108.htm
The First Month: Building Something From Nothing:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-first-month-building-something-from-nothing-116.htm
The Second Month: Building a Springboard:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-second-month-building-a-springboard-117.htm
The Third Month: Building Your Snowball Effect:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-third-month-building-your-snowball-effect-118.htm
50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog:
http://www.skelliewag.org/50-tips-to-unclutter-your-blog-44.htm
Usually a blogger uses the open source (free) content management system WordPress to write his blog. You can monetize your blog with several revenue generating programs like Google AdSense and/or use it to build your e-mail lists.
Search engines love blogs because blogs have regularly updated content.
It’s amazing how much search engine traffic you generate from long-tail keywords that aren’t even included on the same pages.
For example, say blog post post number one has the words “low-fat diet” and blog post number two has “get cut abs.” A Google user searches for “a low-fat diet that will get you cut abs” and she ends up at the index page of your blog.
You can also expect results from unexpected keyword searches. For instance, ProBlogger Darren Rowse claims one of his highest searched pages comes from the search about me .
For the keywords poodle manicures NicksTrafficTricks.com is at the #1 spot!
Therefore, I think it’s safe to say blogs are naturally search engine optimized.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get surges of traffic, buzz, build your profile, and score one-way incoming links. The idea is to write a highly valuable post that you would normally put on your blog, but instead e-mail it to a blogger who runs a popular blog in your niche. If the blogger likes it, he’ll post it, give you credit for it, and provide a link back to your blog.
Similar to guest blogging, you can contact someone who runs a big newsletter and offer an article in exchange give a link to your blog.
Submitting to Blog Carnivals
Blog carnivals are like online magazines. They’re monthly issues featuring blog posts from all over the web. Write a great post. Go to blogcarnival.com. Find an active carnival in your niche and submit the URL to your entry. If approved, whenever the next issue of that blog carnival is released, you’ll see traffic. Of course, using blog carnivals for traffic is exceptionally easy because you’ve already written and published your post anyway. Just submit the URL to it.
Creating a Blog Roll
When bloggers discover you’ve linked to them, they often link back. If your site is of quality, bloggers are usually generous enough to throw your link in their blog roll piles. This incoming link helps with a little direct traffic. It’s great for raising your Google PageRank, which increases your search engine traffic.
Easily Generate Incoming Links with Odiogo
Here’s a hot new idea on easily getting incoming links I can almost guarantee you’ve never heard of (depending on what part of 2008 you’re reading this).
Odiogo.com is a free service that takes your blog content and instantly turns it into an audio podcast. When the process is through, you get an RSS feed with audio from all of your written content. You’re now a podcaster. You can submit this RSS feed to podcast directories to get massive amounts of incoming links and direct traffic.
Viral Linking Campaigns
A more aggressive tactic than speedlinking became more common in 2007: viral linking campaigns.
Not many want to freely link to “the little guy”/you. So how are you going to get more one way incoming links that both bring in click-through traffic and raise your PR for search engine traffic?
You may have heard of the term “link love.” When you’re giving link love, you’re generously providing an outgoing link from your blog or content page. I want to tell you about link love that also loves in return.
Gather 30 (or so) links to your favorite related blogs. However, make sure these blogs are fairly new or else the bloggers won’t see the benefits of viral linking. Now create a link to your site then pile the rest of the links together separated by commas or bars “|”
You’re going to create a content page that explains viral linking. Something like:
“It’s time for a little link lovin’! Add your link to this batch of quality links to a blog post and pass it on! Get incoming links from all over the net, raise your PR, and get more traffic! Be sure to explain to your readers how they can pass on your links and at the same time benefit by effortlessly gaining incoming links!”
Tips:
Compile links to blogs or sites that are related to your site’s niche.
Contact those you linked to and tell them about your viral linking campaign.
If you have the expertise, display an HTML code with all of the links in your pile that your readers can easily copy and paste to their viral linking content pages.
Case study:
Bryan Clark of onemansgoal.com generated 3,000 plus incoming links in three months in 2007 with one of his methods being viral linking campaigns. His blog had already broken 30k in Alexa at the tender age of 4 months old. Clark sold onemansgoal.com for $8,500 in the winter of 2007. His current blog is at bryansjourney.com.
Pinging
Blogs are one of the easiest ways to get a website up and running. Many people, however, don’t fully understand everything about the blog they are creating. One of the parts of the blog that should never be overlooked is the ping. This is a very simple process which seems, for some reason, to be shrouded in mystery. A ping simply tells some very influential websites that you have new content on your blog.
Because these influential websites have a lot of clout in the eyes of Google, getting traffic from pinging your blog is fairly easy to understand. As new content is added on your website, and your blog is pinged, these other websites will list you in your appropriate category. Google visits their websites on a frequent basis and will follow the link to your blog. Not only will it help you to get listed in Google, it will give you additional weight in their eyes. A simple ping is all that is necessary sometimes to get you rolling toward some free Google traffic.
Pinging your blog does not have to be something that is time-consuming, either. Many people use free services, such as pingoat.com or they set their blog up to automatically ping their favorite services. In this way, you will be able to enjoy all of the benefits of pinging without spending more than a few seconds of your time taking care of the process. If you are consistent with your efforts, you will find that your traffic will continue to grow for a long time to come.
For a huge list of sites to ping:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-ping-sites-for-your-blog/
RSS Traffic
If you’re not already using your RSS feed, it’s time to start. Use the free service from Feedburner.com so those who come across your site can subscribe to your regularly updated content. They’ll read it through a feed reader.
Not only will using your RSS feed bring you traffic from loyal readers, web surfers who use feed readers are often tech savvy website owners themselves. You can expect for them to link to some of your content pages, which will help you in the major search engines and with direct traffic from their sites. You’ll also be saving your site’s monthly bandwidth.
Probably the best place to learn about all aspects of blogging:
http://www.problogger.net
Resources
Start a blog with blogger in just minutes:
https://www.blogger.com
Start a blog with WordPress in just minutes:
http://www.wordpress.com/
Download WordPress blogging software:
http://wordpress.org/
Learn How to Develop Money Making Niche Sites with WordPress:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/nicks-traffic-tricks-2008/nicks_freebies.php
Grow Your Traffic: Turn New Visitors Into Loyal Readers:
http://www.skelliewag.org/grow-your-traffic-turn-new-visitors-into-loyal-readers-108.htm
The First Month: Building Something From Nothing:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-first-month-building-something-from-nothing-116.htm
The Second Month: Building a Springboard:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-second-month-building-a-springboard-117.htm
The Third Month: Building Your Snowball Effect:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-third-month-building-your-snowball-effect-118.htm
50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog:
http://www.skelliewag.org/50-tips-to-unclutter-your-blog-44.htm
Day 19: 4 Tips for Hiring Writers
In order to get streams of traffic coming into your site, you need to have a quality site with quality content.
Quality content means having interesting and unique content. In order to make the content unique, some has to write the content. If you are one of the many who struggle with writing, you have to come up with a solution.
You are not alone. For most people writing is tedious and even painful.
The best solution to this predicament is outsourcing the content writing for your sites and newsletters. Finding a good writer to do this work for you can be a tremendous help.
Of course, this solution comes at a cost.
Before you hire some one to write content for you, you have to consider this cost. Part of the cost is financial. Part of it is getting the kind of writing that you want.
These 4 tips for hiring writers will help you get what you want.
Tip # 1. Know what you want.
In providing the writer with instructions on the content, be sure to answer these questions. This is necessary information for the writer but the process also helps you focus on your own target and goals.
Where is your content going to be used?
How many words would you like it to be?
Who is your audience (e.g. are they electrical engineers or stay at home moms or 17 year old girls)?
Provide the writer with examples of the type of content that you want and examples of how you want it to be formatted. (e.g., short paragraphs, provided to you in text format)
Give the writer a working title of the article you want written (e.g., 10 Ways to increase your AdSense revenue).
The bottom line is that you have to give the writer as much specific guidance as possible. E.g., don’t say, “write about bears” say “I want an article with this title: Top 10 Foods that Grizzly Bears Eat.”
2. Be clear about your terms
Assume nothing. Even if it seems so obvious to you that you think it should not be mentioned, mention it anyway.
Make it very clear that you are requesting “work for hire” so that the writer understands that you will be the sole copyright owner of the work and can do with it as you wish.
This also means that the writer cannot write the same article for someone else.
State the price and the number of revisions you are expect to be included in the price.
Tell writers they must have a full command of the English language.
Arrange in advance how you are going to pay the writer and when you are going to pay the writer. For projects under $50, I always pay half up front and half upon completion.
For a larger project it is a good idea to pay a small sum up front, in the $25-$100 range. When the writer turns in the first piece, pay for that piece.
Continue paying as the writer finishes each piece until the entire project is finished.
Paying as you go gives writers the confidence that they will get paid for their work.
3. Don’t take the first bid or the lowest bid for your project.
You are in a hurry to get on with the job. However, it is important that you are not impulsive and accept the first offer that rolls in.
Don’t accept the cheapest bid either until you do your research. The cheapest bid could come from a really good writer trying to break into the business. It could also come from someone who cannot write a sensible word.
Do your homework! Check out the feedback the bidders have received. On some sites such as Elance checking feedback is easy.
On the Warriors Forum, it’s a different situation. The best bet on WF is not to advertise for a writer but ask who has hired a good writer in the past.
Finding someone who has had experience with this writer is the best way to learn the facts about the writer’s performance.
You should also ask the writer for three references and actually check the references.
Always ask the references the following:
What was the size or scope of the project?
Were deadlines met?
How was the quality of the final product?
How many revisions did it take?
Would you hire this writer again?
Another must is to ask for examples of the writer’s work so you can see for yourself the quality of the product the writer turns out.
4. Build a relationship of trust
Finding a good writer can take a lot of time. At first it might seem like you have hundreds to choose from but the reality is that out of 100, only 2 or 3 are good.
I recommend when trying someone for the first time to start small. One article with a short deadline lets you see how the writer handles the task. A 500-word article and a deadline of one to four days will show how well the writer handles things.
If the short project is successful, don’t pile on a lot of work but gradually give them more responsibility as they perform well on smaller projects.
For instance, when doing a bigger project such as a 30-page ebook, don’t give it all to the writer at once. Break it into sections or chapters and ask for one section to be delivered before they receive the next one.
By assigning one piece at a time and only giving the writer the instructions for that piece, you can see how well the writer performed before going to far into the project.
If you set a short deadline for a simple section, you keep the writer focused and the writer is not too overwhelmed by a big project.
Because the writer has just the instructions for that piece, the writer will be able to create a more thorough document because all the attention is on just that one element of the overall project.
A real benefit of this approach is if the writer is not satisfactory, you can just end the relationship and move on to the next selected writer. Also the writer does not have all your good project thoughts in his or her possession. All the writer has is just the information for the one small section.
If you find a good writer, nurture the relationship. If you can build a relationship of trust with a writer, you will save a ton of time in the long run.
Over time the writer will get to know you and understand your projects. This means the writer will need fewer specifics about future projects.
Don’t be tempted to switch to someone else to save a buck.
What are your tips for hiring writers?
Day 18: Article Marketing
Basics
This is perhaps the most popular way of driving traffic to a site for Internet Marketers, but you can use the same traffic tricks for a general website. Write a 500-word article with SEO in mind and submit it to ezinearticles.com. Be sure to place a link to your URL in your bio along with a tasty line or two about why the reader should visit your site.
You can also take a single article and “spin” the words in the content around then submit each original article to other ezine directories such as goarticles.com, articlecity.com, associatedcontent.com, articledashboard.com, articlesbase.com, and searchwarp.com.
Spinning
Spinning an article simply means taking the information from an article and rewording each line. Spinning content can be done manually or you may enjoy using a free content spinner like the one at jetspinner.com.
You might also want to consider using different main keywords in each article, so you’ll have a better chance of your article coming up in different searches (remember, compete for highly searched keywords as well as those terms searched for only 100 times per month, as well as seasonal keywords!).
Besides the direct traffic you’ll be getting from your articles, you’ll also acquire new one-way incoming links. With all that I’ve said in mind, let’s sum up how effective article marketing can be for sending traffic your way.
Benefits:
Direct traffic from articles
Direct traffic from websites who digitally reprint your articles.
Traffic from search engine traffic your articles receive.
One-way incoming links from both the article directories and the sites that republish your articles. Remember that incoming links (especially one-way) are essential for generating search engine traffic.
If you’re having trouble getting incoming links, article marketing should be a good focus for you easily acquiring them. More incoming links equals more weight in the search engines.
Consider these techniques when applying article marketing:
Write three articles on the same topic. Submit one to article directories. Put the other two on your website. In your bio box, tell readers they can read parts 2 and 3 at your website.
This may sound like a dumb statement, but only write about things you know others want to read about. Otherwise, you’ll get no traffic to that article to begin with. So write interesting articles or hire someone to write them for you.
Be sure to write in a fashion that your readers will 1) grow trust for you, 2) gain knowledge because of you. In internet marketing, articles can be powerful tools even in the sales process.
Private Label Rights
To make things easier you can buy Private Label Rights to articles for dirt cheap. For slang, we call this content “PLR.” When you own Private Label Rights to content, you can reword the information and submit the spun articles to ezines. However, it all depends on what specified rights you retain when you purchase Private Label Rights.
I highly recommend using PLR. You can get 500-word articles often for under a buck. This saves countless hours of work, especially if you’re working in a niche you’re not an expert in.
Use a PLR membership site such as plrpro.com or search for groups of PLR articles to purchase online. Search for buy PLR into your search engine and you’ll find what you’re looking for. You might also want to try Warrior Forum and ask if anyone has any good PLR on your niche.
Article Marketing by Steve Wagenheim
This is probably the cheapest of all the methods because it’s virtually free. Your only cost is web hosting and the cost of your domain name. Submitting to article directories is free so take advantage of it.
Okay, how do you get the most out of this?
Well, that’s where a lot of people disagree, unfortunately. So this is the tactic I choose. Others are welcome to add their 2 cents.
I choose not to fight the masses. So I go after the keywords that don’t have as many competing sites but still have a decent number of daily searches according to Wordtracker. I make my cutoff 50 daily searches and no less. Competing sites I cut off at no more than 50,000. Yeah, I’m picky, but the keywords I target that meet this criteria bring me decent traffic.
I do not plaster my articles all over the Internet because I am building for the long time. I don’t want duplicate content to ultimately turn my search engine rankings to dust. Yeah, I know, there are those who argue that duplicate content penalties are a myth. I’m not going to get into that here. I’m just letting you know what I do, and that’s to submit to just a few places and different articles for each. Ezine Articles is still the king in my book.
When you submit articles, make sure your articles are informative and the resource box has a strong call to action. Resource boxes that read like “John Doe is an author and has a degree in…” won’t cut it. You need to write something like…
“Sick and tired of? Want to finally ? Then go to my site at and get your free report on . Start TODAY!”
This is what I do and my opt ins come regularly everyday.
Try to write at least 3 or 4 articles a day. Why?
Well, that’s where the rating of this method comes in.
Quality Of Traffic - 10. These are people who are specifically looking for this information. You can’t get much more targeted than this. If the site in your resource box is a solid match for the content of the article, you should get quite a few opt ins.
Speed Of Traffic - 10. You’re going to start getting this traffic right away, as soon as those articles are posted. With Ezine Articles, it’s 6 to 24 hours once you’ve reached Platinum status, which only takes 10 articles submitted.
Quantity Of Traffic - 3. This is the big problem with article marketing. You’re not going to get a lot of traffic in the beginning because you don’t have many articles in circulation. However, once you have built up a nice article base, you will start to see the quantity of traffic increasing over time.
Article marketing is what I call the long haul process. It’s not a quick fix like Adwords, which you can pay for dearly if you don’t do it properly, but it’s a cheap way to get highly qualified traffic fast. Over time, the amount of traffic you get WILL increase, but you have to write everyday.
This section written by Steve Wagenheim. If you want a fool proof step by step formula for writing articles in under 30 minutes…check out the link below. It’s a book written by Steven Wagenheim who has the number 1 rank at Ezine Articles for the category of Internet Marketing…beating out over 4000 other contributors.
http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html
This is perhaps the most popular way of driving traffic to a site for Internet Marketers, but you can use the same traffic tricks for a general website. Write a 500-word article with SEO in mind and submit it to ezinearticles.com. Be sure to place a link to your URL in your bio along with a tasty line or two about why the reader should visit your site.
You can also take a single article and “spin” the words in the content around then submit each original article to other ezine directories such as goarticles.com, articlecity.com, associatedcontent.com, articledashboard.com, articlesbase.com, and searchwarp.com.
Spinning
Spinning an article simply means taking the information from an article and rewording each line. Spinning content can be done manually or you may enjoy using a free content spinner like the one at jetspinner.com.
You might also want to consider using different main keywords in each article, so you’ll have a better chance of your article coming up in different searches (remember, compete for highly searched keywords as well as those terms searched for only 100 times per month, as well as seasonal keywords!).
Besides the direct traffic you’ll be getting from your articles, you’ll also acquire new one-way incoming links. With all that I’ve said in mind, let’s sum up how effective article marketing can be for sending traffic your way.
Benefits:
Direct traffic from articles
Direct traffic from websites who digitally reprint your articles.
Traffic from search engine traffic your articles receive.
One-way incoming links from both the article directories and the sites that republish your articles. Remember that incoming links (especially one-way) are essential for generating search engine traffic.
If you’re having trouble getting incoming links, article marketing should be a good focus for you easily acquiring them. More incoming links equals more weight in the search engines.
Consider these techniques when applying article marketing:
Write three articles on the same topic. Submit one to article directories. Put the other two on your website. In your bio box, tell readers they can read parts 2 and 3 at your website.
This may sound like a dumb statement, but only write about things you know others want to read about. Otherwise, you’ll get no traffic to that article to begin with. So write interesting articles or hire someone to write them for you.
Be sure to write in a fashion that your readers will 1) grow trust for you, 2) gain knowledge because of you. In internet marketing, articles can be powerful tools even in the sales process.
Private Label Rights
To make things easier you can buy Private Label Rights to articles for dirt cheap. For slang, we call this content “PLR.” When you own Private Label Rights to content, you can reword the information and submit the spun articles to ezines. However, it all depends on what specified rights you retain when you purchase Private Label Rights.
I highly recommend using PLR. You can get 500-word articles often for under a buck. This saves countless hours of work, especially if you’re working in a niche you’re not an expert in.
Use a PLR membership site such as plrpro.com or search for groups of PLR articles to purchase online. Search for buy PLR into your search engine and you’ll find what you’re looking for. You might also want to try Warrior Forum and ask if anyone has any good PLR on your niche.
Article Marketing by Steve Wagenheim
This is probably the cheapest of all the methods because it’s virtually free. Your only cost is web hosting and the cost of your domain name. Submitting to article directories is free so take advantage of it.
Okay, how do you get the most out of this?
Well, that’s where a lot of people disagree, unfortunately. So this is the tactic I choose. Others are welcome to add their 2 cents.
I choose not to fight the masses. So I go after the keywords that don’t have as many competing sites but still have a decent number of daily searches according to Wordtracker. I make my cutoff 50 daily searches and no less. Competing sites I cut off at no more than 50,000. Yeah, I’m picky, but the keywords I target that meet this criteria bring me decent traffic.
I do not plaster my articles all over the Internet because I am building for the long time. I don’t want duplicate content to ultimately turn my search engine rankings to dust. Yeah, I know, there are those who argue that duplicate content penalties are a myth. I’m not going to get into that here. I’m just letting you know what I do, and that’s to submit to just a few places and different articles for each. Ezine Articles is still the king in my book.
When you submit articles, make sure your articles are informative and the resource box has a strong call to action. Resource boxes that read like “John Doe is an author and has a degree in…” won’t cut it. You need to write something like…
“Sick and tired of
This is what I do and my opt ins come regularly everyday.
Try to write at least 3 or 4 articles a day. Why?
Well, that’s where the rating of this method comes in.
Quality Of Traffic - 10. These are people who are specifically looking for this information. You can’t get much more targeted than this. If the site in your resource box is a solid match for the content of the article, you should get quite a few opt ins.
Speed Of Traffic - 10. You’re going to start getting this traffic right away, as soon as those articles are posted. With Ezine Articles, it’s 6 to 24 hours once you’ve reached Platinum status, which only takes 10 articles submitted.
Quantity Of Traffic - 3. This is the big problem with article marketing. You’re not going to get a lot of traffic in the beginning because you don’t have many articles in circulation. However, once you have built up a nice article base, you will start to see the quantity of traffic increasing over time.
Article marketing is what I call the long haul process. It’s not a quick fix like Adwords, which you can pay for dearly if you don’t do it properly, but it’s a cheap way to get highly qualified traffic fast. Over time, the amount of traffic you get WILL increase, but you have to write everyday.
This section written by Steve Wagenheim. If you want a fool proof step by step formula for writing articles in under 30 minutes…check out the link below. It’s a book written by Steven Wagenheim who has the number 1 rank at Ezine Articles for the category of Internet Marketing…beating out over 4000 other contributors.
http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html
Day 16: Torrents Marketing
With torrents marketing you can share media files like PDF reports and ebooks containing links back to your site (and affiliate links).
Download the platform Limewire to begin sharing your torrents with other Limewire users.
Just be sure not to illegally upload or download any copyrighted material.
There are also torrent search engines and sites you can submit files to.
Check out torrentz.com. Search “torrents marketing” in Google for more top sites.
To create a torrent file, you’ll need to download CompleteDir. Click here for in depth details on how to convert your files into torrents so they can be shared:
http://www.sidewalkcrusaders.com/bthowto/btmake.html
In order to share your torrent files, again, you’ll need to download Limewire at Limewire.com.
Tip:
Besides generating traffic to your site via torrents, you can write reviews of products and place affiliate links in your PDF, then convert that PDF into a torrent file and share it.
For instance, if you review the bestselling ebook “Niche Marketing on Crack,” make the title to your torrent simply “Niche Marketing on Crack.”
This both converts into sales and protects others’ copyrighted material.
Download the platform Limewire to begin sharing your torrents with other Limewire users.
Just be sure not to illegally upload or download any copyrighted material.
There are also torrent search engines and sites you can submit files to.
Check out torrentz.com. Search “torrents marketing” in Google for more top sites.
To create a torrent file, you’ll need to download CompleteDir. Click here for in depth details on how to convert your files into torrents so they can be shared:
http://www.sidewalkcrusaders.com/bthowto/btmake.html
In order to share your torrent files, again, you’ll need to download Limewire at Limewire.com.
Tip:
Besides generating traffic to your site via torrents, you can write reviews of products and place affiliate links in your PDF, then convert that PDF into a torrent file and share it.
For instance, if you review the bestselling ebook “Niche Marketing on Crack,” make the title to your torrent simply “Niche Marketing on Crack.”
This both converts into sales and protects others’ copyrighted material.
Day 15: Creating Buzz About Your Website
Buzz around the net about your website can bring you enormous amounts of quick, quality traffic. Bloggers and website owners write about you, they link to you, and traffic pours in. A newspaper might even write about your site.So how can you create buzz?
Here are some ways:
Write a press release that may be chosen for publication in newspapers. For instance, if you’re a blogger making some money online, your local or state paper might find your press release and publish it. We’re talking loads of traffic.
List of Press Release sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/press-release-list/
To learn more about writing press releases, go here:
http://mashable.com/2007/10/20/press-releases
Networking with others in your niche can create immediate or future buzz. Just go to another site in your niche and contact the webmaster. Try building a relationship with him. Whenever you release a new product or, say, open a forum, it’s likely your network won’t mind posting a blurb about it.
If you feel as if you’re an expert in your niche, contact your local radio stations. They’re always looking for guests. This is yet another method that will send more visitors than you can imagine in your direction within a short period of time.
Here are some ways:
Write a press release that may be chosen for publication in newspapers. For instance, if you’re a blogger making some money online, your local or state paper might find your press release and publish it. We’re talking loads of traffic.
List of Press Release sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/press-release-list/
To learn more about writing press releases, go here:
http://mashable.com/2007/10/20/press-releases
Networking with others in your niche can create immediate or future buzz. Just go to another site in your niche and contact the webmaster. Try building a relationship with him. Whenever you release a new product or, say, open a forum, it’s likely your network won’t mind posting a blurb about it.
If you feel as if you’re an expert in your niche, contact your local radio stations. They’re always looking for guests. This is yet another method that will send more visitors than you can imagine in your direction within a short period of time.
Day 14: Traffic From Forums
One great way to drive quality traffic to your website, although you might find it to be a small amount on a daily basis is by forum marketing.
Remember that one hit of quality traffic is often worth as much as a few hundred hits from a non-quality source. What makes it of quality is you’re getting traffic based on what you say in forum replies (you’ve already sold yourself to a degree).
Join a forum on your site’s niche.
Login and edit your profile.
In your signature, provide a link to your site along with a tasty blurb.
Another huge benefit of forum marketing is that you’re talking with others in your niche. At the same time you’re driving traffic to your site, you’re market researching. You’re finding out the biggest problems in your niche, so that you can provide solutions in the form of an info products or website content.
Tips:
Start by finding a forum related to your niche and make sure signatures are allowed.
Build your reputation as an expert in your niche. Provide quality information in your posts and replies. Users of a forum will only click on the link in your signature if you’ve enlightened them. One tactic you can use is by creating a new thread with pure information in your niche, almost like a blog post.
Never link to your own site within content of threads. Only place a link to your site within your signature.
Be sure to read forum rules and regulations before joining any forum. Nearly all forums don’t allow affiliate links in your signature or within threads.
Don’t spam forums!!!
Remember that one hit of quality traffic is often worth as much as a few hundred hits from a non-quality source. What makes it of quality is you’re getting traffic based on what you say in forum replies (you’ve already sold yourself to a degree).
Join a forum on your site’s niche.
Login and edit your profile.
In your signature, provide a link to your site along with a tasty blurb.
Another huge benefit of forum marketing is that you’re talking with others in your niche. At the same time you’re driving traffic to your site, you’re market researching. You’re finding out the biggest problems in your niche, so that you can provide solutions in the form of an info products or website content.
Tips:
Start by finding a forum related to your niche and make sure signatures are allowed.
Build your reputation as an expert in your niche. Provide quality information in your posts and replies. Users of a forum will only click on the link in your signature if you’ve enlightened them. One tactic you can use is by creating a new thread with pure information in your niche, almost like a blog post.
Never link to your own site within content of threads. Only place a link to your site within your signature.
Be sure to read forum rules and regulations before joining any forum. Nearly all forums don’t allow affiliate links in your signature or within threads.
Don’t spam forums!!!
Day 13: JV with other email list owners
Today’s traffic generation method is going to be short and sweet.
If you have an email list there are some wonderful things you can do with it to get more traffic!
Traffic Method 1
The first and most obvious option is to send a blast out to your list about some new thing you have put up on your website.
You’ll get loads of traffic by doing this.
Just make sure you’re email blasts are:
Relevant to your subscribers’ interests
Spaced far apart that your subscribers don’t start opting out of your messages in droves or ignoring all messages from you.
Traffic Method 2
This second method takes more work than the first one but is well worth it.
What you need to do is find other list owners within your niche and signup for their list.
Pay attention to what kind of emails they send out. Are they the kinds of things that your subscribers would like? If they are then you should consider proposing a JV (Joint Venture) to the list owner.
What you are going to propose to them is that you send out an email to your list sending people to a page on their site, and in return they will send an email to their list sending traffic to your site.
Tips:
For this to work you must have a page with real value for the other list owner to send his subscribers to.
Frequently the person you are contacting will have a list larger than your own. If for example they have a list that is 3 times as big, then volunteer to send out 3 email blasts instead of just 1.
Offer to send an initial email blast to your list driving traffic to a page of their choice with no strings attached. Afterwards ask them how much traffic they received from it. Once you have proven that you have a responsive list that is capable of the other list owner will be much more likely to JV with you.
When sending a blast out to your list that will drive traffic to someone else’s site, make sure you make the email enticing. Give readers a reason to open the email and click on the link.
When proposing a JV make sure to include a screenshot of your account proving how big your list is.
Traffic Method 3
This method is a lot like method 2 but instead of sending them to an interesting page you send them to a signup page and bribe them with a free gift when they join your list.
The benefit of this is that you are growing your list. With a bigger list you can send even more traffic to your site (See Traffic Method 1).
If you have an email list there are some wonderful things you can do with it to get more traffic!
Traffic Method 1
The first and most obvious option is to send a blast out to your list about some new thing you have put up on your website.
You’ll get loads of traffic by doing this.
Just make sure you’re email blasts are:
Relevant to your subscribers’ interests
Spaced far apart that your subscribers don’t start opting out of your messages in droves or ignoring all messages from you.
Traffic Method 2
This second method takes more work than the first one but is well worth it.
What you need to do is find other list owners within your niche and signup for their list.
Pay attention to what kind of emails they send out. Are they the kinds of things that your subscribers would like? If they are then you should consider proposing a JV (Joint Venture) to the list owner.
What you are going to propose to them is that you send out an email to your list sending people to a page on their site, and in return they will send an email to their list sending traffic to your site.
Tips:
For this to work you must have a page with real value for the other list owner to send his subscribers to.
Frequently the person you are contacting will have a list larger than your own. If for example they have a list that is 3 times as big, then volunteer to send out 3 email blasts instead of just 1.
Offer to send an initial email blast to your list driving traffic to a page of their choice with no strings attached. Afterwards ask them how much traffic they received from it. Once you have proven that you have a responsive list that is capable of the other list owner will be much more likely to JV with you.
When sending a blast out to your list that will drive traffic to someone else’s site, make sure you make the email enticing. Give readers a reason to open the email and click on the link.
When proposing a JV make sure to include a screenshot of your account proving how big your list is.
Traffic Method 3
This method is a lot like method 2 but instead of sending them to an interesting page you send them to a signup page and bribe them with a free gift when they join your list.
The benefit of this is that you are growing your list. With a bigger list you can send even more traffic to your site (See Traffic Method 1).
Day 12: Build an Email List
Today I want to talk about building an email list to get more traffic.
I know this goes without saying but I am going to say it anyway: Do NOT Spam people or anything akin to it. Period. End of story.
Building an email list is great way to nearly guarantee traffic to your site. Just make sure people signed up to be on your list.
On your website you should have a place where visitors can opt in to your email list and in return they get some sort of freebie like an ebook or free report. Have your first automatic follow-up email send him to your freebie’s download page.
Tips:
Use the double opt-in when you are building your subscriber list. What this means is that when someone signs up to your mailing list, you have to make sure that you really do have their permission. The typical way of doing this is to send an email to the person and ask them to click on a confirmation link before they are officially added to your mailing list.
Offer subscribers an easy way to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
Right up front let people know how often you will be emailing them. Sometimes email marketers will let people know that they will not be emailing them more than once or twice a month but do not mention specific days (second and fourth Tuesdays) or dates (15th and 30th). Others say that they will be emailing once a day for a week and then once a month.
Now this might sound like a lot of work but services like AWeber has made it easy.
I recommend using an auto-responder such as AWeber for traffic via email. It may not seem like you’re driving much traffic to your site at first using an auto-responder, but when your list grows to over 1,000, you can easily drive at least 250 visitors to a page of your website just by sending out one email.
What’s great about using an auto-responder is that you can both send one-time email broadcasts and also pre-write the emails that will be sent out automatically over time.
So instead of a visitor coming along and leaving (never to visit your site again) if he opts into your email list, you’ll see revisits from him. The best way to get someone to opt-in to your email list is to give something away of value, like a report or ebook in PDF form.
Why should you use AWeber?
Experts state it often takes 7 or more messages before prospective customers make a purchase.
Unlimited campaigns, lists, follow up messages, and newsletters.
Reliable, >99.34% email deliverability, fast.
51+ Templates for newsletter and follow up design.
Easily create and add opt-in web forms to your website.
Free training guides and videos.
Expert unlimited free customer support.
Other Thoughts
When someone signs up for your list they are taken to a boring white page that says something like “Thanks for signing up for Nick’s List. Please check your email to confirm your subscription”
The problem is that many people don’t put anything else on the page besides the message about checking your email. So make sure you put something else on the page like a link to other sites you have (for free traffic) or offers for other people’s products (for nice affiliate commissions).
When you signup for others’ email lists you may find they also have a boring white “go check your email page”.
If this is the case, contact the owner and ask them to put up your link on their boring page, giving you free traffic. You can have an agreement where you both link to each other’s site from your “go check your email page”, resulting in more signups and traffic!
I know this goes without saying but I am going to say it anyway: Do NOT Spam people or anything akin to it. Period. End of story.
Building an email list is great way to nearly guarantee traffic to your site. Just make sure people signed up to be on your list.
On your website you should have a place where visitors can opt in to your email list and in return they get some sort of freebie like an ebook or free report. Have your first automatic follow-up email send him to your freebie’s download page.
Tips:
Use the double opt-in when you are building your subscriber list. What this means is that when someone signs up to your mailing list, you have to make sure that you really do have their permission. The typical way of doing this is to send an email to the person and ask them to click on a confirmation link before they are officially added to your mailing list.
Offer subscribers an easy way to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
Right up front let people know how often you will be emailing them. Sometimes email marketers will let people know that they will not be emailing them more than once or twice a month but do not mention specific days (second and fourth Tuesdays) or dates (15th and 30th). Others say that they will be emailing once a day for a week and then once a month.
Now this might sound like a lot of work but services like AWeber has made it easy.
I recommend using an auto-responder such as AWeber for traffic via email. It may not seem like you’re driving much traffic to your site at first using an auto-responder, but when your list grows to over 1,000, you can easily drive at least 250 visitors to a page of your website just by sending out one email.
What’s great about using an auto-responder is that you can both send one-time email broadcasts and also pre-write the emails that will be sent out automatically over time.
So instead of a visitor coming along and leaving (never to visit your site again) if he opts into your email list, you’ll see revisits from him. The best way to get someone to opt-in to your email list is to give something away of value, like a report or ebook in PDF form.
Why should you use AWeber?
Experts state it often takes 7 or more messages before prospective customers make a purchase.
Unlimited campaigns, lists, follow up messages, and newsletters.
Reliable, >99.34% email deliverability, fast.
51+ Templates for newsletter and follow up design.
Easily create and add opt-in web forms to your website.
Free training guides and videos.
Expert unlimited free customer support.
Other Thoughts
When someone signs up for your list they are taken to a boring white page that says something like “Thanks for signing up for Nick’s List. Please check your email to confirm your subscription”
The problem is that many people don’t put anything else on the page besides the message about checking your email. So make sure you put something else on the page like a link to other sites you have (for free traffic) or offers for other people’s products (for nice affiliate commissions).
When you signup for others’ email lists you may find they also have a boring white “go check your email page”.
If this is the case, contact the owner and ask them to put up your link on their boring page, giving you free traffic. You can have an agreement where you both link to each other’s site from your “go check your email page”, resulting in more signups and traffic!
Day 11: Going Viral with Email
You may have heard about viral marketing and viral this or that.
One of the easiest ways to get traffic is to create a viral email that people will forward to others.
My Mother loves to bake and in November of 2007 she forwarded an email to me with a list of 100 recipes for every imaginable cookie.
Now the email didn’t actually have every recipe but rather contained 100 links to the recipes on northpole.com
Someone at northpole.com had the bright idea of sending out an email with links to all their recipes.
They knew that people like my Mother would forward this email to everyone she knew that liked to bake.
This one email sent a flood of traffic to the northpole.com
The great thing about this is that it is so easy. No autoresponder is needed.
Simply craft an email with a list of pages on your site about a particular topic and send the email to a bunch of people who would like this information. If the information is good enough they will forward it to others.
Below is a screen shot of the actual email with 100 cookie recipes my Mother sent me
One of the easiest ways to get traffic is to create a viral email that people will forward to others.
My Mother loves to bake and in November of 2007 she forwarded an email to me with a list of 100 recipes for every imaginable cookie.
Now the email didn’t actually have every recipe but rather contained 100 links to the recipes on northpole.com
Someone at northpole.com had the bright idea of sending out an email with links to all their recipes.
They knew that people like my Mother would forward this email to everyone she knew that liked to bake.
This one email sent a flood of traffic to the northpole.com
The great thing about this is that it is so easy. No autoresponder is needed.
Simply craft an email with a list of pages on your site about a particular topic and send the email to a bunch of people who would like this information. If the information is good enough they will forward it to others.
Below is a screen shot of the actual email with 100 cookie recipes my Mother sent me
Day 10: Targetted Craigslist Traffic: Way too easy…
This is a guest post on “Targetted Craigslist Traffic: Way too easy…” by Steve Mount. His site is: http://www.ebookaddict.org
I wanted to share some strategies of my own about what I’ve been doing to increase traffic to my website without investing a penny of my money. I haven’t been doing this very long at all and I already feel like a million bucks!
It’s pretty amazing to think that less than two months ago, all I was doing on my computer was playing video games and wasting literally years of my life away with nothing to show for it. It makes me sick to think of all that precious time I’ve just thrown out of the window … ugh
There have been a few great people on here who have inspired me to take action and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve pocketed an extra $1,000 in my pocket last month.
That is a ton of money when you’re struggling to pay bills and living each week paycheck to paycheck!
In this write up, I’m going to assume that you have a product of your own to sell. If you don’t have a product yet, I suggest becoming an affiliate and promoting someone else’s products! It works exactly the same in the long run. Go check out some of the products over at Clickbank.com or Commission Junction (CJ.com)
Ok enough of the rambling, here’s what I have been doing and how it works.
======================
I use primarily two different websites for massive amounts of free traffic. Craigslist and YouTube. For this post, I’m just going to cover my Craigslist tactics. My YouTube traffic will be in an upcoming post so stay tuned for that
Using Craigslist:
Folks, Craigslist is almost too good to be true. It is simply AMAZING for internet marketing. I’m sure you’re aware that it’s 100% free to use and not to mention that it gets just a little bit of Internet traffic each month (if you consider 9 BILLION PAGE VIEWS PER MONTH “LITTLE”…!) If you haven’t taken advantage of this site, you need to stop what you’re doing right now and follow these steps to start getting more traffic to your site or squeeze page in just a few minutes from now!
Step 1. Make a Craigslist account. Many people overlook this powerful aspect of Craigslist. I don’t know why since it’s absolutely free to sign up for… I make multiple accounts with different email addresses assigned to each. My first 10 postings for the week fall under my first account and email. So, that means I have 7 accounts and 7 unique email addresses. The huge advantage to signing up for an account is that you don’t have to confirm your email address after each posting. It’s a simple 3 step process for each ad when you’re logged in. PLUS you can see a list of all of your current, expired, and flagged listings (yes you will get a lot of ads flagged… this is completely normal)
Step 2. I only post approximately 10 ads per day on Craigslist in popular city listings. I don’t post anymore than this because I don’t want to SPAM the entire website with my product. You need to be professional about this. Spamming isn’t very professional, after all! You will want to find cities that have a large population and a lot of ads. The number of listings per city will show up as a number next to the For Sale sections in the major cities.
Now… a lot of people have the problem of knowing how to post identical ads across different cities. There are a few tricks to get around this.
TOP SECRET… Until Now…
Let me fill you in on the huge secret that tons of people have paid big money for on the WSO forum… Your standard boring text ads won’t cut it anymore. Your ads need to be PICTURES, not words.
Yep, I just let the cat out of the bag. I hope I don’t get sued for this lol
The entire picture is identical on each and every listing. It needs to be a clickable and hyperlinked .jpeg so that the customer can easily click your picture and be sent to your website.
Here’s the picture I use for ‘Cashing In on Craigslist’
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e…listad-2.jpg
This way, your ad is much better looking than a bunch of text and plus you can type whatever the heck you want to in your ad since the Craigslist computers can’t “read” the text on your image
I designed that picture myself… just let me know if you would like me to help you create a nice picture. I’ll create one for you for $20 (That was my ninja super stealth way of selling my designing skills to you … pretty sneaky huh?)
Step 3. Before you start posting, you need to make a list of 10 different ad titles. These can be fairly similar but they need to include different adjectives and words to make the titles as unique as possible. For example:
The Ultimate “Cashing In on Craigslist” guide and VIDEO Version 2.0
Discover my “Cashing In on Craigslist” System, eBook & Video!
You can see that they are very similar but are different enough so that the Craigslist computers won’t see enough similarity between the two. It will only take you about 10 minutes to come up with 10 unique titles.
Step 3. Make a spreadsheet to keep yourself organized. Here is my own personal spreadsheet that I made to organize what ads I have placed, what email address I used and what city I posted the ad in. You will need Microsoft Excel or something similar to view it.
Download it here: HTTP://WWW.EBOOKADDICT.ORG/CLMP/CRA…EADSHEET.ZIP
You need to be as organized as possible so that you don’t get confused, since all your ads are very similar! I can’t stress this enough. Organization is the key to success.
Step 4. Create a schedule and stick to it! I post 10 ads per day when I get home from my normal J.O.B. (I’m in the military so I can’t quit my job yet… lol) It takes me all of 5 minutes out of my day to do this. You will find that posting in the mid afternoon/early evening will get your listing a lot more exposure as it will sit at the top of the listings for that evening and throughout the night. Since I post 70 ads (10 per day, each day), I start over again with my first 10 ads by reposting them all once the week has restarted.
One thing I’ve learned about this process: DO NOT delete your old listings. Just repost everything again and leave the old ones up. A lot of people delete the old ads but I found out a problem that is probably still costing me some major leads and profits. Since I’ve been doing this awhile, you can’t see an example of what I mean, but when I would go to google.com, my ads would appear on the first page using various search terms which was AWESOME but then the links would go to a “User has deleted this listing” page!!! BAD BAD BAD news for me…
I don’t even want to know how many prospects I lost because of that. The morale of the story is… don’t delete your old listings.
=====================
This is pretty much what I do on Craigslist each and every day. It may not sound like much, but I wake up every morning to at least one sale if not more. And I didn’t pay a damn thing for advertising, nor will I ever. Since I have an email list form on my site as well, I get a ton of subscribers each day. And this is just for one product. They sky is the limit with this procedure, so GO NUTS!
I think you can see how powerful this is! Go out there and give it a shot guys I just spilled the beans on some valuable info, so don’t waste my efforts… haha
I’ll be releasing a new guide soon that explains this in more detail with an included video of the entire process.
I really hope this helps you and gets you even more motivated to use craigslist!
Regards,
Steve
I wanted to share some strategies of my own about what I’ve been doing to increase traffic to my website without investing a penny of my money. I haven’t been doing this very long at all and I already feel like a million bucks!
It’s pretty amazing to think that less than two months ago, all I was doing on my computer was playing video games and wasting literally years of my life away with nothing to show for it. It makes me sick to think of all that precious time I’ve just thrown out of the window … ugh
There have been a few great people on here who have inspired me to take action and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve pocketed an extra $1,000 in my pocket last month.
That is a ton of money when you’re struggling to pay bills and living each week paycheck to paycheck!
In this write up, I’m going to assume that you have a product of your own to sell. If you don’t have a product yet, I suggest becoming an affiliate and promoting someone else’s products! It works exactly the same in the long run. Go check out some of the products over at Clickbank.com or Commission Junction (CJ.com)
Ok enough of the rambling, here’s what I have been doing and how it works.
======================
I use primarily two different websites for massive amounts of free traffic. Craigslist and YouTube. For this post, I’m just going to cover my Craigslist tactics. My YouTube traffic will be in an upcoming post so stay tuned for that
Using Craigslist:
Folks, Craigslist is almost too good to be true. It is simply AMAZING for internet marketing. I’m sure you’re aware that it’s 100% free to use and not to mention that it gets just a little bit of Internet traffic each month (if you consider 9 BILLION PAGE VIEWS PER MONTH “LITTLE”…!) If you haven’t taken advantage of this site, you need to stop what you’re doing right now and follow these steps to start getting more traffic to your site or squeeze page in just a few minutes from now!
Step 1. Make a Craigslist account. Many people overlook this powerful aspect of Craigslist. I don’t know why since it’s absolutely free to sign up for… I make multiple accounts with different email addresses assigned to each. My first 10 postings for the week fall under my first account and email. So, that means I have 7 accounts and 7 unique email addresses. The huge advantage to signing up for an account is that you don’t have to confirm your email address after each posting. It’s a simple 3 step process for each ad when you’re logged in. PLUS you can see a list of all of your current, expired, and flagged listings (yes you will get a lot of ads flagged… this is completely normal)
Step 2. I only post approximately 10 ads per day on Craigslist in popular city listings. I don’t post anymore than this because I don’t want to SPAM the entire website with my product. You need to be professional about this. Spamming isn’t very professional, after all! You will want to find cities that have a large population and a lot of ads. The number of listings per city will show up as a number next to the For Sale sections in the major cities.
Now… a lot of people have the problem of knowing how to post identical ads across different cities. There are a few tricks to get around this.
TOP SECRET… Until Now…
Let me fill you in on the huge secret that tons of people have paid big money for on the WSO forum… Your standard boring text ads won’t cut it anymore. Your ads need to be PICTURES, not words.
Yep, I just let the cat out of the bag. I hope I don’t get sued for this lol
The entire picture is identical on each and every listing. It needs to be a clickable and hyperlinked .jpeg so that the customer can easily click your picture and be sent to your website.
Here’s the picture I use for ‘Cashing In on Craigslist’
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e…listad-2.jpg
This way, your ad is much better looking than a bunch of text and plus you can type whatever the heck you want to in your ad since the Craigslist computers can’t “read” the text on your image
I designed that picture myself… just let me know if you would like me to help you create a nice picture. I’ll create one for you for $20 (That was my ninja super stealth way of selling my designing skills to you … pretty sneaky huh?)
Step 3. Before you start posting, you need to make a list of 10 different ad titles. These can be fairly similar but they need to include different adjectives and words to make the titles as unique as possible. For example:
The Ultimate “Cashing In on Craigslist” guide and VIDEO Version 2.0
Discover my “Cashing In on Craigslist” System, eBook & Video!
You can see that they are very similar but are different enough so that the Craigslist computers won’t see enough similarity between the two. It will only take you about 10 minutes to come up with 10 unique titles.
Step 3. Make a spreadsheet to keep yourself organized. Here is my own personal spreadsheet that I made to organize what ads I have placed, what email address I used and what city I posted the ad in. You will need Microsoft Excel or something similar to view it.
Download it here: HTTP://WWW.EBOOKADDICT.ORG/CLMP/CRA…EADSHEET.ZIP
You need to be as organized as possible so that you don’t get confused, since all your ads are very similar! I can’t stress this enough. Organization is the key to success.
Step 4. Create a schedule and stick to it! I post 10 ads per day when I get home from my normal J.O.B. (I’m in the military so I can’t quit my job yet… lol) It takes me all of 5 minutes out of my day to do this. You will find that posting in the mid afternoon/early evening will get your listing a lot more exposure as it will sit at the top of the listings for that evening and throughout the night. Since I post 70 ads (10 per day, each day), I start over again with my first 10 ads by reposting them all once the week has restarted.
One thing I’ve learned about this process: DO NOT delete your old listings. Just repost everything again and leave the old ones up. A lot of people delete the old ads but I found out a problem that is probably still costing me some major leads and profits. Since I’ve been doing this awhile, you can’t see an example of what I mean, but when I would go to google.com, my ads would appear on the first page using various search terms which was AWESOME but then the links would go to a “User has deleted this listing” page!!! BAD BAD BAD news for me…
I don’t even want to know how many prospects I lost because of that. The morale of the story is… don’t delete your old listings.
=====================
This is pretty much what I do on Craigslist each and every day. It may not sound like much, but I wake up every morning to at least one sale if not more. And I didn’t pay a damn thing for advertising, nor will I ever. Since I have an email list form on my site as well, I get a ton of subscribers each day. And this is just for one product. They sky is the limit with this procedure, so GO NUTS!
I think you can see how powerful this is! Go out there and give it a shot guys I just spilled the beans on some valuable info, so don’t waste my efforts… haha
I’ll be releasing a new guide soon that explains this in more detail with an included video of the entire process.
I really hope this helps you and gets you even more motivated to use craigslist!
Regards,
Steve
Day 9: PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Using pay-per-click you literally pay an amount of money for every time a web surfer clicks on your URL through PPC programs like AdWords and GoClick. There are numerous books written on using PPC for traffic. In short, although obvious, the key is to not get burned.
Some PPC Tips:
Do the research and the math. Find out how much it will cost per click in your niche (using a tool like the https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).
If you’re pushing an affiliate program or your own product, test with organic traffic to find out your conversion rates. If it looks like you’ll make a profit with PPC, start with something like $1 per day and test.
As said, you can get burned badly with PPC. However, it’s a high quality source of traffic. If you’ve tested, I recommend giving it a shot.
When you are paying to send traffic to your product’s sales page, don’t risk a lot of money on any one product. Some products will cost you more money in advertising than you make from the sales of the product. I usually follow the Double Rule.
The Double Rule says if I am selling something for $10 and I spend $20-$30 in advertising without any sales then it’s time to cut my losses and try something else. To break even I would have to magically make 2 sales without any additional advertising costs. This is very unlikely and that’s why it’s time to find another way to sell your product.
The Double Rule also says that if you have made 2 sales but have spent much more on advertising than you have earned it’s probably time to stop losing money and find another way to sell your product.
It’s critical you put limits on what you spend or you may lose your shirt.
Some PPC Tips:
Do the research and the math. Find out how much it will cost per click in your niche (using a tool like the https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).
If you’re pushing an affiliate program or your own product, test with organic traffic to find out your conversion rates. If it looks like you’ll make a profit with PPC, start with something like $1 per day and test.
As said, you can get burned badly with PPC. However, it’s a high quality source of traffic. If you’ve tested, I recommend giving it a shot.
When you are paying to send traffic to your product’s sales page, don’t risk a lot of money on any one product. Some products will cost you more money in advertising than you make from the sales of the product. I usually follow the Double Rule.
The Double Rule says if I am selling something for $10 and I spend $20-$30 in advertising without any sales then it’s time to cut my losses and try something else. To break even I would have to magically make 2 sales without any additional advertising costs. This is very unlikely and that’s why it’s time to find another way to sell your product.
The Double Rule also says that if you have made 2 sales but have spent much more on advertising than you have earned it’s probably time to stop losing money and find another way to sell your product.
It’s critical you put limits on what you spend or you may lose your shirt.
Day 8: Getting the most out of Traffic Exchanges
Traffic Exchanges are one of the most misunderstood forms of advertising on the Internet…and as a result…one of the most misused. The number of people who have any success with traffic exchanges (hereafter referred to as TEs) are few and far in between. However, by using them correctly, you can actually have quite a bit of success with them. I’m going to give you a brief summary of what TEs are and how to use them to get the most out of them.
What Are TEs?
TEs are programs where members get to show other members of the TE their web pages. There are 2 ways to do this.
Use the TE by surfing other members pages in order to accumulate credits for your site. These credits can be exchanged for visitors. Most TEs will give you 1 visitor for every 2 credits. Some give 2 visitors for 3 credits and some give a 1 to 1 ratio. These are the most popular.
Instead of surfing for credits, buy them. You can usually get quite a few of these for about $10 to $20 or so. That amount could buy you as many as 500 to 1000 credits. Depending on how good the quality of the TE is, this can translate into quite a few real visitors for you.
TEs work on the timer principal. Each site you view, you have to stay there for so many seconds. Most sites are about 30 seconds. Some are 20, some are a minute. It varies. Once the timer expires, you can them move on to the next site. It’s a pretty mindless exercise and quite boring. If you’re going to do it…do it on your lunch break.
The TE Surfer Mindset
In order to understand why TEs generally don’t work for people, you need to understand the mindset of the person who surfs TEs.
These people are looking for a quick and cheap way to get visitors to their web site. They are in NO way interested in viewing your site. They are simply surfing to get credits. Most of these won’t even buy credits because they are basically too cheap to do so.
The point is, showing these people a 40 page web site is pointless. They’re not going to look at it.
Right now, you’re inclined to be thinking that using TEs, given this information, is a total waste of time. Well, for the person showing a 40 page web site…it is.
But that’s where what YOU are going to do is going to be so much different.
See, there IS a way to use TEs effectively. The problem is, very few people understand what I am about to share with you. So what is to follow is a simple step by step process for using TEs.
Step 1
Write up a report based around traffic generation methods. I’m sure you have your favorites. If not, this report should give you some great ideas. The key is to first focus on why TEs are not effective for most people and explain to the prospect how to use them effectively…which you will of course get from this section.
Step 2
Get yourself a good autoresponder like AWeber. You want one that has a reputation for a good delivery rate. I use AWeber and have no complaints at all. You’re going to use this to build your list.
Step 3
Write a series of follow up emails for this series that focus on traffic generation. Remember, the people you are targeting are looking for ways to get others to their site.
Step 4
Create a splash page for the TEs you’re going to use. A splash page is a very short page that only contains a very small amount of information. You want all of it to be ABOVE THE FOLD so that surfers don’t have to page down even once. Remember, they don’t have much time to be attracted to your page. On this splash page you’re going to have an opt in for your free report that is going to help them.
Step 5
Get a copy of Jon Olson’s HIT EXCHANGE NEWS to find out what the top TEs are. Jon’s newsletter is the best in the business. Whatever ones he says are at the top…use them! Sign up right away and get your splash pages approved.
Step 6
This is only a suggestion, unless you have time to kill. Don’t surf. Instead, buy credits. They’re not expensive and with the top exchanges, you’ll find that it is worth it to spend the $10 or $20 on credits. Of course if you want to go the free route and have the time, surfing will work.
Step 7
Watch your list slowly grow. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. And if you provide these people with good content in your newsletter as well as with a good report, you’ll see the sales start to come in.
You want to track the number of views for your splash page to the number of opt ins to see how well the page is performing. One key to getting people to opt in is to have a great headline that is geared to the people using TEs.
Here are just a few suggestions:
• Stop Surfing For Hits Until You’ve Read My FREE Report!
• Discover How To Turn Traffic Exchanges Into Traffic Tsunami!
• Discover The REAL Truth About Traffic Exchanges!
• Discover WHY You’re Not Making Sales With Traffic Exchanges!
• If you use your imagination…you can come up with many more.
Conclusion and Summary
TEs can be very effective if used correctly. The outline above, as simple as it may seem, is very effective at getting qualified traffic from TEs. The key is to give these people what they are looking for…and that is traffic to THEIR web site. That is the ONLY reason they are there.
This post was made possible by Steven Wagenheim who has been marketing on the Internet for over 5 years. You can get his FREE report…The REAL Truth About Internet Marketing below.
http://www.stevewagenheim.com/realtruth.html
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