I am a heart of the matter kind of guy. So when someone comes to me asking for advice on getting traffic to their blog or website, I always have to ask the question, “what do you hope to accomplish with more traffic?” Sounds easy enough, right? Without knowing what you are hoping to accomplish, you and your site can be more akin to a rudderless ship drifting in open ocean and lost. And without a goal in mind, you won’t have anywhere to aspire to. Frankly, your internet marketing strategy depends on what you are hoping to do. Traffic for traffic’s sake is not worth anything…..

• Having 40,000 followers is not a clear indicator of reach…CTR is…
• Being listed in the top 10 in organic search is not an end all solution if the searchers aren’t doing what you want them to do…
• 500 stumbles isn’t a good metric for success if they are staying on your page for 3 seconds….

At any rate, here are the things I plan on discussing today…

The challenge- Getting to the Point where YOU Matter to the search engines

The challenge- Getting to the Point where YOU Matter to your Market

Getting to the Point where YOU matter to the search engines

Search engine traffic, at least from a conversion perspective, is the possibly the best traffic to get. The reason is simple.

• You have an issue (like how to remove that wart on the side of your face)….
• You google the issue….
• Google provides you with sites that it thinks are most relevant in terms of what you are looking for…
• Site gives you a solution (or links to a product that provides the solution)

Organic traffic is largely not social. But just because you are using a social platform like a blog doesn’t preclude you from an organic traffic strategy.

A blogger’s strategy to generating organic traffic

One of the biggest issues to generating traffic organically is getting that “authority” status or, in the very least, having google trust you enough to be willing to put their credibility on the line. With that in mind, if you are new to organic search engine marketing, you should live by the “creed”…. The Long Tail is your friend…. Most bloggers think of SEO as an afterthought. They think solely in terms of visitor. They think of their market in the broadest view possible. For instance, a blogger who is in the make money online market thinks that they should solely optimize their site for make money online. The problem is, in order to reach such heights, they will need a ton of patience. Niche Marketers understand the long tail. Typically, they will build a mini-site that is ultra-focused on one to four keywords. If a niche marketer was going after the traffic generation conversation, they would figure out what long tail keywords would be attainable quickly with the least amount of work. Here are some articles they may (or may not) write:

• Get Traffic to my blog
• How to get more traffic to your blog
• Get FREE traffic to your blog
• and so on and so forth…

The ultimate word for the site would be ” get traffic”, which is worth, at least according to google, gets searched for roughly 3,000 times a month. That would be the homepage. But each page or article you write would be ordered in a way which targets each conversation. Internally linking the sites together, either in a SILO format (where each article points to the next article down) or in a keyword sniping format (where each article points to the home page with “how to get traffic” or some variation of it) will help establish more relevancy. What happens is that, depending on your competition, you will begin to rank for the long tail first, which should result in a smattering of traffic, while you slowly gain authority and trust rank along the way.

The Parasitic Host Paradigm

Another very popular way to get more traffic to your blog is to write for things outside your blog. The Article Marketing strategy is a popular method for doing this. The reason it works is you are basically leveraging the authority of sites such as ezinearticles or hubpages to rise in the ranks more quickly. Make no bones about it. Sometimes ranking for even a long tail keyword with little competition is hard if you have a new site. EzineArticles and hubpages will both catapult you into the top ten listing quickly and then it is all a matter of working out how to get more click through’s to the site you are promoting. I have used this strategy to generate hundreds of visits to my sites per month, while I am developing trust and authority with google.

The challenge- Getting to the Point where YOU Matter to your Market

Mattering to your market is a huge conundrum for most bloggers, especially if their market is so generalized that the competition is fierce and visibility becomes a very big challenge. This is primarily for social traffic, by the way. First Issue: Rising Above the Noise actually will make you matter more… Kind of a no brainer, right? BUT it is a no-brainer that most bloggers don’t get. The majority simply follow what others are doing and repeat the process. The result is a very large echo pattern in the echo chamber. I call these types of blogger the “me-too” blogger. Socially driven blogs are different than organic search because in organic search the most “relevant” (and relevancy equates to link popularity as of this writing) is what is on the first page while socially driven blogs that rise above the noise offer “different, opposing, or entertaining” viewpoints. Keys to rising above the noise:

• Actual Value in Terms of Scarcity- If your niche is “dog training”, then writing an article that will teach your dog how to sit may demonstrate value for someone who needs Fido to sit but the information isn’t scarce, probably won’t be linked to and unless you are trying to rank organically for the term, will likely be forgotten….like 5 minutes from now. Scarcity is the killer here. Writing articles that are thought provoking can be a challenge but are necessary to rising above the noise. The Scarcer information is, the more valuable it becomes….write that down….
• Lowering the bar and getting Ultra-specific- Another technique is to not be too generalized in your writing and focusing on a niche within a niche. This has a two-fold benefit. Let’s say that you are in the make money online niche. Rising above the noise can be a huge challenge because of the scope of the market. Instead of focusing on a general keyword or conversation, you could instead opt for a niche within the niche; something like article marketing. Or you could even go smaller with something like how to make money with hubpages. The traffic may be lower but I can almost guarantee you that you will not only be viewed as more of an authority (which is a separator in and of itself) but the traffic you get will be easier to monetize because it isn’t general.

Second Issue: How to become more Visible If your blog is new-ish, not many people don’t know you even exist. You could be writing opus after opus, be the blogger’s version of a Leonardo Di Vinci and if no one knows you, then you may as well not even be writing. Visibility on the web comes from 2 sources…

1. Citations from other blogs in your network…
2. Links from other sources that you control….

Let’s tackle the links issue first…. From a social perspective, signature links in forum posts, comments on people’s blogs, and the use of parasitic hosts will all be tools that you can use to become more visible in your network. The key to rising above the noise and actually mattering to your network boils down to how you resonate with your network and the value you give them when you speak. The more value you give, the more you will get. Posting comments like “nice blog” or “man, I totally agree”, may earn you some points from the blogger you are commenting about but in the case of a comment that some random Joe may follow, it means nothing. A pointed comment that actually adds to the conversation, shows your expertise or gives another viewpoint will. Here is an example. This “comment” which was one comment among 97 comments, netted me 28 visits, 93% of which were new to the site and didn’t know I existed. The key to the success of this comment was that it was different (I call them mini-blog posts because of the length…I cover more real estate and force the reader to in the very least, notice me), offered a unique view, at least to his audience, and forced a lengthy reply.

I could give more examples just like this. Good, thought provoking comments command the comment pages. That comment cost me 10 minutes and resulted in 28 visitors who not only visited my blog, but spent an average of 3.47 minutes on the blog, looked at 3+ pages AND subscribed to my RSS feed. Not a bad time investment for the ROI,right? Comment posting to generate traffic does work. But not in the way most bloggers use it. In short, if you don’t have anything worth saying that is thought provoking, you best bet would be not to say anything at all. It simply ain’t worth it. The same goes for forum posts as well. Two liners or a short paragraph typically won’t imply authority (unless you are Seth Godin). A lengthy expose that adds to the thread….now that opens eyes, separates you from the pack and displays authority…assuming you know what you are talking about. Citations from other blogs You have to get citations from other blogs. The key is getting them to notice you. Most bloggers think in a top down kind of thought process. The process goes like this…

• If I am blogging about blogging, how do I get Darren Rouse to notice me?
• Well, maybe I should hang out on his site and comment a lot…then he will definitely notice me….

Under most circumstances, your chances of catching the attention of an A-lister by visiting their blog is next to nothing.

You need a bigger net….work….

The larger your market, the bigger net you will need. The smaller the market, the smaller the network. Let me explain…. Every connection you make is a potential for you and your blog to go viral. The problem is that most of us stick within a fairly small network. Usually this involves a smattering of blogs and websites that epitomize our interests. Preaching to the choir comes to my mind when I think of this. The key or crux of building more traffic is to make your network bigger. And since most of us bloggers are in small networks even in very large markets, the problem becomes a matter of extending our network by infiltrating other networks. For instance, I can tell you that my primary network is comprised of 2 leaders in the tribe and several “sub” leaders (one of which is me). We link to each other often in posts….we talk about each other in a way that someone outside our tribe would wonder who the heck so-and-so is. My primary tribe has helped me build a nice sized following. New tribe members link to me when they build a website in the niche and I watch as other the past year and a half, my following has slowly grown. If I wanted to grow my network, I would need to “include” others within my network, and expose those in my network to great, remarkable bloggers outside their network. If my network shows interest by visiting the blog, the blogger will take notice because of the amount traffic I am referring. Suddenly, they see my “value” (traffic is scarce), and reciprocate (because they feel inclined to). Reciprocation can be in the form of a citation. It can also be in the form of a contact. But in most cases, if the higher the value (think whats-in-it-for-me), the greater the chance of reciprocation and the greater the chance that THEY will expose their network to their readers….. And the larger your network, the more likely your articles or blog will go viral…

Some random ideas that work well when building more traffic:

Joint Ventures- Fellow Marketer, Chris Rempel, came up with a simple solution to building a list. And even if you aren’t looking to build a list (you should by the way), this strategy can boost traffic and readership in amazing ways. Here is what he did-

• He developed a system that showed how you could make money by building mini-review sites online. He charged $17 for it.
• Rather than promoting it himself, he offered 100% commissions to anyone who promoted his product. In essense, the promoter got to pocket the money as if he built the product himself.
• As a result, the affiliate who pushed this product to his viewership, exposed his readers to Chris Rempel.
• Chris set a net up, capturing the details of anyone who bought the product through any of his affiliates.
• End result? At least 10,000+ new “eyes” in less than a couple months….

JV’s done right can launch you into the stratosphere and quickly establish you as the go-to person in your niche. It will expose you to not one network but several (in some cases, hundreds) of smaller networks. Now you may not want to build a list. You may just want readers (dunno why, but you may). A little out-of-the-box thinking with this example and you could easily build more traffic very quickly. Guest Posting- Guest posts are another way to generate traffic. I have done a variety of guest posts across the blogosphere that have ranged from internet marketing to fitness. In fact, I would say that guest posts are probably the easiest and most valuable things you could do. Here are some benefits:

• Quality backlinks from similarly themed sites that will improve search engine rankings….
• Exposes your site to others outside your network….
• Builds a rapport with your fellow blogger which could lead to greater things.

Before you go willy-nilly over guest posting, there are some things you should consider:

• You should only guest post at blogs that have some traction- What I mean by this is that they should have a history of posting. There is absolutely no reason why you should guest post for a blog that won’t be around 4 months from now. It simply isn’t worth it.
• You should pay attention to alexa scores- The lower the alexa score the more traffic they have going to their blog. Anything below 100k typically will mean that they get around 100 or so visitors a day.
• If your intention is social traffic, then pay attention to responsiveness in comments- More comments typically means that the readership is more engaged. Another thing to check out is how often they are tweeted and who is tweeting them.
• If your intention are backlinks then PR becomes a factor- Guest posts are great for backlinks. But understand that once the page falls off the home page of the blog, that PR doesn’t mean as much. The ball is then in your court to promote it and load it with links.

Makes sense, right? So, let’s review…. To get more traffic to your blog:

1. Build organic traffic long tail by long tail, much like a niche marketer would…focus on the long tail while you are trying to gain authority for the root keyword….
2. Build satellite hubs from parasitic hosts such as ezine articles that will not only help to determine relevance to your page for the search engines but immediately start driving traffic to your website….
3. Focus on quality content that is scarce, increasing your website’s value perception.
4. Use Forum posts and comments as sources for validation and leeching traffic to your page….once again, think value in terms of scarcity…
5. Build your network…when you reach maximum density in your network…expand it into other networks and leech traffic from other network which will grow your network bigger.

Leo di Milo has been quietly earning a living online for over a decade now. He believes that success in internet marketing requires out-of-the-box philosophies and thinks that anyone who wants to make money online should question everything and rather than looking for ready made blueprints, should ask why does it work that way? For more information about strategies and theories in regards to marketing, be sure to check out his best reads section.

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. 3 Blog Traffic Generation Strategies That Never Fail
2. How To Get Other Bloggers To Guest Post On Your Blog
3. $365k Blog Traffic Formula by MaxBlogPress-What To Expect When You Buy?

Related posts

• No related posts.

Building a list is somewhat different from generating leads for your business. Very few marketers realize this, but building a list is much easier, as well as less profitable then lead generation.

To build a list, it’s enough to lay your hands on a bunch of names and email addresses of potential customers using any white or black hat method possible. Heck, to build a huge list, you can grab the yellow pages and say that you have access to an enormous database of targeted prospects. And that won’t be too far from the truth…

However, will it make you money? That’s where lies the difference between building a list and generating leads. To become a lead, a person has to do something to qualify to be on your list.

Prospect has to “raise his hand” and let you know that he is interested in what you’re selling. That’s what’s called: “a truly valuable lead”, someone who’s qualified to buy from you so you will make money. Never forget your ultimate goal. Never let it slip from your memory that the reason you’re in this business is to Make Money.

I believe that it’s one of the most powerful personal unconscious barriers ever that is preventing the majority of internet marketing beginners from earning full time paychecks from home.

To build a list, all you have to do is to come up with a free offer, get a squeeze page up and drive traffic. It can easily be done by anyone who’s competent enough to craft a lead magnet and an optin page. If you’re not, visit this page to learn how to craft lead magnets and this page to learn how to get a list building campaign up and running.

To build a list, you have to make your prospects qualify by gathering more than just a name and an email address, you want to be sure that they are capable of buying things, and that you aren’t just wasting your time and money on advertising.

Before you can build a profitable business, you need to clearly understand what’s going on here. Generate leads-don’t just build a list!

P.S: This blog post is different from what I usually post, but it’s about time someone spilled out the truth about this… Your take on this?

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Best List Building Training You Can Find For Ten Bucks | Accelerated List Building Review
2. Free Lead Generation System – Is It Worth Your Precious Time?
3. How To Generate Sales Leads-21 Lead Generation Ideas You Can Execute Today

Related posts

• Best List Building Training You Can Find For Ten Bucks | Accelerated List Building Review (9)
• How To Build a Responsive Mailing List In Your Niche (6)

Affiliate Marketing is one of the fastest growing industries on the planet today and is only expected to get bigger.

Recently a Home Study course “Affiliate Millionaire” was announced by Andrew Fox-an affiliate who has sold over $1million of products just via sending email.

Fox claims:

“I’ve been carrying out Affiliate Marketing since the year 2000 and have been stunned by the growth. For years I’ve been asked to produce a course on how I’ve managed to generated commission pay checks in excess of $70,000 in less than 7 days. Affiliate Millionaire is my answer to that”

Unlike your typical Internet Marketing product Fox has invested a lot in new technology to make Affiliate Millionaire something truly special.

“I think the current Internet Marketing Community was getting saturated with ‘copy cat’ ebooks and people were just getting sick of the hype. They didn’t know who to trust. I expanded my office, invested in the best video and studio equipment, hired specialist video productions experts and really raised the bar – I don’t think there is anything like this out there. I like helping changing the industry and if I can do that while helping people quit their job and become a full time affiliate even better”

Affiliate Millionaire is released on Tuesday 23rd February and a sell out is expected in record time.

“We are also releasing a limited number of copies and in the past some of my products have sold out in less than 24 hours.  Affiliate Millionaire is easily 5 -10 times bigger than anything I’ve carried out before. How many affiliates have sold over $1million of products via email and revealed their secrets in a step by step program – my guess would be not many”

Affiliate Millionaire has a free pre launch sign up list where Andrew will be sharing some sneak video previews of the content inside the course. I’ve already signed up for that list, and already received the first sneak peak video of Andrew crushing it with a superb piece of content! Get yours here!

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Learn Affiliate Marketing – It’s Good For You!
2. Best Affiliate Programs. What Are The Best Affiliate Programs To Promote
3. Where To Find Affiliate Products That Sell

Related posts

• Marketing Success Mindset. Is It Possible To Succeed Without It? (4)
• Learn Affiliate Marketing – It’s Good For You! (28)

Recently I’ve been conducting an experiment. I was testing the one list building strategy I avoided for too long.

As it turns out, there’s a whole science behind Ad Swaps and how to conduct them, and lately, I’ve been aggressively swapping with other Internet marketing niche list owners to see how fast I can grow my list.

I used this page to conduct ad swaps, which converted extremely well. I got amazing feedback on the quality of the lead magnet, and I was extremely happy with the results.

However, I got caught up. I’ve made a huge mistake. I completely neglected the wants and needs of my own list. I bombarded them with free offers, gifts and up sells.

And to make things even worse, I promoted a bunch of affiliate products in the process too, which resulted in major decrease in the open rates.

But most importantly, I realized, that I probably offended real people, whom I selfishly SPAMed, like a total Jackass!

Now, I would like to use this opportunity, to APOLOGISE to you (if you’re on my list) and to every person on my list. I am truly sorry for being a selfish a**hole. I truly am.

However, you can’t go back and undo the things that are done. If you’re on my list, you will still be receiving a lot of free offers and ads from my swap partners, only now I try to break it down into small chunks and squeeze valuable, interesting and useful content in between, so you’ll have a reason to stay a valued subscriber.

Also, I will be sending a special gift to all my subscribers who stayed, even after I was a jackass to them. Stay tuned!

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Igor Kheifets Is A Jackass 2 or Why You Should Never Use Software To Run Contests On Your Blog
2. Igor Kheifets Is A Jackass

Related posts

• No related posts.

If you’re struggling to make as much as a penny online, then you have to check this out.

Mark Dulisee revealed his GunShot Money system to making 5 figures a month selling to the Internet marketing crowd, which is, let’s face it, very tough!

Internet marketers are the most sophisticated prospects of them all and the niche is so saturated that it’s nearly impossible to get in.

Mark’s GunShot Money is just what you need if you are dying to build a name for yourself and join in on the fun with the big guys! Get more info here

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Solid Business Foundation-Build Yours Now Or You’ll Hate Your Self Later
2. How To Make $1 Per Twitter Follower Per Month
3. How To Build a Responsive Mailing List In Your Niche

Related posts

• No related posts.

For over a year now I have been using WordPress for internet marketing purposes. I used WordPress to build a community around my marketing, grow my list, promote products and make money using AdSense and Affiliate Marketing.

Lately I’ve noticed that there’s a growing amount of internet marketers doing the same thing, so I decided to post a list of 10 useful WordPress plugins that every internet marketer should use.

Dean’s FCKEditor for WordPress

This plugin Replaces the default Wordpress editor with CKeditor 3.0.1.

CKeditor is an open source WYSIWYG text editor ,brings to the web much of the power of desktop editors like MS Word.it’s lightweight and is compatible with most internet browsers which include: IE 5.5+ (Windows), Firefox 1.0+, Mozilla 1.3+ and Netscape 7+.

Download Dean’s FCKEditor here.

WP-Sticky

WP-Sticky is a plugin that allows you to make a post stick to the home page no matter how old it is. It’s perfect for setting up opt in forms to generate leads of your blog’s homepage.

Download WP-Sticky here.

PageEar-Free Peel Away Ad

This plugin allows you to easily insert peel away ads into the top right hand corner of your website. Plugin works perfectly with Firefox and IE. Simple solution for those of you that don’t have the resources to hire a professional coder to create a peel away ad.

Download PageEar here.

WordPress Popup Scheduler

Extremely useful plugin for internet marketers and those who use WordPress sites to build a list. Functions of WP Popup Scheduler:

• Able to schedule a popup to show at all times, when new visitors arrived at your site, when readers revisit your blog for the second, third or fourth time, or for a specify number of days.
• Able to configure it to show only on the home page, visitor landing page or a particular page of your choice.
• Users can customize the look and feel of the popup. Attribute that can be customize include the background color, the popup width, popup headline, font size, font color and insert image.
• Select between animation effect or no effect. If no effect is chosen, the popup can be displayed as a wrap-box before or after the first post. Animation effects include simple popup, drop down and fade in.

Download WordPress Popup Scheduler here.

AdSense Now!

AdSense Now! is the simplest possible way to generate revenue from your blog using Google AdSense. Aiming at simplicity, AdSense Now! does only one thing: it puts your AdSense code in up to three spots in your posts and pages (both existing ones and those yet to be written).

Download AdSense Now! here.

WP-Banner Ads

This is a banner ad management plugin for WordPress. Now you can manage banners of your own or from your favorite affiliate programs.

Download WP-Banner Ads here.

EasyPayPal

EasyPayPal is a WordPress plugin that allows you to make money from your WordPress site by collecting a payment from your users.

Download EasyPayPal here.

WPAffiliate-WordPress Affiliate ClickBank Plugin

The plugin automatically inserts a list of “Related Products” after and/or before each post on your blog, which are relevant to the content of your blog post.

Detailed review and download link here.

LinkHopper

This plugin allows you to configure a hop name, and a hop destination.  When you link to yoursite.com/hop/TAG/, the visitor will be redirected to your chosen destination. Now you can easily mask your affiliate links and never get robbed out of affiliate commissions ever again!

Download LinkHopper here.

WP Testimonials

WP-Testimonials is a plugin for WordPress that lets you display your customer/client/product testimonials on your blog. You may add, edit or remove testimonials through the “Manage” navigation tab in the admin area. The plugin includes the option to display a random testimonial in your sidebar using PHP code for older templates or using a widget for newer themes. The widget is built-in with the plugin, so you have no additional files to worry about.

Download WP Testimonials here.

Enjoyed the post? Please take a second to leave a comment!

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. 10 Best Social Bookmarking Plugins For Your Wordpress Blog
2. WPAffiliate-Wordpress Affiliate ClickBank Plugin Review
3. Newsletter Booster Premium WordPress Plugin Review

Related posts

• Automated Your Marketing Yet? (2)

In one of my recent articles, I shared the way I find affiliate products that sell themselves, so I can benefit from better conversions and higher profits. In this entry, I want to indulge into WHERE I find those products and how do I know what’s going on in my niche.

There are only so many ways to get information about what’s going on in your niche and it’s using one or all of the following:

• Forums
• Affiliate networks
• Search engines
• PPC ads
• Email newsletters
• See what others are promoting and join in on the fun

These are 6 top ways for finding hot affiliate products that convert that you can promote to your list. However, I am too lazy to be using all of them, so I stick to Forums.

Warrior Forum is the one place I go to find winning affiliates offers. Usually, I carefully examine the test results that the vendor provides, compare it to other products and think whether it fits the needs of my list. Only after I carefully go through all the information, I sign up for the JV partners list and go through the swipe material.

The reason I prefer forums over other methods, is because forums are a real time saver for me. If you use Clickbank to find products, you need to carefully examine the ratios and percentages. You need to test the offer with some paid traffic until you can safely assume that it converts.

When a vendor posts his product to a forum, it means that he has probably already done all of those and you only have to promote it and get paid.

Newsletters are also considered a shortcut. JV notification lists only invite affiliates to hardcore launches with high commissions and minimum work on their part.

JV notification list owners go through a whole deal of trouble before they notify their subscribers about upcoming products. Besides, they usually notify you at least two weeks in advance, which gives you plenty of time to book in the dates and prepare for the launch with a handcrafted email series, blog posts and banners ads.

Another easy method to stay on top of things is to see what other top affiliates are promoting and join in on the fun, but then you’re late because you’re probably joining the promotion towards the end of the prelaunch which leaves you out the affiliate contest, since everyone has been promoting the product way more then you did.

My agenda, when joining a new JV partner list, is to always get in early, have an outstanding magic bullet product and having to do nearly no work at all, since the vendor has done everything for me. It’s a lazy way, but it makes me money.

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. How To Find Affiliate Products That Sell Themselves
2. Best Affiliate Programs. What Are The Best Affiliate Programs To Promote
3. WPAffiliate-Wordpress Affiliate ClickBank Plugin Review

Related posts

• How To Find Affiliate Products That Sell Themselves (4)

Video shows one of the most head spinning Google glitches ever! And it’s useful too!

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. ArticleVideoRobot-Convert Articles To Video And Distribute To 17 Top Video Sites In Under 3 Minutes
2. Matt Cutts on Blogging and SEO: What You Need To Know[Video]

Related posts

• What Is Link Bait and Why Does It Matter To You? (17)
• SEO Copywriting Tips for Internet Marketers (4)
• Probably The Best Article Submission Tool EVER (3)
• Matt Cutts on Blogging and SEO: What You Need To Know[Video] (6)
• Internet Marketing Myths (0)

The first thing that a top affiliate is looking for when searching for affiliate products to promote is whether the offer converts (e.g. how much money he can expect to make promoting it). While it’s handy to check what’s hot in your niche using ClickBank, the conversion of a certain product depends on couple of things: relationship with the list, quality of the traffic and the offer.

Affiliate Products That Sell

To find a product that sells itself, you need to be looking for the magic bullet. More often than not-it’s software. Software is always the highest converting product because it promises an easy solution to a frustrating problem with a click of a button-something all of us are constantly looking for.

Notice that in the last month I’ve been mostly promoting software. ArticleVideoRobot, EasyVideoPlayer, Newsletter Booster, WP Clickbank Affiliate plugin etc.

The reason I am a sucker for a hot piece of software is because it always converts like crazy! Software is much more likely to deliver on the sales copy promise then an information product, since 50% of people who buy information products never open them up, 40% never finish going through all the material and the rest either asks for a refund or goes through the whole thing without applying anything.

Rare few are those who take action on the acquired knowledge. That’s the reason why the majority of internet marketers suffer from the so called “information overload” and it’s one of the reasons why 90% of people who teach prosperity aren’t prosperous. They never practice what they preach!

I recommend you keep an eye on what’s going on in the marketplace to better position yourself when there’s new software that solves a painful problem a prospect has. That’s why it’s also important that you understand your customer and know what he wants.

However, if there’s shortage of software to promote (which is unlikely) you can always turn to participating in big launches, with prizes, JV blogs and a lot of swipe email copy. When these launches take place, all you have to do is to preload the emails, click “send” and wait for the commissions to start rolling in.

The Big Launch Misconception

It may seem that since everyone and their brother is promoting something-then it’s stupid to promote the same thing, since you will look stupid to your list. Not true.

It’s like saying that you shouldn’t buy an iPod because everyone has one already …so what? It’s still a great way to store songs and listen to music on the go, isn’t it? Same with affiliate promotions!

Merchants who arrange big launches and affiliate contests go through tons of trouble to test and re-test the offer, price point and swipe copy. It means that in 99% of cases-the offer has already been tested and it’s CONVERTING like a maniac. They are also eager to provide evidence of the fact that it’s a killer converting offer by documenting their testing.

How To Choose Affiliate Products To Promote. The Winning Formula

Best Affiliate Product To Promote=Magic Bullet (e.g software) x Big Launch (e.g contests, buzz, top affiliates)

The reason I used a “multiply” function and not a “plus” is because one without the other isn’t enough-you have to meet both criteria to have a self-selling product.

If you can make a commitment to promote only under the circumstances mentioned above and resist the temptation to promote untested offers-then you’ve got yourself a winning formula for a truly successful affiliate promotion.

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Where To Find Affiliate Products That Sell
2. Best Affiliate Programs. What Are The Best Affiliate Programs To Promote
3. How To Sell Info Products For Only $7 And Make A Lot Of Money Doing It

Related posts

• Where To Find Affiliate Products That Sell (9)

It’s never particularly easy to find the right balance between networking and keeping your competition at a safe distance and when your business is exclusively online. This is perhaps more of a concern than for offline businesses.

If your site is based on the Internet only, it’s much easier for your competition to keep an eye on what you’re doing and the temptation is always to feel ever so slightly protective as a result of this.

But actually, embracing your competition and networking within your niche can have huge benefits for your online business. Whether you’re an e-commerce site, affiliate site, lead generation business or something entirely different, networking can establish your presence within that niche area and keep you up to date with what’s going on.

As an example, I’ll discuss affiliate sites. There are a number of blog networks and forums on which affiliate site owners and webmasters discuss everything from business, changes to the service of major affiliate providers, to the weather!!

Taking part in these forums doesn’t mean you have to present your competition with a full and detailed analysis of your marketing strategy and long term plans, but many do share insights. It’s almost like a brainstorming network, to some extent.

Of course, if someone writes about a strategy you find interesting and have never previously thought about yourself, you will want to try it. The same will work the other way round. Yes, it means you may have to share a little bit of your experience but the wealth of knowledge and insight you can obtain in exchange can be of huge benefit.

Networking within your niche is also a sure fire way to ensure that you stay up to date with the latest news. Take, for example, the many affiliate conferences that take place each year. How will you find out about those? The organisers target the major networks as a quick way of getting out the information about events that could be particularly valuable to you.

In much the same way that offline networking can produce valuable contacts, so too can online networking. By becoming a part of the community around blogs and forums in your niche, you will inevitably make contacts – but often only if you’re contributing with something worthwhile!

The silent observers are less likely to be approached by potential consumers or those seeking business opportunities than those whose contributions and worthwhile and valuable. In having something productive to say, you have an opportunity in many ways to prove yourself as something of an authority in your niche – something that will again inevitably produce very useful contacts.

Networking online is much easier than networking offline. There are literally millions of people virtually at your fingertips and overlooking the opportunities that such networking brings could be very costly to your web based businesses.

This is a guest post by Stacey Cavanagh of Tecmark: SEO Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

RSS Subscriber? Great! You Should Also Follow Me On Twitter and Become a Fan On Facebook. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. 13 Secrets To Networking With Billionaires And World’s Top Achievers
2. How To Build a Responsive Mailing List In Your Niche
3. 5 Ways To Generate Free Quality Leads

Related posts

• No related posts.