More Traffic to Your Blog

Posted on November 17, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Getting more traffic to your blog can seem daunting at first, until you learn a few simple techniques.

More Traffic to Your Blog - Easy, Fast Techniques

First is, you can very inexpensively “kidnap” your competitors’ traffic. They go to all the expense and work to get ranked in the search engines, and then you skim a certain percentage of their traffic for just a tiny fraction of the cost, effectively piggybacking on their success for pennies on the dollar. NOTE: It is also 100% legal and ethical, too!

Here’s how it works: Certain ad networks allow you to use URLs as the keywords that trigger your ad being served up. The people who will see your ad have knowingly opted in to the network, and have agreed to see these ads, delivered as full-on web pages in separate browser windows, when they surf to a relevant site — one listed on the advertiser’s keyword list. In this way, when one of those voluntary participants visits the “Widgets-R-We” site, ranked number two on Google, they also see your “Better Widgets for Less” main page, which asks them for their opt-in.

There are many variations on this method, but I have built a sizable list of good people using this exact technique. Now, your site absolutely must offer them a very cool bonus for opting in, or you’ll get a lot of views with no response, and you are paying for each view, whether or not they take any action. You are effectively competing with the subject website for the attention of the people that searched them up. It’s one of the cheapest and fastest ways to get more traffic to your blog that I know of.

Another great method is to create a network of articles, posts and videos on the same topic (using the same keywords), and use articles and videos to drive very targeted traffic to your blog. The post immediately adjoining this one shows you exactly how to use this technique, so I won’t cover it here.

Next, as long as your content is really attractive, their are a few more very inexpensive methods of getting more traffic to your blog. There is a service called Revisitors that gets you a huge block of targeted visitors for a very reasonable price. Another way of getting lots of visitors is to visit Fiverr.com and in the Social Marketing category (at right), find one of the occasional ads that offers to tweet your offer to 50,000 followers. The cost really is just five bucks and, while not as powerful as 50,000 targeted visitors, you can still get some good results if the “tweet” you provide follows the tried and true principles of effective copywriting.

Another method is buy solo or in-line ads in leading “ezines” in your niche. You can find a listing of such online publications on such sites as Directory of Ezines. These ads can be extremely inexpensive, but surprisingly responsive if you’re sensitive to the interests of the readership of that particular ezine.

These are just a few ideas that I’ve found effective to get more traffic to your blog.

Did I leave anything out?

Posted in News, Techniques | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Traffic Increases – Three Ways to Boost Your Site’s Traffic

Posted on November 17, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

How getting traffic increases also gets you an income boost.Traffic increases are the “eternal quest” in internet marketing. No traffic = no visitors, opt-ins, or sales. Here are three easy methods for getting more eyes on your site.

First, start writing keyword-rich articles and post multiple, different versions (“spins”) of them on several of the leading article directories, randomly spread around the directory sites from article to article. It’s easier than it sound, if you’ve not done it. What stops most people is either fear of failure or a real aversion to writing. I’ve got your back….

As to fear of failure, the key is not to think ahead to the consequences — just sit down and write for ten minutes, without pause. Afterward, you can go back and revise and stew about your writing, but the article will, in fact, already be written! You can then get a relative, friend, or even a hired hand, to edit and tweak it with you or for you. And remember, if you fail to write at all, then you have automatically failed at writing, haven’t you. So just sit down without thinking about whether you’ll look foolish in writing, and just write. Teach something. Reveal something. Explore something.

Next, if your problem is an aversion to writing, then just go buy Nuance Software’s Dragon Naturally Speaking (PC) or Dictate or Scribe (Mac), and speak your article into your computer. After that, the process is the same: either edit and revise it your self, or ask someone to do it with you or for you (free or paid).

The end result is that you can then post each article in different versions on the article directories, and see appreciable traffic increases, especially as the number of articles you have published on those sites goes to dozens and then hundreds.

The next way to get traffic increases is much easier: you create simple videos and post them on Youtube and the other leading video hosting sites.

Again, design your video around good keywords (see other areas of this site for more info on how to find those keywords), and keep it short.

There are three ways of making your own videos. First, and easiest in a lot of ways, is to put on a nice (solid-pattern) shirt or blouse, set a FlipCam on a tripod or other stable surface, and talk into the camera. Just like that, you’ll have a video made. The point is not so much how “Hollywood” you look, but how good your information is. Of course, you do have to avoid looking like a bum, but you don’t have to look like a fashion model, so don’t talk yourself out of this option.

Now, if you absolutely refuse to get in front of a camera, then there are two other ways of making a video you can post. Turn your information into a simple PowerPoint slide presentation. Again, keep it brief but emotionally engaging. Then, record “screen video” of your presentation running as you narrate it using Camtasia (PC or Mac) or CamStudio (PC). As an alternative, if you know how to use video editing software (Final Cut Pro, Premier, etc.), you can record the narration first as audio, import it into a new movie project, and insert titles over the narrative that sync to it and illustrate your talking points.

Now, after light editing, if necessary, post the video on YouTube with your keywords in your movie’s title, and again in its description (about 200 words in length is ideal for a video description). Now, render it again in a different format (AVI, MOV, etc.), change the title and description a bit, but keep the keywords in them, and post each new “version” to another video hosting site.

As long as your content is important to people in some way, you’ll get not only links back to your site, but people will actually click over to your site because they like what you taught them.

The third way of boosting traffic is actually a way of turbo-boosting the other two to get traffic increases way beyond your expectations.

Just having those articles and videos posted on authority sites is powerful enough, but there is a way to put their power into a whole new realm. Don’t just wait for people to come to your creations — drive them there by the hundreds or thousands! Using your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and even paid, targeted traffic if you really want to, you can potentially get your articles and videos hundreds of views in just a few days.

Just tweet or post a status update that points people to the article or video, with a merciless tease about the very important benefit they’ll receive for just going to view this free thing. Here’s an example tweet: “Husbands: discover the mystery anniversary gift you can give her this year that will turn you back into newlyweds. Free article. http:shortenedURL #anniversarygift”

If any of your followers have an anniversary coming up in the next few months, they will likely check out your article (or video). It’s free, after all, so it doesn’t feel like spam.

But here’s the cool result: your articles and videos start to get ranked on the host site as the most popular. This gets them posted as “you might also enjoy” listings on other, related pages (your competitors’ articles and videos). This means you now have hundreds more backlinks to your site without an ounce more work or expense! Plus some readers will click through to your site. Combine those effects: there’s the king of traffic increases for you!

And there’s your two-pronged attack with both articles and videos: if you create and post them keyword-rich, you’ll boost your chances of getting search engine rankings

Please respond to this in the comment form below because I need 10 comments to continue posting.

Posted in News, Techniques | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Big Mistake Most Internet Marketing Newbies Make

Posted on November 12, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

This is a very common mistake – you’ve probably made it, and I know I did when I was first starting out. But it’s not your fault. Here’s what the fatal mistake is, and why you’re not to blame….

Too many would-be Internet marketers start out thinking they’ll make a zillion bucks for very little work – kind of a get-rich-quick mentality. Fact is, though, no one is just lining up to give you or me money. People will only part with their money when they feel like they are getting back more value than they’re spending.

That’s right: MORE value. So, a lot of newbies are offering little or no value, then wondering why no one comes or buys. It’s a disease, brought on in part by the get-something-for-nothing ads you see promoting vapid info-products.

But those who succeed in any business, online or offline, have always done so by offering a very emotional and attractive value – far more value to the prospect than the money being asked. That’s what makes any marketer successful: a great offer combined with enough traffic (eyes and ears) to close a significant number of sales.

So, the next time you see a pie-in-the-sky product offer that promises you a large chunk of change as an immediate return, but is pretty vague as to how that’s going to happen, beware. Much of the time, such products are of little or no value, and they are spoiling the market for those of us offering real value, because they turn buyers off and lose their trust.

So don’t make the mistake of offering bubbles at gold-brick prices. Make your offer extremely attractive to your target clientele, not by discounting, but by adding lots of value, then concentrate on driving traffic to it, and watch how much better your results are!

Looking forward to your comments...

Posted in News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Internet Marketing Strategy Breakthrough: Go Foreign to Profit

Posted on November 12, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Philip Mansour, the young whippersnapper, has just released something that I have known for a long time would be a winner. He started marketing to foreign markets (non-U.S.), and his ROI just exploded. So he took this Internet marketing strategy and shaped it into a set of videos, and has it up for sale (“Offshore Conquest”). Contact me if you have any interest, and I can point you to his sales page. Just know that I bough it on sight, and I’ll have it up and running within the week. I really believe that foreign and mobile marketing are the wave of the present (not just the future) because the competition isn’t so fierce… for now. Just a heads-up for you.

Agree or disagree?

Posted in News | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Truth About Internet Marketing as a Home Business Opportunity

Posted on November 1, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Dear Fellow Entrepreneur,

There are a lot of people seeking a home business opportunity who have spent a lot of money trying to learn how to start an internet marketing business. They fall prey to the sales copy hype that implies that internet marketing is some kind of easy, instant, push-button money machine.

I hate to disappoint anyone, especially because internet marketing is also among my own business pursuits, but you are missing the main point here. The operative word here is “business.” And businesses have certain core qualities that make them viable. Leave out one of these ingredients, and you might as well give up before you start.

Ingredient one is simple:

“Find a passionate, spending crowd and offer them the easiest, fastest, or best solution to their painful problem.”

Think about each word in that statement. Leave any element out, and you make your own success in any business, online or offline, just that much harder.

And think about what that whole statement means when you really boil it down. It means you need to offer something of enough value that a good number of people will pay good money to get it. In fact, the only things that sell well are products or services that leave the customer feeling like he or she got the better end of the deal.

That does not mean that you play the discounting game — that’s just a good way to start hating your business and then eventually quit. It does mean that you have to offer serious value, usually more value than your competitors do, in order to close sales.

You also have to learn and apply fundamental business skills, especially the skills of sales. They are not hard, but there is some time and effort involved in getting them down. (You can hire this done for you, but that costs money, and you may find, as I have, that no hireling cares quite as much about your business as you do.)

Add a dose of good, old fashioned common sense.

Take away unrealistic expectations, too. This does not mean that you expect to struggle and starve — not at all. But it means that you stop thinking you’ll get something for nothing, all due respect to the hypesters. Because the last crucial ingredient is…

Hard work. Yup. I said it. Taking a home business opportunity from pie-in-the-sky to reality takes quite a bit of work. If you’re not willing to apply hard work to your internet marketing venture, then forget about succeeding. You’ll forever just be one of the thousands of people who make the “gurus” rich, because all you’ll do is buy stuff, over and over again.

You need to make the mindset shift from being a consumer to being a producer. There comes a time when you really do know enough to just get moving, fail forward through your mistakes, and build a business — a real business — based on delivering real value to real people with real wants.

Then you’ll make real money. I promise.

Realistically yours,

Arlen

PS: Watch out for, and avoid, the products that won’t tell you what they do, only what they aren’t, or that claim to be “automatic” or “pushbutton.” For a refreshing dose of someone who does not do that go see what Lee McIntyre is up to. I’ve bought a lot of his material and it is absolutely stellar.

Please post your thoughts below...

Posted in News, Reviews, Techniques | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Fake Terror? Or Terrorist “Voting” to Alter Election Results?

Posted on October 29, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

FBI Suspicious Package AdvisoryAnything that can affect business interests me. I don’t usually enter the political arena, and I have, in fact, voted my conscience in every election, and I have not voted any strict party — I vote the issues. But I am, like you, involved in free enterprise, and news stories like recent terrorist threats do change laws and economies and public trends, which affects how our businesses fair. I think we need to pay attention, gather facts, and make our best decisions.

This article is not actually about domestic politics at all. Read on, because I think that what’s behind the most recent threats may be a lot more insidious than a party trying to keep control….

The recent spate of dangerous packages alleged to have come out of Yemen has created a bit of buzz, and has brought accusations that the current administration orchestrated it to boost chances for democratic candidates to keep more seats in Tuesday’s election.

I do not know if that’s true or not, although I doubt it. That kind of conspiracy would definitely come to light eventually, and destroy the credibility of the perpetrators, and I don’t suspect any of the accused domestic leaders of being that stupid.

Here is a cold hard fact. The terrorist organizations would profit from these acts in many ways. First, again, it casts doubt on previously trusted icons: are we going to trust courier-delivered packages quite as much now? What will the impact on U.S. commerce be? Not good, I’m betting.

Remember also that previous terrorist actions completely changed the results of a major vote in Spain not that long ago. Do the terrorists have an agenda when it comes to our politics? Absolutely! So one is left to wonder about the timing of these attacks, in light of our own election just four days away. Are they trying to change our election results?

I will not tell you what to think. I just want you to think.

Is the Obama administration or the DNC in cahoots with terrorist organizations? Are the Yemeni’s “voting” in our elections by trying to sway public opinion? These question have arisen. Now what do you think?

Posted in News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Cool Traffic Tool at No Cost

Posted on October 8, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Did you know that you can use ViralSearchTraffic.com to get your website displayed on the first line of search engine results in less than 60 seconds? I’m using it right now. It’s absolutely revolutionary. Check it out and grab a free account here: http://www.internet-marketing-mvp.com/VSTraffic

Please post your thoughts below...

Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marketing Strategy – How to Have Prospects Eating Out of Your Hand

Posted on October 5, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Internet-Marketing-MVP.com founder Arlen L. Card

If you want a shortcut to profits, then read this carefully for the most important marketing strategy there is:

My new students are almost all very consistent about making one major mistake in their marketing communications. Somehow, they all end up talking about themselves. They drone on and on about their qualifications, or the features of their product. So is everybody else. Their message sinks down into the noise, and there’s no emotional hook to induce a prospect to notice the message, let alone actually take time to understand it. They fail to get the prospect’s attention, and everything else is moot.

What should you do instead? It’s swift and simple: take the next step for your prospect, and describe the exact benefit your prospect will enjoy when she acts on your offer. Example:

Before: “My new ebook teaches men how to attract women using pre-learned phrases.” That describes a feature of the product.

After: “When you buy this powerful digital book, you’ll have women climbing over each other to meet you and get your number — just use any of the 26 secret phrases you’ll learn in chapter four of How to Get the Attention and Affection of Any Woman in Five Minutes or Less – Even If You’re the Shiest Man Alive.” That describes the actual benefit the prospect will enjoy when he becomes a buyer. This leaves nothing to the imagination of the prospect, and it literally requires no effort on their part, beyond reading of course, to imagine themselves living the success you describe.

To learn this skill, take your product, or whatever product you’re promoting, and make a list of its features down the left side of a page. Now, on the right side, recast each feature, like I did above, into an emotionally-charged benefit for the prospect. Practice this enough and you will, like me and my advanced students, start to automatically word things this way, and I promise that success will follow. This marketing strategy has sure worked for me, and I am confident that it will work for you, too.

–Arlen

Please comment below...

Posted in News | Tagged | Leave a comment

Web 2.0 Marketing Strategy Is Not As Powerful As…

Posted on October 1, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Web 2.0 is cool, and offers many an effective marketing strategy. Like many of you, I am dutifully using keyword phrases in articles and posts on my site, and linking to them using videos, articles, and linking posts on high PR sites. I am also using “smart” paid traffic methods to attract good people to my good offerings.

But there is something new that you and I had better pay attention to, or we’ll be left in the dust.

I have recently learned, from a genuine authority on the subject, that within three years, smartphone usage will have about quadruple the numbers of web usage. The web is already huge, so those numbers are staggering! Web 2.0 usage on Facebook and Twitter alone is way up in the hundreds of millions. The web is already huge, so the implied mobile user numbers are staggering! I believe we all need to shift our marketing strategy, not to exclude the web, because we would be foolish to abandon that audience, but to add mobile users as a major component – maybe the major component – of our marketing.

Leading the charge will be apps, not serving up mobile-ready web pages. I currently access PGA information on my iPod Touch via an app, not via the browser.

I will post an article on this site soon that explores this phenomenon more in depth. In the meantime, I really hope you will give some real thought, as I have, about leading the charge into smartphone usage, rather than following the crowd.

Please post your thoughts on this, especially which of these three helps you most want to see:
1) A smartphone app-creating tool (and whether you’re partial to iPhone, Android, etc.)
2) An info product on how the whole smartphone world works, and how to use it for marketing
3) A how-to on generating mobile user traffic

Do YOU have any ideas on this? Please comment.

Posted in News | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Beware: The Wrong Kind of Joint Venture Can Ruin You.

Posted on September 29, 2010 by IM-MVP Admin

Okay, just for moment, I take off my Marketing Consultant hat and put on my Business Law Attorney hat. Please note that I am NOT giving you or anyone legal advice here — I am just teaching a crucial principle about a very dangerous kind of “deal.”

I want you to read this very carefully, as it can save you hundreds of hours of heartburn and lost time, as well as many thousands of wasted dollars. There is a type of business relationship that is virtually guaranteed to go sour, and often leads to mind-numbing, expensive litigation. Marketer beware!

I am referring to “partnerships.” This kind of co-venture is like a marriage without any love, right from day one. Without a really good Operating Agreement (LLCs) or Bylaws (Corporations) that includes a comprehensive list of what-ifs and thou-shalt-nots, partnerships all too often end in nasty, expensive lawsuits.

Additionally, any one partner can go off half-cocked and commit the other(s) to obligations or liabilities that they, themselves, would never have entered into.

Only breach of contract with vendors or (you’d better not!) customers leads to more lawsuits than as between partners, in my opinion and experience.

Here’s how to get the major benefits of partnership without the major risks:

It’s called “profit-sharing.” Here, you maintain sole control of your company (an LLC you have already formed, for example). Instead of taking on a partner for their connections or expertise, you contract with them to provide you those services (or whatever) for which you will share a percentage of profits (not gross) with them.

Think about it. You get highly motivated help because they are compensated more if they help you succeed, but they have no say in your operations. If the love goes away, you can end your contract (if you drafted it this way) and part ways without detriment. Everybody wins. Above all, you don’t lose.

When you think about it, it seems like such a no-brainer, but no one thinks of this! They just keep needlessly entering into partnerships, getting ulcers, and suing each other.

Please, before you enter into any partnership, consider whether a profit-sharing arrangement doesn’t accomplish all the benefits without the burdens.

Lawyer hat back off, marketing consulting hat back on. : )

Do you agree or disagree?

Posted in News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment