The Helpful Pointer

Most people recognize two steps in the viral distribution process. Create the product, let others pass the offer along for me. This is the theory behind viral product offers, but the key ingredient is the middle step. Getting the word out so that people can find it, to distribute it for you. This step is often overlooked when planning a viral product distribution system.

Assuming you have already got your report written and formatted into a distributable package and a landing web page that visitors can retrieve your report from let’s look over the “Jump Start Check List” so we can get your report out to the people!

If you have seen other product offers you probably realize how important it is that you provide an digital cover for your product. This gives your information a “tangible” feel. A well designed cover can increase the download and re-offer response rate by 70% !

Step 1:

Create a box cover art graphic.

Make it in 3 sizes. Large, med. and thumbnail.

Save it in 3 formats. - .jpg gif and bmp if possible.

These two steps will save you time in the long run.

Next thing we want to do is get our small ads written. Let’s write these ads all at once and save them into our favorite clipboard or text management utility software program.

Step 2:

Write your ads.

Consider target markets and create different headlines/ads as appropriate.

Write several ads.

Set up a simple strategy for tracking those headlines.

If you need a brief refresher on classified ad structure here are some guidelines. If you feel you need more instruction doing a search will bring up many helpful opinions on classified ad writing.

Classified Structure

Strong headline
Benefit or solutions
Call to action
Provide action contact or link

After you start your campaign you are going to receive many confirmation emails and link requests, so lets take a look at how we can manage these tasks without going nuts.

Step 3:

Be Prepared.

Create a “friends of” or “resource” page - Some directories will require a link back

*tip* Never call a link page a “links page”

Create a separate email address just for your viral offer

Create email rules to help you manage the incoming replies into a specific folder

The following 10 minute “set up” will save you hundreds of hours of your valuable time. Open your clipboard utility, if you haven’t decided on one yet, please do. Your clipboard utility and/or form filler will quickly become your best friend. Having a workable system will save you from burnout, tiredness and frustration. I have used WinM8 and RoboForm for many years and have little advise on what programs are on the market today - these two programs do everything I need them to and do not hog up my computer resources.

Step 4:

Getting Set Up

Common Information to Place in clipboard segments
Name
Email
Title of report
Download url
Link to eBook cover
Description
Url to your back-links page

Step 5:

Get the word out.

Anywhere you can advertise on the web is a potential for advertising your landing page. This includes directories, exchanges, using Google Adwords and more.

Look into web sites that are closely related to the theme of your report. Notify webmasters of these closely related sites of your offer, and be sure to let them know how offering your report can benefit their visitors. Is there any benefit to the webmaster that you can promote as well?

An example of this could be .. You create a eBook on “How to Store Your Precious Silver”. A jewelry dealer offering silver rings may be very happy to offer your eBook to their visitors, and the visitors will thank the webmaster for the helpful information. Another vendor may sell “How to Clean Antique Silver” your free report would make a nice bonus offer that will benefit both vender and consumer - by being an added value offer.

Many people and webmasters search eBook directories for information and value added products on a regular basis. It can pay off big to make sure your eBook is listed in eBook directories and resource pages of related web sites.

One surefire way to get your offer some attention is to write an article on your topic and add your landing page to your author bio box.

Ask for reviews from your favorite, topic related forum boards or discussion lists. This can be a great way to get feedback on the quality of your report too.

This system has worked for me. You can let my research save you time by using my free resource directory located at http://www.masteradvertising.com. This ad free listing directory is full of free places to advertise and was formed out of need to collect resources that I advertise my eBooks and websites on.

Good luck, I hope to see your next free eBooks or report everywhere!

Dawn Wentworth has been providing insight to site promotion sense 1994. http://www.masteradvertising.com

Traffic is the life of any internet business. Because most online businesses are unable to get traffic to their site, they end up shutting down. That is why 95 to 99 percent of internet businesses fail. During my time on the internet I’ve discovered what works and what doesn’t. If you are like me and searched for ways to bring traffic to your website you may have come across some programs who promise to bring so much hits to your website for a fee, only to find out that these are bogus claims. Anyway, the truth is not all of the methods out there work. You have to figure out what works for your kind of business. For example, do you sell a product and want someone to purchase or are you an affiliate or using Ad sense and want some clicks?

I’ll list some traffic generating methods that may be effective for certain or all types of internet businesses.

1. There are the good ole search engines. Search engines are a good way to get traffic to your internet business. But you have to find out how to get good rankings. Getting listed into free search engines and getting good rankings usually takes time and a lot of people don’t have the patience. Once you’ve built your website you want hits and you want it now, which is understandable. If you have good content and patience or have the funds for top ten rankings, search engines are always a good way to get unique visitors. This is effective with any kind of internet business.

2. You can always use articles to build your link popularity and traffic. No one can argue about the effectiveness of using articles to build link popularity and gain some additional traffic. Write a good article for ezines and so on. The problem for some is that they may not feel that comfortable with writing. There is always the option to hire writers. I like using articles because it is a good way to increase your credibility and build trust with potential customers. If you enjoy writing, articles are another free method to increase visitors to your site and gain credibility, writing articles is also effective with any kind of internet business.

3. I’ve come across auto surf and exit exchange programs that bring hits to your website. Some are good and some are bad. Auto surf programs usually work like this, you spend time surfing other people’s website and in turn you earn credits for hits on your website. Some auto surf programs do a good job with bringing unique and targeted visitors to your site, but it is not guaranteed. Your traffic would increase, but purchases may not. People on free auto surf programs or anything free are usually looking for free stuff. I recommend auto surf programs as a traffic generator for your internet business if your online business offers a lot of free things to help build customers. If your internet business solely sells products or is an infopreneur site then placing your website on auto surf programs might not be the best approach. Yes, you may get some hits but most likely no purchases because others on the program may have just clicked your website to get credits for their own site. You want real targeted unique visitors.

4. Viral marketing is another free and effective way of generating traffic to your internet business. If viral marketing is used right and done correctly, it can be a powerful way to increase your traffic exponentially. Some viral marketing programs offer ways to get targeted visitors while others just bring in visitors. When I mention viral marketing I’m talking about the possibility of receiving thousands to millions of visitors per month. Of course you have to let a few people know about your business virally. For example, you get ten people on your viral website or email, where they view your website, these ten people each get ten more people to view their website and yours and it goes on. As you can see, viral marketing appears to have no limits. I recommend viral marketing as a way to get traffic to your business if you just want to get your business out there to let people know it exits.

I’m an ordinary website or online business owner who wants to generate traffic to his/her website. I’ve found methods that work through trial and error. Get a possible One Million FREE Guaranteed Visitors. You only know it works if you try it.

Natural linking, what is it and how do I get it? More importantly, do I need it? If you run an Internet web presence that you want others to find in the search engines then the answer to the latter is YES!

What is natural linking? That is an easy question to answer. Natural linking occurs when someone places a link to your site from another site. The reason that someone might link to your site is not really important, the fact that they placed the link is the only thing that matters.

Some of the reasons that someone might place a link to your site or to a page within your website are:

• Your site offers some information that supports a fact or reinforces a position contained within another site.
• Your site offers some tools or resources that would be helpful to others.
• Your site contradicts a common misconception that others want use to validate their own views on that topic.
• Your site represents a controversial viewpoint that others might want to showcase for their own purposes.
• Your site is just so very cool that others need to be made aware of it and seeing as my website links to your site, my site must be cool too!

Regardless of the reasons why someone might be linking to your site, these natural links are very important. Even if someone is linking to your site because they think it is a sad joke and they want others to see how bad your site is, it really doesn’t matter.

Knowing that these types of links are important the next question is, “How do you get people to link to your site?” There are several ways you can get people to link to your site with the easiest being, make a useful site. Easier said then done you are thinking eh?

When you think about it, creating a useful site isn’t that difficult, it just requires time. Time to find helpful tools to share with others, time to find sound advice regarding your site’s topic of interest and time to make your site ooze the “It” factor. The amount of time it will take is solely dependent upon how much effort you want to put in to it.

OK, so you finished your site, now what? How do you let people know that your site is ready to amaze others? There are several ways to let people know about your site. If you have a budget set aside you could set up a PPC campaign that may bring in some traffic. You could join groups or forums that share your interest or even better, that are totally opposite to your site’s message or theme. Perhaps one of the best ways is to write articles that others can use on their sites that are seeded with a few well placed links pointing back to your site.

One of the next big trends that is about to take off is, the “Bartered Link”. Bartered links are where you offer space on your site to host an article written by other webmasters, which contain text links to their sites in exchange for a one way link back to your site. Are bartered links considered to be natural links? If they aren’t then they sure do a fine job of mimicking them.

Regardless of the motivation behind someone linking to your site, even if it is because they think your site is bad or your opinion is wrong, just remember this… the fact that they did is all that truly matters as the link is the thing.

Les Romhanyi is an SEO specialist with many years experience placing websites at the top of all major search engines. Big Juice Media is a Sports Betting Marketing company based in Canada. Sports Betting Marketing

How would you like to make $4 for EVERY visitor who hits your site? How about $8? Would you be interested?

This kind of money sounds insane doesn’t it, especially when you consider that most websites are lucky if they can make a $1 out of a visitor. And the chances are that you would label me a liar and a scam artist for even making such an outrageous claim.

Well those figures come from my own marketing. You can see the proof by visiting http://www.megastep.com/art-postcards.htm

“How did I do it?” you ask.

The answer is very simple. I used good old fashioned direct mail, and more specifically I sent out postcards to lists of buyers, people who have previously bought a product similar to what I was offering. Direct mail golden rule #1… Never, ever rent names of enquirers. That’s suicide, because they are unqualified and generally tyre-kickers.

So as the cost of pay per click marketing goes up, and joint ventures become harder and harder to get, and the free traffic generating methods start dying, and all those gateway page generation software tools keep getting your site banned from the search engines. With banner impressions sending you trickle traffic, and more and more emails never arrive because of the spam filters, it’s time to look at direct mail.

And yes of course it’s going to cost you money to send a mail shot. But if you’ve tweaked and tested your website to convert the maximum amount of visitors, if you have setup up your automated backend sales process. Believe me, direct mail is one of the best ways of driving laser targeted visitors to your site, people who already have a proven track record of BUYING products similar to what you offer. Yes I’ve repeated myself, but I want you to “get” that little piece of advice.

So as your email open rates dwindle to dust, and you find it harder and harder to generate quality website traffic. Remember the lowly postcard, because it’s what the big guys are using to make obscene amounts of cash from their websites.

Copyright 2004 Rob Taylor

About The Author

Rob Taylor has been marketing online since 1996. He’s sold anything from books, debit cards, security products to art prints. Take advantage of his battle tested marketing strategies that could quietly make you five figure cash profits every single month. Subscribe free to his Internet Marketing Strategies newsletter.

If you could get high quality traffic that would grow on a daily basis free of charge starting tomorrow would you do it?

If you answered yes…

I’m going to show you exactly how to do that right here free of charge.

Let me be completely honest with you, after reading this, I guarantee you will never again have to pay any money to get high quality traffic to your website. And no, what I am about to tell you has nothing to do with emailing safe lists, wasting your time with traffic exchange programs, or any other cheap tricks.

What I am about to explain to you in the most simple straightforward manner possible is by far the most powerful way to get the best long term high quality traffic on earth. I want you to be able to fully understand the elegance of the system that I am about to describe to you so let me first give you a little background.

When I first started to market affiliate programs online I went the pay per click route. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but magically it seemed to work. Now… I can’t say that I made much money through pay per click advertising, but I did get some traffic that actually bought through my affiliate links! The problem with this method was it ended up costing me just as much as I made.

Next I tried to generate traffic the free route by taking part in traffic exchanges and mailing to safe lists. I’m not going to even go into detail about these methods because it didn’t take me long to figure out that these methods just don’t work.

Next, I started advertising in eZines. This traffic method actually does work and can work very well, but on the flip side it can also cost quite a bit of money and does put that money at quite a bit of risk. What I mean by is there were times when I was mailing to eZines that cost quite a bit of money and I didn’t even make a single sale and then there were other times when I was advertising in eZines that I spent very little on and I made some pretty good coin. It’s extremely hit or miss most of the time with eZines plus the traffic you generate is only transient. If your traffic doesn’t buy on that first pass your out of luck. That’s why I say eZine advertising is a high risk web site traffic generation method.

Next, I decided I would try to start my own eZine. It sounded like a great idea, but it really is quite a bit of work can cost quite a bit of money in the early phase. Having your own list is a powerful sales tool and I do think that it is something that everyone who is serious about their internet marketing efforts should have, but I truly don’t think it is the best way to generate long term hands free traffic.

Why?

Because you have to email your list every time you want them to visit a site. It’s not hands free.

So, let me get to the point…

What’s the best way to generate long term high quality traffic for free?

Hint: I’m doing it write now.

That’s right - Writing Articles!

Writing good quality articles about subjects that people want to read about is by far the best high quality traffic generation tool available anywhere. The great thing is this is something that will NEVER change.

Why?

• People want high quality free information. After all, that’s primarily why people search the internet anyways.

• Websites need good quality content to for there sites and eZines.

By filling in that gap you’re fulfilling a need that is mutually beneficial to all parties involved. The reader gets great information to read. The website or eZine owner gets quality content. You get to stamp yourself as an authority in the field and you get to add a link in the resource box at the end of your article (free high quality traffic).

Gaining website traffic through writing article works through the principle of reciprocity. You first give something of value and then you get something of value in return. You give your quality content to other webmasters and then they give you traffic.

What makes this tool so powerful is its viral nature. Not only do you get free traffic through your resource box at the end of your article, but you also get to establish high quality one way links back to your website. The search engines LOVE this!

Let me say that a different way, when you post your articles to the larger directories you will get a free high PR one way (non-reciprocal) link back to your site. Further, you have an almost infinite number of chances for other webmasters looking for quality content to post your articles to there web site.

I didn’t know how powerful this method truly was until about 3 weeks after I began posting my articles to the larger directories. I started to see my website traffic grow and I couldn’t really place why. At that point, I had only placed my articles in three of the top directories, but when I did a Google search for some of the titles of my articles I found them on dozens of website.

“Wow” I thought.

I got dozens of free in pointing links within a period of only a few weeks and I really didn’t have to do anything to get them. It was only when I saw this with my own eyes that I finally realized how powerful article writing could be as a traffic generation tool.

Give it a try. It’s the best hands free traffic secret that I have ever learned. Write a few articles and then post them to a few directories. You’ll be surprised with your results. Best of all it’s all free!

One last tip!

After writing your articles you need a few great places to post them to, so here are my favorites; IdeaMarketers.com, GoArticles.com , and EzineArticles.com.

That should get you off to a pretty good start. Happy Writing!

==========================================

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Many people will tell you that traffic exchanges are not effective. For some this may be true depending on the service or product you offer. I, however, have had several customers that found my services through my advertising on traffic exchanges. So I am gonna tell you the 3 ways to make this an effective advertising option for you.

First: You need to be sure your home page is effective at explaining what service or product you are offering. Traffic exchanges have a timer so the person viewing your site has the option to leave within a matter of seconds. So your main goal is to give them a reason to stay!!

Second: Only choose traffic exchanges that offer manual surfing. Most people do not even watch the window when an autosurf is running. If it is a manual surf exchange they have to physically watch the pages in order to go to the next site. This gives you the best opportunity for them to actually see your site and be drawn in by your content.

Third: Be prepared to work. In order to earn credits for people to view your site, you have to view other people’s sites. That is why it is called a “Traffic Exchange”. The more you view other sites, the more your site is viewed.

With these 3 steps you can use traffic exchanges as an effective advertising strategy. It takes planning and work to get results, but doesn’t every advertising plan? I urge everyone new to advertising to do alot of research to find the plan that is best for you and your business.

Stacy Hensley designs websites, makes graphics, and also runs a Banner Exchange.
http://www.jakscreations.net

Have you noticed the many internet marketing books using the word “secret” in their title, headline or copy?

Why do they do this?

Is their actually one or two online marketing methods or strategies that are going to bring to your site an ever growing consistent stream of willing to buy targeted clients?

The simple answer is NO.

Unfortunately many website owners think this is not the case and continue to accumulate book after book and software package after software package looking for “the ultimate web traffic method”.

The fact is that there is no one single marketing method that will make your online business successful, period. Only continual application of the right methods will see your business grow and expand.

The main reasons why most people think there is one main method is because of the following four elements:

- If you wanted to be a “plumber”, you would do your apprenticeship and then work for someone or then start your own business. If you wanted to own a “milk bar” you get a business loan, buy the “milk bar” and start running the business. Why do we know this and why are there no so called “secrets” regarding being a plumber or running a milk bar? Because these businesses have been around for a long time, to start them is “common knowledge”.

- Therefore because the internet is new and evolving, how to start an internet business has yet to become “common knowledge” and there is still many unknown aspects regarding the subject unlike traditional business. Unfortunately, many now capitalize on this “unknown aspect” by selling so called “secret information” type products thus only increasing the myth regarding internet business.

- Even if starting an internet business was “common knowledge”, there is simply too much information to decipher. Unlike going to the local library, finding the business section and picking one or two of the five books on “starting your own business”; you are now on the internet. You have a world library, the business section is as big as a football stadium and books on “starting your own business online” are in the thousands (including many misleading ones).

- This final point is the most important one. People want to believe there is an easy way to get a lot of web traffic and make a fortune without any work; they just have to find it! This is just human nature.

So now you know that you must use more than one internet marketing method to make your online business successful.

Stick with the main tried and true methods -

SEO
Content
Linking
Articles
Sales Copy
List Building
Joint Ventures

and your traffic will continue to increase rapidly.

Chris Taylor - helping web based business achieve unique distinction & maximum growth by building “life-time, client based relationships”. Visit one of my online resources and I will show you how to increase your business profits and clients quickly and easily starting today - www.thewebtrafficco.com/adb/
Copyright 2005 © CATDynamics

I finally got my web site to the top of MSN for a very competitive keyword - “free paid surveys”.

I knew that if you want your website to rank high with the major search engines you must get other web sites link to yours.

I was also aware that there are several free ways to get links to your web site:

1. You can write and distribute articles.
2. You can write testimonials.
3. You can do reciprocal linking.

I had been using all of the above linking strategies, but my site just couldn’t make it to the top page of the search engines.

Things improved dramatically after I started posting informative blog comments related to the subject of my web sites.

Let me explain how to do that…

Simply, go to Google, or any other search engine, and type - “yourkeyword blog”. Visit any of the blog sites found by Google and look for “Comments” or “Feedback” links.

Click on the comment links and you will see other people posting their comments to the blogs.

Here’s how you too can benefit from it…

You can include your website’s link in the blog comments! Don’t forget to include your targeted keyword in the title of the comment.

Visit as many blogs related to your web site as possible and keep posting comments. Try to post informative comments, otherwise the blog owner may delete them.

Note that search engines love the content from blogs. If you keep posting comments to blogs, you will soon notice how quickly your website’s search engine ranking increases.

One of the best ways to check how many blogs with your site’s links have already been indexed by search engines is by going to MSN and typing - “link:yourdomain.com”

So, improve search engine rankings of your web site today by posting informative comments to blogs related to the subject of your site.

Learn all about one-way links to your website with free report “Easy Website Links By Writing Blog Comments” by Gerardas Norkus:
http://www.webmastertools4u.com/blog-links
Publishers can reproduce this article and change the URL to point to their own rebranded version.

Do you know how many people are actually linking to your website? Like a lot of people, you probably have gone to Google, typed in link:yourdomain.com and had a peek at how many links there were. Even a lot of software will use the same method - looking for exactly that hyperlink within webpages. The problem is that this is very innacurate and gives you only a small glimpse into a much bigger picture.

How can that be?

Hyperlinking is far more advanced these days. It is common for many sites to have their links coded for statistical purposes or simply because the software they run on their server creates coded links so that sites can be easily edited or removed from the database. They may look something like this:

“www.somedomain.com/links.asp?url=http://yourwebsite.com”
or “www.somedomain.com/links.php?link=345″

There may be other reasons and variations of urls too, however the point is that because these links are coded, a simple backlink check just won’t work. So while it may appear that only 100 sites are linking to you, it could actually be 1000’s.

Case in Point: One of my websites shows only 74 exact backlinks through a basic check, when in fact there are about 11,800 links. While it is almost impossible to know just how many of those links are active (clickable), cross-referencing my own statistics supported these results.

Try it yourself. Type in something like:

“yourdomain.com”

But what about internal links from within your site showing up as backlinks? Wouldn’t that skew the actual backlink count?

You’re right, but you can easily exclude your own domain from the results by simply typing in:

“yourdomain.com” -site:yourdomain.com

Do the non-hyperlinked references really count?

I believe they do qualify as valuable backlinks (though I do prefer to call them references instead). Look at it this way, business cards contain your website url but aren’t clickable. So what makes non-hyperlinks on the web any less valuable? If people want to visit, they can copy and paste the link or type it in themselves. In fact, there is less chance of typos because of this.

The Traffic Time Forgot…

Another useful function of this method is the ability to locate dead spaces where people are linking to pages you no longer have on your website and perhaps have forgotten about. While 404 redirects and messages are fine for catching the traffic, why would you waste the space? These are prime areas to bring life to and can easily be filled with monetized content.

About 6 months ago I did a complete redesign of one of my websites. This meant removing a lot of pages that I was no longer using as I was condensing everything. A few weeks ago, I was doing a backlink check and noticed a large number of links and references (100’s actually) pointing to a page which I had long forgotten about. What was suprising is that the majority of these backlinks were coded, so that they did not show up in a basic link check. Instead of letting the 404 catcher manage it, I decided to recreate it with still relevant content and much to my surprise, it still had a pagerank of 5 immediately after being uploaded.

Imagine That!

Carole Nickerson has been a web developer and internet marketer since 1998. Visit http://www.thenetter.com for more free articles, tips and software.