Monday, 18 February 2013

Make Your Money Work Harder


Too many of us let cash languish in accounts or in products paying rotten returns. Shake off this laziness to give yourself better returns, and hunt down any forgotten funds or concealed cash. You may be amazed at what you find.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/make-money#workharder
1.

Give yourself a 25% pay rise

There's nowt more powerful than sorting out your own finances. By shifting to the best deal on every product you can give yourself as much cash as a 25% pay rise, without cutting back. Before anything else, this is the most important starting point.
How much? The average UK family could gain £2,500 to £5,000 a year doing this.
How do I do it? Use the step-by-step Money Makeover guide.
2.

Get paid every time you spend

Cashback credit cards pay you back a proportion of what you spend each time you use them.
Set up a direct debit to pay it off in full each month, so there's no interest cost, and you can earn £100s/year. Just use the card for all your normal spending.
How much? The top cards pay 5% cashback for the first three months. It's also possible to get 3% for petrol/transport and 1% for supermarkets.
How do I do it? For updated best buys, see the Top Cashback Cards guide.
3.

Don't accept pitiful savings rates

If you've got savings, ensure they're working well for you. Too many people leave their savings in pitiful high street bank accounts where the money is actually shrinking.
Even worse, you may have it in a current account earning just 0.1%. Stop! Five minutes' work will let you increase the interest massively.
How much? For every £5,000 you have in a top savings account, as a basic rate taxpayer you'd earn £120 a year more than in a poor account.
How do I do it? See the Top Savings AccountsStarting Saving and Best Bank Accounts.
4.

Always pay off debts with savings

Most people who try to save while they're in debt are simply throwing their money away. The amount you pay in interest to borrow is much more than you earn on your savings, so pay the debt off with savings and you're quids in.
How much? Someone with £5,000 on a credit card and £5,000 saved is likely to be £700 a year better off by paying off the debt with the savings.
5.

Get all benefits/state pension

There's a plethora of benefits available - the key is working out whether you're entitled to them. The rather nifty tool from benefits specialists Entitledto and Turn2Us in ourBenefits Checkup guide does the work for you. It has a regularly updated calculator that works out everything you can get in one go.
Plus it may be possible to get more in your retirement by purchasing extra National Insurance Contributions (NICs) though there are drawbacks here, so read the full State Pension Boosting guide.
How much? If you've a family income under £42,000 it's worth checking, but in rare cases families with £72,000 can qualify, as you could get any of these: working tax credit; council tax and housing benefit; pension credit; child benefit; child trust fund and child tax credit. Plus, by boosting your state pension, you could end up £1,000s better off.
Find out more: Read the full Benefits Check-upState Pension BoostingHousing Benefitand Childcare Costs guides.
6.

Use your credit rating to stooze

Many credit card companies are willing to lend you money at 0% interest, so why not use this cash for everyday spending, replacing all other credit & debit card spending?
This means you'll now have debts on your 0% card (make sure you make the min repayment each month) and a similar amount in your current account, which you can save in a high interest ISA.
Pay off the full balance before the 0% ends, having earned interest on the money saved. This is known as stoozing. It's legal and can be profitable; yet it's only for the really financially savvy.
How much? This depends on what you'd normally spend. It's this amount that will be gaining interest in a top savings account, but if you stoozed £5,000 in a top rate ISA, you'd earn around £100 over the year.
How do I do it? Use the step-by-step Stoozing: Make Free Cash guide.

Thursday, 14 February 2013

Targeted Traffic


Owning an impressive site will give you an almost endless list of possibilities to succeed in the digital world. Especially if you have targeted website traffic, you may find that you can actually do more than just market and sell your own business to ensure a steady stream of profits.
Expect affiliates to become going after you and prepare to take care of several connections as marketers are going to do their best to showcase their very own business via your pages (you need to be careful to affiliate having a direct competitor)

So why are you likely to attract the attention of the members, if the traffic to your site is targeted?
First, of course, you targeted traffic is something that can be targeted to their industry or specialization. For example, if your site offers high-speed Internet, then your traffic can certainly be beneficial for a subsidiary that sells anti-spyware. Anyone who uses the Internet is likely to breach of privacy because of programs that can be unknowingly installed on your computer.
When your site features content material relevant to a specific subject, then you become a good authority in the topic. This kind of authority transcends to just about anything that shows on your site which is likely to be clicked because of your targeted visitors. Consider a shopping mall that is visited simply by men and women due to its recognition in a specific area.
When a franchise business rents an area within the mall, the franchise business is sure to enjoy the popularity of the latter.

Hence, anybody who needs an internet connection might definitely think about the purchase of anti-spyware as well. This is where your current targeted site traffic becomes an excellent find for additional related businesses (especially for your competition – and that’s why you have to constantly make sure that your website possesses ideal search engine authority to obtain all potential targeted traffic).

A website that receives targeted traffic may also grab the opportunity to officially collect information about its visitors. You may give your visitors the option to subscribe to your site by getting their email addresses (or even post addresses and phone numbers) so you can send them notifications whenever developments in your site take place.

This is exactly similar to an affiliate renting or buying a space from any of your web pages. Of course, the franchise business would have never rented a space within the mall if not for its outstanding daily visits. As for your website, without the targeted traffic which is most likely due to a poor content, you can never be an authority and hence you will never catch any affiliate’s attention.

A website that receives targeted traffic may also grab the opportunity to officially collect information about its visitors. You may give your visitors the option to subscribe to your site by getting their email addresses (or even post addresses and phone numbers) so you can send them notifications whenever developments in your site take place.

Monday, 11 February 2013

12 Easy Ideas For Making Money Online Through Blogging


Courtesy of Google
Making money online has become increasingly easy as more opportunities and innovations arise. Before launching out on the internet I spent lots of hours and days reading and analyzing the many products, schemes and techniques that people seem to be using to make money from just a few bucks to hundreds of thousands of dollars and even millions. Honestly, I’ve been burnt a few times from trying some get rich quick stuff.
However, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are some very simple, popular and legitimate techniques for making money online with very high success rates when done properly. So, I’m going to be sharing 12 money making ideas and I’m sure there are a couple here that will fit your blog’s niche or business model.
I’ll start with some basic techniques that can be implemented into every blog:

1. Make Money Through Google Adsense

This is by far the easiest method to start earning from your blog. Google’s adsense gives you access to their huge network of advertisers through which you can display advertisements that are relevant to your blog’s audience. You earn whenever someone views and clicks your ads. More visitors to your blog will mean high earnings and clickthrough rates. Ensure that you setup adsense ads for your feeds as well, google provides this option once you sign-in to your dashboard.
Click here to sign up for Google’e Adsense
Several Alternatives – Here are some alternatives to adsense that offer the same types of services. ChitikaText Link AdsAdBrite

2. Selling Private Advertising Space

This is another method for earning from your blog where you reserve certain spaces on your site for advertisers to place their banner or text ads. This way you specify your rates which are usually paid on a monthly basis. The cost of these ads will depend on your site’s popularity.
You can have as many as 8 advertising spots on your site without it being too intrusive for your readers. Each could bring you and average of $12 per month which means about $96 per month. You can find advertisers through theBuy Sell Ads network.

3. Paid Job Board

Setting up a job board to complement your blog is fairly simple. Through this you can offer free and paid job listings for visitors who may be interested in job opportunities. To earn from this, simply offer premium listings that will get more exposure than the average posting. Charge anywhere from $10 to $100 per month for listings. The price, of course, depends on the amount of traffic your blog receives.
Here are some up and running job boards to help you get the idea: ProBlogger Jobs and BloggerJobs.Biz

4. Accept Donations Through This Awesome Widget

Depending on what your blog focuses on you can accept monetary contributions paid directly to your paypal account through the ChipIn Widget. This is a flash based web service that simplifies the process of collecting money using a neat little widget to catch your visitors’ attention as seen in the setup example below.
Now for some more advanced techniques for monetizing your blog:

5. Writing & Selling E-Books

If you are an expert in the niche you are blogging about you can write unique e-books that provide a vast amount of useful content for your readers. Your first e-book can be sold anywhere from $7 to $30 depending on the quality and uniqueness of the content. If you’re serious, your e-book can be completed within a couple of months and provides a solid long-term income. Imagine selling an e-book for $12 with 1,000 copies being sold. That’s $12,000 in sales and is a lot of money even if its earned over a 12 month period.

6. Create & Sell WordPress Themes & Plugins

If you have great web development skills or have a few friends who do, you could design and develop a few WordPress themes and plugins and sell them for a minimal price of around $30. Think about it, there are over 100,000 blogs being launched daily. These bloggers are looking for themes for their new ventures; many of them are willing to pay for premium themes to get their journey started.
In addition to promoting your work on your own blog, you can sell your themes through the Themeforest marketplace. They’ve sold over 47,000 different themes on behalf of designers and developers and their site is one of most trusted and visited on the internet.

7. Theme Reviews Using Affiliate Links

You could also write in depth reviews of new themes that may be launched by other developers and themes builders that offer commissions for their affiliates. Sign up for an affiliate account with these websites and start writing the reviews. Visitors who read the reviews may be interested and click your affiliate links to purchase the theme. These visitors will be counted as your referrals and earn you commissions. Some sites that offer these types of affiliate earnings are: Woo Themes and Elegant Themes

8. Write For Other Paying Blogs

There are lots of opportunities for bloggers who are willing to write for blogging networks or other individuals and businesses who may need your help. These sites pay from $5 per blog post up to even $100 per post depending on the popularity of the blog and quality of content you will be required to produce. You can find freelance blogging jobs at BloggerJobs.Biz or my job board at Sam’s Job Board.

9. Creating & Selling Blogs

I always say that owning a website or blog is like owning a piece of virtual real estate and in the same way that you can buy and sell homes and other properties, you can use the same techniques for selling websites. The value of websites appreciate depending on many factors like, domain age, content, actual earnings, traffic, etc. and these factors affect how much your site can be sold for. You can buy some interesting domains, build up some blogs that focus on specific niches and once it has a steady flow of traffic you simply sell. Flippa.com is an excellent marketplace for buying and selling websites.

10. Write Sponsored Reviews

SponsoredReviews.com allows you to earn cash by writing and posting honest reviews on your blog about their advertisers’ products and services. Advertisers will benefit from your reviews since it increases backlinks, popularity and search engine rankings for their product sites and that’s what they’re paying for. Depending on your readership and the quality of your blog, you can earn from $5 to $1,000 per post.

11. Become A Consultant Through Your Blog

If you are a specialist in your field, offer consultation services that are charged at an hourly or daily rate. You can also charge for speaking engagements at conferences and other types of offline forums. Ensure that you market these services effectively through your blog to ensure that visitors can readily see that you are available.

12. Private Forums, Memberships or E-Courses

Your regular blog’s content is one thing but you can go a step further by offering premium content on a paid membership basis. This especially works if you offer a specialty in your niche and already have a decent readership that enjoys your regular content. Create membership areas of your site that requires your readers to pay a small subscription fee to login. A small fee of $5 per month can easily accumulate to thousands of dollars per month if your are truly dedicated to providing superb content for your members.
There are quite a few plugins on the market that can create password protected areas of your existing blog and integrates a platform for accepting payments.
Other facts to keep in mind
To maximize your earnings through your blog, you really need to ensure that you are aiming for high quality in all aspects. Factors such as a user friendly blog design, easy to find and read information and your character as a blogger can affect the ultimate earning potential of your blog.
Also, ensure that you have:
An Advertising profile – This provides basic information of your site such as your readers’ demographics, your alexa rank, monthly visitors, banner ad prices, your google pagerank, number of feed subscribers and any other useful information for potential advertisers
A Serious Focus On Your Niche – Most advertisers only advertise within their niche. Its easier to attract advertisers when they see that you are focused
Build a Mailing List – Use AWeber or Mail Chimp to build your e-mail list or at least ensure that you have feedburner setup so that your readers can keep updated on your new content. This is the easiest method for contacting your dedicated readers when you are promoting a new affiliate product or service. You should have already built some trust with your subscribers and thus it will be easier for them to make a purchase from you.

Conclusion

Its pretty easy to start monetizing your blogging efforts; and the ideas above are guaranteed to give you a kick start in the right direction. Check out this list of the 30 Highest Earning Blogs on The Internet to get an idea of the potential of blogging and the simple techniques that are used to make a killing online.
What money making techniques have worked best for your blog? Which ideas are you excited to start trying. Please share with us in the comments, we would love to hear from you.

Saturday, 9 February 2013

Getting your Website Ranked and Found in Google


We are often asked how to get a website listed on the organic search results (SERPS) of Google and so we have pulled together this step by step guide to take you through the process. We strongly recommend you use available SEO tools if you really want to get the most from your web marketing activity.
As you read through our guide to getting your website into Google’s index you will see that it is fairly straightforward to get your website listed but it can take time and effort to consistently achieve high rankings.


STEP 1: Quality Content

Even before you submit your website to Google you will need to make sure that your website not only meets their webmaster guidelines but also offers visitors to your site relevant, high quality content.
Why is great content so important?
Your site will be competing with a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) other web pages in Google's index. If you're not offering relevant, interesting content to your visitors you really should consider going back to the drawing board.
Remember though that whilst your content might be really interesting, if the wrong visitors are coming to your site it will have little impact on your business. It must therefore also target the searches actually used by your potential customers so that the search engines index it correctly and they find your site.
So before you start writing, consider what Keyword Phrase you want to target.
Use software such as Wordtracker's Keyword Research Tool to help identify niche keywords that will set you apart from your online competition.
You can also use Google's free tools:
Keyword tools can help find the keyword phrases currently being used by searchers all over the world.
TIP! Targeting longtail keywords can quickly get your site found on Google and generating internet traffic far faster than going after (more) competitive keyword variations.
Optimising your site for search engines should ALWAYS start with keyword research and then the processes of on-page and off- page optimisation can take place.
Get more information about Keyword Research here

STEP 2 – On-Page Optimisation

Now your content is correctly targeting relevant keyword phrases you will need to ensure the rest of your website is aligned to help your site get indexed. Things to check your website for are:
•It is structured correctly with a clear internal hierarchy
•It makes relevant use of text links
•Text is being used rather than text embedded inside an image - search engines cannot read the contents of an actual image
•Your title tags are unique and descriptive for each and every page
•All pages offer unique content and are not duplicated copies of one another (if not possible to remove duplicated content then they can be regulated with the canonicalisation tag)
•ALT tags are being used to describe images correctly
•A sitemap is included on your website (this is not an XML sitemap) to link to every page online
•You include a robots.txt file to instruct Google's robots when they arrive at your site
Once you have sorted out the on- page elements of your optimisation then you need to increase the trust factor with your website by focusing on off-page factors.
All sound a bit technical or too time consuming? Get some help by outsourcing your SEO

STEP 3 – Off-Page Optimisation

A large factor in whether your website is listed and ranked by the search engines is how much they trust it compared to your competition. Off-page optimisation techniques, when correctly executed, will help you build the trust levels.
When considering off-page optimisaton the main things to ensure are:
•All links are correct with no broken links either to other pages on your site or external websites
•You have links from at least 7 to 15 established ranked websites of a similar nature or theme to yours
•You have a natural and balanced link profile with links from a variety of sources
Don’t forget that building links takes time, patience and care – don’t expect to do it all immediately. Get some good quality links at the start and then continue to build them over time.
Find out more about building links to your site.


STEP 4 – Keep it legal

One of the most important steps in the process is to double check that what you have applied meets best practice search engine optimization techniques. White hat SEO is the only way to ensure you get listed and rank well for the long term.
Google’s webmaster guidelines give you help to make sure you don’t inadvertently break the rules.
Now that all of these elements are in place you can submit your site before creating a sitemap.


STEP 5 – Create an XML Sitemap

Go to Google Webmaster Tools and set up an account . Before you go ahead and start using this tool you will need to register a Google Account if you have not already done so (it is a good idea as that way you can sign up to more of Google's Products on offer to help you and your business online).
Once your website has been verified which may take a little time you can use a third party tool to help you generate your sitemap:
This tool can generate your XML site map for you. It’s very simple easy to do.
Once your XML Sitemap is set up ready to go you can then move to the next stage.

STEP 6 – Use Webmaster Tools to check your site

Use Google's Webmaster Tools to review and check your website. The tool will identify and potential issues with your website so that you can address them.
Your XML sitemap can help Google's robots analyse your site in far greater depth. It is unlikely your website will be listed any faster for your targeted keywords but the easier you can make life easier for bots then the better (just make sure your site's internal page structure is clear and concise).
Webmaster Tools can also track links to your website together with monitoring 404's for broken pages on your website.

The load speed of web pages is becoming an increasingly important factor in web optimisation so it is also critical you work with your web developers to make sure your website content loads quickly - for more information we recommend you check out Google Page Speed.
So your site has been optimised using both on and off page techniques, you have a site map, you have used Google Webmaster tools to check your site so what next?
Well now you have to wait and leave it to Google to index your website pages.
Consider when they do, how will you know if your site is successful online once listed? That is where another free Google tool will help.


STEP 7 - Google Analytics

Every marketing campaign needs to have some way of measuring whether it has been successful and web marketing is no different. Google Analytics is a free tool that enables you to measure your sites success online by recording and providing detailed information on key indicators such as:
  • The number of visitors to your site
  • How visitors were brought to your site
  • What keywords they entered into Google to find your site
  • Their behaviour once on your site - how long they stayed, how many and which pages they looked at
  • Whether they undertook a specific action that you have decided to monitor (by setting goals) such as completing a contact form or adding a product to a shopping basket.
With all of this information at your finger tips it means you can continually develop your website and online marketing strategy to increase your sales.


STEP 8 – Ask for Help

Still unsure how to go about getting your site listed and ranked with Google? Why not contact an experienced Web Marketing Company to help.
At All Things Web we do just that - helping businesses of all sizes make their websites a success day in day out.
Having completed each of the tasks above the obvious question everyone asks is:
When can they expect to see their website in Google’s results?
We get asked this question a lot and the answer is simple, it depends very much on whether you have followed the steps above correctly.
If you have identified and targeted popular keywords with less competition and then aligned your content and on page elements accordingly, built links to your site to help the search engines trust it and made sure everything meets best practice SEO techniques then it is possible your site will get listed and start to rank reasonably quickly.
On the other hand if you're targeting one or two word keyword phrases that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of websites competing, don’t utilize the relevant SEO techniques correctly then you've got your work cut out!
To find out more about how to get your site listed and ranked with Google, check out our SEO Resources Page and Blog or sign up for our newsletter all of which are full of useful tips and hints.

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

10 Secrets To Success

What is it that makes people successful and I mean really successful compared to you or me? Are they smarter or do they work harder? Are they risk takers or have powerful and influential friends?

The financial newspaper Investors Business Daily (IBD) asked these same questions a few years ago and started a multi-year search for the answer. They studied industry leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to understand the traits they all had in common that contributed to their success. Reproduced here is their list of 10 Secrets to Success along with my commentary on each no-so-secret, ‘secret’.

I decided to reproduce the list here and comment on each of the traits in hopes of motivating you and myself in the process. It’s time for me to take my own advice and start on the path to my dreams. I hope to motivate you, by using myself as an example.

I originally came across this list when I was staring at some papers on a refrigerator owned by someone who was very successful – both personally and financially. My family and I had just spent the night as a guest in a great house in the suburbs of Boston. We were living life large as we played pool in the rec room, drank wine from the wine cellar, and enjoyed a dip in the hot tub. The problem was, neither of the couples in the house owned the property or the life we were pretending to have. You see, my friends were house sitting for the original owner and they had invited us to stay for the weekend.

It wasn’t until the morning after our little ‘party’ that I noticed something taped to the refrigerator – something that impacts me each time I read it. It was the IBD 10 Secrets to Success. Once my head cleared, I quickly copied them down and read them over and over again. After our vacation I made copies and posted them in my home office and inside a journal I decided to keep.
The problem was, after a couple of months I forgot about the secrets and they fell by the wayside. And so did my actions towards my goals. At the time the articles 7 Ways to Grow the Action Habit or How To Motivate Yourself – Self Motivation didn’t exist and I lost my motivation. Well, I re-discovered the list and want to share it with you now. I hope you take these not-so-secret, secrets to heart and realize your dreams – whatever they may be.
1. How You Think is Everything.

Always be positive. Think Success, not Failure. Beware of a negative environment.
This trait has to be one of the most important in the entire list. Your belief that you can accomplish your goals has to be unwavering. The moment you say to yourself “I can’t…”, then you won’t. I was always given the advice “never say I can’t” and I’d like to strike those words from the dictionary.

I’ve found that from time-to-time my attitude waivers. A mentor of mine once said “it’s ok to visit pity city, but you can’t stay and there comes a time when you need to leave”. Positive things happen to positive people.

2. Decide upon Your True Dreams and Goals: Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them.

Write down my dreams and goals? Develop a plan to reach them? You mean like a project plan? Yes, that’s exactly what this means. You may have heard the old adage: A New Years resolution that isn’t written down is just a dream, and dreams are not goals.
Goals are those concrete, measurable stepping stones of achievement that track your progress towards your dreams. My goal is to start a second career as a freelance writer – what are your goals?

3. Take Action. Goals are nothing without action.
Be like Nike and “Just do it”. I took action by reaching out and started writing. Every day I try to take some action towards my goals. It may be small, but it’s still an action. Have you taken action towards your goals?

4. Never Stop Learning: Go back to school or read books. Get training & acquire skills.
Becoming a life long learner would benefit us all and is something we should instill in our kids. It’s funny that once you’re out of school you realize how enjoyable learning can be. What have you learned today?

5. Be Persistent and Work Hard: Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up.
I think every story of success I read entails long hard hours of work. There is no getting around this and there is no free lunch. But, if you’re working towards something that you’re passionate about, something you love – then is it really work?

6. Learn to Analyze Details: Get all the facts, all the input. Learn from your mistakes.
I think you have to strike a balance between getting all the facts and making a decision with incomplete data – both are traits of successful people. Spend time gathering details, but don’t catch ‘analysis paralysis’.

7. Focus Your Time And Money: Don’t let other people or things distract you.
Remain laser focused on your goals and surround yourself with positive people that believe in you. Don’t be distracted by the naysayer’s or tasks that are not helping you achieve your goals.

8. Don’t Be Afraid To Innovate: Be different. Following the herd is a sure way to mediocrity.

Follow through on that break-out idea you have. Ask yourself “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?”

9. Deal And Communicate With People Effectively: No person is an island. Learn to understand and motivate others.

Successful people develop and nurture a network and they only do that by treating people openly, fairly and many times firmly. There is nothing wrong about being firm – just don’t cross the a-hole line. How do you deal with people?

10. Be Honest And Dependable: Take responsibility, otherwise numbers 1 – 9 won’t matter.

Enough said.


Monday, 4 February 2013

Why Some Of The Smartest People Fail With Their Online Business



Ruck and I have had the pleasure of working with Internet and Affiliate Marketers for over seven years now and we’ve seen a lot of stuff.  From those that first come online and turn their business into a multimillion dollar enterprise all the way to those that just can’t get the hang of things and are never able to make the transition full time. Rags to riches, success to going back to work, million dollar acquisitions; I’m really not surprised to hear anything nowadays!  One of the biggest things I’ve began to notice is some of the most successful marketers out there are the ones that don’t over analyze things and take action.
Inside our Private Community we have marketers ranging from beginner all the way to seasoned veteran.  Many times I find that some of the people just starting out are over thinking the entire process or have such an ADD problem they can’t just stick to one campaign and see it successfully through.  The successful marketers take action getting as much traffic as they can find and rather than over thinking about the exact call to action they’re using, creative image(s), etc. they produce as many as many campaigns as they can to start immediate split testing.
At times it can be frustrating to see a very “smart” individual fail at some of the most simple things.  Rather than just taking action and seeing a profitable campaign through they dibble dabble a bit with a campaign here, a bit with another one there, and end up having ten failed campaigns; over and over again.  On the other hand it’s amusing to see someone with very little Internet background, that doesn’t know HTML or how to make their own images, come in and clean up six figures a month in profit.
Simply put, they’re not over-thinking the process.  Their limited amount of knowledge actually works for them because they really have no other choice than to start testing and see what works.  I’ve been working online for over a decade now and while I can answer a lot of questions some of the best answers come from actually testing things out and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
If you spend a lot of time on anything you’re going to eventually get good at it.  For example, if you practice playing a sport for a couple hours every day, set goals, monitor your progress, and work hard at it – you’re going to be better than the average person.  A person that goes to they gym and weight lifts four times a week is eventually going to have more muscle mass than the average individual.  That’s just how things work.  Transitioning this over to Internet Marketing those that spend adequate time creating campaigns, taking action, testing, and seeing what works will eventually become successful.  Those that dabble a little here, a little there won’t because their focus is too diverted to see anything all the way through.
The next time you setup a campaign or start a new website ask yourself from the beginning, “what is my overall goal?”  Don’t use money as a motivator because it’s never enough (ie: have a goal to make $100,000).  Rather than doing that you may just set your goal to “be profitable every day for one week.”  Maybe another goal would be to split test at least 20 different creatives and 4 different landing pages.  Also don’t be quick to give up on yourself or lose confidence.  In everyday life, especially business, you’re going to fail.  However if you recognize why you failed and can build off of it you’ll likely pull through and overcome.
For those veterans out there that are consistently pulling in massive profits because you’re taking action and not over analyzing things; keep it up!  Just remember to develop your business with legs and actually retain some assets that are valuable and can be leveraged for long term growth!

Saturday, 2 February 2013

Top 5 Traffic Generation Methods Guaranteed to Cause A Stampede Of Readers to Your Blog This Year


We all hate traffic jams on the roads but not when it comes to our websites or blogs. Traffic is that one thing that any blog owner will never have enough of, or else what is the standard measure for maximum allowable traffic on any blog. Put in another way, when would you say that you’ve had enough traffic even if you get a thousand comments per post everyday?
I don’t know about you but I want more web traffic. In this post, you’ll discover the top 5 traffic generation methods sure to jam your blog with readers and commenters this year. Read on…

1. Hijack Traffic From Other Webmasters And Publishers

Write articles for only high traffic article directories, some popular article directories do not send as much traffic as some unpopular, silent ones – go check ezinearticles and see what the traffic over the past 3 months has been for average article writers (good contents, of course). While searching out article sites that can send high traffic, I tested Buzzle and got over 600 views in less than 3 days (now over 800 views for that same article); articlealley and articlebiz and a few others have also delivered great results for me – so I suggest you spend your time where you’ll get high volume of traffic, not a mere 30 views or the likes in 3 months.
If your articles are good, you may be lucky to have them picked up and published on the websites of other webmasters; so that you have an added exposure to the readers of the blogs where they are republished. I realized that my articles on Articlesbase.Com are the most picked up by other webmasters and are posted on their blogs with all my links in place.
When I first discovered that I was getting lots of trackbacks on my blog from places where the articles have been republished, I decided to make some article directories my lazy traffic generation machine. I then tweaked titles of my other articles to test how frequent they would be republished; I also added more blog post links or changed some depending on what the article directory allows. I tweaked and tested until I get desired increase in pingbacks (that is more republishing).
Write compelling titles that will sell your content, making other web publishers pick them up and happily send you click-traffic, from their readers who click your links within the article to come to your blog.

hamburger cupcakes2. Stock Your Home With Food For Content Choppers

Stock your blog full of relevant, quality contents for voracious readers. If you want to maximize your traffic generation ROI, always ensure that you’re getting the kind of traffic that will stick and return again.
Your goal should be to generate Traffic that is likely to stick (return again and again). If you are not able to make your one time visitors come back again and again, you will forever be looking for massive traffic. When was the last time Problogger or CopyBlogger was looking for new traffic? They have more than enough return traffic.
When you think traffic, think retention, think sustainable, return traffic – your goal is to bring them and keep them. Do not be in a hurry to be seen/noticed everywhere: Spend some time to put your house (blog) in order before inviting the whole blogosphere (public) to come reading. The kind of readers that are likely to come back again (and again) are looking for blogs that have more than a measly amount of contents – and I’m talking about QUALITY contents here.
Note that numbers (quantity of posts) is not equal to quality. Instead of writing 20 run-off posts, why not spend a bit of time to write 10 or 5 quality and useful posts that any reader can implement and see results. You’ll be glad you did because your results will speak – not just the usual ‘great post’ comments.
First build a foundation for your blog – up to 10 pillar posts would give any visitor a reason to come back again. It’s not about how fast you go out there and be all over the place. You can be all over too long and someone just coming to the public today will achieve success faster than you.

All of Us on the Salt Lake3. Join Relevant Forums And Play By The Rules

Many of your potential visitors are hanging in the niche-specific forums and groups, asking questions and looking for help. Find and join high activity forums that are related to your blog theme, and put yourself in front of them – answering their questions. That way you’ll gain exposure to your brand as an expert and also pick up traffic back to your blog.
High activity forums are those that have lots of participation and traffic daily. You’ll notice that from the number of replies to forum/group threads. Ensure to read the forum or group rules so you can play within the acceptable guide. Here are what you should do to get traffic from high activity forums and groups:
  • Find two high traffic and active forums in your market niche, then find (question-like) topics with sizable amount of activity (replies/posts) and then spend 30 minutes to 1 hour twice every week providing quality and complete responses. Be sure to leave a link to your blog in your forum profile and signature area as some readers who find your answers useful will be clicking to visit your blog.
  • Create new threads in the forums to share tips on what’s working for you. As more and more people read your tips and find it truly helps them, they’ll be drawn to click to visit your blog.
  • Post a video on YouTube and also post the same on a forum – this is a great way to bump up your YouTube views while getting more traffic from the Forums. Some forums do not allow videos but confirm from their Terms of Use, or check out other threads – if any has video, it’s a sign that it’s allowed.
*For this traffic strategy, be sure to check that a forum you’re interested in accepts signatures; be sure to check out the forum’s terms of use to ensure you know your boundaries. This allows you to get exposure to your link (likely traffic) every time you ask a question or make a helpful post in response to another member’s question.
Where to Find High Traffic Groups or Forums: You can find your niche related groups, to participate in, on Facebook, Google and Yahoo. Below are some high traffic forums for the general internet marketing niche:
  • Digital Point Forum (PR4, 200,000+ members)
  • Warrior Forum (PR5, 200,000+ members)
  • WAHM Forum (PR4, 60,000+ members)
Note: To get high number of targeted relevant traffic, join forums that are in your own niche. Most people make the mistake of flocking to the general ‘how to blog forums’, ‘MLM forums’ and ‘how to internet marketing forums’ – when they are not writing for that target audience. If those are not your market niche, you’ll not attract quality traffic because forums members go to specific forums and are looking for specific expert solutions.
Hey, smart bloggers have ultimate and end purpose behind their every traffic generation drive – to get traffic of blog visitors that will be interested in what they have to offer. So for example, if you’re in the golfing niche and blogging about golfing, find a golf lovers forum; if you blog about makeup, find a makeup lovers forum/ group.
Here’s how to use Google search to find a relevant Forum:
Go to Google.Com and enter in keywords using the following format: “’your keyword’+forums” or “’your keyword+discussion board”. Look through the search results to find the most relevant forum to start contributing to, in exchange for traffic.

3d puppet, holding big magnifier4. Seduce the Search Engines to Send You Traffic

This kind of traffic is hands-free but only requires one-time effort on your part in order to get streams of free, organic traffic to your blog daily.
If you want to get traffic all year round without going to look for it, you’ll have to spend a small time to ‘seduce the search engines’. Communicate in the only language they understand – keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) magnetize search engines. That’s the only way they’ll know your blog or post exists.
If you give the search engines what they want, they’ll give you what you want (tons of traffic).
Pages in the first page of search engines get over 50% of traffic from searchers. The idea here is to get up there on the top Search Engine Results Page (SERP) so that your target readers can easily find your posts when they search.

Here are a few tips to magnetize the search engines with every post you write:

a. Learn and apply basic keyword research. Use Google Keyword Tool and/ or Wonder wheel to find the most related and least competitive long (-tail) keywords. Long tail keywords are 2, 3 word phrases related to your content).
  • Think keywords as synonyms when writing contents and strive to achieve at least a 1% keyword density in order to build a related theme around your contents – that’s how search engines understand what you are writing about. Find words that you can replace with your keyword, without altering the intended meaning of the sentence. A topic theme is made up of related KWs.
  • Ensure to place your main keywords in your post title, URL (permalink), body of post, headings (mainly h1, h2, h3); bold, underline and italicise your main keyword once in the body of your post.
b. Get Plenty of Backlinks so as to make the search engines see your blog as relevant on the WWW, and bless you with Google rankings necessary to push you up the SERPS. More Backlinks result in higher search engine rankings, which in turn results to increased visibility and clicks by searchers to your blog. Use these methods for backlinks: social bookmarking, RSS feed submission to RSS aggregators, article writing (with your post / blog links inside) and guest posting for other blogs.
If your content writing need an SEO makeover, head on here to learn how to SEO right: Basic SEO for bloggers.

Touched by the blessedness5. Listen To Your Traffic Analytics Dashboard

What’s your traffic analytics dashboard telling you (aside from the number of visitors per day)? What can you deduce from the numbers?
Those numbers hold the key to your blog’s traffic reserves, seriously. Within those numbers, you can find insights and golden keywords that’ll further jam your blog with human traffic.
Analyse your Google analytics traffic dashboard and find the most popular words that searchers used to find your blog from the search engines in the past 30 days – that’s likely an indication of what’s trending in your industry/ market. Below are steps to put to use your Google analytics monthly report:
  • Keyword Report: Identify the most recurring (popular) word combination in all the listed keywords and optimize your old and new contents for that keyword group, as follows:
-Write new posts using those group of responsive keywords; add some of those keywords into old related posts (meta tags and body). Write posts to address the top 10 search key phrases, ensuring to use the searchers keywords in your analytics, when writing the post. These kinds of posts have the potential to bring lots of traffic to your blog, from other searchers looking for answers/ related posts.
-Optimize your old posts for increased search engine traffic by finding the most popular searchers key phrases for each post, and then tweaking the post’s SEO using those popular searchers’ keywords.
  • Referring Sites: Get closer to the top 10 websites and blogs that sent you large volume of traffic; work your way to building an alliance with the bloggers or webmasters.

Next Steps…
Did you see how you can easily and drastically increase your web traffic almost overnight in 5 simple, yet powerful steps? I bet you’re looking forward to start implementing them on your blog.
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