Get indexed, get ranked, get traffic

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

It’s undeniable that the one thing you need to succeed in your online business is traffic. And free traffic beats everything else. So where do we get free traffic? Google and other search engines.

How does free search engine traffic work?

You’ve experienced this process a lot of times. You go to Google. Type in something you’re looking for. And click one of the links that shows up. Well, the link you clicked on just send free traffic to that website owner. We will be discussing here how to get website traffic to you for free.

If you’re like most people you only click links on the first page or two. In fact, the first page of results receives almost all the free traffic. And what’s more, the first 3 get over 70% of the clicks.

So to get any significant amount of free traffic from Google, you really need to be on the first page. And this means Google needs to “rank” you as a top 10 result. Which brings up..

What is search engine optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is a measure of how well Google and other search engines think your website matches the search terms people are typing into their search boxes. The formula Google uses to determine this is known only by Google. But there are several things that we know for sure.

Getting indexed

First, before you can get ranked highly, Google has to know you exist. This is known as being “indexed.” This is when Google looks at your site and take notes about it, which are stored in their database.

In order to get indexed, Google has to be able to find you. Links from other sites are the easiest way to accomplish this. Since some of these site will already be indexed, Google will follow the links on their pages and find you.

A couple of great places to do this are in your Twitter or Facebook profiles. These sites are very popular so Google indexes them multiple times a day. So your new link will get indexed very quickly.

Gaining ranking

After this first hurdle, you need to start gaining ranking. Due to the massive size of the Google database – literally billions of pages – just getting indexed doesn’t do much for you.

There are three components of gaining ranking:

  • Content
  • Links
  • Activity

Great content

This is the SEO you do on your site itself. And it means that the content on your page matches the keywords you’re targeting. The topic of this article is clearly SEO. One way Google figures this out is from the fact that it contains the term SEO. But also because other related words like traffic generation show up in it, as well.

In addition to the content on the page, other things to keep in mind are the title tags on the page, and the domain name itself. Google uses all of this content to figure out what your site is really about.

Link juice

The next thing to consider is your links. The links to your site, as well as the sites you link to are important. With inbound links, you want to have more coming in than going out. So the number of inbound links is important.

Article spinning is a super easy way to get a bunch of inbound links. To accomplish this you start by writing an article that targets the keywords you’re after. Then you have to create multiple versions of this articles. And post unique versions to lots of websites that accept articles. And the more you do the better.

Increasing your activity

The last thing we know for sure is that Google likes to see active sites. Static pages that just sit may rank at first, but will fall off over time. So you need to update your pages often. You can do this with RSS feeds and news posts.

But the best way is with active discussions on your page itself. To get comments from others, you need to get others to visit your site. One simple method for doing this is to use forums.

Set up forum profiles with the ones related to your website. Then become active in the forum. And link back to yourself in your signature file. This generates even more links back to your site. And it also gets people to your web page.

Conclusion

Each step listed above is critical. But let’s face it, writing multiple versions of the same article. Setting up tons of profiles on forums. And visiting all the sites to post up your comments and articles takes a really long time. And you’re already too busy, so you mostly likely will never do any of it.

The good news is that there are automated software programs out there that will do this for you. So the best thing you can do is to automate this process. And then you’re sure to get it done. And if you don’t do it, you simply will not ever get free traffic from Google.

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Affiliate Marketing Revised

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

You’re dead wrong if you think you know anything about being an affiliate. The tactics of the past few years just don’t work anymore. If you play by the old rules, you will lose this game.

You’ve been duped

Unfortunately, you’ve been led to believe affiliate marketing is easy. Well, that’s true . . . to a point It is the easiest business you can possibly start. But starting your own business is really hard, so it’s all relative.

Here’s the ugly truth

And to make matters worse, you’ve taught to do it the hard way. You’ve been told to find quality products. Next to look for easy keywords to target. Then buy some keyword ads that send traffic to the product. And sit back and collect the profits. But this just won’t work!

Forget keywords

There was a time when this worked. But it’s just too competitive to use keywords now. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

A better way

There’s still hope. Follow this method and win again…

  • Do CPA marketing instead of product promotion
  • Instead of researching keywords, research demographics
  • Use image ads

Do CPA marketing instead of product promotion

CPA means Cost Per Action. It’s much better than promoting a product. Because it doesn’t involve payment. You earn a commission for having them perform an “action”. Such as filling in a form. Which is much easier than getting them to buy something.

Instead of researching keywords, research demographics

Keywords are no longer relevant (you’ll see in a minute). Invest your research time into demographics. First, select the CPA offer you want to promote. Next, you go to Quantcast.com. And research what kinds of people will be interested.

Do image ad marketing

Now you have your offer and your demographics. You can advertise directly to them on display networks. Using image ads. No keywords required. And you’ll save a fortune. Display networks charge a fraction for image ad clicks vs. keyword ads.

Summary

This is powerful method to make money online. Because it’s free to get started in CPA. Image ads are cheap. Display networks let you do demographics targeting. And you get paid for having them take a simple action.

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7 reasons why you MUST have your own info product

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

Answer this question: What’s the most common reason people get online each and every day? The answer is simple – they’re looking for information. Google alone serves up 400 million searches per day! So what does this mean to you? Well, this is an opportunity for your to provide what people want – information. And if you do it right . . . to make some money along the way.

Info marketing 101

First, understand that this is the simplest kind of business there is. You create a product that provides information. And then sell it to people who want to learn the info in it. Sounds simple enough, right?

How does it work?

We’ve established that it’s a simple concept. But to make it a successful business people need to want the information you’re providing. So you’ll need to find out what info is valuable. How can you find out what people want?

One easy way to figure it out is with a simple search. Head over to ask.com or Yahoo! answers and you’ll get a good idea of the kinds of things people need help with. You want to find something a lot of people are asking about. That people are having trouble solving. Then just give them the answer in your ebook.

An encouraging word

If you’re worried about how to write and ebook. Think about this: An ebook is just a series of articles. So instead of sitting down to write the whole thing. Just try to write one or two articles a day. And when you’ve got a few finished, refine and expand on them and voila! You’ve got an ebook.

So, what’s so great about ebooks? Well, that bring me to the tile of this article How about 7 reasons why:

1. Ease

An info product business runs on auto-pilot. And your customers need very little support. So it’s nearly a 100% hands-free business. You’re building a completely automated business.

You don’t have any inventory. You don’t have to ship anything. It’s digital.

2. Repackaging

When you have a created a few information products. You can just combine them into a more expensive product. It’s very easy to package multiple ebooks together as one new one. And your new product will be able to carry a much higher sticker price. Your customers will gladly pay more for a single bigger ebook. Instead of several small ebooks.

3. Resellers

You can grant other people resell rights to your own products. Recently, resell rights have become extremely popular, because it’s much easier to get the resell right than to make your own product. And the best part is you’re selling the same product . . . but for 3 times the price for the rights!

4. Leverage

Leverage your ebook by using the content in different ways. Break it apart and create a multi-part email series with it. And build your list with it. A list is it’s own reward!

5. More leverage

You can also take parts of your ebook and turn it into smaller eBooks. These reports can then become lead generators for your ebook. They can be free or low prices. Either way, you win because you’re feeding your funnel. And if you’re really clever, you’ll let your affiliate use these reports as marketing tools. Wait, did I say “affiliates”?

6. An army of affiliates

This is a real power strategy. When you own your own products. You can get other people to promote it for you. Imagine having 100′s or 1000′s of other people promoting your products. You’ve got to have your own products to have affiliates.

7. Joint Ventures

I’ve saved the best for last. Setting up joint ventures is the fastest way to gain success. Period. So, I’d say this is the most important reason to have you own products. Without your own products, you can’t do JVs.

Summing it up

If you can’t see the power of info product marketing, then you’ve probably been sleeping. With your own info product you can write your own ticket. Because you’re the boss! So, decide to just start:

  • Go to answers.yahoo.com
  • See what people are asking about
  • Start writing

Information product development really is that simple. And in no time you’ll have an info product ready to go.

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Using Web Audio for Success

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

It would be hard to argue against the fact that adding audio to a website increases your overall results. If you don’t have audio in your arsenal, you’re missing out. Audio increases opt-ins. And your sales.

Why does it work?

It’s simple. Most of the web is cold and impersonal. It makes your site more “human”. It also makes your site feel more real. In short, it makes your site come alive. And this aliveness creates more interaction with your visitors.

Here are the benefits

Adding audio increases your profits in two ways. You will close more sales. And you’ll spend less getting those customers. Instead of having to pay a professional to write you a great sales letter. Just record some audio and add it to your site. Your visitors will respond better to a heart-felt message from you than some fancy copywriting.

You’ll also get better conversions on your list opt-ins. People need to be told exactly what to do. So you make an audio recording that says: Put your email and name into the form and submit. A simple message like this will increase your opt-in conversions by 305% or more!

Some ways to use audio

A welcome message on your homepage. Most people abandon a website within just a few seconds. Your welcome message could make them stay when they would normally leave.

A guided tour. Just like in the opt-in example. You can use audio to tell your visitors exactly what to do. And take them all the way through buying your product.

Product testimonials are great. A written testimonial is good. But what’s even better are audio testimonials. It’s pretty easy to fake a written testimonial. Audio adds a level of higher believability. Which boosts your sales for sure.

Power tip

Did you ever think of making a product just by recording some audio? This is by far the easiest content to produce. Plus people love audio products. Think about how popular podcast are. And you can get someone to transcribe them for very little money. This is the easiest way to “write” an eBook!

Is it hard to add audio?

It’s so simple you won’t believe it. There’s software that will show you how to add audio to a website. You don’t actually have to do anything yourself. The program records and then converts the recording and generates an audio button. Simply copy the code and paste it in your site. So don’t let this stop you.

Summing it up

Just a reminder of why you want to start using audio. Setting up some web audio will do wonders for all your results. No doubt your sales will go up. And your opt-in rate will increase. And don’t forget that you can easily create sales pages and products in a flash. No many people are doing this. But audio is a really big time and money saver. Get started right now and realize instant results.

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Sneaky Affiliate Tricks

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

Affiliate marketing can be very difficult to break into. This is because there are already a lot of people doing it. What you need to do is come up with methods no one else is using. It’s also hard to figure out what to do because there’s a lot of information out there. Here’s one trick that almost no one else is using.

Marketing with video

No one would deny the power and popularity of video. People love watching videos and that’s why they’re everywhere. About the only thing that keeps people’s attention anymore is video. So why wouldn’t you use it in your affiliate business?

Examples of how to use video for affiliate marketing:

  • Do a testimonial video
  • Walk-throughs
  • Do an ordering video
  • Do a preview video

Do a testimonial video

This is probably the easiest of all. Just click record on your web cam and start talking. It doesn’t have to be professional or polished. Just seeing another real person endorsing a product helps your viewers decide to buy. In truth, mistakes and mess-ups just make it more believable. You really can just click record and start talking. Use one of the other ideas if you’re feeling shy.

Walk-throughs

This technique works slightly more subconsciously. Basically you’re doing a tutorial on how to use the product. And while they watch you use it, they think, “I should buy that.” If the product is useful, watching the tutorial makes them want to buy it. So pick some really helpful aspect of the product and show how to use that.

Do an ordering video

This technique is super powerful. Do a screen capture of the ordering process. Watching you make a live purchase will inspire your viewer like nothing else. First, it’s social proof. People will feel more comfortable buying after seeing you do it. Second, it builds trust. People believe you’re giving them good advice if you take that advice yourself. And don’t forget about the need to “keep up with the Joneses”. It’s simple – you have it. Now they want it. You can add some extra punch to this by ending with: If you want to see the inside, you’ll have to order it yourself.

Do a preview video

This one is perfect for building up the value of what you’re promoting. You do a tour of the members area. And show them everything they get by ordering. It also reduces the reservations of skeptics. Once they’ve seen the back-end, they know it’s real.

It’s easy!

There’s no technical knowledge required. There are simple software programs that make it easy to create videos. Really, the software does all the work. So please don’t let technical worries slow you down. Just focus on the benefits:

  • Increase sales You’ll earn more affiliate commissions when you add video. People love video, so please use them.
  • Lower refund rates Less of your commissions will be clawed back, too. Now they know what they get before they purchase. So less of them will ask for refunds.
  • Outdo your competitors! This is such a simple technique. But only a very small percentage do it. So, you’ll be way ahead of the crowd.

Get started right now and take your affiliate marketing to the next level. The bottom line is that if you’re not using video, you’re losing money.

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Email List Building Strategies

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

Honestly, everyone making money online has an email list. It’s the one thing above all else that matters most. Once you have a list built, you can market to it again and again. Just push a button and print money – literally.

How’s how to build a list:

Here are the three components of list building:

  • The Squeeze Page
  • The Incentive
  • The Opt-in Success Page

Your Landing Page – Your opt-in page is the page you send visitors to to build your list. It’s the page where you ask them for their email address. This page needs to look professional. And it needs to be simple to see how to opt in. You’ve also got to make a strong “close”.

If you fail to make a strong close, you’re wasting your efforts. Your call to action tells the visitor what to do. You opt-in rates will take a dramatic nose dive without it. Oddly, if you don’t make it clear, people will be confused and end up doing nothing.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to make it a video squeeze page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. Plus it give you a chance to tell them to opt in multiple times. Then at the end of the video you can print “sign up now” on the video.

It’s OK, if you’ve never made a video before. It’s very easy to hire people for a couple hundred bucks to make one for you. Or you can get email list tools that have everything pre-built for you.

The Bribe – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People won’t give you their email for nothing. Nobody likes spam, so most people guard their email closely. So you have to give them a good reason to do it.

The only way to make this work is to provide real value. That means you make it something people would actually want to receive. And can benefit from. It could be:

  • A report
  • Some useful software
  • A video
  • An email series

Basically, you just need some content. Something that’s useful and helpful to your visitors. And nothing sells like “free”. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

If you’re worried about creating this content, don’t be. You can just pay someone else to make it for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. A 5-part email series is a good freebie. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

You can also get email list building tools that include the premium. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And it’s nice if it earns you some money, too. ;-) The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. Affiliate products are easy because you don’t have to do anything at all. And it enables you to generate cash right away from your new list.

Your Confirmation Page – Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s a great idea to give them some valuable information right on the thank you page. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. And it helps you establish the relationship. Then they’re more receptive when you email them.

This is another case where you can get a complete marketing package. Or you can go the DIY route. And write it all yourself. Or have someone ghost write for you.

In closing

Whether you decide to build your email funnel yourself. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. The important thing is that you build your own list starting now. Once you’ve got it built. You can basically write your own meal ticket.

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Affiliate Business Tips

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

If you’re not preselling, you’re losing money

The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.

First, what is preselling? Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. And it’s function is to prepare your reader to buy something. Then sending them to the product sales page to make the purchase. And when it’s done correctly, they don’t know it’s happening.

In a nutshell, you provide value. And give them a link to the product you’re preselling. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. Before we get into that, you should understand what’s in it for you. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

  • Preselling creates trust – And gaining the trust of your readers helps them want to click your links. And the more clicks you get the more sales you’ll make.
  • It disarms your reader – Nobody likes to be sold something. By not doing that to them, your reader is less defensive. This means they are more open to what you’re saying. So your message gets across.
  • It puts them in a buying mood – Your readers are now receiving your message. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. Like the info on product sales page you’ve linked to. And being open to the information there means they are much more likely to buy.
  • Your commissions go up – They arrive at the product website prepped to buy. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only thing that can result is increased sales!
  • Your customers are happier – Your referral now feels like they decided to buy. Versus being pitched or convinced. So they are happier with their purchase.
  • Your profits go up – A satisfied customer doesn’t ask for a refund. And that translates to more commission staying in your affiliate business.

The need to presell is clear. You increase your profits. And increase your customer satisfaction. It’s a win-win-win!

Now, here’s how preselling works:

OK, now you understand why it’s so important. So, hopefully you’ve decided to start preselling. You’re ready to learn how to do it properly. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.

Part 1 – The art of it

The first step is in getting your readers to trust you and open up. This can only be accomplished by providing actual value in the information you’re presenting. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. The idea is that they want more and the sales page you send them to gives them more. And because you’ve gained trust, they’re more receptive to the sales message and more likely to buy.

Scientific preselling

You also have to include some very specific things.

First of all, it’s important HOW you present your information. You’ve got to map out your strategy before you start writing. Your end goal is to make a sale of the product you’re preselling. You use the information to do this in one of two ways. One way is to give them enough info to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy it. The other method is to explain all the details and expose how difficult it is to do what you’re explaining. Whichever method, you send them to a product website that solves the problem you just created.

You also have to link to the product you’re promoting discretely. Instead, you use a direct link to the product website. This increases your clicks. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? This is all part of the science of preselling. You use the “covert cookie” strategy.

You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. It’s habitual to click on words and phrases that are hyperlinked. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.

Putting all of this together creates a powerful affiliate marketing formula for success.

OK, here’s the not-so-good news:

This process is not easy – at all! Let’s talk about everything required to put this plan into action: Awesome content. The entire process depends on your being able to provide useful information to your readers. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Writing to presell. Yes, you must providing useful content. And you have to make the content accessible in order to provide value. And somehow also make them want to learn more. The other approach is to reveal a self-evident problem through the information.

Product selection. Next, you’ve got to pick the right product to presell. Even if you get the article written. You’ve wasted all your effort if the product doesn’t sell well.

The technical know-how And finally, you need the technical know-how to embed your image tag and make sure you get credit for the sale. This is pretty easy – you just make a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image with no border and make the “source” of the image your affiliate link. (Just don’t mess it up. Otherwise, you won’t get credit for your sales.)

Wrapping it up:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! The important thing is to use these techniques for everything you promote as an affiliate. Take action now. Put in the effort to reap the greater rewards.

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Traffic Generation Tips

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

Everyone knows the number one thing you need to be successful online is traffic to your website. Of course you also need to have a valuable offer for your visitors – a reason for them to transact with you. After getting the traffic you just need to convert it into subscribers and customers . . . but that’s the easy part. So, the critical step is to generate a steady flow of visitors.

Here are some tips for generating website visitors:

These are the best and fastest ways to get free visitors coming to your site:

  • Web 2.0 Sites
  • Article Marketing
  • Video

And here’s how to use each method…

Web 2.0 Methods

Web 2.0 is the name given to websites that get their content from their users. What this means for you is that you can join into the community and add your own content. The other interesting thing about these sites is that all the search engines (including Google) treat them as “authority sites”. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. So, if you place links to your own site inside your content, you get a search engine ranking benefit from those links. This is the hidden benefit of using Web 2.0 sites. Getting free web 2.0 traffic is a big topic that we’ll discuss more later. This is good overview of the reason to get into it, though.

Article Marketing

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. Article sites are in essence web 2.0 websites. Just like web 2.0 sites, article websites allow you to upload your own content – as articles. And because they are also considered authority sites by the search engines you get all the benefits of other web 2.0 sites just by putting your articles on them. But you also get the extra benefit of other users taking your article and putting it on their site. And along with your article, they have to include your author information and a link back to you – so you get more free traffic and SEO benefits. If you want to generate traffic from articles follow these steps:

  • Figure out what keywords you want to go after
  • Write specifically to target these keywords
  • Use anchor text links in the article and the “resource box”

Video Sites

And finally, we need to talk about getting traffic from videos. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. And it carries all the same benefits of article marketing. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with video than you do with text-based content.

Here are just a few video marketing tips:

  • Sign up for YouTube
  • Turn off all the modules in your account profile
  • Add tags to your profile
  • Add a link to your website
  • Upload at least 1 video
  • In the title, the description and the tags for each video, include your main keywords

Putting it all together.

If you want to get traffic to your site, then follow the advice in this article.

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Membership Niche Selection Tips

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

Let’s talk about niche selection. This is very important to ensuring the profitability of your membership website.

Number 1 – Discover Niches with Fanatics

If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. What’s a fanatic? It’s someone who is so excited about a certain topic that they will spend their time and money on information about it. OK, so we know what a fanatic is, but how do we find them?

  • Look at magazine racks. This is an often overlooked, yet extremely simple way to find niches that people are interested in. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to run a print magazine. So if you see one on the shelves you know they are making money, which means that there are enough people interested in what they’re saying to make it profitable. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
  • Watch and listen for fanatics in your daily life. Pay attention to conversations, social events, TV, restaurants, public places to see what people are talking about. If people are talking about something, they probably want to know more about it. Which means you can start a membership business providing information on it.
  • Again, looking in the physical world for clues you can tell there are lots of people interested in something if there are clubs and organizations around the topic. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
  • What about your interests and hobbies? Chances are that if you like a certain topic or hobby, other people do, too. And, as an added bonus, it’s much more fun to build a business around things you’re interested in.
  • One simple and easy way to find out what’s hot is Google Trends. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. The reason people are searching Google for info on these topics is because they are interested. And the fact that it’s made it into Google Trends tells you LOTS of people are interested. Hot topics that people are excited about make great niches for your membership website.

Second – Analyze the “commerciality”

After selecting a possible niche to build your membership site around, the next step is to find out if it’s a profitable niche to be in. An easy way to determine this is to figure out if anyone else is making money in this niche.

Here’s a punch list for figuring out if anyone’s making money in your niche:

  • Are there blogs or forums in this niche? Take the name of your niche and search for “niche name blog” & “niche name forum” in Google to see if there is an active group of people talking about and interested in the niche. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
  • Search Amazon, Google shopping and eBay to see if people are creating and selling products in the niche. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
  • Look at Google Adwords for the same ads are running over time. If people are running the same ad over time it means they are making money in the niche. They would not continue to spend money on the ads if there were not making a return from them.

Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?

Once you’ve found a niche and figured out that there is money to be made in, you need to determine if you can break into this niche. Here are some things to look at to figure this out:

  • Product types. What kind of products are being sold in the niche? You’re looking for a niche that sells info products. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
  • The last thing you want is a marketing filled with tons of competitors. A few means it’s a profitable niche, but too many means you won’t be able to take a piece of it.
  • Size vs. Competition. Some competition is good. It means that this is a profitable market. And as long as the size of the market is large enough to support the competition, you’re fine.
  • Market readiness. Are people ready to buy? Are the receptive to marketing messages? Depending on the market it can be anywhere from a couple minutes to a many months between when someone starts the investigation process to when they actually make a purchase.

In Summary

OK, now that you’ve figured out what niche you’re going to go into. Determined there is money to be made and that the competition is not too strong to break into it. You’re ready to start your membership business. If you’ve done your homework, your business will be a success because you already know your market is a profitable one with room for you. Learning how to run a membership website is a topic for another article…

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Traffic is King, but this comes FIRST

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Gregory Thompson

Let’s talk about some powerful ways to get free and automated traffic coming to your website.

But, first…

Before you begin trying to get traffic to your site, you need to do your keyword research first. This is because you will building your traffic funnels around specific keywords. Which means you need to put some thought into the keywords you’re targeting.

Here are the important considerations for your research:

  • Are the keywords you’re interested in attainable? This involves doing some competitive analysis to determine the ease of entry for each keyword
  • Will the keywords you’re targeting bring buyers? If you don’t do your research you’ll end up with a lot of traffic that doesn’t buy from you. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
  • What about affiliates? Generating your own customers is great – having other people do it for you is even better. This means that some of your traffic focus should be on getting affiliates to your site.

Of course, this all takes time if you plan to do it yourself. Experts are expensive and don’t guarantee results. And that’s why most people skip this step! If you’re smart you will use website traffic software to help you with this process. This will not only speed it up. It will give you better results, as well.

Once you know your keywords…

Now that you’ve completed your keyword research, you can begin using these keywords to get traffic to your website.

Here are a couple of clever ways to do this…

  • Surveys
  • “Answer” Sites
  • Video Websites

Surveys

The truth is that people really enjoy taking surveys and finding out what other people think. You can use this fact to provide “sticky” content for other website owners. They benefit by getting free content for their site and you get a link to your site under the survey. The beauty of this is that it generates website visitors for you with no work on your part. This is a sneaky little idea that most people never even think of. Just make the question interesting enough that people will want to share it with their own visitors.

“Traffic Traps”

Sites like Yahoo! Answers allow users to ask and answer each others’ questions. Once again, the main reason for this site is not the reason you’re interested. The other thing they can be used for is to get traffic to your site, leads for your business and sales! Of course, the process of digging through these sites and pulling out the content info of leads for your business is very time consuming. So, if you’re smart, you’ll use website traffic software to do it all for you. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

Video Sharing Sites

No doubt you’re aware of YouTube and other video websites. These sites generate massive traffic and people watch over 2 billion videos a day on YouTube alone . If you’re not taking advantage of this rich source of website traffic, then you are really missing out.

And don’t worry if you don’t have any idea of how to make a video. You can even take a webpage or article that you’ve written. And use free screen capture software to record yourself reading it. And like anything else, there is software available that will turn articles into videos for you automatically.

Summary

It’s not that hard to get traffic to your websites. Just be a creative and think outside the box a bit. And today there are tons of options for software tools that can help with every part of this process.

Get started right away:

  • Step 1 is researching your keywords
  • Set up some viral surveys
  • Make sure to use the “answer” sites
  • And don’t forget about video

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