So, you have been plugging along with your Internet business, yet feel as though you are stuck in neutral, rather than in drive? You are not alone. Many people who have started Internet businesses hit road blocks along the way, possibly even at the beginning.

I am going to share some simple steps to consider so your business can get that much needed boost into the 5-figure range. Keep in mind, these can be done now, whether you are just starting out, or have been working on it for a while now.

Read on for some ideas, to either inspire you, or remind you what needs to be done to get full time results.

Working in a Professional Atmosphere

Are you currently working in a portable space, such as your dining room table between meals? If so, then you really need to take some steps to provide yourself a professional work space. Professional atmosphere leads to professional results.

First, find a spot to call your own work area and set it up with a professional work station or desk. Even if it’s a cornered off area in an open room, there are several available corner computer desks, or l-shaped desks that will fit nicely, while maintaining a sense of professionalism.

Next, make sure that typical household distractions are limited while you are working. Turn the home phone off, keep the TV off, and let the family know that you are working.

Without setting up a proper work area, distractions will creep in before you know it.

Increase Your Income with Backlinks

Backlinks are links that you place on other websites, which directly link back to your own. If done properly, it can lead significant traffic right back to you, and boost you up to a full time income.

Recently we were asked how many backlinks it takes to get to full time status. However, the answer is twofold. It’s not just the amount of backlinks, but also where you place them. For example, by placing them on quality websites, rather than farming sites, Google will take notice.

Google is not friendly to these article farm sites, and will be their demise someday. So, it’s best to stay away from the beginning.

I have broken down the types of backlinking into the following categories:

• Zero Backlinking. This is when you have not placed any articles on other websites with backlinks, directing traffic back to you. It doesn’t matter how much work you have put into your site, how great the content is, or what you have to offer, if traffic isn’t coming your way. So, if you are looking to build your business…and who isn’t, this isn’t the ideal option.
• Up to 10 Distributed Articles. Placing up to 10 quality articles on quality websites with backlinks, should generate a little extra business and traffic for your website. You will not likely experience results for a full time income, or even part time.
• 20 to 30 Distributed Articles. This amount is typically what a part time affiliate marketer will have linking back to their site. So, if you are only seeking a part time income, this would be enough. For stay at home moms, anyone looking for a side income, or to gradually grow a business while still working full time at a traditional office, this might be ideal. However, full time income in this category would be difficult to obtain.
• 100+ Distributed Articles. The best way to take your site to a full time status and income is by submitting 100 or more articles with backlinks. If these are distributed to quality sites with 2 backlinks in each of them, then you are generating a minimum of 200 *quality* backlinks to your site. What that means for your business is significant traffic flow.

Keep in mind, this won’t happen overnight. It could take up to a year to get this many articles out there, submitted and accepted to quality sites.

Using Google to Your Advantage

Finding quality sites can be a bit intimidating and overwhelming, especially to reach full time status, as well as building a relationship with the owner of these multiple sites. So, take advantage of Google, because they are there to support quality sites, including yours.

They have the ability to locate quality content, and encourage it by sharing it quicker. Many blogs and websites now accept guest content as a result. It not only will boost their business, but it can help in keeping their site updated.

After finding these sites, it’s important to study them a little bit before contacting them. Know their guidelines for posting guest content, as well as what material they accept by reading what is on their site. By knowing ahead of time what they accept, it will make it easier when you contact them the first time to ask for article submission.

When you make the initial contact with the site owner, make a suggestion of 2 or 3 topics that might enhance, or flow with their site. After you build a working relationship with 30 or more of these site owners, create and submit approximately 10 quality articles per month to various websites.

Over a few months, you have multiple backlinks from quality sites, leading right back to you.

Stay on Top of Technology

In order to best serve your business, make sure to stay in touch with current technology that is available to assist you. One thing is certain in technology, and that it is constantly evolving.

For example, if you host business meetings with staff or clients, video conferencing companies can you accomplish that without you having to leave the home office.

Other tools that are frequently used are Smart phones and iPads to help you stay in touch when you aren’t at the office. Also, look for software that can assist you with your everyday tasks.

If you want your Internet business to stay current and up to date, then it would benefit you to browse through technology sites once in a while to see what the latest tools are on the market.

I am interested in hearing what you think about all of this. Please leave any questions or comments in the comment box below.

AUTHOR’S BIO

James Martell is a full-time affiliate marketer since 1999, working with his wife of 27 years to assist others in their internet based business opportunity. They reside in a seaside suburb in Vancouver.

Repurpose your blog posts into books, especially the easily accessible Kindle books.

Join us for a Webinar on November 10, 2011

Title: How to convert and upload your book to Amazon for the Kindle
Date: Thursday, November 10, 2011
Time: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST

Space is limited, reserve your Webinar seat now

In this webinar you will learn:

*The new rules of self-publishing and how anyone can do it
*What the traditional publishers of the world don’t want you to know
*How to create a book and book cover
*How to upload it to Amazon step-by-step
*More: How to price your book, How to market it, The important places to upload it to

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Blogging ABCs hosts Tricia Meyer and Deborah Carney talk about how bloggers can use gift guides to build traffic and possibly test out affiliate marketing and see if it is right for them. Regardless of whether you choose to monetize your blog or not, gift guides throughout the year can give you a topic to write about that people search for and need help with.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

Billy Kay had an idea, for all the background go to the Country for a Cause webpage.

For those of you that are new or don’t know, Billy is an affiliate, a merchant, a musician, always speaks his mind, and when he takes on a project it generally works out In this case Billy the musician decided to do something for a woman’s shelter in Las Vegas. Here is the press release about that project. The album is for sale on both iTunes and Amazon, so you can support the cause and make some $$$s for yourself or take a bit of that extra and donate it to Shade Tree or your own favorite charity.

Please feel free to pass this press release around, let’s make this a best seller

Independent Artists Release Charity CD “Country for a Cause”

Palmetto Tree Music

The cost of living is rising, gasoline is over three dollars a gallon, unemployment is at an all time high… and country music artists are giving away the proceeds from their CD sales. Surprising? Not for a group of eleven independent country music artists who are just trying to make a difference. October 21st marked the release of their CD, “Country for a Cause”, the proceeds from which are being donated to The Shade Tree, a shelter for abused women and children in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Billy Kay, an independent country artist who added his single “Ready…Set…Gone” as the first track on the CD, is the mastermind and organizer of the project. While taking a tour of the shelter one day, he took special notice of the one outdated computer and scarcity of other resources. The kicker for him, though, was the kids. “We each consider our own childhood to be the definition of normal”, Billy says, “I didn’t want these kids to think the kid’s room with a donated TV and some donated board games was normal.” Realizing that there was only so much he could do alone, he reached out for help.

“I got a surprise email from Billy one day asking if I would like to be involved,” said C Bret Campbell of the group Stephenson Rd, who added their single “Simple Life” to the project. Citing hard times throughout his own life, Campbell was immediately attracted to the project. “That’s no way for women and children to have to live,” he says.

JTodd Burroughs received a similar e-mail. “I didn’t really even have to think about it,” he said. “He (Billy Kay) said he’d like ‘A Little More With A Little Less’ for the CD, so I told him ‘You’ve got it.” That was even before he saw the list of artists who agreed to provide singles for the CD. “It’s a tremendous group of artists on the CD – like a Who’s Who of independent country artists.” Kay said he decided to reach out to some of the artists he’d met over the last couple of years. “I fully expected to be rejected,” he related, “but each and every one opened their hearts and donated a track to the project.”

The artists chose their songs with the project in mind, as well. With respect to his song “Simple Life”, Bret Campbell stated “I hope the song adds a note of hope to the record.” Kay’s song “Ready…Set…Gone” is about the courage it takes to leave an abusive relationship. Aoede chose her ballad “I Lost, You Win” because she wanted to “contribute a song that pulls at your heart strings.”

Artists weren’t the only ones to jump on board for the project. The Nashville Universe, Team Loxly, and Butterflies Radio, signed on immediately. “Butterflies Radio set their homepage to open to a full page banner of the project as well as putting links on their main page. They’re great,” says Burroughs. “They play our songs, record and broadcast bumpers for the CD, update all of their social media sites – it would really have cost us a fortune to try to buy that kind of advertising, and they’ve done it for free!”

During a time when it seems the news is bad and times are hard, this CD represents what is good and right. Eleven artists – eleven songs – the only obvious connection being a love for country music – come together with a common purpose to try and make a difference. They write songs that tell stories about life, and they have created a CD that is “Country for a Cause”.

The Artists The Songs
Billy Kay : Ready…Set…Gone
Bobby Ray Bittle : Backyard Dancehall
JTodd Burroughs : A Little More With a Little Less
Susie Q : Fallin Star
Bosco and Peck : Lila
Aoede : I Lost You Win
Stephenson Rd : Simple Life
Tiana Star : Farther From Me
Tai Andrews : Fly With Me
Rachel Kays : Butterflies and Nursery Rhymes
Volary : Love and Tragedy

Supporting Cast
ButterfliesRadio.com
TheNashvilleUniverse.com
TeamLoxly.com
Lesruba Designs (lesrubadesigns@gmail.com)

Available on iTunes and Amazon.com.

For more information please visit
http://billykaymusic.com/country-for-a-cause/country-for-a-cause.htm

This is a transcript of part one of my story in podcast form, click here to listen

Not a “How to” But a “How Did I”….
Technology Gave My Children Better Lives
Chapter 1

Hi, everyone. I’m Deborah Carney. I am the host of several podcasts that some of you may listen to, AffiliateABCs.com, BloggingABCs.com, and more. Today, I’m going to have a special edition. We’re going to call it the first of an ABCs Plus Special Edition.

I’m sitting here on a day that is a sad day for me every year. Nine years ago today, on Mother’s Day, May 13th, 2002, my youngest son was killed in a car crash. Every year on May 13th, I usually try to do something special that commemorates his life or helps other people. Today, what I decided to do is talk about how I got started on the Internet. Normally, I don’t do single podcasts by myself, so I hope this ends up being an okay podcast.

I think it’s important for a lot of moms and dads to hear my story so that they can understand that their story, even though it’s maybe in a different time and place, we all have some very similar experiences. I want to talk a little bit about it’s a bit of a history lesson in how the Internet has changed how we deal with certain things in our lives.

It all ties in with my starting a blog, DeborahCarney.com, which has taken me a long time to get to simply because it’s hard to talk about and write about certain things when you’ve had a lot of pain in your life. Again, I want people to understand, in my case, how technology has made a huge difference in a lot of aspects of my life.

To go back to the beginning, I married young, 19 years old, had a daughter in February of ’77, and had my son, Chris, in July of 1978. He got really, really sick when he was seven weeks old and had to be hospitalized. They thought that he had something called ECHO encephalitis. It made him it very weak. It acted as a temporary paralysis. They thought that that disease paralyzed him. He started on his path of recovery. In the meantime, life went on. He got to be about nine months old and he seemed to be getting stronger, and then all of a sudden, he stopped. He could pull himself up to kneeling, but he could never stand.

We started to take him in for some testing and getting some evaluations done. Again, they said it was the ECHO encephalitis. It acted like a paralysis, like a polio type thing. The thing that got to them was that even though he couldn’t stand, and it seemed that he was very, very weak, he could still wiggle his feet. I can’t tell you how hilarious it was to be sitting in a hospital room at a teaching hospital and having neuromuscular specialists and neurologists come in the room with groups of students and go, “Look, no weight bearing, can’t use his lower extremities, but look, he can wiggle his feet.”

While we were figuring this all out, I became pregnant again. I had my son, Daniel, in September of 1980. He wasn’t sick as a baby. In the meantime, now we’ve got Chris into physical therapy. He’s getting all this treatment for his so-called paralysis. Well, Daniel got to be nine months old, and all of a sudden, he couldn’t stand either. It was the same pattern. He could kneel, he could pull himself up to kneeling, but he never could stand.

At this point in time, they decided to do muscle biopsies. I was going to see a specialist. We were in Rochester, New York. The University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital is a big research hospital, great doctors, the best place to be.

I had a doctor that was very frightened to give me the results of the tests. He wouldn’t give me any results. I got him on the phone. He was like, “No. I need you and your husband to come to my office together so that I can tell you together.” I’m like, “My husband works second shift. It’s hard for him to take off time. Just tell me what’s wrong with my children.” He finally said, on the phone, at 5:00 in the afternoon, he said, “Your children have something called spinal muscular atrophy.” I said, “Thank you very much,” and I hung up the phone.

I went to the library. The library closed at 6:00. I went over to the library, did some really quick research, told the librarian why I was there. She quickly helped me. These are back in the days of card catalogs. She helped me start looking up, grabbed some books. She brought one book over to me, and she had opened it to the page and read the paragraph about spinal muscular atrophy, which is also known as Wernig-Hoffman Disease. She read a paragraph where it said the children that have this disease die by the time they’re a year old. She gasped and looked like she was ready to cry. I looked at her and I said, “One of my sons is already two. Thank you for being concerned, but let’s just keep doing research.”

I got enough research at that visit to be able to go home and do some more research on the computer. I had a Commodore 64 computer. Now we’re talking, this is by now, this is 1981, beginning of 1982. Back then, it was the 2400-baud modems that you stuck on the telephone cradle. I happened to be pretty good with computers already. I knew how to find things online. Back then, there was no Worldwide Web. There was an Internet and it was used by schools and universities. I happened to be able to be into that. I knew about BBSs and I knew who to call. I knew how to research on that Internet.

I went online and I found a place that was a database for businesses during the day, but in the evening, you could pay $20 a month, and you could do research. There were no full texts back then. The research available online were all abstracts from medical journals. The next time that I went to the doctor’s office, I had a stack, because I had used this knowledge base to pull up references to spinal muscular atrophy. I knew what it was. I knew the most current research on it. I knew that it was autosomal recessive. I knew that it was a one in four chance that any of my children could have it. I just happened to have two out of three that had this condition.

Now, after I got the abstracts off of the computer and printed them all out, I called up the local library, and they would pull the full article for you. They would do them 10 at a time. I called once a week for 10 at a time, and finally, I was talking to the same librarian. She was like, “Just bring me in your whole list.” The next time we went to the doctor’s, I had a stack of probably 200 or 300 pages worth of research about spinal muscular atrophy. He looked at me, and he was like, “Where did you find this? How did you find this? Can I please make a copy of it?”

We all have things that happen in our lives that we can take control of. Because of the Internet, and because of the technology that’s available to us, we don’t have to listen to just what one doctor says. We can grab knowledge without having to rely on just one person. I guess if there’s anything I want you to get out of my telling you this story is that if you’re diagnosed with a medical condition and you think it’s the end of the world, go do some research. We’re going to have some other guests on Blogging ABCs that are going to explain how, more recently, they were able to do research and start blogs about their children’s medical conditions or their medical conditions.

Now, because I was able to do my research, we had an excellent physical therapist that came out and I gave her copies of the research. She treated my kids. I guess I should back up. Spinal muscular atrophy is a muscle condition where the nervous system stops developing at a certain point in time. For the parents of you that are out there, what that means is when you watch a baby develop, as they get to six months, certain muscles are working and nervous system. You can see it go down their body.

My children’s nervous systems stopped developing at nine months old. Their muscles and their bodies continued to grow, but their nervous system didn’t trigger and tell the muscles what to do. They were able to sit. They were able to be in wheelchairs. They were able to write and feed themselves. Their minds were not affected. Actually, Daniel was quite brilliant and Christopher was a talented actor.

I found out a lot of things. The physical therapist, instead of treating them like kids that were going to die young and that weren’t able to use their muscles, she was one of the people that was at the cutting edge of using things like electro-stimulation to try and get their muscles triggered off to start working. We did aggressive physical therapy with them, which a lot of parents criticized us for. I knew a lot of parents because we did physical therapy at the local United Cerebral Palsy Association. That was where everyone, no matter what your medical condition was, went to have your physical therapy and parents would meet and talk.

Some parents didn’t agree with my philosophy and my physical therapist’s philosophy of having aggressive physical therapy. They thought, “Well, my child has a limited life span. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt him. I want him to just be comfortable.” That was their choice. That is something that is really important for people to understand, is that there isn’t a right choice and a wrong choice, as long as you do your research, you know what you’re doing, and you know how that’s going to affect your child now and in the future.

We were doing things that no one else had done with kids with spinal muscular atrophy. We didn’t know how it was going to turn out. Through the years, my sons required some surgeries and they were ill and had hospital visits. We would see some of the other kids and they would be physically in not as great shape as my kids. Yet, they were still happy in their own right. I just think it’s so important for parents to know that they shouldn’t rely on just one doctor. They shouldn’t rely on just one opinion. They should be out there looking, talking.

Back then, I didn’t like to go to support groups, because let’s face it, my daughter is in preschool and in kindergarten. I’ve got to take the boys to physical therapy and to occupational therapy. I have doctor’s appointments. Then we have to take time out for surgeries. In the meantime, I’m a professional wedding photographer that works every weekend. My husband is someone who works swing shift, so he’s not always around. We don’t have time to go on a Wednesday night and go sit down with a group of other parents and talk about our children and how we’re handling the process of finding out you have a handicapped child. It’s the exact same process, you go through the same four steps that you do if you’re grieving, when you find out you have a child with a drastic physical disability.

One of the things that has changed is that now, you folks that find out your kids have a disability, you can go find support online. You can go find bloggers and you can find people on Facebook. You can talk to other people and you can listen to other people. You can find out different treatments and different ways that parents deal with things. What do you do if your bathroom is too small? What do you do if you need a certain type of equipment? We were one of the first people to use Dragon Naturally Speaking. Back then, it was $900, and PCs were still very expensive. My son was a writer and he started dictating, using Dragon that was supplied by the school.

It’s just so important to see the differences. We were a very vocal family. We didn’t go to support groups. We connected with the Muscular Dystrophy Association in Rochester, which spinal muscular atrophy is also the children’s form of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. If I told people that my children had a form of Lou Gehrig’s Disease, they could understand that, or if I said, “one of the muscular dystrophies,” they could understand that.

For many years, we were spokespeople for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, because they supplied us with a ramp to the house, with equipment that we needed, and they paid for some of the physical therapy. We fortunately had very good medical coverage at the time, which as years went by, medical coverage wasn’t quite as good, but we still had other funding sources.

My kids, including my daughter Elizabeth that many of you may know, we did public speaking constantly. Elizabeth has been on television since she was seven years old, in front of the camera telling people what it was like to have her brothers with disabilities. There’s a lot of focus on kids with disabilities and then people forget the siblings. We were very cognizant and the people that we dealt with were also very cognizant of making sure Elizabeth was included in everything that we did. I’ve got to tell you, we made quite an entrance when we came in somewhere because it wasn’t just one young man in a wheelchair. There were two kids in wheelchairs, plus their sister, plus myself.

We got the word out there. We did a lot of disability advocacy. I know that other people are still doing that to this day. I have stepped back from that role because of recent things that have happened. I do want people to understand that even though this was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, sorry, losing track of time, through my children’s lifetimes, they gained a lot through online interaction through forums. Christopher was a big game player in GemStone. He was an actor in real life and he was an actor on the computer.

It’s just so important for people to share these experiences with each other, so that you don’t feel like you’re all alone. Again, this podcast is a little longer than what I would normally record, but I’m hoping that it reaches someone out there and lets you know to not give up and to do your online research, find some online support. Find an organization that fits your lifestyle, that can help you and that can help you spread the word about disability awareness.

That’s part of what the blog DeborahCarney.com is going to be about. I’m going to start sharing more stories about my children, how we did public speaking, how we raised awareness back then with regular websites, there were no blogs yet, and eventually how I came to make a living online totally, partially because I needed to be at home. As they got older, I needed to not work outside the home.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little slice of my life. You can leave some comments with links to your blogs about your special needs children. I’ll follow up with some other podcasts about how our lives have been affected by technology through the years into the future.

You can download the PDF version of this post by clicking here

MommyBloggers: Changing the Face of Affiliate Marketing? panel from Affiliate Summit West 2010, which took place January 17-19, 2010 in Las Vegas, NV. An interesting note to this panel is that I posted a request for speakers in HARO to find the bloggers, except for Kim, who I already knew.

Another thing, for merchants that may be listening, too many merchants are carte blanche turning down “Mommy Bloggers” and bloggers in general. This is a powerful group of people that probably can hit your target markets.

Speakers:

- Deborah Carney, CEO, Team Loxly (Moderator)
- Wendy Limauge, Blogger, Sweeties Swag
- Carrie Rocha, President, Pocket Your Dollars
- Kim Rowley, President, Key Internet Marketing, Inc.
- Heather Sokol, Proprietor, Inexpensively

MommyBloggers are involved in many types of monetization strategies for their blogs, affiliate marketing being one, however they aren’t necessarily doing it in the “traditional” ways.

More details on Affiliate Summit at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/

Many thanks to Affiliate Summit for posting the replays of sessions from past summits. Many of these are still very relevant, like this one.

If you are unable to see the video below, please go direct to YouTube and watch it there.

While this isn’t really a Blogging ABCs specific video, it is a presentation about a really great WordPress Theme.

First in a series of merchant spotlight webinars from Team Loxly is Small Biz Theme by Don Campbell.

This theme is unique in that it can be used by consultants to easily build sites for clients, or for clients to have the site set up once and then not be able to “mess it up” when they need to make updates. The blog is secondary (you can change this) with info pages for the company instead.

Built in are sections to create the mobile version of the theme… no extra charge or extra plugins… and a really cool ability to add content to facebook pages right from within your blog! There are some free apps that allow you to create pages that you have to change on facebook, but this function within small biz theme hosts the pages for your facebook tabs right on your own site. Plugins for that type of functionality start at around $40-50.

If you can make the time to watch the video you will see all kinds of goodies and get info on what’s under the hood so you can better sell this theme as an affiliate. There were many good questions asked and answered throughout the video and we welcome more questions and comments from those of you watching the replay!

Watch the video on the Team Loxly forum at the Affiliate Summit Networking Forum The theme affiliate program is run on Shareasale and is 30% commission, 60 day cookie and managed by Team Loxly

Here is the opening of the 5 Affiliate Marketing Benefits For Bloggers webinar. Join our mailing list to get instant access to the entire webinar.

Are you a blogger who isn’t quite sold yet on the benefits of affiliate marketing? Do you know just enough about it to be curious but are wondering if you will really benefit from it? Have you started adding affiliate links to your blogs but want to make sure that you are maximizing your benefits? If any of these sound like you, I need to show you “Five Affiliate Marketing Benefits for Bloggers.”

Based on the great feedback I received speaking at Blog Indiana last month, I have tweaked my presentation from there and will be giving it again via a free live webinar on Blogging ABCs. Deb Carney will be adding additional ideas from the merchant and affiliate manager perspectives. Both of us will be available for Q&A as well.

Whether you are a mom blogger, have a non-profit site, are a consultant or focus on content curation, you can benefit from affiliate marketing.  Join us September 8 from 1-2pm Eastern to learn how being an affiliate will not only earn you money but also help you generate content, grow your network, and drive traffic to your site.

If you couldn’t attend live, please sign up for our newsletter so you will get notified when the replay is posted and be notified of new podcasts and new webinars.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia

Thanks to some great feedback at Blog Indiana 2011, I’ll be hosting a free webinar the first week of September on the basics of affiliate marketing for bloggers. We’ll be covering terminology, creative types, how to choose merchants to work with, tools to integrate affiliate marketing into your site, and more. We’ll talk everything from how to sign up with a network to how to build relationships with merchants and affiliate managers.

Sign up for our newsletter to be notified about upcoming podcasts as well as the details of the webinar. It was great meeting everyone and I look forward to sharing more with you.

Rick Calvert and Karen Garcia join Blogging ABCs hosts Tricia Meyer and Deborah Carney to discuss the dilemmas faced by bloggers about whether or not they should monetize their blogs and if yes, how. It’s a candid discussion covering both sides of the issue.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Affiliate ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
GTO Affiliate Management

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

Blogging ABCs and AffiliateABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Tricia Meyer discuss what bloggers and affiliates can learn from Tricia’s experience being unexpectedly dropped from two networks (described in her post The Ugly Side of Affiliate Marketing). The issues discussed apply when you have problems with the Affiliate Nexus Tax, Google AdSense, merchants closing, and many other aspects of affiliate marketing.

Our Four Main Tips:

1) Diversify. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  Have different types of sites in different niches. Work with different merchants across different networks.

2) Separate Accounts. Use separate network accounts when you have multiple sites or especially different types of sites (incentives, coupons, gambling, etc). It will come in handy if one of your sites gets flagged or if you decide to sell a site.

3) Use link redirecting. Redirecting will help you change out links quickly if you need to. In addition, you can use shorteners so that your domain shows up instead of someone else’s when you post your links in other places.

4) Network. Meet in person with as many people as possible. Further, after you connect with them, follow up, reinforcing your connection. When you need help, those connections may be the difference between keeping and losing your business.  .

Some Resources we mention:

Pretty Link Lite

YourLS Open Source shortener that you can install on your own website

Find Us On Twitter:

Blogging ABCs
Affiliate ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

Defining the Deceased; Article Marketing

Matt Cutts is the fellow in charge of Google’s Webspam, and in a video he recently gave a good definition of article marketing; “… you’re writing an article and you try to include a link at the bottom and you’re hoping a bunch of other people put up copies or mirrors or duplicates of that article and that those links might flow through.”

Matt also adds the following bit of advice; “Typically, the sorts of sites that just republish these articles are not the highest quality sites.”

Considering this piece of insight, one is moved to question whether article marketing is as effective as we’ve been told, and if not, why people continue to use it.

Article marketing is nowhere near as effective as it used to be. Nowadays this content may occasionally pop up on search engines, but more often it will be filtered and blocked by increasingly intelligent algorithms.

Additionally, SEO articles are often mechanically written, with little entertainment or informational value. Consequently, they are not likely to be plugged on a blog, Liked on Facebook, or submitted to DIGG.

Despite the ineffectiveness of article marketing, though, it is still recommended as a sound marketing strategy, whether the website in question is marketing Yamaha piano keyboards, Pride lift chairs, or Sea Eagle inflatable boats, none of them will see a spectacular rise in traffic as a result of this practice.

Below we have five reasons to give up entirely on article marketing and allow the Darwinistic tendencies of the Ethernet to play out naturally, as it were.

Coffin Nail #1 – Inability to Control the Environment

By consigning your article to a directory, you are hoping that webmasters will pick up that article and post it on their websites, thus establishing backlinks to your own. Having a backlink is great, but only if it is located on a website trusted and recognized by Google.

The problem with article marketing, is that you have no way of controlling which website picks up your article, and the likelihood is, your article will end up on a website where it is more likely to languish into obscurity.

There is only way to truly ensure that your article is in an environment in which is will thrive. You have to be in control of where it is published, and by doing so, you’ll take control of the traffic on your own site.

Coffin Nail #2 – Limited Gene Pools Aren’t Healthy

The most basic method of article marketing calls for one article to be posted to as many websites as possible. This is called duplicate content, and neither Google nor Google users like this practice. Imagine looking for some informative Golden lift chair reviews, only to find the same uninformative article listed ten times on Google’s front page.

In February 2011, Google’s “Panda” update vastly improved their ability to quickly remove duplicate (and low quality) content from search results. This is a good thing for everyone who owned, used or had a stake in Google, but it made things much harder on article marketers. Their entire marketing strategy now looks like this;

• create articles
• notice a increase in traffic
• notice your articles disappear from the search results
• start writing again

For the same reason that a species needs genetic diversity to survive, articles need to be different to survive a Google filter. Once the filter finds a half-dozen of the same article, most of those articles are removed from the search results.

I have been holding forth on the pros and cons of article marketing for several years now. I will admit that some article marketers have successfully made money, but very little of it and never for very long. By contrast, if these folks had used a strategy that wasn’t actively opposed by Google, they could have made plenty of money and could still be making it.

Coffin Nail #3 – More Gene Pool Problems

I don’t believe in coincidences, but I believe in inspiration. I was just inspired by a conversation I had with a very annoyed article marketer.

He had been spreading articles around like birdshot, trying to establish backlinks to his website. He called me hoping I could tell him why his “clients” web page had just dropped 27 pages on the Google results for the keyword phrase, “Lasik Eye Surgery”.

After a few pertinent questions, I was able to find the problem. In addition to most of the articles bing identical, he had used the exact same keyword phrase, “Lasik Eye Surgery”, as the link back to his site; and he had done it one hundred times.

This problem has a name – duplicate anchor text – and has the same weaknesses as duplicate content – the limited gene pool.

Consider this; if sixteen webmasters posted an article and then chose to link it back to a website that sold lift chairs, how many of them would write “Pride Mobility chairs” and then use those exact words for the backlink? Two, maybe three, but certainly not all sixteen. Now, how likely is it that one hundred websites would just happen to have the same anchor text connecting to the same website?

Okay, now how likely is it that a Google filter is in place to catch this statistical impossibility? Apparently an article needs anchor text versatility to survive as well.

Coffin Nail #4 – More Environmental Threats

When marketing articles, some folks focus on the number of links they have rather than who they are linked to. Think about a herd of horses – or turtles, for that matter. Like animals, websites tend to cluster together for added strength; that’s why it’s called a web. However, if your herd is primarily composed of critters who are too old, young or sick to be useful, your chances of survival are pretty poor.

Google’s Matt Cutts recently offered some additional information regarding link, specifically that your Google ranking could be harmed by the sites that are linking to your site. This is a recently new and rather significant development and yet another reason article marketing has run into BIG problems.

It wasn’t all that long ago when Matt Cutts said you could never be hurt by another website that was linking to you. This has recently been retracted and your website’s ranking now can be negatively effected by those who are linking to you.

This is another reason article marketers have run into troubles, because when you add an article to an article directory, anybody can publish that article, leaving you with no control over the herd you run with.

Coffin Nail #5 – A Very Talented Predator

In spite of the obvious weaknesses of article marketing, you’ll still find some die-hards that insist article marketing is a good use of your time.

My only reply to that assertion is that the Dodo bird, Tasmanian Tiger and Woolly Mammoth were once thriving species, but all succumbed to either changing environments or effective predators or both.

The particular force seeking to snuff out article marketing is the very thing that article marketers seek to manipulate – the Google algorithm.

The mighty algorithm has evolved continuously to ruthlessly block anchor text stuffing, duplicate content, spun articles and link farms – all of the things that were supposed to guarantee the success of article marketing. All of the thought, effort and resources put into those practices have been effectively snuffed out by the bright young minds at Google – and so has the money that folks were supposed to make as a result.

At one point, someone asked Matt Cutts “…if he recommends article marketing as an SEO strategy?” His reply was, “… so if I had to make a prophecy or forecast about how Google feels or how search engines feel about them in general, the trend that I am hearing and the sort of complaints that I am hearing are that people are not huge fans of article marketing and don’t view it as an incredible value add in terms of the content that gets added to the web.”

I find it amusing when Matt says, “So if I had to make a prophecy or forecast…”. When you think about what he does for a living – eliminating search engine spam from the most popular search engine on the planet – you realize he isn’t using a crystal ball. To see the future of article marketing, he only has to look at his “to do” list for the week.

The argument could be made the Matt is simply echoing the company line to keep shareholders happy. However, given the company’s track record, you should take his words pretty seriously. After all, when was the last time you had to sift through ten identical articles on Google to find the information you want?

The unavoidable conclusion is; if Google doesn’t want something to happen, it generally won’t.

Bottom Line; How Long Does It Have, Doc?

While it might live on in the hearts of a few dedicated preservationists, article marketing stopped being an effective marketing tool about three years ago. If you want a viable website, I’m afraid it’s time to evolve.

I appreciate any and all comments.

Here is a link to a related podcast about the future of article marketing.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer are joined by Arlene Martell of Epilepsy Moms.

Arlene started her site over 3 years ago in order to pay forward the information that she has gained over the years.  Her son was diagnosed at 4 years old with both Epilepsy and Autism and has been drug and seizure free for over 10 years.

Arlene’s Free Ebook
Information on the Ketogenic Diet
Information on Neurotherapy

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz
Epilepsy Moms

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

I’ve been earning a very comfortable living with internet marketing for well over a decade but it wasn’t until I had a conversation with a financial planner that I realized just how much wealth revenue from internet marketing represented. Like most of you I focus on growing my business to meet today’s goals. But think about it for a moment…think about that new business you brought in today and how it impacts your future income.

Your internet marketing business could be your $1,000,000 retirement plan.

Todd Tressider is an incredibly talented financial planner who became a client of mine when he approached my wife Arlene and I to help him promote a website for his financial coaching business.

Todd spent several years as an exceptionally successful hedge fund manager who had a reputation for making his rich clients richer. But in his own words Todd became dissatisfied with “making a few points” for his wealthy clientele and decided to sell his business and retire…at the age of 35!

Like most entrepreneurs Todd did not take well to retirement and soon took on the challenge of opening a new venture where he could apply his wealth building skills to benefit people who actually needed them. Today Todd’s practice focuses on advising his clients on how to build wealth to finance their retirement and it was this subject that we were discussing when he looked me in the eyes and said “You know…

$100 Per Month is Equal to the Amount You Would Receive From a $30,000 Retirement Plan”

And then it dawned on me. What Todd was saying is that for every $100 of revenue that I am making per month through internet marketing it’s the equivalent of someone else plunking down $30,000 in a retirement investment fund!

Now the numbers behind this are pretty simple to work out. What’s really important is to understand is what retirement programs and your online business have in common.

Retirement packages consist of a principal amount which generates investment income which in turn is paid out to the retiree. So if you had a principal amount of $30,000 and it returned 4% that’s $1200 per year. That $1200 is profit earned and you will continue to earn $1200 a year because the principal keeps cranking it out.

Now I mostly deal in affiliate marketing but what I’m about to say applies to most internet marketing businesses as well particularly those who deal in information products like e-books, tutorials and webinars. The money we make in our businesses is recurring. If it is launched correctly you can expect that revenue to continue for an indefinite period of time. It’s our “profit earned” and the work we put into building it and marketing is our “principal amount”

Passive Income Is A Wonderful Thing!

Both retirement plans and internet marketing are forms of passive revenue streams. With the retirement plan, the benefit paid to the retiree is a form of indirect passive income that relies on the principal amount to generate the revenue in the form of interest or dividends. In internet marketing we receive direct passive income as a result of our direct marketing efforts.

There is one huge difference between the two and that’s the need for the retiree to contribute to the principal amount. Twenty or thirty years of saving goes into the typical package in order to build enough cash to return a reasonable income.

We don’t have to do that.

Our investment in the “principal amount” is the time we take to correctly build and market our products. Once a product or service has been correctly launched sales become automated and there is very little maintenance required to keep the dollars rolling in. Talk about wealth building!

The $100 Challenge

If you’re new at this business you’re probably saying “Yeah that’s great and all but I haven’t had a $100 month yet and I’m not sure I ever will”. Well both Todd and I agree that the first $100 is the toughest to get…and there’s an obvious reason why.

Every business requires a certain amount of experience and skill if it is going to be successful. Right now you simply don’t have all of the skills it takes to succeed in internet marketing but you’re learning. Don’t give up. Both Todd and I agree that the number one reason that people fail in this business is that they don’t have the “persistence” to keep at it until they succeed.

When you do have that $100 month it’s a sign that you have done something right. You have picked up enough experience and knowledge to be a success. Now just rinse and repeat and the sales will flow in. It’s far easier to make money once you know what you’re doing than when you first start out.

Do You Need a Million Dollar Retirement Plan?

Deciding how much you need in income when you retire is a very personal question and requires some honest evaluation of just what lifestyle you’ll want to live when the time comes to hang it up. You’ have to come up with a realistic answer to “When can I retire?” And the really sad thing is a million bucks doesn’t go as far as it once did, particularly in this economic environment.

Think about it for a minute. Today you would be really lucky to find a safe retirement investment that yielded 2.5%. That’s $25,000 a year or $2083 per month. The good news is, if your internet marketing business is already bringing in that kind of money then you have the equivalent of a million dollar retirement fund. See how passive income really builds wealth?

The bad news is that most families can’t live on $25,000 a year. If you’re a beginner, keep plugging and the dream can come true. If you’re established, keep growing because every dollar you add today is a dollar you’ll most likely keep earning for as long as you live.

Bio

James Martell discovered the lucrative world of affiliate marketing in 1999. He is a self-taught Internet entrepreneur and a leading expert in affiliate marketing, outsourcing and SEO. James is the host of the “Affiliate Buzz”, the first and longest running affiliate marketing podcast (free). James is the host of the “Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp”, a first rate affiliate marketing video training best known for developing affiliate success stories. James resides in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada with Arlene and their 4 children. You’ll receive actionable tips, strategies and money making advice directly from James Martell when you subscribe to his weekly Affiliate Buzz podcast by email, RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow James on Twitter. You’ll be glad you did!

This is an ABCs Plus Special edition podcast that is being posted to Affiliate ABCs, Blogging ABCs and Merchant ABCs because of the importance of the issue. Your hosts Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney are joined by Karen Garcia, Outsourced Affiliate Program Manager to try and explain the Affiliate Nexus sales tax laws that states are enacting to attempt to get more companies to collect their state sales tax even though the companies do not have a physical presence in their state. States are trying to establish that affiliates and affiliate marketing gives companies a physical presence in their state, making the merchants liable to collect sales taxes in states they shouldn’t have to.

Some Resources we mention:
Coffee Talk with James Martell, Karen Garcia and Jeannine Crooks

PMA List of States and their status and links to their bills.

NexusAware – a listing of what companies already have to collect sales taxes in what states

There is a lot of information out there and much confusion by affiliates, merchants, bloggers and even the legislators themselves. If you are in a state that hasn’t passed this tax yet, check and see if they have a law drafted or on the table. Basically states are treating this as an amendment to their state sales tax laws and not as new laws, so they pass easier and sometimes with no press about it at all.

Please feel free to contribute additional information in the comments. We are not lawyers, so you need to check with a local lawyer familiar with internet law if you are in an affected state.

What we also discuss in this podcast is how affiliates can find merchants that already collect sales tax in their state, what types of merchants that sell items that are exempt and how to talk to your merchants to find out how they are going to handle it if their state passes such a law.

If you’re like most other Twitter users, then you’d probably do just about anything to get more followers. Watching your number of followers stay the same or, worse yet, decrease, is extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, the scam artists know this and will try to sell you gimmicky software that they claim can increase your following.

Don’t Fall For Their Tricks!

Make sure that you stay far away from this software—it’s nothing but a big waste of time and money. You run the risk of downloading viruses or harmful programs to your computer, and you could even end up losing your Twitter account since such software programs are often against Twitter’s terms of service agreement. There is a way, however, to get more Twitter followers legitimately.

My Secret Weapon

Three easy to follow strategies hold the key to learning how to increase Twitter followers, and I’m going to share them with you. First though, let me tell you about my “secret weapon”—a little tool known as TweetDeck. This program is absolutely free, allows me to manage Twitter simply, and makes it easy to see that the three strategies are working! I highly suggest that you use it as well.

The 3 Strategies You Need to Know

As promised, I’m going to reveal my fail-proof strategies for how to get more Twitter followers. First, though I want you to know that this strategy is for you, no matter what you plan on using Twitter for. Even if you’re promoting something as off the wall as fishing tackle, tree topping services, or Hillsdale stools, you can make Twitter work for you, so no excuses!

Strategy #1 – Syndicate an Online Newspaper

You can get started on Strategy 1—which is to syndicate an online newspaper—right away. All you have to do is create a newspaper based on a Twitter list, a user, and/or a keyword, and then set it to publish daily to your Twitter followers.

To create my newspaper, The Guest Blogging Daily, I used www.paper.li with my Twitter account and one of the Twitter Lists. You can check out my paper at http://paper.li/JamesMartell/1308523225 to see how it’s done.

I love www.paper.li for so many reasons!

Not only is it beautifully designed, but the whole process is 100% automatic. The site posts directly to your Twitter when each daily newspaper is released and tweets your following without you having to lift a finger.

It gets better.

The contributing authors are also tweeted when each new newspaper is published—many of whom not only end up becoming a follower, but in turn, they also retweet the newspaper to their followers—resulting in even more new followers for you.

I cannot encourage you enough to start your own Paper.li newspaper. Choose a topic that will be interesting to your followers, and then run with it. The process is simple and quick, and the results are almost instant.

Strategy #2 – Become a Valued Guest Writer

You’d be shocked to know just how many quality sites are always on the lookout for guest writers, this site included. Guest blogging is fun, and it puts you in front of an entirely new audience. By providing valuable content to readers, like strategies and techniques they can put to work in their own lives, you’ll gain the trust and interest of lots of individuals.

And when you have that kind of trust and interest, then you have a new group of followers!

Make sure you guest write on a site that allows you to provide an author biography. The biography is where you’ll include an invitation to follow you on Twitter with a strong reason for why they should.

If you’re ready to increase your following greatly, then become a guest writer for a site of your choosing today! You’ll see the results super quickly.

Strategy #3 – Put That Thank You Page to Work

Hands down, strategy 3 is my favorite , and it’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard of. It works so well and is so simple that you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. The strategy was taught to me by Joshua Sloan, the former VP of Internet Marketing for 1&1 Hosting, the largest and fastest growing hosting company.

This strategy works 100% of the time and is so valuable I could probably sell it for a large sum of money. But I’m giving it to you for free so you can enjoy the same success I have.

All you have to do is set it up so that when someone fills in your option form, they are redirected to a “thank you” page automatically. On that “thank you” page, you’ll include an invitation to follow you on Twitter. Make it both confident and enticing. Remember, the person chose to give you their name and email address, and they are thus very likely to accept your invitation and start following you.

Using the Strategies

Now that you have these strategies laid out for you, it’s up to you to start putting them to use. Remember that no matter what you’re selling or promoting, even if it’s as I said above you’re promoting something as off the wall as fishing tackle, tree topping services, or kitchen stools, these strategies will work for you. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be seeing results.

James Martell discovered the lucrative world of affiliate marketing in 1999. He is a self-taught Internet entrepreneur and a leading expert in affiliate marketing, outsourcing and SEO. James is the host of the “Affiliate Buzz”, the first and longest running affiliate marketing podcast (free). James is the host of the “Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp”, a first rate affiliate marketing video training best known for developing affiliate success stories. James resides in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada with Arlene and their 4 children. You’ll receive actionable tips, strategies and money making advice directly from James Martell when you subscribe to his weekly Affiliate Buzz podcast by email, RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow James on Twitter. You’ll be glad you did!

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer discuss what affiliate marketing is.

Vinny attended Blog World and had many bloggers ask what affiliate marketing is. Simply put affiliate marketing is affiliates (bloggers) putting special tracking links (affiliate links from a network or merchant) on their websites (blogs). When a visitor to a blog clicks an affiliate link and makes a purchase, the blogger makes a commission on that sale. That is the simple explanation Listen for lots more great information and how affiliate marketing can be one way to possibly monetize your blog.

Links to some affiliate networks.
ShareASale
Commission Junction
Linkshare
buy.at

We would like to challenge you to find one network or merchant that you would want to work with and see how it would fit into your blog.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz
Vinny O’Hare

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer discuss why bloggers should attend Affiliate Summit.

Attending Affiliate Summit is the dividing line between dabbling and going full time for many people.  Networking happens more in the follow up after the conference. Meet Market is most important day if you can only afford to be there one day, that is Sunday afternoon from Noon to 6pm.

If this is your first time attending, be sure to sign up for the Newcomers Program where you will be paired up with a mentor who can answer general questions and introduce you to people.  Be sure to visit the Affiliate Summit Forum to start meeting people before the conference.

The deadline for Affiliate Summit Scholarship Program submission is Friday, November 4, 2011 for passes for Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas in January.

Find Us On Twitter:

Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

As we have announced before, Team Loxly is focusing on educating affiliates, bloggers and merchants. We would like to invite you to come and be our guest at the following sites, you can submit more than one topic, or more than one site. We have guests that have discussed topics that cover all three audiences.

We have three ABCs series of podcasts where we give advice and pointers on how to achieve success as an affiliate, monetize your blog or run the perfect merchant program. Part of the success of our podcasts are listening to the people that listen to the podcasts and hear what they want to learn about or when they propose a topic that they want to share their expertise on. We encourage people to introduce us to guests we should have on our shows, and also offer to be guests and speak on a topic or ask us questions about a topic. Our podcasts are all discussion style and not necessarily interview style. We often will have a panel of up to 4 people that will discuss a topic.

We also like to keep the podcasts short and one specific topic so that our listeners have one main takeaway from our shows and are not bombarded with information that they can’t absorb. We also like our guests because we feel that the affiliate industry is in constant growth and there is no one “voice” that can keep up with all the changes. We may create some ebooks from our podcast topics and create some formal training (we are developing that on Merchant ABCs first) but we are not interested at this time in producing print books that are almost out of date by the time they are published.

Here are the links:
Be our guest on Merchant ABCs podcast: Tell merchants what you want them to know to make their programs stellar
Be our guest on Affiliate ABCs podcast: Ask us questions, tell affiliates about your timesaving tips, what things work for you
Be our guest on Blogging ABCs podcast: Ask us how to monetize your blogs, offer your style and writing tips, software and plugins you use

And on Merchant ABCs we have a very special page where you can share the things that Merchants, Affiliates, and Networks do that annoys you or makes you happy. Come share your pet peeves and your props about all aspects of the affiliate industry. Here are some of the responses we have gotten so far. There are some very similar peeves/props that have us already thinking about future podcasts and looking for guests to cover those topics.

Finally, other places to find many affiliate voices discussing industry issues Affiliate Summit Affiliate Forum and FeedFront Affiliate Industry Magazine.

James Martell joins Blogging ABCs hosts Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney discuss guest posting and how it differs from submitting articles to article directories. Article directories have too many similar articles, they are focused on quantity over quality.

Guest posts are higher quality and are related to the topic of the blog they are guest posting for. Be picky about who you guest post for, and who guest posts for you. Guest posts give a blog different voices which can give your blog a new vitality.

Listen to the audio for more great advice from our panel of experts.

Affiliate Marketers Boot Camp

Twitter:
James Martell
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah aka Loxly
Blogging ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Please go visit them to hear more podcasts about internet marketing.

Blogging ABCs hosts Tricia Meyer and Deborah Carney discuss why bloggers should attend conferences.

Some Conference Links:
Shareasale Network Think Tank
BlogWorld
Affiliate Summit
SheCon
CJU
AdTech
BlogHer

Follow us on Twitter:

Tricia Meyer
Deborah aka Loxly
Blogging ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Please go visit them to hear more great podcasts about internet marketing.

I’m going to bet that you spend most of your time developing ways to drive new targeted traffic to your website. It’s always a challenge and new targeted traffic is always necessary, however don’t ignore the “money traffic” that return visits represent.

If you’ve been successful in getting a new visitor to sign up for an offer or a newsletter or any project that requires them to provide their e-mail address then you’re that much closer to turning that new visitor into repeat business.

Why you want your visitors coming back

Take a look at the sites that are really raking in the dough today on the Internet. Check out the “daily offer” sites like Groupon and Woot.com to incredibly successful commercial websites. They have an interesting business model but more importantly they are in front of their list on a daily basis and drives tremendous traffic.

Some time back I interviewed Ryan Allis who is the CEO of a list management service called iContact.com and during that interview Ryan revealed an astounding statistic. His company’s records show that 70% of new visitors will never return to the site again. That means only efforts you make drive new traffic really boils down to having a second shot at 3 out of 10 new visitors.

If your product is complex or costly it is going to take a new visitor more than one exposure to come to a buying decision. That means if you are promoting doll hours, baby change tables, digital cameras, woodworking routers, tennis lessons, cruise travel, piano lessons, golf clubs or just about anything that costs over $20 or comes with an instruction book you need repeat visits.

The more people you have returning to the site the greater opportunity for conversion. Listed below are five great strategies that will help you get your list involved and get them returning to the site a regular basis.

1. Keep in touch – automatically.

I came across a really nifty piece of software called RSS to E-mail that absolutely assures that the people on my list receive a newsletter even if I haven’t had the time to write one. Basically what RSS to e-mail does is send a notification to everyone on your list every time there’s new content added to your website. One of the great benefits of this is the fact that these notifications can lead your visitors deeper into the site.

But the feature I really like is the ability to schedule the service. Rather than sending a notification of new content which might be every day or every other day, I can schedule the service to crawl my website once a week to pick up links to new content. This list then becomes my weekly newsletter. The service sends me a “proof” copy of the links for my approval and if I like it I hit the go button and it’s delivered to my list.

This is a fantastic way to drive repeat visits.

2. Inviting the world to come see you.

I’m the founder and co-host of the longest-running podcast dealing exclusively with affiliate marketing (The Affiliate Buzz) so I’m kind of biased, but I truly believe that podcasts have incredible influence over directing the audience to your site. Advances in podcast technology have greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to produce a professional and informative audio file.

Adding your voice to your website just makes the whole experience more human. It lends personality. People can identify with you easier by audio and images than they can with just text. Using a podcast not only encourages new visitors to return but deepens the relationship between you and your base of loyal visitors. Podcast can be used as standalones, integrated into a webpage or included in an e-mail message and are a great way to encourage people to return to your site.

3. Create a buzz on your blog.

With every posting that you make to your blog you should encourage visitors to comment on it. Ask them if they had any questions, offer up additional help, solicit their comments and how they would rate the posting. Getting your visitors involved by leaving comments is a great way to create buzz and buzz brings return visits.

In order for this to work you have to do your part in responding to the comments. Don’t wait three or four days to respond to a person who is taking the time to post a comment. The closer you get to “real-time” responses the more your audience is going to feel that you care about them and that deepens loyalty.

Encouraging comments and getting people involved is another way to get repeat visits. If a person leaves a comment they’re extremely anxious to see what other people have to say about that comment and they’ll return over and over again. If you have a blog based on WordPress then I would recommend you install a plug-in called “subscribe to comments” which will send an e-mail notification to commenters when anybody response to their comment.

4. Set my people free – to chat that is.

We live in the social world as witnessed by the incredible growth of social media like Facebook and twitter. People love to talk and they love to hear what other people think about their comments. Years ago the Internet was crowded with bulletin boards which were actually the forerunner of social media. Today we call the chat forums although they are nearly as popular as they once were and I think that’s a mistake.

My wife Arlene has website that demonstrates the power of a chat forum when it comes to driving repeat traffic. Her website, Epilepsymoms.com has a chat forum that allows members to express their challenges and success stories in living in dealing with children who have epilepsy. The chat forum has turned into a type of support group that draws these member moms almost daily. This form allows for easy interaction between the visitor and a webmaster and also allows members to interact with each other. When you get that kind of involvement you get a lot of return visits.

5. Show them you care.

Don’t get so wrapped up in developing content in finding new ways to drive new traffic that you forget about people who actually have demonstrated an interest in your site by signing up to the e-mail list. Keep yourself, your personality involved with the website and with your visitors. It’s all about relationship building and you can’t build a relationship if you’re not there.

If you’ve based your website on “you” as in your reviews, your recommendations, your observations and your stories then you need to keep the “you” visible. Answer comments on your site, answer e-mail that your visitors send just generally remain available and visible to your audience.

Build the lifetime value of your base

You’ve made an investment in time and money to build your list and it’s absolutely critical that you pay attention to the “care and feeding” of that list. You’ve got to stay involved and give them reasons to return to your site. You may think that your particular niche or product doesn’t need to go to this effort but trust me it does.

It doesn’t matter what product or service or topic that you’re promoting be it online piano lessons, automobile insurance quotes, golf training videos, exotic travel or even wood router accessories you need return traffic if you want conversions. Understanding that 70% of your new visits will never return should be enough motivation to treat those 30% there on your list by gold… Because they are.

About the Author

James Martell discovered the lucrative world of affiliate marketing in 1999. He is a self-taught Internet entrepreneur and a recognized expert in affiliate marketing, outsourcing and search engine optimization. James is the host of the “Affiliate Buzz”, the first and longest running affiliate marketing podcasts in the industry. James is the host of the “Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp”, a continually updated affiliate marketing video training series well known for turning affiliate newbies into success stories. James resides in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada with Arlene and their four children.

I’ve been in the Internet marketing business for over a decade and if there is one truth that has remained constant over the years it’s that you need traffic, preferably targeted traffic to generate sales. For the past several years everyone has been focused on ranking high for search traffic but searches not really source of qualified visitors.

Traffic that comes from related or relevant websites can be just as lucrative as traffic that comes from page 1 of the SERPs (“search engine results page”). It doesn’t matter what you’re promoting the inflatable boats, digital cameras, golf tips or free car insurance quotes online if you’re getting traffic from other sites that have an interest in those topics that you have a potential customer.

So how do you tap in to another websites audience?

Professional Article Distribution (PAD)

Everyone knows the importance of Google places on the number of backlinks pointing to the site when determining where it’s going to rank in the search results. There have been any number of schemes, some legit some not so much to create mass backlinks thinking that numbers alone will influence Google.

But the fact the matter is numbers aren’t as important as the quality of the backlinks. That holds true for both ranking in search and also for the quality of visitors. Back in 2004 I developed the PAD technique which takes a hard look at the back linking process and develops links that address both search ranking and quality traffic.

Basically this process involves:

• A trade of quality content for one or two links on a quality website. This isn’t article marketing and you’re not spamming Google with duplicate content. This is a question of providing something of value to a webmaster exchange for him or her pointing back to your site.
• Selecting websites carefully so that your links bring you relevant traffic.
• Using anchor text for your backlinks.

There are 10 steps in running a PAD back link campaign.

1. Finding the right sites. What you’re looking for our websites whose audience can use or has an interest in the product or service that you provide. This doesn’t mean approaching competitor sites for links because they’re going to turn you down. It means approaching sites whose audiences can benefit from your articles.

For example if you’re promoting an inflatable boat you may want to approach sites that deal with outside adventure travel, camping or fishing. These sites have audiences that are not specifically interested in inflatable boats but an inflatable boat might make their adventure travel, camping or fishing experience more enjoyable.

Providing that kind of content it adds value to the audience is exactly what webmasters are looking for.

2. Creating quality articles. If you enjoy writing or are a natural born wordsmith and you know your topic inside out you can certainly write your own content. Or not talking about sales copy here were talking about informative, engaging and valuable content that the visitor can use.

If you’re not comfortable writing you can always outsource the content by visiting a freelance site like Elance.com where you get a professional to do it at a reasonable cost. There’s another value to outsourcing the article as well and that’s that it lets you spend your time on multiple projects instead of being locked in to spending time writing.

I personally like using outsourcing because it frees me up to do what I do best.

3. Selecting landing pages. Before you start thinking about building backlinks you need to know where you want the traffic to go. The Pages that have strong calls to action and that are relevant to the topic of the article.

For example if your article was on the versatility of an inflatable boat then you may want the links to point directly at the product page. Backlinks are important resources don’t waste them by having them point to pages that don’t ask the visitor to do something.

4. Selecting anchor text. The reason or using anchor text for link is because Google places a great deal of importance on anchor text. Basically the word or phrase used in anchor text tells Google what the page that is being linked to is all about.

So how do you select your anchor text? I use Google’s free AdWords keyword tool. Just enter your primary keyword and the tool will generate a list of relevant keywords or keyword phrases. Select 5 or 6 for each article that you intend to use in your campaign. This will give you a nice mix of keyword phrases pointing back to a single page.

5. Writing great articles… for the webmaster. Remember that the first reader of your content will be the webmaster and he or she may make a decision on whether to publish or not based on their evaluation of the article. Keep in mind that not only interested in the value that the article have for the visitors but also that the article “fits” the website. Keep these tips in mind:

• Ask the webmaster what topics he’d like to see.
• Review other articles on the website and make sure that your article fits within the word count and format of the website.
• Make your article easy to read and scan by using short paragraphs, subheadings, linear white space and bullet points.

6. Brain grabbing headlines. If people don’t like your headline or it doesn’t pique some interest they certainly are going to read your content which of course means they’re like a click through to your webpage.

Headlines have to be informative and do a quick job of telling the visitor what the article is about and it has to do that using words that will compel the visitor to have a look. Crafting good headlines is a separate skill set and another argument for using an outsourced Pro.

7. Build the anchor text into the article. It’s relatively easy to get so involved in writing the content that you forget the anchor text has to fit into the article naturally and not seem stuffed or crammed. Plan out in advance where your links will fit into the story.

Also make sure that your links are separated by at least one paragraph of content so they don’t appear as spam. The webmaster will appreciate this as well.

8. Relationship with webmaster. Because PAD is an ongoing process you’re going to want to develop a relationship with the webmasters who are publishing your content. Essentially you’re creating your own distribution network and it will only be as effective as the webmasters continuing to publish your articles.

This is true regardless of the type of site you have or the items that you’re promoting the day lift chairs, cheap auto insurance quotes, long distance services, fitness equipment or even inflatable boats. Keep the webmaster happy.

9. Following up. Don’t get into a tizzy if the publisher doesn’t have your article up the day after you submitted it to him. Stuff happens and we are all exposed to daily distractions.

I usually give it a week and if my article is published I’ll send a gentle nudge to the webmaster reminding him. Most of the time he is simply overlooked putting the article up.

10. Don’t stop, keep going. The PAD technique is a process not a one shot deal. If you have completed 10 articles don’t stop there…write 20 more.

The more content you have on quality sites with backlinks to your pages the greater the sales potential.

I developed this technique in 2004 and I can attest to its effectiveness. It’s worked wonders for both my personal sites and the websites of my students. If you follow these 10 steps you can expect a dramatic increase in targeted traffic, I higher conversion rate and of course an increase in revenue.

Bio

James Martell discovered the lucrative world of affiliate marketing in 1999. He is a self-taught Internet entrepreneur and a leading expert in affiliate marketing, outsourcing and SEO. James is the host of the “Affiliate Buzz”, the first and longest running affiliate marketing podcast. James is the host of the “Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp”, a continually updated affiliate marketing training well known for turning affiliate newbies into success stories. James resides in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada with Arlene and their four children.

May 13th is a special date to me. It’s the day I got engaged (1976), it’s the day I got divorced (1990), it’s the day my youngest son died (2002). Each year on May 13th I try to do something he would be proud of. He was a big supporter of my photography skills and my writing ability (although he was the one with all the writing talent ) so every year for the past several years I would go somewhere and photograph something. Some years while I was in Rochester it was the lilacs at Highland Park and other years it was Red Rock Canyon, and still others NYC parks. This year I had a bad fall this week and can’t hold a camera or go for a walk. So I challenged myself to do something I don’t normally do. I recorded a solo podcast. It is meant to be an inspiration to other parents of children with disabilities and a peek into life before the World Wide Web, when the internet was just green letters on a black screen, but that still allowed you to do research you would ordinarily take months to do.

I kept it to 20 minutes and didn’t say all that I had to say, but will add more later. For this special edition I just wanted to tell part of the tale, the part that will hopefully inspire other parents to reach out, start a blog, use online resources to make their lives and their children’s lives the best they can be.

I’m posting this under Affiliate ABCs because as the story progresses it will lead to how I became an affiliate, and eventually an affiliate manager. I’m posting this under Blogging ABCs because I want people to blog about their life challenges.

To follow my blog go to DeborahCarney.com

Blogging ABCs hosts Tricia Meyer, Deborah Carney, and Vinny O’Hare, are joined by guest Stephanie Lichtenstein to discuss how bloggers can get started with a social media strategy. Great discussion, listen and learn.

Some Facebook Like Buttons
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/share-button-on-facebook
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/topsy/
http://mashable.com/2010/05/07/wordpress-facebook-like-buttons/

Find Stephanie on the internet:
http://micromediamarketing.com/
http://facebook.com/micromediamarketing
http://twitter.com/micromediamktg
http://twitter.com/microsteph
http://facebook.com/microsteph

Follow us on Twitter:
Tricia Meyer
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah aka Loxly
Blogging ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Please go visit them to hear more great podcasts about internet marketing.

SEO Tips for Bloggers

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Tricia Meyer, Vinny O’Hare, are joined by guest Eric Nagel to discuss the basics of SEO tactics for bloggers. Eric supplied us with an excellent outline below, but be sure to listen and not just read, there is excellent discussion on each of these bullet points, plus a ton of great stuff that came out within the discussion.

1. Keyword research
   1. Take your idea, and think about how people are going to search for it
      1. “How to…”
      2. Google search suggestions
      3. AdWords tool
2. Title Tag
   1. This should be your keyword. Don’t be cute here
   2. The title tag in WordPress is inside an H1 tag, which helps with on-site SEO
   3. WordPress SEO Plugin by Joost de Valk
      1. http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/
      2. Allows you to set Title, Meta Description
         1. Meta Description is sometimes used for the snippet shown in organic search results
   4. No need to have your site name repeated in the title tag, unless your site brand is commonly searched for
3. Permalinks
   1. Don’t use default of ?p=87
   2. Choose one of the options that has %postname% (either Day and name, or Month and name)
4. Images
   1. Don’t hotlink images
   2. Use the Title, Alternate Text & Caption fields
   3. Name the image with your keyword
      1. ex: your-keyword-here.jpg
5. Social Sharing
   1. Twitter button
   2. Facebook share button
      1. If you use Thesis & want to specify the Facebook thumbnail, read
         1. http://www.ericnagel.com/2011/03/specify-thumbnail-image-sharing-link-facebook-from-thesis.html
         2. Twitter Official Instructions for Tweet Button
   3. Your social circle influences Google search results
6. Sitemaps
   1. Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold
      1. http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/
   2. Eric’s XML Image Sitemap Plugin
      1. http://www.ericnagel.com/2010/10/image-sitemap-for-wordpress.html
   3. Submit to Google Webmaster Tools
      1. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
   4. Submit to Bing Webmaster Tools
      1. http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/

Follow all of us on Twitter:
Tricia Meyer
Eric Nagel
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah aka Loxly
Blogging ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Please go visit them to hear more podcasts about internet marketing.

Sixty billion, that’s ten times the total global population. That’s a lot of views but that’s what YouTube experiences each and every month and it is continuing to grow. People flock to YouTube because of its diversity and its enormous inventory of video. Each day nearly 35,000 new hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

With that kind of content it’s easy to understand why many people view YouTube as a viable alternative to Google as a search engine. Google’s not much worried though because they purchased YouTube back in 2006 for a cool $1.65 billion and their investment is paying off in spades.

Do you know how much you have to invest in order to promote your site on this enormous video property? Nothing, nada, zip it’s free. And the reason that you are not using this tremendous traffic resource is…

Video marketing is easy and it reaps enormous rewards

Maybe you think in your niche is just so unique that there couldn’t possibly be any value in posting a video on YouTube. Try this little exercise and see what happens. Do three or four searches in the YouTube search tool for your top three targeted keyword phrases and see what you get.

If you see your competition there you need to be there. If you’re not there you’re letting them take that YouTube audience that sought out that keyword phrase and moving them from YouTube to their own site. You compete against them on Google why would you not compete on a platform that’s nearly as popular?

it really doesn’t matter what you are promoting or selling be it a router table, hearing aids, tv stands, auto insurance quotes, a Hillsdale barstool, secret golf tips or exotic travel …YouTube needs to be part of your marketing mix.

A quick real-life case study

I first got involved with YouTube after my son had shot a short 2 min. video of me tooling around in my dream car a Shelby Cobra 427 S/C. I really didn’t know what to expect in the way of traffic and I was only using an educated guess in terms of optimizing the video. But as you can see from the attached chart, that little two-minute video that I put up in 2007 today has in excess of 300,000 views and it’s constantly growing.

It only took a few short months to figure out that YouTube represented a great source of traffic for my Shelby site. I also learned pre-quickly how to plan out a video better. In some of the comments left by the viewers they criticized the video, which was about the sound of the Shelby Cobra engine because I had added a music track to it. Well duh, here’s a video titled about the rumbling and grumbling of a car engine and I put 007 music on top of it. My video did not fully deliver on the promise of the headline and I learned from that. Still it shows up on the first page usually in the third or fourth position.

You don’t need special skills to create a hot video

If the reason you’re not on YouTube is your apprehension about making a video, something never done before, don’t sweat it is not that difficult. You don’t need fancy cameras were lighting setups what you do need is a good story to tell and you need to tell it in a compelling way.

The first thing I do when I’m about to make a video is to create a storyboard. This storyboard becomes my blueprint and I chart out what I’m going to shoot and in what sequence. I use Steven Spielberg’s advice that there are only three types of shots that go into any film or video. Establishing shot which sets up the scene, the into the action middle shot which invites the viewer and the close-up which is the payoff.

For example if your video was about kitchen design and kitchen bars in particular it might open with an exterior shot of the house or apartment building, move to a middle shot of the kitchen bar setting complete with kitchen bar stools and then go to a close-up of the kitchen bar featuring its design, color and quality construction.

Optimizing your video

When comes time to upload your video to YouTube keep these simple tips in mind in order to give your video a shot at appearing on the first page of YouTube search

• Just like any other piece of content you want the headline to be I grabbing and also include your targeted keyword phrase.
• In the description field feel free to use your targeted keyword phrase and any relevant phrase as may times as you can and still keep the description flowing naturally. YouTube isn’t as sensitive about keyword density as is Google. Be sure to include your URL somewhere within the description.
• YouTube is very generous in the amount of space that they allow for tags. Take advantage of their generosity.
• Make sure your settings allow for comments and video rating. In fact you want to encourage viewers to rate and make comments on the video and ideally tweet it. Every auto response Tweet results and seven new YouTube sessions.
• Don’t forget the call to action. You can invite viewers to visit your site and do that through dialogue or through a text message that you can overlay on the video or a combination of both. Inviting them to visit your site is the logical call but you may want to create buzz by inviting them to leave a comment and rate the site. YouTube users are real open about leaving comments and if you get a dialogue going between viewers you’re generating interest in your video through their user content.

YouTube has simply reached a point where it can no longer be ignored by a serious affiliate marketer. It’s just too big and has too much traffic to not take advantage of. Right now the only reason that you are not on YouTube is because of any. Do yourself and your site a favor and set a deadline today for the upload of your very first YouTube video. You’ll be happy you did.

Bio

James Martel is frequently sought out as a featured speaker at industry conventions and seminars. James has been providing affiliate marketing tutorials to help others in their affiliate marketing efforts since 2001. James and wife Arlene and their four children call a seaside suburb of Vancouver BC their home.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Tricia Meyer, Vinny O’Hare, are joined by James Martell to have a panel discussion about why bloggers should consider podcasting, plus having guests on podcasts.

Here is a link to a page where we show you the show you the basic software and equipment you need to get started podcasting.

Here are some of our notes on why you should start podcasting on your blog:

Connect on a personal level. Listen instead of read, listen while you do other things – on top of Mt Kilimanjaro, on a plane, while running, while working.

Affiliate Buzz – Every two weeks at the start, weekly now. Charles Johnston got James started as a way to get readers of James’ book to be able to hear James answer questions and let people get to know him.

Gives your blog a personality in addition to words on a page.

Affiliate Thing – another long lasting podcast that is on a regular schedule and widely listened too about issues in the affiliate marketing industry, but that covers other topics as well. Hosted by Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille.

People recognize your voice at conferences. Personalities come through better via voice or video. After listening to a podcast people can “hear” your voice when reading your posts.

She Shops Around – Podcast that Tricia produces that helped her site’s members get to know her better.

Exposure: iTunes, podcast directory, podcatchers drive traffic to website from other locations.

Be sure to leave contact information and clearly spoken links to your website at the end of your podcast so people can find your site that got the show from iTunes. Spell things out so that people have time to write it down or type it into their browsers.

Article by James that includes list of podcasting directories to submit to. (Note: after podcast Deborah started down that page adding podcast rss feeds.)

Force yourself into a schedule by having a live call and then record and post. Some conference call services:
AccuConference
Free Conference Call

Another way is to have a co-host, so you keep each other to a schedule. Plus people generally like to here different voices and different opinions. Then add guests so that you have even more voice and regularity. Discussion creates new and better ideas.

Arlene Martell’s Podcast – initially pushed back from the idea for a podcast on her site EpilepsyMoms.com. Instead of a long term podcast she decided to have interviews and have a limited series of podcasts on specific topics with specific physicians and nutritionists. Her goal with her podcast was to educate parents of children with epilepsy and have them try the diet that has made such a difference in her child’s life.

Interviews via podcast instead of print interviews are more interactive. Makes your website comes to life, and when on a podcast the participants gain from the discussion, which gives the listeners new information as well.

Blogger challenge: Think about the topic of your blog, find someone similar and just get on a call, talk about a topic and record your discussion for 20 mins. Put your contact info at the end. Post the link to your podcast here

James: Some people don’t like to hear their own voices: Get over it. Get a headset, write an outline and just do it.

Tricia: Fresh content, give new life to your site, inspire yourself with new topics

Vinny: New traffic for your site from your iTunes stream.

Vinny and Deborah’s Podcasting resources: Post with the info you need for the technical side of starting a podcast.

Twitter:
Tricia Meyer
James Martell
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah aka Loxly
Blogging ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Please go visit them to hear more podcasts about internet marketing.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Tricia Meyer, Vinny O’Hare, are joined by James Martell to have a panel discussion about guest posting (blogging on other people’s blogs) and have guest bloggers on their own sites.

More exposure for you and for the guest poster
Adds more variety of “voices” to your blog
Guest bloggers encourage their followers to follow you as well.
Some guest bloggers might not have their own sites, so they send you traffic so their followers can read what they wrote.
Where you guest blog can give you instant authority if you are a guest blogger or regular contributor to a larger site in your niche.
Multi-user blogs that share revenue

Plan your guest blogging, so you are contributing regularly to new audience
Guest blogging is going to be the next “big thing” other than social media

Bloggers are more open to cross promoting than traditional webmasters with static sites that take webmaster intervention to post content to.

Can outsource as long as the voice is yours. Give an outsourced writer an outline and then you edit it, so it is your content.

Common question: Do you use a unique post for each site or can you reuse articles from your own site?
James: Original content but not necessarily new topics. Change up the slant to fit the personality of the blog you are guest posting on. Duplicate content is not as issue because it is in front of a different audience. We want to get in front of more real people and not as much from search engines. Delivery of some content is different also, rss to various devices could mean people aren’t even getting to your actual site.

Google punishing the people that blast garbage content to 500-700 crappy blogs and bad article directories. People that have good content even on several locations are still going to rank for the same article at all those places.

Print publishing rules: First world rights for one-time use and electronic use, then reprint rights belong to the author once the article is published on the blog you are guest posting on.

BloggerLinkUp – Great place to hook up with potential guest bloggers
Podcast with Cathy Stucker about using BloggerLinkUp

Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out, but BLU is more focused as a tool to create relationships between webmasters/bloggers and HARO is more focused on actual media connections. They are complimentary tools, and you probably want to subscribe to both.
Affiliate Summit Panel request on HARO got posters, podcasters, and the panel members.

Tricia suggests some additional ways to find guest posters –
Twitter hashtags, follow some in a specific niche, watch the links they post and when you see writing you like, send them an @message to contact you about being a guest poster.

Tricia and James both have found writers via:
Paper.li – watch who your paper is pulling in and go see who has content you like or who you would like to write for or who you would like to write for you.

James: Watching people that comment regularly on blogs you are on and ask them to blog for you.

Nice things to do when you Guest Post:
Include a graphic
Promote the post
Subscribe to the post comments so you know you have comments to respond to

More sophisticated than article marketing via article sharing sites.

Plugin that allows guest posters to set up profile, submit the posts, and manage their posts they have submitted to your site: Kish Guest Post Plugin for WordPress

Gravity Forms Contact Form Plugin for WordPress Can create guest post form templates

Twitter:
Tricia Meyer
James Martell
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah aka Loxly
Blogging ABCs

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Please go visit them to hear more podcasts about internet marketing.

If you’re about to embark on setting up your home office as I did many years ago when I first got started online, you need to first realize that your office needs to be a space that you will want to be in, that you will look forward to going to and that will allow you to be productive.

Once of the great things about working at home is that you have total control of your workspace. That means that you decide what the wall décor looks like, you get to pick your desk and chair and you decide on wall color, what types of plants you have and much more.

Make it Friendly and Conducive to Work

It is essential that your office space be pleasing and comfortable. It should make you want to get down to work and help sustain your efforts. Some decorative choices you’ll have include:

• Wall and floor coverings
• Plants
• Furniture design and color
• Pictures, keepsakes, etc.

As far as the practical aspect of your office is concerned, you will want a home off desk that is conducive to your productivity, a comfortable chair and a convenient place for your printer and other peripherals. You may want to consider home entertainment wall units that can help you keep organized while holding high tech components.

Finally, you can’t forget about your computer, printer, phone and Internet connection. All need to be solid, easy to use and fast.

Keeping Organized

I’ve discovered eight amazing tools that keep me organized day-in and day-out. When I first started working online in 1999, I found that it was all too easy to lose contact with clients and difficult to track of important information, including logins, emails and websites.

These tools include Skype, which let’s me videoconference and collaborate with people from around the world, and Skype add-ons Pamela, a recording and voice mail program, and SnagIt, an easy to use photo and illustration sharing device. These three devices are essential to keeping you connected to the rest of the world and increasing productivity.

Google Documents and Google Calendar make accessing your documents and dates about as easy as can be. No matter what computer you’re logged in on and no matter where you are, you can connect with and share important information using these two tools.

I always say that RoboForm saved my business. It remembers all of those important passwords, user names and other types of information, filling them in automatically. This and a program called PageLeap are major organizational tools and time savers. With PageLeap, you’ll be able to connect with the websites that are most important to your business by simply clicking on icons on your home screen.

Finally, don’t forget to use Carbonite. This is a service that backs up all of the information from your computer to a secure server. You’ll never lose one byte of important information that is vital to the continued success of your affiliate marketing business.

Ready to Achieve

When you’re setting up your online business you’ll be excited, anxious and confused. If you’ve already done that you’ll know first hand what I am talking about. There are a lot of decisions to make. But once you get focused and commit to the process, you’ll be on your way to achieving your dreams. I’m lucky enough to work at home with my great family around me.

Of course, I do have my office escapes, including impromptu lunch dates with my wife, fieldtrips with the kids or a quick cup of coffee with a friend. Plus, I can always take a relaxing spin in my prized dream car—a 1965 Shelby Cobra. Working from home is as good as it gets so get started today on that home office!

About the Author

In his home in the beautiful seaside town of White Rock, BC, which is suburb of Vancouver, James Martell runs a successful affiliate marketing business. He also hosts a popular long-running weekly podcast for affiliate marketers. James loves his work environment and the fact that he works just a few feet away from his wife, Arlene, who run there business together. James also hosts a popular online training course for those looking to succeed online in the affiliate marketing space.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer discuss how to structure giveaways on your blog.

Some of the things to think about when doing a giveaway are what are you looking to get out of it and how much is your time & advertising/backlinks worth?  We suggest using Facebook likes, twitter followers, subscribe to blog rss for entries rather than newsletter subscriptions.  Always remember what your blog is about when considering giveaways and considering how many to do and be sure that your disclosure and privacy statements are thorough enough on your site.

Feel free to post links to your blog for us to take a look at in the comments below!   Also suggestions for future podcast topics or guests.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer discuss how to use giveaways on your blog including where to get giveaways, what are you expecting to get out of it and what are companies expecting to get out of it.

It’s easiest to start with your own product to get going.  You can then contact the affiliate managers for programs that you are an affiliate of and also contact national brands that you currently use.  When possible, request a promo code for your users so that they can place an order after the contest is over.  Be sure to set realistic expectations for both sides so that you can possibly partner again later.

Feel free to post links to your blog for us to take a look at in the comments below!   Also suggestions for future podcast topics or guests.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

We all work hard to craft our site so that it will rank high in the search engine results page because we all want that free targeted traffic hitting our website. The operative word here is FREE traffic.

Sure there are alternatives to natural search and there are endless ways to drive traffic through advertising but advertising costs big bucks and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can take a bath real fast.

But what if I told you there is a way to advertise on top platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn and Digg and not pay a cent. Interested?

I thought you might be.

Now this free advertising idea is not some new breakthrough thinking in fact it’s something you’re probably doing today…you just aren’t getting the most out of it. I’m talking about your thumbnail.

You’re already in front of the traffic; you just aren’t inviting them in.

You’re probably asking yourself how does a picture of your smiling face or your really clever logo drive traffic to the site. The answer is your picture or logo alone doesn’t. Think about all of the places that you have your thumbnail now. Think about all your comments on Facebook, LinkedIn or your tweets. How about your profile on forums or your blog responses? How many thousands of views do you suppose you are getting each month?

The traffic is there you’re just not giving them a chance to visit you. However if you turn that little thumbnail into a banner ad you will.

A thumbnail campaign that works like crazy

My wife Arlene has a site that deals with the challenges that moms who have a child with epilepsy face. Arlene really believes in the power of audio marketing and has a powerful podcast that she uses to get visitors to sign up for her newsletter. So far it has been downloaded over 50,000 times and the conversion rate to her newsletter is impressive.

Of course Arlene promotes the podcast on the site but she believes that her strategy of using her thumbnail as a banner ad is a major reason her podcast has been so successful. Because of the podcast on her site, Arlene is all over the net in related podcast directories. Every podcast profile that she sets up, every blog response, every time she starts or answers a thread there is her smiling face with the name of her site under it.

Leverage your online reputation

By adding her web address to her thumbnail and the word “Podcast” she is extending an invitation to visit the site. This works incredibly well if you have developed an online relationship or reputation with an audience. If you are active on those places where you have your thumbnail and the content you leave behind is helpful, people will want more. If you tell them where to go in your thumbnail banner you’re offering up an answer to their need for more.

Did I mention that these thumbnail ads on sites are free?

Well almost free. First you have to create the image or have them made but you’re looking at an investment of less than $75 if you outsource the job. That’s ridiculously cheap compared to the cost of running an advertising campaign on these sites.

The nitty gritty of thumbnail banners

Obviously the first thing you’re going to need to run a thumbnail ad campaign is an image. If you’re happy with the one you have that’s great but if you’re less than thrilled a graphic designer can retouch a photo for you and make you look like a million bucks.

Here’s a few things to consider when you’re developing the thumbnail ad:

1. I recommend you use your own face for the thumbnail. And that face should be smiling even if your site is about a really serious topic. People like to do business with people they know and having your picture in front of them humanizes your voice.
2. Don’t go crazy with the text you add. Don’t cover your face. Do have enough text so that you can identify your site to include the dot com or dot net. Arlene has her site name at the bottom of the thumbnail running horizontally and then the “com” running vertically. This saves space and gives the site the look of a logo.
3. If you outsource this (and I recommend you do if you’re not a graphic designer) then order different sizes as different platforms have different requirements. The most common sizes are 50×50, 80×80, 100×100, 170×170 and 200×200. Arlene actually ordered two sets one with her domain name and one that raised the domain name up a little in the image allowing her to add “Podcast” below it. This not only gives directions to the site but tells the viewer what to expect when they get there.

If you’re new to outsourcing then I suggest you visit freelance sites like Elance.com or vWorker.com to get an idea of just what is available in the way of services.

A cornucopia of stuff

The first thing you’ll notice is that you can get just about anything done and not just in graphic design. Freelancers offer up basic services like web content, website design and development, admin services, data entry, ghost writing, email campaigns and even more specialized services like customer service, print promotional material, special photo treatments like those you would get from a infrared digital camera, even silk screening for T shirts or banners. It’s like an online bazaar and the costs will pleasantly shock you.

Once you know what you want you can post a project on one of the freelance sites spelling out in as much detail as you can what you want, and then wait for the bids to come rolling in. You’re under no obligation to select a contractor so there is no financial risk to you if you don’t see a bid that meets your requirements.

Let the traffic begin

Once you have your professionally created thumbnail then the task is to get it up on all those places that you are already a regular. To help you do that you really ought to consider visiting gravatar.com which is an avatar (thumbnail) management service which will follow you around and automatically pull the thumbnail you want each time you post. It’s a great tool, and just like your banner ads, it’s free.

So know you know the secret of how to get free banners ads up on some incredibly high traffic sites. Don’t wait, get your thumbnails produced and up and watch your traffic spike.

Bio

James Martell has been teaching and mentoring online marketers since 2001 through his affiliate marketing trainings and his acclaimed and long running podcast. A recognized expert in natural search and outsourcing, James is sought out for speaking engagements by industry conventions and seminars. James and his wife live with their four children in a seaside suburb of Vancouver, B.C.

Blogging ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer discuss how to structure your blog including how to pick the software and platform.

Recommended blog platforms: Unanimously recommend WordPress.org with the blog hosted on your own domain. Tricia and Deborah both use the Thesis WordPress theme, while Liz uses themes from the WordPress.org repository to find themes that fit the subject of her blogs.  It was suggested that you do not have any auto play music, video etc that can distract your visitors, or even detract visitors.

When using WordPress.com – You are not allowed to monetize your blog at all.
Blogger.com/Blogspot.com – You can monetize but it looks unprofessional and you don’t own your content.

Feel free to post links to your blog for us to take a look at in the comments below! Also suggestions for future podcast topics or guests are welcome.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

After a bit of a hiatus, Blogging ABCs is back with new co-hosts that are blogging experts ready to share their expertise with you! Your hosts are Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg and Trica Meyer. Each has a variety of blogs on a variety of subjects and have several years of experience. For their first podcast together they discuss the value of niche blogs vs general content blogs, and when each is appropriate.

Tricia – First blog was a general mom’s blog and has come back to niche instead. SEO – niche blogs “kill it” – getting much more targeted traffic, general blog gets more general backlinks instead.

Debbie – Longtail traffic, Google etc don’t have to dig as far with a niche site to get info. People lose what you’re trying to say if you are too general.

Word of mouth traffic, offline, etc – general site is better than needing to list site to people you are talking to or to have on a business card.

Blogging to blog or to monetize makes difference, so determine the focus of your blog before you start.

Recommended blog platforms: Unanimously recommend WordPress.org with the blog hosted on your own domain. Tricia and Deborah both use the Thesis WordPress theme, while Liz uses themes from the WordPress.org repository to find themes that fit the subject of her blogs.

Feel free to post links to your blog for us to take a look at in the comments below! Also suggestions for future podcast topics or guests.

Find Us On Twitter:
Blogging ABCs
Loxly
SunshineTricia
TeamLoxlyLiz

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky.

Hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare chat with webmaster Rob McFaul about his website The Drink Guy. He got the idea for the website from discussions with people at Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Las Vegas. We recorded two podcasts with Rob to assist him in getting started with his blog and getting it monetized.

Rob was inspired by several sessions at Affiliate Summit, so if you are a blogger looking to monetize, check out the Affiliate Summit website for the upcoming summit! After hearing an Affiliate ABCs podcast on Geekcast.fm about the benefits of networking at events like Affiliate Summit he decided he needed to go and see what he could learn. Listen along and learn how Rob got started, and where his site is headed.

This is part 2. Part 1 is here.

Twitter
Follow Rob on Twitter @rmcfaul

Follow Hosts Deborah Carney on Twitter @loxly, Vinny O’Hare on Twitter @vinnyohare and our show @BloggingABCs

Many thanks to the folks over at GeekCast.fm for hosting our show, be sure to head over there and listen to their other great podcasts.

Hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare chat with webmaster Rob McFaul about his website The Drink Guy. He got the idea for the website from discussions with people at Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Las Vegas. We recorded two podcasts with Rob to assist him in getting started with his blog and getting it monetized.

Rob was inspired by several sessions at Affiliate Summit, so if you are a blogger looking to monetize, check out the Affiliate Summit website for the upcoming summit! After hearing an Affiliate ABCs podcast on Geekcast.fm about the benefits of networking at events like Affiliate Summit he decided he needed to go and see what he could learn. Listen along and learn how Rob got started, and where his site is headed.

This is part 1. Part 2 is here.

Twitter
Follow Rob on Twitter @rmcfaul

Follow Hosts Deborah Carney on Twitter @loxly, Vinny O’Hare on Twitter @vinnyohare and our show @BloggingABCs

Many thanks to the folks over at GeekCast.fm for hosting our show, be sure to head over there and listen to their other great podcasts.

BloggingABCs host Deborah Carney is joined by Kim Rowley, Key Internet Marketing, Inc Kim and Deborah talk about how Kim got started and how she monetizes her blogs.

Sites we discuss:
ShoppingBookmarks.com
ShoeholicsAnonymous.com
PreemieTwins.com

Main biz site that links to all Kim’s sites – KIMarketing.com
Affiliate Summit

Some tools we mention:
TubeMogul.com
http://www.vtubetools.com/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/youtuber/

Follow Blogging ABCs Host Deborah Carney on Twitter @loxly and our show @BloggingABCs

Many thanks to the folks over at GeekCast.fm for hosting our show, be sure to head over there and listen to their other great podcasts.

Since so many bloggers are podcasting or are interested in podcasting, Deborah Carney and Daniel Clark decided to share how they record each of theirs. They talk about equipment, software and all things podcasty and geeky.

Be sure to check out our first podcast with Daniel here.

Geek Dads Weekly – formerly Geek Dads @ Home
Ubercaster
Audio Hijack Pro
GarageBand
Audacity
Plantronics DSP400 Foldable Multimedia Headset

Follow Host Deborah Carney on Twitter @loxly and our show @BloggingABCs

Link to Vinny and Deborah’s podcasting tools and software.

Many thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts and many other educational and entertaining podcasts related to all things geeky