Colin Klinkert Dot Com

If you have the ability to write compelling sales copy, but can’t build a website for the life of you, it’s not really a problem, because a website isn’t required to be a successful affiliate marketer.  This is done by utilizing a variety of Web 2.0 sites,  which allows you to build an online presence using the in-place infrastructure of already popular websites.

There are a lot of content websites that are completely dependent upon user submitted content.  Sites like Associated Content and eHow are comprised almost exclusively of articles that are written and submitted by average users.  These sites get a lot of viewers and are usually at the top of many searches, so use that popularity to your advantage.  This isn’t some sort of nefarious scheme, it is an equal trade; the content sites get quality content you produce, and you get free space to promote your product.

Here’s how you can make it work:  write a bunch of articles about the product you are promoting or the about the topic in general.  Make sure that each of these are unique, because if you submit duplicate articles to many different sites, search engines like Google won’t count them and could even penalize them.  And make sure the articles are rich with the keywords related to your product.

These sites will usually allow you to place affiliate links either in the body of the content or in a special resource box on the page.  People searching for those keywords, will come across your articles on these sites (because web 2.0 sites generally achieve very high page ranks) and, if your sales copy is compelling, they will click through your affiliate link and purchase the product.

The amount of success you will have is completely dependent on the quality of your sales copy, but the beauty of this method is that it requires no start-up costs.  You don’t need to register domain names and build websites.  Just write the articles and start making money.

“The collapse of the economy has led me to drastically restructure my own retirement plan,” says Dr. Richard Besdine, the 69-year-old director of the Brown University Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research. “It’s a lot simpler now — I’m just going to die in the office.” - CNN Money

Funny… but unfortunatly, due to events taking place over the last two years, potentially true. The retirement age of Average Americans is likely to increase by 10 years due to the setbacks being seen right now. Not sure about you, but the though of working until 75 doesn’t sound too appealing to me.

There simply has to be a better way to earn an income then ‘working for the man’! This is where the internet puts it’s hand up and yells: “Pick Me… Pick Me!”

Truly, anyone can do it, provided you think about each action you take. The saying “Every action has a reaction” wasn’t made up purely because it ryhmes. Don’t do any action without thinking about it first. Why go and post a spam link on other peoples blogs promoting a ponzi scheme? How long will it take before that comment is deleted, if it is approved at all? How many people reading that comment are likely to think “Wow, this sounds good?” I would go as far as to say none will, but everyone else will think of you as just another spammer. That really is NOT the way to do it. Rather, eductate yourself on what successful people do, and think about each action you take. Ensure there is purpose behind it.

I thought about this post before writing it. The reason for me making this post is because I know I can help you to take actions that produce the positive kinds of results. So drumming it in that you can do it, if you do it the right way, should, lead to you signing up to my mailing list and following my posts.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.TwitterColin.com/ - i’ll follow you back

One of the biggest components of a website’s success in search engine rankings is the proper selection and use of keywords. Emphasizing the right keywords can make your website stand out in the right circles, getting you traffic and revenue. That said, finding the right keywords can be a tough task.

Selecting the right keywords and phrases relies on two things: research and specificity.

For the research part, go to websites that offer similar services to what you will provide and look at its keywords. Often you can see them by right mouse-clicking on the page and selecting “View Page Source”. But there are also a lot of online keyword analysis tools, like Spyfu, that allow you to enter a web address and return a keyword list, so make use of them. Such a list will provide you with a starting point.

Once you have the list, it is time to get specific. Basic one-word keywords generally face very tough competition. For example, if you wanted to start a successful website about independent music acts in your city, then the keyword “music” would not be one to focus on. You will face tough competition from online music distributors, online merchants like Amazon, record companies, music magazines, etc.

If, however, you use that starting keyword and make it more specific, you can have better success. So, instead of music, try “music in New York” or “New York indie music,” or any other variation that will include the base keyword and make it specific for your topic.

Search engine users have become sophisticated enough to realize that in order to find the content they want, they must enter specific search terms. If your keywords reflect variations of those specific terms, then you will be able to generate traffic, and that traffic will be made up of the exact people who are interested in your topic/product/service.

Are You Following Me on Twitter? http://www.TwitterColin.com - I Follow Back

The one-way link to your website from somebody else’s is one of the main factors for search engines in deciding whether or not your content is important. When other web users decide your content is worthwile, they create a link to it either on their own website or a social bookmarking site - or so goes the search engine logic.

With that said, here are a few proven strategies that you can use to begin generating links to your site in no time:

• Article marketing through sites like ezinearticles and other similar sites provides you not only with the ability to link to your site, but also a way for you to give people a preview of what sort of content you offer. If people read your articles and then decide to click over to your site, they will be highly relevant traffic.

• The AddThis and ShareThis buttons are small widgets that you can insert into your webpages. Visitors to your site can then use these widgets to submit your articles to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, etc. If you have regular content updates and readers who will click these widgets, then you can generate links without doing any actual work yourself.

• Link directories are kind of like the internet version of phone books, as they separate websites into different categories that you can submit your link to. Some are free to submit links and others require a payment. It’s a good idea to stick with the free ones at first, until you learn more about what kind of traffic you can potentially generate and what sort of descriptions and advertisement-like text you should enter. Once you have this refined, feel free to try out a paid site, or avoid them, if the free ones are having a good effect and spending extra money wouldn’t be worth it.

Songs have power and meaning. I often here a song that just clicks with me. We all have them and we all have different music tastes. To be honest, rock is not one of my favorite tastes, but the words of this Nickleback song are good ones to listen to and think about sometimes

I can’t say its words to live your life by, or you will never get anything done… but remember, never take life for granted! Making money is important, but so are the small things… Enjoy:

Blogging has become an incredibly popular way to distribute content in the past few years.  Though subjects may vary, all successful blogs have two certain things in common:  regular content updates and content that is valuable to the reader.

While many who are looking to start a career in online marketing may use a blog as an occasional medium for releasing content, many underestimate just how powerful a good blog can be for developing a “hub” presence for online marketing.

Why spend your time developing a blog instead of working on other aspects of online marketing?  There are a few reasons.

First of all, a blog helps to put a personal face to your online business.  If people are able to regularly read things you are writing, and have access to an About or Contact page where they can learn about you or get in touch with you, that makes you an actual person in their minds, instead of a faceless internet entity.  People are more likely to want to do business with “Bill Jones” instead of “productnameplus.com.”

Second, if you provide quality content on your blog, you are able to attract more customers.  For example, if you build a blog about pet training that provides solid resources for web users, then when you use the blog as a platform for promoting a related product, people will value you as person knows what they’re talking about and who has provided a lot of free information to them already.  Having established this credibility, they will be more inclined to try it if it is recommended by you.

You can also add an “opt-in” box where people can sign up for a newsletter or email updates.  This allows you to set up a customer list and have people ask to be on it!  A strong blog with quality content can provide a central hub for all of your online marketing ventures, and can attract quality customers.

A Good Tip:

You can signup to my Optin Box top left to see the process I use. Another good Idea would be to follow me on Twitter. Doing so will trigger a DM sent to you on Twitter from me and you can see how I handle my new twitter followers with the video I send them to and the incentive I give to optin

Using free online classifieds, like Craigslist, can be a good way to get your online business started and generating traffic. What makes these online classifieds worthwhile is the fact that they generally provide highly targeted audiences.

Let’s say that you are promoting a product that teaches people how to cook. Depending on the type of classifieds site you go to, you may find an entire category devoted to culinary instruction. Otherwise, try to fit your advertisement into the most applicable category.

There are pluses and minuses to online classified ads. First, the pluses: most of them are free, so they’ll fit any budget; as discussed above, the traffic is targeted to your specific audience; they are a way to test out your ad copy before starting a pay per click (PPC) or other paid advertising campaign.

Okay, now the minuses: they’re free, so there’s a lot of people who post classified ads, meaning yours could get lost in the clutter; in advertising, you generally get what you pay for, so the amount of time and effort you put into these free ads may not provide the amount of traffic that a paid ad would.

Before posting your ads, make sure to familiarize yourself with the classifieds site’s rules. You don’t want to go through the trouble of posting an ad only to have it deleted a few moments afterwards because it violated site policy.

So are online classifieds right for you? That depends on your current progress in building your business. If you can afford some other, more traditional forms of internet advertising, they’ll probably give you more traffic.

If you are just starting out and don’t have much, or any, money to put into an advertising campaign, online classifieds could provide you with business that can make you the money to pay for other means of advertising.

Brute Force marketers say that doing it all is best, so maybe it’s worth having a look at Craigslist or PRweb for your business?

Virally Explode Your Twitter Followers With ViralFollowers Dot Com

When the internet was young and web programming languages like JavaScript were first coming out, a flashy website was a big customer draw. Now, all those flashy graphics and design structures are passé. These days, internet users are far more sophisticated and are very skilled at finding the exact content that they are looking for. With that in mind, here’s a piece of advice: Forget flashiness, focus on content.

The term “bounce rate” refers to how many people dig into your site. If people link to one of your pages, but then immediately click out to another site, that is a bounce. If they look at one of your pages and then click through to another section of your website, that is a stick.

Which is more likely to cause people to stick around on your website, flashy graphics or compelling and informative content? If your content is well-written and engaging, and it provides the value of either information or entertainment to your audience, then people will stick around and spend time with your site.

Whether your website is designed to sell a certain product or makes its money from advertising, the longer a viewer stays on your site, the better. If the viewer immediately leaves, you won’t be able to charge top advertising rates on the site, and if they leave immediately, you never have a chance to sell them a product.

Compelling content is one of the most important, if not the most important, factor when it comes to creating a website that will be profitable.

Look at websites that attract you. How is the content delivered? Where are the big pieces of information located within that content? How easy is it to link from one piece of content to another interesting article or webpage? Apply the techniques that work for you to your own site.

Something I plan on doing in future is adding a training series via email for my members to opt-in to. try to deliver content in as many different ways as possible to appeal to all your readers prefered viewing and learning methods.

This is a follow-on from a post I recently made about blog commenting. Today we are looking at Effective Forum Marketing. You can watch an intro to this post:  http://viralnetworks.com/view/rVIwm

Forums are a great way to get in touch with potential customers.  There are various forums all across the internet that are devoted to an incredible range of topics.  That means that regardless of the type of product you are working with, there is likely a forum somewhere that is devoted to that field.  The people who frequent that forum are a highly targeted demographic  - they are ‘warm’ prospects, with high conversion potential.

Establish a Presence

But you need to work at establishing a presence.  Forum marketing is not about just posting a couple links and watching the sales come rolling in.  Forums have moderators and administrators who look out for marketing scams and immediately delete those posts and ban the user who posted them.

So how can you use forum marketing effectively?

Trading value for value.  The value that the forum users offer is their attention to your product and possibly buying it.  The value you provide is determined by the nature of the forum.

For example, if you are selling a how-to product that teaches people how to use Photoshop software, then look for forums for beginners to the software.  They will ask questions about how to do certain things, you find the answer and post it.  That is the value you give them.  When you post in a forum, you are usually allowed to have a link to a website either in your user profile or as a “signature” - text or images that appear automatically at the bottom of each of your posts.

Don’t Blatantly Sell

As long as you provide value to the other forum users and don’t blatantly try to sell your product, you will be allowed to stay.  And the people that you advise will often follow your link out of curiosity, or the need for more information. If they see that you have a product that solves their problem or enhances the reason they are in the forum, they are more likely to buy that product.

Forum marketing is being used more and more by internet marketers, and while it does take time to establish a credible preference in the forum, the benefits are great if it is one that is very finely targeted to your niche.

Have You Tried This Yet

Have You Used a Technique like this before or during your product launch? Maybe you have used it as an affiliate for other products… What Results have you seen from Forum traffic?

A Short Video Into To This Post Can Be Found: http://viralnetworks.com/view/XPuSc

If you’ve ever read a blog’s comments section, then you’ve probably come across a comment that was submitted for the sole purpose of generating a backlink. The comment usually reads like gibberish, but has a whole bunch of keywords and links peppered within it.

In order to neutralize these sorts of comments, there are all sorts of spam blockers for blogs (with Akismet being one of the most used) and there are NoFollow HTML codes that prevent search engines from giving any credit for these comments.

That being said, commenting on blogs can still be a great way to build buzz and traffic for your site.

Add Value

The idea of blog commenting is to some sort of valuable contribution. For example, if you read a popular blog in your niche and you have an opinion or idea related to a post, then comment on it and feel free to leave a link to your website. When the administrator of the blog sees your comment, the value of what you wrote in advancing the blog’s community far outweighs the small favor of providing a backlink, so they will likely keep the comment live.

If you comment regularly on a certain blog (or series of blogs), then you can begin to develop a relationship with other people in your niche. These people will visit your site and may even link to you or reference you in their posts if the content you provide is worthwhile.

Commenting in this manner, helps out both parties. The blogger builds his community and makes it more likely that other readers will engage in a conversation and keep coming back, and you get a valuable backlink to your site from a blog that focuses on your niche, ensuring targeted traffic.

Another Place Worth Adding Value

Social Networks that have a target audence is a good place to use to add value. It is for this reason I built ViralNetworks! The idea is that you build a reputation among your peers and make those million $ ventures you hear about, as well as getting people to like and trust you. (These are the only reasons people will buy your products, if they know, like and trust you or of course, your product).

Come join me on the online Business Social Network today!