Lead Generation Using Traffic Exchanges

Lead Generation Using Traffic Exchanges

by: Jimmy Boyd

Leads have always been the lifeblood of any business. If you have no leads, you have no business. Everyone knows that, but the thing killing everybody out there is how to get leads for your business without going broke in the process.

There are many ways to drum up business, but the focus of this article is the use of viral techniques you can use to create leads for your business.

Viral marketing comes in many shapes and sizes, but the best way to get started with viral marketing fast is to use traffic exchanges.

The problem that people run into with traffic exchanges is they try to use some selfreplicated website, thinking that if they just show the page enough, someone will buy.

Sorry, but this doesn’t work. I have used traffic exchanges for years, and I can tell you straight up that they work and work for one purpose only: LEAD GENERATION.

So, how do you use traffic exchanges for lead generation?

Itกs actually quite simple. All you have to do is set up a simple page like this with an optin box.

http://www.azwebcity.com/jimmyboyd/safelistpoppage.html

You have the right to copy this page if you want. Just right click on the page, and you will see the menu pop up. From there, click on Source or View Page Source, and you can copy and paste that HTML and modify it with your details.

You will also need an autoresponder service to handle your leads. I highly recommend SendFree for this purpose. They have a free 30day trial on their Premium Service, which is nice because you will need a little time to start getting leads for your list.

Now, go and find some traffic exchanges and promote that lead generation page in those exchanges.

This works. It absolutely works like a charm. We get lots of subscribers using this page with exchanges. However, itกs a bit tiring to use the exchanges EXCEPT MillionDollarTraffic. This the best exchange we have used because the pages simply pop up for you.

Here is an Action Plan you can use to help you get started getting your own leads from MDT.

http://www.affiliatemoneypool.com/leadtraffic.html

Each time you close the special browser, you get credits to show your page. The conversion rate on this kind of exchange, which I believe is the first of its kind at the time of this writing, is much better than timerbased exchanges.

About The Author

Jimmy Boyd teaches you how to get leads for your business using free viral techniques. Learn more about getting your own leads with our free membership site.

http://www.affiliatemoneypool.com

This article was posted on May 05, 2004

by Jimmy Boyd

Cisco Certification: Debug and Show commands for I

Cisco Certification: Debug and Show commands for ISDN

by: Chris Bryant

The major reason I recommend getting your hands on real Cisco equipment rather than a simulator is that real Cisco routers give you the chance to practice and learn show and debug commands.

The knowledge you acquire from debugs is invaluable. Frankly, it’s this knowledge that puts you above the ขaverageข CCNA who doesn’t have that handson experience. Watching debugs in action also gives you a head start on the CCNP. Since 90 – 95% of CCNAs go on to pursue the CCNP, it’s a great idea to get started with debugs now.

Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you’re studying for your CCNP and CCIE to start learning debugs and shows. The work you do for the CCNA is the foundation for everything you’ll do in the future.

Never, ever, ever practice debugs on a production network. There are debugs that will give you so much information that the router actually becomes overloaded and then locks up. Never practice debugs on a production network.

It’s important to know the proper show and debug commands for ISDN for several reasons. First, by watching ISDN in operation, you can see its processes and better understand what’s going on. Secondly, it’s difficult if not impossible to properly troubleshoot ISDN without knowing the proper show and debug commands. (It’s easy to overlook an ISDN authentication error just by looking at the configuration, but running debug ppp negotiation will quickly show you where the problem lies.)

Let’s take a look at the ISDN show and debug commands that every CCNA and CCNP should know.

Show ISDN Status

If you only know one ISDN show command, it’s got to be this one. Always use this command after configuring your ISDN switch type and any necessary SPIDs. The command will show you the switch type (and will also show you if you did not configure a switch type), and whether the SPIDs you entered are valid:

R1#show isdn status

Global ISDN Switchtype = basicni

ISDN BRI0 interface

dsl 0, interface ISDN Switchtype = basicni

Layer 1 Status:

ACTIVE

Layer 2 Status:

TEI = 91, Ces = 1, SAPI = 0, State = MULTIPLE_FRAME_ESTABLISHED

TEI = 92, Ces = 2, SAPI = 0, State = MULTIPLE_FRAME_ESTABLISHED

Spid Status:

TEI 91, ces = 1, state = 5(init)

spid1 configured, no LDN, spid1 sent, spid1 valid

Endpoint ID Info: epsf = 0, usid = 1, tid = 1

TEI 92, ces = 2, state = 5(init)

spid2 configured, no LDN, spid2 sent, spid2 valid

Endpoint ID Info: epsf = 0, usid = 3, tid = 1

Layer 3 Status:

0 Active Layer 3 Call(s)

Activated dsl 0 CCBs = 0

The Free Channel Mask: 0x80000003

Once in a while, you’ll get this output from show isdn status:

R2#show isdn status

The current ISDN Switchtype = basicni1

ISDN BRI0 interface

Layer 1 Status:

ACTIVE

Layer 2 Status:

Layer 2 NOT Activated

Spid Status:

TEI Not Assigned, ces = 1, state = 3(await establishment)

spid1 configured, no LDN, spid1 NOT sent, spid1 NOT valid

TEI Not Assigned, ces = 2, state = 1(terminal down)

spid2 configured, no LDN, spid2 NOT sent, spid2 NOT valid

Check your running configuration, and if the SPIDs look good, simply close the BRI interface and open it again. Then run show ISDN status again. If you then see ขspids are validข, you’re ready to proceed. If you still see a message that the spids are invalid, you’ve most likely mistyped the SPID.

Show AccessList

What’s this command got to do with ISDN? Everything.

Remember how the ISDN link comes up in the first place? Interesting traffic. By default, there is no interesting traffic. You define interesting traffic with the dialerlist and dialergroup commands, AND the accesslist command. If you have a problem with your link never coming up or with it coming up and staying up, use this command to see what traffic has been defined as interesting.

Show Dialer

Another helpful command to determine why an ISDN link is coming up and staying up. This command shows you how many successful calls and failed calls have taken place, what the current idletimer value is (by default, it’s 120 seconds), and most importantly, what the source and destination was for the current interesting traffic:

R1#show dialer

BRI0 dialer type = ISDN

Dial String Successes Failures Last called Last status

8358662 1 0 00:00:59 successful

0 incoming call(s) have been screened.

0 incoming call(s) rejected for callback.

BRI0:1 dialer type = ISDN

Idle timer (120 secs), Fast idle timer (20 secs)

Wait for carrier (30 secs), Reenable (15 secs)

Dialer state is data link layer up

Dial reason: ip (s=172.12.21.1, d=172.12.21.2)

Time until disconnect 62 secs

Connected to 8358662 (R2)

Here, you can see that the idletimer value is at its default, that there are 62 seconds left until the link comes down (unless interesting traffic resets the timer), and that the source of the interesting traffic was 172.12.21.1 and the destination is 172.12.21.2. If that destination is the multicast address of a routing protocol – say, 224.0.0.5 for OSPF – you know what traffic is keeping the line up.

Show ISDN History

Want to see what calls have been made in the last 15 minutes? Just run this command. It’s helpful if you’re walking in to an ISDN troubleshooting situation and want to see what calls have been made.

R1#show isdn history ISDN CALL HISTORYHistory table has a maximum of 100 entries.History table data is retained for a maximum of 15 Minutes.Call Calling Called Remote Seconds Seconds Seconds ChargesType Number .Number Name Used Left Idle Units/CurrencyOut 8358662 R2 121 0Out 8358662 R2 121 0

Debug PPP Negotiation

Not only do you need to know this command for your CCNA and CCNP exams, you MUST know it to be an effective ISDN troubleshooter.

When PPP authentication is first configured, it’s simple to mistype a password, or forget to configure a ขusername / passwordข combination. Instead of continually reading your running configuration to see what the problem is, run debug ppp negotiation and send a ping to bring the line up. You’ll quickly see where the problem is.

R2#debug ppp negotiation

PPP protocol negotiation debugging is on

R2#ping 172.12.21.1

BR0:1 PPP: Phase is AUTHENTICATING, by both

BR0:1 CHAP: O CHALLENGE id 1 len 23 from กR2ก

BR0:1 CHAP: I CHALLENGE id 1 len 23 from กR1ก

BR0:1 CHAP: O RESPONSE id 1 len 23 from กR2ก

BR0:1 CHAP: I SUCCESS id 1 len 4

BR0:1 CHAP: I RESPONSE id 1 len 23 from กR1ก

BR0:1 CHAP: O SUCCESS id 1 len 4

By mastering these simple ISDN show and debug commands, you increase your chances of passing the CCNA and CCNP exams greatly, and vastly improve your onthejob skills.

I recommend you visit www.cisco.com/univercd for more show and debug commands. Learning to negotiate this valuable online resource will truly help you become more valuable on the job. Every Cisco router and switch command, along with default and usage guidelines, can be found on this site. I’ll have an article posted soon to help you learn your way around the site; in the meantime, I urge you to begin adding this website to your troubleshooting toolkit.

Chris Bryant

CCIE #12933

About The Author

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantageกs website offers FREE ebooks and tutorials for the CCNA and CCNP exams, FREE subscriptions to กCisco Certification Centralก, and sells the best CCNA and CCNP prep courses and books on the market today. Visit his site at www.thebryantadvantage.com today!

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 04, 2005

by Chris Bryant

My Website Needed More Targeted Traffic. Guess Whe

My Website Needed More Targeted Traffic. Guess Where I Found It?

by: Brian McGregor

There’s nothing new about using joint ventures to get traffic to websites. And good information is freely available from many internet marketing sites on how to set up JVs.

This article is for the 97% of webmasters who aren’t aware of a particularly powerful JV partner who already exists, and is willing to work with you.

Before I reveal all, let me just check…..

Like me, I would image you’d be happy if:

Your JV partner’s site gets huge traffic.

The vast majority of page views are by targeted traffic.

You can create links wherever YOU like from their site.

You can start now. There’s no delay in setting up the JV.

The JV continues as long as you want.

It costs you pennies to set up and run.

Does that sound like it’s what you’re looking for in a JV?

If so, welcome to eBay. You’re new joint venture partner.

But I Thought….

ขeBay?ข I hear you ask, ขIsn’t eBay just an auction site?ข

Well, it certainly started as an auction site. Today, eBay is an ecommerce phenomenon.

eBay’s 1.5 billion page views puts it in sixth place on Alexa traffic rankings. Ahead of Amazon, AOL and CNN.

eBay members make 79 million targeted searches for items each day.

There are 35,000 categories within which to place items for sale.

There are eBay auction sites in 27 countries.

eBay has 125 million registered users.

40,000 new members join eBay each day.

What we have here is a hugely successful internet business with massive traffic. And, thanks to eBay’s sophisticated categorization and searching mechanisms, the traffic is totally targeted.

More importantly, there are several smart ways to drive eBay’s targeted traffic to your own website. All of these clever methods add up to what I call the eBay Traffic Funnel.

Does it work? Well, I sell a communications product from my website. I run 5 simple auctions in the appropriate categories using the principles of the eBay Traffic Funnel. Each auction costs me 30 cents and runs for a week. I get around 300 targeted leads from these auctions to my website every week. Not bad for one dollar fifty!

Let me show you just one of the ways to get hold of that targeted traffic…

Sell, Sell, Sell

First of all, you make eBay part of your marketing mix. You start selling your products on eBay.

Why do I say this? Well, eBay isn’t just for mom and pop businesses anymore. IBM, Disney, Motorola, Xerox and Dell, are just a few of the major corporates that now use eBay as an additional sales and lead generation channel.

Creating eBay auctions is easy. Anyone can do it – literally. But if you don’t want to learn, you can use a Trading Assistant. These are eBay experts who will create, run and manage auctions on behalf of others for a percentage of sales or a small fee.

When you set up your auction one of the decisions you make is in which category to place your item. This is important. Visitors to your auction page – just by being there – have self qualified themselves as being in the market to buy products in that category. This is targeting in real time.

But merely creating the auction isn’t the trick. Here’s the key tip. In your auction page, make sure you tell your viewers that if they’ve any questions about your auction, your products or your policies, they should email you. And encourage them to do this by having a live email link in your auction, like this one [email protected]

As soon as they make contact with you, you’ve acquired a targeted lead you wouldn’t have got any other way. You can start building a relationship. You can get them on your list, direct them to your website and start selling to them.

Pieces of Eight

I’ve only the space to show you one way in which you can direct your share of eBay’s targeted traffic to your website. There are eight ways in total. If you want to know the other seven, you’ll find them in my free ebook ‘The eBay Traffic Funnel’.

Setting up a JV with eBay can produce significant results. There isn’t another business on the web that gives you access to the targeted traffic eBay supplies for the price of a few pennies. Best of all, 97% of webmasters have yet to realize the power of this.

The opportunity for you and your website is there for the taking.

About The Author

Brian McGregor specializes in showing website owners how to make more money from their sites by applying inventive and original use of eBay. For a free copy of ‘The eBay Traffic Funnel’ which shows how to use the power of eBay to make more money with your website, visit http://www.moreauctionsales.com/websites

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 09, 2004

by Brian McGregor

5 Top Tips For Attracting Targeted Traffic

5 Top Tips For Attracting Targeted Traffic

by: Steve Shaw

One of the most common needs of online business owners is traffic. Without traffic, your web site barely exists, and is unlikely to make any profit whatsoever. With traffic, you stand a much greater chance of success but not just any traffic.

As the owner of a network of web sites receiving well over a million hits a month, in this article I give you my five top tips for increasing targeted traffic to your web site.

Newbies on the web frequently make the mistake of just wanting traffic, and join any and every program offering just that ‘thousands of hits to your web siteก, with the vast majority of them completely worthless. When their web sites fail to make any money, many of them give up on the web as a moneymaking myth.

For those that do persist, and try to learn from their experience, they realize itกs not just any traffic they need itกs targeted traffic. That means web site visitors who actually want to visit (rather than those who are กforcedก to visit via some traffic exchange program), and so are actually interested in what you have to offer.

This type of traffic is far more profitable to you your visitors are far more likely to purchase from you, simply because you have what they want.

But how can you attract targeted traffic?

Here are my five top tips:

1. An Affiliate Program

This works by giving those who promote your products a commission if they make a sale. Over time you can build up an army of people who are busy promoting your web sites for you.

My own affiliates account for well over half of all my sales, and to do that, by definition they have to be pushing a lot of traffic my way.

You can begin to see what my traffic and sales levels might look like without an affiliate program.

For beginners who are selling digital products such as ebooks or software, the easiest and cheapest way to start your own affiliate program is through ClickBank. Thatกs how I started and I still use them today.

2. Add Content

Providing quality content on your web site is an excellent way to permanently increase traffic to your web site.

Search engines like Google appear to favor web sites with a clear navigation structure that provide quality content within a certain genre that means not adding anything you can think of to your web site, but focus on a particular niche, and provide content broadly in line with that.

You don’t even have to create it all yourself. For example, look in article directories on the web for free reprint articles you can use, such as http://IdeaMarketers.com.

3. Create Content

Just as you are looking for content you can quickly add to your web site, so are thousands of other publishers. By creating content yourself, you can not only put it up on your own web site, but also provide it to others for their use with a small resource box at the end of the article with a link to your web site.

In so doing, you can have literally hundreds of web sites all linking to yours. This provides a consistent stream of targeted traffic from readers of the article who want to follow through to your web site, and also from search engines like Google, where your ranking will broadly increase in line with the number of web sites linking to you.

Hundreds of ezine publishers are also on the look out for quality content that they can publish, on a wide range of topics if a publisher with a large mailing list chooses to publish your article, this can lead to a surge in both traffic and sales on your web site when their ezine is published. Many ezines are published online too, providing another permanent link and source of high quality traffic to your web site.

There are various courses and ebooks available online that can teach you how to effectively distribute your articles and get them published thereกs also a free ecourse available at http://takanomi.com/publisharticles.php that tells you nearly everything you need to know.

4. Publish An Ezine

One of the most effective ways to build a loyal base of repeat visitors for your web site is your own mailing list, whether itกs an ezine that publishes regularly, or a mailing list who you occasionally mail to.

By publishing quality information in your emails, you increase your credibility, build trust with your subscribers, and encourage repeated visits to your web site.

5. Pay Per Click Engines

When you use payperclick engines, you are effectively paying to have a high ranking position for certain keywords, on certain search engines. If you choose your keywords carefully, the traffic is highly targeted the trick is to ensure you are not paying more per click than each visitor is worth.

To do this effectively requires some careful tracking of the visitors that arrive at your site from your keyword placements, but done correctly, the end result is net profit for you.

The main payperclick engines are Google Adwords and Overture with Google, your ads are displayed within minutes; with Overture, it can take a few hours to a few days to have your ads approved and displayed.

I personally use all of the above methods to attract targeted traffic to my web site of course, thatกs not the end of the road in terms of web site profitability. You then need to ensure that a proportion of this targeted traffic converts into paying customers. Once youกve mastered this too, you are well on your way to online success.

Steve Shaw creates software and systems for effective emarketing. His software at http://popupmaster.com allows you to add unblockable popups to your web site quickly and easily, specifically designed to sign up subscribers to your mailing list, and fast.

About The Author

Steve Shaw has been marketing fulltime online since March 2002, developing software products and systems for effective emarketing for more information see http://takanomi.com.

This article was posted on February 10, 2004

by Steve Shaw

The Nuts And Bolts Of Traffic Exchanges

The Nuts And Bolts Of Traffic Exchanges

by: AnnaMarie Stewart Venton

Traffic Exchanges. What are they? How do they work? What do they do?

First of all, a ‘traffic Exchangeก is exactly that, a way to exchange traffic, a way to get visitors to your site. This happens by you visiting sites, in exchange for pageviews to your site.

There are LOTS of Traffic Exchanges out there. Some good, some bad, but most of them work in basically the same ways. You join, visit sites, refer others and build up credits.

There are 2 main types of Traffic Exchanges (there`s actually a few more types of exchanges, but these are the ones we`ll concentrate on here):

Manual Surf and Auto Surf.

With manual surf, you have to click on a button to get to the next site, with auto surf, you can sit back and watch the pages change automatically, without having to lift a finger. Nowadays, the trend seems to be that the exchanges offer multiple choices for surfing: manual, auto, different timers (15, 20 or 30 seconds before next site). A lot of them now offer games while surfing, as a chance to earn extra credits.

Traffic Exchanges give out credits and bonuses in a multitude of ways. Some give bonus credits for signing up, or for referring others, or even while you`re surfing the exchange, after you`ve visited a certain amount of sites. Almost ALL Traffic Exchanges give you a percentage of the credits your referrals build up, so it`s always a good idea to build a good downline in them. Some exchanges let you use your credits in different ways too: buying banner impressions, lottery tickets, referrals, scratchcards, just to name a few

One thing to take serious note of is the timers, and how long it actually takes your page to load, If you`re using a 15 second timer, and your page takes 20 seconds to load, people won`t see it before it`s time to click on to the next site. The best pages to use in Traffic Exchanges are small, fast loading, attention grabbing socalled กsplash pagesก. You can link to the page you want people to see from the splashpage, or add a box where people can request more information via email. If you can make your splash page interesting enough, then getting people to click a link on it shouldn`t be too hard.

If what you need is a ton of quick hits to your sites, use autosurfers with 15 second timers. You can still get signups/requests for more info IF your site loads fast enough, and really yells out to the viewer. If you want your site to actually be seen, with maybe better signup rates, opt for the manual exchanges and 30 second timers. This forces people to stay at your site longer, which in turn could make them pay more attention to your site.

Be aware that a lot of Traffic Exchanges don`t allow the use of popups, rotators or redirectors on whichever site you`re promoting, as they are very hard to keep track of and can include very unsavoury stuff such as a virus or even porn. It`s ALWAYS a good idea to use a popup killer when you`re surfing the traffic exchanges. I personally use a program called KillAd, which is brilliant in terminator mode….hehehe. Apart from the risk of reaching กnastyก sites, popups can really drain your computers resources, making it sluggish and slow.

Most Traffic Exchanges these days have both free and paid options, where the paid option is basically just an enhancement of free, making it easier to gain credits and referrals, although some of them DO allow you to earn a commission on referral upgrades.

In closing: You will most likely come across กcheat programs/software made specifically to cheat the traffic exchanges.They work by racking up credits for you, without you having to actually USE the exchange. Whatever you do, DON`T use them! Apart from the fact that you`ll most likely lose your accounts in the traffic exchanges, can you imagine if everybody was using them? Nobody would see any sites, and nobody would get any results.

Above all, keep all your promotional efforts honest.

AnnaMarie Stewart Venton

AnnaMarie Stewart Venton publishes Not Just Another Ezine. An interactive online ezine full of marketing hints, tips and info. Win free advertising in her AdCash games. Visit http://annamarketing.com for more information or mailto:[email protected]?subject=subscribe

This article is available for reprint in your optin ezine, web site or ebook. You MUST agree not to make any changes to the article and the RESOURCE BOX MUST be included.

(c) 2002 AnnaMarketing.com. All Rights Reserved

About The Author

AnnaMarie Stewart Venton publishes Not Just Another Ezine at http://annamarketing.com. Dedicated to helping marketers succeed, and have a bit of fun at the same time. She also hosts weekly กGet To Know Each Otherก chats for all online marketers. Download your free Money Chatter Viral Marketing Tool here: http://annamarketing.com/MC

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 03, 2003

by AnnaMarie Stewart Venton

Targeted Traffic is More Important than Ever!

Targeted Traffic is More Important than Ever!

by: John Alexander

In the early days of web development, business owners had learned the very expensive lesson that a Web site with no visitors is of little value. Once the business owner learned that methods could be utilized to increase their visibility through search engine optimization, it then became apparent that the traffic that really benefited them, was ‘targeted traffic.ก It only made sense that if you were selling a solution, the person who will buy the solution are the ones experiencing a problem or challenge. It also became obvious that the best products and services to sell online were niche or specialized markets. Large volumes of กgeneral visitorsก (general volume traffic) may have looked nice on a statistics report but only the truly ‘targeted visitorsก (target traffic) were usually the visitors making purchases or doing business at the Web site.
While some search engine marketers were simply offering placement for keywords chosen by their client, other SEOกs realized the value of researching keyword phrases and built strategies that were focused on attracting a specific target market. This is why you would sometimes hear conflicting stories about the effectiveness of search engine marketing. People often had their sites optimized for the wrong phrases. These might be keyword phrases that attracted no traffic all or perhaps even keywords that attracted high traffic but the wrong audience. If targeted traffic was important for success back then, it is absolutely essential that we optimize for targeted traffic now. The reason is that as the web continues to age, peoples behaviour appears to be shifting again.
Plan for the current shift in online visitor behavior
The early online consumer compared to todayกs average user was thriving on search engine use most of the time. Theyกd search out one site then search out another site and literally travel all over the place half of the time, unsure what they were even looking for. Back then people กsurfed the netก but todays online consumer is not surfing as much. Todayกs online consumer is becoming educated much more quickly and a whole new trend of online branding is becoming more increasingly important according to a recent survey.
Volume traffic of any importance is decreasing.
A Californiabased research company (Websidestory) that measures Internet audiences, recently stated on Feb. 6 that กnearly 52 percent of Web surfers arrived at sites by direct navigation and bookmarks, compared with about 46 percent during the same period last year.ก Even compared to just last year, clearly more people KNOW where they want to go and are directly entering the web address into the browser.
What does this mean ? To me, it is a great indicator that people who have been online for a while, are developing business relationships. People just donกr need to กsurfก as much because once customers start doing business online and they like the service, why should they change? If they are happy buying a product from www.barnesandnoble.com, are they not likely to go back and just type in the web address or use a bookmark? As the web continues to mature, watch and see if a whole new wave of branding does not become of major importance on the Web of the future. Businesses who have chosen domain names that are easy to remember and have some branding built in, may see some significant increase.
Advantages for Search Engine Optimizers
The latest trends in Web behavior spell opportunity for some search engine marketers. These will be those SEOกs who realize that targeted traffic are now (and really have always been) the only way to go. Someone recently asked me if I thought a decline in the use of search engines was bad news for the search engine optimization industry. I believe there will always be a need for good search engines. More and more, people will remember their favorite URL but this means that top placement and accurate relevancy will also be needed more than ever before. People searching the net don’t care so much for paid ads, they want relevant search results. This is not to say that bid for placement search engines don’t have some advantages, because they do.
SEOs who are going only after old fashioned, nontargeted general กvolume trafficก (just big numbers with no target audience), things are about to become much quieter, as more online consumers KNOW where they want to go.
However, for those SEO professionals who really know their craft, the ‘targeted traffic strategyก can still render pure gold to the Web site owner and these are the times when top relevancy mixed with a targeted strategy should place those search engine marketers in the know, in even higher demand. High and accurate search engine relevancy for any online business Web site, counts more than it ever has before.

About The Author

John Alexander is the CoDirector of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2day beginner, 3day advanced, and 5day allinclusive กhands onก search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 29, 2004

by John Alexander

Get Traffic & Sales Using Discussion Forums

Get Traffic & Sales Using Discussion Forums

by: Jean Sutherland

Message boards, discussion forums and newsgroups can all produce very profitable results for you and your business. Most of us already participate in one or more of these and the more you participate the bigger the benefits to you and your website will be.

So letกs find out how to make this a profitable venture for you.

Posting on forums, newsgroups and boards is the start of a relationship between you and others who read these venues. Many message boards and forums also allow you to use a picture of yourself. This adds to making the whole experience much more personal between you and other readers. It allows for many friendships to be formed. I am constantly told by readers of my newsletter that they have often meet people they deal with online and many friendships have been developed.

With these venues you have the potential to reach thousands of people, all who can help you and your business and may form some lasting friendships in the process..

This is one of the most productive efforts that you can involve yourself in online. Time is money and a lot of you are also working full time jobs while trying to build an online business. Set aside time on a daily basis to participate in at least one of these ventures.

Join boards where your expertise can help relevant traffic and leads for your site.

Join areas where you have an opportunity to help others and others who may be able to help you.

Join areas where people are involved with the same interests that you have in websites you have developed.

I have an online newsletter (http://www.emailpromotions.net) that is aimed at people working on the internet. I offer free software that I have found online as well as marketing tips, traffic tips and computer tips. I also have a website that focuses on Resort Spas Worldwide (http://www.spasoftheworld.com). I participate in a great number of forums and newsgroups and it is a tremendous help in building my online businesses

1. Look for message boards that get a lot of traffic. The more traffic on the board the better your chances of getting more traffic to your site and making good connections with others. If the forums contain spam, avoid them like the plague. They are a waste of your time.

2. Let people know who you are. Use your real name and if possible post a picture of your self. Don’t be afraid to also use the logo from your site if you have one. You need people to trust you in order to build an online experience with them. You will be surprised at how well known you will become by using this simple method. Not only will people get to know and trust you but they will refer others to you. Word of mouth/email is a very powerful tool for you to use.

3. Success in getting your post read is your first priority. Subject lines MUST catch a persons eye in order for them to open it. Stick to topics that are hot or create your own hot topic. That way your message is right at the top. People like to look at hot topics and busy threads.

5) When posting or responding to a topic, use keywords that people using the search engines would use to find that topic. Put those right in the subject line since the search engines do index many popular discussion boards.

4. Keep in mind that message boards are also websites and search engines pick up keywords. Make sure you use a lot of good keywords in the body of your message and also in the subject line if possible.

5. As well as keywords, offer a link to someone that is free that people can use. An ebook, a free software program etc. The link alone will bring people back to the topic time and time again, bringing more and more traffic.

6. Signature files…you should already be using a signature file with your emails but make sure to use them every time you post. Make sure it explains your site and your product. This will also count as sites that link to your website and thereby increase you popularity and rankings. Make sure you do it tastefully or you will see your message tossed very quickly.

7. Make sure you are contributing something of value when you participate in these communities. Once you start to become a valuable contributor others will be more trusting of you and will feel safe making purchases from your site.

8. Forum etiquette. Make sure you follow the rules to a ‘tก or you will develop a reputation for being combative. So many people attack others and if you must respond to someone attacking you, take it to private messages. Attacking others or attacking in defense will drive business away from your site faster than you can blink an eye. Before you post any message, read it carefully and make sure it does not sound combative. Always read your posts before hitting the submit button.

9. Posting on a regular basis will give you more traffic than you dreamed of. Set aside ½ hour a day to monitor boards and to post on some. It should pay off very nicely in the end.

About The Author

Jean Sutherland has successfully run her own ezine for over 5 years and has a subscriber base of 35,000. Her ezine revolves around people doing business online and beside offering free software, it also provides traffic & marketing tips, informative business articles, free ebooks and computer tips for those trying to work online. http://www.emailpromotions.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 05, 2004

by Jean Sutherland

กHow To Write Effective Ezine Ads…& Then Someก

กHow To Write Effective Ezine Ads…& Then Someก

by: Wayne D. Anderson

When writing an ezine ad, there is a big mistake that most people make when writing an ad. That is, they try to sell something in those ads, and there is a good reason why you don’t want to do that.

Letกs think about this for a second, if it will take seven times for most people to buy your product. Then how many times will you have to run that same ad to the same people in the same ezine, to get the majority of them to buy.

That is a huge waste of time and or money, this is definitely not the way to go.

What you want to do is to get their email address. Remember this, ขthe way to a person’s bank account is through their email boxข, and there are several ways to accomplish getting their email address.

One way is to give away a newly, exclusive, or valuable special report related to the product or service you are planning to sell them.

It’s good to offer something new, because not everyone will have it, and the want for it will be greater then if it been on the internet for a couple of months.

Offering something that is exclusive is even better. Knowing that they can only get it from you makes them want it even more.

Most importantly, offer something valuable, nothing worthless. You do not want to waste your time with trying to get someone’s email address in exchange for something less than valuable. They will not think twice about not giving their email address to you.

You can also write an article discussing how the product or service that you will eventually sell them, help them.

Now that we’ve discuss how you should advertise in your ezine ads. Let’s discuss how to make the most of the 80 percent of your ad that determines success, your attentiongrabbing headline.

Your headline, the most important part of your ad. This is what gets the reader’s attention and builds their interest. If you can’t get the readers attention , we can safely say that your headline needs work.

It doesn’t matter if your offer doesn’t pertain to someone’s interest. A good headline captures the attention of any and everyone, even if its just for two seconds.

What you what to do when writing the headline is list the benefit, not the feature of whatever you are offering. A feature is a distinctive attribute or aspect of whatever you are selling. A benefit is what you can achieve from the feature.

For example:

The feature of Yanik Silver’s and Jim Edward’s, ข7 Secrets To An Instant Traffic Stampedeข report would be of course, 7 secrets to an instant traffic stampede.

One benefit of that feature would be:

Dramatically increase you website traffic.

Remember, whatever you are offering, people are only interested in how it can help them, the benefit. Not what the product can do, the feature.

Began the headline with an attentiongrabbing word like ขSTOP!ข, ขLOOK!ข, or ขFREE!ข.

LOOK! Dramatically increase you website traffic or if you are giving something away, it’s a good idea to began the headline with the word ขFREEข

FREE! Dramatically increase you website traffic

One thing you can do with your headline is to enclose it with ขquotationsข. You’ll will get better results if you use ขquotationsข.

ขFREE! Dramatically increase your website trafficข

Try using capital and lower case letters in your headline. One thing I’ve always done is capitalize the first letter in each word, it has always been very effective.

ขFREE! Dramatically Increase YOUR Website Trafficข

Now, once you’ve the prospects attention, it’s time reel them in with your offer.

This is when you can list the feature(s) of what you are offering. Now, depending on the amount lines the publisher allows you, you may have to shorten your offer. So be very mindful of what you include in your ad.

ขFREE! Dramatically Increase YOUR Website Trafficข 7 Secrets To An Instant Traffic Stampede

Special characters such as (!, $, #, *), can be your best friend when your ad is shown along with a lot of other ads. First you want to check if the ezine publisher allows them. You could find this out by reading their ezine, or just contact them and ask them if they do.

Using special characters will limit the space of your ad, but it will also help gain the attention of the reader. It goes both ways, so it’s up to you to decide.

*ขFREE! Dramatically Increase YOUR Website Trafficข*

* * 7 Secrets To An Instant Traffic Stampede * *

* * * Simply visit, http://myveryownsite.com * * *

Instead of using special characters when you ad is going to be shown along with a lot of other ads, you can also use white spaces.

This adds a bit of relief to a page crowded with ads. A reader will notice this, even when skimming down a page.

ขFREE! Dramatically Increase YOUR Website Trafficข

    7 Secrets To An Instant Traffic Stampede

        Simply visit, http://myveryownsite.com

Before I go, I want to leave you with two things. The first thing is, you have to keep your ad in front of the readers constantly, be consistent. In the end, patience, & consistency pays off.

The second is to track your ads, some ads deliver better than others. Tracking your ads is a great way to see which ones pulls in better results. I use the free ad tracking service at http://www.netquantify.com/. I highly recommend it.

About The Author

Wayne Anderson is a very resourceful ezine publisher. Visit his site & find out how you can easily drive a flow of lasertargeted traffic to your web site & affiliate links. http://brain.roistats.com/48691/1/redirect?

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 29, 2003

by Wayne D. Anderson