Getting Traffic Is Easy. Let Me Show You How.

What I wish I had known when I first started in Internet Marketing…

by Nick on December 6, 2008

What I wish I had known when I first started in Internet Marketing…

At the core of making money online is 2 things: traffic & conversions.

Without traffic to your sites you’ll never make money.

And all the traffic in the world will do no good if it never converts.

Learn all you can about these 2 things. Become a jedi master at these.

Build an email list and you’ll be able to dramatically increase your traffic and conversions. My email list is a great source of traffic for me. I also use it to increase conversions for things I am selling/promoting.

Partnering with others can help you build your list quickly, which leads to more traffic and conversions.
Partnering with others can help you get more traffic.
Partnering with others can help you increase your conversions, build your credibility, and build your brand.

Build a network of people who are good at things you are not.

Build a brand.

Every web page you build should have a purpose. It may be to get people to opt in to your list, sell a product or whatever. Before you build a page define its purpose and that will define how you should be build/layout the page.

Test, test, test! Think your squeeze page converts as well as it can? You’ll never know until you test.

Be remarkable. Do something that gets people talking about you. Seth Godin explains this well in an 18 minute video:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/seth-godin-sliced-bread-and-other-marketing-delights/

Presentation is everything. The best prooduct doesn’t always win, but the best presented product frequently wins.

Read the Warrior Forum frequently. Everyday people post gems that will help you be more successful.

Ask questions. Ask lots of them. Just remember specific questions get specific answers. If you ask something like “How do I make money?” you’ll get answers like Sell stuff or Make a product and build a list. These are not very helpful to a newbie.

Play nice. Sounds cheesy but a little kindness goes a long way. Be nice to people who are jerks too.

Take the time to learn a few basics on the topics: HTML, CSS, SEO, copy writing, buying a domain, how to host your domain, FTP.

Treat others the way you wanted to be treated. If you want to be paid for your hard work then don’t look for ways to cheat others so you can save a buck.

There are lots of people making money online. Read what they are saying but more importantly watch very carefully what they DO. It’s their actions that are lining their pockets with gold.

There is a ton of money to made connecting people with other people or products.

Sites like myspace, facebook, classmates, etc connect people with other people.

Sites like ebay, craigslist, amazon, half, froogle, etc connect people with products.

Sites like Warrior Forum, google, wikipedia, digg, cnn, etc connect people with the information they’re looking for.

Read More about connecting people with people/products/information
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html

Don’t re-invent the wheel!

The idea is simple: Don’t work really hard figuring something out when you could look at someone who is really successful at this thing and do what they do.

If you want to have a top ten rank on Google for the search term Poodle Manicures then search Google for Poodle Manicures and take a close look at the sites that come up in the top ten. These are your competition. What kinds of things did they do to get ranked so high. (i.e. How many pages do they have? How often do they update their content? How many incoming links do they have? How long do they have their domain registered for?)

Continue learning online and offline. I just finished the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini. This incredible book changed the way I see marketing. I read it because it was recommended by several people on the Warrior Forum. If you don’t what to read, ask for suggestions.

Take action. Reading more books/forums/etc won’t do any good if you never take action.

Focus on thing and do it well. (One of my biggest failings! I am easily distracted.)

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What do YOU wish you had known when you first start in Internet Marketing?

Nick’s Internet Marketing News - Launch

by Nick on November 30, 2008

Today I launched the new version of Nick’s Internet Marketing News.

Check it out and tell me what you think:
Nick’s Internet Marketing News

No Related Post

The Power of SocialMarker.com

by Nick on November 27, 2008

What is SocialMarker.com?

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness! That’s where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website.

Requirements

Social Marker runs smoothly on all major web browsers, but we recommend downloading and using Firefox.

Here is a screen shot of socialmarker:

How to make money using the Internet

by Nick on November 25, 2008

Make money: not by building an internet company, but by using the net as a tool to create value and get paid. Use the internet as a tool, not as an end. Do it when you are part of a big organization or do it as a soloist. The dramatic leverage of the net more than overcomes the downs of the current economy.

The essence is this: connect.

Connect the disconnected to each other and you create value.

* Connect advertisers to people who want to be advertised to.
* Connect job hunters with jobs.
* Connect information seekers with information.
* Connect teams to each other.
* Connect those seeking similar.
* Connect to partners and those that can leverage your work.
* Connect people who are proximate geographically.
* Connect organizations spending money with ways to save money.
* Connect like-minded people into a movement.
* Connect people buying with people who are selling.

Continue Reading:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html

{ 1 comment }

Great video showing how to quickly monetize your blog

by Nick on November 20, 2008

This has got to be one of the best ways to monetize your blog or any website.

It’s super simple but be warned- it does take a little effort on your part.

Thanks to Gary Vaynerchuck for a great video!

I’ll Link To Your Site - November Link Extravaganza

by Nick on November 20, 2008

I want to link to your site…

I did this at the end of last month (October, 2008) it and worked great:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/ill-link-to-your-site-october-link-extravaganza/

Nearly 30 people took advantage of it last month.

Now I am giving you a chance to get a free link to your site, but this will end the November 30, 2008.

The best part is that as more people come to submit links they will see your link and you’ll get a few clicks to your site.

The rules:

In the comments section below simply add your site with a 200 character (or less) description.
Make sure you put the phrase “free link” in your comment so I can make sure it doesn’t get caught by the spam filter.
Only one comment per site.
Please keep this family friendly - no porn links allowed
No affiliate links - only links to your own site

That’s it!

{ 12 comments }

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #6

by Nick on November 9, 2008

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #6 - December 1, 2008.

CONTENTS
1. ReLaunch of Nick’s Internet Marketing News
2. This Little Tool Quadrupled My Signups
3. Attracting Activity to Your Blog
4. AdSense Optimization Ideas From Google
5. How To Actually Get Links From Your Linkbait
6. 10 tips for effective article marketing

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1. ReLaunch of Nick’s Internet Marketing News
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I have revamped my site: Nick’s Internet Marketing News

Everyday I will be posting the latest new in internet marketing, everything from blogging to adsense to general marketing.

Check it out:
http://nicksimnews.com

Get the latest updates on my blog with RSS:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NicksInternetMarketingNews

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2. This Little Tool Quadrupled My Signups
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Michael Fortin explains how using 1 wordpress plugin dramatically increased the number of people opting into his email list.

On an average day he gets 40 signups to his list.

With this tool he got way more:
First day, 124 subscribers.
Second day, 188.
Third day (today), 137 and still growing

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3. Attracting Activity to Your Blog
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As with static websites, the success of a blog depends on attracting a steady stream of new and return traffic. It is just that the tools for blog promotion are slightly different, a bit more diverse and on the whole much more effective.

Blogs are designed with interactivity and social networking ability built in. They are ideal both for developing relationships and marketing your brand.

However, this doesn’t mean you should neglect standard promotion techniques in favor of blog only techniques. In fact, traditional marketing activities can become even more potent with a blog due to its nature.

For example, you will still want to utilize your email list. Ask readers to subscribe, and let them know when you post a new article just as you would with a new feature or product on a static website.

Of course, if you are prolific blogger and post every day, you’ll only want to alert them when you’ve published something extra special or compile a list of new posts and descriptions and send it out once a week.

Continue Reading:
http://nicksimnews.com/474_attracting-activity-to-your-blog/

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4. AdSense Optimization Ideas From Google
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Optimisation Essentials (Part I):
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/11/optimisation-essentials-part-i.html

Optimisation Essentials (Part II):
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/11/opttimisation-essentials-part-ii.html

Optimisation Essentials (Part III):
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/11/optimisation-essentials-part-iii.html

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5. How To Actually Get Links From Your Linkbait
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For anyone that’s launched linkbait you’ll know that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Of course, by ‘works’ I’m talking about a digg homepage, a reddit homepage or huge amounts of traffic from stumble.

But actually even for the pieces which don’t go hot on one of the social news sites there’s still massive potential - after all the content is no less appealing right?

This is still highly linkable content, you just need to go about putting some elbow grease in to get the links.

Continue Reading:
http://nicksimnews.com/343_how-to-actually-get-links-from-your-linkbait/

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6. 10 tips for effective article marketing
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Affiliate marketing has been used by millions of people around the globe to create reliable income.

Some people, however, report that they can’t make money this way because they use the wrong promotion techniques, spam forums and social networking sites or they just plain expect affiliate marketing to be an easy get-rich-quick scheme.

Affiliate marketing takes time and effort but it can be very rewarding.

The very best affiliate promotion technique that produces reliable results is providing content for web sites, newsletters, blogs and forums.

I’ve learned a few things during my years of using articles for affiliate marketing, and I’m going to share them with you! Below you’ll find ten steps that will lead you to effective - and prosperous - affiliate marketing.

1. A well written and unbiased review of the affiliate product or a book on the same subject will always draw traffic to your site.

To be completely impartial list the negatives as well as the positive traits of the product you are reviewing.

2. Keywords, keywords, keywords.

Do your research first using your favorite tools and weave them into the title, body and by-line of the article.

Use basic search engine optimization techniques on each and every article.

Read the next 8 tips:
http://www.associateprograms.com/articles/719/1/Affiliate-marketing-with-articles-still-works/

Follow me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/nick1123

Get the latest updates on my blog with RSS:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NicksInternetMarketingNews

Have something you’d like to add to the newsletter?
Email me NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

–
Good night and good luck!
Nick Stewart
Stewart Marketing Inc
http://www.NicksTrafficTricks.com
NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #5

by Nick on November 7, 2008

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #5 - November 25, 2008.

CONTENTS
1. I’ll Link To Your Site - November Link Extravaganza
2. 11 Ways to Use Twitter to Help Your Site Go Viral
3. 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers
4. 37 Viral Post Ideas You Can Use Today
5. How to make m0ney using the Internet
6. Social Bookmarking Made Easy With SocialMarker.com

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1. I’ll Link To Your Site - November Link Extravaganza
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I want to link to your site…

I did this at the end of last month (October, 2008) it and worked great.

Nearly 30 people took advantage of it last month.

Now I am giving you a chance to get a free link to your site, but this will end the November 30, 2008.

The best part is that as more people come to submit links they will see your link and you’ll get a few clicks to your site.

Get your link with no strings attached:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/ill-link-to-your-site-november-link-extravaganza/

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2. 11 Ways to Use Twitter to Help Your Site Go Viral
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Twitter is one of the most satisfying ways to spread your website or idea. In addition to referrals, you can also gain loyal users, expert opinions, and possibly friends. It’s unlike any other medium in its ability to propagate interesting things. Word of mouth has always been the best advertising and Twitter is the best vehicle on the internet for word of mouth.

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3. 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers
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Get 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers:
http://www.twitip.com/181-twitter-buttons-badges-widget-and-counters-to-help-you-find-followers/

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4. 37 Viral Post Ideas You Can Use Today
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Viral articles are word of mouth worthy, and will grow your site more so than any other kind of content. Previously, I examined six strategies you can use when you want to create content with a decent chance of going viral. In this post, I want to focus on 37 concrete ideas for viral posts that should be readily applicable to your niche.

This post could be a useful port of call the next time you run out of inspiration, or if you want to try something different with your content.

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5. How to make m0ney using the Internet
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How to make money using the Internet

Make m0ney: not by building an internet company, but by using the net as a tool to create value and get paid.

Use the internet as a tool, not as an end.

Do it when you are part of a big organization or do it as a soloist.

The dramatic leverage of the net more than overcomes the downs of the current economy.

The essence is this: connect.

Connect the disconnected to each other and you create value.

Continue Reading:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html

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6. Social Bookmarking Made Easy With SocialMarker.com
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Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website.

But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness!

That’s where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website.

Check it out:
http://www.socialmarker.com/

Have something you’d like to add to the newsletter?
Email me NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

–
Good night and good luck!
Nick Stewart
Stewart Marketing Inc
http://www.NicksTrafficTricks.com
NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #4

by Nick on November 6, 2008

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #4 - October 29, 2008.

CONTENTS
1. I’ll Link To Your Site - October Link Extravaganza
2. My Traffic Tricks Guide has been updated
3. Download 100,000 Ebooks
4. Do You Fail to Cross Promote Your Blog Pages?
5. Are You Susceptible to an SEO Scam?
6. 2 Great Article Writing Tips - Readers Have Short Memories

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1. I’ll Link To Your Site - October Link Extravaganza
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I want to link to your site…

Yah really, no joke, I am giving you a chance to get a free link to your site, but this will end the October 31, 2008.

The best part is that as more people come to submit links they will see your link and you’ll get a few clicks to your site.

Check it out:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/ill-link-to-your-site-october-link-extravaganza/

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2. My Traffic Tricks Guide has been updated
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I have updated my Traffic Tricks guide which you can download here:
http://free–web-traffic.com

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3. Download 100,000 Ebooks
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Ebooks on every imaginable area of Internet Marketing

Thousands of $$$ of software included!

Use them on your site, in your ezines, or use them to make an Ebook to sell.

Over 2 GigaBytes of Data.

Is your hardrive big enough?

Start Downloading:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/free-ebooks/index.php

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4. Do You Fail to Cross Promote Your Blog Pages?
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You may have been savvy enough to adhere to the rules of blog post title tips and good content creation, but are you leaving money on the table by failing to interlink your blog posts and pages to keep your visitor in your sales funnel?

Unfortunately, this is a common mistake most bloggers make.

It’s such a simple way to cross promote your business, but we’re lazy, we’re rushed – or we’re just ignorant about this strategic blogging secret.

If you’re selling ad space on your blog, then it’s even more vital to your financial success.

Here’s how you can showcase more of your blog from the first point of entry your public sees:

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5. Are You Susceptible to an SEO Scam?
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Have you been tricked into forking over hundreds of dollars after being promised a top spot in the Google search engine results pages (SERPs)?

If so, you’re not alone – many online entrepreneurs, in their quest to achieve top ranking, have fallen prey to an SEO scam.

As with any industry, there are search engine optimizers who are honest, and those that aren’t.

How can you spot a fake and save your cold hard cash for other business needs?

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6. 2 Great Article Writing Tips - Readers Have Short Memories
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Article writing is an art.

Depending on what it is you want to get across to your reader, the article needs to be written a certain way in order to be effective.

However, there is one thing that is pretty universal when it comes to reading articles. Your average reader has a short memory.

I’m not talking about Mr. Brainiac who can retain 5,000 words like it was a single sentence.

I’m talking about your average Joe who has already forgotten paragraph one by the time he gets to paragraph four.

Because of this, there are two things you should do when writing articles. If you can’t do both, then you better do the last one.

Have something you’d like to ad to the newsletter?
Email me NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

–
Good night and good luck!
Nick Stewart
Stewart Marketing Inc
http://www.NicksTrafficTricks.com
NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

Photo by AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker

I’ll Link To Your Site - October Link Extravaganza

by Nick on October 28, 2008

I want to link to your site…

Yah really, no joke, I am giving you a chance to get a free link to your site, but this will end the October 31, 2008.

I saw this work pretty well with people on problogger.

The best part is that as more people come to submit links they will see your link and you’ll get a few clicks to your site.

The rules:

In the comments section below simply add your site with a 200 character (or less) description.
Make sure you put the phrase “free link” in your comment so I can make sure it doesn’t get caught by the spam filter.
Only one comment per site.
Please keep this family friendly - no porn links allowed
No affiliate links - only links to your own site

That’s it!

Edit: Now that October has come and past I have turned off the comments.

{ 28 comments }

100+ Ways to Benefit from Virtual Assistants

by Nick on October 25, 2008

This useful list of 100+ Ways to Benefit from Virtual Assistants was written by By Diana Barnum

Check out the dozens of ways good virtual assistants can help with your projects.

Many popular ways they can help include:

ACCOUNTING AND BOOKKEEPING

creating and sending invoices to clients
posting / logging monthly transactions into spreadsheets / bookkeeping software
balancing and reconciling account statements and books (credit cards, loans, checking, savings, Paypal, eBay, etc.)
sending payment reminders
bill paying (for workers, contractors, suppliers, utilities, etc.)

ADMINISTRATIVE / SECRETARIAL SERVICES

scheduling, confirming & rescheduling appointments
backing up data regularly
Completing daily To Do tasks
regular reminding of important tasks and dates
sending out the appropriate cards or gifts for special events
managing lists of necessary office supplies and ordering refills
coordinating and following up with travel plans
coordinating other workers / outsource / virtual assistants and other helpers

DATABASE AND CLIENT MANAGEMENT

keying in data into spreadsheets / database (business cards, telesales info, etc.)
sending introductory, sales, referral, follow up and other business communications and materials (example: to new prospects, leads, clients)
sending scheduled materials out as well (holiday promos, birthday cards, etc.)
tracking marketing efforts and summarizing the results in a report
contacting your leads and lists for missing contact information
sending faxes
emailing newsletters (ezines), announcements and broadcasts

EMAIL & MAIL SERVICES

reviewing mail and email for sorting and deleting
responding to help desks / support and other communications
forwarding & tracking items to you and / or your clients
order fulfillment, preparing packages and mailing out items

ONLINE SERVICES

setting up and maintaining blogs, websites, forums and other means of online presence
establishing and growing your newsletter / ezine and subscription database
posting announcements and newsletter / ezine issues to your subscriber base / list
completing Internet research
writing, recording, editing, revising and submitting content to publishers online & off (articles, press releases, audio, video, podcasts, etc.)

PERSONNEL SERVICES

writing, revising, posting online and printing out of resumes and cover / introduction letters
reviewing candidates’ resumes and summarizing each for your review
helping plan, create, coordinate and instruct about your products, services, business procedures, etc. with helpers / workers, staff and client training.

PRESENTATIONS

preparing PowerPoint presentations
preparing workshop / seminar participants beforehand with materials
working after presentations with follow up materials
summarizing results in a report

PRODUCT CREATION & MARKETING SERVICES (ONLINE & OFF)

creating of private label rights (PLR) materials; i.e. ghostwritten items that you can slap your name and branding on and call your own: ebooks, reports, articles, blogging, videos, audio, podcasts, etc.
marketing for your products, services and events keeping in your budget range for promotions online and off
placing follow up faxes, emails, sales calls
creating and mailing feedback and other surveys and questionnaires
gathering testimonials, tracking the responses
blogging, forum posting, using eBay, Craigslist, Social Networking, MySpace, Squidoo, OnlyWire and many other means to spread the word online.
summarizing project work in reports

PRINTING AND PUBLISHING

designing and printing brochures, matching letterhead, business cards and other marketing items
creating designs for and ordering labels, letter head, flyers, pens, pencils and other promotional items
crafting content & / or gathering it including interviewing, researching stats and quotes, laying out, printing and mailing newsletters / ezines (online & off)
designing, printing and mailing out awards, certificates, handouts, CDs and more for workshop & seminar attendees

RESEARCH

researching travel plans, destinations, hotels, car rentals and more
researching affiliate programs, joint ventures and partners to team up with for your projects and then following up and reaching out to them to hook up.
finding info for catering, presentations, speeches, apparel, and more
fact finding for your reports, quotes, stats, articles, ebooks, presentations, speeches, videos, audios, podcasts and more…
learning about decorating, entertainment, party / host gift ideas
gathering clips of published articles (online and off)
performing library research

TELEPHONE AND FAX SERVICES

receiving phone calls & faxes to allow you more time to do other things
forwarding important messages via email, text messaging or other means
retrieving voice messages and replying and / or coordinating responses with your team so that you know that things are taken care of while you are busy elsewhere with other things

TRANSCRIPTION / WORD PROCESSING SERVICES

using word processing to key in / type letters, articles, ebooks, memos, etc. from recordings or other note formats
typing of reports, video and audio scripts, workshop / seminar notes and more from recordings or other note formats
extra services like editing, proofing, spell and grammar check, conversion of documents (to Adobe PDFs, PowerPoint slides, Microsoft Word, for example.

Just ask! Customization is our specialty.

Grow your business with plenty of help outsourcing with virtual assistants and teams.

For more information and help with your copywriting, contact Moving Ahead Communications. Sign up for their free newsletter, “Moving Ahead Weekly Ezine: Helping You Advance with Business Support Service Info,” at: http://movingaheadcommunications.com & check out their online service center and popular virtual assistant programs at: http://www.ohiohelpgroup.com and http://www.movingaheadmemberships.com/members.html today to get more time, energy, leads, sales, income, $$!

{ 1 comment }

2 Great Article Writing Tips - Readers Have Short Memories

by Nick on October 23, 2008

Photo by reportergimm

This is a guest post by Steven Wagenheim.

Article writing is an art.

Depending on what it is you want to get across to your reader, the article needs to be written a certain way in order to be effective.

However, there is one thing that is pretty universal when it comes to reading articles. Your average reader has a short memory.

I’m not talking about Mr. Brainiac who can retain 5,000 words like it was a single sentence.

I’m talking about your average Joe who has already forgotten paragraph one by the time he gets to paragraph four.

Because of this, there are two things you should do when writing articles. If you can’t do both, then you better do the last one.

Tip #1

At the top of the list is something very simple.

Keep the article short.

Unless you’re writing a technical journal, there is no reason for your article to be THAT long.

If you really have that much to say, break the article up into more than one article.

Make it a series of articles if the topic is so immense.

People aren’t going to be able to retain a 3,000 word article in one sitting.

And if you’re not the most interesting writer in the world, forget it, they won’t even get through it and you’ve defeated the purpose of your article…to get it read.

Tip #2

If you can’t keep the article short, and even if you can, the other thing you should do is summarize what you just told the reader.

In the last paragraph of the article, write a brief summary of what you just said above.

Sometimes this can get a little tricky if you’ve touched on a number of bullet points in the article itself.

But any kind of summary, even if incomplete, is better than no summary at all.

Pick out the most important things to stress at the end.

This will put those things firmly in the mind of the reader when they walk away from your article.

Summary

There you have it…two simple tips.

Keep the article short and summarize at the end, just like I did here.

If you do these two simple things, your article will have more of an impact on the reader and they’ll retain more of it when they’re done.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Want to write articles that get people’s attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find at http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html - This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.

SEO Isn’t What You Think it Is

by Nick on October 21, 2008

Photo by Mariano Kamp

This is a guest post by Steven Wagenheim.

SEO, or search engine optimization of your site, is one of the most focused on things online.

You could say that marketers even obsess over it.

Well, why not?

The higher up the SERPs you go, the more traffic you get.

The more traffic you get, the more money you make.

Well, at least in theory anyway.

However, everybody has their own ideas on just what SEO is.

Well, believe it or not, some of you are way off base.

So, in this article I’m going to explain to you what LEGITIMATE SEO is. And I stress the word legitimate.

I think you will find this article most illuminating.

The very nature of SEO makes it something that, according to Google’s definition, makes it black hat, meaning not desirable by Google.

See, by trying to optimize your sites by optimizing keyword saturation, anchor text and all that fancy stuff, you are, in essence, trying to game the search engines.

You can justify it all you want, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. If you think I am kidding, go read Google’s terms of service. They are very clear.

Okay, so if we can’t do all this fancy stuff to climb up the SE ranks, what CAN we do?

I mean, certainly we’re allowed to put up sites with relevant content, aren’t we?

Well, that is the keyword my friends. And no, I don’t mean content.

I mean RELEVANT.

See, the sad truth about search engine optimization is this. If you simply put up a site with content that your visitors want to see, guess what?

They’re going to come to see it and your site will rise up the SE ranks. Do you think YouTube had to do any of that fancy stuff to get people to their site?

They have literally done no optimization at all.

What they DID do was give users the viewing experience that they want…tons of videos to watch and the chance to upload their own.

The place is the number 2 ranked site on the Internet.

If you sit down and simply think about how you can give your visitors the experience that they want, the rankings of your site will take care of themselves without all the manipulation and trickery.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

Photo by pierre_tourigny

Do You Fail to Cross Promote Your Blog Pages?

by Nick on October 14, 2008

Unfortunately, this is a common mistake most bloggers make.

It’s such a simple way to cross promote your business, but we’re lazy, we’re rushed – or we’re just ignorant about this strategic blogging secret.

If you’re selling ad space on your blog, then it’s even more vital to your financial success.

Here’s how you can showcase more of your blog from the first point of entry your public sees:

Offer up another bite of information.
When a waiter comes to your table to clear the dinner dishes, he’s going to hand you a dessert menu. You need to be doing the same thing – show your readers another link to a post they might enjoy or find informative.
At the bottom of each post you’ll see a list of “Related posts”. This is managed by using the WordPress Related Posts Plugin.
Showcase your posts on your sidebar.
Your sidebar isn’t just for selling ad space or sticking affiliate banners – it’s a prime spot for you to cross promote pages within your blog that have long since left page 1. Create a section that says something like, “Best Blog Posts” or “Top Rated Blog Posts” so your readers will want to participate.
Create a list and make your audience work for it!
Instead of sticking the top 10 list in one blog post, divvy the tips up and make a single blog post for each one of them. At the end of each tip, have the link to the next tip. This works for any niche – “Worst celebrity beach bodies,” “Top 10 SEO mistakes,” or “10 Hot Niche Ideas for Marketers.” They’ll keep clicking because they want to see the whole list.

If you let your blog posts sit stagnant, they’ll simply leave page 1 and never be seen again – unless the post page itself happened to be highly ranked in the search engines. Make sure you capitalize on every entryway your blog has but piling their plate full of more reading options, which also gives you increased selling opportunities!

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Are You Susceptible to an SEO Scam?

by Nick on October 11, 2008

Have you been tricked into forking over hundreds of dollars after being promised a top spot in the Google search engine results pages (SERPs)?

If so, you’re not alone – many online entrepreneurs, in their quest to achieve top ranking, have fallen prey to an SEO scam.

As with any industry, there are search engine optimizers who are honest, and those that aren’t.

How can you spot a fake and save your cold hard cash for other business needs?

First, get rid of your desperation.

Building your search engine optimization isn’t an overnight task and anyone promising that it’s that easy is a liar – not someone who has “insider secrets.”

Aside from pie-in-the-sky speed promises, watch out for volume assurances.

If they say they’re going to submit your domain to hundreds or thousands of search engines, you’d better be asking for proof!

Submission to search engines, as any real SEO expert knows, isn’t even a part of the strategy! You have to optimize your site for findability and indexing, not force it on them.

Don’t let anyone guarantee you hundreds or thousands of backlinks in an instant, either!

If they do procure this many, there’s no doubt it will be from back alley virtual spots that Google and other search engines consider dirty – which can hurt your optimization!

Be willing to pay for good optimization – it’s not something a $39 monthly fee can cover.

Demand to know what your money’s paying for (specifically) and if they tout first page pledges for Google – RUN – because nobody can make that claim except Google, and good luck getting them to do that!

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My Free Traffic Tricks Ebook Updated

by Nick on October 8, 2008

Introduction	4
First Things First	5
What you need	5
What Google Really Cares About	8
Search Engine Traffic, SEO and Keyword Choice	10
Keyword Basics	10
Optimizing your Page	11
High Gravity Keywords	13
Low Gravity Keywords	13
Researching Keywords For What’s Hot Right Now	14
Researching Keywords that Will Be Searched For	14
Robots.txt	15
SEO Checklist	16
Other Suggested SEO Resources:	16
Generating Incoming Links	17
Link Text Matters	17
Reciprocal Links	18
Links from Testimonials	18
Links from Blogs	19
Best Poodle Site Award	20
Submitting Your URL to Free Directories	20
Links from Education Sites	20
Social Bookmarking	22
Milking StumbleUpon	23
The Quest for the Front Page of Digg	23
Host an Inner Circle Project for Social Bookmarking	24
Top 100 Social Media Sites by techgal	25
Blogging	27
Guest Blogging	27
Submitting to Blog Carnivals	27
Creating a Blog Roll	28
Easily Generate Incoming Links with Odiogo	28
Viral Linking Campaigns	28
Pinging	29
RSS Traffic	29
Resources	30
Article Marketing	31
Basics	31
Spinning	31
Private Label Rights	32
Article Marketing by Steve Wagenheim	32
Viral E-Book/Report	34
Creating the ebook	34
Packaging	35
Distribution	36
Squidoo	37
Twitter	38
Viral Video	39
Forum Traffic	40
Email Traffic	41
Going Viral with Email	43
Classified Ads	44
Traffic Exchanges	45
Basics	45
BlogRush	47
Pay-Per-Click	48
Creating Buzz About Your Website	49
Torrents Marketing	50
Odds & Ends	51
Start with a great product	51
Be Remarkable	51
Choosing a Name	52
Choosing the Right Domain	52
Make things easy for your users	53
Hosting Matters	54
Conclusion	56
Your Traffic Strategy	56
Hire Help	57
4 Tips for Hiring Writers	58
Bonus Materials	62
3 ways to get indexed in under a week	62
Additional Traffic Tips	63
50 Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website	65
Appendix (Resources)	68

I have updated my traffic tricks guide and have made it available for download for everyone.

Photo by Refracted Moments

4 Tips For Creating Blog Post Titles That Grab You Hook, Headline, & Sinker!

by Nick on October 8, 2008

Photo by Aaron Escobar

Blog post titles are where many bloggers get stuck. They know the main message they want to send. They write a tight post, ripe with keywords – give themselves a little pat on the back.

Then they stare at the title field wondering what headline would get people to read their enlightening content. If you don’t get the headline right, you might as well be talking to an empty auditorium because nobody’s going to read any further.

Consider your blog post title to be your first impression. You have to comb your hair, put on a slick suit – and smile. Or in the case of your headline, put some shiny keywords in there, speak to the reader’s needs, and be interesting!

Many tests have been conducted on the power of headlines when it comes to blog post titles. If you have a lackluster headline, your links in the body won’t convert because no one made an attempt to go that far.

Likewise, if you post a headline that’s compelling, your link conversion is going to soar – because many people will still scan the headline and a few lines of blog copy before clicking your link to learn more. So what makes an effective blog post title? Here are 4 tips you can apply to your headers:

Use a numbered series.
Blog readers like posts that are broken up into bite-sized pieces. So if you have a “5 Best Tips for…” or “7 Secrets to…” headline, they know exactly how many benefits they’re going to learn from your post.
Offer up a solution.
Most bloggers create some vague headline that makes readers guess what it’s all about. Be clear and concise – “Fast and Easy WordPress Plug-Ins” or “Solve Your Link Conversions Now!”
Stick some emotions into your headlines.
How many times have you read a “lose Weight” headline that just told how much weight they can lose in what timeframe? There’s a million of these on the ‘net, but few bloggers pull the reader in by playing on their emotions, such as, “Stop Feeling Ugly – Lose 20 Pounds Now!”
Ask questions so they’ll demand answers.
What if I had you read an entire book – except the last page? Or watch a movie – but turn it off before the last scene? With a headline, if you craft it right, your target audience will have to read more – to see it through to the end. A question makes them want to get to the bottom of it, to seek out the answers.

Remember – until your reader clicks through on your link, they’re simply window-shopping. If you don’t have a headline that appeals to them, they’ll shop elsewhere – even if it is only ideas and information they’re shopping for!

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5 Strategies for a Cash-Converting Blog Posts

by Nick on October 4, 2008

Some people think that just because blogs are known for brevity, it means they don’t have to put any meat into their content. Actually, the exact opposite is true – you have a very short span of time to create value for your readers.

Here’s what you need to do if you want your blog to build your subscriber list, convert sales and brand you as an expert in your niche:

Less is more.
Blog posts aren’t meant to be scrolling on for 24 pages like a sales pitch does. People want quick tidbits of information they can put into action immediately. Stick to 250-400 words per post Max.
Create your headlines and content with both search engines and human visitors in mind.
Yes, you want to use keywords in your blog posts, to attract SE spiders so their users can find you! But you also want to write for your human audience, so make sure your headlines are appealing and your content isn’t so stuffed with keywords that it’s awkward to get through.
Use bullet points or numbered lists so your visitors can quickly scan your blog for good information.
Just like a sales letter, bullet lists are what readers quickly turn to when they want to know whether or not your site is worth reading in-depth. Magazines use the sale technique, so emulate their style.
Don’t be all over the map.
Have a plan in place for your blog posts and be consistent with your voice. If you outsource to freelance writers, then make sure you edit the post so it matches your voice before you make it public.
Use your blog as a pre-sell hot spot.
This is your platform to voice your opinion and warm up your audience. Nothing will excite your readers more than your passion for the product, so make sure it comes through – and don’t forget to add your links!

If you employ the five fundamental blog post techniques, you’ll be catering to the needs of your target audience. Brevity and bullet points help them save time while still getting value.

Crafty headlines with just enough keyword-laden content will serve as perfect attractors for the search engine bots and your visitors will see your enthusiasm shine through so that your links keep the sales funnel flowing.

We’ve entered an era where peer socialization and personal recommendations trump hard hitting sales copy, so you have to take care to ensure that your blog follows the perfect formula for success.

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Like A Crystal Ball For Your PPC

by Nick on September 9, 2008

Photo by jurvetson

Imagine what it would be like if you had a crystal ball that will allow you to look into marketing in such a way that you would already know what worked, long before you got started.

Actually, there is no need for you to imagine this because it already exists and it is available to every one of us.

If you are involved in pay per click marketing, you no doubt already realize that choosing the proper keywords is much more than half the battle.

As a matter of fact, far too much money is lost as we gamble away our opportunities with unprofitable keywords.

There is a way, however, that you can spy on your competition in such a way that you will be able to tell which keywords they are willing to pay for, month over month.

Armed with this knowledge, you can go into a new campaign or strengthen an existing campaign without having to worry about testing and tweaking in order to make things profitable.

Let me introduce you to an old friend of mine, Spyfu.com.

This is one of the best keyword tools that is available on the Internet which not only allows you to see pay per click ads for a keyword that you may be looking for, it allows you to look at them through a crystal ball.

Almost all of us that are committed to our pay per click campaigns are already scrutinizing the keywords on a regular basis by watching the competition that comes and goes on Google over time.

With this unique tool, however, there is no need for you to wait an extended period of time in order to see who is using those keywords and who is using them consistently.

Let’s start off with a simple search at Spyfu.com.

Type in any search term that you are interested in pursuing for your campaign and you will instantly see a list of advertisers that have purchased for that particular ad.

The interesting part about this is that those advertisers are not from a search that is done in real time. As a matter of fact, those are cached from about a month ago, giving you easy access to your crystal ball.

All you really need to do is to compare the advertisers that are listed on Spyfu.com with any existing advertisers that you find by doing a Google search.

When you do this, you will have a snapshot that will allow you to see who has been consistently paying for ads for that particular keyword over the past month.

Many of these advertisers test regularly, as I’m sure that most of you do. The trends among these advertisers will very quickly tell you if those keywords are profitable for them or not.

What would you do, however, if you wanted to take your research one step further?

After all, somebody could easily allow their AdWords campaigns to run for a month without turning them off.

If you want to be able to spy on the competition for up to a year, you can easily do this with a website called KeywordSpy.com

After you load up KeywordSpy.com in your browser and run your initial search, you will see a tab that is titled “Time Machine”.

Inside that tab, you will find a wealth of information that will allow you to spy on your competition for up to a year into the past.

This will help you to have a well rounded view of who has been paying for these search terms, where they have been sending the clicks and how long they have been sending them there.

There is one more added benefit of using the KeywordSpy.com service.

It will also let you see the ads that these companies have been using.

This will help you to get a good idea of what has been pulling in quality traffic for your competition and what you can do to pull them in as well.

Although you would not want to copy their ads word for word, you can use it as a guide and really get a leg up where you need it.

Use these two tools in your everyday efforts to make your PPC campaigns productive and profitable.

Treat them like the crystal ball that they are and they will help to make your advertising future bright.

How to get Traffic Day 9: PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

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Question Box: Anyone still use any mass traffic generators?

by Nick on September 6, 2008

Photo by -bast-.

Anyone still use any mass traffic generators?

Google and other search engines are getting better at detecting how long the average visitor stays at a site and incorporates this into their rankings.

Obviously the longer people stay at a site the better.

Pages that are created by automated programs are not very “sticky” meaning they do not entice your visitors to stay, look around, and visit more pages on the site.

Automated web page generators, like Traffic Equalizer, were all the rage a few years back.

Now they’re old hat and may actually hurt your site’s overall ranking.

Instead, focus on giving your visitors the best info available!

Question Box: How do I monetize my high ranking blog

by Nick on September 3, 2008

Photo by -bast-.

I recently came across a question that I have seen many times before.

The question goes something like:

I have a blog that ranks high in Google for some keyword and how do I monetize (make money from) my blog.

My answer to this question is not a simple answer but rather a list questions.

How much traffic does you site get?

Just because your site ranks high for a given keyword doesn’t mean it’s getting loads of traffic.

I currently rank #1 in Google for “Biggest Absolute Failure” but I get almost no traffic from it.

Get some analytics going.

Analytics will tell you what keywords you are getting traffic for and what sites are sending you traffic.

It will also tell you what pages get the most traffic, how long people stay, etc.

Google’s New Tool: Insights for Search

by Nick on September 3, 2008

Today I want to tell you about a new keyword tool from Google.

I just tried it and it’s pretty cool.

Check it out:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

New Layout for Nick’s Traffic Tricks

by Nick on September 1, 2008

I have been thinking about changing the blog’s layout for a little while now.

My reasons for changing were:

The old layout was too busy with all the stuff on the right. Too distracting.
The download for my home page was too big and took too long for some users to download. [Learn more about download rates]

So today I decided to finally do it.

After a couple hours of searching through many WordPress themes I finally decided on a theme based on the Mac OSX system.

I like its simplicity and it downloads a lot faster than my old theme.

Do you like it?

No Related Post

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VIDEO: Keyword Research & How to get around the Google Slap

by Nick on September 1, 2008

Today I want to talk to about a great way to do keyword research and how to get around the Google Slap

WPvideo 1.10

Download!

The keyword research tool in the video can be found at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

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30 Days to get more traffic

by Nick on August 10, 2008

Welcome To 30 Days Get More Traffic!

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #2

by Nick on August 7, 2008

Photo by extranoise.

Below is my newsletter I send out to all my subscribers each week. To subscribe simply fill out the form in the upper right hand area of this page.

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #2 - July 28, 2008.

CONTENTS
1. 50 Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website
2. Social Marketing, Blog Marketing and Blog SEO
3. Google Now Provides Search Volume Data in Keyword Tool
4. Twitter for Beginners - 5 Things to Do as a New Twitter User

________________SPONSOR__________
20 Ways To Make 100 Bucks A Day Online

20 People Share How They Consistantly Make 100 Big Ones A Day Online

Learn More:
http://pathway100.com/?e=nick1123
_________________________________

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1. 50 Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I recently posted on my blog a list of 50 ways to get more ttraffic to your site.

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

2. Leave comments on other people’s blogs with a backlink to your site.

3. Answer people’s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.

5. Write a press release and submit it to www.PRWeb.com.

6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on www.CraigsList.com.

7. Give an unbiased testimonial on a product/service that you have used in exchange for a backlink to your site.

8. Start a blog and submit it to the 100’s of free blog directories.

9. Manually submit your website to the major search engines.

10. Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.

Read all 50 traffic ideas:
http://tinyurl.com/5c4jx2

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2. Social Marketing, Blog Marketing and Blog SEO
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I recently came across a squidoo lens by Chris Lang that had a ton of great info on SEO and blog marketing.

The following one of many great tips:

“The number of times your URL appears in conversations: Think Gmail….

From the Google Patent:
References to the blog document by other sources may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document. For example, content of emails or chat transcripts can contain URLs of blog documents. Email or chat discussions that include references to the blog document is a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document.

Yeah, Google reads your Gmail. Google listens to your Google chat. All the time counting how many times your URL is present.

Blog SEO Solution: This is a good case for not using tracking links in emails to your list. By using click counting URLs to see how count click thrus to your site you may be removing a positive indicator that Google counts.

Read More Tips:
http://www.squidoo.com/blog-seo

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3. Google Now Provides Search Volume Data in Keyword Tool
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Perry Marshall has outlined some powerful ways that you can take advantage of this data in Google’s keyword tool.

If you use Google AdWords to drive traffic to your site then you need to read this:
http://perrymarshall.com/adwords/searchvolume.htm

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4. Twitter for Beginners - 5 Things to Do as a New Twitter User
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Darren Rowse writes:
“I’ve had a number of these people contact me to ask me where to begin as a new Twitter user. As a medium it can be a little overwhelming to know how to use it - so I thought I’d put together this list of things to do as a new Twitter User (this is definitely pitched at the beginner).”

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #3

by Nick on August 6, 2008

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #3 - August 5, 2008.

CONTENTS
1. 5 Tips To Get More Traffic From Digg
2. How Fast Does Your Site Download?
3. 8 Useful Tips for Building Your Mommy Blog Into a Business
4. How to Level the Playing-field With Digg
5. What do I look like?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
1. 5 Tips To Get More Traffic From Digg
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

One of my readers sent me the following question:
“I have been told that using Digg can be good for bringing traffic to a business website but when most of the links seem to be to news or humourous sites what is the best way to get people to look at your submission.”

In response I posted 5 Tips To Get More Traffic From Digg:
http://tinyurl.com/6xfa74

Do you have question about getting traffic?

Email me: NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
2. How Fast Does Your Site Download?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Do you know long it takes people to download your site?

If your site takes too long to load you may be losing visitors and not even know it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
3. 8 Useful Tips for Building Your Mommy Blog Into a Business
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Vered DeLeeuw from MomGrind suggests ways for turning a mommy blog into a business. These tips are not limited to mommy blogs: they can be applied to personal blogs in general:
http://tinyurl.com/59bwan

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4. How to Level the Playing-field With Digg
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Skellie details how to get the most of Digg and how to work with Digg power users to get more diggs and more traffic to your site:
http://tinyurl.com/47u3mx

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
5. What do I look like?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

There has been some curiosity as to what I look like and who I am.

I do have small photo of myself on my twitter account which you see here:
http://twitter.com/nick1123

My ‘about me’ page has a few random tidbits about me:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/about/

Have something you’d like to ad to the newsletter?
Email me NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

–
Good night and good luck!
Nick Stewart
Stewart Marketing Inc
http://www.NicksTrafficTricks.com
NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

Blogs To Bookmark: ProBlogger

by Nick on August 5, 2008

This post is part of a my Blogs to Bookmark series.

Today I want to share with you a great blog called ProBlogger
http://www.problogger.net/

What topics are covered and who is the target audience of the blog?

This site is dedicated to helping other bloggers learn the skills of blogging, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium.

How often do they post?

Several times a day.

Comments - are they allowed?

Comments are allowed and encouraged and posts often have literally hundreds of comments.

Design - what’s the appearance of the blog?

The blog is very active and the overall appearance is slightly cluttered looking until you realize how indepth and active the blog is and then you realize that there is a consistency and pattern to the overall design.

How fast does the site download?

The blog may take a few seconds to come up for people with slower Internet connections.

What about Advertising?

The blog is heavy into advertising which involves sponsors for the site. The advertising is in keeping with the overall site and refreshing in not being the usual run of the mill advertisers.

Navigation - is it easy to find your way around the blog?

The navigation is quite elegant given the size of the blog site – for instance, it also has a job board for bloggers. There is a great top navigation bar. The archives are clearly listed.

Age - How old is the blog?

The blog began in September 2004.

About the blogger:

The blogger is Darren Rowse who describes himself as “a full time Blogger making a living from this new and dynamic medium from blogs like Digital Photography School.”

He explains how “back in 2002 I stumbled upon an article about ‘Blogging’. I didn’t know it at the time but that moment changed my life. I know that statements like that belong on those cheesy ‘buy my book’ sites (don’t worry I’m not selling anything) but it is actually true.

Within 24 hours of reading the article I had started my own Blog - a personal blog where I’ve explored issues of Pop Culture, Spirituality and Blogging ever since. I learnt so much from the experience of that blog that I’ve since started many other blogs.”

Example posts

Five Reasons Why Mom Blogs Are the Blogs to Watch (April 30, 2008) is a guest post about a popular type of blog. It is informative and provided a welcome new slant on blogging.
http://www.problogger.net/…mom-blogs-are-the-blogs-to-watch/

How to Let Your Blog Go - Series Wrap Up (June 30, 2008) is a wrap up on a 10-part series on how to close down a blog. It deals with reasons why you should close down a blog and how to go about it.
http://www.problogger.net/…let-your-blog-go-and-what-to-do-about-it/

How Social Media Helped Me Get Unbanned from a Social Media Site in One Hour and 44 Minutes (August 1, 2008) is a typical Darren blog where he tells of the tribulations he encounters online. The blog is personal yet informative and provides step by step information on dealing with the issue.
http://www.problogger.net/…get-unbanned-from-a-social-media…

Blogs To Bookmark: Get Rich Slowly

by Nick on August 3, 2008

This post is part of a my Blogs to Bookmark series.

Today I want to share with you a great blog called Get Rich Slowly
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/

What topics are covered and who is the target audience of the blog?

The topics are health and fitness, insurance, planning, real-life, and relationships. The target audience is people interested in sensible personal finance. The topics relate to debt elimination, saving money, and practical investing.

How often do they post?

There are daily posts.

Comments - are they allowed?

Comments are allowed and there appears to be numerous comments for each blog. For instance, the last blog as of the time of this writing had 66 comments in less than a day.

Design - what’s the appearance of the blog?

The site has a clean look with a relaxing pastoral scene as the header on each page with a pale blue background border and a clean white background for the text.

How fast does the site download?

The site downloads relatively fast — .64 seconds for the home page.

Is there advertising?

The advertising is discreet. There are Google ads and other low-key ads along the right side of the blog.

Navigation - is it easy to find your way around the blog?

The navigation is easy. The archives are accessible from every page and filed by date as well as topic.

How old is the blog?

The blog began in April 2006.

Example posts:

Ask the Readers: How to Cope with Socially Obligated Spending? (June 27, 2008). This is a good blog about a guy who asked. “How do you deal with social situations where you have to spend? I just had to spend $300 to go to a cousin’s wedding. I couldn’t not go — it’s family.” Roth asked the readers to provide their responses.
http://www.getrichslowly.org…socially-obligated-spending/

There are guest posts such as How to Track Travel Expenses and Stick to a Vacation Budget (May 28, 2008). The blog provided clear and detailed tips on travelling without getting into more debt.
http://www.getrichslowly.org…stick-to-a-vacation-budget/

Use a No-Spend Month to Become Mindful of Money (July 30, 2008) is another example of the kind of information that J.D. shares. This is about another blogger who found a way to become more mindful about the money she spends.
http://www.getrichslowly.org…become-mindful-of-money/

About the blogger.

The blogger is J.D. Roth who describes himself as “an average guy who found himself deep in debt.”

From their About page:

Get Rich Slowly — recently named most inspiring money blog by Money magazine — is devoted to sensible personal finance.

You will not find any get-rich-quick schemes here. Nor will you find multi-level marketing fads or hot stock tips. I am not pitching any product or book. Instead, you’ll find daily information about personal finance and related topics.

I share stories about debt elimination, saving money, and practical investing. I also post occasional reviews of books, magazines, and software. And, of course, I scour the web for the latest personal finance tools and articles.

Please note that I am not a financial professional. I’m just an average guy who found himself deep in debt. When it finally became too overwhelming, I began reading personal finance books, hoping to find answers. I wanted swift solutions to my problems. My research revealed that few people get rich quickly, but almost anyone can get rich slowly by patiently following some simple rules.

Since April 2006, I’ve been sharing what I learn with thousands of daily readers. By following my own advice, I’ve managed to ditch my debt and actually begin saving. I really am getting rich slowly. Along the way, I’ve developed twelve key beliefs that form the core of the Get Rich Slowly philosophy:

Money is more about mind than it is about math.
When we overspend, we’re making mental mistakes, not math mistakes. We all understand the math. Fortunately, we can do things to trick ourselves into making the right choices, and eventually those choices will become second nature. Further reading: Why smart people make big money mistakes (and how to correct them).

Goals are important.
Without financial goals, you have no direction, which makes it easy to spend money on things you’ll regret later. But if you know that you’re saving for a house, for your daughter’s college education, or for a new car, your goal will keep you focused. Further reading: The road to wealth is paved with goals.

Spend less than you earn.
Track every penny you spend. Avoid debt. Avoid debt. Avoid debt. Easier said than done, I know, but the fundamental rule of personal finance is this: in order to get out of debt and build wealth, you must spend less than you earn. There’s no way around it. Further reading: How to get out of debt.

Pay yourself first.
Before you pay your bills, before you buy groceries, before you do anything else, set aside some percentage of your income to save. Start small if you have to — even 1% is good — and increase your savings as you’re able. Aim to reach 20%. (My wife saves 25% of her paycheck!) Further reading: Which online high-yield savings account is best?

Small amounts matter.
Don’t be frustrated if you’re only saving $25 per month. I started small, too. Though the going seemed slow at first, these small moves helped me develop good habits. And don’t underestimate the power of just one small change. When I cut my cable bill from $65/month to $15/month, that extra $50 made a huge difference. Further reading: The magic of thinking small.

Large amounts matter, too.
It’s good to clip coupons to save money on groceries, but it’s even better to shop around for the best deal on a mortgage. Everyday frugality can save you a little money consistently, but by making smart choices on big ticket items, you can save thousands of dollars in one blow. Further reading: Want to save? Give up the big things!

Do what works for you.
Each person is different. What works for one person may not work for another. There’s no one right way to save or to invest or to pay off debt or to buy a house. Don’t believe anyone who says there is. Be willing to experiment until you find methods that are suited to your life. Further reading: 8 ways to take control of your finances in 2008.

Slow and steady wins the race.
The most successful people are those who work longest and hardest at something they love to do. Find ways to make frugality fun. Recognize that you’re in this for the long haul. You’re making a lifestyle change, not looking for a quick fix. Further reading: How and why to start an emergency fund.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Too many people are reluctant to start getting their finances in order because they don’t know what the best first step is. Don’t worry about getting things exactly right. Choose a good option and do something. Optimize later. Further reading: The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Failure is okay.
It’s okay to make mistakes. Even billionaires like Warren Buffett make mistakes. We learn from failure. Don’t let a single mistake drag you down. It’s better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all. Use failure to learn how to do better next time. Further reading: How good habits keep small mistakes manageable.

It’s more important to be happy than it is to be rich.
Don’t become obsessed with money and wealth. Remember Ebeneezer Scooge! Money gives you more options, but happiness makes life worth living. I believe that if we’re able to stay happy and in control of our lives, money actually becomes easier to manage. Further reading: What’s the reason for saving and investing?

Do it now.
It’s easy to put things off. But the sooner your start moving toward your goals, the easier they are too reach. Further reading: Getting to now: Beating the procrastination habit.

These are the basic tenets of my philosophy. These are the ideas that lurk behind every article I post. Please remember that everything you read here is my own informed opinion. Never believe everything you read, and always form your own conclusions.

{ 4 comments }

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #1

by Nick on August 1, 2008

Photo by extranoise.

Below is my newsletter I send out to all my subscribers each week. To subscribe simply fill out the form in the upper right hand area of this page.

Nick’s Traffic Tricks Newsletter #1 - July 21, 2008.

CONTENTS
1. A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images
2. The Comprehensive Guide to Writing and Publishing Your Ebook
3. How Fast Does Your Site Download?
4. Top 9 Reasons to Squidoo
5. 6 Reasons I am NOT buying the new iPhone 3G

________________SPONSOR__________
20 Ways To Make 100 Bucks A Day Online

20 People Share How They Consistantly Make 100 Big Ones A Day Online

Learn More:
http://pathway100.com/?e=nick1123
_________________________________

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
1. A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I have been trying to add some cool photos to my blog posts but it’s hard to find photos that are somewhat relavent to the topic at hand without violating copyright laws.

So I was delighted when I found an awesome guide to finding cool images for my blog posts.

A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images:
http://tinyurl.com/235dmo

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2. The Comprehensive Guide to Writing and Publishing Your Ebook
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I recently read a post on how to write and publish your ebook.

This great post breaks this complicated process in 16 steps and gives advice for each step.

Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/6b3rmd

I also wrote a post with tips on writing an ebook:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/day-7-write-an-ebook/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
3. How Fast Does Your Site Download?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I want to share a great tool called:
Website Performance Tool and Web Page Speed Analysis

This awesome tool will tell you how long it will take people to download based on the their connection (e.g. Dial-up, T1, etc.).

I ran a test for my page 30 Days to More Traffic and it returned a multi-page speed report.

Check it out:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
4. Top 9 Reasons to Squidoo
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Do you squidoo?

If you don’t then you should.

Why?

1. Squidoo is easy to use. Half the struggle in creating a website is building it. You can always hire someone to do it for you but then you have a static site. Squidoo lets you play around and add and change and improve as you see fit.

2. You do not have to be an SEO expert. The big search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) love Squidoo lens and rank those lenses high. Part of this is that these engines know that Squidoo is not going to be one of those fake sites that has been SEO optimized but it full of spun articles and annoying pretend links.

3. It’s free. New internet marketers are often on a tight budget. Squidoo is a great way to get market your products, you can keep your overheads low as it is completely free to set up a Squidoo account and create as many lenses as you want.

Read all 9 reasons:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/top-9-reasons-to-squidoo/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
5. 6 Reasons I am NOT buying the new iPhone 3G
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

With all the recent buzz about the release of the iPhone 3G I thought I would throw out my 2 cents on the matter.

There are 6 reasons I am NOT buying one and you can read them here:
http://tinyurl.com/63k7ew

Have something you’d like to ad to the newsletter?
Email me NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

–
Good night and good luck!
Nick Stewart
Stewart Marketing Inc
http://www.NicksTrafficTricks.com
NicksTrafficTricks@gmail.com

The power of tinyurl.com

by Nick on July 30, 2008

Photo by schoschie.

Today I want to talk about a very useful service called tinyurl.com.

What this simple service does is transform a super long url into a short one.

For example if I have the url: http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/50-tips-on-getting-more-traffic-to-your-website/

I can I use tinyurl and it will generate a much shorter url for me to use like this:
http://tinyurl.com/5c4jx2

Now if I put http://tinyurl.com/5c4jx2 into my browser it automatically forwards me to http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/50-tips-on-getting-more-traffic-to-your-website/

So how is this useful?

This is useful for long urls when you are sending them in an email.

In emails long urls sometimes will have the end chopped off and you end up with something like:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/50-tips-on-getting-more-traffic -to-your-website/

Because of text wrapping the url is no longer valid.

This wrapping issue also occurs in some forums. When this happens tinyurl is a good solution.

Some forums, like WarriorForum, shorten urls for you.

They do this by truncating the url.

So the url http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/50-tips-on-getting-more-traffic-to-your-website/ would be shrunk down to http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/50...website/

If someone wants to copy the link they end up copying http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/50...website/ and not the actual link.

A while back someone on the WarriorForum posted a list of “90 Resources for WordPress Templates” with a whole bunch of links to various sources for cool WordPress themes.

Unfortunately about half the links had been truncated to have ‘…’ in the middle of the link so people couldn’t copy the list and save it.

I took the list and fixed all the links and put them into an easy to copy list:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/90-resources-for-wordpress-templates/

Trouble with MapQuest

One of my favorite uses of this is when you want to email a mapquest url like this one:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1c=San+Jose &1s=CA&1a=%5B3060-3099%5D+King+Est&1z=95 135&1y=US&1l=37.29435&1g=-121.75735&1v=S TREET&2c=San+Jose&2s=CA&2a=%5B5600-5749% 5D+Herma+St&2z=95123&2y=US&2l=37.24925&2 g=-121.82445&2v=STREET

With tinyurl I can shorten this nasty critter to something short, manageable, and easy to email:
http://tinyurl.com/6ekcmw

Hide affiliate links

Tinyurl is also useful for hiding affiliate links when you don’t want people to know that your link is for an affiliate program.

So you could change http://pathway100.com/?e=nick1123 to http://tinyurl.com/56zdwx

Try it for yourself

Count how many times people click on your link

DwarfURL is a similar service to tinyurl but it takes this idea of link forwarding to another level.

With DwarfURL you can track how many times people have clicked on your url and been sent to your site.

To access your stats simply click on the “Your History” near the the top of the page, and click the icon in the stats column.

How to get Traffic Day 1: Make sure you have the right tools

5 Tips To Get More Traffic From Digg

by Nick on July 28, 2008

Today I want to talk about how to get traffic from Digg.com.

One of readers emailed me the following:

I have been told that using Digg can be good for bringing traffic to a business website but when most of the links seem to be to news or humourous sites what is the best way to get people to look at your submission.

This post is my attempt to answer his question.

1. Submit things that of interest to the Digg community

Instead of asking “How can I get Digg users to look at my submission?” you should ask “What kind of submissions are of interest to Digg users?”

With so many options available to people on the Internet it will be difficult to force/persuade/conjole visitors to look at your submission.

So if your goal is to get traffic from Digg then your first concern should submitting things that are of interest to the Digg community.

It won’t take long looking at the home page of Digg to determine what kind of submissions routinely become popular:

Breaking News
Things that are controversial
Funny photos and videos
Apple News
Firefox News
Political News, especially things dealing with Obama or Ron Paul

If your site is about Poodle Manicures then Digg may not be the best way to get traffic unless you of course you post some outrageous photos of crazy poodle manicures.

2. Write an enticing headline

Once you have something that will be of interest to the Digg community you need to position it in a manner that will get it noticed.

The first step to doing this is to write an effective headline. People looking at Digg submissions skim the headlines and ignore the description unless the headline was very interesting.

So the first thing to do is to pay attention to the headlines of things that are popular.

Many popular posts have headlines that can classified into one of the following groups:

Numbered Lists (e.g. 5 Ways to…, 10 Horrible…, etc.)
Top Lists, Best Lists, & Worst Lists (e.g. Top Reasons…, Best Methods to…, Worst Things to Say…, etc.)
Bizarre, Controversial, or Outrageous

3. Select the right category for your submission

If you place your submission in the wrong category no one will vote for it.

This seems rather obvious but is a common mistake.

If you are not sure which category to choose then do a quick search for related submissions and see which categories people before you chose.

4. Send ‘Shouts’ to your friends

At the bottom of a post you’ll see a share link:

Clicking on this allows to send a ’shout’ or email to all of your friends.

Of course this supposes that you friends on Digg.

5. Get more friends

Having more friends means you can send more shouts and get the word out on your submissions.

To get more friends simply find people that have submissions with 50 or more diggs, digg some of their submissions, and then add them as a friend. Some of these will reciprocate and add you as a friend.

{ 4 comments }

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-26

by Nick on July 26, 2008

Reading “10 house-selling secrets” http://tinyurl.com/6fh3ej #

No Related Post

How Fast Does Your Site Download?

by Nick on July 26, 2008

Photo by Dan Kamminga.

Today I want to share with you a great tool called the Web Page Analyzer: Free Website Performance Tool and Web Page Speed Analysis

This awesome tool will tell you how long it will take people to download based on the their connection (e.g. Dial-up, T1, etc.).

I ran a test for my page 30 Days to More Traffic and it returned a multi-page speed report.

Here is a screenshot of the first page:

Looking at my Google Analytics account I see what the connection speed of my visitors is:

From this I can see that Dialup users account for about 3% of my visitors so I am not going to worry about how long it takes them to download my page. They’re probably used to slow downloads anyway.

Most of my visitors are on DSL or Cable and that’s what I will optimize for.

One last thing I should mention is that if you are concerned about how long your site takes for people to download then you ought to use this tool to find out what the download times are for the top 5 sites in your niche.

Try not to have your site be bigger than the top 5 sites in your niche.

Give this tool a whirl:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-24

by Nick on July 24, 2008

Reading “Google Now Provides Search Volume Data in Keyword Tool” http://tinyurl.com/5jcxrb #
Reading “The Ultimate Guide To Decoding Digg Speak” http://tinyurl.com/6xanvc #
Reading “How to get on the digg homepage” http://tinyurl.com/5ujv6f #
Reading “Social Marketing, Blog Marketing and Blog SEO” http://tinyurl.com/5knwxq #

No Related Post

Adopting the Correct Mindset - Making the Internet Work For You

by Nick on July 24, 2008

Photo by Zest-pk.

It has been proven time after time after time after time, that the way we look at our life is essentially a barometer of our expectations.

This is based on what we’ve been taught we are worthy of having and capable of achieving.

These influences are mostly inspired by external influences - such as family, upbringing, and community.

Here’s a thought for you.

Most people will go to the time and effort of writing a will at some stage of their life, to say what they want to happen after they die.

Few people put the same effort into what they want to happen whilst they are still here. Take a moment right now to notice how you look at the world.

How do you view the business of making money online? Be honest!!

Do you believe that it will be difficult but it can be done?

Or secretly deep down inside do you think it won’t really work for you?

If you chose the latter - firstly congratulations on being honest with yourself.

But secondly - let me tell you clearly and plainly - making money online IS something that the average Joe CAN do. But the FIRST step is adopting the correct mindset.

Are you plagued by negative thoughts? The ‘yeahs’ - the ‘ buts’? If so, it is critical that you cut those thoughts out as soon as they start.

Whatever you think about constantly, you will create.

If you’re continually focusing on how difficult your goal is, you will never achieve it.

You need to believe that it is - at least - possible.

About Chris Farrell:

Chris Farrell is a successful writer and broadcaster. He specializes in teaching the newcomer how to make money online. He is the author of many ebooks, including the popular ‘Create Your First Website By 3.45 This Afternoon. Get yours for FREE here => http://www.chrisfarrell-online.com

And check out SUCCESS GRENADE - Chris’s free rapidly growing weekly newsletter => http://www.chrisfarrell-online.com/successgrenade/menu.html

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-23

by Nick on July 23, 2008

Reading “The ‘Secret’ To Successful Blogging?” http://tinyurl.com/2n53ll #
Reading “The Economics of a POW Camp” http://tinyurl.com/5chgox #

No Related Post

50 Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website

by Nick on July 22, 2008

Photo by giamarie.

The following list was created by Justin Michie. His site is: http://www.internetmarketingbook.com

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

2. Leave comments on other people’s blogs with a backlink to your site.

3. Answer people’s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.

5. Write a press release and submit it to www.PRWeb.com.

6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on www.CraigsList.com.

7. Give an unbiased testimonial on a product/service that you have used in exchange for a backlink to your site.

8. Start a blog and submit it to the 100’s of free blog directories.

9. Manually submit your website to the major search engines.

10. Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.

11. Add a link in your email signature to your website. It’s a free and easy way to get a little more traffic.

12. Make a custom 404 error page for your website redirecting people to your home page.

13. Use PPC search engine advertising.

14. Add a “bookmark this site” link to your webpages.

15. Have a tell-a-friend form on your site.

16. Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.

17. Hold a crazy contest and make it go viral.

18. Give away a freebie (ebook, report, e-course) to keep people coming back to your site.

19. Add an RSS feed to your blog.

20. Submit your site to any related niche directories on the net.

21. Participate in a banner or link exchange program.

22. Create a software program and give it away for free.

23. Purchase the misspellings or variations of your domain name, or those of your competitors.

24. Buy a domain name related to your niche that is already receiving traffic and forward it to your site.

25. Pass out business cards with your domain on them everywhere you go.

26. Start and affiliate program and let your affiliates send you visitors.

27. Start a page on social bookmarking sites such as www.MySpace.com.

28. Submit a viral video to www.YouTube.com

29. Conduct and publish surveys to your website.

30. Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic.

31. Start your own newsletter or ezine.

32. Use a autoresponder or email campaign to keep people coming back to your site.

33. Purchase ads on other sites.

34. Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review.

35. Sell or place classified ads on www.eBay.com with a link to your site.

36. Post free classified ads on any of the sites that allow them with a link to your site.

37. Exchange reciprocal links with other related websites.

38. Network with other people at seminars or other live events.

39. Purchase advertising in popular newsletters or ezines.

40. Advertise on other product’s “thank you” pages.

41. Create a free ebook and list in on the “free ebook” sites.

42. Buy and use a memorable domain name.

43. Do something controversial.

44. Create an Amazon profile and submit reviews for books and other products that you have read.

45. Start a lens on www.Squidoo.com.

46. Use a traffic exchange (low quality traffic, but can sometimes be worthwhile).

47. Get referrals form similar but non-competing sites.

48. Create and sell a product with resell or giveaway rights and include a link to your site in it so others pass it around for you.

49. Email your list. If you don’t have one, get one.

50. Buy a pair of sandals; get your website engraved on the bottom and walk on the beach, stomp in the mud or play in the snow.

Becoming a Giant Squid

by Nick on July 20, 2008

Once of the great things about Squidoo is the way that it responds to the user’s needs. One of the more recent additions to Squidoo is the Giant Squid category. Squidoo’s Megan Casey says that the Giant Squids refers to the core group of Squidoo’s movers and shakers.

In describing the Giant Squid, Megan mentioned something that is very revealing about what it takes to succeed on Squidoo. She mentioned that they noticed that the best lenses were build by people who have a lot of lenses. It was out of this discovery that the idea of the Giant Squid arose.

Anyone can be a Giant Squid. All it takes 50 or more excellent lenses. Squidoo is looking for quality and content and numbers. If you already have 50 or more lenses and you have not been contacted, you can email giants@squidoo.com to see if your lenses are up to snuff for Squidoo.
[click to continue…]

{ 1 comment }

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.6

by Nick on July 19, 2008

I just finished upgrading to WordPress 2.6.

I finally decided to upgrade to take advantage of some of the new cool plugins.

We’ll see how this works.

Top 8 Reasons to Squidoo

by Nick on July 18, 2008

Day 30: Your Traffic Startegy and Checklist

by Nick on July 15, 2008

Welcome to Day 30 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

During these 30 days I’ve written in-depth about the top tactics for getting traffic. It’s essential to work at least the most important methods into your daily focus.

Quality of Traffic

Tons of website owners and bloggers think, “How am I going to get a lot of traffic?”

When really they should be asking themselves, “How am I going to get a lot of quality traffic?”

1 hit from a high source of traffic is often better than 100 hits from a low source. For instance, if a well-respected blogger such as Darren Rowse has provided a link to your site on blogging, he has given his internet stamp of approval for your website.

The visitor is likely to spend time reading what you have to say and he will also trust your products/advertisements. If Darren Rowse is raving about you, you don’t need to do much to sell yourself when that traffic comes through.

However, let’s say someone used a traffic exchange to get to your site. This is such a low quality source of traffic that the visitor may not stay but a few seconds, he immediately doesn’t have a lick of trust in your content or you, and he may have even stumbled upon your site looking for content outside of your niche.

Before you put together your strategy, ponder what I consider to be the highest to lowest quality sources of traffic in relation to the sections above.

Traffic Quality Chart

High:

(Direct Links)
Traffic from your email list
Article Marketing
Forum Marketing
Guest Blogging
Viral ebook
Viral Video
Search Engine Traffic
Pay-Per-Click

Low:

Social Bookmarking
Traffic Exchanges

Your Focus

Unless you work 8-hours-per-day or hire help, it’s unlikely you can do all of these effectively. What we do know, however, is this. On a daily basis you should aim for generating traffic from at least one high quality source.

Objectives #1 and #2 are necessary for long-term traffic:

Your #1 objective should be linkbuilding.

Linkbuilding leads to both high quality direct traffic and long-term search engine traffic. Use all of the methods above, from viral linking campaigns, to guest blogging, to utilizing a blog roll in the right way, etc.

Your #2 objective should be either submitting search engine optimized articles to ezines (Article Marketing) or publishing them at your own website. Pros often do both.

Your #3 objective should be harnessing the traffic power of social bookmarking, creating viral media (ebooks and videos), forum marketing, Squidoo, and other things.

Goal Setting

As part of your strategy, set small goals. You can’t look at your traffic generation in absolutes. For example, vow to double your daily traffic each month instead of be upset that you’re not getting 10,000 visitors every day the second month your site’s up.

In other words, don’t expect these techniques to magically make your site as popular as an authority site that’s been on the net for 5 years over night. Although it’s possible if you generate enough incoming links.

Use these techniques. They work.

Hire Help

If you have the money, the best way to effortlessly drive traffic to your site by hiring help (outsourcing). There are skilled individuals on the net who provide services for building links, connecting you with JV partners… They’ll even write content for you for a low price. You can hire someone to do all the dirty work. I recommend Warrior Forum, an online marketing forum since 1997, for finding a contractor. Elance works well too.

Traffic Building Checklist: Stage 1- Getting Started

Have the right tools for the job (e.g. firefox browser, website stats, autoresponder, etc.)
Pick a name for site & domain that is easy relatively short and is easy to spell & remember
Pay for quality hosting
Have really good content that others will find useful
- Have your email visible on your site so people can contact you and ask them for feedback
- Make a goal to add new content every so many day
Navigating your site should be simple and straightforward. Ask a couple people not familiar with your site to test it out for you.
Setup stat tracking. I recommend Google Analytics.
Optimize your site for the search engines
Setup an email list and make some sort of short special report to entice visitors to opt in to your list

Traffic Building Checklist: Stage 2- Getting Traffic

Goal Setting- How much traffic do you have, how much do you really want, and how long will it take. A good goal is to have your traffic increase by 1.5 or 2 times each month
Work on getting links to your site:
- Find a few reciprocal links. Make a goal to do 1 or 2 a day
- Find related blogs and forums and begin contributing to the community. Make a goal to leave 5 or more high quality posts a day.
Using your website stat tracker to figure out what sites are sending you the most traffic.

Traffic Building Checklist: Stage 3- Taking things to the next level

Goal Setting- Make a goal to contact 10-30 website owners in your niche and brainstorm together ways you can work together to get more traffic.
Contact email list owners in your niche and suggest a cross promotional campaign to build both your lists.

If I had to do it all over again…

If I had to do it all over again I would do lots of things differently:

I would start building an email list from day 1
I would have started networking with others in my field from the start
Read the whole list of things here

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-15

by Nick on July 15, 2008

Reading “Building a Personal Finance Library: 25 of the Best Books About Money” http://tinyurl.com/23zrgm #
Reading “The Comprehensive Paint-by-numbers Guide to Writing and Publishing Your Ebook” http://tinyurl.com/6b3rmd #
Reading “A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images” http://tinyurl.com/235dmo #

No Related Post

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-14

by Nick on July 14, 2008

Reading “Track Your Packages Over Twitter” http://trackthis.pb30.com/ #
Reading “Apple: 1 million iPhone 3Gs sold” http://tinyurl.com/5cca47 #
I still don’t want an iPhone, Read “6 Reasons I am NOT buying the new iPhone 3G” http://tinyurl.com/63k7ew #
Reading “Credit card debt on campus” I think people should be responsible for their choices http://tinyurl.com/67fsl5 #
Reading “Is Your Blog a Networking Tool?” http://tinyurl.com/66jbfp #
Reading “Is It More Important to Be Rich or to Be Happy?” http://tinyurl.com/6pb4t7 #

No Related Post

How to get Traffic Day 29: Go where the traffic is

by Nick on July 14, 2008

Welcome to Day 29 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

Today’s I want to talk about going where the traffic is.

This may sound like a strange idea but bear with me as I believe it to be a worthwhile concept.

This concept was originally introduced to me by Willie Crawford and basically states that if you want to increase traffic to your site then find related sites and look for ways to leverage their traffic.

For example if you want to get more traffic to your Poodle Manicures site then go find the most popular sites about Poodle Manicures and look for ways to leverage their traffic.

Examples

There are numerous ways do this. Here a few of the common ones:

If they have a blog you can:
1. Post meaningful comments and get a link back to your site
2. Write an informative guest post and get a link back to your site
3. Request a link exchange with their blogroll
If they have a forum there are several ways to use this get traffic.
Ask them if you could buy some ad space to advertise your site
If they have an email list offer to write an informative email to be sent to their list and get a link to your site in return. This is similar to the guest posting idea for blogging.
Post a funny video on youtube with a link to your site

What are your thoughts?

How to get Traffic Day 28: Traffic Odds & Ends

by Nick on July 13, 2008

Welcome to Day 28 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Start with a great product

I cannot stress enough how important it is that you start things with a great product.

Whether it’s an email course or a seminar that you are selling or website with baby names you must have a quality product.

Your success in getting traffic depends on this.

Getting others to bookmark your site and come back to it is a difficult task if all you offer is crap.

Google and other search engines are increasingly able to track visitors behavior on various sites including how many pages they visit and how long they stay.

Google can even determine how often visitors hit the back button when visiting your site. This factors in to your sites’ ranking in the search engines.

The point is if you offer crap you will have difficult time getting consistent traffic.

Be Remarkable

Be remarkable – What does this mean exactly?

Most people think that remarkable means neat or really cool, but it also means something is worth making a remark about.

Being remarkable means your product or company does something that causes people to remark about it to someone else. It’s word of mouth advertising. People of their own free will talk to their friends and family about your product or company or web site.

There is great video explaining the power of being remarkable:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/seth-godin-sliced-bread-and-other-marketing-delights/

Remarkable websites get a ton of free word of mouth traffic.

A good example of this is GoogleFight.com which is a silly site that serves no purpose except to entertain. I heard about the site from my wife who heard about it from some 13 year old boys. I have told many people about this and now I am telling you about it because it’s remarkable.

Choosing a Name

Choosing a name for your product, company, and website are very important. You want to choose a name that is memorable and easy to spell. When I buy domains I nearly always purchase a .com as it is easier for people to remember.

Eben Pagan has 3 great videos on marketing and the third video deals almost exclusively with choosing good names.

View all 3 videos:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/3-great-marketing-videos-from-eben-w-pagan/

Choosing the Right Domain

Choosing the right domain is an important decision. But there’s more to it than just picking the right name if you want to rank high in the search engines

In the last decade or so over 300 million domains have been registered:
http://www.domaintools.com/internet-statistics/

Of all the search engines out there Google has risen to be the undisputed 900 pound gorilla when it comes to search engines.

I believe it’s number 1 in large part because of it’s commitment to giving quality search results. Google is constantly refining its ranking process.

The problem facing search engines like Google and other search engines is web spam.

Web spam consists of sites that are put on the Internet with absolutely no valuable content. What they display is total rubbish. Their sole purpose is to get visitors to click on their advertisements.

Their presence degrades search results for everyone.

The last thing you want is for Google to mistake your newly purchased domain for web spam.

In order to avoid this we need take a look at what web spammers do and then make sure we not do those things.

One thing they do is usually register their domains for only 1 year.

I recommend registering your domain for 2 years. If you have money to burn then register it for longer. Registration length is one thing Google looks at in ranking sites.

I also recommend getting a .com and not a .info for your domain. A huge percentage of .info sites are web spam.

Some experts have speculated that it is best not to have secure registration for your website (where your personal information is hidden).

Hiding contact information is something web spammers frequently do.

Learn more about web spam:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051111-230626

In picking a domain, try to get something with your keywords in it.

For my site on Poodle Manicures site I might look for something like:
PoodleManicures.com
BestPoodleManicures.com
A1PoodleManicures.com

Generally speaking, shorter domain names are better. They are easier for people to remember and less prone to people misspelling them.

Avoid fancy spellings or strange names. This is especially important if you are advertising outside the Internet, like on signs, billboards, on radio, etc.

You want people to be able remember your domain. Keep it simple.

Hosting Matters

Picking a good web host that will not go down at random times is very important.

I mean what’s the point of working so hard to get traffic to a site if your hosting is unreliable?

Read about my experience with a bad web host and what I recommend.

How to get Traffic Day 27: Viral Video

by Nick on July 12, 2008

Welcome to Day 27 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

Producing an informative video and submitting it to YouTube along with your website’s URL can send a hurricane of traffic in your direction.

Case Study:

Blendtec makes high-end blenders costing hundreds of dollars. They got a lot of attention with their “Will it Blend?” videos on youtube.com. They have videos of the blenders blending everything from golf balls to credit cards to glow sticks to even an iPhone. The video of the blender blending an iPod ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs ) has been watched nearly 5 million times.

Don’t forget about the other video sites such as veoh.com, MySpace Video, and a South Korean-based video sharing site called CyWorld.com that actually gets more traffic than YouTube.

For a full list of video sharing sites:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-video-sharing-sites/

Also consider carefully titling your headlines with highly searched keywords and adding a whole lot of search engine optimized content in your description.

Search engines love video sites and so do web surfers.

Your videos don’t always have to informative. Many of the most watched videos are just silly and took very little to produce.

6 Reasons I am NOT buying the new iPhone 3G

by Nick on July 11, 2008

This post is a little off topic so please bear with me.

With all the recent commotion of the release of the iPhone 3G I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the matter.

Specifically as to why I am NOT going to rush out and buy one of these gadgets.

I know to many of you the arrival of the next generation iPhone is a wonderful moment that should be celebrated and shouted from the roof tops.

Sorry to say but I am not going to be sharing in your celebrations.

Here’s why:

1. The 16GB iPhone doesn’t have enough storage space.

I have an 80 GB video iPod that is full of music, videos, and audio books for the bus commute to and from work.

My video iPod also doubles as a backup hard drive when I need to transfer larges file between home and work.

2. My cheap Nokia cellphone works great and does everything I need.

I don’t really need another.

3. I have Internet almost everywhere I go.

There’s DSL at work and fiber optic at home. Much faster than the connection the iPhone 3G has.

4. I have a computer almost everywhere I am.

I much prefer my 19″ wide screen display to watch youtube vids err… I mean to do work… rather than a 3.5″ iPhone 3G display.

5. I am happy with my current cell provider and have no desire to pay a fee to get out of my current contract.

Why can’t the iPhone 3G work with my carrier?

6. Contrary to what the TV ads tell me, I don’t need to be more connected; I need to be a less connected.

I don’t need to be able to check my email, get the latest news from digg and slashdot and cnn money, update my facebook account, and add tweets to my twitter at all hours of the day. I really don’t. And neither do you.

In a world of information overload I have decided to go on a low information diet.

Yes I am one of those weirdos who actually turns off his cellphone at night. And I don’t check my work email on weekends.

Because of this I have never bought a crackberry and have no plan to purchase an iPhone 3G.

What are your thoughts?

Google uncloaks once-secret server

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How to get Traffic Day 26: Give something away for free

by Nick on July 11, 2008

Welcome to Day 26 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

Today I want to talk about how to use free stuff that you give away to get more traffic.

If you have an ebook, special report, piece of software, or any digital info that is of value to others you can give it away to others and get traffic in return.

The goal here is to give away something of real value and get readers to forward it to their friends.

To keep things simple we are going to assume that you’re giving away an ebook though these ideas apply to other things as well.

Creating the ebook

You must start with something of value, cannot stress this enough, people will not forward something to their friends unless it has real value.

In creating the ebook make sure that it contains a link to your site in the header/footer and at the beginning (the most read page).

For software be sure to also place a link to your site in a place where the user can see it and click on it.

NOTE: Make double sure the link is clickable and that your site does come up correctly. Never put a url in it and assume people will open up a new browser wind and type in the url. People are lazy.

Put in a copyright statement encouraging others to pass on the ebook as they wish as well a disclaimer statement.

Copyright Statement Example

Here is what I put on the first page of Nick’s Traffic Tricks:

This report is free. You may give it away. In fact, I encourage you to give it away.

This report can be sold but I recommend not selling it as anyone can get for free at NicksTrafficTricks.com/nicks-traffic-tricks-2008/

This guide can be combined with any package or bundle, sold or given away.

The only thing I require is that the report is not modified in any manner.

The strategies in this report can be to generate a flood of traffic to almost any website.
However, what you do with these techniques is up to you. Because I don’t know you, don’t know your skills and – most important of all - don’t know how persistent you’ll be, I can’t make any guarantees.

In the introduction & conclusion portion of you ebook, ask people to send it to others. Sometimes it works best to simply ask others to send it to others.

When you link to your site make sure the link is enticing, promising additional information.

Many ebooks have an appendix at the end. Instead of putting an appendix in your ebook put the appendix on your site and link to it. This not only sends traffic to your site but also allows you to keep your appendix up to date, adding further value to your ebook.

Keep your ebook relatively focused on single subject. If it solves a problem make sure it solves it well and solves nothing else.
Viral ebooks tend to small and easy to download, making it easier for others to download and email to others.

Add page numbers, have fonts be standard size

Have a minimum of 3 people proof read it.

Packaging

If you link to the ebook in pdf format then when people click on the link to the pdf it will automatically load the pdf in the browser.

If instead you link to a zipped file (which contains the pdf) they will be forced to download it to their computer, making it easier for them to read it later and forward it to others.

In the zip file also include a file that links to your website.

To do this open a new file in NotePad and save it.

An example filename might be Traffic_Tricks_Blog.htm

Be sure that the filename contains no spaces, is something that gets the viewers attention, and ends with .htm

Inside the file type the following:

<HTML><HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.nickstraffictricks.com"> <TITLE></TITLE></HEAD><BODY></BODY></HTML>

What this chunk of HTML code does is tell the browser to immediately redirect to:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com

Simply replace http://www.nickstraffictricks.com with your own url and then save.

Be sure to test your redirect!

Now everyone unzipping the file will see a file and if they open they will be sent to your site.

You can do this for affiliates stuff too. Just don’t abuse it. If you irritate people they won’t pass on your ebook.

Distribution

Now that your ebook package is ready there a many ways to distribute your freebie and start receiving traffic:

Make a page on your site outlining the ebook and its benefits with a big DOWNLOAD HERE graphic and ask your friends to put it on their sites.
Put a link to your freebie in your email signature
Post on WarriorForum with a link to your freebie
Upload your freebie to Scribd
Use forums to distribute your ebook. Read Traffic From Forums
There are many people with large email lists in your niche. Find out who they are. If my niche was Poodles I would Google poodle email list or poodle newsletter or poodle news and see who comes up in the search results.
Chances are they have a sizable email list. Subscribe to their list and respond to one of their emails.
What you’re going to offer them is to have their affiliate link at the top (header) of every page and you keep the link to your own site in the footer. All the list owner has to do is send an email to everyone on the list with a link to your ebook. The list owner wins by having an affiliate link in the ebook being distributed and you win by having everyone on the list read an ebook with a link to your site!
Find other people selling related products and offer to have your ebook bundled with their product. In return give them a link in the header of your report.

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-10

by Nick on July 10, 2008

Reading “Nine Signs of an Effective Blog Post” http://tinyurl.com/5rm8lf #
Reading “SparkplugU - Training for Work at Home Workers” http://tinyurl.com/6bdbm3 #
Reading “Appealing to a Wider StumbleUpon Audience” http://tinyurl.com/6nkupq #
Reading “An Introduction to Linkbaiting” http://tinyurl.com/5rvpg8 #
Reading “Tips, Guidelines and Templates for Writing an Effective Press Release” http://tinyurl.com/6ltw4m #
Reading “How to get traffic to my website?” http://tinyurl.com/6jzfg8 #
Reading “20 Linkbaiting Techniques” http://tinyurl.com/le3tk #
Reading “Motivations for Linkbaiting - Why Links are Good for Your Blog” http://tinyurl.com/5w7nhu #
Reading “Factors for Successful Linkbaiting” http://tinyurl.com/6havg2 #
Reading “13 Tips on Asking other Bloggers for Links” http://tinyurl.com/3bhvcy #
Reading “Methods of website linking” http://tinyurl.com/5gsyvy #

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10 Groups that benefit from high gas prices

by Nick on July 10, 2008

Everyone here in the states is talking about the high price of gas these days.

It seems that’s all anyone is talking about.

With the average price of self-serve unleaded gas over $4 a gallon one must wonder, “Who benefits from this sharp rise in fuel costs?”

In my quest to answer this question I uncovered some interesting answers.

Some are obvious and a few may not be so obvious.

If by chance I have forgotten any, leave a comment below.

Lobbyists

From For lobbyists, high gas prices are good news
There may be one group of people who don’t mind the soaring oil prices — lobbyists.

Rising gas prices have provided steady employment on K Street, even if the spike has made it more expensive to fill up the SUVs lobbyists seem to favor.

Advocates of various stripes have had to fend off a variety of legislation that would do everything from opening OPEC up to antitrust lawsuits, to allowing oil and gas developers access to offshore areas now off-limits, to taxing “windfall profits” the industry now gets and redirecting the money to promote renewable energy.

None of these proposals ever has much hope of passing, although they return every year, meaning new contracts for K Street.
Fake gas mileage enhancing products - There are a ton of these things on the market now. Everything from gas additives to fuel line gadgets.

From 6 gas-saving myths
Before you buy a device that’s supposed to make your car more fuel-efficient or pour in an allegedly gas-saving additive, ask yourself this: Don’t you think oil and car companies aren’t doing everything they can to beat their competitors?

If BP (BP) could add something to its gasoline that made cars go farther on a gallon, cars would be lining up at the company’s pumps. Sure, people would burn their fuel-saving BP gas more slowly, but then they’d drive right past rivals’ gas stations to come back to BP for more. BP stations could even charge more for their gas and still sell tons of the stuff.

So if there really was an additive that made gas burn up more slowly, it wouldn’t be sold over the Internet one bottle at a time.

Likewise, car companies are already spending big bucks to increase fuel mileage. If General Motors could make its cars go significantly farther on a gallon simply by putting a device into the fuel line, don’t think for a second it wouldn’t be doing that. GM’s car sales would go through the roof.

“There are a number of these gas-saving devices that are generally useless,” says Champion.

But drivers who try them will swear they work. In reality, it’s probably an automotive placebo effect, says Reed. Buy one of these devices or additives, and you’re like to pay extreme attention to your fuel economy and how you drive.
Discount retailers - With people spending more of their paycheck on fuel they are forced to spend less in other areas. But people still need to food, clothing, and school supplies and so they are heading to the stores with the lowest prices.
Politicians - Without a crisis at hand how would they be able to convince us that they should be elected? The politician who can use the issue of high gas prices to their favor will most likely win the election.
The media - They feed off one crisis after another. The higher & faster gas prices raise the more newspapers they will sell.
Government employees in the state of Utah

From Utah goes to 4-day workweek to save energy
In a yearlong experiment aimed at reducing the state’s energy costs and commuters’ gasoline expenses, Utah is about to become the first state to switch to a four-day workweek for thousands of government employees.

They will put in 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and have Fridays off, freeing them to golf, shop, spend time with the kids or do anything else that strikes their fancy. They will get paid the same as before.

“One of the jokes is that one of the biggest benefits will be for golf courses,” said Ryan Walker, 49, an information technology director. He said he is looking forward to tackling items on his long-neglected “honey-do” list (As in: “Honey, do this” and “Honey, do that”); camping; and traveling more around the state.
Makers of oil exploration & drilling equipment - As the price of oil continues to climb more and more countries have an incentive to start exploring and drilling their own untapped reserves. And to do this they will need specialized heavy machinery.
Makers of the Prius & other hybrids

From Prius Sales Top 1 Million. Want One? Better Move Fast [May 15, 2008]
Toyota says cumulative worldwide sales of the Prius hit 1,028,000 last month — when sales jumped 67 percent amid record gas prices — and claims the cars have eased global warming “by producing approximately 4.5 million tons less C02 when compared with gasoline-powered vehicles in the same class.”

Despite Toyota’s impressive sales figures, hybrids are still just 2.3 percent of the U.S. market. That number is sure to change as consumers ditch their gas-guzzlers. Hybrid sales rose 38 percent last year even as overall vehicle sales fell, and with gas prices approaching four bucks a gallon, Toyota’s having trouble meeting demand for the Prius.

Priuses (some say the plural is Priora) are getting harder to find in showrooms and buyers are paying more for them. Toyota says domestic inventory is limited by production capacity in Japan, which is shared by the Asian and European markets. The U.S. supply is at its lowest level in two years, according to Bloomberg, and things will only get worse as demand rises.

“This is a special vehicle, and as fuel prices keep rising, it gets more special,” Toyota spokesman John Hanson told Bloomberg. “Right now, U.S. customers can get a Prius. Next month or the month after that, it’s tough to say.”
Sellers of the Geo Metro and other small cars

From Gas prices drive Geos from clunkers to chic
The 1996 2-door 3-cylinder Metro Solomon now owns opened on eBay May 7 with a bid of $200. A week later, Solomon won the car auction with a bid of $7,300. In 1995, a new Metro hatchback sold for about $9,000, according to Auto Mall USA.

In May alone, 43 Metros of various years and models were sold on eBay, ranging in price from $221.50 to Solomon’s bid of $7,300. The cars have been hot items, drawing upwards of 49 bids on certain vehicles, with many of the auctions coming down to last-second bidding wars. On Tuesday morning, 34 Metros were still up for grabs.

Since her eBay purchase, Solomon has acquired another Metro, which she is considering flipping on eBay for profit. She has her eye on a third at a local car lot.
Big oil - always easy to blame

Prices in the U.S.A for gas are at all-time highs but things could be worse:

From Think Gas is High? Try Europe
European governments put a much higher tax burden on fuel than the U.S. does. State and federal taxes currently make up just 11% of the pump price in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration; in France and the U.K., taxes account for an average of around 70%.

And there are a few who believe the rise is a good thing and want it to go even higher:

From Call me crazy, but rising gas prices are a good thing
I’m sure this will delight those who’ve wondered what institution I’ve escaped from. I am very pleased with the increasing prices of gasoline. I only wish that it would go higher – about $6 a gallon would be about right in my opinion.

What are your thoughts on the rising cost of gas? And is who is to blame? And is it a good thing?

How to get Traffic Day 25: Link Swapping

by Nick on July 10, 2008

Welcome to Day 25 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

Today I want to talk about link swapping (more commonly called reciprocal linking).

One thing to keep in mind is the difference between one-way links and reciprocal links. Reciprocal links are where two sites link to each other usually for the purpose of boosting each others ranking.

Google has caught on to this and doesn’t value these kinds of links as much as a simple one-way links.

While reciprocal links aren’t as valuable, they are easy to get and can be used in moderation to increase your rank in the search engines, especially when you’re first starting out.

Getting incoming links from search engines is a commonly understood benefit.

But another benefit is that visitors will see the link and if it looks interesting they’ll click on it.

Link Market

A good place to find other people interested in reciprocal links is:
http://www.linkmarket.com

Just make sure that the people you partner with have PR (PageRank) greater than 0 and are related to your site’s topic.

Also visit the site and make sure it’s something you want to link to.

WarriorForum

If you have never been to the WF (WarriorForum) then you are missing out.

WF has a section where you can buy, sell, or swap links with others:
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-reciprocal-links-buy-sell-swap/

What are your suggestions for link trading?

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How to get Traffic Day 24: Classified Ads

by Nick on July 9, 2008

Welcome to Day 24 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

There are many different ways to get traffic to your website quickly, but none work quite as well as getting traffic from classified ads.

There are two different ways that you can accomplish this.

Online classified ads have been popular for almost as long as the Internet has been around.

At one time, these classified ads would send so much traffic to your website that it could bring your server down.

People don’t look at classifieds online quite as much as they used to but it is still a great way to get some targeted traffic on your pages.

There are plenty of free services that have favor in the eyes of Google where you can post your ads and get a decent amount of traffic.

Done correctly, this is well worth the effort.

Putting classified ads in local newspapers is also a great way to get traffic to your website.

Not many people do this, however, but by placing a cheap ad and directing them to a page with a simple offer on it, you can make a killing.

The key to this is to start small and test your ads to see which ones pull the best.

Once you have a winning combination, you can roll your profits back into purchasing additional ads in nationwide newspapers.

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-08

by Nick on July 8, 2008

Reading “10 Ways to Optimize a Popular Post on Your Blog” http://tinyurl.com/66r98a #

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How to get Traffic Day 23: Twitter

by Nick on July 8, 2008

Welcome to Day 23 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

Today I want to talk about a relatively new service called Twitter.

Twitter is a social networking service that asks a very basic question: What are you doing right now?

People are allotted 140 characters to answer this question. It’s a micro blogging service where people can share with each other what they are doing.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/nickstraffic

Twitter Video

Watch as Sam Harrelson explains the basic functions of Twitter:

WPvideo 1.10

Download!

If you use the firefox browser then I recommend using the TwitterFox extension:
http://www.naan.net/trac/wiki/TwitterFox

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-07

by Nick on July 7, 2008

Listening to a great white noise generator http://www.simplynoise.com/ #
Reading “The Non-Conformists’ Guide to Making Money” http://tinyurl.com/5a94jj #
Reading “Newbie makes $10,000 monthly from Clickbank” http://tinyurl.com/6ay7se #

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How to get Traffic Day 22: How to Optimize your Squidoo Lens

by Nick on July 7, 2008

Welcome to Day 22 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

What is a Squidoo Lens and How Do You Optimize It?

For all of us who spent years, it seems, learning SEO techniques in order to drive traffic to our sites, Squidoo is a brand new game.

To optimize your Squidoo lens, you cannot rely on the old SEO techniques. And yet, SEO is part of the Squidoo game.

First, a little background will help you understand Squidoo. Squidoo allows you to create a lens that focuses people on a specific topic. When you set up your account, you set up keywords or tags as Squidoo calls them. You don’t have to understand the concept of keyword density.

You don’t have to worry about H-Tags, meta-tags, or long tails either. This is because Squidoo is set up to handle these issues for you. The SquidTeam takes the tags and other information you fill into the automatically set up pages for you and create the html that optimizes your Squidoo site for you.

Anyone who has ever lost sleep trying to optimize their site is in for a real delightful surprise with Squidoo. SEO is built into the site design. All you have to do is use the Squidoo tools and your site basically optimizes itself.

You can add in attractive modules that give you an advertising edge. Among the modules you can add are YouTube, Guestbook, Polls, RSS Feeds, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Plexo. You don’t need to know the first thing about html or coding.

Squidoo is a flip from the way websites used to work. The deal then was to get lots and lots of SEO pages in the hope that the sheer numbers would get the site to Google’s first page. The content mattered so little that there was a booming business in article spinners and automatically generated pages.

Squidoo is all about content and looks at quality over quantity. The lensmaster (that would be you) takes the best of what’s online and using the tools, focuses the reader on the topic by offering the most comprehensive information possible.

The more concise and up-to-date your lens is, the more attention you can attract. Think of a Squidoo page as a minisite. You take a single topic and you focus on that topic, digging deep into the topic.

The secret is to make the site informative. Because Squidoo does the SEO work for you, you can focus on rounding up all the information related to your topic. This makes your readers’ experience comprehensive. Rather than dig through hundreds or thousands of Google pages, the reader can simply get all the information from your Squidoo site.

Optimizing Squidoo’s Lensrank

On Squidoo, the focus in on generating traffic using content and credibility and increasing your lensrank. The higher the lensrank, the higher your credibility.

You can strategize your lensrank to move it up the ranks in Squidoo. There is a special reward for breaking into the top 100. There is a special showcase for the top 100 lensranked pages.

The current top 100 include some pretty narrow subject such as laptop bags, Webkinz, and Coach handbags. In other words, your topic is not nearly as important as your technique.

The winning technique for optimization include letting your personality show through the use of the interactive modules that are part of the Squidoo experience. The end goal is to have your Squidoo site as interactive as possible.

Interactivity gets your lens more attention on the search engines, a high lensrank, and a bigger and better subscriber base.

You should use some of the old-fashioned ways to draw traffic such as participating in online discussions. Forums are a great place to meet people who might be interested in your Squidoo information.

You put your Squidoo lens in your sig file and mention it in your posts. If you have a mailing list, use it to get the word out.

Blogs and email sig files are also excellent places to mention your Squidoo lens.

If you already have a website, write about your Squidoo lens and link it to Squidoo.

This is part one of the traffic exercise – getting the word out. People will go to your Squidoo to see what it is all about. Of course, just like with the old SEO world of regular websites, you have to keep it fresh to have people return. If they don’t return, soon your lensrank will begin to drop.

The bigger the lens, the better. Up to a point. While it only takes 10 minutes to build a Squidoo lens, you need to keep adding to it. Add a module at a time, write a short article. It only takes 250 or 300 words to make a nice entertaining article.

But as I said above, big is only good up to a point. The reason for Squidoo is to keep people from being overwhelmed. If your site is too big, well, it can be overwhelming.

But you have all this interesting stuff! Well, what you do is build another lens and link them together.

Building a Squidoo lens is easy. Because the Squidoo team have all the engineering done for you, you don’t have to play around with creating the site. You can focus on getting the word out.

More traffic begets higher ranking, and in turn this attracts more traffic. It’s a lot easier to have one thing to focus on. With Squidoo, the one thing you need to focus on is getting as many traffic streams as possible flowing into your Squidoo lens.

Using Squidoo’s Optimization Tools

In order to optimize Squidoo, it helps to understand its structure. Once you know how Squidoo functions, you will be able to use it more efficiently and effectively.

When you set up Squidoo, the very first step is to choose a title for your lens. You don’t have to know html or anything about setting up a web site. You simply answer the lens wizard’s first question which is “What is your lens about?”

Your answer will be the title of your page. However, don’t fret about the answer right now because you can always change it at a later date.

The next question will be what your site’s tags are. The tags are nothing more or less than keywords.

You then get to pick a main keyword to use as your lens title – this will be part of your site’s URL. The URL will be like this: www.squidoo.com/yourkeyword. And guess what? You can change this too.

The last question in setting up your lens is if you want to donate any of your page’s revenue to charity.

At this point, you end up in the lensmaster workshop. This is where you get to design your lens with modules. There are dozens of modules so you just have to focus on a few at a time.

You also have a bio section. By the way, this is a very important section so be sure to maximize it. Be clear about what you have to offer here. Be descriptive. Squidoo is a place where personality counts.

The secret to Squidoo is that the whole point is about being the ultimate expert on your topic. This means that you have to let your bio show that you know what you are talking about.

It’s an internet thing. But the reality of the internet is that it’s a great place to be invisible. You can post an avatar and hide behind a screen name and no one while know who you are.

On Squidoo, you have to let the world know who you are. If you don’t come across as knowledgeable you will have trouble convincing people that they should believe anything you tell them.

Once all these things are taken care of, you need to use some of the modules which are Web 2.0-enabled.

It might be a real learning curve for you to realize that it is all right to use outbound links on Squidoo. In the old world way, outbound links were no-nos. After all, they took people away from your site.

Squidoo not only encourages outgoing links but rewards you for them.

Long Tail Techniques for Squidoo

You can use long tail techniques with Squidoo. Long tail is hailed as the new economic model for the internet.

The phrase first appeared in 2004 in a Wired magazine article. Amazon and Netflix (both available as Squidoo modules) are examples. The focus is on selling small amounts of hard-to-find items to many customers.

There is an old phrase that comes to mind. “It is a lot easier to get $1 from a million people than it is to get a million dollars from one person.” This is the essence of the long tail.

The long tail phrase is actually a statistical term. It is also known by other names in statistics. A couple of the more popular other names are heavy tails or Pareto tails. Basically it refers to the few people who tail off from a larger population.

Here’s an example. You go to Amazon and see a best selling book. There is a link to similar books and you follow that link. The linked book has further links. You keep wandering along the trail following the path deeper and deeper into Amazon.

The fact is that most of Amazon’s sales comes from the books outside the top 130,000 titles. What this means is that more people want the harder to find books than want the tops sellers.

Part of this is because in most places, it is just not possible to get these titles. But in Amazon, these books are available and the long tail can leave the crowd and follow the trail of rarer books.

For you on Squidoo, what you need to do is offer the information that is off the beaten path. Find a dozen or so long tail keywords and build a Squidoo lens for each long tail keyword or create a lens with 2 or 3 long tails.

You have to do a little search to see what people are actually searching for so you can answer their questions. This will make you popular because these items and this information is hard to find.

A Squidoo lens can be a one stop shop for all the information available on a topic or it can be used as an entrance point into a smaller world of information.

In the Wired article, Chris Anderson wrote, “If the 20th-century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.”

What this means is that in the world where availablity was an issue, only the best sellers went out to the people. But in the internet world, everything is available so people will reach out for the hard to find.

Because their chances of getting the hard to find in their home towns are slim, they easily turn to the world’s marketplace – the internet – to find the information that they really want.

Anyone can read a bestseller. Only the dedicated shopper can find a rare book. On Squidoo you can benefit from this by doing their searching for them.

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-06

by Nick on July 6, 2008

Reading “3 Home Business In The Summer Tips” http://tinyurl.com/5ccr46 #

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How to get Traffic Day 21: Make comments on other people’s blogs

by Nick on July 6, 2008

Welcome to Day 21 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

In a previous post we talked about how to get more traffic by placing comments on other peoples blogs.

Today I would like to expand a little on that idea.

Placing relevant and useful comments on others’ blogs can be a great way to share information with others and get traffic to your own site.

When you leave a comment on a blog post you usually supply your web address and name in addition to your comment.

Tips & Tricks

Make only relevant and worthwhile comments. Crappy comments get removed and may get your IP banned. If on the other hand you appear to be an expert and leave a comment that is wildly insightful people will likely click on your name and visit your site.
When choosing the name you wish to have associated with your comment, choose wisely. Use good and relevant keywords that will entice people to click on your link.
In your comment include a single link to your own site where the reader can find additional information about the topic at hand. If the link isn’t totally relevant then it doesn’t belong in the comment!
Comments appear on a blog post in the order they were submitted. So the first comment is at the top of the stack and is read most often. Its link will be clicked on more often.
So it pays to be the first commenter. Many blogs offer a way for you to be sent an email whenever a new blog post appears, making it easier to be the first commenter.
Some bloggers (like me most of the time) post stuff at roughly the same of the day each day. Figure out what that time is and being the first commenter will be cake.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has created an excellent 7 minute video showing the power of leaving good comments on blogs:

WPvideo 1.10

Download!

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Twitter Updates for 2008-07-05

by Nick on July 5, 2008

Reading ” Do you respect Media Snackers?” http://tinyurl.com/2yj883 #

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How to get Traffic Day 20: Blogging

by Nick on July 5, 2008

Welcome to Day 20 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

It’s likely you’ve at least heard of the blogging phenomenon by now. I know it’s likely you even have a blog as we speak. Technorati claims a new blog is created every second.Blogging is like writing an informational diary on the net.

Usually a blogger uses the open source (free) content management system WordPress to write his blog. You can monetize your blog with several revenue generating programs like Google AdSense and/or use it to build your e-mail lists.

Search engines love blogs because blogs have regularly updated content.

It’s amazing how much search engine traffic you generate from long-tail keywords that aren’t even included on the same pages.

For example, say blog post post number one has the words “low-fat diet” and blog post number two has “get cut abs.” A Google user searches for “a low-fat diet that will get you cut abs” and she ends up at the index page of your blog.

You can also expect results from unexpected keyword searches. For instance, ProBlogger Darren Rowse claims one of his highest searched pages comes from the search about me .

For the keywords poodle manicures NicksTrafficTricks.com is at the #1 spot!

Therefore, I think it’s safe to say blogs are naturally search engine optimized.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a great way to get surges of traffic, buzz, build your profile, and score one-way incoming links. The idea is to write a highly valuable post that you would normally put on your blog, but instead e-mail it to a blogger who runs a popular blog in your niche. If the blogger likes it, he’ll post it, give you credit for it, and provide a link back to your blog.

Similar to guest blogging, you can contact someone who runs a big newsletter and offer an article in exchange give a link to your blog.

Submitting to Blog Carnivals

Blog carnivals are like online magazines. They’re monthly issues featuring blog posts from all over the web. Write a great post. Go to blogcarnival.com. Find an active carnival in your niche and submit the URL to your entry. If approved, whenever the next issue of that blog carnival is released, you’ll see traffic. Of course, using blog carnivals for traffic is exceptionally easy because you’ve already written and published your post anyway. Just submit the URL to it.

Creating a Blog Roll

When bloggers discover you’ve linked to them, they often link back. If your site is of quality, bloggers are usually generous enough to throw your link in their blog roll piles. This incoming link helps with a little direct traffic. It’s great for raising your Google PageRank, which increases your search engine traffic.

Easily Generate Incoming Links with Odiogo

Here’s a hot new idea on easily getting incoming links I can almost guarantee you’ve never heard of (depending on what part of 2008 you’re reading this).

Odiogo.com is a free service that takes your blog content and instantly turns it into an audio podcast. When the process is through, you get an RSS feed with audio from all of your written content. You’re now a podcaster. You can submit this RSS feed to podcast directories to get massive amounts of incoming links and direct traffic.

Viral Linking Campaigns

A more aggressive tactic than speedlinking became more common in 2007: viral linking campaigns.

Not many want to freely link to “the little guy”/you. So how are you going to get more one way incoming links that both bring in click-through traffic and raise your PR for search engine traffic?

You may have heard of the term “link love.” When you’re giving link love, you’re generously providing an outgoing link from your blog or content page. I want to tell you about link love that also loves in return.

Gather 30 (or so) links to your favorite related blogs. However, make sure these blogs are fairly new or else the bloggers won’t see the benefits of viral linking. Now create a link to your site then pile the rest of the links together separated by commas or bars “|”

You’re going to create a content page that explains viral linking. Something like:

“It’s time for a little link lovin’! Add your link to this batch of quality links to a blog post and pass it on! Get incoming links from all over the net, raise your PR, and get more traffic! Be sure to explain to your readers how they can pass on your links and at the same time benefit by effortlessly gaining incoming links!”

Tips:

Compile links to blogs or sites that are related to your site’s niche.
Contact those you linked to and tell them about your viral linking campaign.
If you have the expertise, display an HTML code with all of the links in your pile that your readers can easily copy and paste to their viral linking content pages.

Case study:

Bryan Clark of onemansgoal.com generated 3,000 plus incoming links in three months in 2007 with one of his methods being viral linking campaigns. His blog had already broken 30k in Alexa at the tender age of 4 months old. Clark sold onemansgoal.com for $8,500 in the winter of 2007. His current blog is at bryansjourney.com.

Pinging

Blogs are one of the easiest ways to get a website up and running. Many people, however, don’t fully understand everything about the blog they are creating. One of the parts of the blog that should never be overlooked is the ping. This is a very simple process which seems, for some reason, to be shrouded in mystery. A ping simply tells some very influential websites that you have new content on your blog.

Because these influential websites have a lot of clout in the eyes of Google, getting traffic from pinging your blog is fairly easy to understand. As new content is added on your website, and your blog is pinged, these other websites will list you in your appropriate category. Google visits their websites on a frequent basis and will follow the link to your blog. Not only will it help you to get listed in Google, it will give you additional weight in their eyes. A simple ping is all that is necessary sometimes to get you rolling toward some free Google traffic.

Pinging your blog does not have to be something that is time-consuming, either. Many people use free services, such as pingoat.com or they set their blog up to automatically ping their favorite services. In this way, you will be able to enjoy all of the benefits of pinging without spending more than a few seconds of your time taking care of the process. If you are consistent with your efforts, you will find that your traffic will continue to grow for a long time to come.

For a huge list of sites to ping:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/list-of-ping-sites-for-your-blog/

RSS Traffic

If you’re not already using your RSS feed, it’s time to start. Use the free service from Feedburner.com so those who come across your site can subscribe to your regularly updated content. They’ll read it through a feed reader.

Not only will using your RSS feed bring you traffic from loyal readers, web surfers who use feed readers are often tech savvy website owners themselves. You can expect for them to link to some of your content pages, which will help you in the major search engines and with direct traffic from their sites. You’ll also be saving your site’s monthly bandwidth.

Probably the best place to learn about all aspects of blogging:
http://www.problogger.net

Resources

Start a blog with blogger in just minutes:
https://www.blogger.com

Start a blog with WordPress in just minutes:
http://www.wordpress.com/

Download WordPress blogging software:
http://wordpress.org/

Grow Your Traffic: Turn New Visitors Into Loyal Readers:
http://www.skelliewag.org/grow-your-traffic-turn-new-visitors-into-loyal-readers-108.htm

The First Month: Building Something From Nothing:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-first-month-building-something-from-nothing-116.htm

The Second Month: Building a Springboard:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-second-month-building-a-springboard-117.htm

The Third Month: Building Your Snowball Effect:
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-third-month-building-your-snowball-effect-118.htm

50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog:
http://www.skelliewag.org/50-tips-to-unclutter-your-blog-44.htm

{ 1 comment }

Twitter Updates for 2008-07-04

by Nick on July 4, 2008

Just posted on my blog 4 Tips for Hiring Writers http://tinyurl.com/6ezw7l #
Watching a great video on how to get traffic by leaving comments on others’ blogs http://tinyurl.com/6l7ff2 #
Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/yq7yyo #
Watching a great video on how to get traffic by leaving comments on others’ blogs http://tinyurl.com/6l7ff2 #
Just installed a better firefox extension for twitter… http://tinyurl.com/33bl3p #
Cool pic of a viking carved from a watermelon http://tinyurl.com/5edyzf #
totally awesome redneck mansion http://tinyurl.com/57umgz #
Reading “The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months” http://tinyurl.com/47sfkz #
Reading “5 Tips for E-mailing Busy People” http://tinyurl.com/3lmr3c #

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Twitter Updates for 2008-07-03

by Nick on July 3, 2008

Added “Day 18: Article Marketing” to my blog http://tinyurl.com/5ocgqf #

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Blogs To Bookmark: Caroline Middlebrook

by Nick on June 25, 2008

This post is part of a my Blogs to Bookmark series.

Today I want to introduce you to the blog of Caroline Middlebrook http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/

Her bio reads:
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Blogs To Bookmark

by Nick on June 25, 2008

Welcome to my list of blogs to bookmark.

Over the coming weeks I hope to at least begin to list the great blogs out there that you should know about:
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Squidoo Cheat Sheet

by Nick on June 16, 2008

One: It is great to make your Squidoo lens interesting. It is even better to make it useful. You can build all the lenses in the world but it they are full of junk, who’s going to visit them? Also, when you build a lens, you have to have at least three modules before it is published. This is to keep Squidoo free of time-wasting lenses that have nothing but a paragraph in them.
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Squidoo History

by Nick on June 14, 2008

Squidoo was started in 2005 by Seth Godin. The concept showed incredible foresight. Godin clearly could see the way that the web was going. Web 2.0 was already underway as the new form of community building.

Web 2.0 is interactive and involved. The separation between webmaster and web visitor is blurred. The two parties become involved in nothing short of a relationship. You are the webmaster and I am the visitor. I suggest something to you and you change the site and ask for my input and with the number of visitors suddenly the web 2.0 site is a lively, living, and growing entity.
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Hot Squidoo Niches

by Nick on June 12, 2008

Just because Squidoo is free does not mean that it is not a powerful marketing site. There are many internet marketers who are pulling in a serious income from Squidoo. It is very appealing to make money without having to spend money.

As a lensmaster, you likely chose a topic for your lens that related to an interest of yours. If you have not yet started a lens or are thinking about a second lens and are thinking about a topic, you might wonder what topic would be best.
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Squidoo Lensroll

by Nick on June 10, 2008

Squidoo Lensroll
On the Squidoo site, lensrolling is explained as “a way to create and share your own network of lenses.” If you have just built a new lens and published it you will see a set of links to five other lens. This is a lensroll that Squidoo chooses for you.

The beauty of Squidoo is that you can quickly set up your own lensroll and link to related lenses. If you have a bunch of lenses, you can even link to them.
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Squidoo HTML Tricks

by Nick on June 8, 2008

In modules where you have the option to provide a description you can include html tags. The tags are limited to the basic traditional tags:
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Selecting your Squidoo Niche

by Nick on June 6, 2008

Earlier we discussed choosing a niche that fits your passions. If you have several passions or feel that your passion is not of broad interest, you might start questioning your choice of niche.

Take a look at other Squidoo lenses. What you do is go to Google and do a search for a niche topic. You will be surprised at how often the top ranking results are Squidoo lens.
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Market Potential of Squidoo

by Nick on June 4, 2008

Your Squidoo lens focuses on a specific topic. Chances are you have other sites and online presences that also focus on this topic. The trick is to bring them all together in this one single attractive lens.

Because Google loves Squidoo, your Squidoo page can run up the ranks pretty easily. Then when surfers see your Squidoo page, you can have more links and feeds to your other sites.
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Squidoo Modules and Plexo

by Nick on June 2, 2008

When you set up your Squidoo account, you have a lot of options for adding modules. Some of the most common modules are already ready for your input.

There is the assumption that you already know who your target market is and what you want to see. You should also have set up a list of long tail keyword phrases that will move your Squidoo page to the top of the rankings.
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Starting Your Lens

by Nick on May 31, 2008

Everyone has their own specialty, their own area of expertise. So when you sit down in front of your computer to think about starting your lens, let your passions rise. Your expertise could be in backgammon, fishing, baking bread, playing monopoly.

I mean – who would ever imagine that a top Squidoo lens would be on laptop bags? But there it is.
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Find out how to best use LinkedIn for SEO
http://www.seo-writer.com/blog/2008/05/23/linkedin-for-seo/

LinkedIn for SEO

by Nick on May 30, 2008

In addition to being a great website for networking and reputation management, LinkedIn can also serve as a valuable SEO asset. Your profile allows 3 links to your websites. Use them. A few tips for making your profile rank better within LinkedIn, and most likely with external search engines, too.

Optimizing Squidoo’s Lensrank

by Nick on May 29, 2008

On Squidoo, the focus in on generating traffic using content and credibility and increasing your lensrank. The higher the lensrank, the higher your credibility.

You can strategize your lensrank to move it up the ranks in Squidoo. There is a special reward for breaking into the top 100. There is a special showcase for the top 100 lensranked pages.
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Make Your Website Name and Domain Match

by Nick on May 28, 2008

DailyBlogTips has posted a great video on making your site’s name and domain match.

Watch here: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/…website-name-and-domain-match/

Having them match makes it easier for people to find you in the future.

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FREE One-Way Back-Links

by Nick on May 27, 2008

Introduction

My name is Nicholas Stewart and I want to share with you a fantastic way to get more traffic and how to get free one-way back-links to your own website.

This secret method is something I almost guarantee you have never heard of. Nor is it on most gurus’ radar.

Before I tell you what it is, let me take a moment and tell you what it is not

It is not writing articles and/or wasting hours spinning them and submitting them to a billion article directories.
It is not some new some method of finding/spamming high traffic blogs, educational sites, or blogs that don’t employ nofollow in their comments’ links.
It is not something where you end up littering the Internet with other people’s articles or other such nonsense.

Rather it’s a way for you to contribute to the online community, help others find important information, and get a free one way back-link to your site every time you do!

Sound too good to be true?
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How to Get The Readers You Want & Traffic to Your Blog

by Nick on May 27, 2008

I just read a fantastic blog post on problogger on “How to Get The Readers You Want”

The post outlines several simple yet critical ways to get people that would be interested in your blog to actually come and visit your blog.

Check it out here.

Good night and good luck!
Nick Stewart