Mike Paetzold back for the final day of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Wow, seems like I just got here and it is ending already. Where did the time go?

Well let’s get started. Today the topic will be using videos for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic I strongly recommend Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Video is a format that has really come of age online. Now video has become much more popular primarily because of high speed connections. Before DSL and cable became common in households it was impossible to use video. Most people would not be able to download it and get it to stream when high speed was a 56k modem

Now with the exception of some remote areas the majority of people have access to some type of high speed internet connection. This has led to the popularity of video sharing sites like You Tube.

For some video has become their preferred way to get information. The odds are that even if you are reading this here that you get the bulk of your news from television already. You only need to look at the problems of the newspapers to make a profit to see that.

Which brings us to two questions. How do we take advantage of it? How hard is it to do?

Let’s answer the second question first only because I like to shake things up. The answer is…

it depends.

Now before you get all mad at me and I know that last answer got you a bit miffed it definitely is true.

It can be easy to do screen capture or talk over a power point presentation or just speak into your web camera or a flip camera. It can be extremely difficult if you want to create TV quality action videos with green screens and special effects.

You only need the easy version to be able to get traffic from it.

All you would need to do is take an article you created and convert it to a power point presentation, read the article as you go through the slides while recording it. A software like Camtasia can handle that quite easily.

If you are tight on dollars you can do it with free tools like Open Office and Cam Studio. It is bit more work with the free tools but what isn’t? You always pay with time or money.

Either way create the video and upload it to the various video sharing sites. (Tube Mogul is a free service that will upload to multiple sites for you.) Use the url you would like to see people visit to start your description, add in your keywords and you have a video that others can use. (Note: Always do the full url http://yourdomain.com not www.yourdomain.com so that it will be clickable in your description.)

This will give you another venue for people to find your information in a format that they like. It works well using the same content.

In fact quite often I will use the same content for each of the 4 ways I have written about this week.

Create a blog post –> Use it to submit an article (just add a sig file) –> Convert the article to power point and record you reading it –> Strip out the audio and use that as a podcast.

The power in using your content in all of the ways is that you can reach a different audience with each form but you only need to create the basic content one time.

Once you have your initial blog post you can easily make that into the other 3 forms in a half hour once you have done it a few times. The Sunday Night Cash Plan will walk you through exactly how to do that.

I hope you have found my visit here to be helpful in growing your business and leveraging what you already do to get even more traffic.

The Old Bald Guy Blog Tour is going on a hiatus for two weeks to spend time with family and friends over the holidays. It will return in two weeks and the next stop will be at Twitter Marketing Products beginning January 4th.

Have a great holiday and I’ll catch up with you next year.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

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Mike Paetzold back for day 3 of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Today the topic will be 3 ways to use articles for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic I strongly recommend Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Articles are a great way to generate traffic to your sites but it takes more than just one. I have seen way to many people complain that articles do not work and it is usually because they did one or two and that was it.

Article marketing tends to start slowly but once it hits critical mass it can explode. You really need to do good keyword research (it just keeps coming up day after day for any type of content marketing) and provide quality so others will want to use your content.

Before I get into the three ways we will discuss today it is important to understand an important item. Most article directories will not allow you to use an affiliate link. If you are going to promote direct to a sales page (not my recommended way) you need to set up a redirect off of your domain or buy a domain that is on the topic and redirect that to your affiliate link.

Quite truthfully almost any affiliate product that I would consider promoting direct with article marketing would be an evergreen product and worth the small investment in a domain to redirect to it. That way it looks like you are talking about your own site and you get more credibility.

Here are 3 ways that I use articles

What to do article

The first is the what to do article. This is perfect if you are going to promote an affiliate product. You tell them what to do and then direct them to the product to show them exactly how to do it.

What to do is good information but it is not complete. Therefore to complete it they need to know exactly how to do it and your signature will offer them the answer for that.

Two part article

This can be perfect when used with your blog or you can create a special landing page on your web site. Start with part one as part of your title and give the first part of the information.

This allows you to send them to part 2 on your site. One good thing to do is have that landing page be a squeeze page where they sign up to your list before you forward them to the rest of the information.

This is one of the best ways to use articles to build your list and with a list you can show them multiple products multiple times.

Back link article

Often times for these articles I use a combination of the two ways above but this article is primarily being done to create back links for my web site. It would be nice to get people to click through and visit but that is not the primary purpose.

Here the keyword phrase I am using in the article and to use as anchor text are my primary goal.

Yes it does need to be good content so people will use it but unlike the first two it is the anchor text and the link that are the primary reason for the article. The traffic will come from Google and the other search engines from the higher ranking rather than trying to compel a click direct to a specific page.

There are many more way to use articles and feel free to add your favorites in the comments below. Tomorrow I’ll be back to talk about one of the most overlooked ways to generate traffic. See you then.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

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Mike Paetzold back for day 2 of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Today the topic will be using blogs for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic check out Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Google loves blogs and with a blog you stand a better chance to get ranked in the search engines. Part of this is the blog structure itself and the other is fresher content.

Because a blog is easy to update (if you can use Word or any other word processor you can create a blog post) it is easy to keep your content fresh. Others can easily interact with your blog adding even more fresh content to your blog.

Now with all content marketing and this would include all of the topics I will be covering this week you need to do proper keyword research. Finding the long tail keywords that draw traffic and are easy to compete with is key. You can find out more about keyword research at EZ Keyword Research.

Here are 3 ways you can use a blog to drive traffic to your product or affiliate offers.

1. Write a review of a product. Go through and explain exactly what you liked and what you didn’t like about a specific product. Add in a section to explain who this would work for and who it wouldn’t. Be objective.

Allow others to comment and leave their feedback and link to the product at the end of the review.

Note: With the new rules make sure you have disclosed that you get paid if they buy through the link. Links in this post may be affiliate links for which either Doug or I get paid if you purchase.

2. Use your blog for your email promotions. Because of the various spam filters quite often you can not use the words you would want to use in your email without triggering the spam filters.

Words like make money, free, and many more can keep your email from being delivered. Put up your full promotion on your blog and just send an email to your list with a blurb to make them curious enough to click through and read the full story on your blog.

A side benefit is that quite often the search engines will rank you for that topic and you will get people finding your content that way that are not on your list.

3. Educate your readers and link to appropriate resources (with your links of course) that will help your reader. Use your blog to tell them what to do and your product recommendations to show them how to do it.

You will see this tactic used through out this particular post.

Finally I know that I said 3 ways but one of the things that is missing here on this blog and you should make sure that you use on your own blog is a chance to opt in to one of your mailing lists.

It can be as simple as keep up dated on the latest posts and information on this blog. If you use Aweber you can even automate it where each time you post or whatever time frame that you set your subscriber will be automatically mailed a reminder to come read your latest post.

Hope this helps and if you have other ways you use a blog feel free to leave a comment. Be back tomorrow to discuss using articles to generate traffic.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

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Hi let me take a minute to introduce myself. I am Mike Paetzold, and for the last 5 weeks I have been traveling across the blogoisphere taking up residence as a guest blogger each week on a different blog. This is part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour.

Doug was gracious enough to invite me here and I hope you find it beneficial too. This week I am going to discuss 4 ways to generate traffic.

Now there are many more than just 4 ways to generate traffic but as I am only going to be here for a short stay that was as many as I can fit in unless I write a book everyday instead of a blog post.

By the way Doug did a 3+ hoiur call with Willie Crawford that covers these and many more if you are looking for more at Top Traffic Tips.

Here are the 4 ways I will be discussing this week.

• Blogs
• Articles
• Videos
• Podcasts

Tomorrow I will start with blogs but there is a topic that most ignore when discussing traffic that is necessary to understand first. Traffic is absolutely worthless if you do not have a system to convert it.

Always make sure that you set up that first before you worry about getting traffic.

For example – If you want traffic to build your list you need a squeeze page up and the rest of your system. That includes a thank you page and a download page. Until you have those the traffic can’t do anything for you.

Sending traffic to an offer that does not convert is again a waste. It might be necessary to test and tweak the offer but if you do not have an effective offer work on improving that first before you waste a lot of time and/or money generating traffic.

One other thing that is important to uinderstand and why this part is important is that all traffic has a cost. It can be money or it can be time but you will pay with one or the other to generate traffic so you may as well get as much as you can back from it.

The 4 ways I am going to be discussing this week can continue to send traffic after the initial effort but there is still an initial cost.

I’ll be back tomorrow and start talking about generating traffic with blogs.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

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Here’s three sources for resources you’ll want to visit – each has some powerful Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing and/or niche marketing training resources available to you for free…

First up is Lee McIntyre’s marketing seminar videos – admission to this weekend marketing bootcamp was $997 last August, but you can now get the videos of the entire training course for free – you just pay the shipping to get the CD to you. So go ahead and grab your copy of these free marketing videos, then c’mon back to get…

Free access to the pre-event webinars from Mark Hendricks Internet Super Stars Conference. The conference is in Orlando Florida in January 2010, and there’s a whole series of great training webinars going on before the event itself.

In fact, as I write this, about half of the webinars are complete, and once you register for your free membership you’ll have access to the recordings for those along with notification of the remaining sessions so you can hear those live or get the recordings for those too. Naturally I recommend you attend the Internet Super Stars Conference in January – after all, I’m presenting my Power Start 2010 lecture there and running a hands-on workshop to help you get going faster.

But even if you can’t attend, at least get the free membership and learn from the recorded webinars! And that’s not all either…

Because Shelby Carr and I have teamed up with 27 other Internet marketing professionals to bring you 29 of the best free Internet marketing gifts you’ll find online, all free, and all available to you through the Santa’s Christmas Giveaway site. Be sure to download your gifts right now though, as these are only there for a limited time!

Technorati Tags: free marketing resources, free marketing training, free marketing downloads

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How Many Blogs Are Enough?

by Mike Paetzold – Copyright 2009 – All Rights Reserved

Over the last year or two, no since their inception Google has constantly been changing. The reason they were able to upset such existing monoliths like Yahoo and MSN was this constant change and improvement of their algorithm.

Change continues today and one of the big changes of late is what you find on the first page for a wide variety of terms.

Huge sites like about.com which cover thousands of topics, have a high page rank and tons of incoming links are no longer sitting a top the search engine results for some terms. (They still rank quite highly.)

But more and more often there are relatively new, sometimes brand new sites, that are keyword specific that are sitting ahead of these behemoths. Most are blogs of one type or another. Google seems to have a love affair with blogs.

The tighter the focus of the blog the more likely Google is to love it. This has led to me adding blogs for each specific area of interest. For example if you are an internet marketer and blog about affiliate marketing, article marketing, private label rights products, list building and social media a single blog is probably not your best choice.

If you are in a broad niche where three years ago you could have a single blog with categories and sub-categories now you are more likely to rank better with very specific blogs. In the example above a blog for each of those topics.

More and more marketers are setting up and using topic specific blogs. They aren’t doing it because they like multiple blogs but are doing it because it works. Like Google or hate them as long as they are the 800 pound gorilla the best thing to do is to give them what they want.

Here is what I think Google wants. (I say think on purpose because I do not spend hours scouring their latest patents and trying to figure out their latest algorithm. I just observe what they serve me each time I am searching for anything.) The key is to set up your blog properly. Create some quality content (pillar posts) and build a few links to your new site.

You can enhance that easily by repurposing that content.

• Submit to the article directories
• Add an audio version and submit to the podcast directories
• Convert the content into a video that can be submitted to the various video sharing sites.

The repurposing will allow you to quickly generate backlinks. These back links will allow you to have enough gravity that your blog traffic will start quickly.

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About The Author:
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. For a step by step plan to get a new blog ranking and traffic check out the Sunday Night Cash Plan.

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Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, blog traffic, Mike Paetzold

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Cost Per Action Marketing For Affiliates

©2009 Doug Champigny. All Right Reserved.

CPA networks, or affiliate marketing operations based on a Cost-Per-Action model, have been around for years, even though they’re seldom discussed in the Internet Marketing arena, and just slightly more often in the affiliate marketing realm. Cost per action, also sometimes called cost per acquisition, is like most other affiliate marketing programs in that you make money from actions taken by targeted traffic your refer to the merchant’s site – but that’s where the similarity usually ends.

In regular affiliate programs, the money you earn is a percentage of each sale you make. With CPA offers, usually you’re earning your affiliate commissions based not on sales but on other actions the merchant wants to effect. It can be downloading a free report, asking for a free sample, having free information mailed out to you, getting access to a private members’ area of a website, etc.

As you can see from the above examples, cost-per-action or cost-per-acquisition is usually modeled so that you’re getting paid for free actions taken by the traffic you refer. So if you’re firmly planted in the affiliate marketing mindset, alarm bells are probably going off in your head right now… After all, what kind of shady operation is promising to pay you commissions when you haven’t made any sales? As if they had the money to just give away like that… Yeah, right!

If that’s what you’re thinking, here’s a real surprise for you: almost without exception, these cost per action arrangements are set up by, or on behalf of, some of the biggest offline companies in the world, including insurance companies, travel companies, offshoots of international banking consortiums, etc. These very large, very dependable corporations use cost per acquisition models to get leads from targeted prospects, leads they obviously hope to convert to ongoing clients. Their lead acquisition programs are tested, tweaked, and tested again, and are some of the most closely monitored results of any online activities anywhere.

It’s very important to remember that marketing is much more mature and professional in the offline world than in most of the online world. Look at the highly-varied background of today’s Internet marketers and affiliate marketers – surprisingly few have a solid marketing background or any formal marketing education at the post-secondary level. While many are earning 6, 7 or 8 figures a year online, most couldn’t even secure a junior-level position in corporate marketing departments – especially not on an international scale.

As a result, online marketers look at what they make on each sale and offer a piece of that to their affiliates. Affiliate marketers look at the product, the conversion rate of the salespage, and the percentage offered as affiliate commissions. Everything is based on the current sale in most cases. The closest most come to a CPA model is offering 100% commissions, meaning that really they’re giving away the sale to get the lead. But again, even 100% commissions are based solely on the current sale.

High-level offline marketing, however, is based on the lifetime value of each customer and factors in the ratio of leads to sales, the average retention rate and longevity of client contracts, and the total dollars earned from the ‘average’ customer or client. While this involves a lot of research and number-crunching Internet marketers are loath to even attempt, it allows lead acquisition programs to blow online marketers out of the water in terms of payouts.

Newer affiliates try to sign up in droves, often spurred on by e-books about CPA programs that tout the high earning possible from a pay-per-lead program. They don’t realize that corporations are very protective both of their brand’s image and of the quality of leads they receive – remember that the conversion ratio is one of the main factors in determining what they pay per lead. This results in as many as 90% of all applications to CPA networks being rejected, dashing the affiliate’s hopes for big CPA earnings.

In truth, without an existing track record in CPA, or very professionally-designed websites heavy in marketing psychology, most marketers will never get into the CPA networks and have a chance at earning money with cost per action opportunities. New CPA networks are coming online though that raise the bar for average marketers, providing both cost per acquisition offers and pre-designed websites shown to drive the right quality of traffic to the merchants’ sites and opt-in forms. These should finally open the cost per action field up to a great many more online marketers, finally making it a viable way for affiliate marketing businesses to make money online using the CPA model. You’ll find the first next-generation CPA network here.

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About the Author:

Doug Champigny is a well-known Internet marketing mentor and speaker with over 30 years of marketing experience, including founding 2 offline ad agencies and 12+ years of online marketing experience. Visit his affiliate marketing blog or see this site for more info about profiting from CPA networks.
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Technorati Tags: CPA, CPA networks, CPA earnings, cost per action, cost per acquisition, marketing cost per action systems, affiliate marketing, making money online

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Over the past twenty years, the Internet has boomed into a new market for businesses that are looking to build extra income or that want to create a business that stands apart from others. This has led to competition that is continuing to find their way to new customers and opportunities for income by being found on this virtual portal. If you want to tap into this new way of building your business, then looking into information that can drive your business forward into technology is the beginning to your success.

One of the main components that any successful Internet business will focus on is the need to have a system that is able to drive potential customers and individuals to their website or main selling area for products. However, to do this effectively, specific systems are set up to make sure that the individuals respond in the correct way by signing up for the needed information available. If you are just getting into the business of the Internet, then understanding the information that it takes to succeed first allows you to drive forward more opportunities for a successful business.

If you are not certain about how to build your customer base online, then you can begin by looking at the wealth of knowledge that is available for potential customers. One of the newest options available is “Internet Wealth.” This particular report is filled with information which includes everything that you need to know to begin driving customers to your portal on the Internet. However, instead of adding in the complex and difficult concepts, this report has built the information around the average user, while providing you with simple to follow steps and formulas that can help you to become successful on the Internet.

If you are ready to find your wealth on the Internet, then you can download this free report Internet Wealth. This free report will introduce you to the basic information that you need to leap forward on the Internet while beginning to create a substantial income online.

Click Here to Download Your Free Internet Wealth Report.

Technorati Tags: Internet wealth, Internet business, building weath, successful business, successful online business, wealth

Note: This post was supplied by ClickBank Pirate and contains affiliate links to your free report.

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The Most Important Skill For Successful Affiliate Marketing

© Doug Champigny. All Rights Reserved.

It’s well-known that there’s a need for affiliates to build their opt-in lists, and that failing to do so is the main mistake made by affiliates. But to be successful as an affiliate, both for making money online and for building your opt-in list, one very important skill must be mastered – the most important skill for successful affiliate marketing.

In fact, this one skill is the main ingredient in the success of all online businesses, and the most important tool in your affiliate marketing skills toolbox: the ability to drive massive amounts of targeted traffic to your links! Whether you’re sending that targeted traffic to a free report on a butterfly-marketing type of site, a free download to entice them to join your list, to your blog in whatever niches you operate in or directly to your affiliate links, the number of targeted visitors you can mobilize quickly is going to be directly reflected in your affiliate commissions.

The good news is that many of the most powerful tools and techniques used by traffic masters are free, or require a very low investment – one that can often be made back on the first couple of affiliate promotions you do after including the new tool into your marketing mix, leaving you with pro tools with no net cost in short order.

The bad news (for some) is that it takes work – true effort – both to learn these various promotional techniques and to apply the tactics to any given affiliate opportunity. If you thought affiliate marketing was a way to make a lot of money online with little or no effort, you’re sadly mistaken and have probably been reading the salespages of online scammers, not professional super-affiliates. None of us got to where we are today without a lot of effort, even those who are able to outsource a fair bit of what they do – just learning what’s needed and how it must be done is necessary before you know what to outsource!

Now this doesn’t mean you’ll have to use every one of the traffic generation strategies in every affiliate marketing promotion you get involved in – far from it. Some techniques are short-term, bringing in targeted traffic almost immediately but then tapering off or stopping altogether, while others take time to build momentum, but can keep supplying visitors for weeks, months or even years. Tweets on Twitter are a good example of the former, while article marketing and video marketing are better examples of the latter.

So it stands to reason that if you’re promoting a 3-day sale, or even a week-long event, you’ll want to rely on your short-term, immediate-response tools. If you’re promoting a product or service that will be ongoing, especially one that pays residual commissions, you’ll want to use them all. Start with the techniques that bring instant traffic, then shift your focus to the mid- and long-term sources to ensure you continue to make money from your efforts for that opportunity. The higher your recurring commissions the less time you need to focus on making quick bucks, and the greater amount of your affiliate marketing activities that can be focused around list-building, pre-selling and getting involved in pre-launch joint-venture opportunities.

Start right now, today, and set the goal for yourself of learning as many different ways to drive targeted traffic as you can using both free and paid traffic sources. As your knowledge grows so should your ability to mobilize targeted visitors almost on demand, and that’s one of the biggest keys to achieving the super-affiliate status and big affiliate paydays you’re dreaming about now!

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About The Author:

Doug Champigny is a well-known marketing coach, speaker, super-affiliate and targeted traffic expert, and the author of the Captain Affiliate Affiliate Marketing Training Blog. For more advice from Doug on driving targeted traffic, visit the Top Traffic Tips website.

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Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing success, affiliate marketing skills, making money online, building traffic, targeted traffic, driving targeted traffic

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Get ready for it – Willie Crawford and Doug Champigny, two of the best-known Internet marketing forces, are teaming up for a humdinger of an event – the Top Traffic Tips Simulcast!

This is a not-to-be-missed event – quite possibly the most important teleseminar you’ll attend all year… two Internet marketing big dogs sharing the secrets of 14 different ways they drive targeted traffic to their sites, salespages, affiliate links, squeeze pages, JVs etc. Think of how often you’ve heard of or seen the names Willie Crawford and Doug Champigny – now you can learn how to brand yourself and get your offers out there just like they do!

Here’s the thing – admission to the call or webinar is free – you just have to register. But the recording of the call and the transcript will only be available as a paid product. So register for the Top Traffic Tips Simulcast with Willie Crawford and Doug Champigny right now, to be sure you get your free access to this amazing event – there’s nowhere else, free or paid, where you’ll get two industry giants revealing the secrets to driving targeted traffic that makes them each over 6-figures a year, year in and year out!

No matter what niche you’re in or how much experience you do or don’t have online, if you’re trying to make money online or promote an offline business on the Internet, this information can be a big help – register now!

Technorati Tags: Willie Crawford, Doug Champigny, making money online, driving traffic, targeted traffic, Top Traffic Tips teleseminar, webinars, teleseminars, simulcasts

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