So, is blog commenting a smart traffic strategy?

Well, it depends on how you do it. Let’s take a look.

Blog Comment Spamming Sucks!

There are A LOT of people out there who are trying to drive traffic to their own sites by posting spammy comments, manually or by using software, on other people’s blogs. If you’re one of those people, stop right now.

First of all, most blogs have “no-follows” scripted into their comments so that you’ll never get any search engine traffic from those postings.

Secondly, there’s not a REAL person on the planet that’s going to follow your link when you post some kind of ridiculous comment that doesn’t make any sense and only promotes your link.

People are smarter than that.

I seriously doubt that you’ll even get any curiosity clicks, so don’t waste your time.

Build Blog Commenting Relationships For Traffic

Now that we’ve gotten that whole spam thing out of the way, let’s talk about how you can use blog commenting to gain traffic. The key to success is to build relationships on any blog that you peruse.

If you’re the blog owner, it’s really a piece of cake to build relationships with your commenters.

But here’s a newsflash — you can build relationships as a commenter too!

Talk directly to the person who wrote the post, talk to other commenters, comment about other comments, and get involved in the blog.

Bloggers Build Community

It’s no secret that many of the people who comment on blogs, especially business oriented blogs, are bloggers themselves. That’s why relationship building on blogs is so important.

When you meaningfully participate in the community aspect of a blog, you’re creating relationships with other people who can send you a significant amount of traffic through blogs and other social media.

In other words, you have to give in order to receive.

Provide great content, post thoughtful and compelling comments, re-tweet posts, make comments about posts on facebook or other social outlets, and bookmark great posts. It all adds up to a lot of interaction with the blog community, gets the attention of the blog owner, and gives you credibility when you post a comment on that blog.

And other bloggers will reciprocate in kind.

That’s the way content REALLY spreads and how you get the kind of traffic that REALLY counts.

It takes time to build traffic this way, but it’s well-worth the effort because it becomes an unstoppable flood of traffic to your site or blog — traffic that converts.

In the end, blog commenting is a REALLY smart traffic strategy if you do it right!

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So… of course I started checking into it.

Stop #1:  The Sales Page

Strictly speaking, the first page you see when you visit The Clickbank Code is actually a splash page, but  I have to tell you that the splash page is really a work of art.

1. There is very little distracting information on the page, including minimal links.
2. The layout is professional and eye-catching.
3. Everything that you need to see is above the fold — You don’t have to scroll to see it.
4. It has an effective lead capture system.  You have to submit your name and email to see the next video.
5. The video on the splash page is engaging and plays automatically.

It was worth visiting the The Clickbank Code just so that I could take notes on the sales system that they’re using.  I love to see how other people are doing it and discover new strategies that work well!

If you’re new to the idea of splash pages or looking into creating your own splash pages, you should seriously check this one out.  It’s pure art… all the way down to the headlines, colors, graphics, etc.

Even the arrows work effectively.

Stop #2:  The Sales Page

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of the splash page… not as big a fan of the sales page.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a well done sales page full of the same professional graphics and videos.  I just thought it was a bit of a let down after the splash page.  Michael Jones, the product owner, claims that the conversion rate for the sales page is over 7%, so the sales page must work pretty well.

I may just have to borrow a few of the ideas here.

Bottom line:  I’ve visited both the splash page and the sales page and I still don’t have a really good idea if I’m interested in this product or not.

Stop #3:  Online Reviews

As you might expect, there are tons of “honest reviews” of The Clickbank Code available online.  The vast majority — 99.99% of them are candy-coated reviews designed to elicit affiliate sales.

That’s hardly a review at all!

Of course, there’s also the anti-reviews or “scam alerts” that are written to capture affiliate sales for other products related to The Clickbank Code.  Those aren’t particularly honest.

I still have no idea if this is a product that I’m interested in or not.  I’m certainly curious about the product, but not willing to pony up out of shear curiousity.  I honestly expect that the product is really just a re-mix of the same old information about Clickbank, SEO, PPC, etc.

But how can I find out?  YouTube!

Stop #4: Get A Sneak Peak

So my last stop is to check out the various YouTube videos out there that show sneak peaks of the product.  My goal is to get that “insiders view” of The Clickbank Code so that I can decide if it’s something that I’m interested in either buying or promoting.

After viewing the videos, I decided that I’d like to promote the product and see how it performs for me, but I’m not interested in buying the product at this time.  From what I can see in the videos, the majority of the information available in The Clickbank Code is stuff that I either already know how to do or currently use in my business.

I’ve been in this business a long, long time… there’s just not that much that’s totally new to me anymore. (Am I showing my age?)

But I do think there’s some really good stuff in The Clickbank Code for those who haven’t been in the game as long as I have.  That’s why I offer the best sneak peak videos that I could find for you below:

In the end, I can’t personally recommend The Clickbank Code because I don’t own a copy myself.  It looks very promising for those who aren’t making as much money as they’d like at Clickbank and I’m planning a PPC campaign around the product to see if it really lives up to that 7.1% conversion rate claimed.

If you want to check out the splash page or sales letter, here’s the link to The Clickbank Code.

If you own this product yourself, tell me what you think about it.

Is it worth the price?

I’d love to hear from you!

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The problem with SMM is that it can also be VERY time-consuming if you don’t develop a plan of attack.

That’s where Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day comes in to the picture!

Product Description

If the idea of starting a social media marketing campaign overwhelms you, the author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day will introduce you to the basics, demonstrate how to manage details and describe how you can track results.  Case studies, step-by-step guides, checklists, quizzes and hands-on tutorials will help you execute a social media marketing campaign in just one hour a day.  In addition, learn how to integrate social media metrics with traditional media measurements and how to leverage blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, and user-generated content sharing sites like YouTube.

Develop an Integrated, Successful Social Media Strategy

A Step-by-Step Guide

Put the buzz about your business to work for you. This comprehensive, perfectly paced guide will teach you how to make social media an active part of your marketing plan so that you can turn customer conversations about your brand, product, service, and company into a sustainable competitive advantage. Learn how you can tap the Social Web and amplify your current marketing efforts by listening and participating in conversations that drive measurable results.

• Develop and effectively pitch a successful social media campaign inside your company
• Learn how to become a genuine Social Web participant
• Build a map of your key conversation-generators as you evaluate every point of contact between you and your customers
• Get to the sweet spot of social media marketing—the consideration phase of the purchase funnel
• Leverage all the tools available—blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, video and photo sharing, and more
• Use social media measurement tools, including the Net Promoter score, and apply metrics from platforms such as Bazaarvoice, BlogPulse, and Cymfony
• Learn best practices for launching your social media program and measuring the results

You’ll also find:

• A comprehensive look from the savvy marketer’s perspective at social sites and services—MySpace, Facebook®, LinkedIn®, and Twitter, along with YouTube, Seesmic, Eventful, and FriendFeed
• Straightforward tools for building social media into your current marketing program
• Real-world case studies that illustrate successes to learn from and mistakes to avoid

Read More About Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

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Buy Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time (Hardcover) at Amazon

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Who Is Talking About You?

Master the art of word of mouth marketing with this fun, practical, hands-on guide.

With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world’s most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth.

Learn the five essential steps that make word of mouth work and everything you need to get started using them.  Understand the real purpose of blogs, communities, viral email, evangelists, and buzz – when to use them and how simple it is to make them work.

Learn what sparks the irrepressible enthusiasm of Apple and TiVo fans.  Understand why everyone is talking about a certain restaurant, car, band, or dry cleaner — and why other businesses and products are ignored.  Discover why some products become huge successes without a penny of promotion — and why some multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns fail to get noticed.

Open your eyes to a new way of doing business that honest marketing makes more money, because customers who trust you will talk about you.  Learn how to be the remarkable company that people want to share with their friends.

Reviews From Real People

“A quick, practical, and extremely useful guide to word of mouth marketing.”

— Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz

“As I read through Word of Mouth Marketing I felt, more than anything else, relieved. Relieved that we finally have a marketing author who understands the simplicity (and complexity) of this business. This one’s worth your time.”

— Jonah Bloom, Executive Editor, Advertising Age

“It’s brief. It’s elementary. It’s obvious. But the Truth often is. Read this book to relearn what you always knew just in time for it to change your business life.”

— Bob Garfield, Host, NPR’s On The Media

“No one knows word of mouth (the good, the bad, and the measurable) better than Andy Sernovitz.”

— Peter Fader, Professor, Wharton School of Business

“A primer chock full of great stories, tips, and exercises to make you a better word of mouth marketer, no matter what size company you work for. Read it, and you will increase your influence with your customers, and make yourself more influential in your company.”

— Ed Keller and Jon Berry, the Keller Fay Group, authors of The Influentials

Buy Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

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Twitter is an awesome tool for connecting with people personally and professionally.  You can talk to others in your niche or area of interest, share advice, provide resources, and network with people all over the world.

I love it and I’m becoming a total Twitter addict.

It’s so much easier to write a short 140 character post on Twitter than to write an entire blog post… especially when I only want to make a quick point and move on.

I have several different accounts that I use for my different niches.  After all, it wouldn’t make sense to use my Arvada Yates Twitter account to communicate with my friends in other niches unrelated to internet business and marketing.  And having all these different accounts is what made me realize how obvious it is that internet marketers don’t know how to Twitter right.

In my other accounts, I can:

• Communicate directly with like-minded people and tweet back and forth.
• Have online disagreements with others who have a different point of view.
• Post cute jokes or comments about current events.
• Add occasional links to interesting blog posts, news stories, or videos.

In my Twitter accounts directly related to internet marketing, I get a constant barrage of links to affiliate programs and promotions from other interent marketers.  There’s nothing that I can have a conversation about, make a comment on, or connect with.

It sucks!

And it totally takes the fun out of using Twitter… so I don’t spend much time on those accounts and opt to participate in the accounts that allow more interaction.

And that’s where internet marketers are totally missing the point of Twitter.

Twitter is about interacting with others and creating relationships.  It’s kind of like email… you have to build rapport with others and provide useful information before you start slamming offers to buy stuff down their throats.

So here’s my top three ways to improve your results with Twitter:

1.  Start a conversation.  It’s easy to do if you’ve got followers that are real people instead of automated accounts.  In addition, you can always join another conversation that’s taking place… just jump in and be a real person!

2.  Stop posting links every time you Twitter.  Links take time to follow and pull followers out of Twitter… plus too many links undermine any hope of having a relationship with your followers.  If you’re going to post links, post links to articles on your blog.  That’s what I usually do.  In fact, I never post links directly to products.

3.  Post tips and real information to your account.  People love short tips and they can also double as a conversation starter.

I’m sure there are a few self-declared internet marketers out there that are trying to Twitter the right way… but the majority of them seem to see Twitter as an opportunity to spam us all with sales materials.

It’s a shame… Twitter can be so much fun!

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The problem with the Republicans is that they need a better marketing strategy.

Here’s my three step plan for getting the GOP back on it’s feet through a solid marketing plan.

Read the rest of this article at http://www.Politegrity.com

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Your followers represent the people who are interested in you, your business, or your product.  For the most part, it’s very similar to email or RSS subscribers.

More Followers = More People to Market To

With Twitter, there’s often a reciprocation of following.  In other words, “If you follow me, I’ll follow you.”

Personally, I don’t always follow everyone that’s following me… it depends on what kinds of things that they post to their account.  On the other hand, I don’t expect that everyone that I follow to reciprocate and follow me either.

There are some people that I follow because I just enjoy the things that they post… simple as that.  I don’t mind that they might get some traffic from me because I think that the things that they post have value.  It’s kind of like when you put a link to something in your blog, even though you know that you’re sending traffic away from your site… but the info is just that good.

In fact, a lot of people will start following you just so that they will get a link from your Twitter page to their Twitter page.  Once you start following them, they remove you from the list of people they follow so that they get the benefit of a one-way link.

Not cool.

That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on the people you’re following to make sure that you want to continue following them and to make sure that they are still following you if you want them to.

I call it “Removing the Deadwood,” and it can be very time-consuming if you try to do it manually… but there’s a website that will give you a list of all the people you follow that don’t follow you.  It’s at:

http://friendorfollow.com/

Once you get your list of non-followers, you can then go out and “unfollow” whoever you want to stop following.

It’s a simple way to make sure that you’re not giving away links that don’t benefit you or your followers.

If you’d like to learn more great Twitter Marketing Tips,

Get the Twitter Trick now!

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You probably never really thought about all the pre-selling tools that are available to today’s online entrepreneur, but technology makes it possible to connect with your potential customers in tons of new ways!

I’ve written about what pre-selling is before, so I won’t go into the details again.  Here’s a short definition to make sure we’re all on the same sheet of music:

In the online world, pre-selling is the art of warming up your visitors, building trust, and putting them in the frame of mind that they want to do business with you.

If you need a more in depth explaination, check out the article, “What is Pre-Selling?”

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s start talking about the actual tools you can use to pre-sell your visitors and turn them into customers.

Of course you already know that basic written content is one of the best pre-sellers.  In fact, you probably already write and distribute articles, load your website up with relevant content, and send your content out in a newsletter.  That’s kind of the “standard internet marketing” that everyone does.

So let’s think out of the box a bit and take a look at some of the pre-selling tools that you may not be fully utilizing…

Pre-Selling Tools

1.  Blogs

Well-done blogs go beyond the basic website and take pre-selling a little more seriously.  Generally speaking, blogs show a little more of the personality of the owner than websites do because they’re less formal, more spontaneous, and friendlier.

When you visit some blogs, you feel like you’ve entered the inner sanctum of the writer… this can be a great pre-seller when it’s done correctly!  A great blog that welcomes visitors with a smile can go a long way toward turning visitors into customers.

2. Reviews

It surprises me how few people take advantage of the great pre-selling power of writing reviews.  Keep in mind that I’m not talking about the kind of candy-coated reviews that claim every product is excellent and worth buying or the bogus reviews pre-written by merchants for affiliates.

I’m talking about buying a product and writing a genuine review of what you liked and didn’t like about the product.  Believe it or not, I often sell more of a product when I write a less than stellar review!

People appreciate and reward honesty.

3.  Commenting

I kind of lumped this one all together to mean several different things so this article wouldn’t be soooo long.

Any time you leave a comment on someone’s blog, on a forum, in a message board, at YouTube, etc., you are pre-selling youreself.  It pays to make your comments useful and timely because visitors will often follow the links in those comments to learn more about you.

It’s kind of like pre-selling them on YOU, inviting them to your little part of the world (your website), and then using other pre-selling tools at your disposal to pre-sell them on products that you promote.

4.  Newsletters and Ezines

Newsletters and ezines are a really great pre-selling tool because they give you the opportunity to build rapport with potential customers over the long term.  This long-term relationship with your subscribers allows you to pre-sell them on a wide variety of products and services over the lifetime of the relationship.

5.  Freebies

There are soooo many freebies that you can put together to pre-sell whatever you want to recommend to your visitors.  You can create ebooks, audios, videos, reports, ecourses, or just about any other freebie that you can think of.  Each free product that you create helps to establish a relationship with potential customers and increases your pre-selling potential.

6.  Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to instantly build rapport with potential customers and establish an immediate relationship.  There’s just something about hearing another human voice, no matter what they’re saying, that establishes an immediate connection.  All you need to do to use this great pre-selling tool is to provide great information.

Just remember, it’s not a radio commercial!

7.  Videos

Just like podcasts, videos are also a great pre-selling tool.  Not only can visitors hear your voice as you’re helping them solve a problem (that ultimately leads to a product available for purchase), but they can also see either you or your visual props in the video to help solidify the message in their minds.

In addition, well-done videos go a long way toward promoting you as a professional who is credible… all worthy goals when you’re pre-selling!

8.  Social Networks

This is probably the most important pre-selling tool in your toolbox because of the very nature of a social network.  Pre-selling and social networks fit together like hand and glove.

In a social network like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, or Twitter you’re building a social relationship with others online… the very definition of pre-selling.  In other words, you become friends with others through these social networks, pre-sell them your products, and your “friends” buy the products that you’re pre-selling because you have an established relationship with them.

And that’s my short list of the best pre-selling tools available to online entrepreneurs.  If you aren’t taking advantage of these options, you really owe it to yourself to start taking a look at how you can integrate some of these pre-selling opportunities into your business… especially social networks.

If I’ve missed a really great pre-selling tool here, I hope you’ll let me know!

I can virtually guarantee your pre-selling success
with this one tool… read more.

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So of course I clicked on the forum post and found out that the post was meant to be sarcastic.  Then I started reading the responses from other Warriors and was completely appalled with the lack of integrity of some of the posters.  The video below is my rant on the subject:

And here is the Podcast of the video (so you can take it to the gym or something instead of being tied to the computer! )

And for those who don’t like audio/video (or the sound of my voice totally annoys you), here’s a rundown of what I had to say:

1.  If you want to make money online, you probably shouldn’t be in the internet marketing niche.

Internet marketing is used in every niche to promote websites, you don’t have to promote internet marketing in order to USE internet marketing.  In fact, every business on and off line is actually in the business of marketing, whether they realize it or not.

In my opinion, it’s much better to be a big fish in a small pond by applying yourself to a small niche rather than being a tiny fish in an ocean of competition… as you are in the internet marketing niche.

Real money is made online by everyday people who find a niche, completely dominate that niche, monetize that niche, profit from that niche, and then move on to a new niche and do the same thing over and over and over again.

2.  Long term income and longevity online comes from being original.

It’s not okay to copy other ebooks and rehash them to make your own product… but you can use other’s work as the inspiration for your own original products.

Rehashing old ebooks isn’t working as well for “gurus” as it used to because the online community is finally starting to wise up.  No one wants to pay $50, $60, $100 for a twenty page report that contains the same information that they could find online with a little searching.

3.  You can’t just throw in the towel when it gets tough!

If what you’re doing isn’t working, you’ve got to track it, analyze it, research it, study it, until you figure out why.  It just doesn’t make sense to repeatedly throw in the towel, start over, and move to something else when you don’t immediately make thousands of dollars online.

Proactive Steps You Can Take:

1. Track and analyze everything on your website so you can determine what’s working and what isn’t for your business.

2. Master a marketing strategy before you move on to another one. In article marketing, for example, you wouldn’t do five or six articles and then move on.  You’d need to do hundreds of articles over months before you could say that that marketing method doesn’t work for you.

3.  Realize that earning substantial revenue online takes time.

4.  Don’t be schizophrenic with your business. Make a plan, stick to your plan, and be consistent with your marketing.  You can’t jump around from idea to idea… you need to focus on one goal at a time.

5.  Find a mentor. Mentors can be extremely helpful in helping you fix whatever might be broken in your business.  In addition, if you can find a mentor in your niche you may be able to piggy back off them and become successful more quickly.

6.  Believe in yourself and don’t let yourself get negative. The world is full of people who try something for a week, claim it doesn’t work, and then tell everyone who will listen that the idea is crap.

Don’t let yourself become one of those people.  Those kinds of people spend their entire lives being victims and blaming others for why they aren’t happy and successful.  Life’s too short for that!

So that’s my big rant for today… what do you think?

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