John Cow dot Com » Social Marketing

Heard of the New FTC Regulations? You Absolutely Must Read This Before You Write Another Blog Post or Promote Another Product!

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:05:16 +0000

Yes, that title was a little long, but I wanted to make sure that I had your attention. As most of you may be aware (or should be, at least) yesterday new FTC regulations came into effect concerning the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertising. A lot of the new regulations directly affect online marketers, so I decided to go straight to the source to see exactly what this would mean for me (and for you, my readers).

I went to http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm and actually read through the whole 12 page guide – specifically the Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255 – Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Here are the highlights as they pertain to us online marketers:

First off, there’s the matter of endorsements. The FTC specifically states that endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser. This part may sound pretty straightforward, but how they define that ‘honesty’ has some big ramifications about how you can write your sales copy or other advertising or promotion pieces.

The big term that the FTC is using is “substantiation of representations conveyed”. What this means is that you’ve got to be able to prove (and back up) any claims you make. Which I’ve always told you to do, but what’s changed is what they consider proof. While I’ve always used real examples for my proof, I (and everybody else) would naturally pick the best results out of the bunch to highlight. It’s a natural thing to do.

But now, no longer can you say, about a weight loss product, for example, “Lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks!” just because one of your customers did. Now, any claims you make have to be representative of the average experience of the user, not the exceptional ones. And you can’t just cover your butt with a “results not typical” disclaimer, either – the FTC has deemed that “disclaimers did not adequately reduce the communication that the experiences depicted are generally representative.” In English, that means that even if you say that results are not typical in small print, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re giving the impression in the big giant headline that everyone could lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks.

And even if you have a ringing endorsement of a successful customer (which of course is indicative of the average experience), you also have to disclose any other factors that affected the result. For instance, that person that lost 20 pounds in 2 weeks didn’t just take your supplement, but they also went on a low-calorie diet and worked out for 90 minutes a day. If you wanted to use that person as a testimonial, you would have to disclose all the factors that influenced the result.

Same goes for the use of before/after pictures. You can’t just show the dramatic pictures and let them speak for themselves. Again, if it was more than just your great product that influenced the result, you have to disclose it.

Also, when you are using testimonials, a lot of people (including me) have always recommended using pictures to go along with the testimonials to help to personalize them. Now, you can’t do that, unless you have the actual picture of the actual person. You can’t just take a random picture that you have the rights to and match it up with a testimonial. The FTC feels that is misleading.

In all, each change, taken by itself, is a small thing, but when taken together, will greatly affect how we operate as online marketers. I recommend that you go to the FTC site mentioned above and check things out for yourself – everyone’s business is unique and, although I tried to point out all the important things, you might want to check how this affects you specifically.

In fact, there was so much to cover, that this discussion of the new FTC regulations is going to need another post. Next post will be about the new guidelines regarding “Disclosure of Material Connections.” They certainly have a way with words over at the FTC, don’t they?

PS – Remember i am NOT a lawyer and not giving you legal advice… you need to contact your own legal counsel on this matter… don’t be telling anyone you thought you were ok cause a cow told you… trust me it don’t work.

Next Post in Series: I Was Not Paid By The FTC For This Review

Viral Marketing – How Can You Use It?

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:39:14 +0000

This is a continuation on my posts about the tools you can use to brand your self as a Trusted Expert.

One of the coolest things about the web is when a simple thing becomes a phenomenon; somebody creates something, and people start to share it with each other, and it reaches mass impact, and soon, millions of people have viewed this video/cartoon/story and many times it also makes its way into traditional media.
Not sure what exactly constitutes a viral explosion?

Think the Star Wars guy, the Beyonce dance, the kid all doped up after the dentist, and two of the first and most famous examples, the Diet Coke/Mentos and the dancing baby, which eventually made its way onto Ally McBeal as a plot point. When something truly goes viral, the publicity that it garners for the products involved is astounding. It can take a previously unknown product and propel it to the forefront.

The challenge in viral marketing is trying to make it happen. The most successful viral campaigns did not set out to garner publicity for a marketing purpose; they were just put out there to be entertaining or interesting, which is why they succeeded. One of the hardest things to do is to try and make a viral campaign work.

There are companies that claim to specialize in creating viral campaigns, but they are an educated guess, at most. Most agency-driven viral campaigns, are obvious that they are advertising campaigns with a purpose of promoting the products, and while they may attract some attention, most don’t go truly viral.

A huge amount of luck is involved in a true viral campaign. You can, however, monitor the blogs, podcasts, and forums for a viral eruption. A piece of news, properly delivered to its target market, can go viral.

The crux of viral marketing is that other people are telling your story for you, and sharing and promoting it to others. While you may not reach the level of the dancing baby or the Mentos video, you can still achieve results within your niche and a higher level of publicity with a moderately successful viral campaign.

Do Not Forget Your BackYard When It Comes to Social Media

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:28:30 +0000

Do you interact with your community when it comes to your social media strategies?

It’s funny how so many of us will travel thousands of miles to meet up with people of like interests and yet never think to see what is available locally.

Why is that?

I think it is human nature to always feel the grass is greener on the other side… but I have to wonder how often that is truly the case?

Now, I understand that population has a huge effect on this. After all, if you live in a small community of just a couple thousand people, then you are pretty limited as to what you can accomplish. In comparison to that, if you live in a huge metropolis… there are probably countless opportunities for you.

But no matter where you live… have you even tried to connect with others?

OK, so where is this coming from?

As you know I am a Social Media nut and a Twitter fanatic. I have also been posting a series that walks you through how to market with Twitter.

Today I was searching through Twellow and saw http://twellowhood.com so I entered in my location and low and behold I found some fellow Twitterers. So I contacted a few and within a few moments I was skyping with the owner of http://www.gerrykirk.net/. Now this is not a huge blog or anything but it did have some good info and the interesting part was the desire this guy “Gerry” has for growing the awareness of social media in my community.

Now the question might come up to you… what good is that going to do your business if you do not sell anything local?

Well the idea is that you are networking with like-minded individuals and therefore can form accountability groups, share ideas, and grow. It is not about the direct selling to others locally but instead about being able to talk with others that have similar interests.

Now before I go on… YES I KNOW THIS IS NOT NEW!

The problem is I personally have spent so much focus on reaching out globally that I failed to stop and look locally. You see with my business, I do 90% of the work out of my home office. In fact I am closing my downtown office and moving all the employees to their homes. The reason for doing this is my lease was up and it is something we want to try out… since I do not really want to renew the lease where the office is currently located.

Now working out of your home is great but you need face-to-face interaction with others and what a better way than to be doing it with like-minded people.

The great thing about these types of things is it does not matter if you have nothing to share or loads to share… whether you are a teacher or a student. I learn whether I am teaching or listening and it is all about that.

So as a result, I am heading to my first TweetUp here in my Northern Ontario community. If you live around here (which most of you don’t ), I would love to see you there… but there are only three spots left (it’s just a small get together) at http://twtvite.com/2a3do0

Oh and on a side note, this is using a cool service called http://twtvite.com/ which is a great little tool for managing your own tweetups. So if there is not one available in your community… start one yourself.

[poll id="13"]

And The Social Media Mania Winners Are….

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:32:39 +0000

And the Winners Are…

Winner #1 – Tanya Anna Wilson of http://twinceretwinkles.blogspot.com/ –> You get to select any 5 of the Top Prizes!
Winner #2 – Tanuj Lakhina of http://www.crazy4footie.info/ –> You get to select any 4 of the remaining prizes after Tanya has selected.
Winner #3 – Alejandra Quiroz of http://www.thepurpleblug.com/ –> You get to select any 3 of the remaining prizes after Tanuj has selected.
Winner #4 – Jeff of http://www.jvisiondesigns.com/ –> You get to select any 2 of the remaining prizes after Alejandra has selected.
Winner #5 – Beth of http://pcbasentry.wordpress.com/ –> You get to select any 1 of the remaining prizes after Jeff has selected.
Winner #6 – Capri of http://thriving.blognetworkmarketing.com/ –> You get to select any 1 of the remaining prizes after Beth has selected.
Winner #7 – Wes Wyatt of http://www.weswyatt.com/–> You get to select any 1 of the 2 remaining prizes after Capri has selected.
Winner #8 – David of http://www.mmoneyonline.com/ –> You get whatever prize is left over

How this is going to work, is we will be contacting you in order so you can pick your prize. Please do not contact us unless you have not heard from us in a week from now. What we need to do is make sure that the winners in order get the prizes they want first and then once they select, we will contact the next in the list. We will contact you via the email address you used when you submitted your entry into the contest.

If you did not win… fear not, we will be started a new contest next week and this next one is going to focus on something different.

The prizes that are being awarded are…

($300+ Value) Chinavision Projector Cell Phone from JoeTech.com
($400+ Value) 5 Hours of Link Building Service, $50 cash via Paypal and a permanent blogroll link at SEO Blog from James Harrison
$200 Cash via PayPal from http://wpunlimited.com/
$250 in Free Passion Products of Your Choice from Enjoy Intimate Bliss
($200 Value) SONY PSP 3000 Ratchet & Clank Limited Edition Bundle from Making Money With PPC Coach
($500+ Value) FREE 6 Months Access to…
($280 Value) FREE 2 Year Access to GoStats PRO PLUS $100 Cash Via PayPal from http://gostats.com/
($200+ Value) FREE Custom Made 10K Gold Military Ring (For you or someone you care about), from…
($197 Value) Free 1 year Access to Tweet Riches Pro
($106.00 Value) Free Gourmet Candle products (Melting Pot, 2 Bags of melts, an 8 Oz. Spa Sations candle and 2 16oz. Jar Gourmet Candles. PLUS a Mystic Melon Bella Bar too from http://www.usamade.scent-team.com/videopresentation.php
($120 Value) 3 Months Free 125X125 and 585X80 Banner Advertising on PR4 blog at http://the-dude.co.uk/
($110 Value) One Month Free 125X125 Banner and Product Review Advertising on PR3 Blog with Alexa of 27000 at http://www.thewwwblog.com/
($75 Value) Free Video Review of your site, product or service on one of my favorite blogs IMwithJoe
$35 Cash via PayPal from http://www.mymerchantaccountblog.com
($35 Value) 1 Month Free 125 X 125 Banner PLUS 1 Month Text Link Ad in Sidebar on PR4 Blog with Alexa of 50,000 from Blogging Tips to Make Money Online
Free $25 Plug-In Scentsy Warmer & Accessorie from http://www.scentsy.com/niffer
$30 Cash via PayPal from http://www.maheshkukreja.com
$25 Cash via PayPal from http://blog.therealtruthaboutmlm.com

Social Media Mania & A Chance to Win Viral Sign Up Generator

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:58:01 +0000

OK, we all know that Twitter is exploding thanks to some recent events with Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey… right???

There are also dozens of new Twitter tools popping up all over the place… and I have bought a lot of them. I have also refunded a couple that were just simply crap.

Well today I was approached by someone about a new product they wanted me to review, and to be honest I deny about 90% of them because the are usually just looking for a way to bypass paying for a review. Which is not a bad thing, but I only have so many hours in the day as it is and I need to focus on things that directly affect my bottom line. Its called running a business

Anyway… as you know… well you should know… the pastures here have a pretty cool contest going on with prizes in excess of $3000 and in the previous contest post I mentioned that each day we are going to have a surprise give away. Sooooo…. wait, should I ramble more or get to the point????

GET TO THE POINT COW!

OK, fine, be that way. The email was from the owner of a new product called Viral Sign Up Generator and what it does is combines your email opt in with your twitter follow.

You need to understand, if you think that Twitter is stupid, a fad or some other negative thing… you need to look in the mirror and say to the person looking back.. “What Are You An Idiot!”

Twitter is constantly bringing in 1% to 2% traffic from every message I send within the first 5 minutes. That means if at this moment there are 8000 followers, then as soon as I tweet a message I get anywhere between 80 and 160 visitors. You may think that does not sound like much, but that is consistent and giving me fantastic results. I want to remind you that all the $3000 in prizes was because I twittered 8 times (at different times and in different ways) that I needed sponsors…. hint, hint (did you catch that). In case you missed it, I twittered 8 different times (because some people work, some people sleep and some people live in other time zones) and I used different words every second message. I did not do this manually, but instead used the PRO version of Tweetlater.com which is very cool. It allows you to spin your text so it posts different variations.

Anyway, as for this tool that was brought to my attention… I immediately looked at it because this was on my list of things for my programmer to do. I have a Twitter tool that i use right now, that he is packaging up for me to offer others and after that i was going to have him create this exact tool. There are 2 huge things that are going to help your blog this year… increasing email subscribers and increasing twitter followers (I promise you)… and this tool helps with both.

It combines your auto responder service with twitter and packages it all together in a beautiful little package.

So just so you know, this is not a paid review… or a review for a friends product, this is me telling you that I like this tool!

I only have one complaint, the installation instructions were not as clear as i wished but i got on AIM with them and they totally agreed with everything I had to offer for advice. The installation is very easy, just do what I did not do and FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE VIDEO.

So now you know I recommend this tool to you… but I also have some good news. I am giving away (I got permission from them) two FREE copies of this script to two of you. One winner is already selected, the second winner will be selected tomorrow based on who participates today.

So here are the very clear instructions.

IMPORTANT –> If you want to participate in this contest for a chance to win some of the $3000 in prizes, you need to first CLICK HERE and follow the original contest instructions. Once you have completed that, you can come back to this post and be qualified… but if you already have done that then you a good to go

Mandatory Criteria #1… Subscribe to JoeTechs RSS at http://feeds.feedburner.com/JoeTech
Mandatory Criteria #2… Click Here to tweet the following message “Checking out the SEO service SEO by the Hour http://seobythehour.com/“
Mandatory Criteria #3... you must fill out the following form (yes this is the script i was talking about. IMPORTANT, once you fill out the form you will be brought to a page that has the twitter bird (this is showing you that it is posting to your account), this page will then redirect back to here

WAIT There is MORE… What the above steps did, is entered you in a chance to win a copy of this script BUT it also gave you another point towards winning the grand prize… and I have 1 more “Optional thing” for you to do to earn yourself an extra point.

Optional Task – Click Here to Follow http://twitter.com/TerriLorah (She is the sponsor of the ($106.00 Value) Free Gourmet Candle products (Melting Pot, 2 Bags of melts, an 8 Oz. Spa Sations candle and 2 16oz. Jar Gourmet Candles. PLUS a Mystic Melon Bella Bar too from http://www.usamade.scent-team.com/videopresentation.php

Last but NOT least – Fill out the comment form below with the details so I can pick you as a winner

Ohhh.. and i almost forgot… I said there were two copies we are giving away and that one winner was already selected. That winner is Kikolani. Congrats, i have sent them an email and you should hear from them soon. The winner of the second copy will be announced tomorrow along with details of another draw I am having

Traditional Media Release or Social Media Release?

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:23:22 +0000

You may have heard about the Social Media Release and are wondering whether you should be using that instead of a traditional press release?

No, you shouldn’t replace your press release with a Social Media Release; you should be doing BOTH!

First, some background on what a Social Media Release is.

It takes the essence of an old-fashioned press release (providing and distributing information about your company to garner publicity) and reorganizes it in a way that makes it compatible with Social Media.

Essentially, it takes a plain-text press release and turns it into a blog post, with all of the capabilities that a bog has, including the ability to comment, and aggregate inbound links.

The Social Media Release (or SMR) was developed by Todd Defren at Shift Commuications in 2006. A template of the SMR can be found at http://www.pr-squared.com/. Todd gives lots of great tips on how to use it and lets you use it free of cost.

More advice that he give is to not use the SMR when you submit the release to the news wire services. Instead, put together a traditional press release and add a link to the corresponding SMR in it. This way, you get all the benefits of the SMR without having to pay the fees to the wire services for using one while still getting all the benefits of their wide distribution.

So what can the SMR do that a traditional press release can’t?

Well, when posted to a social media newsroom (check out Todd’s link above for more information about that) a SMR can allow you to use all sorts of multimedia options, like video, audio, and graphics.

So why should you bother to do both?

Well, we all know that press releases are great for improving SEO and your Google ranking (beyond the obvious benefit of getting your message out there, of course); a SMR is like a press release on crack.

With a traditional press release, you are submitting to the news wire services in the format that they are used to, and not paying any hefty fees, but with a SMR, you have interactive capabilities up the wazoo that will drive the SEO benefits through the roof.

Now, in order to maximize the SEO benefit that you get, you need to make sure that you’re writing with your site’s SEO considerations and keywords in mind. But make sure that you’re not trying to stuff in keywords that aren’t organic to the release – it will sound fake and undermine the publicity efforts of the release. You can also include rich media content (like images or videos or podcasts) that will raise the pick up for Google Images and Google video; again, just make sure everything is tagged with the right keywords.

Here are a couple great additional resources for learning more about Social Media Releases…

I Am Begging You… PLEASE BE MY FRIEND – A Desperate Cry for Social Attention ;)

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:25:53 +0000

I am so lonely… would someone please be my friend?

OK, so I am not actually lonely… but I do want you to be my friend. I just added the Google Friend Connect to the blog here and would love it if you joined up with us

You can see it (from the picture) is empty as of this moment… and I do not like it being empty.

Keyword Research Has Never Been So Easy

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:28:38 +0000

Keyword research is one of the most hammered subjects in internet marketing. Hammered to the point where it becomes nauseating after awhile. I say this because it’s a process that too many people over-complicate and really, it should be straightforward.

In this post, I want to show you an easy way to come up with laser targeted keyword phrases in a hurry without doing the complicated stuff. If you are doing article marketing, then this method will be just about all you need and the results you get will be productive.

All we are using is the Google search box. Google continues to improve it’s search facility and because it’s free, many overlook some of the powerful features it continues to add. Google also is a little lax in letting us know about them so it’s a matter of being aware and alert to them.

Have you noticed when you begin to type a search term into the box that a drop down menu will suddenly appear and you’ll get a list of suggested phrases? Do you ignore or dismiss this simply because it’s free and anything that doesn’t cost you you’re hard-earned can’t be too valuable? Well, think again. As far as keyword selection is concerned, this is one of the more powerful tools you’ll come across without outlaying any money.

The point is, Google is the king of search. When they give you these suggestions they are giving you real time data. Many keyword suggestion tools fall down in this area. Just think, Google is actually giving you terms people are looking for and in real time. For article marketing purposes, this is an excellent way to grab searched for long tail keywords on the fly.

Here’s an example. Let’s search for the term “dogs.” Now “dogs” itself is a term that gets 188,000,000 results so it’s not a good term to go after. But here’s what happens when you begin typing it into the Google search box. Google starts to give you a list of suggested terms related to the term dogs in the drop down. Google is actually pre-empting what you are looking for and they’ve become so sophisticated at doing this that they can just about read your mind.

I suggest writing down any three word terms or more that take your attention on the way to writing out the term “dogs.” Here’s the list I got when I did this exercise for the purposes of this newsletter for the term “dogs”:

“dogs”

dogs for sale 1,730,000
dog trust 664,000
dog breeds 810,000
dog names 1,480,000
dogs.com 1,610,000
dogs for adoption 488,000
dogs that don’t shed 2,620,000
dogs of the dow 323,000
dogster 1,620,000
dogs in heat 475,000

So we have a list of ten keyword suggestions from Google. These are the five I’m interested in…”dog trust”, “dog breeds”, “dogs for adoption”, “dogs of the dow” and “dogs in heat.”

So now I have five key phrases to work with. You can either write five articles around each of these terms or do some further analysis. I generally do further analysis and we’ll get into that in the next newsletter. For example, “dogs of the dow” is related to the stock market so it’s not one I want to keep.

But here’s the beauty of doing this. With the keywords you have, drill down again and type each one back into the Google search box. Bingo! More search term suggestions from his “royal highness” Google. Also don’t forget to test both singular and plural. What started out as typing one term into the search box suddenly grows to many. That’s why you’ll virtually never run out of keyword phrases to write around.

Love them or hate them, Google is actually on your side in this business but you’ve just got to be aware of what they have to offer. This facility in my opinion is priceless and worth every bit of the free subscription service we pay them.

Top 4 Small Business Marketing Blunders

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:03:09 +0000

Marketing is, for many small Internet-based businesses, a necessary evil. Unfortunately, it’s also their life bread. Without effective marketing, your Internet business doesn’t stand a chance against the competition.

Here are four of the worst marketing mistakes you can make (In my opinion that is):

Denigrating your customers: If you come out and say, “only a moron would buy from my competitor,” you’re effectively closing off every potential client who’s ever bought from that competitor. It makes your potential customer feel embarrassed and out of touch. You want your potential customers to feel good, because happy customers are much more likely to buy.

Denigrating your competition: Talking smack about your competitors doesn’t boost your own business. All it does is make you look like a bully. Instead of insulting the other guy, talk about your product and why it’s a better product. This demonstrates an overall sense of integrity, as well as a genuine belief in the product you’re selling. And if you don’t believe in your product, potential customers won’t either.

Being desperate for a sale: Desperation implies that your product hasn’t been selling, which tells your customer that maybe it isn’t a quality product. You want people to have a favorable perception of your product, which is why so many good marketing techniques rely on urgency and scarcity. Demonstrate that you want the customer’s business, but also demonstrate that you’ll be fine without it.

Focusing on yourself: If you want to sell something to someone, you have to focus on the benefits that product or service brings to them. Don’t talk about what a great marketing coach you are; your potential customers don’t really care what you think about yourself. Instead, focus on what your coaching can do for them. Talk about how your coaching can take their business to the next level, and make it more profitable.

Review of The Social Profiles WordPress Plugin

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:09:37 +0000

As we are putting the finishing touched on CommentMILK, I thought I would share a new plugin I came across last week that I liked.

As you most likely know, one of the best ways to encourage blog commenting is to offer your community members increased exposure. Plugins like Commentluv, which brings a link in from the commenter’s most recent blog post, are an added incentive to comment on your blog and become a part of your community. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a way to integrate this sort of benefit with social media.

Enter the Social Profiles WordPress Plugin. Designed by Sugarrae and written by WordPress plugin legend Joost de Valk, Social Profiles lets you add links to your commenters’ social profiles. The links can be text links or graphical ones, and you can even put a nofollow tag on the links if you want to.

Social Profiles comes with ten of the most common social networking tools pre-installed. These include:

Delicious
Digg
Flickr
Furl
MySpace
Newsvine
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Technorati
Twitter

By default, Digg, Delicious and Flicker are enabled. You can add and remove tools via a control panel.

The one downside to Social Profiles is that only registered users of your site can have their profiles listed in their comments. While this is ideal for sites that use a membership model, sites that don’t register users may have more difficulty implementing Social Profiles.

You can register her at JohnCow and use this… PLUS when you register it makes commenting easier

Installation of Social Profiles is relatively easy, and consists of uploading the files to your WordPress plugins directory and adding a single line of code to your template. There are plenty of customization options, too. The control panel lets you ad prefixes and suffixes to the social network links, as well as the ability to customize their appearance.

Check it out for yourself at http://www.sugarrae.com/wordpress/social-profiles/

Marketing Your Content – Take Two

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:29:42 +0000

This is Jerry West again from SEO Revolution and as promised from my last guest post, I would cover one of my ways to effectively market my content. I use the power of Blogs. You see, my experience has shown that people want to be served. They would rather have content delivered to them than have to go out and search for it.

Search = Work

RSS feeds and other ways of delivering content on the web today looked like a clear answer. After all, webmasters can sit back and have the content dumped in their laps in minutes without having to think about what they want and go looking for it. Sounds good, but I have talked to the big bloggers in many industries and their biggest gripe is all the SPAM that is sent to them via RSS. One blogger mentioned that he was getting so much SPAM through RSS that he just killed the feeds. “It was to the point that I was getting ten SPAM articles for every legit one.” It’s too much work to go through.

What should you do instead?

From those I spoke with, they only rely on a few key outlets for their content. I suggest you find the main bloggers in your space (Google Blogsearch).

Read their blog. Get to know it.

Then post comments that are good and insightful. Use your real name or a pen name, but leave a full name. Don’t post your site as a way to get some free “links”. Don’t “kiss up” either. If you disagree with what the blogger said, say so and back it up. Contrary to popular believe, nobody likes a “kiss a$$” so don’t do it. If the Blogger really knows their stuff, and you come up with a counter point that is well thought out and delivered, that will get their attention. Once you feel you have their attention, call them. Tell them why you like their Blog. Be direct and to the point. Then, get down to business.

What To Do:

First, don’t ask for a favor from them. You provide the favor. Tell them you would like to sponsor their Blog, or advertise on their Blog. That will open up the conversation. They may ask what site you want to advertise, and once you tell them, they will know you are in a similar space. PayPal them the money right then, don’t wait. If they are being receptive, ask for them to review one of your articles (it must be killer and reflect the same well-thought out approach of the comments you made on their Blog). But make sure they understand you aren’t asking for the article to be posted, just commentary with a link to your article.

Do you see the power of this yet?

It’s coming. Once you do this with the top 3-4 Bloggers, the secondary Bloggers, who follow the top Bloggers like puppy dogs, will pick up the article as well, and they will do the same thing … they will comment on it and link to your article. Using Digg and the other “Social Bookmarking” tools is fine … but you won’t even come close to getting the same amount of quality traffic as going direct to the top Bloggers.

Why?

Because they control the quality traffic on the web right now.

Let me repeat that: Top Bloggers Control the Quality Traffic on the Web.

Think about that statement for a moment. It isn’t the QUANTITY of traffic, it is the QUALITY of traffic. If someone you trust recommends a source, you are going to at least check it out aren’t you? You will also be more willing to spend more time on that site and really look into it, wouldn’t you? Of course. That is human nature.

Here is the kicker: If you sell a product or service, make sure the Blogger understands that you track all sales and if any sales are the result of his/her traffic, you will personally see to it that they are paid an affiliate commission for that customer for life. Yes, life. Make it worthwhile for them.

As my grandfather would always say, “Take care of the people who take care of you.”

Build and nurture these relationships and you will see great things happen for your promotions. Here are some actual stats that were achieved by getting three top bloggers to post their opinion on an article I wrote:

Blogger One: 1,015 uniques
Blogger Two: 345 uniques
Blogger Three: 156 uniques
Total Uniques to Page: 2,551

In just 30 days, 432 links were acquired. While most of those links will not be counted in Google’s new measurement, that is still an excellent achievement.

If we placed each unique visitor at a cost of 30 cents per and each link acquired at $2.50, this is our “projected benefit” from this campaign:

Uniques: 2,551 * $0.30 = $765.30
Links: 432 * $2.50 = $1,080.00
Total = $1,845.30

This figure represents what it would have cost to deliver the traffic and getting the links. In other words, I can use that $1,800.00 for something else. Remember, all the links acquired are one-way links. That is a nice added bonus. And link builders, even those overseas, can charge up to $8.00 for each one-way link.

This technique gets better. Look at the referrers in your log files. Start at the top and work your way down. Those who are sending you the most traffic are those you want to contact first. Look at their site and/or their blog. Is this someone you want to do business with? To promote you? To advertise with?

Based on your needs and goals, you can decide if you want to continue and contact them. Remember that just because the page is a PageRank0 doesn’t mean you shouldn’t contact them. There could be an issue with the site, the Blog being new, or the owner not understanding how to get their site indexed. You would be surprised how many Bloggers don’t understand fundamental Internet Marketing. If they don’t, offer to help them in that area in return for their help to promote your business with their readers. It’s a win-win.

As you go through the list of referrers, your goal is to expand your own “PR Distribution List”. You have the top three Bloggers on your list, now you want to expand into the secondary level. While the secondary Bloggers tend to have a very small fraction of the readership the big Bloggers do, they are worth contacting. If you expand your circle to include 40-50 Bloggers, when you have your next great article, you have a distribution list that will give you immediate quality traffic … plus, you’ll get some great incoming links to boot.

If you are struggling with qualified traffic and getting solid links, this approach can breathe life back into your site.

Online Social Marketing and the Call to Action – Just Do It

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:43:44 +0000

We firmly believe that the absolute most important part of using social media (Web 2) sites is the content you submit. Without good content you will not get your articles ranking in the search engines and even if you do get the rankings you will not get any conversions.

There are different types of online social marketing sites available to use. There are some that allow you to bookmark, some leave little comments or posts and others that allow you to create your own little page such as Squidoo.com, Hubpages.com, Ning.com, Google Notebook & Ezinearticles.com. It is these sites that the content we talk about in this post is focused on being used on.

The majority of people out there trying to earn money with these types of sites are often too focused on quantity rather then quality. They will outsource the content or spin it without taking the time to ensure it reads well and is informative. Your first priority needs to be focusing on the human visitor. You can then go back and tweak the content slightly to better optimize it for the search engines, which we will
explain more about later on.

The simplest and most effective method that we use for creating good “human focused” content is to follow the simple formula A.I.D.A. which stands for…

A – Attention: Get the persons attention right away. This is where your title (headline) comes into play. You will want to right away grab the attention of the reader and for an example, say we were promoting a page on our site that was a weight loss pre sales affiliate page for “Supplement X” and our keyword was “supplement x reviews”; our headline (content title) might be…

“Most Supplement X Reviews Are Full Of Crap, I Stopped Using It and I Will Tell You Why!”

Now, this might seem aggressive to some, but if you were looking for a supplement x review, would this not get your attention?

I – Interest: Now that you got their attention it is time to get their interest in what you are talking about. Following the above example, if our main purpose is to promote this product, this is where we have to pull the reader in and get them interested in learning more.

We have taken the stance that we will be slamming the product but in reality we will not be, the title was just to get their attention. You may want to start by explaining why other reviews are so fake and how it is so hard to know what is real out there. Peak their interest in what you have to say so they keep reading. It is very important that you relate to them right away as well. Remember, this is just an example of a strategy to try… you can write this however you want.

D – Desire: You got their attention, peaked their interest in learning more and so now it is time to spark a desire. In this example we would now need to make sure to come clean and explain what was meant about quitting supplement x. Maybe take the stance that we quit early on because of forgetting to take the supplement and then a month later started up again and we soon realized that quitting was the worse mistake we made because the product worked.

Make sure to explain the benefits of the product and how it will help. Do not just say something like “lose weight” instead you will want to highlight exactly what the benefits of this feature is. So you might say something like…

“Helped me to fit into my size 32 pants from a size 38 in only 30 days”

A – Action: This is now were you tell them how they can quench that desire. This is also where many people fail because they make a weak call to action and just leave the reader hanging. It is so important that you tell the reader exactly what to do. Do not just put something like a keyword linked to your page or use “Click Here” because this does not tell the reader why they need to take that action. Instead tell them why to “Click Here”.

A couple examples may be…

“Click Here Now to Learn How Easy it is to Get Started”

“Get complete access to this incredible system by Clicking Here Now”

You will want to reemphasize the benefits and encourage the reader that this is one of the smartest things they will ever do.

IMPORTANT: You will want to ensure you have linked to your page with the keyword but we also recommend you use a call to action word such as “Click Here”, these get much better clickthroughs then just the keyword. You can add a nofollow to the click here link if you like

It is also important to understand that this type of content is not for every social site, these are meant more for the sites that allow you to create a page that you own. Some sites however frown upon this type of content and do not like call to actions in the content and get up tight if there are more then 2 links in the content. Do not be discouraged if your content gets taken down from some sites, learn and tweak and try again. Remember though, the whole purpose is to get the reader to take an action and visit your blog.. so use the content to convince them that they need to do that.

TIPS: Grab a notepad and a pencil and rough out the outline of the content. It is easier to start it out this way then on a computer. Also, create your headline first and then the article… this helps guide you as to what to write about.

Once you have your content ready, you are going to want to optimize the content (we will talk about this tomorrow) and we will also show you how to make a few variations of one article for a few different sites

So, did you get anything worthwhile from this post?

Social Marketing and the Lack of Content with Purpose

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:04:57 +0000

Do you use article marketing at all?

What we mean is do you submit content to places like ezinearticles.com?

About 4 years ago, this strategy of using what are called “article directories” became extremely popular. What was so appealing about it was the search engines seemed to absolutely love these directories and since you could put a “resource box” at the end of the article, you were able to promote your website on these popular sites.

Due to the popularity of this strategy, thousands of directories started popping up all over the place and so did services for both submitting content and also creating it.

The problem was however, that people where creating content that was completely useless and they were also using resource boxes that only had a keyword anchor text link.

The strategy that people focused on was simply getting a backlink and that was it.

Talk About Missing the Big Picture

One of the terms that we use a bit is “purpose” and we are extremly big believers in the practice that you need to clearly understand the purpose of what it is you are doing and always ask yourself…

“is what you are doing right now serving the most effective purpose possible for your business?”

We are also big believers in testing and tracking and one of the things we discovered pretty early on was a lot of these article directories that we were using where very popular with not only the search engines but also with real people looking for help on that topic. Now this is a small percentage of the total but sites like ezinearticles.com gets a HUGE amount of traffic from real people.

So why then were we just giving them garbage for their readers, which more likely then not encouraged the readers to want to avoid our website rather then visit it?

So we started to focus our content on the reader rather then the search engines, we started to create…

Content with PURPOSE!

This does not mean we did not keyword optimize the content, but with every article we submitted we wanted to ensure that the content…

Had a title that got the readers attention
Related to the reader to engage their interest
Gave part of the answer but left them wanting more
Gave them the exact steps to get the rest of the story

By doing this we found that the traffic from sites like ezinearticles.com, skyrocketed!

With social Marketing this strategy is probably more improtant then ever. We are going to be sharing with you a few differnt social sites and services that we use and get pretty good results with by submitting content to and you are going to be faced with a decision to make… and we guarantee you it is very tempting to take the easy way.

What we mean is you are going to find that posting semi unique content on all these different sites is a lot of work and you are going to be tempted to take shortcuts and just copy and paste snippets of text from articles you wrote or PLR and pass that off for good content.

Do NOT fall into that trap!

Remember these social sites have massive amounts of real people surfing their pages and you want to ensure that you provide value to them. Make sure your content has a purpose and it is not just to get a back link. Focus on traffic not just links!

Well, my eyes are going crossed… bad cold going around these pastures and so our hope is this post makes good sense and is not a nyquil induced ramble

Online Social Networks for Link Building or Traffic?

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:00:25 +0000

OK so we all know that Web 2.0 sites (online social networks) are a huge buzz worthy thing. Heck we even hear people talking Web 3.0 which personally we find a little premature and think it is people jumping on the “oh lets coin a new phrase” band wagon.

Anyhooo… yes the power of online social networks is HUGE but if you look around at how they are being used, it is pretty safe to say that 90% really have no clue what they are doing. We are not talking about people not knowing how to use the social networks from a technical standpoint (heck we still dont know how to use most of them, but the ones we do know, we use very well). What we are referring to is people not having a clue from a strategic standpoint.

What is YOUR Strategic Purpose for Using Online Social Networks?

We are sure there are most likely dozens of ideas that could be listed for “purposes” for using social sites but we are willing to bet that the purpose the majority of people focus on, even though they might say it is something else, is restricted to mainly link building, which is a good one but not the best one.

What we mean by that is if all you are focusing on is using these site to get a link back to your site then you are missing about 90% of the power that these social networks offer.

For us there are essentailly four component we look at and try to keep front and center in our minds when using online social networks. These four components are:

1. Multiple Search Engine Listings: The majority of these sites offer publicly accessible pages that you can optimize for and the search engines love them. By doing this correct, you can not only dominate one top spot for a keyword in Google but you (and we do this often) can own the majority (if not all) of the top 10 spots for that one term. Of course you repeat this over and over to own multiple terms.

2. Repeat Traffic: We all know that RSS Subscribers and Mailing Lists are good for being able to stay in touch with your audience which allows you to also market to them. Social Network sites are built with this very thing in mind, well maybe not always the selling part. These sites allow you to get subscribers, followers, fans, communities and more, which means more repeat traffic from people who know you and are interested in what you have to say.

3. Viral Traffic: Have you ever browsed around profiles of people you follow within differnt online social networks? Chances are you have and you have probably requested friends or followed people you found while doing that. This is an extremely powerful part of using these sites and happens more often then people realize.

4. Worthwhile Backlinks: Getting links from popular sites is good but it is also important to get links from different IPs and these social networks are both respected by Google but also provide variety into your backlinks which help boast your sites rankings in the search engines

Together these 4 components focus in on the “purpose” of increasing traffic to our site. By breaking it down we are able to focus on taking advantage of all the features and benefits these sites offer and do not pigeon hole ourselves into just one, such as linkbuilding.

Tomorrow we are going to talk about the “Social Network Mini Net”, which uses these 4 compenents and allows us to dominate the search engines

Questions:

Do you use online social networks?
If not, why not?
What has been your main purpose in using them?
What are your favorites to use?

Skribit Social Suggestions – Might be cool

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:59:28 +0000

Was Twittering and noticed a reference from “Problogger” about this new tool he was checking out called Skribit. The concept of the tool is to help bloggers (like us) figure out what to write about based on readers (like you) requests and votes.

Like any “Social / Web 2.0″ tool, the effectiveness of this will be directly related to the involvement from its users, but personally, we really like the idea!

No matter what your business is, it is always wise to listen to your readers, customers, listeners and so on. Now for bloggers, Skribit makes it very fast and easy…. or so it seems.

So is this tool worth while?

Dont know yet, we just installed it about 45 minutes ago and need to give it a bit to see if any of you actually send in suggestions

Check it out and let us know what you want us to moo about. To use the tool, simple locate the “Skribit” box in our sidebar, directly under the sponsor banners and click in the “What should we write about?” section. Next enter the topic you would like us to write about.

If you like a suggestion already there, then vote for it.

It looks like when a suggestion is answered it disappears… need to figure that out for sure though.

Thats pretty much all there is to it that we can see right now. We will update everyone on our opinion after a few days of use.

Interested to know if any of you have any previous experience with this and any feedback about it? Also, if you have not tried it, what is your initial opinion of it?

Getting the Party Started

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:12:45 +0000

Great! All the technical stuff is done and you can now start filling up your blog with content. We suggest that you at least have 10-20 posts before you even start thinking about telling people about your blog. A blog with no or little content will get nobody excited but yourself. If your blog at least looks the part, visitors will get the idea that they are dealing with an established blogger, someone that could teach them a thing or two, so they’ll be back.

You don’t want to be perceived as the new kid on the block because readers just can’t be bothered with yet another new blogger. Appearance is everything!

Speaking of appearance, make sure that you double check the facts for each and every post before you publish. You don’t want to get caught with your pants down, when it turns out that something you’ve been telling your readers isn’t true. Don’t think people will bother visiting again when they find out you’ve got no idea what you’re blogging about. After the facts, make use of your spelling checker. Nothing turns a reader off more than bad grammar. (Luckily for us, English isn’t our first language, so we can get away with the odd mistake here and there).

With sufficient content in place, you can now start looking for visitors. Networking with peers in your niche is key here. Seek out established bloggers and make sure you start leaving interesting comments on their posts. We say interesting; because that is the only way you will spark their reader’s curiosity. If they feel your comment was a good addition to the whole discussion about the topic, they will hit up your blog to see what else you’ve got to say. Just be genuine with your comments and do not become a comment spam whore, as most readers will be on to you in a second and never visit your blog, EVER.

Remember – “if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain”.

There are tons of ways to get your name out in the blogosphere. Sign up with blog communities like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and Entrecard. In time these sites will help with your name recognition and branding. Do not expect a lot of visitors from them straight away, but it is important that you become a familiar face. Make sure you use only one avatar and stick with that all over the place. Preferably something in your blog’s colors. If you have a mascot like us, use it!

Another powerful tool us bloggers have at our disposal are the social networks that are all around us. If you use the right approach, these can give you tons of visitors from outside the somewhat restricted blogosphere. Here you will find all sorts of Internet users, not only savvy webmasters and bloggers. Why is this good? Because they have probably not heard of whatever affiliate scheme you’re promoting, and they might actually sign up, unlike your peers! Yes, you need to find and target the right crowd if you want to make money online.

Be sure to use the big social media sites like Digg.com, Reddit.com and Del.icio.us with care. Do NOT go around submitting your every post. You’ll be banned before you can say moo, cutting yourself off from a great deal of potential exposure in the future. Preferably, don’t even submit a single one of your own posts, just make sure your readers have a quick option to submit it for you. Use a social plugin for your wordpress blog, perhaps something a little visual, to remind them that they can share whatever post they think is worth sharing. If it’s worthy of sharing, it will be shared. Oh, and don’t forget to ask your online friends for favors, just make sure you don’t start spamming them with requests!

So now you’re commenting on all the right blogs (popular blogs in your niche), you’ve signed up with the blog communities and you’re getting a bit of traffic coming in from social media sites. Well done, on to the next step – contests.

A contest is a great way to get others to write about you. As you are in charge of the entry rules, so you can have other bloggers write about your contest! (e.g to win this fantastic prize XYZ, all you have to do is write a little post on your blog about this contest.) Needless to say; The bigger the prize, the more participants and the more exposure you’ll get. Besides the linkbacks in their post, you could ask them to link back to you with a specific anchor text to increase your SERPS for that keyword. (Careful with this one, Google frowns upon these kind of link building tactics.) Try to find a sponsor – a company that has a lot in common with your blog’s niche. You’ll always have NO if you don’t ask!

Checklist:

Make sure you have plenty of content for new readers before you start your self-promotion. No content equals not interesting equals not coming back.
Quality control. Enough said.
Network with your peers. Comment on the right blogs. Get your name on the blog networks. Use social media with care.
Organize a contest, preferably sponsored by a company in your niche. (Companies have the money to put up a big prize, and big prizes attract big crowds!)

OCD… An Online Marketers Nemesis?

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:25:16 +0000

Do you get caught in the “OCD Loop?”

Do you sit there and hit the send and receive for your email inbox repeatedly, anxiously waiting and looking for “something”… not sure what but “something”? Do you log into your ClickBank or AdSense account 25 times a day, in hopes that something magical has happened? Do you find yourself automatically going to a website, even though you were just there 5 minutes ago and nothing possibly could have changed yet? Do you stop what you are doing everytime the phone rings, even though we know it will take us 20 minutes just to get back into the grove of where we just were… destroying all our momentum.

It is like watching TV (not sure if this is mainly a guy thing here) and constantly flicking to the next channel… we are not sure why we do this, perhaps something is telling us that the most amazing show in the world is on and we are missing it. Regardless of why, the fact is we do and the end result is by the time we shut the TV off, we have not really watched anything.

The same is true for growing your business. You are constantly doing things but at the end of the day nothing is done.

You see the OCD Loop involves a phenomenon among many in the “MMO” field where they exhibit a form of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in the way that they are obsessive about following a specific sequence of actions repeatedly throughout the day, even if they make no sense. If you were paying a person by the hour and saw them doing those activities, you would fire them… or re educate them anyway.

If you’re really honest with yourself, you need to ask yourself how often you actually allow yourself to fall into this OCD Loop, and fail to stay focused on doing the things that bring money into your business. Pinpoint your tendency for falling into this trap, and start thinking of ways to snap out of it when you feel yourself getting sucked into this loop, because it can waste a lot of your time.

STOP THE MADNESS

If at the end of the day you feel exhausted, stressed out and anxious because you know you were busy but are not sure what you have to show for it…. then maybe it is time to do things different.

How… Tell me please.. How?

Well, if there is one thing we have learned is there is no perfect answer for everyone. What works for us might not work for you but what we do recommend you try however, is to ask yourself these two questions…

1. Is what we are doing right now making us or going to make us significant money for our business?

2. If we were paying someone to do what we are doing right now, would we feel good that the money is being well spent?

These two questions might not do it for you, but we hope you see our point here. Busy work does not mean quality work. Focus on your ROI (Return on Investment) and treat your business like a business.

Relisted : Profitable Adsense Templates Business For Sale

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:47:05 +0000

So we thought we had a done deal with the first guy that emailed us to buy GoogleTime.info. Unfortunately he came back after a while with a poor excuse about delays with the domain name transfer (the registrar’s fault, not ours) and he called the whole thing off. So lucky you, the website is up for sale again. Unfortunately the site has been sitting on it’s ass from the time that we ‘sold’ it until now. Without any marketing or promotion done, we’ve missed out on some good passive income. Ah well, crap happens.

Anyways, we’ve emailed all the others that had shown interest when the site was up for sale the first time, but only a handful got back to us. Perhaps they’re on holidays or we landed in their spambox. We figured we’d keep everyone up to date and what better way to do so than to blog it?

Here’s the original post, in case you might have overlooked it. We’ve also added the PayPal screenshots that some people requested. Please respond ONLY if you’re ready to make a deal. The first ‘buyer’ wasted our precious time and we don’t wan’t to go through that process again.

With a minimum investment in marketing (a couple of posts on this blog, a few 125×125 banners on other blogs and a $25 investment to buy 100k bulk traffic) and a minimum of maintenance (a couple of emails from people who didn’t receive their login details) GoogleTime.info made us about $1500 in just 6 weeks!

It would probably have been much more if we had put more time into the project, but as you all know, we just had nearly a month of R&R down under, with very little online time. The times we did go online and quickly checked our paypal balances, there were always a couple of $29,95 sales added. Its awesome to make money even while you’re not working

Anyway, we’ve been there and done that and would like to move on to a new challenge now. That’s why we’re going to sell the whole site. We’ll be including the artwork we had done specifically for the site; 125×125 and 300×250 banners. We know the rule of thumb is 10-12 times the monthly income, but we’re happy with just $3000 for the whole setup.

For $3000 you’ll get the site, aged domain name, custom banners and of course the linkbacks that are in place (We didn’t pay anyone for any links but other blogs have linked back to Googletime.info as soon as we launched it, so we’re assuming these will stay in place.) We’ll also throw in a month of free advertising with the two banners right here on JohnCow dot Com. All you need to do is change the paypal address to your own and you are good to go. As you can see, we made a good bit of money with the site and you can too, obviously depending on the time and effort you put into it. You can put your own pricetag on the package and there’s still plenty of Internet users that have never heard of it. With the right marketing, this will easily keep bringing in the cash.

If you’re interested in buying this little money maker, drop us an email via the contact form. We’ll put the site up for sale on the usual webmaster forums in 48 hours and will set the BIN (Buy it Now) price higher than the special $3000 JohnCow.com readers price

Unique Ways Of Marketing Your Blog To Build Loyal Readers

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:38:15 +0000

Here are some of the techniques that I am or am planning to use to build steady loyal readers to my blog.

Opt in email list. If you do not have one (work on getting one) advertise on someone else’s list or newsletter. I write a short newsletter with links to my blog.You can also use your list in the future to remind readers who may have strayed or just have not visited in a while.

Craigslist, Backpage, …. Your key word targeted ad will get picked up quickly and rank high on search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

Offline Ads. Free ads, t-shirts, car magnets, signs especially if your blog has a local presence are all great ways to promote your blog.

Google local search. List your blog as a business with your key words as the name of the business. You can get a number one listing on Google local search with a map and everything. You could do this in many major markets where you had friends or family (so you could use their addresses). This could add up to many #1 spots on Google, and other local searches you submit to.

You could easily replace “Sell House Fast of Florida” with “Make Money Online With Your Site of Any Place You Have An Address In”

If you place enough of these for your key words as the business name. It will produce a steady of quality traffic.

Put something on Ebay .Use a free outside listing template service like Auctiva with links to your site. Maybe you could auction an ad space on your site or a review.

Viral video. Make a stupid, exciting, or funny video with a link to your blog and get it on as many social video sharing sites as possible.

Local media outlets. Contact local the media with a story idea related to your niche. Get you and your blog mentioned as an expert. Start with smaller papers or TV stations first.

If you are just getting started on a budget you are forced to think outside the box and come up with creative free and low cost ideas.

What are some of your ideas and tips for marketing yourself and your blog?

Sonny Collova is an expert real estate investor, consultant, and mortgage broker who would like to earn a full time living online blogging, consulting, marketing and writing about real estate, finance, and Costa Rica. Please check out his blog www.investor-market.com .

Stumbling Along with StumbleUpon

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:26:00 +0000

Post by Becky @ PreBlogging.com. Becky takes the simple approach to explain blogging topics with a no nonsense approach to things.

What is StumbleUpon ?

StumbleUpon.com is a unique website, which allows users to jump from random website to random website. It’s great for idling the evening away. It comes in the form of a tool bar add-on for Internet Explorer, and via this you can rate sites and submit new sites. The more positive stumbles a site receives, the more likely StumbleUpon will send users your way.

What can StumbleUpon do for me ?

Here is a link to my StumbleUpon page for preblogging.com/blog. It was submitted here sometime last week, and has received 11 positive votes, which has resulted in almost 800 unique visitors. StumbleUpon also offers users to pay for views too. Prices run at about 5 cents per visitor. With getting in essence free visitors to your site, you can be sure that the numbers of commentators and the numbers of people subscribing to your blog will increase.

Will StumbleUpon make me rich ?

Sadly, the answer to this is no. StumbleUpon users aren’t known for being great ad clickers (like digg.com traffic), but it can be a good way to increase your traffic and to get some people to start to read your blog or websute.

How to get traffic via StumbleUpon

Some of the more interesting things I’ve noticed in the past is that the more friends you have and the more reviews of the pages you have the better the traffic will be. I’ve also found that contacting the top stumblers and getting them to review your site doesn’t hurt either. You can find the list of top stumblers here.
For More you can go to PreBlogging.com and read my 5 Step Guide to start Blogging

Edit: let’s all stumble this article to see what exactly Stumble Upon can do!