Internet Business Mastery: Business Development and Internet Marketing for the Web 2.0 Age » Traffic Generation

How We Got to #1 in Google for a Competitive Keyword Phrase

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:05:25 +0000

When we started Internet Business Mastery, we made a decision to target “internet business” as our primary keyword phrase. Since then we have consistently ranked well for that phrase in Google. Most the time we have floated around between #3 and #7. Last month we finally hit #1 (at least in the U.S.).

Let’s take a look at how we did it.

NOTE: Keep in mind that ranks vary per country. In addition, if you are logged into your Google account, this can affect the results that you see. Here is a good site for checking rankings around the world.

First, it’s important to understand the foundation principles we had in place, then we I’ll talk about what finally put us to the top.

The following three things have each greatly influenced our search engine success.

1. We publish frequent, consistent quality content

The content we post is all focused on our niche topic. Every week we put up episodes of the podcast and/or blog posts to our site. Google has always and will always love great content.

2. Our primary keyword is in our domain name

This greatly increases the chances that we will rank well for our primary phrase since it makes us obviously relevant to the keyword.

In addition, it boosts the power of the links pointing back to our site. When someone links to us, they most likely use the name of our site in the link. Since our name contains our primary keyword, it increases the “value” that Google places on that link.

3. Our site has been optimized for our primary keyword

We use the phrase in our key places on our site so that Google sees us as both authoritative and relative when it comes to our topic. This includes using the phrase in meta tags, site title, tagline, headers, links and image descriptions. This is known as on-page optimization and something that we teach in our Academy.

So beyond those three basic principles, what was it that finally pushed us to the top? The answer is…

Consistent Link-Building

Google uses an elaborate algorithm in order to determine which site is most authoritative for a given topic. One of the most important factors that they consider is the number and quality of links pointing back to your site.

By creating consistent quality content, you already encourage a certain amount of linking to you by other sites. But beyond that, there are a number of things that you can do to help the process along.

Google likes to see a consistent and “natural” development of links pointing to your site. So starting a few months ago, we assigned a member of our team to spend some time each day building links.

With a consistent link-building strategy in place, we finally hit #1 after only a few months. Again, keep in mind that we had already done a number of fundamental things to place ourselves in the top ten. But focusing on links gave us the edge we needed.

Link-Building Plan, As Easy as 1-2-3

There are a number of strategies you can use to build links to your site. We go into this in great detail in the Academy. Here are three strategies that you can try right away.

Create social networking profiles that contain links to your site
Submit your site to directories
Guest post on authoritative sites in your niche with a byline that contains a link back to you

The first two strategies are ideal to assign to a virtual assistant or staff member. Even 15-30 minutes a day will go a long way. Give it a go for a few months and see what different it makes in your own Google rankings. Results will vary depending on…

How well your site is optimized already
How competitive the phrase is
How much effort the competition is putting into their search strategy

No matter what, your site traffic will benefit from a link-building plan.

What other strategies have worked well for you to boost your search rank? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Thank you for subscribing to Internet Business Mastery feed. For instant access to your free audio gift and a risk-free trial of our proven step-by-step program for starting your own profitable internet business, please visit http://www.freeaudiogift.com.

A Truly Automated Twitter Traffic Strategy

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:41:13 +0000

One of the quickest ways to build a following and get traffic is with Twitter. The problem is that if you don’t do it right, it will end up sucking up all of your time. Over the last several months we’ve carefully put together a Twitter strategy that runs on autopilot.

The following video explains it fast. I recorded it while in New York City to speak at BlogWorld Expo. I was asked to share my best Twitter tip in under five minutes. Here it is…

To get all of our latest videos, subscribe to our Internet Business YouTube channel here.

What tips have you found to automate and streamline your Twitter strategy? What questions do you have about the strategy covered in the video? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Traffic and Conversion Webinar Replay

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:36:40 +0000

This week’s Traffic and Conversion Webinar had more people register for it than any other that we’ve done. We’ve had lots of e-mail requests to watch a recording.

And here it is for you to enjoy!

[VIDEO] This is so exciting, I can barely sleep!

Sterling (Jeremy Frandsen) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:06:19 +0000

It finally happened to me.

I guess finally isn’t really the right word since this is still so new you cannot market with keywords yet! It’s been around for a couple years, but most of the IM world still hasn’t dived it.

Course, there are a couple super early adopters that are all in and I’ve been gathering all the resources and courses I can to take advantage of this early phase of a new thing.

What is it?

MOBILE! Or rather, mobile marketing.

Now, I haven’t made a video in a while, so here is a quick one with my recommendation on getting started on your journey to internet business AND mobile marketing, check it out.

5 Ways to Boost Web Traffic

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:43:21 +0000

Last week I talked about four ways to make more money online. In this post I’ll discuss the first of those four — attract more web traffic.

Web traffic is the top of your sales funnel online. More site traffic leads to more prospects (list opt-ins). More prospects lead to more sales. So we can see that boosting web traffic will directly lead to a boost in income. Here are five tips to help you attract more traffic.

1. Content Marketing is Fundamental

If I was limited to only ONE traffic strategy for my business, it would be creating frequent, valuable content for my audience. This has long been the lifeblood of our business. In fact, until today we have never paid for a lead. For five years we have just produced free content, posted it to our site and syndicated it across the Internet.

No matter what Google does, no matter what is the tool of the hour (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), producing content will ALWAYS attract traffic.

Before you get fancy with your web traffic strategy or pay to drive traffic to your site, make sure you have a solid content marketing strategy in place. This can be blog, audio and/or video. This is the core of what we teach in the Academy.

2. Track Everything

Watch your web statistics to see where traffic is coming from. We use Google Analytics. You need to know what is working and what is not.

An additional strategy is to set up “internal affiliates” in your affiliate tracking system so you know not only where traffic is coming from, but what traffic is producing sales.

For examples, we have an affiliate set up called IBM Podcast. When someone goes to FreeAudioGift.com (which we mention in every episode) they are tracked as coming through the affiliate link for IBM Podcast.

3. Do More of What’s Working

If blogging is working, try posting more often. Granted, there is a point of diminishing returns, but you don’t know until you try. When we went from two show episodes a month to three, we saw a boost in sales.

If you have a paid campaign (e.g. Google Adwords) that produces a net positive profit, then don’t limit your budget. Buy as much inventory as you can.

4. Syndicate Across New Channels

If your content is attracting new traffic, syndicate it across new channels. Get it in front of more people. Go where you audience is. Syndication strategies include:

Publishing your audio or video show in iTunes
Transcribing your episodes and posting them to your blog
Re-writing your transcripts and posting them to article directories
Posting your videos to popular video sharing sites
Adding slides to your audio show and posting them to YouTube.
Breaking your content into 140-character tips that you post to Twitter

And that just scratches the surface. This kind of syndication is what I teach in the Traffic Attraction Formula course.

5. Fast, Targeted Traffic

Here are three ways you can get more targeted web traffic starting today.

Guest post on other blogs that are related to your topic
Arrange with a joint-venture partner for them to promote your site in exchange for a commission on sales
Pay for Google Adwords traffic (our recommended course for learning how to do that is here)

What other web traffic strategies have worked for you? What questions do you have about attracting traffic? Post your comments and questions below.

The “Mini Oprah Method”

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Thu, 20 May 2010 08:54:42 +0000

OK, here’s what’s going on . . .

I just posted a 3rd no-charge training video for you . . .

Traffic Attraction Formula

I call this video the “Mini Oprah Method” video.

And it’s the video where everything finally “comes together” and I teach you exactly how to create a “no hype, no BS, no ‘selling’ involved” online business that pays you really well.

Traffic Attraction Formula

Just like my last couple videos (if you haven’t watched them you can by following the link), this video is ALL CONTENT . . .

In fact it’s stuff that I’ve only ever taught to my high-end coaching students before. (So you should check it out while you can . . . it won’t be up for long) . . .

Traffic Attraction Formula

Check out the video and tell me what you think.

And at the end of this video I “come clean” about what all of this is about. Did you guess? =-)

Why Big Lists Suck

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:15:43 +0000

Whew! Had to work overtime to get it done on time, but I just posted this new video for you to learn from . . .

Traffic Attraction Formula

I call this video “The Myth of the Big List” because in it I go “MythBusting” and
totally debunk the whole idea of having to build a HUGE list to make it online.

Check out the story of how my TINY list beat out a big “Guru” list 17 TIMES it’s
size dollar for dollar and lead for lead. It’s a total “David versus Goliath” story . . .

Traffic Attraction Formula

Plus I show you STEP BY STEP how to build a “tiny but powerful” list
in shockingly little time.

This video might “piss off” some people who tell you the only
way to make it online is to build a HUGE list. Better watch it while you can.

Traffic Attraction Formula

Check out the video and let me know what you think.

An “Alternate” Way to Make It Online

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Thu, 13 May 2010 02:48:45 +0000

I just put up a new video for you. I think you’re really going to want to check it out . . .

Traffic Attraction Formula

This video is really important because it kind of “spits in the face” of a lot of ideas you might have about how you “make it” in internet marketing . . .

In fact, it actually shows you the EXACT steps Sterling and I took to build our little “internet empire,” even though according to a lot of the “gurus” we do just about everything wrong.

Traffic Attraction Formula

I call it the “Alternate Universe” video because it’s about a whole “Alternate” way of building your business online . . . without having to worry about PPC, SEO, running launches, building a huge list . . . or even spending one second thinking about Google.

Also, I get kind of personal in this video and reveal some stuff about my upbringing that I haven’t really ever talked about before.

Go check out the video. I think you’ll get a lot out of it.

Traffic Attraction Formula

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Rob Burns -GUEST- — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:50:10 +0000

So what exactly is SEO? The acronym SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and in simple terms means the process of optimizing a web site by improving the coding, design and off page factors thus making it attractive to search engines. Although it can be broken down into much smaller categories, basic SEO falls under two primary areas.

On Page Factors

The first area is ‘on page’ factors. If you have good ‘on page’ factoring, it means that the pages of your website are properly optimized to let the search engines know what your site is about and that you offer quality content and proper coding. In terms of importance ‘on page’ factors account for about thirty to forty percent of the SEO mix.

Off Page Factors

The second area contributing to good SEO results are the ‘off page’ factors. ‘Off page’ basically refers to links from other web addresses that are pointing to your site. Having other websites point to your site gives your pages a vote of confidence and, in turn, helps the search engines determine if your site is important and relevant. ‘Off page’ factors carry a lot of weight and account for about sixty to seventy percent of SEO relevance.

If you are new to SEO, learning what works and developing an effective strategy can be an intimidating proposition. But in reality, implementing only a few basic and simple tactics will go a long way towards helping your website look more attractive to the search engines and propel you to the coveted first page of search engine results.

Why Bother?

You might ask, why should I bother trying to get my site to the first page of search engine results? The answer, my friend, is free traffic, which is personally my favorite kind! In search, there are two methods to get more traffic to your website. Paid search and organic search traffic.

Organic search results for a particular website appear on search engine radars because the search engines believe that particular website is very relevant to the specific search term. This type of search engine traffic is considered free traffic and is based on the credibility and authority of the website.

Paid search results are based on advertisers who are paying to have their sites show up when a particular search term is being researched. Usually, but not always, paid search results will be visibly segregated from organic results.

In commercial real estate, a common saying is location, location, location. If you want your brick and mortar business to prosper, you need to be in a location where there is heavy traffic that is looking for what you have to offer. The same is true for your internet business. If your website is ranks well with the search engines, you will have a lot of free traffic from folks searching for what you have to offer. This is the allure of organic search results. With the exception of a little sweat equity, your traffic is basically free!

Once you understand the benefits and importance of free organic traffic it pays to learn about the major players. According to the Nielsen Reports in December 2009, Google Search accounted for 67.3% of all search traffic on the internet, followed by Yahoo! at 14.4%, with MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search coming in last at 9.9%. It is pretty easy to deduct from these stats that Google is the 800 pound gorilla of search engines. With this in mind, it is logical that most of your optimizing efforts will be for the mighty G. But that’s not to say you shouldn’t keep an eye on your stat results from the smaller engines. Sometimes a key phrase that is difficult to rank high in Google will perform well in a less competitive search engine. It pays to keep your eye on your site traffic statistics to help uncover and develop a keyword diamond in the rough.

Now that we have “what is SEO” out of the way I will concentrate on how to get free traffic by using SEO. In future articles I will provide you with the Do’s and Don’ts of SEO in easy to understand language that will give you the tools to become your own SEO in-house expert.

My next article will explain Keywords and will answer the most common questions I hear. What are keywords? Why they are important and what tools should I use to find the right keywords for my website. Until then, may the Gods of prosperity shine down upon your website!

Rob Burns is an internet marketing expert. He also consults, speaks and writes about search engine optimization, internet marketing, and social media. For more of his irreverent tidbits on internet marketing visit Rob Burns Brain.com

You’re still not using Adwords? Seriously?

Cory Huff -GUEST- — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:03:18 +0000

You’re still not using Adwords? Seriously?

Internet Business Mastery readers – you guys are serious about business. I know you are. I talk to Jay and see how much time & money is invested in this community. I’ve even met a few of you and I know that you’re talented, successful business owners.

But some of you still aren’t using Adwords.

Which kinda blows my mind. A little.

What is Adwords?

It’s Google’s advertising system. You know those ads that show up on the top highlighted box and the right column when you do a Google search? Those ads are put there by businesses paying on a per-click basis for the ads. Prices vary depending on your industry and the keywords you’re trying to bid on.

How do I use Adwords?

Google has a 90 second video that will show you how to set up your account.

Before you set up your account and go nuts…

You are tracking your web traffic, right?

Please tell me yes. It’s so easy to track the number of people who are coming to your website, as well as the amount of time they spend there and what they click on. If you’re not doing that yet, then visit Google.com/analytics and set up your tracking software for free (yes, there are other options – if you don’t like Google try Stattracker or Woopra).

After you have tracking setup, you’ll need to do a little bit of research before you give Adwords your credit card.

Research, research, research

One of the biggest mistakes that Adwords newbies make is picking basic keywords that don’t really reflect their business. Real estate agents pick ‘Real Estate,’ and Plumbers pick ‘Plumbing.’ Please don’t do this. Can you imagine how many people are trying to compete on those words?

The easiest place to do research is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool This is a free tool that you can use to do some research and see how much search traffic there is for certain keywords, and get suggestions for different variations of what people are typing in to Google to find what you do.

Other common problems for Adwords newbies:

I’m not getting enough clicks. You may not have your maximum budget set high enough. If you’re only bidding $1 per click and your competition is bidding $2 – $3, then you’re not going to appear as high on the page. You also may not be bidding on the right keywords. Go back to the research and make sure you’re targeting the right keywords. Lastly, you may want to adjust your ad text to get the right catchy phrase to draw people in.

Uh, I got 5,712 clicks, but no sales. I can’t tell you how many client accounts I’ve looked at like this. If you’re getting a lot of clicks but no sales, then you could be bidding on the wrong keywords. Expensive mistake. Again, go back to the research and make sure you’re targeting the right searches. The other option is that your website sucks at closing sales. I can drive a million people to your store, but if your salesperson can’t close the deal, you need a new salesperson (or you need to do more training). Your website is your online salesperson.

Holy Cow! I spent a bajillion dollars! How did that happen? My favorite mistake, because it’s extremely common. Turn off the Content Network. That’s the setting that makes your ads appear in Gmail and other places that aren’t search engines. Stay away from the Content Network if you’re a newbie. You’ll spend a lot of money and never see anything in return.

Even though Adwords is easy to set up, there is a lot to learn for new advertisers. You can learn more yourself by visiting the Adwords Learning Center or you can hire an Adwords professional to help you (you could also tell Sterling & Jay to have me back to do another guest post).

I’d be really curious to read about your experiences with Adwords. Has it been good? Did it drain your credit card and leave you nothing? Let us know in the comments below.

Cory Huff is an actor and web entrepreneur. He fell into online marketing in 2004 when he was trying to get people to come see his shows. Now he helps artists and small business owners with their search engine marketing and social media efforts. You can contact him about freelance work at CoryHuff.com. He teaches artists how to sell art online at TheAbundantArtist.com.

Free Traffic-Getting Plugin for WordPress

Sterling (Jeremy Frandsen) — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:15:34 +0000

“That was the best interview you’ve had in the Academy yet.”
That’s what my friend and Internet Business Mastery
Academy member, Brett, said to me right after we
released the interview with Jeff Johnson earlier this year.

And it’s no wonder. Jeff turns out amazing ideas about how to
generate traffic with WordPress. And now he’s done it again.

Free Traffic-Getting SEO Plugin…

that’s what Jeff Johnson calls it.

It’s his newest free SEO software that you can use to grab more
free traffic from the search engines.

All you have to do it plug it into your blog and his software does
all the rest.

Check it out here:

Don’t worry…

If you already have a WP blog you can simply plug it in and let
it work its Traffic-Getting magic.

And if you don’t have a blog…Jeff shows you how to install a
free one in as little as 2 minutes using a secret “push a button”
technology that even the newest of newbies could use.

The great thing about Jeff’s brand-new Free Traffic-Getting SEO
Plugin is that…

It couldn’t be easier to use and it’s…

100% free and Installs in minutes.

Grab it here now:

Enjoy!

IBM 62 | The Online Business Blueprint, Part 4

Sterling (Jeremy Frandsen) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:34:18 +0000

Download audio file (IBM062.mp3)

In this episode of Internet Business Mastery, we discuss The Online Business Blueprint, Part 4. Plus, we have an automation program that can save you HOURS of busy work a week.

CLICK HERE to get immediate access to Internet Business Mastery Academy, where you will get full access to ALL of our courses, tools, and resources for creating your own internet business and escaping the 9-to-5.

Each month we add at least one new internet business course, a Grill the Guru interview, and new video tutorials in the Million Dollar Rolodex.

Help us help YOU!

Let us know what YOU what, take our SURVEY.

Items mentioned in the episode:

Hire a VA to do the work for you: getreplacemyself.com
Arp Lazio – echoleaf.com
Get the Macro program we use: internetbusinessmastery.com/macro
Let us know what YOU what, take our SURVEY.

Join us on Twitter!

Twitter

Video

IBM 62 | The Online Business Blueprint, Part 4

Transcripts

Transcripts of IBM 62 | The Online Business Blueprint, Part 4

What do YOU think?

What traffic generation methods have worked well for you?

Download the MP3

3 Underused but Powerfully Profitable Marketing Opportunities for 2009

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:56:22 +0000

To help you have the best year ever in 2009, here’s a collection of underused trends that are full of opportunity for boosting your business.

It should be noted that you don’t need to tackle them all at once. Pick one to start with. Once you get it rolling, then you can move on to another.

Massive Content Syndication

People are going online in droves to learn, be entertained, be inspired and connect with other people like them.

Your goal should be to show up wherever they look online – Google, YouTube, Facebook, Ebay, iTunes etc. This preeminent presence will establish you as the go-to- person in your niche.

This doesn’t mean tripling your content output. It simply means taking the content that you already create and devising a simple system for repurposing it across multiple channels.

As an example, you could read an article to create a podcast. Ad photos/slides to the audio to make a video. Your VA can help you make it happen. Voila! You have three different formats to syndicate across multiple channels.

Take Action: Devise a system for taking one piece of content and syndicating it across at least three channels.

Social Network Ads

Remember when Google Adwords was brand new and prime placements were rips for the picking? Well, it’s a lot more competitive now.

The next age of targeted ad placement has arrived on networks such as YouTube and Facebook.

YouTube has the sixth largest audience on the web. Facebook is the second most visited social network just behind Blogger.

Both Facebook and YouTube now offer extremely targeted and efficient ways to get ads in front of specific demographics.

Do you have a scuba shop? You can have your ad placed in the sidebar of anyone on Facebook that mentions ‘scuba’ in their interests. Have a dating course for young women? Place an ad on the page of any single girl between the age of 18 and 30.

Maybe you have a hot video that’s just begging to get attention on YouTube. Help it along by paying to get prime sponsored placement when someone searches for your primary keywords.

This style of advertising is still new. The masses have not yet flooded in causing the competition (and hence ad prices) to rise.

Get in early and profit big!

Take Action: Start an advertising campaign in Facebook or YouTube that specifically targets your demographic/keywords.

iPhone Apps

iPhones have become a cultural icon. Their popularity continues to rise rapidly. With the launch of the iTunes App Store in 2008, Apple opened the doors to developers to create useful programs for the iPhone and iPod Touch. At the same time they created a new industry.

Entire businesses are being made from selling useful and entertaining applications for $0.99 to $9.99 to the tune of millions of dollars a year for some application designers.

Perhaps the best, and most overlooked, opportunity here is the chance to market your business in a popular content search engine – iTunes.

By providing a free application that solves a primary need/desire of your market, you can attract significant traffic from the iTunes App Store, engage your market and even integrate yourself into their daily routine.

An example would be a nutrition/fitness retailer providing a branded calorie and exercising tracking application.

If you have any doubts about the potential traffic here, then let us point out that that Internet Business Mastery has become a six-figure a year business largely due to iTunes traffic.

Take Action: Brainstorm a useful application for your market. Hire a developer (perhaps from Elance.com) to build it for you.

What Do You Think?

What other opportunities/trends do you plan on taking advantage of in 2009?

Book of the Month for September 2008 | Beyond Booked Solid by Michael Port

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:39:45 +0000

Last month we read Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port which provided solid advice about how to attract more clients than you can handle. The problem is, what do you do with all those clients so that your business doesn’t rule your life.

Well, Michael’s follow up book teaches principles to help you create systems for your business so that it is a cash machine that fuels your lifestyle without taking over your life at the same time. It’s all about making more money working less less.

If you’re a member of the Internet Business Mastery Academy, you’ll get to hear a one-hour discussion between me and Sterling about the most important principles and action steps that we took from the book. You’ll also get to hear our interview with Michael Port.

Buy the Book

Buy the Book Here

Win a Copy of this Month’s Book

This month, anyone who comments on the blog will be entered to win a copy of the book. So comment away and we’ll chose someone at random to receive a copy of Beyond Booked Solid. The deadline is September 30th.

What do you think?

Have you read the book? What was the most important thing that you learned from the book?

How Use Twitter as a Marketing Tool Starting Immediately Pt 1

Sterling (Jeremy Frandsen) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:17:49 +0000

Despite (or perhaps due to) its simplicity, Twitter has become a powerful tool for developing relationships with friends, colleagues and even customers. In the age of social media, relationship building is an essential ingredient for successful marketing.

Think of Twitter as a mini-blog. The fundamental use is to post what you’re doing at any given time, although the kinds of things posted to Twitter vary widely. We often post thoughts or things that grab our attention.

Each post is 144 characters or less. You can post from your computer, instant messaging or mobile phone text messages (hence the 144 character limit).

If this still seems a bit muddy, feel free to check out twitter.com/jasonvo and twitter.com/jeremyfrandsen to see our posts.

People can follow your Twitter posts. Your “followers” automatically get your updates on the web, to their cell phone or by RSS depending on their settings.

In this two-part series we’ll show how you can start using Twitter immediately in your marketing mix.

1. Go to Twitter.com and click on Get Started-Join.

2. Select your username and fill in the other requested info.

3. You can have Twitter search your email contact list for friends/colleagues that are already using Twitter. This is a great way to get started following people.

4. Click on the settings link. It’s important to fill in your URL, short bio and location. This helps people find you and decide whether to follow you. Make your bio gripping like a tagline. Also, the URL is hot-linked giving you an additional inbound link to your site.

5. Click on the Picture tab and add a photo. This helps people recognize your posts.

6. Consider adding a custom background image to your Twitter page that tells more about who you are. You can do this by going to Settings > Design. Jay uses his business card designs. An image 300 pixels wide is the max you should use.

7. Tell your email list, blog readers, podcast listeners, site visitors, etc about your Twitter page/feed. Your Twitter page is twitter.com/your-username.

NOTE: Your Twitter feed will be attractive to your hyper-followers/fans. These are the ones that want an inside glimpse at what you do. Use your posts to build relationships with these people and turn them into evangelizers for your brand.

8. Search for people that you want to connect with. Click the Follow button to get their updates. Look at who they are following for my ideas of who you can follow. Every time you follow someone, they get an email notifying them. They may follow you in turn.

TIP: Don’t follow too many people at first. This makes it look like you are blatantly trying to get followers. It can backfire.

In the next installment, we’ll talk about what to post to get maximum promotion and relationship-building benefit. We’ll also share some of the other creative uses that we’ve found for Twitter.

Traffic Generation for Lazy People

Sterling (Jeremy Frandsen) — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:55:44 +0000

So, I have decided to add my new project to the Case Study pile. I’m in the process of putting together a blog with super simple, step by step web traffic tips for those who would rather be off creating fantastic lifestyles rather then spending a lifetime studying all the in’s and out’s of traffic generation. But, in order to give you EXACTLY what you want when it comes to traffic generation, I need to get your opinion on a few things. I have a super quick survey for you and I want to know what you think! Take just a minute right now and click the link below.

Take the QUICK Traffic Survey

Thanks,

Sterling

P.S. What is your top traffic generation concern?

Internet Business Mastery Coaching Course Video and Audio Preview!

Sterling (Jeremy Frandsen) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:23:25 +0000

We’re so excited and, to be honest, proud of our latest Coaching Course that we want EVERYONE to see it. Short of just giving it to everyone, we decided to give you a couple previews of the course. The course contains online videos, MP3 audio, mind maps, transcripts, bonus audio and video, tips, a rolodex of every service provider we personally use and, just when you think that’s it, NOPE, there’s even more!

So, today we wanted to show you some previews of the course. You can get even MORE previews by signing up for our Coaching Course “Early Notification” list and get our Keyword Research Webinar and our incredibly popular MP3 audio titled, “Becoming an Expert”.

First, we would like to show you a section of video from one of TWO traffic modules in the Coaching Course. Yes, we had to do 2 modules since traffic is so important and everyone loves a pile of traffic tips. This section is from the classic traffic generation module. The other traffic generation module is about cutting edge social media traffic tips, available only in the Coaching Course.

Watch the video in the player below (you can make it full screen by clicking on the monitor icon in the player).

Or Download the video preview here

Last, but not least, we have an excerpt from one of our weekly Q&A audio recording for the module on “Choosing Your Own Niche.” Every week our coaching students have access to us directly by a special student only email where they can ask all the questions they can think of, usually pertaining to the last course module. The Q&As go as long as needed to answer EVERY question! Here’s a little sample:

Download audio file (Internet%20Business%20Mastery%20Coaching%20Q%26A%20Preview.mp3)

The Q&A refers to the Keyword Research Webinar that you can get and watch right now by signing up for our Coaching Course “Early Notification” list by clicking the link below:

http://www.internet-based-business-mastery.com/coaching/

IBM 32 | 5 Ways to Use Recorded Content to Continually Make Money and Drive Traffic

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:17:42 +0000

Download This Episode

In this episode of Internet Business Mastery we discuss five ways that you can use coaching recorded content to continue to make money and attract traffic. We use examples from what we have planned with the content from the Internet Business Mastery Coaching Course.

We also discuss three big lessons that we learned from the process of doing an online coaching course.

Items mentioned in this episode:

Brian Clark – Copyblogger
Sterling’s top course and book recommendations
Voice over talent deal for Internet Business Mastery listeners

Buzz Marketing Case Study Part Three

Dean Hunt -Guest- — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:35:45 +0000

Buzz/Viral Marketing Myths

Today I am going to be discussing the long term effects of viral marketing, and also the mistakes that nearly every webmaster makes with viral marketing.

Every time I mention viral marketing I get a series of comments and questions that are identical. Almost like clockwork I can guarantee that webmasters will make the same mistakes and pre-conceptions about my viral success.

I used to ignore these questions… I thought that these webmasters were at best ill-informed, and at worst they were jealous. But I have come to realize that they are good questions/perceptions… just incorrect ones.

Before we get started I want to stress that despite me using Digg.com as the focus of my articles, buzz/viral marketing is NOT just about the Digg homepage. Buzz marketing is being mentioned on other blogs, having your stuff discussed on forums, people subscribing to your feeds and asking their friends to do the same, mentioning you via email, etc…

Reminder: Buzz/Viral Marketing = Creating content that will be linked to and discussed.

If you are against that, then you are against almost EVERY website on the net… including your own.

So let’s start with some of the other popular misconceptions about buzz/viral marketing:

Here is the biggest and most popular misconception of them all…

Viral Marketing Campaigns Just Bring Worthless Traffic And They Don’t Make Any Money

There are so many ways I could go with this, I really don’t know where to start.

There is a lot more to buzz marketing than just being on the Digg main page. It affects the success of blog posts, your perceived authority on a subject and your online popularity.

Let’s be honest, the closest you are going to get to perfectly targeted, high value traffic is via Google Adwords. However, AdWords is NOT a free technique, so you cannot really compare the two.

Secondly, just because something isn’t perfectly targeted doesn’t mean that it is not worth doing. Did you know there are tons of direct marketers who made millions from blasting out random letters to people? If they were lucky they would get a 0.01% success rate, but they still spent a small fortune to send their letters.

What about companies that advertise during the Superbowl? Should we ban all Superbowl adverts just because the audience is not a targeted audience? Do you really think that 100% of Superbowl fans are looking for a godaddy account?

Viral marketing is a FREE technique, nobody said it is the goose that lays golden eggs. In my opinion it is the most powerful FREE technique on the net. WillItBlend.com created a hugely popular and profitable company with their viral stunt. So to answer the question of how much money you can make from viral marketing… just ask the owners of WillItBlend.com.

I could show you loads of companies and websites that have become hugely powerful due to their buzz and marketing campaigns. Some are worth tens of millions from their viral/buzz content. But I promised to keep this case study about my experience, so here we go:

How much money have I made from viral/buzz marketing?

Answer: To date I believe I am around $80,000 richer because of my viral successes. Had I chosen to take advantage of all the money that has been offered to me, I would say this figure would be well over $180,000 (I would probably be incredibly stressed though).

I will tell you exactly how I got this figure in a moment.

First I need to answer another popular question:

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A SUCCESSFUL VIRAL CAMPAIGN?

People always ask me for an exact amount, by asking this question I know instantly that they have never had any viral success.

Most webmasters, bloggers, marketing experts and SEO experts agree that links are by far the most valuable aspect of any website. Personally, I have bought and sold many websites, and one of the most important factors for me is backlinks. I have seen pr8 sites with zero revenue sell for huge amounts of money, and I have seen brand new websites that made $2,000 in the first week sell for a very low amount.

Links help drive traffic, they increase your pagerank, and this leads to you being able to sell text links, they also allow you to make money by selling ad space and rank well in Google, which by itself can bring a huge amount of daily traffic.

Personally, I believe that links are highly valuable. Viral marketing drives tons of powerful and relevant links, therefore viral marketing is valuable!

The PPC/Affiliate brigade

Disclaimer: Throughout this article I may refer to the PPC/Affiliate brigade. I don’t want to stereotype an entire industry – hell, many of these guys make more money than I could ever dream of. However, many people who work with PayPerClick are used to getting daily reports that show how much money they made for that day. Often they will even analyze it per hour. This way of thinking/reporting simply doesn’t work for SEO, branding and buzz marketing.

A great example of this is the Google sandbox. Generally sites tend to struggle to rank well for competitive terms for the first 8 to 9 months. So by using the logic of the PPC brigade, it is not worth organically promoting a website or building links for 9 months.

Some people cannot see past the end of their nose, but I will show you that viral success can be very valuable over the long term.

BACKLINKS = VALUABLE

I am not going to explain the value of backlinks, if you don’t already know the value, then you need to start studying it ASAP.

So let’s talk about the backlinks I got from my viral successes:

Initially I got a link from the major social sites:

Digg.com

Reddit.com

Slashdot.org

Netscape.com

As you can see from the pagerank of these sites, it is pretty damn impressive. However, I want to keep this case study brutally honest… in my opinion, the value of these links decreases vastly, due to the fact that the link is not permanently on the main page.

One leading A-list SEO expert I spoke to said that “Such links will give a small boost to your rankings, but they are most valuable for new sites. Having pr9’s pointing at your site is a great way to get the Google spider hungry as hell”

The second phase of backlinks comes from blogs, forums, portals, etc. that mention your story.

This is for me the highest form of value. Bear in mind that only relevant sites are going to link to you, so you are getting relevant links and targeted traffic.

My site was discussed and linked to from sites in over 15 languages. But here are a handful that you may be familiar with:

It was also discussed by Matt Cutts, Bruce Clay, SEOBOOK and numerous other A-listers in the marketing and SEO world.

I really shouldn’t have to tell you the value of both the powerful links and the targeted traffic that such sites bring. Some people describe this sort of publicity as “Publicity that money cannot buy”, the reason for this is that many of these mega sites don’t accept ad deals, text links or paid reviews.

If I was to offer you an in-article mention on all of these sites, and 90+ other popular, relevant sites… what would you value it at?

I am certain that I could sell that sort of package for $30,000 with my eyes closed.

I am not even going to discuss the huge benefits of deep linking and deep link ratios, trust rank, and the benefits that these links have on EVERY page of your site.

In summary, I am not saying that buzz marketing is the best thing since sliced bread. But if you can get this sort of publicity for FREE with any other techniques, then I applaud you.

TARGETTED TRAFFIC

I promised complete honesty, so I am NOT going to pretend that viral marketing traffic is the best, most valuable, or most targeted traffic. Anyone can get traffic from PPC, but the purpose of this case study is to give hope to the millions of bloggers and webmasters who are looking for free marketing techniques.

However, many of the PPC/affiliate brigade seem to think that viral traffic is useless and non-targeted. So I would have to ask them how a mention on some of the net’s biggest and most powerful SEO and Marketing sites is worthless to my marketing/SEO blog?

Again, answer that question and I will hold my hands up.

What about all the mentions I got from SEO and marketing forums? Is that worthless and non-targetted traffic? Of course not!

INSTANT REVENUE (ADSENSE ETC)

If there is one area that the PPC brigade were correct to question me on, it is regarding adsense revenue. I will confess… Traffic from Digg.com is NOT going to convert into clicks on your ads.

Actually, I had done my research well before my first viral success went global. Therefore, when my site was getting 30,000 uniques per day there was not a single advert on my site.

Why did I do this?

Firstly because I knew that at best I would make a few hundred dollars in extra revenue. But also, I knew that I was going to be scrutinized heavily. If you plaster your site with adverts then you lower your chance of getting backlinks and positive mentions.

For me it is all about building links, I would not jeopardize missing out on a pr8 link for the sake of a few hundred quick bucks. No way! To me, a pr8 permanent backlink is worth thousands – it just isn’t worth the risk of possibly losing a hugely powerful backlink for the sake of a few hundred extra dollars.

There are huge long term rewards to be gained from buzz marketing, if you are too short sighted to see past Adsense, then I wish you all the luck in the world.

FEED READERS

Have you ever seen those feed buttons on blog sites? Often they are hosted by Feedburner.com and these days they are the pride and joy of any blog.

Bloggers go as far as to judge the popularity of their blogs by the number of feed subscribers they have.

This is an area where you can do well from buzz marketing. If people come from Digg or a similar site and enjoy your content, then they may wish to subscribe for updates.

This is an area that I have neglected heavily, but despite my awful efforts in this department, I am sure you will still be impressed by these results:

This image was taken a few days after my first viral success.

There are two important points to make here:

1) I didn’t have a feedburner subscription icon on my site. I messed up big time with this. So this meant that people struggled to find my feed. If you monetize it correctly, you can easily get 10 times the results I got.

2) Despite my huge error, I was getting 25 people reading my content via my feed every 13 minutes. That is pretty much someone reading my feed every 30 seconds.

Tip: Once you have your feed readers it is important that you follow up with quality content. Do not expect them to stay around for life.

With some decent buzz success, you can get 300-500 new subscribers to your feed. Imagine what 300 targeted and soon to be loyal readers will do for your future posts and success.

OPT-IN SUBSCRIBERS

This is another area where you can reap huge long term goals. Again, if you don’t know about opt-in subscriptions via Aweber.com, etc… then please go and study it ASAP.

SEO experts see links as their proudest and most valuable site asset, bloggers see feed readers as theirs, whilst Internet and Direct Marketing experts consider their “lists” (Opt-in email subscribers) as their most valuable asset.

I have already shown you that buzz success = tons of links and lots of feed readers, but what about opt-in subscribers?

This is a more dangerous area… opt-ins can be highly valuable. I am friends with a leading marketing expert who made over $200,000 in one weekend from his list.

However, many users are wary of them.

Remember that to gain trust and backlinks you want to appear as neutral as possible. Personally I was willing to sacrifice my Adsense revenue, my affiliate revenue, and my opt-in subscribers… but that is because SEO is in my blood, and I focus primarily on links and branding.

If your goal is mainly to get opt-ins, then I say go for it, but tread carefully.

Tip: DO NOT use pop-ups!

BRANDING

Branding is an area that not everyone will be familiar with, so I will keep this part short.

You will discover in a moment that I am a freelancer, and I sell my services/time as opposed to products/affiliate marketing, etc…

So in most cases my name is my brand. If I can get people familiar with my name, then I can charge more, I get more job offers, and ultimately I am more successful.

Prior to my first buzz marketing experience I had a niche following in the UK. Since then I have been discussed in 15 languages, and considering I haven’t spent a dime in my life on promotion or advertising, I have become relatively well known in the industry.

One image that shows this really well is this one:

This is such a powerful image!

In the space of 13 minutes, my name was searched for in Google around 18 times.

That is serious brand power!

Prior to my buzz success I got searched for approx once per day. Now it is nearer to 100 per day. This is brand power at it’s very best, and unlike the majority of big names, I didn’t spend millions branding myself, I spent NOTHING.

HOW DID I MAKE MY MONEY?

The key to remember with buzz and viral marketing is that it is a launch pad. It is your way of getting the world to hear your voice. However, if you have nothing interesting to say then your 15 minutes of fame will be short lived and NOT profitable.

The key is to use that platform, those links, those blog mentions, the new feed readers, the new opt-in subscribers… use it all, but use it properly.

I was speaking recently to a blogger who was showing a clear lack of knowledge in this area, he asked me “Dean, you got 30,000 unique visitors in one day, but what about two weeks or two months later?”

This is like asking me how long a piece of string is. I later discovered he was deeply into the affiliate marketing side of things (surprise surprise).

I should ask him if his adwords traffic remains if he stops paying for it.

What was he expecting? That I would do one viral success and get 30,000 uniques every day for life, without updating my site or doing any extra work?

Listen, some people have made millions from their buzz success. Others have made tens of millions (Willitblend.com). Others have had their 15 minutes and then done nothing from it.

Look at sites like: Destructoid.com smashingmagazine.com engadget.com

These sites are on Digg more than George Bush stories. Almost every article from these sites is buzz/viral content. They know the power of these techniques and they have mastered the art of getting visitors from buzz techniques.

Have a look at their content, and you will see that it is specifically created with sites like Digg.com in mind.

Destructoid Alexa Rank: http://alexa.com/search?q=www.destructoid.com&x=0&y=0

Engdget Alexa Rank: http://alexa.com/search?q=www.engadget.com&x=0&y=0

Smashing Magazine Alexa Rank: http://alexa.com/search?q=www.smashingmagazine.com&x=33&y=13

$80,000 RICHER? DISCUSS.

I have now shown you that buzz success has huge long term value, but it also has value that you cannot assign a fixed value to. This probably confuses the PPC brigade who know everything from the value of a keyword, to the value of a visitor. But that is the way it is.

I have shown you that I got over $30,000 in links and publicity just from one of my successes. Bear in mind I have had multiple successes, and have also helped clients and friends gain worldwide recognition. But I am not going to count any of that towards my total.

The fact of the matter is that my sites are geared around services, whether it be buying and selling websites for rich businessmen, running SEO campaigns for companies, launching branding and marketing campaigns for websites, or providing content for blogs and web portals. I do it all! I have even written content for industry trade magazines under a pseudonym, and written an ebook for a leading marketing guru.

This is how I make my money. I do NOT sell physical products, I am not interested in the vunerable business model of adsense revenue, nor am I into affiliate marketing anymore.

I sell my time and my services as a freelancer.

So here is my story: 1 day after my first viral success, I got over 45 emails. Here are a few snippets from them:

“Dean, I read your article about the google request, and I decided to read more of your articles. I really like your writing style, can we talk? Here is my phone number: xxxxxxxxxx”

“Dean, my name is xxxxx and I recently found your blog via Digg. I really enjoyed many of your stories, and I would like to talk to you about providing content for my company”

“Dean, any chance you can share the google search term with me? ;-) The reason I am writing is to enquire about your SEO services, I found your site at Slashdot.org and would like to speak to you about doing some SEO work on my network of sites”

“My name is xxxxxxx xxxxx and I am now an avid reader and subscriber to your blog. I notice you have done some affiliate marketing work in the past, we are actually looking for an affiliate marketing manager for our new project at redxxxx.com perhaps we can have a chat?”

My time is my product, for other people it may be DVDs, others may be solely reliant on Adsense (yikes), others may sell web hosting… with buzz marketing you are giving yourself a chance of a global audience. It is up to you what you do with that.

Anyway, where was I? Within two weeks of my first buzz marketing success I signed an exclusivity agreement with a major entrepreneur who found my blog via Digg.com. My income went up around $50,000 overnight, and I have made another $30,000 with partnership deals and bonuses since.

Also, I now get to travel the world and network with some of the net’s biggest names. People that wouldn’t have taken me seriously one year ago.

Regarding the $80,000 figure… My time was in so much demand that you can currently see at www.deanhunt.com I have this message on EVERY page: “services are fully booked until late 2008” I stopped accepting work over 6 months ago, this is despite being offered $1000 to write one article, and $8,000 if I could get a contacts site on the Digg.com main page.

I don’t mean any of this to sound like I am bragging, those who know me will know I am very humble, perhaps too humble. But I was challenged, and have done what not many marketing experts would be too afraid to do… I have showed you a sample of what I earn.

Due to all of this, I have now moved from staying at my girlriend’s parents’ house, to owning a large house in Madrid with a swimming pool and numerous other luxuries.

http://flickr.com/photos/inthehunt/

My life changed completely due to me discovering buzz marketing. I am not promising the same for you, but I do believe that buzz marketing is the most powerful FREE promotional tool available.

In the next and possibly final chapter, I will be doing a Q&A. So if you have any questions then please ask them ASAP via the Fadtastic comments section.

Dean

PS: in the 24 hours that passed since writing this, one of the articles I wrote 4 months ago has been featured on one of the largest tech sites on the net. As well as a pr6 backlink and thousands of extra visitors, it has triggered the viral effect and the article is spreading like wildfire. It just goes to show that buzz marketing can trigger a viral effect at ANY time.

Measuring buzz success in the short term is like measuring the quality of a tree one day after you plant the seed. Dean Hunt 2007

Note: Dean Hunt blogs at his now infamous Internet Marketing Blog. He also provides content for a Business Advice Blog, and helps other Young Entrepreneurs.

Buzz Marketing Case Study Part Two

Dean Hunt -Guest- — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:14:51 +0000

Welcome to part two of my buzz/viral marketing case study.

Today I am going to show you a step by step guide on exactly how I got a random story onto the Digg.com main page LAST WEEK.

Here is the back story: My biz partner bet me $1000 that I couldn’t get a random article onto the Digg.com main page.

He found 3 random articles:

1) A self help article
2) A gadget review article
3) A religious article

He game me a time limit of 3 weeks to transform one of these articles and get the new version on the Digg.com main page. I could modify the article, but couldn’t do a complete re-write:

Spoiler Alert: I got the self help article onto the Digg.com main page 48 hours later. I didn’t even need to use articles 2 and 3.

I took a few screenshots, and I am going to show you the EXACT tricks and techniques I used to do this.

Here is the article that I had to transform into viral gold: http://www.procrastinationhelp.com/humor/procrastinators-creed

Here is my version of the story: http://retiredat21.com/10-step-guide-to-thinking-like-a-loser/

Here is my version at Digg.com: http://digg.com/offbeat_news/10_Step_Guide_To_Thinking_Like_A_Loser

The Process

I thought that this article was pretty good, but there was no way it was going to get on the Digg main page. So I knew I had a lot of work to do to create some viral content.

The Dilemma

Many people contact me and say “Dean, I would love to get some viral success for my site, but I don’t have your creativity”. My answer is that ANYONE can get millions of visitors for ANY article. But 99.99% of marketing experts prefer to talk the talk instead of walking the walk, so the only way I could prove just how easy it can be is to use an EXISTING article and transform it.

My dilemma was that I was technically using someone else’s content.

However, this case study should help thousands of webmasters achieve viral and buzz marketing success.

To be honest, the content in the original article is nothing new, but I have credited the original article anyway.

Trick 1: A Global Appeal

This trick is based on the law of averages. I am sure you are all familiar with the term “niche”, well here is the trick… niche-focused articles often aren’t as successful with viral content as content with a global appeal.

Here is an example: Let’s presume that 100 people see the original procrastinator’s article. Of that 100, 40 of them have never heard the term “procrastination”, so they are not going to enjoy it. Let’s also assume that another 20 are not going to fully understand or appreciate the humor in the article.

So from this example we have alienated 60% of all the readers.

An article simply cannot go viral with ease if 60% of all readers are not going to understand it.

So clearly I had to make it have a more global appeal.

Step one was to change the focus from procrastination to not being a loser. What % of people are familiar with the term loser? I am guessing 100%.

In one simple step I have increased the probability of this article being a success by 40%, simply by changing the focus/topic.

Trick 2: The Negativity Slant

This is an area I have studied a lot over the past few years. Here is how it works:

Content with a negative slant will get discussed more than a positive slant.

Bad news travels faster than good news, and we can use this to our advantage. Have you noticed what % of the news is bad news? It is a HUGE %.

Look at the buzz stories of the past month and here are some of the articles you will see:

• iPhone disappointments
• George Bush (almost always negative)
• Paris Hilton prison stories (mostly negative)

Did you know that Paris Hilton created an official petition to prevent her from going to prison?
Did you know that there was also a petition at http://jailparishilton.com/ by some entrepreneur that claims: “She did the crime, she should serve the time,
no special treatment!”

The “Jail Paris Hilton” petition got more than three times as many names as the official one, and the site has had millions of hits.

Trust me, a negative slant will ALWAYS have more chance of going viral.

I personally saw the effects of this phenomenon with the “Bizzare Google request” blog post that was described as the “viral marketing success of 2006”: http://deanhunt.com/bizzare-google-request/

So here is what I did to the original article… instead of saying something positive like “How to procrastinate less”, I made it negative with my title “10 Step Guide to Thinking Like a Loser”, you can see my version here: http://retiredat21.com/10-step-guide-to-thinking-like-a-loser/

Trick 3: The Killer Headline

Unlike the other two tricks, this one is common knowledge… you can have a great piece of content, but if your headline sucks, your content will NOT get seen.

ORIGINAL HEADLINE: “Procrastinator’s Creed”

Do you think this is a good headline?

I have already shown you why around 60% of Internet users will NOT like this title. So let’s look at my headline again:

VIRAL GOLD HEADLINE: “10 Step Guide to Thinking Like a Loser”

Below I am going to show you in detail why this headline is an absolute killer headline.

Trick 4: 10 Steps to Viral Heaven

Ok, here is the trick… people love lists! There have been many discussions about why lists are so powerful in Digg.com, but we can save that for another time… all you need to know is that Internet readers LOVE lists. Anything in list format is a surefire winner with the Digg crowd.

Note: Apparently “top 7” is the magic number: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/05/22/top-7-lists-lead-the-pack-on-digg

This was another killer mistake that the original author made. He ALREADY had the content in list format, he just messed up the headline by not including a top 10.

Trick 5: Stand out from the crowd

This trick applies to both your headline and your content. The Internet is a VERY crowded place, and there are millions of webmasters who are trying to grab some attention. So if you want to get noticed then you MUST stand out from the crowd.

Seth Godin uses this as the focus of his “Purple Cow” book http://www.sethgodin.com/purple/

There are hundreds of thousands of articles on procrastination, I knew that I had to stand out from the crowd with my version, so I created a headline that would achieve that.

I guarantee that my headline really stood out from the crowd at Digg.com

If you are struggling to think of ways to be creative with your content, then grab a pen and paper and just start writing as many wacky ideas as possible. Be creative, controversial, edgy, wacky, unique… try it all.

You can never be too creative!

Trick 6: Curiosity Killed The Cat

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but with buzz marketing it is a killer technique.

The key to this is to create a headline that raises people’s interest. You can do this by giving a teaser in your headline.

Looking at the current Digg.com front page content, there are some articles that attract curiosity:

Gas consumption per day: U.S. vs. Rest of the World

Thanks for dying Jesus! [PIC]

The 9 Most Meaningless Corporate Slogans

Wouldn’t you want to read those stories?

Note: The gas consumption article breaks my “Global Appeal” rule, but they get away with it because the vast majority of Digg readers are American, and a decent % are America Haters (ouch).

Trick 7: Image Is Everything

This is one of the easiest tricks. All you have to do is simply add an interesting photo/image to your story. It is that simple!

I don’t know the exact reason for why this is so effective. Personally I feel it helps with the presentation (See trick 7), and it helps package the content in a superior manner. I actually did an article recently that got on StumbleUpon simply because the image I added was so amusing.

So here is what I did for the procrastination article: I added the following image to the article:

http://www.streetlessons.com/loser.JPG

This image also helped with trick 8.

Trick 8: Perfect Packaging

Packaging = website template.

If your site looks crappy then you are reducing your chances of going viral. There are some exceptions (Craigslist), but generally you will get more attention if your site looks great.

I recently posted part one of this buzz marketing study on my personal blog: http://deanhunt.com/my-buzz-marketing-101/

Then I was asked to guest blog for a major web development portal. So I published the same article here: http://fadtastic.net/2007/07/10/a-buzz-and-viral-marketing-case-study/

Guess which article was featured by Darren Rowse at the hugely popular Problogger.net?

You guessed it, the awesome web template at fantastic meant that the case study was packaged much better there.

Tip: Ensure your site looks great, also try and make it look like an authority site (add a feed, contact-us, disclaimer etc…)

Trick 9: Shifting the Focus

This is a powerful trick that I used to great effect on the procrastination article. What I did was shift the focus of the article from first person “me/I” to second person “you”.

In the original article the tips were in this format:

ORIGINAL: “1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.”

I simply switched this tip to second person:

VIRAL GOLD: “Learn that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.”

So why is this trick so powerful?

There is a reason that Internet Marketing experts talk in second person in their sales letters… example: “Do you want to know how you can make $1000 per day?”

By focusing on the reader you make them seem more involved in the story. It also helps keep their attention.

Have you ever been chatting with someone who is talking constantly about themselves? Boring isn’t it!

I re-did the article and switched the focus on the reader. This was very powerful, and helped ensure that people left loads of comments both at the blog and at Digg.com.

SUMMARY

Above are 9 of the tricks I used to transform a decent niche article, into a global viral success.
I don’t know how many visitors the original article got, but mine has had over 65,000 uniques thus far.

Please note that these tricks will require some practice and patience. But with time you will be able to master them.

Personally I have used these techniques to get over 2 million unique visitors to my articles for FREE.

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, as always I welcome your questions and feedback.

The next chapter will expose some of the myths about viral marketing.

Buzz Marketing Case Study, Part 1

Dean Hunt -Guest- — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:10:10 +0000

Why You Should Master Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing: “For me, buzz marketing is the art of creating a “buzz” (sense of excitement) from your content/message.” Dean Hunt

So Why Bother Using Buzz Marketing Techniques?

I can answer this in just three simple words: Links, Traffic, Branding.

Feel free to add “Money” to that list as well. But please use the term “Long term money”

Every webmaster ultimately wants traffic. It is the lifeblood of any website. Yet not all of us have budgets that allow us to spend thousands on PPC, ad deals etc… Buzz Marketing is a free technique, and one that can drive more traffic than even the largest of ad campaigns.

Buzz Marketing is a principle, so it can be applied to articles, images, podcasts, videos, newsletters, sales pages…

Proof

Many people like to talk about viral/buzz marketing, but only a tiny % of those so called “experts” have actually achieved anything with it

The above image shows a small sample of some of the traffic I was getting from one of my buzz marketing successes. The cool thing here is that I was on numerous major sites at the same time:

• Digg.com
• Slashdot.org
• Reddit.com
• Popurls.com

What difference would it make to your website or business if you were featured on the main pages of all of those sites today?

This image still sends a shiver down my spine. The 9th December 2006 was my first of many buzz marketing successes, and it is a day that changed my life forever.

On the 8th December, you can see that I had 209 visits. This clearly shows that my blog was fairly new at the time, had a small niche following, and had no money spent on promotion. On the 9th December, the buzz marketing article went global, and my site has been a powerful, high traffic site ever since.

What is most amazing is the fact that my server simply couldn’t cope with the amount of traffic. So for hours at a time it went offline. Imagine how the above stats would look if I hadn’t lost all that traffic.

The purpose of this post was to show you a behind the scenes look at just how powerful buzz marketing can be. It literally changed my life, and I genuinely believe it can do the same for ANY website owner.

In part two, I am going to show you EXACTLY how I took a random article and turned it into a global success overnight.

-Dean

Note: Dean helps other young entrepreneurs with life and business tips and advice at the non profit young entrepreneurs resource: www.retiredat21.com & He also gives hard, cold, no-nonsense business advice at www.www.streetlessons.com

Buzz Marketing to the NTH degree

Dean Hunt -Guest- — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:38:36 +0000

I met Sterling in Washington in early May. He bought me a beer and has used this to guilt me into a whole host of un-speak able favors. So when I was recently featured on the Digg.com home page for the 4th straight time, he wasted no time in grabbing me and pulling me into InternetBusinessMastery.com for a case study and inside story of my experience.

Firstly he asked me to do an intro about myself, so I need to put on my 3rd person persona….

One minute please…

Ok, here we go:

Dean Hunt has been described as the future of buzz marketing. Starting out with a budget of ZERO, Dean had to find a way of getting the world to hear his message… for FREE. This lead to him developing and mastering techniques that are now known as: “Link Baiting, Buzz Marketing & Viral Marketing.”

Dean is now going to return to 1st person mode…

Hi, I am back.

Here is what I am going to be discussing over the coming weeks:

*The tips and secrets I used to get on the main page
* The psychological tricks I abused to get more Diggs
* How many visitors I got
* How many back links I got
* How my server coped
* The thrill of the chase
* How the story spread
* How you can do the same for ANY article and ANY site.
* What effect it will have in the up and coming page rank update
* The Alexa graphs.
* TONS more….

This is the 4th time I have been on the Digg.com main page, and I have helped other people do the same. There is no magic secret, but there are techniques you can use to give yourself a HUGE advantage.

I will post the entire case study here at Internet Business Mastery.

Warning: This will NOT be a bragging story, it will be an entertaining and informative case study.
Infact, I will get the bragging out of my system before we get started…

Brag alert: Many of my techniques will also apply to marketing in general. Not just Digg.com… for example, I have had over 1 million visitors from StumbleUpon.com and 100,000+ from Slashdot.org

Your feedback: I am off to start writing it, please let me know what you would like me to discuss. I am happy to answer all of your questions.

Shameless plug: Dean writes at www.deanhunt.com www.streetlessons.com & www.retiredat21.com

IBM 29 | 7 Web 2.0 Internet Business Secrets Exposed

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:44:33 +0000

Download This Episode

We have some great news. This week we recorded a bonus audio program that includes over 90 minutes of new content. It goes over the a basic blueprint for a successful Web 2.0 business. We cover all the classic time-tested internet business models and discuss how to leverage social media and web 2.0 strategies to make the classic models even more powerful.

In this episode of Internet Business Mastery we play a preview of this bonus audio program. The compete audio and transcripts are only available to our email list subscribers.

If you’re already on the email list, you should have already started receiving the 7-part email series. Otherwise, all you need to do is sign up for our email list on the right side of our site.

Besides, being on the email list is just a good idea! Not only will you get the complete 7-part audio series you’ll also get articles and content not available on the podcast.

In this episode we also share a tool that we’re using to collaborate on and create our course.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

GetMyWebinarTool.com
Squidoo: Home Business for Moms
Review Internet Business Mastery in iTunes

New Blog Feature for Driving Social Media Traffic

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:40:40 +0000

We’ve recently added a new feature to the blog to make it easier for you to track and share posts that you like. In addition, this is a simple strategy for encouraging social media traffic to our content.

At the bottom of each post you will notice a series of links. At the time of writing this post, it looks something like this:

Each of these links bookmarks/shares the current post in the respective service. We’ve talked on the podcast before about how these services can be interesting ways to attract traffic. Each of them is essentially a large search engine using user-generated input to filter content and help people find relevant content.

To automatically add these links to each post I’ve used a modified version of the Sociable plugin for WordPress. Free plugins like this are just one of the MANY reasons I love WordPress.

The main change I made was to add text links. Usually the plugin just creates a row of icons (there are dozens to choose from). But I find that confusing for the user. The text links help make the purpose clearer.

For those who are wondering how to do this little hack (and who don’t mind digging into code a bit), here’s how you do it. Open sociable.php. Change line 481 from this:

$html .= “\” />”;

to this:

$html .= “\” /> $sitename”;

I also made a few other aesthetic changes in the CSS to make it look the way we wanted. Anyone else using the plugin? Have you had any interesting results or done something creative with it?

100-Point GTD Checklist (and a great example of pull marketing)

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:09:59 +0000

I came across a great GTD (Getting Things Done) resource. It’s a checklist to find out how well you’re implementing the principles of GTD. There are several things to be learned from this page.

What’s Your GTD Score?

First, it’s a great resource and review for anyone interested in the GTD productivity system. Review the checklist and determine your score.

A Magnet for Traffic and Inbound Links

This checklist is an excellent example the kind of foundation content that becomes a traffic magnet for your blog or site. People love checklists. Content like this is often called “link bait” (which is not as derogatory as it sounds). It’s the kind of content that web sites and blogs love to link to. It’s the kind of content that people like to submit to social networking and bookmarking sites.

All of this adds up to a lot of inbound links. The more inbound links you have, the higher your search engine ranking and the more traffic you get. Do you have strong foundation content on your site/blog that people will want to use, share and link to?

The Email List Optin

Notice that he has an email list right at the top of the email. If this was my site, I would provide the first 50 points of the checklist and then have people submit their email in order to get the other 100 points.

The Call to Action

Finally take note that this content is being used as pull marketing to find new coaching clients for the author. This method of marketing does several things for the author:

1. Brings targeted prospects towards him on their own terms (rather than him having to interrupt the prospect that may or may not be targeted)
2. Establishes his expertise
3. Begins a relationship of trust with the prospect
4. Makes his call to action more effective
5. Makes it much easier to close the sale when someone calls

I would put the call to action at the top as well as at the bottom. Regardless, this is an excellent example of what every business should be doing to attract new clients.

The Offer

Notice that he offers (at least at the time of writing this post) a session. This is something to entice leads to contact him. I also like that he attributes a value to the offer ($175). The only thing I don’t like is that it costs him time whenever a prospect contacts him. Whether it’s worth making this offer depends on how many of these inquiries he gets. Also, if he’s mart he offers more of a “what to do” session for the freebie and then sells them on signing up for more to get the “how to”.

I’m not saying that the free session shouldn’t offer valuable info, just that you have to structure it right to get maximum conversion of new paying clients. I do this with new podcast consulting clients. I give them a free evaluation of what they need done and by the end of the conversation they just want to hire me to make it happen.

Pull Marketing | Attract New Clients without Relying on Interruption-Based Marketing to Grab Their Attention

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 22:07:42 +0000

I spend a portion of my week consulting businesses on how to use podcasting and social media to communicate with their market. Right now my docket is more than full with clients. I don’t do any marketing in the traditional sense to find these clients. A regular streams of prospects call me and many of them become clients.

Each month I also have hundreds of people who optin to my email newsletter on podcasting. Again, these people are all coming from “attraction methods.” This is also called pull marketing.

What is Pull Marketing

Pull marketing is about engaging your prospects/clients/customers in a meaningful way that attracts them towards you. Interruption marketing no longer works. People have more power than ever to filter you out. They’ve learned to look right past banner ads. They skip commercials with TIVO. They click to another site in a matter of seconds if they don’t see what they’re looking for.

If you don’t want to be ignored, pull marketing MUST be part of your strategy.

How I Use Pull Marketing

I pull clients, site visitors and email subscribers towards me by creating “must have” content and getting it in front of those who need it. Four examples of content I do this with are:

Podcasting Underground (my podcast)
My podcasting and social media tips blog
My tutorial on how to podcast
My book

How People Find My Content

In order for my “attraction” content to be found, it needs to appear wherever my ideal prospect is looking for that kind of information. Here are four ways I do this:

Optimize the content to rank for commonly searched terms in Google (take a look at this search for “how to podcast” and you will see my tutorial at the top)
Optimize my blog posts in such a way that they are found in social media searches such as Technorati
List my podcast in popular portals such as iTunes and optimize it to get maximum exposure
Ping popular blog/podcast listing services whenever I post new content

And that is just to name a few.

The Bottom Line

Provide quality content and interactive experiences that attract your ideal prospects. Make it easy for your ideal prospect to find your content to attract him, engage him and pull him into your sales funnel.

This is not to say that you should get rid of all forms of “push marketing”. The proper balance of the two will ensure that you’re not ignored in the current marketing landscape.

How have you used pull marketing in your business?

IBM 11 | Listener Questions Answered

Jay (Jason Van Orden) — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 21:02:18 +0000

Download This Episode

We promised to do a listener comment show and here it is. We get a lot of internet based business questions and we have mentioned that we would try to get around to answering them within the show. From time to time we will continue to answer some questions as a ‘Listener Comment’ show and other questions as an entire internet business mastery ‘topic’ show. As always, we appreciate your comments and questions. Keep them coming!