However, the vehicle isn’t the point of the post. It’s the example. Your advertising should be as lethal… as commanding as this vehicle. You need to launch a three pronged advertising attack.

Internet marketing is dependent upon your strategy. It’s not just a “build it and they will come” mentality. I like to think of advertising as a game. It’s you vs. them. The one who brings the most skills, firepower, determination, and will power is the one who wins. And just like in sports, or war, the way you play the game, or fight the war, changes. New technologies, new training, new strategies, new ways of doing things all play a part in the outcome.

Advertising is no different. As the years go by, the philosophy of internet advertising remains constant, but the means change. You employ new ways of marketing in order to get more people to your website. It’s the natural order of things. Things change.

In creating new marketing plans for clients, one of the things I pride myself on is being innovative, creative, an employing new strategies that others might not have thought of or fear trying. In doing so I have seen lots of different advertising tactics come and go. A few years ago you would do extremely well with buying guaranteed hits (website traffic), posting to a few forums, and blasting an email ad with an ezine co-op. Today… not so much.

Today you have to think different. You have to think relationships. More importantly, you have to think cultivating and growing healthy relationships in all parts of your marketing. It’s not just throw out an email ad and hope for the best. Now you have to compose an email ad that is more personal, more relational.

A Three Pronged Advertising Attack For More Web Traffic

Finally we get to the ‘meat’ of this post. With the new strategies of advertising firmly entrenched in this 2.0 world, here’s a no fail advertising attack that you can use to get more traffic when you are starting a new site, seeing numbers fall, want to push a new product, or service, or just want to add more to your advertising arsenal.

1.) Connect and Participate on Social Media Websites

You should have known this one was coming. You can’t deny that social media websites and networking on them is the new advertising phenomenon. Of course, these types of sites were not created as a tool for advertising purposes, but they have taken on that role regardless. Maki at doshdosh.com says, “Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.”

Social media marketing has it’s best impact when you connect and participate. You have to do both. You can’t just open an account with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, LinkedIn, or any of the numerous others out there if you are not going to participate. Sure you might have friends or people following you, but it won’t amount to anything if you’re not active.

To find out how to do this the best way Michelle McPhearson has written an incredibly valuable resource called, “Social Media Daily” that goes into great detail about how to monetize your efforts in social media.

2.) Start A Blog or Two, or Three…

Ok. Stick with me here. What initially looks like a tremendous amount of work isn’t really that bad. Blogs have a very powerful hold on the search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN love blogs because they are continually updated and people love to link to them. Your job as an advertiser is to leverage that love.

One blog is good. You get your feet wet by writing on a consistent basis. But, what happens if you join another marketing program, develop another product, offer another type of service, join a different affiliate niche, or can think of another more narrowly defined audience for your website?

Launch another one.

That isn’t as hard as it seems. If you’re already hosting a blog yourself, then adding a new domain and installing it again is no big deal. But, if you don’t want to go that route then you can always use a Blogger or Wordpress account. In fact, I would recommend that you do that anyway. Set up a free blog account with each one, either based on the same topic, or on a little wider or narrower topic, and start posting a few times a week.

The point is that you are getting more search engine exposure by continually adding new content, having backlinks to the main site, and getting people interested in what your service, product, or opportunity has to offer.

3.) Create new content for syndication through websites and email.

The use of the word content can take on several meanings today. And I am talking about all of them. Content in the form of articles, ebooks, audio .mp3s, and videos are the tools of the successful internet marketer. They keep your visitors engaged on all levels and are instrumental in making sure that your message gets out to the widest possible audience.

It might sound like a scary thing at first. But, once you get started you become addicted. Sounds crazy, almost impossible at first; however, the more you do it the easier it gets. For instance creating videos is as simple as filming yourself talking or doing a screen capture video with Camtasia. Creating audio .mp3s is easy with Audacity. Writing articles and ebooks can be done yourself or outsourced to a copywriter.

What Would This Advertising Attack Look Like In Action?

In order to show you what advertising looks like today I’m going to use an example to help put all this stuff in some sort of coherent order.

Let’s say you have a website on the topic of fishing. This would work with any topic or with any business opportunity or service, but I like to fish and I’m writing this post so I choose fishing.

Anyway, in using the Three Pronged Affiliate Attack this is what you would do.

Create profiles at several social media sites. Having a profile at one website like Facebook or Myspace isn’t as powerful as being connected in as many as you can. But, for starters get started with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon to start with. Then start connecting with people. Send friend requests, follow people, digg websites, and stumble them.

Participation takes the form of keeping your status updated and letting people know what you’re doing. Twitter is great for this as you can “tweet” what you’re up to as well as what you have going on at your website. You can tweet about new blog posts, videos you’ve created, websites you’re looking at, and even new articles you’re written.

Here’s how this will work with a fishing website. (Keep in mind that you would just substitute your topic in place of fishing.)

1. Create profiles
2. Friend or follow people who would like to fish. (Typically men, athletes, campers, outdoor types)
3. Engage in conversations by tweeting on Twitter or writing on walls and sending messages in Facebook.
4. Every now and then place a link to your website or blog.

The key is participation. The more visible you are the better your “advertising” will work out.

Start blogs on Blogger, Wordpress, and/or on your own host.

The key here is to have one on the topic of fishing itself. From there you could start narrow focused blogs (fishing in the Northeast, flyfishing, fishing for bass in the Southeast, etc.) on Blogger and Wordpress. From there you just start posting new blog posts. You want to be consistent with this so choose a writing schedule that you could stick to.

As you post you’ll be linking to your main site, or even the merchant’s site you are affiliated with. If you’re selling a lure you invented, flies that you tie yourself, or ebooks you’ve written you would also be mentioning these in your posts.

Here’s how this would look.

1. Start main blog on fishing. Post all kinds of fishing posts at least every other day. More if you could.
2. Mention website with text links in posts.
3. Start two to three other blogs with a more narrow focus. Using both Blogger and Wordpress to host the new blogs.
4. Continue posting on a consistent basis.
5. Find other blogs on the same topic you can link to and leave comments on.

Create several types of content to engage visitors

This is where you put everything together. The content you create here can be also advertised on your social media websites and your blogs.

1. Create several articles on different fishing tips and product reviews on poles, reels, and fishing equipment.
2. Syndicate the articles on websites like EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com.
3. Create a video on how to tie a certain type of fly and upload to YouTube. Then post to relevant blog. (You could pick whatever fishing topic you’d want as long as it can go on a relevant website.)
4. Create an ebook on a certain topic of fishing and give it away from free as an incentive to sign up for your RSS Feed, email list, or for buying your main product.
5. Create a few audio .mp3s with quick tips on some part of fishing. You would also turn this into a weekly podcast (audio show) to keep people coming back to your website.

Like the first two parts of this advertising plan the key to it’s success is that you actually do the work!

Try it out. Go step by step through it and apply it to whatever product, service, or opportunity you want to advertise. Then duplicate it over and over again.

This post is going to take a slightly different approach and be focused on the work aspect of affiliate marketing. There are the top things that you must do in order to reach any type of affiliate marketing success. These are the bare bones essentials. This isn’t to be taken as the only affiliate marketing tasks. However, these are the things that when done on a consistent basis will produce the major portion of your traffic and profits.

Affiliates must have their own website dedicated to a focused niche.

What is, and has been, most common among affiliates, and especially network marketers, is to direct traffic to the merchant’s website directly. While this strategy may be used a lot with affiliates, I don’t believe it’s the best one. You’re losing out on future potential.

That’s the key to affiliate marketing success. Long term, future potential. If you’re just going to link directly to the merchant you’re not capitalizing on the power of repeat, loyal, and rapid visitors. You do that by having your own website (or blog) dedicated to a focused niche. For instance, if you are going to get into the highly competitive (and grossly saturated credit card market) then you’re going to want to set yourself apart from the rest of the affiliates. Create a website dedicated to credit card reviews, credit card use tips, up to date financial reports, or whatever else you can think of dealing with the credit card market. Keep the website updated with new, fresh, and unique content that will keep your visitors wanting to come back.

Affiliates must have an email list.

The oldest saying on the internet is probably, “The money is in the list.” It’s been around since the first affiliate sent a broadcast to his email list. The reason it resonates so loudly, and has stood the test of time longer than anything else, is because it works. Imagine being able to send information to people who want it. What would that mean to you?

It would mean that you are becoming someone people want to hear from. They value what you say, teach, show, and recommend. That last point is important. When you’re sending out your email (newsletter) you are also recommending something. A product, an article, a reason to visit your website, or even a movie recommendation are all things that add value to your voice.

Affiliates must write articles for syndication.

Yes, I’m talking about writing articles again. For affiliates it’s so important to realize that using article marketing as a means of getting in touch with potential website visitors should be one of your first tasks. Yes, it takes time. Yes, you can even outsource it. Whichever way you choose, make writing articles a priority.

Affiliates must provide a free resource like an ebook.

A short ten page ebook, is an incredibly way to virally expand your internet reach. It also provides you a way to display to your visitors that you do know what you’re talking about and can provide quality information. It also helps instill an emotional response to your product. Using the credit card example again, if you had a short ten page ebook explaining how to keep credit card debt low while maximizing it’s buying power you would be helping people make a choice in which credit card to choose. By putting in some affiliate links in the ebook, you’re making money. Ebooks are a must.

Affiliates must create a daily marketing plan.

By now you’re probably seeing a trend. Affiliate marketing is not the “set up an Adsense ad and watch the money pour in” pipe dream. It’s work. It’s something that you must take incredibly seriously and tend to on a consistent basis. To help with your consistency a daily marketing plan is a great tool. Not only is it a tool, but it’s a motivator. Seeing your plan, then putting it into action, help you with actually getting things done. You are now working your affiliate marketing business and will soon see fruits of that labor.

Take some time each week and set up a plan that will take you through each day. List what you need to accomplish, when you’ll do it, and what you expect. Then move toward fulfilling those goals.

Affiliate marketing has more musts, but these are the top.

I haven’t even touched on some of the other important aspects of affiliate marketing. Videos, blogging, and social media marketing are also a few other important aspects. But, if you hold to these five ‘musts’ you’ll be doing something and seeing some reward.

It was the local canoe race they hold in my town every year. It’s sort of a big thing and everyone lines the bridges and streets along the river route to see the idiots in the river. I was going to run the face with a friend of mine and we were borrowing an old metal canoe that had more leaks in it than the Titanic. If you were to ask us then we would have both said it was going to be a piece of cake. Today, I am not ashamed to admit I was scared.

But I did it.

I went down the river. We flipped it three times. I was completely soaked. By the time we got to the finish line we were both cold, shivering, blue lips, and ecstatic. We finished and we survived.

The last few months of my life have been pretty, well… let’s just say they haven’t been the happiest. I wouldn’t even call them miserable. It’s been worse. At times I had the same feeling I had when facing that river. Scared.

There are also times when internet marketing, affiliate marketing, running an online business, or whatever you want to call it, is also pretty scary. Challenges are waiting around the corner. Setbacks are going to happen. Frustration is going to set in. Bad decisions will be made. Money will be lost. And you will get scared. The last few months have been like that. Maybe you noticed, if you’re a regular of reader, that my posts have been pretty scarce. (I know, I broke a major rule of blogging.)

It’s not because I didn’t want to blog. Didn’t have anything to say. Or didn’t think about it all the time. It was because of some challenges I had to face. Challenges I am now glad came my way for it opened my eyes, instilled some character, taught me a great deal and showed me where I was weak.

However, that’s really not the point of this post. The point of this post is that in everything we do in our lives there are going to be times when things don’t go right. They don’t go as we planned them to go. There are going to be challenges. Unforeseen things just waiting for you.

Internet marketing is always a challenge. Even when you think you’ve got it figured out. It’s like facing a raging river in a leaky canoe. It’s scary.

The best thing you can do is to weather it out. Put one foot in front of the other and continue going in a forward direction. It’s a natural reaction to shy away from something that hurts. Or something that we know is going to be painful. Setbacks, frustrations, depressions, and failed expectancies are going to be places you will periodically visit. Brace yourself for them and will yourself to persevere.

Steps to defeating setbacks and frustrations while building your online business.

I’m not going to lie. I almost gave it all up.

There was an instant, very recently, when I almost stopped with my online career. Stopped writing. Stopped creating. Stopped everything. I was pretty fed up with what was going on in my life. But, I didn’t. I made a decision to keep going and it was some of theses things that helped me. While the heading of this section states these steps are for an online business you can use these steps in every area of your life.

Remember what you’re already accomplished. One of the things that helped me continue with my work online is remembering the things I’ve already been able to do. I faced one challenge in starting my writing career and many other challenges along the way. It would be silly of me to just quit.

Surround yourself with people who care. My family was a major help the last few months. Friends I’ve had for a long time were there when I needed a little cheering up. People I’ve met online, I’ve worked for, and have connected with in some way or another, were understanding and patient. It’s a major benefit, and incredible boost, to have friends and family around you who care.

Be thinking of the future. When you dwell on your problems you most likely stay in that problem. I have several notebooks full of dreams and ideas. I am always thinking of what could be and what I’d like to do. One day when I was feeling particularly down I bought a brand new notebook. Nothing fancy. It was just a regular, run of the mill, spiral notebook. And I started thinking, dreaming, and planning for a future. I actually forgot what was going on in my life. It was the beginning point to healing.

Reaffirm who you are. I don’t want this part to sound too arrogant or prideful. But to make the point I want to make I have to do this: I am good at what I do.

I can create, write, and plan advertising strategies for people so that they begin to make money online. I’ve been doing it for a while now and with each new client, each new ad campaign, each new marketing piece… I get a little bit better.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself for two months. That’s what you need to do to help you face challenges and breakthrough setbacks and frustrations. Reaffirm that you know what you’re doing. Even if you don’t! One of the biggest ways to actually do something is to believe you can. That sets the bar higher, your desire to learn greater, and your resistance to failure stronger.

Be grateful for the challenge. Challenges build character. They build strength. They create ideas and thoughts. They force you to grow a little bit. Sometimes even a lot. Don’t be depressed about the things that happen. Do just the opposite. Be grateful! That doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it. Just be thankful for the opportunity you had to learn, grow, and become much stronger because of it.

Internet marketing is a challenge. It’s full of twists, turns, setbacks, and difficulties. You will fail… a lot. You will lose money. You will waste a lot of time. You will most likely feel like quitting. Don’t.

Learn from the challenges. Learn from the mistakes. Jump into that raging river and keep paddling forward. You’re going to have calmer waters.

I hope this helps those who are fighting, struggling, and having doubts. I know that these steps were what motivated me to continue. I hope they do the same for you.

In practice affiliate marketing is actually pretty hard work. Not the bone crushing, muscle straining work of hard labor, but more the mind straining, headache inducing, long hours staring at a back lit screen kind of work. There is so much that goes into affiliate marketing that was is easy in theory (making money by selling other people’s stuff) is pretty hard in reality.

At it’s very core affiliate marketing, or making money as an affiliate, is all about traffic, follow up, and wide range of exposure. Those three things will contribute to a successful affiliate marketing business. To get those three things every affiliate marketer must have, or must do, five things.

Five Essential Affiliate Marketing “Musts”.

Affiliates Must Be Willing To Learn. I have seen one thing lead to the success in affiliate marketing more than anything else online. It’s called learning. There is an incredible amount of “stuff” that goes into making money online with affiliate marketing. In order to do all that “stuff” you have to know a little bit about how each one. That doesn’t mean you must be an expert. You just need to have some knowledge.

Writing web copy, configuring php, creating a simple landing page with basic HTML, working with PPC, doing some search engine optimization, publishing blog posts, uploading pictures and videos, and several other things are all basic skills needed by an affiliate marketer. Sure you can outsource this stuff, and you should if you’re not really comfortable with it, but knowing how will save you a ton of money by not being taken advantage of.

Affiliates Must Advertise Every Day. There is no other way to become one of the Super Affiliates (as they like to call themselves) than to advertise your website every single day. The more you advertise the more people find you. You receive more exposure by constantly seeking out new places to reach your audience. The good news is that in this new web 2.0 world, advertising everyday doesn’t mean spending money.

Social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and StumbleUpon, to just name a very minute few, are amazing places to expand your reach and not pay a dime doing it. Commenting on blogs, participating on social websites (especially websites like Twitter), and sharing your posts on sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are very effective ways of “advertising” while not really advertising.

Affiliates Must Continue Adding Content to Their Websites. Another way to get increased exposure is to add content, usually in the form of articles, to your website. Again, though, web 2.0 has altered the definition of content to include blogging, videos, and audio in the form of .mp3s. And, again, this has to be done on a consistent basis.

Whatever niche your affiliate website is, the key to prolonged commissions is to provide website visitors, both first time and repeat) a reason to visit. This is in the form of content. Articles are, and probably will be for a long time to come, the king of content. Video and audio are drastically closing in on that status and the technology for producing short videos is becoming cheaper and much easier to use. You must get in the habit of adding content to your website.

Affiliates Must Build an Email List. And this is for every single website you operate. It sounds like a daunting job, and it is, but can be made almost automated with the use of list management services like Aweber.com.

What you do is set up a new “list” for each website, or niche you are involved in, provide a way for visitors to sign up to this list and keep it updated with fresh, relevant content. Again, easy in theory but the practice is a little more involved than that. But that’s pretty much the process. You can ease the pain of this by writing a lot of content all at once and specifying when they will be published within the Aweber system. This way it’s pretty much automated after that.

Affiliates Must Love the Niche They Are Working In. There are a lot of different opinions on this. Some “Super Affiliates” will put up websites for whatever is hot at the moment hoping to cash in quickly. While other affiliates (myself included) feel that you will do the most work, put the most passion into, and keep consistently working on it over time when you work with niches that you actually like.

My reason for this is that the whole process of creating websites, keeping things updated, advertising daily, adding new content, and being creative will come much easier. That’s most of the battle. If you like doing what you’re doing… you’re going to do more of it.

Are you following these affiliate marketer “musts”? As you can see affiliate marketing is pretty easy in theory. You just point web traffic to a merchant site and collect the commissions. But, when you get down to it you must work at it. There are things you absolutely must do. This is just a few, but if you do these five things you’ll see a big difference.

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A daily kick in the advertising pants to help you get more traffic, increased exposure, and strong reputation.

Your Daily Kick for Tuesday, June 3!

Advertising Action: Write an article and submit it to 5 directories.

Writing articles is a quick and simple way to advertise your website. Most people will wince at the use of both ‘quick’ and ’simple’. However, it can be very quick, very simple, and quite painless.

The key to writing articles is to sit down and do it, then submit them.

Today’s daily kick is all about getting things done. I believe that the longer you put something off the less likely you are to do it. That is so true when talking about writing articles for website promotion. This is true because most people don’t like to write.

A major key to successful article marketing is the down and dirty, get to it, writing of the article. It’s true. If you just take some time to sit down and begin writing something you’ll turn it into an article, of some sort, that you can then take and submit it to article directories.

3 Quick Tips To Writing Your Article Today

1. Answer a question. One of the best ways to get your article done quickly is to answer a question with your article. No matter what the topic of your website chances are there is a forum for it. Check it out and see what questions are being asked. Google your niche and see what is being tossed around. Pick a question that you can answer in about 400 words. Bang… you’ve got an article.

2. Write the first things that come to mind. Hopefully when you picked a question to answer it is one that you have pretty good knowledge about. This way you can write about something quickly and show passion with authority. This helps the reader with their decision to visit your website. The reason for this is that you can begin to write what comes to your mind. You don’t need to spend a lot of time researching. Just start writing.

3. Don’t get hung up on perfection. This is the reason many people don’t like to write. They have this ridiculous thought that their article has to be perfect. That is has to be a masterpiece of words and thoughts. Don’t believe it.

If you can put together a few paragraphs that flow with some sort of direction you’ve pretty much written an article. You don’t need to be overly elaborate in your information. The key is to get the reader to go to your website for the rest of the information or to buy something.

5 Article Directories To Submit Your Article To Today

After you’ve written your article then you have to submit it. It simply won’t do any good sitting in a file on your computer. Here’s a few to get your rolling today.

EzineArticles.com. This is the largest, most widely known, first checked out, and influential in article marketing. By submitting to this directory on a daily basis you are going to see skyrocketing traffic numbers.

GoArticles.com. Another large directory.
ArticleDashboard.com.
ArticleGold.com. A good article directory.
ArticleAlley.com. A decent directory.

Remember to start writing and submitting

Get your advertising started now by sitting down, writing our article, and submitting it. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour or two.

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A daily kick in the advertising pants to help you get more traffic, increased exposure, and strong reputation.

Your Daily Kick for Thursday, May 29!

Advertising Action: Leave comments on relevant blogs.

With advertising you want to do three things.

1.) Funnel more traffic to your website.
2.) Increase your exposure around the internet.
3.) Build a strong reputation for repeat traffic.

When you leave comments on blogs you are doing all three things at once. It’s the one time where a scattergun approach (blasting away in several directions) is actually a very focused (intense, straight) form of advertising.

Commenting On Blogs Gives A Glimpse That Leads To Wanting More

If you do it right.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think that just breezing through, leaving a “Great post” comment, linking to a completely unrelated blog, and hoping for the best is paramount to a landslide of traffic. I hate to burst your bubble… but it’s not.

Comments on blogs is just that; a comment. You leave a short, specific, related, and useful comment for the author, or the readership, to know that you a.) appreciated the post, b.) agree with the points presented, c.) have something else that is of use to add, d.) disagree with the author and have reasons why, and e.) know of another topical post, article, or resource that might help.

Leaving comments, at least for me anyway, is rather difficult. There are times when you read a blog post and are pretty inspired that the comment comes to you right away. But, then there are those times when I actually outline a comment much like I would an article of my own. I sweat over it.

Why? It’s that important that you get it right.

Commenting on blogs to me is like an audition. You only have about 7 seconds to do those three things I mentioned earlier. How? How do you get your message across with just a few words?

Get Your Daily Kick started by leaving comments!

Ok, now you know why and how. It’s time to begin.

Starting today… right now… start leaving comments on at least three to four blogs. This doesn’t mean that’s all you should do a day. That’s a minimum. If you come across a blog post that really resonates with you or your website go ahead and drop a few lines.

Make this a daily task for your advertising campaign and you’ll see a marked improvement in traffic.

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What FriendFeed does is allow your friends, the people who subscribe to your FriendFeed news feed, to keep tabs on all of your activities in these social outlets. A lot of discussion has been going on lately about the use of FriendFeed and if it’s worth the time.

For instance…

Duncan Riley of The Inquisitr says that it’s time for FriendFeed to kill Twitter.
Jason at Webomatica says to Keep your eyes on FriendFeed: It may be the Google of social networks.
Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion asks us Is FriendFeed the next big thing or are we just bored 2.0?

There is a lot of talk.

I have had a Friendfeed profile for a little while now but haven’t really paid much attention to it until the last few days. Mostly because I just didn’t have the time for yet another social media website. But I believe, like so many others, that Friendfeed just might be a viable source of increased web presence and branding.

Friendfeed as an advertising source

Like all other social media websites it’s not really the “advertising” that is going to get you more traffic and higher perception as an authority. In fact, blatant advertising will pretty much kill your social media life. The impact is going to come in the form of participation and letting people see the real you.

Participating in social media websites shows others that you have a voice and just might know a little bit. Participation means that you are adding to the conversation and, in turn, lets others know you exist.

I held off of joining any type of social media websites for a long time. I still haven’t gotten into MySpace. A few months ago I decided to put up a simple Facebook profile to see if this social networking had anything to it. Since then I’ve made some incredible “friends”, connected with some great marketers, landed several new clients, and formed amazing partnerships. In essence it works.

Why did it work? I didn’t just join and become anonymous. I participated in some of the conversations, added a few applications, and left comments.

After that I started setting up profiles on several other sites and then latched onto Twitter. With that came an explosion in blog hits, new partnerships, and clients.

The advertising was in the participation.

Friendfeed leverages that participation

I can now leverage my time, and increase my exposure, by just watching my Friendfeed page. I can see behind the scenes as the people I follow tweet, share a blog post, write a new blog post, share a YouTube video, change Facebook status, Stumble or Digg something, and even what they are listening to. And I can comment on it.

That comment will then be seen by all their friends. Something that doesn’t happen on Twitter. My range, or reach, has just multiplied. My authority value has risen. Traffic goes up.

Now I don’t have to actually go to all these websites anymore. I can just open Friendfeed, or use the AlertThingy Friendfeed client. Everything is updated automatically. All I have to do is comment.

Useful and interesting is the way to go.

Comments for the sake of comments is not what I’m talking about. Add something useful and interesting to the conversation. Don’t make yourself a nuisance but rather an asset. A source of information that people will find helpful and intriguing. Advertising to me is finding a way to be useful and then harnessing that to deliver people to your website. Friendfeed, to me, is a great way to do that.

To answer the question that this post asks of whether or not Friendfeed is a viable advertising source; I’d have to say yes.

This post we are going to see what chapters 4, 5, and 6 have to offer.

Writing your blog

After you get through the technical aspects of blogging, chapter 4 begins the real “meat” of the book. We begin to finally learn what the title suggests… the secrets to making money with blogging.

Chapter 4 is all about how to write on your blog. The one thing I did like about this, and Chris and Darren, is their commitment to content. The chapter starts out with the most important thing you’ll learn in the entire book. The first statement is “Much has been written on what makes a blog successful, but all experts agree that central to all great blogs in one element: great content.” If you get nothing else out of this book… keep that nugget of truth close to the front of your mind.

The chapter goes on to explain just what good content is. The authors admit that great content is pretty relative, “Good content will vary from person to person depending upon their needs, the topic they are talking about, and perhaps even a person’s ethics“, they do consider some universal traits to good content.

The chapter goes on to talk about good writing tips, tips for writing titles, post length (which is great info for bloggers of any experience) and frequency, and finishes with a great section on 20 types of blog posts. I know I’ll be referring to this part frequently.

This was a great chapter and worth the cost of the book alone.

Making money with your blog

After learning how to write a blog post, Chris takes over and begins to set the stage on the actual monetization methods of blogging. He begins by making a great point. There are several different ways to make money with a blog. Each blogger will have their own ways, but there are some guidelines to follow.

The sections include;

A lot of info on how to make money is crammed into this chapter. But, more specifically the “where” and the “what to do” parts of making money from your blog.

Buying and Selling Blogs

This is something that I really don’t have much interest in. That doesn’t mean that this chapter was useless. I learned a lot about the business of buying and selling blogs and if I ever wanted to try this then I know I’ll be picking apart this section.

Some of the information includes;

Like I said, I’m not sold on the whole buying and selling of blogs. But, I do know that there are a lot of people doing it and are making an incredible income from it. To me, this is the chapter that I didn’t get a lot out of, but might be going back to later.

Thoughts so far…

So far I am pretty impressed with the book. I think that Darren and Chris really want to get some relevant, useful information into the hands of people that think they might want to try blogging as a source of income.

I do feel that experience bloggers probably won’t learn anything earth shattering in the first few chapters, new bloggers are in for a great treat. That doesn’t mean that experienced bloggers shouldn’t pick up a copy. I know that as I read things that I already knew were reinforced and new ideas started to churn. So far… a great investment and enjoyable book.

Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogging, network opportunities… whatever you are doing online to earn an income… your key to success is your daily advertising tasks. Period.

Did you notice I wrote “daily”? That’s because it has to be daily. Not every other day. Not weekly. Not whenever you get around to it. Daily.

Everyday there should be something that happens online with your name, your website, your product, your brand, your teaching, your voice, your thoughts, and your presence. I am convinced that in the online world of marketing and advertising if you’re not involved, you’re forgotten.

Things are moving so fast online, new strategies and upcoming “stars” are being pushed in front of us all the time. One of your jobs as an internet marketer is to dig your heels in and push back with your own overpowering presence. I realize that’s not what everyone wants to hear, or even acknowledge.

But… it’s true.

Internet Advertising is a daily job

Everyday in the online world is equal to a month in the offline world. Things happen fast. With the ways to advertise your website, and most of them free, you can be seen in a matter of hours, and even minutes. If you’re not out there pushing to be seen, then someone else is.

I’m going to be bringing to light some of the things that you must be doing everyday in a new series of posts. Actually it’s going to be more than just a series. It’s more like a daily dose of a kick in the pants.

This new series “Your Daily Kick!” is going to be ongoing. Everyday there will be something new posted to help jump start your website advertising. It can be in the form of step by step instructions, websites to be involved with, resources that will help (both free and paid for), and even exact phrases, headlines, and words to use in your ads.

I would like to invite you, no… encourage you, to check back on a daily basis for a different advertising task. The best way to do that is by subscribing to the RSS feed of this blog. I would also like to encourage you to comment and add to the discussions.

Let’s get ready for a Daily Kick!

It seems that while there are billions of dollars being spent online each year in advertising there are also more and more ways to get a tremendous amount of advertising for free. In creating advertising campaigns for people each week , one of the things that I focus on is maximizing their advertising budget by utilizing free and low cost advertising. Lately, there has been a pretty big shift in the effectiveness of free vs. paid advertising.

Free is winning out.

To me it’s all about the game. Where can I get the same amount of traffic, or better, for a client’s website without paying for it? How can I best get brand recognition for a new website without spending any more ad dollars on it? How will I get the message out to the masses for free? It can almost seem like you’re shouting into a megaphone on a hilly meadow and nobody hears you.

That’s not the case today though. You can now successfully advertise your website, whether old or new, to a very large, and mostly targeted, audience. This is good news for people who are spending way too much on elaborate pay per click campaigns.

The question is where. Where can you advertise your website for free?

Ten Powerful Ways To Advertise Your Website for Free

1. Write and Submit Articles

Article marketing has been a very big provider of free traffic for me, and my clients, for a long time now. In fact, I still receive a little traffic from articles I’ve written six years ago. There are thousands of article directories online (just google ‘article directory’) and most of the time you just complete a simple sign up and start submitting. Some directories have pretty elaborate sign ups, but for the majority it’s easy.

The hardest part is, of course, the writing of the articles. There are a lot of article writing tips also available online to help you through this process. Or you could always hire someone to write the articles for you.

2. Start a Blog

One of the first things I’ve been telling my clients to do is to start a blog. And not just one. But, if you can to start several blogs on the free hosted blogs at Blogger.com and Wordpress.org.

What start a blog? It’s almost like having your own article directory that you post your own articles on. The best thing about it is that they are indexed in the search engines rather quickly. Especially on the Google owned Blogger.com.

3. Leave comments on other blogs I have to admit that I didn’t jump on this bandwagon until the last six months or so. I just didn’t see the use of spending more time rummaging through other blogs thinking up witty, useful comments. I’ve since changed my mind when I left a comment on a blog, ClickNewz.com I believe, and saw a sharp spike in traffic.

I must make a strong note though. Have something useful to say. Don’t just leave something like “Great post!” and leave.

4. Participate in Forums Again, I have to admit that I was a long time in coming around to the whole forum participation thing. For me the biggest drawback was time. I just didn’t have the time to ‘lurk’ around several different forums waiting for a chance to jump into the conversation. And just like leaving comments on blogs, once I started, I changed my mind.

I now make time each week for promoting my websites as the traffic generated is well worth it.

5. Spend time working on Search Engine Optimization

A major source of traffic to your website is the search engines. Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask.com… they all contribute a great deal of free traffic on an ongoing basis. However, it does a little work to make sure your webpages are ranking high enough to get noticed. To do that you have to spend time working on each page until they are where you need them. And then follow up as the rankings change constantly. A great resource for this is a free ebook by Dan Thies called SEO Fast Start.

6. Tweet using Twitter

I really like Twitter. It’s an amazing social marketing tool that lets you say what you’re doing to the people who are following you. Kind of like subscribers to your email newsletter. The kick is that you only have 140 characters to do it. The beauty of it is in the immense usefulness of it.

With Twitter you must have a balance of what you’re tweeting. What I mean is you don’t just use it as a means to drive traffic by posting your URL all the time. It helps if you actually do let people know what it is you’re doing. Going to Starbucks… tweet it. Mowing your lawn… tweet it. Writing a new blog post… tweet it. Traveling to LA… tweet it. Landed a new client… tweet it. Get the idea??

7. Participate in Social Media Websites

By these I mean the two big ones Facebook and MySpace. There are others, but these are the two main ones where you’re more likely to meet more people. I was very skeptical of these types of websites as I only thought they were for teenagers and middle aged men looking to hook up. I took the chance of creating a Facebook profile and have met some great people, found new clients, and forming strong partnerships.

8. Write a Guest Post

Once you get the hang of blogging you can then move to writing guest posts on another compatible blog. I wouldn’t help you at all to write a post on the benefits of protein powder if your website deals with car batteries. But, if you wrote a post on fly fishing in Maine and had the opportunity to post it on a fishing blog, outdoors blog, travel blog, etc… you would gain in both traffic and in your own personal brand.

There are a few rules to how to be a guest blogger. For instance you don’t just send in blog posts to someone like they are your own personal article directory. You wait for an opportunity to submit one.

9. Do some Digging and Stumbling

Free traffic today is a process. Part of that process is helping others get free traffic. Websites like Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com are places where you get to rank other websites and leave comments as to why you do like, or don’t like, them. The key to success with sites like these is to Digg or Stumble other sites.

Once you begin to make friends on these sites (it all revolves around people you know…) and digg, or stumble, their sites they begin to do the same for you. If your blog post, article, or webiste can make it to the front page of these sites your traffic soars. In order to do this you must make sure you have great content that others will want to recommend.

10. Participate in Webinars and Teleconferences

I am beginning to love Webinars. They are great little “mini seminars” that are on the web. Most of the time you are on a conference call, but can participate through chat on a website. I have been making time in my schedule to attend at least one a week. By doing so I get to interact with others, leave comments in the chat, and providing commentary that adds to the conversation.

Free online traffic requires work and time, but is worth it

As you can see it takes a lot of time and effort in building and maintaining free traffic to your site. You can begin to feel overwhelmed and it can begin to get a little chaotic. One of the things that can help you immensely is by having a plan in place that you follow each week. A great help in this is a free report by Michelle MacPhearson on Web 2.0.

Free traffic is a lot of work. It does require time. But the rewards are very much worth the time as you are not only building traffic, and saving money, but are also building your brand. This is invaluable and priceless to your online business.