Web Savvy Strategy for Using Forums For Traffic Generation

Using forums is a very powerful way of getting free traffic to your website or blog.  One of the reasons I like this method is that if it is done correctly, you can get a load of traffic from it for years to come.   So here are the steps to going to forum in a logical order.

 

Since I am an avid user of the Warrior Forum (WF), I’m going to use that as an example whenever I talk about forums, because I’m so familiar with it.  Just like the stars in the sky there are bazillions of forums on the web, each with their own sets or rules that you’ll have to follow.  Some make it easy for you to join and post, and others can be a stiff pain in the pants to post or comment on. 

Step 1 Do Your Research First – You’ll want to figure out which forums your niche is applicable to before you decide to join and post.  (You do know what niche you’re in, don’t you?)  You sure as heck don’t want to join a forum about “gold panning” when your niche is “cat breeds”.  So, know what types of forums you’ll need to participate in before you join one.

Step 2 Register and Lurk – Make sure you register and look for a section that either welcomes you

or has a help section.  Usually most forums want you to read their rules because if you break their rules there may be repercussions. 

You might get suspended or have your account banned, so make sure you find out what the rules of the forum are.  The next thing you should do is get a feel of the forum.  You need to read what other people are interested on it, what their problems and ambitions are and how you can help them.

Once you get a good idea of what the forum is all about you can move on to the next step which is…

Step 3 Leave Comments and Help Other Members with Their Problems – Once you have a good feel for the forum, you can then participate.  Once again, make sure that you’re following the rules.

NOTE:  Most forums have all sorts of rules concerning posting with your website address.  Usually, to get that privilege you’ll be required to participate in the forum for a certain number of posts or buy your way in, as in the case of the Warrior Forum.  (Very cheap $10 lifetime membership)  So, I wouldn’t even think of posting my web address right away.  On the Warrior Forum you can use a signature if you pay, but more on that in a minute.

Step 4 Create A Signature That Automatically Follows Your Posts  - This is complexly legit, however most forums will only allow this privilege after you’ve made a number of posts or started a bunch of threads.  If you are allowed to create signature file, make sure that it grabs people’s attention, and has all of your contact information on it.  Many forums will allow you to advertise your services on your signature line, but I wouldn’t overdo it.

Step 5 Try To Deliver A Real Good Post At Least Once A Week – This is where you can really gain some solid ground on being an authority in your niche.  You should write about a 500+ post talking about some facet of your niche that’ll actually helps people.  You want to make sure that it is well written, concise, and is aimed at your target market. 

Warning!  Do not, and I repeat, do not jump on a forum and start selling your crap.  That’s just not the way it works, and at best you’ll be seen as another snake oil salesman.  Just like social media, if you haven’t taken the time to nurture relationships and help people out, you’ll be doing nothing more than hurting yourself. This sales process works best over time, but it has great rewards if you work it the right way.

Step 6 Follow And Answer People That Respond To Your Post   Once you’ve written and posted follow your post and see what the response is.  If you’ve pushed the envelope a little bit and ruffled someone feathers, then you’ll definitely get responses.  Respond to these super politely. 

You should never get offended by anything anyone says because there will people on there that are just plain nuts. You don’t want to be seen as a jerk and a bad attitude and foul language can follow you around for a while.

Step 7 Rinse and Repeat – Remember, your goal is to create a great reputation and help people.  Don’t be selfish and always be kind.

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Essential Dirt Cheap Newsletter Methods That Will Create a Flood of Traffic to Your Business!

If you are going to use online newsletters to stay in touch with your clients, you’ll need to acquire the proper tools to run an online newsletter. In a previous section, we looked at two companies that were dirt cheap to start out with and you can read that information here:  Newsletters That Will Make Your Business Magnetic to Customers

A List of Autoresponder / Email / Newsletter Services

 Below is a reference list of some of the best email and newsletter businesses on the Internet.  Rather than listing benefits and prices to you, I’m just going to list them so you can go to their actual sites and check them out. 

The reason why I’m not going to review each one of these is because the pricing and features change so often that by the time this is written, one of them will have already changed their information.

Autosenders
Aweber
Constant Contact
Get Response
iContact
Iminiacamail
List Wire Mail Chimp 

Text Versus HTML

Many of these online companies offer two versions of newsletters and email that you can send: HTML and a text version.  I personally like the text version for a number of reasons.  For one thing, if one of the persons I am sending my

HTML Newsletters can look
very professional in color

newsletters to have a slower method of receiving their email, HTML will take more time.  With text, you aren’t relying on faster broadband speeds because text has no colors, borders, pictures, etc.

HTML has all of that stuff, plus the ability to embed pictures, video and use templates that look like websites.  In my opinion, HTML takes longer to format.  You have to make sure your text is lined up right as well as your pictures and other elements that are on the newsletter.

All you have to worry about with text, is that you format it a little to brand the name of your business on it.  However, usually that is a onetime set up.

Offline Newsletters

If you are creating an offline newsletter, use Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher.  Both of these pieces of software require some time to learn, but almost everyone knows how to use Word, but if you don’t know how to create a cool looking newsletter with it, there are tons of online tutorials that’ll show you.

TIP: If you don’t want to do all of the formatting involved in producing a cool looking. newsletter, hire someone.  If you’ve already written the material, and want someone to turn it into a cool looking format that’s ready to print, you can always find someone on Fiverr to do that for you.

Fiverr is a site that only allows you to charge or pay $5.00 per job./  So you can easily get someone on there to format your material into a great looking newsletter for a mere $5.00!  Such a deal.  Here is Fiverr’s link: Five Dollar Gigs 

If that doesn’t appeal to you, you can always go to an outsourcing site and hire someone for more money, but then again, that wouldn’t be the Dirt-Cheap method I’m so fond of.

List of Outsourcing Sites:

oDesk 

Freelancer 

Warriors for Hire

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

                                                    

What to Do With Your Facebook Prospects Once They Come To Your Site!

Over the last couple of days I’ve written about how to use a social media site like Facebook to cultivate and nurture relationships with prospects.  Now we’re going to talk about what to do with them once they get to your site. 

Unlike direct mail, which has a marketing process that looks like this:

Using social media to sell your, service, product, or ideas has a marketing process that looks something like this: (Facebook = Your Facebook Business or Fan Page.)

So as you can see there is a distinct difference between the two processes. 

The Big Differences

The difference between the two is obvious; the direct mail method is a simple two step system that requires the medium (sales letter) to sell whatever it is you are trying to push.  The Facebook method requires multiple steps is more complex, requires more time and work and is more difficult to track. 

The direct mail method is simple, delivered exactly to the person or persons you want to connect with, and is much easier to track.  Let’s face it if you send out 100 direct mail pieces and 4 of them lead to a sale that’s 4%.  

However, finding out your rate of success with social media of any kind is going to be a daunting task.  Direct mail does require a lot of work, because you have to have the skill set to write copy that will convert to sales.  That is a lot of work on the front end.

The Hidden Benefits of Using Facebook to Market Your Business

The hidden benefits with the Facebook method are it’s much cheaper, and your message has the ability to hit larger numbers of people over and over again. 

  You can sell to them, and if they love what you sell them, they will spread your message for you virally.   Not only that, but you can easily stay in touch with people that subscribe to your Facebook page.  That means if they like your business and products, they may buy from you over and over again. 

THE REASON I’M TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS IS BECAUSE ONCE PROSPECTS OR FANS OF YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE COME TO YOUR SITE, YOU’LL WANT TO TAKE EVERY MEASURE YOU CAN TO MAKE SURE THEY TAKE THE ACTION YOU WANT!

After you go through all of the necessary steps to get prospects to your site, you’ll want to have the opportunity to eventually sell them. However, don’t get too excited yet!  We still have a trick or two to perform before we unleash our irresistible offer at them…

A Proper Pop-Up That’ll Eventually Convert

One good way you can use to build your list is to use a “Welcome” pop-up.  The Welcome pop-up will drastically increase the number of subscribers to your list. 

It has even been reported that one Internet marketer increased his opt-in rate by over 700% in just a few months by doing this.  I can’t confirm this, but I’m sure you’ll have a better opt-in rate using a Welcome pop-up than a static box on your page. 

Bench Prep Uses a Welcome Pop-Up

With the Welcome pop-up, you won’t send them to a sales page yet.  You will want so ease into the sale eventually at a later date.  At this point, you are merely growing your list of humble, yet starving followers. Yes, starving to hear more about your niche, service or product, and it can all be done very cheaply.

Overt - Subliminal Advertising

Here’s an idea that has been around for a while, and yet when we see it, we stuff it into the subliminal backs of our minds. It’s very, very common to see an ad at the top of many popular sites.  Because we have seen these advertising banners so much, we have a tendency to automatically think of it as being a vendor’s banner, rather than a banner of the SITE OWNERS. 

So, it would be a good idea to create your own banner as if were someone else’s!  Don’t lie, just advertise your product at the top of your page just like a banner.  Perhaps use different fonts and colors than the ones which are on your blog or website so that it register’s in your visitors mind as “just another ad”. 

You can either sell your stuff from the banner or use it as another way to get more people to sign up for your email newsletter. 

The Warrior Forum Sometimes Advertises It's Own
Products on Its Site Like WSO Special Offers

Another way to have banner advertising is to make them relevant.  In other words, if you are talking about kayaking, you could have a free video on how to put a kayak on top of a car, if you can get the person’s email.  So have a banner or button that your visitors can click on that is related to what you are talking about.

Keep Your Landing Page CLEAN!

One last piece of advice about these strategies, keep your landing pages clean.  Google gets it.  If you look at the search engine objectively, you’ll see just how clean it is.  While all of the other search engines like AOL, Yahoo and Altavista were busy putting more crap on their pages than you could stand, Google went with a very clean and elegant design. 

The reason?  The folks at Google wanted to make sure their visitors were focused on one thing: getting nothing but awesome search results.  If you went to Google you had only one option: SEARCH.

It's Easy To See Google is Very Focused on One Function...Searching!

So, when you have a page that’s supposed to make your visitor take a specific action, make sure NOTHING can get in their way.  Keep that page very simple and devoid of distractions.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

The Web Savvy Smart Forum Way to Market Your Business

As you've seen in past posts on this blog, I've been writing about all of the ways you could use to get free traffic.  The reason I’m doing this is because I’m a person that hates debt with a passion.  If I can figure out a way to do something without spending a wad of money, I’ll do it.

Now, this is not to say that you should never spend money on your business.  Later on down the road, when you are making good money, the traffic is flowing to your website, and sales are converting, you’ll start to value your time more than doing menial tasks.

Eventually, you’ll want to outsource certain aspects of your business because it will be more valuable for you to do other more important things, like product creation or managing people that are doing tasks for you.

If you decide to hire someone…

Don’t try to be too cheap! If you start hiring other people to do certain tasks for you, make sure they can do good work, and that they are competent.  That means you’ll be paying more.  In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than hiring someone to write your blog articles for you and barely have command of the English language.  Unless you want a really lousy reputation, always do your best, or hire someone that can do it for you correctly.

Using the FREE Smart Forum Method of Generating Traffic

A few posts back, I briefly touched on one of the ways you could use forums to get free traffic to your Website.  This time, I’m going to show you a slightly different strategy of using forums that you can use to get people to go to your

site.   

This Web savvy strategy is different than other methods of generating traffic, because it requires you to do something that usually goes against the grain of Internet marketing. You are not going to mention your website using this method.

THAT’S RIGHT, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO USE A WEB ADDRESS OR SAY ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE OR PRODUCT USING THIS METHOD.

(Well, at least not for a while, anyway.)

  The Smart Forum / Web Savvy Method Step by Step

1.        Locate forums that are related to your niche or business.  Pretty simple, eh?  To find these forums using Google, simply type in your niche key word, or keywords plus the word “forum”.   For example, if your passion is gerbils, then type in “gerbil forum”.  If you passion for gerbils is in racing them, then type in “gerbil racing forum”.  It’s just that simple! You will want to register with every gerbil racing forum you can find.

2.       Go undercover.  Once you join these forums, go on them and make well written, helpful posts to people that are asking questions.  Your goal at this point is to become a familiar part of that forum landscape that people will eventually recognize. If you do this enough, people will start looking to you as a “go-to guy”.  Someone that other forum members can look to for advice. Notice:  Make sure that you are working within your niche and that you know or have researched a good answer when responding to thread questions on a forum.  If you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about you’ll stick out as a phony.

3.       Once you have made about 20 posts or more, you can add your tag line and web address to at the end of posts on forum you've been posting at. (Usually forums want you to earn the privilege of posting your website address and tag line to their sites by writing a bunch of posts first.)  

      

      Your tag line (AKA signature line) is a brief catchphrase or slogan that you place right after your name on a post, correspondence or other communication.  If you look at my blog posts you’ll see my catchphrase right after my name.  Try to make yours interesting so that people wil want to

4.       Rinse and repeat.  If you write excellent responses that are detailed and well written, you will gain the attention of people that will eventually see you as an authority.  Once that ground work has been laid people will start to follow you to your site, sign up for your irresistible free offer and eventually buy from you.

Note: Make sure before you begin this strategy that you check to see if the forum you are posting at will allow you to eventually place your web address on your posts.  If the forum does not allow that, you will be wasting your time.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Use These Three Web Savvy Steps to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Site

I know this blog has been dedicated to the pursuit of showing you a whole variety of different methods to generate traffic to your websites and businesses.  Let’s face it, without any traffic you won’t have much of a business and there really isn't a reason to have a website at all.

Where I Initially Went Wrong In My Business

Without the key element of intimately knowing what your niche is you may be getting people to come to your site, BUT THEY WILL BE THE WRONG PEOPLE!  So, you need to establish this key idea well before you jump on the Internet and start banging out information that you think people will want to read.

Getting the Traffic That You Want

So, step #1 in your traffic generating matrix should be:

1.  Get a niche that you can focus on.  I have written a rather extensive article on this in an earlier blog post, that also has wonderful links to good resources and you can read that here: Finding Your Niche However, this is a most important step that you must consider because this is the direction that your business is going to take. Without a focused subject or core idea, your business is going to go elsewhere. 

Personal story: Years ago, I started an online embroidery business.  I bought my self a $20,000 single head machine, digitizing software, hoops, and a bunch of other stuff I needed, and decided that I would run most of my services on the Internet.  So, I set up a basic E-commerce site, and put myself out there to get business and to make my fortune on the World Wide Web. 

Oh, I got business, alright.  I got people that wanted gardening hats, shirts with children’s pictures on them, jackets for Veterans and a whole slew of other unassociated stuff.  I set up loads of pages of material and pretty soon, my site looked like a one man band trying to spell out the name Mississippi on a parade field.

To make my point short, it was chaos.

It wasn’t until I decided on a niche that every aspect of my business got easier.  I decided to create apparel exclusively for musicians.  Hats, shirts and jackets for trumpet players, trombonists, guitarists, etc.  Because I had picked a focused niche I didn't have to digitize or sew out loads of unrelated garments either.

Which leads me to Step #2…

2.  Promoting your site or business.  Once you have a niche in place, you must have a way to attract the people that you want there.  In my case I started a light-hearted blog about the craziness of musicians and I wrote a lot of parodies about different instruments.  I also used Photoshop to create a bunch of really funny images based on them.

Some of the pictures and content that was shared went viral on the Internet which helped bring in new customers.  As a matter of fact, I have since sold the business and I went online and my pictures are still being circulated, years after I shut down the site.  

Not only do you need to get fresh content related to your site on the Internet, but you will need to know where people in your niche hang out.  In my case, it was easy to figure out where musicians were hanging out at, and how to get my marketing message in front of them. 

What I eventually learned was that musicians that were into my musician’s apparel were mostly kids in school band programs and music hobbyists that were in specific groups and clubs.  For years there was a group of music enthusiasts in Holland that wore my stuff to their weekly musician’s meetings, no lie.  I got a lot of orders from those guys!

3. Selling your wares.  This was where I failed for years.  I did fairly well getting people to come to my music embroidery site, but once they were there I didn’t sell them.  Yeah, it’s great getting new prospects in your door, but what are you going to do once they walk in?  You need to have a method of selling them, which is the reason why I decided to learn how to write advertising copy.

For years, I was intimidated by many of the awesome copywriters that were on the Web.  I thought I’d never be able to even approach the level of copy that I saw on websites and squeeze pages or stuff I got in the mail box.  And it’s true, those guys are real, world class, millionaire advertising copy writers. 

However, in order to play a decent round of golf, you don’t have to play as good as Tiger Woods.  You don’t need to be the next Bill Gates to use a computer or create a program.  You can aspire to be like them, and put your back into your passion.  It will take you a long way.  But to do well, you don’t necessarily have to be THAT good.

So, if you are going to sell any product or service on the Internet, you are going to have to learn to sell using words.   That, or at least hire a copywriter that knows what he or she is doing.

I have briefly touched on three very important facets of grabbing traffic on the Web.  To get a more in –depth idea on how to implement these ideas, please refer to the resources below.  Most of the information you can get from these sites are free but are high quality:

Finding a Niche:

The Warrior Forum.  Just type in “niche” into the forums search function to get a TON of information from seasoned online entrepreneurs.

Here’s an excellent video to get you started on finding a niche:

Promoting Your Site or Business:

10 Ways to Promote Your Website by Forbes Magazine

Copywriting Services: Mark Ellis Copy

Use This Overlooked Article Strategy to Get Traffic to Your Site

 Here’s another great way that you can get traffic to your site without killing yourself.  Like all other aspects of Internet marketing, it requires hard work, patience and perseverance.  Oh, and you also have to know how to write…Yep, that would help.

Which Type of Article Marketing Works?

My technique of guest writing, is different than what a lot of people advocate.  Usually, the advice most Internet marketers divulge is to use services like Ezinearticles.com, ArticlesBase.com or GoArticles.com or some other article posting site to write and post your material to.

I have no idea whether these sites actually work or not.  I’m not saying that they won’t do what they say they will do.  Yes, you can write articles for them and yes they will post them for you…Usually for a subscription rate.  Whether or not this system will actually generate traffic to your site is debatable. 

The theory behind posting to article generating sites is that once you have written your masterpieces, you can post the articles you write on their site so that other people will read them.   Once someone has read your article, if it is written well, they may reuse the material and spread it around like the viral EBooks I told you about earlier. (You can read all about how to use an EBook for traffic generation here: Generate Traffic by writing and giving out an EBook: <blog post URL here>)

However, most article based sites require you to pay a subscription rate if you want to put your websites URL (web address) at the end of the article. 

And that’s where they've got you.  If it costs you almost $30 a month or $360 a year, (watch it, they’ll tell you it’s only $1.00 a day…Hah… Marketers!) then you BETTER get some stinking traffic-traction out of it. However, most of the people I've talked to said this wasn't the way to go.  As a matter of fact, Google is very aware of this kind of content and it pretty much ignores it.  So, if you do article marketing and it works, GREAT.  Keep doing it.

But it has been my experience that this is a difficult path.

Posting To Unusual Places

So, what does work in article marketing?  If you are going to write excellent content that has some thought and time put into it, then I would suggest either posting it to your own blog or website, or posting it to someone else’s blog or website.  Actually you can post articles to prominent forums very easily. 

My favorite forum on the Internet is the Warrior Forum.  Because this forum is probably the most popular marketing forum on the Internet, posts that are made there rise to the top of the search engine results pages pretty quick.

Just to give you a real good, actual example of this, here it is:  Today, I wanted to find out what was the best way to get affiliates to sell my products.  So, I typed in: “get affiliates to sell your product”.  Here is what I found on page 1 of Google:

What this is saying is, if you posted on the Warrior Forum and the post becomes very popular that a fairly decent number of people respond to it on the forum, you could wind up on page 1 of Google, with the rest of them.

TIP:  If you were REALLY smart, you could see what posts are prominent on the forum of your choice and write a real good article and post it as an answer.

All you have to do is take a look at which post is popular first, write your article and post it on there.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot better than spending loads of time writing a well-structured article, posting it to some sort of article site and then hope it gets read among the other thousands of articles that are out there.

Most of the forums online are very, very cheap or free.  All you usually have to do is sign up.  The Warrior Forum will run you about $10.00 for a lifetime membership.  Nice. Not only that, but with the lifetime membership, you get to post your web address (URL) to your post as well.  So, if people like what you wrote, they can click on the link to your site.

And this should work well with other subjects like basket weaving, gerbil racing, vacationing in Vancouver or any other subject are besides marketing.  You’ll just have to seek out the forums that specialize in these subjects and find out which are the most prominent ones on Google for your niche.

Posting to Popular Blogs Can Help You Get Noticed Too!

You can also do the same with a comment section in a popular blog.  Usually, you have to somehow give your email address with a blog to be able to post to it and once you've gone through the process of giving them your email, you can usually include your web address as well. 

Once again, I would write a very well written, short article disguised as a comment onto the blog so that it will draw attention to what you are posting.  I have never personally seen a limit on the number of words that can be commented on, so you can write as much as you need to. 

Not only that, but the owner of the blog won’t complain if the content is fresh and relevant to the article you are responding to.

My Step by Step Strategy:

So, here are the steps I would take using this strategy:

1.  Find an locate a blog or forum that is relevant to your niche

2.  Sign up so you can post both your articles and Web address

3.  Cruise the forums and blogs that you’ll want to post at to see if there are any hot topics you can respond to

4.  Write a detailed, intelligent answer or response to the article or post that was put up

5.  Keep an eye on the post to see if anyone responds or reacts to your comment or post

6.  If someone comments on what you wrote, this will give you the opportunity to respond, thus increasing your prominence

Try these out and see if you have any success with them.  I’m always happy to hear from people, so please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

To your success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com