The Affiliate Blueprint

To succeed at Internet Marketing you need a growing network of websites. These sites will feed each other traffic, pre-sell affiliate programs, generate Adsense revenue, and grow your opt-in e-mail lists.”

There are several ways for you to do this, but they all require a basic skill set. I’m assuming you know the basics of hosting, getting a website, and creating one. If you have no idea how to do any of this, it isn’t that hard.

Here is all you really need to do to get started:

1. Get a domain name
2. Get a reseller account
3. Make your first site
4. Make your second site
5. Link them together
6. Promote them
7. Make another site
8. Link them together
9. Promote them
10. REPEAT!

How Exactly Do You Pick A Topic?

There are many places to pick a topic for your site. My favorite I think is the Lycos Top 50.

It’s not the most popular search engine, but the Top 50 list is a great way to find what people are searching for. They also keep archives. Here is the URL: http://50.lycos.com

If you’re just starting out your not going to be able to compete with the top 50 that are listed, but with a little imagination, you can come up with sub topics based on what Lycos tells you. If you keep looking long enough, you might even find some patterns and be able to figure out some of the future top searches

Use a keyword service. There are literally hundreds of software programs that help you pick keywords. I like SeoLite by Brad Callen – however, it has a very hefty price tag. There are other services offering keywords on particular niches for as low as $15 per month. I suggest shopping around until you find one you are happy with.

If you are really looking to see what is popular – go find some of the most visited blogs on the net. What are they writing about and getting people to leave comments? If people are taking the time to comment on someone else’s blog – it’s a good thing.

Just write about what you are interested in. Passion will win out every day of the week. If you turn out ‘real’ content that serves a purpose the engines will eat you up and other sites will link to you. That might mean you have to leave the “internet marketing” field, but the rewards are tremendous.

Go to Amazon.com and “browse top sellers”. This is a great way to find out what everyone is buying. In case you haven’t figured it out yet – go to where the public interest is.

Use “nichebot” – http://www.nichebot.com. It lets you enter in keywords and it will return the top results. Use it to find niches that have less competition.

Creating Google SiteMap

Google has released the ability for every day webmasters like us to actually TELL them about our sites. All you have to do is upload to Google a “XML COMPLIANT” sitemap. They have a certain format they want it in.

If you’re feeling like your froggy, go do a search for a Google site map generator. I had a heck of a time using all of the ones I could find out there…

I finally found one that worked on my server and was a breeze to set up: http://www.nichesitespecial.com/sitemap.php

They say that this script won’t work on all servers, so if it doesn’t work on yours, just ask for a refund and they will give you one if they can’t get it to work for you.

It’s part of NicheSiteSpecial – but if you don’t want to join you can just order the site map generator.

Our testing using this tool is leading us to believe that it should be an integral part of your promotions. Just one of the sites we have used it on has over 500 pages listed in Google in just under 3 weeks.

Creating Your Website

Get A Reseller or Bulk Hosting Account

The first step in your Blue Print should be getting your first website. Make this one a learning experience, but you should also set things up so you have room to grow NOW. Why would you pay 20 bucks to host a website when you can host 50 websites for just a few dollars more?

There are many hosting companies that offer bulk hosting or reseller accounts. Hostgator, Towerhost, and many others. Many of them such as Towerhost have training videos to help you get started. http://www.towerhost.com/support/video_tutorials.php

You will need to register a domain name prior to ordering your reseller account. Again if this is new to you, don’t worry. If you simply go to http://www.godaddy.com/ you will be walked through the few easy steps of getting your very own domain name.

Once you have your first web site hosted, you will want to start laying out your site.

Website Layout:

Once you have your hosting and domain name situated, it’s time to start thinking about how your first site is going to look. There are quite a number of options in regards to how to find your “look”.

Join a template membership site – This is not a good idea unless you are comfortable editing PHOTOSHOP files. AplusTemplates is affordable and they do have a nice selection. The membership is about worthless if you can’t edit the templates or pay someone to do it for you.

Get Xarawebstyle4 – Awesome idea with very low learning curve. I use this on a regular basis still. I also suggest getting Xarax when you buy webstyle4. XaraX is about the easiest to use vector based graphic system out there –

Get Dreamweaver or Frontpage – Frontpage has a low learning curve, but Dreamweaver gives you a lot more room to grow. If you have any students in the household you can get the full Dreamweaver MX suite for about $199.

There are dozens of books and on-line tutorials to help you learn it as well. Michael Worthington creates great videos on Dreamweaver as well.

Don’t want to spend the cash? Try NVU: http://www.nvu.com it’s free!

Get XsitePro – you will still need a template and one of the editors above, but this product can churn out so many OPTIMIZED pages that it’s worth the investment

Or if you just don’t have the time, energy, or skills to learn all that right now and want to get started, you might want to consider joining a program like Niche Site Special. Niche Site Special gives you completed products and ENTIRE websites every single month. Since you have purchased this product, I have gotten special permission to get you a really nice discount on membership. Click on that link above, then come back here to get the discount if you like what you see. Discounted NSS membership.

You can also hire someone to make your website – although this will get VERY expensive as you add more and more sites. A ten page targeted keyword niche site is about 300 to 1000 dollars. Services like Stamdeveloper offer affordable niche sites, but they can’t always meet demand – so you should probably have a back up.

If you make sure your host has “FANTASTICO”, you can install with one click several content management scripts, blogs, and other scripts to help with making a website. One of the extra benefits of fantastico is that you can keep your forums, blog scripts, and contact forms updated to the latest version and NOT use a programmer.

Last but not least you can code the sites yourself. It’s not that hard to learn HTML. There are literally thousands of on-line tutorials. Using a wysiwyg editor may be the easiest option for new learners. If you are willing to get started, but don’t want to put the funds out for expensive software, tools, or editors – go back up to the link to NVU and download it. You will need to learn a little, but NVU is a great alternative to hand coding.

Traffic For Your Site

Pumping Your Websites Full of Traffic

As may have already known, there are more ways than one to get people to visit your websites. Here are the easiest and most basic ways to do this…

On-line Classifieds:

It’s been widely reported that On-line Classifieds are a complete waste of time – and they are if you are trying to use them to promote a web site. However, using them for free link backs to your site isn’t a bad idea.

This isn’t worth a whole lot of your time – so don’t concentrate on it. A few links in classifieds are a good idea though as they are free back links to your site. Some paid services like USfreeads allow you to make whole pages to promote your site/ad.

This is a great way to get a back link with some highly targeted surrounding text. The benefit will be up to you though as there are other places to do the same thing for free.

Smart E-zine Advertising:

If you place an e-zine ad and NEVER get a sale did you waste all your money? Not if the e-zine you published your ad with actually has an on-line archive.

Anytime your Live URL is active somewhere it is usually a good thing. Search for e-zine with affordable rates and advertise in them with your ‘anchor text’ terms.

If you don’t know what anchor text is…. Go here: http://seo-branding.info/anchor.htm

If you have never advertised in an E-zine before and are a little hesitant may I suggest going to: http://www.ezineadauction.com – Merle has done a great job of setting a site up where you can actually BID on advertising space.

Directory Listings:

Directory Listings are a very important part of the Search Engine Optimization game – and if you do it right you can even generate traffic this way. Here is a list of a ton of free directories – this is the best resource I have found period.

http://info.vilesilencer.com/

They are changing formats right now to also include paid listings, but it does not appear that they will be getting rid of their free directory listings.

Paid directory inclusions may be a good idea if you can find a “niche” directory that is getting targeted traffic to your sites topic. This will be the only way you can count on getting some traffic in return for the directory listings, if any traffic is generated from the “free” listings it will be just through luck for the most part. The main reason you are submitting to the directories is for a nice high PR backlink.

Link Exchanges:

How to do them right – and make sure you aren’t ripped off.

Link exchanges are a fast way to brand your website. You can’t do it automated though, you need to write to other webmasters and ask them to exchange links with you.

It will take time and I think it’s almost a waste of time. Sure some people will argue with me, but I know how hard it is.
Instead why don’t you go to where webmasters are searching for link exchanges already?

There are 100’s of webmaster forums, marketing forums and more where other webmasters are working on their branding……and they want to exchange links with you!

Right now I have 4 posts on various forums looking for link partners. I put them up this morning and tonight I have 11 link exchanges complete. I can already see the increase in traffic and Google has already “found” one of my websites that it hadn’t crawled yet. By this time tomorrow I will have a 4 new websites on their way to a profitable future and a higher search engine ranking. It didn’t take much time, and the results are phenomenal.

I disagree with trading links just for a Page Rank boost – if I am taking space up on my website I expect some traffic in return. So make sure you ask your linking partners if they are getting any traffic

If you are not getting much traffic yet it’s hard to be pushy on this topic. You are just going to have to gamble on their site growing as yours does.

Believe it or not exchanging links is risky business and there are many ways for you to get cheated EVEN WHEN YOU SEE YOUR LINK ON THEIR SITE!

SEO And Affiliate Marketing

Search Engine Optimization is A Must – Each Step of The Way…

As you create your sites you need to keep several things in mind. The most important part is making your sites search engine friendly right off the bat.

Here are some tips and resources to help you accomplish that properly.

Pick keywords using a free service or a paid service like seolite, wordtracker, or others. I usually get by using Mcdar and Nichebot.

Make sure your pages all have Meta-tags and Titles. Learn a little about meta-tags at places like http://www.seo4dummies.com

Make sure you link to your other sites using anchor text.

Learn to read your web stats- http://www.track-it-now.info Chances are your site already has awstats in the control panel and that will be all you need to really see who is visiting your site and what keywords are bringing them there.

Link all your pages back to your home page using Anchor Text Links.

Make sure you understand the basic principles of Search Engine Optimization. Sites like sitepoint.com , seo4dummys.com and others can help you.

BUILD LINKS – using anchor text terms.

Avoid the common traps in blogging

Are you one of those that do not yet have the capability of blogging to help your business? Then, you are way behind all the others.

Professional and small businesses alike have already taken their marketing into blogs to communicate and keep in touch with their target customers and consumers alike.

You may have heard about it already. How people already have their own blog sites and how they work successfully with their niche market. Reports have also shown how their profits have been boosted because of blogging. These and among other things are enough for you to jump up and start blogging right away.

What you may not know about is that there are also many bloggers who have fallen into some of the pitfalls of blogging when they first started their own. And take note, these are the same persons who are so good in running their business.

Now, the question. Why do this competitive and successful people fall short when it comes to blogging?

The answer? Blog pitfalls. Not knowing what are these and how to best avoid them.

What are some of the pitfalls in blogging that you need to be aware of to ensure you do not make the same mistakes that others have fallen into.

1. Writing nonsense instead of writing answers to questions your consumers have. You have not undergone keyword search or asked your clients what they want to know first. And you may be thinking that blogs are just like diaries online.

With this beliefs, all you write about is you, your life and other related details. You are actually drifting away from your target. And you are contradicting the business building tool capability of your blog.

2. You pretend to be an expert in order to build more credibility but in reality, you do not have any idea about the blogging software you are using. You can blame this part on the new technology being used on blogging that you are not an expert on. But that is not reason enough.

You need to research and learn more about how to use your blog features before you even start one. Get to know how to make use of your blogs for visibility and accessibility over the Internet. Have a basic knowledge about trackbacks and permanent link features. They will prove important and necessary.

3. No blog category. The readers are confused about what topics are you writing about. They do not have any idea what they are getting into. They probably would not even attempt to find yours if they have to guess first what it is you are trying to say.

What is your main message? Your focus? What will be in your blog that your readers can benefit from? Try to answer these questions.

4. Your blog does not reflect you and your business. Your blog is a mess and your customers cannot seem to find any similarity between your blog and your business.

Your blog should be an extension of your business. Make your customers feel like they are doing business with you in the comfortable ambiance of your office. Your blogs should reflect your business image.

5. You have no idea about other blogs in the same field. You do not spend time looking at other blogs to see what is being written about and to see the strategies that others are using. You do not know what is happening on the market.

Blogging takes commitments. You have to let your readers know that you are present and that they are able to contact you through your blogs. Give some of your time to your blogs.

6. Your blogs have no appropriate contents posted. If all you ever have in your blogs are advertising and marketing about your products, expect your customers to get bored, go away and never come back. They have had enough of sales being presented to them.
Spare them the sales talk. Try to write something not about what you are offering. Find other related topics you can talk about.

7. You have not visited your blog site for some time. One of the sins in blogging is not updating what is written. Expect to lose the traffic you have been getting.

If you are not doing anything about your blog, why have one in the first place?

Blogging – The Newest Marketing Tool

Do you know what a blog is? It is a journal, which is made available in the web. Blogs are updated regularly and the process of updating the blog is known as blogging.

Another term for the person doing and updating the blog is the blogger. These blogs are typically updated regularly and daily with the use of software, which allows people who have background, or not.

To this day, blogging has come a long way in keeping up journals and other purposes. Not only does it help in personal use but also applied now in expanding Internet business and increasing promotion of the web sites.

Blogging is a sure way to enhance the visibility of the products and services.

If you want to apply blogging, there are some tips that you need to consider in order to improve your online business.

• Offering advice and guiding your visitors on some tips and other opportunities related to your business. This objective will increase the awareness of you and your business.

This will make you an authority of the customers and visitors who might want to check out your services through publications.

• You need to encourage your readers to write comments and suggestions. Their comments and feedback will be helpful because at least you know that someone is paying attention to your services and visiting your website.

• Take their feedback as a means to improve your overall design, layout, the content and the whole business marketing.

• You need to at least post regularly in your bog. If you have many postings in the past, you can keep it in an Archive so that people can still retrieve it in for future reference. In this way, you can also keep track of all your business plans and get some important information.

• Others can reprint the articles that you have written and posted to the different websites. However, they need to ask for your permission with the condition to post them with your resource box with all the URLs that go with the articles. This will give you more links to your site and will give more exposure to your site.

• In adding and updating bogs, you need to add good content. Always make it fresh and up-to-date. In this way, search engines will include your site in their directory listings. If your bog is listed in the different search engines, you will start increasing traffic to your site without paying for it.

• Your blog contains links to your site and links to other site. You can exchange links to other website and this will help in improving your ranking on search engines. You can add affiliate links through banners in the advertisements. You can also include this in your blog in order to earn extra income.

You have the authority to update your blogs and there is no limit with what you want to do. You can write about your own views, expertise, ideas, opinion, pictures and other important information or message that you want to write about.

Blogging is a way to be heard despite the increasing competency in Internet Marketing. Make sure that you make your blogs interesting and readable.

Blogging is a great way to broadcast important information such as news and current events. It does not only focus on increasing web traffic or gaining promotion.

Blogging is a good way to learn about all the important facts with just about anything under the sun. If you missed the reports and updates on the T.V, you can easily get information from blogs updated frequently. Therefore, you will not have to worry about missing your favorite late night show.

Blogging has helped many industries in the easiest way. The good thing about it is that you do not actually need experience to create your own blog. It is as easy as clicking buttons and you can work your way out on your own.

What you need to keep up is a good content that is friendly and interesting so that your readers will frequently visit your blog site and keep it as a part of their daily habit.

How To Get Quick Traffic From Forums

One of the easiest ways to get quick traffic to your website is through forum marketing. Most forums let you add a signature file to your account that automatically gets added to every post you make. You can get people to click through to your website by including a link to it in your signature. But there are some important factors that will affect just how many clicks you get.

The key to getting more traffic from forums is to be a contributing member of the community before you try to drive traffic to your site.

If you immediately add a signature link when you join a new forum, don’t expect many visitors because those people don’t know you yet. And if you start out by making a lot of useless posts just to get your signature seen by people, it might even have the opposite effect – not only will you get little or no traffic, you might even get banned from the forum.

The right approach to forum marketing is to provide value first and foremost. Respond to other people’s posts and become part of the community. You’re probably best to not even add your signature right away, especially if the forum is in a market where marketing isn’t as accepted.

For instance, it’s probably going to be more acceptable to add a signature right away in the internet marketing niche since most of the forum’s members would likely be marketers themselves.

Treat forum marketing much the same as you would face-to-face marketing. You wouldn’t hit people with a big sales pitch the first time you meet them, so why would you do that in an online community? While you’re not meeting them in person and the internet provides a degree of anonymity, you should still use good manners.

Once you’ve become a part of the community, then you should add your website to your signature, along with an offer of some sort if appropriate. This could be a free report or ebook, a webinar recording or any number of other types of incentives. By offering something to the forum members, chances are you’ll get a lot more clicks on your link.

Secrets To A Killer Resource Box

The resource box is one of the most critical factors to being successful with article marketing. The resource box is what convinces people to click through to your website, which is ultimately the goal of article marketing in the first place. In this article, we’ll look at a few strategies for getting more people to click your resource links.

First, it’s important that you realize that your resource box serves two purposes:

1. Those links to your website create more backlinks and help to push your site up in the search results.
2. You’ll get direct traffic when people click on those links and visit your site.

Because the resource box pulls double-duty you want to be sure it’s going to be as effective as possible for both purposes. You need to be sure that you have some good anchor text links pointing to your site, but don’t do this at the cost of convincing readers to click through to your website.

Making a strong call to action is probably the most important factor. Don’t talk about yourself and how much you know about the topic – just make an offer that’s going to get the click.

For example, if you spend a bit of time looking at articles in any article directory you’ll see a lot of resource boxes that go something like “John Smith has been writing about topic ABC for over 5 years.” And “topic XYZ” is probably hyperlinked back to the website.

Does this work for getting your anchor text links? Sure. Is it effective for getting the click? No it isn’t.

Instead, you might try something like this:

“Now you have the 5 most important steps for getting more out of topic XYZ. For another 5 secrets that will improve your results even further, visit BlahBlahBlah.com.

Click here to learn more about Topic XYZ”

You’ll still get your anchor text links but this is going to get a lot more clicks to your site. In this example you might have a “top ten” list that you split into two separate articles – part 1 and part 2.

Put the second part on your own site and submit the first one to the article directories. Part 2 is the incentive you’re offering people when they click your link.

You can also offer incentives like a free report or ebook, a webinar recording, a free audio recording, etc. They key is to give people a good reason to want to visit your website by clicking those resource links.

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