Traffic Secrets 2.0 Is Officially Out

Just a quick note to let you know that John Reese has opened the door to Traffic Secrets 2.0.

Traffic Secrets 2.0 covers traffic generation techniques like:

• Social Media Marketing & Strategy


• Advanced Content Syndication


• Cutting-Edge Video Marketing & SEO


• Leveraging Software & Widgets


• Setting Up Automatic ‘Content Factories’


• Building An Affiliate Army


• And more.

What I found really cool was that those who buy Traffic Secrets 2.0 (at least for now) will receive the following…

• LIFETIME UPDATES To The Course


• Private Coaching & Mastermind Community


• Web-based ‘Action Tracker’ Learning System


• And more!

Once you buy your license to Traffic Secrets 2.0 you don’t have to buy it ever again. Even by the time that “Traffic Secrets 100.0” comes out you’ll have gotten all of the other versions for free. Pretty cool!

Traffic generation techniques continue to change over time so it’s great to know that you’ll be getting all the updated information and strategies for free. I am very excited about the free updates!

I am going to go buy my copy soon after I finish writing this post. You can buy yours by clicking here.

Why Doesn’t Your Traffic Convert Into Money?

Do you ever wonder why it is that you have 500 or 1000, or even 5000 subscribers to your RSS feed and thousands of visitors per month… yet you barely make any money from your blog, if any at all?

The reason is simple…

You have the wrong kind of traffic coming to your blog (or website)!

Most make money online bloggers write post after post aimed at other bloggers and internet marketers, and they try to get as many readers as possible through social websites and other things like that. However, this is not a very good strategy if you really want to make money from your blog.

The people you are targeting with your blog posts are the exact same people who are doing the same things you are trying to make money online and they are definitely not the ones who are going to click on your ads or buy your recommended products. They know what Adsense ads are and they are probably promoting the same products you are on their blogs. So why would they take any action that will make you money? They won’t!

If you really want to make money online then most of your traffic needs to come from search engines because the average person doing a search won’t have a clue what Adsense is so they will gladly click on your ads. They also don’t know what an affiliate link is so they will buy products through your affiliate link if it’s going to help them make money online.

So what do you need to do?

Stop wasting all your time getting traffic through social sites and writing your posts aimed at other bloggers in the same niche as you!

You need to start getting keyword rich inbound links with the sole intent of ranking highly on the search engines (specifically Google) so you can start getting traffic from searches. Let’s say, for instance that you want to rank highly for “how to make money online” then you need to start acquiring backlinks with that as the link text and variations of it.

Want to know what kinds of inbound links you should be getting to maximize your search engine rankings? Read my recent post on finding the perfect backlink. And read Ryan’s recent post on the subject: What Links Can You Point at Your Web Site?

You should also do some keyword research on all the various searches related to your niche and start writing some posts about the different topics that are being searched so you can get rankings for lots of long-tail keywords. The traffic you get from those posts will start adding up and can turn into a lot of visitors and a lot of money!

Getting traffic that actually makes you money isn’t rocket science, it’s really quite easy. All it takes is the discipline on your part to build backlinks and write specific keyword rich posts.

Free Traffic Secrets 2.0 Videos Are Very Cool

One of my favorite Internet Marketing gurus, John Reese, has just released two free traffic secrets videos. I already use most of the techniques that John reveals in the videos, so I know they work.

Even if you aren’t interested in learning ways to increase your website traffic I still recommend that you check out the videos, because they raise the bar on what can be done with video.

Click here to see for yourself.

What Should I Do With My Twitter Account?

I joined Twitter the other day and just started using it last night. Here is my profile page:

http://twitter.com/georgemanty

My wife Jill told me I should use Twitter a year ago. Considering how big it has gotten, maybe I should have listened to her. One of these days I am going to remember that she is always right

I wasn’t sure what to do with my Twitter account, so I thought I would ask you what you would like to see me do with my Twitter account.

Here are some ideas I have come up with so far:

Twitter my wife’s labor
My wife Jill is due May 15th and I was thinking maybe I could twitter the whole labor. Now, sure if she finds out, she will probably kill me. Considering the way she reacted when I had a long conversation about golf with her OB-GYN when she was in labor with our second child… I guess twittering the labor is out…

Twitter my random thoughts through the day like…

“Had yogurt for lunch… when nobody was looking drove to Taco Bell and ate a REAL lunch.”

Twitter what I am doing in my business
That could be useful, but could also be boring. For instance, it could look like this:

“Spent five hours debating whether to use twitter for marketing, networking, fun or not at all.”

What should I use Twitter for?

What would you like me to use Twitter for? Or maybe the better question to ask is, “What could I use twitter for that would make you want to follow me on twitter?”

Please let me know…

How Web 2.0 Can Ruin Your Life And What To Do About It

Ok, so web 2.0 can’t, in and of itself, ruin your life but…

Web 2.0 has created an online environment that is designed to make us spend more and more time online, which in turn can ruin your life.

Spending A Majority Of Your Free Time Online Is Not Healthy

Errr… isn’t this a blog about making money ONLINE?

Well, yes but…

You can’t spend all your time online and then find time to exercise. You can’t spend all your time online AND cultivate a relationship with your kids. You can’t spend all your time online AND strengthen the relationship with your spouse and/or find a spouse. You can’t spend all your time online AND have a relationship with God. You can’t spend all your time online AND …. (you fill in the blanks)....

You need to have balance and spending too much time making “friends” online can make you unbalanced.

That said, Web 2.0 has it’s good points. As an Internet marketer, leveraging web 2.0 sites can be a great way to make money online, but it does have a cost.

What I Learned In 2007 About Marketing With Web 2.0

I spent a great deal of time in 2007 building online relationships using web 2.0. I would never want to give up the friendships I have made, BUT…

It hurt my off-line relationships with God, with my wife, with my kids, and it also hurt my health. It wasn’t just spending time with Web 2.0 that hurt me but also spending time reading email 10+ times a day. In 2007 I spent WAY too much time checking email. In 2008 I am going to significantly decrease the amount of time I spend experimenting with web 2.0 sites and on other activities like reading email. It’s just not worth it!

But Isn’t Web 2.0 The Best Way To Get Traffic Online?

Yes and No…

Leveraging Web 2.0 is one way to get good traffic to your site, however it is not the only way to get good traffic online. There are many other ways to increase your website traffic that can be just as effective as Web 2.0. In fact, you NEVER want to rely on only ONE form of traffic generation for ALL of your website traffic!. This is so important I am going to say it again:

You NEVER want to rely on ONE form of traffic generation for ALL of your website traffic!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you should give up on Web 2.0. What I am saying is that Web 2.0 and other advancements in technology are making it increasingly easier to lose focus on what is important. What I am saying is that spending too much time on surfing the web, making web 2.0 connections, voting on your favorite sites, etc. can ruin your life.

So, what can you do to keep Web 2.0 From Ruining Your Life?

Here are three ways to prevent Web 2.0 from adversely affecting your life:

1. Schedule Your Online Time
   Make sure you always have enough time for the most important things in your life by setting aside a certain amount of time each day that you can be online. First set aside time for the most important things in your life, like spending time with your spouse, kids, etc. Then with the remaining time set a schedule for your online time. Doing this will make you realize just how much time you are wasting on tasks that have no bearing to your emotional, financial, mental, and spiritual well being.

   As Internet marketers, it is important that we schedule our time wisely. There is something called the 80/20 rule that you need to keep in mind when you make a schedule. The 80-20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle, the principle of factor sparsity, and the law of the vital few) basically says that, for most events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes. In online business this translates to statements like “80 percent of your profits comes from 20 percent of your customers”, and “20 percent of your efforts results in 80 percent of your profits”. Your goal is to schedule as much of your time as possible on that “20 percent” that creates the real profits in your business. Scheduling time to work on the things that actually make you more money is crucial to your success. With Web 2.0 it is easy to focus on the “social” aspects of being online and spend VERY little time actually working on things that make you money.

2. Focus, Focus, Focus
   Web 2.0 is not all bad. After experimenting with social networks, you should find 1 or 2 (maybe 3 or 4) that you really want to focus on and forget about the other ones. When you focus on 1 or 2 social sites for marketing purposes you can become an expert at using those 1 or 2 sites for getting traffic to your sites. If you don’t focus on 1 or 2 sites, you will wind up spreading yourself too thin and not being able to make a big impact using any of them. Not focusing on 1 or 2 Web 2.0 sites for marketing purposes can be a total waste of your time.
3. Step Away From The Computer
   Like I mentioned in step 1 you need to schedule time to spend off the computer. Just like you should schedule your online time, you should schedule time to do the things that are important to you. Otherwise you might rationalize spending more and more time online.

   Take a step away from the computer and live your life. Do the things you enjoy, spend time with your family and friends. Don’t sacrifice a REAL life for an online one.

Final Thoughts

Would you rather have the most friends on MySpace or have a good marriage? Would you rather have the largest community on MyBlogLog or have a great relationship with your kids? Would you prefer to be a top rated Digger or have an online business that pays your bills?

If you spend too much time experimenting with all of the latest and greatest social networks you will find yourself spending WAY more time online in 2008 while making less money than you did in 2007. I don’t know about you, but I want to make more money online while working less, not less money online while working more.

Spending time using Web 2.0 to promote your business, make friends, and have fun can be very good, but spending TOO MUCH time in the Web 2.0 world can ruin your life and be bad for your business.

Poll Results - What web 2.0 site has given you the most free traffic?

Here are the results of my last poll:

What web 2.0 site has given you the most free traffic?

MySpace (35%)
Stumbleupon (35%)
Squidoo (10%)
other (10%)
Digg (5%)
Del.icio.us (5%)
Netscape (0%)

Total votes: 20

I was a little surprised by the results. I expected more votes for Netscape and less votes for MySpace. I am not surprised at all by Stumbelupon being one of the two top sites voted on. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, since one of my sites was getting really good traffic from MySpace before I ever signed up for a MySpace account.

Tomorrow I will have a new poll for you and I will be revealing a little bit about the offer someone made this past week to buy my blog. I will also share whether I took it or not…

Which Web 2.0 Site Gives You The Most Traffic?

I hope those of you in the States had a nice labor day vacation yesterday. To get back into the swing of things, I wanted to find out what web 2.0 social media sites have been giving you the best traffic.

Personally, the best traffic I have ever received from a social media site was when this blog was on the front page of Netscape for over a week. Probably second to that would be my stumbleupon traffic.

What about you?

Let me know by answering the poll below and feel free to leave comments!

China – A new target for Web 2.0 sites

Guest post by Sourav Sharma.

There is a wave of Web 2.0 sites flowing towards the Chinese market. Since China is the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing Internet user population, the move looks logical.

We have already seen MySpace, Yahoo! and Google making inroads into the Chinese market by either launching local versions of their sites or investing in China-based technology or social networking startups. The recent news, published in Business Week and The Wall Street Journal, shows many experts and VC’s has shown interest in the Chinese market. Rumors are that Intel Capital, the financial services unit of the US semiconductor giant, has already invested millions of dollars in fast-rising Chinese social network 51.com.

The market in China is expected to grow to 246 millions by 2011. The people in China are now more educated about internet usage and taking advantage of the Web’s collaborative potential.

So what is the reason for this wave in the Chinese Market?

If we look closely we will see there is more than a handful of reasons to support this movement. First, the growing number of people using internet. It’s growing with an annual rate of 13% for the five year period. Second, usage of online-generated content by the Chinese adult at home is appreciably greater than users in the US, Japan and Western Europe.

The only barrier which many small companies can face is government censorship. Even big giants like Yahoo, Google and eBay hit roadblocks in their efforts to extend their empires in the most populous country on earth.

Does Web 2.0 really drive business?

The following is a guest post by Sourav Sharma. Sourav is the owner of www.a2zeducation.com, a marketing blog with an essence of blogging, social media and search marketing.

We all know that loyalty pays. It’s widely said that more customer involvement will result in building more loyalty. And it is true as well. But the question remains, does Web 2.0 really bring loyalty and business? When we stepped into the Web 2.0 concept, many started believing that it would revolutionize the internet experience, and the user would have the final say. So, advertisers’ move towards these sites was pretty much expected.

Web 2.0 introduced the concept that users can play around with the content, and many seem to love contributing to and consuming that content. Many advertisers started their Web 2.0 campaigns with visions of generating more revenue than before, but the true picture tells a sad story. MarketingSherpa points out the black hole in the concept. According to the research, ads on a Web 2.0 site don’t convert quite as well as ads on traditional “Web 1.0″ sites.

When we talk about traffic, we can bank upon several 2.0 sites (like YouTube, MySpace, etc), but what we are not looking at is the maturity of an audience. The audience of these sites are still very young, so it’s not fair to draw a comparison. In my article SEO – Sandwiched between Conception and Misconception I showed some concern over the many professionals who have started believing that 2.0 sites rank better then non 2.0 sites. For me, this is also not true.

For me, the 2.0 sites have a long way to go compared to sites like Yahoo or CNN or even MSN, which already have established mature user bases and are doing well by changing and playing with various monetization techniques.

So we should give some more time before directly comparing 2.0 and non-2.0 sites.

Internet Marketing Tips From The Web 5/18/2007

Hmmmmm… Nobody submitted any tips, that surprised me a bit.

Well, while I was working on Stompernet stuff, I did manage to read a few articles from blogs that I visit on a regular basis. Here are some of the articles that stood out for me this week (in no particular order):

Gather .edu and .gov backlinks (enhanced)
Nice post by Daniel about finding .edu and .gov links. Goes well with my 101 free ways to get blog traffic post from yesterday.

Networking Mistakes & Tips
Amanda gives a nice list of networking tips. I especially like her tip on how to handle giving advice to fellow bloggers.

Comments Capture Reader Interest
Garry wrote a good post about the importance of commenting on blogs.

What is a Blog Meme?
In response to my tag Chris wrote this interesting post about blog memes. At the end he challenges you to create a blog meme for him. Pretty good opportunity for a solid link if you ask me.

Four Effective Ways to Get Your Blog Listed on the del.icio.us Popular Pages
Maki gives a good list of ways to get OTHER people to bookmark your site on social bookmarking sites.

Are You Reading Too Many Blogs About Blogging?
Yaro’s post reminded me why I am working so hard on the STOMPERNET program, (because I have a vested interest in it).

5 Ways That You Can Make More Money From Your Squidoo Lenses

Last week, I recieved my first payment from Squidoo!

I currently have 20 Squidoo lenses, although when I got paid I had 18. My Squidoo earnings for the month were $8.25 and my total Squidoo earnings (what I got paid) were $12.42.

Yes, that is in no way, shape, or form BIG MONEY!

Currently, I think of Squidoo as part promotional tool, part money making tool. I have talked in the past why it is a good promotional tool (click here to read more about Squidoo as a promotional tool). Now I want to talk about it as a way to make money online.

Here are a few observations I have made about making money with Squidoo:

1. Make Lots of Lenses
It seems fairly obvious, but the more lenses you make the more money you should make. This is true of normal websites as well. In general, the more content you have the more money you will make.

2. Join Groups
Typically the lenses that I make that have made the most money have been part of a popular Squidoo group. Squidoo groups are basically groups of related lenses. You can either create your own groups or join other people’s groups. If you create your own group, it definitely takes up more of your time because you have to accept and reject lenses that want to join your group. However, having control over popular groups can be useful.

3. Do Keyword Research
Create lenses on popular topics to maximize your profit potential. The lenses of mine that have made the most money, also happen to be the ones that deal with more popular topics.

4. Add More Tags
When you initially create a new lens, you can enter three tags for the lens. These tags are keywords used to categorize your lens. Your lens and other related lenses have links to these tag pages. The tag pages link back to all of the lenses that use that tag. This means that when you create a new lens your lens automaticly gets links from the tag pages on the Squidoo site. In other words, the more tags you create for your lens, the more links you will have to your lens.

Don’t go overboard with the tags, but add more than three.

5. Create Quality Content
The lenses that make me money, tend to have more content than the lenses that don’t make me money. Also, the lenses with interactive content (allows users to add links, etc), tend to have more traffic. Content is still king.

Also, I found a really good Squidoo lens about making money with Squidoo. It includes information on how your earnings are calculated. You can click here to read it.

For further reading on Squidoo, here are my past Squidoo posts:

My First Squidoo Lens – Big Money from Loan Refinancing?

My Squidoo Results

How Can Squidoo Increase Website Traffic?

Squidoo Results Take 2

Killer Startups

The other day I came across this really cool site called Killer Startups. The site allows you to submit your startup web business to it and then users vote on their favorite submissions.

I think Killer Startups is really a “killer startup” website in and of itself. I also think you can use it to keep an eye on what online businesses people are starting up, which online startups people like the most, and to help you brainstorm startup ideas of your own.

Anyway, you can go check it out by clicking here and voting on your favorite sites.

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