Internet Marketing Tools - Low Cost But High Quality

Providing my readers with low cost, high quality Internet Marketing Tools is pretty much the only reason this blog has for existing.  I specify low cost vs. price as many products may have a slightly higher price, but cost you more in the long run due to what they fail to do.

Note that I have placed several new sections in the sidebar to point you towards products, services and tutorials that I have found useful.  They are arranged by topic for ease of location, and comparison.  I have tried to stay away from the really high ticket items as I am all about being profitable, and if you are making enough to afford a $2k webclass or seminar then you don't need my help finding it anyway!

And please, whether we are talking about a $10 turnkey website or a $197 software title, don't spend the rent or grocery money on it!  I am particularly fond of services that have even a short free trial that can make the service a self funding proposal.  Meaning that you can use it to make enough money to continue on with the product or service during the trial period.  Frankly it is a great way to see if that particular set of Internet Marketing Tools is worth the investment to your IM business.

A great example of this is Angela Edward's High PR Backlinks service.  Even though it is only a $5/month subscription you get the first months packet of 30 High PR Backlinks totally free!  She even tells you the best way to use them along with Article Marketing to get the best SEO bang for your buck!  Here is her PDF on Making $400k/Year with her techniques: Angela Edward's Guide To Making $400k/Yr with GoArticles & High PR Backlinks

Another amazing self funder is SE Nuke.  This one costs a bit more, but with all of the functionality it has you should be able to easily make the first months subscription cost just during the 7 Day Free Trial.  But remember that if you can't then you shouldn't continue with their service!  This is such a great rule of thumb...

If a program, product or service doesn't pay for itself during the free trial period offered, it doesn't necessarily mean it isn't good quality.  It may just mean that you aren't ready for it yet.  There are several tutorials out there that I am holding off on, as I just don't have the foundational knowledge of skillsets to get the value from them that the cost demands.  I don't beat myself up over this or even feel the least bit bad about it.  It is just where I am at on certain IM arenas.

Anyway, be sure to grab Angela's PDF above and check out a few of my Recommended Resources in the sidebar.

Enjoy!

Jim

I was doing a little research for an article or two on my favorite Internet Marketing Tool (Google) the other day when I noticed something rather encouraging to my own self image as an internet marketer and copywriter.

The articles I was researching were on SEO techniques and the keyword phrases I ran searches for returned some pretty large numbers of sites returned.  And yet after I read every one of the results from the front page of one very competitive phrase, I only came across 3 valid ideas/techniques/instructions. My mind reeled:

How can this be!  This is the front page of Freakin' Google!!

Most of these pages were simply what I call Adsense fodder.  Rich in keywords and no doubt backlinked within an inch of it's worthless life. When people don't find anything useful the site owner hopes they will click an ad or two.  I make it a point NOT to click any links on what a site owner must know is a site full of useless words...

My point (and yes I have one) is this:

It takes more than a little effort to get your page to the front page of Google for competitive keywords and keyword phrases.  I do so regularly using a combination of High PR Backlinks and Article Marketing.  It takes time and effort but is accomplished without anything resembling magic or witchcraft.  So if you are going to go to the trouble getting there:

Then please have something worthwhile to say on the topic!

There is zero reason to feel inadequate to the task of having relevant things to say.  The results are in, and whatever you have to add to the discussion is well worth putting in writing as so much of what is getting to Google's front page is drivel!

An article outlining someone's failures would have been preferable to the vast majority of what I read exploring these SERPs.  At least someone reading that would have been aided in their own elimination process.  If you know nothing on a subject, research it and put down what you learn before going about the laborious work of posting backlinks with anchor text and writing articles to promote the page.  You will shine!

Even if you build a blog with the intention of posting articles on a subject from an Article Directory to promote affiliate products or for Adsense income you can be selective about the quality of the articles you select and be head and shoulders above the competition in most cases.

The lesson to be learned here is that there is still a huge opportunity to present good quality content in pretty much any niche you choose and become an authority and a force to be reckoned with.  Your blog or website can become an authority site!

We have all seen the posts, threads and articles preaching:

Create Content!

Create Content!

Create Content!

Well another word is needed here to make it:

Create Relevant Content!!

Create Relevant Content!!

Create Relevant Content!!

All it takes is the effort to be sure that your content delivers some form of relevancy on the keywords that you choose to promote.

So don't let yourself be over awed by the idea of your words being on the front page of Google.

I mean hey! Nobody else is...

Jim

Article Marketing remains the best form of Traffic Generation availabe online.  Publishing articles creates backlinks for the search engines.  Your articles will also create traffic directly from the article directories, blogs and websites where your articles are posted.  That doesn't mean there is nothing new in the Article Marketing arena!

I've recently posted information on my own Article Marketing process, and the services that I use.  There are a vew new products though that add another dimension to your Article Marketing efforts via Video Marketing...

And no, I'm not going to use this space to pitch Article Video Robot at you...

The concept behind this product deserves our attention though.  The idea is to create a slideshow with appropriate (or innocuous) images to play behind a voice reading your article.  This turns your article into a video!

Now you can use a free service like Tube Mogul or a paid service like Traffic Geyser to upload the resulting video to video sharing sites like YouTube and Metacafe.  Search Engines index these sites almost continuously so the videos show up in a few short hours.

IMHO, the best use for these is to post a link back to the article itself at EzineArticles.com as this will help you boost the article's rank with Google.  You post a link by putting the full url in the description box the very first thing.  This will make it a live link on most video sharing sites.  Remember to post your article's keywords as tags.

You can of course, upload to each of the video sharing sites manually, but this is time consuming.  The free version of Tube Mogul gives you just over 150 uploads/month so you may want to pick just a few choice video sharing sites to use it on.  I generally upload to about 5 or 6 video sharing sites for each video uploaded.

All you really need to create these videos is Windows Movie Maker which comes free on most computers today, and software to record your voice reading the article.  I use Audacity along with a microphone I bought for about nine dollars for this.  Audacity is free and quite easy to use.  Use the same title as you article for your video.

Now my own voice isn't exactly James Earl Jones, but it does the job, and so will yours.  Personally I prefer the sound of anyone's voice to an electronically generated one, so don't panic about this...

It generally takes a few days time for an article to get through the review process on Article Directories, so you have some time to get this together.  After the first time or two, you'll be surprised at how fast you can get it done.  The important thing is to make it a part of your Article Marketing routine.

The resulting videos have several uses:

• Blog Posts
• Squidoo Lens Modules
• Website Content
• Affiliate Product Promotion
• Direct Traffic Generation (add your sites url to the slideshow)

With a little thought you can some up with a lot more ideas yourself.

This is a very useful tactic to add to your Article Marketing arsenal.  You can do it completely free yourself as well.  There really isn't any need for any software unless you are in a niche where a slicker production look is needed.

Try it for a month and I am sure you will be pleased with the results.

Jimbo!

Jim Patterson

Spend any time in marketing forums and you will hear the article writer's lament:

"I'm fresh out of ideas for my articles!"

This isn't rare, and it isn't new...

If you are going to make your living online the best source of original content is you!  The best way to be sure that your articles are original is to write them yourself.  The best source for blog posts is you.

This is overwhelming to a lot of people!  It doesn't need to be...

There is a ton of content out there on just about any niche you may be involved in, and this can be turned into original content with relative ease.  No, I am not telling you to plagiarize even the smallest bit of it.  What I am telling you is that you can use this content to find something to say!

There is not just a lot of material out there, but a lot of material that is very good and a lot of material that is very bad.  Both of these can inspire you to write original articles day after day.

The good articles will give you ideas above and beyond what is written, and the bad ones will motivate you to communicate the ideas in them better and more orderly.

Take a good article and figure out what the author has left out, and write about that.  Write a sequel to the good author's article.  Maybe the article is good but too advanced for many people to understand.  Write a prequel explaining what people would need to know about the topic in order to understand the good author's article.

Bad articles are usually of two types.  The first has good information but lacks grammar and/or structure.  The second type just has bad information.  Either way, if you fix what is wrong you can make the end product original enough that it is yours.

Once you have written a couple of dozen articles this way, you will rarely need to do go this route again.  And if you do, the same mountain of material is there to help you.

The two most important things to remember about writing are to try to write conversationally, and whenever possible to tell a story with the information you are conveying.  Do these two things and you will find yourself head and shoulders above your competition.

Writing articles at a rate of one a day will steadily build targeted traffic to your site like nothing else will.

You are the best source of original articles and site content you could ask for...

Jimbo!

If you really wanted targeted traffic there is really just one thing you should be doing...

Targeted traffic would be yours for the asking without spending a cent, and as one oerson said:

"You couldn't turn off the traffic if you wanted to!"

I'm not going to try to sell you on a new-fangled traffic generation method here, and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about some technical SEO method.  All I am going to do is share the two words with you that provide the bulk of the traffic to my websites.

Write Articles

That's it.  Nothing technical and nothing expensive.  Just write articles and publish them to certain article directories and you will steadily build up your traffic over time until you simply cannot turn it off...

I try to write articles in the 550 word neighborhood.  This puts you right into the optimum size for most purposes.  This isn't as hard as you would think.  I usually am surprised to find that I've gotten there.

I use a handful of services (Free Versions!) to publish my articles and these get me more exposure than you would believe!

First I publish the article to EzineArticles.com.  No surprise there huh?!  EzineArticles.com is easily the preeminent article directory online.  You will get more juice from this site than any other site.

Then I go over to GoArticles.com and publish it there, as the articles you publish there go live immediately.  This gives you some instant SEO juice!

Now you want some wider exposure. So go over to ArticleMarketer.com and your article will get published to literally hundreds of article directories.  This takes a bit of time (like EzineArticles.com) so be patient.

Another site that gets you wider exposure, but with a little more speed is Free Traffic System.  You will need to spin your article to use this service, but they have great video tutorials teaching you to handle this task and everything else about their site.  I can usually add the necessary spinning tags to an article in about 10 minutes.  Each article you post here will get your article posted to thirty blogs.  This happens at a rate of about three a day for ten days or until thirty are published.

Do this religiously and you will create an avalanche of traffic that anyone would be proud of.

Jimbo!

Regular readers here will probably have noticed that the programs that I recommend via the banners in the sidebar are heavy on products and services that will generate targeted traffic. It should be no surprise since the largest part of what we do as either affiliate marketers or to promote our own products is motivated by a need to get more eyes looking at out websites, offers, blogs, Squidoo lenses, HubPages...

You get the idea.

And of course you could drive yourself crazy chasing every new gizmo, gadget and application promising you and unending supply of folks clutching their credit cards tightly as they rabidly visit your site. Many are good but just clones of each other. Others are so overpriced as to be ridiculous.

Time to take a step back, breathe deeply and approach targeted traffic generation with some balance and most of all a plan...

I approach traffic generation as simply as I can so that I know from day to day exactly what tasks I need to perform. I do the things first that create not just the fastest traffic but the most, and longest lasting.

1. Yep, as much as many of you hate doing it, Article Marketing is my number one priority. I write two 450 to 500 word articles almost every day.  The power of doing this is like compound interest. It just keeps building, and will create targeted traffic like nothing else.  The best method for this is to write about a problem you faced and talk about it being solved without really mentioning the product of service that you want them to eventually buy.  Then at the end, in your resource box, or as a postscript place the link to your offer, as well as to your blog or site that is general to the niche.  I publish my articles two ways.

• Free Traffic System - Here I get my "spun" article posted to 30 blogs of my choice based on keyword selection.
• SE Nuke - This is a membership site with an amazingly huge suite of tools that covers an amazing array of traffic generation techniques.  It will spin your articles and publish them to numerous article directories.

2. Video Marketing becomes more and more important every day.  I personally don't do as many unique videos as I should, but there are a number of ways to easily create very effective videos without being any kind of production whiz.  Todd Gross has a program called Presale Videos which is a monthly membership site with dozens of videos, mostly starring Todd himself.  Each video promotes a specific affiliate product.

I also use other people's videos in my blogs and webpages by "scraping" the video using the FireFox Download Helper Plugin.  It include this with a word of caution.  Only use videos you have permission to!  I prefer to upload a video I will use to my own YouTube Channel in order to take advantage of any additional traffic I may be able to acquire.

I also put together some of my own little slideshow videos using Windows Movie Maker which comes with most computers these days.  There is a new product out there designed to turn your unique articles into videos called Article Video Robot.  It is a pretty slick service and will make your look pretty professional, but the concept of reading your article over a slideshow really requires nothing but Windows Movie Maker and some royalty free images.

I upload my videos to several sites using TubeMogul.  It allows me to simultaneously upload to a number of sites at once. A real time saver.

3.  Viral Traffic Services - Again there are many of these out there.  I have been using the new program Traffic Python with absolutely fantastic results.  It is really a carbon copy of Web Traffic Juggernaut, so use either one.

4. Email Marketing - This is a combination of my own lists and several different and very specialized Web 2.0 Email and Ad Blasters.  Be sure you are sending quality content and not just ads.  Another good use for your articles and videos.  In the case of both my autoresponder and the blasters, I prefer to pay once up front and not have a monthly fee for either service.

5. PPC Advertising - Most of you already know I am using Keyword ESP PPC Software.  This automates all of my PPC Advertising and creates more time for the rest of the methods.

6.  Consistency - This is the most important ingredient of all.  I try to do something with each of the above Traffic Generation methods every day.  I can't say I always succeed, but the effort creates enough consistency to steadily create the traffic I need and increase my sites rankings at a very acceptable pace.

I will talk at greater length on each of these methods in future posts.

Eat A Peach!

Jimbo

With the proliferation of programs like those of Frank Kern and a slew of others, the PPC (or PayPerClick) method of driving traffic to your websites and affiliate landing pages is front and center for many internet marketers.  Whether you are currently using PPC marketing techniques or have yet to take the plunge, weighing the risks against the rewards is important.

The rewards may seem obvious to many, but let's be clear about them:

• Targeted Traffic - Whatever traffic you get as a result of PPC campaigns will be targeted by your choice of keywords.
• Unlimited Traffic - Maybe not actually unlimited, but PPC campaigns can be the largest traffic source of any kind.
• Statistics - You can easily track which of your PPC campaigns are working and which are not.  The very nature of running PPC campaigns mean this happens almost automatically.  This can be fine tuned, and should be.
• Controlled Costs - You decide what you are willing to spend for a visitor for each and every one of your keywords, as well as setting a Daily Budget for each of your PPC campaigns.

There are obviously more benefits to using PPC advertising campaigns for targeted traffic generation, but we will stop there for now.

As with most things in life, the Pros and the Cons on a given topic are closely related.  Consider these risks regarding PPC marketing and you will see what I mean.

• Targeted Traffic - If you go too narrow in your keyword choices, you can end up with such a small amount of traffic (or even none) that it becomes nearly impossible to meet your sales goals, or even to analyze the results statistically.
• Unlimited Traffic - This means that your PPC campaigns will be competing with the big boys, and these battles can get more than a little nasty.  Carefully monitor your campaigns, and if you see something that smells funny, talk to and account manager with whichever PPC search engine is involved.
• Statistics - There is so much information available that many get Analysis Paralysis.  You need to strike a balance that allows you to MAKE decisions, not hinder them.
• Controlled Costs - If you don't control both your keyword bids, and the daily budget of each and every one of your PPC campaigns, you will find that you have either eaten up all of your profits or spent your entire savings on what will most likely turn out to have been largely useless traffic.

On whatever topic you care to discuss you will find that the best course you can follow is one of Balance.

A favorite saying of mine is that "Nothing is as Good as it seems, and Nothing is as Bad as it seems."

This is doubly true of the realm of PPC Advertising.  Venturing into this arena can be richly rewarding, or disastrously costly.  The only way to ensure a positive experience is to educate yourself on these issues extensively, or pay someone to run your PPC Marketing efforts for you.

Eat A Peach!

Jimbo

No less an expert on Internet Marketing than Willie Crawford just recently spoke out and re-emphasized the importance of Article Marketing in traffic generation.  I don't know about you, but I pay really close attention to what Willie says on traffic generation.  Willie has been doing all of this profitably longer than just about anyone...

This is great as most of us can put together a 500 word article in pretty short order. But is it still enough to just write articles and publish them on eZineArticles.com?

IMHO:  no

I am finding that my Article Marketing efforts mean much more when I use one or more methods of making sure my articles have legs, so to speak.  I like to take extra measures to get more mileage by getting my articles published in more places, and in the best possible form.

You have no doubts heard of some of the ways to accomplish this.  SE Nuke is a fantastic suite of tools that will publish your articles simultaneously to a number of Article Directories and also uses an Article Spinner to ensure that the articles look as unique as possible and avoid any perceived duplicate content penalties.  I like this service a lot and recommend it to anyone that can afford it.  There is a very cheap 7 day trial, so you can even make it a self funded service by using SE Nuke to make enough to afford it.

Another tool that can expand the reach of your Article Marketing efforts is Article Marketer.  This is an article submission service that has both a free and a paid version.  It will submit your articles to an amazing number of Article Directories, thus really expanding the reach of your articles, as well as offering professionally written articles at pretty good prices.  Their service is definitely worth a look...

A service that I am using more and more is Free Traffic System.   This is a great way to get your articles published to your choice(s) of 30 blogs based on your own keyword search conducted right there on the site.  Free Traffic System publishes spun versions of your articles to the blogs over several days for optimum SEO value.  There is great training videos and PDF manuals that make the whole process pretty much painless.  After submitting a few articles, it surprises me that anyone really needs article spinners.

Whatever Article Marketing tools you decide to use or do without, Article Marketing remains a vital way to drive targeted traffic to your sites, blogs and offers and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  So get out there and write a few 500 word masterpieces and we will no doubt find outselves perusing your webpages...

Eat A Peach!

Jimbo!

PS  There is some usefil info in these videos from Free Traffic System: