The Freedom Net

Well, there’s another goal down the drain … so much for posting every day. Oh well…

The good news is that is doesn’t really matter … sure, more content generates more traffic, but I’m just getting started here on the marketing blog, so it’s not going to doom me to failure to miss a day’s posting.

On the other hand, if I can gear up and post 3 or 4 posts a day for the next week or so (and start creating categories), things will pick up dramatically. How do I know? Well, I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt within a different niche.

By the way, have you picked up on the niche for this site yet? At first glance, it may appear to be a site about “internet marketing” (and it is). But that’s an awfully big niche market, wouldn’t you say? Notice the recent changes at the top … I’ve added three little keyword terms as the “title” for the site:

• Internet Traffic
• RSS Marketing
• Blog and Ping

Aaahhhh…. so that’s it then? Take a close look at those terms, and remember the date. We’ll come back to this particular experiment later.

Until next time the only advice I can give you is this: do something for your business today!

OK, well, let’s look at another scenario that really irritates me. I must be hanging around in the wrong places in cyberspace. Let’s see what you think.

Guru # 1 makes a success in several niche markets. Then, Guru # 1 decides to turn the focus on internet marketing. Nothing wrong with that. Multiple streams of income … I’m all for it.

Wannabe Guru’s #2-200 all get a hold of Guru # 1’s ‘latest and greatest’ product (e-book, software, membership site, etc. - take your pick) and begin to promote it. Now, again, I’m all in favor of affiliate marketing. I have mixed feelings, however, about network marketing. Perhaps I’ll write another post later on that …

So where’s the frustration? Well, I happen to be on Wannabe Guru #2,4,30-35’s e-mail lists. Sooo, when the ‘promotion’ kicks in, I get dozens of e-mails flooding my inbox, all promoting the SAME THING!!! Is this the “one and only” or the “best ever” product? Some of these guys make it sound like “if you don’t get this package, you’re plain stupid - and you will never succeed online without it!”. What a bunch of garbage.

Again, I’m not against selling someone else’s product. That’s ok. But can we have some diversification here?

Give me YOUR two cents’ worth … what do YOU think?

That’s right! I increased my site traffic by over 400% in just 30 days, and the numbers continue to climb! I want to share with you the simple steps that I took to achieve these results. But first, let’s take a look at the actual results. This is a website that I have had online since 2001, primarily as a hobby – a religious site. After a while, I managed to get indexed by Google, but because my focus was such a narrow niche, I still didn’t get much traffic. After putting in some time and effort to increase my content pages, I finally saw some small increases. I started getting anywhere from 300 to 500 page views a month. Then, at the end of January 2006, I modified my site and implemented a blog-and-ping program to make it easier to generate fresh content. Lo and behold, not only did I have fresh content, my hits started going through the roof!!! Here’s an actual copy of my statistics report for the last six months:

Monthly traffic statistics for www.a**********.org:

Most active month March 2006 : 4,793 pages sent.

This report was generated on March 25, 2006 02:19.

As you can see, it was pretty much business-as-usual until the month of February. Then, wham! Things started pretty much exploding! I’m writing this on the 25^th of March, and I fully expect to hit over 5000 page views in March, over 800% increase from where I was at just two months ago!!! So how did I accomplish this phenomenal task … well, I’m glad you asked. It’s a simple method called blog-and-ping, and it’s taking over the internet marketing and traffic world.

Blogging and Pinging

So what is blogging and pinging? Well, blogging is actually a simple form of publishing online or content management, depending how you look at it. You can get started for free at Blogger, or you can install free software like WordPress right on your own website and have full control of your blog (short for web log).

Once you find a topic that you are interested in, get started writing. Anything at first, just to get some content … short articles, long articles, product reviews, rants, etc. So, once you write it, they will come, right? Wrong. This is still the internet, and there are already hundreds of thousands of blogs out there … in fact there is a whole new area of cyberspace called the blogosphere. So how do you get traffic from a blog? It’s pretty simple, really. It’s called pinging. Pinging is simply a way to notify many of the blog directories that are out there that you are online and publishing fresh content. Once you ping them, they update their directories. Another plus is that search engines realize that blogs contain fresh content, and they are updating their own directories from the blogging community directories on a daily basis! So, you get to generate traffic from the blog directories as well as the search engines. One other area of interest is that you can also get subscribers to ‘dial-in’ to your blog updates using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). But, that’s a subject for another article!

So, here are the steps that I took to begin the blogging adventure that increased my site’s traffic over 400% in 30 days:

1. Switched the site over to a weblog content sytem. Personally, I use WordPress.

2. Began writing articles every day. In fact, when I first got started, I would write two or three (maybe more) each day.

3. Ping the blog directories after each entry. I use Feedburner as my RSS feed and pinging service of choice (they have a service called Pingshot that is very useful), but there are others out there as well. In addition, take the time to actually register at some of the directories where you can set up a profile for your blog and indicate appropriate keywords, etc. I did this at Technorati.

4. Be sure and have an accurate tracking system in place so you can tell where your hits are coming from. In fact, if your hosting service doesn’t provide enough detail, I would recommend an outside tracking service, like Extreme Tracking.

5. Once you start, don’t stop! The effect at first seems to be minimal, but as you begin to get noticed, other blogs with link with you and also generate traffic. Each week it appears that the traffic to my site is increasing. Keep in mind that my particular niche is extremely targeted, and I think this kind of traffic is phenomenal for this niche.

That’s pretty much it! Blog and ping, blog and ping. Once you get used to it, and if you are writing about something that you are passionate about, it will become a daily routine. And this is one routine that will pay off in the end with more traffic than you have had for your site in the past. Not to mention that you will be positioning yourself for the wave of the future as far as internet mass communications are concerned: RSS.

The common misconception about internet marketing is that if you build your place in cyberspace, hoardes of internet visitors will come and buy something from you. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is, if you build it, they will most likely stay home.

Unless, that is, you have a real marketing strategy. Most people think that having a website IS a real marketing strategy, but it is not. That would be like having a brick and mortar store, renting a building, and then doing nothing. Don’t hang any signs out, don’t pass out any fliers, don’t do any newspaper advertising or inserts! Just wait around and hope some of the people who are walking by notice your door is open (oops, probably should close that, too) and drop in. Not very likely is it?

That’s why you have to have a marketing strategy, even with an internet site. It can be expensive, if you want huge results next week. If time is something you have on your side, then it doesn’t have to cost a lot, and you can start building traffic, referrals, and get sales at a fairly nice but modest pace. Putting together a plan of action, then implementing the plan, now that will get you some results!

So what type of plan are we talking about? Well, one aspect of marketing any website would have to be SEO or Search Engine Optimisation techniques. Now I don’t recommend any type of ‘black hat’ stuff (that’s the techniques that are really against the ‘rules’ of the major search engines, and could get your site black-listed!!!), but some easy things that encourage the engines to get you listed quickly, and favorably for your selected keywords.

One of the best marketing resources that I have ever run across is Dan Kennedy. Dan is an old-school direct sales marketer and applying his techniques and using his brainstorming brings a breath of fresh air into an otherwise crowded arena of internet ‘experts’. You can get a special offer for a few days (? no telling how long) by checking out this entry on Willie Crawford’s blog:

Checking In From Washington DC With A Gift

Next time, we’ll discuss some methods that I have used, and I’ll help outline a marketing strategy to get you on the map and getting FREE traffic from the search engines!

Enough is enough! Have you ever just decided that? I tell you what … I am so tired of reading the same old hyped-up B.S. from people that it’s really starting to make me sick. Have you ever read some of these “hype” headlines from the top of your favorite guru’s salesletter:

“Grow Your List to 50,000 in less than 90 Days!!!”

“Get to the top at Google in less than 30 Days!!!”

“100,000 Visitors to YOUR site in 30 Days for FREE!!!”

“FREE Report on XYZ (anything goes here)!!!”, followed by 10 offers you must accept or decline before you get the ‘free’ report.

“Get this software and Boost your sales by 5,243% by next week!!!”

And the list goes on, and on, and on …ad nauseum..

I just can’t take it anymore! It’s sickening and disgusting. Now, I’m not saying that every headline you read is totally bogus, … but let’s get real. You MUST learn to read behind the hype, between the lines of the sales letter.

In fact, most of the time, the sales letters are only useful to see what other’s are using for ad copy. In other words, study them as case studies of advertising or copy writing, but don’t duplicate them! Maintain you’re integrity and avoid ultra-hype! Now, if you’ve got something really good going, then say it - but don’t let you’re true story become a fabled fishing tale.

If anyone else out there has experienced this frustration, let’s hear about it! Share your frustration about the “hype” of the internet marketing ‘guru’ clan!

OK, so now my Blogroll links are in place! Just so you know, these are blogs that I am currently reading on a regular basis … some daily, some weekly. Most of these publish semi-daily to weekly, so I get some new content when I visit their site. Go ahead … check them out!

On that same note, I am going to make it a point to post to this blog each day … for as many days as I can! At least one post … this will be a ‘test’ of sorts. As I get the website shaped up, I will be documenting all of the steps I’m taking right here on the site! This will help serve as a case study for blog-and-ping marketing, as well as being a great personal contest to see how many days in a row I can post on my blog.

So, come back often, add me to your RSS reader, as I will be putting out my thoughts daily to the masses …

OK, so I’ve written my first article on increasing website traffic and posted it to the site. I don’t know if anyone will read it, but it’s there. I present a simple case study of something I did with an extremely tight niche market to increase my traffic by over 400% in just 30 days.

Yes, you heard me right. 30 days … over 400% …

If you are interested in reading this free report (no, really, it’s free … I don’t even want your e-mail address!), then click on the link below:

How I Increased My Traffic Over 400% in 30 Days (and still climbing)!

While you’re at it … once you read the article, come back here and give me some feedback!

Well, it’s time to embark on a new adventure! This website will hopefully become a resource to those who are interested in a variety of topics that deal with successful internet marketing, from PMA (positive mental attitude) to SEO (search engine optimization) and blogging. Welcome to the site!

Don’t worry - I’m not some ‘guru’ who is going to try to sell you on the latest and greatest way to make a million bucks overnight … but I have had some successes and some failures in my various marketing adventures, and I will share those with you along our journey.

So, bookmark this page, or subscribe to the RSS or e-mail version (coming soon), and let’s keep in touch!