There are endless products sold online that the owner of would be more than happy to publish a testimonial about. Most info-product sellers have a whole page set aside on their
website just to display testimonials, and they actively have to go out and drum up the first batch of them before they can properly launch their product!
It doesn’t really matter if you find them before their product launch or years afterwards, you can still get great, targeted links to your website from these short blurbs.
The nature of testimonials is that the more you provide proof that you exist, the more the business owner will be compelled to display your link, closest to the top.Give it some thought. If you just send in a testimony that says:
“Your product rocks!
Then the site owner might not even publish it because it’s not a ‘credible’ testimonial that proves that you exist and he didn’t make that entry up.
Not to mention, how does that help your website?
The way to properly use testimonials is to write a favorable but not over-the-top review for products that you really are familiar with, and then give as much evidence of your existence as possible… Your URL should be the absolute minimum you supply. Try this format, for example, and imagine your Headshot to the left of it:
“Wow!
This program knocked my socks off. From the moment I turned it on, I could see how powerful it was and it helped me churn through my pages in less than half the time that my old, bloated program did… And the results are terrific!
Thank you for a high-quality product. Sincerely,
Bob Jones,
Creator of the Peanut Butter Sprocket http://www.peanutbuttersprocket.com“
Even without finding the owner before the product launch, these links are valuable because you’ve made them targeted. You did that simply by making your product known up front, just before your link.
Googlebot will see the relevance because your surrounding text includes keywords of yours. (“Peanut Butter Sprocket,” in the example) Technically your name is a keyword too. But targeting is all about what a human is looking for.
People who don’t like Peanut Butter, for example, wouldn’t click your link, and that keeps the low-quality traffic out. But when a truly targeted visitor who you’d want on your site comes along, then you’re likely to get that click.
Think of all the online products and services, from AOL to ZIP, that you use regularly and go check out their websites. 99% of them will have posted testimonial pages, and you can tell from there if they post links or not. If you see even one live link on that page, (it must be made live, meaning a click on it will take you to the site) then this is a company you should send a testimonial to.
It should take you no more than 10 minutes per company that you can think of, only one time each, but these will be high-quality, far-flung links that will benefit your website’s ranking forever.
If you ever find a product before it is launched, possibly through a JV network or something similar, then you’ve found yourself a great opportunity. See the RAT method under “Joint Ventures” for more about that technique.
Instant Buzz and Free Traffic Bar, are two unique and unusual applications that allow marketers to market to other marketers quite effectively. There may be others but these two have the sector cornered so far.
Their concept is simple enough, you build up free Ad impression credits just by surfing the websites that you already go to. (You never have to go anywhere you wouldn’t already want to… This is nothing like a traffic exchange program in that respect.)
Both traffic bars display Ads to other internet marketers who load these programs into their browsers as well. The ads are cute, sometimes funny, little one-liner text Ads that either change when you reach a new page, or change at a pre-set amount of time.
I give them a higher-than-usual quality rating only because anyone using these methods would already assume that the target market would be only to other Internet marketers. (Inside the IM2IM niche)
If you try to use these to market to a different niche, such as golfers or horse trainers, then the amount of clicks you’ll get will be very low.Since delivery is instant, and targeted text ads are always high in quality to the people that do click on them, this method is a great way to test your Ad campaign quickly, if not to be used for full-fledged advertising itself.
See: “List Builder Traffic Strategy” at the back of the book for more on them both.Traffic exchange websites, either manual or automatic, are simply places that shows you a bunch of websites, and for every one you look at, your website is displayed to others on the exchange.
These aren’t Banner Ads or Impressions of some other kind of Ad, this is truly traffic to your site, although it’s not targeted. Manual Traffic exchanges bring visitors that are more targeted than Automatic exchange visitors, because you know that every one you get is someone who is actually looking at the page.
Automatic exchanges, by comparison, allow you to leave the program running while you go to sleep for the night and wake up with a couple hundred credits in the morning… Not exactly top quality traffic.
Even Manual exchanges suffer in quality a little because you know that the person looking at your page is pressured to move along in 15 or 20 seconds, and also that they don’t fit into any one demographic… Nothing there is binding them to any other niche other than that of a generic Internet Marketer. (Putting this kind of campaign in the IM2IM Niche with Safelists, Trafficbars, and list builders.) There is still some conversion however. Perhaps just a little better than a safelist, you can get perhaps 5 out of 100 people to really look at your website or download a free offer on that page with Manual Traffic Exchanges.
If you just join one exchange you can generate perhaps 200 hits a day to your website, so that’s something around 10 people who will take an interest. A common tactic is to use multiple manual exchanges at once, perhaps up to 7 at a time (so that by the time you’ve click on the last one the first one is ready to be clicked again) and you can generate up to 200 hits a day from each of them.
Naturally, if you build a downline or purchase an upgrade you’ll get better exchange ratios, up to 2 shows for every view. All programs offer a free version that begins with a ratio of 1 show for every 2 to 4 views, depending on program.
The top Four highest-quality Manual exchanges I’ve tested are:TS25
TrafficG
WebbizInsider
TrafficPods
I like these four specifically because once you have some downline members, you never have to surf yourself anymore… You just keep getting free credits from your downline’s surfing!
There is something to be said for Automatic Exchanges too. Although everyone prefers their traffic to be highly targeted, there are times in which sheer bulk traffic has its advantages.
Do you know how Alexa.com gathers its’ data on how popular websites are? It depends on people who download the Alexa Toolbar, and that program constantly reports back to Alexa which websites they are viewing.
Naturally not everyone uses this tool, especially since McAfee and Norton spyware scanners identify it as a security threat! However, the largest segment of the population that uses those Alexa bars would of course be the people who care about their Alexa ranking the most… Internet Marketers.
ESPECIALLY the ones who use traffic exchanges. You’ll find that a large number of traffic exchange members have the Alexa Toolbar installed and their browsers are set to run the automatic exchages every night.
Imagine having your website visited by 2,000 Alexa-toolbar-packing internet marketers, NIGHTLY. Do you think your website’s ranking might be affected at all?
I use automatic exchanges for this purpose and none other. All it takes is some spare computer “idle” time and a good spyware removal program… Many of these websites can be hazardous to your computer’s health.
Additionally, since page hits are so cheap to these guys, even free accounts come with many thousand free page views just for signing up!Here are my three favorite Auto-surf sites:
Click Evolution Traffic Plus Hits Christian AutoSurf
Additionally, there are two places I recommend that rate Traffic Exchanges. (Both manual and auto.) A nice, not quite complete but very easy to use Traffic Exchange directory listing is located at: TrafficExchangeDirectory.com.
It includes both Manual and Auto exchanges as well as many other kinds like Banner, text ads, and mixed formats. Well worth a look if you like these traffic sources.
However, the real find is a service called Traffic Hoopla that is quite frankly incredible… Both for Traffic Exchanges and for Safelists! They continually rate the RESPONSIVENESS of each safelist and traffic exchange out there, and even give you weekly stats! They have a downline builder and a free level of membership, so be sure to sign up for this one!