The point is to talk about things related to your own business and products.
Use subjects as a transition into your business.
There are multiple ways to use the status updates, but if you only have your real friends and family on your friends list, they are unlikely to be effective, as they only want to hear about you, not what you have to promote. One good 34
way to get around this is to approach other people on the site and ensure al aspects of your profile are set up to make your purpose and interests clear.
Posts
Make sure that you demonstrate some knowledge when you make a post.
You can post via the Facebook posted items application or via posting on someone's Facebook wal .
Think about sharing interesting sites with other people or engaging in smal conversations that others may ask you questions about.
Be more specific than most people are on what you are actual y doing. For example, instead of just saying that you are going to a workshop, tel your friends exactly what kind of workshop it is and what is going to be involved and discussed.
Also, rather than tel ing people that you are blogging on your own website, tel them exactly what the subject matter is and how your articles are influencing people.
By using these methods and ideas, your friends wil know a lot more about you and what is currently going on in your life and in your business. Also, they are a lot more likely to be interested in what you have to say and how you can help them out. As such, they wil visit your websites and blogs that you mention in the blog posts.
Don’t Get Banned
It is possible to be banned from Facebook for having too many contacts or if you publish certain images. You may also be banned for using a name that is not your legal first and last name. There are other things to be wary of which the terms of service lay out. Read them if you are unsure about anything.
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MYSPACE.COM
Screenshot of "MySpace" video
Click here to view the video MySpace: http://instant-traffic-to-my-
site.com/videos/07_myspace/myspace(new%20audio)(unbranded).html
Myspace.com has become the most famous social networking site online.
This new Internet landscape gives you a huge opportunity to market to a much wider audience then ever before.
You should take advantage of this by using the techniques described in this chapter. There are a number of factors involved to generate traffic from myspace.com.
Here are some of the best way to create traffic and redirect it to your website:
Use the bul etin feature:
You can use this feature to promote your product to your entire friends list very quickly. When you post a bul etin, everyone on your friends list can read it.
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Don’t ever spam them, though, or you may be reported and banned. This is one of the reasons for selecting your friends careful y in the first place and being selective about who you approach.
Visit and communicate with other users:
Another good tip is to start visiting other MySpace sites and send quality messages to other users on the network. This wil comes across as more personal, and people wil be far more interested in visiting your profile and linking to your individual pages to find out more about you.
You can then just inform them about your website and drive traffic this way.
Center your pages on one main theme:
Base your page on one main topic or market. Having a focused presence means that you can become even more appealing to those people looking for what you have to offer. They wil immediately see what you have to offer and wil be more likely to check back regularly in order to stay updated on your actions.
Write to influence:
Basic copywriting skills are needed here. They include writing headlines, subheads, bul eted lists, and great content in between. The content your create must be appealing or people wil simply lose interest and leave your page.
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Make your pages simple:
Ensure the webpage is easy to read and navigate around. Don’t use any of those annoying background colors or patterns, as they make the text very hard to read and they simply look poor and unprofessional.
Keep adding fresh content:
Your MySpace pages should have large amounts of information as this gives the impression that you are knowledgeable and understand the subject matter. If you consistently add new content, people wil be encouraged to check your site often.
Create a simple and clear layout:
Make the site clear so that visitors can see what you have to offer.
Make your pages appealing:
Ensure that your pages are appealing for people to use and explore. The best approach is to make your pages “sticky” and differentiate yourself from the other MySpace profiles.
Look at your keyword density on each page:
Pay attention to the factors of your Myspace pages. Ensure that you are using the right proportion of keywords in your posts and updates. You should have a 2%–3% keyword density (which means the number of occurrences of that keyword on a page).
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Squidoo.com
Screenshot of "Squidoo Basics" video
Click here to view the video Squidoo Basics: http://instant-traffic-to-my-
site.com/videos/10_squidoobasics/squidoo%20basics(new%20audio)(unbran
This site is included in the ebook because it is one of the most heavily visited social networking websites. In fact, Google is known to give Squidoo a lot of attention, as do the other major search engines.
The website itself also receives a very high amount of traffic each and every month. For these reasons, you are advised to set up and use a free account.
Squidoo can be used to bring in a lot more traffic to your own website, and it is free to use. The only thing to note is that you wil need to create content and keep posting regularly to maintain your rankings.
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WHAT IS SQUIDOO?
Screenshot of "Squidoo Lens" video
Click here to view the video Squidoo Lens: http://instant-traffic-to-my-
site.com/videos/11_squidoolens/squidoo%20lens(new%20audio)(unbranded).
This website al ows its users to build free mini-sites cal ed “lenses,” which can be based around any topic and are general y about things that the users have a passion for.
Understand that squidoo can be used to market your own website and drive traffic. There are already a lot of people that have built a lot of income from using this free website.
The lens must be set up correctly to maximizse your efforts, therefore I have included some detailed, step-by-step instructions in the fol owing pages. Lets take a look at them now:
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Step 1—Sign up for an account.
Go to http://www.squidoo.com/ and sign up for an account. It only takes a few minutes at most. If you want to find out more about the site first, or if you have any problems, then see http://www.squidoo.com/squidtips/ for more information about what the website can do for your traffic generation.
Step 2—Set up a squidoo lens for your website.
If you have multiple websites, then consider using a new lens for each site in order to drive more traffic and make the lens specific to that market place.
Step 3—Choose a topic for your lens.
This is going to be the title of your page, so make sure you have the keywords in it and that it’s a phrase that people are actively searching for.
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Step 4—Choose the type of lens that you want to use.
If you want to have total control over your articles and content, then choose the “I just want to do my own thing” option. This wil al ow you to create the lens from scratch.
Step 5—Choose your desired URL.
Ensure that you choose wisely, as this cannot be changed later and wil forever be your squidoo web address. A good tip for traffic generation is to keep the same keyword or phrase in the URL as you have in the lens title. At least keep the theme similar and relevant.
Step 6—Pick the category for your lens.
Pick the category for your lens and ensure that you review the available options first. There are a number of various categories, so for maximum traffic and exposure, you should always pick the most relevant one that fits your lens best. The aim is to be alongside other lenses with the same theme, so that visitors see your lens when searching for something similar. This wil ensure that the people you are looking to sel to find you first.
Step 7—Enter a rating score for your new lens.
Enter a rating score for your new lens (choose from G rating, R rating, or an X
rating). The X rating is for adults only, so choose careful y based on the content you intend to supply. Obviously, you want as much targeted traffic as possible, so this comes down to your prior market research.
Step 8—Pick at least three keyword phrases.
Pick at least three keyword phrases that are relevant to your market and the products you want to be sel ing via squidoo. They should al relate to the topic of your lens. Think back to the title of the lens and look for keywords that get 42
many searches but have a low volume of competition. This step alone is going to give you higher rankings in the search engines.
Step 9—Donate or keep the profits.
At this point in the process, you will be asked if you would like to keep the profits from the lens or donate it to your favorite charity. You also have the option of splitting it 50/50 with the charity, so the choice is yours. Just select an option and move on.
Step 10—Enter your personal information.
Enter your personal information, email address, and a screen name to appear on your squidoo lens. You also need to select a password at this stage.
Step 11—Agree to the terms of service.
The final part of the registration process is to agree to the terms of service.
This is pretty standard for al websites, and you simply need to agree to their terms of service by ticking the box to indicate you have read them.
Wel done—that’s the end of the process for creating your squidoo lens. Now it’s time to drive traffic from squidoo to your websites.
From here you can start to amend your squidoo lens in any way you want by adding content, images and other methods to increase your traffic.
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SQUIDOO SUMMARY
• Squidoo and can bring your website a lot of traffic because Google is very active in listing its pages.
• When selecting a topic to write about, try to use one with low search competition in the search engines but a lot of recent popularity from users (i.e. something that is a current hot topic). This tactic will al ow you to rank highly in Google for that particular search term.
• Only use squidoo tags that relate to your lens and are very relevant to your post. If you fail to heed this advice, your lens could easily get flagged as spam and maybe removed.
• It is possible to get a first page listing on Google just by using squidoo, which means using and redirecting that traffic to your website. You can earn high rankings quite quickly once you have the content added to your lens.
• Always plan and research your target market and keyword phrases to use before creating your Squidoo lens.
• Whenever you create any content, always focus on the reader and what they want to know. Provide high-quality content and you wil separate yourself form the mediocre marketers out there and attract more attention and traffic. Focus on helping readers to find relevant things to buy on your lens.
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Press Releases
A press release is a written document that is created explicitly for the news media to publish and syndicate. A press release should be newsworthy and make an announcement about your business or products.
Press releases are great when you have an announcement to make, like that you are releasing a new product or new website. I’m sure you can be inventive here and use that situation as a means to create a newsworthy document.
Using a press release means that your message can be spread far and wide by al sorts of people and marketers on the Internet. They are one of the very best ways to get your message spread all over the Internet.
Also, remember that the news media is involved, so you have an army of journalists working behind the scenes spreading the word. It can spread to some of the top news websites on the Internet, as wel as offline news sources.
WHY YOU SHOULD USE A PRESS RELEASE
Press releases are seen as official documents, not blatant marketing sales pitches, so you can gain a lot more exposure with a press release than with a regular article. People also tend to see them as impartial stories and not as sales letters.
As such, most people do not expect a press release to be sel ing anything, so they are syndicated and spread and used by many of the big news services within your market.
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To be seen and noticed in today’s busy marketplace, you need to use press releases as many of the top marketing experts do.
They are great for generating a quick surge of traffic and can be re-released at a later date if you need to. You should think about using press releases whenever you want to announce a product, contest, or a new service as part of your business.
Lets look at how to write a press release.
WRITING THE PRESS RELEASE
You should always include quality content in your press release in order to initiate a lot of traffic to your website. Of course, your aim is to make sales and encourage the reader to visit your site, but you must avoid the hard sale used in most online advertising. You should write your release in a journalistic manner by revealing something new in order to capture the attention of the readers and other people in the media.
Press releases are different from articles, and the layout should be different also. You need to taylor your writing style to the news media rather than the end user, or it wil not be published in the big news sites (and you wil lose a lot of traffic and free exposure).
Here are some points you should keep in mind when you are writing your press release:
• The press releases must be compel ing and interesting to read. It must have an angle and that should be clear to anyone reading. Make an announcement!
• Use a journalistic or newspaper approach when writing. You should be reporting on the story instead of overtly sel ing.
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• It should be informative and have valuable information. Give away some quality facts and reveal some information that other people would not know.
• The most important details should be included in the opening paragraph of the press release. The reason for writing should be very clear after reading the opening paragraph.
• The remainder of the press release should contain more information about your business and how to contact you. You can include a cal to action here, but don’t let it come across as a sales pitch.
• The media won’t publish stories that are simply sales pitches, so avoid this or your press release wil fail to reach your intended audience.
There are also a number of important sections to add into the press release. If you create the press release with these feature, you wil have a very good chance of getting it published by the big services.
Remember to include the flowing when writing your press release:
• Facts about the topic you are writing about.
• Quotes from people mentioned in the story, or even from people who have been affected by the topic of the story.
• Write it like a newspaper article informing people about an event they should be aware of. Don’t sel them on a product or service.
• The history of your business and how it relates to the announcement.
• Images of the product, service, launch, event etc.—images are a great way to break up the main text.
• Statements that back up the main theme of the press release.
• Contact info (choose whether or not you want your telephone number, address, or a by-line).
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PUBLISHING YOUR PRESS RELEASE
The initial stage in the process is to publish the press release as far and wide as possible in relevant markets and locations. You can do this manual y by hand, or use some services that wil cost you a smal fee. Such services promise to promote your press release to a set number of locations.
Publishing Press Releases Yourself
It can take a little time to locate and find the best possible places for press release submission, although there are a number of free resources online that offer great help for beginners.
You need to know where you wil get the best exposure and where the most people wil see and act on the release. This wil ensure you get the maximum benefit and traffic from the work you have done by writing the press release.
Press Release Services
There are also a number of press release services available on the Internet.
Pay attention to the submission guidelines that the service uses, as you may be in breach of some them without realizing it.
Some services have strict guidelines that you need to fol ow, or your press release could be removed from their database for not meeting their requirements.
There are a number of press release services that require you to use a character-per-line format. Other services al ow you to submit the press release in other formats. They are al different, so make sure that you read the terms of service first.
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Probably the most popular and wel -known press release service online is cal ed PR Web. It can be found at www.prweb.com. See the screen shot below:
PR Web offers a broad range of service to users. You can choose the free service or a $500 service. The high-end option guarantees a lot of attention from the media offline and ensures that a major online presence is seen as wel .
By using PR Web or any other service, you are guaranteed to have your press release syndicated to newspapers, radio stations, and offline magazine publishers. Besides this, it is also sent to a host of top webmasters and other press releases services.
You can use a number of other options that cost far less and can create a lot of traffic also. For example, prweb.com is wel known for its professionalism in the marketing industry.
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Press releases wil always generate a lot of traffic, especial y if the press release is wel written. It is a marketing technique that I encourage you to explore further and take the advantages that it offers.
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How To Build Incoming Links
Screenshot of "One-Way Links" video
Click here to view the video One-Way Links: http://instant-traffic-to-my-
site.com/videos/08_onewaylinks/one%20way%20links(new%20audio)(unbran
WHAT IS A ONE-WAY LINK?
In simple terms, a one-way links lets you place your link (to your website) on other relevant websites without needing to reciprocate—you do not need to give them a link in return. This process is cal ed one-way linking.
WHY YOU SHOULD USE ONE-WAY LINKS
One-way links are a great deal for you because you get search engine relevance and also the exposure of being seen by their visitors and customers. They also provide a lot of free traffic.