Are you looking for new and inexpensive ways to advertise your business? Have you considered a blog?

When I first purchased JVManager1, I thought that it was a lot more complicated that it actually is.  When I turned to the manual and found a lot of information about the codes that are needed, I became confused, because I am not a programmer. 

Next, I watched the videos that are included in the program help area, I began to understand how the program works, and that made all the difference.  With trepidation, I decided to jump in and create my first affiliate program.  I allowed myself a week for this process and busily got to work on Monday morning. 

I started filling in the fields in the program, saved and that was it.  Wondering what I should do next, I started exploring the links that the program gave me for my affiliate page, and such.  Wow, it was all done for me. 

The program automatically created my signup page, requesting all of the necessary information.  I also found a page that creates affiliate links automatically for my affiliates.  When I signed up, I received the default emails, thanking me for signing up and telling me where to find promotional materials and links. 

Creating the affiliate program was amazingly simple.  In one morning, I had my affiliate program set up and was well on my way to adding products to it.  This, of course, will be a lifelong process; but, using JVManager, it is very straight forward and easy to do. 

Running my affiliate program is only one part of what JVManager does for me.  It stores all of my product and customer information and keeps a variety of useful statistics on them as well.

The secret to using JVManager is understanding how the program works and the flow of information within the program.  I have been able to understand this well by watching the videos and taking one part at a time.    I think that this program will be invaluable to my business and highly recommend it to anyone who needs an affiliate program to take their business to the next level.

For more information about JVManager, visit http://ez-marketer.com/recommends/jvm

My affiliate marketing plan is a plan for promoting other peoples products.  Once you have achieved a level of success with others products, it is time to publish and promote your own. 

While many of the things that you do to promote your own product are the same as for an affiliate product, there are some major differences.

The most effective way to promote your own product, in my opinion, is to run your own affiliate program.  Your affiliate program supplies you with an army of salespeople for your product.  Your job is to give them the tools that they need to sell it.

So, what do you need to do?

1. Create a product, and a brandable free report that will promote it. 
2. Create your own affiliate program for the product, using Clickbank or an affiliate marketing program such as JVManager. 
3. Create promotional products for your affiliates:  emails, free reports, and articles that they can publish on their site.  Create all of the things that you would want if you were the affiliate to make your sales VERY easy.
4.  Submit your viral free reports to giveaway sites to get noticed by and recruit affiliates.  Let them know that the free report is brandable.
5. Promote your affiliate program, don’t expect others to do it for you.
6. Send a personal email containing a free copy of your product to the webmasters of sites in your market for their evaluation.  Let them know about all of the promotional materials that you have for their use. 

One of the reasons that I purchased JVManager for my own business is that it automates my affiliate program and the delivery of all of my promotional products for my affiliates as well as my customers.  It allows me to contact all affiliates, offer them special promotions for their customers using coupons, etc.  If my affiliates don’t have their own autoresponder, I can even use my own and JVManager will pass their affiliate codes into the emails automatically.

In the short term, using Clickbank would probably be easier; but for my long term success, control of my own affiliate program is essential because I plan to offer more than one product and I want to be able to promote all my products to my affiliates.  On Clickbank, I don’t have the ability to do that unless they have also signed up with me as an affiliate (In which case I need JVManager anyway.) 

I think that another effective way to get started would be to use Clickbank to recruit affiliates, then entice them to sign up for my affiliate program by offering great promotional materials.  This might give you the best of both worlds, but you would have to front the $50 account set up with Clickbank for each product. 

I am still relatively new with JVManager, but  I feel very strongly that this is a phenomenal program.  The power and control that it gives me for my business is enormous.  I am promoting products in several niches right now, and this program makes the set up and delivery of my products incredibly easy.

I first started using JVManager2 through a hosted account that I receive as a benefit of membership to Unselfish Marketer.  (Plus, I get lots of tools and resale rights products for my business as well.  If you want to begin inexpensively with JVManager2, then check them out.)

I was so enthralled with the JVManager2 that I bought the resale rights to JVManager1 when they were released on July 4.  I am honoring the license in not selling JVManager for less than $97, but I want to make it easy for you to purchase this program, so I am offering an easy payment plan of $24.25 per month for 4 months.  Within the 4 months you should be well on your way to success if you apply the power of this program.  Check it out at:  http://ez-marketer/recommends/jvm  

To your success,

Diane Watkins

Using your e-book, e-report or e-course as a give away can make you more money down the line.  When you use your own product as an incentive for signing up for you newsletter list, you have gained a subscriber who will have read and found value in your work.  You can now market future products to him through the newsletter.

However, there are additional ways to make money through giving away this e-book.  When you create the ebook, be sure to include your links to your sales pages and any affiliate products that would be needed by your reader in the process of putting your e-book to use. 

For example:  if you are writing an e-book on baking, you could include your affiliate link to quality baking products, tools, other cookbooks, and such along with good content on how to use them. 

My experience is that when you give this properly book away, nothing will happen immediately except that you will get sign ups for your newsletter when you give the book away.  However, if your content is good, your book will get passed around.  People will read the content and check out your affiliate links.  Eventually, the sales will begin to trickle in.

So how can you make this work for you?  Follow these simple steps to put your viral marketing ebook to work for you.

1. Create a quality e-book.  Be sure to research appropriate affiliate links and include these links in your e-book.  Don’t forget to include information about you and your site.
2. Create a cover graphic for your e-book.  This is not essential, but it definitely helps you to “sell” your e-book.
3. Create a squeeze page to take email information before giving away the e-book.  You should sell this e-book just like it was for profit.  People need to be convinced to give you their information.  Convince them that they are getting a quality product.
4. Advertise your e-book on your site, driving traffic to the squeeze page first.
5. Research e-book directories that will allow you to post your e-book for free.  There are many sites on the internet that keep a directory of “freebies”. 
6. Your e-book has now taken on a viral life of its own and you will begin to see increased traffic to your site and sales pages.  However, don’t stop here.
7. Create an email marketing campaign to market to the new list you are building.

A properly formatted e-book or other give away product  has unlimited viral potential. 

The viral potential of your giveaway is only the tip of the iceberg.  Consider another situation.  Suppose you publish a product and give your affiliates 100% of the profits.  How motivated do you think they will be to sell it?  You make nothing on the sale, or do you?  You can profit by the upsell, or even more important, you collect your customers email information and gain access to your affiliates most valuable possession - their customer list.  More on this later.

Forum marketing is a very powerful marketing technique when used properly.  When used improperly, it can turn off potential buyers and waste your efforts.

Forums are places for the free and open exchange of ideas and information.  You are encouraged to use the forum in such a manner.  Help people, post good helpful information.  In this way you will become known as an expert, people will like you, and be more inclined to buy from you. 

Be very careful to keep your posts helpful and positive.  Never flame or criticize.  If you are negative, you will not be recognized as an expert, rather you will be known as a jerk.  While the Rich Jerk may get away with it, for most of us it is not a profitable reputation.

Now, how does forum marketing benefit you?  First, when you are recognized as an expert, the buying barriers will begin to come down.  Second, you will make good use of your signature line.  After your signature you are usually allowed to include a link to your site.  Through this link your readers will find you and your products. 

Be careful to research and follow the rules of the forum with regards to posting and using your sig file.  There has been a lot of abuse of these rules recently and many forums have established strict rules.  Failure to follow these rules can get you banned from the forum and turn off a lot of  potential customers. 

You must respect the purpose of the forum in the free exchange of information and ideas.  Forums are not meant to be an advertising vehicle for your product, no matter how good it is.  By responding to questions and offering good advice and helpful information, your reputation will grow and you will make more sales because of it.

Yes, I know you’ve seen a lot of hype out there on this subject, but it is possible to get highly targeted traffic for free. 

There are actually a lot of  free traffic generation methods that really work.  And since I am known to be a cheapskate, you know that these are my favorite methods.

Starting a business does require a lot of things, and of course you need a capital. To make money requires money as well. But in the internet environment,  you can go a long way for free.  All targeted traffic is good traffic, and in my opinion, free is better. 

There are many ways you could find that could help optimize the potential of your site or business by generating traffic.  All you need is the willingness, drive and perseverance to do the hard work and research to generate more traffic for your site.

While the methods we are discussing are free, they are not fast.  It takes time to build up the amount of traffic you need to become truly profitable.  If immediate traffic is your goal, then definitely pursue these methods, and buy traffic in the meantime.

Here are some of the free traffic generation methods we will discuss here this week:

            Article Writing

            Forum Postings

            Social Networks          

            Traffic Exchanges

            Viral Marketing           

            Free Advertising

            Safe lists (Don’t hold your breath for this one.)

I will give you my honest opinion method of each and instructions and resources to get you started.  Even more importantly, I will tell you my own experiences with these- just the facts, no hype!

 You must be able to find quality traffic for your site in order to survive on the web.  Without traffic, even the best sites would never get off the ground.  It is a rare site that can make it without a strategic traffic plan.  Here are some ideas to increase on-line traffic to your website.  Don’t stop with one however, you should use as many of these as possible to make your site a success.

1) Writing Articles can lead to increased on line traffic to your site.

Chances are that you found this blog through an article that I wrote.  This is a  big part of my traffic strategy for this blog as well as other sites that I own.  I admit that writing articles is very time consuming.  However, if you don’t have the time, or cannot write, you could hire a writer or rewrite PLR articles.  

Learn to use your resource box to drive traffic from your article to your site for best results.  The resource box is the most important part of the article.

Remember, that your article must be high quality.  If your article is not high quality, it will not get read.  If there are no readers, there will be no traffic.  Don’t waste your time or your readers with a low quality article.

2) Join forums and form online communities.

Participating in forums and online communities is another way to build credibility and market yourself as an expert. When you post to forums, you should use a well thought out signature line.  Your signature line provides a link to your site. If a reader finds your advice helpful, he will be inclined to click through to find out more about you.  This reader is now a well qualified prospect who likes what you have written and wants to know more, definitely the best kind of traffic.   Leave a comment here on this blog and include your link.  No adult content though please.  

 3) Work to get incoming links from other sites. There are many ways to get incoming links.  First you should submit your site to all of the directories in your subject area.  Then, look for similar, but non-competing sites that you can trade links with.   Before submitting your site, take some time to write a good description of your site for your link.  Another way to get good quality links is to write articles for article directories and for other sites.  Incoming links will help to raise your page ranking and increase your  online traffic through the link as well as through the search engine. 4) Use Viral Marketing.

Spread the word about your site or product using viral marketing.  Viral marketing tactics include those funny videos and games that get passed around by email, the free e-books that you give away, even methods like leaving your business cards and printed pens in neighborhood businesses that might refer readers to you.  Viral marketing can be an inexpensive, yet a very powerful marketing method for increased on line traffic   

5) Optimize your site and articles with keyword phrases.

This should probably have been number one, because it should happen before a new page is written.  Research what keyword phrases people are searching for to find your site.  Better yet, what keyword phrases are they searching for to find your competition?  Optimize your pages and your ads for these keywords for increased on-line traffic from the search engines.  

Notice that I use the keywords increase on line traffic and increased on line traffic in nearly every paragraph.  These are the keywords that this article is optimized for. 

6) Write a newsletter or e-zine to keep your readers coming back.

A newsletter or e-zine allows you to remind your readers about all the great content on your site and to update them whenever you add something new.   It allows you to build a relationship with your reader that will hopefully bring him back to your site time and time again. The best benefit of a newsletter or e-zine is that it turns a casual visitor to your site into a regular reader, thereby increasing your on-line traffic.

7) Invest in good advertising.

Good advertising comes in many forms.  While most people think of pay per click ads when they consider advertising, there are other very effective ad forms as well.  Many sites use advertising exclusively to increase on line traffic.  It is an easy method, and therefore popular.

 Consider advertising in newsletters or e-zines put out by your competitors if possible.  Turn their readers into your readers - increased on line traffic for you and a little advertising cash for them. 

USAdS is a free and effective classified advertising source.  You might want to invest in a paid level, however, to get the features you need.  

 Craigslist is another effective free classified advertising site.  Many businesses are making a living through advertising on Craigslist alone. 

Safe lists allow you to blast your email to people who have agreed to receive your email.  Your ad goes to people like you who want to get their message out.  While most of these emails will not get read, an occasional one will, increasing on line traffic slightly.  Some marketers recommend this, though I have not experimented with it yet.  I would not count on this method exclusively. 

8.) Create your own forum on your site. 

Creating a forum on your site can result in keeping readers interested.  Forums create a feel of community on your site.  People like the feel of community and this leads to increased on-line traffic. 

You should be aware that running a forum requires a lot of upkeep.  You must be diligent about keeping your comments appropriate and deleting the spam that you will inevitably get.  There are programs that can help with this, but some will always get through.

 9.)  Create a Squidoo Lens. 

Squidoo is a relatively new social networking site, with a difference.  Squidoo is created especially for businesses.  You create a page, called a lens, about your business.  Squidoo welcomes your advertising and in fact, encourages it. One big benefit of your squidoo lens is that Google loves this site.  Optimize your lens with your keywords and link through to your site. You will benefit with increased on line traffic and eventually increased page rank.   

10.)  Harness The Power Of A Blog.

Blogging is another way to gain attention on the web.  Blogs are favored in the search engines because they are updated frequently.  The search engines love fresh content.  Your blogging software automatically updates the search engines each time you post to your blog so your content is found by the search engine much faster than waiting for a spider to visit your site.    Another advantage of blogs is the RSS feed which automatically syndicates your post and allows it to be posted on other sites as well, increasing readership and traffic to your site. Blogs allow comments, which makes your site interactive.  Readers like interactive content.  Everyone likes to add their own comment and expertise to your post.   

 Increasing on-line traffic to your site requires hard work.  You can create the most beautiful and informative site, but you cannot expect anyone to find it automatically.    However, follow the steps above you will be on your way to increased on-line traffic.

Recommended Resources:

http://ez-marketer.com/recommends/ultimatetraffic.html

If you write articles that are related to your site and fill the needs of your customers, you will get plenty of highly targeted traffic.  However, there are some things you can do to increase your chances of success.

1. Research keyword  phrases before you write your article.  Only by researching can you be sure that your article will find its audience.  Be sure to include these keywords in the title, tags and in the body of your article.   You are looking for relevant keyword phrases that have a high search audience, but low competition.
2. Send your traffic from your resource box to a page on your site that is also optimized for the same keyword.  Use a text anchor link whenever possible to increase the value of the link to the search engines.
3. Spend time choosing a good headline.  Your headline will determine whether your article is read, so make it interesting; use it to create an interest in finding out more.
4. Good content is essential.  Do not try to write a teaser or an advertisement.  Your potential customer will go elsewhere for the information he needs.  You must give him good content to convince him that you know what he wants to know.  Write naturally.  You should include your keyword phrase.  However, if your article is blatantly keyword spamming your customer and the search engines will be turned off.
5. Use short paragraphs or bullet points.  Lets face it, most people will skim your article rather than reading it.  Make it easy for them to find useful information quickly.
6. I have not found an article submission service that is worth the bother.  Many people who do not succeed with article traffic are using outside submission services.  These services send your article out by email, rather than posting them on the high traffic sites.  You should submit your article to the best article sites.  My two favorite are http://ezinearticles.com/ and http://goarticles.com/  .  These two sites provide me with a lot of traffic to my sites.  There are other good ones, but I prefer to spend my time writing rather than submitting, so I only post to the others occasionally for a link boost.
7. Find sites in your niche that accept article submissions directly.  Many webmasters and bloggers are in constant need for well written content and will welcome your article.  Submit your best articles to the best of these first.  They will appreciate the unique content and give you good position on their site or in their ezine.  After the article has appeared in their ezine, submit it to the article sites.  Some sites will even give you a regular column if they like your content.  The value of this exposure is immense if the site has a broad readership. 
8. If you write in several niches, you should create a different pen name or variation of your name for each niche.  When a potential customer searches on your name (and they will), you don’t want them to find you in 20 different subjects.  They should find many well written articles in one subject area.  This way, they recognize you as an expert, rather than a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.
9. To avoid being penalized for duplicate content, do not place your articles on your own site.  If you wish to use the content again, use it in emails or in an ezine, or rewrite a longer version for your site.