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Well I survived Thanksgiving and the over eating that went with it but it was worth it. We had a few for dinner and still surviving on left overs for another day or two. The good part is it is always a lot of fun to get the family together.

The bad part is my content generation is down. The turtles did not get any lessons this week but don’t worry they will be back. Even the WordPress blog suffered through the holidays but I did get a couple posts up this week. Time to get back to normal at least until the next holiday which is only a few weeks away.

WordPress Made Easy

• Is your blog a community?
• WordPress 2.6.5 released
• Plugins - Which ones do you need?

The other thing that hurt content production this week was the release of a new product to help you take advantage of giveaways. It will walk you through all the technical sides of creating the pages to participate.

Easy Giveaway Plan

There is also still time to take advantage of a gift from a good friend and former podcast partner Erik Stafford, The Faster Webmaster. To help you succeed he has put together 12 teleseminars with work books on how to build your business. I am happy to be able to offer you free access to it.

Eriks 12 Days Of Christmas

If you are looking for Master Resell Rights products Doug Champigny released a great package earlier this week of 6 products at less than $5 each. These include the sales letters, products and are easy to get set up quickly if you are looking for a way to generate some extra Christmas cash.

Master Resell Rights Blowout

Speaking of Doug Champigny he will be launching his how to course on using PLR Videos this coming week. I attended the original teleseminar and the information is kick butt. He is adding a transcript and a video walk through of the techniques discussed. Keep your eye open for more on this coming later in the week.

Now looking at giveaways (please read some of the many posts below on how to get the most out of them without getting overwhelmed) there are two currently running that I like and more coming.

IM DreamTeam - ends tomorrow so if you have not visited it you should do it now.

Santas Big Giveaway - will be running all month

You can find products that can help you generate income through the first quarter of next year if you check these out carefully.

The last item this week is kind of the exception to the rule. I almost never promote traffic exchanges directly especially new ones. I use programs like Affiliate Funnel to do that on the back end of my marketing funnel but…

There is always an exception. Traffic Witch is that because of the owner, Guido Nussbaum and the amazing results I have received. See Guido does not come from the usual group of traffic exchange owners and this has been promoted outside of the normal group. Quite a few marketers have promoted this that are outside the normal clique so the membership has a lot of new eyeballs that are using traffic exchanges for the first time.

That is why the results have been amazing for me. This can be an excellent resource for building your list. If you are not familiar with using traffic exchanges then check out Affiliate Funnel for some great lessons on using them and other free and low cost resources. Then go join Traffic Witch and apply the lessons.

That is all for this week and have a great weekend.

Your questions and comments are always welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: affiliate Funnel, Doug Champigny, easy giveaway plan, giveaways, IM Dream Team, Master Resell Rights Blowout, Santas Big Giveaway, Traffic Witch

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Yesterday was the end of another four year cycle here in the US. We have a new President elect and the process to transfer power will begin immediately.

If you use traffic exchanges for lead generation you can still vote. Affiliate Funnel has just relaunched their traffic ranker. Before I get into the power of this ranker to help you let me explain a few things.

I have been using traffic exchanges for a few years to generate subscribers consistently. If you are looking for new subscribers that have an interest in business building this can be an extremely targeted market place despite what you may hear from some.

See the general demographic of a traffic exchange user is someone looking to generate traffic for free or a low cost for their new make money from home business. Understanding this is the key to using these resources effectively.

They have bought into the dream of various programs that if you just send traffic you can get rich quickly. Now the fact that it does not quite work that way is to your advantage if you can supply them with help for what they want to accomplish.

These people have already raised their hands and said I am interested in having a work at home business or at the least making a few bucks extra each month. Target them properly and you can do well with generating subscribers.

Here is where Affiliate Funnel will help you.

• The ranker gives you a listing of the exchanges that are working best for 1000’s of users because they can vote for them
• They give you actual stats on what is working with the various exchanges
• It allows you to build downlines in the various traffic exchanges
• Most importantly it allows you to promote YOUR money making programs to your referrals not the owners
• Training conferences 3x a week

So you can get training for yourself and offer training to others while getting access to some of the best stats on what is working in the traffic exchanges, use then to build your subscriber base and grow your business effectively.

Check out Affiliate Funneltoday.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. There are only a few packages of The PLR Gold Videos available at the low launch price. Make sure you grab yours before the price goes up.

Technorati Tags: affiliate Funnel, make money, PLR Gold Videos, traffic exchanges

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Two things and neither have to do with US politics. Tomorrow is election day and if you are in the US make sure you exercise your privilege. Now to the news.

The first is from Bob The Teacher.

He is hosting a teleseminar tomorrow. He wants to help you grow your business through free reports.

Bob’s actually giving tickets away for free to his subscribers and customers (and their friends), as a special Thank you gift.

With all these huge mega-launches, it’s pretty cool to see him do this.

Election Day Blowout

But there’s something else you should know about what Bob’s doing.

(I know about this because Bob keeps me in the loop…)

In addition to learning from him tomorrow for free, he’s going to be knocking off up to 74% of the price on his internet marketing products.

So if you have a specific area you need help with (like list building, traffic, social networking, etc.), you can get one of Bob’s training courses at least half off.

Anyway, hope this helps you get a momentum boost in your business! Get your free ticket here:

Election Day Blowout

If you can’t be there live for his teleseminar - sign up anyway. He’s giving away the recordings AND the transcripts as an additional thank you gift for his subscribers!

Now to the second voting item

Affiliate Funnel has just updated their Traffic Ranker. If you are using traffic exchanges this will give you access to stats and the opinions of thousands of surfers. You get to vote for the exchanges that work for you.

No more opinion or an agenda you will see the actual stats they are getting plus the rankings are created by the surfers not just one person’s opinion.

Check out Affiliate Funnel and all of the tools to help you. If you are using traffic exchanges this is a must for your business.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: affiliate Funnel, bob jenkins, Election Day Blowout, free report, traffic exchanges, vote

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Well another week is past and it has been busy.

Lets take care of the important stuff first. Maddie’s blog has been updated with her pictures from her first trip to the beach. Family always needs to come first. Isn’t that why we do what we do?

Today Soren Jordansen and I will be doing a seminar on “Using Web 2.0″ at Affiliate Funnel seminar at noon. If you are a member login and get the conference room link. If your not check it out - it’s free.

Tweet My Blog launched this week. It is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to combine the power of your blog with the power of Twitter. You can see my feed on the sidebar here and as soon as I post this it will post on Twitter automatically too. If you are not using Twitter you should be.

I am sure that you got bombarded by Traffic Secrets 2.0 this week. If you are looking to take advantage of the buzz you may want to check out Rob Toth’s Buy Now Wizard close out sale. Not only does it improve your conversions but… if you look closely, one of the 4 products included in this “Final Sale” of his is the “How Can I Get Visitors To My Website: Traffic Generation Techniques Explained” course. And he is offering Master Resell rights for it.

You can have your own product and a way to improve your conversions at the same time.

Finally WordPress released a new version - 2.6 this week. It has some great new features and there are a couple posts over at WordPress Made Easy that explain more.

Hope you are having a great weekend and as always your comments and questions are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: affiliate Funnel, buy now wizard, tweet my blog, web 2.0, wordpress upgrade

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Now that we have covered the first steps and you have an offer that you are going to track it is now time to get traffic. Not doing those steps first is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make. They work on traffic without a good offer and system built first.

Now there are numerous ways to get traffic. That means this will be a series of posts and not just one. Even with that there are so many different ways even though they fall into 3 categories.

Today I will discuss traffic exchanges. Now this is really only a good method for getting visitors if you are in the make money on line niche. If you are looking to sell pet products, cell phones, etc. this is not a good source for you.

Now traffic exchanges are a co-op of sorts. You look at my pages - I look at yours.

The key to using traffic exchanges is to target the market and make an irresistible offer. Your target market is people looking to sell to other marketers. If you have a way to get more traffic for less effort that would be something of interest to most users.

Now the other thing is to understand the media here. The average exchange is only going to show your page for 10-15 seconds. If you have this long page it may not even load in time before the person is ready to click next.

You also need to have your whole offer show in the frame or be above the fold.

Above the fold means that your whole page and offer shows in the browser without you having to scroll. The mindset while surfing a traffic exchange is to generate as many page views for them selves as possible.

Nobody goes into a traffic exchange saying “Gee I want to go sign up for 10 lists today and buy 3 products.” They are saying “I need traffic for my site so I am going to surf as many sites in as short a time period as I possibly can.”

Because of this attitude you need to have a quick loading page, catch their attention with the headline and have a strong call to action.

Finally, because people deal with people not programs you want to be sure that you are branding your self on every page. Personalizing the page with your name and picture is extremely valuable and…

The more you do it the more credibility you build up. Understand that if someone sees your face every time they surf they start to see you as an expert. After all if you are constantly showing all the time what do you know that they don’t?

Now let’s look at an actual page that has done very well and see why it works. Check out this page Anyone Can Blog and we will discuss how and why it works.

Headline - Do you think that resonates with someone that has been spending hours each day surfing traffic exchanges? Will that catch your attention?

Pictures/Branding - Paul and I have branded our image on the traffic exchanges for years. We also add credibility by adding how long we have been online. Might someone that is still using these sources know something that can help you?

Bullets - Here you make the promise and get the saliva running.

Call to action - Finally tell them exactly what to do. Don’t vacillate on this. We use “Enter your name and primary email address to receive your free lessons”. No doubt there on what we are asking.

Now the final step in using these resources effectively. Be in as many as you can 24/7. There is a huge power in someone seeing you EVERY time they surf. Don’t spread your self too thin. You are better to be in 3 or 4 24/7 than in 20 for half an hour a day.

You also want to use the big exchanges primarily. There is nothing wrong with using some of the newer smaller exchanges but…

The one’s that you are in 24/7 should be

• delivering 100 - 150 page views a day
• adding lots of new members each and every week
• have an active membership so that you are receiving more than 40% unique visitors

Test the smaller and newer ones but put your major effort and money into the ones that meet this criteria.

Some of the ones that I like and use regularly are in no particular order -

• I Love Hits
• Dragon Surf
• Traffic Splash
• Swat Traffic
• Advertising Know How

There are many more that are good that is just a short list. I really recommend you check out Jon Olson’s Hit Exchange News and the Affiliate Funnel Traffic Ranker for more choices.

Finally if you decide that you want to use traffic exchanges I strongly recommend that you join Affiliate Funnel. They have some great training to help you get started.

Remember that this is only one source of traffic and that it is specifically targeted to the make money crowd. Tomorrow we will discuss another free traffic source that is in the same marketplace - safe lists. Don’t worry we will be getting into other areas of traffic for other niches.

As always your comments and questions are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: affiliate Funnel, hit exchange news, traffic, traffic exchanges, traffic ranker, using traffic exchanges

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At least by some. The point of the post was that there is more value in creating your system and building the monetization. More importantly, without this traffic is pointless.

Let’s go back to basics.

Traffic + Conversions = Sales or $$$ in your pocket.

You need both traffic and conversion. The problem with a lot of people using traffic exchanges is that they spend all their time on the first part.

I know from experience and the worst part is if you generate enough traffic even with poor conversions you can make a few dollars. Then you just start surfing more to make a few more. Sound familiar yet?

But…

If you took some of the time that it takes to surf and generate traffic that time would be much more valuable. See once you improve conversion you make more per thousand visitors.

Lets look at some number examples. (You can add in your actual numbers as I have made things even for example purposes.) For arguments sake we’ll say you generate 100 page views in 15 minutes or 400 an hour. Your page gets one signup every 400 page views for an affiliate program for this example I’ll use Affiliate Funnel. They have a $67 one time offer that pays 50%.

With this example every time you surf an hour you generate a signup. Every 20 signups someone buys the one time offer I make an additional $33.50 plus whatever other signups Affiliate Funnel has generated me.

So 20 Hours $33.50 plus additional down lines. Made $1.67 an hour.

Now if I had taken two of those hours and worked on improving the conversion and nothing else changed except to improve my offer by using a different page to 1 in 200 the next 18 hours (I lost 2 working on systems) would show these results. 36 signups versus 20 for 2 less hours- Would have been 1.8 oto sales or $60.30 in income versus $33.50 or over $3 an hour. (Yes I know you can’t get fractional sales )

If you spent more of your time doing that you could get your hourly rate up to something worthwhile but how many actually will?

Now if I had used that and built a list and monetized it the way that I do it would be even more.

The other big question was how much does it actually cost to be in an exchange 24/7. Here are some examples from 3 that I use regularly. On average they try to deliver 150-200 hits per url per day. Figuring you would need 6000 credits for a month here is the cost.

I Love Hits - 5600 credits $30.00 $32.15 a month
Traffic Spalsh - 3000 credits $19.99 $39.98 a month
Dragon Surf - 3000 credits $19.97 $39.94 a month

So 24/7 for a page in all three exchanges would cost $112.07. If you are surfing to do the same thing at 400 credits an hour it would take you 45 hours. Surfing for those credits would mean your time is worth $2.50 an hour. Working 45 hours on improving your process will definitely make you more.

Finally running my actual numbers shows that at 1 subscriber per 120 page views this cost of $112.07 would generate 150 subscribers at $1.30 per subscriber for $195 return.

You can get your results there too but not if you spend all your time surfing instead of improving your system.

Thats my view - What is yours?

Your comments decide whether or not this is a topic that should be expanded. This will be the last one on this topic for a while unless people are commenting.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: affiliate Funnel, conversion, dragon surf, I love hits, traffic splash

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