First let’s talk about the method itself…

Webmasters allow their domains to expire for a variety of different reasons – what’s important for you is just how much work that webmaster already did to get his site ranked in the search engines, build up incoming links, etc.

What happens is this:

Someone starts a site and begins getting traffic based on the keywords they’ve ranked on, the incoming link relationships they’ve built, any articles they’ve written with their domain in the byline, etc.

But if the domain is allowed to expire – and no one else snatches it up – there’s going to be a window of time where the site is still receiving traffic from those old links and listings.

The traffic that arrives via outdated links will click away unless someone takes over that domain and puts something there worthy of looking at.

But, if you take over that domain, that traffic is yours to direct as you wish.

I should mention now that this isn’t quite as easy to do as it used to be. A company based out of China called Ultsearch capitalized in a huge way on expired domain traffic by buying up literally thousands upon thousands of expired names, and replacing the home page with sponsor links that earned them a profit on every click (to the tune of about 80 million USD).

My point in bringing this up is twofold:

a) You need to be fast on the draw in order to snatch up really good expired domains, and…

b) You need to put some quality content on the site, rather than just redirecting or slapping up some irrelevant links.

You want to capitalize on the existing targeted traffic rather than send them clicking away again.

If you do intend to use this method for redirecting pages (to an affiliate program, for example), just make sure what you’re redirecting to is relevant and targeted.

Making the Most of Expired Domains:

If you manage to grab a domain with decent ranking in one of the search engines, particularly Google, you might want to see if there is a cached version of the page available.

You’ll be able to take that page and analyze it to determine some of the ranking factors and possibly expand or build on them in order to maintain or even boost your search engine ranking.

Mostly, you need to work as quickly as possible, and understand that the domain might lose some of its value as the search engines and other webmasters discover a brand new site has taken its place.

The ideal tactic here, in my experience, is to use the domain to feed traffic into your opt-in list, and then redirect those new subscribers to your primary site once you’ve captured their address.

No matter what you decide to put on one of these domains, it’s crucial that you have lead capture in place; otherwise, you won’t be making the most of your new traffic.

Finding and Buying Expired Domains:

There’s a time consuming way to do this, and there’s any easier way to do this. The time consuming method involves searching through search engine listings and clicking on links to see if you get any ‘page not found’ errors.

When you see this error, it might mean the domain is expired – or it might not. The site could just be down temporarily due to technical difficulties. What you have to do once you find one of these pages is run an additional search through a domain registrar to see if the domain is available.

As you can imagine, this is tedious and not the most efficient way to go about things.

Luckily, there are software programs out there to do this work for you, as well as live auction sites where webmasters put their expiring domains up for sale.

Did you know you can also backorder domains?

When you backorder a domain, you’re putting your hat into the ring for a domain that has a pending expiration date. There’s a window of time where, unless the webmaster renews quickly or has his domain ‘locked’, the domain will be released by Verisign and available for you to snatch up.

This can be hit or miss, but when it works, you can come away with some real gems in expired domain traffic.

However, banners aren’t totally dead…

In fact, they’re alive and well on quite a few high-traffic niche sites, sometimes at bargain basement prices.

Sites to target for banner advertising:

"    Online editions of local newspapers or your local news station’s website.
"    Websites of talk radio or other niche related radio programs.
"    Niche blogs or targeted, independent news sites
"    Any targeted website that makes use of banners while strictly limiting the amount of banners in place

Are Banners Making A Comeback?

In a sense: Yes, banners are making a comeback, but in a much more targeted fashion.

What killed the effectiveness of banners in the past:

1.    Overuse :  Webmasters went "banner crazy" during the early days of Internet advertising. Visitors began ignoring banners due to overexposure and poor targeting on the part of advertisers.

2.    Over-Reliance : Over-reliance on banners as the primary source of monetization for content-driven sites. The dot-com graveyard is littered with sites that attempted to drive revenue solely through banner advertising. The idea of free content was a noble one, but it didn’t hold up economically.

Today, the most effective banner advertising takes a cue from Google Adwords. In other words, it’s all about contextual advertising.

Banners targeted to the content and to the audience of a given website perform, from an ROI standpoint, on par with text-link advertising.

But, again, you’ve got to target the placement.

Proven Performers:

Banner advertising works best when you follow the rules of niche marketing.

Niche products ->Niche Advertising ->Niche Web Sites.

Here’s a hot tip: some of the best sites for banner placement are radio program websites. In particular, the official websites for talk radio programs, especially on the AM frequencies.

Why?

Well, if you’ll tune in to a program on any given day, you’ll hear the reason. There are literally dozens of small businesses advertising on these programs.

You’ll notice, too, that the nature of the products they advertise are the kind you’d expect to find in mail-order catalogs or other direct-marketing mediums:

Nutritional supplements
Investment courses
Specialty products

You’ll find the same types of products advertised on the program’s website as you do on-air.

But that’s not the best part…

The best part is that talk radio programs cull a select, pre-targeted audience.

Let’s say you have an e-book related to automotive repair.  Where should you advertise?

Well, Car Talk (www.cartalk.com) would be a great place to start. This show has been on the air for years, and boasts a loyal audience – not in the thousands – but in the millions.

News Portals:

News portals and sites focused on alternative media are proving to be great investments for both banner and text-link advertising.

Though these sites aren’t always laser-targeted from a content standpoint, the demographics of their readership makes them very attractive.

Let’s look at what News Max (www.newsmax.com) has to say about their demographics:

Highly Educated: 63% have a college degree
Highly Affluent: 70% have a household income over $50,000
Loyal Readers: 81% visit the site daily
Online Spenders: 70% have purchased something online in the last year.

Sounds like any marketer’s dream come true, right?  But what makes this type of audience so responsive?

Think about the visitor’s frame of mind for a moment.

They’re open, curious and in "information gathering" mode. The news content itself may have them actively thinking about their own problems – and wondering where they might find a solution.

Oh, and notice, too, that they’re already ‘awash’ in attention-grabbing headlines?

Use Your Own:

Right now there are thousands of sites which rely on auto-generated content (and auto generated advertising).

Some of these sites are ‘blogs’ – featuring a mix of both auto-generated content and manually entered content. But there are also  sites created with ‘page generator’ programs, and these rely on content syndication to pull in fresh articles and fresh advertising.

Sites built with these types of programs tend to get search engines traffic if done right.

Most marketers build them for the sole purpose of monetizing the traffic that comes in. The primary method of earning revenue on these sites is Google Adsense. Adsense advertisements are sprinkled across every single page of targeted content.

If you own one of these types of sites, here’s an idea:

Why not place banner advertisements on select pages?  Take advantage of the opportunity to direct those visitors to one of your affiliate programs, where the payout is likely equal to or greater than the amount you earn per click with Adsense.

Now you might be thinking: why would I want to do this? I’m guaranteed to earn something when a visitor clicks away from my site on an Adsense link, but I’m not guaranteed anything if they click on an affiliate banner!

This is true, but it also is going to depend on the niche you are targeting and what types of affiliate programs you’re involved in.

Let’s say you have a highly trafficked page that is performing well for you in terms of generating Adsense revenue. This is a sign that the mix of content and advertising is very highly targeted -  in other words, it’s optimized contextual advertising.

If you have a related affiliate program that meets these criteria:

"    High pay-out
"    Commission earned as ‘pay per lead’ (e.g. Visitor fills out a form or takes some other simple action)

Then I’d say it’s worth the risk of adding that banner to the page to see what type of response you get. You’ve got a much greater chance of nailing that commission since the visitor isn’t having to decide whether to buy anything.

As for programs that do require a purchase for you to earn a commission, I’d recommend placing banners for those products on your under-performing pages.

In other words, check your stats and find out which pages get fair traffic but only so-so conversion on Adsense clicks. Slap your banner advertising there and see what you get. You won’t be risking as much revenue this way, and you also up your chances of squeezing more revenue out of that page.

When you implement an affiliate program on your site, you establish a ‘pay for performance’ relationship with those who sign up as your affiliate. The affiliate runs his or her own separate marketing campaign in order to advertise his unique affiliate url which tracks the visitors he sends to your site.

If a visitor makes a purchase, the affiliate is credited for the sale and receives a commission (a percentage of the sale).

You can see the power of this method immediately when you recognize that your affiliates essentially provide you with free advertising. You only pay when a sale is made. True, you do pay out a portion of your profits – but what you make back is far more than what you’re spending.

Why? Because affiliates increase your site’s visibility.

Even long after you’ve moved on to another project, another site…all of those affiliate links pointing to your site are still ‘out there’, spread across the web in articles, emails, e-books and affiliate web pages.

Broad exposure such as this brings you a steady stream of traffic and sales for months to come.

Think of it this way: you can sell 500 copies of a $60 product and keep the profits to yourself to the tune of $30,000 or you can enlist an army of affiliates who sell 1,500 copies of the same product for a 50% ($30) commission, and you net $45,000!

Setting up an affiliate program is not difficult. One of the easiest places to do it is over at Clickbank. Clickbank has an affiliate  system built in and ready to go the moment your product is approved for sale.

Also, an added benefit of Clickbank is the "marketplace directory" model employed on site. All products sold through Clickbank appear in the marketplace organized by category. Active affiliate marketers know this and seek out new merchants in the marketplace on a regular basis.

If you’re using a different payment processor, like Paypal for instance, you will need to purchase server-side scripts to run your own affiliate program and host it on your site.

Alternatively, you can try some of the newer solutions on the market such as 1shoppingcart.com, payloadz.com, tradebit.com, or paydotcom.com.

The above services are "all in one" automation solutions for selling and delivering digital goods like e-books.

Easy Affiliate Recruiting Tips:

1.    Keep your site simple and uncluttered

Your visitors and your affiliates want to see a simple, easy to navigate layout.

Make the link to your affiliate information page visible and prominent. You  don’t want this buried. Potential affiliates will click away from your site if they  don’t see an obvious affiliate program within the first 10 seconds on your site.

Make sure you link to your affiliate information or sign up page on every page of your site.

2.    Create an Affiliate Information Page

You need to give your potential affiliates access to more than just your sign-up form.

Create an informative page which details at least the following:

"    Your product/service
"    Your commission structure and payment method
"    Terms and conditions of your affiliate program
"    Your privacy policy and other legal statements

Also, let your affiliates know what type of resources you provide for them.  Banners? Text links? Pre-written copy?  A list of keywords to target?

If you’ve got conversion data, share that as well. Let your affiliates know how many visitors to your sales page actually convert into customers.

3.    Submit to Affiliate Directories

The easiest and least time consuming way to announce the arrival of your affiliate program is to use an announcement service like Affiliate Announce: http://www.affiliate-announce.com

Affiliate Announce will submit your affiliate program to all of the major affiliate directories. Have a look at their list of clients.

If for some reason you need to do this on the cheap (read: free), you’ll have to do it manually by looking each directory up in a search engine and submitting one by one.

4.    Recruit Webmasters

Look for sites with content that is relevant to yours. Contact the webmaster to find out if they are in need of additional advertising revenue and invite them to your affiliate program.

This can net you some super-affiliates. You’ll also get extra recruits coming in via the webmaster’s affiliate link.

5.    Go to Affiliate’s Hangouts

Visit message boards, forums or chatrooms devoted to affiliate marketers. You don’t want to spam or blatantly recruit people, but you can take part in the discussion and have your affiliate program URL in your signature file at the bottom of every post.

As you can see, in our line work in online business, time is considered precious or some would say Time is Money. This is true.. By knowing the Not to do in advertising, this will help eliminate the time wasted on these "Not to do" stuffs. If anyone of you are using one of the NOT To Do stuffs listed below, please STOP immediately as you are wasting a lot of time. So now, Let’s begin.

1- Safelist Mailing
First of all, to be honest, SafeList mailing is one of the method I use a few years back & this is what I found out. It do not work. Think about it, do you ever think that people in this kind of mailing will ever open your email & read? NO! They are just like you, promoting their own sites. They have only one goal. All they want is to bring their ads in front of you to generate traffic & sales. They don’t care even if you give them some fantastic free products. To it is best to avoid these kind of traffic generation.. It is useless..

2- Paying For Site Submission To Search Engines
First of all, do you know whether these so call site submission company ever submit for you in the first place? Even if they do, did they put your site in the correct category? Put your money in the safe. If you want to submit, submit it yourself for free. At least when you do it on your own, you know that it submitted to the correct category. So do not waste your money & time in these so call Site Submission company. They just take your money & leave you stranded.. Better avoid them at all course.

3-FFA Sites (Free-For-All Sites)
You really got to be serious! FFA Sites is just super junk!. Avoid them. Never heard of FFA Sites..? Well, good for you as you are one of the lucky ones but if you are using this FFA sites as one of your traffic generation method, STOP immediately. They do more harm than good. FFA sites are sites that list a huge amount of sites links from hopefuls in trying to send prospects to their site. They are not targetted traffic. Normally the links are all jumbled into one big link list. Can you imagine if your link is way at the bottom? Sucky right? One thing I noticed is that once you submit your link together with your email & name, you get a lot of spammy emails which is not related to your niche..

My Summary
There you have it. My 3 top Not To Do in traffic generation methods. Avoid them at all. If you see them, delete, close, burn & run away as far as you can. They will waste a lot of time that you can use for other traffic generation methods productively. Probably my next post will be To Do in traffic genaration.

BOOST TRAFFIC WITH CONTENT

It is difficult to successfully sell a car if the design and functioning is not efficient even if it looks wonderful from the outside. Even though appearance tends to appeal to you at first, it is the design and functioning which will eventually matter.

Just like design is important to a car, so is content to an online business enterprise. In some cases, content may be even more important than other resources. Here are five fundamental tips that ought to help you broaden your reach and your profits:

1.    Increase number of regular visitors
You can build yourself a good base of prospective customers by posting information and articles related to the products you’re trying to sell.

Good quality content posted on a frequent basis will attract a large number of visitors thereby advertising your product usefully. It will also increase your daily traffic and search engine ranking

2.    Give more ‘free’ information
People love items which are of value and free of cost. So, you can increase the number of newsletters or pamphlets that you distribute and throw in a couple of free issues as a bonus for subscribing. Make sure they all have good and useful content

3.    Standardize your cashflow
Maintaining a mechanized system of cashflow helps to strengthen your foundations and provides opportunities for expansion. This can be achieved by sending additional information like related websites, your affiliates, etc. along with your newsletters and other publications, but in small quantities.

This could popularize your publications and create a demand for more. You can also automate the sending of these publications to your clients on the basis of days so that they realize they are getting prompt service

4.    Maintain a network of regular visitors
You can keep sending information related to your topic to your subscribers on a regular basis until you establish yourself as an expert in your field. It will also help build a network of trusted customers.

Eventually, your subscribers will start awaiting your articles with high expectations. Don’t forget to provide good quality content or your hard work might crumble down to nothing. A good network of customers assures you a certain amount of business which provides you with some safety.

5.    Attach yourself to a big publisher
Sending your articles to a website which has a good network of users will popularize your website. Don’t forget to add a resource box mentioning what your website is about and what it has to offer in brief.

These articles will be circulated to millions of people who, after reading your articles, will access your website to know more about you. This way, you can gather a huge number of subscribers. The number of articles may not matter. The quality and content will speak for itself.

These 5 tips should help you increase your network and make a profit as well. With the traditional advertising techniques not paying out, content seems to be only way for a publisher to assure a definite number of viewers.

Finally, keep in mind that the content must always be directed towards your target audience and never waver from that path. It is also imperative that you don’t take advantage of your large network and send poor-quality work to make quick money.

By the way, if you are interested in affiliate marketing, a friend of mine, is giving a free lesson on that.

Click either one of the link below

http://www.muhammadriduanramli.com/endorses/AutoPilotProfits

http://www.muhammadriduanramli.com/uanz/

Go get the lesson for free..

Ciao!!!

MARKETING EFFECTIVELY

There has to be certain objectives that any activity is aimed towards. Marketing has its own agenda that has to be followed, in order to be successful. The agenda will vary from project to project depending on various factors. Look at the ten points below and check if your marketing passes this test! Evaluate your recent ads, promotions against these points to see where you stand.

Focus on solution or benefits or neither
More often than not, ads just list features of a product and leave it to the prospects to unravel the mystery of how exactly the product will benefit them. Merely listing product features will not help. Ads should me made in such a way that the reader instantly figures what’s there for him, in the product.

One clear message
Is your ad cluttered with too much information? Then it is not likely to reach out. Pick out the single most important message you want to convey and communicate the same. Don’t bury too much information in the ad.

Target group
If you have no specific target group and you go about randomly marketing, chances are that you are not hitting the nail on its head. Target one specific group of prospects so that you can do justice to their needs.

Language clarity
Content, tone, language – they should all be in line with what your target group can relate to, completely. People instantly like what they can identify with. You should have done enough research about your target group and frame your ad to grab their attention and liking.

USP
What is the ONE thing that sets you apart from your competitors? Ensure that this point comes across loud and clear to all.

Reflects your business personality
Your ad should speak volumes. Just like you have a personality, your brand and business does too. You have to ensure that this comes across well in your ad. Keep your personality consistent. At the end of the day, your ad should reflect what the business personality in reality. If you’re simple and chaste, so should your ad. Let there be consistency.

One compelling point of focus
When you look at an ad, where do your eyes go to? You should have too much in your ad leaving the reader confused. Instead, drag their eyes to that one compelling point of your focus.

Reason to respond
Why should your prospects respond to your ad? Is there reason enough? Have you depicted the ad well enough for all those reasons to come across? Give them compelling reasons to respond.

Ways to respond
Have alternative ways to receive customer responses. For example, don’t restrict to email or website response. Not all have access to computers. Widen the options for prospects such that they can get the information they want from you via various media.

Specific objective
This boils down to the point you started reading the article with. Design your objectives first and then align your marketing efforts accordingly so that you know what you are looking at and you have a goal to achieve.

Keep these points in mind while designing your marketing efforts. Redesign your efforts if you have already begun with these points in mind. May success come your way through all of these efforts!

By the way, if you are interested in affiliate marketing, a friend of mine, is giving a free lesson on that.

Click either one of the link below

http://www.muhammadriduan.com/presents/AutoPilotProfits

Go get the lesson for free..

Ciao!!!

Anyway let’s get back to Part 2..

Idea3
Use online social networking. Places like friendster, myspace, directmatches & many more out there are free to join. Basically you join any of them, create a profile, make it personal but related to your business. Add friends to your contact. Make friends & build relationship with your contacts. Build your contacts. Once you have 100s of contacts, use bulletin to broadcast your ideas or messages with links for them to visit your site.. This is free traffic to your site. However do not spam.

Idea4
Write article with your signature file below. Well this is article marketing. After you write articles, sent them to article directories like GoArticles, ISnare, Ezine articles & many more. People do source for free articles for their sites & the agreement for them to be able to do that is only when they include your signature file below the article. So, if people read your article on the site, they might click the link in your signature file to know more about you. This is another way of getting free traffic to your site.

The ideas above however will take some time for you to see a result. This is not an instant traffic generation. It take times normally months until you be able to see the result.

Suddenly, one question struck in my mind. Is there such thing as free marketing? Well, there is such a thing as free marketing.. In this part 1, you will be able to get some ideas in marketing your business for free or close to that. Hahaha..

Idea 1
Put a signature on your email whenever you email. Email is like second nature to us.. Why not use it as a marketing tool. Furthermore it is free.. However, do put a signature that creates curiosity & interest. The idea is to get them to click the link in your signature. When they click on it, your site will be check out. Look at the example below:-

eg. Click here to know why my boss hate me so much..

Get it?

Idea 2
Nowadays, spam email is very common. You get them everyday & they always end up in the dustbin. Hahaha.. But you actually can use it to your own advantage. Try to read 2 or 3 of the spam email.. Check out their site & later reply to them saying you appreciate it very much & then ask them a few questions like below:-

1-How long are they in this business?
2-What are they struggling in their current business?
3-Would they like some friendly advice or help?

Explain to them you are business couch helping other people in business startup. Ask them if they interested in having a conversation about marketing ideas. Some people will ignore your email but some do response. If they response, you have a lead at hand.

BUT do not mention your business until they ask you themselves.

Part 1 ends here..

Blogging in MLM is such a powerful tools. Furthermore it will be able to attract targeted traffic. What is blogging? It is an online journal. It is a way of communicating to an internet audience. Is it effective in MLM? I have to say yes to it. Ever since I started blogging, I had seen an improvement of targeted visitors to my MLM page & had an increase in the number of subscribers to learn more my MLM business.

However, I found out that most network marketers don’t use blogging to promote their MLM business. Why? I have no idea why but they should use it because it has great advantages.

Why is blogging a powerful tool in internet marketing?

Firstly, it will save you a lot of time as your business grows. In MLM, proper training is important & blogging is one way to ensure proper training is given. When you blog, you are actually documenting your failures & success in MLM. You know what will work or fail. If your downline read your blog, they will learn that & will shorten their training time. Duplication is important in MLM. By documenting your footstep in MLM in blogs, downlines will be able to follow your step & they will see similar results as yours.

Secondly, blogging has this special community feeling attached to it. Network marketing is about creating communities of the same interest & very focus on the same goals. Blogging is just the same. It is personal. Every entry posted shares a little piece of your personality. As your blog grows, so will your team spirit & a sense of belonging will be created. Blogging is one way you communicate with your team. Building relationship with your team is extremely crucial & blogging is the best communicating tool ever created apart from emails follow up & forums.

Thirdly, blogging works well with prospecting in MLM. Let say a prospect opt in to receive emails, saw your sales page & they want to try it but they are little skeptical about it. A minute later another email came from you saying, “My friend, I know you got a few questions to ask about this business so why don’t you check out my team blog to get a better idea of what we are doing?” They check out the blog & saw many informations, interaction between members that shows a sense of community & caring. If they are satisfied, they might join you & the team. No question ask. No need need to call them prospecting anymore. Internet rules!

Lastly, blogging get targeted traffic at least 30 to 100 visitors a day easily & it is free. Using blogging communities to drive targeted traffic is the best. The entry you make can easily make to the search engine fast because of the ping features blog has over a normal site.

In Summary, blogging has work wonders for me. There are many bloggers out there who blogs seriously & the traffic they get is superb. The best is they are not in any network marketing business. Can you imagine the big advantages these serious bloggers have if one day they decided to join an MLM business just like mine. Wow.. But again, that is only if they want Big residual income monthly.

Regards,
Muhammad Riduan Ramli (Uanz)