Social Marketing by Michelle MacPhearson

Joel Peterson Adwords Webinar Replay

erica — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:22:01 +0000

In case you’re like me and missed it the first time around, here’s the replay of Michelle’s webinar with guest speaker Joel Peterson. I finally got a chance to watch it and was glad I did because I learned so much about getting cheap adwords traffic using banner ads. It’s good stuff and you can check it out by clicking here.

Outsourcing Internet Marketing

Michelle MacPhearson — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:52:40 +0000

Perhaps you’ve come to this realization too?

To scale your business much much quicker, you either have to AUTOMATE many of the tasks you do or OUTSOURCE those tasks.

Ideally, you do both – get it automated AND have an outsourced worker actually do it.

If you make $1.00 / day from a website, you’ll need 300 similar websites to earn a total of $9000 / month.

But it takes time to build the sites, and the sites then require promotion, and then they have to be updated and upgraded as things change in the industry.

It’s TOTALLY do-able, and yet incredibly tedious at the same time.

But if you have someone ELSE doing the work – or even a few people doing the work – well, you’re job is just to pull stings and give direction from the top. And that’s a LOT more fun, and it takes a lot less time.

It’s this kind of scaling that put me where I am today, and you’ve GOT to be outsourcing to scale like this.

I’ve asked John Jonas – who I LITERALLY learned everything I know about outsourcing from – to come and give you a talk about outsourcing:

How to do it
Where to hire from – and where to AVOID
What tasks to have your workers do
Cultural differences
Living the 17 Hour Work Week

All The Traffic You Want For Just Pennies Per Click

Michelle MacPhearson — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:29:44 +0000

This is a guest post by Justin Brooke, author of SEO Lies: A Book About SEO Truths. Justin has helped everyone from home business start-ups to 9 figure earning CEO’s, so you can rest assured he’s got a wallet-fattening tip for you too. You can contact Justin on Facebook here.

Would you like to get thousands of highly targeted visitors to your website for just pennies each? Want to know my secret source from above? It’s FACEBOOK!

How do I get my ads to cost so little?

There are 5 important steps you must follow, but before I teach you those 5 steps there’s a really big obstacle you’ll have to over come – it’s called Banner Blindness.

You see, so many people are on Facebook for hours at a time and every single day sometimes.

They spend hours on end reading profiles, checking status updates, etc. They get so used to the Facebook layout that their eyes start to tune out the unnecessary content (ads they see repeatedly) and only focus on the main content.

Banner Blindness is where your readers are overlooking your ads because they have discredited the “ad” area as having no value, so you’ll need to make sure you constantly change up your ad image at least every other day. If not you’ll see your click thru rates plummet and your costs skyrocket.

Other than that follow these 5 best practices and you too can get traffic for pennies…

1. Call Out To The Target
Your first step is to call out to your target audience in the title. You’re going to call out to the people you want reading and clicking in your ads. The only way to get their attention is to call out to them specifically. For example, If you were targeting tomato growers you’d say, “Do You Grow Tomatoes?” If you targeted bloggers you’d say, “Are You A Blogger?”

Also, notice the question mark at the end of both those titles. That one character has ALWAYS improved my conversions across text link ads, to Google Adwords, to Facebook advertising – even email subject lines. One of the reasons this works so well is because it causes the reader to think more… Are you a tomato grower? Yes – I love growing tomatoes, etc.

2. Ugly images get noticed.
I see too many people trying to use the gorgeous traditional images or they want to look really professional so they have this guy in a suit and tie, but those ads just do not convert.

They are the most susceptible to banner blindness because they are normal, they are common, they are easy, but they don’t break up the vision pattern. Where as if you put in an image that is less common or “ugly” the eye is attracted to it because it is out of place.

Take these two ad pictures for example – Picture 1 is a common stock image that has nothing to really think about, but picture number 2 breaks up your vision. It’s not even an ad you really want to look at for too long, but it gets the point across right away and it gets thought about.

When you’re ads get thought about, your ads get clicked!

Picture #1

Picture #2

Another tip for creating “ugly” images to overcome banner blindness is to take a regular picture and turn it upside down or sideways. Just make the picture look wrong or all jacked up.

Also, make sure you’re rotating your images. If you’re using the same “ugly” image repeatedly you’re feeding the banner blindness – change it up every couple days so that your viewers don’t ad your images to the “normal and useless” category. Doing these 3 things with your images will get your ad noticed and help improve your click through rate.

3. Predict their near future.
Step 3 is an important tip for you to really learn and apply to get your description section to be most effective. It’s a concept I learned from Brad Fallon a while back – he said that you need to demonstrate the buyers experience.

You need to pretend the person has already bought your product and describe to them what they are going through. If you are selling a Tomato Growing Secrets ebook where you teach readers to grow giant tomatoes. You need to write your description in a way that shows the viewer what their life will be like after they buy.

Other marketers call this WIIFM – “What’s In It For Me.” Tell the ad reader what their life is like now (after they’ve bought the product). For example, Imagine you’ve grown the largest tomato and your friends are raving about it – click here to find out how. This technique really helps the conversion of my ads.

Here are a few ads I created that use the tips I’ve listed here to help you when building your ads.

4. Target your dream visitor
In this section we’ve created the ad and are now ready to target who gets to see the ad on Facebook. In this step you need to think, “who is the perfect visitor to your website.”

If you were selling a mommy blogger workshop in Tampa, Florida. You could specifically target 35 year old women, in Tampa, Fl. who like blogging. You can even target that they are married so that there is more of a chance they have kids (not that you have to be married to have kids, but it’s more likely).

Be specific and ad in the interest of your audience. If they are bloggers, you’d type in blog, blogs, blogging, blogger etc. If it was for the tomato growing niche I’d type in growing tomatoes, gardening, and gardener.

5. Pay for the eyeballs and sell clicks
My final tip is to get you to pay per impression – DO NOT pay per click. Here’s a little example to explain why you should choose CPM over CPC.

CPC MODEL -> 1,000 views @ $0.50 cpc x 10 clicks = $5.00
CPM MODEL -> 1,000 views @ $0.50 cpm x 10 clicks = $0.50

Most marketers get scared and pay CPC to insure they get the clicks, because on CPM you can pay for impressions but never get a click. Even if I only get 5 clicks out of 1,000 views and I’m paying $0.50cpm that’s still 5 clicks for just $0.50.

Just need to start out slow and test different ads to see which ones get clicked. Then once you know what catches their eye you’ve got just about all the traffic you can shake a stick at coming your way for pennies!

Here’s a short video showing you how to setup your own campaign…

It’s been my pleasure to share this with you, if you have any questions post them as a comment below. I’ll hang around for the next couple days to answer them all. You can also just say hi or leave some feedback, either way let’s chit chat ok!

Go Bigger,
Justin Brooke
Internet Mad Scientist

How To Have Freedom

Michelle MacPhearson — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:14:49 +0000

I moved about a month ago to a smaller house, with fewer rooms and less square footage. It’s also not sitting on 5 acres (so I guess I have to re-write my “About” page!) – in fact, it’s a townhouse, so I don’t even really have a yard.

I’ve sold several cars and there are more up on Craigslist. Plus ATV’s of various shapes and sizes.

We had 4 TV’s w/ cable boxes, now we have 2 (one in the living room and one in my bedroom). Same thing with computers – had a ton of ‘em, now there’s 2 in the house (one for me and one for my husband).

I gave away a truckload (literally) of books to the library, and another truckload of clothes. We filled two dumpsters trashing other stuff (pannini grill? GONE! Gazelle? GONE! etc.) out of the old house.

WHY “DOWNGRADE”?

Many of the things I once wanted – like a 5 acre farm nestled somewhere between oblivion and obscurity – I’ve since moved on from. It’s no longer what I wanted, but I somehow felt “stuck” in it, like,”This is ours now, so we have to take care of it….” And let me tell you, 5 acres is a lot of work!

The day I realized I didn’t necessarily have to stay there forever (DUH!) I starting preparing to move.

Because THAT freedom is the beauty of the “internet marketing lifestyle.” If there’s an internet connection, I’m working. We could live anywhere.

J-REEZY GOES HOMELESS

John Reese sent out an email message today about his own downgrading – he’s reduced his belongings to fit in a single backpack and sold off everything else, including his home!

Funny how people might be thinking the same things about their lives (like he and I were) without even speaking about it, blogging about it, etc. I know a few other folks in the business who are similarly liquidating and freeing themselves from the possessions they no longer need or want.

Maybe you’re thinking about it too?

POSSESSIONS AS RESPONSIBILITIES

I realized my whole family has acquired a lot of crap we don’t love, care for, need or even want anymore. Time to purge, time to pare down to the bare essentials and really simplify.

We have to remember that possessions aren’t a representation of ourselves. We don’t need to display works of literature on our shelves to show or prove we are learned people, or own many cars to display our wealth, etc. We also don’t need to save broken, old, damaged or unloved items “just in case” because this is a scarcity mentality hidden under the veil of being frugal.

The freedom that comes from this business is an incredible freedom. You work as much as you’d like, sometimes more, sometimes less. You earn what you put into it. You live anywhere, you vacation anywhere. You make incredible friends and are given opportunities and experiences you once could have only imagined.

But then sometimes we kill that freedom by burdening ourselves with lots of responsibilities in the way of possessions, or on the form of social and business obligations we really don’t care for but feel like we “have” to do.

THE EMPTY NEST

I decided not to take any of my old furniture with to the new house. Most of it has been beat up on and abused by small children for 7 years and it showing its age.

The day after we moved, I went to a local Ashley Furniture store, purchased everything we’d need for the new, smaller home. They said it would be here Monday (4 days later). It’s been 3 1/2 weeks now, still no furniture.

I could be really pissed. Sometimes when my kids are sitting at the kitchen island eating their dinner and I’m hovering over a counter with no place to sit I kinda am. A dining room table or a couch would be helpful!

But the furniture WILL get here eventually, even if they’re dragging their feet. And my getting upset about it only adds another element to my life that I have to “deal” with – in this case, I’d have to manage the emotion of being upset.

Plus, my family and I have had the benefit of getting by with little more than our clothes, toiletries and dishes to eat from for nearly a month. And that’s not a bad lesson to learn – everything else is really just a comfort.

We’ll really love those couches when they DO get here!

HOW TO HAVE FREEDOM

In order to enjoy the freedom that life gives you, you must not be mired down with unnecessary possessions, unnecessary social or business obligations or unnecessary emotions.

Simply remove those that are not serving you well.

Same goes with your business. Those sites, techniques, email subscriptions or tools that aren’t directly propelling you towards your end goal should be eliminated.

When only the things that are important and functional are in front of you, then you will only focus on and spend your time on the things that are important and functional.

You’ll reach your goals faster, enjoy the things you love and have time to experience the life you really want to live.

What can you eliminate today, personally and professionally?

Epic Traffic Systems

Michelle MacPhearson — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:50:32 +0000

Epic Traffic Systems began it’s pre-launch on Monday June 7.

I *WILL* be offering an Epic Traffic Systems Bonus. Bookmark this post and return to it for updates. The bonus package is being assembled and I’ll announce it here when it’s ready.

7 STEP SYSTEM TO “GO BIG” & FREE PLUGIN

Today you can get Keith Baxter’s 7 Step System that brings an average of 150 – 300 new visitors to his sites nearly OVERNIGHT. And the plugin the plugin that powers the system!

Watch the Video & Download the Plugin Here

Interested in JV’ing with the Epic Traffic Systems folks? You’ll want to after you watch this video!

How To Open Loops In Your Prospects Minds

Michelle MacPhearson — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:31:05 +0000

There’s a concept in copywriting, I don’t know what it’s technical name is, but the main idea is that as you’re writing your copy, you’re constantly opening and closing loops in your readers’ minds to encourage them to read further.

Lemme give you an example of what opening a loop might look like:

Crowd Mountain also gives you access to several automated software tools – but I’ll share those with you in a few minutes. Rightnow, I want to tell you about the personalized attention you’ll get from me during our Q&A sessions.

See how that works?

I said I’m going to tell you about something in a minute, so it’s kinda like a little “tease.” It opens a loop, a question, in the readers mind that they want answered.

So they’ll continue reading to get that loop closed, that question answered.

Now, I don’t claim to be a master copywriter – but I was thinking about this technique today and it made me think of a conversation I had recently with my brother, “The Danimal.”

(He’s started to work in internet marketing too).

I got a check in the mail for something like $600 – just a small one.

But I didn’t know who it came from, I mean, the business name was on the check but I didn’t recognize it, and all the commissions I expected to be getting were accounted for.

So I was telling him that I didn’t know where the money came from, but hey, that won’t stop me from cashing it, eh?!

And he asked me how on earth I could be getting checks like that and have no idea why.

I told him it’s because I’ve got a network of sites, build the Crowd Mountain way, and that having all those sites out there were like little sitting ducks, waiting to earn me money.

And I thought about the concept of “Opening Loops”. And how the idea of having multiple sites, built to the specs of one cohesive system (so they can be built quickly & maintained easily), opens a bunch of traffic and commission loops all over the web, earning for you.

Too many people only open a couple of loops online. They put up a site and wait for it to bank.

Unless you’re Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, one site isn’t enough.

I’m able to get checks for hundreds of dollars that I have NO IDEA where they came from because I’ve opened up a lot of loops.

If this business model – openeing multiple passive income loops in the form of “virtual real estate” in a systematic, repeatable fashion – makes sense to you, you’re a perfect candidate for Crowd Mountain’s coaching and training program.

And I tell you every last detail about it here:

How To Open Loops Here

I hope that, if nothing else, you got a little copywriting and business building advice in this message.

For those of you who are ready to implement, I’ll see you inside Crowd Mountain.

-Michelle

P.S. I’ll be closing the doors shortly, so if you’ve been on the fence, the time to commit to your business – and start opening income loops – is now.

I Go Really Fast – Use The Pause Button

Michelle MacPhearson — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:41:06 +0000

I made a new video for you – it’s a bit cheeky, but then I get real and give you my blueprint for new sites – how to build, configure, optimize and promote them.

I go really fast, but you can pause to take notes and even re-watch it – I’m not taking it down today.

Watch it here.

“STOP Being a Prospect and Become a Marketer”

Michelle MacPhearson — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:03:37 +0000

“STOP Being a Prospect and Become a Marketer”

What a powerful quote.

It comes from Alex Jeffreys.

Did you ever read the post I wrote called “It’s Not Me, It’s You: Three Pillars of Social Media Marketing“? In it, I talk about how broadcasting – that is, shouting about your products and services – is actually the least effective way to utilize social media. And I give further details on how one can get past that uncomfortable “lookit me!” broadcasting stage and make social media produce better results, faster and with less work.

But the fact is, you don’t even have to USE social media to make it work for you. In Alex’s new report (where I lifted that fabulous quote above from) he talks about how social media is a word-of-mouth referral-machine for his business – and get this, he doesn’t even have a Facebook account!

How can you get this kind of leverage, STOP being a prospect and become a marketer? Read Alex’s report, Guru’s Nightmare.

It’ll cost you an opt-in, and it’s worth the 96 page read. I read it this afternoon, picked up my kids from school a bit later than normal when I couldn’t put it down. Settle in with it for the weekend!

Why I Couldn’t Help My Brother Make It in Internet Marketing

Michelle MacPhearson — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:38:18 +0000

Last year, I went to Frank Kern’s “Mass Control” seminar and brought my brother Daniel with me. He’s 25 and I thought he’d have a good time. We *both* had a fabulous time, and he walked away from it bitten by the internet marketing bug.

He watched a number of speakers present, in particular he loved Ryan Deiss’ presentation on creating and earning passive income from membership sites.

When we got home, he wanted to dive in and I helped him set up a niche site using the exact process I teach Crowd Mountain members.

With a new site, it’s important to create some unique content and post to your site every now and again. He was on the first page of Google, but as his “seminar high” wore off, so did his work ethic. He stopped building links and stopped creating content, and the site slowly drifted further and further down in the rankings until it couldn’t even be found in the top 100.

(Once your site and backlinks are established, it’s not necessary to do maintenance on your site every day or every few days, but in the beginning, it’s an important indicator to Google that your new site is trustworthy and cared for).

He was seduced by the lifestyle – having gone with me to Mass Control, Daniel was able to meet (and party with!) the top guys in our business. He thought it’d be cool to throw up a site or two and come to the next seminar ballin’ as hard as those guys were.

And if you’ve been in this business any length of time, you know it’s not quite that easy, despite what salesletters tell you.

There is work.

When he stopped with his site, about 6 days after starting it, I asked why. He said it was too much work to write new posts and build links.

(You may have felt this before too… I know I’ve heard it from lots of people).

Fast forward about 9 months. Daniel decides that he wants back in. But he knows better now – it’s not all Crystal and Amex Black Cards. There’s some elbow grease involved too!

He started working on his site again. Every day he adds a new post to it. I watch him do it. It takes all of 20 minutes. Usually he just finds an image relevant to the topic of the site and adds 2-4 sentences using the keyword phrase he’s targeting to make it unique. Sometimes he does the same but with a video.

His link building is set up on auto-pilot using the techniques described in Crowd Mountain Bootcamp Module 5.

And with this 20 minutes a day, the traffic to his site has TRIPLED. It’s slowly climbing back up in the rankings for it’s main keyword phrase as well – from not even being in the top 100 to being on page 2. Long tail keyword rankings are coming out of the woodwork. He’ll be on page 1 for his main keyword phrase within 2 weeks, by my estimates. Google just wants to know that this once abandoned site is actually being cared for and updated before it’s rewarded with page 1 rankings.

Since this site only uses up 20 minutes a day of Daniel’s time, he’s working on other projects within internet marketing as well.

But that’s they key,, ya know? He *is* working.

That’s what you have to do when you get started.

Put in the time. Once you’ve got a bunch of sites ranked and earning, yeah, you can take the vacations, pop the champagne. But to get to that point, you do have to do the work.

And it’s really not that hard. 1 site takes Daniel 20 minutes per day and it’s producing results.

If it’s “too hard” or you “don’t have the time” ask yourself why you’re making it so hard in your mind. Because to execute, it’s 20 minutes.

Daniel’s on track to be earning a full time living – but only when he stopped looking at the glitz and glamour and decided to put in the time (20 minutes a day!!! That’s it!!!)

Don’t be sold by the lifestyle, the flash, the cars and not be willing to make it happen for yourself. You deserve to have anything and everything you want in life, but it won’t be handed to you. You do have to get out there and make it happen for yourself. Once you’re fully responsible for yourself, you will begin to reap the rewards.

Did You Miss Any of the Top Posts of 2009?

Michelle MacPhearson — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:00:24 +0000

These are the most popular posts published on MichelleMacPhearson.com in 2009. If you’ve missed any of them, check ‘em out!

TRAFFIC

Twitter Giveaway – Acer Aspire Netbook (and more) – This was a contest where an Acer Netbook was given away (it’s closed now). The contest is dissected for Crowd Mountain members. I still love my little Acer netbook too!
Steal This Niche: I’m So Tired (Of Manual Keyword Research) – The introductory post to my “Steal This Niche” series, you learn keyword research and can even ’steal” the profitable niches I uncover.
Win a CrowdMountain.com Lifetime Membership – This contest was held to build awareness around Crowd Mountain, and lifetime memberships were given away. it too is closed now, and Crowd Mountain members get the inside scoop on how it all played out.
Market Research in 5 Simple Steps – The post title says it all – how to do market research in just 5 steps.
Here’s How To Get 25 One-Way Links – Link building service offering 25 free one way links, no credit card or PayPal subscription required. This offer is still available.
Link Mixology: The 12 Kinds Of Links Your Site Needs – Link variety is important – and it’s dissected in this post.
Your 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover Begins Today! – A free series to help you make over your business. Join today and start 2010 on the right foot!
Max Banner Ads Demo – Lots of folks curious about how Max Banner Ads functions – check out this post to watch my demo. It’s very powerful for split testing various affiliate offers.
It’s Not Me, It’s You: Three Pillars of Social Media Marketing – My favorite post of the year and one everyone should read. Why social media isn’t working for you and the three steps to make it work.
How to Make a Great HD Squeeze Video – This post surprised a lot of people, as did the tools I use to make my squeeze videos.

Linking To Your Own Content

Michelle MacPhearson — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:00:30 +0000

This entry is part 23 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 23 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

By now you know that a well linked-to site will generally outperform a site with few links pointing to it, everything else being equal.

So one of our jobs, when developing a new site, is to go out and get links for it (we’ve used strategies to do so in previous #31DIMM posts).

But we can also optimize the links on our own site by linking to our own content more often and with the keyword phrase we want the linked-to page to rank for as anchor text.

This lets the search engines know that the page you’ve linked to again and again with the anchor text “Green Widgets” is your best and most relevant page on the subject. Plus, you’ll be giving your readers other pages to visit on your site, which will help them find the exact information they’re looking for and increase the length of their visit.

DAY 23 OBJECTIVE

Create links from your pages/articles/posts to your most important pages, using the keyphrase they are targeting as anchor text.

DAY 23 ASSIGNMENT

You should know from your research on Day 10 the most current keywords your market is searching for, and you should have optimized your site on-page for those keyphrases on Day 11.

Now you’ll link from pages on your site that mention a keyphrase your targeting to the main page that targets that keyphrase.

For example, you’re targeting the following keyphrases:

green widgets
blue widgets
red widgets
yellow widgets

You have a page on your site for each of these keyphrases, all optimized and targeted.

But in your “green widgets” page, you also make mention of “blue widgets,” as it made sense to do so in the context of your article.

That mention of “blue widgets” should be linked to your “blue widgets” page to make the most of your on-site search engine optimization (and give visitors a link where they can access more info, should they want to).

You can do this automatically in Wordpress by using the plugins aLinks or Crosslinker. Simply load the plugins with the kyphrases you want to link automatically, and the URL you want those keyphrases to link to.

Consider variations, i.e. your “blue widgets” page might be linked to by the phrase “blue widgets” AND “blue widget”, assuming you don’t have a separate page devoted to the singular use of the keyphrase.

If your site isn’t with Wordpress, this work will have to be done manually! (One of the many reasons a Wordpress site is, typically, much easier to manage and optimize than your standard HTML site).

Once you’ve linked instances of keywords you’re targeting to their associated page on your site, you’ve alerted the search engines to your absolute best resources for those keyphrases and given human visitors one more page to click through and be exposed to your advertising and offers!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Generate New Leads & Drive New Traffic

Michelle MacPhearson — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:35 +0000

This entry is part 22 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 22 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

We all surround ourselves by what we are comfortable with, and online, that might mean the blogs we regularly read, the Twitter friends and the Facebook fans we interact with.

But now that we’ve established a lead generation funnel for our sites, it’s time to break out of that comfort zone and bring new prospects, customers and friends into our sphere of influence.

DAY 22 OBJECTIVE

Begin guest posting at other popular industry blogs.

DAY 22 ASSIGNMENT

Most likely, you know who the “big player” bloggers are in your niche.

Make a list of the top 10.

If you don’t know who’s blogging in your niche, it’s high time to find out! Use Google Blog Search and Technorati to get started, from those popular blogs you’ll often find links to other popular blogs in your niche. List ‘em!

Check those 10 most popular blogs in your niche and see if they have a page on their site with information about guest posting. Some will not, in this case you’ll need to use a contact form or social media profile to get in touch with the blogger and see if they’re open to your authoring a guest post.

There are many nuances involved in securing a guest post slot, particularly with the most popular blogs within a niche (they’re sometime inundated). You don’t want to be too pushy, but assertive and confident is necessary. You want to get a link back to your site as part of the guest post, otherwise it’s just your name, and few readers will bother to look you up and find your site.

You’ll find Chris Garrett’s “Guest Posting For Quality Links and Targeted Traffic” a thorough look at every aspect of guest posting, including the delicate negotiation process. (Chris authored the ProBlogger print title with Darren Rowse, among his many other accolades).

When you do write your guest post, make it the best work you can muster – this is your time to shine! You want to “Wow” the readers so much they can’t help but click through to your site from your “About the Author” line and subscribe. (Chris discusses several methods on can use to drive traffic back to your own site in his Guest Posting book as well).

This isn’t the time to waffle and be a wallflower – have strong opinions and support them proudly. Try to cover something different that what everyone else is writing about, or at least put a new spin on a familiar topic.

Having written for the top 10 blogs in your industry, you’ll soon be seen as a leader in your niche also. Don’t abandon your newfound subscribers, continue to provide them with great content and when you do recommend a product or service, they will listen!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Retrieve Lost Visitors

Michelle MacPhearson — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:00:21 +0000

This entry is part 21 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 21 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

It’s true – visitors can get lost on our sites! Whether it’s a out-of-date bookmark or simply a broken.mistyped link, 404 errors (”Page Not Found”) lead many site visitors to simply abandon their quest and try finding what they want somewhere else.

In today’s #31DIMM assignment, you’ll give visitors who reach a 404 error page alternatives, so they stay on your site!

DAY 21 OBJECTIVE

Implement a custom 404 Error page for your sites.

DAY 21 ASSIGNMENT

The most useful 404 pages give visitors options to find the information they’re looking for. Here are some ideas you may want to implement into your custom 404 error pages:

A search box so they can search your site for the information they need
Links to popular posts or pages
Links to your navigation structure – categories, tags, etc.
A link to your homepage, of course!

Using a custom 404 error page with Wordpress is, like most things, pretty simple.

Most themes come with a file called 404.php. This is your custom error page. You can replace whatever text is currently displayed in your 404.php with whatever you would like it to say and to include the items suggested above, if your theme does not do this already for you. For instructions on how to do this, go here.

There are also several Wordpress plugins that will customize the 404 page.

404 Plugin – Displays related pages/posts on your site. If none are available, it displays related search results.
Useful 404’s – The benefit of this plugin is that it automatically emails you when a user reaches your 404 page, so you can figure out what the problem is and fix it.
Smart 404 – Actually redirects a visitor from the broken page they requested to a related page on your site, so they never experience the 404 in the first place. It can also be customized to give the visitor suggestions of related pages rather than just redirecting them.

If you’re not on Wordpress, all is not lost – you just need to create your HTML error page (make it look like the rest of your site). Google also offers a 404 Widget that will allow users to search your site and will also suggest alternative URL’s on your site that may be correct, or related.

Then you tell your server to use your custom page rather than the default page. To do this, edit your .htaccess to include:

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html

Replace the /notfound.html with the name of the custom 404 error page you created.

Now your visitors will have an alternative to leaving your site when they reach a 404 error page!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Internet Marketing Makeover Week 3 Recap

Michelle MacPhearson — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:00:07 +0000

This entry is part 20 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 20 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Today is a recap day if you’ve not finished any of the past week’s assignments. If you have, it’s a rest day – enjoy!

DAY 20 OBJECTIVE

Catch up on any #31DIMM assignments you’ve not yet finished!

DAY 20 ASSIGNMENT

Review the previous Internet Marketing Makeover posts and their tasks and complete anything you haven’t gotten to yet:

11 Resources For a Better Looking Website

Update any ugly / old Wordpress themes
Change out header banners
Get an attractive, modern look for your salespages
Add graphical elements with web icons to increase visual interest

Generate Link Building Momentum

Determine which social bookmarking process works for you and your business
Implement a daily or weekly bookmarking process

Getting Some Background

Clean your computer desktop!

Earn More From The Same Number of Visitors

Determine what questions your market wants the answer to that you can provide as an incentive to sign up for your email list
Determine what format you’ll provide it in (video, audio, email course, PDF, articles on your site, etc.)
Create the incentive piece

Turn Your Niche Website Into a Real Business

Get an autoresponder service
Load your autoresponder with a series of messages
Publish your opt-in form on your website

Tracking & Optimizing Visitor Profitablity

Add a “Goal” to your Google Analytics account
Watch for Goal trends in your keyword and referring sites reports
Capitalize on those trends by driving more traffic from sources that convert well

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Tracking & Optimizing Visitor Profitablity

Michelle MacPhearson — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:00:26 +0000

This entry is part 19 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 19 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Throughout this process, we’ve optimized our site for popular keywords, created content, set up a bookmarking process for our content and implemented a lead generation funnel.

The end goal is, of course, to make some money.

And we need to know where are conversions are coming from to do so.

Today we’ll start the process of tracking where our visitors come from and which of those convert to email subscribers or product buyers so we can better optimize our site for those profitable visitors.

DAY 19 OBJECTIVE

Implement goal tracking in Google Analytics.

DAY 19 ASSIGNMENT

You previously installed Google Analytics on your domains, and today we’ll use a feature called “Goal Tracking” to find out which keywords and referring sites send us the best traffic.

You’ll log into you Analytics account and click “Edit” next to the site you want to track a goal for.

From the “Edit” screen you’ll see a section for “Goals” – click “Add Goal”.

You’ll see the following on the “Add Goal” screen, I’ll walk you through each step:

Give your “Goal” a name. In this case, I’m tracking new email subscribers, so that’s what I called it. You might track a new product sale.
Set the Goal to “Active.”
Goal Position – it’s your first, so leave it at 1.
Goal Type -Select URL Destination.
Match Type – Head Match
Goal URL – This should be the URL of the place people reach when the goal is completed. It might be your “Thank You” page people come to after buying a product. In my case, I created a “Thanks for Subscribing” page that people are sent to after being added to my email list and used that as the goal URL.
Case Sensitive – Leave unchecked
Goal Value – I set it at $1 for a new subscriber, since there’s no actual money being exchanged it doesn’t matter. If you’re selling a product you would enter in the cost of the product that you earn every time someone buys.
SAVE GOAL!

Now you’ve got a Goal!

But it’s the reports you get once you have a goal that are really cool.

After your goal has been running for a bit, go to the “View Reports” section in Analytics to see how your goal is doing.

Go to “Traffic Sources” and select “Referring Sites.” From there you’ll get a chart of all the sites that have referred traffic to your site. But what’s cooler is that now you have a goal – and you can see which of those referring sites actually convert visitors! Click the “Goal Set 1″ link right under the Referring Visitors chart and you’ll see how each of your referring sites converts visitors into your new goal!

Another place to look is in “Traffic Sources” and then “Keywords.” From here, click on “Goal Set 1″ again and you can see which individual keywords that brought people to your site convert highly.

Those that you don’t rank #1 for but that bring you high Goal conversions are the keywords you want to focus your link building efforts on, as they give you more bang for your buck.

This kind of information just makes a marketer GIDDY! You know exactly where your best customers/subscribers are coming from and you can optimize for them, ramp up your efforts in that area and cater to those profitable traffic sources even more. It’s not a shot in the dark anymore (”I think this keyword will convert“) but a laser targeted marketing effort where you know exactly where your money is coming from so you can go get more!

The intelligence you’ll get from implementing Goals in your marketing will sometimes surprise you, but it will always show you where you should be focusing your efforts. Enjoy the data you’ll get and capitalize on it!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Internet Marketing and Social Media 2010 Predictions

Michelle MacPhearson — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:10:33 +0000

As 2009 winds to a close, we look to 2010 with antici…….pation and enthusiasm. It’s a whole new year with a clean slate. And with the new year comes a reflection on where we’ve been and where we’re going. The web has changed drastically and that changes the way we, as internet marketers, do business.

2009 Predictions: 4 1/2 out of 5 Predictions

Before rolling into 2010 predictions, let’s establish a track record – how well did I do with my 2009 predictions? Let’s see!

2009 Prediction: With the “down” economy, opportunities in “make money online” will be even bigger. TRUE! The business of teaching others how to do internet marketing has grown exponentially. Ed Dale saw the biggest number of 30 Day Challenge participants ever in August while my own Crowd Mountain launched and grew exponentially in February. Big product launches, once again, broke sales records. But even folks new to the game were able to break out and do big business. There’s still more room than ever in this market.
2009 Prediction: Data portability becomes more a norm rather than an exception. TRUE! You’ll be hard pressed to find a new social service these days and not have it integrate with Facebook, Twitter, and/or Gmail to port your current contacts into your new profile.
2009 Prediction: Using video as part of the sales process will become a necessity. TRUE! I’ve continued to run tests, and a salespage with video has outperformed a salespage without video every time. Simply put, if you’re not using video, you’re leaving money on the table.
2009 Prediction: People will bring more focus to their social media marketing efforts. FALSE! I wish this were true, and I could probably call it true without any arguments from readers, but it’s just not. I still get messages nearly every day with people overwhelmed by the vast array of social media sites, and while I think many folks “get it” there are still many who don’t. So I’ll shout it from the rooftops one more time: Pick 2-3 social media sites that are active in your niche and focus on them rather than spreading yourself too thin across every available network!
2009 Prediction: As a product owner or a niche leader you’ll be expected to be available, responding and engaging with your “tribe” more often than not. TRUE! People want to know you’re available to them more than ever, and those that are tend to rise to the top.

Drumroll please…. Here are my 2010 internet marketing and social media predictions:

Location, Location, Location

Many folks are claiming location based services, like BriteKite and FourSquare will be the breakout hits of 2010. I disagree. Location WILL become increasingly important in 2010, but for mass adoption, these services will have to be rolled into existing, already adopted platforms, like Facebook and Twitter.

My mom lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco (two areas where loacation based services have really great data from their users). Would she EVER use something like FourSquare? No. Would she use it if it was integrated into Facebook? You betcha.

I live in a little mountain town of 900 people. I can’t really even use these location based services – my town is literally not on the map! Would I be interested in my local Facebook friends (most of the locals I know are on Facebook exclusively) location info? Absolutely! Can I get it anywhere else? Nope.

The digerati and web wunderkinds aside, most folks don’t have the time and interest in creating and maintaining another social profile.

After recording this prediction on IMTW last night, rumors started flying that Google was in talks to buy Yelp, a local business reviews site. It’s speculated that Yelp data could be integrated with Google Maps.

And this is where I predict successful location based services will go in 2010: merged into already existing products that have been adopted by the masses.

The Death of Software Downloads

We’ve already seen it with services like Google Docs and Gmail – why keep files or email on our harddrives when we can keep them on the web and access them anywhere?

I made the switch in 2009 to storing as much of my data as possible online, so it doesn’t matter where I am or which computer I’m on, I have access to everything I need.

It makes sense from a user standpoint in terms of being able to work with the software wherever you are. But it also makes sense from a business standpoint:

Updates are server-side and seamless for the user, no re-downloading a re-installing (which inevitably leads to customer support issues)
Web based applications work on Mac or PC – you’re not leaving a giant segment of your market behind
It’s easier to find web developers
Less compatibility problems with different operating systems and conflicts with already installed programs which leads to less customer support issues
Allows for a recurring access charge

We’ve seen some movement in this direction in the internet marketing space in 2009, and in 2010 web-based software (aka “cloud computing”) will become the norm.

Link Popularity Gets Social

While simply having links on social media properties was once enough to boost your search engine ranking, in 2010 the popularity of those links will become a bigger ranking factor.

Consider this scenario:

Two blog posts on the same topic. One is retweeted a gazillion times, is linked all over Facebook and has a ton of comments. One gets little traction in the social media space. Which one do you think *should* rank higher in the SERP’s? The one that people shared the most!

The easiest way to achieve this is…. producing great content that people will want to share. You can also encourage people to share your content by using the tips in The Three Pillars of Social Media Marketing.

Social Media Marketing Matures

In 2010 social media marketing will mature in a variety of ways.

Firstly, we’ll move away from conversations about why one should be using social media in your marketing towards *how* to use social media in your marketing. It will be assumed that a social media presence is necessary, and we’ll see more instruction on exactly what to do.

We’ll also see more focus in how businesses use social media. Rather than using SM “because it’s the thing to do” we will more strategic at moving folks from social media into our sales funnels. Social media marketing will be less about “joining the conversation” and more about specifically growing your business (the “conversation” is still important, but our joining of it will be more purposeful).

Finally, our collective psyche’s will move away from a “bigger is better” mentality. Rather than valuing social media by the number of followers or fans, we’ll look more at those followers’ and fans’ engagement. 100,00 YouTube views or Twitter fans does not sell products if those folks are not engaged.

Wordpress As a True CMS

We love Wordpress, and it’ll just get bigger and better in 2010. With products like Affiliate Theme and Squeeze theme, and more flexibility with offerings like the Thesis Theme (used on this blog), Wordpress is moving more towards a true CMS that can be used for anything, without custom coding.

Building a membership site or a review/rating site or even a salespage exclusively with Wordpress has picked up steam in 2009 and will be even simpler in 2010 as developers create more plugins and themes to do so.

Products in this space will grow and our adoption of them will follow.

Additional 2010 Predictions

As is our tradition, Lynn Terry, Paul Colligan, Ed Dale and I recorded our 2010 predictions show last night for Internet Marketing This Week (that podcast will be out shortly). Watch the @IMTW Twitter feed or subscribe on iTunes to listen.

What trends do you see advancing in internet marketing, social media and the web as a whole in 2010? Leave a comment and let us know what YOU think!

Turn Your Niche Website Into a Real Business

Michelle MacPhearson — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:00:36 +0000

This entry is part 18 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 18 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Yesterday, you designed an incentive item to encourage site visitors to join your email list.

The next logical step? Put it into play!

DAY 18 OBJECTIVE

Implement your autoresponder sequence.

DAY 18 ASSIGNMENT

Firstly, you’ll need an autoresponder service.

I do not, under any circumstance, want you to use some free Wordpress plugin, script you host on your domain or other workaround. This is a service that is worth paying for. Here’s why:

When you start sending email from your domain (or server) and people mark it as spam, your domain gets blacklisted by ISP’s and your mail will not get through to people
In addition, your IP address could be blacklisted as a whole by the ISP’s, which leads to NONE of the email sent from your server getting through
Email sent from your server will not have as high a deliverability rate as email sent by a reputable autoresponder service
If you collect emails on your own and later decide to transition to a service, you will not be able to import those old subscribers to the new service without losing about 90% of them (if not more) as they will be required to opt-in again, and most people won’t bother
If you think that you’re legit, what you’re offering is legit and there’s no way people are going to hit the “Spam Complaint” button on you (and therefore you won’t have to worry about the first 3 bullets I listed) you’re totally, sadly, dead wrong. You can double opt-in, remind people when and where they subscribed, give them an opt-out link in ever message – but there are still people who hit “Spam” no matter how honest and above ground you are.

Do yourself a favor and start off using a reputable and reliable company.

Who to use?

Most people will find Aweber to be the best fit. What you’ll get with Aweber is high deliverability, great customer service, unlimited autoresponder lists and lots of cool tracking features (like seeing how many folks opened your message, trackable links to see how many folks have clicked your URL’s) and an automatic form builder that will let you create cool looking opt-in forms, from the standard in-line form (like what you see in the sidebar here) to popovers. They also let you split-test your opt-in forms so you can design a few and see which convert best.

Aweber doesn’t do anything else, just email.

You might notice I’m using Infusionsoft for all my email now. This is because I’m also using Infusionsoft for my shopping cart, and my database was getting too large to manage effectively in different services. So with Infusionsoft, I have everything all in one place. It’s extremely customizable, but with that customization comes a steep learning curve and a higher price that’s just not worth it if you don’t need all the features it provides.

(Another option you might be aware of is 1ShoppingCart, I was less that pleased with their email deliverability for the years I used them and as such, do not recommend them as an autoresponder).

All in all, Aweber will most likely work best for you.

They provide extensive instuctions on setting up you list, creating a web form, etc. so I won’t go into detail.

I will give you an outline of what you need to do, in whatever autoresponder service you end up using:

Create an account and create your first list
Load that first list with a series of messages set to go out automatically that encourage folks to check out yours or affiliate products
Remember to include in your autoresponder series the incentive you promised people when they signed up (in the 1st message is best)
Create a web form for people to subscribe to your list where you explain the incentive / benefit of subscribing clearly
Publish the web form on your site (Aweber popunders convert better than in-line forms, you can also use both like I do on this blog)
Test what you’ve done by subscribing to your own list to make sure it’s working right!

An autoresponder sequence is the most valuable investment you can make into your business. It takes on-off visitors and turns them into prospects and then customers for life.

This is the single most important step you can make in turning a website into a real business. Do it today!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Earn More From The Same Number of Visitors

Michelle MacPhearson — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:00:23 +0000

This entry is part 17 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 17 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Having someone visit your website is a good thing. Having their email address so you can bring them back to your site over and over, or introduce them to affiliate products, is a GREAT thing.

Too many folks aren’t capturing emails (particurally in niche markets) and aren’t maximizing their revenue because of this.

Today you’ll start squeezing every drop of profit from your website visitors by capturing their email addresses.

DAY 17 OBJECTIVE

Design your lead generation funnel.

DAY 17 ASSIGNMENT

First and foremost, people need an incentive to sign up for your email list.

(I’ve done a poor job of it here on this blog… You’ll notice when you visit the site there’s a slideup ad that tells people to subscribe to get updates when there’s a new blog post.)

You want to offer folks something they can’t get unless they subscribe.

Some classic examples are a 7 day email course or a downloadable PDF course.

At 30 Minute Backlinks, I offer a “Free Link Building Tutorial.” At Crowd Mountain I offer a sneak peek video inside the private member’s area. On one niche site, I offer a series of messages that help people implement lifestyle changes to help their particular health problem.

Whatever your niche is, people are looking for some kind of answers, and your incentive to join the email list should help them answer those questions.

You can also appeal to curiosity (that’s what the Crowd Mountain sneak peek video does).

It’s important that you give them answers in the form of valuable, creative content. But it’s also important that you don’t give away the farm. If you answer EVERYTHING they want to know, what incentive do they have to buy from you? (Assuming you’re offering your own or affiliated products for sale).

If you’re running a site that’s monetized only by Adsense, you can give people ALL the answers in your course, but with a twist. Rather than send them an email message with the days’ content inside of it, send them an email message with a link to a page on your site with the day’s content on it. That page should also have you Adsense code on it. This way you’re bringing them back to your site, to see and possibly click your ads, over and over again.

Today your assignment is to:

Determine what questions your market wants the answer to that you can provide as an incentive to sign up for your email list
Determine what format you’ll provide it in (video, audio, email course, PDF, articles on your site, etc.)
Create the incentive piece

Tomorrow we’ll take your lead generation incentive piece and put it into place – see you then!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Getting Some Background

Michelle MacPhearson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:00:24 +0000

This entry is part 16 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 16 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

As we’ve discussed, physical and digital clutter leads to mental clutter, anxiety and underperformance.

In today’s 31DIMM Assignment, we’ll remove another aspect of clutter from our digital lives – the computer desktop!

DAY 16 OBJECTIVE

Clean your desktop.

DAY 16 ASSIGNMENT

Delete, delete, delete!

That’s the mantra today!

Most of the files we accumulate on our desktops are shortcuts to programs we didn’t want shortcuts for in the first place, temporary download files.

Today you’ll delete all that clutter.

Those files that you do need to keep should be organized according to Day 12’s 9 Folders principles.

A clean desktop is pure… zen.

Check mine out after I finished wiping it:

(On this Windows machine, I use a little program called John’s Background Switcher to change my desktop background periodically. Just makes for some fun variety.)

Enjoy your minimalist desktop, and check back tomorrow for your next #31DIMM assignment!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Generate Link Building Momentum

Michelle MacPhearson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:00:35 +0000

This entry is part 15 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 15 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Internet marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. That’s why my personal theme for running my business is “Momentum.”

Maintaining and cultivating momentum, that is, forward movement, is imperative in building your business. And seemingly small movements can build momentum over time and lead to bigger opportunities in the future.

In today’s #31DIMM assignment you’ll develop a process for one small movement that will help your sites build rank and traffic over time.

DAY 15 OBJECTIVE

Create a bookmarking process for new posts, pages and sites.

DAY 15 ASSIGNMENT

Social bookmarking is still a valuable source of incoming links, helpful in getting new posts or pages indexed, and even traffic.

That being said, it’s not as powerful as it used to be. For that reason, I recommend you use an automated process to bookmark your content.

It’s not worth spending hours manually doing this work, but it is certainly worth spending a few minutes to add new content into a system you’ve put in place.

Everything new you come out with should be bookmarked. New blog posts, new web sites, YouTube video uploads, new pages on established sites, your social networking profile pages. Everything.

Social Bookmarking build links to your new content – search engines like it when you have links. It also alerts the search engines when you do have new content, so they can come and index it, rank it and start sending visitors your way. Finally, as your content and links are listed on social bookmarking sites, people may click through on those links and visit your site.

For these reasons, social bookmarking is vital. It’s a small step that, when done consistently over time, will produce big results.

How to do it?

There are several options, which I’ll explain. The important part is that you pick one and STICK TO IT! Do it every time you have new content, no excuses!

Firstly, you can use a service like Social Marker to bookmark your new content.

I explain Social Marker in a video I created for the Thirty Day Challenge:

Social Marker is a semi-automated process. You’ll have to spend some time setting up accounts at all the social bookmarking sites, but once you’ve done that Social Marker will help you fill out the submission forms when you do add your content.

If you’re looking for full automation, I recommend Traffic Bug. With Traffic Bug, you don’t have to create accounts at the social bookmarking sites nor do you have to physically submit your new content to the sites – it’s all done for you. All you have to do is tell Traffic Bug when you have new content.

The ultimate? Hire someone to manage your social bookmarking for you.

I have an outsourcer who combs all of my sites for new content every week. She then takes the URL’s to all that new content across all of my sites (this blog, other internet marketing stuff, niche sites, etc.) and adds it to Traffic bug for me. It costs me a few dollars a week and is totally hands off.

If you’ve only got one site, this combo might be overkill for you!

But the important part is that you select a method and stick to it, day in and day out.

This kind of natural link building (in that internal, deep links are built over time) is one of those small steps that build greater momentum over time, and you’ll thank yourself for implementing it as you see your backlinks count grow!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network: