INSIGHTS FROM THE WORD

What’s the Best Way To Get Traffic Pt. II

Do You Have a Real Plan?
After I had written the last blog I really got to thinking about all of this. All of this is getting traffic to my website. I really believe this is where I have failed, and I am not sure really if it’s just not understanding what I need to do, or a lack of direction.

Maybe it could be paralysis by analysis, I have been exposed to all of these concepts. Let’s look at the list, it begins with Directory Submissions, then Article Directories, how about Web 2.0 sites? Maybe RSS Feeds, Link Baiting, Link Indexing, or how about even something from this list.

You have Guest Blogging, Blogging Comments on Forums, Social Signals (using accounts like Facebook, and Twitter), then you have reverse engineering and also the suggested Press Releases. Where do you start, and where does this end?

These are all excellent questions to be presented, and looked at. But since I don’t know that much about any of these, maybe we should leave this discussion wide open for Ryan to help us all out with this.

So What’s The Big Deal?
Well yah, you are right what is the big deal anyway? Well let’s look at this whole onion, and start to peel away the layers. What I have found very often is that many many internet marketing products are sold to the newbies to start with.

Then I guess after being a newbie you then would have the either pissed off,(I WILL DO THIS INTERNET MARKETING THING!) or the person who is just plain chasing after the next thing because that is all that is lacking from this thing working for me.

Well truthfully since I have been there, seriously I have done all three of these things, I am proof that they are not the answer.

So What Have I Seen?
I have seen over the last five years many, many training programs, which go over all of the areas of building a website. Most of the programs are very good, and cover the building of the site very well. So I have become very good at building a site.

But I am not great at doing the promoting for the site, because at that phase of the game, I believe that many marketers do us, the students a dis-service. They sell us products that are push button type products for systems that can be used to help promote your site.

The problem with that is that these products often are a bit complicated, and with our limited knowledge we are trying to do something that these experts are selling us as a great way, and look at all of this income this tool created.

Yes it probably did for you and your developers, you know how to use it, and understand the ins and outs of it. I Do Not. So you make money by selling me this tool, I try it for a few weeks, and then I move on, because it is not happening for me. Simple.

So What Is The Answer You Ask?
Well to answer that I can tell you I have tried twitter to a point, I have one site where I have used press releases, and I also have some Facebook pages. But I have never been able to get enough traction to have I make a bit of a difference to traffic to my website. My biggest problem has been doing enough, and doing it consistently enough for it to make a difference.

So after I had Ryan recently do a site review for me, we have been looking at what I can do to move up in the rankings with that site. We really haven’t discussed any of these strategies I have listed yet. What is my next step? I guess that is what is next for me at the moment. I need to make a plan.

I need to measure it out, use my Google Analytics and use the strategies I am most comfortable with. I am thinking now of using a Facebook page, some back links from Blogs, and also to take some serious looks at doing some Web 2.0 properties.

What does Ryan think of this, I don’t know let’s ask him about it. Should I be doing Blogging Comments, how about Book marking of my pages. Should I promote my urls with any tools that you would recommend. Any Facebook post creating tools, how about using Pinterest?

I know Ryan promotes using a Facebook plugin that we used in AMC1 and I know in AMC2 we worked with Facebook programs and we had a class where Ryan covered using Pinterest.

What do you suggest, as a best plan of action? Do you like the idea of using the tools we used in AMC 1 and AMC 2 or any other ideas? Please help us out.

What’s The Best Way To Get Traffic?

SEO Traffic Is It The Best?
When talking to anyone who is building a website, or is taking their first course in internet marketing, the subject always comes up. SEO Traffic, how you build, why you should build it, and just how very important it is to your sites future success.

So Why Is It So Important?
Well these are what comes to my mind.
1. It is free traffic. What exactly does that mean you say. All the effort that goes into building your site using proper SEO tactics is not free. It takes much of my efforts to learn it, apply it and to rework it, test it and analyze it.

2. It is not risky in the sense of versus paid traffic. In paid traffic, I pay upfront and take a chance that it will bring in the traffic I need to make it worth the expense I incurred to do it.

3. It is the best and purest traffic, plus it will last longer than any other traffic. Google will rank you for years, if your content proves to be worthy in the sense that it is value driven and unique.

What about the other methods like a Facebook page, a Twitter account?
Both of these will require much work, care, and you will need to present new and unique content on these. So it is more work, and most importantly time that you will spend to create these accounts, attract likes, and basically build up a following that will give you traffic as a supplement choice for traffic building.

The key to developing other Web 2.0 accounts is to use them to build links to your site and by doing this you will be showing Google that other people like your site and find it worthy to be linked too. Again a big thing here is spending a lot of your time and effort developing these Web 2.0 pages.

Please remember that you are using other people’s internet property and it could be you have the page today, and then next week your page is taken down, or you are shut down.

What Can I Do To Build More Links?
Well this is where the crux of debate starts. Other top SEO site builders, people who are actually pulling in very large earnings per month, have other methods that they teach to help you to raise your site’s profile and thus bring in more traffic.

This is where Ryan through his teaching from the last 5 years will not buy into doing many of these other traffic building techniques. In Ryan’s view through his personal experiences, the building process should be one of calculated risk. It should be a building that takes time, but also a building that will last years for you.

When studying Ryan through three different types of websites in his AMC 1, his AMC 2, and his latest AMC 3, course, Ryan will sometimes appear to not be flashy enough. But just remember, he builds for the long term, and for long lasting success.

My Question Very Often Is
I need income now, not later, and then there is the old story that probably close to 100% of people who are attracted to internet marketing face. What is that, you ask? I don’t have the money to spend for months on end to invest, for months on end, that I can do without any income coming back in from my money spent.

That is a very tough place to be. What are the answers to these problems for most people end up being that they give it a few months before they bail out. Some others will stick with it for two to three years, and others like me, are just too stubborn to give up. I will not be defeated. I must win at this.

Sometimes, I have thought that Ryan just doesn’t understand where I am at. I need some income from this now, not later. I don’t ever recall him, saying well you could go over here and do this to make some money now.

His answer is always one of I know you can do this. If you do this, and then this, it will help improve your site. Then we can analyze the Google Stats and make more progress this way.

Where Is The Answer?
I believe this is a perfect place for others to share their experiences, things they have done to become successful. Some may have just bad experiences to share. I also believe this opens up many questions that Ryan can help us with.

What Is The Hardest Thing About Competing With Google?

Do You Really Arm Wrestle With Google?
The more I build, the more I publish material on line, the more I really question if it is actually competing with Google. I think the more I do this, the more I realize that I am actually competing against complacency? Maybe my own ambitions?

Maybe I am just not motivated enough? Why do I let distractions creep up and take over my life for weeks on end sometimes, before I reclaim my focus on my target, my goal. Has that ever happened to you? I am sure it has.

You are rolling along well for a few days, then life smacks you up side of the head. Maybe a death in the family? Maybe you get ill? No big deal, but they are big deals if they stop you. How do you meet life challenges, even everyday life challenges encourage you lift you up, keep you going?

Why Am I Carrying On Like This?
The main thing you need to realize is that Google is not stopping you, You are probably stopping you? Google should not be your enemy, but your ally, your friend? Yes if you look at Google properly, all they are doing is getting better at their job. What is their main job you ask?

Their main job is analyzing what you publish and seeing if you are adding value to the product or subject you are writing about. Then they rank all the sites available to them to judge and evaluate, and that how you get the top ten, the page 1, the page 2 ranking etc.

So your job as I see it, or my main job is to publish solid, well written content that once Google checks it out over time, then trusts me and it, they determine where I deserve to be for those keywords or keyword phrase.

This Is Exactly What Ryan Teaches?
You can go over course after course, review after review, mini bonus course after min bonus course and Ryan Stevenson is teaching a variation fitting around another subject or product that will tell you the same thing over again. You need to trust yourself to get the trust of Google by giving Google great content to rank for you.

If you check out the latest niche review training on Team Azon Pro membership or his recent 4 part video series for Associate Goliath plugin, Ryan is extremely consistent with this one thing.

So How Do I Do This?
What I struggle with the most is probably staying on task from one day to the next. waking up , going to your job, then coming home, and then sitting down for your one shot that day to making a difference, is a challenge. The thing is I recognize all to well what the challenge it is but How do you meet it?

As I get older, the mind says you need to do this now, but the body says, I am too tired right now, this other thing maybe watching a TV show, Or checking Facebook, will be easier to do right now. I will get this done tomorrow. But then I don’t?

Do you have any suggestions? What has made a large difference in your life now, towards accomplishing this? I would like very much for Ryan to add to this list of your suggestions. How does he stay on target?

I know that he works overnight while his growing family sleeps? I know that he has many goals and has built many sites, developed many courses of learning for us? What makes you tick, and how do you stay on course Ryan?

What Am I Doing With WordPress Now? Content Writing

Are You Really Familiar With WordPress?
Since I have worked with WordPress so much, I feel I know it really well, I am currently working on a rapid expansion program. I am taking 3 sites, and I have the following things prepared and completed already. I have all of my legal pages done, I have a contact page completed, I have a sitemap page completed as well.

All of the plugins I plan on using are in place and ready to go. I also have an excel keyword analysis spread sheet completed. I have set up a Google Analytics account, I have a site email address set up as well.

All of my settings pages are set and ready to go. Very important as well is that I have the best sellers for products sold on Amazon set up in an Excel spread sheet as well. I have decided on the top 5 best Amazon products that I plan on writing reviews for, I have them set up as placeholder posts that are ready to be written.

Something very important I believe is that I have set up all of my product review pages as follow and no index with Google, or other search engine bots.

What I Do Best?
Whew, that is quite a bit that is set to go. This has been my specialty all along, I can set these up accurately and quickly. My Big Problem has been what comes next. WRITING CONTENT.

As I said last week the biggest of the BIGS is the content on the site. This is where I always stumbled. So the object now, is to set the goals for how much content I need to write and set up a plan to get this accomplished.

How Do You Best Write Content?
What I am asking here is how do you decide what to write for content? I have learned to look at the top keywords or keyword phrase that I have found, and then I organize similar keywords into little keyword blocks or neighborhoods, then I will look at a block of 4 keyword phrases and determine I will have a better chance to rank for those keywords than some of the other keyword groupings. So then I write a unique content article that centers around those 4 keywords.

Once the article has been written as a rough draft, I then will spend time proper formatting the page, cleaning up grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors as well.

Once I am satisfied with that I proceed to add images to my page or post, and then the page is open to be indexed by Google. Up to that point on the readings setting I have discouraged search engines from indexing anything on my site.

I Now Have Questions?
According to how Ryan teachings it, you want to write your supporting content pages first, before you starting adding product reviews to your site. I have had some other teachers teach the same thing. Write supporting content, at least 800 word articles, first, get them indexed by Google before you add in product links, and do product review pages.

Here comes a question though, I have had successful marketers that say to go after big selling products, hot sellers, in Amazon, by writing a review of these products. Do the reviews first, then,add the supporting pages next. Obviously you will want to do that shortly after you have done the product review pages.

Which way is best and does it really matter or is it dis-advantageous long term to do it that way? I would like some input from Ryan on this. Another question would be, which way can you make more money? How about which way is your quickest way to sales?

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RYAN’S THOUGHTS & COMMENTS

Content writing is one of the most important aspects to building Amazon affiliate sites or really any website for that matter (assuming that you want free, targeted search engine traffic for the site).

I’ve adopted this one tactic for content writing: write a useful, informative article that will help people solve a problem or answer a specific question of theirs.

Bottom line – search engines will not give you long-term traffic unless you follow the tactic I mentioned above.

Which Came First – Content or Advertising?
George asked a great question about content writing, product review pages and advertising – which should you do first and why do some marketers recommend the opposite of what I teach?

In many cases where you see two successful marketers recommending opposite tactics, they may both work. While the obvious differences stand out, there are often underlying tactics in the overall strategy that change the way something is done.

In this specific example, many marketers that recommend making the product review as the star will not depend on free search traffic. Their overall strategy often involves viral marketing and/or advertising to drive traffic, so the content and structure of the website may not be as important as it is with the sites that I build.

Both tactics work just fine, but I have my reasons why I do it my way. Longevity is the #1 reason and free, automated traffic is #2. When I build an Amazon site, I often will let it sit there untouched for a year or more (so I can move on to build other sites). With this approach, it is important that my sites receive free, targeted traffic on a regular basis without me having to do anything at all once the site is complete. It is also important that this traffic continues for a long time.

Since my approach heavily depends on search engine traffic, I have had to adjust how I build the site to ensure that those two things will work out as planned. Sometimes this may mean making sacrifices between what is best for my website visitor and what might earn me the most money.

Making a product review page the star of your website is a viable approach because it is effective at converting traffic into sales. However, I’m not sold on the long-term viability of this approach without having to baby the site with constant updates and/or driving your own traffic to it (which may even involve paying for that traffic).

For power users that want to build less sites and focus more on the marketing end, the product review first approach may be the best choice for you. However, I don’t use that tactic myself nor do I teach it to beginners because it often involves more work and higher costs in the long run.

As an affiliate, if you can’t bring something unique to your site that visitors can’t find on other sites, why should they visit your site and buy the product through you? Others will simply try to force the sales, which can work, but I’m just not a personal fan of that approach.

In my opinion, some of those other approaches may lead you to get your first sale faster, but I believe my approach wins in the long-run (or else I wouldn’t be doing it). In reality, I view it as a choice between making $1 today and making $1/month for years to come.

Popular Product Promotion
Hot selling products on Amazon can be great sellers, but you again have to consider how you’ll be getting traffic to your site to sell that product.

Take this example – the Kindle Fire. This is probably one of, if not the #1 selling product on Amazon. If you build a website for this product, how will you get traffic to it? Unfortunately, your site would just be one of thousands, if not millions, with content about this product. Why would Google choose to put a new website in the top 10 for a product like this? If you are among the first people to write about the product, it is a different story, but most of the best-selling Amazon products are too late in that process for you to be among the first sites to write about it.

When it comes to search engine rankings, competition simply ends up being too high to get traffic for the best-selling products. This is why I tend to pick less popular products (but still proven sellers on Amazon).

On the other end of the spectrum, the other marketers that are targeting the best-selling products are likely not depending on search engine traffic. Their top sources of traffic are often social media, videos and/or advertising. Yes, the approach works, but this approach has it’s drawbacks. The main thing is that I don’t find it to be newbie friendly because it involves more complex marketing strategies and often monetary investment for advertising (which means more risk). The average newcomer to Amazon marketing doesn’t want to spend $100 on Facebook ads to get started. Even if the pro marketer has figured it out, there is often a steep learning curve for that type of marketing, so beginners often simply waste time and money.

I’ve spent decades experimenting with websites, content writing, search engines, social media and advertising. As a result, I’ve thoroughly thought about everything when putting together my approach for Amazon site building (and even failed quite a few times in the process). What I practice myself these days and what I teach to others is my approach that I’ve found to be the most reliable and is designed to continue to work for years to come.

Think about this from a career perspective: Would you do something cutthroat at your “9-5 job” if it meant a fast promotion and pay raise but could result in your termination a few months / years down the line? I honestly feel like some other strategies border on that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that all other strategies are doomed for long-term failure, but I do know that they exist.

Whatever approach you decide to take with writing your content for Amazon affiliate websites, step back for a moment and ask yourself this: Does my approach offer any value for website visitors or is it just there to sell a product? What I like to do is remove advertising from a site and see if there is still a point to the site – if there isn’t, there is no reason why search engines will respect it long-term (so your strategy better not depend on search traffic if this is the case).

Ultimately, just try to be smart about your approach and also pick what works best for you. Some people love the marketing end, even if it means constant work or investment. Others prefer hands-free income with low investment (like myself), so I focus on what is necessary to achieve that (great articles that search engines will love for many years, if not forever).