Great deal going on: Click Hostgator 50% off – Only 24hrs on March 25, 2014. If you need hosting this is a deal you can’t pass up. Starting at midnight tonight, Tuesday March 25th, our American Red Cross promotion will be live! Snappy will be offering 50% off all New Hosting packages as well as domains for only $4. As a token of our appreciation for the Red Cross’ efforts, we will be donating $1 for every new customer sign up during our 24 hour promotion!
So many people don’t get started online because of a learning curve. So I want to help you out. Get your hosting thru my links and I will setup your blog with all the required plugins including security.
Are you stuck in deciding on a Domain Name? I can help.. it is very important to have your Brand Identity consistent across all platforms,,,Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, pintrest, and many more. So choosing a name is not as easy as it sounds. Is your domain name available across the social media sites that you want? I can do this search for you and let you know what is available. So when someone searches for you all your social media sites have a much better chance showing up. This is vitally important!
So you need a WordPress Blog setup? I can do it for you and have you running in no time. I will setup all of the following plugins:
Setup your Blog with a World Class Framework
All In One SEO
Google Sitemap
W3 Total Cache
Akismet
Twitter account
Youtube Channel account
You blog will be formated for mobile browsing including Phones & Tablets
Automatic backup
Email with Spam Filtering
How to qualify for this service:
1) Email me and tell me you are interested and we will begin brainstorming for your domain name and I will search different variations across 500 social media platforms. Then-
Once you have a good base of articles, you need to start thinking about traffic to your site. This is not as easy subject to condense into a simple blog post. This is an introduction to my future lessons. You will need to think of how much time you can devote to your traffic plan. and pick a technique that is simple for you and easy for you to master on a consistent basis.
There Are No Tricks, There Are No Secrets, There Is Only Great Information.
The Number 1 Best traffic strategy is: Organic Traffic.
You’ve heard me say it all the time. you can not do any better that great articles on your site. You will rank higher and longer than any other technique. Of course it will take longer for you to get the rankings, but the rankings will be rock solid and last. And again I repeat nothing is better than ORGANIC TRAFFIC.
ORGANIC TRAFFIC = is defined as: Web traffic which comes from unpaid listing at search engines or directories is commonly known as “organic” traffic. Organic traffic can be generated or increased by including the web site in directories, search engines, guides (such as yellow pages and restaurant guides) and award sites. Anything else is just temporary traffic.
I had a traffic system i was working on my site for over a year, And without going into much detail, it was generating 3/4 of my monthly traffic. I was using a special automated software I had spent over $100 for that would bring targeted traffic to my site, and one day the software owner decided to shut down. I lost all my traffic that was generated by that software. I had to figure out another technique. so I had to find a new system for Generating my Site traffic. And so the cycle continues… Not anymore.
Now I will give you a break down of the 3 Organic Traffic Strategies, Fastest and Easiest to the Slowest and Difficult.
#1 Written Content: These are your blog posts. Your content on your site. Each post should be at least 300 to 800 words. Contain at least one picture. Your post must be orginal information, and if possible be ground shaking in its impact on your readers. (According to who?) It doesn’t matter who. It matters that you shoot for this goal. Some post will be truely great and some will not. But over time you will have more great than not. You will be successful.
Here are a few examples of where you can use your written content:
Blog Posts
Article Marketing
Guest Posting
Blog Commenting
Email Marketing
Social Marketing: Twitter or Facebook
#2 Video Content: These are videos you add to your site. You will host theses on a video sharing site and embed them on your site. The most popular being Youtube. There are others, but this is where you want to be. You can video yourself talking about your info or make screen casts on your computer, or powerpoint presentations. Make the videos like show and tell clips. Keep them short and packed with information, not fluff. You have already written your script for these…. remember your blog post? After researching your blog post when the information is fresh in your mind is the perfect time to to make a video. Your mind will be well organized, and you will have more excitement to make the video when it is fresh in your mind.
#3 Audio Content: These are audio recordings that people can listen to at home or on the go on their smart phone or on their car radio. Yes you heard me right, they will listen on their car radio with these recordings. People that commute (like myself) listen to podcast from the itunes directory while driving. These are know as Podcast in the file format as MP3. This medium is for people that can speak information easier than writing. This is by for the hardest and most time consuming to do right. But it will bring the most traffic and interaction for your site.
All of these traffic Methods will bring you organic traffic, AS LONG AS you don’t relay on Automated software to do it for you. Here is a break down of the Methods in amount of traffic that will be created.
#1 Written: Everyone has a blog it seems. You will be competing with sometimes thousands of sites. Can you write better than 90% of them? or 75% better? only you can determine that. So this method will be the hardest to rank for in Search Engines.
#2 Video: Less people have a Youtube Channel. Youtube is the second most popular search engine. (Google being #1 for written) If you search for your topic there will be less competition for you. So it will be easier for you to get noticed on Youtube than on Google. Also you will show up in Google for video. Have you ever noticed that on Google searches that on the first page you will see “Shop for Blank on Google” and also a video listed and also “Images for Blank” listed (the reason for putting at least one image in your posts). Just do a search for “go kart” and you will see what I am talking about.
#3 Audio: Even Less People have a Podcast. Being listed on Itunes will rock you with traffic. When I did the research for starting a podcast there was only 25 other podcast I would be competing against for traffic. Whoa!!! not thousands or even hundreds. So I will definitely get noticed. This is by far the most difficult to setup, but also the most rewarding and the most interactive with your community. This one I have yet to accomplish, but it is definitely in the works for the near future.
With these methods I have been able to take a break from my blogging for months and my traffic has not decreased. Think of it as building your foundation. At first you will be adding content to your blog weekly or even daily. After a year or two you will be able to take a break and not lose anything if you have built a rock solid foundation relying only on Organic Traffic.
If you need a personalize plan of attack for any of the 3 Methods, Just email me todd@toddbrannan.com and I will write you a strategy based on where you are. Believe me you can do all three and all the options under all 3. A great plan would look something like this:
1st and a must – Blog – chose one of the three: Written Blog, Video Blog or Audio Blog and post everyday or week.
2nd choose one of the four: Blog Commenting or Guest Posting & Twitter or Facebook and do this everyday.
3rd repeat this, over and over.
This is simple and doable. Won’t take much time and can be done daily or weekly. Of course the more frequently you do it the faster your traffic willl grow.
If you would like to read a Great Book on this, grab a copy of
Gary really know his stuff and knows how to keep it simple. Really a Must Read!
I believe in Affiliate Marketing, flat out, 100%. I know Affiliate Marketing gets a bad rap in the online money making niche. It attracts a lot of people seeking get rich quick. It also attracts the less than honest marketers. Get rich quick schemes have and always will be around. On my blog
By: Todd Brannan
Ok, So now you have your blog setup and you are posting great content, and sometimes you feel like your going nowhere? You don’t know if your going in the right direction. So now you’ve got a few quick ways to find out.
Way #1: Alexa
Go to www.alexa.com and click on the toolbar tab and install the toolbar or statusbar. This will tell you what your site is ranking globally. The lower the number the better. For instance when I first put my site up it ranked somewhere around 12,000,000 as I have written more post the number has dropped and is now at 858,253. Also the more frequently I post the quicker the number drops. If I don’t post and just leave my site dormant the number rises. Also as my number moves so does my traffic. The lower the Alexa number the higher my traffic. So even though I don’t see progress like I want on my site, all I have to do is check my Alexa number and I can see positive changes in the right direction. Every time I see the ranking lower I know I am on the right track. Everytime I visit my site I see the ranking number in my status bar on my Firefox browser and I log it down so I can track my progress in my spreadsheet.
Way #2: Cpanel
Check your traffic stats in your Cpanel. Just log into your Cpanel and the in the left sidebar scroll down to website traffic. There will be listed 3 stats, yesterdays traffic, traffic this month & traffic last month. Its that easy. This number I also log into my spreadsheet.
Way #3: Subscribers
Your Opt-in form should be on every page above the fold. This number will be the slowest moving. But these are actually the most valuable numbers and what you are ultimately looking for. These are your most interested following and they are looking to you for guidance. Send them great information, ask them what they need, what you can do for them to help them.
” New Blog Gaining Traction? 3 Ways You Can Tell” – Click to tweet
Nothing moves your blog in the right direction as much as being consistent. What ever you do, make sure you are posting on a schedule. It can be daily or weekly or bi-weekly or even monthly, but be consistent. Believe me when I say I have paid the price of being inconsistent. I have seen massive changes in the negative direction because I got distracted. Also I have pointed my blog in the ascending direction just by being consistent. It is also possible to speed up your progress by speeding up your activity on your blog. Also I have been able to achieve a lower number on Alexa in less than three weeks, than in the previous 8 months. Just by being more active.
Of course this is only a basic starting point, later I will cover some more advanced techniques.
Let me know if you have any techniques that have worked for you.
If you are having trouble with your post rankings in the search engines, then let me tell you about a Keyword plugin for WordPress that you may not know about. It is Keyword Winner. It is incredibly easy to use and to setup and it gives me data when I go to write a post right in the Add New Post screen. All I have to do is type in my post title and hit the Get Keyword Winner Suggestions and it gives me a list of keywords color coded from red to orange to green. Green being the keywords with the least amount of competition. I can even drill down deeper if I choose.
Then after I have posted my post I go to my All Post Page and view my post and there I can see my Google position for my post and the previous position change info and the post page rank. This is excellent data to have at your finger tips. I suggest you check out Keyword Winner and see for your self how great this plugin is. You can get it at Keyword Winner Website.
Have you got a plugin that you would recommend? Tell me about it.
Post Update: 10 hours after posting this post, it is ranked #8 in Google for my keywords. Hmmm, now I will tweak my post to achieve better rankings. I can see this data instantly in my WordPress Dashboard for all my post. What a great plugin.
Post Update: 1 week later this post has achieved #1 position on Google!
Update 04/26/2013: TweetAdder 4.0 software is no longer allowing the user to automate the auto follow / auto unfollow. For this reason I will be searching for new software to recommend.
03/24/2012 Upate: TweetAtacks is no longer available. So I have updated this post and I am now using Tweetadder.
This is the Super Simple Plan I use to drive traffic to my site and build my email marketing list.
One of the best Twitter Programs on the market today is Tweetadder.
This software allows you to follow automatically and then unfollow automatically if the person doesn’t follow you back in 3 days or whatever time period you want.
You can build a large list of followers automatically using Twitter programs. Now there are two views of thought on this.
1st, it has been said that you only need 150 targeted and active followers. Any more than that and it would be hard to keep up with all the questions and needs of your followers.
2nd, You look more like a trusted authority when you have a large following. Although a lot of the followers don’t even hear your tweets cause they just want a large following also. There are a lot of people on twitter just tweeting and tweeting and nobody is reading.
Now here’s my take on this question…..what is better?
I want totally targeted followers that engage me with questions and add to the answers for the whole group. In order to get these, I have to go thru a lot of followers to get there. You need to build a following as large as it takes to get these 150 interested followers. These followers are in my niche, some are for me to learn from and others are for me to teach from my experiences.
Ok, here is the step by step process.
Download Tweetadder (My favorite of all Twitter programs) It has a trial period for 300 followers and install and set it up.
If you need help on setting it up, just email me.
Run tweetadder every day or just leave your computer on and it will run automatically.
Follow from keyword or follow other guru’s followers, since these are already targeted followers.
Then start tweeting and retweeting premium content, some of it your own and some of it from other sites. Try and engage your followers. Use video and photos as part of your tweets. When you have a link to a video people are more likely to click on it than a regular shortened link. Always state it is a video or just use the Youtube link.
“Remember Engage, Converse, Share Ideas, Personally with your Followers”
If you try and build your followers too quick your account could be suspended. I have added 16 followers a day for the last 90 days on average using this software. I like to play it safe and be able to monitor all of the people the software is following. Of course you could set it up for a lot more.
By doing this method I am able to drive traffic to my site. Once there, the visitor then has a chance to subscribe to my site updates. That is what I ultimately want.
If you purchase the paid version you can do anything you want to market your product on twitter. It has to be the most powerful of all twitter programs I have seen.
Hope this helps, BTW tell me what Twitter programs you use for making twitter marketing easier?
My Step by Step process that will guarantee you more Youtube views.
Step 1: Title
This is the most important part of ranking in the search engines for your video, because it describes what your video is about.
Chose 1 primary and 1 secondary keyword for your title. The primary keyword is put at the beginning followed by your secondary keyword. Then put your secondary keyword at the end again.
Example: Video Optimization – Step by Step Optimization
Remember your Title is your Headline, It must grab your readers attention and get the click.
Keep your title 8 to 10 words and 50 to 80 characters.
Your title must describe your video precisely.
Use the dash (-) and pipe (|) symbols to make your title easier to read.
Step 2: Description
Your Description needs to be keyword rich article with your website address at the beginning. write about a 200 – 400 word article pertaining to your video. Treat it as a mini blog post. End it asking your viewers to comment. Engage your audience, ask advice, ask feedback, ask for criticism, ask for their story, ask for their experience, ect.
Example: https://www.toddbrannan.com Step by Step method how to rank better with Video Optimization. If you take your time and approach it with a formula, you will see that you can rank much better than just throwing up a video and not taking the time to optimize it. There are many ways………..
In the description box on the video page only the 1st line is visible unless the viewer presses the “show more” button on the description box. So the first line of the article must show your website address and a opening sentence that pulls your reader in more.
Step 3: Tags
Tags need to be relevant keywords. You may need to brainstorm for keywords or use a keyword tool to complete your list.
Example tags: video optimization seo ranking optimize
Step 4: Additional Tips
Your video needs to be interesting enough so your viewers will watch the whole video to the end. The shorter your video the better to get your point across. A short video has a better change of being watched to the end. If people bail out after watching a few seconds it won’t rank high for your keywords. Because the search engine with think it is not relevant to your keywords.
Leave some information out of your video. When you come to the end of your video leave a point or a tip incomplete and tell the viewer that they need to go to your website to get the answer. Or promise them a free gift download if they go to your website and sign up for your email updates.
Real World Proof
Now I want to tell you of a little experiment I did for a friend of mine. I posted this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzydnVn5NS8 on Feb 16, 2010 and it has only gotten 102 views as of this writing.
What is the difference? Just compare the title, description and tags. Also, I embedded the website address at the top of the 2nd video. That doesn’t change the rankings but it does give the website address more visibility.
I have been fed up with all the so-called “I have your solution websites” telling you that you can make $30,000 to $100,000 in little to no time if you just buy their program. That somehow it is different than all the others out there. And in fact it is so good, that once you do click the Buy Button and buy it. Then they will try and up sell you on another aspect of their program that makes it even better and will speed up your money making ability and so if you click the buy button again and then you are sometimes again taken to another page to try and up sell you again.
If their program is so good, why do you have to be up sold once, twice or even three times more. Here is what I believe, Their program can not deliver what it is suppose to, or else they would charge the whole amount up front and even tell you the whole amount up front. But no they have to miss lead you into thinking you are getting a great deal for $37 or $47 and then up sell you on the next $97 or $197. If you bail out on the first offer, you will notice you will be given a chance to buy it at a $10 or $20 discount. They are desparate to make a sell.
In the last 4 months I have looked at 130 programs and purchased 4 of them and all of them had a discount on the first bail of their page. They all also had 2 up sells at least. I test drove 1 program on the initial buy and the first up sell. The other 2 I only purchased the initial offer. After test driving all 4, I decided on one to keep and use for my Affiliate Challenge. Yes I requested refunds from the other 3 products, because they were GARBAGE.
I decided on PushButtonMoney (@ $27). I did not buy the up sells. The program is easy to setup and can be done in a matter of hours for the complete beginner. It offers a 50% commission for Affiliates. Basically the program lets you promote 5 different niches:, Internet Marketing, Music, Weight Loss, Muscle Building & Dating. Once you purchase the program you need to setup a Clickbank account and an Aweber account. After that you will need 1 domain name and hosting for each of the niches you want to promote. The System is browser based and can be used by Windows, Mac & Linux.
Just logon and choose your niche then you are asked for your email autoresponder list name and clickbank username for your commission. Then you are taken to your page where you can customize your squeeze page and then upload it to your domain. The squeese page is for capturing your prospects email and delivering them to the Pushbuttonmoney.com sales page. All you have to do is drive traffic to your squeeze page.
The program has extensive videos for teaching you how to setup everything you need to do. It is all there from Domain name to web hosting to autoresponders to how to drive traffic and use social media.
It is the most complete I have seen and doesn’t get too complicated. If you are a beginner or novice and want to learn affiliate marketing this will teach you the basics and have you setup in no time at all.
So I had this squeeze page setup in only a couple of hours. It is really basic and to the point. Then I was working on driving traffic the rest of the day. I have also come to the realization that no matter what program you choose, the most important thing you can learn is how to drive traffic. Without that skill you cannot make any money. Then you can promote any product that you believe in and make some serious money.
Now for my results.
I have been at this for 60 days and I have been driving traffic for about the last 50 days. To drive my traffic I choose to do it by video. I posted several videos and edited them several times even deleted some of them and reposted some I thought were better. All and all 60 days is not long enough to know what is working for your videos and what is not. I had some get a lot of initial views right after posting and then nothing after the first week or 2. And others I thought were better got nothing. I did learn how to optimize the video page after posting the video. I will cover that in another post later.
Well at the end of my 60 days I fell short on my $250 goal. I only got to $207. But I can tell you this was quite a learning experience. I will be writing more on actual step by step things I should have done differently. Even though I did not hit my goal, I am continuing my Challenge to see if I can maintain what I have built and get it to my $250 goal. Then how much work it takes to maintain it and grow it larger. I am all about creating passive income as much as possible.
Last year I purchased a Single Family Home as a rental property. I took advantage of the foreclosures in my area and got a good deal. The home generates me $265 a month in passive income. So now you see where I got the $250 goal from. When I bought the home the goal was $300 a month in passive income. I fell short on that because of an A/C problem that cost me more than I estimated and also the house did not rent for what I wanted it to. All in all the property was a good deal and I am happy to have made the deal. After I pay all my bills for the house, I bank $250 a month for the as long as I own the property. I have total $10,000 invested in this house and it returns me $3180 a year. Where else can I make a return of 31% a year? Thats right the Internet with my challenge sites.
So back to my challenge. I figure if I can build sites or landing pages or squeeze pages in less than a day and then drive traffic to them and earn at least $250 a month per site. Then I can build as many as I need for the income that I want. I don’t have to deal with customer support for the product. That is why I like affiliate marketing. I will always buy the product first, evaluate it and see if I like it and can use it and it is worth the cost. Then I will build a squeeze page and then drive traffic to my page.
Yes, the 60 days was not a lot of time. But I still think I will perfect my system and try again later with another product. Also during the 60 days I was also testing and writing for some other programs. I have told many of my readers to be focused on 1 item at a time as you will accomplish a lot more. I need to take my own advice. There are times I have 10 or 12 projects going as the same time and trying to finish them all so I can move onto my other 20 or 30 idea projects. For now I will be posting articles that have been a result of my challenge for the last 60 days.
Feel free to ask any questions that I have not answered here. If anyone has or is going to purchase Push Button Money please let me know and I will coach you with what I have learned.
If you are looking to make some videos for your website and want the best possible results with the smallest investment, I have some ideas for you. The equipment I use to shoot my videos:
The lights I use get very hot, so you can probally substitute compact flourescent bulbs and get the same results. I have my studio set up all the time, so it is very fast for me to create my videos.
So now on to the videos. The 1st video is shot with my 2nd Generation Iphone. This video shows you how I have my studio setup.
The 2nd video is shot with the Canon PowerShot A560 at the larger size setting and as you can see it has very good quality. 640 x 480 video size.
The 3rd video is shot with the same camera and at the smaller size quality and as you can see there is not much difference. 320 x 160 video size.
Ok that is how I do my videos. If you have any other ways that you do yours leave a comment.
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Starting at midnight tonight, Tuesday March 25th, our American Red Cross promotion will be live! Snappy will be offering 50% off all New Hosting packages as well as domains for only $4. As a token of our appreciation for the Red Cross’ efforts, we will be donating $1 for every new customer sign up during our 24 hour promotion!
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