I was reading a post the other day on Massive Traffic Techniques written by Mitch from ImJustSharing and he was responding to another post he had read. Now before you go off on me saying “hey Mirjam, what happened to you not reading other blogs anymore?” let me explain that there are a small number of blogs that I do continue to read occasionally for a number of reasons, but overall I have severely cut down on the hours spent reading.

I do go to Mitch´s blog though because he gives me food for thought and more often than not I find stuff to discuss, but anyways, back to the posts on Massive Traffic Techniques…

Have you noticed that when it comes to this type of post, 95% of the bloggers are saying the same thing over and over again? The same techniques are shared and shared and shared and they supposedly all lead to massive traffic for our sites.

The first on the list of “massive traffic techniques” was article marketing and I am going to quote it here so you won´t leave just yet (you can always go check out the posts later, after commenting here, right?)

1) Write articles: believe it or not this is an incredible tool for driving traffic.

I have 10 articles on Ezine Articles and Evan Carmichael, and, according to Analytics, I’ve never gotten a single person to any of my sites because of them. They’ve been used elsewhere, though, so I’ve gotten links, but traffic,… nope.

That comment to me was … how to say it politically correct… different from what I have found.

So I actually decided to dive into my EzineArticles account and look at my own stats. Some are just too embarrassing to admit really, but hey, trying to make a point here and being humble once in a while can´t be all bad, right?

So I do have a few articles that did not get me one single click at all. None, zero, napa, zilch, niente… even though they had a decent amount of views, or at least enough to be expecting a few visits.

But lately, even though I am still not getting the thousands and thousands of views per article, yet…, there are also articles that received as much as 60-70% of clickthroughs per view. Now the percentage isn´t really that important when it comes to numbers, but it is actually important to find out myself how I need to write the articles I submit to EzineArticles in order to get people to my sites (and hopefully buy the products that are on there).

In total I have only submitted about 70 articles or so, received over 8300 views on them and as a result of that had 1,400 clicks to the different links in there. Far from great stats but if I look at them and compare the beginning of my article writing venue and where I am at now, those 70 articles have taught me quite a bit, (which I will be sharing here in the near future so stay tuned for that!) and both views and clickthroughs are improving from when I first started.

Back to the original reason for me writing this post:

Most Posts on “Massive Traffic Techniques” are Fooling You into Wrong Thinking!

Yep, that is my opinion and my personal opinion, and feel free to disagree with me here, but I will explain why I am thinking this. I hold my “grudge” not so much with the techniques themselves (although I do feel that some techniques are way more productive than others when it comes to making money) but with the overall stigma they keep alive: “the more traffic, the more money”

Right, I am sure you must have seen that hundreds of times already, that the more traffic you have, the more money you can make. And even though this might be true when you want to sell advertisement on your site (in order to do so, you will have to be able to show that the advertisement spots are placed on a site that gets plenty of traffic) I don´t think that the more traffic always gives you the more money.

I think it is way more subtle than that, you can create absolutely useless traffic in huge amounts without selling a thing and you can make a sale from only a few visitors (did you notice that my main reason for getting specific traffic is making sales?).

When I first started doing the “article thing” I did see a rise in statistics of traffic on different sites, I even saw a rise in certain keywords in the SERPs, but it stayed far from becoming a big earner and after having submitted 30-40 articles to EzineArticles, I thought it was not going to do anything for my business and ready to join the huge amount of people that proclaim that article marketing doesn´t work to create massive traffic to their sites.

But then I started looking at other authors on EzineArticles, have you ever noticed there are people with hundreds if not thousands articles to their name? Now call me stupid, but I firmly believe that people wouldn´t keep beating the article marketing path if it wasn´t working for them, so I decided to have a closer look at just what they were doing, how they wrote their articles (and very important too, their author boxes) and started reading the blog on EzineArticles that offers really good information on how to make article writing a success.

I took what I learned from that and actually changed not only the way I was writing those articles but also the author box information, made shorter articles, more catchy titles and author boxes that looked as if they were part of the articles themselves.

Can you guess what I saw changing in my stats? Come on now, give it a shot!

Back to why I think those Massive Traffic Techniques” posts are fooling you into believing you need huge traffic … I like to think more into percentages, productivity and ROI. And I will give you a specific example.

I have two articles that I published on the 18th of February and the 11th of February, both promoting a lens project I had been building. Now I know that according to the One Week Marketing Plan I should have submitted one article per lens but life got in the way and I got sidetracked a bit, but anyways, back to those 2 articles.

The have respectively 58 and 127 views and a total of 100 click throughs. I did nothing to promote those articles, just wrote them and published them and that is it. They are both 250-260 words and have an adapted author box of around 200 words, so in total that is not even 900 words. Between having a really really slow internet connection, writing the article, making the links and writing the bio box, that took me about 30 minutes to do.

100 clickthroughs might seem like nothing if you are shooting for thousands and thousands of visitors, I know, but these articles actually lead to 2 sales, totalling 51.18…

This is where it becomes interesting for me because it is proving me a few things, and by doing so, turning most information that is rehashed on almost all of those MMO blogs into plain myths:

• It only took less than 200 views and 100 click throughs to make 2 sales
• 900 words were enough to drive the targeted traffic I needed to cash in on $50 for now
• I made those sales without doing the selling myself but left that to the vendor on his landingpage
• I did not spend hours and hours using “massive traffic techniques” like commenting, socializing nor submitting to directories or other things “people tell us to do to become a succes”
• The articles were published on a new account, so no “fame”, not being a “big trusted name” myself, no buzz no nothing, not even being popular, just 2 simple short articles.

Keep in mind that this is only one personal experience and example, but I am pretty sure that the better I get at picking the products, creating mini projects and improving on my articles on EzineArticles, the more sales will follow.

Thought that was enough food for thought for now, seeing that I want to get back to work and will be doing a personal challenge today that I might post on shortly (another reason to get back here or sign up for my rss as to not miss out on information that might actually help you make money or if the challenge fails, to save you from going through the same )

I do hope that you all start thinking for yourself without just copying what others tell you to do.

Don´t just buy into hype because it is fun to spend your time navegating and socializing, at least not if you are serious about your online ventures in terms of creating an income. And hey, more power to you if you are actually making big money already following all the “massive traffic techniques” and have a MMO that makes those big bucks, by all means, do what is already working for you and giving you a high return on investment. I´ll just continue working on what is bringing me personally a higher ROI and so should you!

Don´t even take what I am saying for granted, but check your own personal stats and see what you can improve on in order to make more money and build a solid business online. Find what really works for you and start building on your most productive ventures and ditch those that are just time-wasters.

There is a lot of talk about how blog commenting can increase the traffic on your website and thus “should improve the value” of your blog. Dennis commented on my last post “Stop Thinking, Start Acting” and I am quoting his comment here on the part where I said that getting traffic from fellow bloggers isn´t the best way to monetize your site, because I don´t agree with what he says:

“If I may politely and ever so slightly disagree – Yes, that’s exactly what it could lead to. What do potential advertisers (assuming you’re looking for them) like to see more then almost anything else? Activity. If you’re not “out there” no one will be in here.

I agree 100% that social activities shouldn’t be the bulk of ones time, but on the flip I woud never advise giving it up altogether either. Article marketing and the like is an awesome avenue like many others, but if no one knows who you are, never sees you around, how long is that going to last?”

There are a few things I would like to say about this comment and to clarify, these are my personal opinions and every body is free to think otherwise:

1. Fellow bloggers don´t bring in the money, especially not in the MMO niche
2. Potential Advertisers look at ROI not at just “activity”
3. Money comes from people searching for solutions, not from info addicts
4. I prefer long term strategies over short bursts of traffic
5. You don´t need to be a Big Name to get the Big Payouts

Yep, 5 reasons why I don´t agree with the above comment, sorry pal.

Fellow bloggers don´t bring in the money, especially not in the MMO niche

This one actually took me quite a long time to figure out *blushing here in shame*. Now anybody could argue and say but hey “look at John Chow” he is making tons of money off of “fellow MMO bloggers” but guess what, he is not your fellow blogger!

I mean, do you see him going round to other blogs and comment on everybody and their dog´s blog to get visitors in?? I bet he makes a lot of sales in the MMO niche because probably most people that find his blog are noobs that aren´t aware of the affiliate links placed everywhere.  But as soon as people start learning about the affiliate marketing structure, when buying any product I think that at least 90% will buy the product through their own link, not yours! And yes he probably earns big on advertising on his blog because he has a huge subscribers list.

Now anybody can argue with me that the “ethical way” to do things is to not steal affiliate links and replace them with your own before buying a product, but come on, be realistic about this. Your visitors don´t feel any fuzzy feelings towards any of the ads on your blog, so the chance of them stealing the affiliate link is much bigger, if they are visitors from the MMO niche.

Potential Advertisers look at ROI not at just any “activity”

This one is another thing I think one should really understand. Not any activity online is profitable, so you have to look at why a potential advertiser wants to buy ad space…

If I were to invest in putting an ad for any of my products or websites somewhere, I don´t look at the “front” activity in the meanings of how many comments there are on a particular blog. I mean, of course it looks fantastic, a blog with zillions of comments and such, but what if all of those comments are coming from other bloggers using blog commenting as a link building strategy? I bet at least a considerable percentage of comments are exactly that. I much rather advertise on a blog that can show me with statistics as proof that the bulk of their traffic comes from search engines, because those are the people actually looking for an answer, (after all, they did search for it, right?) and not regular fellow (info addict) bloggers.

So really, if you want to make money from your blog by getting advertisers to pay for your sidebar real estate and you want them to become long term investors, there should be a good ROI, in other words, the advertisement they put on your blog should bring in MONEY (not just clicks).

Money comes from people searching for solutions, not from info addicts

Another one that took me quite a bit to understand but now that I do, it just makes so much sense to me that I don´t get just why it took me such a long time to see the difference. All of the social sites like Digg, Tweeter and what not are full of people spending their time reading (and some researching), socializing and “staying on top of what is out there”. So yeah, these social sites can bring you a wave of traffic, but do you really think they are going to spend a dime on anything you are promoting?

They might, if you are lucky, but I bet there is a much higher probability that people who are looking for answers and solutions spend money than those who are just looking around, reading and socializing. Where do people look for answers and solutions? Do they go to tweeter to find a remedy for their blown up toe? Do they look at Digg to solve whatever problem they have?

……… Drumroll please…. they go to a search engine!

Ok, so you could arguee here that getting links from social sites is good too, but wouldn´t you prefer to be able to target potential buyers right where they start looking for their answers? And therefor spend most of your precious time actually focusing on getting the traffic that is looking for an answer with money in their pockets, willing to spend it?

Now it sounds logical to me -in hindsight of course- because my statistics are actually showing that it works better for me to get traffic through search engines instead of social sites and socialing on other blogs. And by statistics I mean ROI not just any activity!

I prefer long term strategies over short bursts of traffic

I will never say that people shouldn´t comment, socialize, digg, tweet or whatever to get traffic to their site. I mean, if you want to spend your time being sociable, please go ahead and do so. I did and boy was I excited in the beginning of this blog to see sudden bursts of 3, 4, 500 visits in a day. It would make my day, seriously.

And man it was wonderful to see some great comments and getting recognition from other bloggers, it sure did feed my ego. Did it feed my wallet though? Did the traffic continue at the same rate as soon as I stopped actively promoting a site? Guess you can tell me the answer yourself but if you can´t, I will tell you… as soon as I stopped spending hours commenting on other blogs, clicking entrecards and trying to land a few good Diggs, the traffic slowed down big time.

However, when putting out articles in different places, targeting my keywords on my sites, and actually seeing my search engine rankings go up for quality longtails, traffic started coming in and keeps coming in after only publishing a few articles per page.

You don´t need to be a Big Name to get the Big Payout

Now this might go against anything you have probably seen out there, after all, people only spend their money when they trust the source, right? At least, that is told on all the MMO blogs I have seen so far and in a way it makes sense if you are a MMO blogger yourself. So it is said that you should put yourself out there, comment on other blogs, socialize so that people actually get to know you, trust you and then buy your products, right?

I sincerely think this only goes if what you are trying to sell is your OWN product, or if you have a HUGE mailing list. Now, huge mailing lists aren´t build in a week, nor in a month if you don´t actually buy them or invest a ton of money in getting the leads or whatever. And please realize that I am not saying here that being a big name is bad, I am just saying that you don´t need to BE one to actually get money.

This realization actually came after I started using the One Week Marketing Plan by PotPieGirl and probably in the near future I am going to put up a review on that program (even though I realize that fellow MMO bloggers won´t bring me any cash ROFL), but I do feel it is important to break down the myth of “being a big name is the way to bring in big money”.

Just think about this one for a bit. Look at any of the marketers out there that are making it big time. They might have a flagship website that is attached to their name, but do you really think that is the only website that brings in the cash? Or could it be quite possible that they run numerous other sites without attaching their name to it?

And another thing to think about for a bit. If you really need to be seen out there to get somewhere, how come PPC is a huge market? After all PPC-ers don´t show their name or face, right? What they do is lead target traffic to a certain website that sells a product, without “them being seen in the scene”, right?

So basically, what I am getting at is that as an article marketer, you don´t need to become famous, you need to choose the product you want to promote correctly, make sure you target traffic that is looking for solutions and answers, willing to spend money and then lead them to that product. The one that needs to be “seen” after all is the product you are getting affiliate commission for.

My conclusion:

As far as article marketing and “how long it is going to last” I think the longevity is much higher than any commenting or socialization strategy

Too many people are getting sucked into the MMO scene and what other MMO-ers are spreading out there and therefor are defying their own chances of actually building a real business online.

Too many people over estimate the value of social traffic and blog commenting, too many people underestimate the true value of search engine traffic. Too many people keep researching and try finding the “secret to making money online fast” without taking action.

You as a visitor can take these words any way you want, after all, who do I really think I am without showing a $36,000.00 monthly pay check?

Am I telling you to stop commenting, socializing and what not? No, not saying that you should, just saying that you should make sure you use your time wisely if you want to build a real business out of creating websites and affiliate marketing.

But please do yourself a favor if you want to build a business online, get serious and take action doing things that give you a good return on investment, whether that be time, money and/or effort.

As you might know I have recently changed tactics and the main goal of making these changes was to increase my productivity level. When I first started this blog I thought it to be very important to get in touch with other bloggers and comment on their blogs so that they would come back and put a comment on my blog.

Sure it was great to see the comments per posts increasing as well as getting more visitors to this blog. It was great for my ego, but that was about all that it would produce. An ego boost and wasting an aweful amount of time looking for new information to improve my blog and tweak and twitch the look and feel of it.

It sure was a fun time and I did learn quite a bit. There is however a negative side to contacting and reading a lot of MMO bloggers, and that is that they/we tend to overthink things and sooner or later instead of being really productive we can spend hours and hours working without getting anywhere.

Ok, we might be getting traffic from fellow bloggers and we might be getting a lot of comments, but really, be honest, where does that lead anyways? Does it put a lot of money in your pocket?

Last month I have been turning things upside down. Instead of doing the “social thing” I went into private mode so to say. I don´t want to become famous on twitter, myspace or whatever other social networks there are out there, so why would I bother spending hours connecting and wasting time that I could very well use to actually build a business?

I needed another plan. Another layout I could stick to and make it my work schedule.

The Schedule I am following today

So I got the One Week Marketing Plan… eventhough I had pledged to never ever in my whole life to buy another ebook. And even when writing this post I am laughing at myself, I mean, here I am telling that I want to become more productive and then I go out, buy another book on MMO and instead of acting I read even more. Oh well, you gotta be able to laugh at your own actions right?

Anyways, like I said, I needed a plan after all this time “working” online I had gotten so brainwashed by all the crap that can be found when it comes to making money online, that I had to make a fresh start and just go about things step by step.

That was about 3 weeks ago already and since then I must say my productivity level, even though it still isn´t where I want it to be, has improved dramatically. My daily activities have gone from commenting, researching, socializing, learning and posting (the fun way of spending work time that most MMO-ers are guilty of) to building websites/lenses and then promoting and building links to them through article marketing.

Most of the time I get this done with the blindfolders on because as soon as I start doing any common MMO activity I am lost again.

Bloggers – “make money onliners” – waste so much time that they could easily be compared to the millions of 12 year olds who play video games six to eight hours per day. Why do video game addicts do what they do? Because it’s fun; it’s an escape from reality to get online with your buddies and kill aliens for hours at a time. While they’re playing video games they don’t have to think about anything that stresses them. Are bloggers any different?

read more

Are you guilty of being an MMO-er?

I never really understood the difference between the MMO movement and those marketers that were actually building their own business. I really thought they went hand in hand. Want to know what the difference is?

MMO-ers get sucked into the information highway by their fellow bloggers and start reading a lot of “how to get rich articles” written by people who aren´t putting their own words into practice themselves but think that if only they stick with that type of posting long enough, success will eventually rub off on them. After all, they are talking the right talk, right?

So I decided I did not want to get sucked into more information addiction, which is why I changed the path of this blog. I did get the One Week Marketing Plan because I needed to stick to something literally, plus I started using Unique Article Wizard apart from submitting articles to EzineArticles.com.

And just before you start wondering, I did actually already submit 5 articles to both UAW and EzineArticles.com before taking a break to write this post

Now my questions to you… can you guess what I see happening with my stats? Can you guess which way of promotion is getting me more click throughs to my affiliate programs, the former “blogcommenting-socializing-MMO-addiction” or my present “creating webpages-article submission combination”?

Which path will eventually lead to a substantial and steady income?

Dennis Edell, my friend over at DirectSalesWebMarketing has recently (re-)started two blogs and because of that, and because he again proves to come up with some great ideas, he is holding a special contest that will end the 31st of January.

For more details on that please look at the end of this post, because right now I wanted to go straight to the bigger matter, Dennis Edell´s new blogs:

DennisEdell.com

Now I have to tell you, every time I buy a new domain at godaddy, I am told that the domain name with my own name is still available and every time I decline. Boy do I wish I had a marketable name like Dennis Edell has but that put to the site.

More important of course is that over the time that I have been reading Dennis over at DirectSalesWebMarketing, I have come to really appreciate him as a blogger and as a person.

I am actually glad that he decided to get DennisEdell.com back up and running because I think he will do well. If you are unfamiliar with this blogging legend, his about page will tell you more about him. What I hope for this blog to turn into, is another place I can visit daily knowing that there will be interesting posts.

So why do I think this blog is worth visiting?

I have been following Dennis Edell´s post on his other blog and have always enjoyed the posts he came up with. My hopes are set high for this new revamped blog since it will be covering a broader spectrum of things, not just internet marketing but anything that rocks his boat.

Cool thing is that he himself is asking his visitors exactly what they would like to read on his blog, so head over there and leave your comment! I am sure that will give him some more thoughts to write about, because quite frankly, the only thing really missing right now, is quantity of posts… the quality is already there!

EasyCashContests.com

Now to be honest, I have actually toyed with the idea quite a while ago to start a blog just like that, to cover all the contests going on online and be able to participate in all of them so that I wouldn´t have to use any of my own blogs to post.

If you have a good look around you will find a zillion contests going on every day and I am sure that a person dedicating his/her time to participating in all of them, would actually be able to make a pretty decent living out of.

But then again, who really has the time to go and find current updated contests that will get you cash instead of mumbojumbo?

It looks like Dennis Edell however is going to put in the work for everybody wanting to participate in cash contests at his EasyCashContests blog.

Like he says in his about page, only contests will be listed that actually offer cold hard cash and knowing Dennis a little bit, I am sure he will only list those contests that are really worth participating in. How is that for a time-saver?

I highly recommend his EasyCashContests blog if you are looking for big bucks to win online, right now he is featuring contests for people interested in creathing delish dishes,… first prizes …. $500!!

Now being the swell guy that he is, Dennis is holding his own contest as well to give his readers the opportunity to start off the year with an extra $100 first prize and loads of other prizes.

Meanwhile, I am keeping my fingers crossed to win the $100 myself or some other goodies!!

For more information about the contest that he is holding on his blog right now, you can go to the contest post or check out the huge amount of prizes to be won below. Remember, the contest finishes the 31st of January so put on your writing boots and take a shot at all the lovely goodies!

Sponsors & Prizes:

CASH VIA PAYPAL:

Dennis Edell @ Beginner Marketing Tips – $25

Dennis Edell @ Win Cash Online – $25

Dennis Edell @ DennisEdell.com – $25

Yep, he is personally putting up $75 .

Mirjam @ MeMyselfAndIBlog – $10

Wei Liang @ ABloggerBlog – $10

Rodel @ Lagahit.com – $25

Suzanne Franco @ SuzanneFranco.com – $30

BANNER ADS (1 month ea. w/value if available):

Sherry @ SherrysShopping – 125×125

Sherry @ PinkyPosh – 125×125

Sherry @ AnotherContest – 125×125

Wei Liang @ ABloggerBlog – 125 x 125 ($10)

Superman Joe @ PostBlogger – 300 x 250

Sharmin @ ContestSpot – 125×125

Erwin Tan @ ErwinTan.com – 125×125 ($20)

Jonathan @ How To Blog – 125×125 ($15)

Garry Conn @ GarryConn.com – 468×60 ($70)

ZK @ WebTrafficROI – 125×125 ($20)

Yan @ Blog Setup – 125×125 ($20)

Archie Pennies @ SomeExtraPennies – 125 x 125 for 4 months

TEXT LINKS:

Collin @ FeedFlare – life time blog roll link

Harish @ BloggingKid – 1 month text link ad

Archie Pennies @ SomeExtraPennies – site wide blog roll link for 4 months

EBOOKS:

Peter Lee @ Make Money Blogging – New Home Study Course,”Quit Being a Wage Slave in 10 Easy Steps” ($47)

Ben Pei – @ Make Money Online – Instant Blog Traffic ($47)

Kathy Hendershot-Hurd @ VirtualImpax – 8 Week Power Blog Launch product ($77)

BLOG REVIEWS:

Mirjam @ MeMyselfAndIBlog – Blog Review ($25)

Superman Joe @ PostBlogger – Blog Review

Nishadha @ rumblinglankan - Blog Review ($20)

ENTRECARD CREDITS:

Sherry @ Heart Random – 500 EC
Sherry @ Name Sherry – 500 EC
Sherry @ SherryGo – 500 EC

Rodel @ Cebupacificairphilippines – 1000 EC

Nishadha @ rumblinglankan – 1000 EC
Nishadha @ YeastInfectionInDogs – 1000 EC

Wiehanne @ Wiehanne Lounge – 500 EC
Wiehanne @ Medan Daily – 500 EC
Wiehanne @ SimplyWP – 500 EC

OTHER:

David R Young Jr @ Niche-It – custom squeeze page template package ($7)

Brian D. Hawkins @ ExtremeEzine – one year Pro membership to YourAdTracker ($39.95)

As a result of drastically wanting to change my life, I have started to put all my time and effort into learning about blogging and working hard on improving my own knowledge and skills. Over the last half year I have been doing a lot of research online, reading material of successful bloggers and people who are only just starting out, but what I mostly found was posts on how rich and happy they already were or on how rich and happy they wanted to become, without really sharing what to do in order to become succesful.

Some blogs sparked the light of hope and wanting to achieve things for myself, other blogs actually got me down and discouraged, thinking I would never make it.

A lot of material I came across felt like yet another post on the same, over and over again. The funny thing is that, once in a certain circle, you keep bumping in to the same bloggers, the same comments and the same blogs over and over again, which is curious if you come to think of the amount of blogs out there and diversity of interests all over the world.

But last night, when I was just about to reach my cut off time and ready to turn off my computer, I ran into a blog I wish I had found before. A blog packed with so many great posts and original content that it had me up and reading till 5 am this morning. A blog so inspirational that it had me going back when I finally woke up today.

Going back to its first post, dating the 12th of February 2007, I realised it has not even been online for a year and when it was started, it kind of felt it hadn´t found its own voice yet, although I believe the owner of the blog, Courtney Tuttle had his vision and goals well worked out.

I was searching for mistakes newbie bloggers make, because earlier that day I had seen a post of a Blogger Biggy making fun of newbies with a patronising and denigrating tone to it, an attitude I can´t stand in people. In retrospect, I actually am grateful he ticked me off, for it was because of that post that I came across Courts Internet Marketing School.

If I could only read one blog, this would definitely be the One, for it goes way beyond other blogs, offering sound advice, inspiration, motivation and tools to improve and keep improving my work. His list of 102 Ways to Make your Blog a backlink Superstar should be obligated material to read for any blogger out there who has a true desire to improve their blog.

So, if you could only read one blog, which one would it be?