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Well. If you’re a blogger anyway…. it means yet another way you can increase your blog traffic is by covering the news.
No, it’s not a new concept - I’ve been harping on that for at least two years, as all you regulars know. 
What’s new is that Technorati is helping blogs get featured on AP News sites.
After having the pleasure of witnessing a friend of mine hit the Associated Press newswire last year, it’s great to see that Technorati is going to be partnering with Associated Press member sites. That means that the next time a friend of mine is covered by AP, I can blog about it and possibly appear in one of the links to the stories.
From Technorati’s Weblog Post:
The new service will bring blogger commentary about AP news stories to communities large and small throughout the USA, giving bloggers a voice in trusted local papers throughout the nation. For many news readers, this will be their first exposure to the blogosphere with national, international, business and sports news presented along side links to blogger commentary and perspective.
So what does that mean to you? If you have any reason to cover stories that pop up on the AP wire, then sugar… dumpling … blog about them. Link naturally, and not just because of the traffic - it’s an extra boost, not the whole point.
What I’m really hoping is that this bold venture will help build bridges between bloggers and reporters. In some trades and local dailies, you can almost feel the animosity towards bloggers coming off the page. I just had a conversation about this with the folks over at Real Estate Blog Sites, who set up MyST Blog sites specifcally for the high end real estate industry. It seems that in some online newspapers, you still see a blog backlash - some play down their effectiveness in generating leads, others warn big companies to fear the blogosphere instead of reach out to it.
Anyway. Before I dive headlong into that tangent, just though you should know.
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The smack-talk award of the day goes to Lulu.tv.
I was at the regular version of Lulu today to do the update of my Free Traffic Tips book. The final edition of a bound collection and PDF version of my blog goes on sale today for exactly 14 days, for the last time ever. Just like I pulled my first Google book off the server, the time for that book has ended too. I’m only giving online access to my archives to the Traffic Reality crew from here on out, and after that, no one gets offline access to my blog ever again.
But now I’m sidetracked… why did I log in??
Oh yeah! While I was at Lulu.com I saw a link in the lower left corner that said “Lulu.tv.”. And since I’m a sucker for justaboutanything.tv I had to go see what it was. And wouldn’t you know it… free video uploads for quality video bloggers.
So I go to their About page, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve read online this week. An example quote from the bottom of the page.
Why does this “about” section read like a FAQ?
FAQ you! That’s why!
LMAO! I love it!
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How’s that for a way to increase your website traffic?
Since so many people come here asking me the same thing “how do I get free traffic” without actually clicking the link at the top of the page that says “How to Get Free Traffic“, I thought I’d make a special post to say, if you’re just here to learn how to get free traffic, here’s a link to the on-going series about it.
I used to call that page, “The Free Traffic Methods Series“.
But apparently, that’s not clear enough.
If you’re waiting until the end of the month for the in-depth traffic tutorials, you’ll still want to skim over those pages to get some basic information. After I create your traffic product, I’ll go back and make an even more comprehenisve list to all the basic traffic methods up in here.
Ta!
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Before you yell at me for not posting lately, realize that I’m putting together the product I promised you that is a straightforward guide to getting traffic to your website, and that I have a backlog of custom blog research reports to do.
To tide you over for a bit, I want to introduce you to one of my favorite bloggers. His site, Entrepreneur’s Journey is just a fantastic resource, and you can follow him through his various missions as a micro-business owner. He always has a bunch of great fun tips and facts. Recently he did a wonderful review of the Motivated Marketing System which I just bought (that’s a link to his post, not an affiliate link. Not that I care if you don’t like them, I just want you to follow the link to Yaro’s site. )
Here’s an idea for you. Put my traffic ideas together with his money making ideas and life will taste better than a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
Don’t forget to bookmark the link to his site, and drag this link into your feed reader to subscribe.
Why? Because 1- I said so. And 2- Yaro is the Man.
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Targeting more affluent clientele, and cutting to the chase.
Giving a lot of great, free information, from your blog or newsletter is great for a certain crowd at a certain time for a certain amount of time. If you’re making a name for yourself, or building a resource site that will direct traffic to your mini-sites, that’s wonderful.
But there’s going to come a time when you’ll notice that people want to give you their money in the interests of getting just the what they need to know, without the extra fluff.
They don’t have time for free.
They don’t have time for free.
They don’t. Have the time. To get join your free site, then get your one-time-only-offer, then download your free book, which is the only place where you have your sales link.
They’d much rather go to your competitor and pay them $100, $250 or $1000 to get all the reports right away, hire you to do the research or hire you to do the whole job.
It took me some time to see this, and my big dilemna was “what if I like having a free resource? What if I do this as much for fun as for money and traffic? Then what?”
That was very simple, and it was Shawn Casey who enlightened me. I was already targeting more affluent clientele, because I was going where they were, and so was my business partner.
We had corporate clients and we served them a bit differently.
But I was using the beginner logic on the affluent clients and my partner was not. So I watched him for about a year. And I applied Shawn Casey’s very simple advice.
What was it? If you guess correctly what Shawn Casey told me that tripled my income in a month, I’ll tell you what it is. If you don’t, you’ll have to ask Shawn yourself. Be prepared to part with a dollar, bu it was 100% worth it.
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Noticing what you do online. Look at your own buying habits, and then sell to people like you.
Here’s a few marketing insights I had into myself today.
- Once I’m done working, every Friday, without fail, I look in my “save em” folder and buy all the stuff I was interested in this week, then go to the Warriors forum and randomly buy stuff. I must blow through 10% of the profits I make each week just buying stuff.
- Even online, I’m a name brand person. I saw something for sale in a signature line, and the author was Allen Says. I didn’t look at the address to see if it was a reseller, an affiliate or what. I just went to the sales page, did a search for the $ sign, and bought it. I probably won’t read it for three weeks, despite how urgent I thought was to have it right that instant.
- I love membership sites. I am a paid member of about 100 sites. I visit maybe three of them a week. But I don’t like cancelling subscriptions unless the content and downloads are really crappy. I look at it in terms of how much money I save by having access. Plus, I like to belong to stuff.
So what got me thinking about my own buying mentality, and how to use it to increase sales? The Warriors Forum. Allen has this membership area within the forum called… well, the name is kinda classified. But have you ever read anything and started counting money in your head?
It’s that kind of place. I am going to re-organize my whole life just so I have time every week to go play over there more often.
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