What can you do to become a pro-blogger?

Well, you need to get a lot of traffic to your blog.

And now you thinking….’I already know that, but HOW am I going to do it? I have some trade secrets to let you in on. By using these trade secrets, you too, can become a pro blogger.

Today, you are going to learn some great tricks of the trade to grab the attention of StumbleUpon, and use their platform to set your blog on fire. These tips and tricks will get you anywhere from the hundreds up to the thousands of StumbleUpon visitors each day.

StumbleUpon does lean toward some niches more than others, and you need to use this to work for your advantage. You will find that StumbleUpon can be one of the greatest viral marketing tool out there. So here are some tips:

• If you do have a niche that is lacking in the mass appeal, StumbleUpon will be a great boost for you where the others won’t. Digg uses a broad forum which keeps their power from weakening in traffic. StumbleUpon works a bit differently by creating more specific categories, providing a more targeted audience.

• Write posts that appeal to the particular social media, if you go for the general appeal, you are going to lose your followers. For instance, Del.icio.us likes anything that their users prefer, Digg likes the appeal of the masses. You have to have content that is going to get thousands of hits, or you won’t become a pro-blogger.

• When you are writing for StumbleUpon, you don’t need to worry about pleasing the masses, matter of fact, you benefit more by sticking with your niche, yes, even your small ones, and this will bring you some highly targeted traffic.

• So, write your content for your niche, not for the general public. By doing this, you will increase your chances to your post will be submitted to receive more traffic in a more specific category.

In another blog, I will go into the types of posts you should and should not be making. I will go into the types of content and the things you can do to make your blog more appealing to StumbleUpon.

You Know About SEO, But, Do You Know About SMO?

SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which is known to most Internet marketers throughout the world. But there are many who are not totally aware of SMO, which is a new term than SEO. SMO is a branch off the SEO tree, but there are many who are in the Internet marketing business that are not aware of this wonderful tool to increase their popularity in the search engines.

What is SMO? It is Social Media Optimization

As you would use SEO on the search engines, SMO will work on the social media sites. As you may well know, the Social Media sites to not focus on the business aspect of the Internet, but they do focus on social interaction such as the blogs, forums, communities, video websites, music sites, etc…

Search Engine Optimization is great in providing long term ranking to your websites, whereas, SMO’s are great at creating a viral marketing buzz to your business. You can look at this as a great gossip columnist spreading the buzz or news about your site, and watching the buzz take off like fire. You will be creating not only a buzz, but bringing in visitors just out of sheer curiosity.

Are There Any Disadvantages of SMO I Should Be Aware Of?

Yes, there is a drawback and that is the speed of which it takes off then fades. This works like the news, it comes out, hits the papers, then becomes old news. SEO, however, is very effective and permanent, giving it a higher ranking among Internet marketers.

But what happens when you combine the two, SMO and SEO? You then create a great partnership linking your website to some high quality content, while the website is named on the social media sites. You will be creating a win/win situation, using great content which is essential to both the SEO as well as the SMO techniques.

There are a number of websites that are social media sites which include rich content. One of these sites is Yahoo! Answers. This site answers queries while promoting their own websites indirectly.

It is important to have search engine optimization in promoting your website and making it visible to the viewers, however, coupled with social media optimization, you will reap the rewards of higher results than SEO techniques alone.

How To Get SMO Going For You

I am going to recommend you using Google Gadgets, which are tiny bits of code that can be downloaded for free right from Google. You can apply these Google gadgets as your own signature as you post on blogs or forums, attracting interest to your website, all at no cost to you.

Another option is to visit a few of the social media network sites and create your own page. This is simple to do and won’t take up a lot of your time. You may find that there are more people on the Internet that share your same interests. Send them a note with your cute Google gadget in your signature.

Social marketing is an ideal way to get a target market. If you want to direct people to your website, you need only visit some of the different social network sites on the Internet and make a page. This can be done in a matter of minutes. Then find others who share your interests and send them a note with your own personal signature, complete with a cute little Gadget. Gadgets can be customized and make a fun signature at the end of your post. They can be used to link others to your website.

Visit relevant websites and forums, creating your own ‘buzz’ just by using SMO. And as you search out relevant blogs and forums, don’t limit yourself, take a chance on the .org, .gov., .edu and so on…there is more out there than just the dot.coms. As for the .edu sites, these are a great market as they are typically the colleges and Universities.

CONTENT IS KEY!

Create excellent and keyword rich content which will help you with search engine optimization, which will also help you in your brand marketing. You want to use the Google Gadgets, providing ample exposure to your website, creating your own ‘buzz’ and increasing your ranks on the search engines. You will create your Google Gadget for your product or website, use it as your post to the relevant forums and blogs. You will soon be the hot topic on the web.

ARE MUSICIANS TAKING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE WEB?

If You Would Like to Connect With Some of the Top Musicians and create your own Social Network at the same time; Then Read On…

If you are one that loves music, and would love to network with these artists, then you just may have your opportunity. Many of the artists, such as 50 Cent, Ludacris, Kylie Minogue and many more have decided to move away from the vast space of MySpace, to a new alternative site, a site that is destined to be a star on Web 2.0. This site is Ning, a place where you can connect with some of your favorite artists.

How Does Ning Work and Will It Benefit My Viral Marketing Campaign?

Ning was founded by Marc and Gina Bianchini in October 2004 to provide an opportunity for you and me the ability to create our own social networks for anything and everything. Ning is the power behind the largest number of the Internet’s social networks, and social networking is all about viral marketing.

You will have the opportunity to use the latest and greatest in social networking, features that are truly customizable by you to fit your needs. This is a platform that provides all the features you need to be a success in the social networking arena. The only thing you need to bring to the table is your time and determination. With this you will be able to build your own social network. This is not a prefitted site, this is one you create yourself.

What is the Purpose of Ning?

The founders first started Ning on a very simple premise, they wanted to provide a way for anyone to create their own social networking site. They were expecting some amazing results and they got that and so much more! They have artists, athletes, musicians , educators, journalists, students, alumni, hobbyists, and any other group of interests you can imagine. The diversity of these groups is amazing and quite profound.

As you check out the Ning website, you will find a very informative FAQ section, where you can learn about their Network Creators community.

Are you a business or company that wants to promote your private label? If so, check out Ning for Business.

You will find these features on the Ning website as posted there:

# Members can invite new members, meet new people, and make new friends on your network.

# Full message center with address book importing from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail.

# See your network members when they are online now.

# Customizable profile pages just for you.

# Photo slideshows, video players, music players, and network badges, that can be embedded anywhere on the Internet, seamlessly funneling new people to your network.

# Set your own different privacy settings for every photo, video, group, or blog post they contribute.

# RSS feeds of your network’s features, such as members, discussions, photos, videos, music/podcasts, and blog posts.

# Got a logo or brand? Add it to make your network totally unique.

# Choose your own theme from the options provided then customize them to make them your own.

# Public or private, that is totally up to you!

# Choose how your photos, video player, music players, and network badges appear on your site.

# Do you want to ask your members some profile questions before they join? You get to create this, and the questions will be private as well as the answers, for your eyes only.

# Do you juse Facebook? Enable “one-click” Facebook Promotion so your members can add photo slideshows, video players, and music/podcasts from your network seamlessly into Facebook.

# You have the ability to moderate photos and videos before you post them.

# Choose from a set of supported languages (English, Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish) or translate your social network into any unsupported language by changing one file in the code.

# Member profile questions created by you for your network.

# Member blog posts with photos, files, and widgets.

# Manage blog posts and moderate comments.

# Choose the option to publish in the future.

# Ability to customize the appearance of member profile pages.

# Option to add widgets to profile page.

Take advantage of this great social networking platform and create for yourself an even bigger and better network and keep your viral marketing campaign on fire!

No More Excuses, Now Anyone Can Convert Your Paper to iPaper

I came across this article as I was browsing some of my favorite blogs, and this immediately caught my attention. This is a site that is perfect for those who do not own a scanner or have convenient access to one.

Scribd now has a program they call Convert Your Paper to Ipaper…

which is a way for you to have all your paper documents scanned and published on the Internet, all at no cost to you..yes..you read that right….Totally FREE! All you need to worry about it getting the documents sent to them, then they take care of the rest.

How Can They Do This For Free?

They are able to offset the expense for scanning by the advertisements that are relevant to your documents.

Can You Have Any Type of Documents Scanned?

Scribd can scan almost any type of written document. They use a highly advanced scanning process which is provided by their partners, giving them the ability to scan about any document in high volumes. If you do have any questions however, they are easy to contact and ready to answer any of your questions.

Who is Scribd?

Scribd is a huge, digital library where you can publish your own original content. The focus of Scribd is to provide a way for those who have tons of documents sitting around their home or office, and to have a place to publish these documents for all to read.

What’s Their Plan?

First and foremost they are looking to save a lot of trees, which I am all for. They are also looking to utilize their space to service those who have some very important documents that were created long before the digital era. There may also be some documents that have been lost, out of print, or printed but now deleted. This provides a new life to documents that can be shared among many re-digitized and accessible to all.

The reason I am all for this and ready to support them is they are providing a great service at no cost to you. You no longer have to take the time scanning paper after paper, or the expense of purchasing a scanner, but just stick your documents in an envelope, send them off in the mail to Scribd, and before you know it, your documents are accessible to you on the Internet, never to be lost or misplaced again, nor taking up all that valuable space in your home or office.

Affiliate Programs and How They Can Boost Your Income

What Do You Know About Affiliate Marketing

As you already know, Internet marketing uses the Internet to market products as well as their promotion. You can be using this method to promote your own products or the products of others.

This is where we get into the affiliate programs and how they can benefit you financially by earning commission on the quality products you are promoting for others.

There are several avenues of marketing that you can use such as your website and web pages, personal blogs and Email Opt-in lists. You are going to promote the product with a squeeze page or promotional letter, In your letter, you will include an affiliate link which will contain the affiliate identifier.

With your affiliate identifier link, your visitors will click on the link, be sent to the product sales page or website, and with their purchase, you will be given a percentage of the sales price. This is very similar to sales in brick and mortar stores, however with an affiliate program, your part is very simple and self running. All you need to do is do the initial set up and optimize the traffic.

You need to realize though that Not All Affiliate Programs are the same, so choose wisely.

What you need to know and look for in choosing the right affiliate program:

1) Training and Support

Affiliate programs will usually provide training and support, which is crucial for those just starting out on Internet Marketing. This is so important as it will be the only way for you to become effective as well as profitable. You need to look for affiliate which offers sufficient training and the know how in selling their product. There are however, Internet marketers who have experienced great success in affiliates without the training and support, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that training and support?

2) Look for High Commissions

You are going to put in the effort to bring in the traffic to the affiliate product with your sales pitch, then directing the customers to the affiliate sales page, and for your well earned efforts, you will receive a percentage of the sale in form of commissions. As you look at the different Affiliate programs to market, look at the amount of commission they offer, some are hardly worth your effort.

The most popular site to promote affiliate programs is Clickbank. You will soon see that Clickbank is the largest online marketplace on the Internet. Clickbank places hundreds of thousands of products which are sold on a daily basis. There are some that pay up to 75% of the purchase price.

3) Affiliate Referral Programs

There are a few programs that will offer you a chance to recommend their affiliate programs yourself. This sill ultimately award you with a greater percentage of all the sales generated for the program you recommend. This is where your viral marketing techniques will come in effect, the more you recommend, the more money you will make.

4) Triple Combination; Affiliate Training and Support, Referral Commission and Product Commission

You will be happy to know that there are some programs out there that offer the best of all three worlds of affiliate marketing. You can have all of these with training to help you in your marketing efforts. A wonderful example of this is the Internet Marketing Center’s Affiliate program. With this combination, you can reap huge commission benefits.

You can make some good money with Internet marketing bringing you closer and closer to your goal of financial freedom. But remember, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort.