ColonelKaizen.com - Internet Marketing Blog

“Free Advertising” - sounds good doesn’t it. A lot of so called free advertising is free for a reason, and that is that it’s useless. There is however a number of programs and methods out there that deliver top quality traffic to your site, all 100% free.

The following is a list of what I believe are the best sources and methods for obtaining that wonderful thing called ‘free advertising’.

1) BlogRush

It’s no secret that I love this program - I think it is one of the best things to hit internet marketing in a long time. It’s really simple and very effective.

2) Real Traffic Exchange

This is somewhat similar to BlogRush - not as good in my humble opinion, but certainly good enough to be worth your time.

3) Conquer Your Niche Forum

This is a free forum run by Russel Brunson. You get all the usual benefits of forum posting (i.e. the link in your signiture tag that points back to your website), but you also get to post ads that run along the top of the forum. The amount your ad shows is proportional to your activity in the forum - each forum post gets your ad shown 1,000 times.

4) InstantBuzz

This tool has been around for a while now and has really proven itself. It is a toolbar that installs in your browser and rotates ads (within the toolbar itself). As your surf, you generate impressions for your own ad, which is shown on other peoples browsers. I’ve personally found this tool very effective.

5) Article Marketing

This is a very effective method of generating links and visitors to your site. Basically you write an article (or have it written for you) and post it to the article directories e.g. EzineArticles.com. In the author’s biography box, you add a link to your site, and ‘hey presto’, you have a back link and potential visitors. This gets really good when other people start putting your article on their sites, generating more links and visitors.

One resource I highly recommend on article marketing is the bummarketingmethod.com

I hope you find these resources useful - I certainly have

CK

Recently I read a blog post entitled something like, “Sorry Mr Reese - No Good”.

Is was a review of the recently released BlogRush program - a program I thought was fantastic, so naturally the article got my attention.

Overall it didn’t give many good reasons to think badly of BlogRush at all, but it did recommend a program that was apparently ‘better’ than BlogRush.

This program was called ‘Real Traffic Exchange‘.

Naturally I had to check it out and see if the hype was accurate or just more ‘internet marketing hype’.

Here is the breakdown of my experience with it so far:

Good Points

• It’s free - but most similar programs are, including BlogRush.
• You can credit for referrals - but, again so do most programs like this.
• You earn $$$ if your downline purchase advertising credits..
• Ads are targetted by category - just like BlogRush.
• Ad appearances are customizable.

Bad Points

• The ads look less appealing than those of some competitors (such as ….)
• The main signup site is less appealing than BlogRush. This could potentially limit your downline growth.

Overall

Overall, the only area Real Traffic Exchange convincingly beats BlogRush is in the fact that you can earn $$$ from your downline. It is still a worthwhile program to use alongside BlogRush however, so I recommend them both together. If you have to choose though, I would side with BlogRush.

CK

In my last post I reviewed John Reese’s new program - BlogRush. Today I want to discuss the best way to use this fantastic tool, and how to get the most out of it.

The following are ‘7 Tips For Effective Use Of BlogRush‘:

1. Every Blog Post Title Is A Sales Pitch

The way BlogRush works is to pull your blog post headlines out and advertise them on other peoples blogs. Therefore, if you want people to click on that link and visit your blog, each blog post title needs to be somewhat of a sales pitch. By this I don’t mean “Click Here To Make A Million Bucks“, but I do mean that you need to create interest and curiosity in those reading that headline.

For example, if your blog post is about what to feed your cat, you could title it “My Cat Food Guide“, or you could title it “Ten Things You Should Never Feed Your Cat (But Probably Already Have)“. See this difference? Which would you click on first?

2. Make Your Posts Valuable Reading

To carry on with our last example, if someone did click on the link “Ten Things You Should Never Feed Your Cat (But Probably Already Have)“, and came to your site, they would reasonably expect a quality blog post about exactly that - ten things you should never feed your cat.

Therefore, don’t write a sales pitch for some product and then give it a deceptive title just to get people to click on it. If you do they’ll leave your site faster than they found it.  Instead write a quality entry full of useful information, and then put a link to your sales pitch at the bottom e.g. “If you liked these tips, you’ll find many more in this ebook…” etc.

3. Integrate Your BlogRush Widget Properly

Integrating your BlogRush widget well is essential. The potential cost if you don’t is that it will make your site look tacky and unprofessional. If you do it well however, it can increase the quality of your blog’s appearance and make it more appealing.

The key primarily is colors; make sure the widget blends in well with the existing color scheme of your site. The wide range of available color schemes for BlogRush means this isn’t a hard task.

4. Place Your Widget Appropriately

The BlogRush widget is essentially a box full of text links, and therefore looks most at home in either the right or left column of your blog, under the other areas with text links e.g. categories, blogroll, recent posts etc.

Don’t put the BlogRush widget slap bang in the middle of your page where it looks more like an eyesore rather than a useful addition to the blog.

5. Promote BlogRush

Don’t forget the benefits of recruiting other members to BlogRush - you can earn some good traffic this way. Featuring your BlogRush widget prominently on your site is a good way to let others know about it, and when they join from your widget, you will earn some extra traffic for as long as they use it.

6. Maximise Your Use Of BlogRush

If you have multiple blogs, make sure you put BlogRush on all of them. The more impressions you generate, the more impressions you have on other people’s blogs to bring you traffic.

7. Experiment

Your BlogRush members area will give you detailed statistics about how many clickthroughs you generated from how many impressions. Monitor this data and try different things with your blog post titles to see what gets the best clickthrough rates.

If you do this continually you will get better and better, and therefore get more and more traffic - all free of course!

So in summary - use BlogRush today, and use it well.

CK

A short time ago John Reese launched the first program in the project he is referring to as ‘Income.com’.

This program is ‘BlogRush‘, which is basically a tool for advertising your blog on other blogs, and of course, vice versa.

BlogRush is wonderfully simple, easy to implement on your blog, and works very well at bringing in traffic to your blog.

Here’s how it works:

- You add the BlogRush widget to your site, which appears as a box with several text links in it. You can choose the color format from a wide array to match it to your blog.

- Everytime your blog earns a ‘page impression’ i.e. someone visits it, you earn an impression.

- The titles to entries on your blog will then be advertised on other people’s BlogRush boxes, which when people click on them, will bring them to your site.

- Plus, if someone sees the BlogRush widget on your site, and joins BlogRush from there, you will earn a percentage of the impressions they generate also.

So, in summary….

Pros:

- Very easy and effective way to bring traffic to your blog.

- Integrates very easily into your blog.

- Can potentially provide large traffic flows with time, as people join BlogRush via your links.

Cons:

- As with any advertising, it could potentially take a visitor away from your site when they click on a link.

- May distract from other features of your blog that you’re trying to promote e.g. an email subscription form.

Overall

Despite the few small drawbacks of putting the BlogRush widget on your site, I highly recommend it. It’s a very easy, fast and effective way to promote your blog.

CK