The greatest internet marketing blog on the internet planet will be offline on Monday. Yes, Traffic Beast will be offline on Monday because I’m moving my website back to my dedicated server.

Authority Site Center  has decided not to host the websites anymore and want the members to move

Last time it took me a week to move my website to their webhosting due to the fact that I had to wait for them to setup my blog. Read my post Website Offline For A Week  But this time it’ll only take a day since I’ve done these sort of jobs thousands of times and there are no dependencies apart from the DNS name being refreshed around the world. (Let’s see if I need to revisit this comment if I cock up next week).

Copywriting is one of the skills in internet marketing that’s essential to learn. If you have great copywriting skills then you’ll have no problem making money online or offline.

I have a new site, which I’m developing at the moment and I did my own copywriting for it. After years of writing articles and sales letters, I’m getting the hang of it.

No matter, how much time I spend on writing a sales copy  or article, I always get some criticism from my friends and peers who are eager to give me feedback. The reason? They know I don’t mind feedback and they know they are helping me if they criticise.

I’ve bought some copywriting ebooks and videos but not too many. One of the sources I go to copywriting is Michel Fortin. No need for an introduction on  who he is (Google his name, if you’re a new comer).

His blog is one of the places I visit regularly to get information on copywriting. I know he tests stuff like mad and he’s very respected. Unfortunately, he’s also very expensive to hire now.

However, his blog is free to read and contains excellent information if you want to study copywriting for your sales pages, articles or emails.

One of his posts on his blog, http://www.michelfortin.com which I really liked was Put Your Copy To The Test. It was written a couple of years ago, but it contained a lot of useful information you can put in your copy now.

Before you race out and buy a copywriting ebook, video or course, check out Michel’s blog first. You may find all you need to know is already there free of charge.

One of the most painful things that’s experienced by many webmasters is waiting for the initial flow of traffic to come to your website.  Search engine optimization is something that takes a little bit of time to kick in and there is always a little bit of apprehension as far as wondering if what you’re doing is actually going to work.

Fortunately, there are some ways for you to pull instant traffic into your website in order to alleviate those fears.  The only bad part about this is that it is going to cost you some money in order for you to do so.

Pay per click marketing has been around for years and it really shows no sign of him going away.  One of the reasons why this is the case is because it is some of the best traffic that you will ever get to your website.

The people that click on pay per click links do so after searching for something that is directly related to what you have to offer.  The only way that this would not be the case is if you decided to bid on terms outside of your niche.

Of course, you’re going to need to learn a little bit about pay per click marketing before you decide to dive right into it.  Yes, the return for what you put into it can be inspiring but many people have lost a lot of money before they were actually familiar with how to run a successful pay per click marketing campaign.

Take a little bit of time to study the system and make sure that you know the ins and outs of it before you type in your credit card number.  It really isn’t difficult to understand so a couple hours of learning can end up saving you a bundle, especially if you’ve never done it before.

The best part about pay per click marketing, outside of the fact of how well it works is that it is instant gratification.  Within moments after signing up for your pay per click account, your ads can be live and viewable on the major search engines.

Never before has instant traffic that is this targeted been available by any means.  Take the time to learn a little bit about this system, you would be surprised with how quickly it can work for you.

A great way to use Pay Per Click is to advertise a product or service you’re going to develop. Put up some ads and see how many people are interested.

If the response is good, then develop the product or service.

If you want to you start using pay per click marketing then dive into it using coupons. You’ll need a new account to take advantage of the coupons but it’s free money, so go for it.

Here’s a coupon that I found for Yahoo! Sponsored Search. You need $30 deposit though. $30 for $130 of clicks. Sounds good to me.

$100 With Yahoo! Sponsored Search

For other discount coupons, visit the blog AdGridWork. They’ve listed over $300 worth of Pay Per Click Coupons. This save you a lot of money getting your feet wet with PPC.

http://blog.adgridwork.com/free-ppc-coupons-free-ppc-vouchers/

One of the things not discussed much in internet marketing is your [tag-tec]business card[/tag-tec].

There are stacks of information on pay per clicks, search engine optimization, article marketing, social marketing, product launch formulas etc…but none on business cards (an opportunity for someone to create an ebook on this?)

Here are some insights from my own [tag-tec]split testing[/tag-tec]. Yes, I’ve split tested my business cards since I only order 50 cards every time. I have attended quite a few IT and Business seminars (not related to [tag-tec]internet marketing[/tag-tec]) so I get the opportunity to split test.

Business Card Essentials

1. Having a too colorful business card will make you look unprofessional. I’ve seen people smirk behind the other person’s back, apparently they think the business card looks like a comic cover.

Generally people like business cards with 3 colors at most. And preferably not showing any cheesy pictures.

Examples of cheesy pictures on name cards include money falling from the sky, a ferrari, a big house etc… They may work online in sales letters but not when you’re attending seminars with offline business owners.

2. You must have a tagline on your name card. Your companies’ name such as Online Marketing Experts Limited is good for reminding the person what you do. However, nothing beats a great tagline.

A beneficial tagline such as “Helping Your Business Increase Online Sales” will make you stand out more.

3. There are 5 contact details to put on your business card.

- Mobile/Cell Number (with a country code – gives the impression you’re dealing a lot with oversea clients)

- Your email address with your own domain. Please don’t put a Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo account if you want to be taken seriously.

- Your website’s URL (Have it hosted on free webhosting if you want to be a laughing stock)

- Skype ID (Again, makes your business look international)

- Office/Home Address

4. From my experience it’s not wise to put your own picture on the business card. It makes you look like an insurance agent also people will think you love yourself. Actually women can get away with this. But not men.

5. Use the back of your name card!!! I’ve seen so many people leaving the back of their name cards blank and it’s like throwing opportunities away.

On the back of your name card, list out your marketing services. eg. copywriting, search engine optimization, coaching etc… People will be more interested with your company after understanding what services you provide.

Remember after you’ve had a quick chat with the person, they’ll stick your name card in their pockets and will read it later. Sometimes maybe 1 or 2 weeks later. Don’t expect them to remember what you told them when you gave out your business card.

6. There are some clever designs out there, that will make people take note of your card. These include metal cards, cards with irregular shape or cards with holes in them. They do make people start at your card more.

However, you have to be careful. Being too creative will make you look stylish but unprofessional (some people think like this but not everyone). So to be on the safe side, have a normal looking card with a maximum of 3 colors.

7. And finally, at the bottom of your card, have something like “Download a free report on how to get more targeted visitors at http://www.trafficbeast.com/newsletter “. When people visit that certain link on your website, show a squeeze page to have them opt in to download the report.

This is a must. It’s amazing how many leads you can pick up this way and follow up with your autoresponder.

Even if people have interest with your services, they won’t contact you. In time they’ll forget about you. So get them on your list!

With your report, tell them how to do certain things that will benefit their business. Then at the end of the report, tell them that they can outsource this type of work to your company. Cool eh?

So how do I know these type of stuff work?

Because I ask a lot of people’s comments after the seminars. I remember once going out for a drink with a bunch of friends after a big IT seminar where I took out all the business cards and I started to criticize them.

No persuasion was needed – everyone jumped in and gave their comments.

Just before I go, I wanted to tell you that I installed a cool plugin for my blog that will benefit people who comment on my blog. Check it out!

During my trip to Bali and meeting with other internet marketers, it was very valuable listening to others’ experiences. For myself, I have only attended 2 internet marketing seminars. Being in Hong Kong is one of the disadvantages with internet marketing.

The only way for me to attend internet marketing seminars is to go to other countries (Singapore has the most seminars). So my experience at seminars is very little. But with the ones I’ve attended, I’ve realized I’ve made several mistakes. Let me explain.

From the internet marketers I spoke to in Bali, they attend a lot of seminars. Especially the big ones where it’s targeted for newbies and the price is generally affordable. For example, the World Internet Summit.

My Mistakes 

1. I attended all the presentations. Even the ones that talked about simple things such as web hosting and where to join affiliate programs.

From the feedback I got, a lot of internet marketers attend the seminars for fun and taking pictures. For presentations that they’re not interested in, they go out in the hallway and talk with other people. They spend the time networking and promoting themselves.

They sometimes meet their fellow internet marketers and talk about possible joint ventures together. They also meet interesting business owners who know nothing about internet marketing – needless to say, a slight hint of their services is carelessly leaked.

2. After watching the speakers on stage, I will ask for a photograph with them later on. Need to wait ages though because there’s so many people around them.

A valuable tip I got was that I should be hanging about in the hallway before the speaker’s presentation started and try to get a hold of the them. Actually taking pictures with them and asking them questions and introducing yourself.

The speakers like to speak to other people before they go on stage because they want to get a feel of the attendees and it makes them feel a lot comfortable before going on stage knowing that they have fans out there.

Using this technique, you can have the speaker all to yourself and they’ll have a lasting impression of you too.

3. During the seminar, I tend to sit with my friends and other people I know and we discuss the presentations. Then during lunch we share our notes and talk about other things unrelated to internet marketing.

A great tip I got was that I should target groups of people that are at the seminar, taking serious notes even though basic internet marketing information was taught.

Then during lunch time, or any other breaks, try and get an opportunity to join the group. Offer help and advice. Get their email addresses and phone numbers so you can follow up later on after the seminar.

These are your potential customers. During lunch with them, talk about your expertise and how you’ve attended many seminars and know a lot of the stuff etc… Tell them to feel free to contact you after wards. Arrange a session a month later with the whole group to go over what was discussed.

Recommending services like aweber, hostgator webhosting, xsitepro and your help with Adwords etc… will benefit both parties.

Hell, I know where to go for lunch next time I attend a seminar.

4. During breaks in the seminars, I do speak with the presenters but that’s it. Nothing after that. All I have is a picture which I can post to my blog.

When asking your questions to the presenters, I was advised that I should have them planned in advance. For example, what the speaker has recently blogged and what products they have released.

Mentioning their products and also talking about using the methods in their ebooks or courses, will raise their interest in speaking to you. If there is some information from their products you don’t understand then ask them. Keep up their interest in speaking with you.

If you’ve done any tests that are related to what they’ve taught, then tell them. They’ll be interested.

Ask them questions like can they refer any experts on a certain topic such as [tag-tec]article marketing[/tag-tec]. Then when you speak to the expert on article marketing, mention that they were referred by that particular speaker. It’s a great way to break the ice and get recognition.

And finally, try to ask the speakers if it’s possible to arrange an interview with them. Tell them that you’ve planned this opportunity for a long time and was really excited when you knew they were coming to do this seminar so that you can have a chance to ask them.

This is very hard to refuse by a speaker. You’re acting like a fan who loves their stuff and you have also told them about other well-know internet marketers that have referred you to them. Also drop in a comment that some other internet marketers have lined up for you to interview them as well.

The whole point is to get their email address so you can remind them of the interview and also put the picture of you together to remind them again of who you are.

I now have a whole new view of internet marketing seminars. I see the people there as targeted traffic which I should attract and get them to sign up to my list (in the case of a seminar, exchange email addresses and phone numbers).

Go to the seminar prepared with questions, business cards and a social attitude. No type of traffic on the internet beats meeting someone face to face.

I came across a site which I was very impressed with. It’s not new, but I’ll still mention it since not everyone knows about everything.

The site is called Social Marker. And it’s a hell of a tool.

It’s a bookmarking site that helps you submit your webpage or blog post to around 47 [tag-tec]bookmarking sites[/tag-tec]. This is the only service which I know does this with this many websites and it’s free!

It even includes my favourites StumbleUpon, Propeller, Digg, Sphinn, Technorati and Reddit. It’s like someone read my mind and built this tool for me

Here’s what you do:

1. Go to this social bookmarking service at http://www.socialmarker.com

2. Sign up for all 47 [tag-tec]social bookmarking sites[/tag-tec]. This will take you a long time if you haven’t signed up for most of them. For someone completely new, I would foresee spending 2 days at least to sign up for all these bookmarking sites.

But trust me on this. It’s well worth your time to do this.

3. Now when whenever you have an article written, or written an excellent blog post, use the Social Marker service which is online to submit to all the 47 social bookmarking sites.

This service has saved me a considerable amount of time.

I’m not sure why social marker is providing this as a free service because they can certainly charge for it. Anyway, jump on this service now and make a difference to your traffic.

A little side note: With social bookmarking, I notice that the traffic from StumbleUpon is very good. Good in the sense that there’s lots of them and better quality than Digg.

Digg will bring you shit loads of traffic if you’re on the first page, but the quality of the traffic is very bad.

From time to time, something comes along that is relatively innovative as far as Internet marketing is concerned.  For many years, webmasters were stuck with a limited amount of things that they could do in order to monetize their website.

They were constantly trying to match up their visitors with pay per lead programs, affiliate programs and banner advertising. With the decline of banner advertising, however, there was a need for something new and innovative to take its place.  Google Adsense filled that need.

It is not difficult to find these Google ads on another webpage, there are literally hundreds of thousands of pages, if not more, that contain these particular ads.

There are a couple reasons why people like to use ads from Google in order to monetize their website.  The first reason is because they are easy to place on your website and they are self targeting once they are in position.

Another reason is because they work, especially if they are used in the proper way.  How can you make Google Adsense work on your website?

There have been people, from time to time, that were unhappy with the results that they got from Google advertising.  For the most part, these individuals were placing their ads in obscure locations on their website and were not doing much in order to optimize the page to receive the all-important click through.

If you are trying to make money with Google and are having a bit of a difficulty getting people to click, there are a few things that you can do in order to improve your numbers.

The first thing that you can do in order to improve the amount of clicks that you get from the Google Adsense program is to blend the ads into your website.

The default ad design has a blue border that is surrounding the ads and this border typically tips people off to the fact that it is actually an advertisement.  If you make the border and the background of the ad itself blend with your website, people will click on the ads more readily.

It also helps to use large ads that are above the fold of your page so that people do not need to scroll down in order to view them.  By doing just these few things to your Google ads on your pages, you would be surprised at how much your income will improve.

One of the experts in Adsense is Jimmy Chen who I’ve met on my Bali trip. His website is the Adsense King and I recommend you to check out his information. After all, he makes a living from it.

Yesterday, I did an interview with Willie Crawford over Skype. This interview will be one of several interviews I’ll be doing which I’ll release as a physical product later this year.

It was quite funny during the interview because the first time I interviewed Willie was on Tuesday night and I had problems with my PC. I had to delay the interview for around 10 minutes.

I eventually solved the problem by rebooting my PC and re-installing the software. Strange that everything was working and tested the night before.

Then finally, our [tag-tec]internet marketing interview[/tag-tec] started. But 5 mins later, lo and behold, the office next door started to drill holes and decorate the office. I was well pissed.

The noise was unbearable and I had to cancel the call with Willie. It was embarrassing. I looked so unprofessional. But being my good mentor, Willie took it lightly and promised to be interviewed again which was yesterday.

Yes. The interview yesterday was smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Here’s a little history with Willie Crawford and myself. I’ve know Willie for roughly 4 years where I had him as my internet marketing mentor for my [tag-tec]online business[/tag-tec]. Let me just say that he taught me a lot and I always felt hyped up after speaking to him.

For the interview, I used Skype with PowerGammo. The latter, is a software which records Skype calls and it’s free. I checked the quality of the recording after the call and it was great.

Now all I need is to get it transcribed.

Here’s a lesson for those who want to do interviews over Skype. Make sure you check everything such as your PC half an hour before the interview starts and not just the previous day. PCs sometimes behave strangely overnight.

Also make sure you check with your next door neighbours if they’re drilling or not. Tell them that you’re doing an interview during a certain time slot and that you’ll box their ears if they make any noise.

Sign up for my internet marketing newsletter for updates on more upcoming interviews.

If you’ve been working on Article Marketing for any length of time then you’ll no doubt would have read up on the topic with a lot of ebooks, forum postings and articles.

Every dude tells you it works. But it doesn’t in your case and you think you’re being lied to. Yes, everyone’s lying out there and you fell for it.

But seriously, have you asked yourself that the reason is probably because the articles you write suck?

It might actually be that [tag-tec]article marketing[/tag-tec] works, but your writing skills are crap. And not it’s hard for people to accept that.

Well I’ve complied a list of things that crappy articles have and you can go through this list and see if you meet any of the criterias of having writing crap articles.

Top 7 Reasons Your Article Marketing Suck

1. Your topic is not what the reader wants to read. They don’t really care about what you have to say in about that particular topic. Have you checked if the topic you’re writing about is hot?

Say that you’re writing on the niche, internet marketing and your topic is “Why is building a list important in internet marketing”. Not many people will click to read your article.

The reason? Every Tom, Dick and Harry who have been studying Internet Marketing will know how important it is to build a list.

You’re writing something which nearly everyone knows about. You’ll probably get a few clicks from beginners but the traffic is minimum.

You need to visit forums, read blogs, visit social news on your niche, etc… and see what the market is interested in.

2. Your article title sucks badly. I’ve written in depth about this in my post How To Write An Incredible Article Title.

Basically, your article title is the most important part of your article marketing campaign. You need to make sure that you’ve written an incredible article title before you publish your article. Otherwise, you might as well scrap the whole thing and save your time.

3. Your article is not search engine optimized, therefore not many people can find it on the search engines when they are searching.

You’ve written an article, and you’ve submitted it to [tag-tec]article directories[/tag-tec] and hopefully some ezine publishers have republished your article as well.

But what about traffic from the search engines?

If you’ve done the right keyword research with your articles, some of them should be ranking well in the search engines which would generate a lot of traffic for you.

4. Your article is boring as hell. Not much more explaining is needed here.

Just remember that articles you write are for human beings. And us human beings like to learn but we love to be entertained.

So if reading your article makes us learn something and it entertains us…you’ve succeeded.

5. You’ve written a few articles and expect shit loads of traffic.

No, no, no. Article marketing works in the sense that it generates targeted traffic. The web traffic generated is even more targeted than people who find you on search engines and pay per click campaigns.

But Article Marketing is a slow process. Some of your articles will be a hit. Some will nose dive. It’s a fact and you have to accept it.

Article Marketing is a numbers game. As long as you are following the right steps and consistently write new articles, there is no way that you won’t get an avalanche of traffic. It just needs time.

It’s like rolling a dice 10 times. You haven’t got a Six and think it’s impossible to roll a Six and you give up.

6. You’ve created a dead resource box.

I’ve written about this in depth in my article marketing book. One of the best articles I’ve read on this topic is by Chris Knight of EzineArticles – The Perfect Author Resource Box

Basically, the most important thing with an article is the resource box. It is where you get your clicks. So spend a lot of time creating a kick ass resource box.

7. You foolishly submit and forget about your article. You have not marketed your article and expect people to read it. I mentioned 10 marketing strategies you can use to market your articles in the book Article Marketing Strategies. Download and read the book and take action.

Many people do the article writing, but they don’t do the article marketing. Now that is the secret of article marketing.

Article marketing is blindly done by a lot of people who just write articles on topics they know about and hope for the best. But have you done the necessary research for writing your articles?

Article writers generally skip the step of researching – which is the most important part of article marketing.

There are 2 types of research you need to do.

Keyword Research

When you write an article, you would want it to appear in the search engine listings with keywords that are relevant to the topic of your article.

If you are selling second hand cars in Florida, then you should research on keywords to write about. For keyword research I use WordTracker and Google’s Free Keyword Tool.

You should look for keywords that are not too general and contain 2 or more keywords. For example, “second hand cars in Florida”.

If you are targeting for the phrase “second hand cars” then your article would go missing in the search engines. There is too much competition for the phrase and it is not targeted. You want to target the audience who wants to buy cars in Florida.

With a list of these long tail keywords, make sure they are getting searched and competition is not too aggressive.  Then put these keywords into your article title if possible, beginning of your article content, somewhere in the middle and near the end as well.

The key is to try and place these keywords into your article without making the article sound awkward.

Write different articles for each long tail keyword you find and then check your results. Write more articles on the long tail keywords that are  giving you the traffic.

With this research part done, your article will be published in the article directories plus it has a chance of being found in the search engine results.

Topic Research

The last research you should do is topic research for your article marketing. Article directories contain a goldmine of information. You can see what topics articles are mostly written about and the number of views for each article.

If a certain topic is regularly written on, and has lots of views, you can be sure that it has demand. So write your articles on topics which people want to read about.

Don’t try and re-invent the wheel by writing about something which other people hasn’t written before. Article directories are practically screaming at you, telling you what you should write about.

Article marketing is an art. The more you write, the better you become at it. You just need to be pointed in the right direction to start developing this art.  To learn the essentials on article marketing make sure you download my book Article Marketing Strategies and carry out the steps.