Good Ideas Are No Longer Good Enough

Over the last few years so many different blogs and web sites about Internet marketing have appeared on the Internet that it has become very difficult to make your site stand out from all of the others. It doesn’t matter if you are just starting a new site or if you are thinking about making your existing site more unique, the trick to creating and maintaining a site that captures the attention and interest of your target market is to find your own unique niche. If you are able to figure out a way to provide something unique that nobody else is doing then you will have a better chance of creating a lasting relationship with your site’s visitors. Once you have figured out your unique niche there is still a lot of work to do but this is the best way to begin.

Every great site starts out with a really good idea, and it’s almost impossible to build a really good site that lasts without one. There are many excellent websites out there that are targeted to Internet marketers so the competition out there can get pretty intense. To make sure that your site stands out from the pack you are going to need to offer something that nobody else is currently offering… or you will need to do something that someone else is already doing but do it in a way that is more impressive or that is more valuable to your visitors.

One of the ways you can develop a really good model for your site is to look at some other sites that have figured out how to successfully capture your target audience and determine if you can use some of their strategies to help you do something similar with your own site. I’m not saying you should copy them exactly. You will have to add your own unique twist to what they are doing in order to make sure your site stands out from all the others. I think many people would agree with me that the sites out there which are the most successful have their own unique personality. With so many popular sites to choose from most surfers will gravitate to the sites which they feel offers the best personality so try to take this into consideration when you are trying to decide how to give your site a unique feel by adding your own voice to the design and content on your site.

After you come up with a great concept for your site, picked a specific niche that you are comfortable with, and infused the site with your own voice and personality, the next big step is trying to figure out how to get the word out there to other people. When it comes right down to it a really good idea just isn’t enough to make your website successful any more. You are going to need to come up with a smart and realistic marketing plan that is designed to constantly draw new visitors to your site. Once you are able to hook your visitor hopefully your great content will hopefully keep them coming back for more but it is vital that you are able to get that first glance from them or else your site will never get the opportunity to shine.

Quick Tab Change Improves TE Surfing

I just received an email from Jay Hines about a bunch of major changes on his Quick Tab Change program.

For those who don’t already know… Jay Hines created Quick Tab Change as a way to make earning credits on multiple traffic exchange programs easier by assigning a key on your keyboard that lets you switch between tabs on your browser. It doesn’t sound like much but you would be surprised how many more credits you can earn from traffic exchanges using Quick Tab Change.

The software itself has stayed mostly the same except there are now two versions of Quick Tab Change: Pro and Lite. They are pretty similar except the Pro version loads quicker and has a few more options.

Most of the big changes are in the Quick Tab Change site itself. QTC has been one of my best performing affiliate programs for awhile since it is such a valuable tool that almost every traffic exchange user will want to use. There are now a lot more options for rebranding Quick Tab Change with your own affiliate links in many other top converting free affiliate programs. There are also a few new OTOs that so far are converting much better than the old site.

If you use free traffic exchange programs and you are not using Quick Tab Change you are missing out on lots of extra credits that you could be using to promote your site. Click the link below to download your free copy now.

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Best Places to Advertise – December Stats

Sorry, I am late again.

I know this is a pretty popular feature on this blog but unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot to report this month.  I spent a good chunk of December traveling and doing light shows around the midwest so I didn’t have as much time to spend promoting as I normally do.  Still, i’ll give you what I got.

The following stats come from promoting my own “Traffic Success Formula” ebook which was created to show people how to take advantage of free advertising programs to promote their business.  These are just some of the places I used for advertising during the month of December 2008.

Traffic Exchanges
As I said, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to surf in December so I didn’t get much TE traffic in December.  I did purchase a few credit packages and had plenty of residual traffic coming from my downlines and from credits I had left over from previous months.  Still, here’s my top traffic exchanges:

1. Dragon Surf – 8
2. Traffic Splash – 6
3. ILoveHits – 3

Not real impressive, is it?  Don’t worry.  As soon as I get caught up with some other things I am working on I plan to spend the rest of the month surfing my butt off.  Hopefully I will have some better number for you at the end of January.  In the mean time, see how the top 20 traffic exchanges are ranked over at Affiliate Funnel.

Safelists
I did mange to keep up with my safelist advertising in December but I decided to switch gears a little bit and promote my top money making program (OBA) instead so that I would have some extra money this month to spend on advertising.  I earned an extra $100 just from safelists but since I was promoting an affiliate site I didn’t track where all the sales were coming from.  Sorry.

If you want to know which safelists I get the best results from check out the links on the side of my blog.

Text Ad Exchanges
Ok, it’s offical.  Text ad exchanges are dead!  Well, maybe not all of them but over the last few months I have seen my conversions in text ad exchanges skyrocket and now plummet back to the earth like a sack of potatoes.  The problem is that there are now so many new text ad exchanges opening up that nobody is bothering to stick around long enough to actually use them.

For example, earlier today I counted over 300 text ad exchanges that are giving away promo codes for new members.  These promo codes can be exchanged for solo ads, banner ads, or text ads on the exchanges.  The problem is who is going to stick around long enough to actually read your ads for credits when there are that many exchanges giving away ads for free?

And the quality of the exchanges have dropped considerably too.  I saw a site offering to sell people their own text ad exchange for less than $10/month.  That means over the next few months you are going to start seeing hundreds of new cookie cutter text ad exchanges running on servers that make my old trs-80 look like a speed demon.

I just finished putting almost all of my text ad exchange accounts on “vacation mode” to stop receiving emails from them.  Still, there are a few that are worth keeping.  Mainly because they continue to produce good results or I know the owners are working hard to build their exchanges.  Here’s what’s left:

Traffic Swarm
Maximum Profits
Traffic Station
AdExchangers
Muscle Mail

If you want to recommend some to me that are worth joining please post a comment and I will test them out.

JV Giveaway Events
JV Giveaways were once again my top source for getting sign-ups in December mainly because they take so little effort to promote.  The “Merry Christmas” giveaway got me 28 new referrals and so far this month’s “New Year” giveaway has gotten me 57 new sign-ups.

Unfortunately JV giveaways events can be a little tricky when determining which ones to join.  If you want to know which giveaways to join your best bet is to sign-up on my email list at the top of the page (check the free ebook) and I will email you when a good event is launching.

That’s all for now.  If you have any comments or want to recommend other sources of advertising please feel free to leave a comment.

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