Monday, January 16, 2006
Using Free Blogs To Generate Traffic And Cash In On The Power Of Referral Marketing
Try and jog your memory a little to discover and appreciate this major Internet secret for blog success. Think back to the last great movie you saw or book you read. How did you end up seeing the movie or purchasing the book? Did you respond best to the ads or did you make your move because of the recommendations you got from others who had seen the movie or read the book?
Or alternatively, what would you trust, an advertisement or a recommendation, even if it is from a stranger?
The answer is rather obvious and it tells you why sites like Amazon.com have been such a huge success. Folks mostly buy books at the recommendation of others that seemingly have the same taste and inclinations as they do.
Our little experiment also tells you why PR is always so much more effective than advertising. A small favorable mention in a newspaper article or on the TV news show is often much more valuable and effective than dozens of expensive advertisements placed in the media.
It also tells you why affiliate programs have rapidly grown online into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. It’s much easier for me to refer you to another site or product than it is for me to try and sell you my own products and services.
Imagine the sort of power and effectiveness that you can harness from having other blogs out there commenting on your product or service? Actually quite a number of leading online businesses are already cashing in big on this little secret that should actually not be a secret at all. Have you heard of folks talking about leading entrepreneurs seeking out bloggers to blog about them and their businesses? It is quite common these days and some of the names being associated with this practice are big online names like Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.
So what do the big boys know that the rest of us are slow to grasp? One obvious answer is the power of blogs and especially the power of recommendations and referrals from other people’s blogs.
You can go one step further and have a valuable article giving out useful tips on a hot subject that relates to the site that you want to refer people to. The advantage with this sort of article is that it is bound to get a much wider readership which means that at the end of the day, it will end up registering many more referrals to the targeted site. There are however a few secrets to making referrals effective which you should acknowledge.
Why Most Referrals Fail
For articles in blogs to generate serious referral numbers, they must address a problem whose solution is found in the site or sites the blog recommends. The more serious and pressing the problem is the better. Many articles fail to refer people to sites because they give virtually complete solutions. Or they give so much onformation that readers can figure out the rest of the solution for themselves without having to visit the site they have been referred toi.
Remember that people do not enjoy visiting sites. In fact they would rather not.
The Most Effective Blog Strategy
Probably the most effective strategy is to deal with a different popular topic that is related to the site you would like the blog to refer your visitors to. The topic should be able to draw as wide a readership as possible. For instance a blog can deal with over-weight movie stars and then refer readers to weigh loss programs (sorry, this idea is already taken, the objective in mentioning it here is to help nudge you in the right direction to generate your own effective blog ideas.)
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Or alternatively, what would you trust, an advertisement or a recommendation, even if it is from a stranger?
The answer is rather obvious and it tells you why sites like Amazon.com have been such a huge success. Folks mostly buy books at the recommendation of others that seemingly have the same taste and inclinations as they do.
Our little experiment also tells you why PR is always so much more effective than advertising. A small favorable mention in a newspaper article or on the TV news show is often much more valuable and effective than dozens of expensive advertisements placed in the media.
It also tells you why affiliate programs have rapidly grown online into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. It’s much easier for me to refer you to another site or product than it is for me to try and sell you my own products and services.
Imagine the sort of power and effectiveness that you can harness from having other blogs out there commenting on your product or service? Actually quite a number of leading online businesses are already cashing in big on this little secret that should actually not be a secret at all. Have you heard of folks talking about leading entrepreneurs seeking out bloggers to blog about them and their businesses? It is quite common these days and some of the names being associated with this practice are big online names like Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.
So what do the big boys know that the rest of us are slow to grasp? One obvious answer is the power of blogs and especially the power of recommendations and referrals from other people’s blogs.
You can go one step further and have a valuable article giving out useful tips on a hot subject that relates to the site that you want to refer people to. The advantage with this sort of article is that it is bound to get a much wider readership which means that at the end of the day, it will end up registering many more referrals to the targeted site. There are however a few secrets to making referrals effective which you should acknowledge.
Why Most Referrals Fail
For articles in blogs to generate serious referral numbers, they must address a problem whose solution is found in the site or sites the blog recommends. The more serious and pressing the problem is the better. Many articles fail to refer people to sites because they give virtually complete solutions. Or they give so much onformation that readers can figure out the rest of the solution for themselves without having to visit the site they have been referred toi.
Remember that people do not enjoy visiting sites. In fact they would rather not.
The Most Effective Blog Strategy
Probably the most effective strategy is to deal with a different popular topic that is related to the site you would like the blog to refer your visitors to. The topic should be able to draw as wide a readership as possible. For instance a blog can deal with over-weight movie stars and then refer readers to weigh loss programs (sorry, this idea is already taken, the objective in mentioning it here is to help nudge you in the right direction to generate your own effective blog ideas.)
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