The latest Net Effect magazine from Stompernet had an article about tracking the links you put out on Twitter and various other places on the net, written by Paul Colligan. The service he recommends is BudURL.

I signed up for it tonight and did a little testing, and it's pretty sweet. It not only counts the clicks, it also gives you a live "clickstream" showing the clicks as they happen, where they came from and the IP address of the people clicking on it. There's something addicting about being able to watch the clicks happen in realtime, and seeing where they come from.

I posted a test link on Twitter and started getting clicks on it within 15 seconds. I've got a total of 12 clicks in about 15 minutes, which isn't a huge number, but considering it's 9:30pm here on the west coast, it's not the ideal time to be putting out links.

I was going to record a video showing how this works, but seeing as how Paul Colligan already made one I figured why reinvent the wheel? Here's Paul's intro to the service:

Would you rather communicate with a list of 19,530 people who don't know you, have no idea if you can be trusted, and are sorting through information from a bunch of other people at the same time OR a list of 200 people who know you, trust you and want to hear what you have to say?

I hope you chose the second option. Your chances of connecting with your list are immensely greater if they know you, trust you and care about what you have to say to them.

And that means your chances of actually selling them something - assuming that's your ultimate goal - are much, much better.

For the last couple of days, there has been this new "viral" Twitter tool making the rounds called Tweeter Getter. The idea is when you send out a Tweet to your followers promoting this tool, you'll automatically be added to the followers list for the 6 people in front of you.

This puts you on the list for any of your followers who also send out the Tweet, for any of their followers who do, and so one down to 6 levels deep. Whenever they send out the message, they get added to your followers list.

In other words, a classic pyramid scheme.

In theory, if 5 people on each level send out the message, you could add 19,530 followers to your account. Those are the numbers used on the website, which I'm not going to link to. If you really want to find it, Google it or use Twitter search.

But here's how it breaks down:

Level 1 (you) - 5 followers
Level 2 - 5×5 = 25 followers
Level 3 - 25×5 = 125 followers
Level 4 - 125×5 = 625 followers
Level 5 - 625×5 = 3125 followers
Level 6 - 3125×5 = 15625 followers

Add them all up and you have 19,530 followers.

Let's just assume for a minute that those numbers are actually realistic. And let's assume that it takes you a month to reach that level.

So 30 days from now, you've got almost 20,000 followers on your Twitter account. Now what?

You might want to send out a promotion of some sort. You've got 20,000 eyeballs going to see it. Fantastic, right?

Not really. Let's examine why:

1. Most of those people won't even see your Tweet. They're trying to follow so many people that they just can't keep up with the huge stream of information coming from Twitter.
2. If they've been trying for more than a few days, chances are good they've already quit trying to read it all.
3. Even if they do see your message, they probably don't know you, don't know if you can be trusted or know what you're talking about, and are highly unlikely to take action on your offer.

But if you sent that same offer out to 200 people that you have been building a relationship with, that trust you and believe you know what you're talking about, and have already taken the action of choosing to follow you, chances are most of them would read it and a certain percentage would take the action you want them to.

It's not about the size of your list, it's about the quality.

It's unfortunate that whenever somebody builds a useful tool on the internet, people looking for ways to eliminate actual work come up with a way to take advantage of it.

I expect this Tweeter Getter thing will burn out in a few weeks, maybe months, when all the people who use it to build a quick list of followers get disillusioned because they're not suddenly making a bucketload of money from their "Twitter list".

Then the people who use Twitter properly can get back to building relationships through old-fashioned hard work. It might not be easy, fast or glamorous, but it works.

Occam's Razor is a theory that basically states when faced with several choices, all things being equal, the simplest choice is usually the right one. In other words, rather than trying to overanalyze or overthink something, it's usually best to choose the simplest of the options you're faced with.

This is something that is highly applicable in the internet marketing business. There are so many products out there claiming to show you the "best" way to make money that it's easy to spend all your time reading, learning and analyzing what you want to do to make money. But never actually getting around to making any.

But in most cases the simplest things are the ones that will make you money. And 99.9% of the time, the simplest thing is to just do something. If you do something - even if it's not done right - you're infinitely closer to making money than if you just read, study and plan, but never implement.

If you've been around internet marketing for any length of time, you've no doubt heard of Marlon Sanders. He's one of the earliest "gurus" in this business, and has been doing it longer than most of the other big names you see these days. Most of those guys learned a lot of what they do from Marlon, in fact.

Marlon has just released a new product called the Ockham's Razor Income System, that claims to help you turn "ordinary" infoproducts into $150,000 cash cows.

Note: If you're wondering about the spelling of "Ockham" you're not alone. I thought he'd messed it up too since I've always seen it spelled "Occam". I was going to send him a smart-ass email, pointing out how all his marketing materials, his URL, the PDF and everything had this big glaring mistake. Until I looked it up on Wikipedia and saw that the original spelling is in fact Ockham. I guess Marlon did his homework after all…

I don't buy a lot of ebooks these days, but I was in the mood to read something new last night and this one came close enough to my "impulse buy" threshold of $50 (it was $55) to make me pick it up.

I've read enough direct marketing books and ebooks that there tends to be a lot of repetitive stuff in them for me, but I usually pick up a few nuggets that make them worthwhile.

I was pleasantly surprised by this Ockham's Razor Income System. The first thing was that it was almost 300 pages. Enough that I debated on whether to print it out, something I normally do to make it easier to read comfortably.

I've bought a few of Marlon's products and expected there to be a lot of meat in there. He's not one to waste time with a bunch of fluff that just serves as filler content.

And he didn't disappoint - I had already picked up several good ideas by the time I'd read through the first 25-30 pages. That's not to say they were groundbreaking things I'd never heard before, just that the ideas were put together in a way that made a light go on for me about a couple of things.

One of those things was the idea of self-liquidating leads. Marlon doesn't call it that - he calls it "How to erase the cost of advertising so you can promote heavily" - but it's the same thing.

The basic idea is to offer something to subscribers immediately following an optin, in an effort to make some money from them to pay for the cost of getting them to your site in the first place.

I've heard this idea many times before, but something about the way Marlon approached it just clicked for me.

I've only had the product for a day, so I certainly can't say whether or not Marlon's result of creating a $150,000 cash cow is duplicatable, but I can vouch for the quality of the information in the book.

If you're selling your own infoproducts, whether original stuff, reseller rights or PLR products, Ockham's Razor Income System will help you improve your sales funnel, without a doubt. I highly recommend picking up a copy, something I don't do all that often.

And if you want to see what other people think, check out the Ockham's Razor post on Marlon's blog. There are lots of comments on there, and one of the things that impresses me about Marlon is he responds to darn near every one of them.

It seems like every time I'm on a forum or read a well-trafficked blog about internet marketing, there are people who are asking how they get ideas for a niche. They seem to be stuck trying to come up with ideas for topics/markets to build their websites around.

I can't understand this. There are ideas everywhere. My problem isn't coming up with ideas for niches, it's trying to stay focused on the ones I'm already working on when I get another 10 new ideas practically every day.

I think a lot of these people aren't really stuck for ideas for niches. What they're really asking is how to come up with ideas for successful niches. They want to know how to identify the markets that are going to make them money.

You can never be entirely sure until you actually do something to test the market, but there are some things you can do to improve your odds.

1. Check for magazines in the market you're considering. If there are magazines being printed, you can bet people are buying stuff in that market since the magazines' success depends on advertising. Companies don't pay for magazine advertising if it isn't converting into sales.
2. Look for a good selection of products on Amazon.com. If there are a lot of books on the topic, people are interested in it and buying the books. Or if it's a different kind of product, having a good selection to choose from means it's more than likely selling.
3. Check eBay for auctions in that market. If there are lots of auctions going, and a decent number of them being won (say 40% or more), it's a market with buyers.
4. If it's an information based market, check Clickbank for products. You can tell from the Clickbank stats whether it's selling, and if there are several products on the topic, chances are it is.

In the end though, the only way to know if a market is going to be successful is to test the waters. The best way to do that is with some pay-per-click advertising. With a minimal ad spend, you can tell whether there is traffic and whether or not they're action takers.

Send the traffic to an affiliate offer or even to a squeeze page to get them on a list. At least you'll know if they'll take action that way, but you need to send them to an offer that requires some kind of payment if you really want to be sure they're going to actually buy something.

It's much better to spend a few dollars on Adwords to check whether a market is going to be worth pursuing than spending several hours or days getting a website set up and working to send some free traffic to it, only to find out it's not going to work.

Do it enough times, and you'll find some winners that will more than repay any losses you take on the losers - I can guarantee it.

If you've studied debt reduction at all, you've probably come across a method made popular by Dave Ramsey called the "Debt Snowball". The idea is you put all the extra money you can towards one single debt every month until it's paid off, then add that payment to the next debt. Once it's paid off, you continue on to the next one, until you're out of debt.

Because you're adding each payment to the minimum on the next debt in line, it grows like a snowball does - hence the name.

I use a similar system for creating content for my websites, which I'm going to call the Content Snowball.

One of the biggest hurdles for a lot of people I talk to is creating the content in the first place. They might find writing difficult, or they have trouble coming up with ideas for articles, or it might be trouble creating videos or audio messages.

The Content Snowball lets you multiply your efforts without having to spend a lot of time coming up with new ideas or having to write new articles.

Here's how it works…

1. Create your initial piece of content, most likely an article. This could be something you write from scratch, or it could be a PLR article (preferably rewritten).
2. Rewrite that article once or twice so you have a couple of unique versions of it.
3. Add the article to your autoresponder series or use it in your newsletter if you send one out.
4. Record yourself reading the article and use the audio file in a "podcast" on your site. Submit your podcast to the various directories.
5. Create a Powerpoint (or OpenOffice) slideshow with bullet points outlining the article. Use your audio recording as the soundtrack for it and create a video you can upload to Youtube and various other video sites.

Now you can use one of the unique versions of the article on your own website, submit a unique one to various article directories and post another version on sites like Squidoo or Hubpages.

You've got an audio version that you can use with podcast directories, a video version for the various video sites and an extra message in your autoresponder. All from one initial piece of content. After that one's created, you don't have to think up new ideas, you just have to do a little editing or reformatting into different media.

This can also save you money if you outsource your writing. Instead of paying for several articles, get one good one written and then repurpose it into all these other formats. You can even justify paying more for the initial article, since you're going to get so much more out of it, which means you'll probably have a better quality article as the root for everything else.

A new year is here and 2008 is now in the history books. Did you reach your goals last year in your internet business?

Did you even have any specific goals? If not, it's pretty hard to know if you met them, isn't it?

This is the time of year when people traditionally make all kinds of life decisions - lose weight, quit smoking, get out of debt, replace their income from the internet and quit their job, etc.

Unfortunately, most people make these resolutions but never really create a plan to make them happen. The first month or so, there's enough excitement about the goal to keep at it but as soon as there's a bump in the road, they fall back into their old ways.

If that sounds like your typical results with New Years resolutions, let me share what I do to make sure that I can stick with my goals beyond the end of January.

The biggest success factor is to have a plan. Not just some vague idea of what you want to accomplish this year, but an actual plan that you've written out, with steps that you need to follow on a regular basis to make it successful.

I normally take the week between Christmas and New Years to assess my results for the past year, and plan what I want to do over the coming 12 months.

A large part of this is done the old-fashioned way - paper and pen. I get away from the computer - and out of my office if possible - and start planning what I want to do.

I decide what "divisions" of my business that I'm going to focus on over the coming year, whether it's infoproducts, affiliate sites, Adsense sites or some combination of them.

I plan out a rough timeline for new products and sites, and break those down into a series of tasks that have to be accomplished every week (whether by me or by someone I outsource it to).

I create a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly to-do list that I can work from (or again, outsource from).

I don't necessarily plan specific topics or products at this point, since I may not know what specific market or sub-market I'll want to tackle in six months. I just make a rough timeline for when I'm going to release things.

Once I get back to work after the beginning of January, I've got a list of things to work on so I don't wind up jumping from one thing to another aimlessly (like I used to before I started planning my year).

When new products are launched, I don't get sucked into the pitch and buy on impulse, or the hope that this is the "One". I know what I'll be working on throughout the year, and if a new product being launched sounds like it will fit into my plans, I'll consider it. If it doesn't fit what I'm going to be doing, I don't buy it - no matter how good it might sound.

I do this over the course of about a week, but I really don't spend that much time at it. If I wanted to lock myself away for one whole day and really focus on nothing else, I could put these plans together in 8 hours or so.

If you've been struggling to reach your goals in your internet business, I highly recommend getting away from everything for a few hours and actually planning what you want to do this year.

Come up with a plan, decide on the tasks you need to accomplish to implement it - on a daily, weekly, monthly and even quarterly basis - and then get started.

Put your blinders on for all the pitches that come through your inbox, and even start unsubscribing from all those marketers' lists who never really send you anything but another pitch.

You'll be surprised at how much more successful you can be when you get focused and start following a plan. It might not be as exciting as trying new things every couple of weeks, but I'll tell you - when you have your most successful year ever that excitement more than makes up for it!

Sitepoint is giving away copies of their book "The Art & Science Of CSS" if you follow them on Twitter (the offer ends December 2). All you need to do is follow them on Twitter and you'll get a direct message with the download link.

You can either follow sitepointdotcom on Twitter, or go to Twitaway.com and get the details there.

Sitepoint's books are usually pretty good, so I'm sure it's worth picking up if you ever do any CSS work.

In spite of all the talk about using Twitter for marketing and networking purposes, I still see a lot of people who dismiss it as being a waste of time or just a bunch of useless updates about what people are doing at any given moment.

Well, there are some really useful things about Twitter, even if you don't actually use it yourself.

This morning I found that I couldn't access the Aweber website, and the optin forms on some of my websites weren't working properly (or even showing up in some cases). Rather than email Aweber's tech support or try to get hold of a couple of friends to see if they were having trouble, I just hopped on to the Twitter Search site and did a search for "aweber".

Up come a whole bunch of Tweets about problems with Aweber this morning, including one from Aweber themselves that said they were working on the issue.

Even Google News won't usually have this kind of stuff that quickly.

If you've got a question about something that is used by a lot of people, Twitter can be a great place to get some more information about it. And with more and more companies like Aweber using it to post updates, it's a good way to keep on top of anything that's going on with services you use.

I was poking around on Facebook today and noticed this ad for foreclosure real estate in Las Vegas and Nevada. I'm in Las Vegas this week, so I figured it was targeting me because of the address of my internet connection, and being curious about just how bad the foreclosure situation is here, I clicked the ad.

What did I find? Not exactly the list of foreclosure prices I was expecting:

I found myself on one of those "Smiley" websites, where you can download a pile of these stupid little Smiley images. Along with the most annoying "Hello!" voice telling me to sign up.

I was so surprised that I thought there must have been something wrong with Facebook's ad serving so I went back and refreshed the page until I saw the same ad again. But same thing - back to the Smiley website.

I ran some Facebook ads not long ago to test it and there was a waiting period for them to check my ads before they went live. If they're letting this kind of stuff get through their approval process, that doesn't bode well for people who want to advertise without silly bait-and-switch tactics.

If Facebook users click ads and find something this completely unrelated - not to mention annoying - they're going to be less and less likely to click on those ads.

Say what you will about the Google Quality Score, the Google Slap, etc. from an advertisers point of view, but the standards that they've put into place mean the end-user is going to get something that truly is what they expect to get.

In the long run, that's going to be a good thing for any legitimate advertisers, and it's just going to mean ads are going to be more effective than ever on Google.

You know how video is the latest and greatest thing on the internet?

I hate it when marketers use it for promotion.

I'd much rather get a PDF file that I can skim through than having to sit and watch/listen to someone talking in a video for half an hour or more.

If it looks like good information, then I can go back and read it more thoroughly but if it isn't I don't have to invest a lot of time.

I need to actually watch the video to see if it's worth watching, at which point I can't get my time back if it isn't.

I'm sure I miss a lot of useful information because I'm just not willing to invest the time before I know if it's worth it. But the people who use those videos to promote stuff are also missing out on sales - from me at least - because they don't offer me a better (ie. faster) way to digest the information.

One of the things I've never understood is why the Flash player doesn't let you speed up the playback so you can get through the video faster.

Quicktime does this, and that's one of the reasons I like it when people offer a downloadable video file in Quicktime format. I can watch it at double-speed and get through it quicker.

Well, today I got an email from John Jonas about how to Speed up online videos.

"Perfect," I thought "Just what I've been waiting for."

So off I went to grab the software called MySpeed and wouldn't you know it?

Windows only.

I guess I'll have to wait a little longer for something like this for the Mac, or do my video watching in a virtual Windows machine.

But if you're like most of the rest of the world and use Windows, you might want to check it out. You could get back several hours a week, just by watching marketing videos at double-time.

Have you found it yet - the secret to making money on the internet?

There have certainly been enough big product launches lately in the "internet marketing" market, all promising the world.

• Continuity/Memberships
• Product Launches
• Search Engine Ranking Loopholes
• Lead Generation
• and on and on it goes…

I hate to tell you this, but every one of these "systems" is going to teach you essentially the same thing:

That's the big secret. Getting the right people to see your offer.

It doesn't matter what you're selling. Affiliate products, membership sites, your own infoproducts, even Adsense. The key to making money on the internet is to get your offer in front of people who want to see it.

Now, I realize that might be easier said than done. But the fact is, there is no real magic to it. You simply need to start somewhere and generate some traffic.

For a lot of people, that first step is article marketing. It's low-cost, relatively easy, and it continues to work, year after year (unlike many techniques).

Buying a whole bunch of big-ticket products that promise to make you rich (in spite of the fine-print, that's what most of them imply) isn't the answer. If you really feel the need to spend your money, just buy one and then focus on it absolutely until you see results.

The instant you buy a second one without fully following through on the first is when you cut your chances of success down by probably 90% or more.

Once you see some success on a small scale, you can start to roll some of your profits back into your internet business and scale things up. At some point, it might make sense to buy another big-ticket product and learn a new system to add to the first.

But always keep in mind that every one of these big launches boils down to the same "secret" - the same one that has been true of any business that sells something for all of history.

Expose the people who are interested in what you're selling to your offer.

Steven Sanders has a great post on his blog at Steven-Sanders.com called 8 Daily Tasks to Increase Blog Traffic. He calls it his "top ten" list of what he does to increase traffic (even though there are only 8 items).

The one that struck a chord with me is using MyBlogLog effectively. I use MyBlogLog for stats purposes, but I've never really looked at the community building side of it.

Looks like I've got a new task to add to my daily routine

It seems like every time I go to set up a new site, I spend a bunch of time trying to come up with ideas for domain names. I'm not one for a keyword-stuffed, multiple-dash domain so I like to find something short and snappy, that's somehow related to the market and could be branded.

There are a couple of tools I sometimes use to find interesting domains…

1. Nameboy.com - This is a domain spinning & registration tool that lets you enter a keyword or two and will spin out all kinds of variations using those words or words with the same meaning. It also shows you whether or not the domains are already registered (and registers them for you if you wish, but I don't use that function, I just go to one of my favorite registrars and do it there).

   Most of the potential domains you get from Nameboy are worthless, but sometimes you'll find a good one in the midst of all the junk.

2. Band Name Generator - This is actually a tools for generating "hip" sounding names for bands but it's a great way to come up with ideas for domains. You can enter a keyword and it will generate a bunch of possible domains (aka "band names) for you to look up to see if they're registered.

   The thing I like about this one is that it's not specifically meant for finding domains, so you can come up with some interesting word combinations that are catchy and memorable but aren't something most people would come up with off the top of their head.

But lately I've taken to looking for domains that I can buy for a reasonable price instead of trying to come up with ideas myself. It tends to be faster, since I can scan through a list of available domains and find something I like (without too much thought) and I usually find something that's short, catchy and brandable.

In fact, I like doing it this way so much that I've set up a domain reseller site of my own where I can find great domains when I need them - HarmonicDomains.com.

But it's not just for my own use - you can also use it to find great domains, and the best part is you can make me an offer at a price that you think is fair. The "market value" is listed on the site (based on data from some of the domain resale marketplaces like Sedo.com) but I'm pretty flexible

If you're in the market for buying a domain name, go and see what's available at HarmonicDomains.com. If you see something you like, send me an offer through the site and let's see if we can find a fair price for you.

Today's post comes courtesy of Marlon Sanders, who has been teaching internet marketing for longer than most of the so-called "gurus" out there. This article came in one of his latest newsletters, but if you either don't get it or didn't read it, it's definitely worth the few minutes it will take.

I don't very often post other people's articles, but I thought this one was too good to pass up. The three keys to longevity that Marlon covers in this article are all 100% on the mark, but #3 is the one that I can appreciate the most, since I spent several years looking for that "quick fix".

If you take Marlon's advice to heart and practice these three keys, you will be successful…

Hello,

Marlon here.

Pretend it's five years from now.

Are you still in the marketing game? Are you in the game
or out of the game? Are you still at your job or not at
your job? Are you burnt out or not burnt out?

Or have you moved on to turning a buck via real estate,
vending machines or whatever the hot opportunity of the
month flavor is?

What's the difference between those who were doing well
online 5 years ago but today are "out of the game." They
are doing somethin' else for a living.

What's the difference?

I want to point out the 3 "longevity factors" that make
a difference.

LONGEVITY FACTOR ONE: The Time For Dollars Trap

You've heard the saying "All that glitters isn't gold."
Nothing could be more true online.

There are a plethora of gimmicks on the web. You get
a new one almost every day on the Internet. The people
I personally know who are still in the game have 1 thing
in common — A LIST.

You either have a business that is list-based or
transaction-based. An list-based business builds up
value as your list grows. A transaction business means
five years from now you're still hustling to turn that
seo buck or that ppc buck.

If you have a list, and you cultivate a relationship,
five years from now, you have a source of income. You
are better off than you were 5 years before. Without
a list, 5 years from now, you're still "turning
transactions" to bank some coin.

I said it years ago in Amazing Formula. "The money is
in the list."

If you're in a transaction business, that means each
day you're trading your time for dollars or money.
To make more transactions, you gotta spend time.

The only way to escape that is to have a list and
to have products.

That way, you escape the trap of having to trade
YOUR time for dollars. The products sold to
your list do it for you.

LONGEVITY FACTOR TWO: The Rainbow Trap

You've heard the expression "chasing the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow." That's pretty much what
we all do.

But if you're always chasing and never doing, you've
fallen into the trap. The fortune is in selling the
tickets to go see the rainbow. That's how the dude
at the end of the rainbow got his pot of gold –
HE SOLD SOMETHIN!

My friend Jonathan Mizel lives in Maui, Hawaii.
And when you're in Maui, there are some gorgeous
rainbows. But the price of seein' rainbows isn't
cheap!

No one makes any money until someone sells somethin'
to someone and someone else buys it. I talking at
the end of the day. For example, there'd be no
adsense income if someone else wasn't buyin' those
clicks.

Funny thing is, even the people who say you can
bank some currency without sellin' something have
GOT something to sell to YOU to show you how to
bank money without selling!

How's THAT for interesting logic!

The people who are in the game and stay in the game
have their own exclusive product or service to sell
most of the time.

Ask Google. Ask Bill Gates. Ask Yahoo.

You gotta have a product or service to sell. You
gotta sell it. And in most cases, you need to have
an exclusive on it.

LONGEVITY FACTOR THREE: The Quick Start Trap

People wanna get off to a quick start.

So the desire is to take shortcuts. I won't
create my own product. I'll just buy this super
duper reprint rights package to 1,000,000 products
or whatever. (Not that reprint right packages are
bad…it's all about the person's mindset buying
them)

Or this method doesn't require a product, a sales
letter or anything else. You just watch the video
and click the buttons on the software. And money
comes in.

What a deal, eh?

Truth is, at the end of the day, no one is makin'
any money until someone sells and someone buys.

Simplify your life and skip the quick fix pitches.
Stop searching for that pot of gold at the end of
the rainbow.

Start SELLING rainbows on cards, tickets to SEE
the rainbow, rainbow concerts, rainbow hats,
ebook on best places to find rainbows. Stories
of people who FOUND the pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow.

Years ago I said "the money is in the list."
Today, I add to that.

The money is in the selling.

The money is in the selling.

The money is in the selling.

Don't believe me? Look at all the people SELLING
YOU a way to stack some paper without you having
to sell anything to anyone else.

Five years from now, will you be in business or
won't you?

1. Will you have your own list?

2. Will you have your own exclusive products?

3. Will you still be hunting the quick fix or
will you have laid a foundation for the future?

One of the things I've tried to do since day 1 is
to boil out the fluff and turn the complex into the
simple and give you simple action steps to do it.

Bottom line: Marketing is about finding demand,
that is finding markets for products and services
and filling the demand for a profit.

You wanna be in business 5 years from now? You
wanna be sittin' by the beach or being able to enjoy
freedom?

Then discover the secrets of finding markets and
fulfilling wants at a profit.

Folks, at the end of the day, ain't nobody makin'
no money 'till somebody sells somethin' to
somebody. And if you wanna buy yourself the
FREEDOM you want, you gotta have products
that earn bux for you, so you don't gotta
earn 'em yourself by tradin' time for dollars.

How's that for an esoteric secret of success?

I hope this article gave you ideas and is useful to you.

———————————————————–
Marlon Sanders is the author of "The Amazing Formula That
Sells Products Like Crazy." If you'd like to get on his
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about online marketing, visit:
http://www.promodashboard.com

When you use article marketing as a traffic generation technique, there are actually two sides to it. On one hand, you're building backlinks to your website to help it rank better in the search engines.

On the other hand, you can generate traffic directly through your article, from people who find your article and then click through to your website from the resource box.

It's the second option we're going to look at today.

The most important part of your article, from a direct traffic generation perspective, is the title. If you have a weak title, people will just pass your article right by.

It doesn't matter how good the content of the article itself is, nobody's ever going to see it if they don't click through to read it.

Think of the title as a headline for the rest of your article.

The most effective headlines make a bold statement that promises to tell the reader something that they want to know.

• How to …
• 7 Steps to …
• 3 Little Known Tips for …
• etc.

But how do you come up with good titles?

Let me tell you how I do it…

I have created a "swipe file" of good article titles that I can refer to when I'm writing articles.

I make them "fill in the blank" so I can just plug in the information I'm sharing in the article and it's ready to go.

• How To Use _____ To Get A Leg Up On _____
• 3 Little Known _____ Tips for _____
• 5 Insider _____ Secrets That _____ Hope You Never Catch On To

The easiest way to create a swipe file like this for yourself to use is to do two things.

First, take a look at your article stats in Ezinearticles.com and other popular article directories, and see what articles of yours get the highest clickthrough rates.

Look for titles that you can repurposes for other topics or entirely different markets and use them as a template in your swipe file.

The second way is to look at other people's articles in the article directories. Scan through the top articles in each category and look for titles that you can "swipe".

It doesn't matter if the category is one that you use or not. You're not looking for article topics or market research, you just want to find title templates that you can use for your own purposes.

When you have a swipe file to refer to when writing articles, it makes it a heck of a lot easier and faster. I joined an article writing challenge last week in a forum I'm a member of and wrote 20 articles in about 4 hours, which works out to 10 to 15 minutes per article.

Having a swipe file to refer to for inspiration made all the difference in the world.