Essentially this is a lot like creating Squidoo or HubPages without all the revenue sharing and links distracting your potential prospects.

Within your documents you would place links to your own website (internal and home pages) where the content is related. Yes these are for your potential customers to follow but they are also for the search engine spiders to follow. (If you don’t know the value of one-way backlinks, do a quick search on google to understand this vital part of search engine optimization (SEO).

The news has been out for quite a while about a few of these document sharing sites and the power they possess in the search engines, but with all the new research I’ve been doing lately I thought it would be wise to (a) share these with you, and (b) keep the list on my own site so I can locate it easily later when I roll out this part of my next Web 2.0 marketing strategy.

1. scribd.com
2. 4shared.com
3. docstoc.com
4. wepapers.com

What you should be doing…

1. Using decent private label rights or your own articles or ebooks, upload your documents for document sharing to each site. Link to your home page or internal pages within the document.

2. If the potential exists to create a profile page or socialize on the site, do so, adding your url, bio or link where ever appropriate.
3. Promote your new promoters! Promote these document pages using whichever tools you have. In some cases you’ll see an autotweet, in others an RSS Feed, and so on. Tweet your pages, submit your feed, ping the top services – whichever promotion methods you are comfortable with or know how to do.

Above all have fun and try something new every day to get your business to the top!

This is a long post, but worth the read so if you’re rushed or just want to get to the goods, skip down to #3 because that could make a huge difference to your bottom line…

1. Rebuilding Lives (After the Fire)
2. Amen to A Thriving Internet Economy!
3. Automation and Web 2.0 (The Good, Bad, and the Ugly)

1. Rebuilding Our Lives After The Fire
———————————-

As you may remember, our family home burnt to the ground in February – in the middle of the night and we had 6 minutes before the flames were licking through the floorboards.

Six minutes and we could no longer get in to rescue our pets, keepsakes, or belongings.

The last time I wrote here was in April – but I have been busy building a new home, side by side with my teenage daughter and husband, and we’re nearing completion.

Which means I have time to focus on my sites, my subscribers and my online business again!

Make no mistake here – we do not have a construction crew or even a contractor – this is seriously a home built by family hands that will inhabit it – a 3,000 square foot log home carved
into the hillside of our 20 acre hobby farm.

To say the build has exhausted me would be an understatement (at 45 years of age it was either going to kill me, or get me into shape very quickly).

If you’re interested, I’ve documented most of the decisions, process, and progress along the way with videos, photos, and commentary at Building Our Own Log Home. (click on Eric and Laura’s build or the sidebar posts to see what’s
new).

2. Amen to A Thriving Internet Business!
—————————————

Through the summer months I barely saw my laptop, but my income stayed steady nonetheless. Amen for a thriving internet economy!

Are we in the best business ever during these tough economic times or what?

This was a serious second lesson after our month in Europe when I barely cracked my laptop.

The lesson? Once you have your systems in place and a footing in your marketplace, your business will look after itself for the most part.

Be sure to read that in context – “…with systems in place…” and “…for the most part.”

I’m not proposing a ’set it and forget it’ for most online enterprises. I am talking about systems, some automation (perhaps even outsourcing if that’s required) and a mandate revisited and revised as required.

3. Automation and Web 2.0 (The Good, Bad, and the Ugly)
——————————————-

Having worked online since 1998, thrived through the transitions, studied more concepts and theories, used more tools and processes than I could ever write about — and then, re-mixing my website marketing all over again as the average internet user shifted the way they use the web — I’m still no guru, nor would I want to be. (Apart from what you may think, those guys have it hard.)

However, I am obligated to tell you the truth (which has netted me some serious backlash at times) about:

a) What works, what doesn’t, and why.

b) Who is feeding you a load of bull (at their benefit) and who is the real deal.

c) Which systems will harm your business more than help it.

IN 2007 I told you that there was no ‘good’ way to automate Web 2.0 marketing (at the time, there just wasn’t – sure some marketers sold systems and software but the investment just wasn’t worth the return).

IN 2008 (right before the house fire) I released a report that explained how to easily infiltrate various interactive Web 2.0 sites using your blog’s RSS feed.

Automation – that won’t get you blacklisted on the off-sites, that will increase your search engine position, and that helps build a loyal list of followers.

Due to the house fire, I didn’t market hard. I didn’t have time to support my readers with appropriate dedication. The report was called “Why Your Web 2.0 Marketing Sucks and How to Fix It, Fast.”

As it turned out, the people that purchased it, didn’t need help with further explanation but wrote in with thanks of helping Web 2.0 finally make sense (and touching my heart, so thank you!)

Honestly, Web 2.0 stuff can be confusing…

1) It has geek-driven tendencies.
2) It is multi-faceted (content, search engines, voting, videos, blogs, RSS)
3) It is time consuming (or at least it WAS time consuming)

But what if, all those issues were removed?

What if someone finally came along that had a system of automation that actually worked and wasn’t just in the guru game to steal your money?

What if a service was launched with tools and an easy to follow action plan that is not time consuming (10 minutes – 1/2 hour).

What if you could follow the system for 7 days, absolutely for free, and in those seven days you would see results – results of traffic, subscribers, sales.

And if you didn’t like it, if you didn’t see results, you could just cancel a renewal. No strings attached, no hoops to jump through, nothing lost (in fact you’d gain all the same even if you cancel because you would have learned about systems of automation and some tricks to Web 2.0 marketing in the process).

Does it sound too good to be true to you?

You bet it does.

I know, you’re wondering what the catch is…

A hefty renewal fee? A higher monthly payment than the average business owner can manage? That’s usually the case with other trial offers, but not in this situation. I can’t disclose the subscription rate because it is ’scaled’ – you choose the power you want and sign up for the service that interests you most, but honestly if you can’t make at least the $47 in the first trial week, you might want to give up marketing online!

After 7 days you’ll know that this works – that your extra sales, search engine placement, traffic rank, and commissions will more than cover that greasy spoon dinner…

To be clear — there are two caveats…

1) The offer is limited to a group of 1,000. (And he’s dead serious about that number because the tools, team and success can’t support more and be effective – right now.) The news has gone out to over 8,000 of my own subscribers and I’m not alone in sharing this…if you don’t get in right away, check the page every so often to see when space opens up.

Check for the trial download, free, here: Try Web 2.0 Automation with Action Plan for $1

I’ll write again soon but now I have to get back to the building site. Be sure to stop by soon…

Cheers, Laura

You can download the pdf at the end of this post, but allow me to save you some reading time and give you the highlights. (Training and techniques that I agree and am alignment with).

Part 2: Web 2.0 Arrives, the Market Changes

(highlights of page 5)

Then one day a few years ago, some really smart people figured out how to make the web more interactive. Users could go to a web page and talk to other users, but more importantly, CREATE CONTENT for the owner of the website.

This is called Web 2.0.

MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, all those sites that let visitors write, upload, create, or otherwise share their own ‘stuff’ online started producing copious amounts of new content that the search engines could easily index…

This was especially great for the owners of these web 2.0 sites, because the cost of acquiring content is otherwise the most expensive part of owning any website…

…more importantly all this new content…disturbed the old business model (article marketing, seo, etc.).

…basically, everything that the SEO firms used to tell you was necessary has changed. All except one: It’s more important than ever to get incoming links to your website.

The question arises: If Article Marketing has lost so much of its importance with the search engines, how do we create these incoming links?

Part 3: Ride that Web 2.0 Wave!

(highlights of page 6)

…thinking that Web 2.0 is just a bunch of MySpaces, YouTubes, and Facebooks – where the main purpose is to talk and share with online buddies?

…you have been wasting your own time making content for the owners of those websites.

…since content is the basic currency of the information age, you have just made them rich at your own expense.

…all you have to do to turn the tables and make them YOUR slave is to place your articles, tips, recipes, jokes, home movies, podcasts, whatever content you can create out there on Web 2.0…with links back to your own website.

Example: If you write something about dog training on MySpace, and it doesn’t link to your main website, then you gain nothing. You have just wasted all that time for no good reason, other than to make the owners of MySpace even richer. However, add a link to the bottom of that same bit of writing that takes the user back to your Dog Training website, and you have just marketed your own website…

The best part is that web 2.0 writing is fast and choppy…no 350-1500 word articles….

According to recent research, over 2,000 Web 2.0 sites exist.

…Google and Yahoo love them and index them quickly

The only question left is: Which ones will allow you to link back to your own website?

Part 5: The Gold Rush is On!

(pages 8-9, discusses Revenue Share which I think everyone has heard of so I snipped it out of these notes)

Make money while building your business, (to make even more money.)

Part 6: Where to find them

…you’re probably already asking how many of the 2,000 plus sites allow backlinks.

Inside the member’s forum I’ve got a library stocked full of them…and members are always adding new ones as discovered.

…here are a few you already know about…

www.Cagora.com, www.Helium.com, www.Hubpages.com, www.Revver.com, www.Squidoo.com, www.ThisIsBy.Us, www.Vume.com, www.Weebly.com, www.Wikidot.com, www.Yuwie.com

…some take video, some text, some articles, some audio, and most will take a mixture.

However, these all pay you money for your time, and meanwhile you’ll really be spending that time building your own website up in the search engines.

Part 7: “More powerful than you can possibly imagine…”
(re: keyword research and search engine positioning and traffic from Web 2.0 sites)

Being #1 on google does NOT mean you get all the traffic. At best, it just means getting the MOST traffic.

#1 only equates to about 40% of all traffic for a keyword…

HOWEVER – you could own ALL of the links listed on the results page…

CONSIDER – Make easy pages on Web 2.0 sites, get those pages ranking highly in the search engine results pages, (much faster than ever before) and control the traffic flow for your keywords.

REMEMBER – Search engines love Web 2.0 sites, so ranking is easy.

You’ll be in full control, get 100% of the traffic for your keyword, all linking back to your site, and even be paid to create it all.

Laura, wrapping up…

I’ve been a member of this forum for almost a year now. Inside you’ll find keyword research tools, members helping members, experts helping newbies, a backlink script (to discover how many backlinks are required to beat out your top 5 competitors), 30+ training films, dozens of software downloads, and more.

While you’re there, learn about the opportunities that exist to supply content to Web 2.0 sites and be paid directly to your Paypal or bank account within days – just like a freelancing assignment.

Money up front plus money in residuals, all while you’re dominating the search engines for the benefit of your own business…

Download the PDF
Learn More About the Member’s Forum

This post is about Web 2.0 Traffic however, and not about my personal trauma…

The day before the fire I had just finished writing my newest publication: “Why Your Web 2.0 Marketing Sucks…and What You Can Do About it Today!”

Two weeks have passed and I’ve had little time, or presence of mind to launch it now, but thought to mention it here in case you’re looking for solutions.

I wrote it because I was sick of the mis-information being passed around on the internet by people who don’t know what they’re doing, who have no appreciation for your time, and who do little more than distract you from your business with sensationalism…

The report, strategy, technique – if you will – has been described as: “…a little unconventional. A tad geeky. But with the right trainer it can be painless, effortless, and lucrative…”

If you’d like to read more about it, you’ll find it here: Social Marketing Strategy – for ethical business people, for entrepreneurs who provide worthwhile content, for those concerned about their website traffic and reputation.

Leave me a note here if you have questions. I’m only online once every few days at this time while we try to put our life, family, and home back together.

I had forgotten to show the spider visits in the screen capture. Now it’s 12 hours later so the results are a tad off because Google has been by another 20 times since I turned off my computer.

Remember this is a brand new site, registered on Feb 6, content added on February 7-8th, no external links coming in – just an hour of a little Web 2.0 magic applied.

You can see the highly targeted traffic to the site on my previous post. Keeping in mind that this is a very tiny niche for a local business.

Here is the spider and bot screen capture as of late this morning…

The strategy I’m employing for this quiet little launch is my transposting strategy – altered somewhat for the new domain. For the record, transposting didn’t allow me to completely ignore sites and not lose ground while I was away, but it did help me to maximize the little effort I could afford during that time.

If I’d known I’d be away so long I might have paid someone to manage things for me…

Since I’ll be writing a new report about this (as long as the tracking results measure up), and since I’ve been out of the loop and away, I’ve spent the last two weeks surfing around and finding out what I’ve missed.

Argh.

First stop was a promised-to-be-excellent free report that was touted as “I give it to my virtual assistants who do my marketing for me…” – released only a few months ago.

I didn’t check them all, but 7 of the hot Web 2.0 resources listed are no longer accepting new user registrations, altogether dead, or choking on the submission process. One hadn’t been updated since 2004 (gibeo), another not since 2006 (gravee). Not sure how they got on the ‘new’ list, or why the virtual assistants don’t say anything, but somehow the report was passed out to the world to use anyway. (Wasting time is my biggest pet peeve.)

But that’s the state of our world wide landscape.

The others not working correctly – in the last 24 hours at least – are sitetagger, scuttle, smarking, feedmarker, feedmelinks (going invite only), tailrank and unalog. Not sure how many of those were on the list, but listing them here so they show up as defunct in my own search results.

Is there a moral to this story Laura?

Why yes there is…

We need to start paying attention and really think our strategies through.

We need to learn to think for ourselves and not get caught in someone’s hype bubble.

We need to understand that ‘free’ sometimes costs more in the long run – because it wastes our time.

We need to not invest hours and days creating profiles and links and bookmarking hundreds of web 2.0 properties in the hopes that it will bring us traffic. Because some of those sites will crash or go out of business. Because choosing the right sites, with the right audience and the right features is really all that matters.

How’s My Little Site Launch?

I won’t give you the url, because it might taint my tracking results (or at least make my life more difficult separating real results from gawkers). I promise you the site isn’t worthy of a look anyway right now. (It’s ugly!)

The site was registered February 6th. It must have taken me 23 hits to install and mess around with the template and add 5 articles, as you’ll see below.

Yesterday, February 8th, I started playing with Web 2.0 traffic sources.

• I did not pay for traffic and I did not link to this site from any of my existing sites. This little baby is flying solo with a little Web 2.0 shove. (No list, no monetization on the site so you KNOW I’m not going to waste one of my clicks on it!)
• No plugins nor alterations to the theme (yet). Just a naked and ugly little site with nothing more than some re-purposed private label content that I’m sure has been kicked around the net hundreds of times in the past year.
• No one in my family knows about this site, including the person whose business I started this for!

But here’s something that’s very cool…

Registered February 6th around 9pm EST, already in google’s index by this morning, February 9th. I wish I’d thought to check earlier. The time says “20h ago”. I don’t know how to show you that, and include the date, without disclosing the url…so here’s a useless picture.

I’m pretty impressed.

Not with myself because I’ve had my head in an intranet these past few months and left my own training and marketing to whither on auto-pilot.

But with Web 2.0, still serving up great results, fast indexing, and a way for those with strategy on their minds to burst forth in their own market.

The sites I’ve been working with are not just of various age, but in various niches.

This all started as a challenge when a local business owner told me that I couldn’t get him any more work as a result of online marketing than he could get on his own, down a hick town backroad, through word of mouth.

I’ve never liked it when someone told me I couldn’t do something. This was no different.

This became even more a challenge because his ‘thought-stream’ was backed and confirmed by his young University educated daughter. A 20 year old small town girl who’s never entered more than 2 words into google at a time and whose primary use of the internet is socializing on FaceBook.

“No one uses the internet to find local business, Dad.”

(Ugh, small town mentality.)

If I could find the research I read last month – that states 60% of North Americans would rather search for a company online than pick up a phone book – I’d wrap it up in a big box with a bow and send it to them.

As I mapped out a “I’ll prove it to you” strategy – the latest of which is my newly devised transposting – I decided to see if anyone else was teaching how to do this….

I’ve been a few months away from my machine and I’m happy to buy a course or report on this to stay current as well as learn from others since I don’t know everything.

Scouring the Warrior forum, buying latest releases and reports from other marketers, bouncing from one marketing blog to another – no one is talking about this stuff. Unless of course Howie Swartz (sp?) or Frank Kern are teaching it in their exclusive classes. (Two guys I could listen to all day as they’re as close to Hollywood in internet marketing as you can get.)

As soon as I get my small town business man some work and money through online marketing (and put both him and his daughter to shame) I’ll be writing a short step-by-step and screen shot proof on TransPosting.

If you are interested in reviewing the report before release, please contact me now. When I write these types of short reports, I don’t wait around or pre-launch, etc.

Also, if you find anyone else talking about Transposting (not cross posting thanks I already know about that), please give me a head’s up.

Yours in marketing,

Laura Childs

It’s amazing what you can find, new authors you’ll discover, and marketing or traffic generation techniques you’ll learn.

It’s a great place to spend your morning coffee break to see what the rest of the internet marketing community is buzzing about.

My personal tip to save time on Sphinn (or risk clicking and reading and commenting all day) is to choose one topic in the green navigation bar – Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Search Marketing, Social Media, Online Marketing, Searching, Other – and browse the headlines. You can find me skimming through the Social Media tab from 9:30-10:15 am EST, Monday to Thursday.

Some of the faces you’ll find there are well known in the industry. Others you’ll be thrilled to discover.

Social Marketing on Sphinn

Today I landed on a Courtney Tuttle post and found it informative enough to share here. These are the basics of social marketing – build for your market, strategize your efforts, promote others.

Five Reasons I Used to Suck at Social Media (November 7) – “In the last few months, I’ve gone from getting almost no social traffic to regularly having 3,000+ visitor spikes.”

Good read. Especially helpful if you have been hearing all the hype about Web 2.0 traffic, have tried to generate your own Web 2.0 traffic stream, and aren’t seeing the results everyone else is. Courtney also comes clean about the huge waste of effort most internet marketers expend on getting to the top of Digg. Be sure, as well, to skim the comments left on the post.

I’d suggest subscribing to Courtney’s site as well – the traffic to that blog alone has steadily risen since April 2007 (launch) and is now in the top 25,000 visited sites online (according to Alexa).

A Bit on Sphinn’s Backend

Last year I told you about a Web 2.0, Open Source software, called Pligg. It was great then and it’s still great today. Not that open source programs don’t come with their own set of problems, but the programmers and volunteers behind Pligg are dedicated and hard-working.

Sphinn.com is powered by Pligg (as are a number of very busy and profitable Web 2.0 sites). Launched just 4 months ago, Sphinn’s current Alexa places it in the top 25,000 most visited websites.

If you’ve considered jumping on the bandwagon and having your own Web 2.0 site there’s no time like the present and there’s no better free program and support than Pligg offers (in my opinion anyway).

I have Pligg running on a niche site that I started last year – but did not launch – and loved playing around with it. Pligg has been updated since and is now easier and has more features. (see: Web 2.0 OpenSource).

The one I was reading today was a little remedial, but a good primer for new website owners or netpreneurs who haven’t yet considered that there is more to the traffic equation than buying links from other websites.

“Marketing Strategies Beyond Traditional Search” is a tidy 13 page PDF file that discusses contextual advertising, local search, vertical search, affiliate marketing, display advertising, broadband advertising, rich media, and more. If you’ve been marketing online for any amount of time you will not learn anything new from this report, but it might be worth your while to read some of their other free white papers.

The kicker is in the conclusion of “…Beyond Traditional Search,” copied partially below. Remember this is a search engine optimization company (companies whose income depended solely on their ability to achieve top search engine positions for their clients) writing this.

“In order to have an effective online marketing mix, a marketer must first realize the importance of testing different channels. Sponsored listings on Google, Yahoo, and MSN are a great way to start, but don’t have to be the only options. Marketers should take the time to learn who their targets are. What are their activities online? What…”

“Every website is different and so is every visitor. In order to effectively market a product or service online, a prospect has to be interested or engaged…”

Such is the evolution of SEO companies.

If the ‘on the pulse’ SEO and SEM (search engine optimization and search engine marketing) experts know that marketing online doesn’t end with Google, (in fact your market might not even start there), isn’t it time you, too, began investigating your target market’s activities and alternatives to website traffic?

Until next time,

Laura Childs
www.stampedesecret.com

Be sure to see your training manual on this (in the strategy step by step) before you begin bookmarking to get the best results. There is little sense bookmarking if your target market doesn’t bookmark or the bookmark sites have ‘nofollow’ tags employed. Each link goes to a seperate post with more information (time permitting).

This list is always updating so if you want to receive notification of updates, leave a comment and subscribe to comments below or sign up for the StampedeSecret newsletter at right.

1zone.net
ADveracious
APBnews
backflip
BARKS
Battelle
BestVoteXXX
betamarker
BlinkBits
BloggBuzz
BlogMemes
Bloodee
bluedot
BusinessPlanet
CCHITS
ContentPop
CRIMEne.ws
digg
DEVbump
DIGstock
dotNETkicks
dZone
FLURL
folkd
gameDIGGITY
huGG
humsurfer
IndianBytes
iUSEthis
iTALKnews
jossle
kaBLOGS
Kick
Lipstick
markTD
mobilitybeat
mootion
motorPULSE
MUTI
News2
PICLI
pixelgroovy
popCURRENT
plugIM
QoolSqool
SEpress
stumbleupon
techTAGG
ValueInvesting
WineLife

More coming so stay tuned! I know we will find the perfect social bookmarking site for your target market.

Laura Childs

p.s. Be sure to check out International Web 2.0 for social networks and bookmarking sites in other languages.