I just lost a customer. Likely for life…

This neither burns nor bothers me, but it is a lesson in attracting the right market with the right product.

My customer (I actually prefer to call them clients if I must have a name for them) was happier with the content of the old Stampede Secret. He liked the ‘secrets’ better (which were widely distributed all over the internet just a few short weeks after Dr. Joe Vitale and I released the report, so they weren’t exactly ‘secrets’ after all).

But Don (we’ll call him that) liked the ‘idea’ of immediate traffic, liked the ease of creating and promoting RSS feeds better, liked the fun and hype Joe and I wrote into the report, better.

Does it matter that those old techniques are all but neutered now?

It doesn’t to Don, but it certainly does to me!

What About Your Customer?

Could Your Customer Also Be Looking For A Slice of Hype?

I can’t sleep at night knowing that my heat is paid for by clients purchasing old news. That’s why I took the old Stampede Secret off the market as soon as I saw the techniques didn’t have the effect they once had.

Apparently reality has nothing to do with it.

Some customers are happy to just buy a slice of hype. And no amount of jumping up and down, gnashing of teeth, or showing my stats is going to make a lick of a difference to that type of person.

I was warned. Read the rest of this entry »

Below you’ll find a few reviews to date of the newly released Stampede Secret – Web 2.0 Traffic Strategies

From Andy Beard

“Stampede Secrets 2.0 is unlike any internet marketing report or ebook I have read…”

“Whilst Laura’s intention was to target the ebook to beginners in social media marketing, in many ways consultants in social media marketing should read it because it will place a new perspective on information and strategies you think you already know.”

“This ebook oozes quality production with footnotes on almost every page and links to resources that back up the data and strategies she proposes.”

“To get the most benefit you really will have to read through the ebook a couple of times taking notes – in some ways it reminds me of some of the more serious marketing reports you might receive from Marketing Sherpa.”

Read the full review to get a realistic idea if the Stampede Secret is right for you – Andy Beard

From Ryan Knowles

“You need to stop using PlugIM, or any other source of so called “Web 2.0? traffic generation methods, until you’ve read this.”

Ryan ‘Dravis’ Knowles, PlugIM

From Tiffany Dow

“Automate Your Web 2.0! I strongly urge you to download The Stampede Secret 2.0 by Laura Childs (co-author to a book with Dr. Vitale of The Secret fame). This is the only guide to date that delivers quick-start tip sheets to help you put your socialization strategy on autopilot.”

Continuation of Tiffany’s email from the home page: “…I’m delighted that you’ve created a product that guides us through the process of positioning ourselves in this environment without the usual spam approach.I especially appreciate the 12 Point Action Plan for Web 2.0 because there’s no opportunity for failure if we apply the information you’ve given us.

“While my own expertise is primarily with Squidoo, what I’ve learned in Stampede Secret 2.0 is how to develop an actual blueprint to my socialization strategy so that each day I can log on and tweak my efforts for more traffic and sales.

“In addition to being packed with solid information and advice, it’s also a great read, which is important to me as a writer because so many products tend to be dry and a struggle to keep my attention.

“I can’t wait for Stampede Secret 3.0!”

Tiffany Dow, Squidoo Expert

Please be sure to leave your own testimonial, review, question or comment…I’d love to hear from you!

UPDATE – Although this post started as a quick look at the drop in social bookmarking, it has moved into more of a discussion on the validity of Alexa, and thinking about your target market (do they bookmark? do they blog?), plus a quick intro to Seth Godin (as if, for a moment, any intro to Seth was ever required!). Skim over the stats, and head into the comments to see what I mean, and please, leave your own mark if you have questions.

——————

Doing a bit of research updates today to include in 2007′s Stampede Secret and I started noticing some (potentially) distressing trends to those of us who thought bookmarking was going to solve all our traffic problems…

As I surfed through over 100 social bookmarking sites and compared them to Alexa’s traffic ranking stats, I found that the majority of them had noticed a 10-40% decrease as compared to 3 months ago.

I’m not about to stake claims, make any predictions, or write a doom and gloom message for website traffic seekers hoping to use tag and bookmark practices to huge success – at least not in this post.

I do suggest however, performing some of your own research, before you jump on the social bookmarking bandwagon…

The table below has a mix of bookmarking sites, with a few of their current Alexa positions (any # with an * beside it has not decreased. In fact, those sites have seen an increase of anywhere from 2-30%).

Odd to see del.icio.us down 44 (page views and users), digg down 6, and fark down 322 to name a few. See the list and some of the numbers, I didn’t post them all publicly… Read the rest of this entry »

This is actually quite good for a free Web 2.0 ebook resource. I’d like you to grab it as it will bring you up to speed and more aware of what 2.0 Traffic techniques might do for you.

It’s called “The Authority Site Black Book – Web 2.0 Traffic” and is available at the smart subdomain (link below).

If you’re on any internet marketer’s list they’re probably going to use the pre-written email that says “this will work for years to come” and “includes every important Web 2.0 social marketing tactic and website that you could ever want to know about and use to bring in traffic through social marketing.”

Don’t believe it for a minute. Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: free Web 2.0 ebook, Web 2.0, social marketing

Honestly I couldn’t believe the number of people who flocked to MySpace with their online business promotion ideals – making ugly web spaces and creating lists of ‘friends’ that they hoped would somehow amount to ‘worth it‘ in traffic and sales.

I ranted long and furiously about this in another post so I’m not about to get tangled up that negativity again, but you must know this:

“As a writer and tester for the best types of free traffic generation and gaining top search engine ranks, and with a MySpace marketing ebook to sell, I never told you about it. Nor promoted the material. Didn’t even offer it up on one of my top ranking resale rights pages. And I did not share the techniques.”

Why, when I could have raked in a few thousand selling that material? Read the rest of this entry »

So you’ve got a 1.0 website and you’ve been seeing less traffic, even though you’ve read that there are 40% more users online than 18 months ago…

With all those extra surfers doesn’t it stand to reason that your traffic stats should be showing an increase in new visitors?

Not necessarily.

If you’ve been wondering “Where has all the traffic gone?”, I’ll tell you. (You actually don’t need me to tell you – just hit alexa to see where and what types of websites are visited most often in the last year.)

The truth is, your traffic is hanging out on 2.0 enabled websites.

They just aren’t coming to our old 1.0 websites anymore. At least not as fast, furiously, or frequently as they used to.

Even if you’ve never had a high traffic website this post is still for you…

As long as you ‘get’ that Web 2.0 is capturing the interests and time of internet surfers, you can start securing back some of those visitors today – without having to build your own wildly successful Web 2.0 site. Read the rest of this entry »

This post isn’t entirely ‘Web 2.0′.

Yet it is a topic near and dear to me when discussing website traffic with my readers.

Since traffic is the lifeblood of a website owner’s income…and, since my main focus is is how ‘Web 2.0′ sites have stolen all our site visitors…

It’s obviously very important to talk about how to get some of that traffic back!

This isn’t a basic intro to search engine optimization – you’ll have to find that somewhere else. There’s likely 199,000,000 pages on the subject if you start from google.

What I do want to talk to you about is your search engine competition. If you’ve been checking your position in the search engines for your primary keywords you’re likely to be seeing a slip – across all niches.

It’s no surprise to me – I’ve been battling (then working with) my traffic competitors for the past two years. Watching those up and coming, knock me out of my top spots, sites – all built on 2.0 concepts!

Go to google right now and type in your favorite keyword or phrase. If you have last year’s notes to compare, even better. What you’ll see now, and what will be even more apparent in a few months’ time, is that sites like Yahoo Answers, 43things, YouTube, eBay (yes it was one of the innovators in Web 2.0 concepts), Amazon (same as eBay), even crappy ol’ MSN Spaces are taking you out of your comfort zone and beating you for your most lucrative keywords! Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of online promotion experts are finally awake to the fact that Web 2.0 sites are now the high traffic hot spots.

These experts have been thinking of, testing, and tracking their ideas and results – and as a result are now teaching their proven techniques. It’s about time, and there’s still plenty of time to promote your site through these channels so don’t buy into any hype about ‘the window of opportunity closing’.

The options wide open to a small business owner are many – the hardest part is pre-determining where your promotion energy is best spent for best results.

Find your target market and get your offer in their path.

Telling you where your target market is, generically, is impossible. That is if I truly want to help (and not hinder) your success. Every market differs. You need to know your market, their interests and passions, and then ‘best guess’ what Web 2.0 website they’ll be hanging out on. Because if you believe me and the research that’s taken me to this point, they’re hanging out somewhere. (More users spending more time online – but not necessarily showing up on our websites to coincide with the research numbers.)

Here is a very simplistic example…you sell a relationship-related product, your market is lonely hearts, they’re hanging out at the dating or singles sites – network (on a free web 2.0 social network site) with your message and gain traffic.

Another simplistic example…you sell truck parts, your market is the young, rural male. When they’re not working on their trucks, they might just be watching online videos (on a web 2.0 video sharing site) – post a few fun clips of 4×4 trucks and gain traffic.

Website Promotion Using Video Sites – YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video…

I’ve been doing this with video for the past year and it works in spades! From one of my online marketing websites (which I’m happy to disclose to the masses, but my niche markets I keep very hidden from prying eyes) I created a 3 minute clip that led to my website and has made me a top affiliate (and now one of only a few partners) for a very popular website building script. That little video has also increased my visitor traffic by about 30% and holding – even after 11 months (March 9, 2006) and even though I only posted that video clip on Google Video. Just last night I uploaded it to YouTube to experiment, test and track the viability of that Web 2.0 site.

At the end of this article I’ll post some of the hottest Web 2.0 video sharing sites today for you to consider.

The question still remains however…is this Web 2.0 traffic technique right for your market?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say “I don’t care what market you’re in, this should drag them in.” Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: Web 2.0, online videos, Google Video, YouTube, Web 2.0 traffic