Does anyone out there know of a single blog directory worth having their badge on your site? A directory that you actually get traffic from? Of all the blog directories I’ve joined over the years I can only find one back link (that Google knows about) to this blog. That directory is New-List. I joined New-List in September of 2006 and I can’t see any way to edit that outdated URL. I virtually get no traffic from blog directories – ZERO! I have removed every badge and widget from this site with the exception of Blog Engage. Blog Engage isn’t really a blog directory, it’s more of a blog article review site. It’s very cool, check it out.

BlogCatalog:
BlogCatalog is what set me off on this rant so it’s going to seem like a ‘pick on BlogCatalog post‘. My BlogCatalog concerns started a year ago when I spent $72 on two ads. The results? Total visitors = 7

Then a few months ago I was having problem with my blog freezing up whenever I went to it – and I have broadband internet and my site is cached! I could see the browser message on the bottom showing, “Waiting for BlogCatalog.com“. I had to remove the widget and put their silly code in the footer.

No big deal,  I figured, at least they still have that broadcast feature. That’s a very cool tool, right? You would think, until you ran a couple tests.

August 25th, 2009 I sent a message broadcasting to 381 BlogCatalog users promoting my blog post ‘Get Featured With Our Promotional Buttons‘. I used my tracking site to create a tracking link. The result? Zero clicks!

October 17th, 2009 I sent a message broadcasting to 385 BlogCatalog users with a fantastic subject line, ‘AdSense Site – First Month = One Hundred Dollars‘. Tracking result? One click!

I’ve been a BlogCatalog member since November 2006 and even wrote a blog post on how great blog directories are a while back. Now I think it’s time to part ways, just like Entrecard.

MyBlogLog:
While I’m at it, I’m going to get rid of MyBlogLog too. MyBlogLog has never been that great and even though they are run by Yahoo the site seems very unorganized to say the least. I’ve had thumbnails waiting to be updated for over a year – literally. Check it out.

I’m Not Alone:
I know I’m not the only one becoming discouraged with blog directories lately. See what Sheryl Loch had to say over a week ago: Has BlogCatalog Gone Down Hill? And check out what John Sullivan thinks about Blogcatalog. I love John and his subtle way of expressing himself lol Blogcatalog An open letter to you

Pulling Back To Ease The Pain:
I don’t mean to come off as blog directory basher. There may be some good ones out there. There may be hidden benefits with the ones I listed. Please let me know if I’ve missed something before I burn the bridges. I hold no grudge or ill will to any of these directories, it can’t be an easy task to run a profitable directory while staying on top of everything. Remember BlogRush? (BTW, how does BlogRush still have a Google PR of 4 when it’s been shut down for the last year? Hardly seems fair)

So I’ll ask it again…
Does anyone out their know of a single blog directory worth having their badge on your site? (feel free to leave links) Am I off base here? Are you making blog directories work for you?

Extreme Ezine subscribers know that Niche Marketing has been of interest to me for a while. I’m always researching various ways and methods to effectively put my niche domains to work. Just today I came across an Opt-in page that impressed me in a couple different ways. I went ahead and joined the list to access the free Micro Niche Finder videos and I’m glad I did.

First of all, the videos in themselves are a product worth having [See A Sample Video Here]. Obviously the videos are designed to promote the product but they offer several eye-opening methods of using niche marketing without buying a thing. Methods such as using article marketing on Ezine Articles with a resource link pointing to a free blogger blog which in-turn drives traffic to a ClickBank affiliate product. How about using Squidoo and Yahoo Answers pointing to your ClickBank affiliate product links? There’s nothing new to these free marketing methods but the videos are so simple it can clear up the whole idea of micro-niche marketing for those new to internet marketing. I recommend at least watching the videos. They can show you how to get started in micro niche marketing without buying niche domains.

The second thing that impressed me with Micro Niche Finder is that James Jones pulled all the stops when setting up this simple sales strategy. The first thing we see when following the sales link is a nicely written squeeze page with an audio message offering five free videos just for opting in (list building). The videos offer something of value to the viewer while also demonstrating effective uses of the product being promoted (generating interest and possible referrals). Access to the videos are on the actual sales page itself (watching the videos is actually part of the sales process). The sales page even incorporates a popup when detecting you’re about to leave the page (increasing conversion rates) offering free copies for your other computers via a physical product mailed to you if purchased now (sense of urgency). Combine all that with a ClickBank affiliate program and I think James Jones has shown us a classic example of internet marketing at it’s best. What do you think?

Last month I asked ‘What Blog Promotion Steps Do You Take?‘. We had some interesting responses and some great ideas. Several of our sites, including this one, seem to have leveled off with very little growth. We loose as many subscribers, customers, or members as we gain. At first glance it seems ok because we’re not losing business, right? I say wrong, without steady growth we are dying.

If all of your marketing efforts are designed to keep your online business from shrinking then you are loosing ground. We can see examples of this in every size online business in every niche. I’ll offer a couple recent big ones…

Right now there is a lot of debate on why myspace.com was just recently passed by facebook.com in traffic. We can discuss why one site suddenly outperforms the other but I would like to use it as an example. The chart below by compete.com clearly shows myspace.com holding steady and maintaining it’s traffic. That’s not good enough, is it? facebook.com is growing while myspace.com flat lines.

Another example is mybloglog.com and blogcatalog.com. I have accounts with both and everyone has their own opinions but we see the same scenario. blogcatalog.com grew 162.5% while mybloglog.com pretty much stayed level with a negative 3.9% in unique visitors. Within just a couple of months that growth shot blogcatalog.com way past mybloglog.com.

The reasons for the traffic shift of those two examples are really irrelevant for most of us. We don’t face the same challenges or have the resources of any of those four giants. What we can gain from are the results. For whatever reason one site is growing and the other isn’t. We need to find the ‘growth button’ for our niche and our business.

Marketing is much more than advertising and selling goods or services. The Marketing Mix (The four Ps) Product, Price, Place, and Promotion covers all of the basics of general marketing. Our marketing mix incorporates market research, pricing, customer service, promotion, terms, branding, exposure, message, distribution, selling and much more. It is all about influencing new consumers to buy our product while convincing current customers to stay with our brand.

We don’t have to have huge marketing budgets for steady growth. It’s not even necessary to have a traditional product. If you are a blogger your website is your product. Optimizing our specific marketing mix for growth along with retention is imperative.

The Extreme Ezine is going to kick it up a notch. How about you? Is your online business growing? Are you gaining unique visitors to your site each month? Are your profits increasing each month. What are you doing to grow your business?

This post is all about blog post promotion questions and your answers. The answers will come from your comments. I want to know your immediate routine after posting to your blog. Answer as much or as little as you like. Your answers will help others promote their blog content and together we can increase our blogging success.

1. What steps do you take after posting to your blog?
2. How do you promote your blog posts?
3. Do you submit it to social networking sites? Which ones? (Feel free to link to your profile or page in your comments)
4. Do you hit the bookmarking sites? Which ones? (Feel free to link to your profile or page in your comments)
5. Do you start commenting on other blogs? What are you looking for when choosing which blogs? Friends, CommentLuv, Sez-Who, Top Commentators widget, Do-Follow, Page Rank?
6. Do you Digg it? Tweet it? Stumble It?
7. Do you shoot your friends an email?
8. Do you log into a chat room to discuss it?
9. Do you post it on forums?
10. Do you send the link to your list?

Ok, I think you get the idea. Please list every and any form of blog post promotion method you use. Don’t worry if it’s already been mentioned, list it again. That will add more weight to the tactic. Explain why you take these steps if you like.

This morning I woke up and grabbed my latest issue of Website Magazine [see our post The Extreme Ezine Recommends Website Magazine] and found a great tip on adding more free exposure for our business.

The article, Get Listed Locally at GetListed.org features a new site, GetListed.org, that helps small businesses get listed in search engines like Google Maps and Yahoo! Local. It’s a free service and, truthfully, you can do it without GetListed.org but there’s no reason. Like I said, it’s free.

So I made one of my first tasks to include our parent company in the listings. Adding our business to the listings was simple, easy and hopefully will increase our exposure.

The first listing I tackled was Google Maps. It was easy and my business was on the map in about twenty minutes. Our URL is also listed in the details and as far as I can tell it isn’t using the no-follow tag.

I also added our business to the other search engine listings without a problem. They take a little longer for approval.

TIP: Since the Google Map listing is geared more toward a physical address and they allow a small picture (about 90px × 50px) I decided to create a simple graphic showing our website address.

Ok, so you just finished the post you have been working on all day. It’s proofed, formatted, published and you are feeling proud. What’s the first thing you are going to do? Promote some life into it right? We don’t want it to sit there like a trophy collecting dust in the attic. We want everyone talking about it. We want our online friends to flood to the site to see this master piece and start a line of comments that seem to never end.

This is the kind of post that’s going to require YOUR help. In all my wisdom and expertise I can muster up enough to get the conversation started but the true gold comes from you. Don’t be shy, tell everyone what steps you take to promote your blog posts. I’ll list a few things I like to do:

Commenting
Commenting on other blogs in your niche is one of the most effective ways there is to bring life into your own blog. It takes time and effort but if consistent you will have regular commenters on your blog. You will find that friendships are quickly developed and this will only grow with time if you stay focused and continue to seek out new blogs to befriend. The key is sincerity. Comment often and always read the post and add value to the site.

Tweet
Twitter is very popular and there is some debate as to how appropriate it is to tweet your blog posts. Personally I see nothing wrong with it as long as it’s mixed with other tweets. As far as how effective it is I’m still undecided.

Broadcast
I’m a big fan of BlogCatalog and even tough I don’t like to broadcast every post I will send one for my best work. This is an easy way to get your link in front of hundreds of people. What do they say about lists?

MySpace Bulletin
I’m not as active in MySpace as I was a while back but will login and post a quick bulletin for my friends. By the way, I’ve been somewhat particular with my MySpace friends so most are in the Internet Marketing field in one way or another. This helps with a more ‘targeted‘ list of online friends.

Newsletter/eZine
Of course this is my favorite. In our eZine I sprinkle blogs posts links from several of my blogs. I even promote blogging friend’s posts now. This helps promote our blogs and lends value to the publication. It seems like the perfect fit.

Last Note
Just a quick note. The best time to begin your various methods of promotion is immediately after you post. Personally I don’t post every day. I like to give others a chance to read and comment on the site before the content gets buried. Blogs with more traffic do not have to worry about that issue. If you post every few days or so you want to send people to fresh content so promote after each new post and don’t wait a day or two.

Have you checked out Google’s newest creation SearchWiki? SearchWiki is for Google users that are signed into their Google accounts. I don’t know how many users that is but it has to be in the millions at any given time. When SearchWiki was launched a couple of days ago I didn’t give it much thought.

That was until I read a post on John’s Tech Blog Google Turns SEO On It’s Head! John’s post made me go back and pay attention to a Google search that I had just made. I was checking our ad tracking site’s current position by searching ad tracking in Google search -- still number two So I went back and noticed the little icon  where I could add a note to my URL.

I didn’t even think that was so special until I noticed that is was public! Wow, a public comment next to your URL in Google’s search results. SearchWiki does not affect the way websites are ranked by Google but adding a public comment about your site is a great way to make it more visible and perhaps even a little more legitimate in the eyes of some.

Related: The Official Google Blog SearchWiki: make search your own

Has anyone else noticed that Digg doesn’t seem to offer the graphic choice all of the time? I’m not sure if it’s me or what. Perhaps it has to do with the way I add images to my posts. I noticed something yesterday and I just confirmed it this morning so it looks like I found a work around – in a way.

Complete the Digg submission exactly the same as always. The only exception is the Captcha (Are You Human?) form before hitting the ‘Submit story‘ button. Get it wrong. That’s right, enter the wrong answer on the captcha form the first time. When it comes back to tell you to try again you, all of the sudden, have the image option again. If there is an image available that is.

So make a mistake once in a while and get your image on Digg again Oh ya, here’s my Digg Profile.

I have a quick tip that may help you get a few more sales or subscribers. This concept is not new but perhaps it will help a few readers that haven’t seen it yet or have even forgotten about the idea.

One great place to put lead capture pages in are directories on your site that don’t use an index page. Normally I would setup a quick index page with a re-direct back to the main site. For example, say someone comes across one of my graphics in a Google search. Perhaps they want to see what else I have for them to grab so they strip off the page ‘graphic_example.gif‘ and go to the actual directory ‘http://extremeezine.com/images/‘. Instead of seeing a list of graphics they would be sent to my main page.

Great for protection but we can make better use of that real estate…

Instead of the index page with a re-direct, wouldn’t it be better to use a lead capture page or squeeze page? Here’s an example…

On our site image directory we use an ad to promote our site’s banner advertising service. http://extremeezine.com/images/

If you use a squeeze page to promote a product be sure to use one that’s going to be available and relevant for a long time. It can get very time consuming updating these pages too often.

Top Ezine Marketers know that advertising in Ezines is one of the best mediums for promoting their latest projects. Most have their own huge lists and they use other top marketers lists too in the form of Joint Ventures. Want proof? Check your inbox! These marketers seem to have a weekly campaign going at all times. Notice how fast they move from one campaign to the next? That’s key to internet marketing. If they stayed on one project they would simply be a small business owner or web site admin. They realize that when they launch the campaign and build the momentum they can continue to reap the rewards while they move onto the next idea.

What sets them apart from the rest? Well, lets take a look:

:: Minimum Basics – First of all, we have to admit they all have the minimum basics such as drive, dedication and persistence. That and more is all a given.

:: What about money? Money is definitely necessary. The pros have the funds to pay graphic designers, website builders, programmers and anything else they need to outsource. Many had money before they started their online carriers but I’m sure others started out from scratch too. They had to use other resources or rely on some of the other characteristics.

:: Foresight – The gurus are great at watching trends. They can see (or pay someone to see) what direction the industry is moving. They can figure out what is needed or wanted and then figure out how to provide it. It’s really no different online that in business being conducted anywhere else throughout the world.

The lists

We’ve all been flooded with advertisements in the mail for years. We call it junk mail but if it didn’t work no one would waste the huge expenses involved in the endeavor. Small and large companies alike know the value in repeat customers. They understand that the likelihood of a paying customer to purchase again goes way up if you can offer them a reason to come back. So businesses have been collecting contact information and other data for decades. They send out specials, sales incentives and reminders and incur huge expenses while doing so. That’s ok because they know it works! It’s an investment that will pay off.

Online marketers do the same thing but we do have a big advantage. We don’t have to pay printers, sorters and postage. But the concept is the same. We have to realize that no one wants to be on a list just to be sold every item that comes around. But most are willing to make a compromise. We give them quality content that they are interested in. We make offers and deals that are geared toward them. We stay within the niche our business is in and then branch off into related niches. You have to see the benefit to such a list. It is targeted! A targeted list is important for obvious reasons. And the value of such a list is invaluable. I spend 25% or more on list development.

Targeted lists are about as good as it gets. If you have developed trust that is. Do you see how parallel everything is to brick and motor business? Here’s where it gets even harder to do business online. We have to establish a relationship with thousands of people we will never meet. We need to keep their interest and give them quality content that they need and want. It’s much easier to say no to a faceless unsubscribe button than a sells rep looking at you eye to eye.

Balance

We have to have just the right balance of content and advertisement. We also have to balance the frequency of our issues. Is a monthly newsletter too long between issues? Is daily too much? Do we need a regular schedule or is random better? There are two ways to find which answers are right for your list. Track everything and ask! That’s right, ask your list what they want. Send a poll or survey. Give them a little incentive to respond such as a free gift or a mention on your site. Then track everything. Keep a log of what works and what doesn’t. This is an ongoing exercise because you need to know when trends and moods are changing and make the necessary changes yourself.

Why do most Ezine Marketers fail

This should have been a topic in it’s self but I’ll add my two cents now. Most internet marketers fail for the same reasons as the brick and mortar businesses do.

:: Too little capital.
:: Not enough drive.
:: Unwilling to take enough risks.
:: Taking too many risks.
:: Time mismanagement.
:: Impatience and hundreds of other reasons.

If I had to narrow it down to one big reason I’d have to say it’s because most people come online thinking it’s going to be easier! They didn’t realize how many hours it would take. They didn’t realize the expenses involved. And these misunderstandings can cause the would-be internet marketer to steer way off course trying to find that ’secret’ they know is out there. They sign up for every program that hit’s their inbox and use every free advertising method they can find. They join affiliate program after affiliate program because they are sure someone’s onto the big secret. They signup for every software give-a-way hoping that one of those free gifts will launch them into successes orbit!

“That’s not internet marketing! That’s being a customer!”

Sound like you? That’s not internet marketing! That’s being a customer. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as that’s what you are trying to accomplish. I know several people that have done very nicely with affiliate programs almost exclusively. But it’s not going to lead you to the big secret. I’ll tell you the secret, “There secret is there is no secret!” It’s the same as any other business:

:: You have to know what you are out to accomplish.
:: You have to have a plan. Set some goals.
:: Set your priorities.
:: Work with like minded people.
:: Don’t be afraid to stick your neck out.
:: Spend the money if it’s required.

Here’s my three biggest tips:

1. Build your list!
2. Find your own product or program!
3. Build your list!

With a little patience and a lot of persistence you can have a highly targeted list rivaling any other. You’ll be able to offer cost effective and targeted advertising to third parties if you choose. Or you’ll be able to write articles like this to offer your Blog readers a little quality content .

Build your list, treat them right, cover your basics and you’ll soon be off to a successful internet marketing career.