i use some forums, and many other blogs , and give comment, respond, review, and offcouse always update the content of my blog.
Honestly, if I could afford to quit my day job right now... I know I could make a full time income just from Forum marketing. There are so many forums out there that have high traffic, and just 5 posts per day per forum would add up very quickly. Let's say you had 10 forums you posted on. That would be 50 posts per day, which really wouldn't take a lot of time to do. Even if you spent a whopping 3 minutes per post, you would be done in less than 3 hours. Then take 50 posts per day and multiply that by 300 days out of the year, providing you decide to not do it every single day. In the course of 1 year you have accumulate 1500 posts... which is 1500 different locations you could have a text ad running. Now multiply that by 3 which is typical for how many text ads you can get into a signature, and then it adds up to 4500. Now granted all of your posts won't stay in the fresh threads forever but if you use good keywords in your posts, then someone searching for something might stumble onto one of your posts that has your ad in the signature. After a year let's say you average just $1 per post per month in revenue. That is $1500 per month, without having to spend anytime working, which frees up your time to pursue other ventures like PPC marketing or developing a good adsense site. This whole example is just based on the potential for signature income. This does not include offers you could put on the "buy and sell" sections of the forums. Then on top of this you could apply the same strategy to posting comments on blogs. There are probably 10 times as many blogs as there are forums. If you find a blog with decent traffic you could start posting comments on linking back to your site, with whatever offer you choose. After a few years of doing this, your revenue should pretty much be on autopilot, due to all of the inbound traffic from posts. This is because all of that traffic becomes viral, because people will start posting about your site or product or whatever the case may be, and as long as you keep adding quality content to these forums and blogs, the traffic and income could grow exponentially.
Yes it is although if you spend three hours a day submitting your site to many neiches ie. Blog comments, making videos and submitting, to directories, Blogging and Posts, Articles and Submissions etc. then you'll also have the same effect - pretty much the general rule in advertising is to go hard as mentioned above and stick to your guns. Would get bloody boring after one year of repitive crap though.
for SEO, link exchange is still useful. Try to perform three way link exchange but what I mean is 3-way article exchange. Make it looks like natural. Don't put links in home page, etc. I think most big guys in competitive keywords always doing this thing and it definitely works.
Maybe so... but even if it is boring, as long as keeps putting money in the bank, it is worth it. Besides, I stick to forums and blogs, because it is more like a conversation instead of work. On the other hand, something like videos, would drive me nuts, because of all the editing involved. Might get involved with video once I can pay someone to do all that editing.
Yeah I llike to have a break from videos, well kind of I just update my sites and then use MySpace accounts for promoting aswell, I am always experimenting and trying new things. Videos are my neiche at the moment and somethin I felt I was lacking experience in - mainly making editing, creating and marketing.
I could make a decent video or two, but I just don't want it to look unprofessional like some marketer's videos I see on YouTube. It's like watching a really bad kung fu movie from the 70's. Lips move but no sound, then moments later, the sound. I would want my video's quality to be very good. I have seen some videos that are just terrible. They either have a very boring and monotone demeanor or they have speech issues (i.e. they can't speak a sentence without having a "duh what was I saying" moment). It is like they don't know the very basics of selling. Is it so hard to understand that enthusiasm sells? Hmmm... maybe that is a video I could create. I have camtasia 5, so doing screencasts wouldn't be that bad, but still content creation is very time consuming.
My favorite method of advertisement and promotion has been article marketing and link building, both have proven to me to develop long lasting free search engine traffic! As well as direct referal traffic.
I do my own article marketing, but that is due to the fact that I run an Article writing and marketing business! I would suggest submitting to all the highest PR free article directories that you can find.
Right now it's trial and error for me. I'll try just about anything (white hat) once or twice to see how it effects my traffic.
That is the best way to do it! If you don't try something out then you will never know the results. Some people just cannot take a chance. But i've found that to be the best way.
Yep, I'm definitely not afraid to take a chance. As long as I stay on top of things, if I make a wrong move it won't hurt my stats too much.
did you get success with facebook ads? I have been shut down several times and my traffic was really poor http://www.ianfernando.com/2007/you-shut-your-face-facebook/ I think I am [retty good with PPC but the facebook one didnt really play in my favor
I have heard that facebook ads get a few clickthrough's but very few sales if any. Facebook ads might be better targeted for adsense/azoogle type sites. However, if you try the adsense/azoogle route it may not turn out good, because facebook ads aren't free... or at least I don't think they are free... I don't know personally so I may be wrong about that part.