Choose the Right Anchor Text
Since you’re going to have your link in your signature file as you make posts in the forum, you’re going to want to make sure it contains the right anchor text. As you learned earlier, having anchor text that reflects your targeted keywords is a great way to boost your site’s rankings for that keyword in the search engines.
For example, if I wanted to rank for the keyword “cat food” in Google I would make sure that my forum signature file had “cat food” as the anchor.
Keep in mind that you’re not just getting one backlink for all the posts you’ll make. You’re actually going to get a backlink each time you post. This can have a massive effect on your search engine rankings, which is another reason to become active and involved in a highly ranked forum.
You should also know that if there are too many backlinks coming in with the same anchor text it raises a red flag for Google. Their algorithms can figure out when people are trying to game the search engines so they guard against this.
That’s why you might want to join a few good forums, so that you can have a different anchor text for each signature file you have.
Become known before displaying your link
The worst thing you can do is join a forum and immediately start throwing your link around. That’s actually the best way to get banned faster than you can imagine. It is a much better tactic to start posting and adding valuable input to questions and generally getting to know the other members first.
After you’ve “paid your dues”, you can start to put your website in your signature file and show that you’ve got a great website to offer. Remember, you want to entice people to visit your site, so make sure your text in your signature file is interesting enough for people to click on.
By waiting before you show your link you’ll build trust. This is what will get people to visit you and to listen to what you have to say as an expert in your niche.
Is It Okay To Say No?
I mentioned this tip earlier in the report. Basically, sometimes you just have to say “no” to other people.
You may feel guilty. They may deliberately try to make you feel guilty or otherwise manipulate you. But if you say “yes” to every request, you won’t have time to work on your own to-do lists.
Chances are, you will say yes to some people or to some specific requests. However, you need to prioritize these requests just as you prioritize your own to-do list. That is, make a list of people who you’re most likely to say yes to. And then prioritize requests as they come in.
Tip: If someone who’s not on your “priority list” makes a favor request, consider if the request advances your own to-do list or if there is a bartering opportunity available. If not, say no.
Most people find that it’s actually pretty easy to decide whether to say yes or no to a request. The problem comes down to actually saying no (because of the aforementioned guilt).
Here’s how to do it: Simply politely but firmly say, “No, I’m afraid I’m unable to help you.”
Don’t offer an explanation. If you do, the person will likely argue with your explanation. Don’t even open the door to debate. No matter what the other person says or how they push, just tell them no without explanation as to why you can’t help them.
Find the right forums
The very first step in proper forum marketing is finding the right forum to join in the first place. You may already know of some good ones, but if you haven’t found some it’s very easy to do. Simply type “your niche forum” into Google or another search engine. The results that appear should point you to some great options.
Examples:
“gardening forum”
“skin care message board”
“pet community”
Now, it should be said that not all of the forums that appear in the results are going to be worthwhile. Some of them are pretty dead and don’t get a lot of traffic. You want to find a very active forum with many members and many new posts every day in order to have the best results.
You should also read the forum rules and start browsing some posts to get a feel for things before you join and spend a lot of time. You are, of course, going to want to be able to put your website in your signature file and have a certain amount of freedom in your posts. That doesn’t mean you are planning to spam the forum, but you’re not going to get any visitors to your site if you are unable to display your link.
Git-R-Dun Part 2
Just a bit ago I told you that perfectionism is procrastination’s twin sister. And that’s because they’re usually both symptoms of fear.
Procrastination can manifest in these two ways:
➢ Obvious procrastination. This is when you know you’re procrastinating. You have something to work on, but you just can’t get motivated to do it.
Example: If you have a report to write, you may find yourself staring at the blank screen or getting easily distracted by other things (such as watching YouTube videos).
➢ Subtle procrastination. This one is a little trickier because it disguises itself. Instead of you just sitting around when you should be working on something, you instead busy yourself with something else (while rationalizing that this new task is important).
Indeed, you may even go so far as to reorder your to-do list so that you can procrastinate on a specific task.
Just as with perfectionism, the key to beating procrastination is to
figure out WHY you’re procrastinating.
How does it serve you? How does it “protect” you from one of your fears?
In some cases, it’s not immediately obvious to you why you’re procrastinating.
If so, then you need to do a brain dump. Simply take out a couple clean sheets of paper and write, “why am I procrastinating?” at the top of the paper. Then spend 30 minutes writing everything that comes into your head (no censoring, editing or analyzing). If you can’t think of anything to write, then just keep writing the question until something does pop into your head. Usually after about 20 minutes, our subconscious mind lets down its defenses, so that’s when you’ll start getting real answers to your question.
Once you’ve determined the problem, then it’s up to you to find a solution
In most cases, simply acknowledging the problem will be enough to allow yourself to start taking serious action.
Forum Marketing
Forum marketing is another excellent way to get more traffic. Forums, or message boards, are targeted communities where members join in order to have discussions with each other about the topic at hand.
For example, since you’re interested in Internet marketing and finding ways to drive traffic to your website the chances are good that you are a member of an Internet marketing forum or two or three. The same goes for people who are interested in dog training, gardening, skin care, and nearly every niche out there.
In fact, here are two that I recommend:
www.warriorforum.com – Where all the “big dogs” hang out. A great place to learn and get special deals.
http://www.123webmarketing.com/forumtraffic.html – This forum allows you to earn free advertising credits for every post that you read and/or respond to.
By joining forums and interacting in the right way, you can definitely drive traffic to your sites.
Git-R-Dun
Your mom probably taught you to do the best you can. In school, your teachers insisted on you doing your very best job (and your grades reflected your efforts). And so you might be tempted to make sure everything is perfect on every task you do.
Sometimes you do need to be perfect.
Sometimes.
But you also need to have the wisdom to know when you can turn out work and complete tasks that are less than perfect.
You need to know that sometimes you’ll turn out
average work and improve it as you go.
Take a look at the company Microsoft. They don’t put out perfect software products. Instead, they do what they can up front and release imperfect software. The reason they do this is twofold:
1. They’ll still make money. Because they offer free patches and upgrades, people are confident enough to essentially “beta test” their software. (Even when they’re no longer officially in beta.)
2. Microsoft knows that they’ll improve their product faster by releasing it sooner. Think about it: thousands of people using their software will uncover the bugs much faster than a handful of beta testers. And so the company releases software that’s not yet perfect because releasing it is the fastest way to improve it.
Now before we delve into this further, let me make a note: Sometimes your work will never be perfect. If you try to make perfect something that can’t be perfected, you’re only wasting time. You need to do the best you can and move on (and make improvements later if need be).
The other thing you need to recognize is whether you’re using perfectionism as a way to not finish a product.
Indeed, perfectionism is procrastination’s twin sister: Except perfectionism makes you FEEL like you’re really making progress.
How can you tell?
Simple: If you’re missing deadlines because you don’t think your project is “ready,” then some sort of fear (of success or failure) may be revealing itself in the form of perfectionism. It’s one thing to want to do a good job… it’s an entirely different matter to have a project stall because you don’t think it’s “perfect” yet.
Getting over perfectionism requires a couple steps, including:
Step #1: Figure out why you can’t move forward. That is, what “pay off” do you get if you don’t finish the project? Why are you afraid to move forward?
Sometimes people can’t move forward due to a fear of failure. That’s pretty common. When you spend a long time thinking about how good it will feel to achieve your goals, the prospect of failing can seem frightening.
Tip: If this is your fear, remember that you don’t get just one chance to find success. Thomas Edison completed thousands upon thousands of experiments as he sought to create the light bulb. If he thought he had just one shot, he would have quit when his very first idea failed.
On the flip side, sometimes people fear success. They don’t know what success will bring – they only know it’s scary because it IS unknown.
Example: Someone who’s looking to make a lot of money with a project may suddenly start worrying about something like relatives asking for money, complicated tax paperwork and similar. And in doing so, he talks himself out of wanting to be successful.
In still other cases, some folks feel like they don’t deserve success. And so they sabotage themselves. Being a perfectionist (and thus never finishing anything) is one way to do it, while avoiding the guilt that goes along other behaviors like procrastination.
This step is the hard part.
Once you can be truthful with yourself and admit you’re using perfectionism to avoid finishing a task (and determine why), you’ll be well on your way to moving past perfectionism…
Step #2: Imagine the worst case scenario.
Perfectionism is usually caused by some sort of fear. But if you really let your mind go wild and imagine the WORST that can happen… you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find it’s not all that frightening as you thought.
So go ahead and imagine your worst possible fear about your goals and this project
Let your mind go wild about what could happen if the project wasn’t absolutely perfect. And then imagine the worst case about what would happen if you succeeded or failed on the overall project.
Example: Maybe the person who’s working on a new business is suddenly gripped by the fear of begging relatives and complex taxes.
If you let your mind run with those fears, you’ll see there not so scary.
Example: The newly successful person can instantly eliminate the fear of complex taxes by hiring a good tax accountant.
Step #3: Commit to moving forward.
Once you’ve uncovered your specific reason for perfectionism and imagined your worst fears, you’ll feel a whole lot better. And that’s the perfect time to take a massive step towards your goal (as action will make the rest of your fear melt away).
Example: If you’re doing something like writing a book, force yourself to write the introduction… and give yourself permission for it to be awful (you can go back later and edit it).
Use Wikidot.com
Wikidot.com is a bit different then the other Web 2.0 sites mentioned, but it can still help you get traffic to your website. Many people have heard of and use Wikipedia.com, and this is a similar idea.
The difference here is that you get to create your own wiki site instead.
After you sign up for WikiDot you will get to create your own community wiki. You can add a front page that links to your website as well as several other pages. This can act as a gateway to your own website, which has the potential to get you a lot of traffic.
Since you’re the leader of this wiki, you’ll get even more respect as an expert. Not only will you get the visitors from your community members and others who stumble across your wiki, you get the benefit of the backlinks so you can rank more highly in the search engines.
It’s always exciting when you can find sites like this that serve a dual purpose for giving you traffic.
Use MSN LiveSpaces
MSN Live Spaces at http://home.spaces.live.com/ is yet another web 2.0 platform.
You can create a profile as well as your own blog on this site.
Just like Blogger and WordPress, this gives you a chance to blog about your site and related content to get targeted visitors in the LiveSpaces community, as well as to improve your rankings in the search engines.
Focus Time
You often hear about folks praising those who multi-task. I mean why just do one thing when you can do two or more things in the same amount of time?
That’s true only in certain cases. The tips above are perfect examples: You can certainly make out a grocery list or a to do list while watching TV. And you can certainly do some reading (or listen to digital books) while doing things like driving. Waiting for an appointment or exercising.
However, multi-tasking doesn’t work very well when you’re trying to do two tasks that use the same resources.
Example: You can’t write a report and write an email at the same time.
Think about it: You’re writing an email. Then you turn your attention to your report. You have to now read the last few paragraphs that you created previously to reorient yourself to the task. You write a page of your report and then go back to your email. Now you spend a minute rereading the email so you can recall your previous train of thought.
And so on.
Point is, you’ll spend more time just going over your previous work again and again to help you refresh your memory and reorient yourself to the task. And that wastes time.
There’s a better way: Single-task. Focus on one thing at a time. Finish that one thing. And then turn your full attention to something else.
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