Fresh from the Article Marketing Round Table I led at the recent Glazer-Kennedy Super Conference in Dallas, here is one of the FAQs I got:

Q: Once I have created my article(s), how do I get traffic to my articles?

A: I really like this question, because there are just so many great answers to it. I’ve got room for only 3 in this article, and here they are:

1) EzineArticles.com – One of the first things I learned about getting traffic on the Internet is this:

“Don’t chase after traffic. Find out where the traffic is going and get your information in front of it.”

When you get your articles on EzineArticles.com you are getting yourself in front of over 30 + million unique visitors a month. These are folks searching in specific categories for your specific information. This is a great way to connect highly qualified prospects with your information and invite them back to your web site or blog.

Your goal should be to get as many articles up on this Article Directory as you can, and establish yourself as an expert in your niche or area of expertise.

2) OPT - This stands for “Other People’s Traffic” and you get it when you click here to read the rest of the article…

Yes, it could be true.

IF you are just blathering uninteresting stuff about your life and not interacting with anyone.

IF you are DMing people with your latest “Mafia Wars” news (do you even HAVE a life?) or giving someone a gift of “Corona” and demanding a gift back (truly bad form).

It’s sad too, because your could be using your Twitter platform to make a difference in the lives of those who want and need to learn from you.

So then the question becomes “Just what do we tweet about then, Jeff?”

I’m glad you asked. I’ve got a new article all about what to tweet about. Here’s a hint: It’s all about tweeting about LIFE!

Click here to give it a read. The article will pop up in a new window. After you read it, I would like for you to do at least 3 things:

1) Click on the links in the Resource Box so you can get our FREE 4 Part Video Training Series from The Social Marketing Blueprint

2) Leave your comments here on Alex’s blog (gets you a backlink from a top rated blog, and you get to join in the conversation)

3) Go Use This Stuff!

Jeff

Like most marketing strategies, setting up an Adwords account is simple, but not so easy to master. That’s why I recommend you visit Google’s Learning Center.

In my experience, it is hands-down the single most cost-effective way to learn Adwords marketing strategies.

Click here to visit the Learning Center and you’ll find these 9 Modules:

1.  Introduction to AdWords    
2.  Getting Started with AdWords    
3.  Targeting    
4.  Costs and Billing    
5.  Tracking Ad Performance
6.  Optimizing Ad Performance
7.  The AdWords Toolbox
8.  Google Analytics
9.  Managing Client Accounts

You can count on the efficacy of what you learn because Google has self-serving reasons for you to succeed.

Think about it.  The more successful you are at generating Adwords traffic, the more money you’ll spend buying Adwords.  The more money you spend buying Adwords traffic, the more revenue Google makes.  It’s a win-win.

What To Do Now: I recommend you review ONE MODULE per day.  It will take you about an hour per day and Google even provides Quizes for each lesson to track your progress.

If you’re like most people,  and in less than 2 weeks you’ll discover time-tested Adwords strategies that can double, triple and even quadruple your website traffic practically overnight!

I published that button a week ago (as an experiment) to test if I’d get a “passive” spike in attracting new Affiliate Partners and so far, I’ve doubled my daily Affiliate sign-up rate.

Even if this “doubling” effect doesn’t continue, “shame on me” for not adding that button to my blog sooner!

How about you?  Do you have an affiliate program?  Do you have a blog?

If you answered “YES” to both questions, then I encourage you to ask yourself this question before you put your Affiliate sign-up button on your blog:

“Do I want my Affiliate Program to be ‘closed’ or ‘open’?”

A “closed” program is typically only available to Affiliates who have also purchased one of your offers.  An “open” program is available to anyone who is in good standing with you and wants to promote your offers.

For the first 8 years of my online marketing experience,  I had a “closed” affiliate program.  But it is now “open” as a result of wanting to build-out the AskAlexToday “outer circle” calls held on the first Thursday of each month.

Turning Pro: The difference between an “amateur” and a “professional” is $1.  The moment you make your first dollar, you’ve turned “pro” from my point of view.

Since my goal to get you to “turn Pro” as fast as possible, I’ll bend over backwards to make your commission checks as “rich” as possible.

Key Point: I’ll pay you a 90% commission on most $20 Teleseminars I promote, so with ONE referred sale you’ll  “turn Pro” 18X over!  (Yes,  I pay my Affiliate Partners $18 out of the $20).

The reason I mention the 90% commission is because that’s exactly what I encourage you to do with your own Affiliate Partners.  Overpay them for all of your low-end offers (like a $20 Teleseminar or eBook) and they’ll be more enthusiastic to promote your offers more often!

My self-serving reason to give my Affiliate Partners the “better-end-of-the-deal” on low-end promotional offers (even if they have tiny lists) is to inspire, motivate and persuade them to promote more often on my behalf.

It’s that simple.  I call it “self-serving benevolence” – It’s self-serving because they are promoting for me more often and it’s benevolent because they’re getting paid a lot more than typically expected.

What To Do Now: Get registered for my Affiliate Program by clicking the Affiliate Signup button you see on the upper left side of this blog – on the navigation bar.  And then as soon as you make your first dollar with me, tell me your story at HowIMadeMyFirstDollar.com

Accountability to their business, to their teams, to their vendors, to their families and to themselves.  Accountable entrepreneurs are leaders.  They don’t get in the habit of making excuses.

And above all, they have a burning desire and willingness to accept responsibilities with a “beginner’s mind” and do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Accountable entrepreneurs assume nothing and question everything.  They’re fearless “truth-seekers” and chase advice from practically everyone around them – their colleagues, their team members, their customers and most importantly, their personal “Accountability Partners.”

Does this sound like someone you know so far?

If it does, then at this moment you have an opportunity of a lifetime to seek out one Accountability Partner or “AP” who’s life you can change and who will change your life, by simply meeting once a week, 52 weeks a year.

Accountability Partnerships (APs) are the new equation in this fast-paced era of interdependent entrepreneurship we’re entering.  Similar to a business mentor, coach or a goal-setting buddy, an AP is a trusted advisor with whom you trade phone calls with at once a week.

Accountability Dyads: If you’re just starting out, I recommend you seek out only one Accountability Partner and meet with him or her for 30 minutes each week.  This is called the AP Dyad.

(Make sure the focus is on a specific topic or lesson plan like a virtual training or “How To” course that you’re both involved with together).

Start 5 minutes after the hour (so you don’t bump-in to other appointments) and show-up promptly for each other according to Time.gov or any other universal time system available online.

For 15 minutes YOU reach out for advice and the other 15 minutes your AP reaches out to for advice.  Accountability Dyads are different than Master Mind meetings because they focus on ONE theme for 52 weeks or more.

You must be a great “receiver” and a great “giver” and I favor focusing on how to coach each other on busting through barriers versus brainstorming for new ideas.

For example, I brought in the AP concept to my Teleseminar Secrets course last year and the results were nothing short of astounding.

The students who had APs felt more a lot connected to my lesson plans (and to me), especially during days in-between the live weekly training nights.

This had a massive impact on the bottom line for me and my students.  I got fewer “refund requests” and my students created accelerated learning environments that were self-managed.  It was a huge Win-Win!

Paul Colligan and I are adding the AP concept to this year’s Podcast Secrets training and I plan to add the AP advantage to every training series I conduct as long as I’m breathing :-)

Accountability Huddles: As you evolve and become a more experienced AP, you can add two new people to the equation and lengthen the meeting times to 90 minutes.

The 90-minute time frame allows all four APs have adequate “reach out” times to the other three huddle members and each call is moderated by a different AP “round-robin” style.

Maximized Results: If what you’ve read so far interests you enough to take the next step, then I encourage you to seek out an AP who will challenge, motivate, mentor, encourage and inspire you to achieve maximum results.

Consistency is what’s most critical.  Make the meeting dates at the same time on the same day of the week.

For instance, my favorite Accountability Huddle happens weekly every Wednesday at 5am Pacific Time.  Two of my APs live in the Central Time Zone (7am Central) and the fourth AP lives in the Eastern Time Zone (8am Eastern).

All four of us have a “whatever it takes” attitude to show up.  Our policy is simple: 3 strikes (missed meeting) and you’re out!  No excuses, regardless of how many personal commitments we have. Period.

Our AP Huddle goal is to continue meeting consistently each week for the next 30 years.  And our wives are beginning to have their own AP Huddle as well.

The AP Advantages: Knowing that you will have to report your successes or failure at a pre-determined date each week (with someone you trust) provides lasting benefits to even the most skillful procrastinators :-)

Here are a few benefits and advantages of starting your own Accountability Dyad or Huddle:

* Chunking projects into smaller, more measurable tasks

* Prioritizing and prioritizing actionable goal deadlines

* Ensuring follow-up on continuing education lesson plans

* Emotional support when personal/professional roles clash

* Coaching to conquer common roadblocks and procrastination

Who To Look For: During your search for an AP, keep in mind that the right person should be a entrepreneur or business owner taking the same training series, reading the same book or engaged in the same “How To” course.

He or she must be someone who will challenge, engage and evoke a sense of accomplishment in you.  Initiative, reliability and speed are three personality traits that will be useful to you.

And remember to set up clear, objective guidelines or “rules-of-the-game” before you have your first Accountability Dyad or Huddle session.

I’ve borrowed my own AP criteria from Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).  YPO’s core mission is to develop “Better Leaders Through Education and Idea Exchange. ”

With such a great mission like that, I’ve decided to adopt their 14 Guidelines or Declarations which YPO members consistently hold each other accountable:

1. “I will respect confidentiality”
2. “I will be present in the moment”
3. “I will stay around when times get tough”
4. “I will be on time and stay until the end”
5. “I will make every meeting”
6. “I will speak my truth”
7. “I will ask for what I want”
8. “I will take care of myself”
9. “I am willing to make mistakes”
10. “I am willing to laugh at myself”
11. “I will own my feelings”
12. “I will own my judgments”
13. “I will not blame, shame or fix others”
14. “I will ask permission before offering feedback or advice—another option: NO ADVICE”

Note: I’m not a YPO member, but I’m forever in their debt for creating the guidelines you see above.  It’s yet another testament to my commitment to “never invent and always improve.”

What To Do Now: If you’ve ever had a positive experience with an Accountability Partner, please share it in the Reply section of this post.  Your courtesy will be much appreciated.

In less than two minutes, he clearly describes how networks evolve and why they’re so important to us in our personal and professional lives.

I really admire teachers who can reduce complicated concepts to their simple essence.  This video is easy to understand and I encourage you to pass it along to others who may be still be confused by the “social networking” revolution.

If you look up the term, Social Network, in Wikipedia, here are the most help 250 words you’ll find in their very detailed definition:

Social networks are social structures made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, relationships, kinship, dislikes or trade.

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

Just for fun, see if you can correctly answer these 5 questions to the Social Networking Pop Quiz I’ve listed below.  I recently added this quiz to my new Internet Optimization Secrets training series I’m conducting with Tony Robbins.

NOTE: All of the answers are my opinion based on my own experiences, so it is OK with me if you disagree with some of the answers I provide in the Reply Section of this blog post ;-)

1)  Which type of website should you publish first, if you currently don’t have an online presence?
(a)  Portal Site 
(b) Blog   
(c) Membership Site
(d) Catalog Site

2) Which “social media” networking site is the fastest growing and easiest to monetize for most marketers?
(a) Facebook   
(b) MySpace     
(c) Orkut
(d) Plaxo

3) Which “social media” video site is the biggest and most time-tested to attract new website traffic?
(a) Jumpcut  
(b) Revver     
(c) Daily Motion
(d) YouTube

4) Which “micro-blog” platform works best to spread your marketing reach by attracting new followers?
(a) Jaiku   
(b) Pownce     
(c) Twitter
(d) Tumblr

5) Which “blogging” software is the most widely utilized platform among self-hosted blogs?
(a) Typepad   
(b) WordPress     
(c) Movable Type
(d) Blogger

What To Do Now: Click on the GOLD BOX at the upper-right of his post and get the POP QUIZ ANSWERS I’ve provided in Comment #1.   And again, thanks for reading my blog.

Blair Singer

Listen to the Replay…

During this 65-minute Virtual Book Tour, Blair takes you through a candid self awareness to help you “Win the battle between your ears.” From his own dark depths of despair, Blair decided to not give up and master his subconscious “Little Voice” that was preventing his happiness. Listen so you can do it too!

Click here to add this book to your library.

The typical process takes three years. Some do it in less time – the shortest so far is 3 weeks. By taking action on what I learned in Teleseminar Secrets I was able to do it in 3 quarters and now Alex Mandossian and I are Strategic Alliance Partners.

On Wednesday night March 25th at 6pm PT/9pm ET Alex and I will be holding our second Affiliate Rebate Teleseminar.

Click here to get the Phone number and Passcode and you may tell up to two friends.  You can also www.TweetwithAlex.com and enter #AMTClub … even if you’re not registered with Twitter.

What’s an Affiliate Rebate Teleseminar? An Affiliate Rebate Teleseminar is something Alex invented where he gives his affiliate commission back to you at the time of purchase.

Our focus for this call will be The Article Marketing Teleseminar Club that I’ve created and what I call the 5 Success Factors on the Internet:

• Content Creation
• Traffic Generation
• List Building
• Repurposed Marketing
• Product Creation

My promise that Article Marketing provides you with is this: The 5 success factors faster, easier and with less overall human effort.

You can check out the offer now at www.TheAMTeleSeminarClub.com and be one of the first 101 to come on board – actually one of the first 100 to come on board as Alex is joining as the the first one!

The first 100 to come on board will become part of special group that will meet with me for 4 special additional strategy sessions to jump start your results.

And use the same link www.TheAMTeleSeminarClub.com to get your Dial – In Details and join us on Wednesday night March 25th – 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern

And just to sweeten the pot a little bit, the first 45 that come on board before Wednesday night’s call will get access to over 10 hours of Article Writing & Marketing Secrets video training once they have paid their first month’s dues.

Once you have signed up, you can go to www.TweetwithAlex.com and enter #AMTClub in the window and follow what is happening with this special core group of Alex students in The AM Teleseminar Club.

And we’ll see you on the teleseminar Wednesday evening…

And if you want to become the most recommended (and wealthiest) trusted advisor on your topic of expertise, then I encourage you to adopt the Thought Leadership (TL) Mindset.

As soon as Jay Abraham decided to adopt his TL Mindset, he quickly became the world’s highest paid marketing consultant … almost overnight!

I can’t guarantee that you’ll achieve the same revenue or status results that Jay has enjoyed over the past 30 years, but I can guarantee to educate you to make an intelligent decision on which TL Mindset is ideal for you.

The TL Mindset I discovered about myself was my unique ability to conduct Teleseminar expert interviews back in 2002. Since then I have been acknowledged by my colleagues, friends, mentors and students as “The Larry King of Teleseminars.”

I am now a trusted advisor for many of the world’s greatest Thought Leaders within the Human Potential Movement.

Now it wasn’t easy to get leaders such asBob Proctor, Jack Canfield, Jay Abraham, Mark Victor Hansen, David Bach, Lynn Twist, Dave Ellis, Stephen Covey, Marci Shimoff and many others.

I didn’t have any course or training on how to become a Thought Leader.  I didn’t even know how to become the most trusted advisor in my niche.

In fact, no one has ever had access to a time-proven blueprint on becoming a Thought Leader … until now!

Until now … There was wasn’t a “how to” course or training that holds your hand on the step-by-step path to adopt the TL Mindset in your topic of expertise … or simply uncovering your topic of expertise – your MESSAGE.

Until now … there wasn’t a method of how any expert, professional or entrepreneur could become a Thought Leader and create a checklist of what to do to get the ball rolling.

Until now … there wasn’t a training available to reveal the ONE immutable principle that helps entrepreneurial CEOs ignite and monetize the process of becoming a Thought Leader and the most trusted advisor in their field!

Before you say YES to this training – like I have – I want you to participate in online mini-eCourse that will give you more than you need to find out if the year long Thought Leader Secrets training is right for you.

What To Do Now: Click here and get Lesson 1 via video.  If you like what you experience, then choose to opt-in for Lessons 2 – 9.  I do hope our paths will cross again this year during Thought Leader Secrets.

Please leave your reply to this post.

Ken Dunn

Listen to the Replay…

During this 1-hour Virtual Book Tour, Ken talks about the three types of leaders, how to find a mentor and why “prospecting” must be your core task in business. He is donating all of the proceeds from book sales to the Canadian ALS society in memory of his dad.

Click here to add this book to your library.