Resolutions?
We all do it. We make list of New Year’s resolutions – lose weight, stop smoking, get fit, earn a gazillion dollars and retire to a sandy beach….
So, how’s it going?
We’re a little over a week into the New Year and how many of those resolutions are holding up?
My kids are still off school because of the snow so surely nobody can blame me for seeking solice in the biscuit barrel and as for not smoking, well, maybe next week!
I came across a site that I must admit I haven’t had time to explore fully but could be perfect for this time of year: Self Improvement Gifts 4.
Advertised as ‘the ultimate personal development giveaway’ it offers a selection of ebooks and downloads and a quick skim of the member’s area offered downloads on organisation and relaxation as well as a couple on business topics, such as lead generation and clickbank cash. If you’ve no idea what to do with that digital camera you got for Christmas there’s an ebook to help you with that to.
Being a cheap-skate I skipped all the offers and logged in as free member so why don’t you check it out too? This is a time-limited offer so put it off!
Please remember – downloading the ebooks and not reading them won’t help you any more than that exercise bike sitting in your garage is getting you fitter!
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Do you believe in Santa?
Congratulations! We’ve all survived the silly season, sorry, festive season reasonably intact!
How did you do? Usual stock of socks, ’smellies’, candles and chocolates? Me too!
How many of your family are you still talking to?
Well, Santa didn’t bring me a pony again this year. That’s forty plus years of being good(ish) but still no pitter-patter of tiny hooves this year. I know the Christmas post can be a nightmare but surely he must have got the letter by now!
Of course, we all know that Santa isn’t real but there is something really appealing about some stranger granting wishes, isn’t there? A bit like our Internet businesses really. We all go on hoping, year after year, that this time we will make a gazillion pounds, retire to a sandy beach, earn enough to quit the day job, find the perfect program, etc
So how is it going? I would have to say that 2009 was a very profitable year……
…..for the owners of all the programs I joined, ebooks and courses I bought and advertising that nobody but me ever looked at, lol. Yep, even after all these years, when I really should know better, I still fall for the odd fairy-tale too!
Seriously, things weren’t all bad. A couple of programs are producing a nice steady income for me. These proved invaluable when my own programs were wiped out by a hacker. It’s always good to have a backup plan in case the wheels come off!
I sincerely hope that 2009 has been kind to you.What’s working for you? Post it in the comments (links welcome) and share the joy!
‘Tis the time for resolutions, for looking back and planning ahead and I’ll be doing the same on this blog over the next few weeks: reviewing the progams that are working and quietly resigning from the lemons.
There are a couple of new programs I’m testing, including a new one of my own 
so I’ll let you know when the results are in!
Until then
keep hoping and
DON’T PANIC!
Jacquie Barton
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Traffic Exchange Results Wk3
4th November – 9th November 2009
Last week I turned on the branding bar in Vital Viral – I’ve been accused of ‘hiding’ so thought it time to get my face back out there. As this has also been one of my worst weeks for opt-ins I might have to turn it back off!
The splash pages
2653 hits 1 opt-ins + 4 OIB* opt-ins = 5 opt-ins
Powerful Promotion through Video Marketing
4588 hits 0 opt-ins 6 OIB* opt-ins = 6 opt-ins
1996 hits, 26 clicks
I’m getting plenty of interest (clicks) but not that many sign-ups. Either people are already members or they don’t understand how powerful this program is: Next week I’ll be offering Traffic Exchange Success
*OIB = Opt In Button: Do you need any more proof that it works?!
Top Performing Traffic Exchanges
HitsBoosterPro 675 hits, 2 clicks + 5 opt-ins
WebCentre Surf 335 hits, 2 clicks+ 2 opt-ins
Hit Safari 769 hits, 1 click+ 3 opt ins
Traffic Taxis 520 hits, 1 click + 1 opt-in
Hit2Hit 658 hits, 0 clicks + 1 opt-ins
Dragon Surf 1925 hits, 5 clicks
StartXchange 774 hits, 4 clicks
Traffic-splash 963 hits, 3 clicks
RealHitz4U 1120 hits, 3 clicks
Soaring4Traffic 938 hits, 2 clicks
Bootscootin Traffic 559 hits, 1 click
Traffic Witch 611 hits, 1 click
EasyHits4U 714 hits, 1 click
Next Week’s Surf list
The exchanges will stay the same this week, with the addition of the guest supersurf exchange, but obviously time to change the splash pages!
I love the super-surf idea (well, who doesn’t like getting something for nothing!) and the line-up there this week is:-
and this week’s guest exchange is
How’s your traffic exchange promotion doing? Leave a comment and let me know where I’m going wrong!
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Traffic Exchange Results Wk2
21st October – 3rd November 2009
Oh, the joys of half-term! Much as I love having the kids home, it doesn’t seem to leave much time for anything business-related.
Last week I turned on the branding bar in Vital Viral – I’ve been accused of ‘hiding’ so time to get my face back out there!
The splash pages
1883 hits 4 opt-ins + 9 OIB* opt-ins = 13 opt-ins
2618 hits 0 opt-ins + 7 OIB* opt-ins = 7 opt-ins
This splash has served me well but the figures suggest it’s time to give it a rest for a while and swap to using it in my safelist promotions.
389 hits 0 opt-ins 
As I suspected, this splash dosn’t perform too well in the traffic exchanges so I’ve taken it out of circulation. It didn’t have a great deal of exposure but with 0 signups after 1011 exposures it’s time to re-think!
Powerful Promotion through Video Marketing
1064 hits 0 opt-ins 2 OIB* opt-ins = 2 opt-ins
Seeing as video splash pages are everywhere on the traffic exchanges, it seemed like a good time to put this ebook back into circulation…
*OIB = Opt In Button: Do you need any more proof that it works?!
Top Performing Traffic Exchanges
WebCentre Surf 435 hits, 8 opt-ins
Hit Safari 478 hits, 4 opt-ins
RealHitz4U 1225 hits, 4 opt-ins
Soaring4Traffic 823 hits, 3 opt-ins
HitsBoosterPro 1016 hits, 2 opt-ins
Traffic Witch 407 hits, 1 opt-in
Traffic Taxis 513 hits, 1 opt-ins
Hit2Hit 784 hits, 1 opt-ins
Next Week’s Surf list
I squeezed Traffic Witch and Traffic-Splash into my surfing schedule – one generated an opt-in, the other didn’t but, as always, I didn’t really have time to do them justice.
I love the super-surf idea (well, who doesn’t like getting something for nothing!) and the line-up there this week is:-
and this week’s guest exchange is still
I did buy 1000 hits at EasyHits4U. You may notice it’s absent from the list of my top-performers! Just goes to show that just because an exchange ranks well it won’t necessarily perform with the splash pages we use.
How’s your traffic exchange promotion doing? Leave a comment and let me know where I’m going wrong!
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Traffic Exchange Results
13-20th October 2009
I’ve not had a lot of surfing time this week as I’ve been concentrating on blogging, taking a tour of various Internet Marketing forums and getting distracted by Twitter.
I did finally get round to setting up my VitalViral rotator, though 
As I suspected, my results from the traffic exchanges were less than stellar last week but at least I have some idea of what is going wrong!
The splash pages
2867 hits 0 opt-ins + 6 OIB* opt-ins = 6 opt-ins
3939 hits 1 opt-ins + 10 OIB* opt-ins = 11 opt-ins
1213 hits 1 opt-ins
369 hits 0 opt-ins
(I only added Memberfire in a couple of days ago, having swapped it for the forum ecourse)
*OIB = Opt In Button: Do you need any more proof that it works?!
Top Performing Traffic Exchanges
WebCentre Surf 272 hits, 5 opt-ins
Soaring4Traffic 1436 hits, 4 opt-ins
HitsBoosterPro 1198 hits, 3 opt-ins
Hit Safari 740 hits, 2 opt-ins
SWAT Traffic 770 hits, 1 opt-ins
RealHitz4U 912 hits, 1 opt-ins
Traffic Taxis 1087 hits, 1 opt-ins
Hit2Hit 2044 hits, 1 opt-ins
The Post-Mortem
I know I have too many sites in rotation for the time I have to surf. The OIB exchanges always perform consistently so I have my sites in constant rotation in these exchanges but trying to pick the others is a bit tough.
Is it my sites or the exchanges I’m surfing – that’s the eternal question, isn’t it!
GoogleGold seems to be going off the boil a bit so I’ve changed the splash page I’m using to promote it.
I haven’t had any of the ClickBank Pirate pages in rotation for a while so I’ll have to wait and see if things pick up with this one – I picked the package I’ve seen the least of (and picked the splash page that doesn’t automatically play the video) but at least by this time next week I’ll know whether it’s working or not. It might be a little too targeted for success in the traffic exchanges!
Next Week’s Surf list
Both Traffic Witch and Traffic-Splash have been topping the VitalViral performance list regularly so I’ll try and spend a bit more time surfing them this week.
I love the super-surf idea (well, who doesn’t like getting something for nothing!) and the line-up there this week is:-
- StartXchange
- Dragon Surf
- I love hits
- Traffic-Splash
and this week’s guest exchange
Another exchange that always seems to appear at the top of the rankings is EasyHits4U. Seeing as it is a bit slow to surf (on my ancient computer) and credits are dirt cheap at $5.95/1000 I think I’ll break into the piggy bank.
How’s your traffic exchange promotion doing? Leave a comment and let me know where I’m going wrong!
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The good, the bad and the ugly: week one
How did your week go? Did you achieve all you set out to do? No, me neither!
The Good
Site Scanner
If your sites go pear-shaped then you need to know ASAP and help getting it back on track is always welcomed.
I have this service set up for all my sites and my lead capture URLs. OK, I get emails warning me my site has changed when I update my blogs but this is simply proof that this service works
If you haven’t already joined then take a close look at Site-Scanner. You can certainly afford to join as there is a free membership level but can you really afford not to join?
How many ‘promote with Twitter’ programs are there out there? Seems like an awful lot and is something I’d avoided till now. Last week saw the launch of Twitter Builder and I joined purely because the man behind it is David Foley, who has proved himself an innovater in the world of Internet Marketing. The attractive price (free) also helped!
If you are as lazy as me when it comes to building your Twitter following then check this program out!
VitalViral
It’s been a couple of weeks since Troy added the site rotator to VitalViral but as I haven’t done a lot of surfing recently it’s taken me a while to take advantage of this excellent new resource.
If you’re already using Vital Viral’s mixed campaign option then you are used to knowing exactly which traffic exchanges and splash pages are working for you. Using a rotator used to make tracking almost impossible as only hits to the rotator itself could be tracked, not the actions surfer took.
The new mixed campaign rotator feature means you have the convenience of using a rotator AND full tracking data for each traffic exchange and page you promote. Although it is only available to upgraded members, the feedback from this data will probably save you more in wasted credit purchases and clicking time than its very reasonable cost.
Seeing as split testing my lead-capture pages is now so simple I really have no excuse!
The Bad
Traffic Exchanges
Traffic Taxis and SWAT Traffic seem to have had a lot of down-time this week. I’m guessing it is to do with the launch of David’s new Twitter Builder program but as I’m an upgraded member at both of these exchanges I hope it’s all sorted out now.
I have managed to wade through my Twitter account and thin out the ‘personal’ messages that are merely sales pitches. There have also been a couple of people I’ve had to un-follow because they’ve filled an entire page with their ads. Of course I realise that we are all about promotion but sometimes it can be really hard to find tweets to respond to!
Twitter was founded on the basis of “What are you doing?” so wouldn’t it be nice if a few more of us answered this question? Working from home can be very isolating so let’s all try to start a conversation this week!
The Ugly
One of the things I’ve been focusing on this past week is forum marketing. I’m a regular lurker in the Warrior Forum so I thought I’d find some pastures new and joined Robert Puddy’s forum – Forum Know-How.
There is a $10 annual fee to be a member of this forum and you are greeted with an impressive list of experts, so I was hoping for great things on the inside.
I did get a warm welcome from Randy Smith and Paul Conway but sadly this forum seems to be dead in the water. Maybe things will liven up when all the big-dogs return from their marketing jaunts but for now, unless you want to pay to see tumble-weed rolling by, avoid Forum Know-How.
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Week One Action Plan
We’re all guilty of doing more of what we find easy, rather than more of what will be effective. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has spent an extra hour clicking on traffic exchanges rather than tackling something new.
I don’t mean that traffic exchanges aren’t effective because they are still one of my favourite list-building tools but it is easy to see why some people spend all their time using them yet still call themselves ‘marketers’.
This week’s challenge
Social networking is one of those marketing tools I know I’ve neglected. I do already have a Twitter account. I do pop in there occasionally (so apologies if you are waiting for me to follow you back) but I know I’m far from using Twitter effectively. Squidoo is another tool I’ve been ‘too busy’ to use.
I downloaded the four week action plan from the ClickBank Pirate member’s area this morning and social networking features heavily on it so time to knuckle down and get my poor old blonde head around it all.
Blogging
Blogging is the part of marketing I most enjoy – well, have you ever known a woman run out of words?
The only downside of blogging is it can seem we are talking to ourselves and I get enough of that when I mention ‘chores’ at home. If you get a moment, please do stop by JacquieBarton.net and leave a comment! Last week I covered an introduction to the 4Ps of marketing (which turned into 6Ps) and this week’s topic is email marketing.
Niche Blog
I’m about half way through transferring my Joomla! content over to Wordpress. Joomla! is an excellent platform but I really don’t have the time at the moment to work out how to do something in Joomla when I already have it nailed in WordPress.
Something I did for the first time on Saturday was to add my niche blog EcoFriendlyFamilyGuide to Yahoo’s MyBlogLog. My first visitor arrived before I’d even finished filling in my profile so this free tool is well worth checking out.
My To-Do List
- Get my Twitter account under control!
- Build a Squidoo lens (I’ll let you know how I get on with this!)
- Prune my emails – I’m getting buried every day so I really need to weed out the emails that tend to get ignored. I hate unsubscribing ‘cos I get upset when someone ‘unsubscribes’ me but if I’m only going to delete the emails unread anyway…..
- Submit two articles – I used to write a lot of articles (mainly because I was paid to) yet now I am completely self-employed I haven’t posted one!
- Training: I joined Michael Cheney’s Delta Squadron a couple of weeks ago. This is packed full of great advice in videos and ebooks and I got a little overwhelmed with it all. Michael is entertaining to listen to and it makes a nice change to hear a fellow Brit’s voice for a change so I must find time to explore this resource more!
- Spend less time lurking in the Warrior forum! It’s just so easy to get caught up in it…..
- Tighten up my traffic exchange promotions – I really don’t have time to keep 3 sites in rotation at the moment. I’ll need to check which is performing best: my blog splash, the Google Goldmine ecourse or Clickbank Pirate.
Jacquie Barton
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Yet another marketing blog?
Does the world really need yet another marketing blog? Perhaps not but this blog is different – a warts and all diary of what I tried, what worked, what didn’t, what it all really cost and whether I found it really is possible to earn money blogging.
There is so much ‘how to market’ information online I’m sure I’m not the only one that gets confused. I know there is great information I ignored, like ‘don’t jump around from program to program’ and other stuff I listened to because it fitted in with where I thought I was.
I do have a background in sales and marketing, offline (in the real world). I thought I should find the whole online marketing gig simple. Boy, was I wrong – not only is there a whole new language to learn and tools to understand, the goal-posts keep moving!
I have had some successes. The new FTC guidelines prohibit me from saying how much I have earnt, so I won’t, but let’s say I’m not too stressed about my end-of-year tax bill
Having proved I can earn online, I just need to crack how to earn enough for the very expensive hobbies I’d like to get back to. Also, it’s only 3 years before eldest daughter Jess hits her teens.
This blog will follow my day-to-day stuff promoting my two other sites
and my niche site
There were more sites but they were hacked and my hosting provider seems to have gone AWOL, but that’s a story for another time……
All the posts on this blog are purely my opinions. If something doesn’t work for me that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good program and won’t deliver for you. The reverse is also true – just because I loved the results you must still do your due diligence before deciding what to join or how to promote your Internet business.
Jacquie Barton
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