In a few extremely riveting minutes you’ll learn:

• Why scoring back links from “Traffic Mark” sites is vital to your dreams of 1st page relevance
• How to successfully approach these sites and develop both links and relationships

If you or anyone you know is using Traffic Marks, this run-through is highly recommended:

By the way, Traffic Marks is still free for now, but that may be changing soon. Sign up now if you haven’t already.

Update: Video fixed.

It’s almost exactly 16 minutes and depicts exactly what this entrepreneur did to her crazy niche site… which is “EMF Protection Equipment.” You’ll see “before” and “after” pics as well as hear from the site owner herself about what she did.

I’m not exactly sure what EMF Protection Equipment is, but if you watch the video you’ll get a sneak peak of our new (unpublicized thus far) web business system we’re calling your “Website DNA.” More to come soon, but these results are showing to be quite typical for sites following our system.

Check out that video and then share your thoughts in the comments. We’ll try to clear up any lingering questions you might have. How does your site compare to hers? Do you use your side bar the way she does (the right way)? Do you fall for the “that won’t work for my site with many products” trap? Let us know in the comments.

It’s almost exactly 16 minutes and depicts exactly what this entrepreneur did to her crazy niche site… which is “EMF Protection Equipment.” You’ll see “before” and “after” pics as well as hear from the site owner herself about what she did.

I’m not exactly sure what EMF Protection Equipment is, but if you watch the video you’ll get a sneak peak of our new (unpublicized thus far) web business system we’re calling your “Website DNA.” More to come soon, but these results are showing to be quite typical for sites following our system.

Check out that video and then share your thoughts in the comments. We’ll try to clear up any lingering questions you might have. How does your site compare to hers? Do you use your side bar the way she does (the right way)? Do you fall for the “that won’t work for my site with many products” trap? Let us know in the comments.

Now, we’ve all heard of reciprocity with our customers. Give them bonuses, surprise them, and as we’ve riffed on, basically delight the customer to get them to love you.

Lets backtrack a little bit. Two years ago we wanted to go into a new niche market. To test the market waters, we setup a landing page and saw a really great sign up rate. So we started to look for partners to help create a product.

And we hit a wall.

Experts were just not responding to our emails or calls. It was difficult to get their attention, much less try to start a partnership with them. So we put the project on the back burner for a long time.

And then one fine day, I came across this product “The Secret Six and The Power of Intimate Interviews – Advanced Edition” by Shaune Clarke. If you haven’t already heard of it, the course teaches you how not just to do an interview as a boring Q&A session — it teaches you how to do an intimate interview.

But it wasn’t just the techniques of doing an intimate interview that really caught my attention. It was this one line on page 17 that rang the proverbial bell:

“As An Interviewer, You Are In A Rare Position To Access Experts”

That insight blew me away. I realized then what we had been missing… we needed to delight our potential business partners too. So I put aside the time to study the course. Okay, I’ll admit… it did seem a bit dreary at first, listening to 12 hours of audio… but let me tell you it was well worth it in the end.

The guide walks you through everything from the power of listening (it’s surprising how often we forget to listen!) to the six different types of questions (and when to use each type) to drawing out best responses from interviewees. Everything is broken down into golden nugget techniques for easy consumption.

What is especially helpful is that every lesson plan links to real life interviews done by Shaune himself (the 12 long hours of audio I was talking about), making it easy to see the practical application of the strategies.

We began implementing the new knowledge immediately.

We sent out emails to experts offering to interview them. We offered to introduce them and their products to our market – for free. All we want is an interview and they can tell everyone on our list in their own words about themselves and their product.

The result?

In one week, the top five leading experts of that niche market replied back with their interest. (not too shabby)

We’ve now used interviews to approach experts across all our projects, and it’s never been easier. By offering just one interview, we get in return:

* access to experts * credibility * back end products * bonus giveaways * free article content for our blogs and newsletter (where we also get to test the market’s response) * potential JV partners

…and really, the list goes on.

The more you give, the more you get indeed. That’s the power of karma.

You can check out Shaune’s offer here (recommended).

If you’re spending cash on pay per click or other advertising, there are several crucial principles you must follow (if you want to make money)…

What Makes a Good Landing Page?

1. The headline and copy correspond to the ad that triggered the page.

If your ad is targeted to people looking for golf attire, your landing page should focus on golf attire, and not on other items that could distract from the main focus, such as golf clubs.

2. The focus is on getting visitors to take one specific action.

The landing page works on the basis of a most wanted response (MWR). It is designed to get the target audience to take ONE specific action, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter.

3. There are no distracting navigational links.

Unlike the homepage, the purpose of the landing page is not to get the users to browse the site, but to stay on the page and carry out the MWR. Tests have shown that landing pages with too many navigational links consistently under-perform. Just stick to the basics: a company logo or header for recognition along with a link to the homepage are sufficient. Avoid having any links that distract from carrying out the MWR.

4. The copy is short.

The copy on the landing page is usually shorter and more straightforward than the copy on your homepage. Remember to keep the look and feel of your landing page consistent with the rest of your website.

5. There is a prominent subscription form or checkout option.

The action you want the user to take should be available on the landing page itself; the user should not have to click to another page.

Below is an example of a landing page we use to get visitors who click on our meditation-related ads to sign up for a free online course. Notice the short copy, prominent signup form, and the lack of a confusing navigation menu…

It’s available for 5 days.

Click here once and begin your short journey to elite landing page construction.

Let me explain why.

While we enjoy sharing our regular experimental results and weekly nuggets of wisdom, we took a hiatus from these to focus on something dramatically more useful to you.

We hunkered down and finally put into writing a series of revelations that occurred over the past 6 months or so.

You might look at it as “The State of AdWords” but it is more than that; you will also see our predictions for the future (i.e. what the current state means to the future of your business).

So head over and get your hands on our most up-to-date battle plan to protect your business now and in the future.

The tipping point for this piece came while Mike was perusing an old military manual. You’ll see what I mean.

Once you read it, keep your eyes peeled for those how-to’s and updates we wrote about. Get it now (if it matters it is free).

Here’s a note Gary wrote in about an hour ago:

The coming adwords war is probably one of the most informative, and most importantly succint documents that cover the real essence of a successful adwords campaign. Like alot of others I have spent a fair bit of time and money(!) and learnt the hard way about doing adwords. What your guide instantly highlighted were the errors I had previously made. It is a must read!

Regards

Gary

Once you take a look, please let us know what you think!

When the laughter died down in the back room of the focus-group facility, I was told that this proposal was DOA, for two reasons. First, the product manager would never meet her employer’s aggressive financial objectives selling shrink-wrapped software priced at $15 a copy. Second, everyone on the client team assured me that it would be impossible to receive a positive review of a dirt-simple $15 software product from someone like you. “Imagine the product comparison grid on the back of the box: our product has to have more check marks against more features than Quicken. Even if they never get used…”

(Pogue)

HT: 37signals

When you are designing your product, your message, and your site, it’s a good idea to continuously ask yourself, “What is the 1 crucial problem I am trying to solve?”

What is the specific problem (and solution) you want to claim? What can you do to make sure each time someone runs into that problem, they think of or get funneled to you?

Before you go into a frenzy, it is not in the internet marketing field. It’s actually a new personal development product we’ve been working slaving over for several weeks and are now releasing to the world.

As you’ve probably figured out, we really like sharing as much as possible on this blog – so I thought, “Why not open up the product launch?”

Everyone else agreed that it would be cool, so here I am. I’ll be updating this post as things progress, perhaps posting a video or 2, and hopefully letting ride down every bead of sweat as it slides down our foreheads.

** 1hrs 44min to Launch **

Well, this won’t be as smooth as I’d like it; our blog server is slightly shaky at the moment and obviously that isn’t the #1 issue right now.

I wrote an update a few hours ago and had it vaporize, but we’ll try this again. We just finished our final launch team meeting to iron out the last details. You’d think the sales letter and all product images would be ready by now, but we don’t run a conventional gig here at MindValley. Khailee is cruising istockphoto; Katalina, Justyna, and Kate were slicing and dicing social proof; and John (lead project dude) is in a general frenzy.

With so many different projects always happening, it isn’t so often you see this many people focused on 1 specific project.

But hey, today is special.

This launch has incorporated a bunch of the different strategies we’ve been blogging about recently, so let’s see how this goes.

In the event I’m unable to keep up this awesome stream, you can expect a good recap when things cool down.

** 59 minutes to Launch**

We made our first sale already!

We sent the sales letter live a bit early to see if anyone was hanging around. If so, they’d be guinea pigs and would probably drop our support email a note if something went wrong – i.e. a heads up that not all was kosher.

All signs point to kosher, which is nice.

** 22 minutes to Launch **

Our early bird email is going out now. We have 5 sales (plus 1 upsell). This is quite exciting.

** 20 minutes after Launch **

We sent out the launch to our main (and very large) list a few minutes ago. 29 sales and counting… with a lot of upsells.

** 2hrs 41min after Launch **

The sales are flowing. We’ve opened a couple choice beverages to celebrate all that blood, sweat, and tears turning into sales. Our main blast is still going (its a pretty big list), so I expect this rate to continue. Given that it is 2:46pm Eastern, I think we might see a slight downturn due to working hours. Five or 6pm should see further surging.

The recent techniques we’ve been blogging are working quite well.

With that, if you are looking to expand the reach of your blog or your online presence in general, start here:

ProBlogger: How to Market Your Blog in 2007 (Yeah, whatever, the advice is fairly timeless.) Online Marketing Blog: 25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog Dosh Dosh: The Secret to Building a Popular Blog, Creating a Prospect List for Traffic and Links, Expand Your Blog Reach in 2008, How to Use the Web to Build A Powerful Reputation In Any Industry

Read those 6 articles and you should have enough work on your plate to get through summer. Building your credibility online takes a load of work so don’t expect the trumpets to sing any time soon… but the added foundation it provides your brand (personal or otherwise) will help future endeavors dramatically.

John Reese is inviting you to become his friend. Jack Humphrey thinks it’s a great idea.

It’s a nice marketing stunt, and I’m sure John has a well thought-out plan for the likely 5000 people who add him, but that’s all it is: a stunt. The long term value is not pending for most of us (John will probably pull a miracle out of it).

For the rest of us: You might be my friend on Facebook or MySpace or Friendster, but if we’ve shared no significant interaction together (dinner, solving your problem, you solving one of mine, a roof shared during a trip, etc), then that stat isn’t worth much. To me or to you.

And no, meeting for 12 minutes doesn’t count either.

So the question, then, is not how many friends you have, but how many significant interactions you have with customers, prospects, partners, and colleagues. How can you share 1 more today?

(Pic)