PUBLISHER: Willie Crawford willie@williecrawford.com
P.O. Box 636, Valparaiso, FL 32580
Phone 850-651-3527/3594
Fax 850-651-3527
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In This Issue:
Let's Talk Discussion Boards
© 2002 by Willie Crawford
Insider Secrets To Internet Profits
by John Colanzi
Our Exciting Spot The Doubles Contest
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"I Had Been Overweight For 14 Years, So... My Friends Could
Hardly Believe Their Eyes When They Saw Me Lose 32 Pounds In
Only 6 Weeks!" What diet, developed by a, doctor did I use?
Isn't it time you improved your health and got back in shape?
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Presenting..........
Our *NEW * Spot The Doubles Contest!!!
One of the ads in today's issue appears twice. Find that ad
and email it to us at <mailto:doubles@williecrawford.com>
We
will pick a winner every week from all correct entries received.
The winner gets his 50 word or less ad run free in an issue of
LIMITLESS MARKETING EZINE (a $40 value). We also post the website
url of the winner here, so be sure to include your url with your
entry.
This weeks winner..... Helmut Schmidhofer!
Helmut, please send in your ad as soon as pracical and we
will start sending orders your way.
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Let's Talk Discussion Boards
© 2002 by Willie Crawford
People visit online discussion forums (or boards) for
many different reasons. A reason that many people
haven't masters is - the art of attracting traffic to
their sites. This is one of the GREAT benefits of
posting to discussion boards after all. It can attract
a lot of targeted traffic to your website. It can also
generate a steady stream of business for you. You just
need to know how to do it right.
Most important is understanding the etiquette of
participating on these boards. These boards have
both written and unwritten rules. It's critical that
your understand and follow these rules. These
boards are on people website and are their personal
property. Many webmasters even PAY for traffic to their
sites and are naturally very protective of them. They
use the pay-per-clicks, or pay for directory listings,
and don't appreciate you undermining their efforts.
The first rule that you must usually follow is,
"No Blatant Advertising!" Some boards do welcome
ads. These boards know that allowing ads to be
posted will attract visitors. Most of the boards
that I frequent prohibit blatant ads. Visitors to
a discussion board very quickly form opinions of
that particular board. In a few seconds they
decide whether that board is worth exploring further
or coming back to. Many understand that a board
full of ads ONLY attract those interested in posting
ads. Many people even post ads using automated
software so the number of posts on these boards
aren't even an indicator of the traffic to the site.
Many people who visit boards full of ads rarely read
others ads because they are only interested in selling
rather than searching for something to buy!
Discussion boards add tremendous value to many sites.
On my site and on many other sites this is the
most visited page. Since this is such a terrific
producer of repeat traffic, the discussion board
is often the very heart of many websites. Bet you
didn't realize how important some of these boards
are ;-) Consider that discussion boards can attract
several MILLION hits per month to some sites. This is
the case for one site that I frequent.
Knowing that just this one page on a website can
get viewed by a lot of eyeballs, having your link
on that page can be priceless. The best way to
do this is to join in with helpful posts that
fit in with the flow of the board. Post questions
and helpful comments on things that you know members
of that "community" are interested in. Notice that
I used the word "community." These boards are
communities and getting out of line on some of them
will have many regular visitors to the board ready
to destroy you. They do not want you damaging their
community - their turf.
The key is to be genuinely interested in participating
in, and furthering, the purpose of the board. That means
that your posts should be on the topic the board
was created to discuss. Offer appropriate posts
and leave a link to your site if the board permits
it. If there is not a place on the board to post
your link, leave a SHORT signature file if permitted.
The magic of these discussion boards is that people
will get to know and trust you through your posts.
Your posts will reveal your expertise and that's
often what sparks the curiosity which attracts people
to your site. Pointing out valuable but little
know resources or showing a willingness to help
someone out creates a positive impression of you.
It adds to the flow of conversation on the board
and makes people happy to hear from you.
When you do leave a link to your site there are
several keys to getting your link clicked. The first
key is that your link must be enticing. Try to make
it an irresistible headline. Another key is to
include a graphic if allowed. Tests have shown
that including a graphic (perhaps a photo of you)
can significantly increase your click throughs. A
third key is to include a call to action. Including
the words "click here" really do increase your click
throughs for some reason.
One question that may be on your mind is, "How much
traffic can I expect from visiting and participating
on discussion boards?" That depends upon the board
AND the impression that you create. Bad impressions
are hard to overcome so it's probably better to just
lurk until you get a feel for the board. Expect
more traffic from busier boards. There are boards
that regularly send 40-50 visitors to my site after
just 1 short post. These are targeted visitors and
they often join my list or community. They do often
make purchases. Many of my customers begin an email
by commenting that they've seen my posts a particular
board.
A little tip here... notice which topics are hot
on a given discussion board. If a topic is HOT and
you have something useful to add, you will get your
post read by more people. I've verified this fact
as have several of my online confidants.
Let's get back briefly to the topic of how much
traffic. Many discussion boards are indexed by the
search engines. That means that by posting to these
boards you may be establishing more links to your
site. Your site or your post will therefore often
show up during keyword searches on the topic of the
post. All of these extra links to your site can also
increase your link popularity at some search engines.
Given that you only have so much time and there are
so many boards, it generally makes sense to visit
the most discussion boards on your topic of interest.
That's where a lot of people will visit who might
be interested in establishing a business relationship
with you. Choose a few favorites and become a known
factor there.
Now that I've sold you on the value of spending your
time participating in online discussions, you probably
also want to know what boards I recommend. Anticipating
that, I created a special webpage on my site that has
DIRECT LINKS to most of the discussion boards I have
visited recently. This webpage gives a very brief
description of the board. On this page, I even tell
you which board gets 3 millions hits a month. If you
have your own discussion board you can learn a lot
about operating a successful board from studying this
one.
I constantly update this webpage so visiting it
instead of searching for the forums yourself WILL save
you a lot of time. If you have been online for any
length of time you know that websites come and go.
Discussion boards are also sometime taken offline for
various reason. This page is provided as a service
to you and will be as up-to-date as practical. It
will also have links to more boards than you are
likely to find on your own. Board owners often email
me asking me to add their board, so this list can only
grow. Most of the boards I list here are marketing
related because that's my primary audience. To get
started growing your online businesses by using
discussion boards today, just visit:
http://williecrawford.com/discussion-board-list.html
---------------------------------
Willie Crawford cuts through the HYPE and double-talk to
show you how to build your successful online business.
Discover the TRUTH and all of the insider techniques
for building your own thriving internet business today.
Subscribe to THE Internet Business Success Course now. It's
free. Signup at: http://www.williecrawford.com/
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"I Had Been Overweight For 14 Years, So... My Friends Could
Hardly Believe Their Eyes When They Saw Me Lose 32 Pounds In
Only 6 Weeks!" What diet, developed by a, doctor did I use?
Isn't it time you improved your health and got back in shape?
http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/tk.cgi?loseweight
1/4
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Insider Secrets To Internet Profits
by John Colanzi
Why are you on the internet?
Are you here to show how smart you are?
Are you here to show how many tricks you can get your
web site to do?
If that's what you're into all well and good. I'm here
for a different reason.
I'm here to avoid that four letter word called work. My
goal is to simplify my life not complicate it.
I do my best to become dumber every day.
I do my best to write simple and to the point.
So what is the simplest way to market? There is one
method that guarantee's your success.
Build your list and keep in touch.
The old adage " the numbers don't lie," is bull. A
thousand visitors to your web site, isn't the same as
a thousand email addresses added to your list.
It's important to have a clean fast loading web site,
but it's more important to capture email addresses and
build your list.
If you're not capturing addresses, you're wasting time,
energy and cash. The best ad with the most amazing
web site, will never outpull an ad with a follow up
system.
It took a long time for this to sink into my thick
skull.
Forget about the tricks and dog and pony shows and get
to work on building a system to capture addresses and
follow up.
Building your business isn't rocket science.
Here's a simple formula for guaranteed profits.
Your list + Follow up = $$$$
Is that all there is?
You bet.
Wishing You Success,
John Colanzi
---------------------------
Copyright (c) 2000 - 2002 John Colanzi.
John publishes the "Street Smart Marketing" newsletter.
To subscribe mailto:streetsmart@rapidreply.net
Don't forget to get your free bonus report. "How To
Write Killer Sales Letters."
mailto:persuade@makenetmoney.com
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DISCLAIMER: We cannot investigate every advertiser who places
an ad in our ezine. We urge you to exercise due diligence in
responding to any advertisement or article. We do not give
business or professional advice in this ezine and therefore
cannot be held responsible for results you get from responding
to ads or articles in this ezine. We urge you to exercise due
diligence in all of your online dealings.
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