While I can't name names at this time, I will be getting permission from some of my friends who this has happened to lately to share their tips.

For now, I would like to share a guest post from my friend, Kim Roach, who, unfortunately, suffered a hacking 6 days ago.

She sent an update to her mailing list, which I am happy to be on, so I asked if I could republish it here to help you guys. She graciously and generously agreed.

Please read this awesome piece (I love her perspective) and leave a comment at the end. Kim could use some love after all she's been through.

BuzzBlogger.com Hacked

Guest Post by Kim Roach

Today is a sad day for BuzzBlogger.com.

You may have noticed that our site has been down for a bit.

6 days ago a hacker got into our registrar (NameCheap.com)
and transferred BuzzBlogger.com to a different registrar.

Essentially stealing our domain name.

Fortunately, we caught it VERY early and notified Namecheap.

We're currently in the middle of a transfer dispute. Which
essentially means it's just a matter of time before we're
able to get it back.

Unfortunately – it's created some downtime for our site.

So we've created a *temporary* solution and you can now access
the full site at http://www.buzzblogger.org.

This will be our temporary housing until we get
the domain name back

Being hit by a hacker is no fun. However, it also reminds you
how strong you are. An essential characteristic for ALL
entrepreneurs.

Most people online give up at the first sign of trouble.

Others fight to the death. Work late. Get up early. And that
is why they succeed.

Although some of the ‘gurus' would like you to think you
can just hit a few buttons and out pops a successful
business.

You and I both know it takes hard work and determination.

And once you've built a successful business – there are a few
steps you need to take to protect that business.

Here are the changes we've made to make sure this never
happens again…

1. Change your passwords regularly. VERY important. Also make
sure that you're using different passwords for every account.
Include capitals, numbers and symbols.

2. If you're using Gmail, enable 2-step verification. This adds
a very important extra layer of security to your account.

3. Backup your website on a regular basis. One of the easiest
ways to do this is using BackupBuddy.

4. Keep WordPress updated. Make sure that your blog's version
is up-to-date. WordPress is constantly releasing updates to
fix any security holes.

5. Improve the security of your WordPress blog using a free
plugin like ‘Better WP Security‘. This plugin adds a number
of additional layers of security for your blog.

6. Add whatever security steps that are available at your registrar.
(i.e. Registrar Lock, 2-Step Verification, and WhoIs protection)

7. You can also use wildcard emails so that your real email
is never revealed in public at any point.

It's easy to get laxed about passwords and protecting your
site so I would strongly encourage you to put this on your
to-do list.

Obviously you don't want to be paranoid but you do want to
take every step possible to protect the hard work you've
put into your business.

Fortunately, entrepreneurs are tough ol' birds and we always
come back stronger

I'll keep you updated and let you know as soon as BuzzBlogger.com
is back up. In the meantime, our temporary home is at
BuzzBlogger.org.

Cheers,
Kim

To support Kim in recovering from this, I will ask her to be on my podcast and/or be mailing about her in the coming weeks – as she's a smart cookie.

Please comment below if you have questions or concerns – or if you would just like to send Kim some love.

Thanks!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Want more traffic? Who doesn't, right?

If you're in the personal development, business, wahm, or marketing niche or even something similar like personal finance and debt – there's a really cool free tool that I've been testing out that I know you'll love.

Here's how it works.

Basically, you'll earn credits for doing what you're already doing – sharing great business stuff by me, Kim Roach, and a bunch of other great bloggers.

Then you use those credits to get *YOUR* stuff shared by other members via Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Or if you want lots of people to share your stuff – you can do like it do and upgrade to buy some credits.

Here's the link ->  Click to Get Free Traffic.

Is it cheating?

Well, if it were automated, I would say yes and I would steer clear of it. But these are real people who can choose what they share and what they won't share.

Plus, the members are ALL in my target market (and yours too if you reach online business owners), so I want them to see my blog, just as much as I want them to share me.

So, to me, it's totally free advertising.

Try it out. It's pretty simple – and it's free.

The main things to know are:

1. Personal Development, Money, Business, Marketing, and Finance types of posts seem to do best. (Not cooking or ferret training.)
2. When you add a page to be shared, it has to be a content page (which can contain offers, but has to provide value). So do not submit a sales page or squeeze page.

Here's how it works if you're interested…

Step 1: Go to the Site.

You go to the site by clicking here: Get Free Advertising. (The site will open in a new window.)

Step 2: Sign in With Twitter.

When you see this screen, click on “Sign in with Twitter”.

Step 3: Authorize The Site to Connect with your Twitter Account.

When you do this, you will automatically get 100 credits just for signing up.

Step 4: Submit your First Piece of Content that You Want Shared.

Here's how I do it.

1. The Tweet.
I create a tweet that's got a curiosity factor built in.  You want to draw interest and attention, so be a bit clever. Be sure to include your URL to your blog post in the Tweet. (You can use Bit.ly to shorten the link if it's very long.)

Remember. The link has to go to a content page (not a sales page).

Example: How I Get People to Work for me for Free: http://bit.ly/RbwmTs

2. How many credits would you like to offer?
Go to the main dashboard to see what others are offering. When I first started, 5 credits would get interest. Now, 25 seems to be the going rate. So, quick click on “Dashboard” to see what the average is. I also consider whether the blog post that I'm linking to has monetization built in. If it's converting into sales when I sent it to my list, I'll offer more credits.

3. Maximum times to promote.
Figure out how many times you would like your post shared. (10-50 depending on your credits and how much you want/need that post to have exposure). The site will tell you how many credits that will use in total. (ie. If you are offering 25 credits per share and you say you want it shared 10 times, that will be 250 credits.)

Your credits get taken as soon as you submit your tweet. I usually go low when I submit – like saying I want the post shared 1 time, in case I goofed something up. I add more credits after it's submitted and I had a chance to test it. Plus, since you only have 100 credits, you may only be able to share a bit at first.

4. Select which Social Networks to Allow.
I select Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

5. Minimum number of Twitter Followers to promote.
I enter 1000.

6. Category.
Choose a category that's most related to your blog post.

7. Submit.
Click to submit your content.

How to Edit your Submissions:

Let's say you decide to increase the number of  credits that you're offering OR you decide you want your post shared more. On the “Submit Credits” tab, just scroll down and you'll see your submissions.

Click on the pencil to edit.

You can change the number of credits per share AND the total amount of credits you want to use.

Step 5: Earn More Credits.

As soon as possible, you'll want to get more credits. You can either earn them or buy them – or a combination of both.

Here's how to earn some credits.

Click the dashboard tab and scroll down.

You'll see tons of submissions that you can share to earn credits.

Sort them by “Most Recent” or by “Most Credits” if you want to earn credits faster.

There's a lot of JUNK in there – so it can take a scroll through to find something really worth sharing. Obviously I would never recommend that you share junk with your readers – so be picky. (Tip. Find my stuff… ) lol!

Example of a post worth sharing:

I found this submission by my friend, Loretta Oliver – and it's a really good blog post. In that post, she's promoting my Blog CPR course – so I obviously wanted to share that one. I clicked on the Facebook like button and Voila. Done. I earned 20 credits for promoting my OWN stuff. Sweet, eh?

Optional: Buy Credits.

If you prefer to automate this (or you want a ton of exposure) – you can purchase credits instead of (or in addition to) earning them.

I bought the $99 package.  I wanted to be all over that page and yes, I am seeing traffic coming directly from the site.

Note: It takes a few minutes for the added credits to show up. Go grab some coffee after you order and come back. They'll be there.

That's all there is to it.

Two Additional Benefits.

There are two additional reasons to sign up.

1. It's a great place to get ideas for blog posts. If you scroll through the submissions, you'll find ideas for writing your own blog posts.

2. You'll find lots of blogs to comment on – again, if they are reaching your target market.

Is this the type of tool you like to hear about?

Talk to me…

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. For more traffic, check out this post:  When People Copy your Blog Posts… Smile!

I mentioned on my blog that I buy up some advertising at the end of the year to reduce taxable income. Of course, that brought up questions from my readers about how I do that, and if it's effective. So, I figured I'd open it up to my panel of experts.

The question I asked was…

“Do YOU buy advertising either online or offline? And, how do you know that it works – or doesn't?

Do you have any stories or examples
about your experiences?”

I hope you'll find the answers this week interesting.

Mark Mason of MasonWorld.com says:

When I first got started in Internet Marketing, I had more money than sense. (Some people that know me say this is still the case — but we'll have to take that up in another post).

Anyway, when you are new at Internet Marketing, it can be really exciting. Like most people, I was anxious to get off to a quick start with my business. I needed traffic, so I bought some pop-over ads from one of those high traffic download sites. Tens or hundreds of thousands of impressions (they were cheap, and I had money to spend.).

Of course, at the time I knew very little about Marketing, but I got some traffic.

The problem was that the demographic for the ads was all wrong. As it turned out, all I did was show my offer that should have been targeted at older U.S. females to thousands of teenage male game enthusiasts that were looking for free software. Most of them did not even have credit cards.

The message is obvious. Getting traffic from your ads is not enough. You need qualified traffic. More specifically, you need that “Message to Market Match” that my friend Lynn Terry is always talking about. So, make sure you understand what you are buying, who is clicking, and test, test, test. As Nicole says, “Testing is Sexy.”

Kim Roach of BuzzBlogger.com says:

I started experimenting with paid advertising in 2010. My favorites include Warrior Special Offers, Solo Ads, and banner ads.

Personally, pay-per-click is way out of my skill set

But solo ads and WSO's I can do.

The key is knowing your numbers.

I use Hypertracker to test every traffic source individually. So, for example, if I'm placing a solo ad in someone else's newsletter I will create a unique tracking link in Hypertracker so that I know exactly how many clicks, subscribers, and sales were generated from that particular traffic source.

For example, with our latest product launch of the Traffic Dashboard I've been doing a combined blitz of Warrior Forum Special Offers and Warrior Forum Banner Ads. Using this combination we've done a little over 100 sales just from the Warrior Forum alone – making them one of our top affiliates. But since this was paid advertising there wasn't actually an affiliate link in place.

Maybe I should ask Allen if he'd like to become an affiliate

The WF Banner Ads are a new advertising option that has recently been introduced by the Warrior Forum and it costs $100 to have your banner displayed for a full 24 hours.

Not bad for being able to position yourself in front of THE most popular Internet Marketing forum online

And based on my stats from Hypertracker, we've been generating AT LEAST $200 in profit for every ad we place. So that means I spend $100 and get at least $300 back.

As you can imagine, I'll do that all day long as long as I'm generating a profit.

But, it is a little bit tough to get a WF Banner spot – they stay full most of the time.

I wonder why

So that's been a HUGE discovery for 2010.

We also did a number of solo ads in 2010 – which I plan on scaling even further in 2011. Again, it's really just a numbers game. If you're going to do paid advertising you MUST know your numbers.

If you're not tracking everything down to the click, you're really flying blind when it comes to paid advertising.

But start tracking properly and you'll be able to zone in on the critical few that bring you the most results.

I find most of my favorite solo ad spots on the Warrior Forum and the DirectoryofEzines.com.

Plus, if you find a winner and you want to advertise long-term you can often times work out creative deals and discounts with the owner.

Shannon Cherry of S.A.L.E.S. System Formula says:

I have only bought advertising once. And you know what? It was an utter bust.

After all, advertising is what you PAY for. Publicity is what you PRAY for.

That's why I only focus on getting free publicity for my business. I use a lot of ways to do this, including creating my own holiday and doing a virtual blog tour (thanks for the great resource on this Nic!).

However, the one tool that consistently gets me publicity online AND offline is press releases. I write about two a week, but even one a month has helped my clients get on the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Parents Magazine, as well as on The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight and even the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Just imagine how much an ad on Oprah would cost you? Plus, you're competing with some big companies like McDonald's who has a $15 BILLION (yes BILLION with a B) budget for advertising alone.

So I love press releases! And if you haven't included them in your marketing mix, maybe you need to start today.

Nicole Dean of .. here! .. says:

Yes, I invest in advertising, but, as Mark alluded to — I usually test what works and what doesn't. I say “usually” since I'm human and sometimes don't. But, of course, the times that I haven't tested my results — that's been wasted opportunity (and lost cash).

Thankfully testing is pretty easy in many cases. I normally test in either Google Web Optimizer or inside the version of 1ShoppingCart that I use (Quick Sales). I'll write up a blog post about how to do tracking in 1ShoppingCart (and its reseller carts) so you can see exactly how I do it. I've used other Ad trackers in the past, too.

A Word (or Two) of Common Sense First

First let me just say that I don't willy-nilly spend hours on this. It's one piece of my entire marketing portfolio – and, as I always say “Do what works and ignore the noise”. So, if you're getting killers results from video marketing or article marketing, guest blogging, getting interviewed on teleseminars or webinars, recruiting affiliates, getting JV partners, or, as Shannon recommended, writing & submitting press releases, then just read this post and set it aside as a tool that you can pull out and use another day. The last thing I want to do is send you off on a wild goose chase to research advertising if you're better served to write and submit a few articles today instead.

What Kind of Ads to Buy?

I'm going to focus here on email advertising. And, the only kind of email advertising I buy are “solo ads” (which are ads where my promotion is the only thing showing in the email itself). I do not buy email ads that are “top ads” (where you ad is on the top of the email) or “classified ads” (where there are a group of ads at the bottom of the email).

I also don't do “ad swaps” (which is trading mailings with other marketers) with anyone outside of my personal JV relationships (which are people I personally know and trust). I'm highly protective of my online family and will not sacrifice that ever in order to build my lists.

ok. So, where do I find advertising opportunities?

The best ways I've found to get solo ads are…

– Contacting newsletter owners directly.
If I find someone who reaches the people who I want to reach, and looks like they're promoting other people in their emails regularly – and if I like their style, I'll drop them a quick email to inquire if they'd be interested in promoting my offer as an affiliate or, alternatively, if I might otherwise get some info about their advertising rates for a solo ad.

– Watching for solo ad offers.
I've gotten emails from some marketers who've had offers where they sold solo ads. If I'm already on their list, I have a general idea of the relationship they're building with their readers and who they're reaching, so I know whether or not I want to be associated with them.

What I've found to be a waste of time, unfortunately, is the Warrior Forum's JV section on their forum. (Not to be confused with the rest of the Warrior Forum which can be highly valuable.) But the JV section has tons of ad swaps and ad buying opportunities, and you could get lost in there for days. However, the quality of *some* of the lists are questionable. I can't, obviously, group everyone into that, nor would I, but I would recommend that you connect with other marketers in your field who have related products or services – directly – and build a relationship with them, before investing hours in ad swap world.

Is this the best use of your time and the most effective way to get traffic?

That depends. (Of course.)

IF you have an offer that converts (and you know exactly who is buying and how much each person spends) –

and

IF you're willing to track the results of each place you advertise (the list itself), every email you write (the copy), and the landing pages (including the offers) –

Then sure.

However, if you are thinking of throwing money at ads and hoping for the best – then you might want to put this aside for now – especially if money is tight, and focus on other ways to get in front of your target market.

In that case, I'd again recommend Kim's course: Get Traffic Dashboard (and my Bonus)

That's my 2 cents on the topic.

Recommended Freebie:

If you want to learn more about Ad Tracking, my interview with Charlie Page touched on a lot of great tips – including the importance of tracking. Why should you listen to him? Because he owns the Directory of Ezines which lists newsletters where you can purchase advertising. You can listen to the interview here: Charlie Page Free Interview.

It’s Your Turn.

So, now, I’ll pose this question to you. Do you do paid advertising for your online business? Why or why not? What have you learned from it? I’d love to hear your comments!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. I have created brandable ebooks from several of the previous Expert Brief columns that you can use to earn commissions by giving them away.

Today I have a special blog post from Traffic Expert, Kim Roach. I've been promoting her new course because I feel it's one of the best traffic courses that I've seen. (And, it's a very affordable price.)

In fact, if you're past the beginner stage (at the intermediate level), I really wish you'd buy it. It's that good. (If you're a total newbie, it's probably beyond your level – although you could benefit from several areas of the course like guest blogging, forum marketing, etc.)

If you're interested, I am offering a bonus. Click to see the Traffic Dashboard Bonus that I'm offering.

On to the guest post.

What is Integration Marketing and How Can it Send you Thousands of Targeted Visitors?

by Kim Roach, Traffic Expert
Get her Free Video that Reveals How to Generate 3,000+ Subscribers in Just 30 Days.

Integration Marketing is the fastest way to create an automated lead generation system that funnels hundreds of subscribers into your sales funnel each and every day.

Essentially, integration Marketing is the process of integrating your offer into someone else’s marketing funnel.

This is hands-down one of the most powerful, yet untapped traffic strategies online today.

One of the best ways to use integration marketing is to look for people who have products related to your market. You would then approach them about including your content as a bonus for their product.

For example, if you have a product that you are currently selling, I would allow them to include your product as a free bonus. The only catch is that they have to sign up for your list before they are able to download your product.

This is really a no-brainer (especially if you have a high-quality product) because they are able to provide tremendous value to their customers, offering them an extra bonus that they would normally have to pay for.

In return, you get a very powerful list of buyers!

By pairing your products with other products within your market you are going to create an instant, perpetual flow of leads to your website, allowing you to grow your list very quickly.

Another way you can use this strategy is to look for membership sites within your market. People who own membership sites are constantly looking for quality content that they can add to their site. That’s really one of the biggest jobs for someone who owns a membership site, adding new quality content every month.

So you can provide them with tremendous value by allowing them to put your premium content in their membership site. And in return, you will build a very powerful list of buyers. And as you know, a list of buyers is 10x more powerful than a traditional subscriber.

Another powerful integration strategy you can use is to write a killer report of about 30-40 pages of truly great content. This has to be some truly juicy content. Not the same stuff you see rehashed 100′s of times over. For this strategy to work, you must create content that stands above the crowd.

You would then offer this ebook to other marketers for them to give away to their list (no opt-in required.) The key here is that you MUST include links throughout the report that point back to your squeeze page.

To add even more power to this strategy, I would recommend that you personalize the report for each marketer. At the top I would say something like, “An Exclusive Gift for  MARKETERS NAME’s Friends and Subscribers”.

I would send out 50-100 personalized emails offering your report to them for free. You can email bloggers, product owners, and related websites. You can find these people through Clickbank, PayDotCom, and traditional Google Searches.

You can also some extra juice to this strategy by including a revenue component by branding the report with their affiliate link peppered throughout the report.

Some other extremely powerful integration points include thank-you pages, log-out pages, autoresponder follow-ups, exit pops, and banner space.

There is a TON of virtual real estate online that goes untapped. It’s your job to look for these priceless integration points and find ways to integrate your content into other people’s marketing funnels.

The key to making integration marketing work really well is to make sure that you have a high-converting sales process. If you want people to integrate your offer into their marketing/sales funnel, you must know your visitor value. How much (on average) will someone make for each visitor they send to your website?

Now, you can instantly increase your visitor value by creating a full sales process. An example would be a front-end product of a $1 trial that led into a $39 per month membership site, followed by 2 upsells, and a backend follow-up sequence of higher-priced products.

If you have a high visitor value, it’s going to be a 100 times easier to get joint ventures and affiliates on board. It becomes a no-brainer for your affilate because they make more money sending traffic to your offer than they do anyone else’s.

That’s why it’s soooo important to focus on creating ONE sales funnel and then continue testing and tweaking it for maximum conversion.

Unfortunately, most product creators rarely do any testing. And then after the product launch the product dies and they move onto the next product launch.

But if you want to create a real business online with affiliates who are ready and eager to promote for you and integrate your offer on their thank-you page, then you need to focus on ONE sales process and maximizing the visitor value for that ONE sales process.

I, personally, have been using integration marketing for years, and I can vouch for the fact that it works. The key, though, to most of my marketing is spreading my valuable content all over the internet. Integration marketing just happens to be one of the ways that I do that. In fact, you can grab several of my reports and insert your affiliate links into them and add them as bonuses to YOUR products. Here's the link: Brandable Reports.

Let me know what you think of this article. Pick one thing you see above and make a note to try it soon.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. Be sure to check out Kim's course: Traffic Dashboard. I bought it. I'm going through it myself and learning. I highly and completely recommend it. (And, I do not say that often.)