The April edition of my printed newsletter is ready to be sent out.

If you would like to receive a copy, all it takes is a simple subscription using the following link:

http://www.aaronbrandon.com/newsletter/

The April edition includes the following:

- A newsletter exclusive special for CBMerchantPro.  The normal cost of CBMerchantPro is $200.00.  As a subscriber to my Online Business Newsletter, you’ll receive a link where you can order this brand new software for just $50 dollars.

- I reveal a traffic method I’ve used to drive search engine traffic to free blogs successfully.  This one isn’t something to shrug off.

- Do you ever get the feeling you’re in a market that’s just too competitive, and everyone seems to be selling the same product?  No worries.  This article will clear up how one multi-billion dollar industry allows numerous companies to sell the SAME EXACT product, and what they do to set their product apart from competitors.

- You can add as many videos as you’d like to YouTube.  Whether or not they’ll be seen around the world is up to you.  After reading this article, you’ll end of with a clear picture on how numerous YouTube video publishers are able to get tons of viewers in a small time frame with just one source.

If you want to get your hands on this issue, you’d better hurry.  I’m sending this issue out at 3pm PST on Wednesday (that’s today!). 

Get subscribed now for only $25/month by using the link below: 

http://www.aaronbrandon.com/newsletter/

- Aaron Brandon

A number of internet business folks have been mentioning mind mapping lately.  Some talk about it as being some sort of secret tool that will solve all of your problems.  In truth, it won’t.  But it is a neat tool, but that’s about all it is.

Think about how you create a PowerPoint presentation.

You know how it’s done.  You’ve got a topic, and a bunch of bullets.  Then, you might have some sub-bullets.

Sorry folks, that’s pretty much the same way mind mapping works!

Mind mapping simply changes how you’re visualizing those outlines.  Instead of a list, you’re creating a visual diagram of your notes.  Instead of a topic at the top, you’ll have a circle, or some sort of figure for a starting point in the middle of a page.  Instead of all of the bullets, you’ll have lines (or some graphic, like an arrow) pointing to each item in the list, and more pointing to the sub items.

Quite frankly, it’s more like a flow chart for a process, rather than having it in a written format.

But, I’m not actually bashing mind mapping .  To be honest, I use them for several of my own projects.

I believe giving myself the ability to visualize my notes in a more graphical way can help me be more organized.

Here are a few things I’ve used mind mapping with:

• Websites
• Business Procedures
• Instructions
• Presentation notes

I’ve even mapped out an entire online business.  The only problem I’ve had has been keeping it update constantly.  For example, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop adding more ways to get web traffic to a website.  I come across at least one new way every day!

That reminds me, I’ve been debating whether I should create a product for using mind maps. 

I’m interested in getting your input.  If I were to create a product which showed how I use and create mind maps, would you purchase it?  Comments are open.

- Aaron Brandon

What if you were to check your e-mail in the morning and see 90 notifications that your blog was submitted to related blogs, and to know that soon down the road, with no effort, you will easily get that many links back to your blog?

Well, that’s what happens to me.  I used to submit to blog carnivals on a regular basis.  It was fairly easy to do when I wrote only a few blog entries per week and up to one a day.  But eventually it becomes a tedious process to do yourself, and that task needs to get outsourced so:

1. you don’t burn out (lose your energy)

2. you don’t become less productive in other important business tasks.

So what do I do?  If you don’t want to submit to blog carnivals yourself, there are a few simple solutions.

The first solution would be to create your own intern program.

The next solution would be to outsource your task to a paid contractor. 

And the final solution would be to pay $100/month for a service which already has interns and contractors submitting blog entries to blogs related to your own on a daily basis.

I’ve done all three of those solutions listed above.  However, I’ve had the most luck using someone else’s service. 

Here’s what I use:

http://www.jamesbrausch.com/services/BlogCarnival/

I highly recommend it.

- Aaron Brandon

One method you can use to get traffic to your blog is pretty easy.  You just link to other blogs!  Unfortunately, some people still don’t see the real benefit in doing so.  Maybe I can fix that.

Every once in a while (usually at least once per week) you’ll see me post a blog entry with a catchy title. In the post I’ll provide a link to another blog.  Why do I do that?  Did they ask for a link back to their blog?  Are they students of mine?  Interns?  No.  They’re new blogs that I found with links pointing to my blog.

So, where do I look for new links to my blog?  Do I look at my stats?  Do I go to one of the main search engines and look for new sites linking to my blog?  That is one way.  I don’t need to do that though. I’ll show you a picture from inside my WordPress control panel:

I check this part of my blog regularly.  When I log in to my WordPress control panel, this is what I see on the right side of the welcome page.  By linking to these authors, it lets them know that their efforts are being accomplished, and that they’re affecting me in some way.

But does that mean I’ll post a link to any blog linking to me?  No.  I have a number of spam blogs that seem to enjoy linking to me.  I would never link back to them.  One blog on that image is crossed off for that very reason.  For other blogs, if there was no information I found useful or that my readers would find useful, there’s no point in sending them a link.

I just read the top incoming link.  It’s from Keith Goodrum.  So is the third link down.  I do recognize his name now.  I wouldn’t have if he never linked to my blog.  The other blogs on the list are from Mohamed Bhimji, James Brausch, Terry Dean, Stephen Dean, and Jim Sansi.  Are you familiar with these names yet?  I sure am.

- Aaron Brandon

I was recently asked which service was better. Feedburner or Aweber.

I couldn’t answer that question. Feedburner is a news feed management provider. Aweber is an autoresponder. Both are used for different purposes. But, you can also use Aweber to broadcast your blogs RSS feed to subscribers.

The reader who asked the question was probably wondering which service was better to use on a blog so readers can subscribe to blog updates. I haven’t used Feedburner before, so I don’t know all its features.

Using Aweber’s blog broadcast feature has worked brilliantly for me. You simply enter your blogs feed into Aweber, customize an e-mail which is sent out regularly to subscribers, create a web form, and start advertising the benefits of blog updates to your readers. It’s no secret that I’m using a Blogcast. I created the Blogcast course so other blog owners could build lists of their own. The purpose of it is to get your readers back to your blog.

Recently, my friend James Brausch moved his blog to a new website. If most businesses did that, they would immediately lose most of their readership. They would also lose a number of their customers. James didn’t. He uses a Blogcast with Aweber. He was able to move his blog, and continue to send out e-mails to his list of readers (a main source of repeat traffic). A minor adjustment to the e-mail he sent out was made, and that was just about all there was to it.

Did you catch that last benefit? If you did, you now know that a Blogcast is portable.

So, you should certainly see the reason for a Blogcast.

It takes less than $20 per month for an account at Aweber, and 30 minutes of your time to get the Blog Broadcast working.

You can get the whole course here: http://www.blogcastcourse.com

- Aaron Brandon

I just found a pretty good blog post which really sums it all up… which is good, because now I don’t have to write a big long blog entry like this one:

http://www.doshdosh.com/20-quick-ways-to-increase-your-alexa-rank/

- Aaron Brandon

As some of you may know, I do my work on my laptop… well I should say “notebook” because it’s huge and stops the blood circulation to my legs when it’s on my lap. But that’s another story. Where was I going with this…?

Oh yeah, my notebook runs on Windows Vista. The Alexa Toolbar does not work on Vista. So, I did some searching around and found some suggestions for those Vista users who might want some alternative.

Alexa Toolbar Rocks!

(I know you’re confused, I just said it sucks… so here’s why) 

• It works with Internet Explorer… I’ve got that.
• It works with Firefox… I’ve got that too.

But when I go to http://www.alexa.com/site/download I get the following message:

“The toolbar currently does not work with Windows Vista. We are working on a fix and hope to release it soon. Sorry for the inconvenience!”

WHAT!? They hope to release it “soon”? I really hate the word “soon”. Why? Because it’s very often used instead of the word “never”. That’s right. I think I can recall seeing that same message a number of months ago. Nothing new to report.

So here are a few suggestions:

http://compete.com/

http://www.quantcast.com/

http://www.comscore.com/

http://www.hitwise.com/

http://www.netratings.com/

Richard Lee wrote about these alternatives back in November. Here’s the link to that post:

http://richardlee.com/?p=91

For now, can someone PLEASE tell me what my Alexa rank is!? If you’re running Vista too, you might as well make a good guess for me.

;) 

- Aaron Brandon

In my last entry, I said you should download the Alexa Toolbar. If you didn’t do that yet, here’s where to get it: http://www.alexa.com/site/download

Why should you install it?

To put it simply, the more visitors coming to a website who have the Alexa Toolbar installed can actually increase the sites Alexa score.

But why is increasing a websites Alexa score important?

Good question…

It has been determined that a higher Alexa score is actually a positive ranking factor for the Google search engine.

With that said, it makes sense to do what you can to increase that score. Here are a few things you can do:

1. Get your readers to install the Alexa Toolbar

2. Implement a procedure in your intern program (if you have one) and get your interns to install the toolbar and visit your website.

I’ve done that in my own intern program. In fact, if you’re interested in following more of my procedures I use in this business, you can join my intern program by following the link to below:

Internet Business Intern Program

- Aaron Brandon

I just noticed that I’m now ranked in the top 200 on a list of ”Make Money Online” websites. At the moment I’m ranked #180.

You can see that here: http://www.45n5.com/top100/

What’s interesting is that some of my friends, colleagues, and customers are ranking higher than me on that list.

There are a number of techniques I can use to increase my rankings there.

I’d like to share some of them with you so you too can get up there on the list.

If you’d like to get your own ”make money online” site on that list, go to the link above, scroll down to the bottom, and send an e-mail to the address listed.

Next, head over to http://www.alexa.com/site/download and download the Alexa toolbar and come back and visit my blog.

I’ll go over a few more techniques in another entry.

- Aaron Brandon

Some readers have asked me this question. It does work, if your submissions are effective.

One example of submitting articles ineffectively is if you’re submitting to a bunch of dead addresses. In fact, some of those who have asked me have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the e-mails that come back to you after a submission with the subject “failure notice” or “Returned mail: delivery problems encountered”. Those who submit to editors with an e-mail address they don’t check can lead to bigger problems.

After I submit an article to a list of publishers, I check my e-mail to see if any messages haven’t gone through. Any returned mail gets removed from future article submissions. It is rare to submit an article without getting at least one of these messages.

Then there are the e-mails that do go through, but an editor replies to your message telling you to submit to a new address. This is good, as long as you’re updating their e-mail address in your list. There are also editors that reply with the subject “REMOVE”, which is pretty obvious they don’t want any of your submissions. Remove them from your list before your next submission.

That’s one part of the process. Another important part is customizing your message so you sound like an author, and not like an obnoxious marketer. If you’re using Artemis Pro to submit articles, there’s a template.txt file you create so you can personalize your message. This plays a large part whether your article is going to be submitted or not. You can even perform your own tests to see which template gets a better response from editors.

Article submission works, no question about it. Whether your article is going to get submitted depends more on the content of your article, and how you address editors.

I recently created two procedures on how to find more editors to submit to. They can be performed by you, or anyone you give the procedure to. They include videos with step-by-step processes for finding more editors.

The first one shows the procedure I use to find e-mail addresses for the editors of ezines/newsletters:

http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00ZW5I3W

The second shows how to submit articles to individual publishers. These publishers will often have only a website to submit articles to. In most cases, you’ll be submitting your article using a form, however, some of theses publishers will just leave their e-mail address for you to submit to. This actually makes it far easier to submit articles to them if you’re using Artemis Pro. Here’s the link to the individual publisher procedure:

http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00ZC8I00

- Aaron Brandon

I’ve been seeing this new “widget” (as they call it) named BlogRush pop up on all sorts of blogs lately, that I can’t resist at least mentioning something about it. I’m sure several readers of mine would like to wonder why there isn’t one of these “widgets” on my blog.

I’ll tell you exactly why…

It’s one of my business principles to only use reliable, heavily tested technology which assists my readers and processes. If you’ve followed any news about this widget, (and I’m only calling it a widget because that’s really all it is and I’d like to avoid mentioning the name of it) you’ll know that it was released prematurely without being thoroughly tested. How do I know this? Because I’ve simply been following the news… here are a few of the latest headlines:

Quality Audit Complete

10,000+ Blogs Being Removed

Phase 2 Update

Phase 2 Feedback

In fact, I’ve even seen the “results” from another internet business blog… it wasn’t anything to blog about, so I didn’t.

The main page of the blogrush site claims to “drive a flood of targeted readers to your blog”. That’s interesting, because I thought I already had a widget that did exactly that. Oh yeah, I made a course on how to do that!

It’s called The Blogcast Home Study Course. It’s an online video course which guides you step-by-step how to create a blog broadcast which will automatically send an instant e-mail to your blog readers each time you post a new blog entry.

I’ve been using my own Blogcast for over a year. It works (and I’ve got the data to  prove it). Once you’ve convinced your blog readers enough times to add themselves to it, you’ll witness that flood of traffic everyone loves talking about.

Even if you don’t have a blog yet, it’s no problem, the course also covers everything you need prior to installing the Blogcast.

In fact, I’ve gone ahead and temporarily lowered the price to $15 (regular price is $50) for my blog readers who don’t own a copy yet.

Here’s where you can get the course: http://www.blogcastcourse.com/

(Note: The sales page will still show $50 as the price, but you’ll see it’s only $15 on the order page.)

Here’s the link if you’d rather have the course on CD: http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00DK57QD

I’ll be raising the price back up soon, so if you’re interested in grabbing the course for just $15, you’d better hurry.

- Aaron Brandon

Building a list of ezine editors can be tedious, confusing, and time consuming. So, why do it? The fact is that the larger your list is, the more likely your publication will actually make it in on to a newsletter or website. The more newsletters or websites your article is on, the more traffic you’ll get, the more traffic, the more sales. Of course, if you can’t write anything decent, your chances of getting an article published is slim.

So, assuming that you can write, here are a few tips you can use to build your list:

1. Save as much time as you can before hand. If you have some extra cash to spend, consider purchasing a list of ezine editors. Some people have already done all the hard work… here are a few lists I know of:

http://www.directoryofezines.com

http://www.ezineeditorslist.com

and Robert Phillips has been known to release his list with a 24 hour special: http://www.cybercashology.com

2. Browse online ezine directories which list editors e-mail addresses. Create a comma separated document to store the editors e-mail address, publication name, first name, and last name. I have had luck with some directories. You may have to look a bit deeper to find the good ones. Some directories only list subscriber addresses, while others will include everything you need. Some directories don’t show e-mail addresses because spammers are an obvious problem.

3. Subscribe e-mail addresses aren’t mean’t for submitting articles to, but can they be to your advantage? Possibly. I would recommend making a separate list of subscribe addresses. You might want to try e-mailing them individually asking them how and where you can submit your articles. E-mailing them acting like the typical money hungry, forum junkie type is not going to get you anywhere. Be a legitimate author.

3. Make sure you’re building your list of editors systematically. Some directories will often look the same, and sometimes you’ll forget whether you’ve already been to a certain one. That’s why it’s important to make a list of as many directories as you can first. Proceed in some kind of order.

4. Don’t stop building your list. Always continue to add to it, even if it takes one hour of your day (I’ve found that I can easily add 50/hour).

5. Once you have your list, submit your publications using software like Artemis Pro. I recommend buying a dedicated server for use with Artemis Pro or there’s a chance your ISP will shut you down (or tell you how to install anti-virus software).

6. Always filter your list for duplicate addresses, and remove addresses that do not go through. Last time I checked, submitting my articles to nobody wasn’t effective.

 - Aaron Brandon

If you buy an information product on ways to get traffic, you’re likely going to be given a number of different procedures. They’ll likely mention article submissions, link exchanging, submitting to social websites, etc. But what good is all the traffic if nobody makes it back to your blog? If you did every procedure, what you’ll likely see is a spike in your traffic for a day, or maybe even a few days. Then, your traffic numbers plummet again.

There’s a good reason for this… either nobody liked your blog, or nobody remembered your blog after visiting numbers of other blogs before or after visiting yours.

My Blogcast Home Study Course teaches how to prevent your blog traffic from making that plummet. Each time you submit a new post, readers on a notification list will receive an e-mail with a link back to your blog. If you look at the top left of this blog just under my picture, you’ll see an area where you can put your name and e-mail address. That’s what the Blogcast looks like. So simple, yet extremely powerful!

The online video course is in complete step-by-step format. Don’t have a domain yet? No problem, the course covers how to do that. Don’t have a blog? My course teaches that too, and every step of the way until you have your own blog with the Blogcast set up.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.blogcastcourse.com

- Aaron Brandon

On Friday I asked my blog readers if they had any questions relating to online business. The reason being, I’m going to be opening my intern program up very soon… maybe in the next few days. I wanted to see if there were any questions I could use that would aid me in creating a few more tasks in my intern program.

Well… there were four questions in all, and they were pretty good. So, what I thought I would do, is just go ahead and answer them in this post. I wasn’t able to make any new tasks with them, but I think I’ve pretty much completed making all the tasks that I’ll have in the program.

Here are the questions/answers:

How does the Alexa toolbar aid in traffic generation?

The Alexa toolbar doesn’t work the same way as say the stumbleupon toolbar. Alexa is a website that uses user based information to predict the amount of traffic a website is receiving. So, getting users to install the Alexa toolbar and to come to your site is likely to cause the Alexa rank to increase. Though the Alexa toolbar doesn’t increase the traffic to a page, users who surf the web monitoring the Alexa ranking of websites may see your website with a high Alexa ranking and can assume that site receives quite a bit of traffic, therefore they may:

- See more value in your website 

- Go to your site more often

- Link to the site

- Post a comment on the site

- Review your site using the alexa toolbar

etc.

That’s my take on it anyway…

On the social websites like Digg and Reddit, do you use your real name when promoting your own blog/website/product or do you use a pen name?

 I have never used those websites to promote my own blog and products. I would much rather have my readers make comments.  With that said, is it a bad idea to digg or reddit your own site? No. Just make sure you’re following the guidelines of those websites. Apparently it’s OK to Digg your own sites and posts, however digging all of your posts may “make you a spammer”. I imagine Reddit is the same way.

So if I did use those websites to promote this blog or a product of mine, I don’t see why I should create a pen name unless I would prefer to remain anonymous.

How do you decide what to price a video information product initially?

Initially, my information products are priced very reasonably…$10 or $15 dollars as a timed special. That way, most of my visitors and customers can get a great deal. If the product is good, it will often be promoted by my customers on their own blogs as well as affiliates if it’s a downloadable product on clickbank.

How do you set up information product price tests? 

That can be done with MuVar so your product will automatically adjust the price to figure out what’s more profitable.

For a product on clickbank, you can go to the “my products” page and make more products under the same account. The products will all be the same course, just priced differently. Add these as different versions of a variable for your order link in MuVar, and you’re set.

Thanks for the questions!

- Aaron Brandon

My blog has been pretty quiet lately, so I’ve decided to post an update on what I’ve been up to…in case anyone thinks I’ve suddenly disappeared and wasn’t going to return. Hey, it could happen. 

These last couple weeks I’ve been putting together an internship for my online business. It’s been on my to do list along with a few other things, and decided to get it done. So… likely sometime next week I’ll be able to open it up to the public.

The internship currently includes tasks related to traffic generation, copywriting, and product creation. The three key factors of a successful online business, right?

However, I’ve decided to work on it a little bit longer than anticipated. I’ve decided to put more into the program so it would be much more of an experience. I added a few procedures that are more hands on… the kind of things I do with my own internet business (blogging, product creation… etc.)

I’ve also decided to create an incentive to get interns to complete the program all the way through.

What’s the incentive?

I’ve decided to put together a package of courses and books to help those who know they’re serious about wanting to quit their day jobs and work on their own internet business full time. That was my goal. I did it. I finally quit my job in an awful time/life draining retail position a few months ago and I feel great. I always dreaded having to be at work at X time and having to deal with a bunch of time vampires while at work.

Anyway, the special package (at least for now) includes:

- Glyphius 2007
- MuVar 2007
- The Blogcast Course
- Market Research Vol. 1
- Life Management
- Earn An Income By Publishing Your Own Printed And Mailed Newsletter…
- The Attractor Factor By Joe Vitale
- No B.S Time Management for Entrepreneurs By Dan Kennedy
- The Irresistible Offer By Mark Joyner

And maybe a few more I can find laying around here. All of that will be a prize for the first person who completes all the tasks in my intern program when it’s open. I haven’t taken the time to add up the total value, but that’s at least $500 worth of material.

Want to be notified when the intern program opens? I’ll make sure an e-mail is sent to you when I post a new blog entry. All you have to do is sign up to my blog announcement list. You can do that by simply typing in your first name and e-mail address in the top right corner of this page (just under my picture) and hitting the submission button.

P.S. - Is there something you’ve been really wanting to know how to do in an online business? Something relating to traffic, product creation, or copywritng? I would like to hear your questions so I can add a few more tasks to my intern program. You have until Monday to provide me with any questions you have. Just post as many of them as you can as a comment below!

Stay tuned!

- Aaron Brandon

Recently, a blog reader asked me what the “Share This” link did which is located at the end of each blog entry.

Well, I can see why it could be a little bit confusing for some… you click on it and you see a number of icons with strange names next to them

Ok, what “Share This” allows you to do is share a blog entry of your choice with more people, or, a single person if you click on the E-mail tab.

You may have heard or seen people talk about “Digg”, which is “a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.”

So, if you come across a blog entry of mine you think is worth sharing with more people, click on “Share This” at the bottom of the entry, and simply choose one of these services and submit my blog entry. Registering to the service is likely going to be required if you haven’t already.

The reason there are a number of services listed is simple. Not everyone uses the same site to share content. For example, if a visitor already has a browser toolbar like StumbleUpon, chances are they’ll likely use that service over the others.

So now you know! Thanks for bringing this to my attention!