PPC Withdrawal

I am a PPC junkie. As I write articles and submit them to directories, I can hear Yahoo and MSN whispering "I'm soooo much faster, Jon. I can give you traffic in a matter of MINUTES!"

I feel my hands shake as I force myself to concentrate on the new strategy. The itch to pay for traffic is constantly hounding me though. It's relentless and completely unashamed. The PPC Itch promises me great highs, and indeed they are definitely out there. But it can also leave you broke and destitute.

As I write this, my mouth has suddenly become dry and sticky and stale. PPC withdrawals aren't pretty.

Anyway, I'm working the 30 Day Challenge system almost to a "T". My sites are already in existence so I did not use Wordpress Direct this time around. Maybe next time. So far I've seen no traffic from my article submissions. I guess I just have to keep at it.

Last night, I decided to remove my Adsense blocks from one of my older sites. There is an affiliate program that I've been a part of for years but haven't really pushed. I switched out all of the Adsense for banners of this program. We will see how that goes. Preparation makes things so much easier. Back when I first built that site in 2005, I had placed all of the Adsense blocks into Server Side Includes html files. That way I could change out the content at will. What would have taken hours took me about 3 minutes last night.

Good stuff!

I've Gone Guerrilla...

Indeed. With my launch of 25 videos yesterday for one of my niches, I think I'm officially a guerrilla. Trying to make things happen with the least amount of expenditure possible.

This week is Traffic Week on the Jon's Biz Channel. Article Marketing, video marketing, social bookmarking, and other backlinking methods are on the menu. We will see how much traffic I can generate from my new guerrilla tactics. How I long for the days of PPC where I could turn on a campaign and let the traffic flow...

Alas.

Anyway, this is the first concerted effort I've made to generate unpaid traffic since 2005. Can you believe that?! Crazy stuff. Anyone with tips or idea on how to get natural traffic flowing, let me know. I am employing some tactics from the 30 Day Challenge of this year. Hopefully they come to fruition.

Of course, all of my links will point back to my opt-in form. The goal is still the same - get more opt-ins. The part I haven't decided yet is whether I should focus on the traffic for one niche this week or several.

A Lot Has Happened Since Last Post...

My work to get back into PPC failed. Once again, impatience and poor strategy have cost me dearly in both money and time. I am learning my lessons, though. I just wish it wasn't costing me an arm and a leg in the process.

So, I'm forced to use organic methods of driving traffic. Luckily, I've picked up some great nuggets along the way that should help things. One of them is a great affiliate program that provides you with everything - articles, lead magnets, etc. It has helped me formulate my strategy on building organic traffic. We will see how it goes.

One bright note, in the past few weeks, I've seen the power of having a list. I have lists in the 3 niches now: one for my product and 2 others. Using those lists after I curtailed most of my PPC spending, I was able to generate a significant amount of money. The best part is that I'd already paid to get them on the list so the money generated was all net!

Good stuff.

Next thing. All the stuff you hear about buyers being more valuable than regular list subscribers is true beyond belief. My small list of a few hundred buyers (which I've neglected and didn't set up a true automation for getting them on the buyers' list until a month ago, otherwise it would be much bigger) bought MORE of a product that I was promoting than my full list of nearly 6,000.

And they did it without me using the second follow up promotion I used on the 6,000!

The Lesson - If you can get a buyers' list going - you're building your own gold mine. If you can figure out how to do so as an affiliate, then you're really on to something.