I cancelled my Twittollower account this week.

Not sure why you should care?

Then you have probably missed my introductory Test Tube article on Twittollower, the service that builds your list of Twitter followers automatically (in my test tube articles, I put various tools/software/strategies to the test on my main web sites, and report the results to you!).

This service promises to add a minimum of 2,000 niche-targeted followers to your list each and every month. This, at an introductory cost of $67 per month, rising to $99/month after the first 200 participants.

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It’s an appealing thought…

Build hundreds, even thousands of targeted backlinks to your web site in minutes by using software that “searches out” blogs targeted to your niche, and automatically submits your comments (and your link). Some of these software services claim to be able to randomize your material, thus submitting numerous, but all entirely viable versions of your comments to the various resources.

Riiiiiiight.

If you think this is a viable way of building links, let me provide you with a real life example. As you know, I run a successful online business in the sports/weight loss supplement niche (with UltimateFatBurner.com & Real-Customer-Comments.com). Both of these sites make use of the WordPress platform to some extent – as a content management system, and to leverage the power of visitor comments to build fresh and relevant content. And yes, we have a honest-to-goodness blog which is updated daily.

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Argh.

This morning I received yet another e-mail from some “marketer” or another, promising me the secrets of the guru’s for an unbelievably low price.

Uh-huh.

Amazing how such a large majority of marketers – even some of the most successful ones apparently – can’t seem to spell. Yep, they can dominate the search engines, suck ooodles of cash out of the pockets of hapless surfers, and effortlessly deliver truckloads of back-links to their web sites, without having mastered the basics of grammar.

Guru’s.

With an “apostrophe.”

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If you’ve been following along for the last little while, you’re probably aware my last few posts have been about building a huge Twitter following using the Twittollower service. I haven’t got enough data yet to report whether or not the service delivers the sort of followers who respond to my “tweets”, although it is certainly building a list of followers quickly enough.

Anyhow, I just wanted to follow up on this discussion and say that thanks to some tips from Kevin Riley’s new Twitter Vending Machine publication, the whole “Twitter-Tweeting-Tracking” thing is going much more smoothly.

The key to making the process a whole lot easier (thank you, Kevin!) is the effective use of the HootSuite service. Hootsuite is a free online service that allows you to…

• Compress your URLs – this allows the performance of your tweets to be tracked, as well as providing you with more “room” (i.e. characters) to get your message across.
• Manage multiple Twitter accounts from one interface.
• Schedule “tweets” – this is an awesome feature which allows you to schedule for all your tweets in advance, freeing you up from having to access multiple Twitter accounts numerous times a day to post tweets.

How to use HootSuite properly was just one of the things I learned from Kevin Riley’s Twitter Vending Machine. Like all of Kevin’s products, it’s competitively priced (under $20) and delivers great value. If you want to learn how to build and manage a huge list of Twitter followers to leverage your business, you’ll love this publication. Highly recommended.

Here’s where you can learn more!

If you were intrigued by my recent post about building a massive Twitter following with the Twittollower service, I thought I’d follow up with a quick update of data. Now, barely a week into the experiment, I have just over 1,000 followers.

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If you’ve spent any time reading this blog, you know I haven’t exactly been jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. Especially not for building my online business. However, it’s always important to keep an open mind. No matter how I feel about Twitter, there are numerous credible and respected online marketers who – if they are to be believed – are using it to successfully grow their businesses.

That’ one of the reasons I let my WordPress developer talk me into setting up a Twitter account for UltimateFatBurner.com and integrate Twitter on the blog.

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Over the last few months I’ve been talking a lot about online video marketing, and the traffic-driving and business-building possibilities that it offers to entrepreneurs of all levels of experience.

In this post, for instance, I discussed the logistics of how to create videos for your web site.

In this one, I introduced the strategy of converting your popular articles into videos, and finally, in this one, I outlined the process I developed for creating effective videos quickly.

However, one thing I have not discussed is how well my videos have fared at pulling in eyeballs, and more importantly, converting those viewers into visitors to my web sites. Well,  I’ve finally got a bit of data to draw from, so let’s do that now (incidentally, I’m going to report YouTube numbers only. I have submitted to other video sites, but the vast majority of views come from YouTube)…

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First, an apology for the radio silence of late. The beginning of the year is the biggest time for my online businesses, so I’ve spent the majority of December and the first week of January busily working away and preparing.

Now that I’ve got a bit of breathing space, it’s time to get back to work over here.

Since we’re at the start of a brand new year, I think it is the perfect time to speak to those of you who are struggling to make a “go” of your online business, and have yet to see any financial payoff from your efforts.

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A few weeks ago, I posted about one of my new traffic-building experiments; using short (30-60 seconds) PREselling web videos to drive traffic to my main web site, UltimateFatBurner.com. Basically, this is about creating short, compelling videos, and using them as a “tease” to compel viewers to click through to your web site.

Since my initial post on the subject, I’ve created several other PREselling video commercials. Not surprising, it’s taking less and less time to do so. In addition, I’ve developed a streamlined process and taken steps to address the issue I identified as being the biggest possible detriment to the success of my videos.

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Let’s face it, affiliate marketing is one of the most popular- not to mention the cheapest and easiest – money making options for anyone looking to the Internet to supplement their income. And yet, most affiliates fail spectacularly, the vast majority failing to ever earn a commission check or even refer a sale.

If you’re an affiliate marketer struggling to eke out a living on the Net, no doubt you’re doubly frustrated by the near daily bombardment of affiliate money making “opportunities” – all seemingly sent by some recently penniless college drop out who now earns millions working a couple of hours a day from an idyllic beachfront mansion.

Truth is, if you’re not making money in affiliate marketing, there’s probably a good reason for it.

Back when I started promoting affiliate products, I failed miserably too.

And I continued to do so until I discovered the key to earning referral income on a regular basis, as well as the trick to a high conversion ratio.

Before I continue, let me put one thing into perspective; while earning income – even making a living from referral programs – is well within your powers, only a select few marketers are going to get to enjoy those huge 4 and 5 figure Clickbank checks featured so prominently on the sales pages of the affiliate marketing gurus.

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