I think it is very likely that what has become known as Bum Marketing is doomed to die a dismal death in the near future.

What is Bum Marketing?

Bum Marketing is a strategy used to generate affiliate commissions through distribution of articles written specifically to rank highly for low-competition keywords.

The method was promoted as an easy way for beginners to make money online without having to invest much money, time or effort.

SO easy in fact that a ‘homeless bum’ could do it from the local library! (Ya right).

How does Bum Marketing work?

1. Do extensive keyword research to find low competition niche markets and products with moderate to high demand.
2. Find a product or service that can be promoted to that niche through an affiliate program.
3. Write scads of articles following a keyword density formula designed to get top search engine rankings quickly.
4. Submit those articles to popular article directories.

The objective being to get readers of those articles to visit your site for more information about the product or to have them opt-in to a list through a squeeze page.

Why is Bum Marketing Dead?

Google’s latest algorithm change, Farmer, spells death for Bum Marketing sites in the same way as crappy, useless Adsense sites were targeted in past algorithm changes.

Chris Knight of the uber-popular EzineArticles article directory made the following comments in his Search Engine Algorithm Changes post about the site’s traffic on February 26, 2011:

Last month, we served 57 million unique visitors. Next month, that number may be in half.

and..

Traffic was down 11.5% on Thursday and over 35% on Friday. In our life-to-date, this is the single most significant reduction in market trust we’ve experienced from Google.

By result, Chris is having to implement a number of changes to his article directory to ward off potential spammers, i.e. bum marketers. Some of those changes include:

• No more submissions through a WordPress plugin,
• raising the bar on articles written for keyword density,
• removing articles in ‘spammy’ categories such as reverse cell phone lookup and acai berry
• and requiring exclusivity.

Hmmm.. those changes will make it much more difficult to be a bum marketer, don’t you think?

I’m not opposed to article marketing, but as a solo marketing method, it is NOT (and never has been) a sustainable way to do business online.

Rather than posting all your content to article directories and risk having it disappear from the search engine results through an algorithm change or removal by an editor, control your destiny by starting a blog and driving traffic to exclusive high-quality articles.

In other words, don’t be (or become) a bum.

Join Rosalind Gardner’s Academy.

Squidoo’s announcement in mid-June has a lot of affiliate marketers running scared – especially those who use article or bum marketing methods and rely heavily on Squidoo for free advertising.

In the supplement to their Terms of Service, Squidoo plans to limit or remove lenses that include:

1. Spam
2. X-Rated or Porn
3. Junk topics
4. “Overly promotional lenses”
5. Plagiarism

Bum marketing affiliates should be most concerned about #4 – Overly promotional lenses.

In the terms of service supplement, Squidoo says:

So to help you focus your lenses, and sell even better–and to help surfers find our pages more useful overall–we’re introducing a limit to the number of outbound links to the same domain that you can have on a lens. If you have more than 9 links to the same domain on a single lens, your lens could get locked for review.

I can’t imagine why anyone would place 9 links to the same domain on a lens, so that shouldn’t be too big a deal.

However, if you are an affiliate who actively promotes Squidoo’s ever-growing list of Blacklisted domains such as Blackhat SEO sites, reverse phone lookup sites, paid people finder sites and dating sites like AdultFriendfinder – you will find that even one link to those sites will get your lens locked from view.

Get ready to change, delete or move your Squidoo lens

If your Squidoo lens falls into any of the above categories, then you should get ready to change, delete or move it before mid-July as Squidoo advises:

In mid-July 2009, we will start turning on our systems for scanning the site for junk topic lenses, overly promotional lenses, and X-rated and Adult lenses.

If your lens hits our radar for any of the above outlined policies, then and at any point in the future, we’ll lock your lens from view and send you a note to let you know why.

At that time, you will have 7 days to fill out a form requesting a hand review of your lens. We’ll point you to the correct form at that time.

We will have 30 days to review your request. If we believe your lens was flagged by accident, we’ll unlock it for you within that time. But thanks to the ever-sophisticated tools we’ve built, we’re betting on very few false positives.

If you are an affiliate who relies primarily on article or bum marketing methods, I suggest that you read the Squidoo terms of service supplement.

More importantly, I would suggest that you remember the old phrase “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.

Over-reliance on one marketing method is dangerous and could prove fatal for your business in the long run. There have been far too many instances in which tricky linking methods, Google plays and arbitrage advertising have led to to the partial or complete demise of an affiliate marketer’s hard work.

I feel for those who bought into a program that promises riches through use of only one ‘free’ marketing method. The truth is, that there is no such thing as ‘free’. You will spend time and effort to use that singular method only to risk all that you have worked for.

Use a variety of marketing methods…

In the Super Affiliate Handbook you’ll learn 26 ways to market your affiliate site – and get warnings about 5 marketing strategies that are just a waste of time.

“How do I tell if the keywords I’m picking are low competition but high in popularity?”

shalisha42 asked this question in the NPT Forum…

I’ve written 100s of articles and have submitted my articles through Ezine Articles, GoArticles, Hubpages, and American Chronicle. I tried Squidoo and I NEVER get traffic. The topics are very popular – weight loss, dating and making money online. I promote 3 affiliate products so I make sure I put links in my article – sparingly.

I’m having trouble understanding how to determine if a keyword is worth using in my articles. I use my Wordtracker (I have the full version since last year and still don’t know how to use it despite having read the manual) and Google Keyword Tool. When I see there are at least 11,000 or higher searches monthly, and the bar is completely colored in, I interpret it as being a popular keyword phrase.

But how do I figure out if there is competition? What is the competition barometer? How do I tell if the keywords I’m picking are low competition but high in popularity? I have an EXCELLENT NICHE but because I don’t understand the keyword concept, I think that is what is not enabling me to make sales.

Keyword Phrase Competition

There are many factors as to why articles may not got noticed or ranked, but targeting a keyword or keyword phrases with too much competition could certainly be a problem.

What you should evaluate first is the KEI, or Keyword Effectiveness Index of a particular keyword to determine whether it’s worth targeting in your articles.

What is KEI?

KEI is a measure of how effective a keyword is for your web site.

In very simple terms, keyword effectiveness is determined by comparing the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is searched (popularity) and the number of times it appears on competing web pages (competition).

The KEI isn’t a strict ratio however, as sheer volume is also considered. So, where the ratio between popularity and competition may be the same for 10 searches/3 sites and 100 searches/30 sites.. the latter would have a higher KEI than the first because it is more popular.

Simply understand that you are looking for HIGH numbers. Here’s an example.

I used Wordtracker’s Comprehensive & competition searches from the “Full Search” link (in the old interface) to study the KEI for ‘dating’ keywords in Google. (See “Wordtracker Terms Defined” at the bottom of the post if you are unfamiliar with the terms “Count, 24hours & Competing shown in the graphic). At the top of the list, the following keywords were shown:

At the bottom of the list, these were the keywords returned.

Note the differences. At the top are very unique searches whereas at the bottom are the most generic terms. The keyword ‘dating’ itself has a KEI of 0.00 – so on it’s own, it’s not worth targeting.

So, if you are focusing on very generic terms in your articles, it’s doubtful surfers will pick them up through the Google listings.

Find a Niche within a Niche

However, as shown in the screenshots above, if you want to catch a popular and increasing trend, you’d do well to work celebrity names into the titles and body of your dating articles. Other worthwhile niches to combine with dating (not shown in the graphics above) are astrological signs such as “Aries man” and geographic regions, i.e. “Indonesian Girls”.

Finding a niche within a niche applies not only to article marketing but to your entire online business as well. For example, if I were starting my online dating review service today, it’s highly unlikely that I would take the broad-based approach that I did with 101Date.com. I would focus on just one of the categories listed in the long sidebar (on the interior pages), such as Mail Order Brides or Disabled Singles.

Ergo, you should hone in on and combine another popular niche (or even 2) with a very generic subject such as dating. An example of a very finely honed niche would be Prince Harry’s dating escapades about which you could write a series of articles. You might branch out from there to write about other royal singles dating adventures and then work that into a promo for Wealthy Men or Millionaire Mates.

Besides, who Prince Harry is dating now is essential knowledge — isn’t it?

The topic of finding a niche within a niche is discussed in the Super Affiliate Handbook as a way to attract more targeted traffic to your site and specific pages.

Wordtracker Terms Defined

Count – This shows the number of times a particular keyword has appeared in our database. E.g. Our database currently holds 296 million words. A count of 147 tells us that this particular word has appeared 147 times out of 296 million.

24hrs – This is the number of predicted traffic you would expect to receive in 24hrs if you were the top bid of the google search engine alone.

Competing- Each keyword has been submitted to the google search engine and the number of competing web pages given in response. The lower the competition (particularly under 300) the easier you will find it to reach the top of google using this keyword.

Do you post your articles on article directories?

Save time. Use Article Announcer to blast your articles to all the right and relevant article directories. The package consists of 4 Audio CDs a transcript of the CDs, the Article Announcer software, a user guide and video tutorial.

Looking for private label rights articles to post on your site and/or software packages with resale rights?

I’ve reviewed and assembled a list of some of the best providers here. Some PLR packages contain ONLY content while others include templates, graphics and product reviews. Note my comments in the brackets below about each site’s main focus.

1. ALL Private Label Content (Content, Multiple niche)
2. Green Living PLR (Green content)
3. InfoGoRound (Multiple niche)
4. Niche Content Packages (Multiple niche/Graphics)
5. Niche Review Templates (Product reviews,Templates)
6. Private Label Central (Content, Multiple niche)
7. Ready Made Review Sites (IM Niche)
8. Yummy PLR (Food content)

ALL Private Label Content

Highly recommended PLR (private label rights) site is Alice Seba and Mila Sidman’s All Private Label Content service.

In addition to offering exceptionally high quality PLR articles in 26 niche topics at very reasonable prices, they also give you ane-month complimentary access to their private members-only forum and a list of suggested affiliate programs to monetize your articles.

Go to All Private Label Content

Green Living PLR

Right now, green is red-HOT and getting hotter by the day. Green Living PLR is one of the few sites dedicated strictly to green topics such as:

• Building Green
• Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
• Eco Garden/Lawn
• Alternative Energy

You can purchase either a one-time package or a monthly PLR Membership that includes
20 Green Living PLR articles, one 7-10 page Green Living Special Report, a Green Living Affiliate Programs List and tips for using your green PLR content.

Go to Green Living PLR

InfoGoRound

InfoGoRound by Bryan Winters is a Private label niche article site that adds 100-300+ brand new articles in 40+ content categories to the database each month. Categories include:

• Business
• Employment and Wealth
• Health & Fitness
• Society
• Computers & Internet
• Entertainment & Recreation
• Home & Family

You’ll also receive 200-250 private label articles on HOT niche topics. Each topic contains between 10 and 50 articles. Professional web-site graphics packages are included with every private label product. The InfoGoRound site includes a built-in formatting tool that lets you instantly format your articles to your desired application, ie. set a newsletter to 60 characters wide.

Go to InfoGoRound

Niche Content Packages

Along with his high-quality (and I DO mean 5-star) content and site header graphics included in these PLR packages, you can literally build a niche affiliate site around any one of Stefan Everaet’s Niche Content packages.

Topics include Animals and Pets, Business, Computers and Internet, Education, Finance and Investment, Food and Drink, Health, Home and Garden, Marketing, News & Society, Parenting, Relationship, Self-Improvement, Sports & Recreation, and Travel.

Go to Niche Content Packages

Niche Review Templates

Niche Review Templates is by Farihan Bahon and Bobby Walker and sports some very attractive review site design templates and in digging around the ‘Net, I found their templates in use on a number of different affiliate review sites. Check out my review and product comparison.

Go to Niche Review Templates

Private Label Central

Private Label Central is my MOST highly recommended PLR site, because I know EXACTLY what goes into it.

But first, I’ll let you in on a secret, most PLR sites hire writers on Elance to write 500 millions articles at 10 cents a piece… now you know why most of it is – dare I say – crap. Anyway, Gail Trahd and I decided that we were bone-weary when it came to sousing out great PLR content (other products on this page excepted), so we decided to put together a PLR site with content written by PROFESSIONALS in their field. So, you won’t find any of the usual hackneyed, boring stuff that you’ll find on those dime-a-million PLR sites. We use only professionals who happen to enjoy writing as well. Check out our Write for Us page…

Go to Private Label Central

Ready Made Review Sites

Ready Made Review Sites was developed by Anthony Hull & Jason Gazaway and features review sites and product reviews limited to the Internet Marketing category. This is a monthly subscription product that includes Top 3 Clickbank affiliate products, 3 professionally written product reviews, headers, a professionally designed review site, autoresponder series, pay per click ads, keyword lists and more… Check out my review and product comparison.

Go to Ready Made Review Sites

Yummy PLR

Got a mom website or blog? Do you search the Internet for recipes? So do your readers. Bring them back to your site over and over with your Yummy PLR membership PLR recipes. Memberships include 10 informative cooking and food articles as well as 30 Recipes all in Word .doc format. Membership numbers are restricted. Get GREAT food content — on a mom-budget at Yummy PLR.

Go to Yummy PLR

My youngest son loves to collect baseball cards. He thinks nothing of plunking down $3.95 of my money for a packet of 12 cards. He’d do it every week if he could.

Ripping open the packet, he flips for an Ichiro Suzuki card. He knows the probability that it’s there is low, but that doesn’t stop him from buying whenever I give him the chance.

Buying private label rights (PLR) articles can have the same effect. You may be sorely tempted to whip out your VISA card the moment you find that great ‘deal’ on X number of articles at just pennies a piece — BUT, something deep inside is telling you that the probability of striking gold is slim to none.

The reasons for that are simple.

Most PLR content is produced by writers who are contracted and don’t speak fluent English. The articles are then re-written several times over by article spinners. THEN they’re all lumped into a package of over 700 articles – all for just $19.97!

At less than 3 cents U.S. an article, you may think you hit the PLR motherload. But, as you meticulously open each zip file and scan article after article, you realize that there isn’t even ONE you can use.

In other words, you just spent $20.00 on garbage that you wouldn’t post on an article directory, much less your own site.

For example, here’s a paragraph I found in an article in a discount Valentine’s Day PLR pack:

Lay out a blanket pm the floor of your living room to make it a special picnic desert for Valentine’s Day. Light candles around your living room to set the mood in the room for your special desert.

UGH!

Three spelling mistakes, superfluous ‘in the room’ phrase and YAWN, also incredibly boring. The rest of the article wasn’t any better.

You could spend countless hours rewriting (fixing) poor PLR like that, but should you… really?

Let’s look at this question from a time perspective. About once a week I serve up a chicken dinner for my family. My choices are to:

1. Buy a whole uncooked chicken and invest at least an hour to clean, season and cook the chicken, OR;
2. Spend an extra $1.50 to buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store which is clean, seasoned, roasted and ready to eat. (Note: There are at least 20 different things I can do with that chicken that requires very little work but produces a high quality delicious meal.)

The choice is simple.

I buy the rotisserie chicken and spend the hour I save not cooking, working on my business and making much more than that $1.50 ‘extra’ that I spent.

Plain and simple, your goal when buying private label rights packages should be to minimize the time you spend writing and use that time attending to the most important aspect of your business… marketing.

So, as with anything else in life, you get what you pay for — so stay away from those 3 cent articles!

Information is what surfers are looking for and successful Internet marketers know that providing relevant content on their sites is the first key to building a highly profitable online business.

That’s easy enough for those who love to write, but how can you produce content if you hate to write?

Fortunately, ‘private label rights’ sellers have stepped up to fill the void.

What are Private Label Rights?

Private label rights article packs are the low-cost alternative to hiring ghostwriters – and less time-consuming than writing articles and ebooks yourself!

Private Label Rights (PLR) packages can consist of articles, reports, autoresponder series and ebooks contracted out to and written by ghost writers. Occasionally, you’ll see private label rights granted to software and graphics.

PLR content can be used “as-is” or edited by the buyer according to guidelines set by the PLR seller. Guidelines will differ with each company.

Private Label Rights Advantages

There are two significant benefits to buying a private label rights package.

First of all, buying PLR packages is relatively inexpensive compared to hiring a ghost writer to produce articles or an ebook for you. Good Private label rights articles average $1 – $2 a piece, whereas a ghostwriter will charge $10, $30, $100 (or more) for one well-written article.

Secondly, you can usually modify the content in any way you want, and then assume credit for having written the material. Having the right to modify the articles means that your final product will be completely different from anyone else who buys and repackages the same material.

10 Ways to Use PLR Content

For this example, let’s say that you bought a package of 50 articles about ‘interior design’.

1. If the PLR seller allows, you can resell the entire package without changes. I used to make 10 to 12K per month just re-selling an auctions information package that consisted of several ebooks and reports. I promoted eBay registrations on the thank you page.
2. You could sell your new book on eBay and generate affiliate sales or bring traffic to your site through links that you’ve placed within the book.
3. If you sell your own product, give the ebook away to your customers as a buying bonus.
4. Or, you might use a private label ebook as incentive to get folks to subscribe to your newsletter.
5. Conversely, the private label rights package may come in ebook format, so you might can take the whole thing and separate it out into 50 individual articles.
6. You could post each article to your blog. Those new pages will get spidered by the engines and generate more traffic to your site. If you can’t find an affiliate program relevant to a particular topic, you can generate revenue by adding Google Adsense to those pages. You could also use rewritten articles on Squidoo and Blogger blogs that directs traffic to your main sites.
7. You could then place the first paragraph or two of each article in a follow-up autoresponder series and include a link to the complete article on your site – generating return traffic to your site
8. Alternatively, you could put one or two of the articles together as a ‘special report’ which you then use as incentive to sign up for your newsletter.
9. You could also create an ebook out of a number of articles, call it “Debbie’s Design: 50 Tips for Divine Decor” and sell it through Clickbank. You’ll even be able to find affiliates at Clickbank to sell the book for you!
10. Last but not least, you could Spin really generic articles from one niche topic into another by swapping out the relevant keywords and keyword phrases.

Before you buy a private label rights package, read the terms carefully. You want to make sure that you have the right to change, modify, cut, delete the content in any way you want, and put your name on it.

Most private label rights packages are restricted to a certain number of buyers, so you won’t have to worry about ‘your’ material showing up 3 gazillion times on Google. In all likelihood however, you won’t have to worry about competition as most people who buy PLR packages set their project aside for ‘another day’ and then do nothing with the material.

Integrating the tips above into your Internet marketing strategy will help you increase visibility and traffic to your site through the use of inexpensive PLR article packs. Save time and make more money by using PLR article packages.

Looking for a specific distributor? Check out this list of recommended Private Label Rights and Content distributors.

Wracking your brain to produce regular content for your blog? Sick and tired of typing?

How about wasting your good money on private label packs only to discover that the vast majority of the articles are not only lackluster but appear to have been written by a 3rd grader?

We heard you… ‘We’ being Gail Trahd and myself.

Seriously, we found the proliferation of private label garbage a total affront to any online publisher with a modicum of intelligence.

As a smart online publisher or blogger you know that you need exceptional content that engages your readers if you want them to return to your site time and again — otherwise, what’s the point?

That’s why we started Private Label Central (PLC) — to provide professionally written private label rights (PLR) articles for professional Internet marketers.

Indeed, our writers are professionals in the topics they write about. THAT’s what sets Private Label Central far above the middlin’ crowd.

Check out our topics now:

Stay tuned… We’re just getting started and there are many more topics and article packs to come.

While doing my usual recky (reconnaisance) to see what’s new and hot (or not) in Clickbank, I stumbled across Niche Review Templates and Ready Made Review Sites – products of particular interest to affiliate marketers who aren’t keen on either site design or writing articles and product reviews.

I’ve reviewed the ‘review’ products, and you’ll find a list of inclusions for each product below, along with my assessment of advantages, disadvantages and product quality.

Niche Review Templates

Niche Review Templates is by Farihan Bahon and Bobby Walker and sports some very attractive review site design templates and in digging around the ‘Net, I found their templates in use on a number of different affiliate review sites.

The package includes:

• 2 Complete Niche Review Templates with CSS style sheet
• Custom Graphics in a variety of niches such as Internet Marketing, Health, and more…
• 20 keyword-rich articles
• 6 product reviews
• 2 sets of 7 Autoresponder Messages
• 17 training videos related to setup, installation and traffic generation to your niche website
• 24/7 support (apparently these guys don’t sleep)

Niche Review Templates is priced at $37 a month.

Learn more about Niche Review Templates

Ready Made Review Sites

Ready Made Review Sites is put out by Anthony Hull & Jason Gazaway and features review sites and product reviews limited to the Internet Marketing category.

• Top 3 Clickbank Affiliate Products
• 3 Professionally Written Product Reviews
• Custom Header
• Professionally Designed “Review” Site
• Optimized for Search Engines
• Privacy Policy and Contact page
• Integrated Affiliate Link Cloaker Script
• Clickbank “Top 20″ page.
• 10 Professionally Written “Marketing” Articles Each Month
• 1 7-day Autoresponder Series
• 5 x Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads + Comprehensive Keywords List Every Month

Ready Made Review Sites starts at $37 per month and includes an upsell option to get 3 video reviews every month for an additional $10, for a total of $47 per month.

Learn more about Ready Made Review Sites.

Advantages and Disadvantages

But the question was, “Should You Buy Niche Review Templates or Ready Made Review Sites?“ Well, let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of the packages individually and compared to one another.

Disadvantages

My primary concern for any affiliate marketer purchasing ‘ready-made’ product review packages is the possibility of incurring duplicate content penalties. Neither package stipulates how many will be sold, although Ready Made Review Sites implies that numbers are limited with the “Order now while there are still spots available” statement at the bottom of the page. Of course, that doesn’t really mean anything without a specific number attached to it. That said, it’s easy enough to avoid the wrath of Google and duplicate content penalties by making changes to the content.

Too, they’re static templates, not blog templates which means that you won’t gain as much natural or organic traffic as you would if you were blogging, meaning that you’ll have to use PPC to drive traffic.

Being static pages, you’ll have to upload the pages to your site (Ready Made Review Sites comes with a web-based uploading tool).

The Ready Made Review Sites is limited to Internet Marketing products while Niche Review Templates offers a broader variety of mainstream topics.

Advantages

Diehard bloggers could simply use both services as PLR providers and post the content to a blog to gain the SEO advantage and lessen PPC costs.

Both packages offer exceptional design and graphics, although I have a slight preference for the look of the Ready Made Review Sites templates. Bloggers with design talent (and time) could cannibalize the graphic components and build them into their blog template.

If you don’t count the video product review option in Ready Made Review Sites, Niche Review Templates offers more product with twice as many templates, articles, product reviews and autoresponder series delivered per month.

Based on the limited number of product reviews and articles that I’ve read from these packages, I’d rate the writing quality for both as GOOD — not terribly inspiring or exciting but definitely better than average — and I’d give Ready Made Review Sites a slight quality edge here as well.

At $10 per month, the videos in the Ready Made Review Sites package are a valuable addition.

Summary

In summary, any disadvantages can be offset by making some time and effort to end up with what you want (isn’t that ALWAYS the case?). Furthermore, I think $37 is incredibly cheap for what’s being offered – especially in terms of graphic design, considering I regularly pay $60 and more for WordPress blog themes that don’t come with pre-written articles, autoresponder series, or product reviews.

Bottom line therefore — I see enough positives in both Niche Review Templates and Ready Made Review Sites to warrant a $37 per month (or even $47 a month) investment in either or both packages – and both come with an 8-week guarantee.

I wasn’t at all surprised to hear the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) announcer mention that some dating sites have reported up to 70% increases in paid memberships since the economic turmoil began in earnest a few months ago. Match.com (CJ and Linkshare) announced that November was its strongest in more than seven years and December saw a 22% increase over the same month a year prior.

The desire to pair up is basic human nature, so matchmaking will always be in vogue, no matter what the economy. But in tough times, building new relationships can become a necessity in order to cope either financially or emotionally.

“One of the hardest emotional feelings is being in the midst of bad news by yourself,” said Dr. Pepper Schwartz, chief relationship expert for leading dating site Perfectmatch.com (a Commission Junction merchant). “We are all generally better as a team and appreciate someone who shares our values, goals and lifestyle, and that’s why we’ve seen increased traffic to top dating sites in the current economic climate.”

As to finding true love, a bad economy is actually GOOD for the dating set. Couples who can’t afford to spend money on entertainment will actually talk more during their dates and thus build better, more intimate relationships. Talking intimately to build relationships – what a concept – and a great selling point too!

Dating Service Memberships are an Easy Sell

It’s easy to convince the lovelorn that a dollar a day (and sometimes even less) to join a proper matchmaking site like Eharmony or Chemistry.com is a better investment in their future than wasting time trying find a needle in a haystack on a free dating site.

You don’t need to start a completely new site dedicated just to dating to take advantage of dating affiliate programs — you can simple dovetail dating into your existing site. For example, a site for parents or moms would be remiss not to promote a site like Single Parents Mingle and a Mexican cooking site could entice their audience to find Latin lovers at Amigos.com. Use your imagination.

Get Those Dating Promos Out NOW

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, this is definitely the time to ramp up your dating promotions as most merchants are offering customer discounts and affiliate incentives.

For example, Yahoo! Personals (Commission Junction) has it’s February Bonus program, in which they’ll double your commission if you generate 5 or more subscriptions in February. Just note that you’ll have to contact them via email to qualify for and receive your prize.

Take advantage of the season by making gift products such as flowers, chocolates, jewelry and lingerie available to your audience as well — and be sure to focus on how the products you list will save your visitors money either through time-limited discounts or free-shipping.

• Amazon is offering an extra 30% off at check on Select Jewelry from the Amazon.com Collection until Feb. 14, 2009.
• American Greetings (Commission Junction) is letting folks send Free eCards to their loved ones.

Need Traffic Now? Here are 3 Quick Ways to Get Visitors to Your Site

After working long and hard to get your new web site up and running, you probably have little patience left to wait months and months to start getting traffic to your site and start making sales!

But those search engine submissions are taking a lot of time to bring in traffic. You’ve also discovered that link trading, joining web rings and posting free-for-all classifieds are time-consuming activities that produce just a trickle of traffic, IF you’re lucky.

Moreover, you don’t want to blow huge amounts of money on advertising just in case your site doesn’t convert visitors into buyers at a rate that nets a fair profit.

You want lots of traffic and you want it now! So, what do you do?

Well, here are my 3 favorite ways to bring visitors to my sites quickly and easily.

1. Blogging for Free Search Engine Traffic

Last but not least, to keep the search engines on my side, I post entries to my blogs.

Search engines like Google reward sites that provide fresh content for their visitors on a regular basis.

Of course, your regular visitors love it too, so blogging has the added benefit of bringing visitors back to your site, as well as generating new traffic.

Furthermore, blog content can then be used and revised to create new articles that is placed on article directories… see the next item.

2. Article Marketing

Articles aren’t much different or any more difficult to write than all those product endorsements for your site. You DID write product reviews, didn’t you?

If your site is about beer, and promotes a variety of products related to home brewing, write an article called “10 Secrets to Your Best Batch Ever”. Include a resource box below your article that gives your name, a brief description of your site and its URL.

Now start submitting those articles to article directories such as GoArticles.com and EzineArticles.com. You can do this manually or save time by using Jason Potash’s “Article Announcer” software to automatically broadcast your article to all the major directories in just minutes.

To learn more about the importance of article marketing, read Jason’s article “Google is Watching You” and Jim Edwards’ “Increase Sales By Flying Under Your Prospects’ “Radar Defenses” listed in the Related Articles section below.

3. Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising

The fastest way to get traffic to your site is to buy keywords and keyword phrases at PPC’s (pay per click search engines) such as Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture), Google Adwords and MSN AdCenter.

Google is definitely the fastest PPC account to set up. Simply write your title and description, choose your keywords, make a deposit and you’re up and running. Set a daily maximum budget, and check your income and expenses frequently until you ensure that the former consistently exceeds the latter.

You will know within the week how well your site will convert visitors to buyers, which beats the heck out of waiting months for feedback!

You can drive tons of highly targeted traffic to your site in a very short period of time, sometimes doing a great test with as little as $20 bucks. Calculate your conversions, ‘tweak’ your site, then re-invest your earnings to drive even more traffic and gain even more sales.

Be sure to check out my “Get FREE Traffic from the Pay Per Click Search Engines“

Stick with the plan, and in no time at all, you’ll get to sit back and enjoy one of those home brews while watching your sales numbers climb.

I’ve listed 3 ways to bring traffic to your sites in this article.

However, you’ll learn 31 ways to bring free and paid traffic to your sites in the “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online”.