One of the best ways to pre-sell affiliate products or even your own product is to use a review post. This model works quite well if you follow a few simple rules.

!. Use the product name in your title. You want to rank in the search engines for the product name because you are looking for those that have heard of the product but are cautious buyers. They want more information on the product before they make a decision so they have gone to Google to find out what others have to say.

A good title tag will improve your chances of ranking highly for the product.

2. Give a fair review. Your visitor is not looking for they hype when following reviews (leave that for the sales letter) but more solid information on what the product does and who it is for.

Explaining how you are using it is key. Before the new FTC regulations I would normally have said give your exact results but that has become a problem now.

3. Compare the product to the competition if there is some and there usually is. (Link to the competing product too.)

4. What are the downside to the product. Nothing is perfect so letting people know what is missing or could be done better helps to build your credibility.

5. Ask for input from your readers. If you can get comments on your review it will increase the chance that your post becomes the tipping point that makes the reader decide to buy the product.

Follow these tips and you will find that doing honest reviews can be an excellent way to generate more sales.

Be back tomorrow for my last day here and I will be discussing finding the right affiliate products to promote.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Unfortunately this is a step that gets skipped way too often. Have done it, own the t-shirt, coffee mug and more. Skipping this step always comes back to bite you unless you are using your blog strictly as a part of your email marketing.

So even though it is not fun at times doing your research first will pay off. Knowing who you are targeting and what they are interested in makes it much easier to supply that need.

So find your specific niche first and look to see if there is money being spent in that niche. If not maybe you need to choose a different topic. I am doing that thing I hate to do assuming that if you are creating a blog you are looking for it to generate income. If that is not true then you can ignore this part.

The second part of the equation is to find the keyword phrases that people are actually searching for AND that do not have a huge amount of competition. It is a tight line to walk.

Eventually you can rank for any term if you are willing to work hard enough for it. Low competition terms just make it much quicker and easier to get rankings and the traffic that comes with that.

Finally you need to build from the bottom up. It is usually easier to rank for a 4 word phrase than a 3 and a 2 word phrase is usually tougher.

Here is a picture of how I set up my niche sites after researching them.

The center is my main topic. Each of the categories will be related to that top keyword and will usually be more competitive than the keywords below it.

For example my topic is dog training. One of the categories would be dog training collars and the keywords could be electronic dog training collars, choker dog training collars, etc.

Start by doing a post on all of the lower level words like electronic dog training collars and you will build up to dog training collars because each of the 4 word phrases will have the 3 word phrase in it or a variation of it.

Getting this right can lead to traffic fairly quickly and eventually you can rank for all of them. For more on picking your niche and generating your keywords check out The Keyword Call. Tomorrow I will be back to discuss review posts.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

As an example Valentina and I had a miscommunication and my post from yesterday did not actually show up until earlier today here. Because she builds a list she could get people here by sending out an email to those people.

Now the blog can integrate into your marketing with list building and email marketing in 3 ways.

• Getting people to sign up while they are visiting the blog
• Letting people know that you have added new information on the blog
• Using the blog as a pre-sell for your affiliate promotions

Lets deal with them one at a time starting with adding subscribers.

There are numerous ways that you can add subscribers and I probably use most of them.

• An offer to join in your side bar
• A slide in that is delayed
• Light box pop when they go to leave
• The new ribbon opt ins that you see on the bottom of some blogs

Now some of those require a plugin or to purchase a script to run they will increase the number of subscribers that you get on your list.

Now depending on your autoresponder the second item can be automated to send out an email when you add a new post or to send out a notice of new posts every so often. Aweber and Get Response will tie in directly to your RSS feed allowing you to automate this process.

Anything that I can automate to save time and keep people informed are items I love to add to my arsenal. Check with your autoresponder provider to see if they have RSS automation if you do not use one of those two. A gentle reminder like that will help to increase your traffic.

The final item though is my favorite – Pre-selling your affiliate promotions.

With tougher spam filters making email delivery tougher and tougher if you use any of a number of terms like free, money making, etc this is a perfect way to incases your delivery rates.

Put your actual promotion on your blog where you can use those terms that help you sell but can ruin your delivery rate. Send a short curiosity arousing email and link it back to your blog post.

This way your email avoids the spam box and your promotion just may end up getting indexed highly on the serps. A winner all the way around.

Be back tomorrow to talk about finding the right niche and keywords for your blog.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

This week I will be talking about using a blog for affiliate marketing.

Now you can do this in any niche and it is probably easier to do in niches outside of the internet marketing area. Blogs work because Google has shown that they like blogs and the ease of use to add content helps you keep it current.

The topics that I will cover will be using your blog for…

• List building
• Finding a good niche
• Review posts
• Finding the right affiliate product

All of these things are important but the item that will help you the most is doing good research before you even start your blog. You need to find the right keywords to be able to rank and generate traffic from the search engines.

Finding the keywords that you can easily rank for and that are words searched for by buyers is the real key no matter what your business model. You can get more information on doing keyword research and finding a good niche check out the keyword research call.

Look forward to spending the week and look forward to your comments and questions.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Just a quick update on Mike Paetzold’s Blog Tour – and his residence here which started yesterday but has not as yet appeared!  MY FAULT!   As most of you know, when it comes to tech type things I get a nose bleed (OK, maybe not that bad) – even with the simplest of things.

Mike has been trying to post since yesterday and what he thought might have been the problem, turned out to be not, but something else altogether, something simple as my having put him in as an author instead of editor and therein lies the problem.  Yes – little things mean a lot.  The problem has been fixed (I hope – fingers crossed).   Enjoy the posts – Mike is such a wealth of info and expertise, there is sure to be a lot to be learned from his posts.  Be sure to come back daily (or submit to RSS feed – that orange chicklet on the top left hand corner)

Over to you Mike.

best…………valentina

Mike’s tour has been a virtual one – a blog tour.  What a great idea!  Every week he visits a blog and takes up residency as a guest, posting daily on topics anchored to blogs.  Each week has a theme.  You can click on  Mike’s Blog Tour and visit the very same sites he guested and read his articles on list building, product, affiliate marketing and more.

Mike  took a two week break over Christmas and New Year’s and is now back on the road.  Next stop? Right here at Blog Income Life!  I am so excited!  Starting January 11 Mike will be a guest blogger right here for a whole week!

I can hardly wait to see what Mike will be writing about.  I have a strong suspicion that it might have to do with generating traffic. What makes me think that?  Well, it was what I put down as the item I wanted most to be covered,  and on one of his posts he said

“… traffic comes at the end once you have built a system and is not where you start…”

It seems that this would be an appropriate theme for Mike to blog on as Blog Income Life appears to be the last blog on his tour.

You don’t want to miss any of Mike’s posts.  If you have not already done so, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feeder by clicking on the orange chiclet you find at the top left hand corner on this page.

Here’s To An Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina