5 Sites generating so much buzz they will shame you into action!

Are you losing sleep wondering if your website will ever make you any money??

Is your website sitting dormant, with little or no traffic?

I’ve decide it’s time to share with you some sites that will give you major inspiration. Here is a list of 5 sites that are generating massive buzz! Now, all these sites have a certain wow factor – something that makes people want to come back. How can you make your blog or web site appealing? How can you drive massive amounts of traffic.

I hope my other articles, “7 Superior Alternatives to Google Adwords” and “7 Ways to convince people you’re an expert even your mother should know” have set you on the path, but now it’s time to get inspired by these guys and start taking some steps. Spring for some video (www.GetMeVideo.com), create a mini-site. Get out there and start making it happen!

1. DeanHunt.com. This guy is amazing – he is the king of buzz marketing and has tons and tons of visitors to his self-named site.
2. Helpmybusiness.com. This is a video blog web site featuring Andrew Lock who hosts a really fun show “Help My Business Sucks.”
3. WineLibrary.tv. Gary Vaynerchuk is a maniac – in a good way. He does a show every single day all about wine! He has massive amounts of traffic!
4. Toosmartguys.com. They go over how to work all kinds of gadgets. They are featured regularly on the top page of viddler.com.
5. RocketBoom.com This is a news-style show that talks about internet culture – twitter, facebook, etc. It is very tongue-in-cheek and fun to watch.

My favorite marketing gurus are Dean and Barry of Buzzprofits 🙂

I get asked this a lot so I thought I’d address it here:
Feel free to use this information on your own sites, but please keep all my links intact and link back to this original post:
http://www.collectiblescornertv.com/5-sites-generating-so-much-buzz-they-will-shame-you-into-action/

7 Ways to convince people you’re an expert even your mother should know!

Okay, so maybe Mom won’t know all of this, but it really is pretty simple, and you don’t need a huge command of the internet to make it happen. Since my last post was pretty popular, I thought I’d stick with the list of 7 🙂

1. Provide free information. I know, it’s tough to think it’s okay to provide something for free when everyones dying to turn a profit, but it really does so much good. I mean, you’re reading this for free, right? And I bet you are kinda happy with me for giving it to you for free. And i bet, if I was selling something you wanted you’d probably buy it from me because I’m so nice for giving it to you. 🙂 Whatever your niche, there’s something you know that someone else doesn’t. It can be an article on your web site or blog. On my site, VintageRareStuff.com, we have a backstamp dating section where people can figure out the year of the stamp on the back of their figurine. We have been consigned countless collections for this reason. Wikipedia even linked to us at a point (wiki is funny about commercial web sites).

2. Have multiple sites all pointing back to you. This is what I call the ‘pincer move.’ If someone types into google and they find one site, and they see it’s you, then they find another, and its you… and then, if you’re ambitious they find a third, and its you, they are going to go with you. You’ve become omnipresent. You are THE only one in the field, apparently. This works really work in conjunction with video, which brings me to number 3.

3. Have a video. I said it in my google adsense post and I’ll say it again because it’s that important. Nothing does the pincer move more than having a multimedia approach. You’re showing up in articles, sites, and video? How could anyone not go with you – You’re everywhere! I can help you with this – GetMeVideo.com (and since I’m providing all this free information aren’t you happy to check out my site? Kudos to way #1!). By the way, if you sell on eBay you can have great success with short videos in your listings. There are rules about this. Please contact me at the aforementioned link if you have any questions!

4. Lose the Fear. I know, you’re thinking… me? an expert? But you must lose the fear and believe in yourself if you want other people to believe in you. And all being an ‘expert’ means is that you know more than most about a particular topic. Two examples… I wrote a price guide for M.I. Hummel figurines because I was tired of the over-inflated price guides that were out there. At first I was petrified – I mean, who am I to publish something in a field that is riddled with ‘experts.’ But I published it, and I sold my first book, and then a second. I did a price guide for Royal Doultons, Co-Boy Gnomes, and Hummels. I have sold over 100 since publishing in December and I have only had two people ask for their money back. I was so scared someone was going to call me out and make me feel like I was in over my head, but they didn’t, because the truth is I know more than most people about the subjects I wrote about. Same with getmevideo.com. This is a new project for me, and I was very scared that artsy video people would be on my case for not being “MGM” enough. I find that my honesty really helps me here. “Hey, I’m not MGM, but I’m going to put together a video campaign for $500 for you that will get you tons more traffic and will cost less than what you spend in a month on adwords.” People are receptive to that kind of honesty, and will still consider me an expert even if I won’t give Spielberg a run for his money ;-).

5. Criticism just means it’s working. Will there be jerks out there who want to tear you down, regardless? Hell yes. There are people in this world that live to criticize. But here’s the secret – they’re usually too scared to try things themselves so they spend their time telling you how much better they could do it if they ‘cared to give it a try.’ Don’t even get me started on how annoying I find those people, but, bottom line – they are never going to give it a try. Exploit this. You are a do-er. They are a complainer. Just keep doing and ignore them. Plus, negative publicity is still publicity. If you are responding to them in a blog or a linkedin group, do your best to take the high road and nicely explain that you are going to continue with what you do because you believe in what you’re doing.

6. Stay Ahead of the Competition. There are tools out there like Google Alerts and Filtrbox. Both are free and will let you save searches for specific phrases (put them in quotations or you’ll get a lot more mail than you bargained for!). This helps you keep your finger on the pulse of your industry.

7. Keep it specific to start, expand later. What I mean by this is start with something small…. I started with Hummels, then I launched CollectiblesCornerTV.com which broadened my expertise to the broader world of collectibles, from collectiblescornertv.com I’ve leveraged my video and marketing skills to launch GetMeVideo.com, etc. So start small, build a base, and then keep growing!

I get asked this a lot so I thought I’d address it here:
Feel free to use this information on your own sites, but please keep all my links intact and link back to this original post:

http://www.collectiblescornertv.com/7-ways-to-convince-people-youre-an-expert-even-your-mother-should-know/

Some of my favorite marketing gurus are Barry and Dean: BuzzProfits 🙂

_{»crosslinked«}

7 Superior Alternatives To Google Adwords

Those of you who know me know that I spend my of my days dealing with in antiques and collectibles. I love feeling the history in my hands. This is in stark contrast to the way I sell these treasures… through the internet. Nothing tangible, and I have to try to reach my audience amongst a sea of ‘noise.’

There was a time that I was spending a large part of my budget on google adwords to try to get people to find me. And yes, I was getting clicks, but the conversions were very, very low, which was both costly an ineffective. This is why I came up with a new plan. Here are the 7 ways I get people to find us without using adwords. And guess what? It costs a heck of a lot less!

1. Create a mini-site. What is a mini site, you may ask? Well a mini-site is a ugly little site with a niche-specific domain name that forces people to make a decision. My shining example of this is www.HummelsHumels.com. First of all, the name is very specific to the Hummel Figurine, which is highly important. The search engines find it easier than my main domain, ‘vintagerarestuff.com’. It has a lot of good words in the top bar above where people can type in a new web address, which also gets google’s attention. But the most important mini-site thing is that it’s SIMPLE. It addresses the question “Do you have a question about selling your hummel collection?” and then it gives the person a place to fill in their name and email address to find out how. Very simple. One page. Ugly little site, but does wonders
2. Start building a list. Once you have a few mini sites out there with forms to contact you, make sure you save their info. I use mycontactform.com and contactology.com. This way, when you have a product of interest, you can send it directly to people who would actually want to know about it. Sending an email to 500 people who care about a subject is better than getting 1000 clicks of people who are just ‘curious’ on adwords.
3. Have a presence on eBay. I know, eBay has become a bit of a pain in the you know what lately, but they are still the largest e-commerce site, period. Having a presence on their gets you higher in google by virtue of the fact that eBay gets higher on google.
4. Get an account on Linkedin.com and join groups. There is a group for nearly anything you can think of on linkedin.com and it’s a vastly underused feature! Recently I posted in 4 collectibles groups “looking for people to interview on collectibles corner tv.” In 48 hours I had 5 responses. Do you know how long it used to take to find someone to interview? The same can be done for anything. You sell panini grills? Join the restaurant owner group and start a discussion about commercial grills, then casually mention that you sell them. The exposure is really targeted. Make sure to check to the box to be emailed if someone replies so you’re able to follow up.
5. Write a free guide in your niche. Distribute this in every form imaginable. Post it as a page on your web site, devote a mini site to it, sell it for 99 cents on eBay with free shipping in the niche you are catering to. Giving free information is one surefire way to get people to trust you, consider you an expert, and notice you.
6. Write articles and go negative. You can write articles for free on a lot of different sites, and you can also write directly onto your own blog. But negativity often works better. In our panini grill example – a good title would be “Why you NEVER want to buy a 240 Volt Flat Grill made in China”. Then explain why and offer them a solution – something that you can provide 🙂

7. Get Video. This is the MOST superior alternative to google adwords. Search engines love good videos that are well tagged. It’s actually quite amazing. There are services out there that can do this for you for under $600.00 and will literally take care of everything from production to distribution. When you think about how quickly $500-$600 can go on adwords, it’s a no-brainer.

Here is an example of a marketing video:

I get asked this a lot so I thought I’d address it here:
Feel free to use this information on your own sites, but please keep all my links intact and link back to this original post:

http://www.collectiblescornertv.com/7-superior-alternatives-to-google-adwords/

Some of my favorite marketing gurus are Barry and Dean: BuzzProfits