Hi this is Sue. Well we have all been on this journey for a few weeks now and I just want to lists the ways I have been able to drive traffic to my blog and win the competition for the most visitors to my site. I know how many visitors I have had because my friend Google keeps count with Google Analytics.

These are the methods I have employed.
* Creating my blog and adding to it. This enables the Search engines to index it. The more posts and content you add the higher you can be indexed. This is the beginning of SEO.
* Commenting on other peoples blogs to create back links. This can be very time consuming but well worth it. I received a lot of comments on my blogs and answered each one individually.
* Added my site to Google. To do this go to www.google.com/addurl. This enables Google to “crawl” your site.
* Joining forums – the Warrior Forum and Digital Point Forum. I especially like the Warrior Forum. This is a forum specifically for people on the net. It is a forum where the more experienced will help the newbies. One thing is to always include your URL in your signature block. This allows the members follow you.
* Using social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning. I increased my Twitter followers and automated a reply to anyone who sent a direct message they were following me. I went to Facebook and posted about my blog and a link to it. I joined the syndicated sites of LinkedIn and Ning and again posted my URL there.
* Blogs and articles. I wrote an Ezine Article, a wordpress blog, a Hub page and a squidoo lens. I then linked these to my sue mcdonald blog.

What did I find gave me the best results? The most visitors were direct and then the second was Warrior Forum. I have included a screen shot to show you the result. Now this week I have a challenge in making a video. All I can say is keep watching this space to see how it turns out   a little out of my comfort zone with this.

Hi there…

Well, I am still traveling looking for ways to build up my traffic. I have been vigilant in my quest to get more traffic this week and it is starting to pay off. I have been going to the Warrior Forum and yesterday I tried the Digital Point Forum but I can not use my signature block there for 7 days and have at least 10 posts. I have completed the 10 posts – in fact I think I have 12 today but now I will just have to mark time. While this is not there I can not get traffic from there.

The warrior forum is very informative and it is easy to be part of it. I read yesterday they are now going to charge to be a warrior member – but if you are a war room member then you do not have to pay again. You will still have to pay for WSO (Warrior Special Offer) but I am not that far advanced yet, so I will just keep that in mind. They are also changing some of their rules regarding signature blocks, mainly to do with the length, the size of the font used and the colors that some members have started using. I like the terms and conditions they have – it makes for a level playing field. In two weeks I have been thanked 10 times for my contributions and that made me feel pretty good. I have probably submitted 45 posts.

Forums are a very good place to learn, ask questions and get help but they are also a source of  traffic -  if you have your web site in your signature block. Google Analytics shows me that as of today’s date 16% of my traffic has come from the warrior forum.

I have also been working on increasing my twitter followers. There are some really interesting people on twitter but because tweets are posted at such a fast rate you often miss out on some good information. I am getting a lot of direct messages and  I am enjoying answering and responding to these people. I find it very time consuming and at this stage not getting the return for the effort I have put in. I have answered over 75% and that would be approximately 87 messages. My percentage of visitors from Twitter 6%.

So for me, at least, it appears more beneficial to spend time on the forum. The stats prove it – don’t you agree?

This is Sue saying … keep following me

Well my friends this was the last lesson in this course. A little bit sad really, and I am definitely going to miss my weekly webinar. Well as always Mark packed the last lesson full of good information.

He showed how to write a Hub page, a Squidoo lens and an Ezine Article. Then he talked about joining the Warrior Forum and doing some posts and how to get our product up on the WSO (Warrior Special Offer) page. This is the only thing I have never done. I have been a member of the Warrior Forum since last October 2009 and have over 230 posts there so I can post my WSO immediately. I have found it a little daunting before but I am now armed with the necessary confidence and I am definitely going to do it this time. I am a member of other forums in the internet marketing niche but I would have to say Warrior is my favorite.

You will recall last week that I told you part of our homework was to post 100 videos. Well I prepared all the slides to do the voice overs and then found that my microphone allowed to much back ground noise.

So this morning, while I was listening to the webinar, my husband went out and bought me a brand new Logitech mic that reduces back ground noise. He had ordered but it was not there until today. So I will definitely get some videos up on to youtube this week. It is still a daunting task to do so many and I am not even sure I will reach the total, but I will definitely get some done. I have done some slides that are not even really on Internet Marketing but they mean something to me so I wanted to include them. I have a very funny one that I am thinking of uploading. Hopefully I will get them up this weekend.

Well this is Sue McDonald saying thanks for stopping by and reading my blog again. Just because the course has finished and the Advanced does not start till January, it doesn’t mean I will not be posting to my blog. I will still be doing regular updates to let you know what I am doing and where in the world I am because for the month of December and half of January I will be in the United States.