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Today I wanted to talk a bit about viral video marketing and some easy ways to do it without a big budget. As I am sure you know creating videos of any kind can be expensive from the start mainly for the basic equipment like a video camera and video editing software.

Like others I use my family video camera to do my movies as its a great HD camera that we don’t use much anyhow. Below is a film me and my little sister made about Suicide and we give an encouraging word at the end to hopefully prevent suicide!

If the video just keeps one person from committing suicide it was worth 10+ hours of video editing I did to get things right! As my bud Sharath from Dp says “background music and everything beautifully mastered” of which I replied with thanks I did all the editing. Here is the video, be sure and subscribe to the Make Noise Films channel on youtube to get updates and new vids from us!

Suicide, Make Noise Films

Now that’s all fine and dandy but lets get down to the meat of this post, what are some viral video marketing techniques we can do to get our videos more views!

Viral Video Marketing is all about creating videos people want or need. I took the “need” to and extent with the video we created above. Not everyone needs it but it is a compelling video and hopefully it saves some lives somewhere down the road.

That’s really all there is to Viral Video Marketing but one thing you can do to get started and get views on your vids is to send it to all your friends and family and beg them to send it to at least to more people and so on. This will start a chain reaction and could get the wheels going if you know the right people!

Hope you enjoy it!

As I said in yesterdays post I am creating a 5 part series on my top 5 favorite ways to promote a blog without having to spend a dime! Today we are back at it again, I believe today’s technique will totally change the way you look at blogging. So without any further adieu lets see what my second best technique for promoting a blog with no money is!

Blog Commenting: In the past I have talked about Blog Commenting For Serp Positions, but I have not talked about how impressive traffic results can be if you comment the right way.

Commenting should first and foremost be looked at as a give and take, if you give a great comment expect to take something in return. If your comments are of low quality or irrelevant to the OP then you have pretty much slammed the door on your own face, Do it right the first time so you don’t have to apologize later for commenting on someones blog.

When you comment there are a few things to keep in mind, remember we are after traffic not serp positions this time. We are going to use an aggressive technique that may make some bloggers mad, however if your comment is approved you can expect clicks. The below example is a screen shot from a comment I made on a post at Gnets BlueVerse Blog.

As you can see I have combined intrigue with the truth. I stated as the name of the commentator as “Click Me If You Dare” people respond quite well to this message because number one its daring them and people love a challenge (Even If Its Bad For Them). Secondly I agreed with the original poster and offered my own thoughts. It doesn’t look like a comment spam as I wrote a real original message that relates to the post.

WARNING: This technique may yield excellent traffic results, proceed with caution!

Well there you have it, my second best free marketing technique! Yup that’s right FREE! Blog commenting costs you nothing but a few minutes per day. As a bonus for reading this whole post I am going to offer up one last bit of advice. When it comes to commenting do one of two things, either be the first person to comment on a post or the last. Let me explain why, if you are the first person to comment you will more then likely get a large click amount over time. However if your not the first commentator I suggest you wait until the post has been commented on by all the regulars. This way when you do comment those who chose the option to be given a notice when a comment is replied to (Most People Do) they will see your link staring them in the face.

Try it out and be sure to let us know your results between being the first or last commentator on a popular blog. You can let us know this by commenting below, be the first to comment and get traffic!

Often times I talk about techniques and methods to promote a blog, however most of these techniques take time and money to develop properly. In the next couple of days we are going to discuss my top 3 favorite ways to promote a blog for free. These techniques are scattered throughout my blog already but these post’s makes it easy for all to find with little to no digging!

Forum Signatures: In my experience online with owning over 80 different successful websites I have tried many marketing techniques. One that has stood out to me on a regular basis is the number of clicks I get from Forum Signatures. I have been told by friends and visitors to my site that they could not help but click on my signature ad because of the message it relays. Here is a quick example of a signature I use on the Digital Point forums to help promote my own webmaster forum. I have had nearly 20,000 clicks since I started using this signature which has given me around 2700 members that post on my forum.

As you can see this signature catches the eye in and intrusive way. The message it relays is that I can only be a great admin / forum owner if you sign up and join in my cause.

Well there you have it, my number one best Blog Promotion technique. I encourage you to try this technique out asap. If you don’t yield excellent results I would be extremely shocked. Remember also that there is no one way to skin a cat, in the same sense there is more then one way to create a signature that intrigues clicks. Experiment with your signature and be sure to share your results with us by commenting on this post below!

Today we are going to talk a little bit about taking some chances with your blog and how they can pay off in the end. It baffles me how many bloggers stay safe and never implement features into there already established blogs with hundreds of rss readers.

I want to find out why from you so please comment below, while I wait for your comments to come in here are a few of my thoughts on why they don’t take any chances.

- Afraid Of Losing Readers: Can you believe it, they are actually afraid of losing readers for implementing features that most users will probably appreciate. As a blogger I believe taking chances is just part of the game, the saying “Go Big, Or Go Home” resides deep in my heart and of many other successful bloggers. While some features don’t always work on every blog a large percentage of them do!

-Not Sure What Will Or Won’t Work: A lot of bloggers are unsure what will work on there blogs so they never try, the don’t like going into uncharted territory in fear that they may fail or lose money in the process of branching out. If this is one of the reasons you have possibly held back then maybe you should create a post on your blog asking your readers what would help them access, read and see your blog better for them. They would know better then anyone since they are after all your readers!

- They Listen To Much: Its sad but true, bloggers tend to listen to people to much (the only one you should be listening to is me, JOKING). Its time to break loose of those old habits and ways simply because somewhere down the road someone said you couldn’t or it wouldn’t work. I am here to say that you should never be afraid. I would go so far as to say that I am not afraid of anything, almost to the point of being foolish at times but it takes that to make a dream happen. If you don’t have a dream that is bigger then your current circle of life you will never achieve anything more then what is inside that circle. Its all about expanding the circle baby and doing it today!

Well there, these are just a few of my thoughts on the subject of why some people don’t take some chances with there blogs. As you can see it pretty much comes down to fear and what people tell you, you should experiment yourself and see what works. Also never think because one thing fails that everything will, blogs are different and each blogs readers have and want different things, learn to cater to them and you will see gains in every area of your blog!

Now that we have seen a few reasons why people don’t take chances you may be wondering exactly what sort of chances I am talking about. So below I am going to make a simple list you can follow of (some) chances you could take with your blog!

- Add Ads To Your Blog: You may already have ads on your blog (Great!) but are they turning you any income? Do you have blank ad spots for sale on your blog right now at this very moment because you know you shouldn’t have empty spots! Think of it this way, when a potential advertiser looks at your blog and they see empty slots they can pretty much assume 1 of 2 things instantly.

1. They can see empty spots and be put off by them thinking you don’t get many ad sales, probably because you don’t have much traffic or the CTR % is bad and most companies don’t want to deal with you until you change your ad positioning.

2. They see them and they say oh great, they have ads for sale now let me order one!

If it was me I would 9/10 times go with option number 1, while you may miss some smaller individuals who don’t see the buy these ads now image you will be doing yourself a favor by at the very least in your advert slots placing affiliate program ads. They can turn you a nice profit and the big companies will still contact you when they are ready. Trust me it works!

- Redesign It Baby!: For just a couple bucks you could pay someone to redesign your blog and get it looking pro, or if your a decent coder / designer you could do it yourself and save a bundle. A new design will spark interest on a blog, now I know you may worry about losing readers over a redesign but to calm your fears you only need to remember how Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net changed his design entirely and it made the world of difference!

- Start A Video Cast: You could start a video cast for your blog, make it hip, unusual and different from anything else to grab attention and new visitors! Just be sure and include your website URL on the video so people can find it at any time!

Today’s post is more of a pep talk to get you busy on some things that your blog may need doing. I do this myself for my blogs on a regular basis, it keeps me on my toes and helps me to continue improving every day.

Here is what I want you to do, load up your blog and sit down in your chair. Grab a drink and just stare at your blog the way visitors see it when they first enter, I want you to look at it. Every little detail should be looked at, spend at least 15 minutes just looking at your blog in amazement of everything from design to the content seen at the top of the page.

Are you done? OK, now that you have looked at every facet of your blog I am sure a few things come to your mind that you either want or need to change. Perhaps nothing comes to your mind, if that’s so I will list a couple of things down below that I see on one of my blogs.

• Blog Design Is Kind Of TOO Blue.
• My Blog Has Way To Much Going On Aside From Content Which Is The Most Important Thing.
• The blog looks to much like another blog I visit.
• The advert slots are everywhere and look unprofessional.

The Blog content is great but basically the design needs serious work but like some of you I got so busy busting out kick butt content that the design suffered therefore leaving me with a blog that didn’t attract anyone and it limited my ability to get subscribers as well as sell adverts.

I believe if you take the time to look at your blog from another persons perspective you will see the flaws, it takes a good 15 minutes to see the flaws and never be afraid to redo this exercise as soon as you fix some of your first mistakes. Doing this will eliminate problems and help you get where you want to go quicker.