If you’ve spent any amount of time online you’ll have heard of “Yahoo Answers.” Yahoo Answers is basically is a constantly updating site where people from the general public ask questions and other people gives answers to them.

If you don’t know much about why you should be using it (namely free traffic) but I won’t be going into here, as I’ve written about it before on this blog, just do a quick search on my blog for more details or click here.

Now onto this blog post…

If you think about it the majority of people will probably go through the first 3-5 answers and after that they’ll probably move on to the next question.

But, wouldn’t it be great if you could grab the first position and get the majority of traffic clicking through to your site?

Yes?

Here’s how I do it.

1. Find the topic you’d like to answer questions on.

2. Pick a question that’s just been freshly asked. You may need to reload your webpage to get it updated.

3. Get typing quick! But don’t think you need to answer the question now you don’t. I usually, just put in “Try this” or “Yes” or “No” something short and then submit my answer. That’s the fun part, while others are typing like crazy to get in first you’ve already beaten them.

4 . Look at you short answer and you’ll notice that there’s a little “edit” link you can use to get back in to edit you answer. This is when you go in and give a good quality answer (no junk, nobody’s going to follow junk) with a workable link in your resource box.

5. Voila! If you’ve done steps 1-4 properly you can sit back and watch those web stats changing immediately.

But, remember there’s no point getting in fast with a poorly written answer. The better the answer the more people are inclined to want to know more.

If you’d like more great tips on Yahoo Answers click here.

It’s funny just when I think I’ve learned about Twitter I’m finding out the more I don’t know about it.

On the surface (or the outsider) all it seems are people just sending out very short “blog posts” about what they’re doing and nothing else.

For example how much can you tell someone in 140 characters?

Nothing really, but you can lead them more into your life, business, interests, etc by giving a taster of what you’re up to and then they follow you to find out more.

It’s kind of like the trail of bread crumbs, you put your trail down and wait to see what happens?

But what I’m about to show you may change your mind about Twitter forever.

If you look at Twitter like a MLM “pyramid scheme” with you at the top and after a while “Twittering” you suddenly have 10 -20 people following you suddenly you can have a potential huge audience.

Take this illustration as an example. If you look at “you” as being the centre on the circle you can see that even if you only have a small circle of followers (the green circle) the next ring out from the centre. You can see that even from that circle of followers, you suddenly can have a huge group of followers (blue) and potential audience that wasn’t available to you before.

If its like the snow charging down the mountainside it starts off slowly but as it gathers “followers” it gathers pace and suddenly it doesn’t resemble the snowball at the beginning “now a huge audience”.

But as I said it’s a potential audience.

How well your message is carried is up to you. If you Twitter constantly about nonsense and fill you Tweets with affiliate links you’ll never get anywhere.

Put others first and give great content and advice and people will only be glad to recommend you to others and before you know it your inbox will be filled with people putting up their hands and saying “Yes” you’re the type of person I’d like to follow and know more about.

Enjoy!

I’ve put up a number of post with various reasons I love using Twitter but one that I’ve just noticed is for quality back links.

Recently, I posted a quick tweet to Ray Edwards. He’s usually Twittering like a mad man but I hadn’t see any Tweets from him in a while, so I send a quick Tweet to see how he was.

Which he responded to, “Nice man that he is”.

But, to make a long story short, I “Googled” myself (not to boost my ego..mind) just to see what was coming up under my name and I found Rays Twitter page coming back in the search results with my personal “Tweet” I’d sent him.

I then visited Rays Twitter page to find he’s got a page rank of 4.

Maybe its a “Doh” moment on my behalf and others have thought of this before but isn’t this another great reason to send Tweets to others as well as Tweet about yourself personally.

By sending and joining with others you gain great backlinks form other people Twitter pages to your own, and then possibly boost your own Twitter pages page rank!

The added benefit of increasing your Twitter page is that now any Tweets you send with a working link (to your blog or site) help gain some link love back to your other sites (and help Google to find them in the first place) and then possibly help to increase their page rank?

So, should we all send Ray Edwards a personal “Tweet”?

No, ( I don’t think he’d be too happy) but by doing such a small thing as Twittering every day you’re helping to increase your exposure on the internet thus making it more easy for more people to find you online.

And its so easy….so whats stopping you??

I know after reading a blog title like this, a lot of you (especially the SEO heads out there) will argue that page rank is still relevant nowadays and we all should be looking for it.

But, after the last few days with my own site I don’t know?

If you visit out home page here at www.ItWasSoEasy.com you’ll see that we’ve dropped down in page rank, from a rank of 4 down to a 2 and now….?

And another site of mine www.EscapeFromFat.com that I’ve changed from a site to a blog has gone in one week from a page rank of 1 to a page rank of 4….?

Maybe someone out there can work that one out for me….but I’ve still scratching my head.

So, I’m left wondering does page rank really matter anymore?..or have I slipped through the page rank cracks??

I think I won’t be paying as much attention to page rank as I used to…just give me the free traffic instead!!!!

Its a great teleseminar from Ray Edwards. Some of you mightn’t know Ray, but don’t let this put you off, Rays a copywriting genius that written copy and hung out with most of the online big guns.

Willie Crawford, Frank Kerns ( are just 2 of big names he’s worked for.)

Anyway back to the recording, here’s a link for Rays last teleseminar in it Ray discusses the benefits of running an online business in these troubled times, and how you can start an online business today that will have you up four figures in profits in 30 days or less.

I know you’ll like it. Here’s the link

In my last blog post I discussed the problem of coming up with ideas for your next article.

But what can you do if you don’t have the time to write an article or post to your blog?

It can happen from time to time, even to the best of us, you get swamped down on other projects and you cant seem to find the time to sit down to write an article.

So, what can you do…Or should I reword it…and say “This is what I do.”

I came across this site from a teleseminar I heard on how to use private label rights in your business. It’s called http://www.EasyPLR.com and it offers private label rights articles which are sold in packs.

Now, I know I’ve talked about the problems caused by using private label rights articles in the past

• Sometimes the quality is bad or the content is just “fluff” with no real quality content.
• The article is written by a non-English speaking person, so the article has poor grammar and doesn’t come across very well.
• The articles are usually shared with every else on line so your article isn’t unique.

But with EasyPlr.com all of these problems have been sorted.

• All articles are written by English speaking people.
• All articles have great content that your readers can use, rather than fluff that leaves your readers still scratching their heads.
• All articles packs are limited to a very small amount of people…when they’re all gone that’s it!

Plus the best part is that there’s no membership required. You can shop just for what you need – and get what you need, so there’s no filling up with computers hard disk with junk you’re never going to use.

But with any good site there are some cons.

The only negative for this site is that I can’t always find content on the topic that I’m looking for. However, one way to get around this, although you will have to wait a bit longer, is to send an email and request a certain topic. Usually, they will have an article pack written up at customer requests.

If you’d like to what article packs are available this week click here.

There are days where the idea of coming up with a great article idea can seem impossible.

You want to write about something that hasn’t been written countless times before?

You want to write about what your niche is looking for?

You want to write about a problem they’re having, but don’t have a mailing list so you only have a vague idea, and but nothing concrete to go on?

As the title of the post has given away why not use forums to come up with these answers and much more, plus why not use your article at the forum for some free traffic at the same time.

To get started, visit a popular forum related to your niche, if you’re not sure where to go just type “your keyword+forum” into Google for your answer.

Then scan through the various threads on the forum and pick out the most popular ones either by “Views” or “Replies,” these are the ones to concentrate on.

By using these posts, you’re going to come up with great article ideas that are important to this niche and that your article readers will also want to read.

Now pick an idea and work on it. If the thread has been answered well, you can use this as the template of your article but do the research yourself, find the answers don’t copy from the forum.

But if the thread hasn’t got a suitable answer to their problem, this is your chance to do the research outside the forum and put an article together. Then post the article on the forum for instant FREE traffic (using your forum signature) and then repurpose it on your blog or submit it to the article directories.

Voila, no more article idea problems anymore?

By Barry J McDonald

Sometimes in order to succeed we need to learn how not to fail. There are many things you should do to succeed using Twitter, but there are also some things that you should NOT do…

Here’s 5 of the most common mistakes I see being made…

1 – Putting out too many “Tweets” on Twitter. Although the idea of Twitter is to tell people what you’re doing at any one time don’t get carried away, you’re not required to tell people everything you’re doing. By putting up too many Tweets especially if its just “fluff” isn’t going to work and don’t be surprised if some of your followers opt out.

2 – Spamming with affiliate links. Like e-mail there are some people who think to get the best results all they have to do is spam with the same comments over and over again and continue to fill all their posts with affiliate links and expect to see results. It ain’t gonna happen and no one is going to want to follow you.

3 – Trying to say too much. With Twitter you’re limited to only 140 characters so you need to think about what you type about. Don’t try to get you full marketing message in this amount of space, better to lead your followers to a blog post or an article that can do this instead with better results.

4 – Tweeting about you constantly and not chatting to others. By using Twitter you have the opportunity to get in contact with others (even some of the online guru’s) which isn’t available to you by e-mail.

Sure we could “Tweet” about ourselves constantly but why not take an interest in what others are doing, remember you’re a “follower”. Congratulate others if they send you to a great article or had a great results and answer them if they ask a question. Remember Twitter is a way to build relationships, maybe not full on, but it can be the baby steps you need to get the ball rolling.

5 - Not adding value to your followers. Twitter like everything is going to be dominated by the people who give great value to their followers. If you had the chance to follow someone who was constantly posting about nonsense or someone that was giving content and tips away, who are you going to follow?

Twitter may not have the same power as MySpace or FaceBook as you’re limited by space but it is a great way of building relationships with others online. Remember, it’s nice to feel part of a group of like minded people rather than a lonely web surfer going from site to site, this is why forums are so popular.

So, why not use Twitter today to make that connection with others?

If you still not sure about how to use Twitter I invite you to download my free report “Twitter For Beginners” for the right ways and the wrongs ways to use twitter and much more. Enjoy!

Micro-blogging is a good thing and using Twitter makes it even better. However, Twitter will never take the place of a blog. The bottom line is that Twitter is not a full fledge blog. It is simply a way for you to get your words out to the masses in a more expedient manner. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons Twitter will never replace a blog.

The number one reason why Twitter can never replace a blog is because you can only post up to 140 characters at any one time. There is just no way to squeeze 1,000 words into such a small space. Not to mention, trying to send 7.14 tweets back to back, will not go over well with your followers.

There is nothing like a person who tweets excessively. Doing so will cause you to lose followers and your goal with Twitter is to gain a friends not turn people away. You want Twitter to be tool that leads to your platform – your blog – the place where you share your story, product, or business.
Another reason why you can never replace your blog with simple tweets is because you just don’t have the same control to customize.

Sure you can create a profile that says something about you but not the way you can with your blog. With a blog you can customize the whole kit and caboodle. You can add tools, plug-ins, and even more networking opportunities through your blog. You can’t do all that with Twitter.

Then we have the website name issue. You can’t attach a domain to twitter. On twitter you will always be www.twitter.com/whateveryournameis and that is it. Your username or extension is how people will recognize you on Twitter, but it’s not the same as a domain name for an entire website. In essence, Twitter owns your profile, not you. But your domain name – now that is all yours.

If you are an affiliate marketer, you want to talk about what you are promoting and, as was stated earlier, you only have 140 characters to say what you really want to say. That is not as effective as a blog post or blog series that can send the message more effectively. That’s just one more reason Twitter can never replace a blog.

Don’t try to replace your own blog or website with twittering. Instead, learn to use Twitter as an effective tool that makes people want to learn more about you. Your blog is where you get down to the nitty-gritty and allow people to become more knowledgeable about your life, your product, service or whatever it is you are promoting.

Don’t miss out click here to download your free report “Twitter For Beginners” while its still available.