There’s a new style of content marketing that is getting a lot of attention from top content marketing experts around the web.

You can’t throw a rock right now without hitting a blog post or article about curation!  People are giving curation a lot of lip service, but no one is really training on the topic.

What is curation?

It is the process of filtering information on a topic to come up with the best articles, videos, photos, or social discussions going on at a given time.

It is done by social marketers and content marketers.  Robert Scoble is primarily a social curator for example.

He shares tons of great things daily that he find among all the noise generated in the tech and startup markets.

People love him for it because they don’t have to do everything he does to stay on top of the market.  They just follow him and use him as a filter on the market whom they trust to bring the goods.

Mashable.com is an example of a “hub curator.” Hub curators are sites that watch the news and thought leaders in their niche and report on the best information they find.  This is the content marketer’s sweet spot.  We spend a ton of time creating (or having created) articles and blog posts from scratch.

Curation enables you to “riff” off of the news in your market and just give your two cents on a topic without writing 100% original content all the time.

It sounds like a fantastic dream come true.  But does it really work?

And how do we implement it in our markets?

My good friend Jack Humphrey is going to explain what curation is and how he developed an amazing software which helps him to create pages which rank really high in the search engines.

If you are interested in getting a lot of search traffic, loyal visitors, and direct traffic from social sites through content, then click here to learn more about Jack’s amazing software:

Content Curation Made Easy

You can actually download and test it for free!

Alan

As you know, I am active in many different niches ranging from animal websites, music composition and gardening (hey… I have loads of interests!).

Online video marketing is a relatively new area for me and I’ve tentatively started creating my own videos. Some are hosted on my YouTube channel and some are on my own Amazon S3 server.

I’m not going to pretend that they are fantastic works of art but they do give me a chance to create music soundtracks (and link back to my music website) AND link back to my niche site – a double whammy! I get to promote two websites with one video.

This kind of online marketing appeals to me and I’m going to be looking into creating more videos in the near future.

If you’re just starting out creating your own videos, here’s some interesting reading material to get those creative juices flowing:

Essential Video Marketing Secrets | Understanding Online Marketing

[Online Video Marketing] – Video Marketing Secrets – Part One. Essentially your “perfect video” is as long as it … Mandy Swift – Your Online & Video Marketing “Personal Trainer”. Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger. …

Google Plus Vs. Facebook – Online Video Marketing … – Sharethrough

Check out Carethrough, Sharethrough’s team of do-gooders.

Reasons For Using Online Video Marketing – - A1 Answers Articles

Reasons For Using Online Video Marketing. If you are not convinced that your internet business should be using online video then the incredibly revealing statistics from YouTube should be enough to convince you that this …

Online Video Marketing Strategy (Tip #362: Death By Details!)

A SOLID Online Video Marketing Strategy (www.JamesWedmore.com is essential before you make the PLUNGE into video?! Follow the simple steps outlined in this Youtube Video to show you exactly how to overcome the fears and details of Online Video Market…

Have YOU discovered a quick way to get your online video marketing off to a flying start? If you have, please leave a comment or get in touch; I’d be delighted to hear from you!

Alan

Related online video marketing articles

• Tips on how to get your Video seen by your customers (marketing.yell.com)
• How to create an engaging video for online video marketing (marketing.yell.com)
• Free Downloads Make Cases for Online Video, Healthcare Marketing Done Right (prweb.com)

I’m in the process of setting up several newsletters following the training of Martin Avis over at Ezine-Academy.com. The Fresh Start Newsletter (see optin box on the right) follows this training and I’m enjoying writing the newsletters immensely.

Thanks to everybody who has subscribed so far – nice to meet you all!

However, I’m also setting up a couple of newsletters in non-IM niches (my hobbies) and so it looks like I’ll have my work cut out.

The reason for this post, however, is to talk about how I’m getting subscribers for my email list. My main method, at present, is using ListCrew, a kind of co-op where visitors to your website are given the option to join related newsletters from other marketers. A pop-up also appears on their websites and their visitors are given the opportunity to join your mailing list.

Here’s a free pdf explaining how it all works (right click, save as): Automatic List Building For IMs.

It’s a simple system (once I’d got the correct list ID from my autoresponder company, ImnicaMail) and seems to work very well. I’ll report back once my testing is complete and I see how many new subscribers I get.

Alan

I’ve just started using a nifty little plugin that allows me to target ads and content based on the country of a visitor to my WordPress blogs.

I’ve just added it to a gardening website that I am building into an authority site (lots of content, all white hat, etc). I placed the geo tags around some Amazon ads for 3 specific books. Now, when a visitor from the UK arrives, they’ll see Amazon.co.uk and be able to buy the book there. US and Canadian visitors see the same ad but for Amazon.com.

I set it up this afternoon and it works like a dream. Finally, no more lost sales because Amazon (or any ad network) doesn’t carry forward an affiliate sale from UK to USA and vice versa.

Find out more about this plugin: Geo Targeting Content.

Alan

I love this time of the year!

Why?

With Halloween just around the corner, my 30 costume sites are starting to produce income in affiliate sales as well as Google Adsense.

As you know, I set up the majority of my sites last year following a plan laid down by Brian Johnson and his Halloween Super Affiliate training. You can’t buy the training now as it’s sold out again! However, if you get the chance, join it next year as it’ll be an investment. Remember, Americans spend over 6 billion dollars at Halloween, even during a recession!

I’ve also set up a bigger authority site covering all kinds of costumes, not just Halloween. Also, I’ve just pit the finishing touches to a Halloween information site which will be monetized with Adsense ads.

If you’re still waiting to make money online, I can’t recommend highly enough getting into the Halloween niche. Yes, there’s lots of competition but it’s because there’s lots of money changing hands!

Happy Halloween!

Alan

My very favourite internet marketing training has just gone live!

Halloween Super Affiliate is the brainchild of Brian Johnson and it really ‘cuts the mustard’ when it comes to helping beginners and intermediate marketers make money online.

I made some good money last year and set up around 30 websites to cash in on the Halloween spending frenzy (billions of dollars are spent on costumes and accessories).

This year, I’m expecting my sites to do even better as they now have some age on them and this helps with search engine rankings.

Things are already hotting up and I can see my Commission Junction account looking much healthier as we head towards Halloween!

There is work involved – this is not for people who want to simply push a button and hope for money to roll in. It involves setting up WordPress sites in a specific way but there are videos and training manuals to help you every step of the way.

What I will offer, is that if anybody buys the course (only $97 – I paid $497 last year!) through the link below, I’ll be around to help you (via email) if you get stuck or have any questions. Remember, I’ve set up 30 Halloween websites and they ALL made me money last year and are starting to kick in again this year (and it’s 2 months until Halloween!).

So, if this sounds like something you might be interested in, head over to the Halloween Super Affiliate website and then let me know you purchased via my link (send me an email to admin@cleanstartmarketing.com — NOTE: you’ll receive a challenge/response reply from SpamArrest: you must verify that you’re human or I won’t receive your email! Check your spam box as well for this email).

Can’t wait to meet you and help you set up your websites. Remember, once you’ve set your sites up, they’ll be there earning you money EVERY year!

Here’s the link again: Halloween Super Affiliate

Alan

Great news, super affiliate millionaire Mark Ling, has agreed to be on a webinar today where he will be revealing how to make 10k a month (and more) as a super affiliate.

Mark himself regularly makes over 100k per month from affiliate promotions, so he knows what he is talking about and has numerous examples to show you on this one-of-a-kind webinar.

http://www.affilorama.com

You’re about to learn what is probably the quickest way to get yourself making 10k a month online and more and you’ll be taught by a man who has trained thousands of people from around the world to do extremely well online, including many total newbies (this includes his own father).

This is a webinar you should not pass up lightly, I strongly recommend that you set an alarm in your phone right now for one of the event times on the page below:

http://www.affilorama.com

Enjoy!

Alan

Here’s a great method showing you how to rank in Google:

• Open 2 browser windows
• Go to Google and perform a normal search for your keyword (no quotes)
• In the 2nd browser, type: inanchor:”KEYWORD” and hit return
• Compare the 2 windows and see whether any websites appear in BOTH searches

Now, if you find a lot of sites appearing in both browsers then you will have a tougher time trying to rank for that keyword.

Why?

Well, the sites in the inanchor window are obviously building backlinks for that keyword and if they also appear on page 1 of Google, they’re pretty successful at it too!

Tough competition!

Ignore all search numbers – they mean nothing. Concentrate on the sites on the first page ONLY. This is especially true if they have the main keyword in bold (exact words).

Also, before you start this process, check with the Adwords tool to make sure that there are actually enough people looking for that keyword to make it worth your while.

With practise, you can almost predict which spots on page 1 you can overturn and rank for.

However, you still need unique content, backlinks, and this is going to be a lot of work. However, at least you’re not shooting in the dark and trying to make sense of search numbers, etc, etc.

Try it!

Alan

I’m still continuing to add content to my gardening site as part of Brian Johnson’s ’300 Internet Marketers’ training, but now the focus is shifting onto backlinking.

In a nutshell, I’m finding related, high ranking blogs in my niche and leaving useful comments. I’ve chosen about 8 blogs that seem to be doing well in Google and I’ll be making comments on them for the next few weeks.

I’ve also added these sites to my blogroll and clicked through so that it registers on their traffic stats.

Then… I’ll be asking for a blogroll link back to my site. Hopefully, they’ll agree as the webmaster will have noticed my presence (I say, HOPEFULLY!).

Now, it’s not going to work in all cases, but I’m expecting to get a handful of high quality links back to kickstart my site rankings.

Later in the month, I’ll be looking at getting a few lower quality links (but lots of them).

I’ll keep you all updated on how I get on.

Alan

Well, I’ve spent all May adding content to my new gardening niche website.

It’s starting to look really good, no monetization at all and traffic is starting to arrive.

As part of the 300 Internet Marketers Training, Brian Johnson is taking us through his recipe for getting backlinks – quality backlinks.

This sits well with me because I’m tired of being bombarded with the latest and greatest ways to get thousands of links – most of them spammy and low-quality.

I’m pleased that the site is starting to look like a quality, authority site and I really feel that it adds substance to the gardening niche in general.

Only time will tell if this site will make tons of money, but I couldn’t have made it any better AND I’m enjoying creating it!

Alan