The Twitter Traffic Machine

The Twitter Traffic Machine looks like a really good system, and seems to be working really well for a lot of people. Not least of all for its creator, Bill Crosby (possibly a pseudonym). The Twitter Traffic Machine (TTM from this point) is based on the idea that the more followers you have, the higher the number of clicks to any link you post. Fair enough. Good theory. Does it work? Kind of. Does it boost your earnings? Probably not.

I had a good look at the ideas in the six videos that Bill has in his product, and the simple fact is, the TTM is badly out of date. When the product first launched, Twitter itself was still in the founding stages, but growing rapidly, so not many people on Twitter had learned how to leverage their followers for linking purposes. Recently however, Twitter is rife with people who can show you how to build followers and then use them to make money, and as a result, unless you already have a good follower base, most of the people that start to follow you (blind followers, or 'bought' followers) are people who want YOU to follow THEM so they can use you to boost their profits.
The biggest problem with the TTM however, comes from Twitter itself, and their constantly upgraded anti-spam systems. Any one person who's followers increase rapidly, or who's follower/following ration is skewed, will find themselves with their account frozen for a period of time, and anyone trying to access your profile, or send you a message will be told that your account has been frozen for spam-like activities. There goes your credibility.

The reason I know all this, is that a simple Google search put me in touch with a number of people who had purchased the product, and were willing to speak openly about it. One very generous person was even willing to point me towards the programs that Bill uses in his system.
This is interesting: Not one piece of information in the TTM is new, or unavailable for free. Every thing taught in the TTM training videos can be found FOR FREE on Google and Twitter itself. The TTM charges for free information, and can only justify the cost through the 'convenience' or having all the information in one place, and have someone run through it for you.
The product has not been updated since launch, and relies on online programs that no longer function in the way described by Bill in his training videos.

So, recapping: Do not purchase the Twitter Traffic Machine. Too many people are using it already, and the training in the videos is out of date. And you can find all the information free anyway.

I feel the need to point out that, like many MANY others, I could have expounded on the implied benefits of the TTM and used my recommendation to bring in my own affiliate profits. The reason I haven't is because I don't believe anyone should be talked into paying for an obsolete product.
I can't spare $25, so I don't expect anyone else to throw it away on useless stuff.

Earning Money Blogging

Ok, so I went out and found loads of information on logging for money. Loads and loads and loads. And most of it is pretty useless. 

Blogging for money comes down to TWO elements

1. Ad revenue

2. Affiliate links

Now lets take a closer look at them individually.

1. Ad Revenue

This is pretty simple - you put ads on your blog or web page (or you get someone else to, Adsense, for example), and each time someone clicks the ad, you get a small payment. 

See? Simple.

BUT! You need to get a fair few clicks to generate any real earnings.

Say, 10 percent of visitors to your site click an ad, and you get $0.10 per click. To earn $100 you need TEN THOUSAND hits to your site. 

So, to earn ad revenue, you need Traffic. As an added bonus, the more traffic you get, the more you get paid per click, so that $100 in my example would be much, much easier to reach. Advertisers like busy blogs, so they'll pay more. 

Advertisers also like blogs that are well liked by search engines, and to be liked by search engines you need traffic, and you need to always be loading fresh, relevant, content constantly to maintain your ad revenue. 

Recapping: To get and maintain decent ad revenue, you need high traffic levels and fresh, relevant content all the time. 

Moving on;

2. Affiliate Links

Also pretty simple: Earn money by selling other people's products. 

This will give you a much higher return per purchase than ad revenue, simply because you get a percentage of the purchase price. For example, if you direct a customer to a product that costs $80, you might get 40 percent of the cost, giving you $32.00.

Sounds pretty cool. 

BUT! You need more Traffic!

Just like above, if 10% of people click on a link, its "safe" to assume 10% of those people will purchase the product. So for ONE MEASLY sale, you need one hundred thousand people to visit your site. (Unless you are really, really awesome at selling other people's products and can get a higher conversion rate).

Doesn't sound so awesome right now, but in the end the higher your traffic, the higher your click through rate, and thus the more money you get. 

Selling other people's stuff takes effort, good copy writing and really, really good promotion skills. Mad skillz you could say. 

You also need a fantastic affiliate network you can source products from. So far, Click Bank looks the best; the most products and the highest percentage of sales as well - up to a whopping 75% of the money from every sale will go directly to you once the purchase has been finalized. I'll have more on affiliate programs in later posts. 

Recapping: To earn money from affiliate links you need, an affiliate program, really awesome traffic, and the ability to sell stuff for other people.

Later posts (coming very soon) will cover

1. Traffic

2. Affiliate Marketing

3. Selling stuff for other peopl

4. Other amazing stuff.

And for those interested, I haven't made any money from this blog yet. But given that its been up for less than five hours, I'm not complaining.