Instant Affiliate Marketing Tip – Use “Affiliate Re-Directs”



How to Succeed As A Turbulence Training Affiliate

As an affiliate, you can use blogging, email marketing, social media, product review pages, and many other ways to promote Turbulence Training. In this bonus, I’ll show you how to use these strategies as an affiliate to make money online.

First, What Is An Affiliate?

An affiliate is someone who uses an “affiliate link” to send website traffic to a vendor’s site that sells a product. If a sale is made upon that visit, or within a set time of that initial visit, the affiliate receives a commission (a pre-determined portion of the sale price).

In the Clickbank system, you’ll receive an affiliate commission if the prospect buys within 60 days of the initial visit. This is referred to as 60-day cookies (cookies is the internet term for keeping track of website visit history).

However other affiliate programs may offer up to lifetime commissions. One of the “knocks” made against Clickbank is the limited 60-day cookie system, but again, you have to take into account all of the “pro’s” and “con’s” about the affiliate program you choose to promote. And because Clickbank takes care of all of the billing and even has an affiliate network, I’m very happy with their system.

In this module, we are going to focus on the Clickbank affiliate system, but the principles apply to any affiliate program. I’ll show you that anyone can make an online second paycheck as an affiliate.

In fact, in my business, I have one superstar “average Jane” affiliate who bought herself a brand new SUV with all the affiliate money she made last year just promoting my Turbulence Training and other fat loss e-books on her blog.

She’s not a celebrity, and she doesn’t spend money on Google Ad Words, and she’s not a famous internet marketer. She’s just a regular workout enthusiast who talks about her workouts, nutrition plan, and her meals on her blog and recommends products she believes in. It really is that simple.

Becoming an Affiliate at Clickbank

Good news! It’s free to be an affiliate.

To get started as a Clickbank affiliate, all you need to do is go through the sign-up process described in module one. And if you ever find a product on the Internet that you’d like to promote, just look around the site for a link that says “Affiliates”. Almost all sites have them and would be happy to have you promoting their products.

With Clickbank, you can use the same account to be a vendor and an affiliate. You don’t need separate accounts, although as you grow your business you might want to get separate accounts so that it is easier to keep track of your marketing.

Once you get started and get selling, Clickbank will send you a check up to twice per month with your affiliate earnings. (You can set-up your Clickbank account so checks are only sent when a specific earnings level is achieved. Alternatively, you can have your payments sent by direct deposit after a short trial period with Clickbank.)

After you've set up your Clickbank account, then you're ready to start promoting products through your special affiliate hoplink. And when someone purchases after coming through your affiliate hoplink, you’ll receive a commission set by the vendor.

It’s in your best interests to choose a product that pays a high commission and converts really well, although how the product converts (i.e. how many visitors turn into sales) depends partly on how well your affiliate efforts “pre-sell” your prospects on the product.

Marketing Clickbank products is simple. All you do is put your affiliate hoplink on your blog, in your emails, on Twitter or Facebook, in Youtube videos, or in your Ad Word campaigns to drive internet traffic to a website where the affiliate product is sold.

All of the clicks on your affiliate hoplink are recorded in your account so that you can keep track of how many clicks occur before a sale is made.

Let’s do a walk through of one of my affiliate accounts.

1) Here’s the first screen you see after you log-in. To take a look at the sales of any day, just click on the bar beside the date.

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2) In this image, you’ll see I clicked on the bar with $142.61 in sales. In the circle, it shows the vendor names of the products I’ve sold. Next, I’m going to click on the “Analytics” tab in the top right (in the box).

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3) Next I’ll move into the analytics area where I can review which affiliate programs are working best. Here’s the screen you’ll see. The most important info is in the chart at the bottom of this image, so I need to scroll down.

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4) I’ve sorted the chart by gross sales, so this shows me which affiliate products have made me the most money in the last 14 days.

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For more details on interpreting all of the numbers in this chart, please refer back to chapter one. One of the most important numbers to look at is “hops per order”.

Now here’s where a lot of impatient affiliates make a mistake. Many newcomers to the affiliate game think that just sending 10, 20 or even 50 visitors (“hops”) to a website should result in a sale, if not a bunch of sales.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. If you make one sale in 50 clicks, that is amazing! But the truth will be more like one sale every hundred or more clicks. From the chart on the previous page, I was sending up to 373 hops (visitors) just to make one sale in some cases. In fact, my average number of hops per sale was 161. So if you send 20 or 30 visitors to a website that probably won’t be enough to make a sale.

You need to compare the entire sales process to something like customers browsing a store. Not every customer is going to be interested in buying every item in the store. In reality, most customers are interested in a few specific items.

So your goal is to simply get in front of the customer who is specifically interested in the item you are promoting. You need to accept that a lot of folks may have low or mild interest in your promotion, and might click through to see more info, but won’t end up buying.

At the end of the day, all that matters is that the number of sales you make justifies the time and/or money that you put into the affiliate promotion.

How to Create a Clickbank Hoplink

It is very important to understand how to make your affiliate hoplink. Keep in mind, if you make your affiliate hoplink incorrectly, that is kind of like putting an ad in the yellow pages and using the wrong phone number! Please note, it is your responsibility as an affiliate to make sure your affiliate hoplink is coded correctly.

The current standard Clickbank affiliate hoplink format is…



Your affiliate Clickbank name goes in place of the XXXXX and the vendor name of the product you want to promote goes in place of the word “vendor”.

Let’s say your affiliate name was “JaneDoe” and you wanted to promote my Turbulence Training program (vendor name is “turbulence”). Your affiliate hoplink would look like:



That's all there is to it. When someone clicks through YOUR hoplink, they are redirected to and a "cookie" (a small tracking file) is dropped onto the computer of the visitor. This "marks" that visitor as coming from your referral.

As I mentioned earlier, Clickbank uses 60 day cookies, so that means if the people you send to purchase that day or if they return and purchase any time within the next 60 days, you will get the commission for the sale.

And if you would like to promote my Online Second Paycheck program, the vendor name is “ospclick”, so the affiliate hoplink would look like this:

=>

All you have to do is insert YOUR Clickbank affiliate nickname in the place where the “XXXXX” is located. Both of my products are set at 75% commission.

How to “Mask” Your Affiliate URL

I have one last suggestion. If you are using hoplinks on a web page, it is best you use a "DISPLAY URL" of Turbulence Training rather than exposing the actual clickbank hoplink (i.e. ).

Tests have shown that when people realize they are "being sold something" on a commission basis (as opposed to getting a "recommendation" from an independent 3rd party), the conversion rates may drop, therefore it's best to "hide" your affiliate hoplink in your HTML code and use as the display link.

For example, the HTML code for your website or blog would look like this:

Turbulence Training

Another way to mask your affiliate link is to use an "affiliate redirect". This is where you buy your own domain name and "re-direct" this new domain name through your affiliate link. Having your own domain name will significantly improve your affiliate efforts.

It even allows you to promote a product without even “owning” a real website. Here’s how…

Let's say you don't have a website, but want to tell the world about Turbulence Training and make an affiliate commission. But without a website, how can you do that?

The answer is surprisingly easy - and cheap. In fact, it will cost you less than $10. Here's how it works.

1) You'll need to go to and buy a "domain name". (A domain name is simply a website name, like .)

2) When you buy your domain name, I want you to pick something like:

=>

(Assuming your name is Joe!)

Why?

3) Because when talking with your friends and telling them about Turbulence Training, you are going to send them to your site "".

But how does that help you as an affiliate?

Easy.

4) Here's what you need to do.

First, sign-up with an account at Clickbank. It only takes a few seconds and you get to choose your account name.

Second, create your affiliate link for the product you want to promote. We’ll use Turbulence Training as the example.

The template is:

=>

(Replace YourClickbankID with your clickbank account name you chose when you signed up with Clickbank.)

5) Now you'll have both your Clickbank affiliate link and your domain name.

6) Go back to and login to your account that you created when you bought your domain.

7) Your domain name will appear in your account manager screen. I want you to click on it.

8] You'll come to a screen where you see a lot of options. Look to the bottom left where you see the word "Forwarding". Click on the link that says "manage" beside it.

9) You now have the option to edit this domain, so copy and paste your affiliate link into the space provided. Then click OK.

10) Now it might take up to 24 hours, but within a day, whenever someone types in "" (or whatever domain you bought), it will take them through your affiliate link to the site of the product you are promoting.

11) If that visitor purchases that Clickbank product within 60 days of that first visit, you'll make a sale and receive a commission.

That's all you have to do.

12) Now even more news...you can also use this in emails, on Twitter, and in your Facebook account.

The next time someone says, "Hey, you look great. What's your secret?"

You can tell them, "I'm using Turbulence Training. Check out this website for more info: "

It's an easy and natural way to promote Clickbank products without having to buy a website or set up a blog.

You don't even need to be on the Internet to do it. You can just tell someone face to face or write it down for them.

If you have any questions about making hoplinks, whatsoever, please Clickbank support or the vendor who you are promoting. They’ll help you get sorted out so that you can promote their products.

Now let’s look at ways you can promote affiliate products.

Affiliate Blogging

Blogging is one of the best low cost ways to get started as an affiliate (and you can read all about the details of setting up a blog in the bonus report, “How to Blog”.

When blogging, you want to share great content, some personal stories, and be seen as an authoritative figure. This allows your reader to connect with you and for a trusting relationship to evolve.

Why is that important?

Remember this rule:

We buy from people we like and trust. So that’s what your blog should do – build trust and relationship with your readers.

All you do is create the content, share your story, develop relationships, and tell people about the product you are promoting. That’s all there is to it. It’s an easy, low-cost way to get your message out on the Internet.

What to blog?

The key is post original content. A lot of affiliates make the mistake of posting the same affiliate articles that every other affiliate has access to in the product’s affiliate section.

So if you can put original content on your site, it will get more traffic and a better response. I recommend using the product you are going to promote. Then you can talk about your experiences with the product. Basically, just “be yourself”. By being a success story for that product, you can be an inspiration to thousands of other people just like you who are looking for a leader to refer them to a trusted source of information.

You’ll be a real hero in the eyes of the people you influence. Take it from me, it’s a great feeling to know that you’ve helped someone make an improvement in their life and overcome years of frustration.

So telling your story and being yourself is really just the easiest thing to do, because that allows the real you to come out. Trying to be someone else will come across as fake faster than someone can click the button on their mouse. And that’s what they’ll do, they’ll click the “back” button and leave. But if you be yourself, then I know you’ll do a great job of attracting “your audience” on the web.

Remember this: There are over 1 billion people surfing the Internet these days. Don’t you think you could find about 1000 people to be interested in what you have to say? And 1000 people listening to your recommendations could provide a nice little side income. Plus, imagine the difference you can make in their lives by referring them to the life-changing product you recommend.

How to Get People to Your Blog

The first and easiest way to get people to your blog is to tell them. Now, I’m not recommending “spamming” anyone, but you can send a link to your blog by email to your close friends and family. That’s a start. You can also mention it on your Facebook, MySpace, or any other social networking site you belong too.

Second, if you participate in any Internet forums, you can post a link to your blog in your signature. Again, don’t “spam” the forums, but whenever you have something valuable to post in a forum, make sure you have a link to your blog in your signature.

***************************************************************

Your forum signature might look something like this…

Craig B.



or this…

Craig B.

Visit my blog for a free report here

***************************************************************

Third, you simply need to post good quality content about your topic. In addition, your posts should contain words and phrases from the Keyword list you developed earlier. For example, let’s say you have a blog promoting a fat loss workout for women. If so, you would benefit by using the keywords in your posts like “fat loss for women”. That will help your site get found when women Google, “fat loss for women”.

If you haven’t already, sit down and spend some time generating a big keyword list of at least 300 keywords and keyword phrases. Then start writing about the top 5-10 keywords on your list that you think will be most popular. Once you get those done, work on the next 10 (but re-evaluate based on the feedback you get from others).

Here are some questions to ask when coming up with your keyword list:

• What terms would people use to search for the product you are promoting?

• What does the product do? What are the benefits and uses of it?

• Find out what keywords are being used by other sites for this niche.

When writing a post, focus on one keyword phrase. Use that keyword phrase in the title of your post, as well as the first line of the post and use that keyword phrase a few more times throughout the post.

Here are some interesting topics for you to consider writing about:

• Your experiences with the product

• Other people’s success stories with the product

• Comparisons of your current lifestyle with the product vs. your old lifestyle

• Tips on how to use the product

• Who this product is for

• The features and benefits of the product

• Your comments on current events related to that niche market

Other content you can add to your blog:

1) A product review

2) Product images and banners

3) YouTube videos related to the product. Here’s how to do that:

a) Go to YouTube and find a video related to the product – or create your own video and add it to YouTube.

b) Copy the text inside the description area labeled as “Embed”. That is called the embed code and you’ll need this to add the video to your site or blog.

c) Go into the area in your blogging platform where you write your blog posts. Click on HTML and post the Embed text where you want the video to show up.

d) Post your affiliate link over or under the video, along with a quick explanation of the video and a little promotion of the product.

Always post as an authority, because even though you didn’t come up with the product you are promoting, you are an expert because you know more about it than the reader. If you have built a connection and relationship with your readers, they will act on your recommendations.

Building a List With Your Blog

You’ll need to have an account with a list management service like , , or .

Once you are set-up, then add a sign-up box in the top right corner of your blog and offer a free report, video, or audio. You need to make this “ethical bribe” in order to get your prospects to share their name and email address. Once you have started building your list, you can use Email Marketing strategies to continue building a relationship with your readers so they trust you and your recommendations.

See the screenshots at the end of this chapter for tips on how to blog.

Social Media Affiliate Promotions

You can use Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube videos to continue building your relationship and list, as well as promoting affiliate products. However, too many people use Facebook and Twitter to “spam” their friends and followers with offers. You need to spend more time building relationships and only link to a promotion once in a while. See the Social Media bonus chapter for more details on using Twitter and Facebook.

Product review pages

Adding a product review to your webpage is a great way to pre-sell customers on the product you are promoting. An honest review of the product explains the positives and negatives (hey, nothing is perfect!) of the program and doesn't come across as being overly hyped.

To review a product, simply contact the vendor and ask for a review copy. A smart vendor will always give you a copy! Many vendors will also have pre-written reviews, but it’s better to have a fresh, unique review on your site.

If you don't have time to write your own review, feel free to use the review below. You can also edit the review to customize it for your audience, always being truthful and pointing out it requires commitment and an honest effort in the gym to get results - however, of course, it is often much less time than most people are doing now.

The Best Way to Promote Products

The absolute best way to promote products – without wasting time and money on Google Ad Words – is to build up an authority website where readers trust your recommendations.

That’s easy to do, and that’s what the Online Second Paycheck System is all about. So everything you read about in the main book, plus the other bonuses, will be your step-by-step guide to building a site and list that will trust your recommendations and purchase the products you recommend.

That’s the best way to get started earning money as an affiliate.

BONUS: How to Blog

Blogs are an essential part of your affiliate strategy. You can use them to promote your own products or to promote Turbulence Training. Search engines, such as Google, reward blogs with a good “Search Engine Ranking” (i.e. position in the natural search rankings) because a blog’s content changes all the time.

That means when you put content on a blog it shows up quickly in search engines and people will find your blog posts and you’ll start to build up a relationship with prospects. Each post on your blog is actually a separate webpage – so you can create a huge content and keyword-rich “website” by blogging regularly.

How to Get Started With a Blog

I recommend using a wordpress blog, such as the one I use for my blog at . In less than 6 months since starting that blog, I average over 1400 visitors per day (with most visits coming the days I make new posts).

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And in the last month this blog has sent 7297 people to my sales page at and made $0.19 per visitor (for a total of $1386).

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Not bad for blogging three times per week and an investment of a few hundred dollars for wordpress blog and artwork.

Blogs are not an expensive investment, and can help bring you an online second paycheck very quickly. Here are the steps to get it set-up.

Step #1 – Buy a domain name.

You must have your own domain name if you want to promote affiliate products using a wordpress blog. However, if you don’t have money to spend, you can set up a blogger blog for free (and I’ll show you how at the end of this chapter).

NOTE: You want to pick a title that has some type of related keyword in the title. For example, if you are selling fat loss workouts, the best choice would be “”. Unfortunately, a lot of the best domain names are gone, so you’ll need to be creative. Keep it short and snappy if possible.

Here’s a great looking blog with a creative name. There’s lots to learn from checking out

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Step #2 – Go to , , or and find a blog designer to put together your blog for you.

I’ve used a great website designer from India that puts together great blogs for only $250 (and that includes the cost of purchasing a wordpress blogging “theme”) and creating the artwork. You can see examples of his work at and . Stick to a nice, clean, simple design. That’s it.

Step #3 – Host Your Blog

Pick a good company to host your Wordpress blog. Blogs hosted for free on the servers are not allowed to have any type of advertising (including affiliate links) so that’s why you need to buy your own domain name and find a hosting provider to put your blog on. 

Don't worry, it's not hard and there are plenty of how-to articles on setting up your blog to get you going. A few hosting providers that Wordpress recommends can be found at - . Most hosting packages go for $6-$15 bucks a month depending on the plan you chose. I have a more expensive server package from because I have a bunch of blogs and websites hosted on the same server that get a lot of traffic that requires a lot of server space for all that traffic.

Step #4 – Add Wordpress Plug-Ins to Your Blog

Wordpress plug-ins enhance the effectiveness of your blog. Some plug-ins help with SEO, others help arrange comments, while others help you track stats with Google Analytics. Even without any plug-ins, wordpress is great, but adding a bunch of these free plug-ins will “soup up” your blog and make it work even better.

You can find the plugins at .  Some of the plugins that I use on are:

Akismet – A comment spam manager that is part of the base Wordpress install.  You really need to enable this plugin otherwise you'll get all types of spam on your blog.

All in One SEO Pack – This plugin really helps improve your Google ranking.  The higher your rankings, the more traffic you get.  The more traffic you get, the more opportunities to make some money and gain some readers.

WP-Super Cache – This dramatically decreases the load on the hosting provider's server so everyone stays happy in case you get a lot of traffic. If you don’t have this and you get a lot of traffic to your blog, your hosting company could shut down your site.

Most Popular Posts – This plug-in allows you to list the most popular posts according to the number of comments.

WP-SpamFree – Another anti spam plug-in.

SEO Friendly Images – Allows you to add information to your images that helps them get found in the search engines.

Wordpress Thread Comment – This allows users to reply directly to other comments in the comments section.

All of these wordpress plug-ins help the blog work better for both me and the end user. Just go into your wordpress admin panel and click on the plug-ins tab to add or delete plug-ins.

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Step #5 – Get a Google Account & Use Analytics to Track Your Blog Stats

I really recommend getting a Google Account - .  Use Google Analytics to provide statistics on your blog traffic (use the Google Analyticator plugin for Wordpress if you use this service). See chapter nine on how to use Google Analytics to track and test the traffic to your websites.

Step #6 – Add a sign-up box in the top right hand or left hand corner of your blog so that readers can get your free report and be added to your email marketing list.

For more information on getting set up with an email marketing list, please read chapter 7. To get the sign-up form on your blog, you’ll simply need to get the HTML code for the sign-up box to your blog/website developer and they’ll know what to do next.

Step #7 – Start writing/posting to your blog

As soon as you’ve set up your blog, write an introductory post welcoming your readers, introducing yourself, and describing the purpose of your blog. After that, be sure to post consistently. At the very least, you should post twice per week.

How to Create a Word Press Blog Post

1 – This is the screen you’ll see to start.

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2 – Add the content in the main box.

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3 – Choose 3-6 tags related to the content. When you first start your blog, you won’t have any tags, but you can just enter a new tag name into the text box and add it. The tags you choose will be keywords and keyword phrases that show up in your content.

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4 – You also need to choose 1 category related to the content. Again, when you start your blog, you won’t have any categories, but you can just click the “Add New Category” link. This will allow you to organize your blog posts by related content.

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5 – If you use the SEO All-in-One plug-in, you can also enter in additional keywords and a title tag for the blog post. Scroll to the bottom of the post page and enter in the “title”, “description”, and “keywords” related to your content.

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6 – To add images within a post, look for the image icon in the top left of the screen you’ll see these icons. Click the square icon beside the word “insert”.

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7 – Once you click on the images icon, you’ll see this screen. Click “Select files” to choose your image and choose alignment. You can also add in a caption (this will be keywords) and a link URL (if someone clicks the image it will take the visitor to that link). This example below requires the SEO Friendly Images plug-in.

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8 – Once you insert image, you may have to resize the image to fit your post.

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9 – To create a link within your blog post, highlight the text you want to use as the link text with your mouse and then click the little “chain link” icon (it will only be available if you’ve highlighted text in the post). Then type in your link URL and Insert.

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10 – And if you want to insert a Youtube video into your blog post, you must first go to YouTube and copy the “Embed” code. Then go to the blog and click on the HTML tab at the top of the post

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This is going to make things look “a little funky”, but you should still be able to find where you want to put that “Embed” code into your post. Just paste the Embed Code in and then go back up and click on the “Visual” tab to get back to “reality”.

Click the Preview tab to make sure your blog looks the way you want it to, and then go back and hit the Publish to make it live on your site.

Old School Blogger

If you don’t have the money to spend on getting a Wordpress blog set-up, don’t worry. You can still get started with a free blog from .

That’s what I did back in the summer of 2006. And here’s what my blog looks like ()

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How to Set-up A Blogger Blog for Free

1) Go to

Here’s what you’ll see. Click on the orange arrow to create your blog now.

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2) Create a Google account.

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3) Give your blog a title.

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4) Choose a simple template. I prefer the white background template – easy to read.

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5) Done! I told you it was easy.

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6) Start writing/posting.

You can do this one of two ways. You can go into blogger and post using the screen below, or you can set-up your blog so that you can post directly from your email (that’s how I do it).

You’ll need to make that change in the Settings area of your blogger account. Very simple to do (click on the tab that says “email” and create an email for your blog). This makes posting convenient from anywhere (I used to post from the subway with my Blackberry immediately after my workout).

As soon as you’ve set up your blog, write an introductory post welcoming your readers, introducing yourself, and describing the purpose of your blog.

Blog Wrap-up

In addition to posting keyword-rich content to your blog and using the SEO plug-in to get found in the search engines, you can also work on typical SEO strategies for getting one-way links back to your site. For example, you can submit articles to that link back to your site, and this will help you get more traffic to your blog.

And when you write emails to your list you should link back to your blog and encourage your readers to leave comments on your blog posts. This will get more traffic to your blog and the comments themselves help with your search engine rankings.

The key to blogging is consistently creating relevant, unique, and interesting information to bring your readers back again and again. Make sure to “track and test” your reader responses to identify the hot topics that they want to hear about and then keep on giving great content on your blog.

Okay, so that’s it for now. This is all you need to get started and working on your blog for the next couple of months. If I missed anything, let me know and I’ll update this report immediately.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Author, Turbulence Training





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