And here it comes: Another review. Seems that every week there's another product launch being supported by hundreds of top marketers. I am one of his partners as well but you know I never recommend products which I haven't tested or read myself. So I got access to the site earlier already and have been able to view ALL of the videos which buyers are getting…
Here's my take on Michael Cheney's latest product called "Michael's Traffic Videos". There are about 50 videos which cover the following topics:
Section 1: Online And Offline Press Releases (5 videos)
The first 5 videos cover strategies for getting traffic from press releases. Michael tells you what to do to get traffic from offline advertising, too, by placing ads in newspapers. And although he explains step by step what to do, he's not giving any REAL examples that he's successfully been using these tactics himself or that someone else has used them with success. I seriously doubt that he's using this kind of strategy for himself (at least not those offline ads). While this section is giving a good overview what can be done, it's just that: An overview. The lessons are done in text/drawing format while he's explaining the steps.
Section 2: Affiliate Traffic (2 videos)
I like the fact he's mentioning that this is one of the most important strategies for getting consistent traffic because I know it's true. It's the strategy I am using the most too and one that is working the best for me to get traffic to my various websites. If you're asking me, it's his most effective strategy too because as you can see with his launch today: When affiliates are getting very high commissions, you can almost be certain that you will get a very active army of affiliates and that thousands of emails are being sent to promote his latest product.
The negatives about this section: While he's telling you everything about WHAT to do with these affiliates and how to make them work for you, he doesn't go into the details about HOW you should be approaching or getting them in the first place.
My questions after watching these videos still would be:
a.) Where do I look for affiliates?
b.) What are the most effective strategies for convincing website owners to become your affiliates?
c.) How can this be automated (if you're recruiting hundreds of website owners, this can take days)?
d.) Should software be used at all?
e.) What would I write to them? Or should I call them by phone or Skype?
And not to forget that in order to get affiliates, you need to have your own product, first… The course is not about product creation so you need to be knowledgeable about that part already.
Section 3: Social Networking Traffic (2 videos)
He's listing the major social networking sites and is giving you the main benefits of using them. The second video is pretty good as he's giving you the main specifics your page or site needs to have in order to profit from these social networking websites. Moreover, he lists what kind of content is getting response for your marketing messages and how you need to behave to get the most out of it. But again, no real life examples given… No details about how to get in, how to add friends or contacts, specifics about how many friends to add, what tools to use etc. This section is too basic to be of any real value. It's text/drawing based.
Section 4: Blogging Traffic (5 videos)
Well, what I like about this section is that it is entirely devoted to Wordpress, my favourite blogging system. Basically, he's setting up a Wordpress blog and then he's modifying it a little bit to personalize it. And one video tells you that you should set it up to blog and ping. What I didn't like here was that he didn't show how to change the permissions for one of the files he was modifying. It was like "if you don't know how to do it, ask your provider". This is a bit strange as it would have taken just a few seconds to show this in his FTP software.
Positive is that he tells you that you need to modify the links (URLs) to make them search engine friendly. Moreover, he shows you how to add a subscription form to the sidebar of the Wordpress blog so you can get opt-ins. Finally a series of videos where he actually shows you how to do things. Bravo! I wish, there were more videos included in this course with that kind of details. If you've never set up a blog in Wordpress, this section is for you and comes highly recommended by me. The whole section is a doer section this time rather than the other text/drawing type of videos which are more theoretical.
Section 5: Video Traffic (2 videos)
This again is a doer section. Michael's showing you how to prepare videos for sites like Google Video or YouTube.com and also gives a recommendation for a free software that you can use to create your very own first videos. And it's not Camtasia or Camstudio but nonetheless very effective and quick in creating the videos in a format that can immediately be uploaded. Moreover, he's telling you what equipment you need in order to be able to record your speech while you're showing stuff on your screen. So basically, these are screencam videos. He's not showing you the videos where people are "acting" in front of a camcorder or the like.
The second part is all about the upload process and how to use descriptions and keywords to get the most targeted visitors who will in turn be visiting your sites if you're doing everything right. Good section for people who want to try out marketing by using video. I don't know why he's recommending a certain service for uploading these videos to multiple video sharing sites. It has a high monthly fee but I know there are at least 2 different software tools available on the market that can do the same thing for the price of a one time software purchase.
Section 6: Repeat Traffic (3 videos)
I liked this section the best because it showed me what I am doing wrong on my sites: I'm not having enough interaction with my visitors (apart from my blogs). He tells and shows you what is needed to get repeat traffic to your websites. This section is recommended even for advanced Internet marketers as I am quite sure that a lot of people have been creating their sites in similar ways like I have been doing in the past. Learning how to get your visitors to interact with you and actually providing real content for YOUR sites, is invaluable and a lesson I have learned well now. Thank you Michael for reminding me of it! Most importantly, in this section he is giving you real life examples of websites which are employing the tactics Michael is recommending. That's another reason why I give this section an A+!
Section 7: Pay Per Click Traffic (3 videos)
Nothing really new in this section (if you have bought guides like Adwords Miracle, Affiliate Project X or Day Job Killer in the past) but nevertheless it covers some very important factors. If you are applying these basic principles which he's showing you in his videos, you are guaranteed to get much better results than people who don't know what they're doing when it comes to using Google Adwords. Not a long section but an important one to get quick traffic to a new site. 3-4 great tips there - for newbies -.
Section 8: Search Engine Traffic (6 videos)
The very basics of search engine optimization are covered here. He's mentioning the most important factors for getting a high ranking in the search engines and he uses his text/drawing techniques again to make them easy to understand. This section also covers the topic of keyword selection and why it's so important to use the right keywords. He tells you which ones are better than others and why.
Best of all, he explains and shows you the basics of a standard web service for keyword research that you need to be a member of if you want to get the best keywords for great natural search engine results. If you're not too familiar with search engine optimization, I would recommend this section as it covers the things you need to know and also shows you which service to use to get relevant keywords for your site (personally, I made my own screencam video about this service 4 years ago already for my "Web Money Marketing Videos" monthly membership site where I showed people how to use certain Internet marketing tools - and this keyword service is still effective in bringing people the best keywords up until today).
Section 9: Link Traffic (6 videos)
This section goes into the details on why you need to get as many links as possible to your site (see, I told you this already here … , too) for great search engine results. In this section, he explains exactly how to structure your links page by doing his text/drawing presentations again. But, unfortunately, he doesn't show you how to add these links to your sites in a live example. This also means that you're not being given the specific pieces of software or scripts that can automate a lot of the work like ARELIS reciprocal links software which you can download for free (trial).
He is giving a specific example of a good and relevant link partner which is doing the recommended things so the links page benefits the website owner and you as the link partner.
Section 10: Articles Traffic (6 videos)
Writing articles has always been one of the most effective techniques for getting recognized as an authority and for getting lots of direct or indirect traffic. The first video is explaining what benefits you are getting from writing articles. And these are a lot of benefits… Some marketers are doing nothing else than writing articles to drive traffic to their sites. This has become very popular as the so called "bum marketing method".
Videos 2 and 3 teach you how you can write your articles and how you need to structure them so they'll be effective in driving traffic to your site. Not only that but he's giving you different ways of having these articles created - not just by typing the text directly into your Notepad or MS Word. Specific types of software and services are mentioned which can make the whole process a lot easier and quicker for you.
Video 4 is about how to structure your bio (author) box for your articles. Only effective bio boxes will bring you direct traffic.
The last 2 videos are about how you actually submit your articles to the various article directories. In video 2 Michael shows you the whole process for one popular article directory. He also mentions how often you should be doing this.
Section 11: Viral Traffic (2 videos)
The first video is just an overview about viral traffic and in my opinion a little too general (benefits etc. - those should be known by most - even newbies). It's a text/drawing video again. The second video is much more to my liking as he's showing a bit about how to put all of this into practice using a new script by Mike Filsaime called Viral Friend Generator .
My conclusion:
First of all, let me point out that it is not a bad product at all - if you're new to all of this traffic stuff and haven't been able to drive at least 100 visitors a week to your site(s). And that's why the course will be a great help for giving newbies a good overview as to WHAT and WHY something needs to be done in order to get traffic. This is something the video course does pretty well.
Most videos are mainly giving an overview about the various methods for getting traffic. What's missing in most of them are real life examples of HOW these methods are being used, what software tools are needed to put the things from the videos into practice and generally more proof that these are the methods that are working for him right now.
I'm rather getting the impression that he's been putting together the most effective traffic strategies in general so people might think he covers it all. In my opinion, though, he would have done better by focusing on just two or three of the strategies and then DOING exactly what he's been mentioning in the videos because that is a major shortcoming of many of the included videos (not of all videos, though…).
90% of the videos consist of text, his explanations and his drawings where he's explaining the sections. While this can be effective to remember what needs to be done, I guess most people still would have problems putting everything into perspective and knowing HOW to do it and what tools to use to get it accomplished.
Should you buy Michael's Traffic Videos?
That depends. For beginners, generally speaking "yes" - I am quite sure that you will discover quite a few gold nuggets in them. These videos are really good in giving you an overview and telling you WHY you should be using the techniques or why they work and in some videos he's even showing you WHAT to do. I am recommending them if you're a "newbie".
For an in depth step-by-step plan, 75% of the videos are too general in their nature and would leave people clueless as to what to do or HOW to do it (e.g. the affiliate section or the social networking section). And for advanced Internet marketers, the videos are not recommended at all. You would not find anything new in it if you've read several ebooks on these topics already.
==> Nevertheless, the videos are giving you the best techniques for getting lots of targeted visitors - so if you want to refresh what you already know, it's quite good for that as well.
If you're a newbie or you somehow think that you will get some nuggets out of it and you want to buy Michael's Traffic Videos, I have a very special bonus for you: I will give you the answers to questions where the videos are leaving you standing in the rain. In other words: If you want to use a technique and you still got question on how to put these techniques into practice or what tools to use, I will be giving you the answers in personal Skype sessions (up to 30 minute per buyer) or by answering these questions via my helpdesk.
An Internet Marketer of that caliber like Michael Cheney probably would not have the time to do this for each buyer individually. So that's where I come in. I guess, this will help you more than piling up the bonuses.
I hope, my review was helpful to you. Just leave a comment here so I know what you think about it 
Tags: adsense, adwords, affiliate, affiliate project x, affiliates, day job killer, ebook, google adwords, internet marketing, internet marketing tool, mike filsaime, product launch, search engine optimization, search engines, traffic, websites
Posted March 21, 2008 
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