This is brilliant…

My wife Heloise showed me this only a few days ago and I couldn’t wait to try it out. (I’m one of those people who can’t leave a new gadget alone, I’m straight in there!)

And I have to say, I’m VERY impressed.

This is exactly the sort of tool I’ve been raving about since I took over the reins at Digital Upstart.

It ticks all the boxes….

• Free and easy to use
• It requires absolutely no technical skills
• Doesn’t rely on Google
• Lets you to turn other people’s content into traffic for YOUR products, website, services and reports.

To explain it, let me give you a quick scenario…

Let’s say you have a website on The Paleo Diet.

It’s not getting a lot of traffic and you have a tiny email list that you desperately need to build up so you can start selling products and making money.

This is a stage that a lot of people get to…

Unfortunately, it’s also the stage where many people give up in frustration.

Why? The old idea of “build it and they will come” is not enough anymore. It takes time and continual blogging to get Google to notice you and start pushing up the search rankings.

But there’s nothing more dispiriting than blogging to 20 readers, or emailing a list of 12.

So what can you do to accelerate the whole process?

The solution is to go out and grab your best prospects (metaphorically, of course) while they’re actively looking at content online, and then push them to your website.

This is known as a “call to action”. It’s a request for click on your squeeze page, look at your latest blog post, watch your brilliant video demonstration or buy your product..

And now there’s a tool that essentially lets you hijack other people’s articles with your own ‘call to action’…. for free and without their permission (they won’t even know about it).

For instance, just go back to my Paleo Diet example…

Let’s say you have a Twitter account and you have a few hundred followers.  You find a great article about the Paleo diet in the BBC news website and tweet a link to your followers.

Normally, anyone who follows your link to read an article would go to the site and probably forget who recommended it to them.

But now imagine that as they read and highly engaged with the subject they see a small banner appear in the bottom left corner of the page with your photo or logo that says:

It’s highly likely they’ll click and go directly to your squeeze page with your special free report.

Hey presto, you’re building a list.

Surely that’s better than waiting around for Google to notice you, then hope people drift to your site and sign up?

What’s more by appearing on sites like BBC you also benefit from the halo effect – the viewer subconsciously associates you with the site and so raises your perceived authority and expert status. 

Best of all, this is NOT a pop up ad

You don’t have to pay for it and it will only be seen by people who either follow you directly or have seen your link posted by one of your followers on their own social network feed.

Introducing Snip.ly

Snip.ly is a tool that that helps you drive traffic back to a website from articles that you share on social media.

It could be an article on Forbes, Mashable, TechCrunch, BBC, The Daily Mail, YouTube or a specialist blog in your area of business.

Whatever article you share, this tool will put a banner at the bottom of the screen with your own custom-made call-to-action.

This will sending readers to a specific page of your choice.

It could be a blog post, squeeze page, product page, subscription page – whatever you like.

In other words you can turn other people’s content into traffic without looking spammy or annoying readers with pop ups.

Snip.ly offer you 67 million colour combinations with various themes and a choice of where you appear on screen.

You can even upload a profile photo.

So this will look unique and professional without you going anywhere near a designer.

The only caveat is this…

You MUST be on social media. (Twitter is ideal for this, but also Facebook, Google+ or similar). Because it’s only the articles you share online that will have your banner.

But believe or not, this is actually an advantage…

Because if someone is already following your Facebook page or Twitter account, they’re already qualified prospects who are familiar with you. So they’re more likely to act when they see your call to action. .

The result is a neat piece of targeted advertising that hits your best prospects, and costs nothing.

Here’s how to try it out…

First go to Snip.ly and sign up. Ideally with your Twitter account if you have one.

Next, follow the short tour on the site (there’s a demo video, introduction and explanation of how it works.

Then give it a go. It’s really easy. Here’s an example.,,

Yesterday I found an article on Mashable about how Facebook is going to allow people to buy directly from a business’s Facebook page, effectively turning the social network into a direct selling shop front.

Fascinating stuff.

Here’s how I could use Snip.ly to direct traffic from that article.

As you can see, the application allows me to come up with my own message for the banner.

I can send people directly to the social media tips section of Digital Upstart, where I also have a sign up form for my email newsletter.

Or I could even create a special download on the subject of Facebook to better convert those readers.

Once I set up the link, here’s the Tweet as it appeared at the top of one of my Twitter account feeds (oh, yes this is a new one so please do follow me @nickupstart):

Here’s how the article looked with my banner blow:

No matter where the reader scrolls, that little call to action banner will stay in the bottom left.

Here are some suggestions of calls to action you could use:

• Drive the reader to a blog-post or article
  For 29 tips on how to avoid high bills –
  click here now
• Ask the reader to watch a demonstration
  Watch my free demonstration
  ‘How to build a vertical Garden’ – click here
• Push the reader to sign up for a free report or video series
  Read my free blueprint:
  ‘Etsy Profits in 7 Days – click here”
• * Get them to fill in a survey/take a quiz
  Take this quiz to find out if you’re on the right diet.
• Tell them to look at a sales page
  Shocking report on secret toxins in
  your cleaning products – click here

Do have a look – I think this is going to be HUGE, but is still well below the radar of most online marketers.

If you are on social media and have a website of any kind, you’re missing out if you don’t at least try it.

This could really push up your website traffic and build you an email database.

I’ll be back with more soon.