Last week, when I attended module 3 of Alex Jeffreys coaching program, he announced that he was going to have a contest amongst the students and give away $1000 to the winner. He did not divulge the details until module 4 which took place this past Thursday evening.

I was seriously pumped up and couldn't wait to find out what the contest was all about. I ended up having to wait until late last night. I missed module 4 because I was at a Christmas party with my wife at PGA National resort, where she works. Boy was that a wing ding! (A story for another time)

Friday when I got home from my 8 to 5, the replay wasn't up on Alex's website yet so I checked in at some of my fellow students blogs to see if I could find out what the contest was all about. I gleaned that it was going to be who could drive the most traffic to their blogs over the next 2 weeks. Sounds like *productive fun*. I love the way that Alex motivates us to succeed by taking action.

I didn't want to start until I got all the details. I am taking the entire week of Christmas off so I will have more time then usual to take my shot at the $1000 prize. My wife gives cellulite reduction massages on the side and had several appointments so I took the kids to the park and the library for most of the day. After everyone settled into bed, I sat in my office and listened to the recording of module 4.

I call it my office. It's a large walk-in closet that a desk just barely fits in and I have put up shelves to store all my internet marketing products and ebooks that I have bought and printed out over the last few years. It's quite the collection.

Back to the contest. Like I mentioned before, it's about driving traffic to my blog. The conditions are that you must prove your results with Google analytics and you must post about how you are driving traffic to your blog. Once again, Alex is helping his students help themselves. By posting your methods on your blog, all of the other students will be able to go to the other student' s blogs to see what methods they are using.

Alex has really put a lot of thought and planning into this coaching program. I have been immensely impressed since the beginning and it just keeps getting better. His recommendation for driving traffic is about visiting the other students blogs and leaving comments without *pimping* your blog. If you provide value, the traffic will come.

That is what blogging is all about. Be yourself and be helpful to others. People will respond in kind. Alex is a student of the guru's guru, Rich Schefren. One of his favorite quotes from Rich is "marketing makes selling superfluous". Don't sell, provide value and the money will follow.

I already have Google Analytics installed. That is how I know that since I started this coaching program, the traffic to my blog has increased by 643.55%. I have achieved this simply by taking action on everything that Alex has instructed us to do. Mostly, it has come from me going to my fellow students blogs and offering my help and making constructive comments.

In turn, they come to my blog and leave comments. Alex calls this technique "Oil Rig Hopping". The analogy is that your blog is an oil platform. It is a known fact that offshore oil platforms attract huge amounts of fish and sea life. The reason for this is that algae grows on the structure which attracts clams which attract small fish which attract bigger fish which attract even bigger fish which attract sharks.

Your blog is the oil rig. Your content becomes the algae and the clams which start to attract visitors. The more visitors leave comments and create a "buzz" about your blog, the more fish come to your oil rig. Eventually, your content will attract the notice of bigger fish, ie. successful internet marketers and eventually some of the gurus.

This is the technique that Alex used and enabled him to build some very powerful JV partners over time. With that said. I am going to concentrate on this technique to try and win the traffic contest. I am also going to branch out from our group of students and start commenting on other internet marketing blogs.

I am using a free tool called Comment Kahuna. This software goes out and finds high page rank blogs that have the no-follow feature disabled for their comments. This is very important for SEO when you are building backlinks. Google page rank is heavily weighted on backlinks. You want lots of backlinks from blogs with high page rank. That way some of that page rank is transferred to your blog. Using Comment Kahuna will serve a dual purpose: traffic and back links.

Another techinique that I am using is to submit my RSS feed to all the directories I can find. I am also submitting my blog to every blog directory I can find. I will continue to create more videos and to submit the videos to all of the video sites like YouTube and Viddler. This will get my blog's URL a lot of exposure which will lead to more visitors.

I use a lot of free traffic generating programs. I am going to pause all of my other ads and direct every scrap of traffic that I generate to this blog. There are too many to list here on this already to big blog post but I have a Hub page dedicated to all the ways that I get traffic for free. Take a minute to check it out. Some of the programs require very little effort and will gain you exposure simply by going about your normal business online.

I also have over 50 Hub pages and Squidoo lenses that I am going to put links on that redirect back to my blog. This is part of my Web 2.0 traffic strategy that I am going to reveal more of in the next couple posts. I am putting together something that is going to enable all of my fellow students, and any one else that wants to participate, leverage the power of social marketing. I am going to call it the "Web 2.0 Whammy".

Alex has mentioned this several times but I don't think the majority of my fellow students realize the power that is within our grasp if we work together. I hope to finish Web 2.0 Whammy before Christmas. If everyone implements it, we are going to see the hit counters on our blogs spin out of control and we are going to dominate the search engine results.

That's enough for now. Stay tuned for some videos on how I'm driving traffic and how to get more exposure for your blogs.