Menu
Considering how long I’ve been doing the whole “internet marketing” thing (over a decade), I get asked internet business questions all the time. Whether it’s at live events or via Facebook or another social media website, it’s a fairly constant thing. A short while ago, I spent over 2 hours answering questions on a call and realized that most of the questions I get asked are the same exact ones.
Assuming you may have some of the same questions, I thought it would be cool to post answers to the 5 I hear most often.
This is probably the question that frustrates me most. It’s normally asked like the answer should be a one word response. The truth is that this is an incredibly complicated question with an equally complicated answer. The short answer is that it every product or service will have a completely different “best” source of traffic.
The best source of traffic would provide you with the perfect customer. Someone that not only wants what you sell, but has a desperate need for it. This traffic source should provide you with not just customers, but raving fans that love you and want to buy EVERYTHING you sell.
To find this elusive customer, the first step is to identify them. You need to know exactly who they are. You need to speak directly to their situation. Your marketing, sales messages, and any other forms of communication you use need to focus on them.
The first step to identifying them is to think about where they go and use those websites to figure out more about them. Quantcast can be a gigantic help with this if a site has been “quantified”. I’ll use TMZ.com as an example:
This helps with language you should be using, the nature of your sales messages (if they’re spending time on TMZ, it would be helpful to match the type of messaging they use), and gaining a better idea of who you serve.
Once you’ve identified them, you need to find them. Alexa.com will give you ideas. It’s owned by Amazon and they have a ton of data they’re willing to share with us. Throw your primary competitor’s URL into Alexa and they’ll provide you with data including what sites are referring traffic their way, what sites link to them, and similar websites. Some of those sites may offer advertising options or accept content that they’ll post to their audience for you.
Once you have this data, it’s time to start testing strategies. The first choice is whether you want organic traffic (free) or paid traffic (costs money). If you’re starting with little money to spend on advertising, organic traffic is going to be your obvious choice. If you have a budget, paying for traffic provides instant visitors. Either way, you choose to risk money or time.
Finally, get to testing out different strategies. I can’t dictate where to start or where you’ll finish. The path you choose to take makes no difference. It will take time and testing to get it right and find your traffic “holy grail”. Never give up and if something doesn’t work it’s just a test that didn’t work out. Keep at it and you’ll find the one that works best for you, your skills, and your audience.
Again, super complex question with a long list of possibilities. It’s nearly impossible to give a precise answer without seeing the website in question. Instead, I’ll give you a few things to consider that will help you fix the problem:
Is your on-page SEO setup right? This is where ranking in Google begins and if you do it wrong, it can be where it ends, too. Images should be named accurately and with keywords where appropriate. Pages should be named accurately and with keywords where appropriate. Titles should be accurate and contain your keywords where appropriate. Highlighting should be natural and focus as much on conversion as SEO. Notice a common thread here? Your best bet is to focus on creating a great page.
Is your site socially viable? Are people spreading around your content? Is your website valuable enough to your audience that they recommend it to others? If not, you need to figure out how to make that happen. The easiest way to do that is to create solutions to any barriers that would get in the way of people buying from you. That’s the same type of content that gets shared.
Are you getting the right links pointing to your sites? Socially viable content will also generally attract links just for being awesome. Building links for the sake of building links is a dead process. Article marketing, press release marketing, and things like blog commenting as a way to drive links is a bad idea (at least doing it the way we did it in 2007). Instead focus on getting quality links from quality sources. The more authority links you get the better.
Is there a penalty against your website? If you have had your website for more than 2 or 3 years, odds are you used some very “old school” link building strategies that are now frowned upon. If that’s the case, you’ll want to develop a list of the old style links and use Google’s disavow tool. Here’s a video showing how to do it right:
Are you a trend chaser? If so, I’m guessing that your business is nearly nonexistent…
Trends can be great traffic sources, but a very low percentage of the “big things” you try are going to pan out into real businesses in the end. I’ve been testing some automated Amazon affiliate products for over a year. I’ve made roughly double what I’ve spent on the products, but barely. Also remember that I have a far deeper knowledge base than most people…
Fulfilled by Amazon products, Autoblogs, Blog networks (private and public), Kindle publishing, T-shirt selling, and who knows what else. Any trend is going to be a goldmine to a small percentage of people. For most, it will simply be a massive waste of time.
Instead of worrying about trends, find an audience to serve, products and services they want AND need, and a unique selling proposition that speaks to the specific group of people you’re looking to serve. Not only will you be a lot happier, the odds of you succeeding go way up.
Once you have that sorted out, figuring out a way to take advantage of new opportunities and feed any new customers into your current sales systems is worth trying.
This problem is based upon two main issues:
Crappy offers
AND
Message to market match
Either of the two will kill any chance of making sales.
Your message is the core of what you’re selling. It’s needs to be convincing to your audience and should enter a conversation they’re already having with themselves.
In my personal experience, the sales copy I think will perform best is almost never the best performing. The key is to test everything. The offer. The headline. The bullets. The close. The post script…
Let your audience tell you what they need to hear to buy what you sell. Test EVERYTHING.
If your message is wrong, change it.
If you can afford it, hire a copywriter. If you can’t afford the best, ask one of them for one of their students. You’ll get insight into your messaging from one of the best at a drastically lower expense.
When you have a bad offer, nobody will buy what you’re selling. If it isn’t working, change it.
Only a few percent succeed at this internet business thing. Instead of telling why you’re not getting into that small group, I’ll tell you a few things you need to get there:
Persistence – It’s good to know when to give up or stop wasting time on something, but the moment you give up could be the moment you’re about to break through. It’s a delicate balance, but you’ll be better served by sticking to a project until you make it work than giving up on it. This applies to traffic strategies, too. If you aren’t making it work, figure out how to make it work and then, MAKE IT WORK.
Discipline – This is the one that gets me most often. You have to force yourself to get things done. Not just anything, but the right things. My solution to this problem is to break down a project into the smallest possible pieces. A sense of accomplishment will usually be enough to drive me to finish things up and instead of focusing on the end result I’m working towards, I do better when focusing on each small piece.
Value – Are you providing measurable value to your customer? If so, how? Identify this and it makes it easier to sell your products and services, too.
Differentiate – “Me too” products and services die every day. Most of them should. Do something to make yourself different from your competitors. A crazy guarantee, personalized service, better bonuses… Do whatever you can to be different in the eyes of your customers because that’s what will get them to come back.
Passion – Do you love what you’re doing? If not, stop. Find a way to make money doing what you love and it becomes a pleasure to do the work. It stops being work…
When you’re ready to test out whatever changes you put into place, we’d be more than happy to help with traffic. Discover if the traffic you can get from TrafficForMe is the right traffic, click here.