Over the past two months, I have been blogging regularly. I have been asked for blogging advice by many of my mentoring students. It has been difficult for me to teach much about blogging because I don't feel like I know much about it yet. It is much easier for me to teach about things I know.
I noticed that this blog almost made it to the top 10,000 most visited sites on the Internet today, according to Alexa. Many of the methods that are unique to blog promotion have been successful for me.
The time seemed right for me to write a post about blog promotion, BUT WAIT! My blog hasn't even been explained yet. It wouldn't be feasible for me to get traffic to your blog without explaining why I have one and you should have one as well, could it?
Let's look back at my past. You don't see me offer many of the tools you see today because I got started online without them. There were no products in my possession. The copywriting skills I possessed were nonexistent. Based on my search engine ranking data, I initially achieved success on the Internet.
In this case, I would create high-ranking websites for some markets, then sell the traffic generated from those sites directly to those who had copywriting and product ability. Evidently, I no longer recommend that. Knowing how to get traffic is multiplied when you have your own product and copywriting skills. Currently, I focus on all three aspects of your Internet business, and I recommend that you do the same.
Traffic, however, should not be underestimated. Here's something you might find interesting. Is there anyone rich in the world? Yes. Bill Gates. Software is what he sells. It's a good business to be in the software industry! Please keep that in mind. What are the three most popular sites on the Internet? If you don't know, check Alexa. Don't worry; don't check. Here's what I'll tell you:
1. Yahoo
2. Google
3. MSN (Microsoft)
Take a look at the third one. Bill Gates (the richest man in the world; remember?) founded that company. In the #3 spot, he is wasting time on the Internet.
Let's take a leap here. What do those three sites offer? Let's take a minute to think about this. An exam is coming up.
Yes, that's right. They sell the traffic (or mostly sell traffic, Yahoo and MSN are a bit more diverse than that). How interesting. The richest man in the world who goes that route by selling software now wants to sell traffic.
That was a diversion. We'll talk about it later. I would like to tell you about my experience selling traffic (which is still the majority of my business). There was a mistake on my part. Under corporate names, I sold traffic anonymously.
My traffic customers do not know who I am. XYZ Corporation just buys traffic from them because it converts to sales for them. XYZ Corporation does not have a personality. It is fully automated, and most of my customers seem to like it that way.
A couple of years ago, I tried to change that. I sent them emails explaining how to make the most of my traffic service. It was too late for me. I didn't know them, and they didn't want to hear from me.
Then I tried one last time (I'm glad I did) by offering them a special on traffic that month. I think I got a two-for-one deal or something. My customers purchased new campaigns over 25% of the time. With that email, I made over $60,000 in one day. What a great idea! Nevertheless, I do. I can make thousands of dollars in a single day by writing just one email. That appeals to a lot of marketers.
Your customer list is incredibly powerful! It is possible to convert 25% of your existing customers into customers of another product if you can convert 2% of strangers into customers with a sales page. What a powerful statement!
Another product worked for me. The product was good. I owned it. Customers bought traffic based on search engine research themselves. My offer was to teach them how to generate the same traffic I was selling to them. The project failed miserably. Nobody bought. Several other products were tried. There is nothing. Why?
There were some responses that I immediately recognized. I did not know them even though I wrote under their company name. That's what I said. My company knew them, not me. They knew my company delivered great converting traffic, but they didn't know who I was. The endorsement of one company by another isn't very powerful. An endorsement from a person is much more powerful.
As a result, I went on to do the Freedom Events. You know how they ended. It appears that they sold out based on endorsements from a few reputable Internet marketers. It was a lesson learned. You need one of the following to get that 25% number:
1. To market your company to your customers and sell a special offer on the product that your customers already know about.
2. To be able to market to your customers as a person and selling a special offer on any product that you personally endorse and have never given a bad endorsement for.
To do the latter, I wanted to work with my own customers, not those of another Internet marketer.
What is the best way to accomplish that? In my opinion, a blog is a perfect vehicle for this. I also promote this blog because I sell products (and cross-promote them on the owner's pages). During the process, I do it very early on. In addition to being mentioned on the owner's page, it is also mentioned in the first email most people receive after purchasing one of my products.
My product is sold by a stranger, but I point them (you) to this blog as soon as I announce myself as the one who created it.
Likewise, I don't hide my blog behind a corporate image. My products are sold to a corporation, but do you even know who that corporation is? How important is the name? I'd like to know you better. The purpose of this blog is to serve that purpose.
Several people are now finding this blog before buying one of my products. That's fine too. People sometimes buy a product based on its sales page. The author's reputation for producing only high-quality content makes some people buy. Some people have a combination of these reasons.
Having a blog is a good idea, then. Your blog should be created between your third and fourth product in your primary market. My blog was created at that time. Also, this is when you want to start cross-promoting your 3 or 4 products on their owner's pages.
The following are some other things I think are important:
1. Register the domain name for your blog.
2. Write your name at the top, not a cutesy blog name.
3. Share yourself with the world. You should not treat your blog like a customer service rep answering the phone for a large company never revealing anything personal about yourself. Communicate with your customers as if they were dear friends. Keep your phone number and address private on the blog, but tell me what you are worried about going public on the blog? Learn about your blog readers.
4. Post regularly. It is very easy to get into the habit of doing something daily or hourly. Getting into a habit on a weekly or monthly basis is much more difficult. Your blog readers will get into the habit of reading your posts if you post at least daily.
5. Don't worry about giving away your products' secrets. That's why I only sell software, videos, and mentoring products right now. You can't give away too much in your blog text by accident. Video and software are both more robust mediums than text. Despite my ability to explain in words all day long how to do something, it will still be helpful to buy the software to automate that task or buy the video to actually see how it is done.
6. Add a subscribe link to your blog (and all of your content sites). People will want to follow your blog but won't remember. When you post new content, you should be able to send them a reminder. Over time, this will lead to a dramatic increase in repeat visitors.
Ok; I think that answers the question about why I have a blog, why you should too, and how you should set it up. I will now jump into the specific ways to get traffic to a blog that only exists for blogs, not other types of sites. Next time, I'll write about this.
Now that you have a domain name, get WordPress installed on it. Subscribe to our newsletter. Then, submit the article to Artemis Pro and mention your blog in the resource box. I started just over two months ago, and as of today, I am almost in the top 10,000 most visited websites on the Internet. Let's see if you can beat me in the next couple of months.
