Getting traffic is only half the battle. Turning visitors into money is the other half. Unfortunately most people are unable to look beyond the I just need more traffic half of the equation.

Steve Scott has written an informative post that will show you 8 ways to to turn your traffic into money.
Read: 8 Ways to Make Money with Niche Sites

Created by Seo.com (Larger version available here)

For 99% of people reading my blog, traffic is not an end goal but rather a means to an end. At the end of the day you want traffic that will make you money, right?

Today I am sharing a few resources that will help you grow your business and make you money.

Pick a product

• 7-point Checklist For Bloggers Who Want to Create a Profitable Blog
• How To Create A Product That Sells
• The 80/20 Rule For Making Money
• 20 Ways to Make More Money from Your Blog
• Finding Profitable Niche Keywords Through Market Samurai
• Top 10 Reasons Your Online Business May Never Be Successful…

Make a plan

• I Need $1000! THE 30-Day Plan for Making Fast Internet Income
• 6 Months to Full-Time Blogger? Find Out Exactly How James Clear Did It
• How to Find a Great Domain Name for a New Blog and Set it Up in 15 Minutes
• 3 Mistakes That Kill Product Sales (Even Before You Start Selling!)
• 61 Free eBook Downloads for Mastering Your Internet Lifestyle Design

Writing Tools

• 10 Rules For Writing An Effective Sales Letter
• 6 Tips for Dressing Up Your Product Reviews

Spread the word & get Traffic

• 7 Actions that Increase Blog Traffic by 25.3% [Traffic & Conversion #1]
• How to Get More Eyeballs on Your Affiliate Links
• How to Create Blog Posts Your Readers Can’t Resist Sharing: 3 Cool Ways to Give Your Content Wings
• Seth Godin on Blogging and Productivity
• How To Use Twitter For Exponential Blog Growth
• Holy Twit – Increased Tweet Volume Drives Results
• Giving Free Content to Generate Business
• How To Place A Video Opt-In On Your WordPress Homepage
• Is Your Website Focused Too Much on Yourself and Not On Your Audience?
• 3 Ways To Convert Visitors To Subscribers And Reduce Your Blog’s Bounce Rate
• 3 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates and Increase Conversions
• The 11 Core WordPress Plugins Just Ask Kim.com Depends On!

Photo by stevoarnold

Some people think that just because blogs are known for brevity, it means they don’t have to put any meat into their content. Actually, the exact opposite is true – you have a very short span of time to create value for your readers.

Here’s what you need to do if you want your blog to build your subscriber list, convert sales and brand you as an expert in your niche:

1. Less is more.

Blog posts aren’t meant to be scrolling on for 24 pages like a sales pitch does. People want quick tidbits of information they can put into action immediately. Stick to 250-400 words per post Max.

2. Create your headlines and content with both search engines and human visitors in mind.

Yes, you want to use keywords in your blog posts, to attract SE spiders so their users can find you! But you also want to write for your human audience, so make sure your headlines are appealing and your content isn’t so stuffed with keywords that it’s awkward to get through.

3. Use bullet points or numbered lists so your visitors can quickly scan your blog for good information.

Just like a sales letter, bullet lists are what readers quickly turn to when they want to know whether or not your site is worth reading in-depth. Magazines use the sale technique, so emulate their style.

4. Don’t be all over the map.

Have a plan in place for your blog posts and be consistent with your voice. If you outsource to freelance writers, then make sure you edit the post so it matches your voice before you make it public.

5. Use your blog as a pre-sell hot spot.

This is your platform to voice your opinion and warm up your audience. Nothing will excite your readers more than your passion for the product, so make sure it comes through – and don’t forget to add your links!

If you employ the five fundamental blog post techniques, you’ll be catering to the needs of your target audience. Brevity and bullet points help them save time while still getting value.

Crafty headlines with just enough keyword-laden content will serve as perfect attractors for the search engine bots and your visitors will see your enthusiasm shine through so that your links keep the sales funnel flowing.

We’ve entered an era where peer socialization and personal recommendations trump hard hitting sales copy, so you have to take care to ensure that your blog follows the perfect formula for success.

Photo by woodleywonderworks

What I wish I had known when I first started in Internet Marketing…

At the core of making money online is 2 things:  traffic & conversions.

Without traffic to your sites you’ll never make money.

And all the traffic in the world will do no good if it never converts.

Learn all you can about these 2 things.  Become a jedi master at these.

Build an email list and you’ll be able to dramatically increase your traffic and conversions.  My email list is a great source of traffic for me.  I also use it to increase conversions for things I am selling/promoting.

Partnering with others can help you build your list quickly, which leads to more traffic and conversions.
Partnering with others can help you get more traffic.
Partnering with others can help you increase your conversions, build your credibility, and build your brand.

Build a network of people who are good at things you are not.

Build a brand.

Every web page you build should have a purpose.  It may be to get people to opt in to your list, sell a product or whatever.  Before you build a page define its purpose and that will define how you should be build/layout the page.

Test, test, test!  Think your squeeze page converts as well as it can?  You’ll never know until you test.

Be remarkable.  Do something that gets people talking about you.  Seth Godin explains this well in an 18 minute video:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/seth-godin-sliced-bread-and-other-marketing-delights/

Presentation is everything.  The best prooduct doesn’t always win, but the best presented product frequently wins.

Read the Warrior Forum frequently.  Everyday people post gems that will help you be more successful.

Ask questions. Ask lots of them.  Just remember specific questions get specific answers.   If you ask something like “How do I make money?” you’ll get answers like Sell stuff or Make a product and build a list.  These are not very helpful to a newbie.

Play nice.  Sounds cheesy but a little kindness goes a long way.  Be nice to people who are jerks too.

Take the time to learn a few basics on the topics: HTML, CSS, SEO, copy writing, buying a domain, how to host your domain, FTP.

Treat others the way you wanted to be treated.  If you want to be paid for your hard work then don’t look for ways to cheat others so you can save a buck.

There are lots of people making money online.  Read what they are saying but more importantly watch very carefully what they DO.  It’s their actions that are lining their pockets with gold.

There is a ton of money to made connecting people with other people or products.

Sites like myspace, facebook, classmates, etc connect people with other people.

Sites like ebay, craigslist, amazon, half, froogle, etc connect people with products.

Sites like Warrior Forum, google, wikipedia, digg, cnn, etc connect people with the information they’re looking for.

Read More about connecting people with people/products/information
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html

Don’t re-invent the wheel!

The idea is simple: Don’t work really hard figuring something out when you could look at someone who is really successful at this thing and do what they do.

If you want to have a top ten rank on Google for the search term Poodle Manicures then search Google for Poodle Manicures and take a close look at the sites that come up in the top ten. These are your competition.  What kinds of things did they do to get ranked so high.  (i.e. How many pages do they have?  How often do they update their content?  How many incoming links do they have?  How long do they have their domain registered for?)

Continue learning online and offline.  I just finished the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini.  This incredible book changed the way I see marketing.  I read it because it was recommended by several people on the Warrior Forum.  If you don’t what to read, ask for suggestions.

Take action.  Reading more books/forums/etc won’t do any good if you never take action.

Focus on thing and do it well. (One of my biggest failings!  I am easily distracted.)

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What do YOU wish you had known when you first start in Internet Marketing?

This has got to be one of the best ways to monetize your blog or any website.

It’s super simple but be warned- it does take a little effort on your part.

Thanks to Gary Vaynerchuck for a great video!

Photo by Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel

Last night my brother-in-law came over to discuss a new business plan with me. He and a friend want to start an online business and wanted my advice.

My advice mostly consisted of a series of questions that everyone needs to ask before they begin a business.

1.  How much money do I need to make for the business to be worth my time?

If you can work full time and make $30,000 a year then it doesn’t make sense to start a business that will make you less money for the same amount of work.

In fact starting a business is a risky venture and so you may have to be able to earn twice as much money for it to be worth your risk.

Before you build the business you must decide how much it must earn to be worth your time.

2.  How much time, money, and other resources in my willing to commit to the business?

Building a new business often requires some money invested and a lot of time.

If you’re building an online business then you may need to register a domain ($10 for one year), pay for hosting (say $10 a month), and pay for an auto responder service like Aweber (about $20 a month).

The total cost of these items is $10 up front about $30 a month. That’s a total of $370 for one year.

Whatever your business is, you need to understand what the startup costs are going to be. This way you can make an educated decision whether you are comfortable with these expenses.

Be sure to break it down into monthly costs and the total cost for one year.

If you’re not sure what the cost would be then find someone who has run a similar business and ask them for a detailed list of the various expenses to start your business.

Another thing you must consider is your time commitment. How much free time are you willing to commit to this business? And where will that time come from?

If you determine that running your site business requires 20 hours a week and you can only commit to 4 hours a week in your business will probably fail.  You need to be realistic about how much time you really can devote to a venture.

3.  What is the product that I’m selling?

You need to find a product to sell. And it needs to be something that people will buy.

You may decide to sell a physical product online. In this case the product you’re selling is obvious and it’s easy to track your success. All you have to do is track the number of widgets you have sold.

If you decide to build an information website and make money off of advertising than your product is actually the advertising space that you sell.  Selling advertising space can be tricky if you don’t have much traffic. To be successful at this you must match the advertisements to the visitors on your website. You must also put the advertisements in locations where readers will see them without annoying your readers.

4.  How many products do I need to sell?

If your goal is to make $5000 a month and you sell widgets for $5 and you need to sell 1000 widgets to meet your goal of $5000 a month.

This works out to 34 widgets sold every day. Is this goal reachable for you? Is this realistic?

5.  Who will be my customers?

In order to sell stuff you must have customers. Both who your customers be?

If you’re selling high-end golf clubs then you need to determine what kind of people would buy them. I’m guessing that the most common buyer of high-end golf clubs are wealthy men that are white and play a lot of golf.

If you’re selling a book that lists 10,000 baby names with their meaning and origin then your customers will be very different than the high-end golf club customers. They will most likely be women that are married and pregnant with their first child.

Whatever your product is you need to come up with a specific profile of your ideal customer.

6.  How will my customers find me?

Once you have identified the type of person is most likely to buy your product you need to figure out how that person will find you and buy your product.

How will they know they your product exists?

Putting up a simple website and just hoping that people will magically find it won’t get you anywhere.

Instead you should find out more information about your ideal customer. Where do they shop? What are they do for fun? Where did they go for advice?

People who buy high-end golf clubs spend a lot of time and money golfing on various golf courses. They might also be a member of a country club.  These places often have small shops that sell golf related paraphernalia. This would be a good place to sell your high-end golf clubs.

There are also golfing magazines, websites, and forums. All of these places would also be good to advertise on and sell your high-end golf clubs.

Individuals who buy baby names books might also shop at stores that sell baby cribs and baby clothes. For fun these people might go to the park and associate with other mothers of small children.

If they have questions about their pregnancy may go to online forums to get advice.

Figure out where your ideal customer spends much of their time and use that information to better market your product.

7.  How can I prototype the business to avoid unnecessary risk?

Beginning any business comes with some risk but there is things you can do to minimize your risk.

If you’re selling baby names books then I suggest paying to have no more than 10 copies printed.  Try to sell just those 10 copies even if you don’t make any money. The point in selling 10 copies is to prove your business model.

Once you’ve proven the business model then you can pay for 100 or 1,000 copies to be printed.

Another way to cut costs is with a website. If you’re just starting out and you don’t have any money then consider getting a free blog to host your website. Once you’ve actually made $10 then reinvest that money and buy a domain.

I’ve been a customer of Amazon.com for several years now and have spent hundreds of dollars at their website on books, movies, and music.

Until recently I had a wish list on Amazon with over 100 items on it. (Last week I deleted my wish list for privacy reasons but that’s a story for another time.)

So it’s safe to say that Amazon has a very good idea of what things I like and what items I am likely to purchase in the future.

Amazon is losing money

Every week I get at least one email from Amazon with their current deals and specials. Unfortunately for Amazon, I have absolutely no interest in 99% of the items they email me about.

This sort of mass marketing of the most popular items to everyone is the kind of thing I would expect from retailers that know nothing about me.

But Amazon is different! They have a long list of products that I have purchased in the past as well as a lengthy wish list.

They know exactly the types of books and movies that I purchase on a regular basis. Why aren’t they emailing me with offers and deals on these types of products?

They know that I recently purchased a Kindle and they have an excellent idea of what books, newspapers, and accessories that people buy within the first couple months of owning a Kindle. Why aren’t they recommending these things to me?

Don’t they want my money?

Yesterday’s email

Here is a screenshot of yesterday:

One of the products they are advertising in the email is the $139 Kindle, which is the exact same Kindle but I purchased a few weeks ago!

I recognize that the purpose of the email is to suggest gifts for other people but I was still very surprised when I saw that they emailed me an advertisement for a product that I just purchased from them.

100 times more likely to buy

If they email me with products that I’m actually interested in I am 100 times more likely to buy the item right then and there.

Why aren’t they doing this?

Don’t they want my money?

Darren explains how to legitimately make money from a blog using a long term view.

I probably make more money from email interactions than any other way. It’s also a good way to get traffic. (And feel free to email me anytime with your traffic questions: nickstraffictricks@gmail.com )