Nick's Traffic Tricks » money

Traffic is not enough (You need to make money!)

Nick — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:00:57 +0000

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

Make a plan

Writing Tools

Spread the word & get Traffic

Why affiliate marketing sucks (and how to fix it)

Nick — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:58:24 +0000

Photo by terren in Virginia

Let’s be honest here. For 99% of Internet marketers affiliate marketing sucks big time.

You spend a ton of time and effort and energy (and sometimes money) to send traffic to a sales page that isn’t converting any traffic into sales.

What a waste!

More traffic?

The solution is NOT sending more traffic to a sales page that doesn’t convert.

Traffic isn’t your problem; conversion IS your problem.

Unfortunately you have no idea what the conversion rate is for a sales page until you send a bunch of traffic to it.

Worse yet, once you determine that the conversion rate sucks, there’s nothing you can do about it because you’re just an affiliate.

How to fix this problem

The simple solution is to stop sending traffic to affiliate offers and instead send the traffic to your own email list sign-up page.

Once people are on your e-mail list you can test different affiliate offers to see how well they convert. If one of the affiliate offers converts poorly you still will have your e-mail list.

Get to know your list

Part of the problem with affiliate marketing is that you are trying to sell stuff to people without knowing what exactly they are searching for. You have no idea what problems and needs people have.

Through your email list you can interact with your subscribers and find out what they’re really looking for.

You can invite them to ask questions and expect answers. (If you go this route make sure you actually answer their questions!)

I have even bribed people with a free product if they simply ask me a question.

But how do you setup an email list?

I have several posts that show you how:

Why Doesn’t Amazon Want My Money?

Nick — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:05:15 +0000

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?

Video: How to Make Money with Your Blog

Nick — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 05:00:47 +0000

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

Video: How To Make Money & Get Traffic From Email Interactions

Nick — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:38:38 +0000

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 )

Video: Is Your Niche Profitable? How To Tell In 30 Seconds Or Less

Nick — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:59:16 +0000

Getting traffic is a good thing but are there advertisers willing to spend money on your niche?

Here a quick test that will take you 30 seconds.

6 Reasons Quality Content Receives More Traffic And Makes More Money

Nick — Sun, 23 May 2010 11:00:19 +0000

This is part of my 30 Days To More Traffic Video Series

Introduction

To say that quality content receives more traffic is an understatement. The truth is that quality content generates way more traffic. Some of my best blog posts have received a thousand times the amount of traffic as my average ones.

Here is why quality content gets so much more traffic.

1. Quality Is Rare

Believe it or not quality is rare. For every fantastic blog post you may read there are a hundred average ones published. It may not seem like it because you never hear about those average ones. In fact no one hears about them and they receive little or no traffic.

Even though there are millions of blogs out there I only visit 10 on a regular basis. I visit only the ones that consistently provide quality in the areas I am interested.

People have a tendency to find blogs that have high quality content and ignore everything else.

2. People will bookmark and retweet your stuff

Quality content is bookmarked by others and tweeted about on Twitter. It is submitted to Digg & StumbleUpon. All of these things generate massive amounts of traffic.

But the real magic is that quality content turns readers into people into spreaders. If I come across a great blog post I will often Stumble it and tweet a link to it. This results in more readers which in turn means more people are spreading the word.

It is this snowball effect, sometimes called ‘going viral’, that creates large amounts of traffic.

A few weeks ago I wrote a high-quality post called “How To Build Back Links Super Fast” and I submitted it to StumbleUpon. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of traffic the post received from StumbleUpon. It received 3 times as much traffic as any other post I had written.

If your content is average or mediocre none of this will happen.

3. People will subscribe to your RSS

Consistent quality can help you build up your RSS readership. And the more traffic you get the faster your RSS readership will grow.

Looking at the readership of Problogger we can see that there are well over 120,000 readers!

This readership rivals many newspapers in the United States. But unlike many newspapers Problogger has only been around a few years. This was accomplished with quality content.

And every time a new post appears over 120,000 people are notified. This results in tons of traffic!

4. Quality Means More Page Views & More Money

The average person will visit many more pages on a blog with quality content. And they will be more likely to revisit it later.

If you make money off of Google AdSense or other advertising then more page views means more money in your pocket.

In my experience quality content can generate 10 to 20 times as many page views.

5. Product Recommendations Have Credibility

Many people try to make money on the Internet by promoting different products. Some have gone as far as to actually buy the product and write a review of it.

But all of these people have trouble with credibility. How is someone going to trust what you have to say?

If you have a blog with quality content then you’ve already built a relationship of trust with your readers. If readers are impressed by what you give away for free then they are more likely to trust you and purchase recommended products.

This means more money in your pocket.

6. Building An Email List Is Easy

I believe the best way to build long-term traffic is to create an email newsletter that you send out periodically to your subscribers. Inside of each newsletter are links to different blog posts on your website.

But how do you get people to give you their email address and join your newsletter?

If you have a lot of quality content then this is easy.

Simply take some of your best work and create a short PDF that solves a common problem your readers have. 3-10 pages is all you need. The PDF should have a good title that promises the reader to solve a problem they have.

And anyone can get a free copy of the PDF when they join your email newsletter.

If you have quality content then your readers will trust you with their email address and join your newsletter.

Video: 1 Simple Way Your Website Is Losing Money

Nick — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:07:05 +0000

You put all this effort into getting traffic to your website but you’re probably losing money. Let me show you how.

Why you need return visitors if you want long-term traffic

Nick — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:48:36 +0000

Many people have asked

Why do I need return visitors? My site is nothing more than a sales page or product review with an affiliate link. Why go through all the trouble of building a community and answering peoples’ questions? All I need to do is drive traffic and get sales.

I have given some thought as to the best way to answer this.

The problem with selling products online is that anyone can put up a sales page. Anyone can become an affiliate for the same product you’re selling, build a website, and compete with you. Anyone can figure out how to optimize for the search engines. Pretty soon there are 10 or 100 different people selling the same widgets that you are.

And there will always be a least one person with a lower price then you. This competition will kill your profit.

How can you expect to rank high in the search engines when everyone is employing the same search engine optimization tactics as you are?

If you do the same thing that everyone else does you won’t get any traffic long-term. And you won’t make any sales.

You must stand out

The only way out of this madness is to stand out and do something that no one else does. You must give value in a way that no one else does.

In a nutshell you need to give people what they want.

If you’re selling a product that cures arthritis then you need to do more than just have a sales page (everyone has a sales page). You need to have a genuine product review that outlines the pros and cons of your product. You need to have videos of different people that used the product. You should also review other products that claim to cure arthritis. You must also have a place where people can ask questions and get answers.

If you’re trying to sell products that teach people how to make money online then you should give an honest and genuine review of different products available on the market. Your product reviews must be more in-depth and detailed than anyone else’s product reviews. Just as importantly people need the ability to ask you questions and get answers.

It’s about trust

In the title of this post I mentioned return visitors but in the end it’s not really about return visitors. They are a byproduct of building a relationship of trust with your visitors.

And trust is what really matters. Return visitors just happen to be a good way to measure how trusted you are. Sites like ProBlogger have built trust with a huge number of people (look at the number of comments people leave at ProBlogger).

Building trust takes tremendous effort on your part. No longer is it as simple as spending 1 hour to throw up a sales page. Instead you’ll spend many hours every week writing reviews, building valuable content, and answering peoples’ questions.

If people trust you…

They are 100 times more likely to buy something that you recommend.

They are the ones that will come back to your website for more information.

They are the ones that will tell their friends about your website.

They are the ones that will send a flood of traffic to your website via social media.

They are the ones that will ask questions. These questions will give you insight into what your visitors really need and care about. This insight will help you craft better content and select more targeted advertising.

Conclusion

It’s all about trust. Anyone can put up a sales page but very few people are willing to expend be emotional effort to build a relationship of trust with their visitors.

Ironically, it’s the ones who build a relationship of trust that make all the money.

Why I love DLGuard for managing & protecting the products I sell

Nick — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:33:06 +0000

Most people want to get traffic to their website so they can make money. And a common way to make money is by selling a product.

One problem people have is protecting their digital products from being stolen by online thieves.

When I first started selling my videos online I had a simple URL that I would e-mail to a customer after they paid. The URL looked something like:

http://nickstraffictricks.com/download_stuff/….

And anyone who knew the URL could download my products.

People Steal

Unfortunately some paying customers decided to distribute the URL to their friends and also post it on online forums. My download page was not protected.

Since then I’ve tried several different things and all of them have had problems. Either they weren’t secure enough or they were too secure and people have problems downloading what they purchased.

The last thing you want is to have a paying customer e-mail you and ask where there product is. It’s embarrassing and it’s happened to me several times.

I found DLGuard

I’ve posted several questions asking how to deal with this on the warrior forum and there were many recommendations for DLGuard.

So I finally decided to stop messing around with solutions that didn’t work and wasted my time. I bought DLGuard a few months ago and it works great!

I started using it to manage and protect one of my products just to make sure it worked and I now use it to protect everything I sell.

Price changes for my videos

This morning I changed the price of a couple products that I sell. In the past I was reluctant to make any price changes because it was a pain.

Before DLGuard I would have to login to PayPal and create a new “Buy Now” button and re-enter all of my product’s information (i.e. product name, shipping price, tax info, URL for the actual download, etc.) just so I could change a price.

When the “Buy Now” button was created PayPalwould give me a new URL to send customers to when they purchased. I had to take this URL and update my website with it. This way when people clicked on the “Buy” button they would be taken to the new URL with the new price.

DLGuard made it easy

Using DLGuard to change the price was easy. I simply logged in to my account, selected the product, and updated the price.

I did still have to go change the price of my website but that wasn’t very difficult.

The whole process took just a minute or two.

Other benefits of DLGuard

Some the other benefits of DLGuard are:

Secure single product sales
Built-in shopping cart
Create Membership sites
Expiring download links
Limit download attempts
Offer promotional coupons
Calculates sales conversion rates automatically
Template based for easy customisation
Automatic mailing list sign-up
Integrated with the major payment systems

But DLGuard isn’t for everyone

The biggest drawback to DLGuard is its price. Right now the price is $147 and that is too much money for a lot of people just starting out.

If you are just beginning your online journey and are trying to sell products it might be wise to first sell $100 worth of your products before you invest money in a tool like this.

However if you have some money to invest in your online business I highly recommend DLGuard.