You’re trying to build a business. You’re trying to grow your email list. No one knows who the hell you are and you have absolutely no track record.
You’re probably going crazy creating new content and you likely feel like you’re working for free.
Maybe you’re pitching guest posts or making comments on other blogs hoping to get some traffic and eye balls on your site.
Or, maybe you just sit staring at your computer hoping for some kind of inspiration because you literally have no idea where to begin.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen and heard the same advice – ask your friends and family to share. Bullshit. Folks, your friends and family are there to cheer you on. Chances are, they don’t give a lick about what you have to say. And even if they did, I’d bet dollars to donuts that they are so far from your target market you could drive several thousand trucks through it.
People talk about SEO like it’s the end-all-be-all of figuring out traffic. There’s value in SEO, but darling, getting new content on your site every day or every week isn’t going to pop you to the top of Google’s search rankings.
Getting traffic and converting that traffic is all that truly matters. I know I have a lot of beginners that read my site, so let’s get some of the preliminary stuff out of the way first.
Step 1: Build a proper stinking website.
In my Target Market Bootcamp, I talk about how you shouldn’t do one solitary thing in your business until you know who your target market is. (Trust me when I tell you that you’ll move further, faster if you listen to the advice in the bootcamp) But I know that not everyone is going to follow that advice. If that’s you, then the first thing you need to do is get up a proper website. What does that mean?
i) Get some kind of email marketing system. I highly recommend using Active Campaign. If you really can’t afford the $9 a month after the free trial, then go with Mailchimp.
ii) Get a proper domain name. Get WordPress. No free websites. You’re building a business and businesses are going to cost you money. If you want a great deal, check out Hostgator.
Step 2: Create a lead magnet
I gave away a freebie on creating alluring lead magnets a few weeks ago. If you missed it, grab it here. This is an important step because just putting “sign up” or “subscribe” as your hook to capture email addresses just isn’t going to work. People are protective of their privacy and they don’t want to give away their emails for any old reason. Ideally you’ll use something like Amazon S3 to distribute your links, but if that’s not possible, then just do it through Dropbox. You can get a free account to get started and use the share link to provide access to the lead magnet.
Step 3: Give them somewhere to subscribe
The best place that you can put your subscribe button on your page is on the top right hand corner. Create the best looking graphic that you can for this because we want it to stand out and attract their eye. Try using Canva if you’re not a designer. If that doesn’t work, give someone on Fiverr a few bucks to create something for you. I also want you to put the opt in at the bottom of each blog post.
Driving Targeted Traffic To Your Website
For those of you who skipped really determining your target market, this is where things get dicey for you. In order to drive targeted traffic to your website, you need to know who you want there. For some of you, this might even figuring out who you really are. What or who are you going to be to your readers?
One of my favourite ways to drive traffic to my website is with Facebook conversion ads. I started with a really tiny budget, I’m talking only a few bucks a day, and drove traffic straight to my opt in landing page. Shortly after the ad began running, I was getting email after email with new subscribers coming from that ad.
You can also drive free traffic from Facebook over to your page by creating quality content to engage readers on your page and occasionally sending them back over to your website to subscribe or read more of your great content.
I do still like guest posts. But you have to do it with some kind of plan of attack. To this day, this post from The Art Of Simple is still sending me 50 or 60 people every week and it’s almost 6 years old. If you’re going to offer to do a guest post, make sure that you know something about THEIR target audience to make sure it matches who you’re looking for. Make sure that the traffic on their site is going to be worth spending the time to write the article. What I like more is upping the stakes and creating something more modern to this approach. Offer to do a webinar or a podcast appearance for their audience.
Over the next month, I want you to come up with a plan to create only 1 or 2 pieces of good quality content. Where I want you to spend your time thinking of how to promote that article.