by Ana Hoffman 85 comments

Why Traffic Generation Cafe Is NOT Doing As Well As It Should…



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danny iny marketing that worksA young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his expensive wool vest and said,

“Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression.

I was down to my last nickel.

MARKETING was the key to my success.

I invested that nickel in an apple.

I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.

The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples.

I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents.

I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $9.80.

Then my wife’s father died and left us two million dollars.”

Marketing IS the Key to My Success

I bet you two shiny apples that you can wait with bated breath all you want, no one is leaving you two million dollars.

And I definitely know that it ain’t gonna happen to me.

You and I are stuck polishing apples for the rest of our lives.

So we better learn…

  1. where to find the cheapest apple supplier,
  2. find the apples that have the most potential to become shiny,
  3. make them as shiny as we can,
  4. and quickly sell them so that we make enough money to repeat the process with more apples.

And that, my friends, is what’s called the “CHAIN OF CONVERSION“.

If any one of these steps is broken or missing, our apple business will go down the drain.

It’s very clear and obvious to all of us, isn’t it?

So how come so many businesses close doors on a daily basis?

How come most business owners still suffer from:

  • No customers
  • No money
  • Too much stress
  • Inability to find the problem
  • Inability to fix the problem
  • Despair
  • Giving up…?

What I Didn’t Know About Marketing Was a Lot

Even though Traffic Generation Cafe is doing much better than most blogs both in terms of traffic and income, I am still struggling to stay above the water, let alone get ahead.

And I still go through the motions of asking myself all the questions above.

Then I hosted a webinar with Danny Iny where he explained that marketing is really about the chain of conversion.

Marketing is about turning strangers into leads, then customers, then repeat customers.

And if any one of those links is broken or missing, our businesses suffer or even shut down.

The webinar was so good that I wanted to share it with all my readers.

It’s about 2 hours long and is PACKED with actionable advice on how to identify the bottlenecks in our businesses and fix them.

It also have a great Q&A session at the end – interesting questions asked and answered.

So grab a cup of coffee, a notepad, and prepare to take your business to the next level.

(Click on the image to go to Danny’s blog to listen to the webinar)

marketing that works webinar

Just to be clear, this is not a “pitch-fest” webinar.

Yes, Danny will mention his training at some point, but the webinar is going to be mostly content.

He’s going to share the “chain of conversion” framework from his program, that he uses with his own clients, plus several real live case studies.

And here’s another live case study in the making: Traffic Generation Cafe.

Discovering my Bottlenecks

Listening to Danny’s presentation helped me to understand why I am having certain problems with my blog and what to do about them.

I am pretty good at using tactics to get traffic into the door.

However, one of my bottlenecks is the fact that I never profiled or targeted my traffic.

I mean I thought I did.

My targeted market was every webmaster of all trades who needs more traffic to their sites, which is basically every living and breathing business owner online.

Wrong.

I’ve got some work to do to find my IDEAL customer and build my blog around that one customer.

In the past, I’ve read a lot (and even written some posts) about the importance of narrowing down your target audience.

However, I never realized that not doing it OR doing it wrong would have such a significant impact on my bottom line.

Lesson learned.

So, if you haven’t already listened to the webinar, stop listening to me (after all, I am just a student, like the rest of you) and start listening to Danny Iny, who actually know what he is talking about.

==>Click Here to Watch the Webinar Now

Marketing Takeaway

I can’t say it any better than Mandy Swift, one of my gracious readers and Danny’s new “Marketing That Works” training program student, did:

“Funny how at the end of the day, no matter how much you ‘think you know’, it really is just so much easier to have a mentor to point out the obvious to you and keep you on track.”

I am with you, Mandy, and look forward to having Danny keep me on track.

How about you, my dear reader?

==>Click Here to Watch the Webinar Now

traffic generation cafe

Image credit: incredible action photo by Paul Cox.


traffic generation cafe comment below

Google+ Comments

{ 85 comments }

Clay Franklin April 4, 2012 at 12:27 am

I still need to watch the webinar. I have found that I am a perpetual student wondering what I want to be when I grow up. I am an internet marketer, but that is too broad. I also realized I am a parallel entrepreneur rather than a serial entrepreneur. Serial entrepreneurs are successful and achieve results faster. Parallel entrepreneurs work on too many things at the same time and most projects never get “done” they just get progress.
I’ve really been trained by the best, but I love to learn and help others more than I have liked to make a plan, implement the plan and then evaluate the results and adjust the plan to make it better based on the evaluation.
I have clients, too many websites, so much information I could write a book about Internet marketing and SEO or starting a business on line.
I have found that I am not alone in “not working on one thing to profit”.

Ana, I will be interested in seeing your quantcast demographics in an upcoming article on targeting the exact market and how it will increase your conversions.

Ana Hoffman April 4, 2012 at 9:57 am

Just got back from your blog, Clay – definitely see what you mean.

At least you know it. Only you can decide when it’s time to grow up!

Left you a comment, by the way, but it looks like your Akismet ate it (funny, the comment was about how much I don’t like Akismet).

Signed up for Quantcast; will do some research when I get results.

Janus March 5, 2012 at 9:51 pm

Hi Ana,

Thanks so much for sharing your honest thoughts. I’ve been thinking about the same question about your blog as well.

I feel that knowing the importance of finding your Ideal Customer is one thing, but knowing how to target and convert them is another thing.

I will go and watch the webinar and thanks for sharing!

Wish you more success!

Ana Hoffman March 6, 2012 at 3:59 pm

I don’t have as much problem converting, Janus, as targeting.

I need to start focusing on specifics more.

Karo Itoje March 3, 2012 at 2:06 am

Hello Ana, it seems I have accidentally sent two uncompleted comments before on this post. Apparently since I have commented here before my data has been auto filled, accidentally hitting Enter immediately sends the comment. I’m so sorry about this.

My eyes are starting to close after several hours of facing my screen and working. But I really wanted to share my thoughts on this, so I am forcing myself to stay awake.

Anyway, I just love how you introduce some of your posts. The first few paragraphs always keeps me interested and reading. You sure have the skill for engaging your audience. Nice one :)

Now to the topic at hand. I’m glad experience is teaching us better now. We are learning that it’s not all about getting the traffic, it’s how useful the traffic is to your bottom line.

It almost sounds simple. Find your passion. From your passion decide how you want to address the topic. Basically decide who your target audience are. It should be simple, but not always. Sometimes we think we know who our audience are but we don’t, not really.

I wrote a book sometime ago where I thought my target for the book was clear. But then I read Make Your Word Sell and realized it wasn’t. It’s like writing a book on: “How to Become a Millionaire in Nigeria (or whatever country) ” You think you’ve identified an audience. But in reality who doesn’t want to become a millionaire?

Having a clear target for your audience has really great benefits.

Easily know where to find your audience
Easy conversions
Low competition
Low bounce rate (as most visitors will be interested in your content)
And so on…

Funny enough recently I visited your blog and I was saying to myself that you were writing too broadly. But in truth, it’s almost difficult to stay on topic when blogging about blogging, make money online or related topics.

And it’s especially hard because blogs are not structured as theme based sites. They are often not keyword focused content.

A great benefit of identifying your target is that you can use your primary keyword to find related keywords in that topic that you can write on thereby keeping you on topic. I’ve writing at least 100 articles for my site, and I doubt if I ever written an article that didn’t address a particular profitable keyword related to my overall topic.

In fact I always advice my readers who are beginners to blogging to put great planning into their blog before starting it, including having a file of 100 or more well researched related keywords. So they start their blog and know topics their audience want. And the keywords to write about for at least some few months before looking for more keywords.

It’s a business and like every other business we learn regularly and sharpen our skills. I think you just need to take a few days (or at least a few hours) to think about your overall topic and decide where you’ll like to focus on.

I suggest shut down your laptop, go to a quite place and think about what goal you really want your content to achieve for your prospective selected readers and what goals you want to achieve for yourself. Satisfying your visitor’s goal must be able to fulfill yours for you.

Do this and then re-structure your blog. It’s going to take some work but it can be done.

If you know Onibalusi of YoungPrePro you’ll see how gradually he has been able to re-target his topic and restructured his blog accordingly. I was at his blog yesterday and was amazed at how much redesign he has done in terms of content restructuring, branding and design.

I know you’ll find a way, you’re smart. And whenever the process gets frustrating, remember that the eventual result will make up for it.

Aside knowing your audience, conversion is another thing. I mean even when we’re sure of our target audience, properly directing visitors to take our most wanted response is another thing.

I have stayed away from writing any new article for the last 2 weeks because I wanted to implement some conversion strategies so that more of my readers take my most wanted response; which in this case is subscribing to my list because I’ll be launching my first product in the next few weeks.

I also now have a survey ready for my visitors. I’m trying to see if they have any complains and also get more ideas on some value that might be lacking on my site; because if you want to make real money publishing online, visitor/customer satisfaction is extremely important.

The lesson here is balancing. Everything has to be given it’s share attention. Defining your target, researching your topic, writing, blog promotion, conversion and monetization.

And as for Jonathan above, I understand where he is coming from. I decided to write about blogging for beginners while knowing how competitive it was because there are many misconceptions I wanted to correct with my articles.

I longed for a place I trust that properly guided bloggers. Tell them exactly how things are, clear the misconceptions limiting many beginning bloggers from making money and show them step by step how to blog in other to make money.

I was excited starting my site and writing my first articles. But sometime ago I lost interest almost completely in the topic. I got tired writing knowing I am writing about a topic so many people were writing. Even when I have my own views, it’s still the same topic. And too many blogs blogging about blogging struggling to get noticed.

I just wanted something more fun to write about. Something that doesn’t have to be so carefully thought out before writing a post on.

When this happened I stayed away from my website for a few months and it suffered for it. Though traffic was steadily increasing, since my primary blog marketing strategy is search engine optimization. Google is my top traffic referral.

Anyway, I’m over that now. I only had to remind myself of the reason I chose the topic in the first place. I mean I didn’t just wake up one morning to set up the site. I planned it for a little over a month before actually setting it up.

My advice is: If you can find a sell-able way to re-target your topic, do so. If it seems too challenging for you, then start another site based on what appeals to you now. But not before learning all you can about how to target a topic, keyword research necessary and how to optimize your blog.

Wow, it turned out I spent about 3 hours just on this post!

Ana Hoffman March 3, 2012 at 8:29 am

This certainly could be a blog post of its own, Karo!

You are definitely right: NOTHING is ever as simple as coming up with an idea. Idea is the simple part. Putting it into practice and making it work is where the problems lies for most of us.

I think there’s a difference between who your chosen target audience is and who actually ends up landing on your blog.

If I narrow my focus and write for that one specific group, my bottom line will definitely grow.

However, in the process of writing for that one small group of people, other people land up on my blog as well and might become my well-converting audience on their own.

Also, I found it very useful to reverse-engineer your thought process starting with the product you are marketing and targeting your audience from there.

Like you mentioned, who doesn’t want to become a millionaire, right?

However, wanting and making it happen are two completely different things.

So the question to ask would be: out of all the people in Nigeria who theoretically would love to be millionaires, which group actually has the guts to give it a shot?

Anyway, working on our businesses never stops, does it?

Karo Itoje March 3, 2012 at 6:53 pm

I thought so myself :)

Ana don’t mind me. I tend to always get carried away when commenting. I am a very detailed person. It’s like when I write for my site too, I like to write out every idea or thought in my head about the topic at hand. I try hard to restrain myself from saying too much when commenting, but I still end up with a long post! I guess old habits die hard :) (though I wouldn’t say I want it to)

No matter how you try to optimize your site and pages you can’t avoid getting un-targeted visitors. But when you are targeting your audience well through the kind of content you provide on your site and post keyword optimization, most of your visitors will be very targeted.

And again when you are selective of the type of traffic generating techniques you use (using only the ones that brings targeted traffic instead of curiosity clickers) your visitors will be mostly the type you want.

But if after doing all that you still notice a particular keyword or group of keywords bringing visitors to your site that are off topic, then I guess it’s a sign that you should be blogging about that topic BUT elsewhere.

If the keywords interest you, then start another blog that will focus on them. If you have a site that is very targeted to a particular group, don’t suddenly go off topic because your stat is showing you’re getting visitors with those keywords. If you do that, then in the attempt to keep those few visitors, you’ll lose more targeted visitors.

For any business to really be profitable and serve a real value, it must provide real need of a small group. Trying to carter for any and everyone is detrimental to the business and to the needs of your loyal audience.

Ana, it’s only useful to re-engineer your thoughts and process starting with the products you are marketing and targeting your audience from there IF you already started marketing these products and doing well with them before trying to identify your real audience, like in your case.

When this is the case, or a beginner trying to start a blog that already had an offline business that sells product or services, yes it’s BEST to let the products or business you already started and love to determine your blog topic and your target audience.

But for a beginner wanting to start publishing online with no offline business or product interest, it’s best to let what you really love guide you in choosing a blog topic and the audience you want to target for the topic.

Hmmm…

Which group actually has the gut to give becoming a millionaire a shot in Nigeria theoretically speaking?

Well, I’ll say the average worker. I mean those with a 9-5 jobs (actually it’s usually 8-5 here except in a Government paid establishment where they do 9-4) whose salary can barely take care of them or their families.

But in reality these group would rather keep applying to other companies with the hope of getting a well paid job, instead of planning for an extra income source to complement their income.

Most of the well paid ones think they have it all and hardly listen or take action about creating an extra income. I wish they know how far they are from the truth!

And most of the very broke ones (colleague students and colleague graduates who are unemployed) think once they finally get that job, all their dreams will come true.

There’s a strong mentality of “I go to school, get a good degree, get a job in an oil company (or well paid company) and live happily ever after”. So even when it’s getting obvious that the job may never come or will take forever to come, they keep applying and hoping.

I actually wrote and published the book (in ebook): “How to Become a Millionaire in Nigeria” . It was 184 page long and covered how students, high earners, low earners, and the unemployed can become a millionaire in Nigeria. What can be broader!

I had a nice sales page and everything looked great. But I later put it down without promoting it for some reasons. One, after publishing I realized most Nigerians are still new to ebooks. They’ll prefer hard copy and I got asked for that, but I wasn’t ready.

Two: Information marketers including Nigerian info marketers have made titles like that seem like a scam. For you to really sell such title they must see very convincing proof that you are a millionaire yourself.

Finally, the topic covered was too much. And most Nigerians don’t like reading any book not required by the school curriculum for them to get their degree. Here we often say that the best way to hide a secret from a Nigerian is to put it in a book. And you can be sure that secret will never be exposed! That’s how bad it is. The lack of reading habit here is high.

So if I had thought much into it, I would have covered each target market separately over time. That way the book won’t be so bulky that it will scare them even further from reading. And if I do that it would be great for business. Imagine instead of writing one book and selling it for $27 or so, I write 4 or 5 books and sell each for same price. Nice right?

The first step to any business success as I am realizing more and more everyday is proper targeting. Don’t write one big book and try to cover everyone, break it down. The individual audience will appreciate it more because the benefit to them will be clearer. You will have the opportunity to make money from each small group. Talk about WIN WIN.

A lot of re-orientation needs to be done here anyway. And being one of the fortunate ones who is working from home, I am doing my best to re-educate those who give me the opportunity to.

Oh it just occurred to me the most likely group of Nigerians who would love to take action to become millionaires. They are the ones we call the Igbo speaking group. They are from the Southern part of Nigeria and God, they loveeee making money and living the good life.

But what I admire about these group is that unlike most Nigerians who dream at night everyday about living in money only to wake up and sleep back, these set of people don’t just love making money but they take the necessary action to make it happen. And another thing they look after their own. I mean an Igbo man climbing the corporate ladder or business ladder will see another Igbo man and say ‘climb with me, give me your hand’.

So hmmm… is this a possible idea for a book maybe? :)

“How the Igbos can do what they do Best – Making Money, But the Easy and fun way”

That’s long but surely will sound great to the Igbo man.

Damn! I got carried away again…

Take care Ana

Ana Hoffman March 4, 2012 at 8:03 am

That’s exactly how we should analyze our target market, Karo.

Love it how you thought it out… Many of my readers ask me how do they find their target audience – THIS is how!

As always, thanks for taking your time to make the comment section interesting to read.

Karo Itoje March 4, 2012 at 7:15 pm

Thanks Ana.

Sometimes it takes time to come to you. But if you think long and hard you’ll identify a very profitable target.

You know I am actually thinking of running with that idea later. I mean the title:

“How the Igbos can do what they do Best – Making Money, But the Easy and fun way”

If not that but something related for this group. And use the same way to identify what will fit some other group.

Chukwuka Okwukwe Chukwuka March 7, 2012 at 7:13 am

This is going to be a tough call although I’m not scared.

My question is this: Is a love/relationship audience distinct from a personal development/self-help audience? I currently have both in same boat. Should I buy a separate boat?

Karo Itoje March 7, 2012 at 6:26 pm

Yes Chukwuka, Love/Relationship is definitely a separate niche from Self-development/Self-help. Actually I don’t think the two topics have any relation.

It’s good to know you’re not scared of the task involved. Though for your case I doubt there is much task involved. It seems your blog is still new. You only have to take off the category for ‘Love & relationship’ and make sure your site clearly tells a visitor upon landing on your site what your site is about.

If we were having this discussion before setting up your site I would have advised against using that domain name ‘aboutmyway.com’. Apart from not helping your site’s keyword ranking, that domain name gives visitors no clue of what your site is about.

For example, just seeing the site name trafficgenerationcafe.com without getting to the site first, you already know what it’s about and you decide whether or not you want to visit. This alone reduces curiosity clickers.

And my domain name even though now I think it’s too long does a good job of telling a reader what the site is about before even reading a word from the site – blogging-the-beginners-complete-guide.com

So a domain name should also target your audience.

And I suggest you remove some part of the tagline on your header:

“relationship and love tips/tricks cures for phobias and fears”.

Relationship and Love is a big niche on its own that can even further be broken down into sub-niches. Such as:

Dating
marriage
courtship
And so on.

Jonathan Iguina March 1, 2012 at 6:26 pm

Ana,

You have made a terrific statement regarding marketing. We tend to get sidetracked at times and it’s so important to be focused. As a new blogger I am still learning and am greatful for transparent people like yourself. Thanks.

Ana Hoffman March 2, 2012 at 7:37 am

Glad to help, Jonathan.

Tiffiney Cowan March 1, 2012 at 12:32 pm

Ana, I always learn something when I read your blog! Thank you for maximizing the few moments I have to spend learning more about how to grow my online business.

I can relate to the struggles you’ve experienced in identifying your “target” audience. As a PLR content provider it does feel as though “every living and breathing business owner online” is my target audience. Clearly I have some work to do in identifying my audience. Thanks for the gentle push! :)

Ana Hoffman March 1, 2012 at 12:38 pm

I am amazed at how many online business owners, including me of course, don’t give their target audience nearly enough thought, Tiffiney.

Making more with less traffic – should be a great motivator, right?

Rob Calhoun February 29, 2012 at 10:27 pm

Hi Ana,
I’ve go an update to your apple story.

It was during the “Great Recession.” I laid out $1500 for a Mac. I started a blog and spent every waking moment either adding content, optimizing pages, getting backlinks, or thinking how I could do more of all the above. I typed so much that in a week I had every key polished to a high shine.

Then one day I asked a mentor how he got where he was. And he pointed out the simple thing I was missing.

We all need a mentor who’s been there and back and will take the time to help others on their first trip out. I enjoy the café and am looking forward to the tweaks to come.

Ana Hoffman March 1, 2012 at 12:20 pm

Very good point, Rob.

As a matter of fact, that’s what I am doing right now as well.

I am going to have Danny Iny take a look at my business and find any blind spots I might be missing.

It always pays to have an extra pairs of eyes to point out what you can’t or don’t have the experience to see.

Great story!

Sunil - Lead Generation February 29, 2012 at 10:04 am

Ana

thanks for introducing Z to me. excellent display of crowdsourcing at work here.

facebook is mostly made up on non entrepreneurial folks who are there because fb managed to penetrate to their emotional aspect.

Z, although a social network, seems to be intended from an entrepreneurial perspective, thereby will likely attract more entrep type folks.

the challenge is whether the network can make it as enticing and enjoyable of an experience as FB.

can you shed some more light on their affiliate program? do you get more vshares when you bring people into the network?

Ana Hoffman March 1, 2012 at 12:51 pm

I agree, Sunil – Zurker is better for business networking, which is precisely why it appeals to me.

FB has too much noise and too little focus.

As far as the affiliate program is concerned, if we can call it as such, yes – all you do is invite new members and you’ll automatically earn vShares for doing that.

You can always buy more shares in the future as well…

Jane February 29, 2012 at 6:51 am

Hey Ana, I’m so excited to know that I’ll see you on the inside. Even though I missed the webminar, I watched it later with the link you sent me and immediately took action. I don’t want to sell 2 apples the whole day for the rest of my life :)

Ana Hoffman March 1, 2012 at 12:48 pm

It’s the action-takers who get ahead in this business, Jane, and so glad you are one of them. That’s why you are doing so well!

And I see you have a new product out; good for you!

Troy Jaggard February 29, 2012 at 6:48 am

I still hope I think my blog isn’t doing well when I am getting this many comments :) .

With far less traffic than this we are still able to generate “local” leads which can be very effective and less competitive. It’s always important to includes cities in your searches since we find higher conversion on any client we have an opportunity to meet in person!

Ana Hoffman February 29, 2012 at 10:22 am

Comments don’t put the food on the table, Troy. lol

Yes, going local is the ticket for some of the niches; glad to hear you are taking advantage of it.

liz February 28, 2012 at 7:13 am

Hi Ana, you and Danny are definitely right. Traffic alone doesn’t spell automatic success with any site. It needs to be targeted traffic, and taking it a step further, the visitor has to be in the buyer-mode instead of information gathering or research mode. All this comes from proper reasearch on the webmasters part – to know which audience he/she is targeting and writing for.

Ana Hoffman February 29, 2012 at 10:54 am

Yes, if the first link is missing, then the entire chain will fall apart.

Lilibeth February 28, 2012 at 1:03 am

Love the apple story- will share that one around. Sorry that you are not keeping your head above water- I guess when you follow someone’s blog you begin to see them as not human (as in no ordinary problems).

In my head your biggest problem is people staring at you lovely red hair, you couldn’t possibly have human problems like mine- say guilt over eating icecream after dinner.

Ana Hoffman February 29, 2012 at 10:52 am

My hair is just about the only perfect thing about me, Lilibeth…

That’s precisely why I talk about my struggles in some of the posts. No one has the perfect business, life, family, or waist line.

The only certainty about my life is the fact that God is in complete and entire control of it and He can take care of me and everything around me a lot better than I ever could myself.

Thank you for helping me to remember how truly I blessed I am at this moment of my life – whatever the problems I face…

Erin Smith February 27, 2012 at 8:52 pm

I think this exact thing is what I’ve been missing in my business… I’ve had days with low traffic and tons of leads, and other days with high traffic and no leads. Your post was a good reminder that I need to check out the types of people hitting up my blog. Thanks!

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 10:09 am

Just goes to show how extremely important targeting the right audience is, Erin.

Steve Shoemaker February 27, 2012 at 6:41 pm

Anna
Well I was stopping by for a cup of joe and saw a interesting headline.

I didn’t want to say great because if your not doing well that’s not cool.

But it is good to find someone who can point you in the right direction no matter at what level of success you are at.

You have certainly proven yourself Anna and I am sure you will get the “bottlenecks” out of the picture.

Great post.

Steve

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 10:08 am

Long time, no see, Steve – glad to see you back in my neck of the woods!

Yes, we could always use some outside objective help, no matter what business stage we are in.

New blog for you?

Steve Shoemaker February 28, 2012 at 8:53 pm

Hey good to be here and I definitely agree. Everybody with money says they were always paying people to show them how. Yes it is a new niche blog I am working on.

Walter Martin February 27, 2012 at 4:08 pm

I absolutely love the story about the man selling apples during the Great Depression…then the money left to him! Great way to start a very good article. Thanks for all the hard work and content you provided!

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 12:12 pm

Glad you enjoyed it, Walter.

Annie February 27, 2012 at 12:19 pm

Ana and Danny,
I really enjoyed the webinar and learned a lot. The examples were interesting and one was particularly relevant to my website. Thanks.

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 10:34 am

The real life examples are always great, Annie – nice to know we are not the only ones with problems and that those problems have solutions.

Sam February 27, 2012 at 10:11 am

Hey Ana,

Great post and I enjoyed the webinar when it originally aired. This is one area that seems to hook a lot of people, their “Avatar”. That ideal customer that you’re going after. Danny is great at pinning this down and getting people over that hump from “blogging” to creating a business. The first step is of course traffic, but when it’s all part of a system, you essentially are able to turn the faucet on and off.

I haven’t been a part of Danny’s current program, though I would highly suggest it for anyone that wants to pull the trigger and take things to the next level, but I have done his other programs and would recommend him to anyone else. There’s a quick plug, lol.

In any case Ana, love the site and I look forward to what you come up with next.

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 2:01 pm

Glad I am not the only one who likes Danny, Sam. lol

I like the use of “avatar” to describe that perfect person; I am currently mulling over what that ideal customer for my business is.

Thanks for coming by!

Danny February 27, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sam. I’m still looking forward to working with you on this aspect of your business – whenever you’re ready! :)

Sam February 27, 2012 at 8:35 pm

My pleasure Danny and as do I. Keep up the great work in the meantime! :)

Lou Barba February 27, 2012 at 8:42 am

Hi Ana,

I agree with your assessment. It seems like with the amount of traffic you get, you should make two or three times what you do. You give so much valuable information away, (it overwhelms me) many people might just be waiting for your next free article. When I read your posts, I get the impression that if I follow you long enough, I’ll know everything you know. Maybe your articles could give half or three quarters of the information, and then people would have to click to a page they had to pay to see. Not everyone could be the person to do that, but you are. I think if people wouldn’t pay a little for your help, they probably aren’t going to buy anything, anyway. Correct me if you think I’m wrong, that’s just my opinion.

Lou

BTW my blog is up at this time. Trouble at the server…spent time last night with them. Hopefully the change to Thesis, and the address change didn’t foul something up.

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 10:32 am

I agree, Lou – with that much traffic I should be able to do better than I am.

Lots to think about…

And your new theme looks great! I don’t think that either Thesis or your new domain name would affect your server in any way.

Ian Belanger February 27, 2012 at 8:31 am

Hey Ana and Danny,

That was a great webinar. I stayed on for all but the Q & A. I had work to do :)

Just wanted to say thanks to both for you for sharing such great info. I came out of the webinar with a lot of great ideas for Web/Graphic Design business.

Thanks again Danny and Ana, I will be watching the recording a few more times.

Ian Belanger
IM Graphic Designs

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 10:28 am

There was a lot to digest, Ian – I already watched it once again.

Glad you were able to make it!

Alan Fagan February 27, 2012 at 7:57 am

Great post Ana. Just one flaw.

If the old man in the story really doubled his money every day for a month, he would have made a lot more than his $2 milllion inheritance…even in February!

In fact, 28 days of the system would have turned his 5 cents in to over $6.7 million. Deducting his outlay on stock he still would have cleared $3.35 million!

I’m not just being pedantic here. I think it’s nice to know that the apple polishers among us don’t necessarily need a wealthy relative to make us successful….

Ana Hoffman February 28, 2012 at 10:20 am

That was exactly my point, Alan – we don’t need an inheritance to make our business work.

By the way, there’s a flaw in your assumption as well.

One man can’t polish that many apples.

So he’d have to hire people, get an apple-polishing factory, and find someone to sell that many apples to (most likely wholesale, so he won’t be able to charge as much per polished apple).

Anne February 27, 2012 at 7:14 am

I still have your email in my inbox as something to do this week. I know the webinar is a bit long, so I’ve put off watching it until I have that time to spare. Hopefully, by the end of the week I will.

I do need a mentor. I’m totally lost and no matter what I do, with great content, I can’t sell anything online – even on my wp sites. I must be doing everything wrong. (Apart from my writing).

Danny February 27, 2012 at 9:26 am

Anne, if you are looking for some support, let me encourage you to watch the webinar sometime today or tomorrow… ;-)

Ryan Hanley February 27, 2012 at 6:54 am

I was not available to listen to the Webinar live but it is on my Must Do list for this week.

When I first started talking to insurance agents about helping their clients overcome the psychological barriers to purchasing insurance Online I used three words that seemed to resonate:

Engagement.
Subscription.
Conversion.

I know they represent 10,000 foot view on the issue. And over time I’ve added a word and subsequent theory as well as changed the context:

Define.
Engage.
Subscribe.
Convert.

Ana… It’s refreshing that someone such as yourself you I would view as a Top Level player in this Online game is still learning and tweaking and growing.

Great stuff.

Ryan H.

Danny February 27, 2012 at 9:24 am

We’re all still learning, tweaking, and growing, Ryan – but your four questions are bang on! :-)

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 1:48 pm

Love your 4 words, Ryan – precise and to the point.

I certainly do have a lot to learn, and I think it’s very important for my readers to know that. Whatever stage we are in, learning, tweaking, and growing never stops.

Mark February 27, 2012 at 2:34 am

Hey Ana,

I am stuck at work right now. I am definitely going to watch that video when I get home. I love stuff like this.

BTW. In a very similar vein. I was recently thumbing through my recent keyword activity…more closely than I usually do and MUCH to my surprise, I realized that 90+% of the traffic that Google is sending to my blog was non-converting non-targeted traffic. Can you believe that garbage.

All along I have been “assuming” that organic traffic was the most targeted, best converting traffic available. WRONG! 2012 will encompass taking a much closer look at my metrics.

Mark

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 7:10 am

I actually found the same, Mark.

No matter how well I match the content to the keywords, the organic traffic doesn’t seem to stick very well.

Food for thought…

Harleena Singh February 27, 2012 at 1:40 am

Interesting Danny & Ana!

This is one of the most interesting webinar I have heard- guess it has a lot of matter that one could use!

I am sorry, registering for the Webinar wasn’t really possible due to the time zone, but am glad I caught up with it here.

Though I am not in the marketing niche, but there were many things shared which are useful to many like me as well- glad you put this up Ana!

I do wonder where could you ever go wrong Ana- but I guess if you have chalked it out, we are going to see this blog doing wonders real soon- which you the best with it :)

We do tend to think about giving up so often, but its that one push or one more trial that keeps us going, though not related to marketing as yet!

I think there is quite a lot of similarity I may have with Lisa! Concentrating on your one particular person is indeed an interesting way to start, once you figure out who your target audience is.

I really haven’t given all these things a serious thought, but yes, now after hearing so much, I guess it’s time to change the direction.

Thanks once again for this wonderful post and webinar :)

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 7:14 am

As Danny said in the webinar, blogging is not a popularity contest, Harleena.

Yes, my blog is popular, but how does it translate into turning it into a business, i.e. actually make money off my popularity?

That’s what I need to figure out…

Glad you were able to listen to the replay!

Danny February 27, 2012 at 9:23 am

Harleena, thank you so much for your kind words and incredible enthusiasm – I’m so happy that you got value out of the webinar.

So what insights did the webinar give you into your own business?

Harleena Singh February 27, 2012 at 9:37 am

That it’s high time I get started (lol)- as I’ve never given all this a serious thought before Danny :)

Jens P. Berget February 26, 2012 at 11:55 pm

Hi Ana,

This webinar was awesome. I received the link from your newsletter. Like you, I haven’t been focusing on targeting my traffic. I have started now, with doing keyword research on a different level than I used to. But, I have realized that most of the traffic I get, are from people not interested in me or what I’m presenting (and my business). So, there’s a bottleneck that I have to remove.

Thanks again for sharing the webinar.

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 7:07 am

I know what you mean, Jens.

For my niche, I’ve done pretty well with keywords. Yet, my keywords still target such a broad audience.

I need to work out my targeted audience more on a networking level. Otherwise, I network mostly with bloggers who are pretty much in the same business as I am (just with a different angle) and the business side suffers as a result.

Micah February 26, 2012 at 11:30 pm

I guess you never really “make it”. I think we all need to start viewing goals as stepping stones, and not destinations.

I look forward to watching the webinar, pencil and notepad in hand.

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 7:04 am

Don’t think there’s such a thing as “we’ve arrived” when it comes down to our businesses.

And to me, that’s the exciting part of it (and I admit, at times annoying, lol).

Danny February 27, 2012 at 9:17 am

I couldn’t agree more. :)

Jonathan February 26, 2012 at 5:27 pm

I just listened to the Webinar, and I think honestly that I am more lost than ever over what direction to take my business. I think that is actually my problem, it’s not something on the chain of conversion (although undoubtedly I have work to do there too) it’s that I just don’t know what my business is supposed to be.

Initially I satrted my blog on a whim, without ever even realising it was something that I could make money from. When I found out you could, I transitioned my blog towards a personal development theme, as that’s what I was interested in at the time. As the years have gone on though I find it harder and harder to create sincere content that is free from a cynical tone that has no place in personal development.

I am faced with the tricky decision, how to avoid throwing away the years worth of content I have created, when I am finding it so difficult to stay focussed on the niche?

Danny February 26, 2012 at 6:48 pm

Hey Jonathan, I’d love to help out if I can. How about shooting me an email and explaining a little more about where you’re coming from, and what the problem is? Danny (at) firepolemarketing (dot) com. :-)

Jonathan February 27, 2012 at 10:05 am

Thanks for the offer, Danny, I’ll do that.

Hamza March 11, 2012 at 1:05 pm

Hi Danny
Just now signed up for your video series.Could you help me also with the same offer as you’ve given to Jonathan.If you agree then I will explain you in detail my situation in the email

Danny Iny March 11, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Sure, Hamza, send me an email, and I’ll see what I can do. :)

Ana Hoffman March 11, 2012 at 9:10 pm

Very nice of you, Danny.

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 7:02 am

I am sure a talk with Danny will be very helpful, Jonathan.

Just to throw in my two cents: I actually visit your blog quite a bit and every time I am there I think “Interesting, one of a kind design, but I have no idea what the blog is about.”

Whatever you are doing is obviously not working and you know it.

So your choices are:

1. To keep doing what you are doing until you get so discouraged that you quit (maybe not as radical, but you see where I am going with this).
2. Scrap everything you’ve done so far and start fresh. Pick the niche (in your case, a little passion for it won’t hurt), and start doing what you actually love.

Isn’t that what online business is all about? After all, we don’t want to be in the grind of a 9 to 5 for a reason…

By the way, I’ve done the latter.

I scrapped my first blog and Traffic Generation Cafe was born.

Just food for thought.

Jonathan February 27, 2012 at 10:02 am

Thank you for your honesty, Ana. That’s really what I needed to hear.

The difficulty is that I once did have a lot of passion for the topic, but my life has gone though many changes since the blog was started, interests have waned, new ones taken the place. As a result, I am well aware that my blog is lacking in focus. However, there is a lot of good stuff on my blog too, and I am not sure that it is an all or nothing proposition. I have been lately considering a complete re-launch, as in blowing out all the old articles, and then over time, re-editing and re-publishing the ones that fit the blog, and moving the rest elsewhere. Of course, every time I try to choose, I get a bit overwhelmed by the situation and end up just carrying on.

What I really need help with is figuring out how to define my niche. I really feel it isn’t a matter of starting over completely, but definitely on of refining and focussing.

Perhaps now that I am on your list I will be lucky enough t be chosen for a blog audit ;-)

Thanks again, Ana, for the amazing value you provide.

Ana Hoffman February 27, 2012 at 1:58 pm

Even if your blog is full of some good posts, Jonathan, chances are no one ever reads them.

First of all, most people who come to your blog can’t really figure out what it is about, thus they’ll never search for that awesome info you might have.

Secondly, those posts are probably so buried in your archives, it’d be hard to come by them even if someone does take their time to search.

Whether you start from scratch or just redo what you have is entirely up to you.

I actually kept my old blog, just completely re-did everything about it.

In the hindsight, I probably should’ve started all over, since now I am stuck cleaning out old posts that aren’t very good (I do have a reputation to maintain! lol), old broken links, etc…

Whatever you decide, it should and will be a radical change.

Otherwise why do it, right?

Jonathan February 29, 2012 at 1:40 am

Thanks again Ana, and thanks for making it possible for me to get in touch with Danny, he really is an awesome guy.

I want to take your adice and completely redo my blog. There is positively too much off topic noise on there, and I agree with you, it’s hard to tell what the blog is about as a result. My inclination and preference is to blow it all out and start from scratch, with everything, a total blank slate right down to the permalink structure. I’ll keep my theme, though ;-)

My struggle is that for those couple of posts that have a high number off comments and bring in a fair bit of google traffic, well I am not sure what to do about that. I can convince myself to ditch them, and all the comments attached to them, poof, gone forever until they either do or do not reappear on the new rebooted blog. I don’t have a problem with this. But I am worried that Google will, if suddenly all of the pages it has indexed become 404 errors.

What’s your expert opinion on this?

Ana Hoffman February 29, 2012 at 7:52 am

You can do 301 redirects, Jonathan.

Yes, you run the risk of loosing some ranking eventually.

However, you’ll start your new blog with an existing audience that will be redirected from the old posts, and that should help give it the initial push in traffic, as well as indexing and hopefully ranking from Google.

Daniel February 26, 2012 at 1:59 pm

Ana, another informative post.

Many thanks for sending an email affording me the opportunity to watch the webinar.

Did not get a chance to do so over the weekend, though, I will be watching an hour or so, later today.

The 7 points(They could be called the seven deadly sins I guess) that you outlined as the reasons behind most businesses failing, pretty much show how a downward spiral can occur.

If at some point(the sooner the better) the individual–company) does not take stock, then take action, the job of reversing the slide would be close to untenable.

Ana Hoffman February 26, 2012 at 3:27 pm

I don’t think any of us is immune to feeling that way every once in a while, Daniel – unfortunately.

But that’s OK, as long as we have the knowledge and the tenacity to pick ourselves up, dust off, and keep going.

And I think Danny gave us just the tools we need to do that.

Let me know what you think after you listened to the webinar.

Danny February 26, 2012 at 6:47 pm

I’d like to hear what you think as well, Daniel. :)

Adam R February 26, 2012 at 12:23 pm

Ana, your site is by far becoming one of my favorites and almost a daily must read. I’m midway through this webinar and have really enjoyed it so far.

I’m also glad you posted it as I thought I would be missing out since I had to work at the time of the original showing.

I attended another webinar recently that was more or less a guy selling his product that didn’t really offer any value to it’s viewers other than for him to peddle his own wears. Which is fine but not when it’s under false pretenses.

Danny awesome webinar by the way, you’ve got a new reader as well!

Ana Hoffman February 26, 2012 at 1:38 pm

Thank you and thank you, Adam.

I am with you: I don’t mind when someone pitches his/her product during a webinar, but not when that’s ALL they are doing.

Danny’s webinar was great in that way; a lot of juicy info we can put into practice right now.

Danny February 26, 2012 at 6:40 pm

Adam, I’m really glad to hear that you found value in the webinar. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you over at Firepole Marketing! :)

Sarah Arrow February 26, 2012 at 10:21 am

I had trouble registering for the webinar (it kept telling me I had already registered…) and I am so glad to be able to listen in to the replay. Will iy be taken down at some point Ana?

Ana Hoffman February 26, 2012 at 1:35 pm

I heard that some people had the same trouble, Sarah – thank you for being gracious about it and glad you had the recording ready.

Will it be taken down at any point?

I’ll have to ask Danny since the video is hosted on his blog, but my guess is no – there’s too much great info in that webinar.

Danny February 26, 2012 at 6:38 pm

Hey Ana, and Sarah, I’m not sure about keeping the recording up forever, but if we ever do take it down, it’ll still be up on YouTube, and we’ll setup a redirect from the current page pointing there – so you should be all set with no time limit. :)

Danny February 26, 2012 at 8:39 am

Ana, thank you so much for hosting the webinar!

I had a really great time, and I really appreciate the opportunity to connect with your readers – such an enthusiastic, engaged crowd! :)

I’ll definitely hang around the comments, and if anybody has questions, I’ll happily answer. But first, everyone should watch the webinar! ;-)

Ana Hoffman February 26, 2012 at 1:30 pm

Much appreciated, Danny – I’ve learned a lot and have a long ways to go.

And… stop ordering my readers around!

Danny February 26, 2012 at 6:30 pm

Haha, fair enough! :)

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