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    • Targeted People vs Targeted Traffic


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    By now, anyone involved in the 30 Day Challenge has heard of Bruce Jones, the Brazilian challenger who has made well over $10,000.  Bruce had a few advantages going into the challenge, but his success with the principles of the challenge demonstrate just how powerful the search engine optimization lessons really were.  Bruce described his web page as having been relegated to the Google supplemental index before he re-optimized for certain keywords, then he went to the top of the rankings post-optimization.

    Bruce touched on this briefly, but without detail, and I’m afraid many people may have missed it.  He didn’t just target the first set of keywords that had two green check marks in the GTrends tool.  As he is already a business owner, he had a carefully targeted niche that appeals to the two greatest markets of all.. rich people and large corporations.

    Most people in the SEO and Internet Marketing business seem to think that driving traffic is the ultimate goal of a web site.  That seems pointless to me.  Why drive traffic if it does not result in a sale or a referral?  Driving traffic is merely the second step in building a profitable online affiliate business.  You still have to convert those visitors to sales.  Unless your income is derived entirely from flat-rate advertising, where you get paid even if your advertisers don’t, you have to convert.  Even then, you have to convert visitors to sales eventually, or your advertisers will fail to see the value in continuing to advertise with you.

    The real value of an online business is the ability to bring in targeted people and lead them to take meaningful action.  What good does it to me to have visitors to this website clicking Adsense in the sidebar?  I really don’t need the $1 per month that I’ve made so far.  What I do need (And greatly appreciate) is the Wordpress setup customers I’ve had.  Every BlueHost signup that comes through my website is worth $65 to me, far more than I can earn with a Pay-Per-Click program like Adsense right now.  I’ve never done much to target this market, but I am going to start.

    What does that mean to this site?  I have a new theme coming soon, one which is Adsense-free.  It will be more optimized to promoting MY businesses and not Google’s.  And more importantly, it will be beautiful.  I liked this theme when I designed it, but it just really makes me unhappy now.  I don’t like visiting my own website… no wonder my traffic numbers remain so low.

    It also means I am re-targeting my niche sites.  No longer will I seek to earn $2 to $20 per sale. Anything under $50 is no longer worth my efforts.   I actually have my eyes on a few markets where the commissions are MUCH higher, $500 or more.  That’s worth my effort.

    It’s all about targeting the right PEOPLE, and not just driving traffic now.

    4 Responses

    1. Gravatar

      bimmy the bookish

      September 3rd, 2007 at 10:34 am

      1

      Rich, i absolutely agreee - if you are going to drive customers to your site, you want them to BUY SOMETHING!
      That is the very tactic I intend to emply for my new business blog and my main website, with its new e-comerce facility.
      I’ve popped on to take a look over your blog to see which pug ins might be good for me to use too, and notice that you do not have the date stamp on your posts, and that your “top commenters” list has changed.
      the date stamp - I’d be interested to know why you leave the date stamp off,
      Commenters box - I like this idea of noting your commenters - do you feel this encourages people to comment? Is it refreshed each month?
      It’s really interesting to hear that you are going adsense free - i was just thinking that maybe it was something i should be doing - but hey, I’m willing to hear advice from those who know!
      Lets earn SENSIBLE amounts of money, eh?

    2. Gravatar

      Rich

      September 3rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm

      2

      The Top Commenters plugin does refresh itself at specified intervals. I have set to reset the 1st of every month. I’d prefer it to keep a rolling 30-day total, but that functionality isn’t there yet. Hopefully in the future. I know you probably hated losing your top spot :) I think it may have encouraged some people to comment, but I’ve never asked, so I’m just guessing when I say that.

      I removed the date stamp from my posts because I don’t think it adds anything. My pillar content, the stuff that new visitors will be seeking out in the future, is timeless, so why date it? The time and date still shows up on the individual post page if someone is interested.

      I just don’t see Adsense ever adding up to a substantial income for me. Right now, it really is about $1 per month (And that’s with more than one site using it). Even if I someday have thousands of unique visitors every day and wanted to display more advertising, the space that Adsense consumes would be better used by either affiliate advertising or pre-paid ads.

    3. Gravatar

      bimmy the bookish

      September 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 pm

      3

      Ha, you’re right, I was wondering where i had gone too!!
      I am in two minds about the comments thing.
      On the one hand, i enjoy reading comments when they are thoughtful and relevant, and i for one certainly clicked on the list of commenters here, when i never click on commenters on other blogs, maybe because it is placed on the sidebar, because then i can choose to leave your blog when i’m ready to rather than getting distracted and leaving midway through reading stuff.
      On the other hand, I’ve just read the hits and tips for top blogs by Seth Godin who recommends leaving OFF the comments to encourage people to write their own blog post and then link back to it.
      i can see why he is saying this and that it would be A GOOD THING, but i would never have ben able to do this with my current blog as it is so specifically linked in with my kids-based website, and is kept strictly to child friendly content.
      I’ve noticed that Tim Ferris has comments enabled but only replies when he feels moved to do so. This might be a way forward!
      Leaving the date stamp off does rather give a more enduring feel to post - as you say, it stands timeless.
      So much to absorb! thanks Rich, always lots to think about:) PS: I’m really not trying to improve mycomment ranking!!! :)

    4. Gravatar

      Pool Decks

      July 13th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

      4

      Heck yea signups for hosting pay out nicely.


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