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Day 15 - The WHY of Traffic

By Mike Mindel | August 16, 2007

This content is summarised from Day 15 Training for the Thirty Day Challenge, presented by Ed Dale.

Traffic in a Web 2.0 World

We’ve spent a whole 15 days on market research. Why?

People make their biggest mistakes in market research.

Now we’ve picked our niche keyword, our affiliate product and we’re ready to move on to the next stage - traffic.

Don’t stress, just pick something that passes the GTrends filters.

I’m Going to Give You a Why

This is the all important why session that explains how we’re going to generate traffic over the next few days.

There has been such a huge change. I’ve (Ed) completely changed my approach to internet marketing in the last 12 months. I’m all about eliminating risk.

One of the great stories in the evolution of these web 2.0 technologies is the ability to generate traffic in a completely kosher away. Enough traffic so you can work out whether your particular niche and keywords are going to work or not.

Marketing the Way the Internet / Google Works

Here’s the thing.

If you get the theory I’m teaching you today, then you’ll be set.

Sites all around you come and go, tactics come and go, different strategies come and go.

But the fundamentals stay the same.

Fundamentals is fundamentals.

That magnificent symphony of four parts:

will never change.

The tools and strategies change on a daily basis. But if you understand the theory you’ll be set.

Getting in to Google

Why is so it important to get into Google?

Well. 50% of search traffic goes through Google. Which is a lot.

Googling has become part of the vernacular (the native language of a country). My (Ed’s) grandma googles.

When a web property gets to that level of penetration it’s the place - or in this case search engine to be in.

Google is where you will get a significant amount of traffic.

Think about your own habits.

When you’re looking for something do you use Google? I think the vast majority of you will. That’s why we focus on it.

There are all sorts of ways of getting into Google. When I first heard Joel Comm describe it this way (I’m not sure if he came up with it) it was black hat techniques, grey hat techniques and white hat techniques.

The black hat techniques are evil (!).

Just imagine the old fashioned criminal in their black hat (or Bert from Sesame Street above) and getting up to all sorts of nasty stuff.

Black hat strategies are not cool.

They work and in fact make people millions of dollars.

But they don’t serve the person searching Google, they don’t do them any favours. They are using tactics, tricks, sleight of hand to get all this working.

Grey hat is more along the lines of borderline.

White hat is completely natural.

Think the good guys, the angels. It’s the right way of doing it.

Thirty Day Challenge is All White Hat

In the Thirty Day Challenge the only thing we are doing is ‘white hat’. Long term, anything else is unsustainable.

The internet, because it’s so new, and changing so much is full of arbitrage opportunities. It’s full of mismatches. People exploit these mismatches all the time.

A lot of internet marketing products are all about exploiting those mismatches. The trouble is once the mismatch is exploited the market finds its measure, or level or Google notices it. That arbitrage, that anomaly eventually gets squashed.

That can often leave people high and dry. It’s usually a traffic based problem.

When you’re doing search engine stuff, you’re not doing it to get ranked no. 1 in Google you’re doing it to get traffic.

I want to give you a metaphor for getting into Google and to try to give you my idiot savant’s guide to getting to search engines and getting traffic and is completely cool and enhancing of your reputation.

Imagine Google as a Nightclub

(That took me 10 seconds in SnagIt).

Each keyword is effectively a nightclub. A keyword like ‘viagra’ would be the equivalent of the viper room in LA. The hottest of hot clubs.

Whereas for example, a keyword like ‘free speed reading’ is like the Yackandandah blue light disco (nope. I Googled it and can’t find it either!).

The blue light disco is for thirteen year kids in country towns and run by the police. Hence the blue light. A classic of our time apparently. The point is that this club is very easy to get into.

The best nightclubs in town are really, really hard to get in to.

The coolest clubs in town are impossible to get into unless you know somebody or have some connection, or on the A-list.

It’s a really good analogy for what we’re trying to do with Google.

Here’s How Google See’s Your New Site

Ugly. Realy ugly.

Google is not excited about letting you into any nightclub. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the toughest to get into or the easiest ones.

You Are Brand New

Google hates brand new sites. That’s what spammers do. They create new sites all the time. Hence tarring everyone with the same brush.

Google likes old sites.

In fact old sites are like vintage guitars and vintage wines.

The older the site, the more valuable it is, because if Google thinks its been around a while then you’re less likely to be a here today, gone tomorrow spammer.

You Have No Friends

You’re real ugly because you have no friends. Trying to get into a cool nightclub and you don’t know anybody is impossible right?

The online equivalent of friends is links. There is nobody talking about you, there is nobody even linking to you, nobody refering to you.

Google looks at that and assesses you. Not only have you (your site) got no friends, nobody is linking to you. Why do we want you in our nightclub?

You Have No INFLUENTIAL Friends

There’s friends and there’s influential friends. Influential friends are really important because their word basically gives you a head start.

It doesn’t matter who you are friends with, if you’re not friends with the right type of influential people you’re not going to get into that hot nightclub in town.

Influential friends on the internet are Authority Sites. I don’t like to use this term Authority Site as it been abused by a bunch of internet marketers recently. Just think of sites that carry weight.

If you think of a niche, sausage making, then it will be the most important sausage making site.

You Look Dodgy

So you have no friends, you have no influential friends, you’re brand new and worst of all you look dodgy! You look really, really ugly.

From a Google perspective, the traditional opt-in page, sales letters look dodgy. The ones that are done properly are not dodgy.

But unfortunately for the ones that aren’t done properly, Google look at them all and say ‘you look dodgy’ so I’m not going to associate with you. I don’t want you to be in my nightclub.

So your chances of making the top 10 which is the first page of results (the SERPS) is S.F.A. The first word is sweet and the last word is all.

Not a chance.

Enter The Edge

This is a process that was initially invented by Rob Somerville and we (Ed Dale’s team) presented it to the Immediate Edge membership - as the Maximum Edge.

We were trying to explain why this particular process (which you will see over the next few days) works.

Getting into Google

It’s all very confucious.

The trick is not to try.

Trying hard means you’re trying to manipulate search engine results.That may work for the short term but it’s not going to work for the long term.

You can get some pretty quick results as well as make it ecological. We can make it so it’s good for the community, good for the environment and from a Google perspective it’s good.

If you do that, then you’ll always be… good.

How Do You Get in to That Club?

There’s always three players.

You have to know people. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. It’s such an important thing. So true in life.

A key to my success is not what I know but who I know.

(Mike’s comment: I finally get a chance to add to this statement. I personally believe it’s ‘who you get to know’. I knew nobody when I started out in internet marketing 10 years ago. But I made it my business to get to know people).

To get into that fancy pants nightclub you have to know people.

The Three Players

Your Gorgeous Smart Friend

The nightclub loves your gorgeous smart friend and he/she is happy to associate with you.

In internet terms what characteristics does your georgeous smart friend (aka website) need?

The Attention Getter

Characteristics:

They get noticed!

Attention getters have high PR - page rank.

PR stands for page rank. If you’ve installed the SEO tool at the start of the challenge that tells you what the page rank of each site is. It’s a rank between 0 and 10.

Most sites either have no rank or very small rank. The attention getter sites are the higher PR sites. For our intents and purposes, the reason why we like high PR sites, they are able to bring your site to the attention of Google.

It’s like saying ‘hey Google, have a look over here’. That’s their major focus.

Sometimes the attention getters get noticed too much.

A lot of people will rely on attention getter sites to bring traffic to your site.

This is bad news.

You don’t want your mom to know you’ve been partying with these guys. You’ll be the Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan of the internet.

Attention getter websites are firestarters which are really very useful.

When I say firestarter imagine a bonfire with a great big load of sticks and wood that you have been building up over time.

In the UK it’s Guy Fawkes site.

You’re about to light that bonfire. What do you need?

The fire is not going to light itself. You need some sort of firestarter, an ignition tool.

That’s what attention getters do. It’s like you’re rocking up to the door of the nightclub with your really cool friend.

That in and of itself will get you in over time. But the way to absolutely guarantee you will get into that nightclub is to have Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan hanging off your shoulder.

The nightclub will look at you and say, I don’t know who this dweeb is. But hey if Paris Hilton and Bono are here, and they’re not coming in unless this person comes in - we’ll let the dweeb in too.

An Example: Mike’s Webventurer Blog

Just going to take a slight detour Ed. I’ve got an important example to illustrate your point.

Think about my blog, the blog you are reading now: http://www.webventurer.com.

I started it last week for the Thirty Day Challenge. On July 30th 2007, 15 days ago, it had 0 unique visits. By August 14th I am getting 3,295 visitors a day.

How do you think I got that amount of traffic?

Well. My company, Wordtracker, sure has a lot of clout online. But my domain Webventurer.com is quite new and Google didn’t know it from Adam.

So by associating with both the Thirty Day Challenge

and Wordtracker

and providing lots of useful content that provides value to my visitors - you - Google has told me I can join the nightclub.

I’m listed under keywords like:

The reason? I’m marketing the way the internet works.

Back to the Disco

This is what we’re doing here with this strategy.

Rather than try to get into the Viper room at the exclusive end of town. We’re just trying to get into the Yackandandah blue light disco (I still have no idea what that looks like).

We don’t need Paris and Lindsay we just need the cool girl from school (the metaphor is losing its edge at this point).

Don’t Just Party With the Attention Getters

Just party with this crowd (attention getters) and not your gorgeous friend, then it will end in tears.

If you just use strategies which work with attention getters, you will be in trouble long term.

At some point you will get busted.

Your ‘Ugly’ Site

To give you an example of what an ugly site is - often you’ll hear me refer to them as money pages.

This is one of my (Ed’s) money pages for Dominiche.

The important thing is that from a Google perspective they don’t particularly like that.

That’s my money page.

Why is it called my money page?

Even though I’m after a name and an email, it’s the first step in my conversion process with a view to getting money from people.

We just got you to look at various affiliate products in Day 14.

Your money pages for the purposes of the Thirty Day Challenge while we are testing are going to be these affiliate pages.

The Final Factor - Competition

Some people have completely missed the significance of this. Competition is such an important factor.

If there’s a huge queue to an exclusive club, even if you’ve got pretty good friends and good attention getters you may not necessarily get in.

That’s because there is physically no room. You may be equally as cool but there’s 10 more people that are cooler than you, that got in before you.

So competition is important.

Initially we want to be in the big fish in a small pond.

Actually, a big fish in lots of small ponds.

We start from the edge and work our way in wards. We knock off the easy stuff first and that enables us to get bigger and bigger, and take on bigger and bigger things.

If you get a name for yourself in the regional nightclubs, eventually you’ll get invited to better parties.

You go there and make a good name for yourself there and get invited to better parties and eventually you’ll make your way to the A-list.

But for now - let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

If you do this strategy post thirty day challenge, and I certianly hope you do, ultimately you’ll end up getting to no. 1 on the exclusive keywords because you’ll have done the hard work.

But it won’t happen over night. Sorry folks. It just doesn’t.

What we’re doing can happen over night. But at the big end of town, that’s a process that can take literally months.

Why Are We Doing This?

The reason is targeted traffic.

That is motivated, interested, warm, willing-to-buy visitors.

Not for PR, or to be #1 on Google or to get an Oprah.

None of those things are important. What we want is targeted traffic! People, interested in what you have, who are primed to buy.

Aikido vs Boxing

Let’s take an example:

Forget the fact that it is free traffic.

There’s another important dynamic at work.

I think that the wonderful thing about these social networking sites like Facebook and Stumble Upon is that for the person who typed in ’sausage making tips’, every step of this new process is delivering them quality information.

The best metaphor is ‘akido vs boxing’.

I’ve (Ed) mentioned akido a few times on the forum posts.

I think people consider this in some ways the hardest of the martial arts and possibly one of the most effective because it really is a defense based martial art.

If someone attacks you, you direct them where you want them to go. Aikido is all about using somebody’s force and rather than meeting that force with force, using it to direct them where you want them to go. Using the flow.

Compare this to boxing which is brute force. Blunt force trauma. Two dudes smacking each other. It’s not subtle. There is no finesse in boxing. You have to beat the living daylights out of the other dude.

Old vs New Marketing

Another analogy is old vs new marketing. If you lok at the picture above then the vast majority of internet marketing is like detours.

People will be driving along, looking at sausage making, and then blam, a big detour appears in the middle of their sausage making road.

The detour says I know you’re looking at sausage making, but I really want you to look at these knives, or this sausage making machine.

Even though you typed in ’sausage making tips’ I am actually a manufacturer of sausage making machines.

That’s what I (Ed) did for years.

I would take any keyword I could think of, remotely linked to my product and try to distract people and get them to make a detour.

It’s Like a Gentle Canoe Trip

You’ve got to read Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing which is a great book on this topic.

Permission marketing is new marketing. Type in a keyword ’sausage maaking tips’ into Google and are taken to a page which is an article with ’sausage making tips’.

Gently the visitor is directed to somewhere which would enhance their whole sausage making experience. Value is added at every step of the chain.

The person, rather than feeling angry at being interrupted is now taking a calm, beautiful canoe trip.

That’s what I love about what we’re teaching here and what I’ve been practicing for the last 6 months.

Permission Based Marketing

Permission marketing adds value at every step of the way and asks permission first.

Ultimately when you’re adding to the experience, being useful, adding value to the person’s experience then that’s good.

Thats marketing the way internet works.

You’re always going to be good with Google and the internet.

That’s what Google wants!

When someone types in sausage making tips, Google wants their no. 1 spot to be something about ’sausage making tips’.

You all remember 12 months ago when all these adsense sites were popping up everywhere.

People were making huge money. But you would type in a keyword and up would come a site about ’sausage making tips’ and you go to it and pop ups would jump up on your screen.

It was full of links and you clicked on anything to get out of it. But anything you click on would make money for the person who put that crap in front of you.

Fortunately Google recognised this and slapped them all down and the world is a better place for it.

That doesn’t add value, that’s not marketing that adds value. Sure there are arbitrage opportunities but I’m not the right person to come to for that kind of marketing education. I love to add value to people at every step of the day.

I figure, long term, it’s more ecological, I can sleep better at nights and to appeal to the mercenary in you, you will make more money in the long term.

That’s what I love about this process.

How You Can Be Ahead of the Game

Or why Gary Halbert was the greatest SEO guy ever…

I (Ed) was living with Gary for sometime and he showed me the ropes and I’d been educating him about the internet.

I remember explaining Google rankings to him and he looked at me and declared ‘I am the greatest search engine guy in the world’.

‘It’s easy. You just look at what the top 20 sites are doing and where you want to be, and you just do what they do’.

And he was right. It’s exactly how to do it.

And how you, with no education, no experience, no search engine optimization stuff (SEO), you actually perhaps have an advange to people who have been doing it for years.

Things are changing so rapidly that the best way is to observe.

Open Your Eyes

If you type ‘Dominiche’ into Google then you see lots of results

At Xmas of this year (2007), Dominiche didn’t exist. It was a made up year. If you typed in Dominiche
there was nothing.

But now when you look up Dominiche now there are 2,210 pages. What is fascinating is the listings.

They can tell you a hell of a lot.

Since ‘Dominiche’ never existed it’s like an education in to what properties will work using these strategies. This is what is fascinating about all of this.

This is the fundamentals part folks. Don’t worry. It’s all theory at the moment. The practical stuff is coming.

As long term you make this your profession, I really encourage you to go and type in your niche keyword into Google and have a good close look at what comes up.

That is the way you can work out how to attack any particular phrase.

Dominiche is a classic example as it didn’t exist. It has only existed for 8 months. That gives you a very interesting perspective.

Coming Up

Dan is going to take you through blogs.

Then we’ll really get into traffic and with a bit of luck you’ll start seeing traffic in a couple of days time.

If you see traffic then you may crack that sale. If you make that sale, you will have won the challenge.

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Topics: Daily Summaries |

12 Responses to “Day 15 - The WHY of Traffic”

  1. markp Says:
    August 16th, 2007 at 1:16 am

    You know what’s really fascinating?

    The Flickr page with your screenshot of the Google search page is now the 4th result for “Dominiche” on Google.

    Two hours after you posted it.

    Wow.

  2. Kelly Says:
    August 16th, 2007 at 2:51 am

    I like how you added your personal aside/example here.

    I noticed on Ed’s video that my blog site for the TDC (just a little nothing) showed up as he scrolled…I think it was 14th. But, I didn’t do any Web 2.0, but it does show you a little bit about what Ed said about kind of piggybacking someone’s success…my site would be nowhere it 30DC was nowhere.

    Anyhow, just my little aside. :P

    Thanks again for your wonderful NEW updated tool for us TDC’ers!! It really will help me get caught up so much faster (as I fell behind starting day 13). :)

    Kelly

  3. Raymond Says:
    August 16th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    The challenge is getting hotter. It gets harder to wait for another day and yet I have a pile of articles to write.

    Tiring and exhilarating, huh! :)

  4. Day 16 - Part I - It’s Traffic Time | Mike Mindel - Thirty Day Challenger Says:
    August 16th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    […] Day 15 - The WHY of Traffic […]

  5. Suzanne Karkeck Says:
    August 16th, 2007 at 10:21 pm

    Thanks Mike for the great summary. I made notes but they’re not half as comprehensive as yours. I think I’ve had an epiphany!

  6. stanley Says:
    August 18th, 2007 at 3:46 am

    I wish we had 48 hour days,but it’s still worth the enjoyable ride.thanks Mike

  7. evert harder Says:
    August 18th, 2007 at 4:19 am

    Hi,
    Mike,
    Not so much of a comment, but more a question on content.
    When in doing a site, is highlighting good copy too much? (as you cant put it better yourself). And what percent would be allowed? As it is an edit, should the original whole article be acknowledged?
    Appreciate the feedback.
    Evert.

  8. evert Says:
    August 18th, 2007 at 5:18 am

    Hi Mike,
    It’s early, and just proof of that I read my question after submission. Should read, second line;
    “When in doing a site, when is highlighting and pasting good copy too much?”
    Sorry.
    Evert

  9. Mike Mindel Says:
    August 18th, 2007 at 10:52 am

    Maybe 3-5 lines max. Also credit your source.

    See this article for an example. I quote Ed Dale who quotes Gary Halbert.

  10. Sheppard Says:
    August 22nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm

    Your blog entries are really effective. I especially like how you brought in your site’s history…very effective.

  11. Summaries, Diary, Articles and Tips on One Page | Mike Mindel - Thirty Day Challenger Says:
    September 3rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    […] Day 15 - The WHY of Traffic […]

  12. NewReader Says:
    January 29th, 2008 at 1:53 am

    Thanks Mike!It is so helpful.

Comments