“What about traffic to my blog?”

In other words, how do you get people to your blog?

This is a great question, and I am really pleased that so many of you are asking it – it shows that we have some really sharp readers. 

You see, not to long ago, we were in the “build it and they will come” era.

“Webmasters” were cold-calling businesses, and showing them some fancy looking site and giving them some pie-in-the-sky sales pitch about how they would build some fancy site for them (really just one of those brochure sites), and then they would tell them how many million users there were on the Internet… and if only 1% of those people visited the site, it would mean wealth beyond dreams.

OK, maybe I am exaggerating a bit… but not very much!

With all these questions I have been getting about traffic, it is obvious that we have all gotten a little more sophisticated – or at lease we have been through the wringer a few too many times.

In any case, this is the deal with traffic (but hey I am by no means the ultimate guru on traffic but I have been studying this stuff non-stop for a couple of years now):

KEY POINT #1: Traffic is important, but conversion is just as important… and maybe more so.

You see, if your blog doesn’t convert visitors into leads, and then leads who know, like and trust you, it doesn’t matter if you are getting 10,000  visitors to your site every day. It really is that simple.

The better your site converts, the more money you make. And the way our blogs are built, when your blog delivers a lead… that lead is already pre-sold to a large degree. So you are not only getting more business, you aren’t working as hard once you get that business.

Another key thing about conversion – the better your conversion, the more liberties you can take in spending money to get visitors to your site.

You see, a lot of traffic sources are free. However, you can also pay to drive traffic. Well, if your site is converting 5 visitors out of 100 versus your competitors site converting 1 visitor out of 1000, then you can spend more money to drive people to your site.

KEY POINT #2: The best traffic is local.

The traffic that you want at your blog is traffic from people that are local to you (in a geographic sense). This is the traffic that is going to turn into personal training clients or bootcamp sign ups.

It probably won’t help you much if someone who lives in Russia visits your site, and you are in  Nottingham. 

The good news about this is that it is easier to “win” free traffic from the search engines if that traffic is local.

This is a nice paradox – the local traffic is not only easier to get, but it is a lot more valuable.

But most of the “big boy” generic cookie-cutter site providers completely miss this point.

Our blog system and training is designed to help you capture that local traffic. Obviously, I can’t give away too much on this… because I guarantee that my competitors are
watching me. But this is a key area of traffic that we are going to dominate.

Which leads to another big point…

KEY POINT #3: This isn’t just a blog!

Because of the software we use, WordPress, we have access to one of the most powerful content management systems on the internet today

This is critical for expanding your site to more than just another generic blog – there is little point in providing something to you that you can get from somewhere else for free.

Your blog can morph in to many different things:

• A video blogging system, for example a whole library of exercise videos that you produce.
• A podcast portal, with you interviewing experts in your niche for your visitors to listen to.
• The ability to add static pages that promote your services and sell your products
• The basis for affiliate marketing other peoples products and services.

And with some further development from our base build you can create “members only” areas to truly monetise your blog!

How can you do all this stuff, well we are going  start by teaching you the basics and then give you the step by step guides to doing more as your blog expands.

Ultimately all these extra features convert your traffic in to regular visitors, sign ups and then to paying clients.

BOTTOM LINE: Traffic is critically important. You need a system that CONVERTS that traffic to dollars, you need a system that captures LOCAL traffic, and you need the ability to add the CONTENT that boosts the “know, like and trust” then have in you to become a client.

Regards

Tim

P.S. We have two very cool traffic techniques that are working right now to get search engines to list new blogs VERY quickly. We will cover that in one of our first follow-up sessions after we launch the system.

P.P.S. I know people are wondering about what this will cost. There has been a lot of speculation in the emails I am getting. Let me say that it will NOT be $999, and it will NOT be even $499.(these are some of the numbers that have been getting thrown around in comments I am getting). Don’t worry – it will be FAR less than that. I will be addressing this question soon…

Now before you go crazy and start creating dozens of little BLOGs for each part of your personal training business, using WordPress or Blogger’s free tool there are a few things you should consider.

Whilst the “free” tool on wordpress.com and blogger.com is excellent there are some limitations with it.

1. You have a limitation with the themes you can use, most of the standard wordpress ones look awful.
2. On a standard wordpress BLOG I am yet to find a way of inserting the code required to put an opt-in form, to allow you to collect names and email addresses.
3. There are a number of really important “plugins” (clever add-ons for WordPress) that cannot be used on the “free” site. The plugins I am talking about are ones that will accelerate your search engine rankings and optimise your site better.
4. The standard domain name you use with the free site is not very pretty or easy to remember. For example TimIsAFatLossGod.wordpress.com compared to TimIsAFatLossGod.com (although it is possible to set up with a redirect it is not particularly search engine friendly.)

These issues may not seem like a long list of problems BUT they are significant enough if you want massive success with your BLOG.

The solution is relatively simply, but as always not necessarily easy if you are a bit wary of the tech stuff. It is likely you will need a geek to help you out on this, but it is possible to do yourself. You’ll need the following…

• A domain name, buy it from GoDaddy.com
• A web site host with the ability to install wordpress on it. HostGator does have this, as do I on my own server.
• … erm that’s it! For the moment.

You may want to find a theme to use on the site as well, there are plenty of free themes out there as well as ones you can purchase. I can recommend TemplateMonster.com for some fantastic paid for themes…

I mean what information and entertainment are you providing and to what audience? Like many BLOG’s I see created by fitness professionals, it is a fairly generic “fitness” BLOG

There is a problem with this in the same way that a visitor will be confused when they visit your generic “fitness” website. You’ll have posts about softly, softly, fat loss for females, followed by a high testosterone, muscle pumping video post, followed by a goal setting/mindset post… and so on.

Not only is your audience confused, but google will be confused too!

1. Google works on relevancy, meaning the more relevant and focussed your site is to a users search terms, the easier it will be for Google to index and rank your site.

2. BY having multiple posts on similar or the same topics, if the posts are prepared well, the keyword density of the site improves and google will index and list your pages more for certain search terms

3. Creating multiple BLOGs each with their own closely defined readership, increases your internet “real estate” allowing you to catch more prospects and dominate the google rankings in many different areas.On the third point you should be creating separate BLOGs for each aspect of your business:

• If your main product/service is fat loss personal training, then create a BLOG dedicated to fat loss in your catchment area.
• If in addition to fat loss, 25% of your clients are rugby players wanting strength and conditioning for rugby, create a separate BLOG for this.
• If you also sell an ebook on knee-rehab, consider creating a BLOG that covers exactly this.

By all means link to each BLOG, in fact this is a MUST to help with back link, but certainly keep the BLOGs separate.

Before you go forward and create a load of BLOGs using WordPress or Blogger’s free blogging service the next post will take you a step beyond these tools and why you should avoid Blogger and WordPress.