This checklist will help you amplify the relationships you're building online to help you get more traffic!
In my last pep talk, I shared with you the first step in building your email list, an. If you haven’t listened, you can go to shannonmattern.com/67.
SO HERE’S THE DEAL: JUST HAVING A WEBSITE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT ANYONE WILL EVER FIND IT.
And it can be very discouraging and frustrating to put your time, effort, passion, patience, and money into building your website and then not see your email list growing.
Last week, I shared with you exactly how to start connecting with influencers who serve the same audience you want to serve online. They’re not necessarily offering the same set of services you’re offering, but the people that follow them are the kinds of people you can help.
This week, you’re not going to stop building the relationships, you’re going to keep doing that while we layer on the next step. So continue working on building those relationships – even if your website isn’t finished!
THIS NEXT STRATEGY DOES REQUIRE THAT YOU HAVE YOUR WEBSITE COMPLETE AND THE FREEBIE THAT YOU’RE GIVING AWAY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN EMAIL ADDRESS ALL SETUP.
And when I say freebie, I mean something super actionable and valuable that solves part of the problem that you solve for your clients. It can be a video, a PDF, an email series, it doesn’t matter as long as it provides a solution to a problem and demonstrates that you have what it takes to help them!
If you don’t have a website or a freebie an email list building strategy yet, click here to sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge where I’ll show you exactly how to get all that set up for under $100.
After you’ve started to build relationships online and your website is up and running, it’s time to start giving as many people as possible a reason to come to your website! But not just anybody… we want to get in front of our ideal customer and let them know we exist!
MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT IN ORDER TO GET TRAFFIC TO THEIR WEBSITE, THEY NEED TO MAKE SURE IT COMES UP IN THE TOP OF GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS BECAUSE THAT’S HOW PEOPLE FIND WEBSITES, RIGHT?
In my humble opinion, that type of thinking is flawed. It puts all the power in the hands of Google’s algorithms and the person actually actively searching for what you have to offer at any given moment. It’s like all the stars have to align for it to work out, and the chances of that aren’t good especially if your offering isn’t super unique.
If I spent all my time trying to rank for WordPress training, one, I wouldn’t be attracting the kinds of clients I love to work with because I don’t want to teach just anyone, and two, there’s so much competition in the space it would be really, really hard to stand out.
People also think that they have to pay for advertising, which when you’re just starting out and every dollar counts can feel like a risky proposition. I’ve had success with Facebook Ads in some instances and spent a lot of money without a good return in others. So that’s why I want to share with you a strategy that doesn’t cost anything but your time.
WHICH LEADS ME TO THE SECOND STEP IN THE RACE STRATEGY: AMPLIFY.
Google is just one route of many that people can take to get to your website – but I’m going to show you how to leverage your relationships to drive more traffic to your website.
Amplify means to enlarge or make greater, so you have to actually have something to amplify!!
That’s why you need a website, an email list, and a freebie – because once we take the steps I’m gonna outline here to get people onto our website, we need to grab that email address so we can continue the conversation!
The goal is not just to get people to our website, it’s to get them on our email list so now we’re the ones that can initiate communication, rather than waiting for our ideal client to think about us and reach out.
OKAY, SO HERE ARE THE EXACT STEPS TO TAKE TO AMPLIFY YOUR MESSAGE AND GET MORE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE.
Write one blog post a week and include or a mention or links to content created by the people with whom you are intentionally relationship-building.
Write about what you learned from that person, how you took some advice from them and put it into action, how their freebie solved your problem.
Or do a review of their latest book or course or blog post or podcast episode. Just write your story about how you’re successfully using the advice they are giving you.
Or if you feel like you’ve built enough of a relationship with the person, ask them if you can interview them and publish that as your blog post.
When I first started my business, I posted in entrepreneur Facebook groups that I wanted to interview people that had built their own WordPress sites. I asked them all the same set of questions, and then I tagged them with a link to our interview.
I know this can seem daunting at first to write a blog post each week. I had a really hard time with consistency for about the past year, but then I was challenged by my business coach to write one post a week. It’s what I do on Saturday mornings first thing (well, after coffee.)
Pick a day and time each week that you’ll sit down to write, and schedule this non-negotiable time on your calendar. I block off 4 hours on Saturday mornings to write.
Make sure your email opt-in to your freebie is showing up on your blog page, whether it’s in the sidebar or as a pop-up, or you refer to it directly in the blog post itself (or all three!).
Share the link to your blog post on the social media where the person you’re writing about hangs out the most or has the biggest audience and tag/mention them in your post.You should have been able to figure this out where they hang out the most online as you’ve been engaging with them in the Relationships phase.
So if they have a huge Twitter following and they are really active on Twitter, mention them in your tweet with a link back to your post – and put some strategic hashtags in there also! If they have a huge Facebook fan page, post a link to your article to their wall, or in the comments of a relevant post. If they have a big Facebook group, make sure you read the rules first, and if allowed, post it there with a note of thanks.
If they are most active on Instagram, change the link in your Insta profile to this blog post, and then create a graphic of the title, post to Insta and tag them in the post (and use relevant hashtags as well).
If they are a live-streamer, catch their broadcast and mention your post in the comments, inviting everyone to check out what you wrote about them.
Add your post to a social media scheduler service like RecurPost so that it gets shared again in the future automatically. Why? The person you’re writing about – their audience is going to grow, maybe they didn’t see it the first time, etc. You just want as many opportunities as possible to get in front of the people you want to serve!
Remember, you’ve been intentionally building a relationship with people who already serve the people you want to serve.
And people want to share what makes them look good.
So when you write something awesome about those people, not only will they want to share that with their audience because it makes them look good, their audience will want to read what you wrote to learn more about that person or validate their decision to make a purchase.
So we’re tapping into known networks of people that we already want to serve, and we’re doing it in a really authentic way that feels good because we’re providing value to the person who built the network by adding to their credibility and giving them a backlink to their website (which helps with SEO).
We’re not trying to siphon off their clientele, we’re not in competition with them, but we know that people like to learn from multiple people and we have something to offer too!
SO AS YOU CAN SEE, IT TAKES A LOT OF INTENTIONAL EFFORT AND ACTION TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE, BUT IT’S TOTALLY WORTH IT.
And once you WOW your ideal customer with the value you deliver in your freebie, they are going to share it with their networks because people like to share what makes them look good!!
There are lots of additional ways you can amplify your message with social media and your website, but I don’t want to overwhelm you right now with too many options!
It’s super important to me that you’re able to implement what I’m teaching in this blog post series and start to get some traction!!
SO HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE GETTING TRACTION?
First, you’ll see your email list start to grow. Second, you’ll look in your Google Analytics and see if your traffic has increased and where it’s coming from. Is it coming from Facebook or Twitter? Is it going to the blog post you wrote about Marie Forleo or Pat Flynn? That will give you an idea of where the people who have what you need are hanging out, and then you can start to focus your efforts.
So your first step is to block some time on your calendar to write that first blog post, and then in the comments below, tell me when you’re going to write it and what it’s going to be about!!! Cuz you’re a total action-taker, right???
Continue building those Relationships while you begin to Amplify your message, and next week I’ll share with you the next step in the strategy that’s going to help turn your subscribers into customers.
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
