The great block to internet entrepreneurship

by Marcus Rockey on October 16, 2012

Hell of a title isn’t it. And you could be thinking this post will give you a concrete answer to the question of why so many internet entrepreneurs don’t succeed and never discover how to make money online…

MissionVision2

And in truth I have a “hell of an answer”…

While the vast majority of online marketers spend their time looking for new tactics and strategies to solve their problems, they ignore (or are unaware,) that the very “searching” for a way to fix their problems is part of the problem. Or rather it’s the searching outside of themselves…

You see when we look outside ourselves for new ways to fix a problem in our lives or our business we divert the lions share of responsibility to other people. We are effectively saying “here take this off my hands, I just can’t work it out.” It’s the easier, softer option in the short term but ultimately it’s a path to more pain and on going failure. Discovering how to make money online becomes more distant and more unlikely.

The script continues with something like…

“I just need to find the right product that will do the job for me,” or “I just need to get more traffic to my products/services.”

Of course there are certain things that we simply can’t do for ourselves and we need the expertise of others to overcome those obstacles. But there’s a difference between overcoming one particular obstacle and fixing an inherent day to day problem.

 

 

 

Let’s take traffic for example…

Almost EVERY struggling marketer I come into contact with spins the same yarn that the one thing they need above all others is more traffic. They tell themselves they are not succeeding because they don’t have enough traffic hitting their products and services.

Having more traffic is great of course and your chances of improved sales will always rise in an odds calculation.

But I see the “traffic issue” as a symptom of a much bigger problem.

Let’s say you are getting a mingy 50 clicks a day to your website. Let’s also say that

they are reasonably targeted clicks. Now let’s also say that you have an offer designed to entice visitors to give you their email address, or like your page, or at least subscribe to your RSS feed.

But you are frustrated because of those 50 targeted daily clicks you only have 5 visitors a week that take any of the actions you want them to take . A ratio of 350 – 5, That’s depressing right?

And what’s the natural tendency when results are poor?

“I need to get more traffic to my website.”

But let me ask you…

What of the 50 visits a day you are already getting? Why are you not converting them into viable leads for a follow up sequence and ultimately paying clients?

I would say to you that your focus needs to shift from traffic to conversion.

My landing page converts at almost 50%. That means for every 50 visits I get to my site 25 of those subscribe to my email list and fall into my targeted follow up sequence. Ultimately they can be converted to paying clients through the weeks and months ahead.

So with that in mind…

Why not ask yourself “how can I turn the traffic I am getting into qualified leads?”

In this example it’s not traffic that’s the primary problem, it’s conversion.

Even if you were getting 10,000 targeted clicks to your site every day your email harvesting and visitors behaviour would continue to be dismal. That can’t really be argued with can it?

If you chase traffic and ignore conversion strategy you create more work, more stress, more worry and continued poor results. It’s a lot like chasing your tale and pinging darts into the dark. Without sounding too harsh it’s a losers game.

You can check out my high converting landing page right here

I would love to hear your comments so please take the time.

To Our Success

Marcus Rockey

“together we can”

  
  

  • Don Wheaton

    Great post. I’d never thought of traffic quite like that. My conversion rate for email addresses is roughly 15% and I’m always desperate for more traffic.

    How about taking a look at my squeeze page to see how I can improve it? Getting 50% would be amazing cause I have about 200 visitors a day!

    Thanks. I’ve emailed you. Hope you take a look.

    • Marcus Rockey

      Hi Don

      Yes I’v had a good look at your page and there are some things going on that will always reduce conversions. I will post my critique in the reply email but for other readers to benefit there are some generic changes I will share here…

      1. You’ve used the word “learn” but in the make money niche most marketers do not respond to learn as it relates to work, and most marketers don’t want to work very hard. If you use words like “discover” or “find out” this will help conversions.

      2. It took me too long to “find out” what you were giving away and what I had to do to get it. Simplicity is KEY for high conversion rates. Think carefully as the “viewer” not as the “author”. This may help.

      3. I do not like opt in boxes that can’t been seen above the fold (without having to move down the page.) This is a guaranteed scupper for opt ins. Always keep your opt in box above the fold unless you are a pro copywriter.

      More coming in the email.

      Thanks for your comments.

      Marcus Rockey

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