A couple of days ago, I wrote you about the results of the survey I ran.
(http://www.MarkWidawer.com/helpsurvey)
And I really had no idea what to expect. Turns out, almost half of you said Traffic — in some form or another — as the MOST IMPORTANT thing you need help with.
I dove back into the survey results — which keeps growing, by the way — and have something new to report to you. It’s the SECOND most import thing.
Oddly enough, it seems that it’s …
TRAFFIC
You see, I asked two separate questions in my survey. The first was “What is the single MOST important topic for you. And the second question was “WHAT ELSE?”
Well, the “What Else” answer is that 35.8% of the 2nd choice answers were traffic-related, too. “How to make a sales page” was up near the top with 17%.
And “How to make a squeeze page” Got 13% of the vote. Testing got 13%, too.
But all the things that go into Traffic (SEO, Adwords, Articles, Blogs, Web2.0, and so on) got the most first-place votes, and the most second-place votes.
The answer is pretty clear.
And so I’m working now on a solution to do something VERY simple — allow you to start and create a relationship.
HUH?
What do relationships have to do with Traffic?
The idea that I proposed was to create a directory so that you could easily find other people in your niche. The result of finding those people — you’d hope — would be that someone would send you traffic.
How do you think that might start? Probably by you offering to send them traffic, too.
You’d be doing something nice for each other.
And that’s pretty much what happens in a relationship…
People do nice things for each other.
There are plenty of anonymous parts of this internet marketing business we’re all in, but one thing that I’ve noticed is that this business is probably the most personal one I know.
That’s because there is so much power at our fingertips — and people are willing to use that power for their friends. That’s why people go to Internet Marketing Conferences (Big Seminar is coming soon!)
The problem is…
No one has enough friends. We’ve always got room for more.
And so the idea here — if you think about it — is to build something that will help people meet each other online and begin a relationship.
And if I can do that for you, then I think it will be a success.
Here’s an example…
While going through the comments on my blog, I came across Jeff of http://www.CheapSeeds.com and Paul of http://www.guzmansgreenhouse.com. Maybe there’s something the two of you could do for each other! And by all means, maybe Karla of http://www.DoctorYourHome.com (a ‘how to spruce up your house’ on the cheap) might want to get in on the action, too.
So I’m looking into a couple of options…
First, a forum, which many of you suggested. It would be a meeting place for posting site information and exchanging ideas. It can do so much more as well, but it can also be a pain to moderate and run. (I could only run the forum if I had some volunteers — readers with expertise in different areas — to help out.)
And we’d devote a section of the forum to JV requests — umm, I mean “New relationships” The problem is that this part of the forum (which, after all, is the initial reason for starting it) is not something we’d be able to automate easily. Every post here would have to be reviewed, and there aren’t fields to fill in for “niche” and “kind of traffic you’re looking for” and “how big is your list.” (I’ll look into the possibility of adding custom fields.)
So it’s not exactly a great match. There are lots of benefits to forums, but some downsides, too.
On the other hand, there is also software that is specifically designed to run and automate the building of directories, where people can go, submit a site and have it show up for others to see. I can add custom fields, moderate the requests, and so on.
I’m currently looking at some software help you start these relationships, and I’ll report back shortly.
In the mean time, your comments on this would be appreciated. Just scroll down a bit and let me know what you think here.
To Your Success,
–Mark
P.S. I think that something like this can work for you. Really, what you need are introductions to other people who can do nice things for you (like mail their list, put a link on their site for you, etc).
But there’s more, much more about traffic. This is only a very small part of the whole picture.
I’m also working on something else for you — an even more adventurous project that you inspired — to bring you traffic ALL the other ways.
I can’t explain just yet — it’s too soon — but I’ll have news very shortly about what I’m thinking, and I’ll ask your opinion. And when I do, I’m hoping you’ll give it to me.
–M