This is a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I’ve been blogging for around 10 years now! The majority of this time has been blogging and managing sites for other people, and it wasn’t until 2016, when I started Weekend Jaunts, that I really created a place for myself on the Internet.
Now at the helm of my own site, I feel like I have a clear vision of what I want the site to cover (travel and adventures for families!); however, there are times that I often feel stuck at really understanding the art and science of getting new readers to find me. And not just readers, my people!
To help me to better understand my audience and grow the site, I have been reading the Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers and participating in its online 30-day challenge. And, wow, have I learned a lot!
Developed by Russell Brunson, a Best-Selling Author and CEO of ClickFunnels, Traffic Secrets highlights several long-term strategies, which he dubs as “secrets” to help readers bring customers and an audience to your site. This is focused on helping you to find YOUR people, so you can really hone in and focus on reaching the right group of people in your specific target/niche. As Brunson said, “waiting for people to come to you is not a strategy.”
The insight in this tangible guide features 15 years of Brunson’s experience and learnings that has really helped me to learn more about my dream audience, how to better connect and partner with my Dream 100 (and better understand who this group is), how to develop my hooks, story and offers to my community, understanding Google keywords, and how to increase my site traffic, among other marketing gems. The book is also broken down into clear, concise manner that is broken up with simple pictures and exercises and questions to ask yourself after each section.
For me, this allowed me to think of the ‘bones’ of the site, the nitty gritty behind the scenes stuff to think about the site as a business, rather than a hobby, which I don’t normally focus on. It also helped to think about the specific people I want to reach, which Brunson highlights as ‘The Dream 100’ where I created a list of where I envisioned my dream audience might be online, identifying websites, Facebook groups, influencers, podcasts and newsletters. As Brunson noted, “Traffic (your dream customer) is already there. Your job is to identify where they are, tap into those existing streams of traffic, throw out some hooks and then get a percentage of your dream customers to start coming to you.” How amazing is that?!
It really helped me to think about my newsletter, which is currently automated and not personal! Through reading Traffic Secrets, I did the work to better understand what email lists my dream audience subscribes to. I also had to fill out a list to determine their ad prices, newsletter list and more, which gave me an insight into their projected net revenue. This was an eye-opening segment in the book for me since I had an overlooked newsletters in the past. Going-forward, I’m going to be sending out a curated weekly newsletter featuring an editors’ note from me, which will be available for advertisers as well to reach my audience.
Secret #3 called ‘Hook, Story, Offer, and the Attractive Character’ was a major eye-opener for me and one that I constantly go back to. As as blogger, I don’t often think about my ‘hook’ or ‘offer.’ I thought my intention was simply posting travel content, but after reading that chapter, I learned that developing the hook, story and offer is really what I needed to hone in on to grab a readers’ attention so that they actually stop and read the content that I’m posting. Without the ability to ‘hook’ them in, no one will actually be reading these stories. Brunson notes that sharing your personality is one way to ensure the success of ads and sponsored content. He says that if you are willing to share your stories and build a connection, they will continue to buy from you. I really love this and will be adding more nuggets of who I am and why this content is so important to me in future posts.
And while I learned so much, I’m still not done reading the book. In future chapters, he highlights even more ways to connect and grow featuring YouTube Traffic Secrets, Affiliate Programs, Instagram Traffic Secrets and Facebook Traffic Secrets, to name a few chapters that I can’t wait to dive into.
Sharing travels and adventures will always be my main goal for Weekend Jaunts, but while reading Traffic Secrets I learned how to better connect and reach more people in my community to scale up and make this a consistent business for myself.
You can pre-order Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers today! The book is slated to ship on May 5, 2020.
Check out more about the book below:
This is a sponsored post. I took the 30-Day Traffic Challenge by Russell Brunson by reading the book Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers. I also received a complimentary copy of the book as a gift where I shared my learnings. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
