I’m opening up the mailbox and answering YOUR questions!

You’re about to discover the easiest way to get website traffic…

It’s fast, too.

And, it’s qualified traffic.

The only question is — can you handle it?

The fact is, most small businesses and internet entrepreneurs can’t.  That’s why they don’t already use this virtually unlimited traffic source.

But today, I’ll give you a few hints there as well.

Remember: today is Mailbox Monday…

That’s the day where I answer YOUR questions.  About marketing, copywriting, business-building, selling, and more…

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer, submit it here.

Here’s today’s question…

Roy,

What is the best way to get traffic to my landing page?  Because I am just starting out, this has to be low cost.

I want to be truthful — no pie in the sky language that says an 8 year old can do it and you’ll make a million $$ in a month.

Is the web too crowded to stand out?

S.O.

Let’s start by acknowledging the angst in this question…

With a ton of respect to our friendly correspondent, for having the vulnerability to ask the question in the first place…

I read a ton of doubt and fear here.

They’re afraid they won’t stand out online.

They doubt they can actually get people to believe a promise that’s not pure magic pills.

They’re lining up all the reasons they’ll never succeed.

And my guess is these reasons, these fears, have held them back from action for a long time.

Here’s the thing…

Nature abhors a vacuum.

So let’s say there’s something you want.  Such as a successful internet business.

But you don’t have a definite plan and purpose for moving forward to create it.  And you’re not taking action.

That desire, without the plan and purpose and action, is empty.  It’s a vacuum.

And rather than stay empty, when you’re not acting on your desire it fills with doubt and fear.

The only way out is via action.

The only way out is to make a plan, do something, and then based on what happens, make another plan from there, and keep moving forward…

I just got word that a promo we’ve been testing for months has stolen the crown from the company’s biggest, unbeatable control.  Kind of.  Because it’s getting more customers — but not beating that control on Day 0 cart value.  It won’t be crowned a clear winner until we’re making more money on Day 0.  We got to this point through a bunch of testing.  But we need more testing still to officially steal the crown and throne.  So what are we doing?  Making another plan, and moving forward.  Rather than wallowing in the doubt and fear that would come from inaction.

Self help session over — let’s talk about really practical, actionable ideas…

First and foremost you need a change in perspective.

When most people think about “website traffic,” they think by the hundreds or thousands.

And everything about your question suggests this is the case with you, too.

For example, “this has to be low cost,” is very relative.

Let’s compare two imaginary businesses.

Business A spent $100 on website traffic last month.

Business B spent $100,000.

Which had the low cost traffic?

Yep, it’s a trick question.

Because with just this information, you’d say Business A had the low cost traffic.

But what if I told you that Business A spent that $100 to make $25 in sales…

And Business B spent $100,000 to make $500,000 in sales?

In other words, every $1 that Business A spent turned into 25 cents in revenue…

While every $1 that Business B spent turned into $5.

When you look at it this way, Business B had the low cost traffic.  Because they were able to buy $5 in revenue for every $1 they spent getting people to their website.  Whereas Business A was actually losing 75 cents on the dollar by buying website traffic.

Yes, I know that low cost has to be low cost of entry for most early-stage internet entrepreneurs.  Meaning you can’t commit to a $10,000 or probably even a $1,000 advertising program.

But the reality is there’s so much opportunity in pay-per-click today where you can run tests at a few bucks per day, that an extra hour on your McDonald’s shift should be all you need to start running the most conservative of online advertising tests.

And it makes ZERO sense to start pouring money into advertising and traffic until you’ve proven you can make it profitable.  Because you can’t lose a few cents per visitor and make it up on volume.

So your first challenge here is to think in terms of making a very small amount of traffic profitable.

And this leads right into…

How to stand out in today’s online environment — when buying traffic to your website…

And again, the trick is to think SMALL, not big.

What do I mean?

Well, the way this is asked above makes me think you are competing with the big advertisers in your head.  You’re trying to stand out to the mass millions.  And you’re concerned you can’t cut it.

STOP!

Your job isn’t to stand out to THE WHOLE MARKET.

Just like your job isn’t to make $100,000 worth of traffic buys profitable.

…  At least not yet.

Your job, if you want to get a bunch of website traffic, is to figure out how to stand out to ONE VISITOR.  And how to make it so you can spend less than $1 for every $1 in margin (revenue minus cost) that visitor brings you.

ALL traffic buying comes down to this one simple idea.

Whether you’re paying for tens of thousands of visitors per month (if not more)…

Or if you’re spending just $5 a day to try and get a little momentum in your online business…

It still ultimately comes down to a single person…

First, seeing your ad somewhere out on the internet…

Then being interested enough to click…

Then engaging with your website in whatever way moves them closer to the sale (maybe that’s signing up for your email list, maybe actually buying)…

Then spending money with you, and becoming a customer…

If you can’t do that with one person, it doesn’t matter how much you spend on traffic — failure will scale to bigger failure.

So — how do you create an offer that works for buying traffic?

In short, you probably can’t.  Not ONE offer.  Not today.

What you need to make cold traffic work today is a series of offers.  Preferably that show up one after another.  In what most internet marketers today call a “funnel.”

Typically there’s one low-cost offer — often less than $10, and almost never more than $100, at least in the publishing niches where I work (and where I’m guessing our friendly correspondent works based on concerns about making too big of an income promise).

Then there’s another offer that’s near 2-3X as much as the first offer.

Then there’s another offer that’s maybe 5X the first offer.

Those multiples are not gospel.  Your product and your market may dictate something else.  And in some cases you’ll be best off with much higher price offers after the first, expecting a lower conversion rate.

But all along the way, each offer needs to really serve and provide value to that ONE PERSON who is at the core of your market, the ONE VISITOR who is on your website right now.

It needs to speak to them.

It needs to connect with them.

It needs to convey that you understand the HELL they’re going through right now with the problem they’re dealing with…

And it needs to credibly and believably offer HEAVEN in the form of a solution…

With one solution building on the next as they go from offer to offer.

And in reference to the magic pill promises…

Make the promises you’re comfortable with.  Yes, present the best possible scenario.  But you’re going to be far more believable if you believe your own message.  Your prospects will sense the integrity.  You can even reinforce it by selling against the hype.  Make the hypesters and their false promises your common enemy with your prospects.  Show them the truth.

If you have a high-ticket service offer…

Alternately, if you have a service offer with a high enough price tag (such as a coaching package), you may not actually benefit from having a tripwire or front-end offer.

In this case, you do have to be willing to spend a little more to get the traffic rolling, but never more than you’d make on the first sale.  (If that happens, you know your landing page or funnel is not working.)

You should also have steps to this selling process as well, and you’ll be able to measure performance at each step.

So for example, you should be able to buy a certain number of website visitors to average one scheduled introductory call (or application for coaching)…

And a certain percentage of those calls should lead to making an offer for coaching to one qualified candidate…

And a certain percentage of those offers should convert…

The better you know these numbers, the easier it becomes to buy traffic.

Assuming, that is, that you’re actually buying that traffic at a profit.

Which brings us back full-circle…

Here’s the fastest, easiest way to get website traffic…

It all comes down to being willing and able to buy it.

Find sources of qualified traffic…

Figure out how to convert that traffic consistently…

And build a system to do that on repeat at economics that work to build your business…

It will take a plan and action, and probably a lot of testing.

But it’s worth it in the end when you have a business that scales.

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr