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Chapter 1: Introduction

There was a time when running a successful online business or making passive income was new and unheard of. There was a time when it took a courageous and pioneering spirit to make a full time living from a blog.

But that's changed. Stories of people becoming extremely successful through social media and running a website are now commonplace. It's been happening for decades.
And yet it's still something that a lot of people don't understand and aren't taking advantage of.

This is a HUGE missed opportunity.

What's the key ingredient here? TRAFFIC.

That is a high volume of traffic.

And highly targeted traffic.

This isn't just for entrepreneurs and bloggers either. If you run a business with any kind of online component, then traffic is the key to making sales. Traffic is the lifeblood of any online business.

Let's say that you have an online store and you're currently using that sells hats. Right now, you get around 500 visitors to your site a day, which leads to 2-3 sales, or about $40-60 profit. It's a small side project that is earning you a bit of cash doing something you enjoy.

With the right strategies, you could easily increase your visitors to a similar 150,000 daily within a year or two. Those 2-3 sales now become 60-90 sales.

And what if you leverage that success to start selling other products? To build a successful YouTube channel or Instagram account?
The sky is the limit.

Even for a local business such as a restaurant, increasing your traffic has the potential to massively increase sales.
Right now let's say you get 100 orders every night, which is largely due to word of mouth. But what if your website was the first one to come up on Google? What if people could order through your site with a few clicks?

What if you had a thriving Facebook page or group and a strong community?

You could easily increase the number of orders you get.

None of this is easy, but none of it is hard either.

This book will serve as your guide. It will show you some of the most effective ways and methods of generating traffic to your website.

Chapter 2: Content Marketing

If you've been moving in digital marketing circles for a while, you've probably heard it said that 'content is king'.

And it's not without reason, because when done right content marketing is a mind-blowing powerful strategy.

How powerful? Well, research has shown that it can cost up to 62% less than traditional marketing and generate about three times as many leads.

If you want to start driving more traffic to your website, then there is one single thing that you need to be doing. This indisputable, critical aspect of your marketing is non-negotiable and has the biggest potential for increasing your viewers, your authority, and your engagement.

That is to apply content marketing.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is about using media such as blogs, newsletters, social posts, videos and infographics to draw customers towards you. How? By providing value upfront. Content marketing flips the script on traditional marketing. Instead of roaring at your audience through a megaphone, content marketing transforms your business into a powerful magnet that pulls customers to your doorstep.

The reason this is so crucial is simple: the internet is built on content. Most of the time you spend online will likely be either reading or watching videos, both of which are examples of content consumption.

To find that content, you probably searched for a phrase or term in Google, and Google will then have matched your query to content that it had indexed.

Why You Need to Implement Content Marketing

When you add high-quality content to your website on a regular basis, you achieve a number of things:

- You provide free value
- You demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in your niche and become an expert
- You increase brand awareness and trust exponentially
- You provide Google with a means of understanding what your site is about
- You create more pages for your site, each of which can then act as a potential entry point to your site and your brand
- You gain a commodity that you can share on social media
- You increase the likelihood of people who enjoy your content sharing it with other people: thereby giving you free links and free exposure.

How To Write an Engaging Blog Post

One of the key ingredients to your success then is to write a high quantity of articles. The more you write, the more opportunity you create to be discovered. The more questions you can answer, and the more people you can engage with.

As a starting point, I recommend writing at least one blog post a week. This is far from ideal, though. Far preferable would be 3-4 posts per week, and potentially even a post a day.

What's arguably more important, though, is that you learn to write high-quality blog posts. If you get this wrong, then it doesn't matter how many you write!

Only a high-quality blog post will increase the likelihood of someone returning to your website, and only a high-quality blog post will increase the likelihood that your site will get shared.

So, what does the perfect blog post look like?

First and most important is that your post should not be derivative. This means you should not be sharing content for the sake of it. Every single post needs to have something unique to say.

Let's consider two approaches to fitness.

One blog post on fitness is an exclusive interview with the elusive and extremely in-demand Ido Portal. His is a completely unique approach to training and one that has set the social media world on fire for several years now (he's a real guy, look him up!).

The other is an article called "5 Exercises for Six Pack Abs."

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Do you feel stuck in your life right now? Do you know that there is much more to life than you are currently experiencing but you don’t know what this is? Do you feel that you are just drifting along in life and that you have no real purpose? If any of those questions apply to you then this is definitely the right guide for you.

Most people just drift along in life and complain when things don’t turn out as they want them to. They do not have any direction and just take the path of least resistance. A small percentage of people know exactly what the purpose of their life is and are constantly striving for fulfillment.

The secret to fulfillment and happiness in life is to know your true purpose and to set goals to support it. Some people know this but struggle to find their true calling. They will often experiment a lot in the vain hope that they might stumble on the right thing. This rarely works.

In this guide you will learn the importance of discovering your WHY. We will show you how to find your WHY by asking yourself the right questions. You will also learn how to create a compelling and powerful WHY statement.

Having a strong WHY statement is just the start. You then have to live by it to attain total fulfillment. We will show you effective ways that you can live by your WHY and keep it uppermost in your mind.

Finding your true purpose in life is something that everyone should strive for. You are so far ahead of most of the population by reading this guide and being willing to take action with what you learn here. Finding your WHY is a true “eureka” moment and you will be very grateful that you experienced it.

There is nothing more satisfying than realizing what your true calling in life is. This will provide you with the clarity and direction that you need in your life. So read every word of this powerful guide and start your journey to discover your WHY and communicate your purpose to the world.

There are probably many people who consider themselves “stuck” in their lives right now. Are you one of them? Do you know what the real meaning and purpose of your life is? Have you set goals and failed to achieve them? Or maybe you achieved your goals but felt that there was still something lacking in your life?

If you do feel stuck then don’t worry because you are not alone. It is a common feeling that a lot of people experience. Fortunately you had the foresight to grab a copy of this guide to help you move away from “stuck” to clarity, purpose and fulfillment.

The Problem with Goals

Very few people set goals so if you do this you need to congratulate yourself because you are certainly in the top 5%. A lot of people will set goals without fully understanding why they have set them.

If you do this then it is unlikely that you are going to achieve your goals because you do not have a driving force pushing you to overcome the obstacles that you will inevitably face so that you can achieve them.

Human beings do everything for a reason. What is the difference between a person that goes all out to achieve their dreams and someone that tries their best? Well the first person is completely driven – they are inspired and motivated to achieve their dreams no matter what. The second person is nowhere near as committed as this.

So what does all of this mean? What it means is that when you set your goals you need to have a strong reason as to why you want to achieve them. It has to be a strong reason because weaker reasons won’t cut it.

Here is an example. A woman decides that she wants to set a goal to lose 20 pounds in 3 months. She communicates this with her friends and family and they ask her why she wants to do this. She replies “I want to fit into that summer dress I bought a few years ago”.

This is a weak reason for her goal. How important is fitting into that summer dress really for her? It’s probably not that important right? OK she looked good in the dress and it cost her money but is this reason really going to motivate her to eat the right things and participate in an exercise routine every day?

Contrast this to a reason like “I want to lose those 20 pounds so I can feel super sexy and turn heads wherever I go”. Would that inspire and motivate you more than just fitting into an old dress? Of course it would!

Human Behavior is Driven by Emotion

We have thoughts in our heads and these make us feel a certain way. Some of these thoughts will stir strong emotions within us and make us take certain actions. A single man sees a beautiful girl at a party. He is captivated by her beauty and wants to get to know her. The thoughts in his head stir up different emotions.

On the positive side he can see himself walking around with this gorgeous girl on his arm. He would have so much love for her and literally do anything for her. The negative side of this is that he has seen several guys approach her and be rejected. Rejection is not something that he really wants to deal with. So what does he do?
He plucks up the courage and goes over to her. He comments on how nice her hair looks and that she shouldn’t be alone. While he is doing this his body is preparing itself for the feeling of rejection but he pushes through this. The girl likes him and they spend the evening together.

Why did the man choose the positive emotion over the negative? He did this because the feelings were stronger to him. Stronger emotions will always trump weaker ones when it comes to our behavior.

Think about the woman that wanted to lose 20 pounds. It is her birthday and someone brigs a delicious birthday cake to her house. She is salivating over this cake but knows that she shouldn’t eat even the smallest portion of it. After all she wants to fit in that summer dress again.

She rationalizes all of this in her head and then thinks “who cares about the dress it’s my birthday!” And of course she will eat some of the cake and put her weight loss progress back considerably.

If she wanted to lose the weight to be sexy and turn heads then do you think that she would respond in a different way? We think that it is more likely that she will reject the offer of the cake if that is her reason for losing the weight. The emotion is very strong in this reason and it will probably win the day.

You need a Strong WHY

We have all done things where we had to push through the pain barrier or overcome very big obstacles to achieve something. The thing that gave us the strength and tenacity to do this was the reason “why” we were doing it.

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Get Your Online Store Up Immediately

One of the major reasons that people use 3rd party sites to sell is that it's far easier to use someone else's format and templates to get a site live faster than to try to figure out how to do it on your own. Even though website programming has gotten a lot easier, it can still be a steep learning curve for someone who has never dealt with HTML or templates before. If they don't want to take the time to learn, many 3rd party sites are extremely user-friendly and have a working staff that can help people to get their stores up in record time.

POPULAR 3RDPARTY SITES

We'll discuss more in detail a number of 3rd party sites that others have found user-friendly and easy to get started selling online. You probably have heard of eBay.com as a highly popular way to sell, but there are many others, including Etsy.com, CafePress.com, Amazon.com, and many more. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and will appeal to a particular audience.

MATCH THE INVENTORY TO THE SITE

The reason that eBay.com is so popular is because you can sell a wide range of products in an auction format, thus getting more sales. However, other sites like Amazon.com can also sell more than books; the public just isn't as aware of the many options available. Etsy.com tends to attract artists, while CafePress.com will appeal to people with an idea who don't want to create products as much as market those products that come from their ideas.

GET HELP ALONGTHE WAY

Take advantage of the many ways to get help from each of these sites. EBay.com has a large help support area that is quite responsive, as it makes its money by people selling things on the eBay site. It pays for the people of eBay to help facilitate your experience. It's not going to be a slam dunk, but it will certainly be easier than programming a website from the ground up.

Take a look at other sellers on the site before you get into your own site. See how sales are taking place. Place some of your own orders so you can see the process from the buyer's point of view too. Go into the community forum if they have one and ask your questions there. There's no reason to go it alone when you use a 3rd party site.

No Special Tools To Download Or Install

You will find that these sites are created to be extremely user-friendly. You don't have to download an update if one is necessary. It's all done behind the scenes. You don't have to know HTML, although it can help to differentiate your offerings from others. You don't have to install a specific browser, as they work with most Internet browsers. You don't have to be very technical at all for the most part. It's all done for you by the staff of the online 3rd party site. They understand that their users are not programmers, and they don't expect you to download software programs or to install them either. However, they will offer software features that anyone can learn to use, and you can become a super user without having to really become a technical expert.

OPEN YOUR BROWSER AND GET STARTED

All you have to do to get started with 3rd party sites is to open your Internet browser and navigate to their main URL. They will have an area where you can register with them as a seller, and it will be pretty obvious what button or link to click. Instead of running programs, installing software, or selecting templates, all you have to do is to set up an account by giving them some basic information that is already preformatted as a form for you to fill in. It's really that easy.

LIST YOUR PRODUCTS

Once you have an account, and they know where to send the check to, you can start listing your products. You will be limited to the terms of service for that particular site. No firearms are allowed to be sold on eBay.com, for instance. Know what you can and can't sell by reading the terms of service that comes up when you first register. If you try to sell something that is prohibited, your account will be suspended.

Aside from that, it's pretty easy to list your products, and the sites have tools that make this process very easy. For Amazon.com, all you have to do is to put in an ISBN number for it to pull up the book title, and then you can add information on the quality of the item in your possession that you wish to sell secondhand. That's definitely something you won't have with a standard website, yet with 3rd party sites, these types of tools are common. Whatever makes it easier for their sellers to list their products gets them to list more, which means more commissions for them. It makes sense to provide more tools to facilitate listings. If you make a lot of sales, premium tools are made available to PowerSellers on eBay.com. Third party sites will try to support your selling activities as best as they can.

Search-Friendly Listings

If you were to put up your own website and then get some good tools for listing your items, like an e-commerce cart, it still isn't going to give you the same exposure as a 3rd party site. The reason for this is that many of these sites are crawled by Google and other search engines frequently. They know that new sale items are coming up every day, and people want to find the listing if they input a description into their search engine for a particular site. That's why they're heavily favored in search engines, in some cases, especially eBay listings, due to the amount of interest and the credibility this 3rd party site has already established.

In comparison, your own personal website, while fancy and slick, needs time to build up the same credibility and interest from search engines. If you want to eventually develop your own site, it doesn't hurt to start by marketing some items on 3rd party sites and then having a reference URL back to your site. That way, you get the advantage of the search-friendly listings of 3rd party sites, but also start to develop your own personal following that will help you with search engines later on.

THINK LIKE A BUYER

When you build your listing, think like a potential buyer. Try to make it easy for your listing to be seen before others’ listings on the same site. Third party sites will sell their high visibility features, from bolding to highlighting, or featured listings. You can actually buy these, as well as buy multiple image files. You might get some of these items for free if you progress up their ladder of stellar sellers, but until then, you will probably have to buy the additional features. That's why it isn't just words that sell online; it's also how you use those words.

Include keywords that people are searching for in the heading and subheading of your listing. Try to describe your item in words as best as possible. Make sure the listing is accurate too, as you will be held to your word, and it can affect your standing in the community if you misrepresent a product that sells. Pay close attention to the heading, as this is what people see of the listing first.