Don't Mistake Traffic for Trust

25 Jan 2010

The Truth Matters trust

There are two sides to every story, and sometimes, the things we think we know aren’t what they appear to be.

This is especially true for people like you, trying to build digital empires.

If you want to build an online lifestyle business, then you’ve got to not only attract quality traffic, but you’ve also got to know how to make use of that traffic. This means understanding the people that are coming to your blogs and then finding out why they’ve come.

People might like you, but do they trust you enough to buy?

Many people get tied up in raw numbers and Alexa rankings, but that’s only a small part of the battle, because unless you are attracting tens of thousands of unique visitors per day (probably much more than that), you’ll have a hard time earning a living from ads alone. So that means you’ll need to find another way to monetize your traffic. In other words, you need to sell something.

That brings us to an interesting dilemma, because unless you’ve built an audience that is willing to buy from you, then your traffic numbers are meaningless. I could point out a dozen blogs right now that receive more traffic than I do, yet each of them has a hard time making money because instead of building a blog or website to create a business, they built one to generate traffic.

What are you trying to do?

I can’t stress this enough…

Unless you have clear aims for your blog and make them clear to both your audience and yourself, then you’ll never make a living online. Your digital empire will become a digital scrap heap, and you’ll be left wondering what went wrong.

I’ve been studying a lot of successful blogs lately, and in looking through them I find one commonality…each clearly explained their goals to their readers long before the blog became popular.

It’s that sort of process that allows you to have a clearly defined path, and gives your audience the context in which they should read your blog. Both your design and your content should back that up.

In the days of affiliate marketing review sites, the goal was clear…to compare and contrast products in order to sell the best one. No one could miss it. E-commerce sites are the same…people visit them when they are ready to buy something. Every single site of mine that makes money consistently does so because I tell the readers what to expect from the minute they arrive.

Buddhist Childrens Books is made for a single purpose, which is to showcase and sell great books. The Beyond Blogging blog is meant to sell books. Triathlon Magazines is meant to sell, you guessed it…triathlon magazines!

Granted, these sites are no longer my main focus (this project is), but the principles apply nonetheless. Setting clear expectations and identifying the purpose for your site is paramount to its success.

Blogs make it worse

The problem with blogs is that they are a sort of hybrid that many visitors don’t understand. ESPN.com is something that people understand, and they go directly to that site with a purpose. But often times, people find blogs through search engines, which means they are looking for solutions.

But what do bloggers do after they provide the solution? Usually nothing…and that’s the problem.

Although regular bloggers understand comment systems and the mechanics of sharing via social networks, your average reader has no idea why your blog exists. They might like your story or the information you provide, but that’s as far as it goes with them. That’s why you need to not only guide them to action (i.e. Please comment, or please share this with a friend), but tell them what to expect.

Tell them why they should come back and hang out with your community. Explain your product offerings and ask them to buy instead of hoping they’ll notice your little graphic in the sidebar.

Earn their trust

The key to making money online is turning traffic into trust…it’s as simple as that. Raw numbers might boost the ego, but for the most part, they mean nothing.

What has meaning?

Subscribers
Your Subscriber Reach
Visitor Loyalty (can be tracked with Google Analytics)
RT’s and Facebook Sharing
Purchases

These numbers reflect trust. The best way to build trust is to say what you’re going to do and then follow up on that.

Provide guidance through experience rather than by recycling what everyone else is saying. Stand out…be unique. And most of all, tell readers why they should come back.

The repeat visitors are the onest that buy and are most willing to support your endeavors. Find a way to cultivate that trust, and you’ll be in business. Traffic is easy, but trust is hard.

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venstmartlintremoval

Great post...really puts things in perspective.....I guess my blog is just an extension of my website, trying to get people to use my company

Nathan Hangen

That's a great place to start, the trick is in using that blog to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Linda Schaffer

I love how you spell out the ways to tell what has meaning (subscribers, reach, etc.)! Thanks!

Nathan Hangen

Sure thing :) Hoping to get into more detail in the future, this is just the start!

RJ Weiss

Great post Nathan. This is my first time visiting your blog and I have already started to build trust. Looking forward to more.

Nathan Hangen

Thank you RJ, it's great to have you. While I can't promise to be perfect, I can promise to keep trying :)

TheInfoPreneur

Interesting brother, this is clearly where you have excelled (gaining trust I mean) with the release of the book etc.

Trust and honesty (even if I mess up) is paramount to me. Hopefully come the time when I start selling my book etc this trust will cross over.

Nathan Hangen

Well, I'm trying...not saying I'm there yet, but it's a work in progress.

Oleg Mokhov

Hey Nathan,

Quality over quantity.

It doesn't matter how many visitors your site has. What matters is the quality and relevance of each visitor.

Unless you're planning on leveraging pure figures into some other goal, having x unique visitors/day doesn't give you any actionable metric. It just says how many users happened to stumble upon that day.

By focusing on building a clear voice and purpose for the site, not only is it easier creative-wise but business-wise as well - you don't need as many visitors to make a profit.

It's no surprise that the most remarkable and trusted sites regularly have a wildly higher conversion rate for products than random AdWords-using sites.

One strategy I haven't done much of in regards to clearly stating the purpose is to write about my offerings. I'm guilty of putting up a link or graphic in the sidebar, mentioning once in an article, and leaving at that. Something I'm working on and will push my self to do more once I have my first e-product, music album, etc.

Here's to quality over quantity (and making it easy for the visitor to know why they should be on our site),
Oleg

Nathan Hangen

Well, you nailed it with the post on consulting...which served as a reminder to me for that same purpose :)

debraellis

Nathan, This is a great post. I've been saying quality over quantity for a long time. So much so that I had multiple people tweeting and dm'ing me to read your post. Social media is about building a community. Every one will be unique because people look for different things at different places. Thank you for pointing everyone in the right direction.

Nathan Hangen

Awesome, thanks for stopping by. Community certainly goes a long way towards building trust.

Mike CJ

This is good. It's so easy to fall into the trap of measuring the wrong metrics when looking at your own site.

People get hung up about their Alexa rank and the number of comments they're getting, and completely miss the point that Alexa's whole system is flawed and that the comments are all from the same small group of people.

On Alexa, as you know, Julie's blog has almost exactly the same traffic as my own. And yet I rank 80K and she ranks 500K. It's simply that I'm in a niche where people use the tool bar, and she isn't.

Nathan Hangen

Yeah, it's hard not to get distracted. Comments are most meaningful when people don't just skim the post and type a quickie...the manner in which people respond is a good barometer.

Gordie

Hi Nathan,
Timely for me as I notice my traffic is growing but my income isn't. I'm going to have to figure out some plans to monetize properly with products that match my niche better. Cheers!

Nathan Hangen

I don't envy you guys in the LD niche...definitely a bit tougher to monetize mainstream products. However, if you take a look at what Jonathan Mead and Charlie Gilkey have done, you'll see that if you can be creative, there are a lot of options.

Dave Doolin

Gordie, we're rowing the same boat.

I'll be morphing my WIAW into a more money making venture. You'll see the start of it tomorrow morning with my 1 year anniversary article.

Nathan Hangen

Can't wait :)

Gordie

Looking forward to it, Dave. :)

wchingya

What I love about this post it's that I never thought too deeply about what to expect in future and how people are trusting the social media info I shared to them. Despite they 'like' the post, doesn't mean they'll participate in action. It alerts me more in many aspects of my blogging, how can I be convincing and trustworthy enough when a call to action is taken place. It's not necessarily be marketing, but when it does, at least I know there's another essential factor I need to look into -- how much trust people are putting in you.

@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker

Nathan Hangen

It's something that's bothered me a bit lately, especially as I explore the free vs premium content model. People say they like what they see, but is that a comment just to get one back, or is it a real conversation? (not yours in particular, just in general).

It's an interesting dynamic, and I'm trying to do the best that I can in order to earn people's trust.

Furthermore, what are the signs of trust?

wchingya

I believe we all wish to figure that out. :-) To earn trust is a real challenging subject. Sometimes we might think we're on the right track but ended up trying too hard and it doesn't feel genuine at all. That burdens both sides and nothing is built.

We may like someone instantly, but it takes time to really trust him/her unless under special circumstances. Time and consistent effort, including how we carrying ourselves in public and private conversations will affect their judgements (since we hardly meet the real person therefore reputation management is vital in social media). If we could put others' interests ahead of ours, really think about what could benefit them and listen attentively, even it limits to a smaller group of people at first it'll work wonders. Quality and selflessness, honest but respectful opinions are what majority are comfortable with, but that's just my opinion so feel free to correct/educate me. :-)

Signs of trust - I agree with what you shared in the post, their responses and actions toward our message will be an easy indication (RT, sharing etc) but the real trust happens in friendship, engaging+beneficial conversations; including satisfying services (business) but that's another aspect.

Oppss.. think I'm microblogging again. Sorry for the lengthy comment. Thanks for this interesting yet important subject.

@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker

Nathan Hangen

Great response, that's what I like to see. If you do post about this, link it up so I can check it out.

As for trust...you're right, we trust people a lot more when they're solving our problems instead of solving theirs. I think authority leads to trust, but it's fully earned once someone delivers on their promise.