Need Advice & Direction

[sdg72]

Hi,

My name Steven and I am looking for some REAL SOLID ADVICE and Direction.
I have doing IM for one year and 3 months. I have made a little money online but not enough to quit my job I have a blog up and have done a lot of work each week to keep fresh content on it. I LOVE video marketing and that's what my blog is all about. I have a hard time building my list. If someone out there could help me and steer me in the right direction I would really appreciate it.

Thank You

Steven

[Andy1750]

Hi Steven,

I think that it would help if you could elaborate a bit more in terms of what's not working for you. Is the problem taffic, conversions or both? How are you attracting traffic to your site and where is it coming from? How are you monetising your site?

Although it's great that you have focussed so much on your blog not every project that you work on will be successful. Some sites just never seem to work based on my experience. Is it just one site that's failing or have you spent time on other projects/niches that have also failed?

Andy

[sdg72]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for replying. I am getting traffic but maybe not enough. I make videos and then distribute them using tubemogul and social bookmarking. I use almost all video site to drive traffic to my blog. Basicly my blog is a free video tutorial library. I do talk about products there but just have a hard time building my list. I guess I just need some advice if I am doing the right thing. I went through Alex Jeffrey's Coaching program but all I learn was how to make a blog. Not that he isn't a great marketer, it's just that how I feel. Anyway's if you would like to check my blog out, only if you have time, and let me know if I am on the right track. I ahve worked sooooooooooo HARD on it. I have a PR2 and getting ok traffic, but maybe there something I am missing.

Thanks

Andy :O)

[dave147]

use aweber or getresponse
write out a 10 week mailing schedule with your offers
get your optin box added to your blog or site
give away some thing of value to your target market
after sign up provide them with useful info

[sdg72]

Thanks Dave!

I do have Aweber and will note down your advice.

Thanks

[Andy1750]

Hi Steven,

You're content is great! I'm going to be bookmarking it. There is one MAJOR problem that I noticed and a few more minor ones.

The major problem is readily resolvable. I visited your site several times. The first visit everything was fine - all loaded OK. On my second visit the right hand column (containing your optin) didn't load. I hit refresh and again it didn't load. I hit refresh for a third time and again it didn't load. Part of your problem is undoubtedly therefore that your optin form isn't appearing so there is no way for your visitors to subscribe. I kept trying but no matter how many times I visited your site the right hand column didn't load! And on my final visit a lot of front page didn't load properly.

In terms of minor problems your optin form didn't stand out to me. I was drawn to the content and the optin form blended in with the right hand column. I have been conditioned to ignore everything here as this is where most sites have all their adverts. I would incorporate the optin form at the top of your frontpage in the first post so visitors have no option but to read it.

The other problem is that you don't have a killer freebie. In fact the content of your site is so great that there doesn't seem to be any benefit in subscribing to your list. Everything that I want to know is already on your site.

I note that you are promoting some ebooks at the top of your site. I'm as guilty of this as you are. However, you really need presell these or people will not click on your links. Again, people are conditioned just to ignore these type of adds.

One final issue. Only you can answer this. However, the traffic that you are getting may not be targetted. It depends exactly where it's coming from and on what basis you are persuading people to check out your site. Are people just looking for free information or are they really looking to spend money.

Hope this helps. Best of luck!

Andy

[Norma Holt]

Steven, I think you need better scripting for both your web site and videos. White writing on a black background might be alright for some but personally I can't read it. I never even noticed you have a sign up form because it does not stand out.

I could not watch the videos. The first finally loaded and got going but you didn't. You waffled all over the place and by the third of the script I was out of there. I could not get the second video to work at all and was confused because it states you are teaching how to build a list and yet that is the very question you have posed as a major problem.

You need to be authoritative and credible. Find out what it is you can't first before you try to teach others.

This is not meant to discourage oyu but simply to point out how I think you can do better. Keep us posted.

God bless

Norma

[sdg72]

Thanks Andy for looking at my site

I know that my site doesn't load properly in IE. Do you use IE or FF?
I use firefox for everything and my blog loads fine. I don't know why it's having problems in IE. Maybe I should change my Blog theme You right I a need killer ebook to give away. I have been trying to find one but the one I find, won't allow me to give away. When you said put my optin form at the top, did you mean in my posts? because I put my optin on my blog on the upper right hand corner. Is that not a good place to put it? When I make videos, I distribute them all over the net, I send them back to my blog with links in my description. It that a wrong way to drive traffic. I am just a little confused

Steven

[Andy1750]

Hi Steven,

I use IE. Often OK to put optin at top right but it's not working well on this site for numerous reasons. Perhaps if you could change the colour or something to make it stand out? Still think that in the middle at the top would work better.

In terms of whether the traffic is targetted or not this is something that you can only establish through testing. It is targetted in the sense that your visitors are interested in what you have to say. However, it may not be targetted in terms of what the resulting visitors want out of your site (in comparison to what you want to achieve out of them).

First step is to improve the appearance, layout and function of your site. Once you have got this right, if you don't achive results the problem is that you are not getting the type of traffic that you need.

Andy

[sdg72]

Thanks Andy I do Appreciate it

Steven

[Craig Fenton]

Hi Steven:

Welcome to the forums. Have you considered a larger scale (without spending too much money) focus on your business? For instance a package of:
Blogging
Website
Article Marketing
Video Promotion
Forum posts
Free classified posts
Posts on My Space, Facebook, etc.

These will only help get the word out. Comment on other people's blogs and see if you can exchange links with other folks.

Let us know how you do!

Enjoy the day.

[sdg72]

Hi Craig,

Thanks so much for replying! Any advice I can get is helpful.

Thanks bro!

Steven