As some of you know – I created a passive income site about 2 years ago that now averages about 10-12k unique visitors a month.

And many of you know I had no clue what I was doing when I started. But I’ve sort of become a test case for what works and what doesn’t work.

My goal is to share with you what works and what doesn’t – at least from my experience so you can take the good and the bad and fail less.

Don’t spend a year like me figuring out how to drive traffic to your site. Don’t spend a year trying to make your first dollar. Do things right the first time so you don’t have to correct things the second time.

Your Site

Contrary to popular belief. Design means very little. You don’t need a beautiful website to start. You just need a site that looks half decent and professional.

What makes a site professional vs non-professional? Having a real domain makes it professional. That requires registering a web domain and obtaining hosting. Having a free blog or wordpress blog doesn’t really give you credibility.

If you want to just get in the habit of writing, a blog is fine. But if you want to build an authority site or a niche site or some type, consider investing in a domain and hosting. It will pay dividends in the long run.

The Essentials to Your Site

I think there are three things your site must have in order to succeed. Here’s what you need:

1. About Page – to tell people who you are and why they should listen to you
2. A Resource Page – so people can easily find what they need if they want something you recommend or sell
3. Really good content – Content is King

The third essential (content) isn’t really so simple. People want good content. People will pay for good content. People will come back for good content.

There’s so much b.s. on the internet now that web surfers are becoming smarter. They are able to recognize good content from bad (for the most part). You should not try to scam people with bad content, it will end up hurting you more than helping you.

You want people to find your content so valuable they want to re-read it and share it. You want people to do the marketing for you.

So remember, content is king. Put together really good content. Understand your audience and what they want and give it to them!

Understand Your Audience

You should have a target audience in mind when you decide to build a site. Please do not build a site if you don’t know who you are building it for. You will end up with a puzzle of a site that makes no sense because you’re trying to cater to all things/people.

Figure out who you want to talk to or sell to. Then figure out what they want to know or buy. Then give it to them. But give it to them better than anyone else.

Once you start getting some traffic to your site, you can analyze the analytics to see who is coming and how they are finding your site. Once you do that you can be even more specific with the content.

Don’t Sell. Engage. Share.

You might want to build a website to make money – that’s fine. But don’t be the sleazy car salesman that just tries to make someone buy something they don’t want to buy.

Engage your visitor like you would a real person. Share how a product helped you and how it can help them. Get personal. Build trust. In return the visitor will be loyal to you and return to your site and eventually trust you enough to purchase or buy what you tell them is worth buying.

Don’t Just Focus On One Type of Traffic

Everyone thinks of SEO when they think of visitor traffic. Don’t be foolish. There are so many ways to get visitors.

• Yes SEO is good but it can only take you so far.
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Social Media Sharing
• Friend of Friends
• Guestblogging
• Other marketing tactics

Try everything and see what works best.

Collect Emails from the Start

One thing I didn’t do that I wish I did early one was offer something for free and collect emails in return.

Why?

Not because I want to spam people. But because the chance of someone returning on their own after one visit is slim. But if they are reminded of the awesome content or how I can be helpful, they’re more likely to be interested and return. Then after awhile I’m like a bad habit they just can’t quit 🙂

It’s like out of site, out of mind. Don’t be out of site. Collect emails and regular update your visitors. They signed up for a reason, didn’t they?

There you have it. 

If you’re interested in seeing what it takes to build a website of your own – check out my tutorial on how to build a wordpress website. I spent a lot of time on it, hopefully you find it helpful!

Leave a comment or question below if you have one! Happy to help!