Now here’s a summary of the first part of Chapter 5 – “The Four Core Areas Of Focus”.
Most newbies, including Dean in his early days get confused and irritated by the sheer number of things that seem to have to be learned to become successful. The secret, Dean discovered was to reduce the number of things one had to concentrate on.
The problem then became identifying exactly what should be concentrated on, and what could be relegated to the background. Dean identifies a book that explains what is known as the Pareto Principal. This states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. So, Dean set about discovering what he was doing during his 20% productive time and extending it by cutting down on his unproductive time. He discovered to his surprise that there are only four income-producing areas on which all Affiliate marketers should concentrate their working time to experience positive progress. Dean calls these The Four Key Areas Of Focus.
CORE FOCUS No. 1: TRAFFIC
“Traffic”, i.e. visitors to your website who have the potential to click on one or more of your affiliate links, are essential to your business. Without traffic, it is impossible to make any sales. Traffic is frequently placed in one of two categories, “Free Traffic” or “Paid Traffic”. But there is really no such thing as “Free Traffic”. “Free Traffic”,sometimes called “Organic Traffic, is completely paid for by your time, while “Paid Traffic” is paid for both by your time (though less time than for “Free Traffic”) plus your money.
As well as the two categories explained above, there are three other categories into which either organic or paid traffic can fall. These are:
- Traffic You Control
Usually paid traffic coming from an advert placed on a platform you do not own, but, after paying the required fee, you can have some control over who can see the advert and full control over where anybody who clicks the link is sent.
Examples of traffic you don’t control can come from blogging, S.E.O., Social Media posts, Forums, video-sharing sites, and Press Releases.
Apart from S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization), which is extremely complicated, and, if you get into it, time-consuming, pretty much the only thing you can do to improve the flow of traffic consuming your content is to post as regularly as possible. The more quality content you can get on the web, whether that be text, videos, or speech, the more chance you have of people finding it, appreciating it, and following you, thus seeking out more of your content in the future.
Whether you are using traffic you control or traffic you don’t control, your ultimate aim must be to turn all leads you do manage to gather, into traffic that you own. When you own traffic you can communicate with them, get them to know, like, and trust you, so that you can eventually make offers to them which they are more likely to buy from you rather than from a complete stranger.
You could say that Social Media followers or YouTube or TiK Tok subscribers are owned traffic, but, in these cases, the platform is still between you and your traffic. The only sure way to completely own your traffic is to get them registered on an email list. Growing your email list MUST be your main goal when considering traffic.
Cheers
Phil