Three Reasons People Fail To Build Massive Traffic
1. Lack of understanding – Most people don’t understand the basic concepts required to build traffic on a large scale. Even if they are willing to put in the work, they are working on the wrong things. I’ve been there and I know exactly what it’s like. It is excruciatingly frustrating. Step 1 is to learn the concepts required and step 2 is to execute.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the most crucial concepts that I have used to make money and honestly, most people don’t understand them well. Let me give you a few examples.
Most people know that they are supposed to do keyword research for their sites but they really have no idea what that means. They don’t know what they’re looking for and they certainly don’t know how to integrate keywords into their sites properly. They don’t know how to create a structure that will help them to rank for keywords.
This causes major problems in their businesses. They start off by picking overly competitive keywords that would have no value even IF they ranked for them. Then they move on to improperly targeting the bad keywords with their sites. They then finish it all off by NOT creating any kind of authority for their site. If this is your method, you will have to throw an unbelievable amount of mud at the wall to have a few speckles stick.
Another concept that most people don’t understand is how to build the right links, to the right places. Bloggers and other site owners know that they are supposed to build links BUT they don’t know how to do this properly. They don’t know the underlying factors that could help them to dominate their niches and keywords.
This causes people to spend massive amounts of time trying to get links that will make little difference. They don’t point them to the right places so they have little effect. On top of that, most people don’t know where to get links in the first place.
2. Overload/misinformation – When I first started blogging, I had a distinct advantage. I already knew how to build traffic and let’s be frank. Making money with the internet is 100% about building traffic and making money with that traffic.
You would think that since I already understood both of those principles, it would be easy for me to make money with a blog right? Ironically, that wasn’t the case. It didn’t happen that way for me because I got sucked into the same trap as everyone else. I started reading all of the Make Money Online/Internet Marketing blogs. This caused a change in my belief system that was hard to recover from.
The problem is that many of these guys are SO good at presenting their ideas, they get you to believe concepts that simply aren’t true (sometimes they’re true but aren’t as effective as other ideas). You start reading this stuff and pretty soon your idea of what works and what doesn’t is completely warped and this causes you to put time into a bunch of activities that will make very little difference to your success.
I can’t believe how long it took for me to snap out of it. I spent over a year of my life putting in 16 hour days, mostly on tasks that didn’t work. After all of that time, I still couldn’t crack $1000 per month as a blogger, even though I had previously created other sites that made a lot more than that, with a lot less effort.
I forgot a lot of what I knew to be true. Other people convinced me that their ideas were better than the concepts I already understood and I did the weak sauce thing – I believed in them more than I believed in myself.
I was completely overloaded. My new list of tasks that had to be done was so long, it would take literally every waking hour to complete all of them.
The other part of the scenario that I got myself into was that I became addicted to the information. Every day I read more and more and every once in a while these guys would publish something absolutely ‘spectacular’, something that seemed like it would send my online business to the moon. I would get all excited and would start executing this new technique, adding to my completely out-of-whack workload.
This was a completely vicious cycle and to be honest I started thinking that I didn’t know how to make this stuff work anymore.
As you can probably tell, that wasn’t the greatest part of my life and you don’t yet know the worst of it. I was so sold on the kool-aid these guys were selling, I let my already successful websites completely self-destruct. I completely stopped working on them for almost 18 months. My income was in a negative slide even though I was putting more time in than ever.
I believe that most of the people who are trying to learn how to use the internet to make money are in that same cycle. What concerns me the most is that most of them never learned the fundamentals so it will be extremely difficult for them to pull out of it.
I’m grateful that I was somehow able to escape that vicious trap. At some point in that terrible slide I hit a bottom and started looking at the facts. I started analyzing the results of all of the nonsense I had been working on. I threw out the garbage and I went back to the basics. I worked on my fundamentals again and I went back to the logic that made me successful in the first place. I completely recovered and grew my sites to many times beyond what they had ever been.
Many of you already have websites and for you, all you need is traffic. Building traffic is easy if you understand the fundamentals. It shouldn’t seem complicated and if it does, chances are that you are in a cycle of overload. Today is the day to snap out of that cycle and I’m going to help you to do it.
3. Time Management – Most people spend almost all of their time learning/researching/thinking instead of working on tasks that will produce benefit.
Don’t misunderstand – you REALLY need to learn and understand the correct principles before you’ll be able to make money, but learning them is never going to be enough. Finding the balance between research and real work is something that can’t be ignored.
This principle stands out in many areas of life. For example, let’s say that two people are overweight and want to get fit. Neither knows a lot about fitness.
Person A decides to learn everything possible about fitness and buys every book and course that he/she can find. This person then spends two hours every single day for a year studying fitness. In a year it’s likely that this person will know a LOT about fitness, right?
Person B decides that the best course of action is to spend two hours per day running (or walking) on the treadmill. This person knows little about fitness but knows that lack of exercise caused them to be overweight in the first place.
Let’s fast forward to the end of that year. Which person is going to be better off? Which person will get the most results in year one? Person B will be the clear winner in this time period.
To be fair, it could be argued that even though Person B will have a lot more success in the first year, Person A will have a tactical advantage in the second year – at least this is what we tell ourselves. We want to believe that our failures are caused by lack of knowledge. It’s a lot easier to accept them that way. It doesn’t make us feel weak if we simply don’t have the knowledge to succeed. On the other hand, recognizing that we don’t work hard enough to succeed is a lot harder to swallow.
What would actually happen in this example is that Person B would come out of the first year feeling great and Person A would come out of the first year feeling like a failure. This would happen for Person A because they will have made no real progress. Person B will have accomplished something tangible so Person B will feel good about the year. I’d be willing to bet the farm that this will cause Person B to be more likely to continue while Person A will struggle to begin down the path of effort required to change.
Two addictions would develop in the year. Person A would have failed at making a real change but would have learned some really cool things. It feels good to learn really cool things and it can become an unhealthy addiction. Person B would also likely develop an addiction, an addiction to positive growth. It feels good to grow, to change in a positive way. Person B will continue on the path that helped them to change their body.
Making money online isn’t that different from this example. Most of us allow ourselves to be Person A. We allow ourselves to spend an unlimited amount of time on activities that we believe will perfect our knowledge but spend very little ‘on the treadmill’.
Most people that do really well with building traffic become addicted positively to growth. The day before yesterday one of my sites had its best day ever, it was a HUGE day. It felt completely awesome. What did I do? I spent a bunch of time working on that site. I’m addicted to growth and this is a healthy addiction. It pushes me toward real growth.
All of that said, let’s not be naive. Making money online isn’t as simple as running two hours per day on a treadmill. There are real principles that have to be understood and executed and they aren’t principles that everyone understands.
If you feel like you don’t understand the basics, I want to help you. The basics aren’t hard and they aren’t complicated. Today is the day to learn them.
How To Solve These Problems And Build Massive Traffic
Tonight Mark and I are going to be doing a two-hour webinar called Massive Traffic 101 for our members and for the first time, we’re going to invite everyone to attend. The webinar will be free of charge, even for those who aren’t members of The Keyword Academy.
Update: We held the webinar on January 28, 2010 and it is now available for download, at the bottom of this page.
Here are some of the fundamentals that we will discuss in detail:
- Choosing keyword phrases that will produce maximum results with minimal effort. One of the biggest keys to my success is choosing easy to rank for keywords that pay. There are millions and millions of such keywords out there and if you can find them, you’ll be well on your way.
- Properly targeting keywords for optimum search engine relevancy. This process is simple and easy, once you understand the concepts.
- Link building techniques that improve search engine rankings. Many people know that they need to build links, but they don’t understand where to get them from and they don’t understand how to structure their links. I can promise that if you’re in this boat, after tonight the mystery will be solved.
- Time management. Putting time into the wrong things will cripple everything you’re working for. Learning where to put your time is critical.
Update: Download Massive Traffic 101 here:
Massive Traffic 101 – Audio Only
Massive Traffic 101 – Full Video
Great article Court – one of the best I’ve ever read from you! Thanks for sharing your personal insight and pushing people to take action instead of loading up on information.
PHENOMENAL!
**Hi, My name is Lisa and I am an information junkie! I had my first taste about 5 months ago when I came across your site. I spent some time watching the videos, reading a lot of articles and forum posts. After a short while I had a grasp on the concepts, but for one reason or another I couldn’t stop getting information. I tried. I’d tell myself every day this is not the path you want to take. It will get you no where. It didn’t matter. I was in a downward spiral. Then, then one day Court helped me see the light and I have been free of information overload ever since and I am thankful every day for it.**
In all seriousness, well, ok that was serious….but this webinar is going to be great. It is going to open eyes.
Great post Court!
hey court, you prob dont remember me but i took your training course for a month bc im cheap and have been doing this for about a year when i signed up.
anyway, good stuff here. so I think this is why college students sometimes have a hard time “working” in the real world when they leave college. for 4 (well 5 for some) years all I did was gain useless information. sometimes i liked it, sometimes not but now all i can think of is how i can quit my day job. It’s hard actually working.
also, can you post the webinar on the site becuase im at work in a training session right now and I can’t get in unfortunately. I’m sure I know what your teaching in this webinar, but I’m also an information junkie
This is going to be on at 1am UK time, so will it be available to download afterwards – or transcribed?
thanks court, I got a lot teaching from your article.
Can’t seem to open the archive file (full video). Is it password protected?
Great tutorial Court!
I’d learned a lot from this ‘Massive Traffic 101′ article of yours.
Thanks for sharing! =)
As you have there are tone of information about what’s work and what doesn’t work on bringing traffic to your blog. With over information will normally get confused and this divert our attention to some other activities that does not really work. I guess one need to experiment one particular approach and see whether it’s good enough to bring traffic to your websites rather than trying almost everything and at the same time failing with everything you have learned
great and informative article…
Court (and Mark),
Wow. This lesson was EXACTLY how I’ve been operating for the past 1.5 years… I’ve shelled out money for membership sites, PDFs, video courses, and blogs that have sometimes–but not always–given me some useful information. I could seriously teach a course on the different ways to make money online.
I’m currently in a state of get-back-to-basics-ism. My blog is doing well (about $0.13 a day), because it’s consistent. Rather than spend a week updating it daily and then running after the next big IM “breakthrough,” I’ve been steadily trying to add useful and targeted information to the 3 or 4 people who DO actually read it…
Can’t wait to check out the vide–I know it’s going to be great, like all your other stuff. Once I learn how and from where to collect some good backlinks, I’ll be GOLDEN!
Thanks,
Nick
Can you clarify something for me? In the video it showed the potential earning being the sum of CPC x GSVx 0.005 But from what I thought the earlier part of the video said, 40% of GSV x 25% of CPC x .005 Actual clickers…I come up with .4x.25x.005=.0005
Yet in your excel formula you used .005 not .0005
So I’m not sure what I missed. I really appreciate your help with this, it is excellent stuff.
Hey..found my error….(0.4)x(.25)x(.05 where i was working witn .005)..Thanks so much for the great information…
Thank you so much !
Your story applies exactly to mine. I used to have a blog that made me $3000 a month. And all of a sudden I became addicted to forums and the top blogs.
I read every post they published and plunged into every method they suggested. I kept hopping from one website to another without bringing none of them to completion.
I knew that my old method works but I dismissed to search for a much quicker one. I download tens of videos and books, spent hours perusing them. My website were waiting for me to find that magic tweak everybody was talking about.
The longer it takes to make some significant result, the less interesting it becomes.
Had I focused on my websites I could have seen results in weeks. But instead I spent months learning believing that knowledge is power.
But I already knew what I had to do, I was in a state of self-deception saying to myself by learning more it would become much easier to reach success.
That was an excuse to avoid work; reading an article is much easier than writing one.
Now, this article opened my eyes again to the truth and I have made a firm decision to stop reading the blogs I was following and focus on creating content and links for my sites.
All those blogs do is give you the same information again and again but in a different way.
This makes sense.
Thank you so much for sharing your story!
I’ve just stumbled upon your site while searching for a tutorial on an related subject. Glad I did too. There’s a lot I like. Anyway, you’ve been bookmarked and I’ll be back soon.
Just the kick in the butt that I needed. In addition to the overload concept there is what I like to call the Internet Marketing disease LOF (Lack of Focus). Its so easy to spend the majority of your time reading about “how to” make money online instead actually doing the necessary work. The key is to make a plan and stick to it. Don’t follow the herd!
it is really hard to build massive traffic on a website. you need to promote your website by blog commenting or PPC advertising:,,
Thanks for all the great info.
It sounds like I still have a lot to learn.
I love how you guys are so straight forward and to the point.
And, the info you provide is very helpful. Keep it up.
Definitely good information. Thanks for the post!
Good info! Found out about this site via a forum posting. I’m just starting dabbling at internetmarketing and it looks like i have alot to learn!… Jason
Sounds like some good advice…might have to try some of those.
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I’m a newcomer to The Keyword Academy, sorting through the blog to see what’s here and figure out if it’s something I’d like to join. I was on the fence before watching Massive Traffic 101, and now I’m sold. I have a website that is 12 years old, on a specific topic that I’m very passionate about. It earned some great money when my topic happened to be at the center of an insanely popular cultural fad, but when people lost interest on a large scale my traffic died off and I stopped earning. I’ve been looking for ways to make it work for me again since I’ll be maintaining it forever anyway.
This was a fantastic, enlightening webinar. I think you may have another newbie trying to get into your $1000 a month club!
My name is Remy and I live in England. I am the owner of The Best Car Insurance Ever This is terrific and am so glad that I stumbled upon this. Good work guys.
Great truth – specially the time management is something that people always forget. Sometimes it is very difficult to avoid distraction & concentrate on the work. But then, it’s the work that brings in the money…
Thanks for the great advice and the video. Just downloaded it and about to watch it.
yes,we need to know what we wan to do to get the goals.
this is by far the best article i have read sorry im not a member definitively will become one download your webinar thanks for the very helpful information
This was the best article I have ever read.. Nice one.