How to increase my traffic (with real people)

Oh, I need traffic to my website. How do I get it? Don't worry, slow down. I'm going to help you out. Stick around, find out how. All right guys, we're back at it. I'm Dan from millennialmotivator.ca, helping you to create, engage, and inspire. Today we're going to talk about how do you drive real people to your website. First and foremost though, if you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, I put videos out on this channel Monday through Saturday, anything from sales to marketing, SEO, digital marketing, uh, customer acquisition, you name it. If you're a small business or an entrepreneur, click that subscribe button down there and the little bell and you'll get a notification when my next video goes live. Today though, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on how do you get real traffic to your site? And by real traffic, I mean, legitimate people that are going to engage with your content, be a part of your community, and help you grow your business, whether that's through sales or services, whatever it may be. Real people doing real things. How do you go about it? Stick around, here we go, buckle up, make sure you've got your Post-its and your journal, let's do this thing. First and foremost, guys, you want real people, you've got to be real, okay? Check how you're doing things right now. How much of it is automated? How much of it is you Using robots to talk to other robots. I honestly love doing this. There's videos out there, you can find them on YouTube, about people that throw in a simple automated term using certain hashtags and they watch that thread. They watch all the robots click in and plug in and retweet it and plug it elsewhere. And it's ridiculous to see how much robots are playing with robots. And that's not what we're looking for. That's not what we're hoping for. So the first thing that you can do is be genuine. Now, what do I mean by that? Am I saying all automation is bad? No, no, it's not ideal though. It's not ideal. The reality is this: if you or someone on your team can have a real conversation or engagement with somebody, that's always gonna be the best way to go instead of automated response, automated response, automated response into a real person eventually down the road. People are going to convert much faster the sooner they get to a real person. Think about when you call into a call center. If you call into a call center and you get a robot on the other end of the phone, you've got a beep beep beep beep beep, super frustrating. Also, if you call and you get somebody that's clearly not working for your business, that works in India telecom somewhere, that's also frustrating. But if you get somebody genuine who works at the business— I know when I switch from Bell phone service into Tech Savvy, when I call Tech Savvy, I never get somebody from India. I get somebody from Ontario that works here, that speaks the language, that knows what's going on. If I say my internet's out and they say, yeah, we're out from Markham to Ottawa, it's that the snowstorm that we're in right now, like, great, they get it, they know what's going on. Be genuine, be legitimate, be real. Now obviously it's better to have that person from India than somebody that is a robot and not a somebody, but ideally you want somebody that's genuinely part of your community to reach out and engage. It's so key, it's appreciated, you would appreciate it if you were the customer, so give the customer that you're trying to serve that same courtesy. Okay, moving on. Visibility is next, okay guys? There are so many social networks out there and we use so few of them. Everybody's focused on, okay, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. And there's so many more opportunities out there for you. Reddit, oh, Reddit's dead. Okay, I tell you, I get a lot of great traffic to this YouTube channel from Reddit. A lot of people that are engaged there. Tumblr. Tons of people from Tumblr engaging and having conversations back and forth. That whole system of Tumblr is built so people can take your ideas and give their spin on it and reblog it out, and then somebody will reblog that out. The ability to go viral with a piece of content on Tumblr is remarkable, and yet it's completely ignored. Completely ignored. The ability to have direct conversations with people on Twitter, to see trending habits in the moment, in the now, and hit people on their cell phone regardless of whether there's a Wi-Fi connection or not. It's a beautiful thing, and it's underused. It's underprivileged. Even YouTube itself, guys. There's so many people that are willing to consume the content but not create the content for their own business. Oh, I don't want to be a Casey Neistat. I don't want to be whatever. Nobody's saying you have to be, but what is key and crucial and valuable to your business is if you take the time and effort to hit as many networks as possible. The reality is this: if I had to choose in old-school business terms, 1 billboard or 10 billboards, Which one would I pick for my business? Same cost, same price, free, okay? Social networks don't cost money. I'm not talking about paid ads, I'm talking about content on the networks. If you had to choose between 1 billboard and 10 billboards, which one do you choose? It's a no-brainer, it's a rhetorical question. Don't answer that if it's anything but, I pick 10 billboards. Don't, don't do it. Yes, some billboards will be better placed than others, but regardless, you still won't have all 10. Have the really well-placed ones and the not so well-placed ones, because the reality is the more eyes on your content, the more eyes on your product or service, the more chance that you're going to reach a community that loves what you're doing and is going to want to engage. So visibility is crucial. Let's keep rolling here, guys. We've got our visibility down. Next up is virality. You want to create content that is appealing to people. Nobody wants to sit here and watch a YouTube video of a guy who's not really interested and not paying attention. There's nothing really exciting going on here. What people want is content that's appealing. It's about being entertained ultimately, even if it's an education, a tips, a how-to, this is how we do it. Nobody— Peter McKinnon is amazing at this, amazing. You could go take a Photography 101 course at a college and watch some guy stand in front of the classroom and bore you to tears. Or you could hop into Peter McKinnon's YouTube channel and watch this guy blow your mind, blow your mind with how cameras work and how you take photography properly and how you use that and how you can do all these great tricks and shoot B-roll. It's amazing to see, and it's because he's energetic. He loves what he does. The passion comes through. People love it. Hopefully, I would say for this channel as well, you guys get that when you watch my videos. I'm not bored doing this. I love the questions you guys ask me. I love the conversations we're having in the comments down below, by the way. Talk in the comments down below. But the virality of the videos is this: the passion you put into it, the quality of the shoot, these are all things that are gonna help it go big fast, right? It's something that is entertaining, it's gonna blow it up. I remember for the longest time, number 1 video on YouTube was just this guy who shot this video on how to dance, and it took a while for him to be knocked out of that number 1 spot, but it was hilarious. It was just this guy that had gone, okay, I'll throw a video up on YouTube, and he threw out these terrible dance moves, but it went viral. Millions of views on this thing. Millions and millions and millions. I think it stayed in first until Gangnam Style took it over. But the reality is this: it was entertaining, people loved it at the time, it was well shot for YouTube, so it— bam! Viral. Gone. Okay guys, that's it. Viral. Make it quality. Make it passion. Don't be boring. Don't be lame. Next up, if you're still looking for more, here we go. Community. It's about building a community. And what does community look like? Well, a community is obviously people. But so often we're busy out there going, oh, I need new people, I need new people, I need new people. What are you doing with the people you already have? What does your mailing list look like? Do you have a mailing list? Do you engage with people on that mailing list? How about your Facebook page, Facebook group, Twitter channel? Instagram feed? Are you actually having conversations with the people that are already plugged into you? People that said, yes, let's go, let's do this. I love seeing regular names down in the chat below. Friday with Friends, Jeff Loughran, all of these names that keep popping up down there. I love that. And that's what you've got to do too. The people that do plug in and say, yeah, sure, I'll follow, I'll get that notification, I'll click that subscribe button and that bell down there for you, I'll do that. Great! Appreciate them. Speak to them. Answer their questions. Help them figure out what it is that's going on in this community, how they can plug in, how they can be a part of it, and just go with it! Geared up and ready to roll! But you have to have that engagement. Appreciate the people that took the time to say, yes, we're interested. We like what you're doing. Tell us more. Take that opportunity. Stop worrying about, oh, next, next, next. That's there. That'll happen. Engage with the people that are there and create a relationship. And that itself can be magnetic. It can draw people. Oh man, I love this guy that I've been watching on YouTube. He does these videos, yada yada yada. That's how I got pulled into YouTube. Gary Vee. Some guy was like, you gotta check out Gary Vee. You haven't seen him? Check him out. He's amazing. And Gary Vee blew my mind. Like, wow, this guy gets it. This guy's amazing. He's passionate. He's driven. That. Go, go, go. So I had to hop on YouTube. And it worked. Bam. It's going. It's flowing. Take the time, engage in community, guys. It's not just about the numbers game, it's about the quality as well. Okay, next up we're going to talk incentive. And now I want to be clear when I talk about incentive, okay guys? Often I find that incentives are the last resort for me, absolutely the last resort, okay? Uh, other than paid ads. Paid ads are the very last resort. So incentives are something that's like a contest, a raffle, a draw, Free services, something of that nature. Okay, something— you give people something for doing something. The issue that I have with incentives is this: it's not that they don't work, they can work, but they work in spurts and it's not always genuine. Okay, if I say I'm giving away a free PlayStation 4— disclaimer, I'm not— but if I say that on a gaming channel, yes, I'm gonna see an initial spike in numbers, shares, likes, and engagement. And over time, that that could produce something of value for me. But once the PlayStation is given out, chances are you're gonna see a large amount of unsubscribes. You're gonna see a drop in your views. You're gonna see a drop in your engagement again. So if you're gonna use incentives, guys, go back to the other ones as well. Make sure your content is visible, viral, it has a great community concept to it, you're engaging with people on that, and you're not just giving stuff away and saying follow me because I'm giving something away. Make sure it has value outside of the item or service that you're going to give people for free, okay? Incentives are all right, but honestly, it's the second to last thing that I would recommend that you use. Everything else before that, okay? Last but not least, we're almost there, stick with me right to the end. Last but not least, time. Time. What do you mean time? Well, what I mean is this, guys. So often people will show up and say, I want followers. I want to be a partnered YouTube channel. I want to have a verified Twitter, Facebook account. I want sponsors. I want to be an influencer. I want to— that's great. Those are all great targets, great goals, great way to go. But, but it's not a switch. You don't go flip a switch and all of a sudden people show up. That's not how it works. Most of the people that have been successful on any platform, but we'll talk specifically about YouTube, have been successful because over time they have built up a following. So you look at, uh, the Logans, right? The Logans came from Vine. They built a following on Vine. It took them time on Vine, and when they showed up on YouTube, people from Vine followed them here. Was that an overnight success? To some it seemed like it, but the reality is it took them forever on Vine to build up that following, and then they used that following as they moved on. So time is never lost. Time dedicated to a cause is always of value. So what you need to do is make a point to understand it's not going to be you flipping a switch. It's going to be consistent delivery of content and community engagement to drive real people. If you want robots, great, go out there and get some robots. Honestly, it'll do you no good. It'll drop you flat. You're going to feel frustrated with it. It's not going to be of value to you. What is of value to you is this. Find a way to engage legitimately over a long period of time, putting out videos consistently. Most of the people that I see that put out and make that commitment— I'm gonna do 90 videos in 90 days on YouTube— they see some level of success. They do. I know for me, I don't care about the numbers. For me, it's just been making videos for a year. I've committed from December 12th to December 12th, I'm gonna make videos every day, Monday through Saturday. That's it. Whatever comes of it comes. But I do know this, that dedication to time will produce results of some kind. We've already seen it. We're 44, 45 videos in on the channel. We're probably gonna hit around 3— I guess it would be 305, 306, something like that by the end of the year. Now, we've seen some level of success on the channel. But the reality is I'm committed to the time. I'm committed to the year. For those of you that haven't done this before, who are just starting an entrepreneur or small business, you have to be committed to time. And that's why most of these businesses, most entrepreneurs and small businesses fail in the first 5 years. They don't have the long ball game in there. They're not going, okay, 5 years. That's what it is. Come hell or high water, 5 years. I'm going to stick with it. If I had quit my consultancy after the first year, I would have been back working a 9-to-5 job the rest of my life. Instead, I struggled. Like, we're talking borderline poverty, and that's with a family. My wife supported me because she's insane, and I love her for it. But literally, guys, we were borderline poverty for 2, 3 years of my first 5, and then things started to flow. You know, year 4, still there, still struggling, but still there. Year 5, okay, we're doing a little bit better. Now here we are at year 10. I've got a mortgage, nice family. We live in Canada, so the healthcare is free. That always helps. But the reality is this, guys: the time committed and the willingness to push through the hard times delivered results and community. So, you know, Twitter, 18,000 followers on there. Instagram, 11,000 followers on there. Twitch, I've got 900,000+ views on that, on that network. All of these networks that I've built over time have helped give me credibility to my consultancy and grow into benefits. Dedicate the time, guys. Don't drop flat, don't quit, dedicate the time, don't cheat it, be committed, be consistent. There we go. That is it, ladies and gentlemen, we're at the end. So make sure that you are genuine, visible, viral, you're in the community, you're engaging with them. You, if you have to, use incentives if you have to, but dedicate the time to it and you are guaranteed if you, if If you hit all of those points, guys, you are gonna rock this out. So I wanna know, question of the day down below, let me know which of these is something that you are gonna use moving forward. Now, hopefully you're all, if I see all the comments down below, I use all of these already, bang on, good on ya, awesome. I wanna hear what you suggest I use because these are my Post-it note tips. So if you have something that I didn't say that you wanna tell me about, you can leave that down there as well. Make sure if you're not subscribed, guys, you hit that subscribe button and the little bell down there and I will catch you Tomorrow with another great video. Catch you then. Bye.