How do I get traffic to my shop without an email list or social media following?
How do I build a following when I’m first starting out?
What is working best for traffic these days? Considering there are TONS of free printables out there now. How can I really get MY stuff seen?
Why would anyone buy from ME when they get it for free from everyone else?
So many people are saying to buy Facebook ads right now and that’s the only way you can get sales. Is that true?
What is the best way to get traffic/high quality people to my shop? Is it still Pinterest? SEO maybe? Something else?
What would you tell someone if they wanted to build their list super fast nowadays? What’s working NOW?
It’s enough to make your head spin, right?! Or maybe, your head just spins off and falls to the floor. And you look up at your body and you’re like, “Where did I go?” haha.
I been watching too many movies lately. LOL.
Point is, this is serious stuff and you’re not sure where to go to find the answers. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
Today, I want to set your mind at ease.
Take a deep, cleansing breath and let’s unpack all your questions one at a time. <3
1) How do I get traffic to my shop without an email list or social media following?
Anyway you want. Period.
There are literally a BAZILLION and one ways in which to get traffic. My course, Million Dollar Shop® has all the information you need from start to finish to find you traffic in a way that suits YOU best.
Your personality plays a lot into it.
Let’s say you’re an introvert like me, you most likely don’t wanna be creating videos where everyone is looking at you. You’d run under the table at the mere THOUGHT of it. Don’t create a YouTube channel for your products. For your expertise. No problem. If you’re not an introvert, hey, by all means, go for it.
If you feel like companies like essential oils or purses/organizers (think: Thirty One) or makeup companies (think: Younique) are just MLM companies and are scams, then by all means, don’t do it. They’re not by the way, but if something doesn’t make you comfortable, don’t do it. There’s PLENTY of traffic out there to be had.
There are currently 7.753 billion people in the world (latest stats as of 2020). Of those 7+ billion people, over 4.66 billion people are active internet users. More than half of the population has internet and you think you can’t get traffic???
Truly, traffic is not the problem. The problem is getting the RIGHT people to you. Your people. The people you will love on and serve. It’s THOSE people that can be tricky to find…
2) What is the best way to get traffic/high quality people to my shop?
NOW…you’re talking. NOW, we’re on the right track.
It is absolutely FOOLISH to focus on just mere traffic. Doing so would be like trying to hit a bullseye 70 feet in front of you…in the dark…with a blindfold on. 😂
How many of your arrows do you think would find it’s way to the bullseye with that?
None?
One maybe?
Not much, right?!
A much better way is to find the people who you can serve and yes, being an entrepreneur is SERVICE. If you’re ONLY focused on yourself and the money you will make, you might as well pack up now. There’s plenty of online people already like that and much of the time, we see right through them.
We’re not stupid, right?
You know when someone only cares about you for your money and you know those people who genuinely invest in you, who genuinely care about you and are willing to sacrifice their OWN success to help YOU have some!
You want to be one of those people. With arrows. Trying to hit the bullseye in the daytime, no blindfold.
To do that, you really have to know who you want to serve. What products does that girl NEED? Maybe she’s you, younger. What do you wish you knew when you were younger? 10 years ago? 20 years ago? Maybe it’s a best friend you wish you could help.
Make those products, and hang out where SHE hangs out and you’ll find her.
It’s not rocket science, okay.
When we ask how can I get traffic, we are focusing on OURSELVES. Do you see it?
But when we start to ask ourselves instead…who can I serve? You start to understand what that person needs. Where she is online. What she’s spending her time on.
While the Million Dollar Shop® course will give you TONS of ideas of everything I’ve done over the past 24+ years to sell products and market, I can’t shift your focus FOR YOU.
You have to think about her first, not you. Yes, we all want to make money online. Making money online is not bad or wrong, but if we make all the money in the world, it won’t make us any happier than we are now.
The answer is not gaining masses of riches, the answer is helping others. Serving.
Trust me, if you build a shop for your person, giving her super high quality products she desperately needs and you hang out where she hangs out, it’ll naturally click. She will find a way to find you. If she’s not, you’re either not creating what she needs, or you’re too scared to tell people about your own awesome shop. Which is tragic. Don’t do that. 🥰
Speaking of tragic…
3) Why would anyone buy from ME when they get it for free from everyone else?
I’ve heard that one before too.
You’re not believing in your own product enough.
If you created something that you felt was the coolest thing in the world, would you hide it under a rock and never tell a soul about it?
No way!
You’d tell your best friend. You husband. Your parents. Your aunts and uncles. Your cousins. You’d tell everyone you knew. You’d…TELL…THE WORLD!
Sometimes, and I say this very gently…sometimes, we have to get out of our own way. 💖💖💖
Think about what your peers do that you do differently and promote that. In my courses, I tell people my courses are different because there are no holes. Ever buy a course and you have to buy 7 MORE courses just to get all the info you need? Sucks, right?
That’s not what I do. I teach the whole kit and caboodle. I offer free coaching afterward for anyone who has any questions about their shop or anything after they set it all up after they’ve gone through the course and I never get any emails (super rare). Why? Is it because people hate me?
No, it’s because they are taking their dreams seriously, going through the material and once it’s done, they HAVE NO questions. It’s ALLLLLL in there.
Focus on the things you do (offer) that your peers don’t. I promise you, there are things and you know what, if there AREN’T, figure out how to be different. Because no one follows followers. We follow LEADERS. Be different. Be unafraid to be DIFFERENT! 🙂
Another question I get is…
4) How do I build a following when I’m first starting out?
This is the perfect question. This is exactly what you want to be focusing on! Great question!
When you’re first starting out, I STILL believe in the power of giving something free. Something GOOD for free, not something like a 10 page packet. A binder that’s 100 pages long. Stuff like that. Something so good someone would have to be a complete idiot NOT to sign up.
You offer something super good like that, for free, and you can build your list fast.
Now, remember we talked about serving the RIGHT people. So, you have to give something free away that your person would want.
If she’s a homemaker, you wouldn’t give her a free ebook of how to become a supervisor at her job. It’s not something she’d be interested in. Rather, give her something like a recipe book. She’s having to make dinners every night, loves serving her family, and wants to please them with new, yummy foods from time to time. Help her. Give it to her free.
If you continue to meet her needs and take care of her, having your focus on HER, I guarantee you with everything I have inside of me, she WILL take care of…YOU!!!!!!!!!!
It’s all about taking care of HER. Not so that you CAN get something in return, that would be a bad motive, but genuinely wanting to help. The more you help others, the more they will help you (but again, that shouldn’t be your focus).
I remember, I’m gonna cry…I remember when I was just getting out of the homeless shelter. It was a couple months later and it was Christmas-time. The shelter “adopted” me and someone gave us TONS of stuff. When they brought it to the apartment, my whole living room and kitchen were completely full of stuff. Food, gifts, presents, helpful items.
I was so…impressed…with this stranger’s generosity, that it made me the person I am today. I’m a giver.
Generosity is contagious!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Give. Give freely, no matter what others say, give generously, give with no strings attached, and watch your generosity multiply.
The Bible says we sow what we reap. To the person who’s sowing generosity, they are reaping ten fold! I make millions of dollars a year…because I GIVE!
I take care of my people. They take care of me.
How can you build a following? At ANY stage in your business?
Find people you can serve. The rest takes care of itself. That philosophy worked 24 years ago when I sold my first item on eBay (Tweety Bird stickers), it worked 4 years ago when I started Shopify, it works today. It’s timeless. 😊
Do you need Facebook ads to reach your people?
No. You can but, it’s not what I teach. There’s a lot of evil in Facebook ads. Facebook ads are glorified extortionists.
Listen, there’s no ONE way toward success. There’s no one size fits all. And if people are making you believe that, they are subtly brain-washing you. Don’t let them. Okay.
👉 If everyone else is doing one thing, go in the opposite direction. When I started blogging, I made a promise to myself that I would always go in the opposite direction of the masses. It’s ALWAYS served me well!
Everyone’s doing Facebook ads. I’m not.
Everyone’s starting to do printables on Canva. I’m not.
Everyone’s starting to…..I’m not.
Whatever it is everyone else is doing, behind the scenes, you can find me doing the opposite thing.
So I hear you right now, you’re saying, but Sarah, everyone is doing printables now. You do printables.
I started out on Shopify when no one else was using Shopify! 😊 I started creating binders when no one else was creating binders! I basically invented binders. There were only 1-2 binders on the whole planet when I started (both by different bloggers), and not anything new. They were hidden. Passed over. I saw the hole and went for it.
Now everyone’s doing it.
But just because I still SELL printables, doesn’t mean that’s where I’m spending my time. That doesn’t mean I’m not working on other projects, other holes, so to speak.
Remember that I have set up my life in an autopilot way now. Where I make really great money and only have to work about 10 hours a week (my assistants work an additional 20-ish/week as well). I don’t have to create a bunch of printables to maintain everything. I built it up and it sells itself. It’s an automated snowball. That’s the kind of business you want.
Find the holes. Find the places others aren’t and go there. 😊
At this point, you may be asking, okay, now I’ve got all those things down. I’m giving, I’m finding holes, I’m focusing on the right people, what do YOU focus on, Sarah?
So let’s dive deeper and take a look at my stats this month (at the time I’m writing this, January 2021).
This month (at the time that I’m writing this), I got 374,388 pageviews to my blog (which includes my Shopify shop).
Out of those pageviews, here’s how my traffic breaks down:
As you can see, for me personally, my organic traffic is the best. Now please understand, I’ve never taken a course on SEO. I’ve never trained for it. I have however, picked up a lot of tips and tricks and have training on SEO for both blogging and Shopify in my courses.
One thing I will say is that I don’t write for any platform. I don’t write my articles for Google. I don’t write them for Pinterest. I don’t want to feel OWNED by any one site that may not be around tomorrow or may change an algorithm and I’d lose everything.
I’m just creating content that my person would love, which brings me to the next traffic source…
See how high my direct traffic is? I’m writing something that my audience will love. They remember me and come back. They type my name into the search bar and go directly to my site. Listen, you can’t trick Google. You can’t win the lottery with Pinterest. First and foremost, you have to be creating content that is specially for that person you want to serve. Remember, it’s ALL ABOUT HER, not us!
When people are saying, I make blah blah and get over blah blah in traffic from SEO so buy my course, PLEASE keep in mind that they don’t care WHO they attract. Anyone can get 500k pageviews a month if they do it dirty and I’m not saying all the course makers are doing it dirty, I’m just proving a point.
If you want to have a business like that, definitely go for it, but around here, I won’t be teaching that stuff. I teach how to serve. I teach long-term strategies, NOT short term ones. We’re building an empire here. A lifestyle that you don’t need a vacation from. A life that is NOT a rat race. A life that is DIFFERENT from the mainstream.
Third is Pinterest. I just started my newer Pinterest account in December of 2018. My other Pinterest account wasn’t doing very well and I wanted to test if new accounts do better than older ones. For me, my new account runs circles around my old one (!), so I ended up letting the old one go and focused on the new one. Not saying that is good for everyone, just saying for me, when I BETA’d it, that’s what happened. 😊
You can see my stats here for Pinterest as of today:
After Pinterest, it drops off considerably and next is my email list (I send a new email each week) and Misc. which includes everything else like YouTube, Instagram, things like that.
Again, you definitely want to invest your time where it works for you but for me, this is what is working for me right now.
While there are many ways, those are some good places to start for traffic. 🥰