Building Your Online Business When Organic Traffic Becomes Undependable

First things first , though , because I almost wanted to call this episode what to do when TikTok and Google let you down , or what to do when you feel like TikTok and Google and all the organic platforms are attacking your business and the waves are relentless , but I didn't title it that . You saw what I titled it and that's why you click on this episode .

Before we get into that , my name is Kwayjo , and if my voice is new to you , well , that's because I'm the new host and I keep thinking it is March . How do folks not know I'm the new host , but I guess not everyone listens to every episode , so there's two links in the description below .

One link is to see where Rick is at and what he is doing , because he was the former host , as I'm sure you remember , and the other link is to learn more about me , where Rick interviews me .

But just so you know , if you don't go to the link below and you keep listening to this episode or the podcast , which I hope you do , this podcast is still all about tips and tricks and strategies to grow your online course or online membership from low six figures to high six figures , because it would be nice to go from , say , 250k annual up to 900K annual

. That would change not just your life but all the lives of the people that you were meant to serve and help with your business . And so with that , let's keep going into the episode . Listen , we're on rented territory , meaning if you rely on organic traffic or you don't even own Google , you don't own Instagram .

You don't own Instagram , you don't own Pinterest and some of the other platforms out there TikTok , and so you can't we can't mean you cannot rely on them for traffic forever to grow our businesses . I mean that's why it's called the art of online business , because it isn't . It isn't art , right ? Not all of it is science .

So what motivated this episode is one of my clients because I am a Facebook ads manager DM'd me saying that we're going to shortcut to this . The Google update , which , at the time of the recording of this video , happened early March last week , cut her traffic down , her organic traffic , by 75% .

That is crazy , and last fall fall 2023 , her traffic already got hit by another 30% , or by the first 30% , because of Google's update . And so we were talking ad strategy and what we would do to still build her list . All right , I don't want to get ahead of myself . I was watching a YouTube video by the Future . That's a YouTube channel .

His name is Chris Doe . That would be the creator of that channel . Pretty cool channel . He was saying that Gary Vaynerchuk , gary V's views on Instagram were down because Instagram changed the way the algorithm worked .

But instead of favoring now all the big channels or big Instagram accounts and just giving views to them because they already have millions of followers , instagram changed up the algorithm so that content is now compared with other content and if your content is unique and better than you get views .

But this way they basically tried to equal the playing field , to level the playing field , so that new creators on Instagram let's call it new business owners if you're creating content , still , we're all creators content creators could get just as much chance to have their content viewed . Tick tock , for example , which changed the game .

People with small accounts were blowing up and their videos were going viral because their content was good and kept people watching .

Anyway , whatever you believe about that , this is Chris Doe's opinion and he was saying that Gary V's content just isn't that original Dude's been saying the same thing Gratitude , all right , parenting raising but specifically a few key themes , and it's his stardom and the followers that help push the content .

But if you take that away and Just look at the content , it hasn't really changed that much . All right , now I don't know what you think about Gary Vee . He clearly is . You could call a pioneer of content . His content and the people follow it's prolific . But I think there's a point there . So let's go to tiktok .

Huh , by now it's all news , but you probably have experienced , if you have a tiktok account , which most of us do UMG , universal music group , pulled their artists from the platform , right , because they had a little tiff , a spat , and what that meant is a lot of your videos Maybe had no music anymore .

Now , thank God , at least tiktok content is very ephemeral Is that the right word ? Ephemeral here today , gone tomorrow .

Somebody DM me if you want to correct my English , that's okay , I like compensations , but in any rate , it's here today , gone tomorrow , and so thankfully , at least tiktok is not really search driven and people aren't Continuing to find your old content that now has no music to it . So you're like doing all the point .

You can dance him , but my name , because there was sadly no music behind my voice . Now , who did that effect ? Well , you know , drake . Bye bye , drake , bye bye the weekend . Bye bye , taylor Swift . My ads manager actually just went to see Taylor Swift alive in Singapore . That was cool . Oh , bye Bye steen .

Alicia Keys , billy Eilish , kendrick Lamar If you're part of the Spanish speaking fam , then bad bunny . Rosa Lia , they're gone too . If you don't know , I live in Mexico . Oh , I see , I'm learning , apprentiendo español . I like learning Spanish . Justin Bieber was J Balvin . Oh , he's another one who sings off the songs in Spanish . Yeah , they're gone .

And so it just seems like more and more we can't rely on Organic social media , which begs the question how do you build your business right ? And then there's Google , oh , google .

So in September 20 23 , google rolled out a significant update known as the helpful Content update , and this update , which began on September 14th and and concluded in September 28th 2023 . It aimed to enhance Google's helpful content system , and all that means well .

The objective was to promote content that's actually useful to people , rather than content that was primarily designed . This is great for us business owners to rank well in search engines . Now , what the update really did is , like my friend and client and many other businesses out there , it cut organic traffic to lots of sites that depended on SEO to rank .

And here's the kicker Especially if Google decided that your website was using SEO strategies to rank , or more leaning on those strategies to rank rather than actually being helpful to your niche , your traffic got cut . But how did they decide that ? Right ?

How did they decide between the great websites that are just using SEO to enhance their reach or expertly using SEO , seo , hpo , seo to To enhance their reach , right , their organic search versus the websites who aren't that great but leaning on SEO ?

I don't know , that's beyond me , that's beyond the scope of this episode , but if that happened to you , if your organic traffic dropped , then this is could be why and it's really affecting you , it's affecting dollars in your pocket , and if we make this more about helping because I do believe selling is serving it's affecting the number of people who you can serve

. So , yeah , one of my clients saw her blog traffic slash by 30% last fall and then just deem to me today , at the recording of this video , march 11th , that her blog traffic got slashed by another 75% , and so we're talking about ad strategy . Now we are running traffic to a evergreen webinar , and now we will be also running traffic to some other things .

So I March what happened in March ? The Google core update introduced significant changes aimed at enhancing the quality of Search results . Again , they say they targeted low quality , unoriginal content and tried to reduce it by 40% . So we're gonna get to the solution of what to do instead of relying on Organic social media or even Google all the time .

But first , how much are you using AI in your content and Are you getting personal or are you shying away from taking Viewpoints , so taking a stance on what you believe as far as the angle of your content ?

Because if you are , and if you're producing a bunch of Blah , vanilla content , and even if you think you may have tricked or gamed the AI system and they can't recognize your content , well , they can recognize just how much AI you put in there and maybe at the moment , right now , they can . But guess what ?

If you've seen , like those videos , sora , that's another thing , right , ai generated video , if you've compared it from last year To this year , and there's a huge difference in what it can do , right , and so , obviously , since AI is improving so quickly , how dare we even think it's like ?

Who are you , who am I , to think that somehow I can game the system today and the system won't get more intelligent and be able to detect my not super quality written AI Articles ? Now Google's adjustments to its core ranking system .

All that means is like it wants to better identify Web pages that may not be helpful or provide a poor user experience and focus more on pages that well , it wants pages that generally Genuinely inform or help users , rather than pages that are just trying to game the system . Again , who's to decide ?

It's a thin line right between how well you can use SEO to get people to your website so they can get help versus if Well , who's deciding ? You know it's Google and many of those decisions are not in your hands .

By the way , if your website experience is poor , like you need just a better website and I don't even get affiliate commissioned for recommending but my designer . If you used to see the old website , quajocom , which was not very pretty , he completely revamped it , which is now the art of online business calm , which looks quite a bit better , way better .

Like oh my gosh , what was I doing before . I was embarrassed , but his link is in the description below . He's in the Philippines , he's quite good , he's great at communication and he's really good at designing websites . So there's my , my pitch For you , so you can present yourself more professionally and make that good first impression .

So how do you grow your business in these times , which these times aren't new ? Right , this has been happening ever since the beginning of the internet's change and , quite frankly , google . I guess they have to change their right , to change their right to grow right , because do you search on Google anymore ?

I Know I do less , so I Just like to go to chat GBT , because if I search on Google , I get websites and I still have to read . And my Lazy brain proactively lazy , I'm just gonna call it , my proactively lazy brain has to then like , synthesize information and Get an answer , because not every website provides the answer .

They all have their own agendas , whereas I can just go search on chat GBT and Ask the answer , tell it the context and it will give me an answer . And even now , if you're like , hey , chat GBT , do you have access to the internet ? It will say no , I'm not connected to the internet , but I have a browser tool where I can get info from the internet .

I kid you not go ahead and ask it and See its response ? If you even use chat GBT , maybe use cloud AI , but I talked to chat GBT a lot Instead of searching , and so Google probably figured that out . And since Bard was not that cool and Gemini is a little better , but anyway , they're trying to improve their core product search .

So how do you grow your business If you rely on organic social media ? What do you do in these times ? Well , you're gonna grow your email list . As your email list grows , so goes your business , and so , yes , the solution is email marketing , and I know you've probably heard this somewhere else .

So if you haven't really doubled down on growing your email list , now's the time . This is your next sign . In case you missed the last sign you had and I'm speaking to myself . I'm preaching to myself , because even I can do a better job at growing my email list but here are three ways that you can grow your list .

Right after I tell you why you want to grow it because you own the list . I remember the first time I really heard this coms concept .

It was from Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield , way back when I started in 2018 , they were telling about the importance of growing the email list and saying that email is not dead , and all the way up until now , it's like it's kind of like Bell bottoms jeans coming back and I do not wear Bell bottom jeans , but I do have a pair of skinny jeans on right now

and I like them anyway . You know , styles come back . The email list seems to be making a resurgence . It's been called something different the newsletter , and if you've seen , you know Cody Sanchez talking about Newsletters and let's see here All the up doll talking about Newsletters . I like these YouTube folks .

Then you've heard plenty about newsletters , but that's just an email list , right , but newsletter sounds cool and email this sounds like Well , not so unique and new . And the beauty of an email list is you control it . Nobody can take it away from you . You have a list dot , a dot CSV File Charlie Sam Victor file and it can sit on your computer .

You can export all the names and addresses from your email list and upload them and you can own your email list . And Trust is in the email . You email somebody regularly and they tend to open it to the tune of , you know , 30% Average open rate . Side note some people say how do I get more people to open my email ?

Send the email twice , like maybe 30% open at the second time . Have your email send to Unopeners the people who didn't open it the first time , and they'll get it again and more people open . That's a quick little hack to increase your email open rate .

And so , as you build your list , here are three ways to build your list and these three ways Are ways that I'm going , that I'm doing right now . Okay , first way , if you want to go Go collaboration mode , which I like , this mode is collaborate with people that serve your niche , because I believe niche rhymes with knees , and did you know ?

I used to work in Paris a long time ago and speak French way before all the Chinese language that I learned over 12 years in China 14 years in China pushed it out of my brain . So niche right , even though I'm American Neesh is how I say the word partner with people who serve your niche in a non competitive , complimentary way .

For example , I am a Facebook ads manager , so I collaborate with Copywriters because they serve the same niche of online business owners , right , and I collaborate with online business coaches and even will call them super OBMs and EAs that have like a social media following . And what about Instagram marketing specialists and launch strategists ?

I collaborate with them all and more and more as time goes on , because if I show up on their social medias or in their podcast , then because I'm serving their niche in another way , non-competitive with them . It just builds trust when I show up with them .

So , like , how can you collaborate and extend your trust and the reach of your brand and then bring in people into your business atmosphere , ecosphere , and then they can be on your email list ? Well , you can do podcast swaps . I've done that . You've heard other guests on the podcast . That's what we're doing and sharing expertise .

It's a win-win for everyone because you get another voice , a third-party voice , by the way , that's not yours , so it's trusted better than yours . Actually , because we tend to trust third-party information better than second-party information coming from the person who we're used to talking to .

And then you get to provide true value just from another unique person or you get to be that unique person . So podcast swaps are great .

Instagram collabs You've seen me doing those in the form of Q&A collabs , where I ask a question and then the other person gives that answer and we put it on social media and they ask a question and I give an answer about Facebook ads and that goes on social media . What about creating a bonus for somebody else's course , legit ?

What I'm doing right now is looking into creating like a DIY launch course . Right , how to do DIY ads when you're launching , because lead magnet ads are a little daunting but they're easier than running launch ads , just because you can test lead magnet ads a little more slowly .

But a launch , your registration period might last 12 days , up to like 18 days , okay , and you have to be on point and run more ads and a variety ads and the structure of setting up ads is different . So I thought , what if I made a DIY launch ads course as a bonus to go inside of a launch strategist's program or non-line business coach's program ?

Would that bring value to them ? Yes , like , let's say , my new friend , brinna McGowan , who I met through collaborating online . Right , she specializes in the pre-launch as in pre-launch messaging that sells your stuff before your launch even gets there . But does her audience ever wonder about Facebook ads ?

Does some of her audience run Facebook ads and could they benefit ? From my knowledge , absolutely . Would her program benefit from , then ? My bonus course Absolutely . And so that's an example that you could do .

Go out and find the folks who serve your same niche in a non-competitive way , or reach out and say , hey , you know , the tide comes in and all boats float up together . Though I believe that might have been originally an economic term , I think it works for collaboration .

Next thing you could do is start a YouTube channel to rank your videos that answer specific questions in organic YouTube search and then connect those to an organically YouTube-ally fueled funnel . I got several clients that , though . They came to me and I run their Facebook ads . Now they also have strong YouTube channels that fuel an organic funnel .

They just want a little more control over that funnel . And then , obviously , the Holy Grail of running ads to cold traffic and getting leads , or maybe getting leads profitable , because you have a welcome offer at the back end of your lead magnet .

So when somebody opts in , they have a chance to experience the value your business has to offer , and , of course , that experience has to do with an exchange of money , a welcome offer . It used to be called Tripwire , but we're changing the name because Tripwire just sounds like a booby trap like we're trying to get people , and we're not about that .

We're about creating real value that helps people . So I am in the middle of I already grew in my old business where I used to teach Chinese because I lived in China for 12 years I grew that YouTube channel to 20,000 people . I know a thing , not a big thing , but a little thing you know , about growing a YouTube channel . It's not easy .

Youtube is kind of called the king of social media and it's also the hardest to do right . But if you do it right , then your content can still get discovered and people watch your content way all the way back to the beginning of your videos , even if it's properly ranked in search or if it's good content and it's suggested insuggested , but more so .

And better than Instagram , better than Pinterest , better than TikTok and if you're listening to me and you're thinking , no , those platforms are better , they're different , but I don't believe they're better than YouTube , because people search for questions on YouTube and while the younger folks like my sister might search for some things on TikTok , last I checked , youtube

is still dominant in search and , by the way , youtube is the second biggest search engine in the whole entire world . And you know what ? The first biggest search engine is Google , our friend Google , and they own YouTube . So YouTube videos show up on Google when people search Google for questions .

And you know , I haven't even researched this , but I wonder if YouTube videos could eventually show up in search when people ask Google's AI questions . That would be intriguing , anyway .

So YouTube is a slow game , for sure , but you absolutely can figure out how to rank your YouTube videos in YouTube search and then even get those videos suggested and just have a nice , consistent stream of traffic . There's a link in the description below . It's not an affiliate link . It's Sean Cannell's course on how to grow your YouTube channel .

Sean Cannell is like the YouTube guy , he's my YouTube guy . I took his course called Video Ranking Academy way back in 2018 , and I relied on that course to grow my elementary Chinese as the name of that YouTube channel . So I've done it . That course is good , very , very , very good . Anyway , that link is in the description below .

But YouTube the game is slow , you know . You just really gotta continually , consistently publish videos and do your research to rank them right . So the third and final thing and of course I'm going to say this , but you could build your email list by running Facebook ads to your email list builder , ie a lead magnet . Now , this could be a lead magnet .

It could also be like an evergreen webinar , because even if you have an evergreen webinar , that's selling something and not everybody buys which News Flash is usually the case like a minority of people buy , and the art of the app kind of online business is making sure that you're profitable on those ads .

Might I add that it's okay to pay for leads in your business , as in run Facebook ad traffic to a lead magnet . Let people get that value in exchange for their name and email , but have to pay for those leads .

Like , that's okay , as long as your business is healthy and a lead is actually worth more to your business later on down the line than it costs , that's great , do that ?

Some people think that you should somehow be able to automatically get leads and then have this SLO funnel built off the back of your lead magnet where people download the lead and then they're presented with an offer and an upsell and an order bump and you break even and recoup all of your Facebook ad spin . But that's just not the case .

Like , obviously I'm an ads manager so I might be biased here , but the majority of my clients don't break even on ad spin .

They break even because their product is awesome , their core product , and once leads come in , they nurture those leads , as in provide consistent value , either in a weekly email newsletter or just a not so consistent but still very value packed email cadence , and then they launch their product .

They open it up again to sell it periodically throughout the year and people buy because it's valuable and they've been getting value . This is okay , this is healthy .

So , at any rate , before you start running Facebook ads to your lead magnet or directly to like an evergreen webinar because I know you're like , yes , of course , queijo , you say this . Well , I'm saying that and make sure you have a proven offer Like did the offer work ? Does it work organically ?

And I'm not saying ditch organic funnels and ditch Instagram and ditch Pinterest and ditch TikTok or your mini chat , as in the business , mini chat fueled short form videos . Don't ditch those . Just if you have a proven offer that's profitable for your business , why not run ads to a webinar that sells that offer ?

Don't run ads , please , to an offer that's more than like $47 . Running direct to sale ads is like the hardest kind of ad to run in my humble opinion , but you can definitely run ads to a lead magnet that has a welcome offer on the back of it , or when it adds to a webinar that sells your offer . So yeah , is it proven ?

Does it work in your organic funnel ? Does it sell when you send it to your email list ? Does it really provide value ? If yes , test out Facebook ads to a lead magnet and then have a sales funnel off of the back into that lead magnet that sells your offer . Test Facebook ads to your evergreen webinar .

If you already have an organic funnel that's converting for you , why not ? Well , here's why you would , because if it's organic , as recent history has shown us , we just can't depend on that because we don't know what the future holds . And so I'm a Facebook ads manager . You want me to manage your ads ? Wonderful , there's a link in the description below .

You can apply for Facebook ads management . This kind of service , though , is not for everybody . You know you probably want to have a business that's generating let's call it 250,000 a year gross annual revenue . I guess that would be a year .

So for you , before you think about running Facebook ads , I mean , if you're making less than a hundred K a year in your online business , which isn't it weird that we , like say making less than a hundred K year in your online business , as if that's a little . That's not a little , that's a lot . Congratulations , by the way , for getting there .

If you're at that point , though , you probably would just benefit better from managing your own Facebook ads , in which case you can choose a second option , which is hop down to the show notes below and book a strategy call with me for an hour . I manage ads all day long .

I've been doing so for three years no , three plus years at the time of the recording of this video , so we can hop on zoom . I'll look at your ads and spruce them up not like spruce the creative up , though I'll give you my opinion based on all the ad creative . I've seen the videos . You know the graphics .

I'll give you my opinion based on ad copy , but I for sure Can instantly help you out by looking at your account settings , the way you set up your campaign or your ad set , and being like Don't do this , do that . What's your objective ? Okay , choose this one . This one works for the majority of my clients . This one will lower your leads .

Here's my Methodic way to test ads to lower lead cost boom , and in an hour we could whip your ads in the shape .

But again , yeah , if your business , you know , over 250k annual revenue or even higher than that , let me run in your Facebook ads and you spend your time in In your CEO seat doing CEO things that are worth a lot more , as in , you can grow your business much more quickly if you are not running your own Facebook ads and focusing on things like collaborating

with other people who serve your same niche , getting out there and speaking on stages , or Focusing on strict strategic strategy inside of your sales funnel , or maybe perfecting your webinar and practicing it to that point . I have another client . She is Redoing her webinar .

It was performing well and she wants to redo it now , so she's going to do it live for like six to nine times to practice . We just had a talk and I just advised her on some new ad content that I've seen that's working for other clients and Follow some trends on social media and she's like great game

on . And this lady we had a Strategy call on Wednesday and , like Karen , you're the best if you're listening . By the way , her name's Karen and like the next day she comes out with new videos , sims and sends them over to me and like I can put them in her ads . And any rate , why did I bring her up ?

Because I just like super , like a client that's willing to Go and do the thing you know quickly .

And she's like I want a new webinar , so I'm gonna do it live like six to nine times before I ever green it and I'm like right on when you do it , she's like well , the first song will be at the end of March and then we'll just do it every week after then , minus a week for spring break , and so that tangent .

I'm not sure why I went down that row , but I hope this encourages you tons to take actions . And if ads is the next step for you , well , I'm happy to help you in that area . Until the next time you hear from me or see me Be blessed , catch you in the next one . Bye you .