A sales funnel is in fact, a key element to making money on any business, not just online businesses. Marketing funnels have been around for centuries but they were very difficult to analyze before the Internet and all the access we have to analytics and statistics.

In online marketing, you can track all the steps of the funnel and really get detailed statistics on how the funnel is performing, allowing you to make adjustments quickly. I'll cover that in the future, but for now, I want to just explain what is a sales funnel.

I've noticed that many of my readers are totally new to online marketing so we're going to explain some basics now, today let's talk about sales funnel and answer the question:

What is a Sales Funnel?

The definition of a sales funnel, which can also be referred to as a revenue funnel or sales process, refers to the buying and selling process that companies and customers go through when a customer buys a product from a company.

Sales funnel have at least a few steps, sometimes a sales funnel can have half a dozen or more steps. Generally, in my experience, the most concise sales funnels perform better. I'm going to show you how it works with a four step sales funnel.

Sales funnels in theoretical terms

Following, I explain how a 4-step sales funnel might work step by step, and after it, I give you a practical example of each step.

Step 1 - Contains the most people. At this point, the buyer is just a prospect, and this step is relatively inexpensive for both, the company and the prospect. During this phase, the prospect doesn't know much about the product or the company or both. The company is defining what the profile of a customer could look like.

Step 2 - This shows a small but measurable commitment in part of the prospect and usually converts the prospect into a lead. The cost of setting this step up may be significant for the company, but it's negligible for the prospect. During this phase, the company is trying to establish trust and begin a relationship with the lead in order to educate them.

Step 3 - Educate the interested parties and request a bigger commitment. At this point in the funnel, the company knows more about the lead and will generally request a financial or emotional commitment. Sometimes a trip wire offer is used in this step.

Step 4 - This is the most narrow part of the funnel. In this phase, the company will ask the lead to purchase the product or service. The lead should now be familiar with the offering, and the customer is likely expecting the offer to be made.

If at step number 4, the lead became a customer and purchased a product, then they should be moved to another funnel. This new funnel is geared specifically towards existing customers and known buyers. During this sales process, the company will attempt to offer more value to the customer and ideally develop a lifetime buying relationship.

If the lead did not purchase at step number 4, then they should be moved to another funnel that continues building the relationship (step 2), and offers different levels of commitment to the lead (step 3), and eventually, makes a new offer or positions the same offer under a different value proposition.

From all people to a prospect, to a lead, to a buyer.

Before I give you a concrete example of what an online sales funnel might present at each step, I think I need to clarify a few terms. The company or seller will deal with individuals. Depending on their buy-readiness, they can be classified as follows:

All people. This is basically everyone and anyone. You don't sell to all people because that means that your product would be good for every single person on the planet and every single person in the world would want to buy from you. That will never be the case.

Prospect. This is an individual that belongs to a more defined group of people which you have identified as someone that needs your product or service. When someone is a prospect, it means they're a person that would be qualified to buy your product if they have the money and are ready to buy.

Lead. A lead is someone that has confirmed undoubtedly that they need and want your product. They might even be ready to buy, they know you and also have at least a basic relationship with you. But a lead can be lost to the competition, so this is the most vulnerable step of the sales funnel.

Buyer. Once an individual pays for a product or service they become a buyer. This is the ultimate goal in the sales funnel and establishes trust and commitment to between the seller and buyer. As long as the seller continues to provide value, the buyer is likely to remain a buyer and spend more money in the future.

What should go into each of the steps?

We're talking about online marketing so my example will be specific to selling a product online, and these contain practical examples.

Step 1. This is basic and it will be something like a web page. A landing page of some sort, it could be the product page on an e-commerce site, a blog post or even an ad on Craigslist. Based on the classification I mentioned earlier, this should be shown to prospects and must contain a call to action to invite the prospect to learn more or to make a small commitment moving them along towards the status of a lead.

Step 2. Lead magnet, in this step I would offer a lead magnet. One that would be designed to fit the needs of the profile of my prospect. For example, an ebook, a free download, a training series, access to additional exclusive information or something that helps establish authority, trust and moves the prospect towards becoming a lead. Generally, this is a free offer. Sometimes it can be a very low priced item called a tripwire, like asking the lead about paying for shipping on a free product or buying a digital product for a few dollars.

What is a lead magnet? In short, a lead magnet is a free or very low-cost item that you can use to exchange for the prospect's information, like a PDF, a report, a video or a free gift. I'll cover this in more detail in the future.

Step 3. This is about educating the lead, so the best thing to use during this step would be a series of emails, videos, or the ebook (step 2) itself and use it to educate the lead about the different ways that the product or service can help them solve a pain point or enhance their lives. The easiest and most used method of delivering this is with an email autoresponder, like Aweber.

Step 4. The method of delivering this step is up to the seller, but it must clearly contain a call to action to buy or order the product or service. The previous steps should have developed authority, trust, and education with enough substance to make the request for a buy be a natural step.

A few other things to consider

A sales funnel can be made to fit the sellers needs easily and can be completely different from what I have described here but this is a basic overview of how you may start developing your own sales funnel.

To build a sales funnel, you need a plan, a notebook or a way to write down your steps and a few tools. I would recommend the following tools: WordPress, LeadPages, Optinmonster and Aweber in addition to either the lead magnet or a shopping cart to deliver the goods. But I'll cover that in another blog post soon.

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They are very easy to open if you know how and they are delicious. They are just sweet enough and don't overpower your palette.  Cactus pears are also rich in antioxidants and magnesium so they're good for you.

In this short video I show you how to open them and eat them. I wanted to tell you something that is not really in the video, many people online suggest you spit out the seeds. That's too much work! You can just eat the seeds and you'll be fine.

The fruit is very soft and you can just work your way around the seeds and swallow them, nothing bad will happen.

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I have been writing for a month but only have like four visits each day. I have so many articles but nobody reads them. How do I get people to read my posts?

So I decided to write some posts about that and hopefully it helps you out. This is the first in the series explaining How Do You Get Traffic To Your Blog.

How Do You Get Traffic To Your Blog - Part 1 - Let's talk about basics first

First let's debunk some myths

Back in 2006 I started teaching some businesses about blogging and this was the title of the first slide I would share with them:If you build it they will NOT come. This was true again in 2010, and even more true today.

Just because you built a blog and wrote in it, doesn't necessarily mean that people will come to visit it. There's a lot of content out there published everyday, why should they spend time on your content?

I wrote original content but Google doesn't like it. If you write original content and you have made your blog accessible to the search engines then they will index it. But indexing doesn't mean traffic.

Search engines love content that is indexable. But they may or may not send you traffic, that depends on other factors which I'll cover in another post.

Also, stop thinking about Google as the only search engine. There are others out there so think of your whole approach as search engine friendly instead of just Google friendly.

Nobody cares to read what I have to say. Sorry to break it to you, but as much as some people tell you that you're a unique snowflake in a snowstorm, you aren't when it comes to how you think and feel about the world, or in this case a specific topic.

With over 7 billion people in the planet, and over 1.6 of them online, other people will be interested in reading what you have to say. They just don't care much about you, so you have to make an effort to get your blogpost in front of them.

People want to read about my everyday life. Although blogs have a history of being a bit of a journal type of outlet, nobody really cares what you had for breakfast, what dream you had last night, or whether your cat meows or purrs when it's raining. Seriously, nobody GAF.

The exception to that last paragraph is if your blog is about food, the psychology of dreams, or pet psychology. But from a personal experience type of thing, most personal blogs will not ever get a lot of traffic, or make any money.

Most successful blogs aren't personal blogs. In order to make a successful personal blog where you talk about your personal daily experiences, you need to have a knack for witty writing and entertaining others. It's a tough gig and one that I don't recommend you start with.

Improve your SEO but don't overdo it

Spend time learning how SEO works and apply the techniques you learn to your blogposts. But don't overdo it.

The search engines look for hundreds of signals in order to give your website a score. If your articles are too full of keywords, or have too many links, or they are too perfect, this may hurt your site too.

The rule of thumb is to make sure you write for humans, but welcome the search engines. Good sources to read about SEO include: MOZ, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal. Also the keep the official Google Webmaster's blog in your bookmarks and read it periodically.

Write good content and try to make it evergreen

A key to getting traffic to your blog is to have articles that are worth reading. They don't have to appeal to everyone but make sure they are well written. They don't have to be perfect, but at least check your spelling before hitting publish.

Try your best to write it in a way that is entertaining or informational. Avoid ranting, or rambling. And make your best effort to make sure your articles are relevant for a long time to come.

This is what we call evergreen content. Content that is good today, and it will be good tomorrow and in a month and even a year. But getting to the core of this post, following are my best tips for you.

My #1 rule of thumb to get more traffic to the blog

I will cover other topics in upcoming blogposts, but first I want you to think about this and let it sink in. I don't want what I'm about to tell you to scare you from blogging, but to encourage you and explain what you've been missing all along.

The key to getting traffic to your blog is promotion. You have to write your blogposts and then work on promoting them.

Unless you have thousands of dollars to pay someone to do this for you, you need to put in the work to distribute your blogposts.

At first, it will seem like it is a lot of work and you may even feel like blogging is not a worthy endeavor.

I hope you don't quit and realize that with practice, you'll be able to do the promotional work very easily with minimal effort.

For every hour of writing, spend five to eight hours promoting it

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

-- Thomas Edison

Most people scoff at this and think I'm crazy. But that's what I've found to be a good amount of promotion for a blogpost, give or take.

The shock usually wears off when I explain that you don't have to promote the blogpost for 8 hours straight. That wouldn't work actually.

What you have to do is publish your post on your blog, and then promote it for 5 to 10 minutes at a time for the next few months. A little bit at a time, on different places. This builds a good backlink profile and it's gradual which the search engines love.

The bulk of the promotion work happens in the hour or two following your publishing time and in the upcoming days.

Where should you promote your blogposts?

This is the tricky part and where you'll spend those five hours or so. At first, you have to cover all the basics when you publish your post.

The basics include social media and email. More advanced places to get traffic to your blog include: word of mouth, bookmarking sites and forums.

Email the blogpost to your readers

Share your blogpost via email. You should have an email list setup where you have people that want to hear from you. An easy way to set that up is with Aweber, you can set it up for free for a month.

DO NOT use the built in WordPress.com or Jetpack subscription plugin for this. I'll explain why in an upcoming blogpost; you need a proper email list.

Post in social networks

One of the best ways to get traffic to your blog is to use the major social networks. Share the post in Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ and Pinterest. The easiest way to do this is to install something like the Floating Social Bar plugin and go through each of the buttons on your own article after publishing it.

On Facebook, you should also go into relevant groups you belong to and share it there. If you have any Facebook pages that are relevant then share your article there as well. In groups, make sure you follow the etiquette set forth by the group admins or else you may get banned.

On Twitter, you can do a search using http://search.twitter.com/ and see who is asking about what you wrote or talking about it and see if you can politely introduce them to your new article.

On Google+, share it to your timeline and also look for groups you should be a part of and share it there. But read about my warning with social media sites below.

Linkedin is another site where you can share your articles. This one is tricky because people consider it a "professional" network where only "work stuff" should be shared but I don't agree with that. Use at your own discretion.

On Pinterest, make sure you have some boards that meet the criteria of your different topics so you can share each blogpost to the right area. Boards should be simple like "food" "travel" "photography" etcetera.

Warning about posting to social media sites

A warning about social media sites. Most people in social media who aren't bloggers or marketers may find your attempts to share your blogposts with them spammy or annoying.

This is particularly true with admins of groups, they often feel like they have to police their group a lot because people try to spam it all day long. Don't be a spammer.

Make sure you build a good rapport in each group, and make sure that the blogpost you're about to share actually gives some value to the readers, if it doesn't then skip that group for that post.

Another mistake with social media sites is sharing only your content. Post other people's content too, interesting articles and stuff like that. You have to make an effort to be social too, interact with other people's posts by liking, comment and sharing their articles.

I feel like this is a good start to get you an overview of the things that need to happen for your blog to grow. Ultimately, your goal with any blog is to get more traffic. Traffic equals eyeballs, which means whether you want to make money, or spread your ideas, you need more of it.

Key takeaways to get more traffic to your blog:

• Don't believe in the myths of blogging.
• Dot your i's and cross your t's when it comes to SEO, but write for humans.
• Share your content via email.
• Share your content in social networks. If you build it, you need to tell people about it so they come.
• Learn the nuances of each social network so you have better results when sharing.

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WHAT is RSS?

We talked about RSS during my introduction class the other day and I thought I'd post a recap of what RSS means, why you need to know the basics and how to get started using RSS as a blogger. Let me clear the stuff we won't cover here today. I will not tell you about Atom vs RSS 2.0 or any variation of the different RSS implementations. That's too technical of a discussion for most bloggers. I also won't tell you how to make your own RSS because most decent blogging platforms have RSS built in. It is ready for you to use, so no programming needed.

So let's get to it. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a system that was developed in the early 2000's as a way to share information between websites and website readers. These "readers" are now known as RSS readers. The best and most practical example I can give you of an RSS reader is Google Reader. I personally use Google Reader but I also use NetNewsWire on my desktop.

How Can You Use RSS?

I'm going out of order with the Why and How, but bear with me. Technically, RSS isn't just for people. A website can take in an RSS feed and do something with it. For example, I have added a section to this blog to show the latest posts from the 30 day challenge. I did this with a WordPress widget  that brings in an RSS feed and shows you the latest 10 posts that have been posted to the 30days section.

Notice that Notagrouch.com is showing you the titles of the latest 10 posts at OGLink.it. WordPress does this simply with a built-in widget called the RSS widget. See the following screenshot, it's easy to set this up.

The first field takes the RSS feed URL, the address of the feed. In this case it is: category/30-day-blogging-challenge/feed/ The second field is the title that you want to use to display this feed, I used: Latest #30DBC Posts.

The rest of the options are just there for you to customize how the widget will look.

Now, this is all great for a website and if you have WordPress it is useful. What's really cool about WordPress is that you can take an RSS feed from many sections on WordPress and do what I've shown you above.

Let me explain. For example, if you have an automotive blog that has the posts classified into three categories:  exotic cars, mechanical repairs, and engine modifications. The website address might be http://example.com, while a post under exotic cars category could be: http://example.com/category/exotic-cars/my-favorite-exotic-car. This all makes sense (I hope) but where the heck does the RSS thing come into play?

Perhaps I only care about exotic cars and not about the other two categories. This is where WordPress is awesome, each category, tag, author archive, date and other sections have their own unique RSS feeds. Additionally WordPress provides an RSS feed for the entire website. Going by my example, if I only care about exotic cars then I can take the exotic cars RSS feed only and plug it into whatever system I want to use, be a widget like I showed you above or an RSS reader like Google Reader, which I'll explain in a bit.

So in the case of the exotic cars category, I can simply use this address to get posts classified as exotic cars: http://example.com/category/exotic-cars/feed/. Notice I added "feed" at the end instead of the post title. WordPress gives you an RSS feed if you just add the word at the end of a category, tag, or even an author tag.

But So What? Why Would I Use RSS?

Glad you asked! You would use RSS to participate in a blog, and to have your blog read by more people. RSS can help you find other great content by combining an RSS feed with your favorite RSS Reader. And you can encourage your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed with their favorite RSS Reader so they can get the latest posts you have to offer.

RSS works in similar ways to email. You add an RSS feed to Google reader and voila, you're done. Next time that website publishes a post in that RSS feed, your Reader will have a "new item" waiting for you to read. Similar to an email in your inbox. You can then click on that item and read the blogpost right there in your inbox without having to visit the website. You don't have to remember to go check your favorite blog each day only to find out they haven't updated it. You can just check your reader and see which of your favorite blogs have published a new blogpost.

For example, I follow lots of blogs, but some publish only once a month, others twice a month, some publish a new article whenever the author feels like it and it could be months in between postings. I don't have time or the ability to remember all those blogs and go check up on them daily or even weekly. Google Reader reminds me when they have something new to read.

Basics of Google Reader

During my class, the first thing we do after learning about RSS is that I ask my students to find 10 blogs related to their interests and niche and subscribe to them via Google Reader. This is a practical use of Google Reader and it also prepares them for the commenting lesson to come later. So how do you add stuff to Google Reader.

It's simple most of the time. You have to look for the RSS icon on a website and click on it. The RSS icon or logo looks like little broadcasting icon shown above. Most websites that offer RSS feeds have this icon or a variation of it somewhere in their page. Look for it and click on it. Your browser then will either prompt you to take the next step or take you to a page that will seem like gibberish to you.

If your browser prompts you to take action, your options will be to add the feed to Google, or another RSS reader of your choice. Follow through with the option to use Google, then Google Reader. If all went well, that feed will now be in your Google Reader. You may have to log-in to Gmail or Google, and if you don't have an account, you'll have to create it. You can also explore the other options you see if you don't want to use Google Reader.

If your browser shows you a bunch of code, then the easiest thing to do is to copy the URL at the top of your browser and insert it manually into Google Reader. Copy it, then go to Google Reader and click where it says Subscribe. Paste the address there and complete the process and you should have the feed in your google Reader.

Below you'll see a picture of my Google Reader. I cleaned it up a bit so I could show you. You'll see that the NYT News feed takes up most of the screen. You can subscribe to all kinds of things via RSS. Facebook updates, News Updates, Blog updates, Application updates, etcetera. I highlighted the important sections to look at and explore so that you can customize it for your own needs and get the most out of it. I describe some of the highlights in the caption.

Keep a few things in mind as you get started with RSS. Not all websites offer RSS feeds. Some websites don't call them RSS but instead they simply call them Feeds. Other websites don't allow you to subscribe to a feed with an RSS reader and instead they offer email subscriptions; some offer both. Sometimes, large websites offer many different RSS feeds so you can select the stuff you want to read only. Chances are that your blog offers RSS feeds to your readers so it would be good for you to know how they do it and where your readers can find it, and of course, let them know!

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More importantly is their totally awesome app. Sorry folks, but this one is only for OS X. I don't know when will Skitch for Windows be available.

Once you install Skitch, you can set some preferences. I usually make the capture mode for Skitch where I can pick a selection and then the screenshot is taken. (Capturing a screenshot of skitch at work might be tricky...) I bind this to shift+command+5. This has something to do with mac's native screen shot utility. By default, the screen capture built-in on OS X is bound to shift + command + 4. It only makes sense to me to make it a sequence and go to 5.

One side, but related note. If you like Dropbox, and already use it. You may want to check this out... in a previous post titled: Synchronize Skitch with Dropbox and keep your screenshots everywhere., I have instructions on how to make Skitch and Dropbox work together so you have your screen captures made and saved in Skitch to be available across all your devices, desktop, laptop, android, and even iphone.

Legend for the seven highlights of the skitch app.

#1 - Save to Hard History. This saves the current screenshot to your History which also means that you have the file available in your hard drive.
#2 - Manual controls to take snapshots, you can use these instead of using the shortcut.
#3 - If you drag the corner of the app, you resize the image. Use this as your Zoom option.
#4 - After you annotate the screencap you can click on share and this will add your screenshot to your account and allow you to share the screenshot using a special URL. You can make the screenshots public, private or private by unique URL.
#5 - Like #3, but instead, this crops the image or enlarges your working space without image distortion. You can use
this feature to give you more room to show notes.
#6 - The creative options, these are tools that give you access to the different selection, fill and font options for your notes. Use boxes to highlight a box, the bucket to fill it with color, the letter to type a note, the pencil to hand-draw a highlight, the slanted line makes a simple line and the arrow icon (my favorite). Makes an arrow pointing wherever you
want it.

All actions are "undoable" by using command+z. you can also pick the

Anyway, I think Skitch is the best app in class and for the Mac. Its simplicity makes it very easy to use, but at the same time, you have a lot of options under the preferences menu. Check out the screenshots. The app has some features that make it unique and extremely attractive. Check this out.

When you take your screenshot, you can save it to your hard-drive, save it to your desktop or a folder just by dragging the bottom of the app.

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