Traffic Secrets: A Must-Read Book For Bloggers And Entrepreneur

For the last thirty days I've been participating in a traffic secrets challenge on Twitter as I've worked my way through Russell Brunson's new book, Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers. It's been a great opportunity to learn more about cultivating an audience and driving traffic to a website. Today, I'm going to share a little bit more about the book, and what you can learn from it. This is a sponsored post for the Traffic Secrets book, but all opinions are mine!

Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers

It doesn't matter if you are new to the online space or if you have been here for a long time – you need to consistently work at bringing in more traffic to your website or sales funnel. In the world of online marketing, a sales funnel is usually a landing page that walks potential customers through the decision process to purchase. A funnel can also be more than just that initial landing page and include an email sequence, text messages, and other communication that keeps your potential customer engaged until they are ready to buy (because a lot of people need to be presented with an offer up to 20 times before they will buy).

Those of us who have been doing this for years know that strategies have to change as Google and social media algorithms fluctuate. Every year, tens of thousands of online businesses and websites start and then quickly fail, because the owner doesn't understand how to bring in the audience they need.

What I appreciate about Traffic Secrets is the way Brunson takes you through fundamental steps that build a strong foundation. It's not a bunch of sketchy tricks that will work for a few days or months and then leave you with a huge disaster when a social platform finds the loophole you've been exploiting or Google decides to change their guidelines.

The first step to driving traffic to your website is identifying your ideal audience: What do they need? What do they want? Which problems are they trying to solve?

Once you identify your audience (your ideal customer/reader/follower), you can focusing on getting to know them. Figure out where they are spending time. Hone in on ways to reach them and get them to click through to your website or funnel.


This is the journey Traffic Secrets walks you through. Brunson also reveals direct marketing techniques that will allow you to be at the front of new online trends and see opportunities other people haven't picked up on yet.

Traffic Secrets Author: Russell Brunson

Russell Brunson is an entrepreneur and best-selling author. In 2014, Russell and his partner Todd Dickerson launched ClickFunnels, which became the fastest-growing non-venture backed software company in the world and is now a $100M company. In addition to being the CEO of ClickFunnels, Brunson has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, and popularized the concept of sales funnels.

Get A Copy Of Traffic Secrets Today!

If you want to drive more traffic to your blog or online business, or you are thinking about starting something new online, this book is a must-read. You can learn more about the book and grab a free copy of Traffic Secrets here (you just pay for the shipping and handling)! It's a great deal.

This is a sponsored post written on behalf of Russell Brunson and Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers.

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I Read 95 Books In 2014

The second year of tracking my reading on Goodreads has come to an end. It got a little scary, the thought that I wasn't going to make my goal. I even received (what I can only assume was) a passive aggressive email from Goodreads reminding me that I was failing. But y'all gave me a lot of great support and encouragement to be excited about how many books I did read. And after a trip to the library to pick up some last-minute reads (and sniff a few old books), the ever wise Wonderishmama told me, "You could change your goal on Goodreads. Blow their minds."

I took that advice. I realized that goals aren't set in stone. I remembered that it is okay to make new decisions. I accepted that "new decision" isn't just a fancy phrase for "fail." I looked back at the year that was 2014, and I chose to be kind to myself. I set a new goal of 95 books, and last night when I closed the cover on The Other Walk, I met that goal. Boom.

2014 Reading Challenge

Tracie has completed her goal of reading 95 books in 2014!

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95 of 95 (100%)

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My Bookish Posts Of 2014

• Every Character In Looking For Alaska Is Me - In 2014 I read all John Green's books. Looking For Alaska is far and above my favorite of all of them. Here is what I said about it at the time, and I think it still holds true today, "It isn't that Looking for Alaska is the most amazing book I have ever read, but Looking For Alaska felt emotionally truthful to me. Truthful in a way that most books are not. It was like Looking For Alaska cut me open, revealed everything inside of me, and then stitched me back up again."
• A Lady in France - I loved this book so much. And not just because I count the author as a dear friend.
• All That Is Bitter & Sweet - This is the only celebrity autobiography I've ever read that grabbed my heart and wouldn't let go until I told everyone I know all about it. Ultimately this is a book of surviving, overcoming, standing strong, and working and fighting for what you believe is important. The celebrity part is the very least of what you will take away from it.
• On Books, England, And Books From England - Four books that are either set in England, have an English writer, or are about the experience of reading books by an English author. These were absolutely four of my favorite books of 2014.
• 5 Reasons The Kingdom Keepers 7 Book Tour With Ridley Pearson Was Amazing - We woke up ridiculously early to sit outside in the cold for many hours for a book signing, and every second of the experience was amazing. Totally worth it. Ridley Pearson is one of the most gracious, encouraging, involved-with-his-readers authors I have ever met. Plus the Kingdom Keepers (and the Peter And The Starcatchers) books are great reads.
• The Goldfinch And My Inability To Give One Sentence Book Descriptions - How do you sum up a 700+ page book in one sentence? You don't. At least, not if you are me. 
• Five Books I Loved (And Other Bookish Thoughts) - This is a random collection of great books, plus some bonus excitement about the Jasper Fforde books I read this year.
• Dark Hope Book Review - Some brutal honesty for a book I most definitely did not love.
• When More Is Not Enough - Another book I got to read this year that was authored by a friend. It is all about about raising kids who are givers, teaching your children (and yourself) to invest in your communities, and changing your focus from consuming to serving.
• Welcome To Honey Month (Or The Time I Cleared A Library Display) - Have I ever told you how much I love bees? I love them. I love reading about them. I love watching documentaries about them. And one time I brought home (almost) all of the bee things from the library. Thomas and Katarina were not impressed.
• I Read Elenor & Park, And Then I Lied About What Time It Was - Another one of those books that tears you apart and then stitches you back together again. I plan on reading more Rainbow Rowell books in 2015.
• American Girl BeForever: Samantha Parkington - A look at the updated historical girl books from American Girl. It isn't all good, but it isn't all bad either.
• The Mystery Of Books And Marriage And Life - This isn't about a book I read, but about the book that is my life. You have one too...and you might even have some guest authors who make appearances. Hopefully they are kind to your story.

This was another year of reading a little bit of everything. I think I hit almost every section of the bookstore at least once, and completed several series that were started last year. I even got to read a few books written by friends.

Tracie's 2014 Books

Tracie Nall's favorite books »

What did you read in 2014?
Tell me your favorite books (or leave me a link to your end of year reading recap posts), so I can get started on my 2015 reading list. And connect with me on Goodreads where we can share all the bookish goodness.

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The Mystery Of Books And Marriage And Life

I saw an interview in which a man described his wife as "the co-author of his life." Out of everything that was said, this phrase stayed with me.

It is a lovely picture of marriage.

Two becoming one. Your lives entwined. Your decisions blending together. Partnership. Trust. Giving and giving. Submitting to each other (because nothing in marriage should be a one way street). Co-authoring your stories and walking every path together.

My life is a series of chapters, pages, paragraphs, sentence fragments, and footnotes. I am able to look back and see the clear separation of seasons written on soft leaves of time.

I've had a lot of guest writers in my life's book.

It started with my parents. They wrote many of my early chapters with stories that were told again and again. Those pages are fuzzy, I might not actually remember all of them, but they are mine just as surely as if I had held that pen myself.

In my adolescence, friends made appearances. Their tiny, tight letters, and loopy scrolls interspersing with my own, unique writing. There are moments in those chapters when I wasn't sure what the true thread of the story was, or how exactly I fit into it. Some of my guest writers helped me to find that thread, some helped to bury it deep in the woods when I wasn't watching closely. It was easy to get lost in my fledgling story, uncertain that it really was my own.

Guest writers are tricky things. They can make off with whole chapters of your life if you aren't careful. If you come across a couple of bad ones, you could lose so much more than the worth of the words they leave behind them. Some of them will try to take over completely, and have to be forcibly removed from the writing desk before they alter everything in your story down to the very cover of the book.

This is the danger of opening up your story to collaboration.

But sometimes, a guest writer becomes more. You invite him to bring his own chair to the writing desk, and you push the pens a little to the left so you can both reach them easily. This is when a guest writer becomes a co-author.

True beauty is finding a co-author who wants you to shine on every page.

A co-author who doesn't hold you back or push you down so he can be the hero of every story. A co-author whose stories fit just right with yours, and bring your book one section closer to completion, even as yours do the same for his. A co-author who isn't just happy to hand you the pen, but will take dictation when necessary. A co-author who isn't afraid when your writing intersects his, is willing to talk about every comma (especially the ones of the Oxford variety), and knows exactly how to spell both awkward and awesome when the letters don't want to play nicely. A co-author who writes on the days you can't, and fills in the margins with well-placed illustrations on the days you can. A co-author who loves you enough to entrust his story to you the way you have entrusted yours to him. A co-author who might even get the chance to write the early chapters of someone else's book with you.

Thomas is this kind of co-author. As I look down at the pages I'm currently creating, I feel a new chapter coming. A chapter I can take in almost any direction; it's exciting to think about it. But no matter where I go, I know I will not go there alone. I'll carry the pens and Thomas will carry the paper, and as we cross the river between the chapters, Katarina's pocket will hold her own notebook that finally has more of her words in it than ours.

This is how my life's book is being written. Each page is distinctly true to the time in which it was penned. I salvaged almost all of the lost chapters, and sewed them into the binding. Even the dark ones contain precious pieces of my heart. If you lean in close enough, you can smell the colors reflected back at you. The ink splotches and cross-outs are beautiful. I'm learning not to edit as I write, but to let the story stand on its own. I'm okay with the lack of perfection and the footnotes that serve as reminders meant just for me. And I'm thankful for a co-author who doesn't try to change these things to better fit into his own story.

There is room for two books at our writing desk. They fit perfectly together on the shelf. Entwined. Two books, yet one. Co-authored. The same, yet distinctly our own.

This is the mystery of books and marriage and life. It is beautiful.

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American Girl BeForever: Samantha Parkington

During our trip to the new American Girl Store in Orlando, I got my first real look at the new BeForever line of dolls and books. I know they have been out for a few months now, but my resistance to change has kept me from them. Also, I read several blog posts and articles that said the new BeForever books were completely replacing the classic historical stories with modern girls. So in my denial, I stayed away from them whenever we visited the bookstore. The only thing I was excited about was the news that the advent of BeForever would bring Samantha Parkington out of the archives.

On Friday, I asked Stephanie from American Girl about the new books. Did I need to be prepared for heartbreak when I looked at them? She explained that the original stories are are not gone. Each girl's set of six stories have been compiled into two books. A third book has been added with a modern girl who travels back in time to meet the historical characters. This last book has a choose your own ending format, which has been popular for the last few years in American Girl's Innerstar University books.

Samantha's BeForever Books

Manners and Mischief: A Samantha Classic 1 is the first three books of the original Samantha series and Lost and Found: A Samantha Classic 2 is the last three books. The new book is titled The Lilac Tunnel: My Journey With Samantha.

The Lilac Tunnel is the choose your own ending book. It is cute. Samantha feels accurate, and it is always nice to get a new story with an old friend. I like that it is Samantha's locket that enables the girl to time travel. This is true for each of the new companion books - the modern girl travels with an object that is special to the original girl. It is a nice way to tie in the stories. Not accurate, of course, but what little girl didn't wish she could have traveled back in time to spend the day with her favorite American Girl? I know I did.

I think this is also a nice way to connect the My American Girl dolls to the historical dolls. Your "look like me" doll can be the character traveling back in time to meet your historical doll. It is kind of perfect.

Katarina came home from the American Girl Store with a Samantha doll and two of her BeForever books. We immediately sat down with our set of original books to compare.

We read Manners and Mischief, and the text seemed to be mostly the same. There was one chapter in Samantha's Surprise that was split into two, but that didn't make any changes to the story itself.

The idea behind the new BeForever compilations is to repackage them in a way that will appeal to girls today. The original books are quite thin for being chapter books. With three books in one, they feel more comparable in length to the chapter books most girls are reading. Along with the updated cover, it is a simple way to give them a more modern feel.

This isn't really an issue for me. The combining of books also provides a savings. The original books were seven dollars a piece, and with the compilation you get three books for ten dollars. Even with the additional time travel book added in, the whole series has a reduced price point.

That being said, there were some changes that Katarina and I did not love.

Big change number one: no illustrations. Not a one. This is a real loss. Katarina was especially sad they didn't at least keep the little silhouettes that always graced the beginning of each new chapter.

I was a kid. I know what it means to graduate to books without pictures. It is held up like a medal. Finally you have arrived to reading "real, grown-up books." Of course this is actually a very silly way to measure a book. A well-placed illustration is a gift. The illustrations in American Girl were especially lovely. And it was nice to have a representation of some of the historical objects from the stories.

The illustrations were also what the doll's clothes, accessories, and furniture were based on from the beginning. Unlike every other illustration or cover art you have seen, the art and the book's descriptions matched each other down to the last detail. It was one of the marvels of American Girl. With the updated outfits and other items for the BeForever dolls, I am sure the old illustrations posed a problem. I don't think that was the entire rational for losing the illustrations, but it probably wasn't seen as a drawback, either.

Big change number two: the lacking history section. At the end of every American girl book, there is always a Looking Back section which teaches you more about the time period of the girl. This is true even in the more recently written mystery books.

In Manners and Mischief, the history section is only two pages long. Even accounting for the lack of pictures, this is very short. It comes no where near covering the amount of information that existed in the three original books' Looking Back sections. Instead, it is basically a shortened version of the historical information from Meet Samantha. This was very disappointing.

The Samantha books are an important piece of American history, especially for girls. The original authors (Samantha's books had three authors - Susan Adler, Maxine Schur, and Valerie Tripp), did a great job working the historical issues into the stories of Samantha and the secondary characters. In Samantha's books you learn about the Suffrage Movement, child labor and factory conditions, the struggles faced by poor families immigrating to America, how the wider use of turn-of-the century inventions changed the way people lived and worked, and more.

You still get insight into these things from the stories themselves, but the Looking Back section really gave you the full historical context. It was also a great introduction to reading history for enjoyment, making non-fiction more accessible to the average girl who might not otherwise leave the fiction section of her library. More than the loss of the illustrations, I am sad to see the reduction of emphasis on the historical aspect of the books.

So what do I think of BeForever overall? I'm excited Samantha is back. I am hoping American Girl will also return the other archived characters to us. Unfortunately everything I love won't stay the same forever. Companies grow and change with the times - even companies built on a love of detailed history. This isn't the first time the art and covers have been changed. The box set we own is certainly not an original. It looks more modern than the ones that were around when I was first reading them in the early 1990's.

At this point, I'm just really thankful the historical stories are sill available. I was so sad when I thought they had been replaced, that I can't help but be relieved to see them. The core values and lessons they teach will transcend any art or formatting changes, as long as the actual stories are not altered.

What do you think about BeForever and the changes to American Girl?

*As I disclosed in my post about the new American Girl store in Orlando, Katarina received a Samantha doll, books, and other goodies while we were at the store. I was not required to write this post or to spend a whole day rereading all of the Samantha stories.

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I Read Elenor & Park, And Then I Lied About What Time It Was

"I'm going to read just one chapter before I go to bed."

This is the biggest lie a reader can tell themselves.

Especially if it is a new book. Even more so if it is the kind of book that pulls you in emotionally by the second page, and doesn't want to let go.

I know this, but I didn't think about it when I decided to start Eleanor & Park around 1 o'clock in the morning.

"Just one chapter. Maybe two," I promised myself, "I just want to see if I'm going to love it, and then I'll go to sleep."

Hours later, I was still reading.

Thomas stirred beside me, and rolled over, one eye opening cautiously against the light. "What time is it?"

"It is around 2 o'clock-ish," I replied quietly, hoping he would roll back over and fall asleep.

But it wasn't to be. As he reached for the tv remote, I knew it was all over.

He was going to discover what time it was...and so was I.

I'm not saying I lied to him. I didn't know what time it was exactly, and I didn't really want to know (as I needed to be up at 5am), so I reached for a time that didn't sound too awful. 2 o'clock. And I added an "around" and an "-ish" to amp up the vagueness.

It wasn't my fault that Eleanor & Park had torn my heart into tiny pieces, and I couldn't put the book down until I knew for sure it was going to stitch them back together again.

"It is 4:15!" Thomas exclaimed, "Four fifteen. Why am I awake right now?"

"I don't know. You should really go back to sleep."

"Why are you awake right now?"

"Well, I, um..."

"You are reading a book."

"Yep. Eleanor & Park." and then I said, all in one breath, "The author's name is Rainbow Rowell, which is the best YA author name ever. It is all about this girl named Eleanor who has a really messed up family life, and she meets a boy named Park. But it's better than that. The narration is split between the two main characters, and it is set in the 80's. Every single teenage feeling happens. It has music and comic books, but not in a stupid way. Their relationship is so sweet, and real, and in the moment. And Park's mom is an issue, but then she isn't, and you have to love her. And Eleanor and Park work so hard to learn how to communicate. You just want to cheer for them. And then this thing happens that is horrible. But the response to it is so perfect. Then it is heartbreaking again. But I have five pages left, and I'm hoping for something amazing."

Thomas stared at me with half-opened eyes, "Okay. I didn't get most of that, but it all sounds really emotional and angsty. I'm going back to sleep now."

I needed to be up in less than an hour, so I finished the last five pages of Eleanor & Park, blew my nose (because, yes, there was something amazing, at the end, and then there were tears), and started my day. Some books are worth staying up all night to finish.

And just so you know, Rowell did stitch my heart back together at the end.
I loved this book.

Have you read Eleanor & Park, or any other Rainbow Rowell books?

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