What would you do if you lost your #1 traffic source? I got BANNED from a major website...and lost a TON of web traffic. Here's what happened.... http://rachelrofe.com/what-would-you-do-if-you-lost-your-1-traffic-source Want More? If you liked this, there’s plenty more where it come from. Let’s stay in touch! We can connect in any of these places: Main website: http://www.RachelRofe.com A Better Life Podcast – where these transcripts are taken from: http://www.rachelrofe.com/podcast Rachel's books – Learn new ways to improve your life: http://www.rachelrofe.com/booklist Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/RachelRofe Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/AbetterlifeRR Instagram: http://www.Instagram.com/RachelRofe Instagram: http://www.Instagram.com/chooseabette... YouTube: http://www.YouTube.com/RachelRofe YouTube: http://www.YouTube.com/Chooseabetterlife

1. By:
Rachel Rofe
www.rachelrofe.com

2. About 6 months ago, I got an extremely distressing
email.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Don and I were at the Wichita airport. We were
moving to Vegas that night. We’d just picked up our
flight tickets and were walking over to security when
Don checked his email on his cell phone.

3. “I just got a cease and desist from Facebook!”
I felt a mixture of shock and disbelief. Before I could
even finish processing, he said, “You got one too!”
WHAT IS GOING ON!?
With weak knees, we both sat down at the nearest
table to read everything more clearly.

4. The email said that our accounts were banned. We
could no longer use the site, we couldn’t have
anybody representing us on the site, we were done.
Neither of us could believe it. We were freaking
out (to say the least).

5. The next day we were at the Wynn. We were staying
there for a few days before we could move into our
new home. At around 10am, we walked into the
bar/cafe. Don ordered an espresso. I, to the shock of
Don, ordered a shot of vodka. Then I emotionally ate
the heck out of 2 bowls of bar snacks. I just kept
eating and eating and eating.

6. This changed EVERYTHING.
Don was set to relaunch a product that made him 7
figures the last time. This cease and desist was a
million dollar loss – MINIMUM – for him. He had to
cancel the launch.

7. I had my first event lined up for 2 months later. I had
all kinds of sponsors lined up – Kind bars, Runa tea,
and 9 other companies. I’d already invested 5 figures
into it, a ton of energy, and every ounce of my heart
and soul.

8. My plan was to use Facebook Ads to promote my
event. I do have a mailing list, but it’s not segmented
out by location. I needed NYC-specific people since it
was a one day affair that I didn’t expect people to fly
in for.
My mind couldn’t register the idea of having to
cancel my event. I figured I’d just work hard and
bring in tickets another way.

9. And so I hustled. Hard. I threw money into paid
traffic on AdWords, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Plenty Of
Fish. I advertised in NYC newspapers. I emailed
every relevant NYC-based meetup group owner I
could find. I contacted business owners. I did
everything I could think of.

10. But I still didn’t send enough traffic to the page.
2 weeks before the event was set to go live, I had to
cancel it. It was devastating – but I didn’t want to
waste the speakers’ and sponsors’ time.

11. Now, I should say – the short version of the cease and
desist is that Facebook thought Don and I owned a
tool that we didn’t. They didn’t do anything wrong –
they were taking care of their users. The tool was
something that had become against Facebook’s terms
of service. We’d promoted it over a year ago, before
people started doing creepy things with similar tools.
We had proof to back up everything we were saying,
but it was a long process, and it took us over 5
grueling months to get our accounts back.

12. I learned so much during this intense process – both
personally and professionally. One of the biggest
business insights, though, was this:
It is ESSENTIAL to diversify your traffic.
Bonus: Learn what my top 5 traffic sources are
and how they can CONSISTENTLY send you
traffic.

13. What happened to me can happen to anyone.
The tool that we got banned for was something we
hadn’t even thought about in over a year. I’m not
saying Facebook did anything wrong – I know they
were trying to protect their users – I’m just saying
that if something off the wall could happen to me, it
could happen to anyone.

14. And this isn’t the first time something like this has
happened. Many people have heard of the “AdWords
slap”, people who got banned from Kindle, etc… this
kind of thing happens all the time.
In the last 6 months, I’ve worked hard to learn how to
use new traffic sources. I tested a TON, bought lots of
courses, and invested a lot of money to learn all kinds
of new things.

15. Thankfully, it’s been working.
On September 4th, the day I got banned, I had 19,142
followers across all of my social networks. 6 months
later, I have 57,329 (including Facebook – and 44,161
without). That’s an increase of +38,187 followers in
6 months.

16. I launched my podcast on August 11th. Even though I
was banned shortly after launching, I’ve still enjoyed
over 133,129 podcast downloads.
I went back into the lab with Kindle. I had one book
that had 6,364 downloads in 5 days – which
converted into thousands of opt-ins.
I have done SO MUCH to get more traffic.

17. Losing Facebook really sucked. It was devastating on
so many levels, and I am *SO* glad to have my
account back.
If I’m looking at it from a “what did I learn?”
perspective, I’d say I’m SO glad that it helped me
learn to have sustainable traffic from a variety of
sources.

18. I learned to NOT rely on one traffic source alone.
The following screenshot is from my Google
Analytics account for this blog, RachelRofe.com.
You can actually see the steady incline of traffic I’ve
been experiencing, especially around December and
January.

19. This is the result of a ton hard work in testing,
experimenting and refining new traffic methods:

20. They say that sometimes you have to learn things the
hard way. That was definitely true in this case.
Bonus: Curious what my top 5 traffic sources are?
Click here to get a video + checklist going over
what they are (from right inside my Google
Analytics account) and how YOU can use them to
get consistent traffic.

21. I’m curious, for YOU –
What would YOU do if you lost
your #1 traffic source?