You can double your email list with just one little-known SEO trick! The bad news is that not many online entrepreneurs know this secret. Fortunately, you’re in the right place because we have Laura Abolos sharing her secret to success.
Today’s episode features one of our many case studies of students who accelerated their business. Laura Abolos, one of the best SEO travel blog experts, joins our conversation about the hidden SEO trick that can have a massive impact on your email list growth.
We discuss why it’s crucial to observe what others in your niche are doing and how you can use similar strategies without directly copying them. Laura also shares her personal journey as a travel blogger and how she and her partner have learned to navigate working together while constantly traveling.
If you’re looking to supercharge your email list and learn how to effectively implement SEO into your online business, this episode is a must-listen. Laura Abolos’ insights and experiences will inspire you to take action and see incredible results.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- The SEO trick to double your email list
- What you need to look out for and emulate in your niche
- Expert tips and insights in managing your online business
Links & Resources:
Kwadwo Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
Laura Peters-Abolos’ Links:
Timestamps:
00:00 — Introduction
04:04 — Up close with Laura Abolos’ business
09:40 — Battling with impostor syndrome
12:09 — Why entrepreneurial success overshadows online trolls
19:40 — Switching to live webinars for better results
24:21 — How live webinars trump evergreen for connection
31:08 — Preparations for live webinars
37:23 — Where to get your leads
39:05 — Look, test, and emulate
46:01 — Recognizing business bottlenecks
53:15 —The importance of delegation in online business
59:18 — How to navigate challenges
01:02:39 — How limiting notifications helped Laura
01:10:36 — Laura’s successful webinar funnel strategy
Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!
Laura Peters [00:00:00]:
I felt burnt out. There are so many times I just wanted to throw the towel in. But then I would get an email from a student saying, hey, I just joined Mediavine, or, hey, I just ten X my affiliate income in four months. And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. And I show Mike every time I get one of those emails, and most of the time I start crying because I just love that. But wouldn’t have I wouldn’t continue with the business if I wasn’t in the right headspace. And that was the biggest problem. The business was my life.
Rick Mulready [00:00:35]:
All right, what’s up, my friend? Welcome to episode number 612 here in the Art of online Business podcast. I’m Rick, your host, and I’ve been getting a lot of requests recently for more case studies here on the show and from a lot of people. And I was like, wait a minute, I always do case studies here on the podcast. And then I went back and looked at past episodes and I was like, oh, it’s been a little while, and that’s not been intentional. I love sharing case studies with you. So I have a whole bunch of case studies lined up for you over the next few months here, well and beyond. But I want to start off today with Laura Peters. She and her husband Mike run a business from the website called Mikeandloratravel.com, and they have an online course called Scaleyourtravel Blog. So as you might imagine from that name, they help travel bloggers create and grow a thriving business from Travel Blogging. And they launched this course, Scale Your Travel Blog, in January of 2021, and they’re doing extremely well with it. They’ve done several hundred thousand dollars from this course. And they sell this course through weekly webinars, weekly live webinars. It’s a 1997 I think it’s $2,000 course. And cold traffic. Cold traffic. Check this out. Laura converts on those webinars at about 18% on cold traffic to a $2,000 offer. Weekly webinars. She’s done a lot of webinars. And so we’re going to dive into all that here today. Specifically, I want you to listen to the conversation around how many hours and what the business was doing to Laura not too long ago. I remember my first conversation with Laura a few months ago before she joined accelerator. She said, Rick, I’m doing 80 hours a week in my business as the CEO. I’m working 80 hours a week, basically have no personal life, the laptop is always open or I’m getting notifications or what have you. And I could just see the pain and frustration in her eyes. I’m like, that’s why I do what I do. And when she and Mike joined us in Las Vegas for our accelerator retreat a few weeks ago, she said, Rick, I’m down to 50 hours a week. I’ve already cut 30 hours a week off of my work week. May was our biggest month that we’ve ever had in terms of revenue, high five figures, and it was the month that she worked the least amount of hours that she has in forever. So you’re going to hear Laura’s story here today. So without further ado, let’s go hang out with Laura Peters. Welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you on and chat about yours and Mike’s business. I know quite a few of the details of the business being that you’re an accelerator and I really want to have you and I want you to share what your business is and the lifestyle that you all have created for yourselves. And I think that some of the early struggles that you’ve had in the business are very relatable to so many people. And we’ll get into that here in just a minute. So why don’t we start there? Why don’t you tell us what you and Mike do in the business and sort of what is the lifestyle that you’ve created for yourselves?
Laura Peters [00:04:04]:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first, thank you for having us. Again, super excited to be here, but yeah, my name is Laura. I’m the owner and author, along with Mike of Mike and Laura travel, which is our travel blog. We started and grew that in 2014. I didn’t know him then, but I started it and it went really poorly for a long time until I realized that I could just use SEO to grow our website. And so we saw our travel blog grow really quickly and we started earning money through ads and affiliate marketing. And I thought, wow, I feel like more people should know about this and fewer people should have to go through what I had to go through to get to where we were. And so I created scale your travel blog. And it’s a consultant program that helps where we help other people, other travel bloggers, grow and make money from their websites by using SEO, affiliate marketing and email marketing.
Rick Mulready [00:05:05]:
That’s so cool. And you said something there that is a good example of and I’m going to toot my own horn for a second, but it’s a good example of the type of people that I tend to attract because you said I was seeing a lot of success here with SEO and driving and growing my blog and creating revenue from ads and affiliate. And you were like, holy cow, I feel like other people should know how to do this. We easily could have said, oh, I found something really good here. I’m just going to keep doing more of it and I’m not going to tell anybody. So you came from this abundance mindset like, holy cow, this is really working, and I’m onto something here. I want to show others how to do the same.
Laura Peters [00:05:56]:
Yeah, it was hard to find the information out there. It really was, and a lot of it’s bad advice. And so I remember telling myself I’m going to figure this out, and when I do, I’ll tell everyone I know. So here’s. Scale your travel blog.
Rick Mulready [00:06:11]:
So when did you create the course itself? Scale your travel blog.
Laura Peters [00:06:18]:
I launched it in January of 2021. Was the very first time we sold it to anybody. And we had like, maybe seven people or maybe no, it was less than that. No, it was about seven people, because at the time, we were charging a lot. It was just the course. We didn’t realize how important the coaching part was. And so at the time, we sold it to seven to ten people, and it was crazy. It was weird. Like, people bought it, of course. It’s all incredibly valuable information, SEO. I had no reason not to feel secure in selling it. But it was just a weird thing. Like, people want to know this. This is great.
Rick Mulready [00:07:01]:
Now, you started in 2014, right? That was when you started and you didn’t know the blog and didn’t know what was the name of the business? We’ll call it I almost said BM before Mike.
Laura Peters [00:07:17]:
Before. Mike.
Rick Mulready [00:07:19]:
Yeah. What was the name of it? What was the name of the business before Mike?
Laura Peters [00:07:23]:
So it was just it’s actually really bad, and it’s so embarrassing to talk about, but it was called Bella’s Brews Bon Voyage because I thought alliteration super cool, and I thought, people are going to love that. I’m a girl, I like beer and I like to travel. None of what I wrote was actually related to that name. It was really silly. And I tried so hard. I mean, every day I would wake up, I would look at my Google Analytics to see, are people coming to my website? This is so cool. And no one did for a very long time. And I thought it was because I was, oh, I’m not writing the right stuff. And it was just the strategies were off, so far off. And yeah, there’s actual strategy behind it, and it took a while to figure it out, but it’s cool to show other people. Like, I see what you’re doing. I did that for a very long time. Let me show you the easier way. This is actually how you do it.
Rick Mulready [00:08:22]:
So you launched it in January to a year and a half ago, not too long ago. When we recording this, we’re recording this in June of 2022. We’d say seven or eight people in that first.
Laura Peters [00:08:35]:
Yeah, I remember actually, one of the students, she’s still in our course, and she’s still active. She ended up upgrading to the coaching portion of it, too. But I remember it was after our first webinar, and we were sitting there hoping that people would take us up on our offer, and one girl was emailing me, and she said, okay, this is a really scary move for me. It was $400 at the time. It is a lot of money for a lot of people. And she said, I want to make sure you’re going to go live. I want to make sure you do this for us, this. And I sat there and I just said, yes, I will, because I had so much great info to share with them, but I didn’t know how to make them trust me. I mean, yes, we’ve done it before, but who am I to be talking about that? And so I was pretty desperate, like, please take us up on our offer. And now it’s definitely not that. It’s more along the lines of, hey, if this is the right program for you, I’ll tell you. If it’s not, I’m going to also tell you.
Rick Mulready [00:09:40]:
So you had imposter syndrome, which is yeah, we all have it. You said, who am I to be teaching this stuff? Even though for several years you’d been doing it yourself. Not well at first, but figuring it out. Hey, yeah, I know how to do this. But yet you’re still like, who might to be teaching this stuff.
Laura Peters [00:10:03]:
Yeah, we were making six figures from our travel blog, and we had started another site that was also making money, but I still was like, who am I? Who am I to be doing this? This sounds so silly. I remember I obviously Binged your podcast and Amy’s podcast, and she just said, make sure you go live and just do like, throw yourself out there. And so I did, and I was absolutely terrified. I remember I had to drink a beer before I went live to calm my nerves, and I just felt so silly being on camera. Who was I to say anything? But now our students get the results, and it’s the same as what we went through, and it’s like, this is so cool. This works.
Rick Mulready [00:10:49]:
When you say go live, do you mean like, at the time? Are you talking like Facebook Live? Are you talking about doing a live webinar?
Laura Peters [00:10:56]:
It was a Facebook Live, but the webinars were also terrifying. Like, I would get off of a webinar and have to go change my clothes because I was so sweaty and freaked out. And I still get afraid or get nervous about going on a webinar and having someone be mean in the comments. It’s still to this day, I’m still terrified of it, but it’s a lot less than what it was before.
Rick Mulready [00:11:25]:
That means you’ve made.
Laura Peters [00:11:28]:
It. Yeah.
Rick Mulready [00:11:33]:
I don’t remember what year it was, but it was years ago. I want to say it was like, I don’t know, year one of the maybe a year and a half into my business back in 2015 or something like that. I was in an airport, and I want to say I was in I don’t know why this is coming to my mind, but maybe in Phoenix or something, like flying through. I was in an airport, and I remember getting a troll comment, like, really nasty and I was like I was upset for a minute, but then I was like, Holy cow, I’ve made it. People are trolling me right now.
Laura Peters [00:12:09]:
This is what it looks like to be up here. Yeah, totally. I actually start to feel that too. And honestly, a lot of times I see those people and I’ll see them doing it to other entrepreneurs. And I don’t look at the entrepreneur negatively. I just look at that person negatively. So I feel like maybe more people also feel that way and see those trolls as actual trolls. I think that what really irritates me is because I know that our program, I do literally everything I possibly can to help every single one of our students succeed. That is my top priority. Yeah, the money is great. It really is. But if people aren’t getting results, then what’s the point? And I just think about that when I see those other people being mean, and I’m like, you know what? Our student just made 20 grand in a month from her travel blog. So I guess I don’t really care what you say.
Rick Mulready [00:13:07]:
Right. Do you respond to them?
Laura Peters [00:13:10]:
I do. I used to try and ignore them, but now I respond to them. I try to explain different things to them, like how we don’t use social media, and here’s why, but it still doesn’t really click because people don’t understand digital businesses. I try to respond. I do it nicely, but.
Rick Mulready [00:13:36]:
It’S threatening to so many people because they feel like it’s too good to be true. Yeah, I don’t know. Just like, quick side when it comes to trolls, when it comes to people emailing nasty things for no reason whatsoever, I have found that, number one, the whole thing about waiting until you kind of cool off, unless it’s in the moment of like, you’re on a webinar or something like that, that works very well, but you respond. And just like, one thing I love to do is like, hey, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to leave this comment. I super appreciate it.
Laura Peters [00:14:17]:
Yeah.
Rick Mulready [00:14:17]:
And they’re either going to not respond or they will respond. And they’re like, oh, my God, this actually gets read. And then their story completely changes at that point.
Laura Peters [00:14:29]:
Totally. Yeah. Killing them with kindness. It’s funny that you said, this is too good to be true. Because literally, it was like, ding, ding, ding. Because we just got an email from another student who said, I feel like this is too good to be true. We are getting over 60,000 people to our site each month. We’re making five grand a month from this. And it’s just a side hobby, me and my husband. We can’t believe this is actually happening, and we’re waiting for it to crumble beneath our feet. But for now, this is awesome. And so it’s totally reasonable for people to think, like, this is too good to be true. But when you really sit down and look at it and you see that SEO is just a game, then it’s totally possible. And so, yeah, I think it’s reasonable for people to think that. It’s just not reasonable to be mean.
Rick Mulready [00:15:23]:
Yeah, exactly. So you launched this year and a half ago, seven to eight people in your first round. Was it sort of open closed sort of thing, or was it evergreen? People could buy it all the time. What was sort of the model at that point?
Laura Peters [00:15:40]:
Yeah, so I took DCA in September of 2020, and I launched, like, our first we had a first courses, and it was for online ESL teachers. Obviously, they shut that down. So China did, and so not really relevant anymore. So I thought I could just do this for travel blogging. And I basically followed exactly what she told me, exactly what Amy said I just did that, opened my course for the first time, january, like, 17th, 2021. And then I closed it. I think it was, like, eight days later, but it was an open close. And then I launched again in April july, I believe it was September. And then November was a big one, and then it kind of went from there, just like, big.
Rick Mulready [00:16:36]:
At what point did you realize, like, holy cow, this program here, we really have a big revenue generator on our hands. You just rattled off a whole bunch of launches that you did.
Laura Peters [00:16:50]:
Yeah.
Rick Mulready [00:16:51]:
At what point did you realize that?
Laura Peters [00:16:54]:
I think I just kept going because there were so many people saying, like, oh, your first launch, you might not make any money. Well, we made $7,000. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I need to keep doing this, because other people have said their first launch is obviously the lowest. So if I just keep going, people are liking what I’m giving them. They think it is incredibly high quality, so let’s just keep going. Pour everything into this. I actually kind of stopped blogging. I blogged maybe post one blog post a month, but it got to be where there were so many people who wanted to get in that at the time, this was silly, but I was, like, turning people away when our doors were closed. I was like, oh, I don’t think I’m supposed to allow you in, but you can get in in the next one. And that’s when it kind of dawned on me, like, hey, we have people knocking on our door trying to get into our program because they’re hearing such great things. And so that’s when I kind of realized, like, wow, this is pretty cool. Of course, we’ve gone through our fair share of roller coaster moments. I mean, truly, like, panic attacks and sad crying, like I’ve told you before. But every time we launch, it just surprises me. Every time.
Rick Mulready [00:18:17]:
Well, we’ll call it your selling schedule right now. It’s pretty intense. Tell people about that?
Laura Peters [00:18:24]:
Yes and no. Right now.
Rick Mulready [00:18:27]:
I love this answer. I love that you answered that way. Okay, go on.
Laura Peters [00:18:33]:
Right now we are doing weekly webinars. So I was doing once every three months back in 2021. And then I thought, what if I just did this every month? Then we would be making like 20 grand a month. Why don’t I just do that? So I tried it once in September of 2021, and I tried to do it like a weekly webinar. I did it once and it flopped. And SEO, I was like, I can’t do that anymore. It didn’t work. I mean, my people need more time to trust me. They need more time to see what we have to offer. And so I didn’t for a while. In January of 2022 this year, I did our last big launch, and it went really well. We did like 40,000 in January or something like that. But then it might have been you, but maybe not. Maybe I’m thinking of someone else, but someone was talking about how they did a weekly webinar for like an entire year. Was that you?
Rick Mulready [00:19:37]:
Yeah, I did that back in 2015.
Laura Peters [00:19:40]:
Okay. That’s what it was. I was listening to that episode and I thought my live launches, because I did go evergreen in January. After that big launch, I tried to go Evergreen and it worked. It just didn’t work as well as the live. And so I thought, why would I do an automated that converted at 2% when I could do a live that converts at 18%? And so I thought, what’s 1 hour of my week to do alive? I love talking about SEO and affiliate marketing. It’s literally I’m a geek. But I thought, what’s the big deal of 1 hour if it means 5000 extra bucks a week? And so I just went for it. And we’ve been doing that since February, and we’ve got our numbers down pretty, like they’re very strong numbers. And every time it’s almost every week I say to myself, this week is going to be different. No one’s going to buy. And every single week people see the value in it and join us. And so I just have to learn to trust the numbers because they’re there. But the weekly webinars, it’s really helping me to hone in on my webinar pitch and make me feel more comfortable. Before, I felt so awkward. Like I felt great talking about SEO and affiliate marketing. I do it in my sleep sometimes. Mike’s, like, you were talking in your sleep last night about SEO. And I was like, I bet I was. But when I would get on the webinar, that was great. For the first 45 minutes, I would teach. And it really was great stuff. But as soon as that last 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it was, came to sell, I just felt awkward.
Rick Mulready [00:21:32]:
Yeah, most people do.
Laura Peters [00:21:33]:
Yeah. And now, especially for a higher ticket item. I wouldn’t say we’re like super high ticket, but $2,000 is a lot to ask for and it’s still awkward. Obviously. We definitely live up to what we are offering, but being able to do that repetitively week after week after week is so it just helped my confidence level by about 1000. And I realized the webinars where I do the absolute best, like we get the best results, best conversion rates and stuff like that, are the webinars where I feel completely relaxed and I can stutter and I can say and I don’t have to be this perfect person sitting in front of a camera. I’m sitting here hanging out with people, teaching them about travel blogging. Oh, by the way, if you want to be a travel blogger, I’ll just show you the quick way to do it. So it’s helped a lot.
Rick Mulready [00:22:27]:
So how many webinars have you done?
Laura Peters [00:22:29]:
That’s a good question. I actually was looking earlier today, and I believe because we’ve been back and forth between Demio and webinar Jam, I can actually look right now. It says since, let’s see, since January, end of January, beginning of February, I’ve done 28. So I used to do two per week. And then I cut it down and I thought, well, what if we just did it once per week and then send a replay and we’ve seen the same numbers.
Rick Mulready [00:23:03]:
So I want to break this down and I want to unpack that a little bit. You said something there, because everybody, especially who applies for accelerator, they all want to evergreen in some way. They want to get off the launch cycle, which I totally get. And in January, you said, oh yeah, I want to Evergreen this because I’ve gotten it down pretty well. Now, in January, was it a $2,000 offer at that point, too?
Laura Peters [00:23:36]:
It switched to a $2,000 offer. It was 1000 at the time. But we upped it because we added a lot to the coaching program. Obviously you’ve heard it and you’re like, what the hell?
Rick Mulready [00:23:48]:
We’re going to talk about that in a minute. Don’t worry, it’s coming. Okay, so two grand. At that point, you were like, all right, let’s try evergreening it. And you were getting about a 2% conversion.
Laura Peters [00:24:02]:
1%, 1.5, yeah.
Rick Mulready [00:24:04]:
Most people would be like, wait on cold traffic. A $2,000 offer on Evergreen at 2%. Pretty good.
Laura Peters [00:24:11]:
Yeah.
Rick Mulready [00:24:14]:
How long did you do the evergreen before like, you know what, I’m going to go back to live and why not try this weekly?
Laura Peters [00:24:21]:
I did it for about a month, and again, it did work. And actually, we might have been running the evergreen at the same time that we were doing some live webinars as well, just to kind of compare them and see how they were both doing. And I don’t know, I was looking at our numbers and I don’t know, for me, it felt more like personal. It felt like I could really connect with people if I was live. And I appreciate when people are live and I can ask them questions and things like that. And this is again another troll, but we had somebody email us super angry that it wasn’t live and how I deceived them even though it said recorded, whatever, but it still made me think like, okay, so people do really enjoy a live interaction between humans. What better way to grow trust? And that’s another thing we talk about in travel blogging is grow your trust with people. I mean, email them, get to talk to them and what better way to really get to know your audience and see their questions every single week but to do this live webinar? And so I saw the 1.52% conversion rate with our Evergreen, but it felt better to do the lives, it felt like I could connect better. And again, that percentage of the conversion percentage, I was like, how could I give up that when I know we could be making a lot more and getting more people into our program and helping more people. If I were simply just to take 1 hour out of my week to go live and everything else is automated and so it doesn’t really affect me. I don’t have to go in and send all these emails and worry about oh my gosh, this person needs this or that and they want the replay and it’s all automated and so all I have to do is show up for an hour and a half max.
Rick Mulready [00:26:20]:
And then I’m done. So what does that automation look like? And so that’s why I said I love that you answered yes and no because I said you’ve got a pretty elaborate way of selling because you’re doing it weekly and you’re like yeah, it is elaborate but at the same time it’s the way you have it set up and systematized right now. Like you just said, you just show up and deliver and answer questions or so for about 90 minutes or so. So what does that automation look like?
Laura Peters [00:26:54]:
Yeah. Do you mean like the emails that go out and how people sign up and all of that?
Rick Mulready [00:26:59]:
Yeah, because when I was doing weekly webinars this was seven years ago, I was able to set it up fairly automated, where all I had to do was going and we were running traffic to it, running ads to it. All I had to do was go in there and change the date on the landing page. And that was it. What is set up in terms of automation? Do you make a change on landing page? I’d love to kind of break that down.
Laura Peters [00:27:35]:
Yeah. So we run ads, we spend about $1,200 a week on ads.
Rick Mulready [00:27:42]:
1200. Okay.
Laura Peters [00:27:43]:
Yes. And they almost, I’m pretty sure all of them right now go directly to our webinar for the registration page. I think maybe a small portion is allocated to our freebie opt in, but we see better conversions from just right to the master class. So they sign up and they will receive, I believe it’s three emails. One is like the day before and then two the day of the webinar. They also get some notifications from our webinar service, so they might get like five notifications. Hey, don’t miss this, don’t miss this, don’t miss this. And honestly, that’s a place where I do want to maybe look into a bit more just because our show up rate isn’t you’ve said it’s okay. It’s not bad at all. But for me, I’m used to like 35% show up rate for at least our warm audience. So for the cold audience show up rate, it’s hard for me to what.
Rick Mulready [00:28:41]:
Is your show up rate again?
Laura Peters [00:28:42]:
It’s like 19 or 20% or something like that.
Rick Mulready [00:28:45]:
Okay.
Laura Peters [00:28:46]:
Sometimes 15. Yeah. So they get those emails. If they show up, we have about, again, 15% to 20% show up rate. Almost all of the people that attend the webinar will stay to the end because we offer a freebie at the end if they stay, which almost everyone wants. And then after the webinar, I share with them a link that they can join our program. I also share with them a calendar link where if they want to hop on a call with me for ten minutes and ask me a few questions about our program, then we do that and we convert at like 95% for anyone who signs up for a call with us. And so that’s why I continue to do it. And honestly, like $2,000 is a lot. And so just having that peace of mind and getting that one on one time with somebody, it makes people feel a lot better. I’ve had people say I wouldn’t have purchased if I didn’t have this call.
Rick Mulready [00:29:44]:
So let me just clarify that real quick, Laura. So you on your webinar, you say, hey, here’s the link to go join the program, and pretty much in the same breath on the same slide, if you will, you’re letting people know. Or you can go to this link here and schedule a call.
Laura Peters [00:30:01]:
So I put up the sales page where they can go read everything, buy, and then I talk about the price point. I talk about it being $2,000 because a lot of people, they shy away from it because it’s $2,000, obviously. But I explain, like, this is an investment that is going to teach you skills that will make you ten times what you’re investing into it. If not, I mean, obviously a lot more than ten times, but the power of SEO is crazy. So I explain how through story, just like how I invested in myself and how it worked, because we did we bought tons and tons of courses and coaches and things like that to get to where we are now. But then maybe two slides. Later, I say, if you’re still on the fence, I get it.
Rick Mulready [00:30:52]:
Got you.
Laura Peters [00:30:53]:
It is expensive. So let’s hop on a call together, let’s talk about if this is the right program for you. I’ll just sit and answer your questions, no pressure from me. And so, yeah, that’s how they do it. Sorry.
Rick Mulready [00:31:06]:
No, go ahead, finish that thought.
Laura Peters [00:31:08]:
I was just going to say so then they can schedule a call with me that weekend because I do a live webinar, usually Thursday night, sometimes Friday morning. Depends on my schedule. I just need to know a week ahead of time because we don’t allow people to sign up for the weeks outside of the current one, obviously. Sometimes I change it from Thursday night to Friday morning, but then I allow people to schedule like a ten minute chat with me over the weekend, just a couple, it’s usually like five and from there then they feel more comfortable purchasing. So that’s part of the webinar. And then after the webinar go ahead, I want to hear the webinar. They get an email immediately, just explaining a bit more about the program. Thanks for showing up. And then total we do, I believe, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Monday, six emails after and the cart is open. So, again, I do the webinar. Thursday, the cart stays open for that cohort until Monday night. So they have, what does that have? Four or five, four days to decide. And during the four or five days, then we send them six emails just to remind them.
Rick Mulready [00:32:28]:
Your conversion rate, you said, is about 18%. You’re running ads. Is this primarily cold traffic?
Laura Peters [00:32:36]:
It’s crazy.
Rick Mulready [00:32:38]:
What’s the secret? You’re selling a $2,000 program to cold traffic at an 18% conversion. People want to know.
Laura Peters [00:32:50]:
Majority of the people who purchase say the exact same thing we purchased. Because you have a coaching portion, almost no other courses, at least for travel bloggers, do they have a coaching portion of it. And I think bridging the gap between information and skill is where a lot of people go wrong. And so the coaching really does help them believe they can do it, because they can. And so, yeah, we also guarantee results. If you do the work and you use our strategies, you will see results, whether that’s traffic, income, anything, I mean, it’s all there. You can absolutely grow your yeah, so I think that the high conversion rate also ties back to doing it every single week. It wasn’t always that I converted at 18%. It definitely took time to get to where we are right now.
Rick Mulready [00:33:44]:
All right, so then it just starts all over again. At what point do you go in and change the landing page?
Laura Peters [00:33:54]:
Actually, today, so Tuesdays, so they are finished with the sales sequence on Monday night, they’re finished and then they’ll be added to our general email list. They’re not going to be invited to scale your travel blog for, I do a big launch maybe every five months, six months, and so they can come back and join. But Tuesdays I go in, and all I do, I do change the landing page, like the URL, but I don’t change anything other than in ConvertKit. Maybe you have a better solution for this, but in ConvertKit, I have an automation going, and I just change the dates for the automation and that’s it. It takes maybe two minutes.
Rick Mulready [00:34:45]:
Wait, you change the URL of the landing page?
Laura Peters [00:34:48]:
No, like the link.
Rick Mulready [00:34:51]:
Yes. Got you. Okay. Do you happen to know kind of like, what your average cost per lead is?
Laura Peters [00:34:59]:
I do, yeah. Actually, I got that all together because I knew you were going to ask me.
Rick Mulready [00:35:05]:
I was going to ask this, and.
Laura Peters [00:35:06]:
I was like, I’m going to look silly if I don’t know. But yes, I do know, which is great. So our average cost per lead is about four.
Rick Mulready [00:35:17]:
Actually. I honestly didn’t know this. Or maybe I knew and I forgot. I didn’t know what you were going to say. But what I’m hearing you say, Laura, is that Facebook and Instagram ads are not dead, especially for webinars. And webinars actually work because everybody always says webinars are dead. No one likes webinars anymore. Even webinars don’t work.
Laura Peters [00:35:38]:
Traffic, it works. Even with cold traffic. It does.
Rick Mulready [00:35:44]:
And you said you’re spending about 1200 on ads per week.
Laura Peters [00:35:48]:
Yes.
Rick Mulready [00:35:49]:
Okay. So roughly, my quick math is about 300 people are registering for the webinar. So you’re also growing your list, like you mentioned, at those kind of numbers, after they go through the launch. I’m curious how you feel about because most people are like, well, wait a minute, I only had most people are not doing 18% conversion, but they’re like, wait, my conversion rate was just so so, and I made a little bit of money, so my ads weren’t really worth it. And this is something I’m seeing more and more, is that the conversation is around what was my immediate ROI? Right. SEO is a perfect example. SEO is the long game.
Laura Peters [00:36:44]:
It is, right? Very long game.
Rick Mulready [00:36:47]:
Most people aren’t patient, whereas you all are bringing in 1200 ish leads per month, and not all of them are buying. But we do a big launch every five months or so, and you have to take into account all those people that buy during the big launch every five months or so that came in via ads three months earlier. Well, there was still a big ROI on that, but it came all these months later. I’m curious how you all look at that in your business.
Laura Peters [00:37:23]:
Yeah, so ultimately, I would say 90% of our leads have come from Facebook ads. The other 10% is just through SEO on our website. We just have an opt in. But the majority of people who join our program have been around for a while. They’ve been on our email list they know who we are. They know what we provide as far as SEO strategies and affiliate marketing and all that. And it’s cool because they will come back. We just did that in June, actually. Or no. May was our absolute biggest month we’ve ever had, and we had our big launch. And so the way I look at it is, how much have we made overall from our program? Deduct maybe 10% of that. And then the rest left over is what we’ve made from Facebook ads. I think we’ve put maybe $40,000 into Facebook ads at this point over the past year and a half, but we’ve made over $300,000 from our program. I think that’s pretty good.
Rick Mulready [00:38:34]:
That’s really good. I’m so glad you’re bringing this up, because everyone always is, especially I hear this every day. It’s like ads aren’t working. Ads aren’t working well. Yeah, ads aren’t working like they were a year ago or even several months ago. But you have to be patient. You have to stay up on what’s going on, like, what’s working. You got to be willing to test. What have you found that works so well for you all with your ads?
Laura Peters [00:39:05]:
I actually have a really great answer for this. Biggest advice, don’t reinvent the wheel. Look at what other people are doing and do something similar. Don’t copy. Obviously it’s unethical, but do something similar to what they’re doing. So I saw a few people posting Facebook ads, and everyone gets them, so it’s not like we can hide from them. But I look at what other people are doing in their Facebook ads, and then I test it out. Some people call that failure, but I call it testing. In the accelerator program, we call it um. So I just test what they’ve done with our niche. Because a lot of times the Facebook ads I get are not related to travel blogging. There’s really not a lot of that out there in general. But I do look at other people’s ads. So b to B businesses, what are they doing? And can I try that? And I’ve tried that, and honestly, I just used like a I guess I’ll describe the ad that works really well, and it’s still working really well. After four months, it’s still going strong. I just use a blank white canvas, and then I put writing on there like, hey, you don’t need social media. Hey, you don’t need a digital product. You don’t need this. If you’re struggling as a travel blogger, here are the three. Join us for the three secrets or whatever. And it’s super blank. It’s super white. It’s like just bolded black letters. And then I have a couple of small travel pictures. But it works really well. I don’t know. It just works. Look at what other people do.
Rick Mulready [00:40:41]:
Yeah, and don’t reinvent the wheel.
Laura Peters [00:40:43]:
Yeah, there’s no make it harder. Why would you do that when somebody already figured it out? Right? That’s why we’re part of the Accelerator program. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Rick Mulready [00:40:53]:
So another big reason that you joined Accelerator, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you work a lot of hours. Are you willing to talk a little bit about that? I know that this is a big subject and one of our promises in Accelerator is to help people like yourself scale their business more simply, bigger impact, 25 hours a week or less. And I know for you it sounds like this, that’s like utopia, right? Because you’re working so much.
Laura Peters [00:41:33]:
Yeah.
Rick Mulready [00:41:33]:
So can you talk a little bit about that? When I first talked to you at this point, it wasn’t that long ago, what, six, eight weeks ago? Something like that. How many hours were you working?
Laura Peters [00:41:45]:
I was doing a and total of 80 hours a week to the point where I stopped doing things that I really liked. I really love running, I love hiking, and I wasn’t doing that. And obviously I’m married. So Mike, the other half of our also, he also works a lot. But when we would try to spend time together, the sinking feeling that I still had so much left to do was such a burden that we would go like on a date night and we would even be watching a movie in bed and I’m still on my computer doing stuff for students. And it was hard. I mean, truly, it is not great. Don’t ever work 80 hours a week. Join Accelerator before that point because honestly, it really was hard. And like I had mentioned to you, there were so many times where like, ugly cried about it and it’s so overwhelming. And so what we’ve learned, especially because we just went on a retreat to Vegas with the rest of the Accelerator program, we learned that in order to scale your business, you can’t be the bottleneck of your business. And for the longest time, I’ve been the bottleneck. Everything goes through me, every single thing I do. Everything, obviously up until a certain point. Then we met you and you’re like, you need to stop doing that. You need to do the things you actually enjoy. So before we hopped on our call today, I went running. I thought you’d be proud of that.
Rick Mulready [00:43:15]:
Yeah, I’m very proud of it.
Laura Peters [00:43:18]:
And now it’s been not even eight weeks since we’ve joined and I’m at least down to 50 hours a week. I’m doing more things. It is huge. And some people normally work 50 hours a week. That’s pretty normal for people. So it definitely felt good to get a lot of that off of my plate. I still want the same results for our students. And it’s still like I still get a little anxiety, that’s why I still check things over. But everything is being systemized right now and automated, which, again, really thanking you. And the rest of the Accelerator program. For that because in my mind, it was a huge mental block to give up the control of my business and to let other people have their hands in it and do the same tasks that in my mind, I could do better. But now giving away the tasks, it’s nice. And our team, they do it like I tell them to, and so why not? They follow instructions. So it’s really nice to be able to delegate those tasks. And instead of doing all of the work, I’m doing 50% of the work. Obviously we’re going to keep going back, but ultimately I can teach everyone to think like I do. And again, I’ve learned that through the accelerator program.
Rick Mulready [00:44:44]:
Truly, what was the big mindset shift that you needed to experience in order to have that happen for you? Because I’m a control freak too, I always have been. But I did learn early on also exactly what you’re going through now. It’s like if I want to have a bigger impact, if I want to scale my business, this has to be about simplicity. It can’t be more like complexity is not going to allow me to scale it’s to going make it so much harder. And part of that, a huge part of it is giving up control and trusting people on our team to do what they’re owning in the business. But that giving up control is really hard. So what needed to shift? And it’s not like you snap finger and it’s all, oh, okay, cool, I’m great with this. And it is an ongoing thing. It’s not like, okay, you’re seven weeks into I’m all better now. If you that, what did you need to consider to think about, to work through in order to be able to believe that?
Laura Peters [00:45:53]:
Yeah, I actually got it from your podcast. Again, Rick did not tell me to say this at all.
Rick Mulready [00:46:00]:
Anybody listening?
Laura Peters [00:46:01]:
He did not. But it was back in April before we joined, I turned on an episode and I think it was Jamie. Maybe it wasn’t Jamie. It was somebody who was talking about how many hours it was Karen Carr. That’s who it was. Yes, it was Karen Carr. And she was talking about how many hours she worked in her business before Accelerator and how many she’s working now. And she said the words, I was the bottleneck of my business. And in that moment, it clicked and I thought, I’m the bottleneck of our business. Literally everything goes through me. And then I really started to visualize a bottleneck and I thought, if we can’t expand that, how will we reach more people? We have two options. Number one, we can increase our prices. And personally, I really want to help more people. And sure, obviously I think that our advice is worth tens of thousands of dollars. But I think a lot of travel bloggers here are living very modestly so that they can travel and so they don’t have a ton of money to just throw out. And so I wanted to help more people while still keeping it affordable. And if I wanted to do that, then I couldn’t be the bottleneck anymore. And I needed to grow the team and help other people understand how my brain works so that we can all do this together. And when I thought about it that way, I knew immediately, number one, I had to join Accelerator because I needed what Karen Carr was doing. Like whatever she was doing, I needed to do that. And I would rather pay somebody to help me do it faster than didn’t. I didn’t invest in my travel blog or my travel blogging skills for four or five years and look how that went. It went so poorly. So I thought, obviously bypass all this, invest in somebody that can help me to reduce my hours. But that was the big AHA moment was when she said that phrase, I’m the bottleneck of my business. I was the bottleneck of my business. And then I started to picture a bottleneck and I was like, oh, it’s science. That’s crazy. It really is about being able to reach more people and help more people. But you need a team to do it.
Rick Mulready [00:48:26]:
And in seven weeks or so, since you’ve been in and a lot of this stuff was already in play, I’m not taking credit for it. You told me in Vegas that and you just mentioned it earlier, you had your biggest month, you and Mike had your biggest month in May and you said you worked the least amount of hours that you’ve worked in a long time. Yeah, but wait, isn’t that counterintuitive to what most people think? Like, wait, I have to work more hours to make more money, right? How did that dynamic work for you? What were you doing to reduce the hours I know you’re talking about, okay, delegating and talking to your team and getting that sort of thing. What other shifts happened during that time to be like, you cut off like 30 hours. That’s a lot.
Laura Peters [00:49:14]:
I think it was just a big mindset shift too. I think that there was such a block because I thought the harder I work, the more money I was going to make. And I think that goes back to the travel blogging thing too. I used to add affiliate links in everywhere in my blog post because the more affiliate links, the more money I was going to make. And that’s just not true at all. At all. And so it was a huge mindset shift. I started listening to the videos inside of Accelerator pretty much right away, especially the Neil videos of the mindset and getting in the right space to be a business. So and then you told me, you said your assignment is to get out every single day and go run or go hike or go outside for an hour. And that is part of your work routine. And I took that because why hire a coach and not listen to them? So I did that and I literally block off an hour a day to do that. And my mentality and just my attitude has completely changed because I’m able to do the things I love too, which is supposed to be the whole point of the business, being able to have that freedom and do the things you want. But I made that a point to be part of my work routine. And it has helped tremendously with my mental health and understanding that I need to be human, too. I need to live life and help other people, but still live my own life.
Rick Mulready [00:50:44]:
And you can’t have a bigger impact if you’re not in a position yourself to be able to do that.
Laura Peters [00:50:51]:
Yeah, exactly. I felt burnt out. There are so many times I just wanted to throw the towel in, but then I would get an email from a student saying, hey, I just joined Media Fine, or, hey, I just ten X to my affiliate income in four months. And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. And I show Mike every time I get one of those emails and most of the time I start crying because I just love that. But I wouldn’t continue with the business if I wasn’t in the right headspace. And that was the biggest problem was my life.
Rick Mulready [00:51:28]:
Most people as it is for so many people, right? And most people would get off a coaching call like that and be like, that’s. One of the biggest takeaways from my call right now is I need to commit to an hour a day to go out for a run or walk or whatever the activity is. Most people are like, what have I got myself into paying for?
Laura Peters [00:51:53]:
Yeah, right.
Rick Mulready [00:51:54]:
But it really is that’s just like step one. That’s like micro step one that can have huge ripple effect throughout the entire business and obviously your life. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to wrap up here in just a minute and I want to talk about two more things in just a second. I want to talk about what it’s like to work with your husband, because that’s a big topic that a lot of people are always curious about. I could never do that. Amy and I would just like for those of you listening and not watching the video, I’m like, ramming my fists together. We would totally bump. That wouldn’t work. We would butt heads on that. But what would you say to somebody who is considering accelerator looking at, you know what, I’m working too much in the business. I need an extra set of eyes on my business to see the things that I can’t see because I’m too close to it. And for the precisely the things that you were looking for, it’s like, I want to have a bigger impact, but holy cow, I’m caught up in what we’ve created to hear this amazingness that we’ve created. But it’s also kind of like, I can’t expand because I’m working 80 hours a week. What would you say to that person?
Laura Peters [00:53:15]:
Yeah, I get the strain there. I mean, there’s so much strain when it comes to working that many hours in your business, and it affects your entire business. I mean, not just you, but everyone on your team. Even if it’s like regardless of how big or small your team is, however many hours you work each week is going to directly affect the other people in your business and the more hours you work, again, not necessarily a good thing. And so Delegating is so incredibly important. But I guess I would say that if you want to scale, it’s not about you. It’s more about just the business in general and moving the business forward as long as you keep your eyes and your mind in the right place. As far as, number one, I want to help people, I actually care. That’s the biggest issue. And number two, I want to obviously it kind of goes along the same lines, but provide the highest quality information to our clients. Then you need to take yourself out of it. The emotion there, we need to take it out. You can’t focus on, oh, well, I could do this better, or maybe they don’t know exactly how I like it to be done. Sure, they’re not going to do it exactly the same way, but you’re going to see as long as you see the same results for your clients, then it’s important to delegate. It’s important to grow that team. Because again, if you’re the bottleneck, that bottleneck is so strained and there’s not a lot of places you can go there. So as soon as you can get into that mindset and start to realize, I need to grow a team kind of from not directly at the start, but pretty soon after, then you will scale your business a lot faster. And that’s what I learned almost immediately in the accelerator program.
Rick Mulready [00:55:12]:
You sat at a table at our Vegas retreat with a couple of other members, and it was no seats were assigned. It just happened that way. And I said the first thing the first morning is you could not be at a better table. One of them multi seven figure business works about ten to 15 hours a week. The other person full time job has created a multiple, multiple six figures business works about 5 hours, five to 10 hours a week. Now, granted, they weren’t like that all of a sudden. It’s taken time to get there. But what is it like being in the room, both literally and figuratively on our calls and so forth, with other people who are doing similar things that you’re doing in terms of and online business and looking to, like I said, case more simply have a bigger impact, but not doing it at the expense of adding more hours.
Laura Peters [00:56:23]:
Right? Yeah, that was actually really we I wanted to sit in the front because if I sit in the back, I don’t pay attention, and so I wanted to sit in the front. So I sat down, and it was with Holly and Jamie and yeah, like you said, both massive businesses. And it was so interesting to hear them talk because they would whisper to each other or like, to us while people were saying stuff, and they would say, you need to delegate that. You need to delegate that. Not Jamie and Hallie, but the person speaking would say that. And then they would look at each other and they’re like, do you do that? And they would both go, no, I don’t do that. No way, I don’t do that. In my like, it happened a lot. And then I was like, oh, my. They they really have a great organized systemized team that just works. It’s like a well oiled machine. And again, it really just showed me how much I needed to delegate and to not work 80 hours a week, because again, they were working like, Jamie works 10 hours a week, multiple seven figure business. Hallie 5 hours a week, does almost a million dollar business like crazy. And they would look at each other and they’re like, oh, I don’t do that. Oh, I don’t do that. Again, it really felt like I can get there, and I want to get there. I still want to help the same people. I still want to have the same impact on people, but I also want to do other things and enjoy life and have more control over my personal life and less control over the business life. But yeah, that was so mind boggling to hear them. But then I did say, like, wow, I can’t believe that you’re working 10 hours a week and you’re doing this well. And she said, don’t worry. Three years ago, my business was a mess. Don’t worry about it. You’re going to get there.
Rick Mulready [00:58:32]:
And it really put my it’s not an overnight success. I remember very distinctly some conversations that I had with both of them a few years ago where we were putting the things in place to get to the point where they are now. And it’s not all because of me, by any means, but they’ve done a lot of work to get to that point. I want to wrap up with what I mentioned before. A lot of people are thinking about it. A lot of people I hear from a lot of people, they’re like, I want to retire my spouse. I want to bring them into the business or retire my partner, whatever it might be. What is it like working with your spouse?
Laura Peters [00:59:18]:
Yeah. So some people may think that it would be crazy because it would be. However, Mike and I, we are constantly traveling. So we’re travel bloggers, and we actually do travel. So we are, like, abroad, I would say seven months of the year, and then we’re back in the United States about five months of the year. And so we are literally always together, I would say probably 23 hours a day. We are together in the same room. And we’ve had to learn how to get along and love each other, even when we are living in such close and, like, a lot of it was through COVID, too. So we actually went down to Ecuador during COVID so that we could afford to live down there. This was obviously during COVID and we stay in small places, typically. And so, again, we have to learn how to work together. And we’ve really honed that in. And working together, it’s still not easy. It’s hard to figure out who does. I mean, the Vegas retreat actually helped Mike SEO our business so much more clearly. Like, I’ve always had the entrepreneur mean. When I was a little girl, I used to sell bracelets. I mowed lawns. I actually used to make Crown Royal Quilts and sell them on Etsy. I have that entrepreneur brain, and he doesn’t as much. He has a very creative brain. He’s a musician. He’s fantastic. But meshing those together, how do you do that? Who does what? And so it’s been difficult, but we usually will agree that Mike does a lot of the creative, so he does a lot of the videos for our YouTube, which we’re still growing. And then he’s also gotten to SEO and absolutely loves it. But we’ve also hired his brother to help us. And we have a cool team, but he helps organize the team. He helps make sure everyone understands things, because when they reach out to me, I don’t know if anyone else is like this, but if someone reaches out to me, I get overwhelmed. And so I’m, like, can’t talk, guys, I have other things I have to finish right now. And so he is that moderator. He is that person that our team goes to to get direction. He is the one people can talk to, and I’m kind of the one hiding, like, we’ll talk later.
Rick Mulready [01:01:52]:
Just doing your thing.
Laura Peters [01:01:53]:
Yeah, we’ll talk later. I’m busy. But yeah. So he does a lot of the creative side. I do a lot of the analytical side. I’m a numbers person. Again, he’s art, and we mesh well. And SEO, it’s a great team, but it did take a while to understand what’s his role in it, what’s my role in it, how do we work together? But I think, again, living together and for every single moment of our lives has really helped.
Rick Mulready [01:02:21]:
Granted, 80 hours a week, you were there. How do you separate? Or do you separate? How do you turn it off? Basically, business versus, okay, personal life. Here. Together.
Laura Peters [01:02:39]:
So I actually did this after joining Accelerator because it was so prevalent that I needed to take my personal life back instead of meshing it so much with my business life. And so what I did, I turned off my email notifications and that has helped incredibly, because it doesn’t ding me every 5 seconds and when it used to ding me, I would look at it and think, oh my gosh, I have to answer this, otherwise I’m overwhelmed and people are going to be waiting for me. And our students, they matter and I want to make sure that they don’t hate me. I just had all these irrational fears that if I don’t answer right away, I’m going to be punished in some way. And so I turned off email notifications on my phone has been amazing, but I leave my phone at home a lot and so that’s the biggest way that I’ve been able to turn off the business, just put my phone away. And if my mom wants to reach out to me, she’ll just call Mike. So is Laura there? I know she doesn’t have her phone on her, but yeah, so that’s kind of how we do it. And mainly just shutting my computer. It is hard for me to shut my computer, but putting it away and saying I’m not touching it for the rest of the day has been the biggest thing for me.
Rick Mulready [01:04:00]:
I love it.
Laura Peters [01:04:00]:
Mentality. Yeah.
Rick Mulready [01:04:02]:
I already want to have you back on the show to do another check in for where you’re at because these sound like such little things. Like, oh, I turned my notifications off on the phone, by the way, when you said that I was like, oh my, like I have so much anxiety thinking about like if I had notifications on I would be like, oh, I can’t handle this, it’s such a little thing. But like and like, leaving your phone at home to whatever, go for a walk or whatever it might be sound like little things, but that mental shift that needs to happen in order to do that is huge. And the impact that it can have is huge. And like you said for SEO, many people closing the laptop and like, okay, I’m shifting into whatever mode that’s hard for so many people. What you’re teaching in scale? Your travel blog. What I was thinking is it just like, could this benefit you’re teaching SEO, you’re teaching affiliate marketing. I know that you focus on travel bloggers, but could it be for other bloggers?
Laura Peters [01:05:13]:
Oh yeah, SEO can be used for anything, especially like it’s especially wonderful for small businesses that want to grow their organic leads online. I mean, there are things that you could go to Google and search and we are still number two on Google after seven years, so it works.
Rick Mulready [01:05:39]:
I don’t need to be a travel blogger to benefit from your course.
Laura Peters [01:05:42]:
Not at all. In fact, we have a lot of people that will reach out and say, hey, can I take this if I have a calligraphy business? We have like a calligraphy artist in there. We have teachers in there that want to do more like teachers, paid teachers, but more of their own, like selling their own products. Yeah, anything can be used. Or you can use SEO for anything. We have websites about kids toys. We have a website about bedbugs.
Rick Mulready [01:06:13]:
We have a website about wait, website about bedbugs?
Laura Peters [01:06:17]:
Yeah, we had a really bad and it’s so it is incredibly profitable because there’s no competition out write about we had a really bad experience in an airbnb, not here. And I Googled something about bedbugs, and I couldn’t find any information about it. And I was like, ding, ding, ding. This is a great opportunity for us. We’ve had one solid experience with bedbugs. We can totally talk about we you can use SEO for anything.
Rick Mulready [01:06:47]:
Anything.
Laura Peters [01:06:47]:
And it is incredibly important to know because Google, sure, Facebook, Instagram, they’re great, but Google is king and Google matters, I think, the most. So it’s pretty good to put that on autopilot. You put it up, it ranks, it stays there for years and years rather than Pinterest. You put it up once and then it goes away after a week.
Rick Mulready [01:07:12]:
And you teach people, yes, it’s for travel bloggers, but regardless, if I’m blogging about something else or what have you, and I want to learn how to do SEO properly, affiliate marketing, et cetera, this course is for you.
Laura Peters [01:07:29]:
Yeah. So I typically I’m very specific. I say like, this is SEO for travel blogs. This is SEO or affiliate marketing for travel blogs. But again, if you take out the word travel blog, it’s literally for everyone. It’s the exact same strategies. But what I don’t really mention, like, hey, this is great for other blogs. I do tell them we have other blogs outside of travel, but a lot of people will say, hey, this resonated so much with me, but I’m not a travel blogger. Will this still work? And the answer is absolutely 100% yes. And so I don’t really broadcast it. Maybe I should, but I don’t really broadcast it.
Rick Mulready [01:08:07]:
You are here, by the way, a lot of people listen to this podcast.
Laura Peters [01:08:10]:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Yeah. So it is for anyone.
Rick Mulready [01:08:17]:
Yeah, love it. So how can they register for your webinar? How can they get in your world?
Laura Peters [01:08:26]:
Yeah, so they can go to Mikeandloratravel.com. That’s our blog. If they want to join our webinar, I actually have to pull up that link. I believe it’s Mikeandloratravel.com.
Rick Mulready [01:08:46]:
I love that you don’t know.
Laura Peters [01:08:47]:
Really great question, Rick. It’s something, but we can maybe leave it in the show notes or something. But I know it’s like three secrets or three it’s because I don’t usually give it to people. They usually just come from ads and.
Rick Mulready [01:09:07]:
Then can somebody go to your website, Mikeandlortravel.com, join your email list.
Laura Peters [01:09:13]:
Yes.
Rick Mulready [01:09:14]:
And will they get invited to your webinar?
Laura Peters [01:09:16]:
They will, yes, definitely. And like I said, I’ll send you the link. You can put it in the Show Notes. It’s pretty simple to know. I was like, I need my cost per lead, I need my earnings per lead. I need this, I need this. And then, of course, I’m like, Webinar sign up. What is it? I don’t know.
Rick Mulready [01:09:36]:
I will definitely link it up in the Show Notes for the episode here today. But Laura, thank you for being so open and honest and taking us through the business and the struggles and the wins that you’ve already had. And like I said, I am so excited to continue seeing the success and the growth and scaling of your business. Simplistically, simplistically simply. And again, going to have you back on with another update because I know that people are going to want to hear how things are.
Laura Peters [01:10:10]:
You. Thank you so much for having us again. This is pretty surreal for us. As soon as Jamie reached out to be on the podcast, mike called everybody and was like, this is the moment we’ve been waiting. Like, it really is cool. It’s just so cool to see other people succeed and then be in that exact same position.
Rick Mulready [01:10:32]:
Well, full circle.
Laura Peters [01:10:33]:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Rick Mulready [01:10:36]:
All right. Hope you enjoyed this conversation here today with Laura Peters. Again, Laura and Mike’s website. It’s Mikeandloravel.com. Laura’s program is called Scaleyourtravel Blog. And yes, I have put the link to sign up for her webinar if you want to see how she does her webinar funnel. That basically converts at about 18% to cold traffic on a $2,000 offer, which is pretty darn good. I put that in the Show Notes for today’s episode over at my website, Rickmollready.com. Click on the podcast section and you will see the Show Notes for Laura’s episode right there. Thank you as always, my friend, for tuning in today and subscribing to the show. If you haven’t clicked that subscribe button, make sure that you do so that you don’t miss any of the episodes I’m doing. Two episodes per week, have been for years.