Getting traffic to your website – Your questions answered.
Hi,
Ok, so as you know I had hosting problems recently (actually the guy who had provided reliable hosting for many years for me died and I basically lost 6 years worth of blog content – never mind, it’s a good excuse to refresh things 
) and as part of that I’ve restarted this blog anew.
For a long time I’ve been getting requests to do some videos answering common online marketing questions and even show some common web-based techy things, such as how to install and optimise blogs and use marketing tools and systems to promote them.
I’ve resisted this because I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve given people advice and they’ve responded with “but {insert guru name here} said {insert the opposite of whatever I just said here}!”.
To be honest, I don’t usually put any effort into trying to convince people to listen to me because I prefer to just work with people who already know that they can trust me and that anything I say will be my honest view based on a lot of research and/or testing. Sometimes my experiences and results are completely the opposite to the commonly held perspectives and so if someone never does their own testing and just takes at face value what other people told them on a forum – they’ll end up arguing with my comments because they assume I haven’t tested what I’m saying and that their version of the situation is equally valid.
That’s fine but it means that after a while I just got used to this and stopped trying to help people who just want to argue with whatever you say – even though they have zero experience to base their arguement on.
So – that’s my rant, and justification for why such a helpful person as me hasn’t done the video blogging thing before.
With that out of the way, let’s get cracking on the stuff to come.
I could just get started and cover things I know that people need help with and that I’ve found has helped others already, but I would like to get your input. I’m not doing this to relieve boredom or to try and be a guru – I actually want to help you, so I’d love to hear what you would like covered.
Whether it’s just something like “how do I insert an affiliate link on my blog” or “could you tell me what Twitter is and how to look at using it for my business” – I’ll consider anything that’s likely to be useful to others.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to giving you some useful information.
Andy
Adobe After Effects Template Sites
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VideoHive
Of course we are going to start with our sister site on the Envato network! VideoHive has very reasonably prices materials, a ton of different categories, and bit of a social network to go with it. You can earn badges, participate in the forums, rate, leave comments, all kinds of different stuff. It is a very comprehensive site, as well as having stock footage and flattened motion graphic videos as well without having to deal with project files.
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RevoStock
RevoStock has been around for a long time, a lot longer than a lot of the others in this list, and they hve a huge library of templates. They range from $10 to upwards of $50, but the quality, length and professionalism increases with that as well. Whether it be a simple presentation or a corporate commercial, there is something for everyone.
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Red Giant People
Launched just two days ago, Red Giant People is the big brother of now perished Trapcode People. It is a network that provides free presets and project files, as well as premiere packages from some of the leading names in the graphics world, focusing only on Red Giant products.
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Digital Juice
Digital Juice seems to have a little bit of everything when it comes to the post world. All of their toolkits like the Motion Designer’s Toolkit or Editor’s Toolkit, all have some awesome graphics that you can use as stock, but you can also modify those graphics from the provided After Effects project files included in the packages!
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AE Dude
There are around 15 templates on this site, all very high quality, lots of elements, great colors, and all in full HD. Prices range from $15 to $90 for the really high quality ones, so take a look around!
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BlueFX
Gyrofi Szilard runs BlueFX, and it is a really well presented site. He has a walkthrough video for new customers, a nice selection of very cool looking templates, and along with those templates, you can watch the tutorials or check out his blog for more information.
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RuffKut Media
Not only does RuffKut Media off templates for sale, but they also have a section devoted to their own tutorials, as well as aggregating some tutorials from around the web for your convenience.
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AE Projects
These got the premiere domain name for this market of business… AEPROJECTS.com. They haven’t updated the store in a while, but they have around ten projects available with some training and presets thrown into the mix.
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Video Copilot
I know I would get reamed if I didn’t feature VC in this roundup, you savages. If you just know Andrew for his free project files from the tutorials, he also has project files included with every single one of his projects to demonstrate the uses of them. So check out all the products and go nuts with the included files.
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AfterEffectsProject.com
Pretty simple name, pretty sweet project files. They got projects that take place on football and soccer fields, openers, title sequences and even packages available to save money when you but them in bulk!
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Max After
MaxAfter.com is one of my favorite tutorial sites, and to go along with his blog and tutorials, he has a pretty big store full of very interesting and unique looking project files available for sale. Some are lower priced, some are higher, but all are awesome quality.
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Planet AEP
As I like to call it… “Planet of the AEPS” haha… has all kinds of different categories to choose from, individual files, or even large packages to download instead of a ton of singles.
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We Make Motion
With a very easy to navigate site, you can browse through all the products on one page, watch the accompanying preview videos on Youtube, and choose from a variety of different formats to download from.
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Your Wedding in Motion
The sister site to We Make Motion, this site deals in just wedding After Effects Templates, virtually the only site of its kind. This makes it a little easier for you to find what you need, and if you don’t feel like customizing it yourself, you can hire them out to do it themselves.
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Drop Drop
These guys also have a very cool looking site, with some spectacular looking preview videos and projects to download. They are a little on the higher side, but if it is exactly what you need, it is probably worth the price. I mean, how long would it take you to do this on your own?
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Broadcast GEMs
Now, this site looks straight out of the GeoCities era, but their projects ain’t too bad. You have to download the MPEG-1′s to view them but they sell their stuff in packages instead of as single files.
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Motion | VFX
Even though their Apple Motion template library is larger than the After Effects one, they still have quite a large selection of templates to choose from. All their products are in HD 1080p, and there is stock video, animated elements and even some freebies as well!
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Digital Video Team
These guys specialize in DVD Menu Packages as well as After Effects project files, working in mainly Adobe Encore for the DVD Menu side of things. They have a selection of over a hundred different projects, but not all of them deal with AE. They also have dedicated areas for different projects like SD, HD, 720p menus, and so on.
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Professional Video Templates
This is a smaller site, but they have some good stuff for sale, as well as some bundled packages so you can buy them in bulk and save some money.
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Adobe’s After Effects Exchange
Adobe has a database themselves that others can upload their free templates or link to the templates they have on other sites, like the ones above. It’s a nice site to keep an eye on, you might find some cool stuff for free, or a template on another site that you might have missed along the way.
Your Hedgehog Concept
Knowing where you should focus your efforts is something many business owners struggle with and getting to the core of what you should be doing, saying and thinking can make or break your results.
One really good way to get clear about this is to use a concept introduced by Jim Collins in his excellent book “Good to Great” where he outlines what makes a good company become a great company and how all of the companies he researched had certain key things in common in order to become great.
The Hedgehog concept.
As you can see from the diagram the Hedgehog concept revolves around 3 core things:
1 – What can you be the best in the world at. Not just something you’re interested in or competent at, but what can you genuinely aspire to be the BEST at.
2 – What are you passionate about? or what are your people passionate about. You’ll struggle to be the best you can be without getting the most out of the people involved and without having the right people onboard.
3 – What is your primary economic driver? Unless you know what your most valuable metric is you’re always going to struggle to make big positive revenue increases. When you get focused on the most valuable metric in your business you can take huge strides forward by adopting every element of your business to target its impact on that metric. If your metric is number of customers then getting new customers might be your focus. If it’s value per customer then increasing sales per customer might be your target. Only you will know and when you do – you can revolutionise your business.
Take some time to think about your hedgehog concept and how you can bring your business into alignment with it.
You may think that this is too ‘fluffy’ to make a difference or not specific enough to get you focused but once you start really thinking about what the purpose of your business is, what you want to get from running your business and what is the real value of your business to others, this simple framework can turn your generic motivation and action plan into a laser-guided propulsion system to take you to the next level.
Sometimes brainstorming these things with a trusted advisor or friend can help you to get the value out because it’s also easy to get so sucked into your existing mindset and thinking that stepping back to see where your value really is can be difficult.
David Ogilvy was once hired by Rolls-Royce to get to the heart of their value and while he was provided with a lot of technical information and product specifications, he only really found their hedgehog concept when he took the car for a spin and realised that the only noise he could hear while driving was the ticking of the dashboard clock. That experience summed up what all of the companies hard work was aimed at creating.
When people buy a hammer what they really want is a shelf or a fence so it’s important with your business to look at why people would choose to give you their money and what they’re really seeing as the value you provide – it may not be quite what you thought. Value is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes it’s easy (as the creator of the product/service) to confuse what people perceive as your value with what you think you’re selling. You sell consulting – they buy peace of mind. You sell marketing – they buy status.
If you can – ask your existing customer what they value most from what they get from a relationship with you.
It’s also a lot of fun and very educational to go through this process and something you should do periodically to make sure you’re still heading in the right direction. If you stay still and the world keeps moving – you end up moving backwards.
To your success and your hedgehog concept.
Andy
Turn To Andy Welcome
Hi,
My name is Andy Henry and I’ve created this website to share with you some things that have helped myself and others leverage the power of the internet in many ways. You may find my style a little more direct than you’re used to because i hate hype and BS and I like to tell you straight what works and what doesn’t. So if you read something and it contradicts what someone else has told you or what you’ve read somewhere else, you would be well advised to do your own testing to find out what the reality is for you. I’ve tested just about every tecnique and strategy for online marketing that has come along since the mid 1980′s so when I say something works – that usually means I have made it work. It may not work for you or others, but as you’ll find out for yourself, another persons success or failure really has no baring on what your potential is and you may make something work that I haven’t or you may find something that works for me does not work for you. Whatever the situation don’t worry about it. Just learn what you can and mine for the gold nuggets that do help you and leave the rest.
I occasionally bring out information products that lay out or explain some marketing strategy or process so that you don’t have to spend the time and money that I do to find out what the value of a new system or process is, so if you’re looking to short cut a few things then these guides, reports, videos or ebooks may be just what you need.
I’m a real person and I love to hear when people find what I share useful so please feel free to drop me a line using my contact form and let me know if something I shared helped you out – it’s what makes putting the time in worthwhile.
I regularly get out and about meeting other marketers and I’ve travelled the world talking to internet marketers and business owners about all aspects of what works so it’s even possible that we’ve met, so don’t be shy – say hi
You can also connect with me on my social media profiles at Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and LinkedIn.
To your success!
Andy
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