What would you do if you lost your #1 traffic source?

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What would you do if you lost your 1 traffic
source?

• By
• Rachel Rofe
• www.rachelrofe.com

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• 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. Wed just picked up
  our flight tickets and were walking over to
  security when Don checked his email on his cell
  phone.

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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.
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The email said that our accounts were banned. We
could no longer use the site, we couldnt have
anybody representing us on the site, we
were done. Neither of us could believe it. We
were freaking out (to say the least).
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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.
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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.
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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. Id
already invested 5 figures into it, a ton of
energy, and every ounce of my heart and soul.
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My plan was to use Facebook Ads to promote my
event. I do have a mailing list, but its not
segmented out by location. I needed NYC-specific
people since it was a one day affair that I
didnt expect people to fly in for. My mind
couldnt register the idea of having to cancel my
event. I figured Id just work hard and bring in
tickets another way.
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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.
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But I still didnt 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 didnt want to waste the speakers and
sponsors time.
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Now, I should say the short version of the
cease and desist is that Facebook thought Don and
I owned a tool that we didnt. They didnt do
anything wrong they were taking care of their
users. The tool was something that had become
against Facebooks terms of service. Wed
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.
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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.
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What happened to me can happen to anyone. The
tool that we got banned for was something we
hadnt even thought about in over a year. Im not
saying Facebook did anything wrong I know they
were trying to protect their users Im just
saying that if something off the wall could
happen to me, it could happen to anyone.
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And this isnt 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, Ive 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.
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Thankfully, its 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). Thats an increase of 38,187 followers
in 6 months.
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I launched my podcast on August 11th. Even though
I was banned shortly after launching, Ive 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.
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Losing Facebook really sucked. It was devastating
on so many levels, and I am SO glad to have my
account back. If Im looking at it from a what
did I learn? perspective, Id say Im SO glad
that it helped me learn to have sustainable
traffic from a variety of sources.
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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 Ive been experiencing,
especially around December and January.
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This is the result of a ton hard work in testing,
experimenting and refining new traffic methods
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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.
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Im curious, for YOU   What would YOU do if you
lost your 1 traffic source?