Featured Internet Marketing Interview with Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco is an online marketing professional from Brazil.  After he finished studying International Economics at the Università Commerciale ‘Luigi Bocconi’ and living and studying around the world he has managed to startup two very successful websites and grow them into businesses.

Firstly, Daniel created DailyBlogTips.com, a blog devoted to sharing information about what he has learned along the way developing websites and blogs.  This blog receives a great rate of traffic with roughly 300,000 monthly page views.

Later on Daniel decided to create OnlineProfits.com to help people looking for Online Marketing and Business training and contributors to this website’s content including Yaro Starak from Entrepreneur’s Journey, Chris Garrett and others.

Daniel had a chance to share some insight about his experiences in online marketing and web development and this is what he had to say…

Luc asks: I wanted to ask how you what was the first site that you ever built?

Daniel says: I built my first website in 1998 or so, using GeoCities. I remember I wanted to impress a girl from my school, so I built this homepage with a poem for her, and some flashing roses and GIFs around…. Needless to say it looked terrible.

Luc asks: Was it something that you did for fun, profit or both?

Daniel says: It was for fun.

Luc asks: Outside of that, your site dailyblogtips.com, how much traffic do you recieve monthly?

Daniel says: Currently the site is generating over 300,000 monthly page views (tracked by Google Analytics).

Luc asks: how did you monetize this site to get the most out of it?

Daniel says: I monetize the site with several methods. First of all I sell banner spots to advertisers. I sell them directly, so 100% of the money comes into my pocket. Secondly, I also promote affiliate offers occasionally. Finally, I use the blog to launch other projects, like OnlineProfits.com, my Internet marketing training program.

Luc asks: why did you decide to leave the design of this site so simple?  I take it that it’s deliberate.

Daniel says: I am a minimalist person, so the design of my sites reflect that. I like to have only the minimum amount of options/elements around. In fact if I could I would make the site even simpler, perhaps removing the ads. But generate a good amount of revenue, so for now they stay.

Luc asks: I was also checking out your OnlineProfits.com site.  Again i enjoyed the clean layout and its clear what you want people to do when they come to your website.  When someone signs up for the newsletter and gets the first two lessons free do you find that a good number of people convert and purchase further training?

Daniel says: Conversion rates are always low, no matter what.

But getting people to subscribe to your newsletter and building a relationship with them by giving away valuable content is one of the best marketing strategies you can use.

Luc asks: Also how do you run the training program as i see that enrollment is closed for 2009 currently.  Are there a limited number of spots available and is this something that you do live with the attendees, pre-recorded or one-on-one?

Daniel says: The program was closed during 2009 because we were working with the 200 members that joined in January of that year. We were also revamping the course, so we preferred to keep the doors close until everything was ready.

Last week we opened the doors again though, and now members can join again.

Luc asks: What can someone who attends one of your training programs expect to get out of it?

Daniel says: The goal of Online Profits is to give its members a complete Internet marketing training. We want our members to get out of it with a solid knowledge on most areas, including blogging, email marketing, affiliate marketing, web content, web design and search engine optimization and so on.