Millionaire's Digest - Blogging Magazine (Nov 2017)

Share. Discover. Connect.Millionaire’s DigestDiscover Ideas. Create Content. Boost Traffic. Make Money & More!Blogging Edition



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Contents06 7 Ways to Monetize Your Blog and Make Money Online Written by R.L. Adams08 How to Start a Blog and Make Money with It Online Written by R.L. Adams11 4 Ways to Build a Profitable Website from Your Experience Written by Larry A.13 25 Reasons to Love WordPress Written by John R.16 First Impressions Count Just as Much Online Written by Aaron A.

18 How to Choose a Profitable Topic for Your Blog Written by Jason R.20 20 Quick Ways to Be More Productive While Working as a Blogger Written by Sujan P.22 5 Immutable Laws of Blogging Written by R.L. Adams24 3 Easy Ways to Get Users to Your Website Written by Aj A.26 4 Golden Rules to Boost Blog Post Engagement Written by Alex J.

7 Ways to Monetize Your Blog and Make Money Online Written by R.L. Adams Founder of Wanderlust Worker wanderlustworker.com4

When you are just starting out plan to push out. a sizable amount of money building your course. Thenwith your blog, it can seem through the course of market- make something far betterlike one of the most arduous For example, if you're running ing both your own products than the other courses outand frustrating tasks. With so a fitness blog, you can easily and services along with affil- there in the marketplace.much information to con- sell affiliate health, weight iate offers directly throughsume and strategies to digest, loss, or body building supple- email. You can expect to gen- 6. Sell digital productshow is that any one person ments. Since the content is erate approxmately $1.00 percan find the time or the already attracting people that subscriber per month. Creating digital products is awherewithal to not only grasp are interested in fitness, selling great way to profit from yourthe art of blogging itself, but these types of products helps 4. Sell eBooks blog. You can effectively sellalso that of driving significant you to create a near-automat- any type of digital informationamounts of traffic? ed stream of passive income. Ebooks offer a relatively quick product on your blog as long pathway for making money as it's in harmony with yourWe all know blogging isn't 2. Advertisements from your blog. Write an content. You can build asome altruistic pursuit. People eBook that's aligned with the webinar to market yourwant their words to be seen While most people might content of your blog. Non- product and deliver themand shared. They want to gain think that adding some pay- fiction eBooks are relatively through a member's area orthe respect of the masses and per-click (PPC) ads will be a simple to create, and if you're through other downloadableboost their authority in their great way to make lots of teaching a skill that many means.respective industry or niche. money with their blog, unless people struggle with, it's likelyHowever, clearly it isn't quite you have massive amounts of that the eBook will produce a Digital products can be athat simple. Not only is it traffic -- as in 10,000+ visitors healthy profit. combination of videos, down-difficult to drive traffic to a per day or more -- the income loadable guides, resources,blog, but it's also hard to will be marginal at best. The You can easily promote your software components, andmonetize the traffic that you real income here doesn't start eBook directly through your others. Do your best to createdo receive. until you cross about 100,000 blog by creating attractive something that helps fill a visitors per day. content that will draw people need or a void. Don't secondMost people ignore the fund- in, then enticing them with guess yourself as you would beamentals of online marketing However, you could easily your eBook. You could also surprised at just how muchwhen attempting to earn any negotiate terms directly with build a sales funnel, which is money you can make bysemblance of an income from advertisers by utilizing display an online marketing term for selling digital products on yourtheir blog. When you fail to ads as opposed to PPC ads. an automated multistep sales blog.pay homage to these fund- As long as the ads are within machine, and sell your eBookamentals, you'll find it excruc- your niche or industry, you on autopilot. 7. Secure sponsorshipsiatingly difficult to earn any- can likely negotiate an amountthing. But if you go about it in that would be much more 5. Sell courses Sponsorships are a great waythe right way, you'll certainly competitive than the income to make money from yourprofit in the long run. from standard PPC ads. Selling digital online courses is blog, however, be sure that another way you can profit you're upfront with yourWhile there are arguably 3. Email marketing from blogging. Develop intui- readership and sponsorship asdozens of ways to monetize tive and helpful courses that Google cares acutely aboutyour blog, there are really One of the most powerful add a tremendous amount of sponsored links as they willeight core methods that will methods for making money value and the rest will be penalize you if you're sellinghelp you earn a healthy from your blog is directly smooth sailing. By putting misleading links along withincome from your efforts. through email marketing. But your heart and your soul into penalizing the site that you're to be successful, you need to these courses, you can simply linking to.1. Affiliate marketing build your list. Whether you allow them to sell on auto- promote blog updates or pilot for you, another great Simply put, it’s not worthOne of the most popular create a lead magnet, utilize avenue for passive income. getting your entire site takenmethods for monetizing a one of the more popular email down, so be as transparent asblog is to leverage affiliate marketing platforms like Courses work great when it possible.marketing. This is especially ConvertKit or InfusionSoft to comes to technical skills likeuseful when you're just start- implement the systems neces- web development, digital mark- 5ing out and you don't have sary to begin marketing via eting, graphic design, and soyour own products or services email. on, but they also work into sell. All you have to do is formats like finances, stocks,develop content that will By building a strong bond and currency investing, and account-ultimately be in harmony with connecting with your readers, ing. Find what you're really greatwhatever affiliate offers you you can effectively generate at and do the due diligence before .

How to Start a Blogand Make Moneywith It Online. Written by R.L. Adams Founder of Wanderlust WorkerB wanderlustworker.com L If you're starting a blog for theO How to Start a Blog: Step-by-G purposes of making money, and you're Step not actually passionate about writing in6 the first place, then you're largely wasting If I haven't dissuaded you just yet, and your time. The art of blogging isn't simply you're serious about launching the next scientific or formulaic. Without a deep- big thing, then here's what you need to do seated passion for your craft, you'll face a in a step-by-step fashion. The more you tide of frustration and upset. prepare and plan, the more likely you'll be to succeed in the long term. Why? While it's relatively straightforward to begin a blog, it's a monumental under- 1. Pick a Topic. taking to generate any semblance of traffic and profit from your arduous efforts. You need laser-focus and persistence to build an audience or reach mass saturation with your prose. It takes time and it takes long and drawn out evenings burning the proverbial midnight oil. Without con- stantly adding insatiable content, any blog can die off. So, what does it take to start a successful Get clear on what you'll write about. blog and actually make money online? I Define a topic or niche, and design all suppose that depends on what you con- your content around these things. This sider successful and what you consider will help you to not only laser-focus your making money. If, like millions of other writing, but also to build digital products potential bloggers out there, you're look- and services that compliment your con- ing to rake it in, you'll have a long road tent. ahead. This allows you to attract customers and But if you're willing to put in the time and readers in, enticing them with your highly- the effort, and you can stay persistent informative posts, then tempting them over the years (and yes, I said years), then with a lead magnet before dropping them you can most certainly generate a sub- into your funnel. stantial income online. In fact, your blog is quite possibly one of the best hubs of 2. Select a Platform. passive income generation, and if done the right way, it can attract the right While WordPress is the most popular readers and customers no matter what platform for blogging by far, there are industry or niche you might be in. others out there that can be leveraged . Page Number

such as a micro-blogging platform like diligence and pick the right one that's which will give you nice canonical URLsTumblr, Blogger, and even Medium. suitable to your budget and to ensure that that are SEO-friendly. Permalinks are the service-level and up-time guarantee is located within the settings section of yourHowever, if you're serious about your there. At the beginning, you'll likely want WordPress admin dashboard.blogging efforts, you'll likely want to go to start out with either a managedwith a self-hosted WordPress installation WordPress solution or a Virtual Private 7. Install the AMP plugin.on a custom domain. Server (VPS), and scale from there. The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project is an initiative by Google to speedWhile you could setup a blog at Word- Eventually, you will probably need a up mobile accessibility to a large degree ofPress with a subdomain such as dedicated-hosting solution with a Caching their content.myblog.wordpress.com, you'll get more and Content-Delivery Network (CDN)traction with a self-hosted solution, and once you break through a few thousand The AMP specification helps to thin down4then be able to use subdomains on visitors per day. a webpage to its basic structural com-popular platforms for your content ponents with scaled-back JS and minifiedmarketing efforts. 5. Caching and Content-Delivery Net- CSS code, which makes for lightning-fast works (CDNs). page speeds.3. Pick a Domain Name. Use a system like W3 Total Cache or WP 8. Setup Google's Webmaster Tools.Custom domain names are important if Super Cache and turn on browser cach- Anyone who's serious about building ayou're serious about making money from ing to ensure that you speed up the blog and making money, needs to lever-the blog you start. Rather than relying on delivery of your webpages. In the begin- age Google's webmaster tools to see whata third-party-hosted subdomain, find a ning, this might not seem as important. keywords they're ranking for and anyshort but relevant keyword-rich (if messages that would impact their ability topossible) domain name that's descriptive But as you grow and your traffic increases rank. This will also allow you to submit anof your intended topic, industry, or niche. to thousands of visitors per day, this will XML sitemap and track keyword impress-Use BlueHost, HostGator, 1&1 Hosting, be critical. Use Google's Page Speed In- ions along with click-through rates. This isor any other number of domain name sights to test things before and after the one of the most useful tools for growingproviders to source your domain. If you're installation. your site or blog through constant analysisat all concerned about things like SEO, of your efforts.when selecting your domain name, you It's also important that you setup a CDN,should adhere to the following sug- which will speed up the global delivery of 9. Install Google Analytics.gestions: your content. For example, your page might load relatively quickly in the United Install Google Analytics so that you can• Use a known top-level domain (TLD) States, but what happens when someone keep track of your efforts while building such as .com or .net. in Australia tries to load your content? out your blog. This is a great way to keep CDNs replicate data across multiple re- track of your results while using the URL• Keep the domain short, no more than positories around the world, and make campaign builder when dropping links in 15 characters or so. content delivery ultrafast. social media and other places so that you can effectively determine where your• Try not to purchase a domain name This is important for the user's experience traffic is coming from. with hyphens, since they're more often because most people who are forced associated with spammers. to wait even a few seconds for a page to 10. Learn SEO the Right Way. load, often abandon the website and go to Although you shouldn't start a blog with• Avoid using self-hosted subdomains to the next one in the search results. W3 the intention of optimizing it to oblivion, rank or categorize posts. Total Cache integrates with Amazon's you most certainly should understand the AWS and MaxCDN, two very good fundamental principles of search engine4. Find a Good Web Hosting Com- options when it comes to CDNs. optimization so that you pay attention topany. the key aspects that will impact yourThere are loads of good hosting compan- 6. Enable Permalinks. ability to rank on search engines likeies out there. If you're starting a WordPress In WordPress, you should enable perma- Google.self-hosted blog, there are a near-endless links before getting things off the ground,amount of options. Begin with Google’s Webmaster Guide-The important thing is to do your due 7.

lines, and digest and implement that Email marketing and lead magnets are all content that links to your primary anchor information. Learning SEO is a long and designed to help you build out an auto- content, but it's well worth it. drawn out journey. You should always be mated sales machine. However, you need increasing your knowledge and expanding a digital product, service, or other kind of You can use this single strategy to rank your skill set. offer in the back-end to do that. You can number one on Google's searches for create multiple offers or products, that nearly any keyword if it's done the right 11. Regularly Build Useful Content. can lead people up a value chain towards way. There's most certainly an art to this your high-ticket sales. as well as a technical outline and to doing If you're serious about succeeding with it the right way. Don't try to spam or your blog, you need to build useful anchor 15. Create a Sales Funnel. overstuff keywords in an effort to market content. It needs to be engaging, keyword Take the time to build your automated your content by any means. centric, insightful, unique, and well sales funnel. There is so much involved written. with sales funnels, but the basic premise is Content marketing can be done with that your visitors will show up to your site articles on sites like Medium.com or Don't write your content for search by discovering your content, drop into Scribd.com, or by answering questions on engines. Rather, write your content for your sales funnel through an offer via Reddit or Quora, or by creating videos on humans while also paying homage to your lead magnet or some other tripwire, YouTube or Vimeo, along with a variety search engines and what they want. It's a and they'll then be led through a journey of other means. The point is that all of the skill that develops over time with practice. with drip-fed messages at some periodic content has to be useful, period. Don't try It's also important to regularly publish schedule that will allow you to sell your to do the least amount of work for the your content on a weekly basis. products and services on autopilot. greatest return. You need to do the exact opposite if you want to succeed. 18. Monetize Your Content. 12. Sign Up to an Email Marketing 16. Get Social. Let's face it, starting and running a blog Platform. Building a blog isn't easy by any measure. can get costly. Don't expect to get rich The best avenue for making money from To help you along the road towards overnight. However, you can take certain your blog is through email marketing, success, you have to get social. Not only measures to monetize some of your plain and simple. Hands down, this offers by linking up with other like-minded content along the way. Be sure that you one of the quickest and surest strategies bloggers interested in online marketing, remain topical with your content and that for earning an income through your blog. but also by sharing and engaging with your lead magnets help to drop people But before you get there, you need to sign others on social networks like Facebook, into a sales funnel that will eventually sell up to an email marketing platform like Instagram, and other social media plat- your high-ticket items. Aweber, ConvertKit, MailChimp, Con- forms. stant Contact, InfusionSoft, or any other However, aside from that, you can always number of platforms that exist out there. 17. Market Your Content. opt to generate small amounts of cash flow by doing other things such as 13. Build a Lead Magnet. The single most important strategy you'll creating articles that will lead people to If you're serious about marketing anything find for building up a blog and boosting courses or audiobooks that you've online, rather than opting for running ads your visibility on search engines like developed, or building out video tutorials on your blog (which won't make you real Google is content marketing. Marketing that will ultimately sell some big package money unless you have at least hundreds your content is an intricate process that or system that will help to teach people of thousands of visitors per day) or involves long, seemingly-never-ending whatever it is that you're really good it. engaging in affiliate marketing, you should hours of building more useful off-site build a topical lead magnet that will sell a There are numerous ways to monetize digital product or offer that you create in your content and make money from your the back-end. The lead magnet will entice blog, but don't try to take shortcuts along people to sign up to your list and provide the way. Take action and stay persistent if you with their email address. you want to succeed and achieve your goals. 14. Build a Digital Product and Posit- ion Your Offers.8

Ways to Build a Profitable Website From Your Own ExperienceWritten by Larry A.Author & Writerlarryalton.comYou might already realize thatbuilding a website is easy, butmaking money off it is the hardpart. You can sell specific pro-ducts and services to earn rev-enue, but if you want to use yourexperience to make money,there’s a four-step process thatyou should follow.Choose a niche with a significant audience. Your first job is Put time and effort into your onsite content. Next, build upto choose a niche that has a sizable and dedicated potential your site with the most detailed, valuable, insightful, and originalaudience. You’ll want to be as specific as possible here. For content you can. This is the most crucial step of the processexample, don’t just target “men.” Instead, target “male parents because without that content, you won’t be able to retain anages 35-to-50 interested in _______.” This may limit the total audience. Learn the basics of content marketing, and producenumber of people you can target, but you’ll increase your content consistently by at least once or twice a week.content’s relevance for that audience, and you’ll be able to growfaster as a result. Promote your content using audience-building tech- niques. Next, you’ll need to start promoting yourself. Submit your content to news sites, guest-post on outside authorities, optimize your site for search engines, and get yourself involved on social media. There are hundreds of ways to increase your content’s visibility, including paid options like advertising, so dig in deep and spread the word about your blog. Eventually, you’ll be able to build up a big enough stream of traffic to fuel the rest of your plan. Monetize that traffic. Once you have a reliable audience in place, you’ll need to find a way to monetize that traffic. This is easier than it might appear on the surface, as there are dozens of ways you can make money from a site that’s already seeing lots of traffic. For example, you could start selling products or offer consulting services, or you could sell advertising on your site. You could even use affiliate links in some of your blog posts to earn passive revenue that way. Whatever it is, just monetize that traffic!

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Reasons25to Love WordPressOriginally launched in 2003, WordPress has become perhaps the most popular content management system (CMS) in theworld. Today, WordPress is used by more than 74 million sites that publish new posts every second. No matter the sizeof the blog that is using WordPress. This widely used CMS has become a favorite among businesses because of how powerful of a tool it is, but just how powerful is WordPress exactly?WordPress is also open source, which means that you can improve or alter the source code to create the right site foryour needs. Written by John R. 1. Easy to use. 2. Schedule posts. Serial Entrepreneur A great perk of using WordPress is how Running a blog is an extremely time- & Influencer easy it is to use. The platform is user- consuming task. However, WordPress friendly, intuitive, and easy to learn. can free up some additional time by johnrampton.com giving you the ability to schedule posts in advance. This means that whenever you3. Can be used as a member- complete a post, you can schedule itship service. during whatever time best suits you and your readers.If you want to continue to grow a loyalfan base, and maybe even make some 4. Keeps your site looking fresh. 5. Numerous ecommerceadditional income, then you can convert solutions.WordPress into a full-fledged Whether you need to update your thememembership site. When you create an because you’ve had it for too long or If you’re using WordPress for yourexclusive membership site, you’re you’re looking to take advantage of business, then there are a number ofproviding members exclusive content something like the holiday season, there ecommerce solutions that will convertthey will find useful. are thousands of free themes to choose your site into an all-out digital store. That from. By doing this you’re keeping the is, if you’re selling digital products or appearance of your WordPress site fresh content. for your customers. 11

6. It’s free. 7. Powerful. 8. Flexible.Whether you’re a blogger or just Unlike other content management The flexibility of WordPress is anotherlaunching a new online business, the fact systems, Word-Press is ready to use feature that can’t be topped. No matterthat WordPress is 100 percent free is immediately after installation. This means what you’re using WordPress for,extremely beneficial. Best of all, you that you don’t have to “hunt down, whether as a personal blog or a popularnever have to worry about hidden install, and configure a long-list of add- ecommerce site, WordPress is versatilecharges if your site becomes more ons just to get many of the features enough to meet any and all of your needspopular than expected. WordPress will WordPress considers core (comments, through its extensive features andalways be free for you to use. RSS feeds, revisions, etc.).” extensions.12. Safe and secure. 13. Lots of support.Since WordPress is such a popular CMS, WordPress also comes withit shouldn’t be surprising that it’s a target unprecedented support. This is in part tofor hackers. the extensive WordPress community where you can troubleshoot any questionHowever, WordPress takes the security of or concern through the WordPressits users very seriously. While you can Forums.practice some basic security measures,such as not downloading a theme orplugin from an untrusted site, WordPressconstantly updates its software to preventattacks. In fact, WordPress has had anautomatic update feature ever since therelease of version 3.7.16. One-click publishing. 17. Integration.Have you just written an article or blog WordPress integrates with some of thepost that you need to publish most powerful platforms available to giveimmediately? No problem. After creating your business that additional boost. Needyour amazing content, you can publish it to launch an email campaign? You canwith just the click of one-button. use a service like Aweber or MailChimp.20. Easy to manage. 21. More than just a blog. 22. Establishes a community. As mentioned earlier, WordPress is While WordPress earned its reputation as Whether it’s by sharing your blog posts equipped with a built-in updater for a great blogging platform that can be on social media networks or by security purposes. However, for self- inserted into an existing website, communicating with visitors in the hosted sites, WordPress also notifies you WordPress itself can be used as a website. comments section, WordPress has the whenever there are updates for your Because WordPress contains a post and features and plugins to make the themes and plugins. This makes page structure, you can have daily blog establishment of a community convenient managing your WordPress site a breeze, posts, as well as static pages such as your and easy. since you’ll always be current on the latest Contact or About page. updates. That will keep your site safe and fresh.12

9. Search engine friendly. 10. Saves you money. 11. Multi-user capability.The most popular search engines Remember, WordPress is a free software. There’s a very good possibility that you’llactually prefer sites that are However, that’s not the only area where have to rely on multiple people to keeppowered by WordPress because its you’ll save money. Because WordPress is your site up and running. WordPress isframework is easy to crawl. open source and user-friendly, you won’t aware of this and has made it easy for you have to hire web designers or technicians to assign different roles for different to launch or maintain your WordPress individuals. site. 14. Hosts multimedia. 15. Customizable. The addition of images, video or audio Because of the thousands files is a great way to enhance the of plugins and themes that WordPress experience of your users. Thankfully, has to offer, with just one click of a WordPress makes it easy for you to insert button you can customize your site to multimedia files into a page or post. Not appear and function as you would like. only is it easy for you to upload Furthermore, because of the seemingly multimedia files, you can also edit files endless number of features that and like images, while in the Media WordPress has to offer, you can create Library Screen. the website or blog that you’ve always wanted. 18. Testimonials. 19. Mobile friendly. If you sell a product or service, assure It’s more important than ever for your new potential customers that your website to be mobile friendly to products or services are worth the accommodate smartphones and tablets. investment by including testimonials on With WordPress, however, you don’t your site. have to be concerned over that. It’s already mobile friendly, thanks to many of the themes being responsive.23. Multiple hosting providers. 24. Universal platform. 25. WordPress just gets better.For self-hosted WordPress sites, if you WordPress features a universal platform. Because WordPress hires top-notchneed to switch a provider or host, either The WordPress dashboard always looks developers, you can be certain thatbecause they can’t handle traffic or you’re the same - no matter what you’re using WordPress is only going to get better asjust frustrated with them, you can do it WordPress for. You don’t need to hire time goes on. Also, because WordPress iswithout experiencing much downtown. experts or spend an excessive amount of open source, any developer can enhanceThis is because WordPress works with time trying to figure out how to use the user experience so that it can becomepretty much every server. WordPress. In fact, anyone with some the best CMS available. sort of general PHP and MySQL experience can use WordPress immediately. 13





How to Choose a Profitable Topic for Your Blog T here are many factors to consider intended audience to inform them about versy that surrounds a topic as a way to when selecting a topic that will your blog? engage your audience. produce desirable profits or • Will there be enough to write about allow you to build a large and dedicated the topic in the future? Off the top of The following are just a few general areas audience for your blog. You must your head, can you write down at least you might consider blogging about. consider public interest, your knowledge 25 things you would blog about in of the topic, its longevity, and the future entries? Will you be able to Industry-Oriented Topics. Focus on a audience's interest in it. It's also important come up with new things to blog about specific industry and blog about that to look at your competition and develop a and keep your content fresh over the industry as a whole. Much of your time way to deliver content that's different, long term? preparing content (blog entries) will be better, and more engaging. • How much competition is there based spent searching for industry news, on your topic? Consider other blogs, following industry trends, reporting about Start by brainstorming several possible websites, magazines, newspapers, news- industry breakthroughs, and discussing topics you might like to use, then consider letters, vlogs, TV shows, radio shows, industry gossip. the following: podcasts, and other content that's out • Who's the audience for the topic? As there and already targeting your audi- Personal Blogs. Many successful bloggers ence. don't cover one specific topic at all, but the blogger, will you be able to cater • What will you do differently to make rather, they cover a variety of topics in an to that audience and write or produce your content more appealing, engaging entertaining manner. content in a way the audience will entertaining, or interactive? relate to? If you're good at making people laugh, go • Does the topic have long-term appeal? For every potential blogging topic, you ahead and try your hand at a humor blog. Will it be relevant in six months, a can offer your opinions, experiences, If you're an artist, photographer, musician, year, two years or five years from commentary, news, and how-to informat- songwriter, writer, poet, or other creative now? ion, plus delve into subtopics or related type, you could share your work online • How large is the target audience for themes. You can also focus on the contro- and build a fan base. the topic? How will you reach the . .16

Political Topics. Do you have an than-average familiarity with your choseninformed and insightful opinion, or an topic if you want readers to take youinteresting way to communicate your seriously. Readers won't stick around toopinions, thoughts, or ideas? You might read things they already know or that theyconsider a political blog. And if you'd like deem irrelevant or uninteresting.to run a political blog but not assert yourpersonal opinion, consider using your Therefore, don't choose a topic you knowblog as a filter to help readers wade little or nothing about. Chances are, if youthrough all the political spin. know nothing about the topic, you probably don't have much interest in it.Hobby or Special Interest Blogs. Many Ideally, when people read your blog, itpeople have achieved incredible success as should be immediately obvious that nota blogger simply by choosing a topic they only are you an expert on the subjectwere already passionate about: Their matter, but you're also passionate about it.hobby. In the blogosphere, you'll find Also, be sure to research your competit-entertaining, informative, gossipy, and ion too. Find out who that competition ishow-to blogs about all sorts of hobbies. and how much of it actually exists.The trick for these types of blogs is to Unless you develop a unique approach,find a niche you know about and are you'll do yourself a disservice by enteringinterested in, and then share your unique a topic area that's already chock-full ofknowledge and perspective about that bloggers -- readership for that type oftopic. content may already be spread too thin, leaving all the blogs with little traffic orGeneral Interest Blogs. Don't limit profit potential.yourself to the topic areas discussed thusfar. There are thousands of possibilities If your topic area seems crowded at first,that have yet to be explored. You never remember, every topic has count-lessknow what will catch on or spark the unexplored niches. Do your homework tointerest of millions of people, especially at find a topic that nobody else has donethe wildfire pace that word-of-mouth can and what could work for you, based ontravel across the internet. If you have a your experience, knowledge, passion,crazy idea that might just work, go ahead interests, and education.and give it a shot. Before committing yourself to one par-When choosing what to blog about, ticular topic, realize that whatever topicremember to choose a topic that won't you choose will become the focal point ofdry up. Public interest rarely stays on one your blogging life. Your interest andtopic for very long, so be sure to choose a passion for the topic should be strongtopic that has held the interest of your enough to sustain you through the timestarget audience for a long time and will when you aren't sure you can bringcontinue to do so in the future. yourself to read another article on the subject, much less write another com-You must also have, or develop, a better- pelling blog entry.Written by Jason R.Author & Journalistjasonrich.com 17

Quick Ways to20 While Working1. Focus on a single task. 2. Learn to say “no.” 3. Plan to be productive.It’s been proven over and over again that Learning to say “no” to certain things can A productive week starts on Mondayif you have two things to get done, teach you discipline, and a well-placed morning, as long as you’ve got a goodcompleting them one at a time will not “no” can not only save you time and plan in place. Things will always come uponly allow you to finish sooner, but it will trouble, but it can also save you big time unexpectedly, but having a schedule canalso increase the precision of your work. in the future. help. If you know you tend to dawdle during free time, schedule it down to the6. Become vulnerable. minute.. 7. Play the comparison game. 8. Complete is better than per-Everything is better when you put another fect.set of eyes on it. If you don’t have an Compare your weekly calendar oraccountability partner, yesterday was the productivity plan to others’ and learn Striving for excellence is a noble goal, butbest time to get one. The next best time is from their best practices. Many of my best obsessive perfectionism is the ultimateright now. Share your calendar and to-do habits have been acquired from other enemy of productivity (second only tolist while being open to constructive people’s methods through simple obser- laziness). Wouldn’t you rather accomplishcriticism. vation. 100 things this week, all done well, than 15 things that are perfect?11. Take “Do Not Disturb” time. 12. Work in intervals. 13. Be ruthless.We distract ourselves enough as it is. Let No one can go full throttle all day. A good Are you being as efficient as possible? Asothers know you’re serious about getting rule is to work 25 minutes, then give you face any given task, ask yourself,things done -- block it out on your yourself a break for five minutes. In the “Could this be done faster?” Constantlycalendar or even put a sign on your door. long run, you’ll accomplish more. improve in your approach and techniqueNinety nine percent of things can wait for higher productivity.until you’re done with your focused work.16. Receive instead of give. 17. Perform triage. 18. Automate repetitive tasks.During important work blocks, make Start to think like an emergency room Set up an automatic workflow and cutothers contact and approach you. Screen doctor. What’s the absolute best use of yourself out as the middleman or middle-emails so that you only respond to the your time right now? Figure it out and woman. The less you have to do, themost important ones. focus in on it. All the other clutter on your better. desk can wait.Written by Sujan P. Co-Founder of WebProfilts sujanpatel.com

Be More Productiveas a Blogger4. Start the week before. 5. Get it out of the way.As you’re writing out your calendar, aim Tackle what you don’t want to do first soto have your work completed on Thurs- that you don’t waste any mental energyday. Friday can then be used to concen- resenting it. You’ll be so relieved that thetrate on any tasks that have come up rest of the day will seem simple.unexpectedly, allowing you to finish theweek strong.9. Start early. 10. Schedule down time.The sooner you get started, the more you Work hard and play hard, but don’t mixcan get done. Learn to be an early the two. Be fully engaged wherever youriser and take care of personal issues and are. When you’re working, go all out, thenbreakfast before you begin. Fewer schedule some time each day and on thedistractions coupled with more time weekends to stay far, far away from work.during the day equals more completed You deserve a break and your brain doestasks. too.14. Only do what you can do. 15. Review your performance.If there’s someone who can do what Take time at the end of each week toyou’re doing better or cheaper, have them critique your results, and use them as waysdo it. Your time is better spent doing to make improvements each week.things that only you can do.19. Create a list of “Once a 20. Don’t beat yourself up.Days.” It takes time and practice to masterMany things only need to be done once anything, and productivity is no different.per day, twice at most. Checking your Constant improvement is the realistic goalvoicemail and Facebook are some -- not perfection in one week.examples. Create a list of your personal“once a days” and make sure these tasksaren’t creeping into your workloadunnecessarily.

Whether you just started your blog or you have had it for quite some time now, there are five immutable laws to blogging, and if you pay attention to them, you'll succeed over time but if you ignore them, then you'll find it nearly impossible to drive any respectable amount of traffic.20

Immutable Lawsof BloggingFocus. Value.Quality. Engagement.Authority.

It’s never easy to stand out from the crowd. After all, there are probably over a thousand 1. Become a thought leader.sites in your industry, and while you know your product or service has the potential to be at theforefront, getting there probably seems like an exhausting, labor-intensive and potentially very Thought leadership follows inexpensive, venture. However, gaining traction for little-to-no money or effort could be much the same vein as bloggingmore feasible than you may think. but differs in that the content you produce is based more on ideas and observations about your respective industry. The goal is to become the spark of innovation for your peers. While thought leadership isn’t always an available option for every industry, it’s worth every second of effort to not only drive traffic but to further both personal and professional growth, as well.Easy Ways to Get Users to Your Website

2. Change up youremail strategy.Strategies are like developinga contact list, and by changingyour email signature, these aresimple steps in the right direct-ion. There are also tons ofgreat products out there tohelp your direct email re-sponses, such as Mailchimp,an easy to use email marketingplatform, Boomerang, a G-mail add-on to help youchoose when you send andreceive emails, and Mailtrack,which lets you know if andwhen someone opens andreads your emails. 3. Form a partnership. Partnering with another successful blog can be an excellent way to show off the types of brands you align yourself with and to gain new subscribers almost instant- aneously. However, while plenty of bloggers have their lists of people they want to work with, a partnership still needs to be a symbiotic relationship.

4GoldenRules toBoostBlog Post 1. Create a captivating 2. Write a compelling headline.Engagement introduction. Based on my experience split-testing blogWhen it comes to blog posts, posts, the element which has the single Another example of the 80/20 rule in biggest impact on engagement levels is the optimizing blog post engagement is split-\"engagement\" doesn't just indicate quality. headline. It's the first thing that people testing your introduction, which is theOften, it also correlates with the number read when they land on your blog post, second thing that readers will concentrateof conversions your sales-oriented co- and it can help them decide whether to on after the headline.ntent generates. read further, or take their attention elsewhere. That's why it's crucially The most fruitful approach to writingSince many SEO-ranking factors are important to always test your headlines introductions is to treat them like a salesbased on human behavior, engagement for engagement. copy: Imagine that you're writing a gated-really is a necessary metric for optimizing content piece that asks readers to buyalready high-ranking content that appears When testing headlines, always consider straight after the introduction.on the first page of Google’s search playing around with these tried-and-trueresults. formulas. What will you say to make them think that your post is going to be the mostThe problem is that the way most people important thing they read all week? Howmeasure content-marketing efforts today are you going to show them that youris via the Time on Site metric in Google article is a way for them to escape theirAnalytics, which fundamentally limits your fears and achieve their desires? How areability to optimize your blog posts for you going to make your writing help themhigher engagement. rationalize a purchase?That's a problem. Alternatively, I have a The takeaway: Of course, these aren't theprocess for measuring engagement that's only questions that can help you write adesigned to achieve the higher engage- captivating introduction, so don't feelment levels that I believe will bring you 80 limited, but, overall, they are a good start.,percent of your desired outcome using and so is using a personal story, or a controversial opinion.only 20 percent of your effort.

4. Format your texts for Written by Alex J. different types of readers. Founder of Metapress Most users don't read texts word by word. Instead, they tend to stop at headlines, bullet points and the beginnings of paragraphs to try to pick out information that they find relevant. People are also likely to read only 20 percent of the words on a given web page during a visit -- that is, if they actually devote their time to reading. In order to maximize engagement for your content, adjust your format to the prefer- ences of the average reader who prefers to scan content for fragments of interest. To achieve this, be sure to:3. Increase your post's • Write short paragraphs and avoid large chunks of text. Paragraphs withperceived value by using no more than three sentences generally yield the best results. Most importantly,great graphic design. remember that large chunks of texts are hard to digest at first glance.Like it or not, people judge a book by itscover. If you've ever bookmarked a well- • Make frequent use of subheadings,designed piece of marketing content and ordered and unordered lists.without reading it, then you know what These are the elements that readersI'm talking about. This is the effect you focus on the most, so include them inshould be going for with your own your writings as well. Also, try to makereaders. your headlines descriptive so that readers can easily navigate your text.Graphic design, done right, can be thesingle best way to increase user • Use graphics to depict some of yourengagement and conversions, and it’s a ideas and break up the text. It willclassic way to increase perceived make the article more digestible, andvalue. Bloggers who earn significant the graphics will draw the attention ofmoney understand this concept. your readers. Conclusion.However, graphic design can also be Optimizing user engagement is aboutexpensive too, so it's worth checking the getting to know your readers. However, noconversion data in Google Analytic first, amount of split-testing will help you if youto decide which landing pages are worth don't make great content your top priority.touching up on. You can easily do this bygoing to it and clicking on \"Behavior\" > Over time, you'll gain more awareness\"Site Content\" > \"Landing Pages,” and from your content and increase your webon the right-hand side, it will show you traffic from organic search results, and thethe goal completion data for your more valuable your content is, the betterspecified conversions. your blog results will be in the long run. metapress.com

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