You have chosen your niche, set your website up and are ready to get going with your first blog. So how do you get started?

The most important thing to focus on is creating a post with valuable content. Crack this, and you can write your way to success.

Great you may say, I keep hearing this but what exactly does valuable content mean, and why is this so important?
To answer this, it is important to establish who the content is being created for.

There are two main players you need to consider, Google and your reader. The two go hand in hand.

Google, aims to make sure the reader gets the most relevant and useful information, which is easily accessible, and of a high quality.

It breaks high quality down to: Expertise, Authoritative and Trustworthy (E.A.T). To get a good angle on this, it’s worth visiting steps to a Google friendly site. Here you can get an in depth look at how to optimise your site and make sure Google can read it, and rank you.

The visitor to your site is looking for quality content, whether it is in the form of answers to problems, inspiration, entertainment, growth of knowledge or information. This of course will depend on your niche, and what the aim of your site is.

The fundamentals however remain the same you need to know how to write good content for your website or blog, and get search engines (Google/Yahoo/Bing) to recognise it, and put you at the top of the list.

If you don’t get it right;

• • Google won’t rank you
  • You won’t get read
  • If you get stumbled on by mistake they won’t be returning
  • no sales / referrals

So, you have to do this, and you have to do it right. It’s the keystone to your business and blog.

How do you make sure you are creating the right content to a high enough standard?

To help you I have put together a list of my top tips to make sure you succeed. If you are doing all of these you are on the right path. After that it just takes determination. Remember it’s going to take time for Google to rank you. They have to trust your site which means posting regularly. Your first post may take time to be indexed, but that doesn’t mean you did it wrong. Keep going and make sure all of your posts are of the same high standard then just rinse and repeat.

5 Top tips to creating valuable content

Your posts need to be:

• • Findable
  • Entertaining, helpful, inspiring or educational
  • Actionable
  • Relevent
  • Readable

If you can tick off all of these you will have done everything you can to make your content have value. Here’s how to make each one of these count:

1.Findable – Be irresistible to Google

Using key words

Keywords are the words or phrases that are typed into search engines when users are looking for something. Every time you do a Google search you are using key words. Take a look at my article, A beginners guide to keyword research, for an in depth insight on how to find, and use them effectively.

Your aim is to find the most searched for, relevant words or phrases, with low competition, they will give you the most traffic. They are what will flag your site up when Google crawls through your contents. They identify your post as relevant to users.

Include your targeted keywords in the title and also within the first 100 words of your post. You can scatter them throughout the post but beware of “keyword stuffing”. This will have a detrimental effect and Google will see it as spam and you won’t stand a chance of getting ranked.

Meta descriptions

This is the description you will see below your heading when you do a search. It is not visible on your site, but gives the user a summary of what is in the article. Although Meta links are not always used in the algorithms to determine ranking, they will help the visitor decide on whether to click through to your site. This is recognised by Google and determines if you are a good match.

Make it mobile friendly

Google report that over half of people searching, are doing it on mobile devices. Google check to make sure your site is user-friendly. You can easily check this by visiting mobile-friendly test -Google search console and typing in your URL. It’s quick and easy, and will give you your results and areas which need improving.

Post regularly – Keep it fresh

Googles spiders will come back periodically and crawl your content to see if you have updated or added anything new. They don’t like stale content and want to see that you are providing value to your visitors.

To make it easier on yourself create a schedule, post on set days. Your readers will get used to the days and look forward to revisiting you to see what’s new. This will then be picked up by Google.

Links

Google likes to see that you are a trusted site. To make it easier for them to see this build natural links with visitors and online partners.

Outward links help Google identify what your post is about, making classification easier.

2. Entertaining, Inspirational, Helpful, Educational content

Don’t worry you don’t have to include all of these in your writing but you do need to do at least one.

Your goal is to provide your reader with exactly what they are looking for. It’s fine if you do just one of these. But hey, if your topic lends itself to being Entertaining / amusing and inspirational while being educational and helpful go for it. It’s going to make one awesome post.

Your intention is to ensure your reader leaves your site with all the information they need to move forward.

Leave no stone unturned. Make sure you have answered every question that may arise. Your information needs to be thorough, significant and relevant.

Research don’t rehash

Think outside the box to bring a new perspective to your topic.

It may help to write your content first and then do further research. You are then approaching the subject with your own slant.

Be yourself, your uniqueness will stand out from the crowd.

Be creative and use your own style, let your writing flow naturally.

Be brave it’s good to share your opinions.

See what your competitors are doing then do it better. It’s important to research information and look at other sites and blogs, just resist the temptation to copy. It will not give your site value. If your reader has already seen it they gain nothing by reading the same thing over again.

 

Showing Authority

There are a few simple tricks to boost your authority

• • Keep a clear purpose and stay focused, write with clarity.
  • Use examples
  • Add statistics if appropriate – they show you know your field
  • Use quotes from experts

Using these when appropriate will all add weight to your content and give the reader confidence in your knowledge.

 

Showing your experise

Let you expertise shine through.

Be confident and let your readers know your credentials. Your credentials could be anything from being a full time mom and raising your family to having a doctorate in medicine it all depends on your niche.

Don’t be afraid to refer to yourself as an expert in which ever field you have chosen.

Write and analyse within your niche.

Provide evaluations in language accessible to your audience.

Gathering the facts is all well and good, but by going that one step further shows you’re a thinker. Comparing different products then evaluating the results will show your reader you care about which is best for them.

You have done the legwork and they will definitely appreciate it.

Follow current trends and be able to advise your readers how they could benefit from them.

Comment and offer your opinions. As an expert your readers will be interested in your thoughts.

Writing long form content (articles above1200 words) also allows the readers an opportunity to evaluate your understanding and depth of knowledge.

The more your visitors acknowledge you as an expert the more trust you will gain.

Keep it genuine

Be honest, and write about what you believe in.

Make your writing meaningful and remember you are writing for your visitors and what matters to them. Your aim is to fulfill their needs, answer their questions and solve their problems.

If you are confident in a product recommend it, if not, don’t. You are building a reputation and it’s going to be a good one where your readers will take action on your recommendations.

YOUR CONTENT SHOULD BE VALUABLE ENOUGH THAT THEY WANT TO SIGN UP TO RECEIVE YOUR EMAILS

3.Actionable

What exactly does being actionable mean? It’s all about making your content compelling enough that your reader will want to, and be able to take action on it

A few ways to do this are:

• • Keep to the point
  • Engage your audience and encourage feed back and comments. Then make sure you respond to them promptly
  • Get your readers curious
  • Create a CTA(call to action) button. This makes responding easy and increases conversions by 62%.
  • Always let readers know at the beginning what they will be getting from your article
  • Give internal links(links to other relevant pages within your site)
  • Encourage sharing onto social media

4. Be Relevant – remember the Goldilocks rule

Write with a clear message to one person. This keeps your content and your targeted niche audience focused.

Keep to the subject and don’t be tempted to waffle. Time is short and many of your readers will be pressed for time.

The trick is writing in depth without wandering off, or worst still writing content for content sake.

And here’s where the Goldilocks rule comes in, not too long or too short but just right.

Keep this in mind and you won’t go wrong.

Keep ads, call to actions, related content widgets to a minimum. You are providing your reader with good information and a pleasant experience and not trying to hard sell.

5.Readable

I know this sounds pretty obvious but there are some simple things that really do make a difference. Let’s face it, if you click on a page and all you see is a sea of text it can be really off-putting. So just keep in the following in mind when creating your post:

• • Use Titles headlines and subheadings to separate your ideas
  • Make your headings captivating
  • Include bullet points
  • Make sure you include white space on the page
  • Include an image within the first fold of the page
  • Use short sentances
  • Use short paragraphs
  • It’s better to show rather than tell when you can, so include diagrams, screen shots, images and graphs
  • Studies have shown the majority of people are more likely to read black or dark grey text on a white background

And that’s it, all you need to know to get you started creating valuable content. I will leave you with one last quote from Zero Dean.

“If your presence doesn’t add value, your absence won’t make a difference”

So go on, make a difference today.

If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave them below and I will be sure to get back to you.

Su

Proud to be an affiliate of Wealthy Affiliate, the online training program I highly recommend for anyone wanting to turn their passion into a thriving online business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding your niche is exciting! If you have read my articles on, what niche marketing is and why it’s a good idea and how to find a profitable niche for you website you will already have a good idea on how to get going. If not take 5 minutes now, you will find them really helpful.

If you’re still having trouble though and feeling overwhelmed don’t worry. There are millions of great niches that are profitable and fun.

The worse thing you can do is worry so much about choosing the wrong niche that you end up doing nothing. I know this because I wasted so much time choosing my first one, and worried I would get it totally wrong, what should have taken me a day, dragged on to weeks! Yes weeks! It felt like a torture, I questioned EVERYTHING.

Would it be profitable? Did I really have enough knowledge? Would my ideas run dry after a couple of weeks? Would anyone be interested?

I talked myself in and out of decisions, and then back in again so often it was driving me crazy.

All of the time I wasted agonising I could have put to good use by getting stuck in and creating my new business.

The best advice I can give you is, don’t put it off. There are so many great niche ideas for mom bloggers and you can be successful in almost any area you choose. Do your research following the guides I set out in the articles I mentioned then go for it.

Niche Categories

The most profitable niche areas are those where you are solving a burning question or problem for a group of people. Here are the categories they fall into:

• Money making – which includes how to make money online and Wealth building
• Health
• Fitness and weight loss
• Dating and relationships
• Self Improvement
• Beauty and fashion
• Hobbies and interests
• Pets

These are all way to broad, so to help you along here’s a list of some great niches to get your imagination sparking.

Targeted niches to have fun with

Money making/ Increasing wealth

I’ve put this at the top because it’s what most people are looking for when they start out.

The problem is when you first start you haven’t actually made any money on line, so telling your readers how to do this can be a bit of a conundrum. The best idea is to be creative. Talk about what you know. Be real, and share the knowledge you have while growing your expertise, or share your journey by making it your second niche.

Ideas to start with

Be a Budgeter – Take a look at The busy budgeter. Rosemarie is rocking it and a great inspiration on how you can approach the money making niche. Remember though, do it your way! Looking for ideas is great but you need to be original – there is only one you!

Couponing – If you are already an avid couponer share your tricks give advice and let your readers know how to get the best from it. Link it with affiliate marketing and you can then start to make money

How to build your credit

Job skills

traveling on a budget

Cheap eats

t shirt designer – See my articles on Merch by Amazon and Society 6. Both are great sites get started with.

Health

Food and nutrition for tots

How to get your kids to enjoy healthy eating

Healthy eating for teenagers

Healthy snacks for the family

Breast feeding

Kids health issues

Dealing with irritable bowl syndrome

natural pain relief

natural remedies

how to quit smoking

outside adventure with kids

yoga

 

Fitness and weight loss

Loosing belly fat after pregnancy

exercising with children

How to lose weight fast

juicing for weight loss

detox diets

low sugar diets

low sodium diets

the paleo diet

Dating and relationships

Dating after divorce

Relationship advice
How to make friends

 

Self improvement

confidence building

How to get smarter

How to improve sleep

Meditation techniques

motivational quotes / inspirational site

combating panic attacks

work life balance

Self improvement books

Self improvement tips

 

Beauty and fashion

Fashion for pregnant ladies

natural skin care

organic make up

Looking great in a hurry

Fantastic charity shop fashion

 

Hobbies and interests

Kids crafts

Scrapbooking

Kids party planning / party ideas

gardening for kids

Babies first year

parenting

candle making

Knitting for the newbie

Improve your Knitting skills

Baby safety

Baby gear – narrow this down e.g. strollers / baby clothes for girls/baby clothes for boys

home organisation

interior design

Fun ideas for kids bedrooms

How to make cocktails

Indoor gardening

Internet safety for kids

Jewellery making

papercraft

needlework

educational toys

 

Pets

Natural pet food

dog training

dog accessories

Best pets for children

Some others to consider

Family travel

Single parenting
All of these have enormous scope. The list you could make is endless!

So what lights your fire? You could pick any of these and make it work for you, niche them down even further, if it suits you or, use them as a starting point to brainstorm your own ideas. However you use the list make it work for you in your own way.
To make it profitable you will need visitors. To get these create valuable content, this should be your priority, so choosing something you have knowledge about makes it easier. Don’t get hung up on this though. If you have a burning desire to create a meditation site, but have only just got into this yourself, there are ways around it.

Create posts sharing your journey and what you are learning. Be honest and let your readers know this is what you are doing. Becoming an expert will happen with time, all the research you need at your fingertips through books and the internet.

Nothing is set in stone

So relax. It’s fine if you have started and then realise it’s not the niche for you, you can change it.

Knowing this at the beginning relieves the stress. It is always better doing something rather than nothing. Your first niche may not end up being your last.

You may well look back in disbelief after you’ve been doing this for a while, and wonder what you were doing with your first site, and that’s O.K! Learn your skill by practicing. It takes guts publishing your work, but once you get going it gets easier and easier. You can’t help but improve.

 

I hope this helps on the start of your amazing journey, and would love to hear if you have any ideas you would like to share.
Please feel free to comment or ask any questions below and I will be sure to get back to you.

Happy posting fellow bloggers!

 

 

 

Disclosure: I do have some affiliate links throughout this blog. The links provide me with a small percentage of commission but do not cost you anything extra.

Turning your creativity into a career sounds like a pipe dream, but thankfully for us creative types it can be done!

I’m constantly on the look out for solid, legitimate ways for stay at home moms to make money and be successful.

If you are searching for ways to make money from being creative, POD (print on demand sites) are well worth looking into.

POD’s allow you the freedom to create your own artwork at your own pace around your schedule. They deal with the printing, manufacture and shipping of the product. It’s a great way to start building a risk free business with very little or no initial outlay.

Society 6 is one of these sites. It’s free to join, simple to navigate and has wealth of information to help you make the best of your artwork.

Their curator program is much like an affiliate program and you can earn commission promoting the work of others! I’ll get into this later in more detail.

If this has sparked your interest read on. It may be what you are looking for.

Overview and summery

Owners Leaf Group

Who is it suitable for Anyone creative wanting to sell, buy or promote art

website URL https://society6.com

Training – Very good. An excellent range of tutorial articles and blogs

Support – through help desk

Price – free

Overall rating – good

Who is Society 6 for ?

I posted a few days ago about how to make money using Merch by Amazon. If you are only interested in producing t shirt designs this is great. If you want more options Society 6 is the place to go.

It is a site focused on promoting artists and selling their work on a range of products. It suits artists from a wide range of genres and disciplines. The variety of styles on there is massive. Whether your passion is watercolour, acrylics, oil pen and ink or graphics there is a place for you. It cuts out the manufacturing process so it’s ideal if you want to focus solely on the creation of your art and leave the rest to someone else.

There is no need to be a computer whizz as they will give you advice on how to prepare and upload your images in clear steps. I promise you, if I can do it you’re going to be able to do it too!

Product overview

I was truly impressed by the amount of products you can design for. To give you an idea of the scope you will have, see the list below ;

• Art prints / framed prints / metal prints / limited additions
  
• Wall tapestries
• clocks
• bags
• t shirts / hoodies / leggings
• curtains / cushions / wall hangings
  

These are just a few believe me the list is far to extensive for me to post here.

The system allows you to create your own shop in which you reflect your personality and develop your own brand using a header image and tag line. There is a drop down box under the header in which you can place a brief biography. Here you can also include your Facebook, twitter etc. to maximise your visibility and promote your work outside Society 6.

The collections tab within your shop gives you the flexibility to select work and group it together to keep your shop face clean, organised and easy for your customers to navigate.

The shopface can be customised further by photographing your products in situ which helps your customers visualise what they will look like once purchased.

I found the setting up process really simple. When they ask for your URL bear in mind this is what your brand name will be, so have it thought out and ready to go. It can’t be changed later.

It took me a couple of minutes just filling in the boxes with the required information ( which was minimal) and then verifying the account with PayPal. You will be asked to pay $1 to make sure you are for real, and that’s it, you’re in and ready to go.

You set the retail price and retail value. To understand this better take a look at the blog posts Pricing and Categorizing Your Work to Sell and How To Make Money On Society6.

There are some fantastic blog posts that are really helpful and created by the society 6 team and sellers.

Tools and training

Once you’re in it’s going to take you some time reading through the sellers guide.

It includes all you need to get up and running.It explains everything clearly and in detail. The topics it covers are:

• How to make money through Instagram & Facebook
• Where to Promote Your Artwork
• Turning Social Media Fans into Customers
• Preparing & Uploading Your Art Files
• Pixel Dimension Requirements
• How to Get Found in Search
• How to Price Your Artwork
• Claiming Your Earnings
• Changing the PayPal Associated with Your Account
• How long it will take to receive my earnings
• Trouble with Logging In
• Why new posts are not showing up?
• finding your work on the site?
• Intellectual property concerns
• Contacting Society 6

It’s well worth giving yourself a couple of days to read through everything as there is ALOT to read. It’s all good stuff though and they have put together a comprehensive package to ensure you can make the most of your work. Let’s face it is in their best interest to make sure you promote and sell as much as possible. Their success also depends on your success.

Do I need specialist equipment?

The great thing is you don’t!

You will need to edit some of your work to make it suitable for a range of products. Although Photoshop is great for this it will cost you about $10 per month. This can be an expense you don’t want, especially if you are just starting out and not sure if it is for you.

The option I chose was to download GIMP. It’s free and will do everything you need. There are loads of tutorials on You Tube and you will be able to learn all the skills you need quite quickly.

The only other thing that is useful is a scanner so that you don’t have to keep taking you work out to get it scanned. If you don’t have one though you can get your work scanned and saved for reasonable rates at many stationery stores, art retailers, post offices etc. Just make sure you advise them on the correct size DPI etc to avoid you having to go back.

Curator program

Society 6’s curator program is similar to an affiliate program.

In your shop you will see the promotions tab. Here you promote the work of other artists.

This may sound counter-productive but actually makes great sense. Just because a customer clicks on your work it doesn’t mean they will buy it. It does however mean they are probably looking for that style.
If you provide them with alternatives they may click through your recommendations. You will then receive a commission if they go on to buy. Remember it works the other way around too. If other artists are promoting your work you will be visible to their followers. The number of potential customers seeing your art will increase therefore increasing your sales potential. It equates to a win win situation and is an effective marketing strategy raising artists profiles to a wider audience.

One final point, the curators commission does not cut into your profit as an artist, you will still get the profit you decided on. The commission is factored into the base cost set at S6.

Marketing – Reach your people

There will be a certain amount of marketing automatically created if you follow the guidelines laid down by Society 6. Each time you publish your work you will need to create a description or tag for it. Make it relevant using appropriate keywords (keywords are the words and phrases that are typed into search engines when looking for something). Google will then be able to link your keywords with what people are searching for.

This alone however will not be enough. Included in the sellers guide are tips on how to engage using Facebook, twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat and Instagram. Getting active on these and linking them to your shop will get your work out there, increase your traffic and give your more selling potential. If your friend doesn’t want to buy they may know someone who is interested, they tag them and before you know it a sale is born

In addition to these I would also recommend using a blog or website to show case the work you are producing. Blogs are a great promotional tool. Blogging enables you to attract an audience, establish you as an authority, build a relationship with your followers, tell your story, discuss your work, validate your expertise and above all can be great fun! If you want to see how I’m doing this check out Wealthy Affiliate.

Payments

Payments are made to you via the PayPal account you verified your account with. There is a 30-day grace period from the time of shipment. This allows customers to return products. You are then paid on the first of the following month. There is no minimum payment. Many other POD sites set a threshold. Say the threshold is $50, if you haven’t reached it you don’t get paid and will have to wait until you hit $50! Society 6 pays out each month no matter how small the payment.

Support

Support is offered through a help desk from where you submit your question and receive a reply usually within 8 hours. I personally haven’t had cause to use it yet but read numerous reviews while researching prior to joining. The comments were positive and stated the service was prompt, courteous and kind. I don’t see any reason to doubt this but, as I said, without experiencing it for myself I’m going on the word of other established sellers already using the site.

Pros

• Quick and easy to set up
  
• An excellent range of tools including articles and tips to help you navigate your way around the site and get the best results
• Clean fresh and professional looking site
• High quality products and services
• You retain the rights to your work. This means you can sell the same art on other sites if you want to.

Cons

• It’s easy to get lost in the crowd
  
• Difficult to find answers when initially starting out. I had to type the question into google.
• Pricing structure is not clear until you upload your work and begin pricing. Once you’ve done it once it’s fine.
• Help through a help desk. No phone line for artists.

So is Society 6 a good way to go?

I have no reservations in recommending it as a legitimate way for you to sell your work on line and make money using your creative skills. How successful you are will depend on the quality of work you submit, the popularity of your work and how well you market yourself in and outside S6.

There are certainly artists making a regular income from this. One of the biggest positives for me is that it is totally risk free. If you already have your materials and are producing work you can be set up and ready to sell in a couple of days if not sooner.

Will it make you enough to live on? That will depend on how serious you are about running it as a business. If you set up your shop and decide it is the path you would like to take I would definitely look at other POD sites where you do the same. There is no point limiting yourself to one site. The more places you are selling the more sales you will potentially make.

Be visible and get seen, believe in your work and other will believe in it too.

I wish you every success in whatever you choose to do. If you are already doing this I would love to hear how it’s going for you and any tips you may have. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to drop them in the box below it would be great to hear from you.

Cheers for now

Su

How long has it been since you sat down and thought about the skills you use every day. You probably use more than you think!

Today I wanted to have a look at the specific set of skills you need to be a successful blogger. If you are blogging just for fun it probably isn’t that important to you. However, if you want to know how to start a home based business with blogging it’s really important.

You are going to have to make yourself visible in an enormous market place. Once you have done this understanding how to engage and sell to an audience is vital.

The great news is you may be using the skills you need to do this without even realising it.

So do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Here’s a list of 10 skills that you need to be a successful blogger.

Content writing. It’s o.k you don’t have to be Shakespeare

You will need to be competent at writing. This doesn’t mean you have to be a budding author or an expert. Blogs work best when they are conversational, friendly and engaging. If you email friends or colleagues you’re already on your way.

Your blog should aim to give huge value to your visitors. Wow that sounds scary! But it’s not so bad, huge value is when you;

• Provide solutions to problems
• Provide information that can’t be found easily anywhere else
• Give depth of information (2000 words plus and created regularly, at least once a week)
• Share advice to make life easier or better
• Are Humorous

Any of these will give value to your blog.

If you have chosen your niche in a topic you enjoy or are already an expert in chances are you will have plenty to share and write about. Just think about how many times you pass on information to your friends. The best places to shop, bargains you have found, relationship advice, money saving tips, health tips, dieting tips, interior design advice, how to save time doing any number of things. The list just goes on and on.

All of these are great blogging ideas. Creating content in your own unique and interesting way will build an audience.

Although I have said friendly is best it is still important to make sure content is well written with a professional edge. This is one of the factors google searches for when ranking sites. There are tools to help with this. Grammarly is free and easy to use.

The one I use is the content writer platform within the Wealthy Affiliate program which you can also access as a free member. Both are great to make sure that your reader gets the best experience.

Networking. Bloggers love other bloggers

Chances are you’re doing this on Facebook etc already. What you need do as a blogger is crank it up a level.

Connect with other bloggers doing the same as you.

Comment on their posts, send an email or if you want to go large you could get yourself off to a conference. Don’t only look at the big guys, they’re crazy busy, connect with smaller bloggers too. These have more time to engage with you.

It can be a lonely place blogging from home every day. Make it easy for yourself, get sociable and you will learn so much and make fantastic friends. The blogging community is great, engage and enjoy!

Social media networking. Carry on using your social network. After you have done the hard work of writing you post share it on your Facebook, google + pinterest and anything else you use. The more that see it the better.

 

Building relationships. Be your awesome self

The best relationships are built on give and take. Remember this when building your blogging relationships. You need to do the giving first. Think about what you can offer. Be yourself.

You will be building relationships with other bloggers, marketing brands (who you are affiliating with) and your readers.
Make sure every thing you do is quality.

If you’re commenting on bloggers post “great post” is OK but shows you have’haven’t given it much thought “Thanks for such a great post it really helped and gave me the clear steps I needed. I’m really looking forward to putting these into action” Now you’re connecting!

Be honest with everything you post, no-one is going to make a purchase if they can’t trust you. Reach out and let everyone know how you can help them.

 

Follow up skills

No-one likes to be ignored, but you knew this already. Think how quickly you answer emails, Facebook comments etc to family and friends. It’s just the same. Keep in mind people aren’t patient. The quicker you can follow up the better.

If you can, use personal greetings and names. Giving your responses a personal touch helps create a bond and builds trust.

Be active and present on your blog it will pay off in tons.

Marketing

Understanding your audience is the key to selling. If you are already networking, building relationships and following up regularly you are developing a deep understanding of what makes your readers tick. Knowing what they want will help you target products that will sell. Once you know this you are half-way there.

If you are promoting products you believe in and are creating honest reviews your readers are more likely to buy. Go easy on ads and affiliate links. Overwhelming your reader makes it look as if you are only in it for the sale and takes away the personal investment you have already made in them.

Make it clear that you are affiliated to products, being upfront builds confidence and when possible try the products first. I know this isn’t always feasible but it will grow your credibility.

 

Researcher. If you can read you can research.

The more research you do the more knowledgeable you will become and the better your blog will be. Places to start with your research include;

• Google alerts – set this up and google will let you know when interesting and new content arrives for the subject you have specified
• Follow relevant blogs Facebook pages, twitter, google+
• books, ebooks, free kindle books
• Google search – be selective or you may end up doing never ending research and no blogging!

Overtime you will become faster, more efficient and find the best places to research for your niche.

Be inspirational

The best way to do this is to be your self and stay positive. Have your own style and don’t be afraid to use it. You are unique and your readers will want to see the real you. Copying someones work will sound flat and copy and pasting is simply cheating! Have your own take on things, your opinion is just as valuable as anyone else’s.

Make sure your content is interesting and meaningful. Ask yourself if you would be dying to read it. Make sure it applies to the niche you have chosen. Try to create a discussion, get excited or passionate about the subject of your post. It will get your readers buzzing.

Make it relevant and use your expertise.

Analytics

This one leaves me running for the hills but you’re going to need to get a grasp on it. Luckily for anyone out there like me there are tools out there to help.

Google analytics, sumo.com and KYA Are a few you can look at to get you going. The benefit of these is that they are free which is always a bonus when you are starting out.

Analytics are essential for any serious blogger. Through the data you will be able to determine how your readers are interacting with your site and what the best options are for you to grow your business

 

Self-discipline

Procrastination can be a killer! There’s no-one badgering you to get your post finished or research new affiliate programs. It’s all down to you! Setting yourself goals and targets helps. Find out what works best for you and then stick to it.

There are definitely going to be days when the last thing you want to do is sit down and work on your blog. I know it’s one of those days when even cleaning the cooker looks good to me. That’s when it’s time to dig deep and get on with it.

It’s a powerful skill to foster and the better you get at it the more you will achieve. The feeling of achievement at the end of the day, knowing you accomplished your goal even though it was the last thing in the world you wanted to do, is fantastic!

Commitment

You will only be a successful blogger if you commit to it and refuse to give up. There are many times you will think it’s just not working. Those that fail are those that give up!

It can be really disheartening when you see you favorite bloggers getting 1000s of views per post and showing you their monthly four or five figure incomes. Keep heart remember they all started where you are now. Be consistent and celebrate your successes. Looking to them for inspiration is great but resist the temptation to compare yourself. Keep going and belief in yourself there is no reason you can’t get there too.

 

Resourceful

To be truly resourceful you need to have an open mind. Looking at things differently will lead to opportunities and make your blog interesting to read.

Look at what you have and how you can use it to its optimum level. When you are starting out it’s likely you are not going to have money to throw at you campaigns. Be creative.

Look for free tools and how to draw traffic for free. Google is a great place to start. I have already mentioned a few above. Google docs is another. It will let you share documents on line, create flow charts and diagrams and so much more.

To get more ideas just type free blogging tools into google. Check these out and decide which are best for you.

Get the right and left side of your brain into gear

New research states that rapidly shifting between using the right and left side of the brain is the key to innovation.

There are 4 stages to super charging yourself and none of them are difficult.

1. Get stimulated. Get out as often as you can. Meet and engage with interesting people. Venture to new places.
2. Challenge yourself. Keep trying new things. Don’t worry about being outside your comfort zone. You could learn a new language or take guitar lessons.
3. Gather new ideas. Use a note book or a tool like Evernote on your phone to grab new ideas when you are out and about. Look at new things that are popping up, read magazines and newspapers. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Keep you eyes open and don’t forget to record it.
4. Broaden your knowledge in any way you can. Listen when people speak. Open your mind to new ideas.

So how many did you tick off?

No one is amazing at everything, but the fantastic thing is all of these skills can be learned and improved on.

If you are interested and want to see how I’m doing this take a look here.

 

I’m happy to help in any way I can to get you up and going so please feel free to leave any comments below and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

 

 

Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission (with no added cost to you). I only recommend products I use or totally believe will add value to my readers.

 

 

So you’ve made the decision to start your online business. That’s fantastic! Picking your niche is the first step and you need to make sure that you get this right. It’s important to have a niche if you are going to stay focused and draw visitors to your website. Take a look at my article on what niche marketing is and why it’s a good idea. This will explain more fully the reasons why getting a niche is beneficial.

How to find a profitable niche for your website can seem complicated as there are so many choices out there. You want to find the most profitable niche markets to give you the best chance of success but also do something you enjoy and believe in. That’s fine the two go hand in hand. I’m going to give you some simple steps to help you avoid common pitfalls and some easy ways to get you up and running.

So where do I start?

Start with you

The best way, I’ve found for me, is to grab a piece of paper and create a mind map. It’s all about you! Everything that interests you, what you are good at, what skills you have etc.

This will give you options and help identify ideas for your blog/business. I’ve dropped one of mine below for you to have a look at. Feel free to use this and add any other headings you want to make it personal to you. Don’t limit yourself at this stage. You are getting all of your ideas down. This shouldn’t take long.

Anything can go on here. Don’t think about it too much. Once you start you will be amazed and may have to go onto another page when you realise the abilities and interests you already have.

This is just your starting point. Carry a note book around with you. Inspiration comes from everywhere. Write down any ideas that spring to mind or anything you see that motivates you.

Narrow the field

When you’ve done this it’s time to focus down. You will have produced a number of niches that may be profitable. Reduce these down to four or five that you really enjoy.

Choose ones that you know you will be able to create content for on a regular basis. A niche that you are not going to get bored with. Something you are passionate about.

If you are creating a blog you will need to be creating several posts a week and with a content of between 1000-2000 words.

It will make building your business a pleasure rather than a chore. You will be able to pour your heart and soul into what you are doing every day.

Research, research, research

Now you have a few ideas to look at you need to research and find out which ones are going to be the most profitable. There are several aspects to look at here.

Your audience within your niche

Look at your audience first and not the product or services you will provide. I know this may sound crazy but your audience will always be there.

Products come and go, trends change and move on. If you know what makes your target audience tick you will be able to move with them supplying information and products that are new within the niche you have chosen. You’re not going to run dry there will always be new products and services you can tap into to keep your customers happy and interested. Remember your focus is on what they want and how you can give them the best service for their needs.

Effective ways to get to know your target audience

1. Don’t make assumptions without having the evidence to back it up. Once you have done your research you may find that middle-aged woman you thought you were targeting is in fact a self-employed mom in her mid twenties. That’s fine now you know who is interested in what you are doing and you can tailor yourself to them.
2. Chat to friends, family and acquaintances who are in your target audience. Ask open-ended questions. Find out their interests and what they like doing. What do they buy and from where. Anything that will give you an insight. You don’t have to be obvious. Casual conversations can give you great information on whether there is a demand for the niche you are going into
3. Read up on what others are already doing. Larger companies will already have completed market research and actioned it. Look for industry reports, market research etc. These will give you information on what is happening and what is likely to happen and what the habits of your target audience is.
4. Look for niche magazines and blogs. If they are out there, there will be a market for it.
5. Connect on twitter and Facebook. Pay attention to what your target audience is saying. This will give you a really good way to see what they are interested in.
6. Connect to forums.  What problems do they have and what answers are they looking for.

Once you are up and running there will be much more to delve into within your target audience. You will need to find out about them in depth…..but we will leave that for another day.

Keyword research

Now you have an idea which niches look most promising. The next step is to research keywords.

Keywords are words or phrases entered into search engines. By researching key words you are able to get an idea of what is popular, what people are looking for and how high the competition is for the word or phrase.

Start by using Google instant. This is the predictive search you see when you begin typing in google.

If weight loss was a niche you are researching type it into the search engine then hover at the end of the phrase. Google will then bring up other searches that are popular that you may not have considered.

It is a good idea to target your niche. By this I mean dig down deeper so that the area you are focusing on is narrower. Here is a good example. How to lose weight on your stomach is a targeted niche. It will give you more chance to hit a specific target audience and serve them more efficiently.

To make your research more substantial you will need to use research tools.

Google trends and google ad words are free but you will have to sign up for ad words before you can access it.

The tools I find most useful and use myself are Jaaxy and the keyword tool inside the wealthy affiliate program.

Wealthy affiliate is free to join with no pressure to upgrade so you can stay a free member for as long as you wish. It not only offers you the keyword tool but also a wealth of training and two free websites to get you on your way and help you become successful online.

These tools give you the capability to see what your competition is and the size of your target audience. Essentially you are looking for a high search rate but low competition. Each tool has it’s own format. Jaaxy will give you the data you are looking for and tutorials and tips on how to get the best from it. It’s worth taking a look as they offer an initial free trial where you can access videos showing you exactly how to judge the market.

 

What can you bring to the niche

With all the information you have you can now make an informed decision on which niche is best.

The last thing to think about is what can you bring to the niche to make you stand out. Just remember we are all unique. Use this to your advantage. Look at what the competition is doing, see what is successful but have your own individual take on things. Look for something that your visitors are not getting. Give them value.

Now it’s time to get going. Don’t worry if things don’t go exactly to plan. You can refine your niche as you go, or even change it later down the line if you choose. A world of opportunity is waiting for you.

 

If you have any questions or would like to leave a comment please feel free to leave them below and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a lot of talk about niche marketing and whether is something you should or should not be focusing on. The general consensus is, that it’s the best way to go when building your online business. I know that for me it was a great help when I was totally new to the whole deal.

Bearing this in mind I’ll share what niche marketing is, and why it’s a good idea to consider, especially when you are just starting out.

This does not mean it will definitely be the way you want to go, and on occasions there are benefits to addressing a wide audience. You may start wide and your niche develops and refines as you grow, but thinking about it enables you to have a plan. This is always better than floundering around. Understanding why you have made a decision will lead to you to be more productive

The definition of niche marketing – focus is the key

Niche marketing is when you target a very specific and well-defined segment of a wider market. It can apply to what ever business you are creating. Whether you are building a website/blog and focusing on an affiliation or selling your own product online, the process is the same. You look at a specific client group and focus on their needs.

An example of this is;

Your business could be built around health and fitness for the family. If you are creating a blog this is a great niche but is still really wide.

Think about who you want to engage with. Who do you want to promote or sell to?

Exercise for moms is very different to exercise for children.

If you focus on children you could then think about obesity in children and could incorporate diet and/or exercise. This is specific and connects with a defined target group.

The benefits of niche marketing – Why you don’t end up missing out

Competition is lower

There will be fewer companies doing the same as you. If you’re a small business or just starting out, competing with the big boys is impossible. You could easily get lost in a big old business sea and end up at the bottom. They are going to have more money and man power to throw at advertising, campaigning, production etc. they can throw their net wide. By concentrating on your niche you can focus on areas where there is competition; enough for it to be profitable, but not so much that you will get lost. You can be more unique which brings me to the next point

You can get to know your target audience – Make an emotional connection

By directing your attention only to your niche, you will be able get to know the needs of your target audience. You can focus on what makes them tick. What do they need?

Once I have my niche I brainstorm to begin understanding my target audience (see the diagram below). It’s quick and easy but really effective.

I just grab a pen and paper and off I go.

Pinpointing my target audience helps me keep a clear focus when creating blog content

Showing that you understand their needs and having this as your priority you will build trust and form emotional connections. You can focus on having quality engagement with you audience and build a relationship with them.

As you grow you will then build brand loyalty. Visitors to your site, or customers for your product will keep returning. They will want to come back and may then recommend you and hey, a chain reaction has started! It’s up to you then to keep the connection going.

You can keep a clear focus – it’s too easy to get side tracked

You may be nothing like me but I’m one of those people that can’t help getting distracted. I could be going along a perfectly good path and everything is going great then something interesting happens and I’ve veered off, taken a side road and I’m onto something totally different. This is great for creativity, I love it when it happens and it helps to keep everything fresh and alive, but it can be a bit of a disaster when building your business. You need to keep an eye on your objectives and not get lost.

To keep my objectives clear I use the template here. It’s simple and quick to do. I’m up for anything that’s effective and will save me time.

Having a defined niche will pull you back and help keep you on the right track. Make sure you don’t lose your creativity but use it in the right way.

I keep a “Great ideas for another day” notebook. In it I jot down all the ideas I have that are not relevant to what I’m doing.

By doing this I know I’m going to have them for another project or niche and can put them out of my head knowing they’re not lost.

Becoming an expert is so much easier

By not spreading yourself too thinly you will give yourself time to build your knowledge and become an expert rather than a jack of all trades. You can become the go to place for your audience. Make yourself the first stop when they want to know about that subject or product. Give your followers the quality and depth they can’t get anywhere else. You will become more visible in the group that you are in, better to be a big fish in a small pond. It has it’s advantages!

Marketing is targeted

By having a smaller niche you will be able to identify the type of marketing which is most effective within that group and focus your efforts their. You will have to spend less time ploughing through data to understand what your audience is looking for. Your research will be less complicated and more time efficient.

A wide niche on the other hand, will have to resort to mass marketing which takes many man-hours and at the end stands a greater chance of being ignored.

Targeting your marketing ensures you are reaching the right people who will already have an interest in what you are saying and the likely-hood of this getting a response is much higher. This then equates to, less output for a higher return.

Higher profits

People are far more likely to pay more for services or products if they are buying from an expert. In the same vein they are more likely to take advice and act on recommendations if the person is an expert. It goes without saying then that building your reputation, through your knowledge, in that niche will lead to higher profits. Here again recommendations come into play. If people trust that you know what you are doing they are more likely to pass the word on to others within that niche.

Keeping an eye on the competition

You are definitely going to have to keep an eye on your competitors if you aim to stay ahead of the game.

• Take a look at their websites.
  
• What advertising campaigns do they have going on?
  
• Who exactly are they targeting?
  
• Are they offering the same as you. If so what makes you different?
  

Trying to watch a whole market area would be massively time-consuming for one person or a small business. You could end up spending all of your time trying to keep ahead or lose touch completely.

By refining your niche there are fewer places to look. You can make it manageable and have enough time to devote to the rest of your business.

You can always add another niche when you’re ready

By focusing on one niche initially you will get a feel for other ideas your audience may be interested in.

Diversifying could give you the opportunity to create a second niche.

You will already have an engaged group to start with and can expand on these and draw in new visitors/ customers.

The process is the same as creating the first niche so make sure you have the time and capability to do it .

If you have then go for it! it’s a great way to accelerate your business and develop what you have already put so much time into building.

Hopefully this will have given you some idea of how focusing on niche marketing will help you gain rather than lose out. At the end of the day you are going to free up time and if you have chosen a niche that you enjoy you will be able to devote more hours to doing what you love, and less on the parts of the business you find less attractive.

If you are interested in starting your own business but not sure what to do next visit my post on the Wealthy affiliateprogram.

I highly recommend this not because I am an affiliate, which I am, but because it gave me all the tools and amazing training I needed when starting out which I still use every day to grow my business and achieve the lifestyle I want.

I would love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments. Please feel free to drop me a line in the comments box and I will be sure to get back to you.

Good luck to you all with your endeavors!

Su

This blog today is for all those moms out there with a creative side just waiting to be unleashed.

Merch by Amazon is a great opportunity for anyone that wants to start an online business with no risk involved. It’s a way for you to make money selling t shirts on line which you have designed.

As an artist and a keen believer in creating multiple passive incomes, my post today is close to my heart.

I’m always looking for ways to earn from my art without becoming bogged down with manufacturing and shipping.

I love to create, then pass the rest over!

Well that’s not strictly true of course. Any business is going to take dedication and a will to learn. You will have to invest your time and energy into making it happen. This involves more than just creating the designs and hoping that they sell, but not having to worry about the logistics of sourcing materials, manufacturers and then shipping is a massive bonus for us creative types!

For some time I have been looking at print on demand sites for t shirts and other merchandise as a way to get my designs out there, and there are loads of them. Some are better than others but this really does have so much going for it and looks like being huge.

What is Merch by Amazon

Merch by Amazon is a print on demand service. At the moment it is solely for t shirts but this may change in the future.

The process is pretty straight forward. You simply create your design, choose the colours and type of t shirt upload it and amazon does the rest. They produce it, deal with the sales, ship it and create a product page.

You are going to have to do some market research make sure you are targeting the right audience to see what is trending and selling but this is easily learned.

There is an enormous amount of good information on the internet giving you tutorials and advice how to do this.

Cost

There are no costs involved in starting. Amazon take there cut once the t shirts are sold. This makes it great for those who want to start their own business but don’t have any capital to get them off the starting block.

You will receive a royalty on every one of your t shirts sold. You decide on a list price amazon takes out its fees and costs, you end up with about 35% of the sale price. This is a much better return than other Print on demand services doing the same thing for example:

TeePublic average about 20%

Redbubble average about 17%.

What makes it so special?

Amazon already has a customer base of millions, for many it is the first port of call when shopping or searching for a product. Because of this you don’t have to worry about marketing, however, I personally would not leave the marketing of your product solely on the fact that you are on Amazon.

Creating your own website, blog, Facebook page etc is going to make you so much more visible.

Merch by Amazon is not exclusive. This means that you are not limited to sell you design solely on there sight.

If you want to sell it else where you are perfectly at liberty to do it.

This gives you freedom to sell on other platforms and reach a wider audience and therefore create more sales.

Do I have to be a great graphic designer?

Amazingly the answer is no.

You will need to be fairly good at Photoshop but don’t let this hold you back! There are loads of tutorials on you tube that you can study. You will be able get pretty good quickly if you work at it.

If you don’t have or can’t afford Photoshop no problem. There is GIMP which will work equally well and is free to download. In the past I have used Photoshop but don’t have it at the moment so am finding my way around GIMP and it’s fine for what you will need.

Many of the best-selling t shirts are text based so you don’t need to be an artist. Take a look and see what’s selling Use these ideas BUT DEFINATELY DON’T COPY! It’s just not worth it.

They have a strict copyright policy and will close your account and you will lose your royalties if you don’t follow it.

If you are prepared to outlay some cash you can also consider outsourcing by paying for someone to design for you.

This does not have to be expensive and you can get t shirts designed for under $10.

Again here you will have to check out and make sure they have not just copied another design but once you have sorted a reliable source this could save you a massive amount of time.

Tools

Downloadable t shirt templates are available making it simple to position and size your design. This gives you the change to preview your design and make the changes you need to make your work pow!

The GIMP download I have looked at is easy and clear to follow. The reference guide shows the process of how to preview, adjust and export your image in 3 easy steps.

By using the template you don’t have to worry about correct resolution as it is saved at 300 dpi. When you export it, it will be saved as a PNG ready for you to upload to Merch by Amazon.

Do I have to have a website?

Again the answer to this is no. If you just want to design and rely on the Amazon search engine to generate you sales that’s fine. You will be able to create stores for your products and can choose a store per item or a store for all of your products. It’s totally up to you.

However, if you really want to build your brand and a long term passive income, I would recommend creating a website/blog. If you are new to this and want to learn how to do it have a look at WealthyAffiliate. I personally can’t recommend it enough. I find it the best way to grow and develop my own online business. You can join for free and build 2 free websites using the siterubix host.

Social media is also a good idea to promote your products. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. All of these will give you the chance to get the word out about your product.

Draw backs

There are a few but nothing major

Invitation only

The first is that you cannot sign up and get going immediately. It may take anything from a few weeks to a few months for you application to be accepted. Once you have received your invite you have 120 days to get your designs on there before they cancel your account.

The reason for this is the massive demand from content creators since this was launched. So the best advice I can give is get you application off asap who knows how long it will be before your invite arrives.

Competition

The fact that there are loads of buyers on amazon is a good thing however this also means there are loads of sellers, not so good. There are going to be a lot of sellers in the busy niches. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to make decent money, it just makes it difficult to make big money.

Copycats

Although Merch by Amazon is totally against this, it doesn’t mean that some unscrupulous people out there will not try to do it. You will need to keep your eyes open and if someone steals your art work report it using the copyright infringement form.

Where do I go from here?

First step is to apply, then while you are waiting:

• Make decisions on

  What your target audience will be.

  What will your designs be based on and will look like…. e.g. just text, quotes, just image, text and image etc.

  Are you basing your designs on what is the hottest sellers are? Find out what these are and how you will keep up with these.

  Get good at Photoshop/GIMP

• Create your designs. Merch by Amazon works in tiers: 
  • 10
  • 25
  • 100
  • 500
  • Pro (by invitation)

This means initially you will have 10 design slots to fill.

These are the hardest to sell, take heart and don’t give up.

If you really want to tier up quickly you could buy them yourself or create custom designs for friends or family

Use twitter to see what’s trending, just type in t shirts and see what’s going on. You are not looking for designs here just things that are trending that you can base your designs on.

Use your Facebook and twitter to put your product out and let people see what you’re doing.

Once your first 10 are sold you may still have to wait to be tiered up. The thing to remember is, the higher the tier you are and the more designs you have and the more you will sell, so keep going.
Sign up to other POD sites

See what is selling well by testing your designs on other sites

Some worth looking at are

TeePublic

Redbubble

Teespring

So that brings me to the end of this review. Hope this as been helpful. Keep and eye out as I will be updating as I progress through this myself and will post on my progress as soon as my invitation arrives.

If you are already selling on Merch by Amazon I would love to hear how it’s all going. If you decide to give it a go, good luck and happy designing let me know how it works for you, it would be great to hear from you.

 

 

Fear can be a sneaky little thing. It can creep up on you without you even knowing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about appropriate fear.

We definitely need this. I wouldn’t be without it. It’s a safeguard for our survival and serves us well. It stops us making rash decisions. It makes us stop, think, evaluate and focus. It’s a protective mechanism. We are all pre-programmed with it and at times it makes us do things we never thought possible.

There are well catalogued events where mothers have lifted cars off trapped children or people have felt no pain when they’ve been injured in the middle of disaster. On the other hand there is paralyzing fear stopping any action at all, but these are not what I am talking about.

The fear I am talking about is the one that stops you reaching your potential or doing things you would love to do. The one that holds you back and makes you believe you can’t reach higher.

The worst thing is sometimes we don’t even realise it’s fear. We rationalise, make excuses, call it something else or listen and get infected from the fears of others and paralyze ourselves.

“So many of us choose our paths in life out of fear disguised as practicality” Jim Carey

Lets face it no-one likes to admit they have fear, it’s become a sort of taboo, but recognising it is the first step to conquering it.

Today I’m up for a little conquering! How about you?

Who’s in the driving seat

 

 

Here are some ways you can spot if fear has crept in and is slyly navigating your journey.

1. Avoiding decisions

Those decisions you know you need to make just sit there in the back ground waiting for another day. Worse still everyone else makes the decisions and you go along because, what will happen if you rock the boat?

2. Always seeing the worst

You mind automatically goes to the worse case scenario.

If I give my opinions everyone will think I’m a fool?

If I show people my designs everyone will think I have no talent?

I really want to write a blog, but no-one will ever want to read it.

I saw a great job but I could never get it!

Everyone just wants to take advantage of you.

Is “it will never work” your mantra? If so how will you ever get off the starting block?

 

 

3. Reacting not responding

A reaction is instant, it’s a survival strategy driven by the subconscious and at times is based on fear. It doesn’t give you time to think things through and limits your options.

If I don’t just react how will everything get done?

That’s where fear is getting the upper hand again. You may end up running round like a headless chicken. Jumping from one task to the next, blindly following instructions or fearing that you will lose an opportunity if you don’t just act.

Responding is a much better option. Responding is giving your self breathing space allowing just a second (or longer if you need it) to get your thoughts together.
The two may look the same outwardly but feel very different.

4. Staying in the comfort zone

Staying in your comfort zone is great! I love my comfort zone. You can find your harmony and equilibrium and if you’re happy there that’s fantastic. You can make changes from in there, it’s a safe place, where you are at your most confident. The problem comes when you can’t achieve what you want from in there.

Stepping out means going into the unknown. Doing things you may not have done before and sometimes taking a risk. Facing up to the idea that you may fail, but how will you ever know without trying?

Are you choosing to stay in there or is fear stopping you stepping out?

5. Losing that great gut instinct

The problem is you just can’t hear it if fear has taken over the reigns. You are driven by what every one else is telling you. You forget to trust yourself, and that little voice gets hushed in the commotion of everything else that’s going on.

A lot of research has gone into intuition and many researchers claim that it is actually a material process.

David Myers, PhD claims that the right side of your brain continues processing what is going on around you subconsciously, while the left side continues going about it daily business. At the same time your body is reacting to the messages sent but is unaware of this happening.

Other research put’s it down to dopamine neurons tracking what is going on around you and alerting you to the small patterns happening everywhere that are not consciously aware of.

What ever it is, it is undeniable we all have gut instincts. How many times have you thought,

yep, I knew that was going to happen or

I had a feeling it was going to work.

Now I’m not saying that we should all rush off and be led by our gut in every situation. That would be a total disaster, but listening to it then using rational thought alongside it can be eye-opening.

 

6. Settling not striving

Being settled and settling for something. In my world are two totally separate things. Being settled is a wonderful feeling but settling for something now that’s a whole different ball game. Settling can be selling yourself short. Are you going to look back later and say yes that was great or will you know that you could have done more and been happier.
Settling is accepting what you have when actually there is so much more that you want.

So ask your self am I settled or am I settling. If you’re settling look deeper. If fear is the culprit for holding you back, recognise it. You will be a step closer to moving on to bigger and better things.

7. Saying yes when you mean no

Is your knee-jerk reaction always yes? Are you saying yes all the time but really in your head screaming no.

You may want to look again and consider is yes always the best response.
Yes can be great if you’re helping out a friend who needs it, even though it’s not what you would be choosing to do. There may come a time when you hope they would do the same for you.

Maybe you are reading that same bedtime story for the 600th time! In twenty years you are going to look back with a smile and have the best feeling ever about it.

BUT then there are the other reasons………

• Fear of being rejected.
• Fear of being unpopular
• Fear of confrontation.
• Fear of losing opportunities or missing out.

The F word has wriggled in again making you uncomfortable. Pushing you to take a path that may not be the best one for you.

Who knows maybe everyone thought you we’re saying yes because you really wanted to do it. Maybe you would gain respect and go up every ones estimations by saying no sometimes. Maybe new opportunities will arise. Maybe some will walk away…. but that may not be a bad thing either.

9 Being a control freak

This doesn’t apply to me! I just know what I want.

You may well be right, but just have a look at some pointers of what a control freak is and then make up your own mind.

• Micro management of people and situations to fit their expectations
• Don’t believe in imperfection – no-one else should either
• Always correcting people and refusal to admit when they are wrong
• Always have to have the last word and win every argument
• Constantly judging and criticising others
• Trying to dominate other peoples plans
• Fear mongering. Giving the worst case scenario to try to get others to do it their way.
• Being vague is not good enough!
• Intervene on the behalf of others
• Claim they know what’s best and try to manipulate people or situations to achieve it
• Change who they are or what they believe for acceptance. Have difficulty in just being themselves.

The crazy thing is being a control freak may well be because of fear.

Letting go of these traits may leave you feeling vulnerable or at the mercy of others. You may have to face the unknown or trust other peoples judgments and what if it all goes wrong.
Being a control freak is really stressful! Expectations are massive and sometimes unrealistic, leading to disappointment and alienation of those around you.

The fear of not being in control of every tiny thing, and giving someone else freedom may lead to disaster ( or so you think) but there again it may not. Are the fears you have really grounded. It can’t do any harm asking.

 

Do of these ring true?

I’ve got to be honest most of them hit me regularly.

That’s o.k though by recognising fear for what it is, you can decide, is real or am I imagining it to be worse than it is? Treat it as a friend. It’s a trigger to let you know something may be wrong, and that’s all. By dealing with it you can then improve your situation, move on and grow.

If you would like to leave any comments it would be great to hear them. Please feel free to leave them in the box below.

 

There are so many reasons to blog and the most important one is….. it’s fun!

Moms are blogging because they can! So any of you moms out there thinking of giving it a go but are still holding back because you think you can’t do it here’s some reasons to give it a go

Just for fun

It’s a great hobby

It’s a fabulous hobby. No mess, easy to do and fit around the kids, it’s creative, you can do it from where ever you are, it can be cheap and even free. You don’t even have to be fantastic at writing. Communicating is the key. Be yourself and share with the world.

Share your Passions

What do you love?

If you love it there are sure to be others loving the same thing. It really doesn’t matter what it is.

From knitting to netball…cooking to crafting…fashion to fish keeping.

There is no need to be an expert or have a degree. Loving what you do is enough. Learn along the way and just share what you have learned. Most bloggers out there just started because they wanted too.

Life’s a journey

Create your own personal online journal.

Blog about life. Document and track your journey. Record the places you’ve been and experiences you’ve had. It will be kept forever. It can’t be lost, stolen or destroyed and others can enjoy the journey alongside you as you grow.

Multi talented, multi tasking moms – Share how you make it all work

Moms have so many talents and are amazing problem solvers, multitasking becomes a way of life.

I remember the tea time ritual of cooking the meal while helping with homework and getting lunches ready for the next day.

What you have learned to make life run smoothly and could be just what someone else is searching for.

You could let people know about the best nappies you have found, tips to help you get your baby to sleep at night, healthy meal options, how to stretch the budget and get the best from it, best holiday locations you have found….the list is endless

All those little tricks you learned to save time, money and make your life better are your gems of wisdom.

Be unique, everyone has their own take on things. That’s what makes you special.

Sharing what you have learned can help others. What better feeling is there than just helping for free, no strings attached just because you want to.

Your followers really do appreciate it. .

Make connections

It’s a great way to make connections.

Believe it or not but the blogging community is really supportive and encouraging. Your followers will want to keep checking back to see what you’re saying or what’s happening.

You will meet new people on line either through email or social media that have the same interests as you. The more you blog the more followers you will get and the more people you will engage with.

You were made to make a difference – Motivational moms rock!

Moms are good at motivating. You do it all the time with your family so why stop there. Your words can inspire others. You’re putting time, effort and thought into your blog and your visitors can read it for free. You are inspirational go on share it just see what happens.

Give and grow

The more you blog the better you become. You will find:

• Your writing skills improve. It’s inevitable you are communicating your thoughts and will have to think about how you want to get your message across. It just happens without you even noticing over time.
• Your thinking becomes clearer. You begin to evaluate what’s happening around you and think deeper.
• You live more intentionally. Instead of just doing, you begin to think why and the impact things will have on you and those around you and even the world! Then you blog some more.
• You will become more confident. Putting yourself out there takes guts but is so worth it. Getting brave opens doors.

Talking money

Promote yourself

If you already have your own business small or large you can build a network. Blogging helps you chat in the same way as you would with friends. It’s easy to share the love of what you are doing with people with the same interests. Being helpful and building a trust can expand your business. Being professional does not have to be dry.

Build a portfolio

Build a great portfolio to showcase your work and connect with a wider audience. Show your best pieces of work and let everyone know how good you are. If you’re a writer upload your latest pieces if your a photographer upload your images. Whether you are a professional or amateur blogging can get you seen in a more relaxed atmosphere. Enjoy it and engage, the whole world is waiting for you.

Sell your products

If you have something to sell, blog about it. Blogging lets you talk about your product. It’s much more than just trying to sell. It’s educating your audience about what you are selling

Why is it special?
Why is it unique?
Why should they be interested in it?
What can it do for them?
How do you make it?
Show how your product works or looks or can benefit them.

You have the opportunity to correspond with them. Ask for feed back. Ask for comments.Ask for questions.

Let your visitors know how much you believe in what you are doing.

Whether you are making homemade greeting cards from the desk in your spare room or building custom-made bikes in the garage it doesn’t matter. If you want to sell them blogging can definitely help you get the word out .

Make some money

No-one can guarantee that blogging will make you money but there are definitely ways to do it. Many people blog to make anything from a little extra pocket money, to a full time passive income.

Affiliate marketing is when you promote other peoples products and get a commission for doing it.

If this is something that sounds appealing you will need to gain skills and learn how it all works. There are many programs out there that make massive claims on how they will help you build a business and make money online. Some are great and can be trusted, others are scams. It can be difficult to differentiate between the two and you can end up being bitten quite badly and not even realize until it’s too late.

The program that I recommend and also use myself is Wealthy Affiliate. As an affiliate I receive a commission from anyone who uses my links to become a member. This is not however the reason I recommend it.

I recommend it because I use it and find it to be the best program available. It benefits anyone from total newbie to experts with already successful online businesses.

And so…..

Blogging can be great for so many reasons, these are just a few. Whether it’s just for fun, to grow your business or to make money, what is stopping you?

If it’s fear don’t let it hold you back you may be missing out on something you will love. Remember you are awesome let the world know.

If you have anymore fantastic reasons to blog I would love to hear them. Please feel free to leave any comments in the box below.

 

 

 

 

 

To have success with your blog or website you are going to need traffic. We all love traffic .

Connecting with your visitors is the most important focus of your site. But how can you connect with your target audience if you can’t get them there to start with? Finding out how to SEO a website is crucial and this is why Jaaxy is so powerful. It gives you the tools to delve into your rankings and those of your competitors and see what is really working.

Keywords, these will help you identify what your audience is searching for.

Jaaxy is one of the worlds most advanced keyword search tools and can dig into the billions of key words out there to find you the most profitable ones to maximize your site and save you valuable time by using it’s automated data collection processes.

What makes Jaaxy so special is that is has been created by affiliate marketers (Kyle and Carson) for affiliate marketers. They totally understand your needs as they are, the same as theirs.

Kyle and Carson (also founders of Wealthy Affiliate) continue to use the Jaaxy tool for the growth of their own websites. This is a great recommendation for me, if the founders are some of the top experts in there field, and are using the very same tool it’s got to be a good sign.
Jaaxy also has a wealth of other excellent tools to help you get ahead of the game but I will get into all of this later in more detail

Overview and summery

Owners Kyle and Carson

Who is it suitable for If you want to attract high traffic to your blog or website then this is for you.

Website URL https://www.Jaaxy.com/

Training Very good 4.8/5

Support Good 4.5/5

Research tools Excellent 5/5

Price Free trial Pro $49m Enterprise $99m

Overall rating highly recommend this4.8/5

Who is Jaaxy for?

Anyone that wants to draw traffic to their sight from novice to newbie. If you want to achieve high ranking, understand how your competition are achieving their rankings and build a successful online business Jaaxy is a goer for you.

Product overview

Jaaxy is all about saving you time and providing you with the best tools out there to achieve high rankings in Google Bing and Yahoo. It quickly searches these engines to give up to date data and information. It will help you to do anything from finding a profitable niche for a new site to optimizing your campaign for the best results.

Time is money as they say and if there’s a way to speed up the hands on processes and still achieve amazing results I’m up for it.

Jaaxy helps:

• Manage your keywords and source the most powerful keywords within your niche
• Find new and profitable niche ideas
• Analyse your SEO and assess your competition
• Track your ranking and see what is proving successful or not in your campaigns
• Find available domains quickly and easily

Tools and training

The keyword tool

Keyword research is essential when creating any content for your site and millions of new keywords are searched every day. Sounds daunting? How do you sort through the massive amount of data out there to get to those illusive words and phrases that will maximize your site and have low competition!

Finding the most profitable keywords which are relevant and low in competition can be time-consuming and without the right tool hit-and-miss.

How Jaaxy makes it work for you.

Here you can see how easy the program is to navigate. This is an example of the screen you will see on the initial Free trial using the keyword search tab

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The keyword Tab

This will give you the most relevant results for the keyword you have typed in. The columns can be organized to your preference.

Starting with a broad term is fine. You can then refine your search and dig deeper to extend your research and make your key words more relevant to your niche.

 

What the columns mean

• AVG – The average monthly number of searches for the keyword
• Traffic – Monthly traffic you can expect if your site becomes ranked on the first page of the search engine.
• QSR (Quoted Search Results) – Competing pages for that keyword or phrase using that exact term. The lower the score the better. Ideally under 300 is good but the lower the better.
• KQI (Keyword Quality Indicator) – Key word quality indicator. This lets you know if you keyword/phrase is going to be good or not in terms of SEO Green – great, yellow – good, Red – poor
• SEO (Search Engine optimization) – This tells you how easily your optimized page will rank. The range is between1-100 and the higher the better. 80 is good to aim for.
• Domains – Gives you the domains available for that exact term. On pro, you need to click and search independently. On Enterprise, they show automatically. This is great if you are starting a new website or looking for a new niche. Combining this and the keyword research will give you some great ideas on things you may not even have considered
• Related – allows you to dig deeper and come up with alternatives to you keyword
• Brainstorm – Lists what is currently trending

If you are on free or pro you will need to click get QSR for the QSR, KQR and results individually. On Enterprise the results are generated automatically speeding things up even further.

More tools…….

Alphabet Soup

This is a great program. The process can be done manually without Jaaxy but takes an absolute age when there are so many other things you could be doing to grow your business. Jaaxy simplifies and massively speeds up the process.

Type in any term that you like. Jaaxy will then go through the alphabet and search every keyword preceding and proceeding your phrase and give you a list of more longtail keyword ideas.

Longtail keywords are three or four keyword phrases and are more specific. These helps your target audience find you more easily. Although searched less frequently they tend to convert better to sales as the visitor is already looking for what you are providing.

Depending on whether you are Free, pro or enterprise will determine the amount of keywords you receive.

Saving and manage your keyword lists

Any keywords can be saved by checking the small box to the left. A large box will then pop up allowing you to save as a new list or save to an existing list. From here you can export the list as a document to print off and use as you wish.

Search History

Allows you to go back and search previous results. Great if you have forgotten to hit the save button after a search or want to revisit an idea.

Search analysis

Breaks down and helps you analyze what your competition is up to and how your own site is doing. By typing in keywords you are using you can find out the top 10 sites also using it. You can break this down further to see exactly how they are achieving their rankings by looking at the data Jaaxy has gathered. It can also help in the initial keyword research stage in choosing which keywords are going to be most profitable for your content. Sound a little scary? Don’t worry Kyle does a really good video explaining it in more detail so if your new to the whole thing you’re going to be just fine.

 

Brainstorming

Gives you a list of what is trending currently. You can then add these and to your list and continue doing keyword research on them. It’s also great when you are exploring niche ideas to see what is hot at the moment or to see what is hot within the niche you are already focusing on. It can bring up topics you had no idea were out there but are doing really well which you may want to take advantage of in your campaigns.

Site Ranking

Just type in you keyword and ULR and within seconds (maybe a bit longer if you are on free or Pro) Jaaxy will let you know exactly where you are ranking on Google for that keyword if you are within the first 20 pages, if you are not within the first 400 sites it’s not really relevant at this point.

You want to aim to be under 50 as this will mean you are on the first few pages. But remember this will take a little time and your site will need to gain credibility before you get there.

A feature on site ranking that I find really useful is the up and down arrow situated under your score on the left-hand side. If you are searching that keyword more than once the arrow will indicate whether your ranking has gone up or down since you last checked.

This helps pinpoint which campaigns have been successful and which ones haven’t. Great for decisions on where you may want to focus in the future.

It will also research your competition. By typing in your key word and their ULR, Jaaxy will do an anonymous search and let you Know how they’re doing too.

Training

Easy to understand walk through videos give clear and precise instructions on how to use the platform to get the best out of it for your business. Just click on the help button and the videos are there for you to access. It couldn’t be easier.

Support

There is a contact button on the home page. Message them and they will usually get back to you within 24 hours.

 Pricing levels

The pricing structure is clear with no up sells. Choose the level which suits you best. The free trial gives a good understanding on how the program works. By having a go you will know for certain if Jaaxy is what you are looking for. There is no obligation to buy or upgrade it’s totally up to you.

Affiliate program -The icing on the cake

So the reason we are all here is to maximise our potential for earning from our sites. The affiliate program is just another way Jaaxy is giving you the opportunity to further this. It is really easy to access and you can become an affiliate even if you are using the Free trial to get started. If you purchased through this link I would be making a commission but the great thing is it would be at no additional cost to you.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Super easy to use and navigate
• Accurate data
• Affiliate program available
• Excellent range of tools
• Good for all levels from beginner to expert
• No up sells
• Free trial to see if it’s a fit for you

Cons

If you are just starting out it could be too pricey. You may want to look at the WealthyAffiliate program as an all round alternative

 

My conclusion

This is a really powerful program. It helps unlock your potential and gives you access to the most up to date data quickly and efficiently. The time saved using the features Jaaxy has to offer is invaluable. The range of tools available allow you to explore everything from keywords to new niches in an informed and easily navigable system.

I highly recommend this product. It has a definite thumbs up from me.

I hope this has been helpful to anyone trying to find out more, but I urge you not to take my word for it. Try it out for free yourself here.

It is free with no obligation. You do not provide your card details and only have to have an email. Watch the videos explore the tools, THEN make your own mind up.

If you decide to give it a go I would love to hear what you think. Please feel free to leave me any questions or comments. It’s always great to hear what you think.