Blogging

The Cost of Blogging | What’s Worth It And What’s Not

When you decided to write that first blog post, did you have a clue as to the cost of blogging? When I started blogging in 2015 I just started doing it. No plans for a business. I didn’t even know that was a possibility! I had a few minimal setup costs – hosting & theme. I also paid someone I trusted to help me set it up. But then I just started blogging.

And about that time, all these blogging PRODUCTS and COURSES started coming my way. Oh – just $10 a month here. A mere $99 for a course there. And before I knew it I was spending a lot on my blog and not making a penny.

I figured that was OK for the first year – I was “investing” in learning the blogging profession. But then came the end of 2017 – the end of my second year of blogging when I had finally STARTED to make some money. And I was more in the RED than I had been in year one!!!!!

So as I have entered 2018, I’ve had a few “come to Jesus” moments with myself. This can no longer be an expensive hobby. It needs to be a profitable business, which means I no longer spend more than I make. So I analyzed everything I spent money on in 2017. What gave me a great return on investment? What is a good product that I probably should have waited to purchase until I was making more money? What was a total waste of money for this time in my blogging journey?

This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience. If you purchase a product through my link, I may receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Totally Worth It

The best money I spent in 2017 was on the Pitch Perfect Pro Course by Jenny Melrose. In this course, you learn how to pitch brands for sponsored posts directly without going through the networks. And you don’t have to have a bunch of pageviews or a huge social media following. I took this course in August 2017 and here are my results so far:

I made the money back that I spent on this course in 3 months.
In the last quarter of 2017, I had 4 times the number of sponsored posts that I had in the previous 3 quarters.
I am getting 125% more for a sponsored posts than I was through the networks.

And I do NOT have a high number of pageviews or a huge social media following.

Now – don’t misunderstand me. This course is NOT magic. I worked really hard on this. But I followed Jenny’s method and it worked.

ConvertKit – It was a big leap to go from a free e-mail service to paying $29/month. I bit the bullet on this because I wanted to segment my list. Mostly I write about lifestyle topics for midlife women. But I also have this whole list of blogging friend that I write to from time to time. Two entirely different topics and audiences. And I also wanted to grow my list and the engagement I get with the people on those lists. ConvertKit helped me do that. I doubled the number on my list in 2017 and I am getting a 36-40% open rate. Here’s what I like about ConvertKit:

There are a lot of different e-mail sign-up form and landing page templates – even pop-ups. I don’t have to buy another landing page or sign-up form service.
The forms are easy to implement on my site.
With their plugin, I can easily have different sign-up forms attached to different lead magnets that go with the various types of blog posts I write. For example, I have a form that is tied to my 5 Favorite Appetizers lead magnet on all my recipe posts.
I can easily segment my list so that when I am selling products I can strategically target who might be interested.
If I want to send a BUNCH of e-mails about something I’m selling, I can create an opt-out link so that people can opt-out of that promotion without unsubscribing from my list.

Can you get this from other programs? Probably. But ConvertKit is so user-friendly, has everything in one place and their customer service is excellent.

SiteGround – The person who set my blog up originally put me with SiteGround. I have only had my site down once for just a few minutes in over two years with SiteGround. Their customer service is superb!

Canva – I am TERRIBLE at creating graphics. But using Canva helps me make graphics that look good. They have lots free images, templates and fonts to use. And with their paid plan you can easily access your brand colors and resize your graphics with the click of a button.

Tailwind – I get a lot of my traffic from Pinterest and I credit Tailwind with their easy way to schedule pins for a lot of that. I fill up my queue when I have time to pin and Tailwind does all the work for me.

Buffer – I am able to schedule to my 2 Facebook Pages, a Facebook Group, my personal page and my Twitter account all in one place. Buffer allows me to set it and forget it. It posts at the best time for my audience. And gives me great analytics so that I know what types of posts my audience engages with the most.

Fiverr – I tried this for the first time this year when I wanted a professional looking design for one of my lead magnets. It cost $15 to get a professional looking lead magnet and I had it in-hand in less than 24 hours. Fiverr offers a lot of other services besides graphic design. And there is no annual fee. You just pay by the job.

Content Sponsorship Contract from Businessese – This is a contract template that I use when working with brands, written by an attorney who knows what bloggers need in a contract. Totally worth it. I wouldn’t have a clue without it!

The Jury is Still Out

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers from Tasha at Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body. I took the free version of this course that came as a part of the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit a couple of years ago. Then I paid for the complete version. Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers is a good course. I learned many ways to incorporate affiliate marketing into my income strategy. But I am still not making that much from affiliate marketing. That could be for several reasons:

Affiliate Marketing is not the main focus of my strategy, so I don’t spend a lot of time on it.
As a Lifestyle Blogger, I don’t have a single focus. So if I promote one type of affiliate product, part of my audience will be interested. Another part will be not. Tasha has a much more targeted focus (DIY) than me.
Her list and pageviews are HUGE. Mine are not. Part of affiliate marketing is a numbers game.

Again, this is a VERY GOOD course. If you want to get into affiliate marketing, this is definitely the one to take. It just hasn’t yielded the ROI I was hoping for.

Wouldn’t Do It Again

In the area of photography, I have a LOT of room for improvement. So what did I do? Did I invest in a photography course? NO. I purchased a new lens for my camera and a high-end tripod. Never mind that I barely knew how to use the lens I already had. And that I couldn’t even set up the tripod by myself and had to ask my mechanical engineer husband to do it! I’ve used the new lens and tripod ONE time. Lesson: If you need to learn a new skill, don’t buy better equipment until you learn with what you have.

Product Launch Playbook by Ruth Soukup of Elite Blog Academy. I LOVE EBA and think all the products they put out are exceptional. This one is no exception. If you are ready to launch a product, Ruth will take you step by step with how to do it. The problem was that I bought it when I wasn’t ready to launch a product in a severe moment of FOMO. At the time, all the blogging world was abuzz with “you have to have your own product to make money”. And no doubt there is money to be made in having your own product. But does EVERYONE have to have a product to make money? No.

If I ever have an idea for a product that I want to launch, this will be a great resource for me. But I bought it at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons.

Pic Monkey – It used to be free and everyone loves it. I never quite got the hang of it and always used Canva. When I looked back over the year’s expenses, I couldn’t remember why I paid for it! So I obviously didn’t need it. Rule #1 in business: PAY ATTENTION to where the money is going.

Retweet Chores – If you take part in retweet threads where you can be retweeting 100+ tweets a day, this makes it easy. With a couple of clicks, this app does the work for you. And it’s only about $10 a month. But, I had way too many $10/month things going on and had no business adding another. I can do my own tweeting at night in front of the TV. But, I will say that Retweet Chores would be perfect for a VA who is handling several Twitter accounts.

So the bottom line for me:

Only pay for products that are totally worth it.
Get a handle on my finances so that I will have a profitable business in 2018. I am doing that through what I am learning in Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
Don’t buy ANYTHING that you don’t have the money for already – no more “you have to spend money to make money” for me.
And get over FOMO. Those FOMO purchases have never been a good investment in the long run.

Here’s are two great FREE resources:

8 Bad Blogging Habits and How to Break Them

New Bloggers Guide to Guest Posting

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How I Got a Year’s Worth of Blog Post Ideas in One Hour

Top 4 Things Successful Bloggers Do

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February 2, 2018 51 comments

Review of The Genius Blogger's Toolkit. Review of some of the resources and bonuses. Five questions to ask before you buy.

Blogging

A Review of The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit | Is It Worth It?

Have you heard about the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit from Ultimate Bundles?

It’s a digital package crammed full of brilliant tools to help you grow your blog, work smarter, increase your blogging business income.

(But for way less than you’d normally spend!)

The team at Ultimate Bundles has put together the best resources on ALL the topics that matter to bloggers, like mastering social media, monetization, creating and selling products, time management, and productivity, nurturing an email list, and so much more.

Here’s what you get:
24 eBooks
33 eCourses & audio files
5 printable packs

In total, the toolkit includes over $3,600 of blogging tips, strategies, tutorials and amazingly practical information and ideas. Plus you get free bonus offers worth $1250+, with 15 tools and services to help you run your blog. For 97% off the regular price!

This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience. If you purchase a product through my link, I may receive a small commission. I so appreciate every click-through and purchase! Every little bit helps to keep My Side of 50 up and running!

Review of The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit | Is It Worth It?

I purchased The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit in Fall 2016. And even though I have only taken advantage of a fraction of the resources, I’ve received way more than my money’s worth!

The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit has resources related to every area of blogging. So no matter what your focus is at the moment, the toolkit has a course, e-book or bonus for you.

Right now I am learning about Affiliate Marketing. These two resources were totally worth purchasing the toolkit for me:

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers: The Fundamentals by Tasha Agruso ($75.00)
Pinaffiliate Masterclass by Adeline Ganley ($97.00)

I didn’t know much about affiliate marketing and these two courses were SO GOOD! They taught me that affiliate marketing is so much more than adding a couple of affiliate links to your post. I learned about recommended affiliate networks and how to put together an affiliate marketing strategy that would truly increase my blogging income.

What do you need help with? I guarantee The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit has a course, e-book or bonus for you!

Other resources in the toolkit that I am excited to try are:

The Foundation Series by Kirsten Oliphant ($49.00) – I know Kirsten personally, subscribe to her newsletter and podcast and am part of her Facebook group. She is an expert in e-mail marketing and building your platform in a way that is authentic. The Foundation Series will help you build a strong backbone for your online platform. The training will take you step-by-step through your blog, email list, and your images so that all three work cohesively to attract your target audience and build a deeper connection with them.
The Knowtbook: In-Depth Notes for Online Business by Amy Lynn Andrews ($24.00) – I also subscribe to Amy Lynn Andrews weekly Useletter which is chock full of useful information each week. If you could pick Amy Lynn’s brain, you would get her Knowtbook. It is literally everything she has learned about blogging and online business for the last 13 years. And the great thing is, this digital product is always updated as Amy Lynn learns more!
Productivity Guide for Bloggers by Ruth Soukup ($97.00) – From the founder of Elite Blog Academy, Ruth Soukup, you’ll learn how to set your priorities and manage your time in a way that helps you meet your blogging goals in the most efficient way. I am a graduate of EBA and can tell you that everything Ruth put’s out is top notch and will help you take your blog to the next level!

In addition to the fabulous e-books & courses, The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit features over $1,200 in bonuses that are wonderful blogging tools you get to try! I tried the 2 free months of ConvertKit, which for me turned out to be an excellent resource. Some of the other bonuses that I hear great things about from my blogging friends are:

The Hungry JPEG – 2 Free exclusive fonts ($30 value)
Board Booster – 3000 Pins (value $30) – going to try this next!
Businessese – Free Privacy Policy ($40 value) – Did you know that if you collect e-mail addresses, you need a privacy policy?
MyThemeShop – any theme or plugin for $19 + all products come with one year of premium support and updates ($50 value)

The courses, e-books and bonuses that I mentioned are just a fraction of what is included in The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit. I know, it sounds too good to be true, but I promise it’s not. Ultimate Bundles has been around a long time and creating these packages is really their thing (they’ve sold over 180,000 of them on all sorts of topics), so you can trust this is the real deal.

Even better, they’re all about making sure you LOVE this toolkit. There’s a full 30-day happiness guarantee, so there’s really no risk in trying it out.

So, should you purchase The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit? It depends. Are you:

A blogger who is interested in “upping your game” and learning all you can about blogging and online business?
A blogger who wants to take the courses created by bloggers and online business people who get results?
A blogger who wants to continue your blogging education, but want to do it in the most economical way?

Then, yes, purchase the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit.

Or maybe you should think twice before purchasing The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit:

Do you already have several courses sitting on your hard drive or in your inbox that you haven’t even opened yet? (I know you. I’ve been you).
Do you have the time to dig into any new courses and take full advantage of the learning opportunities available? If not, there’s no shame in that. Part of great time management is knowing when your plate is too full. Don’t get caught up in FOMO, just because the price is good. Because even in though The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit is an excellent deal, paying any amount for something you don’t use is wasted money.

The most important detail, though, is that this toolkit is available for just two days. Monday, April 3 and Tuesday, April 4. After Tuesday night, April 4th, the sale ends and you’d have to buy all of these products individually.

I’d hate for you to miss out, so click here to learn more or buy the bundle.

Remember it’s even backed by a full money-back happiness guarantee, so you can make sure it’s right for you. Get what you need to grow your blog. Learn more or get your bundle here.

The 48-hour flash sale is over! Want to know when the next Genius Blogger’s Toolkit launches? Subscribe to Blogger Smarter here! We’ll send you an e-mail with all the details!

March 28, 2017 29 comments

Blogging

Get A Year’s Worth of Blog Post Ideas In an Hour by Defining Your Ideal Reader

Like a lot of us who start blogging, I started my blog by writing about things that were of interest to me. How about you? There is nothing wrong with that, especially if you use your blog as a type of journal or to communicate with friends and family. But at some point, if you want your blog to be more than just a hobby, you need decide who your audience is and write posts that are interesting/helpful/inspiring to them. That starts with asking yourself “Who is my ideal reader?”

I recently went through a thorough process to define who my ideal reader is as a part of Elite Blog Academy 3.0. And through that process, I was able to come up with a year’s worth of blog post ideas in an hour!

For a blog that's more than a hobby, start with the question-Who is my ideal reader? Click To Tweet

How I Got A Year’s Worth Of Blog Post Ideas by Defining My Ideal Reader

My Side of 50 is a lifestyle blog for midlife women. The topics I blog about are family, travel, health and wellness, entertainment, recipes and fashion. I knew that my ideal reader was someone just like me – a midlife woman. But I never went any deeper than that. But by doing the “Create Your Customer Avatar” assignment as part of EBA, I was able to dig deeper into who the actual person was that I was trying to connect with.

You’ve probably read posts that help you do that. They start with having you determine general things like your reader’s:

gender
age
marital status
children
income
occupation
hobbies
political views
what they do for fun

And that is certainly the place to start. Frankly, I never got beyond the first 4 things!

Defining my ideal reader enabled me to come up with a year's worth of blog posts ideas in an hour. Click To Tweet

But the EBA exercise asked some questions that helped me go much deeper in determining who my ideal reader is and what she cares about. As I took the time to do this, I was amazed at how many blog post ideas I came up with that would help me connect with my readers on a deeper level and have them want come back for more. Here are a few of those questions and the blog post ideas they generated:

Subscribe to Blogger Smarter & get weekly blogging tips and resources to help you blog SMARTER, not Harder.

What does your ideal reader do in her free time?

Read (book reviews)
Watch TV (What to watch on Netflix, Amazon Prime)
Travel (apps that make travel easy, reviews of places I’ve traveled)
Spend time with grandchildren (How to plan a multigenerational family vacation, gift guides for kids)

What is your ideal reader’s biggest source of pain? What keeps them up at night?

Missing loved ones who have passed away (coping with grief)
Who will take care of me when I’m old? (keeping track of important documents, what your kids need to know)
Health issues (medical tests you need to have)
Caring for aging parents (documents to have before your parents get sick, how to hire a caregiver)

What does your ideal reader value?

Good health (yoga and meditation, how to evaluate an exercise program)
Family relationships (making it work when your spouse retires, maintaining relationships with kids and grandkids who live far away)

By my count, that’s just 3 questions and 16 blog post ideas! By spending an hour going through each and every question of the EBA Create Your Custom Avatar exercise, I came up with 92 post ideas! And the ideas just keep on flowing!

Want to try Facebook Live? Get 30 Facebook Live Topics here.

Your answers will be different from mine because your blog and ideal reader are different. But the questions that will help you to get to know your ideal reader are the same. Take the time to dig in and find out who your ideal reader is. What her life is like. Her concerns. What brings her joy. This will not only help you come up with numerous blog posts ideas, but will also:

Keep you from that awful feeling of “What am I going to write about today?”
Help you write posts your ideal reader wants to read. Those posts that educate, inspire and help her solve a problem.
Help you write posts that CONNECT with your reader. You know, there is no shortage of information on the internet. I doubt there is a topic that you will write about that hasn’t been written about before. But what will keep your readers coming back is their connection with YOU. You are connecting with her, because you now “know” her and write to her in a way that makes her feel like “She gets me!”
Help you GROW your audience because you’ll be writing posts that resonate with your readers that they will want to share.

Have you taken the time to define your ideal reader? Here are two great resources:

How To Know Who You Are Writing To

Define You Niche – Who Is Your Dream Customer? This post is from Tammy and Jams and Scones and includes a free downloadable workbook that is a great tool to work through if you want to dig in and find out who your ideal reader is.

Taking the time to define and get to know my ideal reader is the best thing I have done for my blog this year! I wish I would have taken the time to do it sooner. How about you?

With all the blogging information “out there” it’s hard to know which direction to turn to grow your blog and your business. That’s how Blogger Smarter was born. Resources from reputable sources to help your blog SMARTER not HARDER. Subscribe to our weekly e-mail here.

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Top 4 Things Successful Bloggers Do | An Action Plan

The Truth About Elite Blog Academy | 6 Simple Tips To Help You Decide If It’s For You

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March 23, 2017 49 comments

Blogging

The Truth About Elite Blog Academy: 6 Simple Tips To Help You Decide If It’s For You

I enrolled in Elite Blog Academy 2.0 in February 2016 after blogging for 3 months. Like many of us, I found most of what I knew about blogging from various places on the internet – all very piecemeal.

And that was OK. It was free and I certainly wasn’t making any money.

But I longed for a book, a course or SOMETHING that would tell me how to start and grow a blog in a systemized, step-by-step way. It was then, by chance, that I saw a tweet about EBA from another blogger who I respected and when I checked it out, decided that this course was EXACTLY what I had been looking for.

The Truth About Elite Blog Academy: 6 Simple Tips To Help You Decide If It’s For You

Elite Blog Academy is for you if you are at the beginning of your blogging journey.

OR if you’ve been blogging for a while and know there are “holes” in your blogging education.

I began EBA 3 months after starting my blog. Their systemized approach takes you from the actual setting up of your blog through expanding your reach, monetizing and growing your business.

The course materials are excellent. They include a powerful combination of practical training videos, insightful handouts, purposeful assignments, and interactive live webinars, all designed to help you take your blog to the next level.

Elite Blog Academy is for you if you’ve only taken courses on certain aspects of blogging.

I am a course hoarder. I admit it. I used to get every new free or paid course that came my way that promised to help me “achieve blogging success”.

“Get A Million Pinterest Followers”. “Newsletter Strategies That Will Bring You $10K A Month”. “Bring Traffic To Your Blog With These 150 Tips”. You get the idea.

And while I did learn things from each of these courses, I found that I would get the course, implement a few tips and move on.

And, as you can guess, none of them really helped me because my blog wasn’t set up with a good foundation on which to build using these tips.

That’s where EBA came in. By working through the lessons, I built my blog on a solid foundation using tried and tested techniques that work.

Elite Blog Academy is for you if your blog is more than a hobby.

Elite Blog Academy is for you if your blog is more than a hobby. Click To Tweet

What are your goals for your blog?

Do you want it to provide an income?
Drive traffic to your business?
Establish you as an influencer in your field?

As an EBA student, you will learn how to set your blog up for success and techniques to help you achieve your goals.

But the best part about it is not just the information that it provides, but the fact that it will give you a comprehensive framework and a step-by-step plan of action for how to get the results you want.

Elite Blog Academy is for you if you are willing to do your “due-diligence” before buying a course.

How many e-mails, Facebook notifications, and tweets do you see a day advertising blogging courses?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are so many. ANYBODY can create and sell a course.

But how do you know if a course is worth it?

How do you know you will get the results that are promised?

When I am looking a course, I ask these things:

Who created it and what is their expertise? I look at their blog.
I read posts and other materials they created on the topic they are teaching.
I watch their videos to see if their teaching style meshes with my learning style.

Elite Blog Academy is for you if you are willing to take the time to work through some time-intensive lessons to get the results you want.

I’ll be honest – EBA is different from any course I have ever taken. It is COMPREHENSIVE. The lessons cover a lot of material.

There are assignments with each lesson that help you implement what you have been taught.

To get the full benefit of EBA, you have to be willing to take the time to complete the lessons. And it is time-intensive. But it is so worth it.

Elite Blog Academy is for you if you want a guarantee that you will get what you pay for.

EBA is so sure that their course will back produce measurable results, that it comes with a 100% money-back guarantee, which means you’ve literally got nothing to lose.

Elite Blog Academy was a game changer for me. I hope you’ll take the plunge! You won’t regret it!

Did you know that you can meet all your blogging goals and NOT spend 24/7 blogging? That’s called Blogger Smarter. Subscribe to Blogger Smarter and get weekly quick tips to help you blog smarter, not harder. You’ll also receive my 30 Easy Facebook Live Topics. Subscribe here.

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February 9, 2017 37 comments

Top 4 Things Successful Bloggers Do. Have a goal. Evaluate their progress. Know what to eliminate. Work toward their goal efficiently.

Blogging

Top 4 Things Successful Bloggers Do | An Action Plan

What is a successful blogger? Are you one? What separates successful bloggers from the rest of us?

December 2016 marked the end of one year of blogging for me. My blog, MySideof50.com, is a lifestyle blog for midlife women. I LOVE writing for it, promoting it, talking about it, learning how to do it better EVERY DAY.

But as anyone who has been in the “blogging biz” longer than a few months knows – there’s a lot more to blogging than writing. There is hosting, your platform, security, photography, graphic design and social media to tackle. There are conferences and courses and Facebook groups. There is backlinking and SEO and creating the PERFECT PIN. There is your newsletter and live video. It’s exhausting.

And as a new blogger, I TRIED each and every one of those things. That was certainly appropriate. But beyond the “trying them”, I never took the time to evaluate how any of these things were moving me toward my goals. What they actually became was one long TO DO LIST and was getting totally burned out.

Something had to change.

So at the end of the year:

I lined up some guest posters for my blog and took a few weeks off.
Turned my attention to the course Finish Big Start Strong from Sweet Tea LLC which was designed to help me analyze where I’d been and determine a clear course for 2017. (Sweet Tea LLC has been rebranded as With Wit and Wisdom. Although the Finish Big Start Strong course is no longer available, this is a great resource for blogging education.)
Read the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, which I highly recommend to everyone, including bloggers who are serial “I must do it all to succeed type folks”. By the way – I am the president of THAT club!

Subscribe to Blogger Smarter & get blogging tips and resources to help you blog SMARTER, not Harder.

Top 4 Things Succesful Bloggers Do

#1 Successful Bloggers Are Clear On Their Blogging Goals

When I began the MySideof50 blog, I was passionate about writing on topics of interest to mid-life women. Caring for aging parents, the empty nest, health & wellness, fashion and travel. And I am still passionate about those things. But I was just doing it for fun.

As I learned more about blogging and started actually paying for things that would support my blog, I became interested in monetization. So my goal for 2017 is to make enough income from my blog to cover my costs.

What do you want your blog to do?

Drive people to your brick and mortar business?
Get you clients for a service you offer?
Attract companies that will pay you for sponsored posts?
Give you visibility in a certain niche?
Support your reputation as an expert in your field?
Gain readers for your books?
Connect you with others who have your same interests?
Offer inspiration and hope to as many people as possible within a certain community?

The possibilities for your blog are endless. That’s why blogging is such a fun and creative endeavor. And you don’t have to set one goal and stay with it forever. As we grow and change in our lives, so do our blogs. And that is perfectly OK.

The point is to set a goal and do only those activities that support that goal.

Many of us start out without a goal or with one goal and change it later. That is OK. The important thing is to know what you are trying to accomplish with your blog NOW and focus on activities that will support that goal.

Successful Bloggers Action Step 1: Decide what you want your blog to do and set a goal.

#2 Successful Bloggers EVALUATE To See What Is Working

As part of Finish Big Start Strong, I looked at 3 things in Google Analytics to help me determine:

The Top Ten – In the last year, which 10 posts had the MOST page views.

The NOT Top Ten – Which 10 posts had the least page views.

Traffic – What were the top 5 sources of traffic to my blog? Facebook? Pinterest? Search engines? Other blogging sites? You get the idea.

My results were surprising. Some of the posts that I JUST LOVED, had the lowest number of page views. Some that I thought were just OK, received lots of views. But the numbers don’t lie.

This exercise showed me what my readers were interested in. So if I wanted to increase page views (which was important to me for my goal of monetizing), I needed to hone in on these interests and produce more content!

DISCLAIMER – Your goal may not be increased page views! And that is OK. I only give this as an example of what I was looking at and how I had to evaluate it going forward for MY blogging goals.

I also discovered that most of my traffic came from Facebook and Pinterest. That’s where my readers were. So I made the decision to focus my efforts on those two social media sites, learn all that I could about them and maximize my efforts there.

Now, this could have gone a totally different way, depending on my goals. I did not get a lot of traffic from Instagram, so I decided to leave that platform out of my strategy this year.

But if my goal was to get the attention of brands for sponsored posts, I may have looked at those same numbers and said, “Boy, I really need to up my Instagram game”.

So again – your plan is determined by your blogging goal.

Successful Bloggers Action Step #2: Look at Your Google Analytics

Write down:

1. Your 10 most popular posts
2. Your 10 least popular posts
3. Your 5 best sources that generate traffic

Evaluate this information, then make a plan based on what you need to focus on to meet your goals.

Want to try Facebook Live? Get 30 Facebook Live Topics here.

#3 Successful Bloggers Know What to Eliminate

Based on your evaluation, ELIMINATE those activities that AREN’T giving you LARGE GAINS toward meeting your goals.

I looked at where my traffic was coming from and eliminated anything that wasn’t in the top 10 traffic drivers to my site. That was hard.

I chose to eliminate submitting to some big sites in my niche that weren’t sending traffic my way. Even though they might give me “exposure”. In my experience “exposure” doesn’t always lead to page views or income.
I chose to drop a link party that I enjoyed co-hosting because it wasn’t driving traffic to my site.
I chose to quit signing up for every webinar and course that came my way and instead choose only those courses that would help me achieve my goals and enhance my learning in my areas of focus.

Successful Bloggers Action Step #3: Write down the things that you are doing now that are NOT moving you toward your goals.

That means even the things that you think “Oh, that doesn’t take much time.” Why? Because all those LITTLE things that “don’t take up too much time” add up.

#4 Successful Bloggers Work Toward Their Goals in the Most Efficient Way Possible.

Reaching our goals in the most efficient way possible means not always doing everything manually or doing everything yourself. Automate tasks that can be automated. And hire help for those tasks that can be delegated or aren’t in your wheelhouse.

Here’s how I am making the best use of my time so that I meet my goals in the most time efficient way:

Automate my Social Media using Buffer, Tailwind and Social Jukebox.
Switched from MailChimp to ConvertKit. In 2017, I added blogging tips to my categories of posts. Bloggers reading those are different from the MySideof50 audience. ConvertKit allows me to target specific people in my audience depending on the topic I am blogging about.
Hired a Virtual Assistant to create social media graphics and other time-consuming tasks. I stink at social media graphics. My VA is good at that. And because she is good at that, it takes her 15 minutes to do well what it takes me an hour to do poorly. So when you balk at paying someone an hourly rate to help you, remember that someone who knows what they are doing can do things in less time than you can. You’ll be surprised at how little hiring a VA can cost.

Successful Bloggers Action Step #4: Decide which blogging tasks you can automate or delegate.

Take a look at all your blogging tasks. Which ones don’t you enjoy? Which ones are the most time consuming? Which ones can you automate? Which ones can you delegate? Make a list and find tools and people to support your efforts.

You can have a blog that meets your blogging goals without doing “all the things”. You can have a blog that meets your goals and have a life. It’s called #BloggerSmarter.

Top 4 Things Successful Bloggers Do Video

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Facebook Live Made Easy For Bloggers

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February 3, 2017 61 comments

Blogging

Facebook Live Made Easy For Bloggers

Before Facebook Live, bloggers would just make a pre-recorded video and post it on their Facebook page. I remember the first time a blogger who I followed and admired posted a video of herself. She was sitting on her couch, looking down at her feet and I forget what she was talking about. It wasn’t very memorable. It was awful. But you know what? I LOVED IT! I DIDN’T CARE that it was awful. Why? Because I felt such a connection to her as a person, just because I saw her talk on video. And I was SOLD on the power of video and knew that I had to do it.

So… I did a few short videos and then Facebook Live came along and I haven’t turned back! I usually do a Facebook Live every week or two.

Facebook Live Made Easy For Bloggers

We hear all the time that LIVE video is the way to go. And at this season of Blogging and online marketing, it is.

Facebook Live: Your Reach

The My Side of 50 Facebook Page has 554 followers.

In the last couple of weeks, my blog posts have been shown to anywhere from 9 (yes that’s NINE) to 483 people. That 483 was rare. Most of the time Facebook shows my posts to under 100.

In the last 3 months, when I post a Facebook LIVE video, it is shown to a minimum of 300 people with the largest reach being 553.

So since Facebook likes their live video so much, they are eager to show it to more people and that means a larger reach for you!

Read how Facebook Live can expand your reach. Click To Tweet

But I find that many bloggers are afraid to get in front of the camera, don’t know what in the world they would have to say or both.

Facebook Live: How to Get Started

Keep in short. A Facebook Live does not to be lengthy unless at some point you branch out into teaching something or doing a demonstration that is longer.
Jot down few points that you want to make. Notice I said jot down a few points – not write a whole script. Facebook Live is not meant to be SCRIPTED. It is a conversation between you and your readers.
And speaking of your readers…if they have liked your FB page, they already like you and want to hear what you have to say. That’s why they liked your page.
I think of Facebook Live as a conversation and in turn a relationship builder with my readers. Not a performance. So whatever you do…it doesn’t have to be perfect. When you are having a conversation with a friend, you don’t do it with a script and you don’t worry about it being perfect.
And unless you are a super popular blogger with a million followers, you probably won’t have that many people watching you live at first anyway. They’ll watch it later when it comes up in your feed. So you don’t have to feel like you are on the network news when you are actually LIVE.
Do a practice run through with the video app on your camera. This will help you see where you get hung up or if you need to add/delete anything. Just do ONE. Don’t spend an hour practicing this. As effective as Facebook Live is, it can be a huge time suck if you get hung up on doing the perfect performance. And who needs one more time-consuming blogging task? Are you with me?

Read how you can use Facebook Live as a relationship builder with your audience. Click To Tweet

Facebook Live: What To Talk About

What you have coming up on the blog this week.
A little background about those posts or a story. For example, I wrote a post with a yummy cheeseball recipe. It’s close to Superbowl time so I talk about the Superbowl being in Houston this year, the Texans being in the playoffs and how great this would be to serve at a Superbowl Party. (Update: The Texans bit it in the playoffs. The big game is between the Patriots & Falcons.)
Or I could have told a story about how we devoured this same cheeseball at our house on Christmas Day and that I make it every year. The point is to give them a little something that helps them get to know you.
Talk about a giveaway you are doing. For those signing up for the My Side of 50 e-mail list, I have a giveaway that is a printable of 3 New Ways To Tie A Scarf. In my Live video, talked about how I only know 2 ways to tie a scarf and how handy this guide was to print out and tape to the back of their closet.
Give them a short tease on a couple of upcoming blog posts.
Tell them why they should subscribe to your newsletter and what subscribers get.
Show them something. If you have a DIY project, or a craft project or a dish you have made that will be on the blog, show it to them.

Don't know what to talk about on a FB Live? Get 30 Facebook Live Topics here. Click To Tweet

Get my 30 Facebook Live Topics Here

Facebook Live: The Technical Part

Facebook Live is not very technical. You can record from your Personal Page, Blog Page or Blog Group Page. I usually do it from my Blog Page and then share on my Personal Page and in my blog group afterward.

Start here. You can see that I went to the My Side of 50 Facebook Page and hit “Publish”.

Click on the button that says Live Video.

Fill in the topic of your Facebook Live. Use keywords.

You can hold your phone, turn the camera to face you and then hit the red button, it will give you a 3-2-1 countdown and you’re live.
Be sure to actually look into the camera on your phone so that your viewers will see you looking at them!

You can use a selfie stick. Holding your phone and using a selfie stick can get a little tiring if you are going long.
Set up using a desktop tripod. That’s what I do. I use an inexpensive one like this one. I just set it up, attach the phone and I’m good to go. If I was making this tripod purchase again, I would buy this one. It’s flexible and you can position your phone at different angles, like over a bowl or pot if you are doing a cooking demonstration.
If you want to improve your lighting, you can get an inexpensive ring light here. This one just attaches to your phone.
When you’re finished, hit the red button. At this point, you can edit your description.
Share in other places like your personal page.
Download to YouTube.

Facebook Live: Final Tips

Should you give your followers notice that you will be going live at a certain time? If you don’t want to the first time because you are just getting your feet wet, then give yourself a pass on the first one. Otherwise, I would announce it ahead of time – maybe the day before (if you are organized enough to know you are doing a Facebook Live the next day) and an hour or two before. If you know you will be doing your LIVE on a topic, then say so. “I’m doing a Facebook Live tomorrow at 1:00 on 5 entertaining hacks.”
When you start you LIVE, ask your visitors to let you know they are there. Ask them to say “Hi” in the comments or put in the comments where they are listening from.
Include a Call to Action in all your Facebook Lives – Subscribe, Read the Blog Post, Download the Opt-in or share this video.
Share. Share it to your personal or other Facebook pages you have. Download it to your YouTube channel.

Facebook Live is a great tool for reaching your audience. Don’t sweat it. Just do it. Remember…the point is CONNECTION and RELATIONSHIP. Not perfection.

You can see all of my perfectly “imperfect”Facebook Live videos here.

Get 30 Facebook Live Topics HERE.

See my video: Facebook Live Made Easy For Bloggers HERE.

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January 24, 2017 75 comments

Blogging

Love A Blog? Do This-Comment!

Love a Blog? Do This – Comment!

When you read blogs, you may notice that there is usually a section below every post that says “Comments”. Have you ever left a comment on a blog post? Before I started blogging, I rarely did.

Why leave a Blog comment?

To express an opinion
To share a similar view or experience
To strongly disagree
To start a conversation

You Can Reply to Other’s Comments

Did you know that you can also reply to other’s comments on a blog post? Commenting and replying to other’s comments are a great way to share experiences, opinions and connect with people out of your immediate circle. This has been one of the most fun and gratifying parts of participating in these online conversations for me.

What commenting does for a Blogger:

There aren’t many of us who are in the blogging business just to pontificate and throw a bunch of random information and opinions out there. We love to hear back from our readers! We want to connect with you and have a conversation with you. When you comment, most of us comment back!

Comment on the blog posts you read. Bloggers LOVE to connect with you! Click To Tweet

It helps us know what posts you are connecting with. For example, this post about my difficulty in getting an ultrasound after a questionable mammogram really touched a cord. I had SO MANY comments from women with similar experiences not only with mammograms, but other medical procedures as well. That tells me that I need to do further research into this topic and do more posts about it, as it is obviously a topic that touches a lot of my core readers.
It helps our analytics. Now – this is not the only reason or the prime reason, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t lay it all out for you. Most bloggers use a tool called Google Analytics that gives us all kinds of information on how our blog is doing. One thing that GA measures is how long a reader stays on a page on our blog. If you are commenting, you are staying on longer.
Potential advertisers look not only at how many followers we have, but also how ENGAGED our followers are. The number of comments we get is an indication of follower engagement.

So, there you have it. Have you ever commented on a blog post? Will you start now? Is there something that surprised you about why comments are so important to a blogger? Would love to talk about it with you!

You might also like these posts in the “Love a Blog? Do This!” series:

Love a Blog? Do This-Subscribe!

May 15, 2016 69 comments

Blogging

Love a Blog? Do This – Subscribe!

Before I started blogging, I read a handful of blogs. I subscribed to a few, meaning that every time a blogger wrote a new post, I received it in my inbox. Sometimes I followed a blogger’s Facebook page and would see if they had a new post and would access it that way. It was pretty hit or miss.

Since I have started blogging, I’ve learned a LOT MORE about the blogging world and how things work. So in this series “Love a Blog? Do This!” I will do a weekly post where I share a tip for all you blog lovers that will help you keep up with blogs you love and help support the bloggers who write them.

There are two types of bloggers. The first blogs as a hobby and labor of love. The second blogs to produce income. Both types work diligently to provide great content that informs, entertains and inspires.

Tip #1 – SUBSCRIBE

If you follow a blog(s) that you love, my first tip is to SUBSCRIBE to it. Essentially this means that when a blogger writes a new post, you will get the post or a link to it in your e-mail. In addition, some bloggers write a newsletter periodically with news and special offers for subscribers only.

If you follow a blog that you love, SUBSCRIBE! Click To Tweet

This is what it might look like on different sites:

Sometimes the subscription/sign-up box is static on a site like these:

Blog Subscription Box from MySideof50

Another example of a Subscription Box

Some blogs have boxes that pop-up while you are reading a post like this:

Pop-Up Subscription Box

Why Subscribing is Good for You

You never miss a post from blogs you love. Now you may be saying, “ My inbox is already too full. I don’t want any more e-mails. I’ll just wait until it’s posted on her Facebook page.” Here’s the problem with that – Facebook and most other social media channels have algorithms that control what you see in your newsfeed. Just because you follow someone or like their page does not mean you will ALWAYS see what they post. So if you rely solely on Social Media to follow a blog, you may miss something.

Full disclosure: I feel the same way. I follow and subscribe to a lot of blogs, but there are only a few that I subscribe to where I read every post. (If you are one of my blogger friends, assume that yours is the one I read every time). I think of blogs like magazines. I pick them up when I can, read what I want and set them aside.

If I get too many in my inbox and just get overwhelmed, I trash them all and start over – there’s always another post coming!

And since I DO subscribe to a lot of blogs (that’s just part of the blogging business), I have set up a separate e-mail box that I use just for subscribing to blogs.

Why Subscribing is Good for the Blogger

It helps us know if we are producing content that is of interest to anyone. If no one ever subscribes to our blog, then it’s time to re-evaluate.
Businesses who may want to compensate us for advertising or doing promotional posts on our site will use the number or subscribers we have as one way to judge how big our reach is.

So, if you love a blog, SUBSCRIBE! You can subscribe to MySideof50 here.