Traffic Secrets By Russell Brunson Is Perfect For Your Ecommerce Goals

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers. For full disclosure, please click here.

The world of ecommerce is highly competitive. Many business owners have their work cut out for them on the world wide web. The easiest part of a business these days is thinking of your product and getting it manufactured. The hardest part is making your presence known on the web. Every year, tens of thousands of businesses start and fail because the entrepreneurs don’t understand one essential skill: the art and science of getting consumers to find you.

I will say that again: the hardest part of getting your product out to the public is making your presence known on the web.

As a blogger, I have seen this for myself. There are millions of guides out there that will walk you through how to bring more traffic to your blog/website. I have read quite a few of them but wondered how Traffic Secrets could work for my blog. I decided to try it out and see!

Click here to learn more

In Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers, entrepreneur Russell Brunson reveals the classic foundational direct marketing techniques that will allow you to be the first to recognize new trends and see the opportunities that are invisible to everyone else. This guide shows how to master traffic strategies in order to fill your website and funnels with your dream customers. By completing the 30-day challenge, you'll learn key strategies to increase your site traffic. I began the 30 day challenge at the end of May and am just about done. I cannot even begin to tell you every single thing I have learned because we will be here all day. Even for blog traffic alone, it has been invaluable to me so I can only imagine how useful it can be to those beginning their ecommerce journey!
The chapters I found to be most useful were in Section II of the book, which goes into Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube traffic secrets. I really started to see progress in those places, minus YouTube as I am not a vlogger, just a blogger. However, even those YouTube tips proved helpful in surprising ways for me and I have been able to implement them as well!

Click here to learn more!

What I liked the most about this book is that these secrets are not mired in the trendy or faddish ways to build your traffic, but focuses on time-tested strategies that never change. It's easy to follow trends and such but once those trends die, how will you still bring traffic? By focusing on what will work no matter what the "hot" fad of the moment, you can be confident that your traffic will be consistent and will bring more eyes (and wallets!) to your product. The strategy is simple:

• Start with identifying your dream customers
• Focus on where your dream customers are congregating online
• Learn how to "work" your way in
• Understand how to "buy" your way in
• Create your own publishing platform
• Build your own distribution lists

With the workbook exercises included, the traffic secrets become even more clear. I spend a lot of time on these exercises as I am doing the 30 days challenge and am constantly shocked at how simple it is. I was expecting this to be something that I would have trouble understanding or implementing into my own blog growth strategy, but I was very, very wrong. In less than a month, I have received more traffic to my blog than I EVER have. As you can guess, it's quite motivating and liberating to know that I now have the perfect strategy in my hands that actually works!

Click here to learn more

I am in the middle of the 30 day challenge and the information I have learned so far is invaluable. I am looking forward to what I will learn during the rest of the challenge and am so thankful for what I have learned so far. If you are struggling with building traffic for your ecommerce shop, blog, or website, this book is perfect for you! 

Will you take the challenge?

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers. For full disclosure, please click here.

Turning Your Blog Writing Into A Professional Career

Image Source)

When most people start something like a blog, they won’t be imagining that they will be able to make a living out of it. People tend to go down this sort of route for fun, with the idea that they will have the chance to write about things they love being a good enough reason to get started. Of course, though, as time goes on and your audience grows, you will have the opportunity to start making money out of your blog. There are a few different paths you can take with this, and some of them can land you in a professional career.

News & Journalism

Becoming a journalist can be much trickier than you might expect. While you don’t need to speak perfect English for this sort of role anymore, there is a lot of competition, and this means that those who start out on their own blog can often give themselves a head start. It will be a challenge, but you need to make sure that you’re following the same strict standards that large publications will follow to ensure that people respect and value your content. It’s usually best to choose a niche topic when you’re doing this, or you may struggle to cover enough on your own.

Copywriting & Creative Writing

Writing exquisite copy and crafting intricate stories can be a lot harder than a lot of people realize. This has opened a huge market for writing services on the web, making it easy to pick up roles that will enable you to write. Of course, though, you need to make sure that you have the right skills before you can take on a role like this one. Copywriting workshops have been becoming increasingly popular over the last few years, and you can find loads of great options with a quick search around the web. This will be an incredibly satisfying role to have, while also giving you a lot of freedom.

Reviews & Opinion Pieces

Finally, as the last type of content to consider, it’s time to think about reviews and opinion pieces. Much like news and journalism, you have to be careful to make sure that the content you’re writing in this category is well-informed. You can write reviews for products and services, music and movies, and just about anything else that people have to spend money on. Writing a piece like this can be tricky, and it’s always worth spending some time reading other reviews before you get started, ensuring that you know exactly how to format your work. Of course, though, this doesn’t mean that you should copy other people.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to start making your blog into a professional career. A lot of people like the idea of making money from their blog, but it can be hard to know what sort of content to make when you’re doing this. Each of the roles above can be taken on as a professional career, but you will need to get some practice in your free time before you can get started.

I hope everyone is staying home and safe during this quarantine! I have been slacking on posting lately so my apologies to you, dear readers. It's certainly been crazy times here so I have a guest post for you today from Gabrielle Sinacola of NeoReach. Gabrielle Sinacola is a digital marketing consultant and content writer at NeoReach. She has a background in computer science and business, merging technical and creative skills to drive impact for companies. Gabrielle is dedicated to propelling strategic marketing initiatives forward with innovative thinking and detailed execution. Enjoy!

How to Convey Your Lifestyle Through Your Blog

Just as you would furnish and decorate your home to reflect your taste and personality, so should you adorn your blog. It is much more complicated to not convey your lifestyle through your blog, that is to hide your lifestyle, than it is to share it. That’s because we inherently speak to what we know and love. This comes across in all forms of content you publish, from words to images to sponsorships. If something does not fit with your lifestyle, your audience will be able to tell. The ability to gain and engage a loyal following is accomplished through a natural flow of information. Information that matches who you are and what you stand for.

Read Between the Lines

I am sure you have heard the saying that it’s not what you say but how you say it. Commonly applied to situations arising in arguments, this idea also feeds into the written word as well. Beyond the words on the page, it is important to understand the unspoken component of your content. Your lifestyle comes through in the connotation of the blog posts. Think about how your posts answer questions such as:

• How does your audience feel when reading your blog?
• Am I speaking to a specific demographic (working mothers, varsity athletes, etc.)?
• How formal or informal is the language I am using?

As an author, your tone is vitally important to how your content is received by a reader. This is brought about through word choice– use of slang, industry jargon– and any anecdotes you include. If you are talking to busy mothers, you want to keep posts concise, informative and relatable. You would opt for everyday language as opposed to long explanations. To tell a fellow mother why a skincare product is safe for her children, you want to include easily digestible statements that get a bigger message across like “BPA free” or “no chemical additives.” You are not, however, going to start talking about the organic compounds used in the product and their reaction with the skin cells. Not only is that boring, but it is unnecessary to your audience.

You may share your own experience with dealing with eczema for your son/daughter and how it impacted your product selection. This additional personal touch adds to your credibility. By sharing little parts of your own life, you are providing windows into your lifestyle. Usually, these things come to mind when you are writing a blog post, but you ignore them or deem them unimportant to your reader. Those details that are specific to you and your blog will attract the audience most benefiting from your content and eager to consume it!

It Is All in the Details

I just talked about how it goes deeper than what you write, and I am going to keep building on that idea. Think about the nonverbal elements of your blog. Visuals.

There are a hundreds of ways to capture the same image with a camera that can differ in:

• Composition
• Focus
• Lighting
• Camera angle
• Filters & Editing
• And so many more...

Not only photographed images, but also computer generated images. You have a whole host of media forms to choose to include (or not include) that play into portraying your lifestyle:

• Video
• Animation
• Illustrations

With all of this, the overall color scheme and layout of your blog convey your lifestyle too. You can go all white with a very clean, geometric format. Or, you can choose to go with bold colors and odd angles to keep it interesting at every click. An easy way to get inspiration for this is to look at other blogs in your niche or who you would attribute to having a similar lifestyle as yourself. Look at how they organize their content and how that affects what you gain from it and how you perceive the blogger. Use different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest to find different juxtapositions of written content and graphics that fit best with what you are trying to achieve.

You Do You

Chances are you already have a pretty good idea of what and how you want to share your life with your blog audience. As the expert on your lifestyle, you have the best intuition on what is and isn’t going to work for your readers, and yourself. Write it out as a draft if you are really struggling and read it all the way through aloud. Pay attention to the inflections in your voice, the emotions that arise as you read, and the feeling you have once you have finished. These are all great indicators of whether or not you are properly portraying your lifestyle through your blog.

Looking to work with brands that are aligned with who you are and what your blog stands for? Get in touch with NeoReach’s influencer community to match with brands that fit your lifestyle!

Women Are The New Business Leaders

We had a record breaking year for women in 2018. 

Source

I'm pretty excited about it! My daughter is going to college right now to get her business degree so I am so glad that she has role models in all fields to look up to and help guide her. Women are becoming leaders in record numbers and it is helping girls everywhere see that they can be a leader as well!

When I think about women in America starting out with barely any rights, to now leading large companies, to running for president of the United States of America, it's incredibly inspiring. I was raised in the generation of shoulder pads and sneakers. My mom raised my brother and I, went to work, bought the bacon, brought the bacon home, and cooked it up. All while serving in the Navy Reserves on the weekend and being an active parent in our sports/extracurricular activities.

Just writing that made me tired.

However, seeing this as a daughter, it was an inspiring way of leading. She showed and made me believe that women could do anything and I believed it! Too see it in action, and that fire, drive, and ambition in my own daughter, is supremely gratifying! I knew when my daughter was very young that one day she could grow up to be a leader. She slays her studies like dragons and laughs  as she is handed more. She has such an imaginative mind and loves to solve problems like nothing I've ever seen before. She has the drive to persist until she finds a solution.

 As you can probably guess, I'm very proud of her. 

Yep.

A good role model for young women today is definitely Chrissy Weems. She has such an inspiring story!

Chrissy Weems started Origami Owl Jewelry in 2010 with her daughter, Bella. Bella had saved up $350 of her babysitting money at just 14 years old and told her mother that she wanted to start a jewelry business. Chrissy liked that idea and matched her $350 and with help from investors Tyson Basha and Shawn Maxwell, they began crafting the beautiful living lockets for Origami Owl Jewelry! Just 8 years later, they are the successful owners of a 250 million dollar business! 

Source

Whether it is in business or congress, women are proving that their roles are important and valued. Young women today have so many role models to choose from in any field they are interested in! With consistent role models and proven success in many fields, young women have no limit to what they can accomplish! Women lead the way in 2018 as I hope they will continue to do so on into the future! It's wonderful to accomplish goals, and I am using these ladies as my role models to smash some goals in 2019! 

What is your opinion on the future leaders of the world?

Why Social Media Marketing Is Perfect For Public Relations

I have been on the internet for a long time, since 1996 to be exact.  As a mom married to a military service member who had to go on deployments a lot, the internet has been a very important part of my life, not only for social interaction but entertainment as well. It's really difficult to get out and socialize when your husband is gone for up to 6 months and you have two toddlers depending on you for everything.  I started with forums for awhile, long enough that I was even a moderator on one for quite a bit. 

Then, MySpace came along and social media took off. I spent every free moment I had (which wasn't much) reading blogs, writing blogs, reading, and talking to folks from all around the world. By the time Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest came along, I was all in! And as most things do, social media has evolved into being a pretty important part of everyone's life now. I have seen so many things come and go through social media, it's infinitely interesting.

The most interesting thing I have found is how brands can so easily boost themselves on social media. Considering it's literally my job now, I have been researching and reading as much as I can about social media marketing and how to run effective campaigns.

There are plenty of different ways to market on social media. You can have a blogger, such as myself (contact details on the contact tab above!), write about your brand or product and spread the word on social media. There are also PR companies, such as Behrman and PR, that can handle larger brands/companies as they generally tend to have large teams that are adept at handling all of your brand's needs. Social media marketing has become imperative for business growth these days. The ROI (return on investment) for social media marketing campaigns is very high, and brands walk away satisfied with the growth and profit from these campaigns. 

By far, social media marketing has proven to be highly effective and indispensable to not only established brands, but small and upcoming brands. With the rise of influencer marketing, more and more brands are turning to social media marketing to showcase their brands and even introduce new products to the masses. By enlisting the help of influencers, public relations, and bloggers, more brands and businesses are able to reach more and more customers that otherwise would not have the same reach (thanks, algorithms grr!) as some other social media icons do. As someone who makes a living with social media marketing, I am really excited for the future of this industry! As with everything on the internet, I can't wait to see how it evolves from here. 

How have you seen social media evolve? Have you ever found a new product because of a social media marketing campaign? Tell me about it in the comments below!

Cartoon

You're a cartoon
he said

and just like that I was
dead

Cartoons
he said
we all are

Just scripts 
code
snippets
pictures
memories of

Caricatures
he said
We who live in houses
made of skeleton bones
paste over our real skin 
with misery's breath

You're a cartoon
he said

and
just like that
I was
dead.

Source

How To Start Writing In Your Spare Time

When you’re someone that dreams of writing, that dream never dies. It stays with you. Even when you go off into your career, when you forget about all things creative, and when you go off into your adult life. It’s still there.

Because writing comes with so much passion. When you love to read and create and get lost in an imaginary world, it’s only natural that your mind will often come up with characters and ideas, plots and plot twists. So whether you were a budding author as a child, or you were someone that just wanted to write features and stories and snippets from your life, you will still have that feeling until you put pen to paper. Or, perhaps more aptly, fingers to keyboard.

So, you might be interested in writing in your spare time with the intention of turning this into a career. Or selling a story. Or an article. But how do you do it? And how should you start? Well, let's find out.

Source 

Just Start

First, you just need to get started. Right now! When you’ve finished reading this post, open up your word processor or your Google Doc and just get writing. Getting started is often the hardest part, so if you just do it, you’ve beaten that hurdle.

Set Aside The Time

But at the same time, you need to make sure that you’re actually doing it. Don’t just get started, write once, and then stop. You need to find time to write by making time for it. So schedule it in. Whether it’s an hour in the morning, on your lunch break, or in the evening, slot it in. Because when it’s in the diary and the time is set aside for it, you will write.

Source

Get Into A Routine

You then will want to make sure that you’re being consistent with it. So get into a routine of writing an hour a day or whatever you can commit. Because the more of a routine you get into with your writing, the easier it will be to build up a momentum.

Take It Seriously

But then there may also come a time where you feel ready to take this whole writing thing seriously. Maybe you want to look at online jobs from home where you can write to make money and then write in your spare time creatively too. Or maybe you want to think about getting a pitch together for a book proposal? No matter what you want to achieve, you will start to realize that there is a point where things get a little bit more serious for you.

Do Something Big

Finally, you may even want to make more of a move than that. You might want to do something big and exciting and different. Maybe starting a blog and publishing some of your ideas there could be perfect for you? Or maybe you would love to write your own book and self-publish it? Just make sure that you have some kind of goal that you’re working to, that something big you’re chasing that can help to keep you on track.

What are you waiting for?

8 Ways A Writing Career Benefits Your Kids

Today, I am honored to bring you a guest post from Samara over at TinyFry! Samara Kamenecka is a Virtual Assistant specializing in SEO and writing, based in Madrid. When she’s not chained to her computer, she likes to explore the city with her boyfriend, their two kids, and their dog. You can find her blogging about everything from pregnancy tips to parenting hacks over at Tiny Fry. 

8 Ways A Writing Career Benefits Your Kids

Some people think that writing is an easy way to make a living working from home, but if it was easy everyone would do it. The truth is that making a living from writing can be challenging, but if you’re good at it, many rewards come along with writing as a career. My favorite part of being able to work from home is how it benefits my kids.

       No Daycare

Not having to pay a daycare provider is two benefits in one. First of all, daycare is not cheap, and many parents seem to work just to pay for someone else to care for their kid(s). Secondly, you know exactly who is raising your child, and you never have to worry about what the daycare provider may or may not be teaching them.

 Flexible Schedule

Having a flexible schedule is the best benefit for you and your kids. There are not many people in this world who have the flexibility to pick up and drop off their kids from school, attend mid-day school events, and still be around to have family dinner and help with homework at night. It also doesn’t force you into a panic whenever your kid has a sick day, or the daycare cancels out of nowhere.

      

Grow Together

Working as a writer takes a lot of hard work and growth which can get a bit  frustrating at times, especially when there are little ones tugging at your pant legs while you’re trying to focus. Though some days can be tough, it allows you and your kids to grow together and understand each other better. You will both probably learn lessons in patience and time management while building a stronger bond.

       They See a Role Model

A lot of kids don’t understand the importance of work because they simply don’t see it. By seeing you working to provide for your family you are setting a good example for work ethic and helping them understand an important part of life as an adult. As a work from home mom, you are also setting the example that women are an equally important part of the workforce as men.

      No Commute

Some people spend two hours or more of their day commuting to and from work. Not having to commute is a benefit for anyone who works from home, but especially parents who get to spend that extra time with their kids. It also saves money and the environment, which is yet another benefit to your children.

       Financial Contributions

Some parents decide to start writing after they have decided to stay at home. So hopefully, that income can be used in surplus to the budget to do things like save for a child’s education or enroll them in enrichment classes. The money could even be used for a vacation potentially, and since you’re a writer, you won’t have to worry about taking time off!

       A Safe and Clean Home

One of my favorite benefits of being a writing mom is that I can take a break from work to clean a room or throw in a load of laundry. Being able to care for the home while working helps keep a strong work/life balance and also keeps my home cleaner and safer for my kids to play.

      Mental Wellbeing

This is perhaps the subtlest benefit for children with work at home parents. Just knowing that there is going to be someone home to talk to when they need it offers confidence and lowers stress. Being around all the time to offer a hug for a scraped knee or an emotional bruise goes a long way in the happiness of a kid. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have come and sat by me in silence while I worked just to be around me. Being this available builds an unbreakable bond between parent and child that not every parent gets to experience.

If you are choosing to pull double duty as a parent and a writer, make sure you are prepared with everything you’ll need to keep your babies and kids safe and occupied. Writing from home benefits your kids in many ways, but it is still a job and one that can get a little tricky to balance if you’re not careful. At the end of the day, it is one of the best careers in the world to have when it comes to the perfect balance between finance and family.

Blog Conference Newbie

For the first time ever in my life, I will be attending a blog conference in September. I am beyond excited about it!

I've never been to one before so I am not quite sure what to expect. Hopefully, I will get a lot of new tips and meet lots of new people in my industry.

I have been looking into various things about conferences and think I've been pretty thorough. I've even fallen down the trade show rabbit hole of trade show decorators to make sure I know EVERYTHING about it. 

Yep.

Maybe a little too thorough, but hey, the more you know!

This conference is being held by the BloggyMoms Network at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. I cannot wait! I've never been to Ohio and I have never been to Cedar Point.  My husband is tagging along so that gives him something to do while I am at the conference all day. Because, I am going to be BUSY.

A quick scan of the agenda shows that from 9am until the evening, I am going to be filling my brain with anyandeverything blogging. Social media strategies, design (which I am WAY excited for), SEO, all of it!

I have been wanting to go to a conference for blogging since I first started over ten years ago. I am so very happy that I finally get the chance to go. I am hoping to become an even better blogger that way. I pretty much have the writing part down, it's all of the other stuff that I definitely need help with. Hopefully, I will get a plethora of knowledge there and have some fun while I'm at it!

Have you ever been to a blogging conference? What was it like? I'd love to know all about your experience! Tell me all about it in the comments, please!

7 Reasons Why Your Writing Business Is Not Growing

When you finally decided to embrace your passion for writing and make it your full-time job, you were somehow hoping for a more positive response from the market. However, a lot of enthusiastic writers struggle to make a living out of their hobby. While it is commonly accepted that not everyone is born to be the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, it doesn’t mean that there is no potential earning for new writers in this sector.

In fact, if your writing business has not become a success yet, it may not be because the market is crowded, but instead, it could be the result of a mistake. Yes, it could be as simple as having forgotten to prepare for the expectations of your freelancing writing role.

So, before you give up all hopes and look for a full-time job in an office, take the time to check if you haven’t made any of the 7 deadly mistakes of amateur digital writers. Writing doesn’t have to be a dream. With the right approach and strategy, you can make your living out of it. Wouldn’t you want to be able to let your writing business pay the bills without needing to take on additional shifts at your local coffee shop or as a tutor to make ends meet? Here are some of the reasons why you may not be able to grow your writing business:

Grow your writing business

You lack practice

Most motivational guides that encourage you to hone your skills tend to follow a precise rule: Nobody is born a writer. It’s a skill that you can learn and develop through writing. Don’t believe the 10,000-hour rule that says you need to practice for 10,000 hours to master any skill, as you might need a lifetime to become a proper writer at this pace!

Instead, accept that you may need to push yourself out of your comfort zone to develop your writing skills. You can start every day with simple and targeted exercises, such as writer shorter and more persuasive emails, for instance – aka remove all the unnecessary blah blah from your texts. You can also improve the structure of your blog articles to make it easier for your readers to follow the logical flow of the piece. Finally, don’t hesitate to take on new jobs and get feedback on it, so that you can improve.

You lack preparation

Keeping a regular blog is hard work, so it’s fair to say that if you expect your blog to create a buzz around your services, you need to give yourself the best chances to shine. This starts by preparing your posts ahead. You can’t just sit at your keyboard and hope for the best. The truth is: You can’t wing it, you need to have content ready and waiting for be published. To make it easier you can schedule your posts by batches, once a month, once a week or even once a year, depending on the frequency you’re the most comfortable with. This allows you to schedule future social media promotions and even catch-up emails and newsletters for your readers.

You don’t grow your influence

You are one of many. It’s fair to say that you’re not the only person trying to break into the writing world. If you can’t leverage your author influence, you’re doomed to remain in the shadow of writers who stand out. You can discover more about how to use books – and especially your books – to build a long-term career. As a writer, self-publishing a book can help you to grow your revenues and your reputation. Ultimately, when you publish a book, you can establish yourself as an authority in your business, meaning that clients, agents, and companies begin to take you seriously.

You don’t have role models

How often do you read? If you’re the kind of writer who claims that they can’t read for fear of being influenced by others, it’s time to change your mindset. Good writers need to be good readers. When you read, you get used to vocabulary, phrases, and grammar being combined together to convey an idea. As a reader, you know that someone who shares a clear view can inspire you to use new words in different ways and to think further as well. Not reading is the fastest path to the writer’s block.

Your website needs improvement

A blog gives you the chance to share your work with millions of readers every day. The main limitation about blogs is that the online competition is very high, so you need to have a tip-top presence to keep readers interested. Don’t just think about your content: Your design matters as well. For instance, it can be easy to forget the importance of white space on the page. White space has the advantage of decluttering the page and making the content the main point of focus, which can be lost if you have an image-heavy layout. Additionally, the good old SEO rules – link building strategies – can’t be ignored as they drive traffic to the site.

You don’t use social engagement

Social media platforms are your best friends when you’re trying to establish a regular audience. For instance, when someone mentions your blog online, it can help to grow traffic. Similarly, you can maximize your online personality to interact with new readers and attract your audience. A strong and positive presence is all it takes to hook followers. The more followers you get, the more potential readers you can find!

Promote yourself on social media

You didn’t prepare your portfolio

So, you want to be a writer, but you haven’t prepared a portfolio? The first question that jumps to mind is what is stopping you? You can use this handy platform to group digital clippings of your articles and posts. Many websites let you publish content – Medium is one of them if you don’t have regular clients you can quote – but you can also share URLs and photos of existing content for clients.

Becoming a professional writers demands a lot of time and dedication. But admittedly, while it’s not always easy, you can ensure that you are not making any of these deadly mistakes that could cost you your writing career. Make sure to hone your skills by writing and reading a lot, keep an access-friendly online portfolio and leverage your presence through books and social media.

Have you made any of these mistakes? Did you solve them? Tell me about it in the comments below!