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5 Reasons Why Every Teenager Needs To Have A Blog

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5 Reasons Why Every Teenager Needs To Have A Blog

With the dawn of social media and blogging, it has now become more possible than ever for a teen to become successful at a young age. The requirements of looking for a job or owning your own brick and mortar stores are over. There are millionaires who have no headquarters building other than the home they sleep in. Some of these people are under 30, but teenagers can find themselves in that category as well.

The two main reasons why there are not more teenager entrepreneurs is because teens do not know how to be successful on the web, and they think it is an impossible feat that is exclusively for people out of college. On WordPress.com, creating a blog is free, and it only takes a few seconds to create one.

However, the rewards of starting a blog at a young age are incredible. As a teenager myself, I am amazed with the abilities that blogging has given me. I am also amazed that not every teen has his or her own blog. If you are the parent of a teen, be sure to share this article with them, and if you are a teen, here are five great reasons to start blogging at a young age.

 

#1: Blogging gives teens something good to do

To many people, the phrase “teen years” typically brings a bad thought. Some parents may see the “teen years” as separation from the child who wants to break free and live without limits. Some teens see the “teen years” as a bundle of joy.

One of the problems with “teen years” is that teens start to go into unchartered waters. There are stories of teens getting drunk or shooting people or doing another morally wrong act. On a less intense level, some teens procrastinate to the point where it is obvious to the people around them. Some teens procrastinate by surfing the web too often while others procrastinate by playing too many video games.

Blogging is an experiment, just like any good or bad thing that teens do. However, blogging is a positive experience that gives teens something good to do. Instead of procrastinating out of pure boredom, teens can now write blog posts about what they are passionate about and share it with the entire world. Putting your content out there for the world to see puts you on a whole new level.

 

#2: Blogging makes teens feel more significant

Significance is one of the basic human desires. We want other people to see us as significant because it boosts confidence self-esteem. It feels better to be given a compliment than an insult. Would you rather have people say you are good at something or that you are bad at something?

Blogging makes a teen feel more significant because there content is reaching out to people, and if the content is good, some people will leave nice comments. I have had the ability to interact with people within all parts of the world (I’m not so sure about Antarctica and the Arctic region all the way up north, but people from all other parts of the world have interacted with me at some point). Interacting with that many people, and seeing them write good things about your content makes you feel significant.

The problem with feeling insignificant is that some individuals who feel significant perform morally wrong actions just to be what they believe would make them “significant.” Some people go around and shoot people because they become a main news story. Then they become “significant,” but for the wrong reason.

 

#3: Blogging allows teens to get into the real world sooner

One of the biggest lies of the “real world” is that you get there when you graduate college. This idea of the real world is what allows the status quo to thrive. Although blogging is a great way to bring in a full-time income, it takes a lot of time to bring in that income and build your presence on the web.

Many college graduates become impatient and want to make money immediately (they want to support a family, buy a house, buy a car, and buy other things with their own money). This is when students start to realize from first-hand experience that life is more than taking notes in class and talking with friends. Working at the local store will result in quick money, but it won’t necessarily result in the type of money that the most successful bloggers make (millions of dollars).

 

#4: You have more flexibility over your schedule

The deeper you go into the school process, the less control you have over your schedule. College is where your schedule starts to become more flexible, but before that, you gradually lose control over your schedule (especially junior year in high school. That one is the worst). The great thing about blogging is that you can do it all year round  anywhere you go. On the other hand, you can only do a summer job for three months, and that’s assuming you take no vacations in between.

At this stage of the game, I know there are teens on the fence wondering where they should go. Some teens think they will start in the summer and turn blogging into a type of summer job while other teens may want to start now (even if now means during the school year), but are not fully convinced. My answer is that you should start immediately after reading this blog post.

If you become a successful blogger at a young age, you will practically have full control over your schedule. How many people do you know who go to work from 9 am to 5 pm. Chances are you know a lot of people. All of your teachers, whether they want to or not, have to show up early and leave in the afternoon. Any employee you have seen in a brick-and-mortar store (Target, Mrs. Greens, CVS, WalMart, and all of the other ones as well) has to wake up at a certain time and work for a certain amount of time before going back home.

Starting now and becoming successful before you “have to” get a job and work for someone else (please don’t do that if you don’t want to) will allow you to make money and work on your own schedule. The best part is that when you get really good, you will literally be making money in your sleep!

 

#5: Blogging is a wonderful, unique experience

I have referenced this throughout my article, but it is worth mentioning again that blogging is what I believe is a life changing experience. If it weren’t for blogging, I would still be playing video games for three hours a day and watching TV when I didn’t feel like playing video games. I still play video games for about three hours every week, but I now spend hours of day enhancing my blog and getting my message out to the world.

Blogging has dramatically improved my time management skills, and it allows me to feel significant. The best part about blogging is that it is fun if you write about anything you want. It is important for teens to avoid viewing blogging as school essays because school essays give you limitations while you can write about anything you want on a blog. I have already written over 1,000 words for this particular blog post, and I have written over 400,000 words for this blog. It does not feel like work. Instead, it is a fun activity because I am able to write about what I am passionate about on a daily basis.

 

In Conclusion

Although a majority of the established bloggers are adults, more teens are creating their own blogs and writing their own content. Blogging provides teens with a great way to make money from the comfort of their home by doing what they love to do. Many of the top entrepreneurs got to where they are after working for someone else. If you create your blog now and make a full-time income, you won’t have to work for someone else for your entire life.

My only request for the parents reading this blog post is to show it to as many teens about it as possible. My only two requests for the teens reading this blog post are to create their own blogs and let other teens know about this article as well. I want to have a big impact on as many young entrepreneurs as possible.

6 Reasons Why Your Success Is In Your Email List

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I am sure you have heard of phrases like, “The money is in the email list” and “Your blog must have a way to collect email addresses.” When I was a new blogger, I did not fully understand the power of an email list. I initially thought it was just a strategy surrounded by too much hype. I did read the types of phrases I mentioned before, but few articles with those phrases would go deep into why growing an email list is important.

It was just “understood” that a blog must have a way to collect email addresses. Few articles went deeper than that when discusses how important it is to grow an email list, and that resulted in me not taking my email list seriously for a long time (big mistake).

Other than me saying that not growing my email list was a mistake and that the money is in the list, here are six reasons why it is important to grow your email list.

 

#1: Higher click through rate.

If you craft your emails effectively, you will get a much higher click through with an email list than with a social media audience. Based on the number of tweets I send out, the number of followers I have, and the number of visitors I get from Twitter, my tweets as a lump sum get a click through rate lower than 1%.

Although my Twitter presence does equate to hundreds of daily visitors, my email list is proving to bring forth a greater click through rate. For the typical email, at least 10% of the people on my list end up clicking the link in the email. The higher your click through rate is, the more traffic your blog will get, and emailing your list is a great way to produce a high click through rate.

 

#2: Scalar traffic

Touching upon higher click through rates, scalar traffic is another great reason to grow your email list. If you get 10% of the people on your list to click on the emails you send, then you would get more clicks as your email list grows.

If you have 100 people on your email list, that mathematically means you are getting 10 clicks. If you have 1,000 subscribers on your email list, that mathematically means you are getting 100 clicks. Just keep on adding the zeroes, and you will quickly realize how powerful an email list is.

One of the most successful marketers in the world is Brendon Burchard, and he achieved a big portion of his internet fame through a big email list. Burchard boasts an email list of over 1 million people, and if 10% of those people are clicking on the links he sends out, he is getting 100,000 visitors each time he sends out another link.

 

#3: More sales

In order to effectively utilize your email list, you need to interact with the people on that list. One of the ways you can do this is by promoting one of your products. My recommendation is to only have one promotional email every month and make sure the rest are informative, but sending out that one promotional email every month has the power to bring in more sales.

Since your subscribers are seeing you often and reading through your content, it is quite possible to promote one of your products and expect to bring in more sales. All you have to do is send them emails before that point.

Another great way to get more product sales is by creating an autoresponder that sends out a series of emails that are several days apart from each other. Your autoresponder sequence has the power to entice people to buy your products and let them know about your story. Here is the order that you should create your autoresponder to bring in more sales:

  1. An email about an aspect of your story that relates to something your readers may be facing.
  2. An email that provides value such as a lengthy report or blog post for free.
  3. An email about the product itself and what it is all about.
  4. An email that pushes for the sale.

In the first three emails, you should reference the product but not push for the sale. Just include a P.S. here and there about your product and what it has done for others.

The reason the autoresponder sequence takes four emails to pull off is because you want potential customers to be in the right mindset when buying your product. Imagine how likely you would be to buy a product if the salesman rushed over and said, “Buy my product.” Then imagine what would happen if another salesman told you to buy his product who you felt related to and recognized as an expert. You would be more likely to buy from the second salesman than the first one.

 

#4: Powerful product launches

The product launch is one of the most important phases, and some would argue that it decides whether a product becomes successful or not. Your email list is a great way to get more sales which also means it is a great way to have powerful product launches.

For training courses that you create, this can mean a massive amount of customers quickly buy it, and that means you will quickly get new testimonials. For Kindle authors, a powerful product launch means Amazon will start to promote your book more throughout their site. Having lower sales ranks for their books allow Kindle authors to get more sales.

 

#5: Word of mouth

In a world filled with the internet, social media, and mobile phones, word of mouth marketing still emerges as a great way to get noticed. High school gossips still go around, and as a student myself, I know that most of those gossips still take place through word of mouth.

In addition to still existing and reaching out to a variety of people, word of mouth marketing is an extremely valuable form of marketing. When someone tells their friend about you, it’s not in Facebook post that can easily get overlooked. Instead, these people are talking to friends, and when these types of conversations take place, each friend is paying more attention than they would be to a social media post.

Sending emails to an email list will allow you to develop the type of bond with your subscribers that results in word of mouth marketing. Think of word of mouth marketing as something similar to click through rate. Although you cannot track word of mouth marketing statistics, it is possible to create an estimate.

Let’s say that 10% of the people on your email list will tell their friends about you. Then, you can play around with the numbers I mentioned when referring to scalar traffic to determine how many people would tell their friends about you. If you have 1,000 people on your email list, 100 people are going to tell their friends about you. That is 100 extra people who know about you and may end up on your email list. Then, some of these 100 people will tell their friends and some of those friends will tell their friends. It is an infinite loop of people telling their friends about you, your email list growing larger, and you getting more traffic and sales.

Growing an email list helps word of mouth marketing and word of mouth marketing helps your email list.

 

#6: People will remember you

Just because someone reads your blog and enjoys your blog posts does not mean that person is going to be a returning visitor. Some people may forget about your blog while others may get preoccupied by other things. The reason is that there are few visitors who have an extraordinary desire to visit your blog every day, let alone once every 30 minutes.

Since most people do not have this strong desire to visit your blog that frequently, it is possible to see a blog visitor one time and never again. However, if you get a visitor to subscribe to your email list, that person will be able to remember you.

The people will not automatically remember you by subscribing to your blog. Instead, you will remind people of who you are by sending emails to them. If you are someone who cannot remember to all of the blogs you have subscribed to over the years, then you are not alone. I do not remember all of the blogs I have subscribed to since the beginning of my journey, but each time I get an email from that blogger, I am reminded of the following:

  1. Who that person is
  2. Why I subscribed to this person’s blog
  3. The desire to revisit this person’s blog so I can read what I missed

Being remembered is an important way to build an authority on the web, and an email list allows more people to remember you. We are obsessed with our emails. Most of us check our inboxes multiple times every day while some of us are even checking our inboxes once every 15-30 minutes. Insane? Yes, but having your message in other people’s inboxes will almost ensure that numerous people read that message and go to your blog.

 

In Conclusion

Your email list is where the money is, and it is essential for any blogger who wants to make it big on the web. You may have known that already, but now you also know why growing your email list is important.

Just to know that something is important is not convincing enough to take action. I learned that the hard way by not taking my email list seriously for a long period of time. I only took my traffic numbers seriously, but that also meant some people were visiting my blog and not coming back. Some people didn’t come back simply because in their busy worlds, they couldn’t remember me. Being able to send an email to these people’s inboxes would have resulted in them remember who I am and visiting my blog more often.

There are free emailing options available such as WordPress’ Jetpack option, but growing a big email list requires an investment. That is why I invested in iContact which I use to grow my email list.

Are you taking your email list seriously?

5 Ways To Optimize Your Blog For Social Sharing

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One of the two key components to a blog’s success is how many people get to see your content, and if you get numerous people to share your blog posts, more people will see your content. Social sharing is massively important because billions of people are on social media. In addition, whether the people who share your blog post have 100 followers or thousands of followers, they all have audiences.

Since all of these people have audiences, more people will be exposed to your content. Then, with more people seeing your content, it is possible for even more people to share your blog posts on their social networks. As a result, the cycle continues, and numerous people are sharing your blog posts.

In order to get there, you need the traffic, but you also need to prepare your blog for success. Implementing these five methods will make it easier for people to share your content so it reaches more people.

 

#1: Include social media icons at the bottom of your blog posts

There are millions of blogs with social sharing buttons at the bottom of every blog post. One of the reasons why these social sharing buttons are at the bottom of every blog post is because it gives the reader enough time to read through the entire blog post. If the reader enjoys reading your blog post and is then presented with the ability to share your content, that reader will be more likely to do so.

There are some bloggers who place their social sharing buttons at the top of every blog post instead of at the bottom. This is a strategy that will make readers remember that they can share your article at any point. However, some people may forget by the time they read the entire blog post, and then no social sharing buttons will be available.

My recommendation is to place the social media icons at the bottom of your blog posts, but putting them on the top or bottom both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

 

#2: Use Click To Tweet in your blog posts

I experimented with one of my blog posts by making all of the tips 140 characters or less which made each tip short enough to be tweeted. Ever since I published that blog post, numerous people have been tweeting that particular blog post using the custom tweets that I create with Click To Tweet.

The advantage of Click To Tweet is that you get to create a custom tweet with the proper heading and URL. That means your readers do not have to go through the trouble of thinking what to say when they promote your content.

Just to give you an idea, here is an example of Click To Tweet in action for this article. The tweet is prewritten, and you can include a shortened URL in the tweet as well. There are more people who use Bitly and other link shortening service to reduce the amount of characters in a tweet to get more characters. Some people do not like tweeting the long links of other people’s articles, but by using Click To Tweet and already having the shortened URL in the tweet, more people will send it out.

 

#3: Make sure people can pin your images just by clicking on them

Pinterest is a big player on social media, and in order to spread on Pinterest, you must have pictures in all of your blog posts. Having pictures is not optional for spreading on Pinterest because every Pinterest pin requires a picture. The importance of Pinterest is one of the reasons why I spend more time nowadays creating my own pictures.

One great method to get more people to share your pictures, and therefore your blog, on Pinterest is by allowing people to pin a picture just by clicking on it. There are millions of websites that now make it possible to pin an article just by clicking on the picture. If you go back to the picture in this blog post, you will notice a “Pin It” button that appears faintly enough to be seen but not be too distracting.

You may be wondering whether Pinterest is really worth it, especially if you do not have a large audience on Pinterest yet. Including this feature gives other people the ability to share your content to their audiences on Pinterest. That means you may only have 100 followers, but one of the people who pins your blog post may have 10,000 followers. That is a lot of extra exposure just for adding a “Pin It” button on all of your pictures.

I use the Pin It Button For Images WordPress plugin to get the “Pin It” button to appear. Pinterest is gradually making it easier for anyone to pin something just by clicking on the picture, but this is a powerful feature that you want to make sure you have on your blog now.

 

#4: Share your blog posts on your own social networks

The main benefit seen with sharing your blog posts on your social networks is that you will get more traffic. Whether that means 1 new visitor, 10 new visitors, or something higher, sharing your blog posts on your own social networks results in more traffic.

Sharing your blog posts on social media is also a great way to spread on the social networks you share them on. If someone retweets your blog post, more people are seeing it. Some of the people who retweet your tweets may have over 10,000 followers. That is extra exposure that may result in more retweets and visitors as well.

It is great to get other people to promote your content on social media, but you also want to build a big presence for yourself on social media. Building a bigger presence for yourself on social media will allow you to boost your credibility, build strong connections, and achieve the main goal referenced in this blog post: get more people to share your content on social media.

 

#5: Decrease your blog’s bounce rate so people stick around

Just because you get a lot of people to view your blog posts does not guarantee that people share them. In order to boost the chances of someone sharing one of your blog posts, you need these people to stay on your blog for a long period of time. Someone staying on your blog for a long period of time indicates that the person enjoys reading through your content. The people who enjoy your content are the ones who will become returning visitors and let their followers know about your content dozens of times.

I have been thanking people again and again for sharing for sharing my blog posts. Some of the people who share my blog posts are new people that I interacted with for the first time while other people have been sharing my blog posts for several months. The reason someone would continue sharing blog posts from the same blog is because they find that blog interesting. Reducing your blog’s bounce rate will make people stay on your blog for a longer period of time, which may lead to more social shares in the long-term.

 

In Conclusion

The more your content spreads, the more people will be able to see it. As more people see your content, more of them will share it. Spreading on social media works like a chain reaction. If enough people are sharing your content, more people will see and share it.

Some of the people who read and share your blog posts may not be introduced to your blog by one of your social media posts. Instead, someone else who promotes your blog can introduce it to the people in their audience. The more people you get to promote your content, the greater of an impact this strategy has to attracting more audiences to your blog.

Then, with all of the traffic coming in, your blog’s success then comes down to what people do when they visit your blog. Are they subscribing, buying products, and promoting your blog to more people? If your visitors are performing those actions, then you are going to have a very good blogging career.

Do you have a 6th tip for optimizing a blog for optimized sharing?

5 Reasons Why Guest Blogging Needs To Be A Part Of Your Strategy

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5 Reasons Why Guest Blogging Needs To Be A Part Of Your Strategy

Since the beginning of 2014, there has been an ongoing debate about whether guest blogging is still a good way to increase blog traffic. On January 28, 2014, Google said that any attempts to get spammy backlinks by writing guest posts would no longer work. Since this statement, some guest bloggers have stopped writing guest posts because headlines such as “Guest Blogging Is Dead” have appeared more often around the web.

On the contrary, guest blogging is alive and well. There are still people who are utilizing it properly and writing for popular blogs. The guest blogs that allow people to write guest posts are still sending out numerous posts every day. If you are not writing guest posts, you definitely should, and here are five reasons why you should do so.

 

#1: You get backlinks

One of the important takeaways from Google’s statement is that spammy backlinks that you get by writing guest posts would no longer work. When Google says spammy, that’s referring to you writing on a guest blog completely out of your niche. Spammy backlinks refers to something such as you having a social media blog and guest blogging on a fashion blog. The two topics are completely different.

The quality backlinks from guest posts, the ones on guest blogs related to your niche, are still valuable. The person with the social media blog would want to write on guest blogs about social media such as Business2Community and Social Media Today. When you write your bio for your accounts on these guest blogs, be sure to include a backlink to your main blog.

 

#2: You get your content in front of a large audience

When I was struggling to get 100 daily visitors, I often wrote guest posts on Business2Community. Writing these guest posts allowed more people to know about me because I was writing to a larger audience. Business2Community is a blog that gets thousands of daily visitors. Business2Community boasts an Alexa rank under 3,000 and a bounce rate under 40%.

Every guest post I put up on Business2Community got shared over 100 times. Getting shared this many times allowed more people to see my content. Some of these people scrolled down to my bio and visited my blog.

 

#3: You can get more blog traffic

The people who like your guest post may decide to go to your bio and read your blog. This is the common association between guest blogging and getting more traffic for your own blog. However, there are more ways to get traffic from your blog posts.

One method of getting more traffic for your guest posts is by including links to the content on your main blog throughout the content of your guest post. For some guest blogs, including a link here and there to your blog posts won’t be any trouble, but you should check the rules of writing guest posts before implementing this strategy.

Whether you can implement the first method or not, you are getting another backlink for your blog. Backlinks are still very valuable for SEO, and most of the successful blogs that get thousands of daily visitors are getting that traffic from SEO. These blogs also happen to have thousands of backlinks, and that is not a coincidence.

 

#4: You can get more subscribers

There are many guest blogs that allow users to write a bio, and the first three lines of that bio appear at the bottom of every guest post. If the guest blog you are writing on permits you to do this, you should tell your readers about a free prize. That free prize, whether a video or a guidebook, should be related to the guest post you just wrote.

With this in mind, your guest posts should be geared towards the free prize that you already offer. When you write these guest posts, be sure to get them to at least 1,000 words. Writing longer blog posts makes someone read your content longer, and the longer someone reads your content (as long as your content is valuable), the more content that person wants from you.

Your guidebook or video that you tell them about in the three lines that appear at the bottom of every guest post will be the content that they want. When someone clicks on the link, send that person to a landing page. Entering an email address will give that person the ability to read more of your content, and you will have another person on your list.

 

#5: You will become a better writer

In order to be the blogger who people come back to again and again, you need to produce valuable content. Writing more guest posts will allow you to get more practice in. The great thing about writing is that there is always room for improvement. You can be a phenomenal writer, but it is even possible for the best writers in your niche to get better.

By getting more practice with your guest posts, it will be easier for you to write valuable content on your blog as well as any books that you may write in the future. Writing is a powerful skill for dominating the web, and many people utilize it. Whether writing takes the form of a blog post or an email, it is a big factor towards success on the web.

 

In Conclusion

Guest blogging is alive and well. In addition, now is the perfect time to utilize guest blogging. There are numerous guest blogs in your niche that are waiting for contributors like you to submit content. You should strive to write one guest post each week so you can become a better writer and get your content in front of multiple audiences.

Some of these audiences will consist of hundreds of people while other audiences will consist of thousands of people. However, getting quality backlinks for your blog will help your blog posts rank better on SEO and get more traffic. Guest blogging is the perfect win-win because you get your content in front of people, you get the quality backlink, and the person who owns the guest blog gets more content.

Are you a guest blogger, and if not, do you plan on becoming one?

10 Methods To Free Yourself From The Chains Of Writer’s Block

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Getting stuck can be an overwhelming feeling, and in the case of writer’s block, a blogger struggles to think of more content to write. This is a feeling that hinders progress and in some cases, results in a decline in confidence. Even the most experienced bloggers on the web experience writer’s block at some point in their journey.

Luckily, there are ways to free yourself from the chains of writer’s block. Writer’s block is a problem that can be fixed, and by fixing hat problem, it will gradually become easier for you to write content. Eventually, you will be right back at your peak, and the words will be flying across the page. Here are the different methods you can use to free yourself from writer’s block.

#1: Use Topsy

Topsy is a website that allows you to see every tweet ever written. By easily being able to see all of the tweets with a certain keyword, you will see titles that can inspire future blog posts.

If you see an article called 4 Ways To Get More Pinterest Followers, you have several options to play with. You can write an article called 7 Ways To Get More Pinterest Followers or 4 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers.

Changing one word or number in the title gives you the power to create a completely different blog post. That means you can turn one idea you get from Topsy into multiple blog posts. Imagine what you would be able to do if you discovered 10 good tweets on Topsy that could be the inspiration for future blog posts. You may come up with 20 different blog post ideas which will eliminate writer’s block for a while.

#2: Read Other People’s Articles

There are other people in your niche who are also writing blog post after blog post. Similar to how you were able to get ideas from Topsy, you can also get ideas from other people’s articles. There are some bloggers who write titles that grab our attention that we can use to create titles for future blog posts.

In addition to the titles, some of the content in the blog post itself can serve as inspiration for the next blog post you write. Maybe there is a tip a blogger mentions that you can expand upon and turn into a lengthy blog post.

The more sources you have, the better. I have a separate email address that I use to subscribe to other social media experts’ and entrepreneurs’ blogs so I can constantly learn more about my niche and get more blog post ideas.

#3: Watch YouTube Videos About Your Niche

Similar to reading articles, watching YouTube videos about your niche also has the power for you to learn new things and get more blog post ideas. You should subscribe to at least 10 YouTube channels of the people in your niche.

The benefit of a YouTube videos is that you can watch and listen instead of reading text. This makes multi-tasking more possible to implement. An example of this is that you can check your email while watching and listening to the YouTube video at the same time.

If you enjoy watching YouTube videos, you should also consider listening to podcasts in your niche. Podcasts are also great sources of information because some of the hosts ask really good questions, and then the expert on the podcast gives really good answers. Those questions and answers can also be used for future blog post ideas.

#4: Take A Break

There are going to be some days when writing will become difficult. Just because you want to comfortably write again does not necessarily mean that constantly writing until you get out of writer’s block is the right approach.

In some cases, taking a break is the best approach. The worst thing you can do when you are stuck is stay stuck by trying to perform the same action. It leads to frustration, and in some cases, a loss in confidence. When I encounter a writer’s block in which writing through it is not enough, I take a break.

The three main breaks I take are running, playing video games, and reading a book. I only do one of those three, and then I get back to writing. There are some miscellaneous breaks slipped in there, but the main point of these three breaks is to get my mind out of writing. Restarting fresh is better than sticking with writing the content but staying stuck.

#5: Write Every Day

The more you write, the easier it becomes. Many people get stuck in writer’s block because writing comes unnatural to them. In a really good hour, I could write 4,000 words. However, there was a time when I could barely write over 1,000 words in the same timeframe.

The reason I have gotten better at writing over the years is because I write more often. I am approaching 400,000 words for this blog, and I have written well over 100,000 words for my Kindle books.

#6: Write even if you don’t publish

Writing even if you don’t publish is a great way to get more comfortable with writing, and therefore encounter writer’s block less often. I have written numerous articles and books that never got published. One of these books is 40,000 words long while the other book is 25,000 words long. Writing these books gave me more experience.

Would I ever go back and publish these books? I would have to think about it for a while because although the content is there, I wrote the books in 2013. My knowledge and writing have dramatically enhanced, but in order to enhance your knowledge and writing, you need to start. You need to start writing even if you do not publish all of the content.

#7: Write about something outside of your niche

In many cases, writer’s block occurs because a blogger does not want to constantly write about the same things. When I get writer’s block, I am tempted to write another article about getting more followers on a social network, but I already have numerous articles about that.

When this problem occurs, choose to write about something outside of your niche. Just because you write something does not mean you have to publish it. If you are a social media expert, you can write about baseball. It may not be your best content since you do not know as much about it compared to your niche, but writing about something different may be enough to get the ball rolling.

#8: Eliminate all distractions

The more distractions you have, the more likely you are to encounter writer’s block, and when you get the writer’s block, distractions will make you stay stuck for a longer period of time. This is why it is essential to remove the distractions around you.

There are plenty of distractions around us. The distraction that affects the majority of us is the inbox. Anytime a new message comes up, it has turned into a human desire to see what that new message is. When I am writing content, I remove my inbox from my screen so I can no longer see it. Out of sight, out of mind.

In addition, I make sure I am working in a clutter free zone. The more clutter there is on my desk, the more difficult it is for me to concentrate on writing content. Take some time to look at everything on your desk later today and ask yourself what really belongs and what can be removed. Vases can surely be removed, but you may find a good reason to keep a notebook on your desk (writing down blog post ideas, writing down goals to achieve, etc).

#9: Write down the ideas the night before

Every writer has a time of day in which they are very productive as well as a time of day where they are not as productive. For a majority of writers, nighttime is the least productive time of day. It is the time when our bodies are thinking about going to bed instead of writing more content.

It is during these nights where you can brainstorm different blog post ideas. You always want to start off the day knowing exactly what you want to write about. The first hour you wake up controls how the rest of your day goes. If you wake up and are productive, chances are you will be productive for most of the day.

#10: Create an outline for your blog posts

I have been experimenting with a new method which is creating an outline for your blog posts. Although outlines are ideal for the bloggers who write long blog posts that are over 1,000 words long, bloggers who write shorter content can still benefit from the outline.

In an outline, you write down the title of your blog post and the main points that you want to discuss. For this blog post, I wrote the title and the 10 methods that I wanted to discuss. Nothing more, and nothing less. In the end, I was able to turn about 50 words into this blog post.

Creating outlines allows me to come up with more ideas and organize those ideas. Before creating an outline, I would write down a bunch of ideas, but after a week, I would completely forget what I was thinking when I wrote down a certain idea. Wasted opportunity! That won’t happen if you create an outline for your blog posts before writing the content or searching for the next idea.

In Conclusion

Writer’s block is one of the worst things to get stuck with. It affects all bloggers, but how a blogger responds to writer’s block depends on how strong that writer’s block is as well as how long it lasts.

What are you doing to stop your writer’s block?

6 Blogging Tools That You Should Start Using ASAP

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Blogging tools have the power to give your blog more functions, make it more valuable, and get more blog traffic. However, with a variety of options, many of the good blogging tools get overlooked. Some of these blogging tools may sound unfamiliar to you or too good to be true.

All of these blogging tools provide some value in a different area. When combined together, these tools have the power to enhance your blogging experience and get better traffic at the same time. Here are the six blogging tools that you should be using.

#1: Google Webmaster Tools

If only there was a tool that allowed you to see why your blog posts are not getting search engine traffic. This is the tool. Google Webmaster Tools explains why your blog is not getting much SEO traffic and how you can fix it.

An example of this is that http and https sites are two different things. Google will see http://yoursite.com as duplicate content of https://yoursite.com. In addition, Google sees your blog differently from you do. You also need to make it easy for Google to crawl on your blog.

To the typical newbie, all of this information sounds just like another headache. For the most part, Google Webmaster Tools comes along with valuable articles that take a part of the mystery out of SEO. If you want to get more SEO traffic from Google and ensure your articles are indexed on Google the way you want them to be, then Google Webmaster Tools is the right blogging tool for you.

#2: Optimize Press

Optimize Press is arguably one of the most powerful WordPress plugins out there. It allows you to create landing pages that match up with your emailing service (Aweber, Mailchimp, iContact, Infusion Soft, etc). These landing pages are easy to edit with the live editor. You get to change the button color of your subscription button, and what the text says. The best part is that you do not even need to know a lick of code!

In addition to coming with a variety of landing pages, Optimize Press also allows for membership site and training course creation. That means Optimize Press can bring in a big chunk of your revenue.

Just like almost every piece of technology, Optimize Press takes some time to get used to. That is why there are many tutorials that the people from Optimize Press provide for their users. If you are confused about something, chances are there has already been a tutorial done for that particular issue, and the tutorials are explained in an easy-to-understand manner.

#3: Canva

One of the most common practices is using a picture without asking for permission. Although some of these pictures have no licenses, there are other pictures that have copyright protection, and you don’t want to use those.

Instead of looking for a picture on the web and possibly (accidentally) using a picture with copyright protection, you can create your own picture. Many people, when presented with this opportunity, think of having to learn graphic design or something similar which involves a big investment in your time.

The great news is that you do not necessarily need to be a graphic designer to create stunning pictures for your blog posts. Canva is a free tool that makes picture creation easier. Canva allows for better looking pictures that when customized, can appeal to your article’s content.

One strategy that can now be utilized because of Canva is including the title of your blog post in the picture. The reason including the title of your blog post in the picture is important is because pictures grab our attention more than text.

Some people skip over the text and go straight to the picture. When this happens, your visitors can see the picture, read the title in the picture, and then know the title for your blog post. Including this picture also allows people to know what your blog post is about when they see it in Google Images or anywhere else on the web before seeing the actual blog post.

#4: Topsy

For every blogger on the web, there comes a moment when thinking of content becomes difficult. This is what has become known as writer’s block, and it is one of the worst experiences a blogger can have.

There are many suggestions to breaking writer’s block such as writing the ideas the night before or reading other people’s articles. However, there is another way to break writer’s block and get access to numerous ideas.

Topsy is a tool that allows you to see any tweet ever sent out. You may be wondering why Topsy qualifies as a blogging tool let alone a way to cure writer’s block. The answer is that since Topsy contains every tweet ever sent, it also contains numerous ideas. There are over 1 billion tweets sent out every 2-3 days which means there are trillions of tweets to choose from.

It is impossible to read all of the tweets ever sent. Life is simply too short. That is why Topsy allows you to find specific tweets by entering specific keywords. Then, you can see all of the tweets within a certain time range.

When I search phrases like “social media” and “blogging,” I get to see the headlines that other people are tweeting. If I see an article named “3 Social Media Tools For Success,” I may create a blog post called “6 Blogging Tools That You Should Be Using ASAP.”

Although I do not remember whether Topsy was the exact tool I used to come up with this blog post, I have used it to come up with several blog post ideas over the years.

#5: iContact

Although any emailing service that allows you to easily communicate with your subscribers will do, I would give a slight edge to iContact (probably because of experience). iContact gives you many emailing formats, and editing the emails you send out is incredibly easy.

One thing you can do with iContact and most emailing services is send out emails with a summary of your blog post and then the ability for your reader to click on a link to read the rest of the blog post.

Another option that iContact and most emailing services present is your ability to create any email with any type of text as long as it is neither spammy nor inappropriate. This gives you the option to notify your subscribers about product launches. You can create the buzz for your products (that you possibly create with Optimize Press) using iContact.

#6: WordPress Editorial Calendar

The more blog posts you schedule, the more difficult it will be for you to know whether all of the days are accounted for. There are many bloggers who schedule blog posts weeks or even months in advance.

This is a great strategy to get more comfortable with blogging (always being consistent will not be as much of a concern since you are already being consistent for a long period of time). This strategy becomes a problem when the blogger checks their email and does not receive a new blog post.

One of the problems I had when I was writing two blog posts every day is that when I first implemented this change, I did not realize that on some days, I was sending multiple articles to my RSS subscribers at the same time.

This problem existed for a while until I got the WordPress editorial calendar. This calendar allows me to see all of the blog posts I have scheduled along with the dates and times they will be sent out. The best part about this editorial calendar is that its function is exactly what it sounds like: you can see the titles of your blog posts on a calendar that correspond with the day the blog post is scheduled to be published.

The WordPress Editorial Calendar is a great way for you to stay organized, especially when you are writing blog posts several weeks in advance.

In Conclusion

With the right tools, you can turn blogging into a full-time income that brings in thousands of daily visitors and turns you into an influential person in your niche. The quicker you can get comfortable with your blogging experience on a technological scale, the easier it will be for you to write more content for your blog and create products along the way.

Which blogging tool is your favorite? Which tools do you use?