Marc's Blog

How To Measure Your Productivity

January 11, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

We all have goals. Some of those goals require what would appear to be monumental leaps while other goals don’t require much of a jump.

Regardless of what goals we pursue, we all understand the need to be productive. Better to get the same work done in 30 minutes than get the same work done in an hour.

That is the typical focus of productivity. Most people focus on getting a lot of stuff done and then getting that stuff done as quickly as possible.

If only that was how productivity actually worked.

Productivity isn’t a matter of hours worked and how much stuff you can say you did. The central focus of productivity is what work you are actually doing. Then the traditional methods of viewing productivity come in.

Is The Work You Do Productive?

Let’s say that in a month, I can create a thousand outlines for different blog post ideas this month or I can create four training courses that are each two hours long.

Even if both of those activities took up the same amount of my time, I would feel more productive creating the four training courses than doing 1,000 blog post outlines.

The problem with creating too many outlines is that the niche I am in constantly changes (if a new social network comes out, I have to write about it. Maybe Facebook ads changed again). And quite frankly, I could look at an outline upon second glance and realize it’s not a good blog post for me to write.

And being presented with 1,000 blog post outlines and having to choose one of them would be overwhelming. I won’t feel any better when I have to choose one blog post outline out of the 999 outlines that would be left.

However, creating four training courses would make me feel productive. I would provide more videos for my Udemy students and generate more revenue at the same time.

On the surface, writing 1,000 blog post outlines may look more productive than creating four training courses. This is another example that emphasizes the battle between busy work and productive work.

Creating an outline before you write a blog post allows you to write that blog post faster. However, at a certain point, creating the outlines just becomes busy work.

It is no longer productive because you aren’t writing the actual blog posts when you create the outline. Eventually, you have to look at one of those outlines and decide to turn that outline into a blog post.

Just because you do something does not mean you are being productive. If you wanted me to tell you all of the productive things I did in a given day, I wouldn’t rattle off everything I did on that day. I wouldn’t mention the fact that I put my clothing away or that I washed my dishes.

I would mention the number of blog posts I wrote and the number of videos I created.

Give Yourself A Hyper-Specific Definition Of Productivity

I’m not going to lie. Hyper-specific sounds way better than plain old specific.

We know there is a difference between busy work and productive work. What you may not know is how that difference applies to your life. What is the busy work that takes you away from your productive work?

You may be surprised to hear two things. Most of the work you currently do is probably busy work. The second thing you’d be surprised to hear is that answering the previous question is one of the easier questions of productivity to answer.

To identify the difference between busy work and productive work, you have to envision yourself in the “entrepreneur’s perfect world”. For sake of argument, here’s what that world looks like:

You are a billionaire
You make money on autopilot
You have a team of 100,000 people working for you free of charge
This team can do anything you ask them to do

Basically, you could retire right now and still make more money in one day than everyone else makes in a year. You are that 1%.

So what work would you still do?

When I asked myself this question, I came up with a small list of tasks that I would actually do for my business. Writing blog posts and creating videos were the two tasks that were on the top of the list.

My definition of productivity got very specific very fast. A few other things made it on the list too. But all of the tasks that did not make the list were distractions.

Scheduling social media posts, creating pictures for my blog posts, scheduling my blog posts, and growing my social media audience are four of several tasks that I suddenly viewed as distractions.

Distractions sap away at our true productivity, even if those distractions may be necessary for the growth and survival of our businesses.

Rise And Grind

In his book Power Of Broke, Daymond John shares several of his core beliefs that played a large role in his entrepreneurial success. One of the first things he mentioned is that when he wakes up, the first thing that enters his mind is “Rise and Grind.”

It simply means putting in the work every single day with as much intensity as you can muster.

We have already established that hours worked and stuff done are not the most reliable places to look when measuring productivity. However, productivity is also about consistency.

Consistency turns the work into an effortless habit that you can then constantly improve upon. Writing these blog posts is effortless for me because I have written thousands of blog posts on various blogs to reach this point.

When you rise and grind every day, you will eventually find yourself comfortable with putting in more work each day than most people would want to do in a week. Combine that with doing work that matters, and you’ll be a productivity master in no time.

Soon enough you’ll have to write your own blog posts about productivity 🙂

In Conclusion

Productivity is not measured by hours worked and amount of stuff done. It is measured by the type of work that you do, how much meaningful work gets done, your time commitment towards the work, and your consistency.

This blog post was designed to challenge the traditional thinking of productivity. Being busy and being productive are two completely different things.

However, being productive and truly being productive are also two different things.

For a long time, I thought I was being productive when I scheduled my tweets. It turns out during that stretch I was productive, but I wasn’t truly productive.

For me, truly productive means writing blog posts and creating videos.

What does truly productive mean for you? How do you measure your productivity? Are there any other questions about productivity you want answered? Have a tip for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Get Your Twitter Audience To Remember And Trust You

January 8, 2016 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Before a blog visitor decides to subscribe, that visitor must trust you. When visitors enter their email addresses, they are trusting you with the following:

Their email address
The fact that when they see your messages in the inbox, those messages will be epic

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Twitter is the best social network for generating blog traffic. It is the single social network that transformed my blog and me as a person.

The reason people within my Twitter audience visit my blog is because they have come to trust the content. It’s the same reason why we click on the same people’s links over and over again.

When we see tweets from certain users, we stop what we are doing and click on the link. We read the article they tweeted.

We only see the headline but we are immediately hooked into reading more. When I see a Jeff Bullas or Kim Garst tweet in the home stream, I pause what I am doing and read what they recently tweeted.

How do we create that same effect for our tweets and our content? How can we grow an audience of people who will stop what they are doing and read our content right when they see one of our tweets?

The answer is to build trust which is easier said than done. But it is doable. As you continue to build trust with your audience, you will discover that building trust with your audience is easier than it sounds.

Building trust is broken into two steps. The first step is the preparation step while the second step is to build on top of the foundation gradually over a long period of time.

You will never get someone’s complete trust in one day, but if you stay consistent and build the trust over time, those same people will come to trust you.

But first comes the foundation. Here’s how you get that set up on your Twitter account:

#1: Have The Right Profile Picture

Your profile picture is the first thing people will look at. Since the human mind can register pictures 60,000 times faster than text, we’ll look at the profile picture before we read the bio.

The first impression comes just before we read the bio. The accounts with blurry profile pictures (or worse, that…egg) won’t receive much attention.

The clear profile pictures that either display a nice picture of you or your brand’s logo are the winners that get the most attention. All of the other pictures don’t win.

Even if it takes you 30 minutes to find the right picture of yourself, those 30 minutes you spend now will help you to build trust with your audience later.

#2: Create A Background Picture

The background picture is another critical factor towards building trust. It is the second most important part of your Twitter account.

The background picture you choose for your Twitter account must help someone understand what you do. For someone who has never heard of me before, my background picture creates the quick intro:

But in addition to getting people to know who I am in one picture, I do a subtle promotion. At the left corner is a picture of my free eBook’s cover.

It’s going to be an eBook cover that they see often. People looking at my Twitter profile don’t have to scroll down too long before they see the pinned tweet that promotes the same free eBook.

The background picture can promote one of your products and let people know who you are at the same time. Kim Garst does a phenomenal job with her background pictures. Here is one of the pictures she recently set as the background picture.

Some of the picture focuses on what she does and other parts of the picture focus on her product.

At this point, some people may look past this method thinking that it would take too much time to create a nice background picture. However, who said you have to create the background picture.

I don’t know how many people are on Kim Garst’s team, but I can tell you for sure that I did not create my background picture. Someone else created it for me after I made suggestions as to how the background picture should look.

That way, you can have an epic background picture without the creation phase taking up too much of your time.

#3: Write An Effective Bio

Once people take the time to look at your profile picture and your background picture, the final part of your foundation is writing an effective bio.

Captivating pictures will result in people taking the time to read your bio and learn more about who you are. They want to know about what you do as a profession but also what you do outside of your profession.

I am more than a digital marketing expert, author, entrepreneur, and blogger. While all of those things do apply to me, there are certain parts of my life that are important in crafting my identity.

For instance, I am a Red Sox fan in New York—the rare breed of human that is more rare than a shiny Pokemon.

I have had conversations with many of my followers that have nothing to do with digital marketing. Some of those conversations are directly related to the Red Sox.

Take a look at my bio. I have had conversations with people based on what I put in that bio about my personal life.

I have exchanged dog pictures with some of my followers and let others know what my fastest times are in certain running events.

When people get to know you as a professional AND as a person, that’s when trust begins to develop. You want to be a people’s person who is easy to talk with.

Each hobby you write within your bio that has nothing to do with business gives your audience another opportunity to connect with you. Some people followed me because I like dogs, and these same people have had conversations in which we talk about our pets.

Later on, these same people read my blog posts and wait for my next piece of content.

#4: What You Tweet

After the foundation has been built, the final factor is what you tweet. If you consistently tweet valuable content throughout the day, then you will appear in your followers’ home streams more often.

The more you appear there, the more your followers will remember you. By consistently tweeting valuable content, the same people who see you often will come to trust you.

To determine what is valuable content, ask yourself who your audience is and what type of content they would specifically want to read. I read many articles about running faster, but my audience of people who want to learn more about social media would not get the same value from those articles that I do.

That’s why I focus on tweeting digital marketing related content. It’s what my audience wants.

In Conclusion

Most of the work involved with building trust is setting up the foundation. Once the foundation is laid out, you build upon that foundation by tweeting valuable content.

However, once you gain your audience’s trust, you must use this privilege responsibly. We know that trust is something that we shouldn’t abuse. It’s difficult to gain trust but it is so easy to break that same trust.

If you stop tweeting, or you tweet less frequently, fewer people will remember who you are, and as a result, they won’t trust you as much. Never become overconfident that the trust from your audience will last forever.

That way, you will strive to always build upon the current trust and constantly provide your audience with your best content.

What are your thoughts about using Twitter to build trust? How do you get your followers to remember who you are on Twitter? Do you have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

4 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic From Twitter

January 6, 2016 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

If there is one social network that you need to master for the sake of your blog’s growth, that social network must be Twitter.

Out of all of the social networks I use, Twitter brings in the most traffic. And many prominent bloggers within my niche have praised Twitter in a similar way.

Twitter just happens to be a great social network for getting more blog traffic. But only if you know how to bring your followers over to your blog.

The way you use Twitter ultimately determines what you get out of it. To get the best out of your Twitter efforts and generate more blog traffic, follow these four tips.

#1: Pin A Tweet Promoting Something On Your Blog

A while ago, Twitter rolled out a new feature that allows people to pin a tweet to the top of their feeds.

If you want people who visit your Twitter profile to always see a specific blog post or page on your blog, then you can pin one of your tweets. That pinned tweet will also generate massive social proof since it’s half-life is infinite.

The half-life of most tweets are very short. Within a few hours, most tweets become completely irrelevant and pushed to the bottom of our ever growing feeds.

When you pin a tweet to the top of your feed, that tweet does not die. It is immortal until you decide to pin another tweet on the top of your profile instead.

Right now, I am still going strong with the same pinned tweet that has hundreds of likes and retweets. The massive social proof indicates popularity and gets people to click on the link and share it with their audiences.

It’s no wonder that this particular landing page is the most popular thing I have on my blog.

#2: Tweet Consistently Throughout The Day

If you go to different blog posts, you will get different advice on how many tweets to send in a given day. Some people will advise 10 tweets per day while others will advise no more than five tweets per day.

The actual science of tweeting frequency is discovering what works best with your audience. What works best for my audience is tweeting consistently throughout the day.

I started tweeting more often when I saw other people doing the exact same thing and getting better results because of it. I wondered if I could double my daily tweets and then double my blog traffic from Twitter.

It turns out I could, and as a result, my blog grew exponentially over the next few months.

The growth my blog experienced was directly related to my tweeting more often. However, I’m not simply tweeting anything that comes to mind.

I am tweeting my blog posts often. In fact, I tweet about my own blog posts more than 90% of the time. Some people would advise to only tweet your content 20% of the time, but I discovered something different:

As long as you tweet valuable content, your followers will appreciate it.

If you write valuable content and want to promote that valuable content, then your audience will appreciate it. Even if you only tweet your own blog posts, people within your audience will still read your content and engage with you all the same.

#3: Tweet With 1-2 Hashtags

Tweets with 1-2 hashtags have been proven to get more engagement than tweets that don’t have any hashtags at all. Getting more engagement from your tweets will result in more blog traffic for you.

And including 1-2 hashtags within a tweet is one of the easiest ways to boost engagement. Not only will you get more engagement, but you will also get more exposure.

I like to view hashtags as the SEO for Twitter. When you type in a hashtag into Twitter’s search engine, all tweets with that hashtag will show up. When someone clicks on a hashtag, that person then sees the most recent tweets containing the hashtag.

Including relevant hashtags within your tweets makes it easy for people to find your tweets. Better yet, if you can take advantage of a trending hashtag and relevantly insert that hashtag into your tweet, then that tweet will pick up some exposure from the trending topics.

Tweets that including trending topics are going to be seen by a significant amount of the Twitter population.

#4: Make It Easier For People To Share Your Blog Posts Via Twitter

All of my blog posts include a tweet button at the very bottom. I include this tweet button at the bottom of all of my blog posts to make it easier for people to tweet my content.

While the tweet button is a nice start, there are several ways to make it easier for people to share your content.

You can have social media icons on the side that drag down so people can share your content at any point.

For Twitter in particular, you can also use tools like Click To Tweet and various WordPress plugins that allow you to create links to custom tweets in the middle of your blog posts. Here is an example:

[Tweet “4 Ways To Get More #Blog Traffic From #Twitter. http://bit.ly/1OvGd7C”]

I used the Click To Tweet plugin to create this custom tweet in a few seconds. Custom tweets like these that are in the middle of blog posts are easy to notice.

As a result, more people utilize these custom tweets.

The best part is that since you can craft the custom tweet in any way you like, you can create a shortened link (less characters get taken up), add hashtags where you believe they are necessary, and track clicks if your shortened link comes with statistics (if you are unsure of which link shortener to use, go with Bit.ly. It’s free and awesome)

In Conclusion

Twitter is the best social network for getting more blog traffic. By changing how you engage with your audience and tracking your results, you are bound to get more blog traffic from Twitter.

Just like anything else in life, Twitter Domination is a journey. Dominating the platform requires an investment in your time that may feel difficult in the short-run but will be very rewarding in the long-run.

If at any point you feel overwhelmed by Twitter, you can always outsource some of the work. I used to do everything for my Twitter account’s success all by myself. As my workload grew, maintaining my Twitter account seemed to get in the way of everything else.

I decided to outsource parts of my Twitter strategy, and then more time began to open up. Twitter is not the ultimatum to success, but it is one of the most valuable platforms that will aid in your blog’s growth.

What are your thoughts about using Twitter to get more blog traffic? Is Twitter the supreme social network in your strategy or do you believe another social network is more important than Twitter? Which of these tips was your favorite? Sound off in the comments section below.

The 3 Steps To Goal Achievement

January 4, 2016 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

The Three Steps To Goal Achievement — The first step is to read this blog post 🙂

We all have goals. Not only do we all have goals, but we all want to accomplish them. This is basic information.

And then beyond that, the enigma dwells.

“I have big goals but how do I accomplish them? I never feel like I have enough time!”

Sound familiar? I have heard many excuses and admittedly made excuses myself (I don’t anymore, but I used to). The most common excuse is a lack of time.

A few months ago, I gave myself a goal that seemed like it wouldn’t happen. The goal was to find some time in my busy schedule to play the piano every day and get really good at it.

When I first gave myself this goal, it seemed impossible. I am a high school student, daily runner (unless I am resting), and entrepreneur all wrapped into one.

I would have to open up some time in my schedule to play the piano.

I knew goal achievement from a business perspective, but this was something completely different. I had to take a big leap out of my comfort zone.

This goal found its way into my head last July. I started playing in August. Now I play every day. I was attentive to my journey through the whole process.

How did I accomplish this goal? How could I use this knowledge to make it easier for me to accomplish my other goals?

How could I communicate this with my readers? This blog post is the answer to that final question. It turns out that goal achievement is EASY, but only if you know what you are doing.

Goal achievement can be broken down into three steps.

#1: Identify The Goal

The first way to solve a problem is by identifying that problem in the first place. The first way to accomplish a goal is by identifying that goal in the first place.

Chances are you have already identified a particular goal that you are heading after. One step down. Two to go.

#2: Put In The Work Every Day

In life, this tip alone is the closest thing you will find to the silver bullet. Want to become a successful blogger? Want to become a singer? Want to do something new?

Put in the work every day. You won’t get any closer to a silver bullet.

The more work you put towards something, the more committed you become to that work or idea.

If you put in the work every day, the work eventually becomes a habit. Habits eventually become a part of your life.

Working on my business and playing the piano are two daily habits that I hold dearly. If I don’t do both of them, I roll around in my sleep.

Okay, I don’t know if I roll in my sleep. I don’t have a security camera in my room, and I wouldn’t want to see video of myself sleeping. That would be in between awkward and creepy.

The point is that if I don’t perform BOTH of those tasks, then my day is incomplete. There are few things worse than going to bed at the end of the day knowing that your day is incomplete.

It’s the reason why I sometimes write blog posts past 11 pm. No matter how challenging the workload becomes, I always find the time to do something for my blog every day.

#3: Let Nothing Stand In Your Way

When new goals get added to our lives, we must create the time to make those goals happen. Creating the time for our goals means giving up other things that may be holding us back.

When I decided I wanted to play the piano every day, I knew I had to give something up. If I gave up blogging, I would have had a meltdown. I love writing these blog posts.

I also enjoyed playing video games. But much to everyone’s surprise, it turns out I didn’t enjoy them enough. Video games got the axe and I was able to play the piano every day.

If you are a teenager reading this blog post, then you know how fun video games can be. I played Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart are often as I could.

Suddenly, I would never be playing those two video games (or any others) again. Just like that.

When I first unplugged all of the devices and put them in the basement, there were some moments of fear. However, once the job was done, I knew I made the right decision.

When you make a significant decision to take away something standing in your way (especially something that has stood in your way for a long time), you get more commitment.

I gave up video games. I was not going to let the piano collect any more dust than it already had.

What stands in your way? Maybe you watch too much TV. Maybe you find yourself surfing on YouTube too often.

Something stands in your way. You have to get to the root of it and eliminate it. Once you eliminate something that has been standing in your way, you will gain more commitment towards the goal, but more importantly, towards yourself and everything that you stand for.

In Conclusion

I play the piano every day. The same songs that I thought I could never play are the ones that I can now easily play.

The reason I accomplish goals is because I follow this three step process. In the end, goal achievement is all about putting in the work each day.

Once you willingly put in the work every day, you automatically want to learn more. Nothing I ever do will be forced upon me.

The reason I have fun writing these blog posts, running, and playing the piano is partly because I chose those paths for myself. If you choose your own path, then you are bound to have more fun with it.

It’s not forced on you. At that point, you develop the natural drive that we all have as you go after your goals.

What are your thoughts about goal achievement? Which of these tips resonated with you the most? Do you have any other tips for goal achievement? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Have A Breakthrough 2016

January 1, 2016 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

I can’t start this blog post without wishing everyone a big HAPPY NEW YEAR!! The beginning of the year always gets me pumped.

I look back at my achievements from 2015 and look forward into what I can achieve in 2016. I look back at my mistakes to see what I can avoid in the future.

I have been doing a lot of looking back lately. I graduate high school in May.

In a few days, I’ll be celebrating my 18th birthday. I am already in the process of changing all of my bios from “17 Year Old” to “18 Year Old” because I definitely don’t want to do that on my birthday.

That was just me walking down memory lane and looking at what is to come. The main point of this blog post is how you can have a breakthrough 2016. Last year was kind to me. This year is going to be epic.

Maybe I sounded overconfident there. However, to have a breakthrough 2016, you need to have a strong amount of confidence towards yourself. It’s better to be overconfident than it is to lack confidence.

It’s okay to be confident in your ability to achieve your goals.

However, confidence alone won’t get you to the finish line. You can feel confident that you will finish the marathon, but taking action and running the marathon is what actually results in you crossing the finish line.

This is where most people mess up. We gain confidence when we write our New Year’s resolutions on paper. A few weeks later and that same sheet of paper is nowhere to be found.

Intentionally lost in the shuffle.

New Year’s resolutions work when you combine that high level of confidence with taking action the right way. Taking action does not mean forgetting your resolutions and remembering them in November.

Taking action the right way means taking consistent action to achieve a certain goal.

View your New Year’s resolutions as a skyscraper with 365 floors. Every floor on the building has something or someone important for you to achieve your New Year’s resolutions.

Maybe on one of the floors, you do some videos before going back into the elevator. Maybe on another floor, you meet with a partner who can help you move forward. You spend more time on certain floors than others.

You consistently go up one floor at a time. The consistency becomes a habit and soon the work becomes effortless. I used to struggle to write blog posts like these. After writing blog posts for several years, I have gotten better—only because I continued to consistently write content.

Writing content went from a tedious task to an effortless habit.

Showing up every day and putting in the work are two key elements of highly successful people. Not once per month or once per week. Every day.

“But I Don’t Have Time For That Much Work”

Most excuses revolve around a lack of time. The New Year’s resolutions look good on paper, but as some people say, “When life gets in the way,” those resolutions suddenly look impossible.

Life getting in the way and a lack of time are excuses. Nothing more.

Blog posts like these tend to share the general tone of not making excuses and that excuses are lame.

If you make excuses the right way, they can present opportunities for growth.

One of the goals I had in the middle of 2015 was to get back on Udemy and create courses. I had less than 10 courses on Udemy. But I couldn’t go back on Udemy right away.

Why? Because I didn’t have enough time.

I knew Udemy would help my business and that I could do it, but I had an excuse that seemed to make sense.

Then I asked myself the most important question I have ever asked myself as an entrepreneur.

“How do I find more time?”

I took an excuse that was holding me back and asked myself how I could make that same excuse illegitimate.

The answer for me was outsourcing a large percentage of my business. In less than a week, more than half of my business was outsourced.

I repurposed my extra time towards creating and marketing more Udemy courses. By the end of the year, I had a total of 20+ Udemy courses.

Spoiler Alert: I plan on doubling that total in 2016.

It’s not lame to make excuses. It’s only lame if you make an excuse but then don’t do anything about it.

“I can’t run the marathon because I’m not in shape. How can I add more workouts to my schedule?”

“I’m not talented enough to sing. How can I learn more about proper singing right now?”

“I can’t achieve my dreams. How can I push that thought away and start chasing my dreams?”

Recurring excuses create shame. Eliminate any of those excuses and it becomes a habit that surges your confidence.

A Breakthrough Year Require Breakthrough Goals

There’s no way around it. I have goals that to some people may sound crazy. They may sound impossible and too ambitious. They sound like they will never happen.

I like those types of goals. I approach them with full force. I don’t care about what people say I can and cannot do.

In that respect, all that matters is what I say I can and cannot do.

I understand that some people are conscious about what others think about them and their goals. Some of us are fearful of what people will think about our ambitious New Year’s resolutions.

Some of us are afraid of getting dragged down and being told that we can’t do something. Then why do you have to tell anyone your most ambitious New Year’s resolutions.

If you keep them to yourself, those particular goals will boil within your heart. Soon enough, accomplishing those goals will become your top priority.

The other option is to tell people your New Year’s resolutions, even the most ambitious ones. Maybe people will comment about the unlikelihood of those goals happening. You can use other people’s doubts as the fuel to your fire.

You can either choose one of those two approaches. Think about how you would feel if you told people your New Year’s resolutions and then choose the best approach for you.

If you choose to tell people about your resolutions, then make sure you also have a group of people to keep you accountable. The people who keep you accountable will motivate you to stay true to those resolutions.

Breaking Out Of The Traditional 366 Mindset

It turns out that this year is a Leap Year. So there are 366 days instead of 365.

Making a breakthrough also requires that you break through the status quo of thinking. Most New Year’s resolutions follow this cycle:

They bring hope on New Year’s Day
They “mysteriously” disappear in the middle of February
They are rediscovered in November
December 31st: “Back to the drawing board”

Why do most New Year’s resolutions go through this cycle? The answer is that since there are 366 days in a leap year, we believe that we can take a few months off. The result is resolutions not getting accomplished, and then on December 31st, back to the drawing board.

The simple solution is to change the deadline. Most people view December 31st as their deadline. You need to view each month as a deadline.

What must you do in January to get closer to your New Year’s resolutions? What must you do in February? The closer the deadline, the more productive you will become.

If you make the deadline much closer than December 31st, then you will be more productive and move towards accomplishing your 2016 resolutions.

In Conclusion

The New Year is always an exciting time filled with possibility and hope. The challenge with any New Year is to maintain the excitement and hope throughout the year.

By changing the way you view a typical year and how you accomplish your goals, you will discover that it is easy to accomplish your resolutions.

I end this blog post with a tidbit I heard last month. Maybe it’s the greatest tidbit for productivity, but many tidbits nowadays hold that title.

I recently read an article about the mindset of a Navy SEAL. The Navy SEAL mindset is this:

When your body says you are done, then you are really just 40% done.

The Navy SEAL who shared this mindset has run several 100+ mile races—and in some, as one of the top finishers.

It’s very hard to not find that impressive.

So the next time you feel like you are done, in reality you are just 40% done. Don’t limit yourself in any way. Strive to tap into the other 60% so you can go from good to great.

What are your thoughts about achieving New Year’s resolutions? Do you have any tips for us? Do you have New Year’s resolutions? Sound off in the comments section below.

10 Methods To Turbocharge Your Blog’s Growth

December 30, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Most blogs see a consistent level of traffic. No big increase and no big decrease. Stuck at the same level whether that by 10 daily visitors or 100 daily visitors.

Just because a blog is stuck at the same level does not mean that will always be the case. By striving to turbocharge your blog’s growth, you may get thousands of daily visitors to your blog in just a few months.

It all depends on how much work you are willing to put in.

Turbocharging blog traffic is what allows people to get twice as many visitors in just one month. It results in the exponential growth of your blog.

Interested in learning how you can make that happen for your blog? Here’s how you can start turbocharging your blog traffic today:

#1: Get Hyper Active On Social Media

Getting active on social media means going on social media often and posting content whenever you feel like it.

Getting hyper active on social media means going on social media and scheduling numerous posts to get published each day.

On Twitter, I tweet more than 100 times per day. On Pinterest, I have a freelancer pinning my content dozens of times throughout the day.

90% of these posts should focus on promoting your blog posts. Most of the tweets I send promote my blog posts. That’s why Twitter is my #1 source of blog traffic and routinely brings in hundreds of daily visitors.

If you want to get hyper active on social media, then you need to use HootSuite. HootSuite does a great job at connecting all of the social networks together.

That way, you don’t have to log into and out of each of them.

HootSuite Dashboard

If there was a holy grail to social media, it would be this dashboard. I don’t need to have 10 tabs open on my browser to update all of my social media accounts. I don’t have to use my iPhone to post something on Instagram.

My social media strategy’s foundation is within the HootSuite dashboard.

#2: Become Comfortable With Writing Blog Posts

The more comfortable you become with writing blog posts, the easier it will be to provide value. The more valuable your content is, the longer people will stick around.

Becoming comfortable with writing blog posts also enforces consistency. Consistently updating your blog will help out with SEO since your blog would always be fresh with new content.

The more important benefit of consistent blog posts is that some of your readers will discover your publishing pattern.

Just as all Big Bang Theory fans tune in on Thursday nights for new episodes, your readers will learn what times to tune in for new content on your blog.

I publish content on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and always at 9 am. Maintaining that consistency for over a year creates a schedule that my readers can rely on.

I’m sure some of my blog readers are back on my blog during those days and times just to see what I published next.

The more comfortable you get with applying a skill, the better you get at applying that skill. Writing blog posts is no different.

#3: Focus On Growing Your Email List

I won’t go into the spiel about why it’s so important. I have done so before, and I’m sure you have heard many marketers go into their spiels about the email list.

I’ll save you the speech and end off by saying focus on growing your email list. That’s how you get consistently rising traffic and revenue.

I wrote a blog post that goes into detail about growing your email list.

#4: Communicate With Your Email List Often

No matter how large your email list is, if you don’t communicate with that email list, it is worthless.

You could have one million subscribers, but if you don’t communicate with them, then you’re no better than the person with one subscriber.

Don’t wait until you have that many subscribers to start communicating with them. Communicate with them now, even if you have less than 10 people on your list.

Communicate with the people on your email list at least once per week. The more they see you in their inboxes, the more these people will remember you.

Get in the inbox too much, and then people will get annoyed, so be careful.

What would you tell your email list about? Here are a few suggestions;

Your blog posts
Your YouTube videos
New project you are working on
New product

Just start somewhere. Get to know the people on your email list and see what they engage with the most.

If you realize that your email list responds well to blog posts about Twitter, then continue writing blog posts about Twitter.

If you realize that your email list responds poorly to blog posts about chess, then don’t write any blog posts about chess for a while (or forever depending on you, your blog, and your audience).

I can’t give you the silver bullet and tell you how to communicate with your email list word-for-word.

The truth is that we all have our own silver bullet. We just have to find it in the very bottom of our toolbox. The way we find that silver bullet is by looking for it (also known as taking action).

In this case, you take action by actually communicating with your email list.

#5: Write Guest Posts

Every guest post you write gives you and your blog a little more exposure. If you write a guest post on a popular blog, your blog could get hundreds of extra visitors from that one guest post.

You would definitely get more credibility.

But what does that mean for blog traffic? The first thing is that a guest post on a popular blog is bound to get a lot of exposure. You also get to build a relationship with the guest blogger, and that guest blogger may decide to help you out someday (i.e. by promoting one of your products).

But there is an advanced way to get the best out of your guest post. Turn it into a series. The guest post acts as Part One and should end by leading readers to a specific blog post on your blog.

That specific blog post is Part Two of the guest post. If people loved Part One, they’ll enjoy Part Two.

That’s why Avengers is so successful and why The Dark Knight trilogy is the best trilogy on the planet.

The lessons we learn from multi-billion dollar businesses can greatly transform the way we blog.

#6: Have An Outreach Strategy In Place

This is the big one. The results can get quite incredible, but it also takes a massive amount of time to pull it off.

The concept of an outreach strategy is that when you publish a new blog post, you tell as many influential bloggers about it as possible.

All of these influential bloggers must be bloggers within your niche.

The masters of the outreach strategy are routinely telling dozens (if not hundreds) of other bloggers about their new blog posts.

A simple email with five or fewer sentences kindly encouraging the person to share your blog post will do the trick. It is critical that you say that sharing the blog post is optional and that you’ll continue reading the influential blogger’s content either way.

You don’t want to aggressively ask for the influential blogger to share your content. Influential bloggers get plenty of emails like that.

You want to take a more gentle approach similar to this email (from Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique):

skyscraper-technique-outreach-template1

To increase your chances of these people sharing your new blog posts, here are some actions you can take:

Share some of their content on social media first
Mention them with the @username so they can see you shared their content
Comment on their blog posts and try engaging with them on social media

The more action you take to build the relationship, the more likely these people will share your content.

Depending on how strong you build the relationship, some influential bloggers will feel obligated to share your blog post with their audience.

Especially if you mention the influential blogger within the blog post.

But it takes a lot of time to make it happen. If you have the time, then go for it. If not, here’s how you can open up more time.

#7: Outsource As Much Of The Work As Possible

I like to believe I am a full-time blogger and entrepreneur. The reality is that I am not. I am a full-time student which means, by definition, everything else is part-time.

Don’t tell that to the entrepreneur within me 🙂

It was hard to acknowledge that as of now, all of this is technically part-time. In the long-run, this acknowledgement helped me change the way I work on my business.

My junior year of high school taught me many lessons about work and life. The school workload was challenging. That workload decreased the amount of time I had left for my business.

In the end, my business remained intact and grew a little. I also got good grades so it was worth it.

But I learned a very important lesson about business that applies to all of us.

No matter how productive we are (or think we are), we can’t do it all alone.

When the workload got challenging and I was taking standardized tests, I only had time to do what I already knew how to do.

Grow my Twitter audience and write blog posts. I did other things, but those two activities probably took up 90% of the time I put towards my business that year.

I gained over 100,000 new Twitter followers and wrote dozens of blog posts. That work looks good on the surface, but there was no expansion.

I was just expanding on my current platforms without opening the doors to more possibilities.

I recognized this was due to a lack of time. So I made a big decision. I began outsourcing most of my work.

The days of scheduling tweets, manually growing my Twitter audience, sending pins, and creating pictures for this blog were over.

The days of Udemy, rediscovery, and affiliate marketing were beginning. My business began expanding in different directions.

All because I suddenly had more time available. And it makes sense, even for a part-timer.

The reason part-timers don’t have enough time to focus on their side work is because time is so short. However, if you outsource some of your workload, you buy back some of your time.

For the sake of argument, let’s say working full-time means working for 40 hours every week. As a part-time worker, you may only be able to work for 15 hours every week. That’s typically how much time I utilize for my business each week.

That’s why summer is my best season for getting stuff done.

Going back to the main point, there is a 25 hour/week deficit. What if, each week, you paid freelancers to do 25 hours of your business work. Then you do the other 15 hours of work on your own every week.

The sum is 40 hours per week. Outsourcing some of the work can turn you from a part-time worker to a full-time income. Even if you put in the same amount of time as a part-time worker.

Even if you are a full-time blogger, outsourcing will still open up a massive amount of time for you. You can’t do it alone. You need a team behind you.

#8: Make Your Blog Load Faster

Blog speed is one of the most underrated elements of a successful blog. Google pays attention to blog speed when determining how to rank your content.

Your blog’s speed also determines how long your visitors stick around. If your blog only takes 1-2 seconds to load, then visitors will stick around.

If, on the other hand, it takes your blog over 10 seconds to load, you will lose a large percentage of your fan base.

We are busy people who are becoming increasingly busy with the rise of new opportunities and workloads. Every second counts. For Amazon, each second is the difference between making and not making an extra $1.6 billion.

You can use a site speed test to determine how fast your blog is. I recommend QuickSprout because it lets you see…

How long it takes for your blog to load
What is slowing your blog down
Other cool information

Once QuickSprout tells you what to do, the next step is to take action. Every action you take will make your blog load faster. Then your readers will stick around for a longer period of time.

#9: Look At The Data

When you get blog traffic, you get to see where that traffic is coming from. WordPress provides statistics that let you see your daily visitors, where the traffic is coming from, and which of your blog posts are receiving the most traffic.

Depending on how you interpret the data, you can discover what your audience wants, which source you get the most traffic from, and which sources of traffic you need to work on.

The way you interpret the data can impact the future of your blog’s growth. You can choose to focus on your strengths, address your weaknesses, or change what type of content appears on your blog.

The possibilities are endless, but you only discover the possibilities through exploration.

#10: Get People To Stick Around

Once you get a visitor on your blog, you want that visitor to stick around for as long as possible. You can get people to stick around with these following tactics:

Write valuable, attention-grabbing content
Include links to your older blog posts in your new ones
Introduce your previous blog post at the beginning of each new blog post
Include a teaser to your next blog post at the end of each new blog post
Get your visitor to enter an email address

Alexa lets you discover how long your average visitor sticks around. You can also use it to see how long the average visitor on your favorite blog sticks around.

In Conclusion

Turbocharging your blog’s traffic requires a lot of work. It isn’t easy, but once you put in the work and see the fruits of your labor, you will be happy with the results.

The way to approach blog traffic is to focus on the following:

Grow your platform
Leverage other people’s platforms in a symbiotic relationship

Putting in the work is what makes it happen.

Which of these tips was your favorite? How do you increase your blog traffic? Sound off in the comments section below.