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How To Create A Lasting Impression With Your Blog Posts

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blogging-336376_1920When visitors scroll through your content for the first time, they get a first impression that dictates whether or not they’ll return to your blog.

I’ve written over 1,000 blog posts to date, and any might have been a visitor’s first impression of my content. That’s why I try to craft blog post that make a lasting impression. My first-time visitors hope to find valuable content, and my returning visitors expect it.

To be sure you’re writing valuable content, follow these tactics:

#1: Plan Out Your Content

Once you’ve conducted research, the next step is to plan out your content. How will it flow from start to finish. In a blog post called “X Steps To A Better Life,” how many steps will you include? What will those steps be? In what order will you discuss them?

I always plan my content by identifying an idea and listing anything that’s relevant in the context of a blog post. I’ll add structure later, this just serves as a quick outline for a blog post that can take less than a minute. A book outline, on the other hand, takes AT LEAST 15 minutes!

Planning your content in advance makes it easier to take action on the next step.

#2: Do More Research

Once you’ve planned your content, conduct more research. Strong blog posts are backed by data. Someone did the hard work for you, so mention it only when it’s appropriate, and be sure to provide links to your sources.

Citing data and sources is good for SEO, but it can also increase the time people stay on your blog. People will stop to think about interesting statistics, trying to comprehend them for a few seconds, before they finish reading your blog post. Here’s a cool statistic:

Every month, 2.5 billion comments are made on Facebook Pages.

Insert that statistic in a post about getting more engagement for a Facebook Page, and you’ve got people glued to your content. Little tidbits like these help keep your audience’s attention.

#3: Keep People On Your Blog Longer

While planning and research help keep people on your blog for longer periods of time, you’ll want them to stick around for as long as possible. And the more time people spend on your blog, the more likely they are to come back.

Think about how much time people spend on YouTube. People spend so much time on YouTube that it’s become instinctive to go keep going back.

To keep people on your blog for a longer period of time, you need to keep them on your individual blog posts for longer periods. The simple act of writing longer blog posts will help, but only when they provide value.

Don’t write a thin, 2,000-word blog post if you can do a better job in 500 words.

Linking to older blog posts in your new ones is another great way to retain readers. And it helps your bounce rate. See what I did there? I used the discussion to insert a relevant hyperlink, and if you click on it, you’ll remain on my blog.

Now imagine all of your new blog posts linking back to the older ones. Then imagine going back to the older posts and linking them to your new ones. You create a network of internal links that keep people glued to your content.

#4: Encourage Engagement

At the end of my blog posts, I always encourage people to leave a comment. This call-to-action results in more comments than I can always engage with.

You may think your content ends when you hit the publish button, but that’s not true. It’s continuously updates until the end of time (literally). Anyone can leave a comment and add more to the content.

Comments help first-time visitors think your blog is popular. And they may stick around just to read some of the comments. Some blog posts get hundreds of comments that visitors actively read through. I’m often one of them.

#6: Choose Images Carefully

People love pictures. We constantly share pictures on our favorite social networks. Pictures are also much easier for us to interpret than regular text. In fact, we can interpret pictures 60,000 times faster than text.

That’s why the pictures you choose matter. They create more engagement for your blog posts and result in people sticking around for a longer period of time.

Not only should you choose your pictures carefully, you must also spread them throughout your blog posts. If you meet visitors with a wall of text, they’ll get bored, skim your post, and leave.

Images break up blocks of text with interesting visuals.

In Conclusion

To create a lasting impression with your blog you should anticipate first impressions. Write knowing that any of your posts might be the first to get a visitor’s attention.

From now on, write each post as if it’s the first impression you’ll make with your content. That way, you’ll write blog posts that keep visitors returning.

What are your thoughts on these tactics? Do you have any tips for creating a lasting impression? What questions do you have? Sound off in the comments section below.

11 Cool Content Marketing Tactics That Will Push Your Blog Traffic To The Next Level

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content

Effective content marketing can determine whether your content is read by thousands of people or a handful of people, and your content marketing strategy can determine whether you’ll make a full-time income as a blogger or struggle to get by.

Many bloggers know this, which is why they continuously test different methods to expand their content’s reach. The blogger with 100 monthly visitors and the blogger with 100,000 monthly visitors both strive to get their content in front of more people.

But how can you consistently expand your blog’s reach? How can you attract more readers today than you did yesterday? Here are 11 cool content marketing tactics you can use to push your blog traffic to the next level:

 

#1: Accept Guest Posts 

My blog generated the most traffic when I published two posts per day. But as my blog posts became longer and more content rich, it became increasingly difficult to publish as frequently and consistently.

I’m slowly getting closer to achieving that same frequency, but not because I’m writing 14 blog posts each week. Rather, I started accepting guest posts from my community.

Now I get free content for my blog without having to write a single word. How cool is that?

Of course, I still love writing at least one blog post every week, but having to write (and publish…big difference) a blog post every day would prevent me from addressing other parts of my business.

Accepting guest posts results in more updates and fresh content, and that results in more SEO love.

 

#2: Hire A Contributor

If you want to take accepting guest posts to the next level, you can hire a contributor who will produce the content for you. I recommend finding a paid contributor on Upwork and making sure this person is passionate about your blog’s topics.

You don’t want to hire a contributor who will write a blog post without any passion behind the topic. That lack of passion will show in the final draft.

If you hire a contributor, I recommend monitoring his or her content for 1-2 weeks and engaging in frequent conversations. This way, you are both on the same page and you’re more likely to get the content you want and expect.

 

#3: Use Internal Links 

By linking to your content internally, you increase the amount of time readers engage with your blog. And the more time people spend on your blog, the more likely they are to come back for more.

Keeping people on your blog longer also helps build trust and will result in more subscribers and sales over time. Bring attention to some of your older posts and every new post you publish. On the flip side, you can edit your older posts to link to your newer content.

 

#4: Outsource More Tasks

Outsourcing opens up so much time to pursue other parts of your business. I’ve outsourced social media posts, blog post editing, podcast episode editing, video editing, and an array of other tasks.

After I started outsourcing these tasks, I was able to concentrate on creative ways to promote my content such as reaching out to influencers, promoting my content through various outlets, and growing my brand.

Outsourcing will open up more of your time, but be sure to use the extra time productively. Otherwise you’re completely missing the point of outsourcing.

 

#5: Create A Content Calendar

An editorial calendar is a guide that lays out which content gets published when. You can organize the publication of your content in such a way that includes weekly or monthly themes on your blog.

Monthly themes can help with product launches or affiliate promotions. For instance, let’s say you write a blog about the best toys around in July (and also know that new LEGO sets are coming out in August).

You can use mid-July and the entire month of August to focus your content creation efforts on LEGO sets. By the time you introduce your affiliate links, your audience will be more conditioned to buy the LEGO sets.

 

#6: Write Longer Blog Posts

Longer blog posts like these grab more attention and provide more overall value. When I published two blog posts each day, most were only 250-500 words. While I’ve lost that level of frequency, my current blog posts are more in-depth.

Writing longer blog posts is also great for more blog traffic. Not only do search engines love longer blog posts, but you’ll keep people on your blog for a longer period of time.

Think about it. If you’ve made it to this sentence, you’re virtually committed to reading this entire blog post. You’re committed to knowing all 11 tactics mentioned in the post, even if you skim.

Of course, no one is forcing you to read through the entire post, but once you make it to this point, full commitment tends to be the unwritten rule of reading content.

 

#7: Write 1 Blog Post Per Day

If you can muster it, writing one blog post per day will result in a blog that’s consistently updated with fresh content. While it may take a while for search engines to boost your traffic, writing blog posts at a frequent rate will also give you more content to promote on social networks.

My Twitter usage motivated me to write two blog posts per day. I mean, I was tweeting every 15 minutes and wanted to share fresh, original content. And by spacing it out over a long period of time, I was able to garner strong interest for my content.

I still knew I could tweet some content over and over because my new followers wouldn’t have seen it before, and my regular followers wouldn’t have seen everything. I try to write a lot of evergreen content so a tweet linking to a blog post from two years ago would still be relevant to both groups.

 

#8: Submit At Least 3 Guest Post Pitches Per Day

Writing guest posts for other blogs is a well-known tactic to expand your reach. In my experience, it’s easy to approach guest blogging inconsistently.

It’s easy to send multiple pitches in a single week, but then concentrate on creating content for one or two guest p0sts, and stop or simply forget to keep sending pitches.

That’s a mistake. Sending at least three pitches per day helps step up your commitment to producing more content because you may have to meet a deadline that is not self-imposed.

If you submit at least three guest post pitches per day, you’ll submit 1095 guest post pitches each year. Assuming a conservative 20 percent acceptance rate, you’ll write at least 219 guest posts in a given year.

Writing one guest post every other day may seem like a lot of work, but it will result in many more people seeing your content (perhaps millions of additional people will read your content depending on where it’s published).

A single guest post of mine, published on Jeff Bullas’ Blog, was shared over 6,000 times. Talk about more exposure (and that’s just one guest post)! Imagine if you got those results from more than one of your 219 guest posts.

In fact, if you averaged 1,000 shares for all 219 of your guest posts, you’d get 219,000 shares for all of your guest posts that year. It’s very easy to assume that, at this point, over 1 million people will have viewed your content.

 

#9: Link To Influencers In Your Posts

Influencer marketing will be a strong form of marketing for a very long time. The idea behind influencer marketing is that you mention several influencers within your blog post. You then email them to let them know.

Some will share your content with their audiences while others won’t. The key thing not to do in every email to an influencer is to ask them to share your content.

I’ve gotten many emails from people mentioning me in their content and saying something like, “Can you share this with your audience?”

Influencers know how influencer marketing works. Instead of asking them to share your content, just tell them you featured them in your blog post. Don’t try to influence the influencer with explicit requests because those emails are usually ignored.

The more influencers you mention in your content, the better, but make sure the content doesn’t drag on because you’re trying to mention every possible influencer in your niche. That’s why you write multiple blog posts.

 

#10: Create A Content Series

There’s nothing more frustrating than not knowing the ending. Imagine going to the theater, watching Rogue One, and then halfway through the movie the screen stops working. The staff comes out and says they can’t fix the problem. You get a full refund, but you are left with only half of Rogue One.

You don’t know the ending, and that will frustrate you until you see it at another movie theater.

While it’s very difficult to reproduce the same feeling as stopping halfway through Rogue One, you can still create a content series without an ending.

Imagine writing a blog post called “5 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers.” At the end of the blog post you can say something like, “I actually have a bonus tip to get more Twitter followers, but I’ll reveal it in the next blog post along with four additional tips.”

Now you build suspense while creating a content series. People who read and enjoy Part 10 will be more likely to read the other nine blog posts in the series.

 

#11: Ride The Trendy Waves Of The Internet

Google Trends allows you to see what is trending on the internet. If you can connect a trending topic to your niche, you’ll write a blog post that will get traffic from its value plus additional traffic from riding a trendy wave.

One writer from Mashable rode the wave of Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour at just the right time. She wrote a post in June 2015 on the Taylor Swift businesswoman guidebook.

No, Taylor Swift didn’t actually write a businesswoman guidebook and publish it on Amazon. Rather, the writer analyzed Swift and came up with tips that Swift seemed to exemplify. The final result was a blog post filled with business insights and Swifty euphoria that was shared across the internet.

 

In Conclusion

The great thing about content marketing is that no matter how much traffic you get, you can always get more. You can always challenge yourself to do more today than you did yesterday.

Getting more traffic involves writing valuable content and spreading it. Spread your content to more people via search engines, social media, blogs and influencers, and you’ll eventually build an unforgettable blog.

What are your thoughts on these content marketing tactics? Do you have tips to share? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Pitfalls To Avoid When Accepting Guest Blog Posts

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guest blogging pitfalls

Featuring guest posts on your blog can provide you with fresh content, SEO growth, and blog traffic. The challenge is finding quality contributors whose content your audience will love, and understanding which submissions may not be right for your blog. These are the top five pitfalls to avoid:

 

#1: Accepting Every Guest Post

If you accept every guest submission that comes your way, you’ll compromise the quality of your blog. While it’s flattering to be pitched, and tempting to add fresh content, not every submission will work for your blog; accepting them all can dilute the value of your content and confuse your readers.

That means you’ll have to pass on some contributions. To feel less bad about turning someone down, I suggest submitting some of your own guest posts. Like me, you will likely be denied by at least some of the people you pitch. But if you submit valuable content often, some of the prominent blogs within your niche will accept your guest blog posts.

 

#2: Avoid Over Promotional Bloggers

Let’s be real about guest blogging: people often write guest posts with the intent of getting more traffic, building credibility, and including a backlink. And I don’t mind that as long as someone is providing my readers with valuable content.

But I do mind content that is overly self-promotional. There aren’t any specific warning signs, so you’ll have to make assessments on a case-by-case basis. It’s important that the post provides value, and that any attempts at promotion are subtle and relevant to the topic, seamlessly woven into the overall content.

 

#3: Not Owning The Content

Guest posts should be original and not seen anywhere else on the web. You may face a SEO penalty for publishing content that exists elsewhere on the internet, which will compromise your efforts.

Guest blogging benefit the blogger as well as the blog owner (but only when the owner is the exclusive provider of that content). No matter how great the content, always deny contributions that may have been published anywhere on the web. To be considered, all submissions must be fresh and original.

 

#4: Content Mismatch

I recently received a guest blog post submission that I was eager to approve (I was making Mistake #1 and approving everything I got). However, I felt a little uneasy about the submission and sent it to my editor. She told me the post was not the right fit because the content was outside of my specific niche.

Why would a Twitter-related blog accept a guest blog post about Facebook? While it’s true that both Twitter and Facebook are social networks, dedicated blogs focus solely on content related to one or the other, not both.

If you find yourself looking for ways to make certain content work so that you can publish it on your blog, it’s probably a content mismatch. Contacting relevant contributors is a much better use of your time than trying to rework a mismatch.

 

#5: A Weak Submission Form

A weak submission form will make it significantly more difficult to receive quality contributions. Don’t expect bloggers to guess which content is most appropriate for your blog. Smart bloggers will spend time reading your past content, but a bad form makes everyone’s job more difficult.

Be sure to provide guidelines, examples and ideas before encouraging submissions. Here are the requirements for guest blog posts on my own submission form:

  • Your guest post must be at least 1,500 words. The more words, the better, but don’t sacrifice value.
  • Link to three of my blog posts.
  • Include at least three images.
  • You have the option to promote one of your blog posts, but not landing pages. You CAN promote your landing page in your bio.
  • All content must be original and not published anywhere else.

Since I don’t always link to three of my blog posts or include three images, I can’t expect a guest blogger to do the same without asking.

I also mention something about the benefits of writing for my blog such as exposure and credibility. These benefits give guest bloggers more reasons to want to contribute to my blog.

 

What’s Left?

The only thing left for you to do is encourage guest bloggers to write content for your blog. As your blog gets more traffic, more guest bloggers will submit their content through your form. But in the beginning, you’ll have to do most of the legwork.

You’ll have to advocate for your blog and entice guest bloggers to contribute. But finding guest bloggers is actually easier than you think. All you have to do is find a prominent blog in your niche that accepts guest posts. Then start contacting past contributors one by one.

These guest bloggers prequalify themselves since they’ve already written for a prominent blog within your niche. If you can present the guest bloggers with benefits that justify the effort, they’ll write content for your blog.

I like to contact at least three potential bloggers per day. As I get more guest bloggers to contribute to my blog, I’ll hire a freelancer to conduct outreach. Some of the most successful blogs hire freelancers for contributor outreach.

When I wrote a guest post for Crazy Egg, Neil Patel didn’t reach out to me, and I didn’t submit my post through a form. An individual from Crazy Egg’s outreach team contacted me and invited me to write the guest post. A few weeks later, my guest post showed up on Crazy Egg.

This individual reached out to me through Twitter (which was a smart move since I’m more active on Twitter than any other social network). You can reach out to potential contributors through email or social media. While I personally prefer email, social media conversations have made some of my contributions — and podcast interviews for that matter — possible.

Never rule out a method that works.

 

In Conclusion

Accepting guest posts for your blog is exciting and adds value. You finally get to learn from your own blog, and your content will reach more people.

But you want to make sure your guest blog posts are valuable. If you say yes to every submission without thinking about your audience, you risk sacrificing your blog’s value or creating a content mismatch that confuses your readers.

What are your thoughts on accepting guest blog posts? Are you a guest blogger? Have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below. I’ll read them 🙂

4 Keys to a Successful Blog

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create a successful blog

There are many factors driving a successful blog: high-quality content, engagement, social media traffic, search engine traffic, domain authority and more. I focused on all of those and attracted hundreds of visitors to blog, but did that make my blog a success? Nope. Here’s what made my blog successful:

 

Serve Your Audience

Focusing too much on SEO and metrics can lead to overlooking the most important part of your blog: your audience. Serve your audience and you’ll build a loyal following. I’ve heard this advice a hundred times over.

While it’s valuable advice, it has become a bit overrated. Don’t get me wrong. Serving my audience has helped a lot, but it’s only piece of the puzzle. Serving your audience means being attuned to their needs and interests, and creating valuable content accordingly.

But in a world filled with good content, writing more of it just isn’t enough. To truly serve your audience, you’ve got to do more. Think of content as an appetizer in a three course meal.

 

A Recipe for Success

Some bloggers mistakenly think success is a numbers game. But traffic and visitors alone won’t propel you to the top. Some blogs thrive because they enjoy hundreds of thousands of visitors while others struggle with that kind of traffic, or any kind of traffic for that matter.

But the real winners are the bloggers who truly LOVE their readers. I’m talking about the bloggers who, in addition to offering valuable content consistently, nurture their communities. They make themselves available by regularly answering readers’ questions, responding to their comments and engaging with their content.

If you view everyone in your audience as little more than a potential customer, your blogging journey will hit a lot of bumps. View each member of your audience as a human being with something to offer besides a pocket full of money.

 

Go Above And Beyond

You should already be going above and beyond with your content. But you should also strive to go the extra mile with your audience by acknowledging and showing appreciation for their support, and offering your own.

Writing alone doesn’t do that.  Acknowledge your audience by engaging with their social media posts, responding to their emails and thanking them for sharing your content. Always try to be available.

Neil Patel writes some of the longest SEO related blog posts known to mankind. I’m sure he’s written at least a few posts that exceed 10,000 words. He also spends a lot of time marketing himself.

One would think a busy man like Neil would have little time to dedicate to his audience. But that’s actually where he dedicates most of his time. According to an infographic on his blog, Neil receives around 207 emails every day. He responds to 91 of them!

contact neil patel infographic

Neil spends four hours a day going through his inbox and responding to anything from business questions to interview requests. He also makes the time to respond to readers’ comments on his blog posts, which easily attract 100’s of comments! His older posts consistently receive engagement as well.

 

Make Your Audience Part Of The Action

For a long time, I saw guest blogging as a personal opportunity but hesitated to accept guest posts for my own blog. Yet the benefits of opening your blog to guest contributors are many. It saves you time, keeps your content fresh and varied, helps increase your traffic and adds value.

Not only that, guest contributors become part of your story.

I have written many guest posts. Two that stand out were for Jeff Bullas’ Blog and ProBlogger. When I first started out, these blogs were the holy grail of blogging and social media, so I read them every day to learn more about my niche. Once I gained experience and expertise, it was an honor to be given the opportunity to contribute to these blogs.

Contributors inevitably have different motivations for writing guest posts. Some enjoy seeing their name on a credible blog (and potentially building their own brand), others enjoy giving back to the blogs they’ve learned from in the past. But every contributor becomes a small part of the blog’s story, of your story.

As an added bonus, you get a backlink. You can also do something similar on YouTube by recording collaborative videos with audience members.

 

Don’t Oversell

Overselling to your readers is a surefire way to make the relationship sour. You may be overselling if you are:

  • Creating products in bulk.
  • Involved in affiliate marketing.

Of course, some people who create products into bulk and/or engage in affiliate marketing don’t fall into this trap. The danger arises when you’re too heavily promoting a product (yours or an affiliate’s) every month. I made this mistake.

I first got involved with promoting other people’s courses in 2015. The first time I promoted someone else’s course to my email list I got a bunch of sales. The next month, I promoted a different course and got a bunch of sales. The following month, I did the same.

I spend five straight months promoting other people’s products and very little time delivering value. The result? Increased unsubscribes, fewer email opens, and fewer clicks. It was an email marketing nightmare. My email list is still somewhat scarred by the aftermath but my open and clickthrough rates are gradually increasing.

The point is I enjoyed increased revenues initially, but eventually my sales and email subscribes took a hit. Why? Because I was too focused on pushing products and not providing anything of free value. Worst of all, I saw my email list as just that: a list. Nameless, faceless people with wallets.

It’s was a big mistake, and hard to admit, but if I can help you avoid making the same error I’ll be happy.  In fact, I can thank one of my subscribers for helping me see the light. His email said, “You’re better than this.” And his sentiments were likely shared by the others on my list, the silent majority.

 

In Conclusion

While I still occasionally promote other people’s training courses, I am more focused than ever on my audience’s needs and interests, and giving them something of value that they can use.

Any successful blogger is successful because of his/her audience. Tenacity and grit factor in, but a blog is useless without a loyal following. If you love your readers, they will love you back (and will also be more open to trying your products and services in the future).

What are your thoughts on audience engagement? Do you believe there is a more important determinant of a blog’s success? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Secrets For A Successful Blog

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5-secrets-for-a-successful-blog

The journey towards a successful blog is full of twists and turns. With so many ways to approach your growth strategy, blogging can feel like a blessing or a curse. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and lose sight of what’s most important. The purpose of this blog post is to help you prioritize.

To ensure the growth and success of your blog, focus on the following five strategies:

 

#1: Growing Your Email List

Your email list is your most valuable asset. Gaining more subscribers to your blog or newsletter should guide nearly all of your business initiatives. Everything I do for my business has a focus on growing my email list.

For example, each visitor to my blog is greeted by a welcome mat offering a free ebook: 27 Ways to Get More Retweets on Twitter. Similarly, if a visitor clicks on the ebook image via the sidebar, he or she is sent directly to a landing page.

When I share content on social media, I try to include a post promoting my landing page (but remember to keep self-promotional posts to no more than 10% of your overall content). On YouTube, I include a CTA and link to my landing page in the video’s description.

If you don’t have an email management system and are worried about the costs, MailChimp offers a free option for up to 2,000 subscribers.

 

#2: Outsource Most Of Your Tasks

If I attempted to do everything for my business myself, my work-life balance would suffer. While I do a lot of work for my business, the work of my freelancers combined surpasses my own efforts. Freelancers schedule my social media posts, create images, edit my content, and much more.

If I had to take on all of these responsibilities, I couldn’t spend as much time writing and promoting great content.

Pareto’s Principle states that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts. Outsourcing the other 80 percent of your efforts makes it easier for you to maximize the results you get from the most important 20 percent and focus on what’s important.

 

#3: Consistently Write Valuable Content

Never underestimate your audience. They have access to millions of blogs with fresh, consistent and valuable content. Their expectations are high. Your blog needs to stand out among the competition.

Consistently writing valuable content is not optional. You won’t survive, let alone thrive, online unless you consistently provide your audience with something of real value.

Set a publishing schedule that you can stick with. As your blog gains credibility, you’ll attract guest contributors who can help you keep your content fresh and interesting. Blogs that are updated several times daily enjoy a dedicated staff of writers and regular guest contributors.

Consistently writing valuable content will result in returning visitors and the type of Google love that will put you at the top.

 

#4: Build Relationships

If you’re the only person leveling up your blog, it will only spread so far. While it’s possible to build an audience and increase traffic on your own, it’s much easier when you’ve built the right relationships.

Begin to build relationships with bloggers in your niche if you aren’t doing so already. Some relationships will grow so strong that these influential bloggers will start promoting your content to their own audiences, and your traffic will multiply.

There are plenty of ways to build relationships, but nearly all successful relationships with influencers begin with you doing something to get noticed. Sharing an influencer’s content, commenting on their blog posts, or asking them questions are just a few ways to get their attention.

Lately I’ve been building relationships by inviting people to be guests on my podcast. Getting influencers to participate in your podcast is perhaps the best way to get a free consultation session while tapping into a wider audience (guests often share the episode with their own fans and followers).

Remember that satisfying relationships benefit both parties. Influencers can see right through selfish intentions. Build relationships based on genuine interest and think about how you can give back.

 

#5: Sell A Product

Imagine that you’ve taken the time to grow your blog and email list, but don’t have a method of accumulating revenue. A blog with millions of visitors per month that never generates revenue isn’t as good as a blog with 10,000 monthly visitors that accumulates revenue.

If you don’t have your own product, start with affiliate links (but don’t rely on affiliate marketing exclusively for long-term profits).

Eventually you should be publishing your own ebooks, offering training courses or creating your own products and services.  You will always have more control over a product that you create compared to an affiliate’s product.

While service-based offerings can be profitable, products likes training courses and books literally enable you to make money while you sleep.

 

In Conclusion

Blogging is a complex venture with many avenues for growth. If you find one profitable path, and stick to it, you’ll achieve success faster than bloggers who change direction again and again.

But regardless of which path you chose, these five essentials will make or break your blog. I learned about these five essentials the hard way. Before I optimized my blog for email subscribers, I only gained 300 new names from my first 150,000 visitors. If I had focused on my email list from the start, that number would have been closer to 10,000 subscribers.

If you haven’t yet implemented one or more of these five strategies, now’s the time to get started. No regrets! Rather than focus on could-haves and would-haves, concentrate on the opportunities ahead — the sky’s the limit.

What are your thoughts on these five blogging essentials? Have any others to share? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Ways To Find Time For Freelance Writing

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freelance writingI recently came across the Side Hustle Nation podcast and went through some of the episodes. I was intrigued to discover that several freelancers were making between four and five figures per month.

Considering the extra time I have during the summer months, I decided to take a look at freelancing. Why turn down a good opportunity when it won’t have a negative affect your business? In fact, it may even help it.

At the same time, extra time doesn’t come easily. Maintaining a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, Udemy courses, and everything else I do for my business, I need to plan my extra time wisely.

If you are a freelance writer or considering to pursue freelancing as a side hustle, these five time-saving methods work wonders.

 

#1: Build A Team Of Writers To Help You Out

For anything that requires a big time commitment, I will always have a team of people help me out.

At this point, my freelance writing isn’t at full throttle. I am just exploring the possibilities and sending out a few pitches. But I’ll build a team once I start doing more freelance writing.

The key to freelance writing is to crank out as much valuable content as you possibly can. The more content you can write, the better.

On some days, it will be easy for you to think of ideas and write lots of content. On other days, however, thinking of new ideas will be a struggle. But that’s just the nature of writing.

On those difficult days when it’s hard to get rolling, you have a few options: the first is to write out a bunch of outlines and use those outlines to form your content.

The second is to have a team of people who provide you with the outlines. You can then choose which outline works best for you.

Another option is to hire a ghostwriter and then edit the ghostwriter’s work to fit your style. I have never done this but know of several people who do.

Some full-time Kindle authors hire ghostwriters to write all of their books. Ghostwriters allow you to produce more content, but all of the content produced in your name must also be written in your voice and style.

Having a team behind you makes any goal you are pursuing easier to accomplish. A team saves you time and keeps you accountable.

 

#2: Find Extra Time In Your Day

Side hustlers are ninjas at finding extra time each day. To find the time to pursue freelancing opportunities, I had to find at least some extra time in my day.

I have extra time in the summer, but there are many people with more time than me who still don’t manage to accomplish their goals.

When school is back in session, my business will continue moving forward, even while my time is sliced and diced.

The point is that no matter what your schedule, you can make freelancing work.

Think about all of the things you do on any given day. If you are like the average American, you’re watching 32 hours of TV every week. I watch the NBA Finals, the World Series (if the Red Sox are in it), the Super Bowl, The Big Bang Theory, and Super Girl.

But now that the NBA finals are over and all of my favorite shows are out of season, I won’t be watching TV for the rest of the summer.

Each time I make adjustments in areas like these, I remove procrastinators from my life. I welcome these adjustments because as a result I enjoy an overall increase in productivity.

But I still find other ways to procrastinate. While I rarely watch more than an hour of television per week (once the NBA finals are over), I spend a lot of time on MLB’s website when the Red Sox are playing.

What activities are sucking up your time? How can you reduce or eliminate those activities? Asking yourself those two questions will allow you to find the extra time needed to pursue freelance writing.

 

#3: Increase Efficiency

The next place to look for extra time is within your business model and your life model.

For example, if something normally takes you 30 minutes to complete, find a way to get that time down to 15 minutes per day.

There was a point when it would take me at least an hour a day to schedule my tweets. That’s why I decided to invest in HootSuite Pro. Now I can schedule all of my tweets (100+ per day) in six clicks or less.

That one investment has saved me from DAYS of scheduling tweets. I must have saved myself over 1,000 hours at this point. 1,000 small crumbs add up to a cake.

Don’t take my word for how many crumbs add up to a cake, but you get the point.

Look for any possible way to increase your efficiency as long as you stay happy and keep the important people in your life happy.

 

#4: Outsource Other Parts Of Your Business

The more efficient you get, the more difficult it is to become more efficient. Six clicks to schedule over 100 tweets is as efficient as efficient gets.

I can’t get that down to five clicks to schedule over 100 tweets. Even if I managed to do so, the extra .1 second I would get each day wouldn’t add up to much (less than a minute per year).

The only option left to save more time was outsourcing that part of my business. Not only do I forgo the six clicks, but I don’t have to go on HootSuite every day.

All of the time it would take for HootSuite to load, for me to enter my log in credentials, and get everything set up to do those six clicks now gets taken off my hands.

HootSuite loads fast and is an easy website to navigate, but now I save an additional 10 minutes each day. That adds up to an extra 153 hours each year!

 

#5: Choose More Profitable Writing Assignments

Part of finding more time is to pursue the opportunities that result in more revenue.

Freelancer A writes three articles that are 1,000 words long and gets paid $50 for each article

Freelancer B writes one article that is 1,000 words long and gets paid $150 for that article.

Let’s assume both of them write about topics they are passionate about.

I’d rather be Freelancer B because you make just as much money writing one article as Freelancer A makes by writing three articles.

You get the same result ($150) but save a lot of time. Some freelance writers make over $500 per article.

As you gain more credibility and submit more pitches, keep an eye out for the opportunities that give you more money for the same work.

 

In Conclusion

Freelance writing is a great side hustle for making quick money. While none of the money is ever truly passive, you can use your freelancing money to invest in your business.

If you turn freelance writing into your business, then you can turn that into a full-time income too.

In the long-run, it’s more beneficial to write a successful book. That way thousands of people pay you for the same piece of content.

In the short-run, you may need the extra money to pay for a consultation session, a valuable tool that will help your business, or you have a strong need for immediate money. That’s where freelance writing comes in.

What are your thoughts on freelance writing? Are you a freelance writer or thinking about getting started? Have any stories for us? Sound off in the comments section below.