Managing Your Mental State (When Times Are Tough) or (Through Adversity)

Managing your mental state is an ongoing and complex job.

There are so many things that can negatively affect us daily.

Ranging from small inconveniences to larger, more involved problems. Our state of mind is a compilation of our past, present and future thoughts and feelings.

When times are tough, whatever the reasons may be, managing your mental state is more important than ever.

Self-awareness is first when it comes to managing mental state.

When you understand how you feel, where those feelings are coming from and why you have those particular feelings, then can you begin to manage your mental state.

This is much easier said than done for most people and that’s perfectly normal.

A counselor or psychologist may be able to help you understand your feelings more in-depth.

Talking with someone objective to help put your feelings in perspective is extremely beneficial as well. Once you identify why you feel a certain way, you can begin to understand your feelings and manage them in a positive way.

Mindfully breathing is a powerful calming tool. Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth will slow heart rate and curb anxiousness. Moreover, meditation will aid in clarity of mind.

Fifteen minutes per day to sit in silence and clear your head does wonders for your mental state.

Positive affirmations also enhance one’s state of mind. Positive affirmations are positive phrases you repeat to yourself daily. Try talking to yourself in the mirror in the morning.

Tell yourself things like, “I am confident.” or “I am relaxed and at peace.”

These positive affirmations will sink into your subconscious mind. Over time, you will start to believe the positive statements you have repeated to yourself. You can change your cognitive patterns away from negative thinking.

Turn Negative self talk into More Productive Energy

Don’t give in to the quick fix of self medication. Using alcohol or drugs is not uncommon when people want to make themselves feel better.

But when faced with adversity, adding mind altering substances will enhance negative feelings. Stay sharp and in tune with yourself. So that you are able to be positive and consciously manage your feelings.

Staying on top of your mental health is not an easy task. When faced with challenges throughout life, remember there are tools that can be utilized. Actively managing your mental state will result in a more self aware, calm and happier you.

September 28, 2020December 20, 2020

Set Yourself Up For Future Success During Or After A Crisis

Life is full of surprises. Some are positive; some can prove to be more challenging. It’s the reaction to the unknown that defines us. Crises are subjective, unplanned and can range from a small occurrence to something catastrophic. Although we may not know when change is coming, we can be prepared for some of it with just a little bit of forethought. There are several things you can do to set yourself up for success after a crisis.

Don’t live outside your means. Living paycheck to paycheck is difficult and takes an emotional toll. But, scraping to make rent or mortgage, bills etc. becomes even more stressful when there are other struggles going on in life. There are some steps you can take to live within your means. Downsizing your home can help reduce your monthly payments and give you some ability to save more. Make a budget and stick to it. When formulating the budget, take a close look at your spending habits. You can save by cutting out eating at restaurants, cable tv and entertainment costs. All of this will help set you up to be more comfortable in the future, when the unexpected happens.

There are some useful pastimes you can take up that will enlarge your life skill set and ultimately help set you up for future success. Gardening is fun and has functionality.

harvest

Growing some of your own food will help you financially as well as ensure you always have something to eat. There are plenty of herbs, fruits and vegetables that are easy to grow and require a relatively small amount of space. Learning to sew is another way to cut costs. You can do your own alterations, pillowcases and other useful household items and maybe even your own clothes.

Finally, take care of yourself. When you are physically and mentally healthy, you are more equipped to take on any challenge that comes your way.

Weight loss Regular exercise is important and doesn’t have to break the bank. It also aids in reducing stress and getting a good night’s sleep. You can also try fifteen minutes of relaxation and mindfulness to help your brain unwind and begin the morning with clarity. This will help your mental state, making it easier to take on challenging situations.

Hardships are a part of life. Planning ahead and bettering yourself will drastically increase your chances of success on the other side of a crisis.

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September 24, 2020December 20, 2020

Thrown Into Schooling at Home

Finding yourself thrown into schooling the kids at home can be an overwhelming experience. It can also be rewarding.

Whatever the reason why you’ve made the change to homeschool, it’s definitely an adjustment.

home school

The prospect of staying home from work to not only care for your children, but to now be responsible for their education is quite overwhelming to most parents.

Rightfully so, because raising children is not an easy job on its own. Besides the usual tasks that come along with parenting, can we handle being their teachers too?

Take a deep breath, parents, we can do this! We were our children’s first teachers when we taught them to walk, talk and their numbers and colors. We can do this too! Implementing a few tricks will make schooling from home go more smoothly.

One of the things that may help both you and your child as they learn virtually from home is to stick to a schedule.

Waking up early and at the same time every day to start school, even if it’s from home can help both you and your child feel more organized and in control.

Children crave a stable and predictable schedule and this will set them up for success.

Limiting recreational screen time is important as well. Schools will need to rely on computers for communication with students using tools like Google Classrooms and Zoom.

There is already going to be a lot of screen time needed for learning. So, when they are not on the computer doing school work, find other ways to entertain them.

Go outside, ride bikes, go for walks, and go swimming. Remember to get that recess time in. Running around and getting their energy out will help kids be able focus on their school work later?

basketball

Lastly, try to remain calm and give yourself a break. Most of us are not trained teachers.

But, we can help guide our kids through this unpredictable time in a manner that is helpful to them.

When tensions rise, and surely they will, take a time out for yourself to cool down, go to another room and breathe.

It’s important to remember that kids will be stressed or anxious too, so try to give them a break as well.

With time, it will get easier. Putting use to these tips will help you and the kids get through the adjustment period. Homeschooling will feel natural before you know it.

September 21, 2020August 17, 2021

Perseverance Requires Persistence

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” The slogan ‘’press on!’’ has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race.

Don’t Give Up….Keep moving Forward Daily.

These words which were said by Calvin Coolidge who was the 30^th president of the United States to me are the most realistic description of what persistence entails, its importance in the lives of each of us.

Persistence is defined as the act of not giving up, and having a firm and obstinate continuance in a course of action you have decided upon despite difficulties. I would go on and define it as one of the fundamental building blocks to a firm and anchored foundation to success. Nothing entails more success than to keep hammering on that idea that you chose to put into action, to keep investing all your efforts and time into one particular plan that you are working on until you get the desired results.

Consistency forms a large part persistence as it is the action of redoing. The other building block that brings our persistence into being is self-discipline. The fuel behind consistency is self-discipline. As humans, we are automatically drawn to take the easier path, therefore when anything becomes less enjoyable our instinct is to quit. When barriers and huddles are presenting themselves before us, we pick the easy road. Self-discipline reprograms our mind to be consistent and to keep soldiering on in the face of adversity. It makes us persistent.

Perseverance and persistence, are words that resemble each other in character and depth. They are often used interchangeably but there sure is a thin line that separates them. Perseverance means to abide strictly by something, to be immovable, and unshaken. Persistence is tenacity, the strength to hold on even when it is unbearable.

Perseverance is acting upon a choice until it becomes a lifestyle, you look past instant gratification and rewards and keep going even when everything around you is shouting otherwise until you reach your goal. It becomes the fundamental differentiating factor between being successful in your endeavors and failing. Even in the face of failure, the more you persist the better the chances you will have of winning because in the process you are learning all you did wrong and you get more insight on what you should be doing right.

We cannot call it persistence if we just continue doing what we like doing, being in our comfort zone, and facing no trials whatsoever. Perseverance only comes where challenges are involved, that means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and developing a resilience mindset.

For perseverance and persistence to be part of you, you need to take your time to work on it. Take your time to figure out what you want, give yourself a time limit, and refuse to back down until you realize your goal. Take a leap, and get to it without allowing the fear of failure to paralyze you. After taking a step towards your goal make sure you surround yourself with things and people that boost your confidence and strength. When you encounter challenges along the way and they knock you down, give yourself time to analyze and reevaluate where you went wrong and then get back to your feet.

To make it easier to tackle mishaps and challenges prepare yourself for them beforehand, anticipate potential setbacks in your plan, and find a way to counter them in advance. Through it all, you have to remain focused on the goals to be accomplished and on the reward it will all come with. A well- visualized goal fueled with enough passion, perseverance, and persistence, brings about inevitable success.

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September 14, 2020December 20, 2020

Make it Real. Write it down and take Action

Why You Have To Write Your Business Goals Down

Throughout this short little series on setting business goals, I’ve mentioned the importance of writing said goals down. That isn’t just because it’s easy to forget. There’s a lot more to it and there are some very important reasons why you have to write them down.

I thought in today’s blog post, I’d share my thoughts on this and hopefully inspire you to write down your own goals going forward. By the way, this works for any type of goal, not just the business ones.

The simple act of setting a goal, even if it’s just in your mind, doubles your chances of success. That’s a pretty big deal in itself, isn’t it? If you take it a step further, and actually write those goals down, you’re 10 times as likely to succeed. Read that last line again please.

That’s right…you can increase your chances of making it by 1,000%. That’s mind-blowing.

There are a few different mental and psychological processes going on here that start to give us a glimpse into why it is so important and effective to write our goals down.

The first is that it’s a lot easier to remember something that we’ve written down. You’ve experienced this first hand with your grocery list.

When you make a mental list of 10 or 15 things, you’re likely to forget about half of them when you get to the store. If you write out the list on the other hand, and then end up forgetting it on the counter, you will remember the vast majority of the items you needed.

This is explained through the fact that information has to be moved from one area of the brain to another to turn it from thoughts into written words on a page. A process called encoding is also involved. All of this helps you retain and store the information better. It’s the reason we’re asked to take notes during lectures in college.

Last but not least, when you write down your goals, you have something you can review regularly. This adds another layer of cognitive processing and increases your chances of success even further.

Sadly, only a very small percentage of people make the time to regularly review and evaluate their goals.

The ones that do are some of the most successful and highest achieving people out there. In other words, it’s something we should do as well.

To recap, start by setting smart goals. Write them down in as much detail as possible. Set aside some time to review them regularly. This could be weekly, or even daily.

Give it a try for this coming quarter. Set yourself a goal. Be specific. This could be something like finally creating that first paid product or adding an extra $500 to your bottom line.

Decide by when you’ll reach your goal and how you plan to get there. Write it all down and look at it every morning. This will help you stay on track and make time in your busy day to work on making progress towards your goal.

August 30, 2020December 20, 2020

How to Pick a Niche You Can Succeed In

There’s a certain hesitation people have before starting their online business directly related to picking their niche. You can’t really go any further and build a site, create products or blog about your insight if you don’t have your niche chosen.

Yet the sheer number of factors to consider when choosing a niche is a daunting task for many new online entrepreneurs. Your main concern right off the bat is profitability, because who wants to go to any effort whatsoever if there’s no return for you?

There are five basic things you need to analyze before finalizing your decision on which niche(s) you’ll be targeting. Nothing you do can guarantee success, but these tasks allow you to mitigate some, if not most of the risk.

Stop Worrying About the Competition

One of the biggest non issues people worry about is competition. There are people who will throw up their hands and walk away if anyone else has ever done a topic before. And some who will walk away if a certain number of sites exist (whatever number they’ve made up to depict too much competition).

The reason they’re overly concerned with this is because in the past, many guru marketers have spent ample time selling courses teaching people how to target low hanging fruit and avoid saturated niches.

The truth is, most consumers like to learn from and follow many people in a niche they’re interested in. Even you do it! If you’re interested in a topic, like fasting for instance, you don’t land on one person’s blog and only vow to learn from them and no one else, do you?

No! The fact is, you will look up many people and companies to learn from – you might buy 2-3 or even more books on Amazon to read about it. You’ll hit up YouTube and start watching all kinds of related videos to get differing insight and opinions on the topic.

We love to learn from many people for several reasons. First, they have differing teaching styles. Some people are brash, some coddle you – others give advice daily while some release big information less often.

Some use text in a blog that you can read, while others publish videos or stream live from their social media pages. There are some who prefer to teach through a podcast, too!

Your opinion and insight doesn’t have to be better than someone else’s. It just has to resonate with that one person who prefers your teaching style over someone else’s. As long as the information you’re providing is viable, don’t be afraid to compete with anyone and everyone.

Try to stay away from distractions when building your Business.

There is always a new launch coming out Make sure you don’t follow all the Shiny Objects this may confuse your Audience.

There are some people who love self help topics who fall all over themselves whenever Tony Robbins speaks. And there are those who can’t stand listening to him. How boring would it be if there was only one person per topic we had available to us to learn from?

So ease up on your self-doubt, put away your tools that calculate the competition and understand that there is plenty of room for everyone, regardless of your experience, your appearance, your income level or any other measurement you might be using to talk yourself out of making the leap into a niche you’re truly passionate about.

A Drilled Down Versus Broad Approach

So now that you know there’s no such thing as too much competition, your next task is to consider whether you want to take a broad approach to your niche or drill it down a bit.

And when you drill it down, how much is too much? You want to pick the right amount of depth because if you go too narrow, you might whittle your audience down to almost nothing, making it hard for you to profit from your efforts.

Let’s look at how a niche is drilled down. We’ll start with the diet night.

Diet à Fasting à Intermittent Fasting à 5:2 Diet à 5:2 Diet for Women à 5:2 Diet for Women Over 40 à 5:2 Diet for Vegetarian Women Over 40

This is a typical way to drill down a niche. You can certainly do whatever level of depth you want, but it’s important not to go too detailed because then you’re excluding large demographics from your audience.

Drilling down to fasting excluded other kinds of dieters who don’t want to fast. That’s fine because there are many people who want to learn about this method of losing weight.

Going into the 5:2 fasting method eliminates everyone wanting to do the 16/8 method, the eat stop eat method, and the alternate day fasting method. As soon as you added women into the niche, it excluded all men, too.

So as you can see, the more narrow you get, the more potential customers you’re weeding out. As long as that demographic stays large enough, and you can use common sense to gauge it, you don’t need a statistician to configure numbers for you, it’s good.

Keep in mind your site can start out broad and have drilled down categories in the sidebar where each category drills down even further into individual blog posts covering the most narrow of topics.

So you might have a Best Diets for Weight Loss blog that serves as an umbrella for a huge number of diet plans. In the sidebar, you might have the following categories:

Keto Diet
Vegetarian Diet
Paleo Diet
1200 Calorie Diet
Low Carb Diet
Fasting Diet
Mediterranean Diet…and so on

In each category, you can create specific blog posts covering all of the narrow slants under that diet, including a blog post titled: The 5:2 Fasting Diet for Vegetarian Women Over 40.

Make sure that before you choose an approach, you keep in mind that if you have a broad topic, your audience will expect ongoing content that covers a wide variety o subjects.

Your consumer who is interested in learning about diets will be disappointed if they land on your site and see nothing about low carb because you’re too bogged down in writing about fasting, calories and plant based diets.

You have to be able to plan strategically with your content and keep up enough. So if it’s too overwhelming to meet all of their needs, consider narrowing down a bit so that you’re able to deliver content that meets the needs of all of your readers consistently.

Learn How to Gauge Profitability

Profitability is on everyone’s mind when they’re just starting a new business branch online. You want the money to start flowing fast, and lots of it! There are a few different ways you can measure the profit potential of a niche.

First, digital products can be lucrative. They’re the kind of product a customer can get instantly by clicking a buy button and downloading directly to their computer to consume.

So you want to be looking to see if your niche has products on sites like ClickBank, for example. Of course, if there are none, that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. If consumers buy courses or books on the topic, you could create your own content (or use private label rights content – PLR) to do it.

Tangible products are another area of profitability. In the fitness niche, for example, you might have digital courses that teach people how to exercise and eliminate fat and get toned, but more money comes in the form of commissions from the promotion of machines they’ll be using, protein powder, calipers to measure fat, scales and more.

Services, like coaching or doing things for others they don’t want to do themselves, is another way to make money in a niche. If you want to help someone achieve success, you might be a sort of life coach for them – or help analyze someone’s efforts to improve their relationships, for example.

Look at price points and frequency of purchases, too. Whenever you find a program that the consumer will be renewing monthly or annually, this provides even more profit potential for you to consider.

With pricing, you might instinctively worry about promoting high ticket items, but you’d have to sell fewer of them to equal the volume of sales you’d need of a small commission item.

Understand that unless you’re selling services or using paid ads for traffic, it will take a little time to gain traction in any niche because your site has to get indexed (found) in Google. Stay consistent and build up your content and following.

Knowledgeable Leadership Requirements

Worry about not measuring up to your competitors in terms of knowledge is common for many new online entrepreneurs. They don’t want to step foot in the arena unless they have all of the answers ahead of time.

But nobody has all of the knowledge they need in every situation. The key is to be a good learner and sharer – someone who, when asked a question they don’t know, is willing to go find an answer and share it.

That’s all it takes – willingness and the ability to uncover things people want to know. This is actually part of what’s thrilling about being a niche leader. You’re always discovering things and broadening your knowledge about a topic.

It would be very boring if you woke up day after day and already knew everything there was to know about the subject matter. So embrace the starting point you have now and understand there’s no shame or humiliation in saying, “I’m not sure about that – let me get an answer and get back to you.”

But make sure you’re not just waiting for questions you don’t know to pop up before you embark on a learning adventure. You should always have time carved out in your schedule where you’re diving into niche topics and learning interesting, new or trending details to showcase to your followers.

Stay abreast of news stories, read consumer or trade magazines in your niche, study the competition to see what they’re talking about, and lurk in forums and on social media to see what the buzz is.

When you find information to share with your audience, don’t be afraid to share your opinion on it, too. People want to know what you think of it – even if you disagree with what someone else is saying.

Put a twist on it if you can or want to. If some news comes up about how getting 8 hours of sleep a night helps you lose weight, you can pass that information along to your audience.

But then add on ways they can achieve that slumber, if they don’t already know. Give your own personal bedtime routine hacks if you have any that might help them. Experiment with new methods of getting to sleep and share a daily account about what worked and what didn’t.

Longevity Issues to Consider

There are a few things you have to keep in mind in terms of adopting this niche for the long haul. Unless you plan on flipping your site to someone else, chances are you’re hoping this will grow into a formidable business branch for years to come.

But will you run out of information to share? There are some niches, like health, that are always evolving. Sometimes it’s because of technology and sometimes because of new knowledge that’s gained that wasn’t known before.

Then you might find something such as how to store water that has you scrambling for new topics to cover after a few months. Maybe you covered rain barrels and treating water, you did product reviews and a how to series, and now you’re all out of ideas.

You want to make sure that the niche you choose isn’t difficult for you to garner ideas with. Before you begin, brainstorm from of your categories that fall under your umbrella niche topic and write out lists of possible things to cover.

Would you be able to find something new a couple of months from now? How about a year from now? It’s helpful, depending on how much creativity you have or lack, to pick a niche that makes things easy for you in terms of brainstorming topics to blog about.

Will you get bored of the niche – or feel some other negative emotion having to tend to a site on this topic all of the time? What if it’s a depressing niche and you have to write about it day after day?

It’s important for you to feel excited about work and not dread facing it every morning. So pick a niche that truly makes you feel fulfilled or happy whenever you share thoughts with your audience.

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August 27, 2020December 20, 2020

Creating a Niche Home Base on Your Blog

After you choose a niche to target, you need to develop a home base – somewhere that you can talk to your audience about it, promote products as an affiliate and launch your own info products from.

A blog is the perfect place to showcase your insight, capture names and email addresses to build a list of loyal followers, and monetize your daily efforts without fear of repercussions.

Stay in Control of Your Virtual Real Estate

It’s important to own your own virtual real estate as opposed to using social media platforms alone, because then you’re not in control of your business. Whenever you use free platforms, it gives someone else the power – on a whim – to eliminate your entire business without any input from you.

You might build an account of 1,000 popular niche YouTube videos and wake up one morning to a deleted account. Or house a business account on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and find they don’t exist because someone decided you’d done something to warrant a closure.

There’s little, if any recourse for you when these things happen. They’re often decided with a permanent ban and no amount of begging and pleading will reverse their decision.

What happens then?

If you didn’t own your own domain, your virtual home on the ‘net, then you have to start from scratch! You have to hope your audience finds you elsewhere. You have to redo all of the previous posts and media and you lose all of the interaction and engagement you had over the previous months and years.

When you own your own domain and house a blog on it, you never have to worry about your account disappearing. Your content will be safe on the web day after day. And all of the comments and shares you got from it will stay intact because nobody else is capable of shutting it down.

KEEP YOUR CONTENT SAFE: Use a Word Press Blog.

Now it’s perfectly fine to supplement your virtual real estate with those social media accounts, because they’re great for branding and free traffic – but they shouldn’t be your sole business presence online.

You’ll want to buy a domain name and host a WordPress blog on it so that your followers will have a reliable, stable home they can turn to with you and always feel confident it will be there.

Choosing a Domain Name That Makes Sense

Choosing a domain name is something some people struggle with because nothing ever feels good enough – and others do on a whim without giving enough thought to. You need to be somewhere in the middle.

There are a couple of different ways you can approach choosing a domain name. Most people agree that you should get a dot com extension because it’s what most average consumers type in – not .net, .info, or the other ones.

It’s also universal that you should pick the shortest name possible that makes sense. Whenever you make a name longer than it needs to be, it’s not only harder for them to remember, but it gives them more chances to have a typo when entering your URL into their browser.

One way you can tackle your domain is to decide whether you want to brand your name as a major leader in the niche. So this would be similar to how Tony Robbins did it with self help and the other niches he’s involved in.

He owns his name as his primary domain – TonyRobbins.com. This is fine if you plan on branding yourself as a major player within a niche topic. Many people do this in various niches, like DeniseAustin.com, who is known for weight loss and fitness through her popular walking program.

But if you don’t want to take that approach, you can also use keywords to develop a profit-pulling domain name you can build your home on the ‘net with. Start by brainstorming some commons words and phrases in your niche such as:

Diet
Weight loss
Burn fat
Lose weight
Shed fat
Get fit…and so on.

Work with a keyword tool to find variations of things people are searching for, keeping in mind any drilled down slants you may want to target. If we take a niche example like fasting for losing weight, you can always play around with the wording and find something that fits.

This domain was available: FastingDietTips.com – and the word tips is always helpful to put at the end of a domain URL because it tells the person they’ll gain valuable insight.

Depending on your business branch, you might even be able to use a different combination of words. For example, if you were only going to promote tangible products like protein items as an affiliate, you could find a specific buyer-driven domain such as:

This domain – BuyProteinOnline.com – is available and it instantly tells the person that this is where they’ll find a lot of information about a variety of protein products.

Try to steer clear from vague or cutesy domains like ProductsToHelp.com (help what?) or BeAPowerhouse.com (powerhouse what – speaker? Bodybuilder?).

Always look for a good coupon whenever you get your domain because you should be able to get it for $0.99 for the first year of its registration. Otherwise you’ll be paying close to $18.

Make sure you get reliable hosting for your account, too. You want something easy for you to use, with a good rate of up time. You don’t want to go with a company who has a lot of drawbacks and poor customer service.

Basic WordPress Elements You’ll Need to Know

Installing WordPress is very easy. But where should you install it? Some people like to put it on their root domain, meaning TheDomain.com – but others like to have a special place for it such as TheDomain.com/Blog.

You can do it either way. If you wish to put a landing page on the root domain, with a lead magnet offer, that’s fine! But you can also simply install the blog there and have the lead magnet offer in your sidebar where you capture names and email addresses.

Click here for More about lead magnets and funnel builders.

Once you install WordPress, you’ll want to choose a theme design that works well for your plans. If you want text-based information to be at the forefront of your blog, then choose a theme that’s good for that purpose.

Or, pick one that showcases images prominently if you want the focus to be on pictures, such as someone who is in the cooking or food niche, where images may play a bigger role.

Go through and change your settings to the best options that work for you, in terms of things like what URL is displayed, whether or not people have to wait for you to approve their comment, and so on.

Set up some common pages for your terms and policies, contact form, and your about page that gives them some insight into who is running the blog. Once you’ve done that, install any plugins that you want to use to help you operate your blog, such as spam filters, and so on.

Strategizing the SEO Plan for Your Blog

Many bloggers fret a lot bout search engine optimization (SEO). They worry about doing things wrong and spend countless hours trying to set things up to dominate the search engines or even game the system.

Be sensible about your optimization and do it for humans, not a robot that crawls your site. It’s easy to balance the two. One thing you want to do is make sure your blog settings allow search engines to index the site and don’t discourage it.

After that, you want to make sure you do a few things that help your site get indexed (found) by search engines and prospective visitors. To do this, you’ll want to start with consistency.

Blog humans and web crawlers both like it when you blog regularly. Whenever you blog infrequently, like once every 3 months when you happen to find time and remember it, it makes humans not see you as a viable niche leader – and it causes search engines to not bother sending their crawlers to your site very often because they also won’t see you as a serious niche contender.

Try to make sure your blog posts include sensible keywords and phrases for your audience, but don’t go overboard and try to stuff too many in there just to appease the search engines.

It may backfire with both the crawlers and humans who find your writing difficult to understand. Instead, write organically as you would when discussing the topic with a friend, and include specifics so it’s clear what you’re talking about.

For example, if you’re writing about a fasting diet, don’t call it skipping meals or anything silly you make up like hangry rage day – just call it a fasting diet plan and make it easy on both human readers and crawlers to know what you mean.

Use the keyword phrases in your titles as well as in the content itself. Many people make the mistake of titling their posts something vague such as, The Day I Felt My Stomach Growl Nonstop – which tells everyone nothing at all.

It needs to be topic specific, such as, 3 Ways You Can Start a Fasting Diet Plan. That is very specific for everyone, and then you can use the same phrases and keywords within the body of the content.

When you pair keyword choices with consistency, you’ll have most of the equation solved for good SEO. But there are couple more elements that can contribute to your success with being found on search engines.

Make sure the content you’re writing is long enough in terms of value. Some people can write many words that others don’t find value in. So it’s not just length, but value as well. Don’t publish daily short paragraphs and assume that’s enough to get noticed, either.

The last organic strategy you want to implement for good SEO is to make your posts shareable. Having social sharing buttons helps your posts get links back to your site where other interested parties can find them.

Setting a Reliable Publishing Schedule for Your Readers

When you take on the role of a niche leader, it’s your job to disseminate information to your followers. They’ll be waiting for each drop of data that you release to them, so it needs to be consistent and reliable – as well as fresh.

You want to choose a schedule that’s doable for you. Some bloggers can only manage 1 post per week, if they’re working another job for instance, while others post several times per day.

Ideally, your blog will publish at least 3 times per week if possible. This keeps people tuned in regularly and makes it appear as if you’re a fulltime leader, not a part time hobbyist.

You can determine your topics months out if you want to, or fly by the seat of your pants and pick a topic in the spur of the moment. Make sure you cover everything under the main umbrella of your niche topic.

For instance, if your site is broad and called BestDietPlans.com, then you’ll want to make sure you equally cover a variety of plans, such as low calorie, low carb, keto, vegetarian, and so on.

If your site is AllAboutFitnessPlans.com then cover a wide variety of fitness, such as CrossFit, Bodyweight Training, Aerobics, etc. Don’t do 15 blog posts in a row on CrossFit training because it’s your favorite and maybe address the others once in comparison.

If you see yourself doing that, it might be best to narrow your domain down and focus on the one topic you enjoy covering more prominently so that others don’t feel like your site is light on information.

Creating a home on the ‘net for your niche is something that you work on more initially, and once everything’s set up, you manage the day to day operations of publishing and build a loyal fan base who will support your bus

August 24, 2020December 20, 2020

Analyzing Business Models to See What’s Best for You

Find the Business Model that is Best for You.

You can pick a niche and build a website, but you still have to do your due diligence and analyze the various business models to see which one (or more) will work best to bring you the kind of success that you’re after.

There are dozens of business models you can consider to earn money from your efforts, but you may want to start with one of the five most common ones – affiliate marketing, info product development, service provider, self-publishing and online coaching.

Starting Easy with Affiliate Earnings

Being an affiliate for someone else’s products is one of the best business models for newcomers to the world of online marketing. With affiliate marketing, you don’t even have to have your own site necessarily (depending on the program).

You can make money promoting to your list or on social networking sites if you don’t have your own blog to review and promote products from. It also takes a lot less effort to review products than it does to create them.

With affiliate marketing, you can recommend products from a variety of platforms, depending on your niche. Be sure to check out both tangible and digital marketplaces to see what all is available to recommend to your subscribers and blog readers.

There are many places to find products such as:

ClickBank

JVZoo

Warrior Plus

Amazon

Share-a-Sale

Commission Junction

…and direct programs, too!

One thing you can do is type in the niche or type of product that you want to promote in a search engine and add the words affiliate program to see what comes up. There are many companies who run their own programs that aren’t listed on the above platforms.

So for instance, if you were in the survival niche, you could go to ClickBank to find an info product to review. Then you might go to JVZoo and Warrior Plus to find content or courses to promote.

For tangibles, you coud go to Amazon and see what all they have, but what if you wanted to promote some different MREs (meals ready to eat)? You could type this phrase into search engines and find more programs: survival food affiliate program.

As an affiliate, make sure you’re getting the proper commission (typically 50% of the sale) and take notice of how long the customer is cookied with your link to make sure that if they buy later, you get credit for the sale.

Creating Your Own Info Products

If you want to have an army of affiliates out there working for you, sending you tons of sales and subscribers, too – then consider creating your own info product and releasing it with an affiliate program.

Some new marketers get nervous about launching or doing it with affiliates, but this is the best way to brand yourself and build a quick following. It requires you to network with others and see if they will promote your product.

Decide what topic you want to create a product about. Don’t worry about competition or whether or not a subject has been covered before. Just pick something you feel people need help with in your niche.

Then figure out which method of disseminating the information would be best based on what your audience wants and what skills you possess to get the job done. Sometimes the two may not match, and that’s okay.

You might have an audience who devours video, but it’s not your forte – and in that case you can either outsource the videos, improve your skills, or simply use text and see if they’re accepting of a different media format.

If the information is good, they usually won’t care. Text and video are the two most common methods of creating courses, but a few have been done using audio podcast formats, too.

When you create your product, make sure you price it competitively. You want it to earn enough to make it worth it for the affiliate promoting and reviewing it. But you don’t want to price your audience out of their opportunity to buy it, either.

Do a comparison to see what others are charging in your niche and strategize from there. Make sure you also develop a hearty affiliate program that boosts sales and helps you build a list quickly.

Create a JV (joint venture) page that details the dates and times of the launch, how the funnel is laid out and with what price points, specifics about the course, and any other elements such as prize money or swipe files that help them promote for you.

Decide which platform you want to launch from – ClickBank, JVZoo, Warrior Plus, Udemy, Teachable, or your own system like Amember, perhaps. It’s up to you, but make sure that your affiliates are well taken care of and paid on time for both commissions and prize money, if you offer it.

As you build a list of buyers from your first launch, be working on the second in your line of info products. You can find out from your current buyers what else they’d like to see by polling them – or simply continue serving them what they need based on your initial research.

Using Your Skills as a Service Provider

Sometimes, you have no other resources or knowledge besides the talent you possess as a writer, graphics designer or customer service representative. If you don’t have the money or desire to invest in a site to launch a product from or promote as an affiliate from, you can get started working for others who already have a business online.

Many people get these jobs through word of mouth when a friend in need of a provider connects them with a person who has the skill to fulfill their job request. It might be that they need an eBook written, an eCover created, or their inbox handled with customer service requests.

They might be searching for someone to act as an affiliate manager – recruiting potential top affiliates to come on board for future launches. If you can handle any of these tasks, then you may want to start with a service providing business model.

Word of mouth isn’t the only way you can get a job offering your services, though. There are sites such as Upwork and even Fiverr where you can set up an offer or profile to accept gigs and jobs to do work for those who want to hire you for them.

You might find an ongoing job where you’re working routinely for an established marketer, but it might be a series of one off gigs where you get hired by one client one day and another one the next.

It all depends on what you’re offering and long they need help with the task or service. If it’s for something like writing or graphics, it will often be a temporary exchange of money for the service until the job is done.

But if it’s for customer service or affiliate management, then it might be an ongoing position where you’re paid on a regular basis. With affiliate management, there might be a deal where you’re paid a set amount or one where you get a portion of the earnings.

If it’s the latter, make sure you negotiate upfront so that you’re able to get a down payment on what you’ll make. Don’t allow a marketer to promise to pay you after the fact because some unethical marketers will take the money and run.

If you’re setting up a profile on a site like UpWork, be very thorough in setting it up so that it offers a lot of information that puts the client at ease. Remember, many marketers have saved up to outsource, so they don’t want to risk paying a freelancer who disappears with their money.

If you’re offering a service like ghostwriting or graphics, make sure you fill your portfolio with a wide range of options for them to consider. For example, if you can write about almost anything, showcase articles on health, success and relationships so they can see your style.

You also might want to showcase different types of writing, too – like an articles, sales copy, email autoresponders and more. This gives the prospective client an idea of how well you can write for conversions versus simple conveying of facts and information.

If you’re on a site like Upwork, you can go out and bid on jobs rather than waiting on someone to find your profile and reach out to you. Bid carefully and don’t use canned responses to have the best success.

You’re not reliant on platforms to get jobs, either. You can set up your own website where you offer services, and charge whatever rate you want, unlike how you have to be competitive in a bidding scenario on another site.

Make sure you still offer some of the same components. They’ll want to know details such as how much you charge per page – and what do you consider a page? Is it single spaced, a certain sized font, a specific number of words?

You don’t want the client thinking they’re going to get single spaced, 12-point Arial font with at least 400 words per page if you’re using 14 point font, double spacing and giving them only 250 words per page.

Set up a portfolio of examples so they can see your work. These don’t have to be from real clients. In fact, most clients won’t want their work put up to represent your business, because ghostwriting is usually done discreetly.

The client will also want to know a little bit about you. There are many scammers online, so while you don’t have to divulge any personal details about where you live exactly, you should give them adequate details about your experience with the service you’re offering.

Make sure you also have a contact form. Some people put an order form right on their site, but you might want to be careful about doing this. It’s always good to discuss a project with a client before allowing them to buy so that you know if the two of you are a good fit to work together.

Following the Self-Publishing Route

Self-publishing is another business model that you may want to adopt for your business. With this approach, you can become a bestselling author in either the non-fiction or fiction arena, depending on where your skills lie.

Amazon and other platforms have made it easy for the average man or woman to write their own manuscript, upload it and sell it to people on a global scale. You’re paid 60 days after the sale of your books, and you get money even if they buy a digital version they can read on their gadgets!

Although you can do most of this on your own, regardless of whether you’re pursing fiction or non-fiction, there are two areas you may want to invest in. That includes having an editor to go over it and hiring someone to create a professional cover for your book.

Earning as an Online Coach

There are many niches where online coaching is a viable option as a business model for those who want to work for themselves at home. People hire coaches all the time to help them overcome personal obstacles and achieve success in something they’re passionate about.

For instance, you might want to open shop online as a life coach who helps people get through tough times, set goals and work toward them until they see them to fruition. You can use free tools like Skype to meet with customers where you can see and chat with one another on a regular weekly basis.

To make money with this, you can have individual sessions that you sell, or you can have package deals, such as buy 4 and get the 5^th one free. Take a look at others who offer this type of arrangement with clients and see how it can fit into your business on the ‘net.

There are many niches where all of these elements can earn money for your business. For example, let’s take the diet niche. You can promote weight loss tangibles and digital items as an affiliate, create your own info products, publish books on the matter, ghostwrite for others, and even coach people to succeed!

There are many other business models, such as dropshipping, domaining and more – so just take your time and investigate to see what appeals to you most before committing to one of more of the approaches.

August 20, 2020December 20, 2020

Choose Affiliate Promotions That Make Sense for Your Business

It is so important to promote only Affiliate Programs, Tools and Courses that make sense for Your Business.

When choosing an affiliate marketing program you should go through a checklist of important items.

From choosing a program with high payouts to a program with excellent customer service, there’s a lot to consider before saying I Do to a program.

After you’ve checked off your list, it’s important to make sure that the promotions you join make sense for your business.

If you sell products that serve a specific industry, it might not make sense to introduce a product that feels disconnected to your audience.

Choosing a product simply because of the potential commissions or because you adore the product creator might not be in your best interest.

Be sure your customers won’t be confused by the goods, services, or products you promote.

Here are three tips to choose promotions that make sense for your business.

Tip- Choose programs that compliment what you already do

Tip- Choose programs that enhance what you already do

Tip- Choose a program that opens up a new opportunity

It’s ok to promote products that are similar to your own- Choosing to promote affiliate programs offering products similar to your own is a wonderful way to compliment what you are already doing. Sharing businesses who mirror what you do isn’t about competition, it’s about collaboration. Consumers love finding new outlets and resources for the things they love. If someone in your industry is promoting a similar or like product, you can have an easy time making sales and passive income because your market is hot.

It’s ok to promote products that enhance your products- One of the awesome ways to use affiliate marketing programs is to offer items that take yours to a new level. If you offer a service, promoting goods that support your service or make it easier or better is a no-brainer. If a promotion can add value to the goods and services you already sell, it makes perfect sense to encourage your tribe to buy. Finding a solution to a problem your customers face or product that they likely will use makes you a hero for doing the hunting on their behalf.

increase income — Increase income value ladder

It’s ok to promote products that open up new opportunities- If you’ve been connected with your customers for a while and you’ve done a great job of rounding out your communication, you may be in a great position to open up new funnels or opportunities to connect. There may be a product that you’d like to promote that at first glance doesn’t seem like a natural fit. If you’ve been creative in your communication, you can capitalize on the opportunity to endorse something from a different angle. If you’ve connected with your tribe about a secondary issue like parenting, lifestyle, or health, it’s possible that you can promote a product that is unrelated to your typical sales funnel but connects with your tribe on a more personal level.

Choosing products that make sense for your business is important. Making sure what you offer your tribe is logical is part of the sales pitch. If something is a natural fit, the sale will be easier. Pay close attention to how the affiliate program jives with your tribe and you’ll see higher traffic and sales.

August 19, 2020December 20, 2020

Do’s and Don’ts to Be a Happy Affiliate

Successful affiliate sales come from frequent and meaningful connections with your tribe. Reaching out and promoting the goods, services, and products you endorse isn’t just one and done. You’ve got to be consistent and persistent to make sure your people hear the good news.

Being an affiliate is more than giving someone a shout out. It’s important to have a marketing campaign with a goal-focused outcome. Taking consistent action will help ensure you capture as much of the market as you can. Here are some do’s and don’ts for being a happy affiliate.

Do: Commit to a campaign- Many affiliate programs offer swipe copy that you can use to market through emails and social media. Pay attention to any marketing advice the product owner offers during the campaign. Commit to consistently promoting the product through the life of the campaign and pay attention to what methods seem to work well. Rinse and repeat.

Do: Pay attention to what is selling- If your audience is loving a specific product, make the offer again throughout the year. Offering products that have worked with your audience in the past can help make future sales even easier and less of a gamble.

Make sure you are only promoting good quality products that will help your community.

Do: Use contests to motivate you- Many affiliate programs offer contests for the most sales or reaching certain milestones. This can invigorate you and help you stay focused and committed to the campaign. If you are competitive and love contests this can help you become an excellent and happy affiliate.

Don’t: Promote what you haven’t seen- It’s important to purchase the product yourself. Invest your own money to check the quality of the product and make sure it meets your standards and expectations. If you’ve experienced the product firsthand, it’s even easier to promote!

Don’t: Bypass the customer experience- You’ll want to know firsthand what the buying and delivery experience is like. Be sure to go through the funnel yourself so you can discover any glitches or problems, plus having done the exact thing your customers will do helps you if they run into any hassles. You can help them out rather than reaching out to customer service.

Check out all Products before doing any promotions:

You should also check this post: Why promote Other Marketers Products

Don’t: Ask for special treatment- Generally, the product owner has put a lot of thought into creating their affiliate program. They are confident in how it works and how they want to engage their affiliates. Be mindful of their protocols and avoid asking for special or unusual accommodations especially if they don’t know you.

Being an affiliate is a great way to promote goods, services, and products you know matter to your tribe. Making money by sharing your enthusiasm and support for a program is a win-win. Be mindful of the do’s and don’ts that can make or break your happiness as an affiliate and you’ll thoroughly enjoy the opportunity.

My number one Recommendation for getting started in Affiliate Marketing

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