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Today, I’ve got a special episode, where I’m talking about how to find success during coronavirus. Yes, it is possible if you know how to pivot your business.
These are scary times, especially as online business owners, bloggers, and entrepreneurs.
You hear me say it all the time…the riches are in the niches. Today’s guest on the podcast will show you how to find financial freedom in a niche blog.
Cassidy Tuttle is the creator behind Succulents and Sunshine, a blog solely devoted to the care and propagation of succulents.
In this episode, my husband, business partner, and tech extraordinaire, David, and I are talking about why site speed can hurt your blog and how to fix it.
Have you been blogging for a bit, but you aren’t seeing the traffic you thought you’d see? Or is your bounce rate super high?
Have you heard? Pinterest is making changes. In today’s podcast episode, Alisa Meredith, my dear friend and Pinterest expert, and I are talking about how to get ahead of the changes at Pinterest to win on the platform.
As bloggers, most of us depend on several platforms to drive traffic to our blogs. One of the major players in the game is Pinterest. Pinterest is responsible for driving millions of page views to our site, Catch My Party, every single month.
We are doing something a little bit different today. I recently hit a podcasting milestone, so I decided to celebrate by sharing what I’ve learned reaching 100+ episodes. Phew! I can’t believe I did it!
My friend and MiloTree community manager, Paula Rollo, is back to help me share with you all some behind the scenes from the podcast.
Before we jump into the content though, I want to speak directly to those people who have been listening to this podcast for a long time because they’re interested in starting their own blog but they haven’t made the leap yet, for whatever reason.
Blogging is a great way to set up your online business, but the technology holds so many people back.
Well now, you don’t have to wait anymore!
MiloTree now has blogging start-up services. For a small fee, we will get your WordPress blog up and running, with the plug-ins we recommend and your blog optimized.
If you’ve decided that 2020 is the year you finally jump in and start your business, let us help!
Just go to MiloTree and sign up today.
I have always listened to and enjoyed podcasts. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I even look for excuses in my life to listen to my podcasts.
When I started this podcast, it was because I went to Podcast Movement and took a course on how to start a podcast.
I came home and told my daughter I was going to start a podcast and she said, “No you’re not.”
I had learned that if you can make it to your eighth episode, you are more likely to continue creating content for your podcast.
I told my daughter I would make it to episode 8, and I did it to prove to her that I could! I wanted her to see how if you put your mind to it, and do the work, things will happen.
My favorite part is that I am having an intimate, one-on-one conversation with someone that the world gets to listen in on.
I am not on a stage with a crowd of people watching me; I get to feel comfortable talking to someone as my natural self.
I can be my authentic self because I am focused on listening to the person I’m interviewing and responding to them.
I feel super honored to be let into people’s ears and I love meeting my listeners.
I try to get guests who are going to have different perspectives on building online businesses.
I want to be really curious and ask questions about what people want to know.
My audience is very sophisticated and they want to know the inner workings and tactics on how to build a business.
I want my guests to share their failures so that my audience knows what not to do, as well as what to do.
No one on my show is an overnight success.
We share our struggles, the years of hard work it took, and the sacrifices we had to make in order to get where we are now. I am all about debunking the myth of the overnight success.
I usually fly by the seat of my pants episode by episode. However, I’m always looking for interesting people to interview.
One thing I like is people who build their businesses in unique ways. We all know that there are certain things you can do to build an online business, but I want to talk to those people who try new things and who discover new ways to find success.
My audience is very diverse.
I want to introduce new ideas about money, social media, etc., to my more experienced audience who need to be taking those next steps.
I also have an audience of people who are just getting started in this sphere. For that audience, I want to help them get off the ground.
There is so much to learn about blogging and building an online business and it can be overwhelming.
That’s why my husband, David, and I started the BlogStart Service at MiloTree. We get it. We know how hard it can be if you don’t have experience in online business. Just getting a blog set up is a huge hurdle for most people.
We wanted to help people overcome that hurdle, so we now have a service that will get a blog up and running in a very short time for someone who wants to get started but is held back by the technology required.
I want to build a path for the people who want to start their businesses but don’t know the in’s and out’s.
If that describes you, please join our New Blogger Coaching Group we are starting March 2nd. Our goal is to give you a roadmap to go from blogger to profitable online entrepreneur.
Our coaching group will focus more on beginning bloggers, while this podcast will continue to do deep dives into specific aspects of the blogging business.
I want my listeners to know that I want to help them. I am still learning too; we are all on this journey together.
To be successful on the internet we must all be continual learners, and having a podcast gives me the platform to ask all the questions I am wondering about.
If you enjoy this podcast, I want to say thank you. I am so honored that you make the choice to let me into your earbuds and that you trust me with at least part of your blogging education.
I would love to have you join my Facebook group.
I am trying to be in there every day, encouraging and offering tips and support for all of you. It is such a wonderful community of supportive entrepreneurs.
It is a dance. There are days where you kick butt. And there will be days when you feel too low to continue. You will question why you are even trying to accomplish this online business thing.
It is never as bad as you think, and it is probably not as great as you think.
You have to work through your emotions and know that you can still make a difference and grow. Tomorrow is another day.
Always know that you are making a difference in someone’s life. Whether that’s a reader, a family member, or someone you’ve never met.
It was fun to do this episode for you all. I hope you learned more about me and my reasons and goals for this podcast.
Now, why don’t you go right on over and join the Facebook group, and then head to MiloTree and let us help you with getting your blog set up or with some personal coaching?
Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free!
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Do you struggle with knowing how to write successful blog posts today?
How about how to constantly create new content and still do all the other things that blogging requires?
If you are curious about ads or systematizing your content creation, you’re going to want to listen to today’s conversation with Amber Bracegirdle.
But first, I wanted to share something with you. My husband and business partner, David, and I have noticed something; a lot of the listeners of this podcast want to start an online business or a blog, but they have no idea where to start.
So, if the tech required for starting a blog has been holding you back, I have great news for you!
MiloTree is now offering blog start-up services! Just go to MiloTree.com/BlogStart to see how we can help you.
We know how overwhelming it can be to start a business if you’re not tech-savvy.
That’s why we decided it was time to help people get over the hump of getting their blog set up so they could move on to creating content, serving their audience, and developing products.
=&0=&MiloTree.com/BlogStart =&2=&
We can’t wait to see what you build in 2020!
Amber Bracegirdle is one of the founders of MediaVine, an online ad network. Many of our listeners use MediaVine on their blogs for ads.
In this conversation, Amber shares how Mediavine came to be a business, her system for creating great content, and what the future holds for publishers and bloggers.
I think you’re going to love this episode, so let’s get to it.
There are many different ad networks that bloggers can work with and they each have their own unique qualifications.
Mediavine requires you to have at least 25,000 sessions, not pageviews, in a 30-day period.
They prefer to work with bloggers who target audiences from mostly English-speaking countries because that is where you are going to make the most money.
The other requirements are that you must post long-form content, your site must be at least 3-4 months old, and you must be in good standing with Google AdSense.
In today’s world of blogging, you have to differentiate yourself from other bloggers. Finding ways to stand out from the crowd is a good thing.
If you’ve been blogging for several years, as Amber and I have, you may have an idea of what a blog post is “supposed” to look like.
You start with your topic, create long-form content around that topic, and at the end of the post, you give your reader a call to action.
Unfortunately, that’s where most bloggers stop.
But there are so many other types of content that will allow your blog to rank higher in search engines.
Venture out from the type of post you’ve always created and try a list or answer some common questions.
Back in the early days of blogging, bloggers could write about whatever they wanted. If I wanted to try a recipe for dinner, I could snap a few photos and write about how I made the recipe and whether or not my family enjoyed it.
Not anymore.
Blogs are no longer merely online journals of your daily life. Nowadays, bloggers have to be much more strategic about what they write about and how they write about it.
And that’s where keyword research comes into play. Knowing what your audience is searching for is going to grow your traffic as you provide answers to their questions.
Be strategic about how you cover every aspect of a topic, with a different problem and answer in every post. And be sure to include links in each post to the other posts on that topic.
You don’t have to put your content out to every audience you have, but it is on your site for the person who’s going to ask that question and need your answer.
You have multiple audiences and you can cater to the different people coming to you from all over the internet.
Someone coming from Pinterest wants something different than someone coming from Google.
Be strategic about who you are writing your content for, and how you can reach everyone from every walk of life. This helps you avoid burnout as you create different forms of content rather than always having to create something new from scratch.
Video is growing in popularity and in importance.
It’s great for your site’s SEO; it’s great user experience; it’s huge for your income.
Just as an example, the CPM, (or cost per 1K ad impressions) for video ads in 2019 was $19. Whereas the CPM for display ads was $2-3.
The only problem with video is there isn’t enough video content to meet the demand for it.
From the beginning, Mediavine has been interested in giving the reader what they want, and in the process, they gave the advertisers what they wanted as well.
If you’re ready to start working with Mediavine, you can contact them at Mediavine.com, and listen to Amber’s podcast at Theory of Content.
Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free!
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube.
Sign up today!
Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
Is 2020 the year you are finally going to start an online business and follow your dreams? Don’t be surprised if you hit rocky patches from time to time. If you want to learn how to ride the ups and downs of blogging, you’ll want to listen in to my conversation with Sue de Chiara, creator of The Zhush.
Sue and I discuss how she built her blog, and how she grew her Instagram to nearly 116K followers.
And be sure to stay tuned to the end because Sue is sharing some of the biggest mistakes she made along the way.
I always want to dig into the mistakes because those are an inevitable part of any business. Sue is very transparent and I think this conversation will be very valuable for you if you’re ready to start your own business.
But first, I wanted to share something with you. My husband and business partner, David, and I have noticed something; a lot of the listeners of this podcast want to start an online business or a blog, but they have no idea where to start.
So, if the tech required for starting a blog has been holding you back, I have great news for you!
MiloTree is now offering blog start-up services! Just go to MiloTree/BlogStart to see how we can help you.
We know how overwhelming it can be to start a business if you’re not tech-savvy.
That’s why we decided it was time to help people get over the hump of getting their blog set up so they could move on to creating content, serving their audience, and developing products.
=&0=&MiloTree/BlogStart =&2=&
We can’t wait to see what you build in 2020!
In 2010, Sue started a blog where she shared how she decorated her home.
People came to her blog for inspiration, so she decided to do some affiliate marketing from it, setting up a storefront to sell the types of items she was using in her own home.
She ran the store for 7 years, which she says was “a year and a half too long.”
The business was very successful for a while. They had great press coverage and feedback, but Sue just couldn’t figure out how to scale it.
With no background in retail, and because this was the wild west days of online business, the business became more of a headache than it was worth.
However, at the same time, the blog was bringing in its own revenue and was something she thoroughly enjoyed doing.
She was afraid to shut the store down, but now, she wishes she had done it much sooner.
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With the storefront closed down, Sue began to focus solely on her blog in 2017.
She monetizes that blog through ads, affiliate links, and a few sponsored posts. She doesn’t pursue sponsored work however; if a brand contacts her and is a great fit for her audience, she will take on the work.
Sue sells packages to sponsors that include a blog post, 1-2 IG posts, and IG stories.
Sponsored work has changed a ton since she started monetizing her blog. Now, the brands are more in charge of how they want the information shared, where and when it gets the most engagement.
For our own site, Catch My Party, I’ve noticed that brands are far more demanding than in the past, and that campaigns take much more time than they used to.
If you plan to use affiliate marketing as a stream of income for your blog, you have to go into that with a strategy. If you don’t have a strategy, you won’t see the success you desire.
Sue uses Reward Style to share products with her audience. Reward Style is affiliated with so many businesses that it makes it easy for Sue to talk about things she really loves.
She also creates gift guides on her blog using sponsored content.
These gift guides are very specific. If you want your gift guides to be successful, they can’t be generalized.
Sue was a very early adopter of IG. At the time, she was just using it for fun, posting photos of her children.
But because she had a public account and was on there from the beginning, she built up a large following. It wasn’t until Sue had around 25,000 followers that she realized she could use Instagram to help her business.
*Side note – As a business owner who helps people grow their social media accounts, I know that it can be discouraging to see your follower counts drop. But you need to keep in mind that Facebook and IG are always trying to find and delete spam accounts.
So what may appear to be falling follower counts could merely be that IG has discovered more spam accounts and deleted them.
Focusing on your numbers is not always healthy for you. Your following will rise and fall naturally day-by-day. Your engaged followers are going to be there for you as long as you continue to put out good content.
And if you want your real, engaged IG followers to grow faster, definitely add MiloTree to your site.
Sue posts to her feed once a day and to stories multiple times per day. She uses a mixture of personal content, swipe-ups to blog posts, and swipe-ups to affiliate products.
Sue spends 40+ hours per week working on her blog and business. She posts to her blog 5 times per week, but 1-2 of those are usually repurposed content.
For a while, Sue had a guest poster once a month on the blog, which was a huge help, but she is now creating all the blog content herself. And she admits to hitting burnout at times.
To head off the feeling of overwhelm, she relies on an editorial calendar and an ongoing monthly series to keep the content fresh and exciting.
Sue wants everybody to understand that the most important thing for new online business owners to focus on is building an email list.
Sue says she “was asleep to that concept for too many years.” It’s important to begin building that list from day one.
Not only was Sue late to the email game, but she also only recently created a lead magnet to get folks on her list.
Sue also suggests that you focus on one area at a time. Don’t try to learn Facebook, blogging, Pinterest, and Instagram all at the same time.
Conquer one area, learn everything you can about it, and then pick the next thing to work on.
Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free!
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube.
Sign up today!
Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
This episode explores how to go from a blogging failure to massive success, but before we launch in…
Have you been dreaming of starting a WordPress blog but you’re overwhelmed by the tech aspects of it all? I get it.
Getting a blog up and running can be the one thing that hinders you from starting your online business.
Maybe you want 2020 to be=&0=&, but you know that setting up a blog is going to be the one thing that keeps you from reaching your goals.
Now imagine if you could do it effortlessly. We, at MiloTree, are now offering blog set-up packages where we set up your blog for you right, and you can focus on creating content and developing your own products to sell.
We have been in this business for a long time, and we know what it takes to get a blog up and running the right way. We hear from so many of you that getting your blog set up is an obstacle you just can’t get past.
Well, now you have help. Just go to MiloTree to see what we can do for you. We have several packages to choose from based on your specific needs. There is a package that’s perfect for you! If you have any questions, please reach out. We’d love to help you!
In today’s episode, I am interviewing Lauren McManus.
I find Lauren’s story interesting, especially the party where she and her business partner started a blog that didn’t go anywhere. Not everybody hits it big with that first iteration.
After the failure, they started another blog that was a huge success by all standards. They followed that success with a business teaching others how to grow online businesses.
Lauren now lives the life I dream of a digital nomad. She travels the world while running her businesses. In fact, she joined me for this conversation from Chile.
The difference between the first blog (failure) and the second blog (massive success) was the audience focus.
Lauren tried to cater to people exactly like herself with her first website.
Her demographic was young people who wanted to be social, but maintain their health at the same time. That website failed. The diet program they were trying to sell failed.
The second time they started a website, they hid their own faces and wrote articles addressing all health questions. The audience they ended up attracting the most was 45-year old women, mostly mothers.
They took the time to learn how to market to the correct demographic and their product sold immediately.
They took the time to drive traffic, build an audience, and learn their audience before selling products, and that made all the difference.
They still sell their original e-book with video updates, and it still performs very well.
As the blog was growing, Lauren was using Pinterest to drive traffic to it. Once someone came to the blog, there were multiple opportunities to sign up for emails.
Lauren and her partner also wrote articles on every single subject related to health they could think of in the beginning test phase.
They needed to find out exactly who their audience was so that they could create content and products specifically for that person.
Once they learned that yoga and weight loss content was what the majority of their audience wanted, they focused on creating products for those two topics.
At the bottom of their first email to new subscribers, Lauren would ask what the person’s number one problem was in achieving their goals. The responses were typically very in-depth and gave them the insight they needed to create a customer avatar.
Just like Lauren discovered, we don’t always blow it out of the water on our first go ‘round.
Sometimes, we have to try multiple times before we find the thing that’s going to work for us.
I call these “at-bats,” because they aren’t failures; they’re simply figuring out what works.
Do not be scared to change what you create when you see what resonates the most with your audience.
The more you tweak and test, the more you will know about your audience, and what works best.
For the first blog that was hugely successful, Lauren and her partner split the writing duties and only occasionally hired it out. These days, it is all hired out.
On the blog about leaving your 9-5, they really only create blog content when they create new courses. Projects demand most of their work time, so they tend to leave everything else behind for a bit while big projects take the focus.
They also focus on other types of content now, such as YouTube, podcast interviews, and updated courses.
Don’t be afraid that by starting a blog, you will be creating written content for 60 hours a week forever.
Do you ever feel like there are so many blogs that there’s no point in you even trying to start something? I think a lot of people feel that way.
But the fact is that even in a very saturated market (weight loss), Lauren was able to make money in the first few months of her blog. And she made 6 figures in her first 12 months!
There is always room at the top. But you need to know what your unique selling point is.
For Lauren, Pinterest and Youtube are the best platforms for her business.
The most important thing is to not overthink what you want your topics to be. Share where you have experience.
When you sell what you know, your audience will believe you and engage with you.
It is so important to connect with your audience.
No matter what stage you are in with your business, find out who your target audience is and be relatable to them.
Be transparent, be yourself. People want to relate to you. They want to believe what you say and who you are.
Learn as much as you can from your audience and continue connecting.
If my conversation with Lauren has you all fired up and ready to start that blog you’ve been meaning to start for a while now, head on over to MiloTree and we can get you set up fast and right.
If the tech makes you want to pull your hair out, let us help! It’s time to get your online business off the ground, whether you want to be a nomad or you just want to share your passions with others. Visit MiloTree today!
Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free!
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube.
Sign up today!
Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
Where are the opportunities with changing algorithms?
Should you be directing people back to your blog instead of your social media platforms? Can you adapt and adjust in the ever-changing world of online business?
That’s what my friend Camille Whiting and I are talking about in today’s episode. Camille has a blog called Friday’s We’re In Love, where she documents the dates she goes on with her husband every Friday night.
We talk about how to stay nimble as an entrepreneur in an online world that is constantly changing. Camille has a unique perspective on how to be flexible and continue to test new things in her business.
Camille has four main ways that she monetizes her blog:
Right now, Camille is focused on growing her traffic.
A year ago, Camille was working hard on her Instagram. But after seeing how the platform was changing and not serving her as well as it could, she decided to be flexible and seek out other avenues.
Camille uses social media because it’s fun to her, but she is serious about her site and using it to grow traffic.
Camille is not one of those people who wastes time whining about algorithm changes. As a matter of fact, as a user, she appreciates the algorithms and how they work to make her experience better.
The algorithm changes do act as a wake-up call for her business though. It serves as a reminder that nothing is constant. We, as bloggers, know that things change constantly.
So Camille asked herself a question: With social media changing all the time, what could she own that wouldn’t change? And the answer was email.
She’s had an email list for a couple of years but this year, she shifted toward more of an owner mentality. She realized the reach she has with her list; that her message is not limited in any way when she communicates with her email subscribers.
Camille believes in copying big companies’ strategies.
When she first started seeing blogs take off and make money from their readers, she also had the advantage of being in a group of Fortune 500 companies who were experimenting with their own websites and social platforms.
Camille got to watch these businesses spend millions of dollars just trying new things. That’s where she gets her experimental mindset.
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Big companies go above and beyond to serve potential customers; they give away freebies, etc., before they try and make a sale.
Right now Camille is trying to continue growing her audience, as well as fortify the relationship she has with her current audience, so she can make more sales.
Camille has switched up her use of Google Analytics to find out what people want to read from her, not just what she wants to write for them.
In past years, Camille would only write about her passions, but people were looking for more than just date ideas.
Camille wrote more varied content, covering the topics her audience wanted to know about.
You will see more traffic when you give people what they want.
So you must be strategic when thinking about the topics you are going to write about.
See what content is already doing well, and create more content around that topic. And be sure to include links to the other posts you have on that topic so that Google will know that you have the information searchers are looking for.
As Camille has shifted her focus from writing about whatever grabbed her attention, to writing the content that serves her audience, she has seen organic traffic growth.
You can write tons of content for very niche subjects. Take that big-picture subject and break it down into smaller pieces. And don’t feel like you’ve covered everything; there is always something else to say or another point of view to write from.
A previous guest on my show, Nate Woodbury, has a great way of thinking about creating content for niche topics.
He says that as you gain authority in small topics that all relate to each other, over time you gain overall authority in that topic.
Think of a tree as the topic as a whole. Then go leaf by leaf by leaf (smaller niche areas). Once you have a few leaves covered, begin to cover the trunk. Before you know it, you will have covered the entire tree.
Camille attributes her success to being an early adaptor to new platforms.
Video is very important on all platforms this year. Camille has had to recognize and adapt to the fact that she needs to upload videos, as well as written content, in order to grow.
Camille sees her competitive advantage as finding ways to create content that’s not easily duplicated. If somebody can easily copy your style or your content, it’s time to up your game. That’s why she’s doing much more video.
When Camille learns a new skill or hops onto a new trend, she thinks about how that knowledge can serve her even if her business were to fail.
How she could adapt and move on to something else and succeed with what she’s learned?
Online entrepreneurs typically have more diverse knowledge and skills needed for their business than most people.
The more you learn, stay up to date on changes, and adapt to those changes, the bigger the competitive edge you are going to have.
What is your competitive edge? What skills have you learned in your online business that you could take to another opportunity if your online business failed today?
I’d love to hear from you on the things you’re learning. Are you an early adopter? Does fear hold you back from trying new things?
Come join me on Facebook on Mondays at 3 pm where I discuss the podcast and all my favorite takeaways.
Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free!
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube.
Sign up today!
Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
As bloggers and online entrepreneurs, our number one need is traffic.
If you want to increase your blog or business income, you need to increase your traffic first.
Today, I’ve got my friend, and MiloTree Community Manager, Paula Rollo, back on the show, and we are talking about tips to get more traffic to your blog.
SEO, Pinterest, email marketing, and MiloTree are all great ways to do it.
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube.
Sign up today!
Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!