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In this episode with my friend and SEO expert, Paula Rollo, we talk about how to use Google Analytics to know what to blog about.
How many time have you asked yourself, what kind of content should I invest my time in to grow my business? How do I get the biggest bang for my buck?
If you want to learn how to look at your blog with fresh eyes and optimize it for your visitors, for revenue, for experience, listen to this episode.
Intro 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
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.
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?
People ask me all the time why you need a blog if you want to be a successful online entrepreneur.
They’ll say, “I have a successful Etsy shop… Or I’m killing it on Instagram… Or I’m a YouTuber… Why do I need a blog?”
And I say because a blog or website is something you can actually own. It can’t be taken away from you.
Think of your blog or website as the hub of your business (your home base), and everything else is a spoke.
So your Etsy shop is a spoke, your Instagram is a spoke, your YouTube is a spoke, your email list is a spoke, etc.
Your blog gives people a way to learn more about you. This is your place to highlight you and your business. It’s a way to start building your credibility and reputation on the Internet.
So for example, if you have an Etsy shop, it’s a way to say, “I’m a real person, not a fly-by-night Chinese importer selling inexpensive goods.”
It also gives you a way to collect email addresses and build your list — the only other thing in your business you can actually own.
With a blog, you can highlight the parts of your business you want people to notice — new products you’re working on, the course you’re building, the freebie you’re offering.
It’s also a place to store the content that matters to you, instead of it being lost in the bowels of your Facebook page or disappearing in your Instagram stories.
My answer is, absolutely not! But if you want to, go ahead.
I do recommend you visit your blog and update it regularly.
I recommend you have it link to all your spokes — your shop and all your social media channels. I also recommend you offer a freebie on it to collect email addresses.
And it gives you the flexibility to expand your business in new ways because your business has a home outside of a specific platform. A blog let’s you dream bigger.
This is where we come in.
After talking to countless entrepreneurs struggling to get their blogs up — if you’ve tried setting up a WordPress site yourself, you know how daunting the task is — David (husband/partner/technologist) and I decided to start a service called MiloTree Blog Start.
This is where we set up your WordPress blog for you quickly and easily — no stress.
But we don’t just set up your blog. We set up your blog correctly!
It will be optimized for speed, privacy, ease of use, SEO… you name it, we’ve thought of it.
And then we are always available for any technical questions you have. Yep, we are with you every step of the way!
We want you to get your business started off on the right foot!
And hopefully, if you listen to my podcast, The Blogger Genius Podcast, you know how committed I am to your success.
So please click the button to learn more. And please email me with any questions you have. I’d love to hear from you!
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.
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Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
As bloggers, it can be tricky to know how to use ads on your site, what ads you should use, and what types of content will bring you the most ad revenue. So let’s explore how to increase your income with online ads.
Ad revenue is beneficial for bloggers because it’s passive income. I am a huge believer in finding ways to grow your income without increasing your workload.
The ad company we use on our site, Catch My Party, is AdThrive, and it’s been a great fit for us. AdThrive is a premium ad company that works with some of the best bloggers and publishers out there.
My guest today is Paul Bannister, Executive Vice President at AdThrive.
We talk about what a company like AdThrive is looking for in terms of its bloggers and publishers, why ad revenue is important, what kind of content will grow your traffic and the latest trends in the online ad business.
If you are a blogger who wants to learn more about using ads, I think this episode will be a great tool for you!
Paul and his company look for bloggers who have original content, a clean site, and who view their blog as their business, not a hobby.
They want bloggers with a good history of content and a strong audience.
AdThrive has minimum monthly page views of 100K in order to consider working with a blogger.
If you are getting more than 100K page views a month, it will be evident that your blog is more than a hobby to you.
There are various types of ad networks. Some focus on connecting as many bloggers to brands as possible.
There are other ad agencies that want to focus on a specific niche, such as healthcare.
Using Google AdSense can be nice since they are a big name and you can easily add ads to your site even if your blog is small.
As your blog gets bigger, an ad network like AdThrive can bring in ad agencies from all across the industry, not just Google-related.
AdThrive makes their business decisions based on what is best for the bloggers they work with.
If you are a blogger with 100K page views, you are not going to be able to quit all your other jobs and live off your ad revenue.
Not only is it not feasible, but AdThrive is big on their publishers having several different revenue streams.
It is always a good idea to have several sources of income, no matter where you are in your blogger stage. Ads can be a big part of that revenue, but you need something to fall back on should your ad revenue dry up.
Your niche will also affect how well your ads do. Travel and personal finance are great niches for ad income.
Traffic is crucial to ad income, because the more traffic you have, the more ad income you earn.
But we all know that growing traffic isn’t easy these days. *(Which is why you need a tool like MiloTree!)
The best way to grow your blog traffic is to be great at something. If you understand Pinterest and do really well marketing your blog there, keep it up. If email is your jam, use your email list to the best of your ability.
Focus on what you’re best at and stay in that space for a while.
Sire speed matters, particularly for SEO. Anything you add to your blog is going to affect your site speed.
You should have the overarching view of, “What is on my page and how is it serving my audience?”
So, you need to think of the tradeoff of the new content or ad that you’re publishing and how it will affect your site speed.
If your site is slow to load, the person who found you on Google search is probably going to bounce away from your page to one that loads faster.
Each ad has a slight effect on your site speed. The first ad is going to have the most impact, and after that the impact is minimal.
Let’s say you’re a blogger. You have no ads on your site currently, but after listening to this episode, you’re ready to jump into the ad game. Where do you start? What should you look for in an ad network?
One of the first things to do is to read reviews from other entrepreneurs who have used a specific ad company. If you know someone who has ads on their site, as them if they’re pleased with the ad agency they’re using.
Checking out other sites or businesses that are using a specific ad company is a good way to get a feel for that company’s values.
There is a tool called Built With that will show you which ad networks the site is working with.
Your ad network is a big revenue stream, but it is also a big part of the user experience. You want to make sure that the ad company you use matches the experience you want your readers to have.
Bloggers wear a million hats, so it can be hard to know where you should put the majority of your focus.
Paul believes in focusing on the thing you are the best at first.
Different people are good at different things, so knowing yourself and what motivates you is the best place to start.
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We here at MiloTree and Catch My Party recommend that if you are interested, you reach out to AdThrive at info@adthrive.com.
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.
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Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes.
Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
YouTube has a huge presence online today, and it’s not just for watching videos anymore. YouTube is actually the second largest search engine in the world, right behind Google. So don’t avoid YouTube. Learn how to use YouTube to market your business successfully!
With 3 billion searches per month, if you aren’t taking advantage of YouTube, you might want to consider learning how you can use it to grow your business.
Nate Woodbury, founder of Be The Hero Studios, helps business owners create YouTube channels, not merely to call themselves YouTubers, but to grow their businesses and sell products.
He shares a lot of great strategies and tactics with us today. Even if you have no YouTube experience, I promise, you will learn something that you can apply to your own business.
The big difference between starting a YouTube channel today vs. when it first came out is that now you must have a strategy.
It is no longer enough to create videos and put them out there. You will not gain a big following by simply doing that.
YouTube requires a lot of the same strategies as any type of entrepreneurship. You need a large dose of stick-to-it-iveness and tenacity. You have to focus on creating quality content.
Nate has his own personal YouTube channel dedicated to teaching others how to make a YouTube channel thrive.
It’s important to do keyword research before you begin filming because it’s much harder to go back and find keywords to fit the content you’ve already created.
Go deep, find very specific questions that people are searching for the answers to, and create videos that answer those questions.
SEMrush has a tool called Keyword Magic Tool, which is what Nate recommends to find the most effective keywords and phrases to gain traffic.
For someone serious about doing a daily YouTube channel, you can pay for a subscription to SEMrush for a month or so, and then cancel it.
Here’s what you do: Look up a keyword and all your results will pop up. Then hit a button that says “Questions.” When you hit that button, it shows you the questions around that keyword people are asking.
Nate recommends picking questions that have between 10 and 100 searches per month.
If you are doing videos this way, you will have a smaller percentage of viewers, but they will watch your video all the way through because it is specifically tailored to their needs.
The YouTube algorithm is going to see that it is a well-performing video with a high watch-through rate, and will promote your video for you.
This is the best way to get your YouTube channel started and get traction on Google, as well.
*Looking up specific keywords also works if you are a blogger looking for content to write about.
Nate says don’t stress about overall production quality, but rather, focus on content quality. You don’t need an expensive camera to do YouTube videos.
Lighting is the most important piece to think about when videoing your content. Simply film a selfie video facing a window, and as long as you’re delivering high-quality content, people are going to love it.
Nate plans his videos to be 10-12 minutes. Keep in mind, the longer people watch your video, the more YouTube will promote it.
Let your audience know beforehand what your video is about and what you’re going to cover. This tells your audience that watching through to the end is worth it.
Ad revenue can become a livelihood but you need millions of views to earn big bucks from YouTube. Normally your YouTube income will just be the icing on the cake of your other incomes.
If you have a huge platform on YouTube and high-quality videos, YouTube will promote your videos because YouTube wants to make money, and therefore, you will make money.
It takes time, you have to be able to wait until you have a big enough audience to sell your products.
Once you have thousands of followers, and once you are a YouTube partner, you can get your website approved to be able to guide followers off of YouTube to your personal site for sales.
One-third of Nate’s links on his videos lead to his personal website, one-third go to other YouTube videos, and the final third lead to social engagement.
You can succeed on YouTube at a gradual pace of one episode a week.
However, YouTube does like it when you post five or more videos a week. Think about it; they want people to come back to the platform every day for videos.
Nate went from 500 views per day for one video a week, to 10K views a day for five-plus videos a week, in just four short months.
There are four ingredients to ensure that you get as many views as possible for your videos:
Thumbnails have become more and more important because people see so many videos in a search result, and you want your thumbnail to stand out.
To figure out the best type of thumbnails to use, you’re going to have to test your ideas. TubeBuddy has an AB split test that you can use to see how your thumbnails are working comparatively.
Don’t repeat the title of your video in your thumbnail. Use that text to build curiosity and pique the searcher’s interest. The word “clickbait” can have both good and bad connotations, so use your text carefully and if you can deliver on your text, do it.
If you want to start a YouTube channel, let’s review what Nate talked about today:
Building a YouTube channel is strategic but it is not rocket science. You need the nuts and bolts in place and once you have a solid foundation, you continue to build, build, build!
Nate has a special offer for my Blogger Genius listeners; if you go to his website at Be The Hero Studios, you can grab his step-by-step blueprint for doing keyword research before filming.
Have you built a YouTube channel? If so, share your best tips and tricks with us. Let us know what has worked for you and what hasn’t.
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.
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Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
As a blogger, I’m sure it isn’t news to you that you need an email list. This post is all about taking your email marketing to the next level with these advanced email marketing strategies.
It’s true that social media algorithm changes can hurt you and your business, but beyond that, your email list is something that you own.
You don’t own Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest. Those things could go away tomorrow or they could decide to never show a single post of yours again, ever.
What would happen to your business if that happened?
Well, if you have a thriving email list full of people who trust you and are your loyal fans, you could continue to grow your business.
But how do you do it?
How do you build an email list and what do you do with it once you’ve built it? That’s exactly what we’re diving into today.
I’ve got Matt Molen from personalizedpaths.com back with me today.
Matt has a very hands-on approach to teaching email marketing, and so today, we are going to get specific about how to make your own email marketing doable.
In my last episode with Matt, we covered the basics, and his advice was so practical and helpful. Be sure to give that one a listen if you’re just getting started with email. And now, on to Part 2!
Matt’s primary tip, the one you need to put into practice before you think about anything else, is to become an email acquirer and be aggressive about it.
You need to make email acquisition an intentional part of your strategy.
We all know we need to have that email audience. We need to have a place where we are in control without the fear of algorithms. But for many people, they can’t make the jump from thinking about email marketing to really doing it.
Your traffic is your number one list building tool, so put yourself in the shoes of your readers:
To get someone to notice you when they land on your site after a Google search, to get someone to remember your name, you need to offer something of real value, something she can’t walk away from.
It can be anything that offers bonus value. This could be checklists, printables, more tips, hidden content that must be unlocked, etc.
Most people don’t start building their email list because they are “too busy” doing other things.
An easy way to get started is by going into your Google Analytics.
Look at the last 30 days and then look at the last year. Take your top 10 posts and see if they have any commonalities or if they are individual posts.
Think about what you already have that you could package up and give to the reader as a bonus in exchange for an email address.
You want to be an aggressive email acquirer, but you also want to be a journey builder.
If you have an audience that you know is interested in your niche, you can create a forever series.
Set up automated answers to the questions your readers are going to have next. This takes away the stress of having to figure out what to write in an email every week. You already have your journey set up.
Once you build trust and expertise and serve content that truly adds value to your reader, then you can sell your products to your audience.
Logistics and segmenting the audience is a stumbling block to most people.
But the better our audience is segmented, the better we will be able to answer specific problems, and the better we are going to be at building our brand.
Look at your content and see what is attracting the most viewers and build up your content around that topic. Build your email list from that content.
It can seem overwhelming, but you only need to pick one segment to work on at a time. You don’t have to have it all figured out in order to start. Pick a topic and write out a 10-email series on that topic.
Marketing is an art with a touch of science. Most artists get better at their craft with experimentation so dive in and try something.
Prolific content creators can send more than one email a week to their list.
Matt recommends that you set up your automated email sequences based on evergreen material. And do that as far out as you can; a month, six months, a year.
Your broadcast email is going to be the same except it’s filled with seasonal content, not evergreen content.
If you’re a lifestyle blogger, you can send a broadcast email to everyone on your list and see what the engagement is. If some people don’t open it, they’re telling you what they want.
At one point we had something called RSS Readers that would notify us when blog posts or articles went out from our favorite bloggers.
They still exist and every WordPress account has an RSS feed that allows you to send out your latest content.
The problem with it is that many people make that RSS feed their default. At this point, you’re sending them your LATEST, not your GREATEST.
If someone opted into your list, they aren’t interested in every latest piece you write. They are interested in what is going to add the greatest value to their lives.
You can make it an option for people to receive your RSS feed. If someone would like an instant alert, they can opt-in to it.
How long do you want your own emails to be when you open them?
However long it takes you to answer a question or solve a problem.
Sometimes that’s longer, sometimes that’s shorter, but generally, you want your emails to be shorter.
Your email is about getting to the point, so invite people to click through to your site, where you can go more in-depth if you want to.
You want a minimal amount of links per post. Make those links big and easy to click for people reading on their phones.
Matt recommends using a larger font for those emails: Arial 17 or 18, at the very least.
And check your own emails on your phone to be sure that the format looks right and is easy to read.
We do not spend enough time coming up with good subject lines.
If someone sees your subject line and decides to leave your email unopened, everything is wasted.
Matt likes to use the formula of curiosity + self-interest.
“5 Ways the Instant Pot Helped My Love Life,” is a post Matt is actually writing right now.
This subject line grabs your attention because it’s odd, but you will get value because you’re interested in instant pot recipes.
Read your subject line, see if you can shorten it, and then use it. You need to cut every extra word out and edit, edit, edit.
It can seem hard to prune your list that you’ve worked to grow, but in the end, it will save you money, save you time, and helps your stats.
If you are an aggressive email acquirer, you should be an aggressive email pruner.
You want to come up with ways to get the right people on your list. If you can’t serve them correctly, you don’t want to spend the money to keep them.
Matt prunes every 2-3 months, (with a few exceptions that you can hear about in the episode) but you can certainly play it by ear and do what you feel is best for your list.
Using this strategy, you will see your email list grow within weeks. For further information on Matt’s email marketing strategies, check out his full course at https://www.personalizedpaths.com/autopilot/.
Matt also offered a free mini-course, so listen in to the episode to find out how to get that!
If you liked this episode, be sure to let me know. Share your email wins and any questions to jillian@milotree.com and we’ll help you get answers!
Are you serious about growing your online business? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more?
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.
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Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!
Today I have my good friend (and Community Manager at MiloTree), Paula Rollo, back on the podcast to talk about how to best optimize your blog’s About Page.
If you are a blogger, you already know how important your About Page is. Your About Page tells the story of your own personal journey, including struggles and successes.
Your About Page sets you up as the expert in your niche which helps to build the know, like, and trust factor with your audience.
It is also typically one of the most-visited pages on your site, so you want it to be full of links and other information that will keep the visitor clicking around your site.
We’ll go over what About Pages are, who they are for, and how you should think about them.
Your About Page sets the tone for how you are positioning yourself on your site. This is important for 2 reasons:
Your about page is one of the first pages you ever create when starting out, and it can be excruciating to get it perfect… and then often we never look at it again.
As your business grows, it’s good practice to look back at your About Page and see what’s missing, and what you can edit or tweak to make it a strong page on your site.
There are a few things that are absolutely basic that you should always have on your About page:
The focus of your About Page needs to be on your audience or the brands that are visiting and what value you can give to them.
Read your own About Page and see if you are putting the value of what you are doing right in front of your readers.
Brand managers are looking for bloggers in specific niches.
We recommend directing these brands to a different Contact Page with more of your statistics and data. You can share who you’re interested in working with, whether or not you do giveaways, etc.
On your page with all your statistics, you can use logos from the brands you’ve worked with to give you more credibility. Logos are immediately recognizable so those are a great way to catch the eye of a brand manager.
Your About Page is like anything on your site – it needs to be skimmable.
Have your fun facts in bullet points. You want the reader to be able to quickly scroll through and see what you are about without having to read every single word you wrote.
Make your page fun. You want to make it an interesting page for your reader to visit.
You want your reader to have an, “Oh, me, too!” reaction while reading your about page. Above all, you want your reader to be able to relate to you.
If you have tougher things that you want to share, they can be linked to a blog post or even an Instagram post about that topic. You don’t have to share all the intimate details on the About Page and we recommend not putting a lot of difficult topics in a bulleted list.
Some people link to their most popular blog posts on their About Page.
We highly recommend doing this, because it’s a great way to grab the visitor who is checking out your About Page to decide whether or not they want to follow you.
Highlighting your most popular content, whether that’s your favorite posts or your readers’ favorites, creates a good sampler platter of what your site offers.
On your “Work with Me” page, you can share links to posts from previous sponsored content you have done.
Make sure that all of your links work.
Go over both your About Me and Work With Me pages and make sure that all your links go where they should. So many times I click on links and they are broken. That doesn’t make me want to stick around.
When links are broken, it makes the reader feel like you don’t care about them. That’s frustrating for them. You want to be serving your audience well.
You don’t want typos on your pages.
You also want it to be mobile-friendly. Once you finish typing it up on your laptop or desktop, go look at it on your phone and make sure it’s also skimmable on your phone.
Think about your audience skimming your page in line at Target. Or the brand manager on his phone in a cubicle looking for influencers quickly. Make it a good and easy experience for them.
It’s a great idea to have a nice, professional headshot on your About Page so that your audience can see you.
Many bloggers like to add several other images on their About Page which is fine, but always check your site speed if you decide to add more images.
Few things drive new readers away faster than a blog that loads so slowly they can’t see it within a few seconds.
If you’re trying to attract brands, make sure that your images are as professional as possible. If your blog is more casual, you don’t have to spend a ton of money on photos.
At the very top of your page, right after your name, you need to share what your credentials are and how you can serve your reader or a brand.
If you have credentials that are relevant to your content, you want to share that immediately because it gives the reader that extra comfort and belief in who you are and what you’re sharing.
If your credentials are relevant, but you still feel weird sharing them, you can soften the blow by sharing what your passion is immediately afterward.
This shows that you aren’t going to lord anything over them or make the reader feel bad about themselves.
One of the most important elements of your About Page is a “call to action.”
If you share that you live in Virginia, you can link to your Instagram where they can find more about where you live. Or if you talk about loving to cook, link to your Pinterest where you have more recipes.
The ultimate call to action is asking them to sign up for your email list.
Tell the reader what you want them to do. You always want to be clear about what you want from your audience.
Don’t throw a ton of choices at the reader. Give them one call to action and they are more likely to follow it.
Well, wow. After this conversation with Paula, I am reinspired to go back and take another look at my own About Page and see what I need to edit.
I encourage you to take some time this week to really look at your own About Page. Pretend you’re a first-time visitor to your blog and give your About Page a thorough once-over.
Or ask a friend who doesn’t read your blog to visit your About Page and tell you what they notice or anything that confuses them.
Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more?
Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn 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!