The Blogger Genius Podcast

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. That sounds limiting, doesn't it? A blog that talks only about succulents? I think you might be shocked at all that Cassidy has been able to accomplish with her blog. I'm talking products, courses, and more. Cassidy is more than a blogger; she is a businesswoman. But, before we dive into my conversation with Cassidy, I want to ask you a question: have you listened to 5 or more episodes of this podcast but you don't have your own blog yet? If so, you are not alone! My husband and business partner, David, and I have noticed a trend among some of our listeners; a lot of you want to start an online business or a blog but you have no idea where or how to begin. 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. If you're ready to make 2020 the year you finally start that business or blog you've been dreaming of for a long time, let us help. Head over to MiloTree/BlogStart to get started. We can't wait to see what you build in 2020! How to Start an Online Business I have discovered over the many years I've been in online business that many bloggers start their blogs to fill a hole that they found in the market, and that was certainly true for Cassidy. She began a photography blog back in 2012 to show off the projects she was working on. And during a particularly harsh winter, she purchased two succulents and placed them in her window. When she tried to find information on how to care for them, she couldn't find anything. She began posting about them on her photography blog, (she says they are very photogenic plants!) and explaining how she was caring for them. What was "kind of a happy accident" turned into a business when Cassidy realized she was getting organic search traffic from Google to the posts she was writing about her succulents? On Valentine's Day of 2013, she purchased the URL for Succulents and Sunshine and began to pursue it as a real business. How to Create Online Products Cassidy was earning some income from ads when she moved her business to succulents. She had ads on her photography site and she also placed ads on her new site. But if you look at her site now, you will also see products for sale. In 2014, based on the Google search traffic she was getting, Cassidy decided to write an ebook on the most popular topic on her blog: propagating succulents. She released the ebook to her tiny email list, (which was mostly just an RSS feed at the time) and she made $1K from her $10 ebook. While Cassidy was initially disappointed in the amount she earned, it didn't take her long to realize that the ebook would continue to earn money forever. And it did. In fact, it still brings in at least $500 every single month. Cassidy also continued writing ebooks (she has 5 currently), and eventually, she branched out into courses (she has 2 as of today), succulent ID cards (150+ plants), and a membership site. How to Use Tripwires to Increase Online Sales Tripwires are something I've been talking about a lot lately and something that Cassidy has used very effectively to increase the amount of revenue she is bringing in. When a customer purchases one of her ebooks for $10, they are given the option to purchase the entire bundle of 5 ebooks for $25 instead. And her conversion rate on this tripwire is an incredible 35%! Cassidy has tested several other tripwires but none has brought in the increased revenue like the book bundles. How to Test Email Opt-in Strategies Testing is so crucial when you're developing products. I love that Cassidy is always testing to see what works and what her audience responds to. In 2019, she spent some time testing her email opt-ins and how she was asking site visitors to sign up for her list. She began with a typical pop-up, but she decided to switch things up and see what happened. Instead of the pop-up lead magnet, she wrote a paragraph about watering succulents. The text offered a cheat sheet for knowing how much to water your plants and how to know if you've watered too much. At the end of the paragraph, she had a button that said, "Click Here to Get the Cheat Sheet." Only then did the box pop up for the visitor to enter their email address. This testing was a huge success, as her opt-in conversion rate more than doubled with the new system. How to Find New Blog Income Strategies At this point, I know you might still be surprised by how Cassidy has been able to take a blog about succulents and have so much amazing success with it. I asked her to share with us how she earns an income from the blog and what her percentages look like from her varied income streams. Cassidy's own products make up about 40% of the blog's revenue. Roughly half of that comes from the digital downloads she offers. (Ebooks, ID cards.) The other 50% of that is course sales. Courses, while a newer piece of her overall strategy, has become an important part of the business. Simply put, courses are a higher-ticket item, so even if you sell fewer of them, you still earn more money. How to Create Content in a Tiny Niche You all already know my feelings about niching down, but I wanted to hear Cassidy's take on the pros and cons of blogging in a tight niche. When she travels to blogging conferences, Cassidy hears the same thing over and over from other bloggers: "How in the world do you come up with enough material to blog about succulents on a regular basis?" The thing is, Cassidy never has to guess what her site visitors are coming to the site for. Whereas a lifestyle blogger might not know if her audience prefers her recipes, or the DIY projects she shares, or her fashion posts, Cassidy knows exactly what her audience wants. That takes all the guesswork out of content creation. Cassidy also uses the questions members of her Facebook group ask on a regular basis to create content that answers those questions. Why You Might Want to Put Content Behind a Paywall After several years of building out her site, Cassidy no longer considers herself a true blogger. One new piece of content is added to the site weekly right now, but that will stop at the end of this year. (2020) Why stop adding new content to the site? It's simple really. Succulents and Sunshine gets a ton of traffic, so Cassidy doesn't need to continue creating content in order to drive traffic. The site contains all the content someone would need in order to grow and propagate most succulents. And for those who want more, there are the courses and the membership site. Cassidy is beginning to add new content, besides the one piece of content per week, to the membership area. Her business model is one of providing helpful free content for the masses, but asking those who want to go farther to pay for the additional content. What I love about Cassidy's business is how it continues to evolve and grow as her customers tell her what they want. She has developed a level of trust with her customers that is amazing. Another thing I love is that while her membership site isn't huge by most standards, she has members who have been there since the beginning simply because they want the one-on-one attention the membership provides them. So now I'll ask you: what does your audience need one-on-one help with? What are you currently giving away for free that you could put behind a paywall? Last thing - did you hear Cassidy's one piece of advice for new bloggers? I'll give you a hint: listen in at 49:15 and you'll hear what it is! Then, join me in our Facebook group as I discuss my favorite takeaways from this episode. Transcript for "How to Find Financial Freedom with a Niche Blog" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

Listen to this interview with Amanda Wittenborn as she shares how to sell products on Amazon and kill it! I used to think that selling products on platforms like Amazon was all about competing with others on price. Amanda has taught me that I was wrong. She started out selling printables, but she was struggling to really grow her business. So she began selling invitations on Amazon that she had created and printed, and she has now grown this into a 7-figure business. I can't wait for you to hear Amanda's story of how she went from struggling blogger to finding what worked for her. But first... I'm excited to announce that my husband, business partner, and tech genius, David, and I have started our first blogger coaching group. I've been mentioning this for a few weeks and I am so excited that it's off the ground! This is a 6-week program that help online entrepreneurs understand all the things they need to know as they start to build their blogs into a profitable businesses. We're talking about all the tech stuff for sure, but we're also covering how to create content, how to find your audience, what products to sell, how to monetize, and how to understand SEO. We also talk about social media platforms, email marketing, and all the other pieces of building an online business you need to know today. There are live Q&A's, teaching sessions, a private Facebook group, and we are there with you every step of the way. If you're ready to get your business off the ground, email me at jillian@ milotree.com so I can reserve your spot for our next session starting in late May. Creating Products Fit for Amazon One of the first lessons Amanda had to learn was that not all products are going to work on Amazon. She had to figure out the types of products that would work and focus on creating those. Prior to Amazon, Amanda created personalized invitations, with all the pertinent information already on them. She sold files that a customer could print, or a customer could purchase pre-printed items. Once she began selling on Amazon, she switched to creating fill-in invitations. Amanda actually doubted that anybody would want invitations they had to fill in manually, but people loved them. When someone purchases invitations from Amanda, they can also purchase Thank You cards, stickers, and water bottle wrappers, and all of these items match the theme of the invitations. Will Your Business Work on Amazon? There are 2 sides to Amazon that are possibilities for selling your products. There is the regular Amazon, where most of us shop on a regular basis. And then there is Handmade by Amazon, which is like the Amazon version of Etsy. So, how do you know if your business will work on Amazon? Amanda gave us a tip to figure out which Amazon platform you need to be on: If your product is quick to create and you can keep a lot in stock, use the regular Amazon platform. If you create personalized products that require time to complete, you may want to sell your product on Handmade by Amazon. Isn't Amazon Too Competitive to Sell On? Oh my goodness, I don't know about you guys/gals, but when I think about selling on Amazon, I picture a young dude trying to beat the Amazon algorithm to show up in the Buy Box. And actually, Amanda says that is truthfully how the system works... unless you have a completely unique product. If you come in with something unlike anything else that's on the platform, you won't be fighting for the Buy Box because there isn't a comparable item to compete. Yes, there are other invitations on the platform. However, the competition isn't the same as if you have people ordering generic items from China to sell. Amanda takes advantage of sponsored ads and keyword placement to get her products in front of more eyeballs, but the cut-throat competition just isn't a thing when you have a unique product. Hitting Income Goals on Amazon Amanda's first year selling on Amazon resulted in $250K in sales. So, the next year she set a goal to double it. And that following year, she did $650K in sales. (Wow, right?!) Her third year, she decided to go for a million in sales. I'm sure it's no surprise that she hit that goal, too. And Amanda says that it didn't take long at all to hit the $20K sales mark. She recommends being prolific in your creation and testing things along the way. When something works, she adds more like it. Merchant Fulfilled vs. Amazon Fulfilled For the first 6 months of her business, Amanda printed all the invitations she sold and shipped then to her customers herself. This is known as "merchant fulfilled, "meaning the seller is the one fulfilling the orders. At first, it was easy to do. With 2-3 sales per week, Amanda had no trouble keeping up with fulfilling the orders. But when it got to be 10-15 sales per week, and then continued growing from there, it became very difficult to keep up. Keep in mind, she had to do all the printing, cutting, packaging and shipping. And her orders were ramping up quickly. It was then that she began having her invitations preprinted and she started building up stock. She had 40 designs, so she had 10 packs of each printed. She paid $750 for that first order and she was terrified at the outlay. What if they didn't sell? But they did sell, and because Amanda switched to Amazon Fulfillment, she no longer had to worry about the packaging and the shipping. Amazon held her stock and when orders came through, Amazon packaged them up and shipped them. The other amazing thing about using Fulfilled by Amazon is that your customers can take advantage of the 2-day Prime shipping. Selling on Etsy vs. Amazon and Pricing Products Amanda no longer has her Etsy shop since she started using Fulfilled by Amazon, simply because of all the extra work Etsy requires. Amanda also shared with me that she is not the cheapest price for her product on Amazon, but she sees that as a good thing. Sometimes, as entrepreneurs, we think we have to price our products super low so people will buy. That's wrong thinking, according to Amanda. If you price too low, people will think your products are cheap and will expect everything you sell to be priced low. The lower your prices, the more complaints you get. Amanda found that pricing her products in a higher price range led to better sales; not as many sales but more income. Whereas another seller might have to sell 100 packs of invitations to make a certain amount, Amanda only has to sell 50 packs to make the same amount. Learning to Sell on Amazon Just like any platform, Amazon has a learning curve when it comes to using the platform for selling your own products. But unlike most other platforms, Amazon provides all of the education for anyone wanting to use the platform to sell. Amanda found everything she needed right there on Amazon. Their help center provides videos and articles for every step of the process. Anything you need to know, Amazon provides the answer. If you don't see your issue addressed, you can call them and get help. Buying Ads on Amazon Amanda mentioned that she purchases ads on Amazon, so I asked her to dive into a bit more of what that means and how it works. Amazon has a sponsored ad campaign system that allows you to set up ad campaigns for your products. You can set the daily amount you want to spend and you can also bid for your products. For example, Amanda may have a pirate-themed invitation. She can bid $0.20 for her product to show up when someone searches for a "pirate invitation" on Amazon. Amanda no longer runs her own ad campaigns on Amazon. She recently hired a third-party agency to manage them for her. The Flexibility of Owning Your Own Business One of the great things about Amanda's business is how flexible it is. She can be there for her kids after school, on school holidays, and when they are sick. And she has grown a team of women who work for her who also appreciate that same flexibility. Amanda reaches out to stay-at-home moms she knows when she needs to hire something out because their lifestyle matches hers. She likes knowing that the women who work for her can be there for their families. And because of the growth of the business, Amanda can take a lot of time off over her kids' school holidays to be with them without worrying about the business suffering. She and the other women work around 20 hours per week and for Amanda, that feels just right. I think that's the part I love the most about Amanda's story; she set a goal to reach a certain lifestyle, and she not only accomplished it for herself, but she also provides the same opportunity for other women who want the same thing. And I want you to listen in because Amanda shared a lot about how her blog's lack of success is what drove her to start selling on Amazon. She is a perfect example of what I always tell clients and bloggers—if you have an idea, test it. If you want to see Amanda's products, you can go right to Amazon and see all the amazing things she offers. And if you would like to chat with her about any questions you have, she'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out at amanda@amandacreation.com. Transcript for "How to Sell Products on Amazon and Kill It" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

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? If you're dealing with issues like these, perhaps your problem isn't your content; perhaps your site speed is to blame. In this episode We're digging deep into why site speed matters, and how to be sure that yours is where it needs to be. But first, if you're new here, I wanted to take a minute to explain what MiloTree is about and what we offer to our customers, besides this podcast! I like to call this the "MiloTree Umbrella." First off, if you are a new blogger, or you're thinking about being a blogger but you haven't started yet, we are here to help. Setting up your blog is what holds back the majority of people who want to blog. And we get it. Tech can be confusing and it can make you procrastinate indefinitely. But lucky for you, my husband and business partner, David, is a genius with all the tech stuff. So, if you head over to MiloTree/BlogStart, you can sign up for our blog start service. We will set up and optimize your WordPress blog, and get everything in place for you to begin creating content. Then, once you have your blog up and running, you'll want to install our MiloTree pop-up on your site. This allows you to grow your social media platforms, email list, online shopping platforms, or whatever you want to grow! Go to MiloTree and click on the purple text in the top right corner to start your free 30-day trial and see how quickly you can begin to grow your audience. And then finally, David and I are finally offering blog coaching for entrepreneurs! I'm so excited about helping you all develop a real business through your blog. We are currently in our first 6-week entrepreneur coaching session, and we would love to have you in a future group. If you aren't getting the results you want, come join us and let us help you reach your goals and build a business that will grow with you. Just click through to sign up for your spot in our next session. Now let's get technical, without being too technical... What Is Blog Site Speed and Why Does It Matter? Site speed, simply defined, is how fast your blog pages load when someone comes to your site. Pretty simple, right? The question though, is why should you care? David explains there are 2 reasons why site speed matters. You want to give your visitors a fantastic user experience Site speed plays a role in how friendly Google judges your site to be, and how much traffic they send you It will help lower your bounce rate because people will want to stick around Be Your Own User and Tester If you want to know how quickly your site loads, the best place to start is with your eyes. Be your own user, in other words: go to your site and see how fast your pages download for you. Do you find yourself waiting for the full page to load? David also recommends getting out of your usual space to check your site speed. If you're like us, you're blessed with really fast internet at home. So, when you get on your desktop in your home office, your site might load really quickly. But you need to know how it loads for people on their phones, iPads, and for those with slower internet. So, go to a coffee shop or local hangout, and using only your cell phone data, see how quickly it loads. And obviously, if your pages load slowly when you have optimal internet, you know you've got some work to do. What Exactly Is Slow Site Speed? When you're watching your site load, do you notice that larger things like welcome banners take a bit longer to fill in? Are you having to sit there and wait for them to be done? Next, can you scroll? Or is the page frozen in the loading pattern, with the bottom half not filled in yet? These are the kinds of things that make visitors leave your site before they ever even see what you have to offer. The Two Sides of Site Speed Site speed encompasses several different parts of your actual site. It's not only what the user sees. Site speed begins before the user sees anything. The server side - meaning how long does it take your actual Wordpress (or other host) to load the site itself. The user side - meaning how long it takes for the actual content to load (photos, fonts, text, videos, banners, etc.) How to Have Good Site Speed? Get a Good Host If your site seems slow, or you've had people complain about it taking a long time to load, you can take some definite steps to speed things up. But the best place to start is with your hosting. If you are currently paying less than $3 per month for hosting, you may be at risk for less than desirable site speed. If you'd like to know which hosts David recommends, email me at jillian@milotree.com. Use a Caching Plug-in to Help with Site Speed There are plug-ins to help with almost everything on your site, but be careful, because too many plug-ins can cause your site to be slow. The first plug-in you need for site speed is a great caching plug-in. Caching means your pages are preloaded, in a sense. So, the first person to visit your site gets a full download, but following visitors get a snapshot, of sorts, of the pages. Your site doesn't have to go through all the work of loading everything again; it uses the cache it has built to show the pages. We use and recommend WP Rocket for our site cache. (This is our affiliate link.) Optimize Your Content for Site Speed Your caching plug-in will help on the server-side to bring the site up more quickly, but you've got content that needs to download for the user. So, what can you do to help your photos, videos, and written content, including those awesome fonts you used, to download more quickly? The first step to take here is to compress your images. Images take a long time to download, so you need to reduce the file size. Here again, there are plug-ins that, when installed, automatically optimize your images for you. *We use WP Smush for our photos. This is a free plugin we also use. How to Check Your Blog's Site Speed? If you've checked your site with your own eyeballs, you've used the correct plug-ins to reduce load time and to optimize your images, and it's still slow, there are some things you can do to figure out what's going on. A couple of tools that David recommends are is GTmetrix and Google Page Speed. All that is required to use these tools is to put in your URL and let the tool do its work. It will load your page, analyze it, and tell you what is slowing it down. What Slows Our Sites Down? We talked a little bit about how plugins and photos can slow our site down. But the truth is, every single thing you add to your site slows it down some. Even adding another few words affects your site speed. Now, a few words will have a negligible effect, but another photo could add a second or more to the loading speed. Back in the early days of blogging, before Google was the one setting all the rules, we could add as many photos as we wanted to our posts. And I will admit to being a little too in love with all my photos and not wanting to leave any out. So, you would see recipe posts with upwards of a dozen photos of the finished recipe alone. Nowadays, I aim to only include photos that serve a purpose. The MiloTree Plug-In If you're using the MiloTree pop-up on your site, David and I want to reassure you that when he built our pop-up, he built it with site speed in mind. So while, yes, every single thing you add to your site slows it down some, one thing you don't need to worry about is your MiloTree pop-up. We barely scratched the surface on site speed today, so stay tuned because David will be back to help with additional technical content in the future. If you have any questions for David or me, please reach out to us at jillian@milotree.com or david@milotree.com. Transcript for "Why Site Speed Can Hurt Your Blog and How to Fix it" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

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. But with all platforms, sometimes things change. And Pinterest has recently made some changes that have a lot of people talking. It is absolutely necessary as online business owners to be aware of these changes and understand what they mean for us and how to best move forward. Before we jump into all things Pinterest, I'm so excited to announce that beginning March 2, 2020, my husband and partner, and tech genius, David, and I are starting our first Entrepreneur Coaching Group. I've been mentioning this for a few weeks and I am so excited that it is almost time to start! This is a 6-week program that will help you understand all the things you need to know as you build your blog into a profitable business. We'll be talking about all the tech stuff for sure, but we'll also be covering how to create content, how to find your audience, what products to sell, how to monetize, and how to understand SEO. We'll also talk about social media platforms, email marketing, and all the other pieces of building an online business with a blog. There will be live Q&A's, teaching sessions, a private Facebook group, and we will be there with you every step of the way. If you're ready to get your business off the ground, head over to MiloTree and reserve your spot today! Pinterest Wants Fresh Content If you've been blogging for a while, you know that, in the past, you created a pin and then your job was to continue to pin that pin repeatedly, over time. One of the main changes Pinterest is making is in regard to that practice. Pinterest has said that they want new content. They no longer want us repinning the same pins over and over; they want pins that are fresh, and they are calling this "fresh content." Let's define fresh content for Pinterest Fresh content is simply an image that has never been pinned to Pinterest before. Pinterest has stated that their users engage more with fresh pins, and that doesn't mean you can use the same image but change the words or the overlay. It doesn't mean you can slide the image a few pixels right or left. Think about what makes an image fresh from the user's perspective. The point here is to switch your time and energy from curating peer content and repeating your pins to creating and pinning fresh content. Pinning to Multiple Boards Obviously, the question arises then: Can you continue to pin your images to more than one of your boards? You absolutely can! You can still pin your image to several relevant boards, with the important word there being "relevant." If you continue to share the pin to boards that Pinterest doesn't consider relevant, you might receive a warning that you should consider creating fresh content before pinning to additional boards. If you have a pin that is "sorta relevant" to a few more of your boards, change the text or the image to make it "very relevant" before pinning it to those boards. The very first board you pin the new content to gets the most attention from Pinterest. So, be very intentional about the first board you pin your new content to because that sends signals to Pinterest about the content and who they should show it to. Relevancy and Recency on Pinterest As time goes on, relevancy and recency are going to become more important to the Pinterest algorithm. I asked Alisa to take a moment to define the terms, relevancy and recency, and how they apply to the new algorithm. Let's say I'm searching for products for my curly hair. I will be shown images of curly hair, pins with text about curly hair, etc. In other words, pins that are relevant to my search. The takeaway here is that your content must contain what your pin says it is relevant to. That relevancy must also be consistent over your entire online content, from your boards to your pins to your website. You also need to remain relevant to the platform itself. People come to Pinterest to be inspired. Your pins and content should be both inspirational and aspirational because that is what the Pinterest user is looking for. Recency goes back to the fresh content piece. The more you create fresh content, the more that content will start to bubble up in the search results. Your relevant content that's older, can still come up in results, but if Pinterest has two pins that are both relevant to a topic, the more recent content will come up first. You still want to pin seasonal content early because it's relevant to the season and because people are searching for that seasonal content ahead of time. So yes, repinning this type of content could be beneficial. New Pins for Old Content When we talk about fresh content, we are speaking specifically about fresh pins. So, what does that mean for your older blog posts? If you make new pins for older blog posts, does Pinterest consider those pins fresh content? Yes! The algorithm is not based on new URLs, but rather on new pins. You don't have to put out more content in order to have fresh content for Pinterest. You can make new pins for older content to have the recency factor work in your favor. Creating Gorgeous Pins With more focus on new images moving forward, we need to know how to make the most clickable pins ever. Tailwind has come to the rescue with their Perfect Pinterest Pins Toolkit. Once you download this free toolkit, you'll see a pin checklist, a guide to writing great descriptions, and most exciting of all, free templates for creating gorgeous pins. A new group of templates is released every month and is sorted by industry. Each template is 100% editable to make them your own. You want your pins to be eye candy for the Pinterest user and this toolkit gets you there without you needing to spend hours on new pins. All of these templates are available to add to your Canva account and are built based on Pinterest's best practices. Is Pinterest Jail Real? If you hang out anywhere that bloggers hang out, you've likely heard that some bloggers are finding themselves in Pinterest jail. In other words, they're having their accounts suspended. I asked Alisa if Pinterest jail was a real thing, (it is!) and how we can stay out of it. First of all, even if Pinterest recommended you pin no more than 25 pins per day, you wouldn't get suspended for spam if you pin 27 pins per day. It doesn't work that way. Pinterest has clearly stated that it isn't based on numbers. But let's say you're pinning 40 pins per day, and some of those pins are the same pin, and it happens that nobody is engaging with that pin. Well, you're going to get tagged for spam and it's pretty easy to see why. At Catch My Party, we have tons of content to pin because people are constantly uploading their party photos to our site. We had been pinning 100 pins per day, but all of those are new pins. What we are testing now is pinning 75 pins per day and watching our analytics to see what effect that has on our account. Your Pinterest Best Friend The thing I love about the Pinterest scheduler, Tailwind, and one of the main reasons we use them, is that they are like a best friend, walking closely beside you and letting you know if you start to veer into dangerous territory. Your Tailwind dashboard will always warn you if they notice you putting yourself at risk. Tailwind is there to put safeguards around your account; they aren't reporting things to Pinterest, but rather are paying attention to best practices and passing those on to their users. *Listen in as Alisa shares some in-depth information on how to best use SmartLoop and the future of video on Pinterest. I so appreciate Alisa sharing her thoughts, and how Tailwind is approaching the changes that Pinterest is making. You don't have to be afraid of these changes. If the platform becomes more user-friendly, more people will use the platform, which ultimately leads to more eyes on your content. Action Tips If I had to give you some action tips from this episode, they would be: Keep creating fresh blog content Stay consistent with sharing your content, both new and seasonal Create new pins! Use the platform well and you will see a return on your investment! Transcript for How to Get Ahead of the Changes at Pinterest to Win on the Platform Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

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. Why I Started This Podcast 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 of Having A Podcast 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. The Space This Podcast Fills 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. How I Plan Future Episodes 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. Helping New Bloggers 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. What I Want Listeners To Learn 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. My Message To You 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? Transcript for "What I've Learned From Reaching 100+ Episodes" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

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/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. If you're ready to make 2020 the year you finally start that business or blog you've been dreaming of for a long time, let us help. Head over to MiloTree/BlogStart to get started. 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. Qualifications for MediaVine 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. Creating Unique Blog Content 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. One great way to use your own content, and incorporate content from other bloggers as well, is to do round-up style posts. Round-ups are lists of posts all revolving around a certain topic. If you want to increase the traffic to your site, create content that answers specific questions. People go to Google to ask questions and Google then sends those people to articles that answer their questions. The key here is to create different types of content (lists, DIYs, recipes, how-tos) aside from what you think of as basic blog content. Venture out from the type of post you've always created and try a list or answer some common questions. Keyword Research to Rank in Google 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. Multiple Blog Audiences 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. The Importance of Video as a Blogger 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. Read the Transcript for "How to Write Successful Blog Posts Today" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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? If so, you're going to 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. If you're ready to make 2020 the year you finally start that business or blog you've been dreaming of for a long time, let us help. Head over to MiloTree/BlogStart to get started. We can't wait to see what you build in 2020! Pivoting Your Business 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. Do not be afraid to move forward with a new idea if what you're doing isn't panning out for you. We need to be flexible and learn how to read our audience. Monetizing a Blog 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. Developing a Strategy for Affiliate Marketing 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. Using Instagram as a Marketing Tool 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. A Typical Workweek 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. Tips for Growing an Online Business (and Mistakes to Avoid) 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. Read the Transcript for "How to Ride the Ups and Downs of Blogging" Here Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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 your year, 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, Avocadu, that was a huge success by all standards. They followed that success with a business teaching others how to grow online businesses called Create and Go. 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. From Failure to Massive Success 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. Building an Avatar Through an Email List 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. How Many "At Bats" Does It Take? 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. Content Creation 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. Opportunities For You 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. Lauren's Advice for 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! Read the transcript for "How to Go From Blogging Failure to Massive Success" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

Do you want to learn how to build a seven-figure business teaching something you already know? If so, stay tuned to hear my conversation with Luisa Zhou about how she built her business teaching people how to quit their day jobs. Luisa shares the failures she experienced when building her business, and how much time it took her to figure out what she was going to offer her audience. She also shares how she got started, and her decision to serve her people without worrying about how pretty everything was at the beginning. But before we jump into my conversation with Luisa, I wanted to let you know that we have rolled out a brand new service here at MiloTree called MiloTree BlogStart. We know that blogging can be a great way to start your online business, but we also know that it can be really challenging if you don't have a lot of technical skills. I'm so fortunate that my husband, David, is very gifted in the tech space, but I can tell you right now, I would be stuck more than I care to admit without him! Our new service will have your WordPress blog up and running in a jiffy. We will help you purchase your domain name and hosting, set up your secure site, optimize it, and we will also provide technical support afterward so you can be free of fear. 2020 is a great time to make your dream of owning an online business come true, so what are you waiting for? Head on over to MiloTree BlogStart today and sign up to get your blog up and running! Now, on with the show! Learning from Your Mistakes Luisa had been trying to start her own business for several years before she began to build the one that would ultimately allow her to quit her 9-5. Learning what works and what does not work early helped Luisa launch her business successfully once she knew what she wanted to offer the world. One of Luisa's biggest mistakes was not getting to know her audience before she started trying to sell her knowledge. A second mistake was making a beautiful site but not working to get traffic to her page or building a connection with her audience. Once Luisa began doing things in the right order, she was making six figures in less than 4 months because she had learned what worked and what didn't. That was only possible because of the past 3 years of failures Luisa had gone through. Failure is not a setback, it's a lesson on how to move forward. The Need for Flexibility After those four successful months, Luisa left her day job to focus on a Facebook ad coaching business she was building. But Luisa began getting questions on how to build a business while still employed in a 9-5. After getting all of those questions, Luisa realized she could take the opportunity to coach people on how to start their own businesses. Luisa didn't start out with a plan to coach others, but when the opportunity presented itself, she knew she had the skills and experience, so she thought, why not? If you hold too tightly to your dreams and plans, you could potentially miss huge opportunities that might not fit in with your plan for the moment, but could ultimately prove to be more lucrative and more satisfying. Creating A Group Program When people started reaching out to Luisa about building a business and leaving their jobs, she already had experience creating a new business. So, Luisa worked with a few clients before ultimately deciding to create a group program. A group program is a hybrid of a course and a coaching program. There is course content, but it's not completely self-paced. Luisa also comes in and answers questions, holds coaching calls, etc. Luisa created the content as she went along. The questions and comments she received each week helped her form the content for the next week. The people in Luisa's group were shocked that she somehow always answered the questions they were going to ask. It was because she listened and learned what her audience needed. Luisa also made sure that she was involved personally with everyone in her group. Reaching out to the ones struggling, messaging them, having calls, and investing in everyone who was part of her group. Scaling The Business After the huge success of her first group program, Luisa built up more content to be able to offer a larger, six-month group program. She knew the number of people she needed in order to make X dollar amount because she had been experimenting with smaller groups. She invited more customers this time around and increased the price of her program, and she had a six-figure launch. Luisa used a combination of Facebook, Periscope, and webinars to get clients for the new group. She created a 5-day challenge to pique interest and drive sales. She took the income number she wanted to reach and worked to drive that many sales for the group program. And she hit it with a $100K launch. Educating Yourself Luisa took many courses over the years as she prepared to start her own business. When she became successful, she hired coaches of her own. Luisa knew that she needed to be willing to learn anything necessary to run her business. Even if you don't use the strategies that you learn, you will broaden your perspective and have ideas that are not your own. It can be hard to invest in something and only get one piece of the puzzle you need. Luisa was often discouraged by learning all the things she didn't know she needed to know. Focus on One Product Some people want to sell everything under the sun, and this simply doesn't work. The work that goes into building your knowledge, building the product, gaining an audience, and earning testimonials is incredibly time-consuming. And you must do this for every service you want to offer. Once you've built a product, focus on making sales rather than always having to build the next thing. You're going to be learning as you go, so spend your learning time fine-tuning what's already working for you. Biggest Next Step If you want to quit your 9-5 and be a successful entrepreneur, this is what you need to do: Figure out what you have to offer Luisa says you can't just offer anything and expect to replace your income. The best thing you can offer is some kind of premium consulting or coaching. If you are selling your knowledge for $1K per client, you will be able to support yourself in quitting your regular job. If you are selling a $100-500 course, you must sell many, many of them before replacing the income of a steady job. Once you know what you can offer to the world, focus on going out and connecting with potential clients Figure out where your potential clients may be online. Find them and mark on your calendar when you will take the time to connect, share value, and engage with them. After a couple of weeks, people will begin recognizing you and you can offer free coaching calls. After the call, you can pitch what more your clients can get from you for a fee. Once you have three to five clients, you can start getting testimonials, and figure out the best way to help others. Use the revenue you've made to set up your website so you can reach the audience you know you want to reach Set up an email list for your audience. After this, go back to focusing on getting potential clients. The key here is to do the things that move the needle and stop doing the things that don't matter. Connecting with people is the thing that moves the needle more than anything else. If you don't make connections with others, you will never build a successful business. Luisa has a free offer for my listeners so be sure to grab that and get started building your own successful business! And while you're over there, be sure to check out her blog. She has a ton of great articles and amazing content to help you grow. Read the transcript for "How to Build a Seven-Figure Business Teaching Something You Already Know" Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!

What should you do in a world of changing algorithms? Should you be directing people back to your blog instead of your social media platforms? Can you adapt and adjust in the world of online business? That's what my friend Camile Whiting and I are talking about in today's episode. Camile 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. How to Monetize a Blog Camile has four main ways that she monetizes her blog: Sponsored posts Ad network Affiliate links/product recommendations Services and consulting Right now, Camile is focused on growing her traffic. A year ago, Camile 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. Camile uses social media because it's fun to her, but she is serious about her site and using it to grow traffic. Shifting Toward Growth Camile 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 Camile 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. A Big Company Mindset Camile 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. Camile got to watch these businesses spend millions of dollars just trying new things. That's where she gets her experimental mindset. What new things can you afford to try or implement? Big companies go above and beyond to serve potential customers; they give away freebies, etc., before they try and make a sale. Right now Camile 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. SEO Strategy Camile 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, Camile would only write about her passions, but people were looking for more than just date ideas. Camile 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. Creating Content for Niche Topics As Camile 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. Where are the opportunities for Bloggers Camile attributes her success to being an early adaptor to new platforms. Video is very important on all platforms this year. Camile has had to recognize and adapt to the fact that she needs to upload videos, as well as written content, in order to grow. Camile 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. Changing with Online Trends When Camile 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. TIMESTAMP Intro 3:20 How Camile Built A business by Building Her Marriage 10:17 Monetizing a Blog 15:00 Shifting Toward Growth 17:36 A Big Company Mindset 22:57 SEO Strategy 27:40 Creating Content for Niche Topics 33:54 Opportunities for Bloggers 38:10 Changing with Online Trends TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS If you hate algorithm changes, look at them from the user's point of view, and focus your attention on the things you can control, like your email list. Be willing to experiment with new things and be an early adopter of new platforms. Stop only writing the content you want to write and start writing what your audience wants to read. Stay up to date on changes in the online world so that you continue to build skills that you can use in various ways and in various businesses. Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! 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!