The Blogger Genius Podcast

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! Tips To Grow An Email List  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:  How does she arrive at your site?  Where does she land?  What problems can you solve for her? 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.  A Simple Start to Email List Building 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.  Building a Journey for Your Subscriber 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.  Segmenting Your List  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.  Broadcast Email Content  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. Connecting Email To an RSS Feed  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.  Formatting Your Emails  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.  How to Optimize Your Subject Lines 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. Pruning Your List  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. Parting Email Marketing Tips  Adopt an email marketing mindset.  When writing your content, think about what extra piece of value you can offer in return for an email address.  What problem can you solve, and what can you offer your readers?  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!  What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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. 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! TIMESTAMP Intro 2:50 Tips To Grow An Email List  7:45 A Simple Start  10:57 Building a Journey for Your Subscriber 14:47 Segmenting Your List 23:35 Broadcast Content  26:57 Connecting Email to RSS Feed  29:48 Formatting For Email 33:16 Subject Lines  39:16 Pruning Your List  43:21 Parting Tips    Read the podcast transcript for “Advanced Email Marketing Strategies You Need to Know”   TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  To be successful at email marketing, you must become an aggressive email acquirer. Set up a “forever series”; a 10-post email series around one evergreen topic.  Segment your list to build a loyal audience. Spend time writing attention-grabbing subject lines and editing your emails to be as short as possible.  Prune your list every 3-4 months.

Have you ever wondered if you could really make money on the Internet? I've got a solution for you. I'm going to share how to make money by solving your community's problems. Are you confused about how to get started, or maybe not sure where your expertise lies? Can You Reall Make Money on the Internet? If either of those things is true for you, you’re going to want to listen to today’s episode because it’s all about building communities and finding ways to make money from them. My guest, Kelly McCausey, has been at this “making money on the internet” thing for quite a while. She began as a broke single mom, looking for a way to provide for her family. Today, she runs a site called  Love People + Make Money. Kelly has learned how to build communities and serve her people by finding out what their problems are, and either creating products to solve them, or using affiliate links to provide solutions. Pivoting in Business As Kelly’s business grew, she began to learn more and more skills in her niche until she was seen by others as an expert. So, when she decided to pivot in her business, she knew exactly which way to go. Instead of doing things for people, which is what she had built her business on, she began a business teaching people how to do those things for themselves. She went from creating websites and design for clients to selling information services and coaching. Kelly figured out how to leverage her skills to encompass everything she was doing for others and turn that into a business of its own. The Importance of Building a Community  Creating content is easy for many people when they begin an online business. Writing a blog post might be easy-peasy for you.  The question is, do you know how to promote it? Do you know how to market your skills or content online? How do you take the podcast you’re pouring your heart and soul into and get it in front of people who could benefit from it? Kelly didn’t know how important community was when she started her podcast. She was simply curious and wanted to ask questions of smart people. And while she knew that others would enjoy listening to the show, she had no idea how much they would enjoy interacting with each other.  Back in 2001 when Kelly was doing her podcast, there was no Facebook, or any other social media platform, where audiences could interact with each other. People used forums to have discussions.  An organic audience grew around her podcast and she and a partner began running a paid mastermind. The podcast and their content marketing led people to the mastermind membership.  Fast forward a few months and the women in the member community were planning projects together.  As the community grew around Kelly’s offerings, she was ultimately able to leave her day job to focus full-time on her business.  Growing Community Through Content “Content will attract a community and content will grow a community.” Building a community around your content takes a strategy; it’s not a case of build it and they will come. Nothing is ever that simple. Facebook has made it so easy to create a community that people think, “Oh, I’ll start a Facebook group. I'll build a community there.”  But if your idea of community is sharing a ton of links and articles with the people there but not fostering conversation, you aren’t building a community.  Communities share experiences. To build an authentic community, create a space that’s about the members, not about you. Co-creating with your community members is the real way to build a community that people want to be a part of. Move toward your members and away from total self-promotion.  Community Strategies  Kelly’s focus is on building a community she loves, getting to know their needs, and then positioning herself to solve problems for them. She positions herself to know what female marketers need in the realm of content marketing and she teaches them those things.  But at some point, Kelly was faced with not being able to solve a problem for someone in her community. What do you do when, not if, that happens? Simple. Find someone who can solve it for them and use affiliate programs to continue to build your own business while still solving your audience’s problems.  Use Affiliates to Market to Your Community Kelly was late to start with affiliate marketing. She’s authentic when she says she didn’t start using it until a full year after she should have. She just figured there wasn't much money in it.  The problem was that she missed the big picture that, like most things, affiliate marketing starts slowly but it builds momentum. Affiliate marketing isn’t a get rich quick scheme, so start now if you want to see results later. *Just a note: MiloTree has a very generous affiliate program so if you love our MiloTree pop-up and you send new customers our way, we want to show our great appreciation to you and pay you $20 per conversion. The fantastic thing about affiliate marketing is that it’s a 3-way win: As the affiliate, you win by making money.  The business you are linking to wins because you send them sales.  And the person who clicks on your affiliate links and makes a purchase wins because they get a great product.  As an affiliate marketer, you aren’t trying to squeeze every drop of money you can from your audience. You are simply putting forward products that are relevant to your niche, products that will help your audience, and products that you use and believe in. If you currently have content on your site that could contain affiliate links but you don’t have them there, go back right now and add them in. You are doing your audience a disservice by not telling them about products that could change their lives. Why We Undervalue Ourselves As women, we want to serve others; we want to care for them. But what that often means is that we undervalue our talents, time, and products.  You need to be willing to charge what you are worth, and not feel guilty about it. The more money you make through affiliates, the more you can serve your people with free content. Sometimes moms have a skewed perception of what their time and work are worth. Making money through affiliate marketing can feel awkward or unfair. Like, why should you be making this “easy money”? Here’s the deal: if you are not charging what you are worth, people will believe that you don’t know what you are talking about. So, pick a number that makes you uncomfortable and then double it. Monetary Stages of Business There are stages in your business when you will know that you should raise your prices, but it’s okay to start small.  If you love to shop at a certain store, it’s fine to tag that store in your IG story just because you really do love the store and you want to get in front of them. When you’re just getting started in business, you aren’t going to be doing $10K campaigns for Target.  But as you continue growing your business, you also continue to grow personally and as an entrepreneur. Offer low prices in the beginning in order to build your portfolio of testimonials and partnerships. As your partnerships grow, raise your prices. If you do a campaign for $50 and it’s successful, offer a second campaign for $100.  At some point, you will hit what Kelly calls “your sweet price," when your customer does not want to pay more, and you’re happy with the number. Then you don’t have to keep charging more.  I loved Kelly’s story and the experiences she shared with us in this episode. Be sure to listen in to the episode in its entirety to glean all the nuggets she shared that we couldn't include in this post.  What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! TIMESTAMP Intro 4:25 Pivoting in Business 8:24 Building Community  10:45 Growing Community Through Content 18:45 Community Strategies  24:40 Affiliate Marketing  32:30 Undervaluing Ourselves 43:35 Monetary Stages of Business Read the podcast transcript for “How to Make Money By Solving Your Community's Problems” TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Leverage your skillset (what you already know a lot about) to create a business you love. To build an authentic community, create a space that’s about the members, not about you. Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme so start now and let it build over time. Charge what you are worth.

Etsy is a great marketplace for selling handmade goods. But you need to how to make money on Etsy to win. One of the major advantages of selling on Etsy is it is a platform with millions of dedicated shoppers and great search, so you don’t have to work as hard to get eyeballs on your products. Also, did you know that we offer an Etsy pop-up here at MiloTree? Yes, we do! Install the Etsy pop-up on your site and it links over to your Etsy store with a big "Shop Now!" button.  Go to MiloTree today to get your own customized pop-up for your site and start driving traffic to your Etsy shop today. Your first 30 days are completely free. My guest, Nancy Badillo, has a blog and a YouTube channel, and teaches people how to run online businesses especially Etsy shops. Nancy built her own Etsy shop from scratch, with no professional experience. Her shop, Forever Happy Prints, started earning big returns only months after starting. What Do You Need for Success On Etsy? If you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you’ve heard me say that the riches are in the niches.  Having a clearly defined niche guarantees more success and growth.  In addition to having a tightly defined niche, you need to do market research to learn who your competition is and who your audience is. Once you have that information, you will know if there is a felt need for your products on Etsy. When doing your research, don’t bother looking at shops that have been open for many years.  Your market research should focus on shops that have been open for two years or less. If you have a product similar to theirs, you will know if it is going to do well in the market right now.  How To Stand Out on Etsy If you are in a very competitive niche, with a lot of other shops, it’s going to be hard to be found organically.  You need to understand the Etsy Listing Score. So, when you upload a new product, you are assigned a neutral score.  Your product gets placed on the first page of search results, and based on how the audience interacts with it over its first month, you can rank really well. If your listing doesn’t get lots of clicks, likes, and sales, your listing will lose rank and Etsy will push it down in the search engine.  You need to have great photos, use correct keywords, and target your correct audience to get a good listing.  If your listing is pushed down or you’re in a saturated market, you can “pay to play” on Etsy using Etsy promoted listings. Creating Other Sales Outlets  Nancy has seen many creators become burned out when they try to expand to too many different platforms at once.  The best thing to do as an Etsy seller is to check your Etsy analytics. You can see where traffic to your store is coming from.  Whichever platform is driving the most traffic, focus the majority of your efforts on that one.  Nancy believes that a blog with Shopify installed is a better platform to sell your products on than Etsy.  You have more leverage because you can drive people to your own site, collect their email addresses, and grow your email list to have new people to market your products to. Your Etsy shop can be closed down, but your blog is your own. You can build an audience there that will never be taken from you.  Optimizing Your Keywords on Etsy Understanding SEO is going to get more eyes on your products, track your right audience, and increase your conversions.  You want your keywords to be very specific so that you are targeting the right audience.  Using longtail keywords will help people who are searching for your products find you.  Using longtail keywords means that your overall search volume and views will be lower, but the quality of your viewers will be higher.  If you do not know who your target audience is, start your Etsy shop, put up your products with your specific keywords, hook your Etsy to Google analytics and after a month, study all the data.  Etsy will only show you a certain amount of data, whereas, on Google Analytics, you can see everything. Once you identify who your ideal audience is, you will be able to be even more specific with your keywords.  The next step is to optimize your shop for your target audience.  Your main keyword needs to be in your title, in your meta description, and you can add additional keywords into your listing description.  How Many Products Do You Need in Your Etsy Shop?  Nancy believes 50 products is a good number to have in your shop.  If you have chosen a niche where it’s hard to have 50 products, you can duplicate product listings, but change the title, the tags, and the keywords.  You can change your product slightly, such as the color of a background or a different font.  It’s important to spend the majority of your time actually creating products for your shop. Nancy recommends spending about 60% of your time creating and 40% on marketing. Tools For Etsy  If you know you are in a saturated market, Etsy promoted listings is a good resource for you.  Facebook Carousel ads are a favorite because you can add up to ten products in one ad. If you don’t have a large budget, you can add ten different items for the price of one ad.  Google Analytics is so important. If you don’t understand the ins and outs of your business, you’re not going to be able to grow it like you want to. Advice for Etsy Sellers There is no instant gratification in owning an Etsy shop. You have to work one day at a time and be patient.  Make a list of things to do for the current month, prioritize the most important items, and set aside time to complete these items. Every time you mark something off the list, reward yourself and give yourself the credit you deserve for doing the work! Treat your Etsy shop as a real business. Fill out the bio section, add a banner to your storefront, and read the Etsy seller’s handbook for a great resource on best practices.  What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! TIMESTAMP       Intro    9:45 Components For Success On Etsy    12:45 Hot Niches Right Now    16:23 How To Stand Out    20:50 Creating Other Sales Outlets    25:00 Optimizing Your Keywords    30:45 Too Many Products?    33:42 Tools For Etsy    39:16 Nancy’s Advice  Read the podcast transcript for “How to Be Successful on Etsy” TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  Decide on a tightly defined niche for the products you want to sell. Use high-quality photos, well-researched keywords, and a highly-targeted audience to rank higher in Etsy search. Set up a shopping section on your blog; remember, you own your blog. You do not own your Etsy store.  Optimize your entire shop for your target audience.

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. Why Do I Need an About Page? 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:  It helps your readers understand what the value is of your site or blog.  It allows brands to find out about you, understand what you do, and understand who your audience is. 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.  What Should Be On My About Page  There are a few things that are absolutely basic that you should always have on your About page: Your name -- If you are doing this casually, feel free to just use your first name. If you are using this as a business, definitely use both first and last.  Your contact information -- A lot of professional bloggers have special “Contact” Pages and that’s great, but you want to give the reader a way to contact you directly from the About Page. This could just be a button that takes them to the Contact Page. Have it at the top of your page so that you are providing access to a relationship with the reader. Your content -- Share what you create and why.   Extras0 -- Share little quirks about yourself that people may not know from reading your posts.  Two types of people come to your About Page:  The raving fan who has already read a bunch on your website and wants to know more about you  The brand new reader who has only seen one post on your site and wants to decide whether to follow or not 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.  Statistics for Brands  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.  Make Your About Page Interesting 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.  Add Your Most Popular Posts in your About Page 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.  Checking Your Page for Mistakes  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.  About Page Images 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. Share Your Credentials  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.  Add a Call to Action 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.  Conclusion 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.    What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! Timestamp Intro 0:50  Why Do I Need an About Page?  2:22 What Should Be on My About Page 9:45  Statistics for Brands  17:42 Make Your Page Interesting 21:58  Most Popular Posts 24:12  Checking Your Page for Mistakes  27:00  About Page Images 29:45  Share Your Credentials  33:15  Call to Action  Read the podcast transcript for “How to Best Optimize Your Blog's About Page” TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE EPISODE If your About Page hasn’t been changed since you began blogging, revisit it. Edit, adjust, and tweak it to make it fit your business as it is now.  The focus of your About Page should be on the reader or the brand you want to work with. What problems can you solve for the reader? How can the brand’s product solve your reader’s problem? Use bullet points and short paragraphs to make the About Page skimmable, especially on mobile.  Add a call to action. Ask the reader to do one specific task like sign up for your email list. 

If you sell products, or you are thinking about creating products to sell, today’s episode is the episode for you.  Selling products involves learning about landing pages, tripwires, opt-ins, sales emails, and how to promote those products.  To get a leg up on all this, you’re going to want to listen in as my good friend and popular podcast guest, Monica Froese, and I talk all things product sales.  In case you missed it, Monica and I chatted on a recent episode about how to make Promoted pins work for you.  Creating Successful Opt-In Landing Pages When Monica creates an opt-in email landing page, she wants it to be very bold and clear.  She doesn’t want there to be any question about what the reader is getting for free, and where they need to enter their email address.  Monica’s most successful opt-in is her process on how she plans her goals for the entire year. This opt-in is a 14-page PDF that goes over how she plans for her family, herself, and her business.  Monica has experimented with every different opt-in page possible. The longer form opt-in has gotten slightly better conversions for her. She does prefer the embedded opt-in for her Promoted pin campaigns.  Monica uses the app, Proof, which is a paid plug-in software. Proof enables a pop-up that shows how many people have chosen to opt-in. She uses this on all her opt-in pages because it’s an easy way to give social proof, without quoting testimonials.  How to Create Successful Sales Pages  The second type of landing page that Monica uses are sales pages. The length of the landing pages depends on the product. For more expensive products, Monica will provide more information and images.  Monica sometimes provides a video of what exactly the user will be paying for. These videos are about a minute and a half, where she talks briefly about how the product will benefit them if they buy it.  She also puts seasonal spins on her products. Pinterest is very seasonal, so adding any kind of seasonal keywords is always a great idea.  Because Monica is driving a cold audience to these products from Pinterest, she also provides a freebie on the landing page. This allows them to walk away with something, even if they aren’t ready to buy just yet.  If they choose to enter their email address, they are automatically taken back to the original landing page and have the opportunity to purchase the product for a discounted price for a very limited time.  This is called a tripwire.  If they choose not to purchase, Monica sends them an email talking more about the product after they download their freebie.  Monica’s Email Progression Monica has a strategic series of emails she sends to those who decide to download her goal-planning process.  Email #1 - contains the link to the download Email #2 - is another offer for the tripwire, sometimes at the discounted price and sometimes with a different discount Email #3 - is a value-add email, directing you to more free content or another freebie Email #4 - is typically sending you to an affiliate link, providing you a freebie for someone else’s content Email #5 - is either another value-add or Monica’s welcome sequence Large Product Landing Page  The landing page for Monica’s most expensive course (her $500 Promoted pin course) is a very long-form page. The main reason for that is because Monica is asking them to make a very large investment.  They need to know more about what she is offering and why they should purchase.  She has about 6 testimonial videos on that page. These testimonials allow the user to see what can be achieved through the course.  Monica talks about the pain points that her product can solve and how her product is different from other products on the market.  All throughout the sales page, she has “Buy Now” buttons. She has it on the page at least 6 or 7 times.  Monica plans to use Hotjar, which is a heatmap of your sales page to see where people are clicking and where people are falling off the page, with her next launch. We use HotJar at MiloTree and it’s extremely helpful.  Using Pinterest To Sell Your Products Monica always says that there is not a lot of control over the ads on your site.  And the things about ads is that you are sending people away from you. She wants to be keeping people in her house and promoting her own products. Pinterest makes it very easy to brainstorm product ideas. You never want to copy anyone, but you can gain great inspiration.  Do keyword research and look at what problems the other bloggers are solving. You can either do something better or just gain great ideas.  Sometimes people are afraid to ask for money for products that other people are offering for free. But almost all of Monica’s lower-end products can be found for free on Pinterest.  Pinterest’s product pins have around a 40% higher click-through rate. Your product doesn’t have to be super expensive. As a user, Monica gravitates toward paid pins because it will be a quicker win.  Using Pinterest to do your research allows you to know what problems people are having and how you can solve them. A lot of times you are already solving the problem and you just need to repackage it into a paid product.  In order to use product pins or rich pins, all you need is a business account on Pinterest.  Make The Yes Easy for Your Reader I love Monica’s landing pages. And yet she is admittedly not a “website guru” or an expert coder. She takes advantage of products like Leadpages to create her amazing landing pages.  The thing about landing pages is that it takes away all the clutter. There aren’t sidebars full of buttons. There is no navigation bar. You’re asking the reader to do one thing and one thing only. When you are putting money behind something, you want it to be super clear what you want. You don’t want the reader to experience any confusion at all.  Most of all, you just want to make the “yes” easy for your audience.  Action Tip My challenge for you is to scroll through your Pinterest feed and go to some landing pages. Sign up for opt-ins that look good to you and learn from what that blogger is doing.  Monica’s are some of my favorites so I want you to look for hers specifically, but you can learn from others, too.  Notice how your favorite bloggers set up their landing pages. Read the email series they send you after signing up. Make a swipe file of those emails so that when you get ready to sell your products. Definitely refer to those emails as you create your own. The great thing about the internet is you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Look at what's working for others, and use the same techniques. Previous Episodes with Monica Froese   #030: The Easiest Ways to Make Money as a Blogger with Monica Froese (Part 2) #029: How to Start a New Business When You’re A New Mom with Monica Froese (Part 1) #072: How to Make Promoted Pins Work for You With Monica Froese     What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! TIMESTAMP   Intro  1:18    The Control of Paid Advertising  4:48    Creating Successful Landing Pages  11:50  Creating Sales Pages  20:50  Monica’s Email Progression  24:53  Large Product Landing Page   34:24  Creating Products and Using Pinterest To Sell   41:50  Make The Yes Easy    43:00  Action Tip TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Be clear on your landing page about what you want the reader to do; what they’re getting and where to put their information. Use video, testimonials, seasonal text, and tripwires on your sales pages. Create a strategic email funnel that keeps the reader interested and draws them back to your products. If you don’t know what product to create, use Pinterest to research a problem you can solve with a paid product. 

Today I am talking about new strategies for making money with affiliates with Chelsea Clarke. Chelsea, founder of the website, HerPaperRoute, helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses through affiliate sales.  We talk about knowing your audience, talking to your audience, and selling them products that are useful for making their lives better.  If you want to know more about affiliate sales and how to make the most of them, this is the episode for you! Profitable Niches  You may have heard that “the riches are in the niches.” If that’s true, what niche should you choose? Chelsea says that any niche can be made profitable with affiliates. The one defining factor is you. 3 things must be true for you to make money from affiliate marketing Passion -- You have to be genuinely interested in the topic you’ll be writing about Education/Experience -- What are you really good at or you have an educational background in? Product -- This product should make sense for your audience and your topic Do not get into a niche just because you’ve heard it makes a lot of money. You need to pick your field based on what you love, what you know about it, and what you can offer to your audience.  How To Find Good Products There are literally millions of affiliate possibilities out there. How do you choose the ones that will fit best with your niche? First, you want to choose a high-commission product. Something that gives you $2 per sale is a waste of time when you think about how much time you’re spending building relationships with your audience to offer them products.  Promote something that is going to pay you more like $40 per sale.  Chelsea doesn’t promote Amazon products as much because their commissions are typically so low for her. However, there are people that make thousands of dollars a month from Amazon affiliates.  Amazon affiliates are a bit different than others in that they pay a commission to you for anything your audience purchases within 24 hours of clicking through your link.  If there’s a brand you want to work with, you can go straight to them and pitch yourself. Many companies want to work directly with bloggers. Reaching Out To Brands  There are two ways to reach out to brands successfully to build an affiliate relationship. You can go to their website, find a contact, and send an email about how you love their product and want to review it. You can ask about setting a deal up.  Another way you can do it is to join the affiliate program first. Once you have the affiliate program manager’s contact information, you can reach out to them.  Chelsea doesn’t work for a commission of 10% or less unless it’s a very expensive product.  If she can’t negotiate for a higher commission, she knows it’s not the right product for her at that time.  There have been a few times when Chelsea will take a lower commission because she knows the product is interesting and will be helpful to her audience.  How To Build An Audience You Can Sell To  Chelsea works mainly through email. She does everything herself personally, answering all the questions that come into her inbox.  In the very first email Chelsea’s audience receives, she asks them to respond with where she can follow them on social media.  When you connect with someone on their social media channels, you get to know them and they get to know you, because chances are they're going to follow you back. Now you have a whole new group of people rooting for you and giving you new business.  This is successful because it opens up a one-on-one conversation, where the audience gets to know the face behind the company.  The very first people who hear about Chelsea’s sales are the people on her email list.  Using Social Media to Market Pinterest is Chelsea’s favorite social media marketing tool. Taking the time to target the right keywords and getting your pins to show up higher in search will result in your traffic growing on its own.  For newer bloggers who aren’t ranking much on Google yet, Pinterest can be the key to blog growth and getting your message out there to more people. Pinterest is a different type of SEO. You want to focus on appropriate keywords, pin to the right boards, and pin as much as possible.  You want your content to get out there.  Pinterest is a digital wall of billboard advertisements. The higher you can get, the better for your traffic.  Where To Focus, Where To Outsource  Chelsea wants to create her own content and create her own weekly emails. Those are the 2 areas she doesn’t outsource. But having someone for upkeep on social media is very helpful.  Your biggest expense is your time. If you feel like you need more time, outsource things that allow you to have more time to create content and focus on what's important to you.  Most Valuable Blogging Tool  Chelsea has four tools that she cannot live without: SmarterQueue for automated Facebook and Twitter posts  ConvertKit for email marketing  MiloTree for growing subscribers  Tailwind for Pinterest auto-scheduling  Chelsea’s Advice for Bloggers Stay focused on your goals. Don't expect those around you to support you at first. If someone else isn’t an entrepreneur, they won’t understand what you’re doing.  You have to work at your goals even if you aren’t seeing the fruits of your labor right away. Focus on helping others in a way only you can. If you want to know more about Chelsea and the free resources she offers, go to HerPaperRoute.  What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! TIMESTAMP Intro  8:26 Profitable Niches  13:33 How To Find Good Products  16:20 Reaching Out To Brands 18:17 How To Build An Audience You Can Sell To  21:55 Using Social Media to Market  27:57 Where To Focus, Where To Outsource  29:24 Most Valuable Tool  31:18 Chelsea’s Advice    Read the podcast transcript for "New Strategies For Making Money with Affiliates"   TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE EPISODE When choosing a niche to monetize, choose a niche that you are passionate about and will never get tired of writing about. Choose higher-paying affiliates by contacting brands and asking for an affiliate relationship. Pinterest is the place to focus if you’re a newer blogger and not ranking on Google yet. Pinterest will help you grow your traffic, and traffic = affiliate sales. Stay focused on your goals, even when others don’t understand what you're doing and even if you aren’t seeing the fruit of your labors right away.   Other Episodes to Explore on Affiliate Marketing If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, Episode #79 of this podcast featured my conversation with Angela Davis of Frugal Living NW. That episode takes you deep inside affiliate marketing and how to get good at it. 

If you want to know how to kill it at copywriting, read on... Contrary to popular belief, you can’t just build an online business and hope people will show up. It doesn’t work that way. You have to make personal connections with your audience by showing them why they need what you’re offering. You have to pique the interest of people who come to your site, grab their attention.  Today’s episode will offer plenty of help and tips for you to grow your business and increase your sales.  My guest is Cole Schafer, marketer and copywriter. I knew I had to have him on the podcast when I read his tagline on his blog, which says, “Live fast. Write often. Pet dogs.” Copywriting vs. Writing  Copywriting is selling things with words. Regular writing is communicating ideas or stories.  When someone writes a story, there is no set goal other than entertainment.  With copywriting, there is a clear goal.  You can be a good copywriter if you understand that everyone purchases something either to move closer to pleasure or to move further away from pain.  The best products can do both things, but most products do one or the other.  The most successful products tend to move people closer to pleasure rather than focusing on their pain and relieving it.  People get more excited about moving towards pleasure, not about moving away from pain.  How To Get Someone To Take Action  As marketers, we can’t rush our audience to make a purchase.  Some of Cole’s clients have been on his email list for over a year, and they’re finally reaching out to him, but only after building that relationship and personal connection. Your audience will know if you’re trying to shove your products down their throat and that is not the way to connect with your people. You want to build a relationship by showing up for your audience, sending out those weekly emails, doing your podcast, whatever it is that you do.  Once a quarter, Cole adds a small discount to his writing course and leaves it up for 48 hours. The sense of urgency does help sales.  Another thing that helps people decide to make a purchase is when they see that many other people are enjoying a product.  We are wired to follow the crowd. If you show the numbers of people you are helping and how many satisfied customers you have, your audience is more likely to follow along.  Here’s a great example: when I shop on Amazon, I read the reviews to see if others like the product. I trust the herd and save myself time. Marketing As a Human  The digital world of marketing has created a scenario where we no longer have the person-to-person connection we once did.  Over time we have lost how to market to the individual. With signs, television, and the internet, we are now mass marketing.  You need to market human to human.  One way you can do this is to pick your best customer and get in touch with him/her. Fly them out to you, have a phone conversation, go out for lunch, and have a conversation.  When you market with one person in mind, more people are going to relate because you are able to become more specific. Using Hook Sentences  In literature, the hook sentence is the first sentence you read in a book.  Cole collects his favorite hook sentences from books he’s read, and well-known hook sentences, to help him learn how to write better hook sentences himself.  You have a very small window in which to grab the reader’s attention.  A hook sentence needs to be ten words max, short and punchy, and it should draw the reader in.  Some of Cole’s favorite hook sentences are: “I lost my arm on my last trip home.”  “It was love at first sight.”  “It was a pleasure to burn.”  Every single one of those is under ten words but at the same time, they are very powerful.  Your subject line in emails, your headline, your sales pages, your blog post titles, they are all hook sentences.  How To Create Hook Sentences  When we write, we might spend hours on the content itself, but then spend mere minutes writing up the headline for it, and then hit publish.  Just because you put time and effort into writing an article doesn’t mean someone else is going to read it.  The one piece of advice that Cole gives to all writers is the 80/20 rule.  If you spend 5 hours writing an article, 1 hour should be spent writing your hook sentence.  Write down 25 of the best headlines you can think of.  Share them with friends, colleagues, family, etc., and ask them to tell you which 3 stand out to them the most.  You can raise your click-through rate by 50%, 100%, or even 500% by using this method.  What To Do When You Don’t Know What To Sell  If you are offering a service-based business, you want to create a hybrid product: half-service, half-product.  One of the issues that freelancers face is that when you are trying to scale a service business, you only have 2 choices: you can either hire more workers or raise your rates.  Raising your rates is a good option but eventually, you’re going to be as high as you can go.  What you can do is sell a product that goes hand-in-hand with your service that you offer. This eliminates the constant “trading dollars for minutes.”  Start by selling your services, then couple a product with that service.  If your audience is using your service, they will likely also want your product.  What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! Read the podcast transcript for “How to Kill it At Copywriting” Timestamp  Intro  6:03 Copywriting vs Writing  11:36 How To Get Someone To Take Action  21:26 Marketing As A Human 25:38 Why To Use Hook Sentences 30:15  How To Create Hook Sentences 36:00 What To Do When You Don’t Know What To Sell TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE EPISODE Successful copywriters understand that people make purchases either to move toward pleasure or to move away from pain. Market with one person in mind; when you speak to one specific person, others will be able to relate. If you can learn to write one really strong sentence, you can become a very capable copywriter. If you’re a freelancer in a service-based business but you’re stuck on what to sell, try creating a product that goes hand-in-hand with your service.

I interviewed today’s guest, Laura Fuentes, about a year ago on the show. The interview was one of my most popular ever! Laura is the creator of MOMables, food plans for families. What I love about Laura is that she is very down to earth and practical about the empire she is building.  Building a Food Empire Laura’s MOMables business consists of meal plans, courses, and digital products.  The meal plans are based on a subscription model. Every month, Laura provides her customers with 5 meals, a meal prep sheet, and a shopping list.  Laura also sells health and wellness programs in ebook format.  Laura’s programs can be compared to Whole30, but specifically for families. It is a 30-day program for both kids and adults.  Laura also has courses where she teaches parents how to put healthy eating for their family into practice. She has a course on picky eaters, as well, for those parents who are battling out mealtimes and need some practical help.  Laurafuentes.com is her lifestyle blog and it’s where she shares how she lives the life of the courses she sells.   Learning to Create Video Content Laura was a self-taught cook who competed on Food Network in 2014 and won! She had never been on camera in her life when she auditioned for the show.  In fact, Laura taught herself how to cook by watching Food Network.  Her readers were asking Laura to create videos for her recipes, but she was much too afraid of the camera to comply. But after her stint on television, she decided that it was time to give her audience what they wanted. Laura told her husband, “I now know that I can do it and it’s not about winning. From that experience, I learned that I could, so I did.” Later in 2014, she began her dive into video. She took 2 full years to get her processes down and learn how to make great, high-quality videos. At this point, Laura owns a video production company where she produces videos for large and small clients alike.  Growing the Video Side of a Business Laura is not creating the “hands and pans” style cooking videos.  She does all of her videos in front of the camera, no overhead views. She wants her audience to get to know her through her videos.  Her videos average about 3:20. Laura has found that anywhere in the 3:30 - 4: 00-minute range is what her audience wants.  From the time she began doing video in 2014, all the way through 2017, Laura was releasing 1 new video per week. Because she had other facets of her business to run and needed to hire out all of the editing and preproduction of her videos, her budget didn't allow for more than 1 video per week.  Since the fall of 2018, she has begun releasing 2 videos per week. And of those 8 videos a month, 1 or 2 will be sponsored videos.  Laura uses the returns from sponsored posts to build the areas of her business that need growth but aren’t bringing in enough income on their own.  Monetizing YouTube  Ads on YouTube don't make Laura a lot of money. Over the last 28 days, Laura has made $227 from YouTube.  She is not what you think of when you think YouTuber; someone who pays the bills solely from their YouTube account. Laura’s goal isn’t to be a famous YouTube star. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t even like to wear makeup for her videos. As she puts it, “I’m not that funny, I don’t wear makeup. I just make my recipes.” But she is happy with how things are playing out on her channel now. She is experiencing true joy with her YouTube efforts and looks forward to creating video content. Social Media Burnout Laura doesn’t experience burnout over creating YouTube videos.  She personally experiences burnout over the pressure to constantly be churning out new content. But the majority of her burnout comes by way of social media.  Because brands are focusing so heavily on Instagram nowadays, Laura feels the pressure to focus on that platform. Whereas, her preference is to send people to her blog or YouTube channel. Laura says, “If I could get rid of every platform and just choose one, I would choose YouTube. I just feel like IG is an exhausting race that I have no interest in winning.” Being Enough For Yourself  What Laura thinks of herself matters so much more to her than what anyone else thinks about her.  We all struggle or go through periods of struggling with looking for outside validation.  Laura wants to model for her children that outside opinions are not the be-all, end-all. She wants to show them that they don’t have to put on a show of perfection for others; they can be themselves.  Laura does care, but she cares about how she thinks about herself, not how others think about her.  When you’re in it to win it, you cannot drag yourself down with negative talk. That is not the way to gain success.  When you get turned down by a company or a client, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It means you’re not the right fit for that project.  You have to be about serving others, not being emotionally invested in others accepting you.  Once you don’t care what others think, you can jump into things and do them without fear.  You will have new opportunities, you will grow so much as a person, and your business will grow too.  I don’t know about you, but I always feel so inspired every time I talk to Laura. Let’s all look in the mirror and be happy with who we are. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! Laura’s 2 previous episodes on The Blogger Genius Podcast: #024: How to Sell to Moms by Being a Giver with Laura Fuentes (Part 2) #023: How to Start a Business by Solving a Problem for Moms (Part 1) TIMESTAMP  Intro  3:18 Building a Food Empire 7:27 Learning to Create Video Content 10:45 Growing the Video Side of a Business 18:43 Monetizing Youtube  20:35 Social Media Burnout  26:00 Being Enough For Yourself  Read the podcast transcript for “How to Be Self-Taught and Build an Online Empire with Laura Fuentes” TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Take the time to learn new skills, even if it means you have to teach yourself. Slowly ramp up your efforts as you learn more about what you're doing. You don’t have to be everywhere on social media all the time; choose carefully to avoid burnout. Focus on serving others, not on what others think about you.

 Today, MiloTree Community Manager and my friend, Paula Rollo, is back on the show and we are talking about how to think about branding yourself and your business.  We're looking at the question of where best to focus your energy.  In this episode, we share how we have both gone through our own branding process and how you can easily do it, too.  Branding Beginnings  Branding is so much more than just hopping onto sites like LogoJoy or TailorMade and creating your logo. There is also a tool on Shopify that will generate business names for you.  These are all fun tools to play around with but there are steps you need to take before you start making logos.  When Paula started her business around 15 years ago, she did not even know about branding. She simply made content without a vision and hoped people would find it.  Tip: When coming up with your blog name or logo, you don’t want your viewers to have to guess what you are about. You have to state upfront what your brand is about.  When I created Catch My Party, I was very specific about what the business was, but that made me feel pigeonholed into that space without a lot of room for growth or change.  The inspiration for MiloTree comes from a beautiful tree found in Hawaii.  The name is very open-ended, which allows me to expand somewhat within the boundary of the name. And I’m glad we chose it as we have definitely expanded the things we offer through the app. It's no longer just the "Pinterest Pop-Up Company." When branding first became important, you didn’t have to be as specific, but as Google has evolved and the industry has grown, you need to be much more specific about what you’re offering to your audience so that you become an authority in your field.  Personal Branding vs. Company Branding  Before I started my own personal Instagram account recently, I thought through what I wanted my account to look like.  I keep Catch My Party, MiloTree, and my own personal account, Jillian Tohber Leslie, separate to brand them as the individual things that they are. I decided to focus on three things with my personal account: How I run two businesses and a podcast Moving to Austin and discovering the area How I focus on my wellness and health My husband and daughter occasionally show up on there, but they are not the main focus.  When I am posting about myself, I am showing the human side of my business and people can get to know me. That builds trust with my audience.  You have to decide early on if you want your brand to have a personality, or if you want to be your brand. A lot of blogs and brands get stuck trying to do both.  Some brands don’t want a face behind their brand, but then they lose all personality whatsoever. People want something to connect to, even if it’s just a common theme.  Sharing Yourself To Build Trust  When building your brand, you need to know where your business is going, know what you’re trying to accomplish in the world.  For instance, if you have a health and wellness blog, you are trying to convince me to change something about my lifestyle. To do that you need to share your personal story and credentials in order to gain my trust.  Anyone can start a business success blog, but I need to know your backstory. I need to know that you have a successful business and that you know more than me about building a successful business.  Focus your personal brand on how you can serve others, and you will be able to remain authentic and true to yourself.  Being A Personal Brand  We all need to be mindful of the brand we’re putting forward.  Today it is easy for people to find us online, including prospective employers. The brand you put forth is what they’re going to see and how they’re going to think about you.  If you do not brand yourself, and you focus on your company’s branding, you are still discoverable. You still need to have a personal aspect of your brand.  I always suggest that people Google themselves and see what shows up.  Do you like what pops up under your name? If not, you may need to think about some personal rebranding.  Comparing Yourself To Others  Another way to get clear on your branding is to look at your competitors to see what they are doing right, and mimic that. But you should also be looking at your competition in order to see the ways that you are different. If someone was unhappy with another company, how would coming to your business offer them a different experience?  Find ways to differentiate your blog from others who are in the same niche.  Brands tend to solve one problem and move on. Focus on being cohesive and offering solutions to problems that might not even be known yet.  You can fill in the blanks that the big companies are missing because what may not be lucrative enough for big brands could be lucrative enough for you.  Honesty vs. Oversharing At one point, a couple of years ago, our culture decided that we wanted to know everything about everybody. We shared pictures of our food, our friends, our evening routines.  But people quickly discovered that they didn’t care what their neighbor had for dinner; they weren’t following them because their neighbors were food bloggers.  Today, people want you to be honest, but people also understand that there are boundaries to sharing your life.  Boundaries look different to everyone, and you are free to decide what your boundaries are.  I do not post any pictures of my daughter on Instagram, whereas Paula has pictures of her children all over her account, but without their names posted. We both set the boundaries that we are comfortable with.  I came to the personal branding game late, but if I am making someone feel happier, feel less alone, or more inspired, then I am branding myself the right way.  What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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! Timestamp   Intro    1:14 Branding Beginnings   14: 41 Personal Branding vs. Company Branding    24:47 Share Yourself To Build Trust    28:08 Being A Personal Brand    29:34 Comparing Yourself To Others    32:56 Honesty vs. Oversharing Read the podcast transcript for “How to Think About Branding Yourself and Your Business” TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Don’t make people guess what your blog is about. State upfront, through your name, logo, description, bio, etc, exactly what you are about and what the reader can expect. Decide if you want your business to have a personality or if you want to be your own brand. Share your own story so that your audience can develop a sense of trust in what you tell them to do. Find ways to differentiate your blog from others in the same niche. Ask yourself, “If someone was unhappy with another business in my niche, what could I offer them for a better experience?

Angela Davis from the blog, Frugal Living NW, is an affiliate expert. She's sharing how to make six figures using affiliate marketing. And the best part is she only works part time! In this episode, we talk about what links to add to your posts, why patience is the secret, and which affiliate networks you should join. Listen to this episode to learn the secrets to increasing your blog’s passive income with affiliate marketing! Full transcript of "How to Make Six Figures in Affiliate Marketing with Angela Davis" What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? 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!