The Blogger Genius Podcast

Today I’m talking with Rachel Miller, viral marketer and founder of Moolah Marketing. She teaches people how to use Facebook to really grow your business, because if there is anyone who has cracked the Facebook code, it's Rachel! You definitely want to hear her genius advice on how to get Facebook to work for you, instead of you working for it! Resources: Moolah Marketing QuirkyMomma One Crazy House Crazy Cat Lady MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How To Use Facebook to Really Grow Your Business Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:11] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, I'm excited to introduce my guest who is Rachel Miller. Now, Rachel started as a blogger and has turned into, check this out, she is an organic traffic specialist or as she calls herself a "viral marketer." Jillian: [00:00:30] So really, in truth, she helps you understand social media, especially Facebook. So welcome to the show, Rachel. Rachel: [00:00:39] Thank you so much for having me, Jillian. I really appreciate it. Jillian: [00:00:42] We have to just say that we met randomly about a month ago at a conference but really, at a restaurant where I walked up to you and I said, "I know you." Rachel: [00:00:52] You recognized me. It was awesome. Jillian: [00:00:55] I know and then, we ended up having lunch together which was so nice. Rachel: [00:00:59] It was fun. Jillian: [00:01:00] Talk about how you started because I knew you back in the day as a blogger. How to make a post go viral on Facebook Rachel: [00:01:06] Oh, yeah. It's so funny because I feel like it was a lifetime ago. But it's only been like a year and a half, a year since I've started my second business. Rachel: [00:01:18] Probably 10 or 11, 10 years ago, I guess, I started QuirkyMomma. I started that because I quit my teaching job. I had two babies at that time. I couldn't go back to maternity leave with two babies with Texas teacher pay. It didn't make sense with childcare and everything. Rachel: [00:01:38] I was home with my kiddos, and I was going bored, crazy, out of my mind. I started QuirkyMomma. That was my first website. I wrote over 30 posts that went to over a million. I can't remember the exact number between each site but in total, 29 posts that got to over a million page views each. Rachel: [00:02:00] I had tons of posts that went to millions and millions on Facebook. We wrote a book and it went on to a best seller, sold over 100,000 copies. I was just like having the time of my life, making content, seeing how many people I could get on it and be really excited at drawing eyeballs to an action. Jillian: [00:02:22] And the action was come to my site. How to sell products through viral Facebook posts Rachel: [00:02:25] Well, that would be come to my site. Some of it was purchase something. I made rainbow loom bands go viral on my website and then, we sold a lot of rainbow loom kits so kids could make their own rainbow loom bracelets, or selling pins or whatever it is that I'm selling at the time. Jillian: [00:02:44] And you're selling them. If you're affiliate, you're doing an affiliate link. Rachel: [00:02:48] Originally, I started as affiliate links, but as I grew in my venture, I began creating my own products and filling my own products. You make a lot more money selling your own product than you do as an affiliate. Jillian: [00:02:59] So with these online products, are these physical products? Rachel: [00:03:02] Both. I have seven private label products at one point, and then also where you white label or where you have. Let's say, you go to your Walmart and you find that they have Star Wars. This literally happened. Rachel: [00:03:16] They had Star Wars toothbrushes for like a dollar each. Light sabers, they light up and they make a funny noise. I'm like, "These are worth a lot more than a dollar." So I bought all those toothbrushes that Walmart had at the time which was like 250 of the toothbrushes and sold them for seven dollars and 85 cents on Amazon like two weeks later. Jillian: [00:03:40] Wow. I love that. Rachel: [00:03:43] That almost immediately. Jillian: [00:03:46] Did people pay shipping on top of that? Rachel: [00:03:49] No, I just sent them in Amazon and they send them out, however they send them out. Jillian: [00:03:55] Wow. And how did you get the idea to do that? Rachel: [00:04:02] I had heard about people selling on Amazon and so I got an amazon account but I didn't know what I was going to do with it. Rachel: [00:04:08] And then I saw my son playing in a grocery store with this toothbrush and I was like "Star Wars is coming out in three weeks. These are really cheap. This is the time. Let's make a video of him playing with a toothbrush. Make it go viral on Facebook and sell off toothbrushes. Let's see if we could do it." Rachel: [00:04:25] So $250 dollars later, I bought all the toothbrushes. That was my one of my first venture into selling physical products on my own. Jillian: [00:04:33] Wow. By the way, QuirkyMomma was kids activities or it is kids activities, is that right? Rachel: [00:04:42] Kids activities but yes, I sold it. Jillian: [00:04:43] Okay, so then, you just started working on Facebook for kids activities or for QuirkyMomma. Rachel: [00:04:52] Yeah, I helped QuirkyMomma grow from 13,000 into multiple millions. So I left the site when it was at 2.2 million. Jillian: [00:05:01] And then, I guess, you fell in love with Facebook. Rachel: [00:05:05] Yeah, I fell in love with attracting an audience. It could be anywhere. I actually also grew my Pinterest account by over 100,000 in one year. I grew up it to 80,000 over the course of like two or three or four years and then, in one year, I put a lot of effort into it and bumped it up to almost 190,000. Jillian: [00:05:23] That's terrific. Rachel: [00:05:25] The same love of people is in every social media platform. Jillian: [00:05:29] Unpack that a little bit. Tell me what you mean by that. Rachel: [00:05:33] If you love people, you're going to serve them with specific content that's going to help feed their bucket, like everyone has the desire to feel affirmation, to feel successful or to feel smart and fun. How to create social media content that makes people feel good Rachel: [00:05:49] We create content that makes them feel those ways, fill those needs in your audience, your audience will grow and as your audience grow, you ask them what they want and need and then, you deliver it to them and then your revenue in your pocketbook grows as well. Jillian: [00:06:06] I love that because it's all about serving others. It's not about, "I think this is cool." I mean it's a little bit about that, but it's really about, "I know my audience will think this is cool." Rachel: [00:06:21] Exactly. I don't care so much about what I think is going to be cool. People have asked me do you think you're a trendsetter, where you can see if something's going viral, and sometimes I can, I can tell this is good content or this is not good content. Rachel: [00:06:34] But at the same time, it really depends on the people that you're serving as to whether some of the content is going to do well. It's not about us. Jillian: [00:06:42] I totally agree. In fact, for Catch my Party, people will say, "You say what the trends are going to be in the world of parties, kids parties and stuff" and I go, "No. I just see what people are responding to and then, I create more content like that." Rachel: [00:07:00] Exactly. That's it in a nutshell. Jillian: [00:07:04] Like I can't tell you what the new trends will be. I can amplify a trend or I can identify it. Rachel: [00:07:12] But all you do is serve our audience. Jillian: [00:07:15] Yes. We're not soothsayers. Rachel: [00:07:21] So essentially, I left Quirky Momma and then I created One Crazy House. And that's my second blog to a Facebook page of over 500,000 in 18 months. We had our third year anniversary, and we have 51 million page views on it. That's so cool. Jillian: [00:07:37] Oh my God. Rachel: [00:07:38] And we have two more websites. I've got Crazy Cat Lady, and I've got the One Pot Crock-Pot. Jillian: [00:07:44] Okay. Explain the idea of why you create different websites. Rachel: [00:07:54] Well, it was kind of a joke actually, a little bit. I started when Quirky Momma and then One Crazy House, and I was at a conference. I was speaking at the conference about how you can go viral and everything. Rachel: [00:08:08] I was in the bathroom afterwards, and I was hearing two people talking and the one girl was saying, "These big bloggers, I can never be like Rachel. She just said she did this and this and this. Like how is that even possible?" Rachel: [00:08:22] And the other girl goes, "Don't worry about it. They're doing that because they're so big so they had a big budget when they started, and they had these big pages that they all share from. So we can never become big because it's all the big pages are a cliche. Rachel: [00:08:34] And I was like, "Oh my word." And I left. And it was like almost like I failed the entire conference because of that like one little conversation they didn't know I was listening to. They weren't trying to be rude. To them, they were just simply having a conversation. Jillian: [00:08:44] It's like a scene out of a sitcom. Rachel: [00:08:50] I know. I went home and I'm like bawling because I take things way too personally. I'm like, "They're right. They're right because I did grow with budget. Nobody else has that kind of budget. I had these big friends, when I was growing One Crazy House, I could contact and say 'Hey, can you share for me?' They're right. I couldn't do it the right way. Building organic Facebook pages from nothing Rachel: [00:09:13] So my husband's like, "Do it the right way. What's your problem, Rach? Just go do it." It's like "Well, I can't," and he's like, "Okay, whatever." You could do it with cats. Come on, everybody can do it with cats. So like literally at the kitchen table, we made a cat page and we put up viral cat content. And then, it went viral. Jillian: [00:09:30] So you made a Facebook cat page. Rachel: [00:09:33] Yeah, I made a cat page because my husband said, "Well, hello. You could definitely do with cat. Come on." So yes, I made a viral cat page and it was like, "Well, everybody can do it with cats. What's something that's really boring? I got to deal with that too." Rachel: [00:09:49] And so then, I did crock pots because I thought crock pots were boring. I don't ever cook really. And so I thought crock pots were these boring things. But no, there were a very passionate group of people that love, a set or group of people that love their crock pots. And so yeah, I got to love and serve crock pot people next. Jillian: [00:10:11] I love that. So you were able to grow these pages organically. Rachel: [00:10:18] It was more just to prove to myself like I did it with Quirky Momma, I did it with One Crazy House but I also did it with two other pages without a lot of money, under five dollars a day and without tons of friends sharing. I didn't have any friends sharing. Nobody knew I was doing it. I was able to replicate my success again. Jillian: [00:10:39] Great. Can you break down just the elements of what that success means? Rachel: [00:10:46] Well, most importantly, it means I get to help people. When a lady's cat dies, I'm an audience where she can share her cat, a video of her cat, photos of her cat and the people there will rally around her and support her when she comes home in those dark, dark moments. Rachel: [00:11:06] We get to help rescue cats in different areas which is important to those people. I'm like giggling about it a little bit, but at the same time, this is a huge community of women who are loving and supporting each other that I am honored to get to be a part of that. It's most important. That's bigger than the dollar amount, but the dollar amount of my other audiences, it's a hefty income each year. Facebook data collection, targeting, and privacy Jillian: [00:11:35] Great. Facebook is in the news. Facebook is everywhere, and it's kind of negative. Rachel: [00:11:43] It is. It is so funny because like they're talking about this whole tracking thing, and I'm sitting there like you guys had robo vacuums, and you connected them to Alexa and you could tell Alexa that "can you vacuum my floor please?" Rachel: [00:11:58] The vacuum walks around your house and it picks up data like there's a chair here, it sends that information back to Amazon, and Amazon's targeting you with new products when you move a chair. That same data is being shared everywhere. All the data places share their information with each other because they're all data hungry. We have privacy. This is not new to us. This is like normal. Rachel: [00:12:23] I've been using Facebook targeting for ages to find my die hard fans and then to love on them more. It could give them more information. But yes, it has changed. Yes. Is it going to continue to change? Definitely. I do think having more transparency is a good thing. Rachel: [00:12:38] So when you have your Robocop robo-vacuum, if I'm going to vacuum my floor, it now has a layout of my home. It's sending that information back to Amazon. Am I cool with that? We aren't cool with that but we all want Alexa to have access to your vacuum cleaner. So you've got to understand that when you're giving Alexa access to your vacuum cleaner, what that means for you. Rachel: [00:13:02] I know what that means for you because I'm a marketer who target people to buy their furniture. People are a little bit like, "Wait a second. You've been stalking in my house. You know what my layout of my home is. For real? Isn't that intrusion?" Rachel: [00:13:16] They're like, "Well, no because now, we know if you're looking for new furniture because you're rearranging the room multiple times. We know what that means. It means you're hunting for furniture so we keep sending more furniture ads." Jillian: [00:13:28] Right. Now, do you think that Facebook will ultimately change and that you won't be able to grow these audiences so they won't be as valuable? Rachel: [00:13:39] Well, in some ways, it has changed a little bit. You're not going to be able to make as much money off of affiliates right now because you have to create your affiliate content. Rachel: [00:13:48] So my son, with the toothbrush, I had him brushing his teeth and playing with the toothbrush. I didn't just use somebody else's picture of that toothbrush to sell it, to create the content. Rachel: [00:14:00] We have to be more active as content creators. So does that mean it's harder for people to join in if they're not going to put in the time to be a good content creator? It will probably then thin out the number of people that are in the market. Why you want to be a content creator Jillian: [00:14:18] Right, but if you're one of those people who will make content, you can have a leg up because you're not competing with stock photos from Amazon. Rachel: [00:14:30] Exactly. As long as you are the content creator, there is a need in the world for content creators. People are sharing content. People are looking at content at 1:00 in the morning. People are discussing articles that they're reading. People want content. Rachel: [00:14:45] So there will be a need for content. Now, how difficult it is to provide that content or what kind of rules we have with disclosure? Those will all be changing. It's always changing. Jillian: [00:14:58] It's like you get on the roller coaster, and you hold on tight. Rachel: [00:15:02] Yeah, and even with Facebook right now. With Facebook targeting, we can no longer target new house buyers, but what we can do is purchase the list of people who publicly just changed their addresses in the state database which is public information, and we can buy that information, aggregate it and then use it. How to target people on Facebook to sell to them Jillian: [00:15:24] Could you explain what that means. Could you explain targeting, how you target people and why? Rachel: [00:15:30] So you want to target people who love your content.If you're a home DIY or home interior design, when are people most likely to be focusing and obsessing about design? When they're either selling their home or buying a new home, right? Rachel: [00:15:47] So for you, you'd want to target people who are new home buyers or selling their homes because the people that are going to be most likely to be nonstop watching Fixer Upper because they're trying to fix up their home or because they don't like the current kitchen but they like the rest the house. Rachel: [00:16:01] What can they do to make that kitchen in that new house they're buying better? So those are the people that are the most passionate in the home decor realm. And in the buying of mindset, remember, you want them into buying lens so you can sell to them. Rachel: [00:16:16] Those are people who are most likely to be also buying to fix that solution. Before, you could just go to Facebook and say, "I want to target anyone who's selling their home or who is buying a home." That used to be partner information that Facebook collected. Rachel: [00:16:30] So Facebook would reach out to partners which would be like the DMV, when you're changing your address or your driver's license. There's different things that are public. GoDaddy, with your registration, you can have a new website and that information is public if you did not pay your $7.99 or whatever to hide your private information. Rachel: [00:16:50] There are places where your information is given out publicly. Home records, that's a public thing. Everyone knows. There's like you can go onto your state website and you can see the people who are buying houses, even with their house price was. Rachel: [00:17:05] That's public information as well. So you can see that information. So what they basically do is buy that information and then, upload it into Facebook into their partners. Now, we could access that targeting. Rachel: [00:17:18] And I would say, "I want to target new home buyers where I can target somebody who drives this type of vehicle" but we can't do that anymore. Now, we have to buy the data from those data companies ourselves and upload it. Jillian: [00:17:29] And how do you find that data? How do you find those companies? Rachel: [00:17:34] Oh there's like a list of them. I guess I could give to your audience later. But you just go online and says, "I want to buy data" and buy aggregated data. Jillian: [00:17:43] Got it. Rachel: [00:17:47] I'm using my content to segment the audience. But that's something that's gotten more difficult because Facebook just changed that law. Jillian: [00:17:55] And then are you putting your posts in front of them? Are you putting your products in front of them? Rachel: [00:18:02] Yeah. You want to start always with your content and then work them into your product. So I want to find the people that are most likely to be interested in farmhouse chic and then showing them farmhouse chic then I'll show them, "Here's my buying guide for farmhouse chic products." Rachel: [00:18:20] So you first have to find who loves this look first, before you send them your buying guide. You have them trust who you are and interact with you. I like people that interact with me, even up to seven times before they see that I have a product for sale. I don't give them my product for sale until they've interacted with me several times. Jillian: [00:18:40] Wow. And then they trust you? Rachel: [00:18:42] If they trust me, they're more likely to buy and I'm more likely to know what they want to. Jillian: [00:18:47] Got it. And is this all happening on Facebook or are you also getting their email, that kind of thing? Rachel: [00:18:55] I don't focus on email as much as a lot of other people do, and I know that's probably a detriment to my business, but I know I could probably be a lot better at email. I do collect people's emails but that's not my focus because I know if I can get them to click on any of my websites, I can re-target them and I can re-target them on Facebook, I can re-target them on YouTube, I can re-target them on Pinterest. All of those locations, you can re-target. Jillian: [00:19:19] Can you explain what that means? Rachel: [00:19:21] When someone visits, say one landing page like your DIY farmhouse kitchen, you can show them all the fun things to do in your kitchen. And then here's the thing, they don't have a whole lot of time. Rachel: [00:19:32] They don't want to spend four hours doing whatever type of paint treatment to the cabinet. Next thing you know, you're going to send them to the second. Everybody who sees that first website, you re-target them and say, "I'm going to send them an ad with my next website," which might be your buying guides so that they don't have to do it themselves. Jillian: [00:19:53] And these websites are landing pages. Rachel: [00:19:57] It could be a blog post. So you know where you're sequenced. I can't remember her name off the top of my head. Penny savers, I think, does this really, really well. She had one. It's just a regular blog post, but it segments people whose kids are in college. An example of a sales funnel on Facebook Rachel: [00:20:13] She starts them off with, "Here's just a DIY getting ready for your college dorm, helping your child get their dorm room ready," and so they just see this. And then, she sends them a "College is so expensive. Isn't it horrible how college is so expensive?" Rachel: [00:20:29] So now you see her post: "Oh, we're just getting ready for dorms." Now, we're seeing college is so expensive. That puts it in your brain "Oh my word. It is. I can't afford that." Then she send them "Here's your guide to a hundred different scholarships your kids can get." Rachel: [00:20:48] But then you think: "Oh my word. That's a lot of scholarships. I'll never be able to fill out this paperwork out. Oh my." And then, she sends you the fourth one is, "We'll do a scholarship matching and searching and applying for you, done for you." S. Rachel: [00:21:01] He works them through that. So now, she knows these are people who are really looking for college scholarships. They've already proven that they have kids in college. They've already proven that they have an issue with paying for college. They've already proven that they're interested in scholarships. Now, we're going to send them a "One thousand dollar done for you" that we could find them scholarships. Jillian: [00:21:22] That is brilliant. Rachel: [00:21:23] Exactly. Jillian: [00:21:24] So you are this tour guide. You are leading people down the path. Rachel: [00:21:33] I have never heard of anybody described it like a tour guide, but that is definitely the path. And the thing is you're literally just asking your readers, "What do you need help with?" Rachel: [00:21:39] Oh, you need help with getting your kids into college. Okay, well, how can I help you with that? Can I help you the best by just saying "Hey, I've got the service for you that will help you find scholarships.". Rachel: [00:21:47] That's not going to help you because you're not going to jump on it. But by helping you in all these other little ways and then say, "Oh, yes and we have the extra projects. By that point, they're ready for "Okay, Yes, I need the help. Thank you." How to budget on Facebook advertising Jillian: [00:22:01] And you are putting money behind each of these steps. Rachel: [00:22:07] Yes. Now, here's the thing. Because of the way Facebook and organic traffic goes, the first steps are not very expensive at all. We're talking, they might be free. They might be a post that you just put up and then, they do well on their own. They might be posts that you put up with two dollars a day or five dollars a day. The emphasis is not on money. Collect an audience. And then later on, in that last one is the one you're going to put money behind. Jillian: [00:22:35] Got it. Right because you already know this is what they're looking for. Rachel: [00:22:41] I might spend a little bit ahead of time but I'm not to put the big budget until that last one. Jillian: [00:22:44] Got it. Let's say that I sell the service where I will find the scholarships that are right for you, for your kid and that product is a thousand dollars, how much would I spend in an ad to attract that person? Rachel: [00:23:03] Well, it depends on how much your revenue is. So one rule of thumb is 3 percent of whatever you want to. This is something like my mastermind people have said like general rule, three percent of total revenues. You want to put to ad. That said, what that is, what that looks like for you, it might be different. Let's say, you've got a $2,000 product but you can have $1,500 that is profit because you only have to pay $500 of it out to whatever to manage , to deliver the product. Well, at that point, you've got a huge ROI. you've got $1,500 dollars. Jillian: [00:23:40] In return on investment. Yeah. Rachel: [00:23:43] You can spend up to $4,300 and still be making a profit on that. Jillian: [00:23:47] Yeah. Okay. And is this what a Facebook funnel looks like? Rachel: [00:23:56] A little bit. Yeah. Jillian: [00:23:56] Okay because I keep hearing about Facebook funnels which seems slightly different than email funnels, but it's kind of seems like you're moving the tour on Facebook. Okay, that's fascinating to me. Jillian: [00:24:16] If I were starting out today and I'm a new blogger, what advice would you have for me in terms of trying to grow my page, or like how should I focus? Find your niche as a blogger Rachel: [00:24:31] Pick one thing to be known for because when you have one thing to be known for, you're going to be able to attract people who would trust you more in that topic. They're more likely to buy from you because they realize you're the place for XYZ. Rachel: [00:24:44] They could go to Amazon for everything, right? But if they're looking for something specific, for example, little boys' Star Wars stuff, they want to know that all that you have is really truly vetted as the latest, coolest kids' Star Wars stuff. Rachel: [00:24:57] You're the financial adviser for women who are recently divorced. They want to know that you have all of your content is in their best interest. So you can't be the financial adviser for people who are newly divorce, also sharing your favorite recipes and telling them stories about your dog. Rachel: [00:25:16] You've got to focus on what's most important to you. Now, could you just focus on stories about your dog? Definitely. And then sell dog products or something else? Definitely. Could you be about your favorite recipes, sell cookbooks, sell kitchen supplies and even your own line of kitchen utensils that are the best for people? Definitely. Rachel: [00:25:32] But doing all three spreads your credibility. And so it's harder for people to attract to you. Jillian: [00:25:39] Yes. And I talk about this all the time. Find your niche. Find your lane and go deep. Rachel: [00:25:45] Definitely. Jillian: [00:25:46] Like there's enough content for you to create. There is enough of an audience for you to find, and it is really setting yourself up as an expert. And what I find is if people trust you, for example, if you're my Star Wars go-to person, I guess I could go to Walmart and buy the toothbrush, but if you've already vetted it for me, if you've already told me this is the one I should buy, I'll pay more to buy it from you. Rachel: [00:26:23] And they want the convenience of knowing that you've got a collection of products just for them. Jillian: [00:26:29] Yes, totally. Yes. I mean, that makes perfect sense. So again, as you're starting to think about what business you're creating, think about it in a very narrow way. You became the Rainbow Loom person. Rachel: [00:26:47] For a little while there, yeah, till the fad fizzled out. Jillian: [00:26:52] And how do you feel about that, riding different fads, things like that? Should you jump on that bus? Rachel: [00:27:00] Yeah, really. I mean, you love your audience. So if your audience suddenly start loving rainbow loom bracelets, you love rainbow loom bracelets too. If they love Play Dough, you love Plato. If they're cat people, they don't like talking about cat food, so I won't talk about cat food because I want to love my audience. You see what your audience really respond to, and you serve and love them. Jillian: [00:27:22] Got it. Okay, so let's go back to this, which is I'm a new blogger. What do I do on Facebook? And I get it. Ultimately, my goal is to sell them products. But how would I start out? Make your Facebook page about your reader, not you Rachel: [00:27:35] First up would be making your page about your reader. A lot of people pick their page about them. When people come to the site, they see a person's face, the person that they're not friends with and they don't know who they are and some of their interests. Rachel: [00:27:49] So it's hard for someone who doesn't know you to feel attached to the page because they've never interacted with you before, but they might be pickleball. I did not know that was a thing. It's totally an up and coming game with like newly retired people. Rachel: [00:28:06] It's like a cross between baseball and ping pong or something. Anyway, it's a fanatical thing. I did not know this was a thing. A guy in charge of the pickleball pages, put his face on all the pages. People will connect with him but they don't understand pickleball. Rachel: [00:28:25] They're just a random person who's newly retired and heard about this game called pickleball, and he wants to learn more about pickleball. He doesn't know about the person, Joe, who's running the pickleball page. You have no problem falling in love with Joe. That's weird but I mean -. Jillian: [00:28:40] Eventually, right? I get it. Rachel: [00:28:42] Loving the content, loving who Joe is and loving Joe's love of pickleball, and building Joe into a personal brand. He doesn't mind that but he wants to keep coming first just to learn what is pickleball, who is playing pickleball, we're going to find a pickleball tournament or a group of people playing pickleball, and what do I need to play. Rachel: [00:29:01] That's what he's coming for. Give them that, that thing. And so when they come to your Facebook page, it should be the name, the cover of the photo, the profile, your pinned-to content, your story, your description, those should all be what your reader is coming to you or what you want to be known for about your reader. Not about you. Jillian: [00:29:21] Totally, okay. Okay, so then I want to start to build my page so I've got my page set up then. Am I just sharing content that other people are creating about pickleball? Am I making my own content? Rachel: [00:29:39] Yeah. You want to be making your own content. I suggest when you're a brand new page, one fourth is your own content and three fourth is somebody else's because you're going to be riding their coattails. Rachel: [00:29:49] You're going to use those other pages to help you grow a little bit. Now, pickleball's kind of a new niche, hand-embroidered ribbon. One of my students had hand-embroidered ribbons. That's a new niche. There's not very many people out there talking about hand-embroidering ribbon. Rachel: [00:30:03] Not hand-embroidering tea towels, only hand-embroidering ribbons since she's going to have to create all that content on her own. That said, she was able to create a 10,000 person fan page and a membership where they're buying monthly subscription box of ribbons and ribbon embroidery supplies. Rachel: [00:30:23] They have a Facebook group where they talk about how they embroider these ribbons, whatever. She's got a huge business. She was able to create off of her niche but she did have to focus in very tightly into what she was about. Jillian: [00:30:36] Okay. And then just in terms of logistics, how often should I be posting on Facebook? Let's say I'm the pickleball guy. How many times to post on your Facebook page a day Rachel: [00:30:44] Yeah. New pages, I suggest two to four times a day. And then when you are over 25,000, you can move slowly into eight to nine times a day. You can still stay that four or two even when you're bigger, but I would start it to two to four and then, you could just keep adding another post. I'm trying to be consistent as long as your engagement per post has not dropped. Jillian: [00:31:08] Okay. And then, when do I start putting money behind my posts to try to draw a bigger audience? Rachel: [00:31:14] I start that almost at the beginning. I'll start because I want to get people who are engaged. When I have zero fans, I'll put money behind every single post, I'll put the same exact money, same number of days on every single post I put out. Learn what kind of content your Facebook audience wants to see from you Rachel: [00:31:28] And I'll put that out and see what type of content they're most interested in. First off, I want to find out the content. I will take two dollars a day for every post for three days, and I'll boost it all to the same people. Rachel: [00:31:40] So in my cat page, I'll take this post, put it out and they'll all go to people who are just interested in cats, just a general interest, and I'm doing this to find out what messaging of my post does the best. Rachel: [00:31:51] I'm not really looking for whether a photo does better or video does better or a link does better. What I'm looking for is what is the message that's being shared by this piece of content that seems to perform better with this audience. Jillian: [00:32:04] I love that. Rachel: [00:32:04] For a few weeks, I'll see that, "Okay, I am a cat mom." All the posts that did really, really well, they were all posts where they're treating their cat like a kid. The cat did this, the cat misbehaved. We're shaming the cat for whatever he did. Jillian: [00:32:24] Right. We're potty training our cat. Rachel: [00:32:26] Exactly, like literally, that's the type of content that was doing the best. So now, I know just general cat people, the stuff that does the best is treating my cat like a baby. Rachel: [00:32:36] Well, now, that we know that the content as well, now, we need to find out where that content gets people that are the most active. So I'll then go into my audience insights. Rachel: [00:32:45] I'll see what type of pages are related to my niche that have the highest activity level and see if I can target them or niche neighborhood with them, which is like a term I use, which is when we connect our pages to them with Facebook SEO. We link to stuff on their page and put links to our own page from their page. We tag each other. Jillian: [00:33:05] So you then reach out to these people who have pages that are similar? How to niche neighborhood on Facebook Rachel: [00:33:10] Sometimes, I reach out to them and sometimes, I just niche neighborhood with them without their permission and just connect our pages. So I'll go onto their page and say how awesome I think something is or I'll leave a comment on their content with something of my own content, not in a spammy way. Rachel: [00:33:24] Or I'll share something from their page onto my page and then, I'll take the thing that I shared, and I'll leave it as a comment on their page. It'll be like "I found you because I was here." I did that in a nice way that doesn't seem like so spammy but it just shows Facebook that I'm similar to that other page. Rachel: [00:33:43] I wanted to pick a page that has the highest level of activity. That way, I can pull in the users who are the most active in their niche so they're more likely to bring on other people who were most active. Rachel: [00:33:54] It's like targeting myself or targeting my husband. Facebook has even said this, that Facebook want people to have a meaningful connection. It was decided, January 11, what meaningful connections is a long comment. Rachel: [00:34:09] Facebook want people who are going to leave sizable comments on your content. Even though my husband and I have similar interests, you don't want to target my husband for any of those ads because he doesn't comment on anything. He's just online, not a stalker but just he just reads, scrolls. Rachel: [00:34:26] He's never going to like something. He's never going to share with me. So in comparison, I'm like the non-stop talker everywhere. I'm leaving comments in everybody's stuff. I'm like tagging people I don't even know to say "Hey, did you read this?" You want the person who's going to bring everybody else to your content. Jillian: [00:34:48] Right. So you want to find the connectors. Rachel: [00:34:51] The connectors. Yes. They will find people like my husband who are the scrollers. Jillian: [00:34:57] Got it. Could we talk for just a minute about this idea that you need other people, other pages like your page to help you grow? Rachel: [00:35:11] Yes, you do. Nobody is in a vacuum. Our readers aren't in a vacuum. We are not in a vacuum. They are all interconnected. So think of yourself and the things that you love as a reader to engage with. Probably podcasting, right. So you're not going to follow, one, "how to podcast" page. Rachel: [00:35:29] You're going to follow several podcasters. You're going to be in several podcasting groups. You've got a really awesome podcast, and you love blogging. You're probably going to be in more than one blogging group. The same type of thing for our readers, what they're most interested in, the pickleball person, whatever it is. Pickleball. Jillian: [00:35:47] Yes. Rachel: [00:35:48] He's probably in every pickleball group there is. They're probably looking for more pickleball groups. Same with the person who's interested in World War 2 retouch photography. They're probably looking for more World War 2 stuff in other places online. Rachel: [00:36:05] You're just helping them find other places and establishing yourself as a leader in your niche because you're connecting them to other content they want. Jillian: [00:36:13] Okay, so I'm the pickleball guy. I find five other pages, five other people who build businesses around pickleball. Do I then say "Hey, guys, let's get in this group and let's share each other's content"? Why Facebook share groups can hurt you Rachel: [00:36:30] Yes and no. Because share groups, Facebook knows when they're not organic and they're not real, so it will hurt you to be in a share group where you're requiring each other to share. Jillian: [00:36:40] Really? Because I remember back, maybe it feels like an eternity, like three or four years ago where we were all putting ourselves in these share groups. Rachel: [00:36:51] Share groups can hurt your page because you're putting content into, it becomes an echo chamber. So when your fans already have seen the content once because they've already interacted with that page and they've already shared that content, so now both pages are sharing that same pieces of content to similar readers. This is only going to show that to your readers one time. So you've now cut your organic reach by half. Jillian: [00:37:18] Okay, so you don't recommend share groups. Rachel: [00:37:23] The share group can be helpful. They can also be misused. Jillian: [00:37:27] So would it be something like I've got a post, and it's got juice. It's getting some virality. I'm going to contact you. My friend, we create similar content. "Hey, would you share this?" Rachel: [00:37:39] Once in a while, I would but I wouldn't use the same friend regularly because it can come back to bite you. You become an echo chamber. If she is sharing the same content, you're sharing the same viral, now, Facebook's only showing that viral to one time to your related audience. Jillian: [00:37:54] Okay. Okay. Rachel: [00:37:56] Now, if she's already shared it to that person, now, you've shared it, that person's not going to see it again. Jillian: [00:38:02] Got it. Rachel: [00:38:03] So you cut that person out of the ability to get organic traffic. Jillian: [00:38:08] Interesting. Okay. But that was a strategy. Rachel: [00:38:10] Well, you can still use it. It's probably more nuanced than we can go into a conversation on a podcast, but it is helpful to start with some share groups that other people sharing their stuff is good, but once you have an overlapping or similar audience, Facebook's only going to show that post once. If two people shared it to that audience, only one of those shares will get any eyeballs. Jillian: [00:38:33] Got it. So it's a little bit like you don't want it with somebody who lives in your virtual neighborhood, but maybe in the neighborhood next to your neighborhood. Rachel: [00:38:44] Exactly. I mean there's so much that goes into it. It's more than we could probably talk about in 20 minutes. What is Moolah Marketing? Jillian: [00:38:49] So we didn't talk about Moolah Marketer. So can you explain what that is? Rachel: [00:38:54] Oh, I've got over 2,300 students so far that we've helped grow their Facebook pages and their Facebook audiences. It's my little, happy place on the Internet. It's a lot of fun. We've helped pages gain engagement on their content. That's pretty much the goal of Moolah. Jillian: [00:39:14] And is it the goal to, this has always been my question, is it to grow your Facebook page, is it to grow your traffic, is it to grow your income or is it all of those three things? Rachel: [00:39:27] We want to help you grow in engagement in the way that will help you reach your goal. We have some nonprofits in our group where they're not necessarily looking for money. What they're looking for is a movement. We've helped them grow their movement. Rachel: [00:39:46] We've got political campaigns. There were three people that are on political campaigns. One is a high level Democrat governor, I believe, and the other ones are like city council and lower level House of Representatives. And we've helped them. Rachel: [00:40:00] They're not looking for money. They're looking for brand awareness. They're trying to get their message out to their constituents. We help people who are just out for money. We help people that we get a couple students who they basically create websites and sell them so we help them build the website fast, build an audience fast, sell that audience and then he goes on to make another one. Rachel: [00:40:26] So there's all different types of students. We have one person who is a llama wedding farmer. If you want to get married with llamas in your wedding. Jillian: [00:40:35] I would. Rachel: [00:40:36] I know. Isn't it fun, kind of crazy? Some of the niches, I'm like "That's a thing? Okay, that's a thing." I did not know all the niches that need Facebook. There were more than I was aware of. Jillian: [00:40:48] Wow. Rachel: [00:40:49] All of them. Jillian: [00:40:50] That's terrific. So what is the one piece of advice that you could give to our audience that you wish you knew right when you were starting? Rachel: [00:41:04] To make my content be about my reader and to live in a life of abundance not a life of "I don't have it." Does that make sense? Jillian: [00:41:12] Explain. Rachel: [00:41:13] A lot of time, you sit there and think, "Well, if I help someone else go viral, I'm not going to have this viral or if I help someone else's business grow, it's not going to help my business grow". Rachel: [00:41:24] So some people would say, "Wait. Why are you giving away your viral title? You should charge for that. People shouldn't get that for free." I've got 25 of my 29 posts, I've got 1 million eyeballs. I give away those titles to people so they can make their own post off of the title. Rachel: [00:41:42] I've had people tell me, "Why are you giving that away? Now, they're taking it." I'm like "Yeah. It's not they took my viral away. I still have my viral. This will bring me in traffic. They're fine. All I'm doing is helping the world, all the marketers, have more viral." Rachel: [00:41:59] That's a good thing. Seeing it as a good thing to give it all away is like not giving it all away but loving your audience is enough to give them what they need to be a success. Jillian: [00:42:12] What I think is so interesting about what you're saying is that the world is big, and there's room for everybody. Rachel: [00:42:24] Exactly. Jillian: [00:42:25] And to stop focusing on yourself and just start focusing on others, to give to others. Rachel: [00:42:33] And I'm thinking of all the time that I wasted my energy, I wasted my time, I wasted my effort when somebody used similar recipe that I did. "How dare they?" I could have taken all of that time that I spent into getting upset about that type of content to realizing, "I'm just going to make my next video post." Jillian: [00:43:01] Exactly. I was just reading a blog post on Seth Godin's blog about this and he said, "Wow, good for you that somebody wants to copy what you're creating." Rachel: [00:43:13] Exactly! Jillian: [00:43:13] Like that's such a good statement about your content versus nobody wants to copy what you're doing. Rachel: [00:43:23] Exactly. Jillian: [00:43:24] So what about your business or Facebook are you most excited about? Rachel: [00:43:30] I love seeing other people go viral now. There was a time when I would go viral, and I get all excited when I saw my content get out to the world. What's really exciting for me right now is helping other people make their content viral. And that the skills I had are actually transferable is pretty funny. Jillian: [00:43:48] That is amazing. So how could people reach out to you, learn more about you, learn more about your course? Rachel: [00:43:56] I do have a course that help people gain more engagement. And it's called Moolah. You can find me on Facebook, in the Facebook group Page Strategy. Jillian: [00:44:08] Awesome. Well, Rachel, this is such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being on the show. Rachel: [00:44:14] Jillian, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Grow Your Facebook Followers with MiloTree Jillian: [00:44:16] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and email subscribers? Well, if you've got two minutes, I've got a product for you. It's MiloTree. Jillian: [00:44:25] MiloTree is a smart pop-up slider that you install on your site, and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:44:40] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code, and it's Google- friendly in mobile and desktop so we know where your traffic is coming from. We show a Google friendly pop-up on desktop and a smaller Google friendly popup on mobile. Check it out. Sign up today, and get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today I’m talking with Leslie Samuel from the blog, Become a Blogger. Leslie and I break it down step-by-step how to start a successful online business. If you follow the advice Leslie shares, you'll be able to cultivate an audience, understand their needs, create trust, and sell products to them that make their lives easier. It's not rocket science, but it is about authenticity! Resources: Become a Blogger Social Media Marketing World Learning with Leslie Pat Flynn MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How to Start a Successful Online Business Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:11] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is my friend, Leslie Samuel. Leslie is a blogger, a podcaster, a business coach, and he is the creator of Become a Blogger, which is a blog focused on how to start and grow a profitable blogging business. Welcome to the show, Leslie. Leslie: [00:00:34] Well, thank you so much for having me, Jillian. I appreciate it. Jillian: [00:00:38] So a couple of things. One, I met you in real life at Social Media Marketing World. I went to your session, and I came up to you afterwards and sai,d "I wish you had been my science professor." Leslie: [00:00:54] Yes, we did meet there in real life for the first time. I was very flattered by your comments. Jillian: [00:01:02] Because you were a professor. Leslie: [00:01:05] Yes, I used to be a professor. Jillian: [00:01:07] You just have this lovely way that you teach, that I was so happy you were teaching me at Social Media Marketing World. Leslie: [00:01:16] I'm glad to hear that. Jillian: [00:01:17] And also I was a guest on your podcast. Leslie: [00:01:20] Yes, you were. Jillian: [00:01:21] Which was called Learning with Leslie. Leslie: [00:01:22] Yeah, your audience should go on and listen to that episode because you killed it. Jillian: [00:01:26] Oh, thank you. I'll put it in the show notes so you can hear that conversation. Leslie: [00:01:31] Awesome. Jillian: [00:01:31] And the other thing that you taught me, which I've taken to heart, is I was so impressed with your setup. We just recorded the episode, and it was over. I had just started recording episodes for my podcast. I was spending so much time editing each episode. And you said, "I just record it, and I post it." Jillian: [00:01:54] And I said, "What if a dog barks?" You're like, "Well, so? It's just part of life." Leslie: [00:02:01] Yeah, dogs bark in real life so that's all good. I've had episodes where someone's child would come in and they were like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." I'm like "No. Don't be sorry. That's what we do. This is a part of our lives." I just leave that all in. Jillian: [00:02:15] I love that, so I've started to do that. And I have to say, i t's helped me embrace imperfection. It's made my process that much easier and faster. Leslie: [00:02:28] And what you'll find is that you get better because now, there's no editing. If you mess up, you mess up, and that's OK. But I find that by pushing myself, I actually become better at what I do. I think it's good overall. Jillian: [00:02:44] I think you're right. I absolutely think you're right. So anyway, I have to thank you for that because you've saved me so much time, and you've helped me, I don't know, embrace the fact that this is live and that mistakes are going to happen, and that's okay. Leslie: [00:03:00] Part of that, when I started my podcast, I was a high school science and math teacher at a boarding academy, doing that full time. At a boarding academy, full time is no 40 hours. Perfection is the enemy of a blogger Leslie: [00:03:12] I mean, you work whenever you work. I knew that if I didn't do it this way, I would never get my podcast going. And I figured that done is better than perfect. Jillian: [00:03:23] I love that. Leslie: [00:03:24] It's going to be imperfect but people are going to find value in it. So yeah, that's the way I started and then, I just kept with it. Jillian: [00:03:31] I love it because you've inspired me. Hopefully then, we can inspire our audience that if there's something you're scared about or something you're thinking isn't perfect, just put it out there. Leslie: [00:03:42] Exactly. Jillian: [00:03:43] Okay, so you are a blogging expert. We talked right before this, and I thought that it might be interesting to discuss the idea of why start a blog. How to monetize your blog Jillian: [00:03:56] Back in the day, we used to start blogs, and we think we would somehow make money off of them but we weren't exactly sure how, and it was a way to get our voice out there. Jillian: [00:04:06] But if my goal were eventually to quit my day job and create something online and somebody will say, "We'll definitely start a blog," what would you say to that? Leslie: [00:04:20] Yes, that's a great question. When I look at a blog, a lot of people say start a blog so that you can have a business, and I tell people that a blog really isn't a business. Leslie: [00:04:33] What a blog is, it's a way for you to build a platform. Your blog is a platform where you can grow an audience of people that are interested in a specific topic. Leslie: [00:04:44] Now, if someone wants to make money online, they want to build a business, quite frankly, they're going to need people to sell to. They're going to need an audience and a lot of people, they create these awesome products and they want to sell it and then after they have gone through all this effort of creating the product, it's like, "Okay, so now, who do I sell this thing to?" That's where blogging comes in. Jillian: [00:05:11] People kind of have this idea like, "I know. I'm going to just run Facebook ads." Leslie: [00:05:18] Yep. Jillian: [00:05:18] "And that's how I'm going to do it." Leslie: [00:05:20] And while Facebook ads can be effective, if you want this ongoing audience of people to sell to, you need to actually build an audience. That's why blogging is so important. Leslie: [00:05:38] That's what it allows you to do. It's not a business but it can be built into a business because you have an audience of people that are interested in a specific topic. They have specific pin points that they need solutions for. If you can provide them with a solution, they are willing to part with their hard earned cash in order to get that solution. Jillian: [00:06:00] Right. Okay, so let's say, I have this idea for a product. Let's say it's a new mop. And I'm going to fly to China. I've got to get a factory to build my awesome mop. How would you think about a blog in that scenario? Leslie: [00:06:22] Oh, that's a good question. So you have an idea for an awesome mop. Now, what makes this mop awesome? I want you to think about what about this mop does the world need, and I want you to think about who needs this mop. Think about who needs your product Leslie: [00:00:00] Who is this person? I want you to get into all kinds of detail about what their day looks like, what they struggle with, when it comes to cleaning and all those types of things. You want to know that person because if you know that person, you can do what you need to do to attract that person. Alright. Jillian: [00:06:59] So it's that idea, remember, like fill the dreams, like if I build it, they will come? That is not true. Leslie: [00:07:08] That is not true. It's true in Field of Dreams. It's not true in reality. Alright. In reality, you have to actually understand who you're trying to attract. You need to create the kind of content to attract that person, and you have to go out there and actually start finding that person. Jillian: [00:07:30] So would you recommend that before I fly out to China and I have this dream of this mop, and I've made like a prototype in my garage, that I actually start my blog before any of this? Leslie: [00:07:45] Oh, most definitely. Because once again, if you have this mop to sell to nobody, you're going to sell it to nobody. You need to have that audience. You have to build that audience. How do you even know that the person that you are trying to target wants that mop? Leslie: [00:08:03] Do you have a relationship with enough of those people to be able to determine, "You know what. This is the solution that they actually want." I think a lot of us think about this ideal solution in our minds without knowing that people actually want to buy it. Leslie: [00:08:18] And by having a blog, by attracting that audience, by nurturing a relationship with them, by providing valuable content consistently over time, you can start getting feedback from them. Leslie: [00:08:32] Now imagine this, I'm assuming we're going to get into all of this even more, but imagine now, you have a blog of women that are passionate about cleaning, and they're passionate about cleaning not just because they're trying to be anal or something of that sort, but there's something significant in being in a place where you feel rested, you feel at ease, you feel comfortable because your home is well taken care of. Leslie: [00:09:02] Imagine, you have that audience of women, and you are providing them with valuable tips and then now, you have this idea for a product. Now, you can even get their input on some of the things that they would like to see this product do. Leslie: [00:09:18] Now, you can refine that over time and make it better and better. They're involved with that process. I guarantee you that when you release that product, they're going to want it because they have some input into it. There are all kinds of things in that that we can talk about but having that audience gives you a significant amount of leverage. Jillian: [00:09:39] Okay. I listen to you, and I go, "Yep, I need to start a blog, and I need to attract an audience." How do I do that? How to attract an audience with your blog Leslie: [00:09:49] Very good question. That's the million dollar question right there. How do I do it? The strategy, the tactics behind setting up a blog in 2018 and beyond, it's actually relatively simple. Leslie: [00:10:04] With WordPress, it makes it very easy. WordPress is the platform that I recommend for people to get started with their blogs because of how well-developed it is and all of the plugins, and so on that you can use. Leslie: [00:10:19] You can literally go to YouTube and just search for how to set up a WordPress blog. You can go to my blog, becomeablogger.com. I have tutorials to show you how to do that. So the setting up of the blog is not really a big deal. Jillian: And it's not expensive. Leslie: [00:10:38] It's not expensive. You can get hosting for like five bucks a month. You could pay someone, quite frankly, 20, 30 dollars and have them set up your blog for you. Of course, you could pay significantly more depending on what you want to do, but it's not a very technical process. Jillian: [00:10:56] Okay, so I can get one up in an hour or two. Leslie: [00:11:00] You can get one up in an hour or two easily. Alright, so let's get that out of the way. It's easy to actually set up. Now, what's a little more complicated is to understand how to blog effectively. Alright? Leslie: [00:11:19] Now, this is going to go back to really understanding the person that you are trying to attract. It comes down to understanding what kind of content they are looking for so that you can create that kind of content. Who is your customer avatar as a blogger? Leslie: [00:11:32] Now, what I recommend for people to do when they're getting started is to kind of write out a story of, some people call it customer avatar, of who this person is, what are they trying to accomplish, what are their goals, what are their struggles, will they encounter as they are trying to accomplish these goals. Write that story out so that you can have a clear idea of who that person is. Jillian: [00:12:00] And I would say that if that avatar could be similar to you, that's probably a good place to start. Leslie: [00:12:10] Yeah, most definitely. One of the people that you should know is you, even if it's an earlier version of you. When I'm creating content right now, I am creating content to attract me when I was in college, because I wish someone exposed me to this kind of content back then. Jillian: [00:12:32] I like that. Leslie: [00:12:33] So that concept of having an earlier version of yourself that you are trying to help, and that earlier version might be 10 years ago, it might be a year ago, it might be a few weeks ago because you are learning this process that you're teaching to people. Leslie: [00:12:50] I think that's one way to get started. So that's one thing you want to be clear on. You want to also be clear on, and I should have said this first but, what is your niche? What is your topic? A lot of people will say things like, "I want to do a blog about personal finances." Leslie: [00:13:14] Okay, that's a good place to start but there are so many personal finance blogs out there. Why should I come to you? Well, now, I'm just dealing with someone inside my coaching club right now that literally just posted this, and I just responded to this. She is now looking at personal finances for homemakers from a Christian perspective. You've niched down. Advice: niche down Leslie: [00:13:42] Now, if I'm a Christian homemaker, a woman between - I forgot the ages that she mentioned, but if I am that person and I'm struggling to get our family finances in order and I come to that blog, all of a sudden, I feel like, "Man, this blog is for me because I'm a Christian homemaker, I'm a woman, and she is talking about a topic that is of interest to me right now." Leslie: [00:14:11] So rather than being very vague, get specific. That has to do with the first part that I mentioned in terms of understanding who you are trying to attract. There's another guy in my coaching club. He's a woodworker but he's also a home-schooling dad. He's doing a blog about woodworking projects that a home-schooling dad can do with their kids. Now, if I'm a home-schooling dad that is interested in woodworking, when I come to that blog, I feel like this is the right one for me, and that's exactly what you want. Jillian: [00:14:51] Do you think you could ever get too small in a niche? Leslie: [00:14:54] Absolutely. If you've niched down so, so far that there are hardly any people in your niche, you have a problem. Now, at what point is that? I think it comes down to testing and also knowing the people that you are trying to attract. Leslie: [00:15:13] If I know that there are tons of homeschooling dads and that they would be interested in doing those kinds of projects with their sons and with their daughters, it makes sense for me to explore that as an option. Leslie: [00:15:28] Now, how do you know if it's not going to work? Quite frankly, you can do some research. You can kind of look in your niche. You could look on Amazon to see what kinds of products are for sale and look to see what kinds of books are selling in that industry. You can do some of that research. You can go to the Google keyword planner, and you can see, "Are people searching for these phrases that I'm interested in talking about?" Leslie: [00:15:54] And if you're seeing that, "Hey, nobody is going to Google and searching for this stuff," that's an indication that maybe you shouldn't be targeting that. Maybe you're a little too narrow. Jillian: [00:16:04] Got it. Leslie: [00:16:07] So yeah, there's all kinds of research that you can do whether it's using keyword planners, whether it's looking at stores like Amazon, whether it's looking at other blogs to see what's out there and see how well they are doing, and you just kind of take all of that data, combine it, make your best educated guess and then, you kind of move ahead. Jillian: [00:16:30] Got it. Now, I would say that this is something that I have to constantly remind myself. I come up with an idea. I fall in love with it. I think there are so many people who would love this and I, in the past, have done that. Jillian: [00:16:46] I force myself now to do the research. I would say that I fall into the trap of not doing the research, building something and then being like, "Wait, why don't people like this?" Leslie: [00:17:00] Yeah, I think it's a trap that so many of us fall into because we kind of get stuck in our own heads. "This is a great idea. The world absolutely needs this." That may be true but it may not be. Unfortunately, the technology has come far enough to allow us to be able to accurately, at least relatively, accurately determine whether people are interested in this stuff or not. Jillian: [00:17:31] So I recommend, to the people, don't fall into my trap and that you force yourself to do some research. It doesn't have to be a ton but you will save yourself so much pain if, in fact, you validate your idea. Leslie: [00:17:47] Exactly. Exactly. I must admit, when it comes to like keyword research and all this kind of stuff, I don't enjoy that. But if I'm starting a new project and I know that I'm going to be dedicating a significant portion of my time and my life to creating something that's of value that can be a business that I can take care of my family and all that kind of stuff, I think it's worth a few hours of research. Jillian: [00:18:16] Yes. Force yourself to do it. Leslie: [00:18:19] Exactly. Jillian: [00:18:19] Okay, so I've done research. Now, I know that there is a market for home-schooling dads who do woodworking. Brainstorm a list of topics for blog posts Leslie: [00:18:29] Yes, so the next thing that I would recommend is kind of brainstorm a list of topics. I tell people that do this because it makes it easier when it's time to actually create the content. If you understand who you're targeting, you understand what they're struggling with, you understand what they need to learn or what they need to know, you can start kind of outlining, "This is what I want to be covering." Leslie: [00:18:55] Alright. Now, I did this. For example, I started a blog that was a biology blog. I started a biology blog because I wanted to be a university professor but I was a high school science and math teacher. Leslie: [00:19:07] I didn't have a PhD but I wanted to teach at the university level so I started this blog to just teach at the university level with or without a PhD. Leslie: [00:19:17] What I decided to do was I knew I was targeting upper level biology students that were struggling in physiology so I was pretty specific at the time. I actually went back to my physiology notes, and I just started outlining topics that I want to cover from my physiology notes. Leslie: [00:19:40] Once I had those topics, I just went through, and I started with the first video. I remember it was an introduction to the nervous system and then, the second video was what is a neuron. I just continued in that sequence with the goal of providing the kind of content that my audience is struggling to understand. Jillian: [00:19:56] So you made them first as videos. Leslie: [00:19:58] I made them first as videos. That one, that blog, I focused on videos but I had like an article to go along with it which was mostly a transcript. Jillian: [00:20:09] And you did that so that you could pull people in on YouTube if they were searching for physiology, and then, you also had, on your blog, keywords and things like that so if anybody were searching in Google, they could see your blog posts. Leslie: [00:20:26] That's exactly it. It comes down to knowing and understanding your audience. I knew that my audience is struggling to understand these complex topics in physiology. I could have these long research articles on my blog with physiology but the students probably aren't going to spend the time to read all of that. Leslie: [00:20:47] In my research, I went, and I looked to see what other people were doing, and I asked myself, "How could I be different?" That's part of the research as well. I decided that my difference was going to be I'm going to create very simple videos that explain one concept at a time, and that's it. Jillian: [00:21:10] Okay, so how long was each video? Leslie: [00:21:12] Each video was five to 10 minutes on the long end. Jillian: [00:21:15] So like snackable pieces. Leslie: [00:21:18] Exactly. So now, I have a unique topic for a unique audience in a unique format. I'm creating that content. I'm attracting an audience relatively quickly because I knew the kind of content they were looking for, and I put it on a platform that was conducive to that kind of content. Jillian: [00:21:41] And also, I would say that you're a natural teacher. You're an engaging teacher so it's like that's your special sauce. By leveraging that, by getting people to see you teaching, like "Oh, this is a really cool guy. I want to watch his videos," versus, "I just want to read his blog posts." What is your unique value proposition as a blogger? Leslie: [00:22:00] That's a great point because one of the things that I talk a lot about is your unique value proposition. It could be the niche that you narrowed down to. It could be that specific aspect of the content that you are addressing but it could also be your personality and the way you do things. Leslie: [00:22:19] You're not going to go to a university, take Advanced Physiology and have some weird guy in front of the class saying, "Hey, welcome to this class where we're making biology fun." But that's exactly what I'm doing in every single one of those videos. Leslie: [00:22:36] That makes me different from everybody else that's doing it. And if you can find that point of differentiation, the answer to the question, "Why in the world should I listen to you?" If you can build that into every piece of content that you're creating, all of a sudden, you have way less competition because nobody is doing it exactly like you are. So if you have this mop -- Jillian: [00:23:04] Right, let's go back to this mop. Leslie: [00:23:07] This idea for a mop that you're creating but you are creating these short fun videos on really interesting things you can do with a mop, or really interesting ways that you can clean your house that the average person doesn't think about. Leslie: [00:23:28] Someone sent me a video the other day of ways to preserve food. There were all kinds of really simple but interesting things that they had in that video. One example was when you buy bananas, they spoiled relatively quickly but if you take the bag that it comes in and you wrap it around the place where the bananas connect, it's actually going to be preserved significantly longer. Leslie: [00:24:00] When I saw that, I was like, "Whoa, that's a really cool tip." I sent it to my wife. So if you can find little tips like that that you can share, that provides value to your audience of women that really want to clean because they love being in this environment where everything is well done or however you want to define it, that gives you an edge. Jillian: [00:24:24] Tell me what you think of this idea. I would ask your friends or your spouse or something like, "What is it about me that you like, that you think is quirky, that you think is different? What do I do that's different than other people?" Leslie: [00:24:42] That's one of the activities that I have people go through. I have them brainstorm for themselves but then, I tell them, "Hey, go to a few friends and family members, close friends that know you well and ask them what am I good at?" It may be completely unrelated to your niche but it may give you some idea. Leslie: [00:25:03] Someone might tell me, like you just did, that you are really good at teaching in a way that helps people to understand. Okay, so if I'm good at teaching, I can use that in the content that I create. That's why in all of the content I create, I emphasize teaching. I emphasize, "I want to help you understand certain concepts because I know that that's a strength of mind." So play to your strengths. Leslie: [00:25:30] I know we haven't gotten to the business aspect of it yet but I think these things are so important and often overlooked so that when people actually get to the business part, they don't really have a strong foundation. Jillian: [00:25:44] Right, or they are doing what everybody else is doing. Leslie: [00:25:47] Exactly. Jillian: [00:25:48] And thinking, somehow, if they like this person and I do exactly what they do, they're going to like me too. Leslie: [00:25:55] Exactly. And you are not that person. I always say when I first started making videos, teaching people about blogging, I learned from this guy. His name was Gideon van Schalkwyk, and he's a guy from Australia. He has a very specific way of teaching. How to find your voice as a blogger... practice Leslie: [00:26:09] I always say that when someone watches one of my early videos, I sound like a Caribbean version of him. Yeah, and that's it. But over time, and I also say this to encourage people, you may start off imitating somebody else but over time, you get to find your voice. And as you find your voice, you're able to put your voice into even your written content, and that is going to make you different from everybody else. Jillian: [00:26:39] And that's why I say start, because the beginning is going to suck, and you have to kind of get through that to find. You're not going to, one day, wake up with a voice or like how to do awesome video. I go back to our blog, I look at my early photos and I cringed. I thought that was good. Oh my God, because I've gotten so much better Leslie: [00:27:07] Yes, that's it exactly. And I think in the midst of everything that we're talking about, we're giving specific steps and strategies. Someone might listen to this and say, "Man, this is so overwhelming. I've got to think about this. I think about that. I got to do some keyword research. I don't even know what keyword research is and how to do it." Leslie: [00:27:26] The important thing is get started. Yes, because you're going to learn so much more by actually doing, than you're going to learn from this. Even listening to this podcast episode, you're going to learn a lot here. But then, when you start taking action on the things that we're talking about, that's when the learning actually happens. Jillian: [00:27:47] Yes. And like you will be embarrassed. Again, starting with what you taught me about just press record and then, put it up. Embrace that. You will cringe. Know that, and it's all good. Leslie: [00:28:07] It's all good. All the presentations where I literally will play my first interview, my first interview was with Pat Flynn, and I introduced him. It was kind of like, "Hey, this is Leslie Samuel. I'm so excited to bring Pat Flynn on. And I met him at this event. Pat Flynn, thank you so much for coming on here." Leslie: [00:28:30] And then, I play the second time I interviewed him, which was like after maybe 40 something episodes. It starts with me saying, "Hey. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Learning with Leslie, the podcast where you learn, I learn." Leslie: [00:28:42] And then, I go through his bio, and you can hear the enthusiasm, the energy and at the end, he compliments me because of how well I introduced him and how excited he was. When you listen to the first and you compared to the second, it is like night and day. But if I never did the first, I would have never gotten to the second. Jillian: [00:29:02] Totally. So again because I think that business and life are so intertwined, that by taking risks like this in your business, you'll be more apt to take risks in your life. Leslie: [00:29:16] Exactly. Jillian: [00:29:17] So it's all good. Leslie: [00:29:19] Definitely, I agree with you 100 percent. Jillian: [00:29:21] Okay, so let's go back. You create this blog with video because you know your audience will like the video, you're going to give it to them in snackable pieces, and you build it. And then what? Leslie: [00:29:37] So the next thing I want to talk about is how do you get people there, and then there's how do you make money from this? So let's deal with the "how do you get people there?" Leslie: [00:29:50] That starts with creating good content. I see so many bloggers, they hear they are supposed to create content, so they just put stuff out there. While we are saying, "Listen. Take action and put stuff out there," you want to make sure that you're putting stuff out there that provides value, that solves a problem, that provides a solution. Leslie: [00:30:14] It helps people in some way. I'm not going to overemphasize that right now because we kind of already spoken about that, but I think that's the foundation of getting traffic. Because if you start doing these other strategies and people come to your blog and they don't find value, what are they going to do? The importance of SEO for a blogger Leslie: [00:30:31] They're going to leave. So make sure you are creating content. That's going to be the foundation of this all. The next thing is you need to find ways to get people there. Now, there are different ways to do that. You can learn about optimizing your content for the search engines. That's called SEO, Search Engine Optimization. You want to familiarize yourself with that. Leslie: [00:30:55] It is not as complicated as people make it or that people think it is. It's really about creating good content and then giving the search engines the information that they need in a specific way but it's not very complicated. I would highly recommend for you to do some research on what it takes to drive traffic, what it takes to optimize your blog for the search engine. Jillian: [00:31:23] Google especially. Leslie: [00:31:24] Yeah, exactly. When I did say this search engine, you can assume that I'm just saying for Google. Jillian: [00:31:30] Yeah. And the thing that I was just at a conference learning about SEO, and if there was one takeaway that I really internalized is that Google's gotten really, really smart. And so if you write your content in a way that is helpful, using headers and stuff, that somebody could skim your content, understand it and get the answer to their problem that they're looking for easily, you're like 9/10 of the way there. Leslie: [00:32:02] That's exactly it. Creating good content solves a big part of that. Jillian: [00:32:08] It used to be that you could game the system. Leslie: [00:32:12] Yeah. Google is good. Jillian: [00:32:14] They're good. Leslie: [00:32:14] Google is good. If you think about what Google's goal is, they actually want people to come there, search for something else, and then, that's it. Like in a perfect world, they would leave and find the answer to their question. Leslie: [00:32:34] If they come to your site and then, they leave because it doesn't provide them with value and then, they go to another site and then, they leave and then, they go to another site and then, they leave and they keep doing that, that's not a good experience for that user, and it doesn't provide them with value. Google doesn't want that. Leslie: [00:32:51] Now, if Google sees that whenever someone searches for this particular topic, and they go to your site, they spend a bunch of time there, they start going to other pages on your site, and they do specific actions, that's going to tell Google, "Listen, this page here, it's solving the problem." Leslie: [00:33:10] They're going to start ranking you higher. Now, I'm making this very simple but that is the concept. That is what Google is trying to accomplish. They want to be trusted and to be trusted, they have to give answers to questions. Leslie: [00:33:26] So how well are you answering people's questions? That's one thing. The next thing that we have to talk about is social media because social media is still a great way to get your content out there in front of many people. Leslie: [00:33:42] What I generally recommend for people to do is contrary to what a lot of people teach. I hear a lot of people talking about, "Hey, you want to be on Pinterest, you want to be on Facebook, you want to be on Instagram, you want to do all this stuff." And I say "Okay, be on those platforms but focus on one, maybe two because there's so much that you can be doing on a daily basis." Leslie: [00:34:06] You want to make sure that you are focusing as opposed to trying to be everywhere. If you try to be everywhere, you're going to be everywhere poorly. But if you decide, "Hey, I want to use Facebook to grow my blog. I want to use Pinterest to grow my blog." You want to learn as much as you can about how to use that specific social network so that you can be using it effectively. Jillian: [00:34:31] And where do you, right now, where are you finding the most success? Leslie: [00:34:34] I am still finding the most success on Facebook. Jillian: [00:34:38] Interesting. Leslie: [00:34:39] It's a combination, it's kind of a mix between Facebook and Pinterest actually. On Pinterest, I find that I am getting more people over to my blog but they're not spending as much time. On Facebook, I'm getting fewer people. I'm talking about, when I say more, I mean for the amount of effort that I put in. I'm getting fewer people from Facebook. But when they come over to my blog, they actually stay significantly longer. Jillian: [00:35:09] And are you running ads? Leslie: [00:35:11] I am not currently running ads. All of my social media is organic. I know a ton about Facebook ads because I'm the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society. We've done a ton of training on the topic. I am now going to be starting to invest way more heavily in Facebook advertising. Jillian: [00:35:34] Okay. Wow, you are getting organic Facebook traffic. Leslie: [00:35:38] I am getting organic Facebook traffic. Not a ton, but I rely more on search engines, more on Google. Honestly, I've gotten more traffic from Google than any social network and also, I have a decent-sized email list that I've built over the years from all of the work that I've done. My email list is a big part of what I do for my marketing. Jillian: [00:36:04] Okay. So let's talk now about now I've got people coming to my site. They're reading my content. I have created really good content, content that is specific and unique to me, meaning nobody's going to get this anywhere else. And then how do I start thinking about making money? Leslie: [00:36:25] Okay. So there are two things I want you to be thinking about. Number one, I want you to be thinking about building an email list. The reason for this is because this is going to be the way that you can communicate directly to the people that have said, "I want you to communicate with me". Leslie: [00:36:43] If you're just growing a Facebook page, it's great to have a Facebook page, and it's great to have a lot of people liking that page but you're not in control of the Facebook algorithm. They can tomorrow decide, You know what -- which they have, many times over -- that we're just not going to show you to the content to the people that like your page unless you pay for it. Why you want an email list Leslie: [00:37:04] By having your own email list where you are communicating directly to those people via email, you are setting your business up for the long term success. I want you to be thinking about how you can make email a priority. Leslie: [00:37:19] Number two, when it comes to monetizing your blog, I want you to always be thinking of this question: "How can I provide value to my audience?" Now, if I know that my audience has specific goals and I know that they have specific struggles that they're going to have, how can I create or recommend the solutions that people would be willing to pay for? Leslie: [00:37:48] That is the key. If you know what they're struggling with, you can provide them with products whether it's an ebook that you create or a course that you create or a mop that you're making, whatever it is. Jillian: [00:37:59] Or affiliates. There's a product on Amazon that I love. Leslie: [00:38:04] Exactly. Jillian: [00:38:04] Maybe I don't have to go to China and make my mop. Leslie: [00:38:07] No, you don't. Jillian: [00:38:08] Maybe it already exists. Leslie: [00:38:10] Exactly. Are there the top three or top five recommended mops for different purposes? And if so, are they available on Amazon? The answer is yes, and if they are available on Amazon, how can you create the kind of content that exposes your audience to those products? Leslie: [00:38:32] If I'm trying to decide on the best lens from my camera, I have a Panasonic Lumix GH 5. I will go to Google, and I will start searching for specific lenses for specific purposes for the Panasonic Lumix GH 5. I'm going to go, and I'm going to find all these blogs that are comparing different lens. I'm going to look at some of the footage and so on. Leslie: [00:38:54] I'm going to make all these comparisons and then, I'm going to make a decision. Now, if I have a blogger that I follow that is an expert on videography, and they use the Panasonic Lumix GH 5 to do the things that I want to do in my life, what am I going to do? Leslie: [00:39:12] I'm going to go over to their blog, I'm going to search for lenses, and I'm going to see. What do they say? What do they recommend? And they're going to recommend a lens, and I'm going to say, "You know what? This is the lens that I want and I'm going to click on the link, head on over to Amazon, I'm going to spend a thousand dollars on a lens and they're going to make a commission from that." Leslie: [00:39:29] It's all about thinking through. What problems will your audience face and how can you introduce them to or create the solutions to those problems? And then, let them know about it. That's all it is. How a blogger can build a longrelationship with his or her audience Jillian: [00:39:45] Yes, I would say the one thing that, especially in your session that you talked about at Social Media Marketing World, is that that viewer, that reader has to trust you. You have to build that relationship. Can you talk a little bit about that? Leslie: [00:40:04] Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why emphasize the email list. I'll illustrate this with a story. When I first learned about blogging, this was back in 2008, I went to this guy. I stumbled onto an e-book from a guy. His name was Jaro. And in that e-book, I was introduced to the concept of blogging as a business. I decided to go over to his blog. I read some content there, and I thought "this is good stuff." Leslie: [00:40:33] I saw he had a free guide so I got onto his email list to get that guide. And then, what happened next was I started getting emails from him. I noticed that man, these emails have such great tips in there to the point where whenever I woke up in the morning, let's say, I had 20 or 50 new emails and I saw his name as I glanced down, I would jump directly to that email to see what he has to say because I know it's going to be good stuff. Leslie: [00:41:06] Then a few weeks later, a month or two later, I don't know exactly how long it was, I got an email from him that he was opening his membership site at $97 a month for six months, and when I saw that, I literally didn't even read through the sales page, I clicked on the Buy button, and I signed up immediately. Leslie: [00:41:28] Why did I do that? I did that because he was sending me so much valuable information that I thought to myself "Man, if I'm getting all of this valuable content from him for free, why am I going to pay? What am I going to get if I pay him $97 a month?" That's exactly what you want. Leslie: [00:41:45] That's the kind of situation you want to be in. At first, they encounter you. They are aware of what you have to offer but they come to your blog, and they read or watch or listen to valuable content, then they see that they have this valuable resource. They sign up for that, and they just start getting value from you. Leslie: [00:42:05] They start connecting with you and understanding that you are an expert on this topic or you are someone that provides them with a value where this topic is concerned. And then as you do that consistently, they come to know, like, and trust you so that when you do recommend something, their resistance is down. They know it's going to be good because you've recommended it. That's exactly where you want to be. Jillian: [00:42:32] What I love about what you're saying is that you're thinking about the long term. This is a long term relationship. This is like I talk to people on my podcast, and I say "Is this a get rich quick scheme?" Almost always, it's not, and that this is about laying the foundation for a relationship, for trust and for the idea that you and your audience are going to grow together. Leslie: [00:43:03] That's exactly what it is. Jillian: [00:43:05] It's not like I'm going to go to China, I'm going to make a mop, I'm going to come back, I'm going to sell a million mops and became a billionaire or a billion mops, whatever. It's not like that. Leslie: [00:43:17] No, it's not. Jillian: [00:43:18] It's slow and steady. Leslie: [00:43:20] Exactly. It's about going on a journey with these people that are coming to know, like, and trust you and valuing them enough to not just be the guy that's just pitching them all kinds of mops because you know that the mops can make you money. No, it's not about that. Leslie: [00:43:38] It's about going on this journey, providing them with value consistently and doing the best that you can to give them what they need. What are they looking for? How can you give that to them? If I am looking for a lens, I want to be introduced to the best possible lens at the best possible price for the scenarios that I needed. And if you can provide me with that information, I love you for it. Jillian: [00:44:09] Yes, yes. So there is this emotional connection, and it is about giving things away. Leslie: [00:44:17] Yes. Jillian: [00:44:18] It's not just about, "I'm going to sell my mop. I'm going to do everything. I'm going to buy Facebook ads, and I'm going to sell that mop". No, it's about that connection. Why you want to give your content away for free as a blogger Leslie: [00:44:28] I had someone asked, the other day, ask me a question of, "I have this idea for a blog and I'm really struggling because there's so much that I can share but I don't want to share it all because if I share it all, they're not going to want to buy from me," and my response to them is, "No. If you share it all, they're going to trust you and if they trust you, they're going to buy from you." Leslie: [00:44:56] When I record a podcast teaching you how to use Facebook ads or how to make your first dollar with your blog, I'm not going to say, "Well, I'm going to show you how to set it up. And if you really want to make your first dollar, sign up." No, no, no, no, no. "I'm going to show you how to make your first dollar from your blog. Leslie: [00:45:15] Now, if you want extra guidance, you want me to hold your hand as you do this, you can sign up for my coaching club." But in terms of the content, I mean honestly, I have no shame in saying this publicly, everything I teach in my coaching club, you could probably find it for free on my blog. Leslie: [00:45:33] And I'm happy to have it there. I know it will take some more work on your part to go and uncover all of the information in the right sequence and all that stuff, but even in that, I'm looking for ways to take all of my content and arrange it so that if you don't want to spend one dollar with me, you could still build a successful blog. Leslie: [00:45:54] That's what I want to do for free. Now, I have ways that you can pay me to work with me, and you can pay me to get some of my other products and that kind of stuff but I want to provide value because that's how people come to know, like and trust me. Jillian: [00:46:09] I love that. I do. And by the way, I just have to say you can so know, like, and trust Leslie. But again, that's it. Maybe I'm being, I don't know, too Pollyanna or optimistic, but I do feel like the good people in this model, in this business model, the good people rise. Leslie: [00:46:32] Exactly. The not so good people may arise temporarily but it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. And over time, you're going to see that the cream is going to rise to the top. Jillian: [00:46:47] Yes. Oh, Leslie, I so agree with you. So can you share how people can learn more from you, how they can reach out to you? Leslie: [00:46:57] Oh, most definitely. The best way to learn more from me is to go to becomeablogger.com. That's where I blog about all things blogging. Jillian: [00:47:06] Yes. And remember, he told you you can get everything you need on that site. Leslie: [00:47:10] You can get everything you need for free on that site. And if you want to check out more, you want to join my coaching club, you want to get me to answer your questions directly, via video like you asked a question and I answer, you can check out my blogger, coachingclub@bloggercoaching.com. Jillian: [00:47:28] And if you're a podcast listener, check out Leslie's podcast. Leslie: [00:47:32] Indeed, and you can find out all about that at becomeablogger.com as well. Jillian: [00:47:37] Terrific. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Leslie: [00:47:40] And thank you so much for having me, Jillian. Why bloggers can grow their Instagram followers faster with MiloTree Jillian: [00:47:43] Are you trying to grow your social media followers, email subscribers? Well, if you've got two minutes, I've got a product for you. Jillian: [00:47:51] It's Milo Tree. Milo Tree is a smart popup slider that you install on your site, and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:48:07] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code, and it's Google- friendly on mobile and desktop so we know where your traffic is coming from. We show a Google-friendly pop-up on desktop and a smaller Google friendly popup on mobile. Jillian: [00:48:27] Check it out. Sign up today, and get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today I'm speaking with Kevin Espiritu from the blog, Epic Gardening. Kevin and I discuss how to hire the right people to grow your business faster, the importance of SEO for bloggers, how to monetize your blog if your mission is to teach 10 million people how to grow their own food, and how you can really make a living as a poker player. Resources: Epic Gardening Book in a Box The eMyth Revisited Catch My Party MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How to Hire the Right People to Grow Your Business Faster Intro: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is Kevin Espiritu from the blog Epic Gardening. Now, Kevin is a gardener, a website owner and a student of life. He is teaching 10 million people how to grow their own food. So welcome, Kevin. Kevin: [00:00:22] Hey, welcome, Jillian. Thanks for having me on. Jillian: Okay, I was reading up on you, and you have had a very interesting path, and I'd love you to share how you got into gardening and building online communities and an online business. Kevin: [00:00:40] Sure, yeah. I guess it depends on how far we want to go back, but it is kind of a long story. I was in school. I went to University of California, Santa Barbara, and was kind of on the track to become an accountant out of all things. Yeah, I know that's the reaction I have now. Jillian: [00:00:58] Well, just meeting you, I just don't see that. Kevin: [00:01:01] Yeah. And I don't know why I ever saw it myself. I think it was one of those things where you're asked to choose what you want to do for your life when you're 18 and you just pick a generic major and sort of see where it goes. Kevin: [00:01:14] I ended up playing actually online poker in school, and that started paying the bills. It got to the point where I was making more than I would make as an accountant so I said obviously the next question would be why would you be an accountant then. How to go from professional poker player to professional blogger Jillian: [00:01:28] So you were making real money playing poker. Kevin: [00:01:31] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was studying the game because it's unlike many other gambling games. There's actually an element of skill in it. You're playing against other players and not the house. You actually can win long term. Jillian: [00:01:46] That's funny. I had just read that, that it's not exactly a game of chance. Kevin: [00:01:51] It's a mix so everything else in the casino is going to be a pure game of chance. Obviously, like blackjack, there's a strategy but you still can't beat the house unless you're counting cards. Kevin: [00:02:02] With poker, you're playing against other human beings. The House is making its money by taking a small percentage of the pot but if you're better by a significant margin than other people, you can actually win long term. Kevin: [00:02:12] If you're good, you can actually do pretty well for yourself. Anyway, to get back to it, that sort of put me off the path of maybe what you might say is just a traditional career. And then, I got into building and designing websites but that sort of became a bit stale. Kevin: [00:02:33] I wasn't really a designer at heart. It also was one of those things that you had to just keep selling websites month after month after month because once someone paid for a website, they were gone unless they needed some repairs or something like that. Kevin: [00:02:44] So that got me into marketing online, which sort of put me on this hybrid path of doing some consulting for other people like small businesses in my area, which is San Diego. Kevin: [00:02:55] At the same time, I realize maybe it makes sense to show these clients, "Hey, I actually know what I'm doing." I started a website myself, and it was right about the time I was getting into gardening. I just pick gardening as the test site to start. Kevin: [00:03:11] At the time, it was called something completely different. I hadn't really thought about the branding of it at all. That began the journey. That was maybe, I want to say 2010, but really, I hadn't touched the site at all in any significant way. It's certainly not as a business until the summer of 2016. So that's the short abridged version, I guess, of how I got into the whole thing. Jillian: [00:03:36] What made you want to turn it into a business? Kevin: [00:03:40] Yes, so I had seen just in doing consulting work and marketing work. I tried my hand at a startup as well. I'd seen that I could reach a certain point in business stuff. I really was having a hard time cracking past that plateau. I was making money. I could pay my bills. Kevin: [00:03:56] I wasn't really making what I would want to make to consider doing it full time. And so, I joined this publishing startup as a company called Book in a Box. The reason I joined, first of all, there are some cool people working there, but I also wanted to learn why can I not crack this plateau in business. Kevin: [00:04:17] I can't really get past a certain point, and there must be something I don't know. I joined that company, spent a year and a half there, building that out. It was a rocket ship so I contributed in some small way to it just blowing up. Kevin: [00:04:32] When I quit, I felt I had the tools to turn the gardening thing into a full time business. And that's what I did. And the reason why is just simply because I'm just not a good employee. Why become a gardening blogger Kevin: [00:04:43] I'm good at doing things I'm really interested in. I'm very, very bad at doing things I'm uninterested in to the point where at the most extreme, I just won't do them. I wanted to just do something that was fun, interesting to me, was valuable to people. Gardening is definitely helping people around the world. Kevin: [00:05:03] It could fund the lifestyle that I want to live, which is a relatively simple life. But I wanted it to throw off enough cash that I could invest it in gardening projects, different websites, or things like that just to kind of further the mission of the site. Jillian: [00:05:17] Now, what was the secret sauce that you were missing previously that you might have gained at this startup? Kevin: [00:05:23] Sure, yes. I think I come from a little bit different background than the average, maybe, listener to the show, where I noticed in the blogging world, a lot of these bloggers are bloggers first. I kind of never was that. Kevin: [00:05:37] And so I didn't have a good understanding of building communities and getting kind of people invested in what you're creating. I was always thinking of it from more of like a search and SEO perspective. That's a strength in itself because that's going to be free traffic forever and ever. Jillian: [00:05:55] I almost feel like we met at a conference relatively recently, and I was doing the SEO track. I felt like as bloggers, it's not how we think first. Kevin: [00:06:10] Right, exactly. So that is the biggest thing I noticed actually at that conference, and speaking with bloggers in general. Basically, my group of friends, who there are some bloggers, who are more I guess, in my way of the world. Kevin: [00:06:25] But yeah, a lot of bloggers are so good at social media. They're so good at creating and building cool things that people sort of organically talk about. The danger, at least, that I saw, and I will get back to your initial question, of what was the secret sauce, the danger that I saw was a lot of these people are relying so much on a platform so let's say Pinterest or Facebook. What is platform risk for a blogger? Kevin: [00:06:48] We've all seen before. I call it platform risk. If a significant amount of your traffic or revenue is coming from a certain platform, that's great because it's obviously working for you but it's extremely dangerous if that number is too high. Kevin: [00:07:04] So let's say you're getting 80 percent of your traffic total from Pinterest, one or two algorithm changes can absolutely decimate your entire business. Kevin: [00:07:12] And so that's why I focused on SEO at the start because as long as you're doing it with good practice, you're not sort of scamming, spamming or anything like that. That's essentially free traffic forever that only gets better and better over time. Jillian: [00:07:24] Yep. I totally agree. Like I plan in this podcast to talk more about SEO because I think it is, it's not sexy. Kevin: [00:07:34] No. Jillian: [00:07:35] It's not really fun, not like posting on Instagram, especially if that's kind of how you got into the world of blogging, whereas SEO is like straight up. We will talk about it but it's just like learning how the process works. The importance of SEO for bloggers Kevin: [00:07:55] Yeah, I agree. SEO has gone through a lot of different iterations and adjustments over time, as well as Google, and other search engines have gotten smarter. The best strategy fortunately these days is actually to just do what most bloggers are already doing which is create really good stuff. Kevin: [00:08:14] The only difference is a lot of bloggers are really good at thinking about things from the lens of what their community will think about it, whereas you kind of have to put on a different shade of glass and kind of think about a piece of content the way a search engine might look at it, because they're not human beings. And so it's really simple. It just takes a different sort of hat that you wear. Jillian: [00:08:39] You're so right. It's about how could people search and find my content, what questions are they asking instead of, "They already know me. They get my jokes." It's like what is the way into my content if I'm on Google. Kevin: [00:08:59] Totally. Yeah. There's things that are very simple. I was just talking with a blogger. She had a post about birthday party ideas for kids. She had showed me the original post. Amazing ideas, great photos, great content for a human being. It could have been better for a search engine and also better for a human being. How to optimize your blog posts for SEO Kevin: [00:09:22] So that's kind of the thing to think about. If you're going the SEO route and trying to improve your posts for SEO, it's really not going to degrade the experience for a human. It's actually going to improve it. Kevin: [00:09:33] She did things like added headings for the different themes for kids, birthday party ideas. So maybe under 1 or 5- 7, things like that, just formatting the piece better. And remember, if you're formatting it, that's better for the human eye, because we were attention-starved people these days. But also when a spider is crawling that, now it actually knows the structure and the importance of different sections of the piece. Jillian: [00:09:58] Absolutely. Kevin: [00:09:59] Yeah. I have a couple different things that I've done to extend upon that. Headings obviously are a core part of any article, in my opinion. One thing I've done is since my SEO strategy sort of relies on really comprehensive post so let's say, I'm doing a piece on how to grow spinach, I need to talk about everything you could run into when you're growing spinach which is a lot of different things. Kevin: [00:10:23] There's sort of a flow to that article, so there's how to plant it, what kind of light does it need, what kind of water does it need. What I'll do is install a table of contents at the top as well, so someone can just jump to whatever section they want by just clicking on that heading, kind of like how Wikipedia does it. Kevin: [00:10:40] Yes. That's pretty helpful on mobile. I'll always, like you just mentioned, I'll add an FAQ section at the bottom. One helpful tip is actually Google already sort of tells you what people are asking. Kevin: [00:10:52] Let's say you were to grow or you were to search how to grow spinach in Google, you scroll to the bottom. Usually, there are those question and answer boxes that they'll include there. Just answer those questions in the post. Very, very simple strategy that will pull in a little bit of extra traffic for you. Jillian: [00:11:09] Absolutely. Okay, so let's go back though. You were talking about the special sauce. Kevin: [00:11:15] Special sauce for me, that I learned at that company, Book in a Box publishing company, among many other things was that I was not building the right systems. I was thinking of my website as a one man operation. I wasn't thinking of it as a little mini business. Kevin: [00:11:34] It's a very common problem, I think, that most entrepreneurs would have is where you're working in the business and not on the business. I'm sure you've heard that phrase, right? Jillian: [00:11:42] No, I haven't. Explain. Kevin: [00:11:44] There's a book called The eMyth Revisited, I think. That particular book is mostly about people who run a small business like an actual brick and mortar, let's say a pie shop or something like that. But the idea is that you get into pie making because you like making pies. Kevin: [00:12:04] This would be the same for bloggers. You get into craft blogging because you really like making crafts. However, you quickly find that making the crafts is not really most of what you do. Most of what you do is everything else. Kevin: [00:12:19] The joy of making the craft actually starts to diminish a bit or making the pie. So you're working in your business, right? You're an employee for yourself which is not bad. And I think that's you. You absolutely have to start there. Kevin: [00:12:31] But what I wasn't realizing is like after let's say, I've written 300 articles on my website. Maybe I kind of know how those need to look from now on. I'm not saying you have to do this, but maybe I could use some help on that part of the business especially for me. Kevin: [00:12:50] I went into podcasts. I went into videos. I went into doing some live stuff in person. I can't be writing all the articles, doing 100 percent of the social media, all the podcasts, all of that. I would literally be working 100 hours a week. It's impossible. How to hire the right people who are intrinsically motivated Kevin: [00:13:06] And so as the site grew, I started to dedicate at least a little bit of that money towards an assistant, and not just getting a VA and telling them, "go do this," but really thinking about the processes and saying, "Okay, here's what I like to do on Instagram. Here's what's working. Write it out step by step." Kevin: [00:13:25] Train someone on how to help me out with that. Have checks and balances in there so they're not just posting willy-nilly, and you can make corrections here and there, but just really building up processes and then training people to help, that was the biggest thing for me. That's what really let me scale the site up to the point that it's at today. I just wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. Jillian: [00:13:46] So how many people do you have helping you? Kevin: [00:13:49] So right now, I have one writer. I found this wonderful woman who lives up in Northern California. She loves gardening, loves writing about it. She helps me out with a lot of the written content on the site these days. Kevin: [00:14:02] We kind of team write on that. She does a lot of the writing. I do a lot of the researching, editing, formatting, and a lot of like, "Here's what kind of needs to be covered in this piece. Here's what people have been wanting to learn about." Kevin: [00:14:12] We'll do the back and forth on that. And so I kind of consider her my editor in chief. And then, I have a researcher who will do a lot of like data processing type of task so if I need research done on particular keywords, if I need a bunch of images downloaded or something like that. Kevin: [00:14:33] I have a graphic designer that'll do some Pinterest images for me since I obviously realized a little too late to the game, that Pinterest was important. Kevin: [00:14:42] About last year this time, I actually realized, "Maybe I should think about Pinterest." Now, Pinterest is my biggest social driver of traffic. So yeah, I have someone who helps me out with that. Kevin: [00:14:53] I do all my video filming myself but I realized very, very quickly that the editing part of the videos was going to kill me. It's a thing that I could get obsessed with because that's just my personality. Kevin: [00:15:06] I realized that if I was to allow myself to get obsessed with that, it would detract from the mission of the site which is just teaching as many people as I can on how to grow. And so, I have a video editor who will put together those clips for me and make them look really sleek for my YouTube, for Facebook or whatever. Jillian: [00:15:24] That's terrific. Now, did you find it difficult in the beginning when you brought these people on to let go? Kevin: [00:15:31] Yeah, for sure. And so for me, the written part of the site was very hard to let go of. I've talked to other bloggers too, who just can't even imagine doing that because that is their voice. It's them. This is me. If I were to outsource that or have help on that, I feel like it would be disingenuous. Kevin: [00:15:52] And so I did definitely feel that. And the way I think about it now is that I'm kind of building a small little company. It's not going to be something crazy, something huge, but the voice is becoming a bit of a hybrid between both of us, my writer and myself, and the podcasts, obviously, that's my voice. Kevin: [00:16:13] I'm coming off the top of my head with all those topics. The videos I'm on it, I'm talking and so I've given up a little bit of control over some of the written tone and content, provided that I still make sure that's the absolute best quality information I can get out there. Yeah, it took a little bit of time but once I reframed it, it was a lot easier for me. Jillian: [00:16:35] I have found the same thing when I have brought on somebody to help me. Also, they might not do it my way. They might not sound like me and so I feel like the way that I've been able to do it is to hiring the right person who I think of as a thought partner. Kevin: [00:16:56] 100 percent. Yeah, exactly. And so the thing that was really the golden goose for me as far as the writing goes is she is a mom. She is a homemaker, I believe, and she loves gardening. And so in many areas, she's actually got more experience than me, let's say for a particular plant. Kevin: [00:17:19] She's grown more tomatoes than I have, for example, or different varieties. She's grown them more years. She's older than me. She's actually gardened, just mathematically, longer than I have. Even if I garden from age zero, I don't think I could have had more experience. Kevin: [00:17:34] There are certain areas where she is adding. That's just one of the principal rules of hiring. You want to hire people who are better than you at the job you're hiring for. Why would I bemoan the fact that she does it a little differently? Maybe her different is actually better. Jillian: [00:17:50] Yes. I think that there is that mind shift of, I don't have to be in charge of everything, meaning I can work with this person together, come up with a solution. Kevin: [00:18:08] Totally. I'll find a lot of the times that my direction will be overruled. So I'll say, "I think we need a piece on this. I'd like to cover this sort of stuff." Kevin: [00:18:18] She'll say, "You know what? I'm actually going to add in an extra section on this particular pest because this particular pest specifically attacks this plant a lot. It seems like a lot of people are asking about it. I'm going to cover that." Kevin: [00:18:32] It's something I maybe wouldn't have thought of because maybe I have less experience than her growing that particular plant or that pest isn't in my region. There's a lot of tiny little things that hiring someone better than you is going to help you out at. You really can't know until you do it Jillian: [00:18:46] I totally agree. And you have to be willing to. Again, it's that entrepreneurial spirit of you experiment, and you fail often and fail fast. If in fact, I've hired somebody and it hasn't worked out, I always try to make it that it's not personal but this isn't working out. I let that person go very quickly so that I can go find the right person. Kevin: [00:19:10] Totally, yeah. I agree with you. So what that's sort of a key thing for me is I'd like to do test projects. Jillian: [00:19:17] Yes, I do too. Kevin: [00:19:18] So with this particular writer, I did a test project but I kind of knew right away it was going to be a fit, and that was rare for hiring like an assistant type of role. I find that the test projects are really valuable. Kevin: [00:19:32] Sometimes, you even want to have multiple test projects just to make sure that it's going to be a fit. But for the particular skill of like let's say a writer, an editor or something like that, I think it's something I don't see a lot of people talk about is obviously, you want to hire for someone who knows what they're doing, but you kind of want to think about like extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. Kevin: [00:19:52] An extrinsic motivator is they get money. Money, I got paid. However, if you only hire someone who is extrinsically motivated, then there's sort of a mercenary. They don't really care about anything except for that money. Kevin: [00:20:07] They'll do a good job, sure, but only if they're getting that money, whereas if you hire someone who has a bit of a hybrid of the two, for example, my writer really loves gardening, loves writing, and loves to synthesize and share. That's within her DNA, so she's willing to go the extra mile because she actually gets intrinsic joy out of it. Kevin: [00:20:32] That's something I really haven't seen a lot of people talk about when it comes to hiring. They get a lot of bang for your buck that way. Jillian: [00:20:38] I think that's so true because I do think if you're hiring somebody who is doing it for the money, over time, it becomes less interesting for them. And if you can find somebody who gets excited about what you get excited about, what your business is about, you both can nerd out about it. Kevin: [00:20:59] Exactly, yeah. In our Slack channel, we do this. We do that. We'll talk about the tomatoes we want to grow. We'll talk about the seeds that we just bought, all sorts of stuff like this, that. It really wouldn't happen if I just hired a mercenary-type person. Jillian: [00:21:13] Exactly, so our assistant - we have a business called Catch my Party. We're the largest party ideas site on the web. I have an assistant, and she lives in Portugal. I love her. She's a designer so she has this really beautiful eye. Jillian: [00:21:27] So we will totally nerd out. We have a Slack channel. She'll say "You're not going to believe this party that somebody uploaded to our site," and then, we'll go through the photos and we'll be like, "Oh my God. That's so beautiful." Jillian: [00:21:43] She is special because, this is funny like, we'll do something design related on our blog. She won't like the font, and she'll be like, "It's hurting my design eyes," and I'm like "I totally get it." But she sees it. She sees the world in beautiful ways. So therefore, she brings that aesthetic. She can't help it because she loves beautiful things. Kevin: [00:22:08] That's a good way to put it is she can't help it. I have a story similar. I was actually just on Slack, right before this interview, talking about - I have an article on the Staghorn Fern which is a really popular both indoor and outdoor houseplant. But a lot of like millennials are growing it these days. Kevin: [00:22:23] It's just a really cool looking plant. Someone had commented about this very obscure pest that's like only in Australia. There wasn't a lot of research on it, and so I said, "Hey, do you know anything about this particular pest because I don't know a whole lot." Kevin: [00:00:00] She didn't say anything for like 10 minutes and then, she came back with this entire tome of knowledge about it, and then updated the piece, responded to the guy. If I told her about it, it was going to bug her until it was done. It's a similar type of thing that you're talking about. Jillian: [00:23:01] Totally. Now, what is it like because you have this mission of wanting people to grow their own food, right? And it seems like it's coming from a deep place inside you. Kevin: [00:23:14] Yeah, I think to me, the reason I got into the gardening thing is because I had been in marketing for so long, and I'd marketed all sorts of products, services, etcetera. Kevin: [00:23:26] I would say very few of them actually felt like they did any real difference in the world. Not to say they didn't. It's just more of a surface level of things. If you're helping a lawyer out, great. He has some more clients, and those clients got some help. Kevin: [00:23:43] Let's say I had some earlier website projects that didn't have the most grandiose goals. It was just kind of to make money. But once you kind of get past that point, let's say you're making okay money, it really does become about, "Why do I actually want to do with my days? And what is the effect of what I do on the world itself?" I kind of went down. You're familiar with like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, right? Jillian: [00:24:09] Yes. Kevin: [00:24:09] Right. I kind of went down the chain, back down. Jillian: [00:24:14] Not up the chain? Kevin: [00:24:15] Yeah, because once you kind of get up the chain, maybe you want to help other people get up the chain. Not to say I'm at the top of the hierarchy or whatever but going back down. Kevin: [00:24:25] So for me, gardening, the mission kind of came from the audience. I'd get emails. Early on it was a lot of hydroponics, contents, growing without soil. A lot of areas, soil's terrible. You can't grow in the soil. Kevin: [00:24:38] A lot of people would be writing into me from Africa, the Ivory Coast or Chile, all these different places that really, I had no idea I was affecting or I was touching, saying like, "Hey, I'm using your guide right now to grow basil, mint, and cucumbers for my mom who is like 78, and she needs something to do. She's getting a lot of joy out of it. She's going to eat some of this food." Kevin: [00:25:02] And so then I really started thinking. You really can't know the people that you're affecting because the people who email you are only a small segment of the people that are reading your stuff. I kind of felt as your site gets bigger, your responsibility kind of grows to be putting out the best stuff you can, stuff that's actually helpful. It's not sort of destroying the world in a way. And that's where that kind of came from for me. How to monetize a blog with a mission Jillian: [00:25:28] Interesting. Yeah, because I can feel your mission. My next question is how do you monetize that mission? Because you also have to eat, live. Kevin: [00:25:39] Totally. I'm, again, kind of different from probably many of the bloggers who are either listening, or you've had on the show in the past. My background was SEO like I said. Ads, for me, doing the whole AdThrive or display ad thing, that was always a throw away source of revenue for me. Kevin: [00:26:02] Until recently it was a throwaway source of revenue for me. It was easily the lowest amount of revenue I made based on. It just wasn't a lot. Early on, I was running Google Ad Sense. Ads just degrade the quality of a site in my opinion. It's hard to argue around that. Kevin: [00:26:20] But for many of us, it's a necessary evil. And for me, it actually wasn't a necessary evil for a while because it wasn't making that much. And so I didn't have the money. Kevin: [00:26:30] Only until recently have I started adding ads. Ads, of course, are there. I would like to decrease the amount of ads that I have on the site as the site scales up, and I get revenue from other places. Amazon affiliates is pretty good for me. That's one area I've seen a lot of bloggers kind of struggle with, is making some affiliate revenue via Amazon or other channels. Jillian: [00:26:52] Why do you think it's good for you? Kevin: [00:26:54] Well, it's good for me because I have approached it from an SEO perspective on the Amazon stuff. And so for me, there's a wealth of tools and products in the gardening space that I can talk about because I've used them. Kevin: [00:27:08] If I'm talking about, let's say pruning shears, I actually have a real opinion on what the best ones are and why or what the best ones are for a particular scenario, like if you're elderly or if you need a longer reach. Kevin: [00:27:23] I'll do review sort of posts on those types of products that are not really social media type of posts. In fact, I often don't even post them to my social channels, but I know that they'll do well in search. Kevin: [00:27:37] The people who are looking to have that problem solved for them, there you go. It's the most comprehensive guide you're going to find on that particular product. And so Amazon will do pretty well. I've done a few different brand deals. I'm kind of recently exploring that. Kevin: [00:27:53] Just after meeting a bunch of bloggers at this conference, I realized kind of how little I knew about the brand deal world, which is so funny because a lot of those bloggers are making all their money on ads and brand deals. They're shocked when they hear about what I was charging. I think I did one with WD-40 and charged $150 bucks or something like that. Jillian: [00:28:13] Yes, you are undercharging. Kevin: [00:28:15] I mean, to be fair, that is the first one I ever did. I was just kind of stoked that they even wanted to work with me. That was a different story. I've since increase my prices. Not waiting for the brands to come to me, for example, going to them, pitching them ideas and saying, "Here's what I've got." Kevin: [00:28:32] Podcast sponsorship is one that I've only recently started to explore so I had a sponsor for the first quarter of this year on the podcast. That was a nice chunk of change. It's kind of just one of four or five different sources of revenue that all add up to enough that I can fund the company and fund myself. Jillian: [00:28:50] And then what about YouTube? Kevin: [00:28:52] Oh, that's true. Yes. YouTube, I monetize my videos. Unless you get to significant scale, it's very difficult to support yourself on YouTube alone. I would say, after you get to around 100,000 subscribers, provided your videos get decent viewership, you can make enough to like bare bones live off of. Kevin: [00:29:14] I would never, ever rely on YouTube as a core strategy unless you have a product or service that you're also selling via that channel. So if you have like books, courses, physical products etc., then that can be a definite source of revenue. Actually, it's something I'm exploring. It's doing the courses or physical products next. Jillian: [00:29:35] Got it. Now, I would think that brands would want you to be doing video. How to work with brands as a blogger Kevin: [00:29:39] Yes, so that's sort of what I was going with the the brand deal stuff I learned. I actually learned a lot from the food bloggers about brand deals because a lot of their stuff is just so highly visual. Kevin: [00:29:50] Most of them are really big on YouTube. And so I learned doing like one a month videos. They'll do these videos anyway. The beauty of food bloggers is they have a recipe. Recipes contain many ingredients of which there are many brands that sell those ingredients so you can have a soy sauce sponsor. Kevin: [00:30:09] If you're making Asian cuisine, chances are you using soy sauce in every video so you can say, "Hey, we do a video a week. We use soy sauce in almost all the videos. If we do a minimum of one or two videos per week for you for a year, pay us two grand a month or whatever it is. Kevin: [00:30:27] You can think about it from that perspective, and for me, I kind of think about it like this might not really relate to many people in the audience, Kevin: [00:30:35] But for me, I grew up skateboarding and sponsored pro skateboarders were very similar where they have their sponsor, their grip tape sponsor, their wheel sponsor. But for us, it's the same thing. Just think about your niche, think about sort of the categories of your products in your niche, and then, go talk to the people who sell those who have a reasonable shot of landing as a sponsor. Jillian: [00:30:55] Absolutely. And I always say reach out to those brands on Twitter. Kevin: [00:31:00] Okay, Twitter has been working the best for for you? Jillian: [00:31:02] Yeah because they're listening. The brands are listening. I have found Twitter to be the best way to get to the kind of the right people at the company. Kevin: [00:31:16] So for you, for your party business at least, are brand deals are pretty significant part of your revenue? Jillian: [00:31:22] They are. And again, they have been for the last couple of years. I would say we were making most. The largest contributor would be brands. And because we're parties, we can be anything from like work with Bounty or Party City or those kinds of companies. Jillian: [00:31:45] The one thing though about working with brands that I have found, unless you have that deal where you get the soil company to sponsor your content working with brands, creating content for a brand, it's hard to scale that. Kevin: [00:32:02] Yeah, for sure. Jillian: [00:32:03] So it's like you building websites. So every single time you're starting at zero, "What am I going to create, and how am I going to create it?" And so I tend to overthink a lot of times, like the projects that I'm working on with brands. It might take me longer than I think it's going to. Kevin: [00:32:22] True. So for you, does a brand deal kind of look like you incorporating their product into a party planning idea? Jillian: [00:32:29] It's typically like a recipe like Nabisco or something. We've been doing a lot of work with SweeTarts for holidays. Hey, create a craft or an Easter basket. Here's our candy, and use our candy in the post. So then a huge big box of candy shows up at my house, and my daughter is delighted that I have to kind of hide it from her, that kind of thing. Those are much more of how we work with brands. Kevin: [00:33:02] Gotcha. And that's something that, I guess, at your scale you probably get a bunch of inquiries. But are you also reaching out to those brands and saying, "Here's who I am. Here's what we can do"? Jillian: [00:33:12] I've done both. Typically though, right now, we work with some companies like TapInfluence. It's a company that connects bloggers to brands. And right now because I'm split between Catch My Party, MiloTree, and this podcast, I haven't been reaching out to brands as much. I'm really jazzed about doing these interviews. And so I notice that this is where my attention is , where I want to be spending all the time. Kevin: [00:33:44] It's where you're naturally focused on. Jillian: [00:33:46] Yeah. So I feel like I don't need to be right now working, reaching out to brands. But there are times where I'm like, "Hey, guys. We'd love to do some sponsored content with you. Do you have any opportunities?" Kevin: [00:34:00] Totally. Yeah, I think it'll probably follow a similar trajectory for me where I don't really want to, I guess, buy myself a job by taking on so much brand work that that's kind of all I'm doing. Kevin: [00:34:13] But at the same time, I was talking about with that whole platform risk idea, or maybe you might call it revenue risk, if all your money is coming from one thing, and that thing gets hurt, you're in a bad spot. So definitely learning how to do the brand stuff is on the docket for this year. Jillian: [00:34:28] Yeah, and I would say like the soy sauce model could really work for you. These longer term sponsors where you don't have to necessarily create different stuff for them, but it naturally fits in with what you're creating. Kevin: [00:34:44] Yeah, my dream scenario for that would be thinking about a garden at least you've got soil and fertilizer. You've got maybe garden beds or something like that. You've got tools, lots of different categories of products and since gardening is such a seasonal over time industry, you're growing tomatoes, it's four months. Kevin: [00:35:03] So taking those types of deals where its like, "Hey, I'm doing this right now this year so this is what's coming out this year." For example, for me this year, I'm working on a book. The book is going to be focused on how to grow as much food as you can in a small space no matter what type of small space you live in. Kevin: [00:35:22] And so I'm taking an extreme case. I live on a relatively large urban home. I'm going to go extreme. I'm going to grow as much as I can with as many different methods as I can. That's the goal for this year. Kevin: [00:35:31] Obviously, that's going to be coming out on the YouTube channel, on the podcast and the website. And so if a brand wants to work with me, they can work with me over the course of that year. I'm not going to say, "I'm going to guarantee you get 25 posts" this and that. I'll just say like, "Look, anytime your product is in the video, in the post or in the picture, you're getting a mention." And so it's going to be a little less quantifiable but totally totally workable because I'm doing that work anyways. Jillian: [00:35:58] So our first sponsor for Catch my Party, we give away a lot of free party printables. I did this weird thing where I said to my husband, "I'm going to reach out to HP because HP makes printers." Jillian: [00:36:12] What I did was I went to the HP website. I reached out to customer service. My husband is like, "This is never going to work." I go, "Just wait." Because I saw that HP at the time was giving away some printables, I said, "Hey, is there any way you could connect me to the people at HP who are working on the printables?" Jillian: [00:36:41] And I went through a chain of, I don't know, 15 people. "I'm not the right person but maybe you should try this person." I just kept at it. Jillian: [00:36:51] Ultimately, I got to the right people, and it turned out it was an agency that was working with HP that was creating this content. I said, "Hey, what if you guys sponsor our printables?" So we were still creating them, and they were just paying us a monthly fee to get HP featured on these blog posts. Kevin: [00:37:13] And on the printables themselves, I would imagine, right? Jillian: [00:37:18] I think what we did was we added a pdf. Because the goal is to always provide value, I put together like a sheet, a PDF, that would go in front of our PDFs that would say, "If you're going to print out these printables, here's what you need: scissors, tape, glue dots and here's some HP paper that we recommend." And the truth is I did recommend the HP paper. That was authentic. Kevin: [00:37:47] Yeah, exactly. And that's really the crux of influencer marketing. It's the fact that you can influence. And the only reason that you can influence is if you believe in the things that you're doing over time because your audience trust you. Kevin: [00:38:00] So for me, when I worked with WD-40 and drastically undercharged, which we will never speak about again, I did a video. They sent over some of their pumice soap, and they sent over some oil. It's like lubricating oil. Kevin: [00:38:14] I said "How do I actually use this in a way that's relevant to gardeners?" I had some pruning shears that were relatively expensive pruning shears that I kind of neglected. They had a bunch of rust on them so I showed people how to rust the tool. I used the lubricating oil to coat it afterwards so it won't get rusty in the future. And it worked wonderfully. In the post and in the video, there is their mention, the 3-in-1 oil from WD-40. Jillian: [00:38:40] Totally. And I think that is a win-win. Everybody's winning. Kevin: [00:38:45] Exactly, yeah. I actually would go one step further and say it's a win-win-win where the audience is the third winner. Jillian: [00:38:51] Yes. And I would say that's the most important win. Kevin: [00:38:54] That's the most important win because without that, then no one else is coming to the table. The brands that want to work with you if your audience doesn't care about you and you aren't supporting yourself if your audience doesn't care about you. Jillian: [00:39:05] Totally. So what is your favorite thing to grow and eat? Kevin: [00:39:13] Oh, man. That's a good one. I'm kind of weird in that. Like if someone asked me my favorite movie or my favorite book, I really don't have any. Kevin: [00:39:22] I just have what I like at the time, so what I like at the time right now is I'm growing this pea. It's a purple dwarf pea variety called a dwarf. I think Desiree Dwarf Dessiree dwarf [00:39:37] Blauwschokkers [0.6] Pea. Very interesting name. Kevin: [00:39:40] I probably didn't say it correctly but it's delicious. This is really dark purple pea. You can just pick it right off of the vine and just pop it in your mouth so every time I go out. . Kevin: [00:39:49] Yeah, it's really sweet actually. It's very tasty. Pop those in my mouth as I'm out in the garden just kind of tending to it. Not many of them actually make it to the plate. They just want to be eaten out there. Kevin: [00:40:01] Yeah, I really like growing weird stuff so a pea. It's a purple or have a bean variety that kind of looks like white and red speckles. Sometimes, I'll sacrifice the taste of something just because I like the look of it, which is who knows if that's the right idea. I definitely like some weird looking stuff. Jillian: [00:40:20] Well, they say the more colorful, the better. Kevin: [00:40:24] Yeah. Usually in the more colorful and the more dark, the better because of the compounds that are used in a plant to create the dark color typically are also good for health. Jillian: [00:40:34] Wow. Yeah. We live in California, and we just try to eat lots of different colors. Kevin: [00:40:41] Yeah. I think there's probably some diet book out there actually about that, the Color Diet. Eat the rainbow or something like that. It's a good heuristic for sure. Jillian: [00:40:51] Yes, Kevin. I have to say I have so enjoyed, first of all, meeting you and talking to you. I recommend people check you out because when I first met you, you feel like a gardener to me. You feel like a salt of the earth. Kevin: [00:41:11] Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. Jillian: [00:41:13] I could tell you like to put your hands in the dirt. Kevin: [00:41:16] Definitely. Yeah. I mean sometimes, if you're running an online business, sometimes, it feels like you don't get a lot of work done at the end of the day because you're just clicking buttons. So if I'm out in the garden, it definitely feels like I did something even if I did even more work online. Jillian: [00:41:31] I get that. So how can people reach out to you, find you? Kevin: [00:41:34] Yeah, sure. I don't use Twitter a whole lot to be honest. So you can find me on Facebook if you just Google my name or search my name. Jillian: [00:41:44] How do you spell your last name? So it's Kevin. Kevin: [00:41:45] Yeah, the best way to spell it is just think of it like this: You have the letter E, then the word "spirit" and then, the letter U. So E-spirit-U. Jillian: [00:41:54] I love it. Kevin: [00:41:55] Yeah, I say that because I have like little participation trophies from like soccer with every possible vowel at the end of my last name, so I've had to figure out the best way to describe how to spell it. Jillian: [00:42:06] It kind of fits with your vibe. Kevin: [00:42:08] E-spirit-U? Jillian: [00:42:08] Yeah. Kevin: [00:42:10] I'll take it. I'll take it. Jillian: [00:42:12] Yes, because "spirit" is in the middle of your name. Kevin: [00:42:14] There we go. Yeah, Facebook is probably the best way. If anyone who's listening wants to talk, I'm happy to give you guys some pointers on that. And then if anyone is actually into gardening themselves, you can always go to epicgardening.com. Kevin: [00:42:29] And that book that's coming out, if you just go epic gardening.com/book, you can kind of sign up for the early release list where I'm kind of sending out like little DIY plans, chapters and updates and stuff like that . Jillian: [00:42:41] I just want to say if you are a gardener, definitely check out your podcast. Kevin: [00:42:45] Oh, right. Yeah. Jillian: [00:42:46] Because you give lots of pieces of good, good information. Kevin: [00:42:53] Yeah, daily podcasts. Any podcast player you guys use, just search Epic Gardening, and it'll be there. It's like three to five minutes a day. One topic. Keep it really simple. Jillian: [00:43:03] I love that. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show Kevin: [00:43:07] Thank you. Yeah, I had a blast. It was great talking to you, Jillian. Why bloggers and entrepreneurs should check out MiloTree to grow their social media followers Jillian: [00:24:06] If you’re trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. Jillian: [00:24:18] It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:24:27] Just a couple of things: it’s super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It’s Google-friendly on mobile so you don’t have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It’s lightning fast. It won’t slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. So check it out, milotree.com. Jillian: [00:24:53] We also offer your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 014 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Kate Erickson, from Entrepreneurs on Fire. In this episode, Kate and I discuss how to build a successful seven figure business, which is what she did with her boyfriend, John Lee Dumas. Kate calls herself Implementer in Chief at Entrepreneurs on Fire, the podcast and business she started in 2012 with John Lee Dumas. Kate and I discuss the benefits and challenges of working with your significant other, how to start a podcast as a way to start a business, and the value of mastermind groups. Even with all her success, I love how down-to-earth she is. This episode is definitely worth listening to! Resources: Entrepreneurs on Fire Kate's Take Smart Passive Income The Rise to the Top Asana MiloTree Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How to Build a Successful Seven Figure Business Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by Milo Tree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is Kate Erickson. She is the Chief Implementer at Entrepreneurs on Fire. For those of you that don't know, Entrepreneurs on Fire is a podcast Kate and her significant other, John Lee Dumas, has started this podcast, I think, back in 2012, and they have grown it into a seven figure business. So welcome to the podcast, Kate. Kate: [00:00:41] Thank you so much, Jillian. I'm excited to be here. How to start a podcast as a way to start a business Jillian: [00:00:43] So I want to say that I met you at Podcast Movement last year, and I took your course. You had a day-long course. You and John taught people how to start a podcast. It is because of your course that I now have a podcast, so I feel like I need to say thank you. Kate: [00:01:04] That's so incredible. You're so welcome. I'm so happy that you were able to be a part of that. That was the first time that we've ever run a workshop like that at Podcast Movement. So I'm really happy to hear that. Congratulations on your podcast. Jillian: [00:01:15] Thank you. And I'm loving it. I'm really loving it. So would tell us how you and John started Entrepreneurs on Fire, and did you think it would turn into what it has turned into when you initially came up with the concept? Kate: [00:01:31] So we started Entrepreneurs on Fire in 2012. So you nailed it right there in the intro. Actually, John and I were both working corporate jobs. Kate: [00:01:43] He was in commercial real estate, and I was working in advertising and marketing at the time. He actually came up with the idea to start a daily podcast where he would interview the world's most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs. Kate: [00:01:56] He wanted to do a daily. He came to me with this idea. He told me that he wanted to quit his job to pursue this dream. I wasn't really too sure what a podcast was. I wasn't super entrepreneurial so I don't really understand like the vision of how this would become a business. Nonetheless, I was very supportive. Kate: [00:02:17] I told them that I thought it would be such a cool idea. And knowing John's drive and his work ethic, I knew that he was going to make this a success so he quit his job. He started the podcast, and I continued on in my corporate job because we weren't generating revenue from the podcasts. Kate: [00:02:39] Within six months, he had kind of gained some initial traction and momentum. He started having a lot of listeners. He started having people reach out to him and ask if he offered one on one coaching. He started inviting sponsors on the podcast. Kate: [00:02:56] At that point, I think that he had a vision for what this could become, and he invited me to join the team. That was about month six that I came on board, that I joined the team. We started talking about creating online communities. We started with a mastermind that was 100 people. Jillian: [00:03:21] So people signed up for the mastermind or...? Kate: [00:03:26] Exactly. That was the very first thing that we were like, "Can this work? Are these questions and these things that people keep coming to us with saying that like they wish that they had a community of people who understood the journey that they were on, and they wish that they could ask others for feedback?" Kate: [00:03:47] Just these recurring things that people kept reaching out to us with was kind of like our first delve into, can we create a community that solves this pain point, this problem for people. Kate: [00:04:01] And I think that maybe even then, I don't know that we thought that Entrepreneurs on Fire would be what it is today but we certainly, day by day, were checking back in with our vision, our mission and being like, "Okay, we are on a path that we want to be on, and we should keep going. We should continue doing this." What is a mastermind group? Jillian: [00:04:23] And so when you started your mastermind series, for people who don't know, can you explain what a mastermind is? Kate: [00:04:29] Sure. So it could take many different forms. I mean a mastermind could be as few as two or three people, or it could be as big as like hundreds of people. It's essentially you and a group of people who have the same vision, the same mission, the same type of goals. Kate: [00:04:47] For us, it was bringing entrepreneurs together so that they can bounce ideas off from each other, get feedback and support from one another. In our case, we also provided some tools and resources, a membership site with some video tutorials and stuff like that that could help people on their entrepreneurial journey. Kate: [00:05:07] So depending on what industry or niche you are serving, the mastermind could look very different but in essence, it's people coming together to support and hold one another accountable. What is it like working with your significant other? Jillian: [00:05:18] I like that. So I have to ask this question which is what has it been like for you working with your significant other? For people who don't know, my partner is my husband. Jillian: [00:05:29] We started Catch my Party together back in 2009 and now, we've started MiloTree which is our app to help grow social media and now, the podcast. So my husband, he's got my back. I was curious what it has been like for you guys working together. Kate: [00:05:50] Yeah, I love that you say that he's got your back, because I feel like that is definitely kind of a foundation. It's really amazing to be on this journey together with John. Kate: [00:06:06] Before we started working together, we had an amazing relationship. We're very much in love with each other but there was always sort of like we would come home at night, and he would talk about his job, and I would talk about my job. Kate: [00:06:21] There are just certain barriers that are gonna be there regardless because I don't understand his world the way that he does, and he doesn't understand mine the way I do. And starting a business together or becoming partners in our business, sharing a vision, sharing goals and sharing a mission, it has really brought us so much closer together than I think we ever could have been otherwise. Kate: [00:06:47] It's such a cool experience to have with your significant other, to be excited about the same things and to know exactly how each other feels. I think it's been a really amazing experience in that. It certainly comes with its own set of challenges for sure but every single one of those is so worth it to me to be able to share that with each other. What are the challenges of working with your boyfriend? Jillian: [00:07:09] What would you say the biggest challenge is? Kate: [00:07:12] I would say turning it off. Jillian: [00:07:14] That's what I would say. That's exactly what I would say. What do you mean by that? Kate: [00:07:19] We're just both so passionate about what we do. We love our business and our audience so much that sometimes, it can be hard to not want to make sure that you're there for your community. Kate: [00:07:34] I mean we have so many ideas, opportunities, and things that we could be doing so it can be kind of hard to say, "I've been doing this for 12 hours today. It's time to be Kate and John, boyfriend and girlfriend and have dinner together." Kate: [00:07:54] We talk about fun weekend plans or like a trip that we want to take together, like it's time to stop talking about business. It's just hard to do because we love it. I'm sure you can relate. Jillian: [00:08:05] Totally. It starts to kind of blur into stuff. We also share a daughter so that's a good way for us to get off of our business and to go, "Let's talk about her." Jillian: [00:08:21] I would say this which for us, like just checking in with each other from a more kind of emotional place rather than, "Okay, I need you to do this, and I've got to do this and that kind of thing," to kind of really have like an off switch. Kate: [00:08:36] Yeah, I like that. I think it's important to kind of have like those go-tos where you can say because that's kind of been like a thing for John and me since the beginning. Kate: [00:08:44] If I'm ever talking about business and you don't want to, it's like the cord that we pull that says, "No more. I don't want to talk about this right now. Let's be a couple and not business partners." Kate: [00:08:59] I think that kind of laying that groundwork, and I love what you had said. Maybe it's your daughter that you guys start talking about in order to make that transition back into a personal life. I think it's important to have those cues or to have those things that can help you shift the conversation. Why do you publish your income statement? Jillian: [00:09:16] Definitely. So one thing that I really like about you guys is how transparent you are. If you go to eofire.com, you guys show your income statements of how you guys are making money. Jillian: [00:09:30] You guys are making a lot of money. Can you share why you do that, what you guys learn from that and why it's important for you to share that with your community? Kate: [00:09:41] So when John first started the podcast and I was still in marketing and advertising, I was kind of in a place in my corporate journey, at the ad agency specifically, where I was helping one of our biggest clients with a re-brand. Kate: [00:09:59] A big part of that was like really zeroing in and narrowing in on what their mission was, and what they wanted people to say about them when they weren't around. I kind of brought a lot of that home and had asked John a lot of those questions when he was starting the podcast. Kate: [00:10:17] If you imagine 100 people listening to the podcast, what is the mission that you have through delivering this content and what is it that you want them to say about the podcast when you're not around? Kate: [00:10:33] We came up with the mission of inspiring millions. That really helped us as we grew the business to stay true to the fact that what we provide should be inspiring for people. That was our goal. For John, a big part of his inspiration was listening to others like Pat Flynn and David Siteman Garland and learning from them. Kate: [00:10:59] He saw it from Pat Flynn, that Pat publishes his income reports. For John, that was really motivating and inspiring that here's a guy making this happen. He's creating this business. He's creating freedom in his life. He's showing people how he does it. Kate: [00:11:17] Now that I see the struggles that he faces, the wins that he has, how exactly he's making and spending his money, that's really motivating and inspiring for me. We kind of took that cue from Pat and we said, "I wonder if we were to share this stuff with our audience, it would help inspire them to know that it is possible to run a seven figure business." Kate: [00:11:44] Lo and behold, that was absolutely the case. We got amazing feedback about it. From that day forward, we were like there's not a lot of transparency in the online world. Why don't we kind of carry that torch and be those people that our audience knows that they can come to us. Kate: [00:12:01] That we're going to answer their questions and we're going to be open and honest about what it's like to run a business because ultimately, that's what we're trying to inspire them to do. If we're not sharing the ins and outs, the pretty and the ugly there, then we're not really doing our job. How Entrepreneurs on Fire monetizes their business Jillian: [00:12:17] I was just looking at your site and you break it down. It looks like four different buckets. You guys make money via sponsorships so that, I'm assuming, is sponsorships for the podcast. Jillian: [00:12:29] You guys have an online community for other podcasters called Podcasters Paradise which is where you have like a bunch of tools and things like that. Am I right? Kate: [00:12:44] Yes, it's a membership site with video tutorials. Jillian: [00:12:49] Exactly. And then you guys do affiliate revenue. You guys have found companies that align with your audience, that you guys believe in and then, you sell. You get an affiliate fee if somebody buys that and then you guys created your journals. Can you talk about what your journals are? Kate: [00:13:09] Sure. So right now, we have two. We're working on our third which is really exciting. The first journal that we launched is called the Freedom Journal. Kate: [00:13:18] It's how to set and accomplish your number one goal in 100 days. A year after that, we launched the Mastery Journal which is master productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days. Both journals are very intentional. Kate: [00:13:31] It's a day by day guide and accountability partner for people who are trying to either set and accomplish their number one goal or become more productive, disciplined and focus. Kate: [00:13:45] What we've done through the journals is try to give people a daily layout that they can follow to start making a habit out of saying, "Okay, if I want to accomplish X in 100 days, what needs to happen in the next 10 days for me to be 10 days closer to that, or if I want to become more productive and disciplined and focused, how do I need to be setting up my days in order for that to happen?" Kate: [00:14:10] So these journals are really meant to guide people through that every single day to be able to accomplish things. Both of them were born out of struggles and questions that our audience was coming to us with. Jillian: [00:14:24] That's so interesting. Again, when I took your workshop, you guys gave a handout. It literally went step by step-by-step in terms of how to launch a podcast. All I did was go step by step-by-step, break it down and then ultimately, I was able to do that. Why small goals matter when starting a business Jillian: [00:14:41] I'm a big believer in small goals, small achievable goals everyday and then eventually, you look back and you're like, "Oh my God. I did it." It's just about sticking in there even when it's tough. Kate: [00:14:57] Yes, definitely. I think that that's just what a lot of people need. The online space can be really overwhelming when you're trying to start a business that there's a lot of things going on and different things competing for your attention. Kate: [00:15:12] Sometimes, people just need a guide to help them. That's what we tried to do in that workshop that you were in, Jillian. That is what we try to do with all of our content really, to give people a path and a guide that they can actually take and implement so that they feel that progress, and they see that progress because we need that. Kate: [00:15:30] As entrepreneurs, we need to know that what we're doing is making a difference and that it's leading us somewhere because otherwise, you just get frustrated and feel like giving up. Jillian: [00:15:40] Right. You talk a lot about systems. I think, in your own podcast, you had a whole year talking about building out systems. So if you're a blogger, what would you say some of the first systems you would want to put in place? Kate: [00:16:01] I would say, as a blogger, definitely kind of a system for content curation and creation would be a big one because I know, for me, I'm a writer as well and I do our blog at Entrepreneurs on Fire. Kate: [00:16:14] In the beginning, a big struggle for me was deciding what content to create and knowing that that was the right content to create. I think that there's certainly a system or a process that you can put in place to not have that feel. It's such hard work all the time. I also feel like repurposing content is a big one. Kate: [00:16:37] As a blogger, I think it's important to understand that even though you love to write and publish written content on your site, that there might be a whole huge audience out there that is never going to read a blog so being able to repurpose out content on social media, through podcasts or through videos to meet your potential audience where they're at is really important when thinking about the growth and visibility that you could have for your business. Why repurposing your content is important to grow your business Kate: [00:17:08] I think there's definitely systems and processes to be made and the repurposing category as well. Jillian: [00:17:13] How do you guys at Entrepreneurs on Fire repurpose your content, for example? Kate: [00:17:19] A great example would be our blog. When I create a blog post, every blog post turns into a podcast episode. If you tune into my podcast, Kate's Take, you have a blog post that you're referencing which is directly how I create that podcast episode, so it becomes audio. Kate: [00:17:38] Also, from that, I create social media content. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, you will see the content being shared on all of those platforms. It is really just a matter of taking one single piece of content. It even starts before the blog post too. Kate: [00:17:58] That blog post might have been created out of an email conversation that I was having with somebody where they asked a really great question that I took a lot of time to answer. Kate: [00:18:07] Thinking like instead of just answering this one person's question via email which I'm going to do anyways but why not leverage that content, turn it into a blog post. Why not leverage that blog post, turn it into a podcast? Why not leverage that podcast and share it on social media? Kate: [00:18:23] You can kind of start to see a system where you're able to use the same piece of content to stretch it further, to leverage it more. In the process, you're providing value to more people and getting more visibility for your content, your brand. Jillian: [00:18:40] Right. I like what you said when you said you want to reach people where they're at. I will say I have a podcast, and people will saym "I've never listened to a podcast." You're right. If you can take that and so that person is not living in the world of podcasts but might be somebody who's on Instagram. I love that idea which is don't assume that people are just going to come to you. It's like you go to where the people are. Kate: [00:19:09] Yeah, and that was my biggest struggle when I first started my blog. I thought that if I started a blog, people would start coming and reading it. I soon found out that there was a lot more work on my end to get the content out there so that people knew that it was there. Jillian: [00:19:28] What would you say then that you know now that you wished you knew when you guys were just starting? Kate: [00:19:38] Actually, I think that that realization of needing to meet people where they're at would have been really great to know earlier on because we have so much content on our site that has never seen an audio version, a video version or a social media version. Kate: [00:19:58] It still serves us and our audience in a really great way because it's there. But it's a matter of whether anyone's ever going to find it. Kate: [00:20:08] I guess that if I would have known when we first started like this whole idea of repurposing or this whole idea of it's not so much about creating more, more, more, more content, it's about leveraging the content that you already have, that could have saved me a lot of time and potentially gotten more eyes on fewer pieces of content rather than thinking I needed to just keep creating more so that more people would come. Kate: [00:20:36] That equation being flipped, I think, is an important one to recognize. Jillian: [00:20:43] Yes. For us, 2018 is the year of repurposing. We have so much content on our original site called Catch my Party, that we realized that thousands of blog posts, that kind of thing and that that stuff is still relevant. A lot of it is evergreen. This is the year for us to go back into our archives, start refreshing what we already have and repurposing it because there's all this lost value. Kate: [00:21:14] Absolutely. Doesn't it feel great? When I repurpose something, I feel so much better about that piece of content because I feel like it's working for me versus me working for it. Jillian: [00:21:26] Yes, absolutely. So what is one tool that you use every day in your personal life, in your professional life that you need, that you love? Why Entrepreneurs on Fire uses Asana to manage their business Kate: [00:21:40] I would have to say the project management software, Asana. I use that every single day. It's actually the very first thing that I open on my computer every single day when I sit down to dive into work. Kate: [00:21:54] The reason I love it so much and that I don't feel like I could live without it is I have it set up in a way to where I don't have to think or guess about what I'm going to be working on because I have every single task, every single project, every single due date, every single reminder that I could ever need in Asana. Kate: [00:22:13] It also helps me work with my team which is really great. Jillian: [00:22:16] Right. In fact, I've looked into it. How many people are on your team? Kate: [00:22:20] So we have five people on our team including myself and John. Jillian: [00:22:23] Got it. And so you can put all your projects in there, and everybody can see where things are. Is that right? Kate: [00:22:32] Yep. You can assign specific parts of a project to a team member, give them a due date and you can comment on it or leave notes. It's really helpful in that respect that you're able to quickly shoot off like a task or something to somebody else on your team and give it a due date. It just helps keep everyone on the same page. Advice for entrepreneurs: Enjoy it! Jillian: [00:22:53] That's cool. Do you have one piece of parting advice for our audience to kind of motivate them through the day, through the year, through the journey? Kate: [00:23:07] I would say to enjoy it. There's been so many times on my journey where I've gotten either super stressed out, really worked up, really disappointed or really frustrated with something. Kate: [00:23:22] At the end of the day, this is supposed to be fun. We're supposed to be making an impact for our audience and for other people out there. We can't do that when we're frustrated, angry or feeling down about stuff. So enjoy the journey. Appreciate those roadblocks and the times that you stumble as learning experiences. Have fun. Jillian: [00:23:42] That's great. So Kate, how can people reach out to you? Kate: [00:23:45] Everything that we do is over at eofire.com. I love to hear from anyone who's tuning in, who is maybe inspired or had a big take away from this episode. My email is kate@eofire.com. Jillian: [00:24:00] Great. Thank you so much for being on the show. Kate: [00:24:03] You're so welcome. Thanks so much for inviting me. Why bloggers and entrepreneurs need MiloTree to grow their businesses Jillian: [00:24:06] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. Jillian: [00:24:18] It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:24:27] Just a couple of things: it's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google-friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. So check it out, milotree.com. Jillian: [00:24:53] We also offer your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 012 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is David Christopher, Director of Marketing and Growth at Tailwind, and an SEO and digital marketing expert. David and I talk in depth about what bloggers need to know to win at SEO,  and how there is serious traffic to be had on Google, if you just understand certain SEO strategies. If there's one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it is that you don't need to be technical or geeky to do SEO well, and it doesn't even take a lot of time. In this episode, we discuss what exactly Google is looking for, and how easy it is to give Google exactly what it wants. This episode is filled with quick, actionable steps you can take today to get free traffic to your site. Resources: Tailwind BigWing Interactive SEMrush MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – What Bloggers Need to Know to WIN at SEO Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today, my guest is David Christopher. David is the co-founder of Big Wing Interactive, which is a digital marketing agency. It is on the most recommended list of SEO companies and currently, he's the Director of Marketing and Growth at Tailwind. What does Tailwind do for Pinterest and Instagram? Jillian: [00:00:32] For those of you who don't know, Tailwind is a... well, actually, here, David, why don't you share what Tailwind is because we use it, and we would be nowhere without it? So welcome. David: [00:00:44] Hi. Yes, so Tailwiind is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduling and analytics platform. Our mission is to make world class marketing easy for everyone. Jillian: [00:00:55] So we use Tailwind everyday to schedule all of our pins, to watch our growth, to be strategic, and we've been using Tailwind for years now. Jillian: [00:01:08] Anyway, David, we met about a week ago at Social Media Marketing World, and it's a very big conference in San Diego. David, you were my first friend. I was there. I was overwhelmed, and I met you and you were like this breath of fresh air. David: [00:01:28] So I'm a one-in-4000 kind of guy. Jillian: [00:01:32] Yes, you are. So the reason why I invited you on the show today is to talk about SEO, which means search engine optimization. Which is how you put content out, Google finds that content, and then Google serves it up to people who are searching. Jillian: [00:01:53] For bloggers, I would say, SEO, it just seems so abstract and difficult. Google seems like this black box. I want us to really dig in on how as a blogger, who might not be very technical, how you as a blogger should start to think about SEO. David: [00:02:17] Yes, I think that's a great topic, Jillian. I'm excited to talk about it. A lot of what I've been doing over the last many years is trying to make that specific topic more and more simple, both for myself so that I can do better at it, and for other people whom I work with. David: [00:02:36] Having to run an SEO team and a team of content marketers and tried to sort of bridge that gap. I've put a lot of energy and thought into this, so I'm excited to kind of boil it down. Jillian: [00:02:49] Great. Somehow, SEO does not seem anywhere near as sexy as posting on Instagram. David: [00:02:55] No, it's not. It doesn't, does it? Jillian: [00:02:59] And I know a lot of bloggers who therefore go, "I'm not going to dig in there. I'm just going to work on my Instagram." If you understand SEO, you can get a ton of traffic from Google for free! David: [00:03:05] Yeah. And unfortunately, the truth is that there is a ton of traffic to be gotten from Google. There's a ton of traffic, and it's extremely motivated traffic as well, because this is traffic that has a specific question, but it's turned to Google to get the answer to that question. David: [00:03:36] Google has crawled the web and it says, "Well, here are the 10 best answers to your question that exist on the web." And of course, if you're the first best answer to that question on the whole world wide web, then tons of traffic is going to come your way. David: [00:03:55] That traffic has already basically been validated that your article is awesome. So it's really a fantastic source of traffic. Those who are using it for traffic and getting traffic from it know that. What I'd like to kind of talk about is where does that start. David: [00:04:16] How do you find your way into SEO into Google traffic? The way that I find my way in is... I think of Google, I think of those people who are approaching Google. What are they asking, the questions that they're asking that I can answer. It's as simple as that, really. For SEO, ask yourself what are people searching for on Google? David: [00:04:39] And there are a few different ways to kind of come across an answer to that question. The first is by instinct. If you don't even want to touch a tool, you can do good SEO without doing any research or anything like that, just through really thinking about the kinds of questions that you hear people ask in your space. David: [00:05:06] It can really be as simple as that. Lately, I've been hearing a lot of people ask, for example, how much traffic Pinterest can send me because in Facebook, traffic is going down because they are limiting the reach of businesses. David: [00:05:23] So people are turning to other networks. Pinterest is one of the networks that is known for sending traffic. I know that people are asking the question, "Do I really need to do keyword research to validate that?" Not necessarily. I can just say, "I believe that that's what people are searching for." David: [00:05:45] The next question is, "How are they searching for it? What words are they using?" And the answer to that is, "What was it that they used when they asked you about that question? When you've heard that question posed, how do real people talk about this?" Jillian: [00:06:00] Okay, so let's say I am a food blogger. Let's say I am a niched food blogger. Let's say I am a vegan food blogger. So what I do is I sit in my kitchen, and I come up with cool vegan recipes. David: [00:06:17] Yes, so you're sitting in your kitchen, you're coming up with cool vegan recipes, you're thinking specifically about vegan food, and you're thinking about the kinds of things that people would be interested in. David: [00:06:32] It might be vegan chocolate desserts. It might be vegan bread and vegan this and that. All the different kinds of things that you know are popular and the words that people use for them. David: [00:06:48] When you're thinking about your vegan chocolate cake, you've been calling it a vegan Chocy Puff Puff. Kids love that, right? Jillian: [00:06:59] Is that a British thing? David: [00:07:01] It's not. I just made that up but it sounds frou frou. Jillian: [00:07:05] It sounds fun. David: [00:07:07] Yes. So the Chocy Puff Puff, the vegan Chocy Puff Puff, when it comes time to write your recipe up and name it, you're not necessarily going to want to call it the vegan Chocy Puff Puff everywhere because people won't be searching for that. David: [00:07:27] Because you made that up until such times as this thing really takes off, and everybody is talking about the vegan Chocy Puff Puff. For SEO, use keywords in the name, title, and throughout your post David: [00:07:36] When it comes to search, SEO, for Pinterest too because Pinterest is a search engine in many ways, you're going to want to use the words that people use. You look at your vegan Chocy Puff Puff, and you think, "How would somebody describe this?" If the answer is, "It's a vegan chocolate cake", then you have to use those words for both the naming, the title of your recipe and throughout your recipe. David: [00:08:10] One way in it is, "I want to make my vegan Chocy Puff Puff. I want to put that out there." That's one way, but the other way in is, "What are people really looking for right now? What are they really interested in?" What is keyword research for SEO? David: [00:08:29] That way, you start with what's called keyword research. I already talked to you about instinct but there are other very simple ways to give you a little bit more of a leg up. Jillian: [00:08:40] Could you just very briefly describe what a keyword is? David: [00:08:46] Okay. Yes, thank you, Jillian. Keep bringing me back to this. I like that. Okay, so a keyword is simply a word that you have identified as being key to some kind of search intent. David: [00:09:04] So somebody is searching for a thing. Let's say that your title for your recipe now is vegan chocolate cake. Well, I forgot what it was - chocy puff puff, delicious Chocy Puff Puff. Now, your keywords here are vegan chocolate cake because those are the ones that people are going to search when they're looking for vegan chocolate cakes. David: [00:09:34] Your Chocy Puff Puff, that's more of sort of a branded term. Those aren't really keywords because nobody else will ever use them. Jillian: [00:09:45] Got it. David: [00:09:45] So keywords really are words that have search intent behind them. Jillian: [00:09:53] Got it. Start keyword research with Google Auto-Suggest David: [00:09:54] So we've figured out some topics based on instinct, what we think people looking for. Another great way in to finding new ideas for keywords in different plays on things is with a tool called Google Auto-Suggest. David: [00:10:13] All that is is you load up google.com, and you start typing the words that you think people are interested in. If I was to load up google.com and start typing, if I was to start, let's try it. I'm going to load up google.com right now. I'm going to start typing vegan. David: [00:10:42] What it's showing me is a bunch of searches that people have done. It actually orders them based on how popular those searches are. So the first thing it's showing me is vegan recipes. David: [00:10:53] It says vegan diet, vegan cheese, vegan pancakes, vegan food near me, vegan breakfast, etc. This is rudimentary keyword research. It couldn't be easier. All I did was started typing a word and Google's telling me, "Here are other things that people commonly search when they search for this." Jillian: [00:11:14] So just based on that, this is the way that I think about it, I would immediately get in my kitchen and start making vegan pancakes. Do you think that's a good idea, or do you feel like vegan pancakes, because it is one of the first options or suggestions, that it is such a crowded space, that I shouldn't even try to make vegan pancakes and try to rank for that in Google? David: [00:11:42] Yes. So a part of this will depend on how strong you think you are as a content creator, and how strong you think your website is compared to other people's in this space. David: [00:11:55] Now, I wouldn't worry too much about that second one, how strong you think your website is. Because ultimately, if you can do the first one right, be the best content creator out there, then Google will, in time, respect your website and send you traffic. David: [00:12:14] The answer to that for me is you Google the thing that you're thinking about creating. Now, we've decided "Alright, we were going to do a chocolate recipe but vegan pancakes sounds really interesting. It's saying that there's tons of traffic for this so we're going to Google vegan pancakes." David: [00:12:40] We're going to look at the results. What we see is a five minute vegan pancake recipe, All Recipes vegan pancake recipe, light and fluffy vegan pancakes, how to make easy vegan pancakes without eggs and milk, and whole grain vegan pancakes. Those are the top five results. How much traffic do the top results on Google get? David: [00:13:08] That's what I would tell you to do. Look at the top five results because most of the traffic will go there. In fact, around about 20 percent of the traffic for that keyword search will go to the first results. David: [00:13:24] Each one down will get about half as much traffic as you go down that page. Those top five are where you really have to be if you want to get a good amount of traffic. I described each of those titles for each of the pieces, and did you notice how each one was slightly different? They each had something going for it, didn't it? Jillian: [00:13:43] Yes. David: [00:13:43] One was a five-minute, sounds nice and easy. One was light and fluffy. One was how to make easy ones without eggs and milk, specific about not being with eggs and milk. The other one was whole grain. Ask yourself how your content is different to stand out in Google David: [00:13:56] They've all got something going on. The question that you would then have for yourself is - It's like any marketing question really - "How am I different? How's my content different? How's it going to stand out here? David: [00:14:10] Can I make something that really does stand out that nobody else has done here, but I know that people who are looking for vegan pancakes are really going to love. Jillian: [00:14:19] So would you say that words like easy, five-minute, those kinds of things, are part of your keywords like when you're coming up with what your vegan pancake recipe will be, that you should really be thinking about, that even the word easy can be beneficial? David: [00:14:42] Yeah. So I would differentiate them from keywords because they likely won't have a ton of search intent. People might be searching for easy vegan pancake recipes, and if you believe that to be the case, then easy is then one of your keywords. David: [00:15:01] You are deliberately going to try and rank for easy vegan pancake recipes. If that's not the case, and really just going for a vegan pancake recipes, then the easy part or the whole grain part is more about positioning. David: [00:15:19] It's more about saying, "This is what I think people will be excited to click on when they see this list of recipes." We often see that with things like the ultimate guide to -. Jillian: [00:15:29] Yes, best, top, those kinds of things, I never know whether I should be using those words in my titles. David: [00:15:38] Well the answer to that is - I'm going to now explain how Google decides where to rank your piece of content. Okay, so let's say we've actually finished our recipe. David: [00:15:56] We've typed it up on the blog. We've done the very basics of SEO which I can't like neglect. I'm going to say them now and they are use the keywords in the title of the post. That's essential. If you don't do that, you won't rank. David: [00:16:14] It's as simple as that. The second one is you use your keywords throughout your post. Simple as that. Jillian: [00:16:23] Now, here's one question which is, it used to be that you would want to repeat the exact keywords like five times in the post and then I've read that Google's smarter than that and then ultimately you can mix it up a little bit. Jillian: [00:16:37] Let's say it's easy vegan pancakes that you might say these vegan pancakes are the easiest. You don't have to say easy vegan pancakes five times in your post. David: [00:16:51] Yeah. I would say that yes, the truth now is that Google's very smart at telling what your post is about. The most important thing that you can do is to actually write a post that is about that thing. David: [00:17:09] If your post really is a recipe for easy vegan pancakes, then it will be very difficult for you to write that recipe for easy vegan pancakes without the word easy, vegan and pancakes. David: [00:17:23] You don't have to worry too much about using your keywords. When you've finished your post, you might just want to check over it and make sure that you are using those words. It should be very organic, and the biggest thing that Google's looking for is that yes, the words are there but that's ultimately not what's most important. David: [00:17:46] What's going to be much more important is how people respond to your post. I'm going to get into that in a minute. You use those keywords, and I just boil it down to call a spade a spade. It's as simple as that. David: [00:18:03] Just write your post. It's about what it's about. Just write it. And when you're finished, just look over it and just say "Is it clear that this is what this is about, and we're using the words? I am? Okay, that's good enough." David: [00:00:00] Don't worry about any formulas for how many times you should use this word and that word and getting the exact phrase match and things like that. Don't worry too much about that. That's not what's going to really determine whether or not your recipe ultimately or your piece of content is in ranks. What is going to decide how your post ranks in Google is how people respond to it David: [00:18:38] What's going to decide it ultimately is how people respond to it. This is how Google has really changed in the last few years. Now, what they'll do when you launch a piece of content is they will shuffle it around in the rankings. They'll sort of show it briefly on the first page, and they'll see how people respond to it when they click through it. David: [00:19:03] And here's what they're looking for. The two basic things that they're looking for is the click through rate. When your post is in a search result, do people click on it? Do they think it's a good answer, that it sounds like a good answer which is a big part of why we spend that time thinking about what's the best position for our piece of content in amongst these other pieces of content that we know already do well? David: [00:19:37] Now if you don't have that, if yours is the fifth easy vegan pancake recipe in the list of easy vegan pancake recipes, then you are not going to have anything compelling enough to kind of shoot you up the list. You just can be another one of all of those. But now, let's think about that same list of five easy vegan recipes. What if one of them was a one minute vegan recipe? That's different. That's really easy. David: [00:20:08] What if one of them was a waffle pancake? It's an easy waffle pancake recipe. How are you differentiating? How are you going to be the one that they click on? Because what Google does is it knows the average click through rate of all the different positions. Let's say it's put you on position 2 but it's observing that you're getting more clicks than the guy who's in position 1. Well, you need to be in position 1, and so it moves you to position 1. Jillian: [00:20:44] Wow. So it is constantly testing out your content. David: [00:20:51] That's right. It's constantly shuffling its search results to see if there's a better result, basically, all of them in the order of how well people respond. The second part of this that I definitely want to talk about as it relates to exactly what I'm kind of talking about right now, is how people interact with your content, right? David: [00:21:12] So one of them is click through rate. That's whether they click on your content when they see it in a search result. The other one is dwell time. Google knows when somebody click through to your content. They know when they click back out to the search result. They obviously own their own property so they can see it. David: [00:21:35] If someone comes over to your recipe, comes back, goes and looks at a different recipe and stays there longer, that's a good sign that that other recipe actually was the better answer for them. The sort of flipside to that is if they could go over to your piece of content and they spend a long time there before either coming back or coming back and doing a different search, then that suggests that your content was really good. Google knows is how long people spend on your content David: [00:22:05] The other thing that Google knows is how long people spend on your content. Do they take a long time reading it? That's also a big one. And if they do it, if people spend twice as long reading your content as the other results on the page, then Google will favor with your content, and you'll find it raised or rising up in the rankings. David: [00:22:30] Now, one thing that we do to help with that is videos. If you have videos on the page, it tends to increase the amount of time people spend on your content but also just creating really definitive answers, really great pieces of content and also pieces of content that have related pieces of content that you can go on and keep kind of exploring out on your website or elsewhere. Jillian: [00:22:57] And I was just reading an article about this. I forgot the term but it's this idea that if you are answering the vegan pancake question and you have this great vegan pancake recipe but then you had done a vegan crepe recipe, that within your vegan pancake recipe, maybe at the bottom, you say, "Hey, if you did this easy vegan pancake recipe, check out my vegan crepe recipe." Jillian: [00:23:26] And the idea is to continue to answer the question or to continue to peek the interest of the reader with more relevant content. David: [00:23:35] Yeah. I think it's an excellent idea both in terms of recycling traffic that you already have. So you've gotten traffic and now, you're going to get additional page views from that traffic and build additional loyalty from that person. David: [00:23:48] Perhaps they'll pin that and that other recipe as well, but also in terms of that's a person who's not going back to Google. They're staying on your website so it's a sign to Google that this is a good website, that people like it there. Jillian: [00:24:02] Isn't the word authority, that Google sees you're having authority in that area? David: [00:24:13] Originally, there is this stool you might think of. Originally, it had one leg. It wasn't very stable. That leg was relevance . Google would look at your website, and it would say, "What does this website tell us it is?" and we'll rank it accordingly. What does "authority" mean with Google SEO? David: [00:24:32] Obviously, that's open to spam. Anybody can say anything is anything, and it's not really that. So they made another leg, and it's authority. Authority is: "What do other websites say about my website? Who is linking to me, and what do they know?" David: [00:24:49] If I'm a vegan blogger or a dozen other vegan bloggers linked to my recipes, then that tells Google that I'm respected within the world of vegan bloggers. That's important still today, the authority of your website, and you'll discover that Google respects you for certain topics. David: [00:25:08] If you are a vegan food blogger and then you try to write about a lesson plan for a mathematics course, you'll find that you'll struggle a lot more to rank for that because Google looks at your website and says "What do you know about mathematics?" It doesn't respect you yet for that until you've got authority there. David: [00:25:34] So authority is an important part of it as well. The challenge with authority is that it's very difficult to sort of fake or get a leg up beyond because it's based on links, and links are difficult to get. David: [00:25:56] Often, the best way ultimately to get links is to be notable and to do great work because once you've got that vegan pancake recipe up the top five vegan pancake recipes on Google, you are going to be getting thousands of people looking at it. David: [00:26:16] They're going to be searching. They're going to be sharing it on social. They may be linking to it from their own blogs when they start to write about other recipes. What we find over time is that the stuff that ranks, attracts links and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so a rising tide lifts all boats, and your blogs suddenly becomes respectable by Google, and you find everything starts ranking. Should you work with other bloggers on SEO sharing links? Jillian: [00:26:43] Now, here is a question. I talked to a lot of bloggers, and one strategy bloggers are using is coming together, working within their niche, befriending their competitors, that kind of thing, and then doing this thing where they are sharing links. Jillian: [00:27:03] So let's say you and I are both vegan recipe developers, bloggers, and I have a pancake recipe. You've got the chocolate cake recipe. Let's say somehow, I say, "Well, you can turn my pancakes into chocolate pancakes. In fact, you may even want to check out this chocolate vegan recipe on this other site, on your side. I put a link to it and then you put a link to my site on your blog." Jillian: [00:27:33] Do you think that is a good strategy, especially if I know that your link is high quality? I like your recipes. You like my recipes. Should we start working together? David: [00:27:42] Yes. That's sort of the very best way to go about it. That's very organic. That's two people who know each other, who respect each other's content, sharing their audience with each other. That's exactly what Google is looking for when it looks for authority. It wants to know that you have relationships with other bloggers and that you respect this specific recipe of theirs enough to send your readers over there. So that is absolutely a great way to build authority. Jillian: [00:28:17] So as a blogger, you can be very intentional if you have a group of friends who are doing what you're doing, that you guys can work together to help each other with search. David: [00:28:28] Yeah. You can absolutely. You can even get to the level of sophistication where you're aware of all the things you would like to rank for. You're aware of where you rank for all various different things. You are reaching out to your friends to say, "Hey, I have this great vegan pancake recipe. It's stuck at number 11 at the moment. I just need a couple of links. And I think it'll be in the top five. And from there, it's the best. It will rise up like a good cake." David: [00:29:11] You can even get that deliberate where you're cherry picking the things that you want people to link to and then can using those relationships in that way. Jillian: [00:29:22] Let's say we have a post that I think is terrific. On our site, for example, we have a unicorn Easter bunny printables. They're super cute, original and I want a rank for them. So I would go into Google, and I would search for Easter Bunny unicorn printable, see where I organically am coming up. It's just like search for it and see if I am on the third page or the first page. David: [00:29:55] The thing is I would go incognito before you search for it. Google is aware of your search history. I know, Jillian, that you really like the Catch My Party website. So it's going to say, "Oh, well. Catch My Party has a piece about this, so Jillian is going to like so I'll show her that one first." Jillian: [00:30:14] That's good. David: [00:30:15] So you want to go incognito to get a more realistic view of what other people will see. Jillian: [00:30:21] Okay, so let's just go back for a second. An incognito window is a window that has no cookies, no history. Google does not know who I am. If you don't know how to open an incognito window Google it with your browser. I use Chrome so I know how to open an incognito window in Chrome. If you use Safari, just Google it. It's very easy to figure out. David: [00:30:50] That's right. Yes. Yeah, exactly. But you're right. Search for the thing that you're interested in ranking for. Look at where you currently rank, and look at the competition. David: [00:31:03] Ideally, you've done all that before you even wrote the piece of content because you were aware that there's a bunch of pieces of content out there that are about one aspect of this, but they all neglect this important aspect that you could put in your post and therefore, make it more appealing in those search results. Jillian: [00:31:25] So we've got the Easter Bunny but then we add the unicorn to it. And all of a sudden, wow, okay. David: [00:31:33] There's the little element of magic. Jillian: [00:31:35] Yes. Okay. So then I see this post and let's say after we get off the call, I'm going to go look but it's on page three. I would like to get it up to page one. So then I would reach out to some of my friends and say, "Hey, I've got this post. Do you think you could add a link to your blog somewhere, and I will then add a link to whatever you want on my blog. I'll find a relevant piece of content, and I will then attach, add it organically within the post someplace else on my blog." David: [00:32:11] Yeah. A challenge there that you'll come across is where will they link to this from that will make sense for people. If you want to try to broker that kind of relationship, it often pays to have figured that out for them. David: [00:32:29] I noticed that you wrote about a unicorn party recently, and I have this cool thing about Easter and unicorns. And so I think this will be a great piece of content for you to link to whereas if you approach your chartered accountant blogger who has a finance blog, there are going to be like, "I mean that sounds great but I really don't understand how I can make that happen for you." The value of guest posting on other people's blogs David: [00:33:01] The ultimate answer to how to make that happen for yourself is guest blogging which a lot of people use. Essentially, you say, "I'd like to come onto your blog to write a post for your blog." And this kind of usually an understanding there that in that post, there will be a couple of links to your content. It will be a post that will in some ways explain to their audience who you are and what you do. David: [00:33:31] So if you were to approach your finance blogger friend with a post about how to throw cheap parties that won't break the bank of any family, that might make sense to them. In that post, you can mention your really affordable Easter party since that's coming up, and you can mention maybe a couple of other things that need a little bit of little love. Jillian: [00:34:04] As a strategy though, is it more powerful for those links to show up and say up another party blogger's blog or my accountant's blog? Does that matter? David: [00:34:14] Party blogger's blog if possible. The reason behind that being that Google is aware of what your friend's blog is about. It will send more authority to you for party related topics if it's a link from a party related website. However, all links are good. David: [00:34:41] Another thing you should know about them is that there are diminishing returns for links from the same domain. So what does that mean? What that means is if you had the option of getting 100 links from one domain from one of your friend's blogs or 100 links from ten different friend's blogs, you should definitely go for the ten different friends because each time Google says, "Well, clearly, I already know that this website likes you. I care less about this second and third and fourth and fifth link than I did about the previous one." Jillian: [00:35:18] Right. Now, here's a question: Does it help? Let's say I link to your blog. Does that help me at all? Let's say I happen to link to your blog, and it's not quid pro quo. Does that at all affect me or am I only sharing the love with you? David: [00:35:37] Yeah, you're sharing your traffic as well and you should be aware of that. A certain number of people will click through that link and may never come back. David: [00:35:47] But other than that, it doesn't affect you to the detriment at all unless of course, you're helping your competitors to outrank you for things that you're trying to rank for. For example, a very bad strategy is to Google the thing you want to rank, read the top 5 articles and be like, "Well, these are all brilliant. I'm going to link to all of them and then send lots of authority to all the things you're trying to beat." David: [00:36:16] That's probably not a smart way to go about it, but in general, there's no real downside to linking to somebody else. I want to just mention one more way to kind of grow authority that it's in many ways the most powerful and the best. David: [00:36:34] That is to create unique pieces of content that are uniquely useful to people so much so that they can't help but reference them. So for example, we created a piece of content. We noticed that there was a really good answer out there for how often to post to Instagram, so I used our member data to answer that question. David: [00:37:01] We discovered that you get more likes, you get more followers, etc., if the more often you post. You need to post at least once a day to Instagram to really grow effectively. We had all this great data. It's a great post and so it started to rank well. David: [00:37:23] Then because everybody would google that, looking for statistics about it, looking for hard evidence and there wasn't really hardly any, and ours was the best piece for that, we started to get a lot of links. For that one piece of content on the Tailwind blog, I've never reached out to anybody to get them to link to it but we have links from Buffer and from entrepreneur.com, HootSuite, Ink.com. David: [00:37:46] We have all these great links just because it's the right piece of content that lots of people need to reference for other pieces of content they're writing. Jillian: [00:38:01] So if you can answer a question that nobody else can answer or nobody's thinking to answer, that is a sweet spot to be. David: [00:38:10] Yeah, or just answer it in a better way. That doesn't necessarily have to be a question that requires data. It can be all sorts of different things. But yes, that is a very solid way to build authority. Can Yoast help your SEO? Jillian: [00:38:25] I love that. So can we talk about tools? Can we just circle back to Yoast for example which is something that many bloggers use. It's Y-O-A-S-T. David: [00:38:36] Right. Yes. So WordPress is built today in such a way that your website will be search friendly. In the old days, this was not necessarily true. The title of your blog post would be your URL and your H1 and you're all of this technical stuff. David: [00:39:02] But today, it more or less is a should, and Yoast will kind of give you a little bit more control and a little bit more assurance that that is taken care of for you on your WordPress blog. David: [00:39:15] We use it, and it gives you a little bit more flexibility as well. There are some different things you can do but it's not the answer to how you do great SEO. David: [00:39:26] The answer to how you do great SEO and rank well is that you're writing about the things people are interested in or yours is the best piece of content out there so Google can't help but rank you at the top because it wants to send people to the best. Those are the two main things. Jillian: [00:39:44] So Yoast is like guard rails but the real thinking is before you even write the post. David: [00:39:54] Yeah. Yeah. Jillian: [00:39:56] Yoast will keep you within the parameters of like, "Yes, all the keywords are there." But it's really you being that person stepping back and saying, "What are people searching for? What kind of content should I be creating?" Jillian: [00:40:12] And this is, I think, a really good thing to highlight which is if you are a vegan food blogger, yes, you should be blogging about those things that are really interesting to you. You love chia seeds and so you're going to blog about that but also to step back and go, "Okay but I have a community of people. What are they interested in?" It's a combination between what I'm interested in and what they're interested in. David: [00:40:44] Exactly. Yes. Jillian: [00:40:45] Because otherwise you're just blogging in a vacuum. David: [00:40:49] Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah, and ultimately, kind of where we are now is that SEO is informing our strategy in a big way. Jillian: [00:41:04] What do you mean by that? David: [00:41:05] What I mean by that is that we have a very good understanding of all of the things that people are looking for in our space. We often write to fit those needs. We also sometimes write because we think people should know about this or this new thing happened. It's not all about the search traffic but the search traffic tells you what people are interested in. I mean, you would be crazy not to pay attention to that. Tools to help with SEO Jillian: [00:41:41] What tools? I know that there are some expensive tools. One is SEMRush which has been recommended to me by you and others but that is a really expensive tool. I think it's like $99 a month. But are there cheaper ways to 80-20 this, to get at the stuff that's really going to help you? David: [00:42:04] Yeah. So I mentioned Google auto-suggest and of course, Pinterest also has an auto-suggest tool where you start typing keywords in, and it will suggest other keywords they're related. So those two are very simple and very free. Google Keyword Planner is another tool which is essentially free although you need to have an active campaign, an active Google Adwords campaign, which basically means creating one and pausing it. David: [00:42:34] You're actually using Keyword Planner Tool. It used to be free. That's not great but there it is. It's a bit of a bare back tool but essentially, what you do is you type in a keyword and Google will say, "Here are a bunch of keywords that we think are similar to this keyword and how much traffic they get every month." David: [00:42:59] So it's best in my opinion for what your idea is but you're not quite sure which way to go with it. So I know that this is a vegan pancake recipe. But should I go for vegan waffles recipe or vegan pancake recipe because I think both are good and really this could be either? Which has more traffic? Google Keyword planner will tell you, "Well, the pancake recipe one has a thousand searches a month and the waffles have 50 searches a month." So you should do the pancakes. Jillian: [00:43:42] Got it. Even though that will be probably more competitive. David: [00:43:46] Yes that's right. That's a decision for you to make. You could maybe look at the waffles, and nobody's written about that. You're sure you could be number one. Get a little bit of traffic. That's kind of a choice for you. Jillian: [00:44:02] Oh, wow. Well, I love that you've been able to get in the mind of Google, because again, I think that SEO, as a blogger, can feel scary. Here's a question which you hear about: The algorithms are changing. Has it stayed consistent in terms of how to think about creating content or is it ever-changing kind of like a Facebook algorithm or those kinds of things? Given that you've had experience for a while now in SEO, what would you say? David: [00:44:38] Yeah. So after 10 years of this, there was a time when things were very different. I mentioned that stool. I was building that stool. We got two legs. In the third leg is what I was telling you about how people engage with your content, the click-through rate and the dwell time. David: [00:44:58] That's a new leg to this tool that happened probably four years ago now. But since then, it hasn't really fundamentally changed. Now, it's dual. It's there. It's sturdy. They don't really need to change it. Today, because they dialed right in on, they managed to dial right in on, what's the best piece of content or what piece of content are people responding to best? That's pretty robust. David: [00:45:34] They don't really need to change that. That makes it really simple. I actually think that it's a wonderful time to do SEO. Not if you're a technical kind of nerdy, trying to hack the system kind of guy, but if you're, "I want to create something really valuable for people, and I want to do great content." David: [00:45:54] It's a great time because you know that if you can create something really unique and wonderful that people are going to respond to, that if you can get it on that first page, Google will take care of the rest and kind of figure it out and push it up for you. How quickly does your content start to rank in Google? Jillian: [00:46:13] Oh, sorry. I have one last question which is how quickly do things change? I post my vegan pancake recipe. How quickly would it start to rank? Let's say I ultimately get it into that number one spot. How long will it stay there? David: [00:46:35] Great question. Yeah. So how quickly Google becomes aware of your piece of content? It kind of depends on how high profile it is. So if you have a high profile website, Google may come and look at it every day. David: [00:46:58] Most blogs, probably every three days. So let's say you post something, and you don't do anything specific to alert Google to that. Within three days, there's a good chance that your piece of content will be in Google's index. And then how long will it stay ranking highly if you manage to get a ranking highly? David: [00:47:21] Well, it's Darwinian. It depends on how evergreen, how relevant it stays. It depends on whether other things come out there are better than it. If these things happen, then you'll find your content slipping down the search rankings. The opposite to that, generally what I find to be the case, is when you're investing in your content in a meaningful and consistent way. David: [00:48:00] What happens is that a rising tide lifts all boats where now, you've got hundreds of pieces of content that are ranking in search engines across the board. Each of them is occasionally getting a new link which means a new link to your blog. Google is saying "Oh, this website's kind of more important than it was before." David: [00:48:25] All of your content is sort of rising up the rankings. That's sort of the ideal situation but once something is ranking well, assuming that nothing else jumps in that is far better than it, it can rank for years. That's really the long term power of Google. It's the accumulated traffic that you get by adding another piece of content that every month is going to send a thousand people to you and another piece and another piece. Pretty soon, you're looking at tens, hundreds of thousands of people every month coming to old pieces of content through Google. Jillian: [00:49:03] I keep saying this is the last question but this is mine. We have been at this for a long time. We have a lot of old content. Should we be going back? Let's say it's almost Easter, should we be going back to our old Easter posts and refreshing them, reposting them or doing something to them to hopefully get them to rank higher? Maybe, it's like a lost piece of content somewhere. What is your thought about that? Jillian: [00:49:35] Yeah, it's possible. It's all something that I've done a lot of. I'm just personally more orientated towards creating something new especially in a situation like yours where you have a big back catalogue. I think it depends on how much low hanging fruit there is. David: [00:49:56] If you think you have a big back catalogue of stuff that is not using keywords for example, then there's probably a huge benefit to go back in and kind of sort of work on them. But if for a long time, you've been aware of SEO and you've been using keywords to the best of your ability, then going back to visiting those posts probably isn't going to have a lot of advantage to it. What is Google Webmaster Tools? David: [00:50:23] One thing that you could do is Google has a tool called Google Webmaster Tools which you can set up. You can google how to set that up. It has a dashboard that tells you all of the things that you rank for in Google, where you rank for them and how many clicks you've gotten from them. It's very useful. David: [00:50:46] One thing you could do with that is you can use that to say, "Okay, export of all of that. In a spreadsheet, I'm going to see everything that I rank on the second page for. Those might be low hanging fruit for getting links to them or maybe tightening up the SEO. David: [00:51:06] Maybe you really didn't use, maybe use one of the keywords but not the other one and really, if you've used both, you think maybe you could jump onto that first page break. So identifying the low hanging fruit is really the key if you're going to start looking at your back catalog. You could drown in all that content. It could take forever. Jillian: [00:51:26] Right. And if you're in page 50 of something, to get it to page 49 is not going to help you that much whereas if you could get your content from page two or page three up to page one, the benefits are exponential. David: [00:51:41] Yes. Thank you for spelling that out. That's exactly right, Jillian. Jillian: [00:51:44] Okay. Well, that is super helpful. David, I have to say, this has been so enlightening. I have learned so much. I thought I knew a lot but just you spelling it out in such an easy to understand way. I have so many ideas right now in my head. David: [00:52:03] Oh, good. Wonderful. I couldn't have gone better then. Jillian: [00:52:07] I hope to have you back on the podcast so that we can do a part two and even dig a little deeper. David: [00:52:13] I don't really know anything else, unfortunately. I'll have to learn something. Jillian: [00:52:16] All right. Thank you for being on this show. David: [00:52:24] Alright. Thank you, Jillian. I look forward to a follow up. Jillian: [00:52:28] If you're seriously trying to grow your followers on Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and also grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. It's a pop-up you embed on your blog. It pops up and asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list, and it really works. Jillian: [00:52:50] It's easy to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or just add a symbol and a code. It's Google-friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It is lightning fast and will not slow your site down and if you act now, you can try it out for 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 012 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Kim Vij from the blog, The Educators' Spin on It. The Educators' Spin on It has close to 1.6 million followers on Pinterest. In this episode, Kim and I discuss how her account grew so fast on Pinterest, and how to expand your business using group boards on Pinterest. We also go deep into what it's like to work with a blogging partner, how to use the new Pinterest lens feature, and why it's a good idea to teach your audience how best to interact with your content. Resources: The Educators' Spin on It Kim Vij Pinterest Consultant Tailwind MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher  Transcript – How to Expand Your Business Using Group Boards on Pinterest Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:09] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is Kim Vij from Educators' Spin On It, which is a blog and also, she has her other online business, kimvij.com. Welcome, Kim. Kim: [00:00:26] Thank you so much, Jillian, for having me on the podcast. Jillian: [00:00:29] It's a pleasure. So we met because you reached out to me about PinChat, to be a guest. Yes. Tell us. Tell everybody first just what PinChat is, and then we'll launch into your story. What is PinChat? Kim: [00:00:42] Sure. PinChat is a Facebook group that's been around for I think over five years now. Kelly Lieberman started it, and then she pulled me in a couple years ago to start co-hosting it with her. Kim: [00:00:54] It was a Twitter chat every week which we've been doing for almost five years. We did it every week. We dialed it back a little bit now and doing more lives in the Facebook group itself. Kim: [00:01:05] It's more engaging there, and it's all focused on Pinterest marketing for marketers and for bloggers. We pull in awesome experts like you, to see what's working for you on Pinterest because we all know it's all different stories. All different tactics can work. It's really fun highlighting what's awesome about different businesses on Pinterest and in the PinChat group. Jillian: [00:01:29] So you're an educator. You have a blog, the Educators' Spin On It. How did that start? Kim: [00:01:36] Our site, the Educators' Spin On It, started in 2011 when I sent my daughter off to kindergarten and had a little baby at home. Honestly, I was missing teaching. We had been hosting playgroups for quite some time as a stay-at-home mom and realized that we knew a little bit more than the typical parent on how to get your kid ready for school. Kim: [00:01:58] So that's why it started. We thought we'll put all these ideas out there for parents, and the goal was actually to write a book too which we ended up doing which is pretty fun. That's how the Educators' Spin On It got started. It was just sharing ideas with moms. Jillian: [00:02:13] And you work with a partner. Kim: [00:02:14] I do. Amanda Asanov is my co-blogger. We taught beside one another at school before all of this, way back when, and then had kids two weeks apart from one another. It was really just an organic kind of growth of partnership and just trying to benefit all the moms around us with educational ideas. What it's like working with a blogging partner Jillian: [00:02:34] And what would you say the best things are about working with a partner and the most challenging? Jillian: [00:02:42] The best things are that you don't have to be on 24/7 because someone's always got your back. We've found that we floated back and forth for content for her and myself. That's really nice not to have it to be all on you. Jillian: [00:02:57] Each of us has our own skill sets. Pinterest is like my obsession but not necessarily hers. And so we kind of delegated tasks in that way. The drawback is no one is a mind reader. It's always hard to know what the other person is thinking, where they want to go with things and just to organize each other especially when we are managing busy families. Jillian: [00:03:20] We're both moms of three with pretty busy husbands at work so it's us most of the time trying to do everything. Communication is probably really hard. The world of communication online has changed dramatically though, and what tools we can use to manage that element of it so that helps a lot. Jillian: [00:03:39] And what tools do you guys use? Kim: [00:03:42] We're old school. We still use Google Drive because it's easy to use. Jillian: [00:03:45] Doesn't everybody? Kim: [00:03:48] Well, I don't know. There's some fancy ones out there like Asana. I use different ones with different clients because they all seem to want something different. Jillian: [00:03:59] Interesting. Kim: [00:04:00] I'm trying to think. There's one more, Slack. My son uses that one at IBM so he makes me. Jillian: [00:04:07] We use Slack. Kim: [00:04:09] So a lot of different things, yeah. Jillian: [00:04:09] Catch My Party would not survive without Slack. My assistant lives in Portugal, so we are constantly on Slack. Jillian: [00:04:19] It's like "Good morning" and it's like the end of her day. My husband and I work together and the good news and the bad news is we share an office. We do that on purpose because it just makes communication that much easier. Somebody is right there. It works for us because we have our own domains. I'm busy doing stuff, and he's busy doing stuff. We're not stepping on each other's toes. Kim: [00:04:53] It's one baby. It's always hard to know who's doing what. I think communication is just key, right? Jillian: [00:05:00] Absolutely. So let's talk about your Pinterest story and how you got into Pinterest because this is really interesting? How The Educators' Spin on It got over a million and a half followers on Pinterest Kim: [00:05:09] It's an interesting story. So we started our blog before Pinterest existed. Early on, it was - do you remember 'private only' and you have to be invited in? I joined because I really thought that this is awesome. I can share with my friends ideas really quickly with teachers, friends that were busy working. Kim: [00:05:30] I thought this is a great way to get things out to them. We joined, started putting our content on, immediately started getting traffic, which was awesome. It made me spend more time there. And then, it went public and we think, although you can't confirm it, way back when Pinterest used to recommend users to follow when they were signing up for a new account. Because we were kind of one of the beginning ones in education and kids, we got recommended a lot. People were signing up for those topics. Jillian: [00:06:00] So what you're saying - I just want to interrupt for one sec. So when you say they went public, you mean because they haven't gone public like an IPO that they open the doors to everybody. Anybody could sign up. And of course for their onboarding, what they would do is say, "Here are some boards we recommend you to follow." Jillian: [00:06:22] They've curated boards from lots of people. They might have even asked what are you interested in. Do you think that your board was one of those recommended boards? Kim: [00:06:32] It was several of our boards actually. We had four of them take off, and it was overnight. You could see thousands and thousands and thousands would come in and ended just around a million followers that came to those accounts. So if you look at any given Pinterest account, that total number isn't necessarily that total follower coulnt. It's all the boards kind of added up. You usually have a much lower baseline. Jillian: [00:06:58] Wait. Could you go back and explain that? Kim: [00:07:00] Sure. So if you look at most accounts, when you start a brand new board, you will have a base number when you start it. Usually, that number is a lot lower than the total followers of that account. Kim: [00:07:14] How many is following them? The total followers also factor in group boards and that kind of stuff. It's super important especially if you are working with others and pitching to others to know you're pitching the right numbers of who's really following you. Ours was at like 30,000 at the time just so you kind of know where we were. Jillian: [00:07:35] So your overall follower number was at 30,000? Kim: [00:07:39] When it first started, right. Jillian: [00:07:41] Then you had these, let's say, you had how many boards total? Kim: [00:07:45] At that time, we probably had about 100. Do all your Pinterest boards have the same number of followers? Jillian: [00:07:48] Okay, so you have a hundred boards but four of them went viral because Pinterest was saying "Here's a great board. Follow it." All these people are following it then. Those boards get a million followers. But when you create a new board, let's say, it will show a follower number, but it's not going to show a million followers. Kim: [00:08:12] No. We've worked really hard. I'm up to around 160 thousand followers right now. Jillian: [00:08:16] Got it. So any board you start automatically has that, but your account, if I look at it, it says you have over a million followers. Kim: [00:08:28] Just want to point that out because I think people don't realize that about Pinterest. Jillian: [00:08:32] And why is that important if you're making a group board or something? Kim: [00:08:37] I think it's important just because to know it's not necessarily the same reach on every board. If your a brand looking for someone to work with, make sure you're checking those kind of elements. I also think, like for us, our group boards tend to be our more popular boards. Kim: [00:08:55] So if I'm a new blogger and I'm trying to look for somewhere to join, I'm looking at those numbers because sometimes, they are higher. Sometimes, they're lower. You have to peek and see but the more followers, the more engagement, the more impressions your blog posts can potentially have. How to use group boards on Pinterest to grow your business Jillian: [00:09:11] Right. And if you and, let's say, three other people want to start a group board, do you still recommend that the person with the highest following start the board? Kim: [00:09:23] Yes, I would definitely recommend that. Jillian: [00:09:24] So that you automatically start off with whatever that larger following number is. Kim: [00:09:30] Another thing, if you're doing that, if I'm following a person, I don't necessarily follow the group boards so you do have to let your community know. "Come, follow me. I've joined up with so and so, we're excited to kick off this great board together to give you the latest blank." Kim: [00:09:50] I think it's important to tell your followers because they won't automatically see it. Only the person who starts the group board will automatically see it. Jillian: [00:09:58] Interesting. But if you have your baseline - This is complicated. If I start the board, all of my followers, people who follow all of my boards, will automatically follow this board. But you and I start a group board or I start it, let's say you join it, your followers aren't automatically going to follow that board. That's what you're saying. Kim: [00:10:30] Correct. They won't necessarily see what you're pinning. They'll always see what I'm pinning. But they won't necessarily see what you're painting on that group board. Jillian: [00:10:37] Got it. And so what is your strategy with group boards? Kim: [00:10:42] I adore group boards because it helps me pin content that I was already pinning to begin with. Before we even had Pinterest analytics, I kind of realized who I was tending to pin more content over and over and invited them, reached out through email after connecting on their blogs, and said, "Would you like to focus on this area with me?" Kim: [00:11:05] I think on group boards, you need to pick a focus. [00:11:09] A curated [0.9] strategy is key on Pinterest. I think you and I have both heard the rumor mill of group boards not being as effective as they used to be. Jillian: [00:11:19] Can we talk about how if I'm a new blogger, why do I want to get onto group boards? Kim: [00:11:29] A group board gives you the potential for exposure that you don't have as a new blogger. It also allows you to perhaps be seen as an expert in that niche that you're trying to focus in. Kim: [00:11:43] If you are online on a group board with a whole lot of others that are extremely talented in that area, then all of a sudden, that association can help you move forward in what you're trying to do on your own site. I think also it can be used as a feeder board to your boards. Jillian: [00:12:02] What do you mean by that? Kim: [00:12:03] I look at my group boards. I look at what's recently been pinned. I use those to schedule to other pins onto my other boards that are just my boards because I'm always looking for good content. If my friends are willing to put it there, then I'm going to schedule it out for them, and we'll community-build together and that I think is where you see that massive growth together as the tide rises together of a group board. Jillian: [00:12:31] And you were saying that people, and I've heard this too that group boards are aren't as helpful. What is your take? What is your thought about that? Kim: [00:12:39] Group boards can be helpful if they're focused and active. If a group board is a hot mess of everything, Pinterest and any search engine has a hard time figuring out what that board is about. It won't get served as quickly as a board that's hyper-specific. Kim: [00:12:56] For example, one of our popular boards is reading activities. That was one of those that was really popular and went over a million followers, and I wasn't able to feed it as fast as I wanted to. I invited four reading experts onto that board and have them also pinning reading advice onto that board simply because I knew there was an interest and a high need for it. Jillian: [00:13:19] Got it. How does it work in terms of for your group boards' rules about all the people that you have pinning? First of all, how many people do you typically invite to your boards, and then do you set up rules about number of pins in that kind of thing? Kim: [00:13:39] My group boards are really different than typical group boards. I invite peers that I know, and we have a Facebook group where we communicate. It's more a mastermind group in essence because it's not just about Pinterest, because I'm probably tweeting out their content or Facebooking. Kim: [00:13:58] The rule is you're pinning on the bigger ones. When I say bigger, it's only 60 people. I don't have anything really bigger than that personally. Now, I am on a couple very large ones. Kid Blogger Network is one that comes to mind. It's one of my favorite kids' activity boards that has some really good reach on it whenever you pin things there. Kim: [00:13:59] I think it's close to a thousand people that are on that board. It's a lot. So you're only on that board, pinning your own content. Again, we all work in a whole other Facebook group together. It really is a community of bloggers trying to work together. I tend honestly to stay away from group boards that have policies that are written at the top of it because they're taking away keyword possibilities. . Kim: [00:13:59] Why would you waste that space, when you could be writing what that board is about? It's one of my favorite kids' activity boards that has some really good reach on it whenever you pin things there. Jillian: [00:14:56] Can I stop you there so we can catch everybody up on what we're talking about? So some group boards come together, and people, let's say, want to ask to join a group board, and you can tell who owns the board by the first person that shows up out of all the people in that board. Jillian: [00:15:15] You can reach out to that person via Pinterest or if you can find them on other social media platforms to say, "Hey, can I join this board?" Sometimes, if it's a really big board, they want to write up in the description the rules like one pin per day or that kind of thing. Jillian: [00:15:38] What you're saying is Pinterest is a search engine so any place that you can put words on your board descriptions or on your own profile, you want to be putting keywords in because that is how Pinterest finds boards, shares your content. Jillian: [00:15:55] If you're putting stuff like only pin one pin a day, Pinterest is reading that going what is this board about, versus let's say insta-pot recipes. You're saying that hurts the SEO of that board within Pinterest. You kind of are less inclined to want to participate in a board like that. Kim: [00:16:17] Yeah, definitely. And it also tells me a little bit that the group board owner doesn't necessarily have control of the board. I recommend anyone who has a Pinterest account to always work with someone who mirrors the style that you think your readers are attracted to. Kim: [00:16:37] If you're on a group board and you wouldn't naturally be pinning the content that's on there because you don't think your readers will love it, it's probably not a good fit for you anyway. There's other dynamics that you can use to analyze. Kim: [00:16:51] You can use your Pinterest analytics and see if that's one of your top performing boards. I use a tool like Tailwind to look and see which group board is getting the most engagement. If I'm on a group board and it's not getting any engagement, it's going to hurt the impressions I'm getting on my account. Jillian: [00:17:08] And do you mean engagement, meaning your people aren't pinning to the board or people aren't repinning the pins? Kim: [00:17:17] If I see a group board not getting a lot of pins and not getting a lot of new followers, that tells me that board, something about it isn't working. I would jump in and do a whole email thread or a Facebook thread with that whole group and say, "Okay, guys. Either we're doing it or we're not. We've got to up our game because it's not important anymore to anyone because we're not active there. Active is good. Why you need to be selective about the group boards you join Jillian: [00:17:48] Yes, my recommendation is to be selective about the group boards you join, that group boards can be very beneficial, but if there's a group board that could be open to anybody, then it's really kind of serving nobody. To look at the content and go, "Does this all feel cohesive? Does it all feel like it's telling a story, being of service?" Would I want my pins in this board or not, because just dumping your pin somewhere isn't going to help you. It might hurt you. Kim: [00:18:18] It might hurt you. I've seen people who join many group boards, and they can't keep track. If you're not using something, that's not effective either. You may have to kind of micromanage that in terms of volume too. Jillian: [00:18:31] Yes, absolutely. When you stumble on Pinterest and the Pinterest gods shined down on you, because that doesn't happen anymore, anybody who's looking for the Pinterest gods. Kim: [00:18:44] Let's make that really clear. It does not happen. And I don't even know that followers are as important anymore. Now, it's categories and interest on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:18:53] Right. Absolutely. I would say for Catch My Party, we have now close to 700,000 followers. I would say that the follower count is a signal to Pinterest. Again, I don't know their algorithm but that is a signal to Pinterest that our account matters, that 700,000 people said we like this. We tend to get good engagement because of that, but it becomes more muddled than when all of your pins show to every single person who followed you. It just doesn't work like that anymore. Kim: [00:19:26] Right. It doesn't. Jillian: [00:19:30] So Pinterest definitely works for you, guys. You've doubled down on it. You've created a whole consulting business around that. We'll talk about that in a sec. But then how else are you using other social networks to support Educators' Spin On It? Here's a Pin It For Later strategy Kim: [00:19:55] I don't know if I necessarily use other platforms. I know I should be using more Facebook at times. I will share, pin it for later. There was a time where that was kind of not recommended because it was Facebook, and Facebook and Pinterest didn't get along with one another, but I can tell you, my friend Christina, she share that every single time. She has over a million followers on Facebook. That strategy works for her account on Facebook. Jillian: [00:20:27] Can you explain what that means? Kim: [00:20:28] She'll put a post out on Facebook, and below it, she'll say pin it for later, or pin it, even with a link to her pin, and it happens every single time. She's got high engagement of really active community members there on Facebook. Kim: [00:20:46] I think that's where it does work for her account. It's because she's always done it that way. I think as we train our community that this is what works, then we keep doing that. Kim: [00:20:58] Every once in a while, tweet out really popular pins to try to get them going a little even more. That strategy works for us in my email. I do include a link to the post but I also tell them they can pin it for later. Kim: [00:21:14] I link it to the most popular pin I already have with that post on Pinterest and encourage them. "I know you can't visit right now so just go ahead and pin it, because you know you're gonna want to do it with the kids this week" kind of thing. Kim: [00:21:27] That seemed to be helping. I have a friend, Taylor, at Household Management 101, she highlights one a week. She's got over a million followers on her Facebook account. Her Facebook community, it's over 100,000 members so I know that strategy is working for her too. Why you want to teach your community the best way to interact with your content Kim: [00:21:45] Take a strategy and keep with it. You basically teach your community. I'm on Pinterest, and it's important to you. I think teaching your community, no matter what topic you pin about, how to use Pinterest for your blog is important. Jillian: [00:22:01] Explain that. Kim: [00:22:02] There are different ways to do it. I'll just use mine, because Educators' Spin on It is educational activities. Teaching them that if you want to plan out your week with your child, create a board of activities for your child. Kim: [00:22:19] Every time you see something great, pin them here. We happen to provide a weekly plan for our members so that's something you could consider doing, and telling them to pin it there and use it in planning vacations with your travel blogger, planning meal plans if you are a food blogger. Obviously, planning a party with the board. How to use the Pinterest Lens feature Kim: [00:22:39] If you don't tell them to do it, sometimes they won't. It's kind of give them that prompt of how to use it and the lens feature now on Pinterest because a whole another element of how they can use, if you're product based, your products. Jillian: [00:22:54] Okay. You have to talk about that. Explain what that is. Kim: [00:22:59] The lens, which seems to be Pinterest's huge push right now, is the ability to take your phone, pull up Pinterest and take a photo of a product anywhere or picture or appliance. Like literally anything, and it will pull up any related pins on Pinterest that relates visually based on the visual search engine of Pinterest to that product. Kim: [00:23:24] The hope is that the products for sale with a "Buy it Now" pin or a blog post about it, how to use X, Y or Z. Jillian: [00:23:36] Right. So let's say we go out for coffee and you're wearing these awesome shoes. I can take a photo of those shoes, and let's say you bought them at Nordstrom. Pinterest will recognize those awesome shoes and show me a pin from Nordstrom that could be like a Buy it Now pin. Kim: [00:23:55] When you look it up, you can buy it there. Jillian: [00:23:57] Yeah, I could just buy those shoes. Kim: [00:24:00] Yes, ma'am. Jillian: [00:24:01] Okay, and how is that working for you? Because to be honest, I'm not really using it. Kim: [00:24:06] You know, a secret here, I don't shop online that often. Only you and I know this. Jillian: [00:24:15] Yes. Nobody else. Kim: [00:24:16] I'm a hands-on shopper. I haven't used it in terms of buying things but I have used it secretly on plants. Whenever you see really cool plant when you're on a walk, I want to know the name so I can have that small garden. Kim: [00:24:30] I use it for that. It's probably not what they had in mind for but I love that about Pinterest. You make it work for your lifestyle. Jillian: [00:24:39] You'll see a pin with that. Are they good at determining what that plant is? Kim: [00:24:43] They're pretty good at it. It's a visual search engine. Yeah, it gets pretty close to it. I've used it like at a friends house if I saw a quote I really loved and I didn't want to forget it. We all have them in our homes hanging up. Kim: [00:24:58] I'll scan her quote, a better photo of it to begin with that it will show me a principal option or a viable option with a frame. I've used it that way before. Toys, I think, is another one when I'm at a friend's house or a book and I see something I love. That's where in everyday life, it would really work. Again, I'm a teacher by heart. My background is really childhood education so that's my little world. Jillian: [00:25:26] But that's kind of interesting. I hadn't really thought about it like I'm at somebody's house. I see a book. I want to buy it. I'd have to go to Amazon and type in the name versus on Pinterest, I could just use that and then hopefully, just buy it off the platform. Kim: [00:25:40] To bring it back, how would I use that for me? I blogged a lot about books. That's actually how I make a lot of my money on Amazon. I'm always putting out book lists related to this and that and this season and that topic. Kim: [00:25:54] And so if you're writing blog posts on what you think is a high demand for your niche, those review posts, those affiliate link posts, that's how you're going to show up when people are using the lens. Do I think everyone's using it? No, I don't, but this is what I mean by "if you teach your readers how to do it, they will come." Jillian: [00:26:15] I love that. Kim: [00:26:17] So it's something to think about because I don't think they're giving up on this project. I think they're going to keep pushing it too, so we really use it. Again, the lens also works in Pinterest itself or on a website. If you're in Chrome, you can click on an image and then, it will visually scan Pinterest and find related blog posts to that as well. Jillian: [00:26:38] Wait, say that again. Kim: [00:26:40] So on any image on Pinterest, there's a little bracket. That's the search lens. Also, if you're on Chrome on any website, it does the same thing on an image. It will then pull any relative pins to those images. Jillian: [00:26:55] Yes. I always think it's interesting when you see other related pins and how good they are. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Kim: [00:27:02] Sometimes, I think like the first few like nail it, right on and then, it gets a little watered down. I think it's the more we learn how it works, the more effective our images will be for that search. Recommended Pinterest tools to grow and manage your account Jillian: [00:27:14] Can you recommend some tools that you use that if somebody were starting out, you would recommend they use for their Pinterest marketing? Kim: [00:27:25] I think we mentioned Tailwind earlier. I think MiloTree would be one of my go-to ones that I do recommend especially if you're new to Pinterest marketing, and you really want to tell people "I'm here. Come see me on Pinterest." Kim: [00:27:40] It's so easy to integrate into your site, and the way you can choose which options and where it's popping up from. I love the fact that you have analytics in there, so that a blogger can see the difference it's making of adding it to their site. Kim: [00:27:56] It makes a big difference in the fact that you can alter not just from Pinterest but to Facebook, Instagram and even in newsletters. I just think it's a great tool for beginning bloggers to utilize. Jillian: [00:28:07] Thank you. I'm going to need to hire you. Do you have one piece of advice that you wished you knew then that you know now? Advice: Have a plan for people when they come to your site Kim: [00:28:18] I wish someone would have pressed pause when I started speaking at events and said, "Before you do that, have a plan of what you're doing when the people come to your site." I just I wish someone said, "You're going to actively highlight your talents on your site and you have this unique point of view and design style but how are you going to drive them into a funnel, to a product, to a community, to an email subscriber." Kim: [00:28:45] I wish somebody would have said that before I started because I was very busy and active, but I don't think that I necessarily captured the revenue and the online subscribers that I wish I would have years ago. Jillian: [00:29:00] Got it. You've been talking at conferences for a while about Pinterest. Kim: [00:29:04] I have. I really enjoy teaching and I think once that happened, I became obsessed with Pinterest and how it really works. I went speaking because I wanted to teach others how it worked. I wish sooner, I would have had a course ready for people and had more of a consistent thing for them to come to. Jillian: [00:29:24] So now how have you rectified that? Kim: [00:29:28] Well, I'm working on my course. It's actually coming out this spring. I'm pretty excited about that. My friends have pushed me enough to make me do it. Kim: [00:29:39] The hesitation has been there because Pinterest changes a lot. I've kind of figured out a way to continually update that element to it. At the end of the day, the foundation is very much the same. I've trained enough people over the years to realize that you have to have certain ducks in a row for it to work. It's really about the ducks in a row kind of thing. I'm working on that. Pin Smart Academy Pinterest course Jillian: [00:30:04] And that's called Pin Smart Academy? Kim: [00:30:08] Yeah, Pin Smart Academy. Jillian: [00:30:10] And people could find that at kimvij.com? Kim: [00:30:13] They can find it at kimvij.com. It's not live yet but it will be at pinsmartacademy.com too. Jillian: [00:30:20] Oh, good Okay. And so what is this thing right now in your business that you're most excited about? Kim: [00:30:27] This is the thing I'm most excited about right now. It's long term. I've been working on it, changing it, fixing it and making it perfect for everybody. I'm very excited about that right now with the Pinterest element of what I do to monetize my online efforts. Kim: [00:30:44] And with our Educators' Spin On It, I'm working on a few e-products coming out. It isn't something we did a lot of. I have some ebooks coming out which I'm excited about too. Jillian: [00:30:57] What are some of the topics? Kim: [00:30:57] Cooking with kids, learning another language, and gardening with your kids. Those are actually the topics. They're series that were on the blog that did well, and how you never fit that all in on the site because you want to space it out. It's going to be a nice, little package and a lot of supporting things to do at home with your kids, because there's just things I'm passionate about that I think our kids learn through everyday moments often with those topics. Jillian: [00:31:27] One thing again that I really respond to is looking at your blog posts, seeing which blog posts have done well and then seeing if you can turn those into a product that you can sell on your site. How to use Pinterest to test your book content Kim: [00:31:43] Even with our book, say our book was done that way too based on Pinterest. We marketed with A/B testing to see which activities got the most engagement. That's where 100 activities came from. We pulled, I think, only 6 activities from our site that were really popular and then it branched out from that. We use Pinterest a lot for that. Jillian: [00:32:10] So you put pins up and saw which ones perform the best? Kim: [00:32:14] Yeah. Jillian: [00:32:15] That's terrific. That's really terrific. Kim: [00:32:19] It's a free marketing tool for serving your crowd. You just put different options up. You have to make sure obviously your parameters are similar because time of day matters, the image matters, and all those fun things. That's the fun of Pinterest. It's not so permanent that you can't just take it away if it's not doing well or move for it, because people don't follow every pin that you do. You just have to play around over there. Jillian: [00:32:48] Right. Kim, this has been terrific. Tell people where they can reach you, how they can talk to you that kind of thing. Kim: [00:32:55] Yeah. If you want to chat with me about Pinterest and all that world that I live in, you can find me at kimvij.com. If you want to talk about educational activities for kids, you can find me at the educatorsspinonit.com and on Twitter, it's @EducatorsSpin. I love connecting with people on Twitter. I miss doing our Pin Chats every week, so definitely connect with me over there. And that's about it. Jillian: [00:33:21] Thank you. Kim: [00:33:23] Thank you so much for having me on this. It's been fun. Jillian: [00:33:25] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. Jillian: [00:33:38] It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things: it's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google-friendly so you don't have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. Jillian: [00:34:10] So check it out, milotree.com. We offer your first 30 days free!

Welcome to episode 011 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Courtney Whitmore from the blog, Pizzazzerie. Courtney is not just a blogger, she's a entertaining and food stylist, and cookbook author. In this episode Courtney and I discuss how to get paid what you deserve as a blogger. Courtney has been working with brands since she started her blog nine years ago. She has some very helpful advice about how she values her time and charges brands for the work she does. You will be blown away by how fearless she is in her negotiation tactics! Resources: Pizzazzerie Pizzazzerie: Entertain in Style: Tablescapes & Recipes for the Modern Hostess Push-up Pops Frostings Candy Making For Kids MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. How to Get Paid What You Deserve as a Blogger Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by Milo Tree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey, welcome to the show. Today my guest is Courtney Whitmore from the blog, Pizzazzerie. Courtney is not just a blogger. She's also a cookbook author. So welcome to the show, Courtney. Courtney: [00:00:24] Hi! I'm thrilled to be here. I'm so excited. Jillian: [00:00:27] So okay, Courtney, you and I started around at the same time. In fact, when we started Catch My Party, which is a site for people to add their party photos, you were one of the first people to add your parties. So I have to say, thank you! Courtney: [00:00:46] Yes, I remember, and I feel like it's been such a long journey. It'll be eight years of Pizzazzerie next month and so, it's just so exciting to see kind of how we've grown and especially how the entertaining blogger industry has grown. It's been really fun. Jillian: [00:01:00] Yes. And then we met in person about maybe three years ago at a conference. Courtney: [00:01:08] Yes. What it's like meeting your blogger friends in real life Jillian: [00:01:10] I love when you've known somebody online for so many years, and I knew what you looked like because I've seen your pictures everywhere, and then all of a sudden, I got to actually talk to you. And it was so fun and exciting. Courtney: [00:01:25] I know. Just feeling, just kind of in this blogging community. It's so crazy because you're like "Hey, girl. Hey, I know you. I'll just talked to you on GMail a minute ago." Jillian: [00:01:33] Exactly. Courtney: [00:01:33] So there's really no difference especially when this is kind of what we do full time. These are kind of like your co-workers. In some sense, I say that other bloggers are my co-workers because they get it, and they do what we do, but we work mostly by ourselves and you'll are our co-workers essentially. Jillian: [00:01:49] Exactly. And there is this feeling of like, we get it, we understand it and it's not, I would say not competitive as much as it is... I don't know. There have been times where I've reached out to you, you've reached out to me to ask questions or we shared. We did an Instagram share together. You use MiloTree on your site. So there's just this, I don't know, this feeling I always find in my life when I explain what I do. People don't quite understand it, but then when I talk to somebody like you, we get it. Courtney: [00:02:25] Yes. It's like a whole underworld of blogging confusion and sometimes, I'll have to email you and say, "Hey, what does this do or what do I do here because there aren't exactly textbooks of it?" So it's kind of learn as you go, so I'm so thankful that there are other people that do this so that I can ask questions, and we can share information. So it's exciting. The start of Pizzazzerie Jillian: [00:02:43] Yes, so now, tell me, how did you start? Because again, we started a while ago. So what inspired you? What is the story behind Pizzazzerie? Courtney: [00:02:53] Yes. So back in 2009, I was working at the Vanderbilt career center, and I was just not creatively fulfilled. I did not love it. I did not know what I really wanted to do but I knew that was not it. Courtney: [00:03:08] I did not want to sit in a desk and work for someone else for nine hours a day and then leave and go home and watch Lifetime movies and think "Is this it? Is this what my life was going to be like in the next 50 years of working? Courtney: [00:03:22] I didn't know a lot of people in Nashville at the time. A lot of my roommates from college have moved away. I was single at the time so I started taking a painting class, and the girls at my painting class, I fell in love with them. They were just so sweet and so fun. Courtney: [00:03:34] And so I decided to throw my first dinner party. So I was now in a townhouse. It had like a real dining room, so I invited those girls over, and we just had a dinner party, and I had more fun setting up the dinner party. Granted I loved sitting at the dinner party, but for me, creatively, I had more fun setting it up and styling it. And I thought, "Maybe I could do this." But I didn't know if I wanted to be a party planner and so I was thinking "Well then, what else is there?" Courtney: [00:04:01] So when I was researching ideas to set the table is when I popped up on a few blogs. Hostess with the Mostess was one of them. Thoughtfully Simple is another. There are a few blogs out there, not very many, and I thought "This is so fun." Courtney: [00:04:13] And they take their pictures of their parties and put them on there. And I thought "Let me see. Let me just see if I could do this." And again, it's just such a little hobby. This is not meant to ever be full time. Courtney: [00:04:22] But I created the website. Again, it was not great looking eight years ago. It was basic looking, got the job done and I started uploading those photos. They weren't even great. I think I probably took them with my BlackBerry but I just loved that community. Courtney: [00:04:42] I just hopped in. And Twitter was a big deal then. There was no Instagram. There was no Pinterest. It was Twitter and Facebook. And eventually, I had some people who want to advertise and that was when you would sell banner ads by the month. And then I thought -. Jillian: [00:04:55] So somebody would come to you and say, "We want to put an ad up on your site." Courtney: [00:05:02] And I would say, "Pull my little panties up and set on a dollar amount." I'd be like, "That'll be $50 a month." I knew what I was doing. And then so I thought "Well, gosh, if I sell 10 of those, that's the rent or whatever." and I started adding it all up, and I thought maybe I can leave this job. Courtney: [00:05:19] Of course, my parents, who just had helped me get through college and graduate school, really had no idea what a blog was and just did not want to hear it when I was describing it. There are like Courtney, that's cute but what are you doing? Courtney: [00:05:31] And so, I started doing some local TV and I had to kind of call in sick at the real job to get to go do that. And then family, it was just too much. And I would eat, sleep and breathe this when I would leave my full time job because I wanted it to work. How to get your first book deal as a blogger Courtney: [00:05:45] And so finally about four, five months later that first July, I quit, and it was a leap of faith. But I just kept working on it and through social media, a publisher contacted me and then, it led to book deals. And I just never stopped. I refused. Courtney: [00:06:02] I guess the fear of going back to a job that I did not love was paired with something that was obviously a creatively fulfilling job. That combo, the fear of going backwards and then, the fact that I did love what I was doing. Courtney: [00:06:13] That combo just was dynamite, and it kept me from ever just sitting around. And so I never looked back and thankfully, I always wonder, "Gosh, what if no brands want to work with me next year? How am I going to make it?" Thankfully, just cross your fingers, and there's never been a time like that. And the industry has grown so much. I've been very lucky that I have been able to ride this fun wave, and I hope it does not stop. It sounds great. Jillian: [00:06:37] I have a couple questions. The first one is have you always been creative? Courtney: [00:06:45] Yes but not necessarily around tablescapes. So I've always been --. Jillian: [00:06:50] So wait, will you explain what a tablescape is? Courtney: [00:06:52] Yes, so the gorgeous setting down the table - the place settings, the forks, the knives, the centerpieces, the flowers, that whole bit and party food. So when you would set a gorgeous Christmas tablescape down your dining room table. Courtney: [00:07:06] So I've always been creative but not around that. So when I was in college or high school, I was not setting up tables. I didn't even have a table. I was, maybe it was painting or it was making necklaces or it was ceramics at summer camp. Courtney: [00:07:21] So I've always been crafty but it was not until I had dinner table and the ability to do tablescapes. But I grew up watching my mom, essentially like Pinterest in a notebook, so she would cut out stuff out of magazines and create like a big, old three ring binder and she actually had a lot of her tablescapes photographed, and she wanted to have a book called "Franzi's tables." Courtney: [00:07:40] So I watched her set up tables but I really was not into it. I didn't even walk over and look at it that closely. But for some reason, I suppose it must have been seeping into me. Jillian: [00:07:50] Yeah, or in your genetics. Courtney: [00:07:52] Yes. Yes. The benefits of working with your mom Jillian: [00:07:56] So this is my next question. You work with your mom? Courtney: [00:07:59] Yes. Jillian: [00:08:00] And so what is that about? Courtney: [00:08:02] Yeah. When she lived in Raleigh, North Carolina where I grew up, but when I was pregnant, she decided to move here and be closer to family and obviously as a natural fit. She was flying in to help me with shoots and book shoots but it just made sense for her to be closer. Courtney: [00:08:17] She comes over not every day, but days we shoot, so I swear she's a better stylist than I am. I'm better at the business side and the blogging side but she's just very good at pulling together a table. And then, I kind of step in and tweak it and make changes and kind of know what's on trend and all that but she's just really good at it. Courtney: [00:08:35] If I want to do a DIY napkin rings, she'll go "I'll make one. It's like a prototype," and she'll go make another seven because she just loves that. So it's a good team. Jillian: [00:08:44] And how is it working with your mom? Has it brought you guys closer? Courtney: [00:08:49] It's good. Sometimes, she'll design something that I think is horrific and so I have to kind of like let her down gently but the good thing is that I can be myself like if I say, "I don't feel good, you go on get your thing today," as opposed to someone else where you always have to kind of tiptoe and say "Well, I like that shade but let's try another one." Courtney: [00:09:09] I don't have to do that with her. I could just be a little bit more frank, which is nice and time-saving. Jillian: [00:09:14] But your books, okay, so you're a cookbook author, and your books are these beautiful desserts and treats. And can you tell us about how that started and how you got into that? Courtney: [00:09:29] Yes. About two months after I went full time with Pizzazzerie, so this is probably six months after I started the website. I was on Twitter, and I did a give away for a wedding book that just talks about how to throw really pretty southern weddings. Courtney: [00:09:41] And when I was facilitating the giveaway, so I was trying to figure out how to get the winner her book, the publisher, the editorial assistant who is emailing me asked me if I would ever consider writing a book, to which I'm like, "Yeah." But there is no way. I mean there's no way. Courtney: [00:09:58] And she said "Well, I'm going to put you in touch with one of my editors," and then in the back of my head, I'm thinking I'm like, "This is nuts." But the editor called me and said, "We talked about a few things." I wanted a party book and they said "No. No. No. We have this these things called Push Up Pops." And I knew what they were. They were kind of a dessert trend at the time. Jillian: [00:10:14] Can you explain what she said? Courtney: [00:10:16] Yeah, they're a little bit like this Flintstones ice cream pops with a little container and you push up the bottom. Jillian: [00:10:22] Yes. Courtney: [00:10:22] But people were putting other things besides popsicles in them, and so, they were putting like cake in them or drinks. Anything you could put a little container like the parfait type of deal. And so she said, "Would you write like a niche book on these?" Courtney: [00:10:37] And I'm thinking, "Not exactly what I wanted, but look what this might do for me. So yes, of course I will do that." And so then I started on that book and they had another one called, "Candy Making For Kids" and they did not have an author. It had been signed with a photographer. Courtney: [00:10:54] And so it was kind of a crazy like I stepped in half way but I said yes to it and did those, did that. And then, I pitched frostings and said I'd love to do a book on frostings. There was not one at the time. I did frostings. Courtney: [00:11:06] Then I kind of took a break. Had a baby and then, I had still been asking for this party book for years. No, no, no. They tell me no and then, they had a new editor from Simon and Schuster to the publisher that I work with. Courtney: [00:11:20] And she called me and said that she had pitched one at the editorial team meeting, and they said they'd love to do a party book now. They mentioned my name. She called me and I probably passed out and so that's my signature book. It's the name of my site. Courtney: [00:11:34] It's what I always wanted, and it came out last fall. But that's kind of how the book's happened. They're kind of love projects. It's totally different than blogging. Blogging, you create and you can have it up within 30 minutes. The book, you create and you see it again a year and a half later. But they're both fun. They're both great. Jillian: [00:11:50] Wow. And are there similarities because the books are just - I mean, everything you do is beautiful. The books are so beautiful. And I've seen them at the bookstore and I'm like "I know her. I know who she is." Courtney: [00:12:03] Yes. It's crazy. I don't photograph the books, but I'm thankful for really great photographers. So it's wonderful. It's been great. And I did a book tour with a couple of them, and it's so fun. Courtney: [00:12:15] And I think brands really like to see that I have products out there. I think that it helps differentiate me. Courtney: [00:12:20] The blogging community is quite saturated, so you just going to have to find ways to stand out. It's not impossible to start a blog now. But I think the books helped me stand out. And they just show that this is something I'm in for the long haul, that this is creating content whether it's for a book, whether it's for a blog, whether it's for a magazine. I don't care where it really goes. I just love to create it. Are books money-makers for bloggers? Jillian: [00:12:43] It's amazing. Now, here's a question. Are books money-makers or is it really to create this reputation, something that you can then say to brands, "Look what I've done." How do you see it? Courtney: [00:12:56] It would be the latter. They are not a money-maker. And I could sit here and try to tell you it's great, but to be honest with you and I would rather be honest with all bloggers, they're not money-makers unless you are at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months. And so they're just not. And you do it for the love of the project, and you do it for what it might potentially help you do down the road. I think I'm able to charge more for brands because of the books Jillian: [00:13:22] Right. Courtney: [00:13:22] I think that it helps. It differentiates me. It sets me apart. But they're not money makers. You do make money. You don't go under or negative but you just don't make a ton. There's this all those things that go into it. Courtney: [00:13:36] But the time that the physical book is made, and mine are all hardback so that there's just the prices. You just don't end up with all that much for the time. The publishers are paid and everybody else gets paid and what something is discounted some time. Courtney: [00:13:50] By the time the dust all settles, you're not walking away with that much. But to me, I find it such a passion project that it's all worth it. Courtney: [00:13:50] BY the time the dust all settles, you're not walking away with that much. But to me, I find it such a passion project that it's all worth it. Jillian: [00:13:59] That's so nice. Okay, so let's talk about monetization then. How do you monetize as a blogger? Courtney: [00:14:11] You don't want all your eggs in one basket. So the number one and when I look at my finances at the end of the year, and I can see where it all came in, I am making most of my money off brand partnerships. So that is where I'm making the bulk of what pays the bills. Courtney: [00:14:25] The second way I make money is ad revenue. So when people visit my site, that ad revenue, my page, these are not what they used to be. I don't know many bloggers that are having higher paid ads. It all kind of just settle out, and I have a theory on that. But anyway -- Jillian: [00:14:40] What's your theory? Courtney: [00:14:42] So ad revenue. Jillian: [00:14:42] Wait, what's your theory? Why Instagram and Pinterest might be killing your page views Courtney: [00:14:45] Well, especially from what I do, so Instagram and Pinterest are so huge now. I'll just explain it using Instagram because it's easier. If I want to see a gorgeous table, and I'm scrolling Instagram, and I see Courtney post a pretty table, and I see a picture of it, that gets my wheels turning to design something. Courtney: [00:15:03] I don't need to go to her blog and see six other angles of it. So I'm basically handing it over on social media. Now, food bloggers still have great page views and my recipes still do well. Why? Courtney: [00:15:15] Because they see the cookie, and they need to go to the blog to get the recipe or they need to go to the blog to get the DIY but of pure, just tablescapes, you can get enough of what you want without clicking through. Courtney: [00:15:25] So there's no real incentive but that's okay because my brand partnerships pay me more for a tablescape, so it all settles out in the end. But ad revenue is definitely more of a consistent thing and [00:15:37] brand partnerships [0.2] may not be. You don't know who's going to come down the pipeline but brand partnerships mostly. Jillian: [00:15:44] I'm sorry. Are you reaching out to clients or are they reaching out to you? What it's like working with brands as a blogger Courtney: [00:15:48] They're reaching out to me. I don't have a problem reaching out to brands, but my feelings, monetarily, would be that I might make more if they come to me. Courtney: [00:15:59] If I go to them, I'm going to have a hard time swallowing the rate at which I'm going to throw at them. I've been lucky that I've had brands come to me, and I've been able to pick and choose brands that I think are a good fit for my audience. Courtney: [00:16:11] But they come to me and then ad revenue and then, the third would be affiliate and royalties. So those are kind of at the end of the list of the three ways I make money. Jillian: [00:16:23] Got it. Can you walk through what it's like when a brand reaches out to you and how that process works? Courtney: [00:16:30] Sure. So it's usually an email and they kind of tell me that they want a partner. It's usually from an ad agency or a PR firm. Not an ad agency, mostly a PR firm. Sometimes, it's directly with the brand. But I would say 80 percent of the time, it's with from one that I've likely worked with before but it's a different contact. How to know what to charge a brand who wants you to create sponsored content as a blogger Courtney: [00:16:49] And they email and say, we'd love to set up something for Easter using our product, our potato chips or whatever the brand is. And then I usually go back and say, "Are y'all think i ng recipe development or are you thinking more party setup, because that's kind of the two fields at play?" And so then they say "What are the rates for both?" Courtney: [00:17:08] And they kind of want to know the options, and I go back, and I quote them. I don't have a media kit because every project is different. I don't like media kits anyway. I just think it's a waste of time because I'll have one brand that wants a table that ends up being so simple. Courtney: [00:17:23] And I'll have another that wants a table that they want 3 DIYs . And that took me two weeks longer. If I put a rate on a tablescape, I'm hurting myself. So then we go back and forth, and they agree. Courtney: [00:17:36] Usually, they're wanting a blog post and then, they want me to send that blog post to all social media channels so it would be a post on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Google Plus maybe. Although I swear, I think the Google Plus might be headed downhill. But I still sometimes hop on there. Courtney: [00:17:51] But anyway so then, I'll create the content. They want to review it. Sometimes, it aches but you just kind of factor it in. Then once they reviewed it, you just hope there's no re-shoot. If there is, I have a re-shoot feet. Courtney: [00:18:07] It's about following all the guidelines given to me and then, I write up the draft. They can review the verbiage, make sure that I followed the FTC guidelines of disclosing that it's a sponsored post, and all those details, that I've represented their product in the way they want. That also feels right for me. The post goes up. Courtney: [00:18:27] Sometimes, they want analytics later. Sometimes, they don't. It depends on the partnership but usually, I'm just creating a recipe and then, I'm photographing it or I'm creating a table set up and then, I'm photographing it. That's kind of a start to finish, and I care for those sponsors. Jillian: [00:18:44] How long would you say a project takes? Courtney: [00:18:48] If it's a single post and not a year long ambassador program, if it's like a single post, which a lot are, I'd say about a month. Usually, they'll come to me a few weeks before an event like the Oscars. If they want me to do something for that, and then, I'll have to kind of create it in about two to three weeks. They might want to review it that final week, make any changes and then, it'll go up so about a month. They can come to me sooner or with less time but it just depends on if I can pull it off or not. Jillian: [00:19:16] Got it. Now, in terms of social media, where are you? What works with Pizzazzerie? How social media follower numbers help you attract brands as a blogger Courtney: [00:19:25] Yes, social media is so huge, and it always has been. I say that social media follower numbers really help me with brands because I'm even getting some brands reaching out, wanting only posts on social so that's just how important social is, and especially because, like I said, people might only see the content on Instagram, so it doesn't quite behoove the company that only wants a blog post. Courtney: [00:19:47] Some may say, "We don't even want it on the blog. We want three Instagram." So Instagram is my number one spot that I'm sitting on daily as a user and also interacting. Facebook's there. Their algorithm stresses me out. Instagram is where I'm getting DMs, people asking where those napkins are from or wherever. Courtney: [00:20:10] Back to ad revenue, I do create some content for some companies, Instagram pages that never sees mine or my blog but like Bath and Body Works, I'll create some, almost like a hired stylist photographer. Sometimes, bloggers can get a little bit of an ad revenue stream that way, like creating content for brands, but it's never coming through the sponsored channel of your own blog.You're just helping them create something. How to work with brands as a content creator Courtney: [00:20:10] Back to ad revenue, I do create some content for some companies, Instagram pages that never sees mine or my blog, but like Bath and Body Works, I'll create some, almost like a hired stylist photographer. Sometimes, bloggers can get a little bit of an ad revenue stream that way, like creating content for brands but it's never coming through the sponsored channel of your own blog. You're just helping them create something. Jillian: [00:20:33] Do you get tagged in those or are you really just behind the scenes? Courtney: [00:20:37] It depends. Sometimes, we've negotiated that. So I'll take a lower rate if I can get tagged. But typically, the follow throughs are not what I would want. Typically, I just charge enough that I don't care. They don't tag me. At the end of the day, I'm hired as a photographer for that. And I don't care where it goes once I have a rate that I like. Jillian: [00:21:01] Right. So can you talk about, we don't have to get into specifics, but how you think about your rate because bloggers tend to not know, and my advice is always think about how many hours you think something will take you, figure out what you would want to make per hour, come up with that number and then double it. Courtney: [00:21:34] Oh, for sure. How to come up with a rate to charge brands as a blogger Jillian: [00:21:35] So tell me, what do you think about when you're coming up with the rate? Courtney: [00:21:40] Yeah. First of all, recall very quickly that you have to take the taxes off that. I talk to my accountant, and there's not an exact number from year to year but I tend to take 30 percent off of that and into my head, that's what I might be able to take home. Courtney: [00:21:55] And that's a huge difference, so you might say a company came to me for something for $5000, and I go "Oh my gosh. $5,000." And I want to say yes to that. But step back and realize it's not going to be $5,000 that you take away. Courtney: [00:22:10] So set your standards there and then, recall all the things that you're going to have to go buy especially for a tablescape. I own a lot of things but food and flowers are expensive, and so, I will have to go and get all those things, driving to all those places, come back, create it, style it. Hope it's not raining on a day. Courtney: [00:22:27] These are things that have happened to me. So all of those things happen and then, I'm photographing, I'm editing and also, just the time and energy. And you don't want to take too many sponsored posts so be careful. Courtney: [00:22:40] I would rather work less and make more. And now, I'm at a place where if I take like a tablescape from a company. Basically, I think I'm making now what I did a few years ago. It would take me five tablescapes for clients to make what I now charge for one. Courtney: [00:22:58] Well, that sounds more fun to me. And brands are understanding the value of it, and a lot of this content lives on forever. So it might feel scary when you hit that send button with that rate. and you want to come back and say "yes" and then, you're like they said yes! How to know how much you're worth as a blogger Courtney: [00:23:16] And so unless it's a scary number, don't send it. I mean double it, like you're worth it. You kind of can figure out that you're worth it if you go throw an affiliate link onto something and then you see all the people that buy it, you're like "Oh my gosh. They listened to what I had to say." Courtney: [00:23:32] And then you realize that brand should be paying for that because you're able to get things sold, and that's ultimately the real point. So they want beautiful content. But the point is that they hope that when they see something out on a table, that your followers are going to go buy it and do it. I love to be able to see that on the affiliate side that I actually can get that action by a reader to happen. Jillian: [00:23:58] I would say, for me, I say this, becoming a mother has made me a better negotiator. And the reason is I just don't have a lot of time. So when somebody will come to me, to Catch My Party, and say "Hey, we want to work with you." I will take my own advice which is I think "What should I be paid for this?" Jillian: [00:24:22] But I know that I am not counting in all the hours of driving to the store and buying the flowers that die and all of that. And so I know to double it. But then I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach where I think "Oh my God. I can't send this. Oh my God." But then I think, "I'm too busy. I'm too crazy busy." Jillian: [00:24:42] So what I do is I press "send" and then I think, I'm going to be so busy in five more minutes that I won't ever be able to think about it again. And if they get back to me and say yes, great. And if they don't, I'll probably forget about it. So instead, I don't have the time to be freaking out in my head about the fact that "Oh my God. I can't believe I asked for that." And I will tell you more often than not, the brand comes back and says "yes." Courtney: [00:25:08] That's true. So before I had my daughter who is 3 now, before I had her, what I would do to myself is think, I worked from home, no kids. So I had time to kill. So if a brand came to me, I felt like I tried to give a rate that they would say yes to because I had time, right? Courtney: [00:25:24] I don't have anything going on the next week. I could do it. I might as well make at least a thousand dollars. I'll just quote him a thousand. Because I have time to give. Now, I would like to make more but I want to make sure they take it. I want to make sure they say yes to the rate, and I have the time. So that's the game I played. Then, when I had Blakely, I didn't have the time to give. Why being a parent helps you charge more as a blogger Courtney: [00:25:42] So if they wanted me to do it, I was going to have to get someone to watch her while I went and did it. So I charge so much so that if they said yes, I wasn't resentful. Well, what's happened is I make a whole lot more now that I have a daughter, that I play - I don't play dirty, but I play like "Here's my rate. Here's what I can pull off." Courtney: [00:26:04] And I should have be charging that rate back when I had all the free time but instead, I was like, "Wow, I don't have anything else to do. I'll do it for that rate." But now, there's other stuff to do, so I play "I'm going to give you this rate, and we're not going to go back and forth a lot. Here's what I can do." And they do. They take it. Courtney: [00:26:19] I'm like "What?" And so then, you're like, "Oh, goodness. Now, I have to try to figure out how to get this done with a child." But you know what? Because I charged what I did, I'm no longer resentful. Courtney: [00:26:30] I'm not at the craft store at 8 o'clock on a Thursday night, being resentful. I'm like "Oh, man. They said 'yes' but look what I'm going to get?" Because now, I'm not resentful. It's the worst thing that can happen when you're like "Gosh, darn it. I said this and then now, my daughter's sick. But I agreed to this for lower than I should have." And nobody's happy then. Jillian: [00:26:50] Exactly and now, you can send her to college. Courtney: [00:26:53] Right. And I do think that - You might say I feel if I were a blogger and I was hearing this right now, I would think, "Yeah but what happens if they don't?" And then, you don't make any money that month. Why you want to focus on ad revenue as a blogger Courtney: [00:27:03] So that's why I do really - even though social media is really important, and even though some brands are wanting only posts on social, social's not going to give you that monthly ad revenue. And though I don't make a lot on ad revenue, it is consistent now, yet higher in the holiday months because the traffic is higher in the holiday months. Courtney: [00:27:21] But that is why I think it's important to work on your blog and your page views at least in some capacity because then, you can play the game where you can take a brand project if you want it or say no if it's not a fit, or if they say no to your rate, you can say 'no problem'. Courtney: [00:27:36] But you can't do that a lot if you have no money coming in in any other way, right? So you want to get those page views up to get that ad revenues so you can get some of your basic mortgage, the electrical bill. That's covered and those things are safe. Courtney: [00:27:50] It's not totally that way for me but kind of, then I can play the game with brands where I'm going to take the ones I love, and you're going to pay the rate I want or I don't need to do it. That's when you're in a good sweet spot, and it takes a little bit to get there. But know the value of your time. It's so huge. Jillian: [00:28:09] Absolutely. Courtney: [00:28:09] Don't do it just because you have the free time. Why you need to own a blog as an influencer Jillian: [00:28:10] And I definitely recommend you do blog, that you do own your blog, that you do focus on your blog, because at the end of the day, as we've seen with social media, you're just a sharecropper on social media. So you want to own something. Courtney: [00:28:26] You don't own your account on Instagram. You don't. They can shut it down. They can end Instagram and move to something else and then, all those followers you spent so long building up, what do you have now? Courtney: [00:28:38] So grow your email list. That's huge. Grow your blog. Those are important things that you can control. And they can actually give you a passive income which is so huge. So if you have free time, don't quote lower because you have nothing going on. Courtney: [00:28:55] That free time would be better spent taking a few online courses, listening to podcasts. I would do some online photography food courses, creating your own content that you could then drive traffic to your site rather than creating sponsored stuff for cheaper than you should be paid. Jillian: [00:29:10] Absolutely. Now, Courtney, how many hours a week do you work given that you have a 4-year old? How many hours a week do you work as a blogger? Courtney: [00:29:17] How many hours are in a week? Because that would probably be it. No, I'm embarrassed to say more than I want. I don't start and end because I have a toddler. It starts and ends all the time so I don't work like an eight-hour day. Courtney: [00:29:30] I work all over the place but it's constant. I don't even know if I can put a number on it. If I'm not physically at the computer or on my phone, my brain's still thinking about it unless I'm literally in front of my daughter. And so some might say "That's just not real healthy," and what I say to that is "At least, I found something that I love, that I can't get out of my head." So all the time, probably nine-hour days if you actually had to put a number to it. Jillian: [00:29:54] And the one thing that I would say about working with your daughter, because I've seen posts of yours where your daughter will mimic what you do, and she wants to put together tables, and I think that - I have a daughter too - I think that that is such a great thing for our daughters to see. Courtney: [00:30:13] Yes. Yes. She's not exactly sure what I do, but she knows I set tables. We had a little table made for her, little chairs. Sometimes, I'll have extra fabric scraps or old plates I know we won't use, and I have a big old bin in my prop room and stuff like that, like plastic cutlery. I let her set the table and she doesn't want to "play house". She wants to "play party". Courtney: [00:30:39] We went to a birthday party recently, and she asked where the hats were, and I'm like "Blakely, hush it." But I think I've loved having her be able to incorporate what I do into her daily routine because she just kind of come along with me because this is what I do. Courtney: [00:30:55] And I think it's fun. When she was little, she got her little toy, a leapfrog laptop, that she would sit there and pretend to work with me, and that's just the reality. I do stop and focus on Blakely a lot. Courtney: [00:31:08] She's at a little preschool so that's when I kind of go hardcore work. When she gets home, I'm sort of playing in the prop room and have fun with her. But I think it's important to let them see that we work, and it's not just stuck behind closed doors just to the computer thing. Jillian: [00:31:21] Exactly. Courtney: [00:31:21] So it's fun. Jillian: [00:31:22] So what about your business are you most excited about? Courtney: [00:31:28] Oh gosh. How it's morphing. And I think so many bloggers are "I won't do video" or "I won't ever write a book" or "I don't do that." To me, a lot of those things do scare me. Writing a book scared me. Doing video scared me. But if you want to stay in this industry, it's like a big wave pool. Get your floaties on, and ride the wave. Jillian: [00:31:48] I love that. Courtney: [00:31:48] And so video, I don't totally love being in front of a camera but I just shot two full days of video because that's what the brand wanted. "Okay, I'm on it." I wasn't totally comfortable shooting still photography eight years ago either. But I figured it out. Courtney: [00:32:02] You figure it out, and you get comfortable with it because that's where you have to go. I'm most excited about maybe another book. I don't know. It's on the table. It would be a love passion project. Maybe a product line. I'm in some talks. We'll see. Those kind of things, so different stuff. I will always love creating content for the blog. Courtney: [00:32:32] That's the bread and butter. But I think these offshoot things that don't necessarily make you a ton, that's what keeps it interesting. So eight years later, you've got on something that's going to keep it interesting. And I think that definitely helps. So those are the things I'm most excited about. Jillian: [00:32:46] That's wonderful. Courtney: [00:32:47] A new social media platform might pop up. Am I ready for another one? I get kind of bored with those. I mean I'll keep on pinning and keep on doing Instagram, but I kind of hope somebody else pops up with a new one. How MiloTree helps your blog followers grow Jillian: [00:32:59] That's funny. What are you growing with MiloTree right now on your blog? Courtney: [00:33:04] I actually think I have it set to two different things. I rotate. I like to rotate and see which one does better. But I think maybe right now is on Pinterest. I'd have to check. I like to switch it and sometimes, I have it on my email newsletter. I also like that. Jillian: [00:33:19] Got it. Courtney: [00:33:19] I like the ability to rotate around. Jillian: [00:33:22] Great. Now, if you've git one piece of advice for a blogger starting out, let's say, who's in our space and wants to do something creative, maybe with parties, crafting, recipe, something like that, what would it be? What is the Monday morning test? Courtney: [00:33:37] What I tell people - I called it a Monday morning test. This would apply to any genre, but you could certainly apply it to an entertaining blogger or food blogger. Courtney: [00:33:46] So if you're listening to this and you kind of want to start a blog, maybe your Instagram is taken off, and you're thinking "Do I launch this to a blog?, then - I call it the Monday morning test, because if what you're doing does not get you up and out of that bed at like 6:00 a.m. on a Monday, then you shouldn't be doing it. Courtney: [00:34:04] So when I left my job at the career center, and I thought, "Oh my gosh. I love to sleep, and I'm so not a morning person. How on that first Monday am I going to get up and do this?" Well I was up, I was up at like 5:00, ready to go. That's how I knew I was in the right field. Courtney: [00:34:17] So this especially works if you're a night owl or if you're a morning person, what keeps you up at midnight thinking about it. That's how you know that you're in the right space. So though you might love setting pretty party tables, if you can't get up on that computer and read e-books about blogging and listen to podcasts about blogging and learn about photography, then you shouldn't be doing it. Courtney: [00:34:36] So all those things have to happen, and you got to be up and go in. Do that Monday morning test. That'll tell you whether or not you can kind of do this crazy job we're in. It's so rewarding. But you've got to be able to kind of get up that Monday morning at 6 am. I mean not every Monday morning. Courtney: [00:34:52] That's just a metaphor but you know what I mean. You've got to be able to really want it because you'll work harder than you did at that day job. But the work is better. I can stop for a moment if someone calls me. I can go and have lunch with a friend. Courtney: [00:35:04] But I'll make up the hours later. You have to have enough self-drive. So if you're not driven, don't hop in. Create the parties for your friends and make recipes, but don't make it a business. Only make it a business if you like the business side of things, so learning about plugins, learning about finances and taxes. It's all worth it if you really love what you're doing, but just don't forget about that side of the business. Jillian: [00:35:27] I love that. Okay. What is the one tool that you could not live without? Courtney: [00:35:33] Any tool? Jillian: [00:35:34] Any kind of tool that you use. Courtney: [00:35:39] Besides the camera, I love the MiloTree plugin. I love anything that helps me grow my social media following! Jillian: [00:35:47] Thanks for that. Courtney: [00:35:49] Oh my gosh. Probably my camera. I edit in camera raw. I know I should use Lightroom. I don't understand it. There's me as a blogger needing to go do an e-course. Just because I've been doing this for 8 years does not mean I know everything, so there's an example of something I need to learn on my own. Courtney: [00:36:06] But I would say that camera lets me take that content, edit it, make it beautiful and without that, I'm stuck. So I would say that Photoshop and Camera Raw are where I edit. Besides that, some great plugins on your site like we talked about. Definitely be on WordPress. That's the platform you should be on. Those are the tools of the trade. Jillian: [00:36:27] What kind of camera do you have? Courtney: [00:36:30] I have a Canon Mark D53. I think that's what it's called. I've had it a long time but my favorite lenses, if you're listening and you shoot food photography or table photography, I really love the 51.4, the 100 Macro. The 100 Macro for food, and the one to pick up most often for tables or life, although it's heavy, it's the [00:36:58] 2470. [0.5] You can get in. It is the only [00:37:01] zoom lens [0.3] I use. So that's really my favorite lens that I use. Jillian: [00:37:08] Awesome. Well, Courtney, how can people reach out to you? How can they find you? Courtney: [00:37:13] Yes. pizzazzerie.com. It's kind of spelled funny. Jillian: [00:37:18] Will you spell it? Courtney: [00:37:21] Yeah, P-I-Z-Z-A-Z-Z-E-R-I-E. It's kind of a combination of the word pizzazz and patisserie, pizzazzerie, if you're curious. So the best way to reach out to me, courtney@pizzazzerie.com or DM on Instagram. Courtney: [00:37:32] That's probably where I would see it first so email or Instagram. I'm on all the social channels. Just @pizzazzerie on all of them so Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, all the things, so find me there. I'd love to chat with you if you had a question I didn't get to here, then just come ask away. Courtney: [00:37:49] Hopefully, I've inspired you if you're interested in blogging or want to know more. It's a fun job and it's so rewarding, and I think it's just so great especially for women entrepreneurs or men, either way. Courtney: [00:38:00] I convinced my brother. He's a food blogger in upstate New York so I convinced him to be a food blogger after he finished his PhD. I can pretty much convince anybody to be a blogger if you can find me. Jillian: [00:38:10] I love that. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for being on the show. Courtney: [00:38:15] Yes, thank you. This was such a pleasure. Jillian: [00:38:18] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. Jillian: [00:38:30] It is the smart popup you add to your blog or your site and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things: It's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing popups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. Jillian: [00:39:02] So check it out, milotree.com. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 010 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Becky Mansfield from the blog, Your Modern Family. Becky is one of the most talented blogger entrepreneurs I know. She know how to create products people want. For example, she turned a blog post about potty training into a bestselling book on Amazon. She's build seven different product lines that cover all aspects of motherhood, parenting, and family life. Don't miss this interview where we go deep into creating and selling products, the importance of your email list, and why making friends in your niche can really move the needle.

Welcome to episode 009 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Kate Ahl founder of Simple Pin Media. In this episode, we discuss how to grow Pinterest now -- what's working today and what's not. We also discuss the value of niching down in your business, how to create growth by staying focused, and the importance of not chasing other people's success, but finding your own. Resources: Simple Pin Media Simple Pin Pinterest Strategy Group Visual Marketing Certification Course MiloTree Transcript - Latest Pinterest Tips To Grow Your Account Host: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hi, welcome to the show today. My guest is Kate Ahl, who is the mastermind behind Simple Pin Media. So welcome to the show, Kate. Kate: [00:00:21] Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited about your podcast. Jillian: [00:00:25] Thank you. And I'm inspired by you because I've been a big fan of yours for so long, and I've been on your podcast twice. Kate: [00:00:32] Yes, you have. They're both great conversation. Jillian: [00:00:36] And the thing that we both share is love of Pinterest. Kate: [00:00:40] Yeah it's true. Jillian: [00:00:42] So what I want to start with is a) - How you discovered Pinterest. And b) - how you built a whole business around it. Discovering Pinterest Kate: [00:00:52] Yes. So the first time I discovered Pinterest was actually at a good friend's house, and it was just after Pinterest started late 2009 early 2010, and she had made these really amazing outdoor candles chandelier-type-things with like mason jars and pallets. And we live in Portland, so that kind of all comes together even more perfectly. Kate: [00:01:17] I said, Where did you get all these ideas? This is crazy. And she's like, Well it's this new site called Pinterest. And I remember standing at her kitchen and we were looking at the computer or iPad, I can't remember at the time, and I was like I don't. But this is a great solution to bookmarking, because you would bookmark everything on your computer and try to save it for later, and that didn't feel like this cohesive place. But Pinterest didn't look like what it looks like now. At that time it was really confusing, like you couldn't figure out who you're following, and you had to have an invite. So. I said, Can you send me an invite? And it took like forever. It took like six weeks. And so my other friends were talking about Pinterest, and like what is it and how is it going to work> And so I got the invite and I created an account. I don't even know where that account is actually, I should try to dig and find it. But I loved it. I loved the sheer fact that I could organize content. Kate: [00:02:20] But I should also say I was really still confused by it, like the user experience in the beginning was not easy. Like you couldn't really figure out like, Who is this person I'm engaging with and what's their stuff. Kate: [00:02:33] They wanted you to follow artists and it didn't seem like it matched me quite yet. So I did take a step back from it for a little bit. Well during that time too, I started working with a friend who had a blog and she was feeling like it was growing pretty significantly. It was 2010 which means we we're still like mid-recession and she did deals, couponing for a living, which was going crazy during that time because people needed to save money. So she asked me to come on and do Facebook marketing for her initially, which I did and I loved. And then she asked me to come on to her blog to do a lot of affiliate marketing, blog management, kind of jack of all trades and that slowly merged into Pinterest, and what I ended up doing was that Pinterest account essentially became my personal Pinterest account. I was falling in love with Pinterest. Falling in love with her content too at the same time, but also falling in love with just using Pinterest in general, and so we really didn't know how to market on there. It was more, we had heard of people getting traffic and this was probably bringing us up to like 2010ish. And she discovered a Pinterest course. Turning Pinterest into a business Kate: [00:03:49] And she's like I took this Pinterest course to talk about naming your boards no longer cutesy names, like really thinking business. And we spent like three or four hours in her living room. It was spring of 2012 and really looked at what were we going to do with Pinterest, right? So we got the strategy. We're just playing around with it for a good full year. And then 2013 probably like November 2013, is when Facebook changed their algorithm pretty significantly. It was like the first big Facebook Armageddon where business pages weren't getting seen as a deal blogger. That's how you got most of your click throughs and affiliate sales, and everybody took a huge hit. Kate: [00:04:42] The question was like, We've never seen that before and we didn't really know what to do with it. Everybody's getting this amazing traffic. So we looked and said you know, maybe we need to do something different and at that same time, personally we were going through still the downturn of the economy. And my husband couldn't find a job and his unemployment had run out. And so at that same time the unemployment was running out and Facebook was changing their algorithm, she had said to me, the friend I was working for she said, Well why don't you try managing people's Pinterest accounts?And I thought she was nuts and I literally remember sitting at the kitchen table watching her say this and thinking I don't even know how you would do that. I was just on her account all the time. So I thought I can't be on someone's account all the time. Kate: [00:05:36] This is crazy. But she said just research everything you can do. Start Googling and see what's happening out there. We knew from this previous Pinterest course, that there was at least some idea of Pinterest for business. But yet there wasn't a lot of conversation about it. Kate: [00:05:52] I found one other Pinterest course that I joined. I found a small Facebook group of women just getting together to strategize about Pinterest. And I discovered ViralTag in the beginning as a scheduling service to use because there really wasn't anything out there, and I said I'll test with yours over two months. This was November-December. And then we sat at the beach one weekend and created a couple of different packages. I bought Simple Pin Media as a domain and thought, Here we go. Let's try this. And so she asked two of her friends to be beta clients. Jillian: [00:06:34] That is terrific. And how many clients do you have now? Kate: [00:06:38] A hundred and one. Jillian: [00:06:39] Wow. So you manage 101 clients' Pinterest pages. Kate: [00:06:46] Yes we do. We definitely have a big team. Jillian: [00:06:48] And how many people on your team? Kate: [00:06:50] 30. Kate: [00:06:51] Oh my goodness. Wow. And do you manage other social media accounts like Instagram or anything else? Kate: [00:06:59] No we've thought a little bit about Instagram. I have to say that that been in my thoughts, potentially on the road map. But it would be something along the lines of taking the model of Simple Pin and either franchising it or duplicating that model underneath different socials. Advice: The benefits of niching down Jillian: [00:07:24] This is a piece of advice that I continue to give which is the internet is a really big place and that you can grow a really successful business by niching down, by being the Pinterest experts. That you don't have to be the Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube expert. That actually by knowing your niche so well, you could really grow. Jillian: [00:07:52] People think oh, and then I need to move into this area and this area, and I'm like, if you go deep, not that many other people will do it. So you can own that space. And so when I think of Pinterest and I think Pinterest marketers, you're the person I call. Kate: [00:08:14] Thank you. Jillian: [00:08:15] Because I'm not thinking, oh I want a general social media marketer. I'm like, ooh, were noticing something with our Pinterest accounts. I'm going to check in with Kate and see if she's seeing the same thing. Kate: [00:08:27] Hmm yeah it doesn't make it easy for anybody who is thinking of doing any business. I will definitely say that niching down allows you to immerse yourself so deeply in a certain platform, that that's all you study. And I've found it feeling overwhelming. And that's why we haven't gone into Instagram because if you're dealing with two different animals, like one drives traffic and one drives engagement and there aretwo different methods of using it, and you can't apply a one size fits all social strategy to all social platforms. So absolutely it will just drive you into the ground. I don't want to be driven into the ground. Jillian: [00:09:10] Like another piece of advice I give is figure out what your goals are for your business, and pick the social media platform that a) - speaks to your audience, where your audience already is, and b) - which delivers what you're looking for. And yes you should own your name on every platform but to think that you need to be on every platform actively is... You will drive yourself insane. Kate: [00:09:40] Yes I have felt that. So for me socially as far as Simple Pin, my first focus was just Pinterest that's where I put my content. That's where I spent my time. That was my big drive and I did focus a little bit on Facebook, and building a really strong Facebook group. The group was more important to me than the page. And since then, I've just I have a social media manager who does all my stuff for me, because I don't want to keep up with Facebook I don't want to keep up with Instagram, right. I just want to interact with people. Jillian: [00:10:11] I will definitely say you are one of the top Pinterest experts, but Pinterest is always changing. So it's not like you ever own Pinterest. I'm always amazed at how often these social networks are changing. Kate: [00:10:34] All the time. Jillian: [00:10:34] So you know Pinterest today, but then you've got a keep on it and then you get to tell me what I need to do, because again it's not like oh I've mastered it. Oh no. They'll pull the rug out from under you. Advice: The moment you become unteachable or unwilling to learn is the moment your business dies Kate: [00:10:48] And I've always heard and heeded this advice, that the moment you become unteachable or unwilling to learn is the moment your business dies. The term expert is really tough for me to digest. And mostly because it's hard, it's just hard to see it that way and semantics right, like you could say thought leader, and I might wrap my brain around that a little bit better, but I think the thing is that even I as a person who studies Pinterest, teaches Pinterest, is only in Pinterest. I still have days where I will email some colleagues and say. There's not a trick I'm missing. Right. I'm not missing something and they know to expect it. You know, every six or eight months for me, because I just go... it's that moment of insecurity to go, did I miss something? Have I not learned this? And I appreciate people in my life who are willing to accept those questions from me in a way that says no, Kate you're fine. Like keep doing what you're doing. Jillian: [00:11:59] Absolutely. And again I like that idea of, if you have an online business you have to stay nimble. You have to stay hungry because you're absolutely right. You can't rest on your laurels like when you're talking about 2012, let's say Pinterest in 2012. That's not that long ago. And yet in the world of the Internet that's a really long time ago. Jillian: [00:12:25] So I will say that for us, for Catch My Party, or our first business, we stumbled into Pinterest. What I was doing was using it as a way to save content from Catch My Party, so that I could write blog posts, right, because my husband who's the technical part of our partnership, I kept saying to him build me somewhere I could have a clipboard or something. And he never built it. So then I discovered Pinterest. I was like oh I could just do it here. And then what I weirdly found was we were getting traffic. It was like weird we didn't plan on it. It was really just for my own personal use. And then we said to ourselves really early, which was good. This is driving us traffic and we're not even trying we need to try. And Pinterest now, of course, is our biggest traffic driver and the way we monetize with Catch My Party is traffic. So that's why we've then built MiloTree for example, or pop-up, because we recognize we need to grow Pinterest so we doubled down on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:13:33] So it's why I read whatever you write, because Pinterest matters to us in a huge way. And so it is about finding that area where you can build your business, finding the social networks that support that. And then being willing to learn as much as you possibly can about that platform, or whatever that thing is whether you're selling courses whether, you're selling products, whether you're creating stuff for Etsy, whatever it is. Jillian: [00:14:02] The more you know just the more you have to leverage. Advice: If you spread yourself super wide, you become less efficient and less productive Kate: [00:14:11] Yeah definitely. Fully agree and I think there's that feeling too of spreading super wide because we want to make sure we're covering it all. But yet when we spread super wide, we become less efficient or less productive. And we're only skimming the surface of everything instead of going to focus here, and that's hard in our online world and you and I have talked about this before. Because we are being pulled in so many different directions, kind of like with the dangling carrot of like, if you go here you can make money, if you get here and you are constantly in this push pull. And I was saying this to you before we started. I can't listen to podcast anymore about marketing unless I need the specific tool, because it's almost it's information overload for me, and it feels like dangling carrots in my face when I have this big team of people saying especially my leadership team, saying, we need you to do this or we need you to lead this, and lead us in this direction. And firm up these processes. That's where I got to continue to focus back my time, because that's where my business is and that's hard because there's a little bit of like the FOMO. Jillian: [00:15:28] Yeah. Kate: [00:15:29] Like, yeah I couldn't miss out on this tip, and yes my business is going to go down, and then you realize your business is going to go down the tubes if you spend all your day listening to podcasts and never implementing. Jillian: [00:15:41] Absolutely. And I am a big believer in just doing at least one thing a day. One thing a day to move your business forward and then to give yourself credit for achieving that goal. And I agree with you about stepping away. I've mentioned this previously, that I've really stepped away personally in Facebook. I know that's now kind of in the news, but I took a Facebook break personally. I noticed how much better I felt. Yes. And I know that's like, you know, I work in the world of social media. Advice: Don't fall for the FOMO trap Jillian: [00:16:18] But it's about figuring out that I don't have to be where everybody is and I don't have to follow that thing were, Oh my god everybody's making a ton of money here. I need to be there. It's a good lesson. Digging deep and figuring out who you are, what you want, what you want to grow, why you're doing this like those deeper questions, because you could spend your life going from trend to trend to trend. Kate: [00:16:48] Yeah yes you could. And you would drive yourself into the ground. Jillian: [00:16:52] And by the way. You won't be successful. Kate: [00:16:56] Yep I agree. It is hard in our world to have laser focus. But I would say like that is the place where you can find out the most about your business. That's where you can grow the most. And I agree with you I'm not on Facebook anymore very much, except to look at my group, right. That's where I get the greatest value from. Jillian: [00:17:20] Will you tell everybody what your group is? Kate: [00:17:23] So it's a Simple Pin Pinterest Strategy Group and it's just a group to talk about Pinterest we don't even do group board threads because we find that it kind of muddies the waters of the group. Jillian: [00:17:35] And what is a group board thread just so people know? Kate: [00:17:38] So there are specific Facebook groups on Pinterest group boards, so what it means is you can go into these Facebook groups, and you can look at what group boards on Pinterest people have available for you to join, and submit your content to that. So there's this one it's called Pinterest Group Boards. it's a fantastic group just dedicated to that, and I love it because again it's just dedicated to one thing. So knowing that that was happening over there I decided to really create a culture in our Facebook group that was just about Pinterest. So if you are experiencing a glitch, you could go there, ask a question and someone who would answer if you were frustrated or if you had a joy to share, or whatever it was in relation to Pinterest marketing. I wanted this to be the place where that conversation could happen without drama. It's the big thing for me. Yet without being solicited to get other members, without feeling like you were asking a dumb question, that there are no dumb questions. We want every single question there is and we want this to be the hub where you go to get up to date information on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:18:49] The thing I have to say, I love that you are popping in with updates and what's new. Like if I get in my feed, if I see that you have been on, talking about something I know to listen. Like I will stop what I'm doing and listen to you. Kate: [00:19:08] Thank you so much for the support, that means a lot. Because you know when you're on the other side of the computer, you never know what people are responding to. Jillian: [00:19:16] I have to say again, because you are my expert. So if you're talking, I'm listening. Kate: [00:19:22] I love it. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Most up-to-date Pinterest tips Jillian: [00:19:24] Okay, so so let's do this. Let's talk about Pinterest, just because you are the expert. And if I say group boards, give me your like 30 second thing on should people be focusing on group boards. And group boards again or where a bunch of people can share to a board, and the hope is that you can get your content in front of people that aren't necessarily following you. Kate: [00:19:53] Yes, that's correct. Group boards Jillian: [00:19:54] So that we can give some value to the listeners. Like group boards. Should people be finding group boards? Joining group boards? Kate: [00:20:02] Yeah, I think they're a valuable part of a bigger strategy on Pinterest with marketing, but I always tell people to keep it about only 30 percent, because what can happen is that you chase the idea of getting other people's followers to see your pins, ny joining group boards. And then you forget that you have your own followers, and they're following your personal boards, and they want to see what you're pinning. Kate: [00:20:26] So I tell people if they're going to do group boards, I always have them join group boards that fit their niche. Jillian: [00:20:32] Got it. Kate: [00:20:33] And that the content on there is something you would want your people to see. It's nothing sketchy, or just super general, or even not appealing. It has to have a specific title that is a very strong keyword on Pinterest so I don't want it to be like "Best Blogger Recipes. Jillian: [00:20:51] Or "Awesome Pins." Kate: [00:20:53] Exactly. I'd rather have it be something like "Instant Pot Soup Recipes." That means on the board is only Instant Pot soup recipes and if you have that content, that's a great place for you to put it. Not just for followers, but for the search factor, that when people search that title of Instant Pot soup recipes, Pinterest will see that that's a place where there's a lot of content on that topic being shared. So there's that, and then also joining with people you know is really important as well, and sharing from that group board especially if you have relationships, is also super important too. Pins per day Jillian: [00:21:30] Great okay. Now in terms of success on Pinterest. How many pin per day do you recommend somebody pin? Kate: [00:21:39] I have thought about this a lot actually, in the last couple of months. I have a data analyst who's going through a bunch of our data of the last four years, and analyzing a lot of this based on a number of pins per day. And one thing that's really interesting to us is our baseline package is ten pins, then we do a midline package of 20 pins and then 30 pins per day. Kate: [00:22:01] And the reason we started that in 2014, was because Pinterest was based on a chronological feed. So the more pins, the more you got seen in the feed. Well now that we've moved on to image and search based, what we realized is that the number of pins per day isn't as relevant as your keywords and board descriptions, or images and how much they capture the pinners attention. So I'm less likely to tell people it's a certain number of pins per day, and I'm more likely to ask them, what do your images look like? Because you can slap up 50 pins of crappy images, and not end up getting return. Or you could have ten amazing images and drive tons more traffic, and we find that with some rare clients lately, that those who really have had head down focus, they know their avatar. They have really strong keywords, like three to four pillar keywords that they really focus in on, and that that is increased engagement and it's increased their page views over time with just 10 pins a day. Text overlays on Pinterest images Jillian: [00:23:08] That's terrific. OK. Text overlays on the images or not? Kate: [00:23:15] Yes I really like them and I like them especially because Pinterest feels a little bit like billboard advertising. Jillian: [00:23:23] Yes, that's a good way to describe it. Kate: [00:23:25] Like you're coming by and what's going to catch their attention? Kate: [00:23:27] So I always tell people before they go into creating text overlays on their images for their own business. Do two things. One, start paying attention to billboards as you're driving. And just really pay attention to the patterns that you see and, two, go on to Pinterest on your phone. Try not to do this on desktop, and see what catches you. Scroll by and save it all to a secret board. And then you can see, what is it that stands out to me and why? And chances are it's going to be very "call to action" type statements. Something that could even be a provocative statement or a question. And then also really really bright colors. That's another thing to add if you're dealing with recipes or any type of food. I've seen a couple of things worked well which is showcasing the ingredients in the pin image somewhere, because then I can look at five o'clock if I'm ready to do dinner, and I can see that I have everything in your image. I'm much more likely to click, and make that meal. Jillian: [00:24:30] Ooh, I like that. Kate: [00:24:30] Or you can really tell me if it's easy, if it's healthy, if it's five ingredients. People on Pinterest love numbers. You're going to do something like twenty five cruise tips. That is amazing. Or you're going to do five ingredient brownies. Those do so well. And making that number pop too in a different color is really good too. Jillian: [00:24:54] That's awesome. Hashtags on Pinterest Kate: [00:24:54] Okay. Hashtags. Hashtags is new. So Pinterest released the use of hashtags in August of this last year, 2017. And that was a big surprise to us all. In fact, it felt a little bit like whiplash. What did you do? Because they were very dead set on it since the beginning. We don't use hashtags. We don't use hashtags. So they released it. And what they did with it was they created what's called the hashtag feed. So that means when you pin something to Pinterest with a hashtag, it goes into this hashtag feed that's run chronologically. So it's very wise for you as a business owner to create your own branded hashtag. So for me, I have the hashtag Simple Pin Podcasts. So when anybody clicks on Simple Pin Podcast, it goes to all of my pins. Then in addition, Pinterest is set up to do 20 hashtags on a description. But I would not go that many yet. I would just do about four to five and then, make it pretty specific. We're not like Instagram here so I would do something like "instant pot" or "instant pot soup" or "easy dinner." So not just "recipe." You don't want to go that route. And then, you don't want to go back and update your pins. That's one thing that's gonna be a waste of time because it's only done when a new pin enters the platform. So if you update with hashtags on your pins, it's not going to automatically funnel over into the chronological feed. It just stays where it is. Jillian: [00:26:33] Right. Right. Kate: [00:26:34] So the only update I would tell people to do is on your top 10 pins that are driving traffic to your site from Pinterest. I would go into your Pinterest description or wherever you want to have Pinterest pull the description from, and I would add hashtags there because people are already sharing once they get to your sites, so that does put the new pins that they're sharing on your behalf into the chronological feed. Jillian: [00:27:01] I love this. I'm like taking copious notes right now. Okay, video on Pinterest. Video on Pinterest Kate: [00:27:08] Video is also new as of this last summer. The only way that you can get access to their native video player is if you run a promoted pin ad, and it's based on views. I have not tested it yet. From what I've heard from other people, it's a little bit expensive. And video, it is being used by the big brands. So if you wanted to throw some money behind it, I would definitely. If you're a food blogger, I would go that route for sure and just set it up or have somebody set it up for you. But beyond that, video's on Pinterest that are just uploaded by YouTube are still a little bit of a speed bump, like people don't quite interact with them yet. Jillian: [00:27:51] Yes. Do you think - Again, as we're talking about niche-ing and that different niches are different, that Pinterest has really wanted to break into video but people have talked to me about it, and said, it makes me uncomfortable to watch video on Pinterest. I want to just be scrolling. It breaks the good vibes. Kate: [00:28:14] Yes, it does. It feels intrusive. Jillian: [00:28:16] Yes. Kate: [00:28:17] Yeah. I would say that's because - So we look at the Big Three which is Pinterest, YouTube and Google, and YouTube owns the space on video. So we are all conditioned that if we want a video, we go to YouTube, right? If we want a quick cooking video that just happens upon our stream, we will tolerate those on Facebook. Kate: [00:28:39] But the best path for video as it relates to Pinterest is still to create that solid pin image and lead them to your site or lead them to YouTube. We have seen some people doing that, and that works fine as long as the pinner knows on the image that they're going to a video. Yeah, if you - you can't interrupt their flow. If we're shocked into something or just it jars us a little bit, then we just were like "What? Where am I? What is going on?" But if you have a pin image with that little play button in the middle, people are more apt to try to push the play button because that's what we're conditioned to do. And then when they get over there, they find what they've expected which is a video. So that's really - I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what Pinterest does in the next year with video but I don't think we're quite there yet where the masses are ready to consume it. Promoted Pins Jillian: [00:29:37] Yes. Okay. One last Pinterest expert question, promoted pins. Who are those good for? Kate: [00:29:46] I think everybody. I definitely would say that promoted pins are continually getting better and better and better as they go along. I believe that an organic strategy is really, really good combined with a promoted pin strategy and that when you do a promoted Pin, you need to have a goal in mind. So we're doing a bunch of promoted pin campaign testing. We're building a promoted pins team like a services team here in Simple Pin. And so we're running a bunch of tests and my goal, because I'm going to use my account as a guinea pig, my goal is email sign ups. I want as many people on my email list is possible because I love talking to them in my email. It's my favorite thing to do. And it's the way that I can hook them in and continue to teach them and then hook them into my Facebook group. I'm not as concerned about course sales or promoting my services because those are two things that take a little bit of time to warm up. So my goal is always, okay, I have this amazing post there, and I'll say it's not an amazing post but it's gotten an amazing amount of traffic from Pinterest, about how to clean up Pinterest boards and it has an opt-in on it. That's the one I'm promoting because I'm getting so much traffic to it that I want to take my promoted pin and give it another 10 to 20 percent boost, just to see how it performs. Jillian: [00:31:10] So then you're sending that pin to a landing page where people can sign up? Kate: [00:31:15] No, it has the landing page built within the post. Jillian: [00:31:18] Okay, so it sends it to a post and then, they read the post and there is a sign up. Kate: [00:31:23] Exactly, it has a good conversion rate on it already. It's about 50 percent. Jillian: [00:31:29] That's terrific. Kate: [00:31:31] Yeah, so we're really trying to funnel as many people towards that. Jillian: [00:31:34] Got it. Okay, because we were experimenting with some promoted pins for MiloTree and what I found was when I just promoted like "Hey, grow your social following especially Pinterest" because again, the idea is I want to advertise on Pinterest that this can help your Pinterest. It was working okay but when I promoted a pin that was an article that was like "How to grow your Pinterest. Here are our top tricks and tips", that did much better by getting people to click when it was "I'm going to give you free content here. Here it is", or which did much better than "Hey, here's just an ad for us. Kate: [00:32:26] Yeah, I would agree. People need to be warmed up for sure. Jillian: [00:32:30] Yep, they need to trust you, and they need to see that there's real value there. Kate: [00:32:35] We have run ads to the landing page just for my Pinterest planner and that's like our big main opt-in. And we found that that hasn't actually converted as well as sending them to the podcast where I talk about it and they can get warmed up. Jillian: [00:32:53] Interesting. Okay. This is the thing I would say: When you do ads, test. Try things and you have to be willing to lose money. That's painful, super painful but it is true that you have to think about the fact that it's like paying for a course that you put some money behind stuff to see how it performs. And then, you try to learn as fast as possible. What is a KPI - key performance indicator? Kate: [00:33:32] Yes exactly. You try to catch up before you lose too much which is not much. It's a good idea. Yeah we were talking about a podcast I just recorded is about KPIs, key performance indicators. Jillian: [00:33:44] Can you just explain what a KPI is? Kate: [00:33:46] Yeah, so a KPI is just that key performance indicator and for Pinterest, the common KPI is our followers, sessions and then saves but we wanted to take it a step further and look. Do we actually know when a user is coming to your site from Pinterest? How much is that user worth or how much is that post making? So we could either want more traffic and spend more time doing that or we could spend some time really being strategic about where people are clicking, and what's making us the most money and try to optimize that. Kate: [00:34:26] And then once we know the cost of a click, then we could put money behind it. And we'd actually know how much we're spending on an ad, that the illustration that my guest gave was you could put a 20-dollar bill into an ATM and get out a 40-dollar bill or you could put in - That's not the best analogy but you could put in two to three cents and get back a dollar. We'd stand there all day, right? Even though it feels painful to lose 50 cents for a lead, they're worth down the line. But if we don't know that, that makes it harder. That's another element of Pinterest marketing that I think is easily forgotten. Because we are caught up in follower's sessions and saves. But a follower or a session doesn't mean anything to us if we don't know the value. Jillian: [00:35:16] Right. If you're not making money from it or you don't know how much because the idea is that you want to figure out where I can spend a dollar but I'm making a dollar fifty. And you know what? If that's the case, then you want to put as much money as you possibly can into that because you will be making money. And that's what I call finding that flywheel where you put money in, but you're getting more money out. And so those are, you know, but there can be a situation where you're putting money in and maybe you're putting in a dollar. So it doesn't feel that bad. But the truth is that it's cost two dollars for a sale even though you're like "Well, I'm just losing a dollar." You know, it's ultimately not making you money. Kate: [00:36:06] Right. Yeah, and it's hard to face some of those numbers. I mean, I will say sitting down and doing a cost analysis of my post sounds like I want to poke my eyeballs out. But once you know it, then you're more empowered to make better decisions than if you didn't know it. So it's kind of like "Do I want to bury my head in the sand or do I really want to know the numbers exactly?" Jillian: [00:36:31] Exactly. And one thing that I think happens with social media is when you get new followers, it feels good. But when you're running a business, it's not about that kind of hit of dopamine. It's about making money, and those can be very different things. Kate: [00:36:55] Yes, drastically. Jillian: [00:36:57] So I know a bunch of people who put a lot of emphasis on Instagram to grow their followers and when I say "Well, why are you growing your followers?" They don't really have a good answer. Kate: [00:37:07] Right. Because that's just the thing we've been taught to do. Jillian: [00:37:09] Exactly. So first of all, I just have to thank you because you have been so supportive of MiloTree. And you really, like way at the beginning, you put us on the map. So I just have to tell you that. Jillian: [00:37:25] And then, what I want to ask you is if you had one piece of advice for people who are starting out, and this can relate to Pinterest or not, what would it be? And maybe something you wish you knew when you were starting. Advice: Don't chase after other people's success Kate: [00:37:44] Well, I think I might have the same answer for both but a slightly different bent. And I think it would be "don't chase other people's successes." Jillian: [00:37:58] I love it. Kate: [00:37:59] Because on Pinterest, I hear it over and over again and that so-and-so has this many sessions or pageviews, so-and-so has this many followers and I want that. And when we go after that, we're distracted away from who our person is, and we're distracted away from our avatar and our focus and our vision. And the same can go for growing a business. I found, for me, probably about, I think it was two and a half years into my business, that I was reading emails from another person who was teaching Pinterest, and listening to a couple of podcasts and when I would do that, it would distract me away from what I was doing and specifically because I am a services based business. Kate: [00:38:48] My main focus is not my courses and their main focus was their courses. And so I felt this kind of push and pull away from "I'm services based and I'm gonna focus on these clients but yeah, all these people are making so much money doing courses and I want to go there," and I finally have this moment, that comparison is the thief of joy, right? So I can't chase their success. I don't have their email list, and I don't have their wiring, and I don't have their personality so I have me and me as a person who does really well in a services-based environment, who does really well with clients and loves that part of it and I have been able to scale it pretty aggressively. And I naturally fit into it, and that is okay. And so I think that would be the biggest piece of advice: "Don't chase other people's success. Chase your own because you are unique, and you have your own strengths and gifts and talents and personality." And I'm not somebody else and their take on Pinterest. I'm not going to focus on certain things and there's certain things I will and will not teach on, and that's fine. Other people are going to teach on those things. But sometimes, it's not for me and I have to be okay with that instead of trying to be all things to all people who want all types of Pinterest marketing. I'm not going to be the expert for somebody who wants a different type of philosophy with Pinterest, and I've finally come to the place where I can say "That's okay." Jillian: [00:40:24] I love it. I completely agree. It's like you have your own special sauce. We all do. And it's how do you figure out what that is and typically, I would say it's two. For me, it's two things. One, does this feel good? Do I leave this happier than when I started? So for example, for me, I'm really enjoying podcasting in a way that I didn't even know I would. So it's like "Ooh, that feels good. I want to continue" and then the other side is "are people responding in a positive way? Are people liking what I'm doing, liking what I'm selling..." So that there's this kind of feedback loop and I feel like if you can find your own feedback loop where people like what you do and you like what you're doing, that is kind of your sweet spot. Kate: [00:41:17] Right. Yeah. Agreed. Jillian: [00:41:19] So now, what about your business are you most excited about? Kate: [00:41:24] I am really excited about a new step that we're taking to teach people how to be a Pinterest account specialist and are certified in a Simple Pin Method. Jillian: [00:41:35] So explain what that is. Kate: [00:41:36] So here at Simple Pin, we do services for Pinterest account management and I have 30 team members that I've trained to be Pinterest account specialists, so I realized that teaching and training how to do this specific skill comes very naturally to me. So we realized we could take that and transfer into helping other people find work at home jobs to be Pinterest account specialists if they needed to supplement their income, or they need to find a full time income. So we took the methods that I've used, the systems that I've had and we created a whole course training as to how you can be a Pinterest account specialist being trained in our method. So we would endorse you as a provider, kind of similar to how like, I don't know, Dave Ramsey has this great method that he does with budgeting, so he endorses people to be like endorse local providers. So that would kind of be similar as to what we're doing is training people on how to do this, and how to grow their Pinterest account specialist business. Jillian: [00:42:40] Oh wow. So if you're a person and you love Pinterest and you want to make money, kind of delving in and then helping others, this is an awesome way to do it. Kate: [00:42:51] Yeah. And there was not anything like that when I was around when I was starting. There was nothing. Jillian: [00:42:56] Well, I have an assistant, and she does all of our Pinterest. And I think it is one of the - like it's her happy place because she gets to go onto Pinterest and find beautiful pins and pin our content. And I really think that when I was explaining that part of the job, I think that she's like "Oh my God. You're going to pay me to hang out on Pinterest all day?" Kate: [00:43:20] Yeah, exactly. That's what most of my account specialists say. They're like "People don't understand what I do. But I love it." Because many of them, they are young moms and they get to stay at home and do this during nap time or in the evening or they have kids who are at school or they even don't have kids, summer in college. I mean, there's a lot of things that they love about it and the freedom to be able to do it whenever it works for them and they're on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:43:45] Exactly. See, I find Pinterest very different than when I'm on Facebook. Pinterest to me is like, and I'd still get this even all these years later, just this feeling of like "Oh, filled with possibilities." Kate: [00:44:00] Pretty, pretty things. Jillian: [00:44:03] You know? It puts me in my happy place. Like "look at all this food." It just makes me happy. Kate: [00:44:10] Me too. Jillian: [00:44:11] So, okay, will you share how people can learn about you, learn more about your services, whatever, you know, so people can connect with you? How Simple Pin Media works Kate: [00:44:21] Yeah. So first of all, Simple Pin is kind of broken up into two parts. One is the services side. So if you are somebody that you've a business blog or you're corporate, whatever it is and you want to just take Pinterest management off your plate, take that chore away, that's what we primarily specialize in, and you can find more about that at simplepinmedia.com. And you can see, there's a services menu at the top and we also offer a variety of onetime services as well, and we do teach and train teams how to do that as well. So if you have a virtual assistant that you still want to do your Pinterest management but you need more support, we'd do that as well. And then there's the DIY side. So I had the Simple Pin Podcast. Jillian: [00:45:03] Which is terrific. Kate: [00:45:05] Thank you. There is I think where one episode I recorded, episode 89 today, so there's quite a bit of information and we try to keep it. The goal is to give you information to make you not feel overwhelmed because there's a lot of things out there that can feel very heady or tricky, or whatever it might be, and we try to stay away from that and just give you the most up to date information as it relates to how they're currently working on the platform. So we have that, and as with the blog too, and you can also find at simplepinmedia.com a free Pinterest planner, a year round planner, that I did in conjunction with TailWind. We partnered together to create one this year. And that has a month by month of what to pin, what to promote, content, planning ideas, tips for the month as it relates to Pinterest and then monthly action items that you can take to keep your business moving forward. Jillian: [00:45:59] Kate, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Kate: [00:46:03] You're so welcome. Jillian: [00:46:05] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterestm plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:46:27] Just a couple of things: It's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your sight down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. So check it out, milotree.com. We also offer your first 30 days free!

Welcome to episode 009 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Rachelle Doorley from the blog, TinkerLab. Rachelle has been blogging for over seven years. She is an author and arts educator and helps kids and parents become creative inventors. In this episode we talk about how to build a successful course, how she wrote her first book, why she thinks it's valuable to work with other bloggers in her space, and why she's writing another book. Resources: TinkerLab TinkerLab: A Hands-On Guide For Little Inventors Art Start Challenge MiloTree  Transcript -  #008 How to Build a Successful Course with Rachelle Doorley Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:00] Hi,welcome to the show. Today I have my friend, Rachelle Doorley, from the blog, Tinkerlab. So welcome, Rachelle. Rachelle: [00:00:11] Thank you so much, Jill. I'm very happy to be here. Jillian: [00:00:15] Let me first read what it says about you on your blog. Jillian: [00:00:20] You are a maker, a teacher, an arts educator, a mom, a Girl Scout leader, a traveler, a sketchbook collector, a creativity enabler. I love it. Jillian: [00:00:40] So can you tell me how you started with Tinkerlab because we met... I was thinking about it... six years ago. And you had launched TinkerLab and you were growing it. So can you talk about what inspired you and the evolution of TinkerLab? The evolution of TinkerLab Rachelle: [00:00:57] Absolutely. I can't believe it's been six years, so that was actually shortly after I started it. So Tinkerlab's been around for about seven years now a little over seven years. So basically what it is it's a website, it started as a blog, and it's a hub for parents and educators or grandparents or after school teachers who want to support creativity in young children through art and science and tinkering. Rachelle: [00:01:27] And we do that by providing free content through our blog, and we also have a free five day art challenge where families can download art activities that are really simple to do with your kids. We also have classes both in person and online. And so we deliver this content in lots of different ways. Rachelle: [00:01:46] And you know this all started when my older daughter, I have two girls, and when my older daughter was one and a half and she started just drawing. She started making marks on paper with crayons. And up until that point I was an art educator I worked in schools... Jillian: [00:02:09] I have to interject. I have to say that you have a master's from Harvard. Rachelle: [00:02:14] Yes. OK. [00:02:16] And so I was teaching in schools and museums and I had worked with children from kindergarten all the way up through adults. When I started TinkerLab I was in the middle of training docent program at a really big local art museum. So I worked with people of all ages but I never worked with one and a half year olds before. Rachelle: [00:02:36] And so my challenge became how do I apply all this cool stuff I know about best practices and arts education to my own child's experience. And I started hunting around for ideas and found some blogs and some books that guided me. And then I realized I had to kind of put my own flavor on it and figure it out for myself. Rachelle: [00:02:54] How do I create this home tinkerer lab experience and basically turn my home into a lab? And my daughter became my key subject and then I just grew a passion for it. It became this really big thing for me and I stopped working at the art museum and really focused 100% on creating experiences for other people like me who were also looking for ways to foster creativity with their kids. Jillian: [00:03:19] What I love about your content, and you could tell me how you feel about this. Your philosophy... which is everybody can be creative. It's not about instructing kids, it's really about allowing them their creative freedom. Rachelle: [00:03:43] Yeah that's exactly right. So for the most part I really try to present experiences that are open-ended and that encourage children to think creatively and build their self-confidence. Rachelle: [00:03:54] And so by having a prescriptive art experience that says this is exactly what you have to do, and here are the five steps to do it, isn't really going to get them there. But you know something like that's not bad, it can definitely teach them skills. But what I'm really trying to get at is helping families or teachers set up experiences that really encourage children to ask big questions, to think creatively, to you know find their own passion for whatever questions it is that they're trying to pursue. And that can really be done through open ended art experiences. How she wrote her first book Jillian: [00:04:27] And then you've you've written a book that I love with pictures of your kids going through of lots of fun art experiences and now you're also writing your second book. Can you talk about how that happened? Rachelle: [00:04:43] Yeah. So I had this one and a half year old and I wanted to do art with her, and I started hunting around and finding all these resources in the process of trying to figure it out. I found some books, then I thought... I'd really love to write a book. Rachelle: [00:05:00] But at that point, I'd never written a book. I wrote didactic panels in the museum which are like vinyl things you see on the wall. And I wrote a newsletter that went out to our teachers every week, and I think that was like my introduction to blogging. I'd written papers in grad school, but I'd never written a book. Rachelle: [00:05:19] And so it became this quest for me, like I want to write a book on this topic. And I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for out there, but something that's really about how to encourage how to build and support this home environment that support open-ended creativity. Rachelle: [00:05:37] And so I just realized I can chip away at this 1 blog post at a time, and I just started building these arsenal blog posts and then over time I developed a voice, and got a lot of feedback and realized what kinds of things people were interested in learning about, and what things they weren't. And after a couple years, I had enough content to make a book, and I was lucky enough to find a publisher. Rachelle: [00:06:01] And then the book happened. It got published and now I'm finishing up my second book. Jillian: [00:06:09] Wait, so the first book is called TinkerLab: A Hands-On Guide for Little Innovators. Rachelle: [00:06:16] Little Inventors. Jillian: [00:06:18] I'm sorry. Rachelle: [00:06:18] It's funny, we actually went back and forth: should it be innovators, should it be inventors. They are both really good. And so that book is great, and I've gotten a lot of great feedback on it. And it's you know it's designed for kids ages 2 to 6 and it has all kinds of ideas in it that parents can implement right away with very simple materials and so now I'm working on two more books. Book writing thing really stuck. Jillian: [00:06:47] Although I have to say I remember a conversation after the first book, where you're like I don't know if I could do this again. Rachelle: [00:06:56] It's like giving birth. Jillian: [00:06:57] OK so what inspired you to do it again? Rachelle: [00:07:00] You know I had enough space from it, and when you start something you've never done before, you're blind and you don't know exactly what you're getting yourself into. And so having gone through it one time, and having a little bit of space, I could see that I could just be a little bit more strategic about my second book, and I could set up things in my life that would make it more doable, and not so willy nilly and Helter-Skelter. Jillian: [00:07:29] So what's the second book about? Rachelle: [00:07:32] I can't talk about it just yet. Jillian: [00:07:34] Really. OK I got it. Rachelle: [00:07:35] I'm not at liberty to talk about it, although I will say that it is a creativity book for kids who are in a little bit of an older age group, so ages 8 through 12. So moving up into a different age and it's in the world of calligraphy, handwriting, that kind of thing. But I can't say too much more. Jillian: [00:07:56] And when will it be out? Rachelle: [00:07:58] It's supposed to come out in the summer of 2018. We shall see. Jillian: [00:08:04] Yeah OK. Now can you talk about the evolution of your blog because you started writing blog posts and that turned into your book. And then you started creating courses, right. And like how did that happen? Rachelle: [00:08:22] Writing is such a fulfilling experience. And obviously I'm sticking with it and I loved doing it. It's not a huge moneymaker. And I realize that I just needed to diversify my income and figure out other ways to really get my word out, and get my ideas into the world, but also now pay my rent and keep food on my table. Rachelle: [00:08:53] So obviously I'm continuing with the book writing but my website is monetized in lots of different ways. Jillian: [00:09:01] Do my mind walking through the different ways? How to monetize your blog Rachelle: [00:09:03] Not at all, and then I'll circle back to this question. So money comes in through book writing. And then one of the nice things now is that, I've had a book that's been out for a couple of years, I still got residual checks for my book. My book that's already been out for a while. So people keep buying it and money still comes in. That's really lovely to have that passive income. Rachelle: [00:09:24] And then there is advertising on my website and that's nice. Also passive income. And I have an affiliate agreement with Amazon. And so that's a little bit of money. Jillian: [00:09:38] And that's like Amazon Associates? Rachelle: [00:09:41] Correct Amazon Associates. So you know if somebody goes onto one of the blog post and they are like, what kind of painter are you using? And they click over. Then I get a percentage for that. And let's see there's something. Oh sponsors. So if we find really good sponsors that are a good fit with our brand, then we like working with them, and they might send us products and we can review it or something along those lines. And those sponsorships can work through our blog or through our social media. So that's another way I think there are five different ways. Rachelle: [00:10:14] And so what I was realizing is that all these different ways, aside from the book writing, that we were monetizing the website, were not really in our hands. Right, so if Amazon changes their terms next week then our percentage could drop, and we could make less money, which is actually happened this past year. And the same goes for advertising, and the same goes for sponsorships rights, and money can dry up. Rachelle: [00:10:36] So I think it's really important to diversify where your income is coming from, and then realizing that I really wanted to have some products on our site. So I had been selling little products here and there, like downloadable PDFs. How she figured out what course to build Rachelle: [00:10:57] I really wanted to teach a class right. I come from a teaching background. And so I ran a beta test and kind of figured out what the class would be about. Jillian: [00:11:05] So explain what that means. One thing that I know about you is you are very close with your community and they talk to you and give you feedback. Rachelle: [00:11:19] Right. Right. Right. So feedback is really important. Rachelle: [00:11:29] So I should also say, it's like a piece of advice for those of you who don't already have a newsletter. It's super important to get some kind of pop-up or something on your website where people can sign up for your newsletter because then you can. Jillian: [00:11:43] You can use MiloTree. Rachelle: [00:11:45] Yes, and I love MiloTree. So actually this is something I wish was something I started from day one, was having a newsletter. It's ok. I have one now and I've had it for a while, but why I mention it is is because you can get directly in touch. I mean there's lots of benefits to it, but one is you can get in touch with your fans right away and you can survey them and ask them what they're looking for. Right, what do you want or what's your pain point, and how can we help you solve it? Running a class prototype Rachelle: [00:11:45] And so I ran a survey, and I've done actually a number of surveys asking different kinds of questions and just try to get to the root of it, like what people want, what's the format they want, what problems can I help them solve, and then from that data, I pulled this class together, and I ran it as a beta, meaning that it was a prototype, and I wanted to have people join me who were willing and interested and excited about the content, but also willing to be guinea pigs and help me through trouble shooting some of the problems that might exist with it. Jillian: [00:12:47] So did you charge for it? Rachelle: [00:12:51] I would recommend anyone who's running a beta, I would definitely charge them. I was actually invited to be in a beta for for free program someone was running, and they said it's free. And it's funny, because it was free, I did not have an investment in it, and I just failed to show up and it was no fault of the class the. Actually it was probably really good. Rachelle: [00:13:14] I think it's really important that people have that financial investment because then they're on the hook, and they actually want it. They're not just giving you lip-service, sure I'll do it, I will help you out of it. It's something that they actually want. So I did charge, but I didn't charge the full amount, I made it very reasonable but still enough that people, when they signed up they felt like they needed to be there. Yeah. Jillian: [00:13:37] And there is something that is true that people value things they pay for more than things they get for free. Rachelle: [00:13:44] Absolutely. Yes so I ran the beta and then because I gave them this discount, they were willing to give me their feedback. Rachelle: [00:13:56] And so along the way we had a private Facebook group and they would share their thoughts with me and I also ran this post survey at the end and got more feedback from them on what they liked and what they didn't like. Launching her online course Rachelle: [00:13:56]  And then from there, I launched the class officially and I charge more money. And oh the other thing I offered my beta class, which I think is a nice thing to do, is I offered them lifetime access, so every time I run the class they can retake it if they want to. And I think they really appreciated that and it's also really great for seeding future classes. So you know they're my diehard fans and if they want to take the class again, they'll show up and they'll give feedback to people and they'll be present. So they're that "launch party" basically, that comes along with you. Jillian: [00:14:49] Right. And I talk about this, but really to build a business you need about a thousand fans, raving fans. And there you are building that, you know, who will buy your next book, who will take your next course, who will talk about you on social media. It's like it doesn't take millions. It's actually a much smaller number than people think. Rachelle: [00:15:17] And you know it's a good reminder too that I always feel better at the end of the day when I connect one on one with someone. So if somebody reaches out to me, or they want to have a conversation and they're in one of my classes, or they've done something with me, I always have such a good feeling. It's a much better feeling than like, Hey I sent a newsletter out to thousands of people today. No one got in touch with me. It's like, oh that's nice. Did I affect anyone today? I don't really know. Can you get rich from creating a course? Jillian: [00:15:45] Right. Right. Now here's the question: Is creating of course a get-rich-quick scheme? Rachelle: [00:15:54] That's a really good question. Jillian: [00:15:56] Because I get tons of emails saying I just created this course and it's a six figure course and stuff like that. So my instinct is that that is not true. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. Rachelle: [00:16:11] I don't know if I'm well positioned to answer that question. For me it has not been a get rich quick scheme, but it is also my biggest source of revenue. So I think it just depends on what your goals are, and it depends on your niche and how much you're solving for people, and how much they're willing to pay for that. Rachelle: [00:16:34] And it probably has a lot to do with how you deliver the concept. I guess the other piece of it is your commitment. So what I can say is that I've launched the class now three times, and each time I launch it, it's a bigger. It's bigger than the previous time. And so that wouldn't be necessarily getting rich quick, but it's definitely a growth opportunity. Rachelle: [00:16:57] The only thing I see kind of happening in the class space is that it's reaching that... it's starting to reach that saturation point, which is something that's going to happen anywhere online right. You know people start getting excited about it, they hear about it, and people start selling courses on it. Rachelle: [00:16:57] And so the market is definitely getting saturated, and I think it's making it harder to get rich quick. But there are people out there who are making those six figure incomes off of their classes, and so I think it's... I think it's still an exciting place to be and to invest time into, as long as you have a passion for it, and you're excited to show up every day and commit to it and keep going with that. Lots of potential for teaching courses online Rachelle: [00:17:37] There's a lot of potential, there's a lot of potential for teaching classes, and I mean the beauty of it that I see, and I've always had this in me, is that you can reach so many people with one experience. So when I was teaching elementary school art I had a class of 30 children at a time. I was actually teaching a bunch of classes, but say just 30 kids. And I was teaching a workshop one weekend, we had 30 teachers in the room, and I was like, wait a second, all these 30 teachers in the room, each teaching 30 kids let's say. So right now I'm teaching this class to these 30 teachers and this is going to impact 900 students. And that was such a powerful moment for me when I realized I can do something one time, and have the potential to reach so many more people. And I was teaching in Los Angeles Unified School, just directly with kids who didn't have access to a lot of things, and it was really powerful for me to think that I had this ability to impact people who need it so much, who might not get it otherwise. Rachelle: [00:18:39] So you go and teach a class online and it has that same exact potential, which is exciting. So if you get excited about that potential, and you really feel like you can serve a lot of people, and you want to, I think the sky's the limit really. Right. And it's I think some people are going to nail it and should, and other people won't. Rachelle: [00:18:59] And it just kind of depends on, again, what the niche is and their passion and their commitment to it. Jillian: [00:19:05] I think that is so right on. I think the idea that if you have something inside that you want to teach other people feel that authenticity. They feel that you're an expert in your field and they want to learn from you, and that you can reach thousands and thousands of people. Rachelle: [00:19:28] Yeah absolutely. And again if it does go back to that need. So in serving your audience, finding out what they really need, and if you're just doing something that you think is fun and important, but nobody really wants it, then you're not going to make millions of dollars doing it. Jillian: [00:19:43] What was surprising? What did you find out that surprised you as you were building your course? Rachelle: [00:19:55] Well that's a really good question. Taking me back to when I was designing the course. I guess one of the things that surprised me was how far reaching it was. You know I live in California, and to see people sign up for the class from all over the world, and I know that I have a blog following of people from all over the world. Rachelle: [00:20:20] But it was kind of amazing for me to see people show up in our forum or a shared group, from Belgium and from Australia and from Portugal, speaking all different languages, but showing up in this place and showing examples of their kids doing the work, in all these different places and all the different interpretations of the same set of rules and it was also such a beautiful surprise to see the world get a little bit smaller, with all these people coming together. Jillian: [00:20:56] Yes. And I would say that every day I am running online businesses, I feel that the world is small. Rachelle: [00:21:05] It is. It is. Jillian: [00:21:07] You know and that and that especially as moms, we all want the same things for our kids. Rachelle: [00:21:15] We definitely do. Jillian: [00:21:17] So in terms it's like the nuts and bolts like social media. How do you see social media? How has it changed for you? What's working for you now? How to use social media to grow your blog Rachelle: [00:21:27] Yeah great question. Social media has changed a lot obviously since I started it, you know seven years ago. Pinterest didn't even exist when I started. And so I think it is so important to stay as much as you can on top of what's happening, what those changes are in the last year. I've had a lot of personal issues going on with my family. My mom was really sick. And so you know I just had to turn off a lot of social media. I've lost track of what's happened. Things have changed a lot. That said, when I started, Facebook was really strong. That was a place where I put in a lot of investment and a lot of time and I still think there's a lot of growth potential in Facebook, and where I'm putting all my effort right now is a trifecta of Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Rachelle: [00:22:15] And you know going back to when I started, I think what helped me probably more than anything, content is important, but it's the community, and it's not just my community, not just the people that show up for me who like my content, but it's also people who are running in the same space as me, or running in similar niches as me, whom I became friends with and we help each other. And so I'm seeing a lot of that happening on social media. Rachelle: [00:22:48] On Instagram, there are Instagram pods, where people will work together to help each other's Instagrams grow. Are there are Facebook pods, where someone will post, Hey I posted something today on Facebook, and everyone pops over and likes it or comments on it to help them out. Why you want to work with your competitors as collaborators Rachelle: [00:23:04] And so that that kind of thing is still alive and well, and I think that that kind of community support, and finding people that you love, and that love you, and that can really help you grow, and seeing yourself as part of a community. No one can grow on their own. And you know even though I largely work by myself, I know I would not be where I am now, if it weren't for the support and friendship of other people. And your social media is a big place for that. Jillian: [00:23:34] Yeah, the Internet is really big. And I always say, befriend your competitors because you can help each other. And that you are not exactly in competition with them. There's room. Rachelle: [00:23:49] Yeah exactly. No you're not. You're not. Everyone has their own spin on things, and your readers or your viewers or your listeners are going to come to you for your specific taste. Right. And what you are serving up on your menu will be a little bit different. Rachelle: [00:24:04] And you know it's like two Italian restaurants can exist on the same street because they're not identical. Jillian: [00:24:08] Exactly. And I think it also creates a feeling of abundance rather than scarcity. Rachelle: [00:24:15] Yeah yeah. And you know the other piece of it was that when I started, I had two really little kids and I was feeling very isolated, and I was looking for a community. And so to find all the other people who were doing things similar to what I was doing, my world felt a lot smaller, and I could connect with them and we could understand each other. And you know this is how you and I met we were. You know, we bonded immediately because we had you know we were both building businesses, and we both had little kids. So finding other people is so important and it just helps. It helps you get through the day. It's all about the people anyway. Jillian: [00:24:57] Moms in my preschool had no idea what I was doing being a blogger, building an online business. But to find other people online doing it was so comforting. Rachelle: [00:25:13] Yeah yeah. It can be really comforting and you can help each other too. It's like the other day one of my online friends, she shared how she does video with a certain kind of light. And I was like, that looks like a really cool light. I went and ordered it right away. And we do the same. I did the same thing back and I'll share, this is a resource that I'm working with and I really like it. Rachelle: [00:25:35] So yes, you can be a constant help to each other in a number of ways and it can be, you know, I'm having a hard day. Talk me off the ledge.Or how do you grow your newsletter list, and what's that trick that you're doing and how can that work for me too? How many hours a week do you work on your blog? Jillian: [00:25:50] And how many hours a week would you say you work? Rachelle: [00:25:54] You know, I'm really trying to be a mom first. To whatever extent I can, so I pick up my kids from school everyday and that's what my work day, it's kind of work backwards from that. So how many hours do I put in my day. It is about my week and that's about 25 hours per week. And you know, I try to leave a little bit of time in there open for meeting with a friend, or getting errands done. And so probably ends up being like 20 hours a week. Jillian: [00:26:21] Got it. So that's very doable. Rachelle: [00:26:23] I think so. It's been different at different stages. So like when I was finishing up my first book, it was very very intense and so my husband would come home early and I would go to the coffee shop and write. And so I think during that season, my hours probably went up. Right. Two or three times. And so it's seasonal for sure. Like there are sometimes things that come up and the hours go up and I have to work on the weekends. So I also run live workshops in my studio, and so sometimes like a Saturday, I'll be out for four hours, or Thursday night, I'll be out for three hours and my husband covers me so it probably averages about 25 maybe even 30 hours a week. Jillian: [00:27:09] What about your business at this moment are you most excited about? Rachelle: [00:27:14] What about it am I the most excited about right now. That's a great question. So I've been doing this for so long, and I'm still so in love with the idea of everything that I'm doing. So I feel like I'm excited about all the pieces I have been running, this online class, and I'm excited about launching another side of it. So the ways I have been doing it is with launches. Rachelle: [00:27:48] So what I mean is I'll have a quarterly launch, so I'll say it's January and I'm going to launch my online class, and then I'll do it again in April, and again in July, and again in October,. But I'm working right now and making that course evergreen. How to get people into your funnel Rachelle: [00:28:04] So I'm working on getting people into a funnel so when they sign up for my newsletter, they get some free content that gets them excited about what it is that TinkerLab is about, and that moves them through my free challenge and I could talk about that as well. And then from there they will be given the opportunity to sign up for my class. Rachelle: [00:28:04]  And so rather than run these launches four times a year, it would just be this ongoing funnel, where as people join my website, they will get the opportunity to take the class, and the class would be there all the time, and I'm doing that because we're finding that people want to take the class in February. Like well, it just started last month. I'm sorry you'll have to wait till April. But that's not when they want to take it. And then by the time April rolls around, they're on to something else. So that's not helpful to anyone. So I want to be more helpful and more useful. Jillian: [00:28:58] Explain your free course and how that rolls into your paid course. Rachelle: [00:29:03] Yeah absolutely. So the free class I run it as a five day challenge. I have a mentor named Jadah Sellner who is amazing, and she ran a website called Simple Green Smoothies, and they did these challenges, and I've followed along for years and loved how they did it. Rachelle: [00:29:21] And I was like, I really want to do a challenge, and the way the challenge works is it's like a free course. I do five days of free ART content basically. And you got essentially a menu, like a meal plan, and it gives you five activities to do with your kids over the course of the week, and it gives you a list of supplies that you buy ahead of time, or you gather ahead of time, and a lot of them are things you can find around your house, so it's not too difficult. Rachelle: [00:29:54] And then each day for five days, you set up one of the projects with your young children, and then do it and then we have this online forum, a group on Facebook where people can share what they're doing and it becomes a really beautiful community of people who are having this shared experience of creativity with their kids and feeling supported and nurtured and energized by it. Rachelle: [00:30:16] And then at the end of the five days, if they really love it and they want to continue, then they can sign up for five more weeks of it and every week for five weeks, they'll get you know more projects and the support group will continue. Rachelle: [00:30:29] And from that, I've actually received a lot of feedback from people that they want even more, so I'm thinking about, well how can I expand that and make that into a bigger program that's longer than five weeks, and so that's something that's also brewing in the back of my mind. But if you're interested in checking it out you can go to look at Tinkerlab Art Start and it'll take you to sign up for the Art Star challenge. So right now they're happening quarterly. But you know maybe by the time someone listens to this, it'll have the evergreen setup and it'll just leap you right into it and you'll get it in your inbox right away. That's the goal. Jillian: [00:31:06] Oh that's wonderful. So now if you had one piece of advice that you wish someone had told you when you were starting your business what would that be? Technical advice and theoretical advice for bloggers Rachelle: [00:31:19] So I have to have one that's a technical piece of advice, and one that's a little bit more a little more theoretical. Is that ok? So the technical thing is that I get most of my traffic through organic search, and I wish I had known about search engine optimization or SEO earlier. So I found out about it right in the beginning. There was actually a mom in my daughter's preschool who was an expert. Rachelle: [00:31:51] She was like a consultant and I didn't even know what it was. It took maybe two years to really understand that people are finding me organically. And there's actually strategy behind that. And so I wish I had done that right from the beginning. If you haven't been doing SEO, you can be like me and you can fix it. You can go back and you can put Yoast onto your website and you can sign up for a keyword tool finder. And it's definitely doable. But I wish I did that from the beginning. Jillian: [00:32:24] So Yoast is a plugin your WordPress that helps you optimize your posts. Rachelle: [00:32:32] Exactly. So if you're on WordPress, I think maybe it's on other sites too, but on WordPress you can get Yoast. It's so great because it'll give you the greenlight if everything looks exactly how it should, and will be a yellow light if things were almost there, red if it's terrible, and it gives you all kinds of areas where you just plug things in. What is your keyword that you're trying to go after and you have to write out the description of the content, and it tells you that you need to have more keywords inside of your post, and it just guides you through the whole thing very very very simply, and makes it really easy for you to get those keywords in there and to optimize your posts the best way you possibly can. Rachelle: [00:32:32]  And then the other tool that I recently discovered, Google used to have this keyword finder that sort of changed over the years and it became less useful. But I found a new one I paid for it, but I like it a lot. It's called Mangools. I think it's spelled M-A-N-G-O-O-L-S. It's a keyword finder and it's just really comprehensive and you can actually test it for free. Rachelle: [00:33:39] I'm not an affiliate. I wish I was right now. But but you can test it for free. And I like it. I think it's obviously good enough. I decide to pay for it. Jillian: [00:33:48] Yeah I use one called KWFinder. I find them really useful. Rachelle: [00:34:05] Yeah it's definitely worthwhile. It's definitely is because you know people are searching for things and it's a great way to find people and that's how I get people in my newsletter. They come to my website and they like what they see there, and they'll sign up for my newsletter. But if they don't ever find my website, they won't sign up for my newsletter so that's important it's great. Jillian: [00:34:26] Now what is the other piece of advice? Rachelle: [00:34:29] So the other piece of advice is to think about how important it is to be in this for the long haul, and to see it having a long plan for yourself, and to make sure that whatever it is you're doing, that you can be passionate about this thing for a really long time, because burnout is so inevitable. Rachelle: [00:34:29] There have been so many moments where I just I haven't wanted to throw in the towel. But I've been exhausted absolutely exhausted. Like someone hacks into my site or my web site's overloaded and things are shutting down or there's just some kind of technical problem, and when those things come out those are the things I hate, obviously, those are the things that really get to me. Rachelle: [00:35:17] I can be techie but I'm not that techie. And so when the techie things happen, I just love what I do so much, that I'm motivated to figure it out and it doesn't burn me out and stress me out and kill me. And I can keep going, so just to make sure that whatever it is you're doing, you love it enough that when stuff hits the fan which it will, that you're still motivated to do it. Because that's the thing that's going to drive you to get through the hard times. So that would be my advice. Jillian: [00:35:49] And I totally agree. It is because you love it. Rachelle: [00:35:53] It's because I love it. Yes it is. Absolutely. You know so I went back to my mentor Jadah. She runs this program called Love Over Metrics and I just love that. That phrase says that metrics are important, and we're running businesses, so you want to quantify what you're doing, want make sure that you can put food on your table. Rachelle: [00:35:53] But the love has to come first, you know to be a love for what you're doing, and love for your audience, and just really believing in your content. And that's going to drive you and that's going to keep you happy and enabled and confidants and connected to your audience. Jillian: [00:36:38] Absolutely. Rachelle: [00:36:39] And they'll see right through you if that's not there. Jillian: [00:36:45] So OK. Rachelle, how can people find you? Reach out to you? Learn more about you? Start in your in your classes? Rachelle: [00:36:56] Yeah absolutely. So if you go to TinkerLab.com. So "tinker" like you know, tinkering in your studio. "Lab" it's all one word. T-I-N-K-E-R-L-A-B you can find my website, and if you wanted to try out this Art Start Challenge, you could just do a forward slash "art start" and loop right into that five day challenge that will hopefully be evergreen. On social media everywhere I'm TinkerLab. And so you can just search for TinkerLab or you can look for my name anywhere. Rachelle: [00:37:30] And if you wanted to reach me by email I'm Rachelle at TinkerLab.com. My name is spelled R-A-C-H-E-L-L-E at TinkerLab.com. Jillian: [00:37:40] Thank you so much for being on the show. Jillian: [00:37:43] It was such a pleasure. And I just adore everything that you're doing and I just want to support you however I can. And I love that you're running this show. It's awesome. Jillian: [00:38:30] If you’re trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list. Definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart popup you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian:[00:38:52] Just a couple of things… it’s super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It’s Google-friendly on mobile so you don’t have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It’s lightning fast, it won’t slow your sight down and you can grow multiple platforms at once, so check it out MiloTree.com. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!