by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 8, 2020 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Guest Blogger
I have seen quite a bit blogging-wise over the past 12 years.
Although I did not create my current blog until 2014, I began blogging in 2008. After ups, downs, and in-betweens I spotted a few rock-solid fundamentals all pros seem to follow.
Imagine your blog as a spectacular, 30 room mansion. Mansions need granite-like foundations to hold the weight of the massive dwelling. Otherwise, a collapse is imminent.
Bloggers need to build their blogs on rock-solid fundamentals to lay the foundation for a professional blogging career. Unfortunately, most bloggers ignore these fundamentals, watching their blogs collapse sooner than later.
Blogging does not need to be hard, painful, or outright difficult. Expect to face fears along the way. All growth occurs outside of your comfort zone. But also prepare to have fun, to free yourself, and to enjoy helping people as you follow these simple blogging fundamentals.
Blogging becomes easier if you follow basic steps for a long time.
Take these 5 steps to lay a rock-solid foundation for your professional blogging career.
1: Blog Mainly for Fun and Freedom
The great Steve Jobs explained how passionate entrepreneurs get ahead while everyone else quits. People who use logic alone observe poor results and quit because it makes sense to quit if you make no money.
Passionate, fun-loving, freedom-seeking visionaries see the journey through to become wildly successful. I never once considered quitting during my 15,000 blogging hours online because fun and freedom fueled me. What happened when three visitors a day visited my blog in 2008? I kept blogging because fun – not blog visitors – drove me to blog. What happened when I made peanuts through my blog for a long time? I kept blogging because freedom – not money – drove me to blog.
Skills, exposure, and credibility earn you money. Skills, exposure, and credibility eat up 1000s of blogging hours of creating and connecting. Blogging mainly for fun keeps you blogging when the money does not arrive. Make the work, the reward. Blog for fun and freedom primarily to get through the early blogging struggles we all face.
2: Invest Money in Resources from Pro Bloggers
Professional bloggers possess:
- 5000 to 10000 hours of experience
- Observational abilities far beyond amateur bloggers
- A vast storehouse of knowledge
Pro bloggers pack these absolute golden nuggets into their:
I wrote and self-published 120 plus eBooks to give bloggers resources for getting through all the obstacles I faced on this long, fun, freeing and sometimes challenging journey. Investing money in pro bloggers resources lets you leapfrog the most painful blogging struggles because pros tell you NOT to do that stuff. Even better? Pros tell you what to do from day 1 as a blogger to position yourself to succeed.
Feel free to follow pro blogs but know this; pros publish their best work for pay because….that is why they are pros!
3: Create Helpful Content
Write and publish helpful content. Gain reader trust. Earn credibility. Help people for free to help people for pay, later.
Content serves as a qualifier. Imagine being a life coach. Readers who find your blog consider hiring you but need to see through your blog content that you are:
- Credible
- Trustworthy
- Experienced
- Skilled
….before investing money in your coaching services. Some life coaches only publish generic quotes on Instagram as the sole source of their digital footprint. Would I invest $3500 on someone who knows how to copy, paste, and gussy up an IG formatted photo?
Blogging generously builds your skills, exposure, and credibility. Skilled, credible bloggers with massive exposure become highly successful in their niche. Word counts and blog post frequencies vary; aim to publish one, 600-word post weekly at a minimum.
Solve common reader problems. Resonate with your audience.
4: Befriend Top Bloggers in Your Niche
Imagine yourself alone sharing your blog posts on:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
Imagine 15 blogging buddies sharing your blog posts on:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Their blogs
Blogging buddies sometimes email your posts to their email lists, too. Imagine blogging buddies inviting you to guest post on their blogs. Picture blogging buddies submitting valuable guest posts for your blog.
Connected bloggers succeed. Everybody else largely fails because lone wolf bloggers seem to be on the outside, looking in.
Comment genuinely on top blogs from your niche. Promote top bloggers from your niche on social media and through your blog. Ask for nothing in return. Earn their trust. Gain their respect. Build a large blogger buddy network. Amplify your reach by allowing your blogging buddies to grow your traffic and profits passively.
5: Open Multiple Income Streams
Income streams serve as profitable containers holding your:
- Skills
- Experience
- Know-how
- Problem-solving abilities
In essence, income streams are receiving vehicles. Readers trust you based on your content. Readers hire you and buy your stuff to access your premium products and services. You receive money in the exchange.
Income stream ideas include:
- Writing and self-publishing eBooks
- Offer coaching services
- Offer consulting services
- Offer freelancing services
- Create audiobooks
- Write and self-publish paperbacks
- Create courses
- Sell sponsored posts
- Sell advertising space
Note; money only flows through step #5 if you spend 1000s of hours following steps 1-4. Skipping even a single step adversely affects your income potential.
Conclusion
Blogging is a fun, freeing journey for bloggers who follow the fundamentals I noted above. Be ready to venture well outside of your comfort zone to go pro. Be generous, patient, persistent and trusting. Be hyper-aware of any stingy, impatient, non-persistent, doubting traits you picked up as an employee, or from the general public.
Blogging gives you what you give blogging.
About the Author
Ryan Biddulph can help you become a successful blogger at Blogging From Paradise.
Connect with Ryan
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIN
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 24, 2020 | Guest Blogger, Small Business, Social Media
There are so many different social networks to be on today, it is no wonder small business owners feel their heads spinning when they think about it.
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Twitter
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- Pinterest
- LinkedIn
- Reddit
- Parler
- Mixx
- Flipboard
- Me-We
- YouTube
- Rumble
These are just the most recently popular social networking websites where people gather today.
So, what is a small business owner to do? Let us look at some options here:
Ask Where Your Clients Are on Social Media
Yes, you can ask your clients which social network sites they participate the most on. When they visit your business online or in-person be ready to ask them. Online, you can send out a quiz via email or even on a landing page of your website. If you are an eCommerce merchant, you can easily check your Google analytics to see where people are coming from to your website.
Do Some Research
Many of the networks have a completely different audience. Many young people on TikTok may not even use Facebook or LinkedIn for example. Stay tuned with the latest trends of where people are going online. Recently many conservative-minded people fled over to Parler. Some even quit being on Facebook and Twitter.
It is not always about which social channel has the most users, but about which channel has more of YOUR user base.
The Big Three Social Networks
The big 3 are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in the United States. These are the social media sites with the most users. They do not necessarily spend the most time on these but that is where they have an account and login at least once per month. Interestingly, the site with the most time spent is over on Instagram. So, if you have a younger female clientele, Instagram would be your #1 choice for where to market your business.
But remember if you need a large broad audience, these big 3 networks are where you will need to be.
Best Social Sites for B2B
Now on the other hand, if you are doing business just with other businesses you may want to consider LinkedIn. LinkedIn is known as the professional social media network. Most people talk business only on this professional network. Keep that in mind!
Younger Audience Networks
If the teenagers and young people in their 20’s and 30ths are your target audience then maybe TokTok or SnapChat would be where you want to market to. But do remember, it’s not where the highest earners go to be social.
Reaching Higher Income Demographic
As I researched this one recently it took me by surprise! YouTube far outranks all the others in a higher income user. Yes, YouTube! 83% of users on YouTube earn over $75+K per year. The next one that even comes close is Facebook with 74% of its user base earning $75+K.
The least was SnapChat audience at 22% of its audience earning the $75+ per year. Twitter came in at 32%, Pinterest at 41%, TikTok at 40%, and LinkedIn at 49%.
Best Social Media Networks for Customer Service
So, another thing to consider when choosing your social media sites to be on or advertise on is customer service. I love the speed of customer service over on Twitter. So, if your business handles a lot of customer service questions or complaints, Twitter is the place to be on.
Customer service works when someone tweets a business and then the business takes it as a private direct message. That way the whole thing does not air out in public. Many companies will either call or email you to help you resolve a problem or issue.
Up and Coming Parler and Rumble
Recently 2 other social media sites have exploded in the United States due to censorship claims. Millions have signed up on both and many left Facebook and Twitter as they signed up for Parler. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out in the coming months. Will they continue to stay on Parler? Will they stay off of Facebook and Twitter?
I believe Twitter may be in more danger as Parler has a familiar Twitter feel to it. I will say Parler seems to be handling their growing pains better than Twitter did a decade ago with their fail whale. Twitter used to be out for hours upon hours. I have not seen that with Parler though some users had trouble signing up on the busy weekend.
Parler is a more conservative network in many ways and they do not allow terrorists, spam, unsolicited ads, pornography, threats to harm, porn, blackmail, and content that glorifies violence against animals. If you see anything that looks suspicious you can report them just like on Twitter and Facebook
Rumble came about as YouTube videos were being taken down as fast as they were being put up. Rumble was formed to provide video creators a way to host, manage, distribute, create OTT [over the top] feeds, and monetize their content. Political commentator Dan Bongino co-owns the platform. “We need somewhere to go where conservative views won’t be discriminated against,” Rumble is similar to use as YouTube.
Your Turn
So where will you spend your time and effort marketing in the coming year? Which social media platform (s) will you spend marketing dollars on? Let’s discuss in the comments below.
Guest Author
Lisa Sicard
Lisa loves helping others to thrive online through Social Media, Blogging, and SEO. What good is knowledge if you cannot share it with others? She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 9 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO. Check out her latest eBook “How to Tweet and Thrive on Twitter” now on Amazon.
Connect with Lisa
www.inspiretothrive.com
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 4, 2018 | Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media
If you want to successfully promote your business, you need to know how to create effective landing pages. Distraction free landing pages can help you generate more leads and sales. If set up properly they can achieve conversion rates as high as 60% or more.
Therefore, today I am going to show you how to create landing pages that convert…
Find a landing page software:
The first thing you must do is get yourself a landing page software. Of course, you can always hire a designer to create the landing page for you. But using a tool will save you time and work out cheaper.
Most of the top ones provide access to several templates with which you can design your landing pages quickly. You also won’t need to hire a designer every time you need an edit. A couple of good landing page design tools you can try are Leadpages and Unbounce.
They have templates that will make it easy for you to design webinar landing pages, product landing pages and more.
Design the landing page:
After you choose your landing page software choose a template that will suit your project best. Then you can begin designing your landing page. Start by writing a headline. It should be both attention grabbing and enticing as it needs to convince people to read the rest of the landing page.
You should also optimize it for social media so that the headlines will drive more clicks and shares.
Next, write the body copy. The goal of the body copy should be to convince people that signing up for the content in exchange for their details or buying the product is worth it. The best way to do this is by discussing the benefits of the content or product.
Start with a short paragraph and then continue with bullet points that quickly state the benefits.
After that you can end with a call to action that asks people to ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Buy Now’ to gain access.
Here’s a good example of a landing page from Hubspot that promotes a free marketing assessment…
As you can see it starts with an attractive headline followed by a sub headline. After that you have a couple of short paragraphs which are followed by bullet points that state the benefits of the assessment.
Finally, it ends with a call to action that asks people to fill up the form.
Another important step they have taken here is adding their logo at the top. When people see this they will instantly know that this is a promotion from Hubspot. If you don’t have a logo, you should at least add your company name at the top.
Attach it to a domain:
The aforementioned landing page design tools can host your landing page. So, you can set them up there. But if you want them to have an extra layer of credibility you should host it on your own domain. When people see that the name on the logo matches with the one in your URL they will trust you more.
So, attach it to your website.
If you are a startup and haven’t got a website, you can purchase one using a domain name finding tool.
When you type in the name of your company in the search field it will find all the domain names available and you can buy the one you like most.
Once you have a domain you can attach the landing page to it and it will look very credible. Some landing page design tools have their own WordPress plugins. So, if your website runs on WordPress, adding the landing page to it should be much easier.
Send traffic and test results:
The next thing you must do is send traffic to this landing page. This should be done through both organic and paid methods.
While you do this watch out for the conversion rates to see if they meet the industry standards. If it is not converting well enough you should make some modifications to see if it improves.
Split test different versions:
Another thing you can try is to split test your landing pages right from the start. This is where you create different versions of your landing page and then simultaneously send the same amount of traffic to all of them to see which converts the best. To help with split testing you can use a free tool like Google Optimize.
Now create your landing pages…
This is how you create landing pages that convert. Start by getting a landing page design tool. Next, choose a template and add your copy to it. After that you can attach it to a domain and send traffic.
While you do this you should regularly monitor your page to make sure it is converting well enough.
How do you create your landing pages? Do you use any tools or do you design them from scratch? Please leave your comments below.
Guest Author
Mitt Ray is the founder of Social Marketing Writing, where you can download 100 free social media background images.
Connect with Mitt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mittray
Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mittray
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialmarketingwriting
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 10, 2018 | Guest Blogger, Small Business, Social Media
To successfully promote your business with social media, you need a strategy in place. A well-built strategy provides your business with a path that works. It also makes it easy to measure results and check if what you are doing is working or if you need to make changes.
Therefore, in this post I am going to show you how to create an effective social media strategy for 2018. Read my tips and implement them to ensure you get positive results from your social media marketing in the new year…
Choose goals:
A strategy only works if it is results oriented. Hence, before you create your strategy you need to choose goals. For example, if you are running a business the main goals of your social media strategy should be to generate more revenue or things that contribute to boosting revenue like traffic and leads.
Most people make the mistake of choosing apex goals like increasing engagement and followers. These goals are important too and should be part of your strategy, but they shouldn’t be your apex goals. Only have apex goals that have a direct impact on your revenue. After that begin choosing the secondary goals that can have an impact on your apex goals.
Research your audience, social networks and competitors:
Once you know your goals you need to conduct plenty of research to learn as much as you can about your audience. For this you should conduct interviews and surveys.
Conduct social media research
Also, checkout the latest social media demographics research put out by credible organisations like Pew.
Once you know your audience and the networks they use you should conduct research on the social networks they are most active on. Next figure out which ones you would like your business to be active on.
Once you know the social networks you want to use you can learn the best practices and use social media analytics tools to spy on your competitors. See what type of content they create and how it is working for them.
Practice visual content creation skills:
If you look at the fastest growing social networks right now (Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat) you will realise that they are very visual centric (you can only post visuals on these networks). Also, if you checkout recent research on established networks like Facebook you will see that images drive the highest engagement here.
This is why you should invest plenty of your time to learn as much as you can about creating visual content. This should include understanding basic design principles and the types of images that fare well on different networks.
Once you understand this, creating great visual content shouldn’t be a problem as there plenty of online visual editors that make the process of design easy. They come with premade templates and design ideas too.
Create social media visuals
A company that certainly understand the importance of visual content is Whole Foods. Make sure you checkout their Pinterest and Instagram pages to gain some inspiration.
Incorporate blogging and other content:
Building a social presence with engaging content is an important step, but along with this you must share content from your blog. This lets you transfer some of the engagement onto your blog where you will have the opportunity to convert traffic to leads and sales.
Write longer posts
For best results you should step away from creating short blog posts as a study by Buzzsumo found that long posts between 3,000 and 10,000 words get the most shares. But make sure the entire post is filled with quality information. Just beefing up a blog post with filler content won’t do.
Write long top quality posts
An example of a quality post is Social Media Marketing Made Simple by Neil Patel. It is over 3,000 words long, but every inch of it is filled with quality information.
You should publish long posts like this a few times a week. But if you are pressed for time try you can write them once a week or once every 2 weeks.
Along with the blog post create other forms of content like ebooks, white papers and webinars that can convert blog traffic into leads.
Regularly modify your strategy:
No matter how carful you are with the initial research, you won’t set up the perfect strategy in your first attempt. On top of that industry trends change and social networks are redesigned with the introduction of new features. Hence, you should use a good analytics tool to regularly analyse your strategy and make any modifications if necessary.
Gradually you will be able to build the perfect social media strategy. Of course, you will need to make modifications every few months as trends and features change.
Now go and set up your strategy for the new year…
These are all the steps you must follow while creating an effective social media strategy for 2018. Start by choosing your goals and gathering as much data as you can on your audience and the social network they frequent. Next spy on your competitors and see what’s working for them.
After that get active and begin creating visual content and blog content that will help you accomplish your business goals. And don’t forget to regularly analyse your results and determine if what you are doing is working.
Guest Author
Mitt Ray is the founder of Social Marketing Writing, where you can download 100 free social media background images.
Connect with Mitt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mittray
Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mittray
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialmarketingwriting
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 16, 2017 | Guest Blogger, Productivity, Time Management
We read about what will make us more productive in life and at work. We know what to do but sometimes we can’t get ourselves going.
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Here are 6 different and I hope unique ways to experiment with to get you powered up each morning.
- Make your calendar reminders more specific so they grab your attention. Example: Instead of “Morning routine,” list the specific things which you know make you more productive, more focused, organized or have a positive attitude. What works for you? This is useful for getting into a new habit, reminding yourself of one if you’re feeling as if you’re falling off track, or after sickness, vacation, or any break.
- Give yourself a deadline. Remember SMART goals? They work for many people, because they are specific and set a deadline. I’ve been trying to get back to riding my exercise bike, so my goal [finally] became: by the time the U.S. Thanksgiving month begins, I’ll be biking three times a week at 6:30 a.m.
- Get yourself a motivational or accountability partner. Short term or permanently. For example, if for trouble getting out of bed, ask your spouse or one of your kids to get you going. Or if you need support starting a new morning routines, work with a coach. That task you’re procrastinating on …. How about working at the time your kids are doing their homework. Or ask Suzie to call you each day and check in on how you’re doing!
- Are you a numbers person? Use your interest in numbers as your momentum or motivation. For example, use Excel or an app to keep track of how you’re doing with the healthy habits you find important, i.e., breakfast, water, protein, walking, meditation. If you feel you spend too much time on your devices, then use a paper notepad or an index card to track. Or choose a favorite number and meditate, journal or walk for that number of minutes. If it’s short enough, do it twice a day.
- What’s your purpose? Some people get their motivation or momentum from tying a routine to a bigger, meaningful goal. For example, by meditating every day, which you know makes you calmer, you can be the kind of parent you dream of being. Or by walking each day, your mind is clearer at work, so you’re more productive and therefore lead your team more effectively.
- Write down what happens if you consistently do not follow through on your morning routine. If you don’t feel like doing it, and this has lasted more than a week, answer this … and write it out because it will make a greater impression in black and white, staring back at you: How will I feel about myself in another week if this continues? What happens if do not do this for a month, when I know how good it has been for me in the past? And what about in a year? How will you feel about not following through on commitments to yourself?
Guest Author
Sue West
Productivity & ADHD Coach
Certified Organizer Coach®
Certified Professional Organizer®
In Chronic Disorganization
Connect with Sue
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Website & Blog: www.CoachSueWest.com
Phone: 603.554.1948
Email: Sue@OrganizeNH.com
Think you may have ADHD or similar symptoms? Try Sue’s coaching services or self-paced, ADHD workbook to focus and get started on managing your distractibility or follow through, before they manage you.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 31, 2017 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Productivity, Small Business
“Delegate, but don’t abdicate.” “Delegating takes more time than doing it myself. ”
Delegating – or outsourcing if you are self-employed: yes, it’s difficult and yes, it is so worth your time to learn how to do it well. It is a skill, not something any one of us is innately good at, so I suggest you begin with low risk practice first.
What do you get in return?
- Attention to your bigger goals you’re wanting to spend time but just can’t seem to create.
- A team. Better, clearer communications.
- Accountability practice. And practice at leaning into difficult conversations when you need to have them.
With nearly 20 years of corporate experience, in addition to being a small business owner, I can confidently suggest the following exercise to begin your road to successful delegation and growth. Especially if you’ve never delegated before and are feeling a little apprehensive, this is a fascinating skill because of how much you learn about other people and yourself.
#1 Start Small. Low Risk. Get Some Practice.
Choose a low risk, small task and delegate or outsource it. I hired a company to work with me on one edition of my newsletter. Eventually, I outsourced my website and more because their work, flexibility and ability to hold me accountable worked well for me. Had the newsletter not been successful I could have returned to doing it myself.
Look at your “big goals” list. What do you not have time for that’s really pulling at you?
And then look at your day-to-day work: What project is: not getting done, needs skills you don’t have/aren’t great at, needs a partner to hold you accountable, is low risk (not financials) or is frustrating you and you’re stuck? There will be at least one, guaranteed.
Now back to the goals list: If you invested some time explaining what’s needed for your low risk project and if you could think of the delegating or outsourcing as an experiment, wouldn’t it be great to have time to work on that goal? What’s the risk? Keep it small enough that it’s hard for you not to do it.
#2 Invest Time.
Create time on your calendar to explain and educate the person who will be handling this for you. If you don’t meet and create time to explain and educate, delegation will fail and it won’t be the other person’s fault. You’ll have done it to yourself. Get it right on the calendar, at least one to educate and one short time to check in. More if needed.
Pay attention to how well you two work together. If you’re being heard. Are solutions and proactive suggestions made? Is understanding present? Ask the person to explain back to you what he/she thinks you want.
And rather than framing this as “asking for help,” do this instead. Since “help” implies you don’t know how to do the task, yet you likely you do know, think “leverage.” What you are doing is even smarter: you are building a team so you can leverage your skills and time as well as your team’s. And that gets you closer to your goals, whether it is to work fewer days a week, have more travel money or time or anything else important to you.
Leverage, not help. Completely different mindset and way of operating here.
#3 Expectations. Get Clear. 
Start by discussing and being super clear in your expectations of WHAT needs to get done.
The goal, the end game, the results. Not the HOW, but the WHAT. [And if you’re working with people who need to know the context or the WHY, give them that, too. Can’t hurt.]
If you have any preferences which add value to the project, mention them, but be prepared to let them go if they are not critical. Double checking quality is critical. The process or tool may not be so much.
Let go of HOW the task is done. That’s what you’re delegating.
If something comes back to you and it’s quite wrong …. first look at or ask about the expectations you think you set.
I did say: this is not simple.
#4 Set Limits.
Consider ahead of time what your limits are and communicate these.
Examples:
- Please don’t spend over ‘x’ amount.
- Let me know how much you get done in 1 hour & let’s go from there.
- It’s important to me that you feel comfortable holding me accountable. Here is what would be great to have … and not.
- Let’s try this one piece. Come back to me and let’s check that together so I’m sure I’ve been clear. And you’re on the right track. If so, we can get lots more done like those.
If you don’t educate on what’s a deal breaker, then when someone spends too much, that’s on you.
Delegate = Leverage.
Delegation is a muscle that needs an attentive workout. The first few times you try delegating may not be as perfect as you envisioned because this does take practice. You didn’t learn to drive, or program, or market in one try. You practiced and got better as you did.
Delegating and outsourcing allow you to do what you know are so incredibly good at. And the work you delegate or outsource? It allows another person to do what he or she is really awesome at, so you both contribute. How good is that?
Guest Author
Sue West
Certified Organizer Coach®
Productivity & ADHD Coach
Certified Professional Organizer®
In Chronic Disorganization
Connect with Sue
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Website & Blog: www.CoachSueWest.com
Phone: 603.554.1948
Email: Sue@OrganizeNH.com
