Grow Your Audience

Guest posting can be a really amazing tool for new bloggers. When it’s done strategically, guest blogging is a great way to get our content in front of a new audience, make valuable connections, and tap into a whole new traffic source. The keyword here is strategically. Writing a guest post takes time and energy, so if we’re going to do it, we want to be sure it’s time and energy well spent. It’s not about guest posting wherever we can. It’s about guest posting on blogs that will justify that time and energy, and deliver the results we’re looking for. But how do we decide which blogs are best for our guest posts? And once we figure out which blogs we want to post on,Read More

Have you ever noticed, whether you’ve been blogging for a while or are just getting started, that bloggers tend to be a tiny bit–dare I say it–obsessive when it comes to traffic? “I need traffic.” “Where is my traffic coming from?” “How do I get more page views?!” And while I totally get the logic behind this thinking (more people = more money, right?), the reality is that in the long run, obsessing over traffic is not the line of thinking that will get us to where we want to go. In other words? If you really want to take your blog to the next level, you need to stop playing the traffic game. A Quick Overview of Traffic Now, don’t get me wrong — I’mRead More

Here’s a scenario I see happening a lot in the blogging world: Karen started her blog about 10 months ago. She has a TON of content… but unfortunately, that’s about all she can say. She’s not seeing any results — not a lot of traffic, not a lot of income. She can’t quite figure it out and all she knows is that it’s not working. She’s so frustrated! She’s been writing and writing and writing — and it feels like nothing ever comes from it. Every day she wonders, “should I keep going… or should I throw in the towel?” On the one hand, Karen doesn’t want to give up on a blog she feels passionate about. But on the other hand, she doesn’t wantRead More

There’s no denying it: Facebook ads are absolutely EVERYWHERE. And if you’ve been paying attention, it probably seems like everyone who’s anyone is touting the wonder that is Facebook ads. And I’ll be the first to admit–I think advertising on Facebook is pretty amazing. I meant, think about it–in the “old days” of running a business, you had to pay $5,000 for an ad in a magazine or the Yellow Pages and hope for the best. But with Facebook ads, you can spend $20, test an ad, see how it performs, and decide if it’s worth investing in. The truth is, Facebook ads are a hot topic for a reason. They can be pretty awesome and an incredible tool for building your business… when they’reRead More

I know there are probably times where I sound like a broken record about this topic, but if you are a blogger, author, or online business owner, your email list is one of the most important tools in your tool belt. However, the key to getting the most out of your email list isn’t necessarily having the most subscribers. It’s turning those subscribers into rabid fans and — eventually — loyal, paying customers. People sign up for email lists for many reasons. Sometimes, they just like your blog. But more often, they sign up because you’ve given them an incentive — like a lead magnet — and they want to get their hands on whatever you’re offering (way to go, growth ninja!). Now I don’tRead More

SEO is often a pretty big topic of discussion for bloggers. In fact, one of the most frequent questions I hear from our students at Elite Blog Academy is “What about SEO? Where is it on your priority list?” My answer is alway this: SEO is definitely something my team and I pay attention to. It’s an ongoing task, making sure that every post is fully optimized, and after 7 years of blogging, it is something I tend to do out of habit. That said, it’s not something I spend a ton of time on. Now, don’t misunderstand me — SEO is important. And it’s also important every blogger has at least a basic understanding of what it is, how it works, and how toRead More

If you use Facebook (and these days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a blogger who doesn’t), you’ve probably noticed an uptick in notifications lately saying, “So-and-so is LIVE.” And when they say live, they mean Facebook Live. Live streaming first gained momentum when Periscope launched in March of 2015, and by that fall I was ready to hop on the bandwagon. An app that allowed me to connect with my audience and broadcast video content live?! Sign me up! Live Streaming: Periscope vs. Facebook Live I hit the ground running, and I was pretty gung-ho about it out of the gate. Things were going really well… until I launched our 31 Days of Living Well Zero Challenge in October, which in addition to posting multipleRead More