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Affiliate Networks for Bloggers

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Affiliate marketing can be extremely profitable for bloggers and website owners, but many don’t know where to find good affiliate networks for bloggers!

Affiliate networks provide companies with a managed platform to reach out to affiliates, bloggers, and website owners and it manages their creatives (ads/banners), links, promotions, and payments. An affiliate network also gives a company more exposure to people (bloggers).

As a blogger, it’s great to work with an affiliate network because you can work with multiple merchants within one platform and get paid quicker. Many affiliate programs require you to have a balance of $25, $50, or $100 before you get paid.

The benefit of working with a network is that if you make $5 from Company A, and $18 from Company B, and $0.20 from Company C, all of those payments get lumped into the affiliate networks’ system and works toward your minimum payment thresholds. Whereas working with a company individually as an affiliate where you only make $5 every few months and they require a $100 payout means you may never get paid. Working with an affiliate network as a blogger means your earnings add up faster, allowing you to get paid faster.

What blogger doesn’t want to get paid?

The following list contains some of the most popular affiliate networks for bloggers (all of which I have an account with), an overview of some of the more popular companies are on their network (a complete list would be way too long!), and what I like and dislike about each one.
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Affiliate Networks for Bloggers

1. Amazon Associates

The Amazon Affiliate network is by far one of the most popular affiliate program for bloggers. Amazon is great for bloggers because you can easily create a custom referral link to almost any product or page listed on Amazon, yet be paid for (almost) any purchase made on Amazon even if you didn’t link to that specific item.

There are also flat rates offered for their bounty programs – Audible, Amazon Family, Amazon Prime, Amazon Music, Amazon Kindle, Baby and Wedding Registries, and cell phone phones with service plans. They also payout monthly with a $25 balance. But, the cookie is only 24 hours long, and the commissions rate is low, starting at only 4%.

However, it is volume based and is easily bumped up the more items you sell. It only takes 7 shipped items in a month for your rate to increase to 6%, 31 items shipped to reach 6.5%, and 111 items to reach 7%, and so on. You can earn up to 8.50%. Some products have fixed advertising fees however.

2. ShareASale

This is one of the most popular and easy to use affiliate networks for bloggers. With merchants like Craftsy, Tea Collection, Grammarly, Costume Express and Birthday Express, StudioPress, and so many, many others, it is very easy to find a company that is a good fit for your niche and audience. You have to earn at least $50 cumulative over all of your affiliates to be paid, but with good commission rates and cookie duration on most merchants, it can be achieved fairly quickly. They were my first affiliate network to pay me!

3. FlexOffers

FlexOffers is a great affiliate network if you want to link to some very popular merchants like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macys, Nordstrom, Sears, Walgreens, JCPenney, Kmart, Oshkosh B’Gosh, and Carters among many other very popular and recognizable brand names.

What I liked about FlexOffers is that once you start making commissions, especially in your first 30-60 days, they may put you on their VIP list which means you can get auto approvals on hundreds of programs, and it allows you to get paid faster too. Payout is at $50.

4. Commission Junction (CJ) 

Many popular merchants work with Commission Junction (CJ) – Home Depot, Sears, Oneida, TurboTax, HSN.com, Office Depot, Old Navy, QVC.com, Kmart, Lands’ End, American Eagle Outfitters, Bed Bath & Beyond, Care.com, and many more. The payout is at $50. They have some neat features like their custom widgets, as well as their CJ Affiiliate Content Certified Program for style, home, tech, lifestyle, and business bloggers.

5. Rakuten | Linkshare

Linkshare is a fairly robust affiliate network with thousands of affiliate programs, however many are less common. They still have some very popular companies as well like Kohls, ThredUp, Macy’s, PetSmart, NutriSystem, Best Buy, Destination Maternity and others on their platform. One of their nice features is that companies can send you Private Offers for higher commission rates than their base rates. Payout is at $50. If you live in the UK sign up with this link. 

6. Affiliate Window

Affiliate Window is a fairly large network, and its most popular merchant is Etsy. With 4% commissions and a 30-day cookie period, Etsy is a great way for many different blogs to earn some revenue. People love Etsy and you can be the means of helping people find great unique products. But, there are hundreds of other companies on AW as well, and they offer an easy to use booklet tool.

7. Pepperjam Network/Ebay Enterprise

Pepperjam Network, also known as the Ebay Enterprise Netowrk, is another fairly large network with hundreds of affiliate partners. I personally haven’t done much with them, but signed up to work with Melissa & Doug and Shutterfly. Other companies there are Bebe, BJ’s, CanvasOnDemand, Destination XL, Discount School Suply, Dollar General, Dressbarn, Edible Arrangements, GNC, Puma, Step2, and Sports Authority. They offer live customer support, easy to access creatives and various report options. They payout through PayPal when you reach at least $25.00.

8. Impact Radius

I find Impact Radius‘ system very hard to figure out. To actually see all 300+ companies in their network you need to completely fill out your profile and then in the bottom gray footer click the tiny “Join Platform” on the bottom left hand side of the screen. In their network are Diapers.com/Soap.com, Education.com, Savings.com, Target, Cabelas, Oriental Trading Company, Tommy Hilfiger, Children’s Place, West Elm, Restoration Hardware, and Pottery Barn. The payout threshold starts at $50.

9. Panthera Interactive

Definitely one of the smaller affiliate networks designed for specific niches and content, the Panthera Interactive Network is a great place to earn high commissions through strategic promotion of their links. I regularly earn over $100 a month from just two blog posts that contain their links: 21 of the Best Survey Sites for Moms to Make Money Online and The Great Big List of Free Stuff for Moms.

Most of their links and companies are for coupons, deals, contests, email sign-ups, free samples, and surveys. They also work with bloggers in many different countries beside the US (UK, AU, DE, CA). Shari’s Berries and ProFlowers are also in their network.

10. Escalate Network

The Escalate Network is a leading affiliate network for family friendly blogs and brands. They offer printable coupons from Coupons.com, pregnancy and kid freebies (like Mother’s Lounge products), surveys, sweepstakes, contests, and JustFab. Payout is at $50. I make most of my commissions with them through this post.

11. CenterPoint Media

CenterPoint Media is another kids and family-friendly affiliate network to belong to. They have many similar offerings to Escalate Network. They have freebies, surveys, giveaways, free trials, discounts, and coupons. However, some deals come and go, as there are caps on leads, which can lead to broken links if you aren’t paying attention. They payout at $100.

12. iTunes

A lot of people own and use Apple products. When you link to movies, games, apps, podcasts, etc available on iTunes as an affiliate, you can make 7% in commissions. It may not be a lot, but it can add up. It’s a great program for tech bloggers.

13. E-Junkie

E-junkie is the affiliate network that many bloggers like to use to sell their personal digital goods like ebooks and printables. I recommend signing up for an account because as you start looking for products to promote, you will inevitably come across someone who is selling their product on E-Junkie. If you are already signed up, it makes it as easy as clicking a button to join a blogger’s affiliate program and start promoting.

Unlike many of the other networks I mentioned above, there isn’t (usually) a payment threshold. The blogger runs their affiliate program through their platform, but will pay you any and all earnings each month, even if it is only $5. The great thing about promoting other bloggers’ products is that many have high commission rates of 20-50% even if their products are less expensive. It’s a great way to make money blogging.

Honestly, working with bloggers or directly with companies is often a better way to go in order to make passive income. However, many great smaller companies have partnered with these above networks so it’s worth having an account already set up.

Other affiliate networks to consider are BrandCycle who works with over 150 popular retailers, RewardStyle or ShopStyle if you are a fashion blogger, CPA-DNA, and AvantLink.

What are your favorite affiliate networks?

Three Simple Tips to Maximize Affiliate Marketing

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For Bloggers

Affiliate marketing has been kind of my jam lately.

I shied away from it for so long, and I’m kicking myself for that. It’s quickly becoming my favorite monetization method.

If you aren’t a fan of ads or doing outright sponsored posts, affiliate marketing is an awesome option for you.

But even if you do like ads and sponsored posts (which I do!), then you should still be doing it. It’s an amazing passive way to make money.

My friend Kristina are going to be writing an affiliate marketing class soon, and I’m SO excited about it. Because of that, I don’t want to give away too many secrets. However, today I thought I’d share three simple tips that can help improve your affiliate marketing efforts!

and if you like them, be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can find out as soon as we release the course! 

1. Look at outgoing links

This is HUGE, and I’ve increased my affiliate revenue quite a bit by doing this. Every month, go and look at your outbound links. While many of these will probably be to other sites that aren’t selling something, you can occasionally find links to products or services.

When I first did this, I realized a lot of people were clicking to survey sites I had recommended in a post about my favorite survey sites. I wasn’t sure if any of these survey sites had a referral program, but a few quick Google searches revealed that they did! I quickly signed up for their affiliate programs, put the links into the post, and BAM. I was making more money instantly. Just today, I realized a bunch of people were clicking over to Happy Baby Wraps – I found out they had an affiliate program, so I signed up!

If you are on WordPress and use the plugin JetPack, it’s very easy to see outbound links. This is honestly one of the only reasons I still use that plugin. Otherwise, you can follow this tutorial to track outbound links in Google Analytics.

2. Optimize Top 10 Posts

I think a lot of people get intimidated by affiliate marketing when they have a lot of posts – where do you even start?!

I recommend going into Google Analytics, setting the time frame for the past six months, and then optimize your top 10 posts. First, go through them and see if there’s anything obvious that could be an affiliate link (so if you are writing about your favorite cooking products, it would be pretty obvious to link to those!) Then go through with a separate set of eyes and think “are there any products/services that would make sense to put in this post?”

For instance, in my post “Third Trimester Checklist“, I had no affiliate links for the longest time. So dumb, because it’s one of my more popular posts. So I went through, linked up all the obvious links, and then I tried to find ways to put in other links. For example, at first glance, you wouldn’t think that there wouldn’t really be an affiliate program for a prenatal class. However, my friend, Hilary, actually offers an online prenatal course, so I was able to sign up for her affiliate program and use it in that post. You just have to be creative!

I also recommend swapping posts with a friend – I’ve done this a few times with Hilary, and it always helps to get input from another!

3. Change Font Color

Finally, this one is really simple. Change the color of your links to really stand out! I’ve been on sites before where the link color is the same color as the plain text, and it’s very difficult (if impossible) to even realize it’s a link. You want your links to stand out – make people want to click them!

You can either change your link color in your CSS – look for something that says a { and there should be a place to change your font color. If you can’t figure that out, you can easily change your links colors manually within a post!

BONUS:
Not sure where to start? Here are a few of my favorite affiliate programs (they have tons of different companies they work with. And as you might expect, this are my affiliate links!)

Share-a-Sale – My main sales here are from Grammarly, Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleep Suit, VitaFive, and occasionally VidAngel
Escalate – I use this mainly for survey sites
Dating Divas – if you post about any parenting, marriage, or relationship type content, this is one of the BEST programs out there! They pay a nice 50% referral fee, and their cookie is crazy long!
FlexOffers – I use this to promote SwagBucks (which, if you aren’t a part of, you should definitely sign up now!), Swap.com, and U-Pack
AffiliateWindow – this is how you can become an affiliate with Etsy. You pay $5 to get started, but you’ll get that back 🙂 Being able to be an affiliate for Etsy is an awesome revenue opportunity.

I hope that this was helpful – please make sure to sign up below for our newsletter – especially if you want updates on our upcoming affiliate course!

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12 Ultra Efficient Content Marketing Tools for Bloggers

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Content is all about quality! If you manage to produce greater quantity without affecting the level of quality, then good for you! However, there is another aspect you mustn’t neglect: content marketing. Without it, the quality and quantity of content you publish doesn’t really matter.

The main question for every blogger, website owner, and marketer is: “how can I create awesome content, publish it at the right time, and get the attention of as many readers as possible?” Let’s see if we can come up with the simplest answer: you have to use the right tools.

Content marketing doesn’t start after you write the posts; you have to think about the promotion before you even start considering topic ideas. In the continuation, you’ll find a list of 12 efficient content marketing tools that will make your work easier.girl-sitting-on-the-floor-with-a-laptop-raising-his-arms-with-a-look-of-success

Quick Sprout

Before you can promote content effectively, you have to make sure you’re better than the competition. With this tool, you can analyze the content and performance of any website. You can be inspired by the posts that achieved the greatest popularity on social media.

Quora

Quora gives you access to some really interesting questions your target audience has, as well as to answers by experts. If you’re looking for topics that would perform well upon publication, this is the place where you can discover them.

Assignment Masters

So you discovered the perfect topic for your next post, but it’s outside your comfort zone and you don’t have what it takes to cover it? You can collaborate with a professional writer from the specific niche to write great content. In addition to writing assistance, Assignment Masters also offers editing services that will get your posts ready for promotion in no time.

Death to the Stock Photo

Paying for images is something that all bloggers and website owners would like to avoid, so this project will certainly make you happy. Once you subscribe, you’ll start receiving emails with links to the new collections of high-resolution lifestyle photos that you can feature for free.

Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer

Is your headline intellectual, spiritual, empathetic, or nothing at all? It’s very important to get the headline right, since it’s the aspect of your post that attract the most attention and helps you promote the content as effectively as possible. With this Headline Analyzer, you’ll get a score for the emotional marketing value of your headline.

KingSumo Headlines

The tool enables you to run A/B tests of the headlines – you provide few alternative titles for the post, and the tool shows them to different groups of visitors. Then, you get a report that shows you which headline gave the best performance.

GIMP

It’s great when you find the perfect photo for free, but it’s even more awesome when you create unique visual content to accompany your posts. Photoshop is the first option that comes to mind when you think of photo manipulation, but guess what: GIMP can do the same things for free.

Click to Tweet

Twitter is one of the most important content marketing tools you can use for free. This tool enables you to take fractions of your blog posts and share them as tweets. The best part is that your readers can do the same. When you create tweetable content, you will notice how the number of visits at your blog/websites is getting greater by the day.

Filament

If you want to deliver exactly what your audience needs, you have to listen. Filament will inform you about the visitors’ behavior and sharing at your site, as well as about its traffic patterns. Then, you’ll get automatic tips on how to improve the effect your content achieves. That’s what marketing is all about.

Buffer

Your content will achieve maximum impact only if you promote it at the right time. You have to follow the social media habits of your audience, and then you should serve your new posts during traffic peaks. With Buffer, you can schedule the publication of your social media posts at the right time.

MailChimp

Email marketing is more important than you think. If someone appreciates your posts so much that he subscribes to get email updates, you have to make the messages perfect! MailChimp is a pretty simple tool that enables you to create beautiful emails and send them to your list of contacts.

Google Webmaster Tools

You have to think about the rank your posts achieve on Google search, since that’s how many people can locate them. Among all different SEO tools you can locate online, Google Webmaster is untouchable. You can easily discover how you rank in the results for certain keywords, and then you can develop a link-building strategy that will help you achieve better results.

Content marketing is more complex than it initially seems. You can’t limit yourself to links posted on Facebook and Twitter; you have to develop an effective strategy that will get more audience at your site. The above-listed tools will support you on the mission.

March 2016 Traffic and Blog Income Report – What’s up Fagans?

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One of the main reasons I started What’s up Blogging? was to share more about my blogging journey and to create a resource of information for other bloggers, creatives, and website owners, so I have decided to start a blog income report.

There are various reasons why. Mostly, I like the idea of sharing my successes and how I am earning money so you how to be successful as well. I am NOT doing it to brag in any way shape or form. I am humble about the money I earn. Every. Single. Penny. I am blessed beyond measure to be able to work from home only 20-30 hours a week, homeschool, and make a full-time income.

However, I will not be including exact numbers in my income reports. Let’s just say that last year, 2015, my full-time income was a small full-time income, only slightly less than my husband earned via his graduate assistantship stipend from the University. Sadly, it was still more than his first full-time high school teaching position a few years ago. But, a full-time income (no matter how small) from a job I love, that I work when I want, how I want, and if I want, is pretty incredible.

For now I am only including information on my main blog, What’s up Fagans?. What’s up Blogging? is brand spanking new, so I am making $0 right now. I spent over $400 setting it up and hiring someone to design it for me. Definitely not seeing a positive return yet since I haven’t even started promoting it. That’s what I hope to do in April, I assuming I get around to it, cause, Life.

So, let’s get to the details about my money making blog. Several links are my personal affiliate links. It’s one way I make money. Thanks for continuing to support me.blog-income-report-march-2016-681x1024-5340545

What’s up Fagans? Blog Traffic March 2016

March was a depressing month of low stats, even lower than February which had two less days. Considering I had over 350,000 pageviews in January, my best month ever, this was a big low. Pinterest made some major changes and it majorly affected my traffic, about 50% of which is driven from Pinterest.

Sessions: 190,682
Pageviews: 225,924
Users: 178,194

Average Session Duration: 2:20
Bounce Rate: 23.11%
New Sessions 86.39%

Where I get my traffic:

43.4% Direct (this is larger than usual this month because Pinterest changed its reporting so now much of it is counted as direct rather than Social. Last month Direct was only 27.5%)
38.4% Social (last month it was 55.2%)
— 93% from Pinterest; 4% from Facebook; 1% from BuzzFeed; 2% Twitter, SU, G+, and everything else
12.5% Organic Search
5% Referral
0.7% Email/Other

As you see, I rely heavily on Pinterest for traffic, which is why I saw a major decline this month as Pinterest made some major changes across the board, affecting about every blogger I know. I have some new pinning strategies in place for April, so I hope to see my traffic go up.

New Posts:

On What’s up Fagans? in March I put up 12 new posts, which is good since I am shooting for 3 posts a week, M/W/F.

Six of the twelve posts were sponsored. One was a guest post from my friend Courtney.  One was a round-up post on Easter Traditions (see THIS post about how to use round-ups effectively).

My most popular post was “Dealing with Potty Training Regression? Ask Your Toddler This One Question.” It earned almost 3500 pageviews this month, somehow gaining lots of pins. For a new post, it’s great to see something take off again on Pinterest again!

What’s up Fagans? Blog Income March 2016

Despite having the lowest traffic in more than a YEAR to my site, I was paid the MOST I have ever earned in a month. Which reminded me that I need to stop comparing myself and my blog to others. There is no one way to make money from a blog. This is also why I decided to share my numbers.

Here’s what you need to know about my site:

I sell ZERO of my own products. No ebooks. No courses. No printables. No crafts (goodness no). I make almost all of my money from three things – Ad networks, Affiliate Marketing, and Sponsored Posts.

I also have a fairly small social media following, especially considering the amount of traffic I receive, and my mailing list isn’t very large either. I have between 2,000-3,000 followers on each of the following platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Email List. I have less than 1000 followers on Instagram. Pinterest is my biggie with over 20,000 followers. I gain about 400 new followers on there a week. Every other platform grows at a snail’s pace.

I recently purchased Strategies Worth Sharing: How I Grew My Facebook Page from 2,000 Likes to 100,000 Likes In Five Months to hopefully learn how to do Facebook right. The author is a good blogging friend of mine, and I really do love following her Facebook page. It’s one of my favorites! I have almost finished reading it and it has lots of great information about the various and common blogging Facebook strategies people try and which are actually good to do or not.

Ad Income: Down $100 from February

I made the switch on March 4 to ditch The Blogger Network for my ads, as well as a few miscellaneous ad networks (Media.net, TripleLift, and SwayyEm), to have MediaVine be my exclusive ad network for all of my desktop ads.

I had heard great things about them from a few blogging friends. It was rough the first few weeks, but it’s definitely going up in RPM and income. I don’t know if I will make as much as I was before from all the other ads I was running, BUT, that’s kinda the point. I had so many ads in my sidebar. Now I just have two. And they load way faster and cleaner than the ads I ran with The Blogger Network, which means my site doesn’t crash or lock up, which was an almost constant issue I was having with TBN. Plus, their customer service is great. I actually made great money from The Blogger Network and still recommend them for many people, but MediaVine is even better.

I also definitely recommend PadSquad for mobile ads. I have been with PadSquad for over a year and a half, and I am very happy with them, especially lately as we’ve (not just my site) seen consistent income every month, which is fantastic for someone who is self-employed and relies on this payment each month to schedule bill payments.

March had extra high ad income because I also got paid for a 2 week ad placement in my sidebar for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints promoting their Easter initiative. I worked with them during December as well.

Affiliate Income: Down $300

I have been working very hard to beef up my affiliate income over the last 6+ months. I am all about building up passive income streams!  I work with many different affiliate programs and individuals. I work (and get paid) from the following Affiliate Networks. An * denotes my affiliate link should you sign up with them.

Sponsored Post Income: Up 36%

Call me weird, but I actually really enjoy doing sponsored posts. I get a thrill out of getting paid to write something, and paid well to do so. I like the challenge of organically promoting a product without alienating my readers. My goal for this year is to take less sponsored work but for higher payouts, so that I won’t have to take as many anyway. In March I got paid for sponsored from:

For a comprehensive list of sponsored post companies, see THIS post. 

Products Received

As a blogger, I often receive product in addition to compensation for posts, in order for me to try out and use a product, take photographs, or buy my own supplies in order to complete the post. This month I received:

  • A StemBox
  • Amazon eGiftcard
  • AMEX Gift card
  • Mr. Clean Gift Basket
  • Purex Detergent
  • Calphalon Pan

Other Blog Income

I do some freelance work for a local (free) magazine, and got paid $40 for my feature this month, which was an interview I did with Heloise. I also did a little side job for a blog friend, and came up with 20 headlines for posts that she had written for her. If you are interested in headline help for your blog, see this post, and consider joining my Headline/Image Help Facebook Group. If you want specific help on headlines, and want to hire me, click over to my contact page.

What’s up Fagans? Blog Expenses March 2016

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to keep all the money I got paid this month. I had some major expenses, including a brand new computer as my previous one was on the fritz. It’s been rough being without certain things which are on the other computer as our storage solution has been proving very difficult to use and access. In total, my expenses this month were more than half of my earnings. This months’ expenses included:

  • New Computer
  • Paypal Fees
  • USPS P.O. Box Renewal for 1 Year
  • Facebook Ad
  • What’s up Blogging? Website Design
  • BoardBooster* Pinterest Scheduling (See this post on how to use BB)
  • ViralTag Pinterest Scheduler* – Paid for a year. I have a shared account with other bloggers.
  • Event Parking
  • Email Mailing List with ConvertKit
  • Stock Photos with Adobe Photos (switched over from Dollar Photo Club this month because they made me)
  • IZEA* Membership Fee
  • Sticky Blogging* Workbook

Generally speaking, I don’t have a lot of expenses every month. I pay yearly for web hosting, and some other services (like my PO box and ViralTag listed above) so that I don’t have to pay monthly, which saves me more money in the long run. I also do not have anyone who works for me, like a Virtual Assistant.

If you are interested in starting a blog, or are already blogging and want more tips, see this page for more information. 

 

Two Apps Every Blogger Must Have (That Will Save You Money and Sanity)

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Two Apps

We just finished doing our taxes for the year.

I really miss the days of when it took about 10 minutes to do (you know, back when I was in college.)

I was pretty thrilled to find out that not only had I saved an extra $10,000 for taxes that I didn’t need to pay, but we got over $1000 back in a refund.

Thankfully, I have a dad for an accountant, so it made life a little bit easier (you can read some of tax tips for bloggers he shared awhile back). But I’m pretty relieved to be done.

As we were doing our taxes, I realized I needed to be a little bit better about keeping track of certain things. While I have a great income tracker (which you can find at the end of the tax tips post), I wasn’t so good about keeping track of mileage, or of all my receipts. I kept all my receipts, but they were scattered around the house. With mileage, I kept track of our big trips for conferences, but not for all the little drives to the store for posts, blogger events, etc.

And those miles add up.

Fortunately, I found two apps recently that I think will make taxes MUCH easier next year, so I thought I’d share them with all of you. I’m all about doing things that make life easier, especially when it comes to blogging. These will make things a bit easier!

MileIQ

I actually downloaded this app last year, but then the free version was limited, so I ended up deleting it. I just didn’t want to pay the extra money.

I wish I had, because it probably would have saved me more than the $59 I had to spend to buy it! When we went to do our taxes and my dad brought up mileage, we both felt that I was missing out on a lot of extra miles because I hadn’t kept better track. So, I decided to get the “pro” version of MileIQ, and I’m so glad I did.

Now every time I get in the car, it automatically detects that we are driving. After we are done driving, you can go into the app and classify the drive as either business or personal, put notes with it, etc.

You can go online to the MileIQ website, login to your account, and see a dashboard with all your information, as well as the option to download a monthly or yearly report. Being able to do this will make doing your taxes so much easier – just hand your tax accountant your yearly report! Just make sure you put notes so you remember why a trip was classified as business. Here’s a screenshot of the dashboard:

My dad highly recommended I do something like this, and so far, I’m glad I did. The yearly membership is $59, but if you use this link, you can get 20%! This isn’t sponsored by them or anything. I just feel it is making my life easier!

OneReceipt

When you are self-employed and making as many purchases as we do throughout the year, it’s crucial to keep track of your receipts.

My dad always has had a box where he neatly keeps his receipts throughout the year. I’m not as organized as that, and my receipts are in the car, a folder in our basement, in my cell phone case (yes, weird.) For awhile I tried to take pictures of them on my phone, but even then, they got so disorganized!

I saw an advertisement on Facebook for an app called OneReceipt. It intrigued me, so I downloaded it. That was a great impulse download. It’s free, and it makes it really easy to keep track of your receipts. Whenever I buy anything, I take a picture of it in the app, and then I can add notes, the location, and if it was a personal or business expense. You can also sync it with your email address, and it will pull any receipts that come to your email into the app. I love it, and my receipt situation is more under control. In addition, it tells you tracking and return details for products you purchased!

I know these apps won’t help make your page views grow, but I believe they can help save you time and money in the long run. If you want to be a serious blogger, you need to know how to run a business. And taxes are definitely part of running a business!

Let me know about any apps you can’t live without!

affiliate links are used in this post. 

Two AppsEVERYBlogger Needs

The Blog Post Checklist

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the-blog-post-checklist-5533571

STOP.

Don’t press publish.

Well, until you have read this post.

There are certain things every blogger should do before they release their latest masterpiece to their readers – regardless of the niche.

I’ve read a lot of blog posts, and I’ve written a lot as well. I’ve certainly made many mistakes – sometimes because I’m just lazy and sometimes because I just forget. However, I feel like I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of things you should always try to do before you press publish.

And lucky for you, I’m going to share those with you today. So next time you go to write your post, make sure you mentally check off each of these items.

Grammar and Spelling

I’ll admit that I’m not the best at this. Despite being two credits short of an editing minor and being very good about editing other people’s stuff, I’m not so good about proofreading my own things. I have this issue where I actually don’t like to reread what I wrote, because I always think I sound dumb. Ha! But don’t follow my example – proofread your stuff.

My life was made a little bit easier when I download Grammarly. It’s a free extension for your browser that tells you when you’ve made a spelling or grammatical error. I LOVE it. You can get the paid version for more features, but the free version has been great for me.

There are some really intense grammar and spelling sticklers out there, so that’s really why you should do it – so you don’t get angry comments about how you did something wrong. I’ve found that they are the meanest commenters! Okay, you should proofread to make sure your content is professional looking and sounding…but the mean commenters really motivates me!

Facts

Don’t just make things up – research your posts and make sure the information you are putting is factual. Many of my most popular posts have to do with pregnancy, so I try to make sure I am putting in good, reputable information. However, even if you are writing posts that are mainly opinion pieces or recipes, make sure what you put in there is accurate. If you are writing a recipe post, for instance, and you decide to put the conversions for the metric system, make sure it’s accurate!

In addition, if you are quoting something else or you were inspired to make a recipe based on someone else’s site, I also think it’s important to link to the original source.

Social links

Make it so people can share your post! Most of the time, you can use a plugin or widget that automatically adds these. Personally, I love using Social Warfare. I have worked with a lot of plugins, and this is my favorite, by far. It’s very customizable, allows you select exactly which people gets pinned, and it doesn’t slow your site down.

It’s around $30 a year, but I think it’s worth it. If you’ve ever changed your permalink structure and lost your social share counts, it will also recover it. So many features – I’m just barely tipping the iceberg with my usage of it! I have been using it on Clarks Condensed and hope to install it here soon. On The Blog Help, I use SumoMe currnetly.

In addition to social sharing links, it’s a great idea to include ways to interact with your social networks IN the post. For instance, you can create a Pinterest widget for a board you own that is relevant to the post’s topic (example here) or you could create a “click to tweet” Twitter widget in the post with an awesome quote in it. Social Warfare gives you the option to create one of those, and I think it’s an easy way to increase engagement!

This is a seriously awesome post from Neil Patel (one of the best resources EVER) about what it takes to get massive social shares on a post. I highly recommend reading it.

Backlinks to posts on your site

Backlinks to other posts on your site not only increases your site’s authority, but it also helps keep people on your site. I think it’s important to reference your past posts throughout new posts if they are related. You want to make your site as “sticky” as possible! You should also make sure there are related posts at the end of the post. You can use a plugin, such as Zemanta, to generate these, or you can create your own to put at the end of your posts.

I recently learned that it’s best to make it so links to other posts on your site DO NOT open in a new window. Apparently it counts as a new session if you do this, and it can affect your pages per sesssion negatively. That’s something to keep in mind.

Affiliate links

I’ve been really excited about affiliate marketing the past six months or so. I’ve started seeing a lot of success – especially since I can use Amazon now. I much prefer affiliate marketing over ads or even sponsored posts because it’s passive and easier to incorporate into posts!

You are doing yourself a great disservice by not putting affiliate links into posts. I know some people are concerned that it might spammy to put them in, but honestly, as long as you are providing good content to your readers and you can organically put them in, it’s a mistake not to.

I recently learned about a plugin called Pretty Link. It’s a great way to make your affiliate links look less spammy. It “cloaks” the link with your site’s name, so the links look more legitimate. I haven’t had time to get it setup yet, but I’ve seen it work on other sites, and I think it’s an essential for affiliate marketing.

Pinnable image

Images are a necessity for every post. It’s what draws people in, and it makes it easier to share. There have been times that I’ve gone to share a post, and there was no image to pin in sight, so I ended up not sharing it.

Pinnable images are not hard to make. I use PicMonkey or Canva to make mine, and they literally take less than five minutes to do. Here is what one of my typical food pins look like:

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And here is one that I just did for a more lifestyle post:

For Pinterest, you really need to do vertical pins. I have found success doing them really long, like the examples above (typically 650×1600), but if you don’t like that look, I think 600×900 is a pretty safe bet. If you don’t want the long pin to show in your post (which is understandable), if you are using Social Warfare, you can easily set the pin to just show up with a pre-set description when someone press the pin button. It makes life easier!

I also recommend doing a square image for Facebook. Lately I’ve been doing those and putting it at the top of my post so I can easily grab it when I go to share on Facebook.

PicMonkey and Canva both have free versions (and free trials) that are a good place to start. However, I recommend buying the full version of PicMonkey – it just has more features, and it’s not very expensive. Very user-friendly as well. I only use the non-paid version of Canva, but if you do that, be aware that you can’t resize your images after you start them without signing up for a business account.

CALL TO ACTION

So, your write this awesome post, everyone loves it…and then the second the exit out, they never come back. This is not how it should go! You need to have some kind of call-to-action in your post – either to sign up for your subscription list or to follow you on some sort of social network. I absolutely LOVE OptinMonster for creating call to action popups and subscription boxes. I have tons of different ones I’ve created for different posts and scenarios. I always have one set to go off when a person goes to leave the page (called exit-enabled), and I’ve been very successful with that as well. You can add “like” buttons to your post to remind people to like you on Facebook or a Pinterest follow widget so people can follow you there. Just make sure there is something there to make sure your readers come back.

BONUS

Sticky Blogging

A big part of blogging is writing engaging content. Before you press publish, always read your post and think to yourself, “Would I want to keep reading if I found this on Pinterest?”

I don’t recommend a lot of blogging courses. I think most of them are a waste of money and time. However, I came across a course called Sticky Blogging a while back, and I LOVE it. I truly feel that it helped improve my writing, and it’s something I think every blogger should consider taking. It may not be open for registration right now, but I recommend signing up for the waiting list (for either the free class or the complete class.)
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One Way to Make Facebook Scheduling Easier

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I’m all about simplifying and streamlining, especially when it comes to blogging!

When I started using BoardBooster awhile back, I felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I loved not being a slave to Pinterest anymore.

For a lot of my blogging career, I just hadn’t paid much attention to Facebook. I would share all my articles and occasionally share something else funny I found. Needless to say, my page really only grew when I did some kind of giveaway, and I was lucky if I got one like.

About August of last year, I saw that a lot of people were having success with Facebook. I knew that I wanted to drive a little bit more traffic from there, so I decided to try a few things out. While my page isn’t the hugest yet (because I’m not perfect at always scheduling), I have seen it grow – not only in page views and likes but in engagement.

I’ve found that the best thing to do is share content that is already doing well on Facebook. Then, in between those posts, I share one of my posts. I feel like when I share in between a post that is already floating around Facebook, it drives a little more traffic to my own posts.

You might be wondering – how on earth do you find good content to post? Well, my friends, just scroll through your Facebook page. You’ll find a plethora of videos, articles, recipes, etc. that are being shared across Facebook. I follow a lot of other bloggers’ Facebook pages, and since many of them follow this same idea of sharing viral content, I get a lot of great content that way.

So, when I first started, I would go and schedule something whenever I saw a link or video that I liked. This was not very fun, and I ended up not scheduling things as much as I would have otherwise.

But then, Facebook introduced the “save” feature. This seriously changed the Facebook game for me. In the top right corner of every post that is shared on Facebook, you’ll see a little triangle. Click on that and you’ll see a “Save Link/Photo/Video” option, typically near the top. Press that option, and it will save it to your account.

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You can access all of your saved posts by going to http://facebook.com/saved. When you do that, you’ll run into a page like this:

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And from there, you’ll find all your links, videos, and pictures. Whenever I go to schedule things, I just come to my saved page, and I pick out content that I think will be good for that day. As you can see above, there is a place that say “Saved from . . . ” with a page’s name. I will click on that, and it will take me to that page. I will then look at the post and see if that page shared it from somewhere else. If they did, I will click to the original post and share directly from there. Whenever I get to the post I want, I copy the URL, like below.

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Then I will go into my Facebook page, and in the post composer, I post the link from above. It will generate a post with a link and who it was shared from. Then I will delete the link I put in the box, share my own thoughts, and press schedule!

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And there you have it! I’ve found this to be the simplest way to find great content to share with my readers. I no longer spend hours searching out great content – I just follow pages that I know share good stuff, and then I pass that on to my readers, thanks to the saved feature!facebook-scheduling-9518184