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Blogging Tips

23 Gifts Bloggers Really Want

November 12, 2015 by Thane West 18 Comments

Like any professional business, especially of the entrepreneur variety, bloggers have a lot of things that they need to help grow their business.

They need better equipment, better skills, better networking, and better tools to help them do what they do even better. But, most bloggers start small, build slowly and invest their money frugally and as wisely as possible.

When you start a blog, it doesn’t require a lot of money, but the more you grow the more tools you want and need to take advantage of.

It can be hard to know what to gift the blogger in your life, so here are 29 suggestions. And it’s totally cool to gift these to yourself as a blogger. The plus side is that you can deduct them as a blogging expense.

blogger-gift-guide-681x1024-701192423 Things Bloggers Really Want to Receive as Gifts

3 Blogging Investment Gifts

Blogging Books

It’s always helpful read books about your industry. I personally recommend How to Blog for Profit Without Losing Your Soul by Ruth Soukup of Living Well Spending Less. I have been told that Launch by Jeff Walker is amazing and life-changing. I also love all the information that’s packed in Abby Lawson’s (of Just a Girl and Her Blog) Building a Framework: The Ultimate Blogging Handbook plus all the amazing extra videos and tutorials you can grab along with it.

I know there are dozens of other great blogging books too (I’d love your recommendations!). Here are some to consider:

  • Blogging on the Side: Where Passion Meets Profit
  • Why Your Blog is Failing and How to Fix It
  • Work From Home Blogging
  • The 4 Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
  • Strategies Worth Sharing: How I Grew My Facebook Page from 2000 to 100,000 in Five Months by Brittany Ann of Equipping Godly Women – $20
  • How I Went from 17k to 350k+ Monthly Pageviews by Lena Gott of What Mommy Does – $25

Blogging Courses

There are so many blogging courses out there! And some are crazy expensive, and some aren’t nearly as awesome as they claim to be, but some really do deliver a fantastic wallop of information and are a true investment in your business. I recommend the following, especially for beginner to intermediate bloggers:

  • Successful Startup by Alida Quitschreiber of The Realistic Mama – $497 (or 6 payments of $97). Great information for beginners on the best way to start and set up a brand new blog, social channels and newsletters for it, and how to promote your new content.
  • The Sticky Blogging System and Sticky Blogging SEO by Kelly Holmes of Idealist Mom – $149.  I’ve taken both of her courses and can’t recommend enough! And she offers a great amount of information in her free courses (which are linked above) that lead into her paid ones too. The courses aren’t open year round though, but are open about every other month. They have literally changed my writing and my traffic!
  • Elite Blog Academy by Ruth Soukup of Living Well Spending Less. – $499 or $49/month for 12 months. Ruth is pretty much amazing and this course extremely popular for the amazing information it contains. I haven’t taken it (yet) but it’s packed with hands-on information perfect for beginning to intermediate bloggers who are ready to get serious.

Conference Tickets

Attending a blogging conference is not only great for honing your craft but for networking! I don’t think you need to attend every conference, and some are certainly better than others. I hit up the Type-A Parent Conference in Santa Fe in July 2016, but there are conferences across the country, and they are so awesome to gift a blogger, as they aren’t cheap, but can be a great investment in their business to network and socialize and learn.

9 Gifts to Improve Blog Photography

One of the best investments a blogger can make is in her photography skills and photography equipment. Stock photos are nice and all, but learning how to take better images is pretty darn essential. Here are different blogger gift ideas relating to photography:

DSLR Camera

I used to have the Nikon D3100 as an entry level camera. It’s been great to learn the ropes of shooting in manual. I now have a Nikon D5500 which is also great. Any high-quality DSLR with interchangeable lenses make for a great gift idea for bloggers!

Camera Lens

You may already have the nice camera, but what you really lack is the great lens! Many lenses that come with DSLR are okay, but won’t do all the amazing things you generally love in photography. I love my Nikkor 35mm fixed lens! It takes such pretty pictures and allows for better pictures in lower light too.

Camera Tripod

If you want to do take video or photos while your hands are doing something else, a tripod sure is handy! A basic tripod with a bag is what I use and it works well!

Phone Tripod

If you are into Periscope, taking selfies or videos with your phone, then you should look into a phone tripod. This universal smartphone holder is great for when you are out and about as it is flexible and can hang out almost anywhere. If you want a tripod for your home, this one is great. Or you could just get yourself a selfie stick.

Camera Flash and Lighting gear

The flash that comes standard on DSLR are not usually anything too exciting or awesome. Investing in a great camera flash is wise, as is investing in some light boxes and softbox ligths, and multi-disc light reflectors.

Camera Microphone

If you plan on doing any videos, podcasts, or voice-overs, then think about investing in a camera microphone as well as a great USB microphone.

Photography Backdrops

If you take a lot of product photos or do staging at all, having a great photo background and props is so awesome. Everyone I know loves the vinyl photography backdrops from Swanky Prints on Etsy.

Photography Courses

Improve your craft by taking photography courses. You can see if your local college, local photographer or studio is offering one. Check Groupon for any available and discounted courses in your area. Otherwise, you can do some online photography courses. Craftsy offers dozens of affordable photography courses, teaching different skills, like Lightroom Essentials, natural-light portraits, product photography at home, and mobile photography.

If you are a food blogger check out Pinch of Yum’s Tasty Food Photography book. Even if you don’t write about food, it will help improve your photography. I meant Lindsey in Indiana at a workshop and she is fantastic!  You should definitely look into Food Blogger Pro and their current coupon discounts to save you money on your membership.

There is also Courtney Slazinik of Click it up a Notch that will help you get to know your DSLR and shooting in manual mode, especially to capture great pictures of your kids and family.

Photo and Video Editing Software

Bloggers can greatly benefit from owning Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Premiere (what I use to edit video) or other photo editing and video editing software for their computer. Even a simple subscription to PicMonkey is cool though (and what I use to edit and create graphics 95% of the time).

 

blogger-gift-guide-1-502x1024-83737477 Blog Tech and Office Gift Ideas for Bloggers

Along with photography goods, there are other great tech products and office goods that a blogger will love!

Computer

Every blogger needs a reliable and awesome computer. I don’t care for Apple products that much (but some do), and currently use a custom built desktop computer for most of my blogging needs. But, my husband picked me up a Lenovo Yoga laptop (my first laptop EVER) so that I could blog on the go, and I think it’s pretty sweet. But, with so many options out there I’ll let you figure out what great computer would fit the blogger in your life.

Computer Chair

I know laptops are great in that you can take them anywhere, but honestly, your blogger needs a great chair (and desk) so that the hours they spend working doesn’t do a number on their back.

Hosting

If your blogger friend still hasn’t made the leap to self-hosting, help them out by paying for their first year of hosting for them. I have a tutorial on how to start a blog with BlueHost so it’ll be super easy to help them get started. Plus, it’s super affordable. I do not use BlueHost though, but use BigScoots who is fabulous!

Blog Design

It can be hard for a blogger just starting out to want to splurge on their blog. So do it for them. Buy them the Genesis Framework for WordPress and a pretty StudioPress or Restored 316 Design theme too (let them choose which one).

Grammarly

If you are looking for something much better than spellcheck, sign up for Grammarly. It’s a powerful tool to help really polish your content. Oh, and it’s FREE (unless you really want help with your grammar)!

Printer/Scanner or Silhouette/Cricut

As a blogger, you need to be able to scan documents (like contracts and tax forms) and email them to people. It’s also helpful to print off those Printables you design for blog posts. Printers are pretty darn important. I don’t have a strong preference for what brand (I currently use a Canon one), but get a printer with a scanner/photocopier that comes with Wi-Fi, then buy some ink, and some high-quality stock paper.

You could also gift a Silhouette machine or a Cricut machine. I still don’t have one, but would love one! Think of all the pretty DIY and craft things I could do (maybe it would help me actually be crafty). If the blogger in your life is a crafter, they need this, or supplies to run the machine they already have.

Blogger Spreadsheet & Blog Planners

If your blogger is venturing into the world of monetization, it is super helpful to have an excellent Excel spreadsheet to track income, expenses, blog growth, and more.

I highly recommend purchasing (for $20) my friend Hilary of Pulling Curl’s Blog Income Spreadsheet. It is super detailed, but she breaks down how to use it via a 5-day email course. It’s well worth the money to see how you are growing in certain areas. I’ve been using it all year for 2016 and 2017 and love having a great spread of information to really track my income and expenses and growth!

I also recommend getting a Blog Planner! It’s a great gift! Having a place to write down your goals daily, weekly, and monthly, as well as keep track of your editorial calendar, deadlines, and blog post ideas, a planner is an awesome tool.

If you do intend on making money and planning, I highly recommend buying some blogging legal forms from Businessesse. They are pricey, but take guess work out of writing contracts!

blogger-gift-guide-tech-1024x538-96528064 More Fun Blogger Gift Ideas

Branded Items

Your blog seems more legit when your website logo is branded onto products! Take your blogger’s logo and put it on a ceramic mug, or a T-shirt, or iPhone Case, or mouse pad, or ornament on Shutterfly.com.

House Cleaning

Blogging takes a lot of work. And many bloggers could use a little gift of house cleaning duties being done by someone else other than themselves. Hit up Groupon and save money on house cleaning services in your area for your blogger. Or you can try Try Amazon Home Services to book a House Cleaning!

Childcare/Babysitting

If your blogger is also a parent, chances are they are juggling many things, and totally don’t want to drop the ball on parenting. But, they also are very passionate about their blog work. Help them out by offering your own services to babysit their kids a few times, or pay for someone else to come in and help.

Gift Cards

Bloggers are known to buy supplies to help them run their blog. Help them out with a gift card. Grab them one to:

  • Amazon
  • Michaels or Hobby Lobby or Jo-Ann (or their favorite craft store)
  • Starbucks
  • Groupon Bucks

If you are looking for more gift guides and gift giving ideas, be sure to check out the following gift guides:

gift-guide-collage-1024x1024-7638238 20 Something’s Gift Guide

30 Must Have Gifts For The Grill Master

Bloggers Gift Guide

The Ultimate Gift Guide For Any Woman

Gluten Free Gift Guide

30 Unique Gifts For Bookworms

New Mama Gift Guide

Educational Toys For Boys

Health, Beauty and Fashion Gift Guide

The Ultimate Gift Guide for Bakers & Cooks

 

Filed Under: Blog Conference, Blog Design, Blogging Tips, Scheduling Tools Tagged With: Blogger, Blogging, blogging gift guide, books, computer, courses, gift guide, gifts, Holidays, office, photography, shopping

How to Brand Your Personal Blog to Stick Out From the Crowd

October 15, 2015 by Thane West 2 Comments

Two years ago, there was an estimated 152 million blogs on the internet. I can only assume there are nearly double that many blogs online now in 2015. With such a flooded market, it may seem like it’s not worth your time or effort to create a personal blog or website, but I really wish everyone had their own blog!

There have been many times I have wished that everyone I knew had a blog, and had a blog over a Facebook or Instagram profile. Personal blogs are the perfect way to express yourself! They are way more effective than sharing a one paragraph update on Facebook, or that one single image on Instagram, or that 140 character Tweet.branding-your-blog-1024x525-1752792Personal blogs encourage you to really form a coherent thought, flesh out ideas, and share who you really are and what you are really about. Plus, with a personal website you are in control of your content and its far less likely to be taken out of context. Italics and bold text do wonders to clarify your intended meaning!

My blog, What’s up Fagans?, started out as a regular personal blog that updated our family and friends in other states about our adventures, complete with photos and updates of what was going on in our lives. It literally answered “What’s up Fagans?” But, even in its relative infancy, we often shared our passions and thoughts on marriage, music, movies, school, family, and friendships. My husband at one point thought our blog really should be named “What the Fagans think” because we stopped sharing purely update information and pictures and shared more of what we were currently interested in and thinking about.

Our blog started taking on this wonderful life of its own as we shared our personal and family goals. In some ways it’s held us accountable to them because we made them public, so we had to live up to them. Creating this personal website based upon us and our family was an exciting and fun creative outlet for both myself and my husband. Little did we know so many years ago that people from around the world would come to our website and follow us on our journey through life.

We no longer share as many personal updates about our lives in such blatant ways as we’ve transitioned our website into a business and not just a family-update blog. But, its still about us.

Branding What’s up Fagans? into our own unique website by buying a domain name and setting up hosting and hiring a designer (among other things) has helped our website be much more than just one of the millions of blogs out there. It has character and personality. What’s up Fagans? is its own little brand on the internet.whats-up-fagans-logo-24-6059312You might think branding is a weird term to use when referring to your own personal website or blog, but I assure you that as much as Martha Stewart or Oprah are brands, you can also be your own brand. I highly doubt you will ever become the international superstars that are, but with great branding and writing people will come to recognize you and even discuss your blog with their friends and family.

How to Successfully Brand Your Blog

Like any brand, you want to connect with your audience. You want them to identify your brand and your writing or photography instantly. You want them to understand who you are and what you are all about. You want to be recognizable! In order to do that, I suggest seriously considering the following:

1) Your Blog Needs a Personalized Design

Despite the millions of blogs out there, millions of them share the exact same themes, the exact same layouts, and the exact same color schemes, and often even similar content.

Your blog needs a good design.  You don’t have to get all fancy and be 100% unlike any other website. In fact, doing so may make it really hard for people to navigate your site if it is too new and too different to understand and find certain information. But, you should create a unique logo or pay someone to design one for you.

You also need to think about a color scheme for your blog and choose wisely. Colors affect us more than most of us realize. Choose colors that make sense with your blog content, its goals, and what emotions and feelings you wish to elicit from your visitors.

Once you have a color scheme and palette, customize your theme with those colors, and personalize how things look. Again, if you don’t know CSS or HTML hire someone to do it for you!

dollarphotoclub_92093384-1024x683-68999822) Your Blog Needs YOU

There are some seriously beautiful websites and blogs out there, but other than looking amazing, some of their content kind of sucks. You can wrap up a present beautifully, but if what is inside is garbage,  people will leave it behind and move on.

This is why adding in your personality is super important. People want to connect with you, as you are your brand; you are your personal blog! Write in such a way that your readers have a clear sense of who you are, what you are about, what you value, what you love, what you hate, what your strengths are, and what you have to offer them.

It doesn’t matter what your blog niche is, make it your own. I am not suggesting you write about whatever you feel like, but that what you do write has a slice of you in it. Maybe you’ll include a bit of your humor, or your humility. Maybe you’ll add colorful dialogue, powerful imagery, or casual everyday speech. People who come to your blog want to know if you will be providing entertainment, answers to their problems, encouragement, a discussion, a great laugh, commiseration, or inspiration. How you write often does that. Let your passion for your blogging subject show.

The reality is that a personal website allows you to connect with other like-minded individuals.

3) Your Blog Needs to be Memorable

A great blog design, logo, layout, color palette, writing, and photography all work together to help your blog become memorable. But something I hope you don’t overlook is the name of your website! A personal website and a personal blog should be as wonderfully special and unique as yourself, and leave people remembering it afterward. With the millions of blogs on the internet, a personally branded domain name will help you jump out at your visitors.

It is very important to find a great name right off the bat. Sometimes I have disliked What’s up Fagans? as a blog name, especially once I decided to kick my blog up a notch and turn it into a business. However, What’s up Fagans?, the original name my husband and I came up with on a whim way back in early 2009, has a sense of memorability to it! I’ve been told by several people that they love my name because it is easy to remember, and that they have fun saying it over and over! That is the power of a unique domain name!

When you are going to create your own personal website, take some serious time considering what you should name your blog. If you want a fun, and new, domain address that offers lots of great character and uniqueness then you should try out Domain.ME. Domain.ME allows you to brand your website with a unique .ME domain, similar to a .COM or a .NET with the same SEO benefits. If you really want to create your own personal brand or persona online, the .ME address is a memorable marketing tool. They are short,  provide a great play on words, they are available, and they are personable.

You can create a .ME domain name and even get help with website building through Name.com.  This limited offer will be available for one-month starting on 10/16/15. Create your own personal blog now!influencerpostsbanner-8703209For other tips on picking a domain name, check out my suggestions in my post How to Start a Blog that Will Make Money.

4) Your Blog Needs Consistency

A well branded blog is a consistent blog that sets up certain expectations. Readers will come to expect a certain consistency in the quality of writing and photography. They will come to expect a consistency in how frequently you update your blog and social media channels. They will come to have expectations about what content you will share, its length, and its purpose. They will come to expect a certain layout and flow.

An important part of branding will also come from how you open and close posts, divide up your texts, and even how you create pinnable images and your watermark on your photographs.

This can be hard for many of us to live up to these expectations placed on us by our readers and fans. But, the more we can meet them, the more trust we’ll build and the better relationships we’ll form with them. If you ever need inspiration for what to write about or how to make your blog hot, here are 135 blog post ideas.  These ideas can help you break through any writer’s block and even spice up the great content you are already (hopefully) producing by presenting them in exciting new ways.

I am not saying you have to be bossed around by your readers or your blog, but you need to understand that every great brand has consistency to their presentations, images, text, marketing and so on. Your blog should be the same.

I will admit that I do not have the best branded personal website out there. I lack in many of these areas, but I strive to present my readers with a good reality of who I am and what my brand is. Building your blog as a brand will not happen overnight. Thankfully it can also be tweaked and changed as many times are you need until you are really ecstatic about how your brand is perceived and the connection it is making with those who stumble their way to your 1 in 152+ million blogs on the internet today.

This post was inspired and sponsored by Domain.ME, the provider of the personal domains that end in .ME, and Name.com, a registrar that provides services like custom website design. They aim to promote thought leadership to the tech world. All thoughts and opinions in this post are my own, however.how-to-turn-a-blog-into-a-brand-683x1024-9971085

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Content Creation, Traffic Generation & Growth Tagged With: #BrandME, blog, Blogging, brand, branding, domain names, Everywhere Agency, Sponsored Post, website

How to Know If You’re Cut Out to be a Blogger

September 29, 2015 by Thane West 12 Comments

“Oh, you’re a blogger? That’s nice.”

Whenever I tell someone that I blog, most people seem to have no idea what it is I do. Sometimes they know someone who has a blog, and often it is a family update blog with pictures of that’s person’s home and family. Others know blogs because they pin recipes, DIYs, pictures, and crafts on Pinterest and understand that the content by and large is generated by blogs.

But,, when I tell them that I make money blogging, they are often dumbfounded. “You make money blogging? How do you make money blogging?!”

Most people still have no idea who I am and have never stumbled their way across my blog. I’m not some mega blogger with millions of pageviews or followers and have never truly had what most people would consider viral traffic (thousands if not millions of views on a single article). But, I still make money blogging. And not just a few hundred dollars a month. This year I’m earning a full-time income. Last year I made a good part-time income.

The great thing about blogging is that I’m my own boss, pick my own hours, work from home, write about what I want to write about, take time off whenever I want, and work less than 40 hours a week. In actual work hours, I’m probably closer to 15-30 hours a week.

To a lot of people looking for extra income, or a job they can do from home, blogging sounds awesome, and they want to know how they can do it too.

Because of the great need and/or desire many (especially women) have to make money from home, I have decided to start sharing my secrets here on my own blog.  I have always been free with my advice and tips for others, but it’s usually to people who are already bloggers. Now, I want everyone to know.

In the coming weeks and months I will share great tips on how to be a professional blogger right here on What’s up Fagans?. It is my hope that with my tips, advice, and resources, that you too can be successful at earning a full-time income from home doing something that you love to do.

If you really want to make blogging your stay at home career, you really need to make sure you should go down this road, and gauge whether you will be successful at having a money-making blog.

professional-blogger-4258268How to Know if You’re Cut Out to be a Blogger (Professionally)

1. You have an idea, a purpose, a hobby to share.

Because blogging relies on you and your voice as the driving momentum, you have to have something to write about! If you are passionate about early childhood education and love coming up with creative kid crafts and activities, you could be a blogger. If you love cooking or baking and your recipes are unique and delicious, you could be a blogger. If you love remodeling and decorating your home and are always working on some DIY project, you could be a blogger. If you are passionate about home and family life, and willing to share your joys, struggles, and advice to other parents, then you could be a blogger.

You have to have a purpose, a passion, and a drive to share your knowledge and love with others. It doesn’t matter so much what your niche is, but that you have something to say about it. The internet makes it so that you can write about most anything and be able to find an audience. Pets, exercise, health, motivation, games, tech, education, religion, parenting, crafts, beauty, saving money, food, business, sports, movies, travel, photography, books, sewing, politics, or organization: all blog-worthy topics!

You have a why for starting a blog. It will help carry you through and solidify your blogging aims as you grow your business, even if the why changes over time.

2. It is the right time for you and your family.

Is life a tad too crazy with a new baby or running kids to various activities? Are there medical issues going on? Are you otherwise dealing with a stressful situation? I’m not saying these things should or will prevent you from blogging, but you have to prayerfully consider if investing a good amount of time and energy into a new venture is what you should be focusing on right now. You should not force something that isn’t right for you and your family, at this time.

What’s up Fagans? started initially as a family update blog way back in 2009. It wasn’t until 2013, after my third child was born, that I felt really prompted to officially turn my blog into a business (I’ll tell you how to start a blog in my next post). It was a ton more work than I initially thought, but I felt prompted by God, and my decision confirmed that this was the right path for our family to take. It took a few months to make money once I made the decision, but now, a little over two years into blogging professionally, I see that the timing was right for my family.

So pray about it. It could be a great time to prepare for your big foray into the professional blogging world instead of launching it. Create a blogging plan of attack for when the time is right. Honestly, planning a lot before you invest yourself fully will greatly improve your chances of making money quicker.

3. You are willing to commit.

Blogging professionally is much more time consuming than blogging as a hobby. There are lots of hobby blogs out there, but they won’t be paying anyone’s bills anytime soon. The reality is that blogging to make an income will take a lot of your time, energy, and focus. You have to be willing to commit to your dream and your goals of being a professional blogger. There will be many frustrations along the way as you struggle to increase pageviews and revenue, but you have to stay committed to figuring out something else and doing more that will help your blog turn into a successful business. 

4. You are willing to learn.

A lot of people still think blogs are nice stories and pretty pictures, but blogging professionally entails so much more than writing words and posting pictures. Blogging is an ever-changing and ever-growing business. You can’t just do the same thing over and over again and expect to see steady growth, or any growth. You need to be willing to continue to shape your blog and improve it again and again.

As a blogger you are much more than a writer. You are an entrepreneur, a marketer, a saleswoman, a website designer, a social media manager, a photo editor and photography. You know quite a bit about domain names, hosting, website design, CSS, HTML, disclosures and the FTC, SEO, widgets, plug-ins, sidebars, advertising, monetization, networking, photography, photo editing software, social media, footers, headings, mailing lists, affiliate marketing, banners, scheduling tools, tags, and hashtags. 

Thanks to the internet, most of your questions can be researched and figured out on a DIY basis. But, you have to be willing to do that research and take the time to learn.

Thankfully some tasks can be hired out if you really are clueless about tech stuff or social media or whatever, so don’t fret if you are hopeless in certain areas. There is help, but you will still need to learn a lot.

5. You are a good writer.

Blogging is word-heavy. Sure pretty pictures and DIY instructions can carry a blog far enough; however, truly great blogs engage and connect with their readers, turning them into fans, rather than one-time visitors.

You have to be a good to great writer to be a successful blogger. You can’t just free-flow write each and every post, typing whatever comes to your mind, and rely on spell check to make it legible. If you don’t know how to proof-read, edit yourself, be concise, use correct grammar, format a post, or tell a great story, you likely won’t get many fans other than family and friends. You have to be willing to be objective and view your words from another’s advantage. You, again, have to be willing to improve your craft!

While a lot of people are forgiving of a few typos and grammatical mistakes every now and then, improper usage of the English language repeatedly, and writing like a seventh grader, probably won’t get you very far as a professional, paid, blogger. You do not need to be excellent, or the best around, but you need some basic skills, or be willing to put a lot of effort into learning how to write better. Because, at its core, a blog is still based upon your words and your original content.

6. You have an eye for aesthetics.

Blogs are a photo-heavy industry. You need to be able to properly take, crop, edit, and add text to a photo in an appealing way.

While you can mostly use stock photos and use software programs and presets to help you make images, certain blog niches or posts will require original photography. Buying a nice DSLR camera, good equipment, and enrolling in great classes photography classes can help in those situations.

But, if you don’t have an eye for aesthetics or what makes a picture high quality or not, blogging may not be great for you. However, this one is not as make or break, because a lot of people are very forgiving as you learn your way around the design and photography world. Plus, you can always go back and update old photos as well.

7. You are organized.

Once you get into blogging professionally, you’ll discover that there are lots of small things that can occupy your time. Time management and organization begin to be very important as a blogger. Every very successful blogger I know is organized. They have editorial calendars, times they attend to certain tasks, short-term goals, long-term goals, and know where to spend their time in order to reap the largest return. I’m not quite there yet, but I do have at least certain things I do to keep organized and on top of my goals.

Plus, there are lots of great scheduling tools to help you stay on top of your to-do lists.

8. You believe in yourself.

Self-doubt is that nasty foe we all face. You need to believe in yourself, your worth, and your value as a person and a blogger. Haters and internet trolls will find you and leave you nasty comments. You need to be able to move past their attacks and negativity and remember why you are blogging. You need be strong enough to not quiet your voice and your mission because of a few naysayers.

You also need to believe that you can succeed. That you can be a successful blogger. That someday you will make money. Blogging is not a get rich quick endeavor: the first paycheck may not come until several months after you started your blog. You need to continue to believe in yourself during those first few months as you learn the ropes and find your unique voice.money-making-blogger-682x1024-6905179

Blogging can be a very awesome, fun, and financially rewarding endeavor but it isn’t the right path for everyone.

I hope that you will consider whether or not you could hack it as a blogger. Pray about it. Talk to your spouse. Talk to your best friends. Talk to other bloggers and ask them read your work and see if you have potential. Ask your friends for honesty about your writing, crafts, recipes, or photography. See if they believe in you as much as you do!  Chances are they do.

I hope you are ready to dive head first into this exciting new part of your life, a new career as a professional blogger!

If you think you could hack it as a professional blogger, stick around for more my upcoming posts on blogging. I’ll help you get started and provide you with all the right tools and advice to help you become a successful money-making blogger. Sign up below and never miss a post:

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Filed Under: Blogging Q&A, Blogging Tips, Content Creation Tagged With: Blogger, Blogging, photography, WAHM, WFHM, work at home, work from home, writer, writing

The Best Blogging Advice I Ever Heard

June 25, 2015 by Celeste David 10 Comments

About a month or two after I started blogging I received the best blogging advice I’ve ever received.  This was during a time when I was consuming blogging advice the same way I consume Wheat Thins: rapidly and without constraint.  I pinned every pin that had anything to do with increasing traffic or followers or making money. I was joining all sorts of Facebook blogging groups and copying and pasting the advice they’d give into an email chain to myself.  I was watching YouTube videos about blogging while I did the dishes.

It was exhausting.

Then one day amidst this rapid-fire consumption, I happened upon the best blogging advice I’ve ever heard. It didn’t have anything to do with SEO or rich pins or what size your blog photos should be.  It was simply this:

Talk to your followers.  Love your followers and be content with your followers.Bloggers Talk to your People Overcoming the Numbers Game The advice giver likened blogging to a big conference.  Every blogger had his or her own room where his or her own followers were seated listening to them.  In this conference, it can be very tempting to look past all the nice people in your room and instead shout incessantly to all those people passing by in the hall, “HEY!  HEY!! COME HERE!  LOOK IN MY ROOM!  LOOK!  I’VE GOT STUFF TO GIVE YOU!!  COME INNN!!!!!”

It can be easy to look at those nice people in your room and think, “Hmph.  What a pitiful bunch.  I was hoping for more.  That person down the hall, they’ve got SO many more!  And they started after me!  How did they get all those people? WHY IS NO ONE COMING IN MY ROOM?!”

Don’t do this.

Realize, all those nice people in your room are there to hear YOU.  They’re there because they like you.  They like what you have to say. Talk to them instead of talking to all the people in the hall.  And if there are only three people in your room?  TALK to those three people.  Engage with them.  Love them.

You’ll be far more content and your followers will love you all the more.  Which will have the added benefit of, yes, growing your blog.  But, doing it in an organic way and bringing in far more loyal followers than those who came one time to get something for free.

When I received this advice, it was like a tangible weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  I thought, “Oh good, you mean I don’t HAVE to do all this extra stuff just to get more people in my room???”  I had never heard that advice before, in all my days of blog advice acquisition, the tips always told me to want more, more, MORE.  More re-tweets, more page views, more comments, more sponsors.  Never be content.  While these tips can actually be very helpful and necessary to grow your blog, it can be really easy to inherit a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality in the blogosphere if we don’t keep it in check.

For me, the advice to just talk with my people means blogging at the pace I want to blog at and letting go of all those little things that I don’t enjoy doing but do anyway because I think everyone else is (link parties, I’m looking at you).

So don’t worry what other bloggers may think of you because you’re not on self-hosted wordpress or you don’t have many twitter followers or you only make pennies on AdSense or whatever blog insecurities you have, just talk to your people.  (Also other people care far less about these details than we do).

A little example:  I’m a member of a group in my town called Interfaithful Moms.  Its a fantastic group- we meet together twice a month, have speakers from all different religions who speak on all different topics.  Our leader, we’ll call her Jen, works very hard to find all these speakers, type out discussion questions for us each week, find child care for the meetings, bring refreshments, etc.  We’re so very grateful for her.

And she wishes more people would come into this particular “room.”

Last month one of our meetings fell on Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Jen decided to make this meeting really special.  She found a speaker from Israel who had family members die in the Holocaust.  She put together a song presentation, a prayer ceremony, and a candle lighting where we each read names of some of those who died.  She bought dozens of white roses and attached a printed prayer on each one.  She posted fliers for the meeting all over town.

And on the day of the meeting??  It was only the usual women from our group that came.  No new members.  I’m not certain, but I think this saddened Jen a little- all those fliers, all those left over roses.  But did we, the people in the room care about the size of the audience?? No way!  It was an AMAZING presentation she had put together!  Tears were shed.  It was powerful and we were so grateful.

I really hope that instead of looking at the door longing for more people to walk through that Jen was able to look around the room that day and think, “Wow, I did this.  Look at these people who came.  They are really getting something out of this meeting.  That feels great!”

So, whether you have three people or 300,000, talk to your people.

Love your people.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Traffic Generation & Growth

How to Create a Killer and Compelling Blog Headline

June 11, 2015 by Thane West 3 Comments

I am not a blog headline expert. I really wish I was. I wish that every title I created exuded a sense of urgency to be read, but that’s just not the case. But, as I continue to blog professionally, I realize more and more that having a killer blog headline is often the key to growth, to shares, to gaining new followers and traffic.  A simple title can make the difference between a post going nowhere and a post going viral. Really.

So, I have been trying over the last several months to up my game with headlines. But, with only so many characters available in a tweet, in search results, or shown on a link on Facebook, we have such little space to convince people to click through to our article! There is a lot that goes into crafting those perfect headlines.How to Create a Killer and Compelling Blog Headline - What every blogger needs to know!! So much great information and blog resources.As I am passionate about helping people, especially my fellow bloggers, I created a Facebook group – Bloggers for Better Headlines – where people can ask what other people find a more click-worthy title for their latest post, pin-image, Facebook headline, tagline, or whatever. It has been a great creative exercise for my brain, and a great help to myself and the many who take advantage of the group. Several have reported great success in revamping old titles, or having better ones for their latest post.

We are all learning together, and sometimes it’s all really a matter of trial and error. And thankfully, headlines can very easily be changed, and reshared.

The 4 Elements of a Successful Blog Headline

To help share my (semi-limited) knowledge on the subject of headlines, I want to present the following points to consider when you go to title your latest masterpiece. I am breaking them down into four key points – Intrigue, Title Length, Headline Formulas, and Keywords.

1. Intrigue

One of the biggest things your article title has to do is create intrigue. Boring, flat titles will not be clicked. Super personal post titles will not be clicked. You will not get traffic from these headlines, other than from your biggest fans, because they read everything you write anyway. While certainly having amazing pictures to go along with your headline will get your more clicks, having the right text on those images, and an intriguing title, will ensure even more.

Click-Bait and Immediacy

There is a reason so many titles today are considered “click-bait” titles. Click-bait titles are full of intrigue, and well, beg you to click through to find out the answer! Such titles usually contain something like “You won’t believe what happened when….” or “You’ll never guess the 1 Essential Key to….” or “The Surprising Trick that Will Save you …. ” or “Unusual uses of this common household thing…..” and so on. They all encourage you to discover what these unbelievable, surprising, unique, reasons, ways, or uses are. Your curiosity is peaked. You must click! They are indeed click-bait.

While I do think you can definitely go overboard on the click-bait titles, claiming or promising things that you can’t really deliver in your post (somethings really aren’t that shocking or unbelievable, and some solutions are not actually going to work for everyone, etc), the point is to make your headlines interesting enough that people want to click and read.

You want your title to create a sense of immediacy, which is what these click-bait titles seem to do best. Because, in today’s world of multi-tasking, multi-tabs, and lack of time, if we don’t actually click over and read an article right now, we may never actually take the time to read it, even if we bookmark it, pin it, or open it up in another tab. So while it is great that people seem interested in an article by doing those things, we actually do want people to read what we wrote (and maybe even then become our newest follower).

So, to create a sense of immediacy, think about a title like “How Safe Is Your …..” or “How to Improve (X) in the Next 10 Minutes” or “(X) You Need to Stop Doing Now” The key to immediacy though is to play up on emotions, self-interest, and desires, rather than simply needs.

Keep in mind as well, that often click-bait headlines are often controversial, political, or against pop culture trends. These types of titles can be great for more topical, trending, or hot-button issues going on in your community, state, country, or world.

If you are looking for some suggestions on click-bait or link-bait titles on a certain topic, check out the Linkbait Title Generator.

Active Verbs and Strong Adjectives

When crafting a killer headline, keep a thesaurus handy, because you want strong, active, descriptive words in your title! I mean, would you be dying to click on a post simply titled “Chocolate Cake Recipe”? No? What about: “The Easiest Most Delicious Chocolate Cake Recipe Ever”? Chances are you are intrigued about what makes this recipe so different from all the others that it boasts to be the best.

If you are sharing a great parenting tip, let’s say about potty training, avoid something simple like “Great Potty Training Tip.” While that doesn’t sound horrible, the problem is lots of people have potty training tips. What makes your post, your tip, different? Describe that secret specialness in the title. Maybe it’s “How to Potty Train Your Kid Accident-Free” or “The Sure-Fire Way to Get Your Child Potty Trained By His Third Birthday” or “The Key to Avoiding Potty Training Regressions” or “How to Potty Train Your Child Over the Weekend Without Losing Your Mind.” They are all very specific, which is great! They are then solving specific issues involved in potty training, instead of being under that generic blanket of “potty training tip.” It’s makes your post stand out and beg people to click.

Also notice some of the strong words I used like “Sure-Fire,” “Key” and “Avoiding.” No matter what subject you are discussing, look closely at your post and describe what your post is really helping address specifically, and then play around with the verbs, adjectives, and adverbs until it is a strong, compelling title that is full of intrigue to your target audience.

Don’t Give Away the Meat

However, sometimes it’s best to not give away the meat of your article in the title, because, sometimes, giving away what your post is actually about, will prevent anyone from actually reading your content.  For instance, I had a post about how parents should forgive their child and move on, and not dwell on their mistakes. But, by titling the post “Forgive Your Child and Extend Them Grace” I was left without anyone visiting the post. The reason being, everyone knows they should forgive their child! What’s surprising about that? What makes my post different?

So, I renamed my post “The One Thing Your Child Really Needs When He Screws Up.” It’s certainly a more click-bait title because it doesn’t give away the meat of the post which is to forgive your child and move on. This type of title can work well to create more intrigue on a post that just doesn’t seem to be getting traffic, or on a post that otherwise seems a bit too self-explanatory or commonsensical to a majority of people.

But, Don’t Be Too Personal

While certainly there is a place for bloggers to be personal (and I generally appreciate strong voice), many beginning bloggers make the mistake of creating headlines that are far too personal. Titles that include personal pronouns – I, My, Me, Myself, Our, Ours, We – alienate and turn off someone from reading your post. Why? Because they don’t know you and don’t care about why or how something affected you or why you did something. You are a stranger to them. So, if you make a title too personal (and especially without intrigue) you risk your post flopping.

Imagine for a moment you went to the Bahamas. You want to write about your travels on your blog, and share why everyone should take a trip to the Bahamas, because it was just that great. You write a very nice post, with lots of gorgeous pictures you took, and some great persuasion and voice. Then you slap this on as the title: “I loved the Bahamas!” or “My trip to the Bahamas.”

As a stranger seeing that text on a link in my Facebook feed, I would totally skip over it, in large part because I don’t care about you.

Great titles focus on the audience. Instead of the above titles, something like “22 Reasons Everyone Should Take a Trip to the Bahamas” or “5 Reasons You Need to Make the Bahamas Your Next Travel Destination” are sure to entice much more intrigue, because it’s no longer just a travel-log about your trip with dozens of endless photos of you on the beach. While the post can still be written in first person, and share you favorite experiences, it will be tailored to specifically convince the person clicking over why they should feel the same as you about the Bahamas.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule about personal headlines. If the story really is personal and your opinion, then those personal pronouns can work. However, it’s usually for posts that have a strong, compelling, and unique, narrative.  I’ve seen successful posts like this when it’s about a stranger’s remarks to them at the grocery store, or how they personally overcame something. “I bought a ‘mom suit’ but it wasn’t because I had given up” is a post I wrote using those personal pronouns, but I feel it still creates a certain sense of intrigue to many who can relate to either mom suits, or giving up as a mother, or both.

Avoid Being Vague

Sometimes, in our attempt to be clever or intriguing, we end up actually sounding rather vague! With headlines you have to approach them as an outsider who is not familiar with you or your blog. Some phrases can be interpreted differently to different people, and we need to see our titles from an outsiders’ perspective.

For instance, a post titled “Are you making time to connect?” could be talking about connecting with your kids, your spouse, your dog, your boss, your inner spirituality, or the internet. Obviously, a picture will help clarify your meaning, but if someone were tweeting it, they wouldn’t know. Also, some people suggest not phrasing titles as questions that can be answered with a yes or a no, because they can then easily be answered “No,” and have the person move on. But, asking other types of questions, like “What kind of mini van should you buy?” can be very powerful.

Avoid cliches, colloquial phrases, inside jokes, or things like obscure movie references. They tend to be vague, and not everyone understands them.

2. Title Length

For SEO purposes, it is generally advised to keep your title under a certain length. But, on all social media, there is a limit to how long-winded you can be and still have your entire title shown. Super long titles don’t necessarily make your headline bad, but you need to know that part of it will be cut off in search results on search engines, and in shares on social media channels.

Google

Google asks that you keep your title length to about 55 characters. They also ask that you keep your slug (the part after your website.com/) length limited to under 100 characters, preferably to 62-77 characters. While technically your slug length can be something like just under 2000 characters, too long of slugs are harder to share on social media, are harder to remember, and google will truncate it in search with dots. An easy way to shorten the slug is to eliminate articles (a, an, the), which are generally considered “stop words” anyway. Instead focus solely on your keyword, generally limiting your slug to just three to five words.

The First 3 Words and the Last 3 Words

It has also been said that the most memorable part of a headline are the first three words and the last three words (according to KISSmetrics). While that would seem to say that titles should really only be six words in length, it’s darn hard to create a great headline in just six words. While you shouldn’t really be too verbose, I would also encourage you not to be so short either! Not much excitement or clarity can be achieved in 1-5 words. It’s always about finding that sweet spot.

Coschedule has a great article about all of the SM channels and what often does best in terms of length of blog headlines HERE that I recommend reading.

Facebook

For Facebook, if you don’t want your headline truncated on mobile, keep it to 25 characters or less, and keep your link description (meta tag) to 30 characters. These limits are because mobile readers have smaller screens. This is important to consider as more and more users are solely using social media, like Facebook, on their mobile devices. You have longer than those limits on desktop though.

Twitter

Keep your tweets shorter than 100 words, and about 71 characters minimum. And limit hashtags to about 6, and avoid starting hashtags with numbers.

how-to-create-a-killer-and-compelling-blog-headline-pinterest-665x1024-94965393. Headline Formulas

It can be overwhelming to figure out all these rules and formulas for creating headlines that will get noticed and get clicked through and then read. That’s why I always say to do your best, and constantly try to get better! It’s helpful to read lots of great articles about how to make better headlines from time to time too.

The Science of Numbers

According to Buffer, the Ultimate Headline Formulas is “Numbers + Adjective + Target Keyword + Rationale + Promise” and include the example “10 Simple Steps You Can Take Today That Will Make You Happier.” It’s perhaps why sites like Buzzfeed have some of the most clicked on titles anywhere on the internet. So many of their posts use this number-based formula.

There are many studies and research done on the science of numbers in headlines. Generally, we like odd numbers, with 7 being the golden-boy of choice. However, sometimes we associate those large (odd) numbered headlines as being better, because our brains are trained to equate more with better. Higher numbers (29, 73, 55) seem to promise more information, more advice, more entertainment, and more incentive to click over.

Online Headline Analyzers

A key component of headlines is always the emotion! Generally an emotional title will appeal to one of three things: our intellectual side, our empathetic side, or our spiritual side. Some titles appeal to a combination of the three. One isn’t better than another, as long as you know who you are trying to target, and what aspect of them you want to impact.  That’s why the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer from Advanced Marketing Institute is awesome. It gives you a rating system based on these three emotional aspects for your headlines, and how strong your title is at hitting those emotions.

Another great online headline analyzer is the CoSchedule’s Blog Post Headline Analyzer. (They also have a free tear sheet with 180+ power words to help you write better headlines available to download.) It also gives you an overall score, judges your balance of common, uncommon, emotional, and power words, and rates your headline type (List, How to, Question, or Generic).

Avoid Symbols

Remember that in headlines, it is generally best to avoid special characters – # @ & ” ( ) * – because they don’t always translate well in RSS feeds, in searches, and so on.

Don’t use Series Titles in the Headlines

Many bloggers will disagree about this, but don’t use your series title in your headlines. Because, honestly, as an outsider, I don’t care that you are doing an A-Z series on food recipes, because, I probably just want that one recipe, not all 26.

Series are fantastic in many ways for blogs, but including your series title of “Cooking through the Alphabet A-Z” and then the actual recipe name “Delicious Pinneapple Upside Down Cake” all in the same title can weigh it down, lengthen it, and complicate your keywords and headline. Since every post needs its own set of keywords, adding series titles can limit how you phrase the post, and how engaging and intriguing your title is to the average Joe.

While I think “Cooking through the Alphabet A-Z” is a great series idea, create a landing page on your site for all those blog posts instead. And then at the beginning of each post mention the series, link to that landing page, and then link to the other recipes/posts in the series at the end of the post, in case people are interested to learn more.  This will then better let you optimize each and every post within the series for SEO search traffic, and sufficient individual intrigue.

I once started a series on my blog called “Instilling Values in Our Kids.” I think it’s a great series, but initially I started all of my posts with the series name in my headlines. It then made my post titles anything but intriguing. I have since stopped using series titles in my headlines with much greater success of the posts.

4. Keywords

I am not the SEO expert on this blog (but Jill does have an SEO ebook you should look into!).  All I know is that you want searchable keywords in your title, in your post, in your url slugs, and even in your images alt tags and file names. The best thing to use to find keywords relevant to your topic is use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner for SEO keyword research. Type in a few things your post is about. So, if, for example, your post is about creating killer headlines for blogs, your search might include phrases like “how to make good headlines,” “blog post headlines,” “blog post titles” and “create headlines that get noticed.”
Google Keyword PlannerFrom there you’ll get “ad groups” and keyword ideas that are similar (or not so similar) to what you are looking for. There may be a few pages, and several groupings. I like to click on the groupings, and see what specific search terms show up. Google Keyword Planner Search Results

You can combine several different ideas, stacking a few into alt tags or picture titles, or even throughout your post. Find the keywords that are relevant and result in the best average monthly searches. I see that “create a headline” gets about 40 hits a month (which is terribly low, but apparently, not many people Google search about headlines), so I will include that in my post title. I also see that “blog headline” and “killer headlines” and “compelling headlines” get some search traffic.Google Keyword Planner Search Results Page 2

I may want to see if I can somehow incorporate those as well into my blog post title, something like “How to Create a Killer and Compelling Blog Headline.”

Again, though, I am not an expert at this! I don’t know if how I create SEO-friendly headlines and posts is the best way to compile headlines that will then rank you higher in search results. That’s for a whole other post.

I will say that while keywords are important, they are often not the most important part of a headline, but that can totally depend on your niche and your blog and how you write your posts. But, honestly, I feel like a lot of SEO is a luck of the draw sometimes. You can do your very best to stuff those great keywords in a post, and have nothing come from it. So, yes, find and use relevant keywords, but don’t get so hung up on them that your headline suffers drastically for it. I personally don’t receive a ton of search traffic everyday, but I do receive hits everyday from Google, which means some of my SEO efforts have paid off.

Last but not least, I invite everyone who reads this to join my Facebook group – Bloggers for Better Headlines. It’s a great place to bounce ideas around with others, but please know that spam, aka dropping links to non-related content, like your most recent blog post, will not be tolerated: it is solely for headline help. There are already over 268 members of the group and growing, and I hope you’ll become an active member of the group! Now here are a list of some helpful articles and tools (many I mentioned above):

Great Blog Headline Articles from Around the Web:

  • Can You Write a Better Headline Than This? Not Using Old Headline Formulas You Can’t – KISSmetrics
  • 30+ Ultimate Headline Formulas for Tweets, Posts, Articles, and Emails – Buffer
  • The Anatomy of a Perfect Blog Post: The Data on Headlines, Length, Images, and More – Buffer
  • 6 Headline Mistakes to Stop Making Now! – International Bloggers Association
  • Best Headline Length – CoSchedule
  • The Science Behind High Performing Headlines – CrazyEgg

Blog Headline Tools from Around the Web

  • CoSchedule Headline Analyzer (This one is AWESOME!)
  • Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer – Advanced Marketing Institute (I really like this one too!)
  • Portent’s Content Idea Generator (Fun tool that gives you different title ideas. Hit the refresh arrows for more ideas)
  • Link Bait Title Generator – Content Row (They repeat the same phrases each keyword you enter, but is helpful to get the juice flowing)
  • New Title Tag Guidelines and Preview Tool – MOZ (Helps you see how your title will appear on Google)

How do you make sure your headlines are rocking it?

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Content Creation, Headlines, SEO Tagged With: Blog Headlines, Blogging Tips, SEO Headlines

How to Grow a Successful Blog

May 2, 2015 by Thane West 4 Comments

I love blogging. Absolutely love it. It’s so much fun to write about things that resonate with people, help them better manage their homes, educate them about great new products, and speak to their souls. I love all the comments and shares I receive and am grateful, and humbled, for every single one. And I now especially love that my blog is successful: I make money blogging. While I am nowhere near a mega blogger who makes $10,000+ a month and have so much growth that can still yet occur, I have seen good growth and I have turned my blog into a business. (And I feel a bit like these kids sometimes:)growing-successful-blog-1024x538-5383565

Who knew two or three years ago I would develop this passion for blogging and that I would come this far so soon. I had originally hoped my blog would bring in a few extra hundred dollars a month for our family. We could use a few hundred extra. But, that couple hundred was surpassed pretty quickly; right now I’m averaging about $2000 a month before expenses. This money is definitely helping our young family as we work to pay off student loan debts and put my husband through his doctorate program. God has truly blessed us and continues to bless us. I pray for guidance as I write, blog, and seek new opportunities, always giving thanks to God along the way for the great opportunities and incomes this new business affords us.

Working from home has not been easy. Starting a business from nothing has not been easy. Growing a successful blog has not been easy. Behind the scenes of this blog is a lot of work, time, dedication, and a never-ending hunger to push forward and continue to grow by learning and trying new things. It’s why I’ve decided that this year I would finally attend my first in-person blog conference(s). And I just bought my ticket to my first one last week!
dallas_2-8145846

I’m Attending the SoFabU OTR Dallas Blog Conference!

The only conference I have previously attended was the OnlineBlogCon 2013. In order to get discounted tickets ($49 instead of $99) to the SoFabU OTR (#SoFabUOTR #cbais) I agreed to write a little about the conference to share with you all, but all opinions are my own.

The Social Fabric University On the Road blog conference in Dallas is on May 30, 2015 at the Gaylord Texan Hotel and Conference Center. The pictures of it look amazing! The conference is sponsored by Johnny Rockets, Müller, Kraft and iBlog. It’s just a one-day event from 8am-7pm that Saturday and seemed like the perfect, close, affordable for me to be able to attend.

I have been working with Social Fabric (Collective Bias) for about a year now and work with them often. I have done more sponsored posts with their network than any other, and am proud to be a SoFab member! So, I am very excited to meet some of the people working at Social Fabric, networking with other Texas bloggers, companies, and learning how to be a better blogger! Plus, they will have some city adventures involving video, photography, and Instagram tours (details will be announced next week!) which I am excited to do as I haven’t explore Dallas before.

At this event we will learn How to Use Social Media to Drive Blog Traffic. We’ll learn the secrets of using social media platforms {Facebook, twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and Instagram} to build an audience and drive traffic to our sites.  Whether a brand new blogger or a proficient user of social media, we’ll learn tips and tricks for branding our social media platforms, finding our voice, increasing social media followers, enhancing engagement, and forming a lasting social media strategy and presence on all platforms.  This sounds awesome for me! Because good traffic and income, I don’t actually have huge social media followers or know how to best use them all.

The main speaker at the Dallas conference will be Randi Dukes. Randi Dukes is the founder and creator of Dukes and Duchesses, a craft and DIY blog that has grown from a hobby into a business over the last few years. Randi loves creating sponsored content for companies and has worked with many large brands including Better Homes and Gardens, Michaels, and The Home Depot. Randi is passionate about using social media to promote and monetize her site and has developed strategies that have brought consistent growth in her social media platforms and steady, increasing traffic to her site. She has over half a million combined followers on her various social media channels. Randi has previously spoken at Haven Conference and loves sharing with and encouraging other bloggers. Regularly featured on sites such as Today, Country Living, and Buzzfeed, Randi enjoys inspiring people with simple seasonal and everyday projects. Randi lives in Dallas with her husband, five kids, and a very dirty dog.

Be sure to check out the agenda on the SoFabUOTR website!

Upcoming Blogging Awesomeness

As passionate as I am about the topics I write about here on What’s up Fagans?, I am as equally passionate about helping people become better bloggers. I know what a difference it makes to have someone help you grow your blog business. I would be struggling without awesome blogging friends who so freely shared their know-how with me.  And that is why I have some very excited things to share!

1) I am currently working on a blogging ebook with Katie Clark of Clarks Condensed all about how to turn your family blog into a profitable family business. We are hoping to launch the ebook in October 2015 and will be sharing a lot of our blogging advice. And since Katie has taught me most of what I know about blogging, it is sure to be a very awesome resource for so many people. We both believe in helping other bloggers succeed and not holding back information.

networkathon-twitter1-1024x512-17377562) I will speaking at the International Blogger’s Association’s inaugural Online Network-a-Thon! This online blog conference will be October 12-17, 2015 and I will be talking about “Awesome Places to Share Content and Increase Your Traffic.” You really don’t want to miss it! I encourage you to buy a ticket! It is only $10 to attend and there will be giveaways, twitter parties, exclusive content, and awesome opportunities to network! I will be there, so you know it’ll be awesome. 😉 Use code “KATELYN” to get $5 off! That means valuable information can be yours for just $5!

3) I am currently working with a graphic designer on an entire branding package! I am very excited to have a clear branding vision for my blog that will look much better. Stephanie Jones of Journie.com and I working on it and hopefully changes will be made by May’s end!

4) I am now doing blog consultations! If you are interested in having a fresh pair of eyes go over your site, your content, your pictures, your social media, your monetization strategies, or whatever blogging related, I can help! Shoot me an email at katelyn@whatsupfagans.com and we can get started!official-libman-blogger-badge-2003368

5) I am now an official Libman Family Blogger! They reached out to me after reading my blog post on “Why I Believe in Cleaning the House While the Kids are Awake.” I will now be participating on their forum Cleaning As a Family. The good news for you all is that they will let me share some awesome deals with you. Right now you can get a coupon for $5 off a a Libman Freedom Spray Mop!

6) I just got selected to be part of SoFab’s Creative Council! I’m excited about the three month position and hope I can indeed put some of creative juices (thank you art degree!) to good use and make a little extra money.

how-to-grow-a-successful-blog-1368056My Blogging Blog Posts

Did you know I have actually written several blog-related posts for various websites in the last year? I love sharing my blogging tips and knowledge, but don’t often feel that What’s up Fagans? is the ideal place for the content.  I am actually a content contributor at BlogChickaBlog and am also a VP of The International Bloggers Association. In case you want to know what I write about blogging, because you are interested in learning some new trips for helping your own site grow, or you want to learn a bit more about how I’ve been successful, please check out the following:

How to Make Money Blogging? 3 Ways to Monetize Your Blog – What’s up Fagans?

#ChickaChats Interview with Jill Levenhagen: How I took my blog from 6k pageviews a month to 400k pageviews a month in one year – BlogChickaBlog

How Monetize Your Blog for Mobile with PadSquad and Why You Should – BlogChickaBlog

Why You Need to Use Group Pinterest Boards – IBA Blog

The Keys to Successfully Using Round-up Posts to Drive Traffic to Your Blog – BlogChickaBlog

The Ultimate Blogger’s Guide to Stock Photos – IBA Blog

The Easiest Way to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Indefinitely: Use BoardBooster for Pinterest – IBA Blog

Link Party 101 – What they are and if they are worth your time – BlogChickaBlog

Save Time on Social Media – Use CoSchedule! – IBA Blog

Life Behind the Blog – What’s up Fagans?

All Work and No Play: 8 Tips for Overcoming Your Inner Work-a-holic – Bedtime Scoops

As I continue working on growing a successful blog, I really hope to continue to share more of my journey through various channels. If you ever have questions about something blogging related, please contact me!

And let me know what exciting things you are doing to grow a successful blog this year!

Filed Under: Blogging Q&A, Blogging Tips, Content Creation, Traffic Generation & Growth

5 Perks of Being a Blogger!

January 28, 2015 by Jill Levenhagen 6 Comments

Hey, let’s just have some fun today and talk PERKS!  Because you know we would not choose to be a blogger if there wasn’t some perks!

There is a lot of hard work.  It IS a job.  But it comes with some upsides that I in particular really love!

Blogger-Perk-#5

Blogger Perk #5 – You’re not chained to a desk

Okay, well…some days I feel chained to my desk, but I have OPTIONS!  I am not chained to a desk in an office where I can’t go anywhere else to work!  I can work at my desk, in front of my TV, the kitchen table, or at Starbucks!

I did my time…10 years at desks.  I just feel like I am more productive when I am free to change my environment.

Blogger Perk #4

Blogger Perk #4 – You always have snacks at the ready

This is as much about OPTIONS again as availability.  When I worked in an office, the only options were the vending machine down the hall!  I feel like I can maintain more healthy eating when I work from home…PERK!

Blogger-Perk-#3

Blogger Perk #3 – You are your own boss!

I have to believe that we have all worked for some not-so-easy-to-work-for bosses.  But truthfully, if we work for someone else, we SHOULD be working hard for them.  But what is great about blogging is that we can work hard and we get to reap the rewards!  Being your own boss is the best!

Blogger-Perk-#2

Blogger Perk #2 – There’s no dress code.

Get paid for working in your underwear, jammies, or yoga pants! Ahhh comfort. This is the life.  I know you are with me.  I have so few “work clothes”.  I break them out for church or speaking engagements.  But oh…and the foot comfort!  OMG I don’t have to wear dress shoes every day!  Yeah, this is heavenly.

Blogger-Perk-#1

Blogger Perk #1 – Make Money While You Sleep

And finally, it is my favorite perk…the passive income.  Even when it is only pennies…there is something so satisfying about making money when I am not blogging.  I have the Adsense app, and it can be nice to check it in the middle of a day when I’m not working, and see the amount go up and up!  And I sell digital goods, and so that happens without me doing anything…no packing or shipping!

Thanks for having some fun with me today!  I hope you enjoy your job as much as I do!

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: Blogging Perks

How Do I Make My Blog Secure From Hackers?

January 22, 2015 by Jill Levenhagen 8 Comments

I personally have not had anyone hack my blog.  Which I am very happy about!  But it is a really big deal when it happens. I want you to know how to make your blog secure from hackers.

Why do they want to hack your blog?

  • sometimes just for sport
  • they want to steal your site from you
  • they want to insert all their spammy links in places you might not notice
  • they want to redirect your site to theirs

There are many, many techy things you can do to make your blog secure.  But I’m not so techy, and so I am going to discuss the three things you absolutely must do as a blogger for security.blogging-tips-how-do-i-make-my-blog-secure-from-hackers-main3-7926838

How to Secure Your Site from Hackers

Change your Username

When you blog is installed, you get an automatic username login.  It is Admin for everyone.  So, it simply must be changed.  If you don’t change that, you are just leading the hacker into your site.  Everyone knows to try Admin first…because hundreds of thousands of bloggers don’t change it!

Change your Password

You hear this everywhere on the web, and it is not different here.  You are being very risky if you don’t set a difficult password.

Install Login Lockdown Plugin

This plugin is your vault.  It puts a stop to hackers all over the world.  Hackers have sophisticated software that allows them to guess passwords and try thousands of options until they get into your site!  But the Login Lockdown plugin is simple…it limits any attempts to get into your site by the amount you determine.  I set mine to 5.  I know you are saying, “Well, sometimes it takes me more than 5 tries to remember my own password.”  Lol!  I know!  So set it at 10.  But make a really good password that can’t be guessed in 10 guesses by a hacker!

Like I mentioned before, there are SO MANY more things you can do to secure your blog…or you can get a developer to do.  But this is the first step, and an absolutely necessary step.

What to do if you get hacked?

Call your host immediately.  If you can’t login to your blog, if your blog address leads to another site, or if you notice some of your links have been changed, you need to drop everything you are doing and get it fixed ASAP.

Are you still not convinced that it is necessary?  Read this by Ramshackle Glam: My Website Was Stolen By A Hacker.  And I Got It Back. I think most of us would have given up before we did the risky things she did!  Don’t let it happen to you!

Filed Under: Blogging Q&A, Blogging Tips, Tech Support, WP Plugins Tagged With: Blogging Tips, Secure Your Blog

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