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A Beginner Blogger’s Guide to Social Media Management

Jan 6, 2022 By Caleb Cousens

Social Media Management

You’re fed up. You can’t believe you talked yourself into this. What a waste of time!

Your blog is on the same internet as all the other successful blogs you read. It has an elegant but simple design, and you think you’re a pretty good writer.

Then why are you getting squat in terms of social shares and interaction? And I mean diddly squat!

You have some Twitter followers and hundreds of friends on Facebook, but aside from your wife/mom you have got tumbleweeds for blog traffic.

You have reached your end and you can’t help but thinking?

Have I wasted my time and money on blogging and social media promotion?

Will I ever get people to read my blog?

[Read more…] about A Beginner Blogger’s Guide to Social Media Management

The Reformed Procrastinator’s Guide to Repurposing Content

Aug 31, 2021 By Kevin J. Duncan

Fear hit me.

“I have a research paper due tomorrow morning,” I said aloud, startling everyone else in the movie theater who was watching Kevin Costner hit a golf ball.

How could I have forgotten? It was 8:00 on a Sunday evening and I had an 8-page paper due in twelve hours.

When I arrived home, I sat down in front of my computer and tried to think of a topic. My professor said our papers needed to be about technology in some way, shape, or form.

“How can I find, research, and write about a topic in one night? I have a few hours to do a few week’s worth of work!”

I was in trouble.

[Read more…] about The Reformed Procrastinator’s Guide to Repurposing Content

22 Ridiculously Easy Blog Tips You Can Use Right Now

Aug 13, 2020 By Kevin J. Duncan

There is a reason Ramen noodles are so popular with college students.

They’re easy.

You boil water. You add the noodles. You stir in the seasoning packet.

Could it be any simpler?

[Read more…] about 22 Ridiculously Easy Blog Tips You Can Use Right Now

Top Blog Quotes By 102 Amazing Bloggers (and One By Me)

Jan 25, 2019 By Kevin J. Duncan

Everyone loves a good quote! Or, at least everyone should. Otherwise Shakespeare died in vain.

The following is a list of top blog quotes from 102 of my favorite bloggers and entrepreneurs.

(I also added one silly quote of my own, so I would look cool by association.)

Enjoy!

[Read more…] about Top Blog Quotes By 102 Amazing Bloggers (and One By Me)

20 Ways to Kill Engagement and Stop Those Pesky Blog Comments

Oct 28, 2018 By Kevin J. Duncan

The following takes place in an alternate universe. It’s one?where bloggers hate reader engagement and hate receiving comments, but in a cruel twist they cannot simply “turn off” their comments. Instead, they’re forced to use other means to discourage engagement…

Comments.

Ugh, am I right?

Just the other day, I?received a comment from a female reader who told me she loved my blog and thought I was cute. She also said she was going to share my post with her 84?million Twitter followers.

Thanks, @taylorswift13, but no thanks. Who needs that kind of drivel?

[Read more…] about 20 Ways to Kill Engagement and Stop Those Pesky Blog Comments

Why I Switched to the Rainmaker Platform (and Why You Should Consider Switching, Too)

May 24, 2017 By Kevin J. Duncan

dream-bigLosing my job was one of the most horrible and wonderful things to happen to me.

For four months, I was in limbo. Paychecks stopped being deposited. Savings accounts started dwindling. Ramen noodle consumption skyrocketed.

This wasn’t part of “the plan.”

It wasn’t what I had in mind when I entered the work force 12 years ago. It wasn’t what I had in mind when I worked 40+ hours a week while going to graduate school. It wasn’t what I had in mind when I proposed to my wife, confident in the knowledge I would be able to financially support her and our future family.

And yet, there I was. Contemplating our future. Contemplating a career change. Contemplating whether or not to put on pants that particular day.

Somehow, as He often does, God blessed me during this trial. Oh, sure, I was worried about finding work and paying bills. But this worry couldn’t override the fact I was able to spend every morning, every afternoon, and every evening with my wife.

We woke up and, instead of me having to rush off to work, we had coffee together. Instead of working on [top secret projects] in my windowless office, I helped my wife wash dishes while looking out our kitchen window. Instead of eating lunch at my desk while watching cat videos on YouTube, I had lunch with my wife on the couch while we watched Netflix.

When the phone call came telling those of us who remained to come back to work, it was a bittersweet moment. Sweet because I could stop worrying about money. Bitter because what I would be giving up…

I loved being at home with my wife.

The Start of Something Good

Sometime during those 4-months of limbo, I decided I wanted to find a way to work from home. Honestly, I’m not sure why the thought hadn’t occurred to me before. I do four things well — develop websites, blog, teach, and sneeze with my eyes open — and three of those things are ideal for home-based businesses.

I had been a teacher for 3 years. I had been blogging for almost 10. I had been developing websites for over a decade, and creating custom WordPress themes for almost as long. Why wasn’t I using my experience to help other bloggers?

That’s when the idea for Be A Better Blogger was born.

Using Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger as inspiration, I wanted to create the greatest “blogging on blogging” blog since… well, ProBlogger. At the same time, I wanted to present content in a way people weren’t accustomed.

I wanted to be motivational. I wanted to be entertaining. I wanted to be funny. Much like I did when I taught classrooms full of high school freshmen, I wanted my readers to not even realize they were learning.

If I could accomplish this tricky feat more times than not, I knew I had a chance to be successful.

A year later, this idea has turned into a thriving blog. I’ve written the most popular guest post in the history of Jon Morrow’s Boost Blog Traffic. I’ve gone from 22 to 21,704 (and climbing) followers on Google+. I’ve made more blogging friends than you can shake a stick at (if you were inclined to do so for some reason).

I feel incredibly fortunate and blessed. A year ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed I could be here right now. Here is great. Here is awesome.

But here isn’t enough.

I Dreamed Big

baristaIf my goal was for Be A Better Blogger to earn enough money to buy Starbucks once a month, then guess who has two thumbs and one vanilla latte? That’s right. This guy.

“No, I don’t want a ‘tall,’ Mr. Barista. Give me the ‘grande’ size. It’s been a good month!”

However, that wasn’t my goal. I dreamed bigger. A good bit bigger.

My goal is to do this for a living.

I want to be able to quit my day job, work from home, and spend as much time with my wife and our future children as I possibly can.

That’s my goal.

And to reach it, I can’t be content with “nice traffic.” I need great traffic.

I don’t need several thousand followers on social media. I need tens of thousands.

I don’t need a few hundred email subscribers. I need ten times that many.

Aiming high? You better believe it. And to be where I want to be, I have to constantly be thinking several moves ahead.

Enter the Rainmaker Platform by Copyblogger.

What Rainmaker is

Affiliate link: The Rainmaker PlatformBefore I can go into my reasons for switching to Rainmaker, I first need explain what the heck it even is.

Some of you may already be familiar with it, but I imagine most of my readers know very little about it. And if you Google information on the Rainmaker Platform, you’ll find descriptions like “all-in-one platform” and “turn-key website solution.”

Those descriptions are simultaneously accurate… and ridiculously vague.

Rainmaker is a powerful, hosted platform built on WordPress. For a monthly (or annual) fee, your website runs on the platform, is hosted by Copyblogger’s fast and secure servers, and has access to a growing list of features.

I’ll discuss those features (or at least the ones which compelled me to sign up) momentarily.

What Rainmaker is Not

It’s not a domain registrar. You need to already have your own domain name, such as beabetterblogger.com, or you need to go to a registrar such as GoDaddy or Namecheap to buy one.

It’s not an email provider. If you want to have an address such as yourname@yourdomain.com, this capability is not offered by Rainmaker (“due to performance and security reasons”). You will have to use a service like Google Apps Email or GoDaddy’s Email Essentials, which costs $4 to $5 per month.

It’s not for bloggers who love plugins. Because it’s a hosted platform, you can’t just pick and install any plugin you desire. (More on this one in a little bit.)

It’s not for casual bloggers. If you have zero plans to monetize your blog or website, Rainmaker is an unnecessary luxury. Could it get the job done? Of course. But it would be overkill.

Finally, it’s not irreplaceable. By this I mean you could duplicate most of, if not all of, what Rainmaker offers. You could buy a premium theme here, a hosting account there, a plugin here, a tool there… wash, rinse, and repeat. And if done properly, the end result could be just as good as a site built with Rainmaker.

It just will have cost you more. More of your money. More of your time.

Why I Switched to the Rainmaker Platform

I’m a frugal guy. I value… well, value.

That’s the difference between someone who is cheap, and someone who is frugal. A cheap person doesn’t like to spend money period. A frugal person will happily spend money if it’s a good deal.

A cheap person would never purchase something like Rainmaker. Never in a million years.

But a frugal guy like me? A guy who will gladly spend $1 today if it will save him $2 tomorrow? Such a guy would research it, strongly consider it, and pray about it.

And that’s what I did.

What I soon realized is Rainmaker could eliminate certain expenses I have today, and many expenses I planned to take on in the future.

Expenses such as…

LeadPages

Starting at $37 per month (paid quarterly), LeadPages is a lead-generation platform which helps you turn readers into subscribers. In this screenshot, you can see an example of LeadPages used by my friend Adam Connell of Blogging Wizard.

leadpages_exampleI signed up for LeadPages after being blown away by its amazing features. It allowed me to create “LeadBoxes” like the one used by Adam in the image, and it let me create some slick-looking landing pages.

And it’s worked. The number of subscribers I’ve gained since signing up for LeadPages has gone way up!

That’s good.

But it costs $37 a month.

That’s over 1/3 the cost of Rainmaker, which covers some of the same territory as LeadPages.

I won’t have as many templates for landing pages to choose from with Rainmaker as I do with LeadPages, but the number is more than adequate and the quality is excellent. My Welcome page was created using Rainmaker’s landing page template.

Is it a perfect replacement? No, but combined with AWeber and free options offered by SumoMe, I won’t be hurting for list-building tools if I decide to leave LeadPages.

Buffer / Hootsuite

buffer_hootsuiteBuffer and Hootsuite are social media management systems. Both offer free plans, and their paid plans cost around $10 a month.

These tools allow you to schedule updates on social media platforms in advance. So, for example, if I was about to go on vacation for a week, I could schedule it so tweets would be published throughout the week while I was away.

I could be sleeping, swimming at the beach, or fighting a bear in the mountains; all the while my Twitter account is posting tweets promoting my “The Howdy Neighbor Technique” post.

Scheduling tools like these come in very handy as you get more involved in social media. And the bigger you get, the bigger your needs. In the past, I have used Buffer’s free plan. But upgrading to their paid plan is something I’d already planned on doing sometime soon.

Well, now I won’t have to.

One of the newer features of Rainmaker is “social media posting and scheduling.” I’m able to schedule tweets hours, days, and weeks in advance. And I’m able to do it right there in my Rainmaker dashboard.

AWeber

AWeberI’m a huge fan of AWeber. It’s an opt-in email marketing service used by over 120,000 businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs.

When a reader subscribes using one of my forms here at Be A Better Blogger, they’re added to a mailing list maintained by AWeber. I can then email my list, and AWeber works to ensure my messages aren’t labeled as spam. I’m able to track subscribers, see who is opening my emails, see who is clicking on links in my emails, and much more.

You’ve probably heard other bloggers say “the money is in the list.” That’s true, and it should give you an idea how important it is use a reliable email service.

However, “reliable” usually isn’t free. And in AWeber’s case, it sets you back $19 a month if you have 500 subscribers or less. Have more than 500? It’ll cost you $29 a month. Have more than 2,500 subscribers? Now you’re paying $49 a month.

You can see where this is going. The more subscribers you have (yea!) the more you pay (boo!). And if God smiles down at me and grants me 10,000 or more subscribers, I’ll be paying a whopping $130 a month to AWeber.

Granted, you can chalk this up as one of those “nice problems to have.”

But what if you could eliminate the excess cost from the equation?

One feature Rainmaker will be implementing in the months to come is an “integrated email service.” Once it’s launched, and once it’s worked out any bugs it might have, I could cancel AWeber and switch my list over to it.

And I will be saving $19, $29, $49, etc. each month when I do.

To quote Annie Edison: “That’s jacket money!”

“Okay, Kevin. You’re frugal and Rainmaker will cut down on future expenses for you. But what else?”

I get it. I know frugality means little in a vacuum.

Rainmaker helps me with those expenses, but they’re voluntary expenses. I don’t have to use an email service like AWeber. I don’t have to use Hootsuite or Buffer. And I certainly don’t have to pay for lead-generation software like LeadPages.

These are expenses I’ve taken on, or will soon take on, because I believe they’re necessary. I believe I need them to help me be the best blogger I can be. I believe I need them to help take my blog from here…to there.

Having the potential to eliminate the aforementioned expenses is how a platform like Rainmaker gets the attention of a frugal guy like me.

It makes me sit up and take notice.

Then it gets the wheels in my head turning.

“Wow, imagine what I could do with that.” Or, “boy… the things I could do with this feature.”

Rainmaker is designed for people who mean business. It’s designed to help you go from where you are to where you want to be.

It’s designed for the dreamers like me.

I didn’t “need” Rainmaker in order to reach my goal of working from home full time. But as I researched and prayed about it, it became clear the platform would give me a far better chance…

My site would be hosted on state-of-the-art servers, the same used by Copyblogger and Chris Brogan

rainmaker-serversPreviously, Be A Better Blogger was hosted on a shared server which cost me $3.96 per month. As a starter host, it was fine. It served my needs well. The site rarely experienced down time, and the customer support was adequate.

But was it fast? Was it secure?

No. No it wasn’t.

According to Alexa.com, 87% of sites are faster than Be A Better Blogger. This was despite the fact it was built on the Genesis Framework, which is known for its clean code, and designed by yours truly, a trained web developer who created the theme with speed in mind.

My web host was friendly to my wallet, but it wasn’t friendly to my visitors. Online, speed is the name of the game. And if Be A Better Blogger was slower than 87% of the sites online, my site was losing.

From now on, my readers will get to experience a faster website. I’ve gone from a 4 cylinder engine to an 8. And I no longer have to deal with upgrading my site someday once it gets more popular. I’m already with a web host built for large traffic.

I could easily create free or paid membership areas

members-onlyBuilt into Rainmaker is the ability to create membership areas. So, let’s say I wanted to create content that only “members” could access.

Maybe I have a few PDF bonuses. Maybe I have an eBook. Maybe I have a never-before-seen blog post titled “What the Little Mermaid Can Teach Us About Blogging.”

With Rainmaker, I could create a library or membership area on Be A Better Blogger. When someone joins it, they would be granted access to all the content I made available for members.

By offering a free members area, I could entice more people to join my mailing list. This is a strategy used successfully by numerous businesses and blog owners, including my friend Bryan Harris of Video Fruit.

Thanks to Rainmaker, it’s a strategy I can easily implement one day, too.

I could easily sell my products

buy-sellUltimately, I’m going to write an eBook or two or ten. Ultimately, I’m probably going to create an online course. Ultimately, I’m going to create something.

The free content I create each week will never end. I enjoy blogging too, too much for it to ever go away. Still, the reality is it serves a greater purpose.

The more content I create, the more readers and subscribers I gain. The more readers and subscribers I gain, the more people who will buy or promote my digital products. The more people who buy my digital products, the more feasible “quitting my day job” becomes.

And once I’m ready to join my friends Jaime Buckley and Brittany Bullen in the book-writing game, Rainmaker will make it easy for me to sell my products thanks to its integrated shopping-cart and merchant features.

It would eliminate distractions

I’ve been a web developer for 13 years. I’m also a micro-manager. I’m also a perfectionist.

Know what that means? Well, yes, it means I have the ability to drive my wife crazy. But mainly, it means I can’t… stop… redesigning.

distractionsBe A Better Blogger is a year old, and yet I have “tweaked” its design approximately 274 times. And I’ve tested countless number of plugins.

Most of these tweaks and plugins have been very, very small.

And that’s the point. I’m tweaking and changing things which 99.9% of my readers won’t even notice. In most cases, my wife and I are the only ones who notice. And the only reason she notices sometimes is because I point them out to her.

This is a horrible, horrible use of my time.

There’s no money in it. I’m simply scratching an itch. Don’t you think my time would be far better served writing blog posts? Or working on an eBook? Or connecting with new bloggers?

Absolutely it would.

As much as anything, that’s what it does for me. Rainmaker protects me from me. It’s like those cones dogs wear around their necks. [tweet this]

Rainmaker comes with 27 HTML5 responsive designs to choose from, most of which have multiple color options. I do have the ability to submit my own custom theme for review, but I’ve made a conscious decision not to do so.

I picked one of the 27 designs. Yes, I tweaked it. (They provide the Custom CSS option. I couldn’t help myself.) But there’s only so much I can change these existing themes.

Besides, they don’t need changing. These designs are the same premium Genesis themes sold by StudioPress. They’re beautiful. I picked the one I liked best, put my own spin on it, and now I’m leaving it alone.

True, it requires a bit of self control on my part. I can constantly tweak the CSS if I so choose. It’s going to be on me not to do so.

As for plugins, yes, I can no longer install any WordPress plugin I desire.

That’s simply a product of hosted platforms. I’m limited to what Rainmaker offers.

Many of the plugins I used and enjoyed previously are no longer an option for me. Goodbye CommentLuv. Goodbye Q2W3 Sticky Widget. Goodbye “subscribe to replies to your comment” plugin (and sorry I can’t remember your name).

Some of these I’ll definitely miss. Some were incredibly useful.

But did I need all of them? Not really.

Plugins are like potato chips. When you start out, you plan on only having one or two. Next thing you know the entire bag is gone. For WordPress users, what starts out as a handful of “essential” plugins soon turns into baker’s dozen. Times two. Plus seven.

Heck, I routinely fell into the trap even though I knew better. Plugins slow down your site. They break. They have to be updated over and over.

Honestly? It’s a relief not having to deal with them anymore. Now, I can…

Focus on What Matters

focusRainmaker frees me from the often-unnecessary burdens of running a blog and allows me to do what matters.

Writing. Promoting. Networking. Creating digital products. Responding to comments readers have left me. Building my list.

I don’t have to worry about security, upgrades, maintenance, and hosting headaches. Rainmaker handles those.

I don’t have to hunt for tools to help me optimize my content for search engines and social media. Rainmaker has those tools built right in.

Soon, I won’t have to use separate tools for social media and email marketing (or have to pay extra for said tools). Rainmaker will soon be providing both right in my dashboard.

Rainmaker is going to make everything easier for me. I like easy. And, frankly, I’ve been doing it the hard way for far, far too long.

It’s finally time I let someone else carry my luggage. It’s heavy! Besides, I have a big journey ahead of me…

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

A couple years ago, Derek Halpern of Social Triggers referenced a book by Marshall Goldsmith to explain why he was about to begin producing YouTube videos.

book_what-got-you-hereThe book was titled “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful.”

Derek had already reached an enviable level of success by this point, but he knew the things which had gotten him to his current level at the time — blog posts and podcasts — weren’t enough to get him to the next level. He didn’t want to plateau, so he added “video” to his arsenal.

Though I’m several rungs down the success ladder today than Derek was two years ago, I was approaching the same crossroads in which he found himself. I could have been passive, waited until I hit the inevitable plateau, and figured out a solution when the time came…

Or, I could be proactive. I could position Be A Better Blogger with the future — not what’s worked for me in the past — in mind. I could give my dream its best chance for success.

I chose the latter.

I chose Rainmaker to make it easier to grow my site. Whether it’s a membership area, forum, podcast, or something else entirely, I now have integrated tools to make it happen. I can now do A/B testing, to see what’s working and what isn’t. I can now track my progress without getting elbow deep into Google Analytics. I can now spend less time updating plugins and themes, and more time updating content.

I can now focus on the important things.

The Rainmaker Platform has every feature I need today, every feature I’ll need tomorrow, and probably every feature I don’t yet know I need.

It’s my very own dreamcatcher.

I’ll be home shortly, Sweetie. See you soon.

Updated on May 24, 2017. Creative Commons Images via Ken Bosma, Prabowo Restuaji, Elliott Brown, Rosmarie Wirz, Mikel Garcia Idiakez (adapted), and Michael Dales.

Beat Writer?s Block: The Ancient Secret That Opens Your Creative Floodgates

May 18, 2017 By Kim Orr

You stare at your blank screen.

Time is ticking.

Words won’t come. There’s no flow.

You try every trick you know to kickstart your writing, but nothing happens.

Nothing.

You feel frustrated and powerless. This is betrayal.

When your words won’t flow, you feel betrayed ? abandoned by your creativity. Powerless to make your living as a writer.

But it’s not just about making a living.

You love to write. You’re motivated to write. You want to write with every fiber of your being. So when you can’t write, it hurts. Deeply.

Most remedies for writer’s block distract you ? provide temporary relief. But they only skim the surface of what’s separating you from your words.

Your creativity rises from deep inside you. So you must go there to unblock your flow.

The Secret Source of Your Creativity

Creativity doesn’t come from your working mind.

Your working mind is the one that calculates, identifies, categorizes, reasons, thinks. Psychologists call this your ?cognitive consciousness.?

While you need your working mind to organize and construct your writing, that’s part two of your writing process. First you must have ideas and inspiration.

Ideas and inspiration arise from the deeper levels of your consciousness. Your non-cognitive levels. They come from your creative mind ? the one that feels just out of reach when you have writer’s block.

Unless you connect regularly to your deeper levels, over time you lose touch with them. They are still there, and you sense that they are still there, but you are blocked from them. Then you can’t write. At all.

Why Does Your Creativity Get Blocked?

Tension.

Tension in your body blocks your ability to access your creativity.

The sneaky thing about tension is that you create and hold onto it without even being aware of it.

Much of what you do during the day ? for work, for fitness, to manage your busy life ? contributes to core tensions in your body. These tensions obstruct your creative mind.

When your body holds tension and stress, you can’t access the deeper levels of your consciousness. Your creative mind and creative flow are obstructed.

You become like the proverbial garden hose with a kink in it. As the kink tightens, the flow becomes more and more restricted ? barely a trickle. At this point, most of us do one of two things: ?turn up the water pressure or turn the water completely off.

When you can’t write and you try distractions, either you shut down completely or you up the tension in your body, hoping to get a little more flow.

When you turn the pressure on and try to force inspiration, you’re using your working mind, and your creative mind shuts down. If you turn the pressure off with a distraction, after a while you might be able to get a few thoughts through the kink, but only a few. ?And it’s only a temporary solution.

Effective solutions to writer’s block involve unkinking the hose, permanently, and restoring your natural creative flow.

Dissolving tensions systematically in your body allows you to unkink your body, then your mind, then your creative flow.

The good news is that you need only one tool to do this, and you already have it.

The Ancient Secret to Unstoppable Word Flow

Did you know that ancient writers and philosophers could not read without sounding their words aloud?

Cicero, the brilliant philosopher who flourished around 63 B.C., in a letter to one of his correspondents, apologizes for not answering sooner. In this letter he explains that he couldn’t read his friend’s letter because ?my throat was sore.? It never occurred to him that he could read silently and still be engaged with the words.

Ancient writers had scribes. Writers spoke their words aloud, and scribes wrote them down ? taking dictation. Then the writers revised and restructured the written word from the spoken word.

People then were keenly aware of the power of the sounds of their words ? the connection of their words to their breath. Even when, in the Renaissance, people began to read silently, they still coordinated their reading with their breathing.

You still do this. You just aren’t aware of it. If you’re not convinced, try reading silently to yourself while holding your breath.

How does that work for you? Do you find your ability to hold onto meaning fade when your breath stops flowing through your body?

That’s because you can’t see your words, you can’t feel them, you can’t hear them until you add your breath to them. Your breath gives life to your words, carrying them from the inside of you to the outside ? into the world to touch you and others, literally, with their sound.

Because reading and writing have become silent, you’ve simply lost this connection.

Even when you read or write silently, your breath plays an important part in connecting your ideas and inspiration to your words ? to your writing.

Your breath is the bridge between your inspiration, your ideas, your words, and your working mind which must structure them into a coherent piece of written work.

How to Unblock Your Creativity in Only 10 Minutes

The Latin root for the word inspire is ?spirare? ? which means ?to breathe.? Inspire literally means ?to breathe into.? That’s how intimate the connection between your words and your breath is.

That’s why using your breath to unblock your words is effective.

Dissolving the tensions in your body with your breath removes the kinks that block your creative ideas. Then your words flow ? you liberate them, and they flow through your body and out on your breath.

You gradually unkink the garden hose.

All you need to do this simple practice is a chair, the floor, a timer, and ten minutes. If you are in a noisy space, ear buds or ear plugs would be helpful.

Step 1: Remove All Distractions

Turn off your phone. This is really important.

Make sure alerts and messaging are turned off. It’s critical when connecting to your inspiration that you not be interrupted. Interruptions will instantly disrupt the connection to your inspiration, and you won’t be able to get back to it without starting over.

Set a timer for ten minutes so your mind isn’t busy counting. Ideally you have a timer that works when your phone and messaging is off.

Step 2: Assume the Position

The optimal position for inspiration using your breath to release tensions in your core is lying on your back on the floor with your legs resting over a chair or ottoman or even a coffee table. Whatever you do, don’t lie flat ? the crunch in your low back when you lie flat creates spinal tension that blocks your breath.

Bend your knees and rest your calves over the seat of the chair. Make sure your chair has an opening at the back so that your feet can slide through the back ? i.e., not be jammed up against anything.

Place something under your head ? a small pillow or folded towel so that your forehead is slightly higher than your chin. This uncrunches your neck.

Stretch for Writer's Block

Step 3: Observe Your Breath

Once you set your timer, soften into the seat and the floor ? softening your head, your face, your arms, your torso, your legs, your feet.

Now notice where in your body you feel your breath moving and resting.

Your breath has four parts. It flows in and pauses. It flows out and pauses. ?Become aware of these facets of your breath.

Now listen and observe. At first the pauses may be difficult to find. That’s fine. ?They are there, and you will notice them in time.

Watch where your breath goes, how it sounds as it goes, whether it pauses, and if it pauses, rest in the pause.

And then you keep breathing easily and softly.

You listen.

As you listen, that sound may change, and your breath may change. It may get louder, softer, longer, shorter, deeper, or more shallow.

Whatever your breath is doing is fine.

If you find your thoughts starting to intrude or worries entering your mind, bring your attention back to your breath.

Focus on that.

Do this for ten minutes.

Step 4: Take a Moment

At the end of your breathing practice, give yourself a minute to re-enter your space. Move gently and slowly.

If you are in the middle of a writing block with a deadline looming, take a little transitional break. Get something to drink, take a slow, easy, short stroll around your office or home. Have a little snack.

Your words will flow.

If you don’t experience dramatic positive change after your first practice, that’s okay. Tension builds in your body in layers. You likely have so much tension built up that you’ll need time to fully unkink.

Give yourself that time. Your body isn’t a machine, to be quickly calibrated. It can take time to dissolve tension and reconnect with the source of your creative flow.

When You Unkink Your Creativity Your Words Will Pour Out of You

It’s time. ?Time to come back to your screen.

Time is still ticking.

The screen is still blank.

But it feels different, doesn’t it? ?The deadlines don’t bother you.

You come back to your screen and notice that you’ve shifted from anxiety about getting words down to calm excitement.

Triumph Over Writer's Block

You may have a completely different sense about what you’re writing. A unique perspective, a fresh insight, a savvy positioning of your message.

You won’t strive and strain for your words. You won’t force them.

They will just flow, like your breath.

Dissolving tension with your breath allows you to write from a place of ease.

As you continue to practice even when you are not blocked, your words will become unstoppable. Just ten minutes a day, or even every other day, and your core tensions will dissolve, and with them your block to writing.

This is ancient wisdom. It’s readily applicable wisdom. And now it’s yours.

The Step-by-Step Process for Starting, Growing, and Getting Traffic from Your Blog?s Email List

May 4, 2017 By Beth Hayden

blog-email-list

Did you know that one of the best ways to get more traffic to your blog is actually?building your email list?

Yep, that?s right. If you?ve been struggling to drive more traffic and attract more social shares for your blog posts, your email list is about to become your new best friend.

You might be shaking your head at this point, and wondering, ?What the heck does list-building have to do with blogging? Do I even care about sending emails, or building an email list? I thought I was supposed to focus on driving more traffic, attracting more social shares, and getting more people to comment on my posts.?

Here?s the secret a lot of people don?t know: Building a loyal email list for your blog can get you all three of those things. In fact, it?s one of the very BEST ways to get all three.

Blogger, author and speaker Michael Hyatt, who is one of the most successful bloggers in the world, has a list of over 500,000 email subscribers. He said this about his list:

?I have literally built a million dollar business on the strength of my email list. Ninety percent of my income comes from it. Even today, my email list is still my #1 business priority and asset.?

Michael Stelzner, founder and owner of Social Media Examiner, has a list of almost 600,000 dedicated subscribers who receive his blog posts in their inboxes every day. Stelzner said, ?Email is the most important channel for you to cultivate in your online business.?

But why exactly is building a list the key to a blogger?s success? Why is it so important, and why are all the world?s top bloggers recommending you focus on building your list?

4 Reasons You Need to Focus on Attracting Email Subscribers for Your Blog

According to The Inbox Report ? which collected details of the email habits of over 1,500 Americans ? over 89% of adults check their email at least once a day, and nearly 21% check their email more than 5 times a day.

No other marketing tool allows us to connect with blog readers as quickly and effective as email marketing ? and focusing on list-building can give you some remarkable blogging benefits.

Here are four of the biggest reasons why building your list can give your blog a big boost:

1. Your email subscribers will give you traffic on demand.

You will get more unique visitors from your own email list than you will get from practically any other traffic source ? especially if you?re a beginning blogger.

When someone joins your email list, they will read more pages on your site than they would if they were not on your email list ? so if you want a high-traffic blog, it?s a good idea to focus on building your email subscriber count.

Want to see how you can turn email subscribers into blog visitors? Let?s go back to Michael Hyatt for an example.

When Michael publishes a new post, he sends an email like this out to his list subscribers:

Michael Hyatt's Content Notification

Michael?s email subscribers click one of the links in the email and go straight to his newest blog post. Keep in mind, Michael has over 500,000 subscribers, so that?s a LOT of potential traffic.

2. Email subscribers share your posts.

Once people get to know, like and trust you, they are more likely to share you content on their favorite social media platforms ? so if you?re looking for more shares and wondering how to make a post go viral, the answer is in your email list.

As your list grows, your social share numbers will rises accordingly — especially if you prompt people to share your posts, like Jon Morrow does in his content notifications:

Jon Morrow' Content Notification

3. Email subscribers are more likely to comment on your posts.

Do your blog post comments feel like a ghost town most of the time?

If so, I get it. Getting people to speak up in your comments section is challenging ? but once again, you can go back to your email list for the answer to this problem.

Your visitors are more likely to comment on one of your posts once they are on your email list, so your email subscribers will usually be your most frequent commenters.

People often want to be a part of your community before they start commenting, and being on your list helps them feel connected to you ? especially when you?re sending them high-quality content on a regular basis.

4. Emails subscribers are buyers.

This one shouldn?t surprise you.

If you want to start bringing in revenue with your blog (or bring in MORE revenue from your site), building your email list is the #1 thing you should focus on.

Jon Morrow tells his students that if they are amateur marketers, they can probably make about one dollar per email subscriber, per month. If you have 5,000 subscribers on your list, that means you can probably make around $5,000 a month from your blog ? and it only goes up from there, as you become a smarter copywriter and a better marketer.

If you want to use blogging as a springboard to quitting your day job, improving your lifestyle, or taking that dream vacation, remember that the money is always in your email list.

Setting Yourself Up for List-Building Success

What if you don?t have an email list yet?

Perhaps you?ve been focusing on writing great content for your site, and you didn?t think starting a list was important. Maybe the task ?Start an email list for my blog? has been on your to-do list for months.

If that?s the case, don?t keep putting it off! Follow these simple steps for starting an email list for your blog this week:

1. Sign up with a trusted email service provider to help you manage your list and make sure you comply with current CAN-SPAM laws.

I know you don?t want to spam people, and I also know you don?t want to pay steep penalties (up to $16,000 per email!) for violating federal CAN-SPAM laws.

A reputable email service provider (like MailChimp, Emma, AWeber, or Drip) will make sure that the email messages you send to your list are CAN-SPAM compliant, and make it easy for people to subscribe and unsubscribe from your list.

Our fearless leader, Kevin Duncan, uses AWeber (affiliate link) as his email service provider, and I use Infusionsoft. There are tons of choices out there, so you should be able to find a service that fits your needs and your budget. Most services make it easy to sign up and get started.

2. Have a plan in place for how to build relationships with your subscribers.

Last week, I was talking to a client on the phone, and I asked him about his list size.

?I have about 500 people on my list,? he said.

But when I asked him about the last time he emailed anything to his list, he answered ?I think it?s been at least six months. I just don?t know what to send them.?

Too many bloggers start bringing subscribers in ? and watching with glee as their email list numbers grow ? but they have no idea how to connect with those new community members.

It?s critical that you figure out in advance what you?re going to send to your subscribers, and when you?ll send it ? and then you keep your word and do what you?ll say you?re going to do.

At the very least, I recommend sending out what I call ?content notifications? any time you?ve published a new blog post (see Michael?s example, above), but you can also do a weekly newsletter, a curated blog post of great stuff from around the web, or a daily tip.

Whatever you decide, just do it well, and do it consistently ? it will help your new subscribers start to trust you!

3. Create a welcome message for new subscribers.

Most email service providers (like MailChimp and AWeber) will let you send an automated welcome message to new subscribers. This message will go out to new folks who join your list, whether they sign up in the middle of the night or at 2 PM in the afternoon ? and because it?s totally automated, you won?t have to lift a finger to send it.

Your welcome message should be friendly and gracious, and it should explain what?s going to happen next.

Once you?ve decided how often you?re going to email your list (see #2, above) explain that plan to your new subscribers in your welcome message, so they know exactly to expect.

For more information on crafting a welcome message that connects with your subscribers and builds trust, download my free report, “The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Warm Welcome Message for New Subscribers.”

3 Ways to Start Building Your Blog?s Email List

There are a million ways to get more subscribers ? and just as many bloggers who want to give you advice on this topic ? so I?m just going to give you three quick-and-dirty list-building tips.

List-Building Tip #1: Give away something free to get people to join.

Unfortunately, you can no longer just add a little ?Sign up for my newsletter!? box to the sidebar of your site, and expect new subscribers to come pouring in the door every day. We are so inundated with email offers every day that most of are really picky about what we sign up for.

Want to know how to get past people?s hesitations? Give them something valuable if they sign up for your list. Some call it a ?incentive,? some call it a ?bribe,? and some call it a ?giveaway.? Whatever you decide to call it ? you need one for your blog!

If you give new subscribers an incentive to entice them to sign up for your list, you can build your list up to 10 times faster than you can without an incentive.

If you?re still dragging your feet, look at it this way: Would you rather take one year to get your first 1000 subscribers, or 10 years? Having a powerful incentive on your website can literally save you nine years of time and effort.

Come up with a giveaway idea that it compelling for your audience, and create it this week. It doesn?t have to be long or complicated! Sometimes one-page cheat sheets or checklist bring in more subscribers that 300-page ebooks. Keep it simple and create something quickly.

List-Building Tip #2: Offer your giveaway on your blog.

Once you decide what you?re going to give away, you?ve got to let your blog visitors know you?ve got something great to offer them.

You can add a welcome gate, pop-up, pop-over, landing page, or content upgrade to your site, or simply add a footer to your blog posts that says, ?Like this post? You?ll love my [awesome giveaway name here]. Sign up here to get it right away.?

You can use tools like Sumo, OptinMonster (affiliate link), or LeadPages to offer your incentive, or talk to your web developer about the best way to feature your giveaway on your blog.

List-Building Tip #3: Once you?ve got list-building tips #1 and #2 in place, promote the heck out of your blog posts.

Derek Halpern of Social Triggers recommends spending 20% of your blogging time creating content, and the other 80% promoting that content. Sound extreme? I know. I was a little shocked when I saw those numbers.

Even if you don?t meet that standard, absorb the lesson Derek?s trying to impart: We should spend more time promoting the content we?ve already written. This is especially true for the vast majority of bloggers who don?t promote their content at all ? they just hit ?publish? and pray someone will notice their new stuff.

Looking for idea for promoting your posts? Start with this list of 107 content promotion ideas from CoSchedule. I recommend finding 10 ideas that are in your comfort zone, and four that are ?stretch? goals for you (like asking partners and affiliates to share your content) ? then doing all fourteen of them every week.

Promote your content consistently, and see your email subscriber (and blog traffic) numbers grow!

List-Building Tip #4: Guest blog for popular sites where your audience hangs out.

Yes, this strategy still works, although it?s not the goldmine it was five or six years ago. There are still great guest blogging gigs out there, but you need to be very selective about where you guest post.

Here are the questions I ask myself before I consider submitting a guest post to a site:

  1. How many people have shared the blog?s recent posts on social media? These numbers don?t have to be in the thousands, but if you see one-digit numbers for every post over the past few months, it?s not a great sign.
  2. How many people are commenting on this blogger?s posts? When people consistently comment on the blogger?s posts, it means he or she has an active and engaged community. That?s exactly what I want!
  3. Will the blogger let me add a short bio and a link back to my site at the end of my post? Some bloggers want to put advertisements or other links at the end of my guest post, and they want to bury my bio. That?s their prerogative, but it will cut down on the amount of email subscribers I get from my guest posting efforts. Those folks go on my ?no? list every time.
  4. Will the blogger send an individual email about my guest post to their email mailing list? If yes, that?s a big plus for me as a guest poster ? it will mean more traffic, social shares, and comments for my post.

If (and only if) a blogger meets all four of these criteria will I approach them with a guest posting idea.

Hint: When I asked these questions about Be A Better Blogger, I got ?YES? answers for all four ? which is why you?re reading this post today!

Your Email List: The Springboard to Your Blogging Success

If you?re feeling stuck in your blogging journey ? if you?re frustrated by your traffic numbers, aggravated by your lack of comments, and bewildered because no one is sharing your posts on social media ? I encourage you to focus on building your blog?s email mailing list.

List-building isn?t easy, but every minute you spend focusing on your list it is going to pay off tenfold in your traffic, engagement, and social sharing numbers.

Start your email list today, and start enticing people to join that list by offering a useful and valuable giveaway. Then use some of the tips above to start attracting more email subscribers.

Here?s my promise to you: Having a loyal list of subscribers who can?t wait to read, share, and comment on your blog posts is going to make you feel like the king (or queen) of the blogging world.

How to Use Expert Roundups to Generate Links and Social Shares on Autopilot

Feb 16, 2017 By Bill Acholla

Expert Roundups

Writing and maintaining a blog is hard.

But it is nothing compared to actually finding readers for your blog.

If you find yourself going through the frustration of not being able to generate enough interest in your blog post and not being able to improve its visibility in search engine rankings, you?re not alone. I?ve been there. It?s not a good place to be.

And it?s not easy to get out. But it?s not impossible either. If you want to generate backlinks for your blog and receive likes and shares on social media, I have two words for you:

Expert Roundups.

What Are Expert Roundups?

The hint is in the name.

An expert roundup is usually a blog post or a piece of content that rounds up the opinions of all the experts in that particular niche.

In essence, it brings together the best and most valuable suggestions on the topic at hand.

Think of it as a compilation music album that gathers the best of the best to pack them all into a powerful punch.

With a roundup blog post, the readers can receive insights from some of the most respected names in the industry.

You can use roundups to expand your blog?s reach as well as maximize your conversion ratio.

Why Expert Roundups Are Blowing Up Around the Web

Like many bloggers who are starting out, Tor Refsland felt the frustration of not getting any attention on his posts.

He was fed up of what he referred to as the triple zero club comprised of people who received zero shares, page views, and comments.

So he decided to try something new for his blog.

He decided to go for a roundup post.

Not just that.

He decided to go all in and create a truly epic post on the biggest productivity tips. But there was something special.

The post included contributions from some of the leading experts and influence in the field.

It was a massive success.

Within a few days, Tor received 20,231 page views, 1,500 shares, and 84 comments on his blog post.

And this is just the beginning.

His post also got the number three spot on Google search under the keyword ?productivity tip’.

There are plenty of reasons why expert roundups work so well when nothing else does.

The biggest reason is that they actually offer something substantial to the readers. They offer actionable tips that the readers can use. The expert opinions bring a certain level of credibility to what?s being said.

The experts, themselves, are a huge reason why these posts are so insanely successful. Each expert featured on the post is an influencer in their respective fields.

If the post successfully manages to get a lot of backlinks on their websites, it contributes to an increase in shares as well as the creation of content that will rank in search engines.

An Actionable Guide on Creating Expert Roundup Posts

This brings us to our main question.

How do you actually go about creating a roundup post?

Where do you start?

Where do you end?

Don?t worry.

By the end of this post, you?ll have a much better idea and a direction.

Here?s A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating Expert Roundups:

1. Find Top Blogs within Your Niche

The first thing you need for an expert roundup is the actual experts. And where do you find them?

Well, you start your search by looking for some of the best and most followed blogs in your niche.

There are two advantages of doing that. First, the top bloggers in your niche are top bloggers for a reason.

They have the knowledge and the experience that gives their voice the authority you need to give your roundup post heft and weight.

The second reason you need top bloggers is that they come with a lot of followers.

They?re not just experts in their niche — they?re also influencers. And you need those precious backlinks to improve your website?s search engine ranking.

Also, a recommendation from their social media page would send followers flocking your way.

But how do you actually find those top blogs?

One of the best ways to do that, according to Karol K, is plain old Google. He says:

?There are two ways you can use Google: (1) looking for blogs one by one, or (2) searching for list posts compiled by other people that already showcase the top blogs in a given niche. The latter is a much more effective approach.?

It?s simple.

Type in ?best?, followed by your niche, followed by ?blogs? into Google and hit enter.

Here?s an example:

bill-achola-1

2. Choose a Topic That Rocks

What?s the point in writing a blog if almost anything you can contribute has been said already?

Picking a niche and sticking to it is not enough. You need to find areas in your niche that have not been addressed.

That doesn?t mean you have to be so specific that no one, except for a few people, are interested in the topic.

You need to find that right balance in being interesting for everyone and being original and innovative. In short, you need to find a topic that rocks!

One way to go about it is to use Quora for your search.

Quora gives you a snapshot of what people are generally looking for in your niche. This gives you an idea of the demand in the market.

And not just that, but you also get to know about how people frame that demand. According to Benjamin Brandall:

?Keywords are, at their core, a human way to accurately query a massive database. We want to match our keywords to the ones people are actually searching for, which means being in tune with the way they speak.?

In addition to providing you your topic, Quora will also let you promote your post. Read more about that here.

Here?s an example of how a simple search would offer you tons of stuff to write on:

bill-achola-2

3. Choose a Keyword You Can Rank For

If you want your expert roundup to do well, you can?t shoot in the dark and hope it strikes the bull?s-eye.

When good bloggers sit down to write a blog post, they don’t do so haphazardly. They know exactly what they?re doing.

How so?

They do keyword research. When you set out to find a topic, you also need a keyword that?s popular with the audiences.

This is one of the things that blogger Emil Shour used to take his site from the bottom of the barrel to the number one spot in Google rankings.

He conducted a keyword research and found a demand for the keyword ?wellness program ideas?.

From then onwards, his task was simple. Take his website to the number one spot in that keyword search. And he did it!

4. Email Your Group Experts

Once you?re all set and ready with a specific topic in your niche, it?s time to conduct the actual research and generate content.

In this case, both of these steps involve emailing your group of experts and asking for a comment.

For instance, if you?re writing about beating writer?s block, you need to email blog writers and ask for actionable tips on how to achieve that.

Be sure to ask them about their personal experiences as they help the readers relate to the problem and the solution.

Here?s an example of how I contacted Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends when it came to writing my own expert roundup blog:

bill-achola-3

Anita was really kind.

She took out valuable time from her schedule to come up with this suggestion:

bill-achola-4

And so, the brief interaction was a small success.

5. Publish and Alert Your Contributors

Once you publish the blog, you?ve only achieved half of what you originally set out to do. Working hard to compile a variety of tips from a variety of experts won?t lead you anywhere if no one actually reads your blog post.

And, to make sure people do, you need a small favor from the aforementioned experts again.

You need them to link your post on their website and/or share your blog post through social media as well.

Experts don?t just bring valuable opinions to the table. They bring actual followers as well.

After my post went live, I alerted Anita about it and actually got a link on her website Small Business Trends:

bill-achola-5

6. Promote Your Expert Roundup through Inbound.org

Okay, so you?ve finally finished writing the expert roundup blog post. Your labor of love has finally come to an end.

Now if there could just be a place where you can find an eager audience, how wonderful would that have been?

Well, good news! There is such a place.

And it?s called inbound.org.

Inbound allows you to reach experts, influencers, and interested audiences at the same time.

Seriously, what?s not to love?

Here?s an example of a post that I made on my website as well as on Inbound.

Within just a few days, it got thousands of page views and a bunch of comments from Inbound alone:

bill-achola-6

The Final Word

So you see?

Expert roundups are a smart way to acquire an audience by tapping into other people?s resources.

If you work hard and do your research, amazing things will happen.

I mean, who knows?

Maybe you could even end up earning six figures from your blog.

Now that you?ve seen how to use expert roundups to generate links and social shares on autopilot, I?d like to hear from you.

What do you think of the expert roundups?

Or maybe you have a question about creating expert roundup posts.

Either way, leave a quick comment below.

I?ll be around to reply to comments and answer questions.

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