This past week we celebrated Thanksgiving and I am ever so grateful!
Grateful at all Times
I have been missing in action from my blog for the last two months due to Medicare open enrollment. I am grateful to have been able to help so many people figure out the best insurance option for them. That makes me feel good!
Yet I feel sad that I have failed my online community by not keeping up with my blog and blog hopping to check out what they have been doing. I certainly could have done some blogs ahead of time…but never got around to it! Poor planning on my part and a lesson for the future. One thing I am sure about… I am ever so grateful to all of you and have missed you! Zig Ziglar says…”The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times. I would agree…do you?
I did some catching up on Facebook and reading emails on Friday after a wonderful family gathering and dinner with all sorts of delicious goodies the day before (which you can check out on my FaceBook page). I came across this video called Validation in an email from Tina Williams that helped me feel good about myself even though I did not get everything done that I might have wanted to. It made me smile!
It made me remember, each one of us has special gifts and talents given to us by God that makes us great! Be grateful for your talents! Use them! Smile! Enjoy the video and remember… YOU ARE GREAT!
I am thankful for so many things but especially that you have taken the time to stop by Barb’s Challenge. What are you grateful for? Please leave a comment below. We love to hear from you!
Did you ever attempt to solve one of these cube puzzles? It’s sort of like our life… Every day we encounter problems, puzzles, situations and more that we do not have an answer for… at the moment!
The truth is, all problems can be overcome. It is important to solve your problems when they arise. Certainly don’t make them bigger than they really are or allow a problem to become an excuse for not doing something or accomplishing your goal.
Take a look at this short video by John Von Achen that addresses solving problems…
OK, let’s summarize the steps in solving problems…
Evaluate – clearly identify the real problem
Search – look for multiple solutions
Choose – choose the solution that you feel will best solve the problem
Move – Take immediate action
Here’s a great graphic from Wikimedia Commons showing the steps in solving problems:
Problem Solving Cycle
What if the problem persists? Realize that there is a solution! Do not focus on the problem… rather stay focused on solutions! Think outside of the box… the answer may not always be obvious! Don’t quit! Remember, there is a solution to all problems!
Your challenge for the week is to quickly solve your problems. If you need help follow the steps above and give the exercise below a try as a unique way (outside of the box, creative way!) to find a solution as explained by Carrie Green…
Coming up this week we have more on getting visitors to your blog. Click here to sign up to our list so you don’t miss out on training and tips to help grow your business as well as Sunday motivation to keep you going!
Don’t forget to leave a comment below, especially if you have some out of the box ideas for solving problems!
How to stop procrastinating and finally get things done is the topic for our Sunday Motivation this week.
How do we stop procrastinating and what is it? Procrastination: the practice of carrying out less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent ones, or doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones, and thus putting off impending tasks to a later time, sometimes to the “last minute” before a deadline.
In the health insurance world, we agents are required to re-certify with any company we want to sell for every year. The month of September is usually when I get all mine done. This year I procrastinated and had one still left to do in October. More on that in a minute. Listen to Ellen Degeneres as she gives her take on the topic of how to stop procrastinating…
So why did I procrastinate? My “excuses” got me side tracked. My wonderful mother-in-law decided to give my husband her car since she can no longer drive. At 98 she had a stroke and is recovering pretty nicely 🙂 We needed to find the title for my husband’s car so we can sell it. It was not in the place it was supposed to be!
I went through boxes and files and more boxes and more files! I threw out two big black bags of stuff I wonder why I was keeping in the first place! I found a check my Aunt had written to me for my birthday from 2008 and never cashed! I found some great family pictures that got me going down memory lane. I found the title to my daughter’s car, but no title to my husband’s car! It appears I changed my filing method to putting things by year, which is why I found my daughter’s title because it was in the 2013 files, the year the car was paid off. So there’s still hope that I will find my husband’s title if I can figure out the year the car was paid off.
Yikes, I can’t look for this anymore right now…I need to still do that certification! When I finally sat down to do the FFM (Federally Facilitated Marketplace – part of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare) the program kept going down (probably because there were other agents also procrastinating and the system was overloaded) and it took me twice as long to get it done!
Stop Procrastinating!
So what can we do to stop procrastinating? There’s a ton on things we can do! After watching lots of videos I decided on this one… because it’s summaries everything in only 2:48 minutes, so watch it now! Then read some of the suggestions that I found while viewing all the other videos!
In Summary and what to do next…
Keep yourself organized with the one minute rule… If you can do something in less than one minutes, then do it now–don’t procrastinate and put it off till later. Put that file away rather than ending up with 10, 20, etc. files that need to be put away. You will save valuable time in searching for information you need later (as I learned!) This applies to other stuff to… close the cabinet door, put the dirty clothes in the hamper, pause or bite your tongue before you say something you might regret later, make your bed, etc…you get the picture!
Use the 10 minute rule…break your task(s) into smaller manageable tasks that you can accomplish in 10 minutes or less. You probably have heard the expression… How do you eat an elephant…one bite at a time!
Get clear on your goal… Answer these 3 questions: Where are you? What do you want to do? How will you feel after you do it? Write down what your goal or task is and really put energy in how you will feel after you achieve it!
Use your ultimate goal versus immediate desire to take action… What this means is, you know you need to get something done but you’d rather be doing something else! Here’s 3 things you can do to help you take action…
Make your first task of the project something you can do and won’t mind doing and reward yourself after each of the other tasks as you accomplish them.
Get rid of any distractions (close down Facebook, Twitter, email, etc).
Comment and Contact Me… As always, we love to hear from you! Please comment below and tell us how you overcome procrastination.
As a reminder to everyone, please don’t procrastinate with your health insurance options! Medicare open enrollment is from October 15th through December 7th. Open enrollment for Obamacare is from November 1st though January 31st. There are penalties that you may have to pay if you do not have a qualified health plan. If you would like to learn more about the insurance options that are available to you, fill in the contact form here. I am only licensed in Florida but I can direct you where to get information if you are in another state.
Traffic Strategy – Search Engine Optimization – SEO for Beginners
We have been talking about setting up and adding content to your WordPress blog – your business website. By now you should be asking, how do I get people to visit my wonderful new blog and read all the great articles I have posted? To answer that question, today we begin a series of articles on various traffic strategies, starting with SEO for beginners.
If you have been following Barb’s Challenge, in week 2 of the Quick Start Challenge we started to learn about traffic and conversions. Your readers, the people visiting your online blog are the traffic we are looking for. When these same people buy something or fill in your optin form to get on your list, we call that a conversion–they took the action you desired. We also learned about commenting on blogs and in forums to get traffic to our blog for free by providing the link to our site in the comment. Those links are a big part of search engine optimization.
The thought of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) frightens or certainly is confusing to most non techie people. To better understand the concept let’s compare your blog to the famous hamburger restaurant with the golden arches… I’m talking about McDonald’s, of course!
If your McDonald’s is located in the middle of a big city, you have a fantastic chance of getting people to come in and eat or at least drive through the take out…simply because of the location. Now if your McDonald’s is located in the middle of the desert, people traveling through the desert will probably be happy to come upon your restaurant if they are hungry when they go by but you certainly won’t have hoards of local people coming by if you are located in the middle of nowhere! The same is actually true for your website blog. It’s your job to tell the search engines (like Google, Yahoo and Bing) what information you have on your blog so they can get visitors to your site.
According to Wikipedia, Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results. Simply put, SEO is targeted advertising. You target your prospective readers (and hopefully buyers) by the keywords you focus on. When you write a new blog post, the search engines have a web crawler application that searches for new content and safely stores the new pages where the content is as an index in a super large database.
When your reader types in what they want to search for (these are the keywords), the search engine gives back a list of results with the words indicated. These are called SERP’s or Search Engine Results Pages. If the words in the search are put in quotes, the SERP’s will reflect an exact match versus searches without quotes, which provide results in any order.
I’m by no means an SEO expert but using the SEO plugin by Yoast it does help with your SEO results. Of course, the search engines have their secret algorithms that they are not quick to divulge! With that being said, let me give you some examples of SERP’s related to Barb’s Challenge…
Here’s a blog post I did for Sunday Motivation. The key words that I focused on were very specific…”words that kill success”. Notice I used quotes because I wanted to see the exact matches and I ended up being on page 2 of about 1,760 results. You see Barb’s Challenge in positions 3 & 4 on page 2.
“Words that kill success”
Here is another example, where I used the key words “plugins for profit”… a much more competitive keyword. This showed my site on page 1 of 83,100 results in positions 4 & 5!
In both of these examples, the results were greatly impacted because I used the Yoast plugin. I think it is worthy of your time to install the plugin and here is a video how to do that…
Just installing the plugin will obviously not get you a top ranking. Here are some key pointers to help your SEO strategy…
Quality, Relevant Content… The first key to getting ranked higher in the search engines is quality, relevant content. If your blog is about golf, your postings should be relative to golf. Also, the search engines place high priority on articles that read naturally. Refer back to the article we did on Content is King!
Proper Keyword Strategy… Proper keyword strategy is the second key. It is important to note that your content should be written for people to read and not written for the search engines. The proper keyword strategy will help you reach the targeted audience that you want to read your blog. With that is mind, do some research! Use the google keyword tool (just search for it!) or any other keyword tool you might have, or even use the suggestions that appear as you start typing your key word(s) into the search bar. Some areas to focus your research on include…
Type in phrases your readers and customers might search for.
Look at key words of your competitors.
Look up low competition key words.
Look up high competition key words.
Consider key words for local area traffic.
Consider long tail keywords (long phrases or entire sentences)
Consider keywords relative to a sales presentation
When you decide on the key word(s) you want to focus on, you can write your quality content. With all the Google updates and newest algorithms, it’s important to keep your keyword density below 1% (meaning how many times you use the keyword). Make it readable and understandable for “Grandma”. This is really where the Yoast plugin helps.
Link Building… Another key factor to good SEO is link building. There are two kinds of links… Internal Links, to your own pages and External Links to trustworthy sites with great content related to your blog content. Remember, your readers want good, quality information. If you give them what they need, they will continue to come back to your site as a source of information.
You also need backlinks…This is where quality sites link to your site! When someone leaves a comment on your blog, respond back to the comment and also go leave a comment on their blog. A word of caution here. Be selective on the blogs you comment on. Remember Google is watching and your reputation is online. Don’t forget to blog hop to sites related to your site and leave a comment. Your name will usually be linked back to your site. Do the same with forums. High ranked sites with lots of traffic like Facebook and twitter are great for backlinks and we will get more into that in our next traffic topic.
In Summary and what to do next…
SEO should be one of your strategies for getting visitors to your site. You do not want to have just one strategy (don’t put all your eggs in one basket scenario)… If you do, you might be blown away just like Hurricane Joaquin is trying to do along the eastern coast this weekend! Take action…
Write quality content and use the Yoast SEO plugin to get your site search engine ready.
Get educated. There are many programs that you can purchase to further your education on SEO. Here is one that I can recommend for you. It’s called Easy SEO Mastery…click here to review.
If you still have not signed up to our list, what are you waiting for? We give you a very special gift. You won’t want to miss our next traffic strategy! Sign up here now!
Leave a comment below! We love to hear from you and thank you for stopping by!
We all have it in some shape or form… How do you handle your stress?
We got a call from my husband’s sister this week that my mother-in-law had a medical incident. I’m calling it that since she (at age 98!) refused to go to the hospital so we are not yet sure what happened. She had fallen a couple of times and her speech was definitely slurred. After getting her to her new primary doctor (she was forced to change doctors when her insurance changed), she’s now taking new medications and pending results from a CT scan to see if she had a stoke or something else.
Insurance is my forte, so I helped out by calling her insurance company to find out about walkers and bathroom commodes with arms. As I am currently re-certifying with all my insurance companies in preparation for open enrollment starting in October, it was important for me to get home so I left and let my husband and sister-in-law follow up with Mom as they are both retired.
When my husband came home after a couple of days I found out these two loving people were at each other’s throats fighting like cats and dogs! It was stressful for them. They didn’t really know how to handle Mom who has been so healthy and active. They didn’t like the disruption of their routine and they said things they didn’t mean.
Arguing Couple from http://intelligentchristianfaith.com/2013/04/27/arguing-for-the-sake-of-arguing/
Why am I telling you all of this? Because something stressful happens in some shape or form to all of us. Maybe it’s not dealing with a sick and aging parent, maybe it’s a child who is sick or has school or drug problems or a friend who has dementia and tells you the same story over and over. Maybe your stress is more related to dealing with your boss, or dealing with a deadline, or worrying about paying your bills or fixing the leaky roof, or you’re late and get stopped by a cop and get a ticket for pausing instead of stopping at a stop sign. Maybe you’re frustrated because you don’t understand tech issues with your computer or you’re upset because people don’t understand what you’re trying to tell them. Here’s a classic Abbott and Costello…
Stress Solutions
Ok, I think we can all agree that we have stress. So how can we deal with it? How do you handle your stress? I have two solutions for you today…
Improve your communication skills! A lot of our stress is caused by a lack of communication. Watch this video with Marie Forleo. She relates how most people are not good listeners. They tend to interrupt others all the time or do fake listening. According to Marie… “if you want better communication skills in your daily interactions, listening is key. Making others feel heard is one of the best gifts you can give.” She gives you an effective tool called IAP (intentional awkward pause).
Meditation! I can hear you now… I don’t have time to sit and meditate for an hour, I don’t know how, I’m not religious. If you have not used meditation, it may be confusing for you. Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or for the mind to simply acknowledge its content without becoming identified with that content, or as an end in itself. According to WebMD there are many benefits of meditation including… lower your blood pressure, amp up your immune system and stress reduction! The technique or discipline you follow can vary. You can simply sit and focus on your breathing, clearing all your thoughts, saying a mantra, following a guided meditation and so many more. Do what feels comfortable and right for you. What is key is that you do it every day. It could be for 3-20 minutes a day and you will see results in your life. Here’s a few meditation solutions for you…
Check out Calm.com! They have different pictures and sounds. Try taking slow deep breaths while enjoying the calm!
Check out the Hawaiian healing meditation, Ho’oponopono.
Here’s a 5 minute guided meditation for stress with Yoga by Candace…
In conclusion… Stress affects everyone and it affects everyone differently. Take action with IAP, Meditation and I almost forgot, how about a stress ball! Here’s one with a smile to make you smile…
PS…We love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below and tell us how you best handle your stress and be sure to sign up to our list here so you never miss an update!
Can using the LOA (Law of Attraction) help me reach my goal?
This past week I was blog hopping to make comments and came across a site by Susette Pereira where she shared two videos with Carole Dore and How to Create Money Fast. I immediately recognized it as the Law of Attraction (LOA).
There has been much hype and confusion as well as belief and non belief in the Law of Attraction. The problem is, most people do not understand that the Law of Attraction is actually the effect–like attracts like, energy attracts energy. The cause is actually the Law of Belief–which is made up of your unconscious assumptions of truths. It is the Law of Belief that activates the Law of attraction and is where the real power is.
Colin Hiles explains all this in a YouTube video called the Law of Attraction Sucks. He did a follow up video that I want to share now, because it will help you achieve your goal using the LOA correctly…
You can now see the power of focus to reaching your goal. Colin Hiles has two other videos that talk about setting goals. For the sake of your time I will not include the actual videos here but you can go to YouTube and see them. I feel a summary is worth putting here, since it all relates to reaching your goal…
Your brain has two sides–the left side is all about your conscious mind related to logic and reasoning and the right side is about your subconscious mind related to your feelings and beliefs. Here’s the 1-3-5-7 formula for setting goals from Colin Hiles…
Set 1 goal to engage your left brain. Include what do you want and when do you want it. You can also use the familiar SMART formula here (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time bound).
List 3 WHYSyou want to achieve the goal to engage your right brain. You probably have heard that attaining a goal is only 20% how and it’s 80% why! The 3 WHYS should include…how would I benefit, how would we (my family and I) benefit and how would the world benefit (by how I serve it).
List 5 key actions/activities that will be necessary to achieve this goal.
Plan 7 weeks of specific, sacred time that you will take action. By following your goal in blocks of 7 weeks it will give your momentum to see you through until you reach it!
In order to achieve your goals, follow The Golden Rule by using the 3P Strategies. What is the Golden Rule of setting goals? Simply: Feel what you want! How to do that, follow these 3P Strategies…
Positive Words & Present Tense – Don’t state your goal in the negative…instead of I don’t want to be broke any more say I want a million dollars in my bank. Use the present tense as the subconscious mind only operates in the now, so avoid I will and rather use I am or I have. Instead of I will be rich say I am growing rich!
Positive Pictures – This is about subconscious alignment. When you say I am growing rich your subconscious mind might say Yeah right, in your dreams. To overcome this get your vision board done with positive pictures to give to the subconscious mind!
People – You need support and accountability to check what you are doing. We will always move away from what pains us and go toward what is pleasurable. So your whys should be strong enough for you to take action, because if you do not take action to achieve your goal it will be more painful.
Some Final Thoughts and What to do now?
Set your goal! Let’s say you want to make $5,000 by the end of the year. Over the next 100 days that would be $50 per day. You could sell 1 item at $50 per day. You could sell 2 items at $25 each. You could sell 5 monthly memberships at $10 each–now that might be a fantastic idea! Be sure to use all the guidelines above. Be clear on your intentions!
We get 60,000 thoughts per day. The Law of Attraction pays out depending on where we put our energy so take small, committed, positive actions and constantly evaluate the results to make changes as necessary.
Join the 100 Day Challenge here to have support and motivation to help you through to reach your goal over the next 100 days!
Leave a comment below and let us know what you think and be sure to sign up to our list here so you never miss a posting!
Of course you have! You especially hear the term in relation to content on your website or blog. Last week we gave you some creative ideas to add content to your blog. Today we are continuing our topic on content, quality content.
Why Quality Content?
Quality content is a representation of you, your brand and your business. Your readers will rely on you and respect you more based on your content. Websites or blogs with spelling and grammar errors can be a big turn off to most readers.
If your content is good, you will create loyal readers who will visit your site often and will also engage with comments. As your readers get to know, like and trust you they will buy and talk about the products and services you offer them as solutions to their problems.
If you have content that is well written your site will rank higher in the search engines. Just as content is king, the king of online searches is without a doubt, Google! So if you want your site to be indexed by Google (which is extremely important if you want to make money in your business) you will want to follow the King’s guidelines for quality content. To see if your site is being indexed by Google, in your browser simply type: [site: yoursitename] for example, site:barbschallenge.com Watch this short video to see what Google has to say about content on your site…
Here are some other comments direct from Google…
Quality guidelines – basic principles
Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
Don’t deceive your users.
Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.
You can read more about these guidelines from Google at Google Support.
Some Content Cautions
Content Spinners…There are many auto content creators, auto bloggers, content spinners, etc available. If you purchase one of these, use it as a tool and add or change the copy that is produced to make sure it is not duplicate copy. Also, watch out for the length of many of these articles come up with 300-500 words. Postings of 1000-1500 words are actually more enjoyable for your reader and Google too, as they better know the topic you are talking about.
PLR Content…PLR (Private Label Rights) content is actually a fantastic way to get content for your site or creating your own product. With PLR you are given the rights to use the material as you wish. Unfortunately, many people can purchase the same PLR so it would be important to change it around to make it your own. You can get some excellent information on PLR from a blogger friend of mine, Steven Lucas.
Outsourced Copy…Outsourcing, or getting content written for you is a great way to save you time. You can to go places like Fiverr or elance and get good articles for a reasonable price. As a word of caution, these writers could use content spinners to write your articles, so be sure to check the articles they write. You can even ask them for a sample before you hire them!
If you use content spinners, PLR or outsourced copy be sure to check your content is quality, original content by running it against Copyscape.
Per Wikipedia… Copyscape is an online plagiarism detection service that checks whether similar text content appears elsewhere on the web. Given the URL or text of the original content, Copyscape returns a list of web pages that contain similar text to all or parts of this content.It also shows the matching text highlighted on the found web page. Copyscape banners can be placed on a web page to warn potential plagiarists not to steal content.
In conclusion…Write quality content that your readers and Google will like! Follow the guidelines and you are on your way to growing an online business!
What to do next…
Sign up for our list here to receive updates and a free writing guide.
Sign up for the 100 Day Challenge here to make the last quarter of 2015 your best year ever!
Leave a comment below! We love to hear from you!
Check out Sunday Motivation on Sunday and next week we start a new series on getting visitors to your new blog!
Do you know why September 22nd is important? No, let me tell you then…it begins the final 100 days of the year! It is the perfect motivation to get yourself in gear to reach your goal by the end of the year.
Want to win big and finish the year strong? Then…get really good at achieving your goals.
Most people have no problem with setting goals. ONLY a few know how to achieve them consistently.
I have found the perfect tool for you. Take a look at this Manifesto and free video series by Gary Ryan Blair, who will show you exactly what it takes to crush your goals and unleash your greatness.
You’ll love what’s inside this video series and manifesto…
Primarily because they focus on one thing – getting you from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and they do an exceptional job at achieving that objective.
In this Manifesto you will learn:
The importance of how you execute these final 100 days. Look at these five compelling reasons to help you finish strong…
Fixed Deadline – A fixed 100 day deadline brings clarity and conviction to your daily actions. Knowing that the clock is ticking is one of the best motivators for finishing strong as it creates a massive sense of urgency about achieving your goals before time runs out.
Chance for Redemption – If you are below target after 265 days and your back is against the wall, these final 100 days provide you with one last chance for redemption. Look at this as comeback time, as an opportunity to prove your worth and salvage the year.
Set an Inspiring Example – Your performance can be seen as the sad consequence of neglect, poor character, lack of direction and ambition, or it can be an inspiring example of talent put to good use in the intense pursuit of clearly defined year-end goals.
Build Momentum – Building and sustaining momentum is one of the smartest things you can do during these last 100 days as it provides a powerful platform for a fast start to the New Year. Remember, how you start is always a direct result of how well you finish.
Throw Down a Challenge – There’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned challenge to test your limits, exceed quotas and expectations, to keep your teeth sharp, and to show the world that you’ve got the chops to do what it takes to finish the year strong.
Let me ask you… Were you in the Quick Start Challenge? Now is your opportunity to super charge what you started with the 100 Day Challenge… the last 100 days of the year! What goal do you want to hit by the end of the year? Let us know by commenting below!
Want help to reach that goal you just put in the comment section? If you’re serious about reaching your goals…
A Blog is not a Blog…until you Add Content to your Blog!
If you are creating your blog on your favorite hobby or something you enjoy and your blog is just for fun, you can write just about anything your want on the topic. It becomes your online journal.
If you are creating your blog as an online business, then you will want to write content that will encourage visitors to return to your blog to get the latest information and purchase whatever you might be recommending to them… because they know, like and trust you as their expert. The content must be relevant to the purpose of your blog.
I can hear your comment now… but I’m not a writer! How can I get content to my blog? It’s a lot easier than you think. Here’s a few creative ideas to add content to your blog…
Q&A BLOG POST
You can pick a question that would be important for all your readers and answer it. You can answer it with words, pictures, videos, comments from people, reference from an online source, etc. If you are curating content from another site, it is very important to give credit to the original site and not just copy everything. Add your own comments to add value to the content that you have curated. Let me show you an example.
Let’s answer the question, What is a blog? I have provided three examples on how it could be done:
1. Write out the definition and indicate the source. I am only showing a small piece as an example, but when you write your blog you could add several different sources and give examples.
Your Dictionary defines a blog as… “An online, chronological commentary”. Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines blog as… “a journal or diary written for public viewing on a website and consisting typically of personal reflections, commentary on current events, etc. arranged chronologically.” Some examples of a blog are….
2. Use a picture or image as a reference in your blog. I have taken a screen print of Your Dictionary, the actual source for the written definition above. By the way, when you go to this site at YourDictionary.com/blog they even pronounce the word for you!
What is a Blog?
3. Create a video of your own or use one from YouTube. Special tip… using short videos will help your site because people will be reviewing your content longer. Google tends to penalize a site if someone bounces right off the site after they get there. Here’s one that I found on blogging…
USING THE NEWS IN A BLOG POST
When something happens in the news and you can relate it to your business, it adds extra credibility to your post because it is already very popular. Comedians and late night TV hosts use this method for content all the time, especially this time of year when we have an upcoming presidential election. Here’s a picture and statistic from Inc Magazine on August 18th…
As reported by Inc.com … A survey released last week showed that 41 percent of small business owners viewed Donald Trump as the best presidential candidate–41 percent!
USING SPORTS OR HUMOR IN A BLOG POST
Using a current sporting event, or even personal stories that may be humorous (or sad if the situation lends itself to it) are another good source for content. We used football as a source for our Sunday motivation post last week. Here’s a video that combines sports and humor from Time:
TRAINING BLOG POST
It doesn’t matter what the topic of your blog is, chances are there is some form of training or education that can be done. If you are an expert on a subject, write away! Capture your visitor with multi media as above… diagrams, pictures and video are always good. Using arrows, bullets, charts, statistics…it’s all good! Make it easy for your reader to absorb, especially if it is a difficult topic. As an example of training in a blog post, in our recent blog we showed you how to install WordPress plugins.
Want more ideas? Sign up to join our list and you will receive a special gift as our way of saying thank you…
A year’s worth of Writing Tips, one for each week!
By joining our list you will get notification when we add a new post so you won’t miss a thing!
Continue to get all the info you need for growing your business with a blog and also Sunday motivation to get you ready for the new week! Sign up below! (Notice the arrow?!) PS. Don’t forget to leave a comment too! We love to hear from you!
It’s that time of year again that we get our fill of Football Motivation!
Saturday night my husband and I were driving home after a wonderful visit with his mother to celebrate her 98th birthday! She is simply amazing at 98! She attributes her longevity to taking daily walks. If you want to see the family photos, send me a Facebook friend request.
Sorry for the diversion, getting back on course here, my husband and I stopped at a Miller’s Ale House to catch a bite to eat. The place was mobbed! There’s TV screens all over the place with every football game currently being played. I noticed one screen had a base ball game and off to the far corner there was some boxing going on. Hmmm, there were no U.S. Open Tennis matches on screen, which would have been my choice! Anyhow, after the Florida Gators won the game 61-13 over New Mexico State, the place emptied out and the next group started piling in for the later games!
As an aside here, my husband is not a Gator’s fan- we support UCF and Florida State since our niece, nephew and own kids went to these colleges! My sister eats, drinks and sleeps Florida State and shared her joy for the blow out game by posting this on her Facebook: Woohoooooooooooo!!!!!
Why do I bring up all this football stuff? Simply because football motivates! It excites people! It captivates us; we plan our lives around it! Now these are not just spur of the moment games…there’s a lot of planning going on. In order for the players to motivate and excite us, they have to train and work hard and get inspired by their coach. Have a listen to this coach…
Whether we have a team of players in our business or if we are just an individual, we still need to train, learn new things and get work done to succeed. Getting a personal coach or joining a group coaching program is an excellent way to get motivation and accountability for our business.
Seize the moment and grow your business! Please share a comment below on what motivates you to get the job done and don’t forget to join our list to receive updates of Sunday Motivation as well as tips, tools and helpful information for growing your online business!
