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The Ultimate List of Free Courses

November 3, 2017 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 267 Comments

Enjoy this big list of free online courses! Many of these are blogging courses or courses related to marketing or small, entrepreneurial businesses online. I’ll do my best to update this list, but often the course creators change things up. (updated 11-2017)

There are few things I love more than the combination of free and courses. FREE! COURSES! YES! Free online courses are popping up all over the interweb lately, which is good for you and good for me.

Digital courses have been around forever in terms of Course Live or Udemy, but I love the indie courses that run straight from one person to YOU.  I hadn’t seen a list of all of them in one place, so I thought I would create the Ultimate List of Free Courses for YOU! (And for me.)

Many of these free courses are sales funnels. That means they will have some promotion for a paid product within the course itself. If you’re a smart cookie, you’ll know how to say yes when you should say yes and say no when you should say no. (Learn when you should stop buying courses!)

I have tried to keep in quality courses with great value, but I have NOT taken every single one of these, so I cannot fully vouch for all of them. If you do take one and it’s full of smarmy or BS, please shoot me an email. (kirsten@kirstenoliphant.com)

I’m going to start with a plug for my own free course, The Free Email Course. If you want to learn how to set up and see results from your email list in one week, this course is for you!

If you want to learn more about courses, not just TAKE them, check out a few more posts and podcast episodes I’ve got for you:

  • Using Challenges and Courses
  • Stop Buying Courses
  • Should You Presell Your Online Course

And now…let’s get our inner (and outer) nerd on with a great list of free online courses!

This great list of free blogging courses will help you with your blog, social media, branding, and small business!

The Ultimate List of Free Online Courses

BLOGGING

Build a Profitable Blog from Mariah Coz of Femtrepreneur

Squarespace Course from Megan Minns

Beginner Blogging from Leaving Work Behind

How to Transfer Your Blog to WordPress from Espresso

Legalize Your Blog from Jade & Oak

The Part Time Blogger from Jade & Oak


EMAIL

The Free Email Course from me!

How to Build an Email List That Sells More Books from Chris Syme


SOCIAL MEDIA 

The Secret Sauce for Boosting Your Twitter Presence from Madalyn Sklar

Learn How to Get More Twitter Followers from Kelsye Nelson

5 Day Pinterest Power Course from Summer Tannhauser

Quick Tips for Selling Books on Facebook from Chris Syme

How to Find Your Target Audience on Social Media from Chris Syme

Pinterest Video Course from Oh So Pinteresting!

Facebook SOS from Kitz & Co

How to Use Snapchat from Tech Boomers

How to Grow Your Instagram Followers from The Quinskis

Instagram Authority  from Alex Tooby

Creator Academy from YouTube


WRITING

Grammar & Online Etiquette from Andilit

How to Use Amazon AMS Ads from Kindlepreneur (** I love love love this one if you are interested in running ads for your books on Amazon!)

 Plan Your Novel in 5 Days from Rachelle Rea Cobb


BUSINESS

5 Days to Your Next Biz Idea from Caressa Lanae

Launch Your Profitable Course Idea from Teachable

10 Days to Streamline Your Biz from Summer Tannhauser

How to Deal with Nightmare Clients


TECH/SKILLS

Free SEO Keywords Course

Get Started as a Speaker from Grant Baldwin

Free Digital Photography Course

Take Better Pictures from Image Maven


GRAPHICS/BRANDING

Free Design for Creatives from Pines Up North (look for the button below the first paragraph)

How to Create a Signature Style for Your Blog & Brand from the Branded Solopreneur

How to Create a Logo You Love from the Branded Solopreneur


PODCASTING

Free Podcast Course from John Lee Dumas

Podcasting 101 from ShePodcasts


LIFE

30 Days to Calm from A Life in Progress

Calm Your Chaos (Parenting an Anxious Child) from Lemon Lime Adventures

Ignite Your Faith from Equipping Godly Women

The 9-Day Collegiate Cleanse from Misfit Alexa

Divorce Your Story (Post-Divorce Recovery) from Lisa Schmidt

Letting Joy Guide You from Your Fairy Angel


This list of free online courses gets me so excited! And a little overwhelmed! Feeling the same way? Just pin it for later! Then come back and enjoy some free course goodness.

Have you taken any of these free courses? Do you have a free course I should include? Leave a comment and let me know! 

Filed Under: Blogging, Branding, Platform, Social Media

Why Your Social Media Isn’t Growing

September 11, 2017 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 1 Comment

Today’s post is all about why your social media isn’t growing. As in, why you can’t seem to grow your social media followers. It’s the second in a series called Why Your Audience Isn’t Growing. You can click to read the first post, Why Your Blog Isn’t Growing.

Social media can be one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal…but it can also be the most frustrating. It takes a lot of time, can feel like a part-time job, and sometimes doesn’t seem to bring in results.

If you are one of the many people stuck wondering why your social media isn’t growing, I’ve got some explanations and some tips for what you might do differently.

Listen to Episode 108 – Why Your Social Media Isn’t Growing


Keep scrolling to read the post! You can also subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, I Heart Radio, your favorite podcast app, or find the audio on YouTube.


WHY YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T GROWING

Here are three reasons why your social media isn’t growing.

You Aren’t Sharing Relevant Content

Back when I first started using Twitter and Facebook, I’d been blogging for a few years. But I NEVER shared my own blog posts.

Why? Because NO ONE DID. These social media platforms evolved to be a good place for promotion, but they didn’t start that way. Now many people use them ONLY for link-sharing. (More on that in the next point.)

Part of growing your blog IS utilizing the power of you social platforms. (But your blog still won’t grow without fixing the three mistakes we talked about in the first part of the series!) We should be sharing links on our Twitter profile, our Facebook page, on Instagram, and wherever you hang out online.

But if that’s ALL you are doing, you aren’t going to grow your followers on social media. Which means in turn that you won’t have as much traffic to your blog. You do NOT want someone to come to your profile and find that every post or even every other post is your own.

The Fix

If you really want to grow your social media platforms, you need to be a curator of content, not just a creator. Being a good curator means that you are picking and choosing things to share as a kind of collection or gallery. People often talk about the 80/20 rule: 80% of what you share should be from other people and 20% from your own content.

Ask yourself what kind of content would COMPLEMENT your own.

  • What links would add to the conversation you’re starting with what you write?
  • What other people are creating quality content in your space?
  • What words of encouragement or news do your people need?

Consider how you can curate a collection of links and posts that will reach your target audience. Share your own, but share links from other sources MORE.

You Aren’t Being Social

Social media isn’t always the best name for Facebook or Twitter or Google Plus or Instagram anymore. It’s often more like Self Media. You promote yourself. And, if you aren’t actually being social, you’re only talking to yourself.

If you aren’t having actual conversations with people on social media, you aren’t being social. This happens a lot when people automate their social shares. They use tools to send out links automatically so they never have to actually go ON Twitter or LinkedIn.

It also happens when people try the follow-unfollow method of growth. This looks like following a bunch of people and then unfollowing them the next day or week. (Um, that’s just smarmy, PERIOD.Stop.) 

Clearly, if you are automating everything, you CANNOT be social. Without showing up and talking to other people, you will not grow your social following.

The Fix

Automation is great (see this post on the difference between scheduling and automation), but you need to have conversations. You must be social.

This means that in addition to scheduling and automating content, you must actually show up on those platforms and engage. Here are a few ideas for how this can look:

  • Reply personally to people who share, like, or comment on your posts.
  • When you follow someone, check out their profile and comment to them about something in their profile that stood out to you. (If nothing stands out to you in their profile, why are you following them??)
  • Instead of just dropping links on your Facebook page, go live and answer questions or engage with your fans.
  • Join Twitter chats where you can talk to as many as a few hundred people in an hour.
  • Try an Instagram hop where people on a particular day join in on a hashtag like #itssimplytuesday from Emily P. Freeman or #fridayintroductions from Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan.

This is not rocket science. It isn’t hard to do. But it also takes a bit more time and investment. Life would be wonderful if we could just step back and automate everything…but then we wouldn’t really make connections or increase engagement.

You Aren’t Laser Focused

One of the reasons your social media isn’t growing is that you are trying too many things at once. You are on five platforms, trying to manage all of them at the same time.

Each platform has its own quirks, social media sizes, audience, and best practices for how often to post. (See my post on Seriously Simple Social for more and a free guide!) Unless you’ve been doing this for years or have an assistant helping you out, it can be near impossible to manage all of the platforms well.

I also see people often having one post from a social platform automatically post to all the others. So if I’m following someone on Instagram, I might see their post there first. Then I see it on their Facebook page. Then I see it on Twitter. Then I see it on their Facebook profile.

Each platform has its own nuances. You aren’t going to get a ton of Instagram OR Facebook followers when you automate your Instagram images to post on Facebook. You’ll look silly when you have 11 hashtags on Facebook or you tag people and it doesn’t work because the original tag was on Twitter, not Facebook.

Don’t cross the streams! It is more work, but even changing a few things about your post (image size, hashtags or NO hashtags, description length, etc) can help it do well on EACH platform.

The Fix

Start with a focus. You may want to make sure you secure your name on several of the big platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for sure) before someone else gets it, but you don’t have to be fully active on all of them.

Pick 1-2 platforms you really like where your ideal people also hang out. Consider an overarching strategy for the kind of content you’ll post and how often. Set an alarm or set aside time daily or weekly to engage with people on that platform. Master the kinds of images and posts that do well there. (Again, get my Seriously Simple Social Guide for that!)

When you are really rocking 1-2 platforms and are in your groove, consider adding another. But don’t try to be in all the places at one time. You will have a hard time posting quality content on many platforms and

You Are Participating in Too Many Share Groups

Wait– shouldn’t we be using Facebook groups to grow? Yes. Ish. Facebook groups are great for connecting with other bloggers and getting our content out there! But share groups may be holding back authentic growth.

The kinds of groups I mean are those where content creators can post their links in daily or weekly threads. Then they are required to follow or like or share or comment on the other links in the thread.

While this SEEMS like a good idea, it’s really not. It might boost your numbers a bit. It might give you some social proof when one post has 20 comments. (Note: whenever I see a post now with more than a handful of comments–ESPECIALLY if it’s a newer post–I always assume these are from one of these share threads.) The problem with these groups is that you aren’t actually finding your target audience.

Instead of connecting with that busy mom or that just-starting-out author, you are connecting with another blogger. Who, outside of the group requirements, is NOT likely to become a superfan. If you are trying to work with brands, they have grown wise to this (especially about Instagram pods) and they are NOT happy.

It’s one thing to have a small group where you support each other and share content. (Like the content curation I just wrote about.) Follow-for-follow threads are another thing altogether. Required follow and share groups do not result in authentic engagement from your target audience. Period.

The Fix

Be wise in the kinds of groups you join and what kind of threads you participate in. Ask yourself what you are REALLY gaining from your participation.

  • Is the group made up of your target audience?
  • Will other people in the group help get your content IN FRONT OF your target audience?
  • Is the content you are required to share relevant and good for curation?

These groups are popular because they give a FEELING of success. Doesn’t it feel nice when you have a bunch of comments on a post? Don’t you love seeing other people share your content? If the groups you are in result in real engagement from your idea people, that’s GREAT. If they don’t, or if they require that you share content you otherwise wouldn’t, it’s time to rethink.

Can't seem to grow? These four reasons share why your social media isn't growing and what you can do about it.


Though many of these fixes are a bit more time intensive and require more of YOU, that’s the cost of real social media growth. A lot of the tactics people teach out there are just that: tactics. They are not a strategy. And they are not about engaged, authentic growth.

If you’re looking for the main reason why your social media isn’t growing, it’s likely because you aren’t investing enough of yourself. You are automating in order to create a Self Media that’s all about your links and not about real engagement or serving your audience.

What are YOUR struggles with social media? Have you seen some of these reasons in your own social media?

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Show Notes, Social Media

Three Reasons Why Your Blog Isn’t Growing

September 4, 2017 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Today we are going to tackle three reasons why your blog isn’t growing. This is the first in a series of Why Your Audience Isn’t Growing.

I see people asking questions constantly in Facebook groups about growth. Specifically people want to know why their blogs aren’t growing. It’s a complex question, but the answer 90% of people give has to do with promoting more on social media.

  • Join Facebook groups!
  • Get on Pinterest group boards and pin 200 times a day!
  • Use MeetEdgar to send your content out daily!
  • Buy this course on Facebook pages!

Have you heard these? Today I’m going to talk about what I almost NEVER hear people saying when this question is asked. If you don’t work on these three things, NO amount of promotion will help your blog grow!  

Keep reading or listen to the episode!


Listen to Episode 107- 3 Reasons Why Your Blog Isn’t Growing

Keep scrolling to read the post! You can also subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, I Heart Radio, your favorite podcast app, or find the audio on YouTube.

Three Reasons Why Your Blog Isn’t Growing

1. You’re Writing for Yourself, Not Your Audience.

Ouch. As a writer, this one really rubbed me the wrong way when I started considering my blog growth intentionally.

 

We all have different reasons for blogging. (And you really should know the why of your blog!) For many of you in my audience, those reasons have to do with loving to write. Yes, maybe you want to also sell books or sponsored posts or make money by having traffic an ads. BUT YOU LOVE THE CREATIVE WORK. I know you!

So it can feel like a personal insult to hear that you’re being too self-centered about your work. (Plus, who likes being self-centered??) I’m not really telling you that you are self-absorbed, only that your blog isn’t outward-focused ENOUGH.

Why do people read blogs?

Not sure? Think about why YOU read blogs. For me, I might click through to read a blog post if the title grabs me. It relates to me. It’s interesting or relevant or solves a problem I have.

People read blogs because those blogs offer something. They GIVE to the reader. There is a benefit. Maybe that’s a how-to or a series of tips. Maybe that’s entertainment or encouragement or inspiration. But there is some kind of exchange wherein the blogger (that’s you) gives something to the reader.

Readers will not read blogs that don’t give them something. And when we write blog posts that are just like online diaries, focused on telling just our life story, people are generally not going to want to read. (The exceptions are if you are already a celebrity, you have a really unique story, you have some kind of “it” factor, or you’re a really KILLER writer. Usually we are NOT as interesting as we think we are.) 

We need to invite readers IN. That doesn’t mean we can’t write about ourselves and our stories. If we leave our own story out, our blog could be interchangeable with any other blog out there. Not good.

Our unique story and our voice NEEDS to be there, but readers need to know there is a place for them. It has to be relatable to them and give some kind of benefit. Even if that is a simple as a few minutes of enjoyment.

How to Fix This: If this is your problem (and MANY people struggle here), you need to consider how you can write what you want to write, but also think outward. Consider how you can use your blog to benefit other people and what you are giving them. What does your blog give? What does it offer that a complete stranger might want to stop and read?

2. Your Blog Design Detracts from the Content

Just when you thought the first reason was hard to hear…I give you this. But I just want to write! I don’t care about blog design, you say. Plus I have no money and don’t know blogspeak. 

I know, friend. I know. I was there! I started on Blogger (which, unless you have a lot of money, will ALWAYS look like a blog on Blogger) and when I started paying more attention to design, I didn’t want the clean, white look. I had bright colors and busy backgrounds. It was a hot mess.

Here’s the thing about design: it impacts the way people read your words.

When Rob and I were looking for our first house, we looked at all kinds of places. Some were in pristine condition, some were foreclosures with no flooring and holes in the walls. We are good at vision, so we could see SOMETHING in most places.

Except one house. It was older and had original mustard-yellow countertops and shag rugs. It was clean, but it was just so much ugly. Most of all, though, we HATED the layout. We struggled with a vision for the house because we didn’t like the floor plan. Countertops you can change, but layout is layout.

We bought another house and a few months after moving in, I had this realization as I walked into my master bedroom: this house had the same layout as the house we hated.

I couldn’t believe it. Even with all our open-mindedness and visioning, we hated a house for (we thought) its layout, then bought a house with the same floor plan…but modern updates. Honestly, we were both floored.

THAT IS HOW MUCH DESIGN MATTERS.

You cannot underestimate the impact of how you package your words. So if you are a writer and hate thinking about this stuff and don’t want to learn to code and don’t want to pay someone…you have to consider the cost.

You don’t have to have the most beautiful blog, but you DO need to have a blog that doesn’t detract from your content.

How to Fix This: If you don’t have a lot of money for design, you can use a simple free wordpress.org theme and just keep it SIMPLE. Simple looks so much more professional than busy. Or consider Squarespace, which is something like $7-10/monthly and is drag and drop. Very clean, very professional. If you’re using Blogger, it is REALLY HARD (ie- expensive) to make it not look like Blogger. I love working with Merri from WPTech Cafe and I also love the themes from Restored 316. I’m an affiliate for Restored 316 and am currently using their Refined theme, if you want to check that out. (Being an affiliate means if you purchase a theme, I get a commission at no extra cost to you!)

3. Your Writing Style Isn’t Unique

This is where it gets confusing sometimes. Because I told you in #1 that it’s not all about you, and now I’m telling you that it needs to be uniquely you. What gives?

Your blog DOES need to be about other people enough to draw them in. But your unique story and voice and perspective will keep them reading. If you don’t have something unique, your blog will be like every other of the million blogs out there. Why should they read or come back to yours?

This can be really difficult and takes practice. It will also shift over time and depending on content. But learning to find your unique voice and find how you can weave your story and perspective through the posts makes you stand out. And, even though you’re being uniquely YOU, it will draw in the readers and keep them.

What IS your story? What IS your writing voice?

You need to consider these questions in order to help your blog grow. It’s not enough just to write helpful tips for people. Your helpful tips need to have YOUR spin. Otherwise they’ll get lost in the sea of other helpful tips.

How to fix this: If you haven’t been training in a lot of the writing spaces, these may not be questions you’ve thought about at length. But I’ve got just the resource for you! Check out my post How to Brand Your Writing Voice.

These three reasons why your blog isn't growing have nothing to do with social media. Surprised?

These three aren’t the ONLY reasons why your blog isn’t growing. The other big key to blog growth is promotion. We’ll hit on that a bit in the second part of the series when I talk about why your social media isn’t growing. But just so we’re clear…you can’t write a blog post and think people will find it. (Unless you are an SEO wizard.) Promotion totally impacts this.

But you can promote like a crazy person and if people don’t feel included, are turned off by your blog design, and don’t find something unique, your blog will not gain and retain new readers.

So…how are you feeling at the end of this?

I want you to know: these are not the only reasons your blog might not be growing. And they might be hard to hear. If they ARE, please take some time after you read this or listen to the episode. Be grumpy. Complain. Send me an email about why you disagree.

Then come back a few days later when it feels less personal and really LOOK at your blog. Could these actually be the reasons your blog isn’t growing? Ask a friend who is impartial if you need help looking with honest eyes. I do NOT mean to be discouraging or hurtful.

What you ultimately need to consider is this: DO YOU REALLY WANT TO GROW?

If so: HOW BIG?

Because if you want to really grow and really want to grow large, you need to seriously consider these three things. But if you want to write for writing’s sake or because of a particular passion, then you can worry about them less.

If you want to really grow a platform or build a giant blog, you need to take it seriously. You have to think about why your blog isn’t growing…and then what you’re going to do about it.

Want to share your tips for growing a blog? Leave a comment!

 

Filed Under: Blogging

Tips for Building Traffic

June 7, 2017 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 2 Comments

With a crowded internet filled with blogs and podcasts and websites to browse, it can be really difficult to stand out. Today on the podcast I’m bringing you tips for building traffic! I’m also going to share why I don’t think traffic is the bee’s knees (as in, my main goal is NOT to build traffic).

As a quick note, I am spending a whole MONTH talking about traffic in my paid membership community. We’ll have exclusive interviews and resources and a guide to traffic. If you want to see what this exclusive community and training is all about, you can try your first month for $1! You’ll have access to hours of video trainings and join our private Facebook group, plus get weekly email check-ins from me. Check the Create If Community Membership!

Listen to Episode 105 – Tips for Building Traffic

Tips for Building Traffic

When we talk about traffic, we are talking about how many visitors you have on your blog, usually measured monthly. There is a difference between pageviews and unique monthly views, but for now, I’m talking about pageviews.

(If you REALLY want to know, pageviews are the number of times your site literally loaded and unique users separates out multiple visits from the same people, so you’ll get a more accurate number of how many different people are reading your stuff. Sessions are kind of in-between– the same user could have two different sessions and view six total pages, resulting in two sessions, one user, and six pagviews. Read this great breakdown here!) 

Traffic from 2007 to 2017

In the old days of blogging, you wrote blog posts and people came. I like to think of this as Field of Dreams blogging: if you blog it, they will come.

When I started in 2007, that’s how it worked. People found me. I didn’t seek them out, and I certainly didn’t promote my blog. Social media wasn’t really used for self-promotion back then.

2017 is a different world. If you write a blog post, hit publish, and do nothing else, chances are that maybe like 10 people might read your post. No one will just “find” it (unless you do a great job with SEO). Few people will share it (unless you first share it yourself). These days, you have to WORK to get traffic.

Tips for Building Traffic in 2017

There are two main ways that you can build traffic to your site.

  1. Get found by utilizing SEO best practices. This means optimizing your post with keywords so that search engines like Google or Bing and even platforms like Pinterest (which is really a visual search engine) will suggest your post. (Pinterest is considered social media, but I’ll get into why I put it in this category. Keep reading.)
  2. Bring people to you by promoting on social media. This means actually pushing your link out over social media so that other people will see it, click to read, and maybe even share.

The best idea is to use a combination of these two methods. When you have your SEO working for you, after the initial setup, you can expect to have traffic continue, no matter what you do. It’s passive, long-term traffic. (Not to say that you shouldn’t do updates or that you can’t strengthen your game.)

Combine great SEO with promotions on social media, where you will see short-term spikes of traffic. It’s great to diversify your traffic sources so that you can have a more secure foundation in case something major shifts or an algorithm kills off your traffic.

As for Pinterest, it is considered a social media platform, but there is very little social anything happening there. Pinterest has continued to shift into a visual search engine. I have had several pins that continued to drive hundreds and thousands of pageviews a day even when I pinned them one time, YEARS ago. Yes, I do pin daily. But the traffic from Pinterest acts more like search engine traffic– it comes passively over time and is impacted by keywords and search.

How can you grow the traffic you currently have?

In theory, this is simple. Choose #1 & #2 (or, ideally, both) and work on your game. In practice, this is obviously not as easy as it sounds. SEO is more of a long game, which means that you can put things in place now and hopefully see some increases in the coming months. But the benefit is that after you set up SEO, it keeps going.

Social media is more of a short game that will result in temporary traffic spikes. I’ve had a post go “viral” on Facebook that resulted in 50k pageviews in a few days. But then it dropped to 2k and then 500 and then…nothing.

Social media is something you need to do once and then do again and then do again. In fact, a lot of people will say that you should spend 20% creating content and 80% PROMOTING. Yikes.

But what is the purpose of building traffic? 

If you are building an ads-based monetization strategy, straight-up traffic is what you want. Numbers = $$$. But it takes a LOT of traffic to make a significant impact. For reference, one of my sites gets between 10k-20k pageviews per month and I get about $200 or less in ads revenue.

Traffic is fragile. So if you are building on straight traffic and straight ads-based revenue, you are building something delicate. One algorithm change and everything shatters.

So it’s important to think about how to capture traffic and what you want those visitor so DO on your site. My biggest recommendation is (surprise, surprise): EMAIL. The most permanent way that you can connect is by getting people on your list. Email is also a third, not as often talked area in terms of building traffic.

You also may want them to read more posts, check out your about page, or generally hang out for a while. So you can work on optimizing your site in a way that encourages reading, clicking around, and signing up for your email list. It makes #5 on Neil Patel’s great list of ways to build traffic!

Make sure as you think about ways to build traffic that you are thinking about WHY. You need a purpose. You want people to DO something. At the least, try to connect in a more permanent way with your readers by getting them on your email list.

Try these tips for building traffic utilizing a long and short game to keep traffic diversified.

Some Practical Tips for Building Traffic

This is NOT an exhaustive list, but a few things that have been working for me in 2017. Also! I want to make a big note that in these things that are working, not ALL of them are about building traffic to my site. Many of the things I’m doing are about sending people to a landing page for my email list.

So…why am I including them? 

The reality is that whether you are asking someone to click to a blog page or a landing page for email, these tips ask people to click through to something. And these tips are working right now to get people clicking. I am simply focusing on my list right now and making that a priority over blog traffic.

Again…WHY?

As I mentioned before, traffic is fragile. It can be awesome, and there is something powerful about having millions of pageviews a month. I have friends doing that and they are making more than full-time incomes on their blogs through ads and sponsored posts and other revenue streams. Since my main revenue streams are NOT related to ads or sponsored posts, I utilize my email list primarily to build relationships and offer products and services that fit their needs. Yes, I’d like to build my blog traffic. But it’s not my main thing.

Utilize timely or time sensitive things. I did an experiment with social media over the last month. I scheduled out daily posts to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn advertising one of my big freebies, Seriously Simple Social. I found that I got less than 50 in total for the month. Meanwhile, I held a webinar and started signups for Summer School, a 6-week free class I’m holding this summer. In just a few days, I more than doubled the other signups. Even though these were events with email signups, you could try something similar by promoting timely blog posts– like my boredom busters for kids, which I promote more heavily at the beginning of summer.

Post to popular Facebook pages.  I’ve seen the power of large Facebook pages sharing your posts. See this list of pages who allow or encourage sharing HERE. Basically, you can post on their page wall, where the post isn’t super visible to regular visitors, but the page owner will see it. If it’s a good fit, they will share it themselves on their page so it IS visible. When I had that 50k pageviews in a few days, it was from several large pages sharing my post.

Post with GREAT DESCRIPTIONS to Facebook group share threads. If you are a member of 1 million Facebook groups like I am, you’ll know that there is usually a no-promo policy. This keeps everyone in the group from posting their blog links 100 times a day. (As a group owner, trust me that I delete a billion of these every day.) There is often a thread once a week where you can share your links. Many people miss this opportunity by just literally pasting a link in that thread. The people who see the most engagement and clicks are those who put a description and actually talk about their link and give a mini pitch.

Get excited about your own content. This is a tip from Paula Rollo of Beauty Through Imperfection. (She shared it in her Quick Blog Tips Group, which you should join!) She pointed out that often when we promote other content, we gush and give a great testimonial for why people should read. Then, for our own content, we say something like “Read my latest post.” We can tell people our content is great without being smarmy. I know it’s often hard to talk nicely about ourselves and it can feel…off. But if you believe in your own content (and you should), then give people a reason to read!

There are TONS more tips for building traffic, but these are a few specific actions that are helping me see results!


Want to up your blogging game this summer? Join me for Summer School!

You can choose to focus on SEO, Blogging, or Building Your List (or all three!) after you register. You don’t want to miss these classes, which start on June 15!Join us for Summer School! Choose from three (or choose all three!) free classes that run for 6 weeks, starting June 15.

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Email List, Show Notes, Social Media

Stop Buying Courses – 098

April 17, 2017 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 4 Comments

A few weeks back I told you to stop creating content. Now I’m telling you to stop buying courses. What gives? Keep reading! Or listen to this latest episode.

Listen to Episode 98- Stop Buying Courses

 

Thanks to our sponsor: AmbitionAlly, the creators of PopUpAlly Pro! I use and LOVE this plugin. Check it out HERE.


Confession: I’m a course junkie.

Not even just a course junkie, but a resource junkie. I love to learn and I love to buy resources that help me learn. These days that’s mostly courses. I LOVE courses. So why am I telling you to stop buying courses?

First, for context, you should check out my post about why you should stop creating content. The main point there is the same main point here: Be a good steward of what you HAVE. Whether you are creating or buying more, first take care of what you’ve got.

So…if you’re a course junkie like me, what do you do? How can you be a good steward with the courses or information sources you have?Stop buying courses unless you have a plan to use them!

Stop Buying Courses…and DO THIS

1.Make a List. Whether you are a spreadsheet person or something else, you need to make a list of the things you’ve purchased. Am I the only one who has bought a course and then FORGOTTEN I BOUGHT THE COURSE? Yep. Done that. So keep a running list in a Google doc or somewhere of what you own. Don’t waste your money! Track it.

2. Make a Plan. There are two parts to this. The first is that you need to think about what gives you the most ROI. (That’s return on investment.) What will bring you cash or benefit first? Consider what course might bring you a return for the time or money invested first.

The second part is that you may need to go in order. If you want to make money with Facebook ads, you need to drive them to something. So you might need to take the course that helps you to create a product that you’ll sell through webinars through Facebook ads, you’ll need to first take the course on courses, then the course on webinars, then the course on Facebook ads. Make sense?

First, plan around ROI. But within that, you’ll need to plan in the order of how the pieces fit together.

The actionable part of this is that you need to plot this out on a calendar. Make an actionable plan to complete the courses & resources so that you have the space to apply it.

3. STOP BUYING COURSES. Once you have your list and have your plan, do not invest in any more resources. Yup. Stop buying courses until you’ve complete the plan and the list.

The caveat, of course, being if you find a really great deal that will expire. But you should ask these questions:

Do you NEED it?

Can you FINISH it?

Will you have time to APPLY it?

Ask those questions before you invest in any new resource or even tool. (Because often tools take time to learn and set up.) On then should you ignore the advice to stop buying courses.


With all this in mind, I DO hope that you’ll sign up for the Profitable Blogging Summit. It’s not a course, but it’s a summit with 30 + actionable sessions that can act as a course in terms of training and information.

So why would I tell you to stop buying courses and invest your time in the summit?

I ask you this because you can go in with a plan. You can apply the three pieces of advice I gave you in a smaller sense with investments you make. Make a list of the schedule. Make a plan of what sessions you’ll watch. And take some time off during the summit week to invest your time in the summit.

I recommend this not just because I’m biased as one of the hosts. But because it was so hard NOT to take notes during these interviews. That’s how actionable the sessions are. I plan to watch them again and to watch the ones that I didn’t record. This is GOOD STUFF.

So despite my advice to stop buying courses, you should invest your time and money in the things that move you forward. I really do think that the Profitable Blogging Summit will do that!

Filed Under: Blogging, Show Notes

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Hey, I'm Kirsten!

(Rhymes with BEER-sten.) I am the author of Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers and the host of the Create If Writing podcast. My goal is to help writers, bloggers, and creatives like YOU turn readers into raving fans and learn to make a living doing what you love...without being smarmy. Questions? kirsten at kirstenoliphant.com

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