Tag Archives: Blogging

Networking Tips for the Self-employed

September 11, 2016 By in Freelancing/Self-employed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 54 Comments

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One of the best ways to position yourself as an expert, get new clients and grow your business is to network. You need to learn how to make strong connections with people.
When you network, you put yourself in the midst of people who are your potential clients, those who are in the same niche as you and those you can partner with. With this in mind, you need to make good use of the opportunity you have to network with people. Because of the importance networking has to freelancers and small business owners, I’ve put together a few tips to make each networking experience profitable.
1.    Set a clear goal or purpose for networking
Although networking can be fun and quite informative, you should not forget the real reason why you’re doing it. For this reason you need to have a clearly defined goal you want to achieve at the end of the networking event or meetup. This will keep you focused and encourage you to be strategic about what you talk about and how you conduct yourself to achieve that goal. But remember to have fun in the process. It’s not necessary to be so formal while networking.
2.    Master your elevator pitch
I first heard about the elevator pitch on a Pro Blogger podcast. I have mastered it since then and use it every day to sign up new clients. When you walk up to people or when people approach you, it is likely that they’ll ask you what you do for a living or what business you’re into. Make sure that you know you have your elevator pitch ready. An elevator pitch is a short description of what business you’re into, what you do, who your clients are and what you do for them.
Take time to plan and rehearse your elevator pitch before networking. You have 60 seconds to make a good impression, so make it count.
3.    Keep the conversation going with open-ended questions
Nobody likes an awkward silence, especially when you try to start a conversation with someone. Conversations that are engaging and memorable create a deep connection with the person you’re talking to.
Develop the skill of asking open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are questions that encourage people to answer with sentences.  They encourage a conversation unlike close-ended questions which encourage a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. When you ask open-ended questions you prompt the person to speak more and that keeps the conversation going, which is great for you.
4.    Always carry your business card
When you meet someone who is a potential client or someone you want to connect with in the future, it’s a good practice to share your business card with them. Your business card contains all of your contact details written in one place. It makes you look professional and it saves you the time you would have spent to bring out your phone, share your phone number and store the other person’s number in your phone. I never leave my house without some business cards.
5.    Be yourself
When you’re surrounded by so many accomplished people, there’s a natural urge for you to try to fit in so you won’t feel left out. However, it’s so much easier to just be yourself. Do not forget your true self all in the name of trying to impress a couple of people. Be real. Stay authentic, but polite. Those who will be your clients or friends will love and appreciate you for who you are.

 

How do you network? Do you have any tips to share? Sound off in the comment section please.

Thanks for reading.

How to Blog on a Tight Budget

September 5, 2016 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 76 Comments

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A lot of time, energy and resources go into blogging. You have to run, nurture and grow your blog like you would do a baby. Depending on the vision and the goals you set for your blog, you have to make sure you invest in it.
You can run a blog with no financial investment at all but your progress will be slow and the results will likely be few and far between. If you are thinking of blogging professionally, you will need to take things further to up your game. I’m aware that some bloggers run on a tight budget and do not have enough money to spend on expensive equipment, ads, or software. Don’t get discouraged. You can still make great progress and record awesome results even on a shoe-string budget. Here are some tips for you –
What is your long-term plan?
Surely, you will not run your blog on a budget forever. But if you want to make sure that every penny you spend on your blog gives you a nice return on investment, you need to have a plan laid out. Consider exactly how much you can spend on your blog. Write down the figure on a piece of paper. Next write a list of what you would like to achieve with your blog on a monthly basis, the reason you want to achieve it and an estimate of how much you would need to make each of those items come true.
Here comes the tough part: go through your list and tick only the essentials. When you’re running on a tight budget, you need to make smart use of the money you have to spend. So you need to stick to the essentials as much as possible. For example, if you run a food blog and on your list you have “buy a new camera to take crisp photos of the food I make” or “buy audio equipment for a food podcast,” then the most important item would be a new camera. This is because your readers will need to see the food you are making.

A camera is an essential for any type of blogger. A decent point and shoot camera may be a good place to start if you are running on a very tight budget. Most iPhones also take excellent photos so you may just start with that if you have one, and see how it goes. I shared some photography tips in my book – How to Cash In as a Blogger, so go have a read.

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Improvise as much as you can
There’s always an alternative for everything. Check your list again and ask yourself: Is there a cheaper, yet efficient alternative to the items on this list? For example, you could use your phone to record the videos you’ll use for your blog. You could download video editing software with a 30-day trial period then save up to buy that software next month.
Be creative. Necessity is the mother of inventions. The beauty blogger, Anna Gardner, started by balancing her camera on top of cereal boxes to record her videos instead of getting a tripod to do the job. Think outside the box, and make sure of what you do have.
Learn a new skill
Professional bloggers with a high budget usually have a team behind their blog. They have their own photographer, graphic designer, copywriter, publicist and virtual assistant. If you’re running on a tight budget, you may not be able to afford hiring people to make up your team. Why not learn a skill? For example, you can teach yourself how to create your own graphics, or you can simply use sites like Canva or PicMonkey to get the work done for you. Or get a friend or family member to do the job for you.

Do you have any tips for blogging on a budget?

10 SEO Tips for Bloggers

August 11, 2016 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 142 Comments

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I have had a few people ask me what my SEO tips were so I decided to write a post outlining my SEO tips.

Blogging is not just about writing articles that your readers will enjoy. You also have to think about how to make your content visible to the online world. There are millions of people searching for information on search engines – Google, Bing and Yahoo. Search engines are a great
source of traffic to your blog. So understanding how SEO works and what you can do to rank your blog high on the search results will
help give your blog the needed boost.

When I first started blogging, I didn’t have a clue about search engine optimization, I didn’t even know what that was. All I wanted to do was to write, and write I did. I wrote without thinking of search engines, or stressing over how the online audience would find my blog. However, as Fashion and Style Police grew, I started to think of SEO. I studied what successful bloggers did, how they wrote their blog posts, and I also did my own research here and there. I always have these SEO tips in mind when writing a blog post:

1. Stay ahead of the search

Anticipate what the internet world will be searching for. Whenever you want to write an article, think about the possible words your ideal reader would be searching for. Write a list of these words and fit them into your blog posts. Those are the keywords you should add to your headlines, first paragraph, and other parts of your blog post.

2. Use long-tail keywords in your blog posts

Short keywords are heavily used and this makes it difficult for your article to compete with other similar articles on the internet. To get optimum benefit from keywords, you need to use long-tail keywords. These are a longer set of words that your readers may be searching for.

For example, “acne remedies” is a saturated set of keywords. Long-tail keywords like “acne remedies that clear acne fast” will have lower competition from other blog posts, but are highly searched for by your ideal readers, if that makes sense.

Keywords are important for SEO but you should also ensure you do not overboard using them.

3. Write attractive headlines

To capture your reader’s attention, write catchy headlines that inform them about what your blog post is about and make them curious enough to click your blog post. Attractive headlines give a tip of what the blog post is about, and they also help readers find your blog post.

4. Create quality content

Millions of people search for information on search engines daily. If you give quality information, this will encourage people to share and make reference to your blog post in their own blogs. References to your blog from other sources help to increase your search ranking. So create quality content so you get link backs an social media shares.

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5. Link to your own posts where relevant

Try as much as possible to make reference and link to some of your own blog posts on your site. This will help you rank higher on the search results. It makes it easier for the search engine to find your other posts. Plus, visitors to your blog will stay longer on your blog and go through your previous posts.

6. Optimize your URL structure

Just like your headline, the URL (that is, the link) of your blog post gives a little information about the post. Search engines favour URLs that make it easier for readers to understand the content of your blog. For example, you can guess what the content of my blog post is if I write my URL like this:

“http://www.fashionandstylepolice.com/2016/08/08/how-to- attract-new- clients-keep- existing-

clientele”. But you’ll have no idea what the blog post is all about if my URL were written like this:

“http://www.fashionandstylepolice.com/45860382624”.

Also, aim to have your url as short as possible. The shorter the url, the better.

7. Optimise your images

If you want your blog images to appear of Google, you need to rename your images with relevant search-friendly names and include a ‘image’, or ‘Picture’ at the end. For example, if you are saving a picture of a boy kicking a ball, you should name it ‘boy kicking a ball image’. Images saved properly will appear on search engines. You also include an alternative text image name.

8. Use relevant anchor text

When linking back to an old post or to another site, ensure the anchor text is SEO-friendly, and relevant to the page you are linking to.

9. Post regularly

Updating your blog on a regular basis will boost your blog’s SEO by adding relevancy to it in the eyes of the search engines.

10. Responsive blog

Having a mobile friendly blog helps your SEO. An easy to use blog will keep people visiting and clicking, which will eventually boost your search engine ranking.

These tips have helped me boost my SEO, so they are definitely worth paying attention to. You can read more SEO tips in my book – How to Cash In as a Blogger.

Do you have any search engine optimisation tips to add?

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