EDITOR’S NOTES
One thing I figured out (probably not as early as I should), is that there is a HUGE difference between working ON your blog/business. And working IN it. And for most of us, with our endless to-do lists and not-enough-hours-in-the-day schedules, we can barely get all the IN things done (this is the day-to-day grunt work), let alone start on the ON stuff (which is the stuff that will actually help your blog to grow!). So, until someone finds where they have hidden that elusive extra day in the week, us bloggers have to be super protective of the time we do have, and we do with it. And that is what this issue is all about. You see I may be a full-time multi-blogger now, and I may have a small army of people helping me do it. But I didn’t start out that way. I started out trying to fit in an extra hour or two each day around work (and having a life), and I wish I’d known half of what is in this issue back then too.
Kate xx
Truth bomb: Most people would prefer to do nothing than something. Even those annoying super motivated kinds of people. I’m currently sitting here with a very unhealthy looking pile of unwritten articles and all I want to do is drink wine, not write them and and then drink more wine. Unfortunately to afford this wine, I have to actually write them. Conundrum right? So I’ve armed myself with a timer, an iron clad to-do list and a few essential apps (Self Control - selfcontrolapp.com) so I can work Smarter, Not Harder to slam through my list. That is what this issue is all about. Coming up with methods, work flows and systems to make the frustrating art of blogging run more smoothly. It’s SO easy to waste time when you’re blogging (‘I’m on Facebook for research!!!!) but there are ways to avoid this. Take my hand (not in a creepy way…) and I’ll show you how.
Carly xx 1
CONTENTS
3 4 5 9
GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER Keep up to date with what’s happening in April & May with our handy calendar.
CRUSHIN #totesadorbs gadgets and accessories to take your desk from awful to ‘aaawww!’
KICKIN’ BUTT
AVOID THESE BLOGGING TIME SUCKS
The “I Dos” and “I Don’ts” of running a successful wedding blog.
5 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT… Design Is Yay (what more can we say!)
From Moulin Rouge to mastering your mean girl with Melissa Ambrosini.
These habits are hard to break but it will make such a difference to your productivity and mental health if you ditch them.
11
21 27
AISLE STYLE
30 33
ARE BANNER ADS DEAD? Are you kind of keen to optimise your ads on your blog but you also kind of hate it and wish someone else would do it?
HOW TO… Optimise your ads in 5 steps!
WE LOVE … PRODUCTIVITY APPS We are total productivity junkies so we already know which apps are the best.
13 18
TOURING & TWEETING This British expat, ex-lawyer and travel blogger legend chats to us about her transition from 9 to 5 to blogging full time and how the hell she fits it all in…
PRODUCTIVITY TIPS In order to not waste full afternoons dicking around doing absolutely nothing, we’ve come up with a few weird productivity tips you should totally try.
2
WHAT’S HAPPENING APRIL & MAY 2016
6
APR END OF FISCAL YEAR United Kingdom
15-19
MAY Australian Fashion Week
MAY 19 - 21 Everything Food Conference Salt Lake City, Utah USA
APR 11 - 12 THE HIVE CONFERENCE Berlin Germany
APR 14 - 16 SNAP CONFERENCE Salt Lake City, Utah USA
APR 15 - 16 BLOGGERS AT MIDLIFE CONFERENCES
MAY 8 Mother’s Day (AUS)
Las Vegas 3
Channel Dirty Dancing and be like ‘I carried a watermelon?’ with this super cute pencil case from Kikki K
MINT POLKA DOT ROUND MOUSE PAD By HelloDelicious $24.32 etsy.com
PENCIL CASE WATERMELON By Kikki K $14.95 kikki-k.com FRENCH BULLDOG PHONE CASE By Anne Was Here $35.00 society6.com
DRIOD SPEAKER By LittleBigSound $39.95 urbanattitude.com.au
#totesadorbs THINGS WE LOVE We know your camera phone is super handy but sometimes you just have to go old school on a photo situation. We’re loving this Diana F + Cortina camera from Lomography. Feel the joy of getting your printed photos back and cringing at how weird your own face is.
DIANA F+ CORTINA By Lomography $99.00 shop.lomography.com
MINI PLANTER By Typo $9.99 cottonon.com BALL OF FIRE Discount Art Shop $99.00 houseofhome.com.au
4
MELISSA AMBROSINI Melissa Ambrosini is the type of the girl you wanted to be friends with in high school. Sweet, warm, supportive with a rad head of hair that she’ll totally let you braid on the oval at lunch time. The thing about Melissa though is that she (like most women) spent a lot of time battling her Inner Mean Girl and totally kicking that bitch’s butt. She’s created events and has written a book to help other women tell their Inner Mean Girls where to stick it!
5
When you were a kid could you have predicted that one day you’d work for yourself and the internet would be the vehicle in which you share your work?
How do you decide what to publish on your blog? Do you pre-plan or just write whatever pops into your head?
A bit of both. If we have a launch or a tour No way in the world. Even a few years ago now coming up I will write content around that, but I couldn’t have predicted I would be doing what usually it’s whatever inspired me when I sit I do now. But I mastered my Mean Girl and down to write. When I sit down to write my followed what felt true for me, and I haven’t blog post for the week I tune inward and ask stopped. myself what my readers would like me to share right now. You used to be a dancer at the Moulin Rouge as well as an actress until you became burnt Working for yourself how do you stay out and set yourself on a clearer path and motivated and stop yourself from re-joining launched your online career. Can you tell us the rat race? about that transition? Motivation has never been an issue for me, It was challenging because I had built my that’s because I LOVE what I do. I do have a identity around what I did for a living. I thought few things I do to keep myself moving towards that was what made up who I was. But that my goals. I stay grateful. Every morning (and couldn’t be further from the truth. The ‘work’ I sometimes at night time too), I write down as do in the world does not define me it is simply many things as I can that I am grateful for. It’s a something I do because I love it. beautiful practice to do alone or with your partner (or bestie). Again, it makes me feel You've just released a book called Mastering good, so I do it. It’s also a great check-in to see Your Mean Girl and it sounds awesome. what’s currently lighting you up and where What's it about and how can we buy it? you’re spending your time and energy. Mastering Your Mean Girl is the no BS guide to You can find out where to buy Mastering Your silencing your inner critic and becoming wildly Mean Girl here. wealthy, fabulously health and bursting with love. 6
If you were going out for dinner and could invite anyone you wanted who would it be?
QUICKIES
My divine husband, of course! If you had one piece of advice for someone who wants to blog full time what would it be?
I’m loving watching... cooking and travel shows at the moment.
Keep going! I see a lot of people get very disheartened after a few weeks or even months of blogging because they aren’t getting the likes, comments or followers they want. Let go of your expectations. Stay connected to your why and keep going. If it was easy everyone would be doing it. I’ve been at this for years now and it’s a process, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And if you need the tools to help you create an online heart centered business like I have you can check out the MA Academy Business Bootcamp.
You couldn’t pay me enough money to... eat a cockroach.
‘Let go of your expectations. Stay connected to your why and keep going.’
My perfect evening includes... a beautiful organic feast with my loved ones, in a stunning, warm outdoor setting (maybe a boho beach picnic), my husband’s music playing, loads of laughter, dancing and the most magical sunset ever. If I won the lottery the first thing I would buy is... I’d put the money towards a foundation or program to help women get out of the sex slave trade.
7
She who dares wins secretbloggersbusiness.com 8
5 GIANT BLOGGING TIME SUCKS YOU NEED TO AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE Carly Jacobs This edition of #sbbmag is the Work Smarter Not Harder edition and in that vain we’d like to point out a few time sucks that most bloggers will have indulged in. These habits are hard to break but it will make such a difference to your productivity and mental health if you ditch them. Here’s a few things you definitely shouldn’t be doing… Checking for interaction every five seconds. It’s so tempting to watch a blog post to see if it gets any comments but this is a huge waste of time. It’s perfectly acceptable to reply to comments within a few days - no one expects an immediate reply. Same goes with Facebook while it’s good to be there and interacting on a popular post there’s no point in checking on a flopped post every five seconds and sadly watching tumbleweeds blow over it.
they’ve given their readers or it might simply be that they give you a bad vibe. This is all totally fine but there are two things you need to do. 1) Realise that none of this has anything to do with the blogger in question. It’s your problem, not theirs. 2) Back away from their blog. If they annoy you, stop reading their blog. It’s literally the only solution to this problem. Obsessing over unfollows.
It’s so tempting when you’re building a following to stalk your liker numbers on Instagram and Facebook but honestly you might as well be setting fire to your time and productivity. You should welcome unfollows it’s your own personal form of blogging Darwinism. The people who don’t get you will leave and you’re only left with the awesome Hate reading other blogs. people. Just concentrate on creating good Even the nicest of nice people will occasionally content and the rest will follow. Also if you stumble across a blog or blogger that rubs them have any of those follow/unfollow apps - delete them now. That’s nasty stuff and you don’t need up the wrong way. It might be their tone of 9 it in your life. writing voice, the annoying nickname
Spending hours arguing with strangers on Facebook. It really is the perfect waste of time, arguing on Facebook. It feels really productive to educate idiots but this could not be further from the truth. If you see someone being a tool on the internet, just walk away. Your time is way too valuable to be arguing with strangers on the internet. Everyone’s time is too valuable for that. Getting distracted by the green eyed monster. This one is a biggie and one that will plague most of us at some stage. It often seems like everyone else is doing amazing things, scoring brilliant gigs and signing off 6-figure campaigns but you cannot beat yourself up for not winning a race you weren’t in to begin with. The only race you can win, is the race against yourself. Seriously stop looking at what other
bloggers appear to be doing (honestly, a lot of it is smoke and mirrors) and focus on the things you want to be doing. What to do instead of these things? ü Create amazing content ü Collaborate ü Host an Instagram challenge ü Go to events ü Plan a social media strategy ü Make some hardcore goals Basically, just pour all your energy into being awesome. Off you go then.
Need help organising your time? The #blogyeah blog planner can help!
10
FLOWSTATE – Time Management App
OUR TOP 5
PRODUCTIVITY APPS The theme of this edition of #sbbmag is all about maximising your time so you don’t have to work as hard and let’s face it, that’s really what we all want. The problem with productivity apps is that there are just too damn many and a lot of them are actually quite crap. Want to hear the good news? We are total productivity junkies so we already know which apps are the best. Here’s our top 5 - you’re welcome!
FLOWSTATE itunes.apple.com/ai/app/flow-state
This is our newest and most dangerous love. It clocks in at around $22 which is up there for desktop app but it’s totally worth it. You set yourself a timer (I’d start with 5 mins) and you have to write for the full 5 mins because if you stop for longer than 7 seconds the app will delete everything you’ve written. It’s a hardcore procrastination buster and it’s not for the light-hearted but it WILL help you reach deadlines. That’s a guarantee.
SELF CONTROL selfcontrolapp.com
Self control works in a similar way to Flow State but it just locks you out of tempting websites. Sometimes it helps to turn off your wifi completely if you want to get some work done but if you need the internet regularly for research this won’t work. With Self Control, you can just block the usual suspects Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - so you can still search google but you can’t access all the time waste-y goodness of your blacklisted sites.
11
ASANA app.asana.com
If you haven’t tried Asana yet, you have to do it. You can create categorised to do lists, you can invite specific people to look at them and when you tick off a certain number of items a rainbow unicorn flies across the screen. We aren’t even joking about that. Just make sure you ‘enable unicorns’ when you download it. SLACK slack.com
If you’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with your current team management app you have to give Slack a try. It’s the first team management app that doesn’t use email for notifications. It’s genius. It means you can communicate on a clear app without constantly getting distracted Note: the one drawback of Slack is that everyone needs to be using it or it doesn’t work. So unless you can convince your entire workplace to use it, it might be best to leave it for small projects or partnerships.
SCHEDUGRAM schedugr.am
Instagram hasn’t been instant for a few years now and what we’re seeing are more highly curated and branded Instagram feeds. This kind of shift in popular content means we can now pre-plan our Instagram content with apps like Schedugram. If you stopped six times a day to take a pretty picture to post to Instagram you’d hardly get anything else done. With Schedugram you can upload hundreds of images at a time and have them all ready to go without you even needing to touch your phone. It’s a game changer for busy bloggers or part time bloggers who aren’t able to drop what they’re doing 12 every hour to upload a photo.
Touring & Tweeting JAYNE GORMAN
You know that mate you have that always has the best travel stories, is always up for a pint and laugh and can sniff out the best donut shop in a 5km radius? That pretty much sums up Jayne Gorman from Girl Tweets World. This British expat, ex-lawyer and travel blogger legend chats to us about her transition from 9 to 5 to blogging full time and how the hell she fits it all in‌ 13
When you were a kid could you have predicted that one day you’d work for yourself and the internet would be your job? Hell no. I was (and often still am) the least technologically minded person you could ever meet. I spent my childhood with my head in a book, wishing I could one day be a writer but not having the guts to say it out loud. Starting a blog was the best thing I've ever done in terms of bringing me closer to the things I love. You used to be a lawyer and now you’re a travel blogger and social media strategist. How did you make such an amazing career transition? And please tell us it was harder than it looked. It was actually a pretty smooth transition but a little more convoluted than it sounds. I studied law at university because I was a swot at school and I thought being a lawyer is what people with good grades did. However, I took a gap year after university and once I had been out in the world travelling independently I couldn't settle into a job that would be predominantly desk (court) based.
I took a job in international events instead and after every event I'd extend my time in the location to explore further. (My job took me to Estonia, Lithuania, South Africa, China and Argentina, among other places). I started blogging about these travels as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family and flexing my creative muscles. A year later it was this blog that won me the role of head of content and community at Flight Centre UK, 2 years later I won a British Travel Press Award and 6 years later here I am as a full time blogger and social media strategist. You used to blog at 40 under 30 which was a journal of your goal to visit 40 countries before you turned 30. Which 3 places would you most like to visit again? Definitely India. I spent two weeks there where I got chewed up and spat out but I'd like to go back and do it all again. Especially as my travels were largely in the south and I'm yet to see the Golden Triangle. I'd be better prepared for it this time too! Also Bali and Sri Lanka. I have a lot of love for travelling in Asia and these are two places I felt I barely scratched the surface of on my first visit.
14
How do you decide what to publish on your blog? Do you pre-plan or just write whatever pops into your head? I'd love to say I pre-plan but it's such a personal, often diary-like, publication that the truth is I tend to write and publish whatever is on my mind that day. It's the exact opposite of what I advise brands to do but my blog has always been a very personal place and if I start to get all strategic I think it would put the readers off! Working for yourself how do you stay motivated and stop yourself from flouncing off and applying for salaried jobs? During the first few years of freelancing, especially when I was constantly chasing clients for payments, I used to think at least once a week that life would be much easier if I went back to a salaried role. A few times I took some office based social media contracts in order to keep the cash flowing in and often these contracts (no offence clients!) reminded me exactly why I had built a freelance business. Sometimes you need to be reminded of the benefits of this way of working in order to strive to maintain it. Although I answer to many clients I do so on my own terms and my own schedule, meaning I can travel or drop into yoga classes whenever I want - you've just got to work it into the diary.
That's what motivates me. That and emails and comments from readers saying they appreciate what you do. For a travel blogger I believe there's nothing more inspiring than a reader saying they followed your advice and it made their trip. If I was buying you a present, what would be the worst thing I could buy you? At the moment - a cake. I'm on a pre-wedding health kick but I have such a sweet tooth I'd cave at the first whiff of temptation. Most bloggers have several income streams would you mind telling us about a few of yours? Of course, I once wrote a post on 13 ways I make money from travel blogging and unsurprisingly it was pretty popular. So my main source of income is social media consultancy for (largely) travel brands. I advise on ways to create, improve or maintain their social media channels as well as their company blog. This then often leads to me being hired to implement the strategy so another source of income is social media management and content writing. Copywriting is another main source of my income. I write for the likes of Lonely Planet, Skyscanner and Flight Centre who all found me via my blog. I am also engaged for a number of 'influencer campaigns' which may involve anything from being paid to take a blog trip 15
(the dream!), take over a brand's social channels, host a tweet up or Insta-meet or write a co-branded/sponsored article for my blog (if the brand's a good fit). These projects are a mixture of ones I've pitched for myself or brands who have come to me saying how can we work together. If you had one piece of advice for someone who wants to blog full time what would it be? I'd say think about the skills you can sell. What have you learnt from blogging and how can that be translated into something that a company can benefit from? Personally it would be difficult for me to live on the income that comes in solely from my blog but by using what I learned from building my blog (and using the blog itself as a platform to sell myself) I've been able to build an online business.
‘Starting a blog was the best thing I've ever done in terms of bringing me closer to the things I love.’
QUICKIES My favourite breakfast food is... french toast, caramelised banana, honeycomb butter (to be specific!) I’m loving watching... The West Wing (again). We've finished all the recent shows on Netlfix so are now working through the classics. You couldn’t pay me enough money to... sing on stage. (Still scarred from a childhood encounter.) My perfect evening includes... room service, ocean views, champagne and sunset If I won the lottery the first thing I would buy is... plane tickets for my parents in the UK to come visit me in Oz. Then a Chloe handbag as I'm more shallow than the first answer suggests! 16
JO IN O U R BLO G SQU AD TO DAY !
SBB’s Blog Squad is a unique online mastermind and community for bloggers who are serious about growing their blogs. With exclusive access to a panel of full-time blogging experts, monthly blog training plus an amazing community of like-minded blog bosses, events, templates, tools and much more!
Readers’ special offer! CLICK HERE NOW TO JOIN FOR JUS T $ 9
MONTHLY LIVE TRAINING
WEEKLY EXPERT LIVE Q&AS
SUPPORT & BLOG BESTIES
RESOURCES, TEMPLATES & TOOLS
secretbloggersbusiness.com/blog-squad/
Access to your new crew of hard-working, big-dreaming, world-conquering, boss-blogging besties!
17
5 WEIRD BLOGGING PRODUCTIVITY TIPS YOU TOTALLY NEED TO TRY Carly Jacobs
We are hardcore into productivity around these parts which is a good thing because it’s extremely easy to get distracted when you’re blogging. SQUIRREL! There’s always something else you can be doing like Facebook, Instagram, image searches, post researching, connecting your Google analytics, writing newsletters… the list literally never ends. In order to not waste full afternoons dicking around doing absolutely nothing, we’ve come up with a few weird productivity tips you should totally try. These are also great for when your energy is flagging and you need a little boost to get you through the afternoon… Write your blog posts standing up. If you’ve never tried a standing desk before, you simply have to give it a go. You don’t need to buy anything fancy you just need a bookshelf. Simply put your screen on a shelf that is head height and your keyboard on a shelf that is arm height. The top of your computer screen should be in line with your eye brows and your arms should be at a 90 degree angle when resting on the key board - you can use stacks of books or Perspex stands to adjust to
the right height. Standing desk are excellent for you your health and productivity. If you allow yourself the ‘treat’ of sitting down when you’ve finished that blog post you’ve been avoiding, you’ll have it done in no time. Have a cold shower. There’s nothing like a cold shower to get you going in the morning - start with a warm shower and then give yourself a quick blast with cold water. It’s highly unpleasant but it gives you an amazing refreshing spritz first thing in the morning that will keep you energised all day. If you work from home and you’re having a struggle, why not jump in the shower in the middle of the day? Give it a go! It can’t hurt right? Get naked. When Victor Hugo had writer’s block he would have his assistant take away his clothing, leaving him with nothing but paper and a pen to get his work done. He was not allowed to have his clothing back until he’d filled a pre18 determined amount of pages.
If it’s good enough of Hugo, it’s good enough for us. Note: You should probably save this one for when you’re working from home. There aren’t too many bosses that would be cool with this. Tax yourself. Think about the things you avoid doing parking in spots where you aren’t supposed to park, paying bills late - these are things that you rarely do because the consequences are dire. You lose money. Have you thought about the concept of taxing yourself when you do the wrong thing? So every time you open up YouTube to look at a cat video you have to put $5 in your tax jar. Now here’s the clincher: You don’t get to keep the money.
You have to donate it to charity. Once the money is in the jar it’s gone. Note: you can get extra hardcore about this and make someone else the boss of the tax jar so if they see you on YouTube, they take the money from you. Ouch… but super effective. Put red and blue things on your desk. Colours can have a huge effect on our ability to function efficiently - did you know the colour red can help you to focus and blue can help you to be creative. It’s worth a shot right? Grab yourself a blue poster and a bunch of red roses and see if your productivity levels improve.
19
Wake up and smell the possibilities secretbloggersbusiness.com 20
Aisle Style
Dorothy Polka is one of Australia’s first and most successful bloggers. And while you won’t see her face plastered across ad campaigns and magazines (“Dot” is actually anonymous), you can learn all her “I Dos” and “I Don’ts” from 10 years of running Australia’s premiere wedding blog right here!
21
You’re also a bit of an elusive online persona in that you blog anonymously as Polka Dot Bride or Dorothy Polka. Can you talk to us about your decision to blog anonymously and your decision to stay anonymous for such a long time? There are so many reasons I chose to stay anonymous but the main one and the crucial one for me is, I wanted to write about what I love You’ve been blogging for around a decade without any bias or influence from anyone, I now haven’t you? Can you tell us how you wanted the freedom to just share whatever I wanted to. I was also incredibly, incredibly shy got started in the business? and just wanted the focus not to be on myself at I always loved weddings- I used to borrow all, but on the words I wrote. wedding magazines from my local library As for why I have continued to stay anonymous and make my dad help me photocopy my well Ms Polka Dot was born and kind of stuck! favourite pages. It’s obviously a lot more complicated than that, I literally started by sitting down at my but it has led to a sustained business model, computer and opening a Blogger account, I’d because it is built entirely on the foundations and had online blogs for years (but they were our results and not any prior connections or fluff. never called blogs) on the now defunct OpenDiary, Livejournal and other platforms. It’s also given me an incredible insight into my I had ones I posted wedding ideas in and industry and the things that are pain points for then decided to start a proper wedding one. It readers and vendors alike. I remember going to a all blossomed from there. bridal expo with my best friend and asking what I eventually moved to Wordpress, changed hosts three times, found a brilliant and awesome developer and hired people to help me.
flowers were in season for a certain month, and having the florist reply “Oh I’m sure you could just Google that”. My friend obviously didn’t hire her, but I watched and experienced how that felt.
We now have a virtual team of five core ‘patterned’ people with writers, developers, designers and people who do the fancy things I can’t. We’re also about to launch Aisle Society, a collaborative business literally produced and built by 30 wedding bloggers from around the world.
I’ve watched male friends go to bridal expos and witnessed in person, vendors completely ignore them and talk to the female. I don’t want to be treated any differently to your average person and I’ve experienced first hand that there is a difference and I want the real thing. 22
As someone who has been blogging for a long time and continues to publish brilliant and consistent content, you must have some excellent tips for working smarter, not harder. Can you share some of your tips with us? I don’t think I have mastered the art of working smarter not harder as much as I’d like! I feel like as the business has grown, my workload has increased, but the things I do each day change. But here are a few tips that work for me: ・ Start Early. I start my working day at 6:30am and find that the dawn hours are my most effective. I can get a lot done before my team is at their desks and my inbox fills up as everyone gets to work, so I have time to devote to the “in the business” tasks that crop up. ・ Invest in tools and people. Honestly, building a good team of people you can trust is so very vital. Not just for your business but also in your personal life. Find people that can do the things you hate or aren’t good at, find tools that make your life easier and your systems better, find people that cheer your on, cry with you and lift you up. ・ Batching everything will save you so much energy! I will literally upload and tag 1000 images in a day, I’ll write all the blog posts for the week in a couple of days. I love getting into a groove with one task and really focusing on that one process. It’s such a great way to be productive.
・Plan ahead! I preplan my days the night before or as soon as I get to my desk, listing out the tasks in prioritized order, my meetings and so on. It helps get a clear picture of the day ahead and when I get overwhelmed, helps me get back on track. ・Self care. I try to look after myself. I eat well, I try to exercise at the end of the day, and I try to fit in yoga when I can. Surprisingly, when I fit in little things away from work like this, it adds to my productivity. ・ Having good computer back up systems. I once lost all my work when my computer failed. I now have two back up systems which are upgraded regularly, and have great support (AppleCare!). When my computer itself broke (I’m pretty hard on computers and I had the support I needed to get it fixed. Can you tell us about the 3 best decisions you ever made to help your blog run more smoothly? 1- Invest in really good systems. We live and die by our CRM and editorial calendar. As our team is completely virtual, everything we do needs to be accessed quickly, but also needs to be documented well. Our advertising process used to be all done on a spreadsheet, which was fine, but with 300 advertisers and numerous prospects, our CRM means we all know what is going on with a client at any given time. 2 - Hire people! I have so many friends who refuse to hire help because they admit they don’t want to let go of control. 23
3 - Having our developer work consistently on our blog. Because our blog is so customised behind the scenes, there is constant tweaking going on to make it run more smoothly and to make the experience better for our advertisers and readers. Can you tell us about the 3 habits you ditched from blogging to make yourself more efficient?
How do you keep coming up with fresh ideas after so long? I have no idea! I get very overwhelmed very easily so I have always worked a week ahead on blog posts, and we schedule about four months ahead for real wedding features so it gives some head space to think ahead.
Leaving the house is an obvious one, but a huge one. I can forget this too easily! Getting 1 - Working 24/7. Seriously, there are no awards a fresh perspective and exposing my brain to for working your guts out. No one cares. What as many new experiences as possible always does care is your body, and your family, and invigorates me and opens up new ideas. your friendships. Quitting the working hard all the time mantra and actually going for a walk, Then it also comes down to our community. or taking up knitting, or taking an hour to have Our brides and grooms continually feed me breakfast with a friend does more for my sanity ideas with their comments, emails and and my business than an extra hour of work interaction. Our advertisers and the vendors does. we work with create amazing work, you can’t 2 - Trying to deal more effectively with help but be inspired by! negativity. Not everyone is going to be happy with you all of the time – and I used to spend a Do you have any advice for bloggers who might be experiencing blogger burnout? lot of time feeling it, and mulling it over when an advertiser or reader wasn’t happy. I now One of my biggest pet peeves is the discussion have processes in place to deal with this. 3 - I get dressed up everyday. I used to blog in my tracksuit and ugg boots with a ratty old ‘Find others who sweater, but I realised my mindset was always understand blogging different when I wore something I would be and your business.’ happy to leave the house in. It’s a nice way to switch on to work mode for me too. 24
that takes place in the online business world that working for yourself is supposed to be stress free. There is so much “Find what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”. Well find what you love and you’ll work every day in your life. There are many, many stresses in working for yourself, and you have to learn to put processes in place to deal with these and stick to them – no matter how hard it gets. Find others who understand blogging and your business that you can talk to about your blogger burnout. People who will help you find solutions and ways to implement them, and not tell you to quit. The biggest advice on avoiding burnout? Find something you are truly passionate about, can’t stop thinking about, can’t stop talking about, annoy your family and friends with every day and adore. It is that passion that is the only thing that will help you get out of bed and keep pushing on the days when you’d just rather quit. It’s the true passion that keeps you going when advertisers are upset, or you’ve made a big mistake, or you can’t pay your bills.
QUICKIES My favourite breakfast food is... Avocado and goats cheese smash with a gigantic latte. Though Mr. Polka makes some pretty awesome baked eggs. I’m loving watching... Youtube! I haven’t turned my TV on for normal TV in maybe two years? I particularly love the editing style of The Michalaks. You couldn’t pay me enough money to... compromise my values. My perfect evening includes... Wine and cheese and very good conversation. If I won the lottery the first thing I would buy is... more time (i.e. more team members), a long holiday and a yellow VW Beetle! 25
ready to be a full-time blogger? LEARN MY TRIED & TESTED FORMULA FOR HOW TO TURN YOUR BLOG INTO A PROFITABLE BUSINESS (THAT YOU LOVE) FAST!
CLICK HERE TO JOIN NOW FOR FREE!
designisyay.com
5 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT…
DESIGN IS YAY!
Each issue of SBB magazine we’re going to profile a blogger we love, who does good stuff. on the internets. This issue we’re looking at Wita Puspita from Design Is Yay . Here’s why we think she’s ace…
1
2
SHE LOVES A DAD JOKE
As referenced by these hilarious Valentine’s Day cheese pun printables she created (Printable Cheese Wrappers with Cheesey Puns). We love cheese and we love plays on words so we’ve got Valentine’s Day sorted with these little gems.
SHE UPDATES HER FACEBOOK HEADER EVERY MONTH We lost our chops when we saw this - it’s such a genius idea! Each month, Design Is Yay redesigns her Facebook header to match the theme of the month. In October 2015, there was a Halloween themed header and January 2016 had a gorgeous New Year collage. Pro tip: Try this yourself! Update your Facebook header each month with a themed picture to keep things fresh. 27
3
HER INSTAGRAM IS A WORK OF ART You know those annoying people who are total geniuses at Instagram and manage to make all the photos look gorgeous together, yet still varied and organic looking? Wita absolutely nails it. Her Instagram is totally worth a visit - @designisyay
4
SHE FEATURES ALL HER BEST STUFF IN HER SIDEBAR It’s an old trick but a good one. We hate going to sites we’ve never been to before and not have any idea where to start. Wita has all her best stuff all laid out where new readers can find it without having to go trawling through her entire archive. Popular content is usually the best content and we love being able to find it fast.
5
SHE HAS A SHOP www.etsy.com/shop/witapuspita Lot’s of bloggers sell things on their websites but they’ll often only have the items available in specific blog posts. Wita has all of her stuff in one convenient place right at the top of her screen. She doesn’t put any barriers in between herself and her readers money. Clever clogs. 28
Sometimes the smallest step in the r ight direction ends up being the biggest step of you r life! secretbloggersbusiness.com 29
Long live banner ads
Are you kind of keen to optimise your ads on your blog but you also kind of hate it and wish someone else would do it? Yes? Meet Andy from AdThrive - a hardcore number and stats junkie who turned a passion for optimising his wife’s blog ads into a crazy awesome business doing just that for bloggers around the globe‌
Can you tell us a bit about why and how you started AdThrive?
I saw what a difference we could make in the lives of bloggers and never turned back.
Of course! I was a math teacher for eight years and my wife was a stay-at-homemom and a blogger. She knew she could be making more money from her ads, but struggled to figure out how to optimise them. She felt like she was just guessing at how to set them up and didn't enjoy the work of trying to figure it out, so she asked me to help. I geeked out over the numbers and dove head-first into the research. Within 2 weeks, I'd doubled her income. Then 2 weeks later, I'd doubled it again! My wife told her blogger friends what had happened, and they started reaching out and asking me to do their ads too.
ANDY
30
When their ads were better optimised, they were able to earn a real living on their passions, quit their jobs and do what they loved. AdThrive started as a way to help more people live their dreams and be paid what they deserve for the awesome service they bring to their readers. Still nothing gets us more excited than seeing people making incredible incomes from their passion. Can you explain for the technophobes out there what AdThrive is and what services you offer?
Do you have any advice for new bloggers about when and how they should start adding ads to their site? (aka minimum visitors / pageviews before they should start etc) I believe you should start right away. It's easy to set up an account with Google Adsense and get three ads going on your site. That way your site has always been set up with ads and it's never a surprise to your readers.
For those already using banners, what is your advice for optimising and increasing the We take care of everything ad-related so our amount of money they’re earning from their bloggers can focus on creating their content and current ads system? driving traffic. We handle everything from front to back. We create relationships with the best Well, the best way to optimise would be to work advertisers and negotiate the best rates, then set with AdThrive - ha! As a group, we're able to up the advertisers to compete with each other negotiate for better rates than an individual for each ad impression to drive up earnings. We blogger can get on his or her own. Other than even install the ads on the site. We then monitor that, publishers should be thinking everything on an ongoing basis, constantly about viewability in our current ad climate. improving performance and optimizing for the Advertisers want ads that are viewable. That highest possible revenue. means those old mobile responsive themes that It's a total win-win for our bloggers: they make push the sidebar (and ads) below the content aren't working like they used to. For the best more money and do less work. performance from ads, think about where readers view your content and put your ads Do you think it’s still possible for bloggers to there. make a decent living from banner ads? Another common mistake is thinking of your Absolutely - I see it every single day. Banner desktop site primarily as your site. That's not ads are becoming an even more profitable true anymore. For most publishers, they'll get revenue option now, after a bit of a slump over significantly more mobile traffic than desktop. the last two years, but it takes using the right Your mobile site shouldn't be an afterthought technology and having the right ad setup to get anymore. Your mobile site is your site. there. Many of our bloggers are now making more money than they did a few years ago; our 31
Is there any formula or guidelines for how much bloggers can/should earn depending on niche and traffic? Your income per page view can vary widely and depends on many factors, like: ▸ Value of your readers. When you have a well-optimised ad setup, advertisers bid for your ads based on each individual reader that comes to your site. They'll bid more for a "high-value" reader and will bid less for a "low-value" reader. ▸ Percentage of readers coming to your site from desktop computers versus mobile phones. (Desktop ads pay more than mobile.) ▸ Geographical location of your readers. (U.S. readers are the most valuable.) ▸ Location, number and viewability of your ads. (Ads that are viewed by readers pay more than ads that are rarely ever viewed, like ads in the footer of your site.) There are so many variables between sites and traffic, it's almost impossible to compare apples to apples when looking at two different sites, so there's really not any set equation or formula.
Do you think there is a magic number for amount of banners on a blog that keeps the advertiser happy, makes the blogger money and doesn’t annoy their readers / slow down the blog? We believe it's really different from one blog to the next. Some blog layouts can handle more ads without feeling heavy. Generally our bloggers stick to somewhere in the 5-10 ad per page range, depending on each blogger's goals for their income. Some people prefer to keep a very light ad setup and are okay making a little less money; others want to make the most money they can. Our goal is to support our bloggers in whatever meets their specific blogging goals. Any last tips for how bloggers can make their blogs as ad-friendly as possible? I know it's been said a million times, but content is king. The better your content, the higher value of reader you'll draw to your site. A higher value reader will earn you more money and increase your income per pageview. Want to know more? Check out Andy’s handywork at www.adthrive.com
OPTIMISE YOUR ADS
STEP ONE START NOW You can’t optimise ads unless you have them to begin with. Join Google AdSense ASAP and pop a few ads in your sidebar to gauge how your audience responds and what kind of numbers you’re getting. Take notes and see what happens for a few weeks.
STEP TWO THINK ABOUT VIEWABILITY Brands want eyeballs on their ads so they’re not going to be throwing wads of cash at you for an ad in your footer. Have a think about where your readers are looking and put your ads there.
33
STEP THREE TAKE MOBILE OPTIMISATION SERIOUSLY The majority of traffic to most website these days comes from mobile, not desktop so there’s no point ignoring mobile optimisation when that’s where you’ll make the most money. Get your blog blog mobile optimised ASAP. And if it’s not built into your theme, have a look at a plugin that lets you insert your banners within your blog posts for mobile too!
STEP FOUR GET YOUR READERS USED TO ADS So many bloggers are scared to put ads on their blogs for fear of annoying their readers but honestly, they might be annoyed for like a week but they’ll get used to it. Start small and make gradual changes so it’s not too jarring for them. It’s better to have banner ads on your site from the start, even if they don’t make you any money, than to add them in later on and have to deal with any backlash!
STEP FIVE CONTENT IS KING There’s no point in optimising ads on rubbish content. Advertisers know the difference between high quality and low quality traffic and not surprisingly it’s the high quality traffic they’re after. Make sure you’re always prioritising good content over everything else.
READY TO TURN YOUR LIFESTYLE BLOG INTO YOUR LIFESTYLE BUSINESS? Over 8-years ago I started my first blog, Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily from scratch. I was exactly where you are right now. 12-months later I was able to quit my job and blog full time. Today I have two 6-figure blogs, 4 staff, and I have earned over $1million from blogging.
Want to know exactly how I did it? Exactly step-by-step how I created two multi-6-figure blogs? LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE
bloggersMBA
(DIY)
LEARN HOW TO TURN YOUR BLOG INTO YOUR BUSINESS
I’ve turned my biggest blogging and business lessons into the online 6-week Bloggers MBA eCourse, that I know will help any blogger, old or new, to go pro with their blog, and start turn their hobby into their career.
VISIT secretbloggersbusiness.com TO JOIN NOW!