Sometimes we do have constraints that bump right up against our lack of skills.

Common for many in this business is lack of technical skills. And this is often coupled with the habit of comparing yourself to others where you see other good looking blogs and you try like hell to make your own look that good despite not having the skillset to do it.

You have two options here:

1. Do it by yourself.
2. Hire somebody to do it.

Now, going the “do it yourself” route is a viable option for some, but I see some people basically grinding their entire progress to a halt over it.

In the “real world”, you hire people all the time. You probably hire somebody to fix your car, or to do major repair work around the house. You hire them because they’re the expert and you want the result quickly.

So, WHY is it that we lose this perspective when it comes to the Internet?

In our last issue, we met Bob. Bob set out to start up his own online business, but ended up drowning in information and left himself overwhelmed and confused on what to do next.

And when we left Bob last time, I talked about how Bob needed structure and order… and he needed to implement “just in time learning”. He needed self-imposed tunnel vision in order to weed out any incoming information that took him off his goal or simply was talking about something which isn’t yet relevant to Bob.

Let me give you a classic example…

Let’s say our friend Bob here has a niche in mind. He’s even started his site up for it. He’s written a few blog posts, perhaps. But, his email list is still practically non-existent and he has yet to make his first buck online. So, Bob is still in the early phases here.

But, Bob is subscribed to some “guru” who is pretty big into podcasting. Bob listens to that podcast. Loves it, in fact. The host of that podcast even publishes income reports and Bob finds it motivational. So, the “guru” launches a course all about podcasting. And it sounds freakin’ awesome to Bob.

But, let’s back up here. And let’s talk a little sense into Bob, shall we?

A quiz is a unique type of lead magnet to grow your list.

Typically, creating an online quiz has been a real technical challenge. But, one of the more recent tools offered from Thrive Themes is the Thrive Quiz Builder.

With Quiz Builder, you can create different kinds of quizzes. And here’s the best part…

You can use them to create segmented email lists, offer them different lead magnets depending on their answers, and more.

One of the biggest challenges can simply be coming up with an idea for a quiz.

From a marketing perspective, the aim is to have a quiz which gets them to look at the problem that you solve with your business. It can help raise them on the customer awareness scale from being unaware to problem aware. Quizzes which give them a score on something they can improve can work well for this.

The fact that you can build a simple assessment or quiz using a drag-and-drop interface like this is just amazing to me. Thrive Quiz Builder really is an amazing tool for that.

As we near the end of our series on email marketing and building our email lists here at Coffee Break Blogging, I want to talk about a more advanced topic...

A marketing automation tool like Infusionsoft, Ontraport or ActiveCampaign.... when combined with your blog... makes a very powerful combination.

• How to make your tool and your blog "talk"
• How to make your blog proactively reach out to prospects
• How you can use lead scoring in combination with your blog
• How to rescue lost sales using your automation tool

We've talked a lot about using a traditional lead magnet to build your list. But, there is another way. And it could even be more effective.

And that's webinars. Webinars aren't just a way to make a sales presentation... they also work very well to build your list.

• The psychological reason why webinars (or live events) work so well to create a bond between you and your subscriber.
• GotoWebinar versus Google Hangouts
• How to get people to register for a webinar AND join your list at the same time
• The "no prep" webinar that you can do immediately without any prep work.

I encourage you to give a webinar a try. And record everything. You're gaining massive leverage by doing so! ;-)

Kevin Kelly said that it takes just 1000 true fans to totally make a living. 1000 true fans - who will all be on your email list - and you can make a living doing it. But, it also works as you build it up.

In this episode, we talk about how you can actually make money while you build your list. We talk about the very beginning of the blog profit funnel and how to structure it so that every new subscriber has the potential to turn into a customer.

We also talk about some basic metrics which will allow you to actually PAY to get people onto your list... and still make money as you do it.

This is the name of the game. :-)

We are now in Episode #82 of Coffee Break Blogging and once again, we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online.

Today we are going to talk about how you can actually build your list and make money while you do it. And also, you could do it dependably because the other thing is that a lot of bloggers they try to build their list; they have got the opt-in on their sidebars, stuff like that, but just they do not have many people actually joining.

There's lots of talk about how to get people onto your email list. But, then what? What do you SEND them? How do you find good material to send to your email subscribers? That is what we are going to be talking about in this episode; Episode 81 of Coffee Break Blogging.

There's no greater tragedy in this business than an email list which isn't being used. So in this episode, I will show you how not to make that mistake and also, we will talk about where to draw material from, to send to your email subscribers - both using your autoresponder and your broadcast emails.

• The important mindset to bear in mind here, especially if you've been blogging for awhile.
• The simple tactic to use right after they subscribe.
• How to cross-promote different lead magnets
• The biggest mistake people make when sending a new lead magnet to their EXISTING subscribers
• How to identify "money posts" to send to your list

See, there's a lot of talk out there, including by yours truly, on how to get people to opt-in to your list. And that is certainly an important topic. I mean, really, your email list is the life boat of your entire business. So it is important to get people onto our list. And a lot of the last many episodes here on Coffee Break Blogging have talked about that in one way, shape or form. The question is, then what?

Well, hello there! Welcome to Episode 80 of Coffee Break Blogging.

Today we are going to be discussing a little bit more about the whole idea of our email list. We are in Stage 3 of the overall 7-phase system to building up our online business. And what we are going to be talking about today is the one blog - one list strategy that most bloggers are using.

Most bloggers who are building an email list have one list for their one blog. And this is certainly better than nothing... but it could be a LOT more effective.

Today, we discuss the use of multiple lists for one blog and why it is so much more powerful.

• Why list segmentation is so important
• The most effective (and simplest) way to begin segmenting your list
• How you should structure multiple lists for your blog
• How to get people onto your "general list"

This episode is important for your success with email marketing, moving forward.

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 79 of Coffee Break Blogging!

Hollywood makes lots of multi-million dollar productions for us to enjoy - and we spend billions every year to be entertained by them. They must know a thing or two, right? Yes, they do.

So in this episode of our series, we're going to apply the lessons of Hollywood to our emails. We are going to be looking at writing emails and how to write better emails for your list.

• How we can use an email as an "episode"
• How you can build in "open loops"
• The usual storyline maps (like the hero's journey) and how you can use it in your marketing campaigns
• What comic books have in common with writing email campaigns

Hello there! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to talk about your email list some more. We are on Stage 3 of the overall cycle of building our online business; that we are talking about in Coffee Break Blogging and Stage 3 is all about building and using our email list effectively.

Your autoresponder sequence is what allows you to put a large part of your business on automatic. At the very least, it saves you a lot of work. But, what do you put in your autoresponder?

So in this episode, we discuss 7 different strategies you can include in your automatic email followups. These strategies will allow you to provide lots of value to your subscribers, make sales on auto, AND get an ongoing flow of feedback from your subscribers which you can use to make better content for them.

When we started Stage 3; this is going back to Episode 70 or so, we talked the one about how to get people on to your list, we talked about lead magnets, we talked about putting together opt-in forms; things like that. In the last episode we talked about the perfect opt-in confirmation page. That is going to be the first page that they see right after they opt-in.

Today, we are going to talk all about what do you send them after they have subscribed. Obviously, putting people on to your list is useless unless you send them things.  That part should be pretty obvious. Now the good thing about an autoresponder is that you can put a lot of this on automatic. Obviously you can email people, email your list on a one-off fashion. So you type something, you hit send and it is real time. And there is definitely a place for that. You will be doing that with your list. However, you also want to be using your autoresponder; your follow up sequence capability so you do not have to do everything manually. Because I have seen people make a mistake of doing this list and then they are like, "I don't know what to send them" and then they just don't send anything and that is such a waste of an asset when you do that.

So let us jump right in to what to do with this autoresponder sequence. And we are going to talk about 7 specific things to do.

Hello! Welcome to a new episode of Coffee Break Blogging!

Today we are going to talk about the perfect opt-in Confirmation Page. So this is that page that they are going to see as soon as they opt-in to your email list; as soon as they opt-in for one of your lead magnets. The question is going to be, what do they see?

Your opt-in confirmation page is the very first page your subscriber will see after joining your email list. So, it is a highly important page and you want to optimize it for maximum results.

In this episode, I share 7 important tips and tactics for how to maximize the marketing impact of the confirmation page.

• Why you might want to put an offer on this page (and how to price it)
• 3 tools for giving an immediate survey to your new subscribers
• How to get your new subscriber to SHARE your squeeze page on social media and get more vital impact
• A quick tip to get more people to actually confirm their email address
• How to give them a "hook" to also follow you on Twitter or Facebook.

The landing page software space has gotten extremely competitive in the last couple years - and it is now a much more complicated affair to choose which solution to use to make squeeze pages.

LeadPages has been the market leader. But, is it any good? What are its real strengths and weaknesses?

In this episode, I talk some "real talk" about what's good - and bad - about LeadPages. And he compares it to other solutions like OptimizePress, ClickFunnels and Ten Minute Funnels. If you're in the market, this is an important episode to listen to.

So once again, David here... :-) Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging.

It is really easy to go nuts trying to figure out how to include nice looking opt-in forms into your blog. And, shopping for plug-ins is frustrating because it is hard to tell the difference between some of the available options.

In this installment, we cover the top tools for creating opt-in forms for your blog. Discussed in this episode is:

• Thrive Leads
• Opt-in Monster
• Opt-in Skin
• SumoMe

For each, I give my review of the plug-in... and then share which I would go with today if I were starting over.

So with that being said, I welcome you to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! Let's get going!

Mobile traffic is a really big deal these days. So many people are browsing our sites on mobile devices so it is VERY important that your site is mobile responsive to work on smaller screens.

When I look at my own stats as of this writing, about 38% of my traffic over the last 30 days was on a mobile device. And, almost all of that was on a phone of some kind – not a tablet. We’re talking small screens.

So, the question is… do your opt-in forms adjust properly and work well on such small screens?

• A sidebar opt-in will usually be pushed way to the bottom of the screen on a mobile device, since sidebars usually just get kicked to the bottom. Your opt-in rate will be garbage.
• If you use an exit pop or some other popup, the trigger settings might not work right on mobile. Plus, there’s little that’s more annoying than having an opt-in completely takeover my iPhone screen when I’m on a site. It is interruption marketing at it’s finest.

So, you may want to change up your opt-in strategy for mobile devices. Display different forms that are more likely to work correctly on small screens.

Hello! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging!

In this episode, we go back to basics on this extremely important part of your email marketing and list building strategy. We can't rely on our blog sidebars to do all the heavy-lifting, so it is important that we make use of squeeze pages. Plus, the typical squeeze pages converts typically 10X to 20X better than the typical blog when it comes to building your list. If that isn't a good reason to do it, I don't know what is!

And in this one, we talk about:

• What a squeeze page actually is
• How you use it alongside your blog
• Why you squeeze page should NOT look like your blog
• The 4 elements of a squeeze page
• Why the simplest squeeze pages usually convert better

Now, for those of you who already know what these stuff are; I just want you to bear with me. I mean, understand that the Coffee Break Blogging podcast is essentially a course that goes from beginning to end in creating an online business and there are people of all experience levels that are listening. And I know that not everybody is fully familiar with what a squeeze page is or the different elements that go on it and there might be some questions related to squeeze pages so we are going to go ahead and just talk about this topic in this episode so that we do not leave anybody out.

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 73 of Coffee Break Blogging. In this episode, we talk about several different tools to make this happen. One of them you've likely never heard of, but looks very promising. :-)

In the last installment, we talked about how your blog content itself will be the area where you can get the highest opt-ins to your list - IF you use the content upgrade strategy.

But, how do you insert opt-in forms into a WordPress post or page without the editor screwing it up?

WordPress is designed to be a blogging platform, not a marketing platform. This means that the post editor will tend to strip out things that you may want to put in there, including opt-in form HTML code.

Today we are going to jump right in to how to easily insert opt-in forms inside of your actual blog post.

Now that we've talked about how to create the perfect lead magnet in episodes 70 and 71, it is time to talk about your general opt-in strategy on your blog. What are the most effective ways to build your email list from your blog?

In this episode, we cover 7 different strategies for building your list effectively. These strategies are specifically chosen to increase your conversion rate on your blog and put more people onto your list.

• What are the best converting locations on your blog for opt-in forms?
• How do you integrate squeeze pages into your blog?
• Should you ask for their first name?
• When is it OK to turn OFF double opt-in?
• How does a two-step opt-in increase conversion rates?
• What's the most effective opt-in strategy for a blogger - bar none?

All that, in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging.  :-)

This is part 2 of how to create a perfect lead magnet. In this part, we take the 7-point checklist from episode #70 and apply it to the "real world".

What are some bad lead magnet ideas? And what are some good ones to aim for? What's wrong with the "big honker eBook"? What is the problem with offering a 7-day free course as a lead magnet?

Also, we talk about why you should have MULTIPLE lead magnets rather than just one. This is an important episode, because the lead magnet sits right at the top of the blog profit funnel.

So with that,  welcome to Episode 71 of our Coffee Break Blogging series. :-)

Today we are going to do Part 2 of what we started in the last episode where we were talking about how to create our perfect lead magnet. So we are going to wrap that up today with this episode.

What is a lead magnet? Well, it is just something to give away to get people onto your email list. Right?

Well, there's more to it. In this part 1 of 2, we're going to dive in to how to create the PERFECT lead magnet. And in this episode, I share the TWO main purposes of a lead magnet (most people forget the second one). And I'm going to share a 7-point checklist of criteria for the perfect lead magnet. And the good news is that it will save you a lot of time, because the perfect lead magnet is actually a lot LESS work.

So, welcome to Episode 70 of Coffee Break Blogging!

In this episode, we delve into WHERE to host your email list. You'll learn the 3 biggest mistakes people make when hosting their email list. You'll also learn the 2 types of email hosts (and which type you should use). I then get specific and name names when it comes to the different hosts and which I believe you should use. This is a pretty core component of the blog monetization model, so we need to get it right. :-)

So, once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging and this is Episode 69. And today we are going to be talking about our Email List and getting the hosting right with our email list. This is a really important topic; something that we do need to talk about and something that is a lot easier to get "right" at the start than to change the path later.

So we are going to go and be on specific time on this, but first, I want to again remind everybody and ask everybody to kindly go over into iTunes and post a quick review and let me know how I am doing. If you find this episode that we are about to do, useful, at the end of it; I will highly encourage you to "pay me back" by simply going in iTunes and letting me know what your thoughts are by posting a review or a star rating.

Those things are really important to us, podcasters. It is the way for many of us to actually listen back from our audiences because from our point of view, why we are doing these things, this can be a one-way medium for a lot of us where a lot of you; and I can tell from the stats... several hundreds of you guys every single day listening to this podcast but yet most often I do not hear from you and I really want to hear from you guys. So the best way you can do that is to run over into iTunes, just search for the word "blogging" in the iTunes Store; you will see Coffee Break Blogging pop right up there in the first few results of the podcast. Click on that and post a review for me and I would highly appreciate it. I do check those things and it would just be awesome! Okay?

So let's check right-in into today's show and we are going to be talking about our email list...

Hello! Welcome to Episode 68 of Coffee Break Blogging!

This installment of CBB marks the end of Stage 2 of 7 of our full progression of building up a profitable blog-based business from scratch. Before we delve into Stage 3, let's review the overall bird's eye view of what we're doing here and what we've covered so far. This is our "pit stop" episode before we delve into email list building starting in the next episode.

So today, what we are going to be doing in this episode is we are going to take a little pit stop and we are going to kind of review where we are in the podcast; kind of take a little bird's eye view where we stand, where we are heading, kind of how the show is going... that kind of a thing.

Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging, once again! :-)

The term "pillar post" is often used to refer to that initial batch of blog posts that you create to kick off a brand new blog. But, exactly HOW do you go about creating these pillar posts? In this episode, we discuss how to do data-driven pillar posts... meaning how to create highly strategic pillar posts based on real data that will not only help you kick start your traffic, your niche standing, but also help bring you traffic into the future.

Hey there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging!

If you have an archive of blog content developed over the months or years past, then this is an extremely important episode for you. We'll talk about doing a content audit - an exercise you should do periodically to gain maximum leverage from your existing blog archives. In this installment, we talk about the exact methodology to determine which posts to optimize, and the 3 key things to optimize for each post.

So today, I am going to give you a tactic. This is going to be a very tactical episode. And this is something that you are going to need to follow through after you listen to this episode, especially if you have been blogging for a little bit of time. This is going to be something that you definitely want to put on to your list of projects to do with your own blog and it's called a...

Hey there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging!

And today we are going to talk about another strategy that I think that you should probably implement into your blog sooner rather than later, if you have not already done it. We are going to be talking about a Getting Started Page; having a "start here" option on your site...

We've seen many blogs offer a "getting started" page, and this is something I have talked about before as well. But, what is the REAL reason why this page is so important? In this episode, we deep-dive into the real reason why you need to give your readers a clear starting point. We also cover the two core functions of the "getting started" page to ensure your's is doing the right thing.

Today, let’s talk about placement of your opt-in forms. We’ve already talked about running split tests on your opt-in forms. But, one of the things you definitely should be testing is placement of your opt-in forms.

Most blogs have a primary lead magnet placed right in their sidebar. However, the sidebar is usually one of the worst performing locations for your opt-in.​ Typical conversion rates for this location are like 1%-2%. And frankly, that sucks. Most bloggers put that thing in the sidebar simply because they see everybody else doing it. So, it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind.

Definitely experiment with opt-in form placement. Don’t just fall back on your sidebar because that’s what everybody else does. To grow your list effectively, you can’t just do the bare minimum.

Your action item for today is…

Set up a different form of opt-in placement than you are running right now and test it out.

In many cases, it makes sense to take the "blog" out of blogging. When is it time to stop calling it a "blog" and start calling it a "learning center" or something similar? In this episode 64 of Coffee Break Blogging, we take a look at the "payload" that the word blogging has and how to work around it - and WHEN you should.

Now for me, it feels like I'm getting back into the chair. :-) I know I'm releasing these things every couple of weeks but I actually, internally; I'm doing these things in batches. So I actually sit down and record either a couple of weeks of these things in advance. Sometimes I shoot all the way and go for the entire month in advance. So for me, the last time I sat down to record an episode of this show was about 2 weeks ago. And today, I'm sitting down to record a few more. So if you are watching the video component of this on YouTube you will all notice that my shirt will be the same for the next few episodes and that is exactly why. :D

But today, I want to talk to you about this idea of Blogs versus the idea of a Learning Center.

Continuing on the theme of the last episode, this one contains several actionable tactics about high leverage content creation... How to work less and produce more when it comes to making content for your blog and social media channels.

Hello! We are now on Episode #63 of Coffee Break Blogging and today we are going to continue talking about High Leverage Content Creation and how to make more content by putting in less effort to do it. This is highly important for those of us who were a little lacking for time; whether it is because we've got our families, whether we've got a day job, whatever it might be; we need to be able to create good content and do it without giving our entire lives to it. So that is what we are going to be talking about here.

No doubt, writing blog posts can be tedious and time consuming. And it can be a big problem for blog owners who hold a day job or have a business to run. In this installment of our series, we talk about how to leverage your time to make creating content less time consuming and more productive... So once again, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

The world of SEO has changed, and instead of just worrying about keywords and backlinks, we now need to think about user engagement. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we'll talk about what is going on with Google, and how this has everything to do with getting your readers to SCROLL and reach the end of your blog post.

Now today we are going to continue on the theme of our Blog Content and we started it in the last episode. And today, we'll talk about how to actually get your reader to go down to the end of your blog post. That's a very important thing and it is actually more important now than it used to be.

The headline is the most important part of every blog post. In this episode, we discuss a counter-intuitive, but highly effective exercise you should go through on EVERY blog post in order to model and create highly effective blog post headlines.

And so with that, I welcome you back to Coffee Break Blogging, Episode 60. ;-)

Today we are going to dive right into the content of our blog post and talk a little bit about that. Obviously, with a podcast about blogging, content is a pretty big part of what we are doing here. And so that is what we are going to be talking about here...

It is all too easy to develop tunnel vision on your own blog. After all, you made all the decisions about it and you spend more time looking at it than anybody else. But, it is VERY easy to assume that your blog is going to strike others the same way it does you... and it isn't always true. User testing is how you get out of that tunnel vision. In this installment of our series, we'll talk about various tools to help you do user testing for your own blog and to see what you're doing from an outside perspective.

And with that being said, let me welcome you back to Coffee Break Blogging!

Well hello... welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging Episode 58!

The most effective opt-in strategy I've ever used on my blog was the content upgrade strategy. It out-performs every other list building strategy out there. In this installment of our series, we'll discuss what the content upgrade strategy actually is and how to implement it into your blogging habits.

Hello there! Welcome back once again to Coffee Break Blogging. :-)

Choosing which colors to use on your blog should be more strategic than simply what looks pretty to you. Your color choices should be guided by the emotions that you want your blog and your brand to convey. So, it is useful to understand the psychology of color, and how this plays into the colors you use in your blog's theme. That's the topic we're going to be discussing today, in this 57th installment in our ongoing series.

Here's the thing, most people when they decide what colors to use on a blog, they only think about it in terms of what they personally think looks nice. That's fine. That is definitely what I have done a lot of times as well, so I am definitely not going to blame anybody for that. However, there is a little bit more of a strategic way to think about it. And that is what we are going to discuss in this episode.

Now the first thing that we are going to talk about and what we are going to through them here is the Psychology Of Color. Now, what does that actually mean? Well the thing is... and you probably know this instinctively; is that different colors sometimes will bring up different emotions or reactions to them. And it is helpful to know what those things are. They are not set in stone because every human being is different, but there tends to be an average that you will see and as I go through them, you will see as well. ;-)

Hello there! Welcome to this episode of Coffee Break Blogging. This is no. 56 and in this one we are going to talk about your blog's bounce rate and how to reduce that bounce rate.

Bounce rate is one of those numbers which always shows up in your site stats... and you can't help but wonder what you should do. Is your bounce rate bad or good? What should you do about it? In this installment of our ongoing series, we discuss the bounce rate, how to decipher the causes of the bounce rate, and then what to do to improve it. ;-)

Now, first of all, we should probably define what "bounce rate" is if you are not already familiar with it.

Your blog's design is about a hell of a lot more than just what looks pretty.

When you're setting up your blog in a strategic way to accomplish your business goals, it needs to be designed to CONVERT. To do that, you need to understand how a reader's attention lands and FLOWS across the site - and then design your blog to work with that.

In this installment, let's discuss about how all this works, and how to make your blog's design work FOR you in terms of conversions and sales.

Welcome to Episode 55 of Coffee Break Blogging and we are continuing on, on our series here. We are talking about the platform and how to set up our blog in the right way. And this all fits within the bigger picture that we are doing here on Coffee Break Blogging of building up a real information business based around our blog that is generating revenue all based around your blogging. Yes, it is certainly possible so let us go ahead and get started with this.

Today we are going to be talking about... How To Flow Attention Via Your Blog's Design.

For #ASKBMA this week, I'm answering:

- Using other people's Youtube videos in your content. Is it OK?
- Her email list isn't growing. What's she missing?
- Offering private discounts to people who ask?

Also on the agenda...

- The latest on The Daily
- An update on the Coffee Break Blogging podcast.
- What's new inside THE LAB

Quick Links:

- THE DAILY
- PODCAST
- THE LAB
- ASK BMA

That's our weekly update for 11/1/2018. See ya next week!

Blog categories are often one of the most overlooked parts of the setup of your content. People use them as little digital filing cabinets - and often they end up with way more categories than they need (or even intended). In this installment in our series of Coffee Break Blogging, we discuss a MUCH more strategic way to think about how you define your blog categories. The usual way... nobody will use them. Done THIS way... and they will. ;-)

So today, we are going to be talking about our Blog Categories and how to actually set them up in the correct way.

The blog sidebar... It is that piece of real estate that is on every blog - and every blogger has to make the decision on what should and shouldn't go in that space. Thing is, most bloggers end up cluttering it up unnecessarily. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, we'll discuss the perfect contents of a strategic blog sidebar. It can actually be boiled down to 3 components.

We're now on Episode 53 and today we are going to be talking about what should go in the sidebar of your blog.

Now, this is an important episode for many people because I actually see; when I look at a lot of people's blogs, and I obviously do; given what I do for a living, I see a lot of them that are just simply "overloaded." It is almost as if people are going in there and going to the widgets' section of WordPress and thinking, "Well, there is a widget for that, I might as well drag that thing right into the sidebar" so there will be widgets for Top Commenters, for all their social media links like literally every damn one of them, your categories, your tag clouds, your blog rolls; all that stuff just stuffed into the sidebar and it is just an ungodly site to look at.

So here is the thing... This is called the Blog Marketing Academy. That is the name of my website; that is the name of my company here. So... Blog Marketing. I am all about creating a blog that is going to serve as an effective marketing tool for you. And I am here to tell you that most of those widgets that are available to you inside of WordPress are actually a complete waste of your time and you should not be using them. Just because it is there does not mean it is a good idea.

Hello there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging Episode 52!

SEO and the topic of how to rank you blog posts in search engines has always been a pretty big topic for bloggers. Organic search rankings sometimes seems like the meal ticket to traffic. So, in this installment in our series, we'll talk about how to SEO your blog posts. I'll give you a step-by-step list of actions to take on your next blog post - and also put it all into relative importance for you.

Now, what we are doing at this stage in our ongoing series here is we are moving on to Stage 2 of the 7 Stages of creating our online business where in this one we are talking all about the various steps of getting our platform set up. And today, we are going to be talking a little bit about SEO; and specifically...

The About page on your blog is one of the important core pages of your site. Most everybody has one, yet a majority of bloggers set it up in the completely wrong way.

In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, I talk about the most important mission of the About Page. I also share the exact layout that will make your About Page truly convert and grow your business - and essentially do what it was made to do.

Welcome to Episode #51 of our podcast. :-)

The About Page is one of those pages that most people have but I find that they undervalue its importance and therefore they treat it wrong. And so, I want to talk about that because it is one of the important core pages of your site. Your site needs to have an About Page. But not only that, it needs to be treated in a particular way that it will actually maximize your opt-in opportunities which is what the About Page is really all about.

As we move along in phase 2 of our series about setting up the blog platform, we need to focus on getting the blog design set up well for conversions. So in this episode, we'll talk about the 5 most common design mistakes we see bloggers making - and these mistakes all serve to clutter up the site and hence lowers conversions.

Are you making these mistakes?

Once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! This is our 50th episode and like I said, we are going to be talking about...

Many people use the phrase "personal brand" without any real idea of what a brand actually is.

In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, let's talk about what a BRAND actually is - and the 4 essential elements you must build into your blog in order to create your brand. Once those 4 elements are in place, they should also follow over into Twitter, Facebook - and essentially everywhere you appear.

Today, we are going to talk about a very important component to creating that profitable business online and that is your "brand". Now this is something that we want to think about at the beginning. Like the domain name that we spoke about in the last session; the brand is something that you can adjust over time. But it is something that you want to think about especially when you are choosing your domain name because it goes hand in hand.

The domain name for your blog is obviously a pretty important decision that has to be made at the beginning.

In this episode, we talk about several important factors to keep in mind as you shop for a new domain name for your blog.

So... welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

Selecting a Wordpress theme can be a pretty frustrating experience because there are SO many options out there.

In this episode , I give my take on what to consider - as well as my specific recommendation for the best option which will give you a professional design now and a great foundation to build from, later. ;-)

The thing I want to first start off with is the idea that I actually just want to acknowledge the fact that WordPress themes are a huge, huge business. And for that reason, you are going to find a lot of them out there. And as a consumer of WordPress theme, just somebody who is somebody trying to pick a WordPress theme for your site; you are going to be inundated with options. You are going to be wondering which way is the best way to go.

There is just a colossal amount of choices out there. So I want to preface all of these by saying that you are not stuck with the decision, you can change to a different theme later and not only that, I recommend highly that you keep your eye on the ball, here and not get stuck in the decision of what theme to get. I want to recommend my personal recommendation here on this episode, but there are just so many options out there they are going to be very paralyzing and you need to have the discipline not to become paralyzed by the decision. Nothing that we do here is set in stone; you can change your mind later, so pick something and let's move on to more important endeavors in the development of our business here and not get stuck on the idea of what WordPress theme to get. It is not the most important decision that you have to make here.

The first decision that has to be made when setting up the ideal platform to build your business with... is web hosting.

In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we talk about how to select the best web hosting for your blog. What's the problem with free web hosting? Should you use shared, VPS, dedicated, or managed Wordpress hosting? You'll find out my specific recommendations. ;-)

Now, today we are going to move on to phase 2; Stage 2 of the 7 Stages of Building an Online Business. Now if you are wondering what I'm talking about when I say that; then back up to Episode no. 45 where we took a little bit of a pit stop and kind of reviewed where we are and where we are heading and I talked about the 7 stages there. So we are moving into Stage 2 today and we are going to be moving in to talking about the platform; building up the platform which is our blog... building it up in the right way. And we are going to be talking about various aspects of that for the next many episodes here of the show.

Now what we are going to be talking about today is How to Choose Hosting for Your Site. It is a very important topic; something you do want to get right at the beginning. It is not something where it is set in stone. You can change your mind later when it comes to hosting but it is something that you want to get right because you probably hear horror stories out there who have had problems with their web host. I've got people in the VIP Program over at the Academy who told me about their experiences about web hosts. One where the web host from all practical sides literally went out of business and the person can't get their site off because nobody will pick up the phones are answer their emails. I mean, it is a heck of a thing, I've never heard of that one before. So this is something that you want to get right.

We take a minute to pause and look at the big picture of where we are with the Coffee Break Blogging series. In this episode I share with you the big vision of the show, review the full 7 stages we will be going through, and take stock of where we are now.

Hello and welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based business online.

Now actually, what we are going to do today is we are going to take a quick pit stop in our series and we are going to review where we are at. And also; it occurred to me that I have probably not done a super-fantastic job of explaining exactly how this podcast is going to be working, so let me try and do that now.

All of us – and yes, you – have people who come to our blog who end up leaving without opting into our list. Sometimes it is because they’re not interested. Sometimes they just never saw your lead magnet. Sometimes, they’ve got such short attention spans that they could have the most awesome, relevant free download staring them in the face and they don’t see it.

But, once they back away and leave, is that it? You’ll never see them again?

Not necessarily. Bring in retargeting (sometimes called remarketing).

You know it, even if you don’t think you do. Because we’ve all experienced going to some website to check it out. Then, we just happen to see their ads all over the place. It is like they’re FOLLOWING us! You might see an ad for them in your Facebook news feed. You might even see banner ads showing up on other websites you visit.

That’s retargeting.

And it is usually much cheaper to do this kind of paid advertising than going out to new people. Usually.

In effect, you’re capturing traffic that bounces off your site and your circling back to give them another opportunity to connect with you.

Marketers often talk about this concept of the avatar, but very often people new to the business are confused by what it is, how to use it, and how to make it up.

In this episode, we discuss the reader avatar and how to actually develop it. Doing so will allow you to create much more effective content as well as products your audience will actually want down the road.

First of all, I want to welcome you into 2015!

This is my first podcast to the year. I almost thought I might not get this thing out on time today. See, I have a Wednesday and Saturday release schedule that I have imposed myself for this podcast, but I actually brought in the New Year with a cold, which kind of suck. :-(

I actually went out in my RV to finish planning out all of my business goals for 2015 and I came down with a cold while I was in there. So I spent a lot of time snouting and all that. I only bring this up because I was really hoarse, I actually didn't know if I was going to sound okay to record this episode. But as it turns out, my voice is fairly normal today. Still coughing a little bit, but I am going to go and get this thing out because once I set a goal; if Wednesdays and Saturdays is my time to get these episodes out, I want to stick to it as much as I can. So that is what we are going to do.

Today, we are going to talk about how to define your Reader Avatar.

Hello and welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging!

We wrap up the year with a different kind of episode than usual. This episode contains 101 different productivity tips to help you make the most of the upcoming year of 2015. This episode is longer than usual - but we want to make 2015 the best year we've ever had. You with me? ;-)

Now, today, we are actually NOT going to continue on our series to creating an information based business online. We are actually going to take a little bit of a break and it is only because this is the last episode of 2014!

What transformation are you in the business of delivering with your blog and online business? You better figure it out if you want to make money.

In this episode, we talk about the "transformation map"; a tool to help you define the transformation. This tool will help you map out blog content and products you will sell.

So with that... once again, , welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! And actually, yes… I am having a cup of coffee. ;-) I do that a lot. It was actually something to do with the name of this podcast.

Now in this episode, like I said earlier, we are going to talk about something called “The Transformation Map”. This is what I call it. And we are going to create this because it is really going to help you not only map out your content moving forward but it is also going to help you brainstorm product ideas. It is also really going to help you REALLY understand the person you are addressing with your content and ultimately what you want to sell them.