Success Unscrambled Podcast

Are you looking for the best blogging resources and tools to start or keep your business or blog successful?

Ever wondered what successful bloggers are using to continue being successful year after year?

Do you need to find ways to work smarter rather than harder and still get great results for your blog or business?

If you are one of my regular readers you know that I am always interested in time management and productivity.

The reason for this is that life is too short to spend all your time blogging or in business.

You see many small business owners and bloggers struggle with spending too much time on their blog.

They wonder if there is a way they can complete a task quicker, cheaper and smarter compared to their current scenario.

Truth be told, I am always on the lookout to complete all of my tasks using smarter technology or using a group or tribal approach.

In this post, I will cover over 100 blogging and small business resources that you can use to be a smarter small business owner.

Disclosure: Please note that this post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link at no additional cost to you.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.

photo by Sarah Pflug

Blogging + Small Business Resource

Before I jump into that big list, let me spend some time clarifying what I classify as a blog or small business resource.

Any piece of advice, software, technology or group that can help you with the following:

* Starting a blog or business* Finding a niche* Finding your passion* Improving your mindset* Getting you motivated* Content ideas* Content creation* Podcasting* Marketing assistance* Website traffic* Email marketing* Time management + productivity* Blog monetization

As you can see there are so many aspects to starting and maintaining a small business or a blog.

It is true that one person does not know everything so by sharing what I have learned over the last 10 years I hope it will help you too.

At the end of this post, I will be asking you to share your wisdom so that others can benefit from what you know.

Are you ready? Let's dive into these blogging resources.

Find Your Purpose

Everything that you and I do in this life has a reason behind it. You eat when you are hungry, bathe to smell clean, procreate to keep the world going.

It takes a while for many of us to develop a desire to find our true purpose in life. You will notice that empty feeling when life has no meaning.

Watch over my shoulder as I spend time showing you how I spent time mapping out my passion and purpose in the following videos:

Find Your Passion Demo

Map out your purpose

The tool I use in the second video is Xmind. It has been such a great resource for me for 12 months.

My rate of content creation (I create a lot of content) became too much for the free version so I needed to move on to something else.

Mindset

Are you looking for ways to get motivated to accomplish your goals? Have you found yourself in a rut lately?

This past week I saw a post in a bloggers group on Facebook where one blogger announced that he was shutting down all his blogs.

When I saw this I felt compelled to jump in and stop him from taking such drastic action.

It appears that his decision was financially motivated but I cannot conclude for sure since I did not have a direct conversation with him.

Have you ever felt like throwing in the towel and giving up on your blogging dreams? Maybe you questioned if it is even worth it in the end.

Many bloggers struggle with finding ways to get motivated to start a blog in the first place.

Others struggle with coming up with ideas to stay motivated so that they can continue blogging on a regular basis.

I was shocked this week to learn that having a fear of success is a real thing for many people but I will cover that in another post.

Finding and staying motivated is such a struggle for so many people that I want to share what I do to win on both fronts as well as a few secret hacks.

Disclosure: Please note that this post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link at no additional cost to you.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.

What is Motivation and Why You Need It

Well, I never thought that I would need to define the term motivation. However, I think it is necessary after seeing the phrase, "where can I buy motivation" in a Google result.

According to Wikipedia, motivation is "the reason for people's actions, willingness and goals".

So, in simple terms, it is the reason why you or I do what we do every single day of our lives.

I never really saw motivation in such a simplistic way so I was at first really surprised at the simplicity of the definition.

The reason why you need motivation is that it helps you to get stuff done like waking up at a certain time every day.

Without it, you will not set goals for you or your loved ones. In fact, it is the only reason why you will lift a finger to do anything at all.

It is not possible to go into a shop to purchase motivation but you can certainly hire a coach to help you work on your mindset.

photo by Jose Silva

What are the Levels of Motivation

There are so many factors that motivate anyone to take action or achieve a goal so let's spend some time looking at motivators.

Depending on your age, your situation, resources you will take certain actions. I have always been so self-motivated that I find it strange explaining this concept.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

In order to fully understand motivation, we need to spend time looking at Maslow's Hierarchy of needs.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow wrote a paper entitled, A Theory of Human Motivation in which he classified the universal needs of society.

The study shows how humans intrinsically partake in behavioural motivation. He coined five categories as follows:

* Physiological* Safety* Belonging and love* Self-esteem* Self-actualisation

Are you wondering how to get paid by blogging? Did you know that only 2% of bloggers earn over $150,000 a year?

Do you ever get this niggling feeling at the back of your head that you forgot to include something important on your blog?

Is there a system in place like a blog checklist to ensure that you remembered to include all the essential items?

You may have considered this before but what makes your blog stand out from the other 172,799 posts published every day?

I know that some people started a blog just as a hobby but here is another worrying statistic for you.

The average time spent writing a blog post is 3.5 hours which does not include research or strategy.

The truth is that many bloggers struggle with figuring out how to get all the moving pieces together but that is if they are aware of those pieces.

However, it does not have to be this way for you. In fact, I am going to let you in on a few secrets that successful bloggers will not tell you.

In the post, I am going to outline 11 essentials items that most bloggers forget to include in order to get paid by blogging.

Disclosure: Please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link at no additional cost to you.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.

The Purpose of a Blog

Before I dive into those 11 essential items it is super important for me to dissect the purpose of a blog.

At this point, I could go into the history of blogging where it is believed that Peter Merholz was the first to coin the term 'blog'.

However, both of us will fall asleep before too long because as you can imagine history was far from my favourite subject in school.

In layman's terms, blogs are loved by Google and other search engines because it provides fresh content on a regular basis.

Bloggers write blog posts as a way to market their content with the hope of attracting potential readers.

What happens when a reader views the content and after they read it is the main focus of this particular post.

Have you ever spent some time really analysing the journey of your potential readers?

photo by Karolina Grabowska

Get Paid by Blogging Using These

Now that we understand the real purpose of a blog let us look at the journey of your reader and what a blog should include.

At the end of these items you will no longer wonder how do bloggers get paid but you will have an idea of what needs to happen.

1. Set up Email Provider

Starting a blog can be such an exciting experience for anyone. The vast majority of bloggers spend their time worrying about blog traffic.

However, having 10,000 page views every month may look great on the analytics reports but it may have no effect on your bank balance.

Also, there is very little impact on your knowledge of this amazing audience if you are not finding ways to communicate with them.

Setting up an email provider is an important part of blogging because for

Have you ever wondered about the things rich people do that is very different from anyone else?

Would it be great to steal their secrets and quickly put them into action so that you can gain the time and freedom you always wanted?

It is possible to think that people are lucky because they are born into wealth so they have less to worry about.

Maybe you have a close relative or friend who is a millionaire or considered to be rich by your standards.

However, you are silently wishing to be in their shoes or to be as lucky as they have become.

Did you know that 65% of professional athletes who earn millions of dollars become poor within 5 years because of their money mindset?

The truth is you have the potential to become rich by learning a few key secrets that rich people don't want you to know.

In this post, I will cover 13 of the amazing facts so that you too can start your journey to better financial and creative habits.

Why Take Advice From The Rich

Have you ever uttered the words, "I wish I was rich" or something similar or found yourself in a broke situation?

Ever wondered why some people are so wealthy compared to others in your city or town?

When was the last time you saw a rich person face to face? How did you know that they were rich?

Many of us fall into the trap of classifying people as rich or poor based on a number of assumptions.

Some of the best advice I have ever received is from a number of my mentors who also happen to be rich.

The advice I received has had such a profound impact on my life that I have changed for the better.

Let's look at some of these eye-popping things rich people do that will not only switch gears in your mind but give you light bulb moments.

1. Adding Value to the Lives of Others

I can see you rolling your eyes at this one. Of course, rich people can add value to the lives of others because they have the money.

Well, that is not exactly true at all. Rich people get rich because of the value that they add to the lives of others.

Let me give you a good example so you can see what I mean. Every year, hundreds of people place a small down payment on a house or an apartment.

They rent it out creating their first cash flow income then go on to purchase their 2nd, 3rd and 4th home thus providing homes to people.

Are they adding value to the lives of others? Yes, they are and they are also creating wealth for themselves.

I recently saw a quote somewhere that said, "Rich people make plans for three generations and poor people make plans for Saturday night".

What are your plans like for the next 12 months?

Grab The Goal Setting Planner

This planner is great for you even if…

You Suffer From Mom Guilt

Will you be celebrating your 50th birthday in the next 2-7 years? Have you decided on a 50th birthday bucket list?

If you are like me you probably imagined your 50th birthday being super special where you celebrate with many friends at an exotic location.

Never in a million years could I have imagined that age 50 would sneak up on me so quickly.

I still remember what it was like being a teenager, it was not special or amazing. I just stayed out of trouble.

What about you what can you remember from when you were younger? Is there any specific season in life that stands out more than the others?

The struggle of turning 50 is going to be real and in so many ways it could mean regret for so many people.

In this post, I want to invite you to get out a pen and paper and write down all the things that you wanted to accomplish before turning 50.

Then make a shortlist of the most important or significant ones so that you can set goals to achieve them.

I will also share with you the top 50+ things that I would like to do and you may also want to do or experience some of these yourself so let's do it.

Why Bother With a List?

Reading this you may be wondering what is the big deal and why should you or anyone else for that matter be bothering to write a 50th birthday bucket list.

Recently I remember reading a quote from Mark Cuban which goes like this:

"Today's the youngest you are ever going to be. You've got to live like it. You've got to live young every day."Mark Cuban

The truth is I never saw life like that before. I postponed so many things and say that I will do it when I have more time, more money, have a life companion, etc.

In fact, those days may never ever come. I remember speaking with my Mother when she turned 70 and she said the following words:

"I am not 70 for only one day, I will be 70 for a whole year so you have lots of time to celebrate my birthday"

In less than 3 months my Mother was dead and I was in shock. It was a very speechless experience.

I promised myself not to postpone anything anymore. If I can do it today let me do it already.

photo by Matthew Henry

Bucket List Ideas for Women

Now that we understand why a 50th birthday bucket list is important it is time to get writing these bucket list ideas for women.

Grab a pen and paper and let's make a list together. I have decided to write things into 14 different categories.

I must be an organisation freak and I don't even know it. It is so much better to do it this way for me because I want to make a wide impact.

Here are those categories:

* Travel* Business* Body* Love* Spiritual* Charity* Make* Take* Volunteer* Improve* Help* Mental* Learn* Mini-retirements

As you can see from this list I want to experience a well-rounded growth in 4-5 areas including mental, physical, emotional, financial and social.

The things on this list will not only benefit me but it will also have a positive impact on others in my spheres of influence as well as my passion projects.

Need help with setting your goals for the next 12-24 months? Grab the free goal setting planner below.

Congratulations on launching your new blog! Now that it is live are you looking for a way to get your blog noticed?

Your followed several step by step instructions on starting and launching a new blog but after 1-2 weeks it looks like no one is reading your blog.

It is possible that you shared your website with a number of friends and family members who all cheered you on during the first few days.

However, you keep checking your statistics or reports and you only had 100 visitors over the past week.

Don't worry your blog is not broken and most likely it has nothing to do with what you wrote. I am sure a lot of people would enjoy reading your stuff.

Many people struggle with the same challenge that you are going through right now so you will be happy to hear that it is normal.

The good news is that it is fixable and it can take as much as 6 months to get your blog noticed by Google.

In this post, I will outline a number of things that you can do to get visitors to your blog from other sources.

Why is it so Hard to Get Your Blog Noticed?

The core reason why it can be hard to get your blog noticed is you need to understand how visitors find out about you.

Let's look at an analogy. If you decided one day to open a supermarket in a town of 100,000 people and they pass by every day they know that you are there.

If you decided instead to open a store that sold clothing for Eskimos. In this case, the store was in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona you may get a few sales but not as much as a supermarket.

The reason the store gets a few sales is that people can see your physical store so they know that your store is there. However, the market may not be right for the location.

A blog is different because it does not have a physical presence so when you set up a blog you need to let people know it is there so they can find you.

photo by Nicole de Khors

How To Get People To Find Your Blog

The first step in this process is understanding who your potential readers are for your blog.

I mentioned this before in a previous post but here is a brief summary of it again. Do you know where your reader spends most of their time online?

Here are a few places for you to consider as to where to find your reader;

* Facebook* Twitter* Instagram* Pinterest* Linkedin* Reddit

Also, what problem are you trying to help them solve? Where do they normally go to find a solution to their problem?

For example, if the solution that you are offering is teaching people to become experts at budgeting then where do they normally go online to find this solution.

I can think of two places and those are searching in Google as well as on Pinterest. You may find a few as well on Reddit.

The best way to get people to find you is to find the places where they hang out online and place your information right in front of them.

Create Stunning Blog Posts Workbook

Gain a Captive Audience

Are you finding it difficult to blog consistently every day or every week? Are you lacking the motivation to write blog posts regularly?

Maybe you are working full-time and you recently decided to start a blog on the side and after 3-6 months you are starting to question your efforts.

It is very possible that you are just not seeing the results for all the effort that you have put into the blog so far.

If you are getting less than 100 visitors a day then it can add to that feeling of defeat as it turns out to be not as easy as you expected.

For parents or even moms of young children, this can be even worse as the time you have available is quite short.

You are probably thinking that there must be a shortcut to get the results faster if only you can find it.

The truth is that there genuinely is a more defined path to achieving your goals which can lead to faster results but it really depends on your foundation.

In this post, I am going to outline a number of key secrets that will help you keep up with your blog and develop a great blogging routine.

Also, it will help you to blog regularly and confirm a blogging schedule that is more fluid to propel you to your blogging goals and life dreams.

Why You Should Blog Consistently?

Well, you may have heard this before but one of the keys to blogging success is consistency.

One reason for this is that blogging is a journey of growth for both you and your reader.

The average successful blog publishes between 4 and 16 posts a month so all the content needed for your blog is not created in a day.

Content for your blog is developed over time based on your reader's feedback because blogging involves two-way communication.

People learn in small digestible chunks so it is a bit misleading to get your blog to blow up and become successful after just 10-20 blog posts.

In reality, this only happens if you already have celebrity or authority status. However, if no one knows you then it is all about growing a new relationship.

photo by Sarah Pflug

Understanding the Reader

Before we look at routines, schedules and goals to help you blog consistently there is a very simple key to your success.

That key is understanding the reader. If you spend time understanding who is your ideal reader or avatar you will know what they want.

It is possible that you have already developed an avatar or ideal client profile but let's back up a minute.

Do you really know them well enough? Here is a list in no particular order of items you should know about your avatar.

* Age* Gender* Where do they live? (country, city)* Do they live in a house or an apartment?* Their neighbourhood, what does it look like?* What are their daily, weekly, monthly or annual challenges?* Outline their biggest needs?* The kind of problems they are trying to solve personally, financially* Their deepest desires and dreams for them and their family, what are they?* In terms of their biggest fears, what are they? (not spiders, emotional ones)* Do you get their short-term and long-term goals?* Any idea of their good and bad habits?* What gets them excited?* The stuff that annoys them, what are they?* Their passion projects, what are they?* Where do they spend the most time online?* List the kind of items they spend their money on when they get paid?* What type of podcasts do they listen to?* Which software and/or apps do they use?

Have you created your blog business plan yet? Do you need help creating a blog business plan example?

You may have started a blog just as a hobby so it never occurred to you to write a business plan for a blog or new business.

Maybe you don't have a blog just yet and you want to treat your blog as a business so you want to know how to make a business plan for a blog.

Whatever your situation, the moment you want to start treating your blog like a business you should consider building a business plan for a blog.

You see many bloggers struggle to build a successful blog business because they don't really have a plan for it.

It all reminds me of that famous quote by Greg Reid. "A dream written down with a date becomes a goal.

A goal written down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true."

I really believe this to be a reality so, in this post, I want to spend time going through how to write a business plan step by step.

Disclaimer: please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link at no additional cost to you.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.

What is a Blog Business Plan?

Well, very similar to a startup business plan, a business plan for bloggers is a document that contains the who, what, when, where and why when it comes to blog planning or blogging goals.

A blog cannot start itself, so there needs to be someone to get it started. That person could be you or you and a best friend or family member which addresses the 'who'.

The 'who' also looks at who is your target audience and clients to a certain extent.

The 'what' goes through what goals the blog is going to accomplish over the period agreed by the people starting it.

Looking at the 'when' you can include a number of dates like start dates as well as dates of each goal achievement.

This may be obvious but 'where' could refer to the location of the audience that you serve as well as your blog's domain name.

Finally, I see the 'why' as the most important element of the contents of the business plan. This is because it is the reason or motivation for wanting to achieve the goals.

I know that this explanation sounds very simplistic but the idea is that you want to tell people about your blog in a succinct way.

photo by Sarah Pflug

Step 1 - Blog Overview

Right, so how do you start a business plan? Many business plans start off with the executive summary which should be completed last so we will leave it for the end.

The blog overview will cover off 6 different sections. These include the blog summary, mission statement, blog history, market and services, day to day operations and financial goals.

Blog summary

This would be like doing an elevator pitch of what your blog is about and who it will serve. Let's look at two practical examples.

Nadalie Bardo from itsallyouboo.com has her elevator pitch as "I'm here to help you slay your goals, so you can build your dream life with confidence and action."

Natalie Bacon from nataliebacon.com has her elevator pitch as "I help thousands of high achieving women with personal development, money mindset and online business."

Are you looking for a simple SEO for Beginners tutorial? Or maybe you just want your blog posts to show up in Google.

If you are new to the concept of search engine optimisation (SEO) you may be confused because it almost sounds like a foreign language.

The reason for this is because many articles use words that are unusual to a conversation in any normal setting.

Of course, understanding the language only brings you part of the way to helping you to get results for your blog or website.

To be honest, there are so many bloggers and small business owners who struggle with SEO in a big way which is good news for you.

You do not need to feel alone or somewhat isolated when it comes to understanding how to get your blog or website to appear in the Google results.

I will spend some time explaining the basics as best I can with the hope that it will help you to grasp foundational SEO concepts.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Just in case you found this post by accident and you have never heard the phrase search engine optimisation or SEO before, here is a definition.

SEO simply means that you are placing your content in a format that can be easily understood by the search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

So that your content can be displayed accurately in the search results pages for users to consume.

Google's entire search business model is based on delighting the searcher with the best results.

The reason why you need to do this is that the technology used to index all those billions of pages of content are these things called spiders or bots.

They don't speak a language like English but they do understand codes. So, when we as bloggers place code around our content we are helping these spiders to understand how to index our content.

The term optimisation is the name given to the process that we use to tweak the content so that these spiders or bots can understand it.

photo by Matthew Henry

SEO for Beginners Tutorial

So, without further delay let me dive into this simple SEO for beginners tutorial which is going to help you to write your super SEO ready blog posts.

We are going to take things in steps as I don't want you to get lost along the way. The first step in this tutorial is thinking of a topic.

You can decide on any topic or sub-topic that is relevant to your blog or business. When I talk about a topic I am referring not just to a broad topic like food.

Think more along the lines of a sub-topic like vegan breakfast ideas or the first 6 months as a new Mother.

Once you have a sub-topic in mind spend some time mapping out that sub-topic into a series of 5-8 posts.

Google loves giving you authority for a bunch of topics (also known as topic clusters) rather than a single topic so you can help Google by writing in a series.

The series can also be in the form of a progression where you outline a process from start to finish.

Need Blog Readers.. But

Website Traffic is Hard

Would

you like to know how to rank higher in Google? 

You have probably seen some ridiculous claims when it comes to improving

your Google search ranking.

Maybe you have tried it all before but it seems that your website will not budge or you just appear to be stuck on page 4 or 5 forever.

It

could be that you are brand new to this crazy world of search engine

optimization (SEO) and you find it too technical altogether.

The truth is that in order to get consistent, hands-off traffic to your blog or website you need to depend on an organic source like the Google search engine.

Many

bloggers, entrepreneurs and small business owners struggle because they are

over thinking the process or they are lacking adequate simple information.

In this post, I am going to give you the 11 crazy reasons why most people fail to rank higher in Google and I will also give you the opportunity to join the Traffic Boost Membership waitlist.

photo by Matthew Henry

Why

is it important to rank higher in Google?

Before I give you those reasons did you know that 3.5 billion searches are made on Google every day? 

Let’s spend some time looking at why is it even important to improve your Google search results in the first place.

The folks at Smart Insights conducted some research across 100 websites in the software as a service space and used tools like Similar Web to pull relevant data.

Here is a graph below of what they found.  As you can see for the vast majority of websites 38.3% of their traffic was direct, 21% came from referrals, 5.2% came from social and 26.6% came from organic search.

Google Search Engine Market Share

Here is a sneak peek of Google search engine market share by country according to Statista. You can see here that Google has 83.3% of search engine traffic in the US.

Here is their share of mobile search engine traffic from 2013 to 2019 thanks again to Statista. Basically, mobile search engine traffic has been on an upward trend for the last 6 years.

Search Engine vs Social Media

In

a report

by Search Engine Land it was found that 97% of people still conduct at

least one search a day using the search engines.

Also, people still prefer to conduct their search on a regular basis on search engines compared to social media.  See the graph below:

Here is one more graph showing the social media statistics from April 2018 -2019 in the United States with help the Statcounter. Pinterest is another visual search engine and it had about 37% of traffic compared to Facebook's 47%.

Now that you are totally bored with the statistics let’s spend some time looking at ...