Success Unscrambled Podcast

Hello you! It's another new week, are you excited? Are you ambitious? Well, as I mentioned last week we'll be looking at productivity tools this week to help you with your time management efforts.

We all have 24 hours in a day so any tool, app or software that will help us save time or increase efficiency is a plus.

Woohoo!  As you know there are many tools out there that assist with productivity.  Sometimes I read a blog post that outlines 5-10 apps that gives the same benefit.

In this post, my preference is to take you through the creative process from start to finish using productivity apps along the way so I hope you find it beneficial.

Warning: this post may contain more than 21 productivity tools so don't be surprised. 

1. Keyword Research

As bloggers, we can either start our editorial calendar with a keyword research or an idea so I will start with the keyword research for this example.

There are so many productivity tools to conduct keyword research as you can imagine.  The two I would recommend are SEMRush and KWFinder.

Both are great tools for finding the best keywords.  KWFinder gives you 5 free searches a day.  SEMRush would be for the more advanced user as it gives a lot of detail including what length your post should be.

2. Mind-Mapping

Once you find your list of precious keywords you then need to take each one and develop an outline for it.  The outline is like a mind-map as it helps you figure out what you will write about.

The outline should include a list of subheadings, external links (for research), video links as well as links to related articles from your blog.  My software of choice is Xmind for this job.

It is a great opportunity to include the points for each of those subheadings as it prevents you from going down rabbit holes.  It also helps you get to your goal of 1,000 words very easily.

When all of your keywords have been mapped you can get a good overview of the content that you have waiting to be produced.

This is a good time to add a note in each of the maps as to what checklist, workbook or cheatsheet you will be including for your audience.

3. Editorial Calendar

You may argue that this should have been the first thing on the list.  If you are just starting out your calendar will be empty.

I started with a list of keywords first so that if you are a new blogger you will not feel left out.  Your keyword research will help you with content planning.

In case you have no idea what I am speaking about your editorial calendar helps you plan your content for the next 6-12 months.

For this task, you can use Trello or Google Sheets with Google Calendar.  Trello is great as you can use the Kanban functionality to progress your content through the editorial queue.

Trello boards are brilliant because you can use 'Power-Ups' to add functionality to your board like a calendar.  A brilliant, flexible software to include in your list of productivity tools.

4. Writing the Blog Post

So you have done the research, created the outline and even know when the post is due to be published. You even know which content upgrades will be needed.

Long before the published date, you will want to actually create or write the blog post.  Two of my favourite tools to assist writing are Grammarly and Yoast SEO plugin.

Grammarly assist me with the grammar of my sentences and it is free but quite good.

Hello you!  I have a passion for managing time so this week I wanted to spend a little time sharing some time management tips that you can use to improve your efficiency.

The truth is I need to write these tips somewhere public so that I can remember what they are in 12 to 36 months time because as you can imagine there is so much that can change in that time.

There are 9 things that you need to bear in mind if you are to become successful at time management every single day or at least every week.  Yes, some weeks are going to be better than others.

24 Hours A Day

It is not a cliche, the fact is we all have 24 hours in a day and none of us has more time than anyone else so the most we can do is to manage the time that is given to us.

In my experience, the best way to manage time is to firstly monitor what I do each day of the week.  At night before I go to bed I would conduct an evaluation of my accomplishments.

This evaluation will involve how I spent my time if I accomplished the things I set out to do.  Also, ways in which I can improve for the next day.

I find this genuinely helpful because it feels like I am constantly finding ways to improve my best efforts. I become more efficient and remove things that are not helping me to achieve my goals.

Essentials

Of all the time management tips out there this one is super important because it involves the things that we need to do every single day.

Breathing, for example, is super important but it is an involuntary action and although we can manage our breathing by taking deep breaths this happens automatically in the background.

Sleeping, on the other hand, is important for us if we are to function at our peak.  Personally, I am not a coffee drinker so I need to depend on natural sources of energy/rejuvenation like sleep.

Eating is also essential as it provides our brain and body with the nutrients to perform tasks.  Without food, it is nearly impossible for us to be productive.

Taking regular breaks to go to the bathroom or just to overcome fatigue is a must have since we are not robots.  As humans, this is pretty much non-negotiable.

Loving and being loved is super important to get reassurance from the people we love.  No man is an island we all need someone to share and care for us.

Time Management Tips for Goals

Having goals are necessary if we are to formulate a good list of time management tips for our individual diaries.

Imagine trying to come up with a better way to manage our time if we don't have any goals.  It would be kind of strange trying to manage just for the sake of it.

Our goals are the things that drive us to manage our time more efficiently.  Our goals can fall into 4-5 broad categories, namely:

* Emotional

* Physical

* Health

* Social

* Financial

This is pretty much a high-level, generic view of our goals.  It all depends on where we are in life that one takes priority over another.

Apart from life stages we also go through different seasons of life as well.  The most important thing for you to decide is what stage and season you are in to determine what goals should be your focus.

Priority List

One of the hardest decisions that you will make every day, week, month or year is the fact that you need to prioritise what you do on a regular basis.

Some items are super important while others are a nice to have.  One of the best ways to help you to make this decision is by taking your goals and completing a mind-map on each one.

A great way to do this is by having an answer for the 5Ws and 1H.  Who, what, when, where, why and how.

Hello You! To help all of us become successful I created a Weekly Blog Planner Printable Pack (try saying that 5 times fast).

Before I go into what is included I wanted to share with you 9 rare hacks I use every single week to keep me motivated, productive and achieving my goals.

A weekly blog planner can be amazing but it can also be super frustrating if you don't adopt efficiencies in your everyday activities to really cut cost, save time and achieve goals.

In case you missed it I wrote about a daily blog checklist here.

We all have 24 hours in a day and many of us will live to the expected 70 years but one thing for sure is that time flies fast. Too fast if you asked me.

One of my friends announced on Facebook recently that her son turned 18 and I was surprised because I have no idea how he went from 13 to 18 in that short space of time.

World's Most Precious Resource

Do you know what is the most precious resource on planet earth? While you are thinking about that question most people would automatically think about diamonds.

As boss ladies, some of us love diamonds while others are not too interested.  Thanks to marketing companies and Tiffany's many people have come to associate diamonds with an expression of love.

Is it possible to love without a diamond? Of course, it is because love is not just a temporary feeling it is an action and many couples agree to use diamonds to express their love for each other.

Well, Alvern, what does that have to do with the weekly blog planner.  Like a diamond, our blog needs time, high-stress levels and a lot of patience to achieve success.

Have you guessed what the world's most precious resource is?  It is time.  We may not all have diamonds but we all have time and we can never replace it.

When time is gone we can never get it back.  We can, however, replace a diamond. 

1. Invest Wisely

As a blogger in order to become successful, we all need to invest in a few things like:

* Hosting

* Domain name

* Themes

* Tools

* Education

* Outsourcing

Starting a blog is like growing a business and we need to be able to manage our cash flow.  We also need to control our spending so that we can progress forward until we come to a point where our income exceeds our expenditure.

One clever way to creatively have a budget available for our business is to live frugally. It is only for the short-term, I promise. 

In my experience, I have found that if I go to the hairdresser less, defer spending on unnecessary items like clothes, luxury goods and food I don't need then I can really free up cash to invest in my blog.

2. Save Time

As I already mentioned previously, time is our most precious resource and I have found these amazing ways to save time every single week.

* Do laundry twice a week

* Cook two big meals weekly - Use appliances to save time  (rice cookers, etc.)

* Wear the same outfit every week

* Plan meals in advance - have a 2-3 week rotation

* Cut back on snacks - really try 

* Remove distractions

* Create a low maintenance environment

* Stick it out for 12-18 months

* Use a weekly blog planner to keep you on track

I am sure you can come up with your own list of things to save time since the items listed are not exhaustive.  You will notice in the weekly blog planner I have allowed for some down time where you can socialise so take full advantage of it.

3. Get Stuff Done

Making a list of things that you need to accomplish every day is important to achieve your goals.

Hello You! If you have been baffled about SEO or Yoast for a while then this post is just for you.  We will look at the only WordPress SEO Yoast tutorial you'll ever need.

Obviously, the search engines continue to update their algorithms regularly, as a result, Yoast will need to update their plugin but for the next few years, this post should cover all your needs to get you started.

Before I jump into the tutorial I will break down two main things for you.  The first is SEO, what on earth is it?  The next is what or who is Yoast (if that is even a real name).

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is the three letter acronym for search engine optimisation.  It is a term used by professionals in the industry to describe the process of tweaking content to rank well in the search engines.

The optimisation process involves a whole list of technical factors but it is broken down into two main compartments. Namely; on-page and off-page factors.

Some on-page factors include things like:

* Keywords

* Title

* H1 and H2 headings

* internal links throughout the site

* Keyword density

* Site structure

* Many, many more

Some off-page factors include:

* Links back to your site

* Social media promotion

* Social bookmarking

* Public relation

For the purposes of this post, we will only look at the on-page SEO factors especially those that are included as standard in the free Yoast SEO plugin.

Who is Yoast?

WordPress is an open-source platform used as a content management system and there are thousands of creators all over the world who create clever add-ons for this CMS.

Yoast was founded back in 2010 by Joost de Valk and it has grown since then to this awesome plugin.  The company is located in the Netherlands and they support their users from there.

I started blogging about 10 years ago (I'm not old) and I do remember having to choose between two SEO plugins and one of them was Yoast. Sometimes, I would use Yoast and other times use the All-in-one SEO plugin.

WordPress SEO Yoast Tutorial - Install + Activate

I am making a few assumptions with this tutorial.  These are:

* a domain name purchased

* hosting purchased

* Already installed WordPress

If you have not completed the above three points then grab my 10-Day Start a Blog Challenge.  Complete all the steps then you will be ready to come back here and get started with this tutorial.

One of the best ways to get stuck into this tutorial is to install and activate the plugin.  So head on over to plugins, add new plugin and search for Yoast.  You should see something similar to the screenshot below.

I already have it installed so mine is showing as activated.  Install yours and activate it.  We can then move on to the configuration.

Configuration

The ability to actually configure the plugin this much has blossomed over the years which is a good thing because it will have a better analytical relationship with your site compared to everything being generic.

Once activated head over to plugins, find Yoast from the list and click on settings.  You will see a screen that looks similar to this (mine is already configured) so you just click Configuration wizard.

1 - configuration wizard

2 - your site should ideally be live and ready to go at this point.

3 - site type

4 - Company or Person

Social profiles,

Hello you! Do you need a daily blog checklist?  If you are like me and you write on a regular basis it will seem that you make the same or similar errors regularly.

Ouch! I forgot to... Oh no! I left out the... Shoot! I can't believe that I messed up! Life can be so busy and these simple errors have become the norm.  If only you can find a way to remember everything you need to do before you hit the publish button.

I made quite a few errors in my post last week and even after I created my pin images and pinned them!  I was annoyed with myself so I had to let go and do what I could to salvage the errors.

This week I decided that in order to reduce the risks and blunders I will create a daily blog checklist that I can use to quadruple check (say that 5 times fast) before I click schedule.

I then decided to make it into a blog post as well.  I thought that you can also benefit from this little gift so that we can help each other.

1. Objective

The first point on my daily blog checklist is the objective.  What is the aim of the post and what is your reader hoping to get out of it?  For me, the hardest part of all my blog posts is the first paragraph which contains the objective.

I always have a very good outline of what I am going to write about.  I'll start very slowly like a very tired and old car engine.

If your post is useless or does not offer any benefit to your audience then it really does not make sense to write it does it? I know this does not apply to you.

I know you are super brilliant at writing so all of your posts are beneficial and contain loads of value for your audience so you will always have a great benefit for your readers so don't you worry.

Just remember that outlining the benefit to the reader in the first paragraph gives them the appetite to read more even if they are eating their fave dessert. Yum!

2. Grammar

As part of your daily blog checklist, it is so important to ensure that your post has been proofread by someone else.   You can also use a handy third-party tool like Grammarly to assist you with readability.

Nothing turns me off more when I am reading than a grammatically poor article.  My preference is not to criticise anyone so I read the article correcting as I go.

I always trip up, get confused and get lost so much that I give up reading it.

A friend of mine who is an award-winning writer suggested some great tools to assist writers with creating great content. One such tool is called Hemmingway Editor and it does not come free but he said that it is very good.

Check out the screenshot below of my first paragraph placed in Hemingway Editor. The results are a little scary but at least I got a grade 4 (lol!).

the most important feature in Grammarly is the spell check.  I can depend on it to suggest the correct spelling of all my words especially when I type maximum speeds.

Use all the help that you can get to allow your audience the joy of reading your post.  After all, you spent so much time tweaking it.

One day I will be able to outsource the editing to someone who loves perfecting English.  For now, I'll stick with Grammarly, Yoast readability tool and Hemmingway Editor.

3. SEO Friendly

In case you didn't know SEO means search engine optimisation.  Which is a really big, long, technical phrase.  SEO simply means that your article is good enough to rank well in the search engines.

If you are new to this term you are probably wondering what on earth makes your article good enough?  The likes of Google, their spiders and their algorithm uses SEO to determine relevancy.  Also,

Hello you!  So, you want to start a blog?  I want to spend some time today focusing on some of the key elements you require to get your blog up and running in 10 days or less.  Starting a blog is a lot like eating an Elephant (not literally of course) which reminds me of the famous saying "how do you eat an Elephant?  In small bite-sized chunks."

So this post is going to break up that Elephant into small manageable pieces and here's why.  None of us has the leisure of sitting behind a computer for hours, days or even weeks on end to accomplish tasks.  However, we can spend an hour here and there to slay our goals.

Before I approach these tasks I want you to consider the big reason why you want to start a blog.  Everyone gets into blogging for different reasons so take the time right now to write down 7 reasons why you believe you need to start a blog this year.

1. Start a Blog Mindset

As you have written down your reasons you will probably have on your list things like wanting to change the world, communicate a message, make it your career, earn passive income, do something in your spare time, etc.  I have no problem with any of these reasons at all.

Blogging takes a certain level of commitment to reap the rewards.  Starting a blog can seem quite easy when compared to the journey that lies ahead which can be 5-10 years.

Blogging is not a 100-meter dash but it is more like a marathon that can last a lifetime.  I am guilty myself, in the past, of starting many blogs expecting quick results.

Most importantly having the right mindset is the key to success when it comes to blogging.  What mindset?  One of adding value to the audience, building lasting relationships, instilling trust and changing lives.

Thinking of blogging as gaining new best friends.  Think about this, how long does it take for you and someone else to become best friends?  Months? Years?  Once you approach the whole exercise of blogging as creating lasting friendships then your mindset will be ready to start a blog.

Another key element before you get started is finding your purpose.  If you know your purpose then it becomes so much easier to get started as a blogger.

2. Skills + Talent + Hobby = Passion

One of the key elements of becoming a successful blogger is understanding your strengths and what you are good at communicating to your audience.

Take the time to make a list of your skills like the things that you learned in school or other types of formal education.  You may have learned some skills via informal education as well.

Think of those things that you have been doing from a very young age without any kind of training.  I remember my son had the interest an ability to make bows, arrows and quivers.  It was just something he enjoyed doing every single day with his friends.

Children know how to play no one thought them.  As they socialize with their peers they develop skills and make friends quite naturally.  They can be great vloggers because all they need is a video camera and watching them interact can be quite entertaining.

Most of us tend to do some specific things in our spare time.  What are those things that you do in your spare time which are the ones you enjoy the most?

I have a friend who is really good at hiking and navigating.  I just follow their lead whenever we are out hiking as I have no idea where we are going.  I trust this friend because we never get lost.  We always find our way back to civilisation after several hours in nature.

What is that one thing that you love to do in your spare time?  This one thing may be the key to your passion.

3. Profitable Niche

Before you can start a blog you need to find a profitable niche.

How do you feel about Google Analytics Reports?  Hello You!  It feels like it has been forever since my last blog post about getting to 100k views on Pinterest. There is so much hype about tracking your statistics as a blogger so I wanted to take time today to talk about 5 Google Analytics reports that will give you some artificial intelligence about your blog.

As you probably already know one of the key ways to track the activity of the visitors to your blog is to ensure that you have installed Google Analytics as well as setting up your site on the Google Search Console.  There are two camps when it comes to blog analytics.

Some gurus believe that you should not use Google Analytics reports at all and that you should stay well clear of it altogether and use paid programs to track analytics on your blog.

Others believe that Google Analytics is very powerful and free so why not take advantage of what is readily available and easy to install rather than paying a 3rd party for this service.  Here is a Neil Patel advice on how to use Google Analytics to boost eCommerce sales.

The real issue is that the vast majority of people don't know how to use Google Analytics reports and therefore have no idea how to take it and use it to their advantage.

The objective of this blog post is to get you comfortable enough to look at the statistics and use them to fine-tune your blogging efforts.

5 Common Google Analytics Report Terms

* Pageview - Anytime a page or post on your blog is loaded or viewed this is referred to as a pageview.

* Sessions - When a user visits your site then views a few pages and clicks a few links then leaves then that is called a session.  That same user can come back another day and start a new session.

* Bounce Rate - A good bounce rate is when a user comes to your blog then stays there engaging with your content for 60+ seconds and visits other pages this leads to a low bounce rate.  However, if a user visits your blog and clicks the back button within 5 seconds this behaviour contributes to a high bounce rate.

* User - a visitor to your blog normally coded by a unique IP address.

* Session Duration - the amount of time a user spends per session on your blog.

5 Popular Google Analytics Reports You May Know

* Average Time On Page - As the name suggests this report gives you the blogger a high-level overview of the average amount of time users or visitors are spending on your page over a given period of time.  Here is an example of that report.

This report is important because you want to ensure that you are giving your visitors value for the length of time they spend on your blog.  If they spend more than a minute it means that they are engaging with your content.

The goal is to increase the length of time each visitor spends on your site.  This will indicate that your content is relevant and it will increase your rankings in the search engines as well as your visibility in the Pinterest smart feed.

2. Average Session Duration - this goes hand in hand with the average time on the page because even if you have shorter posts with a lot of good content encouraging the user to visit other parts of your blog then you are still encouraging engagement.

Take a look at this example of the Google Analytics Report.

3. Total Bounce Rate - as the name suggest this report shows the total bounce rate across your entire blog over a specified period of time.

As I already mentioned above the bounce rate is essentially the amount of time a user spends on your site before clicking the back button especially if that time is less than 60 seconds.

The goal for us as bloggers is to fine-tune our blog to the...

Why I'm Sharing These Pinterest Tips

Hello you!  Before I jump into sharing these Pinterest tips I have a question for you.  Did you ever dream of achieving 100k?  It could be $100,000 or maybe you wanted to get to 100,000 followers on one of your social media accounts.  Whatever it is or was that was your big number and behind that big number is your 'why'.  Why is that number so important to you?

Just over four months ago I found out about Pinterest after seeing someone's Pinterest results and how realistic it is to grow traffic to a blog or website.  I decided that I wanted to give it a try, after all, what do I have to lose?

I have tried all sorts of other platforms or techniques like SEO, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  See my results at the time of writing below.

I experienced successes with these other platforms but Pinterest looked like a lot more fun.  How difficult can it be?  It seems less hype than Instagram but most importantly it looks like it adds a lot more value to people's lives.

Before I took the plunge I really need to understand why I was doing this?  What is my motive?  I needed to set a goal and promise myself to achieve that goal no matter what happened and to celebrate that success once that goal was achieved.

and carefully followed the instructions as I wanted to get this absolutely right and set a good foundation.

I have to confess that the prework before I even created my Pinterest account was challenging.  I almost skipped this part of the course but I am so glad I didn't as it set my account up for success.

I set up this blog in the first instance to help other women so the goal of this post is to share some golden nuggets and give you not just 2 or 3 but 11 Pinterest tips that got me from zero to over 100,000 views a month on Pinterest

1. Set Up Your Pinterest Account for Success

Like I mentioned before one of the secrets to my success is at the very start is that I set up my Pinterest account for success.  The hardest part was deciding who is my audience.

Deciding on her age, what she does in her day to day life as well as the challenges she currently faces.  If I don't understand who my audience is then what on earth am I going to write about?

I needed to set up my brand and even decide on my colour palette and fonts.  I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination so what do I know about colours or fonts?

Although, I do remember as a teenager trying to impress my then boyfriend by doing a drawing of him from a photo.  I was quite chuffed with myself to have accomplished such a stunt.

Don't worry I would not show you as I have no idea where that is right now.  My memory of the drawing is probably better than the reality anyway. Lol!

Of course, the technical bits of claiming my website and enabling rich pins were all part of the process so let's look at what's next on the list.

2. Keywords

Having the right keywords are so important but before I go there let me back up a bit.  I needed to know not only who I can help but what I am going to write about to help her.

I was going to write about LinkedIn but that came to an abrupt end as there are only so many things one can say about that topic.  I then thought about SEO but that is kind of boring for my audience.

SEO does have cute animals like Pandas but that's as cute as it gets.  My real passion though is traffic to a blog.  Yes, I can create a blog in my sleep at his point after 10+ years of practice but I love the fact that there are so many ways to grow your blog traffic using so many highways that can lead to your blog.

Once I decided on the topic then I needed to ensure that I chose keywords that were relevant to my topic but also that these k...

Hello You!  I hope you found a lot of value in the post last week around finding your perfect domain name.  I didn't want to leave you hanging for too long that is why the topic of today's post is 9 Awesome Tips To Find The Best Wordpress Hosting.

Having a domain is all well and good but creating your website is very important.  How else will the world or better yet your audience really understand what your business is all about?

I have a friend who constantly buys domain names with the hope of one day having the perfect domain name before she starts her blog.  I can assure you that 5 or even 10 years will pass and all she will have to show as an end result is a list of wonderful domain names.

Analysis paralysis is when you wait for everything to be perfect before you start your business or side hustle or blog.  Don't wait anymore just get started.

The first step after buying your domain name is finding a WordPress hosting provider.  Here are 9 things we will look at to check to see if this website host is a good provider for your needs.  These are:

* SSL Cert

* SSD Drive

* Storage size

* Cpanel

* Wordpress hosting

* Unlimited emails

* Support

* Free migration

* Unlimited bandwidth

1. SSL Cert

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer.  I don't want to bore you with technical jargon so let me explain it in a way that you can understand.  As ladies we love shopping, okay, not all ladies like shopping but I know a few who do.

The Internet has opened up the world and given many people the ability to shop online.  Over 10+ years ago I purchased my wedding dress online and I did not get to try it on until 2 weeks before the wedding.

You may think, that is not so special but picture this in your head that was before the year 2000 and I lived in Europe, purchased it online from a US website and had the dress shipped to the Caribbean.

Why was I so brave (or crazy)? Lol! Because I had trust in that website and they had a big padlock on their payment page assuring me that my payment was secure.

I honestly cannot remember if I paid via Paypal or not but the point is that padlock in green on most websites, even if you don't sell anything online is what is called an SSL cert.

Google has made it an absolute requirement that every website should have this if they want their site to be indexed and ranked on the first page of the search engine results page for their chosen keyword.

The Internet Security Research Group is a non-profit organisation that is providing free SSL certificates via a program called Let's Encrypt.  Check out the screenshot example below from WPEngine.  I will not recommend them for newbies.

All you need to do is find a Wordpress hosting provider who includes this as part of the package and you will be golden.

2. SSD Drive

SSD stands for solid state drive.  I am trying to find the best way of explaining this to you without causing you to fall asleep altogether.

The best way to help you is by explaining what the old hard disk drives (HDD) did to access storage.  The older drives consisted of a lot of moving parts, spinning disks and a removable read/write heads.

These newer drives (SSD) are solid throughout which means that they are silent and they tend to use flash technology so they don't generate heat as much as the old technology.  See the below example from Inmotion Hosting.

They also access the data much quicker when looking for that file that you stored this time last year.

Choosing a domain name is one of the most important things you need to do when deciding to start a blog.  In this article, we'll cover the 7 secrets to choosing your next fantastic domain name.

In case you are not aware of it choosing the correct domain affects your brand and your message to your audience.  Your domain name says everything about your blog or business.

It could also say nothing about your brand or business.  Over time as you build your brand your audience will come to know, like and trust you.

Here are the 7 secrets to choosing your next domain name:

* Which TLD

* Memorable

* Sensible

* Length

* Brandable

* Vendor

* Auctions

Nail these 7 secrets and you will be well on your way to securing the perfect domain name for your blog.  Also, save yourself the hassle of having to rebrand too often as it could happen that you never thought about it long and hard enough.

1. Which TLD?

TLD is a top-level domain which is the part of your domain name that comes after the dot.  For example in my domain name successunscrambled.com the 'com' is the top-level domain.  There are mainly two types of TLDs these are generic and country specific.

A good example of this is Canada's country-specific domain name is 'ca' whilst the one for the UK is 'co.uk'.  The more generic ones can be 'com', 'club', 'org' and 'io'.  Some can be quite fancy making them have an appeal of being different.

However, one thing to remember is that the three most popular TLDs are 'com', 'net' and 'org'.  These three also rank quite well in the search engines compared to any other TLDs out there.

2. Memorable

Have you ever found a brilliant website and realised while browsing the pages of the website that you need to stop and attend to something urgent only to have to close the browser quickly without bookmarking the site?

I had a very similar experience many times and it would have been so much easier if the domain name was easy to remember then it will be awesome.

This is one of the reasons you are encouraged as a blogger to really think about the domain name that you will choose for your blog or business.

You can always decide to use a more scientific approval to finding your company name by using a tool like Bust-A-Name.

As you can see you start by entering ideas which will then lead to a few suggestions allowing you to choose the resulting words from the list as your domain name.

Whatever you do one of the key ingredients to making a domain name memorable is that it is easy to spell.

3. Sensible

You can decide to go down the route of making your domain name one that makes sense as opposed to sounding cool.  One way to achieve this is by going for keywords that represent what your business does.  For example, in my case, my goal is to unscramble the path to success for ambitious women who are stuck.

The phrase unscrambling success for women is obviously too long as a domain name.  Hence I went for success unscrambled.  Someone seeing the name knows that I am all for unscrambling success.

I must admit that I considered decoding success as well.  However, I just decided that success unscrambled sounded a bit more memorable and I did not want my site to be confused with the Da Vinci Code in anyway shape or form.

Take some time to think about what the main goal of your business is for your audience and find one or two words including one verb that represents what you do so that you have the option to use that in your domain name.

4. Domain Name Length

The length of your domain name is a very important factor for SEO purposes as to whether your website wou...