I decided that since I was getting close to episode 10 of the podcast (HOLY MOLY!) it might be a good time to give you an update on how things are going with the podcast and business in general. I've changed quite a few things since the beginning of the year (New Theme) and have seen a huge difference in many areas of my life (you know how it goes... when you start making changes  and consistently take action it's easier to have that roll over into other areas of your life).  I know I keep saying this, but it's really true that some of these things are SO obvious and they're actually simple. It's just a matter of trusting yourself enough to take action.

The first thing I wanted to share is the New Theme.

Ever since the new Minimum theme came out I knew I wanted to make the change, I just wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do since I had just done the site makeover about a year and a half ago. I knew I was going to keep the colors and basic layout, just not sure what else I wanted to change. Then like most things when I relax about it and don't force it the answer comes to me pretty effortlessly.

I wanted to incorporate my name into the logo (remember my post a while back about considering leaving The WP Chick behind?), knew I needed to change my opt-in offer and I wanted the podcast featured more predominantly on the homepage. SO... here you go! I still have to add in the video on the homepage (nice graphic of a fake video, huh?) and will be doing that this weekend. It will actually be a video of me in front of the camera... something I really don't do but think I'll probably start testing and playing with.

I'm going to add in another graphic to the 'What I Do' section on the homepage and will probably change things up a bit with the footer widgets (kind of fillers... not terribly exciting). Of course I'd love to know what you think about the new layout!

Oh... and let's not forget typekit.

(which would have been sort of an epic fail considering I included it in the post and show name).

First let me say that I do love Google Fonts. They're great. However, I was finding that depending on the browser I was using the fonts were hard to read and it was making me crazy! I felt like I should be investing in bifocals instead of plugins (see what I did there? Purchasing plugins are an INVESTMENT... haha). Then of course I happened to cruise over to Brian Gardner's site (his previous theme, because he recently changed it again, which isn't a dig. If I had his skills I'd probably do the same thing) and LOVED how crystal clear the text on his site was- regardless of what browser I'm using.

And since I have the Adobe Creative Cloud monthly plan I can use typekit for no additional charge! Nice, huh? (I may be doing a post and video on how easy this was to integrate, so let me know if that's something you'd be interested in).

The second thing is the new Opt-in Offer.

I've been working on this for a while (jeeze, that seems to be a theme with me today! Remember how I said in episode 4 that you should focus on YOUR business first?). One of the things I've mentioned that I was focusing on this year was growing my list. I know there are TONS of different ways to do this and I intend to test different options (split testing, Facebook Ads, etc.), but the first thing I needed to do was change my opt-in offer.

Why I decided to make the change.

So here's the deal with the opt-in offer I had.

It was really an easy out, for lack of a better explanation. The opt-in offer I had before the last one (Custom Social Profiles Plugin) was WordPress Video Marketing and it converted pretty well, but it needed to be updated and I was in the middle of a zillion other things and just wanted to change the homepage so the opt-in was more significant. I know, kind of lame. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that offering a free plugin is lame, it's just not that 'helpful', y'know? (And not exactly what someone who is looking