How to Balance Work and Family

How to Balance Work and Family


It's the perfect time to make adjustments to your life. Yes, for many this means trying to lose weight and exercising. However, it is also a great time for business owners to make changes to their lifestyle. It’s the perfect time to assess the past year and look forward to the next.

Assessment

The first step to finding balance is to assess how you want to live. What feels out of balance? What isn’t working for you? What is working for you? This assessment process may take a bit of time. Don’t rush it. Spend time thinking about all of the tasks and responsibilities you have.

Also consider what tasks and responsibilities are detracting from your quality of life. Finally, consider what tasks or activities you’d like to be able to spend time on. For example, maybe you dislike managing customer service and would like to be able to spend more time volunteering.

Solutions

Once you have an understanding about what hasn't worked for you in the past and what you’d like to change, it’s time to start looking for solutions. How can you shift your focus from one task to another? Here are a few potential solutions.

1. Hire an assistant – You can hire a virtual assistant to manage the tasks you want to eliminate from your list. You can also hire an intern or a part-time assistant to work with you in your office.

2. Outsource – Consider outsourcing the tasks on your list that you wish to get rid of. For example, if you dislike customer service, then outsource that task.

3. Schedule fun – Instead of putting yourself last on your task list, start scheduling your “me time.” Make room for it in your day, week, and month. In fact, it’s a great idea to sit down with your family and a calendar and schedule your vacations for the year. This simple step helps you plan your business around your vacations instead of the other way around. It helps you put your personal life first.

4. Change your schedule – Do you keep a daily schedule? If so, take a look at that schedule and see if it supports a balanced life. For example, if your exercise time is scheduled for eight o’clock at night then that may be a sign that you’re putting yourself last on your list. Move it to first thing in the morning – put yourself first.

5. Prioritize – One of the problems with task lists is that they’re often just lists. Instead of working your way down the random list, prioritize your tasks. What is most important to accomplish? Do that first. Make sure to put yourself at the top of the list too.

Finally, consider creating a plan to review your work and personal life on a more frequent basis. You have the freedom to reflect and make changes every single day of your life.

How to Turn Your Low-Traffic Blog into a High-Traffic One

How to Turn Your Low-Traffic Blog into a High-Traffic One 

As you may have already noticed, it takes a bit of effort to drive high volume traffic to your blog. In fact, it takes a plan, goals, and the patience to test various strategies to build a high-traffic blog. Here are a few ideas to help you build your blog’s traffic.

Publish Often

The more content you have, the more visitors you will have. This strategy works for a number of reasons. It gives visitors a reason to come back. It also helps generate a better page ranking with the search engines. Better page ranking generally results in more traffic.

Additionally, if you’re linking to your new blog posts from social networking sites, then you’ll have more interaction and links which will generate traffic. Finally, the more content you have, the more folks will be interested in linking to your site. More incoming links also translates to more traffic.

Grab Attention

Use catchy headlines that grab attention. There are a few secrets to attention-grabbing headlines.

They include:

* State a benefit
* Use numbers and statistics
* Make it newsworthy using words like “new,” “introducing,” or “announcing”
* Make a big promise
* Use a “reasons why” headline – For example, “10 Reasons Why Your Blog Isn’t Making Money.”
* Pique curiosity

Make Subscribing Easy

Have you ever had to hunt to figure out how to subscribe to a blog? That’s not good. Make sure your readers don’t have to hunt either. Use plug-ins to add multiple subscription options. Make sure the RSS buttons are prominently displayed in at least one area of your blog.

Market It

Market your blog. Use proven and effective marketing tactics like social networking and article marketing. With social networking you can create a profile or page for your blog and post teasers with links to each new blog post. Article marketing is the practice of writing articles and submitting them to article directories. Include a link to your blog in your article to drive traffic.

Email

Email marketing is another great way to drive traffic and build an audience. Write a report or ebook and give it away in exchange for your reader’s email address. Send your email list weekly updates with information that is on your blog along with information that isn’t. For example, you might write an email every Friday that recaps or highlights your week’s blog posts and then provides a new article that only subscribers receive.

There are many ways to drive traffic to your blog and build a large following. The underlying key to any successful blog is an abundance of high quality content. Start there, then add traffic techniques and strategies and watch your traffic grow.

How to Boost Your Squidoo Lens Rankings

How to Boost Your Squidoo Lens Rankings


Squidoo is a social networking site. However, it’s also more than that. Users are able to create their own lenses, which are essentially web pages. You can write your lens on any topic and use it to make money.

Squidoo lenses are said to receive a great page ranking with the search engines. However, there are also things you can do to boost your Squidoo lens rankings.

Content 

Like any basic web page, the best way to boost a Squidoo lens ranking is to publish great content. Content is evaluated by a number of criteria including:

* Quality - Create top quality content. That means it is well written but also provides value and interest to a specific audience. For example, if your topic is Hot Chocolate then you want to make sure you’re providing interesting and valuable information to people who enjoy hot chocolate.

* Updates and frequency - Squidoo isn’t a "set it and forget it" type of site. You want to be vigilant about updating your page with new and interesting information. The more you update it, the better. It adds value and maintains interest in your page.

Squidoo Account Activity

Your ranking increases as the activity on your lens increases. It also increases as your own activity on the site increases. Remember, this is a social networking site.

Links

Squidoo uses the snowball effect to boost rankings too. As your lens grows in popularity, more high-ranking lenses will link to you and vice versa. You begin to generate more and more awareness and attention. You generate more activity on your lens. This results in a better ranking. It snowballs or increases in volume.

Include Images

In addition to publishing great content you can increase the interest level and value of your content by including images and even video. You can also update or add interest to your lens by creating an interesting-looking page. You can use CSS or HTML to add graphics and borders to your page.

Make Sales

Squidoo allows you to use both eBay and Amazon modules to earn commissions. Each commission you make helps boost your ranking. More sales means more money to you but it also means that your lens becomes more visible.

Votes

Readers and other Squidoo publishers can “favorite” your lens or give your lens a thumbs up. These votes of confidence help increase your ranking. How do you get votes? It all comes back to publishing great content!

Ask Questions

Finally, don’t forget to ask questions and get your readers involved. Publish a poll or survey. People enjoy being interactive and sharing their opinion. This will drive traffic to your lens, increase linking and boost your ranking.

How to Create a Professional Looking YouTube video

How to Create a Professional-Looking YouTube Video


Content is the foundation of the internet. A few years ago that meant writing content. It meant articles, blog posts, reports, case studies and so on. Today video content is growing. As a business owner you can take advantage of this visual medium to grow your business. Of course the more professional your videos are, the better your results.

Lighting

The lighting in your video is important. If your viewers cannot see you clearly, they won’t watch. To avoid shadows and a too dark video, don’t sit directly in the light of a window. Instead, have a soft light directed toward your face.

Preparation Is Key

Write or outsource your script first. Winging it is a sure way to an unprofessional video. Make sure you know what you want to say and how you want to say it before you hit the record button on your camera.

Write Well

Make sure your video is interesting. Any good video will be a lot like a good article or blog post. It’ll focus on a specific topic. It’ll grab your viewer’s attention right away. Your video will also offer value and include a call to action.

Make sure you have a purpose for your video before you write it. What do you want to accomplish and what action do you want viewers to take once they’ve watched your video?

Practice

Do a practice run first.  Read your script aloud a few times and consider recording it so you can test the lighting, sound, camera angle and content. Practice using note cards or bullet points as your cues.

Editing

Edit your video and add any background audio. You will likely want to trim out the end and the beginning, and add a watermark with the URL of your website. Ideally, you’ll have no more than eight minutes of video when you’re finished. Shorter videos perform better than the long ones.

Your Call to Action

The call to action is one of the most important parts of a YouTube video. Make sure your call to action supports your goal. Don’t hesitate to mention it half way through the video and also at the end.

How to Dress

Finally, don’t forget to dress the part. Make sure you’re dressed appropriately and professionally. Think about your audience and how they will respond to your attire. Also take a look at the things they can see in your video.

Personal mementos, knick knacks, and artwork may not seem like much to you but your viewers may have an opinion. Don’t distract them by the background. Help them focus on you and your message by eliminating any background items. Creating a professional video isn’t difficult. However, it does require some time and advance planning.

How to Create Instant Credibility as a Small Business

How to Create Instant Credibility as a Small Business


With so many small business owners operating online, credibility is important. Credibility helps separate you from your competition. It also helps your business appear larger to your prospects and customers. Credulity gives your customers confidence in you. This confidence and trust results in purchases and profits.

So how do you create this instant credibility? How do you demonstrate to your clients that you can be trusted?

Professional Policies and Procedures

One of the best ways to establish trust and credibility with your prospects instantly is to make sure you represent your company in a professional and credible manner. The simplest way to accomplish this is to publish your policies and procedures on your website. Make sure the page is easy to find and that it covers all the information someone would want to know. For example, what is your privacy policy? What is your return policy? Do you have a guarantee?

Transparency is a key credibility builder. Consider also including an FAQ page on your site. It may cover much of the same material that your policies and procedures page covers, but that’s okay.

Large Networking Presence

More than 400 million people are on Facebook right now. It’s important to have a presence on mainstream social networking sites. It’s also important to integrate your activity and social networking presence on your website. For example, include links to your social networking profile on your site. Allow people to share and follow you.

Social networking is a credibility builder because it’s a personal way to connect with your company. Again, it goes back to transparency and availability. If you’re open and easy to connect with online, it builds trust.

Additionally, if you’re connecting with other notable experts on social networking sites your prospects will notice that. You’ll earn credibility by association.

Great Content

Finally, great content is essential to building credibility. You want to make sure your content positions you as a knowledgeable expert in your industry. You can publish content on your website or blog. You can also publish content on your social networking site.

Each article, blog post, or web page will ideally offer value to your reader. When you offer value, you help build a foundation of trust with your readers. They begin to learn from you and about you. This helps them feel like you’re a company they can count on to continue to solve their problems.

In addition to publishing great content, it’s also helpful to publish content frequently - and on other websites. For example, if you are able to publish content on your site and contribute to other relevant blogs as a guest blogger it helps establish your credibility. If other business owners are turning to you for great content, then you must be an expert!

Building instant credibility isn’t difficult but it does take a plan. Represent your business in a professional manner. Make sure to be completely transparent and to publish content that offers value.

Stretch Yourself Challenge

 

 I recently found Kelly McCausey through a series of clicks and links that I will never remember.  Kelly is passionate about solopreneurs and has a variety of products that will blow the socks off your business.

I took her "The Power of a Focused Business" and it literally changed the focus of my business.  I'm still in the very, very beginning stages of it changing, but I know soon I will be owing her a big debt of gratitude.

 I'm now taking another course from her, which is proving to be just as fantastic. She's the sort of teacher who kicks your butt, in the nicest way possible.  I feel motivated to do the work just because she told me to.  Also, because I know what she says works.  (And don't get me wrong, she's also kind and giving.)

The next Stretch Yourself Challenge is starting up at the beginning of May.  I haven't taken this particular course (yet!) but I know anything that Kelly puts out is amazing, provides tons of education, and will kick your butt into motion. And here's the thing, right now it's priced at $47.  The next time she does it (which will be in the fall) it will be $97.  (And once you pay for one of her courses, you never have to pay for it again.)

I know this is going to be great.  There are group coaching calls and a private accountability forum. Click here to read all the details and to see if it's right for you.

Are you going to join me?  Leave a comment below so I know to look for you!

How to Make Content Go Viral

How to Make Content Go Viral


The concept of viral marketing is nearly as old as the internet itself. The idea is that, much like a computer or biological virus, viral content can “infect” users and make them more likely to pass it on to multiple other users. Those users in turn pass the content on to even more users, and pretty soon the content is all over the internet.

Large corporations with big advertising budgets have seen the value of viral marketing. Many have put a great deal of money into creating funny, controversial or engaging content and getting it started on a viral path. But plenty of average internet users have created viral videos, graphics and blog posts. So for small business owners, going viral is certainly attainable.

Some things do go viral completely by chance. But there are certain steps you can take to help your content go viral. Here are a few pointers.

1. Plan your content carefully. You don’t need the fanciest equipment or the most sought-after writers to have content that is worthy of going viral. But you do need to know who your target market is, how you can best speak to them, and what it is you want them to do. If you don’t address these things to some degree in your content, there’s no point in trying to go viral in the first place.

2. Consider doing a series, either of articles, videos, presentations or podcasts. Content that is frequently updated is more likely to go viral than a single item. And those who see one piece of content can easily find more, giving you multiple chances to make an impression.

3. Keep quality at the forefront. Avoid misspellings, bad grammar and poor execution.

4. Leverage your social network. Add your content (or links to your content) to your Facebook page, Twitter posts, blog posts, and any other social networks to which you belong. If you don’t already have a social network, however, don’t just create one and start promoting your viral content from the get-go. You need to get active on any given site first, and promote other interesting content without an agenda, before you go promoting your own.

5. Join forums that attract members of your target audience. Make friends and share your expertise without trying to do any overt marketing. Most forums will allow you to add links to your signature line, and if you contribute regularly to the discussions, other members will click on those links to learn more about you and what you have to offer.

Getting content to go viral takes some work in the beginning. However, once it’s started, it’s rather self-perpetuating. Continue creating content to capitalize on the previous content’s popularity, and prepare yourself for the flood of new prospects coming your way.