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Hello, October! This is the month to…
How to Craft Great Blog Titles
I’ll let you in on a little secret. The most important part of your blog post is your title. Here’s how to craft great blog titles.
How well you write, how well-researched your content is, or how pretty your images are means nothing if you can’t get readers to click through and start reading your post. And the single most important thing when it comes to getting readers’ attention is having a great blog post title.
It’s also the most important on-page factor when it comes to SEO. So, if you’re hoping for lots of free traffic from Google and all your favourite social media sites, you need to be good at crafting great blog post titles.
Start With Your Keyword
The key with great blog post titles is to strive for a balance between a title the search engines will like and one that your readers will find interesting and engaging enough to make them want to click on it. To get that balance just right, I like to start with a keyword or key phrase that I want to rank for in the search engines.
Open up your favourite keyword research tool – like the Google Keywords for example – and play around with it until you come up with the keywords or key phrases you want to rank for.
For the sake of illustration let’s say our keyword example is “best blog hosts” and the post will be a review of five of the best hosting companies for WordPress blogs. “best blog hosts” is the keyword we want to rank for in this example.
[insert page=’business-blogging’ display=’content’]
Make It Interesting
Now that we have the keyword, it’s time to make it interesting for our readers. There are plenty of different ways to turn our example keyword into an interesting blog post title. Here are a few ideas:
· The Three Best Blog Hosts Reviewed – Read This Before You Sign Up
· Looking For a New Home for Your Blog? The Best Blog Hosts Reviewed
· My Top 5 Best Blog Hosts Revealed – Here’s Who I Recommend
· Wondering Who The Best Blog Hosts Are?
· Is Your Host One The Best of The Best Blog Hosts List?
Do you see how this works? Start with the keyword and then try to think about why your readers would be looking for this information. Focus on what’s in it for them by sharing content that will help them out.
Stay Authentic and Stick With Your Style
Last but not least, stay authentic and stick with your own style. This is particularly important if you’re an established blogger. Don’t just copy and paste the blog post titles above. They may not reflect the style and tone of voice of your blog posts. In other words, they may not be you. Balance the need of the search engines to easily find what you’re content is about, the need to keep things interesting for your readers, by using your own voice.
You may find it helpful to write a few different blog post titles down and then chose the one that resonates most with you (and hopefully with your readers).
Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to read 52 Blog Ideas for your business, who couldn’t use 52 blog ideas?
7 Ways to Make Quick Cash
If you’ve decided that it is time to leave the 9-5 and you are going to work from home running your own business, you may need to have a form of income while you finish creating products and developing your business. Here are 7 Ways to make quick cash, while you get your business off the ground.
7 Ways to make quick cash
Provide a Service
If you plan to make your own products and sell them, you likely have skills that other people will want to use. Try finding out if anyone needs the types of service you could offer. Perhaps you’re good at graphic design, database management, transcription, or something else entirely. Put it out there and people may buy your time.
Get a Part-Time Job
If you can’t wait for services to take off, and you need to leave the 9-5 right away, you can get a part-time job. Sign up to be a substitute teacher or a temp at an agency, or head over to your nearest fast food place and you’re likely to be hired on the spot.
Get a Work-at-Home Job
There are also work-from-home jobs that you can get pretty quickly if you have the experience, education and skills. Look for call center work, and you could be bringing in money within the month.
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Sell Stuff on eBay
Have too much stuff in your house? Try selling some of it on eBay. You can also buy from stores on sale and then sell for a higher price on eBay. Believe it or not, everyone isn’t able to get to the same sales you can.
Sell Stuff on Amazon
Sort of the same idea as eBay, but you may not be aware that you can sell your old books and pretty much any items that Amazon sells, right from your home office. You can even ship some qualifying items to their fulfillment service and you just collect checks. Look up “fulfillment by Amazon”.
Have a Yard Sale
One of the fastest and most tried and true methods of bringing in a little cash is the old-fashioned yard or garage sale. You can still do that, and if the weather is not right, look on Facebook for groups dedicated to online yard sales in your area to make quick cash.
Babysit or Dog Sit
One of the fastest ways to make a buck is to babysit or dog sit but make sure you do it in their house or you’ll have to worry about licensing. Tell everyone you know that you’d like to babysit or provide animal care or both in their home and your fee. You’ll be amazed at how many will jump at the chance.
7 Ways to make quick cash
Hello, July!
Hello, June!
Stop Compromising Your Happiness
Stop Compromising Your Happiness
Did you know you could be compromising your own happiness without even realizing it?
If you constantly find yourself feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with your life, it’s worth looking within yourself.
Discover 4 things that could be compromising your happiness right now.
That Inner Critic
We all have an inner critic and sometimes it can be pretty hard to ignore. It’s constantly there judging you and making you doubt your own abilities.
It’s true, we’re often our own worst enemies and listening to your inner critic is only going to crush your happiness. So, how can you stop yourself from listening to this negative inner voice?
When you notice that inner voice telling you negative things, contradict it. Think something positive to counteract that negative thought or judgment. Replacing negativity with positivity will help you to start fighting back against your inner critic.
Playing it Safe
Do you avoid taking new opportunities out of fear? Playing it safe may feel like the best course of action, but it could be really jeopardizing your happiness.
It’s often the fear of failure which stops us from going after the things we want. However, if you start seeing failure as a positive learning experience, you’ll start taking more opportunities. You’ll never know what you can achieve if you don’t even try.
So, stop playing it safe. Take those opportunities. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Focusing on the Past or Future
While it’s normal and healthy to look back in the past or towards the future, it’s important not to lose sight of the present. The trouble is, if you’re too focused on the past or the future, you’re not going to be able to enjoy right now.
The past cannot be changed, and the future cannot be controlled. However, right now at this very moment, you can choose to be happy. So, stop beating yourself up over the past and stop worrying about what’s to come. Live in the moment and see just how much happier you feel.
Over-Dramatizing Things
In life, things do go wrong. It’s impossible to be happy 100% of the time. However, some of us have a habit of over-dramatizing the negative experiences in our life.
Do you find that when the smallest things don’t go your way, you think to yourself “that’s it, everything is falling apart”? Blow the littlest things out of proportion and convince yourself it’s worse than it really is. It’s a big drain on your happiness and all you’re doing is worrying too much over nothing. (I’ve been there, and live every day making the conscious decision to keep the over-dramatization of things under control.)
These are just 4 things that could be compromising your happiness. What you need to remember is that you control your happiness. So, make the decision to stop making these mistakes and learn to let things go if you truly want to be happier.
Have some more tips on how to not compromise happiness? Join us inside the Studio Workshop Facebook Group and please share! We’d love to hear from you!
Stop Compromising Your Happiness
Stop Compromising Your Happiness
For more great articles and resources – check out my resource page!
Adopt a mantra and live by it.
Adopt a mantra and live by it
Building your confidence is not easy. Doing it so you can magnetically attract new clients or customers is even harder. One small thing you can do is to adopt a mantra and live by it.
In the 1999 movie, “Galaxy Quest”, an entire civilization bases its core values on a cheesy TV sci-fi show from Earth. They take the series hero’s glib motto, “Never give up; never surrender” to new heights—and achieve peace within a warring society before teaming up with earthmen to defeat a supervillain.
This is what happens when you adopt a mantra, motto or slogan—and live by it.
“Never give up; never surrender” is a great motto, when you are trying to build new habits that increase your confidence.
P.S. Come on – admit it. Galaxy Quest is one of the best bad movies ever made! You love it as much as I do.
Do you already have a mantra? I’d love to hear it, leave a comment and tell me what it is!
Oh and don’t forget:
NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER
P.S. Have you joined us over at the TVS Workshop Community? If not, stop by and share your mantra with us there!
Adopt a mantra and live by it
Adopt a mantra and live by it
Inspiring Greatness: Michelle Phan
Michelle Phan
A decade after posting her first video on YouTube, Michelle Phan’s name is synonymous for influencer-turned-entrepreneur. I am super thrilled to add her to my Inspiring Greatness: Women who are changing the world! collection.
Michelle Phan is the first woman to build a $500 million company from a web series.
She is truly a woman that inspires greatness! She launched the beauty subscription company Ipsy at the age of 24! In June of this year, Michelle transformed her Youtube channel from the make tutorials it was known for to 24/7 Magic Hour Radio. Below read a snippet on how she speaks about her motivation to follow her passion and create a life her mom would be proud of.
I uploaded my first video in 2007. Social media wasn’t even called social media yet. It was a place where people would just go online and congregate and share ideas and videos and content. YouTube was just my creative outlet. I didn’t have sponsorship money, I didn’t have people giving me free products. I had to go out and buy my own makeup products.
I was very motivated at a young age to find a better life, for my mom’s sake. She wanted me to be a doctor, but I didn’t see myself in that future. I promised her that I would take care of her but I would still pursue what I loved.
Then I got this really amazing offer from a big beauty brand. When they told me how much money I was going to be making, it was so big – as much as a doctor would have made. The first person I wanted to tell was my mother. She’s the reason I work so hard, and she inspires me so much. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “oh, I’m still at work, I’m doing someone’s pedicure.” I told her that it would be the last time she would ever have to do anyone’s pedicure and she won’t have to work the next day because I would take care of her. We both started crying It was a moment that I’ll never forget. I want more people to have moments like that.
To read about more amazing and inspirational women, head over to the Inspiring Greatness archives!
I would love to hear from you, who inspires you? Who do you feel is a woman who is changing our world? Let me know in the comments below or on the Studio’s Workshop Community.
Inspiring Greatness: Cindy Sherman.
Cindy Sherman is the first woman to break $1 million in a photography sale. She studied painting before she became a photographer and is known for her conceptual and chameleon-like self-portraits.
Below read a snippet on how she speaks on her budding career as a female artist in Time Magazine’s FIRSTS Women Who Are Changing The World.
I never felt pigeonholed as a child in terms of my potential. But I did feel that I’d probably be expected to settle down and get married and have kids at some point. I definitely remember from all the old movies and TV shows from the time, like The Donna Reed Show and Leave It to Beaver, all these women that were portrayed as these perfect moms. I never really saw myself as that. I never imagined myself getting married, I never imagined myself in a bridal gown, and I really never imagined myself having kids – and I never did.
In an issue of LIFE magazine, I saw Lynda Benglis as a young artist throwing paint on her floor. I don’t know how old she was then. I was probably in high school, but it was the first time it dawned on me that a woman could be an artist.
When my career got started in the ’70s, I did feel like I was being taken seriously. I didn’t really notice any kind of difference between men and women artists until I would say the early ’80s, when specific men started to become very successful. Even though I was critically successful, it was definitely a big distinction between what their work sold for and what my work sold for.
As I evolved in the ’70s, I think I took for granted what the first wave of feminist artists had to go through. I never felt like an activist because I didn’t experience that kind of fighting., It’s not like I would say I’m not a feminist, I just couldn’t quite identify with those women. Of course we’re all feminists, right? We all want women to be seen as equals. I am shy and not a person who can debate and take on critical political talk. But at the same issues definitely piss me off and show up in my work, and I definitely have always used my work as a forum to address a lot of things that I can’t say, that I can’t articulate.
Cindy Sherman, American photographer and film director.
Tell me, who inspires you? Share below in the comment section or join the conversation in the Facebook group.