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Use Your Blog For Your Own Personal Development
Use Your Blog For Your Own Personal Development

Many people think of blogging as a way to try to make money online, perhaps by writing posts and recommending products or services where they get paid a commission.
But blogging didn’t really start that way. It was a way to jot down your thoughts and feelings and to allow readers to follow your journey, especially if they were going through the same situations.
And it can help you to grow too, on a more personal level, so what are you waiting for?
OK, on with the article…
Banish Distractions When You Blog for Personal Growth

When you embark on a journey of personal growth, you have a mission to become a better person. It’s not an easy task and very few people make a stated effort to do it. It requires a lot of introspection and uncomfortable inner work.
Thinking through tough questions about how your life is unfolding and what personal responsibility you have in how it’s turning out requires you to do it in an uninterrupted space.
Many people blog for their personal development and self help issues. It’s a platform that allows them to streamline their thoughts and work through any issues they may have.
They blog whenever they have a few minutes of free time – maybe from a coffee shop or on a mode of public transportation during a commute. But some of these places are filled with distractions that pull you away from your train of thought.
Even in the comfort of your own home, it’s sometimes difficult to write at a steady pace without having your spouse or children enter the picture, the pets needing you to let them outside, or the phone ringing.
If you’re serious about making changes in your life, you have to be just as committed to the quality of your introspection as you are the consistency of it. That means refusing to put up with interruptions and distractions as you wade thorough the current state of your life to analyze it for a better future.
Create a space that’s reserved for your blog purposes. It can be a quiet nook of your home, with a comfortable seat and perfect lighting. No technology other than your laptop or PC should be present.
Don’t accept any guilt over the fact that you need some personal space to create your blog and learn form it. Everyone should indulge in some self care, and this is a form of that which can help you become more fulfilled in life.
A Blog Keeps You from Bottling Up Your Emotions

In a world where just about everyone is suffering from some sort of stress, it’s difficult to find a venue to be able to express your emotions without worrying that you’re just going to burden others.
In our private lives, we often keep the turmoil hidden just below the surface, never sharing our troubles, but instead keeping them bottled up so that we can deal with them on our own when time allows – if that ever happens.
A blog allows you to do this with your anonymity intact if you prefer – or, you can use your real name. If you’re shy or uncomfortable talking about things that are troubling you, then you may want to keep your name hidden.
Journaling on a blog is the perfect way to let out pent up emotional trauma. It’s very healing and can combine the down times with the good, letting you see that life is a mixture of peaks and valleys, so you’re never despondent for long.
With a blog, you can be creative about how you convey your emotions. You can do it with text, but you can also embed a video into a blog entry if you prefer to speak your mind on screen or off.
Blogging can teach you a lot about yourself. It lets you talk about and work through thoughts and feelings without having to expose yourself to anyone else’s judgment. It’s your digital home, and you can pick and choose who stays in your community – or whether your blog posts even go public or not!
You can slant your blog so that it’s all encompassing regarding your life – career, parenting, relationships, health, etc. Or, you can target one area of your life for the blog that you want to improve. You get to choose how you document your emotional outlet, which can be very freeing and put you at peace.
Blogging Allows You to Heal from Emotional Trauma

Emotional trauma can be very debilitating into the future. So it’s something you want to address before it festers out of control and haunts you at every turn. There are many different types of emotional trauma.
You may have experienced being bullied, natural disasters, medical events, grief, violence at the hands of strangers or loved ones or other forms of horrific abuse. Some people even endure multiple forms of trauma they have to deal with.
Blogging is one strategy to help men and women deal with the events that have happened to them. It allows you to spend time working through your reactions to the moments you spent suffering and the time since then that has never been the same.
No matter how long ago the event transpired, a blog can assist you in journaling about it. You’ll formulate your thoughts based on the emotions you’re feeling at that moment and be able to take note of any healing methods you’ve tried in the past.
You can use the blog as a portal to vent and release anger and sadness whenever you have down moments, or to fortify your strength and prove to yourself that there are many good days sprinkled amid the bad ones.
One of the best things about using a blog to deal with emotional trauma is that it lets you create a community of other survivors. People who are online seeking solace about something similar can find your blog and interact with yourself and others who have experienced the same thing.
This can be a very soothing process for you as it takes the focus off of your own troubles and allows you to help heal others as you, yourself are healed. Your blog can be the beacon of hope and light that others need to get past traumatic events in life.
And remember, if you want a premium training on blogging the right way, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint which includes over the shoulder training on blogging the right way.
Or, if you just want some more basics to see whether blogging is right for you, check out the featured resource below for a free Blogging Fundamentals report; download, read it and take action 😊

The Obstacles Of Success And Failure
The Obstacles Of Success And Failure

I’m sure we have all had to overcome obstacles of some sort in our lives, whether they be personal, career based, or business based.
Obstacles are just a fact of life, aren’t they?
However, there are plenty of instances where success can get in peoples’ way as well. In fact, it can be more debilitating for some.
Success As An Obstacle

When people succeed in whatever they are trying to accomplish, they have proved that they can do it. Sometimes, once that happens, they revert to the situation before success.
Since they have shown themselves what is possible, why bother proceeding and going further with that success? This can become pretty demotivating when you start to think this way.
Another reason why success can be an obstacle is that the excuses are no longer valid because you have already accomplished something.
It’s easier to use excuses. When you get to the point where you are almost succeeding, you may find ways to sabotage that success so that you can go back to using excuses. You’ll find plenty of people who will support your use of excuses, but it won’t get you where you truly want to be.
Some people don’t achieve their goals because they believe others don’t want them to succeed. It’s a strange phenomenon and usually is a result of a miscommunication.
For instance, you may be speaking to your parents about your accomplishments, and they question you in a way that on the surface seems like they are disapproving of what you are doing. In fact, they were proud and excited for you. This could cause you to give up on the venture because of you misreading their intentions.
If you find yourself in a position of fearing success, think about what you will gain when you push through to that stage. You will satisfy your goals and your chances of living a better life increase. Further, what you accomplish may help others. It could be a product or it could simply be a technique that frees up those people from a problem they may be facing. They will be grateful to you and you may even turn what you are doing into a business and earn money.
Once you can get past this, you have the tools to accomplish anything you want. You can use that point where you felt like giving up as motivation for future endeavors.
OK, so we have looked at the possibility of success being an obstacle, but what about failure? Can that be an obstacle too? You bet, and logically it appears to be pretty obvious, so let’s take a look at that now.
Failure As An Obstacle

People hate to fail. It associates them with losing which makes them believe they are losers. Society doesn’t look favorably on losers. When failure does happen, people tend to give up too easily instead of using the experience as a way to learn and grow.
Some obstacles may require professional help. For instance, if you have lost a limb, you may need physical therapy to get used to life without that limb. If you are using an artificial limb, you will need therapy to become familiar with living with that new limb.
If it is a traumatic experience, it could affect your mental capacity. In such cases, you may need to seek a counselor or psychiatrist to help you deal with the situation you face. Many feel it’s better to get help as soon as the traumatic experience occurs as it will be easier to come to grips with it. Although, it is possible to get help at any point in time.
When your failure isn’t severe (where you’ll need some extra help), you need to reach within yourself and recognize failure for what it is, a learning experience. Read profiles of most influential people, and you will find they have all failed multiple times. The difference is they kept going and did not let those failures deter them.
You need to believe in yourself and what you are doing. When that happens, you will become unstoppable. For example, suppose you have been thinking about creating a business based on something you are good at. You know that you can make it work and also know that others will be receptive to the idea when you do.
As long as you keep your focus on that belief, you will do what it takes to make it work. It won’t matter how many failures happen. Your belief system is in place, and you will analyze your failures to see how you can make changes.
What do you think about the opposing ideas of success and failure both acting as obstacles in your life? It may sound paradoxical, but the human mind is rarely straightforward is it?
I’m sure many people can see failure as an obstacle, but success? Well, I hope this has made you think about it at the very least.
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and overcoming obstacles is a small part of this. But if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
Is Your Website User-Friendly For List Building?
Is Your Website User-Friendly For List Building?

When growing your list, remember that gaining more traffic is not the only goal. Attracting highly targeted traffic, full of people who want and need what you’re offering, is the goal. Therefore, you need to develop a list-growing strategy that uses tactics that focus on your goal: Building and Growing a Responsive List, because when you have that responsive list, using email for marketing becomes much easier.
So, let’s build that traffic and ensure that you have a great list that will respond to every email marketing campaign you send them.
First and foremost, everything begins and ends with your website. If your website doesn’t look great, work fast, and doesn’t work on all devices you are likely missing out on numerous opportunities to connect with potential customers.
- Develop a Responsive Website – Using a responsive template is simple today but if you add images, always double check to make sure they resize and are positioned correctly on the screen. You can check by using Browserling.com, as well as your own mobile device, and other tools.
- Brand Your Website – You don’t want your audience to be confused when they visit your website. Keep your branding the same throughout your online real estate, from social media to your website, and everything in between. You can do this by using logos, fonts, colors, etc., to develop your branding so everything matches.
- Make it Easy to Contact You – You don’t want someone to have to dig around your website to find a way to contact you. Make it very easy by placing the contact info at the top and bottom of your site, as well as in the sidebar (if you have one). Visitors should be able to contact you easily, when needed.
- Create Simple Navigation – The rule of thumb with navigation is that less is more. Plan your navigation in advance to help create the right setup. Use labels on the navigation links that adequately identify what they’ll find there. Make sure your primary navigation stands out. This menu is usually at the top of every page of your website. Always link the logo to the home page so no one gets lost.
- Ensure it Loads Fast – A slow loading site is a traffic killer. In most cases, if your site takes longer than .8 seconds to load people will leave. Consider using a content delivery network (CDN). Use the right image formats and sizes, browser caching, fewer plugins, enable compression, the right web host, and more.
Making their wants and needs top priority helps to ensure you build a user-friendly website that people want to visit.
Know Your Audience & Your Competition

Before you start building or changing your site, get to know your target audience and your competition. You can only make informed decisions if you are well informed. It’s hard to create products, services, or content for your target market, if you don’t know what they want and need.
- Conduct Research – There are many ways to do research. You can look at the analytics you already have, but you can also do research using government databases such as the United States Census Bureau to compile information about your audience. Not only should you study your audience, study your competitors too.
- Develop Customer Personas – This involves creating a profile of your ideal customer. Find an image of how your imagined customer looks. In the profile, include personality traits, education, family life, career, income, and other details needed to develop content, products, and services.
- Monitor Social Comments – Whether a comment is on a blog or on social media networks, finding comments from your audience can help you learn more about them. Engagement on social media within groups is usually more trustworthy because they tend to ask honest, straight forward, questions.
- Conduct a Survey – When you know your competition well, you can develop a survey, which targets that audience. This helps you discover what they want and need. You can use Facebook Ads to market the survey, which lives on your website. Learning about your competitor’s audience can help you, if you have the same or a similar target market.
- Engage Often – The more you engage with your audience the better. Keep your email open to replies, invite questions, and answer questions, as they come. The more open you are the more open they will be. This is especially true if they feel you truly listen and appreciate their input.
That’s why you need to look at the data, pay attention to what your competition is doing, and keep your ear to the ground, regarding your entire industry to stay on top of what’s coming next.
Participate On Social Media

Social media can be very beneficial, as you build your opt-in traffic and mailing list. Since you need to be “social” and build relationships anyway, you may as well get the most out of your efforts. Let’s look at how you can use social media to drive traffic and grow your mailing list.
- Build a Facebook Group – Social media is the perfect place to build a community. Create a niche group, where you can promote your freebies, content, and products. Link your business page and your related group. In your profiles, include a link to your website and/or your main opt-in page. In your group, get the group’s thoughts on your “new” website content and discuss the nuances. You’ll also want to do live events. Weekly live events can really boost traffic to your business page, the group, your website, and your mailing list.
- Monitor Comments – Don’t allow comments to go unnoticed. Sometimes you only need to acknowledge that you read it. Other times, you should respond in more depth. Try to keep everything positive and be yourself. Being authentic on social media is important to building trust. Answering questions and linking to your “helpful resource” allows you to establish your expertise and build trust.
- Share Your Freebies – Share your freebies directly or indirectly in your group. Indirect sharing might be done via sharing blog posts, where the opt-in is. Members only items may be added directly to the group area. Every page of your website should offer a way to share the content blurb and link.
- Engage Your Audience – Post questions and information that makes your audience think. On Facebook or YouTube, use Live Q & A events to engage with your audience. Post polls, quizzes, and other interactive information help to encourage engagement.
- Use Amazing Visuals – Social media posts with visuals get more response than social media posts without images. Use the right type of visual to get your audience’s attention and make the post more interesting to your target market.
- Make Content Shareable – Everything you post needs to be easy to share. Don’t restrict sharing. In fact, ask people to share your content and thank them when they do. Sometimes a little reminder is all that’s needed to get people involved.
I hope these list building and email marketing tips have been useful. If you want to know more about email marketing, check out the featured resource below where you can get a free report about simple list building to expand your knowledge further. If you do download it, please read it and take action and good luck 😊
Improve Your Productivity
Improve Your Productivity: 5 Tips To Clear The Clutter

For so many people, productivity appears to be a lofty goal that always seems just out of reach. I’m sure we all want to be more productive, so we can achieve more every day and hopefully reach whatever goals we are aiming for.
The problem is that the modern world and workplace has so many distractions trying to pull you away from the task at hand. Add that to the decrease in attention span of many people today, and it’s amazing that we get anything done at all!
Is clutter standing in the way of you doing your best work? Likely it is. In fact, it’s one of the biggest challenges to your productivity. Don’t believe me, well read on.
When your environment is filled with clutter, you may feel like you’re constantly reacting rather than responding. You may feel a general sense of unease or anxiety. You may feel mentally exhausted even though you haven’t yet started your workday.
Are you constantly searching for client files, notes, or even something to write with?
Is it a nightmare to find a file on your hard drive or the cloud because you lack an organizational structure and/or an effective file-naming convention?
Do you have a dozen tabs open on your computer at any one time? Yes, that’s a form of clutter, too.
Are there stacks of books, papers, or even coffee cups or dishes sitting on your desk?
Are your file drawers crammed with paperwork that’s no longer needed and which belongs in the trash can?
Across the board, clutter is often fuelling these uneasy feelings and your lack of productivity. It has a way of sucking the life out of you, distracting you from what’s most important, and derailing your success.
Yes, simple clutter can be that much of a distraction and you need to reduce or eliminate it from your workspace as quickly as possible.
Try it. What have you got to lose?
5 Tips To Clear Clutter In Your Work Space

You can’t increase your productivity by reading a book or taking a class. You actually need to take action. The first thing you need to do is to “set the stage.” Nothing’s going to happen until you do.
Let’s focus on some basic components of your work environment. A cluttered and messy office is no place to expect your best work. And, while some people believe that’s where they get their best work done, imagine what they could accomplish if working in a completely upgraded environment!
Here are some simple tips for helping you to create an environment for success.
Put It Away!
Put away everything that belongs in your desk drawers or file cabinet.
If you find things that don’t belong in your office, then take them to wherever they belong and put them away.
Remember the old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind.” In this case, that’s a good thing!
Bonus tip: Discard anything you haven’t used in the past year. Odds are you never will. I know this can be difficult for hoarders, but just let it go!
Clear Your Desk!
Clear everything from the top of your desk and wipe it down.
Reduce visual distractions as much as possible.
Bonus tip: Wipe down your desk phone and/or smartphone. They’re a haven for germs.
Review Your Notes
Gather all your Post-It notes and scraps of paper. Review them and discard what you can.
Bonus tip: If they include items you need to reference, keep the one-page document easily accessible on your desktop or stored in a top desk drawer.
Remove Floor Clutter
If you have boxes or stacks of items on your office floor, go through them and discard everything you can.
Bonus tip: Go through your bookcase and get rid of any books you also own digitally. Box up any others that are outdated and either give them to the library or recycle them.
Remove Technological Distractions
Technology produces its own brand of clutter. Close down any tabs that you have open on your computer except for those that apply to your current work.
Bonus tip: Turn off any gadgets except the ones you need to do your core work tasks. You’ll get more done faster and easier without added distractions.
By implementing these simple tips, you’ll be well on your way to clearing the clutter in your office and reducing distraction. You’ll love the result. You’ll be more energized, less anxious, and more focused on your work. Investing a little bit of time today to prepare your work environment will make a noticeable difference in your productivity!
Want to learn more about increasing efficiency and productivity? Then check out the featured resource below to grab a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
Niche Marketing Tips For Affiliate Marketers
Niche Marketing Tips For Affiliate Marketers

Every marketer worth his or her salt knows what the most popular niches are – weight loss, pet care, making money online, survival, baby care, etc. are extremely profitable niches with billions of dollars being spent yearly.
These astronomical sums are enough to make many affiliates salivate and want to take a bite out of this pie by promoting products through their affiliate links and this can be a very lucrative affiliate marketing strategy.
Niching Down
While you can make money in these niches, it’s imperative that you niche down to a level that you can compete in. For example, weight loss is just too competitive.
As an affiliate, you’ll struggle to go up against the big boys who have lots of money to spend on building websites, advertising and more.
What if you niched down further and targeted weight loss for women above 40 who have diabetes? Now, you’re talking! This sub-niche will be much more manageable to target, and you’ll be able to find long tail keywords that you can optimize your blog posts for.
It’s be easier to rank for the low hanging fruit and your marketing efforts will be much more streamlined. The truth of the matter is that the same products that are marketed to the general weight loss crowd will also work with the audience in the sub-niche.
It all comes down to how you slant your content and show that the products will help the reader. If you can do that, your readers will become buyers.
Questions To Ask
Before even picking a niche, you’ll need to plan your attack. Is the competition manageable or is it beyond you? Are there products to promote? Will you be able to find places where you can drive traffic from?
All of these are very important questions that you need to ask yourself before diving into a niche. Jumping in blindly will mean wasting time and effort on a niche that’s either unprofitable or too competitive.
You’ll also need to search on Google to see what sites show up for the keywords you’re targeting.
What’s their traffic like? Are there ads being displayed on their sites? What products are they promoting?
All these questions are market research that you should be doing before you even get started with your niche sites. By getting answers to them, you’ll be able to formulate a marketing strategy that will give you your best chance at succeeding in the fastest possible time.
Strategizing For Success
Take notes while doing your research for easy reference. Do not rely on your memory. Try to bulk your tasks. For example, when looking for affiliate products to promote, find as many as you can at one time.
Study your niche before you start your affiliate marketing in it. The extra time you spend beforehand will give you a much better picture of how to proceed or if you even should. This is something all experienced affiliates do. Now you know it too. So, do it.
Niching down is just one of a number of affiliate marketing strategies, but do you really understand what affiliate marketing is all about on a basic level?
Understanding Affiliate Marketing To Succeed At It

On the surface, affiliate marketing looks like a very simple concept. You find a product for sale and you recommend it to others who might buy it. In return, you get a percentage of the sale as a commission because you’re associated with it. It’s so simple.
Just like how it is with insurance agents, door to door salesmen and real estate brokers. Affiliate marketing is all about sales and commissions.
But here’s something you should know – simple and easy are two different things.
Trust
When you’re selling online, in most cases, you’re not face to face with the prospect. The human element has been removed from the equation. Visitors to your site can leave with a click of the mouse.
Someone who doesn’t like your email can delete it and unsubscribe in seconds. Selling online while highly profitable, is a slightly different ballgame.
For starters, people come online looking for information or to be entertained. In other words, they’re looking for ‘infotainment’… and even if you’re in a niche like gardening, golf or woodworking, the same rule applies.
Door to door salesmen never had it this tough. There is much more rejection online. The only difference is that it’s not so obvious.
So, always make your content relevant, entertaining and useful. The goal is to get the reader to trust you. Use whatever it takes from infographics to videos to pictures of the product, etc. to remove all mental obstacles from the buyers’ minds and show how useful the product can be for solving their problems… and be subtle about it.
Traffic
The next thing you should know is that unlike real-life sales where the prospect comes to your store or you can go knocking on doors prospecting, when it comes to online marketing, things are a little different.
You’ll need to drive traffic on your own by using free or paid methods. So, you must learn a few traffic generation techniques and take action.
Tracking
When running an online business, you must track your results. Does your site have visitors? Do your products convert? Where is most of your traffic coming from?
Are your emails being opened? Which pages on your site see the most traffic? Which ads are performing well and which need to be shut down?
You’ll also know where you’re not performing as well as you should and be able to remedy the problem. You’ll never know this if you don’t track.
So, remember the 3 T’s of affiliate marketing. Trust, traffic and tracking. If you follow these T’s to a T, you’ll succeed at affiliate marketing in record time.
If you want to know more affiliate marketing, then check out the featured resource below for a free Affiliate Marketing Machine report which complements this post perfectly; download, read it and take action 😊





