If you are like me running your own business, then you know you must wear multiple hats. Having a content strategy in place for your business will be the key to elevating your marketing strategy. In this post, I will be going over some tips on how you too can create a content strategy for your business in 2021 and become more profitable.
Plan Your Topics in Advance
Tips for creating quality content do not just count for businesses but for your blog or other professional agendas, you may be working on. The first thing you want to consider is planning your topics. Once you plan the topics that you would like to discuss the entire writing process flows a lot easier. If you are not unfamiliar with the writing process or have a different perspective about it then let me put it to you this way. If you write content just to write and you do not at the very least, try to research what your audience is searching for chances are it will fail the algorithm monster.
What I tell my clients when they are creating a content strategy for their business is to get a planner and write down the days that you want to work on your content and write down the topics you want to write about. Check out this example here to give you an idea of how to create a content calendar.
Research Keywords
Keywords are specific words that help people narrow down their searches online. These words are used in your content so that it becomes highlighted to specific topics. If you want to really optimize your content and discover more ways on how to create a great content strategy for your business the taking the time to research keywords would be in your favor.
Need keyword search ideas related to your specific niche? Or are you just looking for some ways to generate ideas? Then check out my Etsy Shop where you can find downloadable documents for your keywords research.
What do you need to build brand authority to your website?
Anyone can benefit from having a website now and days. In fact, every business owner or someone wanting to start a business would benefit from a website.
Having a website will help you build brand authority and extend your reach to your targeted audiences. Your website should quickly capture what it’s going to be about and what kind of messages and goals you are trying to deliver.
Here some attributes that will help you build brand authority on your website.
Have a well-branded home page
Having a well-branded home page will help you build brand authority to your website by immediately letting your audience know what the site will be about.
On one of my websites thewritingmaster.com the first thing you can see is the top heading where it states “I am your writer”.
Here you can quickly understand what the website will be related to which would be some type of writing services. Just above the right, it has my company name as well as some of my main focus documents. Below I have a brief description of me and what my purpose statement is.
You want to let your audience know a little bit about what makes your business unique from the competition. Not only your business should be unique but building professional connections will help. Let people know what is your background and how have you built that credibility with your clients.
Post some of your projects or products
If you are trying to sell a product then ideally you want to display images showing what the product looks like along with a brief description of your product’s usability. In my case, I offer a service where you can download some of my projects to check out the literate that I have created for my clients.
I also show a brief description of what the service fees are so my clients can have an idea on pricing when they navigate through the website.
Part of building authority to your website is going over your process. This will better clarify some of the questions that most of your clients will have.
When you solidify what you do for your clients and how it would benefit them brings you a step closer to building your brand authority.
Share your recommendations
Recommendations are so important when you are offering a product or service. What is the first thing you do when you look up a new restaurant? Is the food recommendations as well as the service. People share their experiences whether it is good bad or ugly. This will help your clients have a better idea of how you treat your past clients as well as how you may handle certain situations.
When I tell you people live off recommendations it’s true! So the next time you go ahead and start creating a website for products or services make sure to capture a recommendation section for people to see.
Sharing personal stories
Sharing a part of yourself and how you can solve a problem is significant to any business. Sharing your unique process on how and why you decided to make positive changes gives people motivation. We all start somewhere and you never know people may be struggling in this area. building rapport and nurturing relationships help you create a longterm professional and sales funnel with your clients.
Make sure to incorporate your social links on your websites so that people can follow you within different social channels.
Having a website helps to build your brand and solidify your space in the online world. No matter what industry-related business you are in there is no better way to market yourself than the internet. When you have a website you can do the following
Having a content strategy in place for your website will help increase your visibility through SEO.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with SEO is a set of keywords incorporated in your blog so that it can become highlighted to people searching for specific information.
SEO optimization will surely help build your brand authority on your website.
Monetize your website and make money
If you own a website for your business you have a good chance of monetizing it. Creating blogs and web posts allows you to share links that are useful for customers to sign up for anything related to their search. For instance, if a customer has a website where they share domains and or hosting information you can provide useful links to hosting companies like Bluehost, Liquid Web, etc.
Having an online content marketing strategy in place is paramount to any business. Content creation helps keep a fresh perspective on your companies brand and helps build authority. Also, having a content strategy in place is going to help you market your self better and solidify your position in the online space.
17 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Strategy
1. Builds Authority
Most of your companies content strategies are going to be created for the internet. The internet is where most companies are creating an online content marketing strategy to build authority. This helps to solidify your position within various social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and more.
Not to take away from other content strategies, but this is the most that are widely used because of the type of information we can find.
2. Educates Your Customers
Having a content strategy in place is going to allow you to create it around your intended clients. You want to be able to inform your customers about the tremendous value you add to their needs. No matter if it’s related to a product or service, customers will appreciate the more information you provide them.
3. Keep Customers Updated
Having a contract strategy will help you with updating your customers on current updates from any pricing changes to new policies and procedures. Your customers want to be involved and feel as though they are part of contributing to your success.
When you create content for your business, it builds loyalty and strengthens that relationship withing your customers, employees, the company, and the brand.
5. Represents Branding
Representing your brand also displays authority to the company that you are willing to do what it takes to help it succeed. Branding is your reputation, and it can make or break your business, so make sure you instill positivity around it.
6. Increase Your Search Visibility Through SEO
SEO and keywords help your content become highlighted and visible to the intended audience through various search engines like Google. Yahoo and Bing.
This would be geared more towards an online content marketing strategy where people search for posts and articles related to their concerns.
7. Attract New Customers
An online content marketing strategy and or content marketing strategy attracts the new customer to your social channel. Whether you have a website or some other form of communicating with customers, you build a solid reputation for new customers wanting to learn more about your product or service.
Having new customers is great, but keeping them is even better. When you nurture your relationships with your existing customers, they become your advocates. They help you with referrals and talk to their friends and family about the services that you have provided for them.
9. Provides Usability
When you are describing a product that you are selling you are providing the usability and capabilities that the product offers. You also want to add some benefits to the buyer as to why your product is the hottest one out there. When people understand what you are offering and how it can benefit them it creates less confusion and customer service questions.
10. Reduces Less Bounce Rate
When creating an online marketing strategy you have something called a bounce rate. Bounce rate is simply a term used when readers visit your site and quickly leave for whatever their reasoning is. Geared towards online marketing strategies this will help retain your audience on your site a little longer if they have the proper reading materials for engagement.
11. Monetize it make money
If you own a website for your business you have a good chance of monetizing it. Creating blogs and web posts allows you to share links that are useful for customers to sign up for anything related to their search. For instance, if a customer has a website where they share domains and or hosting information you can provide useful links to hosting companies like Bluehost, Liquid Web, etc.
Content creation is a way for people to connect with one another and stay engaged with like-minded people. The more engaging your post is the better the relationship you will build with new and existing customers.
So next time you plan an online content marketing strategy remember to also incorporate a bit of your personality.
13. Demonstrates Product Value
Having a content strategy in place for your business helps add value to your product or services. Demonstrating value creates excitement and when people are excited they become a customer and your advocate.
14. Increase In Sales
Probably the most critical information to your content strategy efforts. At the end of the day, there is a business running and we need to make money. The more money you make the better opportunities you have to create more exposure for your business needs.
15. Creates Future Sales & Long-Term Sales Funnel
Now that we established that we need sales to help the business run but we also need to create a longterm sales funnel. Online content marketing strategies help with creating long term sales funnel by incorporating shareable URL links from your social channels. Links never go away unless you change it or your site shuts down but for the most part they are infinite.
16. Helps achieve other underlining goals
Creating content around your business helps achieve other goals like rapid growth, and the ability to receive feedback from your customers. Customer feedback is important because this helps you provide services and or products around the needs of the customer.
17. Better organization
And last but not least organization. Creating a content strategy will help you keep yourself well organized on how often you want to post and what topics you want to discuss.
Final Thoughts
Creating an online content marketing strategy helps your business in so many ways. It is also the most economical way to market your business.
Learning how to create a website on WordPress is one of the most important skills you should learn as a small business owner. Whether you are looking to create a website blog for your product or services or you are just wanting to start an online business. No matter what the case is learning how to create a website on WordPress will benefit you and here’s why.
WordPress dominates about 35%
WordPress dominates about 35% of search engines which is why is the most preferred website. WordPress’s dashboard has all sorts of a customizable feature that you can use to give you the best-looking website for your needs. In this post, I will be going over the steps that you can take to create a website using WordPress in just 45 minutes or less.
What is a WordPress.com
WordPress is an open-source platform site builder. Open source means that anyone is able to create customization for WordPress using plugins and some coding. For those of you not familiar with coding no need to worry there are great website builders out there like Elementorthat you can use to create beautiful websites in less than an hour.
In this post, I will be using the Wealthy Affiliate platform as my primary source to complete a WordPress website. Using other interfaces is very similar so don’t worry if you do happen to come across any question or need answers the receive 24/7 support from the community. 7 days FREE trial NO Credit Card required
On the Wealthy Affiliate dashboard to the far left, you will see a few menus go head and chose “WEBSITE”
You will then see a sub-menu and there you will go ahead and choose “SITE MANAGER”
You will then be taken to a menu where you can choose a subdomain or domain and then below your theme.
Make sure that you pick a domain name that is related to the topic of your website. You don’t want your website to be confusing to your intended audience. So choose a domain name that is easy to remember that your readers can identify what the website will be about. Which helps reduce bounce back rate on your website.
CHOOSE A THEME
*NOTE: You can change themes anytime so if you aren’t happy with your chosen theme so don’t worry.*
Wealthy Affiliate has its own hosting provider that they use so if you are signing up through WA then you can skip this step. There are many hosting companies that you can choose from. For my clients, I use Bluehostor Liquid Web.
Now if you are price conscious like me then I would go with Bluehost.
Step 3 Choose and install your plugins
You will be taken to the WordPress dashboard where you will have access to a variety of menus. Go ahead and update and choose the plugins you will be using for your websites.
Recommended plugins to start
Yoast SEO <– Helps optimize your blog make it more SEO friendly
Smush <– reduces image sizes for faster load time
Elementor <– Website builder I use to build and customize your site
Other recommended plugins not necessary depending on the website you are looking to create please read on
WordPress plugins
When I started dabbling with WordPress I noticed that if you want to customize your site you need to install what is called plugins. Plugins are software created by coders to extend the functionality and customization of your website.
Some of these plugins are free and others you would have to pay for. However, for the most part, the plugins that you need are free. The plugins that I use are Yoast SEO, Contact form 7, Ewww image optimizer, Smush and Elementor. These are basic plugins for a basic post
Because I am not selling any products I won’t be installing any links to receive money such as Pay Pal. However, if you’re creating an e-commerce site then you will be needing that.
NOTE: Adding more than 5 plugins can lower the quality of your site by slowing down the upload and download speed. So if you need to install a plugin and you aren’t using it then you can deactivate it temporarily.
Yoast SEO “Search Engine Optimization”
Yoast SEO helps your site with readability and SEO metrics to help you become higher ranked with search engines. Now keep in my that the longer you have your website the longer it will gain authority.
Yoast SEO is free to download, with the option to upgrade.
Contact Form 7
A plugin that I also use is contact form 7 helps readers send you messages directly from your site to your email so you never miss any communication from your readers. Again this is just the beginning stages of your website creation and may not be necessary for you now.
The contact form 7 is completely customizable where you can request instead of the person’s email address you can ask for their phone number. You can change the color schemes on it as well.
NOTE: To customize your Contact Form 7 you would need to do some light coding nothing crazy. To learn more about customizing Contact Form 7 click here:
EWWW Image Optimizer
EWWW Image Optimizer helps you resize your images to fit your device screen size. This helps reduce load time to make it much faster and efficient for your readers.
Google Analytics for WordPress (Monster Insight)
Monster Insight allows you to connect to Google Analytics so you can see how you’re gaining your traffic and from where.
There is so much that goes into Google Analytics if you want to know more about Google Analytics watch the video below or go to Googleanalytics.com
WP Socializer
WP Socializer is a plugin that allows you to share your website on social media such as Facebook, Google, Linkin, etc.
Visitors that go on your site can also use the icons to share your story with others.
What I personally enjoy about WP Socializer is that you can pick how you want the icons to look like and where on the page you want it to appear and there is absolutely no coding required! YAY 🙂
Step 4: Removing default settings on WordPress
Learn how to remove default settings from your WordPress website by going into the dashbaord and removing the sample page. There is no use for it so you can just throw it in the trash. Here is where you will be creating content to your website by clicking on “Add New”.
Step 5: Add Menus
Once you create your menu whatever that might be then you can go ahead and rearrange them in the order that you desire. Please note that when you are creating menus for your websites you want to utilize the “PAGES” from the dashboard since it will be considered a stagnant post.
Rearrange your menus to your liking
If you want to organize your menu then here are the steps to take. Click on appearance then go to Menus
.
Once the menu is in order to your liking then go ahead and save your settings,
Step 6: Removing the “Just another WordPress site” on your main page
AT the very top of the dashboard Go to customization and click on Site Identity
Go ahead and remove just another WordPress site and enter your customized title.
Now your site should be looking something like this
Step 7: Writing content
Pages And Post
OK, guys here is where you want to start giving the website some personality and writing engaging content for your audience to read.
Whenever I start strategizing content for my website I create the title first then add headings on what I want to write about. This makes it easy for writers to remember what will be discussed in their posts.
I also recommend before you jot down your ideas is choosing keywords that would help your post becoming highlights within the SEO.
Conclusion
Understanding how to create a website on WordPress can be a learning process but hopefully, this provided the necessary steps that you needed in order to get started. Now just keep in mind it does take some time to learn and it will probably take you hours to do. My advice to you is to keep dabbing in every day and eventually you will become a master at it.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to leave your comments below or receive live 24/ 7 access to the community.
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Understanding how to create Linkedin cold outreach messages could drastically improve your communication with your network. There are over 300 million active users on Linkedin looking for new opportunities to extend their digital reach.
Linkedin has become a way for others seeking careers, freelancing, implementing innovative ideas, and more. Linkedin, just like any other social media platform, is a great way to connect with like-minded people.
What I appreciate about Linkedin is that it takes me one step closer to achieving my business goals. In this post, I will be sharing with you some great tips on how I attract new clients and help create a long term sales funnel using Linkedin cold outreach messages.
Understand your ideal client
Ideally, you want to know what kind of clients you are trying to attract. If you are selling a cleaning service, then chances are you don’t want your ideal client to be a teenager. Most of your clients would be working parents or young adults that can benefit from this.
The same concept goes into searching for a potential client on Linkedin. For instance, selling baked goods to someone that owns a bakery. Instead of going that approach pay attention to details and, improvise on how you can collaborate with that person.
Now once you discover who your ideal clients are, then you will have a better understanding of how to approach them through cold messaging. Check out their profile and see if you share similar interests or connections; this will help you spark up a conversation.
When connecting with people on Linkedin, you want to ensure you are creating value out of that discussion. Remember, there is still a person on the other end, so don’t deter them from having a meaningful conversation with you.
Don’ts
Don’t send spammy links
Don’t pressure your connection to join a group
Send any misleading information on your products or services
Constant unnecessary messages
Write unnecessary titles to your messages
Share pre-written cold templates
Coming across as demanding or desperate
Dos
Introduce yourself
Get to the point
Say thank you
Let’s face it, would you like someone to keep contacting you with unrelated or irrelevant information? People want to connect with real people that would add value to their network.
Linkedin cold outreach messages examples
Just like any other job you have to connect with people in order to spark their interest in a product or service that you provide. Here are some examples of Linkedin cold outreach messages that you can try.
Example # 1: Hi, Ms client; I hope your week is off to a great start!. I’m curious to associate myself with you and see if you can benefit from the services I provide? It will allow you to focus on nurturing other professional relationships and extend your reach and create new opportunities for yourself. Feel free to reach out anytime and check out my profile to see if I can help in any way.
Kind Regards, Sender
What I like about this statement is that you asked a question, and you offered the opportunity for collaboration.
Example # 2 Hi Mr.Client, thank you so much for connecting with me and helping me grow my network. ? What exactly is it that you do? I would love to collaborate and share ideas with you in the future.
Asking an open-ended question such as what the person does gives both of you the opportunity to learn about each other. People love to tell you what kind of value they can add to your research or what they have a passion for.
Understanding your buyer’s purchasing stage can be crucial to your companies success. You want to know why your clients are not buying or what are their intentions at that given moment. Are your clients shopping around?
Are they waiting for a specific time or event to buy? Maybe they aren’t convinced that your product or service would help them solve a problem?
Whatever the case is, it would benefit you to understand what process your client is in so you can know when to reconnect with them.
Now that you understand your buyers purchasing stage, you will then have an idea of when and how to reconnect with them. Connecting with your clients prematurely may cause you a sale.
What I like to do is send a follow-up email asking my clients how can I support and help them achieve some of their goals.
I want people to know that I am in the market to help not to sell.
Based on my discoveries, referrals play a crucial role in how you nurture and strengthen relationships with your customers. So make sure you are building those relationships wisely.
People like to feel that you genuinely care and that you will be there to support them every step of the way.
Encourage your clients to follow your other social platforms
The average person has at least two different social media channels that they have interactions with. Encouraging your clients to follow you on other social channels will help you gain more exposure, and potential long-term sales funnel. You also want to be adaptable to how different people prefer to interact online.
Conclusion
I hope that this post added some value to your research when it comes to getting new clients and Linkedin cold outreach messaging. If you have another preferred method on how to connect with people, please share them on the comments below. I would love to hear your thoughts.
More and more people are solidifying their business and career paths to this digital world we live in today. In this post, “A Beginners Guide on Affiliate Marketing,” I am going to go over some of the relevant researches I have conducted to come to the level of understanding of how affiliate marketing works and how I make money from it.
If you are looking to explore a new way on how to incorporate an online income stream, then this beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing posts will add value to your search.
It is not unknown that affiliate marketing, when done correctly, can bring you online success. And a lot of money. Now, if you just started your research on affiliate marketing, then you will quickly discover that there are so many online resources to choose from. Here I will be discussing the beginning stages of being an affiliate marketing, including tips on how you can extend your digital footprint.
A Beginners Guide on Affiliate Marketing 101
I don’t want to state the obvious on how you should have already decided on your topic of discussion. I want this post to be as valuable and unique as possible. All those other questions you can easily research them. I want to get into the meat and potatoes right from the beginning.
Find the perfect social platform
What I mean by this is depending on what kind of category of affiliate marketing you are looking to get into, then there should be a clear path on what social channel you will be using. Your best bet is extending your reach to as many social channels as possible, but since we are at the beginning stages, lets us start with two.
Website
Yes, most definitely, having a website is going to allow you to share your URL links amongst other social platforms. Typically links never expire unless you cancel your hosting provider or the link is broken. If you are not familiar with creating a website or a blog post, then check out my article on“How to create a blog website for free.”
This would surely give you a better understanding on how to post. Or at least I hope so 🙂
Find the right company to partner with
Yes, seriously do your research, especially if you aren’t familiar with the companies you want to partner with. Not all payouts are worth investing in. Take it from me. I had to learn the hard by making bad choices. Well, I look at it like this if it wasn’t for those bad choices I probably wouldn’t have been able to write you a good post about my experience.
As a beginner in affiliate marketing, I strongly recommend that you stay with one subject matter. Or at least the same industry category. This will help you in posting more credible content as you would be considered the mastery of this subject. Now don’t get me wrong if you have several passions that you want to write about then, by all means, do so it would just be better structured sticking to one subject.
How to incorporate affiliate links into your website- Using WordPress
It is straightforward how to integrate affiliate links to your site. Once you have your blog post running and the subject matter you decided to write about, then you would incorporate links as so.
Now because I use WordPress, I would be demonstrating that in this post. I will later state why ultimately you want to go with WordPress for your blog post in the long run.
If you aren’t familiar with WordPress, then check out this post on
Assuming you already set up a post and started writing some content. Go ahead and highlight the word with your mouse until you see it greyed out.
Step 2
On the menu above your dashboard, go ahead and click the chain to incorporate the link on your post.
Step 3
Go ahead and incorporate the link into the post and update your content page. Now your link is included.
Create quality content
So now that you already laid out the foundation of having a product to promote, it goes without saying that great content has to follow. I know how challenging it can be with creating daily content, but let’s face it; we have to do it if we want to be successful at affiliate marketing. However, being new to affiliate marketing is not only going to take great content and products but also understanding your buyer.
Keep in mind that you are writing for real people who want to read relevant facts on the products or services that interest them.
Understanding what kind of questions your audience is asking.
This topic right here is crucial to your business. Understanding what kind of questions people are searching for online will help you create better content and understand some of the real pains your potential customers may have.
Using keyword optimization
Implementing keywords will allow your content to become highlighted to people searching for that specific word or phrase to their questions or recommendations. Check out this post on
As a writer, I have my own interpretation and style of reading, writing, and evaluating information. Most of my writing skills come from creating Technical Case Studies in college. As I started becoming more intrigued on ways how I can incorporate my writing style and make money from it, I became an Affiliate GURU!
The image below there shows specific metrics that makeup how good a keyword can become highlighted to searches. Understanding how the common keyword phrases on a monthly basis, along with how many people you will be competing against these keywords. This will make all the differences in the world.
Build trust
Part of the beginning stages of getting into affiliate marketing is building trust with your potential audiences/ clients. Please do not misinform people on how great a product is if you have never tried it. Be honest with your customers, even if it hurts. Trust me; people will respect you more for that than to be misinformed.
My recommendation on Affiliate Marketing platforms
There are a ton of marketing platforms that you can get into. Such as WordPress, Social media marketing like IG, Linkedin, etc. However, what I like about this platform is the step by step process and the guidance that you receive within the community.
Wealthy Affiliate
I have been a member of the WA platform since I discovered it about two years ago. I love everything this platform has to offer. As a Technical Writer, I can create different web content for myself and for clients to help them better brand themselves in the online space.
My first initial visit to this platform was for the 50 websites I can create and manage all in one place. I love that you can see when Google has indexed your site and understand your site’s health for better conversions.
While exploring the different options within the platform, I decided to not only create content related to my business but also to monetize it. I have a few friends that decided to explore WA and have been a member ever since. What I have done for them is added value to their search as well as earned commissions through their memberships. So basically, my membership comes out to be FREE. 🙂
Many of us are establishing real-life virtual connections with one another. Whether those connections are business or personal related we now have a better chance of extending our reach and pursuing our goals.
In this post, I will be discussing how I use LinkedIn to find my ideal clients and how you too can find your ideal client using this powerful platform.
If you look at my overall web content I talk about ways on how I was able to scale my business using the internet as my main source. In this post, I will be talking about how I use LinkedIn to find clients and how you can benefit from this as well.
How we solidify our foundation in the online space
Linkedin is a way for many industry leaders to come together such as entrepreneurs, freelancers, recruiters marketers, or people looking to scale a new business venture. If you are looking network and connect with likeminded people this is the platform that is going to allow you to do that.
What I really like about Linkedin is that it’s a two-way street. You can search for jobs and or clients. With proper keyword optimization, recruiters can find you. Freelancing has been on the rise and entrepreneurs are creating businesses all over the world. The internet has allowed us to that and more.
Engagement is important to gain client trust
Part of finding your ideal client on Linkedin is through social engagement. In order to gain clients then you have to engage with them on a regular basis.
Have you heard of the term out of sight out of mind? Well, that is exactly how it will be when it comes to your network.
Learn a bit about your ideal client by checking out their profile. Are they into books? Do they love animals? Are they connected to any social groups that you participate in?
Becoming more involved helps with building and maintaining relationships in this digital world we live in.
That doesn’t mean go creeping and finding out every bit of information but enough to pique their interest if you do end up engaging in conversation with them. You’d be surprised how much people love to talk about themselves and their passions.
How long does it take to have a long term sales funnel
Another great technique on how I use LinkedIn to find my ideal clients is by understanding their buying stage.
This is why I call it a long term sales funnel. This process can typically take you anywhere from 0 to 24 months to win a client over. The more you are consistent with your content an engagement the more exposure you gain.
Try to discover your clients purchasing stages. Are they actively looking for a writer? passively? or is it something that just came into mind. For some people there can be a thought process that goes into every purchase they do. For others, it really depends on referrals and recommendations.
Have a well-written profile
I am not going to lie sometimes even the highest executive leaders have an unfinished profile.
I mean it’s pretty easy to become complacent at a job that you love and that’s cool but I am a big believer in nothing last forever.
It’s great to build connections with others and network with like-minded people. Having an unfinished profile can hurt your chances of getting connected because it doesn’t show you value professional presence.
Identify your clients
There are going to be clients that prefer not to work with this is because sometimes people may not see the monetary value in your product or services. I have had clients boldface ask me if I can create a professional document for them or any writing services and they give me a price they want to pay.
When that happens I simply decline their offer and move on to the next project. Now there have been circumstances where I have wiggled on pricing but every situation is different. When you do what clients tell you to do you become a commodity and people start pocking at you for more discounts.
Move relationships offline
I absolutely vouch for this 110%. Part of my engagement on how I use LinkedIn to find my ideal clients is by maintaining a relationship with them. Referrals are going to play a key role in moving your clients offline.
There have been instances where I network with people offline and we end up staying connected. See when you start creating your own vision for your business you start slowly removing yourself from people that don’t share the same goals as you.
AT that point your time becomes limited to those that don’t add much value to your life. I mean it’s sad to say but its the truth. There is nothing wrong with moving your circle around so you can accomplish big things in life.
Be in the market to help not sell.
I mean, of course, we want to make money I am not saying don’t sell but also be in the market to help as well. People buy from people and as I am growing as a businesswoman I am also learning a lot about how clients like to feel secure that they are making the right purchasing decisions.
Even for me as a buyer, I want to make sure that I am getting the best products or services for my money. We all have different expectations of how we want certain things. It’s good to have high standards it says a lot about your character.
Consistency is key
I have managed to write 7 days a week as part of my daily routine. It was challenging in the beginning because the lazy girl kicks in every once in a while but when you are consistent positive things start happening.
You gain more clients, you increase your reputation and add value to your network. Now, this is not an overnight success it takes months most even years to master this. But the more consistent you are the faster and better you will become.
What once took me a full 2 days to write a blog post now can take me anywhere from an hour to three.
“It always seems impossible until it’s done” -Nelson Mandela
my name is Viviana Munoz, and I am an executive resume and Technical writer with a diverse background in recruiting, sales, marketing, and law enforcement.
I specialize in Technical Building, such as Web Designs and Technical Writing.
It all started with the love and the passion I have for learning. I hold a strong academic background having ownership of a Masters in Information Technology, Bachelors in Programming, and an Associates in Accounting.
Not to mention the other learning platforms that I attended, which contributed to my skills set. I am currently in pursuit of a full stacking certificate so I can enhance my coding skills and take it to the next level.
Check out my other websites and professional profiles
Whether you are looking to start an online business or you want to sell products or services Wealthy Affiliate has everything you need for you to get started. Wealthy Affiliate is an online marketing academy that teaches you how to market your business from start to finish. Here I will be going over how I use Wealthy Affiliate to promote my business and how you can use it too.
Where can I sell my ideas?
It’s apparent that the internet has given us all the capabilities that allow us to take our business everywhere. The internet enables us to extend our reach to hundreds if not thousands of people all over the world.
Because of flexibility many of us, are pursuing our passions online and influencers are becoming more mainstream. As entrepreneurs, we have solidified our career paths and created our own versions of success.
Having a website is going to help you sell your ideas and earn money.
Wealthy Affiliate Website Capabilities
With Wealthy Affiliate, you have all the website capabilities you need in one platform, such as hosting, website building, sub-domain, domains for purchase, and more. With the online learning platform, you have access to hundreds of tutorials targeted at creating an online presence.
You can discover topics such as SEO, how to market your business, creating your niche, PPC, Google indexing, and more.
Once you familiarize yourself with the platform, you will notice several menus listed below that relates to your website.
Site Manager: Allows you to check the health of your site such as speed, publishing Frequency, the content of your quality and more.
Site Builder: Here, you have the option to choose if you want to start a website with a FREE sub-domain, one you already own, or a new domain name.
Site Domain: Displays what kinds of domains are registered within the site.
Site Content: This is where you can create your content and monitor Google indexing.
Site Comments: In this section, you can request site comments as well as comment on other sites.
Site Feedback:You can request site-feedback from the community.
Site Support: There is a 24/7 round the clock site support for those experiencing any technical difficulties.The importance of having an active website.
Having an active website increases your rankings and builds your clientele
Having an active website will show your audience that you are fully committed and that you are producing up to date content. You also receive higher Google rankings by showing that you are constantly engaged.
Part of using Wealthy to promote my business is learning how to achieve maximum success through content creation. I am able to create content geared towards my freelancing services. Also, I provide recommendations to my readers on some of the products and services that I used to get started.
This allows people to make a self-conscious decision and research the company that is best suited for their business.
In return of going over the recommended products or services, I can build long-term sales funnel for my business as well as earn commissions out of every purchase.
How do I earn commissions?
You earn a commission by using affiliate links to promote the recommended products or services. With Wealthy Affiliate, you have the option to create a business through content blogging. Or by developing your own business just like the one I have here.
Explore other business ventures
What I love about the Wealthy Affiliate platform is that you can be creative with your ideas and carry out other passions. For example, I am a Technical Writer with a background in programming. I design my own sites and create my content. Being a creative web designer allows me as a freelancer to pick up projects that are within my scope.
Occasionally I will get a client needing some cosmetic changes to their website. So with the Wealthy Affiliate platform, I have access to build 50 websites where I can use as testing sites.
This will allow me to make the necessary coding changes on a dummy site without compromising my client’s website.
About Wealthy Affiliate Hosting
Hosting companies out there can range between $0 to over $200 a month. With the Wealthy Affiliate, you have two options you can either do theFREE lifetime membershipor upgrade to premium.
Here is where it gets interesting! With Wealthy Affiliates hosting it cost you less than $1 a day and you have access to hundreds of tutorials, 50 websites, weekly LIVE interactive classes, online entrepreneur certification (50 Lessons), affiliate boot camp training (70 Lessons) and more…
Check out everything that you get with the Wealthy Affiliate PREMIUM.
WordPress offers its premium hosting for $225 a month. Now, this doesn’t include the perks that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer. Forget WordPress what about Bluehost? Their business hosting packages range between $15-25 a month.
For clients to know you exist in the online space, you have to extend your reach. What platform do your clients live in? Is it Facebook? Instagram, Tweeter? Check out my latest post onhow I gained clients with little or no money.
But not only do you need to create that online presence, but you also want to show constant engagement to your site. This is where people within the Wealthy Affiliate community can help.
You are networking with like-minded people that are also looking to start an online business. Most had already started their successful journey years before we even dreamed about utilizing the internet.
See we help each other out this is what makes this platform so unique. There are hundreds of thousands of members online who can help share your content. As long it isn’t within the same industry. Again the community can help with site comments and feedback this also improves your rankings.
Hundreds of lessons and tutorials at your disposal
When people surf the net, we surf for recommendations, information, relevant facts. Subject matters that are going to be beneficial to our professional and personal growth.
Within the Wealthy Affiliate program, not only would you have access to these teachings, but there are weekly live classes as well.
So there is no excuse as to why you cannot be successful in this business.
Final thoughts
So if you have been in the market for an excellent marketing platform, then consider this before you do anything. If you can find a better platform that offers all the perks and much more than Wealthy Affiliate has to offer, then please share.
Wealthy Affiliate has done wonders for me and my growing business. I have learned so much within the past year that I was able to create two money-making websites.
Remember this when it comes to Wealthy Affiliate you are not alone. Sign up for your FREE and join me along with other successful marketers out there.
More about me
Hi, guys, I am a Master Resume / Technical Writer with a background in computer programming and a combined 20+ years’ experience in supporting careers in finance, law enforcement sales, marketing, recruitment; and other leadership areas.
I am a forward thinker who brings a broad perspective to personal-branding and development to others.
If you are interested in learning more about you can find me here on one of these platforms
Looking for ways to build your sales funnel without the high expenses? Let me show you how I gained clients with little or no money. But seriously wouldn’t it be nice if we can start a business with the funds already on hand? That would be ideal, but it doesn’t always turn out that way. In fact, some people that have an idea or want to pursue something never really follow through because money is an issue. I use to think that way where I felt hindered on ideas or afraid that no one was going to like my services.
One size doesn’t fit all
You can be the most excellent designer, dancer, project manager, writer, whatever you are passionate about, but the fact is that not everyone is going to like your work. I will give you an example I consider myself a Technical Builder / Writer. I write my own post I create professional documents for people such as resumes, Linkedin profiles, etc. However, sometimes, when I do any creative writing, some people may not understand the interpretation that is behind the literature.
Now I rarely get clients that feel that way this is because I pick the type of clients I want to work with, and I will explain what that is in a bit.
When you start getting into the flow of things, you will see who you will need to align yourself with.
If you have other commitments, this method might not work for you
Ok so I don’t want to sound like a negative Nancy, but I have been on this rodeo for a few years now to know what works and what doesn’t. If you are in the market and you are looking for ways to start a business, then you will see that its apparent work needs to go into it. Treat this as your 2nd full-time job and be but consistent.
Not only will you need to be consistent you will be working for hours upon hours at a time. So let me piggyback on that statement and say that I have worked probably close to 100 hours a week on my freelancing career. I researched ways on how I can extend my reach online as well as ways on how I can extend my network.
And yes you guessed it I had no or little money at the time to invest in my business. The investments and contributions that I have made were well worth every penny. I purchased things that I felt were essential like a website, a domain books, etc.
Become the MASTER you are
So before I go into the whole spill of how I gained clients with little or no money, I want to go over some of the resources I used to that helped me get started.
The first thing was to find a niche to write about and or a skill and master it. If you work on something consistently for six months to a year and what I mean by consistent is putting in those hours that I talked about you eventually will be able to execute it. Let me share a bit of my background so I have a high academic background in a few focuses. I originally went to school for programming. I have a Masters in IT and my BA in C++.
I knew that if I went to school, I can have a good job and make some decent money and a nice living. At the time I was committed to my full-time corporate job, but as time went on, I was still not happy.
What I used to start my freelancing business
After I knew what I wanted to do, I decided to create a website. A website was essential for what I needed for my business. I can extend my reach to clients as well as offer a payment gateway for people to pay me.
I started with a free website I paid $15 for the domain. Eventually, I upgraded because the paid version benefitted me more. I needed the customization and the bandwidth space to support my content.
Wealthy Affiliate is designed for anyone that is wanting to start a business, create a website, generate money through affiliate marketing, and extend your reach to thousands of community members. To learn more about Wealthy Affiliatecheck out my latest post.
Wealthy Affiliate has done wonders for me and my business, and I am confident that it will do the same for you.
I also did a few other things like purchase a planner, books, exercise membership, because when the mind feels good the body feels better ooh and of course ads.
How much I invest and what is my ROI
As I stated before I don’t spend much, approximately I invest between $25 to $100 a month, and my return between affiliate marketing and my freelancing my ROI is over 20xs more. Lately, I have been investing a little over $100 because I get a more significant profit. Now I am even getting referrals, so my money is tripling because of it. I do all this even with having a job. Trust me, I am nowhere near where I want to be, but there has to be a start.
So here is my concept. I create a website monetize it like I did with this one and promote my business all in the same platform. For instance, this website is dedicated to how to create a website, start a small business/ freelancing career, how to do affiliate marketing, and more.
Promote
I generate money by promoting a product or service to readers that can benefit from it like this one. I talk about the different domain, hosting web site builders anything that I am familiar with and passionate about. As an affiliate marketer, I get special rates on services that may not be accessible to others or new clients.
Once the reader checks out the product or service and decides to purchase it, I then get commissions. It’s a great way to generate an extra income. Pretty much like blogging, but I talk about relevant information that will benefit you. For my affiliate marketing, I use Wealthy Affiliate. It has been the best thing for me to get started on the online space.
The other way I generate income is through Google Adsense, and my Technical Writing career. People search for me, and there I am they reach out to me and request either a quote or they purchase my service.
Yes, social media is the sources of all good and evil. I even find myself on it sometimes 2 hours at a time, and I do nothing. But there is a way where you will be able to find clients while engaging in your social platforms.
Whichever social media you are into doesn’t matter but start with at least three. This is because not everyone lives in the same social media space. Most people do have at least two social media accounts now, so the odds of them being on the one you have generated for your business is pretty good.
I have a ton of social media out there that I don’t even use, not because I don’t want to but because it’s hard to keep up on all these social channels.
Comment on other peoples post
Another way on how I gained clients when I had no or little money. was to comment on other peoples post. Yes, you get to go on social media and do some lurking in return, you get some lurking back. Now this will work if you have your profile set to public. In fact, create a brand new page solely dedicated to your business. When you comment on someone else’s post, people will see who you are. AND if you comment enough eventually, they will go to your page and start lurking. Ultimately this leads to a like or follow, and a potential sales funnel later in the future.
So basically what you did here is you got some attention of a few people that are wanting to learn more about you or at least look at your profile. I did this for hours on myLinkedin profile, which eventually led me to a few hundred followers. I know is not much right now, but I have gotten clients that way.
Cold message
Yes do some cold messaging or incorporate an email list so you can share content. If you can’t grow a large enough emailing funnel or don’t have a lot of site traffic then message people. Whether you send a message through Instagram or a message through Linkedin, let people know what you do and why you are different at what you do.
Start by dedicating 2-3 hours a few days a week just sharing some love and people will eventually refer you or have you in the back of their mind.
I have gained clients after months of sending emails asking if they knew anyone that can benefit from my service. I know it works, so be ready to get exposed.
Attend networking events
Maybe this is a given, but networking events are a great way to extend your reach to other professionals. People that you would never expect to be in the same room in will be at your disposal. You’d be surprised how many people reach out to you after the event is over. I met some cool friends and gained some clients this way.
Ready set sweat
So if you are looking to start a business and want to find clients for free or with little money, then I suggest you get cracking and start planning. Write a lot seriously write until your fingers fall off. Eventually, with enough practice, you will be able to right in a matter of minutes. Starting anything takes time and effort to do. The reason why people fail is that they give it when it starts becoming challenging.
But remember your reasoning and why you are doing what you do; don’t give up and you will see positive changes.
Wealthy Affiliate is the #1 online affiliate marketing training program out there. The program delivers proven results on helping people generate income in the online space. Now the more time you spend into contributing to any business, the more positive results you will see. So how does Wealthy Affiliate become categorized as a scam?
There are so many platforms out there that claim to produce money-making results, but at the end of it all, it’s just a big old scam. Not only have you wasted your time but also your money. SAD 🙁
In this post, I will be going over some insight as to why Wealthy Affiliate is the best online marketing training out there.
Learn the platform
If you take the time to learn the platform and go through the training, your success rate will be much higher. Most of the time, people that are getting into blogging have the misconception of money streaming to their bank accounts.
In the real world, you can’t get thousands of dollars for anything. The reason being is that it takes time for your website to become well established within the search engines. Besides, Google primarily allows sites to be displayed that are rich in content, and that is user-friendly.
So for many, because there isn’t money being produced right away, then there goes the rumors of Wealthy Affiliate being a scam.
What do you get for free?
If it’s free its for me! Right? Yea I guess to a certain extent. Wealthy Affiliate offers a lifetime membership, which includes 20 Lessons, 10 focused on building a website around your niche that inspires you and the other 10 on their boot camp course.
You also receive two free websites you can use to get started. The best part is there is no hosting or domain payment required or even credit card for that matter.
The platform also offers a 7-day trial that gives you full access to the programs, 24/7 community support, so you can ask all the questions that you desire.
If you aren’t satisfied with what the platform has to offer, don’t sign up. Here is a chart of what you get with the free trial vs. paid membership. CHECK OUT THE TRIAL CHART
This is not just an affiliate marketing platform
So what I mean is this website is not predominantly focused on affiliate marketing. I am a professional Career Focused Writer and Web Builder, and I use this platform for my business.
Example because I am a Web Designer I need access to many websites so I can practice different coding languages on. Not only that but if a client asks me to implement something to their sites I use my other sites almost like a ginny pig. In addition, I create different designs to inspire my clients the importance of creating a name for yourself in the online space.
DID YOU KNOW? That by 2020 there will be over 50 billion connectible devices out there?
I can monitor my website’s performance
The platform offers 50 sites within the paid version, which allows me to build my portfolio. Now here is where it becomes interesting, the website shows you ways on how to improve your site speed and monitor your site’s performance.
Without proper site analysis, how would you know if your website is successful in the online space?
As demonstrated below, Wealthy Affiliate has several menus to improve your website’s health and performance. Now the cool thing about these analytics is that you know exactly what you need to focus on for your website to receive better rankings.
If you aren’t familiar with this by now, let me educate you, part of your site’s ranking is optimization. How so? With keywords and site engagement. So keywords allow your website to become highlighted to people that are searching a particular subject.
To properly apply rich keywords, you have to understand what is being searched more frequently on the internet. Not only that, but you should know how many people you are competing with for that particular word.
Wealthy Affiliate also offers a free platform called Jaaxy to help you with your keyword optimization. I wrote an in-depth post on what is keywords using Jaaxy here, so check it out.
Website engagement is important
Yes, this is so true! Website engagement and comments are exceptionally crucial in creating web content. Google and people want to see that you are fully committed to your website and that you are up to date with the trends.
If you have a website that doesn’t get any comments than how do you know if your post is being read? Google likes to promote sites that serve a purpose in the online space. If you barely engage on your website or don’t post as frequent than chances are no one is going to visit you.
Its all about consistency that will help you reach your goals. If you aren’t consistent or don’t find the time from your busy schedule, then this probably isn’t for you.
The Wealthy Affiliate community loves you
Ok maybe love is a strong word, but we do help each other out as a team. You can request the community to help you evaluate your websites cosmetic look. You can also invite people to engage in your website, so you all share each others content.
The beauty of it all is that you find people with different passions and that share different ways of generating money. I once stumbled upon someone requesting for site comments, and it was all about food. God knows I love to eat 🙂 in any event, the blogger was very passionate about healthy eating.
The blogger talked about the air fryer and its benefits, I always wanted to get one of those. So I decided to purchase it through their site helping them earn commissions and me receiving an air fryer that I was going to buy anyway. Again you’d be surprised by what people blog about.
Online Tutorials
Well, this is probably the second most favorite thing that Wealthy Affiliate offers is the opportunity for people within the community to post online tutorials. This helps you learn different ways of extending your reach in the online space as well as promoting their content with YOUR AFFILIATE LINK!
Isn’t that amazing? At times when I need to post, I go ahead and share a video within my social channels and if people love it, they click on the video for more information and boom, I received a referral.
What Wealthy Affiliate does for my business
As stated previously, I am a professional Career Focused Writer and Web Builder. I utilize this platform to write about various topics to promote my business. This is how I get found by my clients, In addition, I create websites to inspire people on extending their reach in the online space.
Here are some of my projects, which has helped me build my portfolio all under this platform.
Also if you want to learn more about me and what I do connect with me on Linkedin.
Pricing
If you are considering purchasing a website builder, then check this out. The average website with hosting can cost you between $5 to hundreds of dollars a month.
Pricing is based on different factors such as the type of hosting, company you are purchasing it from and the kind of builder you want to use.
Wealthy Affiliate offers the first month at $19 then every month after that at $49 a month. But I wouldn’t purchase it that way. If you are looking to commit to the platform then I would take advantage of the yearly subscription of $349. This saves you hundreds of dollars.
Last thoughts
So is the Wealthy Affiliate a scam? I am going to confidently answer no to that question. So let’s go over some important factors of creating a name for yourself in the online space. The key is to be consistent and be positive.
Make sure you post frequently, and you engage with your audience.
This will allow for a better relationship in trust and longtime fans. If you have any other platforms or know of any that makes you money then share with us we would love to hear from you.
