Transcripts
1. Welcome to the Class!: Hey there, my name is Lauren
and I'm so excited that you're here and that you chose me to help you on this journey. Here's a quick
background about myself. I have started in grown-up
multiple online businesses from scratch in various niches. I put on Pinterest accounts that YouTube accounts, email lists, you name it to over a 100 thousand
subscribers and followers. I've started a podcast. I've been able to quit
my full-time job as an accountant and have been able to start traveling the world, working from cafes from South
America to Europe to Asia, all while working on my
online business full time. In this course, I'm going
to teach you how to start a successful online business with the focus on
content creation. Specifically, you're
going to learn how to figure out what kind of
business you want to have. And that includes coming up
with ideas for your business, narrowing down your topic, and choosing the right niche to really attract the right people. You're going to learn
how to decide between the different options and types of content that you can create. And really figure out
which one or ones work best for your style
and your personality. You're also going to
learn how to build and design your very own website. How to start your
first e-mail list, get your first subscribers and know what to send to
those subscribers. You're also going to
learn how to choose a platform to promote
your content. Really had to start
building your audience. Now in our class project, you're going to get to create
your own business plan and start your very own website. And just so you know that I'm
not some internet unicorn, I actually used to be a
tax accountant before I started exploring the
online business world. I had absolutely no experience
when I first started. So it's totally okay
if you don't either. This cost was designed for beginners and it's
gonna be perfect for you if you want to build
an online business as a content creator, that really provides you with some more freedom and
creativity in your life. Now as you can see, we
have so much to cover. So let's get started.
2. Focus and Motivation Tips: Hey there, I'm playing to create an entire course on these
next couple of lessons because I could honestly fill an entire course with
everything that I've learned. But for now, I'm
going to keep this short and sweet because
you have enough to focus on and think about
as you're getting started. So here's my golden
nugget piece of advice for staying focused enough
to keep you motivated, enough to get this
done as quickly as possible and as
successfully as possible. Alright. Are you ready? Lean in close because this
is a super big secrets. Every day on your notepad or your tablet or whatever you
used to take notes with, write down the number
one most important thing you have to do that day to
bring you closer to success. Just the one thing. If you're a big planner,
you can write off the next two or three
things off to the side. But the important
thing is that you stay immersed in this one
thing until it's done. And then you can move on.
So whether it's designing your website or creating your first three
pieces of content. Just do it until it's done. Don't worry about all the other things that
you have to do. This has served me so well, starting and growing
my own businesses, as well as actually achieving
success very quickly. Now in this course
I'm going to provide you action steps along the way to help you
including how to set goals, which is what we're going
to talk about next.
3. Setting and Achieving Goals: Hey there. So I'm actually going to preface this lesson by telling you that I'm actually not a
big goal set for myself. I'm more of a keep your head
down and do everything it takes until the task is
done, kind of person. But that being said, I do think that setting goals
and benchmarks along the way is really
important to keep you on track. Just makes sure that you
do this in your own way. Set flexible goals
if you want to, as long as you respect those and prioritize them
appropriately. For example, if you
were to set a goal to build an online course
in one month and then create a plan and smaller goals each week
to get you there on time. You can absolutely do that. And I've seen my students accomplish that in just a month. But if you set that same
goal for six months from now and you create a plan
with smaller goals to get you there in that time, that same task will
take you six months. This is called Parkinson's Law, and it essentially just
means that our work expands to fill the time that we
allot for it to take. So here's what I want you to do. Number one, I want
you to set goals with deadlines to complete a task. And then number two, I want
you to break this down into smaller subtasks with additional
deadlines if necessary. That's really it. That's my big goal. Speech. Just keep it simple. Let's get started. And in the next lesson, we'll talk about
how to figure out what kind of business
you want to run.
4. What Kind of Business Do You Want?: Hey there, I'm
going to let you in on a little secret right now. This is something
that I actually missed the first time around. And it resulted in
a big fat failure when I started my first website. Here's the thing. Your business really isn't
about you seriously. Yeah, it's actually about your audience and
what they need. That's the only real way
to make this sustainable. But it is a little
bit about you at times because it's
also not going to be very sustainable if you end up in a space that
you really don't care about or you're creating
content that you don't care about or that
you aren't suited for. So we are going to talk about you for a few minutes before. We then focused on audience a lot more in
the rest of this course. Now, just remember
that whenever we do talk about you and
what you do want, you also need to
make sure that it does align with
what your audience wants and always keep them in
mind every step of the way. Now with an online business, there are a lot of different
routes that you can go and you can also mix
and match these routes. It's gonna be different
from person to person. You can be a blogger
or a YouTuber, or a podcast or an influencer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Most of these really fall
under the umbrella of content creator
because really we're building a
content-based business. So call yourself whatever
you want, content creator, entrepreneur or blogger, whatever really
feels right to you. You'll probably hear me
use the term Blogger. Blogger often too. It's okay if you
don't identify with this term or you don't
wanna be a blogger. But I do think that almost
all content creators can benefit from having
even just a few articles on their website called a blog in addition to any other
content that they create. And it's okay if you don't know exactly what direction that you want to take just
at this moment in time. Because I have
designed and created this course to get you really asking the right
questions to help you make these
kinds of decisions. And whatever you decide, it also could totally change
over time. It often does. This has been the case in every single one of my businesses. They evolve, the
content evolves, you evolve and things change. This is okay, and that's
how it should be. Your business should be open and flexible enough and it should be natural thing and unexpected evolution
is going to happen. So here are a few
things to think about. Do you want your business
to be about you? Do you want to be
in a spotlight? Do you actually want
to be an influencer, or do you prefer to remain behind the scenes as
much as possible? And lastly, are you open to
this changing over time? We often don't start
out camera ready, but we often find ourselves
moving towards it with time and competence
as our business grows. This matters because
it does impact the type of content that
you're going to create, how you're going to monetize and really how you're going
to set up your business. Food for thought. We'll talk about
how to come up with a successful business
idea and really clarify what you want
your business to be about in the next section.
5. Coming Up With a Successful Idea: Okay, Enough saying the
mood already, right? Let's actually do something. Let's decide what you want
your business to be about, what topic or topics
you're going to create content on and
teach others about. Now this can take ages and cause major roadblocks to
getting started, neither of which we want. So let's simplify this process. I want you to answer
these questions for me. Number one, what do you have personal or professional
experience in? For me? That was personal experience in health, wellness, dieting. I became a pretty hardcore
vegan for a few years. I'm talking gluten-free, Rob bathing in buckets
of green smoothies, vegan, who was a lifestyle. When it came to my
professional experience and my background was in
business and accounting, completely different
things, right? I have an MBA and I
passed my CPA exams, and I could also start
something based on that. I have enough experience
from both of these hobbies, passions, careers, whatever
you want to call them. Okay, so number two, what problems have you
personally overcome? Now this can literally be anything from mental
illness to gardening, to training dogs,
to overcoming acne, online gaming, knitting,
literally anything. Have you struggled with
any of these areas or picked up any of these
activities for a period of time to learn
some experience in them or do have a
desire to learn more. Okay, and then the last
one I want to ask you is, what topic do your friends or family go to you for advice for? What would they say that
you can't shut up about? I was definitely that
person that gave the unsolicited dieting advice to my friends over
the dinner table, you know, that one
that gave them a really judgmental
look when they ordered pizza instead of salad
for their health. Of course. Anyway, think about
the answers to these questions and
write them down. Now there should be
a pretty natural and definitely not forced
kind of thing. No soul searching
and the stars here. We'll take this a step further in the next lesson
and I'll give you a few additional
things to consider when you're actually
choosing your niche.
6. 3 Ps of Choosing a Niche: Okay, Here are three
additional tips to help you choose your
topic or your niche. I call them the three P's. Number one is passion. You have to be interested
and invested in the topic. Now your degree of passion
with a subject you're teaching will show in
your communication. So you don't want to start out teaching something that you have no experience in or
don't truly care about. Your readers listeners
are gonna know you won't get very far and it
also isn't very sustainable. Number two is popularity. This has something to
do with the amount of other people that are
interested in this topic. No, it shouldn't be too obscure, like basket weaving or too
broad and general wellness. I don't know. Maybe there's a whole market out there for basket weaving now, but you do get my point. Then number three is profits. And this should be able to generate you some
money in some way. Recipe websites, for example, are notoriously
hard to monetize. People like to
grab a free recipe and then just get on
with their cooking. I'm guilty of that. So how do you
differentiate here then? Are you ready to
create a recipe book? Because that's what most recipe
bloggers actually have to do in order to make some real
money with their website. Now, Neijing down can
definitely help here, and that is what
we're going to talk about in the next lesson. One other thing that can
help you here is doing a quick search on a few
platforms like Google, YouTube, and Pinterest to find some other websites in
your niche and just get an idea of what kind
of content they're creating and how they might
be making their money. Do they have ads? What products and
services are they recommending or selling
on their website? Take a look and get some ideas. Then in the next lesson,
we're going to talk about how to narrow down this niche.
7. Narrow Down Your Niche: It's important to
narrow down your niche for a couple of reasons. Number one is that
it will help you attract a more
targeted audience. Number two is that it will
make your content less competitive for SEO
and other algorithms. Now here's an example. I started out in
health and wellness. Now this is super broad. It encompassed dieting,
yoga, fitness recipes, workouts, weight-loss, and everything else that could be considered general health. Now, finance and investing,
mindfulness and motivation, dog training, traveling, these are all way too broad, too big, too broad, and you'll
be competing for space against huge websites like BuzzFeed and really other
mainstream content publishers that have teams of hundreds behind them publishing content. So here are a few
better examples of more narrowed down Nietzsche's
weight-loss for mothers, financial planning for
female entrepreneurs, mindfulness and life
coaching for mom's, dog training for new pug parents or traveling on a budget
for digital nomads. Now, this is how
you differentiate yourself from others and
really stand out in the crowd. It's also how you remain
competitive enough to be seen, but not so competitive
that you get lost in a sea of other
content creators. Now one of the best ways to
really narrow down your niche is to first identify
your target markets. And this is what
we're going to talk about in the next lesson.
8. Identify Your Target Market: Hey, there, it's time to get out that notepad again because I have another important
question to ask you. Who were you trying to
reach with your content? Think about it for a second. Is it men? Is it fathers? Is it young fathers,
single young fathers, working young fathers are
working on fathers with a pug. Okay. No, that's a step too far. It's way too narrow, but I think that you do
get the idea here. Now, this is really
important to know so that you can really
focus your content, your communication, and all of your marketing on this
very particular person. So when you buy a product
or you read an article, you generally trust it a lot more when you
know that it was written specifically
with you in mind, right? Let's see. You're reading an
article or watching a video on how to
train your dog, you're likely going
to be much more interested to seek out the ones that are about
German Shepherds if that's the type of dog
that you have, right? So whether a tear, dieting,
relationship advice, anything, you are
going to seek out that information is
more specific to you. And you want to create
information that your people can relate to as
much as possible. Now, it's okay if you don't know what to narrow
it down to right now, You can definitely do this over time as you get in the groove. But it is helpful to
try to keep this in mind from the very
beginning because you will generally be successful faster if you can nail it down. Now, I didn't know
right away and I took the opposite approach. I threw everything up at the
wall and saw what stuck. It did work eventually, but it took me one field
blog and a few months of trial and error to
eventually figure that out. So in the next lesson,
we're going to dive a little bit deeper
and talk about how you can actually identify
your target customer.
9. Identify Your Target Customer: Okay, now let's take this a step further and I want you to answer this question for
me or for yourself rather, who is your ideal customer? Because really
narrowing in on who this person is and
what they're feeling, that is going to be the
secret sauce to your success. So how old is this person? Are they working or
they money conscious? What problems are they
struggling with when it comes to the topic that
you're talking about? What obstacles are they facing when they are trying
to achieve their goals? Related to this topic,
Here's an example. Let's talk about a few couples
that have a new puppy. Maybe they are 25
to 40 years old. They're financially independent, perhaps with a kid or two. Now they just don't
have the time or the patience to
train a new puppy. Maybe they have a
full-time job already. Maybe they've been taught the wrong methods
or they've tried puppy training school and it just isn't working out for them. Maybe their dogs too old, maybe it's a rescue dog. Now this is specifically what
it means to really think about your person and identify
those target customers. So you've already identified
who you're trying to reach. And now we're going to identify those obstacles that they're facing to achieve those goals. Now I want you to write
this down because it's really, really important. And we're going to revisit this very often in this course. Alright, Next, we're going to
talk about how to factor in your platform into
this whole discussion about your niche and
your target customer.
10. Consider Your Platform(s): Hey there, how are you doing? I know that we're
blowing through this and it seems like a lot, but this is all of the stuff that I wish I had known
in the beginning. I didn't do any of the planning
or the setup properly, and it took me a lot longer to get to this place
because of it. Now we're still talking
relatively high level here. And it's really just
to help you paint the right picture before
we start building. You're essentially building the right foundation right now, which is so important. If you can create a clear
direction and a path to take in the beginning of this
journey is going to be so much smoother, trust me. So let's talk about choosing your platform to share
your content on. Now, I won't get too specific on choosing platforms in
this lesson because we're really only just
beginning and we're defining your overall idea
and playing at the stage. So only think about
this in that context. How it helps you
choose your niche and narrow down those topics. Now, the reason that this
matters is because where you're sharing your content also
dictates who receives it. For example, if I'm
trying to reach older men or women
with my content, TikTok probably isn't
going to be my best bet. I wasn't purposely trying to target older men
or women that are looking to be influencers
or TikTok stars. My point is that to
every platform has its own demographics of
people that hang out there. With my health and
fitness website. I was trying to reach
young 25-year-old. Some things that we're looking
to stay healthy and fit will also branching and
having a social life. And that's because that
was me at the time. But then they started promoting my content mostly on Pinterest. And what happened was
that I attracted almost entirely women aged 35 to 65. So there was a big
mismatch here because of my platform and
they just weren't the people that I
was looking for. Now in this case, I
pivoted my business in the direction of
where that traffic was, rather than trying to jump
ship to another platform, that would totally
be your choice. But keep in mind that where you share your content matters when it comes to what you're sharing and who you're
trying to attract. It's all related.
11. Decide on a Business Name: Okay, you've got your topic, you've got your idea. Hopefully you also have an
idea of where you want to start and who you're
trying to reach, and where you might
find those people. We've accomplished
a lot already. Now the next step in our
planning stages is to decide what we're going to name our business or our
website really, then this can be anything
that you want it to be, including something fun and
descriptive about your topic, or even just your name or a
combination of those two. No matter what, it really
should be easy to spell, easy to pronounce,
and easy to remember. So here's an example of using your name as
your business name. My friend Natalie Bacon is a Mindfulness Coach for moms and she is very much at the center of her
business as a coach. So it makes sense
for her to have her domain name be
her actual name. And who also doesn't
remember her name like bacon, solid marketing. Now, it also has allowed her to be very flexible over time and pivot her business over the years as she's
changed topics. Now, if she wanted
to name her business something more descriptive, she could have
called it something like mindfulness for moms, The Mindful mom.com,
you get the idea. Now, you shouldn't spend
too much time here because your name actually ultimately
doesn't matter that much. I know crazy, right? It's actually more about the
content that you're sharing. Here's how I know this. So my first website
name was so clever and ultimately that website failed
and amounted to nothing. Now my second website
name was awful. It was hard to pronounce, hard to remember
and hard to spell. But despite that, the
website was earning $20 thousand a month
back in its heyday. Okay, here's what
I want you to do. I want you to think
of a business name or a domain name
for your website. And consider maybe creating something that's a
little bit more open and flexible enough that
if you do want to pivot or change your
content over time, you'll be able to. Now that you really
can't go too wrong here, It's more about your content. So do check the
description in class, resources or information on
Tuesday, your domain name, and the next one and talk
about how to actually secure that domain name and
start your website.
12. Domain Name and Hosting Plan: Okay, It's time we're doing it. We are starting your
website, your business. This is it. The first question
that you probably have is, can I start a website for free? And my answer is yes, you can, but you absolutely shouldn't
for so many reasons. But here are a few
of the big ones. The first and the
biggest reason is that you don't actually
own your website. If it's hosted on
a free platform, you won't own your domain name. So it'll look something like
Jessica Smith.blogspot.com. So Ms. Jessica Smith, that means that if
anyone else buys the domain Jessica Smith.com, you can't operate
your website on it. Having the dot blogspot or the
dot Blogger or whatever in your domain name
really just looks very unprofessional and
in the long-term is just really not
going to work. You're also going to have
very limited control over your content and how you
can monetize that content. So instead, we want to opt for a low-cost plan to get started. You can always
upgrade later on when your business grows and
you need more bandwidth. It'll be a while
before that happens. Now, most plans advertised
very low monthly breeds, but you generally have to pay annually if you
want the best deal. So hopefully you have your
domain name already picked out two after our lesson
on choosing a name. But even if you aren't totally
sure about your name yet, you don't actually have
to have that right now. You can actually get
your hosting plans setup and then choose your
domain name later. So don't worry about
too much if you need more time. Okay. Let's go ahead and get started.
13. Exercise Write This Down: Hey there, I'm
checking it again. I know I've asked you a lot of thought prompting
questions so far. This is really just
to help you build the right foundation
for your business. Also to help you
get a clear path from day one that
you weren't bumbling around in the dark like most people and like I
was in the beginning. And honestly you've
accomplished so much already. So if you haven't done so yet, do check out the class resources because I've included
a few downloads and checklists and other items to help you plan and help
you get along your way. Please do yourself a favor
and write all of this down. Everything that we've talked
about in this section. Your niche, your target market, your ideal customer, what platform you're gonna
use, your business name. It is so much work that you've already done and it's
really good idea to have something that
you can reference throughout this course
as we keep going. Because from here, you are
going to start creating a lot. There will be so
much action to take. And on that note, please
look over the class project because you're at
the point where you could complete it
if you want to. That's so awesome. So please go ahead and finish
that project now for me, obviously, no, of course, for you seriously, do it. Send me that screenshot
because it is proof that you have accomplished
so much already. That's more than a lot of
people get along this route. Trust me. So please do look over those resources
and then project. Now if you haven't already
download them, print them, save them to your
tablets so you can draw on them whatever
floats your boat. We'll talk about how to design your website in the next lesson.
14. Design Your Website: Okay, so now that you
have your new website, it's time to actually design it. This is the really
exciting part, right? Well, this part
can also get a bit technical and complicated
if you weren't careful. Website design requires coding. But thankfully, we
had these cool things called the themes. These are essentially
just a bunch of pre-written coating that makes your website and the constant that you
add look pretty. The images, the colors,
everything else. It's really easy to get hung
up for weeks in this stage, making everything on your
website look perfect. I once spent four days
trying to perfect a header image only to have
it change two weeks later. Now my best advice here is just to choose a basic theme to start off with indigo for a very simple and
professional design. Then please move on, because we have so many other important things
to do right now. And your design really doesn't matter as much
as you think it does. And remember that the
vast majority of people, like over 80% are actually viewing your website on
a mobile device anyway. Okay, I've included
some recommendations in the resources area
to help you get started with choosing a
theme for your website. So do take some time to
go through these and also watch the next
lesson on pages and site structure
before you get too far in design mode so that you have an idea of what to include in the design
of your website.
15. Pages and Site Structure: The overall design
and structure of your website is really
going to be up to your discretion and it ultimately boils down
to personal preference. But that being said,
I wanna give you a few pointers on what
you should consider. So let's talk about
your homepage first. Know your homepage is important. Of course it's the
facade of your business, but it's not important to get
it 100% perfect right now. It's going to change
a lot over time. And also most people will be on a mobile device and likely finding you through search or links directly
to your content, not your homepage specifically. But that being said, here are a few basic elements to
have on your homepage. Number one is a menu
with important links. So an About page, your content,
perhaps a blog page. And at some point a
link to sign up for an email list or a paid product. Your most important links, number two is a header banner. Now this is optional, but I do think that
they look really nice. It could be a photo of you or some other photo
that really depict something about your business. Number three is something about you if it's not in that banner. So make sure that you
tell your readers a little bit about yourself. Who have you worked with? What are your credentials? Have you been featured anywhere? Anything else here that
is helpful to build the credibility of
yourself and your website. Number four is some
type of content. So whether it's blog
content, videos, podcasts, episodes, any kind of regularly updated
content should go here. Then number five is
an email opt-in. Now this is really important. There should be somewhere
that a user can opt in to learn more and
become a subscriber. So we'll talk more about
this later on in the course. Don't worry about it
too much right now. Number six is a footer. Now, this is where you can have a few other important links, like your contact page in any other legal pages that
you have on your website. Now, on that note, it is really important to have legal pages on your website and there are three basic ones that you
should use to get started. Number one is a disclaimer page. This protects you
against legal liability and really just
explains to users that you aren't responsible for their actions after
consuming your content. For example, have you published information in the
financial space? You should include a disclaimer that states that you aren't responsible for anyone's
financial gains or losses. Now I know that this
seems self-explanatory, but that is the world
that we live in. So it's important. Now, number two,
you'll need to have a privacy policy page. This explains the
kind of data that you collect about users and
what you do with that data, data privacy protection.
All that jazz. Also important. Then thirdly, you need a
Terms and Conditions page. Now this covers things like the transactions
between you and users, copyrights, all kinds
of other stuff. Now I know this
sounds like a watch because you're just
getting started, but it's actually pretty
easy to set these things up. You can usually find some
pretty great templates for free online. And you can also work
with a lawyer to, of course, although it's
a bit more expensive. Alright, the next lesson
we're going to talk about branding and logos.
16. Branding and Logos: Okay, now let's talk about the pretty things like your
branding and your logo. Now I'm going to let you in on another little secret of mine. I really don't think that
these things are that important at this
particular stage. They are, of course
important in some point. But the thing is, you're
just getting started. You haven't found
your groove yet and you likely
don't already have an idea of what you
want everything to look like as a final product. And you really shouldn't,
because it should be flexible and fluid. And all of this should
be open to evolution and change as you start
building your audience. Now, I know, because
my logos and branding changed several times on
my first few websites, they only got more static really after the first
few months or so, I spent a lot of
time on the ones I ultimately didn't use
in the beginning. So here's what I
think you should do. Come up with two to four
brand colors that you like, because it is important that you remain consistent
with your branding, even if you decide to change
it entirely at some point. So after that, create a
text-based logo for your website. It's professional and
trust me, it works. Don't get too fancy
or artsy with it unless you've maybe already
have some grand ideas here. But what I really
want to avoid is use spending five hours on this one. It's likely going to change
some point soon anyway. Now once you do this, move on to more
important things. It's so important that we keep moving because we're
talking about content. Finally, in the next lesson.
17. Content Creation: Now before we dive into
actually creating the content, you need to figure
out what kind of content you're going to create. So to help you figure this out, I want you to answer a few
more questions for me. I know I asked you
a lot of questions, but think of it like this, rather than asking questions
to get to know each other, I'm asking questions
to help you get to know yourself better
and your business better. What you want, what
you don't want. You will figure this out
on your own along the way. But if you can think
about it upfront, you're going to save yourself a lot of time along the way, time that you need for
so many other things. Okay, so here we go. My first question is, what kind of content
do you want to create? Do you want to be
an influencer or a podcast or, or a YouTuber? Or would you rather totally
work behind the scenes more writing articles and working
on getting search traffic, so many different
paths you can take. So think about this
because if you absolutely hate the thought of
getting on camera, or maybe you feel that
you'd be really bad at it. You don't actually
want to dive straight into YouTube and you
don't have to be. I personally don't like
the thought of being an influencer in any
way, shape, or form. And I know that I'm
not good at it. I've tried quite a few times. I prefer to focus more on searchable traffic
for this reason. Now we'll talk more about this later when we talk about
promoting your content. So the next question
I want to ask you is, what kind of content
should you create? Not about what you
want to create. What should you create? Because remember, this
really isn't about you. In fact, it's mostly not
about us, I said before. It's about your audience
and your people. If you want to create a
beauty based business, while you probably have to be on camera, right? Maybe not. There are ways around that, but it would definitely
give you a certain edge. So think about who you're trying to reach
with your content, and where those
people do hang out as which platforms do they use and what type of
content do they really like to consume on
those platforms? Now, once you've answered
these questions, it's time to come up with
some topics for your content. And that is what I'm,
what I'm going to talk about in the next lesson.
18. Generate Topic Ideas: Okay, The very first place to start when you
think about creating content is just to
think about what you want to share with
your audience. Super simple, right? I'm really just talking about a general brainstorming
session here. So I want you to
open up an Excel spreadsheet and start writing down the topics that you want to share with your audience. I've included a
template for you to use just for this purpose, which we're also going to be using in the next few lessons. So make sure to check
out the class resources if you haven't already and
grabbed that spreadsheet. Now I want you to
think about the following when you're
thinking about what you want to share. Number one is just general
high-level topics. Let's talk about a house plants. Because plants for clean
air, outdoor plants. You get the idea. Number two is help
topics and problems. So how to keep your plants
protected from pests? How to keep your indoor plants alive or outdoor plants
alive in the winter, how to avoid a root rot. Number three is your
stories and experiences. So how I choose
my indoor plants, how I take care of
them on vacation. Number four, have you
helped anyone else? So how my clients stopped
killing their indoor plants? You get the idea. This is really just a
brainstorming session to start thinking
about these topics that you can just
get started with. Now we're going to narrow down these topics a
little bit more in the next lesson when we start talking about keyword research.
19. Keyword Research: Okay, Now that you've
generated some topic ideas, it's time to turn
these topics and ideas into specific keywords. No matter what kind of
content you're creating, it's important to
do even just some basic keyword research to make sure that you're
giving your content the best chance it
has for visibility. When your content turns
up in search results, you're getting traffic
without having to do anything to actually promote it. Great. This is really just Google SEO, one-on-one, basic search
engine optimization. So all you need to do is pop those topics that
you wrote down in this spreadsheet into a
keyword research tool. Now, most of the better keyword research tools that
do cost money, but there are some
free options too. So I'm going to include some suggestions on
which ones you can start with in the resources
area of the class. Now, the strategy here
is pretty simple. You generally want to focus on medium to long tail keywords that don't have too high of
a difficulty ranking score. Okay, so let me illustrate with a little bit of an example. If you write an article
on how to train your dog, your content won't likely ever see the light of day in
Google search results, or probably YouTube or Pinterest or anywhere
else for that matter. How to train your
dog at this keyword, it just gets a lot more
volume of searches. And it's also gonna be
ultra, ultra competitive. For this reason, you're going
to end up competing against huge media publishers
and companies that have a whole team behind them. Instead, consider how to train your German Shepherd at
home or in one month, or how to train your
pit bull not to bite. These are all medium to
longer tail keywords. So they're more specific, which means that they
have lower search volume. But you also have a better
chance of attracting a more specific audience and
they're less competitive. So the good news is, is that keyword research
tools will provide you with data on how difficult the
keyword is to rank for, as well as provide
you with a ton of other related keywords that
you can choose between. So it's also a great
way just to get ideas for other
keywords and topics. So once you have your keywords, it's time to start putting together your content schedule. And this is what
we're going to talk about in the next lesson.
20. Content Schedule: All right, We're moving
right along here. Now that we have our topics and the keywords
that we want to use, it's time to create
a content schedule. Now a comment schedule is what it's going to keep
you publishing new content regularly
and consistently. And it's also a really
great way to batch process your works that way each time you
publish new content, you don't have to
brainstorm new ideas, do keyword research
all over again. So the first thing to
determine here is, how often do you want to
plan to publish new content? And this really may depend on what platform you're using to publish content on your writing. Articles. You may want
to aim for a new article once every week or two when
you're just getting started. But now if you're going to
influence her route and you want to Instagram or TikTok
to really be your jam, you're probably going to have
to really post more like on a daily basis to get
that account going. Regardless of where you're
sharing your content, you do need to create a
plan for what kind of content that you want
to share and when, that way you have remaining
consistent with it. So it's really
important to start building a social
media following or your presence on Google and other platforms and you need consistent content to do that. So this is the first real step towards building
your audience and that's what we're going to
expand on in other lessons. So publishing your articles on your website is really a
great place to start because it's always a good idea to have some content on your website
for people to check out when they want to know more
about you and what you're about is also really
good for Google SEO. So I would really try to
start with writing and publishing maybe at
least five articles on your website fairly quickly, just so you have that
base level content, then you can actually recycle that content to publish
on other platforms. And that's what we're
going to talk about in the next lesson.
21. Promote Your Content: Okay, Now it's time
to think about what platform you want to
use to promote your content. This is really going to
determine how and what kind of traffic you're gonna be
driving to your business. It's also going to
determine what kind of relationships you're
building with your audience and
what kind of action people will take after
seeing your content. In other words, it's
really important, right? So you have a lot
of options here. You have Google SEO, you have YouTube, TikTok, Instagram podcasting,
Pinterest, Facebook ads, just to name a few. And there are also other
random strategies like using LinkedIn or
outreach and networking. But let's take a step back and I'm gonna give
you a few pointers. And my personal
preferred strategy when it comes to
driving traffic. Okay, so number one is to focus on one source of traffic
that is searchable. So YouTube videos
are searchable. But what I'm really
talking about here is primarily articles
and Google SEO. It's always a good idea to
have at least some content on your website that tells people what your business is about, how you can help them and
why they should trust you. Those are the three
basic things right? Now. If you can get some
Google SEO traffic at some point,
that's even better. Now, the next tip to also
focus on one other source of traffic that you
will use to help you build relationships
with your audience. So connections and
relationships are really what make you'll
come back for more. What makes them choose you
over other content creators? And what makes them want to buy, not just one product, but everything that
you have to offer. So using a platform
that has voice, like podcasting or video, like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. This is going to allow you
to reach your audience on a deeper level and build a
better connection with them. Okay? The third, which
is an important one, they're all important, but don't spread yourself
too thin here. Every platform that you use to promote your content requires a very specific
content and strategy. If requires time and effort
to grow on each platform. And this is going
to take up a large portion of your time in the beginning because driving this traffic is so important. So write your first
five articles. Use keyword research,
some basic SEO, some other principles
to set them up and then recycle that content for
use on another platform. Create a YouTube video or
record a podcast episode, create a Pinterest pin, a TikTok video, an
Instagram story. Just don't do all five
of those. Pick one. So once you start
publishing this content, you're also going to want
to focus on building a deeper connection
with your audience. And that is exactly what
we're going to talk about in the next lesson.
22. Connecting With Your Audience: Hey there. So connecting with your
audience is so important. It's why I've talked to so much about who your people are, where they hang out, and
what they're interested in. Because ultimately, you are here to build relationships with these people and offer them something which is usually
information at first, but probably products and services down the road
at some point if you actually want to make money from all this time that
you're investing, right? So the most important
tool that you can use to accomplish
all of this and really just bridge this gap
between your free content and you're paid content
is an email list. Here's why building
an email list right away is so important. Number one is that it's the
best way to get more content, future content that you
published in front of your audience again and again. Otherwise they've read or
they watch, or they listen, and then they bounce and they might not actually
come back again. Number two, is
that an email list is actually an
asset that you own. So you don't own your
TikTok followers. Tiktok owns those
followers and they can shut your account down
at any point in time. Poof, traffic gone. So your e-mail
lists can withstand any major business
evolution algorithm upsets or any other unexpected
changes, you own it. Then number three, back
to those relationships. Your most loyal people
are going to be on your email list and
they're going to love getting your
content on the rag. Now, this provides you a
place to get more real with your people and really start forming a deeper
connection with them. So for all these
reasons and even more, It's important to
build an email list from the very beginning as soon as you're publishing
your first pieces of content. And the other thing I
want to mention here is that you're going to want to use an e-mail marketing
service for this. So you need a service that
can store your emails and also have the capacity to send hundreds and
even thousands, tens of thousands
of emails a day. And I know it sounds like
a lot, but trust me. And also something
that will take care of your unsubscribe or as data protection, all
that sort of stuff. You don't want to do all
this stuff yourself within Gmail or something
else, trust me. And also, there's no need
to bother because there are free email marketing
services that you can use. So it's really important. There's really no
reason not to use one. So I'm going to
show you how to get your e-mail marketing
setup in the next lesson.
23. Build an Email List: Okay, Let's build
your email list. Now we have a lot of
actionable steps in this one. So I'm going to dive
right in step one, your e-mail list starts
with a lead magnet. This is also called a freebie. And it's really just
a free offer that you share with someone to sign
up for your email list. And any new subscribers that go on your list
are often called leads. It's why it's called
a lead magnet. Now I'm sure you've seen these freebies on
the Internet and the form of free
checklist discounts, free webinars, free
guides, free planners. For now, I want you to
start off really simple. So use a headline like get
the top three strategies to train your German Shepherd at home and one month or less. However, that applies to your
topic, something like that. It's tangible, it's
specific, it's free. Now you can always create a complete downloadable guide or checklists later on when
it's time for an update. For now, just keep it simple. Step two, it's time
to create a form and a landing page that's
advertising your freebie. Now you can add your form to
the content on your website. You can link your landing
page in your menu or any other social
promotions or content, your form and your landing page, or where people are
actually going to put in their email address to
receive their freebie. So take a look at
the class resources to see my recommendations for getting started with email and where to
place these things. Now if you do decide
to use convert kit, there are tons of free forms and landing pages
that you can choose from. So take a look over
those and just choose a very basic
one to get started. Now, you don't want
these pages to be very text-heavy because
the point is just for someone to land
on it and say, I want this free thing
and then opt-in, it should be a quick decision. So do try to keep it simple
when you're designing them. Now step three is to provide them with the free
information that they've requested in the first welcome
e-mail that they receive. So in this e-mail, tell them
thank you for signing up. Tell them who you are
and that you're so excited that they're here, then you want to deliver
that free information that you promised. Okay, step four is
to add your form and your landing page to
your websites that is visible to people on your
website and then you can start getting those
subscribers right away. So make sure to check out those class resources
for more information on where to place these items for maximum visibility
and conversions. And that's it. You have built your
first e-mail list it once you have
taken those steps. So at some point, you're
still going to want to build out your whole
email sequence. And there's really a time
and a place for that. So when you have more subscribers,
you'll wanna do that. And that's what we're
going to talk about in the next lesson. Growing your subscriber list.
24. Grow Your Email List: Okay. So you've set up
your e-mail list. Hopefully you are working on creating some content already. And this is really the part
where you start to look at your various dashboards
and you're like where all those
people at though. I get it. It can take some time, right, but let's talk about how to grow your e-mail list
because this is one of the easiest ways to get
more eyeballs and ears, whatever on your content when
you do publish new stuff. This is also going to be one of the best ways to
start earning more than peanuts when you start
monetizing your website. So it's really important to grow this email list
quickly if you can. Now I really just have one
big main strategy here. That's just to prioritize your email list and
getting new subscribers. It's going to mostly
depend on your traffic. But when you do
share new content, make sure you mentioned
your free lead magnet. Do entice people to sign up for your email list
whenever you can. So anytime that you share new content and
you generally get one big call to action at
the end of that content. So people consume your content and the ones that
are interested are going to want to learn more or take action,
take the next step. So do provide them that
with your email list, they can learn more. So link it on your menu, in your articles on any other
content that you share, make it as visible
as possible and hard to miss without being
super overbearing. Of course, nobody wants huge
pop-ups in their faces. Nobody likes that. But it shouldn't be
in every single piece of content that you share. And it's not always all the
way down at the end either. If you don't have
a product to sell, your e-mail list
really should be your number one priority
and you should mention it often because when you do have a product to sell or any
other way to monetize, having a larger email list
is going to immediately translate into more
money in your pocket. So it's really important. And one other step that you need to take in the
beginning when you start getting new subscribers
on your email list is to actually build out
your email sequence. But we're not going
to worry too much about that just yet
because you really don't want to bother with
this when you only have about five subscribers
on your list. Maybe when you're closer to 40 or 50 because your time is so limited
all the time, right? And it's really about
focusing on the right areas at the right time to bring
that maximum growth. But when you are ready, you're going to want to build
out a sequence to really deepen the relationship
with your subscribers. And a welcome sequence
will do just that. It's really just a sequence of emails anywhere
from four to seven. And it's something that you send a new subscribers
when they opt in. So this usually starts
with a welcome e-mail that does deliver that lead magnet to them that we
already talked about. But after that first email, you can actually
follow it up with three or four
additional e-mails on additional days and you can
send them a number of things. Number one, you
could provide them with more of your great content. So recycled another piece of content that you've already
written and send it out. Another idea is to tell
them a little bit more about yourself so they
can get to know you. And then three, you
could start sharing some more specific
information relating to some of the problems
that they're facing. That's why they opted in, right? They obviously want
some help with something and they want
you to teach it to them. So we want you to
be the person that they can count on for this help. So you need to show them
that they can count on you. And then eventually you can turn a welcome sequence like this
into a full funnel that actually sells a
product designed to help them with those problems and present them a solution. But that's all gonna be a
lesson for another day. For now, let's talk
about the fun stuff. Let's move on to monetizing your content in the next lesson.
25. Track Your Progress: Okay, this isn't meant to
be a fluffy peptide course. It's mentioned be
very actionable, a strategy based course. I have learned all of this by paying attention
to the numbers. Every step of the way you're
running a actual business. After all, the
numbers do matter. At first, actually
thought I wasn't cut out for this type
of business because the story that I told myself was that I wasn't creative at all. I mean, I have a background in accounting and spreadsheets. I am definitely a type
a planner to the max. I don't write and I don't do photos and I don't do videos. Well, that was dumb thinking that right because I learned how to do all of these things as I built my business.
And guess what? It turns out that I'm actually pretty great at all
of those things. But another area where
I really shined was in the data and the
analytics of all of it. So I paid attention
to the numbers. That's partly how I found
in success so quickly. Each week, each month, sometimes even each day. And also from year to year, I looked at the numbers. It looks at how many
visitors I was getting to my website and what platforms those people
were actually coming from. I looked at how quickly
my numbers or my following are growing on each specific platform
that I was working on. Also, what kind of content
was helping my audience to grow faster on these
individual platforms. So we can create more
of that content. Looks at how many people
were signing up for my email list and also which forms and landing
pages had the most sign-ups. I also tell how many
people were actually opening my e-mails
and from there, how many people were clicking
on links within my emails. And then from there
how many people were purchasing my products. So, wow, I know that
sounds like a lot, but remember that this
does come in steps. You're not going to do
all of this right now. You don't start off tracking
all of this at once. It happens as you grow, as you create more content, as you build out your business. So take it one step at a time. Trust in the system that
we're building together, but do pay attention where your conversions happened and what your conversion rates are. When you have a
baseline to work with, you can start working
on optimizing your content to really
maximize your conversions. And this is another way
that you can really scale on the existing traffic
and content that you have. Alright, Nerd Ranch over.
26. Key Takeaways: Hey, there, I've taken
shortcuts here and there. When I found them. Some of them have proved
very useful and some of them have proved
absolutely disastrous. But a few things have
become clear to me on my own journey to success. And the path is honestly
relatively simple, but it's so easy to
get lost in the weeds, especially when you have dollar signs blocking
those eyeballs. So remember to focus
on these few things. Number one, create great content that people really connect with. This means not rushing through
your content or throwing up content identical to
everybody else on the Internet. Number two is build relationships
with your audience. They are people too, just like you and just like me. So this means bringing in targeted visitors that
are really interested in your content and
also taking care of them from the beginning
to the very end. Number three, help those
people achieve their goals in a way that educates them
and also empowers them. Anybody can tell them what
to do and how to do it. But remember that you are
teaching people how to learn and how to
find their own path. And no one can make anyone
else actually achieve success. Ultimately, they have
to do it on their own. Number for trusts in this
journey I've outlined, but do listen to
the numbers and do pivot towards them
whenever it's necessary. So put your nerd hat on and
keep an eye on those numbers and constantly seek to
improve your growth. Then lastly, number
five, enjoy it. This is your life
and it takes work, but the work can also
be really exciting. You are going to
have some tough days ahead of you and
you're going to feel doubt and uncertainty more
often than you would like. Trust me, I've been there. But remember that
you are building something and you're
building your own business. It's something that
really take pride in every single day,
even the hard days. And thank you so much for
choosing me to help you on this journey it
please make sure to check out my other courses. And I can't wait to
see what you create.
Lauren Lbik, Digital Creator
