Coffee Break Blogging

In many cases, it makes sense to take the "blog" out of blogging. When is it time to stop calling it a "blog" and start calling it a "learning center" or something similar? In this episode 64 of Coffee Break Blogging, we take a look at the "payload" that the word blogging has and how to work around it - and WHEN you should. Now for me, it feels like I'm getting back into the chair. :-) I know I'm releasing these things every couple of weeks but I actually, internally; I'm doing these things in batches. So I actually sit down and record either a couple of weeks of these things in advance. Sometimes I shoot all the way and go for the entire month in advance. So for me, the last time I sat down to record an episode of this show was about 2 weeks ago. And today, I'm sitting down to record a few more. So if you are watching the video component of this on YouTube you will all notice that my shirt will be the same for the next few episodes and that is exactly why. :D But today, I want to talk to you about this idea

Continuing on the theme of the last episode, this one contains several actionable tactics about high leverage content creation... How to work less and produce more when it comes to making content for your blog and social media channels. Hello! We are now on Episode #63 of Coffee Break Blogging and today we are going to continue talking about High Leverage Content Creation and how to make more content by putting in less effort to do it. This is highly important for those of us who were a little lacking for time; whether it is because we've got our families, whether we've got a day job, whatever it might be; we need to be able to create good content and do it without giving our entire lives to it. So that is what we are going to be talking about here.

No doubt, writing blog posts can be tedious and time consuming. And it can be a big problem for blog owners who hold a day job or have a business to run. In this installment of our series, we talk about how to leverage your time to make creating content less time consuming and more productive... So once again, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

The world of SEO has changed, and instead of just worrying about keywords and backlinks, we now need to think about user engagement. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we'll talk about what is going on with Google, and how this has everything to do with getting your readers to SCROLL and reach the end of your blog post. Now today we are going to continue on the theme of our Blog Content and we started it in the last episode. And today, we'll talk about how to actually get your reader to go down to the end of your blog post. That's a very important thing and it is actually more important now than it used to be.

The headline is the most important part of every blog post. In this episode, we discuss a counter-intuitive, but highly effective exercise you should go through on EVERY blog post in order to model and create highly effective blog post headlines. And so with that, I welcome you back to Coffee Break Blogging, Episode 60. ;-) Today we are going to dive right into the content of our blog post and talk a little bit about that. Obviously, with a podcast about blogging, content is a pretty big part of what we are doing here. And so that is what we are going to be talking about here...

It is all too easy to develop tunnel vision on your own blog. After all, you made all the decisions about it and you spend more time looking at it than anybody else. But, it is VERY easy to assume that your blog is going to strike others the same way it does you... and it isn't always true. User testing is how you get out of that tunnel vision. In this installment of our series, we'll talk about various tools to help you do user testing for your own blog and to see what you're doing from an outside perspective. And with that being said, let me welcome you back to Coffee Break Blogging!

Well hello... welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging Episode 58! The most effective opt-in strategy I've ever used on my blog was the content upgrade strategy. It out-performs every other list building strategy out there. In this installment of our series, we'll discuss what the content upgrade strategy actually is and how to implement it into your blogging habits.

Hello there! Welcome back once again to Coffee Break Blogging. :-) Choosing which colors to use on your blog should be more strategic than simply what looks pretty to you. Your color choices should be guided by the emotions that you want your blog and your brand to convey. So, it is useful to understand the psychology of color, and how this plays into the colors you use in your blog's theme. That's the topic we're going to be discussing today, in this 57th installment in our ongoing series. Here's the thing, most people when they decide what colors to use on a blog, they only think about it in terms of what they personally think looks nice. That's fine. That is definitely what I have done a lot of times as well, so I am definitely not going to blame anybody for that. However, there is a little bit more of a strategic way to think about it. And that is what we are going to discuss in this episode. Now the first thing that we are going to talk about and what we are going to through them here is the Psychology O

Hello there! Welcome to this episode of Coffee Break Blogging. This is no. 56 and in this one we are going to talk about your blog's bounce rate and how to reduce that bounce rate. Bounce rate is one of those numbers which always shows up in your site stats... and you can't help but wonder what you should do. Is your bounce rate bad or good? What should you do about it? In this installment of our ongoing series, we discuss the bounce rate, how to decipher the causes of the bounce rate, and then what to do to improve it. ;-) Now, first of all, we should probably define what "bounce rate" is if you are not already familiar with it.

Your blog's design is about a hell of a lot more than just what looks pretty. When you're setting up your blog in a strategic way to accomplish your business goals, it needs to be designed to CONVERT. To do that, you need to understand how a reader's attention lands and FLOWS across the site - and then design your blog to work with that. In this installment, let's discuss about how all this works, and how to make your blog's design work FOR you in terms of conversions and sales. Welcome to Episode 55 of Coffee Break Blogging and we are continuing on, on our series here. We are talking about the platform and how to set up our blog in the right way. And this all fits within the bigger picture that we are doing here on Coffee Break Blogging of building up a real information business based around our blog that is generating revenue all based around your blogging. Yes, it is certainly possible so let us go ahead and get started with this. Today we are going to be talking about... How To Flow Attention Via Your B

Blog categories are often one of the most overlooked parts of the setup of your content. People use them as little digital filing cabinets - and often they end up with way more categories than they need (or even intended). In this installment in our series of Coffee Break Blogging, we discuss a MUCH more strategic way to think about how you define your blog categories. The usual way... nobody will use them. Done THIS way... and they will. ;-) So today, we are going to be talking about our Blog Categories and how to actually set them up in the correct way.

The blog sidebar... It is that piece of real estate that is on every blog - and every blogger has to make the decision on what should and shouldn't go in that space. Thing is, most bloggers end up cluttering it up unnecessarily. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, we'll discuss the perfect contents of a strategic blog sidebar. It can actually be boiled down to 3 components. We're now on Episode 53 and today we are going to be talking about what should go in the sidebar of your blog. Now, this is an important episode for many people because I actually see; when I look at a lot of people's blogs, and I obviously do; given what I do for a living, I see a lot of them that are just simply "overloaded." It is almost as if people are going in there and going to the widgets' section of WordPress and thinking, "Well, there is a widget for that, I might as well drag that thing right into the sidebar" so there will be widgets for Top Commenters, for all their social media links like literally every damn one of

Hello there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging Episode 52! SEO and the topic of how to rank you blog posts in search engines has always been a pretty big topic for bloggers. Organic search rankings sometimes seems like the meal ticket to traffic. So, in this installment in our series, we'll talk about how to SEO your blog posts. I'll give you a step-by-step list of actions to take on your next blog post - and also put it all into relative importance for you. Now, what we are doing at this stage in our ongoing series here is we are moving on to Stage 2 of the 7 Stages of creating our online business where in this one we are talking all about the various steps of getting our platform set up. And today, we are going to be talking a little bit about SEO; and specifically... How To SEO Our Blog Post

The About page on your blog is one of the important core pages of your site. Most everybody has one, yet a majority of bloggers set it up in the completely wrong way. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, I talk about the most important mission of the About Page. I also share the exact layout that will make your About Page truly convert and grow your business - and essentially do what it was made to do. Welcome to Episode #51 of our podcast. :-) The About Page is one of those pages that most people have but I find that they undervalue its importance and therefore they treat it wrong. And so, I want to talk about that because it is one of the important core pages of your site. Your site needs to have an About Page. But not only that, it needs to be treated in a particular way that it will actually maximize your opt-in opportunities which is what the About Page is really all about.

As we move along in phase 2 of our series about setting up the blog platform, we need to focus on getting the blog design set up well for conversions. So in this episode, we'll talk about the 5 most common design mistakes we see bloggers making - and these mistakes all serve to clutter up the site and hence lowers conversions. Are you making these mistakes? Once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! This is our 50th episode and like I said, we are going to be talking about... The 5 Big Design Mistakes That Bloggers Often Make With Their Sites

Many people use the phrase "personal brand" without any real idea of what a brand actually is. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, let's talk about what a BRAND actually is - and the 4 essential elements you must build into your blog in order to create your brand. Once those 4 elements are in place, they should also follow over into Twitter, Facebook - and essentially everywhere you appear. Today, we are going to talk about a very important component to creating that profitable business online and that is your "brand". Now this is something that we want to think about at the beginning. Like the domain name that we spoke about in the last session; the brand is something that you can adjust over time. But it is something that you want to think about especially when you are choosing your domain name because it goes hand in hand.

The domain name for your blog is obviously a pretty important decision that has to be made at the beginning. In this episode, we talk about several important factors to keep in mind as you shop for a new domain name for your blog. So... welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

Selecting a Wordpress theme can be a pretty frustrating experience because there are SO many options out there. In this episode , I give my take on what to consider - as well as my specific recommendation for the best option which will give you a professional design now and a great foundation to build from, later. ;-) The thing I want to first start off with is the idea that I actually just want to acknowledge the fact that WordPress themes are a huge, huge business. And for that reason, you are going to find a lot of them out there. And as a consumer of WordPress theme, just somebody who is somebody trying to pick a WordPress theme for your site; you are going to be inundated with options. You are going to be wondering which way is the best way to go. There is just a colossal amount of choices out there. So I want to preface all of these by saying that you are not stuck with the decision, you can change to a different theme later and not only that, I recommend highly that you keep your eye on the ball, here

The first decision that has to be made when setting up the ideal platform to build your business with... is web hosting. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we talk about how to select the best web hosting for your blog. What's the problem with free web hosting? Should you use shared, VPS, dedicated, or managed Wordpress hosting? You'll find out my specific recommendations. ;-) Now, today we are going to move on to phase 2; Stage 2 of the 7 Stages of Building an Online Business. Now if you are wondering what I'm talking about when I say that; then back up to Episode no. 45 where we took a little bit of a pit stop and kind of reviewed where we are and where we are heading and I talked about the 7 stages there. So we are moving into Stage 2 today and we are going to be moving in to talking about the platform; building up the platform which is our blog... building it up in the right way. And we are going to be talking about various aspects of that for the next many episodes here of the show. Now what we

We take a minute to pause and look at the big picture of where we are with the Coffee Break Blogging series. In this episode I share with you the big vision of the show, review the full 7 stages we will be going through, and take stock of where we are now. Hello and welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based business online. Now actually, what we are going to do today is we are going to take a quick pit stop in our series and we are going to review where we are at. And also; it occurred to me that I have probably not done a super-fantastic job of explaining exactly how this podcast is going to be working, so let me try and do that now.