Helpful Stuff and Progress Update

As part of Certification (course 4, level 7), it's now time for me to write a second blog post here.

I've decided to write about what I've achieved since joining, things I love and use everyday for my site, and the few things I'm looking at doing next.

Since joining (like so many of us!) I've established a website which to date has 15 posts, 9 pages and 124 comments.

I've started the following social media accounts for my site - google+, facebook, twitter, pinterest. If you'd like to follow, I've popped all the info down the bottom right of my profile and I'd be more than happy to follow you back (pm/leave a comment here) and like/+1 your posts as I see them. I've also started adding google adsense to some of my site pages, and a few affiliate links and banners here and there.

I've had training and experience working as a crisis counsellor (suicide/unplanned pregnancy/domestic violence) and I've also lost people I love to suicide, so my site is aimed at teens in Australia (and overseas, but primarily Australia) and discusses teen issues related to bullying, drugs, relationships, self image and school. I have teenage children, so I write my content as though I'm writing for them to read which makes it easier to get the words out! If you haven't come across it in the comments thread (I love the comments thread!) you can have a peek here - www.toughteenyears.com

Things I find helpful (and you may too)!

Here is a list of things I use all the time that you may want to check out!

WEBSITES

• Wealthy Affiliate (the resources...oh my god the resources! And all you good people.)
• Canva (it's like photoshop for lazy people like me who don't want to spend months learning how to use the program!)
APPS

• Focus Keeper (free app for iphone, but I find it so useful that I paid for the upgrade to make changes to my time blocks. Great for limiting distractions, then for each time block I write what I've done in my diary so when I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, I can look at my diary and see all I've done).
• Sketches (free app for ipad pro. I do my artwork on here, aka stick figures. Funny thing about me - I'm a really good at sketching lead and/or charcoal portraits, not that you'd guess from my website artwork!)
RECORD KEEPING

• Filtering emails from Wealthy Affiliate to their own folder in my email. Best. Thing. Ever!
• Keeping spreadsheets for comments (who I've left a comment for, who's left me a comment via the wa comments thread), another spreadsheet for published posts (category, title, date, links, shared on different social media channels), and a third spreadsheet with keywords and their competition/traffic ratings, suitable categories, for future use).
• Using iCloud and apple sharing for all my site related content so I have access to it wherever I am (like on my phone for school pick up, or when waiting for appointments, etc.)
PHYSICAL STUFF

• Macbook
• Ipad Pro (and pen thingy)
• Iphone
• Notebook (A4 spiral bound)
• Pen (has to be a bic 4 pen, look out if anyone takes my 4 pen!!!!)
• Diary
And things for the future/next steps...

• Developing more websites (so many ideas, must finish certification first!)
• More blog posts on here (not regular until I've finished certification, that's where my focus currently is)
• Continuing to build site content
• Increasing social media reach (I should start recording growth for analysis now!)
• Closing all the tabs on my browser (on all devices!) at least once a day - which is now much easier thanks to one of the recent apple updates.
• Researching what submitting a site map to search engines is all about (please, if you have the time and knowledge leave me a comment regarding this one!).

That's it for me now - over and out!