Progress, Goals, and Tips

byJJones352

206 followers

6 years ago

Hi all WAers!

Traveling this weekend up to Penn State to visit my daughter and watch a football game. My daughter is in grad school at Penn State and, yes, I am very, very proud of her.

While sitting in a hotel room ( it's a long drive to State from where I live) I thought I'd crank out a blog to highlight my progress so far, some goals I've set and some tips on how I go about generating site content.

Progress

I have a site up and running. Adsense is installed and placing ads though I am still working through the various options for when and where I want to ads to run on my posts. So far, the adsense help sites have not been that great but I will keep tweaking.

I've got my Google+, Twitter and Pinterest accounts set up and am regularly linking my new posts and site content to each of them.

For some reason Facebook would not activate an account for my web business. Based on info Kyle had in the training regarding FB, I've decided not having an account with them will be fine.

I have about a half dozen posts, with affiliate links, on my site so far. Given that I am working my WA business part-time, I'm pretty proud of the progress I've made so far.

Goals

My first goal is to dedicate at least 20 hours per week on my business. With a full time day job, this can be trying at times but I believe in what I'm doing here and know that the hard work and dedication will pay off.

I am quite motivated to make this work. Having been a corporate professional for over 30 years now has taken it's toll on me and I am ready to do things on my own terms.

To hit my 20 hour per week goal, I conduct content research during my lunch hour and spend my evenings and weekends either working on site content, working through the WA training, tweaking my website of reviewing and commenting on WA blogs/questions.

My second goal is to publish one post per week as I'm convinced that site content is where most of my efforts should be spent. Doing research on my lunch hour during the week gives me enough info to work with while drafting up my posts.

My third goal is to work hard at all this for at least one year before deciding if I want to keep going or not. I figure it will take the better part of a year for things to really take off since I am only doing this part-time - for now.

I know we all set some financial goals when we first joined WA. I'm not so focused on the money at this point and feel that if I stick to my plan, good things, including money, will come.

Tips For Writing Site Content

I try to have at least two topics in mind for my upcoming posts. While I'm working on a current post, I always have the subject for my next post defined. This helps me hit my one-post-per-week goal. Determining the subject matter is the hardest step for me so defining it early allows me to think about various topics for one post while I am drafting up another post.

The next thing I do is conduct research on my subject. I look at other websites, Wikipedia, you tube videos, magazines and other sources of information about my subject. I take notes and bookmark various sites or videos for reference while I'm drafting up my content.

If temporarily copy someone another's content so I can reference it while writing up my post, I always copy it in italic font to avoid direct copying which is extremely bad form.

I also add my own spin on the content such as adding opinions based on my experience or preferences or by adding something to my posts that others did not. It's like a niche within a niche.

For example, if I've used a product that I'm reviewing I'll incorporate my own experiences good and bad about the product. Another tactic I use is to leverage some of my own skill sets from my non-WA professional experience to distinguish my content from the inevitable related content that's out there on the web.

Here are a few examples of what I mean by leveraging your unique skill set

• Maybe you are a teacher and can highlight how others could learn from the content
• Maybe you are a statistician and can incorporate some sort of analysis into the post
• Marketing experts could highlight some techniques being used to market the product being reviewed
• Medical professionals could add info on health benefits

I find product reviews to be pretty straightforward to write up. It's not hard to come up with over 1000 words by simply outlining product specs, highlighting good and bad customer reviews, mentions of competing products, offering up your opinions on the positives aspects and areas for improvements as well as adding your own personal touch based on your special skill set.

For articles that are not pure product reviews, I write about topics within my niche that are of particular interest to me. Having an interest in the subject you are writing about makes it much easier to offer up your opinions and insights with that personal touch that is so important for creating unique content.

The final tip I have for writing unique content is volume. The more you write/blog, the easier it becomes.

Summing Up

Set some performance goals to keep yourself motivated.

Do something for your business on a daily basis to keep it moving forward-this could be training, researching, blogging, tweaking your site, etc.

Content tips:

• Have at least two content subjects in mind at any given time
  
• Leverage multiple sources for your research
• Make sure you are not directly copying other's work - use your own words, experiences and insights
• Leverage your own unique skill set(s) to put a spin on your content that others have not
• The more your write, the easier it becomes