Hi all,

I've really enjoyed my adventures here at WA to date, and building out my boot camp website writingforcash

However, I've come to the realization that I need to focus my time more in other areas of my life.

If only there were more hours in the day, but there are not, and I simply cannot fit everything I want to achieve into what little time I have.

As much as it kills me... I'm going to put my writingforcash website on the back burner for the time being - to focus on our existing bricks and mortar business, as we need to get our marketing strategy in place before next summer. For those of you who don't know, my husband and I own a little boutique accommodation business called Omau Settlers Lodge on the West Coast of New Zealand. My focus is to apply all the learning from Wealthy Affiliate to build out an authority site for the business of all the wonderful things to see and do within the region.

As a hotelier we are getting our profits squeezed by the 'big boys' such as Booking.com and Expedia who take 15% of every sale through their site. Therefore, my priority is to get our website ranking better on google and build an online presence independently of these online travel agencies (OTAs) so that we get more direct bookings through our website. After all, 15% in our pocket sounds much better than 15% in theirs!

I have used Canva to build a really strong brand theme - here's a couple of the post feature images that I've created using the template.

Now, when I blog on a new topic, all I have to do is swap out the background image and put in a title :)

If you haven't discovered CANVA yet, by all means check out my training tutorials about how to use this tool to develop your brand - it's absolutely fantastic and has really helped me to create a strong identity for my website. https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/kdforsman/training

I also have another niche site which is ticking along okay and I will continue with that one as it's making a steady stream of adsense income.

I'm building email lists, trust and loyalty through both of these sites.

The niche site already has affiliate links throughout and I do plan on adding in affiliate links to the motel website once I have a steady stream of traffic to the site.

So... The SWAG challenge ...

I really hope I'm not booted out of the training - as I am still following the lessons, but rather than promoting WA, I'm applying the learning to my own businesses. The monthly training set by Kyle is a huge source of motivation for me, especially the writing targets.

My writingforcash website is getting referrals, and yes, I can see that it will be successful given time and a lot more content - but I have to be realistic about what I can fit into my day and my existing business interests absolutely need to come first.

Anyway, enough about me, just thought I'd write an update on where I'm at and why I haven't been particularly active here over the last few weeks.

All the best to all my WA peeps who are doing the challenge... I hope you are seeing some good break through moments with your respective websites - and I'd love to hear how you are getting on!

Best wishes, Karen,

Cape Foulwind, West Coast NZ :)