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Online entrepreneurs want to build a successful business and grow their brand in the fastest time possible. There are many parts necessary to achieve this, but the most important is cutting through the noise and knowing what to focus on to make that happen.

Whether you’re a newcomer to online marketing or a seasoned entrepreneur, there will be times when you suddenly realize you have too many plates spinning in the air at once.

You’re overwhelmed by all of your responsibilities, endless tasks, a number of projects and countless ideas, making it hard for you to figure out what you should focus your attention on in that moment.

Once you learn how to prioritize and simplify your business dealings, you’ll not only see your success grow, but your personal satisfaction with this career will soar. Whittling down your task list and fine tuning your focus will free you up to serve your audience in the best way possible.

Be the Source of Endless Value Your Customers Are Seeking

If you don’t offer value, then you have nothing to offer. Why would an audience want to give you their time or their money if they’re not receiving something beneficial to them in return?

When you have something to give that people need or want, including insight and expertise, they’re going to seek you out. But some marketers don’t grasp what value means, and instead of learning to serve their customers, they waste time churning out products that get ignored in the marketplace.

To a customer, value means there’s a benefit that’s worth them giving up what’s important to them – their time or money. There are many choices for consumers today in the same niche that you’re in.

That’s why you want to be sure that your offer creates endless value. It’s a no-brainer because it’s just too good to pass up. You may not know how to create endless value. It’s a lot easier than you think.

You need to focus on going above and beyond when you’re creating your products or developing your services. If you create info products, this might be something like including bonuses you didn’t mention on the sales page.

The customer gets what he ordered and discovers that he also got these additional benefits from other items that you included. He’s delighted. He got his value and then some because you went the extra mile.

He’s going to remember that in the future and when he has a similar need, your brand is going to be the one he thinks of. Your business can be a source of value by answering customer support emails.

Some marketers ignore this. They take the money from the customer from the sale and as far as they’re concerned, the transaction is done and the deal is closed. But when a customer reaches out to you, whether it’s for a negative or positive reason, they’re opening the door for a connection.

Many irritated or unhappy people have been turned into loyal customers simply because a marketer took the time to respond. You can create value when you provide helpful tips if you’re promoting someone else’s product.

For example, when you’re promoting something as an affiliate, take the time to include a helpful tip or two on the topic. It could be that you’re promoting a business course and you know some things that could also help when they’re using that course.

Tell them about that and then encourage them to click a link you have on the topic in order to get more helpful advice. Even if the person doesn’t buy that particular product, they’re going to stay on your list because you provided value.

Communicate with Your Audience Regularly

When you’re first building an online business (and even if you have an established one), you must have an audience – your subscribers and customers. The right type of communication allows you to retain them.

Communication simplified just means that you’re engaging with the people who are or may potentially be interested in your business. It’s important that the sites you choose to promote your business or offers are ones that your audience frequents.

There’s a usually difference between the places young adults and older ones spend time online. Knowing that difference lets you get your products in front of people who are more likely to buy.

You need to create a communication style that’s personal. People who are addressed by name are more likely to engage with your company than someone who’s called “dear customer.”

By engaging with your audience, you create trust, which goes beyond them seeing you as someone who’s just looking for a sale. Engaging with them builds a relationship. The stronger the relationship, the more long-term loyalty you’ll end up building.

That’s why you should communicate with your audience, but you need to know where you should communicate with them. Working online, you need an email autoresponder list.

Even if you have zero customers, you should still set one up. Out of all the communication opportunities, creating a list is the most important. Because instead of waiting to see if they contact you, you’ll be able to reach out to them.

They might also be more likely to buy from a link provided in an email than via social media. You also have an opportunity to introduce new or more products, learn what they respond to and get a better conversation rate.

Communicate through your blog posts. Give your audience something that benefits them. You can do this by giving them takeaways. Share guidance on how to help their lives or business.

Teach them what you know or what you’re learning. Offer a live tutorial to help customers with the product or services that you’re offering to them. Comment to them and respond to questions.

This allows the audience to feel like they’re getting to know you. Be active on the social media sites where your audience hangs out. Share things that are relevant, or helpful and give a sneak peek into your life.

Don’t constantly push products or sales. Whatever communication style you’re using, you need to create a schedule for this. If you show up randomly, then eventually your audience disappears.

Even if you only update once a month, you need to do so consistently so that your audience knows when to expect the content. If you need to, you can schedule in advance to keep up the consistency.

Always Look for Ways to Monetize Your Message

Your branding success and profits increase the more you get your message in front of an audience. While you certainly don’t want to come across as a pushy salesman, you do want to build your business, and there are subtle ways to do this.

To start, make sure you’re always looking for ways to monetize your message. It doesn’t matter where the customer is getting the message from—whether it’s through an email list, on your blog or on social media.

Whenever you monetize a message online, you’ll want to choose ones that you know are high value. Because the more value they give, the more important these offers become to the customer.

When they get one product that benefits them, they’ll be looking for more. There are some things you’re going to want to watch out for when you’re monetizing because it could backfire on you.

As you look for ways to monetize, don’t just choose any random product if you’re an affiliate. A bad product will cost you customers – even if the product isn’t yours. If you value profit over customers, then you’re more apt to pick products that don’t necessarily deliver on their promises.

If you do get involved with an affiliate program or you’re in a partnership with another marketer, it’s imperative that the products you choose are ones that will be useful to your audience.

You also want to make sure you’re promoting someone who’s ethical if you’re monetizing as part of a partnership. Never blindly recommend something. If you don’t know that person or you have no experience with that product, buy it yourself first and test it out.

When you post a blog, see if there are any recommendations you can make. If you make a video tutorial, add any links to the products you used or mention in the description.

Make sure that you add links to your own products, too. For example, if you have a welcome series, then have a link from the email linking to that product offer or to a blog post tutorial that mentions and links out to the product.

You can find ways to monetize your blog post with text and image links, your podcasts with verbal recommendations, your videos, your social media presence, and your email autoresponder list.

Be Immune to What the Competition Is Doing

It’s common for marketers to think about their competition, especially when they see a competitor in the same niche having a lot of success. With so much competition, you’re bound to run up against someone who’s working on the same idea that you are – or they have a product that’s a lot like yours.

While it’s common to think about the competition, there’s a difference between occasionally thinking about your competitors and dwelling on them to the point where it causes problems in your own productivity.

If you’re wondering what they’re doing more often than not – or you’re experiencing a heavy burden of envy, then you’re too focused on things outside of your own business growth.

You’ll know this is what you’re doing if you’ve ever had the thought that your competition is the reason why your customer base is low or if you’ve spent time thinking that they’re succeeding because they have more money to spend on ads, a bigger customer base, more employees and things like that.

Thought it can be difficult to fathom, your competition really isn’t the enemy of your brand. If there’s a business that’s thriving and they’re offering similar products or services in the same niche that you’re in, all it means is that the market is good for whatever it is you have to offer.

Don’t let your attention get diverted away from focusing on your projects so that you’re thinking rashly or taking action steps based on what some other business is doing. Not only can this cause you stress, but it can also cost you financially in the long run.

It starts to create some negative thinking. The next thing you know, you’re caught up in the comparison game and you end up stuck in that awful headspace. You start to feel that what you’re doing compared to what the competition is doing isn’t good enough.

Plus, there’s another downside to paying attention to what others are doing. Seeing what another business is working on can cause you to stop doing whatever it is that you’d planned to do.

You might get focused on the fact a similar product is already out there or it’s already been done, so there’s no need for you to create a similar one. You end up quitting before you even really got started.

What you may fail to realize is that someone may prefer to hear the message from you. You might explain it in a better way or simplify it and it clicks with that person, so they buy from you instead of your competitor.

Focus on Self Satisfaction Through Goal Completion

As you complete a goal, it brings self-satisfaction. You’ll be happy and accomplished about the things that you’ve achieved. Studies have shown that people who set and reach goals obtain more success than those who don’t.

When you complete milestones, they help contribute to your long term goals for your business. As you achieve each one, it can bring you closer to the strategy that you’ve planned as the outcome for your business and your future.

Completing goals give you a sense of mastery. You set out to do something and you did it. You’ll be able to see the results of your efforts. You’ll see a subscriber list that’s grown from zero to thousands – and a bank account that’s thriving.

Goals are rarely completed in just one move. Instead, they’re built of several smaller steps and each of these steps that you complete gives you a sense of self satisfaction. That helps you develop the confidence that you need as an entrepreneur.

Each time you finish a goal, you strengthen the mindset or belief in yourself that you’ve got this – that you can do what you set out to accomplish. You’ll want to focus on the improvement that you experience or the personal growth that you go through as a result of completing your goals.

You’re not the same person that you were when you first set out to do the task or project. You grew in terms of skills and knowledge – and you gained wisdom as you worked.

Part of that self satisfaction stems from the fact that overcoming obstacles and accomplishing the goals has allowed you to see that you can handle things that you never thought you would be able to.

As you complete the goals, it becomes a motivating factor that keeps you on track and keeps pushing you forward. Because you get a sense of satisfaction, it triggers the reward center of the brain and you can become addicted to setting and achieving your goals and finding success, which is a good thing.

When you decide to set your goals, start by knowing what your why is. That’s the reason that will help you keep going when you want to quit. Keep that before you so that you can focus on how you’ll feel once you do reach the end of that goal.

Reaching a business goal gives you a self-esteem boost and it also helps develop a can-do attitude. The more goals you set and complete, the more likely you are to set and reach bigger goals going forward.

When your mind is swirling at all of the various things happening in your business, take a step back and get a good overview of what’s important in your business. Taking care of your customers is going to further your success.

Learning how to communicate with them and be a strong presence will create loyalty to you. Learn how to monetize those messages and never leave money on the table simply because you’re so frazzled, you forget.

Keep your focus on what you’re doing – not your competitors, unless it’s simply to ensure you’re leading the pack. Work on your goals and have a plan to achieve them. With these simple success strategies, you will grow further and faster than if you tried to do too much, all at once.

There are many individuals who have a desire to launch a blog, but the unknown territory and technical tasks of setting one up keeps them from pursuing it. Instead of overwhelming yourself by trying to do it all in one sitting, you can break the tasks up so that over the course of four weeks, you chip away at what needs to be done to completion.

This style of working on a project not only lets you remove the pressure, but it also helps you take your time in learning how to do things right. If you’re in too much of a rush, you’ll likely miss steps, do something wrong, or do it blindly without understanding the reasoning behind it.

This list of thirty days of instructions assumes you have already chosen a niche and bought a domain to connect to your hosting account. It picks up specifically at the blog installation point of the process and carries you through the maintenance of your WordPress blog over time.

Day 1: Install WordPress Using QuickInstall

Before you can set anything up on your blog, it first has to be installed on your domain. Open up your cPanel and scroll down to the Software section. Click on the QuickInstall button.

This takes you to QuickInstall, where you can create an account. You want to choose the free WordPress option – not the paid choices. Once you click it, it will ask for some domain information, including where you want the blog located (directly on the dot com domain or at a URL such as yourdomain.com/blog).

It will also ask you for your admin email, blog title, username, first and last names. Once you enter that information, click Install WordPress and seconds later, it will show a message at the top of your screen that says, “Your Install Is Complete – Click here to view your notifications.”

When you click the View Credentials drop down link, it will show you the URL where you’ll log into your new blog, your username and a password they give you. Make sure you copy this information down in a file on your computer so it doesn’t get lost.

Day 2: Log in and Get Familiar with Your Dashboard

Today you’ll spend a moment just logging in and seeing what your dashboard looks like. You don’t want to actually change anything – just get familiar with the dashboard navigation, which is where you’ll see notices right away, and a sidebar on the left.

When you first log in, you’ll see a notification that they’ve emailed you for verification and you’ll also see a note in orange that says Coming Soon Active. This means your site is only showing a “Coming Soon” page and you’ll want to click their link when you’re ready to go live.

Be aware that there is a lot of bloat on an initial WordPress install. Much of what you see, you won’t even be using. We’re going to cover the basics and then as time goes on, you can add features that you feel you need or prefer.

Day 3: Go Straight to the Updates

No matter what day it is, you want to always click on the Updates link in the left sidebar and take care of any updates that need to be handled. This is a security measure that will help keep your new blog safe.

When you click on it, you’ll see some of the bloat that was previously mentioned. You won’t need to set up analytics or audience insight. You don’t need to use OptinMonster or WPForms.

Just scroll down to where it tells you what needs to be updates. You’ll select the item, and click on the Update Plugins or Update Themes button. It will show you when it has successfully updated.

Day 4: Remove the Placeholder Post

In the left sidebar, click the Posts link. This will show you the placeholder post that says Hello world! Click the checkbox and send it to the trash. Some people go through the effort of redoing that post and turning it into something they want to use, but you can just start from scratch.

Day 5: Set Up Your Post Categories

Under the Post tab, you can click the Categories option. This opens up a page where you can set up the hierarchy of topics for your site. First, edit the one that says Uncategorized and turn it into one of your real ones and then add additional categories.

Make a list of the categories you want to have on your blog. For example, if you’re running a work at home blog, then you might have categories for product creation, list building, traffic and more.

You’ll take each idea, enter the name of the category, give it a slug (the URL version which is lowercase and may look like this: product-creation) and choose whether this is a Parent category, or a “child” category.

For example, once you enter your main categories, you’ll be able to create sub (child) categories. You might have a category such as Traffic as a parent category, and the child categories could be organic traffic, paid ads, social traffic, and more. You can also enter a description if you want to.

Day 6: Clean Up the Existing Pages

When you click on the Pages link in your sidebar, you’ll see three pages sitting there – a Privacy Policy in draft mode, a Sample Page, and a WPForms Preview that’s private. If you want to have a privacy policy page, which many affiliates do, you can edit this template to suit your needs.

But the other two pages can be deleted. Or, you can delete all three and start from scratch whenever you want to create your own privacy policy or terms of service pages for your blog.

Day 7: Pick a Theme for Your Blog

You can choose a free or paid theme to your liking. If you want a simple layout that has a righthand sidebar, a header at the top, and the blog posts on the left, you can click on Add Themes and type the words Twenty Ten into your search bar.

When the themes come up, hover over the one you want and you can preview what it will look like when it’s installed (keep in mind you’ll be uploading your own header). If you like what you see, click Install and then Activate.

Once you activate it, it will say “New theme activated” and give you the option of visiting the site to see how it looks.

Day 8: Customize Your Site Identity

When you go to the Appearance and Themes section, you can customize your theme in different ways. On the left sidebar after you choose to customize it, you’ll see site identity, which lets you change the Site Title and Tagline of your site.

Here, you can also upload a site icon, which is a 512 x 512 pixel image that people see in their browser tabs, in bookmarks and on mobile apps. These are also known as Favicons. People used to create the much smaller, but the theme requests 512 x 512 and it crops it and sizes it right for your representation.

After you make the changes you want to these elements, click Publish. The new elements will then be working live on your site. As you’ll notice, you have Colors as the next item in your site customization options, but it’s best to leave it as a white background, since various colorful backgrounds make the content harder to read.

Day 9: Customize Your Header Image

The themes will come with a built-in placeholder for a header. You don’t want to keep these. If you’re using the simple Twenty Ten theme, it will ask you to upload a header that is 940 x 198 pixels.

You can create your own header on a site like Canva or outsource it to a professional graphics designer on a site like Fiverr or Upwork. To upload it, just click Add New Image. You can crop the image and when you approve it, click Publish to make it go live.

Day 10: Customize Your Widgets

You can skip the background image and menus for now. Go to your Widgets section under the appearances section and click on Primary Widget Area. Here, you can reorder, delete or add any widgets that you want to use on your blog.

Click on the Meta block and click Remove. You should be left with a search box, recent comments (which shows engagement on your site), archives (so people can look back at past content), and categories if you want them to be able to navigate easier.

It will also show recent posts, once you have some content live on your site, but it won’t be there at this time. You can click the plus sign to add a widget, such as popular posts, a calendar, tag cloud and more.

For now, just add the custom HTML widget and drag it right below the search box. You’ll be using this later when it’s time for some list building task implementation. For now, it won’t show up as anything on your site. Remember to hit the Publish button before leaving.

Day 11: Delete the Bloated Plugins from Your Blog

When you log in today, click on Plugins in the left sidebar. Scroll down and look at all of the pre-installed plugins they’ve put on your site. You want to Deactivate some of them and delete them.

You can always add things back at a later date once you understand how they can help (or hurt) your site, what they do, and what you need. Start by deactivating and deleting WPForms Lite, OptinMonster, MOJO Marketplace, JetPack, Hello Dolly, and Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights.

If your theme has added other bloated plugins, get rid of them for now, except Akismet, which will help you filter a lot of the spam that invades your blog. You’ll see a big, blue button that says Set up your Akismet account.

If you already have an API key for an account, you can enter that – but otherwise, you’ll sign up for an account and enter your key at that time.

Day 12: Set Up a Contact Form on Your Blog

Go into your dashboard and click on Plugins. Click Add New at the top. Then search for Contact Form 7. There are many different plugins you can use, so if you prefer another one, go with that.

When you find Contact Form 7, click Install Now. Then click Activate. Next, click Settings. You will see some Shortcode that you want to copy. Then, click on the Pages link in the sidebar and choose Add New.

For the Title, enter the words Contact Me. Click the plus sign in the block area and choose Custom HTML. Paste the code there and then publish the page on the righthand sidebar.

If you go view your blog, you should see Contact Me as a page option under the header. Click the page and you should see fields for a name, email, subject and message.

Test the form out by sending a message. If you entered your admin email correctly during the installation of WordPress, you should get the message almost instantaneously.

Day 13: Add a Social Sharing Plugin

You want people to enjoy your blog posts so much that they feel inclined to share it with others. While many may copy and paste the URL into their social media accounts, why not make it easy by using social sharing buttons?

Today, go to the Plugins area and click Add New. In the search box, type the word Social and look at all of your social sharing options. You can click on one like Grow Social and install it, then activate it.

Regardless of which one you choose, you’ll want to then click on Settings for the plugin and set it up the way you want to. For this one, you can choose to have an inline button option or a floating sidebar.

Floating sidebars sometimes annoy visitors because it covers content they’re trying to read. So choose inline. Once you activate that option, you’ll click on the settings for it. Now, you can choose which social networks you’ll provide share buttons for.

It’s important to know where your audience will likely be sharing – such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. You’ll be able to determine how the buttons look – their shape and size, positioning above or below content, and you can add some text such as, “Share this blog!” Save the changes when you’re finished.

Day 14: Set Up the General Settings for Your Blog

Today, you’ll log into your dashboard and scroll to Settings. Click on the General option. Here, you’ll make some determinations about how your site presents itself. You can once again alter the site title and tagline.

If you need to change your admin email, you can do that here. You can choose what role new users are given, such as subscriber, contributor, author, etc. Leave it at the default.

You can change the language if you need to, pick a time zone, choose the date format and time format, pick which day of the week you want the week to begin, and set a cache level. Typically, most of these will just stay at their default – unless you have some sort of change you want to make. If you do alter anything, make sure you click Save Changes.

Day 15: Adjust Your Writing Settings

When you log in today, go to Settings and choose the Writing Settings. You’ll be able to select a default category for your posts (perfect for if you accidentally forget to categorize it).

You can set up posting via email if you want to. Most people just log right into their dashboard, so you can leave this as a default. For the Update Services, this is a great place to put multiple URLs for anywhere you want to ping whenever a new post goes live.

If you don’t know what to put here, just Google Ping List 2022 and you should find an updated list of ping sites to copy and paste into this section. This will help search bots find your posts and index them faster. Be sure to click Save Changes at the end!

Day 16: Customize Your Reading Settings

Under the settings tab, go to Reading settings. This is where you’ll choose what visitors see on your site. You can showcase your latest posts (recommended so they see fresh content) or a static page of your choosing (which can confuse some people with navigation).

Select how many blog posts you want shown on each page and in syndication – such as 10. Do you want the full text shown or just an excerpt in the feeds of people who have subscribed via RSS?

Make sure you see an UNchecked box where it says “Search Engine Visibility.” If it’s checked, it will discourage search engines from indexing your site. It should come unchecked, but you never know what theme creator will make the opposite the default. Click Save Changes at the end.

Day 17: Choose How You Want Discussions to Unfold

The discussion settings are up to you. But here’s what many people do. They uncheck everything except the following:

• Allow people to submit comments on new posts.
• Comment author must fill out name and email.
• Enable threaded (nested) comments 5 levels deep.
• Email me whenever anyone posts a comment.
• A comment is held for moderation.
• Comment must be manually approved.

These will help you maintain control over the comments and spam that gets through so that you can only approve viable comments on your blog posts. If you’re not familiar with common spam comments, take time to learn what those are.

When someone posts, “Great post! I can’t wait to read more!” it’s often a spammer who simply wants to create a backlink to their site using the name and URL space. You’ll notice their name is often a keyword phrase.

As you keep scrolling, you’ll see an Avatar section. You can choose to show avatars, choose the rating (G), and a default avatar for yourself. If you want to, you can go to Gravatar and upload a picture there and choose that as your default. Be sure to click Save Changes at the end!

Day 18: Make a Selection for Your Permalinks

You can skip the Media setting and head straight to the Permalink Settings. You’ll see lots of options for how the URL of each blog post will appear in the browser. Plain will give it a number. Others have date and time, month and name, numeric, etc.

You want to choose Post Name. This will include the title of your blog post (keywords and all) in the actual URL. So if you blog post is titled “best diet plans of 2022,” instead of a numeric URL that looks like yourdomain.com/blog/123, it will look like yourdomain.com/blog/best-diet-plans-of-2022.

This is not only better for search bots to understand what your content is about, but it helps the human visitor know what to expect before clicking on a link that someone shared to your site. Click Save Changes when you’re done.

Day 19: Install a WordPress Editorial Calendar

Go to Plugins today and Add New. You want to install and activate one called Editorial Calendar. This will be a great addition to help you manage the content on your blog. With a WordPress blog, you can write and schedule posts to go live ahead of time.

So using a calendar plugin, you’re able to see an overview of topics and drag and drop the posts if you feel they need to be rearranged to a different date and time. This is a great feature if you also have someone else contributing to the blog, such as a virtual assistant or freelance ghostwriter.

You’ll find the calendar under the Posts section. Each date has the words New Post when you hover on it, and when you click that, it allows you to put the title and content as well as the time and status of the post in it.

Day 20: Add an Affiliate Disclosure Notice

To comply with FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulations, you need to add disclosure statement to your blog if you will be earning as an affiliate for sites like Amazon.

Go to the Appearances section and then Widgets. Amazon says you should add a statement such as, “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” to your blog and it must be displayed where customers are seeing your links.

So it makes sense to have it in the sidebar, right beside the content instead of on a page of its own. Click on the Plus sign to add a widget and choose the Paragraph option.

Then paste your disclosure statement and drag it to wherever you want visitors to see it. You don’t have to put it at the very top. But don’t bury it below dozens of widgets, either. Make sure you Update it before you leave.

Day 21: Grab Your List Building Code

You should be signed up with an email autoresponder system, like Aweber or GetResponse. On those systems, you can go through and set up a form (either using their template or customizing it however you like).

Make sure it’s the right size to fit your blog sidebar and then grab the HTML code to install it on your blog. You’re going to go to the Widgets area again and choose the Custom HTML widget (if it’s not already installed) so you can paste the code in and see your form once you click Update.

Go to your home page and make sure the form appears under the search box of your sidebar. Test the form to make sure it works in subscribing you to your list. If you don’t test it, you might lose dozens of subscribers due to a small error.

Day 22: Create an About Me Page

Whenever you start building a following online, you’ll want to have some level of transparency about who you are and showcase your passion and expertise to your visitors.

Whenever some consumers become fans of a blog or niche leader, they begin looking for information about them. You want to control the narrative and not let your competitors do all the talking.

Create a page called About Me and in it, tell the followers a bit about yourself. There’s no need to disclose anything deeply personal, unless it’s relevant to your leadership and you feel compelled to, but do try to add a picture and a summary of who you are to help build trust.

Day 23: Add Ads to Your Sidebar

If you want to showcase other sites you own that are relevant, or offers that you’re an affiliate for, you can create or look for banner ads to place on your blog where people can click through and hopefully, help you earn a sale.

Some people put ads under their header, or inside the actual blog posts, too. You can certainly do all of the areas combined, but make sure you’re not allowing your site to become covered in ads to the point where it drowns out your message.

Day 24: Create Your First Blog Post

Your very first blog post will likely be a welcome message to your readers. They’ll want to know what the blog will focus on, how often they should expect new information, and anything else you feel is pertinent to hep them feel a connection right off the bat.

Whenever you create your content, make sure you add the More tag so that the comment area shows up whenever someone lands on your blog and reads a post. If you don’t have the More tag, the reader will absorb all the post and not see anywhere to engage.

Day 25: Socialize Your New Content

Today, you want to take the link to your new blog post and go to various social media sites and apps to share it there. Start with sites like Facebook (on your profile, page or group), and consider including it on Pinterest, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube.

Day 26: Consider an SEO Plugin for Your Site

If you’re concerned about whether or not your blog can rise in the SERPs (search engine results pages) organically, then you may want to consider installing an SEO plugin.

There are many different kinds, and they serve as reminders whenever you create a new post to help you include the information that search bots and human visitors will be looking for.

Day 27: Analyze the Data of Your Blog Visitors

You can install an analytics plugin to give you some answers, or just use the Metrics built into your cPanel to gather some data about your visitors. You can find out what pages they visited, where they were referred from, what country they came from and more.

Day 28: Create a Pillar Blog Post

There are normal, everyday blog posts and then there are pillar blog posts. These are the best posts you can create on evergreen topics in your niche. They should be well researched and thought out, thorough in the content they cover, and good enough to warrant bookmarking or sharing without hesitation.

While quantity is often touted as a way to rise in the ranks on search engine results pages, it’s more about the quality, and having several pillar posts that are considered the very best on that topic will help you more than dozens of low quality posts.

Because they’re longer, you might do something like “101 Ways to Lose Weight Quickly” or “85 Blog Tips Every Newbie Needs to Know.” Consumers love number posts, but it doesn’t have to be one of those.

Day 29: Find Images to Use with Your Niche Content

Blog content can be a daunting read for many. So you want a way to break up the text. Images provide a solution for you. You can either create graphics yourself using tools like Canva, or you can download stock pictures on sites like Pixabay, iStockPhotos or DepositPhotos.

Day 30: Get Your Blog Into Google’s Publisher Center

Google allows you to submit your blog for consideration in Google News. You can go to the Publisher Center and submit your site for consideration. There’s no guarantee they’ll accept it, but it’d be great if your site became an authority for Google to recommend to others.

In order to have a shot at succeeding, you’ll want to wait to do this until you have ample content for them to review and make sure it’s cutting edge and newsworthy. Stay on top of the news coming from your niche and blog about it as soon as possible.

Before you spend weeks or months trying to turn a profit from a niche, it’s a good idea spend some time investigating it to see if it’s viable. Viable would mean it has ample topics for content, tons of money-making opportunities, and a healthy presence of a target audience online.

You need to make an effort to size up the niche before you just quickly commit to it. Imagine spending six months trying to earn from a bad decision. It will leave you frustrated and pessimistic about your abilities as an online entrepreneur.

While you may be in a rush to make money, it’s important that you know you’re choosing the right niche topic. Not only do you want one that’s ripe with profit potential, but you also want to make sure you have a hungry audience ready to absorb your content – and a personal passion to lead them.

Day 1: Brainstorm a List of Your Interests, Knowledge and Passions

The place you want to start when picking a niche is in your own mind. On the very first day of your niche research journey, you want to sit down with a pen and paper and brainstorm a list of all of the things you have knowledge or expertise in, topics that you feel emotionally passionate about, and things you have a general interest in, even if that means learning more along the way.

For example, you might know a lot about raising children because you are a parent of five. You might have a passion for the pet niche because you like to help people pair up with a rescue animal in need.

When it comes to interests, you might want to list things you have been involved with before, such as cooking. Or, you might name things that you’ve always wanted to learn more about, such as a particular arts and crafts topic.

Day 2: Make a List of the Niche Pain Points and Problems

The next day, you want to take those niches that you listed previously and right a summary of the main pain points and problems the audience of those niches have to deal with or need help with.

For example, if cooking was one of the niches that you listed, then you might list problems such as cooking for one or cooking low sodium or low calorie meals. Cooking on a budget could also be a pain point or problem for this target audience.

Day 3: Conduct Some In-Depth Keyword Research

The third day, you want to log in to a keyword research tool, either free or paid, and start drilling down from broad to more narrow keywords and phrases. You want to export these and save them in a file for use later.

The reason you want to conduct initial keyword research is because sometimes it can spark more ideas for a topic that you may not have considered before. For example, if you went to a keyword tool and typed in the words cooking for – you might get results such as cooking for diabetics, cooking for beginners, cooking for college students, or cooking for babies or elderly.

Day 4: Create a List of Sub-Topics for Each Niche You’re Considering

On day four, you want to create a list of topics that you have drilled down from the main one. For example, if anti-aging is one of the niches that you are considering, then you might have subcategories such as memory, mobility, socialization, finances, skin care, and more.

Day 5: Map Out Niche Topics That Complement the Originals

For each of the niches that you are considering, you should use a mind mapping system to link any niche that could possibly be connected with the original one. This will serve you well at a later date when you want to create additional content or promote more products that are just outside of your niche.

For example, if your niche topic is weight loss, there are many other niches that may affect someone’s ability to lose weight. That may include things like stress, sleep, and more.

Having these written down ahead of time will allow you to easily pick a niche to pair your content with and offer additional solutions that may not be inherently associated with your original niche.

For example, if you wrote an article for your blog about how a lack of good sleep can impair your ability to lose weight, you would be able to make recommendations for better bedding, sleep supplements, white noise machines, and other products that help someone sleep better, and indirectly help them lose weight.

Day 6: See What’s Being Said About It in the News

On this day, you want to take some time to analyze the various news stories for your niche. You may be able to find some stories using the search tool on sites like CNN or Fox News.

But you can also go to Google or another search engine, type in your niche topic, and click on the News tab to see what has been discussed about it recently. You may be able to find specific studies that have been conducted and have some cutting edge information that is timely to share with your audience.

Day 7: Check for Rising or Falling Trends

Another thing you want to keep your eye on over the course of these 30 days are the trends that have emerged, risen or fallen sharply over time. The last thing you want to do is hang your hat on a trend within a niche, only to see it get scrapped.

Ideally, you want to immerse yourself in an evergreen niche that will be around and have a solid performance for years to come. It’s okay to capitalize on certain trends that occur within your niche, but you want to have a strong anchor for your business.

Day 8: Stop By Forums to See What the Needs Are

One thing that will help you be able to tap into the needs of your audience is to visit forums within your niche and see what people are posting about and commenting on. For example, if you are in the survival niche and you visit a prepper forum, you may see increased concerns about the economy.

Or, you may be able to jot down a specific topic such as supply chain issues so that you have a note to address that in an upcoming blog post about stocking up on supplies early on.

Day 9: Find Out If There’s an Audience for the Niche on Facebook

Another part of your niche research is to see if there’s an audience for this topic on Facebook. While many in the younger generation do not have a presence here, it is still one of the most popular social media sites online.

You want to be looking for groups, pages, and profiles that are discussing your niche topic. Join the groups and follow the pages so that you can begin observing the target audience and also networking with others who can help you earn money in the niche.

Day 10: Look to See If the Niche Is ‘Gram-Worthy

Today, you want to visit Instagram to see if there is a presence for your target audience here. Be sure to use hashtags to conduct searches and see what kind of content is being highlighted and supported by the followers.

For example, if you type in the word gardening and look at the results, you may find that a post on hydroponics has far fewer followers than one on how to grow tomatoes. It doesn’t mean you should ignore hydroponics, but you will be able to rank the level of interest by looking at the engagement.

Day 11: Peek on Pinterest to See If It Has a Following

Stopping by Pinterest on this day of your niche research will help you see how many people are actively saving and sharing content for a specific subtopic within your niche. For example, if you entered the word dieting, you would get all kinds of results.

You would be able to see the level of interest for topics such as the keto diet, inflammation diet, intermittent fasting, vegetarian diets, and more. This is a great keyword tool because you can follow the link to someone’s profile who has shared or liked the content and see what else they have saved on their Pinterest board.

Day 12: See If You Can Discover Any Tik Toks on Your Topic

Even if you may not be an active sharer there yet, make sure you visit Tik Tok to see how many people are discussing your niche topic there. You may be surprised at what all you can find on this social media app – from videos about memory loss to container gardening tips – they have it all.

Day 13: Conduct a YouTube Search for the Niche

It’s the second largest search engine on the Internet, which is why you need to make sure you visit YouTube and conduct a search in your niche. For example, if you are in the diabetes niche, you can enter that word as a search term and see the results that have the most views, such as healthy eating for diabetics.

The great thing about this site is that the comments will have insight into what is most important to your audience on each subtopic. The audience here will share their own tips and also ask for additional advice, which you can write down for future content ideas.

Day 14: Take a Look at What’s Being Covered By Trade and Consumer Magazines

Depending on the niche, you may be able to look up trade magazines or consumer magazines and get an idea of what topics are important to the audience based on what’s on the cover.

You may also want to look up trade shows in your niche or conventions and expos that you could dig into online or in person to get to know your target audience and the market in general better.

Day 15: View the Podcast List for Your Topic

One good resource to see if your niche is going to be popular enough and profitable enough is to go to Google and type in your niche topic and the word podcast. You will be able to see how many followers the podcast has, and be able to look back on their episodes to see which topics have been covered.

Depending on the platform, you may be able to see comments that have been left for the host that can give you more insight into what needs to be covered about this particular topic or what had a positive impact on the listening audience.

Day 16: Spy on the Competition to See Where They’re Failing and Succeeding

The competition for your niche will be everywhere – as authors on Amazon, as individuals leading groups on social media, as bloggers creating consistent content for the target audience, and more.

You want to begin scouring the web to see who the strong competitors are so that you can pinpoint any weaknesses they have that you may be able to do better with. You also want to see where they are succeeding so that you can emulate that success with ideas of your own.

Day 17: Make Note of Tangible Products You Can Promote as an Affiliate

On this day, your goal is to begin the process of looking into the profitability of the niche. One thing you want to do is make a list of the tangible products you could promote, if there are any.

Even topics that are mostly digital, such as online marketing, have tangible items that can be promoted such as green screens, microphones, computers and more. If you are in a niche that has a ton of tangible products, then try to categorize them the best you can.

As you jot down the products, make a note as to where you can promote the items. For example, you may find that you can promote through Amazon or Share a Sale, but if you do some digging, you may also find that the vendor or manufacturer allows you to promote directly through them.

Day 18: List All of the Digital Products You Can Earn Commissions From

On this day, you want to do the same thing you did for the tangible items, only with digital products. You will be looking on sites like ClickBank, Warrior Plus, JVZoo, Udemy and other locations to see if there are eBooks, memberships, and video courses you can promote for a commission as an affiliate,

Day 19: See If There Are Any Subscription Offers for the Niche

Many people forget that there are opportunities for ongoing revenue as an affiliate. Subscription offers (such as boxes that get mailed to the buyer’s home) are one way to achieve this. For example, they have them for niches such as beauty, arts and crafts, pets, survival, fitness, and more.

Day 20: Spot Holes in the Marketplace That Would Make Good Info Products

Another good research tactic for your niche is to look for ways you can fill a gap in the marketplace. For example, it may be based on a topic that has not been covered or a media format that has not been presented.

You may find that someone has not covered the topic of how to write an eBook very well, so that may be something you can provide to the target audience. Or, you may find that there are several courses about how to build a blog in PDF format, but the marketplace is lacking a video course, which you could easily provide.

Day 21: Map Out the Common Denominators for Product Funnels in the Niche

On this day, you want to look for the common denominators in the product funnels that you see in the marketplace for your niche. To do this, you will often need to go to the JV (joint venture) page to see how the funnel unfolds for the customer.

You want to look for patterns or ideas that many people are using. A good example of this is if you look at some of the top courses being sold on 3rd party platforms, you will often see a second upgrade that offers to do the work for the customer.

For example, the front end product may teach people how to open an Etsy store. The first upgrade may be a set of readymade printables. But the second upgrade could be an offer to complete the set up for them.

Day 22: Chart the Price Points That Are Being Used and How They Perform

Looking back on the products that you have seen in the marketplace, you want to make note of the price points that are being used throughout the funnel. Start with the front end and go through the price points of each upgrade and downsell that is listed.

You will want to be competitive for your customers, and also meet the price point that is expected from your affiliates whenever you create info products of your own. You can’t just look at the price, though – you have to see what is included in the product to make sure it is comparable to what you have planned.

Day 23: Jot Down a List of Top-Performing Affiliates in the Niche

When you start looking at products that have launched before yours, check to see if they had a contest associated with the launch. If they do, you can look at the leaderboard to see who was a top performing affiliate.

Sometimes, they will not have an official contest, but the vendor will share a post on social media about the affiliates who brought the most traffic and sales. You will want this information so that you can approach the same heavy hitters later.

Day 24: Cross Reference Your Affiliate List with Launch Perks

When you are doing your investigation of previous launches and affiliates, look to see what perks were being given with the launch. For example, on the JV page, you may find that the vendor was promising a reciprocal promotion, 100% commission on the front end, or something else.

Make a specific note about who performed well for these vendors because the affiliates who promoted hard for them may expect these additional perks when you approach them for a future promotion.

Day 25: See If the Niche Has Merch Money Potential

Another thing you want to check is whether or not the niche has merch money potential. Merch is the slang term for products that are sold online such as T shirts from influencers, tumblers with the brand name, and so on.

You might have merch being sold through a company like Teespring, Redbubble, and other online shops. your merch might include hoodies, coffee cups, stickers, phone cases, and more.

Day 26: Look for Printable Profit Opportunities

Another additional profit stream you want to check for your niche consideration are printables. You can find things like planners, goal sheets, checklists, and other items for a wide variety of niches.

These are great because they are items that you create one time as a digital download, upload them to your store on a site like Etsy, and allow your audience too buy them repeatedly.

Day 27: Find Out If Anyone Offers Coaching as an Income Stream in Your Niche

Coaching may be an additional income stream for your niche. First, you want to see if anyone else is offering coaching so that you can compare their expertise and offers to your own.

It may turn out that there are no coaches online for your niche topic yet, but that doesn’t mean your audience wouldn’t be willing to pay for one on one or group coaching if the opportunity arose.

Day 28: Make Sure You Have Access to Easy and Affordable Niche Content

Running a niche website, whether you are operating as an affiliate marketer or a digital info product vendor, requires a lot of content day in, day out. You will have to create content for your blog, your email autoresponders, lead magnets, social media posts, and info products.

Along with all of the other tasks that you are responsible for, it can become overwhelming. Therefore, it makes sense for you to outsource some of the niche content whenever possible.

You may have the budget and ability to hire a freelance ghostwriter who can create content that is only owned by you. But if you don’t have the funds, you may want to look and see if there is any readymade niche content in the form of private label rights (PLR) that will allow you to download it, put your name on it, edit it as you see fit, and publish it.

Day 29: Make a List of Courses You Can Take to Level Up with Your Expertise

A good niche leader is always growing their own knowledge and understanding of the topic they are guiding others on. Therefore, you always want to be engaged in the learning process.

Make sure that there are new forms of information coming out that you may not understand yet. These could be in the form of a book, a video series, and could be free or paid. You could even take a course at a local community college or online college if it would help you level up with your insight.

Day 30: Check to See What Domains Are Available

After you have conducted all of the initial research for your niche, and you know how big the audience is and what their needs are, as well as the profit potential available to you, you will want to use your keyword list that you have gathered to try to find a good, available dot com domain.

Building an online business is a task that needs to be carried out precisely and carefully. Many people throw themselves into it without much thought, only to be forced to backtrack months later, with all their hard work down the drain.

Many people want to know how to make more money so that they can save enough for a vacation, pay their monthly bills or pay off their debt faster. It could even be to save for retirement.

Whatever your reason, a side hustle might be just the thing that you need to achieve your financial goals. More and more businesses are closing their doors because of health reasons.

This also means that many are wondering how to make more money without having to seek employment in person. The solution to this dilemma? The gig economy. This started out as a small trend that has exploded into fulltime careers for many individuals.

What Is a Gig?

The gig economy is an employment market that is defined by the high ratio of freelance work or short-term contracts in contrast to permanent and traditional jobs. The whole idea of the gig economy is for one to earn more money or extra money with part time jobs and freelance work.

The best part about this is that you can pursue the kinds of gigs you want at a time that works best for you. The flexibility of the gig economy not only allows you to schedule your own work, but to also dictate how much you want to do or how little.

With the awesome technological power that comes with the Internet, there are many short-term gigs that one can complete for the clients who hire them. Gigs have become more frequent as technology permits users to connect linearly with people who are willing to hire them for a project based on their expertise, time availability and skills.

Short-term gigs or side hustles have now become a legitimate means of earning income if you don’t have a job and act as a supplement income for those who already have a career.

Here are some facts that may sway your opinion about choosing gig work if you’ve been skeptical about its legitimacy:

Over 37 percent of American adults (that’s roughly over a third of adults) have at least one side gig that they are engaged in. So, yes, it is more common than you think.

Almost 40 percent of those who have side gigs use the earning received from it to afford their daily living expenses. This means that side gigs are necessary for a budget that breaks even.

They may not be extremely lucrative for part-timers, as the average monthly earnings for side gig workers is $690, and most side gig earners earn $210 or less. But it all depends on what type of gig you choose and how much you want to charge and work.

You’re in complete control of your hours and commitment to the gig work available, so if you need to earn more, you can simply accept more jobs to earn the amount you need for whatever purpose you choose.

Who Would Be the Best Candidates for Gig Careers?

Gig careers are great for men and women of all ages. From college kids who need to earn money while in school to senior citizens looking to supplement their retirement or social security funds – gigs can help.

If you’re someone who has a hectic schedule that makes it hard to get hired by traditional employers, such as a college student with scattered classes, then gig work can allow you to earn between classes or on off hours.

Moms and dads who have kids they want to spend more time with may find gig work an attractive option to a traditional employer. Instead of having to ask a boss for permission to take off and care for your child, you’ll be the one in charge of when you work and when you don’t.

Senior citizens who either hate the idea of retirement and want to maintain a career – or those who need more money but who can’t work in a traditional workforce, will love the idea of using gigs to earn the money they need or want to fund their lifestyle.

People who love doing gigs might be creative people. They love putting their writing or artistic skills to good use. They might be laborers who don’t want to have to expend a lot of mental energy on a job.

Some people love the idea of listening to a podcast or music while delivering groceries or restaurant meals. Introverts love gig work because they don’t have to show up every day to a room full of coworkers and clients.

Extroverts love gig work because it gives them the opportunity to meet people. Uber or Lyft drivers get to meet new people, chit chat and see new places as they drive. But introverts can work from the privacy of their own home and only deal with clients via email or messages.

Start as a Side Hustle and Build a Fulltime Career

When it comes to working in the gig economy, there are a lot of factors that you need to consider, from skills and hourly rates to time management and the other important little details.

This is a business you can start out doing here and there as time allows, and snowball it into a fulltime career if you want to. But you need to know a few ins and outs of how to start and expand your gig work.

In the beginning, you may not know exactly how much time and effort a gig takes. Or you may need to master certain skills, tools or even learn the right route to take. As you gain experience, you’ll become faster and more capable of delivering for your clients, and this can help you build repeat business in the future.

Before you begin, there are some important things to consider. Number one is to choose the right side gig. One may be a dream and one a living nightmare to you, depending on an array of components, such as skills, goals, and personality.

Ask others performing certain gigs (as well as those buying them) what they think about the service – if their needs are being met, any mishaps they have to endure, etc. Spend at least a couple of days to take a good look at the gig and all of the advantages and disadvantages associated with it.

This is to ensure that you make the right choice. Choosing the wrong one may discourage you from ever trying this line of work again. For example, if you think rideshare driving might be right for you, but you read about the extensive wear and tear on your car, you might think twice.

However, if you take out time at the beginning to research all about it before you choose it, you might as well be saving yourself a whole lot of headaches. Look at forums and social media to see what others are talking about regarding what they experience.

Second, take a look at the type of side gig that you have chosen to pursue. If you are going to be launching an actual gig business by yourself, then you should consider registering as an S Corporation or an LLC (Limited Liability Company).

However, before you rush in and do all the paperwork, you should try speaking with a lawyer to understand whether it’s necessary or not. If you’re just working off of a third party platform for part-time pay, you may not need to.

You also want to prepare for taxes. The last thing you might think about when you start a side hustle is that you need to pay taxes on those earnings. However, this should be one of the first items on your list because you don’t want to be hit with an unexpected tax bill at the end of the year.

When preparing for your gig tax, make sure that your personal bank account is kept separate from your business bank account. This ensures that your finances do not get mixed up and you can report expenses correctly.

Another thing to do is to get a certified accountant and speak to them about how you can prepare yourself for the tax season – and how much you should be setting aside. Speaking to a certified public accountant will help you figure out whether or not you are breaking even with your side gig or whether you are losing profit with it.

While gig work may not provide the same degree of job security as traditional employment, there are many different ways to earn on your own, so you’re not restricted to just one method of work.

Some other gigs might require you to develop the necessary skills you need in order for you to gain more profitable work in the future. While you may not need it for ridesharing or food delivery, you may need to gain experience writing or creating graphics before you do those kinds of gigs.

What to Know About Working with a Gig Platform

There are various online or app platforms for on-demand work, such as DoorDash, Fiverr, Upwork, Uber, and other freelance jobs. With the power of the Internet backing it up, the gig economy is able to connect side gig searchers directly with individuals and companies that need their skills without them having to go through the conventional offline means of dealing with certification and applications.

Working on a platform, keep in mind that you operate at the mercy of their rules. If you want payment up front, but they only require funds in escrow, you have to abide by that. Or, if they require certain customer service elements, you must deliver on their regulations, so make sure you know what they are asking of you before you sign up and agree to anything.

When working on a gig platform, your success or failure may be dependent upon what those who have hired you have to say about your performance. Your reviews and ratings will often determine whether or not you are able to maintain a consistent flow of income on that site or app.

These platforms allow sellers and buyers to exchange their services and payment at a faster rate. The gig economy is fast becoming a deeply rooted and significant part of the overall workforce economy.

So, if you have the right skills and develop an excellent work ethic, you can start earning and making a living just by working gigs and being a stellar provider. Also, if you are able to develop healthy relationships and a good rapport with some particular clients and customers, you could end enjoying full-time earnings.

With that said, let’s take a look at the gigs that you can start doing now to start earning ASAP. If you are talented in a field or you have the skills that allow you to earn a living at a traditional job, you can decide to sell your expertise online.

Here are examples of a few fields where you can put your talents and skills to work without leaving the comfort of your home…

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing can also include editing, proofreading, and translating, if you are proficient in those areas. It’s also important to note that freelance writing is one of the most popular ways of earning extra money in the gig economy, so if you have the skill to convey a message, consider this option strongly.

On some platforms, a skilled freelance writer can earn anywhere from $10 to $250 per hour. This is dependent upon the type of writing that they specialize in, their qualifications and also, their portfolio.

Freelance writing include a range of specialized types of writing, such as medical writing, technical writing, academic writing, and legal writing – and more entertaining types of writing, such as informational content and blog posts or even fiction!

Another amazing thing about freelance writing is that, most of the time, it requires nothing more than a strong Internet connection and a gadget with a word processing software.

This means that you can make use of your laptop, desktop or even your smartphone. Also, you can earn money as a freelance writer from anywhere in the world as long as you are online and you have a computer or a smartphone.

Are you fluent in multiple languages? You can earn a living with that skill through the freelance gig of translating. There are not many multilingual people in the gig economy, so a freelance translator can earn steady money from gigs.

Also, if you are fluent in an in-demand and difficult-to-learn language, such as Japanese or Mandarin Chinese, you have a whole lot of opportunities open to you. Zip Recruiter assents that a freelance translator can earn up to $29 per hour as average pay.

Coding

Coding, otherwise known as computer programming, includes several popular programming languages, such as Java, SQL, and Python to name a few. The difficulty it takes to learn coding can ensure that a freelance programmer earns a high rate.

According to Career Karma, a freelance programmer can earn up to $60 as an average hourly wage. You can find work on gig sites or launch your own site to accept on-demand projects from individuals and companies who need your skills.

Ridesharing

Another popular job in the gig economy is the ridesharing service. This service allows users to transform their cars into taxis. Some popular ridesharing services include Uber and Lyft, and they are more convenient and cheaper than traditional taxis.

For this, all you have to do is own a smartphone and a car and go through some compulsory background check and application processing (depending on the service) to become familiar with the rules and regulations of the company.

There is flexibility in work hours and one can earn an average hourly wage of about $15 to $25, depending on the location. It’s possible to sign up with more than one company to earn from, too.

Delivery

Not every restaurant has delivery options. However, with the gig economy and its option of food delivery, a lot of restaurants can now offer home deliveries using these third party platforms.

A list of food deliveries are Postmates, Uber Eats and DoorDash. These platforms operate like the ridesharing services and let you earn cash for delivering food to customers.

Upwork

Upwork is arguably the largest freelancing job structure on the Internet and offers a wide array of fields for gigs. So if you are a writer, designer, sales marketer, legal service provider, business analyst, data scientist, brand expert, translator, or other freelancer, you can use Upwork to earn money.

The platform takes a cut of all earning as a service fee. When you earn up to $500 of lifetime billings, they apply a fee of 20 percent. When it’s $500.01 to $10,000, it’s 10 percent fee, and when it is over $10,000, the fee is reduced to 5 percent.

Fiverr

Fiverr gives you the variety of having writers, artists and programmers all on the same site. The site also offers you the option of add-ons, which lets you charge more when you complete additional tasks for each job.

Like Upwork, Fiverr also uses a customized profile and portfolio and takes a 20% fee on all jobs completed. This is a good starting point for the newbies in the freelancing gig economy.

How to Succeed as a Gig Worker

There are several apps and gigs that you can use to earn some cash, but not everyone will succeed. You want to consider several things before you get started so that you’re able to maximize your earnings.

First and foremost, you never want to take on a gig that you’re unsure you can complete, either due to your schedule or desired skills or talent. It’s better to pass up an opportunity than to accept a gig, fail with it, and ruin your reviews and ratings.

You also want to make sure that you carefully abide by all of the customer or client’s requests. If they hire you to write a report and give you an outline, don’t stray from it to do something else.

Whenever possible, go the extra mile for your customers. You may have seen rideshare drivers who have snacks and phone chargers in their care for customers. This creates a nice experience and ensures they get tipped well and receive a nice rating for future work.

But even if you’re doing something else, such as freelance writing or graphics, you can go above and beyond and throw in something extra to seal the deal that you’ll be the one they come to in the future for more work.

If the gig is something where you can be chosen specifically, like ghostwriting, then ensuring your customers’ happiness will translate into more work via word of mouth recommendations.

If you’re someone who is currently sitting at a job you hate – or worse, unemployed and in desperate need of money – then you need to look at gig work as a solution to your problem.

With gigs, you can create a listing and have money deposited into your account within hours – or even minutes. Of course, there are no guarantees, either. Sometimes there’s a bit of a lag between when you create a profile and when you get hired.

So you don’t want to walk out on a steady paying job before you’ve started building momentum with your side hustle. If you’re in a situation where you want to leave your 9-5 job, then start doing gigs in your off hours.

Learn the ropes and gain a favorable rating. This gives you time to ensure you’re happy with that type of work, too. Then, you can submit your two weeks’ notice to your employer once you’ve gained your footing as a reliable gig worker.

In time, you might decide to move from a platform offering gigs to the creation of your own business entity dealing directly with customers and clients and cutting out the middleman altogether!

There are many men and women of all ages who choose to pursue the entrepreneurial lifestyle by starting an online business they can call their own. This is not an easy task, but it is very rewarding in terms of both personal satisfaction as well as the unlimited income you stand to bring in.

One of the various business models that you can implement is that of a digital info product creator. As a vendor who sells information, you have to take the necessary steps to not only ensure the quality of your product, but the integrity of your launch.

While it may seem daunting at first, the product launch process is actually very easy as long as you understand what steps need to be taken along the way. There are six primary areas that you will need to address from beginning to end.

Step 1: Be Smart with Your Product Creation Process

There are many people who will advise you to take as many shortcuts as possible so that you can have a product launch as quickly as you can. What you have to remember is that this is your one and only time to make a first impression as a quality vendor of digital information

Customers have seen and spent money with those who don’t take time and care in creating their products, and to be honest, they are sick of them. Unless you want to be labeled a scammer, and unable to earn a good living with your talent for teaching people solutions to their problems, you need to take your time and create a product that you will be proud of and that customers will enjoy.

Start by brainstorming something that isn’t already being done well in the marketplace. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done before, but that you bring something new to the table or different that your target audience will appreciate.

It may be a different media format, a different slant, or new and updated information. Check to see what is already being sold. If everyone has done eBooks, then you may try your hand at a video course.

For example, you may see lots of different eBooks that teach traffic generation. But you could come along and create a video course that shows them over the shoulder what to do in a step-by-step manner and have a hit on your hands.

You never want to concern yourself about the size of the product or necessarily what you will charge for it in the very beginning. During the planning stages, you want to think about how to thoroughly and precisely solve the problems that your target audience is experiencing so that they walk away feeling relief and satisfaction.

Once you come up with ideas, which you can base on forum chatter, blog post comments, social media engagement, keyword research, and more, you can outline your product so that you make sure nothing has been missed along the way.

You don’t want to have to go back later and fill in the gaps if you accidentally forget something. When you create your product, you want to deliver a high quality item to your audience.

That means that it is well written. It needs to be in English and written by someone who is fluent if you are outsourcing it to someone else. You want to take time to review the finished product and make sure that it is grammatically correct and that there are no spelling errors or typos.

You also want to make sure that the information itself is correct so that you don’t misguide anyone who buys from you. If you outsource a product about paid advertising on Facebook to a freelance service provider who knows nothing about it, they may put information in there that is not correct.

If you are creating a video product or some other media format, you want to take the same care as you would with text and go over the information, check for the quality of the visuals and sound and make sure that there are no glitches when the buyer downloads and engages in the product.

Step 2: Create Two Kinds of Copy

You can have the best product on the marketplace, but if your sales copy lacks the ability to convert visitors into buyers, or looks very amateurish in nature, you will fail to have the kind of successful launch you were hoping for.

You have to learn how to improve your copywriting skills over time. But in the meantime, if you are new to this aspect of online business operations, there are some things that can help you get by.

You will be creating two different kinds of copy. The first is your front end product copy. This is the most important one because it determines whether or not your visitor becomes a buyer or clicks out and leaves.

You want them to at least purchase the front end product so that you have the opportunity to present a one-time offer upgrade (or several). The first thing you may want to do is go to your fellow competitors and create a swipe file of the kinds of slants, tone and topics that are discussed by others.

You will never want to copy what they have done, but it’s important that you learn from other people’s success. Almost every good online entrepreneur has a swipe file of things like headlines, storylines, bullet points, etc.

You want to create a template of the layout you intend to use for your front end sales copy. For example, you might lead with one or two headlines and sub headlines followed by a video presentation if you want to create a hybrid media format sales letter.

After that, you will launch into your storyline, which can either be about your journey or that of your customers. Ideally, it will be both so that you can showcase your passion for the niche topic and expertise as well as show empathy for your visitor and what they’re going through.

You will need to have the details of the product spelled out for them so that they know exactly what they are buying and aren’t left in the dark about it. You can do this through the use of bulletpoints as well as storyline copy.

Another thing you want to have sprinkled on the sales page are testimonials from people that you have given a review copy to and who can vouch for the quality of the product.

It’s always best if you can include their picture, name, and brand or website so that everyone knows it’s legitimate. Towards the end of your sales copy template, you will need to have a strong call to action that tells the visitor exactly what they need to do next and why.

This will be followed by the buy button, which you get the code for from the platform that you are selling it through. After that, you will include your signature as well as your post scripts, which sum up the offer and the urgency they need to know about.

The second kind of copy, which will be for the one time offer upgrade(s), is positioned a bit differently because you are talking to someone who has already proven that they have a buyer’s mindset.

They will not be taken to this page unless they have already purchased the front end. Therefore, they are in a buying mood. You just have to convince them that the upgrade offer is both relevant and necessary to their original purchase.

You don’t want to make it sound as if the front end product will not work without them purchasing the upgrade, but you do want to highlight its many benefits and make it irresistible.

Make sure that you are using a professional page builder for your sales letters and that you have either created or outsourced the creation of professional graphics that will represent your digital info product.

If you are not good at this skill, give it to someone else who can do it for under $20, because many visitors will see an amateur digital graphic and relate it to the quality of your info product.

Step 3: Implement These Technical Launch Set Up Steps

When it comes to the technical aspect of creating your own product launch, there are a few simple tasks you need to complete. In addition to the sales pages that you will be creating to convert visitors into buyers, you will also need to create two additional pages.

The download page is where you will house the link to the product that the customer just purchased. You can use this space as a way to promote other products that you have for sale and as a promo spot for top affiliates that you wish to recruit, allowing them to have an image linked to one of their offers.

You can also remind people about the rest of the products that are in your funnel in case they declined to purchase them the first time around. Your JV (joint venture) page is the other page that you will need to have set up for your launch.

This is where your prospective affiliates will gather all of the information they need in order to promote your product. They will go here to find out where to grab their links, to see what all is in the funnel and how it is priced, any contest details, and of course the date and time that the launch takes place.

When you are ready with all of your pages, you will go to a site such as Warrior Plus and create a product listing for each of the items in your funnel. Next, you will create an offer that will connect each of those items in the funnel.

When your product is complete, you can upload the files to the site and connect it all to your email autoresponder list. You can also share the link to the JV page and recruit affiliates from the platform.

When everything is set up properly, you want to perform a test purchase to ensure that the customer will have a positive experience from the time they click the buy button to the moment when they download the product from you.

Step 4: Go to the Effort of Recruiting Affiliates

When your JV page is in place, and your product is complete, you will want to begin recruiting affiliates for your launch. This is an important step because affiliates have the power to provide more than half if not almost all of your revenue, depending on who you recruit and what your own list is in comparison.

You can’t just create a JV page and expect all applicable affiliates to show up & up to promote you. If you have a little money to spend, then you may want to hire an affiliate project manager to help you with this task.

But it’s also something that you can do on your own if you prefer to do that. First, you want to create a listing on MunchEye, which is where many marketers list their upcoming product launches for affiliates to consider.

In addition to other similar sites, forums that allow launch listings, and groups on social media that do the same, you will want to announce your upcoming launch to your affiliate list if you have one.

If not, begin contacting prospective affiliates directly. You can do this via private message on social media or in email. In addition to the link to your JV page, make sure you send them a review copy for consideration and mention any additional perks you’re willing to give them, such as a bump in commission.

Step 5: Use These Traffic Generation Ideas to Ramp Up Sales

When your launch goes live, you will want to give it every chance at success possible. Start by notifying your list of subscribers about the fact that the product has gone live. The sooner you can get an influx of traffic and sales, the higher the possibility that you will land on the overall bestseller list within the platform.

Not only do some consumers shop from this list, but it will bring your product to the attention of many top affiliates who see that your sales page is converting, and they will take a look at your listing for a possible promotion.

Another thing you want to do is announce your product launch on social media sites. Facebook is the most common for digital info products, but it’s not the only one. While you might make a text and image post for Facebook, you can also create a YouTube video and use strategic hashtags that help your video get found.

Many people want to know about organic traffic solutions for a launch, but there are also paid options. For example, you can purchase a solo ad that will be emailed out to a fellow marketers list with a promotion to your product launch inside.

Step 6: Make the Most of Your Launch Momentum

When your launch is nearing its end, you don’t want to lose the momentum you have built up. Now is the time to immediately let your current affiliates and customers know what you have planned in the near future.

If you have just sold them a course about generating traffic on social media sites, and your upcoming product is about building a list, make sure you have your JV page ready for that sale early so that you can immediately send it to affiliates and let them begin preparing their bonus or promo.

At this time, you can also promote something related to what you have just sold. Make sure that it is a product that complements your own and doesn’t compete with it, because that would confuse your audience.

As soon as you have new buyers on your list, begin the nurturing process so that they are shown immediate value for being a subscriber. Surprise them with unannounced freebies that they were not expecting.

If you’re like many people, you find that you have a lot on your to-do list and it often leads to a struggle to get everything done. There is one habit that you can develop that can help you achieve more in your day – learning how to work in time blocks.

This is a time management habit where you separate the projects and tasks that you have to work on into dedicated blocks of times so that you get it done. Instead of sitting there feeling overwhelmed with your time management, you’ll be zeroing in on a very specific strategy that helps you end your day with fewer items left on your list.

Why Time Blocks Are More Effective

Time blocks are effective because they cut out procrastination and other wastes of time. They’re more effective for you to use to be able to get work done. You won’t have to sit for prolonged periods of time wondering what you should work on next, or for how long.

For example, if you have to go to the dentist, you may have the habit of writing off the rest of the afternoon as being unusable. But if you’ve divided your afternoon into time blocks, you’ll be able to see the trip to the dentist only used two of those time blocks.

That might leave you three more time blocks you can utilize to build your business or get things done rather than just wasting them. Time blocks are also motivating. If you sit down and think you have to work for several hours, you can get overwhelmed because you start to think about all that you have to get done as a whole.

You end up just wanting to play a game online or do something else. But if you have a time block where you say “I’m only working on this for half an hour or fifteen minutes,” then suddenly it doesn’t feel so overwhelming and you’re more productive.

When you use time blocking as a strategy, it’s effective because you have to look at what you need to get done and choose what to prioritize over something that’s less important.

Time blocking can help you to concentrate on your work for a specific amount of time. Not only does this increase your focus, but it also cuts out distractions. Sometimes, it can be tempting to go over a project or task repeatedly before taking action on it.

Having a time block only gives you a limited amount of time, so you’re more likely to get it done rather than continually going over a step or the entire project. Setting up time blocks is effective because it gives you a map for what you should be doing.

This helps to end productivity lags due to not knowing what to work on or what steps need to be completed during your day. This enables you to reach more of the goals that you set – not only for your business life, but for your personal life as well.

Time blocks are set up so that you work on one thing at a time during your block. This can prevent you from trying to work on several things at once, which splits your concentration and can limit your ability to get stuff done.

It’s a common thing for people who are busy to say that they don’t have enough time. However, once you set up your day by dividing it into time blocks, you’ll realize just how much time you truly do have to get things done and how much time you may have been wasting.

What Type of Time Blocks Do You Need?

Before you can set up your time blocks, you’ll need to know what type works best for you. To figure that out, you need to know how much time it takes for you to be productive.

It won’t be the same for everyone. Some people find that they’re most productive if they set up their time blocks so that they work for 25 minutes but then break for 5. If that’s the same for you, then an ideal time block would have to be a total of 30 minutes.

But if you’re someone who has difficulty concentrating, then a 15 time block might be what works the best for you. Some people need to sit down and really immerse themselves in the work in order to be productive.

For people like that, having an hour time block that lets them work longer would probably be the best. Keep in mind that your time blocking management system can change over time.

For example, maybe initially, you needed the block where you got to work for an hour at a time. But something is going on in your personal life that you can’t change right now.

So you can shorten that hour block into two half hour ones or four fifteen minute ones.

The key is to make the time blocking work for you – but it’s not something that has to be set in stone. You may find that there’s some trial and error when you first get started.

Set it up how you prefer it in the beginning but later, you’ll be able to look back at your schedule to see where your time went.

This might show you that you only needed half an hour for a task you routinely do that you always thought took you forty-five minutes. You can then adjust your schedule going forward to reflect the time difference.

Or, if you’re someone who likes to have some built in time to go back over your work just to double check it, then you can leave the extra minutes in that block. When you set up your time blocks, it’s helpful if you color code them.

You can choose whatever colors that you like but you want to have two different colors so that your home or personal time blocks are different from the ones dedicated to your work.

So for example, you could use green for anything associated with work and you can use various shades of green. You can have different colors for things like grocery shopping, bill paying, doctor or dental visits, running errands and more.

There are easy to use online apps that will allow you to easily add, take away or modify your time blocks. One of the great things about time blocking is that at the end of the day or week when you look back, you’ll be able to see how much you actually got done.

You’ll also be able to tell at a glance if you have time to do something that crops up – or not – like if someone asks you to go out for lunch or do them a favor and run an errand for them.

How to Use Your Time Blocks

The thing about time is that you either use it or it slips away from you. By setting up time blocks, you’re making the most out of all your days. Start by setting up your evergreen or automated time blocks.

These are the things that usually won’t change. For example, you might have things like: take a shower, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, take your kid to school in your first of the morning time blocks because these are things that you’re going to have to do.

So you could start your daily time block with whatever it takes you to get ready for your day. Next, you’ll want to know what your work is that you need to get done that day and you’ll block that time off.

If you run your own business, or you get to work from home, you can usually decide what your hours are going to be. You’ll want to choose the time of day where you’re the most productive and it can be helpful to know that this is one of your strengths.

For example, you might do really good at graphic design in the morning, so you know to save morning time blocks for tasks involving that. But if you’re dragging in the afternoons, it might be harder to work on graphic design – so you might want to consider saving that for checking email, participating on social media, and other things instead.

It’s okay to block off similar tasks into back to back or even in one time block. For example, you might have three or four meetings that you have to attend either in person or virtually.

It’s okay to schedule those around each other. So you could schedule a meeting at one. If you know it should only take about fifteen minutes, you’ll still want to build a time buffer.

So you would block out from 1 to 1:30 for that meeting and then from 1:30 to 2:00 for the next one and so on. Even if you know a meeting or task should only take a specific amount of time and you’re good at controlling meetings or tasks to stay on point, you can’t control interruptions.

So you do need to have a plan that takes that into consideration. It can be helpful to check your schedule at the start of each week to see how many time blocks you have for work and then subtract time blocks for things not associated with work.

What’s left over will show you how much time you truly have to accomplish your work or build your business. A great thing about time blocking is that this habit can also show you at a glance when your life is out of balance.

If you check your schedule and you see a ton of blocks that are dedicated to work and only a few for relaxation or family time, you can see that there’s a problem. Seeing this can help you to prioritize what’s important to you.

What If You Don’t Have Enough Time Blocks?

The question that always comes up when dealing with time management is what to do when you don’t have enough time to create the number of time blocks you need in order to get everything done.

You might feel that you work so much and that you’re so busy in your personal as well as your professional life that you don’t have enough time to even do what must be done – let alone what you want to do.

If you feel that you don’t have enough time blocks, the problem isn’t really a lack of time. It’s that you’re not managing it well. There are always signs that this could be an issue.

If you don’t get out of bed when the alarm goes off or you don’t even bother to set one, that can steal time.

You might stay up too late so you sleep in and end up missing the most productive part of your day. Or, you don’t get enough sleep and you’re too tired to really be effective, so it takes you twice as long to get your tasks done.

You might think that the problem is that you don’t have enough time blocks because you’re so busy multitasking. But research has shown that multitasking actually slows you down.

It causes a lack of focus as well as a loss of quality work. Not having enough time could mean that you’re just not accurately dividing your time in a way that’s productive. You might be someone who flies by the seat of your pants, so your time blocks aren’t tight enough.

If you’re giving yourself too much time to goof off or procrastinate, then you have to really push it to get stuff done. It’s not that you don’t have enough time, it’s that you wasted time.

Sometimes people don’t feel they have enough time blocks because they lack organization. Their personal or professional life is a mess. If they needed a folder on their computer, it could turn into an hour long search because they have too much junk on their computer and nothing is saved or labeled correctly.

Chaos is always a stealer of time. A lack of prioritizing is also a reason why some people feel they don’t have enough time. It’s not that you don’t – it’s that you may be giving time to things that are simply not that important.

For example, it might be important that you spend time exercising, but it’s not important that you spend forty-five minutes gabbing with the neighbor. To spend time wisely, you have to first understand what it’s worth and what it truly costs you when you waste it.

Not feeling that you have enough time blocks could also be a problem if you’re someone who’s easily distracted. You might be working hard on whatever you’ve scheduled during a time block, but then you notice a new game online.

Or a new email pops up. Or a social media notification appears and the next thing you know, you’ve wasted nearly an hour chasing something other than the task you’d set out to do.

Time Blocking Mistakes to Watch Out For

Time blocking is a system that can improve your life and help you to be less stressed while being more productive. However, you do want to be careful that you avoid some of the most common mistakes that people make when using this type of system.

It’s a mistake to not know the amount of time you have to give to your scheduled tasks. You might think that you can accomplish 15 things during your day when you can actually only get 10 done.

So right off the bat, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Then once you fail, you’ll start to feel like you have too much to do and that leads to overwhelm. Most people commonly write a longer to-do list than they can realistically follow.

It’s a mistake to be too rigid. There will be things outside of your control that will disrupt your time. Some of these things you can quickly deal with and get back on track – like your kid interrupting you.

But others will claim the entire time block. What you need to make sure you do is not to have a now or never mindset. Just adjust and get back on track. It’s okay to go back to your time blocks and create a slot to make up for the time you lost.

It’s a mistake not to write out what you have to do and give that task a number based on its level of importance. For example, it’s important to do the things that bring peace to your home life or keep your home running.

It may not be as important to get that room painted right now. It’s a mistake not to align your time blocks with your goals. If one of your goals is to lose weight, then your time blocks should reflect that you’re scheduled to go to the gym or to get in a workout.

It’s a mistake to let distractions frustrate you to the point that you give up. If you’ve had a problem in the past with stuff getting to you, then block out time for that. You could give yourself ten or fifteen minutes a day and just label it as “blow off steam” and go do whatever gives you some time to chill out.

It’s a mistake to let procrastination continue. Everyone has something they procrastinate at. But if a task is put off continually, then it can become a big deal in whatever area of your life it’s in – whether it’s relationships, finances, health, home repair, etc.

By blocking in the stuff you normally procrastinate at, it will help you get it done. It’s a mistake to be too busy. You can’t always go full speed ahead without taking some time off.

Being too busy in life can take a toll on every part of your life – especially your health – so when you’re creating your time management system, make sure that you’re also a priority.

First, divide your blocks up into work and home time blocks. Then go through each area of that division and block off time for specific projects or tasks. For example, you might have time set aside for creating blog content, networking in your niche, conducting research, etc.

For your home life, you might have time set aside for forming bonds with your loved ones – both spouse and children. You may want to dedicated an hour a day to self-care, where you meditate or do some at-home spa tasks.

Stay organized and be flexible with your time blocks. If you set up a system and refuse to budge from it, you’ll become frustrated. Likewise, don’t allow yourself to constantly have too much leeway to the point where you’re not using the strategy properly.

Find that sweet spot that allows you to benefit from the use of time blocks, without making it end up a bigger burden than you felt before. Don’t try to copy someone else’s exact time blocking schedule.

You may have different priorities, skills, tools and talents that allow you to do something faster than another individual who is lacking those things. And if you’re single with no kids, you might have a different work-life balance than someone married with children, too.