In today's episode, Jami tackles how to be a ROCKSTAR affiliate! She covers her favorite tips and tricks to make money as an affiliate, and she goes into several specific programs she recommends.

Join us today as we talk all about Goal Setting. We go into why we do it, how it can help you to grow your business, and some tools we use and recommend to make it easier and more consistent. And we even give some book recommendations on the topic, because of course we do.

Listen in as we break down our work/life routines, both before and after going full time with our business.

Listen in as Jason gives you recommendations on some of his favorite business books, and talks about how reading to develop your business skills is a great idea!

Let's talk all about podcasting, and how starting a podcast can be a great asset to your business! 

Hello everyone! We are back! In this episode we discuss how our business went in 2018, why we had a long hiatus from this podcast, and we go into some exciting 2019 plans!

Welcome to our new show! We laid the ground work in the first 10 episodes, but 2018 is the year of OWAHL and we are going to spend a lot of time this year on what has been our secret to success: sales funnel. 

So we are going to take you deep inside our biggest product to date, the product that allowed Jason to quit his job, our annual conferences! 

We've been doing a series lately on the podcast about social media. And the next question we often get is, "how do you launch/grow a blog??"

So that's what we are talking about today! 

Our Launch Strategy Behind Our New Blog

Our main business is Young Wife's Guide. I (Jami) started this blog in 2012 and the landscape of blogging has changed so much since then! So are you wondering how to launch a new blog/business in 2017 and beyond?

Here's how we took on the challenge of launching this new blog in the middle of 2017 and how you can do it too! Inside our private Facebook group, many of you have been asking how we are going about our launch strategy. So here's what we are doing:

Jason and I did a lot of brainstorming about this new blog, the goal of it, the purpose behind it, and our mission for it. Before we had a name or a website or a strategy, we spent a ton of time really thinking through what our missions was going to be, how much time we would spend on it each week, what my roles on the blog would be, what Jason's roles would be, etc.

You don't want to spend a year in this phase and your goal and mission probably will change over time. But try to think through the purpose behind your new business so you can better know where you are going with it. 

Now, I first want to say that people get way too hung up on picking a name. Yes, it's important. But it's not the most important thing. Don't spend forever on this step and never actually write or launch your blog. You want to be intentional, but in the end, you just need to get going! 

When picking a name, the #1 thing you need to look for is if the URL is available. Just go to a domain register (such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, etc) and search for your domain name. You can quickly see if it's available or not. (And even if it's available, some premium domains can cost into the thousands.)

RECOMMENDED: You can use any domain registrar that you want. But after trying several (and having most of our domains with Godaddy, we have landed on Namecheap being our favorite! They are easy to work with AND are often the cheapest for the domains). You can search for a domain name here. 

Anytime Jason and I are brainstorming a name, we have Namecheap open next to us and we check each name before we get too attached. Because chances are, it's already taken! And a .com website is a must for us. We won't consider anything else. But you could do a .org website as well.

Every one of our websites is on wordpress.org. This is a big discussion for a different day but if you want to grow a blog or business, then wordpress.org is where you want to be. 

ONE EXCEPTION: Our one exception is in fact, this website. For a variety of reasons, we decided to host our store AND our blog through one platform: New Kajabi. I plan on covering these reasons in a future video/blog post so stay tuned. But for now, just know that we've been using Kajabi for well over a year now and are IN LOVE WITH it and highly recommend it to everyone. So Kajabi could be a great option for you as well. (Email us with any questions about Kajabi! I would be happy to discuss your individual situation.)

If you are hosting with Wordpress, one important thing you need to note is there is a very big difference between wordrepss.org and wordpress.com. You want to use wordpress.org. Here's a good article that shares the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.

What it Costs to Launch a New Blog:

Buy Your Domain: Once you've picked your name, you need to purchase your domain name. This will normally run you around $9-12 for a year. So not a huge investment. (With Namecheap, you can often get it even cheaper than that.)

Sign up for web hosting: This is the important step if you are using wordpress.org and also the part that most people get hung up on. It's really not as hard, expensive, or confusing as it sounds...I promise! 

Most web hosting will run you $6-10 per month. My personal favorite option is SiteGround because they make it so easy. If you are serious about getting your blog up and running, this is what I suggest you do.

We have to use a fancy dedicated server thing for Young Wife's Guide now because of our traffic. But if I was starting out again today, I would use SiteGround. (This is after having used GoDaddy, Bluehost, and HostGator throughout the years and never being very happy. Out of those three however, Bluehost is my favorite).  

Last week we discussed how to develop a social media strategy. I did an overview of how I handle social media on my main blog, Young Wife's Guide. 

Today I'm back to discuss how you can use Pinterest specifically for massive growth! Pinterest is an amazing way to build up your community and reach a massive audience. And Pinterest doesn't have to take very much time at all.  

We get traffic from Pinterest in two ways:

1) Through my own personal Pinterest account for my blog.

This is where I pin my own content and other people's content. I typically follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of what I pin is other people's content, 20% is my own. Althought sometimes this shift on Pinterest is more like 50/50.

2) Through other people pinning my blog posts.

This is the beauty of Pinterest! As long as you've got good pictures (see below) and have some strategy when it comes to Pinterest, other people will start pinning YOUR content and you will get traffic from Pinterest without ever being active on Pinterest. Although being active yourself certainly helps.

(HINT: Here's the Wordpress plugin I use to install a Pin it Button ON MY BLOG, very important!!)

The best thing you can do to increase traffic from Pinterest is to make your blog posts more Pinterest friendly. When someone lands on your blog and finds your blog post interesting, make it easy for them to "pin" it to Pinterest.

The biggest thing you want to do is create long graphics to have in each blog post. Each blog post doesn't have to have a picture with words on it, but I always do. Here's a good example of a blog post with a tall vertical image at the top with words on it.

Please note: When I recorded this podcast episode, PicMonkey was a FREE option. However they have no moved to a subscription only service so you need to pay to use it. I think it can still be worth it, but it will cost you $3.99-7.99 a month now. Canva is the free option I now recommend. 

PicMonkey is a free, really easy to use tool that allows you to put words on your pictures.

Canva is another excellent free website that gives you even more options (but can be a little more complicated to use). 

I personally use Photoshop and have for years but this definitely has a learning curve to it. If you are not a techy person, the first two options will work beautifully for you. With Adobe Creative cloud, you can get access to the full newest version of Photoshop for just $9.99 a month (which is now almost comparable to PicMonkey)! 

You need to be very careful about where you find images to use on your blog. It is illegal to just go to google and pull any photo you find (EVEN if you link back to the original source). It has to be a royalty-free photo, which means the original photographer or artist has given permission for it to be used on your blog.

There are some places to find free photos, but I caution you to be very careful about these free stock photo places because many of them have fine print that means you can't crop, add text, change, use for commercial use, etc. So just be careful with any stock photos you find (free OR paid for).

I personally have used 123rf.com for years. Their photos are usually $1-3 a piece and have been very affordable for me. But ask around because there are some other good sources out there. However I haven't purchased a photo on there for a long time now because...

I do still use some stock photos, but I'm moving more and more to using my own photos. I was hesitant to do this for a long time because I am NOT a photographer and felt like I just didn't have the time. But now I'm realizing that that authenticity IS worth the time. 

But now when I plan out a blog post, I set aside 5-10 minutes of time to snap some photos of my own. They may not be professional quality, they may not always be the best lighting but I have found that they show more about my life. My own photos help my readers connect with me on an even deeper level.

Moving forward, I plan on spending FAR more time doing my own photo. Even if they are not great. NOTE: If you are a recipe/food blogger, your own photos are a MUST!

Here's a good example of my own photos. I wrote this blog post and asked Jason to spend 5 minutes following me around the house taking a few photos for it. (You can notice a difference with one of my earlier blog posts using all stock photos. You can connect a lot more with the one with all MY photos.)

Now, when pinning to your own Pinterest account, it's important to think strategically about it. Pinterest now runs on an algorithm which means they no longer show your pins in chronological order.

Like Facebook, Pinterest now watches its users to see if you are pinning high-quality content. If you consistently pin things that other people find interesting (i.e. get a lot of pins and click-throughs) then Pinterest will show your pins to more people.

So it's more important than ever to be strategic about what you pin and to pin fantastic things!! QUALITY over QUANTITY now! This means when you are hunting for things to pin, watch for those that have been pinned hundreds or thousands of times.

I pin about 60 times a day on my account (or my social media manager does). And of those 60 pins, 20% of them are my own pins from my website and the other 80% are pins from other people that I know will serve my audience well.

I know that might sound like a lot, but we use a website called Tailwind that helps us to schedule everything. We've been using it for about a year and LOVE it. I schedule inside it as well as my social media manager! 

This is the only social media website that I pay for to schedule things so it makes it really worth it to me. I schedule my Facebook posts directly in Facebook and I don't schedule Twitter or Instagram. Most social media schedulers are $50-70 a MONTH. So $9.99 being my only cost is well worth it to me! 

You can sign up and try a FREE month of Tailwind to see if it's right for you, which is what I did. And then it's only $9.99 a month after that. It's highly worth the investment in my opinion as Pinterest is our #1 source of traffic year after year.

I know it's overwhelming to try and keep track of your social media and work on growing it. That's why I created these social media worksheets for you! Keep track of everything from your social media numbers to what you post and schedule and even track your growth from quarter to quarter. 

You can download your social media worksheets for FREE HERE! 

Some of the most common questions I get are about social media. Which social media you should be using, how this fits into the larger picture in your business, etc. 

Social media is constantly changing and so is my strategy. But in today's episode I am going to briefly share my own personal social media strategy for our full time business over at Young Wife's Guide. 

Facebook has over 1.8 billion monthly active users. If you are looking for an audience to reach, they are on Facebook! Yes, Facebook organic reach has been down but if you are strategic with it, you can still reach your ideal customer or reader through Facebook.

Difference between your Facebook profile and a Facebook page

This is one question I've received several times. Your Facebook profile is your personal Facebook account that you set up. My personal profile is just for my friends and family that I know in person. I don't add anyone else to this account.

This way, I still have privacy online. I can share posts about my kids, local places we are going, etc. It's where I personally keep up with my friends and family. It's personal, it's for me! I rarely, if ever, post my blogging stuff to this profile. (Not that it's wrong to do so, but I don't want to spam my friends and family. That's not the purpose of that Facebook profile.)

But my Facebook page is where I do all my business stuff. This is at: Facebook.com/YoungWifesGuide. This is where I post all my blogging stuff and where my "fans" can follow me. You want to set up a Facebook page.

My strategy on Facebook is to build community and generate new leads. I want my Facebook page to be a bright spot on Facebook for my readers and I want to provide quality content and things I'm sharing.

So I follow the 80/20 rule (for the most part). 80% of the things I post on my Facebook page are other people's content. Blog posts and articles that I find interesting and that I know will be helpful to my readers that someone else wrote. These are NOT links back to my own blog. 20% of what I post are blog links back to my blog or a product I'm selling.

We tend to follow a schedule of posting 6-10 times a day. Typically about every 2-4 hours throughout the day. I know this might sound like a lot, so if that takes way too much time right now, then just start out with posting 2-3 times a day.

The key is, Facebook rewards consistency. So post consistently. Don't post 10 times today and then not again for a week. Post just once a day if that's all you have the capacity for, but try and keep it consistent.

Another helpful tip: We schedule all of our Facebook posts inside of Facebook. We do not use a third party scheduler (like Meet Edgar, Buffer, or Hoostuite). Facebook wants you to stay inside Facebook so they reward you with more views if you schedule directly inside Facebook (and hey, it's FREE)!

Pinterest has 110 million monthly active users and is growing daily. As a woman (and especially as someone who blogs about homemaking related topics), Pinterest is the place to be! Side note: Yes, Pinterest organic traffic has heavily reduced the last two years or so and I no longer believe it to be the best or more reliable source of traffic. 

It is consistently our #1 source of traffic and has been for years. Pinterest is not a platform however where I am trying to build up it's own community. It's more of an extension of how I can serve my community.

I think of my Pinterest account as a place where I can curate and collect all the very best Gospel-centered homemaking tips, tricks, articles, tutorials, recipes and more for my readers. 

Again, I follow the 80/20 rule. I certainly pin a ton of my own blog posts but I also try and pin other people's content about 80% of the time.

We use the TailWind App to schedule a ton of our pins. We've been using it for about a two years now and LOVE it. It allows you to schedule pins, see analytics of what's working well, find other pins that are popular that you can pin and more.

You can try out a FREE month of TailWind if you sign up through my link. This is what I did. I tried out a full month, really committed to using it and was hooked right away. If you decide you love, it's only $9.99 a month after that. This is extremely affordable compared to many social media schedulers that are $49.99-79.99 a MONTH!

This is the only social media scheduling website or app we pay for, so $9.99 a month isn't too bad of an investment! It saves us hundreds of hours over a course of a year and has really helped our Pinterest engagement.

 Usually we schedule about 60 pins a day to go out. However, there have been a few times over this last year that my social media manager has been out. So during those times, I decrease that down to 20 pins a day since I'm doing it all on my own again!

I also try to do 5-10 minutes of live pinning each day if I can make the time (I've been really really bad about this lately and my Pinterest numbers reflect that). Pinterest is the same as Facebook, they want to know you are actually live and using Pinterest yourself. So try and do some hand pinning when you can (as opposed to pre-scheduling everything).

Instagram is the #1 platform I am concentrating on right now for growing a community. It's where I personally spend the most time and where I am the most commenting and interacting with everyone.

Instagram is where I show my personal life, share my story, and really connect with my readers. I do all live posting, I don't schedule anything in Instagram.

I typically post on Instagram 1-3 times a day. I try and post at least once a day because Instagram likes when you are active and will show your posts to more of your followers when you are consistent.

I don't have a very big following on Instagram, but my readers on Instagram are very engaged! You can hop on over and see my Instagram at instagram.com/jamibalmet

I honestly don't have much to say on Twitter. It's my least favorite and least used of the social media platforms. I just don't get it and it's not my favorite.

Twitter is a little different as it limits you to just 140 characters. Twitter is HUGE for certain niches and markets, but I've found that largely, my readers are just not on Twitter. But that leads us to the next discussion: 

Okay, are you feeling overwhelmed yet? I know this is a LOT of information. But I want to encourage you that your social media strategy doesn't have to be over complicated.

My social media strategy has grown over the years as my blog has and as I've been able to hire a social media manager to help me manage it all.

When you are trying to decide where to spend your time when it comes to social media, I want you to take some time to think about what YOUR favorite platform is. Where do you naturally want to hang out, what are you already using?

For example, if you are like me and you HATE twitter...then leave it alone for now. Go pick a platform that you already know, what you get, and that you like to use.

When it first came out, Pinterest was my very FAVORITE. I had been waiting for something like Pinterest for years and threw myself into learning it, to playing with it, to experimenting and was able to build up a decent following because of it.

Now, my focus is Instagram. I'm playing with it, developing strategies for it, and spending most of my time there. So pick the one or two platforms that you want to invest in first and don't worry about the rest.

Think of your reader first. Don't think about what you can get out of it, or how many clicks you can get, or how you can sell to your readers. Think about THEM first and what they need. 

What are they on Pinterest searching for? What would be encouraging for them to come across on Facebook? How can you BEST serve your readers, even if that means posting things that are not your own!

And then be authentic. Be yourself. Be you. Be REAL. Reader's don't want to connect with a blog, they want to connect with YOU! So don't be afraid to let your personality shine through that. 

I know it's overwhelming to try and keep track of your social media and work on growing it. That's why I created these social media worksheets for you! Keep track of everything from your social media numbers to what you post and schedule and even track your growth from quarter to quarter. 

You can download your social media worksheets for FREE HERE!