The post Income Report January 2020 appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>In this income report, you'll see what I earned in January 2020, including what expenses I had.
I'll also let you know about any changes/updates since last month worth mentioning.
I know some people can think publishing income reports is kind of bragging, but for most people, it gives a little inspiration when getting started out their blogging journey.
I'm sure if you're here then you want to read this!
If you're still working things out then don't worry.
I know what it's like to be a total newbie to blogging and the initial struggle to get momentum going.
It's always a mental battle when creating an online business as you don't know for sure if your hard work will pay off.
With blogging, you don't tend to see the rewards right away so it's good to read other people's successes and struggles to help inspire and motivate you to keep going.
It's also good to see what works for others and what doesn't so you can't learn from their wins and losses to help you reach your business goals sooner.
Also, by writing these income reports it helps keep me motivated and on track as I strive to do my best.
You reading these reports is a bit like having an accountability partner. It keeps me in check.
It's not all plain sailing as I've had plenty of struggles and I still do!
But I feel I am getting somewhere now and I want to share that journey with you.
If you want to start your own freedom creating blog and avoid all the beginner mistakes most people make when setting up a blog then get my jam-packed FREE eCourse where I take you step by step to creating your own blog even if you don't know what you want to blog about.
Sign up to the free eCourse here.

If only it was this easy 
Just so you know, I don’t reveal every blog (yet) and the affiliate products I promote as I want to limit the competition as I have worked hard to find some good products to promote which are not overly saturated.
However,
I will let you know what niche each site is in, and the type of products I promote.
Niche: Metaphysical/spiritual
The earnings from this site came from 2 sources. Ad revenue and affiliate revenue.
My ad revenue was $643.32 and my affiliate revenue was $345.73
I am with Mediavine and ad revenue took a bit of a dip this month as January isn't the best month for advertising.
It's the same most bloggers out there.
They call it the January blues.
The Mediavine RPM for me in January was $13.65 RPM which isn't actually that terrible.
In case you don't know what RPM means, it just means Revenue Per 1000 Impressions. (The M stands for Mille which is Latin for 1000).
From now on out hopefully, it should start creeping back up.
Affiliate sales weren't fantastic either, but at the same time, they weren't terrible.
I did play around with the affiliate offers and try some new ones but that didn't do that great.
They just didn't convert to sales so I swapped back to what I had after a few weeks.
The affiliate offer I've been promoting before I tried anything else had done so much better than the new ones I tried.
The reason I believe is that they do email follow up.
Rather than link directly to an affiliate offer, I link to an optin and they do the follow-up marketing.
So all in all, $1000 again from this blog ain't to bad!
I'm super happy about that.
I remember when $1000 a month from a blog seemed so far away and now it's here I feel like this blog has soo much more potential if I start building a list and doing email marketing.
I really like to keep it passive though which is why I've been putting off building a list as I'll have to go through a new learning curve.
And I really don't like writing emails as much.
In the next 3-4 months I will get round to it. Hopefully!
Or maybe I'll outsource it at some point!
Also just so you know, the affiliate earnings on this site are from just ONE product that I promote via some banners that I’ve added to the site.
That's it.
I've got a few simple banners in the posts and one in the header and that is all.
I like to keep simple!
Maybe to my own detriment.
Niche: Health Related
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
The revenue was £387.46 which is roughly $505.73 with today's current exchange rate.
The revenue went back up this month after December's terrible dip in commission.
Last month being the Christmas period I think buying supplements was the last thing on people's minds.
It's good now Christmas is out the way as people are looking to become more healthy and get stuck into their new years' resolutions.
Hopefully, it should come up now over the coming months.
We'll have to wait and see how it goes!
Halfway to that $1000 mark is still good considering I've only been monetizing this site for a short amount of time with relatively low traffic.
And in case you're wondering,
What I’ve done on this site to monetize it, is to create some info articles on a specific topic then I linked to an article on my site that offers a discount code to a product which ties in perfectly to the information they were looking for.
For example, if I was promoting a health supplement that helps with say arthritis, then I would create info articles around that topic then in those articles, I would say…
“hey if you looking for a product which helps with arthritis then check out this product which I love and you can get a discount code as well.”
Obviously, it’s done better than that but you can see how I do it. And just so you know the product I promote isn’t for arthritis 
I've just started adding some review articles to this site to see how that goes.
I'll also be adding more info content as I find those pieces of content are easier to rank for and can still be monetized with ads.
Also, the product I promote is a physical product with a 15% commission.
I do prefer digital products for affiliate marketing as the commission is usually a lot higher, but hey I'm not complaining as the physical product I promote on this site is doing pretty well.
Niche: Make Money Online
The earnings for this site came from affiliate revenue.
Even though earnings are a little lower compared to last month for this blog I'm still happy.
On this site, I promote a few products via reviews and discount code articles. I also have info articles that I link to related articles that promote various products.
I also just added Google AdSense to this site which bought in an extra £64.54 (roughly $84.19).
Here's how the earnings are split across the different sources for this site.
Affiliate product 1: $400.52
Affiliate product 2: $169.5
Affiliate product 3: $108.80
Google Adsense: $84.19 (£64.54)
The affiliate products that make the bulk of the earnings are for online software.
This month I still haven't added any content to this site.
I really need to get motivated to do more on this site but like I said in previous posts, I've just fallen out of love with the topic.
As I write this I'm thinking maybe I should outsource some content.
Who knows, I need to do something as I feel like it has the potential to earn a lot more if I could get motivated to add more content.
I'll have a think and let you know if I do add more content.
Niche: Home And Garden
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
I actually had minus earnings for this site in January.
Someone refunded on something bought in late December and it made my earnings go minus $-4 .33
Apart from that, there's no point in telling you any more about this site as I'm not doing anything on it.
I think I might even exclude it from any new income reports until I decide if I going to do something with it.
Maybe I can sell it as a website that's had time to get out of the so-called google sandbox.
We'll wait and see.
The affiliate earnings(or lack of) from this site are from the Amazon affiliate program.
So let's talk about other revenue.
This isn't 100% blogging only revenue but it’s still online income.
I have a Youtube channel that brings in commission from products that I link to and also I earn ad revenue.
The YouTube ad revenue was the highest I've ever had which has inspired me to keep creating value pack videos!
If you're not a subscriber yet then head over to my Youtube channel here.
The income works out as $414.56 from Youtube ad revenue and $99 from affiliate products that I link to from my channel.
Some of my videos I put in my blog posts so I could say it is somewhat blogging revenue but I do track sales from YT by using tracking links so it is still separate.
It's still online income so it's still worth adding here.
Here are some screenshots of the bigger payments from my blog earnings.
Sometimes it helps to see a bit of proof.
This image is the earnings from Mediavine on site one for the month of January.
These earnings are from the affiliate product I promote on site one.

The earnings from the image below are from the affiliate product I promote on site two.
It shows the payments were in Feb but they were earnings from January just paid a day into February.

This next screenshot is of one of the earnings for software I promote on site three.
Again, the payment is on February 5th but it was from the commissions earned in January.

This payment is also from site three.
Earnings from January.

This is another screenshot from January earnings on site three.
The reporting facilities on this one aren't as great but this is a screenshot of the earnings tab.
![]()
Here are the Youtube earnings for Jan.

And here is the income from the one affiliate product that I made money with on Youtube.

There you go.
Hopefully, that’s enough proof for now.
Anyway, so now we’ve covered earnings,
Let’s talk expenses!
Here is a list of expenses form Jan 2020.
Hosting With WPX: $59.99
Writers on Upwork: $688.46
Canva Pro + Unlimted Images: $22.95
Key Search: $17
Tailwind: $244.15 (that's for a full year up front)
Training courses: $118.82
Domain renewals: $11.99
Products for review articles: $89.51
That’s my total expenses for this month.
Expenses are still high but that's down to me paying for blog content on Upwork as I want to outsource as much as possible.
I want to get to the point where I will outsource most of the writing on my other blogs so I have more free time.
It's all about the FREEDOM!
Also I paid for a year on Tailwind. Using tailwind tribes and the scheduler is such a time saver.
It helps my business so much.
At least I'm paid up for a full year now and don't need to worry about it for 12 months.
If you want to try it out then get a free trial here and see what you think.
I'm sure you will LOVE it.
Most people running a blog will spend a lot less on expenses as I do, but as I’m trying to grow my business I am willing to invest back into it.
When I first started I had hardly any monthly expenses.
But like I said, I want to invest back into my business to scale up faster so I don't mind seeing less of my income to help to get that faster growth.
By the end of 2020, I aim to get my blogs earning over $10k per month.
With hard work, focus and consistency and I know it's possible to get there.
It just about doing more of what’s working.
Anyway, here's the figures that matter:
What matters most though is the net income.
(Gross income $2767.02) – (Expenses $1252.87) = Net Income $1514.15
Not as high net income as last month but ups and downs are expected.
January is notoriously a bad month for ad revenue and affiliate income.
Next month I'm sure it will be up! Fingers crossed!
Last month I said I wanted to add 90 new articles to my sites in the next 90 days.
So how am I progressing?
I added 14 new articles.
But I still have 5 I need to publish so I'm at about 19 when I hit publish on those 5. I just need to add some images and they are good to go.
I didn't want to spend too much in January so I slowed it down on the outsourcing.
I'll see how my income goes next month and will use some more money to outsourcing more content.
Here's some content I added on my Youtube channel you may find helpful.
How To Make Your First $500 Per Month Blogging
How To Drive Traffic to Your Website or Blog With Pinterest In 2020
Anyway, that's it for this month's income report, I hope you found it helpful.
Start Your Own Freedom Creating Blog Business
If you want to start your own freedom creating blog and avoid all the beginner mistakes most people make when setting up a blog then get my jam-packed FREE eCourse where I take you step by step to creating your own blog even if you don't know what you want to blog about.
Sign up to the free eCourse here.
If you feel I can make these income reports better then let me know in the comments.
Related Post: Income Report December 2019
The post Income Report January 2020 appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post Income Report December 2019 appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>Hey what’s going on! Welcome to Decembers income report!
The festive period is over. Now it's back to work with a fresh year to start!
December has been HARD with a capital H to stay focused.
So many things going on and not to mention my son was on School holiday so I was having fun with him as well.
That's a great benefit of working from home, YOU can set your OWN schedule.
No need to ask the boss because YOU ARE THE BOSS!
It's also a pain when you want to actually work but hey ho take the good with the bad.
But seriously I wouldn't change a thing.
I feel truly blessed to be in the position I am in, and that's what keeps me motivated to keep going and hopefully help some others along the way too.
So, let’s get into it.
I have a few blogs to go through with you (some a bit neglected), but I will let you know about them all.
Just so you know, I don’t give away my blog names and the affiliate products I promote as I want to limit the competition as I have worked hard to find some good products to promote which are not overly saturated.
However,
I will let you know what niche each site is in, and the type of products I promote.
Ok with that said let’s get into this!

Let it rain money! 
Niche: Metaphysical/spiritual
The earnings from this site came from 2 sources. Ad revenue and affiliate revenue.
My ad revenue was $995.15 and my affiliate revenue was $313.98.
I am with Mediavine and this month was my best month yet.
I nearly hit $1000 just from ads.
This really got me excited. My mission is now to triple my traffic in the next year.
Ads are so passive which is why I love them soooo much.
My RPM was still up this month due to it being the Christmas period. I do expect it to drop significantly next month but it's still great.
The affiliate earnings are from one product I promote via some banners that I’ve added to the site.
I've got a few simple banners in the posts and one in the header and that is all.
I'm going to change the affiliate program as I have to wait 60 days for commissions to be approved which I don't like, plus I don't think the product is converting as much as I'd like.
I'll be trying a new affiliate product in January and will keep you updated.
Getting affiliate earnings to $750 per month on this site and doing it as PASSIVE as possible is the next goal.
I know if I built a list and THEN promote that affiliate product I would earn more, as I would earn commissions AND build a list that I can promote other products with.
I'll try get round to it one day but I prefer to keep things as passive as possible. Email marketing gives me a headache lol.
Niche: Health Related
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
The revenue was £166.72 which is roughly $217.99 with today's current exchange rate.
This site took quite a dip in commissions this month and I think that is mainly due to the fact most people are focused on buying Christmas presents and not buying health supplements.
Also, I've added 2 new posts to this site in December which isn't a lot, but I will start adding more to build traffic and revenue.
I'm going to add some best x products type posts over the coming months and I'm sure that will help build the revenue.
I will also be adding info posts as well.
Once the traffic is high enough I will place ads on the site ad as they are so passive.
Just so you know, what I’ve done on this site is created some info articles on a specific topic then linked to an article on my site that offers a discount code to a product which ties in perfectly to the information they were looking for.
For example, if I was promoting a health supplement that helps with say arthritis, then I would create info articles around that topic then in those articles I would say…
“hey if you looking for a product which helps with arthritis then check out this product which I love and you can get a discount code as well.”
Obviously, it’s done better than that but you can see how I do it. And just so you know the product I promote isn’t for arthritis 
Lesson from this site: If you can find a good product in which the vendor can give you a discount code to offer your readers, and the commissions are still good, then you don’t necessarily need tons of content or traffic.
Discount code articles work great!
Also, the product I promote is a physical product with a 15% commission.
Niche: Make Money Online
The earnings for this site came from affiliate revenue.
Revenue is up quite a bit this month compared to last month ($690.10) which is great.
On this site, I promote a few products via reviews and discount code articles. I also have info articles that I link to related articles that promote various products.
Overall it’s 2 key products that made the bulk of that affiliate commission. Then there are a couple products that give me a little commission as well.
Both the products that make the bulk of the earnings are for online software.
This month I still haven't added any content to this site. I did make a few changes to the CTA on the affiliate links but that's it.
I also added Google Adsense to this site as my traffic was up to 23'963, so I thought I'd see if I could squeeze some additional revenue out of the pages without affiliate promotions.
It prob won't be a lot as Adsense doesn't pay a lot compared to premium ad networks such as Mediavine.
Even if it's an extra $100 I'll be happy.
Niche: Home And Garden
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
I know, I'm BIG In the game! $6.35!
I'll be living like the Kardashians next month at this rate.
Last month this site made $0.12 so it’s gone up this month.
The affiliate earnings from this site are from the Amazon affiliate program.
This site has so much potential but I can only put so much attention on one thing without it affecting the focus on another thing.
In 3 months' time when I've added a bunch of new content to site one and site two then I will focus on churning out some great new content for this site.
One thing at a time though.
This isn't quite blogging revenue but it’s still online income.
I have a Youtube channel in which I promote some products and I get commissions from that.
There’s also Youtube ad revenue which helps.
It works out as $285.01 from Youtube ad revenue and $148.50 from affiliate products that I link to from my channel.
Some of my videos I put in my blog posts so I could say it is somewhat blogging revenue but I do track sales from YT by using tracking links so it is still separate.
It's still online income so it's still worth adding here.
Here are some screenshots of the bigger payments from my blog earnings.
Sometimes it helps to see a bit of proof.
This image is the earnings from Mediavine on site one for the month of December.

These earnings are from the affiliate product I promote on site one.

The earnings from the image below are from the affiliate product I promote on site two.
It shows the payments were in January but they were earnings from December just paid a few days into January.

This next screenshot is of one of the earnings for software I promote on site three.
Again, the payment is on January 7th but it was from the commissions earned in Dec.

This payment is also from site three.
Earnings from Dec paid on Jan 2nd.

There are more products that I get paid commissions for, but you can see the bulk of it.
I don’t want to slow down the page speed with too many images.
Hopefully, that’s enough proof for now.
Anyway, so now we’ve covered earnings,
Let’s talk expenses!
Here is a list of expenses form Dec 2019.
Hosting With WPX: $59.99
Fiver Gigs: $68
Hello Bar: $29
Writers on Upwork: $75.45
Canva Pro + Unlimted Images: $22.95
Clickfunnels: $99
Key Search: $17
Registered business address: $45
Training courses: $143
Domain renewals: $11.99
Noble Samurai (video software): $27
PLR Content: $47.00
Dropbox: $9.99
That’s my total expenses for this month.
A lot are for things most bloggers (especially beginner bloggers) wouldn't need for blogging, for example, Clickfunnels.
I signed up to Clickfunnels a few months back to host a blogging training course I created but I've now decided to shelf the product for now till I build an audience.
It was $299 a month for the premium account then in December I dropped it to the basic plan and now I'm going to drop it altogether for now.
Doing these income reports is so helpful as I can see how all these expenses add up and eat at the profits if I'm not careful.
Next month hopefully my expenses will be much lower as I am going to cut back on costs that I don't truly need so I can save the money and invest it back into the business for things that make a difference, such as content.
Most people running a blog will spend a lot less, but as I’m trying to grow my business so I am investing back into it.
By the end of 2020, I aim to get my blogs earning over $10k per month.
With hard work, focus and consistency and I know it's possible to get there.
It just about doing more of what’s working.
Anyway, here's the figures that matter:
What matters most though is the net income.
(Gross income $3179.98) – (Expenses $684.37) = Net Income $2495.61
It's funny because it's almost exactly the same as last month's net income!
Next month I hope to bring those expenses down to under $300 (unless I invest in content) and hopefully, that will leave me with more Net income!
Something I feel I've had a bit of an epiphany in December is what I choose to spend my time working on.
I've realized I need to stop thinking of creating new things like products, new blogs, podcasts, creating email sequences and all the other stuff that can seem like a good idea and just focus 90% of my time on the high ROI actions, i.e. writing blog content!
It's so easy to think I need to do all these other things but in reality, it was creating blog content that's made me the money so I am now committed more than ever to creating content every day.
I want to add 90 articles to my sites in the next 90 days.
This is easily achievable if I stay focused and outsource some of it.
More content will equal more revenue.
Anyway, that's it for this month's income report, I hope you found it useful and I'll speak to you soon!
Related Post: Income Report November 2019
If you feel I can make these income reports better then let me know in the comments.
The post Income Report December 2019 appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post From 15 Failed Businesses to Success As A Blogger appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>I want to share my story with you about how I went from 15 failed businesses to a successful blogger.
And by success, I mean having the freedom to live life on my terms!
Oh and seriously I'm not joking about the 15 failed businesses!
And just so you know, success for me is having the FREEDOM to being able to work from home and earn a FULL-TIME living which is where I'm at now.
Freedom is priceless.
And yes I've definitely got plans to take my blogging to the next level. It will come in time.
But I am also happy with where I am right now.
Things haven't always been that way though. It hasn't been smooth sailing that's for sure.
If you're not where you want to be right now with your blog, and you are in need of some inspiration then this post could help you out.
So to get this story started I want to take you back to a time where I was a struggling entrepreneur trying to make any money online.
And believe me, I was struggling.
That's right.
Over 15 failed businesses both offline and online.
Here's just some of them:
I had a little success in some businesses but it would never last long.
One of the main reasons I struggled with most businesses (mainly the offline ones) is because I hated selling to people.
Whether it was selling my ideas, products or services I just couldn't sell face to face or over the phone, and that always created a problem in my businesses.
Thankfully that problem got solved.
I came across the online world and I realized working online was what I wanted to do.
I just need to work out how to make money.
It always looks so easy when other people are selling their products. I mean how hard can it be?
Well hard enough for me to spend the best part of 9 years dabbling on all sorts of online business ideas.
I had some success with eCommerce doing dropshipping but I decided it wasn't what I wanted to do.
It's something I've always been interested in because it's passive, i.e no running ads or fulfilling orders etc.
The problem was I had started many blogs but never really understood how to get traffic.
And without traffic, I couldn't make money.
Damn!
One time I even spent TWO YEARS building a blog called Online Super Ninja that had over 100 posts that barely got any traffic.
When I say hardly any traffic I mean it.
The most I got in a month was like 3'000 visits. And a chunk of that traffic came from a post I boosted on Facebook.
Terrible I know!
Here's an old archive screenshot of that website.

I even had 3 people from the Philippines working for me.
Even with their help, I couldn't get this site off the ground.
To be honest, looking back I can see I didn't have a clue what I was doing.
Truth is,
It's funny because I spent all that time on that blog, and I don't think I even bought one course on SEO or anything to do with blogging.
If I had learned from some experts I probably would have learned what do right, rather than guess my way through.
The closest to SEO training I had was a course called Google Snipper that I bought a few years before which showed how to set up niche sites and make money with affiliate marketing.
I never made any money with that course and by the time I started Online Super Ninja the course was outdated.
So anyway, to cut a long story short.
I had to throw in the towel on that blog after 2 years and 111 posts as I was about to run out of money. Meaning I couldn't afford to pay my staff anymore.
That was one of the lowest points for me.
And to make things worse I felt terrible because my fiancé was supporting the family.
I felt like a failure to her as a partner but I also to myself as an entrepreneur.
Honestly, I was so close to just giving up on my dream of making money online.
All I wanted was to be able to earn enough money to be able to work from home, pay my way and be in control of my own life with no boss to answer to.
My life could of went a few directions at that point.
Luckily it went the right way because…
I got involved in a local mastermind group for online marketers that happened to have two members who were successful bloggers.
I told them about the blog I had just spent two years on.
After a quick inspection, they knew STRAIGHT AWAY what I had been doing wrong.
They told me I had been targeting the WRONG keywords when writing my content.
Hmm oh dear.
I had been writing content for keywords that were way too broad AND way too competitive. This meant I had no chance of being shown on the Google search engine.
I was literally trying to rank for keywords like make money online or online marketing tips.
I thought if I paid someone to do SEO then I would eventually rank for those keywords.
It seems pretty silly now but I didn't know how unrealistic that was.

Anyway, they then told me…
They told me…
“If you do this right, your blog posts will actually show up on Google. This is because there won't be any super established powerhouse blogs already ranking for the keywords you are targeting”
That made sense.
Something they also showed me was how to structure articles THE RIGHT WAY so Google LOVED them and wanted to show them.
Before that, I honestly didn't understand how to use headings on my posts.
I know it's crazy right?
Something they also said was…
“You should learn PINTEREST as it will kick start your blog's initial traffic while you wait for Google to rank your articles”
I honestly thought Pinterest was for crafts and recipes.
How wrong I was.
It has now gone on to be one of my BEST sources of traffic.
The last thing they said was…
“if you can reach 25k monthly sessions then you can apply to a premium ad network such as Mediavine which would then make you passive income from putting premium rate ads on your site!”
That seemed that a super-easy way to monetize a blog.
Creating email lists and funnels and all that stuff seemed too complicated for me at the time.
I found out that premium ad networks pay wayyy more than regular google Adsense ads.
Up 10-25x more!!!
The path to MAKING MONEY became a lot clearer.
Getting traffic to my site QUICKLY without wasting years doing the wrong things like I was doing before seem really doable.
Related Post: Lessons From Spending 2 Years On A Failed Blog
Being with those guys in the mastermind helped me as I could see first hand what was WORKING for them.
So that day I set a plan to start a new blog (in a niche I actually enjoyed) and hit the 25,000 monthly sessions threshold so I could apply to Mediavine and make passive income by putting premium ads on my site.
So, I started by writing content EVERY DAY.
I then started using Pinterest to promote that content.
It took me a month or so to learn the ropes. But it was so worth it.
Then I started to also focus on writing SEO content for Google.
Quick tip: If you can write an SEO friendly article that is ALSO Pinterest sharable then that's double good!
Within a quick amount of time, I started to gain some traction.
Much more than with my Online Super Ninja blog.
But let me just cut to the best bit…
Yep!
I was able to hit the 25k monthly session threshold and apply to Mediavine and I got accepted in just 4 months!

Just a few months later my monthly sessions doubled to 50k!
Finally, my blog started making money!
In the first month that I monetized my blog I earned $531.23 from the ads I put on my site.
Plus another $677.99 that month by simply linking to an affiliate offer.
That revenue has continued to grow since.
I also now have a few blogs that give me a few sources of income which is now over $3k a month.
I just did my first income report in which I've hit $3253.74 in income, obviously, there are expenses but it's still a massive achievement considering I spent years without making a penny online.
If you want to read that income report you can here: Income Report November 2019
So that's my journey from 15 failed businesses to finally making money as a blogger.
There's obviously more to this story but that's the simplified short version.
Just remember, plenty of people have struggled to make money with their blogs, and eventually, they made a success of it.
YOU can do the same!
If you want to learn more key strategies that allowed me to take my blog from just a FEW HUNDRED visitors to 25’000 monthly visitors in just FOUR months then join the Freedom Though Blogging Facebook group here.
Anyway, that's it for this post, feel free to share your story in the comments.
Thanks and speak soon.
The post From 15 Failed Businesses to Success As A Blogger appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post Lessons From Spending 2 Years On A Failed Blog appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>And that was because I boosted some posts on Facebook.
Organic traffic was under 2000 monthly visitors which is TERRIBLE!
I also had three staff working for me to help build that site.
Yep that's right, three other people helping me on that site for two years and it STILL FAILED!
I remember the day I had to let them go as I couldn't afford to pay them anymore. That's a day I want to forget.
I just felt so bad, I just couldn't see what I was doing wrong.
I mean, I spent two years on this blog doing everything I thought I should be doing and I just wasn't getting any traffic.
Persistence is a good trait, but I should have stopped doing what I was doing a long time before I did eventually throw in the towel on that site.
So,
I've written this post to help other bloggers like you from making the same mistakes as I did.
The good news is, I now have a few successful blogs that I finally make a full time living from.
So thankfully it worked out alright in the end!
Knowing what I know now after building a few successful blogs and being able to look back on that failed blog I can see what I did wrong and share that with you.
So you ready?
Good, let's go…
This one of the biggest things I probably did wrong.
I would use the Google keyword planner and find keywords there (this was when people used it for keyword research). I would simply find keywords to target based on search volume.
The higher the better I thought!
Then I would try to rank for those keywords by using hiring an SEO guy. As that's what they're for, right?
I would never think of targeting a keyword if it said only 50 searches per month.
NOPE, it had to be much higher.
How wrong I was, at least I've learned from my keyword research sins!
Nowadays I do actually target keywords that might only say 50 searches per month but in reality, they still get thousands of visitors each month.
I now know, just because a keyword tool says a low number for a specific search phrase, there are still tons of different ways to ask the same question.
….meaning you can still get all the traffic from all those search phrases combined as well.
So going back to the SEO guy, that's the next mistake I made.
So like I said, back then my mentality was if I just pay an SEO guy (or gal) to do some SEO magic then they will be able to rank me for any keyword I want.
Just throw some money at it and hey I'll eventually rank.
Er no! DON'T DO THAT!
I was trying to rank for keywords like “make money online”.
Da f**k was I thinking!
I had NO CHANCE of ranking for a keyword like that.
I was a new blog with no authority and I thought I could just pay someone to do some SEO and I could rank for one of the most competitive keywords for making money online.
When I think about it, the person I hired to do the SEO should have told me not to even waste my time.
Anyway, my mistake for even trying to rank for keywords like that.
You're better saving your money and just doing better keyword research and finding low competition you can easily rank for.
Believe me, it all adds up in the end.
So the next mistake I did was to not evaluate the competition.

I don't even think I would check the top ten results.
I think I may have checked the article length for the top 3 or 4 articles just so I could write a longer article but that was about as good as it gets.
It just shows how little I knew back then.
Nowadays the biggest factor I check when doing competition analysis is how well the search query is being answered in the search results.
Domain strength and backlinks don't matter to me if the search query isn't being answered well.
I only care about domain strength or backlinks if the answer is being answered well.
Think about this, you may search “Best Vegan Keto Diet” and all the answers that come back are for “vegetarian keto diets”.
That might be because there are not any articles that specifically answer that question for a Vegan.
A keyword tool might tell you that it's a super hard keyword to rank for because all the top 10 domains are strong domains, but in reality, you could easily rank because you would write an article that would cover the topic as it was meant…as a “Vegan” keto diet.
See what I mean?
Anyway, I'll cover that more in another article.
I think in the whole two years on that blog I didn't invest in one blog training or SEO course.
I had bought plenty of making money online courses over the years but nothing truly on what I was doing which was blogging and SEO.
I did buy a course once called Google Snipper that did cover SEO but it was outdated by the time I was on my probably tenth blog (the one I spent two years on).
I really should have invested in up to date SEO/Blog training or coaching.
It would have saved me two years of doing the wrong things and also it would have saved me a ton of money.
Now I always stay up to date by investing in training because it saves me time and money in the long run.
Sometimes I may only learn one new thing, but that one thing is usually worth the investment.
It's funny to think I spent all that time on that blog without ever really learning from people who had achieved what I wanted (having a successful blog).
Next is,
Man I worried too much on the small stuff.
I had a part-time graphic designer making me all these fancy graphics for logos, post thumbnails, facebook images, and infographics etc.
I changed the logos and header multiple times.
I even got a caricature image of myself made as well 
You can see it in this old web archive image of my blog home page.

I really didn't need to do all that.
Here's a couple of old thumbnails from that blog that I found.

Yeah, they look alright but it's not needed.
Having nice graphics doesn't mean anything if no one is seeing it.
All that stuff was distracting me from working on what matters. Creating content.
All my blogs now have graphics that I make for free on Canva (including my logos
), I've now realized to worry about that stuff later when there's enough traffic to make money.
Till then, keep it simple.
A logo and free images from Canva or a royalty-free image site such as Unsplash is all you need in terms of website graphics, you can add a better logo later when you're getting traffic.
Don't get me wrong, you don't want cheap graphics that look like they were made with 90's clip art, but it's not as important as you think.
Work on content then improve the look of your site later.
I just use simple clean layout sites like this one now and I prefer it.
Now for that last point.
When I look back, this could have been the game-changer for that site.
One thing I know is, the content would have been perfect for Pinterest.
If I had of used Pinterest with the 111 articles that site had, there's no doubt I could have got hundreds on thousands of monthly visitors.
I just didn't understand Pinterest back then.
I thought it was just for people who like crafts etc.
That was a missed opportunity for sure.
Nevermind, lesson learned as I use Pinterest today and it's a fantastic source of traffic.
Well, that's it, I hope you don't make any of those mistakes I made as it will save you a ton of time and money.
If you want to start your own freedom creating blog and avoid all the beginner mistakes most people make when setting up a blog then get my jam-packed FREE eCourse where I take you step by step to creating your own blog even if you don't know what you want to blog about.
Sign up to the free eCourse here.
The post Lessons From Spending 2 Years On A Failed Blog appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post Income Report November 2019 appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>Hey what's going on! Welcome to my first ever income report!
EXCITING!
I've been meaning to start an income report for a long time now, and I kinda wish I did it earlier so you could see the full journey from earning $0 a month to where I am at this month.
Maybe I'll go back and work it all out add those income reports at a later date but at least I have started today.
I'm going to make this a consistent feature for this blog, as I not only want to INSPIRE YOU, I want to track my progress each month and this is a great way to do it.
I remember reading so many of these in my early days of blogging and it helped keep me motivated as I could see others having success.
I'm not quite where I want to be yet, but I've already achieved my first big goal and that is to be fully self-supporting through my blog.
Over the next year, it will be really cool to see the journey starting from this first income report.
I really hope you find it helpful.
So, let's get into it.
I have a few blogs to go through with you (some a bit neglected), but I will let you know about them all.
Just so you know, I don't give away my blog names and the affiliate products I promote as I want to limit the competition as I have worked hard to find some good products to promote which are not overly saturated.
However,
I will let you know what niche each site is in, and the type of products I promote.
Sound fair?
Cool, let's get into this!

How I wish the money came to me 
Niche: Metaphysical/spiritual
The earnings from this site came from 2 sources. Ad revenue and affiliate revenue.
My ad revenue was $764.46 and my affiliate revenue was $413.23.
I am with Mediavine and this month was my best month yet.
Even though my traffic was down due to the fact I was working most of the month on The 25k Blog Challenge and I didn't add much new content or Pin on Pinterest as much as I usually do, the overall revenue was up because my RPM was up this month.
Black Friday weekend definitely helped!
The affiliate earnings are from one product I promote via some banners that I've added to the site. I added a few simple banners in the posts and one in the header and that is all.
At the moment I just a direct link to their offer from the banners which I shouldn't really do.
I need to build a list and THEN promote that affiliate product.
Then I would earn the commission AND build a list that I can promote other products with.
Note to self: DO THIS ASAP!
Niche: Health Related
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
This site is starting to do really well for me now, and because of that, I'm now putting more effort into content.
This is still a baby site with about 20 posts but it's showing me it's potential really early on.
What I've done on this site is created some info articles on a specific topic then linked to an article on my site that offers a discount code to a product which ties in perfectly to the information they were looking for.
For example, if I was promoting a health supplement that helps with say arthritis, then I would create info articles around that topic then in those articles I would say hey if you looking for a product which helps with arthritis then check out this product which I love and you can get a discount code as well.
Obviously, it's done better than that but you can see how I do it. And just so you know the product I promote isn't for arthritis 
Lesson from this site: If you can find a good product in which the vendor can give you a discount code to offer your readers, and the commissions are still good, then you don't necessarily need tons of content or traffic.
Discount code articles work great!
Also, the product I promote is a physical product with a 15% commission.
Niche: Make Money Online
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
This blog has been a bit neglected recently, I haven't posted in months and it's still making money.
I've really fallen out of love with this site and I'm struggling to write content because of it.
There's so much more I could do, but I just can't bring myself to do it at the minute. I may outsource it at some point, but at the minute I'm happy to let it sit and make money.
On this site, I promote a few products via reviews and discount code articles. I also have info articles that I link to related articles that promote various products.
Overall it's 2 key products that made the bulk of that affiliate commission.
Both the products that make the bulk of the earnings are for online software.
Niche: Home And Garden
The earnings from this site came from 1 source. Affiliate revenue.
WOW I know, $0.12!
I might just retire now!
Last month this site made $32.88 so it's gone down this month.
The earnings from this site are from the Amazon affiliate program. This site does have potential as the two months previous it had done much better.
Last month this site sold $410.95 worth of products in which I made $32.88. I know that is still very low but I only have a handful of articles and the traffic is low as well.
If I spent a month and added like 50 articles then this would definitely go up over time.
Site number one also gets some commission from Amazon (about $2-$5 a month), but it gets sooo many more clicks.
The problem is, it's super small commission as it's only books that I link to, and the commission rate is 4.5%.
On this site however, the average order is $100 and I get 8%!
Building on this site is on my to-do list, but I'm spread quite thin on my time so I need to find the time to work on it.
I was unsure whether to put this down but I thought I might as well.
It's not quite blogging revenue but it's still income.
I have a Youtube channel which I promote some products and I get commissions from that. There's also Youtube ad revenue which helps.
It works out as $253.44 from Youtube ad revenue and $406 from affiliate products that I link to from my channel.
Here are some screenshots of the bigger payments from my blog earnings.
Sometimes it helps to see a bit of proof.
This image is the earnings from Mediavine on site one for the month of November.

These earnings are from the affiliate product I promote on site one.

The earnings from the image below are from the affiliate product I promote on site two.
It shows some payments were in December but they were earnings from November just paid a few days into Dec.
I got paid halfway through the month for the first few week's worth of affiliate commissions, then again on Dec 2nd & 3rd for that last few weeks of commission from Nov.

This is a screenshot of one of the earnings for software I promote on site three.
Again, the payment is on Dec 2nd but it was from the commissions earned in Nov.

There are more products that I get paid commissions for, but you can see the bulk of it.
I don't want to slow down the page speed with too many images.
Hopefully, that's enough proof for now.
Anyway, so now we've covered earnings,
Let's talk expenses!
Here is a list of expenses form Nov 2019.
Hosting With WPX: $59.99
Fiver Gigs: $130.50
Hello Bar: $29
Writers on Upwork: $183.60
Canva Pro + Unlimted Images: $22.95
Domain Purchased From WPX: $10.99
Clickfunnels: $299
Key Search: $17
Tailwind: $19.98
That's my total expenses for this month. Somethings are not quite directly blogging-related, for example Clickfunnels.
I've just signed up to Clickfunnels to host my training for The 25k Blog Challenge. It's quite a big expense but I'll cover this cost as people sign up for this blog training.
Also, I spent a bit more than usual on Fiverr because I had a podcast intro and outro created for the Freedom Through Blogging Podcast. (You should check it out, it's the best around
)
Most people running a blog will spend a lot less, but as I'm trying to grow my business I am now investing back into it.
Over the next 12 months, I hope to get my blogs earning over $10k per month.
I'm feeling pretty excited just saying it.
I believe it's more than possible. Hard work, focus and consistency and I will get there.
It just about doing more of what's working.
What matters most though is the net income.
(Gross income $3253.74) – (Expenses $753.03) = Net Income $2'500.71
If I didn't have some of the higher cost expenses like Clickfunnels it would have been better, but hopefully it's an investment that will pay off!
Related Post: From 15 Failed Businesses to Success As A Blogger
Overall from an income perspective, this was a good month as it went up from last month, but as a productivity perspective, it was a bad month.
I felt I could have managed my time so much better.
I've been really struggling to get much done in the day while my son is at school.
When he's back from school at 3:30pm I can't really get much done so I need to do more in the free time between 9am – 3:30pm.
I've committed to getting up early, like mega early (4:30am) and getting stuff done in that few hours of quiet time.
I used to do that before, and I would get so much important work done.
If I can plan my tasks better, and get some more work done in those extra few hours then I think I can have a super productive month in December.
Wish me luck.
I think that's it for this month. Thanks for reading it.
Recommended Post: Income Report December 2019
If you feel I can make these income reports better then let me know in the comments.
The post Income Report November 2019 appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post How To Get Thousands Of Free Traffic From Pinterest – In Depth Guide appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>I'm excited because this is the same method that allowed me to take a blog from hardly any traffic, as you can see below, to 341 page views in December.

This is the time that I started to use this Pinterest strategy.
Within a month it had gone up to 6,000 page views.
The next month it traveled to 17,000 page views.
The month after that it went up to 26,000 page views.
Then to 60,000 page views in August and it has continued to climb since. This is a very powerful method that I'll show you.

Firstly, before we get into this…
I thought I'd answer this with you now, in case you literally have no idea like myself when I first came across Pinterest.
So simply put,
Pinterest is a visual search engine with the human element.
To show you what that means, if you went onto Google and you typed in chicken recipes for slow cooker, you would just see a bunch of articles like this…

I'm sure that you would have definitely seen something like that before.
Just textbase results, sometimes they have an image, but that's how it looks.
When you go to Pinterest though, if you searched the same query, you're going to get visual representations of those articles.
So instead of having text-based articles, you're then going to have images that represent those articles.
And on Pinterest, they're just called pins.

As you can see, they are the images that represent the articles.
The next part is the human element.
Let me explain.
There are business and personal profiles.
Most people will have a personal profile, but either way, everyone will have some kind of a profile.
And then on each account, everyone has boards, and boards are just places where you can organize your blog posts (or articles that you like) and put them into relevant boards.
It's very simple.
As you can see, this account has different gardening boards for different types of gardening topics.

And then if you click onto a board, you will then see the actual pins (image representation) of the articles that appear on that board.
If I click onto the cold climate gardening board, for example, all the pins will be related to the topic of this board.
As shown here.

Some of these Pins may fall into another category of board as well.
Meaning they could be Pinned to multiple boards, which is good.
Lastly, if you actually clicked on one of these pins, you then go down to the final layer.
This is where you see the Pin details, such as the description of what the article is about, the number of re-pins it has, and the website that you're going to go to.
Also, this is the point where you can save the article to a specific board that you have.

If you click that, you're then going to go over to the site, that is really it.
So as you can see, the human element is people have their own profile and manually pin to their boards.
So not only do you have a profile for real people, but you then also have people going and pinning to different boards and sharing them all around Pinterest.
That is really what it is.
Pinterest, as you can see, is a visual search engine with a human element.
So the next thing you might be wondering is…
Like how do people actually come across your pins in the first place?
There are TWO main ways.
If you go onto your phone – most people will be using their phones, when they open up Pinterest, they will see the feed like this.

The Pinterest feed is a little like the Facebook feed.
You're going to see pins on your feed that other people have pinned on their own boards.
It's like when someone posts an image to their facebook, you still see it in your feed.
It's similar on Pinterest.
And that's whether that's their own content they've pinned to their boards or other people's content they've re-pinned to their own boards.
You will also see Pins that Pinterest shows in your feed but are not by anyone you follow. These will just be Pins related to the stuff you usually look at.
Pinterest is smart.
So if you usually look at Vegan related topics then you will see more Pins which are Vegan related.
This is whether you are following the users' profile of not.
Essentially, it's a mix of Pins from people you follow AND Pins from topics that you usually look at.
If you were to pin something to your board it may show up on someone else's feed that you don't know because it's related to the stuff they usually look at.
This is GOOD NEWS for you, as you want people seeing your pins.
The next way is they can actually just search using the search bar.
You can use the search bar on a mobile or on a desktop. And when you search, you then get the related articles.
You want your pins to RANK HIGH so people click them when they do their search.
This is a search example on a desktop, but you can do that on a phone as well.

I hope that makes sense now.
Now I'm going to show you how to actually do this yourself.
With a bit of magic and a sprinkle of luck!
JOKING!
It's pretty straight forward.
Here's how…
The first thing you need to do is have a business account.
If you don't have one, then simply create one.
To do that, click here then follow the instructions.
Once you're set up and logged in, you're going to have the option to start filling some of this info in, which is located in the account settings:

The first thing you're going to do is ADD YOUR URL and VERIFY it.
Just follow the Pinterest instructions.
You'll be able to do that in your account settings.
The second point is to add your Pinterest name. This is probably going to be your blog name.
In the example, the website is called a PaleoHacks.com, and that's their Pinterest account name.
Now here's some secret SEO tip 
With the remaining space, you want to try and put in a few relevant keywords.
For the above example, they put paleo recipes, health and fitness tips.
Use that remaining space to put a few relevant keywords in.
The third thing is to add a description.
Make sure you use some nice and RELEVANT keywords.
In the example, they've put health advice, easy recipes, and functional workouts. Just relevant keywords to their blog.
Don't overthink it, just a nice simple description of what your blog is about and add some relevant keywords at the same time.
Congrats. That's the first bit done.
Now that you have your Pinterest business account and you've done this step, the next thing you need to do is create some boards.
To start with, you need to create about 10 to 15 boards using relevant keywords as the board names.

You can add more boards as you go on, but just create 10 to 15 to get started.
If you feel you need more, then add more later, but don't create too many boards if you're not going to actually use them.
So start off with roughly 10 to 15, or whatever you feel you will be able to use.
Next, when creating your boards you need to use RELEVANT keywords for your board titles.
If you're unsure what keywords to use, just think of the broadest sense topics that your blog is about.
For example,
If your blog is about recipes you might have chicken recipes, and you might have pork recipes, and beef recipes etc.
Then those are going to be the broadest keywords for the topics.
We'll then create more niched down boards.
Obviously, a chicken recipe may still be classed as an easy chicken recipe or healthy chicken recipe or grilled chicken recipe.
This illustration shows what I mean.

Start off with the broadest keyword first.
Name your first boards after those broadest sense keywords.
Like the example above, you'd name the first board chicken recipes.
Then you'd think of the next narrowed down version of the keyword for that broad board.
Easy chicken recipes, healthy chicken recipes, grilled chicken recipes, crockpot chicken recipes, Thai chicken recipes…
Just whatever is relevant to YOUR BLOG
If you had a workouts blog, you could have a workout board, and then you could have high-intensity workouts board, then a cross country workouts board, gym workouts board, etc.
Hopefully, this makes sense.
Just narrow down from the broad board so you also have some narrowed down versions and name each board that keyword.
Once you have done that, you are then going to move on to the next step.
You should now at this point have about 10 to 15 boards, give or take.
They'll be empty with no pins no board descriptions.
This step you need to go through and manually edit the board descriptions.
It's very simple to do.
You just need to make sure you add some keywords that are relevant to each board's topic.
In this example, this board is called chakra healing.

If you read that, it says articles and blog posts for chakra healing, chakra self-care, chakra book, chakra worksheet, self-care worksheet, opening chakras and balancing chakras.
As you can see, they're nice and relevant keywords.
That is what you want to do for your boards.
Just find some relevant keywords and add those as a description.
And I usually like to do something like this:
This board is about…[then just put the keywords].
Nice and simple.
When you have done that for each board, you should now have your main account page done. You should now have boards, and you should have keyword descriptions in those boards as I just showed you.
Next step.
The next step is to start a pining to your boards and get some board juice so Pinterest really understands what those boards are about.
What I like to do is start by pinning about 10 to 20 of OTHER PEOPLE'S pins to each new board.
And to do that, search each board's keyword in the search bar and pin the top content to your board.
For example, if your board was called Chakra healing then you would search that in the search bar and then pin some of those pins to your board.

And I don't pin them all in one day either.
Do about three to five pins each day to each board.
That's just to stop you looking spammy by pining 20 pins to 20 different boards in ONE day.
You don't want to do that.
You can divide it by morning and night if you want.
Maybe two or three in the morning, two or three in the night to each board if you want to do it that way.
But either way, three to five pins each day to hit about 10 to 20 pins on each new board.
Like I said, you want to search the board name into the search bar to get the pins that you're going to pin to your boards.
The reason to do this is that Pinterest is showing you these pins that are related to that keyword.
Like in the above example, you would type chakra healing into the search bar and then you would pin the pins from that search.
As you can see, those pins are obviously related to chakra healing.
If you pin those to your boards, Pinterest is going to know what your board is about.
You could also search for the keywords that you've used in a board description.
In the chakra healing example, we had the description and there were other keywords, you had chakra healing crystals, you could type in chakra healing crystals as well.
And pin some of those pins to the chakra healing board because that is still closely related to that board topic.
That is how you would do that.
So to clarify:
Just search each boards main keyword and maybe some of the keywords from the boards description and pin the RELEVANT pins to each board till you have about 10 to 20 pins of other people's pins done on each board.
That way Pinterest is then going to clearly understand what your board is about.
Once you've done that, it's time to move on and actually pin your own content to your boards.
Yay now the time to start sharing your content!
So to do that, choose the article you are going pin to Pinterest.
And just so you know, if you don't have a pin, I'm going to show you in a min where you can get these done.
So firstly, you need to create a pin and then pin it to your most relevant broad keyword board first.
For example, if you have a chicken recipe, which happens to be a grilled chicken recipe, you wouldn't pin it to your grilled chicken recipe board first.
You actually want to pin it to a chicken recipe board first.
The reason is, more people are going to search chicken recipe than grilled chicken recipe.
So you'll want a pin it to your board keyword board FIRST.
And remember this: Your first board is the MOST IMPORTANT.
Never pin it to some random board.
Pin it to your most relevant broad keyword board first because that is the most important.
And just so you know, you can create MULTIPLE pins for each article.
You don't have to create just one pin.
Actually, I recommend you create multiple pins for each article, or at least once you've pinned a pin to each board that you're going to pin it to, then create a new pin and then work your way back through those boards at some point.
And just so you know, it does take a little time to get traction.
You are new, you haven't got much history of Pinterest. So it's normal to be slow at first.
Just expect that.
I have a method to help you get more people to see your pins which we will cover in a minute.
If you want to know how to pin or add your pin to Pinterest – it's very simple.
On your desktop, you're going to see a red icon with the plus (+) sign. Click that and then click create the pin. You will then go and fill in the details.

Here's a completed example.

You'll add your image, your description, your headline, and your URL.
Again, use some RELEVANT keywords in this description and then a few hashtags with some more keywords in.
Maybe three to five keyword hashtags.
This will help with your Pinterest SEO.
Then once you do that, choose the board from the dropdown that you're going to pin to.
Congrats you've just pinned a pin to Pinterest!
Here are some quick recap tips.
Oh, and if you're wondering the time frame for pinning to boards, just pin each article to a new board each day until you've run out of relevant boards.
Then create a new pin and cycle through the boards a day (or a few days apart) at a time.
This goes for all your pins.
If you have 30 articles then mix it up, start pinning some articles on some days and some on other days.
Just don't keep pinning the same pin to the same board, day in and day out.

So I told you I would show you where to create pins.
Simply head over to Canva.com
It's free to use. And they have a section for creating Pinterest graphics.
They have many templates.
You can use their templates or you can start from scratch and just make your own.

Either way, it’s so easy to use.
If you get stuck, just Google how to create pins on Canva and you'll see some great tutorials.
Very simple and like I said, it's FREE!
So we are nearing to the end of this article. And I do have one more tip.
This is great for getting access to thousands of other people's boards' followers.
It's so helpful, especially in your early days.
I do want to mention, this should NEVER be your only strategy.
Eventually, your OWN BOARDS will become your BEST BOARDS!
So to do this strategy you need to find group boards.
And the best way to do that is to go to the BIG PLAYERS in YOUR niche.
Put the keywords of your topic in the search bar and you'll see the big accounts with loads of followers and then go to their board list and search through their boards.
Quick tip: Make sure you are searching for “People” and not “All Pins”.
When searching the boards for each of the accounts you're looking at, you may come across boards with a circle of multiple profile images like in this example.
That is a group board.

Then just click on that board and it will take you down to the board level and you can see the information there.
Here's an example.

You can see it's full of great keywords as we said to do before. And also it has a way to join the board.
It says, if you'd like to join us, let us know the comments and we'll send you an invite.
And that is how you do it. Just Following the instructions.
Just so you know, there are many ways you could join a board.
Sometimes they have a request to join button, click that. Sometimes they put their email in the description, then email them and ask to join.
It's really that simple.
Just go for it, find those boards on other people's accounts with the circle, with the multiple profile images in, and then request to join them.
When you join a board you're going to get access to the followers of that board.
In the above example, there are 6,000 followers.
You're going to get access to those people and which is amazing, especially when you start off.
I do want to say again though, don't rely just on group boards.
Eventually, your boards will become your BEST boards and group boards will just be a part of the process.
You do want to focus mainly on YOUR BOARDS overall, and just use group boards as something extra to help get you some traction.
That’s it for this post.
What to do next? If you are not a member of the “Freedom Through Blogging” Facebook group then I invite you to head over to Facebook and join the group.
I'll see you there!
The post How To Get Thousands Of Free Traffic From Pinterest – In Depth Guide appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post Salehoo Review – Is It Honestly The Best Supplier Directory Available? appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>These are great businesses that have great earnings potential.
The main problems people face with these types of eCommerce businesses are:
SaleHoo was built with this in mind.
By the end of this SaleHoo review, you're going know if SaleHoo solves these problems well and is it worth it for you.
So let's get started!
To put it simply, SaleHoo is a product research tool, supplier directory, and a supportive community for dropshippers, wholesalers, and online retailers.
There are four main areas you can use this platform for.
They are:
– Wholesale supplier & product directory
– SaleHoo labs for product research. (great for finding hot trending products)
– SaleHoo Training Guides
– SaleHoo community (i.e a big forum for wholesaler, dropshippers, eBay and amazon sellers)
I'll dive deeper into these 4 areas to show you what you can do.

You have 2 ways to use the wholesale products and supplier directory:
Let's start with option 1.
So for example,
If you wanted a supplier for electronic goods, you could search “electronics” in the search box and then SaleHoo will return a list of wholesale electronic suppliers who stock those type of products.
Perfect if you want to sell electronics goods on Ebay, Amazon or your own store.
Now you have a list of all the suppliers and you can go and contact them directly (I'll go into that in a minute).
So the other way you can use the SaleHoo directory is to search for specific products.
For example, you may be looking for a specific kind of electronic product. Drones for example.

You simply need to switch the search to products and search Drones.
SaleHoo will then return a product list of all Drones on the database, you can then click on the supplier for the drone you want.
Note: SaleHoo has a database of products that suppliers have uploaded for you to be able to search on the SaleHoo directory. This, however, won't be a true representation of all the suppliers that sell the specific product you are looking for. You should contact the suppliers directly on SaleHoo to see their complete product lists.
I would say it's best to search drones in the supplier box and see all the companies that sell drones.
You can then reach out and ask for their product lists and you'll see if those suppliers sell what you are looking for.
To help when searching for suppliers and products you can use SaleHoo's search filters.
You can filter your searches by Supplier type.
A supplier for dropshipping will meet different needs to that of a wholesaler, a manufacturer or liquidators.
Depending on whether you are looking for suppliers for eBay, Amazon, your own eCommerce store these different options will be beneficial to you.
You also can search By,
Next thing you may be wondering about, is contacting the suppliers.
So, once you have found some suppliers you like, you can then click their profile where you'll get some initial info.

You'll be able to see all their quick business stats info like company location, Minimum Order value, if they ship worldwide, do they require Resellers'/Tax ID and Years on SaleHoo.
Then you get more detailed info like.
If the supplier looks like a possible fit for your needs you can then contact them.
To do that all you need to do is click the contact supplier box and then you'll open up a message box.
Simply fill out the message and send it.

It's good that the messaging feature is inbuilt as it saves time and your messages will be stored and accessed on SaleHoo making life much easier.
Another handy feature is the message templates.
They have pre-written messages for most questions.
For example, they have a message for:
They have the same types of templates for Wholesale, liquidation, and manufacturer related messages.

Example Of The SaleHoo Templates
You can also edit the template once uploaded as you may want to ask a specific question as well.
This will save plenty of time when you need to message multiple suppliers.
So that's basicaly what you can do with the directory. Next we have the SaleHoo labs.
This area of SaleHoo will help you find new products for you to start profiting from.
When you land on this page you will see a random list of products which you will need to filter.
To filter you have 4 options:
Big list of categories to help find the best products to sell.
|
|
So as an example I've filtered the products by choosing the appliances category and selecting only low competition, the average selling price of $25-$100 and a sell rate of 30%+.

That has then bought up a list of 44 matching products.
Then all you need to do is search through those products and see if any are a good fit for your business.
You could sell them on eBay, Amazon or your own online store.
Any products that you want to check out further you then click on them and it gives you a list of potential suppliers.
You'll see a list of suppliers that you can potentially source the products from. You just need to click on the product supplier link which will take you to their SaleHoo profile and you can contact them as I showed you earlier.
There's also some quick stat info.
Also, there's a similar listings tab where you can see products that are similar to the one you are looking at.
This is handy if you are looking for a specific type of products to sell online.
Another thing to note is you can save your filter settings and use them later if you want.
As you can see it's a user-friendly product research tool which will find you profitable products to sell. I think this great especially if you sell on Amazon or eBay.
So the next part of this SaleHoo review is the training area.

This is where you get training for all aspects of running an online business.
There are 9 full training guide sections plus a bonus guides section.
This includes:
– Beginners guide to starting a business selling things online
– Business setup
– Importing & Shipping
– What should you sell
– Find a product supplier
– Product sourcing
– Guide to selling on eBay and Amazon
– Guide to starting an online store.
– Scam prevention
Plus you get a bonus guides section which includes:
There is one more guide area which I haven't included in the list as it's a paid extra, and that is the online selling tactics.
It's priced at $297 for life or $97 a month.
Honestly, I don't think you need it, all the other training which is all included is plenty enough.
The online selling tactics is just a much more advanced training for people who want that extra bit of help.
Like I said, you don't need it with all the training already included in the SaleHoo platform, but the choice is there if you need it.
In case you want to know, here's what's included in online selling tactics.
You get:
– Step-by-step video training on how to implement money-earning sales strategies
– Interviews with industry experts including eBay PowerSellers, marketplace owners, social media marketing experts, eBay gurus and more
So let's give you a quick rundown of each training guide.

This area is your starting guide to help you get going if you're a newbie to selling online.
Included in this SaleHoo guide is:
Step 0: What to Know Before You Begin
Step 1: Choosing What to Sell
Step 2: Finding Suppliers
Step 3: Setting Up Your Business
Step 4: Choosing Where to Sell
Step 5: How to Make Your First Sale
This guide to selling things online is very thorough and perfect if you are pretty new to selling on eBay, Amazon or your own eCommerce store.
They even show you how to sell on Etsy, Bonanza, Craigslist and more.
The next training guide included in SaleHoo is business setup.

This guide is to help you with things like registering a business, taxes help and more.
This guide has 7 lessons. You won't need them all, just what's specific to you.
The 7 lessons are:
This lesson gives you all the details in setting up and getting a tax ID.
Please note: This lesson is for US residents buying from US wholesalers. If you live outside of the US, you don't need to worry about a Tax ID to purchase from a US wholesaler.
This lesson is on how to make some quick cash to start your business.
Sometimes when don't have the capital to get started. This shows you some quick ways to get some cash to get your business going.
Says what it does on the tin. A guide to setting up and registering a business in the USA.
This lesson includes a video guide.
This lesson is the same as the last but for setting up and registering a business in Canada.
This shows you the process of registering a business in the UK (my neck of the woods).
It also has a video explainer as well to make it easy to understand.
Again this is the same but for Australia.
It also includes step by step video guide on setting up a business in Australia.
And the last lesson is this guide is…
This lesson going into detail on your tax obligations when you sell on eBay.
Believe it or not, you still need to pay tax when you sell something to make a profit on eBay.
I know it sucks but it's got to be done.
Next guide included is Importing & Shipping.

Learn how to get the best deals on products by importing!
This handy guide is filled with plenty of tips and secrets on importing wholesale so you can start your import business and make all the money you need!
Also there are different rules and regulations on importing from different countries so this guide breaks it down into finer detail so fully understand the ins and outs.
There 8 lessons are:
1. Quick Guide to Importing
2. Importing into the US
3. Importing to Canada
4. Importing to Australia and NZ
5. Customs and Importing
6. Importing From China
7. The Rundown on Importing into the UK
8. China Importing Logistics and Storage
Next guide is:

This guide gets into the more fun stuff to learn (product research). Your business is only as good as your best product!
Included sections in this guide are:
By the end of this guide, you'll understand what products you should be looking to sell when launching a profitable business selling goods online.
Next guide is:

This guide shows you how to find the right product supplier. It shows you how to use SaleHoo to find decent product suppliers for wholesale, dropshipping, manufacturer and private labeling.
This guide also shows you how to find trusted suppliers outside of the SaleHoo platform.
The lessons in this guide are:
– How to choose the right supplier for…
– How to contact suppliers.
– Avoiding supplier scams.
– Building a relationship with suppliers.
There's plenty of different types of product suppliers, this guide does a decent job of showing you everything you need to know when it comes to finding suppliers who are legit, trusted and offer good products and reliability.
Next guide is:

This guide goes in depth with 12 lessons on where to source products to sell online.
This is helpful whether you sell on eBay, Amazon or dropship with your own eCommerce store.
The 12 lessons in this section are:
Just so you know, every individual lesson in the product sourcing guide is in-depth.
Quite a few lessons have a video lesson as well to teach the point even better.
I feel SaleHoo has really gone above and beyond in adding value to their platform.
Next guide included in the SaleHoo training is…

When you know what products you want to sell, do you know where to sell them?
This guide gives you the rundown on the major eCommerce platforms eBay and Amazon and details the pros and cons of using each one.
SaleHoo covers selling on eBay and Amazon really well.
Included sections are:
I learned a lot by going through this guide.
For example, what platform charges less fees, what platform has better seller tools to help you sell your stuff, what platform has a higher sell rate, and how to create a great product listing.
You can also check you the other alternative platforms mentioned in this guide which are Etsy, Jet, Rakuten and uBid.
Next is…

The last guide talked about eBay and Amazon. This guide goes in depth into the pros and cons of starting an online store instead of selling on eBay, Amazon or anything similar.
Covered in this guide is.
– The benefits of selling on your eCommerce own store.
– What Ecommerce stores you can set up a store with.
(They don't mention CommerceHQ which is my favorite platform for setting up a store. You can check out my CommerceHQ review here. )
– How to get visitors to your store (traffic generation). Things like SEO, PPC Ads, Influencers, and content marketing are covered here.
– Cost of running an online store.
E-commerce is how I started online so I really enjoyed reading this article as I'm sure you will.
There are so many differences between selling on your own store and selling on eBay and Amazon.
The main perk for me is there's no other direct competition on your own site as there is on Amazon and eBay.
And also you keep all your customer details so you can follow up and market to them again, and again, and again 
Next up in this SaleHoo review the scam prevention guide.

There'd be nothing worse than scraping your first bit of capital together to buy some stock and then getting scammed and losing your money.
Don't worry, this is rare but it's good to get clued up and understand how to protect yourself from any scam.
The 3 main lessons in this scam prevention guide are:
The 3 guides cover things like, avoiding chargeback scams (this has happened to me so it's good they talk about it).
Using safe payment options when paying for your goods, this is super important so you are covered if anything happens. The best payment options are covered.
How to avoid ordering poor quality items and dealing with big purchases.
Plus SaleHoo covers the telltale signs of dealing with a scammer.
Overall this is another great guide that you'll be happy you checked out.

There's more outside the screenshot.
Lastly, we have the bonus training guides which cover topics from selling games and DVD's to secrets to building a dropshipping empire.
Each guide is an eBook which are really good.
I highly recommend you checking out the SaleHoo new user manual before you do anything on SaleHoo.
They send you this in one of your welcome emails anyway so make sure you check it out as it details how to get the most out of the SaleHoo platform.
To recap the guides included in the bonus training section. You get access to…
Like I've mentioned before. I feel SaleHoo has over delivered on the value you get in exchange for the $67 cost for the year.
That's probably why they have such a fantastic Trust Pilot score of 9.6/10.

If you knew nothing about selling online, then after going through each of the 9 training guides plus the 7 bonus guides you'll know what you need to know by the end.
Last main feature I'm going to talk about is the SaleHoo Community.
Sometimes when you're working from home on your own, it can be a lonely place with no one to turn to for help.
To help you, SaleHoo has built a fantastic community which covers topics that help online sellers.
This is a forum where you can go to for help or get involved in topics and talked to others in your community,
Whether you are a dropshipper, eBayer, Amazon seller, you can get help from likeminded people.
The SaleHoo community is highly engaged with thousands of topics and posts.

Example questions posted in the forum.
This is probably the biggest community of it's kind online.
I was really surprised to see how active it was and how many topics and posts have been covered.
I highly recommend you check this out.
Salehoo charges a simple 1-year flat rate of $67.
I personally think that is a bargain. They could have charged much more or charged it monthly.
Overall, $67 is a very fair price for what you get in this platform.
The tools, suppliers, training, and community makes it very worth it in my option.
SaleHoo offer a 60-day money-back guarantee so you can test it out with no risk to you.
Next up, I've listed the pros and cons of SaleHoo.
Plenty of product suppliers. SaleHoo has over 8,000 hand-picked local and global suppliers. This includes suppliers for high quality branded products.
Quality brands. There's plenty of top brands available. SaleHoo isn't just a glorified AliExpress, it has access to the best brands available online.
Great product research tool. This will help you find hot products to sell online. No guesswork involved, just good data to help you make the right decision on what to sell. The lab product research tool is really simple to use as well.
Access to 2.5 Million products. SaleHoo suppliers give you access to over 2.5 million + products to sell. You won't be stuck for choice!
Top training. As you've already seen in this SaleHoo Review there are tons of training guides which will help you on your journey to becoming an established online seller.
Community support. You'll never be stuck with anyone to turn to for help. With thousands of members and literally tens of thousands of posts and topics, you'll never be short of people and answers to help you.
Money-back guarantee. SaleHoo believes in their platform so much they offer a 60-day money back guarantee. This takes all the risk away so you can feel safe in testing out SaleHoo and seeing if it's for you.
Dropship suppliers. They don't just have wholesale suppliers, they have access to over 1000 dropship suppliers as well.
Out of date supplier details. I noticed that a couple of the supplier websites weren't active anymore. Overall the majority were all fine but there was a couple where the websites didn't work so I presume they were not doing business or had a new website that hadn't been updated on SaleHoo yet.
Has upsell. For their premium “Online Selling Tactics” training, you have to pay a one-off fee of $247 or $97 a month. Even though it's the only training you pay for it would be nice to get it included with the other training. (I might be asking for too much 
A big fat yes from me.
For $67 you can't complain. SaleHoo delivers tons of value on their platform.
They could charge $67 for each component of their platform. The supplier directory, product discovery lab tool, eCommerce training, and SaleHoo community.
They are all great features in of themselves. So I give this platform a massive thumbs up.
You can check it out risk-free here and see what you think.
I think SaleHoo is a great all-around platform that'll you'll love. This is great if you sell on eBay or Amazon but also great if you're a dropshipper looking for some higher quality products that you can't find on AliExpress.
At $67 for the year, I think it priced very competitively.
The fact that SaleHoo offers a no questions asked refund policy shows how confident they are that you'll love using the platform.
So there you have you it, I hope you've enjoyed this SaleHoo review.
If you want to check out it out then click here and test drive it yourself and see what you think.
Yes, SaleHoo is. You just need to check their Trust Pilot score of 9.6/10 to see they are trusted with plenty of happy customers. SaleHoo has been around for over a decade so it proves it's legitimate by standing the test of time.
SaleHoo has 1 upsell and that is for their premium “Online Seller Training”. That costs a one-off fee of $297 or you can sign up for $97 a month. Everything else in the platform is included at no extra cost including all the other training.
SaleHoo has over 8,000+ pre-vetted suppliers. You can choose the search criteria you want to help filter through the local and global suppliers to find the bests ones for you.
Yes, the main competitor to SaleHoo is WorldWideBrands.com, they are more expensive at $299. They are a similar type of platform that provides access to a wholesale and dropshipping directory. Is it better though? In my opinion, I think SaleHoo is more superior and more affordable.
Some people want to know is there a SaleHoo discount code. There is not, but at $67 for a full year, it's already super affordable and great value for money. Remember in comparison to other wholesale directories SaleHoo is already discounted.
Your SaleHoo membership costs just $67 for a full 12-months and you get access to all their resources. Like I said earlier, I think they could charge that per month.
Click here and checkout SaleHoo for yourself.
The post Salehoo Review – Is It Honestly The Best Supplier Directory Available? appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post The 17 Pinterest Tips That Helped Me Rapidly Grow My Blog Traffic appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>You end up waiting.
And waiting,
And waiting some more to get visitors to your blog.
You know your blogs amazing. But no one's coming by to check it out.
It's frustrating that's for sure.
If you're waiting on Google to bring busloads of visitors to your site, you'll be waiting a long time.
My fiance and I created a new Law Of Attraction blog.
Then added 30 blog posts then played the waiting game.
Nothing. Nada.
Just the sound of crickets and tumbleweed blowing by.
No One Was Coming To Read Our (Amazing) Blog Posts.
5 months later still nothing, just with the odd visitor here and there, but it was nothing worth writing home about.
Something needed to be done, something different. Something with more imidate results.
Then by chance, I read a blog post about someone who built their blog to 100K+ visitors a month in just six short months.
Obviously, I was a bit skeptical considering I'd had hardly traffic in nearly 5 months to our new blog.
It turns out they were using Pinterest to drive traffic to their blog.
To my surprise, quite a lot of bloggers use Pinterest to get trucks loads of traffic to their sites and really quick.
Everyone except me that is.
After reading so many positive results with Pinterest I dived in head first and gave it a go.
Within the first month of Using Pinterest, I got just over 16K unique pageviews to our Law Of Attraction blog.

The first visit was on September 14th.
It's crazy when you think I literally had hardly any traffic to my site from Google, then when I started using Pinterest, like a rocket, my traffic took off.
What's even better is, since I started getting traffic from Pinterest my posts are starting to rank on Google and I get about 75 organic views a day as well.
Pretty sweet ey?
As I write this I've just got past my first month using Pinterest and I can't believe I didn't use it sooner.
In this post, I show you the 17 tips that I used to help grow my blog traffic to 16K pageviews in the first month using Pinterest.
Before we get stuck in.
If you don't have a blog yet then I've created a simple walkthrough to set up your blog quickly.
It's the one thing all successful bloggers have in common.
They got started!
Click here to check out the blog set up guide. Remember it's the first step to building a profitable blog.
So, you ready? I hope so.
You're want to hear this.
So if you're using a personal account you'll need to switch to a Business account so you can see all the juicy analytics only available on a business Pinterest account.
Also, you'll be able to use promoted pins as well.
If you've got a personal account you can switch to a business account pretty easily, and if you haven't set one up yet then set up a business account straight of the bat.
Click here to Sign up to Pinterest business.

When you set up your Pinterest business account you'll want to add keywords that are relevant to your business.
I don't know for a fact that it makes a difference but if there's a way I can possibly improve my Pinterest SEO, I'll take it.
Most people won't read the profile description anyway, but in case they do it's a good opportunity to tell people what you're about and use some good SEO keywords in the process.
When you create your Pinterest boards you don't wanna be getting all creative naming them something like “ideas to get stackin those papers real high”.
Just use the key terms people would search on Pinterest. Like “Make Money Ideas”
A good idea is a type in your broad term into the Pinterest search box, then click the suggestions box to see the related suggestions.
Then narrow it down again by clicking the suggestions.
This should give you ideas for a few board names.
For example, if you were doing rental apartment decoration, you can type the keyword “rental apartment decorating”,

Then narrow it down with the suggestions to “rental apartment decorating on a budget” and then even further to “rental apartment decorating on a budget living room”
Pinterest is giving you the ideas so you're going to be hitting good keywords for your boards when doing this.
You'll want to have multiple boards around the topic you write about. Start with the broadest term then add more niched down board names.
When you create your keyword rich boards you'll want to add descriptions with relevant keywords in the description.
This is also one of those things most people will never read so don't overly worry about making it sound amazing.
Just focus on adding relevant keywords.
Like you used for board names before you can use the Pinterest search bar to help find good Pinterest SEO keywords to put in your boards' description.
Claiming your website will make you look all legit as you'll get one of those beautiful trust building ticks next to your domain name.
Also, it gives you extra analytics from pins pinned from your website.
You can also claim your Instagram, Etsy, or Youtube account which will give you deeper insights into how your Pins are performing.
Why are they Rich? Because they make you lotsa money!
Sorry I'm only joking, I wish that was true!
If you don't know what Rich Pins are, they basically allow you to add more context about an idea because they show extra information directly on a Pin.
There are four types of Rich Pins: app, product, recipe, and article.
Simply put, Rich Pins are good if you want to add extra info on your Pins.
Overall I think it's a good idea to add rich pins as it can make your pins look a bit more professional and stand out a little more.
When you start using Pinterest you won't have too much presence as you'll be new and won't have any followers.
It will help to get some more exposure by joining some relevant group boards which will give you the chance to get your pins in front of some people following those boards.
When your boards start to gain followers and Pinterest knows what your boards are about, your pins will start being seen and it won't be as important to join group boards.
But till then it defo a good idea to do so.
When applying to group boards expect to apply to quite a few without a reply. It's a bit of a numbers game but it's worth it.
If you apply to 50 boards then expect to get accepted to about 10-15 boards.
That's just a rough idea but expect it to take a bit of effort to build that group board list.
Also, you need to be following the board you apply to join and they will need your Pinterest email plus your Pinterest account URL.
So make sure you send that when you apply.
And just so you know, the first profile is the owner of that board.
You'll want to click on that to open up their profile if you need to find their website to send them an email.
Quite often you'll need to click to their website and email them.
However, sometimes they put their email in the board description with some instructions on how to join.
Here are some tips on finding good boards to join.
A simple method to find group boards to join on Pinterest is to click on profiles that are in your niche then see what group boards they are a part of.
Follow the Pinterest accounts you like, then check out what boards they are on.
If they are on a group board then there's a good chance that they are posting on it.
Simply click on the board and follow the steps mentioned in the last tip to join them.
Just so you know, when checking a profile for group boards. The group boards are the ones with circles like the example below.

Another good way to find boards is to use Pingroupie.
With Pingroupie you can search for relevant boards by typing in keywords that are relevant to your niche and it will bring up all the related group boards that you apply to join.

You also can see other info like the creator name, how many pins the board has, how many collaborators the board has and the number of followers the board has. It also show's average repins amount as well.
Click here to check out Pin Groupie. It's 100% Free.
With so many pins trying to get peoples attention, it's important to make your pins stand out from the crowd.
I've noticed that as I got better at creating high-quality pins my Pin engagement has been much higher.

Expect at first for your pins to suck, but as you keep creating new ones and finding your design grove then you'll naturally create better-looking pins.
A good tip is to create a secret board and save all the pins you like the look of to it.
Then use those pins as inspiration to create similar pins of your own.
Obviously, you don't want to straight up copy them but you'll get a good idea of what fonts you like and what type of background images look good.
Click here to sign up for Canva. It's also Free.
Pinterest says vertical pins with a 2:3 ratio are best.
For example 800x1200px or Canva's temple size or 735 x 1102px.

Just don't be creating some odd square shaped pins or Youtube thumbnail pins.
Just no!
Use nice verticle pins with a good image and popping text!
When I first got start I didn't put much effort into the descriptions.
I know I was bit silly 
It's all good now though, I gave myself some lashings. and I've now learned from my wicked ways. I now add keyword rich descriptions.
This helps your SEO as Pinterest needs as much info as they can to determine what your pin is about.
Like I've said before, anytime I get a chance to improve my SEO I'm gonna take it. And Pin description is defo one of those times.
Don't be lazy!
Write those keyword rich descriptions and you'll be thankful you did if you start getting ranked for some decent keywords on Pinterest.
Another tip is to use the new Hashtag feature.
This feature hasn't been around too long so it's still early days.
But you can now add clickable Hashtags.
You might not see the full benefit of it now but it's worth doing. It's another way of someone being able to find your pins.
Something I've been doing is adding my Pinterest name as the first hashtag.
For example, when pinning for my LOA blog I would add #SubconsciousServant at the start of all my hashtags.
That way if someone clicks that hashtag they'll see all my pins.
When I first started I used to create just one pin for each post.
Initially, I thought I could get in trouble for pinning to the same URL on a board more than once.
I thought it would be classed as spammy or something.
Pinterest has said it sees new pins as new content even though it links to the same URL.
It's also good to see what type of pins work because you never know what's going to get picked up well with your audience.
Sometimes you make a pin which you love but it never really takes off, then the other version you created which you didn't think was that great goes viral?
I wish you could predict which ones will go viral but you can't.
So it's best to make a few versions and see what works.

I think it's best to create 3 or 4 versions of each pin at once then you've got those alternative versions ready to pins when you want.
If you have to keep going to Canva to create pins for old posts you can sometimes get lazy and not do it or you find it takes a lot of your time.
It's best to do it all in the same sitting as it's then done.
If you need to go back later and create new pins you can but it's worth it create 3 to 4 pins right of the bat.
You can pin your first pin to all the relevant boards over the first week, then next week you can do the same with the new pin, then the next week do the same again with the other pin and then see what works best.
Then just use the best pin in the future.
This is MEGA important.
Pinterest loves consistency. You don't wanna be pinning all your pins on Monday then nothing for the rest of the week.
Your best to spread your pins over the week so you are pinning every day.
If you don't have new pins or new content to pin you can still pin other peoples content to your boards.
Just make sure you're consistent.
If you make it a habit to Pin every day you'll reap the rewards.
Being consistent is one thing I've done from the start.
It doesn't need to be hours each day. Just 30mins morning and late afternoon will do. Or whenever suits you, just make sure you do it every day.
If you think you'll struggle to be consistent every day then I recommend checking out this next tip.
At first, I really enjoyed getting stuck in and pinning and repining every day. But after about a week the novelty wore off and it started to be a chore.
Thankfully I discovered Tailwind the Pinterest scheduler. It has helped me so much.
Tailwind is great if you want to save time scheduling to Pinterest. You can schedule posts at the best times for engagement and get other useful analytics.

Because I'm based in the UK and the best times to me post to Pinterest are usually late at night I struggle to be able to pin manually at those times.
I just set up a pin schedule and Pinterest pins to the boards I choose at the times that are best for my audience.
Tailwind offers a free plan as well to see if it's for you.
Click here to checkout Tailwind for free.
This feature is sooooo useful. It's like group boards but much easier.
Tailwind tribes are like groups boards for Tailwind users.
You join tribes and post the pins you want to the tribes and other members can Pin your content.

As you can see my pins are being shared by other tribe members.
It's so easy for Tribe members to schedule your pin to multiple boards with just a few clicks.
All it takes is a Tailwind member with a good following to pin one of your pins for it to go viral.
Using Tailwind tribes is so much easier than reaching out to tons of people in the hope that they will let you join their group board.
You can join a bunch of Tailwind tribes and add your content for the members to share.
Obviously, you'll want to repin some of your other Tribe members content as it's only fair.
I like to go through each tribe and schedule some good pins to my boards.
I usually find when I do that I get a lot of reciprocal re-pin as well.
If you learn to make stunning pins then naturally people will want to pin your stuff.
Tailwind has amazing tutorial videos so make sure to watch them to fully understand how to make the most of this great Pinterest tool.
If you want to use Tailwind tribes then sign up for a free account here.
So there you go.
The 17 Pinterest Tips That Helped Me Grow My Blogs Traffic fast.
If you found this article helpful feel free to give it a pin or share it for others to see.
Thanks, and remember…
What's the one thing all successful bloggers have in common.
They got started!
If you haven't started a blog yet then click here to check out the blog set up guide.
Remember it's the first step to building a profitable blog 
The post The 17 Pinterest Tips That Helped Me Rapidly Grow My Blog Traffic appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>The post 100 Leadership & Success Books You Should Read In Your Lifetime appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>However, I just came across this 100 Leadership & Success Books to Read in a Lifetime list compiled by Amazon and realized I've still got some reading to do as there's a lot of books on here I haven't read.
It got me pretty excited so I thought I'd share that list with you.
NOTE: If you want to get any of these books and don't mind a pre-loved copy then I recommend getting a used copy from Amazon as they usually cost a bit less.
Also, if you don't like reading then it might be worth getting the audiobook version.
I love to listen to books when driving and when at the gym. That time might as well be used for something positive.
Imagine how many books you could listen to in a year if you played them when driving or working out?
Quite a few I bet!
You can get a free trial with Audible and get Two Free Audiobooks here.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this as much I did.

Click here to see the list on Amazon.
1. #GIRLBOSS – Sophia Amoruso
2. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose – Eckhart Tolle
3. Andrew Carnegie – David Nasaw
4. Awaken the Giant Within – Tony Robbins
5. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear – Elizabeth Gilbert
6. Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street – John Brooks
7. Chicken Soup for the Soul – Mark Victor Hansen & Jack Canfield
8. Choose Yourself! – James Altucher
9. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion – Gary Vaynerchuk
10. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life – Daniel G. Amen M.D.
11. Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck – Jon Acuff
12. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Daniel H. Pink
13. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ – Daniel Goleman
14. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less – Greg McKeown
15. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done – Larry Bossidy
16. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time – Brian Tracy
17. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future – Ashlee Vance
18. Find a Way – Diana Nyad
19. Flying Without a Net: Turn Fear of Change into Fuel for Success – Thomas J. DeLong
20. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything – Steven D. Levitt
21. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
22. First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently – Marcus Buckingham
23. Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life – Stuart Diamond
24. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity – David Allen
25. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In – Roger Fisher
26. Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success – Adam Grant
27. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't – Jim Collins
28. How to Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie
29. How Will You Measure Your Life? – Clayton M. Christensen
30. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini
31. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership – Colin Powell
32. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading – Martin Linsky & Ronald A. Heifetz
33. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead – Sheryl Sandberg
34. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
35. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – Carol S. Dweck
36. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics – Richard H. Thaler
37. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die – Chip Heath
38. Man's Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl
39. Oh, the Places You'll Go! – Dr. Seuss
40. Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell
41. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions – Dr. Dan Ariely
42. Personal History – Katharine Graham
43. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking – Susan Cain
44. Siddhartha: A Novel – Hermann Hesse
45. Stumbling on Happiness – Daniel Gilbert
46. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction – Philip E. Tetlock
47. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek
48. Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
49. StrengthsFinder 2.0 – Tom Rath
50. Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else – Geoff Colvin
51. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! – Al Ries
52. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
53. The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World – Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler M.D.
54. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere – Pico Iyer
55. The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life – Avinash K. Dixit
56. The 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
57. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich – Timothy Ferriss
58. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey
59. The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything – Guy Kawasaki
60. The Art Of War – Sun Tzu
61. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine – Michael Lewis
62. The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
63. The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism – Olivia Fox Cabane
64. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right – Atul Gawande
65. The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – Katty Kay
66. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done – Peter F. Drucker
67. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America – Warren E. Buffett & Lawrence A. Cunningham
68. The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter – Michael D. Watkins
69. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt – T.J. Stiles
70. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable – Patrick Lencioni
71. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom – Don Miguel Ruiz
72. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brené Brown
73. The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life – Shawn Achor
74. The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin
75. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers – Ben Horowitz
76. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business – Clayton M. Christensen
77. The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing – Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig & Warren E. Buffett
78. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
79. The Lean Startup – Eric Ries
80. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing – Marie Kondō
81. The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) – Hal Elrod
82. The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play – Neil Fiore
83. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – Charles Duhigg
84. The Prince – Niccolò Machiavelli
85. The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
86. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth – M. Scott Peck
87. The Road to Character – David Brooks
88. The Secret – Rhonda Byrne
89. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams – Deepak Chopra
90. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
91. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr – Ron Chernow
92. Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be – Marshall Goldsmith
93. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson – Mitch Albom
94. Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders – L. David Marquet
95. Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance – Jonathan Fields
96. Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives – Dan Millman
97. What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful – Marshall Goldsmith
98. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength – Roy F. Baumeister
99. Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person – Shonda Rhimes
100. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
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]]>The post 21 Must Read Self Help Books That Will Change Your Life appeared first on It's Alan Young.
]]>I've got hundreds of books, and it took me a while to decide the best ones to a share with you.
Initially, it was only going to be my top ten, but I couldn't help but keep adding more as I went through my collection.
Over the years I've read these books and I can honestly say I've grown in all aspects of my life because of self-development through books and audio books.
Most people when they leave school will never read another book.
I'm so glad I carried on with my own development in the books that I read.
There are two sayings when it comes to books which I feel holds true.
The first is…
“Learners are earners.”
And
“Leaders are readers.”
I'm sure you'll agree there's truth to those statements.
Anyway, let's get stuck into my top 21 books that will change your life.
Please Note: If you go to Amazon to buy any of these books, you can sometimes get them for a dollar or two if you get a used copy. Nearly all the books I buy are used copies, and they are still usually in excellent condition.
Also if you think you would prefer to listen to a book (good for listening in the car or gym), then you can get an audio version of most books on Audible.com
You can get a free trial with Audible and get Two Free Audiobooks here.
I'll leave a link to both under each book if you want to check them out.
So with that said let's get into it.
I love the metaphysical personal development books. This book is a fantastic book that some find will find a bit “out there” but if you implement what's in it, then I'm sure you'll realize why you've struggled to manifest your desires and what to do about it.
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The classic of all classics! If you haven't heard of this book, then you must have been living under a rock. I couldn't compile this list without adding this book. The title says it all really. To put it short, your mind plays a dominant role in what you experience in life. Think And Grow Rich is such a fascinating book with such great insights from the greatest minds of that era.
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I love this book — lots of practical instructions on achieving what you want. Again the emphasis is on how your thoughts and mind play a massive role in your success in life.
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The author Joe Dispenza has got to be one of my all time favorites and this book is one of the best in the game. Joe demystifies the mystical by using science to unlock the mysteries surrounding the metaphysical. Honestly, if there's one book on this list I recommend, this is it.
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This book is another excellent book by Joe Dispenza. You will learn how to rewire your subconscious mind to become a more improved version of your self. So many people live their lives out of habit (which usually aren't good habits), and this book shows you how to re-invent yourself and be the person you genuinely want to be. This book is another self-help treasure that you'll love.
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Another classic with timeless wisdom. It's quite a big book, so it might be worth listening to the audio if you're not keen on reading long books. The 7 principles will no doubt have a profound impact on your life if you put them into action.
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Wayne Dyer's books are amazing; it's a shame that he's now crossed over to the other side. His work is timeless though and will be enjoyed by me and many millions more. This book has some incredibly inspiring tales of the power of intention from his personal experience that you will love. This book is one of my favorites of his, but all his books are good if you want to check them out.
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Whoever said getting up in the morning need be miserable and glum. This book has got me rocking my mornings. I found that my first few hours in the morning before the rest of the world gets up can be the most productive hours of my day. I guarantee if you give this ago you'll be surprised at how much you'll love the mornings.
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Believe it or not, but I had an idea to make a book similar to this in my mid-twenties before this book come out. I suppose it was the divine trying to get someone to write it and I'm glad it was these guys. This book details the struggles that real successful people went through to get to where they are today. The stories are inspiring and will show you that no road to success is as smooth as it seems from the outside looking in.
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This book is from the same author of Think And Grow Rich, and it will blow your mind at some of the things he mentions. This book was well ahead of its time but didn't get released till Napoleon Hill died. I think Hill was worried about the potential backlash because of some of the statements and ideas laid out in this book. Some of the things he talks about will probably leave you wondering how he could even know what he knew in his day and age.
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For some reason, this is a super hard book to get hold of, and that might be why it's one of the most expensive books on this list. Bob Proctor is up there with Joe Dispenzer as one of my favorite authors. He usually does seminars, but his books are great too. Bob Proctor is someone who lives and breaths the principles in Think And Grow Rich, and his own success will show you that. This book is a classic that the average self-help reader may not have heard of. Definitely worth checking out (if you can get a copy for a reasonable price).
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Don't think you have something of value to offer the world? Think again! Expert secrets proves that everyone has some kind of knowledge that can be packaged and sold to people who want it. If Russell Brunson can make money selling a DVD on how to make a spud gun then anyone can sell their knowledge.
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Just one of the lessons I learned in this book has made such a positive impact in my life and no doubt more people respect me for it. It was such a simple lesson as well which we're ALL guilty of not following in our lives when we meet people. Give this a read if you want to be liked and respected by others.
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I'm sure you've heard of The Secret, who couldn't? It swept across the world like wildfire when it was released. Oprah Winfrey and countless other successful people swear by it and for good reason. This stuff works. Some people may think of The Law Of Attraction as some hokey pokey nonsense, but it's not, as many people will verify. That's what this book is about; it's inspiring stories that will BLOW YOU MIND from people who've successfully used the ideas from The Secret. Beware quite a few stories from this book brought a tear to my eye and they might for you as well.
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Such a unique book. If you want to get advice on how to become rich are you going to take advice from someone who is poor or someone who is rich? Obviously the later and this is what this book is about, a kid who grows up gets advice from his poor dad and advice from his rich friend's dad. You might notice similarities from what you've been taught growing up. This book is for anyone looking to take control of their financial future.
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This book is relatively short, but I found it to be jam-packed which some great wisdom. Deepak gives you a lesson from every letter of the alphabet from A right through to z. It's a personal development book on the more spiritual side of things.
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I've just gone through this book for the third time as of writing this. He was featured in the Secret, and that's where I first heard of him. This book is about finding your “Inner Vision” of your life purpose. You'll be able to get in tune with what you truly want to do with your life rather than what you think you should be doing. I find the words carry such a peaceful and profound teaching that I still enjoy and learn more from each time I read it. Highly recommended for the people who want more than just material success.
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I've always been a firm believer in the benefits of meditation. I also used to think it was something only spiritual Yogi hippies did which made me a little embarrassed to admit I meditated. However, Russell Simmons (the founder of Def Jam Records) made meditation seem cool and explained it in a way that most people will then understand the benefits of meditation. He was like me, a bit of a wild one and after meditating he has peace and happiness in his life. I recommend meditation to anyone as a way to bring peace and harmony to your mind and your life. If you don't meditate then read this book and you might see why it's worth doing.
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This book goes well with the other I mentioned “Three Feet From Gold”. Seth shows why so many people could have been successful if they had just kept going past “The Dip.” Most new ventures start of going well then at some point they inevitably hit a rough patch called “The Dip.” This is the point most people give up and this is why you must keep going stronger than ever. You may be very close to getting over that dip. If you give up te easily then this book may be for you.
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Neally all our actions and behaviors are derived from our subconscious mind. Joseph Murphy shows us how to unlock the potential that our subconscious has to offer. This book offers plenty of techniques to take control of your subconscious and get it working for you, not against you. Packed with plenty of case studies you'll be inspired to take action on what you discover in this excellent book.
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How could I not mention this book by the king of personal development Tony Robbins? This is a modern-day self-help classic that was one of the first I read. Tony Robbins is a peak performance coach to the stars and he knows how to get the most out of people. If you're new to self-help books, then Awaken The Giant Within is a must to get your feet wet. I recommend the audiobook for this one as Tony himself reads it, and he's so much fun to listen to.
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There You Go!
My 21 favorite personal development books that changed my life and can do the same for you.
If you feel there's a book I should put in this list then let me know in the comments.
Also if there are any hidden gems that you think I might not have read yet then let me know as I'm always looking for good books to read 
There are so many more books I could have added to this list that have helped shape who I am today but I'd be writing this list all day.
These 21 books will give you plenty to choose from.
Good luck and chat soon!
The post 21 Must Read Self Help Books That Will Change Your Life appeared first on It's Alan Young.
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