For guidance on how to manage and strategize your business more effectively, consider looking at the Steps of an Affordable Liquidation Process. This can help you understand how to handle your business and its finances in a more streamlined manner.

What if I Don’t Have Money for an Email Service?

I really like Mailchimp (referral link) for this reason. You can get up to 2,000 subscribers free before you begin paying for your newsletter service. This gives you some time to build up your email list and leverage that into paid revenue through eBooks, courses, webinars, and so on.

Starting Your Free Email Newsletter Account

Go to Mailchimp.com and click the Sign up Free orange button. It will ask for your email address (they verify this so don’t cheat), your desired username, and your desired password. Then create your account.

After verification, login. You’ll want to fill in your profile information, including a mailing address (required for spam laws). I use a UPS box (not P.O. box) for my business address and it looks like a street address but meets all the legal requirements for my newsletter purposes.

Creating a Free Newsletter List For Your Blog

Once you’ve completed your mailchimp profile, click on Lists in the top menu bar. You will see a list of your current lists (none) with a “Create List” button on the right hand side. Click Create List. This is where you will set the default information for your list. See the screenshot below.

1. This list name is PUBLICLY VISIBLE. So don’t name it something that will embarrass you later. I’ve seen this happen. Seriously.
2. Default from email. This is nice if you have more than one website and more than one email. Be sure your “business email” or “blog email” address is in this space instead of your personal email address.
3. Default from name. This appears as the sender in people’s email lists. Do you want your blog emails coming from your personal name? Your blog name? Personalize each one for each email list. I have one list called “Self-Publishing Help” and another that is “Untrained Housewife“. Being able to have each list unique to the audience is important. Take advantage of this feature wisely.
4. PLEASE personalize this. And don’t say something like “You signed up on my blog”. Say something like “Weekly tips for intentional and self-sufficient living.” or “Making the most of every blog post to maximize profitability.” Whatever the premise or message is of your blog overall, that mission should be communicated here.

So now you’ve created your list. You should come to a Manage Subscriber screen. In that screen you’ll see a link to “Create a Signup Form.” Click That.

Creating Your Sign-Up Form and Getting it On Your Blog

There are a couple different ways to quickly get the signup on your blog that doesn’t require any plugins or coding. Those are more advanced options I will discuss later. These two methods can be done simply by any blogger who knows how to add a link or create a post.

Option 1 – A General Form You Link To

You easiest option to get started is to create a sign up form in the General Forms section. General forms is your top option – look to the far right and click “Select”.

Use the build your form interface to create the form you want. I recommend sticking with a minimum of information. At the least you need their email address. Each field you add beyond that will minimize subscribers so I don’t recommend asking for a ton of information. Get their first name and email address and that’s enough for a great start.

Add a personalized message where it says “click to add message” so you can be sure you are encouraging people to subscribe. Remind them of the benefits of being part of your newsletter – I have a whole lesson dedicated to this in Kick Your Blog in the Butt because it’s so important for bloggers to consider.

Click the “design it” tab to change the colors and fonts to better match your website design.

That eep url above the forms is a direct link to Mailchimp’s automatically generated sign up form. You can send people there from your social email icons on your blog’s sidebar, in social shares, or even in posts where you say “for more tips about recipes subscribe to the free newsletter.” at the end of your posts and link to the sign-up form. That link can be given out anywhere for people to subscribe to your blog.

Option 2 – Embeddable Form to Add to Your Blog 

Click on Sign Up Forms in the second-level menu bar. (Not the top main menu bar but the secondary menu bar just above where you’ve been working.) You will be back at the Sign Up Form options screen you were at before. Now instead of click the top one, you’ll click the Select button from the second option, Embeddable Forms.

I tend to like Classic or Streamline – use your own discretion here for what will fit your blog’s style. Customize the colors as before. Add your snazzy subscribe message. When you get your (hopefully short and simple) form done, here comes the tricky part. Ready? It won’t hurt I promise.

Under the form you’ve been editing is a section that says “Copy/Paste onto your site” with a bunch of funky html code. That is going to go into your blog.

Not log into your website and create a page for Newsletters. Click over to the Text tab of your post (some blogs call this the HTML or Source tab). Now copy the code from the Mailchimp website and put it into the Text (HTML/Source) section and then SAVE your page. Now, preview it and you should be able to see your beautiful form you just created.

Now add your Newsletter page to your menu bar, sidebar, etc. and people can begin subscribing to your newsletter! If you need more tips and tricks to amplify your blog, feel free to check out the Best Blogging Resources out there.

Hurray! You officially have an email list!

First you’ll want to go to Google Analytics Standard website and sign in. If you have a gmail account already use that. If you don’t, you’ll need to create a gmail account.

Once you get all signed up and are in Google Analytics you’ll want to make your way to the Settings > Admin area. I have several properties linked to this Google Analytics profile but you can see in this dropdown menu how I can “Create a New Property”. That’s where you’ll put your website.

Now you’ll come to the screen where you will put your new website’s information. In this case I’m making a site for my local homeschool group so I put “Transformers Homeschool” as the site name (description that appears in the list) and then put the website URL in the next area. Choose the general category of the type of site (in this case Education) and you’re good!

Once you click that “Get Tracking ID” blue button the crazy weird tech stuff happens. You come to the property’s tracking page with all the overwhelming scripty-ness.

Now you can handle this a few ways.

1. Install it Directly into WordPress.

With some themes this is the way you might have to go if you’re maxed out on plugins and your theme doesn’t have a script section to make it easy (See #3), you can install it directly. I do not recommend this method if other methods are available. Having said that, here’s what you do.

Click on Appearance > Editor and then select Header (header.php).

Add the code right after the <head> tag and then update the file. TADA! You will see Google Analytics information appear in the next 24 hours or so.

2. Use a Nifty GA Plugin

Sometimes plugins are well worth using. This is one of those occasions when, if you need more than the very basics, a plugin can save you a ton of time and energy. If you just need to install Google Analytics and don’t need a ton of additional features, you might consider this Google Analytics plugin that simply puts the right code in the right place for you so you don’t have to edit the code of your site. It won’t slow your site down much at all.

If you want a more robust Google Analytics plugin that has more features, try the Google Analytics by Yoast plugin. I use this on Untrained Housewife, for example, so that I can track analytics by the author variable (to see total page views by author), by category variable, and by year variable. This is really helpful for me with the large collaborative site that has multiple users and has been around for a long time. You may or may not need these features.

3. Theme Settings

This is my preferred way to install Google Analytics since it doesn’t require an additional plugin or editing the theme files directly. Some premium themes make it super simple for you to add these custom scripts. This is one of the things I love about Genesis themes because I can go directly to the theme’s settings area. In this case Genesis > Theme Settings. There’s a section for scripts and you can add Header Scripts or Footer Scripts as needed.

This is super easy because you just paste the code in the “Header Scripts” section and then save it. Boom done. That’s my favorite way but as I said it’s usually the premium themes that offer this feature compared to the free themes.

And that’s it! Once you’ve installed the code Google will be able to track traffic and activity on your website. And that information will begin to appear very soon.

Have you ever been to a conference and listened to someone tell you about their success story, but they never really gave you the action items you needed to help you move yourself forward?

Maybe you know that you could be doing a better job with your blog, but are overwhelmed.

Are you unsure where to start to make your blog better?

This is a year-long series of lessons with focused challenges that will have you taking your blog to the next level in each area. Each week I will issue you a challenge to complete, with detailed instructions on how to do it. And if you do these challenges, your blog will grow.

Kirsten and I will highlight four, highly actionable ways to boost your profitability as a writer, blogger, or creative in ways that don’t rely purely on page views and PR reps paying you for one-time posts. The workshop will be held live at 8pm Friday, Nov 27th (Central Standard Time) and of course we’ll have replays available for a limited time. You can sign up for the free workshop here or learn more details at CreativeProfitability.com.

Highlights of what we’ll be teaching –

• How books can transform your content from casual readers into revenue month after month.
• Why an email list can be your biggest tool – and how to actually MAKE IT WORK, including how to craft a professional response to an email.
• How to develop courses and KNOW that they are what your audience wants to learn.
• How to get paid (yes, paid) to promote your books and products.
• Why we don’t believe creatives have to be “starving artists” but can be successful, scrappy entrepreneurs at the same time.

And so much more. We’ll be sharing an exclusive bundle opportunity with you that is super limited time so you won’t want to miss signing up for this great workshop. The interview I did with Kirsten just touched on ONE of the four primary elements we will be covering. I hope you’ll join us and register for the free training today.

A friend made a joking comment mentioning how she didn’t know where I found the time – she barely got a chance to shower every day. And I jokingly said that I didn’t shower every day but I DID write every day.

And that was the end of the exchange, but I thought about it a lot after that little Facebook quip. It’s actually true.

There are two kinds of writers. There are someday writers who say they want to write but their level of excuse-making is higher than their resolve or desire to be a writer. Then there are the writers. The writers who write.

Writers who give up showering time to put pen to paper. Writers who buy steno pads in bulk at Sam’s Club so they always have one handy whenever one is needed. Writers who feed their creative souls so their muse has something to say. Writers who write even on the days when she’s silent and the feel like babbling idiots.

I’m not a professional shower-taker. I’m a professional writer. So hell or high-water I write.

Right?

It’s a phrase I used once on Twitter when I was chatting with Simon Salt (@incslinger) after BlissDom. He had mentioned staying connected more and I replied, “There’s a balance there in staying connected without getting sucked into the procrastination quagmire.”

That phrase has been mulling around in my head and my journal for a few weeks. It’s easy to get sucked into this place of feeling stuck and really lose all our momentum. Don’t let yourself get sucked under by this quicksand of immobility – here are some tips to overcome procrastination’s quagmire like a pro!

Lay Still for a Moment

The worst thing you can do is thrash around. Procrastination can suck you in because you find yourself thrashing about in futile busywork. (Click to Tweet)

Instead, calm yourself and focus your energy on the one, needful thing. It’s ok to turn off the computer, close down all the tabs, lock yourself in a quiet place and just STOP. Be still. As Jon Acuff says – give your good ideas time to catch up to you.

Drop The Excess Baggage

Are you overburdened? If you are free from extra burdens that will needlessly weigh you down you will have a much better chance of breaking free and resuming your forward movement. (Click to Tweet) I’m going through this right now with a desperate sense of needing to prune, prune, prune.

Get Traction Through Flexibility

Did you know that hard, inflexible soled shoes like workboots are bad for getting out of quicksand? The hard surface creates suction that holds you in place. While in the physical sense, the flexibility allows you a better chance to gain traction under your feet, the same can be true emotionally as well.

Sometimes you lose momentum on a project because your inflexible thinking, adherence to THE PLAN above common sense and proactive thinking, creates such a drag on you it’s impossible to finish. Try looking at the situation from a new perspective and be open to a flexibility that you may have overlooked before.

Small But Intentional Movements

While thrashing wildly will cause the sand to further liquefy, a small circular movement of the legs will help create space around them so you can break free of the quagmire. The key is to make the motions small and intentional. (Click to Tweet)

Think small when you are overwhelmed to the point of immobile. What is the next ONE thing I need to do. Carefully select not a huge leap, but small, tiny step. The very next motion you can make.

Then with careful intention, do. that. one. thing.

There. Already your movement is greater, your progress more sure. Make another small, intentional movement. And another.

Do you feel that? It’s called progress. You are awesome.