Another day, another great meeting. This time with a mortgage protection company co-owner. I learnt that he and his two partners and have certainly managed their work / life balance. Well done!

We talked about many things but one area of our conversation interested me particularly. And that is the need for small business owners to feel supported. I hasten to add that I’m not breaking any confidentialities here nor am I referring to any business in particular but generically, I was reminded that running a small business can, at times, feel very lonely.

Over this past year I have spoken to many small business owners, Everyone I have talked to is extremely hard working. Again, without referring to anyone’s conversation with me, my thoughts are that small business owners often feel the need to have a facade of coping that faces the world.

Too often, coping is the opposite of what is felt. Business owners needs are not always being met.

The Need For Someone To Talk To

I’ve seen and experienced first hand the peaks and troughs of business ownership. Luckily, I have had the privilege to attend excellent round table meetings where business owners from all walks gathered together and discussed, often very frankly, their issues and concerns. Together, we would help find solutions.

Having participated in around 9 years of these monthly meetings, listening to small business owners from a multitude of businesses, my experience and knowledge has grown. Add in my own first hand experience of running a business and I have a much to fall back on.

It’s a rare position to be in, to be witness to problems and solutions (and see them working) over such an extensive period of time.

My Mentoring Services

I am now passing on all this business knowledge learnt and experienced. My mentoring approach enables a safe place where people can discuss their business concerns. I help business owners prioritise and build their business goals, without judgement and within their capabilities, providing advice on “how” and “why” when current knowledge is lacking.

My mentoring would also apply to discussing different approaches to expand opportunities for growing a pipeline of ready clients, the keystone for all small business. This consultancy could work alongside me actually assisting with writing content and running Google Ads.

So far, in all the one-to-one meetings I have had, I see and feel excitement of the future. It’s great to see small business owners enthused about what they can do, how to do it and why it is going to make a big difference to them.

If you feel that a conversation in the first instance might be just what you need to help you, then feel free to contact me.

The post Business Owners Needs: Someone To Talk To appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

Two days into the week and already I have had some interesting conversations with equally interesting people, mainly helping them to be their authentic self in business.

During those conversations, I’ve offered advice on how to project each individual forwardin the noise of many, by using both time tested and innovative strategies.

What has come to light most, are the commonalities between all small business owners and it’s been a privilege to offer a perspective of growth together with how to make that happen.

A heuristic approach

My heuristic approach to business growth means that there isn’t a one-size fits all approach. Every business owner can only grow at the speed they feel able to move at. Through conversation, I helped identify how to make those moves, what to do first and plan a personalised path forward.

There is not one small business owner I have spoken to who is not driven to improve their business and lifestyle. Already, I have connected to like minded people together to build projects together.

I’ve noticed that the offer of myself as a mentor has been warmly greeted. I always thought that this would be helpful but this is certainly something I want to provide going forward: bespoke packages of mentoring to ensure that goals are met and that plans stay on track can only be beneficial. With over 17 years of business growth experience, there is much knowledge and experience to fall back on.

The power of writing

I have reminded those I have met that the power of the written word still stands. I reinforced the point that every written article acts as another channel of communication to their perfect clients. But to be able to do this whilst being your authentic self is so powerful. One article a week can lead to 52 different channels over a year and that’s a point that needs to be made. Articles can also be repurposed for social media and most importantly, by being retained on privately owned websites, they as business owners remain owners of that content. I do provide a written content service and for my clients to date, this has been the single most successful strategy in attracting their perfect clients.

Using the saying “you have to spend some to get some”, Google Ads do work and are successful in bringing in clients if they are set up correctly. With many years experience running large budgets, I am well equipped to help my clients. The offer of assistance in this area was also warmly appreciated.

There is no singular route to success but by being your authentic self in business helps to make it easier to achieve. It is always an intricate interplay of tested strategies, innovative approaches and leveraging available tools that lead to holistic business growth. Oh, and a good coffee.

Contact me

If you would like to find out how I work and how I could help you, please contact me today. Let’s have a conversation, which is obviously free, and then go from there. It could be just what you need.

The post Being Your Authentic Self in Business appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

With 16 years of experience of building many a healthcare website, design in favour of the user is a factor that many ignore. Your website should not be written to impress your colleagues but to inform and endear yourself to future patients/clients.  These points below are those that are vital for any functioning website, remembering that a website needs to evolve and to be accessible. It should never written and then forgotten expecting Google to work some magic to get you found. Your website should be a conduit between yourself and others and therefore it needs to work for you, literally, and to be looked after regularly.

1. Always have a responsive design for a healthcare website

In August 2022, over 53% of all users accessed websites using their mobile phone. Now more than ever, it is important that all websites are responsive, looking good on mobile as well as on a desktop (or laptop). A responsive website adapts the text and content to suit the screen so hopefully, you should be reading this easily as my website is a responsive design. I cleared it up so that it is a simpler interface and so that there are easier mechanisms for people to contact me compared to the older cluttered design

There are some interesting data surrounding the look of a website. Increasingly, around 85% of users expect a website to look excellent on their mobile device and 94% say that they trust a website that looks good. 

I have found all my website themes, that come readily responsive, in themeforest.com. It is an excellent resource for any website creator as there is also support that comes with the themes along with demo websites so that you can see, very quickly, how a website can look. All that is required then is to change it to suit your needs. This reduces the time to completion dramatically.

2. Ensure that your website loads quickly

I’m not sure about you but if I find a website that doesn’t load within a couple of seconds, I move on and find another. This movement is referred to as the bounce rate. The probability of bounce occurring increases by 32% as the page load time slows from 1 second to 3 seconds.

Or putting it another way, for every 500 millisecond (ms) delay in speed, your site will experience a 20% traffic loss whereas a 100 ms delay leads to only a 1% speed loss. 

There are various ways that you can speed up the “load” time of your site using Google. For example, Page Speed Insights is very informative and lets you know where your website needs speeding up and how to do it. Also, by using plugins such as w3cache (for those sites built on wordpress) can make a big improvement and they come with a premium service to make speeding up your site much simpler. 

Hosting helps enormously. I have always used Siteground as their uptime is 99.9% and their servers enable fast loading times. They have an easy to transfer hosting service plus they are geared towards wordpress. Having tried many other hosting sites before, I have had no difficulties with them.

Additionally, you could go straight to a CDN company such as Bunny. These work by adding  caches of your sites around the world on regionally distributed servers so that users get a very quick image of your website whilst the rest of it loads behind the image. One of the most quickest methods I have used on a healthcare website was the combination of plugins (such as the W3cache plugin) plus a CDN network.

3. A healthcare website needs a clean and uncluttered look

A good healthcare website design should be easy to work around. Simple to read text makes the site much easier to scan as this is what 79% of people do whereas only 16% read every word. Text split up with many headings highlighting what the article is trying to convey will enable the skim readers to access what they need quickly.

Clear text and a simple design also makes the information more accessible. A minimalist look is certainly one that I would always advocate, as I feel that it gives a timeless quality where the design of the website does not seem to age. One such theme is Avada

4. Ensure that the website is user orientated

Ideally, a website page provides all the information that a visitor needs – it becomes the end of the journey for them as they finally find the solution to their problem. But more than this, once on a page, the user needs to be able to scroll through the page and find additional information quickly. 

There is software that can identify how this journey is evolving for the user. Crazyegg and hotjar are two highly reputable heat map software programmes that enable you, as the owner of a page, to see exactly how a user interacts with a page…where a user clicks and what interests them the most. Having obtained that valuable intel, adjustments can be made to ensure that the users experience matches their expectations.

Google analytics provides a different picture and can follow the flow of a user through your website which in itself is educational but it doesn’t show the detail that the heat map software can.

5. Client testimonials

These should really have come first in my list as I think they are so important. However, as this article as about healthcare website building, please ensure that you corporate genuine testimonials in many places throughout the site. Be incorporating them into pages, it helps visitors realise that you, the website owner, can really what what your website is advocating.

Testimonials are worth their weight in gold except the ones that are given when there has been no real experience! I am a much greater fan of obtaining feedback when the user really has something to talk about. For many years I used Feefo as I felt that their ability to tailor messages to people after receipt of goods and services was easier than their rival feedback companies. Feefo also have the Platinum award which provides extras kudos for companies that are successful as it is only given if a high percentage of feedback sought, is given. All that is required is to receive a high level of responses to feedback requests. If your service is good, then there should be no problem at all.

Additionally, Google reviews are also invaluable as they show up as stars on Google listings. Feefo replies do too but a certain threshold is required before they can be seen.

6. Easy to find contact information

This goes without saying that anyone should be able to contact you easily through a webpage. There should be no insistence on your part that they jump through a series of hoops in order to send you an email or ring you.

I aim to have a large obvious area on every page where someone can make contact. This is not a sign-up for emails but just so they can contact you. If its easy to make that contact and then you respond as quickly as possible, you will find that most of your email replies start with “thank you for replying so promptly”. You are then in a winning situation with your potential client.

It is not rocket science to understand that communication is key. If you fail to provide the information that is needed and quickly, your potential client will go elsewhere.

7. Provide a booking system

There are many booking systems available but the one that won, hands down over many others, was Acuity. To find this out, I used another for many years. This was clunky and difficult and looked old fashioned but at the time, it was the only one that did most of what I wanted to incorporate.

A few years passed and I then had a client who wanted specific things from the booking system including the ability to pay a deposit. Off I went and tested several for a month, all at the same time and Acuity was the winner. it was flexible, enabling several clinics to be run by different people.  Acuity not only managed this but also was a dream to use and had a clean, modern interface. 

I had many comments from patients saying that it was so much easier with the new booking system and the fact that so many people then booked via this system rather than ringing up to book, only proved that the booking system really had been successful.

If you do not have a booking system on your website, I strongly advise you to work out how you can add one. Having online booking for procedures on set days was a game changer for the clinics that implemented them.

8. Provide simple explanations

The average reading age in the UK is 9, together with less focus than ever before, it is important that the page is straightforward to read, explaining information simply. Amazon are the Masters in this. Amazon are constantly split testing their pages to ensure that navigation is a simple as possible and that the user can move around the website easily. If you need to sell items via your website, then Shopify is a very straightforward, professional system and makes the purchase process simple, quick and easy.

9. An easy follow up system

In general marketing, the fortune is made in following up prospects. In the medical and healthcare world, this is not always easy to do. It would not be ethical to persuade or push people into making a decision. 

However, it is possible to keep people informed though and there are carious email systems that you can choose to do this.  One example is Convert Kit, a very straightforward email system where you can collate the emails of people who have made enquiries so that they can all receive an email at the same time, taking minutes, not hours. 

By contacting them and keeping them informed, you may well prompt questions from them which could lead to bookings. Those individuals reading the emails will gather more information over time and make a more informed decision.

10. Human kindness is pivotal in a healthcare website

Wherever possible I write websites from the perspective of the user not the giver. Having many years of nursing / medical research / public health / epidemiology experience and then 16 years of running a private practice, patients need to know that they are being spoken to kindly and listened to so the information they read needs to relate to them not to other doctors or healthcare practitioners.

Answer their questions directly, simply and kindly. Illustrate what you are trying to say and more importantly, reassure them with kindness and expertise and your practice will grow.

If you feel that I can help guide you or create for you a website to meet the needs of your potential patients, then please contact me today to start the conversation.

The post 10 Tips on Building A Successful Healthcare Website appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

Simple strategies to attract more readers on your posts.

One of the key issues when starting a blog or when trying to build an online reputation, is the effort required to be found, seen, read and appreciated. It is only consistent hard work that can attract more readers. But is that really what is really required. What about making things easy to support regular hard work? Often, the process to start building an online profile comes side by side with another job or income producing activity so time is scarce. So wouldn’t the better way to be to focus on good content and then use help to maximise the likelihood that your content will be seen regularly and by others.

Unless you are writing consistent time-limited posts that require prompt action, say in the case of an affiliate marketing competition, then content can be assumed to be evergreen. This means that you have a constant means to attract more readers. Once out there on the big wide web, it can be found any time subsequently after it is posted. This evergreen content is one of the cornerstones of an online business especially if your content has links to what you are selling or promoting. After all, the more links you have online, the greater your chance of having a successful business.

Internal linking to attract more readers

Internal linking is often misunderstood: it is a requirement for the Googlebots to move around your site and understand it more. If there is no internal link structure then Google is limited by how it can support your site with respect to rewards in ranking.

Equally, when a visitor lands on your page or post, if there are no internal links then it is difficult for that visitor to find more of your content. This is especially true on mobile. It is all the more important because instead of the large menu found at the top of most sites, the menu is reduced to three lines. If those are missed, then the reader can easily move on.

I mentioned Dwell time recently, and to improve Dwell time, internal links will lead the reader to more of your content and “dwell” a time. This metric will be recorded by Google as a positive and help improve your ranking subsequently.

So, it is worth going through all your content and seeing if there are any commonalities or helpful links that can be made between pages and posts, that will attract more readers. You could also add purpose made links at the end of your article to other texts that could help your reader.

Remember that the longer someone spends time on your site, the greater they will build up a positive impression of you and hopefully, “buy” into you if that is your goal.

Missinglettr: smart software

I purchased this on a whim a year ago and have used it very intermittently since then, stupidly. I forgot how brilliant it was at projecting my content in front of my readers, watchers, lurkers and followers. It is the most amazing bit of software. With my new year plans, I have decided to use it once again and since doing so, have had the most pleasing, genuine results (I have seen my own posts, on my own profiles having been pushed out by this software. They looked genuine to me).

This is how it works. It is linked to your blog and picks up details of new posts when they are published. It then plans a 365 day strategy to post your content to up to 25 social profiles ( I have an agency membership) but the blogger membership still enables 3 social profiles. There is another membership in between with similar functionality to the agency.

Missinglettr creates posts for several times throughout the 365 days which can be adjusted. Hashtags and images can be chosen too. Suggestions are given (these are often taken from the original post). After a few minutes of alterations, the content is ready to a attract more readers. Missinglettr then does the rest, posts with hashtags to your profiles regularly.

Interestingly, this is a key component of marketing: to post content regularly but so few people know that this is necessary, have the confidence to or know how to do this easily. As a minimum, new content should be shared several times in the first week, and then decreasingly after that, over a year. Do you do this? If not, Missinglettr might be just what you need. Set it and forget it software.

Pinterest images for picture readers

I have started including an image for Pinterest in each new blog post. I have noticed that when I share it, the Pinterest image is shared more often than not. I find this very interesting.

I haven’t really focussed on Pinterest much but having had these recent results, I am going to start ensuring that a Pinterest image appears on every post plus additional Pinterest images are supplied. For not doing anything, I am quite pleased. Obviously, there is a way to go but I feel enthused to continue and make Pinterest work for me.

For clients, I have used Tailwind to post on Pinterest. Tailwind is one of the few apps that Pinterest allows so it is possible to schedule many posts for every day if you wish. Pinterest, being a visual platform, really does rely on many images being posted. I plan to post more about Pinterest soon.

Facebook groups

How many groups on Facebook are you a member of? Do they suit your purpose? This is a question I often ask myself so I frequently conduct an audit to ensure that I only focus on those that deliver value and where I can offer help.

I started an Accountability For Bloggers group as I know how difficult it is to regularly post blogs, find readers and learn at the same time. I wanted it to be a group where people were not afraid to share their posts but also, more importantly, where people could spend time on other blogs and understand the importance of encouraging the reader to stay and wanting to stay to read.

There are, of course, other groups that are similar but not the same. When the opportunity is invited via blog promotion threads, I post my latest blog and always comment on the posts I read. I do try and stay a while on the blog so that my “read” counts.

Being able to share blog posts in groups is so important, especially, if the members are all trying to increase their readership. Just follow the admin rules, join mine too, and I will help guide you with constructive help.

Learn:

• well chosen software like Missinglettr can help considerably to increase readers
• why improving your internal linking leads the reader to read more and how this helps your Google ranking.
• how Facebook groups can help you get more readers

There are affiliate links in this post. If you click them and purchase, I might earn some commission. I only ever recommend what I have purchased myself and what I find useful. There is no point others

The post Attract More Readers: 4 Simple Ways For Bloggers appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

Siteground hosts wordpress websites. Many online advocated their hosting as one of the fastest – a key issue for me. There are certainly other hosting companies that might be faster but their cost is significantly higher than I was already paying. As one of the reasons for switching my hosting was to reduce costs (as well as increase the load time of my sites), they therefore had everything I wanted: reduced fees and much higher loading speeds.

Google uses loading speed as a ranking factor, and as I run an agency, I needed to have some high quality, fast hosting for my wordpress websites. I needed to have faster speed times and I was also looking for a cheaper option – well, who isn’t?

First website moved over for free

My first website was transferred over for free but then I saw that they charged around £24 per site after that. As I have around 20 sites, after doing the calculations, I needed to work out another way to move them.

There was some urgency so initially, those websites that I felt were being affected by rank (by their slow loading time), I had moved over by my developer. But he also needed paying on a per site basis.

For the remainder, I went back to Siteground and found that they had an installer. Fantastic!  Except, I could never get it to work. Long story short, after several months of procrastination and waiting for the Siteground installer to start working (which it never did), I resolved to work out how to transfer the remaining sites myself.

In all, I have transferred 14 sites successfully using this method. I’ve decided to write a blog post about it because each article I found prior to working this method out, seemed to miss a vital piece of information out. I also spent days (literally) hanging onto LiveChat trying to work out what I did wrong. This really is a step by step process to make your life easier. 

My Step By Step Method To Host My Websites On Siteground

So, to begin.

I am assuming that you have moved your first wordpress site over to siteground to make use of their free transfer offer. If you haven’t, skip reading this and go and get them to do it for you

So to transfer a website to Siteground, here is what you need to do (per site):

Go to the wordpress admin of the website you wish to move (domain.com/wp-admin) and check that everything is up to date. Check ALL of the following:

• the version of wordpress – needs to be the most up to date,
• check your theme and that it is up to date
• check all the plugins.

You will thank me because if there is an issue, it is safer and straightforward to rectify now rather than having a broken theme uploaded to your new siteground hosting.

Remember pHp

I also go to the extend or cpanel of my current hosting and check that the version of pHp that is running suits the website. If you don’t understand what this is or why it is important, I’m afraid I can’t tell you but I do know certain things, it needs to be at least 7.0 or 7.2 is possible (if not more) – as high a figure as possible. Once you update, just refresh the admin page of your website and then view the website too to make sure that it all looks as it should. 

(Note: if you are concerned about this, ask for livechat help with your current hosting company just to check that by upgrading the pHp, you are not doing any harm. They might even upgrade it for you.)

At the top of your admin screen, you will see how many things need to be updated. I had wordpress, plugins and themes to update after I upgraded the version of php from 5.6 to 7.2. Sometimes, it is better to upgrade in stages rather than trying to be clever and do massive upgrades all at once. Many a wordpress site has been wrecked by doing this. Focus on making small steps over a longer period of time with a few cups of coffee to pass the time rather than rushing!

Finally, check that the site looks as it should and then go to plugins in admin (via the Dashboard).

Add All In One Migration Plugin

Go to Add New (plugin) and search for All In One Migration. In the main, just this plugin should be fine. There is a size restriction to the size of file that can be imported so it is wise to take a note of the size of the file that it creates in the next step.

Install and activate All In One Migration. Click Export and then select File. 

A big green button announces when it has exported AND the size of the file. Less than 128mb will be fine with this plugin alone. If your site is big then there is a workaround.

Once downloaded, check that you have a .wpress file. If so, all great. Click close.

Find the SQL Database

Move to your CURRENT hosting. I had an extend panel and within this, I needed to find my SQL database for this website.

Under Manage SQL, there is one database. This is what I need. I make a note of its name and password, just in case, and then I click “Backup” and a copy of it is downloaded on my computer.

If you go to your downloads, you should now have a file with the same name as your database and a .sql suffix, possibly a .sql.txt suffix. Either are fine.

Ready To Move Over To Siteground

Now you are ready to transfer your website to Siteground. So go to your Siteground hosting. You will need the “My Accounts” tab, and click the red button “Go to cpanel”.

In the Domains section, click “Addon Domains”. In the new domain box, add the name of the domain you want to move to Siteground (the one whose database and files you have just exported).

As you add the domain, some of the fields will be populated by the system. Don’t worry too much about these. Do chose a password and keep it safe. Click add domain.

You will then see it listed.

Softaculous in Siteground

Click the red “cpanel” button in the top right corner to return to the main cpanel screen. In the Autoinstallers section, click Softaculous. Click on WordPress and make sure that you are in the blue install page.

Choose http:// first (its easier than transferring https:// as this is a whole other step – keep things simple) and then select the name of the domain you wish to transfer over. Complete the fields below, trying to match the information that you added on your site when you first set it up.

I always use the username and password that I am using to access wp-admin here. Scroll down and click install and wordpress will be added to your domain in siteground.

Feeling prepared to transfer your site to Siteground?

So, now you should have your old site prepped and ready to move. You would also have two files,

• one a database (sql) file and
• another which is the backup of your website (.wpress file).

Here in Siteground, you now have a “home” for those files to be moved to and a script (wordpress) to enable the files to be accepted.

All good.

Now, return to cpanel in Siteground via the red ”cp” top right of the page and you will find yourself back in the main screen of cpanel.

Scroll down to “Databases” and you will find “MySQLDatabase Wizard” button. Click on this and you will be asked to create a database. I try and use an abbreviation of the website (that I am transferring) here as this will be part of that website here on Siteground.

Make a note of this. It’s important.

The very next screen will ask you for a username. Again, I add my initials with the abbreviation I have just created for the database name. It will help you later.

Make a note of this too. It’s very important.

Finally, choose a password. And make a note of it! 

Click create user.

You will be taken to the next screen that asks you for privileges. Click “All privileges”.

Click “cpanel Home”.

Avoid “Error Establishing Database”

Scroll back down to MySQLDatabases and scroll down the page to “Add a User to a Database”. You have already done this but what you are doing there is linking your username to the database. For some reason, if this step is not completed, your website will have an “Error establishing database connection” when you transfer it over. Best avoided

So click the user box and select the user name for this website’s database. Ensure that your database for this website is selected and then click Add. Then another Priviliges screen appears, click ‘Make Changes”. A lovely green notice should appear saying you have successfully granted privileges.

So now that there is a place for the database, let’s add it! 

Add your database to Siteground

Click “cpanel Home”. In Databases, you now need phpMyAdmin. This is next to the wizard we used earlier. Click on phpMyAdmin.

On the left, you should have the database name of your website that you want to transfer over. Find it and double click on it. You should see a minus sign in the tiny left hand box.

Then click on Import. In the section called “File to import” you can choose your file. Click this and select the .sql or .sql.txt file of the database that you downloaded earlier. Click go, don’t change anything else on this page. This should work first time. If it doesn’t don’t panic, just ensure that you have selected the database name in the left column and selected the correct file in the Import section. You will receive a “Import has been successfully finished” message.

So now you have your database primed and ready to use.

Link it all up on Siteground

Next, we need to make sure that the correct pathway is being given to WordPress. This is done as follows. 

Go back to cpanel. Scroll down to File Manager. Click on this and check that the reference for your website is loading in the pop up box that appears – (look at Document Root and click on the arrows to locate your site). Once you have found it, click ‘Go’.

The next screen used to scare me until I understood very clearly exactly what I needed to do. 

So here we go.

Ignore the left column with the yellow folders. Look at the blue files listed and find wp-config.php. Click on it to select it and then go to Edit in the middle of the menu above. Again, a pop-up box appears and this should confirm the name of your website with wp-config.php at the end. Click cancel to close the box. If wp-config.php is present for your website, then this is correct and you next select “Edit”

You need the MySQL settings in the middle of the page. 

Referring back to the records of the database, username and password that you made before, add them all here in the correct places within the speech marks. Click save in the top right hand corner (tiny button).

Close that tab, and the one listing all the files too. 

Changing The NameServers

Now go to your domain provider, where you purchased your domain and go to the Manage area of that domain. You need to find the name servers area. In namecheap (which I use) there is a custom area for nameservers. Into the first two fields, you need to copy and paste the names of the nameservers. They are found on the cpanel page of Siteground, in the box called Account Information on the left hand side of the page.

Click save and note the time. It can take about half an hour for the nameservers to propogate. I go back to the wp-admin part of my site (that I am moving) and refresh the page every few minutes. 

And then suddenly, you have an new wordpress install page. It will take a few moments to upload your site, don’t worry.

Click your language of choice and continue.

Add your Site Title.

Now, for the username and password, I use those that I have always used for this website. So add them here along with the email address that you use for that account. And click Install.

The next screen is login, just click “Log In”. And again, and then you will be in a bare admin section of your website. Don’t panic! 

Back to All In One Migration Plugin

Go to plugins. Add All in One Migration just as before. Click Install now and then activate.

From the left hand men, scroll to All in One Migration and click Import.

Click import from file. Select the .wpress file by either clicking on it or drag it over to the Drop & Drag box. 

Import starts immediately. Click Proceed. Then click on Permalink settings. Then all should be loaded and you have you old website in its brand new location.

Well done. You will have successfully managed to transfer a website to siteground

Learn:

• how to move a website to Siteground hosting in small actionable steps
• learn a skill that you will not have to pay a developer

There are links within this post that if you click and make a financial transaction, I could benefit from that. I only talk about products that I have paid for and benefited from. For more information, please click here.

The post How To Transfer A Website to SiteGround: Made Easy appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

There are two ways of understanding the term “profitable blog topics” – either as terms to base a blog around or ideas for blog posts that will encourage people to buy or listen to what you have to say. Here I explore easy ways to identify both interpretations.

Profitable blog topics for a blog or website.

It is always easier to start by seeing what other people have done before you and whether they have tested the market for profit before you.

Every profitable area fits into one of three main areas:

• health
• weath
• relationships

If I take the first area, health, for example. Health encompasses so many different areas it can be overwhelming. I used to be a nurse so I can think of so many things! However, if I focus on diet as a health topic, then types of diet such as ketogenic, low carb, vegan, pescatarian are all possible areas to focus upon, some may even be potential profitable areas.

Why the need to consider profit? I am an entreprenuer at heart so I want to think about how I can help PLUS how I can create a business at the same time. Whilst the primary focus for me is always helping, I would like to see some rewards at some stage

To continue then with the diet scenario, if I then break diets down further to, for example, low carb diets for different groups of people, I can then think of groups such as young mothers, men who want a six pack stomach, post-menopausal women – if you were to search for these in any of the areas below and found any of the following:

• ebook,
• book,
• course,
• mini course,
• coaching
• membership scheme,

then you would have found some profitable blog topics. The reasoning being is that if there is a course, ebook etc targeted at that niche or group, then there are people interested enough to want to buy that product. If they are interested enough to buy, then they are seeking a solution to their problem. This also means that they will be interested in content discussing and helping them find solutions.

Sometimes though, it is easier to think a little more broadly to start with. I want to know if a niche by itself is profitable.

Once I have an idea, I then head over to the following sites to check to see if I can find any of the above signs of profit.

For ease, and to explain simply how this works, I am going to focus on the keyword term “low carb diets”.

Amazon

Amazon is a huge, powerful search engine so a very obvious place to start. Using the key term “low carb diet” in Books, I find the following suggestions:

• low carb diet books for weight loss
• low carb diet books for diabetics
• low carb diet for beginners
• low carb diet shakes
• low carb diet cookbook

And I could go on…. but already there are some ideas around which to base a blog or write a blog post. If I go to the first option above “low carb diet books for weight loss”, there are many books for sale.

Next I need to look at the first book and check its ranking on Amazon. Amazon has a ranking structure that indicates how popular niches are and whether a book is a bestseller or not. If the book has a rank of 150,000 or less and there are several books in this niche, then this is a market worth exploring further. B y scrolling down the page, I find this information:

This book ranks very highly in all books as well as ranking for #278 in Weight Control Nutrition. It indicates that it is in a niche that is popular and there is constant demand for it. If I look at the other books that also came up for ‘low carb diet books for weight loss’, there are similar rankings all indicating to me that this is a very popular niche.

Google

Next stop is Google search engine. By adding ‘Low carb diet’, 240,000,000 pages are returned. A very popular niche! But don’t panic. This is excellent news at this stage.

By retrying the term in the search bar with apostrophes around it “low carb diet” , 11,400,000 pages are returned: these reflect the phrase match term. It is still very popular which is still good. This means that there are this many pages that have this term mentioned with the words in this order i.e. a phrase.

If I then add on words such as “ebook”, “course”, “assistance” and always using the brackets, I get the following results:

• “low carb diet ebook” returns 41,400 pages
• “low carb diet course” returns 5,580
• “low card diet assistance” returns 5 pages.

It seems to me that people are using the above phrases to seek help. Over 41,000 pages mention a low carb diet ebook. There is obviously a demand for this. But these low numbers indicate to me that there is a opportunity for me to focus on this niche.

Whilst I am here on Google I make sure that I look out for paid ads. However, I see no paid ads for this search term. This does not mean that it won’t be a competitive market or that there will not be people willing to buy. Being overweight is an emotional problem as well as a health problem. If we think about the three key areas that I discussed above, that people buy in to (health, wealth and relationships), then ‘low carb diets’ for example could be exactly the help that someone needs as there is a chance that there will be overlaps between the three groups.

Here’s my thinking. If someone is overweight, it could be affecting their health firstly but also their relationships. Or it could be that their health is affected be their extra weight and this in turn means that they are no longer able to do their work. There could be long terms concerns about income. Losing weight is always personal and an appreciation, in this example, that there are many aspects to the problem (being overweight) could assist in developing a blog theme and blog posts.

Google Trends

I love using Google trends. It is free tool that throws up all sorts of fascinating data – in real time but also historically. More importantly, it predicts how the trend is going to continue. It is possible to split the data into all web searches, youtube searches, news search and google shopping too. You can find anything from a very recent news item to ‘low carb diet’ and everything in between. It really is a goldmine of information.

The data for a search term can also be shown by region and different time frames. So, if I use “low carb diet” then here is the graph represented for Germany (for example). This shows a pretty consistent use of this keyword over the last year with a predicted trajectory upwards.

This data in Google trends also tells me that it is a subject that has constant demand so there will always be a steady audience. It is easy to play around with and you can easily see if there is a constance demand for information (which there is here). If so, then there is a constant market or people consistently seeking information to help them.

Udemy

Udemy is a search engine for courses, in effect. It is a huge website where people can upload courses to sell. Each course is then rated so you can see the feedback and whether it was recommended.

It sells courses on all sorts for topics and can be very helpful in seeing what courses are selling, what they are about and how many people have taken them. These courses have all been uploaded by people wanting to sell a course in their area of interest.

By entering the keyword “low carb diet”, several courses come up. A quick search around shows that one course in particular has had 715 reviews. This shows a buying market for courses about losing weight. People are willing to spend money to learn about a low carb diets.

So when identifying profitable blog topics, the easiest place to start is to brainstorm a list of things that you know something about. Be as random as you like or as focussed as you can be. One by one, I would go through each item and perform the searches above. Start with two word keywords (eg. low carb) and then expand to three (eg. low carb diet) , then four (eg. ow carb diet books). Make lots of notes and follow the lateral thinking you find your mind takes. It will be amazing to see what you can find!

By the end of this process, you will have a clear idea about what your blog will be based upon

Learn from this

• Finding a suitable blog audience is straightforward when you know where to look.
• By understanding that there are buying customers means that you can start a blog knowing that you can monetise it at some stage.

The post Profitable Blog Topics: Easy Ways to Find Them appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

I felt that it might be helpful if I explained how I plan:

Firstly, I make time. I have so many demands on my life that I need to make the time. This starts by me allocating time everyday for “things that really need to be done”. There are two parts. Late afternoon and early morning.

I use an old fashioned diary to block off time slots AND put it in my phone so that I am bombarded by notifications and reminders.

Late afternoon actually comes first. Through much trial and error, I find that I work best from morning till lunch, then around 3.30 until around 6pm. I work from home or wherever I am but it is surprising how often I am interrupted! I find that I have my best ideas for writing blog posts in the afternoon and that is why posts and content are always thought through in this time slot.

I have used various techniques to focus but the one that seems to work best for me is to set a timer for 50 minutes. When I started writing blog posts years ago, I found a much shorter period of time worked. The Pomedoro technique was introduced to me and this encouraged being focused for shorter periods of time. Now, I use an apple app called Nag on my iMac. This is perfect as I can set the timer and I start writing.

During those 50 minutes, I often have to trick my mind into just working for 2-3 minutes and then I find I am racing through the whole time. 

Sometimes, I find that I have too much on my mind so I seek help from Binaural beats. These are sounds in the theta brain wave range that are linked to reduce anxiety, relaxation, meditation and creation. I find recordings on Spotify or these can be found on Calm and Headspace apps too. Once my earphones are in, I am in the zone and off I go, thinking up ideas and writing up notes.

50 minutes later the Nag alarm goes off and I stop immediately, save, and go and have a break away from my office.  

It is in one of these sessions in the afternoon that I plan content and start to write. 

I am terrible at typing but I get the gist of what I want onto a clean page and keep going. There are various “clean page” apps that I have tried but I don’t recommend them as none worked for me. I prefer to have my usual clutter on the desktop whilst I work.

I save it and leave it overnight. I have found that sometimes, my thoughts are ahead of my writing and I miss vital words out or my sentences don’t make sense. By going back to it, I can look at it with fresh eyes and edit accordingly.

The next day, my first working session is to address the notes I made the afternoon before. 

This is the first thing that I do, because it is based on two wise people’s advice. Brian Tracy’s “Eat That Frog” was a game changer for me. He says that you must do the one thing that you really don’t want to do first i.e. eating the frog! But by doing it first, you no longer stress about having to do it during the rest of the day. The feeling of accomplishment is real.

Another book, The One Thing by Gary Keller focusses on that “one thing” that needs to be done to move you forward. For me, both of these books helped to change my mindset about writing and I actually look forward to it now. For me writing is the way forward to my accomplishing my goals.

Having reviewed my writing, I can then set it up as a blog post, or a social media post, adjust for SEO and along with arranging the images as appropriate, I publish knowing that I have created content to grow my business in some way.

Learn From This

: Plan your time

: Use Binaural Beats if you lack concentration.

: Read how Brain Tracy and Gary Keller can inspire you to find your focus.

The post Writing Blog Posts: An Incredibly Easy Method appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

Let me explain: I first encountered the term “dwell time” when I noticed problems with ranking in one of the blogs that I run for a client. Google had changed its algorithm and I was stuck knowing what to do next to try and move up the pages once more. To be frank, Google changes its algorithm very regularly but this time, Google had made some very strange (in my opinion) choices about who should rank first for the main keyword for this client. 

So on one day last June, not only did Google change its algorithm particularly against my client, but they also stopped my ads that had been running for 7 years! Never had the need for content that could be found be so important.

I felt desperate, I felt that I had reached my limit of knowledge so I starting asking around. I spoke to one experienced SEOer and he mentioned dwell time for the first time. Google dwell time, he explained, is the length of time that people spend reading your content. This seemed to be such an obvious metric that I had not really considered before. Of course Google will see this as important.

My experienced SEOer had a team of people that spent time on each page of content that they wrote for clients. This in turn, along with correct SEO setup, helped improve rankings and they had hundreds of clients as proof. This seemed to be an obvious solution to me.

I then went online to see if others agreed with his assessment and found one of my SEO heroes has written a blog post all about it. He in turn, had noted some comments by Bing personnel (Bing use dwell time in their algorithm): 

Joshua Hardwick then goes onto to explain that in his opinion, a minimum of 2 minutes upwards is a positive help to a page of content. Obviously the longer the better.

Just in case you are wondering, the Dwell time is different to Bounce rate. Dwell time is recorded when a person reads a page and then goes back to the Google listing to seek out more additional information about the same topic. Or, clicks on a link from your page to another of your pages to read more. In otherwords, they find your blog very interesting.

A bounce rate is where only one page is read . This one page only is counted whether a page is read or closed. But this in itself can be a confusing metric as some really good quality pages can have high bounce rates.

Google don’t actually confirm or deny that they use the time that a person spends on a website as a ranking sign. However, Google’s Machine Learning Algorithm (Rank Brain) does rank the dwell time as very important.

How to Help Increase Your Dwell Time on Google?

The first step is to produce high quality content. This is expected from all writers but some still do this better than others.

Brian Dean promotes the PPT Formula so that the visitor is encouraged to read through the whole article. This is not that much different from speaking aloud to someone about a topic. Firstly you briefly introduce the topic about to be discussed (Preview), then move onto the content to back up your topic (Proof) and then expand (transition) on your proof. This formula is known as the PPT formula. Importantly, by having the brief preview, visitors can quickly ascertain what the topic is about.

Some tips for writing to improve your visitor experience:

Brief introduction: just a sentence 

Proof: Break content into smaller paragraphs that are easy to read. In the UK, the average reading age is around 11 years old so short sentences with easy explanations help to make text readable.

Lots of images to break up the text or as many as can find that are relevant. Yes, I know. I need to get more!

Links, appropriately, to encourage people to spend more time on your site and read more of your content.

A short video to help explain a point that you have made encourages dwell time too.

Brian Dean also adds a “Learn More” section where he adds links to other pieces of his content – this is placed at the bottom of the page.

To improve dwell time, it is important to focus on improving a visitor experience and providing great, well-written content. To do this in your best way means to totally understand your customer so that you write as if you are speaking directly to them.

Importantly, dwell time is just another important factor that you need to think about. Along with page speed, backlinks and correct SEO on your page, if you focus on providing an experience for your reader that makes them want to “dwell”, then you will in time be rewarded with higher rankings.

The post Why Dwell Time Will Help Your Ranking? appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

This year has been quite a year. One that I didn’t see coming in quite the way it did. I started the year trying to find new methods of earning passive income and instead, achieved two major goals of mine. I now, cannot wait to renew my focus. Now is the best time.

Actually, three big things happened to me this year.

1. Coastal Skipper Qualification

The first is that I realised that I needed to acquire the next level of sailing qualification. This isn’t random by any means, I took up sailing in 2009 with my family and love it. There is a type of peace that I find on a boat that I have not experienced anywhere else and now I have found it, I need this. However, as you can imagine, life is not always calm on a boat so I therefore felt a strong desire to master how to control a boat in all weathers and tides. I wanted to know more so that I felt more relaxed. I realise that stress, for me, often comes from not knowing. So to learn more made simple sense to me.

I had completed my RYA Day Skipper in 2016 and realised that I knew not much about sailing. The next step up would be to complete the RYA Coastal Skipper Certification. Beyond that, the exams were for those who wanted to work in the sailing industry (which I didn’t) and required longer periods away from home (which I also didn’t want).

In February, I therefore booked the week’s exam assessment (for RYA Coastal Skipper) along with two practice weeks to gather the mileage I needed to do the exam. I bought access to the online theory and then panicked. How on earth was I going to learn all of this? After a week or so of avoiding it, I decided to change my schedule so that every morning, I would wake up early and work for it for an hour or so. Then, every evening, around 5, I would stop working and spend another hour and a half working on it.

And so the weeks passed. Every morning, my husband would find me around the dining table with sailing charts, notebooks and dividers. Occasionally, he would say things like “I think you are nuts”. Or more helpfully, “I don’t think you will cope with the maths”. I decided to not talk to him about it so to avoid any comments. It worked. Sometimes it is best not to discuss things to those who can’t or won’t help!

Then, early in September, the time had come to sit the exam. I thought it would be one exam like the Day Skipper Theory. I entered into the exam portal to find 5 timed exams waiting for my completion. Over the course of the week, I sat an exam a day and waited. A couple of corrections later and I had passed. In my naivety, I thought I was completing the Coastal Skipper theory but during this week, I realised that it was Yachtmaster Theory (the next practical exam up from the one I was planning). This really fuelled my confidence.

In July I set off for a week in the Solent, I returned for another in September and then had my exam week in October. Each time, calm weather was promised by the various weather apps. Each time, they were wrong. Stronger and wetter than planned, all useful experience

On a wet Friday in late October (a week ago), I found that I could sail to the expected standard. I had knotted up over 2000 nautical miles since I set foot on a yacht in 2009 and this experience together with acquiring my RYA Coastal Skipper Certification, I felt that I genuinely could sail anywhere. Such a huge sense of accomplishment.

The personal development that I have needed to address to complete this cannot be explained fully. It has been enormous for me. I never, ever wanted to stop or give up but I certainly tacked “how on earth am I going to do this”. I learnt that by breaking things down into tiny steps, I made progress.

2. Losing a stone in weight

I know that I am not alone in noticing that clothes feel a bit tighter over time. I had noticed this for a while and had also noticed that I had become used to the changes on the weighing scales. It wasn’t making me happy. Somehow, there were another 14 pounds of fat that I no longer wanted to carry around. I hated it.

I did try to lose weight but nothing seemed to work. Around April, I noticed online that one the business people I follow was losing a lot of weight and he was talking about it daily. I decided to pay closer attention. He seemed to be eating what he wanted to eat, which I found interesting, as diets did not traditionally follow this path.

I had adjusted what I ate quite considerably. I would like to think that I was knowledgeable about good carbs and bad carbs along with the positive aspects of high (healthy) fats. My children who were regular gym goers were always talking about protein intake and subsequently, I was always cooking loads go chicken!

I was also aware that I began to dread going out for a meal, which I did often, as I never knew how much weight I’d put on. I just felt miserable at the prospect and this wasn’t me. My weight was becoming an issue, sadly.

Fast forward to June and I decided one day that enough was enough. Having acknowledged that a regret of mine would be that if I didn’t tackle my weight gain (which looked nothing to others), I would just continue to gradually put weight on and on, and on.

So I contacted the Food Ninja and over 12 weeks, two of which were whilst I was on a boat, she guided me through my 14 pounds weight loss.

I learnt that protein is my friend.

I learnt what happens to my body when I eat excess carbs.

I learnt how walking transforms your weight.

I found that my clothes all now fit properly. Dresses that had been assigned to the back of the wardrobe are now being worn again. Shoes fit better.

I’m also sleeping better, no longer feel terrible hunger and have learnt how to plan my meals when I eat out. It’s all about choices not treats! It has opened my eyes to how badly the majority of society eat and that we are truly a product of what we eat (assuming no underlying illness). I will be forever grateful to Hayley, the Food Ninja.

3. Learning about Funnels

I have felt dissociated with my work for too long now. I happily run businesses for others but deep down I have wanted to do something for me. I have been like Tigger over the last 3-4 years bouncing around, from one idea to the next. I have earning passive income but not committed to find results. Some of what I have learnt has helped my clients enormously, some has led to dead – ends. It has been a huge learning experience for me and certainly generated many ideas.

Then, in January, I came across a method of marketing that I had not used before. I signed up to the course as it was only $100. Of all the things that I have done online, this course that taught me about “funnels” has taught me the most about online marketing in the shortest period of time. It was life-changing. Although not as I anticipated.

I quickly fell into the trap of doing something because everyone said it was the thing to do. I designed funnels, joined numerous Facebook groups, was told that I needed to build massive audiences etc etc It took until October this year, whilst sailing in 30 knot winds to realise, with absolute clarity, about what I wanted to do and facebook groups and working 12 hours days was not what I wanted. I did not what to be a sheep. I wanted to be my own person, doing things to suit me. I was actually fed up with people posturing about how good they were when they were not being authentic.

It took me controlling the boat in high winds (which was very challenging) to realise that being authentic and transparent is the only way I can be so I will adopt this going forward. There are so few people being authentic. There are too many pretending.

My aim over the last 3- 4 years, in all my attempts, has been to find methods of earning passive income online. Let me explain, people who have a trade, have to actively do the trade to be paid. People who are employed have to turn up to work to be paid. People who are self employed get no pay unless they are being paid by someone else for work they have to do…. unless that “product” is something that doesn’t need them to be there in person doing the work on an individual basis.

I have wanted to earn passive income for too long and I know that it is possible. I wanted to earn money without having to turn up every day to do the “thing”.

Am I making sense?

Over the years, I have come across many ways to make money online. This interest of mine has led to many great things. I see this final frontier of achieving it for myself as something that I really need to tackle and attempt.

It will be a huge regret if I do not give this the effort that I need to make it work.

Generating passive income does not happen overnight, at least I do not expect it to. I have decided over the next year, starting today (December 1st) to explore, start, follow-up and complete, different ways of earning online to generate income passively. Or as passive as I can get. This has been an aim of mine for too long now and definitely fits into the ” I will always regret this, if I don’t really try hard to achieve it”.

I will track my progress here. I am not a guru – I will make mistakes and record what I am doing so that there is transparency. I will continue working with my clients but this will be a major project, just as my sailing exam was and losing weight was.

They both required me to be consistent in my efforts.

They both required me to have a plan and a goal.

They both required me to be accountable to myself.

They both required me to show results.

Therefore, I have set my self new goals and new timescales with plans of action. I will report back on Wednesdays and I will track the amount of time and the methods used. I’ll also let you know of any new hacks to earning passive income online that I find along the way. I am really excited to start today and I will see you next week!

The post A Win, A Loss & A New Start: 2019 Achievements appeared first on Catherine Harriss.

Here, I link Active Campaign to Option Monster to create an email list by enabling people to sign up and receive marketing emails (in a system that works).

I need to create an email list. Although I have been in marketing for many years and my customers have acquired huge lists (from my actions), the way in which those lists have been built is totally on supplying a service. In the medical world that I am used to, you have a need and find a possible surgeon to help you so you contact them for that help. It is more connecting that marketing.

In my new venture of earning a passive income, it will not be the same. None-the-less, I do need to attract people who will be interested in my journey so I spent a few hours yesterday setting this up.

By now, you may have had a pop-up asking if you wish to share my journey. I hope you do and if so, thank you for interest. I will endeavour to be as transparent as possible.

So, whether it is a pop-up or a side bar, top bar or slide up, there are several ways to catch the attention of a reader. By asking them to share their details, they (you) are added onto my list so that I can contact you in the future and share my news.

Why create an email list?

An email list is a list of people who have decided that they want to hear more of what you have to say. This means that they are more likely to read what you have to say and act on what you suggest. Many people rely on social media for their business which is absolutely fine but, and this is a big but, your are not in control of your content to the same extent. Facebook owns Facebook (obviously), WhatsApp and Instagram. This means that it can decide how to portray your data (anyone heard of an algorithm change) and decide if your account is not longer worthy.

Two stories, of many, I heard recently. Firstly, a business with over 1 million likes suddenly found itself a victim of an algorithm change. Overnight. It’s business literally died and after a few days it announced that it was closing. This is tragic to hear and begs the question of why did they only have their business on Facebook? Did they not have an email list? If they had, they could have continued on another platform. I have been advocating for years that it is necessary to keep copies of all your content. Facebook is renowned for deleting posts and removing content that it no longer wants. If this was yours, how would you feel?

Second quick story, an online friend who has built a business this year, announced that he was shutting down one of this facebook groups. He did a live broadcast announcing why which was good of him and gave information of how he would be continuing from therein. Note, he had a flourishing personal profile and other groups. Facebook responded by locking him out of his personal account so he no longer had access to anything!

So, if for no other reason than this, own your content and let others know about your content via your own emails as well as social media. This way you will always remain in control.

Why start now?

For many years, intermittently, I have toyed with email marketing and tried a few times to create an email list. For a while, I had thought that Mail Chimp was the way to go but try as I did, I could not get on with it. In fact I loathed it. It was too full of tech speak and I for one felt that life was too short to waste any more time on it! After a few weeks of deliberation and noticing that others who I respected were also using this software, I started yesterday with Active Campaign.

What is Active Campaign?

Active Campaign is powerful software that is a marketing and sales automation platform. My aim is to be able to create an email list and send informative emails to those people who have indicated that they are interested in my passive income journey.

There are several price points. I opted for the lowest (don’t we all) because in my experience of marketing software, their forms are clunky and generally awful. I was right (read on). I can always upgrade as this project evolves and requires more from the sales software but for the time being, the lowest entry point is exactly what I really need.

I signed up for the free mini course on teachable about how to set up my first campaign. This was so much easier than anything I had done before. In all, this took around half an hour. I was delighted.

Having spent around 3 and a half hours yesterday afternoon, I stopped trying to make my sign-up form pretty. I tried uploading wordpress plugins and messing about with all types of various. I also tried adding CSS to the active campaign form but it still wouldn’t look how I wanted it to.

As you can see, the First name and email wouldn’t paginate and the “submit” button was meant to be orange! I could not get the whole sentence after “Marketing by” to show up properly either. Meh.

However, I am hoping (and I will keep you informed) that the sales and marketing platform that I have heard wonderful things about, will serve me well!

So. today, I decided that I needed to find a form builder. Having spent years marketing online, I knew exactly what I was looking for. I went straight to OptinMonster. A market leader, designed to get the best chance of someone singing up, I needed this very much.

[optin-monster-shortcode id=”fvmqaa1caxy0cdtuarnr”]

What is OptinMonster?

This is a very smart software package, again at different price points, but one that enables different types of forms in different positions. I chose it purely for the improved forms, professional finish and easy links to Active Campaign (in fact they use OptinMonster themselves!!)

I actually went for the second level of package (with a 20% discount) so that I could have different forms and also enable split testing (testing two versions at the same time to see which one performs better). By choosing this option, the cost of my email system was still going to be considerably less than the cost of the next tear of Active Campaign that would still have the very clunky forms.

I set my timer and did the following:

1. Integrated with Active Campaign: I went to settings, and grabbed my name (it was faint and looked like I couldn’t copy it, but it worked) and pasted into my new OptinMonster account. Then in Settings (ActiveCampaign), I clicked on Developer, copied the API URL over to Optin Monster and then did the same for the the API Key. Clicked to complete and done! Simples.
2. Integrated with my website: I needed to add some code to the footer of each page. This was easily done with the assistance of a plugin: Popups by OptinMonster. I literally downloaded this, activated it and then clicked “Connect”. Done.
3. I went to “Account” and added my details plus the name of my website (CatherineHarriss.com).
4. Clicked on Dashboard and then clicked on Create New Campaign (to create an email list). I added the name of my new list and saved after selecting “pop-up” and then scrolling through the different templates (unlike Active Campaign) and choosing one that best suits what I need.
5. I then give the pop up a name and was taken to a new screen. One click on the name of my new list and I could alter the pop-up to just what I wanted.
6. Oh the joy. I am now half an hour in and I have a pop-up that looks professional, fit for purpose and just what I had hoped for. A very intuitive editing process with options to change font sizes.
7. I have now completed the design. Working left to right in the menu bar, I next go to “Display Rules”. I opt to leave it as the example given as to how many second it needs to wait before it pops-up. I don’t know any different at this stage so I need to have data before I can make any purposeful changes here. Basically, the pop-up will appear for everyone after so many seconds. Perfect.
8. Integrations is next. Here I click on email provider and Active Campaign appears. Next, I select the email account of that Active Campaign account. So far very easy. Then I select the email list. Now at this stage, I realised that I didn’t like the name so I went back to Acive Campaing, and changed it. I then regretted the OptinMonster page and I selected the list I needed.
9. Analytics: again, very straightforward. I clicked the button to link up and was asked to copy some code. This was pasted into the relevant box and after adding my own reference for this, I clicked save. Less than 30 seconds.
10. I clicked ‘Publish” then checked preview. Gave myself a pat on the back and then selected Live.

So all this took me 45 minutes to complete and write this down. My aim to create an email list has been accomplished – well the first hurdle of getting it all set up has been.

Now, I am adding this form to my website here, to my facebook page and my Instagram page too. I want to try and spread the word!

In under an hour, I have achieved what I have put off for months: a live email list builder. I can now proceed with the rest of my plan.

The post How To Create An Email List From Scratch appeared first on Catherine Harriss.