April 27, 2018 — Freelancers and agency owners, does this sound familiar? You don’t have enough money to pay your bills. You have a few clients, but you’re rushing projects and doing less than your best work because you don’t have enough time to find new work AND complete the projects to which you’re already committed at the same time. As much as you’d like to charge more for your work, nobody takes you seriously because you’ve only done small, cheap projects so far.

This is what happens when you accept the wrong clients. Most of us think we have to start at the bottom with low paying jobs and work our way to the top, yet that approach leaves us broke and stuck. In this session, we’ll talk about which clients you should turn down, which you should target, and how to command twice your current rate without needing an impressive portfolio.

February 3, 2018 — It’s the inconvenient truth that all aspiring bloggers must face – just because you write a great blog post, that doesn’t mean anybody is going to read it. You could pay for traffic through things like Facebook ads and Google Pay Per Click, but is that really a viable solution to increase your readership? If you’re like most bloggers, simply boosting your posts on Facebook probably isn’t the answer. In this session, we’ll talk about how your blog can help you build a large, loyal following of interested readers, and then what to do with those people once they get to your website.

October 8, 2017 — Just as an occasional Tweet is not a social media campaign, having a blog doesn’t mean that you’re doing content marketing. While blogging is a key component, a weekly blog post probably isn’t enough by itself to give your business the boost you want. Let’s talk about strategy, branding, and developing a killer content marketing plan with your WordPress blog at the core of it all.

Presentation Slides »

October 10, 2016 — Blog monetization is always a hot topic, but what does it REALLY take to go full-time?

Professional blogging is a business…potentially a very profitable one. With the right strategy, skills, and mindset, you can build a revenue stream from your WordPress blog that supports your lifestyle.

In this session, we’ll discuss why you need a business plan and how to write one, and how to develop a monetization strategy that makes sense for you. Plus, we’ll discuss exactly how you can use your WordPress blog to develop an income that supports your lifestyle, even if you don’t have hundreds of thousands of unique web visitors every month. We’ll probably also have a few laughs at the speaker’s expense. It will be a good time.

Presentation Slides »

February 17, 2016 — Have you noticed that there are a LOT of blogs out there? All of them want the same basic thing – readers. Paid traffic can be great, and SEO is vital, but there’s nothing quite as effective as a direct referral from somebody who doesn’t even know you. It’s fairly simple to start making connections with other bloggers, and with a little bit of knowhow, those connections will translate into free advertising and endorsements for your blog that will make your traffic skyrocket. Once we cover the basics of how to network effectively, we’ll get into some tips and tricks to get the most mileage out of promotions, including posts on your blog and promos that other bloggers are doing for you. Learn how a little bit of effort can yield huge results.