I first started blogging in a place called Yahoo Geocities. Thank heavens that some penny-pinching executive decided in 2009 that enough was enough and shut the place down. Back in the 1990s, this was the first blogging space that I'd come across and it was liberating. I could share my thoughts, uncensored, and people could respond, sorta. It was amazing. Now it would be an embarrassing liability.
By 2006 this had all changed, and GeoCities was distant memory. I had baby-brain, yep, I was mum to two children under two and working in my husband's business. I also had to learn blogging as that was a way to get content into the search engines.
The search engines were a mystical place where people typed in their questions, and they served up a link to our site. People use these all day. To the tune of 90 billion+ searches every month. Don't know how to bake banana Bread? Google has a recipe. Want to know what oil to put into your car? Google will tell you. Can't get your kids to sleep at night, there's a search query for that too. People type their deepest, darkest secrets into Google looking for an answer. Google willingly helps them.
I looked around for how to become better at blogging, what sort of blog posts to create etc, but the main sites back then were fixated with writing. I'm not a writer. Writing is not my strong point, in fact, I started blogging because I was offered a choice between blogging and podcasting, and writing was the better option in comparison to having to record a talk!
A friend of mine, Nikki Pilkington, created an ebook about blogging and it was the first time I'd found content that came from a business owner's perspective and not a writer's perspective.
But I still struggled to find courses and content that were for me. I'm a mum, an entrepreneur, I live in England, and yet, I'm not fixated by Oxford commas. The living in England part was a big issue. In the US, words differ to how they're spelt in the UK. Colour has a U here. Personalise has a Z there. And not a day would go by without someone from the US telling me I was using English wrong. My confidence took a battering, but by later 2009 I'd won a 7 figure contract from an international motor company.
Fortunately, the world has shifted and horizons have been broadened, and there's less grammar pedantry these days, and more understanding that people may be dyslexic, unable to afford Grammarly, or writing in a language different to the one they speak.
But, there was still content that wasn't meeting the needs of people like me and you.
So when I found the Genius Blogger's Toolkit, I went through it with a fine-toothed comb. Then I asked to contribute something, and they said yes!
They have a variety of blogging courses from people like
- Cody Berman & Julie Berninger of Gold City Ventures
- Amira Irfan, of A Self Guru
- Chelsea Clarke of HerPaperRoute
- Cara Harvey of A Purpose Driven Mom
- Melissa Guller of Wit & Wire
- Jessica Litman of The Organized Mama
- Ana Skyes of The She Approach
- Jessie Festa of Jessie on a Journey
- Eb Gargano of Productive Blogging
- And me, did I mention I was in it?
There's actually so many more smart bloggers in this toolkit, from all different backgrounds with diverse experiences. There's a lot you can learn, and become a genius blogger instead of blustering or growth-hacking your way to something slightly more promising than oblivion.
The kit compromises of a variety of different tools. My contribution is my Traffic Jam SEO Course, which means you save a few hundred bucks by getting it in the bundle.
There's a total of 62 courses, ebooks and templates. Which should propel you to new blogging heights!
You can take a look here:
Now, investing in your blogging is a big deal. It takes time, energy and discipline. You need time and energy to take the courses, to read the ebooks, and then you need the space to digest the content, and make it work for you.
Here's what not to do...
Invest in your blogging education, but not access the content at all. I've been known to do that from time to time, and it's a toxic blend of denial and self-sabotage that slowly corrodes your soul because you think you've wasted all that money...
I like to get these bundles for the nuggets that people share, the little things make a difference and one little tweak can make all the difference, but if you don't know what that tweak is, or where to look for it, it's money you're leaving behind, and that's a bigger worry to me!
Now, if you can't write a shopping list, and you're struggling with content creation in general, I suggest you do two things.
1. Get the Genius Blogger's Toolkit through my link
2. Forward me the receipt (sarah @ sarkemedia.com and it will come directly to me) and I will gift you access to my two writing guides, one on writing sales pages, the other on blog posts to write.
Now, I have to go and find these gifts to give them to you so give me 48 hours from pressing send, and then check your spam folder as that's probably where I will be. These two guides are a perfect addition to your toolkit, and will help you go from blithering to brilliant in no time at all!
