Evan Hoeflich, Author at

How To Start Saving Money In Your 20’s- Time To Get Focused

September 3, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

I was lucky enough to instinctively have good savings habits all throughout my late teens and 20’s (I am now 28 years old at the time of writing this post).

By nature, I was always more of a saver than a spender for as long as I could remember.

However, I realize that not many people are like this and especially in their 20’s.

In fact, the exact opposite is generally more common…prioritizing spending over saving.

It looks something like this:

Work for a paycheck ==> Spend that money before there’s anything left to save ==> Work for another paycheck ==> Spend that money again before there’s anything left to save

It’s never ending…and notice the keywords I underlined….work, spend, work, spend...which leaves no room for saving.

This is a cycle that will only lead to dissatisfaction, less flexibility and more financial stress.

If you’re reading this and wondering how you can start saving money in your 20’s, this post will help to get you started.

I give you a lot of credit for having the motivation to research this topic and look for more information, as this mindset puts you way ahead of the average person in their 20s (you know the one who blows money on food, alcohol, going out, living it up, partying etc.).

You are different, and that’s a good thing…this alone tells me that you will be stacking away some serious cash going forward.

And don’t worry, you do not have to give up your life to be a dedicated saver.

It will only create more freedom and options down the road to do what you truly want to in life.

Trust me on this!

How To Start Saving Money In Your 20s

Saving money in your 20’s can be rough, with school loans, low income, part-time work, relationships, distractions, temptations and a whole lot more.

I never said this was going to be easy, but the habits you create now can truly change your life down the road.

Let’s look at a few tips to help get you started:

1.) Adopt a strong work ethic: It’s important at an early age to understand the value of money and to adopt a strong and consistent work ethic. Regardless of the job(s) you are working in your 20’s, realize that they are helping you further your savings goals. Look at every hour, every week and every paycheck as getting closer to your goal and closer to financial independence. Let’s face it, you need an income in order to save money and without a strong work ethic, you will lose focus quickly. A few good jobs that can be pretty lucrative in your 20’s are serving tables, bartending and really anything where you can make tips. I waited tables for 5 years (along with working another part-time job) and it allowed me to pay off my student loans, stash some cash away and indulge in activities I was interested in. Regardless what types of jobs you work in your 20’s, take this time to develop a strong work ethic. Hard work pays off, remember that.

2.) Save a Portion of Your Income (no matter what): Whenever you bring in any sort of income (even if it’s a birthday card filled with money from a family member), I want you to immediately save a portion of it and put it into a savings account where you won’t be tempted to spend it. You see, when we’re in our 20’s, money is spent almost as soon as we receive it. Although it may feel good at first, this habit will constantly keep you under water. The idea here is to give yourself more space and freedom in life, and this can be accomplished through financial education and persistent action. The portion of money that you save each pay period, try to pretend like it’s not even there. And more importantly realize that every chunk you save/invest is slowly creating more momentum for you. Another key point to implement is to automate this process through your bank or investment company, this way money is guaranteed to be saved, no matter what. Automation alone will result in saving consistently and watching your balance grow over-time. Take it from me, set up automatic deposits and you will thank me later.

3.) Read Books on Personal Finance: My life really changed when I started reading various books on personal finance. In fact, I became addicted and quickly turned into a personal finance “geek”. The type of information provided in these books opened my eyes to what is possible through saving and investing your hard earned cash instead of throwing it away and making other people rich. A few personal finance books that I highly recommend for people in their 20’s that are juggling student debt, low incomes and just overall confusion are:

“The Millionaire Next Door” – Thomas Stanley
“This Richest Man In Babylon” – George S. Clason
“The Total Money Makeover” – Dave Ramsey
“Your Money Or Your Life” – Vicki Robin
“The Automatic Millionaire” – David Bach
“The Simple Path To Wealth” – JL Collins

These books will provide you the road map you need to win with money. Learn from people who are successful in this area and adopt their habits. The best part about this whole process is that anyone can experience financial independence, no matter what their income level is and how much debt they have. Stick to your plan and never look back.

4.) Live Simply & Keep Expenses Low: There’s something really liberating about only buying things that you need, getting rid of unnecessary clutter and living an overall simple life. Transitioning to a minimalist lifestyle will be one of the single best decisions you ever make in your life (for your mental health and wallet). This will also result in keeping your expenses lower which in return will allow you to save more money. Realize that things or objects do not make you happy, but progress does. Living below your means and really being strategic with your spending will result in a much higher savings rate. This is almost like giving yourself a raise as it will free up extra income to use for saving. This may be hard at first to adopt a simpler type of lifestyle, but overtime it will become more natural and especially when you see your savings grow.

A Few Tips To Help Speed Up The Saving Process In Your 20’s

1.) Start a Side Hustle: Having an extra source of income outside of your job can really shake things up in a good way. I believe starting a side-hustle in your 20’s is one of the best times to do so, since that’s when you have the most energy and hunger. The power of the Internet has opened up so many doors and opportunists for people to create additional cash flow in their lives. I know the few side projects I’ve started, have helped increased my savings rate dramatically. If you’re confused at where to begin, I recommend considering starting a blog to get your feet wet. At the very least, you will learn a lot along the way. Having a side-hustle is both rewarding and fulfilling and adds another layer of financial security in your life.

2.) Become More Efficient/Create More Value: You should constantly be working on becoming more efficient in your life by expanding your skills, knowledge and creating more value for the world. This can be done through self-education, reading influential books, going to seminars, adopting productive habits etc. The more efficient you become, the more value you can offer which leads to making & then saving more money. Always take the time to invest in yourself, each and every day. You are your greatest asset.

3.) Keep Track of Your Net Worth: This has a psychologically boosting effect like no other. Seeing your progress whether it’s paying off debt or tracking your net worth can be both addicting and seductive and will encourage you to keep pushing forward. I recommend tracking your numbers in an excel spreadsheet, with charts/graphs to help you visually see your hard work paying off. This alone has made a huge difference in my finances as well as my mindset and motivation. If you need an excel template to work off of, just let me know.

There you have it, some practical tips/steps that you can get started with today to save more money in your 20’s.

The most critical part here is to actually started.

The financial decisions you make now can have an extremely positive impact on your life going forward, so please don’t take this information lightly.

I want you to become a warrior with your finances from here on out like your life depends on it (because quite frankly, it does).

Please keep me posted on your progress, as I’d love to hear how you are making out and if you have any questions.

If you enjoyed this type of post, please let me know if you’d like me to write future posts based around personal finance.

And if you have any additional tips that have helped you save more money, please leave them in the comments section below!

Personal Finance

3 Reasons Why Most People Fail At Blogging- Common Blogging Hurdles

August 27, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

There’s many reasons why the majority of aspiring bloggers fail to generate the type of results that they would like to.

In this post, I’d like to go over the 3 main reasons that I’ve personally seen prevent people from blogging success.

No-one said building a successful blog was going to be easy, however it can be done with the right mindset, knowledge and hunger to keep pushing.

It will take hard work, time and a certain level of sacrifice if you’re looking to start a legitimate part-time or even full-time business through blogging.

As appealing as blogging sounds (and is), the unfortunate truth is that most people never make a single dime through their blog or create any kind of consistent traffic.

But why is this so common?

Let’s dive into a few reasons why most people fail at blogging.

3 Common Reasons Most Fail At Blogging

1.) Length of Time Spent- Let’s face it, most humans are lazy by nature and blogging is a long-term approach that takes time to build momentum. One of the biggest reasons I see people fail is because 1.) They expect almost immediate results and 2.) They only stick with blogging for maybe a few weeks to a month tops before “throwing in the towel”.

I cannot stress enough that blogging is a long-term business model and is not something that you’ll see results with in the first few weeks and even the first few months. It took this very blog you are reading here over 2-3 months to generate its first visits from organic search and then another 3-4 months to make its first sale (which is pretty common if you’re creating a blog from scratch). The truth is 97% of people will already quit at this point. How many people do you know would keep blogging after 6-7 months when they haven’t seen any results? Not many. However if you’re smart and are following good direction/training, you are not worried about short term gratification but more about what type of freedom a blog can bring you down the road…stay focused on the LONG-TERM!

2.) Not Creating Any Value- One of the most common reasons most beginner bloggers fail is because they are not creating any value for their audience. An unfortunate but common mindset is “how can I blog and make money” or “how can I make money blogging”…when the successful mindset as a blogger is actually more like “how can I create massive value for my readers that no one else is doing” or “what can I teach that will help my visitors see results for themselves“. Of course money is important when it comes to blogging, however if it’s your main goal, your blog will be sure to fail.

I’ve seen many examples of blogs where it is so blatantly obvious that they are just looking to make a sale and only post product reviews, affiliate links, intrusive pop-ups etc. The content of your blog is what gets people interested in the first place and also keeps them coming back. If you are not creating any value for your readers, you will not see the type of results you would like.

3.) No Consistency- This overlaps a little bit with reason #1, however it’s still worth mentioning as most bloggers get this wrong. If you ever want your blog to be successful you need to be posting fresh, unique content very consistently for the health and SEO of your website. Now you should be posting at the very least one blog post per week. If you can do more, that’s excellent, however once a week is the absolute minimum.

You see many people start off strong and motivated and post consistently for the first few weeks, don’t see any results and then quit. Remember it takes a little while for the search engines to index your content, determine your ranking position and therefore send you organic traffic. If you think you can just publish one blog post a month and watch the traffic roll in, you are heavily mistaken. You need to treat this like a real business and start to enjoy the writing process with new inspiration each and every post. Plain and simple, most people do not have the discipline to sit down and write a 500-1,000 word article every week and will give up very quickly. The people that do enjoy writing, coming up with different content ideas and publish their work on a consistent basis are the ones that thrive!

The 3 reasons stated above may be able to shed some light on why you’re not seeing results with your blog or at the very least will reveal some of the common barriers when it comes to blogging.

The good news here is that it’s easier to break these barriers than you realize.

Having the proper mindset is what truly separates the winners from the losers.

You can create a successful blog, brand, business and empire if you want to.

Start doing what others aren’t willing to do.

In this example, spend the next few years (not weeks or months) building out your blog.

Create posts that have massive value and nuggets of helpful information.

And be consistent with your approach.

So let me ask, have you run into any of these obstacles with your blog yet?

Blogging

Switching from Http to Https- Why I Bought An SSL for My Website

August 18, 2017 Evan Hoeflich 2 comments

If you run a blog or website, switching from http to https is highly recommended for various reasons.

Now you may be wondering what a simple switch from http to https can do for your website and if it’s worth going through the effort to implement this.

Let’s just give a quick summary of what exactly this entails so you better understand the benefits of moving to https.

Switching from http to https means you would be buying what is called an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate through your web host or an external source.

Essentially an SSL makes sure that any and all information that is passed between the web server and browsers is both secure and private, which is not the case when your website is of http protocol.

Even though having an SSL installed is not required or mandatory by any means, it is highly recommended as it provides peace of mind to your visitors and can additionally help with the overall SEO of your website.

So the two key benefits here are:

1.) Security: It ensures all sensitive information is private and secure.

2.) SEO Benefit: It may give your website a slight boost in search rankings which in return will help with the overall SEO.

The third benefit is one that I wanted to put separately to give you a specific example using screenshots.

Google Chrome will soon be flagging any http website as “Not secure” in the very near future. See screenshot below:

Alternatively, if you have an SSL installed and your site is now https, this is what it will look like in Google Chrome.

As you can see in the screenshots above, this could make a HUGE difference in people staying on your site versus leaving.

Most people when they see the “Not Secure” signal will immediately leave your website without a second thought.

This could mean all the difference in the world when it comes to running a successful blog or website.

Seriously, do not take this lightly.

301 Redirects!

Now I want to bring up one more critical point if you plan on making the switch from http to https.

You must ensure that all instances of http are 301 redirected to https.

Many SSL installations will automatically do this for you, however it’s vital that you make sure of this first and work with any support service you can to get this squared away.

If you do not have 301 redirects in place forcing http to the https protocol, you will ultimately have two versions of the website which causes a whole mess of duplicate content issues that can negatively impact your SEO.

Consider yourself warned and make sure 301 redirects are implemented.

I Switched From Http to Https on August 5th, 2017

I will be tracking my progress to see if I notice any significant increases in search rankings and organic traffic, as this is one of the main reasons I made the switch to begin with.

I even created an annotation in my Google Analytics account to represent this transition so I can accurately keep track of any improvements.

Although this blog is still fairly new, I suspect I will be able to make some conclusions as to whether or not this has helped my SEO for my blog.

At the very least I have a more secure website, and that’s okay with me.

I am a true advocate of testing your marketing constantly to see what works and what doesn’t (like switching to https for example).

This is something I will test over the next 6 months or so and report in on any successes I see going forward.

Little tweaks like these can help out big-time in the long run.

If you’re lazy with this kind of stuff, your competition will eat you alive.

I hope this post helped clarify any questions you had about SSL Certificates or maybe even gave you to motivation to go out and get this set up.

So let me ask…Is your website http or https currently?

If you’ve made the switch, what were your results?

Aweber Review- Autoresponder & Email Marketing Review

August 12, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

Aweber Review: One of the best email autoresponders on the market!

Now although I do not do reviews all that often, this post has been long overdue.

There’s a good chance you’re already familiar with Aweber, but I am going to review it here anyways as I’ve been using the service for around 7 years now…and am a very happy customer.

If you’re not familiar with Aweber autoresponder and are looking to get into email marketing please check out their services here.

Let me make a point here.

Any and every online business needs some sort of email marketing strategy if they want to maximize their profits and create a loyal customer base.

There are many articles out there saying that email marketing is dying and I couldn’t disagree more, in fact, I think it’s only gaining more momentum.

Most people check their email multiple times per day, and with the right email marketing strategy they could be opening your emails and clicking on your links.

However, you need the right autoresponder service to make sure your message makes it to their inbox.

Now let’s go over why I’ve been with Aweber for 7 years and why you really should look into it yourself.

It’s important to note that I do use a few other autoresponders for other parts of my business, but after testing dozens of email marketing services, only Aweber and Constant Contact stand out from the crowd.

Reasons Why Aweber Is Superior To Most Autoresponders- Aweber Review (Personal Experience)

1.) Deliverability:

By far one of the most important aspects for anyone who uses email marketing is delivery rate. Basically meaning, how often your emails actually hit the rather than going into spam. What good is email marketing if all of your messages are hitting spam? Of course, you need to keep your swipes clean and valuable in order to reach the inbox of your customers, but that’s a whole different story and blog post altogether. I’ve tested the delivery rates specifically with many different autoresponders, tracked all the analytics in an excel spreadsheet, and Aweber outperformed every single other platform. The majority of my emails reached the end-customer which results in higher open rates, higher-click through rates and more profits from my email campaigns.

2.) User Experience/Simplicity:

If you’re looking for an email marketing system where you can get rocking and rolling in 30 minutes or less, Aweber is one of your best options. The layout and style of their website ensures simplicity when setting up different email campaigns and is a real breeze when scheduling broadcasts, creating a follow-up series etc. They have really done an excellent job making email marketing (which can be confusing to many) dead simple. See for yourself when your’e in the members area.

3.) Price:

Of course, an extremely vital point of conversation when it comes to any online marketing tools is price point. Aweber does an astounding job of keeping the price extremely fair and competitive and even offers a free 30 day trial! The price is based off of your list size, so obviously the bigger your list, the more you will pay. But it’s important to keep in mind that the bigger your list, the more money you should be making from that list (so it all evens out). Price has never been an issue for me with Aweber and they have always kept it consistent and made it extremely affordable.

4.) Reliability:

I have yet to have any serious issues with Aweber in the 7 years I’ve used their service and that’s saying a lot. Naturally there’s been some small hiccups here and there, but that’s to be expected and especially with online technology. The support team is also extremely responsive and helpful to any concerns or problems you are having. A big reason why Aweber separates itself from much of the competition is because you never feel like you’re alone in building your online business, the support is felt and well received.

Hopefully, if you’re on the fence this post helped clear things up a bit for you.

There’s a reason why many big time marketers use Aweber, and that’s because of all the reason I listed above and more.

Now if you’re just getting started online I think this is the perfect platform to use….If you’re more experienced I still think this is the perfect platform to use.

To get more details and check out the Aweber website, please visit this link here!

Also, if you’d rather watch my Aweber review video, please see below:

Aweber Review- Autoresponder & Email Marketing Review

Best Autoresponder

Can You Make Money Blogging?- Become An Affiliate (Commission Example)

August 6, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

Can you make money blogging?

Well if you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time now, you will notice that every once in a while I will update my readers with the exact strategies I use to make money from my blog.

The method I will be sharing with you today is one of the most common and in my opinion easiest ways to get started with making money from your blog and online in general.

Affiliate Marketing

Of course I recommend monetizing your blog in various other ways as well, but affiliate marketing should absolutely be one of your approaches if you already have a blog or are looking to start a blog.

The reason being is that you do not have to go through the hassle of creating your own product (however, at some point you should consider doing this), which can be time consuming, confusing and overwhelming.

The wonderful thing about affiliate marketing is that all you really need to do is sign up with an affiliate company (generally free) like ClickBank and create your affiliate link(s) to sell products where you’d earn a certain percentage of each commission you make.

You can literally start sending traffic to your affiliate link as soon as it’s ready.

However, I wanted to give you a specific real-life example of how I did this a few days ago to make a recurring commission as an Aweber affiliate.

Hopefully this will motivate some of you to go out there and try this for yourself.

Don’t be afraid to experiment!

Affiliate Commission Method Using Blogging (Real Example)

Okay so if you notice that to the upper right hand side of my blog (depending on the time you’re reading this), there is a squeeze page where people can enter their email address to gain access to my free private training videos (see screenshot).

Upon entering their email address, they are taken to a thank you page which prompts them to check their email and follow the link embedded in there to access the training videos.

Once they click the link they are taken to my free training (highly recommended) which then takes them through a series of videos.

On video #6 I go over setting up an Aweber email autoresponder account and how important it is to any online business whether you’re blogging or not.

Below the video I have a link (my affiliate link) that takes people over to the Aweber website to sign up for a free trial (see screenshot below).

Now that my blog is getting more traffic and more people are signing up to my email list, I am noticing more clicks to my links and also more commissions

And in this specific case, someone went all the way through my Aweber training video and signed up for an account using my affiliate link.

The result…a 30% recurring commission, which isn’t much to start if someone signs up for a $19.99 account. However, the more sales that come in, the higher my monthly Aweber income becomes…it’s really just a numbers game.

If I sign up 100 people at that level, i’ll be earning $570 per month (not too shabby) and extremely possible to accomplish.

In fact, my goal is to sign up 1,000 people in the next 12-24 months, which would generate me $5,700 in monthly Aweber affiliate income.

I also didn’t mention that the bigger people’s email lists get within Aweber, the higher their monthly fee is, which means the bigger commission I would earn.

So this could ultimately be much much higher.

You see the potential that blogging has when you crunch some numbers?

And that’s just one source of income.

Imagine when you combine all of the different marketing strategies to utilize on your blog.-

A big motivation of mine is to write articles like this one here that will 1.) Open up your mind to see what is possible from a simple online blog and 2.) Be completely transparent and provide you with the exact strategies I use to earn money from my blog.

I will do everything I can to get as many people as possible start their first blog, write their first blog post, make their first commissions online and create more freedom in life.

Please try something like the above affiliate marketing strategy and let me know how it goes.

Can you make money blogging?

Oh Yes! and in many different ways!

Have you started your blog yet?

Entrepreneur

How To Live A Simpler Life – More Options, Less Stress & Pure Freedom

August 1, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

If you’re wondering how to live a simpler life, you are already on the right track to less stress and more flexibility.

I was inspired to write this post based on some of the feedback I got on one of my more recent blog articles here, Begin Living A Minimalist Lifestyle & Change Your World.

Although this isn’t groundbreaking information (pretty common sense actually), it’s amazing how many people live well beyond their means and create a life full of tension, over consumption and heaviness.

Many people adopt this type of lifestyle because of all the advertising that is being shoved down our throats every single day…Buy me, buy me, buy me!

However, I want to give you a bit of an edge and a few tips on how to live a simpler life, which will ultimately lead to more happiness and freedom.

Let’s dive right in.

How To Live A Simpler Life- Quick Tips

1.) Practice Gratitude:

The starting point to living a simpler and more fulfilled life is to engage in the practice of gratitude. This immediately makes you rich in body, mind and spirit. When you start really feeling grateful for everything that you have in your life, you realize that you do not need to add much more to it. This also leaks positively into other areas of your life and should be a daily practice. Challenge: Every morning or every night, write down three things you are grateful for in a notebook or journal. It can literally be anything…don’t limit yourself, big or small. But the important thing is to really feel it with your entire being while writing it down. Take a minute to really settle into that feeling. This creates an energy like no other and provides great healing for an uneasy mind. You realize how much abundance in your life there actually is.

2.) Live Below Your Means:

Basically this means not biting off more than you can chew, or not buying things you can’t afford essentially. This is easier said than done for most people but can make all the difference in the world and not just financially speaking. Not only are you saving money but you are also not adding anymore unnecessary clutter to your life. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “less is more“…Well when it comes to items, or objects or things…this is absolutely true. Buy less, save more, get rid of clutter and create more options in your life.

3.) Get Used To NOT Comparing Yourself

One of worst things you can do when trying to live a simpler life is to compare yourself to other people. The reason being, is that most people overindulge, are flat out broke and buy everything in sight. However, they want you to think they have it all together with loads of money in the bank, a nice house, car etc. Most of the time, the complete opposite is true (there’s been books written about this in the personal finance space). Be happy you are on the path to a life with less stuff and more opportunity to do what you want and when you want to. Comparing yourself to others is completely irrelevant to your journey and will keep you stuck where you are. Break free and live your own life.

Now these are only three extremely basic, yet powerful tips to push you in the right direction.

Try them out for yourself and see what you think, and feel free to add any additional techniques in the comments section below.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to take a look at this here as well.

This would be a good second phase once you learn how to live a simpler life.

Now let’s create more space, more flexibility and more clarity in your life starting today.

Let me ask…

Have you tried adopting this lifestyle yet?

Personal Development

Does Blogging Help SEO? Blogging SEO Best Practices

July 26, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

Does blogging help SEO?

Plain and simple….YES!

In fact, if you’re not blogging, you are leaving a huge chunk of money on the table.

As someone who has done SEO for all different types of clients from large E-commerce websites and global companies, to smaller & medium sized local businesses, in many cases the blog is what drives the most organic traffic to a website (and in some cases leads/sales).

You see, Google wants to see fresh content posted to your site consistently and this can be accomplished easily by blogging.

A blog can be a major asset to a business, even if it just creates more awareness or buzz around a brand, product or company.

Blog posts can also rank very highly in Google for a given keyword phrase which in return brings in free natural organic search traffic.

If you have a personal blog (similar to the one you’re reading right here), you should be writing unique articles at the very least once per week (same goes for a business blog).

Always approach your posts with the reader in mind as well as the search engines.

The one-two punch is making sure your writing is attractive for incoming human traffic and also for the Google bots that crawl your site.

Once you get a better feel for this and implement additional SEO strategies, the sky is the limit really with how much traffic your blog can generate.

It’s important to note, as I say many times, that blogging is a long-term approach and the same goes for SEO.

Don’t expect to post a couple of articles and bring in floods of traffic to your website.

Educate yourself on blogging and SEO, take a realistic/strategic approach, and realize that you’re building an asset for years to come.

Blogging without a doubt is one of the most powerful techniques you can use to strengthen the overall SEO of your website…Combine this with some link building techniques and watch your search rankings start to climb the ladder!

Blogging SEO Best Practices

Now that I’ve hopefully answered the question “Does blogging help SEO?” let’s dig into a few blogging SEO best practices.

Keyword research- It’s important that you have some sort of direction when it comes to writing your blog posts. You will want to conduct some keyword research or micro keyword research to see what people are searching for in your niche. Try to find keyword phrases that have decent search volume and don’t be afraid to use variations of your main keyword or longer tail keywords with 3 – 4 words total for a higher chance of ranking in the search rankings.

SEO Tags– It’s crucially important that all of your SEO tags are in place in every single blog post you write. These include your Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, Header Tags and Image ALT Tags. Just having these SEO tags in place with optimized target terms from your keyword research will put you well ahead of the competition.

Copy optimization & Internal links- You will also want to make sure your copy is optimized with relevant keyword phrases and that your keyword density is high enough (meaning that your target terms are mentioned enough times within the article). Also within the article you will want to internally link to other relevant pages or blog posts on your website. This will help users navigate your site more effectively as well as spread some link juice from page to page!

Social Sharing- The Internet is becoming more and more social everyday so it’s important that you share your blog posts on your social media platforms like Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn etc. More importantly, blog posts have the potential to go viral so you should encourage your readers to share your content as well.

Consistency- Last but certainly not least (in fact this is one of the most important steps of all) is to be consistent with your blogging. As stated above, at the very least you should be publishing a blog post once per week. This comes out to around 4 blog posts per month which is not too shabby. If you can do more than this, great! But it is critical that you remain persistent in your blogging and update your site with fresh content weekly.

Now of course there are additional techniques to help explode your search rankings and organic traffic from your blog like building high quality backlinks, but that’s another subject (and blog post) altogether.

Follow the steps mentioned above and remain consistent with a long-term approach and your website will be sure to see natural organic growth.

Now let me ask…do you utilize a blog for your business?

Blogging

The Work From Home Lifestyle- New Home Office Update!

July 22, 2017 Evan Hoeflich 2 comments

So the past couple of weeks have been a bit crazy.

The main reason being because I moved into a new townhouse, which I believe I underestimated slightly how much work was actually involved.

Anyways, I never really had my own working space when living with my parents or back when I was in college, so I made it a point when I moved out to put this at the top of my priority list.

You see when you live the work from home lifestyle, it’s so crucially important to be comfortable in your environment.

You need a place with minimal distractions, a door you can close, a space that makes you feel alert with enough light and plenty of room to fit your equipment.

Luckily, I found a place where I accomplished all of the above.

Here is a “before” picture a few days after I moved in of my home office:

Yes that’s a leather couch to the left…As you can see, not much was set up as this point. And to be honest I still have a long ways to go.

Here is an “after” picture of my home office as of the time writing this post:

Apologies for my amateur photography skills from my smartphone…

However, things are slowly coming along and in a few more weeks I expect to be done completely with it.

Now back to really the main point of this post and that’s the work from home lifestyle.

Realize that many people dream of working from home full-time, but a high percentage are just not cut out for this type of laid back environment.

I know that may sound surprising but hear me out for a second.

The vast majority of people are truly not disciplined enough to get things done when they’re at home and alone.

There are too many distractions: playing with your smartphone or dog, snacks, cleaning, cooking, web surfing (YouTube, Facebook etc.), sleeping….you catch my drift.

There’s a certain type of person and personality type that truly excels when working from home.

If that’s you, or if you believe that could be you, I recommend reading this here for some extra insight.

The people that do actually work from home full-time realize the true power and freedom this brings.

You can work in your pajamas.

You can put loud music on (only if it helps you concentrate)

You can eat breakfast while you work.

You don’t have to worry about a morning commute or traffic.

You don’t even have to think about 5 o’clock rush hour traffic.

You don’t have to worry about office politics.

You aren’t stuck in a stuffy cubicle.

You feel a sense of freedom and space.

Now many of the jobs or more importantly businesses people start where they can work from home are in the Digital Marketing field.

For example, although I run different side business I also work a day job doing SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Both my side businesses and day job revolve around Internet Marketing as I feel this pathway provides me with the most flexibility when it comes to working where I want to and when I want to.

I’m the kind of person that absolutely loves working from home and can’t even imagine having to work full-time in an office again, but again this type of environment is not for everyone.

In fact, I believe that many people would get extremely bored of the work from home lifestyle…since there’s not much to it.

My advice to you if you’re even slightly interested in working from home and still stuck in a job where you have to physically be there, is to start a side-hustle that can potentially create job crushing income.

This could be soothing on the mind to know that many people out there can entirely create their own schedules and live on their own terms.

Anything is possible, and if working from home full-time is one of your dreams, you CAN make it happen.

So let me ask, do you currently work an office job or somewhere outside of the house?

Are you working from home part-time?

Or are you working from home full-time?

Work From Home

How To Blog For Money – Blogging Update & Case Study

July 16, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

If you’re wondering how to blog for money, you’re not alone.

In fact, this is one of the most frequent questions I get from people.

Blogging is an intriguing business model for many aspiring Internet Marketers because of the freedom it can potentially provide.

Before you even consider starting a blog, it’s important that you have the right mindset and not be too focused on just making money (read this here for more information).

It’s also important to realize that this is not an overnight process and it takes time to build up a blog that gets recognized in the search engines, on social media and by other bloggers.

However, the payoff from sacrificing time and energy now, can pay off big down the road (and not just from an income perspective).

There’s a certain pride that comes from being a blogger and the vulnerability you open yourself up to.

When readers reach out to you with positive messages, it only gives you more motivation to keep pushing.

Additionally, seeing your blog grow organically is a feeling like no other.

If you’re the type that wants to jump right in and get started today, then please read my step by step guide on starting a blog here.

The link above includes everything you need to get your blog up and running as soon as today (no matter what experience level you are at).

For the purpose of this post, I wanted to show you a specific example of how I make money from my blog (note: this is just one example…there are many strategies for monetizing your blog).

How To Blog For Money- Blogging Update (Real Life Example)

So if you’ve been reading my blog here for any amount of time now, you know that this is a personal case study to show people what is possible with blogging and online marketing.

To give you a background, I started this blog around 1 year and 2 months ago (however, it’s important to note that I am an experienced marketer and have close to 8 years experience).

And to be honest, I am just starting to gain some traction in the search engines which in return is bringing in organic traffic from Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.

I would say the last 3 months have shown noticeable improvement in all areas of my blog including search rankings, traffic, conversions, engagement etc. and I know that this will only continue to grow as long as I remain consistent.

Remember, blogging is a long-term approach…if you’re in this for the the short-term, you WILL fail.

Now let’s keep this moving forward…

I want to give you a real life example of a sale I received yesterday.

This is a very simple technique and feel free to use it for yourself once your blog starts generating some consistent traffic.

If you look up at the “Navigation” of my website, you will see there is a page called “Recommended Tools”…click on it to take a look and then come back to this page here (screenshot also below).

You will see I have some of my top recommended marketing tools listed in a simple and clean layout.

Is it the most exciting page? Definitely not.

But it gets the job done and eliminates any fluff.

Each one of the tools I list out contains my affiliate link, meaning that I will get paid a commission every time someone clicks one of those links and purchases any tools…in my case here I’m recommending website hosting, an email autoresponder and click/link tracking.

Disclosure: I get commissions for purchases made through links on this post.

To make a long story short, I woke up yesterday to a $50 sale from HostGator web hosting…all because I had this page set up.

Someone was reading my content, liked what they saw and decided they wanted to start a website and sign up for hosting.

It really is a simple as that…not much more discussion needed.

Now this blog is still gaining traction as I said above…can you imagine the possibilities when this starts receiving thousands of visitors per month?

Internet Marketing is extremely powerful if you have the right skill set.

And I hope to provide you with any golden nuggets I can that I’ve personally seen success with.

I want to be as transparent as possible so you too can see results and earn an extra income online.

If you liked this post, I would love to hear your feedback and I hope these types of marketing tips are helpful to you.

Let me ask you, have you started a blog yet?

If not, what are you waiting for?

Blogging

Internet Marketing Business Running on Auto-Pilot While Away On Vacation!

July 2, 2017 Evan Hoeflich Leave a comment

Possibly the biggest benefit of running an Internet Marketing Business is the fact that if set up correctly, it can still make you money on almost 100% autopilot, without you having to do much of anything!

Now let me be clear that no business is 100% auto-pilot…

However, much of what I do online generates me passive income with very little input on my end.

For example, my solo ad business, which can pretty much be run from my smartphone, generates passive income daily with almost no effort.

Now it’s also important to note that a few of my online businesses that are very passive at this point took me a while to build to this level (the level where you can literally make money in your sleep).

In fact, it took years before I could really take a vacation and still see money rolling into my online accounts at an impressive rate.

This post is designed to get your motivation flowing and to show you what’s possible with the power of the right knowledge and the Internet.

If you want to start a side-hustle, a full-time internet business or maybe just want to generate some extra passive income, the Internet and laptop lifestyle is the way to go.

While I Was On A Mini-Vacation…

My girlfriend and I decided to go to Newport, Rhode Island for a weekend getaway, good food and nice weather.

In the past I would have brought my laptop and “worked” during these mini-vacations to keep everything running smoothly…however this year was different.

I felt no need to do any work on my end for 3 days straight to keep my businesses afloat.

In fact, I made more money that vacation weekend than I have in a long time in my businesses.

And even better, I didn’t even touch a laptop…I only had to answer a few emails from my smartphone and that was basically it.

Another source of income for that weekend actually was 100% auto-pilot and had to do with making money with ClickBank.

So parts of my business truly are almost 100% auto-pilot which is extremely liberating and separates time from money.

Again, I want to be clear that in the beginning phases of my Internet Marketing business, it took me years of eye-straining work to start seeing momentum like this.

But this is really just to show you the true potential of what is possible.

As you can see in the picture above we stopped at a beautiful winery in Connecticut on our way back from Rhode Island.

As my girlfriend and I were just lounging around for a few hours, I checked my phone towards the end of the day and saw a handful of solo ad orders, ClickBank commissions and more subscribers added to my list.

All while drinking some delicious wine and kicking back

There is no better feeling than seeing your hard work pay off and especially when you’re not even doing anything at that particular moment to bring in the money.

Another point I want to make clear is that, when I’m not on vacation, I am an absolute work horse.

I work a full-time job doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO), run various online businesses, all while trying to maintain a social life as well (although I could be better at this).

However, hard work pays off…plain and simple.

This post isn’t to say “you can do absolutely nothing and make a million dollars!”….WRONG mindset.

It’s more to expand your awareness and help you understand that there are some serious opportunities out there.

I’ll live a pretty simple life…And my strategy really isn’t rocket science.

Keep building assets, work extremely hard in the beginning and reap the rewards down the road.

Create more freedom and flexibility in life!

What do you think of having a business bring in cash flow as you focus on other things? (vacations, other projects, family, hobbies)