I have a goal of reaching 500 RSS subscribers by September 30th. Will you help me make it happen?

My Hot Seminar Series is rolling onward! We’ve talked about great themes, great plugins, cool things Wordpress can do, Wordpress Security and more.  This week I’ve got Lexi Rodrigo talking about how freelancers can use a blog to build their business.

My guest expert next week is Lynn Terry of Clicknewz.  I’ve been looking forward to engaging Lynn in a Cross Blog Conversation all summer.  Let’s get started!

Hey Lynn,

I’m super pleased to have you as part of my seminar series again this year.  You always “bring it”!

I’ve got a question to get us started:

So many people start blogging on a whim and end up fizzling out after a little while.  According to the archives on your blog, you started blogging in the spring of 2006 and you definitely never fizzled.  I have a feeling that starting a blog was not a decision that you made lightly, right?

Did you have a plan for your blog from the beginning and have you pretty well stuck to it?

Looking forward to your reply,

Kelly

P.S.  I was really looking forward to seeing you at NAMS next month, but sadly, I’m not longer attending.  I hope there’s some other way that we can get together face to face again soon!

Let’s keep an eye on Lynn’s blog for her response – and I’ll be watching for her question for me!

I just finished up the Monday morning prayer session with my summer faith based business group. We have just three weeks left in our group and one thing that I’ve been working hard to drive home with everyone is the importance of praying specific prayers.

We are way too apt to pray prayers that can’t be substantiated in a real way.  ‘Please bless our businesses…‘  That’s a sweet little prayer – but how do you know later whether that prayer has been answered?  If your home office wasn’t blown away in a tornado last week, I guess you’d have to call it blessed, right?

I’m asking my coaching clients to be more specific!  I’m asking them to pray for something that can be measured and acknowledged and used to build our faith!

‘Father God, I need a new Mac Book Pro so that I can make the best images and videos and attract more clients.’  Now that’s specific!  Better yet,  ‘I need $2299 for a new 17inch Mac Book Pro!’

Whether you plan on praying about your business needs or not, you really do need to know what you NEED to make your business the best it can be.

Time to Create a Business Needs List

Workspace Issues:

• Is  your desk appropriate?
• Is your chair comfortable?
• Is your floor protected?
• Do you have adequate lighting?
• Do you need more planning space?
• Do you need a filing cabinet?
• Would a big white board be helpful?

Computer Issues:

• Is your system fast enough?
• Should you be using a Mac instead of a PC?
• What software would make your business day easier?
• Do you need a better mouse? (Would a tablet mouse be awesome for your work?)
• Do you need a dual-monitor set up?
• Do you need a printer or scanner?
• Do you need a web cam?
• Is your internet fast enough?

Miscellanious:

• Business cards looking great?
• Should you do a postcard mailing?
• Do you need some fliers printed up?
• Have you read the latest business books?
• Are you subscribed to appropriate trade magazines?
• Do you have the professional memberships you need?
• Do you need updated graphics?
• Do you need to move your site into Wordpress?
• Do you need further training in ____?
• Do you need a business coach?

People:

• Who do you want to get to know?
• Who do you hope to partner with?
• Who do you want to guest blog for?
• Do you need a VA?
• Do you need someone to help with the kids?
• Do you need a weekly housekeeper?

Make your list and pin it up somewhere.  Use it to help you prioritize your business spending and see the items on the list be checked off one by one.

And if you do pray for your business – don’t be afraid to get specific!

My next guest expert in the Hot Seminar Series is Lexi Rodrigo of The Savvy Freelancer.  Lexi has really made her presence known online and blogging has been a huge part of it, that’s why I wanted to tap her for the series.

I’m running terribly behind on my schedule for this week – Lexi and I were supposed to have some time for a nice Cross Blog Conversation before her appearance but I think I’ll probably only have time to ask her one thing…

Lexi, I’m geeked about having you as part of the Hot Seminar Series this year.  I know that you’ll be bringing a lot of great ideas to our participants.

Here’s my question for you:

Many freelancers are service providers and from my interactions with them I know they find blogging challenging. Do you have any quick tips in advance of our session for freelancers who want to use a blog to grow their businesses?

I’ll be keeping an eye on Lexi’s blog for her reply.

Last night Suzanne Franco was our guest expert at the Hot Seminar Series and the topic was growing your RSS subscribership.  It was a great session and I’ve got some notes to put into action as soon as I can carve out the time – hopefully before the end of this weekend.

I have a goal of reaching 500 RSS subscribers on this blog by the end of the year – but I’m feeling like I should push it a bit harder than that… I’m thinking to change the deadline up to the end of September instead of the end of the year.  That gives me the rest of this month and all of August and September to work at it.

I’ve never given RSS subscriber numbers a lot of emphasis – other than keeping an eye on the number of podcast subscribers at Work at Home Moms Talk Radio, I have kept the focus on growing my mailing list first.  I certainly won’t be slacking off in that area either – I have big plans to grow those subscriber numbers through the fall as well.

What will I be doing to grow my RSS numbers?

Well, so far my ideas are…

1. Prominent RSS subscription info on my sidebar.
2. Prominent RSS subscription info under each post.
3. I’m using the ‘What Would Seth Godin Do’ plugin to invite new users to subscribe.
4. I created an ‘About RSS’ page to link newbies to.
5. I’m going to ask for subscriptions whenever possible while trying not to be obnoxious about it.
6. I’m going to start a blog post series that will hopefully make people want to subscribe so as not to miss any part of it.
7. I’m going to hold a contest for RSS subscribers only – using the ‘RSS Footer’ plugin to do that.

If you’re not already using RSS to keep in touch with my blog, please do subscribe now – use the subscription box at the top of my sidebar, you can choose to add my feed to your favorite RSS reader (I use Google Reader) or you can choose to receive alerts via email.

Three Good Reason to Subscribe to my RSS Feed Now

1. You’re a work at home mom or want to be one – that’s who I serve!
2. You’ve never tried RSS before and would like to understand more about it – I’m going to talk about it a lot in the coming weeks.
3. You want to see how I do with my goal – as good a reason as any!

I’m continuing my Cross Blog Conversation with Suzanne Franco who will be my guest speaker tonight at the Hot Seminar Series.  Grab your Season Pass yet?

You can read Suzanne’s last part of the CBC here.

Suzanne, thanks for the thoughtful replies to my questions!  I apologize for the long delay in getting back to you with my reply.  My PC had to go to the shop and I just got it back this morning.

You asked what I’ve done so far to gain RSS subscribers.  Well, I just started the blog this summer and I’ve basically asked my friends to subscribe and that’s it.

Well, no – that’s not it.  I chose a blog theme with a nice RSS subscription box in the sidebar and I’ve given the RSS box the most prominent position.

I’ve also added a ‘Please subscribe to my Blog!’ line in my signature at Mom Masterminds and I’ve specifically asked my mailing list to subscribe.

As of today, I have 67 subscribers.

You suggested having a Twitter landing page and I didn’t already have one so I threw one up real quick. I went to Twitter and updated my profile link.

Suzanne, I can’t wait to talk to you at the Hot Seminar Series tonight – I plan to mine your brain for a lot of great ideas!

Do you have questions for Suzanne?  I hope you’ll bring them to the live session tonight!

My Hot Seminar Series has been rolling along just great.  Last night I shared the Wordpress Plugins that I use on a regular basis and a few that I plan to add to my arsenal in the near future.

Next week I have another guest expert coming to share their awesome blogging experience.  Her name is Suzanne Franco and she is going to bring us the juicy bits about how she grew her blog RSS readership to over 500 in just 30 days.

Since my blog here at KellyMcCausey.com is so new and I currently have just 60 RSS subscribers, I am very interested!

Today I start a Cross Blog Conversation with Suzanne, so you can read our letters to each other and add your comments and questions as we go along.  Let’s get started!

Hey Suzanne,

I remember when the Blogging Idol competition was going on.  My first thought was that it must take a lot of guts to step up to participate in something so measurable.   People tend to shrink away from competitions that have trackable results – because they won’t be able to put a spin on the outcome – either they produced the results or they didn’t.

I really have three questions for you:

• Were you nervous about putting yourself out there?
• Did you see the competition as a way to really push yourself?
• Were you concerned about perhaps not performing well?

I can’t wait to read your reply over at SuzanneFranco.com!

Stay tuned for her reply – you’ll want to go subscribe to her RSS feed of course (right after you subscribe to mine!)

If you ask me about what it takes to develop a great online business, I’ll always say, It’s all about creating a lot of great content.

Some way, somehow – you have to be able to generate a lot of content that people want to consume AND that content needs to motivate them to hire you or buy from you or simply take your recommendations.

I’m fortunate that I learned this early on. I actually like to write and talk and rarely run out of things to say but I realize that I’m not the norm.  A large percentage of my coaching clientele admit they don’t feel confidence in their ability to write well or communicate verbally and have to really work at it.

Whether you feel great about your ability to communicate your ideas or struggle with getting what you know out there, there’s always room for improvement and believe it or not, content creation skills can be learned and what can’t be mastered can be outsourced.

Over at Contentrix, my friend Alice Seba released a new content planning course a few weeks ago.  I’ve been listening to the lessons and I’m reminded again that Alice has a great ‘precept upon precept’ way of teaching – she has broken up the huge topic of content marketing into meal sized segments (lessons) that teach you the important things in just the right order.

Right up front she emphasizes the need to be strategic with your content creation efforts.  We hear that ‘content is king’ so often we think we need to generate so much content that we start spewing it out onto the web as fast as we can without any real plan in place.  That won’t get you anywhere fast and will probably burn you out before long.

Right now there are 20 weekly lessons in the course and you can get the first week’s lesson for just $1.  If you decide to stay in the course, you’ll pay about $10 per week to keep getting the course segments.  OR – you could grab access to the whole course for a one time payment of $97 and if Alice decides to add more lessons down the road, you’ll get those too at no additional cost.

A Bonus Offer:

If you decide to go ahead and grab the lifetime option now – and do it through my link above – I’ll send you a free digital copy of some of my best content: The Complete Internet Marketing Moms Start Up Guide.  (Just forward your receipt for ‘Better Content Marketing Results’ to support@momstalknetwork.com and we’ll send you your ebook!)

Save $20!

Coupon Code: C475A
Discount: $20 off
Expiry: July 15, 2010

Our little road trip to London, Ontario was fun and relaxing.  I so enjoyed getting to spend time with Canadian Mom Masterminds members again this summer.

Present: (Right to Left) Tishia Lee, Myself, Angel Williams, Lexi Rodrigo, Sharon McMillan, Imie Belanger, Mary Lutz & Angela Wills.

Angela Wills blew me away with an awesome award that says  Kelly McCausey, ‘WAHM Crusader’ LOL!

I wish we could do more of this, getting together in person, all over the country – but for now I’ll just settle for my upcoming trip to NAMS in Atlanta… can you join us there?

Lynette has responded to my questions in our Cross Blog Conversation here and she’s got a question for me in return.

You’ve had plenty of experience working with WordPress and we are going to talk about using WordPress in unconventional ways. Tell us what kind of sites you have built for yourself or your clients with it?

Great question, I’m glad to answer.

Lynette, it seems like I’m using Wordpress for just about everything these days.

As you know, when we first launched Mom Masterminds we used Xoops, a complex content management system.  After awhile we moved out of that into a plain HTML designed site and then a couple of years ago we moved into Wordpress.  I’m much happier with it now.  Xoops was ‘too much’ for our needs and HTML was ‘too little’.  Wordpress is ‘just right’.

I moved all most all of my sites (minus the sales letters) into Wordpress over the last couple of years.  I even moved my biggest adsense money maker – even though I was a little worried about upsetting the apple cart.  The good news is that the move went just fine.

Nicole Dean and I left Article Dashboard (a script designed especially for article directories) behind and imported Lady Pens, the woman writer only article directory, over to Wordpress.

I’ve used Wordpress to build several directories for myself and for clients.  That reminds me of something I’ve seen just this week, our friend Courtney has created a directory with Wordpress and then totally automated the process of adding new sites with the Gravity forms plugin and a screenshot plugin.  You can see it here.

I’ve just recently dabbled with using Wordpress for a forum with the Simple Press plugin.

There’s just so much that can be done and I know I only scratch the surface.  I haven’t touched on half of what I know you’ve done for your projects and clients!  That’s why I’m so excited to hear what you have to say at the Hot Seminar Series.

Ok – now to ask you another question.  I know you have created a lot of resources to help others learn how to use Wordpress and related technology.  Why have you made this such a priority in your product line up?  Who needs to be learning this the most?

Ok, let’s be watching for her reply over at Tech Based Marketing!

This starts a quick Cross Blog Conversation with Lynette Chandler of Tech Based Training Lynette will be speaking at my Hot Seminar Series next week!

Lynette is the technology go to gal for so many internet marketers it makes me wonder if our little world would come crashing down if she decided to retire?   Ok, maybe not crash… but it would definitely spin slower for awhile.

Lynette, you know I think you’re amazing, right?

What impresses me most is that you’re not intimidated by the unknown.  (And to me it seems like technology is filled with the unknown!)  I look at strange code and want to run away, you look at it and get drawn in.  I don’t always get it – but with you around I don’t have to.

I’ve learned so much about working with Wordpress from you and I don’t tell you often enough that I appreciate having you as a resource when I’m knee deep in something I can’t figure out.  Do you ever feel ‘too relied on’ by others?

Can you tell me what you love most about working with Wordpress?  Maybe, if there is one, throw in one thing about Wordpress that you wish were different.

Can’t wait to read your reply!

I’ll be watching for Lynette’s reply on her blog.