Social media

3 Tools Digital Media Companies Use to Create Compelling Content and Maximize Web Traffic

June 10, 2016

At the digital media company where I work, we’ve dubbed this “the year of science.” We’ve long relied on intuition and experience to create content that will engage readers and drive clicks to The Penny Hoarder. And while that has worked well, growing the site to 20 million readers a month, this year we’re putting […]

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Make Money Blogging: How to Sell Direct Advertising on Your Website

May 28, 2015

If you’re just starting a blog, selling ads probably isn’t the best way to make money. For websites that don’t yet see a lot of traffic, it’s typically smarter to keep your blog clutter-free while you gain trust from readers, and earn income via digital products (like my ebooks or The Write Life bundle sale), consulting […]

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The Case for Buying Facebook Ads, Even If You’re a Small Brand

May 7, 2015

Organic reach keeps falling on Facebook, and everyone knows it. In every blogger / entrepreneur / social strategist community I follow, marketers are complaining about how the posts on their Facebook page simply don’t reach as many fans as they used to. We’ve seen this with The Write Life’s Facebook page. We have more than […]

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On the Rise of Content Marketing and the Outsourced Newsroom

April 30, 2015

I didn’t choose content marketing as my second career because it was hot. In fact, when I first began offering blog management and social media services in 2011 on the side of my day job, I didn’t even realize the work I was doing fell under the content-marketing umbrella. I simply enjoyed using my writing, […]

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The Quick ‘n Dirty Guide to Getting Traffic to Your Website

March 2, 2015

I’m a writer at heart. So I hang out with a lot of writers who are creating awesome things: impressive blogs, high-quality online publications, and more. Except no one’s reading them. PEOPLE! You can create all the amazing content you want, but if no one knows it’s there, you’re probably not going to see the […]

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Affiliate Sales: A Realistic Guide for Earning Revenue From Your Website

February 10, 2015

Earning affiliate income is often touted as one of the best ways to make money online. In truth, however, it’s very difficult to accomplish and only lucrative for top bloggers. My team is beginning to turn the corner with affiliate earnings for one of our sites, so I want to share how we’ve done that […]

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Why Email Marketing Should Take Priority Over Facebook

November 21, 2014

You should focus on growing your email list more than your Facebook page. Because of my journalism background, I tend to share research when it offers new or insightful information we can all act on. This research falls into that category, as Fast Company explains in their summary of the Forrester report. But it caught […]

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How We’re Monetizing The Write Life: An Income Report (October 2014)

October 21, 2014

Fifteen months after launching The Write Life, a website and community for writers, we’ve turned the corner toward profitability. Because of that momentum, and because I’ve been inspired lately by income reports from Pinch of Yum‘s food blogger duo, Kindle author Steve Scott and passive income evangelist Pat Flynn (who launched a niche site on […]

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Announcing the Winners of Our Blogging Contest

September 29, 2014

A few months ago, I wrote about my struggle to find top-notch freelance writers to contribute to the various blogs my company manages. To discover high-quality contributors, we launched a contest, asking writers to submit posts on specific topics. While each winner’s post would earn them $75, that wasn’t the only perk: any writer whose […]

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We’re Getting Hitched! How I Met My (Almost) Husband on Twitter

August 30, 2014

It’s a big week: I’m getting married! While I’ve shared a number of love stories on this blog in recent years, including how proud I am of my soon-to-be husband, I’ve never publicly revealed the story of how we met. In fact, the only place I’ve shared this story — aside from with family and […]

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