Blogging

How To Create An Infographic: 9 Easy Steps To Make It Great

Oct 7, 2020 | infographic

Infographics are dominating the info scene right now when it comes to delivering data. People are visual learners and want to be wowed with how they receive information, and designing a successful infographic comes down to being able to deliver data and information in an efficient yet also appealing way. But there are still many people who wonder the question ‘how to create an infographic’ at the times of challenge.

While we have all been designing cool infographics since grade school, with the use of bar graphs and other sources like free infographic creator, we can always improve. This sometimes comes down to breaking down to the process of designing infographics into a step-by-step guide.

Here are the nine steps on how to create an infographic:

1. Gather Information Around Your Subject

When planning an infographic, the best thing to do first is to gather and understand the information you are delivering. Getting to the root of the message that you are trying to send should help you with planning the infographic and give you some ideas on how best to display that.

By understanding the information, you can also get many ideas for infographics of what is best for you to focus on through the content. What message are you trying to send, and what’s the best way to send it.

2. Identify The Purpose Of Audience

Before taking the step forward any further, think whether the subject that you have thought of and the information that you have gathered are at par with the target audience or not. Is the information that you are providing relatable or essential to them? Will your goals of educating and transforming them as leads be fruitful? Will they be reading your content by sparing minutes from their busy life? All these play a very significant determining role in the formation of infographics.

3. Make Your Narrative Engaging

Continuing to my point above, building up an engaging narrative for the audience from the collected information is the next task. Always think from the customers’ point of view whether your formed infographic is able to get their attention or not. It is imperative to engage the audience with the best content structure and style.

4. Present Complex Information In Simple Words And Visuals

Your information may contain complex data, but it is the skill of infographic designer that is needed to present those in the simplest form. To make an infographic work as per your expectation, it is crucial to make the target audience first understand your data first; otherwise, they will take no more time to shift their focus on to something more interesting.

5. Basic Design Structure

Well-connected to the information gathering stage is the basic infographic design stage. Get to the bottom of what you’re trying to deliver and deliver it at its base. By creating a very basic template, you can work from there and adjust it as you need to. Be sure to give yourself space to work and add in your own flavor.

6. Creative Touch To Get Their Focus

Once you have your base and your idea for what you want to deliver, add a creative touch. Simply displaying a bar graph with wording on it is not enough. Remember that every part of the infographic can be changed, from the colors to the entire design and idea. This is the most significant point on answering the question of how to create an infographic as, without creativity, your content will have no reach.

Look at some of the best infographics from last year if you’re in need of inspiration.

7. Select The Right Tool

Making infographic content all by yourself circumnavigates around the perfect and creative usage of free or premium software and tools that lets you to explore your creativity as per your vision. Of course, the free websites have their shortcomings, but when it comes to quick creation, there are nothing parallel to them.

8. Relate To The Brand

The entire point of an infographic is to deliver information in a way that relates to the brand you are representing. You can either try to give a particular focus on the brand through the infographic or attempt to add in your own brand’s personal touch through the design.

9. Review And Share

Once you are all done, the most important steps are reviewing and sharing your infographic. Be sure to double check all of the information and ensure that it is accurate. Also, ensure that your infographic accurately depicts the information you want it to by looking at it from an outsider’s perspective. Once all steps in creating an infographic are covered, share your content through whichever channels you can.

How to Choose a Great Name for Your Blog

Oct 7, 2020 | Blogging, Seo

When it comes time to choose a name for your blog, you are probably going to run into a few issues and frustrations — the main one being that the name you want to use for your site or domain is likely already taken. This is nothing out of the ordinary and something site owners and bloggers deal with on a daily basis. Fortunately, when it comes to blogging or making money on the internet, you can get quite creative and some of the most successful sites in the world have some unique names… ie: ebay, google, yahoo, buzzfeed, reddit etc.

First Steps to Choosing a Name for Your Blog

So what is the first thing you need to do when it comes to choosing a name for your blog? All too often we find ourselves getting way too excited about launching a new web site or blog and we quickly register a domain name, throw WordPress up and start writing content. Unfortunately many of us struggle with this problem and have a whole portfolio of domain and sites we no longer wish we had.

To help all of us avoid these same mistakes, I made a quick bullet point list for you to walk through before getting started.

Think of why you want to make a blog in the first place
What are you going to be blogging about and do you have enough writing ideas
Come up with a few keywords that you might want to use in your domain
How are you going to monetize your site or blog once you have content and traffic
Visit GoDaddy.com or NameCheap.com and see if your domain name is available

Unless you get creative with your domain name, it’s probably already taken.

Securing Your Personal Domain Name for a Blog

There are likely already a few hundred or even a few thousand people in the world with your same exact name, but there is only one exact match domain name in .com, .net or .org form for your name. Owning the .com version of your name is priceless, even if you aren’t trying to brand your blog around yourself — and it truly is “one in a million” (if not 7 billion)

I was fortunate enough to register ZacJohnson.com back in the day and just held it in my portfolio for many years before I actually did anything with it, which was launching this blog back in 2007.

If someone already does have yourname.com, then you can do a few things:

See if the domain name is registered (if so, by who)
Contact the owner of the site to see if they are willing to sell
Use a domain name expiration service to capture the domain name if they forget to renew
If you must have the domain name and none of these methods work, you can hire a domain broker to help

* The domain expiration service tip is huge! I’ve been using it for years now and have not only secured multiple variations of my name, but also some other amazing domain names in the process.

Buying a Great Domain Name

If you aren’t looking to use your personal name as your blog/domain name and are looking for something unique and generic at the same time, your next best option may be to purchase a premium domain name or established site.

I have two examples for you:

BloggingTips.com – I had the opportunity to purchase this site several sites ago through Flippa. It’s a very attractive and keyword rich domain name. It’s also made up of two highly sought after words and it being a “.com” makes it even more valuable. At the time of the purchase it came along with a full site and content, but the domain name in itself is worth a decent amount.
Blogging.org – I was also fortunate enough to purchase this amazing one-word domain name after it had expired and went into auction. I was the winner of the auction and decided to launch my own blogging service through the site. This initial purchase was solely for the domain name.

It Really Doesn’t Matter What You Name Your Site

I’ll know throw a wrench into your thinking process and simply remind you that whatever you end up naming your domain, blog, brand or business — it really doesn’t matter!

I mentioned a bunch of successful sites with weird names and words that the average person would have no idea what they meant 10-20 years ago, and now they are household names.

Having an exact match or one-to-two word domain is awesome and it can definitely help with brand, but at the end of the day it comes down the service, product and value that your site or business offers. Focus on the end goal for your blogging concept of business model and you will find success no matter the name you end up going with.

3 Great Ways to Make Extra Money Online in Your Spare Time

Oct 7, 2020 | Online Marketing

No one said entrepreneurship was going to be easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it. The truth is… running your own business and finding success is extremely tough! However, that doesn’t mean that there still aren’t ways for you to make some money on the side in your spare time.

Having made money online for the past 20 years, it’s always amazing to me with how often people will complain about their lives and their financial situations… yet they will still spend 5 to 10 hours per week watching meaningless television shows or just wasting. All of this time adds up and it could really be put to much better use — such as creating a side business, hobby or even just making a few dollars online in the process.

To get your mind juices flowing, today I’m going to share just a few ideas on how you can start making a few extra dollars online… while not needing to be a full-on entrepreneur or business in the process.

Become a Freelance Writer

An excellent way to make money on the side is through the use of content writing. While writing is something you might not be amazing at, content is needed for millions of sites around the internet. What’s even better is that there are content writing networks that many it easy for anyone to join, then start filling writing jobs posted on the site. Two of the most popular writing sites are TextBroker (see my interview with their CEO) and iWriter — both of which rate users based off their writing skills, which also influences how much money you can earn per word/article. In addition to the two main sites above, you can also check out these top writing job boards.

This is the perfect opportunity for anyone to start making money online, as there are no costs associated with getting paid to complete articles on these sites and you also don’t need to have a site. Last year I wanted to test both of these sites out as a writer and see if I could earn $1,000 in a month in my free time. I’m thrilled to say “mission accomplished” — however, I am extremely fast at writing and after haven written over 1,000 unique articles online, my average rating was quite high as well.

For anyone that is a decent writer, there is no reason why you couldn’t join both of these sites and earn $500+ per month. Once you’ve found success with getting paid to write articles for other sites, you should then think about becoming an independent writer with your own site, service, and rates.

Monetization Goal: Write at least one article per day at an average of $10 per article, and you will have $300+ in earnings per month.

Get Active in the Stock Market and Currency Trading

As often as you hear about people making millions of dollars in the stock market, there are even more untold stories of the complete opposite. However, some people have proven to find success with buying and selling stocks, financial markets and world currencies time and time again. One example of someone who has mastered this art is my friend Tim Sykes… who went on to turn his $12,000 investment into over $4 million dollars. Why is it “easy” for people to make money with a program like the one Tim offers? Simple… Tim’s subscribers get alerts every time he makes a trade. This means you just have to follow what he does, while also using your own money and stock trading accounts. This is called copy trading (a.k.a. social trading), there are other ways of trade automation solutions, check out this forex trading software for example. Anchor: check out this forex trading software.

Just like there are platforms for day trading in the stock market, there are also platforms for trading forex and world currencies as well. World currencies and forex is something that’s always been interesting to me, but not something I’ve actually tried. There are some cool resources out there, like ETX Capital, which is not only a platform for world/currency trading but also for further education in how people are making money with binary options, commodities, equities works.

The takeaway here is in most cases, anyone can get started in the stock market or currency trading with a low investment. Yes, it’s always going to be a risk, but if you follow the right people and study the market enough, you can make money on the side without it seeming like you are taking on a new job or project. Either way, who wouldn’t want to learn more about investing and world markets in the process?

Monetization Goal: Day trading in and out of stocks for quick 5-10% gains.

Start a Niche Blog and Let It Grow Over Time

With the focus of “not running a business” and making money on the side, we can also talk about the options for starting a website or blog of your own. If this is going to be done correctly, and with the goal of eventually making a few dollars with your site, a “niche site” is definitely the way to go.

The reason why a niche site would work extremely well is that you are going after a very tiny niche market that doesn’t have a ton of competition. The benefit here is that it will likely take less content, promotional efforts and work to get your site to rank.

A good example of this could be “promotional USB pen drives“. Yes, it’s a topic and product that businesses and brands spend millions of dollars on every year, but it’s also not the most fun or interesting topic to talk about. Type the phrase into Google and you will see many variations also appear, such as:

custom usb drives no minimum
custom usb drives for photographers
custom shaped flash drives
custom wood usb drives

What this tells us is that there is a demand in this market and people are very specific on what they are looking for. This serves as a great opportunity for you to build a site with only a few content pages, which could eventually rank on the first page of Google — with only a few quality backlinks.

To stress this point even further, we can pull up LongTailPro stats to show that advertisers are paying good money to search for these terms, there is definitely some local (and global) search volume, but more importantly the “Keyword Competition” is a low 25-27 range.

So what does this mean for someone just wanting to try and make a few dollars online in their spare time? Simple… follow my how to start a blog guide and create a site focused around a very tight niche topic like the one above. Write (or outsource) a few great articles for your site around these topics, then do some social and link building promotions to get your site ranking in Google. With a niche this small, it shouldn’t be hard for you to rank a site on the main page of Google for a few long tail keywords, while also making a few bucks in the process. When choosing a niche and topic to write about, make sure you have a way to make money with the site — such as joining an affiliate program or using Google Adsense.

Monetization Goal: Creating a small niche site that ranks organically in Google for long tail keywords and earns $50-$100 a month.

How to Make Money Online in Your Spare Time

At the end of the day, there are hundreds of ways to make money online. Many are complex, but many are also quite simple and easy. I tried to stay away from any opportunities that would require a heavy upfront investment or a lot of pre-training.

No matter what method you choose or try to start making money with, it will ultimately come down to the amount of time, work, and effort you put into it. Millions of people are making good money on the side. Now it’s your time to do the same.