It’s been a long time since my last Ask Me Anything here on Making Sense of Cents.
Ask Me Anything is literally that – you can ask me anything. If you’re struggling to figure out what to ask, here are a few of the topics you may want to know more about:
- Personal finance
- Blogging
- My life
- Travel
- RVing
- Sailing
- Being location independent
- Business
- Making extra money
- Questions about my dogs
And so on, and so on.
Seriously, ask me anything in the comments below, and I will take the time to answer every single one. Of course, please nothing inappropriate or creepy. I’ll let you be the judge of what is creepy, I guess, haha!
All right, go for it, ask away!
P.S. If you’re looking to see all of the comments and questions, make sure to hit “Older Comments” or “Newer Comments” below. The comments break apart in pages once there are over 50 comments.
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What was the final moment that made you say I have to start my blog? I am having such a difficult time taking the jump?
There was not much thought process for me. I just started it 🙂
You can read more about my beginning here – https://fund-rise.live/2017/04/how-to-make-money-blogging-online.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
As a widely respected personal finance blogger, and someone who presents tremendous DIY guidance to us readers, what is your recommendation for the point in time when successful entrepreneurs/freelancers/bloggers should start building out a professional team of advisors (i.e. CPA, financial planner, Personal CFO) to help manage their personal finances and overall wealth?
I’ve often heard that once you start making 6 figures annually, you should look into getting an expert to review your entire personal financial system to identify the current cracks and weaknesses. I’ve also heard how a Personal CFO helped a successful entrepreneur by designing customized, advanced personal finance and wealth building strategies that align with short and long term financial goals, and most importantly, provides accountability and ensure execution.
What are your experiences using any form of financial advisors throughout your wealth building journey and recommendation for those ready to take things to the next level?
Hey Mike!
I think it just depends on the person, their business, and their background/experience. For me, I have a CPA who does my taxes, but for the most part I do everything else myself.
Hello! When doing a sponsored post, is it customary to get paid AND get free product? I’ve done posts where I get free products, but I’m wondering if many companies do both. How would you word an email to ask for both, either as a reply or pitching to a company? I’ve had a hard time finding information on proper practices and examples of communicating with companies.
Thank you for doing this!
Yes, many companies do both. This is so that you can review their product.
I think it’s pretty normal for them to give both if they are already paying you. Simply giving your pricing and once that’s agreed upon, talking about the product and how you need it in order to provide a meaningful review is just the next logical step.
I do have a full course on sponsored posts, along with email templates to use – http://makingsenseofsponsoredposts.com/
Hi Michelle,
Love your blog!
I have a question about niches. I am starting a blog about dogs. Do you think that nicking down to a specific breed (Maltipoo) is too narrow? Should I do maybe “small dog” ? Thank you so much!!
Hey Michelle,
How many blog posts should you have before you make your blog website live?
Also wondering if starting a small business/finance blog would be too competitive for a new blogger?
Thanks!
Hey Eva!
Thank you 🙂
I’m not super familiar with that breed, but it does look like there’s a lot of searches for it from the quick & simple search that I just did. A small dog blog may be more easy to write a lot of content for, as you won’t be too niched down.
Thank you! I really appreciate your advice. Happy sailing!
I Michelle, Thanks for offering us a chance to ask you something. First of all I have been a constant reader of your blog because your blog was the 1st one that I read when we started our own blog. Me and my partner love your blog and we love to read your income reports. We hope to make our blog successful.
My question is what schedule do you follow or a routine that helps you in blogging consistently. You always try to stay ahead 3 months in content and I also notice that you publish around 10 or more post in a month. so kindly share your blogging routine/task/schedule that you follow to be consistent. Or you can even create a detailed post regarding it 🙂
Thanks and I hope you will surely answer this!
We wish you more and more success with your blogging journey ahead, you are really our inspiration and motivator.
Glad you enjoy my blog 🙂 Always great to hear!
Although it is a little dated, I have published a Day In The Life here – https://fund-rise.live/2018/06/digital-nomad-lifestyle.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Here’s my blogging to do list.
There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes for each post, and it might sound like a pretty long process. But, it’s become quite routine over time. Other than me brainstorming and writing the actual blog post (besides guest posts, I have always written my own content myself because I enjoy it), almost everything else is now outsourced to virtual assistants.
Here is a list of what goes along with each new article that you see on Making Sense of Cents:
-Think of new article topic ideas. I have a list of over 100 possible article topics that I keep on my laptop and my phone. These topics come from life experiences, reader questions, research, articles that I’ve come across, and so on. But, I’m constantly adding new ones.
-Create a schedule. I have a schedule of topics for at least one full month, including the dates articles will be published. And, I like to make sure I cover a good variety of topics each week. For example, I don’t usually like to have a week full of making money ideas. Instead, I like my posts to vary between making money, saving money, life improvement, and so on.
-Write content. I like to sit down and write an article from beginning to end without any breaks. It may take me an hour to write an article or I may be at it all day. Sometimes, content does span a few days, but for the most part, I like to finish a piece of content in one sitting. I then hand over the content to my editor to fix anything from grammar and punctuation to the general flow of the article. The only thing she doesn’t edit are my monthly income reports.
-Add images and formatting. Once I get the content back from my editor, I add images (one for Pinterest and one for Facebook), format the post the way I want it to look, and add links to related content on my website.
-Publish the article and share. Once the article is published on Making Sense of Cents, I share it to Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. I also schedule it to share on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter for future dates as well.
-Email my subscribers. The last thing I do is send an email to my subscribers about a new blog post being published.
Hi Michelle!
I’m currently enrolled in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course. Loving it! I launched my blog in December and have put soo much time into it. I realized recently that I started chasing the wrong niche and instead want to pursue travel blogging as the main focus. I travel A LOT and its what really motivates me – I also feel like its easier to monetize compared to personal development (my niche now). Wondering your opinion on travel blogging & whether you know if it generally brings decent traffic? Thanks so much!
Glad you’re enjoying the course! Thank you so much.
I don’t know if one niche is easier to monetize than the other. Yes, travel blogging can bring in great traffic – I’m sure you’re already following tons of them!
Hey Michelle
My blog is doing close to 4000 a month in traffic. Can I approach brands for sponsorship with these numbers ? In your opinion ? Or should I try affiliate marketing first.
Thanks for your help
Hey Jeremy!
You can start with either sponsorship or affiliate marketing. With sponsorships, you’ll want a good pitch, of course.
Would you say the bulk of your affiliate income comes from a few posts (say 5-10), or is it spread out across your entire site?
The bulk comes from a few posts directly. But, indirectly, many of them filter into one another as I get readers from all over.
Hi Michelle,
I am days away from my personal finance blog launch. (www.buildGENXwealth.com)
Following your story has definitely been an inspiration! 🙂
I think I’ve got some good content to start with.
What would you say are the *very first steps* I should take in building traffic?
Many thanks,
Mitch
Hello!
1) Create social media accounts in as many places as you can, even if you won’t be active in all of them in the very beginning.
2) Find places to guest post.
3) Learn about SEO.
4) Publish high-quality content only.
Great tips – thanks a bunch!
Enjoy the sailing 🙂
Hi Michelle!
This question is in regard to blogging. When you launch a pin for Pinterest, what is your method? Thanks!
Hmm… Can you clarify your question? I don’t really have a method – I just press pin 🙂
I mean as far as Pinterest’s rules now and your business strategy for pinning your blog posts where it doesn’t seem like spam
Hi Michelle, I’ve been a blogger for a long time doing mostly SEO type content to grow my blog. My question is what did you do in the early days to grow your audience and build more of a relationship with them?
Hey Chris!
I’ve always responded to all comments and all emails, so that has really helped me build a relationship. Also, Instagram and my Facebook community has been super helpful in building a relationship as well.
Hi Michelle,
I recently launched my blog and I’m trying to grow the traffic. One of the strategies I’m focusing most on is backlinks on high-quality content for SEO.
And for that, I’m doing outreach. However, I’d say that about 8 out of 10 times I get a response, I get asked for money in exchange for a link.
Did you do outreach and experienced this?
If you didn’t do outreach, did links just start building up over time for you?
If you did outreach and experienced this, how did you go about it to grow organically?
I don’t do any outreach. Links just built up over time for me, mainly due to always publishing high-quality content.
Thanks for your response 🙂
Hi Michelle,
When did you start seeing real traffic growth to your blog? I’ve had my blog for five months now and only get around 100 page views per month. I do on-page SEO and promote pieces on Pinterest but haven’t seen any real upticks in traffic yet.
Any particular traffic strategies that worked well for you in the early days of your blog?
Thanks!
Elisabeth
P.S. I’m working through your Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course and loving it so far!
Hello!
I didn’t have analytics installed on my blog in the beginning, so I wasn’t able to track page views. I want to say that I was at about 50,000 monthly page views around 1-2 years in?
In the early days, I networked a ton. So, I had a lot of people referring their readers to my blog, I was guest posting, taking part in interviews, and more.
Sorry Eva I didn’t realize I replied to your comment earlier. I was on a mobile device before and must have tapped the wrong button. LOL
Hey Michelle,
I’m currently working on a blog and was wondering how many posts I should have before going live with my blog website?
Also is a blog about small business and financing too competitive for a newbie blogger?
Sorry again about my previous REPLY and thanks for answering everyone’s questions
I recommend just writing one and going live. You won’t have a ton of readers in the beginning so you might as well just launch 🙂
I haven’t done any research on that niche, but everyone has to be new at some point so I can’t imagine it being different?
Hi Michelle,
I’ve been having issues sharing my posts on Facebook and promoting them because of the featured image size of the post. I size my featured images for Pinterest but they are too big for Facebook and when I share them only a third is shown (making them less appealing to click on for the audience). Is there a way to solve this?
Visually, I prefer Pinterest sized images as featured photos. Do I need to change my featured images sizes (for example making them flat and rectangular) to solve the problem or there is another way? Because changing featured image size would then be not ideal for Pinterest.
Thank you!
Using a plugin like Social Pug (now through Mediavine), will allow you to choose different images to upload for each.
Thanks for your reply Michelle! I installed Social Pug; however, I do not see an option to insert different images when I click on the Facebook icon. I tried to look at settings as well but nothing came up. Is there anything I’m missing? Thank you!
It should be within each blog post.