Slow Notes
Notes about starting a podcast – branding, quality, hosting, and other things
I'm starting a podcast. Yes, you read correctly. The writer girl is going to start talking. And yes, it's a work in progress. First of all, I'd like to have a good start. Make a solid first episode, with quality sound (not too quality, I'll come back to this in a moment), and have impactful cover art. This all doesn't happen in a day, at least not for me. And then I have stumbled upon the big question about podcast hosting. Not that there weren't options. Maybe there are too many. Besides, it gets a bit confusing. I have been doing lots of research about podcasting, and I wanted to share...
Why would I use your website?
Too often I see websites created just because. Just because everyone else has one. Just because someone said it's good for marketing. Just because. Those websites generally fail to generate traffic or conversions. This is because their existence doesn't give anything to the people using the web. There's no reason to visit and revisit the site, nor to click on any of the links within it. Here's the question to ask: Why would anyone use this site? We all have different reasons for visiting and using websites. The practical reasons, such as need for finding certain information, are most pro...
Waiting for the better weather
Planning to have a run? It's raining, best to wait for a better weather. And then it's sunny, but too warm. Best to wait for a cooler weather. Then it's too cold and windy. Best to wait. Really, it's not about the weather as much it's about you not wanting to go for that run. It's okay, just be honest about it. I'm planning to have a run, but I really don't want to do it. It's the same with anything else. The weather is never perfect for it. You'll never have enough money on your bank account to start your business. You'll never have enough content to launch your marketing. You'll never ha...
I'm creating an e-course!
Sometime in early 2016 I found Teachable. I had been looking into online course creation, and learned this particular platform was quite popular. Teachable is a platform for creating and hosting e-courses. It is different from such services as Skillshare and Udemy in that you can create your own "school". This means your courses aren't sold by Teachable, and you have a lot of control over them. Teachable also doesn't set any requirements for the courses. This means you can create a completely text based course if you want, and there are no requirements for course length or other similar lim...
What is SEO and how it works
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation. It simply means indicating the search engines that the pages of your website are worth being shown in the result pages (SERP). In addition to optimising the pages of your website to appear in search results, there are also strategies and techniques that are used to improve the chance people will click the links and stay on the website after clicking the link. Search engines are such systems as Google, Bing and others, which are used for searching for information, images, videos and more on web. When a person makes a web search, they are given...
Know and show your core values
Your brand has a logo, a beautiful colour palette, fonts, photos, tagline, social media images, and then some. It is honed to perfection, all pieces in the place. Yet still, it's not quite standing out. Something is missing. You try to look into other brands, to find out what it is that yours is lacking. Is it the outpouring excitement of that artist and Internet entrepreneur? Is it the confident I-know-what-I'm-doing of that social media strategist? Is it the warm, safe, motherly style of that career coach? Yes, excitement in what you do is good. Confidence, you do need that. And you could...
I am not a robot!
For a couple of weeks I had the mother of all the spring flus. In the beginning of it, my temp rose over 39°C/102°F and I'm still couching and sneezing. Obviously during this time I hadn't blogged, my Twitter account had been feeling lonely, things were quiet at my Pinterest, my Facebook page was a ghost town, the people in my Facebook group probably thought I've forgot them completely, and let's not even talk about my email list. After the all too long break, I even found a half written draft of an article in my site's list of content. I had made a strong start and then some, saved...