Let’s talk about online marketing 101: The first rule you MUST know when marketing online.

Online marketing is imperative to the success of an online business. Someone once said, “Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone.” This statement could not be more true.

It’s no longer a question of “Should I do online marketing?”, but rather, “How do I make sure that I do it effectively?”

With the large amount of information that is available online, consumers have become savvy researchers, who actively engage with content in order to influence their buying decisions.

Research shows that 94% of consumers have done their research online, and have become familiar with your products or services, before they even connect with you.

Are you ready to learn the first rule you MUST know when marketing online? You are one click away from discovering the secret to creating a successful online marketing campaign!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Do you want to learn how to master your online business? CLICK HERE to join my Online Business Mastery Accelerator program!

Let’s dive into the basics of online marketing 101. The end goal of any business is to convert traffic into sales. If you aren’t selling your products or services, your business won't survive.

There are countless ways of getting traffic online, whether that’s from Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, guest posting, press releases, or elsewhere.

Once you attract people to you, you want to direct them to a sales page, which promotes the product or service that you are offering. A campaign like this is most effective if the product that you are selling is less than $100.

In terms of pricing your product, it will depend on the niche or market that you are in. If it’s business or marketing, and it’s around a topic that helps people achieve a certain result, you can charge more.

However, it can be challenging to charge more than $100 in other niches, like health, fitness, or self-development, because the product or service isn’t targeted around a specific result. Whether or not your traffic will convert, and who will buy, is dependent on two factors.

The quality of the traffic

There are three different kinds of traffic – cold, warm, and hot. Cold traffic involves somebody who doesn’t even know who you are. Given that the trust hasn’t been developed yet, they haven’t warmed up to you or your product.

Warm traffic is someone who has already consumed some of your content. They recognize your brand and they have received value from you. Hot traffic is someone who has already purchased something from you or has consumed so much of your content that they are really eager to buy.

This is why I’m a big fan of value-added marketing, which involves adding value, upfront, in the form of free videos, articles, a podcast, a guide, or other forms of content. Adding value is one of the most important strategies that you can utilize in order to acquire and retain more customers, increase awareness of your brand, and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Bob Hooey said it best – “If you aren't taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” Adding value is what turns people from cold, to warm, to hot, which will then make them more inclined to buy one of your products or services.

The quality of the sales page

The quality of the sales page comes down to the actual offer and the product itself. Do people perceive your product as valuable? Is it worth the cost? Is it adding more value than what you are charging?

In my experience, if you have quality traffic, then regardless of your sales page people are going to buy from you. The buying process will be even smoother if you already have followers and subscribers on your email list. In this case, you can simply direct them to your sales page because trust has already been established.

They have already decided that there is value in following you; so buying is an easy decision for them to make. The reality is that people do business with people that they know, like, trust and value. You could have the best product on the market, but if you aren’t generating leads, your business won’t grow.

The ability to convert traffic into sales is the first rule you MUST know when marketing online. If you can master this rule, you will master your online business.

Do you want to learn how to master your online business? CLICK HERE to join my Online Business Mastery Accelerator program!

I would like to talk about the myth of multitasking. In today’s fast-paced world, people have convinced themselves that multitasking is the sure-fire way to accomplish their goals and achieve success.

Think again.

A recent article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by three Stanford University researchers have proven that ‘doing it all' gets nothing done.

In their study, they found that those who rated themselves as chronic multitaskers made more mistakes, could remember fewer items, and took longer to complete a variety of focusing tasks than those self-rated as infrequent multitaskers.

If you can relate to these findings, it may be time to re-think your habits. The reality is that multitasking is simply a way to make overly stressed-out people feel as if they are being hyper-productive. Multitasking is actually slowing you down.

Are you ready to learn some tips for how you can more effectively manage tasks and maximize your productivity?

Do you want to learn how to create a morning ritual that will help you be more productive, healthier, and happier? CLICK HERE to join my Morning Ritual Mastery program!

In his best-selling book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown explains how the meaning of the word “priority” has shifted over time – “The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing…Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality.”

Multitasking can be a challenging habit to break. However, with commitment and practice, anything is possible. The result? Healthier thought patterns, improved cognitive functioning, and higher productivity levels. It’s a win-win. Here are 4 tips that will help you focus on your most important tasks of the day, and be more productive as a result:

1. Focus On One Task At A Time

The solution to multitasking is single-tasking. Instead of spreading out all of your mental energy on multiple tasks, focus 100% of your attention on mastering one task.

This involves adopting a more minimalist way of thinking. Learn how to slow down and be more deliberate and thoughtful with your actions. Doing so will allow you to move throughout your day with greater ease and accomplishment.

When asked about how focusing on one thing at a time helped Apple become more effective at delivering innovative products consistently, Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

2. Use A Notebook  

When it comes to productivity, I suggest using a tool like the Productivity Planner, which is designed to help you accomplish your most important tasks so that you don’t feel overwhelmed throughout your day.

The Productivity Planner uses a Pomodoro Technique, which is a time management method that uses a timer to break down work into intervals (25-minutes in length), separated by short breaks. This simple tool has allowed me to narrow down the most important tasks of my day so that I feel more organized and get more done in the process.

3. Tune Out Distractions  

When it comes to accomplishing tasks, the Internet has become the ultimate distraction. Do whatever it takes to eliminate all distractions when you work, whether that means turning off your phone, putting in earplugs, or logging out of social media. In 2010, researchers estimated that distracted workers were costing businesses $650 billion per year and that interruptions can take up as much as 6 hours of our day.

If you are able to give your full attention to a task at hand, you will maximize the accuracy and speed with which you accomplish it. Mastery requires consistency, commitment, and focus. In the end, if you commit to nothing, everything will appear as if it’s a distraction. 

4. Start Your Day With A Morning Ritual

I am a firm believer that the best way to achieve more during your day is by adopting a morning ritual. By establishing a routine in the morning, you train your mind to focus on doing one thing at a time.

A morning ritual is the quickest way to prime your brain for success. Take some time every morning to nurture yourself. This simple activity has transformed my entire life and it can do the same for you.

The myth of multitasking is a real thing. When you jump from task to task, you overload your brain, making it less efficient and more prone to errors. Take back your time by slowing down and focusing on one task at a time. It may feel as if you are going slower, but you are actually making more progress in the long run.

Take it from Sir Richard Cecil, who said, “The shortest ways to do many things is to do only one thing at a time.”

Do you want to learn how to create a morning ritual that will help you be more productive, healthier, and happier? CLICK HERE to join my Morning Ritual Mastery program!

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Image courtesy of Pixabay.

I would like to share 3 benefits of minimalism that extend to all areas of life. Through life's ups and downs, it is important that we remember to take the time to enjoy the simple things in life. We need to be grateful for what we have, and focus on finding meaning in our lives.

Life is meant to be enjoyed, not filled with stress and frustration. Minimalism is a state of being, a simple approach to life, that can help us do more with less.  In the words of Vernon Howard, “You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”

That is why I wanted to invite Will Chou, the founder of Will You Laugh, a self-development blog that focuses on the secrets to success, to write a guest post to talk about 3 benefits of minimalism that extend to all areas of life.

Take it away, Will!

When I first discovered minimalism, I was a mess of a person and I thought it was stupid. But everything has changed now.  To explain my change of opinion, we have to go back to the beginning. When I first discovered minimalism, I really wanted to travel the world for a living.

At the time, I was disillusioned with my career paths and confused about my future. I was struggling to find work I could enjoy and the job opportunities that I was offered, sucked. To put it simply, like many Millennials, I had chosen a tough college major that I loved (pre-med Biology) but realized too late that it wasn’t my passion (after graduation).

My days of despair led me to seek escapism on the Internet. I discovered a large group of online bloggers that had a huge following and who called themselves, “travel hackers.”

Essentially, they would travel to exotic places for a living and make their living by “hacking life.” They were able to achieve a level of financial freedom that most people would envy. At first, I wasn't sold on this whole idea of minimalism, but that soon changed. Today, I want to share with you the three benefits of minimalism that extend to all areas of life:

1. You Will Stay Organized and Clean

I had always been a messy person. Despite my best efforts to stay clean, my room would quickly morph into a mess of junk. To put it simply, the more items you have, the more opportunity it is for it to make you feel and appear messy.

When you only have a couple of items on your desk, it’s never going to look that messy no matter how long you delay cleaning it up. It’s shocking how few people understand or use this habit. Nowadays, I have applied this minimalist philosophy to every area of my life.

2. You Will Achieve More By Working Less

A lot of people make the mistake of approaching their daily to-do list with a reactive state of mind. They take on too many tasks on a daily basis, many of which are unimportant. When they look back at what they have accomplished, they are surprised by their lack of progress.

A solution is a form of minimalism called essentialism. The concept is simple. Focus on one to three tasks per day. Make sure they are the most important tasks that will make the biggest impact on the accomplishment of your goals. If you do this right, you will realize that you’re doing less work but getting more results by prioritizing and cutting out the unnecessary.

3. You Feel Happier and Less Stressed

Not so long ago, I was frustrated with my progress, both professionally and personally. I didn’t have quality friends, I wasn't earning much, and I was lost and without direction in my dating life.

It was confusing because I had always worked super hard in school and “done the right things.” After doing a lot of research on success, happy people, and the science of happiness, I came up with a simple mantra that has helped me a lot. It goes something like, “As long as I have air, water, food, a healthy mind, and a healthy body, I am happy.”

This mantra reminds me to lead a simple, happy life. By living this philosophy, I have become a much happier, more relaxed, and lighter person.

I Am Not A Minimalist And I Don’t Want You To Be. 

Wait, what? After all, I have said, I’m now revealing that I’m not a minimalist, I don’t intend to be one. Why? I can't say that I would be happy with living a lifestyle of extreme minimalism, and that’s OK. What I love about some minimalist influencers out there is that they’re not telling you to become a minimalist.

Rather, they are encouraging that you adopt the minimalist practices that work for you. That’s where I stand. I will be rich one day and I will buy expensive experiences, but the items and services I do buy will be fewer than the average person, and they will be focused on memorable experiences, rather than a desire to hold onto possession.

It’s important not to swing from one extreme perspective (“Everything you buy has value so you should hoard it.”) to the other (“Nothing has value so get rid of it all.”). The truth lies closer to the middle.

Will has spent thousands of hours studying the world's most successful people and shares his findings on his self-development blog, Will You Laugh. Get his free gift made especially for Project Life Mastery readers by CLICKING HERE!

If you want to build your own internet business, it's important that you know and understand these concepts that I share in this video.

After working with thousands of people that want to build an online business, I've seen many of the challenges and struggles people face. Most often, it's the psychology and mindset of the individual that ends up holding them back from building a success internet business.

I was recently in El Salvador volunteering to build houses and was thinking, “What would my top tips be to someone that wants to build a successful internet business?”

These are the tips that I came up with that I feel every internet entrepreneur needs to know.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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If you want to learn more about how to build your own internet business, then subscribe to my Life Mastery Toolkit.

In this Life Mastery Toolkit, I share many free videos and trainings on how you can build your own online business and start making money online.

I have created a new and improved version of K Money Mastery which is called, Mastering Book Publishing!

Many bloggers would love to make money online from their blog, but just don't know how.  If you have a blog that is getting consistent traffic, then all you need to do is apply some blog monetization strategies to start making money from it.

There's many ways to monetize a blog, as long as you're getting traffic.  If you aren't getting traffic to your blog, then that's the first place you need to start.

In this video presentation, I share the 5 core blog monetization strategies that have allowed me to make over $70,000 per month online blogging.  This seminar was recorded earlier in 2015 and unfortunately the sound quality isn't that great, but the content is still powerful and very beneficial to anyone that wants to make money online.

Since this seminar in early 2015, my online business and blog has exploded.  I've gone on to make well over $1,000,000 in 2015 with these simple strategies outlined in this video.

I will mention that my online brand, Project Life Mastery, spans more larger than just a blog.  I believe you can't just have a blog anymore, you have to have a BRAND.  My brand consists of a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, Facebook page, Instagram page, Twitter page, Pinterest page, an e-mail list, etc…

As you'll learn in the video presentation, relationship building is key and being able to communicate with your followers amongst many different platforms.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

My Top 7 Blog Monetization Strategies

Here's some tips and strategies for blog monetization that I've learned over the years.

1. If you're new, focus on getting traffic first and foremost.  The best way to get traffic to your blog is to focus on creating high quality content.  Content is king.  The more content you have (articles, videos, podcasts, etc…), the more your content will get found in the search engines.  Not only that, but if your content is good, then people will like, share and follow you for more valuable content.
2. Use Search Engine Optimization on all of your content.  Go beyond just written articles, but also create videos and a podcast as well.  The more content you have and the better it is, amongst several different platforms, then you'll be able to reach much more people.
3. Once you're getting about 100+ visitors per day to your blog, then you can start attempting to monetize it.  There's no point in trying to monetize your blog too early, as you'll turn people off.  There will always be a percentage of people that don't like banner ads or people advertising or selling in any way.  Unfortunately, those people don't understand that you're also running a business and that a business needs to make money in order to grow and scale up.  Think of it like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram – they didn't monetize their platforms right away.  Instead, they waited years and just focused on building their user base before eventually monetizing the platform.
4. Focus on building an e-mail list immediately.  Create a valuable free giveaway that you can use to help get people to subscribe to your e-mail list.  When you have subscribers, it becomes much more easy to communicate with them, add value, make offers, or build a long-term relationship with them.
5. Get to know your subscribers and followers.  Survey them, engage with them, find out who they are and as much as you can about them.  If you know their goals and desires, as well as their challenges or problems, it becomes easier for you to help them and add value to them.  It also creates opportunity for you to create or offer products or services to them to help them meet their goals or solve their problems.
6. Test different blog monetization strategies and see what works best.  Try advertising through Google Adsense.  Try affiliate marketing and offering products that you've found valuable and you believe will benefit your audience.  Create your own products or services.  Write a Kindle book and make it available for sale.  There's many blog monetization strategies, but you need to always be testing to see what converts best and what your audience benefits from most.
7. Always, always, ALWAYS put your followers needs above your own.  Your top objective should NEVER be to make money, but rather to add value and help them as much as possible.  In doing so, you will profit and benefit as a secondary gain.  You must always do your best respect your followers and never violate their trust or harm your relationship with them in any way.  You will never make everyone happy, but as long as you cater to your core tribe and they're happy, then you're on the right track.

Hopefully some of these tips and blog monetization strategies are helpful for you and show you what is possible blogging.

Building an online blog or brand isn't easy, it requires years of consistent hard work.  At the beginning, it is very slow and not many people will care about the content you're releasing.  However, if you are passionate and committed over the long-term, then your blog can turn into a 7-figure a year online business if you choose.

If you want to know more details and step-by-step instructions on how I make over $1,000,000 per year, then click this link to subscribe to my Life Mastery Toolkit.

In this Life Mastery Toolkit, I pull the curtain down and reveal more details on how I've built my online business and expanded into several different income streams.