Have you ever wondered who is pinning your posts from your blog? Did you know there is an easy way to find out?

Type this in your navigation bar:

www.Pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com

In place of the YourWebsite.com you would put your own URL. For example, to find out who is pinning from this site we type in Pinterest.com/source/beckyandpaula.com and it shows us all the recent pins from our site.

When I track pins from my personal blog I always do Pinterest.com/source/beautythroughimperfection.com

Why is this important? Several reasons!

1.  It gives you the opportunity to thank the pinners. I go through periodically and comment on pins people have done from my site. I usually say something like, “hey, glad you liked the post, thanks for pinning!” I even take a minute to follow some of the people that have pinned some of my posts. Sometimes they respond or start following me after that, so it’s a great way to build your following on Pinterest!

2. You can like the pins. When I go through commenting on some of the pins from my site, I also try to “like” each of them, by clicking the little heart. The more likes and comments on a pin, the more exposure it gets during searches, so this can help give pins from your site a little boost in visibility.

3. It allows you to see which images are doing best/what people are saying about them. Look at what is being pinned the most from your site, what images people are enjoying and if they are leaving their own comments in the description of the pin, you might be able to find out some info about what they liked most about the post. This can help give you some direction for future posts.

Did you know that you can find out who is pinning your posts from your site? How have you used it to your advantage? 

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I am moving this post back to the top (it was originally posted last year), because I find that being distracted is a time-grabber and it seems to be one that are causing all of us to fall behind on our blogs.  It will take all of your extra energy and just pull it away.  If you saw my challenge earlier this week, reading this post is a must…  

If you are wondering how to write without being distracted – first let me run a scenario past you and see if it sounds familiar:

You hop online to write a post.  You open up your blog… while it is loading, you jump onto Facebook.   Three messages?  You try to write back and you end up spending 30 minutes on Facebook.
Seeing your friends on Facebook reminds you that you need to e-mail someone back.  You just do a quick jump-over to your email and find that you have ten messages waiting for you.   You respond to those and then remember that you forgot to schedule your updates last night on Twitter, so you want to get that in really quickly.

Before you know it- you have spent over an hour online and you haven’t even written a post!

This was me.   I was getting distracted easily and I really didn’t have the time to get distracted.  I was only spending a couple of hours a day on my blog, so I really needed to use my time wisely.   I found a solution that has been working WONDERFULLY!

I take my computer with me when I go anywhere.   I have it in the car.   When I have a few minutes, I write in my “notes” section (you could do microsoft note or wherever you can keep notes).  The key to this is to be OFFLINE.  When I need to use a link, I just bold those words to remind myself later.

I have found this to be a ‘life-saver’, so to say.  It has saved me from spending too much time online or from feeling stressed about the time that comes along with blogging.  I have about 15 posts ready to go for my Your Modern Family blog.   (We took a trip to Disney and I wrote on the way there and on the way home- 18 hours in the car, roundtrip.)

It has really been the best thing that I’ve been able to do lately, because I can write while I am waiting for preschool to let out (waiting in the parking lot) or while I am just at home, watching TV with my husband.  The distractions are gone, because I am not on the internet.  I can write when the mood strikes me and not feel torn away or pulled in different directions from the ‘online world’.   It is just me, my thoughts and my words.

TRY IT & let me know if it works for you.

PS- Remember this tip if you ever write an E-book! 

The post How to write without being distracted appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Ok, so a LOT of you ask me this question: How did you get a post to go viral?  I have been grateful each time that I write on a viral topic and it takes off.

It really boils down to just 3 things:

1. A good title.   A simple title.  A FUN title that engages them.
Let’s look at a few examples:

• Say we are talking about a parenting lesson about kids leaving toys out.  The post is about how they leave their toys out, so you have decided to keep all of their toys to teach them not to be so irresponsible with their things.You could call it:  A. Lessons in the leftouts    B. Toy cleaning ideas.   C. How to stop your kids from leaving their toys out.I would go with C.   Every time.  It is straight to the point.
• Let’s look at another one: Cleaning the kitchen before a party.
  You could call it: A. Cleaning Tips    B. Pretty for the Party  C. What you need to clean before company arrives.I would go with C.   It is simple but fun.   I might even jazz it up a bit and say “Don’t forget to clean this before company comes!”    (I actually like that… I think I will a post on that this week on yourmodernfamily … watch for it)  

2. A good image

A good picture is KEY to bring your readers in!  It is so so so important!   Please, if nothing else, remember this one.   I will write a more detailed post on this, but here are a few tips that will help in the meantime:
1- Brighten your pictures.  Use the EYE BRIGHTEN tool on picmonkey.
2- Choose images that don’t look like stock photos.   Let me show you what I mean (both of the pictures below are free from pixabay.com):
3- Are they big enough?  Don’t use tiny photos (I aim for right around 650)

3. Have an Ah-Ha Moment! 

You need to write content that is intriguing.
An example: When I ask others for a guest post on yourmodernfamily.com, I can’t use most of them, because they don’t have that “ah-ha!” moment (as Oprah would say) that I need in there.    I need that in there.  That is what makes them share it.  If I shared what you already knew, you wouldn’t keep reading it, you wouldn’t share it and you wouldn’t click to the next post.
You need to either HELP them solve a problem, REACH their heart with your words OR provide them with some sort of relief (maybe through humor?)

I hope that helped!  For more info like this, you can check out our book. 
Or you can join our Facebook group. 
Or you can sign up for weekly tips & (plus get access to our income reports as we do them)

More posts you might like:

The post How to make a post go viral appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Sometimes, as a blogger, new or old… there comes a time when you feel overwhelmed.   It might be that you feel disorganized, or that you are trying to sign-up for so many money-making opportunities that you feel like you don’t know where to begin.  It may be that you are finding that balancing your blog with family life is proving to be harder than you thought.

Here are a few ideas to help you when you feel overwhelmed:

1- Start with the “MUST-DO” things. 
You must play with your kids.
You must hang out with your husband.
You must-do your post for tomorrow.
You must share some FB & Pinterest things.

2- Now set aside some time. 
Set your timer for 20 minutes.  Take your kids into a room and do not bring your phone or computer.  Play with them for 20 minutes- uninterrupted. Nothing matters BUT THEM.  Schedule this playtime if you have to!  (Here are tips on how to play with them)  Studies show that 20 minutes a day is enough to create that close-knit bond, if you start at a VERY young age. (ps- 20 is the minimum, so aim for more.  Try 20 min. every hour or two.  This is completely uninteruppted- no chores, no grown-up talk…just you & your kiddos!) 

3- Now spend 5 minutes doing some things to ‘get by’.  Maybe its a quick share on FB.   Maybe its editing a picture.

4- Give yourself an hour tonight and just start on your list.

5- Remember that all of this will BE HERE TOMORROW.   Don’t worry about it-  you can only DO what you can DO.  Go easy on yourself! 

This could be a post by itself, but here is what I do… WHEN THE KIDS GO TO BED. 

1- I make sure that my post is done.  Everything.   I make sure that the image is ready, the post is scheduled for midnight.  I make sure that it is scheduled to go live on my FB page at 6:00 am (my most active FB time for my readers).

2- I check my e-mails.  My husband and I do this together, because he takes care of my blog finances, so he helps me by organizing it into a spreadsheet of when drafts are due, when final posts are due and when I was paid.  He needs to see the e-mails to help me and I just like doing this together.
He and I have been together forever, so he knows how I like to do everything together (which is why I want him to work with me one day!)
Here we were at 14…

3-  I schedule my FB shares.  I should schedule them a month in advance, but I don’t.  I schedule them daily for now.  My blogging friend, Jamie, keeps telling me to schedule them out further because it is so much easier, so this is a new goal of mine! My blogging friend, Dayna, told me: If you don’t do them in advance, it will make you feel like you are a slave to Facebook- getting on all day long to post things.   So true!

4- I talk to Paula about BOTS stuff & about our regular blog stuff… we make plans about our book, our posts for the week ahead, our boosts that we offer (we do them at night… we each take time to look at each one, so we need to communicate about them).

5- I watch Revenge, the Blacklist & Modern Family (among many other favorites) with my husband while we fold laundry.  That’s the fun part, right?

Honestly, blogging can take up a LOT of time, so you have to keep it on the side, even if it is earning a full-time income.    Keep God, your marriage and your kids as your top priority and the rest will fall into place… I tell my husband all the time “God knows what we need when we need it.”    Trust that! 

How I break up my time:

How to manage your time:

How to not feel distracted:

The post When you feel overwhelmed appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Hey guys!
Becky here… talking about a breakdown of my blogging time!   I wanted to talk to you for a minute about this because it comes up A LOT!   Recently, we worked on a Personal Conference for someone’s blog (find out what that means here) and while reviewing her blog, she asked me the question:  How much time do you devote to writing compared to doing other things, like promoting your things?  So today I am giving you a breakdown of my blogging time:  writing, promoting, networking, etc…

Let me break it down for you.   Lets say that you spend four hours a day blogging (this is going to be our example for the day)… this is how I would see it.

1 hour- writing, pictures

1  hour- networking (chatting in FB groups, making plans with other bloggers)

1 hour- promoting on social media (FB, twitter, Pinterest, G+)

30 min. – educating myself on how to become a better, a more successful blogger, and a higher reaching blogger.

30 min- working on a project (ebook, ecourse, etc…)

The writing really is the best part of blogging, but in all honesty, the writing isn’t going to get your post seen (however, a good picture and great content certainly helps matters), unless you move to step 2… networking.

By networking and reaching out (making friends) with other bloggers, you can promote each other things, make plans to write books (Like Paula, Holly & I are do here on B2B), make plans to do series, make plans to link to each other’s pages.  A tribe can help you with that.  That takes us to #3.

Promoting yourself & other bloggers.  By sharing your things & their things (watch Holly’s You Tube videos to learn about why you need to share other bloggers things on Facebook, other than just because you are such a great friend!) you are growing your reach and their reach.   Moving onto step #4…

Just like watching great how-to videos, I am also constantly researching ways to make my blog better.  I am looking at other pages to see what I can do to improve my design.  I am working on writing my books.  I am checking out how the most viral pictures look and I am thinking about how I can make mine look better.   I am comparing my viral posts to my non-viral posts and trying to learn what I did differently.  As with any profession, you need to educate yourself to be better.  You need to keep up with the times and with the direction that blogging is headed to be better today & tomorrow.

TIME NOTE: This post took me 10 minutes to write, 15 minutes to edit (b/c I kept adding things… like this!) and the image took me about 15 minutes (10 minutes looking for a certain picture that I had in my mind… that I never found… haha!  And the other 5 editing this current image)

If you want more tips like this… check out our book. 

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About a week ago, a friend of mine came at me with the question “What is your blogging goal?”   
I had to stop for a second before  I gave her my answer…

“I don’t really have one, except to do BETTER this month than I did LAST month.”  

I want to reach MORE people.
I want to inspire/help MORE parents.
I want to help MORE kids get the time that they need from their parents.
I want to help my family by making MORE money on my blog (my income report).
I want to help other bloggers by giving them MORE info on how to be successful.

I just want to do MORE this month than I did last month. 

I know that most bloggers have specific goals like “I want to be at 500,000 FB fans by December 2015” but my goal has never been specific, because honestly, I don’t think that our goals can keep up with us, as bloggers.  Yes, I just said that.

I never dreamt that my blog would become the success that it has become.  If I had set my goals, I would have far under reached them and maybe I wouldn’t have my dreams set so high (yes, I have DREAMS… lots of those!)   

I don’t set specific goals because I try hard EVERY DAY at blogging.

I don’t try to reach one goal, just to reach it.  No.
Every.Single.Day I work my hardest at blogging (well- minus the weekends… that time is for my family).

For my blog, I just don’t let up.  If I had goals, would I stop when I got there?  Would you?  Probably not…  So- I don’t set them.

The truth is that I really can’t set goals because blogging doesn’t really allow for that.

Some days my FB page is fantastic, other days, I hear crickets.

Some days I get so many page views that my overage costs are hundreds of dollars, other days, I’m under my normal view amount.

Blogging is like a roller coaster.  There are up days and down days, but I can’t tell someone where I want to be in a certain number of days, months, years… because I don’t know myself.  The sky is the limit!

I can just say that I want to do better tomorrow than I did today (just like being a Mom, I guess).   I want to do better next month than I did this month.  I take it day by day (well month by month!) and enjoy the fact that I am spending time at home with my family, making money, and making other people happy with my words.

More posts you might like: 
How to write without distraction. 
What blogging really entails. 
When FB is driving you crazy. 

The post My ONLY blogging goal appeared first on Becky & Paula.

We bloggers often get very focused on our individual posts – making sure they have catchy titles, Pinteresty graphics, and SEO optimization. We hope that they go viral or at least get pinned or shared a lot. But another subtle yet very effective way to increase your stats and grow your readership is to entice people to get lost within your blog itself. Linking to other posts within posts is SO effective, and writing a blog series on a certain topic can really draw the reader in. It’s great to have that one post that does really well, but even better if your visitor finds that they have just lost an hour on your site because they kept getting drawn deeper and deeper in.

There’s a lot of things I don’t do as a blogger, but if there’s one thing I have done a lot of, it’s blog series. I’ve been blogging for almost six years now, and have nine blog series on my blog (and am in the process of planning my tenth).

While blog series and blog categories definitely have a lot of similarities, a blog series is more focused on a topic.

Different Types of Blog Series

1. A monthly feature: this kind of series is a series that runs one post around the same day monthly. Examples of this on my blog are my Beauty in the Mess series, a monthly feature highlighting God’s beauty in my mess and my Monthly Link Love series, where I feature posts I love from other bloggers.

2. A weekly feature: these are probably series you are really familiar with, as many bloggers plan certain types of posts on certain days, such as “Motherhood Mondays” or “Wordless Wednesdays.” My friend Katie and I have been doing a blog series on her blog called “Faithful Fitness Fridays” in which we rotate posting on fitness every week.

3. A story series: this is a blog series that tells a story. It could be a mini-memoir, your love story, or any other story you want to tell chronologically. My biggest story series is The Wilderness Between Legalism and Grace, a 31 post series covering seven years of my life and my personal journey away from legalistic fundamentalism.

4. A topical series: there can definitely be overlap between this kind of series and the ones already mentioned, but a topical series is simply a blog series that covers a certain topic really intensely.

How to make your series more successful

1. Make a graphic for the series itself. Even if you will go on to make graphics for each post of the series, having one central graphic for the series is very important for visibility. I try to make mine square to fit nicely on my sidebar.

2. Create a landing page for the series. This can be a separate page on your blog, or you can just make the first post in the series your landing page. Here you should list every post from the series so that your readers don’t have to try to find them on your own. (I don’t do this for my monthly features, but my topic-focused and story series I do.) A great example of a landing page is the one I made for my series about Allume, my first blogging conference.

3. Link back to your landing page in every post in the series. Make sure your readers know that a) this post is a part of a series and b) you can find the rest of the posts here. In my most recent series called At-home preschool resources for the very tired, non-creative, really busy mom, you will see that I linked back to the landing page at both the beginning and ending of each post.

4. For story series, make your blog an easy page-turner by going in after the fact and putting a link at the bottom of each post to the next post in the series, making it easy for your readers to click through the series without ever having to jump back to the landing page. This helps the flow of the series and will make them more likely to keep reading without distractions. I did this with my legalism series. (I got this idea from Mary-Ellen at Imperfect Homemaker when reading her love story!)

5. Help your readers find their way to your blog series. VISIBILITY is key! Put those buttons on your sidebar, make sure they are accessible from your menu, and link to them in your about page. If you have an email newsletter or weekly RSS digest, put the graphics on that sidebar too.

I had so many blog series on my blog that I decided to create a landing page that lists all of the blog series on my blog, all in one place as yet another way to get the content into the hands of my readers. Katie from Wonderfully Made has done this on her blog as well, with one page that lists both all of her series AND all of the posts within those series!

Have you ever done a series on  your blog? Which is your favorite type to host? What about to read? They can be extra helpful if you are facing writer’s block because it’s a ready-made topic for you to write about! Share your experiences in the comments!

Bio: Aprille is a twenty-something mom of one very active little boy and the wife of a combat veteran. She blogs at Beautiful In His Time, her personal chronicle about finding God’s beauty in her often messy life – her marriage, her mothering, and her personal relationship with God. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Pinterest, and Instagram. You can also find her online at beautifulinhistime.com. Sign up for her monthly newsletter here!

The post How & Why to Make a Series on Your blog appeared first on Becky & Paula.

It’s one obstacle that many bloggers face: How to blog confidently without coming off like a know-it-all. If you have friends and family members reading your blog this worry can really hold you back as a blogger, because none of us want to lose friends because of our blogs. There are several things you can do to blog with confidence while still remaining humble and relatable.

1. Be Inclusive – This one is quite simple, but make room in your writing for there to be other options as well. For example, when I wrote about why our family decided to stop having “family dinner time” together, I didn’t state that this is the best way for all families with little ones or that families who DO have meals together aren’t spending time together correctly. I simply shared what works best for us and why. Unless it’s something that you feel passionately that there is only one right way, leave room for other opinions and recognize that different things work for different families.
2. Ask Questions – Even if it’s just at the end of your post, open it up to your readers to share their opinions on the topic you’re writing about. Maybe different things work for them, ask what they think and get their advice!
3. Be You – Chances are, if you are reading this you are not a stuck up or “know-it-all” type of person! So be yourself, let your voice and your heart shine through your writing and it will be evident what you are trying to convey. People won’t just automatically jump to the worst conclusions about you, especially if you are just sharing your thoughts (vs bossing every one around).
4. Write to your readers –  Think about your reader while you are writing. What do you want them to understand as they are reading your blog post? When they click away from your site how do you want them to feel? Keeping your audience in mind as you write will help your writing be more personable and relatable while also giving you ideas to help communicate in a way that will be best felt and understood by your target audience.
5. Don’t Write Down – I’ve read blogs where the author writes as if she is in a class above the reader, instead of on their level. Even if I’m learning something from some one, I don’t want to be treated like a dummy. Honestly, you can tell when they are writing if they truly think they have it all figured out and they are teaching us lowly readers the way to perfection OR if they are right there with us in the trenches learning and growing together! Don’t think of yourself higher than you are, if you are mom dealing with tantrums, you don’t have to act like you’ve solved every tantrum and your kid never misbehaves. Share what tricks you’ve found that DO work, while also being realistic that sometimes kids just throw tantrums and there’s nothing we can do about it. Be honest, and real about where you are at in life, and your readers will understand your heart.

When it comes down to it, your friends and family will probably fall into one of two categories: The people who read and enjoy your blog or the people who are oblivious to it. Unless you are writing like a jerk, chances are no one is going to just assume you are some stuck up person, especially if they already know you in person!

Every one has those great ideas that they feel are “blog-worthy” even, non-bloggers. In fact, so many of my friends will text or email me these days with blog ideas that they’ve come up with and suggest for me to write about on my site. I’ve had one of my closest friends guest blog for me multiple times, even though she has no interest in starting her own blog. Mainly, my friends are my biggest supporters, and yours probably will be too!

It’s scary to put yourself out there on your site, but I can’t encourage you enough to just do it! Be your kind, courteous, loving self and that will shine through in your writing. There will always be times when you’ll get an ugly comment here and there, but the people that already know you, also know your heart and won’t categorize you as a know-it-all just because you enjoy writing or even make a living from it!

We hold ourselves back far more than any one else does!

Do your friends read your blog? What do they think of it? —- What is your biggest blogging fear? Do you worry that you’ll come off as a know-it-all or are you concerned about something else! Share in the comments or you can join the discussion in our private Facebook group! 

Also, we offer “Your best blog” consults, in which we can give you personalized advice on all things blogging, including how to get your site moving toward monetization or how to grow your blog to reach it’s full potential! We’d love to work with you! Click the link above to find out more.

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Sometimes, as a blogger, we feel like we aren’t reaching anyone.  Our Facebook posts aren’t being liked, our Tweets are being retweeted and comments aren’t being left.

It is hard to continue motivating yourself to keep writing when you wonder: Who is actually reading this?

I want to tell you something that you may or may not know:  Some of the “BIG” bloggers have been blogging for 7 or more years.   (remember that you don’t have to be a HUGE blogger to make an impact… or an income for that matter)

You need to remember that on days when you think that no one is reading it…. because when you have been blogging for 7 years, your readers are going to go back & read what you are writing NOW.

When I want to write something that is meaningful to me, or when I share (what I think are) adorable pictures of our kids, or when I give some of my best-used tips and I hear crickets chirping, I often want to:

A- Delete what I wrote  “Maybe its not good at all!”
B- Crawl into a hole “Oh my goodness! What was I thinking starting a blog?”
C- Think “Ok… Ok… how can I change this?”

If you picked ALL OF THE ABOVE… I’m right there with you!

I am going to give you a few tips to make that silence golden. 

1- Find out if they are, in fact, reading it.  Check your analytics and see how many people read that post.
2- Do you have an image to make them say “Wow!  I want to read that!”    I know that we stress images a lot here, but it is so true.   When I have a really great post and no one reads it, I go back, edit the images & re-“advertise” it.   Guess what happens?   People read it, share it and tell me about it.
3- Make sure that you are posting it in the right places.

Now for the truth of the matter…
Sometimes the only people that tell me that they liked my post is my Mom & Dad!

My Mom will call me, almost every morning, to comment about my blog post.  She will say “Oh, Becky, that post made me cry!”   Or “Becky, I loved those games!  I remember when you played them when you were a kid!”

You know what?  It is enough!  It is enough for that day.   It is enough to know that one person loved what I wrote.  

I feel like in the blogging world, you go on little roller coasters.  Sometimes you are a hit and sometimes you aren’t.
I posted this post about I’m going to bed  a few weeks back & it went VERY viral, but you know what?   When it is done, it will be done- my traffic has already gone back to normal (because the picture continued to spread without the link).  Traffic like this happens over and over and over in the blogging world- Up & Down.  

So, today, remember that someone, somewhere is reading your post!

Personally, even if I read a post, I probably don’t comment on them (because the comments take so long to do with some of the plugins), but just know you may have touched my heart or someone else’s heart today and not even realized it.

IF YOU WRITE IT, THEY WILL READ IT.   (“If you build it, they will come.” )

OK- NOW TELL ME I’M NOT ALONE IN THINKING THIS WAY!  haha!   Leave a comment or join us on FB…
ps- Are you a part of our Facebook Group?  It is a private group for blogging on the side readers!

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Write like no one is going to read it, except the one person that you are really writing to (almost all of my posts come from somewhere… either my husband reminding me of something or my kids, etc… write to them).

Write like you want to pour your heart out.  
Write when you are inspired! I find that I write the best when I write at night.  I am a little exhausted (to say the least… raising our 4 blessings that are ages 7, 6, 3 & 1) and I am a little emotional at night, after I check on them and see them sound asleep & safe in their beds.

I have tried to write first thing in the morning, but that doesn’t work for my writing style.  I can’t really “pour my heart out” that early! lol.

Let your readers see YOU!

I often struggle with this aspect.  It is hard for me to share my stories, mostly because I don’t want to bore anyone and I don’t want to be judged.  However;  I do find that when I do share my heart, my readers respond with such sweet comments that it inspires me to do it again.

Today I want to encourage you to write from your heart… let it all pour out (& then go back & edit it later!)   Write like no one is judging you!

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