Lifestyle

Moving + Starting A New Business

December 3, 2019 itsamandaburnett Leave a Comment

Hey all! It’s been a while since I posted on my blog and it’s so good to be back. So let me catch you up to what I’ve been doing!

New Apartment!

In the past couple of months, I’ve been preparing to move. That whole process is just a headache. But I finally moved into my new place last week and the unpacking has had my undivided attention. I also was so stressed, I totally forgot to call my internet company BEFORE moving so I had no internet at my new place for 5 days. That was rough.

Moving tip: This might be a no brainer but call your internet company a week before moving to schedule your hook-up for the day of. Waiting sucks.

Well anyway, I just finished decorating and putting up my wall decor. My apartment is really starting to feel like home. I even put up my Christmas tree! I think I’m going to be really happy here. Another bonus, I’m walking distance to my day job and the neighbors are really friendly. Okay, now I’m just babbling but I’m just really happy. I’m also on my third cup of coffee because I’m still so busy. Enjoy.

Come stop by my Instagram! I’ll be posting pics of the apartment soon.

Hello, I’m Your New Shampoo Dealer.

In the midst of moving, I also started a new business with Monat! If you haven’t heard of Monat, it’s a haircare and skincare brand that is completely vegan and cruelty-free! That alone piqued my interest. My mentor Elizebeth, slid into my DMs on Instagram a few months ago wanting to send me free samples. I’m not one to turn down free samples so of course, I said yes. When I tried the products, I started seeing results in a couple of washes. It was shiny, soft, and my curl pattern started coming back to life! My hair is honestly becoming healthier than ever so I wanted to be able to share these products as well.

Because I’m so passionate about these products, I am diving into the business headfirst. When I’m not at my day job and I’m not organizing my new apartment, I’m studying the business, the products, and sending free samples to my prospects! Honestly, I’ve never been so inspired to work a business like this. I’m also debating connecting my business with this blog or if I should just create a whole different blog for it. But since my audience is here, I’ll experiment with it. Let me know your opinion! Would you like to see more posts about Monat or should I keep it separate?

Alright you guys, that’s it for this blog. It’s short and sweet but I just wanted to fill you in on my life update and to say hi! I hope you all are doing well. xx

The Pinterest Course That Helped Me Monetize My Blog

November 18, 2019 itsamandaburnett 5 Comments

If you’re unaware of what Pinterest is, it’s one of the biggest search engines on the web besides Google! Bloggers all over the world swear by using Pinterest to grow their blog traffic. When I first started my blog though, I sort of went into it blindly. I kept hearing all these great things about Pinterest so even after I created a business account, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had a couple of pins that went viral but I had a feeling I needed to improve my strategies to find further results.

*This post does contain affiliate links which means if you click on a link and purchase something, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you*

The great thing about the internet is you can find courses on literally anything. So there I was, trying to find a course that could help me with Pinterest. The problem was, I was on a budget and a lot of courses were around $100!

I’ve been following Ell Duclos on Twitter and have been on her Facebook group for months before I realized, wait a minute, she has a Pinterest course! The best part though? It’s only $30.

Inside The Course

Inside her Pinterest course, you will find 7 chapters each filled with multiple pages of very valuable information. She goes into easy to understand but in-depth details!

Blog Basics – This is the first chapter in her course and instead of diving right into the Pinterest side of things, she talks about different tips and resources you need when you’re first creating your blog! I love this because before you can make money from Pinterest, you should have a good blog foundation.

Set Up Pinterest – Her second chapter has 6 steps that go into how to set up your Pinterest properly. When I first saw the title, I honestly thought, “My Pinterest is already set up. I don’t need this step.” But I’m so thankful I still read it because I found so many things that I was doing wrong and that I was able to improve! She even includes lots of pictures to show you step-by-step for you visual learners.

Creating Pins – I found this chapter so helpful because creating visually appealing pins is so important! She gives you a visual of how you can use Canva to create pins that people will want to actually click on. She even includes resources such as her favorite sites for stock images!

Joining Group Boards – Have you ever wondered what the importance of group boards were? Well, Ell explains all and she even includes links to find group boards to find on Pinterest!

About Tailwind – Tailwind, the tool everybody says you need to triple your traffic! What is Tailwind? How do you use it effectively? What are some strategies you can use? This chapter is one of the more detailed chapters (22 pages!) Ell explains all of the ins and outs, pictures included, so you can feel confident in how to use Tailwind for your blog.

Pinterest Traffic – When it comes to social media and our blogs, traffic is our friend and we want more of it! Well, Pinterest is not just to bring traffic to your blog specifically. There are so many things you can bring traffic to using Pinterest.

Affiliate Sales – It’s one thing to be earning money on your blog from great traffic but what about making affiliate sales? Affiliate sales can potentially bring you the most income! Ell provides great info on how you can do that as well. Fun fact, she has an affiliate program for her courses you can earn from too! Let me disclose, I am using her affiliate link in this post but I would never promote this if I didn’t think it was valuable to my audience.

I have learned so much from this course and the fact that it’s so affordable is an absolute win. These 7 chapters provide so much detailed information. I highly recommend investing in this course because for the fabulous price, you can become a pro at Pinterest.

Click here to go check out her Pinterest course!

Thank you so much for reading!

20 Journal Prompts For 2020 – Free Printable Included

November 4, 2019 itsamandaburnett 22 Comments

Journal prompts are used to help inspire you and to give you something to think about. It’s the first week of November and it’s just hitting me that 2020 is two months away! This realization has many emotions flowing through me. It’s been a year of discovery for sure. I really want to sit back and think about everything I’ve accomplished this year. Also, I want to think about everything I want to achieve for next year.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way and it can be so overwhelming with all of these thoughts and ideas just sitting in your head. That is when I had an idea to create a tool for us to use to brain dump. Something we can use and really self reflect. I put together a list of 20 journal prompts for the year 2020!

10 of the journal prompts will be used to reflect on your year of 2019. The next 10 will be to discover where you want to go and who you want to be in 2020. If you’re interested in keeping these journal prompts, I created a free printable so you can have a hardcopy!

20 Journal Prompts

How would you describe 2019 for you?
Name your biggest achievement of 2019.
What was your biggest lesson in 2019?
What was something in 2019 that you’d like to improve in 2020?
Were you able to meet your New Years’ goals for 2019? If so, name them.
Name 3 things you’ve discovered about yourself in 2019.
What is your favorite memory in 2019?
What was your proudest moment of 2019?
Was there anything you didn’t accomplish that you wish you did?
Are you excited for the new year?
Write 5 New Year’s Resolutions for 2020.
Name 5 ways you could improve yourself in 2020.
What is your word for the new year? (ex: Successful)
Name one habit you want to stop in 2020.
How could you be more successful in 2020?
What is one change you’re willing to make in 2020?
Name a new skill you want to learn.
What do you look forward to the most?
Where do you see yourself next year?
Write a letter to yourself to look back on next year to see your growth.

Download & Print

I hope you like the journal prompts! I love looking back on the year and figuring out where I want to go in the upcoming year. Again, if you enjoy these, don’t forget to download & print the list so you always have it!

5 Things You Need To Know Before Starting A Blog

October 28, 2019 itsamandaburnett 23 Comments

Starting a blog is going to be a process and there is a lot to learn. Before starting a blog, there are a few things that you definitely should know and consider. This post is going to help you through 5 main areas of the planning phase of starting a blog.

There are certain things I wish I understood better before launching my own blog about two years ago. I pretty much dove right into it blindly and I want to make sure you don’t have to do the same. I’ve made many mistakes along the way and I now have more wisdom to share and guide you along your journey!

What’s Your Niche?

You may hear this a lot when it comes to blogging but the first thing you should think about is your niche. What’s a niche? It’s a funny-sounding word for your blog topic!

The question you should ask yourself is, “what do I want to blog about?” Let me give you a list of ideas.

Beauty
Fashion
Food
Parenting
Student life
Lifestyle (A little bit of everything)

When I was thinking about my own niche I was a little overwhelmed because there are just so many topics you could choose to write about, right? Let me give you this piece of advice, blog what you’re passionate about. Your blog should be based on something or multiple things you could write about all day and not get bored. This ensures that you are less likely to give up on it!

Creating Your Domain

The next important thing you’re going to need to think about is your domain name. A domain name is your blog’s identity so it’s something you’re going want to think carefully about. It shouldn’t be something you can just whip up in a few seconds because there are multiple factors to consider.

You’ll want your domain to be simple and rememberable. You want people to hear about your website and be able to easily find it when they search for it. So don’t get too creative with spelling because it’s likely they’ll misspell it and have a hard time being able to find you.

My domain name is literally just my name because I want my name to be my brand. But if you were to blog only about beauty, your domain could be “beauty with _____.com” for example.

Free or Paid Platform?

The next thing you will need to consider when starting your blog is if you want to blog on a free or paid platform.

Free

If you’re totally new to blogging, you may want to start out on a free blogging platform to find your footing. I personally started on wordpress.com and highly recommend it! The whole platform is very easy to navigate and use. They even have an awesome “reader” section so other bloggers who use WordPress can find your posts and follow you on the platform. It’s a great way to gain an audience when you’re still a newbie!

Although, one thing I encourage you not to do is put money towards their “upgrades” if you ever realize you want more for your blog. I spent over $100 on a yearly upgrade and was still pretty limited! If you ever realize you want to take complete control over your blog, read on.

Paid

If you want 100% control over personalization and monetization to finally make some money on what you love doing, you’ll want to self-host.

What do I mean by 100% control?

Ability to upload plugins
You can monetize with Google Adsense
You can download themes
Completely customizable to your liking
Your site is 100% yours

When I realized that was the route I wanted to go, I wanted to stay with WordPress because it was a platform I trusted. Although, I learned that you still need to find a web hosting platform for wordpress.org.

The hosting platform that I use is Siteground and they’re amazing! They made switching from wordpress.com to wordpress.org so easy and I’ve received great support. Their StartUp plan is only $3.95/month! That’s well under $100. My blog is also very fast and responsive, and that’s what you want when searching for a hosting platform. I highly recommend them.

Branding

Branding your blog can be so much fun if you let it be. You want to choose your main colors, pick your fonts, and create your logo! I’m going to let you in on a little secret though, I’ve rebranded twice now so it’s okay if you change your mind down the road. Don’t stress it too much.

Colors

What colors/tones speak to you? While you want to make your blog visually appealing to your viewers, you want to make it something you love too because you’ll be looking at it every day!

When I first started my blog, my brand colors were dark and light purple. Although, I’m now really into light and pastel colors. My brand colors are now light pink and gold.

To further understand and discover different color schemes, Canva has a post listing 50 color schemes from different websites!

Fonts

There are thousands of different font styles out there so the only way to figure out which ones you would like on your blog is to play around with them! I quickly realized that I really like fancy fonts and that is what I like including in all of my blog banners and social media posts.

Logo

Now it’s time to start creating your logo. A logo is just a graphic that resembles your blog. When somebody sees your logo, they’ll think of you. For example, when you think of Nike, you think of the checkmark right? I know a lot of people hire people to create their logo but if you’re on a budget and want to do it yourself, Canva is a great tool to use. They even have many free logo templates ready to use!

Where to Build Your Audience

Even if it’s your blog’s first day of being live, you need to go out there and start building your audience. Social media is a huge reason for my growing success today. So let me give you a few ideas of where to look for your audience!

Facebook. Facebook has many blogging groups you can join that are filled with other bloggers just like you. The groups are there to help build relationships, ask and answer questions, and share your blog posts!
Twitter. Twitter is probably my favorite social media platform right now. The blogger community on Twitter is not only huge as well but they’re so helpful and kind. There are hundreds of pages dedicated to sharing your blog posts!
Pinterest. Pinterest is a visual search engine. Many bloggers claim that most of their audience comes from Pinterest! All you have to do is create a pin for your blog post, create a catchy title and description, then link your blog post. 250 million people are on Pinterest so it’s more than likely you’ll get your blog post to be seen! If you want to schedule your Pinterest pins, I highly recommend using Tailwind.

Like it? Pin it!

Before starting a blog, I highly recommend you take these 5 tips into consideration as they are vital to understand before leaping into the blogging world. As these are only 5 tips, there are many more tools and guides that I am working on to help you through your blogging journey so stay tuned!

Already created a website but stuck on your first blog post? Check out my blog post that gives you 7 tools you need to create a successful blog post!

I hope this post was helpful. If you have any questions or topics you’d wish to further understand, leave me a comment down below so I can answer and/or create another post on it!