Last Updated on October 4, 2022 by candidcashflow

This is the first time that I’ve ever done a Q and A on The Candid Cashflow Podcast or really anywhere for that matter. I put out the feelers to my email list for questions. I didn’t get a whole lot. I have a grand total of 7 questions, so let’s just hang out and answer these.

How important are keywords today? Should we think less about them and just work social media with ads? What’s the trend or should we ignore trends altogether? – Sandy

So that’s 3 questions in one! Right now, search is going through a transition. Google is moving away from search engine optimization toward search experience optimization. They want you to optimize for humans. They have always wanted you to optimize for humans rather than the search engine itself.

With that in mind, they’re transitioning toward user intent. Google has never really supported SEO. Sure, they release information from time to time, but they are very secretive about the details of their algorithm and any updates they might apply to it.

Keywords today are still very relevant. That’s pretty much all we have to go on when we’re choosing a niche and things like that. We still revert to thinking what kind of keywords we can pull out and use to our advantage when we’re trying to get people to come to our website.

There are a few things that you can keep in the back of your mind with this whole “user intent” thing. A lot of people search with questions: “how do I ________with ________”,  “how do i _______”, or “how much is _______”. If there are any questions that you can form with your keywords, that’s a good way to target user intent.

If you’re stumped, there a great website called AnswerThePublic.com. You get 5 free searches a day. Otherwise, the paid account is like $79 per month. Anyway, when you type your keyword in, the site returns hundreds of questions that you might consider using for keywords.

Pro Tip: Those questions are also great for Quora if you’re in their Partner Program!

If you’re going to use SEO at all, you need to stay abreast of what’s going on with search because it is everchanging. Here’s a list of sites to bookmark.

As for trends, I don’t think we should ignore trends, but I don’t think you should create content geared toward trends unless it fits in with your niche.

Trends are still very much a thing. Google has trends. Pinterest has trends, and Twitter has trends as well with their trending hashtags in the right sidebar.

So, yeah, I think it’s completely relevant to monitor trends for your niche and capitalize on that when possible, but I don’t think you should endlessly chase trends. Make sense? Hope so.

Explain how to get paid for writing on Medium and what is your strategy for doing so? – Mary

Anyone can join the Medium Partner Program by visiting https://medium.com/creators. Then you are able to create content for paid Medium members and you’re paid based on how much of your articles readers consume.

I haven’t started writing on Medium yet outside of some stuff I published a few years ago, but my strategy is simple. Be consistent. I plan to publish on Medium every day.

Is generating ideas from your email content for your podcast too redundant to maintain listenership among your email readers? -Mary

I guess that’s up to my email readers. I know that not everyone on my email list is into podcasts, so those people most likely won’t even listen. I don’t think it will be too redundant because I’m always going to elaborate more on a podcast or in any written content I pull from my emails. I’ll share more information to make it worth their while.

How to you stay motivated when the results are underwhelming or not as you expected? – Andy

I think that I just naturally have this “never quit” attitude. I don’t know where it came from. I would have to attribute it to my mom after seeing her go through a stroke and cancer in the last year.

Also, just being able to see other people online succeed. As most of you know, I work as a Virtual Assistant and I’ve seen a lot of balance sheets. I’ve seen some PayPal accounts. I’ve seen some publishing accounts, so I’ve seen the numbers with my own eyes. I think that keeps me motivated. If they can do it, so can I!

I’ve been at this online thing since 2006, and have been full-time since 2014. I haven’t made the big time, but I’m able to generate a full-time income currently from what I do online. I’m not reaching all of my financial goals, so that keeps me motivated as well.

I have an overwhelming WHY. I have elderly parents that I want to take care of, I have to provide for myself for retirement since I don’t work for a company, I have to provide for myself as far as healthcare since I don’t work for a company that provides those benefits.

I have that overwhelming why to succeed. I must succeed or die trying.

Any suggestions on how to prioritize which tasks and projects to focus on? -Andy

This can be hard. The more work I have incoming from clients, the worse I am at prioritizing what I should be working on and where I should be focusing. If it was just my business and I wasn’t working for clients, I would focus on my platform.

I would work on my website, email list, and one engagement channel on social media.

I’d get that platform established first and foremost and then I would begin testing things and scale the ones that yield the best results. I would specifically look for things that are proven to work and that I could test quickly and turn into a revenue stream in a short amount of time.

I need to meet my financial goals, and then any extra money I can use to test more long-term things or things that may not necessarily be proven in the marketplace.

Y’all check out Andy’s UK real estate book. He’s a super-smart guy and his stuff is top-notch!

Do you think people who aren’t quite sure what they want to do online should build an email capture page or blog/website that just says something generic until they want to turn it into something more detailed?

Absolutely.

I recently came across this fellow named Nat Eliason, and he has a rather successful blog that doesn’t have a niche. Nat writes about all sorts of things, but his blog is so well organized that he can kind of get away with not focusing on a niche.

You should definitely start building your list if you do nothing else. You can do that with a free Mailchimp account even before you have a website. I have a video on that.

Everyone says “build your list, build your list, build your list”, but trust me, you don’t want to snooze on your list. I didn’t build a list for the longest time, and I can tell you that NOTHING happened until I did. You can’t just write content and expect people to stick around. You have to CAPTURE them and send them links so they keep coming back.

You’ll never have regular fans, readers, followers, or whatever it is you’re gunning for without an email list.

So, even if you don’t have a clue what you want to focus on, BUILD.

Seems like there should be a template for building a generic blog or email capture for people who don’t have a niche yet but who one day might. There are just too many WordPress templates to choose from. Which ones are best for the standard situation?

WordPress actually installs with a few default templates already in the Dashboard. You can always go with one of those if you haven’t figured something else out yet. The cool thing about those default templates is that all of the features are free. There’s no paywall for premium features like colors, fonts, etc. They’re also usually more compatible with plugins and things of that nature.

Aside from that, you can also search the WordPress theme repository right from your Dashboard and filter for things like color, number columns, featured, most popular and so much more. All of the themes in the repository are optimized for mobile and meet all of WordPress’s standards. This is where I start for 3rd party templates.

You can also Google for like “clean wordpress templates” or whatever you’re looking for, and you’ll get a bunch of list posts with screenshots and demo links so you can check out the look and feel of the site to see if it’s a fit for you.

Pro Tip: If you come across a site that you like the look of, you can always find out which theme they’re using with this tool if it’s built on WordPress. If not, the tool will also tell you that.

I do have a go-to list of WordPress themes, but that list has become somewhat ages. I use a theme called Fluida on my website. Hestia is a good one. OnePress is a good one. One Page is decent. Ribbon is super clean and has a lot of features. That’s all I got off the top of my head.

 That’s a Wrap

That wasn’t too bad for my first Q and A. I think the number of questions was good. I hope you find some useful info.

Have you subscribed to my emails? Here’s what people are saying. I’m actually compiling my first 3 months of emailing every day into a book chock full of ideas for business. I’m kind of excited about that, so stay tuned for that!

I hope you’ll consider subscribing to the podcast. You do that in your favorite listening app here – https://candidcashflow.com/subscribe

See ya next week!

Candidcashflow, Administrator

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