Jason Brubaker

Grow Your Online Side Hustle

How To Write Blog Articles Fast (This Template Will Save Time)

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With a gazillion blog articles getting published every minute, finding ways to write blog articles fast can help you rise above the noise and get noticed. The problem is, if you’re trying to grow your blog while managing a job, kids, a two week vacation and your 401k, where the heck to do you find the time?

To solve this problem, I am going to share the super awesome template I use for all my blog articles. This has been perfected over the past decade and I think you’ll love it. Additionally, this is the also the same template I send to any guest blogger.

Write Blog Articles Fast

How To Write Blog Articles Fast

The following blog article template works great for a 350-500 word article. If you adopt this pattern for writing blog articles, you’ll be able to bust out easy to read, informative blog articles faster than most!

01.) Short paragraph one (w/keyword)
02.) Short paragraph two
03.) Image one (w/keyword alt tag)
04.) h2 Sub Heading (w/keyword)
05.) Short paragraph three
06.) Short paragraph four (w/keyword)
07.) Short paragraph five with brief call to action

If the article goes longer, remove the CTA and extend the pattern.

07.) Short paragraph five
08.) Image two (w/keyword alt tag)
09.) h2 Sub Heading
10.) Short paragraph six (w/keyword)
11.) Short paragraph seven
12.) Short paragraph eight with brief call to action

As you can tell, I sort of followed the pattern for this article. (Can you guess the keyword?)

Additionally, your image selection is super important for driving social shares and engagement. For images, take a quick minute to research Snappa (it’s an affiliate link… if you sign up for the software, I get paid.) Affiliate promotion aside, Snappa is an easy to use online photo editing program with a built in royalty free photo library. For this article, I chose a photo (and added the text in Snappa) because it’s something my ideal reader can relate to.

How To Use Missinglettr To Increase Your Blog Traffic

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Your blogging success is dependent upon traffic. Without traffic, you don’t have much of a business. One easy way to drive traffic back to your site is through social sharing. As soon as you post an article, you share it on all your social media accounts. Doing this helps you engage your audience and drive traffic back to your site.

The problem is, this is usually a once-and-done process. After sharing your article, you get distracted with a gazillion other blogging tasks. And next thing you know, your social shares get lost in the noise. This is where Missinglettr can help.

Missinglettr

How To Use Missinglettr To Increase Your Blog Traffic

Missinglettr offers an easy way to engage your audience and drive traffic back your site. You simply write your article, then the software re-shares your article multiple times over the next year. Because this works on auto pilot, this saves lots of time. And over time, each new article drives more and more traffic back to your site.

As soon as you publish a blog post, Missinglettr sends an email asking you to review the 12 month social campaign before going live. From there, you simply log into your account, make some minor edits and then push it live. After that, your blog article will be shared in your social media channels over the next year.

Here’s a brief video overview of how to use the service:

Assuming your articles are good, using Missinglettr can help you increase your traffic. And once you increase your traffic, you’ll be able to get more email subscribers. From there, you’ll be able to present value, build trust, and increase sales. And having an easy way to automate this process will allow you to focus on creating new content for your blog.

I personally love using Missinglettr so much that I’ve become an affiliate. With this in mind, they are allowing me to offer you a pretty awesome deal just for trying out the service. To find out more about automating social promotions, go here. 

Warning: Quitting Your Job May Suck More Than You Think

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Quitting your job may suck more than you think. This is a bummer because most folks teaching entrepreneurship will have you believe that turning your side hustle into a full time business is the best decision you can make… And maybe this is true for some people. But if you’re like me, you might find yourself asking self defeating questions like:

Am I doing the right thing? Am I wasting my life? Is this a joke?

Running a business is a mind game. Each day you’re faced with challenges both externally and internally. New competition pisses you off. Your website breaks. You miss sales goals. Taxes take a toll. And at 3 a.m. you find yourself unable to sleep, wondering if you actually have what it takes to make your business dreams a reality.

quitting your job

Quitting Your Job May Suck

Although quitting your job may suck more than you think, it’s good to remind yourself WHY you refuse to be a wage slave. For starters, a J.O.B. is an abbreviation for “just over broke.” And even when you make good money, job security is just an illusion. You could spend your entire youth loyal to an organization, and without notice your idiot boss can decide to fire you.

What would you do then?

When you’re running your own business, if you lose one customer, you can find TEN new customers and continually increase your income. Having these options creates much better “job security.” And unlike those days at the office where your coworkers waste time talking about the latest television show – your time will be much more productive. You will learn to continually assess each minute, always asking: “Is this the best use of my time right now?”

When it comes down to it, quitting your job to run your own business is not easy. But if you can stay the course long enough replace (and then triple) your income, it is well worth it. And if you take time to come up with a game-plan, running your own business can be a lot less risky than the alternative.

How To Quit Your Job (Even When You’re Terrified Of Failure)

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Wouldn’t it be great to quit your job so you can live life on your own terms? What if you could do whatever you want, when you want to do it? How would that change your life? What would you do with all the extra time and creative energy?

These are the same questions I asked myself over and over. And because I was curious to find the answers, (after months of planning) I made the decision to quit my six figure job so I could grow my online business.

quit your job

I was so excited to share my story, that I immediately posted a public update on Facebook. In response, many friends commented with stuff like: “That’s freaking brave and amazing Jason!”

For a day or two, I felt totally awesome. I was no longer an employee. When it came to work, I was free to write my own ticket. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted and no boss could tell me otherwise. I was finally an entrepreneur.

But then the reality of my decision hit hard…

Sleepless Nights Are Filled With Worry

Motivational speakers always tell you to follow your authentic passion and to trust your gut. But these gurus don’t talk about the enviable sleepless nights filled with self doubt. What if my business fails? What if I run out of money? What if I need to find a job, but can’t? What if I totally suck? Am I really cut out to run my own business?

Leaving a job is a big life decision, bound to dredge up all sorts of negative self talk. And learning to ignore these voices, while generating your own income is the first rite of passage. The universe (or God) requires that you take steps towards becoming a new person. This is because the skills that got you here will not get you where you need to go. You must grow.

Before You Quit Your Job

Nobody I have ever met fully enjoys working for someone else. You trade time for money. You have rules to follow. Obligations to fulfill. Deadlines to meet. And lots of long hours. And even if you’re among the few who actually like your job, if your leadership team makes a stupid decision, you’re out of a job. That totally sucks.

If you’re running a side hustle, sooner or later you look at your monthly income and think: “I could go really big if I didn’t burn all my extra time working for someone else.” This is usually the time you start imagining how you are going to quit your job and grow your business. This is also the time when a lot of people make mistakes.

How To Plan Your Escape

Depending on your obligations, you need a way to make enough money to live. And sometimes keeping your job is the most practical way to support your family. But this doesn’t mean you can’t start planning. The allure of what’s possible is so seductive that you feel like every day on the job is a day wasted.

To start planning for your life of freedom, you need to first figure out how much money you need to maintain your lifestyle. If you don’t know this number, stop everything and set up an account at Mint. Once complete, you’ll want to analyze your past spending and set up a budget for future spending.

Things To Do Before You Quit Your Job:

Here are three major things to do before you decide to resign from you job.

1. Get at least six months of savings: I know six months may seem excessive. But here’s the thing… It’s going to take you longer than you think to replace your income. And by forcing yourself to save enough money to cover at least six months, you’ll gain the financial discipline necessary to run a business.

2. Don’t forget health insurance: One visit to the emergency room can be enough to bankrupt your dreams. Do yourself a favor and budget for a health plan. And if you can get on your spouse’s  plan, more power to you.

3. Get super, duper focused: If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you have grandiose ideas on how you’d start a dozen businesses. Focus on the one you’re most excited about. Out of those, choose one that will:
A. Make it so you don’t have to work for other people.
B. Eventually scale so you can become financially free.

Push Forward When Things Suck

When it comes time to follow your authentic purpose, don’t worry about your age, education or where you grew up. These factors are less important than your ambition and willingness to push forward when things suck. (And things will suck!) Let your future accomplishments serve as an inspiration to others who feel blocked.

You don’t need to quit your job tomorrow. But if you ever expect to do cool stuff in life, you’ll need to stop procrastinating and make a plan this week. And if you need help, read this article on how to find your next career.

How To Solve The Great Blogging Paradox This Year

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When I started blogging, my goal was to pay all bills and travel at will. I also planned to share all my blogging successes with you. What I didn’t anticipate was just how much blog notoriety can distract you from your goals. And this situation is what I think of as the great blogging paradox. Let me explain…

Growing my blog gave me credibility. And the credibility helped me land lucrative consulting gigs. And one of those gigs turned into a six figure salary, complete with a VP title. As a result, any time I thought about blogging full time, I first compared my online income to my blog income. And without fail, I always made more money on the job. Ugh!

blogging paradox

The Great Blogging Paradox

You’ll know you’re in the blogging paradox when your job income continually surpasses your blog income. And no matter what you do, you can’t seem to find any way to get ahead. Then when you combine your blog income with your job income, it’s a lot of money. At those moments, it hardly makes sense to quit your job. So you end up working longer hours to improve both your blog and job success. And it’s an endless cycle.

To break free from the “day job” you need to get super serious about your blogging goals. When I started out, making $5 dollars a day was the goal. Now I’m aiming to make at least $500 dollars per day. I imagine your goal falls somewhere in the middle. To break free of this blogging paradox, you need to increase your numbers (while keeping things simple).

Here Are Some Numbers To Focus On:

1. Increase email subscribers: Despite what the latest and greatest blogging trends will have you believe, focusing on getting email subscribers is the primary goal of your blog. Focus on increasing email subscribers and the sales will follow.

2. Find the value per email subscriber: You can roughly find the value of each email subscriber by dividing your monthly revenue by your monthly subscribers. With my blog, each subscriber is worth $2.40. This number is considered low by most internet marketing standards. But theoretically, it means I can spend up to $2.39 to acquire a subscriber and still be profitable.

3. Get more organic email subscribers: Aside from being free, organic subscribers are often the most engaged (and the most ready to buy). So you need to figure out how to get more. Since a lot of people find my blog through my daily article posts on Facebook, I started sharing more articles each day. This sounds obvious, but it has already increased my organic subscriber rate.

Again, my goal is to create at least $500 dollars per day in blogging revenue by the end of this year. If you are interested in following my journey, you may want to download my toolkit.