 Jam Jar Gill is an established blogger and member of the Guest Bloggers Wanted community (a place for UK lifestyle & parenting bloggers to find new collaborations & partnerships), I caught up with her to find out a bit about her blogging journey and pull out some tips and tricks about growing a blog audience and how to make money blogging.... Hi Gill, nice to meet you! So, tell us, how long have you been blogging? Hi – lovely to meet you too. I’ve been blogging for around 10 years now ☺ Can you tell us about your blog Jam Jar Gill and who it is for? I started off with a recipe journal blog, inspired by the film Julia & Julie, and then when we bought our first house I started another blog entitled Practical Beautiful, when I decided to get more serious and regular with my blogging I amalgamated the two into one super lifestyle blog using the nickname I got whilst planning my wedding. I now define it as a parenting/lifestyle blog since having my twin boys in 2016, but I hope it has something for everyone as it covers all from parenting to mental health to music, food and recipes and interiors and a bit of fashion too, basically everything I love in one place. Were you a complete blogging beginner when you started Jam Jar Gill? I was, and it has been quite a learning curve ever since, one of the things I love about blogging though is how I am constantly learning so much by doing it ☺ What has Jam Jar Gill given you in your life you didn’t have before? I guess the most important thing it gives me is an outlet for my creativity and a platform to express it. It also gives me a small surplus income, which is very handy (if not essential) when working part time with a growing family.  What three tools could you not run your blog without?
Name three inspirational bloggers you’ve met or discovered on your blogging journey and tell us why you chose to tell us about them.
 What is your advice for writing great content on your blog?
I have templates I use for each type of post to keep things neat and consistent, then I write in blocks, effectively breaking each post down into bite size chunks. I use a combination of paragraphs, bullet points, numbered bullet points and bullet points along with photos to break up each article. A good example of this is my weekly Meatless Monday posts. I've recently started using block editor on WordPress which simplifies it even more, it also makes it easier to add to your post throughout the week and dip in and out as you just update a block at a time. What is your number one piece of advice for growing a loyal blog following? Be authentic, only you can do you, and post consistently and like people back and try to build a community with each decision you make. And finally, we would love to know how you have monetized Jam Jar Gill and what you would say is the best way to make money blogging. Collaborate posts and sponsored posts are how I earn money off blogging. I have only been earning any money at all off my blog in the past two years and this is an area for sure which I am constantly working on expanding, I just keep putting myself on blogging directories and reaching out to local businesses, businesses which inspire me and PR agencies in order to seek opportunities to collaborate whenever I can. I have also used the services of a freelance copywriter recently in order to help me format my media pack, so its nice and clear for my readers what my expectations are from the beginning. Please find out more about me at www.jamjargill.com/about/ and how to work with me at https://jamjargill.com/work-with-me/
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 This is a space for me to reflect on the business & share some of the ups + downs of being a Content Marketing freelancer in Edinburgh. I’d also like to bring some of my personal life into these posts because I don’t think we can ever truly separate our work + home life. One will always affect the other. And, for me, freelancing is a way to enrich my home life + lead a happier non working life with greater flexibility. So, home life is really important to me. The final reason is to embrace vulnerability. I believe it’s really important to share the highs + lows, it’s easy to put on a brave face and to pretend that everything is perfect all of the time. But, we all have our own stories and our own challenges in life. I’d like to be more transparent about my own challenges & show them alongside the positive! Octobers Happy Moments Oscar came to stay I started with Rover, a new client My new website launched I’m feeling more at home in Linlithgow, Edinburgh (after moving here in the summer) The autumn trees are simply stunning ! Octobers Challenges I am still recovering my profits, finances are tough I’ve been really struggling with burnout My kind of tiny home I recently brought a small flat in Linlithgow, Edinburgh. I think of it as my tiny home. You know those little homes on wheels that are popular in the USA? The whole idea of tiny houses is to become debt free. Instead of needing to pay a mortgage every month you invest your money into a home on wheels which cuts costs and thus frees up more of your time to live rather than work. More living less working, to me that sounds fantastic. But, the only issue with a tiny home is unless you can find somewhere you are allowed to legally pitch up, you need to be on the move all the time. And I didn’t like the sound of that! So, my little flat in Linlithgow is my, kind of tiny house, but with a small mortgage so I don’t have to leave & can live next to the gorgeous linlithgow loch. The gorgeous Oscar! A few months after I moved in, I discovered pet sitting. I never thought of it as a way to earn extra income, but I put a profile up on Rover and started getting some dogs to look after. After a few dogs came and went I met Oscar, literally the cutest dog ever. The kind of dog that when you look into his eyes his whole face lights up and his tail immediately starts wagging. New client & website I also started doing some outreach for Rover this month. Its how I found out about the pet sitting, they contacted me to see if I could help them with outreach for a link building campaign they are running. Very interesting client, great topic & a new challenge, so I’m really excited to be working with them for the next 6 months or so!  My new website also launched this month. https://amberfy.co.uk/ its been a really tough one getting this live! Rebranding is not for the faint hearted and it’s not my area of expertise. I really wanted a website with a more professional look and feel to it, which could attract larger clients & agency’s and I feel this has been achieved. I couldn’t have done it by myself, the name was given to me by a good friend who also interned for me a few months ago and I was supported by Digital Boost & an agency here in Edinburgh and feel hugely grateful to have worked with them on it. Starting to feel like home Linlithgow is feeling more like home now. I had this moment working in the Costa the other day where I finished up a meeting & then finished some work on a client campaign. And then one of the cafe staff started up a conversation and we had a nice little chat. And I just thought, wow, this is where I live! In Linlithgow! I moved here on pure intuition that this was right for me, all the way from the other side of the country, and day by day it’s starting to get better and better and I am starting to feel really at home here. I am also really loving the autumn leaves at the moment. It’s been a while since I’ve seen autumn in the UK, because last year I was in New Zealand and the years before that Milan & Lisbon. So, I’ve been off travelling and not here in the UK to actually enjoy the beautiful autumn colours. They give me so much inspiration for my art, of which I’ve also been doing a lot of this month. Picture below is of the canal behind my flat and below that of the lake.   Recovering my energy & finances So, the challenges are still my finances after the move and I’m still in recovery from the business blunder I made this year. Time and time again I have read about the effects of making more revenue only to lose profit because of costs going up. But, despite knowing about the dangers, it still happened to me! I got some big orders in early in the year, my revenue hit over 10k per month, several months in a row, which was fantastic and helped me to buy the flat, but the costs to deliver the orders were huge and in the end this year is looking like my profit is going to be the same as last year, around £20K (Jan - Dec, not tax year). My plan was always to scale a single service up, with the notion that it is easier to build systems and processes for a single service. Whilst I still believe that to be the case, the only issue is that it is very difficult to stay engaged on a scaled up single service, even with a team of people helping to deliver. Scaling up just gave me lots more costs & burnout which I’ve been recovering from for the last three or four months. So, it’s not the best plan moving forward! I think it probably depends on the type of entrepreneur you are, clearly scaling a single service works for lots of companies. But, since I am creative & sensitive & intuitive person, and I am more likely than others to get burnout. I need to adjust my business model accordingly, otherwise I will never be able to grow the business sustainably. I’d like to capitalise more on my creativity + need for expression! And channel that more into my business.  I decided several years ago that I only wanted to work part time, 4 hours work per day. And for the most part I’ve been doing that, but working less doesn’t always mean you don’t get burnout. It depends what you do in the rest of the time you are off work, and what you do in the time you are working.
So, to recover I’ve been having a lot more fun! Being creative, painting, playing my drums, doing up my flat, I started making bread and lots of jam from the apples in the back garden. Next Month I want to spend some time reflecting on why the business I created City Calm worked so well in terms of my own joy & its growth. Not revenue! But in terms of it growing locally it did quite well and I never ran out of energy for it, I always had more, more, more to give. I want to reflect on that maybe there is some learning's I can apply to what I'm doing now! I also want to get some opinions about the happy freelancer podcast. It’s a new podcast I want to launch next year, I’ve already recorded 11 episodes, but will probably have to go back to the drawing board on them since I’m new and rubbish at podcasting at the moment!! At least I got over my fear of speaking into a mic recording them. I’d like podcasting to become a regular way for me to share my freelancing journey. I have a couple of friends in Edinburgh who want start freelancing so my first stop is to sit down with them and brainstorm the premise of the podcast & the episode list! I’d also like to put some more thought into niching down. I have been wondering about it for a long, long time, and with Google’s recent announcements Re BERT: https://www.blog.google/products/search/search-language-understanding-bert/ about how they are improving search, becoming a topic expert is going to be very, very important.   Elaine is an established female entrepreneur blogger and member of the Guest Bloggers Wanted community (a place for UK lifestyle & parenting bloggers to find new collaborations & partnerships), I caught up with her to find out a bit about her blogging journey and pull out some tips and tricks about growing a blog audience and how to make money blogging.... Hi Elaine, nice to meet you! So, tell us, how long have you been blogging? It’s been a little over 2 years now, but previous to starting my own blog I was an intern for an online magazine, which was basically a blog, for about a year. It wasn’t the writing aspect that intrigued me to sign up as an intern, I was quite a terrible writer honestly, instead it was all the exclusive events I got to attend, restaurants I got to try, and products I got to review that I loved and of course since it was a publication I had to write about my experience which forced me to hone my writing skills. I actually had no aspirations to start my own blog. I worked in the wedding industry and loved my job as the National Wedding Sales Manager but needed a creative outlet. But when my boss denied my request to attend my brother-in-law’s funeral, I knew I was in a toxic environment no matter how much I loved my job and knew that I had to quit. So I fell back on the one thing that brought me extreme joy and creative freedom – blogging. Can you tell us about your blog LadyBossBlogger.com and who it is for? It’s for current and aspiring female entrepreneurs who want to learn how to start an online business and turn their blog into their full-time job. We post two kinds of posts on the blog – interviews with female entrepreneurs and informational posts on all the aspects of starting an online business and monetizing your blog. I started the blog for myself to learn how to become a LADY BOSS and a BLOGGER and that is exactly what happened. I was my very first student so I can attest that my methods actually work! ;) I’ve helped thousands of women start their own online businesses and learn how to start, grow and monetize their own blogs with my online courses – courses.ladybossblogger.com. Were you a complete blogging beginner when you started Lady Boss Blogger? I had some writing experience, but the technical aspect took me for a spin! I had no clue how much work it would be to start a blog from scratch and set everything up correctly on the backend. I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water during the first few months because there was so much to learn. Blogging when done right, is SUPER technical. What I mean by “done right” is actually making money from your blog, and not just peanuts, like making a full-time income from it. The publication I worked for made next to nothing for the amount of work it took to run it, which is why it wasn’t sustainable and why it has since shut down. I was super sad when the founder told me that she was shutting down her magazine to pursue other interests. She had over 1 million readers and tons of traffic, but her monetization models weren’t up to date. It just goes to show that it’s not about the stats, it’s all about the strategy. I wish I knew what I know now about blog monetization so that I could have helped her. What has LadyBossBlogger.com given you in your life you didn’t have before? Incredible opportunities and increased confidence. When people learn that you’re a blogger, it’s crazy how much free stuff they throw at you! I’ve been gifted $1000+ designer dresses, loads of hi-tech beauty equipment such as Red Light Therapy anti-aging devices and healthy Infrared Gemstone Filled Mats among other things. In addition to free stuff, companies are lined out the door ready to pay you to promote them! I’ve also been asked to speak at 7-10 day retreats in Bali and Canada that were completely comped and at digital media conferences around the United States. LadyBossBlogger has been featured in 200+ websites, magazines, books and blogs. The very first time I shared the full story behind LadyBossBlogger was in the Huffington Post a year after I started my blog. Before that, I was terrified to advertise my blog too much… if you read the story you’ll know why. But that interview gave me the confidence to not hide behind my blog anymore and to speak up for other women in toxic situations. What three tools could you not run your blog without? 1. WordPress Scheduled Posts – this is the plugin that lets me schedule out all my posts in advance so I can travel and do what I need to do as my daily blog posts go live. 2. JetPack – I love this plugin, it shows me all my traffic stats in one place and it’s easy to understand and interpret. 3. ConvertKit – this is the email marketing service provider I have used since I started my email list. Name three inspirational ladies you’ve interviewed on your blog and tell us why you chose to tell us about them. 1. Emily Lyons – She started her event staffing and modeling agency when she was just 23 years old with $80 in her pocket. She has been featured extensively in business-related pieces in Forbes, Huffington Post, MAXIM, FHM, NY Post, Globe and Mail and has worked with celebrities like Justin Bieber and Drake. She not only valued my blog enough to pay for her feature even though she has a MASSIVE social media following, she also reached out to me personally and told me she loved my Instagram page! 2. Maria Von Losch – This Instagram celebrity opened her first store when she was just 22 years old and is now also the author of 2 books. She has won loads of fashion styling awards but her favorite up to date has been the editor’s pick for “Vanity Fair International Best Dressed”. She styles young Hollywood actors and actresses and has a super popular fashion and lifestyle blog. We connected via email about both being half Chinese! She is Chinese Romanian and I’m Chinese German. 3. Joelle Tremblay – Her motto is “Failure is an option” and she was also the very first person that ever paid me to get interviewed on my blog. At that point, my blog was only 1 week old, and the fact that she was willing to invest in me helped me to persevere and value my services. In fact, I didn’t notice until just now that her motto isn’t “Failure is NOT an option” which is what I read 2 years ago and what made me keep going haha!!!  What is your advice for getting great interviews on your blog? Interview great storytellers! There is an art to telling a truly great story that keeps people intrigued. You can tell who the great storytellers are by the intro on their about me page. You have a lot of voices featuring on your blog, can you tell us how have you maintained a solid voice and brand for ladybossblogger.com? I personally review everything before it gets published to the blog to make sure that the format is correct. While the voices may be slightly different, the format is consistent, and the blog posts are all written from an informational perspective, meaning they are written to teach and inform the reader. I can’t personally be an expert on everything which is why having expert guest posts are important. And finally, we would love to know how you have monetized LadyBossBlogger and what you would say is the best way to make money blogging. 1. I started by selling “interview slots” and to my amazement, it worked! 2. Then I tapped into sponsored guest posts – some written on my blog, others written for their blog – but basically did freelance writing work. 3. I purchased this affiliate marketing course which completely changed how I looked at blogging – instead of exchanging my TIME for MONEY, since I was doing service based work, I started to learn how to make passive income on my blog and on social media. 4. Finally, I took everything I learned and turned it into a course called “How To Start A Money Making Blog”. I teach all my money making strategies in there. It’s incredible how much you can learn from blog posts, but when it comes down to actually making a full-time income, you won’t find that information on the internet for free. Check out Ladybossblogger here. |
AuthorWritten by Cheryl A Clarke Chief Happiness Officer & Content Marketing Freelancer @ Ginger Marketing (unless stated otherwise) Blog CategoriesMost Popular ContentTotal Social Media Share Count
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