Acne from Allergies?

For those experiencing acne, it may be possible that your skin sensitivity may signal that you are allergic to something.

Many acne sufferers may not be aware that some foods may cause your acne. It's these food sensitivities that can affect the state of your skin in terms of how it looks and how it feels.

You may notice that you now have new blemishes erupting, but are unsure what may have caused this new skin irritation. But it's important to realize that it is possible that an allergy to food or even a skincare product may have resulted in your skin issues.

If however, you ruled out the possibility that your acne was caused by your skincare habits i.e., soaps, cleansers or creams, the other best way to uncover the cause is to see if it was caused by an allergy to a certain type of food. You can perform a food allergy test through an elimination diet to see if your skin is reacting negatively to a certain type of food.

Trigger Foods & the Elimination Diet

If you want to determine if a particular food is causing your acne, it's important to begin by looking at a list of potential "trigger foods". The best way to do this is by keeping a journal of what you are eating daily. Do this for about a week.

At the end of the week, take note of the foods that you have eaten most often. This will be your list of possible "trigger foods" that may be causing your acne.

Find out how skin acne can be attributed to the foods you eat. This informative blog video was created as a visual medium for a post on acne and allergies. If you want to find out more about having wellness content for sharing on your social media get in touch https://www.wellnessopolis.com/

Elimination of Trigger Foods

The next week, eliminate the possible "trigger foods" from your diet.

Common trigger foods are dairy products, peanuts, seafood, wheat, and soy. These are foods that most often cause allergic reactions and skin outbreaks. Also, consider cutting back on sugar and greasy foods like burgers, processed foods, caffeine, probiotic foods, french fries or any type of fried goods as these can often play a role in causing acne blemishes to appear.

Healthy Skin Foods

Enjoy green leafy vegetables like spinach and green lettuce like romaine lettuce. Carrots and juicy fruit with high water content like watermelon is a good choice.

Drink lots of water as this also helps in keeping your skin clear.

If after two weeks you see that your skin looks clearer, this food is probably the culprit that leads to your acne. Once the offending food is identified or suspected to be the cause, the best treatment is the avoidance of it. 

To identify the food that may be causing your acne, slowly introduce the food to your diet one at a time but in its purest form. For example, if you have eliminated wheat from your diet, re-familiarize yourself with the purest form like shredded wheat or cream of wheat. If it's milk, drink whole milk rather than skim milk.

If your symptoms reappear again once you re-introduce the suspect food back into your diet, you should ban this food from your diet completely. 

Continue doing this for your entire list to see what may or may not be the cause of your acne. Yes, I know it sounds like a bit of work and a bit of a sacrifice since some of these foods may be your favorite. But it's well worth a few weeks of being a dietary police for the chance at having a clear complexion. 

By the end of the elimination diet, you'll be sure what foods to avoid in the future to keep your skin looking vibrant and clear.

Being informed, understanding your skin and how to treat it is one of the best ways to ensure you always look your best!

Crossfit WOD Exercises for Burning Fat & Better Fitness

Intense Crossfit WODs to Stay Energized

The grueling fitness program that has taken the fitness world by storm over the last few years is Crossfit. This style of fitness was first adopted by the military and first responders as a way to ensure they were physically fit for their jobs. What’s interesting about many of the Crossfit exercises is that each one was named after men and women who have died during their military posts in the armed forces.

One of the most common exercises was the Murph named after Michael Patrick Murphy a Navy SEAL Lieutenant. Of course, there are many other exercises with personal names attached to them of those who risked their lives.

Other names are:

• Grace (Olympic lift exercises focused on technique)

• Karen (wall ball exercises) and …

• Fran (thrusters and pull-up exercises) Crossfit exercises

Just to name a few…

There is a wide selection of Crossfit workouts-of-the-day or WODs as it’s often referred to as that has become intensely popular by many fitness buffs. The high strength and endurance components of the Crossfit sport have made it a favorite for those wanting a full-body-workout routine. The WOD’s ability to burn calories with its high-impact intensity has drawn many people to this style of workout routine that keeps them pumped and wanting more … much more!

Basically, this is what WOD is:

WOD is a daily workout aimed at working the muscles at high capacity, making this workout a popular choice for those seeking a high impact fitness routine. It often consists of three to four workouts per week. It’s usually three days on and one day off. The maximum number of days is usually 18 workouts per month by the most enthusiastic Crossfit lovers.

Crossfit’s WOD routines are a healthy balance of metabolic conditioning, strength, agility, and technique, which is often performed in a group setting. This type of group activity encourages teamwork and friendly competition for those taking part. It’s a great way to stay motivated while getting that extra bit of encouragement — something you’ll definitely be thankful for with this workout!

Crossfit focuses on completing one exercise before moving onto the next one. For example, you may start by doing a set of pull-ups before moving onto a set of push-ups and then moving onto the next assigned exercise. The main goal is to get a set number of reps completed, before doing the complete set of the next exercises. By doing the workout this way it allows you to move quicker while allowing the other muscle group to recover while the other muscle group is being worked.

Here are some of the most intense WODs commonly used in Crossfit gyms:

Grace

Don’t be fooled by the name of this exercise because it’s very intense. This workout involves you doing 30 repetitions of more rigid and jerky movement exercises using a standard weight of 95 pounds for women, and 135 pounds for men.

A common practice in Olympic weightlifting, this workout involves various elements including strength, flexibility, speed, power, technique, and coordination.

Filthy 50

This Crossfit exercise, the Filthy 50 is a common WOD staple. It is a grueling circuit-style full-body strength workout that involves the addition of not only strength but cardio as well. It’s an intense and very difficult but rewarding workout comprising of ten exercises with 50 repetitions each. It involves a lot of stamina. However, if this is your first time being introduced to the Filthy 50 workout, it’s recommended that you begin by just doing 20 to 25 reps of each exercise.  Most experienced Crossfit athletes say that this exercise routine is usually completed within a 25-minute time frame. Highly experienced fitness buffs can often do it in less time.

Here is the exercise routine:

-              Fifty jumps on a 24-inch box

-              Fifty Jumping Pull-Ups

-              Fifty Kettlebell Swings

-              Fifty Steps of Walking Lunges

-              Fifty Elbows to Knees

-              Fifty repetitions of 45-pound Push Press

-              Fifty Back Extensions

-              Fifty 20-pound Medicine Ball Wall Shots

-              Fifty Burpees

-              Fifty Double-Unders

Murph

Okay, now this exercise routine is very well-known to all involved in the world of Crossfit. It’s known to be the most brutal of all Crossfit workout exercises. This is, however, the most popular WODs in the Crossfit game. As referenced earlier in this article, this workout was named after Michael Murphy, a brave lieutenant who passed away while fighting in Afghanistan.

Although tough, it is a simple workout that uses very little equipment. Actually, you don’t need to be an experienced Crossfitter with a ton of expertise with Olympic weights for this WOD. However, what you do need is a ton of focus and stamina to get through this exercise workout.

Basically, the Murph WOD exercise involved that you begin with a one-mile run, followed by a hundred pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 body-weight squats. It’s vital to have both strength and cardio with the Murph WOD workout.

Once this exercise is complete, you’ll finish with a mile run.

While the exercises are quite simple, you’ll be burning fat and melting those unwanted pounds away!

There is a recommended completion time for this exercise circuit within a 40-minute time-frame. Even going beyond this set time by a few minutes is still quite an achievement and it does signal that you are in quite good shape. After all, Crossfit isn’t easy and by meeting the set times to complete these exercises, if you meet the allotted times, you’ve done an excellent job!

Fran

Fran is considered to be one of the shortest WODs in Crossfit. Regardless, it’s still a highly impactful routine that will have your heart racing! It’s a full-speed-ahead type of workout involving three rounds of pull-ups and thrusters. The first round of this WOD has you performing 21 reps of each exercise. Once you complete the exercises, you’ll perform 15 reps each for the next round, and finally finishing off with 9 repetitions on the last round.

The Seven

The Seven Crossfit WOD is made up of seven rounds of seven very challenging exercises consisting of seven reps each.

To complete this WOD, you have to do it within the span of 20 minutes. However, if Crossfit is completely new for you, it’s best to try to complete it in the 30-40 minute time range.

Just to get familiar with this workout exercise, here is what The Seven Crossfit WOD routine looks like. Each exercise below is done 7 times (as per the name):

-              Handstand push-ups

-              Thrusters with a 135-pound barbell

-              Knees to elbows

-              Deadlifts with a 165 or 245-pound barbell

-              Burpees

-              Kettlebell Swings

-              Pull-ups 

Remember, if you’re new to Crossfit try your best, but always listen to your body. If you fail to complete everything in the recommended time frame, you can try to master it the next day. As long as you’re improving week-after-week, you’re accomplishing a lot.

Be proud of your accomplishments and continue to improve your health and your fitness. In the end, it will all be worth it. And you’ll be proud to look at that new physique that you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Although intense, Crossfit has a great track record at helping people achieve their fitness goals!

Health Coach Marketing Materials, Tools & Platforms to Grow Your Business

As a health coach, you know that marketing your business is an important part in growing your practice. After all, if you don’t invest the time and energy into getting the word out about your wellness business, then nobody is going to find you, and that’s a disservice to the people who truly need you. And without people finding your business, that ultimately means, you’ll have no business at all.

You’re extremely knowledgeable about health and wellness and you have a wealth of experience. It’s this expertise that needs to be shared with as many people as possible. You’re helping to improve the lives of so many people through your business. That’s why using as many marketing materials as possible –both online and offline, is going to get you the most exposure.

So, what are some common health coach marketing materials being used today by top health and wellness experts?

Here is a list of excellent marketing tools that many wellness professionals just like you, are using to get huge results for their business:

Informative Newsletters for Brand Building

Online & Offline Newsletters – Digital newsletters have become quite popular as the rise of the internet, personal computers and mobile devices are keeping people tapped in to the online world. By supplying your ideal prospect and customer with insightful and helpful newsletters, you’re able to help them lead healthier and more fulfilling lives by giving them tips and advice. After all, health and wellness is a booming industry and people are naturally gravitating to any piece of content they can find when it pertains to health and fitness.

As a health coach, if you provide content they can use to better their lives, not only will they turn to you for more advice in the future, but they will most likely see you as an expert and feel more inclined to buy your products and services. Health and wellness newsletters are a great way for wellness experts to grab the attention of their audience while improving their overall ROI.

Instagram Posts leading to Content Upgrades – Instagram is filled with opportunity especially if you’re in the wellness industry. Whether your provide meal plans, coaching, fitness or nutrition advice, all of these areas have strong visual emphasis. If you can combine your visuals with a strong contextual message that is going to intrigue and lead people to your offers, it’s an excellent way to grow your business, not to mention grow your brand!

Videos leading to checklists and e-books – Creating promotional videos are a great way to sell your business and brand. However, most recently, the popularity of information style videos in the form of tutorials, how-to guides and tips videos that help your audience get from point A to point B to help solve their problem, is not only engaging, but it’s highly results-driven and is a very powerful way to share your business expertise while helping to promote your business.

Cookbooks – Healthy recipe cookbooks never go out of style. Many wellness related businesses are using cookbooks filled with healthy recipes to sell their products and services. Consider doing this in your business as it engages your audience and shows that you value your customers overall health and wellness.

Informative Booklets – Informative booklets can be seen as similar to a helpful wellness newsletter promoting a healthy lifestyle. But booklets go that extra mile in that they can adopt a specific topic and go deeper in supplying information to their reader. These booklets can be very specific in targeting a certain area of health. This laser-focused content can really grow your business once placed in the hands of your ideal customer. Booklets continue to be used by health organizations and small-medium sized businesses to build brand awareness and expertise. They’re excellent marketing materials especially at health coaching workshops, conferences and wellness events!

Calendars – Health and wellness calendars are useful marketing tools where specific dates and related content can not only inform your audience, but keep them organized.

Weight Loss Apps – A ton of health and fitness apps have been created in recent years that are helping people to lose weight, eat healthier and stay fit. If you can create your own app that’s branded with your business logo, it’s a great piece of shareable information that can often take many businesses from a simple mom-and-pop shop to one that’s globally getting noticed.

Courses – Offline workshops and courses have always been beneficial for businesses. These informative sessions coupled with materials like manuals and worksheets can really help grab new customers. You can now have a greater global impact if you expand online by offering digital courses. These courses have proven extremely successful to not only health coaching, food bloggers, nutritionists and fitness trainers, but almost any business industry with a strong educational element can do very well with an online course. It’s a great way to move away from one-on-one sessions that limit how much time you have and how much income you can make.

By offering an online course with video tutorials and digitally accessed content, this allows you to gain more sales 24 hours a day regardless of the time zone of the person accessing your course content.

Courses are becoming so popular in the last few years because businesses are now able to grow much faster by leveraging their time with offerings that no longer are dependent on when you are available. Online courses are one of the best ways to build your business. There are many online platforms to do so. Two very popular ones are Thinkific.com and Teachable.com. Take a look at the successes of some of the businesses adopting this software for their business!

Workshops that include Manuals, Worksheets and Exercise Books – Any useful marketing materials that helps your prospect or customer positively transition from one area to another is an excellent tool to grow your business. Having manuals, checklists, worksheets and exercise books (to name a few), can

Email Series & Mini-Course Challenges – Automated email sequences also referred to as opt-in emails are another very popular business building strategy. Although it’s not an actual piece of “marketing material” it is a good lead generator for business. An example of an email series or challenge for a health coach or personal trainer could offer on their website is an offer for visitors to enter their name and email address in order to get the “Meal Plans to Help You Lose Ten Pounds” or the “7 Day Yoga Challenge To Give You More Flexibility …” or “3 Exercises to Guarantee Quicker Weight Loss…”

An email series or email challenge not only allows you to get the personal name and email address of your website visitor, but it allows you to get in touch with them whenever you choose. This could mean huge opportunities when it comes to building your business.

Challenges with helpful worksheets and guides – This is similar to the above mentioned strategy. However, if you can offer a complimentary worksheet or guide to go along with the information you’re offering in your email challenge, you can get a more loyal following of people who will be more eager to buy from you once you promote a paid offer to them.

Posters – Posters continue to be used just like flyers to locally market businesses. They work will in local event settings and for those looking to access local foot traffic. However, one often overlooked way to advertise your business is with the use of informative tips or guide style poster. Let me explain what I mean. If you’re a health coach, why not offer your audience a poster that will be extremely useful for them so that it can help them lead a better life. For example, if you’re a weight loss coach every consider offering an interactive style laminated poster (using an erasable market) where your user could check off milestones they’ve met for the month.

So, just say it’s a meal guide style poster with the days of the week and at the end of each week they can see how much weight they’ve lost? OR consider weight-loss detox juice recipes listing all the ingredients for each day of the week.

Flyers and Sell Sheets – If you’re putting on a local event, a great way to gain local traffic is with the use of flyers to advertise your upcoming event. And during your event you can use sell sheets to help promote your book if in fact you have authored one. It’s an excellent way to personalize your message and get a bit closer to your ideal customer.

Brochures are not as effective as they are more like a selling tool. However, as we move away from salesy marketing tactics, the online wave of digital marketing materials that show a more authentic side to your business is what’s helping the sales process. Many health coaches and other businesses of all industries are moving towards the personal side of marketing. One very effective “personal” tool is the blog. Businesses are now writing blog posts in order to better showcase their businesses while providing very helpful guidance, tutorials and information for their audience.

Business Building Tools

Lots of useful online design apps. PDF designer apps like Canva.com, JotForm.comor Undesign.learn.uno are great for designing branded company Content Upgrades, Business Forms and PDF Documents to give your readers or prospective or existing clients once they opt-in to your list.

Screen capture tools like GetPresto.co allow you to create wonderfully designed How-To Guides or Product Demos for your audience. These tools are extra simple to use and as a health professional, you know that ease-of-use is critically important as you know that when you have more time, you’re better able to help your clients. That’s why tools such as these make it cheap and easy to create valuable content for the people that mean the most to you.

Online Platforms

Reach out to your ideal client or customer through sites like Quora.com to answer questions from people seeking out health advice. Instagram / YouTube / Vimeo / LinkedIn/Facebook Forums and hosting Live Events are excellent social platforms to use. Also consider sites like Pinterest.com and create Pinterest Pins using keyword titles and descriptions that your ideal customer would use to find you along with adding appealing content descriptions and graphics that lead back to your blog. These are some excellent ways to share your message.

If you can get on as many platforms as possible, that’s one of the best ways to gain market traction.

Most of these sites also have shareable links that allow users to voluntarily share you content to their audience as well. This is how many small businesses have grown. As long as you provide top-notch quality content in an appealing way (using clickable headlines and graphics) that engages your audience, you have way more chances of spreading your message and having your most valuable customer finding you. It all starts by making the move and doing something.

If you’re a health coach who wants to up your game, consider any of the above marketing materials, tools and ideas to help you spread the word about your business. After all, most of your competition is not offering most of these tools. If you can use as many of these as possible, you’re sure to get more people talking about your business and it’s most likely that your wallet will welcome the added buffer too.

Why Businesses Need A Social Media Marketing Strategy (template included)

… and how having a Social Media Strategy Template can help you plan content for your business

 One of the most rewarding attributes of any successful business is its ability to evolve and embrace new and innovative concepts, while also building new relationships, ideas and strategies to improve the overall delivery of your product or service.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend for businesses of all shapes and sizes, to engage with social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram (just to make a few), in order to boost their business performance and sales results. It’s no wonder that businesses are seeing the value of these platforms.

 As of the most recent statistics of 2019, Facebook boasts a membership of over 2.38 billion monthly active users, while Instagram in 2018 had hit 1 billion users per month and Twitter follows with 330 million monthly active users (as of the first quarter of 2019), according to this recent Washington Post article. With numbers like these, no business should ignore the influence of such social media sites. Their large communities can mean big money for businesses!

 But why else are social media websites like Twitter.com, Instagram.com and Facebook.com such an invaluable tool for business owners?

 Here are some reasons …

These Social Media Sites Foster Better Customer Relations

 Customers love having their opinions heard. But what do they love even more than this? Users of these platforms love when the feedback they provide about a company gets noticed!

It’s this type of feedback that should be encouraged and welcomed. If a company can see what their users are talking about pertaining to their experience with their products and services or of the services of their competitors, this can better help them make improvements. After all, most people commenting on these platforms love to share their experiences and these are the types of conversations that businesses should be engaging with and listening to as well. Furthermore, when the company actually implements the suggestions of a customer, this leads to greater trust from not only existing customers, but also from those considering using their products or services!

This open communication by these social sites not only helps to improve customer satisfaction, but these types of conversations can also result in a better user experience – which benefits not only the customer, but ultimately the bottom line of these companies.

 Social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter etc., have directly enabled business owners to more actively involve their customers by encouraging their feedback. Businesses have realized that listening to the needs of their customers through the help of social media websites such as these should be welcomed.

It is this “community” of people within these platforms that has created a tightly woven circle of like-minded individuals who want to share their experiences with the world, while having a community that they feel they can freely engage with 24/7.

 The viral aspect of social media networks has given the customer more of a voice and businesses realize that this voice should not be ignored. Many companies are now implementing contests, quizzes, polls and giveaways. This enables them to get feedback for free from their customers. If you’re a business owner, implementing this type of strategy will allow you to identify areas in your business that needs improvement.

Social Media Enables Your Business to Highlight and Showcase its Strengths

 As a business owner, in order to succeed within the business world, you need to showcase and highlight those parts of your business that make it superior to your competition. Not only this, but you also need to show that your business is more valuable to your customers in general. Showcase the benefits of your products with photos and videos of how well your products work. Why not consider providing tutorials and how-to videos or why not offer tip sheets to help your customers engage better with your offer.

 Here is an example of a video of this concept in action:

 This video is showing food alternatives to help someone who chooses not to eat meat. Then if the video is playing on YouTube or other video site, they can add a link for the viewer to followup. Someone who is vegan, vegetarian or a person becoming a non-eater of meat would appreciate this type of information. They’ll be able to see that there truly are more alternatives to having meat. But best of all, if you follow-up a blog post like this with a Content Upgrade or Bonus Recipe E-book filled with recipes using these meat alternatives, that’s a great way to add more value and ultimately gain the trust of your viewer. And we all know that trust leads to the sale!

Often time’s people need to see something visually in order to fully understand how good your offer really is.

For example, if you’re a company that sells blenders, why not show a delicious smoothie blend being made using your product! Along with your video or photo demonstration, you could also capture your audience’s information by having them opt-in to get your free recipe book.

An opt-in is simply a form on your website that asks for your readers name and email address and in return, you give them valuable content in any format. It’s this “extra” content, that’s going to help them make their lives better in some way. Often times, this offer solves an issue they’re having. In this example, the offer of the free recipe book solves the users problem of what they could use the blender for. They are no longer limited to what they can make. They now have an unlimited amount of delicious, healthy smoothie recipes! Do you see the power here!

 Check out this video that demonstrates this strategy in action.

This video shows how someone looking to gain more muscle, can choose more protein fueled foods or “muscle building foods” in order to build stronger, bigger muscles. If this video went even further showing an image of a recipe book called “20 Delicious Recipes for Building Bigger Muscles” and making it a free offer through an opt-in email signup, they could gain a bigger list of signups for the offer. And if they then give that list a related offer that they charge money for, they can ultimately gain more sales to build their business and brand!

 Featuring visual messages, for example using videos and photos in your social profiles, which lead to your offerings, makes it easier for you to then reach out, inform and entice your existing and prospective customers. It also helps to build a stronger relationship with your audience. And we all know that stronger relationships foster greater customer loyalty, trust and lead to life-long customers.

Social Media Allows for New and Cost Effective Marketing Strategies

 Social media has opened the doors for business owners to experience and leverage the size of these platforms to better market their business.

 Look at these numbers again! To have access to these amounts of users offline, there is no comparison! The number of users on these platforms is a goldmine!

 Just look at these numbers:

 Now, with such a huge selection of social media websites out there, as a business owner, all you have to do is engage with them by giving more. For example, why not host a competition, where the person who manages to attract the most fans for your business, wins a hefty prize! After all, everyone loves prizes! Now, when you compare the expense of the prize, versus the extra earnings and new customers you will gain, there is no comparison.

Social media has become not only the most influential marketing method, but it has also become the most beneficial marketing method in comparison to most of the traditional marketing currently available. The use of traditional outdoor billboards, magazine ad spots and flyers are not cutting it when it comes to marketing. With the introduction of the internet and its viral opportunities, not to mention it giving you the business owner the ability to track and tweak your ad campaigns and website offers, has provided businesses with more value for their ad spend, not to mention their ability to control their ads and other online content so that they can see the results that they’re returning.

 The power of social media must no longer be ignored. If your business is not on the social media bandwagon right now, you’re limiting your businesses potential.

 Get out there and communicate with your audience! Share great information that’s going to help them. Let them know about your products and services to help make their lives easier! The more you get the word out there about your business in a way that is authentic and provides guidance and assistance to your audience, there is no doubt that you’ll gain more customers who will grow to like and trust you, but most importantly, they’ll eagerly want to share your message with others.

 Stumped on what to share on these social media sites? No worries…

 Here are some ideas on what type of content you should consider posting to these social sites. These posts have been a huge success for many companies.

 Social Media Marketing Ideas:

 1.    Links to your most recent blog post. Not blogging you say! You’re missing out big time! Blogs allow your business to educate and inform your audience about the things they need to know to make their lives better. Just think, if you sell yoga mats, why not provide exercise tutorials for your audience so that they can be healthier (of course, using your yoga mat)! Show them how your yoga mats are better than the competition because of the materials used to make it – sweat-proof, easy to wipe down and anti-mould etc. You see, you need to inform with your audience in a way that adds value and is beneficial to them, but also compels them to want to buy from you. You’re providing them with great information and they now trust you because you’re finding a way to consistently keep in touch with them through these social sites in a way that’s going to help them. This shows you care. Remember, not all companies do this and that’s what can make you stand out.

2.    Free Bonus Offer i.e., The Content Upgrade. Go a step further and offer a bonus guide to add to your blog post to help your reader do whatever it is you’re talking about even better! So, let’s go back to the yoga mat example. After your article on Top 10 Yoga Exercises for Better Posture… Why not offer more value with a bonus guide that goes a step further on the topic! This bonus (in the online marketing world) is referred to as a “content upgrade”. It’s this content upgrade or bonus, that helps your reader achieve even better results on top of the amazing tips you provided in your article.

A good Content Upgrade for this example would be to have tips on the best chairs on the market that can help with posture. What’s great about this type of offer is that you could partner with chair companies whose focus is on a healthy back and having good posture. You could mention the benefits of their chairs in the guide. What’s great about doing this is that you could get compensated by doing so! This type of collaboration is often done through a private partnership or through an affiliate program or affiliate network.

There are a ton of these programs around like Linkshare, Amazon and so many other. Another option is simply going directly to each company to work with them on some sort of compensation for anyone who purchases through the link you placed in your guide or on your website. Most companies offer this to website owners that choose to feature their products. It’s a great way to provide value and be compensated for it! But best of all, purchases and payments are all automated online saving you time and giving you a nice passive income in return.

3.    A simple 15 second ad promoting your most recent product or service.

4.    An encouraging quote to inspire and encourage your audience.

5.    Your process and how you run your business

6.    A day in the life, so that your audience can get to know you better and make a personal connection to you and your staff.

7.    A tour of the office.

8.    An interview with a happy customer ie., a case study. This could be a video, audio or a post on your website.

9.    An Infographic of any of the above mentioned points. Visual content can be a huge driver of traffic, leads and sales!

10. Share a presentation you did recently. This showcases your expertise adding to your credibility and brand awareness.

Do you see how you can give your audience and customers that extra something to build better relationships and ultimately building a stronger brand! Your customers value this type of interaction and so should you.

 Building relationships is essential. And joining social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram is a smart choice. But be sure that you first know who your customers are and where they are hanging out before you decide to invest in paid ads to these platforms. Once you find where your audience is hanging out, go there! Engage with your audience. Provide them with so much value that they’ll find it difficult to even consider going to your competition. Engage with them while also giving them offers you know they cannot refuse. This is the best way to add to your business and its overall profits.

 Social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s only going to get better. And now with AI in the mix, well… Let’s leave that for another time. But social is here to stay!

 Remember this … If your business is not investing in a social media marketing plan, you’re truly missing out. Your audience could benefit so much more when they know you’re out there. Your message, products or services could be shared with so many people.

 It’s these types of social sites that can help you lift your business to levels you may have never imagined!

 If you want to get expert help with creating compelling ads and content marketing drivers to help increase the ROI for your business, get in touch.

And while you’re at it …

Free 4 page Social Media Template

Your Personal Social Media Marketing Guide

Grab this Social Media Marketing Template that includes a guided checklist to help spread your message even further. It’s your personal guide to help your audience see your message and benefit from it in the best way possible.

Grab your Social Media Checklist Template right here now!

If you take the time to plan your content on a weekly or monthly basis, it will allow you to take action quicker and get better results by using a planned schedule.

How to Increase Views & Engagement for Your YouTube Videos

YouTube is a growing platform that has mainstream credibility. Its strong branding and popularity have made it one of the top search engines even above the very well-known Facebook platform. And with 2.38 billion monthly logged-in users on average - worldwide, you can see why this influential website is one of the most important platforms to use to grow your business.

Now if you’re a savvy business owner who has decided to jump on the YouTube bandwagon and you’ve begun creating videos for your business, great stuff!

You’ve definitely made the right decision.

Now if you’ve created your videos on YouTube, but you’re struggling to increase views and engagement for your videos…

Here are 5 essential things you need to do:

1.       Be the first to comment on your video. By doing this, you are encouraging your viewers to also do the same. Something you could do is to mention in your comment what you’re discussing in the video and then actually tell your viewers to please comment below. You could also simply make a funny statement about the video and follow it up with a question for your viewers based on the topic of your video. Your viewers will always be excited to see that you are actively commenting, and they’ll most likely want to comment right after you do. It makes them feels more connected to you and a part of your online community!

2.       Encourage viewers to leave a comment on your video. As stated in the above point, when you first upload your video to YouTube and create the first comment on your video, this automatically shows that you are active in the comments section. However, if you actually ask your audience to leave a comment below the video, this adds that extra push, to make your viewers eager to follow-up your comment with a response. It’s a great way to add more engagement to your videos as this is something YouTube loves. And more comments and engagement shows YouTube that your video is resonating well with your audience whereby helping to shoot your video to the top of the YouTube search results for your topic area. Of course your title keywords and descriptions play a role too, but viewer engagement is a key role in how YouTube ranks your video.

3.       Reply to viewer comments. If you want your viewers to comment more on your videos, you should comment by adding a response to their comments. By responding to your viewers comments, they will see you as a real person who truly cares about and appreciates them. This helps to build your community and one of the best ways to grow a loyal following.

4.       Tell your viewers to subscribe to your channel. Sometimes it’s easy for people to forget to subscribe to a channel. They may watch your video and then see related videos on the side of your video, which can easily distract them. So, if you give your audience the clear instruction to subscribe to your channel by clicking the link below your video, it can help to improve your subscriber base as well as help to boost your channel further up in popularity within your niche. (Be sure to tell your viewers where the subscribe link is located to make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe, especially if they are not accustomed to doing so). As you know, YouTube is growing and evolving daily and there are always new viewers joining the pipeline. Clarity is key!

5.       Tell your viewers to click the bell icon for notification of new videos & share your new uploads on your social networks. YouTube continuously makes changes to their platform. It’s important to keep up-to-date with all of their new additions. Now viewers must click the bell icon to receive notifications of new videos. This feature did not exist in the past, but once YouTube implemented it, YouTube creators had to share this information with their audience to ensure that their videos continued to gain traction with viewership.

Although most people who watch YouTube videos know this, it’s important to be extremely clear and proactive in your communications by telling your viewers exactly what you want them to do. Oh, and also share you new uploads to your social networks as well. Consider this your must-do YouTube call-to-action. Not only will you gain more subscribers by doing so, but you’ll also improve the amount of views you’ll get on your videos. After all, this is what everyone wants because it leads to more opportunities in terms of ads, but it also encourages more collaborations and ultimately exposure for your channel. And we all know, many lives have changed just because a video was seen by more people.

Don’t forget your keywords!

Of course you need to also be sure that the main keywords your audience is searching for is placed first in your video title along with your tags and video description. You can use keyword tools like Google Planner, Moz.com or Ubersuggest to help you in your keyword research. As long as you are using terms that are highly searched for and there are not enough sites overusing that keyword, you have a good chance of making it on the first page of Google. But thorough research is key.

So, now it’s your turn. Go out there and get your video created. And if you already have some videos created, be sure you’ve followed the points above for greater reach within your market. By doing so, you’d be surprised by what opportunities may come your way. This may be just what your business needed to gain greater recognition in your industry.

Video SEO Requirements For Top Rankings

When you create a video and post it online, you want to make the most of it and making sure it gains as much traction as possible. That is why keyword research is so important in your overall video marketing strategy. 

Online video is on the rise and it's no wonder. Businesses are investing heavily in video not because they think it's a flashy new trend, but they are seeing that it's working for their competitors and for those who choose to make video marketing a part of their business plan, they too are seeing positive results. 

Not yet convinced that you should consider investing in video marketing for your business?

Check out these compelling stats about video:

• YouTube's statistical findings have shown an increase of mobile video consumption and have stated that it's rising by about 100% every single year! (Source: Hubspot)

• Facebook stats showed that videos posted to their platform have 135% greater organic reach than photos or images (Source: Social Media Today)

However, the most compelling stat is this ...

• Companies that use video for their marketing are seeing about 41% more website search traffic than those companies that fail to use video. (Source: SmallBizTrends)

In the end ... It's all about search! 

Video search results play a key role in how businesses are found online. It's this video content that is making the difference between companies that are found and those that are not. 

It's not only about simply making a high production video and putting it online. It's about creating an engaging piece of content whether that's a video ad, a tutorial video, product videos for an e-commerce website or an interview. Regardless of the type of video created, it must align with the needs and interests of your target audience and in doing so, you must also ensure that you're strategically optimizing your video for the search engines. This will allow your audience to see and engage with your video. 

And that's where video SEO comes into play!

Here are some tips to improve the search results for your next video...

1. Invest in the best keyword tools. There are some really good tools out their that online marketers and other business owners swear by. These tools will allow you to see the search numbers from those searching for this video content online. It's these individual searches that you need to pay attention to because these are the people who are looking for your video content. 

Our first keyword research tool is kwfinder.com:

Then there is another very useful tool which you may be familiar with which is keywordseverywhere.com:

We can’t forget UberSuggest which is now found at neilpatel.com:

The layout on this site is easy to read and very user friendly. It’s simple to do your keyword research. All you have to do is enter your keyword term and hit enter and then you’ll see a chart and graph telling you how competitive the keyword you’ve chosen is and how easy or difficult it is for you to rank for the term.

2. Analyse the search results from this keyword data to see if it's a keyword worth pursuing creating a video around.

As you can see, the term almond butter is very competitive and it shows it may be a keyword that is more challenging to rank for.

Now, let’s try another related keyword on the topic of almond butter. How about almond butter recipe! Here you can see the search volume is good at 5,400 searches per month. But best of all, it’s a keyword that’s fairly easy to rank for with an SEO difficulty of only 18 out of 100. Now this keyword is a winner to build content around — whether a blog post or video. However, for the purpose of this article let’s stick with video content. If you optimize your video in terms of having it’s headline, description and tags displaying your main keyword (almond butter recipes) and related keywords, then your content should perform well in the search results!

See the related keywords below … You can include these keywords as well within your video content or create single pieces of content centered around these terms.

Now if you can add a blog post, social media posts, infographics or Pinterest images also feeding backlinks to your main source of content, that can be a powerful move in guiding your rankings even higher up in search.

3. Be sure that you are optimizing your video for the search engine your audience most frequents. This may be Google, YouTube or any other platform that your audience is spending much of their time. Once you do this be sure that that's where you're grabbing your keyword research data from so that your video is optimized for this particular search engine where your people are . Search engines want to see that you're providing relevant content to your readers and viewers. And they also want to see that your content meets the standards they are setting for what is considered good content. When the search engines see that your business is providing value with your content, then they are happy to showcase in the top results of search!

4. Share your video so that it gains social shares. Once people share your video, it not only provides more backlinks to your video, but it makes your video look relevant to the search engines. And this relevance helps it to rank much higher in the search engine results.

And since video is becoming even more important than textual content, a video with high ranking video results along with high engagement, will not only help your video rank well, but if your video links back to your website, this will ultimately help your overall website search engine ranking. Now, we all know that good search engine optimization of any website can improve not only leads, but also sales of your products and services!

It's this type of strategic video marketing that's going to make all the difference for your business.

5. Use popular video sites like YouTube for example, to gain greater traction in your market. A YouTube video, if search engine optimized well, it can really help drive traffic to your main offerings - whether that be an opt-in free report offering on a landing page on your website or to buy a product. 

Overall if you place the right amount of focus on search engine optimizing your videos, you're sure to see positive results in your business.

How to Start a Health & Wellness Business

Invaluable Tips on Starting a Health and Wellness Business with Ease

If you are thinking about starting a health and wellness business, it's important to think about the area you plan to focus on. Your defined area of expertise will not only help you to create the right informational content that your target audience will want to learn and engage with, but it will also help you to better reach the right people. And by being laser-focused on the right people, your message is more likely to help you gain more clients and customers to your wellness business.

Of course it takes work, but if you ask the right questions and clearly understand the intent of your business and its overall goals, you can take the right steps towards building a successful wellness practice!

Every successful health and wellness business only became a thriving business once they fully understood their target market, their markets needs and angled their business goals towards helping their audience solve the issues that they were battling.

So …

Your guide to starting a wellness business …

Here are some steps you need to take if you're considering starting a health and wellness business:

1. As mentioned earlier in this article, think about the market or niche you want to serve. Will you focus for example, on the people with chronic illnesses or diabetics, or those with digestive issues? Think about the area of health that you know the most about and always seem to gravitate towards helping not only yourself, but those around you.

Try to think about the area where you have the most interest and expertise. By doing so, this becomes a good indication and most often a good guide in helping you to choose the niche area of health that is properly aligned with your values. This is where you'll want to focus for your business. Once you know the area of health you plan to focus on, it will be much easier to find your people -- who are going to be the right people who you'll want to market to.

2. Number one above will help you to now more easily choose your target audience i.e., know who your ideal customer is so that you can focus all of your messaging around them.

3. What do you do? Know the purpose of your business. What is its main/sole function?

4. How will you get the attention of your ideal client/customer?

5. Where will you connect with them and how?

These are some of the fundamental questions you need to begin to ask yourself well before starting your business.

It's not uncommon for most people venturing out in the world of business ownership to just have an idea, but failing to have a real plan on the direction of their business. Not having any business direction or not knowing the main goal of your business only leads to frustration and back-tracking and almost inevitably -- failure. It's essential that you plan. However, proper planning is only possible when you have clear intentions for your business and its growth.

So, what can you do?

Start working through the above five questions and write your answers down. Be as detailed as possible.

Want more?

I have this special complimentary gift to give you clarity and ease as you decide on the direction for your business.

Now if you're looking for a proper plan to better build your health and wellness business much more easily, then sign up here! >>>>>>>

You'll gain access to A Simple Business Planning Guide to help you start building your health and wellness business with ease!

It's an easy guide to take those ideas in your head, and it will help bring clarity to your business planning in less time and with less frustration.

Grab your Business Planning Guide by entering your details in the form here on this page!

Tools & Resources for Health Coaches

As a health coach, running your business consumes much of your time. From working with clients to marketing your business to scheduling meetings and attending workshops and conferences, there is little time to really build your business and your brand.

Resources for Health & Wellness Coaches | Save time and grow your business faster!

If you're looking for quality resources that you can use to help your health coach business then look no further.

Here you'll find materials that you can use to build your business. After all, it's not just about doing the everyday tasks that are going to help grow your practice. Marketing your business consistently is an essential element to your success. Whether that's through providing done for you reports or e-books and flyers, to handling the dynamics of attending conferences, workshops, retreats, one-on-one consulting sessions or conferences. These are some wonderful places you can go to get the word out about your business!

But the truth remains …

You need tools to help you expand your wellness practice. So, by using tools and resources made for your health and wellness business is one of the best ways to share your information.

Not sure what to give your audience who are seeking your knowledge and expertise to help them in their fitness, lifestyle and nutrition struggles?

Consider done for you health coaching marketing materials like these:

Informational Booklets: These booklets will inform your audience about a specific health issue or topic area. This is a great way to show your expert knowledge, making it easier for your prospects to want to work with you. A well designed booklet using quality photos with a professional and clean layout will make your message shine even more. See the below booklets that can help you start gaining more traction with your market!

Flyers: Event flyers or speaker one sheet promotional pages can work wonders in telling people about your next event, product or bio. Not only does it stand out because of it's quality presentation, but because your competitors aren't doing it. So it's a great way to get yourself out there.

Email Messages & Opt-In Autoresponders: One of the best ways to engage with your audience is through email. You can access those who sign up for your list 24/7 any day of the week! It's one of the best methods to inform and provide exclusive offers to your audience who have signed up to your list. Consistent nurturing of your list will get you noticed. <<Stat here>>

Templates: Presentation Templates like these will help you at your next workshop, conference or meet up. Better yet, customizable templates that allow you to re-brand them with your brand colors and content is the key in making you stand out even more at your next session. Whether you're doing an online webinar or are attending an offline event, templates like these will help you shine!

Blog Posts: Done for you article and blog posts are great to help you lure your target audience to your website or next event.

Videos: Visual imaging is one of the best ways to get in front of your prospective client or customer. Promotional videos and how-to tutorials are one of the best methods of informing your audience about ways to improve their health, while sharing your offerings that will help them lead happier and healthier lifestyles. By producing informative and engaging video marketing for your health and wellness business, you’re able to grow your business exposure

Newsletters: A professionally designed and written health coach newsletter is another great way to inform your audience of health issues, things to avoid doing as well as safer ways to improve their lifestyles with healthier food and product choices.

There are so many resources to help with your health coaching business. These resources can help you save time and help you to scale your business easier without the hassle of having to do it all by yourself.

Think of these health coach resource tools as your little personal assistant, ready to save you time and energy of having to put it all together yourself. After all, the most successful coaches use tools just like these to grow their businesses in less time. They are thinking smarter and choose not to work harder if they don't have to.

Leverage your time using done for you tools and resources like these to take your coaching business to the next level.

Your success depends on it!