Featured on ChooseFI! Goal setting

The internet is a crazy small place, y'all! In a recent post, I mused about possibilities of making my blog bigger than what it was, and share it with more people. I linked to a podcast I've been listening to, ChooseFI, and they found me through backlinks (a mysterious technology I need to learn about) and they talked about my blog on their podcast! This is one of the cooler things that has happened to me on the internet.

Here I am, in the show notes of the ChooseFI podcast! So cool!

Jonathan mentioned my blog by name, and read the following paragraph from my post:

I had the privilege last fall of teaching a Financial Peace University class with my brother and his wife as students. As a result of paying off their student loan debt and being ridiculously excited for the future, they started listening to a podcast called ChooseFI - the FI stands for Financial Independence. Bro sent me their way, and I listened to an awesome podcast about building a blog into a business. I was inspired! I briefly envisioned quitting teaching when my incredibly viral popular blog spawned me thousands in monthly affiliate and advertising revenue! I'd land a book deal. They literally said the line, "I can't think of anyone who has been blogging regularly for six years or so  NOT finding some success." Well hey, I've been blogging for six years. Me! Me! Me!

They spent the rest of the podcast discussing different ways to monetize blogs, from charging a membership fee to building a brand with a product. You can listen to the full podcast by clicking HERE, but he talks about me around 19:00 in AND linked to me in the show notes. I will continue thinking on this topic, but I think these are some directions I'd like to head.

Screenshot - but click here to listen!

Short-term - by the end of June

• Buy my own domain name and link it to my blog.
• Go through old posts and edit, culling down on my categories (I'm not even sure why I even have a "mullet" label, like I thought I'd have multiple posts about mullets??) to make it easier to find things
• Learn about affiliate linking, so if you the reader decide to buy something that I link to, I can make a small commission.
• Schedule some guest blog posts because I have friends who are amazing writers with great stories.

 Long-term - by the end of 2018

• Figure out an email list service so I can have better access to those who like my writing.
• Create something awesome to send to said email subscribers to thank them for following.
• Decide on a consistent posting schedule; blogs are easier to follow when you know when to expect updates. For example, maybe I publish a post about teaching every Monday, and a post about parenting, family, or devotions every Friday.
• Write posts in advance, especially during the summer. 
• Learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how others may come across my blog without directly knowing me.
• Read more cool mom and teacher blogs so I can connect with other people who are really good at doing what I want to do

In the future I'll be soliciting feedback on your favorite types of posts, since I can be all over the board. Thank you to all my readers joining me on my adventure of life!