Sneak Peek Into Image Monthly

Image Monthly Membership-

Graphics that are appealing to the eye are important when it comes to blogging. Not only do they need to be appealing to the eye, but they should be social shareable friendly - you want people sharing your content! I don't always have time to look for graphics to use in a blog post. It can be time consuming looking through public domain images or using a site like Pixabay.com to find an image.

That's why I LOVE Kelly's Image Monthly subscription.

She launched back in 2014 (if I remember correctly, it was 2014) and I've been a subscriber ever since. It saves me time and that is priceless! It was a little challenging to try to put into words everything you get as a member.

Instead, I created a video to show you - I even showed you how quickly and easily you can add your domain name, text, etc. to the images they provide each month.

For me, it really is priceless to have a membership to Image Monthly. There are so many resources it comes with that I can't believe it's so inexpensive. Thankfully I'm grandfathered into the lower price because Kelly is raising the rate to $12.97 (per month) at the end of this month.

order-now-red

If you think this resource could be beneficial, I encourage you to sign up now!

A quick recap because I didn't really mention this in the video, but I did show you all the images, etc. Each month you'll get a new issue of Image Monthly PLUS:

• 25 Royalty Free Stock Photos You Can Use Commercially
• 10 Engaging Quotes Designed In Beautiful Typography
• 5 Backgrounds & 5 Quote Bubble Templates

Again, I encourage you to SIGN UP NOW if you're even the littlest bit interested!

Side note: Word of caution - whatever you do, do NOT grab images from Google and use those - that's a big NO NO. You can end up getting sued, actually! Here are some posts that explain more:

• Blogger Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Photos You Don't Own on Your Blog
• Copyright Fair Use and How it Works for Online Images
• Copyright: why you can’t just use Google images

2 Free Blogging Planners and Calendars for 2016

I love this time of year. I get excited thinking about what the New Year is going to bring and what God has in store for me! I'm also addicted to planning...or maybe I should say I'm addicted to planners! ;-) I buy a few every year in hopes that this year I'll find the "perfect" one.

Usually the planners I end up purchasing don't work because they're not created with bloggers in mind. Thankfully I have some really smart online friends that have created some resources for us bloggers! Here are a few I like...

The Ultimate Blogging Binder 

I heard about this one back at the beginning of 2015. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I downloaded it and never did anything with it, eventually deleting it. I'm not even entirely sure I ever opened it! Recently I received an email that mentioned the blogging binder and I decided to download it again. I'm glad I did. It has a lot of resources in it - 264 pages worth!

Here is a sneak peek at what the ultimate blogging binder looks like and the specific pages I chose to download:

Click the image below to get your free copy of the ultimate blogging binder now!

2016 Blog Planner and Calendar 

My friend Lynette has been putting out a free resource every year (and has for the last 8 years!) that's been a huge hit with bloggers (myself included).

Here is a quick inside peek at what the blog planner/calendar looks like:

Click the image below to get your free copy of the 2016 blog planner and calendar now!

How about you? Do you have a favorite planner? I would love to know! Leave a comment below! 

Need Help Coming Up With Blog Posts? Try This!

Wondering what to blog about can be one of the biggest roadblocks we bloggers face! Today, I came across another article about coming up with blog post ideas. Most of the posts I read about this are pretty similar - they all offer a lot of the same tips for doing it that I'm already familiar with. But this post from Lynn Terry at Click Newz! had a suggestion I hadn't really thought about before. It's a great idea so I wanted to share it with you!

Here's a little blurb from her post:

Some of my absolute best blog posts have originated as responses to emails or discussions in forums & groups - or even phone calls. If you ENJOY your topic, you probably have no trouble talking about it if someone asks you a question. Whether it's in person, on the phone, via email or just a question you see somewhere on the web - the response likely comes natural for you without even thinking.

Wondering what the tip is? Head on over to Lynn's post How To Find GREAT Blog Post Ideas – Fast! and find out ;-)

Blog Tour Stop: Sheryl Siler from Cherished Magazine

I am excited to have Sheryl Siler with Cherished Magazine over to the Faithful Bloggers blog today to interview her.  She is founder and editor-in-chief of Cherished Magazine, a digital magazine that reminds Christian women they are chosen, cherished & loved.  She is taking Cherished Magazine on a Cherished Everyday Blog Tour Extravaganza this Fall. I know Sheryl from attending a few live events and I am happy to have her here on Faithful Bloggers to ask her a few questions.  Here we go:

Since we met at events, do you think it is beneficial to invest in attending in-person events where other bloggers hang out?

I absolutely do think it is beneficial to attend the "right for you " in person events. I attended a few at the beginning that weren't the right fit. I wish I could give a little bit of wisdom of what makes it right-for-you,  I'm sure that I can but I'll try.  Ask yourself if the people putting on the event are like-minded and a personality that you jive with?  Another great question to research is the content of the event something you are looking to learn?

The point I want to emphasize is don't go to an event just to go because beyond the learning at an event, you can create some great relationships that continue on past the conference.

How important do you think it is to have the support of other like-minded individuals that you meet at events or even online? 

For me being around other online marketers and bloggers really encouraged me to take action on my ideas.   Some ideas really weren't my fit but if I did't have the camaraderie of others doing the same things I were doing I wouldn't have ever launched Cherished Magazine.  At an in-person event, I shared my God-sized dream to a roomful of like-minded women.  I got such a warm response, encouraging words and lots of ideas for Cherished Magazine (You know.  You were there).  Many of those in that room that day contributed articles to the magazine.  I may not have had the gumption to "Go for it" if it hadn't been for those amazing ladies.

Tell us more about what you called your "God-sized" dream - what led you to start it, when did you launch?

Doing a digital magazine was something I took an add-on class  in at an in-person event.  I was just getting my feet wet blogging at GrowBloomInspire.com at that time and thought a magazine would be pretty cool.  I got really excited and then got back from the conference, life took over and I sat on the idea for about a year.

In January 2015, the idea surfaced again.  This time with a yearning and a more focused idea of wanting women to know that they are Cherished...not because of what they do but  because of who they are in Christ.  In February I attended that conference where I got brave and shared the idea and the "Go for it" mentality took over.  My first issue was released in May 2015.  You can actually get a coupon to get our first two published issues for free.  Just enter your name and email on the form and we will send it to you.

Now I heard you mention that you tried other things and some of them didn't fit.  What was one of the biggest "failures" you've had as a blogger and what did you learn from it?

Ohh..one of the biggest "failures" .... well honestly I didn't know what I wanted or who I wanted to speak to.  One big failure at the beginning was not taking enough time trying to figure out what it was I was meant to do.  I thought of doing a blog that focused on doing things with your kids because I was a stay at home mom but didn't really find a passion in that.  Then I thought "I like scrapbooking" so maybe something that included faith and scrapbooking...not it.    I say not knowing what I want was one of my biggest failures but I'm not sure being an editor-in-chief of a magazine, a speaker or an author would have been on those first dreams of what I wanted without those failed attempts of  trying to "do something online".

My second failure I would say is not being consistent with all the parts and pieces it takes to make blogging and promotion successful and then just quitting on the idea instead of coming up with a new plan.  In hindsight, I think I would try to do something daily, wouldn't be able to do that and then wind up sort of quitting all together.  I have learned that consistent may start out with doing something once a week and as things become routine and you are able to hire help, you can move to increasing the frequency.

Sheryl thanks for taking the time to answer my questions today.  I heard you were having a special yearly rate for the length of your blog tour.  How does someone get it?

Yes I do!  Just go over to the Cherished Everyday Fall Tour Extravaganza page here.  You will find the special as well as where we have been on the tour and where we have been next and information if you have a blog and would love to have me come on over for a blog post, interview, podcast guest or giveaway.

Five Ways to Beat Writer's Block

The dreaded writer's block. At some point you've probably faced it - staring at a blank screen urging the words to come but they don't. When you're a blogger, podcaster, author or any kind of content creator this isn't a good thing. I'm always on the lookout for ways other people deal with writer's block. And today I wanted to share with you a post someone shared with me recently. While I'm not a fan of the 7 minute video (I'd rather have text to scan/read through than watch a video), she shares five great tips.

If you're stuck coming up with topics for your blog, podcast or other content head over to Rachel Rofe's blog and check out 5 oddball ways to get more topic ideas for your blog or podcast.

I'd love to hear your thoughts - what do you do to overcome writer's block? 

Why Is Facebook Pulling The Wrong Image?

As bloggers we need to be sharing our content on Facebook. But have you ever created a post on Facebook and when you add the URL they pull an image that doesn't go with that blog post? Don't worry - you're not alone. It's a common complaint among bloggers and one of the workarounds many people have found is to manually upload the correct image:

While it's not a huge deal to just manually upload, there are other "correct" ways to do it. And my very smart tech savvy friend, Lynette Chandler of Tech Based Marketing shows you how to properly fix it.  Here's a blurb from her post How To Make Facebook Use The Image You Want:

Facebook (and other networks) rely on special meta tags to identify titles, descriptions, images etc. that are in your post. If your blog post or web page doesn’t have these special tags, they will take a guess. That’s the technical part. The good news is, you don’t have to write these tags (read code) by hand for each post – although you could if you wanted to, but why when there are easy tools available?

Head on over and read How To Make Facebook Use The Image You Want for instructions on how to set things up so Facebook now pulls the proper image.  

Until next time...

Tishia

Awesome April Update

A few weeks ago I posted, excited, about April and all the awesome things I was going to be doing. Things started off great. Things were going awesome and then bam! my world came to a screeching halt. On Monday, April 13th, at a little after 5pm, I received a phone call:

My mom: (sobbing, hard to understand) Tishia, Braylan has cancer

Me: (sobbing, heart racing, feeling sick to my stomach and can't catch my breath) NOOOOOOOOOO I screamed as my knees buckled and I dropped to the ground.

Braylan is my fun loving, energetic, full of life 4 year old nephew. At the time of that phone call, my brother, sister-in-law, Braylan and his 1 year old brother were on their way to a children's hospital about 3.5 hours away from where we live in Northern Michigan. When they went to their regular doctor to get results from Bray's recent blood work (he hadn't been feeling well), the doctor sent them immediately to the children's hospital. (the picture above is my brother and Bray Bray...on one of his good days at the children's hospital - which is AMAZING by the way)

The next 24 hours were a blur but I do remember not sleeping, not being able to stop crying and the anger I felt towards God. Yes, I'm angry with God. Yes I know it's not his fault and that being angry with Him is only hurting me...but that's a whole nother post for another day.

I can't believe the emotions just writing this has brought back. It feels like we're in a nightmare and I keep expecting to 'wake up' from it...except it's reality not a nightmare. We have a long journey ahead of us but the doctor's are very optimistic about his treatment plan and that his leukemia is curable and that he'll be in remission shortly. So right now, that's what I'm hanging onto.

So needless to say...Awesome April pretty much came to a halt. Being with my family has been more important than being awesome and working on the challenges I joined/was a part of. Slowly but surely I'm trying to find a 'normal' again and get back into the groove of my online business and doing what I love here at Faithful Bloggers - interacting with you on the forum, providing learning resource and more. Plus I even managed to get things going for the upcoming Faithful Bloggers Podcast which I'm so excited about!

If you would like to follow along on this journey, please check out his Facebook Page Braylan's Healing Journey. But most of all - please keep praying!

Until next time....

Tishia

Free Printables: Irish Blessings

For some people St. Patrick's Day can be just an excuse to get drunk but there is wonderful Christian history behind St. Patrick and traditional Irish blessings. This blogger has created some lovely printables of Irish prayers and blessings to enhance your St. Patrick's Day celebrations and add some seasonal (and spiritual!) festivity to your home.

Brrr... Don't Forget To Count This Blessing

Seriously!  If you're tempted to whine or complain about anything today... think for a minute about people who are working out in this stuff!

BETA Tribe Leader Membership Opportunity

The BETA Tribe Leader Membership we opened up to our Community last week is rocking and we are thrilled. Conversations are flowing on the Private Membership Forum and we're getting some great input for the membership we offer when we come out of BETA.

We are only keeping the doors open to BETA Tribe Leaders for one week. At midnight on Monday, February 23rd we'll close it up and focus on getting to know the awesome people who've joined us.

Later, in March, we'll re-open the full official membership and start welcoming new members again :)

If you love the idea of being in on something from the very beginning, please come check us out!

We Want To Meet You On The Edge

Hey there Faithful Blogger!

Are you snuggled in all safe and sound in that comfort zone you've been in for far too long?

Or are you packed and ready to venture out into a new place?

What's it going to take to nudge you into that willing space... right on the very edge between what is familiar and what's completely unknown?

Is it time to venture into podcasting?  Videos?  Speaking?  What are you feeling the call to?

If you're dreaming of taking your faith based blog to the next level - what is it you need to get there?

We want to know!

Will you share your thoughts, hopes, dreams and fears in a comment below?

We promise you this:  If you let us know what you need - we'll do all we can to meet you on on that edge!

Free 2015 Blogging Planner

Lynette Chandler has been publishing a fantastic free Blogging Planner for several years now and in 2015, it's better than ever. Grab your free download here:  The only price you'll pay is sharing the freebie on social media - which is awesome since others will love hearing about it!

Join Us On A Writing Date!

National Writing Date Day is coming up Saturday, September 6th and we (Kelly & Tishia) will definitely be participating!  Will you join us?  If yes, leaves us a comment - then click on this image to register and join the Writing Date Facebook Group.

Register for the first Skill Building Intensive

We can't wait to teach Faithful Bloggers about Starting Your Own Mailing List!

Get registered for the first Skill Building Intensive!

Here's Your Chance To Start A Mailing List

Writing a blog gives you a chance to reach the world with a message.  Having a mailing list that your readers can subscribe too is a way to let them ask for more.

Do you have a Mailing List set up?

We've found there are a shocking number of bloggers who don't, and so we aim to do something about it.

Introducing our first Skill Building Intensive:  Start Your Own Mailing List.

We're going to teach you how its done and guide you through it step by step - and we're doing it at a price everyone can afford.

Get signed up here.

Infographic: Tips for Writing a Devotion

My friend Kelly McCausey challenged her blog readers to create an infographic. I thought it sounded like fun and  created the one below. Click on the image to view a bigger version. I would love to hear your thoughts especially since it was my first time creating one.

How to Find Free Christian Images for Your Blog

Finding good free Christian images for blog posts can be a real pain. You have to be careful browsing “free” stock photo websites. Use the wrong picture and you could end up with a letter from some not-so-nice lawyers…

Fortunately, there are a few places where you can find great images to use for free. Here are some of the best.

Morgue File

Morguefile has been a go to image resource for bloggers for a long time now. All of the images on the site are either in the public domain, or have no known copyright restrictions.

The one downside is that the search is a little clunky. So, instead, use this handy little google trick to find the image you’re looking for...

Go to Google’s image search and type: “site:morguefile.com keyword” (without the quotes).

Replace “keyword” with a word describing the type of image you’re after. I typed in “site:morguefile.com jesus” and found the image above in 20 seconds! You can use the same trick on other stock photo sites, but you have to make sure that all of their images are copyright free. Otherwise you may end up using a copyrighted image.

Prayers for Special Help

Prayers for Special Help is a small christian ministry that decided, “hey, we’re spending all this time creating great images, why not let other Christian bloggers use them too?”

They have a growing collection of beautiful bible verse pictures that are free to use. If you do use them, just provide a citation so that more people know where they can go to find more.

Unsplash

Need some high quality, high res images for your blog redesign? Unsplash is the place to go.

Though not strictly Christian themed, the photos on this site are some of the highest quality, high resolution copyright free images on the internet.

Christians Unite Clipart

When I hear the word “clipart”, I think 90s church bulletins.

Well, I’m not going to lie, the images on this site are pretty dated. But, there are some great gems as well. I would just spend an hour combing through it, and download all the images you might want to use.

Wikimedia Commons

If you need images of historic places or people, the place to find them is Wikimedia Commons.

You may or may not know this, but all the content on Wikipedia is available to use under the creative commons license.

Finding images here is a real headache though. So, use the same google trick from earlier. Go to Google’s image search and type: “site:https://creativecommons.org/ keyword” to find the image you need.

Where do you find images to use on your blog? Let me know in the comments.

Find out More about Prayers for Special Help here: http://www.facebook.com/onlineprayerrequest

Prayers for Special Help is an online prayer community for people of different backgrounds and faiths to come together to be inspired, encouraged, and to help pray for one another. You can read prayers submitted by Pastors and culled from rare prayer books, as well as submit public prayer requests.

5 Ways to Celebrate Valentine’s Day on Your Blog

Love is in the air! The one thing I love about Valentine’s Day is that it’s not only a day to celebrate your love with your significant other, children, and family, but it’s a day you can celebrate Jesus’ love as well!

Valentine’s Day is a popular holiday and bloggers usually take advantage of that for extra traffic to their blogs. However so many of the Valentine’s Day posts you will find are about what gifts to give that special someone or crafts. While those posts are great fun not a subject all bloggers can write about those types of posts.

Here are 5 unique ways you can celebrate Valentine’s Day on your blog:

1. Have a “Jesus Loves Me” Week – Everyday during the week of Valentine’s Day write a blog post showing how Jesus has shown His love to you and encourage your readers to share as well.
2. Send a couple of your faithful readers a thank you email – Just send out a short email letting your readers know that you appreciate them and love them. Even ask if there is anything you can do to help them.
3. Create some cute graphics. IF you are blessed to be able to design beautiful web graphics, create some cute Valentine theme graphics to giveaway to your blog readers.
4. Write a blog post about why you love your readers - Your readers want to know you appreciate them. Write a blog post, it doesn’t have to been anything long, explaining why you love having them as a reader and how they encourage you.
5. Surprise another blogger – I’m sure you are friends or are acquaintances with other bloggers. Help one out and sent them a surprise. It can be a $5 Amazon gift card, a copy of your ebook for free, or simply offer your help to them in anyway needed.

However you end up celebrating Valentine’s Day on your blog, make it fun, enjoyable, and full of love.

What are you planning for your blog on Valentine’s Day?

6 Awesome Posts About Settings Goals

I have been reading a lot of goal setting and keeping track of said goals. I discovered there isn't one fits all solution and goal setting and tracking is different for everyone. What works for one person might not work for another. One thing I did find in common though, and this something I have been saying along, is to write down your goals. Make them visual and put them somewhere you will actually see them on a daily basis.

While there are a lot of apps out there to help with goal tracking, I think I'm just going to stick with my pen and paper for now.

Below are some of my favorite blog posts about goals.

• 5 Reasons Why your Should Commit Your Goals to Writing
• 7 Apps to Help You Achieve Your Goals and Build New Habits
• How to Set Goals and Create a Plan for the New Year
• How Do You Set Goals If Your Spouse Isn't a Goal-Setter?
• How to Set Blogging Goals You Can Actually Achieve
• Set Mom Blogging Goals

What Worked in 2013?

When planning for the New Year it’s important to see what worked last year. Checking your analytics and seeing which blog posts got the most traffic is one way to determine what worked.

According to Google Analytics the 10 most trafficked posts on Faithful Bloggers were:

1. 7 Tips on How To Write a Devotion
2. Book Review Writing: 5 Tips to Make It Simple
3. Share Your Testimony: Why it’s Important
4. Where To Promote Your Giveaway and Contest
5. How Does Blogging Challenge You
6. Bible Based WordPress Plugins
7. Why Do You Blog? Group Writing Project
8. Protect Your Blog
9. Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Google Blogger
10. How to Write Your Testimony

Based on analytics I can tell people are interested in information about writing devotions, book reviews, sharing your testimony online, plugins, and blog security. I can now plan content in 2014 around these topics and interlink them. It gives readers the information they want and helps with SEO by interlinking.

Of course, site analytics, isn’t the only way to tell what worked for your blog. You can also check out your social media analytics and insights. Check your mailing list responses and open and click rates.

The important thing is to find out what worked last year and what didn’t. You don’t want to waste time focusing on content or ideas that were not successful last year this year. Focus on what’s working and continue to do it!