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2020 has thrown up a lot of surprises thus far. One of the best ways to respond to uncertainty is to equip yourselves with new skills.

So if you’re looking to gain new skills you may be wondering; what are the best new skills to learn in 2020? Based on how the world works today, we believe the best new skills to learn. Below we take a look at what we believe are the 3 best skills to acquire in 2020:

• 1 – SEO
• 2 – Website building
• 3 – Social Media Marketing

What Are The Best New Skills To Learn In 2020?

1 – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

What Is It

The first skill on our list is not surprisingly Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) because it is so fundamental to the way we all live life and consume products and services.

SEO is the the process of optimising website content to increase its visibility in organic search results therefore increasing the probability of your content ranking higher in search engine results.

Why’s It Important

It is said that as much as 87% of shoppers now start their journey for products online with a large chunck of that heading for search engines like Google.

Furthermore, 35% of consumers begin their shopping exercusions on Google.

SEO can help drive traffic to websites and therefore help connect customers with a high search and buying intent to sellers of products and services.

What Can You Do With It

If you can become an SEO practictioner it can potentially open up many doors:

Start Your Own Websites: Armed even with the basics of SEO you put yourself in a position where you can build websites and drive traffic to them. This opens up a world of possibilities if you want to generate income for yourself.

Consult For Others: With the skills needed to be able to drive traffic to websites, you could start providing consulting services to businesses and individuals who need to improve their search rankings and get more leads and customers.

Teach Others: SEO is a skill that is growing in demand. As of 2018, SEO jobs were growing 43% year on year. With demand increasing at such a rate once you acquire the skills and experience you then have the opportunity to teach others.

Get A Job In SEO: With more businesses and organisations recognising the value of SEO, jobs are opening up in that space. Once you have the necessary skills getting a job in this space becomes more viable.

Where To Get Started

There are endless resources today to get started with learning about SEO. Below we list a few sources for great free educational content on SEO.

One of the best ways to get started with learning about SEO is to simply start your own website and experiment as you learn – that’s what we’ve been doing and it’s a great way to learn.

Resources

• Mangools Learn SEO
• Search Engine Journal
• Neil Patel

2 – Building Websites

What Is It?

Website building is simply the process of starting a website, loading it with content, launching it and maintaining it. It dovetails quite well with SEO as you can use SEO to drive traffic to your site.

It also links very well with skill number 3 as you can also use social media marketing to drive traffic to your site.

Why’s It Important?

Pretty much everything we do today can involve websites. Whether it’s looking for a job or somewhere to eat or planning a wedding – at some point you’re going to be using a website.

The important of websites is only going to increase going forward.

The great thing with building websites today is that services like WordPress make it supereasy. Even if you’re a complete newbie to this space picking up the pace is much easier today than it was 10 – 15 years ago. You can build perfectly successful websites today with zero technical experience.

What Can You Do With It

Start Your Own Websites: Being able to start your own websites is a skill that can help you in many areas. Whether it’s producing an additional revenue stream, creating a site for your own business or simply having a productive hobby, being able to build your own websites can open up a lot of doors.

Build Websites For Others: Equipping yourself with the knowledge to build websites allows you to start hiring out this service for others. Regardless of the state of the economy, websites are always likely to be needed.

Teach Others: Once you are confident enough to build your websites and codify the process for doing it, you can then begin to teach others.

Get A Job: If you get to a point where you have enough experience and expertise in building sites, there are always jobs available in this space.

Where To Get Started

There are many ways to get started with learning how to build websites but we are bias here at Blog So Easy as the way we started was simply to start our first site on Bluehost built on WordPress.

We recommend this as a great way to get started as it means you get to experiment with the concepts you are learning in real-time.

If you’d rather not spend any money you can always try a free website via WordPress direct but it will be fairly limited in terms of what you can do and you won’t be able to fully customise it.

3 – Social Media Marketing

What Is It?

Social media marketing is the process of using social media platforms to communicate with your customers and audience with the aim of building awareness of your brand, increasing traffic to your website and sales. Social media allows brands and organisations to build engagement with their audience.

The main social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkIn, Twitter and Twitter.

Why’s It Important?

There are an estimated 3.5billion social media platform users every month, a truly astounding number and one that demonstrates the potential power in social media marketing.

What Can You Do With It?

Drive Traffic To Your Website:Armed with the knowledge of how to properly engage with social media platforms to drive engagement and traffic, you can boost visitors to your websites or those that you consult for.

Increase Sales: Being able to get audiences to engage with a brand is an effective way to try to increase sales. Having this skill set would mean you have the option of working for others or setting up your own operation and leveraging this skill.Social media marketing is the process of

What To Start

The great thing about social media marketing is that you can start experimenting and learning for free at any time. It’s free to join all the major social media platforms and there’s tons of quality free content online on the best ways to make use of these platforms.

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What Are The Best New Skills To Learn In 2020?: Tell Us Your Thoughts.

So you’re thinking about starting a blog to maybe make a little bit of extra cash. But your wondering how do you actually make money from a blog in the UK?

If so you are not alone! We found ourselves in the same position not long ago and set off on a journey to answer the very same question.

Since then we’ve started doing just that – making a little bit of extra cash from a blog that’s UK based and below we share what we’ve learnt so far.

Part of the problem with making money from blogging is just the sheer noise there is out there.

You’ll see plenty of stuff telling you to just do this or that and eventually all will be well. But what if you’re completely fresh to all of this stuff and don’t have a clue what it actually means but are willing to learn.

Well hopefully then the stuff below will be of some value to you. Here we try and breakdown one of the most popular ways people make money from a blog (Amazon affiliate marketing).

We try to do it in a way you could explain to anyone else and also try to provide a handy diagram that hopefully make it even clearer.

We’ve found that part of the problem with all of this stuff is that people write like they’re talking to others in their community who already get it! But not everyone does, especially when you’re completely fresh to it.

How To Make Money From a Blog UK

So let’s take a closer look at one of the most popular ways to make money from a blog in the UK and indeed globally.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is probably the simplest method of monetising your blog. It’s beginner friendly as it’s a fairly straightforward model once you pick it up.

Affiliate marketing works by your blog/site essentially directing buyers to a particular product or service. You then get paid a set commission with the product or service provider for sending paying customers their way.

Perhaps the most famous affiliate marketing program around is Amazon’s (that’s what our affiliate site is based on).

Let’s walk through an example. Imagine your blog (NutsAboutSpeakers.com) deals with bluetooth speakers and Ben is looking for a new bluetooth speaker:

• 1 – Ben jumps onto Google and types in “best Bluetooth speaker for under £50”. One of the results he sees on page 1 of Google is from your awesome blog covering some of the best Bluetooth speakers in that category.
• 2 – Ben clicks through onto your website, reads a review and finds a speaker he likes from your recommendations. He decides to click the “buy now on Amazon” button.
• 3 – After clicking through to Amazon, Ben buys the speaker in question.
• 4 – The product is then shipped to Ben.
• 5 – Once the speaker has been shipped to Ben, you get paid a commission based on a % of the total sale.
• Note: The click from your blog is tracked via a cookie that lasts 24 hours. Even if Ben ends up buying something else on Amazon, the blog owner will still get a commission. You get paid a % of the total basket.

Its as simple as that. The name of the game is to try and get as many clicks through into your affiliate links as possible and hope they buy the product.

Amazon are not the only game in town and there are tons of options out there.

However, Amazon is a popular starting point as they’re such a massive player in the online retail space and have a global presence. They now allow you to benefit from sales generated in several countries even if your based in the UK including: USA, Italy, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan.

It’s also very likely that you’ve already used Amazon for your own shopping needs and a fairly familiar with how they operate as a site. Being able to place yourself in the buyer’s shoes helps when thinking about your user experience.

When you first join Amazon, you get 6 months to generate 3 sales otherwise your account gets closed. Though it’s worth noting you can simply open another associate account fairly easily.

How Do You Direct People To Your Website?

The name of the game with affiliate marketing is to put yourself in between buyers and their chosen place of shopping by offering them value in someway.

To do so, you need to direct traffic to your website/blog. There are several ways to direct traffic including social media (e.g. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram & Twitter), paid advertising and referrals (getting traffic from other websites).

However, perhaps the most effective way is through SEO traffic.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. When people refer to SEO it basically means trying to make your website appear more friendly to search engines most notably Google.

I say it is probably the most effective way of as it is estimated that 35% of consumers start their online shopping journey on a search engine. This is second to only Amazon at 38%.

Getting ranked on Google search results can be difficult especially if it is a popular product you pick. But if you are able to do so, you will be well set to receive consistent traffic to your website for as long as you can sustain your ranking.

Unlike social media and paid traffic, you do not have to keep constantly putting in effort on a daily basis to drive traffic from a particular article. You will always have to maintain your website and continue to add content regularly but it is not as demanding as other forms of driving traffic.

How Do You Know Which Is The Best Product or Service? `

Selecting the best product category or service when you are first starting out can seem like picking a needle out of a haystack. There’s so much choice out there and it can be hard to know what to pick.

If you already have something your interested in that may be a good starting point. For example if you love cycling then that could be a good place to start as there are tons of products you could blog about.

If not, Amazon for example will tell you directly what their best sellers are on their website. Have a look at their data and then think about what you’d find interesting writing about from their best performers.

You also want to make sure that you can stand to make enough commission to make it worth your while. To do this make sure the products you choose sell for a reasonable price taking into account Amazon’s fee schedule.

Final Thoughts

Starting your own blog, if done well, presents a great opportunity for you to make some side income. Affiliate marketing represents one of the best ways to make money from a blog in the UK.

There are a number of other ways to make an income from a blog including advertising and selling products directly however, affiliate marketing has next to no start-up costs (aside from paying for a website and hosting for which we would recommend Bluehost).

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Do I need to be passionate about my blog? I keep seeing this question and the boiler plate answer seems to be “yes! You absolutely must be passionate about your blog for it to be successful”.

For sometime I believed it. I tried with various blogs previously to get them up and running but gave up after a few weeks after seeing zero traffic and no hope of getting any. Reflecting on why I gave up and reading content online I would come to the conclusion that it was a lack of passion. If only I could find a topic I was passionate about then I could make it work.

Except fast forward to today and with two sites up and running, I can see the idea that you simply have to be “passionate” about your blog seems off the mark.

What you need to make start and sustain an endeavour is not passion alone but rather commitment alongside it.

What Does It Mean To be Passionate?

Let’s take a look for a moment at what it means to be “passionate”.

The Cambridge dictionary defines passion as “a very powerful feeling, for example of sexual attraction, love, hate, anger or other emotion”. Whilst it defines passion for something as “an extreme interest in or wish for doing something, such as a hobby, activity, etc”.

When you look at the definition you start to see why it should not be the main driving force behind launching your blog or indeed any serious venture.

Blogging can be incredibly rewarding but takes a significant amount of effort especially in the early days as you try build your content to critical mass.

Beyond that you then have to have the discipline to write quality posts consistently, monitor the performance of your site(s), engage with your audience and what often gets forgotten, continue learning how to be better at it.

As we know, passion can be fleeting, it can come and go with us having seemingly no control of it (ever heard of the term “a crime of passion”?).

Passion is all you need for a summer romance by the beach. Passion alone will not sustain a marriage for decades.

Passion will get you to sign up for a hosting account, crack out a few posts and share it with your friends and family.

Passion alone will not have you waking up an hour earlier before your regular day-job each day to write a blog post consistently for 6 months.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying passion has no part to play in launching a blog or any other successful endeavour. What I am saying it should not the main and only criteria with which people decide whether or not to launch into a particular area.

What I’ve realised with my own journey is that what’s made the difference is not a new found passion. But rather a commitment to stay the course and put in the required effort even when things seem like they’re not moving.

Why Is The Whole Passion Idea So Popular?

So with that said, why is it that so many sources out there answer the question “do I need to be passionate about my blog?” with a great big “YES!”?

Saying you have to be passionate about your blog sounds cool and its easier. It romanticises and introduces emotions to what needs to be a conscious decision to commit rather than an impulsive reaction to a fleeting emotion.

It makes the whole thing sound so much more sexy than it otherwise would.

Let’s be honest – what’s going to get more views – saying “you just need PASSION for your blog to be successful” or “you need to be real dedicated, super committed and willing to do things you may not always enjoy, day in day out to give yourself even half chance”? Yeah, thought so.

Do I Need To Be Passionate About My Blog?

So, do you need to be passionate about your blog? Yes you do but you also need a whole lot more than just passion to take you from just starting a blog to sustaining it.

Alongside passion you need to build in commitment and discipline backed up by a clear purpose.

Put those factors together and you give yourself the best chance of lasting the distance.

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Starting a blog has never been easier. But with so many different avenues you could pursue, what topics can you blog about?

Finding the right topic for you can be a difficult task especially if you are new to blogging.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the best 60 ideas to help you answer the question – what topics can you blog about?

To compile this list we trawled through Google search volume data on AhRefs. The list below is arranged in no particular order.

What Topics Can You Blog About? Best 60 Ideas

Below is the full list of the best 60 ideas either based on their huge search volumes or in some cases where there might be an opportunity due to low competition.

Before we take a look at the full list, lets have a peak at a few that stood out in our research:

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Mindfulness

• Global Monthly Search Volume: 613,000
  • USA: 98,000
  • UK: 52,000

It seems like you can’t go too long on social media or anywhere online these days without seeing the term “mindfulness” mentioned and the search volumes on Google reflect the same. Over 600,000 people worldwide search for what is a growing phenomenon that presents a great opportunity for bloggers whether they already practice it or are interested in learning more. What better way to learn about mindfulness than to blog about it and practice as you go.

Meditation

Global Monthly Search Volume: 517,000

• USA: 136,000
• UK: 40,000

To the uninitiated meditation and mindfulness might be confused for the same thing but as Yoga International points out there are some key differences and both clearly have a huge audience. “Meditation” gets well over half a million searches on Google each month demonstrating the significant potential for would-be bloggers who have a passion for this growing topic.

Artificial Intelligence

Global Monthly Search Volume: 703,000

• USA: 119,000
• UK: 23,000

Interest in the field of artificial intelligence continues to grow year on year and this is reflected in huge search volumes on Google globally. The topic is searched for over 700,000 times every month making it a prime opportunity for bloggers who are keen on sharing their interest with a wider audience.

Celebrity News

Global Monthly Search Volume: 844,000

• USA: 121,000
• UK: 602,000

If you’re already a big celebrity news watcher and have always wanted to start a blog, we have some great news for you! Well over 3 quarters of a million searches on Google each month suggest you are in great company. The UK in particular seems to have a real passion for the daily activities of the celebrity world, with 602,000 searches alone coming from the UK.

Sneakers/Trainers

Global Monthly Search Volume: 849,000

• USA: 110,500
• UK: 75,000

Some call them sneakers others call them trainers, either way those things you put on your feet when you need comfort for your run or just going about your day to day business, have a lot of people reaching for their keyboard and no doubt their wallets. With pretty much 850,000 searches on Google globally for sneakers/trainers, this would represent a great opportunity for bloggers who already have closets full of untouched Off-Whites just waiting for the right occasion.

Note: This page contains affiliate links – if you click through and make a purchase, Blog So Easy will earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

Best 60 Ideas

#	Idea
1	Meditation
2	Celebrity News
3	Basketball
4	Healthy tea
5	Vegan (Veganism)
6	Cooking
7	Food
8	Gluten Free Food
9	Toys
10	Wooden Plates
11	Football (soccer)
12	Shakespeare
13	Running
14	Feminism
15	Interior design
16	Cycling
17	Mindfulness
18	Yoga
19	Pilates
20	Sustainability
21	Personal Development
22	Self Improvement
23	Investment
24	Personal Finance
25	Swimming
26	Triathlon
27	Global Warming
28	Guitar
29	Piano
30	Hip Hop
31	Folk Music
32	Sneakers
33	Trainers
34	Photography
35	Tech
36	Fashion
37	Comedy
38	Artificial Intelligence
39	Self Driving Cars
40	Gaming
41	Movies
42	Books
43	Gift Wrapping
44	Coffee
45	Shapewear
46	Skin Care
47	Hobbies
48	Makeup
49	Swimwear
50	Gym Wear
51	Dropshipping
52	Parenting
53	Career
54	Knitting
55	Baking
56	Drawing
57	Sleeping
58	Mental Health
59	Responsible Travel
60	Space (as in beyond the stars)

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Ready To Get Started With Your Own Blog? Sign up to Bluehost now and get an extended 60 day money back guarantee only in April 2020!

Have you ever had to add a page like your terms and conditions to your WordPress website footer but did not have a clue? I was in the same boat and struggled to find a good source for a while that clearly explained how to do just that. Once you know how it is quick process and so I thought I’d share this quickly to hopefully save you a bit of time.

Below we’ll cover how to add new pages as well as adding the privacy policy which WordPress have now made super-simple.

This function is useful for adding pages such as:

• Terms and Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Refund Policies for E-Commerce Stores

How To Add Page To Footer WordPress

In this example, I’ve created a new page called “Terms and Conditions” and I would like it to appear in the footer of my site.

1 – The first thing you need to do is head over to your WordPress dashboard and scroll down to Appearance. From there select Menus from the options.

2 – Next select create a new menu from the next screen.

3 – Now you need to create a new menu that you will then be able to use to add any page you need to at the bottom of your website/footer. In the example below I’ve called my menu “Policies”. Once you have named it, hit “Create Menu” at the bottom right hand corner.

4 – Next we need to add the “Terms and Conditions” page created previously to the new menu (“Policies”). Tick the box next to the page you need (“Terms and Conditions”) and then click “Add to Menu”.

5 – Click “Save Menu” once that’s done.

6 – Next click on “Appearance” on your Dashboard and select “Widgets”.

7 – Then find “Navigation Menu” from the list of Widgets.

8 – Click and drag the “Navigation Menu” widget over to your “Footer Widget”.

Note if the widget is available, you could also choose to insert the menu in the Sidebar if you prefer this style.

9 – From the dropdown list titled “Select Menu”, pick “Policies” and then hit “Save”.

You should now be able to see your selected in the footer of your website.

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If you’re searching for a web hosting platform for your new blog no doubt you’ve come across Bluehost many a time. You may be asking yourself – is Bluehost good for blogging?

The short answer is absolutely, yes. We use Bluehost to host this website and our first Amazon affiliate site. The experience thus far has been brilliant as Bluehost’s easy to use interface has allowed us to quickly pick up speed and focus on the stuff that matters whilst they take care of the heavy lifting.

Below we take a look at whether Bluehost is any good for blogging by looking at some pros and any cons based on our own experience.

Is Bluehost Good For Blogging?

Let’s take a look at some of the ways that Bluehost is good for blogging.

Bluehost: Pros

Automatic WordPress Installation

WordPress is the premier place for blogging and indeed websites. One of our favourite things about Bluehost is the fact that WordPress is automatically installed when you setup Bluehost.

This means you can go straight into the WordPress Dashboard and get cracking. The thing about WordPress is that it’s super easy to use and even if you are a complete beginner it really won’t take you long to pick up the basics you need to figure it out.

It also has tons of themes that are perfect for blogs and will help make your website look brilliant from day one. You just have sort out the content!

One thing to also note is that Bluehost is one of WordPress’ top recommended providers of its platforms which tells you everything about how highly regarded Bluehost is.

Great Reliability and Speed

We’ve found Bluehost to be highly reliable and quite importantly, fast.

Our websites load quickly which is critical to avoid high bounce rates. Studies have shown that a 1 second delay in page speed can result in 7% less conversions.

Furthermore, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load within 2 seconds. Whilst research by Google found that as load speed goes from 1 to 5 seconds the probability of users leaving increases by 90%.

24/7 Technical Support

There’s nothing worse than working late on your blog only to come to a half because of a technical issue you can’t resolve. This is why Bluehost’s 24/7 technical support is so beneficial.

You have support either by phone or chat 24/7 which can make all the difference when you’re trying to get something sorted urgently at midnight on a Saturday!

The 24/7 technical support is especially comforting if you’re a newbie to blogging as they can often carry out tasks on your behalf.

Excellent Reputation

With over 2 million websites using Bluehost to power their fucntions, it’s a pretty good sign that they’re doing something right.

Bluehost have built a reputation for delivering excellence globally and it shows with the number of people who trust it with their businesses and personal websites.

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Want to start a blog but not 100% sure? How does a 30 day money back guarantee sound? (60 days only for sign-ups in April 2020).

Bluehost’s 30 day money back guarantee gives you the confidence to try out your blogging idea on their platform with no commitment.

Try it for 30 days and see how you feel then.

Cost Effective

At £3.08/$3.95 per month equivalent across 36 months for the basic plan you get great quality hosting at a really good price.

This price also includes a free custom domain and SSL certificate.

Bluehost: Cons

As with any service, Bluehost is not perfect though it comes close. Lets take a look at some of the potential drawbacks of Bluehost for your hosting needs.

Up-selling

Something to be mindful of is the fact that you’ll be presented with opportunities for up-selling of various add-ons which can be annoying if you just want the basics.

We would advise just sticking to what you need to start with and then seeing if there are free plug-ins available on WordPress to fulfil your needs.

Getting A-Hold of Customer Services By Phone

Though they do offer 24/7 technical support, some customers have complained about not always being able to get through to customer services on the phone.

We cannot speak to that personally as we have only ever used their chat function which is excellent.

Final Thoughts

There a plenty of options out there when it comes to picking a web host for your blog. But based on our experience and the views of over 2 million website owners globally, Bluehost is the very best option available for your blogging needs.

There a several reasons why it’s so highly rated:

• Automatic WordPress Installation
• 24/7 Technical Support
• Excellent Reputation
• 30 Day Money Back Guarantee (60 Days for April 2020)

If you’re looking for a reliable web hosting partner to get you going on your blogging journey or maybe looking for a new home for an existing site, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better host than Bluehost.

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Is Bluehost Good For Blogging?: Tell us your thoughts.