I got asked recently, where did you get your logo from and how much did it cost? When I replied it didn’t cost me anything, they were a bit shocked. But creating a logo does not have to cost the world when starting a business.
In fact, it is really simple to do with a free tool called Canva.
In this post, I am going to share with you what exactly is Canva, but also show you how to create a logo for free using Canva too.
What is Canva – Your New Online Friend
One of the biggest hurdles some of us come across when designing graphics for a website is, we do not think we are creative enough. We have a go using just a blank canvas without any inspiration and wonder why the end result looks awful. (I know, I have been there).
Then I noticed a training video on a new tool called Cana, so decided to give it a try and I haven’t used anything else since for any graphic (blog header, Call-To-Action, Social Media header) since.
Canva is an awesome online tool, that is free to use and creates some great graphics for your business including creating a logo. There are some elements that are paid, but I have been using it for about 9 months now and have paid $1 for a background I really liked. But other than that, there are some great features to this tool and you will not need to pay for anything unless you feel it is right for you and your business.
Let’s Explore Some of the Features
It is really versatile and covers any sort of graphic you may have for your website:
Featured Image for a Blog
Facebook Cover Image
Facebook Post Image
Twitter Post Image
Pinterest Graphic
Instagram Post
YouTube Headers
Banner Ads
A number of Document types including presentation
Blog Banners, Desktop Wallpapers
Infographics
A number of Marketing Materials – business cards, leaflets, etc.
The one you are interested in – a Company Logo.
The list could go on, but hopefully this gives you an idea of the types of graphic/image you can create using Canva.
There are multiple ways of creating a graphic, in this case a logo. The reason is, you can choose a suggested template by scrolling the list (it is quite clear on which ones are free and which ones are paid) and using that one as a base design. Or you can use a blank canvas and choose different elements, shapes, colours and text to create your own design.
You can upload your own images and if you really like one of their designs change the image in that design with one of your own.
Your logo needs to represent your brand fully, so changing things until you are happy is a key factor to any product you use to design graphics.
How to Create a Logo for Free using Canva
Let’s go through the steps to creating a logo using Canva.
Step One – Create a free account at canva.com
Step Two – At the top of your dashboard will be an option to ‘Create a Design’ Number one in the list is Logo. Click on that option
Step Three – Get Creative! Choose from one their preset designs (which are all customisable).
All choose Elements from the side menu and use a number of photos, shapes, etc. to create the image side to your logo.
Choose Text to add your company name and URL.
You can also upload your own image, if you already have something in mind.
Step Four – Once you are happy with your Logo, click Download at the top. (Key point – make sure you download it in the right format).
Once this is done your Logo is now ready to use. It is ideal for a website as it is already set at the right size for a logo on a website.
Conclusion
I hope you found those 4 steps really useful in your quest to creating a logo for free. I also hope you find Canva a really useful tool for anything else you might need for your website or business.
People are very image orientated online, just look at the popularity of Instagram and Pinterest, so having the right imagery on your website is key to success. But that doesn’t mean we have to pay through the nose to get some great images. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, if you have any questions or need help using Canva, please let me know in the comments. If you have actually used something else to do this sort of thing, let me know I love hearing about other great products I can share with my readers.
Keyword research and SEO are one of the first things you need to grasp when starting out in the online world, getting your website found by the search engines and getting it to page one are key steps in any new online business.
This post will go into what is keyword research in SEO and how to master it like a pro in a simple way for anyone to understand.
Let’s start with what is SEO and what it has to do with Keyword Research.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is around ensuring your website, your content and anything else on your website is optimised ready for search engines to find it. This is typically achieved through a plugin like ‘All-in-one SEO’ or Yoast. A plug-in like this will tell the search engines about your website so it can get ranked.
But when it comes to your content, then that is where keyword research is important. But what is a keyword?
What is a Keyword?
The first thing to get your head around is it can be more than one word – any word or phrase that you type into a search engine – Google, Bing, YouTube is a keyword. When you type in that keyword, the search engines respond with a list of the most relevant content for that given keyword.
When you submit content to a search engine, it is checked for relevance to the keyword, the quality of the content and one of the major recent changes is that it is checked against being mobile friendly. It also changes against traffic, the more traffic a post gets the higher it will be up in the rankings.
The main reason why you need to do keyword research is down to the fact that a common keyword will already be swamped with authority sites that mean you will find it very hard to rank high against these sites to begin with.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword Research with the right tool, will make your job so much easier. Rather than typing up a great article against a highly competitive keyword and getting no results. You could put that same article against a lucrative low-hanging-fruit keyword and it gets you on page one of the search results. This means people are more likely to click on your link.
Keyword research is all about understanding the number of searches there are for a given keyword and also how much competition you will have against that given keyword.
To show you an example, I have typed “what is keyword research” into my chosen keyword research tool, Jaaxy.
You can see that there are a number of columns, lets first go into what they all mean.
Avg – This is the average number of searches for that keyword in a given month on Google.
Traffic – How many clicks you can expect if you are ranking at the top of page one
QSR – these stands for Quality Score Results, the number of websites you will be up against (Your Competition)
KQI – Keyword Quality Indicator, Green is great, yellow ok and avoid the red ones.
SEO – A score based on traffic and competition, the higher the number the more likely you are to rank higher.
Domains – this will let you know if that keyword is available as a domain name.
Let’s go back to the results for that keyword, if I had chosen the top one ‘what is keyword research’ it has an amazing number of monthly searches and traffic, but I would be competing against 223 other websites for this keyword that is why the SEO score is lower. This is not impossible to rank for, but definitely will make it a lot harder for a new website owner to compete for.
By choosing “What is Keyword Research in SEO” as my keyword, from the scores I might not get as much traffic, but I am actually more likely to get ranked higher for it as I only need to make sure my content is better than 43 competing websites.
So, I am more likely to rank on page one of Google with the longer keyword than the one with more monthly searches.
Ranking top spot on page one of Google is the holy grail for website owners. Statistically not many will go to page 2 or 3 for searches. Most will only check out the top one!
Long-tail keywords and low-hanging-fruit keywords
Using a keyword research tool allows you to highlight opportunities with long tail keywords. People type into the search engines what they are searching for, not just short words. They can be quite specific as it is really easy to type in a specific problem, i.e. “How do I fix a Broken Link on a Website?”
Typing this in shows that specific keyword does not get a lot of traffic, but the second one down shows that on average 64 people are looking for a way of fixing this problem but there are no sites targeting that keyword – this is what we call a low-hanging fruit.
At the moment, if you put that keyword term into Google, Google will show the next best answer for that keyword.
But if your niche was targeting that keyword and wrote an awesome post on it, you could get that top spot easily as there is no competition. Google searches content for relevance as well!
That is why Keyword Research is so important to Website Owners, Affiliate Marketers and Bloggers – Anyone with an online business!
The ideal figures are typically an Average score of over 100 (searches) and a QSR of less than 50 if you are just starting out and building up your authority, once you have become an authority you can start targeting more keywords.
Once you have started ranking, you may find you can change these goal posts, as sometimes when you do the research of what others have posted against those keywords – you might be able to write a better post that would be better received by readers.
Key Advice for Keyword Research
At the end of the day, your content needs to be read by someone, so there are a couple of things you need to make sure you do when doing keyword research:
Use keywords or keyword phrases that make sense. The keyword you want might have a great score, but if it doesn’t make sense it will put someone off clicking your link
Do not keyword stuff – as in put it into every paragraph. I suggest you use a keyword in the title, mention it in the first paragraph and then again in the conclusion.
How to Master Keyword Research
Keyword Research is a vital part of your online business and deserves respect and the right tool to help you not only get the right keywords but also make it easy to do on a scale. Starting out, one of the mistakes I did was find a keyword and then write an article, then find another keyword and so on. This is so inefficient and means you do not publish as many posts as you would like.
When starting out, if you can get keyword research done right and publish content on a regular basis you will find your rankings will definitely get a boost.
There are a few free keyword research tools out there, but they do not all stack up really.
Google do offer a free keyword tool as part of their AdWords (advertising) platform, but as this is aimed at PPC (Pay-Per-Click) unless you have a lot of money to play with this will not be enough to target SEO properly.
The best strategy for keyword research is to sit there and research keywords until you have around 50 low-hanging-fruit keywords to target. There you have 50 article ideas to write about. Get in the habit of doing some keyword research, doing some article research, then when you are ready to write articles – focus on putting everything else away (especially social media) and write.
It will definitely make you more efficient. Anyway, back to keyword research.
One of the main reasons behind my Recommendation of Jaaxy is I genuinely use it and feel it is a worthwhile investment into my business.
Without Keyword Research there would really be no point – but a recent report shows 60% of keywords are not being fully utilised so it shows how important you get your research correct and also shows the opportunity out there for those who do it seriously.
Recommended Keyword Research Tool – Jaaxy is for Pros!
Any professional online business owner will tell you how important a keyword research tool is. They all may use a different one, but I would like to share with you the reasons behind why I recommend Jaaxy to a beginner and why it will transform your keyword research and make you work like a pro too.
Professionals use Jaaxy as well as it being ideal for beginners due to simplicity of the platform. Easy to Use, Quick Results & Awesome Tools.
Jaaxy + Wealthy Affiliate
Jaaxy is owned by the guys behind Wealthy Affiliate, it is incorporated into their WA platform for Premium Members. This has the added advantage of being part of the make-up of a training platform that has all of the tools required for an online business in one place. It also means that there are numerous training videos on how to master Keyword Research with Jaaxy.
Jaaxy is More than just a Keyword Research Tool
One of the key things I needed when starting out with my first website was a way of keeping an eye on my niche, also what were people searching for in my niche. Jaaxy has a couple of great features that help you with this.
Alphabet Soup Technique – Type you chosen keyword into this and it will generate the A-Z of what people have been searching for. This gives you many different ideas of what you could target for content.
Search Analysis – Check out what other websites are also targeting that keyword you are after, get some great detail about their website.
Affiliate Programs – Affiliate Marketing is an awesome of earning income online, but know what programs are out there (that are genuine) in your given niche will be listed under this tab.
SiteRank – Know where your website is ranking for a given keyword with this tool.
How Much Does Jaaxy Cost?
A professional tool will always cost something, but the guys behind Jaaxy want you to experience it yourself before making any decision about investing money. The Starter membership allows you to do 30 keyword searches, no charge (no credit card required). Make up your own mind about whether Jaaxy is for you.
If you find Jaaxy is the keyword research tool for you, then there are a couple of membership offers. If you are new to online business and want to benefit from an awesome keyword research tool and all the help and support and tools that Wealthy Affiliate offer, then I do suggest you read my Wealthy Affiliate review.
Jaaxy is built into WA and when you scale up your business the enterprise membership is half price too.
But if you are starting out and want to benefit from awesome training, tools to build up a website and an excellent keyword research tool – Wealthy Affiliate has it all.
Final Word on Keyword Research & SEO
The foundations of building an online business rely heavily and good keyword research that is SEO friendly. Highly relevant content that is engaging and useful to the readers is really key, but if you do not do any keyword research it will be pot luck as to whether you rank for a post.
If you are still learning the ropes of an online business, you will find that there are many different options out there for a keyword research tool – so why should Jaaxy be any different to the others you may have found or are using, and the simple answer is the help and support that comes with it. Joining Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t just get you a keyword tool, it gives you access to a community of internet entrepreneurs that you can bounce ideas off of and ask for help at any time. Whether it be Keyword Research, SEO topics, WordPress, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Selling Your Own Products online. There is so much on there to help you, including an awesome keyword research tool with some other abilities that make brainstorming ideas for your business so easy.
If you would like to try Jaaxy with some keywords, please try the plugin below – you will get 30 searches to make up your own mind:
If you would love to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate, here is my extensive review for you to learn more. If you have any questions about keyword research or anything to do with an online business, please drop them in the comments below and I will definitely get back to you to help.
Are you looking for an easy to follow guide that shows you How to Add Google Analytics to WordPress? Then you’ve definitely landed in the right place. Google has over two thirds of the traffic online, so if you want to know how to ensure your blog fits your target audience, or even help understanding who is visiting your site, you need to have it installed on your site.
Affiliate Marketing is a great way of earning income online. Getting started can seem a bit daunting without the right help and support, but I want to offer you that right now with this post.
There will be many posts out there trying to sell you a load of tools that promise success by handing over a load of money, then you realise that you still need to invest a load of time and effort and you would have been better off just doing it properly in the first place…
I want to share with you my essential affiliate marketing tools for beginners, many are free and aid me in my affiliate marketing business. There are a couple of paid ones, but I will be clear and upfront – I will also tell you why I paid for them and the benefits they gave me.
Depending on where you are with your affiliate marketing adventure, the most important ingredient is a website.
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE
One of the ways I try to cover the costs of maintaining Best Affiliate Marketing Tools and offer help and advice to my audience is via a small number of affiliate partnerships (with tools I genuinely use) where I get a small percentage commission on sales made via referral. You don’t pay any more for purchasing via my affiliate links – in fact in some cases you will even receive a discount. If you click one of my affiliate links, your support is really appreciated! Learn more here.
Website & Hosting – Get the Right One!
Search the internet and you will stumble on many free website builders, this is an option but not necessarily the right option. Let me explain why.
One of the key factors you are trying to build with a reader is TRUST. But many of these free website builders give you a minimal website with their branding all over it – and when you actually want to start adding features to it, you need to pay. I have found that WordPress is a great option for affiliate marketing, it is really easy to use and is customisable through plugins to get the look and feel for your website.
My personal recommendation for hosting is SiteRubix. The guys behind Wealthy Affiliate (I’ll get onto this in a moment) have built SiteRubix into a great hosting option for WordPress website owners. I host all of my websites on their hosting, as it comes with some great benefits.
Full Domain Websites hosted on Wealthy Affiliate’s SiteRubix benefit from:
Free SSL Certificates (usually $100 per website)
Site Speed – Their hosting allows websites to be 20x the speed of usual websites
Site Protect – Instead of using a plugin to stop spam, they do it at the server, meaning it doesn’t slow your website down
Site Security – Suite of website security features to stop hacking, malware and bot-nets.
They always run 2 versions of your site to ensure it doesn’t go down.
Now I do pay for Wealthy Affiliate as a Premium Member and I get these benefits on up to 25 full domains and 25 subdomains. So, I could have 25 full domain websites with SSL (which could cost $2500 a year) for $49/month or $359/year. All I pay on top is the domain name, which is usual anywhere.
Now, I know you might be thinking “I am just starting out, that is expensive”. I do appreciate that, but there is much more to Wealthy Affiliate and I am not expecting you to spend a dime. Their Starter Membership is designed to let you make your own decision about their platform but let me share with you what else they offer:
Step-by-Step Guides on all elements of Affiliate Marketing, Online Business, Search Engines, Social Engagement & Media, Website Building & Design, Getting Free Traffic, Creating Content, Google Analytics & Webmaster, Bing Webmaster, Email Marketing, Video Marketing and much more
WordPress Website Builder with Hosting included
Keyword Research Tool
Website Engagement Tools
Expert Help & Support
It is a community of internet entrepreneurs all with a similar vision of building an online business within affiliate marketing. Networking is really key online, and we offer our help and support at all times. The training is great for beginners to ensure they achieve their goals without paying some of the silly prices out there on “Push Button Systems”.
Keyword research is so important nowadays. Just writing content will not do the trick, you need to know that you can rank for a given keyword. If you are unsure what a keyword is, I will explain. When you typed something into google today “Affiliate Marketing Tools” that is the keyword. It doesn’t have to be one word, it can be a phrase. When you create content for your website you want to target a low competition keyword as you are just starting out. If you pick a keyword with too much competition, it will be impossible for you to achieve the first page on the search engines. There is no point if you cannot get on the first page, as people will not typically see your website (post).
The keyword research tool I use is Jaaxy. It has some great features and was built by the people behind Wealthy Affiliate. As well as keyword research, it also includes tools to do:
Track your website rankings for keywords
Search Analysis – analyse your competition and SEO trends
Alphabet Soup – Uncover millions of niches and keywords
Brainstorm HQ – find trending, popular and lucrative ideas
Affiliate Programs – search and find relevant affiliate programs in your niche
Jaaxy is actually included in a premium Wealthy Affiliate membership, give me full access to this great research tool.
If you would like to try Jaaxy and see if it is right for you, they offer a free version which will allow you to do 30 searches. They would prefer you make your own decision about their platform before spending any money.
Start your free searches here
I benefit every day from Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy, but there are also some other Tools I find really useful and integral to my business. They are free tools, but are great to use.
Google Suite
Google have a suite of useful free tools to help you monitor your website and its traffic. To use these tools, you will require a google account. Once signed up you can use this for a number of different features:
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a great tool all around how the visitors to your website behave. Do they engage with your website, do they stay on your posts or leave straightaway? You can monitor:
Demographics and Age ranges of your visitors
Content Engagement
New Users vs recurring users
Real Time Users
I’ll be doing a more detailed post on google analytics shortly, but it is a powerful tool that you need to use to understand how your website is going.
Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console)
Google is great at finding new content, but this allows you to connect your site (via a sitemap) to google to ensure they know when you have created content and get it ranked. It also allows you to explore where your content is ranking, how many impressions (people have seen it but not clicked on it) you have. It is another great feature Google offer.
Google Alerts
Keep up to date with the latest news in your niche straight to your inbox. It is impossible to find everything related to your niche without a little help.
Canva – Logos, Graphics, Infographics
Canva is a great online tool for graphics. We are not all graphic designers, but this website gives you a lot of functionality even on the free version. I used it for my logo, each of my featured images is designed on it. Infographics are easy to design on it. It is an essential tool for your website.
Lumen5 – Video Creator
Not everyone is great in front of the camera, and yet video is so important these days. Youtube has become the second biggest search engine after Google (who own Youtube). Lumen5 is a great little tool that creates videos from your content, example of this post is below.
The free version does have limitations, but I have not come into a situation where I wasn’t happy with the results.
Conclusion
There are many tools, don’t get it wrong there are many paid tools out there that do seem to be a real benefit, but without a foundation (website) and traffic (readers) there is no point investing money in them yet. There is no “push button system’ where you will instantly earn money. Many that promise it are scams, the others seem unreliable. The only system I do recommend is Wealthy Affiliate due to the benefits I have gained from them.
The starter membership allows people to make their own decision and many starter members earn from it and then upgrade later on. But with a great website builder, great hosting, awesome training on all aspects of an online business, Jaaxy keyword tool – they help people get online the right way. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, if you have any questions about affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing tools or Wealthy Affiliate – please leave me a comment below and I promise to get back to you.
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