1:4 Monetising New Skills

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Lee:

Hi, and welcome to the WP Innovator podcast, the WordPress podcast for design and web agencies. Let's make WordPress work for your business. Good Monday morning. This is Lee, and you're listening to the WP Innovator podcast.

Lee:

It's only a few days to Christmas. I've already done all of my Christmas shopping, which I am super excited about. But unfortunately, I've got this really, really bad cold which is making my voice rather deep, which I quite like. It's my Barry White impression.

Lee:

So I was super pumped when Laurence Bradford got in touch and we had a really good chat and hence we recorded this podcast together where we discover her journey in learning to code and also had a really fascinating insight into how she generates income on her website and also the sorts of things that she helps people with when they're learning how to code. It's really important as a business owner to make sure that we upskill, we learn new technologies, et cetera. So I'm really sure that this interview with Laurence will really inspire you to go ahead and start to learn new things. Now, I apologise, this podcast is still quite new and I'm still experimenting with different audio settings, etc.

Lee:

This recording ended up being a little loud and I had to get it sent off to a genius to try and clean it up so that it sounded a little bit better on the ear. So if there are little areas that sound a little bit odd. I apologize in advance. I'm sure we're going to nail this in the next few episodes, but enjoy any feedback you have. Please get in touch at leejacksondev.com/podcast and enjoy.

Lee:

Today I'm really excited to introduce you to Laurence Bradford. Hi, Laurence. How are you doing?

Laurence Bradford:

I'm great. How are you?

Lee:

I am doing okay. I've got what's called man flu. I've got quite a bad cold, but it's nice because it's given me this really deep, buried white voice, which I'm really impressed with. But thank you. Laurence, you're from Pennsylvania. You are currently in Boston, which is a lovely, warm area of America, if you're not aware of that place. So, Laurence, could you introduce yourself? Let us know who you are, where you're from.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, Boston is really nice this time of December. Definitely bring your bathing suit if you're planning any trips here. That's sarcasm in case anyone didn't catch that. But yeah, I'm from Pennsylvania originally and I've been living in Boston now only for a few months, in fact. And I have the site, Learn to Code with Me, and that's learntocodewith.me. And on my site, I basically help people learn how to code.

Lee:

Awesome. I love the fact that you use the. Me. I actually purchased a domain the other day called code your.design and sat there feeling really proud of myself afterwards. I haven't actually built a website on it yet. I probably should do, but I was just dead proud of the domain. So it's great to see a good domain with a really nice site on there as well. So that's learntocodewith.me. So the reason I was really excited, Laurence, to have you on the podcast was because you are looking at empowering people to learn how to code. And I know there are so many design agencies out there that have started off with a background of design to print, creating amazing brands, creating amazing work, but then over the last 10 to 15 years have been dragged into the world of the internet. They're probably finding themselves having to build websites more and more rapidly, getting other people involved. And a lot of the business owners, especially, may start to feel a bit worried or feel a bit out of touch. And it's something that's really important for all business owners and people involved in agencies, even the designers who maybe aren't going to do code at the end, to maybe start to Upskill, teach themselves some new skills, find out more about the internet, find out more about coding.

Lee:

So I thought you'd be absolutely the perfect person to have on. So your episode 4, you'll be pleased to know, and you'd be the perfect person to talk with. So what we're going to do is run you through some questions, get the benefit of your thoughts, your opinions, your experiences. And now and again, we might even throw in the odd question as a surprise for you to see how you do. So I hope you're prepared.

Laurence Bradford:

Sounds great.

Lee:

I'm ready. All righty. So well, we know about you, we know about your website, but as a business owner, Laurence, what has been your biggest challenge to the business?

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. So I explain this a bit before we press the record button, but I had been doing freelancing or consulting work, whatever you want to call it, before I started Learn to Code with Me. And actually, while I was getting Learn to Code with Me off the ground. Now, these past few months, I have been firing clients, I guess you could say, or ending some of the relationships I had so I could focus on the site more. So right now, my biggest struggle is monetising the site. I do have monetisation methods in place. It's just not where I want it to be yet. I'm really excited to take on that challenge in 2016 and get it to a place where it's earning me enough money to live on. Because as you know, especially if you live in London, Boston is also a pretty expensive city. Honestly, if I was living somewhere else in the US, I think it could be okay. But because Boston is one of the most expensive cities in the US, one of them at least, yes, you'll earn a bit more around.

Lee:

Here. yeah, that's the thing. We visited Boston, well, for our honeymoon, in fact, many, many years ago. So a great choice of location. There's an amazing place, I don't know if it's still there, called Fire and Ice. Yes. That was awesome. My wife looked horrified, but I enjoyed it. So that was good. So you said you've put in some monetisation methods in place. I would be really interested to find out what ideas you've come up with and started to implement on your website.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, definitely. So what I initially started out with, and I still do today is something called affiliate marketing. And for anyone listening who may not be familiar with what that is, essentially your marketing products for other companies. And then when you have your audience or people on your site buy that product, you'll receive a commission. So a great example of this is amazon.com. I think most people are familiar with that. And you can have a link on your site to a book, and then someone can click to see that book from your site. And then if they buy it, you will receive a percentage of that sale. So because my site is all about learning to code, a lot of the affiliate marketing programs that I'm in have to do with learning to code. So online code schools, maybe if you're familiar with any, Codeschool, Treehouse, lynda.com. I also started doing Udemy recently and then a few others. So that was the first way. And then I think, yeah, in September, I released my first product, and it was an online course that is all about building a portfolio site as a new web developer.

Laurence Bradford:

And you can actually visit the domain if you're interested. It's called Portfolio Dojo and it's portfoliodojo.com. It's not open right now for enrollment and I do plan on relaunching it again in 2016. Aside from that, I also just released my first... It's like an eBook. I called it a crash course because it's not like an eBook on Kindle. It's a PDF and there's a lot of nice imagery and visuals in it. I break it up to be five days. So it's called the five day LinkedIn crash course for new techies.

Lee:

Nice.

Laurence Bradford:

Yes. And looking ahead, I plan to do more products because what I found is that while affiliate marketing is very easy to implement and it's really easy to sign up with these programs, it's just not that reliable. Actually, just last month, one of the ones that was one of my biggest earners, they decided to pause their program because they're doing changes, and it's still paused. It's been paused now, I think, for about five weeks. When you're an affiliate, you don't really have any control over that because it's not your product, it's theirs. I definitely think it's something people should take advantage of, but just keep in mind that there are those drawbacks.

Lee:

So you've been doing that as well then by creating relevant content and obviously through SEO, social media, etc. People are coming to your website and then you're also serving relevant products that they may wish to purchase through Amazon. Would that sum it up correctly for the Affiliate site?

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, actually, I don't know when this will be going out, but if you go to my site, on my blog, it's not the most recent article, the one before that. It's called the top Udemy Web Development courses. And that was an entire article I did for Black Friday, where I covered the top nine Udemy courses. I'm actually about to update it this week and add some more to make it 15. But in any case, that was one of my best approaches ever because I took that angle that a lot of these bigger sites do, like BuzzFeed or even I think the New York Times has something like this now. It's called branded content. And it's when you... For instance, BuzzFeed will do it for Starbucks, and it'll be an article that's not even relevant to Starbucks, but it has a lot of value. And it's actually an ad. And a lot of people don't even realize it because the content is so good. So I put together this super in depth article about the top web development courses on Udemy, I included reviews from past students. I included a lot of information about the course and photos and things like that, and that did really well for me.

Laurence Bradford:

But how it did so well is not really so much because of SEO or even social media. It's really my email list that I've grown this last year and a half, as well as my Facebook group. I actually have a private Facebook group for people learning to code. And just through those two channels, I was able to... I'll just tell you, it's not private information. I share this stuff with my audience. But I actually made $3,000 in the last, I think, three or four weeks just from that article.

Lee:

That's Amazing.

Laurence Bradford:

Yes. Again, that was my most successful example. And if you go to this site, you can see that because I would... That approach of providing tremendous value in the article. And then, of course, I have some of this audience already, which made it easier for me because then I could just share the article. I was totally transparent about the commission I would receive if they bought any of the courses. And I also said, only buy these courses if you feel like there's something that can help you. This is no pressure to buy them or anything. Oh, wow.

Lee:

Well, what we'll do then is we'll put that article in the show notes as well because I'm positive that people want to go check out those. Myself, I'm constantly looking for good courses because as I take on new stuff, I tend to take on people who can't code and I will then train them up from scratch. We've got it here in the UK, we have something called an apprentice scheme where the government will subsidize an employee for the first year because you're going to give them a whole lot of training. And what I then do is invest in a whole lot of online courses, etc. As well as time with me and I'll bring them through from not being able to code through to being good proficient, either HTML or WordPress developers, et cetera. So I'll be checking out those courses. Thanks for the heads up. That's awesome. Now, I think before we carry on with our questioning, I'm hearing that you're really passionate about development, you're passionate about creating value, exciting content online and monetizing online. I feel drawn to wanting to know a little bit more about what led you to learn to code yourself and then in turn has given you such a passion for wanting to help others.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. Okay. So in 2012, I went to Thailand to teach English. So total side note, I've actually been all over Asia. I've been to 13 different countries in Asia, and I spent a pretty good amount of time in several. I was in China for six months. I've been to Cambodia, I think, two or three times, and I've probably spent maybe up to two months there combined. I've been to Indonesia. I was there for a month as well. In any case, I still love traveling. I haven't done as much lately. But anyway, this is when I started to learn to code. Rewind to then, so I was living in Asia, and I thought I wanted to get into economic development, especially in Southeast Asia. When I was done teaching in Thailand, I ended up getting a position at a think tank in Thailand. This was in Bangkok. I was in their International Economic Relations Department, I believe, is the correct term. After about being there for a month, I realized it was not what I wanted to do. It's very slow paced, which I should have known, but it really was clear as day when I got there how slow paced some of these projects moved.

Laurence Bradford:

I always loved things to be fast paced, which is, of course, technology. It was a perfect storm or something, except it was positive. Not I think a storm is negative. But I was also reading in the news at the time about the need for people in America with technology skills and then the lack of women in tech and then just all these other things tied together. And it just clicked that, wait, maybe I should try to start teaching myself how to build websites. There seems to be a lot of demand. It seems to be something I could do and travel at the same time. So while I was working at this think tank, I began teaching myself how to code just on a site or just on Code Academy, which is where I think a lot of people get started because if you Google, learn to code, that's what shows up first in Google. So one thing led to another, and I ended up leaving that think tank, I think a month or two later. And I came back to the US and I began taking a bunch of coding courses online and in person.

Laurence Bradford:

I actually went back to Asia later and traveled for a few months and then freelanced while I was traveling. I came back after that, and then I started the site, learn to code with me because at the time I was a bit frustrated with my own learning progress because I would get really motivated and then I would get frustrated because it can get really frustrating. And then I would stop for a few weeks and start again. And then I was like, You know what? I'm going to start a blog to help me stay accountable just to myself. And it just completely evolved since then because now if you look at it, it's nothing like how it started.

Lee:

That's awesome. I've also just googled you now, Learn to Code on its own. You're there on the front page of Google with the 45 best places to learn to code for free blog post.

Laurence Bradford:

Yes, actually, that's another blog post I wrote that over the summer. And that's one of my top performing ones over.

Lee:

I can see why.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, my top performing ones ever, I should say. So since I started the blog, I just fell in love with creating content I always loved to write, but I also loved to be very strategic about it. And on some blog posts, I'll spend a ton of time researching and figuring out what to write about before I even start writing. And then, of course, marketing it afterwards or promoting it. That could be a conversation all into itself. But yes, since starting the blog, I've really enjoyed doing that.

Lee:

Well, I feel like I need to ask you to offer a service for coaching people like me who have got great content ideas but are not quite so good at perhaps putting that content together and getting it out there, marketing it, because you seem to be doing really, really well creating valuable content and then driving people to that. And obviously monetizing, especially with your recent example of the courses, etc. It's blowing my mind. I'm just sitting here thinking, Wow, these are the sorts of things I want to.

Laurence Bradford:

Get involved in. That's really funny you mentioned that because just the other day I was having a conversation with my boyfriend. Before the recording, I was telling you, he's also technical. He's actually very much more technical than me. However, he's not really into the whole social media, blogging world like I am. He has a traditional full time job. But he was telling me I should start helping technical people or more, even design agencies or someone in that space doing the things that I ve done because just within these last few months, I've completely skyrocketed my traffic. I don't have the analytics right in front of me. But I think even in 2014, maybe I maxed out 10,000 unique visitors a month, and now I'm getting 45,000 a month.

Lee:

That's amazing.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. But you know what? It's been very strategic. I can't say it's completely... I guess there is some luck sometimes, but it's also very knowing what to write about and creating that awesome content.

Lee:

Well, the fact that it's... I can't even say that word now, strategic, I got it, is also very encouraging because for me, especially over the last few years, a lot of it has simply just been luck. I've just gone with what I think will work. And three out of every, I don't know, six or seven posts will actually be successful. The rest won't. But yeah, that's really exciting. Now, with regards to the blogging, how regular... And we're going a bit off topic. We will go back on it. It's fine. It's fine. This podcast is for me as much as everyone else. And I think my questions are also probably on everyone else's mind as well. How regular are you creating content yourself? So how regular, for example, are you blogging?

Laurence Bradford:

So really not that regular. If you go to my homepage, there are dates on the blog post when they published. I would say once every 3 to 5 weeks. There's been times where I published. I haven't published a new blog post in like six weeks or something. And one of my goals, and we are towards the end of the year, so I'm thinking a lot about 2016, is to start publishing more regularly on the blog. And it's funny because when I say regularly, I mean twice a month. I don't mean even once a week, I just mean twice a month. That's my goal. Because I know that... It took me a while to really come to this clarity, but what really moves the needle forward on my site are these blog posts. And I experimented with a few other things, which I love to do and I hope to do still in the future. But I think one of my goals is to get to 100,000 unique visitors a month. And I know that the best way to go about that is to keep writing these really strategic blog posts. Instead of trying these new things that I know I'm not or I may not be as good at, what I am good at is the blog posts.

Laurence Bradford:

So sorry, that was a longer answer. So I should say, previously I was writing about once every, maybe, 3 to 5, 6 weeks, and now I hope to do it twice a month.

Lee:

Well, I was writing Once a blue moon, which obviously was very often. And then in August, I challenged myself to write 30 blog posts, one every day for 30 days. So I had great fun doing it. And for myself, I saw that that was really a platform then for me to launch a whole load of online blabs. And then the podcast as well, just from the back of 30 blog posts. I actually haven't blogged properly since then, though. I did 30 in a row, and they've literally been able to just serve me those 30 for the last, I don't know, what are we now, four months since I did them. Although I do now have a nice plan to do about two a week over the next couple of months. So I feel okay now that you've said you only do it every few weeks because in my head I got myself thinking, because I've done 30 in a row, I got myself in the mindset that, Oh, no, I need to keep this up. And that can also be quite exhausting. Although I did find a nice way of blogging, which was to simply set a question and reply to that question by talking into an app which recorded my voice and then just sent it off for transcription and then edited that to give me a blog post, which was my cheating way, I guess, of getting 30 done in 30 days.

Lee:

Otherwise, it would have taken me absolutely hours to write those posts. I'm so self critical. I'm a bit like the author who tries to start a book and it gets stuck on the first line. I'm that guy for.

Laurence Bradford:

Three days. Oh, my gosh. Well, one of my favourite quotes, I have a few that little very short things I always keep in my head that just have to remind myself of these things. I did not make this up. I'm not sure who said it first. You've probably even heard before, but done is better than perfect. I love that. I always try to remember that done is better than perfect because it's also really easy for me to get caught into this whole thing of it doesn't have to be an article. It could almost be anything of trying to get it to a certain place when it really should just be done with it. That's true.

Lee:

And that's true even in website development and in design as well. I remember a product that I spent over a year developing, never shipped it. Wow. Exactly. I should have shipped it because I was waiting for it to be perfect. And actually, it's probably beyond perfect now, but I still never shipped it. I think I overcomplicated it in the end and made it into a monster. So I'll be launching something next year. I've actually set a date for it as well that was based on that project, but it's only actually half of what it was. But yeah, I got myself trapped in that mindset a long time ago of waiting till something's absolutely perfect and nothing's going to be perfect. It needs to be out there and generating, doing something. So that's so cool. All right, well, we went totally off topic there for a while. There's a flow to these podcast that people who've been listening will get. There's a few set questions. But the great thing is as guests say things and we explore and unpack, well, they're talking about. We get to learn some really exciting things that perhaps we weren't even expecting to.

Lee:

So I'm really appreciative already. You've been dropping value left, right, and centre, and my notepad is already full. I was trying to turn the page really quietly when you were talking earlier so that he wouldn't get picked up by the microphone. All righty, well, now, here's something for you. Here's the next of one of our main questions is, what one thing that could be an idea or a product has been a complete game changer for you over the last few months or years.

Laurence Bradford:

Okay. So me personally, one of the things that really just changed so much was hiring a part time VA. So VA being a virtual assistant. And in case anyone's curious, I use a service for this called Virtual Staff Finder, and it's created by Chris Ducker. Chris Ducker has a lot of stuff online. He has a podcast, he has a blog, he has a membership site now called Youpreneur. But he also has this service called Virtual Staff Finder. It was a really big investment for me at the time. I think this was not a year ago yet, but maybe 10 months ago, because you do pay a fee to have them match you to the perfect VA. It's almost like a matchmaking service, but for VA, and it ended up being one of the best things I ever did. I've been able to get so much more done since then because I haven't been trying to do absolutely everything myself. So that was really a big game changer for me.

Lee:

Yeah. For myself, I have been playing with the idea, I guess, or toying with the idea for quite a long time now to go ahead and get a VA. I've read the four hours work week about 300 times now. That is a slight exaggeration, maybe twice. But yeah, the idea there of being able to get things done through other people, maybe research, et cetera, because we don't realise, do we, how valuable our time is. The cost of my time to spend researching something or emailing people, et cetera, could be so much more expensive if it were not done by someone else because you, I, et cetera, we are our product. And if we're out there with customers or whomever we're talking with, et cetera, that's a more valuable use, for example, of my time than it would be for me to be sat behind a desk trying to find trend information or anything else like that. So I'm glad you mentioned that. That's something as well that I'm going to be looking at. What was the site called again that you went to?

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, it's called Virtual staff finder. The URL should be virtualstafffinder.com. Chris Ducker, the guy who created it, he also has a book, oh, gosh, called Virtual freedom. Okay, his book is called Virtual freedom. And that book was what also changed things for me because I've since hired people as well on sites like Upwork or just from posting a listing online. But reading for someone who is struggling with hiring people to help them or outsource some of the work that they do, I would really recommend that book because it just really shows you how important it is and why it's necessary to take your business to the next level. Because you can start off so small, hiring someone for 5, 10 hours a week. And especially if you're hiring someone overseas, it's really low cost. So it's not a huge investment. And of course, you can always change things, especially if you're hiring someone up work. Anyway, the book was virtual freedom. So yeah, definitely check that out too.

Lee:

So that's virtual freedom by Chris Ducker, a guy who is also handsome like myself because he's lost all his hair. I do remember Chris Ducker. I am actually on his mailing list, so I get to receive a lot of the information. It was actually the four hour work week for me that prompted me and gave me that aha moment during the holidays this year where I said, I've really got to get this sorted out now. So the problem is, as always in classical Lee style is I've made my list of tasks that I know I would pass on to a virtual assistant. I just haven't gotten round to it. So I'm going to put it out on the podcast that I am going to get around to it in January 2016. And thank you for your prompting. That's such a cool idea. All righty. So I don't think we've mentioned the word WordPress yet.

Laurence Bradford:

I don't think so.

Lee:

This is a WordPress this podcast, I apologize to everyone. So we throw the word in there. But I know you use WordPress. Use WordPress on your own website. And I believe you've implemented WordPress websites as well in the past. So from your experience, and WordPress is awesome, obviously, by the way, but from your experience, do you have any particular WordPress plugin or service that you would recommend to the community?

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. So it depends on who you are, of course. For anyone who is a content creator, so maybe on your WordPress site, you have a blog, it could be a podcast, it could even be a YouTube channel, whatever. I just got this new plug in, and it is a paid plug in, but so far it's been another game changer. I haven't got to explore it as much as I'd like yet, so I didn't have that as the answer, but it's called CoSchedule. It's basically like Trello or any project management system mixed with a Google calendar, mixed with Buffer HootSuite. So it allows you to schedule all of your content. And that could be Facebook posts, Facebook group posts, LinkedIn posts. It could also be blog posts. It could be a podcast. It could be whatever. So it just allows you to have all of your stuff in one place and you can make little to do lists with everything. So it was something I hesitate to get for a bit. But now, since I've jumped on the bandwagon, I'm so excited to use it in 2016 because I can already see it helping all of my organisation with everything going on from social media to blogging.

Laurence Bradford:

So yeah, that's co schedule. Now for everyone else, there's this plug in that I use called Clef, and it's for security and it's a double authentication where when you log on to your WordPress site, you have to use your phone to scan a barcode. So it's like an extra layer of security. And you can actually disable passwords completely, meaning that in order for someone to log on to your WordPress site with your information, they would have to have, well, your phone and the password to your phone. And then you also have a separate password for Clef, and it's completely free. And it definitely makes me feel a lot more secure because you always hear of these different website hacks and WordPress or other sites as well. And yeah, it just makes me feel better that knowing people at least can't get into my account.

Lee:

I can't recommend that Clef enough. If it's not just for the fact that it looks so beautiful when you put your phone up there against the screen. I've got the one where you put your phone up against the screen and you see all these lines going up and down and I get transfixed by it as it logs me logs me into the website.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, it's like the grocery store or something, like scanning a barcode.

Lee:

It's every child's dream. So if you want to just scan barcodes, log in and log out with Clef. Co schedule as well. Perhaps I should reach out to them for sponsorship because we've actually had quite a few people email in about CoSchedule themselves. And also Kim Doyal from last week was praising their headline analyzer tool, which I've been playing with all week.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. So Co Schedule... Sorry. They actually just added this feature, but in the plugin now, when you schedule a blog post, like a draft, it has the headline analyzer built in. And they just added that within the last few weeks. Oh, I didn't know that. It's right in there. Yeah. So it's super... Yeah, it's great. I'm really excited to see because also I can't keep speaking. You can integrate it with your Google calendar, which I always use Google calendar. So I have a separate Google calendar for the blog schedule. So it'll put in all of my blog posts, like the title and the date and the time that I plan on publishing them.

Lee:

That's awesome. Well, I use Google for everything. My entire life is in Google calendar. So for the integrates with that nice and easily, that sounds like a product for me. Again, second time I've been recommended KO Ç for myself. So I'm going to go ahead and check that out, especially now that I've got the podcast. I'm doing regular tips as well. We're doing Minisodes next year with the podcast, which I can have short clips with the team over in our well in our office. So I'm getting more and more things that I need to manage. And quite a lot of people have been recommending and writing in about that. So thanks for the heads up. And I didn't know they'd integrated the headline analyzer. That's awesome because I've been copying and pasting all the time and then playing with stuff on their URL. So if it's doing it direct in the blog, that's awesome.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, it's great.

Lee:

Crazy stuff. Well, here's one for you then. You obviously like your online content, you like your resources, you like learning. That's what your business is all about and that's how you started. You like to teach yourself things. So what blog or online resource would you recommend for our listeners to go to to feast their brain?

Laurence Bradford:

So for marketing/SEO social media, one of my favourite, I guess you could say thought leaders, ever is Neil Patel, and he is the blog at quickspread.com. And now he also has one at neilpatel.com. So he actually has two blogs that revolve around marketing, content marketing. And a lot of the strategies that I use for my own blog posts, I took from various articles or recommendations that he shares. The second person, and he's more up and coming, and he focuses specifically on SEO. His name is Brian Dean, and he's at backlinko.com. So he's really, again, really just SEO. And he talks about content marketing with SEO because that's his whole philosophy is with the content. And he's someone who publishes, I think, once every six to eight weeks, and he gets over 100,000 unique visitors a month. And he only has 30 blog posts on his blog, I think total. So he's a great person to learn about that stuff. When it comes to web development, I love the blog scotch.io. I don't know if they have actual WordPress stuff, but they definitely have other things that WordPress sites use or would need, like HTML, CSS.

Laurence Bradford:

And another guy who does a lot of WordPress stuff and he has courses out there is Brad Hussey. And his site is, I think it's bradhussey.ca, but he also has a site called Code College. And then he has a really active YouTube channel. So you could just Google his name, and I'm sure a bunch of different resources will show up.

Lee:

That's right. Then I've just googled Brad Hussey, and it's bradhussey.ca. It's like a fellow Canadian, although you can't tell I'm Canadian. I've lived in England far too long.

Laurence Bradford:

Oh, really? You're Canadian?

Lee:

Yeah, you wouldn't think. Up in a place called St. Catherine's, just near the Niagara Falls is where we hail from. But I lived here in England now since I was a child.

Laurence Bradford:

Okay, I was going to say, I was like, you really have a strong accent. I moved to England a year ago. No kidding. Just picked up the accent.

Lee:

No, not that bad. Well, with regards to the guy at Backlinko as well, it's interesting that you say he's up and coming, but I know I remember seeing this guy several times over the last year. I didn't even register his name when you said, but I recognised him straight away. I've seen some of his videos. I'm even on his list and I didn't even realise it. I just checked. Obviously, whatever he's doing is working because he's capturing people without them even realising it.

Laurence Bradford:

He's been doing stuff, I think, for a few years. I meant, I guess more so compared to Neil Patel because Neil Patel is behind Hello bar, Kiss Metrics, Crazy Egg. He's been blogging, I'm not sure how long, but years and years.

Lee:

Very Established.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. I think he's only maybe in his early 30s or something, 31 or 32, which is crazy.

Lee:

Still a child, basically, because I'm 32.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. It's just how many businesses and how much he's accomplished for being still in his early 30s. It's pretty mind blowing. But yeah, so I think I said that. Yeah, those are the blogs I would recommend or resources.

Lee:

Well, that's awesome. What I'm going to do is I'm going to write all of those in the show notes as well. And also we get all of these podcasts transcribed. So if you're listening now and you want to sit and read through the stuff that we're saying here, then just check out the show notes and a link to the full transcription. Again, with all of those URLs will be there as well. So, Laurence, we are having an awesome time. I'm really excited to go and geek out on some of these websites you've recommended, especially on the Scotch.io. I make WordPress themes pretty much every day, and I always want some nice HTML or CSS candy, and there looks to be plenty on that Scotch.io website. But we do have one more question for you. What we want to do with this podcast is we want to make sure that people go away, not only with a whole load of really exciting sites to go check out and some great ideas to go and explore, but also to have something, perhaps, that they could go ahead and action today or in the next few days that's going to make a real difference.

Lee:

So what one action would you recommend people apply to their lives, to their businesses in the next few days, weeks that you think would really make a difference?

Laurence Bradford:

Okay. So this can apply, I'd say, to anyone, a business owner, a freelancer, a blogger, a designer, what have you. Put yourself out there. And this is another quote that I love, and it's by Jason Calacanis, or he's the one who said it. It's be amazing, be everywhere, be real. And I think the be amazing and be real part is like, we know that. But it's the one about being everywhere. People aren't going to find you if you're just building websites or just designing things and you're not putting your work out there. You really need to promote yourself. I'll give you a little tip, I guess with that. One of my favourite sites for doing this is it's called Help a Reporter Out. I'll have to give you the exact domain. HARO is the acronym, Help A Reporter Out or HARO. And you can sign up to get email updates Monday through Friday. It's actually three times a day. They do morning, afternoon, and night. And essentially reporters will go there to find sources for stories. And from that, from HARO, I've been able to be featured in USA Today. And a few other... USA Today is definitely the most prominent publication.

Laurence Bradford:

And then a few other smaller, more niche ones. So that's something super easy you can do. Sign up for it and just get those emails. And when you see a pitch come in that you can be an expert on. You just reply with your pitch and then you have the possibility of getting featured on a huge publication.

Lee:

That's amazing. I'm looking at the site right now, my mind is blowing.

Laurence Bradford:

That's amazing. It's free.

Lee:

It's free, too. It's nuts. I just saw that. Any site I go to, straight to the pricing page.

Laurence Bradford:

I'm actually confused on how they make money. I think they must have some premium plans or something.

Lee:

They do. You can have things like text alerts, opportunity alerts to be ahead of the game. But otherwise, it looks like the core feature that you were talking about is completely free. That's exciting as well. So get yourself out there. I think it's what you're saying in brief there and pick up on these opportunities. Guys, that's helpareporter.com. Again, we'll put those notes in there or HARO for short, which sounds really cool. You know what? That's amazing. Laurence, you've given us some really exciting things to think about and some exciting things to do. Obviously, I can imagine everyone's going to be going and checking out these websites, and I believe people are going to get immense value from everything that you've been saying. How could people connect with you over the next few weeks and months to continue to learn from you the content that you're putting out, etc, or maybe even to communicate with you? What would be the best places for people to go to do that?

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah. So again, my blog is learntocodewith.me. I have my email really publicly on the contact page. I actually say that's the best way to reach me. My email is just laurence@learntocodewithme. And then for anyone listening that is teaching themselves how to code, especially if you're feeling frustrated or stuck or you don't know what to learn or you don't know where to learn. I would love to have you in my Facebook group, and that is called Newbie Coder Warehouse. And if you go to the URL newbiecoderwarehouse.com, it will actually redirect you to the group. You do have to ask to join just because we did have a little... As groups grow, there can sometimes be some spam because everyone wants to go in. So we had to get a little tighter with the accepting of people. But it's absolutely awesome. We're actually at almost 1,500 members, and this is all people learning to code. So everyone's sharing resources and tips and a great place to ask questions. So those are the two places where you can find me.

Lee:

That is awesome. So via the website, via email, and if you're learning to code, you're getting frustrated, you want the support of what sounds like an epic community as well, then go check that out. I've already forgotten the URL you gave.

Laurence Bradford:

It's newbiecoderwarehouse.com.

Lee:

newbiecoderwarehouse.com.

Laurence Bradford:

Yeah, I'll give it to you so you can add to the show notes. It's spelled NEWBIE.

Lee:

Yes, and then.

Laurence Bradford:

Coder as it is in the warehouse as it is.Com.

Lee:

That is awesome. Well, Laurence, this has been amazing. I'm super excited to go check out the resources that you shared with us. Thank you so much for your time. You sound like you're killing it already on the content marketing side of things, and it sounds like you can only go in one direction, which is forward. So I'm rooting for you. I'm really excited to follow you and to see what goes on. So thank you so much for your time. And at this point, we're going to bid you adieu. But guys, remember, you can connect with Laurence via her website or via the Facebook group and keep following the amazing content that she's putting out. Thanks for listening. This has been the WP Innovator podcast. And remember, guys, keep innovating.

Lee:

And that concludes our interview with Laurence Bradford. I had so much fun interviewing her and was really intrigued by the strategies.

Lee:

That she's been.

Lee:

Applying to her business. I'm sure you were too. Go ahead, check her out on Learntocodewith.me. All that's left for me is to wish you a very, very merry Christmas. Have an amazing time. I hope you get the gifts you want, and more importantly, I hope that you get to have a wonderful time with your loved ones. You can look forward to some more Christmas WordPress tips over the next few days. And I'll see you next Monday for a really exciting interview. You can learn more about that on leejacksondev.com/podcast. Have a merry Christmas.