• Selling on Marketplace Platforms
    Nov 30 2023

    In this episode, I'm sharing some brand NEW content -- straight from our updates on our Six-Figure Course Creator course that I'm working on right now.

    It's all about the pros and cons of selling products on marketplace platforms like Etsy, Amazon, Skillshare, Udemy, etc.

    We're big proponents of selling your products on your own platforms like Teachable, Clickfunnels, Kajabi, etc. But you can make really great money selling on marketplace platforms too.

    It's just really important to have the right expectations in place when you sell on these types of platforms.

    Episode Highlights

    • How my brother makes over $20k/month selling courses on Udemy and Skillshare
    • Price and competition on marketplace platforms
    • Rules on self-promotion on marketplace platforms
    • How to get to page 1 of search results on marketplaces

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

    P.S. The above text contains affiliate links, which means that we receive a commission when you purchase from these recommendations. This is no way affects what we recommend but it does help support our podcast and the content that we share at Create and Go!

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    30 mins
  • Changes in the SEO Landscape: AI, EEAT, and More
    Oct 19 2023

    We have something exciting to share with you today - our first ever VIDEO podcast!

    You can watch the video on YouTube here.

    As many of y'all know, we've been spending the last couple of months updating our blogging courses - from scratch.

    These updates feature us fully on camera for the first time. In honor of these content upgrades, I think it's only fitting that we finally record one of our podcast episodes on video too!

    As I was thinking about these updates, I thought it would be great to get Noah back on the podcast to talk about some of the updates in the SEO world - ahead of our SEO course updates.

    Consider it a little sneak peak of sorts.

    The rise of AI writing tools like Jasper (our favorite) has brought with it a need for change in the Google algorithm.

    Now that everyone and their grandmother can write blog posts about any topic in the world, in a fraction of the time, Google needs to be even better at making sure helpful content stays at the top.

    Their Helpful Content Update was designed to do just that with these two key components:

    • EEAT
    • making sure content is as helpful as possible

    Sounds pretty obvious while also being pretty vague, right?

    Watch or listen to our latest podcast episode to learn more about the helpful content update and what this means for the current and future SEO landscape.

    Episode Highlights

    • Current changes in the SEO landscape
    • Using AI in your content and how it relates to SEO
    • Helpful Content Update: two key items to consider
    • EEAT: what's new

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    37 mins
  • Do you need an SEO strategy for your blog? (with Noah Riggs)
    Oct 19 2021

    018. You know what they say… Ignorance is bliss.

    We made a lot of SEO mistakes when we started Create and Go. But for a while, we were blissfully unaware of those mistakes.

    For a long time, we didn’t even care about SEO. Pinterest and YouTube traffic were enough for us.

    But when we did start caring… yikes, that was a tough road to go down.

    It became apparent pretty quickly that some things were just wrong.

    And it took us a full year to really figure them out and get on the right path again.

    We owe most of this credit to Noah Riggs.

    Noah didn’t have any SEO experience or background before he started working for us. He learned all of it along the way -- working with Alex to right these wrongs.

    After a year of deep-diving, hard, focused work learning everything they could about SEO, Noah and Alex were able to:

    • finally figure out where we went wrong,
    • fix the problems,
    • and boost our SEO traffic exponentially.

    It wasn’t easy, but for us, it was SO worth it.

    This is part 1 of a 2-part series on our SEO journey. In the next episode, Noah will return again to give us the biggest SEO mistakes he sees people making along with a couple of the specific mistakes that WE made along the way.

    In this episode, Part 1, Noah and I are discussing:

    • Our SEO journey
    • Who Noah is, and how he helped us fix our SEO problems
    • Why we finally turned our focus to SEO
    • Why we wish we had focused on SEO sooner
    • Whether or not you need an SEO strategy for your blog
    • What to expect in the next episode

    For additional resources and show notes, visit the episode podcast page on our website.

    Resources and Mentions:

    • Related Post: Blog SEO: 10 Step Beginner’s Guide to Ranking Blog Posts
    • Related Video: SEO for Beginners: 10 Steps to get More Organic Traffic to Your Blog
    • Course Mentioned: SEO Blueprint for Bloggers
    • Tutorial: How to Start a Successful Blog
    • Start your first blog with our Free 5-Day Blogging Bootcamp

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    29 mins
  • Transforming Motivation Into Discipline
    Oct 5 2023

    Today’s topic is actually one that was requested by Greg. In the last episode, I mentioned at the end that if anyone had any topic suggestions that they wanted to share, please do so. You can comment below on this episode page and share your thoughts or suggestions!

    At first, I wasn’t sure about this topic of motivation over discipline. My brain immediately went to “avoiding procrastination” and I think that’s a very high-level and over-discussed topic.

    We all know to procrastinate less and put in more work, right?

    I’m also a pretty disciplined person. I always have been. So my first thoughts were also that maybe I'm not the person to help here when it comes easily to me. But then I realized... Wait, it's not always easy for me.

    So, I thought about how I feel when I'm struggling with discipline. What DO I feel and WHY do I feel it? What’s hindering my discipline?

    Maybe this is different for everyone, but I do think that what I'm sharing in this episode can help everyone in some way.

    We're here today because motivation is the easy part. It's easy to get motivated for a new diet, to learn a new language, or to even start a business.

    What's not so easy is turning that motivation into discipline to follow through on your desires and intentions. Sure, having a plan helps tremendously. But it's more than that.

    That's what we're discussing in today's episode.

    Episode Highlights

    • Motivation for starting something new
    • Why that motivation wanes
    • How to turn motivation into discipline
    • Why getting fired up for your business is so important

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    16 mins
  • Business Sustainability in an AI-Get-Rich-Quick World
    Sep 21 2023

    Finding some stability in your online business can be really tough in a get-rich-quick-ai-enhanced world.

    It seems like there are 5 billion side hustles out there and every 5 minutes, you're getting an ad or a post from someone making $5,000 doing something online. But what does this mean for business sustainability?

    A lot of these side hustles and platforms provide income and traffic that come in waves.

    But what happens when the wave crashes? Sure, you can pivot to the next hustle. Been there, done that. It can be really profitable, but if you don't do it right, it's certainly not going to be sustainable.

    We're very much living in a time right now of quantity over quality and I think it sucks. There is way too much shitty content on the internet and on our phones and on our TVs, and it's because of us. It's because we spend too much time on these devices and this is what makes others profitable.

    How do we ensure that we are building our business in a sustainable way that is going to survive the next 2-5 years and beyond?

    That's the real question and this is what I'm talking about in the latest episode of the podcast.

    Episode Highlights:

    • Income and traffic waves
    • New game of quantity over quality
    • Hustle and bust culture
    • How to focus more on sustainability

    Additional resources and show notes

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    18 mins
  • Know Your Role in Your Business
    Sep 7 2023

    Understanding your strengths and weaknesses and what you bring to the table in your business is so important. Identifying the characteristics in your personality that make you really great at a particular task and also what makes you not so great at other tasks can help you remove blockers to your growth.

    Sometimes and for some people, this can be really easy. But in some cases, people have huge blind spots when it comes to the areas they are lacking in.

    This isn't about pigeonholing yourself or creating limiting beliefs around the things you suck at. It's about identifying what you're GREAT at, knowing that this is where your strength lies, and knowing where to fill the other gaps.

    This applies to whether you’re running a business by yourself or as part of a team – and it’s also good to know this because it can help you understand your colleagues better.

    Episode Highlights

    • Different types of roles you can have in a business
    • How to identify your strengths and weaknesses
    • How this can help you to run your business better

    Additional resources and show notes

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    20 mins
  • New Owner, New Projects, and Juggling Acts
    Aug 24 2023

    Since Noah bought out half of Create and Go, we have been super hard at work on new content - YouTube, podcast, and course updates. It's all very exciting but not always easy. Noah has definitely felt a huge responsibility stepping into an already-established business and learning where he fits in as a new owner.

    We've been cutting costs and taking on the responsibility for almost all of the work again as we begin to rebuild our foundation from the ground up. I'm talking about everything except for customer service and some affiliate program management, which is still handled by Cathy Dean on our team.

    But down to every video edit, thumbnail, and email... We're back to basics for the moment as we decide what's truly important in this business both for ourselves and especially for our audience. Sometimes, that's just necessary in order to move forward in the right direction.

    There have been some struggles along the way and definitely some burnout here and there. Noah is on the podcast today talking about taking navigating new responsibilities in the business. We're also sharing some insight into our thought process for what's going on right now in the business.
    Episode Highlights

    • Noah's experience buying a blog and how it feels stepping into an established business like Create and Go
    • Cutting costs, taking responsibility, and rebuilding our foundation
    • Workload struggles and dealing with burnout
    • Instagram and shorts content
    • What we're focused on now

    Additional resources and show notes

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    33 mins
  • Inspiration to Ghost Town: We’re Back But What Happened?
    Aug 10 2023

    We are [FINALLYYYYY] back with another episode of the podcast – after a 1 year and 4-month hiatus. Wow!

    This hiatus wasn’t necessarily planned, although, at some point, there was a conscious decision to drop the podcast from our priorities. I never recorded anything to let y’all know that we were going to stop recording episodes.

    Actually, I did record an episode and then I deleted it. I’ll explain more about why in this return episode.

    But it saddens me to know that we went from being a really big inspiration to our audience to kind of a ghost town somewhere along the way.

    We never actually went anywhere. I never stopped working on the business, but I let myself fade further into the background because of a lot of personal and business-related reasons.

    The truth is, I lost my mother and I very nearly lost my father as well. Alex and I weren’t seeing eye to eye on much as business partners anymore. We became pretty terrible co-parents to the business.

    Our lives were just on different paths with different goals and that’s okay and to be expected but our business has suffered because of it.

    But a lot has happened in the last year and a half.

    Noah, our SEO and YouTube manager, bought Alex’s ownership in Create and Go!

    Since then, Noah and I have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to rebuild the foundation of our business to make it stronger than ever!

    To hear the full story of what has happened over the last year and a half as well as what we’re working on now, listen to the latest podcast episode!

    Episode Highlights

    • Why I took a year and a half off of the podcast
    • How we tried to sell Create and Go
    • Alex’s exit and Noah’s buy in to the business
    • What we’re working on now

    For additional resources and show notes, visit the episode podcast page on our website.

    For more information and resources, check out the podcast page on our website.

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    15 mins