Just a quick update this week because there’s not a huge amount of progress to report. But, we continue to take steps in the direction of our goals. We’re getting into the process of designing our websites, and that was the main focus of our progress this week. We keep having to remind ourselves (and each other) that everything doesn’t have to be perfect from “Day 1.” Both of us tend to over-analyze every element of our sites and every step along the way. Yes, we are our own worst enemies at times! So, If you’re going through this process with us, try to keep in mind that your site will never be “perfect” or “finished.” Throughout the life of your business, your site will continue to grow and evolve based on your customers’ needs, business demands, and a host of other factors. Okay, with that said, here’s what we’ve been up to this week…

Blog Design

Last week, we reported that we had purchased and installed Headway Theme for our business blogs. This week, we were able to play around with Headway and start learning how to use it and get the most out of it. We’re like two kids on Christmas morning with this thing! It’s really going to enable us to take our blog design abilities to a whole new level. Neither of us know much of anything about modifying a theme the way it’s typically done (i.e. messing around with code). But, with Headway we’re able to customize with the drag & drop “Visual Editor.” We still have some learning to do with Headway, but it’s a lot more fun than learning about coding!

In order to start the blog design brainstorming process, we checked out other popular blogs in our niches. To find similar blogs, we went to Alexa and looked at the top ranked sites in the relevant categories. You can start your search with Alexa categories here.

Looking at these other websites, we started getting ideas for possible categories, content topics, blog elements, and functionality. Of course, we want our blogs to be unique, but it never hurts to learn from a business that’s already successful.

We also found a really cool website called HeadwayHacks.com. If you’re using Headway, you should definitely check it out.

Health Insurance

If you’re considering getting your own insurance coverage, our general advice would be to start the process about 16 months before you actually need it. These people are as slow as molasses running uphill! We’re still waiting to get information from a broker – who’s waiting to get information from insurance companies – who are apparently waiting for hell to freeze over.

Internet Business Mastery Academy

When we are able to make ourselves stop playing with Headway, we’re continuing with Course 7 in the Academy, which is all about writing content. We’re both really enjoying this lesson, and getting a lot of tips we’ll be able to use once we start writing our content.

Other than that, we stuffed ourselves silly on Turkey-Day and enjoyed spending time with family. Hope you did the same!

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