4 Mistakes You Should Avoid Making With Your YouTube Channel

As you start your new YouTube channel, you probably already have an idea of the few things that you need to do to be successful. However, just as essential as it is to know what to do, it is equally important to know which mistakes to avoid. Here are four mistakes that you need to avoid when you start your YouTube channel.

Mistake #1 – Avoiding Your Audience

Your audience is the only reason why you have a YouTube channel in the first place. Without them, you will never find success. If your audience asks you questions or leaves you feedback in the comments section of your videos, then you need to reply to them as often as possible. You need to make sure that you respond with thoughtful answers that fit the question being asked. The more that you engage with your viewers, the more connected they will feel with your business.

Mistake #2 – Not Optimizing Your Video Titles

Google acquired YouTube in 2006, which makes a lot of sense that both search engines would use titles in their search algorithms. If you don't include relevant keywords in both your title and video description, your audience won't be able to find you in the search results. You need to make sure that you create unique and engaging titles that incorporate relevant keywords so that your videos can appear higher up in the search rankings.

Mistake #3 – Not Branding Your YouTube Content

If you fail to brand your videos, it makes it that much harder for your viewers to recognize videos that you've produced. This is especially true when they are viewed on other social media platforms, blogs, or websites. Properly branding your YouTube videos is relatively easy and is incredibly useful. You can do this by adding a branded intro to your video, displaying your brand in the video background, or showcase your merchandise.

Mistake #4 – Not Customizing Your Thumbnails

YouTube allows you to choose any thumbnail that you want for your videos, which is what will show up next to your video title in the search results. If you don’t choose your own thumbnail image, YouTube will assign it a random thumbnail. To better engage your viewers you want to make sure that you add your own custom image that best represents each specific video you produce.

When you're building your YouTube channel, these are four things that you need to avoid. Keep this in mind, and you'll be well on your way to growing a successful YouTube channel for your business.

How to Scale Your Online Business Successfully

Most people have no idea as to how to scale their online business. There is a big gap between a startup and a medium-sized business. Scaling is an art that needs to be done carefully. Acquiring the wrong partner or business deal can have severe consequences. But scaling does not have to be expensive and there are many free and organic methods of scaling an online company. Online businesses have an advantage in that scaling the infrastructure often only requires a new hosting plan for a web site.

Outsource

Most solopreneurs think that scaling involves acquisitions or significant partnerships. But scale can be on a much smaller level. If you hire a virtual assistant to complete the tasks that you don’t want to do, such as social media or email marketing, then you have effectively scaled. You will now be freed up to do more of what you love to do and can expand the business in whatever direction you see fit. There are many freelancers available on sites such as Upwork who can deliver high-quality work for a very reasonable price. As you build a network of reliable freelancers, you only pay them for specific tasks that need to be done.

Collaboration

A good way to scale is to collaborate with people in your industry. Solopreneurs often fail to see the value of joining forces with other people in the same sector, often preferring to do everything by themselves. But establishing a network of associates within a particular field is ideal for long-term success and effective scaling. They might have skills that you do not possess or have a different way of looking at things. You can link to each other's sites and perhaps even form your own company down the line.

Automation

Automation is another great way to scale your business. You can use an automation tool to complete tasks such as social media posting, email marketing, customer support, search engine optimization, and sales. Automation is one of the best ways to increase your output and it can free up your time to focus on the things that really matter. For example, Hootsuite and Buffer are among the better automation tools available in terms of social media management. You can see how your brand is doing across a large variety of social media platforms on one easy dashboard.

3 Online Automation Tools To Free Up Your Time

Automation is going to be the way forward for online businesses of the 21st century. Those that automate are going to be the most successful. There is an automation tool for all possible tasks, from email marketing to paid advertising models. The trick is to find the automation tools that fit into your lifestyle and business model. Here are 3 of the better automation tools out there.

#1 - MailChimp

MailChimp is an email management service that can assist in streamlining email campaigns. MailChimp is a favorite email automation tool for startups and digital nomads. It is known for its ease of use and is the biggest email automation tool out there. Email marketing is still a very lucrative business model. This is because while people may change their social medial platforms, they tend to stick with the same email address. So building up an email list is a great way to keep in touch with potential customers over the long term. Even aside from pure email marketing, it is always a good idea to maintain an email list to keep customers regularly engaged. For example, those who are creating a blog will also need to maintain an email list and MailChimp can assist with this activity.

#2 - HootSuite

HootSuite is the perfect platform to automate social media strategies. It can be used to monitor how your business is doing across different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can see how your brand is performing through the simplified HootSuite dashboard. It is also possible to schedule and update posts as well as to create social analytic reports. The ability to schedule posts is a powerful feature that many freelancers and business owners are starting to take advantage of. It can significantly free up time. HootSuite is free for a basic personal subscription, though there are upgraded premium options.

#3 - Hubspot

Hubspot is an inbound marketing and sales automation tool that is extremely popular within the online business community. Marketing and sales is a difficult part of any business enterprise, and Hubspot can help to ease the burden. It comes with a free customer relationship management (CRM) system and is free to use.  It allows for email marketing and automation, lead generation, analytics, meeting scheduling, customer feedback, and ticketing. Hubspot has a massive online community who are very active and this is a very well-regarded automation tool that can streamline marketing campaigns.

Top 6 Things That Will Trigger Your Anxiety

Anxiety disorders are incredibly common, as are many of the things that will trigger anxiety. For most people dealing with anxiety, they find that they have multiple triggers, while other people’s anxiety attacks are triggered for no reason at all. If you want to gain control of your anxiety, it’s important to discover any triggers that you may have. Here are six common triggers that can cause your anxiety to rise.

Health Issues

A diagnosis of a medical condition, like cancer or a chronic illness, can trigger anxiety or make it worse. This is a powerful trigger because of the immediate and personal feelings that it tends to produce. You can help reduce your anxiety by being proactive and engaged with your doctor.

Medications

There are certain over-the-counter and prescription medications that can trigger your symptoms of anxiety. Many of the active ingredients in some medicines may make you feel unwell or uneasy, which can set off a series of reactions in your body and mind that may lead you to experience anxiety.

Caffeine

Your morning cup of coffee may be triggering or making your anxiety worse. According to a recent study, people with panic disorders are especially sensitive to the anxiety-inducing effects of caffeine.

Skipping Meals

Not eating will cause your blood sugar to drop, which can lead to jittery hands and can trigger your anxiety. Eating balanced meals is important because it will provide you with energy and essential nutrients.

Negative Thinking

Much of your body is controlled by your mind, and it’s certainly true when dealing with anxiety. When you’re frustrated or upset, the words that you say to yourself can trigger greater feelings and increase your anxiety. If you tend to use negative words when you think about yourself, you need to learn how to refocus your language.

Financial Concerns

Worries about your lack of savings or massive debt can trigger anxiety. So can unexpected bills or money fears. You might have to seek the help of a professional, like a financial advisor, to learn how to manage these kinds of triggers. It can help to ease your concern if you feel as if you have a guide through the process.

Identifying your anxiety triggers might take some time, but it is essential so that you can learn how to manage your symptoms and hopefully, you can eventually overcome it and get back your life.

Small Steps You Can Do to Better Manage Your Anxiety

Anxiety is a regular and predictable part of life; however, if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, your anxiety can quickly take over your life. The good news is that there are small steps that you can take to help manage and minimize your anxiety. Here are some small steps that you can take today to help you better manage and hopefully overcome your anxiety.

Take a Deep Breath

Breathing deeply through your diaphragm triggers your relaxation response and helps you to switch from the fight-or-flight response to a more relaxed and balanced state of being. Inhaling slowly to the count of four and holding your breath for a count of four, before slowly exhaling to a count of four can significantly increase your state of relaxation and calm your anxiety symptoms.

Get Physical

One of the most critical things you can do to cope with your anxiety is to participate in a regular cardiovascular exercise. If you're not in the habit of exercising, you can start by taking a walk. Take some time and create a list of physical activities that you enjoy and place them on your weekly schedule.

Get Enough Sleep

When you don't get enough sleep, it can trigger your anxiety. If you find sleeping a nightly challenge, try engaging in a relaxing activity right before you go to bed. If your brain starts to buzz right before you go to bed, try jotting down your worries for 10 to 15 minutes, earlier in your day.

Say an Encouraging Affirmation

Reciting positive, accurate statements to yourself can help you put things in perspective. You can try telling yourself that “anxiety is just a feeling, like any other feeling,” to help you gain perspective over your anxiety symptoms.

Avoid Caffeine

Managing your anxiety is as much about the things that you do as it is about the things that you don't do. There are some substances, like caffeine, that can significantly exacerbate symptoms of anxiety. The last thing you need to do, if you suffer from anxiety, is drink a substance that makes you feel more excited.

Take a Break

Building breaks into your daily schedule can be beneficial. Breaking from concerted effort can be incredibly refreshing. A simple change of scenery or pace or switching to a different task can be constructive.

Anxiety can be incredibly overwhelming and can make you feel as if you are being weighed down. Taking these small steps can help to minimize your anxiety symptoms and help you effectively cope.

Quick Ways to Relieve Your Anxiety

The horrible thing about anxiety is that the very feeling makes you even more anxious. It tends to create a feedback loop that can leave you feeling helpless and trapped, which leads to you feeling even worse. If you suffer from anxiety often, here are some quick ways that you can start to relieve your anxiety.

Make Yourself Comfortable

The first thing that you need to do when you are experiencing anxiety symptoms is to make yourself as comfortable as you can while the feeling passes. It is important to remember that your anxiety will pass, so you need to try and concentrate on making yourself comfortable, both emotionally and physically.

Use Calming Self Talk

If you’re like most people who suffer from anxiety, much of what you say to yourself when you are experiencing anxiety actually causes you to become even more anxious. To help relieve your anxiety instantly, tell yourself calming phrases like, “this feeling will pass,” or “I am feeling anxious now, but soon I'll be calm."

Acknowledge and Accept Your Anxious Thoughts

When you fight the anxiety, you are only making it stronger. On the other hand, when you can accept that you are feeling anxious can help make the anxiety go away. Facing your fears is a great way to get relief from your concern quickly. You can try this powerful anxiety treatment strategy to learn how to accept your anxious thoughts.

For ten minutes, make yourself as anxious as possible. Try to get your anxiety to increase to the highest level that you can handle. When your anxiety level reaches a ten, try to keep it there for at least five minutes. You will probably find that you can’t keep your anxiety at a high level. This kind of exposure technique has you facing your fears to the point where they vanish.

Distract Yourself

An effective way to put your mind at ease and relieve anxiety is to distract yourself from the thoughts that are causing your symptoms. It is tough for your mind to focus on more than one thing at a time. If you find something that you can focus intently on, your mind won't be able to maintain the anxiety for long.

Use Relaxation Techniques

Relaxation exercises and techniques can help to reverse the stress response in your body, which makes relaxation your body’s natural cure for anxiety. Start by using a quick relaxation technique that can help to induce the relaxation response. This will help to counter your body’s stress response and reduce anxiety symptoms.

Dealing with the onslaught of anxiety can be incredibly overwhelming. Using these five techniques can help you quickly relieve your anxiety and get on with your life.

If You Suffer From Anxiety, You’ll Want to Avoid These 5 Foods

You are probably already aware that your emotions can significantly influence what you eat. However, did you also know that what you eat can dramatically affect your mood? If you didn't already know, some foods could worsen your anxiety. According to research conducted by Harvard Health, simple food choices can make a difference in how you feel. Here are five foods that you should avoid if you suffer from anxiety.

Wheat Bran

Even though experts have been touting wheat bran as a superfood with its high fiber content and complex, nutty flavors, it can significantly increase your anxiety, thanks to its high concentration of phytic acid. Phytic acid binds to essential mood minerals like zinc and limits their absorption by the body. People who suffer from anxiety need adequate levels of zinc to keep their symptoms at bay.

Soy

Soy products, while packed with lean protein, is also packed with protease and trypsin inhibitors, which are enzymes that make digesting the protein difficult. Soy products, like tofu, are also high in copper, which is a mineral that has been linked to anxious behavior. If you have to eat soy, get rid of the tofu and veggie burgers, and try fermented varieties like miso and tempeh, which are much easier to digest.

Coffee

Coffee is one of the highest concentrated dietary sources of caffeine which can make an anxious brain even worse. Research has shown that people with anxiety disorders are particularly sensitive to feeling the nervous side effects from small amounts of caffeine. Caffeine can also impede the absorption of vital mood-balancing nutrients like B vitamins and vitamin D.

Whole Wheat Bread

For many anxious people, gluten is a sticking point, especially with patients who have celiac disease. Most non-organic wheat is treated with an herbicide called glyphosate, which has been shown to cause a nutrient deficiency of mood-stabilizing minerals.

Apple Juice

Unlike whole apples, apple juice is devoid of the slow-digesting fiber and are often packed with refined fructose. This results in blood level spikes that can trigger a flood of adrenaline and result in symptoms that look a lot like an anxiety attack. Fructose can actually alter how the brain responds to stress on a genetic level.

Anxiety isn't a fun condition to have to deal with. However, you can reduce your symptoms and overcome your fear by avoiding these anxiety-inducing foods.

How to Treat Anxiety Without Medication

Unfortunately, too many people who suffer from anxiety, are put on prescription medications that aren't doing anything to help them manage their anxiety and might even be causing them more harm. Fortunately, there are several ways that you can control your anxiety without resorting to taking a bunch of prescription medications. Here are some tips to help you manage your blood sugar naturally.

Maintain Stable Blood Sugar

Our Western diets do nothing to promote healthy and stable blood sugar levels, and every time we experience a drop in our blood sugar we can start to feel anxious. To maintain your blood sugar levels, you need to incorporate plenty of proteins and healthy fats into your diet and avoid sugar and refined carbohydrates.

Avoid Caffeine

You can't underestimate the relationship between caffeine and anxiety. Caffeinated beverages amp up our nervous systems getting us ready for a fight. Try to reduce your intake of caffeine gradually to avoid any withdrawal symptoms. Within a few weeks, your anxiety symptoms should start to decrease.

Get Adequate Sleep

Your best protection against your anxiety symptoms is to get enough sleep at night. You can start to get better sleep by reducing or eliminating caffeine, work on maintaining your blood sugar levels and find ways to unwind before you go to bed.

Get More Exercise

Participating in more physical activity on a regular basis is a great anti-anxiety alternative to prescription medications. If you struggle to fit in regular exercise, start by taking a brief walk outside or participate in simple mini-exercises from the comfort of your living room. In general, you need to try to sit less and stand more. Try to get up and walk whenever possible and lower your standards for exercise. Yoga and Tai Qi are incredibly beneficial for anxiety, but you need to find something that you enjoy to increase your odds of sticking with it.

Increase Your Magnesium

Many people are deficient in magnesium since our food is produced in magnesium-deficient soil. You can supplement your magnesium in a few different ways. You can take a daily magnesium supplement, try a topical magnesium gel, or enjoy a nice relaxing Epsom salt bath.

Anxiety can have a significant impact on your quality of life. Finding natural alternatives to prescription medication can go a long way toward reducing your symptoms of anxiety. By making simple changes to your lifestyle, you can stop anxiety and finally get your life back.

5 Useful Tips for Managing Your Anxiety

It's estimated that almost 18 percent or 40 million adults in the United States suffer from anxiety, which makes it the most common mental illness in the country. Anxiety can impact anyone, regardless of the kind of life they lead. Unfortunately, many people suffer in silence because they are ashamed to admit their struggles with anxiety. If you are one of the millions who suffer from anxiety, here are five useful tips to help you better manage your condition.

Tip #1 – Watch for Your Triggers

If you know what triggers your anxiety, you can then effectively plan your day around them. If there are times throughout the day that you know your anxiety is likely to be triggered, plan time-outs, or periods of exercise during these times. Having an understanding of your danger spots can help to lessen your anxiety.

Tip #2 – Start Exercising

Regular daily exercise has many benefits, including helping to alleviate the debilitating symptoms of anxiety. If you haven't made regular exercise a habit in your life, its time you start. You don't have to spend hours in the gym, even a short walk around the block every day can significantly impact your life and decrease your anxiety.

Tip #3 – Take Some Time to Breathe

When your symptoms of anxiety start to rear their ugly head, taking some time alone to breathe can be highly effective in managing your anxiety. Deep breathing exercises can help to calm your heart and help you instantly feel at peace. It can also aid in our ability to make rational decisions.

Tip #4 – Talk to Someone You Trust

You don’t have to suffer in silence. Reach out to someone who will treat you with understanding and kindness. If you don’t have any support at home, or with friends, then you can look up local support groups near your home or place of business. There are always resources available, all you have to do is reach out.

Tip #5 – Understand That You’re in Control

While it may not feel this way when you're in the midst of a panic attack, it is essential to understand that you have the power of your life. Even if you feel trapped, or out of control, you have to realize that you have control over every decision that you make in your life.

You don’t have to let your anxiety rule your life. Incorporate these tips into your life daily and take control of your anxiety and take back your life.

5 Tips for Facing Your Fears and Overcoming Your Anxiety

If your fears and anxiety are holding you back from living the life you want, you’re not alone. More than 40 million adults in the United States suffer from an anxiety disorder. The good news is that there are studies that show by facing your fears you can gain the courage you need to overcome other concerns that you may have. Here are five tips for facing your fears and overcoming anxiety.

Don’t Go It Alone

When you are facing down your fears, it can be beneficial to have someone along for the journey that can cheer you on. Perhaps you know someone who has the same fear as you, that can partner with you so that you can encourage and cheer each other on.

Boost Your Confidence

When you are getting ready to stare down your fear, it can be immensely helpful to remember all of the other courageous things that you've accomplished in your life. Remember how it felt to achieve your goal. Recognizing previous acts of courage can go a long way in helping you face your fears.

Acknowledge the Fear

Many times our fears are relegated to the back of our minds, unacknowledged and ignored. Even when faced with anxiety, we often choose just to feel the issue, and never really take the time to understand our fear. Start paying attention to how your body feels and acknowledge the sensation as a symptom rather than something more significant.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

There have been many studies over the years on the positive effects of keeping a gratitude journal. These studies suggest that people who practice gratitude had higher levels of positive emotions, a stronger immune system, felt less lonely, and had more happiness in their lives. Rather than focusing on the negative in your life, be thankful for everything that you have.

Expose Yourself to What You Fear

Even though it can be terrifying, if you want to overcome your fears, then you just have to face them. Sit down and define the worst-case scenario of the unknown outcome, an realize that the worst scenario rarely happens. Doing this you’ll start to notice that each time you do the scary thing, it gets a little bit easier.

It is possible to face your fears and overcome your anxiety. Facing your fear will lead you to live a better life, free from stress and anxiety.