SEO & Online Marketing For Graphic Designers

Ian Paget: Why would you advise designers to blog?

Ryan Robinson: Someone who started as a freelance writer, I began branding myself as a freelance content marketer eventually. And that's kind of the branding that I've stuck with. And I think what really applies across the board to any freelancer, consultant, whatever title you want to call yourself in that realm is, that by having a blog, you give yourself an opportunity to showcase your work for one.

So it's something that can extend beyond just a portfolio site where you plug in a bunch of your best images. You actually get the chance to talk about some of those images in a more open format. So you can discuss say case studies that break down working with a particular kind of client that you want to attract more of.

And essentially, what you're doing is you're creating opportunities for yourself to then reach out to some of these similar companies that you've already landed some work with.

So kind of an example to bring that back home to the way that I use my blog in this capacity is I'll publish super in depth content that I'm thinking, "All right, I know at least five or six companies that would totally pay me to create this type of content for their websites too." So I'll publish what I think is basically the perfect example of what they want.

And then I'll reach out to them and say, "Hey, I featured you in this post on my blog. Would you mind checking it out real quick?" And I think the same thing applies to designers too because they can basically pull a bunch of inspiration and style points from what a company that maybe like SquareSpace rather has a very clear design aesthetic. You can pull some inspiration from that, put together some sort of project on your blog that sort of emulates their style and maybe take some interesting new spins or tweaks on what they're doing. And you can create this example of basically a living pitch to work with SquareSpace in a more hands on capacity.

And then it's kind of just a matter of finding the right person to reach out to, coming up with the way to introduce that conversation. And then who knows where it can go from there? Not everything turns into a deal when I do this kind of outreach. But eventually, it always leads to meeting interesting people. And people job hop so you never know what they'll land up. And it's kind of a game of just building relationships based around your work and providing value.

Ian Paget: How I've used my blog is similar to how you've described. For example, I've done a few process type posts where I've gone into detail showing the steps I took from initial client meeting through to the final logo. I've also done a few guides such as how to create a logo design brief for example. And I found content like that has attracted clients. It's people that's just simply stumbled across these pace, and it's provided enough confidence for them to get in touch.

I've also considered using blogs as a way to rank on Google for specific keywords related to projects that I'd like to work on. For example, toy logo design. I would say right about my top 10 favourite toy logos. And hopefully that blog will rank on Google for the search term toy logo design. So that if there are toy companies out there that are looking for designers to work on their project, hopefully they come across me. And then they get in touch and things can go from there.

Ryan Robinson: Oh, totally.

Ian Paget: So Ryan, for those out there who don't already have a blog, how would they go about creating one?

Ryan Robinson: So personally, I'm a fan of WordPress powered blogs. Just because all of the customisation and flexibility you have. And especially if you're willing to learn just some super basic HTML or CSS, you can really do anything with WordPress blog. So yeah, I personally do my hosting through WP Engine. And they're just at wpengine.com. It's a little bit more on the premium pricing side, but their support has been ridiculous.

Anytime I have a problem with anything, I just hit up their support chat. And they solve basically any kind of problem for me. So I've determined that for me, I'm not that technical. I want a hosting site that's going to be there to help me. So you have a ton of different options as far as hosting for WordPress sites. Things like HostGator. The gambit is really, really wide with hosting providers, but basically any sort of web host that will allow you to install WordPress as your CMS. And then from there, choose the right template that you want.

And I always tell people simple is the name of the game. So it's more important that you just start getting your content out there. You start sharing your work, start talking to people about your work than it is to obsess over the layout or the font. Granted, I know I'm talking to graphic designers here. Just get your message across as a starting point and then you can tweak from there. Because the reality is the first day you set up your blog, nobody's reading it.

Ian Paget: Like you said, it's more important to actually start writing than to focus on what your blog looks like. And basically there's two situations that can happen here. You can either start writing, getting that content out there, start getting ranked on the search engines, and start to find clients. Or you could sit there tinkering with your website and not do anything. So there are loads of good templates out there. There are sites like ThemeForest, and you can take an out of the box template and just start writing. It's more important to do rather than to worry too much about how it looks.

Ryan Robinson: Right. And especially if your goal is ultimately to rank well in search traffic. And say taking your example of toy design or toy logo design. You just got to get the content out there because it's going to take time to index those search results. And especially when you're first starting your blog, your domain authority is relatively low.

So domain authority is this thing that ranks basically the authority and the strength of your website on a scale of one to 100. Or sorry, zero to 100. Zero being where you'll start the day you launch your blog, and 100 being sites like Google and Facebook. So on this spectrum of domain authority, once you start getting into the forties, fifties, sixties or higher, which will probably take you years.

Then you start to be able to publish new content and have it get ranked by search engines on the first couple pages very, very easily. So it's kind of this long game that you got to start investing in today. Otherwise yeah, you just sit there and spin your wheels wondering how people are going to find your blog without putting content out. And it doesn't really work that way.

You have to just start writing, start publishing, start sharing, and start building more connections with people in your niche. Because ultimately at the end of the day, everyone reading your blog is a person who's interested in what you have to say. So you have to give them a reason to want to come to your blog and come back for more.

Ian Paget: I think it's worth adding that when you first roll out your site on WordPress, what you can do at a later date is change your theme. WordPress makes it very, very easy just to go into this backend CMS and essentially just click a few buttons. And you can change everything about your website. So as long as the data is in there, you can then change and improve that as you go. But like Ryan said now, the most important thing is just to get the content out there so that you can start being indexed on Google.

Ryan Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. And I've used bunches of different themes too over the years. When I first got started, I think I just chose one of the free themes that comes built in with WordPress, just so that I could start publishing. Right? That's what I realised early on is going to be the way to get my name out there quickest. And then eventually, as I started getting a couple of people to my site every day, I was like, "All right," this is also factoring in spikes of traffic where maybe I'd have 100 people come from publishing something on Reddit or on Hacker News.

So I started to see that some people were coming to my blog. Then I was like, "All right, now I feel confident in investing 100 bucks in the right theme that I feel like is much better looking than the free out of the box one." So I've actually been with the same theme now for gosh, I think three years. It's called optimise press. I want to say it's 100 bucks, maybe 200 bucks.

But it's also one of those situations where everything is like a visual editor. I don't have to do much as far as coding. Their support is ridiculous. Anytime I break something or my site crashes because of a theme issue, they're able to hop in and fix it right away. So that's kind of my approach to the whole blog thing is I'm willing to pay a little bit of price premium just to have people that are really good at helping me.

Ian Paget: Five years ago, the standard out of the box WordPress theme was pretty ugly, but now it's not too bad. But I do think it's worth investing. There are sites like ThemeForest. And there are so many really nice themes out there. And you can just literally take it. And there's some nice add-ons so that you can build a specific layout. So on the same as you Ryan, I haven't changed my theme in properly two, three years. Just because you can go in there, you can edit it. And if you know a little bit of HTML, all of these templates that you buy, they're all completely customisable as well. So you can make them look exactly how you want them to look.

Ryan Robinson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Ian Paget: Okay. So once you've got your blog set up, we've touched on this briefly. But how do you know what to write about? What advice could you give?

Ryan Robinson: Oh man. So I think personally when I'm thinking about pieces that I want to write now, it's much different than when I first started. So let's start with what I do now.

So what I do now is basically, I'll have a thought that is just very compelling to me. Or I'll identify a question that people always comment on one of my posts or send me as an email. And I'll say, "Okay, enough people have asked me about this. I'm going to create a post about that." So that's very different from when I first started. When I first started, I actually didn't really know what I wanted to write about. This was actually before I was taking the freelance stuff very seriously. I was working a full time job. I was somewhat content with it. And I hadn't really dove into freelancing yet.

So if you go back to the very first post on my blog, I want to say it's about 'How to set the Rick Ross grunt as your text tone for iPhones', which is hilarious. I decided a long time ago I was never going to delete it because I didn't want to erase that memory of where I first started.

But I think that's a good lesson too for people. It's like you don't have to have this perfectly curated blog that's only about toy design. Just start going with whatever piques your interest. Find a topic that you are just so compelled to write about that you can't stop thinking about it. And if you don't have something that jumps out in your mind like that, just start writing about something you're interested in.

So this is such a common thing that plagues the writer who doesn't know what to write about. They don't feel super, super compelled to any sort of topic. And I think if you just give yourself the permission to write without expectations, then something will come to mind. If you just force yourself to sit down at your computer and to start thinking through things that might interest you or problems you've identified, frustrations that you're seeing out there.

Maybe go out and find a logo that absolutely sucks. Why the hell is this thing out there? And then just do a fricking rant, tearing it to shreds, do a critique. And maybe after doing that for an hour, take a look back at what you've written and see if it makes sense to structure that into more cohesive thoughts. And that right there could be a tear down. And that tear down can lead to maybe a little rebrand that you attach to the post. And that's something that companies would hire you to do.

Ian Paget: That's a really nice idea. I think it's worth adding to that as well. A lot of topics have already been written about several times. But what's really good with a blog is that people want to read what you think. So for example, a new logo might come out. Say Google redesigns their logo. There's all these sites out there talking about it. And what you can do with your blog is kind of put your take on it. And people like to read that type of thing.

Ryan Robinson: Oh, absolutely. And even if you don't have hundreds or thousands of readers who are just clamouring for your opinion on something rather, it doesn't really matter. Guarantee you know five other designers that would be interested in your take. And maybe they also have an opinion on it, and maybe you can include their opinion in your posts and have kind of a little debate going on about what you do and don't like about it.

And a post like that you can all honestly add to over time and start collecting opinions from other people that are blogging about it online. And maybe your post turns into this massive comprehensive debate around Google's logo. And that could turn into something that then eventually ranks in search engines.

Ian Paget: I know my very early posts, you're talking only four years ago. To be honest, at that point, I didn't write that much. But I knew that blogging was important for reaching clients. So I just started writing. And my very early posts, I look at them now. They're actually not on my site anymore. I've taken them down because the content wasn't good. But they were very, very short. They had spelling mistakes in them. But by doing, I've also improved.

So I know that there would be a few people out there that will be thinking writing is not my thing. I'm not a fan of doing that. But it's worth adding that if you do want to reach clients, a blog is a fantastic way to do it. And everyone I've spoken to so far on this podcast, they have done blogging and online marketing. And it's important for any freelancer.

So you just need to start like Ryan has said. And what I've found from personal experience, the more that I've done it, the better that I've got. And as time has gone, I've been able to take some of those older posts and kind of redo them.

Okay. So say I've written a blog now. I've got my blog and everything set up, but I want to find people to read. And I also want to get this on page one of Google. What advice can you give to get readers to your blog?

Ryan Robinson: I think, so there's two separate questions for sure in there. Because I think that ranking on Google, on page one of Google or top three results of Google is kind of a different beast. So let me tackle that first, and then I'll get to how to get to readers. So yeah, ranking on the first page of Google.

In all my experience doing this, this is what I do as a freelancer, as a consultant for my content marketing clients. And in my experience, the best path to ranking on the first page of Google is to have this ideal mix. And it's hard to really quantify the exact components of everything that needs to go into this mix, especially because Google is pretty guarded around how they rank certain posts in certain orders.

So this mix I'm talking about is back links from highly authoritative sites. So for what I do, I write about a lot of business and freelancing related content. And my post on how to start a freelance business is now ranking I want to say in the top three on if you Google search how to start freelancing or how to start freelancing business. And the way that it got there is by me manually going out and getting tons and tons of back links to point back to that post.

So I'm a contributor on Forbes, entrepreneur, Business Insider, a bunch of these massive publications in the world of business. So when I can tastefully link back to that post as what has shown to be a very good resource helping freelancers, I will. And that adds authority. That tells Google, "Okay, this site Forbes, which is one of the most authoritative sites on the website or on the worldwide web, points back to this post on how to start freelancing."

So that's a signal. And I replicate this. I think for that post, I've deemed it really, really important for my traffic. So for that post, I want to say I've written probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 guest posts for different kinds of publications. High authority business blogs. And again, when I say high authority, I'm talking about domain authority. And you can check the domain authority of a site when you're evaluating whether or not to guest post on there by going to a tool that Moz has. Moz is spelled M-O-Z, moz.com. And I want to say it's called the keyword research tool.

And if you just basically copy and paste the domain into this keyword research tool, then it'll tell you what their domain authority is. So when I'm looking for sites to guest posts on, again, I'm thinking sites that got to be at least 50, 60, 70 plus, in order to transfer a lot of authority back to my posts that I'm going to taste flailing to.

So we've got this component of back links from high authority sites. And then also social signals. Getting some social shares. And when I say some social shares, ideally into the thousands. But that's difficult to do and it's difficult to do quickly. So I kind of spread out how much effort I'm putting into getting social shares.

I'll do a spend 50 bucks on Facebook ads, right when I publish a new post. That usually gets at 100, 200, 300 likes, which is a good starting point. It brings in some readers. And then I'll do what I have started using I don't know, three, four months ago.

This new tool called Quuu Promote. And it's spelled Q-U-U Promote. And basically they have 60,000 people who have signed up for this service where you connect your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn to Quuu Promote. And you agree to share one or two, three, sometimes more pieces of content per day that gets submitted to this site. So you can pay to have submissions to this site. And then it'll get looped through say my Twitter account. Or Ian, if you're signed up on Quuu Promote, then the piece that someone submits will get shared through your Twitter account within a couple of days.

So it's kind of this cool network effect of tapping into people that have large social followings already. So even if you've got 100 followers yourself, you can get your articles shared by people that have tens or hundreds of thousands of followers by using some tools like this.

So add that into the mix. And then sort of shifting over to getting some of your early readers. I'm a huge proponent of going first to the friends, the families, coworkers, people that you went to school with. These are people that are interested in you as a person. And maybe they're interested in what you have to talk about with your blog content too.

So identify who those people are. Sure you can share on Facebook, you can share on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Share on all your social accounts. It's not going to hurt. But invest some time into thinking about the story you want to tell around that post. So instead of just posting the link on your Facebook, tell a little story about why you wrote that post. What compelled you to write it? The reason that this had to come out of your head and onto paper. And then people are going to be much more invested in sharing that and reading that.

But then beyond that, go to some of the online communities where you know other designers hang out. I'm not personally well versed in what the design communities are. Ian, maybe you can weigh in on that.

Ian Paget: Yeah I've actually got my own, which is called the Logo Geek Community. And that can be found on Facebook. It's free. And at the time of recording this podcast, it's only about three months old. But we've just hit 1,000 users. So if any listeners want to access that, they can do so just by visiting fiolentvillage.com/community.

Ryan Robinson: And there's also sites like what, Designer News isn't that one that's kind of like an upvote style site?

Ian Paget: To be honest, there's loads out there. All you need to do is go on sites like Facebook. And if you have a look at the communities on there, there's so many there. I'll be honest, there's a few of the open groups that are a little bit, it's quite poor quality. There's a lot of people in there, but the quality of the people, it's not people that you'd really want to read your blog. But there's a lot of these smaller niche groups which are very, very good. And yeah, you can just do a quick search and join as many as you can. You'll get to know which ones are good quite quickly.

Ryan Robinson: Yeah. And ultimately, you're going to just have to test it out and see which ones are working for your audience too. So I've been through so many different online communities. For me, talking about business related stuff, freelancing related stuff. Reddit is good for me. Hacker News is good for me because I'm tapping into the tech based community with Hacker News. Places like growthhackers.com which is really about marketing. Inbound.org is also about marketing, a little bit about writing.

So yeah, find your communities online and just actually start connecting with them before you go in and spam people with links to your blog posts. That's the fast track to getting booted from groups. I've been booted from LinkedIn groups years ago for hopping in and just sharing links to my articles before actually connecting with real people and engaging in the comments. And maybe asking the group moderator if I can share my article.

So test your way into what works for you. Ultimately, if you find that you're not getting traction from a certain group, ditch it and move on to something else. That's something that I still do with my blog content is I'm always testing through different ways to drive in readers. And some of this stuff I try works, some of it doesn't.

Ian Paget: From the point of view of posting in communities being someone that's moderating them. Most of these groups generally have rules to them. So make sure to read those. And if there is something that you want to promote and you're not 100% certain if it's okay, just check with someone that's moderating it.

Normally, they would just tell you straight if they don't want you to post that in there or not. But yeah, read the rules. And when you do post it, don't just post the link. Kind of give some context to it so that people can have a conversation around that content rather than it just being a one way conversation. The whole point of communities is to have a conversation. So if you post in there, you want to encourage people to talk around it.

Okay Ryan, I have a quick question based on something that you mentioned earlier. You that you mentioned that a key component is to get back links from big publisher sites. Now, do you have any advice for attracting those links, or how do you get the opportunity to post on these big sites?

Ryan Robinson: Yeah, that's a great question. So when we're talking about publishers that maybe live at the intersection of business and design, I feel like Fast Company or Fast Co Design I think is their other domain. Would kind of be the ideal for a designer. And when we're talking about getting published on sites like that, first thing you should do is just Google how to get published on Fast Company. Because they actually have written a lot on Fast Company about the best way to get published there.

So I wouldn't want to hop in and give you advice that goes counterintuitive to what they're saying works. But I can tell you what has worked for me in getting published on sites like that.

So for me, I never submit the contact form thing to become a contributor, or email just random posts to the contributors at fastcompany.com. I don't do that because in the very, very early days when I wanted to get published on these sites, I tried that once or twice, obviously never heard back. Because these people are getting hundreds if not thousands of emails into that inbox every day of people wanting to get published on these sites. So you have to do what you can to stand out from the crowd. And the way that I do that going full circle here, is to use my blog as a starting point to jumpstart this entire process.

So basically, what I will do is I will identify a short list of writers for the publication that I want to get featured in or become a writer for myself. And I note that these are writers and not editors. Not people that work in marketing, not people that are in HR. I'm specifically targeting other contributors, people that do exactly what I want to do.

So I'll make this short list of three to five different contributors for these sites. And I will mention them, link to some of their content. The majority of them have their own blogs, so I'll link to their blogs. In posts across my own personal blog. And then I'll reach out to these contributors, these writers. And I'll say, "Hey, I featured you in my blog post. Would you mind checking this out and letting me know what you think?"

And when you start with something that basic, that value providing without asking for anything in return yet, the majority of people are going to get back to you. Maybe they'll get back and say, "Thanks, and that's it." Maybe they'll get back to you and say, "Thank you. This is awesome. We should totally find some more ways to collaborate together." You never know how someone's going to respond. And by doing this tactic with three to five people, you're increasing your odds of getting a response back from someone who's really, really stoked and thankful that you linked to them.

So that kind of provides the basis for me to build a relationship with another contributor at these sites. So as you can tell, this is a very longterm strategy, right? I don't think you can just immediately pitch the majority of these sites and get a post published. You can, it's the exception to the rule. So I go with this relationship building approach. And then once I feel like I've provided enough value to these other contributors, I'll ask them if they know who the right point of contact would be for me to reach out to as far as becoming a contributor. And at that point, sometimes they'll offer me just an email address. Other times, they'll offer to connect me, to introduce me.

And you have to make that ask eventually at a point when you feel like you've delivered enough value to them. Because if you don't make that ask, they're never going to proactively think, "This guy should become a contributor." I shouldn't say never, but rarely. You got to ask for what you want eventually. Like for me, I get pinged by my editor at Forbes all the time asking if I know of other people who are under 30 that write about business, that might be a good fit to become a contributor for the under 30 team.

So for all you know, this person that you're talking to, this contributor for Fast Company might be getting those kinds of messages from his or her editor as well. And they might just be looking for the right person to present themselves as a genuine contributor who is good at writing, also good at design. So this is basically the process that I've used to become a contributor on all the different sites I write for.

Ian Paget: I really love that advice. I've written for sites like Creative Bloq which is really good for getting exposure in general. But then you also get that back link. And the way that I've been able to do that is by becoming an authority on Twitter and tweeting Creative Bloq's content on a fairly frequent basis and tagging them in that. And I got to a point where obviously the person that was running that account could see that I have some authority around logo.

So how I've done it is just literally kind of tweeting every single day and building up a following. And how to do that would take quite a while to explain. So I could probably explain it in a separate episode. But by doing that, I got invited to write for them and now I got that point of contact.

So there's so many different ways of doing it, but I guess the goal is to do it in a non spammy way. I find it fascinating like you said, that those contact forms on those sites and those email addresses, they don't work. So doing it in a slightly different way obviously works. So your advice Ryan is fantastic for that.

Ryan Robinson: Yeah. And it's funny you mentioned the sharing on Twitter too, because that is another strategy that I use. Especially when I can't identify the right contributor necessarily. Or maybe I don't want to link to them from my blog because I can't take the time to write another post this week.

Maybe I'll just share a couple of their pieces. And that gives the outreach platform. I have a ton of these different cold outreach tactics that I talk about in one of my recent blog posts, and actually a couple episodes of my podcast. But if you just go to ryrob.com/cold, I published a massive, massive post that talks through all of these cold outreach campaigns.

Ian Paget: I'm definitely going to read that and I'll link to that in the show notes for this episode as well.

Ryan Robinson: We're not even talking about if you have a podcast or if you have a YouTube channel. Use those as a tool to build relationships with the decision makers. So even for you Ian, if you were to interview the founder of Creative Bloq or a couple of contributors who happened to write for Fast Company. That's an amazing relationship building tool that you have. And you're doing them a favour too. So they'll want to reciprocate value at the drop of a hat whenever you have something to ask for.

Ian Paget: Yeah, you're right. What I find interesting with all of this is I guess non direct route is the best way to do it, so that they kind of see you as their friend in a way. And they're bringing a friend into this. We both know each other kind of indirectly through social media and through other people that kind of link to us in this exact same way. So it definitely works and awesome. It's good advice, and everyone needs to try it.

Ryan Robinson: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Okay. So everyone that's listening to this will probably be thinking, "I don't have time. I've got projects that I need to work on. I need to get that logo finished for that client." Do you have any advice for making time? Because I know that on the side of a full time job, you've built up businesses with profits of over $160,000 in a very short space of time. So you must be doing something different to the average person. Can you give some advice for people that might be thinking, "I don't know how to make time for this"?

Ryan Robinson: Oh, absolutely. And I think I want to refer to this book I'm reading right now because it's just top of mind. It's called Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. And it's written by a couple of Navy seals. And essentially the message of this is you are the person who's in command of your own destiny, what you do. You have to have very, very serious motivation in order to grow a side project up. And with that motivation, that has to translate into discipline.

So for me, one thing that I would say I do differently or have done differently, especially back during my side hustle days. Is that I would force myself to go to bed as close to 9:00 PM as possible at least three days a week so that I could wake up the next morning around four, 4:15, and get up and spend some focused time on my side hustle. Which was freelancing and my blog, before I went into work and gave those hours, the nine to five hours to my employer.

So I spent plenty of time trying to work on side hustle work after a full day at my day job. And I would be so damn tired. Just my creative energy would be gone. I'd feel less productive with the hours that I did have. That's when I wanted to relax. So I made a decision to give myself the best hours of my day. So I turned the hours of call at 5:00 AM to 8:30, 9 AM as my side hustle time. And I would physically schedule those blocks of time on my calendar.

And I treated that calendar as a commitment to what I need to do. And the moment you violate that commitment, it's all downhill from there. So you have to really place a lot of importance and give a lot of respect to the commitment that you're making. So talking about going to bed earlier multiple times during the workweek. Carving out half a day on a weekend to work on side projects.

It involves sacrifice. So less time spent going out with friends. Less date nights maybe during your week. So you have to involve the right people in your life who are stakeholders in your life. Maybe you have a significant other, you have a family, kids. Get your priorities straight and involve them in the decision making process. That's going to free up some hours of your day to work on a side project.

So you have to know all the different inputs into your life and determine what's realistic for you. Because what's realistic for me, especially we're talking about when I was 24, 25 years old. At the time I started working on all these side hustles, I was single. I had a social life as pretty much my only main outlet outside of work. So it wasn't difficult for me to cut away some of that social stuff.

So know where you're at in your life, determine what's realistic. Involve the other stakeholders in your life when you're coming down to creating the time for your side work. And then physically put that stuff into your calendar and respect it.

So some of the tools I use to help respect that time is I have a Fitbit rather that I sleep with. It's a wrist activity tracker, and it has a built in alarm. So I'll set that alarm to go off at 4:15 in the morning so that I don't have my iPhone alarm blaring and waking up my girlfriend. So just little things like that, that make this an easier process for everyone involved. And then once you have created this time, seriously, you got to respect the commitment.

Sometimes the work isn't even great, but that's okay. As long as I'm committing to sitting down and working on the client work or writing a blog post. And for me, I would always go to a coffee shop that was near my office. Because trying to work from home doesn't do so well for me personally. I tried it a few times, and really just made the call that I got to get out if I'm going to be productive. So maybe that's renting a breather space for an hour. Or just going to a coffee shop, showing up at work early, whatever makes the most sense for you.

Ian Paget: I love that. That's brilliant. Okay. I know that you run a community for freelances. And there's obviously so much that everyone can learn from you. Can you talk through briefly where people can find out about that, and how they can get involved and learn more from you?

Ryan Robinson: Yeah, totally. So right now actually, this is very timely that we're doing this interview because I'm working very hands on with a small number of freelancers, 10 people, to help them two to three times what they're charging for their work. And this sort of runs the gambit of freelancers. So I've got writers, marketers, designers, and developers in this diverse little pool of people that I'm helping. Very, very hands on.

So I've got that component to what I'm doing. And that'll soon most likely lead to a course offering sometime around the end of the year once I'm able to help these people get real results, see what was most effective, and translate that into more of a productised service offering. So I've got that side of the component. And then yeah, I have 30,000 email subscribers currently, most of which are freelancers.

You got some people in there that want to build blogs, do things like that. But for the majority, everything on my site starts just at the homepage, ryrob.com. It's spelled R-Y-R-O-B. And yeah, that's where everything's kick started.

I don't have a public Facebook group for freelancers yet. I've been keeping it pretty closely held for just people who are in my programs. Only because my God, I can only do so much.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay Ryan, you've given away so much value, so thank you so much for your time. And yeah, brilliant. We'll wrap this up now. Cheers, Ryan.

Ryan Robinson: All right, thanks for having me.