Thea Westra, an International Life Coach, gives readers simple, inspirational and motivational tips in her blog Life Coach Daily Tips.

Tell us about yourself.
In a nutshell description, I’m a 48 year young female, living in Perth, Western Australia with my gorgeous and hugely supportive partner, Greg. If I’m not online then I’m likely watching a movie, out in the garden, listening to an audio, reading a book, or meeting with a friend, or two, for a coffee. My life coaching specialties are Affirmative Living, Acting On Your Priorities, Gaining Personal Clarity, Congruent Decision Making, and Managing Overwhelm and you can find my life coaching services at my main site Forward Steps Life Coaching.

What is your blog about?
I publish nine blogs, of which six are updated daily. You can find them all at this Forward Steps Blogs page where you can access each blog individually. The blog that I was invited to feature is my Daily Life Coaching Tips blog, and that particular blog features simple, short inspirational and motivational triggers to use as a daily point of focus or to create new and inspiring thought.

Are you the only author/contributor?
Yes.

How did you get started?
I began blogging in 2002 when I was looking for a quick and easy way to archive my monthly life coaching ezine, “Triggers”. As I learned more about how to blog and about its benefits, I began creating my other blogs as a service to my readers and coaching clients.

Why do you blog?
To add value to my coaching business, to support others in the online community, to quickly and easily share the many resources that I run into, to get the word out about my life coaching services, to connect with other bloggers, to build my list of Triggers readers and Forward Steps Daily notes readers, to increase traffic to my life coaching web site, to build information that later may be collected to include in products that could be available for purchase at my coaching site.

What is the source of your content?
Gosh, where do I begin with that question…? I transform tidbits that I may read elsewhere online. I find things in my online travels and save them for posting. I make them up. Past experience. Articles I’ve written or that others have written. I may have read it in a book. My imagination. In emails that I may receive from friends or online contacts. I get my content for each of my blogs from hundreds of different sources.

Do you blog full time?
No, however some days it can feel a little that way. I’d love to be able to do that.

How frequently do your write/post?
I post daily and occasionally I may miss, however the consequence is then to do catch-up posts on the day that I’m back!

Does your blog generate revenue?
Only the most teensy weensy smidgen, using Adsense or affiliate products. Would love that to increase, as I am certain that we all would. My goal is to replace my income from my day job by mid-2008 and then have the available time and focus to multiply that income ten fold by end 2010. That takes exploring, using the things that work, expanding my reader base, increasing traffic, providing better products and information, helping more people with information that they can and will use, creating my own products, etc.

Who visits your blog?
The people who visit and the range of ‘types’, never cease to amaze me. It really is anyone who has an interest in enhancing their personal experience of life and who is looking to expand themselves as people who contribute to others, and that cross-section of our global community ranges far and wide. I’ve had 17 year olds and 86 year old people write to me, plus everyone in between. I’ve been written to by bikers, mothers, corporates, teachers, techno geeks, writers, students, and I could go on. So the exact demographic of my readership is a challenge to pin down.

Do you consider yourself successful in blogging? How would you define “success” , as far as blogging is concerned?
Based on Google page rank and Alexa ranking I consider myself moderately successful. With regard loyal fans, I have a few. In that arena and in the quality of my content I think I’m successful, though I notice a twinge when I say that. This is purely my perfectionism rebelling! In monetary terms I do not think of myself as a successful blogger and I think that I can spend more time on the presentation also, however it doesn’t appear to concern my readers as much as it does me.
In my eyes, a successful blog looks fantastically and very uniquely presented, so that a passer by ‘must stop’ to look. It would be financially successful and generate a decent level of sustainable, consistent income. A successful blog would be highly viral in nature so that others would want to link to it and pass it forward to friends, it would stand out from the crowd in terms of either humor, relevancy or intelligent conversation that contributes to many. A successful blog fulfils on what it promises, nurtures its visitors and contributes to a spirit of peaceful, open and generous community.

You have a loyal reader base. What sets you apart from other blogs?
It’s a challenge to answer that question objectively and diplomatically. Perhaps it is my credibility and integrity. I’m very conscious of what I will and will not include in content, I also stay to topic with the intention of my blogs. I like to keep the blog fairly clean looking so it is easily navigated, though I can see much more work is needed in that arena. My content is honest and from the heart. When I have other people’s interests at heart then it shines through in formulating my blogs or sites. Visitors sense authenticity and I’m fairly sure that this supports my blogging success.
Yet there are many, many other bloggers out there who operate in a similar fashion, so mine are not at all necessarily unique. I am a unique individual, as is everyone, and I guess that’s what sets me apart. I’m expressing myself in my personal way and I have a desire to contribute to the ‘whole’. Yes, I do have quite a few returning readers who, in turn, also subscribe to my monthly coaching ezine and my daily Forward Steps messages.

Any advice, suggestion, tips or a message you would like to give to other bloggers?
Be consistent and post regularly, check out what you deem to be highly successful blogs in terms of traffic and join the communities they join, thank your readers by way of links or commenting at their blogs, keep it real - if you don’t believe it or trust information 100% then please don’t pass it forward in your blogs, simply because you can link as an affiliate. Maintain a level of integrity and credibility if you’re in for the long run. Always acknowledge your sources if they’re direct quotes. Find some great blogging friends who have similar values as yourself in what they publish. Be mindful with whom you will exchange links. Stay true to yourself and have an overall vision about the purpose of your blogs. What’s the ‘gift’ that you want your readers to leave with, after visiting? Does it contribute or take away from the world you want to live in? Remember that ‘readers’ are people, not stats.

Tags: Motivational Blog, Life Coach, Thea Westra, Forward Steps

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