Is your audience ready to build their very own online empire?
Then, you won’t find anyone more creative and entertaining than Shaunda Necole to teach Google and SEO marketing strategies!
Interested in booking Shaunda for your next event? Please contact her agent Johanna Voss at: johanna@johannavoss.com
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“80% of people want to write a book!”
I’m Shaunda Necole, a best-selling author, podcaster, and digital innovator recognized for my soul food and Las Vegas travel blogs. I’m also a self-professed SEO (search engine optimization) geek!
Discover how in just 2 years, I built my blog, The Soul Food Pot®, into Google’s #1 Southern soul food site!
Then, a year later, I turned my travel blog, Vegas Right Now™, into a best-selling published book!
Here’s my journey from Instagram influencer to blogger to Las Vegas travel book bestselling author.
I launched my travel site, VegasRightNow.com to document and share the latest happenings in my home city. As time went on, my expertise and passion for Las Vegas caught the attention of a publisher who recognized the potential for my content to evolve into something even greater. A published book – 100 Things to Do in Las Vegas Before You Die!
In a story, I share how I successfully grew my audience through SEO, achieving top search rankings for competitive topics such as things to do in Las Vegas and popular dishes like soul food banana pudding and Southern fried chicken. Additionally, my family’s sweet potato pie recipe went viral, and I trademarked it as the official Black Folks’ Sweet Potato Pie™ with an accompanying cookbook!
The fun part about it all? I believe my success is possible for everyone, whether you’re just getting started or already more seasoned (pun intended)!
From Instagram to blogger to book author
Discover how my unique home decor collection built an Instagram following that inspired a blog, created a fulfilling career, and ultimately led to a best-selling book!
My professional career kicked-off as an executive at a Fortune 500 company. After I left (ahem: fled) from the corporate grind, I started my own business in the cheerleading space and never went back to that sad, gray office again!
Not long after, I opened my first cheerleading retail store in a local shopping mall and quickly scaled it to 7-figures. My store became the first of its kind to secure a distribution deal with Amazon!
On a whim, my daughter created an Instagram account for me to enter a contest for one of my favorite brands, MacKenzie-Childs. (Have you seen their dinnerware?? Swoon!)
My Instagram account exploded to over one hundred thousand followers in less than a year. (Thanks, daughter!) I took the reins and added a website and blog that attracted lucrative brand collaborations and partnerships. I also took ownership in other areas of my life, investing in real estate and earning fantastic passive income from my properties. Today, my lifestyle content on food and travel attracts millions of monthly Pinterest viewers, multi-millions of annual site visits, and over 14K YouTube subscribers!
As a trusted and authoritative online publisher, my advice is featured in glossy magazines like Forbes, CEO Mogul, Cosmopolitan, Fast Company, Taste Of Home, and top-rated podcasts and lifestyle websites like Refinery29.
From passion to profits
The most successful bloggers earn far more income from search engine traffic than they do from ALL of their social media accounts COMBINED!
Check out this article:
How Shaunda Necole’s Food Blog & Portfolio Earn $100K+ Per Year
Listen to the podcast episode:
How a Love of SEO and Entrepreneurship Helped Shaunda Necole Grow Three Successful Websites and Hit 1 Million Monthly Pageviews
A blog business is:
- Scalable – Can be changed in size or capacity or enhanced in performance to meet increasing operational demands.
- Repeatable – Can be performed or done again reliably.
- Transferable – Can be assigned or conveyed to another person, allowing them to use it effectively.
Creative writing tips
50 creative nonfiction prompts
In the expansive realm of writing prompts, limited options are tailored for creative nonfiction writers. The relevant prompts are often mixed in with those for essays and fiction, making it challenging for writers to find precisely what they need.
But fear not! The clever works of Bookfox have compiled a comprehensive list of prompts exclusively for creative nonfiction writers.
4 nonfiction writing prompts
- Read as a non-fiction writer. Gather your favorite non-fiction books and reread them with a notebook and pen close at hand.
- Explore what excites you.
- Turn expert knowledge into a compelling narrative.
- Turn inwards, reflecting both back and beyond.
3 creative writing hacks
1. Use contractions in your writing because that’s how most people (probably you, too!) naturally speak.
For example: You can not visit Vegas without having a good time!
⭐️ Try this instead: You can’t visit Vegas without having a good time!
2. Use the word “you” instead of phrases like “anyone” or “readers” because people like to see themselves in the story.
For example: Anyone with two dollars can enjoy this experience.
⭐️ Try this instead: Can you believe you can enjoy this experience for only two dollars?
3. Don’t be afraid to break grammatically correct rules, especially for emphasis.
Writing with creativity and flexibility creates a tone for your story that enhances interest and engages readers.
For example: Sentence fragments create interest.
⭐️ Try this instead: Sentence. Fragments. Create. INTEREST.
More examples:
And pop-culture slang incites… engagement! See what I just did there? I gotchu!
(Starting a sentence with “And.” And using ellipses and spelling “got you” as “gotchu” instead of “gotcha.”)
Writer’s room essential resources
For writers of all kinds:
- Bluehost and WordPress – Set up your custom domain on Bluehost and create your personal blog on WordPress to start sharing your stories.
- Grammarly – Think of this tool as your personal in-house editor and writing assistant, helping you polish your work.
- Keywords Everywhere – An online marketing research tool designed for SEO content creation, keyword analysis, and increasing website traffic.
- Canva – A user-friendly graphic design platform that allows you to create stunning graphics, images, and text overlays.
- Audible – Listen to well-written stories from the creative writing community for motivation and inspiration.
- Scrivener – A powerful software for novel and book writing that helps you keep your manuscript well-organized.
- Pro tip: Substack – Substack is a platform that enables independent writers and creators to build an audience and earn money by sharing original content via email.
Learn from industry experts
- Johanna Voss – “The influencer whisperer”
- Spark Media Concepts – “Your new blogging besties”
- Influencer SEO – “SEO for influencers simple & efficient”
My path to becoming an author
Unlike many aspiring authors who actively pitch their book ideas, my journey was more organic. A friend in the blogging community mentioned working with a publisher and suggested I consider it, too! This planted the seed, leading me to reach out to the publisher.
In an episode of The Ultimate Blog Podcast, I unveil the details of my unexpected path to publishing. I discuss how blogging served as a stepping stone to authorship, my experience working with a publisher, the writing and submission process, the challenges of post-writing edits, post-submission work, and much more!
Listen to the podcast episode to hear my story.