Six Things To Check Before Clicking Publish
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Some simple things to get in the habit of checking before publishing your post:
Picture - Every blog post should have some kind of picture. Sometimes it’s hard to find a related picture. Think about it for a minute and see if you can come up with something clever.
Headline - Will it catch the reader’s eye and make them interested? Does it have key words that will show up in searches? Does the post deliver what the title promises?
Voice - Read the post out loud. Does it sound like you? Does it flow?
Grammar - Edit! Edit! Edit! Check for misspellings and proper punctuation. Cut out extra words wherever you can.
Layout - Is it scannable? Have you made some key words bold? Can you turn some of it into a list? Is there white space? Use the preview tab and make sure it looks good.
Links - Can you link to any of your other posts? Does someone else have a similar post that might be of interest to your readers?
Your readers will appreciate your checking these six things!
How To Be An Affiliate Marketer
Last week I made 50 cents from Moms Talk Network. You may say [in a Brooklyn accent], “Big deal. Go buy yourself a soda.” I’m happy about it anyway and looking at it as the first rung in a long ladder that I hope to climb.
How did I make this money? Through an affiliate link.
How did I learn to be an affiliate marketer? From podcasts and recordings. I had dabbled with links to Amazon and ads in my sidebar. They weren’t doing much at all so I knew that I was missing something.
How can you learn this? First, listen to these free Mom’s Talk Affiliates Podcasts. If you don’t have a clue about affiliate marketing listen to them first. They start from square one and give you a nice foundation.
After that, or if you already know a little bit about affiliate marketing, purchase these affiliate expo recordings. They are worth every penny of the $7.00. I learned so much from them! It was the first time that I sat with a notebook and pen in hand to listen to a podcast/recording. Usually I’m folding laundry, doing dishes, stirring food, or something, but I kept having to stop and write notes so I sat and listened.
Do you want to climb the affiliate marketing ladder too? I’ve given you two excellent resources to learn from.
I know some of you reading this have already listed to the expo recordings. What did you think of them?
Breaking News From MomDot
Want more exposure for your blog? You can be a contributor on MomDot.com. Here’s an announcement from Trisha Haas.
MomDot.com has recently changed its site where you can promote your own articles, ideas, and link back to your sites. If you would like to submit any of your articles to be included in the lifestyle, frugal, or any of the many many sections and categories we have set up. If you would like to be a feature author weekly for us, please contact me.
Also, you can go to the site, register, and login. Then submit an article. Please feel free to link your site, your bio, pictures, etc. in order to advertise yourself as well!
On Being a Good Wife And A Profitable Blogger
You may think it strange that I picked the meme about marriage for this blog. Bear with me, I hope it will make sense.
Before I started this internship, before I even filled out the application, I talked it over with my husband. I knew there would be more time demands on me and more things that would not get done. I needed him to be okay with that because, to me, bringing in tons of money would mean nothing if my husband/marriage was not happy. Not that I’m bringing in tons of money, but you get the idea.
I want to encourage you to put your marriage above your business. Sometimes, it’s tempting for me to just keep online things to myself because it’s harder to explain to him anyways. It’s a part of my life that’s important to me right now and it needs to be shared with my husband.
Don’t let your online friends push away the friend that you married.
You are more than welcome to join in Wifey Wednesdays. The link up is at To Love Honor and Vacuum.
Profitable Mommy Blogging #21
Kelly is back at last with a fresh episode of Profitable Mommy Blogging. She’s sharing a few secrets with you so be sure to listen in quick!
Carrie Lauth interviews our guest this week, Kelly the Kitchen Kop. Her blog focuses on traditional nutrition, and she writes about real food and “politically incorrect” eating. We’re talking about the importance of choosing a tight niche for your blog. Instead of trying to please everyone, Kelly has discovered that being a little controversial can boost your traffic and help you gain a loyal following. She also shared her top traffic generating methods and encourages moms to jump into using Twitter because of its high ROI and simplicity.
Be sure to catch Deb Ng at the Hot Seminar Series tonight!
Why I Wanted To Be An Intern
After a busy week Chele was able to answer my first cross blog questions on her Moms Love Shopping Blog. She admitted that she spends 8-10 hours online every day and needs to work on controlling her internet window shopping. Don’t we all! It’s so easy to click, click, click - or tweet, tweet, tweet. All of a sudden half a day is gone!
Here’s what she asked me:
- What was your interest in becoming a blogging intern at Profitable Mommy Blogging? I noticed that you were already blogging on your own blog for two years before accepting the position.
- What are the distractions that keep you from spending as much time as you’d like blogging and how do you avoid them?
Impressions of Christian Ad Network
Christian bloggers are often choosier about the ads that get displayed around their content so monetizing a Christian blog can be challenging.
This year I converted one of my oldest websites into a Wordpress blog. Women By Grace has long been a resource for Christian women and is now growing as a community blog. I looked around hoping to find some new revenue sources and was pleased to discover a Christian Ad Network and quick to sign up and give them a try.
First Impressions
Getting set up wasn’t hard. I added my site, grabbed the ad code and installed it on my site.
For some reason the ads were nevere visible to me on my PC, not in Firefox or in Internet Explorer. But when I viewed the site on my Mac, I could see them fine. Never could figure out why.
I ended up being confused about ad sales as I started to see tiny profits right away. Six cents here, three cents there. I had set up ads for higher values than that. I wrote the support address to ask about it and was told that it was PPC and because I hadn’t declared a PPC price, it was defaulting at a penny. Still confused because I hadn’t signed up for the PPC option at all from what I could tell from their system.
I did get one bulk ad buy, earning me $35.00. That seemed promising - but it was an isolated instance. In the next two months, no other ads were bought.
Last Impressions
For the last two weeks my site has been loading slow - agonizingly slow. I could see that it was the ad network slowing things down but hoped it would clear up soon. It didn’t. I finally decided to drop out and removed the ad units from the site.
I would have loved for it to work out and I’m sad that it hasn’t.
Hopefully another option will show up one of these days.
Is Your Website Sticky?
Normally when someone says sticky I grab the washcloth and head for the kids. A sticky website, however, is a good thing. If your website is sticky it means that visitors will stay longer. They will visit more pages, and they will book mark it to come back again.
Some simple things you can do to make your site sticky are:
- Make sure your page loads quickly
- Have your subscribe information prominent
- Include related posts at the bottom of each post
- Make the links open in a new page
- Include links right in your content to other content
- Have a list of categories in a prominent position
- Make sure your website is easy to navigate
- Use the More tag so more posts are visible on the main page
- Include a next post/previous post link
- Keep your website attractive without cluttered sidebars
The possibilities are unlimited!
Talking To Chele About Shopping
This is the exciting start of a cross blog conversation! A cross blog conversation is exactly that. We’ll be talking across 2 blogs. The interview answers will be posted on the other blog, not this one.
I’ll be talking with Chele Neisler from Moms Love Shopping. So, Profitable Mommy Blogging Readers, meet Chele!
Chele is happy to have Moms Love Shopping as an outlet and a connection to other women. Spending every moment with all males isn’t easy! Hosting the show also allows her the chance to return to her two first loves, shopping and chatting.
My questions for her are, “How much time do you spend online in an average day? Do you spend more time online shopping or doing blog related things?”
She’ll be answering these 2 questions at her Moms Love Shopping blog. Then she’ll post a question for me to answer here.
The Top Ten Reasons I Love Twitter.
I am still cross blogging with Edie from Millionaire Moms, and she asked me about my favorite topic! Twitter!
Considering that we BOTH love Twitter, would you mind sharing your top 10 reasons you love it? Also, I’d be interested in hearing ways that you’ve learned to use it effectively as well as how you keep its use from becoming a “time waster” in your work day.
Well, Edie that’s a tough one… there are like a million zillion reasons I love twitter…. but I will try to norrow them down to just ten
- It has helped me in my writing career. I had no idea that writers and publishers and agents use twitter the way they do, but I quickly discovered that they LOVE it. I mean, it makes sense–we spend all day at our computers writing away, and when we want a quick reprieve from the depths of our manuscript we have twitter right at our fingertips.
- I use it when I am bored at mommy stuff. Seriously. How often have you been at some goofy jump-a-thon birthday party bored out of your mind? I just whip out my trusty iPhone and log into my Tweetie App. (That’s THE bet iPhone App hands down for twitter, none of the others even come close.) Then I can laugh and talk to thousands of people instead of stabbing a plastic sprok in my arm for fun.
- The networking friends I have made through twitter is in-sane. It’s just so cool. I have mommy blogging friends, mommy writer friends, battlestar galactica friends–and they ALL make me smile each day with their tweets.
- People can’t be long winded. You can’t annoy me with a five page email in 140 characters, so if someone has something important to say, then they have no choice but to say it quick.
- My parents keep up to date on my life. I actually tie twitter into my facebook. (Lots of people say don’t do this, but I do it because I don’t have the time to keep up with both social networks.) My dad checks in and he gets to read my tweets throughout the day, and look at all the pictures I upload of the goings on of our every day life! He LOVES this, and so do I!
- The links are so up to date. I used to keep up with Digg and Redditt for the latest in big news stories, but they are so far behind twitter’s trending topics now, that they are almost obsolete. I think that’s cool that we get news the very second something happens. Makes me feel all informed!
- I can say whatever I want whenever I want. You have to be careful with this one, because sometimes you say something in twitterville, and then wish instantly you could take it back. Sure, there’s the delete key, but once someone has retweeted your stuff, it lives on in twitter forever and ever. But, for the most part when I am feeling something. I just say it.
- You get out of twitter what you put into it. My husband once asked me to build his business twitter account, and I tried-I really did. I got him a ton of followers in just a few days, but then he started complaining that his followers were just spammy and boring. Not like my real followers. That’s just it. Every single person I have followed, I have personally checked out, and I know exactly what their twitter stream is about. I don’t have to deal with a lot of spam in my twitter stream, because when I see something I don’t like-I just unfollow the person.
- People who follow me are for the most part interested in what I have to say. Sure, you have your twitter gamers out there just trying to build up their numbers, but most of the time-when I tweet about a funny ninja coat rack or a new blog post-my followers are genuinely interested. That makes twitter totally worth the time.
- You can tweet from the bath tub. I love that you can tweet from anywhere. And sometimes, I just put my phone in a baggie and take a bath while I get my social network on! It’s fabulous, you are making connections, meeting new people, sharing genuine interest in things, and getting clean all at the same time.
And, Edie also asked me how I kept it from being distracting.
Well, unfortunately I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t do a very good job there. I can get distracted for hours at a time in a heated twitdebate. So, I guess that would be my question for Edie!
How do YOU keep twitter from being a disctraction? Or, just social networking in general? We know it’s important to grow our business, but how much is too much?
Over to you, Edie
To those of you wondering: Yes, I put that twitter bird in that bathtub, and yes it took me longer than actually writing this post.
Links To Hot Topics
Of course we know that Moms Rule The Web , but it’s nice to read this confirmation posted on the NewBaby.com blog.
Are You Selling Lemons? written by Regina Baker who, sadly, bought some ebook lemons.
A Somewhat controversial post titled Why Mom Bloggers Aren’t Flipping for Just a Sample of Your Product from GeekMommy. Reading through the comments is more interesting than the post!
Another post about bloggers and PR from the PR point of view - Bloggers, Brands & the New Publishing Paradigm from PR MAMA by Stephanie Smirnov
A post by Alexander Sandler titled Don’t Give Up and Keep Cool is true to the old saying, “No pain, no gain.”
Still Chatting With Edie
I am still chatting with Edie over at Millionaire Moms Media. If you’d like to see her part of the conversation, head over there and check it out!
Wow, Edie! That’s a great story. I think it’s neat how your blog helped you reach out to others in the same situation as yours. This crazy internet! I can’t believe the lasting friendships I’ve made with it!
She asked me:
Would you mind sharing how you got your start in blogging? Also, can you share why someone who isn’t “new” to blogging chose to be an intern for Moms Talk Network? (We have that in common!) What do you hope to gain out of your experience as an intern?
A Question or Two for the Lovely Edie
This week I am going to have a cross blog conversation with the fabulous Edie from Millionaire Moms Media. She’s a really cool mom with lots and lots to say about profitable mommy blogging so she makes a perfect p
erson to do this with.
What is a cross blog conversation, you ask?
Well, it’s where we ask each other questions back and forth on our own blogs and the person over at the other site answers them on theirs. It should be interesting to see, because I’ve never done anything like this before… and I am going to start!
So, Edie-My question for you is this:
I noticed you have a mix of both pleasure and business on your blog. Occaosinally you mention a proud mommy moment, but mostly you talk about the things that matter to those momies out there wanting to make cash with their blogs. How do you decide your balance for those sorts of posts? Do you have a system, or do you just sort of go for it?
(If you guys have any questions for Edie, please let me know! We will be talking to her for a few days!)
How To Make A Media Kit That’ll Knock ‘Em Dead
A business card might get you an introduction. A media kit might get you a job. Here are some things you should have in your media kit.
Tell them about the genius behind your site
- Include a short bio;
- What you write about - in a nutshell;
- A professional looking picture; and
- Contact info - are you available for phone or Skype calls?
Tell them who knows about you
- Include your blog stats per month;
- Demographics/Info about your readers that could include gender, age range, # of children, education, employment, income, location, ethnicity;
- How influential your audience is [do they blog, twitter, use facebook?];
- Your numbers [Twitter followers, Google Rank, Alexa Rank, Technorati authority, newsletter info, blog key words];
- Affiliations, Forums, Groups you’re a part of; and
- Don’t forget to include offline influence - we do talk in real life also.
Buzz A Mom: Dr. Mommy Part Two
It’s time to Buzz a Mom! This week we are talking to Dr. Daisy Sutherland, aka Dr. Mommy.
My name is Dr. Daisy Sutherland, aka Dr. Mommy, and I am a Doctor of Chiropractic by profession, a mom to 5 beautiful children which I home school, and married to my soul mate…Health/Wellness and Nutrition have always been a big part of my life and sharing my knowledge with the public is very important to me.
I am a Parenting Coach and my mission is to help parents teach their families to lead happier and healthier lives. My ultimate goal is to help individuals take control of their bodies and health and make informed decisions regarding their health.
I was flat out amazed at how many sites she runs! She has tips to stay healthy, helping you help your family, a content writing and managing site, a Reserved Only course teaching respect, responsibility, and renewal, an estore, and she stays active on Twitter.
So I had to ask her, “Do you have a VA?”
I do and couldn’t imagine not having one.
Which of your sites is your favorite?
I love all my sites, but if I had to pick just one, I would have to say Dr. Mommy Chronicles. Read the story »
