Mom Blogger Pro (Formerly Profitable Mommy Blogging)
How to blog from professional mom bloggers who share their experiences and tactics for earning from their blogs.
It is VERY important!
As I just told my blogging intern in a recent email:
“Commenting on other blogs is very important when you’re building up a blog. It shows other bloggers that you’re interested in them and that you are willing to be part of the community. It builds links to your blog which is important for search engine ranking down the road. It also introduces new people to you.”
How much emphasis do you put on commenting on other blogs? Do you make it a priority?
Tonight I’m one of three Panelists that will be answering your questions about monetizing your blog. The event is a Site Warming party being put on by Amy Lupold Bair for the new Me Time Affiliate Program.
You can learn more about the event from Amy’s blog and you can learn about the other Panelists here.
To participate you’ll need a Twitter account. You’ll want to be following me, Amy, the Me Time Affiliate Program representative and the other panelists so here are the account links 
I’ve been told it’s easiest to follow the conversation by using TweetChat.com. Just login with your Twitter account info. Then enter the room ‘metime’ for the room name. It will automatically show you all of the relevant tweets.
To ask any of us a question, just tweet it and add ‘#metime’ to the post and we’ll see it.
Hope to see you there!
It’s been a crazy few months, and I apologize for not blogging here in so long! Some situations have arisen that have encouraged me to once again refocus my time and effort into monetizing my mom blog, so I’d like to share with you what I’ve done, and what I’m planning on doing.
Redesign
My blog needed an upgrade, and the template I had customized last time was not compatible with the required WordPress upgrade, so I tried a new template and customized that. If you look at my blog, you’ll notice the layout is different. That’s intentional. I’m hoping that this layout will allow me to place more space for advertising. [Read more...]
Join me as I recap what’s been happening on the blog since last weeks show and then we’ll enjoy a great guest interview!
Alaina Frederick, host of the soon to launch Giggle Talk Radio, had a interesting conversation with Jen Matuska of Mommy Instincts. Jen has been a blogger since first wanting to share her joy of a new baby in early 2007.
After starting Mommy Instincts she has found a joy of sharing her opinion on products for children and their parents. So she started a new blog to focus just on these product reviews as she saw that her main focus of Mommy Instincts was going to be muddied by the product reviews. It’s a great reminder to stick to your focus and finding new avenues for things you may enjoy.
Don’t forget to vote for your Favorite Mom Blog Header!
This week I upped my blogging intern’s posting rate to two per day. She soon asked me why since she looked around at other mom bloggers and didn’t see anyone else doing it. (I know that some are – she just hasn’t been around long enough to see a wide range of blogging styles.)
I’m glad she asked. Remember, the goal in this internship is for her to understand all the reasons why.
The ‘how often to post’ questions has been around for a long time and there are a lot of different opinions on it. It really boils down to the purpose of your blog and the type of content you want to share. Liz Strauss has written a great post about this. [Read more...]
Are you new to the idea of blogging? This free “So You Want To Be A Mommy Blogger” Report is made just for you. With a simple introduction to blogging, mom blogger profiles and ideas for growing your blog traffic, it’s perfect for a blogging newcomer.
Grab your copy for free right now. (PDF – Right Click to Save)
I love reading blogs (I won’t mention that my Google Reader has 945 unread posts waiting for me at the moment! LOL). I think a lot of us do for a number of different reasons. Now it’s time to take action and give back to those bloggers we love so much.
Happy to be at Home is posing a challenge to the blogosphere. The two weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day let’s start showing some bloggy love! Happy to be at Home has provided a list of 14 things you can do, 1 for each day, to share the love.
Please spread the word about this challenge. Happy to be at Home would like to reach as many people as possible with this challenge. You can read the write up on their site, grab the button and post to your own blog by visiting their site.
Mom’s Talk Network is a thriving multi-blog/podcast network, an ebook publisher, a mompreneur resource center and an affiliate program providing an income stream for hundreds of mom bloggers and website owners.
And today – Mom’s Talk Network is a proud sponsor, sending Mom Blogger Alyssa Avant to the BlissDom ’09 Conference.
Alyssa is a busy blogger. She blogs for herself at Life from My Laptop, for her ministry at Beauty by Design Online and for others as a professional blog manager through her site, A Writer for Hire.
We are pleased to have Alyssa representing us at BlissDom. If you’re going, look for her and ask her for information on Mom’s Talk Network – she’ll have a freebie to give you 
It’s the end of week number three for my blogging intern, Sharon Trombly. Here’s a quick update:
In week number one her goal was to become familiar with the WordPress Visual Editor, learn how to upload pictures and make a post to the blog each day. Then at the end of the week she put together a post that shared some ‘Link Love’ with other bloggers.
In week number two she continued to blog daily and was introduced to Twitter. Midway through the week we also introduced her to TwitterMoms. Since social networking is almost entirely new to her, these were big steps. [Read more...]
Several mom bloggers are blogging and tweeting about finding a company to sponsor them for one of the big blog events for moms and women.
Blissdom is right around the corner and Blogher is coming up in summer. These events give bloggers the chance to connect with people they have met through the blogosphere. They also provide a great learning opportunity.
Attending the event can be pretty expensive. Registration, hotel, meals and travel add up quickly.
Some moms are simply looking to get these costs covered – others are looking to earn a bit above and beyond that. Have you determined what you’d like to receive and what you’d be willing to offer in return?
If you’re really determined, you’ll want to have all the information you can get your hands on. Jessica Smith has written a guide for moms who want to learn how to attract a sponsor. Since she has been successful at developing several great brand relationships, she surely knows her stuff in this area.
del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) is a social book marking site. It is for storing and sharing web bookmarks with other users. The service is completely free and relatively new. del.icio.us first came online in late 2003.
Everything that is posted on del.icio.us is viewable by the public, although you can choose to make specific bookmarks private. Bookmarks are publicly viewable for a purpose. Many people use del.icio.us to publish links to their personal or business blogs. You can use the del.icio.us interface to keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music etc. You can also share your favorites with anyone who has an e-mail address. del.icio.us also has a search function that allows you to explore what others are book marking, and find other websites that are related to your interests.
Del.icio.us can be a great tool for mom bloggers because when you bookmark your blog publically it then becomes more visible for people to find on the web. You can also explore other blogs that may spark an idea for a topic on your blog.
The del.icio.us toolbar is compatible with Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer and other popular internet browsers. However I have found it not to be compatible using Google Chrome, yet.
My guest this week is Trisha Haas of MomDot.com. Trisha is a busy mom with a lot of creativity and she’s here to tell us about a new project called Bloggers Give.
I think it’s pretty cool that she’s come up with a program that lets bloggers and companies support deserving charities with small actions that can add up fast.
As bloggers, we keep a close eye on our RSS subscribership.
It is one of the measures we use to consider how successful we are at engaging our readers. If our readers enjoy our content and have an understanding of how RSS works, they subscribe to our feed in order to not miss future posts.
I love to see growing RSS subscriber numbers and really hate to see the number shrink – and since Feedburner (my RSS tool of choice) numbers are influenced by so many different factors on a daily basis – I have learned not to over react to sudden changes.
Here’s a great post from Feedburner about the ups and downs we see.
Like today – when I look at my RSS subscriber numbers and see about half of the normal amount – I won’t panic. Somewhere some reporting structure is misbehaving and I’m confident that the powers that be are working on it.
If you’d like to learn more about how Feedburner numbers are calculated, this post from their blog is most illuminating.
I received a very compelling email today and I’m going to use it as our next ‘Tip’ gathering opportunity.
Our reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, asks this:
“Kelly, I was listening to this week’s episode of Profitable Mommy Blogging and while I really enjoyed the content, I was actually left feeling sort of down. It’s obvious that the mom you interviewed is a really successful mom blogger. I see mom bloggers like her who reach thousands of readers every day and I get more than a little jealous. I know that’s dumb but I can’t help it. I feel like I work so hard and see little results. How do I get past the jealousy? It almost makes me want to quit.”
She’s referring to my interview with Jennifer James of Mom Bloggers Club. Jennifer is a successful mom blogger and I think a lot of other mom bloggers are looking up to her so I totally understand.
Admiring someone and aspiring to their level of success is great. I think it’s easy to slip past that into a touch of jealousy – but it sounds like this reader realizes that she’s got a serious bite from the green eyed monster.
If you have experienced blogger jealousy, how did you deal with it?
We’ll keep the post open for tips and advice until Monday at midnight.
As always, we’ll choose one tipster at random for a $25.00 PayPal thank you
Edited to add: Congratulations Erin, winner of our $25 tip!
What??? Is this some kind of joke??? No, but it is a play on words if you will. B.A.D. stands for Business Advice Day. Pretty cool, huh?! I love a good acronym!
Totally her is hosting B.A.D., a day where you can pick the brain of leading women in business. How awesome is that?! But wait, there’s more! It’s FREE! You read right, it’s free!
This awesome day is Tuesday, January 20th. Are you thinking something else is going on that day? Well you’re thinking right! It’s inauguration day! B.A.D. will run from 10:00AM to 5:30PM Eastern time with a break at Noon Eastern time for the inauguration! So, you will get inspired, more knowledgable and a new president all in the same day!
Here is are the awesome women leaders in business you will get to chat with: Liz Strauss, Anita Campbell, Kelly Phillips Erb, Jessica Smith, Kelby Carr, Susan Payton, Miranda Marquit,Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, Kelly McCausey, Lucretia Pruitt, Char Polanosky, Barbara Jones & Wendy Piersall.
Go to Totally Her for all of the amazing details and examples of questions you might want to ask! Oh and don’t forget to mark your calendar and set a reminder so you don’t miss any of the invaluable information that is going to be exchanged!!!
