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.

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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?

I was actually really into scrapbooking and owned ScrapLove. A lot of the girls on that site just kind of all decided at the same time to start blogs, so I did too.  I signed into blogger–and started typing away! (I have since moved to wordpress on a self hosted site, but I don’t think it even existed, or was at least VERY new when I first started blogging.) Well, when my daughter was very young, I didn’t have time to run an online business, so I sold that website… but kept my blogging one. It’s kind of been an off and on thing for me. Sometimes I get really into blogging, and others I completely forget it even exists.

The reason I decided to tackle the internship even though I already had a blog was that my blog wasn’t accomplishing anything. Basically, the only reader was my dad, and I never really tried to do anything with it, ever. Now that I am working with Kelly, I have put a couple of different ad campaigns, etc. on there, and I have started blogging more regularly. I have also learned to be more honest and forthcoming in my blog. I’ve always been scared to sort of lay it all out there on the internet for so long, because I was worried what people might think, but after seeing some of the things the other girls in my intern group write about–I decided to just go for it. And… you know what?

They were right. When you’re blogging–the more you put it all out there, the more people want to read your stuff.

Now, my question for you Ms. Edie:

I noticed your site has a free ebook. How important is it to a site like yours to offer a free giveaway like that? Is that something moms should do with their blog in order to build a following or get a good email list for newsletters and such?

And, since it’s about social networking… what’s your FAVORITE way to social network?

Over to you Edie!

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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!)

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Your blog is adorable! How important do you think the site layout is to a great blog?

• My background is in web design so site layout is extremely important to me. I often don’t read blogs that are too busy. I think it’s important to be able to see the main content of the blog when the page loads, often times the headers are so large you have to scroll down to read the great articles.

So many blogs do reviews and giveaways. Do you do them, and if so–how do you decide who to give products to for those?

• Originally I signed up for every review network and would giveaway anything that a representative would offer. I have now limited my reviews and giveaways to items I think are helpful for my demographic – busy working moms and mom entrepreneurs.

I, too, am obsessed with green tea, and my pink laptop! We’re twins! So, tell me more about your green tea habit. Do you drink it for health benefits or just because it’s wonderful?

• I love drinking green tea in the mornings or when I’m working late at night. It has a calming affect. I love the taste of it the health benefits is just a bonus.

So, you’re working your way to financial freedom? How long do you think that will take? Is that something all moms should strive for?

• My goal is to be financially free, how long that will take, I don’t have a clue. My immediate goal is to be out of the “workforce” by the end of the year so I can concentrate on all of my entrepreneurial ventures. I think it’s very important for woman to find ways to be financial free or at least have the ability to take care of themselves when it becomes necessary. A really enlightening book that changed my perspective on life is Rich Women by Kim Kiyosaki.

Wow, I learned so much! Thanks to Stephanie for letting me Buzz her this week!

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Of Course!

Who better to advertise on my blog than the people who read it daily and really respect the things I have to say?

Don’t be scared to put yourself out there and tell your readers you are accepting advertising!

But, remember some things–make sure they understand that you are only accepting quality advertising, and that they are going to want to see your traffic, so you need to be willing to show that off, and to say no to advertising you aren’t interested in.

Also, don’t announce to the world how much you charge for advertising on your blog, you never know when you might want to change that magic number!

photo credit: stofiska

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Well, if I am–then I need to quit trying to fool them, right?

And, you should do the same.

Guess what–It’s a CHALLENGE!

I challenge you to post something off the wall and insane that you’re scared to post in your personal blog this week, and then come back here and link it.

Let us know if you see an increase in traffic on that particular post! People LOVE deep dark secrets!

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Let me just say that the Secret is in the Sauce, baby. I’ve met more cool bloggers through this website than you could ever imagine!

Problogger, oh problogger, how I love thee. This blog deserves three gold stars and a swoosh, because it’s just that great.

Parent Dish really hit home with this post and kind of showed me some cool things to do with the craziness that is working for home.

I love all the cool giveaways the Resourceful Mommy does, and I always meet really cool new people during her sitewarming parties.

I’ve been reading this site like it’s my new mommy blogging manual and I especially like the part where she tells me exactly how to monetize my blog.

I think it’s important to make your blog look good, and I LOVE to make my own blog pictures, so I am always on the lookout for good photoshop tutorials, and I have big ray of light plans soon.

This is a great post about blog reviews and how they sometimes aren’t worth it.

There you have it! I Link Love you Guys!

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Okay, after a couple of weeks of really ramping up my blog–it’s actually working. I am seeing more users, more comments and more followers.

So yaay!

I check my stats pretty frequently, so I thought you would benefit from my little routine.

I start with feedburner:

Happy Dance people!  I have five subscribers, and when I started I didn’t have any! So that’s huge!

Now, move on to check out the ‘ol Google Analytics:

WOW! I actually got to 60 visits in one day! Yaay! Go me! But, I learned something… I don’t get visits on days I don’t post. I guess that means I need to start posting, huh?

So, I would say that so far getting everything in place and just having a better understanding of my blog traffic has been a very good thing. I’m really excited about the positive direction everything is going in for the blog.

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I haven’t got it quite worked out yet, but I think I am making it happen. And here’s something I learned.

People LOVE having guest posters!

I was way surprised by that. I thought people would look at like I was trying to invade on their personal space… guess what–they so don’t! Who knew?

So I say get out there and make it happen. Just email your favorite blog and I bet they will let you post.

They’ll appreciate the break.

Maybe I should get people to guest post on my blog! I hadn’t even thought of that!

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The winner is Jendi!

Congrats girl! Just email jamie (at) totally the bomb (dot) com and I will get you set up with your super swanky new linktrack account!

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Affiliate Marketing scares the bejeebus out of me!

I don’t get it. Seriously, I think it’s weird, people click through my website and sign up for stuff and I make cash? Is that it?

Well, I read this blog post over on the spark blog, and I’ve decided I think I can manage one. But, not because it’s just something random I’m sticking on the side of my blog. It’s because I talk a lot about gaming. I play games, my friends make games, I like video games a lot, and the little game fly affiliate on the side of my blog kind of makes me feel like I know what I’m talking about!

So, I accomplished something today.

I joined an affiliate program without selling out.

That makes me happy.

Have you thought of joining an affiliate program? Have you tried to find one that really fits your niche? I would love to hear more about some of the different programs you guys have found!

Now, I just need to find an impression based advertising company that I like…

photo credit: jasonr611

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I asked on twitter a little earlier this week how to get to post on a big blog, and I was blown away with the answer. Everyone told me that all I have to do is ask. Guest posting gives the blog owners a break and makes their lives easier. Plus it brings different kinds of traffic to their website and a fresh perspective!

So, I think I can do this. I’m a fairly proficient writer, and I can be witty at times. Who wouldn’t want me as a guest poster, right?

I need to do a few things to accomplish this goal:

1. Decide on a Blog
2. Come up with a Relevant Post for that Blog
3. Email the blog’s owner and ask if they’d be interested in a guest post from me.
4. Celebrate Accomplishing my awesome Goal.

I want you to do the same. Find a mini-goal for your blog, and make it happen this week.

Ready, Set, Go!

photo credit: urban_data

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But I’m stuck! I don’t know where to go from here, I don’t know what my next step would be?

• Should I try to blog every single day?
• Maybe try to find a big blog somewhere that might let me do a guest post?
• Should I just keep learning more about my statistics?
• Could I find some sort of affiliate program or ad program that might work for me?
• Should I do a complete site redesign?

I’m asking you the readers to help me in the next step. What would you do if you were sitting on my blog?

photo credit: samantha celera

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Let me start by saying that I love each and every comment you guys give me on my blog, and it makes me so happy that you guys are reading my posts!

I asked you guys to define your blog in a sentence, and I got some really great answers. The crazy part is that I found a couple of people I have a lot in common with. This totally made my day.

I love Felicia’s sentence! Work it Lady!

I am actually MEGA intrigued with Erin’s new blog. I am so scared of being totally honest on the internet, and I think this hurts me sometimes, so it impresses me to think that Erin is just going

And, finally I had a bunch of you mention that you didn’t know you could find different RSS buttons for your site! So I went ahead and compiled a little list for you of some of my faves:

• Glossy circles in all sorts of different colors.
• That guy is sitting on a park bench… not what I first thought.
• Loving these grungy RSS icons, makes me feel like I’m 15 and jamming out to Pearl Jam.
• Okay, these are just cool.
• Here’s where I got mine.
• I’m a sucker for bottle caps.

Images from Deviant art. Found here and here.

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But the question is, are people clicking those links? Am I just linking out there into nothingness?

I wondered this for a while, and then I started using Linktrack to see if people were actually clicking the links I sent them.

Here’s a little tutorial video of how I use Linktrack in a blog post:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIvaPUJqr34

I don’t just love Linktrack because it’s the best little link tracking website out there, I also love it because it’s my husband’s creation. (So there’s a chance I might be just a little biased.) But, because it’s his website:

He’s agreed to give away a free account to one of you!

If you want to win a free Linktrack account, all you need to do is let us know in the comments below!

If you twitter about our little give away here, then that’s an extra entry!

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“Who’s your target audience?”

Uhhhh…

Well, it seems I’ve discovered my big problem. Turns out, I have no idea who my target audience is. But, that’s because I have an even bigger problem

I have no idea what my blog is about.

I guess I need to figure that out, huh?

I am going to use a technique that writers often use. It’s called coming up with the hook. You know, that thing that makes people say “ohhhh I want to read more”. If you can define what your story is about in a two sentence blurb, then chances are you have a good story.

So, today I am going to try to define my blog in one sentence, and I challenge you to do the same.

Now, because I am insane want to help you with your pitches, I am going to include all my drafts here so you can kind of get a feel for the process.

Try #1:

My blog is a place I share my thoughts, fears, feelings and whatever else I have going on at that time.

Uh, yeah that’s just totally horrible. Could I be any more vague?

Try #2:

Totally the Bomb.com is a personal mommy blog that explores my adventures in parenting as well as my trials and tribulations of becoming a published author.

Did I really just use the phrase trials and tribulations? Seriously… NEXT!

Try #3

My personal blog is just that, a personal blog where I talk about whatever I want to, whenever I want to, and I don’t care who reads it; I’m just happy I have a blog and I like to post pictures of my feet.

Obviously I have strayed from the topic here. I think I should probably scrap that one.

Try #4

Totally the Bomb.com is a mommy blog with a focus on a mother working to get her first novel published.

Hey, I think I might be on to something here.

That’s exactly what my blog is about, and my sentence is quick and to the point. Well, how do you like that? I have my pitch!

Because I know what my blog is about, my audience is easy. I’m writing to other mothers who are writing books, to the people I want to eventually read my book, and to the moms out there who love to hear the story of a stay at home mom discovering her true potential.

Turns out that was easier than I thought it would be.

Now, I want to hear yours…

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It’s very important to give people easy access to your RSS Feed.

I do so with my super cute little button up in the top right hand corner of my blog. It took me a long time to fnd the perfect RSS icon, and I finally settled on my green one.

If you are having trouble finding the perfect one, just do a google image search for “Cute RSS buttons” and you will get tons. But, I think it’s important to the aesthetics of your website to have one you really like.

So, I have this little RSS button, and I assume people subscribe to my feed, but I am about to let you in on another one of my dirty little secrets…

I have no idea how many subscribers I have.

None, I know how many people do the google friend connect thing, and I know how many people do the facebook connect thing. (I promise to talk about these later.)

So, I did some asked my husband the web development professional did some research, and decided the best way to go here is Feed Burner.

I logged right in with my trusty google account, and stuck my feed into the URL box and burned away! Now my feed is ready to be tracked! Remember how we were talking about clickthroughs, and how important they were? Well, guess what they have a statistics page designed to track just that! Look at all the great stats they track:

Now, since I’m a self hosted wordpress girl, I just downloaded the plugin in order to get everything up and going. (If you’re not a self hosted wordpress gal… I suggest you fix that. It’s just too easy these days, and the only way to ensure the contents of your blog TRULY belong to you.) All the isntructions are on the feed burner page, but as always if you need some help please let me know.

There’s so much stuff to play with in feed burner. For now, we just want to make sure all the feeds on our website are using our feedburner address and add a ‘subscribe in email’ feature. Then, we will give it a few days and analyze our statistics.

Now that we have a good handle on our readers and statistics, I think we are ready to take our blogs and start making money with them. Next week we will work on this. (I’ll give you a hint: content is king.)

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I’ve decided to dedicate Fridays to you guys by flipping this blog around!

I will scour the week’s comments to see who’s been working hard on the challenge, asking really great questions, or just said something that made me think. Then, I will share that fun stuff with everyone on Fridays and see if I can’t attempt to help the readers. If I can’t help the readers, well then I will of course turn it over to you so that we can get them the answers they’re searching for.

This should be a fun little experiment, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Let’s start with the stats from yesterday.

I asked you to tell me about your blog traffic, and a few of you did:

And guess what I learned from this. We’re all pretty much in the same boat! How cool is that?  I think it’s interesting that we have discovered giveaways, how to’s and fun, honest posts are where it’s at with the mommy blogging. For me, I am already thinking about how to find a real focus for my blog. (And you should be too… because we are going to talk quite a bit about that next week.)

And here’s a comment from this week that made me smile:

It’s from Heather over at Girly Blog Designz (and check our her portfolio, I am so in love! Maybe I can turn enough of a profit on my blog to use her!):

Thanks Heather! You know, I really think I am serious about this. I am kind of scared, and honestly I am scared too. But, I hope that by having all the facts I’ll be able to do this the right way. I don’t really believe in flying blind very often, and my hope is that in the end all these stats will have completely changed!

And, of course… I am so happy that so many of you agreed to do the challenge with me! It totally made my whole week.

Many of you that have commented on my blog posts so far have received an email from me and a few have even started up a conversation, Thank you for that! I am really excited that we are doing this whole thing together, and as always if you have any questions you want answered about your blogs, then don’t hesitate to comment below.

Oh, and yeah… that’s totally my foot

Edited to Add: And YES! You can totally use the graphic and have your own flip-flop Friday!

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So, let’s start with the facts.

I have been using google analytics on my website for a couple of months now, and I think they give fairly accurate numbers. The only thing you have to remember is that they are java based, so anyone browsing the internet that has java turned off won’t be counted towards your count. But, most people have it on, so they’ll give us numbers I’m comfortable working with.

If you don’t know how to install google analytics on your website– read this informative blog post. They give step by step instructions. If you need further help, I can always do a blog post about it later, so just leave me a little note in the comments and I will see what I can do.

Let’s take a look at my stats.

I am getting anywhere from 20 to 55 or so unique visitors a day. That isn’t great. So, now we know what my biggest problem is.

Traffic.

I need to get more people coming to my blog. Now, remember this doesn’t include the people who read my blog in a RSS reader. But, that traffic isn’t giving me ad revenue or page impressions, so it isn’t as important as the actual click through traffic.

So, let’s take a look see at a few of the top entry pages to my blog, so I can get an idea of  how people are coming to look at my site.

Now, what did we learn with this little bit of information? People like lists, they like giveaways, and they like the posts where I tell interesting and honest stories about myself and my family.

That is gold.

I now know exactly how to focus my blog in order to appease the people who have clicked through to read my posts.

Having a general focus to your blog, and knowing what your readers want is key. Now that we know this, we are ready to rock.

Stay tuned tomorrow, we are going to keep working with our traffic and see if we can’t unlock the great mysteries of the RSS Reader.

Remember, this project is about you too! If you have any ideas on how we can get our blogs to turn a profit–I am all ears!

I want to hear your numbers too!  Let’s contrast and compare? What do your analytics look like?

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My blog has never made a single penny.

That’s three years of me putting myself out there on the internet, writing all my personal stories and thoughts down, reformatting my blog for it to be super cute and up to date– all for no money.

This was okay with me for a while. In fact, I actually debunked the idea that my little personal blog needed to make money. I mean–it’s just me talking about the random stuff that happens in my every day life. Why would anyone want to read that?

Then I discovered something. There’s an entire network of mommy bloggers out there making money on their random mom stories every day!

Well, let’s just say that was my Oh Snap! moment.

For the next few weeks, I am going to attempt to take my tiny mommy blog and turn it into an actual profitable blog.

I challenge you to join me!

If you have a blog that you’ve been writing in for a while, but it’s just sitting there making no cash, then take this opportunity to learn with me and see if we can’t make these blogs turn a profit!

Who’s with me?

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