Sharing Some Saturday Link Love
After being slammed with heavy rain and storms for the past three days, me and the family are rushing around trying to finish our weekend cleaning routine so that we can get out and enjoy some much needed fun and sunshine.
As usual, there were lots of great articles posting around the blogosphere this week. I’m sharing a few of my favorites I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did. Happy Saturday!:~)
- Grace…Heap it on Yourself
- Affiliates Beware: Will Your State Kill Your Business with the Amazon Tax
- Easy Guide to Stretch Content
- Are Blogging Jobs Over?
Who’s Reading Your Blog?
According to Jakob Nielsen, author of Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed, people who surf the web don’t read. They scan information instead.
Writing for the web is much different from writing print articles and newsletters. The speed of the Internet coupled with pages and pages of information at your fingertips means readers want instant gratification so they spend more time scanning content online than they do reading it word for word.
Writing scannable blog posts is much easier on the eyes and allows your readers to quickly digest the information you provide. Here are a few tips for writing scannable blog posts:
Use a Friendly, Conversational Tone
Pretend you’re writing to a good friend so that the tone of your posts is easy and conversational. Write the way you naturally speak. For instance use contractions (e.g. isn’t instead of is not) and common colloquialisms instead of writing in a formal tone.
Remember the Inverted Pyramid Writing Style
The inverted pyramid style of writing simply means that you start your post presenting your key points and conclusion first; and then you provide background information and other details.
The first line or two of your blog post could determine whether or not a reader decides to stick around for more so grab their attention right away.
Keep paragraphs short
Forget what your high school grammar teacher taught you about paragraphs consisting of four or more sentences. Keeping paragraphs shorter with white space between to break up the copy is much easier to scan. One tip that might help is putting only one idea at a time in a paragraph.
Use Bullets
Bullet lists are a great way to summarize important points. They really stand out.
Use interesting headlines
Headlines are important because they serve two purposes: They entice your reader to keep reading and they let the reader know what the next paragraph is about.
Your reader can scan your post and get the gist of what you’re saying by scanning the headlines. Many times they’ll go back to read more in depth the get to the meat and potatoes of your topic.
Your content is what draws readers to your blog so it’s important to make sure it’s easy to “read.”
Brainstorming Ideas for Your Blog
Even if you’re blogging everyday about a topic that’s near and dear to your heart, chances are eventually you’ll run into trouble coming up with new ideas. It’s not unusual to hit a brick wall. It’s one reason so many bloggers wind up abandoning perfectly good blogs – they think they’ve run out of things to say.
If you’re delivering good content to your readers and building a community of loyal followers, you don’t want to all of a sudden stop supplying them with good information. Fortunately, this is an easy problem to solve. There are ways to get unstuck and get those great ideas flowing freely again.
Plan Ahead
Create your own editorial calendar by making a list of topics in advance. You can plan a week, month or even a year in advance if you’re feeling ambitious. This will ensure that you’re never left with nothing to say.
Revisit Older Posts
If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve probably noticed that some posts draw more discussion than others. When you feel blocked, read over your more popular posts again – and don’t forget to read the comments too. Sometimes reader comments will spark a completely new idea you may have never thought to blog about.
Tackle a Topic from a New Angle
You can revisit an older topic and explore it from another angle. For example, let’s say you have an attachment parenting blog and six months ago you wrote a post listing the benefits of breastfeeding. You could revisit the topic and writing about overcoming breastfeeding challenges, breastfeeding multiples, how to treat and cure thrush while breastfeeding, etc.
Look Out for Ideas While Networking
Forums and social media sites like Twitter can be great places to find new ideas for your blog. Pay attention to what others are saying – especially if you notice topics discussed in your niche. It can lead to lots of topic ideas.
Just Ask Your Readers
Your readers can be your greatest source of inspiration. Invite them to send in ideas for future posts. If a reader contacts you privately with a question you feel might benefit others, create a post based on the question (taking care to protect your reader’s anonymity, of course!). Make sure that your contact information is easy to access.
photo credit: opensourceway
I Drove Through The Mountains To Learn This…
Hey everyone! I’m writing this from the NAMS 3 workshop in Atlanta, Georgia right now. Let me just say that NAMS has far exceeded my expectations! I’m blown away by the speakers, the information and just all the networking going on here! It’s AMAZING. Seriously you need to consider attending the next workshop in August this summer! I WILL be coming back that’s for sure…but probably will fly and NOT drive through the mountains again (let’s just say I had a major meltdown because I was so scared while we were going through the mountains!). Read more
Do You Offer Ad Space?
Blog Advertising is great for brands and the large ad networks know this very well – yet so many of them refuse to consider blogs with small readerships. This is tough on new bloggers. They’re working hard to grow an audience, writing their hearts out, promoting their blog as much as possible – but until they hit a certain level of readership, they can’t plug into a good ad network.
What many bloggers then do is offer ad space of their own – with mixed results. From what we’ve seen, most aren’t providing enough information about their readership. In fact, I went looking for a few good blogs to buy some affordable ad space on and had a really hard time of it!
Should we create a new directory that lists mom blogs that offer ad space? What do you think?
By the way, Advertising Moms has a great article on blog advertising. If you’re trying to sell ad space, you may want to link to this great information.
Stepping Away From the Fear of Sales
Bloggers are often people with passion and for sharing information, tips and more. Some of those writers already have a knack for sales. But there are many who still haven’t quite gotten the hang of it, even though they hoped to make their blog a profit center for themselves.
With a few pointers, it’s easy to become one amongst the ranks of those who successfully make a living from their writing. It comes down to reminding yourself of a few key aspects, as well as being prepared for the task at hand.
You started this journey to make money, and it’s time to get that working for you. It’s important to remember how each reader is also a potential customer. It’s up to you to guide them to the products they require. If you do this part well, your readers may come to rely on you and your opinion as their source for advice and information.
You may come across people who become annoyed at your suggestions to purchase a certain product. This simply means these people aren’t part of your target market – you want to sell stuff, so you target market is buyers and people who are receptive to product suggestions.
Some of the ways you can prepare yourself for success are easily established. You can learn copywriting. While it doesn’t always mean a hard sell, any copywriting skills you acquire gives you the opportunity to incorporated copy elements naturally into your content.
Look for experienced writers or bloggers who tend to “pull you in” with their content, making you want to act on their calls to action. Watch what they do, and try to achieve the same thing while keeping your own writing style.
Inform and sell at the same time. Whether it be a detailed review or an explanation of how exactly a product works, sales and information together in the same copy can be helpful for your readers.
As a blogger, you don’t need a big sales pitch, but you’ve got to persuasive and sure in your recommendations. Studying copywriting, the writing of others and applying it to your own writing will go along way. Find your own balance between information and promotion – it’ll get easier than you think.
Need more help?
For more tips for using the power of words for your marketing, visit Contentrix…your source for straightforward content marketing advice. Whether you’re looking for more traffic, sales or both, Go to ContentrixContentrix has it covered.
Blogging to the Frugal… If You Gotta Do It, To It Right
When it comes to great bloggers, they’re passionate about their topics. They can even use blogging as their income venue. But the problem is, many bloggers allow their passion to take the upper hand over any profit plan they may have.
And there’s nothing really wrong with that. What better job is there than something you love? If you decide you want to blog to a more frugal audience, it’s your choice. But if you want to make some money doing it, here are some tips – just remember you probably aren’t going to be making millions anytime soon.
While the Internet Marketing gurus may not agree with this, try creating smaller sized informative products you can sell to the more frugal-minded crowd. It’s easy to break down documents or series, creating smaller morsels of information on a regular, scheduled basis. You could create a membership site where a customer pays monthly for this content, yet has the ability to cancel at any time. Read more
It’s Time for Profit with Mommy Blogging
This is a guest blog post from Alice Seba of Contentrix.
What’s all this talk about Mommy Bloggers these days? From Motrin Moms to a Marriott boycott (due to tactless comments by company regarding a sexual assault on a mom), moms are making their voices heard on the internet and felt in the physical world. But, then again it‘s not surprising. Moms have influenced buying in the marketplace for a long time.
Moms these days are high-tech – they‘re connected to the Internet wherever they go. This gives them even more power and far-reaching influence.
And with all this exposure for mom blog, others moms are joining in…hoping to exert influence and earn an income from their blog (if that‘s you, keep reading). The problem is, there are so many different mommy bloggers out there, all with different goals, so it can be tough to figure out how to start profiting from your blog.
But, before we go any further, there is an IMPORTANT point to be aware of. As long as you remember it you can keep working toward your income goals. Here it is: Read more
You’re Not a Sellout Cuz You Didn’t Get Paid
Some mom bloggers are struggling with a fear that they’ve sold out.
They started their blogs to share their lives and encourage other moms. They didn’t really have any long range plans, they were just having a good time – making friends and oftentimes making a difference.
Over the last year or two we’ve seen a major invasion on the mom blogosphere. Companies large and small realized that mom bloggers have influence and they wanted to tap into it.
That should have been good news for mom bloggers. If a company wants to reach your readership, that should translate into some great advertising deals, right?
Rarely.
Instead of identifying key blogs and actually offering the mom blogger a paycheck to share the brand with their readers, we’ve seen something else entirely.
Instead of paying a mom blogger to share their readership – these companies offer them products to try and giveaway. That doesn’t sound to bad, but after awhile – mom bloggers are realizing that it takes TIME to review these products, write up their review and put together the giveaways.
For some mom bloggers, the whole ‘product review’ thing has been filling their schedule for months now – taking them away from their kids and eventually stripping all the fun out of their blogging. They’re getting burned out.
When I ask some of these mom bloggers why they keep doing it they all say the same thing – ‘I’m hoping it will lead to something bigger eventually.”
Bigger? I know what that means. If they show that they can promote small stuff, maybe they’ll get to promote big stuff. Maybe instead of getting free laundry soap – they’ll get a free washing machine!
Um… yeah. Like that happens very often.
Maybe they’ll hit the big time and get sent on a trip to a theme part – without their kids.
Yep, that HAS happened.
These PR companies have done a number on our community, haven’t they?
They’ve got HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of moms pimping their products for free. Everywhere you look there’s another mom blog running a contest to give something else away. In most cases, the mom blogger hasn’t even been given the product herself.
It’s getting to the point where you don’t even CARE about the word giveaway. They’re as common as dust.
No, mom – you’re not a sell out – but I’m sorry to say that you’ve definitely been sold out.
I have a challenge for you.
The next time a PR peep contacts you about running a giveaway – quote them a price for your time.
Seriously! Figure out what you want for the hours you spend working on the project (the time away from your kids is valuable!) – not to mention for sharing your blog audience and Twitter followship. Write it up and send it as a reply to their pitch.
If all mom bloggers started doing that – maybe they’d get some respect for our community.
I’ve been doing this – and the response is humorous.
- “Oh, we don’t pay bloggers for reviews – that would send the wrong message.”
- “We don’t have a budget for that.”
- “We can’t offer you payment, isn’t having something to give your readers value enough?”
Please. I’m tired of their excuses. These companies spend a small fortune advertising in newspapers and on television. They can afford to pay me for my time and if they choose not to – they don’t get time on my blogs.
And The New Intern Is: Amber Passey
September 15, 2009 by Amber Passey · Comments
Hello, Profitable Mommy Blogging readers.
My name is Amber Passey and I am Kelly’s newest intern for this blog.
I have spent the last year learning the ins and outs of using social media to promote my blog and look forward to sharing exciting and effective tips with you over the next ten weeks.
A Little About My Life:
My family recently moved from Utah to Tennessee so my husband could attend medical school at Lincoln Memorial University-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is in his first year and has survived two rounds of tests. I stay home full-time with our two girls, Sammi age 3 and Elli age 1. Sammi just started preschool and is loving it. Elli started walking this past weekend and is ecstatic about her new freedom.
A Little About My Background:
I have studied human development and applied linguistics. I love teaching and have taught at a few universities. I am incredibly social. My mom always received notes from my teachers explaining that I talked too much during lessons. In post-school life this tendency has served me well! I got into blogging professionally last year and have enjoyed the journey.
A Little About My Blogging Life:
Through a completely different ambition, I found my way into the blogging world and landed among a wonderful community of bloggers in Utah. I have learned about various uses of social media from some of the top names and organizations in the industry. I have been invited to red carpet blogger events and other opportunities to promote local businesses.
What I Hope To Share.
I’m excited to share the lessons I’ve learned and the people and organizations who have taught them to me. I’ll be highlighting terrific resources and opportunities to improve the visibility of your blog. I’m excited to help you feel comfortable using social media to develop and promote your brand and your blog.
Did I miss anything? What questions would you like me to address? You can ask me anything about my own life and experiences or anything about blogging and I’ll do my best to get you the best answers possible. I’m looking forward to the next ten weeks. I hope you are, too.
Getting Caught Up In The Hype
July 26, 2009 by Alaina Frederick · Comments
The past few weeks I’ve been getting repeated kicks in the rear reminding me “Where is your focus?“. I’ve lost it. Yes, I got caught up and totally 100% lost my focus and now I’ve got to get it back. So what did I get caught up in? Mommy Blogging Reviews.
I originally started my focus out to talk about healthy living, parenting, and turning our home into a green place to live on Dinker & Giggles. I then wanted to talk about my life and journey as a mom and business owner on my personal blog. I started out strong and focused with goals in mind. I was using tools from the affiliate programs I belonged to. I spoke about products and services that were dear to my heart and that I used and loved because I choose to on my own free will.
Then I started seeing all the wonderful places to join and network and even try free products in exchange for my words of recommendation. I’m not going to lie – it’s fun! It’s great receiving mail that isn’t a bill. However, when you get so caught up and start accepting things that have nothing to do with your focus then you have to realize you’ve gotten caught up! The first time I really was awoken to how caught up I had gotten was when I received a pacifier in the mail with a note thanking me for reviewing this.
Wait a minute! I’m very anti-pacifier – how did I get so caught up that I accepted a review for a pacifier?
I’m not saying that doing product reviews and being a mommy blogger is bad in no means. What I personally am trying to recognize is my original goals and how they need to grow with the new information I am learning. I want to be a profitable mommy blogger. I want to have content that is respected and not read just because there is a giveaway attached to it.
I don’t want to be caught up in the hype! If I’m reviewing a product it should be because I love it (and it meets the requirements of my focus and goals). I also need to accept that I’m worth more than a free product. My time and creative juices go into that review and I should get paid for it too.
So today’s Better Blog journey is all about stepping back and really looking at yourself, your blog, and your focus.
- Are you happy where you are going?
- Are you ready to say No?
- Are you ready to get your focus on and step out of the hype?
Let’s get back to basics and get focused together!
Marketing Links
Top 12 Marketing Blogs For Women, By Women from Womanwise Marketing will fill up your feed reader fast!
Here’s s short post titled It’s Not All About Sales and Marketing by Traci Feit Love. Really!? After reading I totally agree.
Yes, Twitter is a marketing tool. Use Twellow to Maximize Your Twitter Usage on Top Business Reviews.
This one’s for affiliate marketers – 5 Tips for Successful Pre-selling by Lynn Terry.
Your blog tagline is a part of marketing your blog. BlogCoach has some great tips in the article Give Your Readers a Clue With a Great Tagline.
36 People Moms Should Keep An Eye On
Some Mommy bloggers main purpose in blogging is to kiss up to the A list bloggers. Don’t be one of those types. The A list bloggers aren’t necessarily the powerful bloggers.
Check out these people that have great online presence. Follow them on Twitter. Learn from them. They are ready, willing, and able to teach and help you.
From the blogging/marketing angle:
- Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
- Problogger
- Jessica Knows
- copyblogger
- Daily Blog Tips
- Sparkplugging
- KellyMcCausey
- Maria Bailey
- Barbara Jones of One2One Network
- Nicole Dean
If you like Frugal Blogging here are some of the top movers and shakers:
If you’re into houses and decorating there’s nobody better to watch than these:
- The Nester
- Blue Castle
- Melissa at The Inspired Room
- Hooked on Houses
Christian Bloggers
Food/Entertaining Bloggers – I know there’s lots more of these that I don’t know about. Leave your favorite in the comments!
Review/Giveaway Bloggers
Book Bloggers
Vloggers! My fave. Instead of listing them all I’m just sending you to MomTV where all the coolest hang out. 
Bloggers that love writing
I want to mention Janice & Susan from 5 Minutes for Mom. I have no idea what category to put them in because whatever topic it is they probably have a sister site all about it!
Here are two that every blogger should watch carefully. These are probably the most important of this whole list.
- The people who follow you
- Your niche market
Did you notice I left out the big “important” ones? Yea. That was on purpose.
I only wish I had time to read all of these! So, who did I miss? Want to add your blog in the comments?
Do You Want To Learn What I Learned?
To take part in Kelly’s internship I had to apply, be accepted, and commit to 10 weeks of writing for her network. It’s been great and I’m still learning a lot. You can have the benefit of the internship without applying because Kelly has launched an on demand blog internship.
There are 3 levels of membership to choose from. You can try one for a month and if you need more you can go to the next level or, if you don’t like it [which I highly doubt] you can cancel at any time. I highly recommend that you get some feed back.
For me personally, I needed the commitment. As a busy mother/wife it’s easy to just push things aside because of the demands of daily life. I needed to know that I had a deadline and someone watching over my virtual shoulder. If you are that type you might want to consider the one time payment. If your money is invested in the internship I think you will be more conscious of the time you put into it. If you use the internship to develop good blogging habits it will be totally worth the price!
You’ll learn about Wordpress, affiliate marketing, networking, better writing, linking, memes, and so much more. You can wait till fall when Kelly will be taking six more interns for free. Take a chance by following Kelly on Twitter and write for her blogs OR have a sure thing by signing up for the blog internship for your blog now.
Links To Improve Your Blog and Business
Gathered from sites around the web… It’s link love day!
Is Tagging Still Important? by Jonathan Bailey on Blogging Tips
Is Your Promise Irresistible to Your Customers? another great piece by Liz Strauss on valuing and learning about your customers.
Two Video Clips full of business tips on Martha Stewart Show from women/moms Business Tips, 1 and Business Tips, 2 [I like Martha Stewart - so sue me!]
As an intern trying to figure out what I should do there has been a lot of info flooding my brain. The article The ONE Thing You Focus on Right Now by Lynn Terry is right on for me at this time.
This post titled Back to Basics: 4 Forehead Slapping Blog Promotion Methods by Easton Ellsworth on the Blog Herald made me chuckle and say ouch at the same time.
