Profitable Mommy Blogging

Social Media Tips for Bloggers

Kimberly — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:31:08 +0000

I was lurking around on one of my favorite forums a couple of days ago and noticed someone posted a social media question: “What’s the real purpose of sites like Twitter and Facebook? Can joining these sites really help my business?”

Here are the facts: social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay. But that’s a good thing. Really. Here’s why:

More Networking Opportunities

For me this is the best part. You get to connect with people in and out of your niche. You can learn a lot from more experienced Internet professionals, and you get to pass along helpful information to those just starting out.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook provide an incredible opportunity to build relationships with more people which can translate into more traffic to your blog, increased sales and other interesting opportunities.

Build Brand Recognition

Social media can literally connect you with thousands of people. But that’s only the beginning. Once you get access to all of these people, you have to do something. This is where personal branding comes in.

If you already have a blog that produces high-quality content that others care about, you’re off o a good start. Social media can further reinforce the brand identity you’re building. Use the same avatar photo on social media sites as your blog so that people instantly recognize you. Make sure all of your social media site links point back to your blog.

Get Access to Community News

Networking on social media sites can be a great way of staying on top of community news. You get the heads-up about up coming seminars, conventions, announcements and special rates on info products and much more.

Get Valuable Feedback

If you have a question and need help, social media sites can be a gold mine. Maybe you need help with a topic you’re thinking of writing for your blog, need subjects for a special report you’re developing, or just need help finding resources or info online. This is the place.

Promote Your Posts

Naturally, being able to expose thousands of readers to your blog posts is a plus, but be careful. That’s not all you should be doing on these sites. Always make the social aspect of social networking more important than self promotion.

Take time to respond to comments and answer questions. Help others promote information by sharing on Facebook and retweeting on Twitter. You’ll find that others will be much more receptive to what you have to say and the information you share if you don’t make all of your networking activity about you.

Creating a Work at Home Schedule

Kimberly — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:21:44 +0000

Building a profitable blog takes time. Developing the content, keyword research, monetization, searching for to right images, promoting and branding on social bookmarking and media sites, building relationships with other bloggers all take time. If you have another job, home school or work while raising kid it just makes things more interesting.A work schedule can help you stay productive and meet your short-term and long-term goals. Your schedule doesn’t have to be a corporate-style nine to five. Remember, the beauty of working from home is that your work day can be as flexible as you need it to be.

When I first started working from home, I was home schooling my five year old and my twins were toddlers. Childcare was not an option. I had to figure out how to put time into my business without neglecting the children.

The schedule that worked for me was getting up around 5:00 am each morning (even though I’m not a morning person) to work for a few hours before the kids woke up wanting breakfast. I spent the rest of the day educating, playing and caring for the kids. I might slip in a blog post during lunch or while everyone watched a video. I’d spend time on Twitter via my cell while the kids played outside. Once the kids were in bed, I’d work for a couple of more hours in the evening.

There are a few things to consider when planning your work schedule.

Establish Daily Rituals

Knowing that there are set things you do each day to prepare for work can help establish your working schedule. For instance, maybe you work out early in the morning, shower and enjoy a steaming cup of coffee while reading your email before getting started each day.

Use Your Calendar

Whether you use your calendar on Outlook, Google or jot notes down on a big desk calendar, having one to note important det, deadlines and events can make life easier. You can even use it to plan out your blog posts in advance so that you’re never left wondering what to say.

Forget Perfect

Someone I follow on Twitter once said that when you work from home your main priority is getting your work done and taking care of your family, which means balls get dropped all the time. That means sometimes the laundry piles up and the dishes go unwashed.

Expect the Unexpected

Kids get sick. Storms may roll in and knock out your power and Internet service. Still the show must go on. As the mom of a daughter with a chronic illness, I’m no stranger to one day working a normal work day and the next spending the day wrapping up loose ends in the ER. We do what we must to get the job done; but I must say the flexibility of being able to set your own schedule can make things much easier.

Is a Blogging Conference in Your Future?

Kimberly — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:29:49 +0000

As many of you already know, the SXSW blog conference came to a close this past weekend. Twitter was buzzing last week with excited attendee tweets that made me wish I’d made plans to go.

I’ve never attended any of the many blog conventions that take place annually, but I have heard the experience is indescribable and unforgettable. If you blog for a living, you may want to add attending one of these events to your goal list. You’ll be completely in your element.

You know how your spouse’s eyes glaze over whenever you talk about blogging? Well, from my understanding, everyone attending these events is just as gung-ho about blogging as you are; and it’s all anyone wants to talk about. You’re completely in your element! Can you imagine?

These conventions are just like any other industry business convention. They provides bloggers with a rare networking opportunity. Some of the biggest benefits of attending conventions are:

Getting to meet and spend time face-to-face with bloggers you communicate with every day.
Gain invaluable education and information you get attending various classes and sessions.
Access to great exhibits and swag.
A unique off-line networking opportunity.
A chance to connect with and build relationships and partnerships with others in the blogging community.

What’s great is that these conferences can be tax deductable as a business expense as well. Will you be attending any blog conferences this year?

photo credit: ellyjonez

Get Your Own Blog During Blog Week!

Kelly — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:41:37 +0000

Been waiting for just the right time to get set up with your own blog? This is it: Blog Week!

Mom’s Talk Biz and Mom Webs Hosting have teamed up to bring you an incredible bundle offer. It includes:

A domain name of your choice.
Three months of hosting.
Wordpress blog installation.
Theme installation.
Header Graphic Customization.
Promotional Button Graphic.
Wordpress Orientation Training.

If you bought all of this separately you’d spend nearly $150. During blog week you’ll only pay $79

There’s a delicious upgrade deal to!

Add a blog to an existing HTML site.
Leave Blogger for hosted Wordpress at last.
Start a new affiliate site venture.
Create a blog to share your kid’s pictures and projects with friends and family

Go for it!

Revisiting the SEO for Your Blog Series

Kimberly — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:41:08 +0000

I really hope that my four part series, SEO for Your Blog, provided some helpful tips you’ll be able to use in your own SEO campaign for your blog. The great thing about blogs is as long as you keep posting content regularly the search engines will index your post because the search engine spiders are always on the look out for fresh content.

You may remember that in Part 1 I discussed long tail keywords and how choosing phrases that are relevant to your blog’s overall theme can make it easier for online visitors to find you whenever they type a commonly searched for phrase in the search engine.

In Part 2, I talked about whether or not keyword density is important. We know that having targeted, long tail keywords helps visitors locate your blog much easier, but I explained why you want to stay away from Black Hat methods like keyword stuffing.

In Part 3, I spend some time explaining how important its is to search engines that you produce high quality content; and Part 4 covered tips for building natural back links that point the search engines toward your blog.

Despite what some people say, SEO is still as important as ever. It’s a good idea to educate yourself on the changing terms and conditions of the search engines so that you don’t waste your effort on techniques that no longer work.

Know that the effort you put into SEO for your blog can make it easier for customers to find you online for years to come.

photo credit: Anonymous Account

Sharing Some Saturday Link Love

Kimberly — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:14:04 +0000

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!:~)

photo credit: ninchen_

My Twitter #Follow Friday Favs

Kimberly — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:38:52 +0000

Today’s Follow Friday on Twitter and I thought I’d post some of my favorite “Tweeps” (a.k.a. Peeps) in today’s post. For those who may not be familiar with Twitter, Follow Friday is the day to let everyone know which Twitter users you think others should be following for various reasons.

I didn’t really spend as much time on Twitter this week due to a very hectic schedule, but when I did pop in these folks caught my attention:

@debng: I recommend Deb Ng for Follow Friday because she works so hard to provide bloggers and freelance writers with decent paying gigs. She does all of the hard work of searching out these opportunities so that you don’t have to. Her Freelance Writing blog is a portal filled with valuable advice about writing tips, running your blog as a business and more.

@debng often punctuates her daily Freelance Job tweets with hilarious observations and general commentary.

@JHaynesWriter: She blogs about organization, productivity and time management, and if you’ve never followed my own Twitter stream, I often tweet about my never-ending fight against desk clutter. @JHaynesWriter kindly offered some very useful tips to guide me towards becoming more organized. She even invited me to contact her off Twitter if I needed more help developing office systems that will keep me organized. She genuinely likes helping the hopelessly messy.

@ChristinaGayle: I first started following @ChristinaGayle because I did some freelance writing work for her; but I continue to follow her because she’s a great example of a successful WAHM running her own business, she shares valuable information, always speaks her mind and shares my obsession for “LOST.”

@karenswim: I just started following @karenswim yesterday after noticing someone retweeted a very important tweet that she was sending out warning affiliate marketers about certain states attempting to institute an Affiliate Nexus Tax. This tax could potentially shut down online businesses that depend on affiliate sales to operate. This is an important issue that many of us will want to follow closely, and I appreciate her willingness to spread the word and educate everyone.

Who are some of your Follow Friday favs?

SEO Tips for Your Blog, Part 4

Kimberly — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:13:34 +0000

If you’re looking for ways to promote your blog and increase readership, it’s easy and inexpensive to incorporate a few SEO strategies so that more people can find you online. In yesterday’s post I talked about why high quality content is so important in SEO. Today I want to share a few natural link building tips that can expose more readers to your well written content.

Make no mistake; link building remains one of the best ways to increase traffic to your blog.. The search engines take notice when authority sites have links pointing to your blog.

It can take time to build those links naturally, but in the end they can also help get you where you want to be in the search engine results.

Commenting on Blogs

This is one of the easiest ways of creating natural back links. Visit other blogs in your industry and leave meaningful comments contributing to the post. When you sign up to leave a comment, you get to establish a link back to your blog. This makes it easy for others to visit your blog with just one click of the mouse.

Social Media Sites and Forums

Setting up profiles at social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are another easy way to build back links to your blog. When you include your url in your profile, visitors that land on your page can easily access your blog.

Industry and niche forums provide another back linking opportunity. Most forums allow members to include urls in their signature. Make sure the url is hyperlinked if possible. Whenever you engage in forum discussions, members and anyone else who comes across your comments will have access to your blog.

Guest Blog Posting

This is a great way to get some positive exposure for your blog. Start by choosing an authority blog in your industry or niche that you follow and contact the owner about submitting a guest blog post. If the owner agrees to your request, make sure to include a one or two line bio at the end of your post including your own blog’s url. A guest post gives you immediate access to a well-known blogger’s larger audience which could end up sending quite a bit of traffic your way.

Utilize Social Bookmarking Sites

Submitting an article or post to social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon or Digg can expose your blog to thousands of visitors; especially if it makes the first page. Make sure you submit high quality content and ask several of your friends to tag it for you.

photo credit: disoculated

SEO Tips for Your Blog, Part 3

Kimberly — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:40:05 +0000

So far we’ve talked about optimizing your blog posts with long tail keyword phrases in Part 1 of this SEO For Your Blog series, and discussed keyword density in Part 2.

Today we’ll discuss what makes a high quality blog post and why it matters so much in SEO.

Bottom line: the search engines and your readers are looking for unique, highly valuable content.

Period.

The whole reason people go online is in search of information. Those mysterious Google algorithms can distinguish quality content from insufficient quality which in the end can effect your position in the search results.

A blog with helpful, information-rich content naturally attracts readers. I can tell you there’s nothing more frustrating than searching for information, or a solution to a problem, and finding nothing but superficial, incomplete articles. Providing valuable, interesting, engaging content pays off in the long run.

How can you be sure you’re publishing quality content?

Here’s a handy checklist you can use to evaluate your posts before making them public:

Make sure it relates to your business or niche
Keep your topics fresh and unique; don’t be rehash what’s already out there
Make sure it’s useful
Make it personal by including stories about your own or your customer’s experiences

SEO Tips for Your Blog, Part 2

Kimberly — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:42:55 +0000

The SEO rules are always changing. The same techniques that got you on the first page of the Google search results back in 2007 may not yield the same results in 2010. The search engines look at many elements of a blog when indexing your site pages and assigning a position in the search results; but the search engine algorithms pretty much remain a mystery.

Which brings me back to pinning down SEO techniques that work. You know from yesterday’s post that choosing targeted keywords, especially long tail phrases, can optimize your blog for better ranking. The question is does it matter how many time the phrase appears in your content.

Does Keyword density matter?

In SEO the number of times a keyword/keyword phrase appears in content is known as the keyword density. A couple of years ago SEO experts swore packing your content to a certain keyword density would get you noticed online.

There was a lot of awkwardly written, overstuffed keyword articles floating around, but because the algorithms seemed to love content stuffed to a 15 percent keyword density, producing quality content became less important to some bloggers.

Eventually, the algorithms caught on to keyword stuffed content and began penalizing it as keyword spamming. Since Google no longer recognizes content containing an excessive number of repeated keywords, does keyword density even matter anymore?

Those mysterious algorithms

Well, yes and no. Since including targeted keywords in your blog posts can affect your blog’s search engine ranking, you’ll need to include the phrase enough times for the algorithms to recognize the phrase.

Aim for a density of 1 to 3 percent.

That means that a 300 word article at 2 percent density will include a long tail phrase six times. That’s more than enough to appeal to the search engines and deliver quality, natural flowing content your readers will enjoy reading.

Keyword placement can make a difference

Focus less on density and more on where you place your keyword phrases in your posts.

Here is where your keywords should appear for maximum impact:

Title
First sentence
One subheading
Last sentence

You don’t have to follow this guideline to the letter, but including your keyword in the title of your post and sprinkling the phrases throughout will produce results over time. Keep in mind that providing your readers with well-written, useful content is much more important than keyword density.

SEO Tips for Your Blog, Part 1

Kimberly — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:41:05 +0000

If you’re blogging for profit, you’ll want to find ways to increase your online visibility and really stand out. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques can help. There are two types of SEO: pay per click (PPC) and organic search.

This will be the first of four series posts getting to the bottom of how SEO can give your blog a Google search engine boost making it easier for other to find you. I’ll be focusing on organic search methods because these are simple, highly effective techniques you can do on your own.

You won’t see immediate results from organic SEO methods, but once they start working for you the results are long lasting with very little maintenance; best of all these strategies won’t cost you a thing.

photo credit: davidflanders

Who’s Reading Your Blog?

Kimberly — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:49:32 +0000

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.”

photo credit: auntjojo

Brainstorming Ideas for Your Blog

Kimberly — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:01:53 +0000

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

Popping in to Say “Hi”

Kimberly — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Hi, I’m Kimberly and I’m the new intern blogger here at Profitable Mommy Blogging. I’m really excited to be a part of the Moms Talk Network, and look forward to sharing helpful blogging and Internet marketing tips as well as interesting news tidbits that will benefit your business.

A little background about me: I’m married with four children ranging in age from nine to three. I’m a blogger and web entrepreneur working from home and love every crazy minute of it.

It’s so amazing how far the business of blogging has come. You can find blogs covering just about every topic under the sun giving readers vital information and sparking community discussions. As a business model, a blog can do everything from help you connect with and understand your customers and sell products/services to raising awareness about important issues.

If there is a topic you’d like to see covered, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m always keeping an eye out for new ideas.

photo credit: Claudio Matsuoka

The Relevant Conference: For Christian Bloggers

Kelly — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:21:10 +0000

I just learned about this up and coming conference from a fellow blogger. It’s The Relevant Conference.

They have a Mission Statement which includes this:

Relevant is a one-of-a-kind conference that seeks to engage women by teaching blogging techniques and social media skill while also urging and encouraging women to live fully integrated lives with their faith and family.

If you’re a Christian blogger who craves an in person event, this could be a good fit for you. Be prepared to sock some cash away though – as with most events, the conference ticket and hotel will set you back quite a few precious dollars.

If you can’t go but would love to sponsor someone else, check out this blogger’s pitch for sponsorship.

Mom’s Talk Network Blogging Internship Application Open

Kelly — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:41:46 +0000

Session Four of the Mom’s Talk Network Blogging Internship is starting up in March. If you have ten hours a week for ten weeks available to serve as a blog intern you can earn access to an amazing internet marketing education. Check it out here. Sign up for Kelly McCausey's Blog Internship! Related posts:Mom’s Talk Network Blogging Internship [...]

A Fast Growing Group: Plus Size Bloggers

Kelly — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:45:55 +0000

Have you noticed that one of the fastest growing niches in the blogosphere is that of Plus Size Bloggers?

Plus Size Bloggers = People blogging about their efforts to lose weight and get in shape.

There’s a brand new website getting ready to celebrate their launch on Twitter next week that intends to celebrate and reward these bloggers on a regular basis.

If you blog about your weight loss efforts, you can submit your blog – thus volunteering to be tracked on their website. If you are faithful to report your weight loss efforts on a weekly basis all through their quarterly tracking schedule, you are entered to win a Wii Fit Plus and other awesome prizes.

In addition to recognizing the efforts of Plus Size Bloggers, the site also intends to feature and appreciate other blogs that serve their needs.

Visit the site and submit your Plus Size Blog!

Do You Need a Blog Designed?

Kelly — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:18:35 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to work with Lara Valez of Designed by Lara and had a great experience that I want to share with you.

My friend Angel wanted to start a new blog. Usually, I would want to design a blog for a friend – but I knew that she would be interested in a particular style of graphics that I’m not especially gifted for. I immediately thought of Lara and invited Angel to check out her work.

It was a match at first sight and we quickly secured a spot on Lara’s design schedule.

Lara has a very polished and professional approach. There was a detailed questionnaire for Angel to complete and we were able to communicate everything we wanted in the new design.

Right on schedule, Lara created the new blog design and presented it to us for review. We were super impressed and couldn’t wait to put the design on Angel’s blog! (See it at plussizeskills.com!)

If you are in need of a classy new blog design, I heartily recommend Lara.

I Drove Through The Mountains To Learn This…

Tishia — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:48:56 +0000

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!).

(Note: Kelly gave me permission to post here what I have posted on my blog.)

So let me get right to the point! No beating around the bush right?

I’m working towards winning this sales contest that they have going on. We have until 5pm tomorrow, January 31st to see how many sales we can make on a product that 5 top internet marketing gurus sat right in front of me and created!

The product?

Strategies 4 Social Marketing.

Listen in as 5 top gurus – Willie Crawford, Kevin Riley, Maritza Parra, Jeff Herring, and Joey Smith – share their Secret Strategies for Driving Traffic and Dollars through Social Media. With an audience of 180 eager online marketers watching, five of the world’s most successful Internet Marketing masters revealed their secret strategies for leveraging the incredible power of Social Media.

I was one of those 180 eager online marketers mentioned above. Let me just say it was awesome and because I was sitting right here in the audience I can personally tell you that the product is packed full of great information and easy to implement tips from the gurus. The product is based around 5 questions:

Why would I want to build an online presence using Social Media? Isn’t it just about hooking up with buddies? Find out how Joey Smith transforms his online ‘buddies’ (and former girlfriends!) into happy and loyal customers.
Is Social Media for real? If so, how is it changing the way we interact on the web? Learn how Maritza Parra uses Twitter to tap into what her audience really wants – and uses that information to create products that have a hungry market already waiting for them.
How do you drive traffic using Social Media? Take notes as Willie Crawford explains exactly how he achieves an “economy of action” with his Social Media efforts. (Hint: he is traffic-driving legend for a reason!)Do you still need an email list if you have thousands of followers online?
How can you convert ‘friends’ to a list and why? Jeff Herring explains why you still need both – and offers great insight into how to convert your Social Media lists into responsive email marketing lists.
Do conversion tactics still work in Social Media? Kevin Riley offers some great ideas on who you should be following and why – and how this can dramatically improve your conversion rates.

Strategies 4 Social Marketing, like mentioned above, sells for only $17.00. And this is exactly why I drove through the mountains!

Tishia

Win a Year of Free Hosting from Mom Webs!

Kelly — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:14:27 +0000

Learn how to enter at Mom Webs Hosting!