How Do They Do It?

When you look around at different sites, do you see what I see? Given my latest research, I see a lot of Mommy blogs and sites talking about all the stuff they do. They're crafting, writing a blog, selling stuff, promoting stuff, etc. How in the heck do they find time to do any housework, let alone spend time with the family?

I mean, some of these women have itty bitty babies. Some have more than one, even THREE, in diapers. I remember when my little girl was a baby. I didn't have time to shower some days!

Take today, for instance, after I get hubby off to work and the girl off to school, I have to go do all the grocery shopping (which involves a whole lot more driving than shopping), then put everything away, and spruce up the house for the weekend. All that takes up pretty much the whole day.

When everyone gets home, there's dinner to prepare, more cleaning up, eating, cleaning up, and getting people to bed. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Now I did all that, and more, when I had a baby in the house. But I do not think I could take on doing what all these women talk about they're doing online with babies to care for.

I know...They're all multi-millionaire moms with a nanny, personal chef, and they pay for content writers. No...that can't be it.

Maybe grandma lives with them?

Hubby works from home and can do daddy duty?

I guess it's all in their time management skills. Kudos to them!

Planning Today

Today I'm still spring cleaning up my Internet ventures. I found some place called Superblinky that has a lot of my content. I don't know why it's there but I know it used to be on AC. Well AC was taken over by Yahoo Voices and when Yahoo Voices went away, I guess, Superblinky got it.

It's not like the content was ground breaking, or anything like that, but it was mine. The byline just says "editor". Doesn't even mention little 'ole me. Alas, I didn't keep up with it so shame on me.

On the bright side, I got to do a ton of things with my little girl! I will never regret that.

I've been thinking about embarking on a new venture. I've taken to creating gifts for my family and friends rather then buying stock stuff from the big box stores. And, doling out gift cards just seems so impersonal. They seem to like them and some have even suggested I sell my creations.

I actually started researching different things that go along with selling stuff. Of course, like most people, I have a profile on Ebay and I have sold some stuff we didn't need anymore there. But, I think Ebay is too big for handcrafted goods.

Now Etsy seems promising to me because they have carved out a niche in handmade. So, being the way I am, I decided "if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right!" I started working on a plan.

Etsy sellers have a "store" they sell from. To me, that's like big business on a small scale--Love it! If you plan on opening a store, what do you do? You dream about the name. The name. Hmmm.

That brought me back to the blog today. I was thinking about all the research I did way back when with SEO and Keywords. Hey, If I'm going to open an Etsy shop you know I'm going to utilize all that, and more!

I came up with a name that Google adwords liked and guess what? Somebody already has it. Back to the drawing board...  

Friday Roundup, the Weekend is Here!

Do you remember your first kiss? How your heart beat so hard and fast you thought surely it would burst out of your chest? I do. I caught these two kissing the other day.

Then they realized they had been caught.

I think they're a little young for this, don't you?

I've been busy. Yesterday I took a ton of pictures. I need a better camera. I've been looking at an Olympus. It has all I want and more. Plus it takes sequential shots! How cool it would be to capture sequences without waiting for that digital to do whatever it does between shots.

Yesterday I also decided that we need a new computer. Ours is starting to really lag, hang up, and be just plain slow. Well, it's either the computer, or it's the DSL. I'm voting for the computer.

I did a lot of updating and site work yesterday. I added a new widget here for the reviews I've been doing at Shared Reviews. That site is turning into a pretty good side-line for a lot of people. I've even made a little money. I'm going to work on bumping that up a bit since it takes so little time.

They only require 750 characters for the reviews. That's short. Mine are running about 1400. It takes me a few minutes to write a review and post it. Then I vote on reviews--takes only a few minutes of my time. Then I get paid. It doesn't get any better than that.

I wrote an article and submitted it yesterday also. (I actually did two but one was just for fun). I don't know if they're going to buy the real one yet. I think the topic was pretty time conscious and should remain "evergreen."

Evergreen articles are it online. That's what everyone wants. Something that will stand the test of time. Something that will be hit over and over again. Okay, so that's what I will give them.

Yesterday was a busy day for me. Today will be also.

This weekend we will be taking the boat out for a test run. We completed all of the wiring, did the tilt trim unit, installed the new extinguisher, and battened down the hatches. The driveway run proved well, now it's time to put it in the water. If we forget the plug, all will be fine because we got the new bilge pump in also.

This should prove to be a great weekend. I hope everyone has a good one!

How about that Adsense...

I know a lot of us use adsense to try to monetize our blogs. Of course according to the adsense TOS, we can't click the links in our own blog. So, being the curious person I am, I've been clicking the ads in your blogs just to see where they take me.

So far, everything I've clicked looks legit. The sites are clean and don't sound any computer alarms on my end.

I've had my ads sitting at the bottom of my page. Very unlikely to get a hit there. It's almost like I was hiding the fact that I have adsense.

Since I am a stay at home mom, and I would like to earn an income, I started looking into adsense a bit more. I read an interesting post about monetizing your blog on dosh dosh and they said to make the ads look like header/footer navigational links to get unsuspecting readers enticed to click on them. Now that is sneaky, so I did it.

Hopefully the little trick will work. If not, at least it's clean looking. When you guys start rolling in dough because of my experimental clicks, let me know.

Blog It Lens is Up! More Information on Squidoo

Well, I finished my Blog It lens! I also have been cruising around updating all of my pages for St. Patrick's day. It's been a busy morning for me indeed.

My friend Swubird commented: "What exactly is a Squidoo? Lens? I've never heard of the term outside of optical use. I followed the link, but I'm still unsure as to how you actually implement one of these little things. Do you put it on your blog, another blog, another site - ?"

I replied in a comment back but some how the comment disappeared into web land. So I decided to post it here along with the link to the latest lens: Blog It...

Squidoo is the name of the site. A derivative of Squid. I read somewhere that the lenses were like squid in the ocean--to be looked at, learned about, and multiplied. Lenses are, well, I'll just quote from SquidU:

• What is a lens? It's many different things. It's a small look at the world. It's a list of your favorite things. It's a way to share your resume or promote your business.
  The best way to learn what a lens is is to create one. Play with it. Add stuff. Delete stuff. Move things around. You won't break anything, I promise!

Like I said, my first lens took me a month to put together. Not only because of my lack of content, because I did not really understand what to do with it. I knew I needed to put some together for promotion and indexing; I just didn't understand the make up of the parts and how to use them.

SquidU suggests: Do Squidoo: A much requested guide to creating a successful Squidoo lens. This lens offers a guide to building a lens. However, I'm more of a put it together without the instructions kind of gal. I opted to build it first and read later.

Now as far as implementing them goes, the lenses are promotional tools. SquidU says:

• When used right, Squidoo is a promotion paradise. You can use it to drive traffic to your business or entertainment websites, boost your online resume presence, and position yourself as an expert on your topics of interest.
  Find the best tips for promoting your lenses, groups, charities, and yourself here!

I've heard that search engines love these lenses and they tend to rank higher than your standard blog post. Perhaps the bundling of so much information is what does it. What ever the reason, I want to utilize it to my advantage and build lenses to "advertise" my articles.

Looking at other lenses and reading forum posts about the site convinced me that joining Squidoo would benefit me. Not only is it useful for linking back to my work; it can generate a residual income and a portion of that can be donated to charity.

I say, just sign up because it's free anyway. If you don't like it you can always cancel your account. Once you sign up, you are not committed to building the particular lens you started your account with. As a matter of fact, I deleted the lens I began when I signed up.

I made a "Join Squidoo" button at the bottom of my posts if you want a quick link. You can also join from the Blog It... lens by clicking "make your own page."

If any of you do build a lens, comment to me about it. I want to see your work! Happy lens building to those of you that try it.

My New Favorite Toy: Squidoo

You're not going to believe this, but, I made another lens yesterday. The lens is, Make My Day eBay. I got this one done much faster than the Bar Tending lens. Of course I will be editing and adding to both lenses as I learn more.

One thing is you need to know a bit of html. You must to be able to add links to direct your readers to your work. We all do that here with the < href= "URL"> stuff. You can also do italics, bolds, colors...One lens with great Squidoo tutorials on the process is: Basic HTML for Squidoo.

I think what took me so long to finish my first lens was I didn't know which direction I wanted to take with it. Now I get it. The process eases after you complete and publish the first one.

Last night I thought of a variety of topics for lenses. You can take them in any direction you want--heros to pet peeves. I guess its similar to blogging. Each lens would be a post.

From what I learned, narrow topics do better than broad. The more information you can input about your specific topic, the better. Okay, so my lenses are a bit broad at this point. But you can bet that I'll trim the next ones.

The best thing about Squidoo is I can utilize the lenses as an index for my articles on AC. As I branch out, I can add to or eliminate.

Today I'm going to work on the lens for this blog. I'll post about it when it's done. I'm going to link to other blogs there as I have done here. The same, but different.

Look for the blog lens link soon...

Oh Squidoo! What a Promotional Tool

Well I did it; I built a Squidoo Lens. If you remember, I mentioned doing this in my updates post. Now its a done deal: Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question!

The process was quite easy, even though it took me a month to get it published. First, you sign up. Second, you find a topic you want to publish about. Third, you build your content. Last, you publish.

Cruising about the site, I found that the most popular lenses are chock full of information. Typical, because people enjoy learning. Popular lenses also have used the Youtube, Amazon, and Flickr modules to dress up their page. There are other modules to include like plexo (haven't quite figured that out), polls, and searches.

Right now I just utilized the text and image modules. As I learn more about the rest, I will add to my content.

A few things occurred to me as I built my lens. One was that I need more content. That just figured since I have been rather lax lately. So I cranked out a few more articles to boost up the page. I have a few other articles in mind, but I haven't written them yet.

Then I thought, using Squidoo to lump together my related articles will make for better traffic. Something I'd like to do for my blog also--Brainstorm! Remember when I referred to linking everything together? So, I'm going to start working on a lens for the blog.

I published my lens on Saturday (the 9th) and today (Sunday) I checked my stats and I've already gotten over 90 clicks. I better pump up the promotion because over night that's better than any other thing I'm doing. (For related promotion: here I'm under 200 since last August and Myspace is @ 170 since December)

If you have a Squidoo lens, let me know in the comments so I can check it out. If you want to build a lens, I put up a link button for you at the bottom of my posts and archive.

Working on the Home-front, Updates, and Plans

What a time this has been. My husband is still laid up with his leg. I've been busy tending to home matters. With all that's going on, the teen is coping an attitude.

I woke up early this morning to update my eBay pages, myspace, and I wanted to make sure to post something here. I'm really having a tough time keeping up the momentum I had prior to the holidays.

Surely things will get back to normal around here soon. I have some plans I'd like to put into action. I want to get a move on them before the end of the month.

I've been working on a series of articles for my work at Associated Content. I almost have that wrapped up. Once all the articles are submitted and published, I want to build a Squidoo lens for promotion. So far the articles are getting pretty good views on their own, but I've learned that Google loves Squidoo and articles promoted on Squidoo rank higher. Ranking higher increases page views. Increased page views means better pay. Sounds kind like the snowball effect, but whatever works.

I'm finding inspiration sitting here writing this. I know now things are not as bad as I thought. I'm inspired by all I got done this morning. I will strive to do it again tomorrow.

Effective Time Management Tips

A lot of comments I have gotten through my Content Marketing series referred to the lack of time to spend on promoting. In this post I want to lay out some tips for time management that I follow.

Above all one must know their values. You must allow for family time, personal time, and time for devotion. Second, you must define your goal(s). For help with this read "Personal Goal Planning - Steps to Making Your Goals a Reality."

• Get Moving! Point plain and simple, if you have something to do, or you want to do, do it. Act! What are you waiting for?
• Plan! Get organized. Make yourself a schedule. If you know what you should be doing at a certian time on a certian day, it will be easier to accomplish what ever you desire.
• Pick what you do wisely! Sudden changes in your schedule can be good and may lead to unexpected opportunities. However, you must keep in mind that every deviation means one less task is being accomplished. Learn to say "no" sometimes instead of saying "yes" all of the time.
• Segment your tasks! Big jobs may seem daunting initially. Breaking up large projects into small chunks will make the job easier.
• Learn when to stop! How much is too much? Perfection is overrated, often unattainable, and a matter of judgement. You can dissect a task to death. You are you own worst enemy (especially true of writers a lot of great work is trashed when edited one too many times by yourself). Learning to stop a project upon completion is beneficial to you and your time.
• Manage your tasks, schedule them, complete them at the scheduled time! This applies to everything from bill paying to meetings.

1. Assess tasks-do what is important, valuable, or goal related.
2. Make time for it
3. Forget about it until it's time. If extra research or preparation is necessary for it, schedule that too.
4. Act on whatever it is at the scheduled time. For meetings get it done but don't let it run over your allotted time. Of course this rule does not apply for doctor appointments as they always run over or late--you're better off not to schedule anything else for the day.

Promotion: Using the Tools to Link Myself Together

I did it. I took the plunge. I know, I've been straddling the fence on this for quite some time--I set up a myspace profile. That's why I have not posted in a couple of days.

The process was a two day affair. I wanted to do a few things to increase traffic to my articles. This morning I put up a blog post on myspace and I had a brainstorm.

I've started to link everything I'm doing. That's how promotion works, right? I've touched on it in my previous posts. (this one too). All of that research I've been doing is finally clicking in my brain.

Basically, If you want to gain readership you must bring it all together. Put all of your eggs into one basket, so to speak. However, I was always told not to put all my eggs into one basket. That was then, this is now.

Back to my brainstorm. I went to my blogcatalog profile and invited friends from my lists to myspace. I've already added myspace's link to the forum at Associated Content and have gained a few friends. Now I have to invite more friends.

I read other blogs, articles, and profiles and comment. Doing this has helped me, to not only learn more about others like me, to gain readership and Internet friends.

I have yet to link this blog and my me page to myspace. That I hope to get done today.

When I have it all together, I can concentrate on content. I know, I have some content here, there, and everywhere, I have to build more. Especially on the foundation: my articles.

There is a method to my madness. It's all becoming clearer the more I dive into this. Once I lay out this foundation, I will be able to branch out! Now that's inspiring.

Taking Advantage of Promotion Information

Since I started my quest to becoming a work at home mom, I have come across a lot of great information. I've posted some blogs on web writing, promotion, seo optimization, and keyword tools. I want to mention a blog I came across recently: Chris Garrett's blog

Now, the blog is not necessarily geared toward writing per se; it guides you in promotion, writing content to draw in and help readers, and lots of how-to information. I subscribed because I liked the first blog entry I read about promotion. Now I am updated whenever a new post is published.

Just to lure you in too, check out this article: 35 Guaranteed Ways To Increase Your RSS Subscribers. The article offers real tips and information not just fluff. I like that even though I tend to generate a lot of fluff in my stuff.

That being said this is my personal inspiration blog. I may get fluffy every once in a while so don't mind me if I go "off topic" because that is how I am inspired.

StumbleUpon Groups

I was just at StumbleUpon networking with some other Associated Content producers, stumbling their articles and playing with the site. I decided to check out the groups my friends are interested in and join if I was interested. I joined two last week--the feature and a photo group--just from cruising around the site. I thought I might like more on my page but I noticed something...

How does one go about joining a group? I joined the feature group because there is information there about the site and it's uses--pretty good reason. The photo group I joined because I liked the photos posted there and I wanted to post some of my novice stuff.

Today I joined the healthy lifestyle group--one of my friends is a member and I'm into living healthy, why not? As I was reading the comments, I noticed that not too many people join in discussions and the posts were all old if they did. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of groups like that.

Now, the awesome pictures group is highly active. Would that be an indicator that today people are leaning toward the visual? Are we abandoning reading? Communication? A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say, and I believe it.

The feature group is active too. A lot of people are information seekers. Learning the features of a site is worthwhile if you intend to us it properly and have it work for you.

I don't think I'll be joining a multitude of groups. I want my page to be clean and truly indicate my likes. If my friends choose to see which groups I'm a member of, they're not going to be overwhelmed.

Over the Weekend

Over the weekend we got a lot accomplished at the homestead. Chores that have been put off for weeks. One particularly was the lawn. We have been putting the laborious task off for weeks. In some parts of the yard the grass was as tall as me.

We live in the hill country so the yard only must be done on occasion--when the weeds are so tall we can't see the deer, or the dog gets lost when we take her out.

We did not actually finish the yard--we ran out of weed eater line. I was rather happy when that happened. Of course my husband will be stopping by Home Depot on the way home from work to pick some up so we can finish a bit more everyday this week after work.

As far as my writing goes, I have plans to complete 5 reviews and 2 articles this week. I need to do more but I'm going to set my goal on the low side so I can be sure to get it done.

I read other articles that I subscribe to and they are publishing several a day. I just do not see how they are doing it. Some are coming from SAHMs like me. How can they write several articles a day and still attend to their kids.

My girls consume the bulk of my time. I can only write when the little one is napping or occupied with play doh. I can't write at all when the teen is around because she needs to go here or there and I am the taxi.

I wish I knew the secret. Perhaps the other writers are insomniacs. That must be it. They can't sleep at night so they write all night and live on minimal sleep. They are able to store enough energy in what little sleep they do get to care for and spend quality time with the kids. Kudos to them!

One day I will become a better time manager. That is where my inspiration lays today. I will be able to maintain my house, spend quality time with my family, and write 10 tight articles a day!

Goal Setting

Writing on this blog has made me accountable. I feel compelled to complete the goals I have laid out here. Do I get it all done? No. However, I have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I come to post and go over my last post. Can that be inspiration?

In my reviews post, I wrote that I wanted to churn out 10 reviews. I only did 5. Hey 5 is better than none--as I see it the glass is half full. But I did manage to pick up another referral. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Both the articles I mentioned in the post did get published. One was published on an affiliate site so I have yet to see that one. I hope that I get to see it soon because the thought of another site liking something I put out there enough to buy it is compelling. The other article, "Parenting Tips: Teen Dating, Kissing, and Sex" is published on Associated Content.

I am particularly pleased with that parenting tip article. It's a little on the long side but I feel it is informative and covers teen dating issues pretty well. I want to expand on some of the issues I touched on in more detail in future articles.

As for my household goals I got those done. They took a little longer than I expected and that is why I did not get 10 reviews done.

I'm leaning more towards a social networking site than Squido. I researched a bit and found that I would need to put more into lenses than I've got time for. Perhaps I can do lenses in the future.

Funny how this is working out for me. I'm inspiring myself through my blog.

Progressing

The more I write, the easier it gets. I have been putting a lot of effort into trimming my articles to be more web friendly. That being said, I've done a lot of research on writing for the web. I found a few good sites that might be of use for others like me:

• Writing for the Web
• Writing Well for the Web
• Web Writing for Many Interest Levels
• Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability (this is from the same site as the first article, lots of great information.)

Writing is of course re-writing. Edit, edit, edit! I cannot believe that some content producers churn out 10 or more articles a day. I'm lucky to do one. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I go over my articles too much with too much scrutiny.

I would like to leave it as it sits sometimes, just close the browser and move on. But I'm not like that. I can't just "let a sleeping dog lay," I have to edit. Some readers may not like my style, and that's okay, but I'm progressing. I will work on this until I have it because I am determined--that is my inspiration.

On Cloud 9

The editor accepted and paid for my articles! I posted (and here) about my dismay and I thought I better update. I knew just a little re-framing would do the trick.

When ever you are faced with opposition you should counteract not react. I'm glad I have this blog for the reacting part. Murphy's law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or something to that effect.

I should have re-framed the article I posted for PVs only a couple of weeks ago. Well, I've since learned that there are ways around the system. I don't want to beat the system. I just want to get my just dessert. I want to have my cake and eat it too!

I'm finding that writing is coming a bit easier for me. Not that I can crank out 30 articles a day like some; but I can write more concisely in a shorter time frame, opposed to the first articles I published.

Today's inspiration: give them what they want and you will be rewarded.

My Thoughts

The weekend was full of grime for me. I helped hubby give the Ranger an oil change and tune-up. I thought it was a fun, interesting, bonding experience. I told him what I thought and his reply was, "yeah, right!"

Now, I know he did not mean to hurt my feelings but in a small way he did. Sure, some of the spark plugs were difficult to retrieve and we had to spend some time locating a wire clip that fell out of sight. Overall it was a great time for me.

Maybe I'm hypersensitive. Perhaps the fact that I was only a helper, not a worker, and did not comprehend the frustration he was having, got me that sarcastic response. Who knows?

Next time I'm not going to say anything. I'll just help silently.

Another thought I've been mulling over, and mentioned to him, was adding another site to write for. He thinks I should just concentrate on one (Associated Content). That's fine except I want to broaden my scope. I think adding the site I've been looking at will help me increase my knowledge base and help me generate ideas for articles. We'll see. It's not like I have to ask him for permission; I just like to share my findings with him--especially when they spark my interest and pad the piggy bank.

Working at home is work. I thought way back that it would be something like what you see in cartoon clips--the lady sitting in front of the computer with pink fuzzy slippers and a bath robe or the man in boxers and an unshaven face. The caption reading: just another day at the office, casual Friday everyday!

I've done more reading and research since I've started this than I ever did in college. It will pay off in the long run; I know it will. Things are slowly starting to come together. Ideas pop in my head like popcorn. Right now I've started writing the ideas in a notebook for future research, writing, or inspiration. I wish I had more time in the day to get in more writing, but I have to tend to the house and little one.

I found a great way to gain inspiration: Stumbleupon. Very interesting site. You can "stumble" web sites, rate them and bookmark them, or stumble your own stuff for other stumblers to see. Here's my pages.

Working at home, I'm working on it

I've been a stay at home mom for a little over three years now. I haven't missed a thing with the three year old and I'm filled with joy about it. When my teen was little, I had to work full-time and go to school, I missed a lot. Now I've enjoyed being one of those moms that goes to all the school functions. I'm loving it!

The little one will be going to school in two years. Since I've gotten a taste of what it's like to be home, I don't want to go back to the daily grind. As kids grow they get more expensive. One income just doesn't cut it.

So, what do I do? I've been selling on eBay. I've started writing for Associated Content. I've signed up to be one of those blog advertisers. I've been looking into blogging for money and freelancing. So far it's working!

I'm working on working at home. I am inspired to succeed!