A Tale of 2 WAHMs

Probably not, right? Okay, is your website mobi-ready? Again, I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that most of our website are NOT mobi-ready. I know MommysHelperOnline.com isn’t as well as none of my other websites aren’t.

So, what does mobi-ready mean? Being mobi-ready means that your website is able to be easily viewed via mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs. Are we missing out on a whole other market? I feel confident enough to say that yes, we are. We are totally missing out on the opportunity to reach a whole new market!

Well, most of us are. I’m not completely missing out anymore. As soon as I found out about Mobile websites I decided I had to learn more and get one myself! So I did. I spent a few hours this weekend creating my brand new website - designed specifically for mobile devices! (Yeah, I’m a little excited to say the least!)

I haven’t seen it on a cell phone just yet (because I don’t even have web access on my phone yet, lol!) BUT, I did get it created and I have viewed it online already (which I thought was also pretty cool!)

To be honest with you, I only made a little site just to see what it was like. As I built it, I came up with ideas of how to make it work for me online. Within the site I created links to online pages that didn’t even exist yet. I also added a hit counter to it just out of curiosity. Well, when I viewed it online after placing the hit counter (probably about 20 minutes after I published it) my hit counter said that I was visitor number 111

Now I haven’t done any research on this hit counter and I have to believe that it started with a make believe number. Maybe 100? But still, that would mean I had 10 other visitors within 2o minutes of publishing it? Yeah, I’m having a hard time believing this but just in case, I HAD to go in and change those links to live ones!! I’ll have to do some more research on the hit counter and on what happens when these sites are published. Is there announcements sent out immediately announcing a new site? Who knows but - yeah HUGE suprise to me!

I bet you wanna see it, huh? I bet no more than I can’t wait to show it to you but … give me just a little more time (maybe tomorow?) and I’ll be sure to share it with you.

And here’s the best part for you …
I took notes throughout the entire process to show you how you can create your own mobile website for free! The creation of the site was super-simple and free. You can do everything else for free but, as any website, if you’re serious and you want to make money (yes, I said make money, you can with your mobile site too and I’ll tell you how!) Anyway, if you’re serious then as usual, I do recommend buying the domain name and hosting (which of course I did). I will tell you upfront that the domain names are just a little more expensive than your typical .COM or .NET but still very affordable

I’m planning on taking all my notes of the creation, and all my research of cool things to do with your site plus what I found out about how to make money with your mobile website and I’m creating a report that I will gladly share for free. But, you’re going to have to keep an eye on our blog to find out first when it’s available.

Yeah! Something new that’s a lot of fun … Now I gotta get some internet access on my cell phone … See ya later!

Gotta love BlogRush! Thanks to it, I found a great blog post over on ProBlogger that I know will come in handy for quite a few of our readers. It’s quite an extensive however, not exhaustive of the little tax deductions that really add up over time. Check out 46 Tax Deductions that Blogger Often Overlook and see if you’re missing anything

I repeat … this is NOT Spam!

This ticks me off so badly that I even created a new category just for it! (We have a new Just Venting category here!)
Excuse me while I vent here a moment …

Ugh, there is nothing I hate more than a Spam Complaint from Aweber! It drives me absolutely crazy! First of all, every single one of our newsletters are Double Opt In. So, let’s review here … what does Double Opt In mean? Well, simply put moron … you didn’t just subscribe once but you subscribed twice! How did you subscribe twice you say? Well, first YOU entered your email address into our little subscription box. Then, I don’t even have your email address as of yet. I don’t even know YOU entered it. Because, the system keeps it all to themselves until YOU confirm it. How do YOU confirm it? Well you see my dear, YOU will get a confirmation email in YOUR email account (which by the way is still your little secret) and YOU have to PHYSICALLY click on the link. OR futhermore, those of you with those little ole AOL accounts - those of you that are twice as fast to hit that spam button usually have to physically COPY AND PASTE the stinking confirmation link meaning you have to do more than just click! (No offense to you good AOLers, lol!)

So, just a little piece of information for ya … YOU subscribed basically twice. (Oops, did I say that already?) But, here’s the kicker … did you even read what you were signing up for? So, these email addresses that you’re holding near and dear and cryign that you’ve been spammed …. you would think that you would REALLY READ what you were getting.

If you sign up to a newsletter that says you’re going to get a recipe once a week. Oh my gosh, guess what you’re going to get? I bet you’re going to get a recipe once a week in your email account!

If you sign up for weekly updates on a website offering new products, specials ect, guess what? That’s what you’re going to get!

And if you sign up for weekly articles with an occassional special … Now I don’t have to tell you what you’re going to get, do I? Wow, amazing how that works, isn’t it?

Okay, now that this is off my chest … dang it, I get so irritated when someone accuses us of spam!! What the heck more do they possible want? And here’s the kicker … one of our newsletters, which we already give them a heads up that they’re going to get the occasional special, they don’t hit the spam button when it’s a special, oh no, they do it when we’ve sent out a freaking article!! It would still tick me off if they did it when a special came out but nah, we get them on your average newsletter day

And the one I love the most (sorry Kara, lol!) is when we get a spam complaint for Kara’s newsletter from RecipesForMom.com. Click on that link. No seriously, please do. What do you see right smack dab in the middle of the page? I bet I know what you see, does it look a little something like this:

Weekly Recipes
Receive free recipes in your inbox every week!

Oh my God, what the heck do you think you’re going to receive??? You’re going to get a free recipe in your email account every single week!! Don’t hit the freaking spam button if you don’t want them anymore … hit the danged UNSUBSCRIBE LINK at the bottom of every single issue!! Now you see why I say ALWAYS use Double Opt In? Save yourself from those who can’t read!

Phew, I feel better now, how bout you?

©Lisa Barker

When the kids aren’t present sometimes judgment falters and we
parents do things that maybe we shouldn’t.

When I was ten years old I had a skateboard. My father found it in the
garage and, perhaps feeling a bit younger than his thirty-five years,
hopped on to give it a go…and landed flat on his back.

The moral of the story is: Parents aren’t as young as they think
they are.

» Read the rest of this entry …

If you are all about the subtle humor and witty remarks, here’s a blog you will like. The Tall Poppy gives you a daily dose of posts to make you think, or to make you say “hey yeah what’s up with THAT?”. Finding someone that agrees with your complaints is always a good thing.

I really got a kick out of her “The hazards of having children.” That was just FUNNY. Then her “Color of Orange” quiz from the stand point of an orange hater. Perfect! There are some serious posts as well, including some recommendations and interesting ideas.

Be sure and stop by to say hello!

New Ebook Cover - Whatcha think?

Well this is something that I’ve been putting off for a long time. Between not having the time to do it and actually forgetting - it’s just something I’ve never got around to. This is for my ebook, Kick Start Your Online Business - Step by step guide to giving your online business the boost it needs!

Believe it or not, having an ecover can greatly increase your sales. Being an ebook that is a digital product, you need something that creates a “real feeling” … something of value. Having a quality looking ecover is extremely important. Remember, the look of the ecover is going to be the very first impression of your ebook.

So, I decided to contact my favorite up-and-coming website / wordpress template designer and talked her into giving ebook cover designing a try. Just as I thought, she’d come through with flying colors. If this is her first ecover, can you imagine what happens with practice! See why I love her?

Way to go Lara and thanks so much! You’ve done a fantastic job - even working through my pickyness (is that even a word?)!

Oh and I don’t think she’s officially offering ecovers as of yet but I believe she will be very soon. So, head on over to DesignedByLara.com and take a look around. And be sure to sign up for her newsletter so you’ll know first when she starts officially offering them. A little birdie told me she’s going to keep the prices very affordable for work at home moms

©Lisa Barker

I decided to eat healthy. Two hours later I got the results back from
a blood test declaring that I am a prime candidate for a heart attack.
Is there a better sign that eating healthy is the right direction to
go in?

So I cut the fat and cholesterol out of my diet and increased whole
grains, veggies, fruits, beans and lentils. This is not a problem for me
because I’m not a picky eater and I am happily eating as much as I
like from these food groups. That is until the craving hit.

On day six I heard, “C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E!”

» Read the rest of this entry …

We’re not holding it but rather a good friend of mine, Lara from Designed by Lara.

Anyway, it’s a super-simple contest and it even gives you a chance to do a little dreaming And here’s the awesome part … the prizes!

Grand Prize:
$75 Design Credit to be used for any purchase by Designed by Lara.

Runner Up:
A Free Button, Banner, OR Header Design. Your choice of one.

For more details and informaiton on how to enter, visit Lara’s Blog.

Good Luck!!

The other day I made a pretty bold statement and I’m sticking to it. Link exchanges are completely worthless. There is absolutely NO point to them anymore. And when I say that, I mean traditional exchanges. They type of exchange that go something like…. “I’ll shove your link on a page with absolutely nothing but other links, and you do the same for mine” …yeah, those are totally worthless.

If you listen to the SEO experts, they’ve been saying for years that the only way to get farther up on the search engines is with ONE WAY links. Meaning you are not exchanging. You are getting your link on a high content page WITHOUT having to give them a link back. Since we live in a “me me me” society, some might question how this is even possible to get something for nothing.

Well here’s my top ways of getting one way links that actually WORK.

Buy Links
You could always buy links, but I don’t always recommend this. Now general advertising and buying directory listings I DO recommend. Directory listings (at sites which are directories, mainly NICHE directories) are a very, very good thing. I see links from directories in my backlinks all the time. This is a good example of a one way link, even if you’ve shoved their link on your link page. You are still on a prime spot on the site.

Directories
As mentioned before, if you can get in a directory you should do it. Niche directories are especially great. Try looking for ones that are manually edited because those seem to be the ones Google likes best. Automated isn’t always a good thing, and can lead to trashy sites that the Google Gods don’t like.

Articles
Another great source of backlinks. Take a look at the backlinks for Idea Queen (just go to Google and type in link:http://www.idea-queen.com/ ). See that backward link from ezinearticles.com? Yup, an article I wrote. Giving me a backward link. Funny this is the ONLY article site I’ve found to give backward links, so do keep that in mind.

Press Releases
If you are a new business or are releasing something new, do a press release. Granted if you want it to have an impact you NEED to pay for it, but it’s a small cost in the long run. I do believe we normally pay around $40 for ours when we do them. Which if you check the backlinks on Prairie Soy Candles you’ll find a few press releases still giving us a backlink.

Navigation Exchanges
Yes I know, link exchanges are worthless. But let me clarify this again - link PAGE exchanges are worthless. Navigation exchanges are NOT. Make sure you are actually getting a spot in their navigation on the side, and not shoved at the bottom or just on the home page. Those are going to do you much good. Again take a look at the backlinks on Prairie Soy Candles, and you’ll see some “odd” links in there. Those are side pages full of content where my link just happens to be in the navigation. If you have other sites that work well together, make sure you link those too.

Blog Review Game
I’m shocked there hasn’t been more to take us up on this offer. Here we have an EXCELLENT way to gain some really awesome backward links around pure content. Blogs people! It doesn’t get much better than that! Unless of course you know a guy that works for Yahoo and can score you a link on the home page, then don’t bother. For us normal people though, links from blog posts are the absolute BEST form of one way links. Even blogs from your own site make a HUGE difference (and if you doubt this, check the backward links on this site….you’ll see we have several on site backward links!).

If you are serious about link building, make sure you stop by Anita’s boards and take a real close look at the Blog Review Game. I promise you’ll be thanking us later!

If you have any more ways of earning those backlinks, please let us know!

I’m sure I mentioned this before, but after playing with HitTail I decided to put a blog on Idea Queen. This site is huge, so it was an excellent and immediate test on the damage I can do using HitTail. Within just a few hours, I had enough suggested keyword phrases to keep me busy for weeks. Now, after using this for several weeks, I have more keywords than I can handle!

So, as mentioned, I decided the best way to use all these new keyword phrases was to start a blog. Many of the phrases made perfect “add on” content to already existing pages at Idea Queen. Some also made a great lead into current pages (as in “for more ideas on this topic, see x page”).

After posting to this blog daily for about 3 weeks now, all I can say is WOW. What a difference a blog made! I knew this, I really did. And I’ve been saying to myself how much I really did need a professional blog on this site. WHY I didn’t do this sooner I’ll never know. Because once I saw my stats, I was completely blown away…..

Before I started this blog, the site was getting an average of 400-500 unique visitors a day. Pretty good right? Now the current average is well over 800 unique visitors a day. I’m not kidding here, I’ve increased my daily visitors by over 300 a DAY! (Let me say it again because I don’t even believe it - PER DAY!! ).

Now I’ve checked and rechecked my stats, rankings, and everything else ( and kicking myself for not keeping better records of my rankings over the past 3 years! ). I’ve made sure this isn’t some fluke and really is because of the blog. I can’t find anywhere that suggests a new page was ranked - no one page is getting all these extra visitors. It’s not some heavy traffic site my link was posted on either (not only do I not see a referal link in my traffic stats to suggest this, but again it would be ONE page getting it all when it’s not).

Nope, it has to be the blog because all the pages completely across the board are getting more traffic. All 100+ of them. Not only that, but the biggest jumps are from links I’ve used in the blog. For example, one page had 84 visitors in a normal week before the blog, and now has 150 this week (and the week isn’t over yet!). From what I can see from my current rankings and stats, I’ve just been inching every so slightly in the search engines for all those different phrases. Just because of a few blog posts.

Of course with the extra visitors comes the extra income. Too bad this is a Adsense funded site, or I could really be bragging. Even still, I’m quite impressed with what these few posts have done. With only about 8 posts indexed and making a difference, I’ve seen a $1.50/day jump in my adsense income. That’s $45/mo. Not all THAT much, but it ads up. What if I were to make at least 10 posts a week? After a month, I’d have an extra $200….and that’s residual, so it’s each and every month!

Funny thing is, my “average” is a bit off. The number of unique visitors I’ve been getting every day has been increasing all week. Thursday and Friday it was in the 800s, yesterday it was over 900. Today my estimate is over 1,000. I must say it again - WOW!

The only thing I fear is a “cap” on this when all pages have reached the top rankings for all the keyword phrases I’ve optimized all those pages for. Although I seriously doubt that’s going to happen any time soon, so I’m milking this for all it’s worth!

Haven’t got a blog for your site yet? What are you waiting for!? Didn’t I just give you enough reason to start?