A Tale of 2 WAHMs

We’ve been told how important blogs are to a business, and I posted not long ago about how much I saw my daily visitors jump when I added a blog. (If you missed that post, my daily average went from 400 clear up to 700 just weeks after adding the blog…..and that number has actually gone UP to 800 now!) But did you know how much more important Google sees blogs verses static pages?

Now first off you need to keep in mind being the SEO fanatic that I am my blogs are ALWAYS optimized. Thanks to Anita for finding me extra SEO goodies to add to my blogs (like the ability to add meta tag titles, descriptions, and keywords to each post - this to me is like GOLD). But yes, my blogs are already going to have an advantage over others because I make sure it looks nice to Google. My sites are the same - fully optimized.

However, I got quite a shock today when I was flipping through keyword terms to see how my pages were ranking. Two different pages - one “normal” page and one blog post - were using the same keyword phrase. You could say I was competing against myself for that phrase. Guess who’s in the lead? YUP the blog post.

Now what I find most odd about this is the amount of time I put into the “normal” page verses the blog post. Not only that but the blog post actually INCLUDED the link regular page.  Yet there’s the blog post, beating the normal page out by a full PAGE on rankings (blog post is #34, normal page is #45).

Granted neither one have GREAT rankings, but I just found this extremely interesting. Is this a temporary thing or will the “normal” page pull forward once the backward link the blog is giving it is “counted”? I honestly don’t know. It’s really hard to say at this point, but I just thought it very interesting…..

I mentioned in an earlier post that we’ve finally set a date to launch what we’ve deemed, The Wahm Project. About time, eh? As I’ve said, we’re planning on a very HUGE launch party on October 18th. In order to do this, we need a lot of prizes. We already have a great list but call us greedy … we want more!
We already have $842.60 but our goal is to have $1000.00 in prizes! Can you help us reach our goal?
We’re offering a mighty thanks to each of our launch sponsors such as listing our sponsors, their prizes and their links here at 2Wahms.com, MommysHelperCommunity.com and our official “secret site” blog. Val and Lauren are also listing the same at WorkingWAHM.com and MomChats.com Not to mention all the same will also be announced each time one of your prizes are given during the Wahm Project Launch Party.
So, let’s get started … wanna see what we have so far?
Lauren Haugh, Val Selby & Anita DeFrank of I-Can’t-Tell-You-Yet.com :lol:

(3) Secret Prizes - $59.88 each
Lara Velez of DesignedByLara.com

$50.00 Design Credit to use at

http://designedbylara.com
Sandy Mottola of Avon

(2) $20 Avon Gift Certificates reedmable through Sandy Mottola Only

http://www.youravon.com/smottola
Loretta Arscott of Scentsy

Autumn Scentsy Car Candle $3

Winter Candy Apple Scentsy Car Candle $3

Toasted Apple Butter Scentsy Car Candle $3

http://www.scentsy.com/aroma
Loretta Oliver of Just Not Martha.com

Halloween Recipes Ebook - $10.31

http://halloween-recipes.justnotmartha.com
Kara Kelso of Free-Kids-Crafts.com

Idea Queen Crafts & Activities - $9.99

http://www.free-kids-crafts.com/craft-book.html
Anita DeFrank of Jerky Direct

2 bags of Jerky or Fruit Stix (Winners choice of flavors) - $12.00

http://mommyshelper.jerkydirect.com/?page=prod&pageaction=1&prodcat=1
Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank of DirectSalesHelpers.com

Direct Sales Success Kit - $29.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/kit.html
How to Build an Ultra-Targeted and Hyper-Responsive List - $7.00

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/build-list.html
Online Party Success - $9.99

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/online-parties.html
Number Crunching Made Easy - $14.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/calculating-costs.html
Direct Sales Guide to Controlling Your Costs - Offline Events Kit - $9.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/offline-events.html
Direct Sales success

(Direct Sales Kit in a physical paperback book form) - $29.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/book.html
Holiday Promotion Guide - $5.00

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/holiday-guide.html
200 Home Party Games - $5.00

(Not yet released!)
$25 Gift Certificate for anything at DirectSalesHelpers.com

(excluding Paperback book Direct Sales Success and Team Incentives)
Anita DeFrank of MommysHelperOnline.com

Front Page Text Ad (One Month) - $30.00

Front Page Button Ad (One Month) - $30.00

Full Site Text Ad (One Month) - $100.00

One Free Basic Classified Ad (One Month) - $10.00

One Free Featured Classified Ad (Six Months) - $50.00

One Free Premium Classified Ad (One Year) - $100.00

$50 Advertising Credit to be used on ANY advertising at MommysHelperOnline.com - $50.00
Mom Survival Pack -

Includes 2 Mom Message Pads, 5 Mom Messengers, and 2 School Message Pads

(Not for sale.)
Kick Start Your Online Business - $9.99

http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/kickstart.html
36 Secrets to Building a Spectacular List - $15.00

http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/list-building-secrets.html

Anne of 2Paupers.com
The Ultimate Book of Fancy Dress Ideas from the Making Life Easy series at http://www.2paupers.com - $19.97And … Beauty Banquet
Sterling Silver and Paua Shell Necklace - $50.00
http://www.beautybanquet.com Patty Gale, co-author of the Home Office Recovery Plan
Copy of the Home Office Recovery Plan - $24.99
http://www.homeofficerecoveryplan.com Nicole Manyen of Megan’s Pantry
A set of dips including Rasberry Fruit Dip, Spinach Dip, Chive and Garlic Dip, and Garden Vegetable Cheese Ball Mix - $18.00
http://www.meganspantry.com/nicolemanyen Linda Brinston of Watkins
$20 Gift Certificate for Watkins
http://www.18hrwk.com/customernews/338267Lauren Haugh of Mom’s Online Retreat
The Genealogy Guide - $12.97
Great Gifts in a Jar - $14.97
Sizzling Breakfast Recipes - $12.97
The Essential Guide to Organizing Your Home - $12.97

http://www.momsonlineretreat.comLauren Haugh & Val Selby of MomChats.com
(2) Company Advertising Pages - $25 each
1 Premium Site Sponsorship - $209
http://www.momchats.com
(And donation of a chat room for ALL day!!)Val Selby of WorkingWAHM.com
2 Product or Site Reviews - $15 each

http://www.workingwahm.comVal Selby of Moms Indulgence
Citrus Whipped Body Creme, Citrus Dead Sea Mud Scrub, Juicy Pear bath salts - $20
http://www.momsindulgence.com

That’s a total of $842.60 $972.57 $997.56 $1015.56 $1543.44 …Our Goal? We want to reach over $1000.00 in prizes! Can you help us reach our goal?!?
Anyone interested in sponsoring our launch party, please email me at mommyshelperonline @ yahoo.com (without the spaces) with your prize(s), retail price, your name, company name and website link with Launch Party in the subject line.
Thanks in advance!

Woo Hoo!! We did it!! We’re OVER $1000.00! (And now we’re over $1500!)
Still want to sponsor the launch party? Sure! We’ll still accept more!

I almost missed it, but Lynn tagged us last week with “5 Questions for Online Business Women”. Better late than never, right?

1. When did you start your business?

My first website went up at the end of 2002, so about 5 years ago was when I first started playing with websites and online business.

2. How many businesses have you owned?

Before I came online to work, I was co-owner of a restaurant here in town. Sorta lol. It belonged to my mother, but I had quite a bit of say in it for several years. Mom’s Market was my first site (which may be getting a huge face lift soon), and I’ve since owned quite a few websites.

3. Name one of your most valuable mentors.

As corny as it may sound, my dad. There’s a whole lot of business knowledge held in that person. He grew up in a family business (greenhouse owned by his father). No matter what the fad is online, common business sense NEVER dies.

Online, well I don’t think I have a “most valuable”. I accept information from all sorts of people.

4. How many hours do you work each day?

I use to work every available hour in the day, from morning until night. After a major burn out, I set a regular schedule. I don’t always stick to it, but it’s usually 8am to 3pm. Some days I have an extra long lunch, and end up squeezing in a few hours in at night. On average I’d say 6 hours a day, 5 days a week.

5. Name one of the mistakes you’ve made and learned from in your business.

Taking short cuts. What works now might not work tomorrow, so your success may only be short term if you are taking short cuts. I’ve had to start from scratch a few times because I didn’t build it the right way the first time, or whatever it was I was doing stopped working. So what I build now I take my time with, making sure it has a solid foundation. It takes longer to see a success with, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Tag, you’re it! I’m tagging some new and old blood for this one…….

Sandy, RepOnTheRun
Val, Working WAHM
Loretta, Thoughts Out of My Head

Have fun ladies!

You may have gotten the impression from our posts that we despise PLR articles. With a passion. If so, you were right. Offering them is NOT an option. Even if we were to claim “ours are better” and sell them because they are “so hot”. Nope, we don’t care for them in the least, so we are sure as heck not going to try to make a buck off the market for them.

What I do want to offer though is original content. Not articles published in a directory (that would be “duplicate” content), and not for a price. Think of using me as your personal article directory.  I want to write content SPECIFICALLY for your site and ONLY for your site. Ok so maybe not just for your site, but you can bet the content I give you will be for your site and your site only.

Now here’s the catch - I want a link. We all know the key to success online and with SEO is to get as many incoming links as possible.  Well that’s what I want, but I’m prepared to give you high quality content in exchange for it. That’s why I said to think of it as using me as a private article directory. The content is LIKE using a free reprint article, but with one huge exception - it’s JUST for you. So you get unique, original, quality content and I get my link. Win win right? RIGHT!

Here’s some of the topics I can write for:

- Recipes (more specifically, meal ideas)
- Simple Crafts & Activities for Kids
- WAHM Topics
- Anything Candle Related
- Holiday Ideas (most likely Christmas, it’s a bit late for Halloween)

So are you interested? If so drop me a line or leave a comment.  :wink:

©Lisa Barker

He had on his pirate cape, his pirate hat…and a pink purse slung over
his right shoulder.  He was ready for action.

Until the ants attacked. 

Little girls keep tissue, lip gloss and hair barrettes in their purses.
  Little pirates keep Goldfish Crackers and apples.  Ants like Goldfish
Crackers and apples.

Ever hear a pirate scream?  It’s a bloodcurdling cry that sends
shivers up a mom’s spine.  I came running.  “What’s the matter?”

» Read the rest of this entry …

I’m so excited to see all the changes and features being released in Phase 2 of BlogRush!

First of all, John is taking some major steps to first make it fair to all members and secondly get rid of those stinking spammy sites that aren’t following the rules.  (Way to go John - Kick some spammer butt!) 

One of the ways that they’re improving BR is by performing a massive audit on all the current members’ blogs and from now on all blogs will have to be moderated before the widget will even start working.  To be a qualified blog, you must have at least 10 - 12 posts, in must be in English and the widget is not allowed to be tucked way down at the bottom of a page.  Apparently there were some complaints about this requirement but really, if you’re using BR to gain more traffic, it’s only fair that the blog posts listed on your widget are able to be seen.  Know what I mean?  I personally like the “fair” attitude with this.

Another one of my personal favorite new features is the new per post stats!  Yeah!  Essentially, what this means is you’ll now be able to see how many times each post is being syndicated across the network PLUS how many people clicked to read that individual posts!  (Yeah!  Love it!)

Anway … there’s many more such as:
 –> The ability to create custom reports.
 –> Bonus syndication for all users
 –> More categories
 –> Improved securities and abuse measures
 –> 100% manual review and new quality guidelines (John actually hired work at home workers to do this!)
 –> Plus much more!

Don’t have Blog Rush on your blog yet?  Click here to get it now!
Visit the BlogRush blog to find out more about the new features here:
http://www.income.com/blog/2007/10/08/blogrush-phase-2/

Yes I took the leap and made a mobile site. Even though I’m so far behind the times it’s not even funny, and I really don’t know how they work. Yes you heard me right, I actually have a phone without internet access. GASP! Either way, I created a mobi site for Idea Queen.

Even though I’m rather clueless, I figured at the very least I could make a mobi site that is mostly for checklists. The “short” version of some main pages of Idea Queen. You can check out my mobi site here: www.IdeaQueen.mobi

If you have a phone that can view it, I’d appreciate some feedback. Granted you CAN view it on a normal computer, it just might look a little funny. Even still, I’m hoping it will be a great resource for those standing in the middle of the store desperately trying to remember what exactly they needed for a particular recipe, craft, or next birthday party. Enjoy!

You may have heard this when you first started online. “Do what you love, and the money will follow”. But how true is it? Do you sometimes find yourself looking at the bottom line, and wondering why all that passion hasn’t made you a dime?

This has been true for me in the past, and it’s not always a guarantee you’ll make money with ANYTHING. Although I think for this statement to be true, we need to add another to it - “Good things come to those who wait”. There also needs to be a few more additions to the rule too. Read on…

You might have noticed I’ve been talking about Idea Queen quite a bit the last few weeks. I’m sure you can tell I have a passion for this site, and I’ve stated the site DOES make money. It didn’t always though. In fact, even though it’s 2 years old it’s still just a baby.  But still it’s a perfect example of “do what you love and the money will follow”.  Let me explain….

I love to talk. Sometimes my friends have a hard time shutting me up. I honestly could just RAMBLE on for days. So what better site to have than a resource site with topics I can ramble on about? Plus add the fact that content is king …..well then that just makes me the QUEEN of search engine rankings on my topics I would think 

Not to say it doesn’t take outside help even on a resource site. There are lots of pages I’ve asked for contributions. It only makes the site that much stronger. Although I can tell you the very few topics I don’t have a passion for are somewhat lacking in rankings.  Thus they don’t make me much money.

One more “ingredient” of a successful site I must point out (in addition to patience and passion) - your topic must not only be something you love, but something you are GOOD at. Either that or something you know a lot about. For example, another section on this site features a sewing group. The group chats here and there, but it’s not as successful as it should be. Why? I do love to sew, but I’m not experienced with it. I don’t know how to make all that much, and I lack in tips. I don’t spend ALL my time with it. Although if this is something you are good out, how easy would it be for you to have a site about sewing? You could go so far as to recommend specific types of fabric (from stores with affiliate programs at that  :wink: ).

Take the most successful section of the site as another example - the recipes. Do I know a lot about cooking? Absolutely! Both my parents had very different styles of cooking, both of which I’ve inherited (or learned I should say….I spent a lot of time in the kitchen at both parents’ houses). Granted I’m no “expert chef”, but I know my way around a kitchen. Now granted it’s not something I absolutely love to do, but it’s a passion. What’s the difference? Well I don’t jump at the chance to make supper, but I find myself talking about it all the time. Discussing recipes or talking about what we did for supper that turned out pretty good. That’s why one of the main sections (and largest) at Idea Queen is the recipe ideas section. Note I said “ideas” since that’s what they are for the most part - suggestion on what to add to make a “type” of meal.

The blog at Idea Queen servers an excellent purpose too. There is only so many pages I can add without the site being TOO big and hard to navigate. There’s also only so much I can add (content AND keyword phrases) before the page becomes too big and hard to read (and poor rankings at that). I’m a rambler remember? This would not be hard to do! So the blog servers as an “add on” for additional keyword phrases and additional content. I can literally post to this blog twice a day and never run out of things to say. Especially when I’m being fed keyword phrases from HitTail….that has sparked a LOT of ideas.

Anyway, the point of this post was to give an example of how doing what you love CAN make you money. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it DOES happen with a little time. For me it was making money rambling (what I do best) about topics I’m the most passionate about (what I love). See how that works? Now what do YOU love? Go figure it out!

Finally, finally, finally we’ve set a date for the launch of The Wahm Project!  It’s been a really long time coming now but we’ve finally decided on a date.  There was so much to do with this project and it was so different from the typical websites we’re used to creating.  This was certainly a learning experience for us all.  I know I’ve learned things that I never knew before such as PHP (if you call what I did learn, lol) and different things you can do with Cpanel.  (Thanks both Val & Lauren for teaching me a techie thing or two!)

Not only did it take so long to get everything ready to go but I’ve also learned that the three of us are a bunch of professionalists who think we’re going to be able to get everything just perfect.  To be honest with you … that’s just not going to happen.  Not at all.

Finally I belive it was Val that said, okay ladies lets make a date.  This one or this one?  By setting a date we’ve forced ourselves to make sure it’s ready by that day.  It’s easy to procrastinate when you don’t have a set goal date.  But, when you say okay, this is it … and it’s less than two weeks away.  Boy, it’s amazing what you can get done while you’re under pressure!

So, with all that said … ready to hear the launch date?  Mark your calendar for October 18th!  Be prepared to see an awesome new WAHM website that’s unlike all the other WAHM websites you’ve seen.  We’ve done a lot of research and we’ve found similar websites but all the others are just a little different.  Different niches, different markets, different hmm … let’s just call them different visitors. 

If you’ve been following along with our saga, you already know that we’ve had some “secret helpers” with this project that have been sworn to secrecy.  Very soon I will be introducing our little group of helpers along with their businesses and links to their websites - just as a little thank you (with many more thank you gifts on it’s way).  Oh and when I do tell you who they are … don’t bother asking any questions because  … well because if they told you, then they’d have to kill you  :twisted: 

So how’s that for an update?  Are you interested?  Keep an eye on the blog because we’ll be announcing it here on October 18th and you are all invited!  That’s less than two weeks and believe me, this is one launch you’re NOT going to want to miss  :wink:   Let’s just say if you like prizes, then you’ll wanna be there - with bells on because we’re going to have LOTS of them!  The list is already a long one … and it’s getting bigger every minute!  This is going to be the most interactive launch you’ve ever seen!

Oh and one more thing before I go …
If you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re planning coming out with a bang!  And I do mean a BIG bang.  As I said, we already have a big list as it is … (what with jerky, candles, tons of free advertising, business cards … and that’s just a taste) but we need more!  If you’re interested in getting a little extra exposure for your business and would like to donate a prize, click here to see our request for contest sponsors.

Don’t Miss Out - Mark your calendar for October 18th - Your business will thank you  :wink: 

Things went from bad to worse since my last post about the problems I’ve been having. What started as a minor problem with random error pages turned into the site being completely down. Yesterday we hit rock bottom and I was about to lose my flipping mind.

I mentioned the other day I was moving to a new host, which I did. One was recommended to me for it’s ability to run Zen Carts without problems. That was my biggest concern, so I went ahead and set up an account. I’m sure this host would have been fine had they done things right, but they didn’t. Let me explain…

Moving websites is a hassle yes, but in theory you should have no down time. When you buy just hosting, generally you get some type of welcome letter that has “important information” in it. This includes your nameservers (which you set from the account where your domain name is), username/password, and temporary addresses where your site is. That temporary is the IP address where your hosting is. Yes you can log into it just like you would a normal site before you even think of changing the name servers. You upload your files, make sure the site works on the new host, THEN change the nameservers. No visitor even sees a switch.

The host I moved to earlier this week did not send that welcome letter (stated I “should have gotten it”, but made no attempts at resending…just said they “forwarded it to their tech department”….still waiting!) I had nothing but the billing manager to log into. Nice I could pay them, but not get to my site. Hmm. I will give them credit for good customer service though…sorta. They did answer my ticket pretty quickly, and state they would move my site over for me. Great! Although when I asked if I would have problems like I did before, those questions were ignored. Not great. So I gave them the information to move the site over anyway (stupid on my part), thinking it might be alright. The fact I had to ask for the nameservers should have been my first clue.

Yesterday I woke up to the entire store down. Since I did not have that temp address I couldn’t check before changing the nameservers. Well I found out when the domain resolved - NO shopping cart. Great. Apparently they didn’t move the site by hand, but in one big lump. Of course databases aren’t going to work right. So I decided to do a fresh install of Zen, and upload my database thinking that would solve the problem. Nope. I assumed there was something wrong with their database and opened another ticket. They assumed there was too, finally telling me they’d have their “tech support” look into it. Ah ok, who was I talking to then?

Since it looked like I was going to have to start from scratch, I decided to go with a less hassle shopping cart - CubeCart. That was a joke to say the least. Things that were already on Zen I had to hunt for, and most weren’t free. Not to mention I had to fight for at least an hour just getting shipping to work right. *SIGH*. Frustrated beyond belief, I took my kid to Tae Kwan Do class thinking maybe a fresh mind would have a better solution. And it did!

Assuming there was problems with this host, I went off looking for another when I got home. HostGator has been raved about so I decided to give them a shot. I got my welcome letter immediately, so already score one for them! I did the same thing I had done earlier - fresh install of Zen with my database, but still the same results. So it hadn’t been their database after all, but rather the way it was being moved. That would have been nice to know 12 hours prior! I went and found help files for Zen, and figured out EXACTLY what I was doing wrong. Within an hour or two, I had my entire site restored on the new host. HURRAY! Oh yeah, and all this done before I changed the nameservers no less, which I did before I went to bed.

So when I woke up this morning, I was greeted with a fully functioning site. BIG sigh of relief. While I won’t completely recommend HostGator just yet until I see if there’s any problems with the cart, I will say I wish I would have moved to them a long time ago. It really would have saved me a big headache.  :roll: