And what do you do again?

How many times have you heard this question? I've gotten into the habit of just saying "nothing, I'm home with the kids." The honest answer is that I write Search Engine Optimized articles for a percentage of the advertising revenue from large websites and for a flat fee from private clients. I also operate a few niche market websites, write for several random blogs and I subcontract flate-rate SEO writing work to other mom writers. I also have a few e-books and I'm working on some screenplays that I plan to produce with a business plan I've written for my innovative never-been-done-surefire-financing plan for motion pictures. Plus, I consult with local business owners so that they can build their own website (it's not rocket science) and I help them improve their SEO and learn how to balance their online and their local marketing.


People just don't get it.


"So do you... like... work for a company?"


The only time I spill the beans is when I think my story can help someone. My husband and I closed our family business last year. I think people assumed that we had a bunch of money in some secret savings account (because you know, everyone with a failing business is secretly rich, right?) Either way, my husband was depressed and in and out of court, and I just had to write. The feelings of losing the business, were too hard to journal in my blog, so I wrote nonfiction articles. When I started to see that I could earn an income from it, I plowed ahead, with an initial goal of $100 a day, 7 days a week.


The days were long but the bills were paid. No one really knew how we were managing. My girl friends knew, and thought it was cool. A friend of ours once tried to sell us a used computer and told me to "ask my husband for the money" I nearly burst a blood vessel. I'm sure if I tried explaining it to him that he would have ended up confused. I declined the computer offer because I didn't want to explain it.


People always ask what we've been doing since the business closed. Instead of explaining anymore, I just say "nothing." or "taking care of the kids."

Leaving the house each day

I made a commitment to myself a few months ago, I was going to leave the house each day. You'd think with 6 busy children I'd be running around constantly, but I've managed to arrange enough carpools and activities at our house that I discovered once that I hadn't left the house for 3 days. Friends and neighbors had come and gone, I had gotten dressed three times and never actually gone anywhere. Gas was almost $4 a gallon, so it was a smart financial situation. I used to work outside the home for 12-16 hours a day, so this would be, I guess, the natural opposite end of the spectrum. The only problem, though is that it's entirely against my nature, and I was going a little nuts. I'd stand in line at the grocery store and compose blog posts for my fellow shoppers, making fun of me. I'd imagine how I'd feel stumbling upon what they had written. Surely, that's just one notch away from schizophrenia. Just a notch higher than actually having multiple blogs (come on, we all know you have multiple blogs) Anyways, when evening rolls around if I haven't left the house, I step out the front door and sip a cup of coffee on the porch. Nothing is sweeter than smelling the night air, knowing the kids are safe in bed. Sometimes I can hear them giggling and shushing each other. When I finally come inside, after listening to the train a few miles away, the crickets, the wind, the neighbor's dog, I'm not thinking of writing, or web design, I'm just thinking "This is the life."

Time for Work

A lot of work-at-home gurus pitch an organized lifestyle that's probably really comforting to women who have migrated from a traditional employment background. I'm just going to ruin that for you a little bit. Nothing personal, I just want to share how it works in my house. We're organized in a way that's a little more ADD (is it naughty to use that as an adjective?)


My laptop is on all day long and I rarely sit for more than 30 minutes at a time. I have six kids and a work-from-home husband. We eat three family meals a day at our house and we play dirty. That creates a lot of housework. We're homeschooling and while most of their studying is independent, there are times when I'm called to read stories, give daytime baths, cook, clean up little messes, watch a concert, remove gum from someone's hair, break up an argument, mop dog pee or answer the door.


Every time I walk past, I write something. To maintain this insane level of activity, I have come up with a few handy tips:


1- Chant whatever you're supposed to be writing until you can get back to the computer. Sometimes I find myself accidentally walking around the house saying things like "SEO benefits of mis-spelled words" over and over again. My daughter recently overheard me and said "What the heck are the SEO benefits of mis-spelled words?" and I said "That's a great idea for an article, thank you honey." She's still confused.


2- Change the automatic screen saver setting on your computer. I keep my laptop in a central location, between my kitchen and my living room, at eye level. Since I've removed the screen saver, I find I can write a sentence at a time each time I walk past. Sometimes I'll even ask someone across the room to type for me while I dictate the next thought. I've gotten into the habit of saying cha-ching every time I step away from it. Use your browser tabs liberally, and keep sticky notes handy.


3- Make a real breakfast. It creates less dishes, it's more nutritious, it's cheaper, the kids get fuller and if everyone sits down to eat together, there's a possibility that the table could actually be cleared all day until lunch. Make lunch, too. Never leave kids to fend for themselves, they are kind of messy. Even peanut butter and jelly can be a disaster. The crock pot is your friend.


Some organizational strategies are less obvious than others. I don't really have set working hours, and while we definitely have a rhythm to our days, we don't have a schedule. I once wrote down what we did all day and called that our schedule. It worked really nicely until it changed. Such is life, an organic free flowing approach to time management isn't naughty or weird for us, it's just the way we roll.

My Ehow this week

I'm really annoyed that Ehow doesn't offer an RSS feed of members' articles. See my sidebar---------> Those are my article feeds from most of the sites I write for. I can't promote my ehow articles, though because they don't have a feed. They have a comment feed. I think that's kind of lame. Maybe I can use that. No because each article has their own comments, and I can't subscribe just to MY comments. I wish the people at ehow would explain to me why they don't offer article feeds. Maybe it's some kind of genius I can't comprehend. i doubt it. Not that I'm a genius, but I with ehow had RSS feeds, OK. Get with the current century, thank you.

Anyhow- I've been writing three a day since I bought the ebook mentioned HERE and here they are, as of this morning (haven't finished one yet today)

Sorry about the crazy formatting, I wasn't planning to enter them individually and this is how they've turned out. We need a widget or something, can you tell I'm annoyed about this! (ooh- I even had to update the coding, this is way too much work to promote articles. ATTENTION EHOW- I'M NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS.

apparently you have to scroll down... a LOT and I'm really not sure why.

Enjoy the trip

11/05/08	How to Make Money Writing for Type A Mom
11/05/08	How to Secretly Make Someone Smile
11/05/08	How to Homeschool Kindergarten
11/04/08	How to Make Money with Amazon Mturk Hits
11/04/08	How to Find December Events
11/03/08	How to Ignore Parenting Advice
11/02/08	How to Choose Educational Toys
11/01/08	How to Host a Chickenpox Party
10/31/08	How to Plan a Secret Santa Gift Exchange
10/31/08	How to Teach Reading with Video Games
10/31/08	How to Avoid Homeschool Burnout
11/04/08	How to Keep Homeschool Records (For Unschoolers)
11/03/08	How to Find Free Online Homeschooling
11/03/08	How to Make Whole Wheat Pancakes From Scratch
11/02/08	How to Stop Teeth Grinding
11/02/08	How to Find Used Homeschool Books
11/01/08	How to Watermark Pictures with GIMP
11/01/08	How to Make Oatmeal Bath

Ehow is my newest exciting thing

OK , so after reading all of the hype, I went ahead and ordered Maria's Ebook, How to Earn Residual Passive Income on Ehow. OMG- it is really a fantastic e-book. She so very clearly simplifies the process and tells you the very best way to go about earning from the get-go. I already had an ehow account, and it wasn't doing that much. After I read her ebook, I decided to use her proven ideas and open a new account, following her guidelines.

From the get-go, I have earned more using her techniques than I was earning on my own. She is a genius. I didn't even know you could do .... certain things.... on ehow. If I say them I'll be spilling her fantastic ideas, but let's just say that they work. So I will now be publishing 3 ehow articles a day for the next few months.

I was able to use her techniques on other sites as well, and you'll see me writing more Suite101 articles now, too.

Anyhow- I highly recommend you get her ebook if you're wirting on ehow, instead of sitting around waiting to figure these things out for yourself. I noticed a difference within hours of implementing her first idea. HOURS- I hadn't even finished writing my first article yet. AND- this morning, using her techniques, I was able to publish my three articles before lunch time. So- try it, you'll like it.
Click here to view more details
When the weekend is over, I can't wait to show you the screen shots. I am jaw-dropped amazed.

Never bid on crap like this, OK

Hello,

How are you today? Please I will like you to go to article directories and pick up 1,000 articles each for topics relation to "motivational quotes" and "dating".

I will like you to present each of the 1,000 articles to me in MS Word files.

I have attached a format. You will notice that the titles are presented on top and that each new article starts from a new page.

Do kindly ensure that no two articles are the same. This is important.

How long will it take you to complete this project?

Chinedu

This person wants all these articles COPIED (stolen) for less than $30. For less than 3 cents a piece. After RAC fees, you'd be getting around $20. For all that. Ridiculous, isn't it.

Freelance Writing Jobs Blog Talk Radio

You can hear the show here and there were a lot of leads and the Amazing Shannan was interviewed, the show was really cool. It was neat to hear the voices of ladies I know online. Ihope you enjoy the show, too!

She mentioned Suite 101 (back when they paid their writers) I made over $150 last month, and each month is higher than the month before. The workload never changes, it's always about 4 hours a month, and the pay goes up each month. So disregard what she said about that.

The show, though was great, I need to listen to the whole thing, and you might, too.

Twitter Funnies

Twitter has a feature that allows users to make favorites of tweets they like, I just don't see the point, but I've been doing it anyways. Here are my favorite tweets, I chose original (non reply) tweets that stand alone and hold way more than 140 characters of meaning or humor.

revision: Hard to believe that the scrawny kid who use to play with himself while reading Mad Magazine is now a prominent doctor.
-Neilochka

Up late watching Gymnastics. Doesn't Nastia seem like a cruel name to give a child; sounds like nasty and nausea
-Luckymom

"Now I need to bone my blue ball!" screams my 4 year old. I am really hoping he meant "I need to BOWL my blue ball."
-mommastantrum

Even though The Man has tried convincing me for years that tomatoes are a fruit, I have my doubts. Privately, I believe it's a vegetable.
-mochamomma


can you not try to act like you have cholera please???
-CrunchyCarpets



Bob Costas is like childbirth. Even if you have forgotten, the reminder of that pain in the ass is almost instantaneous when it hits.
-
Mommy4Cocktails

Sleep deprivation is catching up with me. Will spend the afternoon face down on floor while children use me as a jungle gym.
-WordToYourMutha

I swear by all that is holy if it rains for the NEXT 40 days here in FL, I'm starting on my damn ark
-AnissaMayhew

I have found the root of the world's problems. It's quite simple. Men. Are. Retarded.
-MissSueBurbia

I strongly feel the need to retweet @jkottke: "Accidentally waterboarded myself in the shower this morning." Nice one, mate. Nice one.
-Chuckumentary

I wish I craved exercising as much as I do chocolate.
-DarlaF

"This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a twitter!" Fairly constant adoration for Patton Oswalt. Sue me.
-VelveteenMind


I just picked up a post-it note on the floor that has (in husband's handwriting) "KOREAN HOE-Curled? Cheap?" The hell? ;-)
-FabGirl

Marshalls is opening a chain of plastic surgeons with irregular, discontinued and offbrand boobs at low low prices!
-Stranahan (and actually, that one was a reply to mommastantrum


Billy Joel needs to apologize to me again for Tell Her About It.
-lauriewrites

Have you ever been out to dinner with someone and wished they only had 140 character to tell you something? I did tonight.
-poshmama

wow, DH used Wii Fit balance board to weigh his luggage.
-mamikaze

If rain is God's tears then the big guy just lost 3 mos rent at Vegas and is none too happy about it.
-chickybaby

Putting together a Radio Flyer for Ellie (who now crawls, stands, and just started her 1st tooth). I wish this month could last for 2 years.
-hotdogsladies

Beer is cheaper than gas. Drink, don't drive.
-busymom

I quit a job today.

Here's the letter I wrote

I'm done with this job, I hope you find someone who can put up with the wide variety of trivial personal preferences that each editor seems to have. One day an article isn't focused enough, one day it is too focused. (name of company) is great, the ever-changing whims of the editors, combined with stricter standards that I think they've all interpreted differently is ridiculous. I'd like to leave on good terms, I think the company is fantastic.

If I get fired

If I get fired, it is because I have violated some kind of rule by making the pretty widget instead of keeping the ugly widget on my site. Compare for yourself- let me know what you think.

Become a freelance writer!

Latest Articles by Lisa Russell

30 Queries in 30 Days

Join me in 30 queries in 30 days, my new challenge to help moms become writers.

More work sources for content producers

TextBroker although I hear the pay is low. In the contract there's a word spelled wrong, that is so tacky. I registered, in anything comes of it, I will let you know. I hope it doesn't, I don't really want another low paying job.

Mahalo the rates for the individual jobs I saw mentioned were steep, but it was also mentioned that there was quite a bit of work involved in each job. I signed up, again, I will let you know if anything comes of it. I was supposed to get an automatic email confirmation and it didn't arrive. And yes, I checked the spam box.


RentaCoder is another one I learned of today. I had seen the listing before, but I thought it was all for technical programmers. I saw a graphic design job that I placed a bid on today.

LovetoKnow requires their writers to post 20 articles per month. I hope they pay well, that's a heck of a rule. They didn't have any categories that interested me in the slightest, so I didn't apply, but I'll keep my eyes and ears open, in case I hear more about them.

WRG- Writers Resource Guide? No, Writers Resource Center, WRC? I don't know. Once again, if anything comes of it, I'll let you know!

BellaOnline I saved the best for last. This site is fantastic, the level of support for writers is unparalleled. You don't get paid for clicks or hits, but you do get to place affiliate links in the newsletter. I'm writing on budget decor, which is fun. I like to decorate, and I'm cheap. I don't know if I'm good at it or anything, but I can write about it. My keywording is good, today I found a few of my articles on page 1 in google searches. The lady who owns the site is amazing, a fantastic lady. I have a lot to learn from her, I'm loving Bella Online

Suite101 I have been writing for them since December. I was recently promoted to feature writer for my section, it came with a pay raise and a teeny bit of extra requirements. I have upped my article production there from one a week to one a day with the hopes of generating much bigger income in a very short time.

Associated Content, I have never written anything there, ever. I'm not sure how it works. I keep meaning to try and figure it out. I left helium.com because the pay was insulting and the other articles on the site were garbage, and I hear other AC writers complaining of the same thing, but it sounds to me like the AC writers are making a bit more, too.

More work sources for content producers.

Be a Wahm

I just found the WAHM website, and I highly recommend their message boards. There are so many forums with information on companies that hire home workers. Women send annoucements whenever their WAHM company is hiring, and let other moms know about it, so they can apply. It's a fantastic resource, the women are very supportive of eachother.

Don't Spell Things Wrong in Your Header, Dummy

While looking for sites to write for, I came across Just Articles, I didn't apply because they have a spelling error in their header. Maybe I'm lame. I sometimes spell things wrong, but given the subject matter of the site and the prominent placement of the error you'd think they'd have noticed.

Easy almost-writer Jobs any mom can do from home

Um- Okay technically the term would be content producer. Forum Booster is a service that helps create conversations on new message boards to stir up conversations and get people talking. They pay writers to go have bogus conversations on the new website's message boards, so that when the real visitors arrive, it looks like people have been already involved for a while. If that sort of thing sounds like fun to you, consider applying there. They also sell web content articles and blog articles, so when you apply to be a writer there, I am sure you'll get the info you need.

Being a ChaCha Guide is another job I have been doing that's a bit of a pain in the butt so I have temporarily quit, but I'm going back there soon so I can reach the payment plateau of $100. It's a great job for the easily distracted. I think my average time per inquiry was about 1.5 minutes. They give you a Firefox toolbar with quick-search links and you basically just have to answer a bunch of random questions that people send in. The questions come from text messages send to 242242, which spells ChaCha- go ahead, text them any question right now. A real person answers your question. You get 20 cents for each one and you set your own hours and work whenever you feel like it. Super easy. Some of the questions are a bit obscene, a lot of teenagers wanting sex advice.

Google, I have 3 words for you

I love you. Today. It always bothered me that the average search volume and the last month's search volume were indicated with a little bar. In order to choose we had to either click on the top to sort them in order and see that yes, indeed this term is one more pixel-width more popular than the other one. OK, we'll go with that. But today, as I sit to write, I see that they're showing numbers. They all end in zeros, but even rounded-off numbers are easier to look at than little green bars. Thank you, google. Today, I will not say nasty things about you.

Finding Joy amidst the twitter.... issues....

OK so twitter has become wildly popular and like many other online success stories, they just can't handle it- technically speaking. They are upgrading and to be honest, I haven't had a problem the past few days. OK I have, but only like once or twice as opposed to entire days in the past when I've gotten error messages.

It's caused me to think quite deeply about the whale image they use for their error screen. It's 8 birds lifting a whale with a net. Sort of gives you an appreciation for the immensity of the task, and an understanding of what's gone on behind the scene to "get this off the ground." What the f@$&K ever.

If you look very closely at the birds, you'll see that 4 of them are going in one direction and 4 are going in the opposite direction. I think that's their problem. They need to work together and set some common goals. Otherwise the whale is going to get pissed and eat them up.

Other twitter users have speculated different perspectives

It's a Series of Children's Picture Books

In case you're wondering what my latest brainstorm innovation is. They're based upon the Suzy Lou stories I've been telling my kids at bedtime for years. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. There are like a hundred Suzy Lou Stories. Suzy Lou is a very... well I guess you'll have to wait and see.

I started with a list of 56 children's book publishers, then I narrowed it down to nine that I think should see the manuscript. Two of them will only deal with an agent. Some pay flat fees, some pay royalties only, and still others pay a combination of both. One doesn't accept simultaneous submissions. I need to brush up on how to send a manuscript- what my cover letter should look like... I know my market, I know my angle and I have some idea of how I want the illustrations but honestly, the character is so "easy to see" that I trust any good illustrator will give her a lovable face.

I need to see what the protocol is for finding an illustrator. Anyone know?

Negativity in Social Networking

I've been twittering, and I recently started to "follow" a gal with an awesome website. Most of the people I follow share resources and other pertinent information via twitter. It's been a lot of fun asking a question and getting instant responses from my mom-blogging colleagues. I expected, when I began to follow this girl, that she'd be "just another mom-blogging writer friend whom I could keep in touch with and share resources with." This has not been the case, however. I was tempted to simple stop following her but now I feel the need to explain the situation, in the hopes that one day she asks me about it. because- it's really for her own good.

Here goes:
Dear (name removed so I'm not being rude)
You are an interesting lady with a great website. I can no longer follow you, however, because everything you tweet is negative. It's getting annoying. No one likes sour grapes. You complain about everything. Since Twitter sometimes acts up, Here is a sampling of your last few tweets.

So after spending the entire day reading studies and reports about Internet addiction, I 've come to the conclusion we all have a problem.

Morning Tweets - Locking myself in my office and not focusing on anything but work. See you in a few hours when I let myself out.

Do you mean those "Wow. What a great blog. My blog is great too. Come see at http:imreallyaspammer.com" comments?

I don't want to sound ungrateful for my visitors but I wonder if people actually read what they right before they send

I don't mind that part. To expect me to make clients to jump through hoops because they don't want to ask for more details is ass.

I don't usually complain about my readers but this didn't do anything to buoy my mood at all.

Getting a little annoyed at some of the nitpicky visitiors to FWJ. I mean really, do they want me to apply for the gigs for them too.

10 Truly Ugly Homes

Wow. Just wow. Learning that made my mood go from having a great day to "I guess I suck."

so my laptop totally went black on me. Won't let me reboot. Life sucks.

15 Celebrities Who Sang...But Shouldn't Have

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but there are better ways to go about it. For example- if you're getting stupid questions from people try posting a FAQ or an auto-responder instead of complaining to the same tweets you're advertising to. I also found it ironic that you'd ask if people "actually read what they right" I'd be upset, too if my laptop died. Actually it is dead. And I am upset. But life doesn't suck because of it. And you don't suck either, but your attitude does. Challenge yourself, please to make a list of ten wonderful things about yourself. Here's one to get you started; "I, (insert name) have an awesome website that helps women make a living online and be with their children instead of leaving home each day." And while we're at it; "Life doesn't suck." I hope you can think of more. And for the record, I hate SPAM comments, too.

You have a large following, you have a responsibility to uplift and inspire people instead of constantly bringing them down.

Things to do today...

Check out this hilarious post from Christine Kane. I am an obsessive list maker, I've learned to keep weekly, not daily lists though. Floating a list item to another day just feels so darned naughty. I don't color code, but I do use a graphic organizing system. On a standard sheet of paper, I use each corner for a separate list. One corner might be the grocery list, another might be "stops i have to make while running around town" another corner might be "things to do while kids are occupied & don't need me" and another might be "people i need to contact" the center is usually reserved for housework, and that gets delegated to the kids anyways. I can't wait to read the rest- I do think my list might be on steroids. You don't even want to know what's on the back. Yeah- it's another list.

Review: PayMeToBlogAboutYou

This site is really hard to use. Their interface is really ridiculous. I've worked a few posts for them, but honestly, I just don't understand why each job shows up in ten places. And when the job is over, shouldn't it disappear or something? I don't know. I don't like this site. I'm thinking this might be the one where you actually write the blog post, THEN you bid to see if they'll pay you for it. What's up with that? And the minimum payout for PayPal is $10, then you have to request payment, they don't automatically pay you. The entire site is difficult to navigate. Maybe I was spoiled by PayPer Post or something. This site involves too much logging on to communicate with the sites you're writing for.

Review: BloggingAds

I am simply not cool enough for this website. They require a minimum pagerank of 2/10 and I'm a big fat zero. The site looks nice, it looks like it's laid out well. They pay weekly and the do happen to have some nice articles about how to write a quality blog that you can access even if your blog is rejected or awaiting approval (The approval process can take 6 weeks.)

Review: Smorty

I haven't spent much time on the Smorty website. They have a unique program for exchanging reviews with other bloggers on the site. It's a great idea, but I caution you to make sure you're reviewing sites you'd normally discuss on your site. If you're a blogger who usually discusses types of turtles, turtle care and breeding, then don't review a blog about Jupiter. Even if Jupiter gets ten thousand hits a day. Stick with your kind. I haven't used that feature so I'm not sure how it works. I think the whole Smorty wite is a little difficult to navigate. Like anything, you just need to get used to it. It's hard to say if they only have a teeny amount of opportunities or if maybe only the ones I'm available for show on my screen maybe? In my experience, they pay quickly, like I'm thinking they pay as soon as it's reviewed and accepted. I'm not sure how long they require you to keep the link active- who knows? Comment if you know the answer, please.

Review: BuyBlogReviews.com

This site has grown a lot since I first joined. There are several opportunities listed. It takes a little longer to get work here than it does through PayPerPost. With BuyBlogReviews, you must bid on each job. It's not rocket Science, they tell you what the minimum bid is and you get to bid over that if you think you're worth it. Some of the foreign companies just don't know the value of the dollar. They want "English speaking bloggers only" to spend like 2 hours reviewing their website and write a 500 word review comparing and contrasting two products, listing their benefits and telling a personal story about their childhood, for two dollars. yeah, right. Some of the opportunities give you the impression they wouldn't recognize good English grammar if you stuck it up their nose. Too many of the opportunities there look similar, and don't give enough information in the headline. If you want to learn what the job is about, you need to open each one up. It's really a pain.

I happened to just bid on something, it's a site I would normally mention. If my page rank were higher I would have bid more than the minimum $5. There are a lot of social networking and moneymaking sites on their opportunity list, which leads me to believe I should get this blog on the approval list.

Review: PayPerPost

When I first started working online I made most of my money through PayPerPost. Websites (including blogs) are "graded" by Google on a scale of zero to ten. The higher your grade, or PageRank, the more companies want their name on your blog. However, if their company isn't one you'd normally be writing about (you frequently discuss turtles and their commonly used all have to do with Juipiter) it is perceived as making you less of a turtle authority, and your page rank goes down, making your blog worth less. A good friend of mine went from a pagerank of 3/10 down to a rank of zero almost s soon as she began using PayPerPost. Here's the kicker, there are so many zero pagerank bloggers on PayPerPost that in order to get any paid posts ($5 and up) you have to sit there almost all day long refreshing the opportunity page because as soon as it is posted there are ten thousand zero ranking vultures pecking at it. As your page rank increases there are less vultures and you can choose a little more which posts you want to write about. Which is smart, because if you're linking to a site that isn't relevant to your site it makes your rank go down. If you decide to blog for income be sure to resist the temptation to make a quick buck by posting irrelevant things. You'll regret it.

If you already regret it, you can recover. First, PayPerPost allows you to delete your paid posts after they're paid. Which is 30 days after you've posted it. You can look at your "My Posts" tab to see a list of your posts. If you click on the heading "days to be paid" it will put all the posts you've received payment for together, so you can go through your blog and get rid of them. If you happen to get rid of one before you're paid, PayPal will send you a note asking you to resubmit the post. If you're afraid of losing a post, you can turn them into drafts until you're more confident.

Google re-ranks everyone quarterly, so you'll be re-ranked every 3 months. You get "good points" for having higher-ranking relevant sites linking to yours. Google knows if your links are relevant because both sites tend to use the same keywords and phrases frequently. You get bad points for having a lot of outgoing irrelevant links, and random incoming links. Google also looks to see that a certain percentage of your blog is actual text and not a page full of links or advertisements.

Good Luck- I am blogging the various sites that pay bloggers today, so stay tuned for more...

Absent, busy, me

I haven't posted much on any of my blogs this week. I suddenly realized the power of this little job I've got. it's called UNLIMITED INCOME, I just have to do it. And I wasn't doing it. Now I am, instead of posting to these blogs. My mantra these days is "saving my house $5 at a time. Although I just got another little job that might change my mantra into "saving my house $15 at a time" which would be way more efficient. My husband, on the other hand, likes to "save the house $60K at a time" and it looks like his tourism video (the job that brought us to this crazy little town) is finished. I wrote the narration, and my name is the first one up on the screen, which is really neat. He's an awesome salesman so I am sure we'll sell a million, and I'll get to take a trip or something with my writing income. In the meantime, my hair has grown back, my kids are amazing, and this whole experience with the restaurant has been like a bad dream that we are waking up from, a little more each day. The debts are there, but our family is coming back to life. i am turning more into the me that I LOVE TO BE and enjoying the munchkins, and my sweet husband and life is so very sweet. We might be broke, busted and whatever else, but damn, life is good.

Choosing a payment method

One of the websites I work for offers me the option of a monthly paypal deposit or a check, which they mail out quarterly. I always opt for paypal in these situations, because it's faster and I don't (even though I should) care about the fees. She had an interesting perspective, though and I'm going ot consider it. id on't know if it was really a perspective, or just her experience that gave me a new perspective. She's getting a big quarterly check in the mail. It's not like my little trickling in of income doesn't impress my husband, surely he notices and appreciates and all that crap. But if I were recieving checks in the mail, physicla checks he could see and deposit he might feel a little differently about my income. And why shouldn't I care about the paypal fees, they're fees. is it really worth it to have "instant access" to the cash, it spends just the same . Or does it? How much of that paypal money have I pissed away on ebay. And now she tells me overstock.com takes paypal. I didn't need to know that. Nor did I need to know about all the free trade deals on overstock. So now I am thinking, a big fat quarterly check in the mail might be a good idea. I'd be less likely to piss it away and My husband would recognize it as more income. Hmmm

Make Money from Home Processing Orders

I found a great resource for you; a blog by a lady who works from home as an order processor. She has 3-4 different companies she works for and she really know a lot about the business. I can't do it because my house is too noisy. It looks like it pays well, though. Check out her blog on my sidebar, E-jobs or something. Enjoy

Defining Success and a diatribe on social networking

While I haven''t thus far felt compelled to define success, I have stumbled upon a definition of success that resonates with my personal goals, and I'd like to share it with you.

From the FundsforWriters website:

Success means earning a living doing what you love

Earning a Living
I think that's a perfect expression of what my goals are with this whole writing thing. Earning a living; We're in a two-income culture, and I have almost 3 times as many children as the average American. While we do live a lot cheaper than other families, we still aren't exceeding 3 times the income level of anyone. So I don't expect to suddenly jump up the writing income ladder into three times the average income of a full-time writer, I do aim to perfect the craft and the business end of it, and eventually enjoy a nice income to contribute to our family's needs.

Doing What You Love
I love being a mom. I love the child-development aspect and the psychology of watching how each different personality type responds to the stimulus of growing up. I love watching them solve problems and follow their interests. I love watching them learn how to reach their goals. I love re-discovering the world with them, every day. And I love writing about it. More importantly, though, I love the idea of helping other women find bliss in their parenting. My challenge, sometimes is to not write about my own children so that readers might find joy in them, my challenge is to write about finding joy in children so that readers might find joy in their own. I do both, I guess. I hope.

Now that I have a workable definition of success, I will be focusing my attention to working on projects that further that purpose. PPP might not be part of that process. Hotel reviews might not be part of that process. However, those are the things that have brought me income lately, so I guess I will participate in those, but I will forget about the social networking business, it has been a bit of a neverending cycle. I end up with a bunch of readers who come to me just so that they can "network" but the network is based upon... networking. I guess if networking were my passion, I might like that. However, since the passion is parenting, I will focus instead on creating quality parenting material and learning about the needs of the parenting market, in print and online. I will also stick better to my working schedule and specifically name the times and days I plan to visit (more) parenting boards to be in touch with readers and build my blog traffic. I will do that in the morning, work and play with the kids in the daytime and actually write-write in the evenings, since that's how my brain works.

So what is your definition of success? Is success a journey or a destination? I believe it is a journey.

Almost like being a drug tester

But not quite; Yesterday while I was spending 6 hrs at the hospital with G1 to discover that 1- it wasn't medically wrong of me to "help" her abcessed tooth/gum thing drain out; and 2-my sterilization techniques were adequate and admirable and 3- my instincts were correct regarding the immediate need for frequent spitting and antibiotics, I made more money than I ever have in a single recorded day that I can recall on my Suite101 articles. So while some people make money in their jammies, or naked, or whatever else, I make money contracting germs with my kids.

EntreCard Rates

Is it my imagination or did Entrecard totally change the way their Ad prices are determined. If I remember correctly, didn't it used to be based upon hits or card drops? And now it's based upon what- how many people are waiting to advertise on your site? Hmmm- Yeah- I just checked the campaigns page and it's totally different now, the higher ones were around 500EC to advertise, now they're over 2000. Big deal, it's fake currency designed to reward the busy droppers, whatever. I wonder if people will get freaked out about it.

Mombloggers Unite

I just read a wonderful article that really summed up a few things
1- why moms blog
2-why moms read blogs

I've often said that life moves so fast, and blogging helps me keep up.

Here's the article... http://www.mommybloggers.com/2006/09/mombloggers_unite.html

Goodbye Kontera

Text link ads aren't for me. Mostly they were just linking random words to search engines. I'd enter the word "baby" and when you hovered over it, it would say "Find a Baby." I don't want tons of outgoing links to stupid stuff.

The Financial Success Directory

There are so many opportunities to make money online. I have a little bit of web design knowledge, and I write. It's easy to get distracted and think maybe I should switch to web design or graphic design. I know the digital scrapbooking designers sometimes look like they're having a lot more fun than I am. Maybe... if I ever got that Macbook Air like I've been wanting. The pink one. But alas, I have fallen into the writing career, and blogging about it serves as my journal-along-the-way to help anyone else who ventures this way. I've found a few things that worked and a few things that haven't worked. Mind you, I've only been at this since January. I just found a new website (that I linked to up above, Angellica2017.com) and it's like a big directory of online money-making opportunities. I was pleased to find so may resources and articles on how to maximize your adsense profits, how to avoid scams, how to intertwine your adsense and affiliate links. All in all, it seems like a great directory. Of the ten articles in the sidebar, I think I enjoyed like 8 of them. That's pretty good. And I think I can't possibly be the only one enjoying this guys (Or girl, Angellica doesn't sound masculine!) OK I can't be the only one enjoying this website because it has over 20,000 subscribers. I don't know how many sites you're subscribed to but I don't subscribe to very many, so when I see that over 20,000 people have enjoyed this site so much that they want to subscribe, I find it very impressive. You are subscribed to me of course, right?

Another impressive fact about this website is its pagerank of 3/10. That's saying something important, and if Google values them enough to give them a ranking at all, then I'm paying close attention. Great articles on SEO that I can use on all of my sites and articles everywhere. Also information on adsense marketing secrets that make it look so darned simple- you should really check it out. He also has articles about Affiliate marketing, which I have seen a lot of success stories on- I'm thinking an SEO optimized affiliate site can be a powerful thing. I still have a lot to learn, and writing for the web is very different from blogging and writing for print magazines and newsletters. Google crawls for search terms that people tend to use when they're looking for information. Google also has tools we can use to see which terms are searched for more frequently, so that when we use them in a certain proportion to our text, we're guaranteed to come up higher in the search list. So this website has articles on google, too so that you can learn what tools google has available.

Good luck to you. Remember, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how much you win.

Reasons to be Independent

I just found yet again another blog from a woman whose husband just up and died. I am in shock. The emotion is so raw. This is the second one I have come across lately. The first one was a mystery illness that took Jim away from his wife and six kids in less than 24 hours on 12-17-07. The second one was a Pulmonary Embolism that yanked Jeff away from his wife and two small children on 3-25-08. I just can't imagine going through something like that. I can't imagine dealing with my kids while I'm so sad and they're so sad. What would I do? What would I say? We used to fight and I'd wish he'd be gone. I think I changed my mind at my Uncles funeral, when my nieces entered the funeral home and let out a cry from so very deep that I'll never forget the sound, or the feeling of hopelessness and misery that it represented. They lost their Daddy and there was nothing any of us could do to help. Hold up their bodies so they can walk across the room, let their tears fall into our shoulder. The emptiness was painful. They had to clean out his apartment, pick clothes for him to be buried in. Their mother (divorced) had issues, too. How much do you like your ex? Not at all- I'm guessing, but suddenly now he's dead and your kids are heartbroken and you're needing to suddenly "remember the good times" so your kids can mourn, instead of remembering the time you got your ass kicked when he came home drunk? Anyway- both of these women were left to wonder how they'd manage financially with their husbands gone. Luckily, we have Life Insurance. If anything happened that would help, for at least 2 years, with a cheap funeral. I'm glad, though, that I have a means of supporting us in case anything happened, I can't imagine going out on a job interview right after the funeral and sticking my grief-stricken kids in school or daycare right away. I think I'd want to lay in bed forever and wither away in a puddle of tears.

Doing my secret happy dance

I can't wait to post my stats. 4 more days....

Scheduling for WAHMs

Failure to Plan is Planning to Fail

Scheduling is so important when you have 6 kids and work from home. Here's what I do that works:

Be flexible
sounds kind of contradictory to a schedule, but the best laid plans have to allow for interruptions and inspirations.

First things First
I begin each day with work, usually at 4 or 5a.m. It used to be my "me" time, and I'd use it for sending thank-you cards, reading a favorite book, or browsing favorite websites. Now, I use it for work. Since I am writing again, and that's what brings me joy, I find it appropriate. Once the kids begin to stir, I start making breakfast (big and hot) while they get dressed and make their beds. Their "first things first" is math, followed by the rest of their schoolwork. We have 'landmark times" throughout our day. Lunch is served at noon and no one eats unless their morning jobs and math are finished. Snack is served at 2pm and no one eats unless all of their schoolwork and chores are done. Dinner is served at 7pm and no one eats unless (you guessed it) chores are finished and room is clean. After diner, the older kids have a turn on the computer while the middle & little ones take baths and get ready for bed. We read bedtime stories, and they go to sleep. If I have any spunk left in me at all, (I usually do) I get back on the computer for just a little more work (I love it, really I do.)

So- a schedule can bring rhythm to your day, but doesn't have to be restrictive.

Within our days, we have inner schedules, I have certain writing assignments I work on each day of the week, certain days for certain blogs, and jobs that simply MUST be done before I check my Myspace. I have a certain "daily dollar" goal which is getting increasingly easy to meet. But the basic outline of our day is a flexible schedule that allows for field trips, road trips and sick days.

Do You know the Secret?

Several years ago, I read Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, it was like an Oprah AHA moment. The message was, trust your instincts, trust that things always turn out for the best, trust that things will always turn out the way you want them. Don't stress about things because that doesn't work and it detracts you from your goals; prevents you from seeing opportunities becuase you're focused on bad stuff. When I was in high school, I had this neener neener neener song I used to sing in my head "I always get my waaaayyy" Because it was true- I did. And now I find myself singing it more and more often in my head. That's part of the secret; knowing things will turn out the way you want them. So in comes The Secret; it's the same knowledge that's existed since the beginnings of civilization, only all wrapped up in a snazzy year 2000's wrapper. It's very palatable that way; it comes in a DVD, an audio book and a regular book. I recommend the audio book. The DVD is too corny, it's comedy, really. the special effects are a crack up. Watch it after you've heard the Audio. The book sucks in comparison to the Audio. Unlike other audio books, The Secret uses the real voices of the people interviewed, in all their excited inflection that can't be written. So get the audio, stick it in your car and just listen. It's good stuff. By Rhonda Byrne.

Ebooks for Success

Send me some recommendations, please. I know Guy Lecke's keywords cracker was very insightful. I'm sure you SEO wizards have all used the Google keyword tool to see how popular certain search terms are, but then there's all that other info, like CPM and CPC, what's up with that? Is it better to use the popular search terms with high ad competition, or the least popular search terms with the higher ad competition, and subsequently higher CP whatever, his book spells it all out and helps you understand how to use keywords in a way that helps you market yourself properly, instead of being all scatterbrained trying to get by on your looks or personality (obviously mine is personality, and it's working a teeny bit)

SO- I know there are some out there like "Be a millionaire with adsense in 10 days" and stuff like that. If i ever write one it will be called "How to become a millionaire in ten days even if you don't have 6 kids" Just kidding, if I become a millionaire in ten days I'm not sticking around to write a frigging e-book, I'm going to Dubai.

But seriously, if you've found one that offered helpful hints, gave good advice, or otherwise seemed worth the investment, let me know. So far everything I've seen is all the same regurgitated information that exists everywhere.

Wait a minute, maybe I should listen to it, huh. Nah, I'm addicted to the process, the journey is the destination, this is fun. whatever, it's late, goodnight.

Entrecard trick

If you're using Mozilla Firefox and you bookmark all of the entrecard sites you frequent (like 10 or 20 sites in one folder) then all you need to do is "open all in tabs" Once they're all open, just click to each tab, whatever is on top is new content, comment if you feel like it, drop a card and move on. I actually prefer this method to other subscriptions because honestly- the only time I check my google reader is when I'm adding something to it. And live bookmarks- only 6 show up on my tool bar, so I rarely (if ever) see the others.

I do think it's unethical to visit just for the purpose of dropping cards, if I LIKE a blog I'll bookmark it, but I'm not going to bookmark a site for the purpose of dropping a card when it isn't even a site I enjoy looking at or reading. That said, there aren't many I don't like! The cat one- I just don't get it. And the fetus one. It just isn't updated enough, I want more. It's frustrating.

Win 2 free books

Marthe Stewart's The Martha Rules and Donald Trump's Think like a Billionaire

Amazon affiliates

Why do they make it so difficult? Damn, I feel like I'm going through 25 screens to make one stupid item link. I'd like to just punch in the ISBN #'s from the back of all the books I'm referencing, and then be able to get all the codes at once. We're homeschoolers, we read and love a lot of books. I want to sell them through my kids history project blog and Amazon is making it so difficult. My next step is to try and do a wish list or a favorites list. I'll bet that's easier. Next time I have a spare 3 hours I'll try it (don't hold your breath, I haven't had a spare 3 hours since.... childbirth) I tried using their textlink program but it was hard.

Why would you have 6 blogs?

Because the Philipino ladies all do, and I'm thinking that's how they're making like $90k per year on their blogging.

Links into your blog increase its value.

So having multiple blogs that link to one another automatically gives you in links and potentially multiple streams of income

Currently, MrsH is my only monetized blog. It's got a pagerank of 0

Non monetized blogs have higher pageranks, and are therefore worth more.

So I'm building the content in these other blogs in order to increase their worth, and begin to monetize them, too.

To help MrsH recover it's lost (never existed but the potential was there) pagerank I am linking to it from every article I write for other websites either a content link or from my profile, whatever I'm allowed to do

I am also offering prizes for people with higher pageranks who list me

I'm thinking of starting an e-zine, too

It's all about getting people hooked on MrsH and then trickling into the other blogs from there. So MrsH can grow quickly, and the other blogs can grow steadily feeding off of MrsH

As the value of the other blogs increases I can use them to drop a few paid posts into, without losing their ranking (like MrsH) because they won't be having so many

Another thing I need to do is get rid of those paid posts once they're 30 days old (the minute I get paid for them)

So this is my strategy. I'll keep you posted (Obviously) on how it works. Each blog is themed, sometimes I cross-post. Sometimes I cross-content with a different post on the same material. My topics are movie reviews, cooking, crafts, beauty, success & curriculum reviews. I also have one about my feelings regarding not having any more babies because I predict that decision might cause mental problems, although having 6 kids could also cause mental problems, I guess. And I also own a blog that is my kids' history project. Neither of those last two plan to be monetized except I am an amazon affiliate for the History project.

So there's the master plan. I'll let you know how it works. I'm spending about 20 minutes each evening on non-monetized blog posting and I have a schedule that tells me which blogs to be posting on which night.

Current Rankings

I should be monitoring my current rankings every time I do my monthly income analysis, so today I'll list my rankings, and begin a proper (but partial) evaluation at the end of the month.


MrsHannigan-Alexa-866,264, Google-0, RealRank-average 1849,today2649
Curriculum Reviews-Alexa-9,405,772, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Home- Alexa- 9,405,772, Google-, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Hollywood Alexa-7,881,674, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Road Trips- Alexa-6,993,234, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Crafts- Alexa-13,437,894, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Success- Alexa-13,463,870, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Cafeteria-Alexa-?, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)
Beauty-Alexa, Google-0, RealRank-not listed (I'll get busy with that)

How to remove Kontera Ads from a post

Yeah- this info was kind of hard to find on their site. I had to remove them from a sponsored post on my normal blog and it took me over an hour to find the answer, so a $5 payment ended up lowering my hourly rate tremendously. I considered saying "forget about the $5" but I knew if I didn't find the answer, it would just come up again. Also, I don't do well mentally with unanswered questions. I'm still wondering why we drive on a parkway and park in the driveway. Thank g-d I have a carport.


OK- so at the beginning of the post you're going to (remove my spacing because I don't know how to show you code without interting spaces)

< name = "konafilter"> and then in this space you talk bla bla bla about why someone should be researching insurance or try an obscure search engine or sign up for this newsletter, bla bla bla now it's over and you want to < / span >

that's all. I hope it showed up. remember to remove m spaces, all except the one in between the words span and name.

Entrecard

So far it seems like a great way to drive traffic to the site. My numbers, from other entrecard users, have definitely gone up. Playing around dropping cards & campaigning is boredom completely. I am torn; do I forget about it all and just keep building quality blogs? Or do I pour myself into the marketing and increase my numbers as fast as I can, hopefully over-exposing myself to rack up subscribers and increase inbound links? I'm thinking both. I'll still dedicate myself to posting in Mrs H every day, and updating my stats @ progress regularly here, and update the other ones 2-3 times a week, utilizing a minimum amount of cross posts. I will also.... find a graphic theme & stick to it, changing my entrecard regularly to stay visible. This week or next I will get rid of my "february" graphic headers and upload something more seasonal instead of monthly. Yeah- seasonal graphic overhaul. Good idea.
So the final vote on Entrecard is.... Thumbs up, just don't get addicted.

the 8th and the 9th deadly blog sin

In reference to the post "The 7 deadly blog sins." I add the following:

8. No visible comment area. perhaps she's trying to get us to blog about it instead of simply polluting her comment page. No matter- it sends the vibe that "I do not care what your comment is" and that may be true and valid but really, a comment form is a good thing. Her repeat visitors might stay longer if they're looking to see if anyone responded to their comment.

9. No memorable graphic image in the header. As I was reading her blog, I realized that I had been there before. The posts weren't forgettable (they were funny and easy to relate to) but the look of it was very forgettable. Personally, I enjoy graphic header image banners. It's like your face sitting atop of your blog's body.

That's all I have to say, and if you're having the problem she described in sin #6 go into your browser settings and have every link open in their own tab. Then, you never have to right click to open a tag again.

Incidentally, if you are disabling right clicks in an effort to prevent people from stealing your graphics, please know that all they need to do if they really want it that bad, is to view your page source code for the URL of the photo. OR- if they hold down the alt key and press "print scrn" they can paste your entire front page into any .doc and use their photo editing software to crop and steal your image, or even an entire screen in your website (as a static image.)

Anyone care to post these instructions for mac users? I could go in to the mac and figure it out but really, there are so many blogs to read and the baby is almost ready to burp.

Venting about Kindergarten printable worksheets

$+u&!@ editor She really does hate me. She renamed my article something stupid; removing one of my keywords, making me change the entire theme of the article and so I had to rework the whole thing into something that isn't nearly as focused, and therefore not SEO. I used that title for a reason- I sprinkled the entire text with that word because it's searched for a lot more often than the word she used. and her word has nothing to do with the topic. no one whose search includes the word "managing" will be looking for free printable worksheets for kindergarten. Someone looking for free printable worksheets would very much likely also be interested in a directory of free printables websites, along with a guide to using them and printing them. The new title is "Managing Free Printable Worksheets" So um yeah, anyone looking to train their managers and searches for "Free managing worksheets" will find me. Sorry, boss man. Unless your managers are having trouble with their vowels or reversing their printed letters, then I can't help you.

Here's the article; not in its original form because I had to remove the highly searched keywords that would have made my article easy to find references to Kindergarten. My other Kindergarten articles are doing quite well.

I must remind myself that she isn't out to get me.
I must remind myself that she gets a commission on my revenue; so it's in her best interest to make sure my articles are SEO.
I must adapt a wait-and-see attitude, so I can learn from her.

if that doesn't work then I need to begin writing for another topic because she drives me nuts and I didn't get nearly this kind of obsessive anal-retentive perfectionism
from my other editor.

whew. now, go read the article here:Kindergarten Printable Worksheets: Use Your Printer to Create Kindergarten Lessons for Free

enjoy!

Always learning

I'm sitting here watching a video tutorial that's supposed to teach me how to get work on one of the freelancing websites, I am reminded of the suite101 classes that I thought were so stupid before I used them and now I think they're genius. I am also reminded that I should focus. So off I go, back to Suite 101- canceling my registration at this freelancing thing. Until I am constantly meeting my 1 a week requirement for Suite101 then I have no business really looking for work elsewhere. it would be stupid to leave with the whole webbing-thing working for me over there. each day I make more & more money for an hour of work a week. the editor is just so harsh. But she makes me a better writer. So I'm going back. Just in case you wondered.

End of Month Stats

$45.00 Writing Hotel Reviews
$80.00 Writing Homeschool Curriculum Reviews*
$59.10 PayPerPost Postings*
$0 PayPerPost Referrals
$7.50 ReviewMyPost
$0 Amazon Links
$0.65 Google Adsense earnings for February
$1.57 Kontera Text Links (started running in middle of the month)
$10.74 Suite101 earnings for February
$0.22 Helium.com earnings for February
$2.69 Dneero
$18.00 Smorty*
$5.54 Inboxdollars
$4.00 Paymetoblogaboutyou
$0 Clickbank
$0 GreenfieldOnline.com
$0 Bloggerwave.com
$111.49 Ebay (fees taken from total)*
$0.03 PayPal Money Mkt Acct*
Earnings Online.....338.35
PayPal Fees -8.30
*Total Received in February 299.81 (doesn't represent totals of each starred job)

I found a great article called "The Secret to Successful Blog Promotion."

It seems to be written for corporate bloggers, not personal blogs like mine. However; it's full of advice even a little guy can learn from. I've already created RSS feeds, so I'm off to a good start. Have I done that here yet? I will add it to my list.


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds

Syndicate your site using ping technology. Apparently registering your RSS feed with specific sites can bring in more readers, so next on my list is to do that.


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.

Next, he says I should be using Movable type. I've heard this advice before. I downloaded it a while back, trying my darndest to follow this advice. (Yes, I am a blind advice follower, I don't ask questions if you sound like you're credible. I confess. Let's move on.) My excuse for not using Movable type yet is because I don't know what perl is and didn't feel like learning.


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove

His last bit of advice in the creating of your blog is to use permalinks. I think I do that, but I need to make sure. I think blogger automatically does it. Also, I add each permalink to Onlywire. I wonder if he likes that idea???

List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly

Get listed or linked to through other sites, preferably vary popular ones. Attention Dooce and Amalah; I have commented on your blogs often enough that you should feel like you know me and love me. Do a write up on me (preferably on different days) so I can share your wealth of readers. Thank you.


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly
5-Kiss up to Dooce & Amalah a little bit more. (I lied about commenting frequently)

Linking to other bloggers helps, too. Also- linking to their permalinks instead of just their front page is better. noite taken, I think I do that. I'll add it to my list anyways because it looks like I'm making a pattern.

List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly
5-Kiss up to Dooce & Amalah a little bit more. (I lied about commenting frequently)
6-Permalink other people's blogs. Maybe it's another way to kiss up to Dooce & Amalah.

Then he says to make sure I have trackbacking enabled, and to let the other blogger know I've linked to them. Yeah, that's a good idea. I bet big cool bloggers like BigD and BigA aren't obsessively checking their site stats like me. They probably don't chase down all their readers, huh.


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly
5-Kiss up to Dooce & Amalah a little bit more. (I lied about commenting frequently)
6-Permalink other people's blogs. Maybe it's another way to kiss up to Dooce & Amalah.
7-Enable backtracking (whatever that is)
8-Tell other bloggers when I contribute to their diablogue (It's a new word don't bother looking it up, just trust me)

He also says a blogroll is a good idea. I like this idea, too but I don't like managing it myself, so I plan to use a service


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly
5-Kiss up to Dooce & Amalah a little bit more. (I lied about commenting frequently)
6-Permalink other people's blogs. Maybe it's another way to kiss up to Dooce & Amalah.
7-Enable backtracking (whatever that is)
8-Tell other bloggers when I contribute to their diablogue (It's a new word don't bother looking it up, just trust me)
9-Find and use a blogrolling service

Another tip, which I also have been employing, is to link to your old content. I have been doing that, it creates your own little mini-web. I also try to link to my content on other sites as well. I will do it more judiciously. I think I need a "top posts of mine" at the footer of each post.

List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly
5-Kiss up to Dooce & Amalah a little bit more. (I lied about commenting frequently)
6-Permalink other people's blogs. Maybe it's another way to kiss up to Dooce & Amalah.
7-Enable backtracking (whatever that is)
8-Tell other bloggers when I contribute to their diablogue (It's a new word don't bother looking it up, just trust me)
9-Find and use a blogrolling service
10Link to my old content

If I continue going through the content of his article, I won't have tome to follow those suggestions. My list has reached its limit. You should pop over there, though and read it, he's got some great ideas. I especially like the coffee event idea. yeah, I'm all over that. And it doesn't even have to be organic.

I do have to add 2 things that he might say later


List:
1-Make sure all blogs have RSS feeds
2-Learn about pinging and get all RSS's listed at the ping site things.
3-Get into the Movable type groove
4-Make sure I'm using permalinks correctly
5-Kiss up to Dooce & Amalah a little bit more. (I lied about commenting frequently)
6-Permalink other people's blogs. Maybe it's another way to kiss up to Dooce & Amalah.
7-Enable backtracking (whatever that is)
8-Tell other bloggers when I contribute to their diablogue (It's a new word don't bother looking it up, just trust me)
9-Find and use a blogrolling service
10Link to my old content
11-more interesting titles
12-funnier tags

Now Anyone can get Paid to Blog

Back in the old days (Um, like last week when my travel blog was rejected) you used to have to have 20 posts in a blog that was at least 90 days old. SO I decided to pay attention to that little blog, and make a few other ones, since my pagerank on my original blog sucks, I figured they could build off of each other and maybe one day, when google updates their pageranking system (which I hear is like very 90 days) then maybe my original blog will be worth something, and then maybe I can grow these other blogs, too and Mwa hahaaha rule the mom blogging world, like Dooce and Amalah.

But now, they have changed the rules, so that any blog that has ten posts and is 30 days old will qualify.

I think it's a stupid mistake. There's already too many of us scrambling like vultures to grab the few opportunities that are available for new bloggers. They pay $20 for posting when you sign up, just to announce that you've done it. So they'll have all these people signing up and getting paid for making their first post announcing that they've signed up and then their system will be overloaded because all these people will be trying to get paid posts all the time. It isn't easy hitting the refresh button ten thousand times a day hoping a new one will come up. And sometimes the verification words are long and complicated. Like "Renoir $285,837.20" and things like that. It's not a lifestyle everyone is cut out for. If you think you might be the one who can handle it, then click the purple image below and they will help you register for paid blogging. I don't think you can handle it, though. I am just warning you.

You should do it fast because I don't know if they'll stay in business like this for long. Hopefully you're someone with a blog that has a higher page rank than mine, so that you won't be taking opportunities that I could be using to feed my kids. My six kids. Seriously.

Got Paid today

OK it was a few days ago but in the interest of keeping this blog filled with content that I wrote on a regular basis, I just thought it would be wise to tell you that I have been paid.

Also- in my Suite101 articles, I have finally begun to create enough of a little web and it looks like it's paying off. It's hard to web one or two articles, I am up to eight now. Here's my latest; Lesson Plans from Learning Styles.

The Secret

If you haven't read The Secret yet then you need to. A good friend of ours made us a copy of the Audio book a while ago and I loved it so much I ended up buying my own at Costco a little while later. The wisdom in the Secret transcends time and spirituality, it really is an important message. It is the same thing taught by Cesar Milan the Dog Whisperer, and whenever we deliberately use the principles of the Law of Attraction, we end up getting what we want. The hardest part about the secret is its simplicity; I am a researcher by nature and sometimes it is hard to just let go. The older I get, the more I realize that no matter what I do in life; it's OK. Nothing terrible ever really happens, not because I obsess over preventing it but because there aren't many things that could happen that are truly terrible. In retrospect, everything is always just fine. So please check out The Secret because it really is an important aspect of healthy thinking. Knowing deep in your heart that everything is as it should be is important. I hate seeing people miserable and sad because life isn't what they want. Spending so much time fixated upon what you don't want draws exactly that thing to you. The Secret teaches us how to actively attract what we want by focusing on it, believing it is ours and enjoying life knowing it will arrive in good time.

January 2007 Report

Site total earned total paid
Suite101 2.37 0
PayPerPost 106.10 0
Helium 1.08 0
Google AdSense 0 0
CJ 0 0


So, January won't be a hard month to beat. I am studying a lot and working to increase the pagerank of my blogs. DUH- another step would be to link them all to each other through here. I also want to continue posting to all of them and linking to my articles from my blog pages and vice versa. Paying my dues, that's all I'm doing. And becoming a better writer, too.