I felt inspired.
So I sat down to write 100 of the top bits of advice I’d picked up in my 5 years of blogging.
This was the result.
You can download it for free here:
(right click to save, click to open)
You’ll find advice on:
1 – Launching a blog
2- Writing Great Content
3 – Attracting Loyal Readers
4 – Promoting Your Blog
5 – How To Monetize
I hope you enjoy it.
Please leave your feedback below.
Close on the heels of my post
Kelly invited me to be on Profitable Mommy Blogging to talk more about this topic. I dished about Blissdom, meeting bloggers I admire, and how moms can value themselves and their writing more.
Here is a link to the article I mentioned in the interview:
Your “Thing” – changing the world with your website (caution: Naomi could be mistaken for a sailor. Proceed accordingly. Don’t open if there are small kids looking at the screen.)
My point in bringing this up is that even if you don’t “need” to make money with your mom blog, doing so can help you spread your message farther and wider.
Doesn’t everyone want their thing to be bigger?
Lynn Terry, who I met about a year ago in person, has tagged me with the “25 Things” meme.
Lynn has been one of my most important mentors since I started with my online business 6 years ago. It was a blog post of hers that inspired me to launch my very first niche affiliate website. (It’s still online but I no longer own it.)
The success of that site, and the knowledge that following a proven system *works*, inspired me to switch my focus to affiliate marketing (instead of direct sales, which I was doing back when I first got started).
If you’re new to me (maybe a new Twitter follower from Blissdom? Welcome!), here are a few quirky facts about me so we can get more acquainted. I’ve done this meme already on my Facebook page, which had a more personal theme, but since this is my business blog I’ll focus more on being a work at home mom and internet marketer.
Thanks Lynn, that was fun! Now I’m tagging:
- Sarah and Mary Ellen from Moms Marbles (I think you guys need to write an ebook!)
- Nell at Casual Friday Everyday
- Jessica at Jessica Knows
I have another post in the works for my series on Affiliate Marketing for Mom Bloggers. The first post was about beginning steps with affiliate marketing and mentioned finding good programs to promote. In the meantime, I wanted to share this.
A few months ago, I joined Kelly McCausey and several other panel members to talk affiliate marketing for her Moms Affiliate Expo. Did you get a chance to listen live to this webinar? It was incredibly informative. I was supposed to be an expert and I learned a few things!
Here are a few things we talked about:
Not Promoting Enough
It’s all too easy to promote an affiliate product once and then forget about it. Maybe you even made a few sales, but you put it on the back burner and never mention it again. This is a huge mistake! Especially if the product is a proven seller for you, KEEP promoting it. Remind your readers of your original review or recommendation. Do this again and again.
Not Being Organized
Being organized as an affiliate marketer means creating some simple easy system for keeping track of: your affiliate link, the name of the product you’re promoting, the affiliate login area where you check stats and get new resources, your affiliate username and password, etc.
Even if it’s as simple as using Gmail’s “archive” function, do something to keep your affiliate info handy. Some people use a spreadsheet or a simple Word document. Whatever works, just do it! You’re much more likely to make that affiliate recommendation if you have your link at your fingertips.
Better yet – create redirects on your domain instead of using your default affiliate link. And be sure to keep that redirect url easy to remember and handy.
Don’t assume all of your listeners, readers, visitors are OLD and have heard it all.
This goes hand in hand with that first tip. Sometimes we’re afraid to mention an affiliate product we like because we don’t want our readers to get sick of us talking about it.
But that’s an error. It will stop you from making “evergreen” affiliate recommendations. Every day new people come to your blog, website, or podcast. These new people also need to hear about your favorite products – products that can make their lives easier or help them meet some need. Don’t be shy!
Another tip: Set up a favorites page or recommended page with your oldie but goodie affiliate products.
For instance, on this site you can see the page above called “Recommended Tools“. On that page I have listed all the best products that I’ve used and continue to use daily in my internet business. Some of those programs pay me monthly and I no longer have to actually pay for my membership, which is fantastic! My affiliate income more than covers the cost of the tool.
Did you like these tips? Want to hear more of this affiliate marketing lessons and mistakes audio?
If you didn’t hear it live, you can still download it and all the other recordings. Go here:
This and the other recordings are a fantastic education in affiliate marketing, by and for moms. 
To follow up on my post about affiliate marketing and mommy bloggers, I have decided to start a series on beginning steps to get you started. Be sure to check back regularly – subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for my free newsletter (sign up box on upper right) so you don’t miss anything.
Here is Beginning Affiliate Marketing Step One:
How do you know what’s appropriate?
That would depend entirely on your niche.
If you blog about babywearing, look for baby slings and ebooks about babyslings.
If you blog about beauty and skin care, look for beauty products and skin care and ebooks about such.
If you blog about kids and crafts, look for kids crafts products and ebooks about kids crafts.
See where I’m going with this?
There are good affiliate products in every niche, so start searching.
A few ways to find them:
A simple Google search for “keyword + affiliate program” or “keyword + associate program” is a fine start.
Other Blogs
Another shortcut is to look on the blogs of other people in this particular niche to see what they’re promoting, especially sites that you know are more highly trafficked than your own.
But it pays to be choosy about what you promote. Different programs have different payouts and some will convert better than others.
For instance, Amazon.com doesn’t pay the highest percentage, but their site converts well and people often buy other stuff while they’re in there, earning you commission on the whole lot, not just the little book you mentioned.
Everyone talks about the large affiliate networks like Linkshare, Shareasale, etc. Those are great and I get payouts from them too, but in my personal experience, independent programs convert better and are more eager to please you as their valued affiliate.
To make life easier for yourself, find independent affiliate programs – especially those run by other work at home moms, and join them. Use the tools they have available.
As an example, I have a few products and my resources for affiliates are listed here: Affiliates Fun
I want to make it super easy for my affiliates to have success so I provide graphics, articles, recipes and brandable reports that they can publish and give away, branded with their affiliate link.
Another great thing about independent affiliate programs? They almost always pay you higher commissions. I pay out 30- 50% to my affiliates.
Plus you get that nice warm feeling that comes from supporting another small business owner.
Many of the ladies at Mom Masterminds have fantastic products with amazing affiliate programs. A few of note:
(These all open in a new window and take you directly to the affiliate info.)
Tiffany Washko’s green smoothies, raw food for kids and salads cookbooks
Christine Steendahl’s Dine Without Whine menu mailer
Susanne Myers Healthy Menu Mailer and Menu Planning Central
Kelly McCausey’s Moms Talk Network home management and biz ebooks
Cara Mirabella’s household management ebooks
Aurelia Williams Real Life personal growth and parenting ebooks and life coaching
Nicole Dean’s party, gift mixes, and home biz ebooks
Alyssa Avant’s beauty by design ministries’ ebooks
So, now that you have found some great products you want to start promoting, how do you skillfully weave your affiliate links into your content?
That will be the topic of the next post in the series. Stay tuned!
Impatient?
Affiliate Marketing Sweetie - learn how to make great money with affiliate marketing while still being a nice person.
The following is a guest post, learn more about the author below.
Being a mother is indeed one of the greatest bliss of womanhood. But following child birth, most of us often find ourselves caught in a dilemma where we need to make a choice between our career or to stay at home to address our children’s / family’s responsibilities. If one decides to continue working, it often comes at the cost of being away from children for long hours.
While if we decide to stay at home then we loose out on the money factor and also the stimulation of challenges at the workplace. Its driven by this complexity of the situation that many women are now considering work-at-home options and pursuing more family-friendly careers. But exercising this option as well, has its own joys and challenges.
Once you decide to be a working at home Mom, then comes the bigger challenge of identifying your skills and deciding what to do – there’s a wide range of options available such as, freelance writing, data entry jobs, telemarketing, sales promotion executive roles and so on. Choose a profile that goes in sync with your educational qualifications, professional skill sets and interests.
Many mothers who have tried working from home find that their concentration levels and work productivity often suffers as they often get wrapped up in household duties. Here are a few solutions to common working-at-home problems:
1. Time management – This is the most pertinent thing that can contribute to your success as a mother, working from home. Create a schedule for yourself that allocates the required time to your household chores and children and also leaves sufficient time to pursue your work commitments. Most important is to have the right motivation and self discipline to stick to this schedule.
2. Minimize distractions – Mothers working from home are much susceptible to distractions due to small children around. To check these distractions, set boundaries for yourself and the kids. Tell children to play quietly in a certain part of the house for a specific period of time. Limit their mobility with child gates and install a baby monitor so that you can hear them without having to get up from your desk and check on them every few minutes.
3. Create a home office – To get the right motivation to work, its very essential that you should have a dedicated working space at home. Create a small work station exclusively for your use and try to keep this home office well organized. If you have space constraints then seek professional advice as many furniture stores offer creative solutions to your small-space woes.
4. Install a separate phone line – Avoid using your home telephone line as your office number, rather install a separate line for official use. Get an answering machine for your work number and record a professional greeting for colleagues or clients. Try to personally answer all calls to this number during regular business hours.
5. Obey a dress code for yourself – Each morning, prepare yourself for the day as though you were going to office. Dress up in a professional manner and keep yourself well groomed. This will help you follow a time routine and will keep you in an official mindset throughout the day.
This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of the distance learning top universities. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com
[More Blissdom posts: BlissDom notes: Day Two, Meeting Alyssa Avant at Blissdom, Social Media Mavens, Building Content and Readership]
This session deserves a post all its own.
For a couple of reasons.
I talked to several women privately at the Blissdom conference who have fantastic blogs and are wonderful writers but are totally frustrated.
They’re frustrated because they aren’t making any money.
They aren’t making any money because they do not understand affiliate marketing.
Now, if you don’t want to make any money with your mom blog that’s cool.
But if you do want to make money, I’m here to tell you that not only CAN you, but many of us ARE doing it and earn a full time income doing so.
My fellow Blissdom attendee and Mom Masterminds member Alyssa Avant and I are proof of that, as are hundreds of women at MM.
(Don’t forget, if you attended Blissdom and did not get my card, please DM me on Twitter or email me for your special link that entitles you to a FREE MONTH of membership.)
The affiliate marketing panel had some basic info on what affiliate marketing is and some advice on making it work for you, yet I feel that it left many women wanting. That may be because it’s impossible to say enough about affiliate marketing in such a short amount of time.
I talked to a few of these moms who were adamant about wanting to know how to earn real money – and not just get free products – with their blogs.
After I type my notes, I will share some of my favorite resources, including a free affiliate marketing ecourse that I offer for those who are in the “natural/crunchy mom” niche like myself. (But the same principles apply to every market so it really doesn’t matter what niche you scratch.)
To maximize your results from affiliate marketing, it’s imperative that you learn how to skillfully weave affiliate links into the body of your post.
While buttons and banners can and do perform, they do not perform *nearly* as well as natural, organic product mentions in your actual content.
Another effective strategy is to both write about in your posts AND put a button on your sidebar for a product you endorse. Your readers may not realize it consciously but they will understand subliminally that you mean what you say about the product if you do both things.
If you’re getting lots of free stuff from companies to review, ALWAYS check to see if they have an affiliate program and MONETIZE that post with your affiliate link.
I do this all the time and it works great. You do not need to ask permission from the company either. If you’re doing reviews for free (which I hope you’re not), you need to be benefitting in some way from the free exposure and traffic you’re giving these companies.
At the very least check Amazon to see if the product is also sold there before publishing the review. If you already have a ton of reviews on your site, go back through your posts and add affiliate links.
To maximized your results, search your stats for your ten highest traffic pages and begin there.
The panelists recommended creating “gift guides” that you release around the holidays and big shopping days. I don’t do this at all, my affiliate recommendations are evergreen in nature, but I know some that do it with great success. Maybe start there.
Another tip I tell moms that I coach is:
Look around your own home at the products you can’t live without.
Make a list of them on a piece of paper, Is it your baby sling? A favorite well worn parenting book or cookbook? Some skin care product?
Whatever it is, if you can write a compelling review, sit down and search for an affiliate program for that product and get busy writing.
Here are some of my favorite sources for information on affiliate marketing.
Lynn Terry’s blog Clicknewz. It was Lynn who inspired me to launch my very first niche affiliate site 5 years ago. It was a great success and proved to me that a system works if you work it. If you’re brand new to the internet marketing world, some of her posts may seem a little hard to understand, but she is great at linking back to some of her 101/how to posts for beginners. Just keep reading and the lingo will start to make sense.
Alice Seba’s Affiliate Marketing Sweetie – if you want to have a basic solid education on how to make money with affiliate marketing and can only afford ONE thing, this would be the one thing I recommend. Alice is a great friend and mentor and I trust everything that comes out of her mouth (you can see my guest posts on her blog here).
I linked to it above, but my free ecourse on affiliate marketing has some valuable free info to help you get started.
Please feel free to leave a question you have about how to make money as a mom blogger with affiliate marketing in the comments below.
I will do my best to publish them here and answer them for you or point you to a resource.
[More Blissdom posts: Affiliate Marketing and Mommy Bloggers, Meeting Alyssa Avant at Blissdom, Social Media Mavens, Building Content and Readership]
I meant to get these done by now, but I’ve been distracted by Twittering and visiting my Blissdom friends’ blogs
Imagine, a blogger getting distracted by other blogs. That NEVER happens, right?
The live Twitter notes from the second day are a little sparse. Mostly because my laptop wouldn’t connect so I couldn’t twitter much, so I had to take brief notes by hand (I can type sooo much faster!).
Here goes.
The first session of the day was Affiliate Marketing, but I am putting those notes on a page of their own because I am far too opinionated on the subject to squeeze them in here.
The second session was on Maximizing Relationships: PR, Marketing, Brands, and Ad Agencies
For some reason I have not ONE note from this session. I’m not sure where my head was.
The next session?
Then the next session was on Branding and what that means for a blogger.
This one was great because the respected Liz Strauss was one of the panel members. The woman just has this energy around her that tells you that you can learn a lot from just standing next to her. I managed to catch her after the sessions to glean some of her wisdom. (Thanks again Liz, I’m right on that!)
When it comes to branding, the big point to remember is this:
As a blogger, YOU ARE your brand.
If you realize after some time that you want to change the direction of your blog, the advice was to:
Don’t be afraid to rebrand yourself to be more true to your voice. You will lose some visitors and readers, but the loyal ones will follow you and you will ultimately be more successful.
The last session of the event was Success Blogging.
I wanted to hear this one because a blogger I have long admired for her writing ability is Simple Mom’s Tsh. (And I don’t think anyone knew her name before Blissdom!) I like Tsh for her focus on living simply. I am a huge minimalist myself. I love the clean look of her blog and how she stays on topic.
I also appreciate (and I would like to have stood up on the table and screamed this message at several points during the weekend) that Tsh stays true to herself and her message AND makes great money too.
It’s not an either/or proposition. You can be who you are and not “sell out” and still make great income with your blog.
Tsh talked a lot about boundaries in this session and I took home some great info that I plan to implement immediately. You have to set real boundaries about how much access you will allow others to have when you have a successful blog. And while I am not as “known” in the mom blogger community, I am a successful work at home businesswoman so I am bombarded with email and contact me requests.
I need to get a little more strict with myself about that.
There was a lot of talk of:
Tsh encouraged bloggers more than once to “Network up, down and sideways.”
Meaning don’t be too intimidated to network with people who are more known than you are, and also those who are just starting out. New blogs grow, and new bloggers grow. I thought this was a great point.
A great tip for new bloggers that falls under this heading is: Make friends with another blogger who can hold you accountable.
If you’re spending too much time at the computer (or too little!), your friend can remind you of what your goals are. Tsh said she has found this in Ali aka Mrs Fussypants, the mom behind Blissdom. If she is on the computer too late at night, Ali tells her to go to bed. LOL!
As far as accountability goes, I will again mention my incredible sponsor (who I plug all the time anyway, despite the sponsorship!) Mom Masterminds.
If you are a Blissdom attendee be sure to email or DM me on Twitter for your special link that entitles you to a FREE MONTH of membership.
We are constantly challenging each other to meet our goals. It’s a great feeling of teamwork, mutual back scratching and even a good solid butt kickin’ when needed.
Tsh encouraged new bloggers to set small monthly goals that they could work towards. The goal would be different depending on what your overall idea of success is. Maybe it’s a certain number of readers, maybe it’s an income goal. Whatever it is, set those down in writing and use your accountability buddy to help you achieve them.
Stay tuned for more. The Starbucks is pourin’ and the kids are with Grandma this morning.
I am still recovering from the trip to Blissdom and promise that tonight or tomorrow I’ll publish the rest of my notes.
Until then maybe this will tide you over.
I got to meet fellow Mom Masterminds member and all around cool mom Alyssa Avant. I’ve known Alyssa for a couple of years now, and she was just as sweet and genuine in person as she is online.
Her little one was just the sweetest too. He really wants my name tag lol!
Click to see us full size.
Here is the link to my notes from session one on building content and readership to your blog.
I’m so self sacrificing.
I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep but I am up tying out notes from yesterday’s second Blissdom session which was all about:
That is a dedicated blogger. : )
One of the things someone mentioned yesterday is that if you want to have loyal readers, be a loyal blogger. If you don’t show up for work (blog) everyday you’ve disappointed your readers. They showed up to read your stuff, the least you can do is to post something.
The moderator for this discussion was Casey Mullins of Mooshinindy and the panelists were Jessica of Jessica Knows, Michelle from LikeMerchantShips, and Amy from Resourceful Mommy.
The ladies mentioned StumbleUpon and Tumblr, but most of the conversation seemed to revolve around Twitter and Facebook.
The ladies talked about the benefits of syndicating your content, and the issue of duplicate content came up. I stood up and said my piece about that issue. I’ve written briefly about that before here and here but basically I said duplicate content was not really understood and that if you’re worried about it, you’re not doing it. LOL!
Sites like EzineArticles.com get awesome search engine rankings and it’s full of duplicate content. If you’re in doubt, read Google’s guidelines for webmasters and see what they say on the issue.
If you find a “scraper” site who is stealing your content without your permission, contact the website owner and send them a firm cease and desist email. One way to keep abreast of this is to use Google Alerts, which I am a big fan of for several reasons, this being one.
Much of the conversation revolved around Twitter which seems to be every mom blogger’s favorite social media tool.
The gist of the input was that with Twitter, there really are no rules. Although Jessica said to think of Twitter like dating (don’t give it all away right away, tease a little), Allison then said that Twitter is like sex (everyone does it differently, and it’s all good) which seems a little contradictory again! The point being that there really are no rules. Use the tools the way that works for you and your niche.
That, by the way, was pretty much everyone’s favorite quote of the day and probably the most Twittered thought from the session.
Some of my tweets from the session:
On getting free stuff from marketing people:
@carrielee do not be afraid to say no to free stuff if it sucks up your time w/ less roi
When you first start blogging and hear about all the free stuff mom bloggers get, it’s pretty exciting. But more than one mom blogger expressed her fatigue with all the free stuff. It takes time to review and noone wants to have nothing but reviews on her blog. Really evaluate product pitches when they come your way and see if they truly fit into your niche and are something you would actually purchase and use before accepting the item in question for review.
Conversely if there are products or companies you want to be affiliated with, blog about them and see what happens. Jessica Knows is getting a free car for a year thanks to Ford! (I only got a van one for a week. Hmmph!)
@carrielee if the opps do not fit, send the pr person to another mom blogger
If a company contacts you with a product pitch and the opportunity doesn’t fit your niche or you’re just not in the mood to review yet.another.body.lotion, send the marketing person to another mom blogger you know for whom it is a better fit.
I’ve done this myself on several occasions and have had others do it for me.
@carrielee some PR people do not do their homework
This was a personal observation. As bloggers we’re really in a position to teach some of these marketing folks how stuff works. Sometimes I get product pitches and I’m all, “Didja spend five seconds actually looking at my blog?” Whatever.
If they don’t “get it” and are sending you, a mom of teens, a baby blanket to review, then try to educate them nicely about your target market. Some of them see “mom blogger” as being one generic niche but we know we are all somewhat different and speak to different audiences. Tell them what do do so they can learn something new!
@carrielee keep your true voice out there, opps will come (free stuff)
If you want free stuff, just keep blogging and be yourself. Don’t change your writing for these opportunities. Keep being yourself (even if yourself is WhiteTrashMom!) and companies will find you.
And finally, when it comes to Facebook:
@carrielee facebook rules and annoyances. stop sending busy mom bloggers gifts on FB
No offense, but we’re too busy for ‘lil green patch requests, umkay?
A couple thoughts on networking:
It’s about authenticity and friendship, not selling.
Network “side”, “up” and “down”. Meaning reach out to bloggers who are more, less and the same as you in terms of popularity.
Use your given name when creating social media site profiles.
