I found some great info over at the Internet Marketing Sweetie Blog by Alice Seba. I’d summarize here, but she did such a nice job cutting to the chase it would be just as fast to give her blog a quick visit. How to Get Blog Traffic - 11 Steps to Growing Readership
You’ll also find some invaluable advise on affiliate marketing that can go a long way towards making your addiction to blogging pay for itself or perhaps even some extra gas money (albeit not much).

Affiliate Marketing Sweetie

Blog on!

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Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other search engines use the number of links to your Website they find across the net to determine how popular your site is. It’s far from the only thing they look at, but it is an important factor. The more links pointing to your site, the more popular it must be, right? This popularity as determined by these search engines in turn helps determine where your site is shown in search results. If your site is popular and one of your important key words is “children” your site will show up higher in the results then a less popular site everything else being equal.

So links in quality Web directories let the search engines know that your site is a “contender” with links to it from other quality sites out there. The video below is a good place to start if you’re new to SEO or Web directories. Check it out.

The directories we like the most are: Moms and Big Internet Guide. And yes, we are very biased. : )  Both of these directories offer permanent links for $10 or  less and they are both growing in page strength and traffic.

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It’s a big decision to stay home with your family, rather than continue in a traditional job outside the home. But did you know that there are many choices if you decide to do so?The first step before starting a work from home business is to forget about the business all together. Don’t think about what kind of business you want or what you want from it or anything like that. Next, write down your life. What have you accomplished in your lifetime so far? What things have you not done that you thought you would have done by now. What things would you like to accomplish or do in the years to come?

Look at your answers and write down goals for yourself. What would you like to achieve and by when would you like to achieve them. What will it take to achieve these goals? Are you in a position now that you will be able to achieve your goals? If not, why not?

These answers and goals should be your motivation for whatever you decide to do. So now you hopefully know what you want out of life!

Getting what you want in life usually involves knowing what you want first. If you get what you want before you even know you wanted it, consider yourself lucky, and don’t throw it away before you realize its value.

There are several advantages to working from your home including flexible working hours, low overhead, and more available time to work while other people are commuting to their jobs. Obviously the appeal of one or more of these can be more than enough for many of us to give working from home a try.

And who knows, maybe a few minutes, hours, or days later, you’ll land a big sale or be rewarded for your efforts like never before. And then you’ll be reminded that, YES! You are doing the right thing! That the “crazy” idea of starting your own home-based business was actually the BEST decision you’ve ever made.

Here are the Top 10 reasons for moms to start a home business

1- Save on Day Care costs
2 - No commuting
3 - More flexibility
4 - Spend more time with your family
5 - Save on office attire and lunches
6 - Helps you to do something you like
7 - To be able to say ‘I own a business’
8 - You don’t have to execute your boss’s ideas
9 - Satisfied with your own achievements
10 - Your time is invested for your betterment

As you can see the benefits are numerous. Take some time today to see if starting a home business is the right choice for you. List the costs of commuting and working outside of your home. List the perks to being home for your children everyday, list the “downers” too. Also make a list of the space, equipment and skills you already possess that will aid you in starting a home based business. And finally, make a list of the possible businesses you could start with the equipment and skill set you just listed. Writing down your thoughts and assets is a great way to see the whole picture as it pertains to you and your family. You may be very surprised where your lists lead you. Give it a try!

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Nicole Pauling is a “muralist” and she paints murals in York PA and the surrounding area. Her business, Artistic Expression Murals, brightens up rooms, swimming pools (one of only two in the U.S.!), offices, businesses, and windows. Nicole is a mom and entrepreneur and like most of us stays very busy day-to-day.

One day her 5 year old daughter, Katrina, came home with a box of rocks and asked her to sell them for her so that she could buy food for those who needed it. Nicole said, “Honey, no one will buy plain rocks.” Katrina replied, “That’s ok. Then I’ll paint them.” And that’s what she did. Since then she has collected almost $150 and 300 food items to donate locally in York, PA!

Read that again!

This little girl had learned that if you want to raise money for something that you can do so by creating something and selling it to people who wanted what you created. She also has learned that the oft-heard “that won’t work” shouldn’t deter you from trying! When Nicole said no one would buy plain rocks, she didn’t take it as a reason to give up, but rather as a reason to think of what she had to do to make it work! She painted them!!

This lil’ entrepreneur and world-changer has raised hundreds of dollars to buy food for people who can’t afford to feed themselves enough. She’s a shining star that can teach all of us some lessons.

For more information about this lil’ superstar check out this article in their local newspaper, The York Daily Record: Kindergarten girl paints rocks to feed the hungry

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Sadly, every year hundreds of children die due to drownings and from choking. This video can decrease these numbers drastically. It’s a wonderful resource for parents and the company is now marketing the video as a school fundraiser to parent-teacher associations in local school districts.

To learn more about Kristin’s potentially life-saving video visit her Website: How to Save a Child

Other useful sites worth a visit:

First Aid Tips for Families

First Aid for Children

Child CPR

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Mothers Day Cards

No more excuses!

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Kids Meal Deals offers parents a searchable database of family and budget-friendly restaurants. Restaurants can be found by zip code, food type (coming soon), or name. The resource is easy to use and can be especially helpful when planning a Summer vacation or road trip to unfamiliar territory.

Dana realizes she can’t bring in restaurants that want to promote their locations by herself so she developed a recruiter program for stay at home moms and dads. Basically she’s looking for restaurants to subscribe to a monthly listing in Kids Meal Deals database for a reasonable fee. She needs help getting the word out to restaurants outside of her Columbus Ohio area. In return for bringing in a new restaurant you’ll receive a $50 reward and immense appreciation that only a stay-at-home mom can describe. For more information on this cause visit: Kids Meal Deals Recruiters.

We wish Dana and her family much success in their venture!

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But, in the event you are looking for ways to earn a little extra like so many of us with websites here’s a little information about an advertising network that I really like:

They call themselves Project Wonderful and their system really is pretty wonderful. It’s the easiest ad network provider that I’ve ever used as a publisher (website owner) and it’s also the easiest from the advertisers perspective. It only takes a few minutes to get setup (adding their ad code to your site) and within minutes prospective advertisers will begin submitting their READY-TO-RUN banner ads to you for approval. If you’re ok with the ad you click a link and the ad will begin running almost immediately.

What’s really cool is the advertisers bid for placement on your site so as more advertisers line up the more they’ll bid. This competition is what I like the most about their business model. Of course it isn’t a get rich quick scheme, especially for those of us who have small websites, but as the sites grow in traffic and the ad network grows in popularity and numbers of registered advertisers, the bids will increase without the need to create a media kit, change pricing, or do anything other than tend to the site and approve ads.

It’s been a few days since I got started and the ads are generating 49 cents a day right now and rising all the time. It’s not much, but I really do believe in this and I’m already bringing in more then the Google ads were fetching for me.

You can find ad spots here on WAHM Blog and on these sites:

moms dot com and moms dot com directory

dads dot com and dads dot com directory

moms TV and dads TV

Check it out for yourself!

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You can find more about them here: Project Wonderful Ad Network

To see their system in action check out these Websites:

We just added a 468×60 banner ad slot to this site! Check out the upper right-hand side of the site.

Momz.com and the moms web directory

Momz Top Websites for Moms

Dadz.com and the dads web directory

Bold Food

WAHM Shopping Mall

WAHM Break Cafe Top 100 Websites for WAHMS

Check it out and be sure to take advantage of the free banner ad opportunities on our sites before the deeper pockets arrive and outbid you.

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