Posted Thursday, April 8, 2010 by momscashblog |
I have been working on a mini series for Momscashblog about 2 different friends who are making money on-line or rather on the internet. It involves two different posts/stories on how they are making “money by using the internet”. We are all use to hearing or writing about how to make money online and although there is nothing new here, I thought of these friends and how they “used the internet to make money” and how any of us could do the same.
Before I publish Part 1 of my mini series, I felt that I had to write this post when unforeseen circumstances came to my attention. I’ve found myself dealing with these circumstances and knew that I had to vent and bring this new issue out in the open.
My Servers Got Overloaded?
In the last few months I’ve received 2 separate invitations from “The Adword team” that came in February as a Valentine card with a $100 redeemable coupon to put an ad up on Google Adwords. The card came to my home address via snail mail, a red card with a white heart on the front saying “$100 free Google Adwords(tm) offer for Adsense customers – Redeem your coupon code at www.google.com/ads/overload.” Then you are provided with a code that you enter after you have created your ad. At the end of the card was a “special” greeting “Happy Valentine’s Day. xoxo The Adwords team.” (Sweet isn’t it?)
It would be very sweet to use the $100. and put an ad up on Google, are you kidding me who wouldn’t enjoy getting an ad up for nothing? Especially right now with times being hard and some of us are noticing low traffic rates. But there are a lot of problems that have been happening with this Google Adword campaign as I was soon to find out. When you do get to the Adword page and start to put your ads together which isn’t an easy feat in itself. One has to think about what you want to say on your ad then there is the matter of what words are you going to use, remember some words are worth a lot and your ad price could go way up if people click on them leaving you paying a big ol’ bill to Google. Of course this all depends on what your budget is, if you are planning on using the $100 free coupon and maybe are willing to put in an extra one hundred dollars then you should pick your words with some trepidation. If you have a large budget along with the free coupon then you can really make your ad with the best keywords that you want to use. (more…)
Posted Monday, January 11, 2010 by momscashblog |
The following article is a guest post by Source Blogger. At Moms Cash Blog, we are always looking for a diverse mix of guest authors to provide their own perspectives to our audience. As Moms Cash Blog evolves, we think it is essential to give you this type of outside exposure. What do you think?
As a blogger, I must say that I was very impressed with the Source Blogger blog. It is intelligent, relevant, with very informative articles that everyone will find useful.
With that being said, let’s get right into: Are You Ignoring the Value of Keywords? Many thanks SourceBlogger for this guest post…jj
In internet marketing, the term of “keywords” is a collection of words that related to particular topics which are mostly used by internet users in searching products or services. Your products or services.
Doing a keyword research for internet marketing involve various aspects, such as finding sales oriented keywords which could driving maximum targeted users to increase online sales. Your online sales. Doing a keyword research is the first step towards a successful search engine optimization campaign. You have to be very careful when selecting keywords, as it can be very tricky to select targeted keywords for a website.
In selecting the best of keywords should always be based on various aspects such as product names, services, brands, or general terms. When doing keyword research, it’s highly recommended to do a very thorough market research analysis to find the best keywords used by search engines to find products and services online – and find out what keywords are targeted by competitors who are doing well in marketing on the internet. (This typically will be other blogs in your specific niche/category.)
Are You a Mommy Blogger too? You Should Appreciate This. (more…)
Posted Saturday, December 26, 2009 by momscashblog |
Bloggers Get the Word Out
When you have a blog on the internet whether it’s a blog for “making money online” or a blog about “affiliate marketing” or just a “blog about life” every once in awhile you’re asked to participate in helping a good cause. Having your own blog feels great because you know that you are reaching thousands of people and that you have the ability of lending a helping hand to people that work for some of these great causes. This is one of those times, and it’s the pleasure of MomsCashBlog to be able to help The Fresh Air Fund in any way that we could and this is my contribution. We are asked to get the word out about a Spring Half Marathon that will be held this spring/March 2010 in the Big Apple and they need runners, sponsors, volunteers, and of course donations at any time are always welcomed.
First about The Fresh Air Fund
The Fresh Air Fund is a not-for-profit agency that gives thousands of inner city children a chance of a life time. They have been giving these children this opportunity for more than 130 years which is really an outstanding accomplishment for a non-profit agency. Fresh air says it all, for these children get a chance to get out of the city in the summer time when the cities are hot, steamy and ozone levels are high. They get to enjoy several weeks with a sponsored family that may live by the ocean and make sand castles in the sand, jump & run from the crashing frigid cold waves of the Atlantic ocean and breathe in the fresh salt air. Think about a child that has never left the confines of the city-” the cement jungle” but are given a chance to stay at a camp with clean blue lakes and wildlife all around them, now imagine sitting around a camp fire at night toasting marshmallows. Seeing skyscrapers & tenement buildings standing tall & straight every day of their lives, but for a couple of weeks they get to enjoy beautiful trees standing tall & green reaching upward for the clear blue skies. They may take hikes in the forest and see wildlife that they may never see again. For these two weeks of the summer these children become part of another family doing all the things that some of them may never get to experience. Playing family board games on a rainy day at camp, maybe tenting in the back yard, or helping with the family veggie garden and tasting fresh fruit that they picked with their own hands. These are all memories that these children will cherish for their lifetime and you as a sponsored family will feel great knowing that you gave some child a chance of looking at the world in a different light and may lead them on a completely different path later in their life. Everyone wins in this program.. (more…)
Posted Tuesday, January 6, 2009 by momscashblog |
There’s a lot of talk about Google Toolbar PageRank this week with the New Year’s update causing blogs to show less PR and others gaining it — but on the whole it looks like Google is getting strict for 09. Mine went from 4 to 0 in the last round and I didn’t expect any new year changes, but I’m not too shook up over it. I am living proof that you don’t need good PageRank to make money with your blog! I’d much rather make money at home than have good PageRank, but of course, both at the same time is great! lol Unfortunately, with some of the ways blogs make money your PR will drop within a few months of using them.
Google penalizes blogs PR who use TextLinkAds, sponsored posting, pay per post, and some other proven money makers. As as blogger you have to decide what is most important to you. If you are blogging only to get PageRank then you’d better stay away from those types of money makers. On the other hand, if you want to make money with your blog, then you should look into them. But first, you need to get traffic coming to your site because you can’t make money any of those ways without having a good amount of traffic.
A big mistake some new bloggers make is to focus too much on PR. They think seeing good PR on the toolbar means a site is making money but that’s not always true. Someone who wants good PR can optimize their blog to rank well with Google and still not make any money. (more…)
Posted Monday, December 15, 2008 by momscashblog |
The ice storm hit New England hard and while I was without power I was very cold and very bored. All I wanted to do was go online and get to my blogs. Well, I really wanted to do ANYTHING and everything that required electricity! I wanted to go online, I wanted a hot cup of coffee, I wanted to watch TV, wanted to blast the stereo, wanted to cook up a storm, and I wanted to take a nice hot Whirlpool bath, all at the same time! Since I couldn’t do any of those things without power, I decided to sit down with pen and paper to brainstorm and plan more ways to make money online.
Like many people, I use my computer to write posts and take care of business, but a friend of mine who teaches classes in creativity says that we should make a habit of sitting down with pencil and paper to really get our creative juices flowing. When we sit down to a computer our brain automatically goes into technical mode. Using a pen or pencil switches the brain to a creative mode and makes it easier to think up unique ideas and get them onto paper. My friend’s creativity classes used to be full of artists and writers but over the past 2 years she’s become the “creativity guru” for successful business people who want to become more creative in business and marketing. The best entrepreneurs have ideas that are unique and that’s what gives them the edge over their competitors. If you want to make money online don’t just focus on the technical stuff. You should also learn whatever you can about ways to think creatively. (more…)
Posted Friday, December 5, 2008 by momscashblog |
When I first took over this blog, I knew the basics of PageRank and the Alexa Traffic Ranking… but I wish I had known how important it is for a blogger to be using the Alexa Toolbar! So now I want to make sure that other newbies to the blogging world know why you should install this handy little SEO plug-in even if you don’t have a blog yet.
Alexa collects website traffic statistics for every website on the Internet and displays these stats on Alexa for all to see. At Alexa.com you can look up the stats of your own blog or type in the URL of any other blog/website online to see the Alexa traffic stats for that site. Keep in mind it’s not a true reading of website traffic because most of Alexa’s statistics are generated from Alexa Toolbar users. Basically, it’s a percentage reading of traffic based mostly of those who have installed the Alexa Toolbar plug-in on their browsers.
When you start a blog it will take some time for your website to appear on the Alexa Traffic radar. To help speed things up you need to install the Alexa Toolbar. By installing the Toolbar onto your web browser you’ll be helping your own Alexa Ranking and the ranking of the sites you visit. The more visitors you have using the Toolbar the better ranking you will get with Alexa.
Like Google, Alexa gives each website on the Internet a rank but since Alexa’s numbers are based on traffic percentages the numbers are larger and it ranks from high to low, with low meaning more traffic. The top traffic ranking is a #1 and Yahoo holds that spot right now. In the beginning, your number will be in the millions because there are millions of websites on the Internet that you are competing with. The more visitors your site gets from the Alexa Community (users with the Alexa Toolbar installed on their browsers) the lower your number will get. Having your number go down to 100,000 or even 200,000 is good, and less than that is even better. Here’s one way to look at it: If your blog has a number of 165,000 then you know there are 164,999 sites out there with a better rank than you.
Techies and/or bloggers will be more inclined to install the Alexa Toolbar or other SEO plug-ins that include the Alexa Toolbar, so some say that you’re only getting a reading of the percentage of techies or bloggers that visit your site. It stands to reason that if you have a technical blog and most of the users have the toolbar, you’ll have a good Alexa Ranking, but the system does allow for a small percentage of traffic outside of the Alexa Community. The average web user doesn’t install the Alexa Toolbar so if your blog is about a non-technical topic such as gardening or beauty products you might not have a good Alexa Ranking because most gardeners or women into beauty products would not care or even know about Alexa. It doesn’t mean you don’t have good traffic coming in, it could mean you don’t have many other bloggers or “techies” visiting your site. Even though a good Alexa Ranking will give you bragging rights, you don’t need good ranking to have a successful blog.
MomsCashBlog’s Alexa ranking went so far up (which is not good!) this summer that it was off the chart and was no longer displayed on Alexa! However, at the very same time my other stats told me that MCB had the most REAL traffic in it’s history and I made the most money during the same time period that I lost my Alexa ranking! Obviously, I lost some “techie” visitors over the summer, but I gained some non-techie visitors and I made some good sales. I don’t worry too much about my Alexa ranking because my goal is to make money… and ranking well on Alexa doesn’t necessarily mean you make more money. Still, a good Alexa number gives your blog more credibility so if you have a good rank, be glad! If you don’t have good Alexa, don’t sweat it… just keep blogging, strive for good content, install the toolbar, and the rest will fall into place. (My ranking finally came back up to 210,805.)
You can install the Alexa Toolbar and become a member of the Alexa Community from either the Internet Explorer browser or Foxfire and you don’t need to have a blog to do this. If you want to install it onto your Foxfire browser you have to go to the download page from your Foxfire browser. (The download is on the same page for Foxfire but it’s called “Sparky”.) Upon installing it you’ll have a small bar chart down in the lower right-hand corner of your browser which will change with each site you visit. Some SEO plug-ins have the Alexa Toolbar built in and displays each site’s Alexa ranking along with PageRank and other stats helpful to bloggers. Once you use the Toolbar and encourage your readers to install it, you will definitely see better ranking, so do it now!
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by momscashblog |
By now, most of us have heard that the best way to make money blogging is by having more than one blog. With multiple blogs you can diversifying your niches just as you would with mutual funds in the stock market. A good mutual fund invests in several different types of stock with several different companies. The money adds up and because all of your eggs are not in one basket, mutual funds are safer than investing in just one stock. The same principal applies to blogs but with blogs you don’t necessarily diversify for the safety of the investment because a blog doesn’t cost much to run. With blogs, you diversify to make MORE money. The average web hosting for a blog is around $7 a month and with most hosting companies you can also get unlimited add-ons for that price, so why not have more than one blog? All you have to pay for is a new domain name but if you don’t want to buy a name, you could even start some more blogs using a free hosted site such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com and use those blogs to drive traffic to your main site by linking them in your posts, or sidebar. (WordPress.com and Blogger.com provide free hosting but you do not own your domain name and there will be restrictions on ad usage.) By having multiple blogs in different niches (categories) and getting streams of income from all of them, you could make a very hefty yearly income right from your own home.
I have recently started two other blogs besides MomsCashBlog and later I hope to start more. I plan to keep them separate from MCB and I even have a friend who is interested in blogging and is working with me to learn about blogging. (and it’s great to have someone to dish with about blogging! lol). MCB makes pretty good money but I want to branch out and make MORE money and learn all I can about how to make money online. I can then pass what I’ve learned onto everyone who comes here. I am enjoying the process and the creativity it takes for each one of them. What I really like is that I can use all of the different aspects of my personality on my different blogs. With this blog, I’m pretty much boxed into a tight niche where I am teaching what I’ve learned about making money online so it’s not really appropriate for me to just talk about myself or certain things that interest me.. on the other ones I can say whatever I want and there’s freedom in that. (more…)
