Posted Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by momscashblog |
What is SEO?
The most basic definition of SEO (search engine optimization) would be; The use of various techniques to improve a web site’s ranking in the search engines and thus attract more visitors.
Here are 5 great tools you can use to help optimize your web site or blog. These tools will help you to see if your site is properly optimized, check your rankings, research your keywords and more. All of these tool are absolutely FREE!
(more…)
Posted Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by momscashblog |
Lately I’ve been having some problems with leaving comments on certain blogs that I was visiting. It made me wonder if I was the only one that was running into these problems and if it bothered anyone else? I wondered if I was just being too anal about leaving comments? Ever since I first started blogging I’ve always been big into commenting, I really like the interaction that a comment allows between the blogger and the reader. I know we all read a lot of blogs everyday or at least try to and I for one always try to leave a comment after reading ones post. Then I started to hit roadblocks now and then on certain blogs, where I was unable to find their comment area or the owner of the blog had you jumping through hoops just to leave a comment on their blog.
“Make sure your site is easy to navigate. Nothing is more frustrating than navigating a site where it’s easy to get lost. This will negatively impact your profitability since potential customers are unlikely to stick around if it’s too difficult to find what they want. Simple and direct navigation is key!” from webreference.com/authoring.
Do You Make Your Readers Jump Through Hoops?
I think some blog owners are unaware that their comment areas are too involve for some bloggers to take the time to either register or sign in to leave a comment. There are some blogs that I’ve noticed that are so cluttered that after you read the post you expect to see the comment area and your unable to find it, you try putting your cursor everywhere to see if you can find the exact spot where you are suppose to leave your comment. If I can’t find the comment area within so many seconds then I’m on my way to another blog, or on to another project that I have to do online. (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 Friday, December 11, 2009 by momscashblog |
MomsCashBlog has the honor of being asked by CKY Books to let everyone know about a great contest they are running and the chances for you to make money by selling any of your used books. This is a unique contest one that will enter your name if & when you sell your used books to Cky Books.
I have mentioned and written several post in the past about Cky books because I really stand behind this family owned business. They have a very clean and easy site to read and work with, if you have any problems they will always email you back within a day or sooner in most cases. What better time of year to make a little extra cash by cleaning up and selling some of those used text books that you have hanging around? While your at it you will be entered to win some of their prizes that Cky books are offering for their Holiday Contest. So take a peek at the rest of the post and find out how to sell those used books and chance to win some prizes. Good luck to all of you. (more…)
Posted Monday, November 16, 2009 by momscashblog |
The numbers are in and E-commerce Research shows that 70% of consumers are going to research and comparison shop online for the upcoming holidays. Halloween’s e-numbers were higher than expected by retailers which makes one think that Christmas 2009 numbers will be higher than thought even during these economic times. To be sure consumers are going to be making wiser decisions, and taking advantage of the online perks like, free shipping, secured shopping, overnight delivery and other great deals that internet shopping offers the consumers.
Christmas, Boxing Day and the upcoming holidays are the biggest shopping days of the year and a great time for retailers and for online affiliate marketing to work for you. Affiliate marketing can be as easy as selling a product on your blog/site or, setting up a web site selling one product or concentrating on several products. This site will have the potential to bring in extra money for you this Christmas and months after. Not getting even a small site/campaign up means you are facing a huge opportunity lost to supplement your income.
Make sure that when it comes to choosing the products that you want to sell on your new website, that you pick products that you have an interest in, it will only make it easier for you to sell something that you stand behind. You should also take a look around the internet, check out the television and thumb through some magazines for the hot items of 2009. I did a google search and some of the hot items that I found for this season are of course hi-tech products. That includes GPS Receivers, any of the Wii games, and of course iPods. Also take note that Tickle Me Elmo is back again, but of course he’s now Tickle Me Elmo Extreme! When it comes to toys don’t overlook the classic board games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Clue, which according to the consumer magazines board games have spiked in sales since 2008. Families are finding themselves staying at home more, rather than spending money that they may not have on going out, and this creates more family time. You may want to keep that in mind when thinking about what products or how you will present your campaign. Don’t forget Fido, pet toys and supplies are a big seller with affiliate marketing there is real money to be made there. Remember you have to now get consumers over to YOUR site, so think about your ads and how you will promote your site or products.
Once you’ve decided on the product[s] that you are going to sell and you’ve done your homework feeling that this item is one that will sell well, it could be worth your while to buy a domain name and, set up a website just for that product. Remember the site doesn’t have to be a large site, it can be just a few pages to which you could add to later on. If you don’t want to put up a site you can start selling products that you have picked and, advertise it on your blog or website now. You should try to stick to the same product on one site, if you are into computers then sell them on one site. Later on you could always open a webstore where you would sell different products, but to get something going for this Christmas keep it simple!
In conclusion do a little bit of research for your products, get your affiliate network ready, get your site up, advertise, promote your products and wait for the money to roll in. Make this a great affiliate Christmas, you have nothing to lose and plenty to gain.
Posted Friday, September 25, 2009 by momscashblog |
Here is a guest post by my blogging buddy Plin of
myfrugalways.com, he helps us understand what happens when we are hit with the dreaded “Reported Attack Site” on our blogs and how, what, and why this happens.
Plin:
Here is a post I wrote up. Hope this helps people that is looking for more information regarding Malware.
Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer without the owner’s informed consent. The expression is a genereal term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.
There are many different types of Malware including computer virus, worms, trojan horse, ect. Each different types of malware varies in the way they infect the user’s computer and how much control the Malware has. One of the most common issues bloggers encounter is known as iframe injection attack. In an iframe injection attack, the malware inserts a piece of code that looks like:
/<iframe src=”*some bad website*//” width=1 height=1style=”visibility:hidden;position:absolute”></iframe>/
into your code base. The most common target files are index.* since it is the first page loaded by any website. Essentially what the </iframe/> code does is it forwards your website to the bad website. As a result if a user visits your site they will be directed to another site that might be filled with even more malware.
There are numerous ways in which the malware can infect your account but two of the most common ways are a result of hosting servers and ‘FTP. In the case of hosting servers, some hosting company does setup their security setting properly and as a result when an account is comprise the hacker gains access to other accounts as well. E.g. suppose JJ and my blog sits on the same server and I am running a very old version of WordPress. If a hacker hacks my account and the security is not set up properly, he can now access JJ’s files too even though JJ is very vigilant in keeping her copy of wordpress up to date. This is a known problem for some of the hosting company and it is why one should be wary of free/cheap hosting solutions. If you have ssh access to your account, make sure to change the permission of your files to the highest level.
2. FTP password. Most bloggers work on their wordpress files on their local computer before FTP the files to the server. As a result FTP passwords are often a target of malware. If you visited some unclean website, your computer can be infected with malware that sniffs for FTP passwords. The moment when you upload your files to your FTP account, the password is captured by the hacker and they can now automate the iframe code insertion process using your FTP password. In fact, it is better to use secure FTP (SFTP) so the data exchange between your computer and the server can’t be easily sniffed.
To cleanup after an iframe injection attack:
>Keep your anti-virus software updated on your home computer
>Update your WordPress to the last version. WordPress is known for security flows and they constantly release security patches.
>Change all your passwords. A good password should have a mix of upper case, lower case, and numbers.
>Avoid use applications that requires your password in on a public computer. Internet cafes are especially deadly.
>Check all your wordpress files for <iframe> tag and remove them. The key files are index.* However, other files might also be affected.
>Investigate how the attack was originated. This one is a little more difficult but I would suggest try to think whether you have downloaded unknown software recently
.
Some good blogging practice to keep your account safe:
>Rename your administrator account to something other to admin or administrator account. This will prevent attacks where the malware uses admin as username and simply try all the words in the dictionary. (Hint: using dictionary words as password is a very bad idea)
>Backup your database on a scheduled basis.
