Buy By Mom Blog

Real Ways to Make Money Online

2012-02-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

If you’re looking to make money on the internet, chances are you’ve run across a few scams already. Which methods of making money online are actually real and which ones are scams? Let’s take a look.

Real: Be an Online Writer
There is a nearly endless demand for people who can write easy to read, compelling, and informative articles for website owners.
If you want to try your hand at being an online writer, the first step is to get a little bit of experience. Perhaps try writing 10 articles for free first. Once you have a few samples, then you can easily find work on various marketing forums or companies that hire freelance writers, like Demand Studios.

Scam: Make Money Posting Links on Google
This is one of the most popular scams around today. It generally comes in the form of a story or news report of how a stay at home mom is making $6,000 a month from home posting links on Google. The reality is, Google AdWords is quite a difficult skill to master. There is no easy way to make money “posting links online.”

Real: Be an Online Virtual Assistant
Business people and travelers all over the world need virtual assistants. The trick here is to find a real reputable company to work with. Avoid companies that ask you to pay an upfront fee to “apply.” Avoid companies that try to make it sound like you’re going to get rich being a virtual assistant. Find companies with a great track record of providing real service and develop relationships with those companies.

Real: Freelance Sites
Sites like eLance, Guru.com and Craigslist Gigs are great ways to make a bit of extra money. If you have skills in design, programming, audio/video editing you’ll quickly be able to find some extra cash. Even if you don’t, there are many ways to make money: Modeling, voice overs, transcripting, you name it.

Scam: Fill Out Surveys Online
The sales pitch here is that businesses need people to take surveys for their opinions. While this is true, generally user-feedback surveys are done in person, not online. Most “make money doing surveys” sites you see are scams. If it requires you to pay for a guide or pay to apply for anything, avoid it like the plague.

Figuring Out What’s Real and What’s Not
In general, if the opportunity looks like you’re providing real value for other human beings and getting paid fair value for it, chances are its real. If it sounds too easy, sounds like you’re going to get very rich overnight, or sounds like it requires zero work, then it’s probably a scam. If you want to make real money online, then be prepared to put in a little bit of work. Rest assured however – You can make money online. Many people do.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Quick Tips to Help You Produce More Content

2012-02-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

If you’re a content producer, sooner or later you’re going to come to the point where you have to ask yourself: “What am I going to write about?” Sooner or later, we all have trouble coming up with ideas. Don’t worry though – If you follow these quick tips, you’ll be on your way to producing great content in no time at all.

Tip #1 – Explain an Expert’s Concept
One great way to produce some killer content is to take some of your favorite quotes and expert ideas and use them as fodder for your content. For example, if you’re running a business blog, you might take an idea like Donald Trump’s “it takes as much effort to think small as it does to think big, so you might as well think big” quote and turn that into a blog post about goals and planning.

Tip #2 – Mistakes to Avoid
Another great way to write articles is to teach people what not to do. What mistakes have you personally made in this niche? What are common mistakes other people make?
You can either list several mistakes in one article, or go in depth on one common mistake that they should pay attention to and spend the whole article on that.

Tip #3 – Share a Personal Experience and a Lesson
Is there a personal story you can tell that will help teach your readers a lesson? If you can tell your story in an entertaining and informative way, that will definitely be a great article.
For example, Zappos’ CEO Tony Hseih often shares the story of how he learned business lessons from playing poker. The lessons he learned later helped him sell his company for $1.2 billion dollars. The story is both entertaining and highly educational.

Tip #4 – Browse Related Websites
If you’re really having trouble coming up with ideas, go take a look around other websites in your industry. As you browse through what other people are putting in their content, a great idea for your site will likely hit you like a thunderbolt. If it doesn’t, then go browse some niche forums. Specifically pay attention to questions people seem to be asking again and again and see if you can answer some of those questions in your content.

Tip #5 – Tell it Differently
If you feel like you’ve really exhausted everything you have to say, then take a concept you’ve already touched on and go deeply into it. Expand on it in depth.
In the spirituality industry, there’s one primary teaching that’s repeated over and over: “Be present.” This one concept is expanded upon again and again, filling up thousands of pages of content. This concept doesn’t get boring because every time it’s told it’s from a different angle, with a different story or a different emphasis. You can do the same with your content. What’s one important concept you can expand on?
These are just some ideas of how to quickly produce more content. Use these tips to help stimulate your mind, then use your creativity to create some knockout content.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Dad and Me

2012-02-01T20:32:00.004-07:00

Guest post by Gerard Mcdaniel

My dad decided to start his own food truck business about three years back and he asked me to help him. I wasn’t sure how I could be of service but it became obvious really quickly that what I had to offer was the logistical side. I went to www.bank-card-processing.com to find out how he could take credit cards and I talked to the food permit board about how to serve food legally. I dealt with the vendors when it came to getting better food prices and you know, I think I did a pretty good job! I love my dad and he’s really great at the people stuff and he’s an amazing chef but you know, I think at the end of the day it’s the team of the two of us that really keep this truck going. Recently we were featured on the Food Networkwhich has really been a boon for business and things are only looking up. The community loves us and we love what we’re doing!

Newsletter and Ezine Marketing Crash Course

2012-01-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

Having a great newsletter can increase your business by as much as 5 fold – Or more, if you do it right! In fact, a newsletter is one of the most crucial tools in business, yet many beginning marketers miss out on it. Why is a newsletter so crucial and how can you start your own newsletter? Here’s the inside scoop.

Why a Newsletter is So Important
A newsletter is crucial because most people aren’t willing to pull out their credit card the first time they hear about someone. Instead, they prefer to get to know you and your content bit by bit over time. As they get to know you and realize you’re the real deal and that you can help them, then that’s when they’ll be willing to pull out their credit cards and make a purchase. To build this trust, you need to build a connection over time. A newsletter allows you to stay in touch with people even after they’ve left your site.
Getting Started With a Newsletter
The first step is to get an autoresponder service. There are many services, such as Aweber, GetResponse or iContact to choose from. If you have a shopping card system, that may have a built in autoresponder as well. Once you have your autoresponder setup, the next step is to get people to sign up for your newsletter.
The best way to do that is to have your newsletter on the front page of your website. Clearly tell your readers what they’ll get by signing up to your newsletter. Then ask them firmly and powerfully to join your newsletter.

Consistency
It’s important that you have a set consistency at which you send your emails. In general, anywhere from once a week to once a month is a good consistency.
If you send your emails more than once a week, people may start to think its spam. If you send your emails less than once a month, people will forget about you. Once you pick a consistency, stick with it so that people know what to expect from your website.

Building a Relationship
A lot of newsletter writers spend a lot of time on their headline. Because, that’s what gets emails opened after all. Right? Wrong. Your real headline is in the “from” column. People look at who the email is from more than the subject when they’re deciding whether or not to open an email. Your goal is to build a relationship with your readers, so that they know when they get an email from you that they’re in for a treat. It’s going to be interesting, informative and useful. You’re not going to spam them. If you build a relationship with them like that, then your emails will get opened – Almost every time.

Again, having a good newsletter can increase your business by many fold. Start by creating your autoresponder and getting signups. Then, pick a mailing consistency and start to build a relationship of trust with your readers.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Networking and Seminars Dos and Don'ts

2012-01-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

If you want to succeed online, then meeting people who’ve already succeeded before you is going to be a huge help. In fact, this could be the sole difference between success and failure. How do you network locally and at seminars? This crash course will help you build relationships that’ll help boost your network and your business.

Make Friends First
In online business, this business axiom holds very true: “All things being equal, people prefer to do business with people they like. All things not being equal, people still prefer to do business with people they like.”
If you want someone to share with you their success techniques for building an online business, then the first step is to build a friendship with them.
Get to know them as human beings and allow them to get to know you. Show a little vulnerability, as well as curiosity and interest towards them.
Once you have a bit of a relationship, then talk business.

Give As Well as Take
If you’ve discovered a technique that’s been working really well for you, don’t horde it for yourself.
There has to be a give as well as take relationship in any kind of business relationship. Share your knowledge and your contacts freely and others will do the same.

Join a Mastermind Group
Meeting with other likeminded people on a regular basis can really help drive you forward.
There are two important things that happen when you’re around other people like yourself. First of all, you get to share ideas, techniques and stories that’ll help you figure out more ways to be successful.
The other thing that happens is that you start to build off of each other’s momentum. If one person is making more money than the others, everyone else will start making more money. Everyone will start taking more action. The energy begets more energy.
If there isn’t a mastermind group near you, then start your own group. It’s not that hard to find likeminded people near you. Get these people together and ask them to bring people they know. Soon, you’ll have a great group of likeminded individuals.

Find a Mentor
If you’re making $2,000 a month and want to be making $5,000 a month, then find someone who’s making $20,000 a month.
This relationship can be a paid relationship, a friendship or a mastermind group relationship. Whatever you need to do, just make sure you have someone in your life that’s where you want to be financially.
This will have a very powerful magnetic effect on your finances. You’ll slowly but surely start making more money.

The bottom line is, who you spend time with has a great deal of influence on your success. Make sure you’re networking properly so that you’re spending your time with the right people.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

How to Write to Connect with Your Prospects

2012-01-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

There’s a big difference between stale writing and writing in a way that really builds a genuine connection with your prospects. Can you guess which one generates more sales and traffic? You guessed it – If you build real connection, you’ll see the difference in your bank account. How do you write in a way that actually draws people in and builds connections? Here’s how.

Share Yourself
Be who you are. Chances are, you’re not the only person teaching what you’re teaching! But people will listen to what you’re saying, not only because of your content, but because they enjoy hearing you share your experience.
If you had a specific experience that relates to what you’re talking about, share it. Believe it or not, this can actually have a big impact on people feeling like they can trust you. Because they feel like they know you more.

“What’s In It For Me?”
The “WIIFM” question is a question that you should answer as quickly as you possibly can. Internet content that rambles on and on without being crystal clear about what they’re getting does not get read, period.
Not only should your WIIFM be totally clear, but you should put it as early in your content as possible. That way, people will know why they should keep reading before they even start reading.

Be Conversational
Write like you talk. Don’t use corporate fluff speak. You’re having a person to person conversation, just over the internet.
Use slang. Start your sentences with “and” or “because” if it sounds natural to you.
And most importantly, put your passion and spirit behind your words.

Let It Sit
Before you publish your content, let it sit for a day or two. Then, come back and review it one more time before you publish it.
Often times the second time around you’ll pick up on things you didn’t the first time. These could be grammatical mistakes, or it could just be more information you can put in that’ll make your content even better.

Credibility
One crucial element to having people listen to what you have to say is credibility. There are so many people on the internet giving different advice; it’s hard to know who to listen to. Have you helped over 1,000 people solve this specific problem? Make sure they know that. Have you been featured on Fox and CNN? Make sure that’s plastered all over your website. Have you done exactly what you’re teaching, in spades? Make sure they know that.
In short, the question of “why should I listen to you” and “why should I trust you” should be answered before you ask your readers to take your word on something.
Here’s the bottom line: If you write in a way that really connects with your readers, you’ll build more traffic, more loyalty, more referrals and more sales. Write to connect with your visitors.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

How to Find More Clients Online

2012-01-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

If you’re an online service provider looking for more clients, then read this article carefully and apply at least one of these techniques – Your bottom line will thank you. Below you’ll learn several different ways to add more clients to your client base almost right away.

Industry Forums
There are many internet forums where your clients may be hanging out in. These are great places to meet future clients, especially if they have a services section.
For example, if you’re a writer, then go on webmaster forums and create a services post about offering your writing services.

Craigslist
There are two ways to get business from Craigslist.
The first way is to post what you’re offering in the Services section. The key to success in doing this is to make it sound like they’re getting a deal – Because that’s what people go on Craigslist for.
The second place to look for clients is in the Gigs section. This is where others will post what they’re looking for in terms of service providers.

Work with Established Firms

If you’re a graphic designer, why go through the trouble of trying to find your own clients if others have already done it for you?
There are many firms out there that provide all kinds of services to clients. Many of them outsource most of their work.
For example, they may charge their clients $80 an hour for design work, and then outsource the actual work at $60 an hour. If that works for you, then just get in contact with a few different firms and ask what it takes to work with them.

eLance and Guru
eLance and Guru are both great ways to find potential clients. In fact, for many people who’re looking for service providers, this is the first place they look.
Keep in mind that eLance and Guru can be a little hard to navigate at first. Bear with the process as you learn your way through.
Depending on what industry you’re in, you might find it difficult to go up against low-cost service providers. You can either differentiate yourself based on value rather than price, or you can use other methods of getting clients.

Building Your Personal Brand
Having your own website that you’re driving traffic to is the ultimate way of getting more traffic. This method is slower than the other methods above, but once you start becoming known in your industry, you’ll start getting clients without having to work for it.
The end goal here is for people to really know what you’re about and what sets you apart. Once you build this reputation in your industry, then your perfect clients will come to you instead of the other way around.
Each and every one of these techniques described above is powerful enough to build a whole business around. Pick one that you’re not already doing and put it into action today! The results might just surprise you.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

How to Define Your Target Market

2012-01-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Defining your target marketing is one of the most important things you’ll ever do in your internet business. This one decision may very well determine whether or not you’ll have a profitable business a few weeks or months from now.
How do you find your target market? Where do you look for ideas? Once you have a target market in mind, how do you research it? Here’s how.

What to Look For in a Market

There are several factors that make for a good target market.

The first factor is that the market is small enough that you can be a major player, but not so small that you can’t make good money. For example, you wouldn’t want to start a new online dating site because Match.com and eHarmony clearly have the market in a stronghold.

However, you probably don’t want to start a site on underwater basket weaving, as it’s too small to make any money.

The second factor is that there is money being spent. Sure, “dog pictures” may not have a major player –
But chances are, there’s no money being made!

The best markets are markets that have a problem that needs to be solved. People who have problems are more willing to spend money.

Where to Look for Ideas

There are several great places to look for target market ideas.

The first is Google Trends. Google Trends will give you a good idea of what things are hot right now. This can often help you identify new target markets and become a major player before others hop on the bandwagon.

Another great place to look is Amazon Magazines. If there’s enough of a market for a magazine, chances are there’s enough of a market for you to make money online.
eBay Pulse is another great place to look. Again, you’re looking for potential markets where you can become a major player.

How to Research a Target Market

Once you have an idea, then what? How do you do your research to see if it’s viable?

The first step is to check the volume to make sure there’s enough traffic for you to make a living. You can do this through checking the Google Keyword Tool.
Once you’ve made sure you can actually make enough money for it to be worth your while, the next step is to get to know the market and the market’s spending habits.
There are two main places you should look: Your competitors and the niche forums. How are your competitors doing? Are they selling high ticket items, or are they scraping by with advertising? Are AdWords bids high or low? These factors will help you determine how much money is being spent.
Take a look at the niche forums to find out what are typical problems people have in this market. If someone asks a question and others say “I have that same issue!” then you should definitely take note.

Once you’ve brainstormed a few niche markets, identified the ones with promise and then narrowed them down to the winners through a good research process, then the next step is to take action and make it happen.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

How to Build a Website - The Right Way

2012-01-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

Building a website the right way will ensure you get plenty of traffic – Not just today, but repeatedly over time. Most people who get started in web marketing try to cut corners and end up getting nowhere. The reality is, if you build your website the right way from the start, you’ll be able to create a very nice steam of traffic and income for months and years to come.

What Makes a Successful Website?

A successful website is based on giving real value to your visitors. In other words, it’s not based on trying to game the system, not based on trying to earn a quick AdSense check, not based on any black hat or spammy techniques.
These are websites that people will actually pass on to their friends, because the content is so useful. If you create a genuine online asset, that’s when the payoff really comes.

Why Great Content Matters

There’s a saying in the world of journalism: “Content is King.”
It doesn’t matter how pretty your site is or how good you are at writing copy. If the actual content, the real meat of your website isn’t good, then you’re not going to succeed.
Having great content will mean having your content passed around, getting links and getting ranked. Make sure your content is truly first class.

Work With, Not Against, Google

It’s true that you can game Google for a short period of time. However, eventually Google will update their algorithm and put these kinds of sites out of business.
It really doesn’t make any sense to try and game your way around Google when you can actually give Google what it wants instead.
What does Google want? Good, high quality, relevant content for its searchers. If you give Google’s users that, then every time Google updates it’s algorithm you’ll win instead of lose.

Connect With Your Visitors

Connecting with your visitors is key. If you can build a real relationship with the people you’re serving, you’ll get both links and traffic.
You’ll also start to become better and better known in your market. If you treat your market as just a “target market” to market to, you will get some traffic and sales. However, if you treat your market like you’re talking to real people, then you’ll actually start to build trust and a reputation in your industry.
That’s when your site will start moving away from small-time internet website to a real business.

It Doesn’t Pay to Cut Corners

There are many, many marketers who’ve been trying to cut corners for years. They’ve started website after website trying the latest blackhat techniques to no avail.
Sure, you may make a few bucks here and there by cutting corners. But in the long run, you will spend far more effort cutting corners than if you just built an asset with real value right from the beginning.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Different Types of Online Business Models

2012-01-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

There are many different ways to make money on the internet. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, the fastest and easiest way to ensure your success is to replicate a model that’s already proven to make money. Here are five such models.

The Informational Website

The informational website is based on giving away free information. It’s primary source of income is AdSense, advertising and affiliate product sales.
For example, if you were to start a small website on fishing, put up 50 articles about various fishing tips and techniques and populated it with AdSense ads, you’d very likely get decent traffic as well as make a decent amount of money.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you’re making money by selling other people’s products. Instead of having to create a product, a detailed website, setup billing and handle customer service, all you need to do is bring in traffic.
Once you get the traffic to their website, their job is to make the sale. Once the sale is made, you get a percentage of the sale price. For physical products, the commission is usually between 5% and 20%. For digital products, the commission is usually between 50% and 75%.

eCommerce Stores

Another way to make money online is to actually sell products from an eCommerce store. Here, you would actually own a web store where customers would place orders and then ship them a physical product.
At first you might start out by having a dropshipping relationship with manufacturers so you don’t have to warehouse your own products. Then, as you become more successful you’ll want to start housing some of your own products to reduce your per item costs.

Infoproduct Marketing

Infoproduct marketing is when you’re selling products that teach people how to do things. These products can be anything from “How to Get a Girlfriend” to “How to Get a Babysitting Job” to “How to Increase Your Miles Per Gallon.”
The possibilities are endless. You need three primary skills to succeed in information marketing:
1) The ability to bring traffic to your website.
2) The ability to create good content in a specific area.
3) The ability to convince people online that your infoproduct is a good investment that will help them solve their problem.
Once you have these three skills, you’ll be able to produce many profitable infoproduct websites.

The Made for Acquisition Model

If you’re looking to build something larger than a website that’s making a few thousand dollars a month, then you’re looking at building a real company that’s meant for acquisitions or IPOs.
These are companies like LinkExchange (acquired for $250 million,) Facebook (valued at over a billion.)
The trick to building such a company is to find a market need to serve and to serve that need. In the process, you’ll generally have to learn how to raise capital from Venture Capitalists and angel investors.
Before trying to build such a business, it’s usually a good idea to build at least a couple smaller successful online bsuiensses using the models above.

There you have it – Five different online business models with a proven history of success. Just pick the one that sound smost actionable to you now and get started today!

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Internet Marketing Tip of the Day #6

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

As an affiliate, banners aren’t your best approach. Banners have their place, but you’ll make more by recommending products directly.

Making my spare bedroom into a princess bedroom

2012-01-01T20:40:00.002-07:00

Guest post written by Hannah Rivington

I've wanted for years to finally make over the spare bedroom to something that I'm proud to let my guests stay in. For years it served as our junk room and just had all of our old bedroom decor and bedding in it, but no more. I'm making it a project of mine while I take the last of my vacation days for extended time over the holidays.

I decided to see if I could find a fun canopy bed to put on there that isn't too expensive. I've always kind of wanted a princess room and I know that my husband wouldn't like that for our bedroom, so we're just going to do that for the guest bedroom instead. While I was online looking for them, I ran across the website www.HOMEPROIMPROVEMENT.com and after I looked through it some, I decided to use them to replace our home's windows.

I did find this really excellent canopy bed online through Craigslist. It was surprisingly cheap and in great condition, so it didn't cost nearly as much as it would have otherwise to make over our guest bedroom.

Internet Marketing Tip of the Day #5

2011-12-19T20:09:00.002-07:00

If you’re an affiliate in a market that changes frequently (ex. new technology and ideas), make sure you stay up-to-date.

Work Life Balance Part IV-The To Do List

2011-12-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

A to-do list is a list of tasks to be completed or steps toward completing a project. DUH! We all know this – so what’s the point in going any further with this topic, right? Not so fast…

The reason we will continue is because it’s hard to argue the benefits that come from getting your commitments out of your cranium and into a consistent format.

Let’s begin by breaking down a to-do list by starting with the obvious: a to-do list should contain things that can and should be done. You say, DUH! again? You may be surprised to learn how many items wind up on to-do lists that don’t belong there – as well as how many are missed. So let’s continue on. To-do lists should have items on them that are:

something for which you are responsible
actions
something that can be accomplished in a short period of time…say a sitting
something that works toward achieving a larger goal

David Allen, in Getting Things Done, talks about the ‘next action’. He defines the next action as ‘the next physical activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion’.
For example, most people might put something on their to-do list like ‘get ready for the trip’. The reality is that this is really a project (here comes my PM background). Projects should be broken down into the activities required to complete it. ‘Get ready for the trip’ is too vague. Instead, it should be broken down into activities such as:

call the kennel to make reservations for dogs from x/xx to x/xx
take suits to the dry cleaners
go to the post office to stop mail delivery until x/xx

These are specific and actionable – it’s easy to determine when they are done. Notice theses are all physical activities. Breaking these projects down into physical activities will help you

clearly and completely think through the project
make it easier to complete the project
make the project more manageable for you

By taking this approach and have a ‘proper’ to-do list you may find you’re really not as busy as you thought you were (because you are now working smarter!), you’re better organized and have a better handle on what needs to be done!

Internet Marketing Tip of the Day #4

2011-12-03T22:16:00.001-07:00

The best thing you can do as an affiliate marketer is to be honest. Products needn’t be perfect and aren’t suitable for everyone. Make sure you are transparent when talking about what products can and cannot do.

Local SEO

2011-12-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Ranking for area specific terms can be a big boost to your business. Many people don’t think local SEO makes a big difference, but this isn’t the case.

The good thing about it is that it’s usually quicker to rank for local terms. This is because you have so little competition. While there might be tons of sites going for the keyword “weight loss,” there are significantly less going for the term “Orlando weight loss.”

So how do you get ranked for local terms? Here are four tips to make it happen:

#1) Use the keyword in your title and content

This is the most important factor in getting ranked. You should put the keyword at the beginning of your title, as well as in the content a few times. This lets Google know what the page is about. Therefore, it will make it more likely you will get ranked.

#2) Use anchor text to your advantage

When you do get links to your site, make sure the anchor text (the actual link text) includes your main keyword phrase. Google looks closely at the anchor text to let them know what the site being linked to is about.

So if you have one hundred links pointing to your site, and seventy of them say “Houston condos”, they will be able to surmise what your page is about.
However, you don’t want to have every single link to say the same thing. Google likes natural link building. So if 100% of the links say “Houston condos, they will view this as unnatural, and this may affect you in a negative way.

#3) Get links from quality sites

Every link is not created equal. Google puts more weight on the links from quality sites a lot more. Therefore, be sure to target legitimate sites for your link building efforts.

#4) Geo-tags

This is not a new strategy, and it’s been around for a long time. However, many internet marketers aren’t familiar with it.

Basically, geo-tagging is where you put metadata in your HTML code. This lets the search engine spiders know where your site is located. You can do the same for pictures you put on your site. This will help you rank for localized searches.

The metadata includes your latitude and longitude coordinates, and sometimes other variables like altitude. If somebody is doing a search with geotagging enabled, your site might show up.

While geo-tagging does work, you can definitely rank without doing it. However, there’s no reason not to use it, as it definitely couldn’t hurt.

The bottom line is, getting ranked for local SEO terms is a great way to get more business. Implement these four tips and you should see results from your SEO efforts shortly.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Avoid Becoming a Victim of Identity Theft

2011-11-30T17:29:00.001-07:00

One of the most precious things a person has is his or her identity. It should be fiercely protected. Identity theft occurs so often that the Federal Bureau of Investigation states it is "America's fastest growing crime problem." Thieves steal and illegally use social security numbers, credit card numbers and other personal information. This crime affects about 10million people each year.

There are many ways a thief can get your personal information. It can be as simple as digging through your garbage or looking over your shoulder at an ATM machine. Thieves can steal or divert your mail. Phishing emails are also used to try to obtain your personal and financial information. No one wants to go through the expensive and distressing process of trying to recover their identity once it has been stolen. The best thing to do is to try to keep your information safe: the best defense is a good offense!

When working to protect your identity, why do it alone? Most people don't have the time or equipment necessary to monitor everything that needs to be monitored to protect their identity. One of the very best things a person can do is to acquire Identity Theft Protection. There are companies that offer this kind of protection at a very reasonable price...after all, having one's identity safeguarded is priceless! IdentityHawk offers a comprehensive solution to people looking for identity theft protection. Identity Hawk says your identity is "like a chain. It's only as strong as its weakest link." IdentityHawk offers the most comprehensive identity theft protection available. I invite you to visit their website today and check out what they have to offer...everyone should protect their identity.

2011-11-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

What is local marketing, and why do smaller businesses need to engage in it? This means targeting people in your area.

Obviously many businesses can go after people around the country. However, others can only do business with local customers.

Restaurants and financial planners are prime examples of smaller companies that do business with only local people. There’s only so far people are going to drive to do business with you if you have a physical location.

However, if you have a business that lends itself to national customers, you can also target local customers separately. There are some people that would simply rather do business with local companies. Therefore, you might want to do some local advertising apart from your national efforts.

So how do you get more local customers? There are a number of ways that work. Here are four you can start with:

#1) Newspaper advertising
This is one of the cheapest ways to target people in your area. When done right, it can be effective.
The problem with it is that it’s very untargeted. The majority of people reading the paper will not be interested in your product. However, if even a small percentage respond, it can be effective.

#2) Yellow pages
This is another one of the “traditional methods” of local advertising. It’s been around a long time, and when done right it can again be effective.

#3) Direct mail
This is hands down one of the top local advertising methods. This is where you buy a list of people in your area based on certain characteristics. You can choose based on age, gender, income level, etc. then you would send out an advertising campaign to them.
This way, you can choose exactly who you want to focus on. Therefore, it’s more targeted than the previous two.

#4) Internet
Online advertising is another effective strategy to get local customers.
So how do you convert traffic into sales? Now that you know how to drive traffic to your offer, you have to focus on making sales.

Get their contact information.

This should be your main goal, so you can keep marketing to them. The average customer requires at least four to seven touches before they do business with you. Therefore, if you give up after the first contact you are probably missing out on the majority of your sales.

Track each advertising source separately.

You might want to track each advertising method, so you can tell what’s working and what isn’t. For this reason, you might want to send the traffic from each source to a different place so you can tell what’s working and what isn’t.

The bottom line is, local advertising can be effective when done right. Implement these tips, and you will get your marketing efforts on track.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Internet Marketing Tip of the Day #3

2011-11-27T11:25:00.001-07:00

Don’t search for the “best affiliate program”. Search for products that serve your audience’s needs.

Internet Marketing Tip of the Day #2

2011-11-25T17:22:00.001-07:00

A high commission percentage may be deceiving. Keep in mind the dollar amount per sale, conversion rates and even refund rates.

A Way to Make Your Online Shopping Easier

2011-11-23T20:01:00.001-07:00

Have you ever spent hours searching online for gifts? Have you ever wished there was a website that would filter out all of the nonsense and just give you relevant results for your search? Have you ever wanted a site that would compare prices (including tax, shipping and handling) so there are no surprises at checkout?

You are in luck, because there is such a site! That site is Become.com. The powerful search engine on Become.com filters out irrelevant results. They use next generation search technology so that only pertinent information is delivered to you. You can comparison shop as well. They have over twenty million products from 5000 retailers so you can get the best price on the item you want. If you want to see a product in person before you buy it, they have a feature called 'Nearby Stores' so you can see where the item you want is locally.

Whether you are shopping for Roxy Bedspreads, Lowes Prices on Generators or Mirrored Canopy Beds (and everything in between) you will find what you are looking for at Become.com at a great price! I invite you to visit Become.com today. You will find tons of items such as electronics, computers, cameras, home and garden items, clothes, jewelry and health and beauty products. When you visit the site, be sure to check out the About Become link on the bottom of the page so you can learn about their terrific next generation search engine and put the power of that engine at your fingertips! Check out Become.com today!

Internet Marketing Tip of The Day #1

2011-11-23T19:58:00.001-07:00

It’s always easiest to promote products that you have used and like, so start there when venturing into affiliate marketing.

Moms in the Medical Field This is For You!

2011-11-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

The field that seems to be growing the fastest these days is the medical field. There are so many things to do in the field and a definite need for more professionals. Given much of the flexibility allowed by the different positions, moms have taken advantage of this by working in this field. It allows them to earn an income while still being able to spend time with their families. Many moms do this while simultaneously building a business at home so they can eventually work from home.

Working in the medical field can be demanding and moms working in the field want to be comfortable. It's a bonus if they can also look good while being super comfortable! Moms want a place to get comfortable scrubs to wear to work but also want to look good. Is it possible? It sure is! Go to http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ where you can get scrubs that are comfortable and look great!

They have scrubs for nursing, medical, veterinary, women and men. They even have different hats for short or long hair! If you are in the medical field you know that it can be difficult to find hats made especially for long hair. You can find their wonderful scrub hats in their cotton medical scrubs collection. If you work in the medical field and want to look and feel good while working, definitely check out what this company has to offer!

Increase Your Holiday Sales

2011-11-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year gain. We just had Halloween. Now, the holiday season is in full swing!

Are you a self-employed parent? Are you a member of Our Milk Money? If not, you should be! There is no cost to be a member and a multitude of benefits!

In these challenging times, we want to offer you a place to advertise your holiday products and services where you can get an inexpensive yet high visibility ad. That place is the Our Milk Money Holiday E-Gift Catalog.

Please note that although we have had a substantial increase in our subscriber base this year, we have decided not to increase the ad prices. As always, we are committed to offering you affordable promotion at the best possible value.

The Our Milk Money Holiday E-Gift Catalog will be advertised heavily online and via our weekly radio show: This Little Parent Stayed Home. It will also go out to all of our Facebook and Twitter followers.

The Our Milk Money Holiday E-Gift Catalog will be emailed out three times! Once on November 21st, once on November 28th and again on December 5th. In addition to that, the ads will also be posted on the Our Milk Money site for 1 1/2 months for all to see!

The staff of Our Milk Money has been challenged to do their holiday shopping with the Parents of Our Milk Money. We are extending the same challenge to you…let us all support each other this year by doing our holiday shopping with each other.

If our staff needs ideas on what to purchase for the holidays. we bet our subscribers do too! This is where we need YOUR help! Be the expert on your products and tell us what we should be purchasing from you. When you send us information for your ad, be product specific.

The ad opportunities:

Top Banner Ad: Only 1 available! This spot will consist of a 468 x 60 banner along with up to 300 characters of text.
Bottom Banner Ad: Only 1 available! This spot will consist of a 468 x 60 banner along with up to 300 characters of text.
Middle Button Ads: Unlimited spots available! These spots will consist of 125 x 125 buttons with up to 100 characters of text.

What we need from you:
In years past, the most successful ads have been those that included a call to action so we recommend your ad promote a specific product or service or offer a significant discount to Our Milk Money supporters.

Email address where we can send you a paypal invoice
Best: URL to a button or banner; if you don’t have one we will need a jpeg button or banner
A product title and description
Include price and any discount you may be offering
Link to purchasing information for your product(s)
Name of your business and link to your homepage
Your Facebook fan page link
Your Twitter name

RESERVE YOUR SPOT NOW!

Wonderful Girl's Clothing from TeaCollection!

2011-11-05T21:43:00.001-06:00

The holidays are upon us. For many children, the holidays are a warm, wonderful and even magical time of year...definitely a time of year in which many wonderful memories are made. Many of us will be doing a lot of things with our families. We will be going out to movies, plays, dinners and special events. We will be having friends and family over to our homes to spend time with us and visit and some of us will be hosting holiday parties in our homes. During this time of year, we all want to look our best and our children are no exception...especially our little girls! They love to dress up and look pretty not only for special events, but every day.

As parents, we want to be able to indulge our daughter's desires to dress pretty every day and especially for special events. In these challenging times, though, we want to be able to get a very good value for our money. There is a place where we can accomplish both! That place is TeaCollection.com. TeaCollection.com has a wonderful collection of girl's clothing. As they say on their site, "A festival of sparkle and color is happening all over our holiday girls clothing styles." The philosophy of TeaCollection.com is a wonderful one: design distinctive collections inspired by the beauty we discover in our travels around the world. They have a passion for cultures worldwide and it's reflected in the beauty of their designs and collections.

I invite you to take some time to shop for your daughters, grand daughters and nieces at TeaCollection.com. They have beautiful dresses, wardrobe sets, leggings, sweaters, hoodies, pajamas, shoes and accessories...everything you need to dress your special little girl in style! You will get wonderful clothes for every day and special occasions and clothes that your special little girl will love to wear over and over again.