Click here to test drive Earn1KaDay!

I realized that I often mention different sites I use, or places I frequent to learn more about how to make money online – and one of the places I mention alot is Earn1KaDay.  I also realized that while I talk about it alot, maybe I haven’t really given any of my readers an indication of what all is inside this exclusive membership site, not to mention the internet marketing training they will find once inside.

I have been online for over 5 years, and in those years, I have spent more money than I care to even think about on wasted products and programs that promised to give me the answers I needed.  And, that includes spending money on membership sites that just didn’t deliver what they said.

I would start out with a membership site full of excitement, but after one or two months, I would realize that everything they promised just wasn’t being delivered.  There wasn’t the sense of community and often trying to find answers to any questions that came up was pretty much impossible.

Luckily for me though, I took a chance on just one more membership site in May of 2007.

Click here for your copy of 5 Bucks a Day...

See, I had purchased and read a book called 5 Bucks a Day, by someone named Dennis Becker.  He wasn’t anyone I had heard about at that time, but the book looked like it would be an interesting read.  And, like many others I have talked to who have read that book, it actually changed their lives in the sense that they stopped trying to find that “holy grail” of internet marketing, and helped them to sit down and finally start making some money.

Not alot at first, which is the premise behind the book.  Without giving too much away, it essentially talks about how the author started taking simple strategies and put them into practice every day until he got to where he is now – which is exactly where everyone who is starting in internet marketing wants to be.

It is no fluff, and it isn’t full of empty promises.  And, it has been a real eye opener for so many of us.

So – back to May of 2007.  Dennis Becker, the guy who had written 5 Bucks a Day, sent out an email saying he was starting a little membership site for anyone interested in joining.  It would be geared towards showing simple strategies to follow, teaching different methods that people could use to start making money online.  And, it would hopefully take us from making 5 bucks a day to the $1000 a day mark.  (And, just so that you know, there are alot of people in this membership site who have hit that goal….)

I figured I’d give it a try because he seemed like a pretty good guy, and “one of us” – not one of the unapproachable “gurus” that ran many of the other sites I had tried.

And, as you realize now, that was over 4 years ago now and I have been a member since the beginning.  I have never canceled, and it is the one place I do go to regularly and feel a part of a community.

It isn’t like so many of the other internet marketing communities and forums.  It is a lot more than that.

You aren’t afraid to ask questions in there.  You will never be told to use the search function – if you are, they will most often give you the direct link to another thread that can help you.  The people genuinely help each other and feel a loyalty to all members.  In fact, most of the people in there will tell you that once they join, they wouldn’t dream of leaving.

There are some of the “bigger” names in IM inside too who, along with Dennis, offer real valuable advice and knowledge.  There are special deals only for members of E1KAD.  And, Dennis picks up tons of material that we can use to grow our businesses – either through reselling, using as PLR or even just to learn from.

The wealth of information that is available in there is absolutely unbeleivable – but that isn’t even the best part of the membership.  It is the genuine help each member gives to others.  The little tips here and there that can make such a difference.

There is not one person inside this membership area who feels they are above anyone else, and that shows through in every post that is made.  There is a group of people who really help each other and who want to see others succeed.

It is one site that I can honestly say has made one of the biggest impacts to my business.  The knowledge I have picked up, the material I have been able to use, the tricks and tips that people openly share, have all been “mushed” together to give me so much more than I could have ever found if I had kept going along the path I was….(buying every WSO and new product being offered promising untold riches….).

And, that is why I talk about it as much as I do.  And, why I felt it was time to finally give it the honest review it deserves.  Because it is the kind of site that can do more for your business than anything you could imagine – but too many people are afraid they will be burned by another product that is “overhyped”.

Well, I can honestly say that this is one community that I am sure most of the members can say has attributed in one way or another to their success – no matter what level of success they have achieved.

**If you would like to read the book that got all of this started, you can pick it up by clicking here……5 Bucks a Day

**Or, if you would would like to take the Earn1KaDay test drive, click here….you will get access to everything for just $2.95 for a whole 10 days. There is no better deal out there than that!  And, the price you will then pay each month after is nothing compared to what you will get out of it.

But, make sure you get in and ask questions if you have any.  Read through just some of the information that is there – really get a good understanding of what all is included, because even though there are a ton of downloads – there is so much more you will get from the members area.

I guess today is a bit of a rant, (again – starting to wonder if I have some anger issues;-), about something that I see alot of, especially around this time of year.

Everyone has heard all the talk about needing to attend Internet Marketing seminars and conferences if they really want to grow their business.  And, most likely you have heard it said at one time or another that if you don’t attend these seminars, then you aren’t taking your business seriously.  Or, that you are simply making up excuses why you can’t go – as though your reasons for not being able to attend are not really legitimate.

Well, I have to put my neck on the line a bit to say that I don’t necessarily think those sentiments are very fair.

Firstly, I would love to be able to attend all the seminars and conferences that are going on all over the place.  I would be thrilled to be able to meet everyone – all the big names, and some of the not so big names.  Make some friendships, and meet some of the people I feel I have got to know fairly well in forums and membership areas.  It would be awesome to be able to strike up some deals and jv’s and all that fun stuff.

But, the truth is – I have to think of my family first.  And, most of these seminars are in the US, which means I would have to travel a fair distance to get to them.  That is going to cost money – and even though I am making money in my business, I can’t justify taking that money from my kids for their school lunches, or their soccer registration fees.

You see, I am a mom – and while I know for a fact that many moms who are in IM are able to attend these conferences, their circumstances may not be exactly like mine.  Perhaps they are able to put a bit of money away every month to save for these trips.  I use mine to put back into my business by outsourcing what I need and getting tools that will help to grow my business.

So for me to go on a trip like this, would require me to dip into our family funds – and I am not prepared to do that.

Not only that, but I would feel incredibly guilty to go on a trip to somewhere like Las Vegas or New York and not take my kids.  So that would be much more costly, and I would have to take the kids out of school.

Maybe everyone will feel that these are just excuses.  But they aren’t to me.  They are legitimate reasons why I can’t attend these seminars at this time.

It isn’t that I wouldn’t love to be able to – I have already stated that.  And, I believe I take my business just as seriously as anyone else.  For those who say otherwise, you don’t really know every person’s circumstances that may be preventing them from going.

While the rest of us sit and listen to all the awesome partnerships that were formed, and the incredible boost their businesses are getting, we are left feeling a bit like the kid on the playground who wasn’t invited to the party on the weekend – and everyone else is talking about it.

Well, maybe someday I will be able to go.  But, it will need to be without conflict with my kids schedules, or when I can afford to put money away without my family fincances having to suffer.  Until then, I will keep working on my business after my kids are in bed – and hope that my business can grow even if I didn’t attend every conference and seminar that took place!

That is the price to pay when you are a work at home mom – and I am perfectly fine with that.

Many people think that marketers working online are nothing more than spammers who are trying to invade their privacy.  And, it is easy to understand why.  Unfortunately, there are way too many people out there calling themselves “internet marketers” who really are nothing but spammers – but in truth, they aren’t real marketers.

Real marketers ask for your permission to send you offers through email – normally by having you sign up through an optin form on their site.  And, most of these optins will then need to be confirmed by you before your name is ever added to the list, or anything is ever sent out.

Internet marketers who take their business seriously, do not want to have their credibility hurt by sending out any form of spam.  However, there will always be those people out there who hit the “Report Spam” button on their email because they either didn’t like the message that was sent, or they legitimately don’t remember signing up with their email.

That is why it is important to use a service like Aweber.  Using a company that requires a double optin, where the person is asked to click on a link in their confirmation email to ensure that it truly is their intent to sign up for that mailing list, is one of the best ways to protect yourself and your business.  That way, when they decide to scream “spam” down the road, it can be proven that they did indeed confirm their intent.

But, whatever your marketing plan, make sure you do not resort to sending out endless emails to your list promoting every new product under the sun.  That is the surest way of getting a bunch of people hitting the “unsubscribe” button.  And, some people – even though it is wrong – believe that this is spamming them.

Never, ever buy a list from someone else.

That should always be a given, but I see new marketers coming on the scene every day who are desperate for a list of people to send out offers to.

Well, the truth is, there is no better way of getting a list of responsive readers than by building it yourself.  Set up a free report or something of interest to offer in return for their email address, and permission to email them.

Sometimes it can be slow going, but I will write a bit more about some tricks and ideas for building your mailing list in my next post.  Stay tuned!

Every time you make a post to your blog, you have an opportunity to get a flood of traffic to your site.  And, the best part is, even if your blog is brand new – these are strategies you can use to get results almost immediately.  You don’t have to wait for weeks while your blog gets high rankings in the search engines, and you don’t need to keep forking over money for pay-per-click traffic.

So, how can you do this?

Use RSS feeds

Many people get confused when it comes to RSS feeds.  All you need to do is take down the address to your blog feed and your comment feed and submit them to as many feed aggregators as you can find.  There are many kinds of software out there which can help you to easily automate this task if you don’t want to do it by hand.

*There is a plugin by Ed Dale called RSS Bomber that takes a post or a page and creates a single feed for each one on its own – giving you the ability to submit multiple feeds pointing to the same site.

*Another tactic you can use is to take the www out of the feed url and submit it as a separate feed.  The directories will look at it as a unique and completely new feed – giving you double exposure.

*Install the WP plugin RSS Footer, and configure it so that it will post a backlink in the footer for every post in your feed.  You will be getting a ton of keyword targeted backlinks every time you submit your feed.  And, guess what else?  Anyone who comes along scraping your site to steal your content will be giving you a great backlink to your site!

Use Social Sites to their Highest Potential

The first thing you need to do, is sign up with ping.fm where you will be able to associate all of your different social accounts like Facebook, Twitter, digg and many others.  Go ahead and add all of the ones you have, and create any new accounts you need.  You can register accounts just for the blog you are wanting to get traffic to.

The next thing is to make sure that all of your profiles include your blog address and that they are all in sync.  Now, whenever you make a new blog post, you can head on over to ping.fm and post an interesting snippet about your latest post that will be interesting enough to draw traffic back to read it.

You can get almost instant traffic, even to new social profiles that you have set up.

*Look online for the latest plugins you can use with WordPress that will update ping.fm automatically every time you publish a new post.

Give Love to Comment Luv

Comment Luv is a hugely popular plugin that people use on their blogs.  When you comment on a blog that has this installed, you will get a live link back to your own site.  The link that is shown displays the title of your latest blog post, so that every time you make a new post, the link where you left your comment will update with the new post title.

You can see a tremendous amount of traffic from this – especially if you have been fortunate enough to get your comment near the top, or right at the bottom of the post.  You will get a lot of exposure from that location.

Bloggers love this plugin too, because they know that it will encourage commenting on their posts, which in turn brings more traffic to their sites too.  So, you can spend some time finding some good blogs in your niche that are using Comment Luv, and make a point of leaving helpful, and meaningful comments on these blogs whenever you get a chance.  Have their RSS feeds updating to your iGoogle homepage so that you can see whenever a new post is put up so that you can get your comment into the top few spots.

You also want to make sure that when you write your blog posts, that you use compelling titles that will draw readers in.  You only get the one chance to get their attention, so make sure you give them something to make them want to click-through.

All it takes is a little bit of time to get things set up, and you will be bringing in floods of visitors to your blog in no time.

I apologize if you were hoping for something else to read today, however, I have some important words I want to share and while learning about working from home is what most of you are here for, I am sure that all of you can relate to this post in at least one way or another.

Today’s post has nothing to do with making money from home, or Internet Marketing or anything at all like that.

Today, I want to dedicate a post to my Grandma.  A lady who never asked for any recognition, and who never thought she was anything special.

My beautiful, wonderful Grandma passed away just a couple of weeks ago.  April 10th, 2011 to be exact.  I was sitting beside her bed when she went.

Needless to say, I was heartbroken.

You see, my grandma taught me so many things.  She taught me how important it is to be kind.  How to always appreciate what you have.  That family is the most important thing in life.  To always share a smile and to laugh and enjoy life.

I have been so blessed in my life to have grown up in the same community as all of my grandparents.  In fact, I was lucky enough to share just about every christmas with them, many weekends, weeks over the summer holidays – and just so many other visits in between.

But, as many of us do, I look back now and realize that I took so much for granted.  The meals sitting around the table with everyone, going for drives, spending nights sleeping beside them.

My grandfathers both died within a month of each other.  I was just about 30 when they passed, so I was so lucky to have had them for so long, although that didn’t make the pain any easier.  After they were gone, I realized that while I had always still looked at my grandparents as invincible, that wasn’t the case any longer.

I understood that my time with my grandma’s would also be coming to an end, and I made sure that I made up for any lost time that may have happened during my “teenage years” when I was “too cool” and didn’t have time to visit.  And, of course the years when I moved out and was living life without a care – times that I maybe didn’t take the time I should have to spend with them.

I am now almost 40, and have been so lucky to have enjoyed over 10 more years with my grandma.  (I still have my other grandma, who just celebrated her 90th birthday last week).

My grandma was a special lady, and I am not just saying that because I am maybe a bit biased:-)  She worked hard all her life, and she never took credit for anything.  She stayed quietly in the background, making sure we were all happy and looked after.  She baked thousands of loaves of bread in her lifetime – bread that could never be equalled anywhere else in the world.  Every year for Christmas she knitted us all a sweater.

When my grandpa passed away, she moved into town.  At that time, she was also starting to lose her eyesight to macular degeneration.  It seemed just so unfair that someone who was facing moving from her home into unfamiliar surroundings, without her husband by her side, would now also go blind.

She took it all in stride.

She tried to teach me how to bake bread using her secret recipe just before I got married.  We spent a day baking bread together, and I will never forget the fun we shared that day.  And, when I had to get her to knead the dough for me, because I just didn’t have the strength to do it, she never made fun of me, (although I have never heard the end of it from other family members!)

I have so many wonderful memories of her, but what I have the most is the memory of who she was.  There was just no one else like her, and I feel sad every day with missing her so much.

I spent the last couple of weeks of her life by her side a lot.  She was getting sicker, and she knew her time was coming.  She still did her best to smile, and she tried so hard to keep us from worrying about her.

They still aren’t sure what she got sick from, although they are pretty sure it was some form of cancer since it seemed to happen pretty fast.  She had been in the personal care home in our community for the past 2 years, and up until about a month ago, was out dancing on Friday nights with the residents, and visiting her friends in their rooms.

When it was becoming apparent that she was starting to suffer, when I would ask her if she needed anything, all she would say is, “I’m OK”, or “Everything’s OK”.

That was how she was.  She never wanted anyone to worry or fuss over her.

I was with her one morning a couple of weeks ago when she had a small stroke.  I used to be a nurse, but nothing could prepare me for the terror I felt that morning holding her in my arms trying to let her know everything would be alright.  The rest of that day, after she had recovered a bit, she was looking around as though she could see again.  She was smiling and seemed so at peace.

Then, that evening, I went over to her bed to tell her I was going to go home to get some rest.  She reached up to hug me and she gave me a gift that I will never forget – and will cherish for the rest of my life.  She said, “Thanks for being you.”

When I then replied to her, “No, thanks for being YOU”, she just laughed as if to say that she was nothing special.

I told her I loved her, and she said the same to me.

The next day, she had began to suffer so much with pain, that they had started her on morphine, and she was never really able to speak again.

She knew in her heart how hard it was going to be for me, and she took what she had left that night and gave me the most beautiful goodbye.

There aren’t words in the world to explain how much I miss her every day.  And, there is nothing I wouldn’t give to have even just another hour with her.

But, I have the lessons she gave me, and I know that I am who I am today in part because of her.  My children got to know her, and she got to know them.  She never was able to see them, but she loved them with everything she had.  That was just how she was.

So – today I finally feel I can sit down and write these words without the pain being too much.

I hope she knew how much we loved her.  And, I hope she knows how much her goodbye meant to me.

And – I guess if you need a lesson from my post, it can be this:  always cherish time with people you love.  Money, cars, houses – all that stuff is just stuff.  But, your family, your friends – people you love are what make your life complete.  Take the time to play with your kids, call your grandparents, if you are still fortunate to have them, and make plans to see them.

Don’t let life go by too fast without taking some time to enjoy what really matters.

I miss you Grandma.  And, thanks for being you;-)

Sometimes getting traffic to a website can leave you feeling like you have ran out of gas on an abandoned dirt road.  No one is coming by – and you feel like you are the only one who is actually seeing your site.

And unfortunately, without traffic, there really is no point to having a website.  If no one is visiting, and no one is seeing your offer, then it doesn’t matter what else you do – you won’t be making any money.  You can tweak your content, add fancy graphics, and offer free material for visitors – but if they aren’t finding you, then you are pretty much dead in the water.

So, what can you do?  There are paid options – such as PPC (Pay-Per-Click) through places like Google Adwords, Facebook or Bing, banner advertising on other sites, paying to have a solo ad go out on ezines…..the list goes on.

But, what if you don’t have the money?  That is normally the case for most people starting out – and the truth is, until you have learned a lot more about how PPC and other methods work, you need to be very careful or you could lose a great deal of money in a very short amount of time.

What I want to talk about today are some free methods.  They may not bring in swarms of traffic overnight, but you will see traffic coming if you keep at it.

1) SEO – Search engine optimization is something that everyone should learn when marketing online.  Sure, it takes time to build a site up and optimizing it to be found by the search engines, but the long-term benefits are definitely worth it.

SEO doesn’t have to be difficult either.  Starting with good keyword research is essential, and once you know the keywords you are targeting, then it is time to build content around them.  (I will go over good keyword research in a future post!)

Long gone are the days of stuffing your pages with keywords over and over as a means to get ranked high in the search engines for those terms.  And, that is a good thing, because it allows those of us who are working hard at providing quality content the chance to outrank these kinds of sites using honest means.

A good rule of thumb is to include your keyword phrase in the title, and title tag of your page.  Then, add it even just one or two more times throughout – as long as it appears natural to do so.  It is far more important to write your content for people than it is for search engines, because if your writing looks spammy or hard to read, then it won’t matter if people are finding your content or not.  They will be hitting the back button faster than you can say “useless content”.

Building backlinks is part of the process with SEO, and this is another place you can use your keywords to help you rank.  Adding a link to forum signatures, profiles, blog comments, other web properties like squidoo and hubpages – as well as other places you are submitting content to is a great way to naturally build links.  Use your keyword terms as the anchor text – which means that, for example, if you are submitting an article to a directory that allows you a link back to your site, you would want to add your link as follows:  <a href=”http://yoursitenamehere.com>Anchor Text Here</a>

That links the keyword term as anchor text back to your site.

It is a good idea to follow someone who has learned alot about SEO in order to learn everything you can about getting traffic that way.  You will hear so much conflicting information online, so you need to learn to uncover what really works, and what is just hot air.  I learned a lot of what I know from my memberships at Earn1KaDay and Bring the Fresh.  Find a resource you know you can trust and learn everything you can.

SEO is always changing, and staying on top of what is happening and learning new strategies as they come out is crucial to getting that traffic.

2) Facebook and Social Marketing – Social marketing using sites like Twitter and Facebook are really becoming an important factor in getting quality traffic to your site.  Facebook allows you to create Fan Pages, which you can link to your website.  And, promoting a Fan Page can get you a lot of people finding your page in a short period of time.

When you promote it to people you know, they can share it with people they know.  The link to your Fan Page, and ultimately your website, can continue being spread virally – bringing you even more visitors to your site.

3) Forum Marketing – I hesitate to put this one in here because unfortunately, some people take this concept to the extreme and spam the forums with useless posts that do nothing to help them at all.  But, if you can find a forum in your niche that is fairly active, you can get traffic to your site simply by making informative posts that contribute to the forum.  If the forum allows signatures, you can have a link back to your site, which if your post is actually something of interest to the forum, will bring visitors through your link to your site.

But, if your post is nothing more than a promotion for your site, or useless chatter just to get your link noticed, you won’t get the kind of traffic you are hoping for.

4) Guest Blogging – Guest blogging can bring you huge amounts of targeted traffic.  The visitor has already read content that you provided and liked what they saw, so you know when they click through to your site through your link in the content, that they are coming for more.

This method can be an incredibly productive way of getting traffic to your site.  Posting your content on other websites, which potentially already have a great deal of traffic coming to them, is a very important method you should consider when trying to build visitors to your own site.

Contact blog owners and ask them if they take guest posts.  Search for sites in your niche that state they take guest submissions.  But, don’t be afraid to get in touch with the popular sites even if they don’t have anything saying they take content from others – all you have to do is ask.  The worst thing they can do is say no!

Or, use a service like MyBlogGuest.com or BloggerLinkUp.com.  These sites allow blog owners to post if they are looking for guest posts on certain subjects, or you can post that you are available for guest posting.  Great services, and can get you lots of posting opportunities.

Write content that is incredible.  Make it something you will be proud to have read on someone elses site.  Give the reader content that they can use, and make them want to learn even more from you.

Once you do that, you will need to put up traffic lights to control all the visitors that will be coming through to your site!

5) Submit videos to Youtube and other video sharing sites – Creating a video can be a simple process, and one that should never be overlooked when needing traffic.

If you are worried that you have as much acting talent as a grasshopper, don’t be!  You don’t even need to get in front of the camera!  And, you don’t even need any expensive equipment or software.

Some people are simply taking powerpoint presentations of their articles and adding music to them, then converting them to video using the software that comes with your computer.  Some people use Animoto.com and add a few pictures with some slides of information, then upload them to video sites.

6) Document sharing sites – Many people are already aware of adding articles to article directories (which I will talk about in the next section), but a lot of people forget that they can add their content to document sharing sites as well, which can bring a great deal of traffic.

Don’t be afraid that you need to have a huge ebook or guide you wrote to add to a document sharing site.  You can take a few articles you have written and put them together into a PDF document using Open Office software (free version of Microsoft Word that converts documents to PDF’s).

Or, find some good quality PLR material about your subject and edit it to make it your own.  Then you can upload that to the sites and let people share it with others.

Some of the better document sharing sites include:

http://scribd.com
http://docstoc.com
http://www.slideshare.net
http://issuu.com
http://www.doxtop.com
http://www.slideboom.com/
http://www.authorstream.com/
http://www.esnips.com/

There are lots more out there, so don’t limit your content to just one place!

7) Article Marketing – Now, many article directories – EzineArticles especially it seems – have taken a pretty huge hit with the latest Google algorithm update.  So while submitting your articles to some directories in the past might have given your links a bit more clout and sent a few more visitors your way than it does now, there is no need to write them off completely just because some people are running around screaming that article marketing is dead!

Submitting your articles to directories will still bring you traffic, if you do it right.  There are so many myths and misconceptions out there that really play me out when I hear them, that I just have to clear some of them up before we go any further.

I can’t even begin to count how many times myself and other marketers have heard people saying not to submit the same content to EzineArticles or other article directories as what you have on your site.  So many people go on and on about the duplicate content penalty and how it will affect your site ranking, blah, blah, blah….

The truth is – you need to put your content on YOUR OWN SITE FIRST – then once it has been indexed on your site, submit it to any directory you want – EZA included.

There will be no penalty for duplicate content – and as long as you have it on your site first, that is all you need to worry about.

The only directory I know of which doesn’t allow content you have already published elsewhere is Buzzle – which is why I don’t use them.  I create unique content for my sites, then I put it onto article directories in the hopes of it being picked up by other webmasters and syndicated on their sites.

And that is why you want to create the best article you can – not just writing to meet the minimum word requirements of the directories.  You want good material that is engaging, that other webmasters will want to use on their sites.  They are required to leave your link intact when publishing, which works to both a) add another link to your site and b) get more targeted eyeballs on your content and hopefully back over to your website.

Getting traffic can be fun if you keep thinking of creative ways to get your site in front of as many people as possible.  And, by building yourself up as an authority – and not someone who just spams their links all over the internet – you will start seeing people coming to your website and returning for even more.

**Do you have any other tips or strategies you use to get traffic to your sites?  There are so many – too many to put into just one post, so feel free to leave your comments below about methods that have worked for you.**

UPDATE: I have just purchased a really good course put together by traffic “guru’s” Kim Roach and Jason Fladlien.  It consists of about 2 hours of audio where they discuss some secret strategies that they have used.  (There is also a transcript to follow for people like me who have a hard time listening for too long;-)  These guys know what they are talking about – and the product as of March 23, 2011 only costs $7.

This is a really good product that will give you some great traffic secrets that you might not otherwise ever learn about!  And, for just $7 – you are getting more information than you do from many of the $97 products on the market!!  (I am just going through my own copy right now!!)

Click here to learn more about what they are offering……….

Well, the past few weeks have been a ride.  I have been feeling guilty for neglecting this blog in the madness of everything else I am trying to do – so the truth is, I actually posted the site for sale a couple of weeks ago.  It was a decision that was incredibly hard for me to do, because I have spent so much time building the site to this point.

But, I just felt I wasn’t giving it everything it deserved.  See, I was having a hard time knowing where to focus the site which led me to put off posting as a way to maybe avoid trying to decide where to go with it.

When I started this site, I had plans for it to be an “everything” site – including every possible way a mom could make money online.  And, for awhile, that was where it was going.

However, over the past year or so, I have realized that as I go in my own directions – it is easier for me to focus on discussing what I am doing myself.  So, that would be affiliate marketing and Internet Marketing in general.  That is what I love – and that is what I do.

I have also made my living through freelance writing online – so that is another thing I feel confident talking about and helping with.

When I realized I couldn’t possibly give honest help with all of the other stuff – telecommuting, direct sales – anything else really, I wasn’t sure how to bring the blog into just the direction I wanted.

Finally, after getting some offers for the site – I realized I wasn’t really ready to sell it.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

So – what I am going to do, is from now on focus on what I know.  And what I am sure I can help others with.  I won’t have daily online job listings, or information on direct sales business (other than whatever was posted previously).

From here on in, the site will focus on Internet Marketing, with strong emphasis on SEO, affiliate marketing, article marketing, and every aspect of it that I have personally had success with.  Anything else would be just too hard to offer when I don’t have a great deal of experience with it myself.

I will still have the occasional bit of information about freelance writing – because that is another subject I have knowledge in, which I feel I am able to help other moms with.  And, I believe it is a very good way to get your feet wet online – and making some money to put into your IM business.

I love Internet Marketing – and I look forward to helping every one of you learn what you need to be successful online.  If you have any questions you would like me to try answering, then go ahead and comment.  I will do whatever I can to answer in a future post.

And for now – I am so glad I held onto my “baby”.  I don’t think I could have ever felt good about letting this site go.  So there may be some changes in the site over the next few days.  And then, this can be your site to come to if you are a mom (or anyone else for that matter;-) and you want to learn more about Internet Marketing.

So – I have been a member of Bring the Fresh for a few months now and I have been busy putting all of the information they offer to work.  And, I have to say that I am starting to see results – slowly and steadily a couple of sites that I have put together with their strategies are moving up and hopefully soon, the income will increase.

I have to admit, there are some strategies that I wasn’t able to do to the extent that I would have liked.  Some of the things would have required a bit more money than I have available right now to automate – and the truth is, even though I have tried to the best of my ability to do everything I could on my own, there are just not enough hours in the day sometimes to do it all.

My overall impression of Bring the Fresh has been completely positive.  Kelly and Mike go above and beyond to help everyone – and the community that is inside the membership area is incredible.  I didn’t think it was possible to learn anything “truly” new in IM after being around for so long.  So often when you buy something it is rehashed material put into new words.

But BTF isn’t like that.  There is some stuff that really is common sense – but they put everything together in a format that shows you how and why you need to do some of these things.  You can’t just build a website and then hope people will find it – then move onto a new one.  And sadly, that is too often what people are doing.

We are taught to find that perfect niche.  Look for the one that has hungry buyers, with tons of searches in Google every day.  Build a site, throw up some affiliate links and you will be rich in a week.

Well – it doesn’t really work like that, and if that is what you are being taught, then you need to stop.

Finding the niche and building the perfect site will mean nothing if you aren’t getting traffic to your site – and that is where BTF focuses.

I have nothing but good things to say about Bring the Fresh – so if getting traffic is something you are struggling with, then by all means – give these guys a chance to show you what you need to do.  It is refreshing to actually log in to your Awstats and see visitors coming to your site!!

And as for me – time to get back to work on getting the traffic!

Happy New Year!

*If you go ahead and get your own membership at Bring the Fresh – when you buy through my link, contact me through the form on this site with your Clickbank transaction number and I will send you out a couple other reports about getting traffic.  They are pretty good little reports full of some of the basics to getting traffic to your websites – without the confusion:-)  And yes, the link above is an affiliate link – so I will get a few dollars for referring you to the site.  Not enough to retire on, but hopefully it can keep my chocolate supply stocked up;-)

Sign up for Bring the Fresh today!

Today’s post shows you a quick little method that you can use to either make a little extra Christmas spending money, or else really get your feet wet with making a bit of money online. Now, I haven’t done this myself because the truth is, I just have WAY too much else on my plate right now – but for those of you just getting started online, this is a very good way to give you some cash to start making a bit of headway.

OK – for those who have already picked up the “Make Money with Fiverr” guide, you will likely be better acquainted with some of these things. (If you haven’t picked it up yet, you can get it here…..) You don’t need to have read the guide however – but it will give you some extra tips to get more work.

For those who don’t know what Fiverr is, it is a marketplace where people can go to have jobs done for just $5. And, there is everything you could imagine that people are offering to do for $5! There are writers who are just getting started who are building clientale by offering articles, there are graphic designers who make very good money because a lot of people use Fiverr for website graphics – and there are even people willing to do some strange things like draw your logo on themselves for a day.

Now – you are probably wondering how you could possibly make any money with Fiverr if you are only making $5 a gig. Well, my advice is not to underestimate these small little jobs!

Some graphic work is very simple, and there are people who can whip out 5-10 graphic jobs in an hour! If someone wants a simple ebook cover, or maybe website buttons that look snazzy – sometimes they would rather just pay the $5 to have it done rather than trying to do it themselves or hire someone who charges an arm and a leg.

While I will admit that writing a 500 word article for just $5 isn’t really that appealing, it can be a good way to build up regular clients who would be willing to pay a bit more. And it can be good to get some testimonials about your work on a website when you go out looking for higher paying jobs.

But – today I want to show you something I have found that can let you do some quick little graphic jobs even if you have no photoshop or graphic creation experience!

For just $10, you can pick up a very good little ecover creator. Once you get it, you upload it onto your website and do all your work from there. (It is very simple to do). And this software is super easy to use.

**Click here to see how this incredible ecover creator software works!**

(There is a quick demo video there too which shows you just how simple it is to use!)

After you have played around with it for awhile – get your gig posted on Fiverr to create ebook covers, DVD case covers and CD covers. You could make some very good money doing this – because I know I have used Fiverr for these tasks and I know of many other marketers who have done the same.

Get out there and find the jobs people are posting for ecovers, and you can start throwing them out pretty quickly. You might not make enough to quit your job or retire early, but this is a seriously easy way to make a bit of spending money. And, if you have read the guide, you know the potential that is there to make even more than that.

So – go pick up the ecover generator software and get started! If you buy through the link above and have trouble getting the software installed, send me your transaction or invoice number and I will help you get everything set up.

Enjoy the extra spending money you will now have for Christmas!!