1. Pack a Cooler. The kids can’t verbally fight (as much) with food in their mouth. Plus it’ll save a ton money by packing your own soda and snacks instead of buying them at a convenience store.

2. Movies. If you have a built-in or handheld DVD player, a new movie can keep them quiet for quite awhile! You can even rent Redbox movies for $1/night and return them to any Redbox on your route.

3. Word Games. When I grew up, we passed a lot of time looking out the window looking for objects for the A B C Game where you wanted to be the first one to see an object along the trip that started with A, then B, then C… you get the idea. In metropolitan areas with lots of signs, we’ll switch to finding words that start with A, B, C, etc.

4. Paper Games. I have picked up several Suduko, word search and crossword puzzle books at Dollar Tree that I keep in my van for the kids. Even a blank notepad and pens (for tic-tac-toe) or coloring books and crayons are good.

5. Batteries. A must have for the DVD headphones and electronic hand-held games.

6. Pillows & Blankets. Just in case you get lucky and the kids sleep part of the way.

7. Car Care. It is best to make sure your car is recently checked over so you don’t encounter any break-downs. I always make sure the windshield wiper fluid is full after driving through muddy snow one time. Not only did I run out, but all the gas stations along the interstate were out as well.

8. Do not add “cheap” gas to your vehicle. Because your mechanic may not tell you this. I learned this the hard way.

9. GPS Navigational System. Getting lost only adds to more time spent in the car.

10. First Aid Kit. Because you know someone is going to need a Band-Aid. And usually Mom or Dad gets a headache.

TwitterMoms asked bloggers to create and post ten great tips for creating a fun family vacation free of distractions for a chance to win a gas card courtesy of Alamo Rent A Car.

Here are the Top Ten Sweepstakes (all legitimate) that I recommend this week:

1. Win a vacation to Telluride Ski Resort in the Colorado Winter Ski Vacation Giveaway from Colorado.com! Enter Once; US only; 18+; ends 3/16/10 – Receive a Free Colorado Vacation Guide for entering (this is nice, I’ve received it).

2. Win a $10,000 mood-boosting bedroom makeover from HGTV celebrity designer Michael Payne and the CSN Stores Room Rescue Crew and more in CSN Stores’ Big Bad Bedroom Break-Up Contest! Enter Once; US only; 18+; ends 3/31/10 – Receive a 10%-20% off coupon for entering plus they offer free shipping on just about everything (and they sell just about everything, I love shopping here).

3. Win $10,000 or a stay at Paris in Las Vegas Plus Instant Win Prizes in Harlequin’s Take A Cowboy Home Sweepstakes; Enter Daily; US; Canada (void Quebec); 21+; ends 3/5/10 – Get 2 Free Harlequin Books Plus 2 Free Mystery Gifts (No Credit Card Required) – Accepting your two FREE Harlequin Presents books and mystery gifts places you under no obligation to buy anything. You may keep the books and gifts and return the shipping statement marked Cancel.

4. Win a grocery $4,500 gift card plus Instant Win Prizes in the Cozi 2010 Shopping List Celebration: A Year of Free Groceries Sweepstakes; Limit three entries per day; Refer Friends; US only (void RI); 18+; ends 3/11/10

5. Instantly win Fandango Movie Tickets, Amazon gift certificate & More in the  Blingo.com Instant Win Game! Multiple Daily Winners; Use Search Feature for Entry or Refer Friends to win what they win; Enter up to 25 times per day; US only; 18+; ongoing – I have won several prizes from here including cash, iPods, Amazon gift certificates and Fandango Movie Bucks.

6. Win a $100 HSN (Home Shopping Network) Gift Card in the Joy Mangano’s 10th Anniversary Giveaway; Enter Monthly; 50 winners; US only; 18+; ends 5/31/10 – HSN offers Buy Now, Pay Later with Flex Pay – Better than layaway! Buy it now, get it home soon, pay it off over time – with no fees or interest.

7. Win $25,000 Cash Plus a 7 days and 6 nights Trip for Two to Hawaii or $100 Gift Certificate (monthly winners) in the The Guide Outdoors Network Sweepstakes from Bargain Outfitters; Enter Monthly Plus Refer Friends; US only (void FL); 18+; ends 10/31/10

8. Win 6 Days / 5 nights at a Marriott Vacation Caribbean Resort (St. Kitts, St. Thomas or Aruba), 120,000 airline miles and $500 Visa Gift Card in the Lost in Paradise Sweepstakes from Marriott; Enter Daily; US only (void NJ); age of majority; ends 11/18/10

9. Win $10 Million SuperPrize from Publishers Clearing House / PCH.com! Enter Daily; The Prize Patrol has awarded over $200 Million since 1967. No purchase necessary to enter. Enter Daily; US only; ends 2/16/10

10. Win romance novels in ShoppingBookmarks’ very own February Romance Book Giveaway – 5 winners! US; Canada; ends 2/28/10

Have you won anything lately or have a contest to share? If so, please tell us here: Week of 2/7/10 Wins & Giveaways!

This week’s Kroger Deals are compiled by Renae from Madame Deals, in partnership with the Inexpensively network. The full list can be found here.

• Buy 10 participating items and get $3 off instantly. No limit on rewards. Prices listed reflect the discount. Marked * PROMO
• Gatorade G2*, $0.58; $0.00 after $0.50/1 RP 01/10
• Softsoap Liquid Hand Soap, $0.88; $0.00 after $0.50/1 AY 03/01
• Colgate Max Fresh, $1.67; $0.67 after $1.00/1 AY 01/22
• Hershey’s Candy Bars, $0.50; $0.25 after up to $.85/2 S 01/10
• Newman’s Own Salsa, $1.99; $0.99 after $0.50/1 RP 01/24
• Banquet Brown N’ Serve Sausage*, $0.58; $0.33 after $0.75/3 S 01/10
• Betty Crocker Muffin Mix* (Printable), $1.69; $0.69 after $0.50/1 Printable
• Pillsbury Grands! Refrigerated 8 ct.* (Printable), $0.99; $0.69 after $0.30/2 SS 12/06
• Purex liquid laundry detergent*, $2.19; $1.49 after $0.35/1 RP 01/10
• Campbell’s Chunky soup cans or microwavable bowls*, $1.29; $0.79 after $0.50/2 S 02/07
• Nabisco Ritz crackers*, $2.19; $1.19 after $1.00/1 S 01/24
• Windex*, $2.19; $1.19 after $1.00/1 S 01/10
• Breyer’s Ice Cream*, $2.48 Frozen
• Chef Boyardee 15-oz cans or 8.5-oz microwave cups*, $0.70; $0.50 after $1.00/5 S 01/10
• Neutrogena Cleansers, $5.00; $3.00 after $2.00/1 AY 12/18

I admit I don’t know how we lived before cellphones! I do agree that I like my 16-year-old twins having cellphones, as I make them check in with me via text, and I can call to check up on them. Cellphones would have been a God-send when the twins were premature and in the hospital three hours away from me for over six months.

But we survived then. And I’m sure I could survive now without my smart phone, but I really don’t want to try it to find out! In fact, when my cellphone went through the wash last year, I was lost for days! My daughters go crazy if their batteries die for a split second because they can’t update their Facebook statuses!

I still have my HTC Touch smartphone, and I really really wanted an iPhone, but AT&T doesn’t offer service here. But now that Verizon bought out Alltel, my cellphone options have expanded! I could pick an LG Chocolate Touch (as endorsed by Ciara) or even the Palm Pixie or Palm Pre that have been getting rave reviews, but I’m thinking I’m going to pick the Motorola Droid!

This post is sponsored by Verizon and JuiceBoxJungle.
All opinions are mine.

It always looked like too much work for me to see her hand wash every bottle and can, so I admit the only recycling I’ve been doing is saving aluminum cans for cash (all those Diet Dew cans add up).

Well, this past week at my Kiwanis club meeting, Meghann Buresh, the recycling coordinator from Green Fiber was our speaker. And I got inspired to clean my walk-in pantry and start recycling!

Turns out Green Fiber has collection bins by our high school, which is only blocks away from where we live. They accept all types of paper (ie newspapers, magazines and cardboard, like grocery and HBA boxes). They use the paper to produce cellulose insulation, and the school in return raises money, so it’s a win/win situation.

They also collect #1 Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE) plastics (i.e. soda bottles, peanut butter jars, cooking oil bottles) and #2 High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastics (i.e. detergent bottles, milk jugs). Of course, my first question was, “Do we have to clean them out?” And the answer was NO! Although many people do at least rinse them out a bit with water if they plan to keep them around from awhile (i.e. so those milk jugs don’t smell like rotten milk) before donating.

I also decided I’m going to save all my plastic shopping bags as there is a big donation box to collect those in the main entrance of Walmart. I’m also going to save my empty egg cartons for the farmers that raise chickens for eggs. I feel better already about helping the environment. And with our trash collector considering making us pay per bag of trash, this will save me money as well!

Won’t my mother be so proud of me?!

But I still love watching commercials. And come this Superbowl Sunday, I’ll be more interested in the advertisements than the actual football game. So you can imagine how excited I was when I was asked to review this vacation rental commercial.

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

This commercial from Vacation Rental.org caught my eye, but I can’t say that the “Unitard” made me laugh, so I probably wouldn’t dub it “funny” in my opinion. But it does get the point across that staying in a vacation rental does look more appealing than staying in a hotel while traveling.

This post is sponsored by VacationRental.org. All opinions are mine.

This week’s Giant Food list is compiled by Renae from Madame Deals in partnership with the Inexpensively network. The full list can be found HERE.

• Purchase $20 worth of participating Kraft items in one transaction and get $5 off instantly at checkout. Limit 1 per transaction. Marked *.
• Buy $25 of participating Proctor & Gamble items in one transaction and get $5 off instantly. Limit 1 per transaction.
• Progresso soups (Buy 2, get 2 Free), $2.50; $1.00 after $0.50/2 S 01/17
• Pepperidge Farm Gold Fish (Printable), $1.67; $0.17 after $0.75/1 Printable
• Breakstone’s sour cream, 16-oz*, $1.50; $0.40 after $0.55/1 S 01/24
• BOGO Oscar Mayer Beef Bologna (16 oz.) esp. (Printable), $1.99; $0.99 after $1.00/1 Printable
• BOGO Hefty Foam Plates (50 ct.) esp., $2.00; $1.00 after $0.50/1 RP 01/31
• International Delight Creamer (16 oz.) (Printable), $1.50; $0.40 after $0.55/1 Printable
• Hefty Easy Grip Party Cups, $1.67; $0.67 after $0.50/1 RP 01/31
• Crest toothpaste (4.6-6 oz.), $2.50; $1.00 after $0.75/1 P&G 01/17
• BOGO Emerald Nuts (10-11 oz.) esp. (Printable), $2.50; $1.50 after $1.00/1 Printable
• Chapstick Medicated, $1.00; $0.50 after $0.50/2 RP 12/13
• Oral-B Advantage Toothbrush, $2.50; $1.00 after $0.75/1 P&G 01/17
• Birds Eye Steamfresh vegetables, $1.67; $0.67 after $0.50/1 S 01/10
• Special K Cereal (Printable), $2.50; $1.25 after BOGO Free/2 Printable

This week’s Vons/Safeway deals are provided by The Sassy Saver, in partnership with the Inexpensively network. You can find the full list HERE.

• Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce, $0.99 5DaySale
• Nabisco Crackers 6-16.5 oz (5 day sale), $2.00; $1.00 after $1.00/1 SS 01/24
• General Mills Cheerios and Nature Vally Granola Bars (buy 4 for sale price) [coupon for Cheerios], $1.50; $1.17 after $1.00/3 G 01/03
• Large Hass Avocados, $0.50 Produce
• Foster Farms Chicken Half Breasts, $0.97/lb Meat
• Campbell’s Chucky Soup (Printable), $1.25; $0.75 after $1.50/3 5DaySale
• Ranchers Reserve New York Strip Steak, $3.47/lb Meat
• Crisp Jazz Apples, $0.77/lb Produce
• Eating right baby Peeled Carrots 2 lb, $2.00 Produce
• Ranchers Reserve Rib Eye Steak, $3.97/lb Meat
• Broccoli Crowns, $0.88/lb Produce
• Lays Potato Chips, $1.88 5DaySale
• Jennie-O Turkey Store Lean Ground Turkey 20 oz, $2.99 Meat
• Safeway or Red Baron Pizza (must buy 3 for sale price), $2.99 5DaySale
• Mission Tortilla Chips (BOGO), $2.00; $2.00 after /1

This week’s Save Mart deals are compiled by The Sassy Saver in partnership with the Inexpensively network. The full list can be found HERE.

• Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers (Printable), $1.00; $0.25 after $0.75/1 Printable
• Calavo-Creamy Hass Avocados, $0.33 Produce
• Nabisco Crackers 6-16.5 oz, $1.88; $0.88 after $1.00/1 SS 01/24
• Large Roma Tomatoes, $0.67/pound Produce
• Large Navel Oranges, $0.69/pound Produce
• Foster Farms Young chicken or Checken Leg Quarters, $0.78/pound Meat
• Country Style Pork Ribs or Beef Back Ribs, $0.99/pound Meat
• New York Steak, $3.47 Meat
• Fresh Express All Blend Salads (BOGO), $1.73 Produce
• Doritos Tortilla Chips (BOGO), $1.99
• Lean Ground Beef or Ground Chuck, $1.99/pound Meat
• Grimmway Farms Peeled Baby Carrots 2lb bag, $2.00 Produce
• Mdium Pork Spareribs, $1.79; $1.79 after /1 Meat
• Fresh Atlantic Salmon Fillets, $4.99/pound Seafood
• Yoplait Yogurt Cups, $0.60; $0.53 after $0.60/8 G 01/03

This week’s Harris Teeter Deals are compiled by Renae from Madame Deals and provided by Inexpensively. The full list can be found here.

• Heluva Good sour cream dip, $1.50; FREE after $0.75/1 S 01/24
• Gatorade 32 oz., $0.88; FREE after $0.50/1 RP 01/10
• Smart Balance sour cream (16 oz.), $0.99; FREE after $1.00/1 RP 01/10
• Pepperidge Farm Gold Fish (6.6 oz.) (Printable), $1.09; FREE after $0.75/1 Printable
• Hartz Crunch & Clean Dog Biscuits (24 oz.) (Printable), $2.14; $0.14 after $2.00/1 Printable
• Birds Eye Steamfresh vegetables, $1.25; $0.25 after $0.50/1 S 01/10
• Solo cup or plates, $2.00; $0.50 after $0.75/1 S 01/24
• Smart Balance buttery spreads or butter blend sticks, $1.59; $0.59 after $1.00/1 RP 01/10
• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Tub (Printable), $1.59; $0.59 after $1.00/1 Printable
• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter sticks, $1.64; $0.64 after $1.00/1 RP 11/15
• Pop Secret Popcorn, $1.00; $0.50 after $0.50/2 S 01/31
• Birds Eye Steamfresh vegetables, $1.25; $0.55 after $0.35/1 S 01/10
• French’s Spicy Brown or Classic yellow mustard (12-14 oz.), $1.50; $0.50 after $0.50/1 S 01/24
• Nabisco crackers, (9-10 oz.), $1.89; $0.89 after $1.00/1 S 01/24
• Eight O’Clock Coffee (12 oz.), $2.94; $1.44 after $0.75/1 AY 02/01

Today’s featured t-shirt is courtesy of NDemand Affiliates, another CPA network using the directTrack platform. They have over 150 offers with some pretty good payouts compared to other networks. Check ‘em out, and thanks for the cool looking shirt!

When I started affiliate marketing over ten years ago and there was a specific online store I wanted to promote, I simply scoped over the said website (usually the bottom of the page in the footer) looking for a “Affiliates” or “Associates Program” link. I applied, promoted, got paid.

Nowadays, I get bombarded with emails and phone calls asking me to “join their program.” They all claim they are the best and have the highest payouts, and most end up in the trash with a click of the delete button.

If I do see a program that may be worthy of my attention, I research it a bit by reading affiliate reviews of that program. I want to gain insight on how well the program converts, if they allow parasites (because I don’t want to even try to compete with parasiteware), and most of all do they pay on time?

So how do you do an analysis an affiliate program? AceAffiliates wrote a great article on “How to Find Valid Affiliate Program Reviews (by Real People)” that goes over ways to do just that…

• Use Google Search
• Use Twitter Search
• Use Forum Search
• Check Q&A Sites
• Check Trusted Third-Party Affiliate Program Review Services
• Use Your Common Sense

The humble blog started life as a platform for aspiring writers to share their thoughts, moods, likes, dislikes, loves, losses and anything else you can think of. Essentially, it was a personal thing. But thanks to the creation of services like Google’s Blogger and Wordpress, blogging has become phenomenally popular, with one new blog being created every single second. That’s pretty impressive. But gone are the days of the blog being a purely personal journal. Businesses of all sizes are embracing the platform as a means of communicating directly with their customers, potential customers and the wider general public. This platform makes such communication hugely efficient and can even offer up a level of SEO benefit for your company’s website too.

But is a blog just a ‘nice extra’ for your business or is it really an absolutely essential online marketing tool?

There’s no question in my mind that it’s the latter. 80% of consumers are now researching their potential purchases online before making them – irrespective of whether they then purchase online or off. This means that to increase your chances of attracting this group of consumers, you need to be visible on the web. A website is great! Absolutely. But there’s a whole new level to a blog that brings a more up to date, relevant and personal feel to your online business presence. Your website is likely to be a factual and informative hub of information about your company, products and services. This is exactly what it ought to be. A blog, however, can reach a wider scope. It can be used as a means to comment on news relating to the industry you work in, to convey new information about your company, a place to give details of a latest offer or a place for you personally to address matters relating to your company on a human level. And that’s the key. It’s the human touch. Websites sometimes have a tendency to be faceless. We click on a website, enter our details, order our products and we’re done. We don’t see anyone during the process and we often do not even have to speak to anyone! A blog allows you to write more openly and address your customers on a more personal level. It brings back some of the human touch to an online based business and this works wonders for an overall online presence.

It would be wholly inaccurate and far too much of a sweeping generalization to say that you will sell fewer products if you do not have a blog. Too many factors influence the rate of sales from a website to possibly attribute everything to a blog. But in adding a blog to your site and updating just once or twice a week, you’re creating a hub of relevant, topical and up to date information and doing so in a way that, through comments, opens up a discussion with your potential customers. This lets people feel as though they are getting to know you – and in turn getting to know your business.

Would you be more likely to purchase from a company you know and trust?

I would.

The simple answer is yes. The disclaimer is that it’s not easy!! Having a good income from a blog or blogs depends on having established, respected and well visited and linked to blogs. Here are a couple of ways you can go about achieving that:

Stop Expecting an Easy Income

This is obvious for most, but for others, blogging is seen as an ‘easy income’. The fact is that to earn an income from blogging you need at least one well visited blog. This means a lot of high quality and relevant content and it means plenty of time spent commenting on the blogs of others in a similar niche, joining in the conversation and becoming a part of a network.

Network

As briefly mentioned in the previous point, networking is essential. Whatever your niche, the chances are that there are a whole lot of other blogs out there in a similar niche. Whoah, whoah! Wait… you don’t need to give up or send them all hate mail! Instead of seeing this as a negative point, look on it as a positive thing. In each blog niche you can often find an already sizeable network of bloggers who host one another’s links in their blogroll and comment on one another’s posts. This type of networking can be hugely rewarding firstly from a perspective of learning more about your topic from the point of view of others and secondly for obtaining links and traffic to your blog.

Guest Posting

Offer to post on blogs in a similar niche. In addition, allow other bloggers to make the occasional guest post on yours. This has the benefit of offering your readers another perspective from time to time and your guest blogger will also plug the post. Essentially, this can only lead to more blogs and more traffic, thus increasing the revenue you can expect to earn from your blog.

Blog Directories

There are some very respectable blog directories around, many of them are free. The first free blog directory that springs to mind is Technorati.com. It costs nothing to list and is a great source of information on blogs. In fact, for many it acts as a blog search engine and so listing your blog there increases your chances of obtaining traffic. It can’t hurt, can it?

But what when you already have a blog that is well respected, has a decent page rank and has plenty of traffic? How do you turn that into money?

Adsense and Similar Programs

Adsense is convenient for bloggers insofar as it only picks relevant ads and you can display them wherever you want. But the pay is based on how many clicks you get and how much people are bidding for those clicks. In a competitive area such as personal finance, one or two clicks might bag you a few dollars. But in a less commercial area, for example jokes, it could take literally hundreds to get a few dollars. Unless you have a huge network of great blogs, Adsense is unlikely to produce any real income.

Sponsored Reviews

There are ethical questions to be raised around a website that allows you to pay people to write something about your company. There are also questions raised around bloggers who take money to write something nice on a blog. But advertising is advertising. SponsoredReviews.com allows advertisers to pay bloggers for posting a blog post about a certain company, with a back link in. However, while this might seem rather an immoral means of earning an income, SponsoredReviews.com sets certain standards. It specifies in the terms that no blogger should be obliged to lie about a product and the blogger has every right to mention in the post that it is indeed a sponsored post, in most cases. The website will also only accept bloggers whose blogs meet certain criteria, including being 3 months old and maintaining at least a 2:1 ratio of paid to non-paid content. Whatever the ethical questions this type of thing might raise for you, advertisers are paying anything between $1 and $1000 per post, depending on just how good your blog is!

Sell Advertising Yourself

Just because Adsense doesn’t pay life changing sums of money does not mean to say that advertising doesn’t pay. In fact, offering advertising space on your blog can be extremely well paid. Again, it depends on the niche and page rank amongst other factors. But a good quality blog can demand good money for its advertising space. Decide on an advertising setup, for example what type of advertising and the pricing structure and lay it out on a page on your website with contact details. You may be surprised by the level of interest.

Affiliate Schemes

Almost all the major stores have affiliate schemes through a major affiliate provider. ClickBank.com and AffiliateWindow.com are two such providers. If you get lots of traffic on your site, an affiliate scheme allows you to list products or services on your site, provided by known retailers. If someone clicks a link to that product from your blog, a cookie is stored on their computer, detailing your affiliate details and anything they purchase from the site then earns you a commission. Amazon have their own affiliate program known as Amazon Associates.

Selling Your Blog

Yes, there are plenty of people keen to purchase an already established and high quality blog. For some, creating, establishing and making a blog ‘good’ before selling it on, is a full time living. And it does pay well. I personally spent a year on three more commercial niche blogs. It was a hobbyist activity more than anything. I was then approached about selling them and offered $3000 for each one. They each had a page rank 4 and were established in their niche, but I wasn’t particularly attached to them. Creating and selling blogs in this way, however, often requires that you buy a domain and host it for your blog rather than just using a free Blogger blog. In the domain, you then have an asset that people are interested in purchasing.

So, in summary, making a real full time living by blogging is possible. It requires a massive time commitment, though and often needs quite a number of blogs to have real success. But commitment and drive do help, as does a passion for blogging. It is much easier to stay motivated if you really do have a passion for it. Good luck!!

This was a guest post by Josue Habana, a Digital Media Marketer whose personal blogs include a Second Life Music and Arts blog and a satirical Second Life blog.

This Saturday, I’m headed to Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas where the weather is guaranteed to be better than here in Nebraska where I’m looking out my office window to see twelve foot drifts of snow. And I’m ready for a semi-vacation as we’ve been cooped up in the house for way too long! The kids finally got to go back to school today. So I debated on nap vs. work, and work won out.

If you are attending Affiliate Summit next week and want to meet up for dinner, drinks or discussion, just holla! Here’s definite times/places to find me each of the days…

Sunday 1:30pm-2:30pm – I will be presenting on the panel…

MommyBloggers: Changing the Face of Affiliate Marketing?

MommyBloggers are involved in many types of monetization strategies for their blogs, affiliate marketing being one, however they aren’t necessarily doing it in the “traditional” ways.

Granted I am a mom, and I am a blogger, but I don’t label myself a “Mommy Blogger” (as they usually get a bad rap), but I’ll share my blogging monetization secrets in this session. Other panelists include:

• Deborah Carney, CEO, Team Loxly (Moderator)
• Wendy Limauge, Blogger, Sweeties Swag
• Carrie Rocha, President, Pocket Your Dollars
• Heather Sokol, Proprietor, Inexpensively

I’ll also be attending the ShareASale Under the Stars Party (they are serving PIZZA, my favorite) and the Strike Out Breast Cancer Midnight Bowling Fundraiser.

Monday 11:30am-12:30pm I’ll be participating in the Affiliate Showcase

Affiliate Showcase will be an opportunity for affiliates to preside over tables where merchants and networks can visit with them to discuss working together.

Tuesday 10:00am – 11:15am Presentation of Pinnacle Awards where I’m up for Affiliate of the Year!

You’ll also find me roaming the Meet Market and Exhibit Hall, maybe checking my email in the Blogger Lounge, and attending a few parties (ie Carolyn Tang’s Bachelorette Party and the Affiliate Summit Trivia Tweetup with Lisa Picarille). See Missy Ward’s complete party list. I’ll be the one drinking “something fruity.”

I always tell wanna-be successful bloggers to blog about something they are passionate and knowledgeable about. For me, some of my passions are shoes, preemie twins and coupon deals. For Julie Powell, her driving passion was to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook within 365 days, and she blogged along the way.

Julie’s blog led her to a book deal: Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously and a movie deal: Julie & Julia which I rented last night from Redbox (gotta love $1 movies).

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I enjoyed the movie. I even learned more about Julia Child than I ever needed to know. I highly recommend the movie to aspiring bloggers and cooks alike for inspiration. It’s too bad Julie Powell never got to meet Julia Child before she died.

Those people that actually own a computer and are exploring the world wide web often think I do website design. Thus why I get various inquiries from people and businesses asking if I’ll design a website for them. Sorry, can’t do it. Sure I do some of my own design work, but I myself outsource most of it.

So if you are looking to have a website designed, here’s some options for you (in alphabetical order as to not be biased)…

AlexBet.com – Alexander Betinski has done great work for many of my colleagues.

iGroupStudios – Interactive design studio owned by my uncle with top named clients such as Suze Orman.

Gleames Creative Design – Local to my area (Northeast Nebraska).

Lutz Creative – My classmate is a partner there, so thought I’d give them a plug.

netGURUS – They created my Key Internet Marketing logo.

Synner Design - My brother has created almost all of of my website logos & graphics.

Wildfire Marketing Group – They have an impressive portfolio.

Any more I should add to the list?

I personally hadn’t even thought about buying any Private Label Rights (PLR) articles or reports, until Lynn Terry recommended Nicole Dean’s EasyPLR.com.

Lynn suggests using PLR in your email marketing plans, but I’m thinking PLR would be great for blog posts as well. I don’t do much straight email marketing, but I do encourage my visitors to sign up for blog updates. I use AWeber to auto-send out my blog posts as e-newsletters, So it works double-duty in my case!

Want to learn more about what exactly PLR is? Watch Nicole’s video above and visit EasyPLR.com to see how you can get professional original content for $1 an article (with no membership fees or commitment), which is way cheaper than paying pay guest bloggers.

Anyone else use PLR with good results?

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of EasyPLR and AWeber.

OrangeSoda specializes in local small business internet marketing, specifically search engine marketing (SEM) so that your local business listing appears to the searchers looking for the goods and services that your business offers. They make sure your business is listed on the right search results pages for your selected keywords using pay per click advertising (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO) and maps optimization.

According to Michael Liedtke on USAToday.com, “Annual spending on keyword ads is expected to top $10 billion in 2010.” Wow. I plan on 2010 being a great year for myself as well. I wonder if people are going to say “twenty ten” or “two thousand ten” for the new year?

Anyway, even though OrangeSoda has only been in business since 2006 (which is quite credible in internet years), they’ve served big and small clients and their internet marketing case studies are quite impressive.

They also have “Partner” opportunities. I applied to be an Affiliate (through Kolimbo). But you can also apply to be a Reseller or even a White Label account where they handle everything from billing to customer support while be co-branded with your site. Cool beans. Wait… Orange Soda.

Maybe I better retract my statement that I hate the color orange now?

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I’ve invariably considered Examiner.com an “authority” site – do you SEO experts agree? Anyway, I was excited when Jen Goode, the Denver Work-at-Home Mom Examiner, offered to interview me, as my interview would include outbound links to my sites.

Read her interview article published here: Single mom success story, an interview with Kim Rowley

Then at Think Tank this year, I was asking Jen about Examiner.com, and she encouraged me to apply to be an Examiner myself. When I told her I didn’t have any more time to write new articles, she said I could use my existing blog posts as teasers and link them out to my websites. So – thinking free inbound links, free traffic, plus they pay me to boot – I applied!

And now I am officially the Omaha Shoes Examiner! I’ve only uploaded six articles so far, and I have already made some money (they pay via PayPal). If I find it to be real lucrative, I may apply for some other niches.

So, I encourage you to see what available topics are available in your area to apply for. If you don’t see any topics that fit your expertise, you can suggest a new topic as well. If you apply, be sure to say you were referred “by a current examiner” to speed up the application process. I know either myself (Kim Rowley) or Jen (Jennifer Goode) would love the referral credit! If you list me, I’ll buy you a drink at Affiliate Summit in Vegas next month. Or I can mail you a Starbucks gift card for a cappuccino if you won’t be in attendance.

Whatcha waiting for? Apply to be an Examiner now!