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Introducing April

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While some of you may recognize me from places like Twitter or Mom Masterminds, I wanted to introduce myself as a new member of the Moms in a Blog team, contributing to the Moms at Work category.

Before I give you some details about my professional background, I’ll tell you a bit about my personal life. I am a single mom to 3 children. My oldest daughter is 18, my son is 16, and my youngest daughter is 6. I also became a first time grandmother to a precious baby girl in January. I live in the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska but I am originally from Georgia. I grew up in a military family so I’ve also had the privilege of living in two European countries.

I’ve been a work-at-home-mom since November of 2007 when I began doing transcription for another company after losing my job at a law firm. While I was still working as a transcriptionist, I started my own business as a virtual assistant which officially launched on July 1st 2008. Within 6 months, my business had grown to the point where I was taking on more of a management role than that of an assistant. In November 2008 I restructured my business and it became Advantage Online Solutions.

Prior to being a WAHM, I worked in a few different industries. My education is in Paralegal Studies and I worked as a legal assistant/paralegal for 5 years. Before that, I was an ambulance billing supervisor and before that a restaurant manager. Both of those were positions that I had earned after starting at entry level with each company.

So whether its working from home – for yourself or someone else – or working outside of the home, I’ve “been there done that” and I’m looking forward to connecting with other moms who have too.

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Homepreneur Habits: How To Run A Successful Home Business

I am re-reading Homepreneur Habits to remind myself how to plan my work and work my plan while still having a life and being available for my family. After all that’s the reason I started working from home in the first place.

Anyway, I thought since this report has really been helpful to me that it might be of interest to you, too.

Jimmy really puts things into perspective by showing you step-by-step, how to make a daily plan for your work….and he only works 3 hours a day. That’s the kind of business I want to have!

Here’s an article Jimmy wrote describing his “Homepreneur Habits”.  In the interest of full disclosure I am an affiliate for this product.

The Real Secret To Building A High-Profit Internet Business
By Jimmy D. Brown

My wife laughs every time she sees me doing it.

At least once or twice every week, I’ll be at my desk (or at the dining room table) with my Franklin Covey planner open and a stack of laminated checklists in hand.

“What are you doing, honey?” she calls, already knowing the answer.

“I’m planning”, I reply with a smile.

She laughs and I get back to work.

She laughs because she swears I spend half of my time “planning”. But, if you ask me how I’m able to get as much work done as I do in only 3 hours a day, I’ll point to a black Franklin Covey planner with about a dozen laminated checklists inside.

Building an Internet business is easy. Seriously. I’m not saying that it’s not complicated, because it is. I’m just saying that it’s easy to accomplish if you just have a system in place.

There’s very little in this world that can’t be accomplished with the right set of action steps in front of you.

Today, I’m going to give you such a system for building your Internet business. There are only 4 steps…

1. Decide What You Want To Do. Do you want to run an eBay(R) business? Be an affiliate marketer? Buy and sell reprint rights? Get involved in niche marketing? While all of those things will likely find their way into your plan in time, you gotta begin with one thing at a time.

My recommendation: Choose a “broad” topic you are interested in and begin building a list of folks interested in that topic.

2. Determine A Weekly Action Plan. After you decide what you want to do, it’s time to determine how to get it done. What I do is this: I create a weekly set of action steps. That is, I have a set of things I do on Monday, on Tuesday, and so forth. Decide how many hours (as little as ONE) you want to work each day and schedule yourself a reasonable amount of things to get done in that time frame. Repeat this process week after week.

My recommendation: Begin writing ezine articles to promote your list … and affiliate programs. It’s the easiest way to get free traffic and build your list at the same time.

3. Devote Yourself To Staying On Schedule. The important thing here is to stick to it. The easiest way that I know of to make certain you develop discipline in your schedule is to NOT set unrealistic expectations. Give yourself ample time to do each day’s action step – don’t overschedule. Look for progress along the way to celebrate. Reward yourself when you’ve reached a milestone. And, remember, you’re GROWING a business. Just like physical growth, it takes time … it WILL happen if you remain committed.

My recommendation: Weave in simple activities related to the following categories – List building (ezine articles), product creation(conduct interviews or hire ghostwriters), site development (making your site convert more visitors into buyers),and education (continuing to learn new ways to grow your business).

4. Develop Additional Shortcuts. As you get better and better at working with your lists, creating products and tweaking your site, you’ll want to continue to improve your business with new ideas, strategies, tools, and resources. The key is simple: never stop learning!

My recommendation: Visit forums. Read articles. Download reports. Identify sites and resources that CONTRIBUTE to your success in educating you. You want faster results, bigger increases, automated processes, and other ways to get more accomplished and more profit, with less work involved.

Everything depends on your developing a plan and sticking to it.

And that is the REAL secret to building a high-profit Internet business!

Believe it or not, there is a tremendous “operations manual” that you can download right here at SR Zone to help you create a plan that works for YOU.

Check out “Homepreneur Habits: How To Run A Successful Home Business ” by clicking HERE. You’ll learn all the tools you need, how to setup your work space and how to create a day-by-day schedule of recommended activities to start and grow your business.

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Promote your Business using Christian PLR Articles

PLR stands for Private Label Rights. PLR articles are ones that are written by someone and sold to others for their use. These articles are not used by the author because they are intended for others to use. Now Christian PLR articles are just that, they are Christian articles written by someone and sold to others. Christian articles may not necessarily be Christian related, but they could be. It’s possible that they are written and/or sold by Christian business owners.

PLR articles are sold to a limited number of people because you don’t want the market flooded with the same article or type of article. Some sites that sell PLR articles sell them to 10 buyers while others may sell them to 25 buyers. That amount is decided by the website owner.

There are many reasons why people purchase Christian PLR article packs. Some may purchase them so they can have more knowledge regarding a certain topic while others may purchase them to use for their business.

Christian PLR articles can be used on your blog, in your newsletter, on your website as content, or in article directories. Content that can be found in Christian PLR article packs is great because you don’t have to do much to the articles if anything at all.

When you use Christian PLR articles on your blog, you can create at least one if not more blog posts from one article. The reason for this is because blog posts are generally 200-300 words where as PLR articles are usually 500 or more words. You can be general when you are writing a blog post and that helps create more posts. Another option you have with this is to be specific but cover one idea from the article.

Using Christian PLR articles as content in your newsletter is great as well because you don’t have to completely write a whole new article. You can take a PLR article and edit it a bit and it’s yours and nobody else has it. Adding a PLR article to your newsletter helps beef it up and give your readers more information regarding the topic you are covering.

Christian PLR articles can also be used as content for your website. You can take bits and pieces of the article and include them on your site. Rewriting these paragraphs makes them original and that is good for page ranking. When you use them as content on your site you can add your own thoughts and opinions and that will give you even more content.

When you use Christian PLR articles in article marketing, you need to rewrite it so it’s not considered someone else’s. Rewriting a PLR article isn’t as bad as it sounds. All you do is rewrite sentences and add your own thoughts and opinions to it. The base of the article and the thoughts behind it are there.

Click Here to learn more about PLR for Christians.com’s PLR articles.

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How to Use Christian PLR to Beef Up Your Newsletter

Many of us as Christian business owners or ministry leaders have the responsibility of creating a newsletter. This newsletter may be sent out on a quarterly, monthly or weekly basis. No matter how many times per year you send your newsletter, you will need to create content for your newsletter, and as you probably realize, creating high quality content for your newsletter can often be time-consuming and difficult.

A business or organization’s newsletter content can make or break its success. The newsletter is a direct reflection of your business, church or organization, therefore you will want to make it of as high a quality as possible. After all, your reputation is at stake.

For many business owners especially, a newsletter is often times a great sales tool. It gives you the opportunity to recommend to others your specific products and services that would be most beneficial to them.

For ministry leaders it helps you to reach out to those you are hoping to serve giving them information or encouragement that will allow you to connect with them on a different level than you could otherwise.

It also gives you a means by which to communicate with your target audience and helps them to better know, like and trust you, which after all is one of your goals.

All of these things are positives for you as you create a newsletter, however, there are also issues that will arise when creating your newsletter. One of the biggest issues will be where to obtain your content. You may feel that you yourself can author all of your content, but may over time realize that you do not have the ability or maybe you just lack the time necessary to spend doing so. Or, you may decide you want to pay a writer to create your content, but that too can have its drawbacks, and you may determine that it is too pricey.

Another option that is often times the most beneficial for everyone is for you to use PLR articles, or private label rights articles that are only purchased by a set number of people and are full of unique content that you can either leave as is, or re-write to make it even more unique.

Using Private Label Rights articles is a fast, easy and affordable way to truly beef up the content that you provide in your newsletter.

With PLR for Christians.com we provide you with top quality Christian PLR content written from a Biblical world view by Christian writers.

Click here to find out more about PLR for Christians.

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Making Money with Christian PLR

There is nothing quite as rewarding as being able to make an income and share your faith at the same time. Most of us do this in little ways with our business, but when you build a business that showcases your faith, you have an opportunity to ministry to other moms around the world!

Christian PLR is a great way to kick off a profitable ministry-business. PLR, or Private Label Rights, is content that you can take and edit to make your own. This can save you a lot of time when you start your Christian niche site. Of course, when choosing your Christian PLR, you want to take some precautions. Take time to learn a little about the author of the PLR and their beliefs to ensure that their content will reflect your beliefs as well.

Once you’ve picked your Christian PLR, here are a few things you can do to turn your PLR into a profitable niche ministry:

1. Start a Christian Niche Blog.

2. Start a Christian Niche Email Newsletter.

3. Compile that articles into a Christian eBook.

4. Create a Christian Niche eCourse.

5. Create a Membership site for Christian readers, parents, moms, etc.

If you’re looking for Christian PLR for your next niche site, I highly recommend checking out PLR for Christians. Co-founder and writer,  Alyssa Avant is a long time friend. She is the owner of Beauty By Design Ministeries and writes for our Mother-Daughter section here at Moms In A Blog. At PLR for Christians she offers Christian PLR packs that are faith-based, well written and include suggestions on how you can monetize each pack. She even includes a list of recommended affiliate programs you can promote with your content.

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How to Get Blog Traffic – 11 Steps to Growing Readership

Guest Post by Alice Seba

Many of us work so hard on our blogs and frankly, it kind of sucks if we don’t get the traffic we want. And it’s a catch-22…you can’t get the traffic without the work, but it’s tough to justify all the work if you don’t get the traffic. Well, here are 11 suggestions to get the traffic you want to your blog.

1. Be Remarkable – This one is number one for a reason. If you do this, most of the rest of this list will come into place and will have lasting effect on the growth of your readership.

Be remarkable by:

* Being informative: Teach your readers what they want and convey the info in a way your audience appreciates.
* Entertain – Insert humor, amaze your readers…do what’s appropriate to get their attention.
* Connect with Your Audience – Understand and speak to their pain, worries and even their dreams and desires.
* Be Controversial – Share an opinion…not everyone has to agree with you to find you interesting.

I have been accused of having an “if you build it, they will come” attitude with this suggestion and I guess to some extent, it is true. That doesn’t mean you can’t be proactive in your traffic building as well, but the more remarkable your blog is…the better the long and short term effects of your efforts.

2. RSS Feed: You’d think it’d be a given, but I see plenty of blogs without an RSS feed. If you’re not familiar with the term, an RSS feed allows your readers to be notified when you make new blog posts. Unless your audience is totally tech-savvy and is all over the RSS thing, I recommend setting up a feed that allows your reader to sign up for updates into their feed reader or email if they prefer. An easy way to set up this type of feed is to use a free service like FeedBurner.com.

3. Ping!: Make sure your blog is set up to ping the various web blogs. Many blog platforms allow you to set this up in your settings. This helps a variety of information/search sites know that you’ve updated your blog.

4. Make Comments: Make useful comments on busy blogs related to your blog’s subject. Usually, you can link back to your site when you make a comment on another blog. BE RESPECTFUL!: Only use the space provided for your link…don’t write ads or fancy signatures AND make sure your comment is relevant and useful to other readers.

5. Do Trackbacks: Many blogs allow you to make commentary about their posts on your own blog. When you link to their particular blog post, a link to your own blog post appears in the comments area on their blog. For trackbacks between WordPress blogs, all you need to do is link to a blog post and it’s automatically set up. BE RESPECTFUL: If you’re going to trackback, have something useful to say. Just summarizing and linking to someone’s post does NOT add to the discussion.

6. Keep Your Email List Up-to-Date: You probably already know that your mailing list is a valuable asset. Use this asset to the fullest by sending them to your blog to read the posts you think they will find helpful, enjoy, etc.

7. Distribute Content: A great way to get people read more of your content is by getting content out there to more people. You can distribute articles, post videos, guest post on other blogs…just get some good stuff out there and lead people back to read your blog.

8. Affiliates Link to Your Blog: If your affiliate program allows your affiliates to link to any page on your site, encourage them to link to and write about your various blog posts. The system I use at Quicksales.com (a private-label 1ShoppingCart) allows my affiliates to quickly and easily link to any blog post they want.

Affiliate referrals are cookied when someone follows a link and if that referral eventually buys, they get the commission. Of course, the conversions on blog links aren’t going to be as good as linking directly to a sales page, but it gives your affiliates the opportunity to bring value to their own readers (by linking to your AWESOME content) and potential benefit financially.

9. Social Networks: You can use various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) to drive traffic to a blog. People you connect with socially are likely to be interested in what you have to say on your blog. Make sure you follow proper etiquette and use your common sense. Also, don’t overdo it and get lost in your social networks all day…you’ve got WORK and other important things to do. Plus, if you are remarkable, those who use social networks will be doing the work for you and talking about you.

10. Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking includes sites like Digg, del.icio.us and Stumble Upon, where you can share links to a variety of content. Some people self-bookmark, but realize this could put your account in jeopardy, so read all the rules first. Others choose to work with others in helping each other bookmark. Being remarkable also encourages people to spread the word on your behalf.

11. SEO (Search Engine Optimization): I put this one last, where I know a lot of people tend to put it first. If your goal is repeat visitors who become faithful fans, put SEO on the backburner and SEO your other content pages where you are looking for first-time or drive-by visitors.

The problem with trying to optimize all your blog pages is that it takes away from you being remarkable. A remarkable blog is written with interesting subject lines (rather than boring keyword phrases) and isn’t always on topics that people use a search engine to find. Of course, you can combine the two (SEO and being remarkable) in some ways, but don’t let SEO take anything away from the interest and word-of-mouth your blog creates.

More Blogging Help:

If you’re looking to pull more profit out of your business blog, check out the IM Blogging Bootcamp. This 4-week intensive program designed to get you actively and effectively blogging to reach more of your prospects and convert more of them into lifelong customers.

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What RSS Can Do For Your Business

Guest Post by Lynette Chandler

Did you know there are lots of ways RSS can be used for your business? Here are some example uses that you may not know about. Quick note: Some can be easily abused so… use them wisely, if you use it.

Twitter: Automatically create a new tweet when you have new posts. There are many ways to do this, a popular and free tool to use is Twitterfeed.

Facebook: Create updates when you make new posts. There are applications you can use to do this. I’ve found Facebook apps to be very flaky but one that seems to work is My Blogs.

Widgets: Make a widget of your latest blog content so others can display it on their blogs or on their desktop. You can do this easily at Google Gadgets or Spring Widgets.

Deliver files to your audience: If have a podcast, you’re already doing this but you can deliver other files too from PDF’s to video.

Create affiliate branded RSS feeds: Let affiliates display your blog content and let them be rewarded for it. I’ve created a custom feed for my affiliates, which contains the affiliate’s ID.

Find deals for your business: Who doesn’t like to save money? Save on your next business purchase. There are lots of ways you can track sales and deals from stores like Amazon. For Internet Marketing related purchases, you can save a feed like the one from Deal.com to your RSS reader.

Track packages: Track your own packages with SimpleTracking.com or let your customers know if you sell a physical product.

Track latest questions on Yahoo Answers: Answering questions on Yahoo Answers can be very effective to promote your business. Subscribe to the RSS feed of the category you’re interested in so you’ll be notified when a new question you can answer comes in.

Track your own or other blogs’ comments: Sometimes email notifications quit working. But the RSS always does. If you are using a WordPress blog, your comment feed is usually: http://yourblog.com/?feed=comments-rss2 or http://yourblog.com/comments/feed/

Competitor watch: Find out what competitors or other marketers are doing on social networks, blogs, video and more using FriendFeed.

Track what’s going on in your industry: Do a search on Yahoo or MSN for a keyword or phrase you’d like to watch. Using Firefox or IE 7, an RSS feed icon will appear. Click to subscribe.

Advertise: While I personally have not done any RSS advertising, I have displayed ads in RSS feeds. The click through ratios for that one site performed better compared to web site click through. You can advertise on RSS feeds through Text-Link-Ads, Pheedo and FeedBurner.

Notify clients of service status: This works well for businesses who offer a service like web hosting, online shopping carts. Publish a system status feed and let customers know they can be alerted of status changes immediately.

What if you don’t even understand RSS that well? Can you take advantage of these suggestions? Absolutely. But if you prefer to better understand RSS, you can find a free report at TechBasedMarketing.com that explains RSS in simple every day English.

More Blogging Help:

If you’re looking to pull more profit out of your business blog, check out the IM Blogging Bootcamp. This 4-week intensive program designed to get you actively and effectively blogging to reach more of your prospects and convert more of them into lifelong customers.

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10 Cools Ways You Can Use WordPress

There’s only a few days left before Blogging Boot Camp launches on January 12, and in anticipation of this fabulous 4 week event, Alice Seba & Lynette Chandler have put together a fabulous new report you’re going to love!

“10 Cools Ways You Can Use WordPress“

This fantastic report gives you a small taste of the type of information you would have access to during the 4 week Blogging Boot Camp and it’s completely free. Click on the link above to download your copy.

Yesterday, Tracy posted about the Blogging Boot Camp because she will be attending this time and she is excited. Alice Seba & Lynette Chandler have put together an intensive 4-week bootcamp to help you clear all the hurdles in having a prosperous blog and I’ll be there soaking in all the information. It’s definitely a must for moms looking to build their blogging businesses and make more effective use of their blogging time in 2009.

You can get more information about the boot camp here. It’s not to late to sign up, and Tracy would LOVE to have you join her!

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Headed For Blogging Boot Camp

If you’re like me, you probably have more than one blog. You might have one to share parts of your personal life and another because you heard it was a great way to promote your business.

If you are using a blog as a tool in your business then you know, unless you have some type of system in place just keeping up with your blog can be overwhelming but you also have to make sure that your blog doesn’t turn off your readers.

The good news is that there IS a way to stay active with your blog, develop a tight relationship with your readers AND have your readers turn into buyers – without losing your mind in the process.

In fact, Alice Seba & Lynette Chandler (two of my favorite blogging for business authorities) have put together an intensive 4-week bootcamp to help you clear all the hurdles in having a prosperous blog and I’ll be there soaking in all the information.

The bootcamp starts on Monday, January 12, 2009 and includes one-on-one customized help as you complete the weekly lessons and is a MUST for anyone looking for better results from their blogging.

If you have a business blog and you want to use it more effectively I hope you’ll join me at Blogging Boot Camp. If you’ll be attending I’d love to know. It would be fun to take the course with you.

As a thank you for reading this entire post I’m including a link to 3 Steps to Make Quick Work of Blogging

This is short, but handy report that shows people how to publish a lot of blog posts in three simple steps. It also includes additional tips for cutting down time spent on writing.

To get this complimentary report simply click HERE and enjoy!

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Moms In Business: Debra Marcionette

This week, Moms In A Blog, is happy to share with you our interview with Debra Marcionette of BigIQKids.com.

You may remember hearing of BigIQKids.com since Debra graciously provided a 12 month membership to our readers a few months ago. Thanks again, Debra!

What made you decide to be a work at home mom?

Being a stay at home mom was important to me. I knew the only way I could continue working was to be a WAHM.  I never compromised my belief  ‘woman can have it all’.

What is the nature of your business?

Creating online learning tools designed to help each child develop the skills needed to perform to his/her full potential.

What made you decide that particular business?

Out of need.  My daughter required help preparing for her Friday spelling test.  I searched for a tool and one did not exist.  Being a multimedia developer, I knew technology could be leveraged to achieve greater word retention and better grades. I created a tool for my daughter and later gave it to friends. Soon the online tool was helping many and BigIQKids.com was born.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Competing against large education companies that have deep pockets. Our products have to be better (and they are) in order to generate the tremendous  ‘word of mouth’ that keeps our business growing.

What has been your biggest success?

Organic growth and the thousands of emails we’ve received from parents who love our applications and tell us BigIQKids has made a difference in their child’s life.

What is the best way you promote your business under $10.00?
under $50? Any cost?

Quality products and keeping the customer first. At BigIQKids we don’t let any calls go unanswered and I can’t tell you how often our customers are blown away when a ‘real person’ answers the phone.

How do you balance work and family?

I’m lucky. BigIQKids is like a part of the family now. It’s my third kid. It’s been a fantastic learning experience for my children who sit in on meetings, provide insight and who are genuinely concerned with the development of the site.

To what do you attribute your success as a WAHM?

Passion. What’s that old saying: “When you love what you do , you’ll never work another day in your life.”

What impact has blogging made on your career?

I don’t have a blog BUT to me, bloggers represent grass roots empowerment and everything that is right about Web 2.0.  I do read blogs and they provide a wonderful support system and sharing of ideas.

Can you recommend any resources for WAHMS who are just starting out, or perhaps trying to make the transition from the workplace?

SEO – Search Engine Optimization.  Learn it yourself. Don’t farm it out.  When a marketing budget doesn’t exist, it’s a valuable resource for your business.

What can you tell us about your other ventures.?

We just launched BigIQBee.com which is a free, online spelling bee that tests children on grade appropriate spelling words in a simulated “live” environment. Kids love it because they get to compete against other spellers from around the world and parents love it because their kids are actually online, competing and learning.

Is there anything else that you want to share with the readers?

If you start, don’t stop. When I launched my first application, several people close to me expressed doubt. I stayed true to my passion and forged ahead.

What is one thing you can’t do without in your business?

Short term and medium term planning.

What one thing should be avoided at all costs?

Self pity.  I think every entrepreneur at some points feels overworked and under appreciated. It just natural. Recognize those moments and move on quickly!  Being successful takes the 4 P’s:  be positive, passionate, persistent and patient.

What’s the biggest business killer?

Failing to plan.

What advice do you wish someone would’ve shared with you when you first started out?

Be patient.  A lot of people are prepared to work hard and sacrifice for their dreams but when timetables aren’t realized, they get discouraged and quit. Keep moving ahead

Thanks for a great interview, Debra!

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