momblogsWelcome to the Mom Blogs Guide to Blogging, an easy and quick reference for the newbie blogger to find the information she needs to succeed online. We encourage you to link to the Mom Blogs Guide to Blogging on your own site and let others know about it. Not only for your quick reference, but for other moms of course!

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How do I open a blog?

Wordpress vs Blogger

I admit it, I’m partial to wordpress. But there are so many other blogging platforms out there that it can make a bloggers head spin to decide which is the best way to create a blog that you love. One of the first things you need to decide, is what is the goal of your blog.

Are you looking:

  • to just make friends
  • blog about your family
  • is it a hobby that is part time or full time
  • do you want to make money and take in ads
  • are you looking to be a professional writer or blogger

Defining your reasons and goals in the beginning will allow you to narrow down where you should go first. While I am used to Wordpress, I did take the time to check out Blogger and Typepad before going back to my old hat.

There are many hosted services like Blogger, Wordpress (.com), Typepad, and LiveJournal . For the purposes of this article, I am going to dive deeper into the most popular, blogger and wordpress.

Blogger:

One of the most widely used blogging platforms, of course, is Blogger by google. Blogger tends to get indexed in search engines a lot more quickly then other spots; this is because its owned by GOOGLE.  With blogger, you receive your name for free, but it will include a “Blogspot name (example: http://5150mommy.blogspot.com ) in the title. You also will have access to its very easily used software, and be able to add free or cheap templates to personalize your account. One personal complaint for me about blogger, is that it has no way to create true categorization. This can result in long lists of keywords on your sidebar or having to fix your blog by months, rather then minimized selections, or worse, no categories at all. If someone cannot easily navigate and find material, chances are they wont hunt it down. How often do you go searching through the “old posts” button? I like a very minimized search tool on a blog and a clean set up, and this type of sidebar would drive me nuts.

Keep in mind that when you use free templates, it takes a lot more to define yourself. Its often better, especially if you are branding your blog, to hire a professional.  For under $100, you can make your blog pleasant, easily navigated, and have a presence of a personal touch. This also helps define who you are so you are not compared with everyone else out there. I cannot tell you how many blogs I have come across that use free templates and I start to get confused on which one I am at.  It makes them unmemorable. If you want your blog to be noticed AND remembered, its best to invest in it. If you are partially HTML savvy, you can join places like our forum, where we have designers that are part of us, and offer free advice and help for those “stuck”.

Free Blogger Professional Design:

For those that want minimized customization, you can also purchase a domain name directly through blogger and continue to utilize their free content hosting. If you decide to purchase a domain name, they configure it all for you and change over your DNS numbers so its an easy change. To get more information on how to get your own customized name through blogger read here. Its a lot easier to remember www.momdot.com than www.momdot.blogger.com .

Some things to remember on free services like blogger.com and wordpress.com:

1) its FREE

2) the software is about near idiot proof. Already set up, its like a plug and play mentality. You need almost zero knowledge to become a blogger

3) No pesky updates to worry about. Every 2 months I notice an “upgrade” button inside my blog since I am self hosted and its FRIGHTENING to upgrade. If you don’t upgrade, you face potential security risks, so either way, its scary

4) you have LESS control over your blog. You often times have no control over to monetize your blog if you get to that point or to put in specialized templates. Remember…they own the content there, so they don’t just give you free reign with FTP

If you decide to self host, many hosters already have a Fantastico set up, which also allows a one button set up of your blogging software. This means you wont need to go through setting up a database and connecting it and all of that, just to get it up and running. Hit a button, fill out your name, save, and Voila! Blog appears! Self hosting in a snap. I like to do things the hard way, so I downloaded my software and set it up on my own.

Self hosting can be very beneficial, especially as your blog grows, and you want to add more features.  Right now we host a chat room and a forum which is on our host. Its easy to connect them all together and we have complete control. If you start on a hosted site and want to move to a self hosted, it can sometimes be painful and scary. We recently moved our self hosted from one hoster to a self hosted on a new hoster and it was a LONG, LONG day. Its better to make that decision sooner, then later, if you notice your blog growing and you want to stick to this “blogging thing”.

Wordpress

Wordpress offers free hosted and also self hosted software. I personally believe that wordpress is more for the professional blogger then most blogger programs out there. However, that comes with a price as there are less wordpress designers and it can be tricky, and confusing, if something goes wrong with your site. I cant stress enough to keep a backup of your blog before you start messing around. Wordpress comes with hundreds of templates to utilize, that are easily customized by just overwriting the pictures with new ones, or changing the color codes in the CSS template. There are also thousands of plugins to use to customize your blog for whatever your purpose is. From adding in video, to polls, to automatic signatures, its as simple as downloading, adding, and hitting an activate button. What I like about wordpress too, is if something is incompatible, it doesn’t just load it. It shuts off the plug-in and lets you know that it cant be loaded.

Wordpress also has a very easy import button where you can bring over your blogger, moveable type, and more right into its software. My only glitch when I was changing blogs from my old one to this one, was that my exported files were TOO LARGE to actually upload them. If you have 100s of posts, and thousands of comments, I am not sure it actually works, it didn’t for me. However, again, I like to do things the hard way, so it was probably user inflicted error.

Wordpress is also set up to have multiple authors. We have over here admin, editor, contributor, author,  and subscriber. With a multi person blog like MomDot, this allows me to give specified blog access to all of my writers, depending on their role with our blog.

I hands down think that wordpress is the most customizable, personalized blogging software out there, buts it not all roses. Although they have a very supportive community and a forum to turn to should you face a problem, wordpress designs and customizers don’t come in the 1000’s, nor are they cheap if you face a problem. Here is a sample of  FREE professional wordpress design:

Again, BACK UP before you start screwing with the HTML. Everything I have learned on wordpress, I have done myself, but it also means that I have “blown up” about 10 blogs before this one.

Like Blogger, you can get a hosted account with Wordpress.com and get a customized domain name.

My opinion is if you are going to have under 10K unique visitors a month, small to no budget, and are just blogging for fun, to stick with blogger. If you are going large, want full control on customizations or want something unique, go with wordpress.

How do I Write a Blog

“How do I write a Successful blog” or “How did you get visitors“; these are questions I get emailed almost daily.

While I already wrote a an article on how to secure more blog visitors, I thought I would write an article and answer that other question I get so often.  How to make your blog successful. While I am no means close to some of the top #49 blogs already on our Top Blogs of 2008 list, I can share  some simple ways that you can bring your blog to the next level.

1) Goals: First off, you need to decide what success means to you.  If you have no goal, you do not know if you have achieved anything. Outline what your intentions are for the year- are you looking for advertisers, are you looking to have a community, are you looking to have a personal site that is just about your life? What is it that you hope to achieve. From fame, to money, to friendship, to sharing knowledge, whatever it may be, everyone should have a goal in mind.

Once you have your goal, make sure you write it down. Your a blogger, right? So blog it, Vlog it, write it, and put it somewhere that you can check on your own progress. Make sure you don’t make your goals so unattainable that all you do is fret about what your not doing right, rather then building momentum on where you know your going.Its better to have 100 small goals that you can reach and move upwards, then one large one that you feel drags on. What is also helpful  is to break it down by months.

For Example:

  • Jan: 5 sponsors, 50 blog visitors, 15 articles written, visit 50 blogs
  • Feb: 6 sponsors, 75 blog visitors, 20 articles written, visit 60 blogs

Goals I recommend for blogs are how many articles you intend to write, how many blogs you will in turn visit, how much you will network and where, sponsors if you are a giveaway/review blog, how many visitors you would like to see, page views you would like to see, link exchanges you would like, and how long someone spends on your site. Once you have all that in place, you can start on what you intend to do to reach those goals.

2) How to get visitors: This is the point I would insert how to get blog visitors, but as I have written that article already, go back refer and read that. To get your blog out there in the beginning, the fact is, it takes a ton of work. You are not only 1 in millions of blogs, you are 1 in billions of websites. To differentiate yourself and make your blog worth clicking on, your going to have to treat it like a business and network. There are so many ways to do that initially. From Facebook to Twitter, Digg to Stumble upon, to visiting blogs like this one and sharing your links or clicking on other blogs and making yourself known, you are only limited by yourself. People will go to their friends blogs, so go make some friends.

3) I have visitors. Now what? : The important thing is what the heck do you do with your visitors once they have arrived? If you don’t have a site worth coming back to, no one will, and that will result in some major ego killer for you, not to mention, a ton of unnecessary work.

Remember, a blog should be a reflection of who you are. Don’t try to be like someone else, because it wont work. If your not funny, don’t be funny, if you cant throw the F word around gracefully, don’t do it  just because some other blog does and gets visitors. Even being fake can be smelled through a  computer. Find your genre, stick to it, and be the best at whatever that is. Think about it…do you go to your favorite Taco joint to get a hamburger? No, you go to get a Taco. The taco place probably puts out C grade hamburgers and A+ tacos, because tacos is what they ARE, its what they DO. Be a taco joint that sells tacos.

4) What Kind of Blog are you?:

  • Blogs with a specific goal: If you can write parenting articles all day long, do it. Get people to link them, SEO them so they show up in search engines, be the absolute best and supply the #1 content for them. This goes with all topics….scrap booking, photography, business, whatever it is, be the best at that and people will refer to you and come back for more. Blogs with specific goals should blog at least once a day and share an interesting article. Top 10 ways to fill in the blank, instructions on fill in the blank, resources for fill in the blank. The key to a blog with a specific intent is to keep supplying new information.
  • Blogs that are personal: I often hear bloggers state they blog to share their family life. Yep, that is fun, or can be fun, but it also can be ultra boring. I’m sorry, its true. Not everyone cares your kid lost a tooth unless its Aunt Sally and Grandma Bessy. If your goal is to have visitors, you have to relate those things to their lives. If you are writing about a personal experience (and its not just a funny, ha ha story you are sharing) make sure you supply the reader with other info as well. Lets go back to the losing a tooth example. If you are going to talk about Johnny losing a tooth, make sure you sum it up with ways to surprise your kid with the tooth fairy, or maybe refer some fun ways to hide your tooth under the pillow, make this a time to talk about how you can encourage kids to brush their teeth. Leave your reader with information that makes you an expert in the know. And a biggie? Share pictures. Do not leave your blog visitor with a personal story and no shots to bring the story to life. Would your kid like a book with no pictures? Not till they are into Stephen King. Get the camera, take a shot, and upload it.
  • Blogs that are scattered: That’s us. We are one of those. We have a variety of information spreading from interviews, to self promotion, to blog promotion, games, contests, and more. Being a scattered blog is probably the hardest kind of blog to be and I do not actually recommend it. This is not something you want to do, unless you have some sort of strong organization on your blog regarding ways your user can find the information they are looking for. For us, we separate our contests for those visitors, we have subtitles in the middle, link downs on top for blog searches, and recaps on the side of specific categories. The upside is that you can always provide a grand variety of things for a variety of people, the downside is, because your user doesn’t know what to expect, if they cant find something that interests them and you look a mess, they will file you in the “Not coming back” pile. Trust me that I have gotten a few emails about someone not being able to find what they are looking for.  At the very least, if you own a scattered blog, be very very interesting.

5) Lets talk about being interesting: First…never, and I mean never, write a blog post on “I don’t know what to write and sorry I haven’t been around lately”. If you haven’t been around, people are not stopping by. If they are, they don’t want to read that you haven’t been around. Don’t make that the first post they see, put something up worthwhile  and IN that post say I am sorry I have not been around, let me share this with you, etc. Don’t make a full post apologizing to strangers unless your adding something else into it like ” I have not been around because Godzilla attacked my family” and then show Godzilla eating your computer and get on with your real article. I cannot tell you how many times I have come to a blog and the past 4 articles are “Sorry, I haven’t been around”. You are now in my “Sorry, I’m not coming back” box.

Also, readers want to know who you are. Why the heck should they stay around and read you if your just running newspaper articles? Define who you are, share a picture or two, show your personality. People are more drawn to the person who is real, then the person who is real boring. Its ok to step outside of the box a bit and ham it up. I’m never going to say be someone that you are not, because you wont be able to keep it up and it will come off contrived, but be the person that you are. We all have a unique quality that makes us who we are, so find yours and capitalize on that quality. Share a picture of yourself in the sidebar. When I go to a blog, I want to know who I am talking to. Remember, this is not a newspaper, this is a blog. Readers are coming to read what you have to say, so show them you, not a graphic that represents you, but you.

6a) Your look: Suck it up and get a real template. You can find templates all over the net, so find one that is user friendly and customize it to your personality. All it takes is a free graphics program, drop in a picture of your family and slap a name on it and upload. Its better if you get someone who knows what they are doing, but I made my own for years. Sure they may be cheesy in the beginning, so practice, but its better then some picture of a leaf that came with the template. Yes, you can learn how to do a graphics program. There are free ones right on Major Geeks. Get out there, this is the information age, find a tutorial and teach yourself. Or hire someone…that’s the route I go now for time purposes.

There are reasons that you do this:

  • For one, you have to like your own blog, if you think its boring….so does everyone else.
  • Second, if your blog looks like everyone else’s blog, how am I going to remember who you are? How am I going to find you again? Blogs should be as unique as the person behind them. If your a jeans and t shirt gal, have a jeans and t shirt blog. But don’t have a “I’m going to bed in my slippers and jogging pants” blog.

6b) Get a blog name: Its $8 at Dynonames. Get a real dotcom. Make it easy. Don’t make it cutesy spelling like CooleMomz. No one is going to remember that. Make it search-able, correct spelling, without dashes, and a dot com, not a dot net. Do this from the beginning, because if you wait and change it, you will lose all your blog rankings when you hook it up since it wont be recognizable yet to Google. Meaning your PR is gonna go right out the door until Google gets around to it again in 3 months. Also, finding blogspot dot whatever’s are a pain. I want to be able to type in a name, not a Trisha.Blogspot.Whatevergoeshere.Rememberthislink.com . Get to the point, keep it easy to spell, easy to remember, and defining of you. Don’t use common words that everyone in your industry uses either. If you pick a word that a ton of others use, if someone searches you online, they are going to find all those other people too and have to try to figure out who you are.

7) They are here, don’t let them forget you: Provide your users with a way to remember you. This is one thing we failed in the beginning. We did not have a way for users to grab a banner and we didn’t have away for them to subscribe to us via email. In fact, we just set that up like 2 weeks ago. (shame, shame on us). The easier you allow it for someone to add you to their blog, twitter, email, or reader, the more likely they are going to come back. Let me say this loud and clear…People are L-A-Z-Y. If you don’t make it easy, they simply wont do it. Remember, your not Britney Spears, they wont remember the name Trisha Haas or MomDot when they leave here, at least not the first time, so make it where they can at least find you again. We put that stuff in our sidebar there——–>

8 ) Don’t compete with others: Yes, its OK to be in awe of someone, its OK to even be jealous of someone (I get jealous in a way that makes me want to work harder), its OK to want to be like someone, just don’t, and I repeat don’t, compete with another blogger in a way that you are stalking their site, copying their moves, putting up content like them, and trying to be who they are. You cannot duplicate someone else’s success. You can only hope to achieve your own in the way that you define it. Simply copying someone else will make you look cheap, boring, and unoriginal. Plus, if you are copying someones blog, chances are, they are pretty good at what they do, right? So chances are, they have that genre on lock down. Find YOUR style and be the best at that. I also encourage you to reach out to bloggers that have a style you love. Visit them, learn from them, be a part of their communities, share information. This is a big one. Be a blogger that shares, not saves, information. If your name is not Bill Gates, then chances are you don’t house the secrets that will bring your blog tumbling to the ground if you share it. So share. Many of our contacts here come from other bloggers that share those with us, we interchange information on how to raise your rankings on your blog, how to get into reviewing, how to make a graphic; be someone others look up to. You have something you know, they have something they know, now interact. Its about building everyone up together, not tearing down someone else so you can be higher.

9) Dont give up: This sounds so easy doesn’t it? Don’t give up. Honestly, its the easiest, and the hardest, thing to explain to people. A million people can start a blog/website, but about 998,000 quit. Its too time consuming, too hard, not what they wanted, or they just cant handle the wait. No one is going to a success over night. I don’t care how many infomercials you watch. Unless your a blogger for the Huffington Post, your blog is going to take time. Think of it as survivor…Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.

10) Spellcheck. Nuff said.

You want more tips on how to write a blog?

Here are 10 more!

So you want to write a blog. Great, First step is done.

Every month I have a few people randomly email me and ask me how to write a blog, oh great, blogger of this blog. (heavy sarcasm). I really am not a great blogger, but I thought I would put together (insert drum roll here) MomDots Tips on How to Start a Blog so I can refer people back here instead of typing this up monthly. This is a mixture of getting a blog rolling and starting up your traffic and presence on the web.

1) Ask yourself, why do you want to have a blog? Having a goal in mind going into writing a blog will help define which service you want to use first and foremost. Picking the right platform for your blog in the beginning, will save you some heartache down the road in transferring . To learn more about blogging sites and features, please visit my other article Blogger Vs. Wordpress to find out what which you should set yourself up with. Research the features you believe you will need and the blogging software you believe you can understand. There is no point in getting frustrated right off the bat on a program you cant figure out.

You can also get a blog at:

2) Goals. Is your blog for personal or professional reasons? Are you using it to keep in touch with family or friends, connect with others like you, share your opinions on products and life? Are you using it to promote your business or product? Do you want to be a professional writer? Outlining why you have stepped into the blogging world will help you define where you are going and what you should expect of yourself. While there are no definite rules in blogging, avoiding blog burnout or “writers block” can make blogging more enjoyable.

  • Personal Blogging: For personal blogging, you can focus on experiences you had throughout the week, funny kid sayings, pictures of your family, recipes, ideas to hang out with your spouse or children and shopping tips. Try to mix it up so you don’t get bored  too much and your readers keep wanting more and more. There is no rule to how many times a day. From updating 3-5 times a week to 3-5 times a day, blogs run the gambit of too little content to too much content. We run our blog with a LOT of content, but that is because we have a lot to say. Your blog should be a reflection on who YOU are. If you are a quiet person or a person that only wants to divulge when you have something you want feedback for, then writing a few times a week is fine. If you are someone that is a chatty Cathy, its ok to talk all day if you want. Remember, its YOUR blog. There are no rules. Finding a stride that works for you, will make you feel good and your readers know what to expect. I once didn’t update the blog for a few hours and got a call from a friend to find out if I was “ok”. That should tell you how much I blog.
  • Professional Blogs: Bloggers that blog as part of their online store or business, should consider blogging about a product at least once a week, to assist in google rankings for your store, and keeping your keywords current. It also helps your customers know up and coming products, specials, sales, and you can interact on a more personal level. If you let your blog go too long without updating content on a professional side, Google spiders slow up the crawling and your store can drop in rankings. Try to also share and link up with stores that sell products that are of interest to your customers. Not only is this a great way to cross promote each other, but to assist your customers in finding the right products for their needs. If they trust you as a go to gal, they will keep coming back, and revisiting your store over and over again

Blog what you KNOW and what you LIKE. People will enjoy reading what you have to say if you are passionate about it.

3) Content is key (like cash is king!). Having good content that catches the readers attention is a MUST. While not every post you write can be the one that makes people stop and stare, creating a connection with your readers is important for long term stability on your blog. When you are writing a blog post, try to add links to the places and items you are speaking about. Allowing your reader to be able to experience what you are talking about, makes for a more conversational post. It also helps your google PR ranking (which can raise your searchable content as well as assist you in future advertising and review opportunities online). Always try to leave your post with a question. If you do not have something that is a WOW factor, the reader may read and move on. But by asking a question, you engage in a conversation that can bring out other points and start a back and forth dialogue.

4) Post length. There are many varying opinions on how long a post should be. I personally believe it should be long enough to get your point across. Don’t get caught up in “is it too long or too short” if you haven’t said what you intended to write as it is. I see blogs that write hilarious snippets and long informative posts all day long. Both are valuable. If shortening a blog or review will leave your reader hanging, its better to be informed then to cut it off. But if writing on and on is just for writings sake, don’t bore your reader and keep it simple.

5) Keep motivated and excited about your blog. This is one of the biggies. Its very easy to go into and open a blog with full intentions on what you want for it. But you can experience burn out easily. When I feel a writing spurt, I may write a few posts at one time and save them in my drafts for times I feel like not writing. Its also good to have some ideas in your back pocket for when you feel burnout. A few ways to connect with your readers when you feel low on content are to:

  • Run A Contest
  • Invite another blogger on your page to do a guest article
  • Blog hop till you feel inspired
  • Run a Poll
  • Write a web series (how to do: x, y, z)
  • Get with other bloggers and run a blog party
  • Look through your old posts. You can visit posts that clearly readers took to and loved and try to open a new topic in the same category, perhaps writing about some points your commenters made, or you can open a post that had little to no comments and put a new spin on it.
  • Join MEME days online (we participate in Wordless Wednesdays)
  • Write down your ideas when you have them. We have an “idea” page here to assist you as well.

6) Make your blog personal. I find text ultra boring and monotonous without pictures or videos from time to time. Ok, Im lying. If I don’t see personal stuff in posts, I get bored really quickly. Staring a computer all day can be painful, so try to illustrate your ideas with photos when you can. VLOGGING is also a great way for your readers to really see who YOU are. They are more likely to connect with you as a person, then as a website, if you are talking on camera. If your embarrassed to be on camera…my advice is to get over it. Being real and unique is part of what will make people want to read what you have to say.

7) Visit other blogs. Having a blog is a lot like having a one sided conversation…until you know who is leaving you messages, it can be very lonely and random. Take time to interact with your visitors by talking back to them in the comments, writing posts that you believe they would like, visiting their blogs and commenting (conversation back), and emailing them directly. Many blogs have a set up where you can email directly from the comment your visitor leaves behind. Our blog is not set up like that, so we utilize a forum to get more personal with our blogging buddies, but you can set up your blog that way and it can be very convenient to let your readers know you read their comments.

8 ) Join social media groups. Building a blog does not mean automatically that you will have visitors. Its not “build it and they will come”…its more like build it and drag them over. You can do that by meeting people, connecting online, visiting other blogs, creating useful content for readers to link to, linking to them, and otherwise being involved in your blogging community. It also doesn’t hurt to attend a few blogging  conferences and keep a business card on you. HA!

Some places to find other bloggers are:

9) Sign your blog up with Technorati and Alexa right off.  They help “rank” your blog. While this may not be important to you, you may change  your mind in the future and its better to already have them recording then starting late in the game. This will also help you see who is connecting to your blog. Join up with a statistics counter as well. If for anything, it tells you where your users are coming from so you can thank your link backs. Woopra, sitemeter, or statcounter are commonly used.

10) Get a blog banner made so you can advertise your blog. There are two ways to be advertised by other bloggers…a link and a banner. Many bloggers put their favs in a blogroll and many put up banners, which house a tiny piece of who you are. There are lots of places to get a banner done, but we do suggest you get one. You can contact:

Places to advertise your blog:

Well, I could go on and on so I am going to make a point to stop here.  I hope that helps the few of you whom contact me a month and ask me how to start a blog. I’m certainly no blog expert or professional, but with some research, I am sure you will make your blog fun and successful for you.

~Trisha

HOW NOT TO WRITE A BLOG

Bloggy Pet Peeves

If you spend more than an hour online each day reading, you’re bound to get a few pet peeves. Here are a few of mine, and ones I have collected from other bloggers, so you can double check if your pissing anyone off make your blog gooder. (yes, on purpose, duh) The following pet peeves were polled while on the MomDot Forum and gathered for the post here. Of course I have added some creative licensing to the post. Thank you to Linda, Kim, Karen, Jaqueline, Heather, Staci, Cat (are you in labor yet?), Suzanne, Sara, Miranda, Amanda, Christy, Clarissa, Jen, and  Shannon for getting annoyed enough to spill it.

1) “Great” is not an adjective you should use in every review post. In fact, no one should EVER use it. It is generic if it is used too much.

i.e. This product is SO Great. I used it today and my daughter thought it was great. I’m so glad we have this great product. Please, for the love of all that is holy, use alternative adjectives in the same post.

2) Too Many Strikethroughs lose the point

3) I think this f*ng  blog is f*ng amazing, don’t you agree, you f*ngface? Check out this f*ig product, its f*ing great awesome.

4) Make sure your links go somewhere.

5) Pictures of food that look like it was just barfed up.

6) Blog Music. We get it. You LOVE Grease. Or 50 Cent. Or Jesus. But please don’t scare the piss out of me when I sign on your site all unexpected like, my entire computer shuts down for 30 seconds while your page loads, and then I have a slight heart attack when something YOU call music blares from my speakers. Which, BTW, generally means I have to hit the OFF button my CPU to get out of the site that is now holding my computer hostage.

7) Adult Themed ads. When you’re on an ad network, they often pick up words on your blog to display ads. Be careful that when you talk about thongs on kids, you don’t get an ad that SHOWS thongs on……..anyone (you thought I was going to say kids didn’t you, you pervert).

8 ) If you have not been around, please don’t start a post that says “Sorry, I haven’t been around. My life is terrible, I suck, everyone sucks, this blog sucks, I’ll see you again in 6 weeks to apologize again why I am not writing.” News Flash: Your Audience is Gone.

9) CAPTCHAS. Please, Please, PUHHHHHHHLLEEASE (This is spoken in Perry Cox here) take off that damn Captcha. I will hardly leave any comment at all if it has a CAPTCHA. Why? Because my fingers are barely holding together as it is with the onset of premature arthritis and trying to strain my eyes to read “KJ;9sfweJ;K” before I say “Have a greeeeeeeeaaaaaaaat day” doesn’t seem worth it. Make your comments go into moderation if you’re worried about spammers, but don’t punish that REST of us.

10) Cryptic Blog Posts (this goes for tweets and myspace too): Dude, if you want to talk shit about someone specific, just use their name, or better yet, don’t post at all. Go gossip to someone that gives a care – if you have any friends left that are not afraid they will be talked about on your blog next. No one wants to read a blog that says “Some people should just grow up, some people are not funny, some people should put on lipstick, oh, she knows who she is”. OK, she may, but chances are, the few people left reading your blog don’t and you just look like a gossiping dumbass. And if these posts appear more then once a, oh lets say “century”, I have something better to do with my life. Like dye my hair again.

11) Today I went outside~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it was so sunny out!!!!!!!!!!!! And I love my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, but the dog died this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it will be OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cause I have an exclamation point button!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And now I feel happier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12) Blogs that don’t allow you to just type in your name and URL to comment. You should not be required to LOG INTO a blogger account to leave a comment. Sometimes I even forget my passwords, considering I had to change them because someone broke in my email and I had to change them all.

13) I can’t StaNd WhEn EvRy OtR LtR iS cApItaLiZeD nD NewAy,  WhAt Iz Up WiTh TeH tXt Spk?  L8r.

14) Complaining ALL THE TIME. About the same things. Mix it up, hate on your MIL or something. I don’t want to read the same posts over and over and ova and ova……….Its like the song that never ends. I am Henry the Eighth I am, Henry the Eighth I am.

15) The effect of poor grammar affects my day horribly. Obviously this one is aimed at me, because your all just picking on me.

16)  Using ………………… way too much too!  I catch myself doing it and try to stop…………………………..but……………….it’s hard!

17) When people use “to” when they mean “too.”

18) Actually, Christy just wants everyone to read this post on grammar before she goes nuts and stabs herself in the eyeball.

19) Layouts that go off the page. Would you read a book that had typing missing? leo

20) People who are afraid to be themselves. Someone MIGHT be looking. HELLO! We are all looking. Now how are we going to know you if you dont show us who you are. Does anyone give a shit if your hair doesn’t look perfect in a photo or on camera?

Let me clear it up for you: Uh, no.

Why, you ask?? Cause they look the same and if they don’t, they have no right being a mommy blogger at all. Embrace the narcissistic personality you have, and we all know you have one if you actually have your own website that talks about YOUR life and YOUR opinions,  and be proud that you think you rock. Now show us your messy house and disgusting fish tank so we feel more in tune with who we are. Thanks.

BLOG MARKETING

When you start a blog, you want people to visit. Its natural..you write something completely amazingly brilliant and if no one says anything you feel like a complete doodyhead. You start to question if you should have ever been born, right? And then the magic day comes and you get a comment and you start to think…see, I am NOT the nerd in school, I am NOT talking to myself, someone DOES love me. And you live for the next day……

Now marketing your blog is not as hard as one may think. I am going to decode some things that people do on a daily basis to bring in visitors to their blog and hopefully you can put these ways to use to create a better website for yourself.

1) Content, Content, Content. Content is for bloggers, like Location, Location, Location is for a Realtor. If you build it…they will come. Well, at least they will have something to read when they come. Dont put up 193 articles about your children and expect those to keep someone coming back….because unless your the grandparent of the child in question, it can get old.  Also, try to update atleast once a day, but twice is best. There is nothing worse then going to a blog and finding out you cant count on them to update…dont be a sporadic blogger unless you want sporadic visitors. A few ideas that search engines like to pick up and people like to read:

  • Lists. Top 100, Top 50, Top 10
  • Create an article: 101 ways to__________
  • Are you an expert on something? Give up some free advice. People look for things online when they have a question. If your a scrapbooker…teach scrapbooking on your blog, if you know how to sew, give some tips, have ways to get kids to eat green beans? Share them. We are number 1 on google for “how to make a tutu” because we are offering free advice for someone on something!

2) Personalize your blog! Don’t forget photos! Photos and Videos break up the monotony of text. A computer can be hard on eyes, so put a picture in there. It makes it more interesting. Share some pictures of you, talk about your life, let your readers find out WHO you are. Its ok to read someones opinions or vices or debates, but if your readers don’t see you as a person, they wont come back.

  • Vlog. Its a great way for your user to actually SEE you. Talk to you. Realize you dont suck.
  • Introduce yourself by interview, talk about your family on occasion, make fun of yourself
  • Dont be afraid of who you are…if your funny, be funny, if your serious, be serious.

3) Create a community. There are a ton of ways to enhance the visit for your reader. Create a free forum, a free chat room, or a  free social network! People visiting your site may have a lot in common, so gather then in a spot. You will have an instant audience if they come to your site to get access to other parts of your page. Plus, when your not blogging, you will have something else for them to do

4) Make your site easily understandable. I am an advocate of a professional blog design, because I believe they make you look like you have cleaned house and are serious. But even without that, make sure people can understand your categories, links, search bars, and can find what they want. Make sure you add tags to your posts so someone can search your bar and find the articles they want.

5) Use social networking sites like twitter, myspace, and facebook. Join “like” groups. In the blogging world, joining up with Mom Bloggers Club is a good idea. Also, I have twitter hooked up to my posts so when I post, it will auto go to twitter (username is Momdot) .  It saves me another step in the day and lets someone know to come to your site because I have something new up. Make sure your usernames are readily available for someone visiting to find and ASK them to follow you or put you on as a friend.

6) Keep traffic stats from places like woopra, sitemeter, or statcounter so you know where your hits are coming from. Check your incoming links and incoming key words from the search engines. If I see a blog that has sent me 10 hits in a day, I go see whats going on there and leave them a little comment love back.

7) Interact with your users. Respond to them in the comments, email them a response, or go to thier site. By meeting people online, they are more likely to come back, and you get some new friends. This one is a win/win. You can also learn to share topics, participate in blog parties, find out cool giveaways, and it helps keep you on your toes.

8 ) Find out if your blogs meta tags are set up If not, get them set up!! A search engine wont know what to tell people about you if you don’t put it up. Build a meta tag if not. (video on what meta tags are and how they help…….kinda long, but informative)

9) Find Out the most popular search words online that pertain to your site and optimize for THOSE words. If you already know what people are typing in, then you are one ahead of the game. I had started optimizing for the word “mommy bloggers” and realized that “mom blogs” was more widely searched, so now i have to back up and start again. Check the words you are optimizing for and see where you need work. (tips on optimizing your blog in a future article)

10) Ask people to visit you! When you go to other blogs, invite them over to see your place. Blog etiquette would dictate that you should use their contact form to do so, rather then “spamming” their blog. I learned this the hard way. But its nice to be invited and if someone asks me to visit, I usually do.

11) Sign up with Technorati and Alexa. Technorati is a site that identifies who is linking with you and ranks you based on that, as well as, the amount of articles you publish. You can raise your technorati with the more that link with you. You can encourage linking by writing content that people want to share with their visitors, or host a contest on your site and ask for link backs as secondary measures to enter. Technorati shows the past 3 months of linking, so this will be a continous battle of ranking change.  Alexa ranks you on amount of visitors and page views you have. Alexa toolbar is not used by ALL visitors, so this can be majorly skewed, but some PR reps will ask for it. You can get traffic by people searching through tech and alexa.

12) Sign up for Kirtsy, Digg, MommyRanks, and Stumble Upon. You can ask people to let others know about your articles by stumbling, digging or kirtsying you. You can also help OTHER blog owners by doing the same thing. I was once stumbled so much on one article, I made the front page and it brought in loads of traffic. You can also stumble your own, digg your own, or kirsty your own.Make this easy by adding the links or icons in your signatures on your blog.

13) Create a toolbar and connect your users to like sites like yours!

14) Link to other articles that are pertinent to your blog. For example, if you are writing an article on something local in your city, connect it to an article to your newspaper writing on the same thing. News media often links back to blogs that talk about the same subjects they are talking about. You pick up a link, you pick up some traffic.

15) Give out bloggy love. Link to other bloggers, link to other bloggers articles, send traffic to someone and they may become a visitor to your site and reward you with link backs as well.

Its all about sharing, about working together, and about working hard. Figure out your goals and put some of this to use! And again, thanks for reading on MomDot and feel free to twitter this article, digg it, stumble it, or kirtsy it as evident on those little icons below! OR link back. :-)

REVIEW BLOGGING

How to be a review blogger: As is evident here on momdot, there are bloggers of all types that are wild on the net. From mom blogs to adoption blogs, to specialized fields, and contest hosters, there is a bit of everyone. But no one is more revered then the Review blogger. The blogger with free product to test, to show, to give.

Getting into review blogging isn’t much different then getting into any other types of blogging. It simply takes dedication, time, and tenacity, but if you have the drive to do it, then the world is yours.

First things first.

1) To be a review blogger, I believe its fair to say…you should be fair! Don’t just take “free” products and say wonderful things-especially if they are not wonderful. Nothing is worse then a sell out. While its honorable to find the good things in each item, its also smart to let your readers know if there are parts of what you are sharing with them, that you don’t like. You want them to come back to you as a reputable source of information.

I know recently I did a review on My bag and had a user say she bought one. I know I can stand behind her purchase, because i am sure she will love it as much as I did.

2) Second, be fair to your sponsors. While its up to the sponsor to decide if your a good fit for their product, if you don’t like it, contact them and let them know, send them reasons why you didn’t like it, and ask them if you still want them to blog your opinion. I always try to give the sponsor a heads up to make sure there wasn’t a problem with the product I received first. Most reputable companies will still say that its fine to blog what you disliked as well, but try to do so in a productive way.

3) Third, review blogging is not all glamour. It takes time, dedication, willingness to really test out a product and find its pluses and minuses, and then conveying that to a reader in a way that they understand the product. It sometimes takes me an hour to write a review post. Make sure you take personalized pictures of the item, which are so much better then just a pro shot from the sponsors site, so your users can really see the product in “real life”. If you visit MomDot a lot, you all know that I am a VLOGGER on reviews as well. On products that really deserve some testing, like a stroller, its nice to see the product in action. Also, don’t take so many reviews that you are overwhelmed and cannot give proper attention to each product. The second you feel like its a bother, you need to take a step back. Its ok to say NO.

To assist the beginning blogger, there are quite a few companies out there that work with bloggers on reviews, that you can sign up for.

1) MomCentral: Mom Central has a mom testing panel and they send out products and information for bloggers to blog about. They guide you with the links they want shared and the company information. You also generally get paid in amazon gift certificates for your assistance. You can accept what you are interested in, and not sign up for the rest. They send out a variety of helpful links and products weekly and can be great for a mom who not only wants to review products, but to make a few amazon dollars in the process.

2) Team Mom: Team mom sends out samplings to its bloggers directly to their house, wtih press kit information on the product and gives you a time frame to blog it in. In the past, I have worked with them on Cabbage Patch and the Bubble Maker. Team Mom allows you to be open and honest about your opinion and encourages both sides of the story

3) Mom Select: Mom Select sends out some great product samplings! We worked with them on the Sesame street sample and giveaway! They also send out some really awesome products and sometimes offer extras for giveaways. MomSelect also owns New Baby, which is a youtube site for moms.

4) US! We host an Online Opportunities Network on our forum. Please contact Trisha@MomDot.com for more information. We are very limited in the blogs we take and only work with 100 at a time.

Moms who are just starting out, are encouraged to check out sites like Parent Reviewers, (whom I spoke with and should probably be accepting new applications in January 2009) which host a huge variety of bloggers and products, to get some incite on how other bloggers review. Now you will find reviews all over the net, paid, unpaid, free products, or even moms reviewing prizes they won or products they bought at the store. Keep adding content, keep working on your craft, and keep building your traffic.

A great way to start is to actually pick products around your home that you love and you hate and talk about them. Make sure you link back to company websites and provide information on where to purchase the products. Eventually, google picks you up and you start to attract PR reps, who are constantly on the prowl for online talkers.

PR reps can really be wonderful for a blog. They offer chances to work with large prizes, and have multiple giveaway winners. They often come to you many times a month and give you many opportunities to review awesome products and great giveaways. You can accept those if they pertain to you or pass and wait for the next one. MomDot currently works with about 5 PR reps on a continuous basis and they have brought us some of our most popular giveaways to date.

But single handedly, the best way to get reviews, is to ask for them. Its not really a mystery behind finding a sponsor. You simply find the type of product you are interested in, and approach the company in doing a review. In the beginning, you may hit some road blocks like low traffic, but doing exchanges and getting to know other bloggers is a great way to boost that. There are so many social networks like twitter, ning sites, myspace, and kirtsy, that the opportunity is always out there to bring in new people to your site if you work at it. Providing good, changing, and honest content is one of the best ways to keep people returning time after time and build a network of interested consumers. Also, working with small mom based companies or hand made products, is a nice way to get started.

While it can be nerve wracking to simply ask a company for a review, remember that most companies need to put their product in front of an audience and gain exposure through google ratings, links, and branding. Be confident in what you are providing, let them know your interest and why you believe that product would be beneficial to your user, and overall, sell yourself! I only use a standard form letter when dealing with something like a blog party, otherwise, I take time to write something personal about the product I am interested in and why. I usually am upfront with my page views and traffic right away if its a large company, which I know will a lot of times come back with that question. But even when MomDOt was in its pre-stages and had NO traffic, we just let them know our intentions on growing, and we had over $4500 worth of donated prizes on pure speculation. The worst someone could tell you is no.

One thing I like to do, is run a contest along side a review. I love to test a product and then give someone else an oppurtunity to win it. While its not a requirement by any means, I always ask a company for a review AND a giveaway side by side. Its usually a stronger feedback over all for our sponsors and also allows you to build up some contests on your blog as well. Plus, its fun to be santa clause on some days. If a company contacts me about doing a review and NOT a contest, I always encourage a contest over a review if i have to decide. For MomDot, I have found that a review encourages more immediate purchases, but a contest raises more awareness of the company overall.

When you have a contest, its also helpful to list at these contest sites. It can be time consuming to get your contest out there, but you will be rewarding your sponsor with many interested entries.

One last thing. While it may not be proper protocol to go to a bloggers site and click on all their sponsors and ask them each for a review or giveaway, its a great way for a beginning blogger to know which companies are outright sponsors of blogs. Check out the sidebar links of review and contest bloggers to find a good start of companies that are interested in supporting and participating in mom bloggers. Remember that as a blogger, its our job to get the information out there if you are a review or contest blogger, so you should welcome when another blogger discovers a link on your page and helps that company move forward to a new spot on the web. We should not be selfish or afraid or upset when we see our sponsors on a variety of sites, but rather, excited that we had a part in a company getting their name out there.

My motto is Desire Creates the Power. So work at it, live it, breath it, and it will become!

Happy Reviewing

Stats you should be aware of as a blogger:

Technorati: These are online blog ranks only. “Authority” means how many blogs are linking to you in the past 6 months.  Rank is what # you are out of blogs that are ranked on the net. Bloggers have to register their blog on Technorati for it to rank. For example, MomDot has an authority of 670  (blogs linking to us in the past 6 months) and a rank of 3,282 at the time of this post. You will need to SIGN UP with technorati. Do it early.

Alexa: This is an old way of doing stats, but many PR companies still use it . Alexa is ranked out of ALL websites on the web, not just blogs. Anything under 100K is generally very good. Please know that you need to sign up with Alexa and only others signed with them will affect your ratings, therefore this is NOT a good way for someone to judge you.

Google Page Rank: Ah, the mystery number that Google makes up. There really is a scientific explanation Google tells us regarding your page rank. They redo them every 3 months and range from 0-10. This is how important they tell you a website is and used to determine your ‘worth’ on the net. The higher the page rank, the more value the links and posts are to the search engines. They have nothing to do with visitors at all and are simply search engine based on how many sites link to you, how you link your own information, SEO, etc. etc. Basically a good blog can have bad SEO and never have a great PR. Google is pretty tight on it, so a “2″ PR is pretty acceptable on a blog. 5 is phenomenal. 7 is Dooce.

Unique visitors vs Page Views: One visitor can put off 25 page views in a day if they are searching a site. Every time a page loads for a visitor, it counts as an additional view. So you coming to my page was one and clicking on this post to a new page was one. You just gave me 2 page views  so far but your one person. Therefore you want to know the difference between how many real people came by as opposed to how many pages they checked out. Both can be positive for different reasons. But if a Blogger tells you they have 100K visitors, make sure its not page views or you may be slightly disappointed.

Comments: I am including this here because comments are blog gold. This will tell you how well visitors are relating to the blogger. This doesn’t really count for giveaway or contest posts. Check out their regular posts and see how others react, what their average comment count is, and if they respond and interact with their commenter’s. 10 comments per post is a great average.

How to Make Money with your Mom Blog

Ahh, the age old question: How do I make money with my blog? I hear it every day, women talk about cash they are (or are not) making and everyone wants a lifestyle that allows them to get up, talk about their cat crapping on the floor, and cha-ching, 5K hits the bank account.

But if truth be told, its not as easy as that.

As the Cheshire cat would say, lets start at the beginning, because the beginning is the best place to begin. No matter who you are..from the largest blogs on the net to the smallest unknown blog out there, we all start at the same spot: ZERO. That’s right folks. No one was born with an audience…unless of course you count the Dr., 10 nurses, and 15 attendees at the hospital. But all blogs were born the same way: you made a site, you put up a post, and voila, you have arrived. Unfortunately, no one has bought a ticket to your show yet.

Internet success stories and online television programs promise thousands of dollars of money for ‘half the time’ and it leads (wrongly) people to believe that they can open up a site and be instantly rich. While this is an assumption you would be a fool to make, there *are* ways that you can use your blog to create a business-that is, if you treat it like one.

Last Friday night we talked about ways to bring in additional traffic to your blog, including some of the best ways to spend your online time in traffic that actually results in returns, but one of the biggest breakthroughs we had is coming to the realization that bloggers were leaving out a vital part of their success: A GOAL.

I was flabbergasted at how when I asked where everyone was planning on taking their blog or why they had one, how virtual shoulders shrugged and everyone in unison said….”I guess I have never thought about it”. The great thing is, now I have you all thinking. (If you miss our Friday night show, you total miss out on epiphanies and ‘ah ha’ moments among friends)

Step #1 on making money with your blog: Have a goal in mind. Are you blogging just for friendship or are you blogging for business? Are you blogging to turn your friendships into a cash flow? No matter why you came on line, if you don’t know where you’re going, you wont know if you got there. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? From the age of 12, my dad always taught me to write down my goals. Don’t just think about them and say ok, that’s my goal. Write them down and stick them to somewhere visible in your life. I stick things to my computer monitor a lot. This is my last one:

dscf1001

While that was a silly goal, its true! I went to Disney and forced myself to do something for my family. All joking aside, find a goal for your blog. Don’t make it impossible because you will just frustrate yourself when it doesn’t happen quickly. Make your goal attainable in a reasonable amount of time and then adjust it up. Also, don’t be afraid to change your goal if your reasons change.

Now you’re saying, alright Trisha, I have my goal, NOW where do I go…am I rich yet? Uh. No.

Listen, the worst mistake a blogger can make is to blog just for money. In fact, I would highly encourage you to not make “My goal is to make 1 million dollars a year” your goal. If you totally encompass your blog with making money, when your adsense rolls in to be about 1 penny a month, you’re going to cry yourself to sleep at night. That leads to poor morale and you will quit before you started. Right? Right.

Step #2 on making money with your blog: Concentrate on building good content, developing a following, and basic marketing of your blog. Not all ways to monetize are done on adsense or page view/clicks basis, so you want to make sure that you have enough unique monthly visitors (UMV) to be attractive to future clientele. Like I told you all last week, page views, technorati, and alexa can all be skewed very easily, so concentrate on your actual unique visitors that come in. Get a good stat counter ( google analytics, statcounter, sitemeter, quantcast) so YOU know what your stats are, where they are coming from, and that your SEO is working correctly. Understand your stats! Each stat counter will tell you something slightly different, so be aware of what each counter is doing for you. We use two stat counters and I concentrate on what my daily averages are as that gives me the best indication of going up or down in an overall sense. There will be days that are slow and days that are crazy, so I like to know my average. Btw, do not forget to block your OWN ip from your stats so you do not falsely skew them.

SITEMETER

sitemeter

STATCOUNTER

statcounter1

Make sure you post at least once a day. I cannot say this enough. If you do not post once a day, your visitors wont know *when* to come by, so they stop coming. Not posting is like not going into work for the day. Yes, its ok to take the day off or the weekends off, but I strongly suggest preparing articles to publish when you’re not feeling “creative”. Find a day you feel ultra creative and write 5 articles at once and save them.

Other tips when you’re feeling blog block:

  • Write a “how to” post
  • Share a photograph
  • Share a memory like your wedding or high school prom
  • Tell about something funny your kids have done this week
  • More Ideas here

I want to also interject here and say that if you have 3+ blogs right now, you will never be able to put the amount of effort into each one to make it equally successful. Concentrate on ONE blog, grow THAT blog, and if you need to, open a sub-domain or a separate blog and start at square one again. But you’re almost always better off working on something you have already established then starting a brand new blog over…….and over….. and for some of you, over again.

Step #3 on making money with your blog: I am of the strong opinion that you never market a blog….you market yourself. A website is just a website is just a website unless you know the person behind it. Take the time to visit other blogs, comment on the commenters (remember what I told yall about WHO to comment on and why?), use all the social networking you have at your leisure to grow your brand. I do my best to visit blogs I have never seen before every day. And one tiny point: Visit bloggers that are not just in your genre. ie mommy bloggging. There is a lot of material out there that you can learn from a non-mom blogger.

Here is where it really gets tricky. Don’t get caught in social networking hell. Sure, you can open up a facebook, myspace, twitter, plurk, activerain…..you get the point, but be careful that your blog doesn’t get neglected as a result. Now famous blogger Guy Kawasaki says that given the choice between blogging and twittering, he says to twitter. But I am of the opinion that Guy can do that because he is famous and he probably didn’t twitter before his blog was established……… I say blog till you reach a good amount of stats. Use twitter, but don’t let twitter use you. Twitter is a tool, albeit a good one, but just a tool. Use it to brand yourself as long as it doesn’t take over your life. In fact, I would also say to not skip around the net and talk to 2 people at each spot, but actually find a few strong networks that are attractive due to the info you get out of them and also what you can contribute to others, and get to truly know the people there. Remember, its about relationships, about who you are, not just about your blog, so get to know people on a personal level and they will value what you have to say.

Let me back track to writing good content for a moment. If you write good content and label your post titles correctly and SEO your keywords well like we talked about 2 weeks ago, people will eventually link to your article. TA DA! Now you’re getting somewhere. When you write something interesting enough for people to send traffic to, you know you’re headed down the right path.

Other ideas for exposure:

Submit articles to Blog Carnivals, hang out on forums (not just ours, lots of other big ones and leave your opinions there-with your siggy including a link back to your blog of course). We suggest:

Submit your content to article sites, join NING networking sites, and just remember, keep your link where it can be seen. I am not saying spam any site, please don’t do that. In fact, that will make you really unpopular quickly. Contribute something of value and people will go to your site if you make it easy to find you. Keeping your blog in your siggy of all the sites you visit and are leaving comments at tends to be  good enough.

As people start pinging your site and linking to your links, your Internet worth will begin rising. While I am talking about links, make sure you link to other sites of value. Not only does it make your article more of a resource, it also allows link backs and pings for other bloggers. If you are pinging another blog that is talking about a similar subject and you put them in as an authority, you are assisting that blogger in their marketing and they will most likely come by and check out what you said about them. Hopefully you will have either gained a new follower or at least achieved a link back from them as a result.

In the mean time……go blog.

And link to me.

~Trisha

MomDot.com

*I will update this page with new articles as they become available. Article on Giveaways to be published soon*