What is your Blog Worth

  Every now and then I get curious when other bloggers talk about how much their blog is worth and how they figure that out. Now that my little blog is bringing in income, I thought I would check a popular site to find out how much my site is worth. Color me shocked when it said this:

 170,000.00

Of course I am talking not about this blog, but my baby blog that I oh so love. I really should dedicate more time to this one but really this one is a log about how the other is doing and I hope a path to helping other new bloggers become blogging goddesses someday!

So maybe check out this site and see how much your blog is worth! Feel free to share the amount and a link in the comments!

http://www.blogcalculator.com

Blogging Tip - Get in the Group

One of the key things to blogging is social networking these days and one of the best ways to network and grow I have discovered is to make sure you know the right people and are in the right blogging groups. The best blogging groups I have found so far are organized not on forums but rather facebook groups. This could change in the future but for now this is how it is. 

I am in three that I check on multiple times of day. They provide different things. One is very exclusive and I couldn't get you into it if I tried. They find companies that need reviews and then make sure those in our group get them and do them well. Another group is all about support in social marketing and SEO, and the other is a group run by a blogger who gets us paid posts for a commission of her own and goodness she does she deserve it. All three groups save me a lot of time and help my blog grow and make sure I have a lot to do.

Remember Blogging Is Not Just About Readers!

It is also about your relationship to other bloggers and companies that count on you! 

Has GoDaddy Been Hacked

FACT: GoDaddy has many websites including it's own down! 

According to many sites including littlecrunchy.com godaddy is Hacked.

It is not yet confirmed though and as of 4:00pm EST no motive has been posted. 

WHY WOULD SOMEONE DO THIS? 

Because they can Might be the real answer

Just because one can do something doesn't mean one should however! 

Another theory is that it was hacked because of #SOPA support, only anyone who knows both GoDaddy and SOPA issues knows that GoDaddy listened to the people and stopped supporting SOPA last year! So what is the real deal with this? 

One thing is for certain, bloggers and businesses who have sites down right now from this ARE suffering for it. They are losing business and maybe minutes off their lives from the worry of it. 

Blogging Tip: Be Specific

Image Credit www.sxc.hu

 

 Dear Blogger,

         When you post to complain about how companies do not want to work with you as they are looking for Niche blogs, take that as a hint! Do not go trying to talk them into seeing that you post about what they are looking for too! Over all blogs are not what the market wants! I know it might be hard to find your Niche but you need to do just that. If your blessed with more then one Niche, make TWO blogs!

         This is not a new tip, but an important one to remember. If you want to blog about books and mommy life, make two blogs, else make a blog about Mommy Books or Children's Books!

         You can do this! You really can. Write about what you love and if you love many things, make more blogs! It is what readers want, it is what google wants, and it what clients who hire or work with bloggers want. If you want to make money blogging you need to be specific!

                                                                                                           All the best,
                                                                                                        Not Yet A Blogging Goddess

A Blogging Goddess Award

I present this award to the Blogging Goddess behind the blog http://bargains4wahms.com

With a hurricane heading for her home she took the time to try and help me save my blog form a disaster. While she was not able to fix it, she spent a lot of time working on it and helping me work through some panic attacks over it. 

You can get an idea of where her heart is by following one of the links at the top of her blog dedicated to sharing with her readers assistance programs that might help those in need from house cleaning for caner patience to explaining public benefits for the disabled. 

Bargains4wahms is packed full of information from couponing 101 (I need to read more!) to the current best buys. I am really inspired by all her hard work and dedication to her blog. 

She currently has over 13,000 facebook fans and you could be the next one! http://www.facebook.com/Bargains4Wahms and over 4,000 followers on twitter. https://twitter.com/bargains4wahms

She has a big blog with a big heart. She didn't have to take all that time to try and help a smaller blog like my own and she asked for nothing in return. I am very lucky to know her and be blogging next to her! 

Back Up Your Blog - Not Kidding

  If your like me, you might have started out on Blogger and hosted with them too. In blogger there is an option under settings that says backup. It saves a file to your computer. I thought that meant my blog was on my computer. Oh how wrong I was. Let me start at the beginning!

   I was welcomed into a blogging program to work with a company. They give me a coupon code to order from them to review them on my blog and I put their blog button that they provide the HTML for on my blog.

   About Noon today I do this. Suddenly my beautiful blog is a mess. The side bar is at the bottom and no links work. So I take the button off. Only damage done and I can't get my blog to function, and I can't fix it. Nothing is working. For hours nothing is working. I get help from a few other bloggers and they can't figure it out either. What I thought was a back up was not and it did nothing to fix the issue.

 Now if I hosted with a hosting company and not blogger then could turn my blog back to how it was before noon, before I messed it up. As I am blogger hosted however, there is virtually not customer service. What can one expect from a free service thought right? I guess I expected more.

  My blog designer gets back to me and then she starts working on it. She fixes many of the things I and others played with trying to fix it in the first place but is stuck like us on the links and side bar. I think she got the links to work before she had to get to bed tonight. I would imagine her head is hurting too. LOL She is very relaxed and understanding about this. I promised to pay her for the fix.

   I have blogging partners now insisting though that I move to wordpress with a host and I can't blame them. With a blog that has near 800 posts and is bringing in money, I can't afford for it to be down and those I partner with need to be able to depend on me. I am behind on reviews and I have a paid sponsor post that needs to go up as well. Not to mention all the paid sponsor posts that are already on my blog that I am responsible for keeping up and active on it! I love all those I work with and I want to make them happy.

   I wish I would have switched to wordpress at the start of the year. Everyone said I should and I didn't see the point. I promise I understand now. So if your a little blogger like me trying to make it in a big blogging world, my opinion is to get on wordpress with a host. Yes, this little blog will be moving over there at some point as well! First thing first, get my first blog moved and safe and working, and looking good.

  I am not sure if I will ever be a blogging goddess or if I will ever be aspiring to be one. One thing is certain I am learning a lot and I will not give up as this is something I love!

Free Canvas

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE CANVAS!

I love deals like this, they are great for getting gifts for the holidays. The grand parents love photos of the little ones of photos of them with the kids doing fun things. What is better than free? I like that with a canvas you don't need a frame! That saves on money for such a gift too. 

With these deal you can get the free 8 x 10 or put $40 towards a larger canvas, the larger the better too. I love large photos over mantels or sofas or beds. 

And to think, there is a lesson to be learned here as well! 

More on this later! 

Alexa Matters To Bloggers

The Global Leader in Analytics

Alexa is the leading provider of free, global web metrics. 

   When seeking blogging jobs it is a common question to find; what is your Alexa score? Unlike other kinds of scoring though the lower number in this case, the better. Alexa ranks you among your pears online and your country along with many other possible things like key words. The big thing with them though is your first number, ranking your site over on the web. 

 Many companies want to work with blogs below 500,000 and many want to work with ones below 200,000! I have noticed many blogs are well over the 1,000,000 mark range though and once my main blog was as well. 

  How did I get the number to go down? 

 First, as always, post post post! posting more often brings traffic to your site and traffic helps drive your Alexa score in the right direction. 

 Second, get the Alexa tool bar, it helps track what sites you are on and gives those sites credit, including your own! 

 Third, get your site certified! Register your account on Alexa as you as the owner.

 A certified site has an Alexa script installed that allows Alexa to directly measure traffic metrics on the site.

 Forth, join an Alexa hop! Find a group on facebook or a blogging forum and join in a Alexa hop. In short a group of bloggers agree to hop around to each others blogs and read a bit., This also can help your Alexa score a lot. Try to do this weekly! 

 Fifth, be sure to have other pages link to yours. A good way to do this is with guest posts. Write articles for others about topics you know about and ask other bloggers if they would be willing to put your writing on their page. Often they will, sometimes they trade guest blogging spots. In your post be sure to include a link back to your own blog with a proper key word anchor text. 

   

   I hope you find this helpful and please feel free to share what you have learned here with others. 

Bloggers have to stick together! So far my main little blog has reached an Alexa of 235,000 but went back up to 249,000. This blog on the other hand...  13,681,778 and clearly needs some attention. Someday it will get it! For now though it is just a journal of how my other blog goes and hopefully it is a path other bloggers could someday fallow to become a blogging goddess! 

Make Money on your Blog

  How to make Money on your blog

This is a common question and one I get asked often know that I know how to do just that and I am getting fairly good at it. Still not a blogging Goddess though! Working on it. 

 I was asked this question by a good friend who blogs, she wanted to know if there was a website she could go to in order to get work. Thinking on it a few things came to mind. First being that my best jobs have found me, my second best jobs come from word of mouth from other bloggers, and that 3 there are a few sites but there can be issues with them. I gave her personal contact information after asking said contact if it would be ok. I can not post such information at this time on this blog as this would overwhelm those who do this job for companies. Stick around though, if I know you I might recommend you too! 

There is a site that came to mind 

https://www.blogsvertise.com

I used to get a bit of work from here, they pay out a month after you post and this is the longest pay out time I have seen, most are within days and my best is within hours if he is working when he gets my posts. 

This however was not the reason why I did not right off the bat give this site to my friend. I like my friend after all. This company over and over asked me to post things and not include the legal disclosure they know is needed. When I felt I needed to say something I stopped getting jobs from them. It was that clear cut, I mentioned it and suddenly they had nothing for me. 

   You could be fined if you do not disclose, you could be sued even. It is not something to mess around with and this company, or those they work for, asked me to break the laws. I wanted to work with them to promote for them legally but they had no interest in it. 

   So I share them with you to do with as you see fit. Maybe you can do some legal jobs with them or maybe your not in America so the same laws do not apply! 

    Good luck becoming a blogging Goddess and be sure to check back here for more tips and links to help your blog grow and put money in your pocket! 

Blogging Tip - Photos Photos Photos

They say a photo is worth a thousand words, and they are in the blogging world! 

I get a lot of my hits from google images. The best way to do this is to take your own photos, give them descriptive names such as funnysmilingdog.jpg and post them on your blog. 

You should try to get a photo in at least every other post in my opinion. Even if the photo is not your own! Of course DO NOT break any copy right rules but if you either have no camera or are bad with it or have no editing ability you can still add some great photos to you blog! 

You can pay for a site with stock photos or find a free site such as the one a got the doggy photo from to help add another level to this post about needing photos on your blog. 

http://www.morguefile.com

Just double check the permissions on each photo no matter where you get them. The one for this photo says: 

morgueFile free photo

You are allowed to copy, distribute, transmit the work and to adapt the work. Attribution is not required. You are prohibited from using this work in a stand alone manner.

Helpful right? So now you have no excuse to not add photos to your blog! They really do make a difference! 

Blogging Tip - Join a Challenge

If you find yourself out of ideas for content one of the best things you can do is to join a blogging challenge. There are so many different kinds of challenges to choose from. Do a quick search and I am sure you will pull a lot of them up. Some last a week, others a month, and still others last a year or longer. Here is a new one you can check out! It is hosted by a crunchy parenting blogger but the challenge is so open ended it would work for most any blog type. 

This one could last even more than a year of you only post once a day. I recommend at least once a day if you recall and more than once a day is even better. This blog is even offering a gift to the blog that finishes the challenge first! How great is that? 
So join a challenge and fill your blogging spiritual cup to the brim with wonderful new content!

Blogging Tip - Content Content Content

    My blog is now getting over 20,000 views a month and I have been at this as a "part time job" for near 8 months. Not bad! I am reviewing items a few times a week and getting paid sponsor work a few times a week as well. It is all coming along. 


  So what is my problem? I have been so focused on reviews and paid work that my blog is a mess with it all and content is not longer the theme. Certainly there is content but woven into so many of those posts are paid for links. I need more fresh content that is just content, only content. I have gotten so far from it though that I am bit lost. I am worried my blog will drop out from under me soon if I do not get back on track. 

  BLOG TIP: CONTENT!

    Don't end up stuck like me, focus on your content, your passion. Keep posting every day and make sure your posting from your heart and not just your wallet. In the long run it will make the biggest difference! 

  

How am I doing

TIP: While it might bother you not to use punctuation in your title it is important to leave it out so that google will not pass your post over! I know it bothers me too! 

See this rainbow that was in my yard the other day? It made me smile. It is the small things in like that add up and make one feel whole and happy. 

I am certainly happy with how my blog is coming along. Blogger shows over 17,000 page views now for it! I am up to 4k fans on facebook and about 2500 on Twitter. 

TIP: Work on your Twitter followers, Facebook only shows your post to a few people on your fan list! 

I wanted to share something with you all that has had me rather pissed off. Someone I know in short basically told me that blogging is useless and no one reads it. I had brought it up as I know the person has no job and needs work and I know they could make money blogging. It would have been fine to say that they are not interested, I mean I would make nothing from it if they did, I was trying to be helpful. Instead they insulted something I have come to love and that I know does in fact have value. I have reviewed hundreds of dollars worth of items and sites and I had just pocketed $300 for a few moments of work placing some sponsored links on my blog for a company and that blog is still only Google Rank 2. 

I wanted to bang my head on a wall talking to that person. 

That person is just flat out wrong says the products I get daily and the pay I get as well! 

The time of the bloggers is NOW. 

We rule the internet connecting brands to readers and readers to social media and social media back to brands. We are a strong part of the web connected to so many things for so many reasons. Your voice does matter and people are reading, or at least they will once you learn what your doing. For that matter more will read my blog once I fully figure out what I am doing. Thus this blog, so others can learn from my mistakes and hopefully from this blog learn faster than I have! 

Happy Blogging! 

Grow your Blog!

  If you want your blog to grow, your going to have to work at it. It is not as simple as writing and posting. This I have been learning the hard way. If you want to blog better this summer follow these tips!

1. Get your own domain name!   yaddayadda.blogspot.com does not look as good as yaddayadda.com not to readers and not to advertisers and companies that may want you to review for them!

2. Photos! Go back over your old blog posts and add some photos. Photos say a thousands words and they do help with google image search to bring up your blog as well!

3. Blog every day. Every. Single. Day! I can't say this part enough!

4. Join some giveaways, search for free blog opportunities to be included in giveaways simply for posting about it and promoting it on your social networks!

5. Make sure your blog has at least it's own page on Twitter and Facebook, these are a must!

Happy Blogging!

FTC Rules Effecting Bloggers!

 If your a blogging goddess than chances are you already know that the FTC is cracking down on companies who have bloggers that do not disclose products given for reviews, links for profit, and so forth. Even if your new to blogging you must already know that a few years ago it was good enough to have the disclosure in your About Me page, that is just not the case anymore.

  Laura Sack, a lawyer has helped to make it clear that bloggers must disclose for certain things. In short, if you are given a product to review, or paid for links, or paid for purchases through links, you must state as such on the blog post those links or opinions are on. Each and every single one. You can simply say that "Ritter gave me a shirt to review with SUCK IT on the front!"  Done!

   But what if your working with a company that tells you not to disclose? While the FTC is not going after bloggers at the moment if they are tipped off, they will investigate for now though it seems they are going after companies so you might well want to inform such companies of the risks they are taking and then stay clear of them. One company paid out over 250,000 in fines already.

  Plus, we all want to be honest with our readers right? So make sure you disclose! It isn't hard!

 Now lets say a big mouth names Gina goes running around the internet saying such and such a product will stop anyone from every lying. If it can not be substantiated she should not be spreading such lies! Even if she says later she was joking, she can still be fined for it as can the company. 


  We have to be careful about the company we keep! 

Klout Pains!

If you don't know what Klout is, you might not want to. 

In short, it ranks your social reach on a scale of 1 - 100. 

It says that most people get a score of 20 so I was thrilled with a score of 51! 

But then I wanted better numbers, started trying to use the site more, added a lot of sites and people that influence me. 

The next day my score was 28. 

2      8  

How the heck does being more active get me from 51, to 28?

I still can not figure this out. 

-grumbles- 

A blogging Goddess I am not. 

Not yet! 

So you want to be a blog reviewer?

By now lets hope your doing better on your blog than I am with this one!

My main blog did well last month thanks to a news story I posted about. 

TIP: Blog about news events as soon as the story breaks! Research is your friend!

You have an opinion, share it!

This month though I have not kept up with the news. I was busy with reviews. 

Honestly I am a bit behind. There is a site I wanted to share with new bloggers who want to review. 

If you want to know how to be a blog review, here is a site that lets you know of product you might be able to review.  Tomoson

I hope this helps get you started! 

If you need more help you can always e-mail me! 

Currently my blog is jumping again, though I honestly do not know why. The day counter just flipped for me and I was happy with the number in the 700s for today. Honestly being so new I am happy when the number is over 200 so 700 is wonderful! 

Make an Award!

One of the good ways to get the right kinds of readers to your blog is to make an award and give it out to those blogs who fit the theme and are beautifully done. Find those blogging goddesses and show them how you noticed how wonderful they are! I hope someday to do the same!

I noticed this award and thought it was interesting and fitting for the blog it is on! It is the versatile blogger award! Most blogging Goddesses have a corner of the internet that they call home. A rather exclusive one. The best blogs are often single topic based. Some though manage a wide range and I love those ones the most. They are however the hardest to pull off!

So if your just starting, find one of your passions and stick to it rather being too open ended. The more on topic you are, the higher the chances are that you will get ranked by the important sites. 

How often should I blog again?

I had mentioned a bit ago that my plan was to blog daily, and I have done fairly well with that. My newest monthly page views are up to 6,000 and I am very happy about it!

One of the things that has helped as been joining blog giveaway groups! You can search for them on places like facebook and if you can not find any, contact me and I get you some current links. 

In short, you spend a little money with other bloggers to help promote one another, to get new viewers, and in short, it is fun! Who doesn't like to win things? 

Above all though, post, post, post. 

If writing is not your passion, this might not be the right path for you!

(Ignore that I do not post here often enough yet! LOL) 

If you where not wise enough to schedule posts for when your on vacation, plan to be up late posting then too and hope your bed and breakfast Inn has better wireless internet than the one I was in did! 

Thank you Droid for sharing your internet with me!