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!