I wanted to share with you a great technique- the “Mom-preneurs shop-thon”. I found this while cruising blog to blog and I wanted to point this out to my readers for a few reasons.

1. Creativity- How fun and creative is that little graphic? But the overall method shows how many different and creative ways you can use a blog.

2. Low Advertising Fee- $5.00 is a very small investment into targeted traffic- you are being put front and center with the target market- women shoppers – as long as that is your target market.

3. Make Money -from the blog owners standpoint, she just made a nice little sum of money on that blog post.

4. Backlinks- while this blog doesn’t have high Google PR, it does have pretty good traffic AND you know that each one of those businesses is going to be advertising their involvement with the event. For the blog owner, that means more backlinks to her site from all the others.

5. Networking- prime opportunity to network and meet other small business owners and perhaps find partnerships.

What can you do with this type of blog post strategy on your site? I’m thinking of several ways I can use this on my own site, remember, be creative!

Do you have a creative blog posting strategy that helps you monetize your blog? We would love to hear about it, leave your URL below and let us all come for a visit!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Need Some Fast Cash?

Many small business owners focus on search engine optimization and paid advertising for their website traffic tactics. However, they forget that even Press Releases can bring a surge of new visitors, media opportunities and back links to their websites.

Today I created a Press Release following the Patrick Pretty PDF Press Release strategy. Check out the MBC Work At Home Tips Press Release and tell me what you think!

If you struggle with your Press Releases, I highly recommend the following resources:

Patrick Pretty
http://moms-business-coach.com/recommends/patrickpretty

Publicity Hound
http://moms-business-coach.com/recommends/publicityhound

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

How Many Website Traffic Tactics Are You Using?

A fast post today because I just finished up working on a couple client plans and I’m heading out soon to a Boston Tweet Up… I can’t wait to meet some of the folks in person that I have been tweeting with!

Today I found a recording file that I was going to make into a package of products. But, since I’m in a rush today and really don’t have time for a full blog post AND I think the content in it is well worth the 25 minutes I am going to post the link here for you instead. No sign up for this just click and listen! Sorry if I talk a little fast in some parts, I just get so excited talking about these things.

25 minutes MP3 of Moms Business Coach on Web Marketing Plans

I want to note that this is UNEDITED…I really just put my headset on and did a 25 minute mind ramble that was going to be spliced and diced into a nice finished product but I decided to give you an inside peak at the ramblings inside my head everyday and I promise you it will help put some pieces together when you are thinking about your marketing plan. Oh and of course it does have a shameless plug or two for the Moms Business Coach Online Training.

This is perfect timing because Moms Business Coach Online Training will be undergoing some changes in the next few days, including a price increase, the price will be increasing, new resources will be added and a few more surprises. If you want in now, do it NOW! All participants that are registered when the price increase goes into effect will be grandfathered at the low 10 bucks a month price, after that… well, like I said, just get on the list now.

In addition to the Online Training, I mention the product of my resources, links and how & where to use the info I’m talking about in the audio. If you are interested in this product and want to be put on the VIP, early notification list, because I am going to limit the numbers of copies I sell this resource at (I can’t give out my secrets to the masses….) then enter your name and email below. You won’t be bullied into buying it, really, you will just get the first chance at looking at the product before I open it up and promote the sales page.

I can’t wait to help you save hours and frustration by giving you everything you need in one easy place!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Do You Understand the Idea of a Web Marketing Plan?

Well, again I took the theory to heart and as a result I have had an amazing number of things happen that I will lead to the “Secret” being at work.

1. I had a number of large advertisers contacting me to advertise on my site that lead to almost four figures of automatic, passive income.

2. I was offered a teaching position at a very large adult education school to teach Internet Marketing

3. I have a great following of wonderful people that have joined the Moms Business Coach mailing list.

4. I created and have ready to sell my first set of Informational Products that I hope will lead to my passive monthly income.

5. I imagined and created the Moms Business Coach Online Training Program based on what is lacking in the market place

6. I got 3 new consulting jobs within my first month of offering these services

7. The actual “marketer” BEHIND the actual book & movie “The Secret” connected with me on Twitter…. how FREAKY is that!!!

Watch out Universe,,, I want it All!

While they may seem like small steps, I still believe in the power of “The Secret”

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

The Power of “The Secret” Update

Small Business Success Secrets

I read everything, I love reading, I love learning. I read ebooks, physical books, special reports, white papers.. you name it, I’ll read it. I like to read for my book club, but I have a true love of reading about business, online business marketing, social media and e-commerce. For this reason, I’ve becomme pretty good at quickly assessing if what I’m reading is junk or worth the highlighter.

My latest e-book read was sparked because of the wholesale/dropship aspect since this is a very popular area of my online baby business.

The author, Tim Knox, is an online entrepreneur and borrowing from his own profile..

“Tim Knox is a self-made entrepreneur who is well qualified to write a book like Small Business Success Secrets. Tim literally started with nothing and built a small business empire that grossed almost one million dollars in less than five years.

Tim is the founder, president and CEO of two successful technology companies and wholesale/dropship businesses.

Tim is an accomplished business writer and author. He writes the monthly “Inspirations & Ideas” and “Ebusiness Startup Expert” columns for Entrepreneur.com, the website of the national publication Entrepreneur Magazine.”

What Is Covered

This is just a small sampling of what is included in the book:

Part 1 Starting Your Business The Right Way

• How to tell if your amazing product is worth gambling on
• Choosing the right business for you
• Starting a business by the book
• Protecting your ideas with copyrights and patents

Part 2 Taking Your Business To The World Wide Web

• What does your website say about your business
• Maintain your website
• Understanding internet tax laws

Part 3 Making Money Online As An Entrepreneur

• Secrets of a successful ebay business
• Start up costs by using a dropshipper
• Easiest product to sell online
• Turnkey dropship websites

Part 4 Business Operation and Management

• Customer service
• Business lessons learned at the mall
• SWOT analysis
• How to handle the occasional oop-see
• How to handle cusotmer billing snafus
• Recommended money making opportunities

Like I said, this is only a sampling of the information. The overall format is written in a Q & A format where Tim took his top questions and articles that he wrote for his weekly newspaper column and compiled them all into one place.

An example from the book:

SWOT Analysis Is No Magic 8 Ball

QUESTION:
A key investor in my business has suggested that I hire a consultant to do a SWOT
Analysis to help plan for the future. I try not to argue with my investors, but I’m not so
sure I need to have this done. What do you think? -- Laurie B.

ANSWER:
Laurie, before you call in the SWOT team to deal with this investor (sorry, couldn’t resist that
one), let me tell you exactly what a SWOT Analysis is and how it can not only help you plan for
the future, but get a gauge of how your business is doing today.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT Analysis is
a written exercise that can help you clarify and focus on the specifics that make up the four areas
that most affect your business. The purpose of a SWOT Analysis is to help you build on your
business’ strengths, minimize and correct the weaknesses, and take the greatest possible
advantage of potential opportunities while formulating a plan to deal with potential threats."

My Thoughts

Of course, this continues on to a more detail but my point is they are real questions that real small business owners need solid answers to in a simple way.

The information in the book is a great addition to the library of any new or intermediate online business owner and will save you hours of searching forums and un-qualified Google results so you can spend time on ….your money making aspects of business.

Now, in addition to me reading the entire book, I did a little more research on the author because I’ll be honest, there are many e-books on the market today that are written by a ghost writer that is re-writing content off ezine articles, throwing an ebook cover on it and I was impressed with the quality of information in this product so I was being nosy…just being honest.

When I first opened the book and did an initial scan I saw the couple of affiliate promotions and was about to close and delete but the content really caught my attention and his straight forward answers in my favorite “bite size” pieces makes it worth the promotion.  Then I decided to visit one of the links included in the book for a membership (both free and paid versions) to The Insider Club and was actually surprised that I was impressed with this link to more quality information.  Yup, I joined the free version to check it out even more and wow, such another great resource I have added to my library of links.

Not only does it give me tons of free small business information but it also has a social networking component to it that allows me to build a free online profile to get links, post articles/videos, and backlinks to my site and the best part? Unlike the other social networking sites I use like Facebook or StumbleUpon, everyone in this site is also a business owner- I immediately have access to other like minded people in the forums or finding joint venture partners or just as a soundboard. Very cool!

So now, I have to admit that I am doubly excited to have purchased the re-sale rights to this product (and it wasn’t cheap) but now I can offer it to you for a very low (maybe too low) price of only $5.00.

Yes, only $5.00, and you can have access to this e-book to download immediately.

Don’t Miss This Opportunity To Get Over 70 Pages Of Straight Forward Information You Can Use Today

REALLY.. DO IT!  For the price of a coffee and donut you can’t go wrong!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Small Business Success Secrets Review

One of my favorite features of blogging is the ability for even the non-techie small business owner to get a professional and functional website without the hassel of learning html/css/php or waiting around for a web designer to bump your project to the top of the To Do list.  That’s why I love when I find super functional themes that anyone can use like the Thesis Theme.

I’ll thank my favorite social site Twitter with this find. Someone sent a tweet about about a new blog post and when I went to read the post, I knew this theme was a keeper from first glance.

I am in the process of installing the Thesis WordPress Blog Theme to the new blog of a client. I’ll keep you posted how I like it.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Thesis Theme Review

Online Marketing for your home based business can be a time consuming process and trying to complete with millions of other online businesses can become disheartening.

However, there are ways to simplify your online marketing or “get more bang for your buck” with your efforts.

I have had a MyBlogLog account since March ’08 and have seen a fair amount of website traffic stats from people finding my site from the network. So, I decided to put a little more effort into learning how to use this free resource and here is what I found. Please note this is an introduction to MyBlogLog. Like all tools and resources you can get into heavy details but this is high level, beginner application stuff.

What is MyBlogLog?

Easy way to define MyBlogLog is by the Wiki:

MyBlogLog is a social network for the blogger community that is based in part on interactions facilitated by a popular web widget that many members install on their blog.[1] Bloggers sign up for free accounts on MyBlogLog and can initiate a blog community for one or more blogs they author. Other registered members can subscribe to these communities, effectively bookmarking them for future reading and sharing them with their own contacts. Bloggers can then display widgets on their sites which show MyBlogLog online community members who have recently visited their page. These widgets also contain links to visiting members’ community pages, and are one way in which users connect with one another. All members can see certain basic information about how many people visit their blog, what links they clicked and where they come from. Members may also view more extensive information about traffic on their site for a small monthly fee.

One more side note: Yahoo has acquired MyBlogLog and I think that offers good insight not only into the uses of the site but as an indicator of how Yahoo views social networking potential.

How do you use MyBlogLog?

When I originally joined MyBlogLog I thought it was only a way to see who visited your site in a nifty little widget in my sidebar.  However, I have recently learned about the various other “powers” of this tool when used the right way.

Visit MyBlogLog and when you select the “Join/SignUp” button you will be given the below screen.

That’s right! You are seeing it right, you can simply sign in with your Yahoo ID since they are owned by them it does make sense.

The benefit of using your Yahoo ID is you will find when you hop from one blog to another it automatically recognizes you, as long as you are signed in to your account.  I’m sure you have seen a blog that has the MyBlogLog widget on the sidebar that shows the latest visitors and once you have your own MyBlogLog account, Voila! You will show up there too!  It’s an easy and fun way to see who is actually visiting your website.

Adding MyBlogLog Recent Visitor Widget to Your Blog

If you have a blog, and a MyBlogLog account you can create the above widget and customize the colors and options to fit your own theme, well, as long as it fits one of their seven color options.

For the Self Hosted WordPress Blog, this is sooo easy by simply adding the WordPress MyBlogLog Recent Visitor Plug-in.

If you don’t have a Self Hosted WordPress Blog you can follow the instructions that will fit your blog set up by following the instructions on MyBlogLog.

As you may have noticed by now, I am a big fan of conversational marketing. So, how can you use this as an effective, community building tool?

Now that you can see WHO is visiting your blog and it’s not just an IP address in your web stat counter you have a couple options to take it a step further.

If the person leaves a comment, return the favor and visit their site if they leave a site url in the comments as most do.

Or as Pixelhead suggests: “If the person does not leave a comment, but shows up on your widget, click on their avatar and either: leave them a message on Mybloglog or visit their site and leave a comment. Mybloglog requires you to add them as a contact before you can leave them a message on their profile page. In the message thank them for visiting your site and I would suggest making a comment about their site after you have visited it of course.”

Your MyBlogLog Profile

When you login to your MyBlogLog profile you will need to add your blog under “My Sites and Services”

VERY IMPORTANT:  You also have the option to add your RSS Feed- take the opportunity and add your Feed both your original feed and your feedburner feed!

Once you have your blog settings created and the system works on your screen capture move along and click on the “ADD SERVICE” option.  This is where you can add all your other social networking and make your own mini-powerhouse!

Add as many of your accounts as you can, and if you don’t have an account with one of the options, make one.

Connect with Cyber Friends

If you are interested in using social networking to create a group of followers and grow your network you can use this site to help you connect the pieces. You can find your fellow cyber friends with these easy steps:

1. As I stated above add your profiles. They make it easy for you by even making the list and providing the initial part of the url for you, all you need to do is enter your personal username for that account. So go pull up that spreadsheet I told you to make earlier and just copy and paste. It took me about 10 minutes to populate all the fields.

If you took my other piece of advice on trying to keep your usernames the same or similiar then MyBlogLog even has a button that you can click that will search all the sites for you using your common username and populate the fields for you.

Privacy Note: At the bottom of the screen you will see that they state “Account information you share on this page will be used to retrieve your publicly-available updates from those sites for re-distribution across MyBlogLog.com and Yahoo!. Public updates are also available to third parties via an RSS feed of your profile as well as the MyBlogLog AP”

2. At the bottom of your profile page you will see the link for the “friender”

You will have a few options under different tabs. The image above shows the “connector” tab. This tab shows all the services that I added to my profile and what other friends interact on what service with simple Green X’s. This means that they also have an account with that service.

If you want to connect with that person on that service simply click the Green X.  You will then get a blue check mark in that square to show that you have connected there as well.

For anyone that has created multiple social networking profiles you will see how powerful this is. Instead of wandering aimlessly and searching and adding one here one there, boom, you can create a very solid network very quickly.

Now, in addition to the “connector” tab you have the “friender” tab. Click on the “Find my Friends” tab and you will see all the cyber friends that you can simply click a button and add to your network.

The downfall of this tool, as all tools and resources have potential downfalls, is the ability to have those people that don’t really care about you or your blog or your business and just want to make as many contacts as possible and get a really big number in their profile or worse use it for spam or porn. I can’t make them stop but I think the advantage of easily connecting with like minded people outweighs this potential issue.

One more important feature: I BELIEVE, I saw a post somewhere, and now I can’t find it (don’t you hate when that happens?) that when anyone you connected with updates any of their services you are notified automatically.  I’m going to experiment with this one a little bit because obviousely, if that is true, then that has a great potential- like if you have 300 connections and you make a blog post and it updates your Facebook and MySpace page and notifies all 300 of your connections that you made a new blog post.. all automatically… are you catching my drift on the potential here?? So if you know about this feature or see another post about it, please leave a comment.

Blog Traffic

Depending on your blog you may have little traffic or a few thousand visitors a month, that’s the honest truth about blog traffic. While you can do your best to stimulate and promote your blog, you never know if readers will catch on or not. However, using MBL can help by performing a couple easy and fast steps.

Utilize the Search Box

• Enter your keyword or blog topic and see what other blogs are closely related to yours.
• Click on the profile avatars of members that show up and add them as contacts after you visit their sites and determine they are a good match to network.
• Click on the communities that show up for the search term, and join the communities.
• Visit the sites and join in the conversation on these blogs by making meaningful comments. This will result in visits to your blog from both the site owner and visitors to the site that may like your comments.

RSS Feeds

Take the work out of tracking your MyBlogLog account by subscribing to your own RSS feed in your reader or adding the RSS feed of those in your community you like. RSS has so many great opportunities that many people haven’t even started to use. But, for more traffic and backlink potential you can add your MBL RSS feed to RSS directories. And by the way, you can add the RSS feeds to your community members as well because they are all in one place in your profile.

Tools

If you are a serious blogger with multiple blogs then finding your real community and connecting with your readers has big potential.  Here is a great option for you, and I’ll be honest I just found this but can’t believe the potential it offers. MyBlogLog Tools by SoloSEO. This company has created tools that specialize in MBL that allow you to:

• Compare your visitors
• Compare your communities
• Compare your communities between contacts

I mean really, talk about getting to know who your contacts are!  Why keep spending hours and months on what I call “hopeful marketing” when you can have the people that actually have the same interest and you already know like you delivered to your inbox?

Analyzing

Back in your profile, under your sites you will see the option for “statistics”.

They will provide you with a piece of code for you to copy and paste into your blog template.  Once you have it in place and it can start tracking your site details.

In the future that link will bring you to a page showing you some great details and insights into who is visiting.

The FREE option will only give you the top 10 results but you will see each tab with it’s own tab and they provide you with the link details of where your readers came from, what they viewed and where they clicked. They also provide a summary of how many readers and pageviews you had.

Upgrade to MyBlogLog Pro for $3.00 a month via PayPal and you will have access to real time stats and longer lists. I find the stats in the free version fine for my needs.

Summary

Like I stated in the beginning, this is a general overview of MyBlogLog to further your home based business reach and kick around the idea of conversational marketing, but I hope it now helps you see the potential for using this site is much greater then you expected.

Using this as a way to build your community and further your online home based business reach can be cheaper and faster then more conventional methods of marketing.

If I missed an important beginner point, please feel free to leave a comment.

Additional MyBlogLog Resources:

MyBlogLog Blog

TopRankBlog Interview with MyBlogLog CEO

MyBlogLog on Social Media Marketing Explained

home based business

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Your Personal Guide to MyBlogLog

If you are a Facebook account holder, you can start your own group as well.

While in your profile simply select “Groups”              

You will then be brought to a page where you can see all the groups you are part of, can Search for groups or can Start a Group

You enter in your information including

• Name of Group
• Description
• If you want it open to everyone on Facebook or only to your network
• Contact information

Click the “Create a Group” button and Voila! You now have your own cool group. Make sure you add yourself as the Officer so everyone knows your in charge.

Now, please come join Moms Business Coach on Facebook and let the good times roll.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Moms Business Coach Facebook Group

Understanding the type of visitors to your site is a very important task because you can use that information to provide them with targeted content that fills their need and will keep them returning. Tools, like Google Analytic s make it easy to see who is stopping by and what exactly they were searching for.

The more detailed your customer profile is the better you can give them appropriate information as well as know what other services you can promote to them. By having a clear direction of what you want action you want them to take will help you get your desired end result.

Take your audience’s emotional state into consideration when building your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a solution and comes across your site, you will want to make sure you offer the solution right up front and sell or promote your product to him second. In this way, the visitor will put his trust in you for offering the solution to his problems and is more likely to buy your product when you offer it to him after that.

When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for information served without any icing on the cake? For example, introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward black text against white background page will definitely turn prospects away. Make sure your design suits your site’s general theme.

Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where you see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on common ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship between you and your audience, which will come in useful should you want to market a product to your audience.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Who is your Audience and What do you Want from Them?