“Just do your own thing.” That’s what the experts say when it comes to blogging. That means carving out your own space within your niche. What is DOESN’T mean is to be totally oblivious as to what others in your niche are doing. Blinders do no one any good (except for maybe horses). Instead of pretending…
I’m headed out this week for a blog conference! This is my fourth year now headed to Type A Parent, where I’ll be doing Blog Design One-on-One Sessions with some fellow bloggers. Besides making hotel and travel arrangements, there are a few things I always like to do to make my trip productive. The fun part…
Last week, I read a fabulous article on Social Media Explorer from the super-smart Stephanie Schwab. She attended Blissdom and in her post The Decline of Blogs (and How PR Can Help Avoid It, this part really got me thinking: Every time I go to a blogger conference I meet new bloggers, and of course I…
Has the Rainbow Loom craze hit your house yet? Because it has mine! For weeks, my oldest has talked about fishtails and zippy chains, singles and starbursts. This past weekend, he finally earned enough money for a loom of his own and has been making rubber band bracelets pretty much all day. As a marketer,…
If there’s one thing we’re all strapped for it’s time. Time to do this. Time to do that. And on top of an already busy life, we’re bloggers trying to find time to write, to get noticed, to make money. Whatever your reasons for blogging, I’m pretty sure you have uttered “I need more time”…
This week is a guest blogging week! I’d like to welcome Jen from Flying Penguin PR. Practicing a little SEO, search engine optimization, is one powerful way to help your blog stand out among the thousands online today. While the topic is deep and multi-faceted, not to mention constantly changing, there are a few SEO…
Today I welcome Sharon from Mom of 6. She’s one fabulous blogger and I was even lucky enough to part of her dance team at a Type A Parent conference Ubisoft party back in June. Nothing like bonding while dancing to 80s tunes. Today, Sharon explain a really cool plugin for the tech-savvy blogger who wants…
This post has been resurrected, tweaked, prettied up, then republished. Just like new! Does the word “analytics” make your eyes glaze over? Sorry about that… because I’m gonna say that word a lot in this post. But if you’re serious about improving your blog, analytics matter. Truthfully, all sorts of analytics matter. Depending on your…
The new year is creeping up on you, friend (aaaaack)! Some people roll their eyes at the new goals, word of the year proclamations, and resolutions that come with the turn of the calendar. But there’s something cleansing about the start of a new year, am I right? You might be going 100% with holiday…
This post contains affiliate links, which pays to keep me caffeinated. When you first got into blogging, you were most likely told “Yeah, you should blog because it’s free to set up! Social media is free! It’s all FREEEEE!” So you get set-up on Blogger, sign up for a few social media accounts, and BOOM…
Today’s question comes from Alissa over at Have Stroller Will Travel: How do some folks get their feedburner to email subscribers after each new post and for others it is in a digest all at the end of the day? I’ll admit- Alissa’s question had me stumped at first! So I moseyed over to my Feedburner…
It’s called a Gravatar, a Globally Recognized Avatar. If you have one set up, your custom avatar will show up when you comment on blogs around the Internet. If you don’t? The thumbnail beside your comment will look like one of these: If you’re trying to increase readership and build your brand, it’s important that…
If you’re working with brands (or hoping to), at some point you’ll write a sponsored post. But how do you make a blog post about a brand not one big buzzword-filled snoozefest? Keep it true to your style and voice for starters. You’ll not only make the brand happy; your readers won’t hit the back…
UPDATE: If you are stumbling across this post in some way, note that Google Friend Connect will be disabled on non-Blogger blogs in March 2012. If you need some ideas on how to move people over to other subscription methods, check out this post on How to Move Your Readers Away from GFC. What’s Google Friend…
We’ve all seen them. The people who try to promote their product, their blog, their side hustle… and they do it in a way where you end up muttering “STFU already” under your breath. Every conversation turns into a pitch, every comment in a Facebook group mentions their services, every social media profile is one promotion…
More and more bloggers consider themselves entrepreneurs. And business ownership comes with all sorts of intimating things like accounting and legal stuff. Lucky for you, I know Danielle Liss and Jamie Lieberman — two lawyers who knows the blogging world front, back, and sideways. They recently started an awesome site called Businessese (I’ll let them tell you about it in…
Psst… I’m over at SITS Girls today for another blog critique so stop by! Welcome to the Momcomm Mashup! Once or twice a month, I post a question on my Facebook page then take as many responses as possible and roll them into a post like this one! Featured peeps get a backlink, while you get tons of awesome…
Welcome to another page critique! About pages, PR pages, product pages and so on are critical in helping you meet your bloggy goals. Each week I dissect a page on someone’s blog as a way to refine it into being more awesome. Read, learn and apply these tips to the important pages on your own blog….