Day one of the second week!  Woot!  Day eight is all about social media sharing and an easy way to find adorable social media buttons around the internet that you can use without paying for. There are several different places you can find free ones online.

There are also super cheap ones if you don’t mind spending a couple dollars on your website. Which I recommend, of course.

When my fabulous web lady was working on my new design for my website, I paid her to create custom buttons with my own ideas of what I wanted. For a whole $20 I got these adorable buttons which were exactly what I wanted for my site. Honestly, they couldn’t have been anymore perfect for the design. Everything I was imagining in my head. (more…)

Finishing up week one, we are talking about guest bloggers!

Personally I love guest bloggers for a whole plethora of reasons, one of which is it gives me a break!

If you are a blogger and say you never get burnt out, you are totally lying. We all get burnt out. We all have DUH days when we have nothing to say… and if you don’t have a bunch of posts just hanging around waiting to be published… your site will suffer.

This is where the opportunity of guest blogging  comes into play. (more…)

Day six! Wow!  Almost done with our first week!

Today we are talking about the gift of a comment. Comments really are what make blogs awesome. The possibility of a great conversation on a variety of topics really makes a blog thrive.

Not only that, but it also opens up further interaction with your readers. (more…)

Being a part of a community is the key to blogging. Seriously.

If you a niche blogger, communities are easy to come along. You can typically find bloggers who have a Facebook group, or some type of networking e-mail group to help promote each other and of course, driving blog traffic.

But if you are not part of a smaller group like this there are a ton of different communities you can join! (more…)

Day four is upon us!  This whole thing is going so fast huh? I didn’t think it would flow as easily as it has been!

Today we are talking about getting to know you. Which is important for a blogger. Your readers want to know who you are, and who they are investing their time in reading.

But there is also a level of privacy we need to maintain when it comes to our persona lives. Certain subjects should always stay off of your blog. But these choices are all up to you, and what you decide to share with your readers. (more…)

What the hell is SEO?

You know you have heard the term a ton of times when people start rambling on about blogging. But what does it mean and how the hell do you SEO your blog?

Well, lets start out with the easiest part of it all.

SEO = Search Engine Optimization. Basically meaning how likely someone will be to find your blog, or a blog post your wrote about a certain topic when they search keywords in a search engine like Google. (more…)

Welcome to day two!  Today we are going to talk about analyzing your blog traffic, what it means, and of course the best ways to actually track your blog traffic accurately!

I know there are a lot of websites on the internet to actually track your traffic, but after using various ones myself, I have found there are some who are simply unreliable.

First I want to talk about my two favorite ways to track blog traffic, which just so happen to be the two I have found to be the most accurate. (more…)

Day one is upon us! So we are all here with one goal in mind… improving our blogs. I have put a lot of time and effort into this series because this is not only something I am very passionate about, but it is something I truly want to be helpful to people out there who are looking to improve their blog.

With that being said, day one is called: (more…)

I am always being asked blogging advice. How to start a blog, how I maintain my site with three children, how I have build my community and following… Anything and everything under the sun.

Well, through all of the questions and posts I have written, I started thinking about putting together a longer, more advanced almost boot camp style program.

Which is what I am going to be hosting right here on my website for 14 days in the month of March. It will be 14 days of tips, tricks, advice, tutorials, how-to’s, etc. (more…)

Blogging isn’t as much of a science as many like to think. I like to say it is one part talent, two parts luck and the rest is just the technical aspect of it.

I decided I would put together my favorite tips of the trade, and include some of the best tutorials on the net for rockin’ your blog.

These are tips that can help bloggers of any background. Those of you who may just be beginners, or professionals who actually consider their blog a full time career.

(more…)

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade right?

In the past couple years we have gotten some lemons, we made our lemonade and when the lemons started being hurled at us again we caught them to save for a rainy day.  Once again I am happily sipping my lemonade.

Always work in a job you love. That is one of my mottos, because work should be fun, something you love… not something you will wake to dread every day of your life. If you do dread work, down the road it can lead to being really unhealthy.

In the past six months I started applying for jobs, outside of the home because I thought if I couldn’t do what I love at home then I would go back out into the real world and do it there. Unfortunately and fortunately for me a five year gap in my resume besides my writing hurt my chances. (more…)

A couple months ago when the owner and founder of Red Jeweled Media, Jenny Finke, started working on a survey for bloggers… she asked me to take a look and help her. I was really honored because I absolutely love Jenny as well as all the ladies at RJM and this gave me an opportunity to work on a project I knew would be something I feel passionately about.

Earlier this week, the results of the survey which was taken by 108 different bloggers who reside in the United States. All of the bloggers that qualified for this survey consider themselves are “parenting bloggers” or blog about parenting related topics. Moms, or Dads. (more…)

When it comes to blogging, I always say… the more organization, the better. Although I don’t always live up to it. I blog when I want, or when I have time. Sometimes I just blog when something really pisses me off. Which seems to be few and far between these days. (I guess I am getting more laid back in my old age!)

Recently I decided I really needed to crack down on myself and work on creating a blog calendar, or an editorial calendar as most call it.

This weekend I finally decided to complete the project and I wanted to share my simple DIY tutorial with you, and what products I used. (more…)

Last week Instagram rolled out their newest feature… Profiles.

I have to say, I am kind of in love with them for so many reasons. The first being the fact that… I have been waiting for something like this for a super long time. I have been on Instagram for roughly a year and a half. Ever since I decided to get up with the times and ditch my blackberry for my first iPhone right after Addie was born.

The Instagram profile, which in my opinion kind of looks like a Facebook timeline (which I still hate, for the record!) gives access to your profile photos to even those who are not Instagram users. Not all that surprising since Facebook does own Instagram. They purchased the company last fall for an obscene amount of money. (more…)