I have been quiet. Like, super quiet.

Between being busy behind the scenes at The Broad Side, and taking back up writing as much as I can over at Babble, my blogging time has been cut in like a quarter. Why you ask?

Because I have been writing, and writing, and writing to finish up Take Me Out and get it off to the editor which I accomplished yesterday on my May 10th deadline. Nothing like being all last minute and shit, right?

I never thought I would actually finish writing it. Good news is… I did and it is on its way to actually making the June 18th release date too. Shocking! (more…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

As everyone knows, I took over the Managing Editor position on The Broad Side during the first full week of February. I have been having an absolute ball working on the site more than just contributing a couple articles here and there. The caliber of women who have been contributing content has been off the charts, and the re-launch of the site has been better than any of us could have imagined.

Heck, even my post about Feminism from here (which I cross posted for The Broad Side on Thursday) got picked up by The Talk on CBS this week. No joke. SQUEEE!

But along with all the duties I have there, I have been contributing a ton of posts as well. We are working hard on building a budget to be able to pay our writers like they deserve as well. But I don’t mind busting my ass a little more to contribute, especially since I truly love the political nature of the site, and getting to write about my love for all things extremely liberal. HA! (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…)

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…)

2013 is right around the corner, and at the end of the year, I like to take a moment to look back over all of what I wrote for the year. Good posts, and bad. Things I have changed my mind about… and of course the posts that really fired people up.

It took me almost an entire day to go along through all these posts, whether they were right here on my site, or my favorites I authored this year on Babble.com.

I hope you enjoy them all just as much as I did! (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…)

Instagram.

At one point in time, people actually looked at this fancy and super popular photograph app as a way to share pictures or expand their photography skills while using a cell phone as a camera.

But now that it has become another social media hub, Instagram is becoming a popular and important social media tool. Especially to bloggers.

You build followers, share pictures of your absolutely adorable children, promote photographs with hash tags, and of course conversation through the comment feature. (more…)

Mother’s Day is coming!

We typically don’t make a big deal of it in our house because there are so many birthdays in the weeks leading up to it, and following it in our family. May is a busy month.

But I wanted to put together a fun list of gift ideas for those Mom Bloggers in your life. Of course not all bloggers are going to want these, but I certainly had some fun putting it together. (more…)