Jennifer James
www.mommytoomag.com
If you are mom blogger than you probably know Jennifer from the largest directory for mom bloggers, mombloggersclub.com. In fact signing up for her website opened up a lot of doors for me. I found most of my blogging friends through mombloggersclub.com. She is an amazing multi-tasker. Not only does she operate mombloggersclub.com, but she also created TheMomSalon.com, MommyToo.com and NAAHA.com.  She has been featured and quoted in a variety of magazines and newspapers. Looking at what she has achieved motivates me to stay the course and continue with my goals.

Maria T Bailey
www.mariabailey.com
You may know Maria from her most recent ventures Newbaby.com and MomTV.com, however she is also the host of Mom Talk Radio, founder of BlueSuitMom.com, CEO of BSM Media, and a National TV Talk Show Host on Lifetime. Maria has over a decade of experience studying the behaviors of moms and being a mom of four further validates her expertise. She has written several books on marketing to moms, her most recent book Mom 3.0 is a valuable resource for anyone interested in marketing to moms.

Beth Feldman
www.rolemommy.com
Beth is the president of Roll Mommy and overseas all of the online content from reviews to interviews. Her mission for Role Mommy is inspiring – helping your children realize their hopes and dreams doesn’t mean you have to give up your own. As a mother of two children I was quickly wrapped up into the role of “mommy” and lost myself in the process. However as I started blog and meet other influential moms the “me” started to uncoil and I began to set goals and plans for myself.

Allison Worthington
www.mrsfussypants.com
Another great influential mom blogger who makes multi-tasking look easy. She maintains her own blog mrsfussypants.com and is also the founder of Blissfully Domestic, co-host of the Blissdom Conference and founder of Worthington Wire. Did I mention she is also a mom to 5 boys? Need I say more?

Tiffany Washko
www.tiffanywashko.com
Tiffany is an avid environmentalist, a freelance writer, newspaper journalist, internet marketer and mother. Her primary focus is on natural lifestyle and green living. She also owns Bento Lunch Box a site I love to look at while imagining to prepare my own lunch before grabbing something at the closest food chain. Like me, she is always thinking of new ways to bring multiple streams of income into the family. It’s great to see someone else achieving the goals I’m striving for.

Jen Singer
www.mommasaid.net
Her website MommaSaid.net launched in 2003 and is now a virtual community bringing in thousands of faithful visitors around the world. Her goal was to create a community for moms on the brink of desperation can go to laugh and linger.  She has been quoted in a variety of newspapers and magazines and has appeared on several television shows. In 2005, MamaSaid.net received the Forbes Best of the Web designation for Parenting Blogs.  If you are looking for parenting advice MommaSaid.net is a great resource. Look for MomaSaid parenting books this fall.

Cindy Rushton
www.cindyrushton.com
An influential Christian blogger who provides information on marriage, mothering, or homeschooling. Her goal is to encourage and inspire moms to follow their calling in life.

Jessica Smith
www.jessicaknows.com
Who hasn’t heard of JessicaKnows.com? While she doesn’t promote herself as a mom blogger she influences and inspires me every day. I hope to build a recognizable brand for myself like she has done with JessicaKnows.com. Last year I participated in her Rock Your Blog coaching and learned so much during those sessions and still talk to many of the participants today.

Tara Crooks
www.taracrooks.com
Most known for her blog Army Wife Network and Army Wife Talk Radio show has motivated and influenced others to follow their dreams and reach their goals. You will often find her speaking and writing about military life.

Kelly Mccausey
www.kellymccausey.com
It only seems fitting to include Kelly in my list of influential mom bloggers, after all I wouldn’t be writing this post if it wasn’t for her. In the five weeks I’ve been interning at Sparkplugging.com I’ve learned to explore controversial topics, balance my time, and investigate other business opportunities.

While it is impossible for me to include EVERY blog that has influenced me. I would love to know what mom blogger influenced you today.

My name is Stephanie Elie and I am a transitional entrepreneur and mother of two children under the age of four. I am the editor of BizzieMommy.com and was recently listed in the Power Moms 50 list by Neilson Online.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter: @BizzieMommy

When Kelly asked us to create a list of our favorite posts from Sparkplugging, I realized I’d have to do some digging.  I’ve been a reader since December 2007 and I’ve gained a lot of helpful inspiration from Sparkplugging.  Here’s my pick of three favorite Sparkplugging posts.

The Rebranding of eMoms post.  Wendy did a fantastic job doing the research on her rebrand.  I know that she went through a lot of struggles while deciding what new direction to take her network.  I like this post because she links to the other areas where she outsourced to Twitter and her existing readers to get ideas on where her customers would like her to go – if more businesses would do this, fewer would fail when they try to change directions.

I miss Derek Semmler.  His post on helping guys buy gifts for wives was not only funny, but spot on.  Many writers try to overcomplicate or over research a how to article, but Derek wisely kept it simple just by reminding us of two things: Ask, and Listen.

One of the best ways to generate a lot of traffic to your website and increase your SERP rankings is to engage in linkbait.  Wendy’s post calling for a crowdsourcing project is a fantastic example of this.  It resulted in 52 comments and dozens of links back to Sparkplugging, as well as mentions on several dozen more blogs around the Internet.  Great job Wendy!

Follow Cory on Twitter: @aGoodHusband

I feel obligated to say that I was never the “popular” girl in school, my blog does not bring in thousands of visitors a day and my Twitter and Facebook numbers are not the highest around. However a couple of weeks ago my blog showed up on Nielson’s Power 50 Mom Influencer List and I was floored and excited until I started to hear the negative comments about the list.

Some people were saying they just picked the most popular moms, the moms with the highest twitter followers or the moms that post every day on their blogs.

I was shocked to read a post by one blogger, “It makes me crazy when I see mediocre writers who get more time in the spotlight then they deserve because they know a lot of SEO tricks or market themselves incessantly while fabulous writers are dismissed as lacking influence.”

She even went so far to say that race was a factor in the decision making.

So does popularity automatically make you a power influencer?

In the end I don’t think so. I would imagine that being a popular blogger is great, you get PR reps calling on you all day to promote their product, you get to attend amazing events and you get a ton of traffic coming to your blog which increases your monetization potential. You are basically treated like an “online” celebrity.

Jessica from JessicaKnows.com has been on the receiving end of a lot of negative buzz lately but she is one blogger that I find inspiring and a power influencer. She said, “In my opinion, popularity does not equal influence. You might get everyone reading your blog because you’re funny, but it doesn’t mean they’ll take what you say seriously when recommending anything.” While she might also be labeled as a “popular blogger” she helps out other bloggers when she can.

A popular blog is fun and entertaining to read and on occasion you may even pick up a few tricks of the blogging trade from them. But a blog of influence is a blog that inspires you to do something or take some kind of action. An influential blog is where we turn to when we need blogging advice or help with our business ideas. Or when we are looking for parenting and relationship advice.

When I first began blogging I immediately was sucked into the popularity and traffic game. I was disappointed when my traffic numbers were lower than then shopping and giveaway blogs. I asked myself, where are all the visitors everyone brags about on twitter? I mean how would I be able to influence anyone with such low traffic numbers?

Then I started to receive emails from people that were reading my blog telling me they were actually inspired by all that I’m doing. A blogging friend, Rosina from BabyFriendlyLA.com said she would complain to her husband when she felt overwhelmed but was motivated by all the things that I am trying to do. I have to say I was humbled and grateful for her comments. Because there are days that I’m ready to just throw in the towel. I really just didn’t think I was popular enough to make a difference, to be a real influence.

A new friend of mine Felicia from icompletemeblog.com said, “As a new blogger I initially thought popularity and influence meant the same thing. I mean you have influenced people to believe you are popular, right? And you want to be popular because you want all that traffic coming to your site. But as I grow my online business and look for tools that can really help me, I realized I don’t want just any traffic. I need targeted traffic that will purchase my product. This is where the influence comes in. I feel that in order to be a person of influence you must be able to make people take action (whether good or bad depends on how you want to be remembered). As I grow my business there are some things I just will not purchase regardless of how popular you may be.”

So which type of blog will win over the PR reps? I think when it comes to endorsements and promotion the “popular” blog will always win. After all isn’t that how all of society works, why would it be different online?

However, when looking for support, answers and advice it will be the power influencers that people will turn to. What kind of blogger do you want to be?

At the end of the day it does not matter how popular you are nor does it matter how far your reach is, what matters most is if you influenced someone in a positive way. If your blog post motivated someone else to make a change or take a stand then you truly are a Power Mom Influencer.

Stephanie Elie (@BizzieMommy) is a transitional entrepreneur and mother of two children under the age of four. The editor of BizzieMommy.com and was recently listed in the Power Moms 50 list by Neilson Online.

Before you run a blog contest, stop and ask yourself why you’re doing it.

There are so many blog contests going on every day.  Just look at giveaway submission sites like my own blog network’s Mom Giveaways and you’ll see hundreds of miscellaneous contests to enter every week.

Its a whole sub-culture. Giveaway devotees spend hours every day running from blog to blog, dropping their name and email in the comment section of every contest they can find.

Blog contests are great for driving traffic to your blog – at least that’s what we used to say.  Is that really still the case in the middle of 2009 when your giveaway competes with hundreds of others every day?

Don’t run a blog contest just because you see ‘everyone else’ doing it.

You have to realize they may have different motives than you do in the first place.

Established blog publishers who earn income from ad networks have found that running contests on a regular basis is a good strategy for generating additional ad views.  They have positioned themselves well enough to attract giveaway items at no cost, so there’s little risk for them – and in some situations the publisher is even receiving payment to run the giveaway.

If you see all of these great contests driving big traffic you might think, ‘Hey, I can do that’.  But you don’t have PR peeps knocking on your door with free goodies so you head out to the store and spend your hard earned cash on a great prize.  Then you spend time photographing and setting up the contest.  You spend a few hours submitting your giveaway to all the sites and then sit back waiting for the magic to start.

But it doesn’t.  So you head out to the social networks to promote your contest.  As the deadline draws near you’re reduced to literally begging for entries.

If you have to expend major time and energy promoting the contest that is supposed to provide you with great ‘free’ exposure – is there a small chance that you may be working at cross purposes?

If you really believe a contest is a good idea, here are a few tips for lining your contest up with your primary goals.

The contest prize should be relevant to your content and of interest to your readers.

I was actually approached recently by a company that wanted me to offer a giveaway for pantyhose.   Like we work at home women even wear them   I’ve seen some pretty crazy items offered on blogs lately and wondered what the blogger is possibly thinking.

Consider using a mailing list subscription as the entry point instead of a blog comment.

Blog comments are a visible confirmation that people are entering your contest – which is great when you get hundreds of entires but can end up being embarrasing when you only get a dozen or so.

Let’s face it too:  a blog comment is pretty cheap currency.   It’s fine if you’re doing the contest purely for traffic generation but if you actually hope to leverage the contest for future benefit, you want to have permission to communicate with those who enter.

We recently ran a contest on Sparkplugging where we asked readers to subscribe to the RSS feed and leave a comment to enter.  Naturally, they were on their honor to do so since we can’t verify RSS subscriptions in any way.  I believe it worked, though with an average of 18 entries per blog that participated in the giveaway, it isn’t easy to proove.

When you invite readers to subscribe to your mailing list to enter – you do realize that they may just unsubscribe as soon as the contest is over.  But that’s an acceptable risk to me.  If my contest prize was relevant to them and I’m sending them other relevant useful content, I’ll win over those that are genuinely interested.

Be careful how much you ask for

While you want to get some commitment from your contest participants, you have to be careful about asking for too much of an investment in time and energy.  Some friends of mine are running a contest right now where they’ve asked participants to create a video to enter – and the entries are coming in as slow as molasses.

With so many contests to choose from, many will skip over those that require any real work   (You’ll notice though that I decided to enter!  Heck – I have a fifty percent chance of walking away with that flip camera at this point.)

Measure the results.

Note the time you invest into the contest, all the way from planning, through execution and delivery of the prize.  Note any money spent on prizes and promotion.  Note the social currency you spend as well as you tap your social networks for a response to your contest.

Now evaluate the results.  How much additional traffic did you get?  How many new subscribers?  Did you see any tangible benefits?

The important question now is this:  If you spent the same amount of time and money on some other business activity, would you have better end results?  (Could you have written and promoted a special report?  Could you have planned and held a teleseminar? Could you have created and marketed a product for sale?)

When you track what you give to it against what you get from it, I believe in many cases you’ll find that running a contest wasn’t the best use of your influence and resources.

What do you think?

The interwebs are alive with discussion about changes proposed by the Federal Trade Commission that will affect product reviews and testimonials found in social media.

There is some real fear bubbling up here and there among bloggers and everyday social media users.  The idea that something they write their opinion about could get them in legal trouble is unsettling. As both a blogger and an affiliate and information marketer, I’m paying close attention.   I’ll admit I’m concerend about how all this will affect my business.

This past week I asked several of the Sparkplugging Interns to dig in and explore the topic.

What’s published below will give you a better understanding of the proposed changes and get you thinking about how it may or may not have an impact on you in the future.

Why I’m Not Worried About the New FTC Guidelines

From Traci Feit Love (@TraciLove)

A lot of people seem to be concerned about the FTC’s new proposed guidelines, which cover bloggers who endorse or review products in exchange for money or free stuff.

I’ve read through the entire text of the FTC’s notice of proposed changes (I don’t recommend this unless you’re really into dense legal writing), and concluded that there’s really not much to worry about.

The Guidelines Mainly Require Honesty and Full Disclosure

The main idea of the guidelines is to make sure that consumers aren’t deceived by bloggers’ product recommendations. That means bloggers have to disclose their financial interests and be honest in their reviews.

So, for example, if a blogger writes a review of a product in exchange for compensation (money, a free product, or some other benefit), the blogger should disclose that he is being compensated for the review. That seems fair. When I’m reading a review, I like to know whether the reviewer stands to benefit from promoting a particular product. So if I’m doing the review, I don’t have a problem with the reader knowing that information.

When it comes to the particular claims a reviewer makes about a product, the FTC guidelines mainly require that the reviewer be honest. You can’t say that a pill cures cancer, for example, if it doesn’t actually cure cancer. And if the product manufacturer isn’t making a particular claim, you shouldn’t make the claim. Makes sense.

They Could Lead To Less Free Stuff for Bloggers

When it comes to the guidelines, I think advertisers/sellers have more to worry about than bloggers. In some situations, advertisers can be held legally responsible for claims and statements made about their products by compensated bloggers – and that may mean less free stuff for bloggers in the long run.

Big brands tend to be risk-averse and may decide that the risks outweigh the benefits of providing free stuff in exchange for reviews. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Recommended Reading:

• Official Notice of Proposed Changes - This is a downloadable PDF published by the FTC.
• What brands and bloggers need to know – by Latoicha Givens. This article is written by an attorney and has a good list of things advertisers and bloggers can do to avoid liability under the new FTC rules.
• Advertisers brace for online viral marketing curbs -  David Gelles, Financial Times. This article focuses on how advertisers may be held liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers about their product, and points out that it may be difficult to determine when a blogger is acting as an “agent” of the advertiser.
• Blogola: The FTC Takes On Paid Posts-  Douglas MacMillan, BusinessWeek.com. This article explains how the new FTC guidelines will affect both paid reviews by bloggers and reviews prompted by free products sent to bloggers. It has some good examples from the blogosphere and explains how Google’s rules and restrictions may actually have a greater impact than FTC regulations.

Social Media Readers Have a Right

From Leigh Anne Wilkes (@homebasedmom)

This summer the FTC is expected to issue new advertising guidelines that will require bloggers to disclose when they’re writing about a sponsor’s product and voicing opinions that aren’t their own. The new FTC guidelines say that blog authors should disclose when they’re being compensated by an advertiser to discuss a product.

The practice of product manufacturers using blogs to advertise their product for them by giving them free product to review has proved to be an inexpensive marketing technique and a perk to bloggers. In these times of reduced marketing budgets it is a good use of advertisers money to give bloggers free product in exchange for an endorsement.

If the FTC proposed legislation is passed this will become more difficult. Bloggers will be required to disclose if they are writing about a sponsor’s product and if the opinions are not their own. Bloggers would also need to disclose if they are being compensated to discuss a product.

The blogosphere has become a popular place for people to look to for product suggestions and endorsements. As bloggers build relationships with their viewers their opinions and recommendations become like that of a good friend. “If Scribbit likes it, I would probably like it too.” This type of product endorsement carries more weight than one you see on TV or radio paid for advertising.

From what I have observed, the majority of bloggers do disclose in the review of the product when the advertiser has donated the product to them although not if they are being paid for the advertisement. As a reader that would make a difference to me. Are they being paid, have they themselves personally used the product? When I know a blogger is being paid for promotion a product the credibility of the review is diminished for me.

I recently did a review and a giveaway of a cookbook that was sent to me by the publisher. In the post where I shared one of the recipes I had tried, I let my readers know that I had been sent the cookbook by the publisher and that I had personal experience with the item.

Should a blog reader have the right to know that an opinion he is reading and taking at face value was paid for by an advertiser? I believe so.

It is my opinion, just as we know when we watch an advertisement on TV or hear one on the radio we know that it is being paid for by the advertiser. if a product endorsement is being paid for on a blog that information should also be disclosed. In order to trust and have confidence in marketing/advertising in the blogosphere there should be disclosure.

Recommended Reading:

• FTC Expected to Crack Down – The Huffington Post
• FTC Bloggers Regulation – Ideas that Spread
• Well known blogger Scribbit has definite opinions on how she handles product endorsements and reviews.
• Although, some feel that bloggers are being “targeted’ by this legislation and that mainstream media journalists are given “freebies” all the time with no regulation or legislation.

We Guarantee Our Product Will…

From Christopher Johnston (@chrisjohnston)

There has been a story bouncing around in the blogosphere since the FTC proposed rule changes in December 2008 relating to endorsements, where bloggers and other site owners may be held liable for claims made about a product or service.

The issue isn’t just with deceptive claims, but also with atypical results.

Marketers have used “results may vary” and “results not typical” to cover themselves in the past but apparently this will no longer be sufficient as a disclaimer. The FTC now wants us to use typical results only.

I imagine that the FTC is acting because of incredible weight loss claims from Acai berry, P90X or something similar.  Also there are many online tools claiming that you can make tens of thousands of dollars if you buy their report for $47, $97, or $197.

I see several problems with this rationale by the FTC. There are no magic pills when it comes to losing weight or making money. They all require action on the part of the purchaser. The 80/20 rule is always in effect and most people who purchase these things think that by simply purchasing them something magical will happen. They skies will open, light will shine down, and they will lose 100 pounds or money will start flowing into their checking accounts.

Some of us know better and realize that for any of that to happen there is a secret. It’s called WORK. If the FTC requires that you ONLY use typical results there will be no claim of results. Your only claim with a weight loss product that could be called typical will be that your wallet will be lighter or your credit card bill bigger.

There are many post that deal with the endorsements issue and they are much more eloquent than I on that issue.  I will put links to them at the bottom of this post. My stand on that issue is “full disclosure”. If you get paid to write about a product, say that you were paid. If they gave you the product, say that they gave it to you.

Recommended Reading:

• FTC To Shut Down Pay For Posts – Will Bloggers Become Criminals?
• Federal Regulations and Full Disclosure about Advertising
• FTC Considers Extending Ad Jurisdiction to Blogs and Bloggers

Dannie McClain (@brunette01) loves the challenge of blending her past, present, and future. With an exciting Military background, 13 years of corporate life, and a young blogging career, covering her chaotic fun family life to traditional marketing, Dannie loves the opportunity to share in social media and balancing family-hood.

Jumping at the opportunity to learn from the top ladies at Sparkplugging would be a mild statement. I literally launched to my computer to fill out the application after my BlackBerry® dinged with an email from Kelly announcing the Sparkplugging internship. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to help re-develop myself and I had to act.

With thirteen years of corporate marketing, brands, and logistics added to my resume, I was consumed by the corporate life. When worked called, I jumped. My children began to dislike me and then I began to hate myself. I searched out outlets to let off some steam and stumbled upon a random blog. Then another.Out of the blue, I created a blog. I was hooked. Completely.

Although not completely new, social media and networking was a fascinating new world to me. A place where I could blend my family chaos and work-related restlessness and it was perfectly acceptable. Where else could I talk about my son melting mac-n-cheese and also discuss how placemats should be positioned in the dining isle?

Light bulb!

I was already using these fascinating tools, I just needed to focus on how to use them properly. Take the knowledge I currently have, mix it with the vast wealth of knowledge from the Sparkplugging internship, and I potentially have the perfect ingredients for a thriving business in consulting.

That is the challenge before me. To take these next ten weeks and learn from the best in working from home. Grow the knowledge I gain from Kelly and Sparkplugging to balance my life – family, community, and business.

Stephanie Elie (@BizzieMommy) is a transitional entrepreneur and mother of two children under the age of four. The editor of BizzieMommy.com and was recently listed in the Power Moms 50 list by Neilson Online.

An introduction, gosh, where do I begin? I’ve always had an interest in writing since I was a little girl; I can remember writing short stories during long road trips and writing my first screenplay while in high school. Most recently however, I have been writing about my journey to entrepreneurship on BizzieMommy.com.

I currently reside in the Los Angeles area with my family and work full-time outside of the home as a web producer. Once my two children are in bed, my real work begins. I spend my nights processing orders for my online baby boutique, updating products, blogging, networking and catching up on emails.
I enjoy writing about my journey to become a work at home mom and the tools I discover to help get me there. I love sharing my experiences and hope that I can encourage other moms, who are interested in becoming mom entrepreneurs, to take the leap. You will also find me writing about photography, the latest tech gadgets, web design, my kids and organizational tips for busy parents.

I jumped at the chance to participate in the sparkplugging.com internship even though my schedule was already full. I hope to learn the skills necessary to take my businesses to the next level so I can finally transition into a full-time work at home mom. I look forward to getting to know the other interns, networking and establishing great relationships with other entrepreneurs.

Thanks again for this great opportunity.

I love connecting and meeting new people, so feel free to send me a message on twitter @bizziemommy.  Tweet and I will tweet you back!

Nick Bostic (@nbostic) has been an entrepreneur and internet marketer for the majority of his life. He currently works in corporate America helping independent business people be more successful and has been blogging to some degree for close to 8 years.

I started in internet marketing over 10 years ago when my older sister passed along some HTML coding notes from a class she was taking. I cut my teeth trying to market on Compuserve and Prodigy, then moved on to helping my father with his consulting business.

Ever since, I have been trying to establish a successful online business.  I currently work in the real estate industry, but help artists and alternative medicine practitioners with their marketing efforts.
My core strength is the ability to see the larger picture of a marketing campaign while fully understanding the nuts and bolts required to implement it.  Working with industries that have been slower to adopt internet tools has forced me to learn how to integrate new marketing tools with more traditional methods.  Expect to hear about using social networks like Twitter and Facebook in conjunction with business blogs and email marketing to build successful offline business relationships.

I am hoping to gain the additional knowledge to be able to help even more small business owners understand the needs and ways to be more efficient with internet marketing.  I believe this internship will allow me to reach this goal because I will be working closely with people who are running very successful online home-based businesses while still being able to enjoy life and their families.  I also secretly hope to network with people who are more technically-inclined than myself so I can learn how to optimize all of these online tools even more.

I love to connect with people on Twitter (@nbostic) or via BlackBerry Messenger (249e0101).

Leigh Anne Wilkes (@homebasedmom) is a mom of four teens and young adults, wife, blogger and homebased business owner.  She loves using her vision, creativity and time management skills to inspire and motivate women to create the life they want.

Over the last 25 years I have run various types of home based businesses and for the past 18 years, a direct sales business.  What started out as a way to earn a few extra hundred dollars a month to feed my shopping addiction turned into a successful business with a full time income.

I am currently a top leader in my direct sales company, have led a team of over 700 women and spoken at many regional and national conventions and earned awards in sales, recruiting and leader development.

I love helping women learn to balance home and business.  I believe strongly that you can be a great mom and run a successful business at the same time! You can have your cake and eat it too! (And I’ve got some great cake recipes if you need them!)

Two years ago I discovered the world of blogging and since one of my talents seems to be knowing a good thing when I see it and jumping in I decided to start a blog. Fortunately, Sparkplugging (then e-moms at home) was one of the first blogs I came across!  How fun that I now have an opportunity to intern here!

I currently maintain two blogs, yourhomebasedmom.com and ilashgirls.com with my friend Sherra, another intern here at Sparkplugging!   I love sharing, mentoring and inspiring women (and a few men too.)

Helping others learn to balance their family/home priorities with a successful business is my passion.

I look forward to the opportunity I have to be a Sparkplugging intern, to improve my blogging skills and knowledge as well as learn more about Internet marketing, affiliate marketing and development which will help me with some other fun projects I have in the works including a network of blogs that supports, inspires and helps women.

I also look forward to sharing and learning right along with all of you!

Traci Feit Love (@TraciLove) is a freelance writer, small business consultant, and entrepreneur.  A Harvard Law School graduate and former trial attorney, Traci left the practice of law so she could work from home and spend more time with her family.  She writes about her experiences at The Breadwinner Mom.

A few years ago I was working as a trial attorney at one of the largest law firms in the world.  The pay was great, the people were great, and the work was interesting.  But something wasn’t right; I was tired all the time and I felt a lot older than I was.  In the spring of 2007, an opportunity came along that I couldn’t pass up – the chance to work from home running a small business.  I left the law firm and dove in.

As the sole full-time employee of the business, I was responsible for pretty much everything.  Marketing, operations, payroll, benefits – you name it, I was in charge of it.  It was an incredible education.  In less than two years (during which time I also had a baby!)

I more than doubled the business’ revenue and began to dream about launching my own venture.  I wasn’t sure exactly what that venture would be, but I knew I wanted to continue working from home so I could spend as much time as possible with my family.  I also knew I wanted to capitalize on my experience with small business management, online and e-mail marketing, writing, and sales.

I did some research to figure out what type of services I wanted to provide and then started my own company, Love Communications, this past March.  Love Communications provides freelance writing, marketing, and consulting services to other small businesses (and I’m proud to say it became a profitable venture in less than a month).  At around the same time, I launched my blog, The Breadwinner Mom.  The plan for the blog was just to connect with other breadwinner moms and share some of my personal experiences – a project that (I thought) would be totally separate from Love Communications.

And then an interesting thing happened: my blog’s readers started to ask about how to make a living working from home.  Essentially they said, “yes, yes,  this stuff about your baby becoming a toddler is all well and good – but how is it that you’re able to totally support yourself, your daughter, and your husband (a stay-at-home dad) without working outside the home?”  I began to realize that my business and my blog might turn out to be more connected than I thought.

In what I can only describe as perfect timing, Sparkplugging then announced its internship program.  It offered exactly the type of on-the-job education I thought I would need in order to get where I wanted to go with my blog and my business: helping other parents learn how to start and grow home-based online businesses that earn enough to support their families, so that they can spend as much time as possible with their kids.

I’m so excited to be one of Sparkplugging’s new interns, and look forward to learning from some of the best bloggers and entrepreneurs on the web.  I also hope to get to know as many of you as possible, so I encourage you to connect with me on Twitter (@tracilove)!

Cindy Bidar (@cindybidar) has always called herself writer, even when she struggled to find her passion. Today she enjoys helping small business owners discover their own place on the Internet, while maintaining a growing blog network of her own.

First, many, many thanks to Kelly and Wendy for this opportunity. I’m thrilled to be able to work with and learn from such a great group of people.

Where I Came From

As you know, my name is Cindy Bidar. About a year ago I started thinking of ways I could earn a little extra money. I wasn’t trying to retire, just remodel the kitchen or maybe pay off the car. I have a pretty good day job working for a company I really respect and admire, so I wasn’t looking to change careers or anything, just earn some extra cash.
Then I read an article about how working for a big company used to be considered the ultimate in stability and security, and how that’s not so true anymore. For lots of different reasons, companies are not as loyal to their employees as they used to be, and if you really want security, you need to learn to make your own. The only truly sustainable income is one you make for yourself. I wish I could remember who wrote that article, because I’d like to buy him a drink.

Building a Business is Hard Work

I work full time at my day job, and I spend another forty or fifty hours per week blogging, studying traffic and clicks and affiliate programs, all while trying to figure out what split testing is and how I can use it to increase my profits.

As a Sparkplugging intern, I hope to learn the skills I need to get my business up and running, and to connect with other entrepreneurs who are doing the same thing and facing the same challenges. Community and human connection is so important, especially for those of us who are going solo. Working at home should not mean working alone.

Ultimately, I want to learn how to balance work and (my other) work while I make the transition from full time employee to a work from anywhere entrepreneur, then take that knowledge back to the community, to help others who are making the same move.

• I was rather fascinated and surprised to find out that renaming eMoms to something like eParents would go over like a lead balloon.
• I was astonished to find hair remaining on my head after coming face to face with the booming domain squatting industry (grrrr… don’t get me started).
• And then I found myself somewhat lamenting the changes around here, realizing that in order to grow I had to let go of some things that were deeply important to me.

So I know you’re wondering, and I hate to keep you waiting, so yes, we’ve found a name. And I’ll tell you what it is. Soon. Very soon.

But an unexpected casualty of this whole naming process was that I didn’t know what to do with my own blog on the network with this new name. And this is where I need to tell you that yes, there are going to be bigger changes around here than just a new name.

I was actually having an email conversation about it with Darren Rowse last night; here’s part of what I wrote:

I never liked that my blog was the same name as eMoms at Home – I thought it was confusing. But in order to continue to be the ‘flagship’ blog of my own network, I realized I couldn’t be focused so much on Moms or blogging anymore, which was difficult for me personally. It’s really important to me to continue to provide support to the blogging community and to moms, even though I can’t do it directly anymore.

I really was only able to be OK with that decision by adding some blogs to our network to cover these topics on a more in depth level. And moving forward my own blog will shift focus a bit to be more entrepreneurial, especially because I’m thinking of doing some much bigger things with the site under our new name.

Before you go getting worried, I’m still the same eMom. I’ll still write about internet business. And my kids. Promise. I’ll just be doing that a little less and talking more about business building a little more.

I believe that blogging as a business has changed drastically, even since I started doing it. And I believe there needs to be less focus on monetizing blogs, and instead more focus on building sustainable online businesses that can work for you, while allowing you to actually live life, too. Yeah, that’s probably better expanded upon in a separate blog post. Too much to talk about there.

So what will be changing at eMoms at Home?

Next week, we are going to relaunch this site and…

• We’ll have a new name and a new URL. Everything will be redirected, but we’d certainly love you forever if you could update your bookmarks. (We’d love you even more if you could update your links to our site.)
• The eMoms Original Recipe blog will have a new name, but I will be keeping the same RSS feed address.
• We will be launching 2 new blogs next week, The Home Office Organizer & Believer in Balance.
• Every week for the following 4 weeks after that, we will be adding 2 more new blogs to the “BrandNewName” Blog Network. If you are math challenged like me, that’s 10 new blogs.
• And of course, what rebrand and rename would be complete without the obligatory kickass contests. So be sure to drop by to get free goodies.

But wait, you ask, what the heck is the new name?! Well, remember that I mentioned a conversation with Darren Rowse about this? He knows our new name. And because I truthfully can give Darren boatloads of credit for the success of eMoms at Home, I figured I might just let him tell you.

Soon.

Jim is someone I consider on the leading edge of video blogging, in fact, he doesn’t do a lot of “writing” anymore. When I sent him my questions, I suggested he might want to answer in the format he knows best, which he has done amazingly well (making me more intimidated to get into video!).

In this 3 and a half minute clip, Jim answers my questions about his most successful online sales campaign ever, setting up split testing, and promoting blog posts with affiliate links. His info is especially relevant to people who sell products or services. He makes a good point near the end about disclosure, and I might try out his idea about offering two links instead of one in a post.

(YouTube link for RSS subscribers)

I think nearly every internet marketing program out there promises riches, but honestly, I don’t think many of them focus enough on this very, very important part of your internet business. Massive amount traffic that doesn’t earn you any revenue isn’t going to keep you in business for very long. So I have reached out to several well-known marketers & bloggers for a 3-Question interview on the subject of getting visitors to covert into revenue.

First up is Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. Although Darren has a business model in which his revenue comes from a wide variety of sources, Darren is particularly talented at making money from CPC (Cost Per Click) ads, in which you earn revenue when a visitor converts into a click. So I the questions I asked Darren were specific to this kind of “conversion”.

Darren, you are well known for earning a six figure income from ads that pay if a visitor clicks on them. What are the different things you have done to test, change and improve your click-through ratio over the years on your sites, and what has worked the best?

The first lesson to learn is that every site/blog converts differently. For starters some ad types work well on one blog but not another but also the positioning and design of ads will work differently on different sites also.

The second lesson (with the first one in mind) is that you need to experiment and track your results. Try different designs/colors but also ad sizes and ad positions. You’ll be surprised what you find when you do. I run split tests on some of my blogs (A/B tests) and will run one ad unit with one color scheme 50% of the time and one with another color scheme the other 50% of the time. Do this for a day or two and you’ll see the difference. Then go with the better converting one and split test it with another style. You can do the same thing with the size of ads and positioning (and even between networks). It’s fiddly but it can be well worthwhile.

Some general principles to keep in mind:

Positioning – in general ads close to your content work best. Ads above the fold usually work best. Other key spots are anywhere that your reader naturally ’stops’ reading (ie at the end of an article).

Relevancy – you can have the prettiest and most well positioned ads in the world but if they are not relevant to your reader (and the content you’re writing about) then you’re unlikely to have them click it. This is why ‘contextual’ advertising works so well – it see’s you’ve just written about iPods and puts an ad up for iPods. If you’re using an ad network that isn’t contextual you’ll need to find ways to manually choose relevant ads.

Traffic - it’s obvious, but once your ads are well optimized you can have the most impact upon how much it earns by getting more traffic to it. However not all traffic is equal in terms of conversion. I’ve found that traffic from search engines can be quite good at getting clicks on ads like ‘AdSense’ ads while traffic from another blog with a good recommendation from the blogger can do better with affiliate programs. Traffic from regular readers is harder to convert with CPC ads so again affiliate programs can be better.

What are the factors that a publisher should take into consideration when choosing a CPC ad network (Chitika, AdSense, AdBrite, Kontera, etc.), and how can they find the one that is the best match for their niche?

Probably the main thing that I’d suggest is signing up for them all and testing. Like I said above – I find that they all will convert differently on different blogs. This is partly about the topic of your blog (ie a product related blog can do better with Chitika) but also about the type of reader you have (ie a blog with lots of loyal and regular readers can become blind to AdSense).

For me the main thing I look at is the topic of the blog and try to match it with an ad network that I know serves relevant ads.

If you were a blogger with an excellently written article/review with affiliate links in the post, how would you go about promoting that post?

Depends partly upon the blog and it’s current readership but I’d probably consider:

• Emailing a few key bloggers in the niche with the link
• Posting it to Twitter, Facebook etc
• Talking to a social media expert friend to see if it was worthy of them Digging it
• Adding it prominently to a sidebar/navigation bar on every page of the blog
• Writing a follow up post a few days later linking back to it

Most of the above is fairly basic – but together it can have an impact.

If you would like to request that I interview a particular person for this series, or want to be interviewed yourself, please email me with the details such as name, URL, and why you think this person (or you) would make a good addition to this series on Converting Visitors to Revenue.