I’ve been sitting here all morning trying to figure out what to write for this post.  I’m sure it’s happened to you as well, you know you need to make a post to your blog, but you just can’t think of anything to write today.  Here’s 3 places you can go to get some great ideas and beat blogger’s block. (in fact I’ve tried them all today)

1. PLR. If you have plr for your niche sitting on your computer check it out. You don’t necessarily have to use the articles, but read the titles and get ideas for what you can write. If you don’t have plr on your computer go to a plr site and look at the titles of the articles. Choose one and write your own article.

2. Forums. One of my favorites, I peruse forums in my niche looking for an interesting question someone is asking or an interesting conversation and then I write my answer or my perspective on the discussion. This also works great at yahoo answers.

3. Google. If you have a general idea what you might want to write about Google it. See what Google gives you. You’ll see plenty of other posts about your topic you can get ideas, or create a list of great posts on the topic.

There you have it, 3 ways to break through blogger’s block and get your blog posts done.

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

3 Ways to Beat Blogger’s Block in the Next 10 Minutes

I am writing this post because I just about fell off my chair when I saw this deal!  Family Fun magazine is THE must-have magazine for busy moms and you can order an entire year subscription for $5 on Amazon!  My family doesn’t need to ask what to get me for Christmas – they just renew my subscription.

As a busy work-at-home mom, every month I find many creative (and cheap!) projects to keep the kids busy.  I tear out and file away all the great ideas.  The recipes are unique and kid-friendly.  The articles address issues related to all ages of children.  This really is the only magazine that I know will have something great on every page.

I don’t know how long they are offering this steal-of-a-deal, so grab your subscription now while you can!

Related posts:

1. Podcasting from the Family to Family Expo in Lansing, MI
2. PR: New online magazine just for Moms
3. New Podcast: Family Foodies!

You are the best readers and subscribers any blog owner could have. Today to say thank you I am gonna get my keyword research tools out and go on a little treasure hunt for you all.

I know some people have been a little upset about the recent changes at Squidoo. They are having a hard time figuring out exactly what to promote. So today I’m going to give you 5 niches you could easily promote on Squidoo, or even create small niche sites on for that matter,  to say thanks for being so awesome!!

I’ll give you the numbers and all that for why I picked it too. I hope by doing this regularly you will start to see the possibilities available to you! They are everywhere. You don’t need to dig into niches everyone else is already playing in!

If you choose to create a lens or do a little more digging in the niche and build a whole campaign I’d love to hear about it. So let’s get started.

Canon Powershot Battery Charger

Search volume: 27,100/month

Competition: Average front page PR = 1.5

Competition in Squidoo: 0

You can easily monetize a Squidoo lens via amazon or ebay on this topic. You could also use All Posters for your images which has an affiliate program as well.

Janome Serger ( A serger is a type of sewing machine ~ they run around 300 dollars each)

Search Volume: 6600

Google Competition: Average PR of first page: 2.6 (shooting for under 3)

Squidoo competition: 0 (other lenses about this in squidoo)

Best Wireless Keyboard (computers)

Search Volume: 9900

Google Competition: Average PR of First Page of search results: 2.1

Squidoo Competition: 2 other lenses

24″ Built-In Dishwasher (in stock at amazon retails from over $400 to $1000)

Search volume: 74,000 (PER MONTH) HELLLLOOO!!

Google Competition: Average PR of first page of SERPS: .7 (yes that’s POINT 7)

Squidoo competition: 0

Electric Burr Grinder (retail at amazon around $100)

Search volume: 14,800/month

Google Competition: Avg PR first page of SERPS: 1.6 (shooting for under 3)

Squidoo competition: 4 other lenses

So there you have 5 terrific niches you can get started with today!

If you love this stuff you might want to check out KeywordNicheFinders.com. We’ve done the research just like this, but taken it a step farther and provided content you can use for your sites as well as possible ways to monetize.   I highly recommend it if you are stuck for niche ideas.

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

Well Researched Niche Ideas ~ Thank You Thursday!

When people start out in internet marketing it can be so easy to get confused, to get on the “guru” lists thinking they are going to give you information about how to make money online. Some people figure it out quicker than others and some never figure it out at all. The Guru lists are just to get your to keep buying products!!

Once you’ve bought a ton of products, spent a lot of money ~ you probably couldn’t afford, and you’re STILL not making any money online one of two things usually happens.

1. You quit.

2. You decide to create an internet marketing strategy that works.

If you’ve gotten to the point of possibility #2 this post is for you.

This post is a compilation of great posts from around the net. People I read and admire and people you can learn from. These posts will help you create not only a strategy to make money online, but a mindset to keep with it when things get tough. This mindset piece is the one people are most likely to blow off, but it’s the piece that will keep you going when things get tough. And things probably will get tough at some point. You will be faced with the desire to just throw in the towel and say forget it. It is the mindset and belief in yourself that will keep you in the game long enough to see success.

So let’s get right to it:

Success Factor #1:

Attitude ~ do you have a plan for your internet marketing career and will you be strong enough to follow it through?

* Here Craig Perrine talks about his own journey with both weight loss as well as making money online. For anyone who has ever tried to lose a few pounds the similarities between weight loss and internet marketing will be astounding.

http://craigperrine.com/are-you-really-following-the-internet-marketing-success-recipe/

* In this post Josh Spaulding talks about the success factor he finally found. Confidence. If someone as successful as Josh Spaulding is facing this kind of stuff there is something for everyone to learn there.

http://ez-onlinemoney.com/blog/internet-marketing/why-it-took-me-almost-3-years-to-really-succeed-online/

* I found this blog only recently, but I include it because Ian has hit the nail right on the head with this post. This one simple thing he talks about this is something that is completely within YOUR control and can change the level of your success in internet marketing exponentially.

http://karmicconsulting.net/crash-cash-creation-coaching-mini-morsels-of-marketing-magic/the-biggest-affiliate-marketing-secret-ever-steal-it-here/

Success Factor #2:

Getting started ~ Figuring out how to get started and within the budget you have available can be a really tough thing to do. But it can be done. Find a mentor ~ someone who you know, like and trust and follow them. Not only follow their blog, but follow their actions. Do what they do, follow their example. These posts will help you figure out how to get started.

* If you need to kick off your business for free there is no one better, hands down, that PotPieGirl to help you do it. She started with no money and has created an over 10K a month empire. It all started using a free little site called Squidoo. Here’s a great post on Squidoo resources.

http://www.potpiegirl.com/2009/02/great-squidoo-resources/

* Nicole Dean is a successful Internet marketer, as well as the affiliate manager for Jimmy Brown. She is a fantastic mentor and provides amazing podcasts from her blog. This podcast is with Danielle Miller. They talk about how to get focused in your business. It is well worth a listen.

http://nicoleonthenet.com/2009/online-success-danielle-miller/

* A huge issue for some people when they are beginning is finding a “niche” or something they want to build their business on. There are many different types of business you can do. You can create a business based on multiple niche sites, or you can create one big authority site. Either way you are going to need an idea, and content. This post shows you how to use plr to not only find content but niche ideas as well.

http://internetmarketingformommies.com/using-plr-to-find-a-niche-and-keywords/

Success Factor #3:

Getting Traffic ~ Traffic is the life blood of any internet marketer, whether you are recommending affiliate products or your own. If you can a get eyes on your page you can overcome a lot of other areas you might not be as strong in. However, if you have no traffic, you have no business, it’s a simple as that.

There are a million ways to get traffic, and you will learn about some of my favorite ways and some ways my favorite internet marketers are getting traffic to their sites in the following posts.

* In this post by Jimmy D. Brown you will find out how to create ezine articles that will have people not only reading your articles, and publishing them, but also clicking through and buying what you are offering.

http://www.jimmybrown.com/how-to-jumpstart-your-ezine-articles/

* This post is at the MaxBlogPress blog. This is a fine example of how it REALLY works in the real world. I grabbed some of their free plugins, which are awesome by the way, and from there I joined thier list, and now I look forward to all their emails. I found this post from an email they sent me, and as always the content was fantastic. They offer a free report on this post. It’s an interview with professional bloggers talking about how they get traffic. I’ve read a ton of these so called interviews, but I actually learned a TON from the sample they are offering for free. I also watched my email and as soon as the product went live I bought it.

You see how that worked? Besides perfectly? 1. They offered me something of great quality for free. 2. I joined their list becuase of the value offered. 3. They offered me more quality information via email. 4. They offered me an awesome free sample of an upcoming product. 5. I watched for the email to go buy the product and I did the day it launched.

That is a sales system that works!! Ok, that’s not what this whole post is about, but do grab the free report on how the pros get traffic, it’s chock full of ideas.

http://www.maxblogpress.com/blog/214/bloggers-world-download

* This next one is one of my posts. I get so many questions about Twitter and if it really works, and whether it’s worth the time. I have to say it took me a while to get involved in social networking sites like Twitter, but I have to say I LOVE twitter now. I had to figure out exactly the best way to use twitter, to provide value to my followers and build trust. It also allows me to build a brand for myself, build on the know, like and trust factors, and now when I put out an affiliate link I have a lot of instant traffic.

Here’s the 7 questions beginners need to know the answers to, to make Twitter work for them.

http://www.affiliatemarketingwahm.com/7-questions-beginners-ask-about-making-twitter-work-for-them.html

* Viral marketing with video is one of the fastest and biggest ways to drive traffic to your site. This post outlines a fantastic plan of action to create a viral video campaign.

http://www.marketingbestpractices.com/Articles/viral-marketing.htm

When you are looking at starting your internet marketing business remember that it IS a business. It is something that will take time to learn and grow.

These 10 posts on the 3 success factors of internet marketing will hopefully help you get started on the right foot. They should also help you find some positive people in the industry that you can learn and grow with.

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

3 Internet Marketing Success Factors

You’ve probably seen people talk about how much money you can make with a membership site.  It can be true, although it is not as easy as they make it sound with a traditional type membership site.

There’s a new product launching today called Micro Continuity ~ well it’s not actually new, it was launched once before and sold out in under 2 minutes. Amazing huh?

The product is done by one of my favorite internet marketers Russell Brunson. Russell has provided some excellent free videos. They explain everything about how micro continuity works. It’s a 51 minute video and well worth taking the time to watch.  Click here to watch Russells Free Video.

On top of that free video he has also had one of his successful students make a video about her process. She also created a 34 page blueprint of how she did it, every step of the way! You can watch Joy’s video and get her free report here.

Today is the big launch day for Micro Continuity. Whether you decide to buy it or not, Russell is giving away mp3 players with 6 hours of micro continuity content already pre loaded!! It’s going to be a great resource. You’ll have to get to the launch early to get one ~ Launch starts at 2pm EST. I’m going to be at least 15 minutes early to be there when it opens.

If you’ve ever wondered if YOU could create a membership site, let me assure you with the micro continuity system I think any beginner can create a membership site, with no fuss no muss. There’s no membership software, all you need is an autoresponder ~ so if you can write a blog post you can create a membership site with micro continuity.

Let me just say ~ with the free information Russell has provided thus far in the videos you have enough ground work to build it today ~ Wouldn’t it be cool to have your own site up and running and making money by Monday? It’s possible. Watch the videos and see.

And then go to the launch and get your FREE mp3 player filled with more information about building a micro continuity site.

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

Does Micro Continuity Really Work for Beginners?

Whether you’re promoting a squidoo lens, niche site, or even an authority site creating backlinks is an important part of the process. Building backlinks can seem overwhelming and confusing, but it doesn’t have to be. There are many many places you can use to build backlinks to your sites. We’ve talked about using Google knol, and Wet Paint today we’re going to talk about Blogger.

Yep, it’s time to start a blog. Here’s a quick video that will walk you through the steps of creating a blogger blog.

That video has covered the basics of creating, let’s talk about optimizing your blog and using it for links.

The video recommends that you make your blog specific to a campaign, however, for promoting squidoo lenses I actually like to create a general blog where I can simply post all of my new lenses instead of having to create a new blog for each campaign. Adding content over time allows your blog to gain a little authority which gives your links a little more authority as well.

I created a “how to” blog on blogger. Now no matter what the topic I can generally twist it into a “how to” something and write a post on my how to blog which leads them back to my lens for more information.

Go ahead and take a look at my how to blog.

Backlinks from Blogger

As you can see I have used keywords as the anchor text links to point people back to my lenses for the real information ~ these posts are just short snippets that will provide links back to my lens or “money page”.

You can also use the sidebar to create links back to your lenses or any site you have created on this topic.  You can see this in action on my how to blog in the sidebar under “how to sites I love”.

To create this area in your sidebar you can go to the customize link at the top of the page. It will open up an area where you can add “gadgets”.  You want to find the Link List gadget. There are a couple different link gadgets, you want the LINK LIST. This will allow you to put the url of the site you want to link to, as well as the keyword anchor text you want people to click on, the other linking gadgets will just give you a place for the url, you don’t want that. ?

Here’s the 4 basic steps:

1.    create blog either with keywords (if you’re doing one for each campaign) or a general topic (if you want to do one you can just keep adding to)

2.    Create short posts with a link back to your lens using keywords as the anchor text  of the link pointing to your lens.

3.    Add link list to create a “blogroll” in your sidebar pointing to your sites. This is another quality backlink to your site.

4.    if you’ve done one blog you can add to, make sure you come back and add short posts for each lens you finish ~ you can also add them each to the sidebar link list.

That’s it. 4 simple steps to create a blogger blog to use for building backlinks to your site.

You’re putting a lot of effort into writing articles, lenses and blog posts. Now you can make them even better by implementing the tips and strategies outlined in this report. They’ve made writing faster, easier and more fun for me.

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comment section ~ I’ll do my best to answer any questions you come up with.

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

How to Promote Your Site with Blogger

There are only two type of affiliate marketers - the Ninja
Affiliates, and everyone else.

It’s no secret that 95% of all bloggers out there make pennies
from affiliate marketing, while a select few who are privileged
enough to be in the “inner circle” make thousands of dollars
effortlessly.

They know how to properly manage, track, cloak and shorten their
affiliate link so that they can achieve most out of their
affiliate marketing.

By having stats in hand and with the ability to manage all of
their links from one central location, they get an unfair advantage
over every other bloggers out there.

That’s the kind of power the “MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate”
brings to you:

Here is what you can do using “MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate”:

1. Brand your blog domain while creating professional looking short
links.

For example you could create:

http://www.yourblog.com/go/CoolProduct
or
http://www.yourblog.com/recommends/CoolProduct
or
Whatever you like, the choice is yours.

It’s completely flexible and you can redirect them to any
affiliate link you want.

2. Manage all your affiliate links in one central place

You can group and manage all your affiliate links in one central
place. That means you’ll have a clear overview of which
affiliate program is doing good and which is not.

Also, if one affiliate program shuts down their door then you
can easily change the link with another affiliate program
anytime you like.

3. Track how many people are visiting your link and from where

From the MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate back office you can see
exactly how many people have visited your link and also from
where they’re coming. No guess work for figuring out which of
your marketing effort is actually bringing you the result.

4. Cloak your link so nobody steals your commission

When you use affiliate link directly then there’s always a
possiblity that other can replace your affiliate information
with their own and earn commissions themselves instead of you.

By using this plugin, you can stop the commission thieves right
on and let no one steal your hard-earned commisions ever again.

And, I’ve saved the best part for the last.

5. The “Keyword to Ninja Link” feature

By using this plugin you can convert any keyword in your wordpres
blog to affiliate link which will passively earn you commission forever. The active
start to your passive blog commission begins here:

Grab Ninja Affiliate NOW!

The best time is now, so join now the “inner circle” of
5% select few smart bloggers who use “MaxBlogPress Ninja
Affiliate” to maximize their affiliate earning. You can just be
an average Joe blogger or a MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate blogger.
Stick to a wiser choice, and become a Ninja today!

Think wise!

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

Cloak Your Links, Track Your Clicks and Be a Blogging Ninja!

If you have a lens on Squidoo you got the email last night. If you missed it you need to check it out, so you can make sure your lenses fit into the new terms of service.

Here’s the basics:

1. No Spam.

This is not different. You should be building quality lenses, with helpful information. Of course you can send people to affiliate products ~ when they add value to the reader.Here are Squidoo’s new Terms of Service in regard to spam.

2.  No more X rated lenses.

This may or may not affect you, but it’s new. Appears it was a pretty difficult decision for the Squidoo folks. If you have X rated lenses check this out so you know what to do with your content.

3. No Junk Topics.

This goes right along with what I’ve been saying about branching out and finding new and interesting niches.  Some of the “junk” topics included in Squidoo’s list are “lose belly fat”, “free movie downloads” “forex” “acai berry” “Hoodia”. Here’s the whole list of the topics they’ve put on notice and added to the “junk topics” list.

4. No overly promotional lenses.

This is the one I’m getting a lot of questions about. What about my affiliate lenses? What will happen now? Well, probably nothing. If you take a look at the new rules you will see it says overly promotional, not just promotional. If you’ve been building lenses the way I teach in Squidoo for Beginners, or the way One Week Marketing and LearnItStepbyStep teach, you should have no problems.

9 links to one place is more than enough in one lens ~ If you create a quality lens of 7 or 8 modules, that comes out to 1 link per module, and one link in your bio area. That is exactly what we teach, and should work out well for you.

Go back, check your lenses ~ count your links. If you’ve added links to the same product in every poll answer you may need to take some of those out.

You have plenty of time to go back and check your lenses and see if you need to fix them up. Here’s squidoo’s side of the story on promotional lenses, and how long you have to make the changes.

5. Don’t Steal Content.

This should be a no brainer, but sometimes, people think that because it’s online, they can just use it. This is NOT the case. You need permission or consent to use anything you find online from the original creator. There’s a serious crack down happening for plagerized content.

What should you do now?

The people who run Squidoo are pretty level headed people, they’re giving you some time to get your lenses in shape and in compliance with the new terms of service. These changes don’t go into effect until mid July. So you have over a month to get your lenses in order.

Here are 4 things you can do right now to make sure none of your lenses get locked.

If these changes make you feel like you just don’t want to work on Squidoo anymore, you can export your content and take it with you to somewhere else to use.

I have no idea why these changes would make you want to do that though. These changes will only make the site better, higher quality, and have more authority as being a quality place to get information.

I personally think these are all really great changes!

What do you think?

Post from: Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms

Squidoo’s New Terms of Service ~ What Do They Mean For You?

I have shared with you many different ways to make money online but the problem is most of those ways the pay depends on you. If your looking for something more stable and consistent a real online job might be right for you. Internet employment is just like regular 9 to 5 work except in most cases online and at your computer you’ll have much more flexibility.

eWork is committed to providing leading solutions delivered by un paralleled service offerings and state of the art technology. Our clients work with the best in the industry and are part of our current and future success. Together with our staff and clients we are reinventing the industry and helping our clients take their program in the right direction.

eWork

Guru.com’s mission is to provide businesses with the most efficient platform to connect and perform transactions with freelance professionals locally, nationally, and globally.

Guru.com is the world’s largest online service marketplace where businesses connect with top freelance talent locally, nationally or globally. Employers seeking professional expertise post their projects or contract work on Guru.com for free. Freelancers seeking work either register as free (Basic) members or as subscribing (Guru) members. In addition, Employers and Freelancers can take advantage of Guru.com’s SafePay Escrow and Dispute Resolution services which greatly reduce transaction risks.

Guru.com

The article below was contributed by Leah Grant. I hope you find it motivational and useful!

Top Five Reasons Why Now Is The Perfect Time To Start A Business

Turn on the TV and all you’ll hear is how the stock market still hasn’t fully recovered and how unemployment is still rising, so you might think I’m out of my mind to suggest that now is the perfect time to start a business.  But I stand by my statement.

If we look at history, more millionaires were made during The Great Depression than any other time in US history and during our last recession in the early 90s many companies still thriving today were born, like Clif Bar.

There are numerous reasons why starting a business now is advantageous, but these are the top five.

1. Increased Opportunities
Anytime the economy changes or a new technology is introduced it creates opportunities in different fields.  While some industries are shrinking, others are exploding.  For example, while Chrysler is claiming bankruptcy because their gas-guzzling vehicles have become irrelevant, a San Diego-based company, Jitterbug, who produces simplistic cell phones with extra large numbers on them designed for the elderly is hiring and growing at breakneck speed.

2. Less Competition
In the first two months of 2009 the Department of Labor reported that over 800,000 small businesses closed.  I can guarantee that these were businesses that may have been barely making it when the economy was flush and when the recession began they realized they did not have the proper infrastructure, their overhead was too high or their business model was flawed.  These closures create a lot of space for smart new business owners to open and serve their customers.

In addition, many companies have cut their advertising budgets to lower costs which can give the public the perception of fewer businesses offering the same products and services as yours.  The perception of less competition allows you to stand out and strongly establish your brand.

3. Decreased Trust
Let’s face it, the big companies melting down faster than Chernobyl this past year have withered the public’s trust.  It’s become obvious that large corporations are not looking out for their employees and many didn’t even look ahead enough to protect themselves.  Whenever the big businesses that people have equated with security go belly up, it creates a fear-based marketplace.  First, people contract and don’t buy at all.  Then they start wanting to buy, but look to do business with people they know and trust.

People who purchased their lotions and body wash at the mall are now more open to purchasing from their Mary Kay consultant.  It feels good to them to know that the money they spend with someone they know helps out that family.

4. Discounted Resources
With many companies cutting back, businesses want to maintain cash flow so they are often willing to discount their services or products or offer longer payment terms than in the past.  These options help a new business owner’s startup funds go farther.

One area these discounted resources should definitely be capitalized on is in the advertising market.  Several larger companies that ate up available ad space have lowered their ad budgets, not only creating space for smaller companies to come in, but creating open ad space that publications, radio and TV stations need to sell.  Many of these outlets will negotiate if asked.  One of my clients got two ads for the price of one.  These bargains allow business owners to make more of an impact for less money and to stand out while others are fading back.

5. Control of Your Future
Having a job is like putting all your eggs in one basket and then handing it over to a clumsy kid to carry.  You have no control over whether you will get laid off, have your pay cut, have benefits taken away, have your hours lowered, etc.  You have one line of revenue and if the powers you report to decide to cut that off, there’s nothing you can do.  No matter how many hours or how hard you work, in most cases your salary stays the same.

None of the above has to be true if you own your own business.  You can build a business model that allows for multiple streams of income so if one dries up, you still have the others.  You control the amount of income you make because you are in charge of pricing and how much and how hard you work.  You create your eggs and then you carry the basket yourself.

(c) 2009, Leah Grant Enterprises LLC.  Publication rights granted so long as article and byline are reprinted intact with all links made live.

Will you be one of the millionaires who create their success during this recession?  You could be!  The timing is right.  Get the info you need to launch a profitable venture in the New Business Mentor Leah Grant’s free success kit including a timely special report and audio Secrets of Successful Business Owners at http://www.leahgrant.com

On twitter too: @leahgrantbiz