With all the resources available, doing an online business is now easier and more affordable than ever. So easy, kids are doing it.

As a kid I was fortunate enough to live in a place where I could make money in the traditional ways of raking leaves, shoveling driveways, walking dogs, lemonade stands and paper routes.  However, not all kids live somewhere where these things are realistic.

So how can these kids earn money and learn some work ethic? Now days, any kid with internet access, and the willingness to learn and work, can make money.  (With adult supervision of course).

Here are some ways kids are make money online:

(Mommy bloggers, you may want to take notes to see how you can monetize your blog as well.)

• Make products (crafts, etc.) and sell them online
• Sell downloadable digital products (through affiliate links)
• Music/song download sites
• Online books (audiobooks)
• Software (kids computer games, etc.)
• Sell other physical products through affiliate links
• Product Reviews (uploaded to YouTube, directing traffic to their website)
• Google AdSense (included on the website)

The safest and most popular for kids are the affiliate marketing links.  Many affiliate programs are free to join (ie. CJ, GAN, Clickbank, etc.) and allow you to offer numerous products.  (Tip: The account will need to be set up under someone 18 or older)

How does affiliate marketing work?

When someone goes to your website and clicks on the product, that takes the customer to the company site (The Space Store for example). When the customer purchases the product, you earn a commission. (Affiliate programs track the commissions and pay you).

You don’t have to worry about any of the customer service. There’s no talking to strangers, shipping orders, dealing with payment processing, etc. The company handles all of that.

A Great Summer Project and Educational Experience

So as you can see, a project like this can be a great summer time project vs watching TV all summer.  Even when school is in session, the great thing about an online business is they can do it around homework and other responsibilities.

Let’s remember some basic things we all should have learned at a very young age. Along with tying our shoes and picking up our toys, I’m sure most parents taught us how to be polite. Saying please, thank you, and you’re welcome are just as important now as they were back then. In short, manners still matter.

Snap back to the present. Our social media presence can be seen by almost anyone. If we are rude to others online, it stays there for anyone to see (including potential employers). How we comport ourselves online can say a lot to someone looking to offer us a job.

Here are a few tips to help us keep things cordial on our favorite social networks:

The Golden Rule

Treat others how you want to be treated. It’s called the golden rule for a reason: it works. No one wants to be friends with a jerk. No one wants to work with a jerk. No one wants to hire a jerk.

The best way to receive fair treatment online is to treat others fairly yourself. Social media has a funny habit of putting our personalities under a microscope for the world to see. Make sure it’s your best qualities that are getting magnified.

Be Calm

We all know a guy who loses their temper online. Don’t be that guy. Even when something makes you mad online, it’s hard to sound intelligent during a rant.

When something gets you fired up online, just walk away and let it sit for a while. If nothing else this will give you time to organize your thoughts into a cohesive argument.

Think Before You Post

Remember who you’re friends with. Have you friended any co-workers? Maybe even a boss? Try to keep in mind that anything you post can probably be seen by those people you have to spend your days with at work.

If you’re about to post something you wouldn’t want your boss to see, at least take a moment to make sure your privacy settings are in order. Or better yet, think twice about posting that content in the first place.

None of these tips are meant to censor your freedom of speech in the online community. By all means you should be who you are and express yourself.

Just be mindful of who else might be watching. Your manners might matter more than you think.

In a world of millions of websites and billions of Google searches, even the coolest products and sites are hidden in the masses.  Sometimes it feels like you will never be found.  While a concentrated and continuous effort of SEO can increase your chances of being discovered, there are also a couple of quick things you can do to jump up in the rankings. While this information may seem obvious to seasoned SEO’s, it should serve as a subtle reminder about 3 simple search engine optimization tasks that can greatly increase your chances of being seen.

Robots.txt

While most of your content may seem unique and fresh to you, search engine bots only spend fractions of a second reading and indexing your entire site.  A robots.txt file guides the bots through your site, informing them what should be indexed, what should be skipped, and what content is most valuable.  If you have a robots.txt file on your site, you may be surprised to discover that pages, images, and folders are being withheld from search engines.  While the robots.txt file is essential and helpful in search engine optimization, it can prove harmful if it disallows valuable pages from being indexed. There are many SEO tools that will make it easy to fix these crawling issues and provide more accurate indexing, expectantly bringing more people to your site.

301 Redirect

A 301 redirect is a process of forwarding one URL to a different URL for both users and search engines.  Google and other search engines are looking for sites with unique content and “bait” that drives people to use their search engine. If your site is crawled as www.leadgenix.com and leadgenix.com your content is being read twice and is therefore less unique. Not only this, but your site is now receiving page rank for two individual landing pages.  A simple correction would be coding a 301 redirect so the leadgenix.com URL automatically forwards the user to www.leadgenix.com URL. This process is extremely simple and can dramatically increase your site attention.

Verify Google and Bing Local Listings

Over the past year, search engines have become increasingly more localized in their search results.  As users become more localized in their searches, Google and Bing want to make sure users of their search engines are finding real businesses with real addresses.  While this process of verifying your actual location doesn’t take a lot of time, it can be extremely detrimental to your rankings if no physical address is verified.  Spend the few minutes it takes on the phone with a local listing specialist and almost immediately increase your local rankings.

Overall, these 3 steps shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes for someone who is familiar with search engine optimization.  While they are simple tasks, they can dramatically increase the power of your website in the eyes of the search engine bots, and will surely be worth your time. It’s time to stop hiding in the masses.

Have you ever thought of starting your own mommy blog? Do you have one, but don’t know how to get more visitors? Already have visitors and want to make some money? We address all of those issues and have a great step-by-step process to make sure your mommy blog gets the attention it deserves.

Try it Out for Free

So you’ve got a great idea or hobby that you’d love to share with the world, but where should you start? There are plenty of free online services that will let you start your blog for free. Here is a list of our favorites:

• WordPress
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Hubpages
• Squidoo

When you’re first starting out, use a free service for six months or so to see how it goes. Try to post at least once a week, but two to five times a week is even better. If you find that posting is no problem and you hit your six month mark, you should probably move on to the next step towards mommy blog stardom.

Create a Professional Website

Professional-looking websites help your company look as big as you want it to be. You could be writing on your blog an hour a day from home or have 1,000 employees doing creative research for each post and no one would know the difference–if your site looks professional. The only outward facing part of your company is your website, so make sure that it looks top notch. (Side note: top notch does NOT mean boring – be as creative as you want, but it does need to look professional.)

Professional websites also help people feel comfortable with sharing the site with friends, family, co-workers etc… which helps you get more and more potential readers/customers.

Get More Traffic to Your Blog

There are numerous ways to get more traffic to your blog; you just have to find the ways that work for you. Here are a few examples to get more traffic to your blog:

1. SEO
• Stands for Search Engine Optimization, which helps you to rank higher on the Google search page
2. Frequent Posts
• The more posts you have, the more traffic you’ll receive.
• Be consistent. Post at the same time every morning or have a theme for every Friday post.
3. Use Social Media
• Create a Facebook page, share your stuff on Twitter, create Youtube videos, etc…
4. Guest Blog Posting
• Find similar bloggers and work together. Post on their blogs, have them post on yours. Expand your reader base by writing to a new blogger’s readers.
5. Submit Your Blog in Contests
• There are often contests on the web for the best blog in specific industries. Search the web and see if you can enter. The winners usually get great new readers/customers and some sort of prize.
6. Online Paid Advertising
• Use the Google PPC network. Often you can get your first $100 free if you look online for a code.
• Use Facebook ads. If your target reader is a mother in her 40’s, Facebook ads will only show your ads to mothers in their 40’s. You don’t have to pay for non-relevant traffic.

The list could go on for pages; there are always more ways to get traffic to your site. Be creative and think outside of the box to get more people to your site. If you want more ideas, simply give us a call at 1.888.579.6803.

Knowing How Much Traffic is Enough

It seems like the first questions someone asks about monetizing their blog is “How much traffic is enough traffic?” The answer nobody wants to hear is exactly what I’m going to give – it depends. So, let me explain a little further. It all depends on how much money you want to make. Here’s how you can calculate how much traffic you need:

Let’s assume you want to make $100 a day, not a bad income ($36,500 a year for your blog). If you are selling a product from your blog, you should guess that you’ll receive around a 2% conversion rate (the percentage of visitors that visit your site who actually buy a product). If your product makes you $20 in profit, then you would need approximately 250 visitors per day to make $100 each day from your site. 100 = .02 x visitors x $profit, which means that visitors = 250 in this scenario.

If you’re making your money from advertising, then you follow a similar equation. Simply figure out how much money you make from “X” amount of visitors, and then figure out how many visitors it takes to make your desired amount of money.

Contact Advertisers

You can put ads on your blog from day one. Google Adwords is a wonderful program that is easy to use and will help make you money from the very start. You just sign up, get approved, and they’ll send you a specific code to put the ads on your site. After that, you get paid each time someone clicks on the ads.

WARNING: Do not click on ads on your own site or have friends and family do this as well. This is against their rules and regulations policy and will get you banned from their ad platform for life.

After you are getting more and more traffic to your site, there are a few better ways to work with advertisers to make you money. Reach out to niche websites and companies that have products relating to your blog and see if they want ads on your site. Make sure that you show them how many visitors you’re getting and how much time they spend on your site. With this information, it shouldn’t be hard to get a few advertisers to purchase some space on your site. They may even pay you more than Google Adwords will earn for your site.

Best of Luck!

We wish you the best in your mommy blogging adventures and would to help out in any way we can. Fill out the form in the top right corner if you need any help!

Picture this: You sign on to Twitter and have hundreds of fresh new tweets waiting for you on your homepage. As you begin scrolling through you start to realize that even though you might care about the author of the tweet, you really couldn’t care less about what they’re tweeting about.

Sometimes a twitter homepage can look a lot like a junk mail box, and reading every tweet you’re subscribed to can feel like a chore.

So what makes a tweet worth reading? And what do we automatically file away in our brain as junk?

Who Gives A Tweet?

A super group of researchers from Canegie Mellon, MIT, and Georgia Tech formed a brain trust and created a site dedicated to finding out what we value in our tweets. Users signed up to both rate the tweets of others and have their own tweets evaluated.

On average, users only liked about 36% of the tweets that they saw. That means that 2 out of every 3 tweets to grace your screen are usually junk.

So what was it about that 36% that made them worth it? I think the findings can be summarized into five key points.

5 Secrets To Twitter Success

• Limit the use of #hashtags and @mentions. They are there for a purpose, and that purpose isn’t the spam as many of them as you can into every tweet.
• Don’t tweet about food you just ate or where you are at the moment. Respondents in the study really, really, really disliked that. In short, add a little substance or context to your tweets. No one cares you went to McDonalds for lunch.
• Keep it short. There is a character limit for a reason.
• Don’t whine. No one likes the guy that thinks their life is worse than everyone else’s. Don’t be that guy.
• Don’t tweet old links. Keep things fresh and new. Show people something they haven’t seen before.

This isn’t a comprehensive ‘how to’ for effective Tweeting by any means, but it’s a good place to start. What tweets do you see on Twitter that really bug you? What would you want to see more of on your feed?

Recently in an article placed on Forbes Magazine titled “5 Reasons Why Your Online Presence Will Replace Your Resume in 10 years” a movement is occurring with companies looking at how you present yourself while you are off the clock. Companies want to know more than just who you are while you are there but can you carry forth their image outside of work.

The Social Media Breakdown:

1. The use of social networking sites is growing exponentially while the use of email is plummeting. Why is this important? Think about it. With the increased use of social media companies will use this as a way to communicate with you.
2. Traditional search options for jobs are just fading out. In order for people to remain a force to be considered in the world it is necessary that you have a way to draw people to you! What makes you stand apart or what accomplishments do you have that you can broadcast to the world that would make you different? Think outside the box and let others see it.
3. People aren’t sticking with the same job their entire life. It is important to treat your job as a springboard into something bigger and better. No one stays at the same company their whole life anymore. Job security is next to nothing and it has become second place for people to be laid off. So with that being said, brand yourself, stand out and use your social media to help do that.
4. Resume generators are the new cookie cutters. If you just google the phrase “Resume Generator” there are so many tools out there now that can spit out a hip, interesting, 2D piece of paper. There is nothing that it can say that can make you stand apart. I agree with this because I would rather show people my passion and experience rather than just tell them and you can do it – through a social media outlet.
5. Passion is everything to headhunters. What is your driving force? What makes you happy? What is helping you to achieve the next big thing? Think about it. No one wants a stick in the mud but people who are passionate about whatever and whoever. So make it happen. Be passionate and help yourself stand out on your facebook, twitter, or blog.

Overall, the article was great. If you are ahead of the ball and have already been doing these things and considering your online presence, kudos to you. But you haven’t yet – which is more often than not what the case is – take some time to invest in your internet presence. Just think of the nice cushy job that you could land right?

Who knew back in 2004 that Facebook would become a sweepstakers heaven and a business owners dream come true?  With the evolution of Facebook over the past few years, companies have been able to expand their business much further and faster (and for cheaper) than ever expected.  In some cases Facebook has actually saved many businesses from ultimate doom.

However there is still that lull that every business hits, which forces some to get creative. Thus, Facebook contests and sweepstakes were born.

What do Facebook contests mean for the business owner or company?

Facebook contests save companies time and money. This way companies can instantly attract new customers and connect with their current customers, without having to spend thousands (in some cases millions of dollars) on printing and mailing promotions that are just going to end up in the garbage anyhow.

People are more likely to see a promotion on Facebook versus mailings because mailings typically get buried and thrown out with the junk mail, whereas people are on Facebook all the time. How many people look at their junk mail at least five times a day?

There are all kinds of creative Facebook contest ideas. Some contests reward you for having the most friends “like” their company page, while others simply have you fill out a form with your contact info. It’s amazing how much more inclined consumers are to fill out a form when the reward is enticing enough.

My most recent favorite Facebook contests is this interactive Wendy’s “design a shirt and win $5000”. Even if you don’t win, it’s still fun to play with.

What do Facebook contests mean for the consumer? Can you make a living off of Facebook contests and Sweepstakes?

The contests allow the consumer to stay in touch with all the great deals and happenings at your leisure without feeling harassed. Besides, it can be fun.

There really are people whose full time “job” is entering contests and sweepstakes and yes, it actually puts food on the table for their families. But I wouldn’t quit your day job just yet.

With recent television shows having aired on this subject, a lot more people have jumped on the wagon and starting entering these contests. It’s good news for business owners and companies, because it gives them a larger audience, recognition and ultimately more sales. However for you and me, our odds of winning these contests decrease with the increasing volume of people that enter. So banking on making a living this way probably isn’t the smartest idea.

So the answer to the ultimate question…

Yes, business owners can certainly promote their business and make a living thanks to Facebook contests. And yes individuals can, have and do make a living off of Facebook contests and sweepstakes, but you may want to keep that one as a hobby.

This is a great idea for several reasons. First of all it’s a pretty big win for the White House that they are utilizing social media to reach out to the people.

Only a small amount of people will get to actively participate in the digital hang out, but everyone is welcome to view it. All you have to do is find the White House’s google+ or youtube page and you’re in. Sounds simple enough, right?

A Big Plus For Google+

This is also a pretty big deal for Google itself. It’s not every day a social media platform gets invited into the Presidents home. As a matter of fact, it will be the first ever completely digital interview from the White House.

So often it feels like political figures are trying to shy away from social media. It’s pretty cool to see our current President trying to embrace it.

The chat is scheduled to last for 45 minutes and starts at 5:30pm. Will you take advantage of this unique chance to hang with the President? What would you ask him?

With Yelp, Angie’s list, yahoo reviews, and other websites growing it has become apparent that business owners need to get some positive reviews in order to compete. You’ve worked very hard to provide great customer service and very loyal customers, but for some reason no one is reviewing you online. Let me introduce you to what I call “in the moment marketing” and how you can use this technique to get more stars than the latest Harry Potter movie.

An Example

In the moment marketing is pretty straight forward – all you do is market to people in the right moment. Let’s say you own a pizza shop that sells 5 Ft . Pizzas and you’ve accurately named your business “bigger is better”. You are getting some great customers and are excited to grow the business to take over the Pizza Huts and Dominoes of the world. One day you look online expecting to see hundreds of satisfied reviewers sharing their great experience at “bigger is better”. You search and search and finally conclude that no one has written you a review – even though you have happy customers.

This is where we introduce in the moment marketing to help this fantastically-named pizza café. One day you decide to buy a few ipads and let people use them while waiting for their orders. As you hand the customers ipads you simply ask if they have a spare moment to give you a review online or to tweet something to their friends. Soon enough you start seeing great reviews pop up on a few different sites. Weeks later you notice that your store is doubling in customers, because people have been talking about you on twitter and facebook. After a few years you’ve got several locations across the state.

Last Disclaimer

Now this example is extreme, but it does show how easy it is to get exposure online if you simply interrupt people having a great experience and ask them to share it. For in the moment marketing to work you also have to provide a means by which your customers can actually share their experience. This can be a laptop at the front, ipads that get passed around, a QR code for people with smart phones, etc… basically anything that gets them online and connects them with their social networks.

Once you’ve got the conversation started, you’ll be amazed at how quickly the good word spreads. If you properly use “in the moment marketing” you’ll be amazed at just how big “bigger is better” can really get.

Like this article? Read this related article: Measuring the ROI of social media