Get Busy. Make Money.
Someone praised me for taking a leap of faith and leaving my job to do web design for a living. It’s nice that my stupidity seems like strength to others. I am nervous. I have 2 clients right now and only one is a paid client. The other is on a barter system. Unfortunately, that is not enough to sustain my “WAHM” status. I have a meeting with my Principal on Tuesday to discuss a part-time option. I am praying that we can find a balance of some kind. In the mean time, I thought I would throw this question into the blogging sea:
HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY?
I have made $20 bucks here and there, but I need to make roughly $900 a month. What is the best way to do that? Please, come out of lurkdom and leave me some answers.
Tags: monetize, blogging for money, make money, how to, advice
Blog Consultant and New Design
A friend of mine is working on starting a business as a Blog Consultant. She will help bloggers turn their blogs into businesses so that more people can become financially independent. While she is not ready to unveil her business yet, she did help me give my blog a design makeover. As you can see, I have redesigned my site yet again using her suggestions and following the opinions of a focus group. Hopefully, the page loads better now. I am also going to be adding some very necessary SEO to my blog so that I can work on getting a higher PageRank in Google.
So what do you think?
The Metamorphosis
My life has changed so much over the last few days. I am not teaching any longer (at least for a year) and I have gone from a WOHM to a WAHM. The funny thing is that I am not afraid. I know that no matter what happens, this is the right decision for my family. While I love teaching, I love my daughter more and seeing her for only 2 hours a day is no way to live.
As you can imagine, leaving my job had a lot to do with money but it had even more to do with my personal growth. I need to do some things for myself. I need to lose weight, quit smoking, and take care of my mental and financial health. Working full time and living check-to-check was not cutting it any longer. I was stressed all the time and so I ate all the time and then I smoked too much. I was becoming a person I did not like.
I guess this would be a great place to introduce you to my new site. The design was done by me, although it was inspired by Mrs. Flinger and The Domestic Diva. I am not sure if it will look right in Internet Explorer, so if you are using IE, I recommend switching to FireFox. I am trying to learn to code for all the browsers, but I really can’t understand IE.
My blog will have a new focus too. I will be talking a lot about the steps that I am taking to better my spiritual, emotional, financial, and physical health. This means I will cover everything from finding inner peace to finding $2 off of Tofu. I will also try to write at least once a day unless something… Continue reading
SocialSpark it Up the Ethical Way
I signed up for SocialSpark a few days ago and was actually denied verification as my blog was cited as being for income generating purposes only. I emailed them back and questioned the validity of their decision when, since 2005, only about 25-30 post have been written for pay. I also pointed out that if one signs up with a pay-per-post program, it is definitely because he/she would like to earn money and that there were many sites that were obviously for-profit blogs only and they were verified. They immediately approved me, but this prompted me to look very closely at the network to determine just how I would avoid the unethical pitfalls of sponsored posting.
What I really like about the new Izea program is that they have a very specific code of ethics. In fact, their code of ethics makes it very difficult for bloggers to deny being a part of the program.
100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure: all bloggers are required to include a “Sponsored by___” button at the bottom of every sponsored post. This way, readers of your blog are aware that the information the you have posted is/may be bias to an extent. I like to think of this as a tool to encourage honest advertise despite the fact that there will be people who do not post honestly.
100% Transparency: you cannot hide. If you are signed up for SocialSpark, every one will know. And not only will they know, but they will be able to see just what advertisers are working with which bloggers. In other words, you will not be able to write sponsored posts about a product or service in secret. Again, with companies like Sony and Walmart setting up fake blogs to lure people to a product, this… Continue reading