Building A Better Blog: Time Management

Blogging takes time and lots of it. If you’re a serious blogger, you know this. If you aren’t, then trust me. One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing a beautiful blog carefully maintained and updated by a woman who is a stay-at-home mom. All I can figure is that she either doesn’t sleep or her older kids do all of the housework, educating, and caretaking of the younger kids. Basically, if you don’t have a job that allows you time to blog or if you have young children, you’re going to have to be very careful at your time management in order to keep your blog up while still taking care of your home and family. No one’s perfect at it, but here are a few ideas to keep you going:

1) Be realistic about product reviews and giveaways. These take a huge amount of time (I figure around 3 hours per review/giveaway). If you don’t honestly have the time to put in, don’t do it. Your family is more important than reviewing everything available to you. Only choose the ones that you really need and that are worth this time.

2) Have a set time every day to write, and do it offline. Since I’m home now, I’m learning to blog while LoveBug is sleeping. I get on our computer that has no Internet access and type my posts into a word processer. Having a regular time and not being online keeps me focused and free from the distractions of my daughter, housework, and email. I’m also able to work on multiple posts at once which helps to keep the words flowing.

3) Keep a notebook handy to jot down titles of blog posts. There’s nothing worse for a blogger than to waste time at the computer because you can’t think of what to write about! I come up with some of my best posts while I’m driving (or at least I think they’re some of my best topics), so I just write down the titles then and write the post later when I have time. You’ll be surprised at how much you have to say if you do this!

4) Use a pre-written letter for product review inquiries and to notify prize winners. Simply save the letter, keep it updated, and personalize it for each contact. This will keep you from having to write a new letter every time you contact someone!

5) Organize your writings and photos into a “blog” folder on your computer. You might even go so far as to save documents by their date first and title second so you can quickly find things.

6) Upload your writings once or twice a week. Since you’re doing your writing offline, upload a bunch of them once or twice a week. Just set their “posting” dates to be spread out throughout the week so that your readers have new things to read every day or few days until you get into your blogging platform again. Uploading a bunch at once will save you time in the long run!

Want to get more hints and tips for Building a Better Blog? Visit our "Best Of" page!

Do YOU want to review products on your blog?

I'm often asked how it is that I'm able to review products on my blog. Frankly, this has been my best kept secret...until now! I love testing products, telling you about the products, giving companies suggestions for improvements, and, of course, receiving needed items for my family for only the cost of my time. The reason I started this blog was to provide a place of encouragement, support, and resources for working moms in particular. Soon after I began writing, though, my daughter needed the next size up in cloth diapers. We didn't really have the money to invest in new diapers so I thought to myself, why not use my blog as a way to provide for my child? The rest is history and I don't plan on stopping any time soon. :-)

This "product reviewing" part of the Building a Better Blog series will consist of a few posts. In its entirety, the following questions will be answered:

Preparing to review products

How to become a product reviewer

Ways to find companies and products

Conducting and writing a review

Troubles that come with reviewing products

Do you have more questions?

Leave me a comment below and I'll do my best to answer it!

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Making The Dive

Reviewing products may seem glamorous and get-rich-quick-ish, but it's really not a free way to get products for you and your family. In exchange for a product, whether it cost $3.00 or $300.00, you will be investing time--and potentially a lot of it! In my own experience and that I've read of other bloggers, I'd say that the overall average time spent on a review is 3 hours per review. If the average product would cost you $25.00 to buy, you're making $8.33 an hour. Keep this in mind before you decide to jump into the world of product reviews.

Given the value of time, you need to ask yourself the following questions before getting into reviewing:

1) How much time can I spend on reviewing products without taking time away from the most important things like my family, spirituality, health, and quality of life?

For some people, you may be able to devote 10 hours a week to reviewing products. For others, you may not be able to do more than 3. Be honest--it's better to start small and work up rather than build a poor reputation because you're not timely.

2) Who is my audience?

If you've read some of my other Building a Better Blog posts, you'll recall that in order to have a successful blog, you need to be focused in what you write about. If your target audience is people who like to cook and bake, you will want to write about food, not video games! As a reviewer, you need to maintain the same stability by choosing to review products that your readers are interested in, based on your target audience.  

3) What products can I provide an honest review for?

If you're to build a community of regular readers, you need to be focused in your reviewing just as you would your blog topics. On top of that, you should never agree to do a review that you can't really do. For instance, don't offer to review a baby's bottle unless you actually have a baby to test it out on! People are relying on your integrity and opinion of the product you're reviewing. If you can't really review the product, your readers will see that and they'll be less likely to look to your opinion in the future.

With that said, though, I do think that once you've proved to your audience that you can knowledgably review a particular sort of product, you then have more freedom later to review that same sort of product even if you can't "test" it completely anymore. For instance, if you've already reviewed baby bottle's while your infant used them, but then a few months after your child has weaned from a bottle, you have some freedom to still do a bottle review since you know what you're looking for and can compare features to other products.

4) What is my platform?

There are outlets for product reviewers who review through different means. Your platform may be a personal blog, friends, or a network that you've established in your community like play groups, PTA organizations, or church meetings. Think about what your platforms are and if they would be viable to a business as a good marketing opportunity. If you don't think there'd be much draw for a business to say "YES! I want this group of people to hear about my product!" then start working on ways to build your platform. A review without someone to listen is...well, not much of a review.

5) Why do I want to review products, anyway?

There's no wrong answer to this question, but you need to know what your motivation is in order to be successful. I'd love to see what other bloggers and people are motivated to review products by, so post your answer below! I'll start. :-)

Making Money Through Swagbucks FAQ

Building a Better Blog: How to make money online and through your blog

Post #2: Swagbucks

Swagbucks.com is (in essence) a paid to search program with a twist. You do searches (just like one would use Yahoo or Google) and randomly throughout the day you'll be rewarded with Swagbucks (which work like points). Swagbucks can be "cashed in" for rewards like giftcards to Target or Amazon.com (plus lots more), sports memorabilia, video games, etc. Swagbucks have no monetary value though (so there's no option to get a check rather than buy a giftcard).

Q) Does it cost to join or receive rewards?100% free to join. I've only ever gotten e-giftcards (for amazon.com) so there was no charge whatsoever. I honestly have no idea about say, a bass guitar if they charge shipping or not.

Q) It says I need a swagcode to join. What's that?Swagcodes are keywords that are put out by Swagbucks.com so you can earn automatic points rather than earning points by searching. You don't need to enter anything in in order to join though.

Q) Does Swagbucks have a referral program?Yes, they do. For every referral you have, Swagbucks will match their swagbucks up to 100 swagbucks (so after your referral earns 100 you don't earn anything from them). So, say I have a referral who earned 2 Swagbucks on a search--that means that I also earned 2 Swagbucks.

Q) Do I have to download the search toolbar?You can either search (after joining) by going to www.swagbucks.com OR you can download their toolbar and it just replaces my google/yahoo/etc. bar in Firefox. No virus warnings or any issues whatsoever on my computer.

Q) How many searches should I be doing a day?I do searches all day long. However, do not do too many searches back to back (like rapid fire) or Swagbucks will think you are some kind of spambot and you'll NEVER get Swagbucks. This is what happened to DH. On average winning happens 2-3 times during the course of a day. Some searches you'll receive only 1 buck... but sometimes you may get 2,3 or even 20 swagbucks for a search!

Q) So, what should I be search for? Are there keywords that always work?GOOD question. For the most part, swagbucks are random. Some words may get a swagbuck for one person, and not for the other. However--in my experience, I've found that mainly proper names do pretty well consistently with winning Swagbucks (So, search for your name, your DD's name.. or any other proper nouns). We like to share when a word does work for us because it MAY just work for you too! But, for the most part, they're random.

Q) What's a swagcode and how do I enter them?Swagcodes are released by Swagbucks.com. They earn you Swagbucks instantly rather than having to do searches in hopes of a swagbuck. They normally have a quick expiration on them, so if you see one, go on and enter it in then. Where do you enter them, you may ask? Here's how I do it: Go to Promote on the top of the screen (black menu bar) after you do a search. Then I go to "Your Swagbucks" (it's in a grey menu bar a little lower)--then you should see a place that says "have a swagcode".. enter it in here. Swagcodes are case-sensitive and always click "Gimmie" rather than enter. I've entered swagcodes and thought I didn't get anything, but then a day later they'll show up.. so some are not instant.

Q) Is it legit? Have you earned anything?Yes. It is legit.. or I wouldn't be going on and on about it. lol. I have received 2 giftcards to Amazon.com using my Swagbucks and made purchases very easily. If you order stuff--shipping is free!

A big "thank you" to http://screamingpenny.blogspot.com/ for writing this guest post!

How to Make Money Through Your Blog: Cashbaq

Building a Better Blog: How to make money online and through your blog
Post #1: Cashbaq.com

Description: Cashbaq allows you to earn either a discount (some up to 50%, average is 5-6%) or a designated monetary amount ($20 is common) on your online purchases from over 2,900 stores. We're talking everything from eBay (2%) and 1800-flowers.com (8%) to Snapfish.com (10%), Visa Black Card ($70), Jelly Belly (10%), and OxiClean (10%). Seriously. Everyone is on this list.

On top of the discounts and rebates, Cashbaq has special "coupon" offers you can use (I get them emailed to me). I find some HUGE deals with their coupons--in fact, that's how I got my Simple Shoes for virtually nothing!

How this earns money:

1) You are saving a significant amount of money on your regular online purchase (textbooks, vacations, household items, gifts, clothing...).

2) You earn $ off of referals. See below.

How to do it:

1) Sign up. It's free and fast--and you don't have to provide too much information.

2) When you (or a friend) makes an online purchase, start at cashbaq.com and then click into your store. Meaning, if you're making a purchase from The Land of Nod, don't start at landofnod.com. Start at cashbaq.com and click their link for The Land of Nod.

2) You spread the word to your friends (if you want to make money from referals). As they sign up and save money on their online purchases, you will earn a comission of their spendings.

Your friends: 10%       Their friends: 5%     Their friends' friends: 2%

So if all of your friends, their friends, and their friends' friends earn a total of $100 a month together online, you'll be getting $17.00

3) Every time you reach $10.00 in your Cashbaq account, they will either send you a check or put the money in your PayPal account.

Other Nice Things:
1) Cashbaq will not share your information or send you SPAM.
2) When you click on a store link, Cashbaq will automatically let you know if there are any additional coupons (on top of the discount) for that store.
3) They automatically put $5.00 in your account just for signing up.

You can't lose anything! I've only made one purchase through Cashbaq.com and already have $7.11 in my account! I've also been a member with them for a few months and have yet to receive any SPAM or anything fishy from them.

Good luck, and get started saving (and earning) some money! Click here to visit their site.

How to make money through your blog and online

So you want to make money with your blog. Or maybe you don't have a blog and want to make money online, instead. I have the goal of earning enough money through my blog this year that I will be able to afford the Internet at my house (about $40/month). In my search to find out how to truly and legitimately earn money online, I'll also be sharing my findings with you so that you too can have a few extra trickles of income!

This will be my criteria:

1) Must be free.

2) Must be legitimate.

3) Must not cost me any extra time (i.e. I won't be filling out surveys!).

The results of this search will be posted here on Life More Simply as additions to the "Building a Better Blog" series--starting today! I have a handful of topics that I'm in the process of researching right now, including Cashbaq, Swagbucks, AdSense, Amazon Associates, and Paid Advertising Space. If you know of any other endeavours that I should add to this list, leave me a message below and I'll check them out for you!

Post #1: Cashbaq

Building A Better Blog: Post Size

It's recommended that you keep your blog postings to a maximum of 500 words. In fact, most places who will feature you as a "guest blogger" have this as a requirement! The idea is that people lose interest fast when viewing web pages and especially when reading something online. If you find that you're not keeping readers for anything other than giveaways, this may be your problem.

I will even admit it--if I see a blog post that's really long, I will either skip the entire thing or just skim for details. Now a blog post with more photos, less words, and just main points--I'm hooked! To combat this problem, I often divide up posts with long content. Making a "Part 1" and "Part 2" can actually bring traffic back to you since more people are willing to read the shorter blog post, get interested, and then decide to come back to find out more.

As far as reviews go, stick to your review! Don't regurgitate the details of the product that someone can read on the retailer's website. They're reading your post because they want to know your opinion of what you liked and didn't like. Give them just the basics about the product, or you're going to risk writing that super long post again! Many times, authors of blog posts feel that the more details, the better. While that is the general rule for much academic writing, the same rule does not apply in the blog realm. Stick to the basics, write shorter posts (or continuing shorter posts!), and leave questions to the reader. You'll find that more people will take the time to read, and more people will leave comments relative to your post!

Building A Better Blog: Statistics

Knowing the statistics of your blog is important for many reasons. The first is that it will provide you with a lot of valuable information:

• Location of your readers
• The length of time that people are spending at your site
• Path of entry, exit, and everywhere in between
• How many visitors are new, returning; also how often they're returning
• What search engines people are using to find you
• The key words that people are searching to find you
• Number of total hits at any given time, as well as trends associated with this
• Number of unique visitors

Knowing this information can help you tailor your writings to appeal to the most people (for instance, I continue to post monthly "special days" since this is one of the top search ways I'm found), find out where you're losing people (I seem to have a following of people who will check to see if I'm having any giveaways, and if not, they leave!), determine what topics you're writing about that interest people the most (just see what pages they spend the most time looking at!), and it can help you find out what other sites are giving traffic to you.

The second way in which knowing your website's statistics is helpful is when you're looking to do any product reviews or offer advertising space. Many companies determine whether they want to work with someone or not partially based on that blog's traffic statistics. I'm commonly asked where my readers are located, and how many hits I receive per month.

The two best stat counters I've found for blogging and websites in general are Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics/ and Stat Counter at http://www.statcounter.com/ . Both of these services are free and provide an in depth look at how your site is doing. For the beginner or general blogger, I'd recommend using Stat Counter. It provides an easy to read summary of your basic stats--numbers related to page loads, location of visitors, and traffic sources among other things. The graphical illustrations are easy to understand and can provide you with information that's quick to read. If you're hoping to find a deeper analysis of your site, then Google Analytics is for you. This site will provide you with details of all of the statistical analysis as well as comparing your goals and current statistics to all of your past ones.

I am registered at both Google Analytics and Stat Counter, but generally turn to Stat Counter since I normally just need a quick overview of things. If you have a blog or website and aren't already registered at one of these places, I think you'll find it to be worth your time and effort. The information you'll glean can be priceless in building a better blog!

Building A Better Blog: Technorati

One of the ways that you can easily and quickly promote your blog in cyberspace is by registering through Technorati. Often unheard of by armature bloggers, Technorati is one way that you can increase your traffic, page rank (where it shows up in search engine results), and value to companies offering products for review.

What is Technorati? Technorati is simply a search engine and index of blogs. By June of 2008, they had indexed 112.8 million blogs and had won a few prestigious awards involving the Internet and/or technology. Technorati also assigns a ranking to each blog (with "1000" being the highest)) and "authority" number between 1 and 10.

Why should I join and register my blog with Technorati? By joining and registering, you will create another avenue of exposure for your blog. If you want to review products on your blogs, many organizations that deal with product reviews want to know what your Technorati Authority and Ranking is. Also, by viewing your profile, you'll be able to see all of the other blogs (also registered with Technorati) who have links to you.

How do I join? Go to http://www.technorati.com/ and click on "join." You'll provide them with basic info and then be on your way. It's totally free!

Technorati Authority: ones "authority" is a number fixed to your blog by Technorati. It's supposed to represent your influence over the blogging network (i.e. how many people have links to your blog?) and the popularity your blog has at a given point in time. This is a fluctuating number that you may see go up and down based on what the popular topic is in the blogging world on a given day. There is also a "topical technorati ranking" that also measures the relativity of your blog to the category from which the ranking falls into (good news: your blog may fall into multiple categories).

Technorati Rank: this number indicates where your blog's authority falls when compared to ther authority number of other blogs. The highest number you can get, of course, is "1".

Some things you should remember...

- Links to you only count if that person is registered with Technorati

- "Blogroll" links don't count

- Technorati only counts newer links. Once a person's been linked to you for, let's say 6-months, Technorati isn't going to count that link anymore.

Overall, Technorati has been the most useful to me in tracking who links to me and also so that I can provide product review companies with a Technorati number when they ask. Remember, any number--even if it's low--is better than no number. If you want companies to think that you're a serious blogger and can influence the online community, get registered with Technorati!