Fall RocketMoms Week #5 Challenge: Picture It

The 5th week of the Fall Rocketmoms session was all about using at least one picture you had personally taken (aka, not stock images) and telling the content story of that photo.

I actually struggled with this challenge at first. I was looking through my Flickr account trying to choose a photo and thinking I would do some kind of needlework tutorial post or something along those lines. Then I realized I’ve been taking a lot of food photos lately for my husband’s blog (Cooking with Zen) and I decided to go the food route with this challenge. What can I say? Food lenses are fun! And it was a good way to gain some new exposure for Brian’s food blog and hopefully earn him a few new fans since his cooking is really the star of this Squidoo lens, even if I did snap the pictures.

==> Banish Boring Baked Chicken Recipes Forever
(pictured below)

I did a quick check at Wordtracker and the main keyword here was baked chicken recipes, [Read more...]

Setting Goals for November 2011

Wow, it’s November already! October flew right past me and I found myself changing and rearranging my goals on the fly during the month. Goal changes are fine if you find you need something different than your original vision, what’s important is to have a goal and know the goal.

So first I’ll review my October goals and then I’ll scribble out some main goals for November… [Read more...]

Always Check the Length of Cookie Life

Sometimes when you’re niched down into a topic there are a limited number of affiliate programs available to you. I found myself having a hard time finding affiliate programs with the right mix of products. So when I found a program that offered nearly everything cross stitch related, I applied and started using it immediately. Unfortunately the program offers no tracking at all, there were no click reports, no items purchased reports, no reporting or tracking at all.

Growing frustrated with the lack of tracking I decided to put some of my own tracking on the links I was directing to the affiliate program. I realized pretty quickly how much traffic I was actually sending them and wondered why my commissions weren’t higher. I logged into the affiliate program and went to the FAQ to check the cookie life, something I should have already known, silly me. The info wasn’t there, so I emailed the affiliate manager to ask about it and included a few other questions I was curious about.

This is where things get hairy. The email that came back that there was no cookie life, it was single browser session only. NO cookie life. Zero. [Read more...]

5 Ways to Build a List that Gets Results

Your email list can launch your business and help you achieve your biggest dreams. It’s the key to a long lasting and successful business. However, some people struggle to build their list. Others struggle to make money from their list.

Before I dive into the list of tips I want to first say that I don’t think every niche site needs to have a list. Sometimes you just want to get them on the page and and off the page quickly and onto what they’re buying through your link. In the case where your visitor already knows exactly what they want and they have to you specifically for that item then you might not need the list capture. If it’s a long term decision or something that you can offer support and advice on after their purchase then go for the list capture and keep them coming back for more.

Here are some tips to build an email list that brings results….

[Read more...]

Fall RocketMoms Week #4 Challenge: In the Kitchen

I got a little carried away on week four, I did three lenses with holiday recipes. I’m blogging in a hurry today because my power has been flickering like crazy, so I’ll skip the screenshots and fancy stuff.

Check out the plexo lens for the fourth week’s challenge < - you an see all the RocketMoms lenses for the In the Kitchen challenge there.

Here are my three: [Read more...]

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