Archive for January, 2009

By: Denise Willms

Using popular keywords in your work at home articles will help make sure your audience can find your articles when they search for them. But once you find your keywords, how can you keep track of them?

I keep track of my keywords in an Excel spreadsheet. Here are some of the things I track, to keep my keywords organized:

Date: This is the date that you found the keywords. If you’ve been researching keywords, you’ll notice that the things people search for change over time. So, you may not want to optimize an article for popular keywords you discovered last year, without checking to see that they’re still popular.

Keyword Phrase: In the next column, I put the keyword phrase that I found. Remember that you want to stay away from single words, and actually go with a meaningful phrase.

Popularity: This is the number of how many times that phrase has been searched for in the past month. Your keyword research tool will tell you that.

Competition: This is the number of how many other pages are competing for that keyword. Depending on which tool you’re using, you may have to do separate research to find out for yourself.

To find how much competition you have in Google, for example, do a search for the phrase with quotes around it. If I wanted to check the competition for people who are writing about dogs like mine, I would search for “curly cream schnoodle”, just like that, with the quotes around it.

A note on popularity and competition: Your goal is to find keywords that are popular, but don’t have a lot of competition

Articles: Then I have several columns for the titles of articles I write using that keyword phrase. You could even include the dates you wrote and submitted each article. I use a different spreadsheet to track where and when each article has been published.

Denise Willms publishes work at home articles for moms at her article directory, WAHM-Articles.com. To have your article read by thousands of work at home moms, visit www.WAHM-Articles.com and sign up for a free account.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

By: Tammy Embrich

If you work at home, you know all to well that it’s not always a bed of roses. Working a business is definitely not predictable. We have good days and unfortunately bad days. It goes with the territory. But remember…working from home has some huge benefits.

The important reasons why you work from home

* You have the freedom to call your own shots
* You get to spend quality time with your family
* You come and go as you please

Well this also should include taking time off whenever you need to. Whether it be for holidays, sickness, or just to take a breather and capitalize on new energy and strength. When the holidays arrived, I was ready for a break…and I took full advantage of it. I enjoyed a stress-free Holiday Season with my family and didn’t worry about my business. I made the necessary arrangements and made the announcement on my sites and my forum that I wouldn’t be available during this time.

I did have a lot of work and emails waiting for me after the holidays were over…but I didn’t let it overwhelm me. I thoroughly enjoyed my time off and as a result, I was able to forge ahead with my business with a new perspective and with new motivation. And along with that came new goals for the new year.

If you work your business relentlessly without any breaks…you run the risk of burnout and losing your enthusiasm and passion, and you will most likely fail without it. That’s why it is so vital to your business to take a break from your daily work at home agenda and rejuvenate. You need to realize that YOU deserve a vacation from your work from time to time. You work hard, therefore a break is certainly well deserved. Also, allowing yourself time away from your business will result in more productivity and success.

Below are some helpful break tips for your work at home schedule

* Take one hour out of your day just for you
* Go out to eat for lunch with a friend
* Read a paragraph or two in your favorite book
* Take a brisk walk
* Take a leisurely drive before picking up the kids from school
* Watch a favorite television program
* Relish in the aroma of a cup of your favorite tea

The idea is to take time out for yourself, and come back with renewed vigor. It’s crucial for your business growth.

Article Written By Tammy Embrich

Tammy owns and operates two work at home websites, a work at home forum, a recipe site and three blogs.

She offers free work at home job leads for the job seeker, business work at home articles, tips, and more. You can visit Tammy at Work At Home Jobs and Work At Home Articles.

By: Michelle Shaeffer

Put your blog promotion on auto-pilot with these “set it once then forget it” promotional strategies.

Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories

Once you’ve requested a listing, you’re done!

blogcatalog.com
bloghub.com
blogarama.com
blogexplosion.com
blogflux.com
blog-search.com
blogbunch.com
iblogbusiness.com
quickblogdirectory.com
bloglisting.net
blogrankings.com
weblogalot.com

Ping When You Post

If you’re using WordPress, it’s probably already set to ping rpc.pingomatic.com Add that to your ping list if it’s not there already. Ping-O-Matic will receive your ping then let lots of other sites know you’ve updated your blog.

If you can’t ping directly from your blog, try Feedburner’s Pingshot service.

Offer Your Readers an RSS Subscribe

Techno-savvy readers love RSS feeds they can subscribe to.

Your blog may have this built it just waiting for you to link to. You can also sign up with Feedburner or Feedblitz.

Be sure to add the code to your blog once you’re setup so readers can subscribe.

Add Social Bookmarking and “Tell a Friend” to Your Posts

Sociable and Share This are two great plugins you can use to easily add social bookmarking and “tell a friend” capability to your blog.

Just download, install, setup, and then the plugin of your choice will add the social networking icons to every post on your blog.

Connect to Social Networking

Using social media you can syndicate your blog content to reach your social networks.

If you Twitter, you can tweet your blog posts with TwitterFeed.

If you’re on Facebook, try the WordPress Facebook App.

These five strategies take a few minutes to setup but once you’ve got them up and running they’ll promote your blog for you. Strategies 2 – 5 will promote your blog every time you post!

About The Author

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

By: Tammy Embrich

I eagerly started searching for a supplemental income around 1999. I was looking for any kind of job that I could do at home. I vividly remember the excitement I felt when I saw the headlines…

Data Entry Jobs-Easy Work From Home
Data Entry-Make $500 Per Day!

Well, of course…these spammy ads captured my attention and got my heart racing. I’m sorry to say, and a little ashamed, that I definitely was a fallen victim of…well, let’s just say more than one of them. Yes, it’s true! Haven’t we all been scammed a time or two?

I DID make just enough money to keep myself hooked and placing those scam ads wherever I could find to place them. See…this is where these scammers get you. They call it “Typing At Home” or “Clerical Positions” and yes, among these tempting phrases, you will also find the ever-so-popular “Data Entry” title.

They give you (simple instructions) of examples of where to place the ads, along with the ads themselves to recruit more people to join in and do the same thing: Place ads to get more victims to join…and with a hefty fee. You don’t get paid for the ads placed, you only get paid if someone joins under your affiliate link.

Do you see where this is going?

Nowhere!

These are just glorified, scam affiliate programs with a fancy title attached to them. These scammers hook you and run with your money.

These types of scam opportunities never last long and a ton of them have been shut down by the FTC-Federal Trade Commision, ftc.gov/

So, if you are a member in the crowd that is desperately searching for a position online…you need to be informed of these scams that liberally surround you on the net, and to steer clear of them.

Don’t get me wrong, there ARE a few legitimate Data Entry and Clerical positions available online. You just need to know where to look for them. If you’re not careful, (and I don’t think I need to remind you of this), you could lose a considerable amount of cash. Unfortunately, I personally know of a few that have. This is where the big lessons learned comes in. It took me a couple of times…but I did eventually learn my lesson, and a whole lot of other important things as well through my online job search.

* Legitimate work at home companies will require you to have some type of skills.
* They will require a resume from you
* They will most likely have a working phone number and email address where they can be contacted
* They will not require start up or registration fees

Below are five legitimate sites to get you started with Data Entry…

Axiondata.com/
Diondatasolutions.net/
Workingsol.com/ — some data entry projects available as well as agent positions
Keyforcash.com – there is usually a waiting list
Palmcoastdata.com/

Article Written By Tammy Embrich

Tammy owns and operates two work at home websites, a work at home forum, a recipe site and three blogs.

She offers free work at home job leads for the job seeker, business work at home articles, tips, and more. You can visit Tammy at Work At Home Jobs and Work At Home Articles.

By: Michelle Shaeffer

A common reason for moms to homeschool their children and work from home is that the at-home lifestyle appeals to them. It sounds like an ideal situation – you’re home, the kids are at home, and everyone’s happy.

But juggling a home business with homeschooling usually doesn’t look as peaceful as it might sound. In fact, this is a more likely scenario:

You’ve planned to do a math lesson with your children at 9 am. Since you have a few minutes of peace while the kids are finishing breakfast, you decide to fit in a quick email check.

There’s an email from a prospective client, who wants a proposal from you right away, for a juicy contract. There’s still 20 minutes before you had planned to start your school day, so you start to reply.

Well, one thing leads to another… the computer is slower than usual, someone spills a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, the cat decides to throw up on the couch, and by the time your email is sent, it’s an hour later.

Still, not bad, you tell yourself, and you settle down with the kids to begin their lesson.

Halfway through the first page of math problems, you hear a new email coming in. Thinking it might be about the email you just sent, you tell the kids, “I’ll be right back.”

Now he wants to talk to you over the phone. Can you call him as soon as you get this email? You pick up the phone and start dialing.

In the next room, the kids are frustrated with the math problems and starting to throw pencils and erasers at each other. While the phone’s ringing, you call out to them to quiet down and just read a book instead.

Your call is answered, but it’s a little hard to hear the reply over the fighting that has ensued. Your children have suddenly decided they have to read the very same book, at the same time. Their arguing has gotten the dog riled up, and now he’s barking too.

You mumble something about needing to call back later, apologize, and hang up the phone. By the time you get the dog outside, the kids calmed down enough to focus on their lesson, it’s time for lunch and you need a nap.

There are a few steps you can do to be sure your days don’t end up looking like this.

Schedule time for work and time for school. When it’s time for school, give your kids 100% of your attention. Then when it’s time for you to work, give 100% of your attention to your business. Problems arise when you try to multi-task because you’re won’t be able to give proper attention to either your kids or your business.

Teach your children how to work independently. There will be times when you won’t be available for your kids because of your business. So, it’s important to give your kids opportunities to learn to work independently. If you have a phone call that goes long, or if you are busy with an important project, the school day won’t automatically fall apart. Even young children can work independently for a short time.

Enlist the help of other homeschooling parents. See if you can work out a childcare exchange, for times when you need the kids out of the house. Then you can return the favor when they need help.

Be flexible. No matter how well you plan your day, always expect the unexpected. Organize your day as best as you can, but be willing to change your schedule at a moment’s notice.

About The Author

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com