Cutting it down to a very basic level, a blog is an online diary. Blog is short for “weblog” and it is a chronological series of entries or posts.

Posts, which used to be content only, can now be audio or video as well.

Online marketers, always looking out for ways to grow their business and connect with their audience, grabbed onto this user friendly, and search engine friendly, technology and added it to their marketing strategy.

How Businesses Use Blogs

To Connect with Your Audience - A blog gives you, a business owner, a tool to connect with your audience on a more personal level and perhaps a more consistent way. RSS technology enables readers the ability to subscribe to content putting your message and information in their email inbox or on their reader.

To Drive Traffic – Optimized content is what you get with every blog post. Search engines love blogs and you can add plug-ins and widgets that capitalize on SEO tactics and social networking strategies. The end result is a boost in traffic and ultimately profits.

To Increase Awareness – In addition to your current marketing strategy, which may include articles, advertising, direct mail, autoresponders, and social networking, a blog increases awareness of your company. This increases your opportunities both to grow your customer base and also your partnership and business opportunities.

Blogging is a great way to build a business whether it’s a standalone blog or as part of your business website. To learn more about blogs, blogging and how to make money with a blog sign up for

Get your copy now MMotivator

Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is online selling for a
commission. In traditional offline sales you sell an item for a
company and you receive a commission from the sale of that item.
Online the same principles apply but it’s all done electronically.

Where affiliate marketing truly differs from traditional sales is
that it can be a very passive and automatic business. Your website
will sell for you 24 hours a day without you having to knock on
doors or cold call.

Each time one of your website visitors clicks on a recommended
product and purchases that product through your unique affiliate
link you earn a commission for the sale.

Affiliate marketing is a wonderful business which truly allows you
the opportunity to earn passive income. This means you can make
money while you sleep, play or spend time with your family.

To learn more about all the in’s and out’s of affiliate marketing sign up for

I knew we would be back with new direction, I just didn’t know when.

What is Moms Business Network?

Our blog is an info site for mom owned businesses.

Our directory is a place for moms to list their business.

Our meetup is local, in person networking for mom businesses.

If you just bookmark http://www.momsbusinessnetwork.com you can find everything there

So, here we are and I want to kick off our return with a giveaway!

We are giving away 6 copies of
I Love My Life: A Mom’s Guide to Working from Home

and 4 of our monthly sponsored ad spots on our blog sidebar–>

So we have 10 prizes to give away (winners will have choice from what is available at the time of notification).

How to enter:

Just leave a comment on this post before March 1st 2010.

Good Luck!

Our Meetups are:

• a free opportunity  for a moms in the Downriver and Monroe areas of Michigan to promote their businesses
• a way to meet new contacts and gain referrals

Please check out our meetup group

Many people are planning and plotting for 2010.  For others, planning is not something that comes naturally and neither is coming up with a ton of blog posts.

Which is why, despite the resistance, it is even more important to at least have a rough idea what you will write about ahead of time. When you have something laid out, you don’t have to worry about having a blog that is stale and more importantly, you can see clearly where you slip in a promotion to market your blog, a spot to promote your own products or affiliate products. This small action is the beginnings of a profitable blog or an even more profitable blog than you have now.

When are YOU going to plan your 2010 blog posts?

How about right now?  Here’s a great blogging calendar to help you with that.   It’s a calendar that you can also use as a planner and it includes some pretty strange, funny and interesting holidays and events. This is a big help to work out all your posts through the year.

Download it, print it, stick it in a binder and start planning. You could literally come up with months of blogging material by the end of the day.

If you have your own affiliate program and you are looking for affiliates to help promote your products, the http://momsaffiliateexpo.com is coming up September 11,12, and 13th 2008 and they are filling exhibitor spots now. This is also part of the Moms Talk Network. The event will be a great place for Mom Affiliate Marketers to get hooked up with great programs , super mom affiliate speakers and resources!

But have you tried using email?

Email marketing can be very effective. The average person will need to see your marketing message several times (as many as 8 or 9!) before they buy anything from you. How can you get in front of your potential customers that many times without annoying them and scaring them off?

By emailing them helpful information they WANT to receive! When you email your customers good, quality information, they will look forward to receiving your emails. They will come to see you as a trusted source and friend. People want to do business with people the like. They won’t even think of buying from your competition!

A great way to stay in regular contact with your customers and provide them with great information is through a monthly newsletter. But if you’re strapped for time or are stuck with a case of writer’s block, creating a whole newsletter every month can seem like a lot of work!

I recently came across a service called Quick and Easy Newsletters that offers pre-written newsletters that can easily be customized.

Each newsletter comes with a welcome message, a section for your monthly special, a calendar section for you to let your customers know of any events you are holding, 2 articles, some recipes, and a closing mention.

Did I mention the graphics come with it, too?? The newsletter comes in three different formats, including HTML, Word, and plain text.

They are giving away a free trial during June pick it up while you still have time at Quick and Easy Newsletters You can also lock in the introductory price and keep getting these newsletters at only $6.95 per month!!

Imagine how much your sales will increase by staying in regular contact with your customers. Is that worth an investment of less than $7? I think so!

Grab your free sample and lock in the introductory price by visiting
Quick and Easy Newsletters

Click here for 50 practical ideas to use giving and kindness to boost your business, it’s free and part of the free Internet Marketing Sweetie Course

Well, those are all good tools to build your online businesses, but my friend, Alice Seba, has been using another tool to build hers and she’s sharing her very best strategies…at no charge.

If you don’t know Alice, she is one of the most generous people you’ll ever meet and she has built a profitable business around the principle of giving and being nice to people. That’s why I’m not surprised when she announced this freebie offer.

Her “Internet Marketing Sweetie System” shows you, in very specific ways, to:

- increase your website traffic
- build better relationships with your prospects
- get more referrals to increase your sales
- networking for longterm success
- transform your competitors to partners

…all with “Internet Marketing Sweetie” principles in mind.

It’s nice to know nice guys and gals can get ahead in their online business. Check it out and get your instant access at:

Internet Marketing Sweetie