Summer Fun Fest Linky Party-Week 3

I hope you all had a great weekend! We had a fabulous weekend! The hubs and I got to attend a Vanderbilt baseball game Friday night with my dad and sister. It was awesome!

More to share about that later on;o)

And Saturday, we all attended my dad's company picnic at A Cowboy Town near Nashville. We had a blast there. The kids LOVED it! They got to ride horses, play fun games, & play on water slides.

I'll have some pictures to share with you later on this week....hopefully:o)

Now, let's get down to business.:o)

Here are the highlights from last week's party:

Summer To-Do List

submitted by Mommy Minded

Pokemon Birthday Invitations

submitted by Making Memories.

Bean Bag Toss

submitted by Secret Pie Shoppe

Hawaiian Themed Birthday Party

submitted by This Too

Thanks for participating girls:o) You guys are great! Make sure to grab a featured button on the left side bar!!

I'm taking a break on the linky party this week. I have a few projects in the works for this week, and we have been having a few computer issues...

thanks to our "sweet little angels"

so posts may be few and far between this week. 

If you haven't signed up to receive email updates for new posts, make sure to do so. That way you won't miss out on any new postings.

Have a great day, ya'll!

Friday Faves

I missed last week's Friday Faves...not sure what I had going on...I have slept since then;o)

This week has been uber busy with appointments, playdates, and a sun scorching day at the water park yesterday that left us all burnt to a crisp, but happy as larks:o)

Next time I will make sure to check the expiration date on the sunscreen BEFORE we hit the pool!!!

So here are my favorites from last week, since I didn't have a chance to check anyone's blog out this week:o)

Lizzy painted this beautiful Diamond Pattern Wall in her bathroom. Gorgeous! Love that shower curtain too:o)

Would you believe that these are not real coffee mugs? I had to do a double take:o) Head over to Diary of a Ladybird, and check out her Hot Chocolate (fondant) Cupcakes.

This Picnic Blanket is so simple and yet so genius. Head to Infarrantly Creative and see how simple it is to make one yourself...and the best part..NO SEWING:o)

And last but but not least, I love these Watermelon Shaped Cookies. These would be perfect for a summer party. Head over to Glorious Treats to see what else they've got cookin'.

Thanks to you all for being such inspirations! Grab a "I've been Featured Button" if you like

(on the left sidebar), 

and wear it proudly:o)

I hope that you all have a fantastic weekend. We plan to have a bit of fun tomorrow. Next week I hope to tackle a few more projects and share some new finds.

Plus I will have a 300 Follower Giveaway!

The truth about driving traffic

You know it and you have learned it well. Traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. Without traffic, there will be no leads. Without a list of leads, there will be no money on the table, because the old idiom always say “The money is in  the list”.

So, a lot of online entrepreneurs face a lot of struggle dealing with driving traffic to their websites. Some sites are designed with the fanciest web animations and buttons, but they only survive for one year before going out of business; some only uses a simple HTML form and no more than three paragraphs of sales letter, yet it delivers millions to its owner on auto-pilot simply because it manages to drive tons of traffic constantly.

So how in the world do you drive traffic constantly?

Some propose to use a paid traffic method like advertising using Google Adwords. While some like to say that it would be better to use the free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods for long term goals. So, which one do you take?

any method you take, paid or free, there is no short cut for endless and stable flow of traffic. Driving constant traffic is frustating. You will fail over and over again before you “get it”, whether using paid or free method.

The frustation using paid method is on the keyword research and targeting aspects. You will spent countless hours to test and re-test your campaign. Believe me, without proper guidance or eagerness, you will not be able to master the pay per click game.

How about free method, the SEO? This is also frustating. In order for your page to rank well, you need to look for backlinks, high quality and relevant ones, and if possible, a one-way back link.

Back a few years ago, social bookmarking sites like Digg was a gem in the one-way back link world for SEO lovers, but ever since get-rich-quick and adult-enhancement spammers exploited it, the sites put more and more strict spam filters.

Link exchanges are also a good option, but it is not as easy as it sounds. It takes a lot of hard work contacting webmasters asking them for link exchange. Most webmasters nowadays only want to link exchange with sites that are maintained consistently and have good Page Ranks.

So, do you still believe that driving traffic is a piece of cake?

Yes, I still believe that driving traffic is a piece of cake, if you use “out of the box” approach. One unique approach that you can use is by providing a free report in a PDF format containing links to your websites and product sales page.

“But, this is old school tricks!”  Yes, I know it is old school tricks but it still works, if you do it right. A lot of struggling internet marketers say “Ah, I know that…”, but they missed to “practice” their knowledge. No more of that now. Get off your seats and make a free report about your niche, and make it good, because after all, a good content is the most important.

After you make your free report, start distributing it. Use a newsletter and an autoresponder form. Contact webmasters and ask them whether they would like to share the report with their subscribers for free. Or better yet, lure them to sell your report for a profit just as long as they maintain your links in it. Now, can you imagine the effect of that report if one webmaster is willing to share it with 10,000 of his subscribers? Not to mention if those subscribers also share it with their networks and associates, the possibility is endless….

That is just an “out of the box” method that you can use.

Thoughts on Decoding the Digital Consumer

Next Monday I’m speaking on a panel at the NYT Small Business Summit. The theme of the panel is ‘Decoding the New Digital Consumer’ and since I know you can’t all be in New York, I wanted to share a few thoughts more widely.

We all know that online technologies have completely changed the way we find information. If I wanted to buy a new bike, for example, I’d visit a search engine to research my options and scour websites to educate myself on specific models. I might event visit YouTube to see bikes in action or check Twitter to see the latest announcements from certain bike manufacturers. When it’s time for a test ride, I would likely look up locations of stores and more information on my mobile device.

As a digital customer, I have endless ways to access information. And as a small business owner, you have more options than ever to reach me when I’m looking for your product or service. More options can also mean more effort. Here are some tips for understanding and engaging online customers:

• Research your company. The first thing I tell any small business owner is to research your company online (yes, Google yourself! And also search on YouTube and Twitter...) to see where your customers are engaging with your brand. What are people saying about your company and where are they engaging on the web?
• Go local. One out of every five searches on Google.com is location-based. Verify your business address on Google Places so you can appear on Google.com and Google Maps. With Places, you’ll receive a monthly email with insights on how customers are interacting with your page.
• Talk to your customers. For businesses that fit well with two-way engagement (tip: not all do!), Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are all great channels for social interaction. You can ask for feedback, promote special offers to loyal customers, and even provide product education for zero to little cost BUT a significant effort can be required.
• Measure your efforts. Use a web analytics tool such as Google Analytics to understand your customers. With a simple piece of code, Analytics allows you to see which sites or search engines your customers visited before they arrived at your site. You can also see aggregated information on your customers’ geographic locations. So, for example, if you see a lot of visits coming from a certain city or state, you can target online ads to that region or make a special call out to these folks on your social media channels.

The online world has really leveled the playing field. Now, small business owners can reach customers they would not have acquired when marketing was limited to expensive TV and print ad campaigns. I encourage you to spend time researching your online customers and some of you should consider building and interacting with an online community of customers and prospects. Without even spending a dime, you can build an online presence and potentially expand your customer base and your business.

Posted by: Claire Johnson, VP of Online Sales

Summer Fun Fest Linky Party-Week 2

Great news! We have hit the 300 Follower mark! How exciting, right?

I think there needs to be a giveaway to celebrate:o) Be on the look out;o)

I want to thank those who participated last week in the first Summer Fun Fest Linky Party. This week, I am going to change it up a bit. This week will be a free-for-all. I want to know what you are doing this summer. What projects do you have going on? What are you cooking? What are you doing with your kids? Anything you want to share is fair game:o)

Here are some highlights from last week:

Homemade Magic 8 Ball

Oatmeal Chocolate Waffle Cookies

Sweet & Salty Deliciousness

Show these girls some love and visit their sites!

If you guys were highlighted, go ahead and grab a Featured Button.

Now it's your turn! Show us what you are up to this summer...besides melting in this heat:o)

5 Good reason to use Yahoogroups to start your ezine

Affiliate marketing

List servers and list serving software can be a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. Trust me, I know ... 

If you are new to Internet Marketing, or just new to the way of web business, and there's all these other things to learn and think about, there are five VERY good reasons to leave commercial list serving software systems alone for now and simply use a Yahoogroup to do all the work for you.

1. EVERYBODY Knows ... 

... what a Yahoogroup is, and even if they don't, they'll soon pick it up. By using Yahoogroups, you are tapping into a long, long established institution that is globally known and trusted; this will make it much easier to get people who don't really know you yet to subscribe to your ezine or newsletter.

2. Yahoogroups are very easy.

Even for absolute beginners, Yahoogroups are easy to set up and easy to manage. You don't have to worry about the vagaries of AOL emails, double opt in procedures, anti-spam declarations, unsubscription features or any of it, it's all taken care of for you. They also come with little sign up boxes and buttons, and the admin interface, although not exactly intuitive, can soon be worked out by trial and error.

3. Yahoogroups messages don't get caught in spam filters.

Spam filters are the SCOURGE of ezines and email delivery. When you send your messages via the Yahoogroups delivery system, this is not a problem; as Yahoo is such a mega beast, it has its own exceptions in mostly all spam filters known to mankind and your messages WILL at least reach their intended recipient

4. Yahoogroups have useful extra features.

You can do a lot with a Yahoogroup if you are willing to spent some time on it. Weblinks, an attractive group page, bookmarks, file downloads and more are all available for the beginner web entrepreneur to optimise and use, easily at that.

5. Yahoogroups are FREE.

Alright, so the group messages carry third party advertising, but that is a very small price to pay for access to a system that can easily and very elegantly serve hundreds of thousands of messages, that is reliable and steady and so well known. Other than that, there are no set up fees, no ongoing charges, and it's there for you whenever you want it.

Once you are ready to do so, you can export your list and put it on your own personal commercial list server systems, complete with technicians who take care of everything behind the scenes - until then, and if you haven't done this before, to simply use Yahoogroups for ezine delivery is a really good way to get started with your ezine and to build up your subscriber base.

Milk Can Table

Last weekend I got a wild hair and decided to tackle a ton of projects that have been sitting in our garage for MONTHS. The hubs was getting a little flustered with all of the junk stacked up in there, so I finally bit the bullet and got down to business.

My mother gave me this milk can who knows how long ago;o). It belonged to one of her friends, and had been painted a taupe color. For the longest time I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, but after wandering thru Lowes the other day, I knew it had to be a table:o)

The table top was around $17...a little more than I would normally pay for something, but I needed the 24" round top so it would look proportional. I used one coat of primer and 2 coats of Cherry Red by Krylon for the paint. Because the top of the milk can was such an odd shape with concave and convex curves, nailing or screwing the table top down wasn't an option. So I decided that liquid nails was the way to go.

Here it is nested between our two chairs:o)

Isn't it so sweet?:o)

Here is the other side of the seating area.

The seat cushions came from Old Time Pottery. The swing was shorter than the cushion, so I wacked the ends off and stitched it back up

Other Projects we have going on around here: 

Here is our BIG work in progress...the hubs has been busy working to create privacy off the back patio. This is Stage 1. 

He has done a FANTASTIC job!

 The side of the house

My container garden:o)

can't wait to "harvest" these veggies!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!

Participating in:

75th Power of Paint Party