My First Blog Hop in Honor of Mom’s Day

Well, here I go.  First “Blog Hop“!  I am doing it to see who else is out there journaling and sharing in this great journey.  It’ll be my 2nd Mother’s Day.  This holiday has very quickly become my favorite.  It represents everything that I am, and has helped me understand everything my own mom and grandmother ever felt and did for their own children.  What an amazing journey.

Happy early Mother’s Day to all of my friends – on and offline – that are lucky enough to walk life’s journey through the eyes of motherhood.

BLOG HOP LIST AT ORIGINAL ‘PARTY’ LOCATION!
I couldn’t get WordPress.com to accept the script that the Hop required, so here is a link to everyone that is on the list at its original source, My Adventure in Mommyhood!

Monetizing Your Mom Blog – For Love, Fame or Money?

As I spend more time obsessing over blogs and jealously enjoying hundreds of amazing sites (that’s good envy ladies, I promise!), I can’t help but wonder what drives all of us to do this.  Money?  Friendship?  Belonging?  Self-promotion?  Child obsession?  Networking? It’s probably a bit of all of those – and more.  Lord knows it’s not because we have extra time on our hands!

This entry is a follow-up to a question I was asked in an interview on the Sassy Ladies Radio Talk Show on BlogTalkRadio, where we talked about mommy blogger business models.  Here are the highlights on the business side of mommy blogging.  I hope that through comments we can get more ideas and explore this further.  I’d like to write about the emotional aspects of this later!

The Business Side of Mommy Blogging – “Making It Rain”

First, and completely OFF TOPIC, I have to say that I love the expression “making it rain”.   You know… meaning “money being thrown in the air”.  If you don’t know where this originated from, see Scrooge McDuck (that’s my version of it).  If you want to know how it’s really being used today, ask your husband.   Very politically incorrect – but I still love it.  ANYWAY…

Back to the business side of mommy blogging.  Many moms have decided that staying home doesn’t necessarily mean not finding a way to make money, and some working moms are supplementing their income through blogging.  They have successfully monetized their blogs in different ways, here are some we discussed:

Monetizing your Blog

1. Product Reviews - for cash payment, in exchange for the product, or gift cards.  I’d tell you everything we talked about, but then you wouldn’t listen to the show!  One quick point however:

“I’ve very careful with hyper reviewers. There are some mommy blogging Web sites that will review for review’s sake and you never see a negative review on their site. You do have to tread carefully on some folks’ that are getting into it just for the sake of volume, so that’s my only warning, because I have seen that happen.” - Quote from the interview

2.  Affiliate Marketing Programs

Definition: A way for a company to sell its products by signing up individuals or companies (“affiliates”) who market the company’s products for a commission. Read More at Entrepreneurs.com

“I’ll give you the non- official version of this. If you love a product and you use their website all the time, do a search for affiliate program. Most of them have an easy registration form. They give you a special link and every time you mention their product, if someone uses that link, you’ll get a percentage of sales.  It could be pennies on the dollar, but if over time you build a following over something, you can end up making money on this and you’re talking about it anyway.” - Quote from the interview

3.  Paid Guest Blogging or Article Writing Opportunities

I haven’t had any experience doing this yet, but when done tastefully this can also be a good way to monetize your blog.  I’ve seen it done on some of the blogs I follow, and find the articles or reviews to be very in-depth and useful, even if I know the blogger is being paid to do it.  Most bloggers are transparent about the fact that they’ve been hired to write the entry, which is also admirable.  Many businesses are engaging bloggers this way to get inbound links (for SEO juice) but hey – we are all trying to find ways to win against the Google machine.

I recommend that mom bloggers interested in this program check out Business2Blogger.com.  It was set up by mommy bloggers just like us, and is a very well run program.  I plan to use it for both my blog and on the corporate side as well.

I’d love to hear from companies that offer mommy bloggers other opportunities for monetization and we will add you to our blogroll!  Please share any other ways that you might be monetizing your blog so that we can learn from each other’s experiences.

I want to thank Wendy and the ladies from TheSassyLadies.com for helping women entrepreneurs attain success through their advice and mentorship.  Also, check out the new book by The Sassy Ladies titled: The Sassy Ladies Toolkit for Start-up Businesses, a great resource for new and experienced business owners.