Do you wanna see why I love online marketers/bloggers so much? Then just check out this awesome video from the very recent conference in Austin, TX - SXSW. I’m telling you, these guys were just having way too much fun! I don’t think they should have been having that much fun without me! Hrmph!

My boss is even a beatboxer! Whoa! Who knew!

I can’t wait until I get to start attending conferences! I think IZEAFest might just have to break me into the ‘conference game’!

[I’ve been ’sitting’ on this post for far too long, leaving it in draft for over a week now. I think it is time to release it out into the wild, as is. I’ve been stressing over the editing, fixing, and restructuring - and I’ve come to realize that it will be in draft forever if I don’t just hit ‘publish’ already! So here ya go, here it is - rough and in the buff]

I realize the first post in this series was not called Make Money Blogging, but, as I’m feeling a bit ornery and cantankerous, I decided that different titles were just fine. It is my blog, after all - see that up there in the header - the part that says Lisa Marie Mary - yeah, that’s my name. So this is kinda like my pad. And my rules go. See what I mean - got that ornery thing down, don’t I?

Let’s get to the good stuff and quit all this yammerin’! A very good friend has asked me for some advice about how I do this ‘working online’ thing, and as I was mentally crafting my email back to her, I realized that my adoring public would be better served if I shared that information with everyone! (Ornery, ornery!) Seriously, though, I’m sure there are others out there with the exact same question, and it seemed such a shame to only share it with one person.

I suppose that I need to start this whole thing off with the whole Google business. Blog monetization has recently taken a very sharp turn, as Google does not want anyone buying any paid links - not in any way, shape, or form. What this means for us as bloggers is that many of us lost our Google Page Rank. (This blog is not yet monetized in any way, so that hasn’t happened yet. It is also very new, so the Page Rank is rather low.) There have been several ways to respond to this new development. Some bloggers have swept through their entire blogs removing each and every dofollow link. (If you’re not sure what that is, look it up, because, I don’t want to spend the whole post on this topic.) This means they are no longer hosting Text Link Ads and they are no longer accepting any advertising that requires dofollow. This means a lot of people are losing money, quite a lot of money, in some cases.

The other type of response is to just keep right on doing what you’ve been doing, not paying any attention to the loss in Page Rank. Some are successful with this response (still making plenty of money) and some are not.

The zone I fall in is the ’sitting on the fence and waiting to see what happens with all of this’ department. I am not making much money at all, but, I have not taken my advertising off my sites, or added nofollow to them. I could do so, but, I’d still not be making much money. So Google would love me, advertisers would still not. The sites left with page rank, I could monetize, and then Google would slap them. So I don’t know. I think what I’m mostly waiting for is for Social Spark, by Izea, to come out, and see how well I do with that. I will talk about that a bit later, when I get into the companies that help monetize blogs.

Also, in the meantime, I’ve been focusing back on My Very Own Mail, and learning all about internet marketing again. I am studying affiliate marketing, infoproduct creation, membership sites. I’m also working for one of my two blogging heros and that is not only a great opportunity, but, also such an honor. So once you get into the fray online, you will see that there are jobs to be had, as well. I will admit, though, that when you are first getting involved online, they can be tricky to find. I think a lot of people find them on the WAHM.com forum, but, I’m not totally sure on that.

My two blogging heros? They would be Wendy Piersall of eMomsatHome.com and Galya McCord of MomGadget.com - these two ladies just rock and you can learn a lot from them. One of my WAHM heros, that I’ve been looking up to long before I got into blogging, is Lynn Terry of ClickNewz.com and SelfStartersWeeklyTips.com. There are all kinds of WAHM’s and marketers and WAHM marketers out there. You need to know who to trust - don’t let yourself be fooled by slick marketing, and waste money on silly programs that are just fluff and crap. (Not that I’ve ever done that, oh no, not me.) Anyway - the very best way to know if you can trust the person you are attempting to learn from online, is personal referrals. I completely stand by these three women, they are smart marketers, brilliant webmasters, and more importantly - they all have HUGE hearts! You absolutely can trust them. Be careful out there - the web is full of creeps, some of whom are very good at posing as upstanding web citizens.

While in the middle of sitting on working on this post, Wendy posted this awesome link to resources to help WAHM’s out in their businesses! It is on a very interesting blog called Bootstrapper - it’s a cool blog with lots of lists. And that list is great! Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with information, though. That is one of the biggest downfalls of being an online entrepeneur - distraction, and learning too much. If you’re constantly learning, you don’t have any time for ‘doing’ - and ‘doing’ is where the money is! Action! Never forget to take action!

Then one last link, that got twittered this morning by Caroline Middlebrook (thanks, Caroline!). It is an AWESOME article by Courtney Tuttle that you must go read - right now! Starting a Blog That is Not a Time Sucking Money Pit

So now this trailing, wandering, meandering post on working at home online is through - for now. I do have more to share with you. I’m starting a new blog - I’ve moved one from a subdomain to its own domain, and I am taking notes as I get it set up and start marketing it, so that I can share those with you.

P.S. If you’re thinking, ‘Man, this post sure is rough, for all that ‘editing’ she talked about!’ …I didn’t actually get to any of the editing and fixing and reformatting, those activities all transpired between my two ears! I’m just darn sick of this post sitting here - I’ll make better, more coherent posts …someday ….soon ….I swear!