[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!

I’m working on building some Squidoo lenses for Wendy Piersall, founder of eMomsatHome.com. eMoms at Home is the best online magazine for work at home parents - I know I have learned so much there!

So I was exploring the internet for information that I would like to include in the Squidoo lenses, and I found this great interview with Wendy by Brad Baldwin. They were at a conference together in Utah when they sat down to have this talk.

I really liked this interview - it was the perfect length (not too long and not too short) and just gives us as viewers the perfect peek into Wendy’s online world and paints a picture of the successes she has achieved and continues to achieve with eMoms.

Just click here to see the video:

eMoms at Home Founder, Wendy Piersall

(I tried to embed the video here, but, it just was not working!)

The really cool thing about eMoms recently is that Wendy has expanded it to include multiple content channels! When you go to the main page (eMomsatHome.com), you will see the channels at the top of the page. Another cool thing is that there are lots of dads involved in the community over there, one of whom, Derek, is in charge of one of the content channels. There are lots of dads working at home, too, and it’s great to have them involved in what have typically been WAHM communities. I love getting the male perspective on all things work at home.

You know what I think it is? What I think is happening? The internet marketing community has been predominantly male in years past - and the WAHM community, has obviously been predominantly female. (Yes, I even have to say predominantly there, because, I know of at least one dad, in particular, who has been involved with WAHM’s for a number of years.)

And what I’ve seen happening over the last, maybe, two to three years - is these worlds colliding, overlapping, and best of all, gaining valuable insight and knowledge from each other! It has been so exciting to watch. The best of WAHM’s and the best of male Internet Marketers collaborating and creating a whole new community - that of the Work At Home Parent!

And Wendy definitely has her finger on the pulse of that! If you are looking to break into the online world of business, or expand your knowledge of online business - Wendy’s online magazine is the place to be!

Or, “There are too many damn words on the internet!”

See, here’s the deal.  Lately, I have been so damn distractable!  Sure, sure, that’s not a word.  I don’t mind, it fits what I want to say so nicely.  I’m like a seven year old kid at FAO Schwartz for the very first time.  I can’t stop looking.  And looking.  And looking.

And I cannot focus and do what I need to do - which is maintain my family of blogs.  I need to write.  I need to blog.  I need blinders on - word blinders.  Do you think they make those?

I have always distracted easily, don’t get me wrong.  I can hear my mother in my head going, “Lately? What are you talking about?”  Ha!  I know, I know, Momma - I am highly distractable - but, lately it has been unbelievably bad - yes, even for me.

So if someone could just come along and erase the internet just for a few days, so I can get back on track, that would be great.  Thanks a lot.

I didn’t post here yesterday! What a bummer! I had a migraine and I had taken medicine for it. So the effects of the migraine coupled with the effects of the meds, and I just wasn’t worth a whole lot. So I used what remaining brain cells I had left in operation to post on Hippie Spelunker and Bookworm Broadcast and never did get over here to this blog. I’m bummed, but, I’m just going to get right back on this ‘blogging horse’ and get back on the trail! There is no sense in giving up now! I have been wanting to do this for myself for a long time and I’m going to keep right on going.

I also missed walking for LiTaWaMo over on Naturally Lisa, but, you will see if you click over there, that I am dealing with that in a positive way, too!

I would like to say that I will make up over here by posting twice, but, as I’ve got other blogs that need my attention today, I just don’t know that that will happen. If I have time, I definitely will, though!

A lot of people have been asking me lately how I do what I do. That is, how I make money from home online. Most of the money that I make comes from blog monetization. That includes paid reviews, paid links, things like Google adsense, and WidgetBucks. There really is an almost endless list of ways to monetize a blog, but, prior to monetizing a blog, you need to have a blog! And most importantly, in my opinion, you need to have a self-hosted blog - that you own and maintain yourself.

The people that have been asking me about my work fall into several categories: some have free blogs that are next to impossible to monetize (such as MySpace blogs), some have free blogs like Blogger blogs that can be difficult to monetize, and some don’t have blogs yet at all.

So at this vantage point, I think a great place to start would be tutorials about setting up your own self-hosted blog. And the funniest - and coolest! - thing happened as I was pondering where to begin. My friend, Amy, did the ‘beginning’ for me. Awesome! It was so weird, because, she and I hadn’t been talking about this at all. We both just had our minds on it. Which works out perfectly for me, because, she did all of the work. And work she did! She does such a great job of explaining all of this, step by step, and I am not sure mine would have been as detailed or as thorough.

So let’s get to it, shall we? Ok, Amy did a whole series on this, so to get the full meat of it, you will need to go over all four posts.

1. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part One
2. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part Two
3. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part Three
4. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part Four

This is a great place for anyone who is thinking of breaking into this field to get started.

Thank you, Amy - for doing such a great job!! I know my readers and I definitely appreciate it!

Ok, folks - it’s time to kickoff NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and it’s time to kickoff this blog! I’ve been getting a very slow start over here (and at LisaMarieMary) and this may be just the thing that I need.

I’ve been so jealous every year of the people that do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but, I just haven’t been ready. And then when I heard about NaBloPoMo last year, I thought that would definitely be something that I could do. But I just wasn’t ready for even that last year. I knew that my time would come, though, so I was okay with not being ready. And my time is here! And who knows - maybe next year, I’ll even brave NaNo!! Or one day…

My life has become seriously unorganized and messy and I’m excited to have NaBloPoMo as a way to ‘clean up and organize’ this small part of my life.

It might be interesting to see what I come up with for the month - and I might bore you to tears on some days, but, by golly - I’ll be posting!