All about what moms love
The winner of the Fibers.com t-shirt giveaway is:
Congratulations Michelle!
The winner of the ADOPTIONcards Greeting Card is:
Congratulations Angel!
The winner of the pipe|up custom design announcement is:
Congratulations Discovering the Me in Mommy
The Winner of the simplewear onsie or t-shirt is:
Congratulations Diana!!
I have already contacted the winners. Stay tuned for more giveaways to come!
First let me say that I have enjoyed Red Envelope for years. They are an online store that has great gift suggestions when you don’t quite know what to get for a special someone. Red Envelope has gifts for ages 0-99. Today you can purchase a Groupon for only $15 for $30 worth of gifts from Red Envelope. It is just in time for Christmas. The $30 can be applied to shipping. Expires Feb 28, 201 and there is a limit of 1 per person. If you don’t find the deal in your city try Dallas, San Jose, Tallahassee, or Knoxville.
If you haven’t signed up for Groupon it is a great site that has some amazing deals of up to 90% off. Every day they will email you about the new deals for the day.
You can get 40% off EVERYTHING through tomorrow at the Veggie Tales Store. They have toys, DVDs, Cd’s, books and more. Plus if you spend $30 or more you can get free shipping by using the code: SHIP234 Expires 11/30/10 so hurry!
I haven’t been at this blogging thing for very long but I have been successful at getting followers and have been asked by several people how I did it so quickly. So I thought I would share how it can be done. I did a LOT of reading initially to find out the best ways to get followers. Hopefully all the work I put into figuring it out myself can help you too.
You may have an amazing blog that has great advice or information that others would love to have but if you do not have followers then no one knows all of the great things you have to offer. You need to do some work to bring people to your site so that they can see what your site is all about. If you have a new blog and you are wanting to build a following here is what I have found that worked for me.
1. Blog Hops
Blog Hops are a great way to get some exposure for your blog. You can add your blog to the list and then start “hopping” to other blogs. Make sure that when you visit and follow someone else from the Hop that you leave a comment on their blog telling them you came from the Hop and that you are following them. That way they know to come check out your blog and follow you if they like what they see. The Fugal Free Gal has a great Master List of Blog Hops in the right sidebar at the top of her blog. There are different Hops for every day of the week so join the ones that interest you and start hopping.
There is a lot of talk amongst bloggers these days about whether or not it is appropriate or desired to build followers by following other people and getting them to follow you. Sometimes you can build up followers but not actually have those people read your blog on a regular basis. Everyone definitely wants regular readers but often times, in order to have regular readers, you need people to discover your blog. I suggest joining the blog hops that are closely related to your type of blog, following people who’s blogs you really like and leaving them a comment that is not just a request for them to follow you. Actually read a bit of their blog and comment on their material genuinely. You can include a link to your blog and they can check it out and follow you if they would like. Do it with the intent of being friendly and helping them build their blog as well as wanting that same thing for your blog.
2. Twitter
If you haven’t already then I suggest you sign up for a Twitter account using your blog name. Be sure to put a short description and a link to your blog in your profile on Twitter. I get lots of traffic with every blog post because I share my links on Twitter.
Making friends on Twitter is pretty easy to do. You can search Twitter for subjects that you blog about (say baking, for instance) and then follow the people who have interesting things to say about that subject. I have found that most people like to follow you back on twitter and once you have a following they will see whenever you “tweet” that you have a new post on your blog. Be generous with your follows and you will get others to follow you too. Twitter also suggests people for you to follow once you start following others. Also, if you read something great from one of your followers retweet it. The more you tweet the more exposure you will get and the more people will see your name and be interested in checking out your blog too.
3. Social Networks for Bloggers
There are quite a few Social Networks that are a great place to meet other bloggers and get some exposure for your own blog. You can sign up and create a profile with information about yourself and your blog. Then you can visit forums and make friends. There is lots of great information on these sites to help you with blogging. You can ask questions and start discussions. The more active you are on these sites the more exposure you and your blog get. Some of them even have groups you can join where everyone helps each other increase their followers. Here are a few of the Social Networks I recommend (in no particular order): Blog Frog, Mom Bloggers Club, Blog Her
4. Voting Sites
If you look on my blog on the lower right side of the page I have links to sites like Picket Fence Blogs and Top Baby Blogs. I recommend that you sign up at these sites to list your blog and then place their buttons on your site. The button will give you a vote every time someone clicks on it from your blog. You can ask your friends to vote for you by clicking on your button. Other people who go to these sites can come across your blog and read what it is about and the more votes you get the higher up on the list you get.
I hope this information helps! Happy Blogging!
I remember when I used to be the best mom in the world. Unfortunately it was before I had any children. I knew exactly how I was going to parent and my kids were going to be amazing! I would be firm with discipline but also very attentive and a such a fun mom! I would spend hours a day doing crafts with my kids, baking with them and teaching them all they needed to know. My kids would listen and obey the first time because I would see to it that I taught them to and stayed on them to be well behaved. I wasn’t going to put up with tantrums and whining. My kids would NOT be the ones who you hear screaming in the grocery store! My husband and I had even discussed all of this. We decided which parents we knew that we did not want to be like and which ones we would learn from and copy in our own parenting. We knew which things we liked and disliked about our own upbringings that we would bring into our parenting.
Very soon after all of our parenting decisions had been made I got pregnant with our first child. She went along with our ideals pretty well for a while. She was very easy going and laid back. She didn’t fuss much and made me feel like I had this parenting thing down. I felt pretty confident that I could handle this. Within a few months that dream started to fade. She wouldn’t sleep in her own bed and cried and cried no matter how long I left her in there. She wanted nothing to do with my plan for getting her on a perfect schedule. I spent several months extremely frustrated because it wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Not only that, but I had friends who swore up and down that their methods worked. That only made me feel more guilty and more like a failure. At least she didn’t scream in the grocery store!
When our oldest was not quite 16 months old I had twin girls. We found out in week 12 of my pregnancy that there were twins and we were shocked! I NEVER thought I would have twins. This would be good though because it would be a second chance to test out this sleep schedule thing and with twins I had to get it right! Can I just stop right here and say that having twins is hard?! If you know someone who has twins (or more) please help them! Okay, back to the story… Fortunately my twins didn’t seem to mind getting on a good sleeping and eating schedule but one of them decided to be very fussy in the early evening. She would cry off and on and I had no idea how to calm her down. We finally figured out what her issue was and resolved it when she was about 3 months old. In spite of the work I was enjoying being a mom. I was still a pretty good mom and my babies were pretty good.
I think it was when my twins were about 6 months that I had a major revelation. I had all three of my girls with me at the grocery store and one of my twins just decided to start screaming. She wouldn’t stop. That hadn’t ever happened to me before and no matter how much I told her that MY kids weren’t supposed to do that she wouldn’t listen. I was humiliated and so frustrated, but I got it. It wasn’t always about how great you are as a mom. Sometimes it just has to do with the kid.
That same twin continued to embarrass me in grocery and other stores with temper tantrums and whining. Sometimes the other two would join in for the fun of it. As they got older, and we added to our family, sometimes they would just ignore my instructions or forget what I had asked them to do a mere 2 seconds before. Also, somehow when I was planning in the very beginning, all of the wonderful things I would do during the day with my children, I forgot to calculate everything in. I had forgotten things like laundry, changing diapers, baths, house cleaning, errands, cooking dinner, and paying bills. There went most of my play and teaching time with them.
So maybe I am not the best mom in the world anymore but I am still a great mom. Not because I have it all together or my kids are perfect, but because I am the perfect mom for my family. They need me and I need them. I have learned that training their hearts is far more important than them just not embarrassing me. I can stand some embarrassment in order to discover the heart issues that still need to be dealt with. I still have pretty high standards for them but now I realize it is a process and doesn’t always happen overnight. Oh, yeah, and we do crafts and bake together every once in a while too.
