Your business blog

So you have a business and everyone is telling you that you should have a blog. Blogs are great for getting search engine traffic and a great way to promote your business but there are a few things that a business blog should NEVER include, they are:

• No personal information, people don't want to hear about your personal family issues. Remember that the blog is to promote your business and not air your dirty laundry.
• Don't pick on your competition or declare war over a rude comment left on your blog
• Don't go off subject. if your business is a car dealership then blogging about your cruise trip will not only turn off your readers but will look odd to the search engines. Stay on subject.
• Don't get too personal with your readers, try to avoid writing about your "moods".
• Poor grammar should never be in your blog along with text shortcuts, not everyone knows what ROTHFLMFHO is
  

Saving money on your grocery bill

One of the easiest ways to save money is to take a long hard look at your grocery expenses. Are you buying items that you could do without? Take for example diet pills or diet supplements, those items can cost $10 and up for a bottle. Just learning how to eat correctly would eliminate those expensive products. Shop for fresh vegetables and fruit at local farmer's markets or fruit stands. They often have lower overhead costs and past those savings on to their customers.

Consider teaming up with another family and buying a side of beef. The cost per pound will be lower and you might cut down on the shopping trips by stocking up.

Learn to stock up on sale items when you see them. Bread can be frozen as well as donuts and bagels. Toilet paper is something you will always need so when it goes on sale stock up on enough to have on hand for 6 months or more.

Learn not to overeat. Sticking to a balanced diet will not only help your health but improve your pocketbook. Cut back on buying those overpriced potato chips and snacks.

Making money online is not rocket science

If you have a computer and access to the internet you should be making at least $10 a day if not more in an hour or two. That's $70 a week! What you need to do is To Learn How it is done. If you have been following this blog for the last 600+ posts then you would have at least picked up a few tips or copied my examples of how to make money online.

Here is a very simple list of ways to make money online, all of which I have done or currently do:

• Become a survey taker. You can earn an easy $2 to $10 a week by just doing one or 2 surveys a day.
  
• Start a blog and monetize it with Google ads.
• If your blog becomes popular you will be contacted by advertisers wanting to pay you to review their website, product or place an ad on your blog.
• Sell items on eBay, eCrater or the new Auctiva ecommerce site
• Design Myspace layouts for people (my daughter has done that one and has gotten paid for it)
• You can sell computer programs or files that you have designed via digital content providers.

See, you can do it. It does not take much just a bit of imagination.

Using images to attract search engine visitors

More and more people are using the image search function on Google. I have one blog that had a sudden increase in visitors for the phrase "Great Dane". I did a search on the phrase and my blog did not come up in the first 5 or six pages of the search. When I changed the search from a word search to an image search I found that I was at the top of page 1 for images for "Great Dane". I then checked with my statcounter and found out that my visitors were coming from the image search and not a word search.

Use images in your blog posts that are related to those posts. Images are indexed separately from text so you will increase your blog visitors simply by adding images. The same thing also applies to websites. People will search on images of products to find just what they are looking for.

Signs that the economy is turning around

The last few weeks there has been a surge in home buying in Florida. The prices have dropped so low that people are now getting back into the housing market. There have been reports of as many as 16 people interested in one home. It is mainly because those homes are at the very low end of the price scale at around the $50K mark. Almost every house under $180K is seeing some action or interest.

Is California far behind? California prices have not dropped as low as the prices in Florida yet, but when they do you will see that interest in buying will start again.

So what does that mean for the rest of us that are not house shopping? It means that those homes that are being bought will have to be furnished, repaired and landscaped which means money being spent and more jobs created. Soon people will have the confidence to go out and buy those toys that they have been wanting.

I think we have reached the bottom and there is no where else to go but up.

Netbooks

You have seen those new cute little laptop computers that are priced under $200 in many stores now. They are called netbooks. What is the difference between a netbook and a regular laptop or notebook? A netbook is designed for surfing the internet with a few basic functions that are geared towards entertainment and not data bases or productivity. They are typically run on an XP Windows system because Vista takes up too much memory and the netbooks are not being made with huge memory - yet.

One of the biggest differences is that a netbook does not have a DVD drive so if you need to load a program from disk you are going to have to find another way to transfer the information into the netbook. You could always get an external DVD drive but what would be the point of it. If you were going to do that you might as well get a regular laptop.

The low price seems to be the biggest draw for the netbooks. They are all under $350 and some of them are in the $180 range. If all you want is something to surf the internet with and not download videos or music then you might want a netbook. I would personally wait until the manufacturers put more memory into them and add a DVD player or figure out another way to load programs into it.

When life throws you lemons

Of course lemons are being thrown at us all the time. As a professional writer and blogger I have to wade through the lemons just to get to the diamonds. The lemons I get thrown at me are "write an article about our off shore gambling website" or "I need you to promote our appetite suppression product". I am not only NOT interested in those subjects I don't do them.

I also have a slight suspicious nature and if I don't believe in your product or website I won't be writing about it either. When the really good projects come along I go out of my and do an extra special job with it. I find that my clients then come back for more.

If you have a blog that you want to have people take seriously then don't clutter it up with lemons.

Making my own stuff

In an effort to make my own dollars stretch a bit more I am starting to pull out my old sewing machine and see if I can do a few minor repairs on some quilts and clothing. The other day I noticed that our outdoor cushions were getting a bit worn out so I went an priced them at Walmart. Since they were so expensive compared to a few years ago I might be trying my hand at making them. I will have to price the fabric and the stuffing to see if it will be worth my while to make them or simply buy new ones.

Travel deals this summer

If you have been putting off a vacation because of high prices, the wait is over. Many major airlines have already dropped their ticket prices. Hotels are feeling the pinch of the recession and are putting together discount packages. Even Las Vegas is hurting for business. Check out travel deals while the prices are still low. Before you know it the economy will improve and the high prices will be back.

Local libraries are booming

The last place you would think to see a crowd of people is at the local library but it is happening all over the USA. Libraries are now offering wireless internet, internet access on their computers, DVD's and music CD's as well as books and magazines.

People who are cutting back on their monthly expenses are dropping newspaper subscriptions, internet providers and monthly video rentals and heading to the library. Why pay for those services when you can get them free? Just by dropping those few items from your monthly expenses you could save at least $60 or more a month.

Don't have a fast enough computer to surf the internet? Don't upgrade or buy a new one just reserve one for a few hours at the library. If they don't have earphones available just take your own to listen to videos online.

I was looking at the selection of DVD's that our local library had and the list also had the latest releases available to check out. Why bother with renting a DVD if you don't have to pay at all?

It goes on to prove that there is a Stable Interest in saving money.

Plagiarism is a dirty word for bloggers and webmasters

Plagiarism is the act of copying someone else's work and presenting it as your own. Unfortunately I am seeing more and more of it lately. I was reading one blog over at Today.com and thought the words sounded familiar. It was a blog post about the new Obama puppy. As I read the blog post it was almost as if I had read the article before. I did a quick check and found out that the exact same article was in the Washington Post online. Normally I would not do anything but that blogger had clearly done a cut and paste job and did not give credit to the original author. In fact she wrote the entire blog post using the Washington Post article as if it was her own words.

I contacted Today.com to report the dastardly deed. They have a zero tolerance on plagiarism so it will be interesting to see if the blog gets taken down and the blogger banned or what will happen.

I've been Stumbled!

I saw a huge spike in traffic to this blog yesterday. I did a search and found out that I had been Stumbled Upon. For those of you who are unaware of what Stumbled Upon is, it is a social bookmarking community that shares "finds" or websites with others in the Stumbled community.

If you have a blog or website you should join to promote your own posts. But before you go crazy and Stumble each and every one of your blog posts or web pages you should know the Stumble Upon has a spam filter in place. You will only be allowed to Stumble only a few pages of a website so only chose your best to Stumble. If you keep trying to Stumble your own work your account can be deleted.

The biggest obstacle to getting ahead nowadays

We as a people, face huge, if not almost impossible tasks of getting ahead financially. If we have a job we worry about it not being there next week or next month, If we are unemployed we worry about not finding a job in time to keep us from going broke. If we are retired we worry about our fixed income and should we join those that are looking for work. If we are soon to graduate from college or high school we wonder if we will be able to get a job.

Strange as it may sound, those are not the biggest obstacles to us getting ahead financially. The biggest obstacle is having the wrong outlook on your own life. If after you look through the newspaper, online job search or local job bulletin board and you find nothing that you are qualified for - DON'T GET DISCOURAGED. If you let it get to you, you will be more inclined to give up on looking for a job or even thinking about other ways to make money.

You can't control the world. You might feel that the world is out to get you and push you down even further but you know that is not true. What you need to do is keep yourself busy even though you are not employed or fear becoming unemployed. Do things that don't cost you money. Volunteer at a local non-profit, clean out a closet or room, donate old unused items to a charity, pull weeds and clean up your garden, be artistic and make something out of the craft supplies you all ready have, finish that project you have half done, read that book you have been putting off, write a blog or book. You can think of something. I actually cleaned my kitchen and donated several unused kitchen appliances to Goodwill the other day and I felt great after I got compliments from my family.

By keeping yourself mentally active and happy you will project that attitude to your next employer in an interview or your current employer will notice your great attitude and will want to keep you. Your family will also benefit by having less tension and stressful discussions in the house.

What people are really thinking about "paid" surveys

You have seen the ads for earning money by taking surveys. I am one of those people that do earn some extra money each month doing paid surveys. Everyone wants to know which survey companies to stay away from and I found out a message board that discusses them. Here is a thread from the message board discussing boycotting survey companies that only offer the survey taker an entry into a sweepstakes.

Boycott cheapskate survey companies

As you read further in the message thread you will find that the survey companies are being paid $3 and up for each completed survey from the company that wants the survey results. I agree with the majority of the posters on there and if everyone would quit doing surveys that did not pay money for their time and effort then more survey companies would be paying a decent pay rate to survey takers.

Bankruptcy is on the horizon for a family member

I normally don't mention family matters on this blog but this piece of information should be a learning experience for many of you reading this.

My sister-in-law that lives in California phoned me this morning and at first it was a normal how are you doing type of discussion until 10 minutes into the phone call when she started dropping hints about talking to lawyers and debt consultants. Her and her husband own a home that is "under water" or for those of you unfamiliar with the term, owe more on the house than it is worth. He is a very well paid supervisor in a well known but struggling company. He earns over $100K a year and they are struggling. For the past 10 years they lived "high on the hog" as I like to put it. He bought new cars or trucks every 3 years and they own 3 vehicles. All of them were financed and none of them did they pay cash. They took at least 2-3 vacations a year which they put on their credit cards. They were constantly refinancing the house to pay off the credit cards but failed each time to cut the darn things up and charged them up to the max again and again.

Now my sister-in-law is worried that her husband will be laid off since he just had to layoff 35 people last week. She is so worried that even with the very generous severance package that her husband's company is giving out of one years' pay with full benefits she wonders how they will survive should he be laid off. I did not try and reason with her since she is not in the right frame of mind for budgeting just yet but I will tell you what you would do should you think you will not survive.

First off her husband would get $100k if not more in his severance pack. I personally could live off of that for at least 5 or more years. Here is what he should do. First get rid of the credit cards. Sell those extra vehicles and pay off those credit cards and the car loans with the cash. Set aside one years' worth of mortgage payments in a separate account so they know the house payments are covered for a year - and DON'T TOUCH THAT ACCOUNT. Set up another account for emergencies such as car breakdowns, funerals or medical expenses. Finally they will have to actually sit down and work out a REAL budget. They both like to spend so I would suggest that only one of them handle the banking and paying the bills and the other one would be "paid an allowance" in cash. They would both have to learn not to use credit to buy anything. They need to get back to paying for something in cash.

4 years ago my husband and I were almost in the same position as they are in now. We moved out of California to an area that we could survive on minimum wage jobs if we had to. We don't have any credit cards that carry a balance each month. We pay for items that we want with cash. Our home is almost paid for and will be in 10 years or less if our current savings plan stays on track. We owe only 20% of our home's value so we are paying down our mortgage every chance we get.

We learned long ago that living within our means was doable and the advantage of not having to worry about paying bills is well worth the effort.

We will be going wireless internet

After much debate at our house we will be going wireless, internet that is. Originally when I signed us up for DSL with our phone company I asked about wireless internet. They said it would cost $5 more a month and I decided we could put up with wired DSL for a time. At the time I was dumb about how wireless internet worked in the home. I didn't know that all the phone company was going to do was provide a wireless router that they would charge me to use.

Well I got smart and I also had some time to kill in town the other day so I stopped in a local Staples store and checked out the hardware for computers. I found out that wireless routers for the home cost only $40-70 and they attached directly to the DSL line. All of our home computers are wireless ready so for the cost of a wireless router we will be wireless before today is over.

I am just surprised that the phone company was trying to convince me that they needed to charge $5 more a month for providing nothing except a cheap router. At the cost of $5 a month that they wanted to charge starting over a year ago I would have been out at least $80 by now and still paying.

Saving up for a family vacation

Do you have plans for this years family vacation? Is money so tight at your house that a "family vacation" might be limited to a movie and dinner? I doesn't have to be that bad. The recession is filled full of silver linings and the price of travel and vacations have been coming down drastically. Of course you have noticed that air fares are now at cut rate prices. This is right after most airlines were charging for extra bags and other "extras". It looks like they shot themselves in the foot and chased all their customers away. Now they have to get them back. Of course vacation hot spots were also suffering because of the airlines greed in extra charges. Now those vacation spots have to work extra hard at discounts to get us to book with them.

One of the hardest hit places financially was the Mexican riviera. That place has huge discount offers right now. Karisma Hotels is a string of hotels in that area that operate luxury class amenities for Family Vacations. Some of the things they offer at those beach front hotels are scuba lessons, kids activities, hikes to local Mayan ruins and of course gourmet food.

If that is the kind of vacation you have always dreamed of but never got around to then start saving those pennies because I can't think of a better way to reward your self and your family for saving.

New website for parents

I am always on the look out for new and interesting websites for families wanting to save money. I found one that is just for parents. It has product reviews and advice from other parents. You can even have a blog on their site. The website is called Parentricity and if you are raising children it is defiantly a website you should be bookmarking for future visits.

Geared toward the family with children under 5 years old this website might become a hit in short order. If your children are older or even out of the house now you should take a look at their advice section. The "new" parents are asking the same silly questions when we had our kids. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The economics of food shopping

Food is one of the biggest monthly expenses that most families have. The food bill is also one of the easiest expenses to control and save money on - provided you are aware of where the money is going. For example, most people will assume that buying food and preparing it from scratch rather than from premade boxed mixes is cheaper. That is not always the case. Here is where you need to do the math to see if you are really saving money.

For example we bought a ready made lasagna from Pizza Hut a few weeks back. The cost was $14.99 and it came with bread sticks. It tasted pretty good but my husband said he could do better than that and sent me out with a shopping list for him to make "home made" lasagna. Here was his list:

• Ground meat
• Italian sausage
• Canned tomato sauce
• Canned stewed tomatoes
• Lasagna noodles
• 3 kinds of cheeses
• herbs
• One jar of spaghetti sauce

The total cost of all of that (at sale prices mind you) came to $18 and that did not include bread sticks. Now add in the time, gasoline to go shop for the items and electricity to run the oven and stove and you are now looking at a $30 lasagna. On the plus side the lasagna came out great and was a big hit but now it going to be made for special occasions only.

When you are making out a shopping list you need to be aware of the cost of a premade meal compared to a meal made from scratch to see if you are really saving money.