4 Wordpress Plugins to Make Your Blog a Fast Mean Machine

Blogging Tips For the Fastest Blog on the Racecourse

Wordpress Plugins and FireFox Add-Ons

This blog is always a work-in-progress.  Since I switched to Wordpress, I’ve become plug-in happy – there are so many Wordpress plugins that can enhance a site’s performance.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog (or perhaps are already an established blogger) and may be wondering whether you should be using Blogger or Wordpress – Trisha and Kim from Top Mom Blogger offer a great explanation of the differences.

Should you make the decision to switch to Wordpress – be sure to sign up for the Wordpress Orientation Classes offered by Kelly McCausey.

I’d like to share a few plug-ins that I’ve recently added, that make my blog a smooth-running machine (usually.)

1) WordPress Gzip – This is a plugin that essentially compresses and zips the text on your pages.  If you’re familiar with Microsoft Word, I make use of the “shrink to fit” button quite often when I’m preparing documents.  It allows me to fit that last sentence or two onto one page.

Find at: GZIP

From the site:

I’ve found that letting WordPress gzip pages significantly improves performance, typically slashing the size of the text to a fourth. For my home page, that’s a 30% reduction of total page size—including images, ads, etc. A 30% reduction in bandwidth is nothing to sniff at.

2)  WP Super Cache saves your recently viewed pages, allowing them to be accessed more quickly by readers.  There’s also the ability for you to manually clear the cache, or to set functions as to when it should be cleared.

WP Super Cache is a static caching plugin for WordPress. It generates html files that are served directly by Apache without processing comparatively heavy PHP scripts. By using this plugin you will speed up your WordPress blog significantly.

Find at: WP Super Cache

3)  Link Cloaker – If you monetize your blog and have affiliate links of any type that aren’t cloaked, you may be losing out on affiliate commissions.  It’s happened to me in the past.   If you don’t cloak your links, they’ll show up in the URL whenever someone clicks over to your hop page.

This Wordpress plugin is an excellent add-on that not only cloaks your links, but tracks the click-throughs to see how each affiliate link is performing.

Find at: Link Cloaker

4) TTFTitles WordPress plugin enables me to have my own font listed on my post titles.  Right now, I’m using the Miama font, which matches the font on the header of Moomette’s Magnificents.

This plugin lets you use images to replace the titles of your posts, thus circumventing the problem of guessing what fonts your end-users might have installed.

Eve, from Designing With Eve clued me into this wp plug-in.  Eve, a fellow WAHM, has been designing websites since 1998 and has a degree in computer programming and design.   She recently opened up her new design services company and will be redesigning my recipe blog for me – Moomettesgram’s Favorite Recipes – so watch for my announcement when it’s up and running!  Be sure to check out Eve’s design porfolio!

Find at: TTFTitles

5)  WiseStamp – Lastly, this isn’t a Wordpress plugin tip – but be sure to check out the new Fire Fox browser addon that enables you to customize your email signature by adding your social networking buttons, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and Friendfeed to it!

Hat Tip to: Blogging Basics 101

If you found these tips helpful, please let me know!  Happy Blogging!

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Scentsy Candle Founding Consultant: Guest Post

Meet My Friend

Direct Selling Consultant

I’d like to introduce my readers to Meet My Friend, Jodi Albertini, whom I’ve met through blogging and  invited to Guest Post on Moomette’s Magnificents.

Jodi immediately wowed me as a work-at-home mom who is dedicated to helping other moms succeed in attaining their goals.  She has been a WAHM for the last 4 years; is a social worker by education; an interior decorator by business affiliation and a direct sales professional by choice.

Jodi has built a team of over 1,200 consultants in two years – which she is responsible for mentoring, and has achieved the highest title in this fabulous company.  Additionally, she has spoken at several Scentsy engagements and conventions, as well as participated in training and informational videos for Scentsy.  Jodi has also made several media appearances to speak to her success as a WAHM,  and has recently began writing as an author on www.buzzle.com

With 2 years experience in Direct Sales and a current team of 1,200 consultants, I am frequently asked the “secrets” to my success.   Of course, I could go on with what is required to build a business, elaborating on all the basic motions of growing a successful Direct Sales franchise.  However, I truly believe that there are not too many true “secrets” to building a strong team and a GREAT business.  Rather, I believe that success involves a series of personal choices that differentiate those GOOD consultants from the GREAT ones:

1. Catch a Vision – Develop a vision for your business.  Imagine what it will be like when you have achieved your goals, and then strive to make that vision a reality.  No business is built overnight and big business does not come easy.  However, having an internal perspective of where you want your business to land someday will drive your daily actions that will move you toward success.
2. Share Your Enthusiasm – If you LOVE what you do (and you should), then express your passion for your business on a regular basis.  Passion creates enthusiasm and enthusiasm is contagious.  When engaged in your business, people should see the joy on your face.  Soon those who are watching will want what you have!
3. Be Bold – We often pass up business opportunities due to our own fears or insecurities.  Achieving what we desire often requires taking a chance.  Being bold does not mean that you lack fear.  Rather, it means that you are making choices for the good of your business despite fear.

This list could go on and on.  My perspective is that GREATNESS is not developed completely by what you do, but rather how you do it.  What are some personal choices that you can make to move your business from GOOD to GREAT?

Follow on Twitter: @JJANT

Visit Jodi at: Safe Candle

Jodi Albertini is a SuperStar Director with the Direct Sales Company Scentsy – a wickless, smokeless, flameless and safe candle product (www.safecandle.net).  Jodi has developed a team of 1200 Scentsy consultants in just over two years. She is a Stay-at-Home-Mom, turned Work-at-Home-Mom, with 2 fabulous children and one incredible husband of almost 15 years. Jodi’s formal education is in Social Work and Counseling.  She has learned to take a Psychological approach to sales, recruiting, and mentoring.

If you have a topic of interest that you’d like to share and be a Guest Blogger on Moomette’s Magnificents, please contact me (see Contact tab above).

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Link Building Through KeywordLuv: Blog Tips

Improve Your Blog Links

WAHM Tips

My latest tweak to my blog to make it more reader and user friendly has been to install the wordpress plugin, KeywordLuv.

In addition to CommentLuv and the wp DoFollow plugin, as a blogger or internet marketer, KeywordLuv benefits you by improving not only your own SEO links, but those of your readers as well.

When you go to leave a comment at the bottom of a post that has the plugin installed, you’ll see a notation that says KeywordLuv enabled, and instructions to leave your name @ your keywords that you would like to link to.

Gail from GrowMap writes on business blogging topics and offers a more detailed explanation of the benefits of link building in a recent post.

You can download the wordpress plugin to use on your blog at KeywordLuv.

UPDATE March 4, 2010 I have deactivated Keyword Luv as it was my intention to help my WAHMs and bloggers and I am receiving too many comments that I must manually moderate.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Surviving Selling Online Through Better Communication

Business Sense

My Internet presence began back in 2007 when I became an eBay store owner specializing in vintage collectibles.  Since then I’ve changed venues and now sell on Bonanzle.  At that time, I was a moderator on an eBay Forum and participated in conversations where many members were becoming fledgling online sellers.

That trend continues today as many companies are now doing the majority or even all their business online and foregoing the “Brick and Mortar” storefront. It’s easy to see why that trend has happened. For example, the cost of setting up such a business is relatively inexpensive and easy. There’s no need to pay for the overhead of a physical building, while the cost of maintaining a web site is minimal. Moreover, the Internet provides a convenient and efficient way of marketing products. As more and more people are spending time on the Internet, the market of online customers continues to grow.

My late mother-in-law was a woman business owner of a gourmet emporium.  Over the years I had helped run her store and gained a business acumen of growing your business through establishing relationships with customers.  It’s important to get to know their likes, quirks and dislikes.

Yet when businesses shift from face-to-face customers to anonymous online customers, there’s a loss of that personal connection and trust. When running an online business,  how are you gaining and maintaining customer trust? What are you doing as an online vendor to communicate to your customers?

In an online world, business just doesn’t stop after hours and on weekends. What are you doing to answer your customer’s questions?

Here are a few things that you can do to improve communication with your customers:

1. Make certain that your Internet host is reputable and offers a fast and efficient business ethernet connection, as well as reliable cart support.

2. Offer a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and online product support information.

3. Add a support email link on your website for issues that can’t be resolved by you or your website support administrator

4. Provide a message board or forum for customers to voice their opinions, add comments, and interact with each other.

In today’s global economy, spending time and effort on better communication with your customers will pay off.  Whether you sell on Etsy or have your own company, in order to grow, your success will depend not on the customers you gain, but on the customers that you don’t lose.

photo credit: hospi-table

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Backlinks: How to Build Solid Traffic

Blogging Tips

Why You Need Backlinks On Your Website

Each day I spend a substantial portion of my time writing blog posts, reviews, and taking the time to do some social networking.  Recently I’ve been allocating an additional hour towards building backlinks to my blogs.

I found some invaluable information from an all-in-one backlinks package from Lynn Terry and Paul Short that contains tools, URLs and advice on how I can get 450 search engine dominating backlinks to my site.  There’s no membership fees or logins.

Many work-at-home moms, Direct Sales business owners, such as Tupperware, virtual assistants and graphic design businesses will put up web sites or blogs in anticipation of getting readers and clients from the Web. Usually what happens is they get few readers, or no traffic.

Here’s the reason why.

A web site or a blog isn’t an ad. No one “reads” web sites in some sort of “web site newspaper.” In fact, nobody will discover or visit your site unless you specifically invite them. A blog or web site actually needs advertising.

You need to build the traffic to your site in order to receive traffic.

Commenting on other blogs is one way to do this, and another terrific way is through backlinks.

What is a backlink?

A backlink is a link FROM another site TO your site.

For example, if you’re a member of a social Ning site where your niche is food, and someone is looking for a food blog, then there’s a pretty good chance that this person will see your listing or personal page in the “Food” section and click a link to your web site.

This is a backlink from Food blogger’s ning to your blog.

Backlinks are also referred to as “in-bound links” and oftentimes can also be called “reciprocal links.”

Many of the links that bloggers have on their web sites are specifically designed to take visitors from the link on their web site to other web site. These are usually located in a link section called a “Blogroll” link exchange or a resources section, such as “Good Stuff.” These are also called “forward links” or “outbound links.”

The important thing to keep in mind is that backlinks bring visitors TO your site. Once visitors come to your blog or business web site, you can turn them into returning readers, affiliate product sales, newsletter subscribers, commissions and more.

1.  Why are backlinks totally necessary?
Foremost, an obvious reason is to direct traffic to your site. This traffic can be cashed in for sales, clients or advertising CPMs.

2.  If done right, “backlinking” can tremendously increase your search engine rankings and thus result in even more traffic.

How?

From the eyes of search engines, your “site’s worth” increases when the number of backlinks increases. Each backlink raises the popularity of your web site.

Liken it to being someone who works the crowd when they walk into a room. The more people who know who you are, the more popular you become.  Call it the “Law of Attraction.”

3.  What can this lead to?

When people put the phrase “Mom Blogger” or “Baby Boomer” into a search engine, for the most part, the sites with higher popularity will come up first.

4.  Backlinks can create consistent traffic

Most bloggers send out weekly newsletters which often lead to  immediate “bursts” of traffic.  I send out customized weekly Newsletters to my subscribers on Wednesdays, using the Feedblitz Newsletter service.

Bursts of traffic are great, but they require that you take those additional efforts in order to continue to get that traffic.

Backlinking builds a steady, consistent, and predictable stream of traffic that keeps coming without additional work. You can confidently expect the same number of visitors each month.

With the creative backlinking strategies that I’m using through this package,  I can create a situation where my web site is attracting backlinks without me doing any work at all.

As a New Englander, to me it’s like a snowball going down-hill that hopefully continues to grow!

Check out how many links you have here: Backlinks Checker – This shows you the backlinks you have coming into your site. It take a little bit of time to get all the links if you have quite a few.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Alexa Toolbar Benefits

Blogging Tips

Internet Tools

I’ve been doing some blog tweaking lately.  Recently I’ve installed the Alexa Toolbar.  Apparently it’s working out well as my Alexa rating has been steadily decreasing.  Also, I’m toying with the idea of switching to the Thesis theme, even though I’m not too good at coding.

There are numerous tools available on the Internet to assist in online business blogging.  A valuable tool that you should use is the Alexa Toolbar. Even better -  this tool is free.

If you have a blog, you might want to consider adding the Alexa toolbar to improve your stats. Theoretically, the Alexa toolbar isn’t spyware as it doesn’t retrieve any private or personal information.

Alexa is owned by Amazon, and ranks sites from 1 to 5,000,000 and sometimes higher. Ranking  #1 has the most traffic while anything below 250,000 and you should be getting some decent traffic levels. Right now my current Alexa rating is 74,800.  This information can be used to determine how well your advertising campaigns are going and how your traffic levels are growing over a period of time. Since I write product reviews and have a PR Media Kit, I monitor these statistics and update my Media Kit periodically.

This information can also be used to determine how your fellow bloggers are doing and keep you one step ahead of them. The tool provides you with essential information regarding any site you’re looking at, including your own. If a company approaches you claiming they have lots of traffic, you can just pull up their site and review the Alexa statistics. This allows you to verify who’s receiving a significant amount of traffic and who’s feeding you a line.

So now you want to know how do you use this tool? First, you download the Alexa Toolbar as follows:

1. Go to Alexa.com
2. Click “Download Alexa Toolbar” at the top of the page.
3. Click “Install” on the next page.
Reload the page you are viewing and the toolbar will appear across the top of your browser.

If any of your readers have the Alexa toolbar installed, any time they visit you, it will help your rankings.  In turn, when you visit their sites, you’ll be building back links while helping your fellow blog buddies out.

Why not try an experiment for a month – download the toolbar and monitor one of your sites.  Once you see the data you receive and the way it can be interpreted and used, you won’t know how you survived without it!

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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BlogHer10 Conference Pass Giveaway Coming Up!

2-Day Conference in New York City

Win A Ticket

Many of my readers know I was all excited about attending BlogHer10 in New York City this summer.

If you’re a current email subscriber to Moomette’s Magnificents – thank you; but if you aren’t yet – you must might want to subscribe NOW because I’ll be running an exciting contest in March!

But first things first.

If you’re a veteran blogger, you’re probably familiar with all the conferences that take place throughout the year in various parts of the country.

If you’re new to blogging, Blog Conferences are a great opportunity to meet fellow mom bloggers, affiliate marketing bloggers and bloggers from all walks of life.  Together they share information and bounce ideas off of each other.

BlogHer is open to anyone and everyone who considers themselves part of the blogosphere; BlogHer is particularly focused on highlighting the skills and talents of women who blog. All genders, ages, ethnicities, and levels of blogging experience are encouraged to attend! We promise there’s something for everyone.  (And in case you’re curious, about 10-15% of attendees are men.)

My friends Connie, from Brain Foggles; Heather from Beautiful British Columbia; Murray from Murray Newlands Marketing Blog; and Trisha from MomDot all are veteran conference attendees.  It’s thanks to friends like these who help me to improve on my blogging skills and techniques and enable me to meet new friends through social networking.

Do you think you’d like to attend some conferences, but need to get sponsored to attend? Read up on some of the following tips to help get sponsored.

Now that you’ve made it this far, I’ve saved the best for last.

Certain plans don’t always pan out, and this year’s BlogHer10 conference falls on my grandson Slugger’s birthday weekend this August.  I already bought my conference pass to BlogHer10, and will be hosting a Giveaway (a $298 value for the 2-day pass) to my readers who are email subscribers!

So watch for my upcoming Giveaway post Enter the contest HERE which will tell you the rules and sign up for my Newsletter!

For More Information Visit:  BlogHer10

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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How To Get Paid to Write Every Day as a Ghostwriter

Work At Home Ideas

Do You Have Writing Skills?

If you have ever dreamed about having a career in freelance writing, you might look into the growing opportunity of ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is the practice of writing works (books, articles, etc.) anonymously for a client. In turn, the client gets full rights to place her name on the writing and publish it as her own.

Side Note: If you’ve heard of ghostwriting before and you already know it’s a career path you’d like to pursue, I recommend that you pick up a copy of Just Add Sweat’s “How to Become a Ghostwriter” Guide. It will show you exactly what you need to know to get started.

But if you’re new to the idea of becoming a ghostwriter, here’s more you should know.

To get into ghostwriting, there are a few skills you should have or work to acquire:

Excellent Writing Skills: Certainly to be a ghostwriter, you need to be able to write well. Your writing should flow well, cover topics thoroughly and in many cases, your clients will expect you to capture their unique voice in your writing.

Research Skills: As a ghostwriter, you’ll be responsible for finding and process all of the information that you will need to be able to do your writing on a specific topic.

Grammar & Spelling: It might seem obvious, but it’s important to note. All of the work that you turn into your clients as a ghostwriter must be free of any grammar and spelling errors.

Many different types of businesses and individuals readily use ghostwriting services. Authors, business executives, celebrities and others may look to ghostwriters to write books for them.

Online business owners, blog publishers and other websites hire writers to create articles and other content. Information product sellers look to ghostwriters to publish ebooks, how-to and other instructional guides. The sky’s the limit when you’re looking for people who want to hire ghostwriters.

There are many things you can do put yourself ahead in this field (and the How to Become a Ghostwriter Guide covers these and more in depth).

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Start building a resume that will get you noticed. Highlight any writing experience and if you don’t have any, you can offer to do a few free small projects to build your resume. Approach a non-profit business or someone that you know that might need writing services.

• Determine which topics you’re qualified to write about. Although many ghostwriters are well-rounded and can write on many researchable topics, having a specialty can help you get work. For example, you might have special knowledge of cooking, crafting, green or environmental, health, finance or parenting topics. Use this to your advantage.

• Have relevant samples readily available to showcase your writing skills. Many clients are more concerned with how well you write, rather than the amount of experience you’ve had.

To get more help, get a copy of Just Add Sweat’s “How to Become a Ghostwriter” Guide. It will help you discover if ghostwriting is indeed the right career for you, how to break into the business, service rates and more.

Ghostwriting can be a competitive business, but there is plenty of room for new writers if you’re armed with the right approach and that’s exactly what the guide will give you. Click here for all the details.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Information For Bloggers: PLR vs. Free Reprint Articles: Which is Best?

Blogging Tips

One of the ways for moms, virtual assistants or retirees to earn money working at home or blogging is by becoming a ghostwriter.  Ghostwriters often write PLR articles that can be purchased or turned into eBooks.

Here’s some information that can get you started working from home as a ghostwriter, or familiarize you with PLR and reprint articles for your blog.

PLR vs. Free Reprint Articles: Which is Best?

By Nicole Dean

Content is always in high demand. Right now the focus seems to be on Private Label Rights (or PLR) articles. PLR articles are pre-written and sold in packages to online businesses looking for content. The big selling points of PLR articles are that you may edit the articles and that there is no author bio required (so they don’t have any outbound links).

Compare PLR articles to free reprint articles. Free reprint articles from places like ezinearticles.com or freeaffiliatearticles.com are written by people who have something they’d like to share. (Or, they are sometimes written by people just publishing junk, in the hopes that they’ll get some incoming links. But, good article directories will delete those, so we’ll focus on the good ones here.)

So, which is better? Honestly, each has its place. Sometimes you’ll find an excellent free reprint article that you’ll want to share with your readers and you won’t mind a bit having an outbound link, especially if there is an affiliate program associated with it. The free reprint article added value to your readers, and you didn’t have to write the article. That’s what free reprint articles are all about.

Other times you’ll already have an idea in mind for a topic and you’ll just want a boost getting that section of your website done. If you run across a high quality PLR package on that niche, you’re set to go.

So, how do you know which PLR service or membership to choose? Here are some guidelines to follow:

1. Some PLR sites offer a monthly membership where you receive a grab-bag of articles – on any topic. If you already know what you need, this may be a waste of money. Other PLR sites will list topics and you can buy the articles in a shopping cart. That ensures you receive the articles you need when you need them.

2. Are the articles written by professional writers with experience? Or are they outsourced to the cheapest overseas help they can find – no matter the quality? If the articles are going to be a reflection of your business, you’ll want to ensure that the articles are well-written.

3. Who’s running this thing? Is the PLR site run by someone who knows about content or someone who thinks they can ride the content wave and make a quick buck? Make sure you’re hitching your wagon to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Those are just a few tips to keep you from wasting money on a PLR site that you can’t use. Continue to use free reprint articles, but look into PLR articles as well. They can both benefit your website and your business.

Article written by:

Nicole Dean is the owner of  www.EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles sold in very limited quantities.  The PLR articles at EasyPLR are professionally written and professionally edited — top quality at an affordable price.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Easy Shipping Solutions for Families or the WAHM from FedEx

You Have Options

Shipping Gifts or Shipping for Business

Originally I began my presence on the Internet as an online boutique store owner, eBay Power Seller, and Bonanzle booth seller specializing in vintage collectibles and children’s clothing.  I’ve become very proficient in packaging, insuring and shipping thousands of items all over the United States as well as the world.  As an online e-commerce merchant, I’ve used various shipping carriers to assure that when my products were received by the recipient, that they were packed as carefully as I would like to receive an item.

Whether you tend to leave your shopping until the last minute or you bought presents for everyone on your list weeks ago, gift-giving around the Holidays can add extra stress and worry to an already busy schedule – especially when you factor in shipping. How do you ensure a fragile gift arrives intact? What’s the most cost-effective way to ship? Will it arrive on time?

This Holiday season, FedEx offers ways to save time and money with discounts that make FedEx one of the cheapest options this December. For example, when you sign-up on fedex.com, you can save up to 16% on FedEx Express services and 8% on FedEx Ground and Home Delivery. And, by visiting a FedEx Office location, shipping with FedEx Ground costs 10% less than with UPS.

For those awkward sizes, fragile items, or time-strapped packers, FedEx Office professionals can pack and ship your holiday packages for you or give you tips on how to minimize the size and weight of a package to reduce shipping costs at any of the locations nationwide. FedEx Office also offers customized holiday cards, stationery and personalized 2010 calendars in just minutes either online or in-store. With FedEx Office Print Online services, you can print holiday newsletters and cards to a nearby center of your choice or have them delivered to your friends and family hassle-free.

This holiday season, whether you’re shipping gifts to loved ones or shipping for business purposes, make sure you check out FedEx.

In conjunction with this tour, anyone who signs up for a free account on fedex.com and records their name and confirmation number here will be entered to win one of 5 Apple iPod Touches!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of FedEx and received a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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