Blogspot Blogs I Like The Look Of

http://mindofthemother.blogspot.com
http://over50feeling40.blogspot.com/
http://sunnysimplelife.blogspot.com/
http://mommamadeit.blogspot.com/

Creative Estates Conference Highlights

"
Tips from Becky Higgins about balancing motherhood and small business.

- Prioritize the next day’s ToDo’s the night before. Hand write them.

- Find your passion. Don’t pick it for the money.

- Don’t check your email first thing in the morning.

- Have one notebook for all your creative ideas. The second we take an idea and write it down, the more you allow more creative ideas to come in.

- Begin with the end in mind. Don’t start something unless you know what you want to accomplish in the end.

- Make your family #1. Do you want to be the mom with the picture drawn by your child of the back of your head staring at a computer screen?

- Plan rewards to stay motivated. When the big thing is accomplished you need to recharge. Reboot. A fun trip or a pedicure whatever makes you and your family happy.

- Take inventory on your social media time. Use it to connect, but don’t spend too much time.

- Block out two chunks of time during the day that you know you will be online…and that’s it.

- Take a break from social media and take a look at what the break did for you, evaluate it’s effects.

- Have two sections in your bedside notebook for short term and long term goals. Along with your current ToDo list.

- Emotionally- you cannot please everybody.

- Practically- you can’t let other’s complaints affect you personally, because it will eat up your creativity. Hire someone to cover customer service for this reason.

- Let the negativity go. Don’t take it personally.

- Make spirituality the first thing of the day.

- Not a day that goes by without telling your family that you love them. Schedule date nights. Talk with your spouse every night. Communicate!

- Appreciate the ones that support you.



"

Tutorial: Creating A Facebook Page

Tutorial: Creating A Facebook Page: "
Learn how to make a Facebook page in just 4 easy steps! Anyone can do it!



1. Sign in to your Facebook account.

2. On the left side of your NewsFeed, you’ll see “Ads & Pages”. Click on that.

3. Then, look again on the left side and click “Pages”.

4. Then in the upper right corner, click on “Create Page”. It then will show you where you can go in and edit the details of your page and add content and a profile picture.

See how easy that was? You have now just created your Facebook Page! Congrats!

"

Ten Easy Blogging Tips for Beginner Bloggers; Or, What I Wished I Had Known in 2006

I so need to do this.

Ten Easy Blogging Tips for Beginner Bloggers; Or, What I Wished I Had Known in 2006:

Ten Tips for Beginning Bloggers

1. Buy your domain.



I was shocked at Blissdom '09 to find out that it only costs $10 a year to own your domain. Ten dollars! (Now it appears to be $12 if you want a .com and less if you could deal with a .us, .me, or .org.) It's super easy to redirect your site to a domain. I am always flabbergasted at the amount of sites that still have '.blogspot' in their URL. 'Vanderbiltwife.blogspot.com' just doesn't have the same ring as VanderbiltWife.com.



If your domain is already taken, you might consider renaming your blog, inserting a number instead of a word, or something similar. Be creative!



2. And while we're talking titles, choose something with zing. Be original. What makes you uniquely you? What exactly is your blog about?



3. Make yourself accessible.



Please, please make it easy to e-mail you from your blog's homepage. See that little 'e-mail me' button on the sidebar? I wish everyone had one. Because sometimes I just have a burning question about you or a post that is too long to post in a comment, or maybe too personal.



Using Twitter and starting a Facebook fan page are great, too, if you're going to use them.



4. Set up a profile on Blogger (whether you use Blogger or not) so it's easy to comment on Blogger blogs. MAKE YOUR EMAIL VISIBLE. (If you use gmail or other Google apps, you already have an account ready, I think.) Lots of blogs are Blogger-based (like this one), and it's a pain for a blog author to compose a whole e-mail reply to someone who commented just to realize that their e-mail is not there.



I would respond to nearly all my comments if their e-mails were available! (I try to respond to many as long as that e-mail is visible. PLEASE MAKE IT VISIBLE.) Blogging is about conversation and we authors want to respond!



5. Blog hop. See what other people are doing. Leave comments. See if others want to guest post on your blog, or do a series together, or just chat on e-mail. Follow lots of people on Twitter, if you use it. Share links. Be generous. Be genuine.



6. For the love of Pete, unless you are Ann Voskamp (and that's still iffy), do not have music auto-playing on your blog



7. Install Google Analytics. At some point, you might want to see how people are getting to your blog, what they search for to find you, or how many pageviews you are getting. Go ahead and do it now! I wish I had!



8. Apply some simple SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) This is MUCH EASIER to do on the front end than after you have 900 posts. (Not that I would know. Cough, cough.) Tara has two excellent slideshows with easy tips.



9. Link to carnivals. You know Menu Plan Monday, Top Ten Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday? Those are carnivals. Linking will bring you a little traffic and checking out others' links will expose you to blogs you might never have found otherwise.



10. Don't underestimate your worth. You probably don't have The Pioneer Woman's traffic, a book deal like MoneySavingMom, and the striking good looks of Jill. That doesn't mean you should settle for a toothbrush as payment for a review, or bend over backwards for a company that does nothing in return. Determine your worth and stick with it. Only do what you really want to do. And don't force yourself to write when you don't want to ... the content will never be as good.






"

Secret codes~

Blogging on Blogger tips! Thanks to Kristen who very nicely explains it on her blog.

Secret codes~: "

You can change almost any aspect of your blogs appearance without screwing around with your HTML!

Here is how you do it.

Sign in to Blogger.

From the Blogger Dashboard click on Design

Click template designer

Click on Advanced

scroll down till you see Add CSS

Now start adding your secret codes!

As you add your codes you can watch the changes happen to your blog right below.

Don't worry, It's not saved until you click apply to blog.

Here are a few codes I used because somehow they disappeared on my blog last week.

Took the navigation bar on top of my blog off

#navbar-iframe {height:0px;visibility:hidden;display:none}

I didn't like the way the tabs under my header were crammed against my post. I added this secret code to give it a little more space. (your numbers will most likely be different from mine)

.content-inner {

padding:10px;

}

.main-outer {

margin-top: 30px;

}

Feel like changing the space between your gadgets? Mess around with that zero till you like your spacing.

.sidebar .widget {padding-bottom:0px;}

Are you getting it?

There are a ton of secret codes out there for you to play with. You can find them

Here and Here

The best part, no messing up your whole template because you have done something wrong to your HTML!

Have Fun!

Enjoy your weekend!

XOXO

Kristin

"

Really? Linky Tools?

NoBiggie: Quick Tip: Use Pages & Linky Tools to create a visual link list