One of the things that causes me the most stress I have discovered is telling the kids every gosh darn step they need to do to get ready. “Go get your teeth brushed. Did you put on underwear? Those socks don’t match. You still need to brush your hair. Did you pack your homework?” You know the drill.

Now that my daughter is going to preschool I have not just one extra person to get ready, but two – because I actually have to get out of the car and walk into the school. Yikes!

So this Monday morning I became determined was going to mark the last stressful morning I had. One thing that I have learned over the years is that it isn’t enough to have an idea, however good, unless you implement it! So I needed to take some action steps. Hopefully some of these ideas will help you too!

1. I decided the kids needed a list. Why wouldn’t they? I know I need lists! So I did a quick Google search and found these great little chore charts. I brought them into photoshop and edited them a bit because what I wanted was a list that broke down responsibilities in the morning, after school, and before bed.

2. I vowed to myself that I would get back into the habit of laying out the children’s clothes before going to bed.  I did in fact follow up on that last night and cannot tell you how much I loved myself for having done it this morning!

3. Where else does a Mom turn when she needs help but to other Moms? So I sent out a quick twitter to my list and waited with bated breath for their advice.  Happily it came!

4. @MyGOMOM to the rescue! MyGOMOM founder Molly Gold was kind enough to let me know about this absolutely fabulous website she’s been working for 10 years now to help Moms that were in just my particular state of mind!  The website, GOMOMinc, is filled with organizational tips, free checklists to download and the website features what looks to be a lovely little DIY (Do it yourself) planner.

5. @JenPowter advised Moms to plan their meals ahead! Jen shared that she plans her meal menu for the week on Saturday night and does her grocery shopping Sunday morning.  Not for long mind you because she’s going to be getting her groceries delievered!  Imagine the time that will save!  Jen also prepares her meals in the morning and cooks what she can then before her busy day takes off.  Really smart tips – I’m at least going to try the menu planning this weekend.

6. Pack Lunch Ahead of Time! @Thien-Kim of I’m Not The Nanny shared that her sanity saving tip which was to have the kids lunches packed and ready to go the night before.  That way the kids can just ‘Grab and Go’ in the morning.  Another terrific tip!

When the kids came home from school and discovered their ‘Responsibility Charts’ hung on our freshly decluttered fridge they were really excited.  I’ve never seen the family room get cleaned up so quickly with so little resistance!  Homework was done (and packed into their backpacks) before any games could be played and  bed time was a pleasure as we all joined forces to put 10 minutes into cleaning their bedrooms.

They loved checking the items off their list – especially the ‘Hug Mom and Dad’ item :-)

This morning was also a breeze as they referred to their list instead of me chasing them around with a multitude of orders.  We actually had 10 minutes to spare!

I’m all about systems that work in 2010 and replacing old habits that don’t serve us with new ones that bring some ease to our very busy lives.  So PLEASE – feel welcome to share your sanity saving tips in the comments below!

Follow Up: Here’s a website that has valuable tips on how to get organized :-)

This article is a guide to proper forum etiquette so that you don’t waste your own and many other peoples time.

The first thing you need to know is that forum owners deal with a ton of spam. I could easily spend an hour a day cleaning up spammy posts in the forum and deleting and banning members that don’t abide by forum rules. It’s unnerving to have to waste my time doing that rather then engaging in conversations on the forum and providing my members with useful information.

So from the forum owner perspective, spam is a very bad thing. On the other hand, to help out forum participants and to try to deter them from spamming every forum in the message boards, most forum owners will provide an advertising section of some sort where you can post an ad.

If all you are planning to do is post ads on forums, then look for this particular section of a message board. Especially don’t post an ad in the introduction section of a forum.

But here is the thing about ads. Nobody really reads them. Your time would be far better spent actually engaging in conversations on the forums you frequent. You will gain the trust and loyalty of the forum population if they get to know you. They will much more likely decide to sign up for a biz op under someone that they talk with in a trusted forum then from some fly by night forum spammers post. Doesn’t that make sense?

You’ll likely be taught that posting your website link on many forums will help to build your websites backlink popularity which will in turn increase your websites ranking in the search engine results. The truth is, your post is most likely going to be deleted as soon as the forum owner or moderators find it. All you really will have done is wasted your time.

How you can be certain that you will build your backlinks by forum posting is by putting your website link in your signature on a forum and including your signature in your quality posts. The website owner will be grateful to have you contributing content and in turn will be happy to allow you a small advertisement in your signature when posting.

Another trick you might not know is this. If there is a keyword phrase that you would like to rank well for in the search engines, use this as the ‘anchor text’ in your website link. That means if you want to rank well for a term such as ‘ameriplan business opportunity’ – then you would type that into your signature and have that link to your website.

Keep a folder of forums in your favorites on your browser and spend some time every day going to each of the forums. Make it a goal to leave at least one quality post and a few welcome posts to new members. It’s an easy thing to do while you enjoy a cup of tea in the morning and you’ll find that you are actually making friends and contacts that are genuinely fulfilling.

Informative and engaging comments, coupled with a well optimized signature will win you far more traffic and prospects in the long run. And you might even pick up a thing or two through your engagement on the forum.

Whether you are writing for your own website or you are a freelance writer for other websites, you probably have heard some buzz about search engine optimization.

Probably the best way to help a website show up in search results is to have plenty of unique, relevant content that is optimized for search engines.

I know a lot of women who are members of the FreelanceMom Forum write for a living (or would like to). Learning how to write implementing SEO techniques could add some desirable new skills to your portfolio.

The Daily Writing Tips blog wrote a good article for beginners that I want to share with you. I hope it’s useful!

Obviously the most critical aspect of a campaign is reaching your target market. One of the best ways to find websites that reach your target market is to do a quick google search on keyword phrases that you feel your target market would search on. Check out the advertising opportunities on the websites that show up fairly consistently on each of your searches.

Before placing an ad, contact the webmaster and find out how much traffic the website receives. Be sure that your ad placement will be prominent on a page that gets frequent traffic.

If you are advertising with a banner ad, don’t use a cheesy free ad. Hire a graphic designer to create something visually appealing, unique, and that effectively helps brand your website. This really doesn’t have to be an expensive undertaking. You can post a project on a website like www.elance.com and probably have a very good looking banner designed for $25.

If you are promoting a business opportunity it is especially important to have a banner of your own created. Don’t use the same banner that every other member in the network is using. Chances are your competitors in the business network are all using the same banners. In some ways, this is good because it can build brand recognition. However, if people are used to seeing the ad at websites they frequent, they may block it out.

Make sure that your ad will appeal to the traffic of the website you are advertising on. You may be promoting an advertisement about a home business opportunity for example. If you plan to advertise on a website geared toward women, a banner ad with a fast car or a nude woman behind a hundred dollar bill just isn’t going to motivate this segment of your target market to click. You would do much better to run an ad that features competent business women, or mothers with young children.

It’s equally important to consider your landing page. If possible, try to create a unique page for each of your ad campaigns. Gear it toward the type of traffic you will be attracting. Even consider welcoming them directly. If they click through from a site called ‘XYZ.com’ then you would say something like “Welcome XYZ.com visitors… Here is a special deal just for you”, or some other targeted message.

This is a skillful method of recognizing the visitor and also taking advantage of the referring websites own branding and trust that they have built with their website visitors.

If you are advertising on well known, reputable sites – the click throughs are going to already be a warm lead for you. Try to leverage the trust they have in the website they are coming from.

Don’t limit yourself to just advertising however, consider other methods of driving traffic to your website. For example, consider opening a Google Adwords account. Adwords can be a very effective way of showing up on Google’s own search results and many websites that host Google’s ads.

Distributing articles to websites and article directories, participating in forums, blogging and commenting on blogs are all other ways of obtaining links from relevant websites. Never use spammy techniques. Always offer valuable comments, questions or information. Consider every blog comment or forum post as a representation of your business.

Get involved, network and build a reputation for yourself that will earn the trust of your perspective website visitors.

2. Consider a new approach to article distribution. Along the same lines, make a list of the top 5 websites you would love to have an inbound link from. Write a very good article and email each webmaster. Let them know that the article is being offered to only 5 websites for publication and you’d be honored if they would accept and include the article on their website in exchange for keeping the bio intact. Webmasters aren’t as excited these days about posting articles that have been distributed all over the web via article directories. Any webmaster educated in the science of SEO would definitely take interest in your offer.

3. Offer testimonials. Many of us Internet Marketers have purchased ebooks or other online services, purchased advertising space from websites or otherwise benefitted from a quality web source. Consider writing to the owner/webmaster and offering them a great testimonial for use on their site. Politely request that they link to your website in the signature of the testimonial.
Get innovative with your quest for inbound links. There are lots of opportunities out there and approaches like the ones above will definitely be refreshing to webmasters who are weary from the many reciprocal link exchange requests they receive all the time.

I hope it helps some of you – I was really pleased with the results and it saved me from spending about $60 on a new program (I lost my old one!)

Check it out here.

These kind of links are exactly what the search engines are looking for. The websites with more quality, one way links are typically the sites that rank the highest, period.

With that said, there are several websites dircetory submission programs on the market. The best and easiest to use is a new program created by Brad Callen, called Directory Submitter.

The software currently contains around 1700 website directories, all free. It is the most straightforward program that we’ve come across, in that all you need to do is:

1. Input your website details (i.e. title, description, URL, etc.) into the software

2. Click on the directory you want to submit to

And then the program will automatically fill in your website details. Then, you simply click the submit button and your website is instantly submitted to the directory. Then, you can move to the next directory, go through the list, and by the time you’re finished you’ll have roughly 1500 one way links pointing to your website.

I can’t think of an easier way to get links. Of course, if you’re going to get links this quickly, it’s important to vary your website title (anchor text) every 20-30 links or so, to make things look more natural to the search engines.

You can do this very easily via Directory Submitter when you create your project in the beginning.

The software is constantly being updated and their is an incredible community of users established that all work together to make the software better and better, so you know you’re getting great value for the money.

To check out the software, go here

What I’d like to focus on in this tip is ways beyond advertising that you can promote your website or business opportunity.

Many of you are using the same website as the rest of the members of your team. I think it’s well worth considering building your own website. I also have written about this in the past so won’t repeat myself here.

You are told to participate in forums and have the bizop in your signature… also to place ads. Here are some thoughts I have on that.

Article distribution is a super way to increase traffic to your site. I have a list you can use to get started submitting your articles – but it hasn’t been updated in awhile. Sorry about that…

Here’s a hint with article distribution… Take an article that you have written and rewrite parts of it a few times. You will essentially have three or four versions of the same article. Change your bio in each as well using different keyword terms in your link to your website.

This will help your article to rank better in the search engines. If you want more information about that check out this free report from Jason Potash.

I think the most important thing is networking. Start a new folder in your browser favorites for blogs. Research blogs where your target market likely hangs out. Make comments on the blog. There is always a place to leave your website address there.

Just make sure your comments are meaningful or they won’t be posted by the blogger – and also because you simply won’t peak the interest of blog readers to come check out your site.

Here’s another thought… start a blog of your own! You can do it easily and free using either wordpress.com or blogger.com.

If you have a blog be sure to come over to our brand new FreelanceMom Blog Network and join in the fun :-) It’s just a baby project so get in on it in the begining and help me out!

They do, however, I feel damage legitimate reader participation. The web was built on links, as they say… and I love that fact. So I recently activated a quick, easy little plugin that removes the no follow tag from comments.

Now I can reward commenters on my blogs with valued links to their websites. I feel great about that!

Advertising is an art and a science. How effective your ad campaign is depends on several factors. Here are some questions to ask yourself before launching an ad campaign.

1. Does the website reach my target market? If you are advertising something that has nothing to do with the website you are advertising on — you might want to rethink placing an ad there.

2. How much traffic does the website (and the page my ad will be on) receive? Webmasters should share their traffic stats openly. If they don’t, there is reason to hesitate advertising with them. Another quick test is to search on keyword terms you feel your target market would search on. Does the site you plan to advertise on rank in the search engines for these terms?

3. How effective is my ad? Does your ad catch the eye? Does it have a hook — something irresistible that will convert an ad view to a click? Is it original? If you are advertising a business opportunity, are you using the same ad as everyone else? Invest some thought and money into a decent ad design.

These are all obviously critical elements to a successful ad campaign. Two other benefits of advertising that don’t necessarily include click thrus are branding and seo.

Building trust in your brand, getting your company name and logo out there to your target market to see can be worth the ad fees alone. Choose website’s that you can see work to please their visitors. If the website has loyal traffic that trusts them, that creates a warm lead for you.

SEO, or search engine optimization involves many factors. Having links from other website’s coming to yours enhances your SEO strategy. Search engines consider links to your website a ‘vote’ for your site. Building many quality links to your website will result in better search engine results for your website.

I hope that’s helpful information! Remember to test all these factors. If one ad doesn’t work on a site, another might. Don’t be afraid to ask a webmaster to change your graphic or ad text if you decide something else will be more effective.

Join us over in the forum to discuss advertising your home business successfully!