Another Dot.com Freelance Mom, Although...

[theauctionboard]

Hello everyone:

I found this website while checkin' out the other folks who were selling advertising space on eBay. One must always check out the competition, right? :)

Anyway, I'm glad I found you! I've always disliked calling myself a "WAHM". It conjures up certain images of a woman who struggles between the choice of being a full-time Mom and the necessity of work. At least that's what it does for me. I made the choice to run my own business -- do my own thing. I just happen to do it from home. I just happen to have children.

So, my name is Genia. I live in WI. I have 2 children -- boys, ages 9 and 11. I run TheAuctionBoard.com (http://theauctionboard.com), which started out as a project for one of my MBA classes and turned into a full time gig for me. Basically, it's a website that provides tips, tools, tons of advice, and resources for auction sellers, auction site owners, and e-commerce professionals who want to build and promote their business. There's a pretty busy auction discussion board (http://theauctionboard.com/board) and auction newsletter (http://theauctionboard.com/ezine.html) that receive most of my attention, not to mention the auction blog (http://theauctionboard.tblog.com) that I just love working on. Have any of you tried blogging yet? It's the latest marketing craze! Take your favorite hobby and write about it daily. You end up with this crazy cult-like following. Amazing. It's actually worked well with opening up my website to new groups of people.

My interests (I digressed there for a second, I do that all the time) : Politics (I lean waaaay left), Gay & Lesbian rights, traveling, dancing, coffeehouses, working out, business development, marketing, web design, and meeting new people.

Feel free to contact me anytime. I'd be interested in meeting all of you.
Genia

[Debbi]

Hello and welcome to Freelance Mom.

I agree with you on the WAHM term - I hate it. I fight every day to eliminate the image of women walking around in jammies and bunny slippers, kids hanging off of us, curlers, you know, the whole bit ...

But here ... it is just a nice place to hang out. Lori has done a wonderful job on this site and making everyone feel at home.

I took a look at your site and it's very well put together. But you know, I gotta figure out exactly what a blog is :D

Again, welcome!

DC

[Lori]

Hi Genia!

I'm really glad you joined us! I can't wait to check out your sites and have been WONDERING about blogs. Yours will be the first one I actually visit.

I have a 12 year old son -- and two younger boys, 3 and 1. Computer stuff is my passion too. Promotion and Design are my favorite pastimes. I also love the fact that those are best done from home :wink:

You have such great energy -- I hope you'll stick around...!

Good to meet you!

Lori

P.S.
I love networking with the competition ;) Let me know if you want to do a link exchange or banner exchange.

Or better yet, if you've got a good article... I'm interested!

[theauctionboard]

Hi Lori and Debbi:

Thanks for the welcome! I'm glad my energy still shows. It's getting kinda late on my end.

A blog is an internet journal, a web log (blog is short for web log). Many professionals have started using them for marketing purposes. There are SO many blogging services out there, but you have to find one that sends an automatic ping of your updates to various web directories, especially if you're not sure how many people you have subscribed to your blog on an individual basis. The service I use (tblog.com) does send a ping of my blog to weblogs.com (http://www.weblogs.com) and other blog directories. Plus, I'm provided with a free RSS feed that I can submit to various services. From there, everytime I make an updated, a ping is sent to those directories automatically. The only problem I have with tblog.com is that it's having growing pains and sometimes it goes down for updates without informing the users of that fact.

Anyway, so let's say you have a thing for poodles. Yeah, there's a woman who has a blog about Poodles! She trains them. Anyway, she does daily posts to her blog and writes about Poodles. She posts pictures and talks about all her training techniques. I think she ended up getting a few paying training gigs from that blog. Odd.

I have my commenting feature turned off. Most people leave theirs on. I don't want my page rank screwed up. Sometimes people will post comments and leave links on your blog that completely throw off your Google page rank. I need my page rank to stay at a certain level because I sell links on my blog.

What's the difference between a blog and a message board? Blog posts are supposed to be short and there are no members. Sometimes you can have a "community blog" where there are several people who post to the blog. But, people can't just find your blog and join as members. They can leave comments if you allow them to, but that's about it. Typically, most people post 1 comment a day. Sometimes I post 2 or 3. There's really no limit. But it's rare to see a blog with 10 posts in one day! If you see that many, it's typically in the comments section when someone is responding to a post the owner of the blog has made.

If you plan to use a blog for business, tblog.com is the way to go. Right now, there are NO rules about making money using your blog. Some blog services do have rules against that in the Terms of Service. Tblog.com does have some growing pains though, so check around if you decide to start blogging.

Hope that helps.
Genia

P.S. There's a service called Thingamablog.com (I think that's it). Try that. You may be able to set up your own blog service on your own server, if you can figure it out. :lol: I couldn't!

[Lori]

Thanks for the information!

This looks like a really cool thing, this blogging...

I visited yours -- pretty neat. Maybe I'll give it a whirl when I get some free time this week :roll:

Lori


A blog is an internet journal, a web log (blog is short for web log). Many professionals have started using them for marketing purposes. There are SO many blogging services out there, but you have to find one that sends an automatic ping of your updates to various web directories, especially if you're not sure how many people you have subscribed to your blog on an individual basis. The service I use (tblog.com) does send a ping of my blog to weblogs.com (http://www.weblogs.com) and other blog directories. Plus, I'm provided with a free RSS feed that I can submit to various services. From there, everytime I make an updated, a ping is sent to those directories automatically. The only problem I have with tblog.com is that it's having growing pains and sometimes it goes down for updates without informing the users of that fact.

Anyway, so let's say you have a thing for poodles. Yeah, there's a woman who has a blog about Poodles! She trains them. Anyway, she does daily posts to her blog and writes about Poodles. She posts pictures and talks about all her training techniques. I think she ended up getting a few paying training gigs from that blog. Odd.

I have my commenting feature turned off. Most people leave theirs on. I don't want my page rank screwed up. Sometimes people will post comments and leave links on your blog that completely throw off your Google page rank. I need my page rank to stay at a certain level because I sell links on my blog.

...
If you plan to use a blog for business, tblog.com is the way to go. Right now, there are NO rules about making money using your blog. Some blog services do have rules against that in the Terms of Service. Tblog.com does have some growing pains though, so check around if you decide to start blogging.

[Debbi]

... and I'm still clueless, but I'm sure with the proper amount of studying I will understand :shock:

I kinda just wait until Lori figures things like this out and ask her to explain them to me. Your explanation was EXCELLENTE! but you know, I still don't get it. I think I'll go play around a bit today

thanks for introducing me to something new.

Have a rockin day.

d'b

[hjfm]

A blog is basically an online journal that anyone can view. I have one on my site and I got it from http://www.mommyblogs.com. It;s fun to use if you have a lot of time..I just use like a personal journal on my site...although I am not sure how many people read it.

Amanda

[Lori]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Genia!

Alright -- I made the leap into the blogging world...

http://freelancemom.tblog.com/

Took your advice and joined tblog. Wow -- you really rock over there. I saw your blog listed in the hot blogs yesterday. Neat!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how well I can drive traffic to the site through this. Very neat stuff.

Today's mission is to get my meta tags in there.

Take care!

Lori

[dreuby]

Welcome, Genia. That's interesting info about blogs - they're becoming more and more popular. But they must be time-consuming.

[Anonymous]

Wow! I almost forgot about FreelanceMom. A little while after I posted here, my website crashed. Gone. Dead. The message board was completely wiped out and I had to rebuild the site from ground up. That's the most elementary lesson any dot.com business woman should learn. Keep a backup of your website in your office space somewhere; do not count on your host. My host went out of business. What a mess!

Anyway, I got a new host. Got the site back up and running. Re-established the forum. And now, I can breathe. Well, sorta.

I've been kicking myself trying to remember the name of this place. I wanted to come back by and say hello to everyone. If you need any advice about auctions (or you're looking for a new auction site) stop by and give us a look. Several auction site owners (and many sellers) have made a home at our forum. We get many, many visitors too.

As for the blog: it is A LOT of work. The key is to maintain the blog regularly or you lose your audience. I use it to market my site, so I try to stay on it and post as often as I can-- sometimes 7 days a week, sometimes only 4. If you own a forum, you can usually find great topics from your forum to use as subjects on your blog. It really helps to pull people in to your main website.

Anyway, feel free to contact me anytime. I'm glad I remembered your community. I'll be back!

--Genia
TheAuctionBoard.com (http://theauctionboard.com/board)

[Debbi]

Welcome back! Be sure to sign in so you're not just a 'guest' but the special member of our group that you are....

:D

DC

[Lori]

Hi Genia --

Yeah! I sent you a couple of PM's that bounced back... What a bummer!

So? Is everything new and improved then?

I've visited your blog a few times -- you do a fab job with it. Really.

I took your advice and joined tblog's network -- what a neat thing he's doing there. I have barely done anything with my blog Genia and am shocked at the amount of traffic it brings in.

Search engines really love them don't they.

Thanks for stopping back. Let me know of any ways we can reciprocately benefit eachother -- sites or blogs.

Lori

Wow! I almost forgot about FreelanceMom. A little while after I posted here, my website crashed. Gone. Dead. The message board was completely wiped out and I had to rebuild the site from ground up. That's the most elementary lesson any dot.com business woman should learn. Keep a backup of your website in your office space somewhere; do not count on your host. My host went out of business. What a mess!

Anyway, I got a new host. Got the site back up and running. Re-established the forum. And now, I can breathe. Well, sorta.

I've been kicking myself trying to remember the name of this place. I wanted to come back by and say hello to everyone. If you need any advice about auctions (or you're looking for a new auction site) stop by and give us a look. Several auction site owners (and many sellers) have made a home at our forum. We get many, many visitors too.

As for the blog: it is A LOT of work. The key is to maintain the blog regularly or you lose your audience. I use it to market my site, so I try to stay on it and post as often as I can-- sometimes 7 days a week, sometimes only 4. If you own a forum, you can usually find great topics from your forum to use as subjects on your blog. It really helps to pull people in to your main website.

Anyway, feel free to contact me anytime. I'm glad I remembered your community. I'll be back!

--Genia
TheAuctionBoard.com (http://theauctionboard.com/board)