Let’s just talk a minute here, shall we? I can’t stand the thought of this blog dying an untimely death - it is my name, after all! And let’s start by talking about that name, shall we? That sounds good to me! Now - we all know it is a good thing to go ahead and get the domain of your name, as well as in places like Twitter, etc. So why didn’t I just get LisaRoberson.com - because, a lovely, talented folk singer beat me to the punch, that’s why! All’s fair in love and war - and domain acquisition. And she got there first. I don’t begrudge her that - not at all. In fact, I’m kind of glad of it now. At the time I discovered it, I was quite perplexed. ‘Well, what shall I do now?’, I asked of myself.

I thought that perhaps I might be a ‘modern woman’ and try for LisaBurnett.com. That just didn’t sit well with me, though. I haven’t actually gone by that name since getting married, it seemed odd to start now. And besides, at the time it was taken, by a lovely woman who creates inspirational, peace-centered children’s books with her partner. How poetic is that? Children’s literacy is one of my most heartfelt passions. These women - these Lisa’s - that have beat me to the punch - are amazing women! I’m thrilled, really! When I first found Lisa Burnett - who now goes by Lisa Bossi - I actually cried. Perhaps it was a hormonal morning, but, I felt profoundly connected to her in both her passions and her maiden name!

(And now that I look, it seems that Lisa Roberson is offline now, too. It could just be temporary, though, as the page is parked. That means someone does own it, they just haven’t built it yet.)

So how, then, did we come to Lisa Marie Mary? That’s kind of long and obnoxious. Heehee - besides for the long part, a little like me! After years of being online and signing up to different websites with usernames and getting new emails, I finally just got so sick of that two-hour-username-creation headache! Trying to come up with something that spoke of me, and that no one else had - it drove me batty! And I’m sure some of you can relate. One day, I just had a beautiful brainstorm - and from that day forward, I have never once had trouble creating a new username or email address. (Well, except for the times I try to sign up for things I’ve forgotten I’ve already signed up for! You should see me when that happens! Haha! ‘What?! Who in the hell is using my username?! My unique, one-of-a-kind, it’s ONLY about me - username?!’ Then I remember that I am the idiot using my username!)

But, I digress. (I’ve always and forever wanted to say that - ever since hearing ‘Diane’ saying it all the time on “Cheers”. Ed Dale used it the other day and I was jealous - JEALOUS! Haha! You would think with as much digressing as I actually do, I would get to say it all the time! See? Here I am digressing again! Damn!) Yeah - my name - it is my first name, my middle name, and my confirmation name. I was raised in the Catholic church, and we were lucky enough to acquire a third name in the eighth grade. And it has sure come in handy for me! I once knew a guy who had three names already on his birth certificate, so in eighth grade, he wound up with four names! I always thought his driver’s license sure looked weird!

So that pretty much is the story of my online name. Now back to this sweet, little, neglected blog. You know what happened? Well, I told you in the very first post that this blog would be about working from home online. And as time went on, the thought of this blog being just about that began to bore me to my core. Every time there was some cool thing about internet marketing and such to blog about, I just could not bring myself to do it.

So we’re changing the game. There’s that fickleness again. Erratic changeableness - yep, that’s me. Hell - all you have to do is look back on this very post to see that!

So now you may be asking, ‘Ok, Lisa, that’s all good and well, but, now - just what is this blog about?’ You know what, for right now, I’m going to say, ‘This blog is about:

And we’ll just go from there, ok?

Do you wanna see why I love online marketers/bloggers so much? Then just check out this awesome video from the very recent conference in Austin, TX - SXSW. I’m telling you, these guys were just having way too much fun! I don’t think they should have been having that much fun without me! Hrmph!

My boss is even a beatboxer! Whoa! Who knew!

I can’t wait until I get to start attending conferences! I think IZEAFest might just have to break me into the ‘conference game’!

[I’ve been ’sitting’ on this post for far too long, leaving it in draft for over a week now. I think it is time to release it out into the wild, as is. I’ve been stressing over the editing, fixing, and restructuring - and I’ve come to realize that it will be in draft forever if I don’t just hit ‘publish’ already! So here ya go, here it is - rough and in the buff]

I realize the first post in this series was not called Make Money Blogging, but, as I’m feeling a bit ornery and cantankerous, I decided that different titles were just fine. It is my blog, after all - see that up there in the header - the part that says Lisa Marie Mary - yeah, that’s my name. So this is kinda like my pad. And my rules go. See what I mean - got that ornery thing down, don’t I?

Let’s get to the good stuff and quit all this yammerin’! A very good friend has asked me for some advice about how I do this ‘working online’ thing, and as I was mentally crafting my email back to her, I realized that my adoring public would be better served if I shared that information with everyone! (Ornery, ornery!) Seriously, though, I’m sure there are others out there with the exact same question, and it seemed such a shame to only share it with one person.

I suppose that I need to start this whole thing off with the whole Google business. Blog monetization has recently taken a very sharp turn, as Google does not want anyone buying any paid links - not in any way, shape, or form. What this means for us as bloggers is that many of us lost our Google Page Rank. (This blog is not yet monetized in any way, so that hasn’t happened yet. It is also very new, so the Page Rank is rather low.) There have been several ways to respond to this new development. Some bloggers have swept through their entire blogs removing each and every dofollow link. (If you’re not sure what that is, look it up, because, I don’t want to spend the whole post on this topic.) This means they are no longer hosting Text Link Ads and they are no longer accepting any advertising that requires dofollow. This means a lot of people are losing money, quite a lot of money, in some cases.

The other type of response is to just keep right on doing what you’ve been doing, not paying any attention to the loss in Page Rank. Some are successful with this response (still making plenty of money) and some are not.

The zone I fall in is the ’sitting on the fence and waiting to see what happens with all of this’ department. I am not making much money at all, but, I have not taken my advertising off my sites, or added nofollow to them. I could do so, but, I’d still not be making much money. So Google would love me, advertisers would still not. The sites left with page rank, I could monetize, and then Google would slap them. So I don’t know. I think what I’m mostly waiting for is for Social Spark, by Izea, to come out, and see how well I do with that. I will talk about that a bit later, when I get into the companies that help monetize blogs.

Also, in the meantime, I’ve been focusing back on My Very Own Mail, and learning all about internet marketing again. I am studying affiliate marketing, infoproduct creation, membership sites. I’m also working for one of my two blogging heros and that is not only a great opportunity, but, also such an honor. So once you get into the fray online, you will see that there are jobs to be had, as well. I will admit, though, that when you are first getting involved online, they can be tricky to find. I think a lot of people find them on the WAHM.com forum, but, I’m not totally sure on that.

My two blogging heros? They would be Wendy Piersall of eMomsatHome.com and Galya McCord of MomGadget.com - these two ladies just rock and you can learn a lot from them. One of my WAHM heros, that I’ve been looking up to long before I got into blogging, is Lynn Terry of ClickNewz.com and SelfStartersWeeklyTips.com. There are all kinds of WAHM’s and marketers and WAHM marketers out there. You need to know who to trust - don’t let yourself be fooled by slick marketing, and waste money on silly programs that are just fluff and crap. (Not that I’ve ever done that, oh no, not me.) Anyway - the very best way to know if you can trust the person you are attempting to learn from online, is personal referrals. I completely stand by these three women, they are smart marketers, brilliant webmasters, and more importantly - they all have HUGE hearts! You absolutely can trust them. Be careful out there - the web is full of creeps, some of whom are very good at posing as upstanding web citizens.

While in the middle of sitting on working on this post, Wendy posted this awesome link to resources to help WAHM’s out in their businesses! It is on a very interesting blog called Bootstrapper - it’s a cool blog with lots of lists. And that list is great! Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with information, though. That is one of the biggest downfalls of being an online entrepeneur - distraction, and learning too much. If you’re constantly learning, you don’t have any time for ‘doing’ - and ‘doing’ is where the money is! Action! Never forget to take action!

Then one last link, that got twittered this morning by Caroline Middlebrook (thanks, Caroline!). It is an AWESOME article by Courtney Tuttle that you must go read - right now! Starting a Blog That is Not a Time Sucking Money Pit

So now this trailing, wandering, meandering post on working at home online is through - for now. I do have more to share with you. I’m starting a new blog - I’ve moved one from a subdomain to its own domain, and I am taking notes as I get it set up and start marketing it, so that I can share those with you.

P.S. If you’re thinking, ‘Man, this post sure is rough, for all that ‘editing’ she talked about!’ …I didn’t actually get to any of the editing and fixing and reformatting, those activities all transpired between my two ears! I’m just darn sick of this post sitting here - I’ll make better, more coherent posts …someday ….soon ….I swear!

Isn’t she a sweetie? She looks so cozy, just lying there relaxing. I’ve been doing some relaxing today, myself. My computer has been misbehaving, and as I told you the other day, my kids were out of school, so not a whole lot of progress was made, work-wise today.

My Firefox browser is acting very wonky, and I’ve been fussing with it all day. I’ve disabled addons and I’ve re-enabled them, and I’ve uninstalled plugins, and I’ve uninstalled software that could possibly be causing trouble.  I was even thinking of uninstalling my groovy Weather Channel desktop software that I love.  I haven’t gotten to that point yet, though.  I got tired of it all a couple of hours ago and decided to just surf on (ack!) Internet Explorer for a little while before I go to sleep.

While doing that, I received an email in my inbox about a new Frank Kern video. I just love his videos! I learn so much from him. The video that I’m listening to tonight is revealing seven secrets that a lot of gurus haven’t even figured out! You can watch the other videos at his Mass Control blog. It’s all good stuff.

So go ahead, relax a little - but, learn while you’re doing it! That sounds like the perfect entrepeneur’s compromise to me!

Oh yes, and don’t forget Lynn Terry’s webinar tomorrow. Lynn will have a special guest on the webinar tomorrow. He has just written a guide to podcasting called, Niche Podcasting and his name is Alan Pederson.

I was totally pumped up and excited on Wednesday. I had somewhat of an epiphany, from witnessing the growth of a friend. I got totally focused, and realized exactly what I needed to do to go forward into the new year, and really grow in my online endeavors. I was so motivated - it really felt good. I was nervous, but, full of happy anticipation.

I got started on my newly-decided actions, and then was interrupted in the afternoon when it was time to go to the post office and pick up one of my kids. And by the time we were on our way home, it was snowing like mad here. And it just does not snow in Alabama very often - at all! So the kids were thrilled! And there was lots of playing and snowball-making and snowball-fighting, and picture-taking going on!

Work -what’s that?

New goals, new objectives -what are those?

Then on Thursday, there was some family drama which slowed down my productivity. When the dust cleared, I sat down to get to work, and my computer just was not in the mood to work. I spent the rest of the day doctoring it.

On Friday, one of the children stayed home from school, not feeling well, and my stomach decided to not feel well, too.

And since school got out on Friday, up until about twenty minutes ago, we’ve been hosting and entertaining extra children.

It’s funny, because, I still feel that excitement from Wednesday. I still feel like I’m on the verge of something really good. I’m about to jump off of that cliff of blind faith and it feels great! Only, I’ve just taken one foot and lifted it over the edge, and ….

STILL PAUSE!

Someone put me on pause. I’m still here, still waiting…might get some of that ‘new’ stuff going tomorrow, but, it will more likely get going on Monday, when ….NO! Hold that thought! Monday is a school holiday….

STILL PAUSE!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I absolutely love Squidoo! You will also, then, know who dragged me into this mess! Tiffany Dow is the one who got me so excited about all the wonderful Squidoo possibilities! And she has done it again! She has written a new ebook about Squidoo. And this time she is teaching us how to make lenses and sell them! And she does this for a nice little sum! Her teenage son has even done it! The book is called, Flip That Lens and I am so excited about it! There are many, many ebooks out there that teach you lots of things, but, the thing that you have to realize about Tiffany is that she really has a talent for this - for teaching people through an ebook. Some people might be good teaching you if they are with you, but, their ebooks leave you scratching your head. Tiffany takes everything step-by-step and really has made me understand the best way to do things on Squidoo. She did that with her first book on the subject, Social Networking on Squidoo, and now she has done it with her new one! Check it out: Flip That Lens!

I joined a group at Work It, Mom!  a few weeks ago, in which we all decided to take on monthly goals, instead of these grand, yearly goals that might fall by the wayside almost as soon as they’d left our lips…

The group was started by Nataly, the owner of Work It, Mom!  and it is called 12 Small Goals for 2008.  I am so glad that Nataly decided to start this group - it makes the whole concept of ‘resolutions’ so much more doable for me!

The goal I picked for January is cleaning my office.  This place has become a complete and total pigsty! It has become the family dumping ground.  If anyone doesn’t know where something goes, somebody always says ‘put it in mom’s office’.  Ugh!  No more, people!  I have a hard enough time staying organized all on my own!

So I have spent the entire day in here working to make this place a haven for productiveness again and I am quite pleased with my progress so far!  My little monsters will get back on the school bus tomorrow after a long winter break, and I will get back at it.  And in no time at all, this place will HUMMMM with productivitity!

For now, though, I am exhausted!  I quit for the day - but, I’m quitting happy.  Pleased with my work…

I’m a little late getting back to you with the second half of my Free Webinar from Lynn Terry posts. We’ve had a hectic week at our house with the kids out of school and all of their activities. Life will hopefully get back to normal next Tuesday, when my sweet monsters go back to school. There were just a few more things about the webinar that I wanted to talk to you about. I just really got a lot out of it this time and I wanted to share as much of it as possible with you!

The next thing I wanted to talk to you about was something that Roy Montero shared with us that I really liked! He was talking about how so many of us spend (waste) so much time …preparing …making sure we’re ready …fixing. And that so often it’s “Ready ….. Aim …. …..” and that “Fire” just keeps getting put off again and again and again. He really heard this from another marketer, but, I can’t remember who it was, but, he says that what we need to be saying, instead, is….

“Ready - Fire - Aim!”

I just love that! And I can relate so much to the preparing, learning, gathering more information, getting ready… Ugh! Just do it, already! As I go into this new year, I’m going to keep that one simple phrase in my head …”Ready - Aim - Fire!” And I think it was Roy that said,

The important thing is that we just go.

That’s good stuff. So often I need to be reminded to just do it. Action, action, action! There is a lot of positive talk like that at The Warrior Forum. There are some really awesome marketers there, from whom I’ve learned an awful lot!

Getting back to the webinar, though, one of the things we were doing was helping Deb Gallardo with her site, The Story Ideas Virtuoso. Deb has a great ebook coming up that will help aspiring fiction authors in the process of finding their story ideas. Everyone was chiming in and giving Deb advice on what she could do to her blog to make it better and it was really interesting hearing all of the different tips. I love listening to/reading blog critiques, because, I always garner ideas for my own sites that way.

The really cool thing was that while we were on her site, there was a headline in her Blogrush widget that just jumped out at me. The title was

When This Occurs, Pack Up Your Dinosaurs and Leave the Room

I have to say that before even clicking through and reading the article - I love that! And then when I clicked through, I was pleased as punch! It was the perfect note on which to end this great session of looking forward and taking action in the new year! The article was posted at a blog called Gnorb.net. You can find the actual article here: Dinosaurs. It’s a positive article, especially for those of us with entrepeneurial blood, in which the author quotes a fabulous piece out of “Zen in the Art of Writing”, by Ray Bradbury.

And on that note, I’m packing up my dinosaurs!

I’ve told you here before about Lynn Terry’s free weekly webinars. She is so helpful and provides so much support, help, and information - all for free! The webinars are held every Tuesday at 11am Central time. It’s a really great format, because, it’s very interactive. There is a screen where Lynn can show us different webpages, and there is audio, which is controlled by Lynn - so not everyone is talking at once. And there is also a text chat, where you can ask questions and discuss the topic at hand freely. I really enjoy them!

Today our focus was on the new year, of course! Everyone is thinking all about the new year - the internet is abuzz with articles and blog posts about ‘how can you do differently than 2007?’ and ‘what are your goals for 2008?’ And of course, ‘how do you plan to get there?’ And that is a lot of what we talked about today. The whole thing ran for two and a half hours today! That is a long one. Now, the actual webinar is only an hour, but, often - Roy Montero (who hosts the webinar) and Lynn will stay after for a less-formal chat and discussion.

I just wanted to share with you a couple of the highlights that were very useful to me today. I am sure that I am going to miss a lot of stuff - but, for me personally - this is the stuff that struck me between the eyes and I felt compelled enough to write down.

Lynn shared with us about a book that has made a big difference in her organization and clutter habits. And actually, the book was freeing for her, because, it helped her to realize that she really is organized. Things might look messy, but, she knows where everything is and can find it for you in two seconds flat! I can so relate to that! The book is called, “Organizing from the Inside Out” by Julie Morgenstern. Lynn has mentioned it before, and I just haven’t looked into it yet. Given that, number one, she’s mentioned it more than once, and number two, it freed her up to realize she already was organized - I should really check it out! The author has written another helpful book, too, and that one is called, “Time Management from the Inside Out”. I am definitely going to check into those books! I should have some Amazon credit due to me from MyPoints - I know just what I’ll use it for!

Lynn did also mention another book, too. She frequently talks about this book, as do many marketers I’ve come across online. That book is “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Lynn says that this book completely changed her mindset! Awesome! It is another one I have been meaning to read, and just haven’t gotten around to, but, I could really use a change in my mindset. So I’ll be checking that one out, too!

One topic we discussed was ‘information overload’ and this, of course, led us to email. Ugh…I know so many of us are so bogged down by our emails, especially if we are involved in marketing online. (It is definitely not a problem confined to internet marketing, though, as my mother is a controller for a private tennis club, and deals with way too many emails, too!) As online marketers, though, we are trying to stay on top of what’s hot and fresh on the internet. We think we need to catch every morsel of information, and save it some folder for ‘later’. Oh my gawd - what a horrible cycle! I am so bad about this. Lynn sent us to a blog post she’d made on the topic of information overload in the form of emails, and one thing right in the beginning of the email did that ’striking me right between the eyes’ thing again (emphasis mine):

Your priority should be putting out content… not absorbing it.

That is good. I mean - good! I might just print that out and hang it on the wall over my desk! Focus, people, we need focus!

I think that is a good note to end on for today - I’ll share the rest with you tomorrow! Stay tuned…