Well this post just like the last one, has absolutely nothing to do with working from home. I simply felt like adding some pictures of my gorgeous grandaughters in their Karate outfits.

But that’s the beauty of blogging , your blog is your domain and you can do whatever you want with it.

So here are Demelza and Ce’Nedra doing their stuff.

The year moves on towards xmas and the season is changing. We are heading towards summer  and the trees outside my home are no longer clothed in pink blossoms, the leaves are now a purplish brown and the trees have fruit on them.

Ce’Nedra eats the fruit, and her mother assures me that it is okay to eat.  Varinia is an earth mother who has studied Wicca and the ways of the nature so she knows what she is talking about in regards to the fruits of the earth. And Cedie hasn’t gotten sick so it must be okay. Paula and I tried some of the fruit, not actually sure what it is, Cedie says they are plums but they are more like purple crab apples - very tart.

The change of seasons is just one of the things I love about Canberra.  When I am in Brisbane in Queensland, everything is green all year round and it is really only the blooming of the red Poinciana and  the gorgeous  purple Jacaranda trees, that show that summer has arrived.

Sometimes when we work from home we tend to forget to take care of ourselves. It is very important to continue to keep up decent levels of exercise and maintain a healthy diet.

When you are sitting at the computer all day at home it is very easy to reach out and pick at unhealthy snacks, not realising just what you are doing to your waistline and health.

With this in mind, Paula and I make sure that we get regular exercise at the local ladies only gym, Fernwood in Tuggeranong. We have been doing lots of stretch and yoga classes so yesterday I decided it was time to up the ante and did the pump class. Well today I am having difficulty walking up and down the stairs. Every step feels like I am being stabbed with a burning knife blade - at least thats how it appears to me.

Having done this many times before, you know what I mean- reach a high level of fitness and then stopping going to the gym for quite some months; I know that in the next day or so I will feel the benefits of this strenuous exercise but at the moment I just want to curl up in a ball with some hazelnut chocolate and make the bad pain go away.

Having said that, it is important to not let the computer take over your life completely. Factor in the breakations and fun times.

A timer is a good tool to have on your desk to remind you of when to take a break, go for a walk or have a healthy snack.

Now where’s that phone book I need to make an appointment for a massage

Paula and I have met and read about some very successful people who rely on paid advertising for an income.  And a very nice income many of them enjoy.

However, with Google Adsense making it easy for anyone with a blog or website to put ads on a page has this led to ad blindness by website searchers and consequently less click through rates.  

And even though evidence shows that people are clicking through on the merchant ads, often there is little in the way of conversion once they reach the merchant site.

We have been discussing whether or not to enter the arena of Pay Per Click advertising but it is not a cheap exercise.  The bidding on Keywords is quite competitive and the price on keywords has now become relatively expensive for what the returns might be.

 There has been a lot of talk about click through fraud which is another reason why Pay Per Click advertising needs to be carefully considered before rushing in and spending hard earned dollars.  

There are a number of other ways to advertise on your site and video advertising is seen on an ever growing number of sites.   Maybe this is a better option.

We would certainly like to hear from others who have are are thinking of delving into Pay Per Click. 

Just a word of warning to anyone who decides to start working online from home. Beware of the scams.

My daughter has been sucked into a number of schemes simply because she won’t take the time to research emails that are sent to her promising untold wealth if she signs up and sends money.

Unfortunately she refuses to listen to me. I have been working online for a number of years now - but what would I know.

So many hundreds of dollars later and with nothing to show for her effort, she has finally woken up to the fact that maybe her mother does know what she is talking about.

If it appears to be too good to be true, you can bet your boots it is.

Never send bank details to anyone without ensuring that you are dealing with a reputable firm and NEVER send money to anyone offering to set you up with an online business that will make you wealthier than Bill Gates. Read the rest »

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that we are always looking for ways to generate income.

One way to make some money is to get paid to blog.  And this is where Smorty comes in.

We have been approved by Smorty to take up opportunities to write about various advertisers and receive payment for doing so.

Posts generally take between 5 and 20 minutes to write so its not like I am taking a big chunk out of my daily routine.  And the best thing is I am getting paid to do what I like best - which of course is blogging.

Once the blog post has been approved by an administrator from Smorty, payments are made on a weekly basis straight into my Paypal account.

The whole process couldn’t be easier. So if you have a blog that is indexed in Google and Yahoo, is over 3 months old then why not join up and start earning.  There are a few more standard criteria that must be meet but they are the general ones on racial, adult content etc.

Smorty are not only looking for bloggers who are interested in getting paid for blogging but they are also interested in hearing from advertisers who would like to have their advertising campaigns promoted out to bloggers with appropriate blogs, for their opinions on the product, website etc.  Blog advertising is a powerful tool in todays internet marketplace.

So go on head over to Smorty now, sign up and start getting paid for blogging today.

By Kellie Fowler

Online BootCamp Gets Affiliate Marketers Making Money Quickly By Reducing Learning Curve And Providing Answers

If you’re struggling to keep up with busy schedules, growing time constraints, escalating financial issues, and a family that you yearn to spend more time with, you’re not alone.

Like you, more and more people are fed up with the 9-5 grind and with putting in overtime hours and efforts that go above and beyond only to receive disappointing paychecks.

Understandably, they feel they are missing out on life and looking for legitimate ways to generate additional revenue without resorting to just another low-paying part-time job.

And, as many of these people have found, the answer they are looking for can be found in affiliate marketing.

With little start-up costs and the only resources needed including just a computer and Internet access, this online publishing business is freeing people up to live their lives to the fullest, all the while finally achieving financial freedom, while simultaneously spending more quality time with family and friends.

It may sound too good to be true, but it’s not.

Better yet, you can learn the techniques and strategies used every day by James Martell, a successful affiliate marketer, in his online course, to be conducted one evening per week for eight weeks.

It’s called the Affiliate Marketers BootCamp - Online “Night School” Edition and “seats” do fill up fast!

Why? Because Martell has been successfully teaching students how to create profitable affiliate marketing businesses for years. Read the rest »

Today my sister Mandy brought her new baby to visit.  Amelia was born on September 13th and she is just adorable. And thats a totally unbiased viewpoint.

One of the benefits of working from home is that you can take time out to enjoy the pleasant things in life with family and friends.

It is essential to make time to relax and do things away from the computer when you work from home as it is too easy to become so absorbed in what you are doing that the days pass and you haven’t even ventured outside to check out the weather.

So always follow the golden rules when working at home, take time out

to exercise
to eat properly
to relax away from the computer for a short time
visit friends and family
go out for lunch

And more of Amelia.

Just a day in the life of a work at home woman.

MOTH (man of the house) and I went shopping yesterday and ended up losing the keys to the car somewhere in Chermside shopping centre. Now this is a huge centre and after searching pockets and bags, Val headed off to retrace our steps.

Nothing had been handed at the Centre Management or any of the stores that we had visited, so we made a phone call to Jurgon (son) at work and got him to arrange for a locksmith to come.  Now I have been mentioning that we may need a spare set of keys for sometime, but well hmmm.

So after quite a delay the locksmith arrived, but his machine couldn’t cut the type of key we needed for the Land Cruiser,  so he had to remove the lock and we arranged to meet again in the morning.

Another call to son who dutifully arrive with wife, to pick us up and take us home.

My bargains that I had negotiated savings on were no longer bargains as the new key and the call out fee for the locksmith cost $220.00. 

The Centre Management called this morning to say the keys had been handed in by a security guard, so now we have 3 sets of keys because the nice young locksmith had thoughtfully brought 2 keys for us so that we would have a spare.

Just a day in the life of a work at home woman.

The other day I met a young mother who is home schooling her two young boys.  

While we were talking I introduced her to the world of blogging and making money from home.  She had never heard of blogging and she is not alone in this.  Hardly anyone I meet, including family on my recent trip to NZ, know about blogging and when you consider that there are around 98 million blogs on the internet and the number is growing daily, I find it incredible that people haven’t stumbled upon the term somewhere.

But then when I mentioned it to my husband he pointed out that he and our immediate family only know about blogging because I am so involved in it along with the affiliate marketing side of having an online work from home business.

Paula and I have been working with our various blogs for a little while now and realised the potential for making money from this medium in the early days. 

Of all the people that I have told about blogging, and I mention to anyone willing to listen, only one has taken up the challenge and that is my daughter Varinina.  My granddaughter Demelza started a blog but teenage angst has gotten in the way of her progression with it. 

Now we all know that it takes time to build up a blog that people want to read and keep coming back to, so it has to have something to offer that is interesting and/or informative.  The content needs to be well written and easy to read. 

If the blog is about a product such as our area rugs  or lingerie blogs then you are able to add Google and merchant ads that relate to your product and this will generate an income for you.  It won’t make you an overnight millionaire but as your online traffic increases you should be able to make a nice little income.

The next biggest single thing you need to do is get traffic into your site, so you will need to promote your blog to sites like www.spicypage.com, www.mybloglog.com, and any other number of blog directories and communities that can easily be found on the web by typing ‘blog directories’ or ‘blog communities’ into the search engine.

So we now know that:

• the content needs to be well written
• place Google ads on the page
• place merchant ads on the page
• actively promote your blog to get traffic

Blogging is not only a way to produce an income, it is fun especially when you are writing about things that interest you. Once you join a blog community and start to read other peoples blogs you will find some are personal diaries, some are humourous, some topic specific and most make great reading.  Sometimes you will come across something that clashes with your beliefs, simply move on, do not get involved in silly name calling or online arguments, remember to respect other peoples point of view, they have a right to their opinions as much as you do.