Saturday, January 31, 2009

Matt Logelin & Ning

This post came from Rachel Sarah's blog. I'm posting because I've been intriqued by Matt's story [I think you will be too] and trying to drive more traffic to Single Rose. (Matt lost his wife and is raising their baby daughter by himself).

Another tool I've began to use is Ning; which I hope will be a traffic generator for my websites, though I haven't pulled them to my domains yet.
Single Rose
Kennedale News
Kennedale Racing

Still trying to figure out the blogging thing; haven't done it enough to separate my posts into categories. Just found out I have skin cancer. Basal cell carinoma - which they say is the best kind of have if you have to have it.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Harder than I thought it'd be

Trying to keep a blog is harder than I thought it would be.

It's difficult to come up with something of substance at the end of day.

Today was a holiday for most. My daughter and husband included; except my brain never stops, not even at the dentist this afternoon.

I'm at the beginning on the week where I have to be getting the newspaper ready for the printers by Wednesday, for distribution to the city Friday and I haven't even started yet.

My singlerose.com business partner is wanting a meeting to discuss the relaunch of the newly designed site, and I'm trying to figure out how to fit him in.

I did manage to compose and send the weekly enewsletter to the singlerose.com list-serve.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Customer Surveys

As everyone knows collecting information on your customers is crucial to your business success! You have to be able to know certain specifics on your website visitors: likes, dislikes, habits, demographic info, etc

What you do with that information and how you present it is extremely valuable in marketing your business. It can and does make the difference between securing that new advertising campaign and not!

Periodically I will run a survey on Single Rose or Kennedale News to get the populations current pulse. I'm running a survey on Kennedale News right now, because the City is trying to establish exactly where most people in the community are getting their information.

The point of this post is to share a free, easy, survey site with all of you. It's free to a certain point but if you need more than 10 questions or need more than 100 responses, you have to upgrade. The first level is $15 per month. That level will allow you, I think up to 500 responses. They provide you with real time reporting stats, which I love. The site is Question Pro. Question Pro also offers Micro Polls, which are one question surveys you can embedded into your website.


Sunday, January 4, 2009

Email Newsletters

Subscriber email is the gasoline that powers the website machine. At least that seems to be true in my case.

If you want visitors to come back to your site, send them an email with your website updates.

Putting out a quality enewsletter that will engage your audience often enough, but not too often that you piss off people is the trick.

Make sure you're collecting information from your visitors and make sure you use the information that you collect.

Single Mother Sentiments

This video is about my first book, Single Mother Sentiments: Real Life Reflections from Divorced, Widowed and Never Married Mothers, and the Single Rose Angels Assistance Program. The book is available on Single Rose.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram said, "It's a humble book, but in its own way says as much about the struggling single-mom experience as any sophisticated sociology study could."

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Virgin Blogger

I'm hoping to become proficient at the blogging thing for two reasons:



1) to further promote my publishing business and personal income.



My current websites are Single Rose - THE Resource for Single Mothers

Kennedale News - The official newspaper for the City of Kennedale, TX

Kennedale Racing - Serving the race car drivers and fans of Kennedale, TX



2) to help other people also be successful.



I'm a work at home mom/webpreneur and plan to use this blog to share my thoughts, successes and failures as I try and continue to make a living during these tough economic times.



I'm a blogger virgin, so commentors be gentle!