If you aren’t on Lynn Terry’s free webinars every Tuesday at 11am, Central - you are missing OUT! A lot of good information is dispensed and a lot of great networking happens at Lynn’s free weekly webinars. The fact that there is no cost for them is amazing to me!

And thanks to the webinar this week, I learned of something else for which there is NO COST! That’s right! Stompernet’s latest product is completely FREE! Holy cow! These guys are some of the very best to learn from! I just have never been able to afford any of their products. I have, however, learned PLENTY, just from their launches alone! I’m so excited, now, to be able to get one of their actual products - I can’t wait to purchase it!!

Lynn was given a review copy of the products and wrote an informative review right here: Stomping the Search Engines 2.0 Review You can get all of the information about the latest and greatest from Stompernet in that post.

She also wrote a follow-up post, once she was allowed to divulge that the products were free. You can find that post here: Stomping the Search Engines 2 (FAQ). You can find all of the details of the offer, including the catch, because, I know that was your next question! And let me tell you, it’s not much of a catch!

This is really a big deal! Their last product was a membership for $800 a month!! Whoa!

I am totally thrilled and excited about this offer and if you know what’s good for you and your online business, you should be, too!

I get asked that question all the time! There are oodles and oodles of people out there that want to learn how to work at home on their computers. I know when I started out, I really, really wanted to find a way to make this work! I chased (and paid for! eeps!) a lot of scams, participated in a lot of programs that stole tons of time from me, with little to no return. I’ve learned the hard way on a lot of these things and when I look back at some of the waste - wasted time, wasted money - I just shake my head!

Who Should I Listen To, Lisa?

One big mistake that people just starting out online make is following and attempting to learn from, too many people. I definitely made this one. I’ve got my ‘chosen mentors’ narrowed down to just a few now and things are working a lot better. One of these awesome people is Lynn Terry, of Clicknewz and Self Starters Weekly Tips. Lynn has been working as an entrepreneur, most of those years online, for about 12 years now. And the really super cool thing about her is that she’s really nice and really approachable. The ‘OMG, Lisa - what’s wrong with you?’ part is that I’ve known her, followed her, since at least 2003. That is how long I’ve been a member of her forum, anyway. I have been listening to eighty-seventy-thousand other people, too, though! Now she is one of my few - and my head is not spinning quite as much as it used to!

Back to the question people ask me all the time - other stay at home moms that want to continue to stay home with their kids are usually who ask me how this all works. How do you get paid to blog? How does affiliate marketing work? How do you get listed in the search engines? I try to answer them, but, I think my answers come out disjointed. I try to start from the beginning, but, I always wind up zig-zagging and then I have to say, “Wait, back up a minute, before you do this you have to do that and it winds up being a dizzyingly circular talk! Ha!

How Do I Get My Own Site Up?

I did a few how-to posts in an effort to get started explaining things from the beginning - Lisa, how do you make money at home blogging? and Make Money Blogging - Part II. The first post will really help you just get started with your blogging. The second post offered some helpful resources for more research. Again, though, I don’t feel that I’ve explained things well.

But Really, Lisa, How Do I Get Started?

That is one thing that Lynn is really good at - explaining how, step-by-step, to do all the different things that we do. And she has a new post up, called, Starting A Free Online Business - that offers so much help to someone just wanting to get started! She just has a great way of explaining things! I’m pretty good at teaching little kids stuff, but, for some reason, I’ve really found it difficult to teach people what I do online. Lynn is awesome at that - the important thing is, you really need to follow the links within her post. She has written tutorials on just about anything and everything to do with internet marketing and she links out to them. Follow those links! Dig through her site! You will learn a lot from her!

Look at the categories of her blog on the right sidebar, also - you can dig through those to specific topics of interest to you. And if you can’t find something, use the search at the top right of her page. If it has to do with online marketing, I’ll just bet Lynn has blogged about it!

Seriously, when getting online, you need to be careful. There are some smooth characters in this arena that will win you over with their charm. All the while you think you’re learning the very best stuff from them, they’re draining your bank account or your paypal. Lynn is a REAL PERSON, not out to drain anyone’s anything. She is very smart in marketing, the online world, and entrepreneurship - you can’t lose stickin’ with her!

I recently explained here on the blog that my lack of work online is actually caused by information and life-overload! I’m learning SO MUCH and it is absolutely wonderful, but, sometimes too much learning - and not enough DOING - can be a bad thing! And then, of course, there’s all that ‘regular life stuff’ that gets in the way, too! I can get distracted and overwhelmed in nothing flat!

[Aside: Am I the only one in the world who continues to use the phrase: ’still pause’???! Quote from that last post: “Can’t the world still-pause while I get things in order here?” Ha! Along with my ‘records’ and ‘albums’ and ‘eight tracks’ and all the other phrases that keep me stuck in the 80’s! ‘Welcome to the ‘how to work at home in the 80’s blog, folks!’]

Back on topic, though, I made that frustrated-I’m-overwhelmed-and-that’s-really-why-I’m-so-inactive-online post and the very next morning, Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the COOLEST dudes online, tweeted this:

That guy is always on! How does he do that? I responded back to him with this:

And let me tell ya - if he was selling ‘Gary’s Magical Motivation-in-a-Bottle’ - I would be the first one in line buying it! And really, just watching his videos gets you pumped UP! As a result of one of the answers to his above question, Gary made a video for GaryVaynerchuk.com. His topic doesn’t exactly address me in my current situation as a stay at home mom, but, I can definitely apply it and get some KICK A$$ use out of it! And I have! Watch the video and we’ll talk some more….

Gary Vaynerchuk says, You Can Have Both….Jobs. Watch the video and be inspired!

I LOVE THAT, PEOPLE! JUST LOVE IT! I have been using that since the minute I first watched the video. When I get tired, distracted, not sure what to do next - my brain whispers to me, “Hustle 2.0″ and then I get so excited, re-energized just from the thought of Gary’s inspiring message and holler out to my empty house,

Seriously, ya’ll - I just love it. It gets me centered and gets me focused. It’s so simple and so right on. Just sit your a$$ down and do something, you know? Make things happen! A bunch of lollygagging here and there is not gonna make anything work. Not. one. thing.

And another thing, being afraid of things working - forget that! Don’t waste opportunity, because, subconsciously, you’re afraid to succeed. Success is unfamiliar - we don’t (some of us) know what it looks like or feels like. What if it’s icky?

Are you crazy?! Hustle 2.0 and tell your subconscious to go fly a bloody kite!

That last bit, that lovely ranting lecture, was really meant for me, from me. I know I’ve done this multiple times in my life, but, quite recently, I let a very good opportunity, that I knew good and well was a great opportunity - pass me by. I was wondering about it yesterday and thinking that I probably let myself be ruled by my evil, Negative Nelly subconscious in letting that go. And that right there, folks, is nothing but just plain silly!

Sometimes I find myself in quite a stagnant place with my online work.  I wind up paralyzed and usually spend my days mindlessly surfing the web.  Some of it feels like I should actually be doing some of this web wandering - like reading up on new internet marketing techniques and happenings, but the rest of it is usually just nothing more than a wild goose chase.  I can look at one person’s Twitter stream and get lost for two hours IN A SNAP! looking at the links they’ve posted and following through on their conversations, and then looking at the links their followers have posted….  Seriously - I’ll open ONE new email saying, ‘Joe Smith is following you’ and so, of course, I go check out his profile, so I can decide if I want to return the follow.  I’ll check out his recent tweets, check out his website, follow a few of his conversations - and next thing you know - TWO HOURS have passed!  All from opening one freaking email!

The crazy part of all of this is that a lot of this ‘mindlessness’ is actually caused by having too much on my mind!  Here, let’s let my new friend, Gary, explain it.  He said it so eloquently:

And that, my friends, is exactly where I’m at right now!  And then some!  I have so many blankety blank ideas bumping around in my head right now that it is driving me crazy.  I’ve heard all kinds of different ways to deal with this and I think I’m gonna have to sit down today a few of them!  I’ve been jotting things down in my notebook I keep beside me, but, that is just not helping.  Well, it’s not helping near enough, anyway.

One thing I am thinking about doing, though I’m not sure if it’s the smartest way to go, is to just focus on one site at a time, and let the others sit and wait for their turn.  I’ve got mountains of ideas in my head screaming at me for each site, though - so I don’t know if that will keep the peace in there or just make things worse.

And to top things off, there is actually life happening around me outside of my computer and the internet!  The nerve!  Can’t the world still-pause while I get things in order here?  Sheesh!  The kids have all kinds of band things going on almost constantly.  (My daughter is now officially in band, too.  So as of last night, we have three band members in the family - a trumpet, a trombone, and another trumpet.  Yea!)  There’s also that thing called school with all of it’s accompanying needs and demands.  The housework is piling up.  I’ve got a sore throat. (First sickness of the season - I went all summer without getting sick.  Cool!)  And I just found out that I’ll actually have FIVE kids for the weekend.  I forgot I’d promised to keep my nieces.  That means I have to keep track of two little kids at the football game Friday night.  Oh my!

So you can see, all these things - kids, band, school, sicknesses, housework, nieces - they just don’t understand.  I have work to do.  Lots of work.  Ay ay ay!

I think I’ll just go meditate!

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!