Work at Home Grandmothers

One of the things that all people who work from home, okay, maybe not all, but many who work from home struggle with is getting side-tracked, distracted by other things.  No one is standing over you telling you what to do, and it’s easy to get up and do a chore that needs being done around the house, answer that phone call and say “yes” when asked if you want to go out shopping with a friend, and any number of distractions.

But sometimes a good things comes along that takes time, but for a good cause.  Just such a distraction came my way after the earthquake in Haiti.  Rather than focusing on my blogs and income based items, I decided to write a “lens” on Squidoo called Natural Disaster Relief - What Can I Do?  I was then asked by one of the organizers on Squidoo to do another that would be a place where people could add their lenses (that’s what they call a one-page site on Squidoo) that are set for 100% charity, with the funds going to Hope for Haiti.  Usually on Squidoo the writer, someone like myself, receives a percentage of the things that sell when someone buys through my lens, but in this case, it all goes to Hope for Haiti.  Take a look at RocketMoms Help for Haiti to see what I’m talking about, at this typing, over 80 lenses have been added to support the people of Haiti.  This requires a little bit of managing on my part, a little time, but time well spent….I’m not making money doing this, but feel blessed and gratified to be helping in some way, especially since I don’t have a lot of money to give.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Eight By Eight. All opinions are 100% mine.

I do a lot of blogging, here and elsewhere, so when given the opportunity to review a blog, especially one that is as nice as amyafrica.com, it was easy to accept. I guess I’m always striving to make my blogs have as nice and professional an appearance as possible…and often think that this one, related to business, should look more professional…so found the appearance of Amy Africa’s blog, or as she calls it, QLOG, to be striking and well organized.

Amy has asked for an honest review, and I am going to give on. I like the blog, not just because of its appearance, but for the variety of information that it provides the reader. Her hope is to develop communication between herself and her readers, and describes the blog as having “99% Queries and Quintessentials” and “1% Quibblings”, so with all those Q’s, you now have a good idea as to where the name QLOG came from:-)

She is working on a collection of topics based upon your questions or “queries” as she calls them. Topics can be about anything, from SEO and marketing which will be be helpful to my work at home readers here, to pleasantries like being a Chef…whatever Amy wants to talk about when she’s on her soapbox.

I invite you to head over to http://www.amyafrica.com right now so you can see for yourself just what I’m talking about, and ask her a question or two, she’ll provide the answers you’re looking for…and if you aren’t satisfied or need more information, you can let her know in a comment.

We have talked about it before, and it’s worth talking about again, the importance of your presence on the web, and finding the right webhosting service for your business.

One of my favorite things to do is to build and add to my business website, and to write on my blogs through the web hosting service that I use. Finding a good service that is cost efficient, yet provides you with the tools you need is essential. In fact, you can visit this link to a site that lists the top 10 webhosting services of 2009.

When you are looking for a service, you want to consider some of the following:

• How many domains does the service allow you to have?
• How many email accounts?
• How easy is it to transfer your site from one domain to another if you want to move to a new hosting service?
• How much disk space do you have to work with and how much bandwidth?
• What “extras” do they offer?
• Do they offer you templates to build your site?
• How many FTP accounts?

Those are just a few things to consider in your search if you are interested in building your own sites for your business.

What do I think about FREE web hosting?  I used it for a while, but you can only do one site, and, well, let me just give you this link to a blog post that explains it quite well called Free Hosting Is Not Always The Best Choice.

Today I viewed the following video on placing Google ad units on websites. I maintain several blogs and sites because I love to write about things that interest me, and over the years have added some Google ads. I get a check every couple of months, but didn’t realize how the placement of the most visited ad units affected my income…could be doing better! I need to listen to this again, and want to share it with you.

Yes, it’s free!

I’ve signed up to take part in this event and wanted to share it with you as I know it will help you build your business.  It runs from April 27 - May 1st.

Even if you are seeing this a day or two after the event starts, please sign up and be there for what you can….you can’t get any less expensive than FREE.

This is a week long EVENT that will help you in the following ways:

• Learn to use Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging to your advantage for maximum results.
• Stand out from your competition using video marketing.
• Learn to keep yourself motivated while your business is growing no matter what.
• Grow your clients, your lists, your sales.

Do you want to know the “business failure” statistics that you want to avoid?  Please click here.

Do you want to know how to avoid being one of those statistics, and enjoy the process? Click here.

This isn’t hype, it’s a wonderful event with a great lineup of successful speakers, I’ll see you there, I need this as much as most of you reading this do.

Please click any of the links to visit rapidprofitboosters.com and sign up right now…only takes a minute.

This is a blog tour, you can visit the following links for a different perspective… yesterday the blog event tour was with Sandra DeFreitas, Tech Coach for Coaches

Tomorrow, this will be continued with Wendy Y. Bailey of Group Mastery & 33min Group Coaching Program

I’m still contemplating changing the template to this blog, it’s been nice looking at Spring flowers, but I think it’s time to go for a more professional look.  But before I take time to do that, let me invite you to join me as I do what was suggested in lesson 2 of the 31 Days to a Better Blog challenge (I think you can still join!).

Over the year, we’ve featured a number of grandmothers and their work at home businesses.  I want to list them here in one post for you, to encourage or inspire you, if you are still trying to find your “niche”. Click the Grandmother’s name to visit their post for a lot more information about them, and how they started their business.

1. Angie Baker is an example of someone who has taken a craft that she loves, jewelry making, and turned it into a business.
2. Paula Jackson is a grandmother that I have known “virtually” for a number of years, and helps people keep their homes clean and healthy without polluting the environment.
3. Darlene Demell is another grandmother in Canada who has a home business that provides delicious things to enhance your meals, your health and your home.
4. Jackie Thompson’s post is a popular stop, she has built a business out of making military purses…her story is wonderful, do stop by for a visit.
5. Self-Taught Artist - this is a grandmother I found while searching the internet, and was fascinated by her story and video, she has never attended art school, but is a talented self-taught portrait artist.
6. Karen is a grandmother with a unique situation, all 3 of her children were born on the same date…no, they aren’t triplets, they were born the same date but different years.  Read about how she works at home in the country.
7. Rita Sweet is another crafty grandmother who has started her own business making soap…you have to visit and see her hand made crayons, your children and grandchildren will love them!

That is only a few in the list, please contact me if I can feature you, it would be my pleasure to do so!  The only requirement is that you be a grandmother, a grandma “wanna be” like me, or “old” enough to be a grandmother.

If you have followed all of the instructions in the post before this one, then you are ready to add your template….please don’t do the following without first reading and following the instructions in the preceding post.

One of the reasons that I like using templates provided by the person who created the one I am using at http://www.happynutritionistsnuggets.com is that there is nothing to download, you just “copy” and “paste” the information into your blog, and if the creator of the template has done their work correctly, it should work.  I receive no compensation for sharing this, it’s just a personal preference.

I’m sure there are many other sites that offer free blogger templates, you just need to do a google search, but to keep things simple for now, do the following:

• Go to http://www.happynutritionistsnuggets.com and visit the link in the bottom border of the page…I believe it’s “Finalsense”.
• Find a template that you like, and make sure it’s an XML type, most of them are, this is the type of template you will need for the “new” blogger layouts no matter where you find your free or purchased template.  You should be able to open up the image into a full page so that you get a good idea of how a template that interests you looks.
• All you have to do is “copy” the code for whatever template you like, then go to your blogger “Layout” tab, then the “html” link along the top,  just as we did in the preceding post, and “paste” the code into the text box, replacing the old with the new, then save!  You are doing this without risk if you have followed all of the instructions in the post before this one.
• IMPORTANT, when you click to “save” your new template, it’s likely that it is going to warn you in red letters of all the widgets that you will lose, that is why we saved the information for all the ones that we could as instructed in the earlier post.  Just go ahead and “save” if you have all of the “widget” info saved.  If not, go back and follow the instructions in the post before this one.
• NOW, you should be able to view your blog, and see all your posts with the new template.  Are all the images working? Yes? No?  I will have one more post for you on what to do so that you have all the images on your own service, and will tell you how to find where to put them in the html so that you don’t have to depend upon the hosting service of the source of your free blog for that.  But for now, things should be fine if the blog looks like it should.
• FINALLY, go to the “LAYOUT” tab in blogger, and set up your “Add An Item” widgets in the sidebar(s) the way you want them…remember, you should have the html or text from the ones in your previous setup saved.

IF YOUR TEMPLATE DOESN’T WORK for some reason, all you have to do is “copy” and “paste” the html that you saved as instructed in the previous post in the text box, and “save” and everything should be as it was.

Blogger also has a lot of helpful instructions, I wish you the best of success, and if you have any questions, or tips that I haven’t provided here, please let us know in a comment!

I’ll be back soon with instructions on how to save and use the images that make up the background of your template.

As promised, here’s how I add free templates to Blogger/Blogspot blogs that are not offered when you set up a blog on blogger.

You may wonder what is “in it” for the person who offers their templates for free…usually they also offer templates for sale, and at the bottom of the template, there is a link to the template creator’s site that you will be required to leave on the template when you add it to your blog.

(PLEASE NOTE that this post is a work in progress, I have more to add, but wanted to get something on here since I promised to do so, have had no internet connection on and off this past week, will finish this up tomorrow or the next day.)

For one of my favorite sources of free templates, please visit my Happy Nutritionist’s Nuggets blog (yes, it is a Blogger blog) and page down to the very bottom, you’ll see the link to Finalsense.  He/she offers beautiful templates…if you know of other people who offer free templates that are easy to use, please let us know in a comment.

In the following instructions, I’m going to assume that you already have a blog started, and that you are using the “New” blogger format that isn’t really al that new any more.  I’m also going to assume that you have been posting to the blog for a while.  If you have a brand new blogger blog with no posts, you can follow along too, but will not have as much to lose if you have a problem.

You may want to print this out so you can refer to it as you go along.

1. Login to your blogger account at http://www.blogspot.com. (If you do not have an account, that is where you set one up, and then follow the prompts to set up your blog…you are going to want to use the “New” blogger format, if they are still calling it new, as it has so many easy-to-use features that the old one does not.)
2. If you have more than one blog, pick the one that you are adding the template to, and go to the “layout” tab along the top.
3. Click on the “html” link along the top
4. Above the right corner of the text box you will see a link that says “Expand Widgets”, check this box if there is not a check in it.
5. Now you are going to “copy” all of the text in the text box, and “paste” it to your favorite word processing or similar program, I use “Notepad”.  Then save it on your computer in whatever folder you keep things related to your blogs, giving the file a name like the name of your blog, or whatever will help you remember what the file is for.
6. If you have put information that you don’t want to lose in any of the “Add an Item” widgets in “Layout” section (see the tabs along the top), especially those that you have added text or html too, you will want to open each of these by clicking “edit”, then copy and paste the text or html on the page you have set up in “Notepad”…I put it on the same page as the html I’ve just saved from the text box, quickly typing a few words above each to remind me what they are.
7. Please make a note of any information that is in any of the other widgets as well, for example, your blogroll. The widgets that contain information provided by Blogger ie. “About Me”, “Labels”, etc., will be fine, you will just have to add them again when you are finished adding your new template.
8. How are you doing so far?  It sounds like more than it is, we’re almost done.  You now have all your information from your blog “saved” so no matter what happens, your covered!

Please visit the next post, added 3.31.09, for how to add your new template.