blogging for profit - Stuff Parents Need

How I Deal With Life When It Hands Me a Bunch of Lemons

May 20, 2013 · by Tiffany Merritt · 3 Comments

It has been quite an eventful handful of days around here on Stuff Parents Need. I had a blogging emergency problem, I had out of town company (which was a wonderful thing…just time consuming) and my oldest got terribly sick. Have you ever been in a situation like this, where all signs seem to be pointing to the fact that you need to take a break from your work, like it or not???

It all started Wednesday when I started getting reports from readers that they couldn’t see my blog online anymore. I thought it was so odd because I could see it just fine. I made sure that I didn’t have any hackers getting into my account, and then I just played dumb. I assumed that it would just magically work itself out.

What was I thinking???

Finally, around 3am Thursday (yeah, that’s when I wake up so that I can “balance” a career as a blogger with a career as a mom), I couldn’t see my site either. And I couldn’t even get logged into the back end of the blog to fix it. As far as I could tell, my blog, my 3 years and 9 months of HARD work, had vanished into thin air. I almost threw up, no exaggeration.

I immediately woke up my tech support, also known as my husband Tim, and pleaded with him to please figure out the problem. After an hour and a half, he did figure it out. And the problem was simple, yet confusing at the same time: MY BLOG DOMAIN EXPIRED. You see, to run your own website, you have to pay for your address on the internet. Additionally, you have to pay for a server to host your site. Most bloggers get both things taken care of together through a hosting service. I have always been pleased with my host. But in this case, they had an expired credit card on file for me and NEVER contacted me to let me know there was any sort of problem. They just let my domain expire!

While the problem was fixable, it cost me nearly 24 hours of traffic. I get new visitors every single day, and the folks who were new to my site over that time period will likely never visit again, assuming that my blog is defunct. I also get emails from PR reps every day. Who knows what potential opportunities were missed because the reps couldn’t find my site? And I wasn’t able to get logged in at all for over 24 hours, which caused some significant delays in my posting schedule. Basically, this was a gigantic pain in the you-know-what.

I was very frustrated with my host for not communicating with me that there was a problem, but I also had to “put on my big girl pants” (a phrase I’m borrowing from the Shanty-2-Chic sisters) and realize that I was partially to blame, too. I should have known when my domain was up for renewal. I should have proactively checked on my account from time to time to make sure all my info, including my credit card number, was up-to-date. I should have called my host the second I started hearing that other people couldn’t see my site. Next time I will do better. And I will do that with the help of my Blogging Planner.

The Blogging Planner has been right by my side for the last 3 months, and especially for the last 5 days. Even though I haven’t been able to get much blogging work done, I have been able to quickly communicate delays in postings with my sponsors (all my posts are listed in my planner…they used to just be in my wordpress account, and if I couldn’t get into my account, I couldn’t see them). I also have put reminders in my calendar to check in with my hosting service every six months to make sure everything is in order.

My sister and brother-in-law arrived at my house for a 3 day visit in the midst of the blog drama, and I knew that I would not be able to do much at all to get caught up until they left on Sunday. I quickly scanned over all of my “to do” items for the weekend (which I had originally planned on getting through before they came). And I realized that every single thing could wait. The world simply wouldn’t end if a post went live on Sunday instead of Saturday! And while blogging is a really great source of meaningful relationships and community for me, it doesn’t replace the joy to be found in spending time with my family. I saw my sister’s visit for what it was: a real gift. I think I would have been more harried about the whole thing if I couldn’t have seen my blogging calendar at a glance and easily re-worked post due dates.

Finally, when the time to work yesterday rolled around, my oldest started throwing up. Of course. But as we all know, seeing your child sick will put EVERYTHING into perspective in about 2 seconds flat. All she wanted in this world was her mommy. And all I wanted to do was to be her mommy and cuddle her, tell her stories, and sing her to sleep over and over again throughout the day and night. While she rested I would get back into my Blogging Planner and continue to re-work the schedule and to cut out every task that wasn’t absolutely critical. When you don’t have enough time to accomplish all of your goals you have to go into triage mode, and let go of a lot of things. The Blogging Planner really helped me quickly prioritize what was a must based on commitments and based on my specific monthly goals I had created, and what could wait for another day, or even another week or month.

At first glance, the past 5 days have been really crappy. But as I head into a new week and start to get caught back up with everything, I also realized that my forced vacation from work was a blessing, too. I got to focus on what mattered the very most (my family) and I realized that I am now organized enough to deal with blog problems in an effective way that minimizes my stress level. As a person who is prone to worrying, this is a really big deal. The Blogging Planner played a very important role in saving my sanity. I can’t stress enough what a tremendous tool it is. If you blog, you need one. Period.

I received a complimentary planner and am providing my honest assessment through a review series. This post contains affiliate links, which I only include in a post when I’m SUPER excited about a product. If you blog, this planner is a game-changer.

How Keeping an Editorial Calendar Is Changing How I Blog

April 18, 2013 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

I have been writing, at least a little bit, pretty much every single day since I started this blog in September 2009. When I started the blog, I had pages and pages of topic ideas written down and I couldn’t wait to start writing about them. As opportunities to partner with brands increased, my blog calendar filled up, and I have been operating at what feels like warp speed for at least the past 3 years.

But I have been posting like a mad woman without any sort of a clear plan about what I’m doing. My blog calendar has been completely at the mercy of sponsors, and not only is that not very fun for me as the blog writer, it also doesn’t make good business sense! I have all these fun ideas for blog posts that never see the light of day, and as a result, my readers don’t get to know me quite as well. I’m also often missing the boat, seeing things go viral on Pinterest or StumbleUpon that I had already thought of and planned to write about “one day.”

Since I have been using The Blogging Planner, I have been able to step back and actually think more long-term about the type of posts I want to write and figure out how to work them in. Believe it or not, I’ve already got a full editorial calendar for OCTOBER. Don’t believe me? Just take a look!

I decided that I’m going to participate in the “31 Days” series this year and offer great recipe round-ups every day of the month. While I don’t yet have everything written, the topics are already planned. That increases the odds that I’ll actually go through with the idea tremendously. I can also work on the posts between now and then little by little, and not be overwhelmed come October. And don’t worry, there will still be plenty of reviews and giveaways that month! 🙂

Thanks to having this planner, and thanks to advice I have received from other successful bloggers to plan my calendar out a year in advance, I’m now starting to make room for all those post ideas that are swirling around in my head, but that I haven’t been able to write in the past because I’ve given away all of my time and post slots to sponsors.

Stuff Parents Need, at its heart, is a review and giveaway blog. I have no intentions of changing that. I LOVE to tell readers about cool new products on the market. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE to give away prizes! But I have other interesting things to share, too, and I am absolutely thrilled that I’m starting to give those post ideas room in my calendar.

I’m still writing like a mad woman these days. But I’ve got a much clearer vision of where I’m headed, and I feel SO good about being able to offer my readers a really good mix of product-focused posts and other interesting content. I have learned so much about “blogging for stuff” over the past 3 1/2 years, and The Blogging Planner has helped me to finally take the reigns of my blog instead of handing them over to everyone else. What a game-changer it has been for me!

If you are a blogger, how do you plan out what you are going to write about? Do you keep an editorial calendar? Do you struggle to find opportunities to write about the topics YOU want to write about?

I received a complimentary planner for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Four Lessons I Learned in My First Two Years of Blogging for “Stuff”

March 21, 2013 · by Tiffany Merritt · 21 Comments

It isn’t uncommon for me to get emails from readers asking about how I got started blogging, and what advice they would give to folks who want to become bloggers, particularly in the niche of product reviews and giveaways. I’d love to share a few of the lessons I have learned and some changes I have made recently that are having a positive impact on my bottom line (my income).

So without further ado, allow me to impart some wisdom!

Blogging is easy

If you want to blog, it is SO ridiculously easy to get one set up. If you have something to say and you want to share it with your friends, your family, or even the whole darn world, then what are you waiting for? Jump right in and start banging on that keyboard! The beautiful thing about owning a blog is that YOU OWN IT. You don’t have to meet any particular deadlines or answer to anyone or write content that you don’t like. There is so much freedom in that!

Blogging for more than 3 months is hard

Ok, so it is true that blogging is super easy and that you can do whatever you want with your site. But if one of your primary goals is to earn money with your site, that’s a whole other can of worms. Today I want to share a few things that learned in my first 2 years as a blogger that have helped me have staying power and are a huge part of the reason that I’m still going, and that I’m still growing.

What I wish I had known on day 1

When I started my blog in September 2009, I really felt as though I had SO much to share with everyone. After all, I had been a parent for 7 1/2 WEEKS….so I was pretty much an expert by that point, right?! I kid at myself now, but at the time, I really felt that way. And that’s totally fine. It’s all the motivation I needed to get started. But I also wanted a piece of that pie….the STUFF pie. I didn’t know that bloggers actually earned money, but I knew that they got a whole lot of free stuff. Sign me up, baby!

darah and tiffany the week Stuff Parents Need launched

Darah and me the week Stuff Parents Need launched

Do you sometimes think the same thing? Its ok if you do. I’m being totally honest in sharing with you that I thought it. And I get asked all the time how I get so much “free stuff.” But here’s what I have learned: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE STUFF, at least not when it comes to blogging. Something is free if it is given to you and you have no obligation, either implicit or explicit, to do anything in return. I have never had a company send me something without a request to write about it. And blog posts DO NOT write themselves. They are hard work. When I write a post, I have to choose to not do something else, be it spend time with my kids, prepare a meal, have a meaningful conversation with my spouse, or even stare at the wall. I can’t do anything other than write. So I trade my time and my talents for the stuff. In many cases, the blogger is on the losing end of that trade. Several times early on, I traded away an hour or more of my time for a product that retailed for $6 or 7, and it may not have even been a product that I would have purchased on my own. I think this is why many product review and giveaway bloggers burn out…it seems like such a swag-tastic gig, but in reality, it is a whole lot of work for some stuff that you may or may not have wanted in the first place.

The other lesson I want to share with you today was one I learned at my first blogging conference. One of the keynote speakers said this to the audience:

Before I heard those words, I was so afraid of disappointing people who were reaching out to me to work together that I said yes to almost everything, even though in many cases, it would mean doing a lot of work for very little pay (and at that point, the pay was still only in products, not money). That is the single most important lesson I have learned as a blogger. I realized that I was headed down the road to blog burn out, and if I kept agreeing to arrangements that didn’t make any sense for me, I wouldn’t be a blogger much longer. Now I ask for what I need. And I often get it. I also often DON’T get it, and that is perfectly fine. I’m at peace letting those opportunities go to others, because I now realize that they were not good fits for me and that I would be frustrated as I performed the work agreed upon. That is SO liberating! And after learning this lesson, I also started to get brave about asking for money. And I’ll tell you more about how to do that in a future post! (And there’s a little bonus tip for you: leave your audience wanting more!).

I have a lot more to share with you about my journey as a product and review giveaway blogger, but for now, I want to share with you a tool I have been using for the past month and that has already resulted in some very positive changes in the way I run my business (and yes, my blog IS a business!). If you are a blogger or are thinking about starting a blog, you need The Blogging Planner.

I have tried for the past 3 years to fit my blog work into traditional planning calendars and it has never worked. What DOES work is having a calendar just for your blog! I am able to keep detailed to do lists, calendars of post dates, keep up with income generated (and invoices due…very important to know who still owes you money!). It also has dedicated space for brainstorming or ideas you might get while reading blogs are doing some professional development. There’s even a section for PR contacts to help you keep track of the folks you want to touch base with from time to time, just to make sure you are on their radars.

The Blogging Planner is the creation of two professional bloggers who created it after an exhaustive search for a planner that would work for a blog business. That search came up empty. Necessity is the mother of all inventions, and this is a fantastic one! I will absolutely FOR SURE 100% be purchasing another Blogging Planner when I have used mine up. It has given me a separate space for my work commitments, my goals and my dreams. It really is a mental game-changer for this stuff to not be on the same list as “fold the laundry.” Both are important. But one pays the bills, so in my book, it gets first dibs on my time. 🙂

The Blogging Planner can be started at any point in the year. It isn’t a January-December kind of thing. You fill in the calendar starting exactly when you want to start! So why not start right now??? I firmly believe this is a good investment for anyone who wants to monetize their blog or start out on the right foot as a new blogger and not give your your time away, as I did. You can purchase The Blogging Planner for $57.99. Yes, that’s a chunk of money, but a good planner is worth its weight in gold. And this is so much more than a good planner. Promise.

Next month I’ll let you take a peek inside my planner to see all the juicy details!

If you have any questions about The Blogging Planner, or about blogging in general, I’d love to hear them!

I received a complimentary planner for review purposes and am sharing my honest opinions here with you. The post contains affiliate links. I only sign up for affiliate programs when I’m NUTS about a product, so that should tell you something!