Kristie T’s Home Business Blog Fun, mom-geared work-at-home tips and advice on making money on the net.

You know, there is always a wise guy in the bunch. We were kicking off our “Doing Business in Your Bathrobe” holiday today. Just got the press release sent to 3300+ media outlets. I got several request for interviews and more information. And then there was this one that makes it seem demeaning to host a holiday celebrating mom entrepreneurs who are wearing their bathrobe for 1 day.

Sorry. It’s cute, but our subscribers don’t wear bathrobes to work, even when that’s in their own homes. They are dressed for action, wanting to make money, so they need to make tracks on a moment’s notice. … Perhaps you can change our point of view!

Sincerely,

Lady’s Name
Publisher and President
Website.com

What do you think? Is Doing Business in your Bathrobe Day a fun holiday to celebrate women entrepreneurs or is it completely unprofessional to joke about wearing your bathrobe even for 1 day while you are working to show your entrepreneurial pride?

Click to share your thoughts here.

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Search engine optimizing your website can be a daunting task. But one stategy that can make it a big easier is a SEO as you go strategy. Resolve that anytime you create a new content page then and there that you will optimize it.

Here’s a quick SEO Checklist to use whenever you write an article or post an update to your website.

• Name your page with keywords with dashes that seperate the keywords.
• Create a unique title that is 25 words or less and uses keywords you are targeting for that page.
• Add your keywords to the description tag.
• Use a header tag around the title of the page.
• Use keywords in links throught the body text of your page.
• Use keywords in the copy of your website.
• Bold one or two of your keyword phrases in the main body of the page.
• Write a summary at the top and the bottom of your page that uses your keyword phrases.
• Add alt tags to your graphics.
• Inside of your hyperlinks, add the title tag in your link.

By taking the time to search engine optimize your pages as you go, you’ll be on your way to boosting your traffic!

What methods bring the most traffic to your site? Click here to share your top SEO and traffic generation techniques here.

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My buddy the painless self promotion expert, Suzanne Falter Barns, wrote a great post with even more information about ways to follow up with the press after an interview. Check out her hot publicity tips here.

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4145376

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Yahoo sounds off… introducing Yahoo Audio Search!

Have an Internet radio show, audio product, interviews, or podcast? Then you’ll want to submit your audio content to the new beta release of Yahoo Audio Search.

Yahoo says that this new free services gives you search access to over 50 million audio files. If you are looking for a specific song for your ipod, you can search by song title or artist from 16 different services. Yahoo is crawling everything regardless of file format or source.

If you are an expert, it would be a smart idea to add recorded audio talking points to your Media Room. That way when the media is searching for your keywords in Yahoo, they find your expert comments and can call you to follow up with an interview.

To submit your audio content feed, you’ll need to use the Yahoo Media RSS format.

So, whether you are a music junkie, a radio show host, or just looking for cool audio clips, this new Yahoo Audio Search will help. They just made building a cool audio library a little bit easier! Now you have 1 source to search all across the web for audio related content.

So now you can sing in the shower, record, upload, and share your voice with the world! Check it out at Yahoo Audio Search

Have you tried it yet? Click here to share your opinion of Yahoo’s new Audio Search .

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Do you thank the media when they feature you in a newspaper story, a magazine article or an radio or television interview?

I just finished a great radio interview this morning with Kelly McCausey, the host of WAHMTalkRadio.com about our upcoming Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Holiday. And so I wrote a handwritten card out to thank her for featuring me on the show. I also sent a thank you note to the editor at Parenting magazine who is featuring me in the May issue in an article about how to handle the kids when you are working from home.

Sending thank you notes to reporters/producers is an important relationship builder. What do you send in a thank you note to a reporter?

• Thank them for featuring you in the story.
• Tell them from the heart how much you enjoyed the interview or the story that they wrote.
• Let them know you’d be happy to be a resource for them for any future stories they are working on.
• Tuck in a business card.

This simple practice helps a reporter to remember you next time a story comes up in your area of expertise.

It’s amazing what a simple thank you can do! Make it a practice to think everyday who has done something kind for you.

Do you have any neat stories about things either saying “thanks” or being “thanked” touched you? Click here to share your story here.

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So I am sitting here in my comfy chair updating our website, Webmomz.com ready for the big Doing Business in Your Bathrobe holiday on February 13th. promotion snuggled in my cool new Kristie T Signature Style chenille robe from InternationalRobes.com our event sponsor.

I am excited. I got news today that Parenting magazine is publishing an article about me in their May issue. And I just found out that I will be a featured Mom expert at ClubMom.com. I am basking the the glow of success when the sound of running water comes from the hallway. My 10 year old daughter comes out running, “Mom, the toilet is overflowing.”

It leaves me to wonder, I’m sure Oprah never has to fix an overflowing toilet. Ahhh…. the toils of being a work at home mother. You can be on top of the world, and when it comes right down to it, you are still needed at “mom to the rescue” to fix the running toilets of the world. Just a reminder never to take ourselves to seriously. *grin*

Have you ever had any “back to reality” moments that keep you from taking yourself too seriously? Click here to share your humbling moments..

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Is clutter in your life driving you crazy? As a creative person, I am naturally very messy. If you look in my home office at the end of the day, you’ll see a pile of papers, files, and scratched notes and post its. But every morning before I begin work, I clean my office first. Sure it takes 10 minutes of so, but it really makes it easier to focus.

Is there an area of your house that is a mess? Here’s a great tip from organizing expert, Kristine Lewis, to help you turn any area from chaos to clean in 30 minutes.

SPACE

Sort
Purge
Assign a home
Containerize
Equalize (maintain the space)

Set aside 30 minutes to work on a problem area. Sort items into piles of like items or by the type of action you will need to take (Do, File, Read, Pay) etc. The next step is to throw away everything you don’t need. Then assign a place for everything to live. Find a container for those like items to “live” in. I found lots of great items online at The Container Store. I made a list of everything that I had in my office that needed a “home” (magazines, business cards, ink cartridges, audio programs, envelopes etc) and then made sure to buy a box, bin, or container for each one to live in.

And the last step is to equalize. You need to take 5-10 minutes everyday to make sure that the new stuff that came into your space gets put into the right place.

What neat tips have you learned to keep your home office or house organized? Click to share your organizing tips here!

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Are you guilty of overachievers syndrome? Sometimes we get so caught in the flurry of accomplishment that we forget to look back and see how far up the mountain we have come. I know I am guilty. Sometimes I measure my own accomplishments against Oprah, Cheryl Richardson, and some of the great women thought leaders of our time. And when you use that yardstick, it’s easy not to measure up.

My sister-in-law the other day said to me, “Kristie, have you ever really just looked at everything you have accomplished?” And it stunned me. I never had taken time to acknowledge where I have started, all I have learned, and how far I’ve come? All the sudden, I felt proud.

My guess is that if you sat down and made a list of everything you have learned, done, and experienced over the past year you would be surprised at how much YOU have done too!

Don’t get so caught up in moving to the next goal and achieving the next milestone that you forget to stop and celebrate the amazing things you have done.

You are amazing. You have been given tremendous gifts. You can make a real difference in this world!

I have a self care card I keep by my desk by Cheryl Richardson that says, “Embrace your Magnificence: the world needs your beauty and grace.” That reminds me that every one of us is special. We all have something that only YOU can do or be.

I’d love to hear what you’d done that you are proud of! I want to celebrate you! Click here to share your “live out loud” accomplishments here!

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We were having a heated discussion in my mastermind group about the big buzz about what moms really want. Do you really think that women want balance? In all honesty, can you really picture any woman being happy just sitting around with a world of free time on her hands?

I think what women really want is freedom of choice. We want to have enough reserve in every area of our lives (time, money, space) that our choices aren’t made for us.

• When you are in debt, you don’t have the freedom to choose how you spend your money.
• When you have committed to too many things, you don’t have the freedom of choice on how to spend your time.
• When you have clutter, you don’t have peace or room to put new things in your space.
• When you have a job, the boss tells you what to do.

As women, we want to do what we want to do when we want to do it. And anything that gets in the way of that total freedom of choice upsets that balance.

We want to simplify our lives and take back control. We want to choose how we spend our time, what we do, not be restricted financially, and to just enjoy our life.

And while a lot of women say they want balance, they aren’t willing to make the changes to make that happen. We are all 100% responsible for everything that happens in your lives.

You can clean and get rid of the clutter. You can quit your job. You can consolidate your debt. You can say to no friends that tell you what to do. You can uphold your boundaries. You can say no to invites and choose instead to have quiet time.

What’s your definition of balance? What robs you of living your life the way you want? Click to share your thoughts here.

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At a National Speakers Association workshop I recently attended, I was visiting with speaker, Cheryl Kuba or AgingParentSolutions.com and got a great branding tip I wanted to share.

She was saying how recently she put together a “little known facts about Cheryl” page that was a huge hit on her website. She had people writing her and asking, “So what did you talk about with Baryshnikov in the bathroom? I am dying to know!” Check out Cheryl’s fun facts page here! And while you are there, check out her books on dealing with aging parents! She shares how to keep from from jumping off a cliff when your parents are over the hill!

Want to build a personal brand? Let people see who you are and what you do off the stage too!

So what are some exciting, surprising facts that no one knows about you? Share them here!

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