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

Someone hacked my blog this week! First symptoms was people telling me that my blog put posting really spammy comments on their blogs about cigarettes, viagra, and other goofy stuff. Then the next thing I noticed was that someone told me the link to my blog wasn’t working. I also got an email from Technorati warning me that they detected I was using an early version of WordPress that may have security holes in it.  Then I tried logging into my blog and my blog login was completely disabled. I FREAKED out. What do I do?

Thank God for smart techie friends. I called on the phone to several of my smartest internet marketing buddies and sure enough one had a blog techie expert who was able to help.

1) He backed up my blog to ensure the hackers couldn’t wipe it out

2) He diagnosed the problem

3) He restored the ability for me to login to my blog

4) He updated my blog from Word Press 1.5 to the latest version. Apparently the early versions of Word Press have known security holes in them.

5) He advised me to create a WAY more secure username and password to get in your blog. I’m ashamed to say it, but my username was admin and my password was the name of a favorite cartoon character. Not too smart. If you use admin for your blog’s username, I HIGHLY advise creating a more secure login.

Anyway, I am sooo thankful to say that we caught the hackers before they did too much damage and was able to fix the problem.

Please do what you can to protect your blog against similar attacks. I’d hate for this to happen to you too!

Hugs,

Kristie T

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Just came across this today while searching online. Apparently my blog made the W list of top women bloggers written on BL Ochman’s WhatsNextBlog.com. Is your name on the list? I see a bunch of my favorite gal pals on there.

Fun what you find online when you are suring — now back to work!

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Neat! Seems our mom blog has the right stuff. Mother’s Day Central has named Kristie T’s Home Business blog as one of the Top 100 Mom Blogs. YEAH! Thanks to all of our readers for your readership and spreading the word about our blog. We appreciate you!

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If you are a mom blogger and looking for some great exposure for your business, Compass Life Designs is looking for 5-7 real women bloggers who would like to receive free coaching around a specific goal from some of the top coaches in the country.

In addition to the free coaching, the bloggers will be promoted on the Compass blogs and gain additional readership and visibility from our strategic partners, which include Hot Moms Club, Path Connect and several other women’s groups.

If you are interested, please contact Elizabeth Marshall at Elizabeth_Marshall@compasslifedesigns.com

Until then, blog on….

Kristie

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Toby Bloomberg, the blogging genius behind the Diva marketing blog had a really great post I wanted to point out. She has a terrific list of 15 Social Media Networking Ideas. You’ll pick up some great ideas on how to connect with other bloggers and move from being a lone blogger to part of a social network. Very thought provoking.

Check out what the Diva has to say about how social networking gives back to you.

Toby’s a real mover and shaker online. She’s always on the edge. You’ll want to subscribe to Diva Marketing blog feed.

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Over the past few month, I have been on a serious journey to boost my blog’s technorati rankings. I was a woman on a mission with a secret dream of being an A-list blogger. And to get the real scoop on how to boost my blog rankings, I consulted with The Blog Squad - Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff. They gave me some awesome advice that took my Technorati ranking from 134,000 to 46,629.

Denise and Patsi are real gurus when it comes to setting up a blog, making sure it has all the key elements, and promoting your blog. You can find out more about their blog consulting here. If you are serious about blogging, you need to talk to them. They’ll help you do it right.

Here’s what I learned that really worked to kick up my blog rankings.

1) Relevance. My blog is for mom entrepreneurs and direct sellers. I was mixing a lot of author/speaker/expert posts in there. The key to good blogging is to always remember your audience and stay on track. So I try now everyday when I blog to get a mental picture of a mom entreprenuer. I ask myself, “how can I help her today”. And that’s what I blog about. My writing is WAY more on target for my audience and now I am getting a log more comments too.

2) Vulnerability. I learned that you don’t always have to be the expert with the answers. And in fact, I learned that your audience likes to know that you are human and sometimes screw up. I have noticed when I share what is going wrong along with what is going right, my audience is connecting and relating more with me.

3) Let others be the “star” . I am trying to honor and recognize cool individuals, tools, and ideas that are making a difference. And by doing that, I am connecting more with other bloggers and making friends. Not only is it fun, but now we are sharing links, cross promoting each other. It’s a link love fest. And by making friends and noticing other bloggers, it’s getting exposure for my blog to other audiences.

4) Blog daily. The more often you talk with your audience, the closer the relationship.

5) Spend more time reading and commenting on other people’s blogs. Not only will you learn a lot, but you can make new friends. It’s not who you know, but who knows you.

This stuff sounds really simple, but it’s made a profound difference for me.

Happy blogging!

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A friend of mine in my mastermind group asked what Technorati was. And so I thought I’d share that with you in case your had the same question.

So for all you blogging mamas, here’s what Technorati is:

Technorati is a blog directory and blog reader that helps you search for and organize blogs you read most.

You can use it as an RSS reader to keep up with your favorite blogs.

Or, you can use it as a tool to find blogs in a certain niche to comment on.
It allows you to search by technorati tags or by blogs that are the most linked to.

By claiming your blog you will be added to the technorati ranks.
(You can claim your blog at Technorati here.)
The smaller your technorati ranking, the more popular your blog is.
You can improve your ranking by getting more sites to link to your blog
and getting more people to favorite your blog in technorati.

A technorati rank is basically a measurement of the popularity of your blog based on how many sites are linking to it and how many links each blog linking to you is giving you. They call that a measure of “authority”.

By adding Technorati tags to your blog posts you tell technorati what your blog is about. It’s much like you would use keywords to say what your webpage is about to the search engines. SimpleTags is an easy Word Press plug in that allows you to add tags to your blog posts.

You can choose to show a technorati cloud on your blog that shows your most frequently blogged about technorati tags.

Being in technorati is a great way to pick up new blog readers. It’s by far the most popular blog directory. And the technorati ranking gives you a simple guage to compare how your blog promotion strategies are working. The lower your ranking goes, the more popular your blog.

So if you haven’t already, be sure to claim your blog in Technorati and start adding Technorati tags to your posts.

Do you used Technorati tags on your blog now? Have you found any cool ways to use Technorati? Do you track your favorite blogs in Technorati? Share your Technorati stories here.

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Is anyone going to the BlogHer conferences this spring? It’s an excellent conference for women business bloggers and mommy bloggers. The New York one is March 22/23 and the Chicago one is July 27/28. Just curious who was thinking about attending these.

Here’s the info:

BlogHer Business ‘07 - New York
March 22nd and 23rd, 2007
Theme: How to Succeed in a Social Media World

BlogHer Conference ‘07 - Chicag0
July 27th and 28th, 2007
Theme: A World of Difference

You can get more info about the BlogHer Conferences here.

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Kelly McCausey tagged me to share why I blog.

So here’s the top 5 reasons why I blog.

1) Blogging puts me in a direct conversation with my audience. I hear first hand what matters to them, where they are at, what information they find helpful. It helps me feel the pulse of my audience so I can serve them better.

2) Blogging helps me connect daily to my purpose. In the morning as I sit down to blog, I search my heart and try to find my daily truth. Blogging helps me stay grounded in my truth and share it with others. In a way, I feel like it helps me live out my ministry.

3) Blogging is a kick butt seo tool. We are getting more traffic thru our blogging then through our SEO efforts on our website now. Yeah, blogging is that powerful.

4) Blogging keeps me connected to what is new. I always have my ear to the internet highway to hear the latest so I can share it with my audience.

5) Blogging puts me in a community of people affecting change. I feel very priviledge to be in the community of bloggers. It gives me a chance to share news, ideas, and information in a way that informs, inspires, and educates others. I feel very blessed to have a platform that makes it so easy to share life changing messages.

So that’s it. I’m a blog evangelist. Blogging has changed my life. Have you thought about why you blog and what it means to you?

And I am tagging the following blogging divas:
- Toby - Diva Marketing
- Patsi and Denise
- Wendy Maynard
- Yvonne DiVita - Lipsticking
- Suzanne Falter Barns

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My friend and fellow mom marketer, Carrie Lauth dared me to a 30 days, 30 posts blog challenge. I accept! So consider this day 1 of the challenge.

Will you join me? Let’s see if together we can fill the blogosphere with daily blog posts.

So fellow bloggers … do you accept the 30 Days, 30 Posts challenge? I DARE you!

If you are joining us in the challenge, please list yourself in the comments. It would be fun to hold each other accountable wouldn’t it?

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