Have you seen my new blog design? I am absolutely in love with it! And Clay Griffiths is my new hero because he’s the designer behind the new Headway theme (as well as the son of my friend Grant Griffiths) which is the theme I’m now using.

Now on the surface, it may not be obvious why I’m just so tickled with Headway because you’re just seeing the standard stuff – header, sidebar, posts, footer. The beauty of it is under the hood. Kinda like seeing a beat up rusty old Camaro then popping the hood and seeing an absolutely immaculate 502 big block engine! (Ladies, keep reading, I’ll have an analogy that makes more sense in a minute.)

But you can’t make a car look pretty just by throwing a kickass engine in it. So just imagine if, by turning the key in the ignition, the exterior magically transformed and you were left with a shiny custom paint job. That’s how easy Headway is! Well, not literally…but close.

From the minute I installed the Headway theme, it took me all of about 30 minutes to get it looking the way I wanted. Thanks to a “drag and drop” layout editor and theme options that allow you to choose font styles, size and colors right from the menu, what usually takes me a couple of hours was done in a fraction of the time.

I didn’t have to tinker around the CSS at all. In fact, I only added one single line of code and that was to use a tiled background image instead of a solid color. One. Freaking. Line.  You can also edit each page’s layout so that, for example, your ‘About‘ page doesn’t have a sidebar but your ‘Blog’ page does.

Now, with all of that time I saved, I spent some time playing around with different layouts, widths, colors and other style changes. Changes are easily made, whether its the location of your navigation bar or whether the ‘Comments’ link on each post goes under the post title or to the right of it. No minor detail overlooked! Even adding a favicon (that little image that shows up in your browser’s menu bar when you visit a webpage) was as easy as just pasting the link to the location of your icon file.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to it that I haven’t discovered yet and I had to force myself to move away from the laptop because anyone who knows me knows how much I love customizing WordPress blogs. I can totally see myself changing my blog design like I change purses. (See, ladies? You know what I mean, right?)

Don’t just take my word for it. I want you to see what others have said about Headway and how they’ve customized their own blogs using it.

• Here’s my good friend John Haydon’s post about why he switched to Headway. He’s got some great videos that will let you take a peek under the hood. (See the differences in how his blog looks compared to mine? Headway works great for both business and personal blogs…not that mine’s “personal” but it certainly doesn’t look as ‘professional’ as John’s.)
• Danny Brown is also using Headway but not just as a blog theme. He’s donating 50% of any profits he makes from affiliate links to the 12for12k.org charity.
• And another post from another friend, Michael Martine a/k/a Remarkablogger who, even though he’s a devoted Thesis user and has not switched, is still very impressed with Headway and has a better detailed explanation of why than I do.
• Of course, you can always get more details and take a tour at the Headway Theme website.

P.S. Just a quick disclaimer…yes, those are affiliate links and I would earn a small commission if you were to purchase Headway through those links. My opinion of Headway, however, would be just as high even if I never made a single penny from singing its praises.

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If you’ve visited AprilTara.com over the past week or so, you probably saw nothing but an ad-cluttered page courtesy of GoDaddy. If I’d known transferring my domain from them would be such a hassle, I would have posted a warning here.

Transferring domains is a lot more of a pain than I thought it would be. There’s all of this back-and-forth between the old registrar, the new one, the people who do the private domain registration thing… but its finally done! And I now have one less domain registered with GoDaddy.

I’ve been transitioning all of my domains over to Name.com for a while now – I have about 30 domains – and I’m down to about 4 left that haven’t been moved yet. Someone asked me on Twitter the other day why I switched.

My response? Name.com is extremely simple. The layout of the account management page is very clean, navigation is uncomplicated. Take a look at this screen shot comparison. The first image is what Name.com looks like when I log in and click on “Account” at the top. On the right, GoDaddy.

(Click thumbnails for larger images.)

Now, maybe its just me, but GoDaddy is much more complicated when it comes to navigation. Actually, the way it looks now is a recent improvement. It used to be a lot worse but it looks like they’ve cleared out some – but not all – of the clutter and extra menus. Without bogging down this post with a bunch of screen shots, I’ll just tell you that something like changing the nameservers on a domain takes about 2 clicks of the mouse. First, on the menu on the right, click on Edit Nameservers, then enter the new nameservers and click ‘Submit’. Oops, almost forgot….it’s actually 3 clicks because you have to click ‘Remove’ to get rid of the old ones.

On GoDaddy, I’d have to sit here and stare at the screen for a couple of minutes to try and remember where I even go to start the whole process. Do I look under the “Domains” drop down menu across the top of the screen? Do I look under “My Products” on the left and then click on “Domains” or “Domain Manager”….?

There are also a few other reasons why I’ve been moving all of my domains to Name.com, including:

• Google App integration
• Free (and simple!!) private WhoIs registration
• Cheaper prices on renewals and transfers
• Quick & personal customer support

Anyway…all of that just to tell you why AprilTara.com was down for a few days. And if you’re a domain addict like I am, try Name.com next time. No affiliate links or anything here, just personal opinion.

No related posts.

Just a few short months after starting my VA business I started getting emails and private messages on forums asking me one of two questions:

1) Are you hiring?

2) How can I start my own VA business?

While I was flattered that someone thought, at that stage, that I was successful enough to answer those questions, I was also baffled because I just didn’t know how to answer them.

Now if someone were to ask me that today, I would know exactly what to tell them: Buy a copy of Cindy Greenway’s Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients.

First, let me tell you a bit about Cindy. She’s been a virtual assistant since 2003 when she launched Victoria Business Solutions. Since then, she has grown her business to the point where she’s been able to work with just a few select clients and still have the time to support others who want to develop a successful VA business.

In her book, she addresses the two most common questions new VAs have – how do I find clients and how do I keep them? But rather than just give you a bunch of lists and general concepts, Cindy walks you through various exercises, beginning with finding your niche and your target market and ending with effectively communicating with clients and maintaining a successful working relationship with them. She also covers some of the more technical aspects of running a VA business like creating a work agreement/contract and setting up payment processing.

Throughout this book, Cindy includes numerous resources, checklists and exercises and relates her own personal experiences with the various issues you’ll face as your business builds.

If you’re still in the research and planning phase of starting a VA business, Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients will provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to get your VA business off to a great start. If you’ve already started working as a virtual assistant but you’re struggling with taking it to the next level, Cindy’s book can provide you with the solutions to help you overcome those obstacles standing in your way along the road to success.

Purchase your copy of Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients at Amazon.com.

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2. The 3 Rs – Referrals, References and Resumes
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 When I first started thinking about working from home, I envisioned being able to work while my kids were in school, finishing in time to pick my youngest up, then being able to fix a nice dinner and sit down to eat with them. I’d have time to get the dishes done, give my daughter a bath, read her a bedtime story… 

Oh boy, was I wrong! The reality is that dinner sometimes comes from a box, laundry piles up, and I’m rushing through the bedtime routine so I can squeeze in an extra hour or two of work before I finally pass out.

Between the crazy hours, the late nights, the stressful clients…I’m really forcing myself to make the extra effort NOT to wear myself thin. 

I’ve suffered from burnout before, in my corporate life. But I never would’ve expected to deal with burnout as a work at home mom! Now that I’ve spent the past year networking with other work at home moms, I’m actually finding out that its pretty common.

Fortunately, Mom’s Talk Ebooks has recently added a new guide to their “Moms Talk Network” library. Its a Guide to Surviving Mommy Burnout for Moms who feel like a wad of putty, being stretched into a hundred different directions.

Inside you’ll find:

• Why you absolutely MUST make time for yourself in the midst of all everything else putting demands on your time.
• How to organize a Mom’s Night Out – without the kids.
• Ideas for boosting the romance in your marriage.
• Mom’s Secret Weapon: Laughter! It IS the best medicine and so easy to find in our crazy lives.
• How to deal with your daily habits to avoid burnout.
• Why you should care for your appearance – even when only the kidlets are going to see you.
• Learn what sort of exercise many moms finds very relaxing and energizing.
• Why exercise makes you feel better.
• Great calming breathing techniques that will help you cool down when things are getting hot.

So now here’s what you need to do: get your copy of the Guide to Surviving Mommy Burnout (just $9), print it out, find some time for yourself to read the guide – even if you have to sit in the parking lot at the grocery store or lock yourself in the bathroom – and then apply it to your life, starting tomorrow.

Its time to say enough is enough and start taking care of YOU!

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1. Make 2009 the Year You Make Money Online

I have come across some great time management and productivity resources, some of which I’ve been able to implement and some that just don’t work well for me. So what I’ve ended up doing is combining some of my favorites.

Here’s what I do:

Yearly Business Planning

At the end of 2008, I had written a blog post about setting goals for the new year. In that post, I mentioned Alice Seba’s Planning Calendar that breaks down your plans for the year into monthly, weekly, even daily chunks to make it easier to lay out your goals and then the actions you need to take to achieve those. I’ve been using it since 2009 started (although not as diligently as I should be) and its making a big difference. It helps me look ahead and schedule projects and ideas a few months from now instead of feeling like I have to do everything now.

Blog Planning

This is one that I still struggle with. Thanks to the Blog Planner I downloaded from Blog Energizer, I can plan my topics ahead of time and even set up a posting schedule for multiple blogs (last count: 4 active and 3 badly neglected blogs). Its a great little tool and I keep it in my binder so I can jot down topics that come to mind. Then at the beginning of each month, I come up with topics to fill in the blank spaces and voila! A month’s worth of blog topics.

But I’ve come to the realization that planning is not my problem. My problem is action. I can plan stuff out but when it comes down to budgeting my time and plugging those plans into a schedule, I can’t find a balance between adherence and flexibility.

Planners for Freelancers

Well today I was reading through all of my RSS feeds and saw that Charlie at Productive Flourishing published a freelancer’s version of his popular planner pages. I’m so excited to try it out! He’s been putting a lot of work into this and I know it wasn’t easy because “freelancer” can mean so many things and we all have very different ways of working. So finding something that will work for everyone is difficult. (I even donated a few bucks to encourage him and let him know his efforts were appreciated.)

So if you’re a freelancer, definitely head over to Productive Flourishing and download Charlier’s planner for freelancers. And even if you’re not a freelancer, Charlie’s original planners are an excellent resource too!

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You all know how the rest of that quote goes. A wise man, he was. So much truth to that!

During the last week of 2008, Kelly McCausey and Aurelia Williams held what they called “Breakthrough Week” as a gift to Mom Masterminds members. (You can download the recordings of these sessions when you sign up at Mom Masterminds.) The reason they called it “Breakthrough Week” was because each session was about breaking through the various obstacles that are holding you back from the success you deserve. Take a guess at what the common denominator was to these obstacles. You got it! Fear.

Fear of failure. Fear of success.

You would think that with success and failure being antonyms, those two fears would be completely different, right? But surprisingly, they’re not. The fact is they both hold us back!

So how do you deal with paralyzing fear? Read this article by Jennifer Louden, personal growth advisor and author of several books including Woman’s Comfort Book: A Self-Nurturing Guide for Restoring Balance in Your Life.

Jennifer is hosting a virtual retreat January 16th-19th and registrations are open now. You can find more info about the retreat and sign up for updates at the end of her article.

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Instead of wasting too much time giving you all the details, I’ll just give you the link to Michael Martine a/k/a Remarkablogger’s  “WordPress SEO Secrets” product page so you can get started. That link should open in a new window because I want you to be able to come back here easily after you’ve made your purchase.

I’ll wait…..

Ok, now that you’re back, I want to tell you why I think you made a good decision by purchasing Michael Martine’s “WordPress SEO Secrets” products. I can sum it up for in just a few words – Michael is a great guy. Not only does he know his stuff, he’s extremely generous in sharing his knowledge because he is invested in your success. Even if you’ve never spoken to him directly (you can follow him @Remarkablogger on Twitter…that’s where I met him), he knows there are people out there who enjoy blogging and want to be successful at it and Michael wants that for you too!

So if you haven’t bought your copy of “WordPress SEO Secrets” yet, head on over there and grab it before the price goes up. And don’t just skim through the extra offers. Considering that SEO is a time-sensitive, ever-evolving subject, I really recommend reading through the additional offers that will include ongoing updates and changes to the way SEO works.

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2. Update on WordPress SEO Secrets

I’ve got good news! Remember how I posted this morning that I would have more info for you tomorrow about the launch of “WordPress SEO Secrets”? Well I have a sneak peek for you so you can get a better idea of the kind of info available to you as part of the course.

Now this is just the text stuff. Don’t forget about the audio and video that will be included. I’m tellin’ ya, this is good stuff being released. Only 24 hours left!

Word Press SEO Secrets Sample

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1. Secrets of WordPress and SEO
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Using WordPress may be one of the easiest and most effective ways to maximize your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts. Let’s take a look at some of these WP-specific SEO tricks.

Anatomy of a Post

Here’s what the search engines are looking for when they’re crawling through your site and determining rankings:

• Titles: Keywords, the terms people are using when they perform a search, are very important in titles. Titles appear at the top of a browser window or in a browser window tab. The problem with blogs is that your headline automatically becomes the title unless you have a plugin that allows them to differ.
• Post slug names: The post slug is the virtual file name of a blog post. For example, the link to this post is http://www.apriltara.com/2009/01/secrets-of-wordpress-and-seo. The slug section of that link is “secrets-of-wordpress-and-seo”.  That’s the info search engines are interested in. If I’d named this post “You’ve gotta read this!” or just used the post ID number, the search engines would have no idea what the post is about. Be sure to use “pretty permalinks” so that you have more control over the slug because you’ll need to edit the slug for SEO purposes. You want to use important keywords in the slug, just as you do for the title.
• Headings: In your WordPress blog, you can use various heading levels when writing posts to break up the content into sections. Search engines pay attention to keywords in headings. Many people don’t know how to see the controls for headings in WordPress. You have to click on the “Kitchen Sink” button on your WordPress toolbar which looks like a small box with a bunch of small boxes inside of it. Many people have seen it but never clicked on it, mistaking it for some kind of color palette. Unless you have some WordPress plugins that add extra buttons to your post toolbar, the “Kitchen Sink” should be the last button on the right, just above the text area where you enter your post content. Once the second row of toolbar buttons is revealed, use the “Format” drop-down to set headings.
• Text content: Of course the content of the post must be relevant to a searcher’s needs. Use the same words in the post the searcher would use in a search (keywords). Use them as frequently as you can while still sounding natural. It may help to read your post out loud to yourself to make sure it doesn’t sound awkward. Think of it this way: if your searcher has a question, you want your post to be the answer.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much to learn about about optimizing your WordPress-based site to achieve excellent search engine rankings.

Tomorrow, January 7th, a study course covering SEO for WordPress will be available. WordPress SEO Secrets: Search Engine Optimization Magic for WordPress Blogs will walk you through all of this, step by step, using text materials as well as audio and video recordings. Stay tuned and I’ll have more info for you at launch time! I’ll be sharing the details on my blog and in my newsletter so be sure to subscribe to my blog via RSS or email and subscribe to my newsletter using the sign up box to the right.

Related posts:

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2. WordPress SEO Secrets – Its launch day!
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Becoming a mom – it’s the most life-changing event we go through.  Our children become the center of our lives, and we must make adjustments to in our schedules and priorities make sure they’re cared for.  Instead of hiring nannies or using day care services, more and more moms are choosing to start their own online businesses so they can be there for their kids and still contribute to the family income.

This is especially true right now during the tough economic times we’re living in. Even if you’re comfortably existing on one income, you may find yourself on no income soon enough if your husband gets laid off, downsized, rightsized, outsourced or whatever they’re calling it these days. Do you have the recommended 6 months’ living expenses tucked away in savings in preparation for this event?

Statistics show many of us do not. This is all the more reason for mom to look for ways to make money online before the disaster strikes.

Starting an online business has a number of advantages for moms.

* Start-up costs can be kept low.  So even if you are not currently working outside the home, starting an online business is usually within reach with small adjustments to the budget.  Setting up a website means acquiring a domain name and hosting space – and with tools like WordPress available at no cost, you can literally be up and running for around $20. You will also want to invest in some education. Learning the basics of how to market your website online are not difficult, but be careful where you get your information.

The Natural Mom Business Guide is one solid source of info. It includes an ebook with detailed information about researching your target market, the various ways to make money with a website, and how to get the traffic you need to earn income. It even has video and audio tutorials as well as printable “cheat sheets” you can keep by your computer to remind you of the essential steps you need to take in your business to build traffic and make more income.

* Doing business online doesn’t require one to keep regular hours.  You can work early in the morning before the kids get up, during the baby’s nap, or late at night when everyone is in bed.  And with the automation that the Internet has to offer, orders can be processed and virtual products delivered while you are sleeping or taking care of the kids.

* You can get some work done with the kids right by your side.  Older children may even be able to help you with simple tasks.  Did you know that the IRS allows you to deduct wages (up to a certain amount) paid to a child who is age seven or older to work in your home business from your taxes? I have even trained my oldest son to add articles to my websites. He earns a nice wage for doing so, far more than an allowance, and is providing a valuable service to me.

There are all sorts of online businesses that are great for moms.  You could sell your crafts or start a recipe website, or you could start a podcast.  You might offer services such as writing, transcription, web design or virtual assistance to customers around the world.  Or you could create and sell information products.  Even blogging offers impressive money-making potential.  The possibilities are many, and there’s sure to be something out there that’s just right for any mom.

Moms make up a large portion of the people who are making money online.  This allows them to take a hands-on approach to raising their children while still making money to support the household.  They don’t have to count on a sitter to take care of their children’s needs, and they don’t have to make a commute part of their daily routine.  It’s no wonder that the number of moms starting online businesses is growing in leaps and bounds.

If you need some assistance choosing a niche, get some coaching from an experienced online marketer. Take the leap – you’ll be glad you did!

Carrie Lauth is an internet marketing mom who loves to help other moms launch profitable websites. She created the Natural Mom Business Guide for women who want to market to the “natural family” niche. To learn about how she can give you one-on-one coaching, visit her website today.

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