Should you use a professional  (or at least professional-looking) website or blog design? More than ever, visual design is more important than ever on the internet. Think of sites like Pinterest and Facebook, where images are shared more often than text. That’s why it’s important to have a good blog design that includes images and a good layout to quickly capture your audience’s attention. A professional website design makes a great first impression to your visitor. Your website represents who you are and what you’re offering.  They want to know: Is your site credible and trustworthy? Does it look like a professional designed it (even if they didn’t)? Is it easy to navigate? Does your site make them feel welcome and know they are in the…

This time of the year I like to reflect back on the past year. This has been one of those years that has brought many emotions. We welcomed a new Grandbaby in August, but lost our beloved Alaskan Malamute to a rare kidney disease that same month. My business has, like many others, been a roller coaster of profit and loss. I’m still on a journey to find my true calling. I enjoy writing for my clients but need (want) to have a steadier income without spending all my time filling others needs. I have some big plans for both this, my writing site, and my new cooking site, www.comfortfoodmama.com. I have plans to start creating tutorials, templates, graphics and coaching programs to add to both…

Are you ready to take your creative business or idea to the next level? Moving into the world of entrepreneurship is scary. It  moves us out of our comfort zones, requires risk and means we are responsible for the growth of the business.  For the past 10 years, I’ve been running my own virtual assistant/ghostwriting business. In the beginning I was terrified. Who would hire me? Was I good enough? Who do I think I am to compete with all the other talented people online?  But the more I pushed myself, jumped in when I was terrified, the more my business grew. Today I want to share an article by one of my mentors, Ali Brown. Ali Brown is the voice for women’s entrepreneurial success. As founder…

Today started like many other days for me. I start my day early, first getting hubby off to his day job and then spending an hour to myself reading, catching up on social media and exercise.Most day are fairly routine. I simply get the pieces of my life and the pieces of the others in my life to fit together into a routine of sorts. Then it’s time to help my disabled mother get ready for the day. Normally I can get her ready without too much problem. Today, however, she was in one of her moods where she complained about everything. Now you have to understand, she is a chronic complainer  about little things anyway, but some days it’s worse than others. Normally, I just…

Does Your Social Media Strategy Leave You in a Time Warp?   Lately, I’ve been spinning my wheels trying to get everything on my to-do lists done. Those lists include my business needs such as blogging, clients and accounting as well as personal and family obligations. My newest endeavor, ComfortFoodMama.com, has been taking up a lot of that time. I’ve been trying to create an effective social media strategy that won’t leave me feeling like I’ve spent the day in a time warp. I’ve Found The Solution!   This is Lynn Terry of ClickNewz. If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her, you’re in for a treat. I’ve been following Lynn online for several years. In fact, she is one of the first women I…

My last post about my journey to creating a more authentic started when I began following Vera Raposo and Lynn Terry’s cross blog conversation. I’ve been doing some soul searching and brain storming with my mastermind group on the direction I want to take. I love my ghost writing clients, but as many of you know, it’s easy to get burned out when you aren’t expressing your self on the topics you enjoy. writing about internet marketing or financial investments is fine sometimes, but I love writing about family, food and every thing to do with home keeping. Narrowed the Niche I can do this with my family and home plr site but I want to add more affiliate marketing to my income stream. So the…

I’ve been following Lynn Terry of Clicknewz and Vera Raposo of  Your Creative Biz on Vera’s journey in choosing an affiliate niche that fits her passions. I have to tell you, Lynn asks some very good questions of Vera that has really hit home with me as well. This reply from Lynn is one that really gets you to thinking: “If you were given 10 hours a week and a bottomless bank account to start a new hobby, with the condition that a television crew would follow you for those 10 hours every week, which hobby would you pick?”   I enjoy the blog here and love teaching others about my online journey, but I am at a point where I need to take my blog…