The cutest thing about kids at Christmas is the little light they get in their eyes.  I'm not suggesting that you should leave out the real meaning of Christmas, which is Christ Jesus. That should be our focus!
But I do love the excitement they get from thinking about Santa bringing them gifts.  When my son was about 5, I left him a note from Santa on his little Lego table.  Two years later he let me know

If you are looking into debt management programs, there are plenty out there.  It's just choosing the right one.
Some of these companies ask for an up front fee.  My instinct tells me to avoid these.  I mean show me how you can help me, put it in writing and we'll talk about payment.  I don't mind paying someone if I am assured that I am going to save.  Some offer their services free at first and only get paid from your savings, which I like.  How do these companies work?
You sign up with them to get a quote on what they can save you.
They usually have a relationship with many creditors to start with, so that when they call the people you owe, those people know the process and know that you have someone on your side.  The dept management company bickers with your creditors on your behalf about reducing (or in some cases, even eliminating your interest rate, a HUGE deal!) and getting rid of or stopping late charges. (Another huge deal!)  Do you ever wonder how that $2000 balance turns into $4000 without your ever charging anything else?  It's called compound interest, where you are being charged interest on the interest, and even interest on the late charges, PLUS a higher interest rate on the whole balance if you are late!!!!
Check with a few places that offer this service.  Just click the link below to check one company that I found for free with no credit card required.

Are you in debt and need help? Click here.

Want to learn more about

Women that would like free Cosmos magazines, sign up below.  This is a great magazine I'm sure you've all seen on the shelves and this is a link I found to get some free ones.

It's FREE!  That's what I want to hear about.   Here's a company that offers free magazines for men.
Click below.

Here's a site I found that offers loans for any credit, bad credit, etc.
""Get an Auto Loan Now!""

Especially in today's society where we have all had problems of some kind, whether it be medical bills or just poor judgment in how we take care of our credit, there are places that will lend you money for a car, etc.  It's just knowing where to find them.  Put in your application today and see what they can offer you.  The application is free and I hope this helps someone.  Click the link above.

There are probably hundreds of reasons why people fail to make money blogging, but for now I'll give you the top 5 I've seen in my newbie 2 years of it.  These are not things that can't be overcome especially if you see it coming.  That's the reason for this post. 

 #5.  Not Willing To Work

For some reason, most people think that working from home or online does not involve work.  Just sign up for some program or, heaven forbid, pay a chunk of change for it, and money's gonna fall out of the sky!  Blogging is constant work, whether it be creating new content or promoting your product.  There is something to do every day.  When I'm out blog hopping, which I often do, I see tons of poor, neglected blogs out there that may have 4 or 5 posts.  The last one written in 2006.  If you'd rather come home from the day job, pop open a beer, and turn on the TV to watch CSI than get your ass over to the computer and start typing, then you'll continue to wake up tomorrow with what you had today.

#4.  Started Blogging Just To Make Money

I actually fell under this category.  I started blogging during the Pay Per*Post craze in 2006.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  Some may say I still don't.  If you are a big time blogger making butt loads more money than I can dream of, kindly close your browser and leave me a little dignity.   
Anyway, I started my little blog and with some advice from a very nice lady who gave me instructions on getting approved with Pay Per*Post, I actually started making money.  My saving grace is that I love writing and learning and got my blog up to a page rank of 2.  Wow I was so proud of that and the $200 or so a month I was making writing posts.  Then Google dropped my PR to 0, and the opportunities came farther apart and less money was offered.  That was almost the end of it for me.
It's ok to want to make money from your blog.  Choose a niche that suits you and like what you do.  Google has made it so you can't just write posts and lin*ks for pay.  If you don't at least like to write or have a subject you are passionate about, there's no point.

#3.  Never Researched and Learned

Some say starting a blog is easy.  It is if you just throw one up on Blogger or another free site.  But there are a lot of technical issues there that you need to learn.  Like how to add meta tags, keywords, and how to promote your site.  You can write all day, but if no one comes to your blog, you won't make squat.
And if you don't keep up to date with what's going on in the niche you have chosen, you won't have people coming to YOU to see what's new.  For instance, I'm behind on wordpress.  Don't know a thing about it.  But since I've chosen the niche for Blogger Muse to be making money online, I need to learn and wordpress is my next project.
You have to research affiliates to market on your blog, unless you have your own product you are selling.
Research and learn, research and learn, then do it some more.  You can learn something from everyone.

#2.  Never Made A Plan

Not having a plan to go by will leave you flailing around not getting anything done.  Chose a time of day when you can get the most done or like me, a couple of times a day.  Make a list of what you are going to do during that time and how long you are going to spend on it.  Be sure to check off each one do you can track how it's working out for you and make adjustments to fine tune that schedule and then stick to it. 
If I don't stay on top of mine, I'll find myself blog hopping just to see what everyone else is doing.  And then whine, cause I didn't earn any money that day.

#1.  Gave Up

And the number one reason new bloggers fail to make money online is they gave up too soon.  It's so discouraging sometimes to work and write and then comes the waiting.  Checking the affiliate accounts and ....... nothing.  Don't keep waiting!  Keep writing, keep researching.  It took me almost a year to start bringing in money.  At first it trickled, but now while it hasn't gotten up to streaming yet, it is getting more regular.  So don't give up!  And I hope you'll come back here and use me as a resource.


To our success,
The Blogger Muse

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else''s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that''s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don''t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger''s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it''s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it''s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it''s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it''s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it''s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

I just read at one of my favorite blogger's sites, Paid Opps, that google PR updates are starting.  Hers has dropped from 3 to 0 for a minute.  We all know that they fluctuate during this time, but that is still a scary thing.  I'm not going to write a long post on this right now as I have got stuff to do promoting this one, too.  Wow, and I've been trying to wash clothes while blog hopping.  Dang it.

A while back a friend of mine, I will call him Joey,  got involved with a home business scam that ended up costing him a bundle of money.  I'm not talking hundreds, I mean almost $3000!  We did get most of it back with a lot of hard work, and I mean hard.  When he first called me and told me about it, I had to refrain from telling him he was crazy in the first place for even calling the 800 # they had on TV.  He's not crazy, just desperate like so many people out there that want a better life for themselves.  This particular offer was for making money on the internet which Joey knows nothing about websites, etc. but they claimed anyone could do it and make millions.  The name was Shortcut to Internet Millions and plays this infomercial on TV in the middle of the night when folks are up that can't sleep worrying about this and that.  They make it seem like they have the answer to all your problems.  First Joey ordered the information for the low cost of $39.95 on his credit card.  Somewhere in there we found out later there was a monthly charge of $39.99 as well.  Well, he got a pile of CD's and books that meant absolutely nothing to him and made no sense.  But they had a system for him to follow.  So he got started.  One was naming his "business" and opening it up.  Well he got that done online and then the first of soo many calls came.
"Joey, since you now own this business in Bum Friggin Egypt, in a state you have never even been to, you will need an accountant and tax adviser for this state.....No sir, one in your state will not do, because the tax laws are different in your state.......I know you live there, sir (sarcastically) but your business that you opened up is located in this state.  You don't want any trouble with the IRS, do you? (Scare tactic)...Oh, no this is a one time deal, we are a company separate from Internet Millions, we are accountants that service their customers.....The cost?  Oh, it is only $495 per year for basic services and we can bill that to your credit card today......."
He did.  The IRS thing got him.

Article continues below:




He was reading all this material and was so confused, he called the help line.
"Well, we can give you personal training for an additional cost of $1995.....That sounds like a lot to you?... When you will make that and more very soon?  Don't you want to improve yourself and not continue being the loust you are, be able to actually support your family instead of being just low paid ignorant piece of crap like you are now?.... You know an education cost money, whether it be at a college, or for a license, or a technical trade and this is just pennies compared to those....(Making him feel stupid)....Why would you want to discuss it with your family and friends.  Other people just want to put you down because they do not want you to succeed, they will stomp on your dreams (and ours of getting your money) and keep you down if you let them........Well, sir, I will call you back tomorrow and you can give me your answer, this offer is only good for 24 hours....Why, yes, if you decide to start your personal training, you may call me back at this number...."
When she called back the next day, he gave her the credit card info.
Now guess what would have happened when he realized he was getting absolutely no sales and making no money?
"Well, Joey, you need to get traffic to your websites and guess what?....We can help you with that for the low cost of............."
These are not the exact words that they used, of course, and the calls were much more lengthy.  But you get my drift.
The thing that surprised me the most was not when they did not want to answer his calls or emails about canceling the whole thing and getting his money back, I expected that from scammers, but the BANK did not want the hassle and told him that they really could not do anything because he accepted the charges.  I told him that I knew there was an agency that regulated banks and he let the bank know that he would contact them if they did not pursue his complaint.  That worked with the bank and they gave him paperwork to file for an investigation and with my bull dog attitude, I called the Internet Millions people.  They told me they would not talk to me and wanted to talk to him because of privacy laws.  Yeah, I know those are real, but I gave him the phone and said LOUDLY "They want to talk to someone that they can intimidate!  Tell them you are going to pursue this with MY attorney or I will, one way or another, you WILL get your money back."  He told them and they made a deal.  He ended up losing the first $39.99, but got the rest back on his credit card.  It was not as easy as it sounds and took many complaints and threats.
Identify a scam:
1.  They want money for you to work for them.
2.  They assure you that you will make a gazillion dollars, or even only the basic thousands a month.
3.  They use pressure tactics or this offer is only good today or for the next few hours.
4.  They make you feel stupid or uneducated.
5.  They come back with "personal training" for an additional costs.
5.  Tell you not to talk to your family and friends about the business because they will squash your dreams.
7.  Make you feel that the problem is you and your stupidity or dedication.
While any business or effort takes work,  and there are some people that think signing up for something will give them millions, it just doesn't work that way.  But when you know you are trying and just don't understand because you are paying for something that tells you that you need no experience, but don't even understand the terminology and someone wants you to pay extra for training, well....it's a scam.

If you are a victim of this kind of scam, and it is all over the internet and tv, contact your local Better Business Bureau and the National Fraud Information Center (800-876-7060)  Be a bulldog about and get your money back!!!

I try my best to post opportunities that can really make you some extra money here on my site.  I really try to check them out first.  If you find something that I recommend that is a true scam, let me know and I will investigate further and take them off my site if they are truly a scam.

Thanks for being here and I hope this helps someone. 
As always, enjoy!

I'm trying to get organized with some great articles for making money blogging.  I've been doing it for over a year now and really want to share what I've learned.  I've got to get a few things in perspective so that I can present them in a logical and down to earth manner, so hang in there and bookmark my site.  There is just so much that I want to share that I hope will really help someone.  See you soon!
To you and your success!