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Home / Archive: April 2008
As it can be seen from the Disclosure Policy conveniently located in the footer of this website, I admit that while they are very few and far between, I will occasionally accept a sponsored review from a business or advertiser looking to generate buzz to their website or about their product or services.
A service that a great deal of experienced bloggers utilize in order to sell a sponsored review on their website is Sponsored Reviews. With its clean and easy to use interface, I personally find it to be a little less annoying than PayPerPost, which virtually every person with a website has ran to for some extra cash at one point or another. The way Sponsored Reviews works is a little different than what most bloggers are used to. In order to write a sponsored review you must select categories for your website, write a short description about it and then bid on reviews that advertisers have put in the marketplace that match the category in which you have placed your blog under.
Today I have run into something completely new to me when it comes to Sponsored Reviews–The advertisers’ ability to counter offer. While I have only accepted two offers on this website and those have been put on my other website only, I was a little surprised when I saw that an advertiser had sent me a counter offer on a recent bid I had made for this website. As most of you may have heard, Google PageRank has recently updated and when that happens, I always take a few moments to really dig through my statistics and see where this website stands as opposed to other websites in the same niche. After analyzing my overall statistics, I then go through my website listings that I have on services such as Sponsored Reviews and adjust my prices accordingly. Apparently, however, advertisers are likely to disagree with your proposal.
Just a few hours after bidding on a post I received an email of a counter offer over 75% lower than what I had offered in the first place. After wondering for a great deal of time if I had missed something and then realizing that advertisers are just generally known for counter offering bloggers ridiculous prices that are obviously beneath them, I counter offered them–For my original asking price.
So here is a lesson to all of the bloggers who utilize review services in order to help buy the groceries at the end of the month–When your bid receives a counter offer from an advertiser when you know damn well that the price they are countering you for is so obviously beneath you, do not buckle at the mere chance of a few dollars. As a web publisher, you must know where you stand and if you feel your website is worth $5 a post then by all means, you should most definitely be accepting $5 a post; however, if you feel as if your work is worth more, than you should be accepting no less than what you believe you are worth for your work.
Late last night Google nearly gave me a heart attack. Because I’m a little crazy when it comes to website stats I have a Google PageRank toolbar attached to my Firefox and while simply going through new comments and checking out some random websites I noticed my toolbar go up to a number…and stay there. To make sure I wasn’t officially going insane, I closed out my entire browser and restarted it just to make sure that the toolbar wasn’t stuck at a number from a previous website I had been on. To my very (pleasantly) surprised eyes, I was right–Google PageRank had updated!
After doing some surfing around I noticed that Google has given quite a bit of people higher PageRank. Are they suddenly becoming a little more lenient or are they getting all of our hopes up in order to smash us back down to 0 by next update?
Whatever the case, congratulations to everyone whose PageRank went up–Woman Tribune has went from PR 2 to PR 4, so we’re quite happy around these parts.
To get the Live PageRank Firefox addon and become a little schizo when it comes to checking PR, click here.
Making money for your blogging/website endeavors isn’t new, it’s actually a big reason why so many people are starting their own websites. Once Darren Rowse published on his website that he makes a six-figure income purely from blogging and has even went as far as to publish a book about blogging for cash, everyone has been jumping on the blog bandwagon.
There are many ways that you can make money blogging including putting a PayPal donation button on your site. Most of your readers are not advertisers and so while you can make money from direct advertising on your website, there are still a great deal of people visiting your site and if you write about a great deal of information that appeals to many people and they appreciate the work you have put in to your website in order to bring them the content they crave, some people may love to have the option of donating a little money to you to thank you for your contribution and let you know that they appreciate your hard work.
If anyone has actually seen the PayPal donation button you may have noticed that it is seriously one of the ugliest buttons to ever grace a website. I don’t know what layout the PayPal donation button would look good on, but it honestly looks horrendous on most websites and while it lets your readers donate to you, they don’t get much out of it.
ScratchBack took all of what I’ve already covered into consideration when thinking of a program that would let a website’s readers give back a little. ScratchBack is a program that gives you a fancy shmancy tip jar for your blog. It lets your readers scratch your back and like the saying goes, it also lets you scratch their back in return by providing a link back to their site when they purchase a link using the ScratchBack widget, which you can see in action on my sidebar to the right.
ScratchBack is a great program with an easy to manage control panel, making the entire program fool proof to set up for your website. It is also quite flexible with many color options for you to choose that will match your website’s layout the best and it also lets you pick your own widget rate, giving you complete control over the price of your top spots. By pricing your top spots low you may get more people who purchase a link on your site and scratch your back, but by pricing them a little higher, your links will be more in demand, especially if you choose to only display a certain number of top spots at a time. For instance, on Woman Tribune, our top spots are priced at $25 for an entire month. Looking at that purely from an advertising perspective, you are able to tell me that you appreciate the hard work put into this website and in return, get a link back to your website or blog for about 83 cents a day–A complete steal when you inquire about advertising prices on a website. Even if you don’t have a website of your own and you still want to scratch my back, you can link to your favorite website, a friend’s website or a website that you feel readers of Woman Tribune would be interested in.
To sign up with ScratchBack you can go to their website and you can also check out their blog for exciting industry news. They have also implemented a link directory which is huge, so go on over to their blog directory and submit your link.
Hint hint: Link directories are important because it provides a back link to your website which helps raise your Google PageRank.
We give ScratchBack…
Rating: 
I love underwear. Seriously, I cannot be within five feet of Victoria’s Secret or any store selling cute and sexy undies or I would go broke in minutes. I’ve owned pretty much all styles and types of bras and panties and if you’re like me, once you find that bra or panty that fits you the best and is the most comfortable, you love it to death–Literally, you will wear it until it develops holes and still consider keeping it. You may even go as far as to want to tell every other woman you come into contact with all about the bra that makes you feel incredible or the panties that you can wear with a tight skirt without any discomfort.
So I want to hear about your favorite undies. What are your favorite bras, panties, G strings, thongs, body shapers and so on? Not only do I want to wear about them, but I want you to vote in The Undie Awards.
The Undie Awards are where men and women can vote for their favorite undies by type, brand and style and once your vote is in, 25 cents is donated to cervical cancer research. The voting is completely anonymous, all you have to do is provide your email address after you cast your votes and the only information The Undie Awards have about you is that and your body type.
This is a fun and easy way to donate money to the National Cervical Cancer Public Education Campaign, so go on over and cast your vote for your favorite undies!
There are a lot of things to consider when planning your wedding and let’s face it, who can ignore the fact that there are presents involved?
Women have a tendency to over think pretty much everything regarding their wedding day; the term “bridezilla” didn’t come out of the sky, you know, and setting up your wedding registry is no different. There are some simple things you can do, however, to make the process of setting up your wedding registry.
First of all, start with the room you get the most excited about when you think about getting shiny, new things for it. If it’s your bedroom, go to the bedroom and take a look around. Take note of what you already have (and like) and think about what you’ve been wanting to add to the room that you haven’t already. If you have some items, like myself, that maybe your parents or your soon-to-be spouse’s parent’s handed down to you, would you like to update them? If so, in what colors or styles? Make a list of items you need as well as what you would like–It’s okay to be a little frivolous; in fact, it’s expected.
After you’ve finished with the room that you get the most excited about, move through the house in the order of what rooms give you that warm and fuzzy feeling and rooms that you would love some new gadgets for. However, it is also expected that you will forget some items that you’ll be kicking yourself later for not adding to your registry, so to help out with setting up your wedding registry, I Do Sugar, part of the Sugar blog network, has made a very convenient wedding registry [PDF] containing items that one can most often easily forget about to make sure that doesn’t happen to you!
You can download the file here; I can’t even imagine the number of sanities this file is going to save when it comes to wedding registry planning!
Oh Mary-Kate Olsen, you wild and crazy woman always looking to separate yourself from your cute, cuddly kid super-celebrity persona. But I must ask, just what exactly were you thinking when you saw this dress and thought “Yeah, I think I’ll wear that!”?
Mary-Kate doesn’t look flattering in the least in this dress; in fact, she looks quite large and the headband is just dreadful.
What do you think, leave it in the comments!
As a person who has easily spent way too much money on aromatherapy home and bathroom products including skin care, bath and shower products, candles and incense, I recently found a terrific natural approach to aromatherapy guaranteed to lift your spirits and your immune system.
Head over to your local flower shop or crafts store and pick up a small bundle of eucalyptus, mint, or lavender and some natural garden twine. Hang the bundles off of your shower curtain rod using the twine, close to the shower head but out of the way enough so it won’t get too wet when you turn the shower on.
If you have a cold or would like to boost your immune system, eucalyptus is a natural decongestant. The steam from the shower will release the scent throughout your bathroom and it will also clear up your cold and prevent it from returning and others from attacking.
Mint is also used as a throat soother, if you’ve looked through your local store’s cold and flu section, you may have noticed some products that aid in the soothing of the throat or medicines that get rid of sore throats and most often, those products contain mint. What not a lot of people know is that mint can also aid indigestion, helping stomach aches and also chest pains.
Lavender is my favorite plant for aromatherapy. Lavender as an essential oil has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties and it is also used to naturally soothe headaches if applied to the temples; I used to get horrible stress headaches and ended up buying myself a natural body salve with lavender essential oils that worked wonderfully. Breathing lavender in has a calming effect and it is used to soothe stress, aches and pains and is best for you when exposed to it right before bed, as it produces a deeper sleep rid of stress that is most often carried with you into sleep making you wake even more tired than you were before you went to bed and still carrying emotional baggage and stress.
This little trick can even be used just to put a nice, natural fragrance in your bathroom that will last for a few weeks.
MothersClick is sponsoring the second annual cookbook by moms, after their first cookbook had tremendous success.
If you are a mom and have a great family recipe that you would like to see published in a community cookbook featuring other moms out there, as well as celebrity special contributor Missy Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef, register over at MothersClick and add your recipe.
The best part of this community effort cookbook is that 100% of the proceeds are donated to The Boys & Girls Clubs of America; so not only are you receiving recognition for your original and delicious recipe, you are also helping disadvantaged kids in the process.
It’s spring, which means summer is just around the corner and women are getting ready to get their bikini bodies. But what if women, with their exercise schedule and healthy diets, are backtracking and while they think they are being healthy in their efforts to maintain that perfect beach body, are really just harming their health more?
If you go to a gym, you most likely utilize most of the facilities and activities that they have to offer. Work out equipment, maybe some private classes with a personal trainer or being part of a weekly class, if they have a nutritionist on staff, you most likely consulted with them about maintaining some healthy eating habits or have gotten a quick snack from them. Just before taking your shower, getting back into your street clothes and going home, how many women hop into the tanning bed for that healthy summer glow; because lets face it, who wants to be a color just a few pigments darker than chalk? But what you don’t know is that tanning beds, a $5 billion a year industry, are harming you more than you may think.
Personally, I used to frequent tanning salons because I suffered from chronic insomnia and I found that while accompanying a friend of mine on her tanning trip and deciding to try it out for myself, that a tanning bed was the only place where I could fall asleep. While I didn’t strive for the perfect tan, I do know women who became absolutely obsessed with tanning, making appointments at two or three different tanning facilities just so no one told them that they were tanning too much because they would go to a variety of different places. It looked as if they were going once a week, but they were really visiting these facilities three times a week or more!
Tanning, while incredibly bad for your skin to begin with, as the ultraviolet radiation can cause wrinkles, dark spots and premature aging; indoor tanning can also put you at a 55% higher risk for Melanoma.
Dermatologist Louis Barich, MD, has reported that “Essentially, 20 minutes in a tanning bed can do as much damage as five hours of natural sunlight.”
So before hopping into that tanning bed for that healthy glow, go outside and get some fresh air instead–but be sure to put the sunblock on! While being pasty white may not seem very attractive to you, think about how you would feel about wrinkles, dark spots and ultimately, skin cancer.
Giving medication to your pet is sometimes worse than getting your child to swallow that disgusting spoonful of cough medicine. They refuse to take the medication willingly and in most cases, pet owners must resort to holding their pet down and slipping a capsule into their mouths and hope they don’t just take it into another room and spit it out.
I got my cat spayed about a year ago and while still at the vet office the next morning, she had ripped all of her stitches out and within a few days of bringing her home, she had an infection from the stitches and the vet having to restitch her. In addition to the normal medication I had to give her, I also had to give her an antibiotic for the infection. Now, I have an unnatural love for my cat, I treat her as well as people treat their children and seeing her in any kind of pain or discomfort at all had me welling up with tears, so giving her the two medications twice a day was agony for me–and she didn’t like it much, either.
I recently found a great item that makes giving pets medication easier than ever–Pill Pockets. Staying true to hiding capsules in food, Pill Pockets, made by Greenies, are treats for pets that you can easily put a pill in and feed to your pet. They are made for cats as well as for dogs and would most definitely be an asset for any person having trouble with giving their pets medication.
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