On a daily basis, mom bloggers spend a fair amount of time researching and writing new blog posts. But did you know that a mom can also make some money online as freelance writer? It’s true! Here are three tips that virtually any mom who is already active as a blogger can use to make money as a freelancer:

1) Leverage Your Experience As A Blogger To Attract Clients

Try to think about things from the perspective of a potential client for a moment. Wouldn’t you feel significantly more comfortable dealing with someone who was an experienced writer? Probably. Anyone who maintains a frequently updated blog is going to be viewed in a different light than someone who merely claims to be a writer but who lacks any meaningful platform through which their writing can be seen. Leverage your experience as a blogger to attract clients — it will help you stand out.

2) Provide Links To Your Various Blogs As Social Proof Of Your Writing Skills

Potential clients are usually going to want to see samples of your writing. Impress your prospective clients by providing them with links to your various blogs. This will trigger a subconscious belief in the mind of the potential client that you’re a highly respected “published” author with an active audience. It’s incredible social proof of your writing skills.

3) Focus On Accepting Freelance Writing Assignments That Compliment Your Schedule

As a mother and a blogger, you already have a lot to deal with. The last thing you want to do is create a freelance writing business that diminishes the focus you have on your core responsibilities of motherhood and blogging. That’s why it’s so important to only accept freelance writing assignments that compliment your schedule. You may have someone approach you to do a project that will require 20 hours per week of your time. That’s not likely to be compatible with your existing schedule, and accepting a writing assignment of that nature will do nothing but stress you out.

In short, the secret to making money as a freelance writer is to leverage your blogging activities to help you find writing assignments that compliment what you’re already doing. Don’t be surprised if you increase your income by 20% to 30% as a result of becoming a freelance writer!

Ideas for Making Money as a Mommy Blogger

(1) Build your readership. Join blogging communities. Send a link to your blog to all your friends, family, neighbours and acquaintances.

(2) Build traffic to your blog. “Web traffic” means getting internet users to read your blog and return to your blog. Increased “traffic” means more readers are visiting your blog.

(3) Build traffic to your mommy blog by posting entries on a regular basis; every day, several times a week, or at least once a week.

(4) Increase traffic to your mommy blog by visiting and commenting on other mommy blogs that you find to be entertaining and educational. Mothers and bloggers who read the other mommy blogs will be able to read your comments and find out about you and hopefully visit your blog, too.

(5) If you are a member of a “forum,” an internet discussion group, usually focused around a special theme or topic such as parenting or internet marketing, then place a link to your mommy blog when you write comments or posts on the forum.

(6) Add a statistics counter to your blog that will enable you to discover how much web traffic you are receiving and where it is being generated from. This tool will aid you in figuring out the success you are experiencing at promoting your blog in various ways.

(7) Set up a Twitter account for yourself and your mommy blog. Name your Twitter account the same name as your blog if possible. Include a link to your website on your Twitter profile page. Building a community of followers on Twitter will generate more traffic to your mommy blog and will increase your blog’s popularity and credibility.

(8) The most effective and often the easiest way to generate income from your mommy blog is to sell advertisements on your website. Companies like Google AdSense can help you by placing advertisements on your blog. You will collect a small fee every time one of your readers clicks on an ad.

(9) Another way to make money from your mommy blog is to register with Amazon Associates, which allows you to design special links for recommended books and products on your website. Every time one of your readers accesses Amazon through your blog to purchase products, you will receive a portion or commission of the sale. When deciding on what Amazon products to promote on your blog, make sure that you identify products that match the content on your site. For example, some book-loving moms write blog posts about their son or daughter’s favorite children’s literature. Create a link to accompany your post that takes interested readers to purchase the very book that you are recommending. Review reports of your product orders to discover what products your readers purchase after visiting your blog. Think about promoting products that are popular with your readers on your blog.

What should a mommy blogger like you know about article marketing? Let’s start with a quick overview of what article marketing is all about, and then we’ll talk about a few ways you can make the most of your article marketing efforts. Don’t assume this is a dull, boring topic — it can actually help you be significantly more successful than you may realize.

So what exactly is article marketing? Generally speaking, it’s a process through which you can spread the word about your blog without really seeming as if though you’re trying to overtly promote it. Huh? Let me give you a good example. Imagine that you go to your local newsstand and that you pick up a magazine. You flip through the pages and land on a story about laptop computers. You read the article and notice it provides you with a variety of truly useful tips to help you extend the battery life of your laptop by an average of 45 to 70 minutes per session.

At the end of the article, you see a brief blurb that invites readers to visit a web address for more useful tips, tricks, and information. Will you visit that website? Odds are, yes — if you were on a computer. But standing there with the magazine in your hand, you’re in no position to visit a website. But the point is this: you read an interesting article that gave you good information that encouraged you to visit a website address. That’s the essence of article marketing. You’re creating an environment where the reader is more open minded to visiting the link that’s provided at the end of the article.

Here are some tips to get the most out of article marketing:

• Create articles that revolve around the topic of your blog.
• Provide valuable content in your articles.
• Think of the articles you create as being magnets that can attract more readers to your blog.
• Always encourage the reader to visit your blog at the end of the articles.
• Submit your articles to article directories for maximum exposure.

By implementing an article marketing campaign, you can dramatically increase the readership of your blog without having to spend money on advertising. That makes article marketing both cost-effective and incredibly powerful. Go ahead and try it — you’ll be impressed by the results.

If you are going to be a successful work-at-home mom, you must find a way to set aside a portion of the day to have uninterrupted time to relax and attend to your own personal needs. Does this sound like an impossible proposition? When your children are infants and toddlers, their nap time provides you with some opportunity to focus on taking care of yourself and hopefully finding a few moments to relax. Some moms of infants and toddlers have a habit of napping when their child or children are sleeping, as this gives them an opportunity to catch up on some much-needed rest.

Becoming a new parent is an exciting yet sometimes overwhelming adventure. Try to establish healthy and suitable routines with your child, with the support and patience of your husband. Until you are able to develop a predictable routine with your child, however, the constant demands of being a new mother or mother of young children can become exhausting and discouraging.

Here are some tips to help you divide your business and personal time for work-at-home mothers.

1) Hire a mature and responsible high school or university student after school.
The ideal here is to find someone who would supervise outdoor play or would take your child to the park or playground so that you would have some time at home on your own. The next best thing is to have the sitter in the home when you’re there but with the careful instruction not to ‘bother’ you unless it was an emergency. Being a mother is a delicate balancing act. Use a day planner to determine in advance if you are going to devote the time that your baby-sitter is watching your children to your business or personal time. For instance, perhaps make a standing appointment with a trusted baby-sitter once a month for you to take time to get your hair cut and receive a relaxing manicure and pedicure. Other times, enlist the help of your sitter when you want to focus on working on your at-home business.

2) Collaborate your efforts with other work-at-home mothers.
If you could develop a team of several women, each could take the children for a morning on a particular day of the week. Predictable ‘kids swaps’ or ‘play dates’ would provide some time for you to invest in your business or in rejuvenating yourself. Your child would have a good opportunity to learn to socialize with other children.

3) Consider Parent Co-ops.
A formal version of a parent co-op is where full-time or part-time child care is provided by professional childcare workers but parents help defray the cost by assisting the early child care workers by helping several hours a week. This is often cheaper than regular day care services and part-time arrangements are more possible.

4) Arrange for the child’s grandparents to provide childcare.
If you and your family happen to live in the same city or town as your parents or parents-in-law, perhaps an arrangement where they take the children for a predictable time period every week can be worked out. The ideal is for them to take the children to their house and leave you with quiet time to work or tend to your personal needs.

5) Self-directed play activities are good.

When children are older, they can be provided with activities that absorb their interest and attention. Hands-on activities that are creative are best. Be really careful that you donÆt over-rely the memorizing power of the television or computer as baby sitter.

6) Be a laptop multi-tasker.
During wait time while your child is taking lessons, use your laptop computer to get some valuable work time in. Most community centres and gyms have wireless internet. If not, many other organizational tasks can be done during this time. Bring your day planner and plan out your following week, carving out time for you to work on your business, as well as time for you to enjoy yourself and do something pleasurable and relaxing.

Once my husband and I discovered that we were expecting our first child, we had a series of serious discussions that led to our decision that after our baby was born, I would leave my current professional position and become a work-at-home mom. We have a beautiful home that my husband and I both work hard to keep clean and organized, and I love spending time at home, so creating a home office for the new chapter in my career was a positive and exciting experience.

After talking to several of my friends from work and university who also made the difficult decision to leave their careers to begin a new career at home, I realized that my husband and I had to research child-care options. My friends cautioned me that working at home can become overwhelming without the support of one’s husband and family. They mentioned that I have to make time for myself to work and consider utilizing good quality child-care to give me some time alone to concentrate on my home business.

Here are a list of ideas that my friends and I created from our discussions:

1) Get your Husband On Board:
The first step that us work-at-home moms should take while searching for quality child-care is to ask for our husband’s help and time. Mothers can ask their hubbies to assist them with caring for their children once the husbands are home from work in the evenings and on weekends. Brainstorm ideas with your husband as to how both of you can manage your work time better and have more time to devote to your children. A healthy marriage involves both husband and wife contributing to the childcare and household chores. Build your husband’s self-esteem and allow him to feel that you genuinely trust and have confidence in his fathering abilities.

2) Develop a Supportive Childcare Network:
Talk to your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and fellow church-members who have children and set up a schedule where you will help take care of their children when you are free and they will watch your children for you when you are busy. Grandmothers love to spend time with their grandchildren, so don’t hesitate in talking to your mother and mother-in-law about coming to your home once or several times a week to help take care of your children. Neighbors with children are good people to connect with, as your may take turns take care of one another’s children without having to spend time driving across town to drop them off and pick them up.

3) Hire A Childcare Giver:
When your husband, family, friends and neighbours are not readily available to care for your children while you focus on your home business, then a trustworthy and knowledgeable baby-sitter may be a real life-saver. Consider asking your close family and friends for recommendations for child-care givers. Maybe put a notice at your husband’s place of employment or your church to help find a qualified baby-sitter. Interview each potential child-care giver before hiring them to watch your children.

Being a mom provides me with blessing and joy every day. I am so thankful for my loving and helpful husband, who takes his role as a father seriously and provides me with lots of emotional support and help in raising our son and daughter. I never realized how much responsibility and effort motherhood entailed until I became a mother myself.

After eight years establishing my career in the business world, my husband and I decided when I was pregnant with our baby boy that I would make the shift to being a work-at-home mom. I love being at home with my husband, son and daughter, so it works out with my personality type to be a stay-at-home home. I am able to be home with my children and earn a good, steady income at the same time. That perfect melding of home and work – it sounds so ideal and is when it works. The key ingredient to becoming a successful work at home mom, however, is to develop effective organizational skills.

Tip One: Organize your Time

If you’re going to essentially do two jobs at a time, you have to be twice as efficient with your time and energy. A good idea is to have a daily planner where you proportion out your time so you get a sense of what time frame you have to work with. The most urgent tasks take priority but it is crucial to schedule in ‘important’ activities as well such as reading to your children, cooking dinner or exercising.

Be careful about those time wasters that ‘eat up’ your day. Set time limits on household jobs such as tidying the kitchen or putting away laundry. Even use a timer and make a game of it. Moms are great multi-taskers. When you are watching TV or talking on the phone, do something else as well such as folding laundry or putting away the children’s toys. Put an actual limit on your internet, phone, and television time.

Setting a fixed time for your ‘at home work’ is essential. Your family must learn to respect that time and try not to put demands on your attention during that time. Before you fall asleep at night, go over in your mind all the things that you’ve accomplished that day and reflect on how you’ve maximized your time.

Tip Two: Organize Your Belongings

One of the biggest time wasters is spending time trying to find something. Setting up a effective organizational system of what goes where so you can access items and information quickly is the best way to avoid getting flustered and frustrated. Use containers and baskets to put similar items. File information regularly in color-coded or label file folders. Maintain a well-organized filing cabinet. Recycle, donate, or throw away what you don’t need. Pack away items that you or your family members have not used in the last year. Consider donating these items to charity or hosting a garage sale.

Attend to mail immediately. Recycle any advertisements, junk mail and envelopes. Better still – go paperless wherever possible. Any billing information can be accessed easily via the internet so why keep unnecessary statements and receipts. De-clutter and organize your things.