I signed up with Twitter a few days ago to use that as a source of advertising. I've gotten a few hits from there so far. It's easy enough to use so I figure I'll use it for a bit to see if it helps. Follow me!!!

It was pointed out to me the other day by someone on Buy It Sell It that I didn't have the information on my blog page for people to follow me on here. I'm thinking that made it difficult to gain followers so I've added that.

I've been using sitemeter to follow my stats for my store because for ME it's more user friendly than Google stats. I'm sure google contains more information so I'll have to explore that more too. Well, I realized the other day that I didn't have the sitemeter code on ALL of my pages so I was only getting reads if someone came in through my home page. I've fixed that and now I see many more people visiting. I can see that they're coming in through google so I'm very excited about that. I also clicked on one of my items and noticed that when it appears in Google Base it shows my name rather than my store name. I'd MUCH rather it show my store name of course so I've made the adjustment that I think will correct that I just have to watch for it to change. I'm expecting it to take a day or so to take affect but I might have to do some investigating to figure out why it hasn't shown up as DogDishStore yet.

I've been posting more in a dog forum to try and get customers. It's pretty nice. I've been adding input regularly on there.

I've gotten a few places to link to me and I'm thrilled about that. I have to work on getting more of that going. It's kind of tedious but VERY necessary to rank high with google.

I hadn't realized how much I've done until I wrote it all down. I think I need to give myself a pat on the back. :-)

Clickthru

I've been spending so much time addicted to trying to get this business up and running that I'm feeling a little guilty that I'm not showing 100% attention to the kids. I mean they are 3 and 4 and can entertain themselves but when I'm here all day on the weekends I should really be devoting all time to them. I feel like I've been checking my visitor number and doing research a little too much. I don't want my kids to grow up and have only memories of mommy on the computer. I sometimes make it ok in my mind by saying if I can pull this off, the kids will benefit in the future. Then in the back of my mind I think what if I DON'T make this work? Then all the time with my attentions away from them have been in vein. It's such a struggle.

Well, in the research I've done this weekend I came across a site called clickthru. I want to add their add to my blog, but right now I'm having problems with the html getting the button to work. I have an email into them for advice. In the mean time I'll still do a write up on them because I like their concept and think it will help me once I can get a button in here.

Clickthru is a traffic exchange site where you can earn money that turns into visitors to your website.

Quick overview:

• You register your website with them and they will put it in their database with other user's websites.
  
• You browse that database and earn money for viewing and raiting sites.
  
• Those sites in turn are shown your site and your hope is that someone looking at your site will want to be a customer of yours.
  
• The cash you recieve for viewing adds can be used to buy yourself a higher presence on the site.
  
• You are given visits to your site just for joining then to get more viewers of your site you can add the clickthru button to your website with html language they give you. Advertising on your website in general is a great way to earn money through your website so I don't mind that I need to do that task to gain visitors.
• Even if I don't pay for traffic with this site, I think I will benefit even by people clicking from my website. And I don't expect any out of pocket expenses with this website. I plan to pay for any advertising with them to come thru my clickthru earnings.

Ways to earn cash on Clickthru:

• Visiting websites and rating them thru Clickthru
• Complete tasks like signing up for websites. They don't even have to be sites that charge you to sign up. I see that most are free and many pay out $.50 for signing up through clickthru.
• When sign up with clickthru as a referral of you. Use the referral link in your website like I am or send the link in an email. Although they do have a policy against spamming so you'll want to make sure you observe those rules.

Review:

• I've had a few visitors from it in just a day or so. I have to view more sites on their website and have people click on their link in order for me to get more visitors, but so far I really like the site and the concept. I think it will work for my needs. I love the no-cost of it. As I've mentioned in the past I don't want to pay out anymore money for this business.
  

Another blog up: tipstomoms.blogspot.com

So I signed up for an adwords account and now my account has been adentified as a spam blogging site or something like that. WHAT??? Ugh! I just can't catch a break. I'm sure all Google will have to do is look at my account and see that's not the case, but it's so frustrating. I don't like people wondering if I'm dishonest.

In the mean time I started another blog today with parenting tips on it. It's at Tipstomoms.blogspot.com. I may be able to work in some products on my website that would be helpful to parents. That site is dnaetc.com.

New Move

I think it should be a goal of mine to do something new everyday to help my business. Otherwise I get lazy and don't move forward with the business. The thing I did today was sign up for adsense with google to see if I can generate income from people clicking on the adsense link. Since it's an "application" process for which I have to be approved I have to wait a day or two for approval. Google doesn't disclose their pay scale so who knows what I'll make if anything. But with an investment of $0, there isn't really a down side to adding that feature.

I'm also looking for ways to stay organized with this internet business. With SOOOO many sources and things to think about how do you stay focused on your goal or purpose AND keep track of everything you need to do to be profitable. I feel overwhelmed with the wealth of knowledge and sources out there. I'm going to start a list of resources I use and resources I am looking into or need to look into. There are so many on both sides, but resources I need to look into is by far the longest list. I have joined some free auction sites that will be on the list of resources I use. I actually need to get out to those sites and add more products and my blog address. So much to do so little time.