Besotted

We have arrived safely, if not soundly on the West Coast and I can not be happier. I have been dealing with severe car sickness which has been no fun for either myself or my husband.  I have always been prone to it and sometimes it hits me like a ton of bricks and others I am just mildly agitated. The same severity hit me as a kid when we drove to the Grand Canyon from California and I mentally made a note not to travel long distances by car ever again, granted I did wait over 30 years before I attempted the long distance driving and the trip to the East Coast was not as bad, but this trip, oh dear. Did I have all the usual remedies?  Indeed. I even had four different types of ginger carriers (gum, hard candy, ale and chews), sea bands, breathing, techniques, you name it.  I am just one of those lucky ones that is predisposed to it. Suffice to say that I should not be your first choice to take on your road trip, I would not be a good Thelma to your Louise. Speaking of, I mentioned to my husband after what seemed like 72 hours straight in the car that he was no fun to travel with, which he replied, “We are not traveling, we are moving”. Whatever.

I feel a bit detached with not having constant internet access for over a week. I suppose this is what it must feel like to go through withdrawals, cold sweats and the feeling that you want to crawl out of your skin. It’s not very zen of me but I seriously do not think I can survive prolonged periods of time without an internet fix. I tried to stay connected via that magical device called the Iphone but when we were at our hotels internet was spotty and in Montana it was out completely. What did I do? Did I start a deep conversation with my husband or read a book? Nope, I fell asleep. It was the only sane thing to do.

We are looking this week for a place to call home and in turn to set-up high speed internet. This week is also the National Stationery Show and I have been following many of the attendee’s via Instagram and I am duly envious, it looks like a great time has been had by all. I shall return tomorrow for more extended blathering.

P.S. Thank you all for the well wishes on the move, I have truly appreciated them.

Do you know Christene Barberich?  She is the founder + editorial director of the uber cool Refinery 29. When I saw she was pinning I immediately had to follow. Barberich has an amazing eye and I am not the only one that believes so, she has legions of even the most jaded of fashionista,’s clamoring to view her site each day.  I am more interested in her pins, they are always very diversified and it’s so fun to be able to get a peek into what is currently inspiring a New York editor. I do hope you find her boards as exciting as I do. You can visit her here and the Refinery 29 boards here.

In other news, our cross country trek has been going swimmingly, if not a little monotonous. I thought the long stretches of the Oklahoma highway on the way East were uhm, long, but compared to the scenes from the window driving through Minnesota and South Dakota it was practically a visual feast. I have made it through to the highest level of my Word Solitaire app and feel like I may have avoided a bit of brain deterioration in the process (or added to it), time will tell. I had a bit of a problem again with the Itunes audiobook download, but Audible works like a charm for even the most download challenged. We have listened to Michael Ian Black’s You’re not doing it right.  Not, for the easily offended, it made for light listening and lots of laughs.  We have also listened to a compilation of live performances by David Sedaris, my husband doesn’t think he is as genius as I do. This makes me question my choice of husbands. Currently we are listening to The Killer of Little Shepards which is about the birth of forensic science in the late 1800′s. It boggles my mind how they came up with such advanced theories in a time sans the interwebs. I jest (not really). And you? I hope your week is going swell.  I know I had some blog snafu’s, with posts being launched all willy nilly, I am hoping I have repaired the glitch, but only time shall tell.  If you miss me terribly I have been posting awful photos on Instagram documenting the long haul (how the heck did the Pioneers do this in horse drawn wagons?) and tweeting seemingly unwitty quips that garner me zero responses, don’t worry it won’t stop me.  I usually don’t have long stretches like this to devote to social media so I am taking advantage of it.

Since moving is on my mind and it seems according to statistics it is up there with other stress inducing factors such as dying that I might discuss some things I have learned about it that may make your future move a whole lot easier.

HIRING A MOVER

I have moved a ton in my lifetime, but usually within the same general area. When we hired movers for the cross country trek out East it was my first experience with a professional moving company. I just assumed we would pay our quoted rate and it would be delivered a couple days after we arrived. Not the case. After the movers went to the weigh station they quoted us nearly double of what we assumed we had. If I were to do this again, I would get weights from the retailers where I purchases my furniture, or bought a heavy duty shipping scale to weigh boxes and/or drove to the closest weigh station to see for myself the weight. Since they had our items ‘hostage’ I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. Reading on line, it seems this bait & switch is the norm for the moving industry since they know you are stressed and will probably just give in and pay the demanded new fee.

Did you know you can pay a small additional fee to get a guaranteed delivery date? It’s worth the extra fee, trust me. It took our movers over a month to deliver our truck when we moved East. We had none of the essentials needed for living, no dishes, no bed, no television, no coffee pot, no towels, nada.  We ended up buying dupes of everything after 2 weeks since we didn’t know when our things would arrive. It cut into our budget/savings considerably and the extra fee we would have paid to get a guaranteed delivery would have been a lot less money + heart break.

PACK SOME ESSENTIALS WITH YOU

If you are going the truck route and may not see it for a while, pack some basics with you-sheets, towels, some dishes + utensils, you will be happy you did.

DOWNLOAD BOOKS/PODCASTS PRIOR TO LEAVING

I bought a bunch of audio books for our trip, but on that first 9 hour leg we couldn’t listen to them because I thought I would be able to buy them and just download them while we were driving since the Iphone has built in internet, right?  It does but when you are out in the middle of the Mojave or some other desolate location it requires that you download via a high speed connection which your Iphone will not be.

BUY A GPS + AAA

If your car isn’t already equipped get one, this is not a time to potentially get lost and stuck in the middle of nowhere.  Also, get some maps. As a AAA member we had our entire route configured for us by an agent. We just called told them which way we wanted to go (the Southern route), how many hours we wanted to drive each day and they mapped it out for us sending us both email versions, hard copy maps in the mail and even booked our hotels (with a discount!). AAA is such a nominal fee each year and it pays for itself in the peace of mind you get from knowing if you get a flat tire or your battery dies one call and help will be on its way!

BRING FOOD

I can not stress this enough, bring lot’s and lot’s of fresh, good food. Off the highway you will have tons of fast food joints but there won’t be a super market in sight. Just stop by a grocery store prior to leaving and stock up on fruits, nuts, clean sandwiches, anything healthy, because for days there will not be anything fresh + clean and it is no fun driving for 3-4 days straight and landing at your new abode bloated, tied and broken out because all you had was processed + fried food.

TRAVELING WITH PETS

Make sure you have a travel bowl and water. Travel bowls usually will be weighted so you aren’t spilling water all over your car seats and carpets. Our Frenchie sheds a new dogs worth of fur each day (so wrong) so we made sure to cover our entire back seat with old blankets. We also put down towels in case of accidents and we were so glad we did as she got super car sick by the time we hit Arizona and the towels made clean up a breeze (I shudder to think what it would have been like traveling in a car for four days if she had gotten sick directly on the upholstery!). Here are some more great tips.

WEAR COMFORTABLE CLOTHING

I think this may go without saying, but wear clothes that you will be comfortable sitting in for hours on end.  I wore a sun dress and sandals one day and was tortured by the air conditioner until I made my husband pull over to get my sweater, leggings and socks buried deep in our suitcase in the back, he was not happy.

P.S. If you have any other tips to add to this please leave them below, I love to learn new ideas on how to make life easier!

We are off today!  I am so excited but I do believe my naughty Frenchie is more thrilled than either myself or my husband could ever be. She loves car rides, we walk by our car every day when we walk her and she always stops patiently at the car door hoping that she might get lucky and get a lift.  Just wait until she finds out we will be in the car for four days straight!  My husband and I have been dreaming out loud of what we will do when we get to ‘civilization’. Both of us agree that we can’t wait to order dinner in. Yes, that’s right we have not had delivery in over a year now being out here in the woods and it seems like such a huge luxury that we can not wait to indulge in. We also can’t wait to have a real working internet connection, something the rest of the globe takes for granted, I shall be forever grateful for an internet connection that doesn’t time out every other second. Cable, we were laughing that we won’t be able to do any site seeing in our new city because we will be too busy catching up on all the cable shows we missed and ordering in take-out. Ah, the simple things in life.  I will just be so happy to be able to see people, it’s amazing how much you miss other humans when you are so far removed from them. So I guess we are a party of delighted folk + fauna heading out West!

And now around here on the beautiful interwebs…

Lettering genius Jon Contino popped by to let us know that his class at Skillshare will be archived, so I can take it and so can you, even if you can’t start it today!

Have you been reading Domaine Home?  It’s a fun lifestyle/interior site brought to you by a former Domino staffer. I also have been enjoying Chalkboard mag, a great read for anyone that is trying to be more green + healthy without becoming ‘granola’.

I am a devoted fan of make-up artist Kara of Maskara she has been on fire with her beauty posts lately, she has a great one for make-up for girls with glasses and a beautiful easy fresh-faced beauty look here.

Missing Polaroid photographs? Me too.  Printic is a new service that prints your Instgram photos into the nostalgic square Polaroid shape + free delivery!

Enjoy your day as will I (thoroughly). I have never been to any of the places we are driving through so I am exited to be able to see more of our beautiful country, hopefully the Frenchie won’t get car sick again like she did on the first leg of our trip coming out East. Nothing like traveling in a car with a sick bull dog when it’s 100+ outside and you have to have the windows rolled up for the air.

P.S. This was set for Monday and launched on Saturday, so much for technology and being prepared, eh?

I am back to wrap up this series on Becoming a Successful Blogger!  Now that you know how to put all the basics together you will want to know how to start generating an income, right? This is not a conclusive list but I think it will be a great start to finding ways to start making an income from your blog. Missed one in the series? You can find them here:Part I, II, III, IIII.

GOOGLE ADSENSE

These are easy to incorporate into your blog, but may not be the most aesthetically beautiful. Once you upload them to your site the ads will start generating based on your content or what your visitor was previously searching for. For a new blogger it is probably one of the fastest ways to implement a way to start reaping the benefits of blogging. You can learn how it works here.

AFFILIATE LINKS

I love how subtle affiliate links are, they don’t effect your design and they make sense for multiple types of bloggers.  An affiliate link is when you link to a product in your blog post and receive a small commission for it.  One of the biggest affiliate programs is Amazon. In the state of North Carolina where I currently live you can not become an affiliate, but it is available in most every state.  When I was living in California they had stopped the affiliate program but have since reinstated it (so check if your state qualifies). You do have to list a disclaimer on your blog in most countries if you decide to use affiliate links. I like Amazon and I mention it here because it is a reliable and established company that carries just about everything so it will be easy to incorporate for design bloggers, mommy bloggers, craft bloggers, etc. You would be surprised how many times you are promoting an item or asked about an item and are linking to it without potential compensation. Even though the commission is minute (4%) it can add up. I believe that if you are linking legitimate items that make sense with your post that most people reading will have no problem that you are making a small commission. In fact it is a wonderful + easy way for individuals to support your blog. This blogger has made over 400k with his Amazon affiliate program!

RSTYLE

Rstyle is aimed at style bloggers but if you are already doing style posts on a regular basis and linking to retailers such as Anthropologie than why not earn a small commission from it? It is the same concept as the Amazon affiliate links above but you can also link photos.

DONATE BUTTONS

Paypal has a donate button code that you can embed on your site.  This may seem a little tacky but I have seen a couple blogs that write a charming quip such as ‘if you liked this please consider buying me a cup of coffee’. The donate button is great for blogs that often give freebies away such as The Coffeshop blog.

PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTIONS

Some blogs will have a monthly/yearly subscription option which allows readers access to premium content.  You can set this up via Paypal as well. Most subscriptions are priced relatively fairly and if you are visiting a blog daily and utilizing their resources why not invest?  It allows the blog to continue to create even better content and possibly grow to hire other experts to make the blog even better. PSD Tutes is a good example, so is Hello Bee which has a premium subscription service as well. Of course, I am not saying to have people pay to read your blog, but if you offer some other premium information that you feel has value and can be monetized, than it may be a good route for you to get your blog on the road to monetization.

AD NETWORKS

You will need to have a certain number of daily visits before you can approach an ad network. Most companies are already to capacity with bloggers so your blog better be getting lots of love before you consider approaching. I tried to get you sample numbers but couldn’t find them easily for you. Last I spoke to a pal that was with a network they were requesting 3k-4k visitors per day (some more) to qualify. Here are some ad networks to check out when you get to that level-here, here, and here.

 SPONSORED ADS

My feeling on this is that I don’t feel the side banner ads work. I have never once clicked on an ad on a blogger’s side bar.  I have placed ads on a few blogs but didn’t feel the results warranted the fee. I love to support blogs I enjoy reading but I think there are other ways I can do so instead of my placing ads not in my budget. If you want return sponsors than you need to figure out more creative ways to get your sponsors exposure.

SPONSORED POSTS

I think it is fine to have a post sponsored by a company if it is a post that allows you to write the same content as you usually do.  I don’t know how well those posts perform for an advertiser/sponsor, but at least you get to maintain the integrity of your blog.  Where I see a problem with a sponsored post is when the sponsor/advertiser writes it. Most readers will skip over it, which is a complete waste for your sponsor also most readers will be turned off which will effect your return visit rate.

QUICK SEO TIPS

SEO stands for search engine optimization.  I mentioned that there are sites that post multiple times a day, this is important for search engines to find you because it means you are updating your site regularly and it shows that you are a relevant resource. Of course you don’t have to write multiple times a day, but seriously if you are going to try to compete with mega blogs like Design Sponge than you better start ramping up those posts.

Make the titles of your blog posts SEO friendly.  I used to come up with clever + cheeky titles for my blog posts, but I had the good fortune to work at a place that hired a top notch SEO expert and he explained the importance of creating SEO savvy titles for the post.  For some reason it seems that when posts have numbers in it, it gets higher rankings when you are searching. The more specific the better. So instead of writing “AWESOME CRAFT RESOURCES’ as your blog title you should write ’5 AWESOME PAPER RESOURCES’.  It’s a minor tweak that could start getting more eyes on your blog. I notice a lot of the bigger blogs don’t do this so hopefully this will be something that can give you a little traction to get your blog noticed faster!

I hope you have enjoyed this series, I move cross country on Monday so I have some special lettering goodness lined up for you next week! Please let me know if you have had any experience with any of the above or disagree with me on any of my points (like side bar ads). I am always curious to learn your perspective!

P.S. A huge thank you to Jules for helping me with a frantic last minute email on ad networks!