Halloween is approaching

You can almost smell it in the air! Or maybe that's my pumpkin spice candle that I bought to get me in the mood.

Summer is officially behind us, and the kids are in school full swing. The next thing we need to think about is "What are you going to be for Halloween?" and where can I find a costume?

My kids can't decide what they want to be...My son says he wants to be a vampire, then a baseball player, or maybe he'll wear his Indiana Jones costume again. Decisions, decisions.

At The Mom Tree, you can find different Halloween crafts that we've done with our kids. They are inexpensive and they add Halloween decor throughout your house. Not to mention the fun and time spent with the kids creating happy projects together.

I would love to hear what the hottest Halloween costumes are this year. I think with the Twilight craze, it's sparked a frenzy for vampire costumes, but what do I know?

Back to School

I live in Arizona, and the school district that my kids are a part of is considered year round. So, my kids went back to school in July! It is so hot here, that there is not much to do after a few weeks, so getting back into school is welcome, to me and to the kids. Yes, even the kids were excited to get back to school and see their friends.

Being that it is "Back to school" time, my kindergarten poem web page has gotten a lot of activity. If you haven't read it yet, and you have a child going into kindergarten, get a tissue and read. I remember when my daughter went to kindergarten, a mom had printed this poem on a piece of paper and handed it out to all the mothers. It was so sweet!

Poems are a nice way for moms to connect. If you have a great poem that you would like to share with other moms, please do! I enjoy reading them and my viewers do as well. Thank you for supporting The Mom Tree!

Not much to report

I have to say that running a website is a big job, and a neverending one. It takes time to balance working and the website, and there never seems to be enough.

Motivation is another thing that we struggle with. Finding good, useful and unique content is always a challenge, but SOOOOO important for a valuable website to thrive. We have been slumping with articles, so this week and into next we will be focusing on some good information and could use any ideas from our readers!

Our traffic has remained quite consistent, so that is good---Thank you!! We've sort of taken a break from LinkedIn and other social sites, but are going to get back into those forums to see what women want when they are online.

I wish I had more inspiring and exciting news to report...but I don't. We are hanging in there, but haven't turne The Mom Tree into the Money Tree yet. lol We've got to remember...this is a journey, not a destination! Happy twittering and blogging!!!!

The Mom Tree

We got a huge burst of traffic at The Mom Tree over the weekend, probably due to Mother's Day. Our Moms poems got a lot of hits, which is great that moms and others are enjoying the delightful poems.

We are going to start working on our Father's Day page, as that day is coming up quicker than we think.

We have tried ppc, and have found that it isn't very profitable. If someone ever says that SEO is easy, they are wrong! Particularly for the people who aren't very familiar with it all. You can drop a lot of cash if you don't know what you are doing. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know and I will try it. I will also post your info here.

I have gotten results with the Twitter Traffic Machine. I think that growing my following in the "Mommy" niche has helped bring people to my website. Thank you to all my visitors!!

Another day goes by.....exciting things ahead!!

Twitter traffic

I got my first sale for Twitter Traffic Machine a couple days ago!! While it took a couple weeks, if that, it was totally free advertising since I was using twitter. So it works, but would probably work better if I had more time to devote to Twitter. I love it, though I find you can get really involved in some of the social sites, that time goes by quickly and before you know it the day is done.

I am also seeing an increase in traffic, plus it is quality traffic, since I am targeting a "mom" audience. I think I should spend more time on it over the weekend as there are many interesting moms and mom businesses to be discovered.

I love SiteBuildIt, too, because I can see my traffic, what pages are being looked at and what sources the traffic is coming from, which I really like. I've got to go to work now, so will write more later. Have a great Friday!!

Facts about the Swine Flu

I was really worried this morning because I had the news on as my kids were getting ready for school, and all I heard about was the Swine Flu. It seems there is a lot of concern and panic going on due to the media. While I think the media is important for informing the public, they tend to walk a fine line between inducing panic and relaying information.

I went home and looked up information on the CDC website, listened to the radio and came up with some important facts that we should know about the Swine Flu. Remember SARS years ago? Well, we were able to keep that under control and prevent it from spreading, and we can do the same with the Swine Flu.

Stay informed, don't get scared and be responsible. Teach your kids about the importance of washing your hands with soap and water, stay home if you are sick and don't make contact with people who are sick. Please leave any other facts or tips in the comments or contact us at The Mom Tree, and we will post on our website.

Brainstorming for the week

I am finding that a lot of the social media can be very time consuming. I really have found that Twitter is definitely worth the time to set up and get to know. Now that things are moving a long, it won't take up as much time, and I can send out tweets and build my following on autopilot, which is nice.

Mother's Day is coming up, and we haven't planned very well for it! We are still getting used to providing services and marketing, so I think we will start to think about Father's Day at least. Our wine section is getting a lot of attention, and is one of my personal favorites, too. Every couple of weeks, I will add a new fact to our Wine Facts page as I learn them. There are some neat facts about wine that I didn't know!

Today, I need to get motivated to clean my house! That is priority today...business tomorrow!