Bloggertunities: Earn More, Learn More, Grow Your Blog Traffic

Grow your blog – Get more blog traffic, earn more money with your blog, and connect with new people… Hi all! Welcome to another weekly Bloggertunities post – a round-up of the best blogging tips, tools, leads, opps, and events of the week. I hope you’ll find some helpful stuff – and if you do, be sure to share it! And if you have something awesome to share – event sign ups, linkys, tips posts, etc – post ‘em in the comments! I do my best to tweet your links out all week.

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the year.” – Spanish proverb

That quote is so true – especially when it comes to blogging, lol. How many times have you said, “Tomorrow I’ll redo my About Me page.” {Mine is totally outdated, ugh.} “Tomorrow I’ll catch up on those emails.” Right? I’d love to hear any tips that you guys have for staying on top of things, completing your WHOLE to-do list each day, and being productive even with all of the crazy distractions of working at home. Leave me some comments with your best advice, or blog posts on the topic – and let me know if I have permission to use your quote or info in an upcoming tips post! Now – on to some cool new stuff from around the web, that I hope is helpful for you guys this week…

Tools and Resources to Grow Your Blog

• PicMonkey Collage: The amazing Sadie shows you, step by step, how to create a collage in PicMonkey. You can use this site totally free, or pay a small fee to upgrade and have access to some additional layouts and tools, but you can do a ton with just the free version too.Awesome Tools and Resources
• Guest Post Search: This is very cool… A new article from Copyblogger that gives you three new ways to search for legit places to write quality guest posts. I’d never heard of one of them, and would never have thought of using the other two this way.
• Books: Some of my favorite business books for creative thinkers – All available on Amazon, and all are super helpful to me when coming up with unique new ways to run all of my online businesses.
• Fashion: Get a list of Top 10 Resources for Fashion Bloggers. Even if you’re not a fashion blogger, there are some really great tips and tools you can use, that work for any type of blog.
• Malware Checker: This is a helpful site if you’re worried that you’ve been hacked or are having other problems. Use Site Inspector to run a quick, and totally free, scan of your site to get info to help you figure out what to do.
• Smore: This is SUCH a cool site. I used it a couple of weeks ago to make an online flyer to promote my latest giveaways, and it got over 100 views in 3 hours. So cool. This free tool works great for so many things – school fundraisers, local events, birthdays, house parties, business promotions, sales, and so much more. Learn how to make a free online promotional flyer using Smore.com today.
• Stealing Photos: This is SUCH a big problem. I just found another blogger who was using photos hijacked off of my site to earn money with affiliates – pretending that the product shot was hers, and that it was a current offer. Except it was a year and a half old, taken in my kitchen. Funny in a way, but frustrating for me – and unethical to her readers. But it happens EVERY day. This post has a great explanation on how to easily learn if people are using your photos without permission.
• Crafty Bloggers: If you post a lot of crafty or DIY type posts, then you’ll find some really helpful tips in this post – Top 10 Resources for Crafty & DIY Bloggers.

Events, Linkys, Networking, and Promoting Posts

• March Writing Challenge: This is so fun – it’s a month’s worth of little mini-challenges, prompts to encourage you to jump outside your normal box and write about something new. These types of things always get my creativity flowing again!
• Craft, Bake, Rant Linky: Ok, last week I said I was going to create a post JUST for this linky – I would bake up something crafty, and rant about it, lol. But alas, that will have to wait until next week. But if you have a post that fits any of those three topics, link it up!
• Food Blogging: If you post a lot of baking and recipes, I put together a big list of over 30 sites – besides FoodGawker and Taste Spotting – to submit your favorite recipe posts to. And be sure to check out my Top 10 Resource List for Food Bloggers too.
• Mommy Solutions: I just love this. Link you anything that would be considered a “solution” – food, kids activity, DIY, organization or cleaning tips, fashion ideas, and more. The Mommy Solutions Linky.
• #WholeLottaLove Linky: This is an awesome link up – link one of your favorite posts, something you really liked, but never got the attention that you felt it deserved – or that you hoped for. Then be sure to take some time to comment and share the others too.

Product and Writing Opps

• Twitter Lead Tuesday: This post is always packed with cool stuff to check out, all leads found on Twitter. Since it comes out a day before my Bloggertunities does each week, I totally recommend signing up for her emails too, so you can get the update as soon as it comes out!
• Lucky Magazine: If you’re a trendy type, who loves fashion and beauty, sign up to be part of the Lucky Community, and have chances to contribute your posts and opinions to the people at Lucky Magazine and website.
• SheHeard: If you haven’t signed up for this awesome network yet – then you, my friend, are missing out. They have had some seriously awesome opps lately – so make sure to join the fun and sign up today!
• Blogging Opps: This is a post I wrote for the Blogathon last month – with a list of over 20 networks and sites to join, that will help connect you with more paid blogging opportunities.
• Social Chorus: I just recently started working with them – but my very first campaign was a Windows Phone ambassadorship, which has been really awesome. Learn more and sign up for Social Chorus.

Monetizing Your Blog

• Integrate: This is a really interesting network, very different than a lot of others that I’ve worked with. For some tips on how it works, read my Getting Started with Integrate.com post. Or visit their site to read more, and join today.
• Link Vehicle: Here, you can get offers for text links, sponsored posts, or banner ads. The price that they quote you, you will always receive just half of that – they keep the other half. So be aware of that up front – since it’s not always made very clear at sign-up. The pay isn’t huge, but I get a check each month, and choose what works well on my site. Learn more about Link Vehicle.
• Business2Blogger: You’ll find everything from paid posts to product reviews on this site. I was able to get connected to a brand who flew me to Texas to cover a really cool event earlier this year, by applying for the opp on the Business 2 Blogger site. Lots of new opportunities going up each week, so check back often. Sign up for their Blogger Outreach.
• Social Spark: This is a site where you get offers for sponsored posts, accept or decline, and then write posts at an agreed on price, which gets paid out via PayPal – very simple projects. Sometimes you’ll even get products to try out too. Learn more and apply for Social Spark today.
• Escalate: This is one of the easiest affiliates to work with, and they have SUPER quick payouts each month, at only $25 minimum to get a check our PayPal payment. Sweet, right? Great offers for mom bloggers.
• Logical: One of my fave things about Logical Media is that the offers they have available stay valid for a LONG time. So that I can get clicks and conversions on posts that I wrote a year ago, that still get random traffic. So great! Logical Media – Make Money!

Hope you enjoyed! If you want to make sure you don’t miss the weekly updates, be sure to sign up for email updates. {Especially since you know Facebook doesn’t show you anything anymore, lol.} You can follow me on Twitter here too – or on my Sunshine and Sippy Cups Google+ page, or even my personal Google+ if you’d like :) Have a great week!

BROWSE ALL OF THE GOOD STUFF IN PAST BLOGGERTUNITIES POSTS, AND CHECK OUT MY BIG BLOGGING & SOCIAL MEDIA BOARD ON PINTEREST FOR MORE TIPS TOO!

 {Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. But all opps and leads listed are things that I trust, and have used myself. I only share what I love with ya’all! Photo Credit.}