Hi again!
My family and I just took an awesome mini vacation… and it was FREE!  Thank you, YourModernFamily.com for that!  No, seriously, I used my blog to barter for a free vacation.
We have gone to the beach, stayed in free hotels, gone to Disney, Universal Studios, Dollywood, Six Flags, aquariums, museums, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, etc… all for free, using my blog as my bartering tool.

So I am writing this on here b/c a lot of you have been wondering how to do just that for some time now.  I had been using my blog to barter for places to stay & then my friend Jamie told me about using it for tickets, too… yay… so now I do both (and often).  Today I am sharing tips with you: How to get free trips, etc for blogging….

We were already planning a week long vacation to Hilton Head, South Carolina.   I started calling months in advance to see if I could blog about bikes for free rentals.  It worked.  I was able to rent nine bikes for one week… for free.    I also called a company, in Hilton Head, that offers canoe and kayaking tours and I offered to write about them, so they gave our family an 11 mile Kayaking tour.

Then, we wanted to extend our trip after Hilton Head and go to Atlanta.  I called three hotels and offered to “blog about them” in return for a free stay… and two of them called me back and said that we could stay there for our visit.  I took the offer of the company that was the kindest and that I felt I could give a really great review to, because the manager was so nice!   We were offered a full weekend stay for free… (in a presidential suite!! That part surprised me).   It was AMAZING, to say the least!   I felt so pampered!   We stayed for the weekend and we had a great time!  I can’t wait to blog about it!
I was also able to get free Six Flags tickets, as well as tickets to the Georgia Aquarium (just by calling the managers) with an offer to blog about them after our visit.

ALL free and ALL for blogging about our trip.

To top it off, one of the companies asked my family and I to visit their NEW resort in Myrtle Beach this fall, on their dime!   We said YES!  We were then approached to stay at the mountains a month later.

So what did I do, exactly?
I made a list of what I wanted (places to stay, activities to do while there).  I wrote them down with the phone number and name of the manager.   I called each place (at a quiet time in the day) and asked to speak with the manager of PR.

I told the manager that my family and I were going to be in the area and we wanted to find somewhere to stay (or something to do) that I could share with my readers.   I told them that I wanted to give my readers the specific details of where I was staying, or where to get the bikes, where to canoe, etc… so that they could use my post to plan their trip (all true).

I shared my blog numbers with them (my UMV, my PV, even my posting rate, so they could could see that they were getting a deal).

It is awesome that we can “barter” like this, as bloggers!!   I have been able to barter for products and now that we can barter for vacations, the sky seems like the limit!  We are planning a trip to the beach in the fall, the mountains in the fall and the beach again in the summer… and guess who is paying for it?    #ThisBlogIsAHugeBlessing 

So- for those that wonder how to do it.. my answer: Just call, speak to the manager and be honest. Tell them what you do, give them your page to look around.   They all knew everything about me when they called me back, so they had already looked around my page.

In the end, I would say that 50% of them were open to the idea, and about 25% came back with “Yes”.

My tips:
Be kind
Be very honest with your stats & what you will be doing for them (ex: photos, links to their page)
Plan months in advance and if you get NO’s, call the night before to see what they can do (if they have had cancellations!)
Have a back-up plan!

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For more tips on pitching brands yourself check out ALL of our secrets for contacting brands on your own to get free products or payment check out our how to pitch brands draft letters and tips! 

The post How to use your blog to barter for a free vacation appeared first on Becky & Paula.

Here is how to make a full-time income blogging, with a break-down:

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• I have 2 million- 3 million page views a month on yourmodernfamily.com
• I have been blogging for about four years.
• This income does not include what I make on my other websites or from teaching other people how to blog, it’s strictly from my parenting site!
• I work from home, with four kids, so my hours a day vary greatly from 1 hour to 8 hours, depending on what kind of day it is (preschool day or home day, sports practice or not, early bedtime or late bedtime).
• My husband works from home, too, on his blog and mine, so he helps me to take care of the house, meals & kids.  We work as a team in everything we do!
• I write a lot of books and I give a 50% affiliate fee to anyone that sells them.  This helps a lot.

Here is how I earn money:

• I started a blog.  Yep.  That’s what I did.  You can jump right into starting a blog here (in 2 minutes).  If you want more details, you can buy our book about starting a blog here. 
• I write books that sell a lot.  It varies.   I self-published all of my books and that allows me to keep a bigger profit.   I highly suggest everyone write a book.  Find your very best post (highest page views) and turn it into a book.  Here is a post that covers everything about writing a book.  Here are our blogging books that you can sell (you get a % of the sales) and here are my books that you can sell for a 50% affiliate fee.
  Here is a course about reaching your publishing dreams. (Paula took this course before she published her first book and LOVED it. We highly recommend it or this ebook to get you started!)
• I swaps guest posts for book shares.  I will ask someone with more Facebook fans than me to promote my book (using their affiliate link) in exchange for guest posts on their page.
• For my blog, I often have posts that go viral.  I write what I would want to read and then I share that post.  Most of my posts do well because people want to read it, too.  That helpful hint that you do at home?  Share it.   That wonderful parenting Ah-Ha moment?  Share it.
• I take pictures that bring readers to my posts.  This book is perfect to learn how to take pictures of food (but I use the techniques to for all of my photos)
• I write sponsored posts.   This means that companies reach out to me and ask me to talk about their product.  They send me the product and they pay me money to write about it.  I used to make $50/post my first few months.  Now I make $1800 or more for my posts.
• I have ads on my website.
• I am an affiliate of many companies, like Etsy.  I make a lot on affiliate sales.  I sell on Facebook and in my posts, by showing my favorite things. and I do a lot with Craftsy because they offer freebies for my readers.
• I pin a lot.  I use Board Booster to pin.  It is a game-changer for me!   I spent about 4 hours one day setting Board Booster up & I never had to do it again.   Well- once a day I go in & pin my new pin for the day.
• I send out e-mails.  Every week.  These e-mails have links to a lot of different books and products that my readers can buy.  They have links to posts that they can read.  I use Convert Kit and I love it.If you combine the women of Bloggers Tell All, they are making millions of dollars in revenue each year, with around 25-30 million page views a month.  It can be done.   They are the proof. 
  Related:  SIGN UP FOR OUR BLOG TIPS WITH OUR NEWSLETTER HERE. 
• Try to include an affiliate link in every post (not sponsored posts).
• I use my Facebook page to promote those affiliate links, too.
• You can pin your affiliate links by doing a roundup of them & pinning from there.  Example:  20 best birthday gifts for your one-year-old   Link each one to an affiliate link & you can pin all of them.   It will bring the Pinterest readers to you & they can go to the store from there.

Here a few of my top posts, if you want to see an example: 
1- When Elf on the Shelf forgot to move
2- Why I still carry my kids
3- Potty Train in 3 days
4- Mommy, will you lay with me? 
5- Stocking Stuffers

MORE POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE: 

• Check out our income reports here.
• How to get your first million readers.

The post How to make money blogging appeared first on Becky & Paula.

We share our blogging income reports here as inspiration for you.  Many bloggers, like myself, when I started, thought making money on a blog was “dreaming big”.  I just wanted to make enough to pay for preschool, but I have been able to make far more than that… and you can, too.  I hope that you find this report helpful.

My income this month, as with every month, is calculated BEFORE expenses (expenses are several thousands of dollars!)  This is also my PENDING income (what I am owed for work done in July).

Before I forget…  you can join us on our private Facebook Group for this website here.  We talk about tips, ideas, etc… with almost 6,000 bloggers

How many hours do I work a day?

I would say that some days I work four hours on YMF, but other days I don’t work at all.  It really is a toss-up.  I try to work from 8:00 pm- 1:00 am (while the kids are sleeping, taking 1-2 hours off to watch TV with Mickey).   
This is our job – we blog to earn a living. 

I try not to work on anything “important” during the day (sponsored posts or even regular posts) because the kids will probably be around and I don’t want to be distracted when they are talking to me.

PV: My Page views were lower this month (about a million less than they were a few months back), but you can see that my income went up, again.   This to say that it doesn’t matter (too much) what your PVs are… it is what you are doing with your blog that really makes a difference – are you adding affiliate links into your posts?  Are you making products?   Are you using your social media to sell?  You can do these things & increase your earnings.   
Page views this month: 2 million

Monthly Earning RECAP:

First month- blogging- I made about $5 and a free pizza!
A few years later… I was earning enough that my husband was able to quit his job and we both work from home, growing our online business. 

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

• Tap Influence-
• Izea-
• Others (personal email offers, etc…)
  Total % from Sponsored posts this month: 20%.Affiliates:
• Share a Sale
• CJ.com
• Affiliates
• Newest affiliate (ebates)
• BlueHost
• Amazon
  Total % from affiliates: 20%
• Speaking engagement-
  Linqia
• Moms affiliates- (referral)
• MLM

Total misc. about 5% 

• Collaborative ebook
• My e-books and paperback books
  My books: POTTY TRAIN IN A WEEKEND  and You can be a Stay at Home Mom on One Income and FREED from Clutter and a new printable of my Wall-Bed instructions.Total from my books & products: about 40%
• Adthive ads  (my ad income went down a bit, even though page views were the same)
  Total from ads: about 15%
• I had a few other things (ex: sales of specific products, sponsored social media posts, etc…)

What I want to do BETTER next month:

1. My goal for months now has been to get ALL of my ebooks onto paperback via Createspace – STILL WORKING ON THIS!  I want to do this.  It is just time consuming.
2. I am working on a project with a few bloggers where we will give 100% of the proceeds to charity – it is called THE MOM QUILT.  We are getting ready to publish it!
3. Working on an E-Course.
4. Start making more YouTube Videos.   Mickey made a few and figured out the editing, etc… so now we just need to do more.   I am still working on this one.
   We are going to do this…   REALLY!
5. Organize my Pinterest page more
6. Turn BeckyMansfield.com into a real thing & not just a page that redirects to YMF (like it has been doing for 3 years now)

~~~ Exciting things on the rise~~~

• I will be speaking at another conference in September.   I was also invited to three blogging conferences as a VIP member, which is exciting.  I haven’t quite decided which ones we are going to go to just yet, but we are weighing each option (we don’t want to be gone from the kids very much).
• I have a VERY exciting commercial shoot with an amazing celebrity coming up, too, but more details on that as they unfold in the media!
• I am going to finally be turning my BeckyMansfield.com into a real page and not just one that redirects to YourModernFamily (as it has done for the past 3 years! haha!)  Mickey and I want to start sharing our daily life happenings over there (along with videos, etc…)

For now- you can keep up with us on INSTAGRAM.  I am YourModernFamily and he is YourModernDad

EXPENSES

Media Kit (I’m having it done- it is almost finished. yay!)
Affiliate payments (I paid out close to $250 this month)
Contributors
Editing sources
Virtual Assistant (she helps with my Facebook shares)
Deposit Photos and Dollar Photo Club – where I am getting my images.  We spend at least $60 a month on this, between YourModernFamily & YourModernDad.  It is worth every penny!
Newsletter cost – it is several hundreds of dollars a month
Picmonkey, ejunkie, etc…
Equipment (desks, office supplies)
Hosting Fees
Programs for our computers.
A quick  books course that Mickey took
Dinner/lunch blog meetings.
Project materials (ex: ingredients)
Young Living Oils
QSciences
Rodan + Fields products
Trips/traveling expenses

Happy Blogging!
Becky Mansfield

My finance goals:

1. Pay off the mortgage.   (we aren’t paying it off all at once because we are putting money into retirement, too)
2. Build up retirement
3. Build up the kid’s college savings account (four kids!)
4. Give more money to charities (I have started dedicating certain books & projects to this)

Do you want to hear more about how we reach our financial goals?  Check out our books…

Or you can get our latest fast-track book:

Thanks!
Becky

PS- are you ready to start a blog?  Start here…

The post Blogger Income Report – July 2015 appeared first on Becky & Paula.

This post contains affiliate links that help us & hopefully help you, too!!

There are new ways to make money blogging popping up every day and I wanted to share three of them them with you today.

Well they are all new to me- I’ve known about #3 for a while, but I”m finally putting it into play on my blog.

1. Izea

They have finally made the “switch”.  We had been hearing about it for MONTHS, but it has arrived!  Are you signed up?  You “bid” on jobs that you want.  You look through, find what you want and make a bid.  (Similar to Sverve).   You can bid on sponsored tweets, posts or other social media updates.

NOTE:
I was so confused because you only get three bids, so I e-mailed them and they told me that I can upgrade (so can you) to have unlimited bids for $1 a month, but to do this you have to put a credit card on file or use the money that you have made through them.  They have their payout after 6 weeks, so  you might need to put a card on file to do this sooner (instead of waiting the 6 weeks to use your balance).  Find out more here. 

2- Moms Affiliate

I literally JUST signed up for this one, but it looks great.  You can find jobs that you like, similar to Izea.   They even have coupons & deals that you can share and you make money every time someone prints the coupon or uses the deal or code.   I suggest you click “take the tour” when you join to find out all of the perks!  Find out more here. 

3- Affiliates of other places.

So, what I have started doing lately is finding popular companies and sharing about them!   Here are my favorite ones (click on the links to be taken to the sign-up form for affiliates)

1– Ebates.  You earn $5 for each blogger that you refer, plus you make money if you promote them on your blog & your readers take advantage of it!

A few examples:  
I love Jane.com and so do my readers.  I know this because I shared a few things that I liked on there and found that my interaction (via Facebook) was high.   So- I joined share a sale and became an affiliate of Jane.com.  Now I try to share at least one thing a week from there- something that I LOVE!    I don’t make a ton of money, but it is easy money.   Last month I made around $100 and I only posted 4 times, I think, on Facebook.   Easy money & sharing something that I would share either way!

Another example is GroopDealz.  Similar to Jane.  Its awesome.

Another example is ABCmouse.com.   I post about Kindergarten a lot on my website, so adding a few great teaching tools in there is a no-brainer!   I joined CommissionJunction and I just tell my readers about the free month on  ABCmouse.com (free trial) and they jump on board.   I know that they will love it because I love it (I actually have a year membership to it because our kids are crazy for it!)

Bloggers- help other bloggers by sharing things that you love.  Paula and I used Bluehost as our host for a very long time.  When you tell OTHER bloggers about it, you make $65 for the referral!    I started telling other blogging friends that if they joined, they could use our referral link and we would split the cost of the referral fee that I would make.   So- instead of them paying their fee and neither of us getting anything, I would make $32.50 and they would make $32.50.   It really was a win-win!  
I hope that was helpful!   If you are looking for more ways to make money- I have a huge list right here. 

The post 4 new ways to make money blogging (& how to use them) appeared first on Becky & Paula.

I came across something that I found to be VERY interesting this past week.   As some of you know, I had my page redesigned (with the help of Jornie.com… she can ad widgets anywhere on your page for a fee)  Well, when I was playing around with where I wanted my google ads, I found that the small banner looked so much nicer, but at the end of the day, I had shocking results!   If you are wondering which size adsense ad should I use – this will help!

First- a little background on my adsense ad placement:   I only have the google ads at the top if my page and I keep one on my sidebar.  I rarely include them in my post (mostly because I forget about it).   So all of this information to follow is about the google ad that sits above the fold (my “money maker”)- the sidebar ad rarely gets clicks.

Take a look at this.

One June 23rd, I made $28.51 (My average is around $30-$40 a day) – this is the day that I had a Medium Rectangle (300 X 250) on my page, right above my post:

One June 24th, I moved to a banner ad instead:

I liked the look much better, because you could see the content right away, but look at this message from Google Adsense…

And I kept it there to see if it would happen again… here is today’s picture:

Now- my page views increased, so my money should have gone up, but it went way down.

So…  I did this (moved ad to header):

and guess what…?
My adsense income is back to normal! 

Moral of the story:  You get more bees with honey.    (You get more clicks with the big ad)  

Here are some Tips on how to increase your adsense (mine has doubled since writing that post, using these tips) 

Do you want us to take a look at your blog & tell you what we think would help?   Check out Your Best Blog service. 

The post The bigger ad gets the clicks … which size adsense ad should I use? appeared first on Becky & Paula.