Blogging for a Cause

While many bloggers maintain a blog for personal or social reasons or to generate an income, there are other bloggers who utilize their blogs to promote a cause. These blogs may be aimed at targeting a specific political or social cause depending on the interests of the blogger as well as blogger’s opinion that the blog can produce the political or social changes they are seeking. Blogs which are committed to promoting a particular cause may face more adversity than blogs with a lighter theme but they can also be very effective.

However, blog owners who opt to maintain this type of blog should be aware of the ramifications of this type of blog. For example blog owners may receive negative comments from readers of the blog who disagree with the cause. This article will offer a few tips for choosing a cause for a blog and for promoting the blog to interested visitors.

Choosing a Cause for a Blog

Choosing a cause for a blog can vary in difficulty from extremely easy to incredibly difficult. The difficulty in making this decision will depend largely on the personal beliefs of the blog owner. A blog owner who is already committed to a particular cause will likely find this decision to be rather simple while blog owners who either have no strong social or political convictions or who have a wide variety of causes they wish to promote can find making this decision to be rather difficult. There are, however, a few factors the blog owner should carefully consider before selecting a cause to promote in a blog.

First and foremost a blog owner should select an issue for which they are either already quite knowledgeable or for which they are willing to do a great deal of research. This is important because the blog owner should post blog entries on a regular basis. These blog entries should be accurate and informative to the reader. Therefore, the blog owner should be well versed in the subject matter or at least interested in learning more about the subject matter.

Blog owners should also carefully consider the potential for influencing blog visitors regarding the topic of the blog. Although it will not be possible to convince all visitors to the blog to believe in the cause promoted by the blog, the blog owner should select a subject with which he is confident visitors to the blog will be influenced to agree with the viewpoints he presents in the blog.

Promoting the Blog to Interested Visitors

Once a blog owner decides on a subject for the blog, it is time to figure out how to promote the blog to the target audience. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways. For the sake of brevity, this article will discuss promoting a blog through search engine optimization and promoting a blog through participation in relevant forums.

Search engine optimization is a very effective way for promoting a blog. This practice involves making efforts to increase the search engine rankings to ensure interested Internet users are directed to the blog. This can be done in a number of different ways including careful use of appropriate keywords, appropriate use of tags such as title tags and image tags and generating back links to the blog. All of these efforts can help to improve search engine rankings which should also improve blog traffic.

Blog owners can also promote their blog by participating in relevant forums and message boards. The blog owner may simply participate in these forums and offer relevant input while including a link to the blog in his signature. Other forum users are likely to click on the link if the blog owner is well respected within the forum. The blog owner may even be able to incorporate a link to his blog in the message body of forum posts if it appropriate and acceptable according toe the message board guidelines.

 

Eating Healthy This Holiday Season

The holidays are coming, are you ready? If you are like most people, one of the biggest   concerns about holidays is “eating right” or “gaining weight” during the holidays.

If you are concerned with the health value of the foods that you eat, as we all should be, it is important to learn about which foods are the healthiest for you. Healthy foods include a healthy variety of different foods from all of the food groups, but if you want to make the most healthy choices, here are the best foods to eat on a regular basis:

From the vegetable food group, try foods that are green and pack a lot of punch when it comes to vitamins and mineral. Good choices include kale, asparagus, celery, peas, green beans, and spinach. Of course, regardless of color, most vegetables are very healthy for your diet. You can also choose carrots, eggplant, shiitake mushrooms, potatoes, squash, and yams to round out your vegetable intake. The same goes for fruits—look for natural products that are high in nutritional value, like apples, bananas, figs, oranges, pears, plums, raspberries, grapes, lemons, and watermelon.

When it comes to meat, fish, and dairy, there are a variety of good choices you can make. Look for products that are low in fat and cholesterol. Of meat and fish, try lean beef, lamb, cod, chicken breast, turkey, shrimp, scallops, tuna, and venison. From the dairy food group, 2% milk, yogurt, eggs, and low-fat cheese are all good choices.

Of course, getting your daily dose of nuts and grains is important too for carbohydrates and extra protein. Nut and seed products such as almonds, flaxseeds, extra virgin olive oil, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds are tasty and good for your health. In bread and other grain products, look for foods that include barley, corn, buckwheat, oats, rye, and whole wheat. Stay away for white bread as much as possible in favor of these wheat or whole-grain products.

If you feel like you need a sweet sugary fix, staying away from products like soda and candy is important for a healthy diet. Instead, look for natural sweeteners, like honey, maple syrup, and molasses, which all add that sweetness you desire without hurting your diet. Love lots of flavor? You don’t need sugar of fat for that either! Try healthy spices like basil, black pepper, cilantro, dill, ginger, oregano, peppermint, rosemary, sage, and thyme, which are great to give bland foods a kick.

Above all, drink a lot of water to stay hydrated throughout the day. This should replace drinks like soda that are bad for your body. Green tea is another great drink for you, or you can look for water with flavorings and carbonation to get that soda-like taste without all the empty calories.

Above everything else, don’t let food become an obsession for you over the holidays. If you eat healthy during the week, splurging a little on the weekend should not make you feel guilty. Just know that on Monday you will go back to good healthy eating again and you can enjoy your holidays and enjoy your holiday treats in moderation and not feel guilty at all.

If you would like more advice on taking care of yourself as a WAHM please visit my website www.workathomemom247.com

 

Under The Weather

Been a little under the weather this last week.  Think the cold and flu season may have hit a little earlier than normal, or maybe I am just running a little later than usual and the cold and flu season started weeks ago.  I am not sure about anything these days.

Thing is, I felt it coming on and I tried all the homeopathic remedies I could find, zinc, echinacea, green tea, vitamin C, lots of fluids and still I get this terrible cold.  What’s up with that?  I guess you can’t beat the inevitable.  I was meant to get sick.

Anybody know where the saying “under the weather” came from?  I mean, how exactly can one be “under” the weather?   Interesting saying don’t you think.

I am going back to bed, just looking at this poor little girl in the picture is making me feel sick again!

 

My Halloween

Enough said!!!

 

Need Some Sleep

This whole thing with Webhostingpad has really taken a toll on me.  I have been so stressed out with having dozens of emails and phone calls back and forth with them that I have literally done nothing else.  It is like I have been paralyzed by the Webhostingpad witch doctors.

The trauma, or drama is over now.  No, I did not change servers but, I was VERY close to it!!!  They called me and told me they had run out of ideas and that they really didn’t think they could help me, they said the last thing I could try was changing my internet server over from Internet Explorer to Firefox.  Now, they had suggested this before but I did not want to change my Internet Server.  I like IE, I don’t care if Webhostingpad doesn’t I do.  But, again at this point I was ready to try voodoo dolls if needed.

So, I changed my internet web browser over to Firefox…. huh….. it worked!!!  Let’s think…. so, are you thinking what I am thinking?  No, that is not it.  I am thinking Webhostingpad has changed something and it is making it not compatible with Internet Explorer.  So, even though they told me NO ONE else has complained about this same problem, the minute I change from IE to Firefox, all is fixed!?!?!  Hmmm, I say to myself.  LIARS!!!

Anyway, I am back to some sort of sanity now…. okay, anyway, I am back to writing again I hope.  And come February when it is time to renew my webhosting serves, it will NOT be with Webhostingpad!