Beauty 4 Moms

Pin It Now! Despite that most blogs rarely make enough money a month to pay for a trip to McDonalds, the city of Philadelphia has found a new method to make money from this: Apply taxes to blogs. Can you believe it?

According to the Philadelphia City Paper, Marilyn Bess, a Philadelphia resident who owns and operates a blog called MS Philly Organic. She blogs about green living and over the past few years her blog (and her contributed articles to ehow.com) have made about $50. Despite her insignificant income she has now been requested by the city government to fork over fees, licenses and taxes to the sound of $300! Bess received a letter from the city requiring her to pay $300 for a business privilege license and on top of that she has also been ordered to pay other taxes such as a pay wage tax, net profits tax and business privilege tax. What happened when Bess tried to reason with city officials? She was told to “hire an accountant.”

City Council members Bill Green and Maria Quinones-Sanchez were also outraged to hear stories like Bess' and have proposed a bill to reform the city’s business privilege tax. It will still require blogs to pay a privilege license if their websites are meant for profit purposes but they are proposing Philadelphia bloggers to pay a lifetime fee of $300 or $50 a year. As a blogger, I am in favor of the one time fee as opposed to the outrageous business license and taxes. Don't get me wrong though, I am an honest blogger, one who pays taxes on all the cash income I make and taxes on the retail value of the products I receive for review (which can add up with reviews like the Dyson & Keurig). I am beyond blessed to have the wonderful readers that I do which does turns into a few profitable ad sales but I truly love blogging and would continue doing it without pay if I had to, which was how I started out after all. Well, would you look at that! I went from writing a post full of frustration at PA's stingy taxes and ended up thankful for the opportunity to reach and interact with so many delightful women. I guess if I had to pay the fee it wouldn't be too bad after all. :-)

Pin It Now!
I used a cool program from Wordle.net to compile the most frequently used words on Beauty 4 Moms and I thought you might like to see. Go ahead and try it out for yourself! You can link it to your blog, a random website, or just type a bunch of words in the text box. : )

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I want to refer my readers who are bloggers to my favorite affiliate program. Do you have a Website? Join Logical Media today and start generating easy income. Click Here and you'll have access to the best campaigns available on the web. You'll get personalized service. I've been impressed with the help they've provided me and I've had many questions (I was the kid in school who always had their hand up). Don't sell yourself short by assuming your blog's readership is too small to be accepted. Just apply, cross your fingers, and see what happens. If you apply and your application is turned down, just wait a few months and apply again.

Logical Media was recommended by a friend some months ago and am I ever glad I signed up. They are fabulous, absolutely the best in my opinion. Although a very small percent of the free sample offers I post are affiliate offers this is still one way that I can get paid for the time I spend blogging. I feel that it is worthwhile for me to post quality affiliate offers because the change does add up.

I've put together 4 tips for bloggers on posting any affiliate offers:

1. Stay true to yourself
Do not post any affiliate offer if it is not something you would blog about anyway. Be selective about which offers you choose to post. Try to find ones that you have a genuine interest in and your readers will hopefully agree. Never post anything that you wouldn't enjoy taking advantage of yourself!

2. Stay current
Affiliate offers vary in the lengths of time they run. Some will run fine for months but some expire just a few days after they start. When this happens they will email you to make you aware of the change. Many of the free sample offers are still available but not as an affiliate offer. When this happens just update your link by finding the non-affiliate link to the same offer.

3. Stay knowledgeable
Research all the details of the campaign so that you understand thoroughly what you will be sharing with your readers. Ask your readers about their experience with specific websites or companies so you can change ads to better meet their needs. For instance, if I've receive poor feedback from my readers about a specific company I will no longer promote them on my website or if I've heard rave reviews about a baby product I am more likely to post another baby item.

4. Stay clear of clutter
You should post a few of your choice offers in the sidebar but don't show all of them. The more clutter you have in your sidebars, the longer it takes for your blog to load and the more likely people are to leave.

I hope this was useful to you! As always, please feel free to share your own tips, comments or questions in the comments section.