Thanks to Amee with Madame Deals for this weeks post:

I love this site Pingdom.com. It will send you an alert when your site is down. I can’t tell you how many times I have needed this feature. It also has a variety of other tools that are useful for site management. One that is especially helpful is figuring out what on your site is redirecting.

Click on run a report

If you see an arrow then your site is redirecting. I have installed the plug-in Broken Link Checker it lets you know which links are broken so you can fix them. If you do not want to install a plug-in then you can go to Free Broken Link Checker . You will then need to go into each link and fix it.

These tools help you to figure out information quickly prior to having issues. You will need to fix these errors so that you do not limited your resources. You also do not want to have your readers have a poor user experience because they can’t find one of your posts.

From Dana:  I also use Pingdom to get an email if my site is down.  Even when I’m not online, I can be alerted to an issue on my website.   Google Webmaster tools is also a great way to find Crawl Errors, broken links and more information to help your site run smoothly.

You can view all our posts by searching Ask a Blogger.

I was thinking about some of the comments my fellow bloggers receive on their blogs and Facebook pages.  Honestly, some of the comments I’ve read on other sites shock me!

What do you do if you get a negative comment on your blog or Facebook page?  Do you delete it?  Do you leave it?

Personally, I believe that everyone has the right to express their opinions.  I encourage readers to comment on posts and share their thoughts.  I’m okay with someone disagreeing with me or telling me I made an error or don’t like  product. However, I will delete a comment that uses inappropriate language or is disrespectful to me or another reader.

That said, I rarely delete comments on my site.   I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t needed to delete comments on more than a few occasions.  Bottom line – feel free to express your opinions, just use your “big girl words.”

I’m curious.  Do you delete negative comments?

You can view all our posts by searching Ask a Blogger.

Thanks to Amee with Madame Deals for this weeks post.

How do you stay on top of all those affiliate companies. The answer is that in itself is a full-time job. The other answer is to not use more than four or five on a regular basis. I place my earnings in an excel spreadsheet each month. The company that I make the least with gets checked once or twice a week. The ones that I have been successful with I will check daily.

How do you define successful. I believe if you are running an offer you have to look at the time it takes to post an offer usually about 30 minutes once you have looked, written, and scheduled multiple postings for that offer. Then you need to determine what you make per hour to determine if an offer is useful to your audience. You can determine the usefulness using three factors. 1) Did they buy anything? 2) Did your customers click through to your post? 3) Did they leave a comment on your post.

If you want to make money blogging you need to not blog in the dark. That means if this is a business it needs to be treated as such. You should study your efforts against your earnings. There are three areas that I look at to determine my earnings. 1) The actual dollar amount an offer brings. 2) The number of clicks on the post which translates to pageviews. We get paid on ad page views so the more people that come to our sites translates into a higher revenue share. 3) The SEO that will bring future visitors that translates into future revenue.

This is my dashboard from the morning. I can tell that my readers were interested in a deal on pillow. They like my contests and the are interested my Ask A Nurse series. I also have a lot of readers that wish to know if they won my contests.

If I went on to evaluate this. I can tell you that people did purchase the pillows so that was worth my time. The contests are posted once and bring traffic daily so that is worth my time. The Nurse post brought traffic and will bring traffic in the future so it is valuable for SEO and content. The rest of the posts that I ran this morning of were previously published coupon printing ideas and reminders. I just rescheduled them. It is 12:00 noon and I have 1,880 page views and 569 are from search engines. I worked for 1 hour today not including the time to type this and I made money. I spent time with my family and even went to a birthday party. The purpose of this article is to think about your future. How will you bring traffic to your site for the long-term. How can you get paid with the least amount of effort and build a business that maximizes your time. The key is observation, documentation, evaluation, and action!

You can view all out posts by searching Ask a Blogger.

Blogging is a business and needs to be treated as such when considering taxes and liability. We can post all day about Blogging Tips & How to Make Money Blogging but at the end of the day, you better be on top of your taxes.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding LLC and S-Corps, so this week we brought in an expert to help.

Mom on Dealz is married to an account.  Lucky for us, he writes a weekly series titled Ask an Account to help answer a variety of tax questions including blog specific tax questions.

What is the Difference Between LLC and S-Corp?

LLC stands for Limited Liability Company.  This is a legal classification of business not recognized by taxing authorities.  There are two general types, single member LLC and multi-member LLC.  Single member can only have 1 member, multi-member must have more than 1 member.

An LLC’s main function is to provide a legal separation of business assets & liabilities from personal.  This legal strategy comes with certain tax attributes.  The LLC can provide unlimited losses without regard to the member’s basis (amount of money/property invested, earned & left in the business).  The LLC also pays Self-Employment tax on any profits (a very nasty 15% in addition to your normal tax rate).  Single member LLC files a Schedule C on your individual return; a multi-member LLC can opt to file a Form 1065 return (the same return as a partnership) or can elect to file Schedule C for the member’s potion of the Income or Loss.

A “Tax Election” can be made for both the single member LLC and the multi-member LLC to be taxed as an S-corp.  The entities still operate as LLC’s but take on S-Corp tax attributes in that they no longer pay Self-Employment tax on the profit, but rather they report the income (from a K-1) on their personal tax return.  The downfall is that the losses are now limited by the member’s basis in the company.

We hope this helps to clarify some of the confusion surrounding LLC and S-Corp.  The Coupon Challenge is currently becoming an LLC with an S-Corp election for tax purposes.  In order to provide additional liability protection;  I will have The Coupon Challenge, LLC added under my umbrella policy as well.

Make sure to visit Mom on Dealz for more Blogging Tax Questions or head over to www.cjwtaxpro.net to request rates if you’re looking for a new account.  Madame Deals personally uses Chris for her personal and professional tax preparation.

You can view all out posts by searching Ask a Blogger.

Pinterest is all the rage right now.  Showing off your pics can help get traffic to your site and in turn, potentially increase your revenue.

Adding a Pinterest Tab to your Facebook Page can help get your Pinterest Page in front of your fans and hopefully, get them repining your photos.

How to Set Up a Facebook Pinterest Tab:

1. Sign up for a Pinterest account if you haven’t already.
2. Go to https://apps.facebook.com/iframehost-pin/to install a Static IFRAME Tab.
3. Click “Install Page Tab” or click on an icon to install a tab with the icon. (I chose to add a static Pin icon)
4. Authorize the Application and choose your Page to add the app.
5. Click “Add Static IFRAME Tab”.
6. You will be redirected to your Facebook Page.
7. To complete your tab setup – click on the new tab link on the left hand side of the page.
8. You will be required to “Authorize the Tab Application” again.
9. Click to “Allow” your basic information & email address.
   
10. Under “Page Source” Select “URL” and enter your Pinterest page link (this will load the URL in the iframe window).
11. Change the height of your page to remove the scroll bar.  Mine is set to 1400px, but you may need to increase it if you have more boards.
12. Name your Tab (I choose PINTEREST).
13. Click “Save Settings”.
14. View your new Pinterest tab and make adjustments as needed.

Make sure to follow The Coupon Challenge on Pinterest and Madame Deals on Pintrest!

***You may also add a custom icon to your Pinterest Page by following the instructions HERE.  You would start with #7 above after following the Help instructions for a custom icon.  After writing this post,  I changed to a custom Pinterest Icon.  You can view my custom icon on The Coupon Challenge Facebook Page.

You can search all of our articles by typing in Ask A Blogger.

Thanks to Amee with Madame Deals for writing this weeks Ask a Blogger Post!

Where is your blog button? Why isn’t it on your front page. The reason is simple – you are on my site why do you need my button? The truth is my reader whom my site is created for does not have a need for my button. I mean, what are they going to do with it? They do not need it so it isn’t there. Your site is for your reader. If one of my readers wants my button they can ask for it. If they really want it I have to wonder why?

I run my site by selling ads on my sidebar. I am not a paying customer so my button is not taking up precious Real Estate. I am also careful about where my button appears. I trade my button with bloggers that I respect and like. I advertise on sites that I believe will benefit my business.

Do you really want anyone to come by and just pick up your button and put it on their site? I am careful with my brand and you should be with yours.  Wouldn’t you be  embarrassed to have your button on a site that isn’t in line with your values.

*The Coupon Challenge has the button on the main page of the website

Not sure how to make a Blog Button?  Find out How to Make a Blog Button with Grab Box.

You can search all of our articles by typing in Ask A Blogger.

I was thinking about my decision to move from Blogger to WordPress and it occurred to me that Amee & I never mentioned why we chose WordPress.org over WordPress.com.  Both WordPress.com and WordPress.org (including Blogger) offer a FREE blogging platform.  The difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is who hosts the blog.

WordPress.com is similar to Blogger in that you get FREE hosting.  WordPress.com is hosting the blog for you.   WordPress.org is “self-hosted” meaning that you purchase hosting yourself.   The Coupon Challenge is a WordPress.org blog hosted by Host Gator.  I pay a monthly fee to Host Gator to keep my blog up and running.

Basically with WordPress.com, you get what you pay for.  On a blog hosted though WordPress.com, you severely limit the customization of your website and you can’t monetize your website with ads unless you pay a fee.

Hmm, let’s think about this.  If you want the ability to monetize your blog, you must pay for it.  Well, you might as well pay to “self-host” your blog through WordPress.org and get the customization benefits.

If I were to start a new blog and didn’t have the funds to pay for hosting, I would choose Blogger over WordPress.com.  I would then switch over to WordPress.org once I have decided that blogging is something that would work for me.  I found a nice Blogger vs WordPress.com chart that I thought would be beneficial for those not ready to commit to WordPress.org.

You can search all of our articles by typing in Ask A Blogger.