We’ve recently been invited to sponsor a new up-and-coming parent blogger community on the web called eFamilyBlogger. It’s a great site with tons of useful content for women, parents, etc. We’re very excited about this sponsorship opportunity and think that it will allow both iBakeSale and eFamilyBlogger to reach out to our target young-parent audience.

If you get a chance, please check out their site by clicking here. Enjoy and don’t forget to post any comments or questions right to this blog. All the best and happy shopping.

-Jonathan

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Hi Everyone,

It’s been a while since Seth or I have posted here but things have been extremely busy with iBakeSale. We’ve been adding new members like crazy and finalizing an automated process whereby we can send checks automatically to our fundraising groups and members.

One recent article was written on charity malls and the benefits they provide. Obviously, our program is much more than just charity but I wanted to show you all some of the nice press we received. Please let us know what you think of the article, which can be found by clicking here.

Talk soon and happy shopping!

JT

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This is a guest post by Stefanie.

Who would have thought that spending money could feel so good? I recently donated bags of clothes to charity, which emptied out my drawers and provided space for, yep, you guessed it, new clothes! I felt great about donating the stuff I don’t wear anymore for people who can actually use it, but with Christmas coming, I felt a little bad wanting to buy more for myself. With the Shopping Bag plugin saving me so much money, now I don’t feel bad at all! I’m even getting to buy a couple of toys to donate to charity.

This plugin is amazing for anyone who shops primarily through the internet because you can save money on top of any sales that the retailers are having… makes for great sales for Christmas shopping. It’s a double savings, which makes me feel like a professional shopper! I am a very cheap person when it comes to shopping, so any sale or refund I can get makes me feel that much better about it, especially when I can get money back on items I really want to get for my loved ones.

With Christmas on the way, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t be happy with a little cash back on items they need to buy anyway, and with so many retailers participating, the Shopping Bag plugin is definitely something I plan to use year round for my online purchases! Thinking about it makes me excited to do my shopping online all the time, maybe just a little bit too excited!

Don’t forget to download the plugin for yourself and to let your friends and family who shop online know about it. You might find yourself becoming addicted to online shopping as much as I have! Good luck with your shopping, and I hope you save bundles!

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Hi All,

I hope the holiday shopping is going well and that you all are making your holiday purchases with iBakeSale.com.

We are proud to announce that we recently added Borders.com to our list of retailers. We’ve been getting a lot of heat from members who want a book retailer and so far it’s been a slog convincing them to join the program. Alas, Borders has agreed to join and we’re happy to begin promoting them on our site.

Happy shopping and Happy Holidays from your friends at iBakeSale.com

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I have used Ibakesale.com for almost 2 weeks for all my christmas shopping my grandmother does online, since I have the shopping bag plugin it makes it so much easier. She has purchased online 3 times and I have already saved her almost $17 dollars! I almost feel like its an affiliate program! I got really excited when I saw the savings since I knew I could actually save but I didn’t realize how much the savings add up!

I only wish Amazon would have hopped on board that way when I did my shopping for my stepfather I could have gotten good rewards for spending $400 on a ps3.. or even remembered my affiliate program that I have with them! But I didn’t so its oh well. However now I remember so I will be using it. But there are really great things that you don’t even realize how much of a savings. Fil wants a couple of things from CSS since he is a skateboarder and I will get back almost $75 dollars because of Ibakesale. That feels really good!

I hope you are saving just as much!

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I signed up for Google alerts a while back to remind me whenever there is a reference to iBakeSale.com our there on the web. On Friday, I received a reminder for an online article written for the The News Herald of Morganton North Carolina about some fundraising ideas I’ve never heard of. I thought some of these were so hilarious (I’d never heard of them before) that I wanted to share with you folks.

The article starts talking about how fund raising is a way to raise needed funds for the community. Folks in Morganton sell baked goods, calendars, greeting cards, cookies, nuts and many other traditional things we all know and love (okay, maybe not).

However, one thing in particular fundraiser caught my eye, pink lawn ornaments in the form of plastic pink flamingos. This fundraiser is part extortion and part practical joke. The way it works is that a youth group, typically, goes around to neighborhood houses and places plastic flamingos on their lawn with instructions to pay a fee for removal.

The fee is usually around $10 and supposedly works like a charm. Better yet, flamingo insurance protection can be purchased at any church service to protect one’s lawn from the plastic birds. Hilarious!

If any of you are interested in a crazy new fundraiser that is sure to get you in your local newspaper, this one is for you!

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A lot of people ask around the holidays what is one of the best ways to start the new year for fund raising, or charity events or even what should I get my wife? Well here is an option! My Jewelry Box is one of many online jewelry stores at your disposal for these types of things. As I mentioned on my other site this is one of my favourite online stores for the holiday. If you are looking to do gift giving or charity events you want to get stuff people can actually use. A gentlemen getting his lady a pair of diamond stud earrings as a nice gift but also in the same turn bidding on it for charity would be a really great double your pleasure gift. It is not only tax-writable (which perks up a lot of those guys ears) and makes their lady happy! Who doesn’t want the best of both worlds? But if the person your buying for doesn’t have pierced ears  (it took me 8 separate tries before they finally stayed pierced) They also have Solitaire Diamond Pendants.

So if you are hosting a charity think about that! They also have an amazing gift selection so if you are looking for quick stock for a Chinese auction some of those in the jewelry gift areas is a great one, two, three section. Now if you’re on a budget for the holidays or for your event you definitely should look at their liquidation section. This is where they place things with sterling silver, cubic zarconia or even diamonds on super sale. This works out a lot better, no tax, free shipping over $99 spent, free gift packaging, and a lot cheaper than going to a store! Plus 30 day return policy! You can make the purchase over the phone as well if you do not feel comfortable placing an order online.

This is one of the places that should be something you check out, granted it isn’t in our shopping back extension but tell ibakesale and I’m sure they can try to make arrangements so you can get extra savings for the upcoming holidays!

They have gorgeous Christmas Jewelry check them out today!

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Okay other than getting our awesome shopping bag plugin for cashback savings! You may be wanting to know “How else can I save this holiday season?”

Ibakesale can tell you how!

One of my favorite ways for instant savings are online coupons and taking coupons to the store, except I hate cutting and sifting through the newspaper to find the one I am looking for, or to find they don’t even have it! I would rather just do a quick search before I head out to the store. I don’t know about you but it is so much easier! Plus I don’t have to sift through a coupon book. I just bring the coupons I need with me for that outting.

Now imagine a website like that plus free product samples are available! Click that link and you’ll see what I am talking about. Although call me cheap or call me smart. I like to get for free what I other wise could have paid for. Free is just fine with me. My motto is “if it is free its for me.”

Now when I combine the both my savings, coupons and free products I go nuts. I can get cash back, plus save money instantly and get free products now where do I sign up? The best part is none of this costs you anything! There are no stupid forms to fill out or anything just check out it out today and get your free samples and printable coupons. You can also find savings for online stores to so before you do your holiday shopping double check what you can save! I know I made sure I bought my PS3 for my step-father through Amazon so I didn’t have to pay tax or shipping. I saved $34.49 in tax and $8.48 shipping, since I chose the super fast shipping. If I had known about this site imaging the extra savings on top of that I could have gotten?

Think about it!

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This is a guest post by Doris Chua of Home Office Women.

Hello, my name is Doris Chua and over the next few weeks, I will be guest posting here at the iBakeSaleBlog. I am an experienced web master and entrepreneur full of tips and ideas on how to keep your charity or business website afloat. Please join me and if you have any questions about your website, traffic, or what you can be doing better, leave a comment and I’ll write about it!

If you are currently running a website, whether it be for an organized charity, business, or just your own, personal blog, you’re probably asking yourself “Now how can I get more traffic to my website?” Don’t worry, because every other web master out there is asking the very same thing and I come bearing tips!

The following are 7 tips that I use myself and know work to increase the exposure of your website.

Tip #1: Pinging Services
Even some experienced web masters are unaware of just how important pinging services can be. A ping is a reminder to all of your readers that you have just updated your website. Services that include pinging services are Yahoo’s Blo.gs, Weblogs, Google Blog Search, and ZingFast. When your readers see that you have recently updated your website, they will definitely be heading on over to see what today’s topic is about.

Tip #2: Sign up for Technorati
Technorati is The King of website branding. It is an excellent website with a unique way of ranking your website. When you sign up for Technorati, the first thing you need to do is claim your blog. By doing so, no one else will be able to scam the system and sign themselves up under your website’s name. Having your website claimed on Technorati helps increase traffic due to the amount of people using it. It can also be used as a social networking site; it’s a great place to find other websites that may be of interest to you and of course, a way for others to find your website!

Tip #3: FeedBurner RSS Feeds
FeedBurner is an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) service. It lets people subscribe to your website’s feed so every time you update, your website will come up as updated and they will be sure to check it out. They also offer another great service, and that allows your readers to sign up for your feed via email, so every time you update they will receive a notification in their inbox.

Tip #4: del.icio.us
del.icio.us is perhaps the largest social bookmarking website at the moment. When you sign up for del.icio.us, you can now keep all of your bookmarks in one place online so no matter what happens to your computer, you are always able to access your favorite websites on any computer. A great deal of web masters use del.icio.us as a form of marketing their website. You can add excerpts from your blog to the website and there are also ways to meet other people and if they go to your profile, they are greeted with a link and excerpts from your blog.

There are several other social bookmarking websites, however, del.icio.us is the most widely-utilized.

Tip #5: Post Comments on Other Websites and Blogs

Lets face it, pretty much everyone, if they don’t run a business or personal website, they have a blog on one of many blogging platforms, such as Blogger, LiveJournal, etc. By leaving comments on other blogs and websites, you are sure to get your website more exposure and also, you may just get a comment back from the web master of that website and even their readers! However, you must remember that it is not wise to blindly visit websites and leave comments that are irrelevant to what they are writing about, so choose wisely what websites you would like to comment on. While reading, think to yourself “Does what they have to say interest me?” “Do I have a similar story that I can share?” And because in hindsight you are leaving comments on other websites for the reason that yes, you would like more traffic to your website, think “Would my website or blog interest them?”

Tip #6: Ask Owners of Other Websites to Post a Link to Yours

Link exchanges are highly effective for getting more traffic to your website. Start by finding wesbites that have similar interests to yours and if they seem to get a lot of comments, have a low Alexa rank, or a high PR, why not contact them and ask for a link exchange? As incentive to get them to put a link to your website up, return the favor. Remember, it doesn’t pay to be too picky with who you link on your website. In addition, you can leave a comment on someone’s website (that has something to do with their topic) and they may check your website out and see that you have a link to their site up and return the favor. Of course, it never hurts to contact them in some way and ask for an exchange or even just inform them that you put a link to their website up because mos of the time, they will return the favor.

Tip #7: Use Keywords

Using keywords on your website helps mostly your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and determines how many search engine spiders notice your website.

Search engine spiders are programs from search engines that automatically browse websites and report back their findings to the search engine database. When it does this, your website is added to that search engine. For example, if you had an article or post about going to the vet with your dog, it would be wise to list dog, vet, pets, pet care, etc. as keywords to that post and then when spiders come to your website and see your keywords, it is added to the database so if someone was searching for pet care, your website would come up and ultimately, it will bring more traffic.

I hope these 7 tips have helped you and I will be back with more fun, easy, and interesting posts for everyone!

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A lot of people ask me how to earn more money online, one of the major things is you need to look like an authority figure. If all your stats are low then why should anyone advertise with you?

I’ve been doing more and more research trying to figure out the appropriate numbers, ways to increase feed subscriptions etc. I’ve found some new things out which I want to share with you!

Feedburner doesn’t count the people who are subscribed to your feed only the ones who access it. So you could have 30,000 people signed up but if only 120 access it well… you’re not look so hot there buddy!

One of the easiest ways to increase the subscription is to entice people to join your email feed. As long as their email address is accessible they are counted every time.  So what I have started to do is draft contests to increase my numbers on my site.

1. Create a contest appropriate for your niche/target audience.

2. Have an easily accessible email form sign up and rss feed signup

3. Offer two ways to enter the contest - Comment on this post - Join our Email Updates list.

When they join your email update list you will see their email address. So it is really easy to pick a winner. I offer two ways, if people comment using the same email address they signed up with then they are counted as 2 entries to the contest. This way they have a better chance of winning the prizes. Even if they don’t read your feed they will still have a regular reminder of your site in their inbox on a daily scale. It’s free advertisement for the masses

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