 Welcome!
My
name is Kristine and I am the owner, developer and creator
of the new Be-a-WAHM.com
website.
In addition
to running the website, I am also a writer of the Work
At Home Parent Blog which teaches Search Engine Optimization
techniques, traffic generating ideas and offers free tools
to aid in your website development.
I started my online career
developing websites for limousine companies after a couple
of friends of mine who had a website development business
of their own asked for help. During this time I was working
full-time as a stockbroker! And even though at the time
I had no idea what I was doing, I was
more than
happy
to
have an alternative to the business I was already in.
This was in 1994!
After about a year of
working full-time at the brokerage and then helping in the
evening with the website development, it finally dawned
on me that it was finally the time to make a decision. There
was no way I could continue working the hours I was if I
was to have any kind of life at all!
Needless to say, I chose
the website development business and couldn't have been
happier! Every day I would go to work with a smile on my
face even though eventually I ended up working more hours
than I did before.
The website development
business grew nearly exponentially due to the fact that
at that time, nearly no one had a website and all of a sudden
everyone wanted one! Eventually I learned how to program
in ASP and PHP and also developed my database skills and
began programming SQL databases.
During these first few
years, SEO was not really a factor. It was hard (and expensive)
enough just to get a website out there and most companies
were just thrilled with the fact that they could put a website
address on their business cards!
Would you believe I even
ran into businesses who saw the Internet as nothing more
than a fad?
The business however began
to dwindle as more and more website design companies began
to offer cheaper services and so eventually I had to find
a job just to help support our family. This was about the
time I was hired on as an IT Manager for a well-known telecommunications
company which I stayed at for over 5 years.
During this time, my father
passed away from a long illness. After returning to work
after being gone a week, I found out that the company had
decided to downsize the entire website development portion
of their company and we were all let go.
Needless to say, this
forced me to truly re-evaluate what I wanted to do with
my life. Go work for someone else again or really pick myself
up out of my grief and take hold of life with the knowledge
and information I had.
I choose the later.
During this time, my husband
had started developing a website of his own. It was a fan-based
website for a well-known college university. This was about
the
time I started to really understand the power of marketing
online.
He was one of the first
people to ever have a message board where fans could talk
to one another (of course now they're all over the place)
but I quickly saw how relationships were formed quickly
and easily and how people became dependent on that website
being there. There were a few times when it had gone down
and boy did he hear about it!
Of course, as with nearly
everthing on the Internet, competition is never far behind.
Other websites began to develop based on this same idea
my husband had and soon we were hearing our site visitors
talk about them.
It didn't take long to
realize that we really had to do something to stay on top.
It was around this time that my interest in online marketing
(since coined SEO) began.
It wasn't a cake walk
believe me!
I tried various ideas
to "beat" out our competition. Granted we really didn't
make any money from the site, it was just a matter of pride
to do better than the new guys :-)
Some things worked and
some things didn't. Some wreaked havoc on our traffic while
other things worked fantastically well! Not to mention that
everyone and his brother had the "right answer" when it
came to marketing online (and they still do :-)). Like you
I'm sure, I tried some things, got killed by the decision,
tried some other things and saw fantastic results.
I was in awe!
In awe that such small
changes could make such a large impact on one single website.
Since then, I've never looked back.
I will never say that
I have all of the answers. I don't. But I do know what has
worked well for me and the websites that I have worked on.
In case you're interested,
some of the more notable ones are Working
Mother Magazine, and NAFE,
the National Association of Female Executives.
So what prompted me to
start this website for WAHM's?
Three years ago, my husband
and I were blessed with a wonderful little boy.
This changed my entire
perspective on work, life and family. My 60 hour work weeks
came to a halt. My mind raced as I wondered how in the world
was I ever going to continue my previous lifestyle with
a new baby in hand.
:-) The baby won.
During my pregnancy I
would visit various online forums about being pregnant and
found a wonderful and warm circle of helpful and caring
friends. These Mom's also dreaded going back to the daily
routine, dropping their kids off at daycare and going back
to their "old" life.
They just wanted to be
parents but they still wanted to contribute to their family,
just as I did.
So I decided to start
this website in the hopes of giving back my 12 years of
experience to any other Mom's who may want to start a business
on the Internet. It continues to grow daily and I wouldn't
trade being a WAHM for anything else in the world! In addition to the work
I do on Be-a-WAHM.com I also currently advise other companies
and WAHM's and WAHD's on how to implement SEO campaigns
and create their own companies using talents and information
they already possess.
I currently reside in
Iowa with my husband and little boy. And I am absolutely
thrilled that I can share this information with you.
All the best in success,
family & life,
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