UPDATE: Fellow MotherTalker and entrepreneur, Lorrie, has added two new shirts to the MotherTalkers store. She made it a point that these are "real women" sizes. This may be just the perfect outfit for YearlyKos! ;-) -Elisa

CHICAGO, ILL -- While MotherTalkers is my passion and second family, it is also my little home business. I check it at the most obscene hours to make sure there is content and there are no bugs. I have ads on the site and I am always shamelessly passing out MT business cards.

I can assure you, Ari probably hates MotherTalkers as mami is always on the website, weekends included.

After two years of writing and building community, I wanted to know how to take it to the next level: largely build traffic so that I can pay the writers a living wage. That’s the million-dollar question and that’s why I trekked all the way to Chicago for the BlogHer Conference.

I wanted to meet other mommy bloggers and other women, especially those trying to monetize their work. I wanted their ideas. And I haven’t been disappointed.

This year’s conference had 750 women bloggers. The huge grand ballroom of the Navy Pier in Chicago was packed. Thanks to a “speed-dating” meet and greet -- which I would like to incorporate in the YearlyKos MotherTalkers Caucus next week -- I was able to pass out biz cards and increase the contacts in my rolodex.

I attended a helpful session on branding and self-promotion. A common question from the mommy bloggers was how to differentiate their blog from the millions out there. Branding expert Nina Burokas asked two simple questions (Paraphrased): “What is the message of your blog? Who is your audience?”

Having been a journalist all my working life, I am a novice when it comes to marketing and branding myself. Answering those questions proved difficult for me. At the end of the session, I approached her to get her opinion on MT’s tagline: “Rants and Raves on Modern Motherhood.”

“Too broad,” she told me. Hmm. It got me thinking about how to fine-tune that message and whether I want us to become an “expert” in some area, like politics. (We are, after all, the first link on Daily Kos!)