Search engine optimization

One benefit of using social networks to bring attention to your small business site is that search engines tend to love and index them. However, when you are ready to create a site it is good to know the basics of what search engines look for. This link give you some good starting points. Eleven steps to search engine heaven Just like when buying anything or service, the more you know about what you exactly need the more likely you are to have a satisfactory experience.

Blogging while nauseous

So after a bit more then an hour on the treadmill doing interval work I am done, showered and instead of feeling great feeling rather nauseous. The great thing (also an extremely distracting thing) about working online is the opportunity to look stuff up. So I checked out "nauseous after working out" and Google gave me this.Basically it says I'm probably dehydrated. So I checked my Twitter account, followed back all new followers (which is doing the least yet keeping up-to-date) and am going to rehydrate before attemtping to learn something new. Today's lesson; if you do nothing else, check your Twitter account!

Always learning

Todays attempt is to embed a slideshow here. Photos and slideshows are great marketing tools and add visual interest to your site. This one was pretty straightforward for me to create using Picasa and add to this blog entry, what I want to learn to do next is figure out how to add it to the side of the header. Brushing up on my xml is important. Another thing one can do with slideshows is upload them to the Youtube channel created for your network.

Chugging along

In spite of feeling ill this morning (thank-you for the ibuprofen sweetie!) I made myself do the 60 minutes of exercise before work. There is something about making yourself work-out longer then you normally would that gave me visions of my flat belly in a bikini when summer rolls around which was inspiring enough to make up for the fact that I was on a treadmill in the basement.

 Now that the two blogs are integrated into one it's time to do one of the hardest parts about establishing the Internet presence: blog regularly. It can be hard to come up with something new to write about on a regular basis and when it is you have options. You can find an article online that is relevant to your potential customers and write about it along with a link, inviting customers to comment on the article or you can write about a personal anecdote, thus making yourself more 'real' to potential clients. Of course, you can also pay someone to blog for you, either on a regular basis or just when you are really stuck, I offer that service myself.

Are two blogs better then one?

In this case, not really. I opted to allow Google to put ads on the new blog only to discover that I had this one (forgotten I admit). So, this is the blog that I will focus on using in my networking experiment. In other news, my Adsense account had $0.00 in it! Jeez, even with only the one blog entry you would think someone would click on a link or two. Ah well we will see how it goes with regular postings, the kind I am always nagging clients to keep up with, and Twitter should help too.

   After two days inside in front of the computer I took a much needed break to take a run thru the park today and even though I wasn't the most enthusiastic about it at first, once in the cool sunny air it was amazing. After three miles up and downhill I didn't even feel too guilty about the yummy brownie afterwards. Note to myself and everyone- get away from the computer and try to go outside for a while every day. Life needs to be well-rounded and the new study that says women need an hour of exercise  Exercise study link to maintain our weight without dieting is probably, and unfortunately, right on.

Here we go!

I've been consulting small business owners on increasing Internet visibility and sales using free sites online for three years now and it is about time to practice what I preach. This project is me creating a network of sites using free resources and social networks to use as an example (hopefully a good one). I've got a Myspace page set up as well as an active Twitter account. The Twitter account is more active at this time. As far as Facebook goes, I have a personal page that I really use to keep up with friends and family so I prefer to keep that one pretty tight as far as the friend list goes so we will see what I decide to do, if anything, as far as utilizing that for myself.

At one time I encouraged clients to take advantage of the free hosted space available with their Internet service providers, and to show how I created a small site of my own with the space Verizon included with the dsl package using the Trellix website creation platform. What a disaster! Once the site was created it was impossible to edit, making it a static site which is basically useless online. I'm still working out what to do with that and in the meantime taking advantage of Blogger's free web-hosting to create an online blog to link to and use as a site.

Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.