Take my decision to start this blog. I had a perfectly good static website which I didn’t want to jeopardize by  starting up a blog that fell flat on its face. So I bought a really laughable domain name, Marketmou, which now annoys the heck out of me, and started my blog. Before you know it, the blog is quite successful and I’m in the dilemma of not having enough time to keep my SEO consulting website the way I want it.

I’ve been dithering about for over a year now not knowing what to do. The result of this horrible indecision is that I’ve lost pagerank on both sites. They were both PR4 and now they’re a 3. So you know what I’m going to do? I’m moving the blog to my Wellwrittenwords domain, because that’s the name I like, and I’ll be redirecting the Marketmou blog.

I hope you’ll stick with me. We can learn and grow together.

Right now I’m in a rush to get things organized having taken the decision.

See you soon.

Because I’ve come across a couple of blogs recently that I definitely don’t like, and because they’re using the same theme as I’ve been using, I decided it’s time for a change.

For a while now I’ve been using the fun, but highly functional Smashing Theme by DesignDisease. I love it and still do. But change is inevitable. Or so I thought. I checked out a couple of the other free themes offered by DesignDisease, and loved Illacrimo, a snippet of which you can see to the right there. I also checked out WordPress Theme Review, where they have some great designs that are graded for their SEO compatibility. I test-drove a few good looking themes, and even uploaded a couple to my blog. But I had this niggling doubt I just couldn’t shake, so I went over to the WordPress Themes Directory where there is a tremendous selection of every design and layout.

Then it hit me. My sense of uneasiness was because I simply am not ready to part with this design yet. I’m very fond of it and it fits my modus operandi as well as my esthetic sense. I don’t believe that it’s enough just to please the search engines. The design you use on your blog should be attractive to visitors and reflect at least a little of your personality. It will become part of your personal branding.

So, if you need a great WordPress theme, go ahead and try out these places. I personally think that DesignDisease is a place where you can find true talent.

Having wasted a couple of hours of my precious time on a theme change that turned out not to be, I’m now going to content myself with adding a few new WordPress plugins to play with. Forget the theme change. I’m looking for ways to make my blog more interesting to readers and at the same time save work. I may also weed out a few plugins that I’m presently using. I may as well turn off the spam plugins like Akismet, since I’ve been using Disqus very successfully for a while now. No more spam!

Speaking of plugins, while working on my blog the other day I happened to notice Sugarrae’s layout. Notice how nicely the trackbacks are arranged. I love that. I asked Rae how she did it and she kindly took the time to reply to my Tweet saying it’s integral to WordPress. That was a disappointment because I was looking forward to getting the plugin. Now I have looked and looked, but can’t see how to configure it like this (trackbacks are usually mingled in with the comments). So if any of you kind souls know how to do this, and wouldn’t mind dropping me a note to put me out of my misery and tell me how to do it, I’ll write about your kindness on my blog (with a link of course).

The moral of this story is probably that I don’t have enough work to do. Will someone please give me a good project that I can really get my teeth into?

I don’t recommend neglecting your network for any period of time, and three months is a shockingly long spell for anyone involved with the Internet to come up short. It takes a lot of time and effort to hook up online, and once you’ve got a good thing going, it’s really precious–don’t leave it alone. However, I was surprised at how wonderfully my network still works.

It’s true that during those three months I made a point of attending to social requests from my best buddies online as far as I was able. It’s also true that I try always to treat members of my network as I would any friend, online or off. Many members of my network are dear friends and have been for some time.

Still I was surprised at the results. Now, here’s some very important information if you are one of the people who owes me money, or if you doubt in any way the power of the Internet to raise you up or bring you down.

Basically word spread about my rant yesterday by casual conversation with people I talk to all the time on Twitter. I also did some chatting on IM (using Digsby if you must know).

Only later, while checking some stats, did I realize that my rant post received a lot of attention indirectly through my Plurk and FriendFeed accounts. There was also many separate trickles of traffic as my Twitter friends’ comments were picked up by people following them from elsewhere, including FaceBook  where I have an account but am not very active, and Sphinn.

Over the last three months the traffic to my blog has dwindled since I haven’t posted regularly at all and on my own admission my posts were not up to my usual standard. But as you can see things are looking up:

And this was only half way through the day on the 19th! Moral of the story? You need a mature social network, but with it you can do a great deal to grow your online presence in the best possible way.

So who would be part of your online network?

• People you have a lot in common with, especially if they operate within the same niche
• People whose interests overlap yours
• Potential clients
• People you just like hanging out with

Without a doubt, Twitter is my social media tool of choice. I love it and it just fits so well into everything else I do. I am thinking of setting up a lifestream on SweetCron just as soon as I have time to consider whether it’d be a good thing to aggregate all my social media accounts in one place for others to see. It’s by no means a done deal, but I like the idea at present.

So how can social media accounts help with traffic? It won’t be an overnight thing, but eventually you’ll have a nice collection of backlinks to your site from the accounts themselves and from posts if you’re lucky. There’s just been a big to-do about the fact that Twitter, which until recently was a great source of backlinks for all of us, has now reportedly caved to pressure from Google and has no-followed all their links. Just in case you’re interested in the pros and cons of no-follow, especially as it pertains to Twitter, Suggarae has a logical discussion here. Boo hoo. But there are still tons of good links to be had.

But the value of these links is totally overshadowed, for me, by the sheer power of word-of-mouth when a good social network swings into action. Newsworthy events are simply sucked up and spread like the proverbial wildfire.

While it’s not always possible to use the full power of a social network for clients, there can be no doubt that a well-connected online marketer can bring superb publicity to the table through the social apparatus.

They are (in no particular order):

Brett Borders (BrettFromTibet on Twitter) of Copy Brighter

Kimberley Bock (SpostareDuro on Twitter) of We Are Facebook

Donna Fontenot (DazzlinDonna on Twitter) of Dazzlin Donna

Barry Welford (BWelford on Twitter) of The Other Blokes Blog

Thanks guys. You saved me from myself and you are all right of course.

So it’s just a rant. Here goes.

I just can’t seem to get back into the swing of things, and for some time I’ve been looking for the real reason why. I know I’ve talked about bad health, and really we (husband and I) have had a lot to contend with recently. But the trials and tribulations of life have never stopped me before.

Then today, while surfing around I came across this wonderful lady: Violent Acres. Somehow, her words made me reexamine myself in a way I haven’t done for a long time. I’ve always believed in speaking my mind, but culture and conditioning (that good old English reserve) usually temper my inclinations, and I strive to control myself because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or give the wrong impression about myself (or look unprofessional either). Without pointing fingers, there are a lot of people online who set themselves up as experts and professionals with very little justification to do so.

Then there are the plain old liars. Lots of those about.

While I don’t subscribe to their use of strong language, there are a few people online who I really respect for their honesty. Violent Acres is one of them. Another is Naomi over at Itty Biz. I realize I may alienate some of the people I’ve come to know and like online, but I think I’m going to have to change tack somewhat. From now on you can expect some flack if you manage to raise my ire online or off.

I am proud of my reputation as an honest, loyal hard worker. I’m also known for taking the part of the under-dog (unfortunate expression but I can’t think of a better one). Sadly, I’ve found myself in the role of the underdog recently because I’ve allowed a couple of unscrupulous deadbeat clients to get the better of me. Well I’m taking a stand.

Some of you may have cautioned me because, after all, we only get back what we put into the universe. I agree with that, but I also sincerely believe that there are some instances where it’s entirely appropriate to get some revenge. I won’t be doing it here, thanks to my good friends, but I want certain slimebags to realize that I could have.

Let’s get down to some specifics. I have had a number of individuals rip me off lately by not paying their dues. I know it’s my own fault for letting go of the cardinal rule to take a downpayment. But here are the details.

Back in the winter, I spent an entire weekend and the best part of the following week helping out a desperate student from Northern Ireland. We agreed on a (knockdown) price beforehand and I did my best to help him get up-to-date with two of his websites, which together were his graduation project. My only defense is that he aroused my mothering instincts. Since then he has ignored many communications reminding him of his obligation to me, despite the fact that I know the little weasel is actually making money from the damned websites now that he has graduated.

Then there’s a company that trades in rugs. These people again agreed to my terms. I spent hours researching their competition and coming up with all the most profitable search terms for them. I also sent them a proposal detailing what they should be doing in terms of SEO. They turned out to be total deadbeats too. They actually sent me a rug to sample, worth less than $200.00. I presume they think that’ll cover it. The work I did was worth thousands to them. My one consolation is that they were too dumb to use it, as far as I can see. After I turned in the work, and after they had asked me to hurry up with it, (I have emails to back this up of course), they had the cheek to ask me to validate myself.

Well, they’re damned lucky I didn’t decide to make this little exercise my validation. I could have created a situation where they’d have had to pay a reputation management firm to undo what I’d done. Brett has a nice description of what can happen when someone with connections and/or skills sets about ruining an online reputation: Dealing with Impossible Online Reputation Challenges.

These people better hope that the return of my good humor lasts and I don’t change my mind again. Things could get ugly.

If you’re reading this and you know you’re a shifty-eyed little bugger who owes someone money for work they’ve done, be a human being and pay them before your karma catches up with you.

Anyway here I am again. I’m thrilled to see that the tech world has some promising new stuff on offer: Google’s new Chrome browser, Sweetcron–a new automated lifestream blogging application, and Ubiquity to help lighten the load of some of your online tasks, to name just three I’m currently investigating.

Someone sent me some info on something called Twittad too, for anyone who’d like to monitize their Twitter account. Anyone interested?

This is all I have time for now, but over the next few days I hope to do a bit of catching up. See you all later.

The big mystery is to buy it. Yep, that’s right. That’s what they say. Of course this sounds just too easy. But how much do you think a website owner would sell a site for if he’s spend precious time and money edging it into the @One spot? He’s not going to let it go easily right?

But even if he did that, the person who got the site into the #One spot in the first place–can’t he do it again with another site? And then what? Would all the money you just paid for your @One spot be just a big waste of time? And assuming you bought the site because you don’t know a thing about SEO, wouldn’t the field then be open for anyone who does know SEO to streak past you?

If you take a look at his site, Jeff has a Google PR of 5. Now that’s not easy to achieve, and whether  he calls it that or not, he must be using some form of SEO to achieve such good results in an extremely competitive niche. So isn’t he misleading his potential customers? I’ll say.

No matter how some ‘marketers’ try to paint the picture, there’s no getting away from the fact that if you want good online marketing results, you simply must learn about SEO or hire someone who does. Period.

The latest really surprised me: American Writers and Artists Inc. (AWAI) just ran an article called “7 Steps to a Winning SEO Strategy.” Alarmingly, in the middle of a fairly basic description of SEO strategy, they’re offering a Web copywriting intensive that will make you a “working web copy specialist after only three days of training.”

I’d be the first to admit that good writing skills are essential to good copy, but I really don’t think you can learn everything you need to know to be a good SEO writer in three days. Heck, after working in the field for two years it took me a couple of months to decide whether or not I knew enough to go out on my own as a fully-fledged SEO writer.

Companies that promote these kind of schemes in any niche are, in my opinion, doing a great disservice to their profession. There’s a lot to be said for experience and the kind of knowledge you can only get from immersion in a certain subject. I don’t think you can’t learn enough about anything to actually work in the field. And if you’re going to learn something, doesn’t it make a lot more sense to learn from someone who specializes in that particular niche?

What do you think?

Anyway, he had a heart attack. Didn’t tell me about it–I heard from family members. He says he didn’t want to worry me! (Men!) Then he went off to have surgery. They put two stents in, and now he’s recovering. But of course I am still busy looking after him.

So day-before-yesterday I went online for a few minutes for the first time in days, to find all my friends have been playing without me. Yes, Plurk is the new online obsession. It’s fun. Come on board and try it out with us. My Karma is still very low–much lower than my friends because they had a head start. I’m still pouting!

Anyway, it’s wonderful to be back, and I have a renewed sense of joy now that I realize how much my husband means to me.

I’m looking forward to fixing my broken sites that have been left in the lurch. There’s my main work site, Wellwrittenwords, which was undergoing a complete overhaul and looks very sorry for itself at the moment. And there’s my brand new site, Tweetpro. With any luck you’ll forgive me for this disastrous state of affairs now that you know why. Hopefully I’ll have all the planned changes in place by the end of next week.

God bless my friends.

I’ve just been reading a great article by Clive Thompson on Twitter over at Wired.

He says that Twitter is giving members a sort of Sixth Sense about their community:

Twitter and other constant-contact media create social proprioception. They give a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination.

I agree with just about everything Clive says, but I feel there’s more to it. I feel that Twitter is actually a powerful real-world tool to help you learn, grow, and find your own perfect community. It’s not like an ordinary chat room or forum where you might like some of the members, but there will always be someone you just can’t stand, on Twitter you can pick and choose. Someone annoying you? Simply ditch them. Someone fascinate you? Follow some of their friends too so you can get a bigger picture.

Like millions of other Twitter users, i initially signed up, took a look around, thought to myself “What an abject waste of time.” And left, not to return until some months later when someone I admired said “you are on Twitter aren’t you?”

I was happy, in that moment, that I had registered, and rushed over to see what I’d missed if someone so successful thought it was great.

Within hours I was hooked. It was the hooking up that hooked me, so to speak. Twitter is only ever going to be as good (to you personally) as the people you are hooked up with. For anyone who hasn’t yet taken the plunge, the procedure is that you hunt someone down and click ‘follow’ once you’re on their profile. This will enable you to read what they Tweet, but they won’t read what you Tweet unless you send them an @name message. You cannot send them d name messages, which are private, at all unless they decide to follow you back.

It doesn’t really matter if an industry-leader decides not to follow you back (or doesn’t notice that you’re following them because they have literally thousands of followers), but there are quite a few interesting people who will follow you back as a matter of course.

You can learn a great deal by following people who have knowledge you’d like to acquire. In the course of their day they frequently Tweet about what they’re doing, what they’ve discovered, and how they feel about a multitude of subjects. It’s like looking over their shoulder while they work.

Here are a few tweets from my Twitter feed:

Yes, it’s true that because the number of people using Twitter is doubling roughly every three weeks, they are suffering quite a few system crashes. This weekend has been particularly bad. But if you use a Twitter client like Twhirl (my personal favorite) you can bypass most of it and continue to Tweet happily, although you won’t be able to add new contacts or update your profile (who cares?). While outages are always annoying I can’t help thinking everyone is a little hard on Twitter admin. With usage at the level it is, I think they’re doing an good job for a great service.

6,402,215
How much money will you be worth?

I don’t want to bore everyone, but I’m really slammed at the moment, so it will be a few days until I can get another of the great posts I have planned for you off to press.

Meanwhile, take a look at some of the projects I have going:

Update and new look for my Wellwrittenwords site.

Creation of a completely new niche: Creating profiles for Twitter folk. This is completely down as I write due to a combination of mishaps and HostGator’s arbitrary change of passwords today. God this annoyed me–it’s the last thing I need right now.

And something of interest if you buy domains, as I have lately:

Domaining Domainers promises to be a handy site full of info.