This message will be short, but I just wanted to share with my readers a new service I’m providing for anyone interested and I would love if you decided to share it!

If you or someone you know wants to have a blog set up using the WordPress Platform I will do it for free! Yes, you read that right for free! There is one tiny catch though, I simply ask that you sign up with one of the hosting services I’ve suggested (all of which I highly recommend).

What you’ll get:

• Installation of the current stable version of WordPress with the latest default theme, Twentyten
• I can install a theme of your choice with no additional customization for $50.00, just ask me how!
• Installation of 5 key plugins to help with the functionality of your WordPress Site, including security, SEO Management, Backup
• When I’m done you will receive your Username and Password so you can handle all of your updates and changes to the site.
• Receive 60 minutes of personal training for only $75.00

Simply click on the graphic below to signup and learn more!

We all know what keywords are, how to find them and why they are important. But are you sure how to use them? Here are a few ways that you can apply keywords to your site in order to make them work for you and improve your ranking.

Optimize your content. Keywords will only be helpful to you if they appear organically within your site content. What does that mean? It means they must be part of your copy without seeming forced or out of place.

For example: Take the keyword phrase “terrible twos”.

• Organic – “The terrible twos can be extremely difficult to manage.”
• Inorganic –  “A difficult toddler who has the terrible twos might be in the terrible twos stage.”

Believe it or not, search engines (particularly Google) are smart enough to recognize content that is inorganically loaded with keywords. Weaving keywords throughout your website content takes time, expertise and strong writing skills. If you are not equipped to do this, consider hiring a professional copywriter who is well versed in SEO and able to write quality keyword-driven content for your site.

Meta Tags. Meta tags are the information that is included in the header of your website on each page. Viewers to your website can not see meta tags, but they can be viewed in HTML. They provide information to browsers as well as search engines which ultimately impacts your rankings. If your meta tags are named correctly, they will help with your SEO efforts.

Meta keyword tags should always: include keywords that you have specifically chosen to optimize; be separated by commas, not spaces; only appear once; and are frequently updated and continually managed.

While keywords can be put to use in many ways, content and meta tags are a great place to start. Conquering these two aspects of keyword SEO is an essential piece to the puzzle and will help to ensure your SEO campaign is a success.

Download my free report:  Discover Why You Need to Do Keyword Research to learn more

Long tail keywords are simply expansions of basic or more generic keywords. Long tails may include a variety of combinations of keywords or keyword phrases, but are always extremely specific. In other words, they are the keywords and phrases people use to search for your business and/or products when they know exactly what they are looking for.

For example, a basic keyword phrase may be “organic cooking” while a long tail extension of this keyword phrase may be “organic cooking lessons in Rochester, NY” or “organic cooking for vegetarians” or “organic cooking made easy”.

The good news about optimizing for long tail keywords is that 1, they are much easier to rank for and 2, you are far more likely to see an increased conversion rate among keywords because customers searching for such specific keywords know what they want and are looking to buy it.

When using long tail keywords, it is also critical to assign a unique topic to each page of your website. Unique page titles make it easier for search engines to find and rank you, as well as trust the legitimacy of your site. So, while one page may contain the title and long tail keyword of “organic cooking for beginners” other pages might have titles and topics such as “recipes for organic cooking”, “why choose organic cooking” and “cooking organically for my family”.

As you can probably imagine, many people might search each of these long tails for various reasons. By anticipating these searches, you will put yourself ahead of the game and at the “top” of the charts.

Download my free Report, Discover Why You Need to Do Keyword Research to learn even more

Of course it is helpful to use a keyword generation tool to help you complete your keyword list. Not only will it help you round out your list with keywords and phrases you may not have thought of, but it also gives you ideas on what others may be searching around your topic.

Take the keyword “copywriting” as an example. A copywriter might think of obvious keywords to optimize for, like “copywriter” and “copywriting” but may not think to optimize for “copy writer” and “copy writing”. Believe it or not, people often search for products and services by using common misspellings and because they are misspelled so often, the search engines recognize them as actual searches. This requires creativity and know-how on your part.

So, for these reasons and more, keyword generators can be and are very useful tools. However, they are not meant to do your SEO work for you. In other words, they are there for guidance and word generation. They are not meant to serve as keyword managers nor do they have the ability to create entire SEO campaigns for your business.

Only you can create the best, most effective list of keywords for your website and it should be completely unique. Why? Because your business, although it may be one of many in its field, is one of a kind. Therefore, you should optimize it as such. After all, that is what sets you apart and will continue to set you apart as you gain new customers from well planned and effectively executed keyword optimization.

You don’t have to tackle the big, bad, SEO monster all alone. There are a number of useful tools available to you when it comes to brainstorming what keywords to use, as well as how well your chosen keywords are performing for you. These tools allow you to research potential keywords, find additional keywords that may work for you, and finally, keep track of the keywords you choose to implement.

Let’s take a look at the three most popular keyword research tools available for you to use on the internet:

#3 Wordtracker

Wordtracker claims to “save you hundreds of hours on research” by allowing users to look up common keywords and keyword phrases and tracking their activity. While this is a useful service, it pales in comparison to the power of others.

#2 WordStream

WordStream not only offers a keyword research tool, but they offer additional services and complimentary tools that will help ramp up your SEO efforts. While much of their offerings are not free, they do provide helpful SEO services that many other keyword research tools do not.

#1 Google AdWords

Not only is Google AdWords free, but it is quite possibly the best and most powerful tool available to website owners and internet marketers. While every search engine is a force to be reckoned with, Google is the end all, be all of SEO. As a search engine, Google is smarter, faster and more reliable than any other search engine there is. And therefore, it’s keyword research tool is equally as powerful.

If you’d like to learn more think about downloading my free Report, Discover Why You Need To Do Keyword Research!

The difference between a good website and a great one is the proper use and execution of effective SEO techniques, in particular the implementation of keywords. Keywords are the very heart of the Internet and are what keeps it alive and well. Without them, your website… and your entire online business… are sure to die.

I am about to share with you the #1 mistake most people make when approaching keywords: They take a quick fix approach.

It’s that simple. Too often, people spend less than 20 minutes developing their list of keywords and move on. This is the most common and most detrimental mistake you can make! In fact, developing your list is the most critical part of your keyword SEO efforts. This quick list should only be the very beginning of your work. What follows should be extensive research into the popularity of these keywords, how realistic they are to top, and what other related terms might work for you as well.

Now, this is not to diminish the importance of that original keyword list that you develop. However, while some of those keywords will in fact be critical keywords, some may not work at all. That is why you will need to employ a keyword research tool (like Google, WordTracker, etc.) in order to truly understand how these words may or may not be right for you.

If you are a large business with multiple locations and already have an established brand, you may be successful going after more broad keywords. But if you are small, start-up, then you will have to focus your efforts on a niche. Anything in between takes careful planning and a strong balance of both broad and specific keyword phrase combinations to truly target your audience.

Learn even more grab my free report and Discover Why You Need to Do Keyword Research



So I had a wonderful opportunity to take sometime out of my busy schedule to connect with a great group of women at the Nanaimo Women Business Network. I was their guest speaker this past week, and it was great to connect with such a cool bunch of women. It’s interesting how events or imposed deadlines such as this event motivate you into action and that’s exactly what this event did for me.

If gave me the opportunity to finish a white paper I had wanted to write for quite awhile and now it’s available and I’d love for you to take some time to read it. It’s all about how our success is directly tied to how we choose to delegate and leverage our time. No matter what for anyone who is a solo professional or micro business owner, you need to build connections to help in your success.

This paper walks you through the reasons why you might not be delegating and what you can do change that…

So if you’d like to learn more, click here or on the graphic and you can sign up to receive your free report right away!

As many of you know I’m a fan of Hootsuite, I love the flexibility, customization, and the ability to embed columns from Hootsuite on a website or blog.  I came across some great videos that talk about some of the great features of the Hootsuite service.  Once aspect that I absolutely love is if you are a Chrome Fan you can set up Hootsuite as an application striaight to your desktop (if you’d like a step by step video on how to do this then leave a comment and I’ll create one.

Otherwise here’s a view videos to give you some ideas on how you can use Hootsuite to manager many aspects of your social networking.

Overview of HootSuite

Posting Directly from HootSuite to WordPress!

This is a feature I haven’t had much time to try out yet, but since I use WordPress for both my sites and many of my clients I love this idea….

Okay, I have to admit I’ve been stubborn and no it has nothing to do with me being a redhead, well okay maybe a little (sheesh…).  You see, this is a fault of mine, if I’m not the first to discover it or at least be an early adopter in among my peers then I sometimes shun whatever the new service, idea or application may be.  Now I’m also the first to admit when I’m just being plain stubborn about something and this is one of those times.

Recently, I was working on a project with a group of other virtual assistants and one of the ways for us to share details was to have a mutual online RoboForm account.  I’m someone who is pretty good at remembering passwords and and I’ve got my ways of keeping track.  Well, while using RoboForm I found out easy and handy it is to use!

So if you’re anything like me try it out and you won’t be concerned about remembering a password (expect for one) ever again!

Concerned that you won’t be able to access them anywhere but on your system, no worries they have Roboform Online which allows you to synchronize to an online version which you can then use no matter where you are.  Or you can synchronize it to a USB stick if you prefer.  They have quite a few options and I have yet to explore all of the features, but just the saving of passwords is enough for me right now!

Do you have a can’t live without app?  If so, I’d love to hear about it!

’til next time

I don’t know about you, but one of the most time consuming processes I can think of is dealing with the signing of contracts.

A few years ago I discovered this great product called Echosign.  I’ve used it for years and I’ve been extremely happy with it.  What does it do? Simple it helps you get your contracts and documents signed, electronically.  That simple.

It’s free for anyone to use for up to 5 signed documents per month, so if you have a low volume of contracts that need to be signed that’s a great feature all on it’s own.  If not packages start at $14.95 per month.  The system also gives you the flexibility to have the document sent via email or even fax if that is preference of your client.  Once the document has been signed and uploaded back to the Echosign site everyone gets an copy emailed to them.  You can use their system for storage of documents or you can simply download the email copy you receive and store it yourself.

I’m using it with my clients and I recommend that you do the same with your clients!