NEVER Write a Blog Post While Under the Influence ...

Recently I wrote and published the following post but probably should not have. At the time I was fighting off a bad cold or perhaps it was the flu, and was under the heavy influence of cold/flu medication and cough suppressants. Though drugs have been known to induce vivid and creative writing, this was not so in my case. After reading through my article I realized it was incoherent and in fact was missing a complete paragraph; well, perhaps it wasn't missing, the paragraph was there but inserted into the wrong place.
If you've read this before you will find that the corrected version below should make more sense.
I know not to drive when taking cold medications and now I will add to that to also refrain from publishing blog posts.


Not long ago my Creative Arts group had a guest speaker, an artist known for her mixed media art and for her woven textiles. Her presentation was interesting, especially when she came to the part of having an online website and how she utilized Search Engine Optimization during the busy gift buying season of the Fall Winter holidays. When questioned "How" she optimized her site, it was a let down to find out her husband worked for a company that specialized in designing websites and SEO enhancement. Basically she just handed it over to his company to help direct traffic to her web-pages. Must be nice if you have someone on the inside to help you but most of us don't.

SEO has always been a mystery to me, seems that no matter what I do it doesn't change things much. Friends have told me how they've spent far too much trying to improve their websites visibility by hiring someone to optimize their site but ultimately found it to be a waste of money.
I must admit that the mumbo-jumbo, techno talk of SEO intimidated me and there was a lot that went way over my head however recently I found a website that offers a free booklet that explains SEO in simple terminology. No techno babble, just clear English with a pinch of humor added for flavor. The booklet is called: "The Care And Feeding Of Search Engines" a simple guide to SEO.

And yes, it is free.   That may be changing in the near future as the website grows and accumulates more followers and more business. The thing that I liked best was there's no pressure for you to sign up for anything and you're not required to commit to anything. Conrad Walton started this website, he's a techie guru and he offers website design and also SEO services for those wishing it. His booklet is an accumulation of his own experiences and knowledge and, granted it is just the first rung on the SEO ladder, it does give a lot of insight and information about SEO.


One thing that I learned from reading his booklet is the true function of our Blog List. You know, it's that list of blogs most of us have along side our blog posts. I thought they were just there to say; "Hey these are some of my favorite blogs" and though that's true, the real purpose is to provide "links". Every blog that features your blog in their list or roll provides a link back to your own blog and these links are counted by the search engines; so the more links we have out there the higher our standing is with search engines. All in all it's a good thing to have a Blog List and even a better thing to be on other blog's Blog List. How about all those cute little button or badges that blogs ask you to take and put on your blog ? It's the same thing. It provides a link back to their blog and is free promotion. Maybe I was a bit dense that this had not dawned on me before, but it's nice to know ... better late than never !

If you care to check "The Care And Feeding Of Search Engines" this post is filled with highlighted links that will take you there. Hope it will be as enlightening for you as it has been for me.