Disclaimer: None of these pictures are mine, but I had them sent to me in an email forwarded by my dad. I have no idea who put all of them together, but these pics were too cute and funny not to share. 
Click to Enlarge a Photo
There are some search engine optimizations rules (the rules search engines use to figure out when and where your website is supposed to show up after someone types in relative keywords) that are probably not going to change.
Changes like the new rules for the Google search algorithm are inevitable. Now we have geotagging, search engines boasting that they are decision engines, and are connected to more people (and their opinions) than ever before.
This is the golden opportunity to share your information. However, this also means it will be easier for good content to get lost in the shuffle.
Here are some SEO rules that are foundational and certain to keep your site high in the search results (and easier to navigate for your visitors):
Next week I will share SEO rules for all of your written content keeping good anchor text for links, tags, labels, and categories. For now, I am going to continue cleaning up broken links and minor fixes on the site this week.
SEO is changing. Google is changing. Bing is… well, it’s still trying to figure out what it means to be a “decision engine”. I thought their commercials were sort of funny, but seriously… decision engine? I’d rather make my own decisions thank you very much. 
With that being said there are some rules for search engine optimization that will NOT change. My post on darkbluesun.com this week: 4 SEO Rules that Are Here to Stay
In case you are just now joining us, my website: darkbluesun.com is being overhauled. I’ve done some things like change the theme and make it a little prettier. I fixed my header to include my image again and I am going to make better use of that extra white space in the top section so no worries.
Today I have posted about something a little more technical… and a little more VITAL to the success or failure of my website: getting found.
To make sure my website is properly indexed by search engines, I must first make sure that my site is following the basic SEO rules that aren’t changing anytime soon.
So go, read, learn from my mistakes, and have a great week! 
The advice I shared at my new post on darkbluesun.com (my personal blog I will be giving a makeover for the next few weeks) is all about Website Layouts.
The advice shared in the article is geared toward people with personal and startup blogs. And it is a warning for all of you technically inclined enough to try and do-it-yourself.
Anyone with a professional or ecommerce blog: Hire a professional developer or purchase a theme geared for professional use.
☑ Why it’s good to go with a theme that is close to what you want:
☑ Why it’s bad for professional websites to go with a theme that is free and used on other websites:
☑ And why changing your WP site layout is NOT just as easy as changing your theme!
Visit: darkbluesun.com for Choosing Personal and Blog Website Layouts
The advice I am sharing here is geared toward personal and startup blogs. Anyone with a professional or ecommerce blog: Hire a professional developer or purchase a theme geared for professional use.
I started this website using the old “default” theme that was based on the Kubrick WordPress theme. It was about as basic as I could get it while I was working on my PHP and CSS development skills.
This is my screenshot for step 2:
This still needs QUITE a bit of work, but the menus, and some of the errors I left until “later” have been cleaned up a bit. The layout is improving from step 1.
Why it’s good to go with a theme that is close to what you want:
The trouble with basic though, is that I am constantly having to sort of “re-invent the wheel” just to add special features to my site. This definitely helped me learn a LOT, but because I ran out of time to do all of the coding, as you can see my site got neglected! 
I went to the WordPress.org Free Themes Page and decided to go with a sort of veteran theme called: Mystique.
I really like Mystique because it has the menus with drop-downs and some really decent social media integration. (Some integration that you would have to massively dissect current widgets to reproduce. Believe me, I’ve had clients who have seen options like ones on other Mystique blogs that were only available because they were hardwired into this theme. – I had to reinvent the wheel again for those)
Why it’s bad for professional websites to go with a theme that is free and used on other websites:
As of this morning, Mystique has been downloaded more than 7,000 times! (That is from wordpress.org alone, it isn’t counting all of those that have been downloaded at Digital Nature’s Website – the author of Mystique!)
That means there are thousands of copycat websites out there that look exactly like this ->
Don’t let yours be one of them!
Now comes the fun part.
Remember this if this is the first time you’ve heard it:
Changing your WP site layout is NOT just as easy as changing your theme!
WordPress is tricky, something that sounds so easy can turn out to be untangling a web of code to find the code that you need to be moved with you when you move to a new theme! If you aren’t sure about what you are doing…
BACK UP EVERY SINGLE FILE IN YOUR ORIGINAL THEME FOLDER!!!
Do NOT attempt to change your website template unless you know how to make sure you will still have the custom code to watch your traffic, update your rss feed if you use a service like feedburner, or even just keep track of your branding items like: favicons and logos. Next week I plan to edit my layout colors and add my logo back in.
Fixes, Adds, and Re-Adds:
☑ My favicon
☑ Google Analytics code
☑ Nav menus: I love navigation menus… They aren’t the easiest thing to write from scratch, so that’s one of the main reasons I was pleased with Mystique for my personal blog.
☑ New (more generalized) categories: I added some better “parent categories” including: “Business, Entertainment, and Technology” I left “Life in General” as a main category for my nav menu.
There is still MUCH to do, but I am finished for tonight. See you next week!
The last shreds of fall hold on like the stubborn leaves on an oak tree. You rake, and rake, but when you look up you realize they are still hanging there waiting for their OWN time to drop.
This year, Thanksgiving seems like one of those leaves. We have to wait for it to come before we can spring open the gates of the Christmas season. Around here, our neighbors seem more eager than ever to get on with the season of giving. So many lights are already up, days before the turkey is served, and the sales started weeks ago.
This eagerness points to the reason Thanksgiving is so perfectly placed. It might just seem like the road bump holiday that gets shoved out of the way in a mad rush to the Christmas season, but maybe instead, we should think of it as a starting point for all we celebrate at the end of the year.
After all, how can we give, if we do not first know what we are thankful for?
This year
there are many blessings that bring us thanks. Family: who love and support us in what sometimes seems like a wild adventure. Children: who are the reason for the work we do. Friends: old ones who can be with us daily to bring joy and new ones that are physically miles away but always close in our hearts. Clients: whose enthusiasm is contagious, and whose success is part of our reward.
We are thankful too, that the Internet is bringing us together in new ways. Social media is something to celebrate. It is an opportunity. And the chance to pass its power on to others is a great blessing.
Thank you for your business.
Thank you for your friendship.
And as your thanks turns into giving this season, we wish you much happiness with those you love.
“A vacation is having nothing to do, and all day to do it in.”
~Robert Orben, magician and comedy writer
A few weeks ago, I took some time off. My folks were coming into town for Halloween and they were only going to be in town for the weekend. I had to make a decision…should I take the whole time off and spend what time I had with my folks or work around my family’s schedule? I decided to actually take the whole time off.
To say I was a little apprehensive about actually taking the time off was an understatement. I didn’t want to get behind on my projects nor did I want to feel disconnected from my clients. However, I don’t get a lot of time with my folks, either. So, I made sure to give all my clients enough notice and then went incognito. YIKES! J It took every ounce of restraint I had, along with constant reminders from my hubby, to NOT answer any emails. I actually took it as far as not evening jumping on the computer at all. You know what? It was really nice! Not to mention peaceful. I survived!
I learned something during this time off, as well. Not only was I rested and clear-headed when I returned back to the office the following week, but I was able to give my family 100% of my attention. We did a lot of fun activities with the kids along with Trick or Treating. It was my son’s first time carving a pumpkin and I wouldn’t have been able to thoroughly enjoy that milestone if my mind was on a client’s pending project. I had great one-on-one talks with my mom and dad and we even had a big BBQ and Smoke Out to welcome them to our home.
The quote I found below so perfectly sums up my time off that I wanted to share it with all of you. I highly recommend taking some time off once in a while. I mean, no client emails, computer time or phone calls. Nothing. You need the chance to recharge. All of us do and we most certainly deserve it! Show yourself that you are important! I did and I’m much better off because if it.
“Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy.”
~Catherine Fenwick, motivational speaker and author of ‘Love and Laughter: A Healing Journey’
1. Get “Before” Pictures and Write a List
My website has been so neglected this year.
Between work and school, I haven’t had much time for blogging.
Now that I am finished with school, I am turning over a new leaf!
I think it’s time this website did as well. . .
The List:
I created this screenshot of my full web pages, with the basic version (free) of a very easy to use Firefox Plugin called: Pearl Crescent Page Saver.
It sure beats taking windows screen shots. Dealing with the pressing “crtl, Fn, and prt sc” and cropping and pasting gets tedious and messy!!
Do you want some tips on fixing yours up?
I am going to be moving my Monday posts to darkbluesun.com while I take the next few weeks to redesign the entire thing! I am so excited about this.
You know how it is. I work on websites professionally all the time, so of course, mine gets neglected.
I will post an outline of my progress here though since most of you are used to coming here for my articles.
My plan is to:
Back in September I wrote a post about how I really needed to make myself get more sleep. Well, I have done that 8 hours of sleep thing almost every single night since and I tell you what… I didn’t realize how tired I was until I actually started getting enough sleep.
It’s like that whole boiling frogs experiment… What!? Some of you have never heard of the boiling frogs experiment?
OK, there was a teacher that would make his/her students boil water and then throw live frogs in the water. Don’t worry though, as soon as those frogs hit the water they would immediately jump out.
Next the teacher would have the students put semi warm water in a pot and put the live frogs in… (They probably swam around all happy.) However, the student were told to gradually heat up the water until it got back to a boil.
The same frogs jumped out of the boiling water the first time ended up being slowly boiled to death.
Gross isn’t it? But what does this have to do with exercise? Well, let me answer the question with another question:
What is your environment like? Is it an optimal for you to stay healthy and happy? Or could you possibly be slowly boiling yourself to death?
I was definitely on a slippery slope to the latter. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was stressing out about everything, I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t exercising.
I was constantly busy! And yet, busy doesn’t always equal active. Ninety five percent of my work is on the computer, so, I have to change something else.
Last year, I gained a good 5 lbs during winter and I still have yet to be rid of it. So, this winter, I am not going to let myself gain another 5 lbs because I am too busy to exercise! Winter is quickly approaching and I had to ask myself: “Am I going to fall into the same cycle of less physical activity for another 3 to 4 months this year?”
My answer is: “Um… No!”
So, I dug out my old Denise Austin Pilates video and even the kids got out their yoga for kids videos this weekend. I am going to save myself from slowly allowing my energy to deplete even more because I am not keeping my body strong.
I like Denise Austin because she is so encouraging and authentic in her videos. The Denise Austin: Mat Workout Based on the Work of J.H. Pilates is my favorite. It is so challenging, but not too challenging.
She says things like “These exercises will help you strengthen and tone your muscles to be able to move around with everyday ease…”
Sounds nice right? And she gives you work-arounds for some of her more challenging moves so that you aren’t plagued with sore muscles and joints!
This last Saturday, we (myself, my daughter 8, and my son, 4) decided to also get out my daughter’s old YogaKids video and do that together. It’s a set of two DVDs and we did the one called: “Silly to Calm”. It says it’s for ages 3-6, but my daughter and I both enjoyed it very much.
If you have a favorite video or activity to share, please do so in the comments! I am going to need some input to make sure I don’t get bored.
Remember to stay active this winter…
The hardest part is getting started.
