You know what I can’t get enough of? Women’s sunglasses. Seriously. I love sunglasses. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I could never wear them — unless I wanted to sacrifice the ability to see — until 2007, when I finally upgraded to contacts. Now I must have at least a dozen pairs, and that doesn’t include the few I lost, the few that broke and the one pair my mother lost in the Atlantic Ocean this summer.
Whenever I’m bored, I check out sunglasses. I’m big on sunglasses for winter, for summer and for specific occasions. Check these sexy ones out (thank you Kaenon.com). Santa, please bring them to me!
SEO stands for Seach Engine Optimization, and you’re going to want to get to know it intimately if you’re planning on marketing yourself online. Whether you have a product to sell, a service to sell, or you simply want to get the word out about who you are and what it is that you do, SEO is the way to go.
From Wikipedia:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.
SEO is all about taking a keyword or set of keywords, and putting it/them out there with links so that search engines eventually tie that keyword/those keywords into you. Let’s say I was interested in getting iblogalicious.com to rank high in search engines. I would need to pick keywords to represent my site, and associate iblogalicious.com URLs with them, and then get them linked on many other sites via organic, non-paid means. And with any luck, eventually iblogalicious.com might rank highly for any searches done using those keywords!
Now, right off the bat I know I’m being a huge hypocrite by recommending that you use your own WordPress theme, rather than a pre-made WordPress theme, but understand that I’m a very busy girl, and this blog is more for informative purposes. Now when it comes to personal blogs, custom, one of a kind themes are definitely the way to go.
Anyway, there are tons of pre-made WordPress themes out there, but with thousands of blogs being set up every day, and WordPress becoming more popular than ever, it should come to no one’s surprise that a pre-made WordPress theme is going to be seen repeatedly. Why bore your visitors with a bland presentation that looks as no effort was put into it? Take the time to research how to create your own theme, and then do your best to get one put together!
Twitter is a self-described micro-blogging service that definitely falls under the category of social networks, even if it approaches the whole social networking aspect a little differently than other types of social networks. While Facebook and MySpace are all about building massive profiles and connecting with others based on various interests, education, work, groups, etc., Twitter is all about microblogging — specifically, telling the world what you’re doing at any given moment. Just as you’d use Facebook to connect with high school friends, you’d use Twitter to tell people that you’re currently shopping for women’s sunglasses.
Twitter allows users to include one URL in their profiles; this URL is viewable whenever anyone views your profile (located at twitter.com/your_username_here). But you can also customize the background image and colors of your profile, meaning you could create a custom background image that lists any other blog, business or portfolio URLs that you’d like to get out there.
It’s easy to find people to follow on Twitter. And by using hashtags (#hashtag), you can easily get your updates listed under certain hashtag search results. Let’s say you’re discussing Obama. “Tag” it by adding #obama at the end of your update (called a tweet), and that update will be included in any search someone does for the hashtag #obama!
Twitter easily puts your message out there for millions of people to view. Individuals and companies all over the world are quickly seeing and harnessing the power of Twitter, and you should too!
‘Tis the season for colds, sinus infections, strep throat, bronchitis and general upper respiratory infections that have a nasty habit of making you feel like absolute poo. I got my first cold of the season back in mid-November, and have been sick with one cold-type illness after another up until right now. In fact, as I type I keep having to sniff, because I have a runny nose. I have definitely noticed a decline in blogging as I’ve been sick. It’s hard to keep up with multiple blogs when you feel like death warmed over, and staring at the screen becomes a real hassle.
If you’re battling over the counter crap, allow me to recommend Tylenol Cough & Cold (both day and night variations!), Delsym (controls cough for twelve hours) and 4-Way Fast Acting Nasal Decongestant Spray. That stuff in particular is absolutely AWESOME in terms of how quickly and perfectly it unclogs nasal and sinus congestion!
In case you haven’t noticed, I am all about WordPress. It’s based off of b2, which is what I initially built my blogs upon. WordPress has been around since the early 00′s, but I didn’t bother to download it and start using it until mid-2005. Since then, I haven’t looked back.
Anyway, since making the switch to WordPress, I have quickly discovered the power of WordPress plugins. If there’s ever anything you’ve wanted to do with your blog that you couldn’t do with the base installation, let me assure you that there’s a 99.99999% chance that there’s a plugin available to do the job for you.
If you’re going to blog, you’re going to need a place to keep that blog. It’s true that you can set up a free blog with LiveJournal or WordPress, but having your own domain gives you 100% control over every last aspect of your blog. Plus, there are no ads, and you can troubleshoot any problems that arise, rather than having to wait for a third party company to take care of things for you.
I’m a fan of GoDaddy for domains, simply because registration and management of domains is simple, and there are plenty of coupon codes available! There are always huge lists of coupon codes that are changing, but here are some tried & true codes that should be good for the rest of the year:
rrtv3: $6.95 .com domain registration
mtech1: save 10% on any purchase
mtech2: save 20% on of any purchase of $50 or more
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cjchstsale save 20% on any shared webhosting plan
I love Christmas, and I love the snow, but I hate the cold. I know, I know, you can’t have snow without the cold. But there’s nothing worse than waking up in the morning and having to get out of a warm, cozy bed, walk across the cold floor and into a cold bathroom and sit on an even colder toilet seat. Brrrr! And then there’s later at night, like now, when I’m sleepy but not ready to go to bed yet, and I’m chilly enough to be uncomfortable and have trouble typing. It’s times like this that I could happily go for some waxing in Huntington Beach.
But honestly, I think if I had to choose between having it cold year round and having it warm, I’d go for cold. When you’re cold, you can put on layers, huddle up next to a heater, etc., but when you’re hot, you can only take so much off! Besides, hats and mittens and scarves are adorable, and they make great fashion accessories!
If you plan on establishing yourself on the internet, the first thing you should do is come up with a name for yourself. And I don’t mean your real name. Well, you can use your real name, but unless it’s something really unique, like Embellished Golden Rose, chances are it’s already in use all over the internet. It’s fine to let people know who you are, but you should choose an alias that is unique. Use your nickname, your name plus your year of birth, or a phrase or a term that represents you. There are many options out there, and if you want you can throw in “the”, “a”, or hyphens or underscores to ensure that your name is unique.
Once you do have that name picked out, make sure to register various social networking accounts using it as a username. Check out sites like 43 Things, 43 Places, 43 People, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, Youtube, etc. Before you know it, searching for your alias on Google or Yahoo will bring up all of your registered profiles!
Hi everyone! My name is Jenn, and I’m going to be taking over iBlogalicious. The blog has sat dormant for most of the year, while the rest of us have been hoping to do some waxing in Huntington Beach, which is a shame considering the potential it has! Anyone, I love blogs — in fact, I have several of my own, including jenn.nu, my personal blog, and In My Bag, my product review blog.
Anyway, if anyone has any ideas for blogging, feel free to drop me a line at x@jenn.nu!
