Manipulating the search engines

One of the projects that I recently completed was a goodie. Good meaning, the outcome surpassed even my own expectations.

I've been working with a really nice orthopedic group, Orthopedic Specialists of Seattle, for the past year. When I met them, one of their priorities was to "optimize" their site. Essentially what they wanted was more traffic, because theoretically more traffic equals more patients, right?

As it turned out, their old site was not only outdated looking, but it was built in a way that wasn't search engine friendly. It was all Flash and image-based, unreadable by The Spiders. They were absolutely invisible to the search engines - I think the only way to find the site was to type in the company's exact name into Google. So I had to tell them that they needed a completely new website.

Then I partnered with some nice, smart people to actually build the new site. I wrote some original content with search engine optimization in mind (trying as hard as possible not to make it too noticeable) and recently launched the site.




And voila! Within one month of launch, their site was located on the first page of organic search results for almost every keyword that I identified.

It felt really great to see those kind of results. And even though I feel like I only scratched the surface, I still feel like I learned a lot about online marketing over the past year.

Thank you to Adam, a Claremont alum who I recently met and who helped this project work!

While cooking...

Tonight I am making roast chicken covered in a fresh rosemary and garlic paste, and a rice salad with kalamata olives, feta, and a lemon vinigarette. It's going to be delicious. Sometimes I really outdo myself.

While waiting for things to cook themselves up, I uncovered these super depressing stats that I was compelled to share.

Work by the numbers:

3% - Although worker productivity rose by nearly 20 percent since 2000, the real median hourly wage rose by just 3 percent.

3 - Census data shows that earnings of full-time, year-round workers in 2006 dropped for the third year in a row.

21% - Nationally, jobs in industries that are growing pay 21 percent less than those in industries that are declining.

+3% - Since 2000, the Consumer Price Index rose by nearly 3 percent a year, leaving workers with considerably less buying power.

-8% - For America's younger workers, the picture is even worse. From 2001 to 2004, median income fell 8 percent for householders under 35.

-4.2% - As of 2006, the median income of working-age families was down 4.2 percent since 2000, a loss of $2,375 in 2006 dollars.

50% - Only about half the workforce is offered and participates in health or retirement plans through their employer.

Our generation is effed. I should probably make a decision right here right now to not think about slash seek out this kind of information anymore.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

The decision to get a dog

Sometimes decision making is an interesting process.

A few weeks ago, Brian and I started talking about getting a dog. This idea has always been in the back of our minds but hasn't really been even a feasible scenario until the home purchase a few months ago.

OK, slight topic transition. So, I'm not really sure why the government feels it needs to get its nose in the business of the market, but it sure does. From slashing interest rates to printing more money, the Feds are really trying to stave off a recession aren't they. We kind of know it's coming though. It's just a matter of when. I'm sorry I'm so DOOM AND GLOOM... but who was it?...One of my friends recently mentioned that our generation is the first generation who won't do as well as our parents did. Why is this? I don't really know, I don't have a macro-enough perspective, but my scary Republican background slash Claremont McKenna ridiculously difficult (for my week left brain) Econ 101 class sort of makes me think that it's mostly the government's fault. I still believe that if free markets took precedence, our country would do better, and therefore more people would benefit. Now before you go calling me an uncompassionate right-wing lunatic.... well, just know that I really care deeply about issues facing low-income people. But having worked in/for essentially a city-backed nonprofit venture for 4 years, I'm just not sure that our government - at least not alone - is the best way to solve those issues either.

ANYWAY, back to decision-making. Brian and I have been on the fence about adding a dog to our burgeoning family (that's not really burgeoning). But all this doom and gloom is really making a case for it. Call it escapism if you want, but for some reason, I just feel like if we had the opportunity to do THIS with our dog, somehow I might forget about the bleak future of America and the fact that if we were truly selfless people, we wouldn't even think about pro-creation.




So, when Brian sent me this video this morning, after WEEKS OF DELIBERATION (I know), it was decided, welcome home future Shiloh Shepherd!

All my friends are getting famous

Today was a good jewelry day. In the morning, a pair of my earrings were featured on the homepage of Etsy (my secret dream). I had a few sales and a lot of great compliments from nice people on Etsy. One of my Etsy friends, Rachel (Adorned By Morgan) who lives in NYC and makes similarly cute gems out of vintage and recycled materials (which is why we became Etsy friends in the first place) congratulated me...and less than an hour later, when Etsy did the theme switch, a pair of her earrings were featured on the home page. What are the odds? Here's a few of my favorite things by Rachel:




Framed Owl Earrings, $22.00




Purple Stone, Purple Stone necklace, $45.00


And then, my day o' jewelry concluded with a good metal work class. At first I was so not in the mood to be there. I don't know what the deal was but I was on the verge of tears when I first got there, simply from exhaustion, I think (I've been running a million miles a minute trying to prepare for "secret things"). My bad attitude told me to leave. But I stuck it out, and in the end it was totally worth it because I made my first real metal piece -- a ring! Making rings is actually not that difficult, I learned. That is, as long as you have the right equipment and tools....which literally could set you back thousands of dollars if you did it up right.

This ring is made out of sterling silver. I hammered those lines into it before I shaped it into a ring and soldered it all up. I'm pretty happy with it, especially for my first project.




Apparently we are going to bezel stones on top of our rings next week. This blows my mind but okay!

Also, my good friends Cori and Aviva of The Adventure School were written up in Seattle's Daily Candy today. I thought it was a pretty good write up. Especially for DailyCandy, which usually drives me batty. Yay for them!!! (Cori reminded me tonight that world domination really isn't that far off. )





P.S. My husband has only 38 minutes left in his twenties!!!!

Late fall

Late fall is such a busy time of year. The holidays contribute, of course. And it just seems like even though everyone is ramping up to the holidays, work etc. just seems to escalate because everyone wants to get everything done before Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Our -- or at least MY -- hectic schedule can really be contributed to a few different things. 1.) Brian's 30th birthday (Thursday!), 2.) An important biz meeting on Friday, and 3.) Our impending move.

The following picture sort of encapsulates my busy life right now:




That photo might just represent the REAL (non blog) post nuptial life....at least home-life. I feel like I have no time to keep up my home! I thought that once I worked for myself, that I'd have this lazy schedule where I could vacuum and organize all day. Perhaps if my priorities were different, I could do that. But I seem to fill my entire day from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed, with entrepreneurial adventures.

Even though our house is out of order (ehem, disgustingly dirty), I have a good feeling that things will start to flourish soon. And even if they don't... WOW, I've learned a ton over the past 5 months. More than I've learned in the last 5 years of my 9-5 jobs, I would venture to say. But I still have so much to learn. I am busy setting up meetings with biz people who are smarter than I am, and I can't wait to glean tidbits of their invaluable information.

Also, our move is coming up very quickly. One month from yesterday, in fact. My head is full of move-related thoughts. Like, I have to get my drapes dry cleaned! And, my goodness I don't want to spend actual dollars on something like cardboard boxes. Or, how ridiculous is our furniture going to look in this new house? I am mostly just super super excited. I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe I will have an actual, real office. I can't wait to have the luxury of a dishwasher. I can't wait!

Nazi mommy

A friend of mine -- who will remain nameless -- and I (could I start this blog out any more poorly?) were chatting today over e-mail, and our conversation led to some thoughts that sort of spilled out onto my computer screen and into her inbox. And these thoughts sort of amazingly communicated the purpose of me beginning this silly blog thing.

I'll shorten it for all you all, but it basically went like this:

"Sometimes I buy future baby clothes, is that weird?"

"Are you family planning?"

"What the hell is family planning?"

"Oh, it's when you plan out when you are having a family."

"Yeah, I am kind of doing that. Are you?"

"Yeah, I am."

"I'm afraid to path a child through my vag."

"Yeah. The only thing that scares me is my job. It's too intense to keep if I have a kid."

"You should quit your job, I did, and it's the best. Moms shouldn't have jobs if possible."


NO RESPONSE FOR HOURS.


"Wait, did I offend you? Am I a Nazi mommy?"

"No, you didn't offend me. What I really want to do is buy a home and renovate it, and maybe learn to cook."

AND HERE'S WHERE IT GETS GOOD. (copy and paste:)

"Yes, me too. I think our ovaries are seriously out of control, and it doesn't just induce the desire to have children.... it induces the desire to be homemakers and build a beautiful and comfortable environment, and get good at things that truly matter, instead of de-feminizing yourself in pursuit of making money (primarily for somebody else)."

BASICALLY, my point is, this blog is really about trying to balance the idea of all of the sudden being 28 and married, and wanting to be all wife-like...but up till this point, all I knew was the (corporate) work game. And I got pretty good at it.

Thank God, that phase is over....but now I'm kind of confused! What do I do with my day? How exactly should I structure it? What if I want to make earrings right now? Is it weird to put together a website proposal at 4:30 in the morning? If I work 20 hours per week, am I now considered lazy?

I still have quite a bit of work-like energy. And I have all these pent up entrepreneurial desires, and think up about a half a dozen business ideas every day. It can be confusing, ya'll! So this blog is (going to be) really about trying to balance these interests.

21st century craziness!

Brakes, tax breaks, and creepy dudes

Today's adventure was the opposite of domestic. I went to get my car's brakes checked out. Right off the bat, I viewed the challenge as an opportunity to figure out how not to get screwed. A blonde girl drives up in a BMW and says "something is wrong with my brakes"? This is just a recipe for disaster.

But I like a challenge. So I dropped my car off and the guy who checked me in starts filling out a form, and asks me for my address. I give it to him. He says, Oh I know where you live!

Great....just what I want....a random car mechanic dude making a mental note of where I live. He goes on....and on.... and on..... I learned about his grandma, who owned the condo building across the street, and how she renovated and sold all the units, and then finally her own penthouse suite, for 6.8 million dollars...and how then she bought a ranch in Maple Valley...it's 8,000 square feet....and how he thinks I'm lucky that I own a condo in that area.

“Oh, it’s actually an apartment,” I said.

“You should buy,” he replies. “You get a $10,000 tax break.”

Great. Just want I want. Unsolicited advice on how to invest in the Seattle real estate market from the mechanic at Affordable Brake & Tire. Awesome.

It didn’t end there. I now know he has been with the same woman for 10 years. They had a kid together before they got married. He got married solely for the $10,000 tax break. (It was just a piece of paper at that point.)

I leave, feeling a little violated.

Then I get a call from his colleague, who was actually seemingly friendly and honest. He spent a half hour of his day giving me an educational presentation on the structure of brakes, and what exactly is happening with my brakes, down to the thousands of an inch on my roter. Way more than I ever wanted to know. He told me what I needed, and gave me various options. Generic white box roter or original equipment replacement?

I told him to get screwed. I told him to put my tires back on, and that I’d be there to pick my car up by 5:30.

I don’t know what came over me. It was an impulse. I didn’t even really have a gut feeling with this guy. He seemed nice enough. But see, you NEVER KNOW. As a blonde who drives a BMW and has seen many episodes of 20/20, take it from me: you can’t trust ANYONE. And with no gut feeling, I felt the best option was to tell this guy to take a hike. If my brakes fall off while I’m careening down Queen Anne Hill, then so be it. At least I am in control right now.

I don’t know, I think John Stossel would be proud.