Tweeting this from the hospital. Jeep hit ice and slid right off the highway and hit a rock wall. I am miraculously unscathed. Need coffee.

The jeep hit black ice and spun around. I slid backwards off the road, flipped onto the driver side, and hit rock wall.

I am completely unharmed. It’s amazing. I can’t believe it. But the jeep is gone.

His Jeep is destroyed. He went home and is okay. However, he needs help…and transportation. He will be offering a tele-seminar to help raise money for a new car.

Michael has given so much to the online community. Let’s give back to him. Donate to the Michael Martine Car Accident Fund.

Why I donated to Michael’s Car Fund…

I gave. Why? I’m not a saint, and I’m not rich. I also don’t want linkbait.

My life has been enriched by Michael Martine and the value he brings and shares about blogging and online marketing. Also, I was personally touched by what happened to him and was instantly reminded that my life, too, was miraculously saved from a car accident years ago. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about this, and tears are welled up in my eyes.

Here’s why I donated to his Car Fund…

Remarkablogger is Remarkable!

Remarkablogger is just that, a remarkable blogger. I have learned so much from this man. I read his site and subscribed to his emails before I even “knew” him on Twitter, @remarkablogger.

When I started blogging again after many failed attempts and mistakes, I was looking for case studies. His site, Remarkablogger, was one of the first sites I found. He not only knew a lot about blogging, but he also understood how to get ranked in the search engines, SEO! Now, that’s a powerful case study to follow, right? I specialize in SEO and think about optimization constantly. But I made a lot of mistakes about the world of blogging, learning on my own. Michael Martine has been instrumental in taking my understanding about SEO and blogging to the next level.

Remarkablogger freely gives valuable advice, answers questions on his blog, and demonstrates a passion and care for helping others succeed in their online businesses with blogging.

He recently started offering teleseminars to share his expertise in blogging, SEO and online marketing…and at a good price! I attended his 1st seminar – Remarkablogger WordPress SEO Teleseminar. I took away so much.  Michael Martine has been instrumental in helping me provide a better value to my clients. This site doesn’t demonstrate what I’ve learned from him, but I am taking what I’ve learned and am helping others.

I gave to Michael Martine’s Car Accident Fund to give back to him for all he has done for me and to pay it forward.

Michael, thank you! I’m so grateful you are okay and have life and breath to continue providing a remarkable level of value to many lives.

Paying it Forward

This is the first time I’ve paid it forward to someone relating to a car accident. Michael’s life was spared, and mine has been as well.

I was more fortunate than Michael and avoided the accident all together. Correction, “Someone” intervened and helped me avoid an accident. Huh? Oh, I’m not going to get too spiritual on you here, but it was a “miracle.”

I was merging into an oncoming lane from Highway 17 from Highway 1 in Santa Cruz. It’s called the “Fishhook” and is a place of many crashes.  I was in the outside lane of this almost 360-degree turn pocket, merging into oncoming traffic. Coast was clear. I merged. I looked again, a car was approaching from around the mountain at approx 80mph. Another car was to its left. It had no where to go. I turned my face back toward my wheel and thought it was my time, heart racing…

My car moved to the right on a puff of air, horizontally! It defied the laws of physics and the principles of centrifugal force!

My eyes focused on speeding car’s passenger side mirror as it passed me with less than an inch to spare!

It changed me life and proved to me there are forces bigger than what we see with our eyes. I believe God saved my life. My life surely has been optimized as a result!

Consider Paying it Forward

It’s the Christmas Season, and I encourage you to consider giving and paying it forward to others. Times are tough for so many right now. It’s the perfect time to share and optimize someone’s life!

I’m sorry Michael went through this situation, but I’m thankful I had a chance to remember and share a life-changing experience.

If your life has been enriched by Michael Martine, give to his Car Accident Fund. Free up Remarkablogger’s time and energies, so he can focus on creating more value to those learning about blogging, SEO and marketing online.

• You just don’t feel motivated.
• You’ve used up your mental bandwidth with work, meetings, pressing projects, distractions – creativity drained.
• You sit down at the computer with good intentions, find other things to do, and spend your time commenting on other blogs instead.
• You write. Your thoughts are disjointed. You close your draft for another day, another week, another year… You end up with more Unpublished posts than Published.

Been there. Done that? Then you know about Blog Fog!

I made up that term yesterday to describe my condition. I quickly jotted down this acronym:

F – Frenetic
O – Obstacles
G – Got me down

Blog Fog is a state in which one does not write content worthy of being posted to a blog. It’s the condition in which Frenetic Obstacles Get you down.

When the Blog Fog rolls in, interest and enthusiasm to write meaningful content go away. One lacks the warmth of solar-powered creativity.

This state may be caused by one or more of the following:

• Feelings (emotions/reactions/state of mind);
• Technical issues (computer/software challenges);
• Lack of planning (failure to set measurable goals that have purpose);
• Life (unexpected events).

My Barriers to Blogging

Blog Fog has rolled in recently for this sunny California gal. (One of the things I do not miss about living in Monterey is…the fog!) I love life and try to find the silver lining in all challenges. The past few months have provided a lot of opportunities to seek silver linings. Recent unexpected business changes, packed schedule, and hospitalization of my mother-in-law have provided opportunities to re-evaluate priorities.

It’s time to set boundaries and blow away the barriers to blogging.

Blowing away the Blog Fog

You can blow away the Blog Fog to let the sun shine of clarity fill your mind.

Here are my thoughts about working toward clear skies. I’ll take the following actions, when I…:

• get zapped by negativity in Social Media spaces… Think “Water. Duck. Back.” Disconnect periodically, take time away from SM.
• experience overwhelm from trying to do it all… Stop. Set boundaries. Work strengths, not weaknesses.
• am challenged with my blog theme CSS… Find another theme. Plan a redesign.
• get frustrated with WordPress’s editor… Research, test and find a text editor that is more user-friendly.
• am unsure what I want to say next, not wanting to rinse and repeat latest news or other blog posts… Ask self: “Who is my audience? Who cares? What am I trying to share? How will it add value and help?
• start posts without finishing… Create a content strategy plan, and follow it.
• schedule too much, get enthusiastic about too many ideas, talk too much… Take a step back. Listen. Plan realistically. Count to 10 or let 24 hours pass before committing to anything.
• feel like life’s out of control… Readjust accordingly. Plan for the unexpected and allow down time. Schedule time for rejuvenation.

Clear skies!!! It’s time to let the sun shine on blogging again!

The following quote summarizes one way to blow away the Blog Fog:

Creators start at the end. First they have an idea of what they want to create. Sometimes this idea is general, and sometimes it is specific. Before you can create what you want to create, you must know what you are after, what you want to bring into being.

-Robert Fritz

Read that one more time. “…Know what you are after, what you want to bring into being.”

This is not some form of chain linking! I did think “chain mail” when I read:

You Must Participate for this to Succeed

Why? For you to be successful online, you must participate to succeed. (Oh, Michael already said that!)

Blogging doesn’t get Web traffic!

Participation generates Web traffic, not blogging! Michael Martine is modeling a best practice for his visitors to follow. He’s encouraging site visitors to visit and comment on other blogs. How does he benefit?

• One, he continues to demonstrate that he’s a thought leader.
• Two, he’s creating a viral scenario through his site as the hub.
• Three, he’s gaining incoming links to this page on his blog, increasing trust value with the search engines (known as PageRank in Google).
• Four, he’s acquiring RSS subscribers. Did that, too, Michael!

Blogging is about conversation – interaction, voicing opinions and commenting, reporting on information, sharing. Blogging is social! You may think you don’t have time for all this Social Media stuff. Admittedly, it can be time-consuming. You need to schedule accordingly if you do plan to participate online, just like planning time for interacting with offline friends. Participation on blogs is a requirement for success.

Imagine a networking event where no one socialized, where it was all one-way conversation! That’s Web 1.0 with no user participation.

Think of your blogging activities like that of a networking event. Don’t just talk about yourself. Ask questions and comment when you have something of value to add to the conversation. Don’t talk and comment incessantly, spamming to get your name out there!

Be People-Oriented

The best bloggers and “traffic getters” are people-oriented. They know and love the art of engaging in conversation. People-oriented individuals tend to be genuine, thinking of others, asking questions, caring about feelings and building others up. Negative, back-biting blog comments will not win friends or influence the search engines.

Are you anti-social?

• Don’t blog! You might have to answer comments, which requires responding to people.
• Continue to develop static Web pages that do not interact with your readers, and you’ll maintain your reclusivity.
• Don’t post comments on sites that follow links back to your site (like the Comment Luv plugin I use on this site). You won’t have to worry about increasing exposure and links to your pages. You won’t gain position or ranking in the search engines. You’ll stay out of the public eye.

I recall a guy at Cal State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) with whom I was working on a group project. We were starting a student organization for computer science majors, Electric Eels. I was the President and asked him his preferred role. He said, “I don’t like people” and walked away. Oddly, one of the requirements at CSUMB was collaboration!  He would not do well to blog, and if he did, I doubt it would get much traffic.

Nice to meet you, Remarkablogger readers!

I have not listed the plethora of sites that I’ve enjoyed finding since reading Michael Martine’s post. Thank you, Remarkablogger, for this opportunity to participate and get to know some bloggers who are adding value to the Internet! They have my traffic!

FOOTNOTE: Remarkablogger is a valuable resource for anyone learning about the art and science of blogging.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not a blogging expert. It’s taken me over three years to “get it right” using WordPress, so I disclaim that I don’t have all the answers. The learning curve continues – guess I’m at the “Blogging 201″ level. I try to learn by my mistakes, so I’ll share my blogging mistakes with you. As my Mom used to tell me:

“Don’t do as I do. Do as I say do.”

What is a blog?

A blog was originally short notation for a “Web log”, or a personal journal. However, a blog is also a content management system to update a personal or corporate website with new entries that appear in sequence as they are written.

It once cost multiple thousands of dollars to create a content management system, which is essentially a database of articles that are managed through a Web interface. Think of it as a dynamic publishing system that doesn’t require authors to have heavy HTML or coding experience. Planning and integrating a blog into one’s site can still cost a small sum of money, but costs are now much lower. If you’re a beginner, you have two choices:

1. Hire someone to design and implement a blog on your website.
2. Sign up for an account on a shared service that offers users to blog for free.

Thus the question…

Paid vs. Free Blog Hosting?

Determine Your Goals, First!

Determine your blogging goals before you decide which platform is right for you.

• Who? Who are you representing? What is your online identity?
• What? What subject, service, product and/or passion do you plan to blog about?
• When? How often do you plan to post blog posts?
• Where? From your computer? Do you want to be able to update your blog from your cell?
• Why? What’s your purpose and your message?

Multiple answers to each question may require multiple blogs – multiple websites. Don’t mix too many passions on one site, unless it’s an ego site about your exciting life.

You should do fine with a free-hosted blog if you simply want to blog to share opinions and journal about their life, travels and experiences. Those who want to build a business, build an identity and/or make money online should invest in paid hosting with their own domain. Here’s why…

Free Hosting

There are a number of free blog hosting options I’m not going to list. Here are the top 2, in my opinion, for setting up a blog without buying a domain or paying monthly hosting fees:

WordPress.com – Same blogging platform as many people use with paid hosting but with limitations.

Blogger.com – Also known as Blogspot, which was purchased by Google and now knows as Blogger.

PROS: Free! Easy! You don’t have to know HTML.

Text from Blogger’s home page says it all:

Create a blog in 3 easy steps:

1. Create an account
2. Name your blog
3. Choose a template

It’s almost magic.

CONS: You don’t have your own domain to brand yourself. Your website address (URL) will be “youraccountname.blogspot.com” or “youraccountname.wordpress.com” rather than “yourdomainname.com.”

You can’t extend the functionality of your blog with plugins.

Leaving comments on a Blogger blog causes “comment dropout” – just made up the term, but it’s like shopping cart dropout. The process takes the user off your site when they leave a comment, and some shy away from this extra step.

If you have been blogging and building “strength” on a Blogger domain, you’ll be starting from scratch for SEO with your new domain. However, you can now import your Blogger posts into WordPress.

MISTAKE: NOT UNDERSTANDING: I started on Blogspot (aka Blogger) right before getting married three years ago. Oh, what a great way to share pre-wedding bliss, bike rides and time with friends. Well…I had little control over the layout – not saying I’m a control freak. But if you’re used to coding, you won’t like Blogger. I didn’t understand enough about blogging to pursue other avenues, so I lost time and energy with my Blogspot adventure.

Paid Hosting for WordPress

WordPress is THE platform of choice for those who want to blog about a product or service and/or want to build a long-term identity online.

Download it from Wordpress dot org (not dot com), or find a hosting provider who will set it up for you.

PROS: Enhance your blog with themes (nice designs and layouts) and plugins (tools that “plug in” to enhance functionality).

Put ads on your site and make money with advertising. (I’m at the 101 stage with making money!)

Use your own domain, yourdomainname.com, to create your identity.

Use WordPress as a content management system to update your website without heavy HTML knowledge.

CONS: WordPress’ “visual” editor mode is not perfect; you should understand some HTML.

You can easily make hosting mistakes by not choosing the right hosting provider.

There is a learning curve. It’s not magic.

MISTAKES: BAD HOSING: I used two hosting companies who said they provided WordPress hosting, yet their services were poor… oh so poor that I won’t even link to them. One had only outdated versions of WordPress and didn’t provide support or access to upgrade. The other would not allow direct access to the WordPress database and wouldn’t let me make modifications. They didn’t know how to download my database, so I lost many months of work. (Out of frustration, I just took the sites down.)

DIFFICULT THEME MANAGEMENT: I am currently using the Shifter theme for this site. It doesn’t allow direct access to theme files, which makes customization very difficult. I paid $199 for it and have felt limited due to the heavy learning curve. It has great potential, however, so stand by…

NO EDITORIAL CALENDAR: When I setup Pixel Position as a blog, I didn’t plan an editorial calendar or schedule time to blog on a regular basis. That changes today!

1. Blogger and WordPress.com free hosting is quick and easy and works well for “weekend” bloggers.
2. WordPress is a robust blogging platform used by many companies as a content management system for their websites.
3. You’ll need to buy a domain.
4. Find reliable paid hosting to “host” your website blog. I recommend HostGator after many mistakes later. (I share a dedicated server with HostGator and have been super impressed with their support.)

HOSTING TIPS: I don’t recommend Windows-based hosting for blogging. You want access to a file called .htaccess, which enables you to setup rules to “redirects” URLs to prevent duplicate content issues. (Don’t think about that part right now.) Windows redirects are tricky. Just make sure your hosting provider offers an Apache server – the best way to go.

You get what you pay for, and you should be expect to pay $7-$15 per month for entry-level hosting plans.

Resources

WordPress For Dummies Book
I would have been a “smartie” to buy this book early on, if it was even in print then.

Choosing a Blog Platform
This is a great article by ProBlogger. It was written in early 2006, but the principles shared remain current. This guy has a plethora of valuable information. You could spend days learning about blogging on his site.

Blogging 101: Which Software do I Choose?
Read this recent article that explains, in more detail, various options for blogging, but they don’t review WordPress.org.

Feel free to comment below with your experiences with free vs. paid blogging platforms.

WordPress Auto Upgrade Plugin Screenshot

WordPress Auto Upgrade (WPAU) is a plugin that REALLY works! First, WPAU sounds like the name of a Hawaiian fish. But it didn’t take any work to savor and enjoy this delicate morsel! WPAU will become my entree of choice for all future WordPress upgrades.

I was hesitant, even though @DazzlinDonna suggested it. I trust Donna’s experience, so I took it for a spin. But, I like a little code, FTPing files, seeing exactly where everything goes. Forget that stuff! WordPress upgrades? Bring them on!

WordPress Auto Upgrade is like driving with automatic transmission. WPAU is a WordPress “Wizard.” You simply need to read the screens, and click Next Task ->.

WPAU even diagnoses and tunes up WordPress. It told me I had not completed the cleanup process during the last upgrade. (That’s what I get for being my own garage mechanic.)

WordPress Auto Upgrade Wizard

You have a choice to upgrade “automatically,” but I wanted to walk through the steps.

Here’s a brief summary. (You need to first upload the WordPress Auto Upgrade plugin.)

1. The Wizard does a preliminary check of your WordPress setup, then lets you know it’s ready to roll.
2. Next Task -> Backs up your files! Woo Hoo!
3. Next Task -> Puts the site into maintenance mode
4. Next Task -> De-activates all the plugins
5. Next Task -> Upgrades all the installation files
6. Next Task -> Shows you the options to upload latest files
7. Uploads latest version of WP.
   (This version doesn’t get files from local machine. NOTE to self: Don’t bother downloading and unzipping WP files and FTPing them to server.)
8. Next Task -> Reactivates all plugins
9. Next Task -> Congratulations your wordpress upgrade is complete.

Downside? WordPress Auto Update has a few grammatical and capitalization errors. Just put your English Teacher’s red pen away. You can always follow WordPress’ handy 5-minute install steps, manually. But why?

Why Upgrade to WordPress 2.6?

Read the WordPress Blog, and/or watch the video to see that it offers bloggers new features that make WordPress more powerful.

• Skip in time to earlier post revisions* and restore.
• Drag and drop links to bookmarks bar.
• Grab text, pull quote out and easily embed video.
• Add captions to images, right below picture! (See above.)
• Test how a new theme will look on your blog before commiting to it.
• Gears – store WordPress images, scripts, CSS on your computer locally which significantly speeds up time if you’re on a slow connection.

Go, WordPress!

*Revisions

You can now track changes to your post and restore to a previous version. This was huge. I had an issue when toggling into HTML view and lost my first 4 paragraphs. Ugh! Then autosave disabled Cntl+Z for undo. OUCH! I scrolled down to the bottom, viewed the revision 3 minutes earlier. Deep breath and sigh of relief.

Next task on the list is to figure out how to shift Gears to turbo-speed blogging mentioned above. But wait, it’s Google; I’ll pull into the pit on that one and wait it out.

Plugins?

You’d better check your plugins, too! I feel sorry for those who develop and support WordPress plugins. Imagine the work each time a new version is launched! Joost de Valk, Mr. WordPress Plugin Extraordinaire, has been busy. Check out his updated plugins for WordPress. There’s a new one, too, I’ll have to checkout.

Have fun! Blogging with WordPress is almost automated! However, you still need to sit behind the wheel and drive and steer your blog in the direction you want to go.

Static websites are a monologue. Enter into a dialogue by setting up a blog. Blogs also provide a great way for that conversation to be “SEO-friendly.” Be nice to the search engines, and they will like you and interact with your site.

WordPress Plugins

Plugins are helper applications you add on to WordPress to extend this blogging platform’s functionality. Most are free and written by the community to improve our blogging conversations.

Before publishing this blog, I installed the following Plugins for WordPress:

1. Askimet plug-in to ward off comment SPAM;
2. All-in-One SEO Pack to manage TITLES, META tags, etc.
   • View this All-in-One SEO plugin tutorial to understand a little about the settings.
3. Google Analytics for WordPress
   • (We’ll share more about Google Analytics later. Think of it as a way to measure incoming and outgoing dialogues in your blog.

Shown is a screenshot showing these are “Active” for Pixel Position.

SEO with All-In-One Plugin

The TITLE tag of each blog page is one of the key SEO factors for optimizing for search engines.

TITLE: The text in the TITLE tag is text that displays in the upper blue bar of your browser, in the upper left of the browser window. This text also displays in a visitor’s bookmark of your site.

Your TITLE should reflect the content of that page. Search engines look here first to see what your blog post is “talking” about.

The All-in-One Plugin mentioned above gives you control over each page TITLE. By default, WordPress populates your TITLE tag with the “Title,” or heading, of each post You might want to be more clever with a post’s Title that shows on the page and write an optimized, keyword-rich TITLE for the search engines.

Shown is a partial screenshot of All-in-One’s options, including “Rewrite Titles.”

TIP: Your URL structure, or how your pages are named, is a setting you should review before hitting the “Publish” button. You want targeted keywords in each permanent link, aka “Permalink,” for each post. View this resource that explains about WordPress Custom Permalink Structure.

Setup Blog Plugins

Measure twice. Cut once!

Plan your blog setup before going live. A little planning to determine the basic plugins and setup for SEO will reap huge rewards down the road. Decide which plugins are a must for SEO before you launch:

Below are some plugin resources.

• WordPress Plugins Directory
• 7 Must Have Killer WP Plugins
• Best SEO Plugin Winners – 2007

It’s taken some time to implement the proper blog theme with WordPress on a reliable hosting platform. We made some mistakes and lost previous blog databases and indexed pages (OUCH for someone in SEO). Those who know about Pixel Position know that clients come first. This means that working on one’s own site is often second or third on the list.

It’s too easy to be like the car mechanic who doesn’t work on his/her own car! We’ll share the journey to get this blog live as well.

Pixel Position Site Goals

The goal of Pixel Position is to provide a place to have a conversation about marketing strategies – from A to Z and back. Strategies, tips and tools for marketing your products and services (and even yourself) online will be featured. Topics will include:

• Conversational SEO & Online Marketing Strategies
  
• Search Engine Optimization, Social Media and the world of Web 2.0.
• Ways to be productive, ways to use Zoho productivity tools and Google Apps. (Guess that’s Z to GA?)

It’s time to get going, again…blogging again! It’s great to dedicate time to others and to serving clients, but it’s finally time to launch this journey in Online Marketing. Get on board! You’ll learn tips, tools and resources to market your products, services and your people! Your ticket is free. No refunds. No guarantees! Travel at your own risk.

The goal of the journey is to show you how to “Engage Customers with Online Marketing!”