Annie,

lol, I just looked at your blog and saw you experienced your first storm.

I moved from Rockford IL, to Southern Louisiana when I was 17, 6 Months after I got here Hurricane Andrew hit us, Where I was didn't recieve any damage but we had 100 MPH winds,Florida got it bad and Morgan City was almost destroyed.

My whole family left to go north except me and my Uncle,We went fishing when the winds died down to about 30 mph.

Since then I have gotten used to them working in the Gulf Of Mexico.I was just west of New Orleans when Katrina hit and wiped out New Orleans and recieved no damage, The when Rita hit I again recieved no damage but my sister that lives 7 miles to the west of me had to move in with me with her BF and 4 kids because they lost power for a week.

The best part about it is I was in the Philippines on vacation and woke up one morning and heard the winds blowing really bad and thought to myself this has to be a typhoon, sure enough I got online and a weak typhoon was right over the top of where I was,I guess that was in July,Again I recieved no damage but unfortunately a passanger ferry turned over and killed 700 people just south of where I was.

For Ike I was again in the Philippines when it hit you and when I returned I recieved no damage except 1 piece of skirting from under my house.

Its the floods that hurt, usually the rest is just usually minor damage.

Brian

Hi Brian,

Let me add my welcome to the forum. Well, the Lord has certainly looked out for you! You've been through all those major storms without any damage. That's really amazing and something to be thankful for, I'd say.

Just wanted to encourage you about the SEO. It's really not as bad as it sounds. Some people make a big deal out of it and spend their whole time tweaking, trying to get it exactly right. If you just get an understanding of the basics about keyword research and how to build a page using a simple format, you'll be fine.

SEO is important so that your pages are found for the keywords you are writing about, but don't get out of balance on it like some people seem to. The quality of your content is the most important aspect. You want to provide good content that visitors appreciate, properly optimized, and the search engines will naturally reward you for it.

I'm no expert. I just follow the simple rules that were laid out to me when I learned to build my sites and my pages eventually rank pretty well for the most part. I do have a 'secret weapon' that makes it a bit easier, I suppose. There's a tool in SBI (the site building program I use) called AnalyzeIt that checks each page before I make it live. It tells me if the page is properly SEO'd for the keywords I've chosen, and if not, tells me what I need to do to fix it. I can pretty much write a page now and have it pass almost every time.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say that even though this whole online marketing thing can be pretty complex, it doesn't have to be too difficult. Don't let yourself get to thinking it's just too complicated, because it really isn't. It's actually pretty fun!

Blessings,
Angie

Angie,

Thanks for the advice and the tool Idea to help me out. Im going to take it slow and learn how to put up a website before I give this a shot.

Brian

Wow, Brian, from your account of how you have suffered no damage in all the storms, I'd have to agree with Angie that you are truly blessed!

Whenever I go through a big experience, I try to see what lessons there are for me to learn. One thing I did realize is that building a business online is something that can really be of value during crisis conditions where you might not be able to work in your IRL land based job. I think I presented my idea better on my blog entry about it!

Anyway, be sure to share of your progress and even what tools and products you are using, for since we are all learning, it's interesting to see what is working good, better and best for everyone!

Until next time...
Annie

Fair enough. I actually went through the learning process with SBI. If you want to DIY, just be sure you get some quality instructional material so that you don't end up wasting your time doing it wrong.

Here's a general/basic pattern of good SEO.

Include the main keyword phrase in your page name, title, description, and keyword meta tags.

On the page itself, include it in your heading, first sentence, one or two text links, and last paragraph. If your page is longer, you need to include it a couple more times, but don't overdo it. Too many times is just as bad as not enough times.

Hope that helps a little...

Blessings,
Angie

Angie, thank you for that great synopsis of the SEO pattern. The more you write of these types of tips and explanations, the more it shows that SBI has really been a great education! When the time comes, you never know...I just might be another SBI convert!

Until next time...
Annie