Lisa's Virtual Ramblings

I was never one to be all gushy around the holiday season and this blog post will not be a gushy, thankful for load of garbage because that is not who I am so why would I write one? For many years, at a younger age, I had the typical Jersey mouth on me. Curses would be flying, no regard to others around me and so forth. Then I started to grow up and realize that not everyone needs to hear my conversations or be caught in my line of nasty mouth. Occassionally it does come back and peaks its head into my life, especially when I get angry but, oh yea the holiday…

This year my husband and I welcomed a baby girl into our lives. If you do not know the entire story, I am sure you can find it somewhere on this blog or my corporate blog here. The sappy side of me, WARNING, is I am thankful for our daughter and that she has allowed us to be a family.

This year, 2009, has been a very difficult one. We decided to move back east to be closer to family and we moved with a 3 week old! Talk about stress but our daughter was amazing! Ok yes, she slept most of the drive but it all worked out so who the fuck cares, you don’t need to hear the week long ordeal of traveling from Arizona to Florida! (ok i still curse…) Unless you want to and I can relive the experience of two SUV’s being driven across the country, 2 dogs, a U-haul, MIL, 3 week old baby to a home I never saw in person…

Anyhoo, my business was going strong and didn’t get overly hit by the troubling economic times. We were on track to even make more money than 2008 and then shit happened. I have no idea what exactly happened but everything got quiet. Then while this downfall was occuring, in March my back decided it was time to knot itself and not loosen till June. Feeling almost normal I decided to be the world traveler to present out at a conference about Online Marketing in San Fran. 5 days later I returned home in extreme pain and with 2 herniated discs. (Delray Beach ER doctor was a huge McDouchey questioning me why I was there and shit; WTF I couldn’t walk! That is why I went to the ER…)

(WTG LISA! Nice job on the back and totally destroying your back health!)

So now that it is 6 months later and I have been fairly quiet throughout the online world, I am attempting to make my return. This time with much less back pain and not planning a trip for a while to make sure my lovely discs will not recreate another 2009 horrid experience of pain, crying and pain killers; where did the time go, what the fuck happened to me, and this year!

While I will be taking off during the slowness of the holiday, it will also give me the much needed time to finally enjoy our new home and location. The dreams of moving 2 minutes from the beach quickly died when I could barely walk for 8.5 months, couldn’t hold my baby or even sleep due to the pain I experienced this year.

Though I wasn’t very vocal in the social networks, I was still online reviewing and reading what was happening. From former supposed “friends” creating companies from ideas we discussed of pursuing together to seeing many people also make cross country moves for a job or a better life to the Internet Marketers who continue to do well and claim the economy hasn’t hurt them; yes 2009 has been a very interesting year through my eyes.

From the freelancer’s point of view, it seems some continue to maintain and do well while others, many who I somehow connected with, seen a drop in business. From canceled contracts and the biggest issue of all which is the theme of 2009, Clients NOT paying!

So as I take time to enjoy the last 2 weeks of 2009 with my family, I will also be deciding if continuing with PearlyWrites is viable, if I continue with PearlyWrites, would I be interested in finding other parties or partners and relaunching or just look at my business as it was nice while it lasted, I learned a lot being a small business owner, about the dishonesty of the business world and continue on my way to bigger, brighter and better things.

Wishing everyone a nice holiday, a better new year and less stress and sanity for 2010!

Lisa

It is all over the news, the economy is bad. Yes we know thank you for telling us over and over again because we quite didn’t hear it the first, second or thirteenth time. By the way, did you know the economy is bad?

But what does this mean in terms of a businesses marketing budget? As we all know the first budgets to be cut are always the marketing budget. Why? It seems since the new business is far and few between, the all mighty powers that be feel that marketing isn’t too important as the existing customers will stay customers and why bother to try and pick up new customers during a down economy?

The reason to not stop your marketing is when the economy begins to pick up, the first companies or products which are going to be remembered are the ones who didn’t stop their marketing efforts. And (yes I used an And to begin a sentence) there are people and companies who are still making money and not feeling the downside to this economy. They are still spending money and going about their lives as if nothing has changed. Think about this population and target them!

This is why I ask the question, “Why stop your marketing?”

With all the new ways to market your business, why not open your mind up to the endless possibilities. It’s just not about print or radio anymore! Video optimization, content creation, podcasts, webinars, online article marketing, social media marketing and online press release distribution, oh and blogging; don’t forget blogging, are all great tools to use when you want to continue marketing to reach a different or new audience.

So ask yourself should you stop all your marketing efforts? When this economy begins to turn around, think about who will be ahead (competition) of and who will be left behind (you).

PearlyWrites, LLC has been chosen to be the Organic SEO provider for the Howard Johnson® brand to improve their organic SERP’s in the hospitality industry.

Phoenix, AZ – Being in the hospitality niche, there is a wide variety of online sites to compete with. Howard Johnson has chosen PearlyWrites, LLC to provide organic SEO services to raise the HoJo® SERP’s and create a crucial presence online. PearlyWrites will be providing a multiple phase plan which will include creating organic traffic through natural SEO techniques including visible, SEO friendly copy.

PearlyWrites is an Organic SEO Company who services mainstream online businesses to have an organic presence using their SEO copywriting and proven organic SEO techniques. Part of their technique focuses on SEO and the adding and changing of copy; to allow their client’s Websites to be indexed naturally through the search engines of Google and Yahoo which leads to continuous organic traffic to their Website.

Organic SEO service packages are offered with an eight month payment plan available through http://PearlyWrites.com/prices.html. The packages include the keyword research, Website analysis, keyword implementation, all their organic SEO techniques and much more!

“Clear, concise, SEO friendly copy which allows any potential visitor to your Website, to stay on your Website is our focus for our clients. Organic and natural SERP’s in the hospitality online industry is needed and we are the company providing this service.” Lisa Weinberger, PearlyWrites founder stated.

PearlyWrites, LLC is a virtual based online marketing company who supports a Green environment. Their independent contractors are located throughout the United States and Canada and available through all new media outlets which allows for quick availability using all technology for consultations and meetings.

Mitch Strohm, independent contractor for PearlyWrites, LLC, stated, “It’s been an honor to be part of the PearlyWrites team over the last year, and to watch it grow so quickly in a highly competitive industry. Being the chosen SEO service provider for Howard Johnson is certainly icing on the cake, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to substantially increase their online presence.”

About PearlyWrites, LLC
Since 1996, PearlyWrites, LLC has provided marketing for print and online campaigns. They cover clients marketing and copywriting needs all under one roof. As a virtual based marketing company, they handle the project management where one phone call or e-mail will give you an update about your project or campaign. They take the worry out of your hands and give you all the necessary details which are important to you. Organic SEO is recommended for all businesses with a Website to continue brand marketing. The company name PearlyWrites developed quite simply through Lisa’s middle name of Pearl.

As promised, it is time to share some of my pics from the AdWords workshop this weekend. Of course I blanked out and forgot to ask someone to take pics of me while I presented. If anyone has some pics of me, I would love to have a copy of one.

Here are some pics and I look oh so lovely…

This past weekend was an amazing experience meeting everyone and hope to have many more.

This past weekend was an amazing experience meeting everyone and hope to have many more.

This weekend I attended Simon Leung’s AdWords workshop in San Jose, Cali and it ROCKED! Simon Rocked and all the guest speakers were awesome!

Matt, Kevin, Rod, Johnnie, Huey Lee, Mark Widawer, Leo, Coach Deb, John Guanzon, Tracy Repchuk, Alejandro, The Twins; everyone rocked!

I presented about “How Optimized Copy Can Help Your Website,” and I felt it went alright. Of course when I was finished, all the things I had planned to speak about during the presentation came back to me but for my first time presenting at a workshop, I did a decent job.

For the one’s who know me from the classroom, you know I gave out candy for correct answers. I wasn’t allowed to throw it around to the participants, so I did a tamer alternatively and passed the bag around the room. I never leave home without candy!

I met some amazing Internet Marketers and they were real life people! Who knew??? John was awesome and spent a lot of time with me running through the basics of Internet Marketing and even let me watch how he develops a landing page. He shared with me ideas of how to get started and I can’t wait to begin this week on my first project to see if I can get it up and running.

On a personal note, I brought dresses to wear for the weekend and ended up being extremely cold the entire time. I guess not being in cooler weather for a few years did thin my blood because I never thought 50-60 degrees would literally make me shiver and it did. I only brought a few things to wear and kept layering them each day. I felt like I looked like a bag lady! So unprofessional but it is a lesson I learned for future travels.

The entire weekend and experience was amazing and I would like to thank Si for accepting me as an apprentice AND letting me present at his AdWords workshop. Si, you are a wonderful Mentor and a great person.

P.S. Pictures will be posted soon

Hello! I am writing from the classroom of my first AdWords workshop with Si. The first day had so much amazing information and I am learning a lot of important information from Si and the guest speakers.

I will present later this afternoon about copywriting and how optimized copy can help bring organic traffic to your Website. Will write a follow up soon!

For any freelancer interested in receiving an email or daily digest with the open projects PearlyWrites receives, then please sign up at the PearlyWrites Yahoo Group.

Please note that if you are a new freelancer to the group, I would need to see samples or an online portfolio before approving membership. Also there are copies of the NDA and Independent Contractor Agreement available under files which I would need before any project details will be given.

Developing this group is a way to ensure all freelancers receive a message when there are open projects as well as to try and make management easier. Please make this group yours and feel free to share in the discussions and thoughts about freelancing.

Since I was accepted into Simon Leung’s apprentice program, I have been waiting to be assigned a project to work on. I received an email Sunday night about starting to do some copywriting for one of his newest ideas and then yesterday, received an IM from Simon inviting me to his AdWords workshop.

After a whole minute of thought, I was on the phone booking my flight and hotel room to San Jose, Cali. I have been studying on my own about AdSense and AdWords but it is different attending a 3-day workshop from one of the Google Masters!

The workshop is November 9 – 11 and I will be flying up on November 8 and returning Sunday evening. Now all I have to do is get that song out of my head, “lalalallala on my way to San Jose dahdahdaaaa.”

(I don’t even know the words but the tune has not left my brain yet.)

If you watched The Daily Show with Job Stewart last night, then you saw Stephen Colbert make a guest appearance on his old stompping grounds. He came out ridden on a tricycle by Uncle Sam, played by Justin from Stewart’s staff.

The two sat down for an “interview” where Colbert gave Stewart a card to read prompting him and poking fun at the way the presidential candidates announced their decision to run.

Colbert announced he is considering running in his home state of South Carolina BUT will announce his decision on a more prestigious show.

The Colbert Report aired after The Daily Show and Colbert announced that he will be running for President in the state of South Carolina. Should be interesting to see the outcome of his announcement.

A news story was posted today on the Yahoo News home page about parents faking religious beliefs so their children do not have to receive vaccinations such as chicken pox, mumps and measles.

First of all this is not a new topic; vaccinations (though mandatory by the government and school districts) are believed by many parents and organizations that the vaccines are to blame for causing certain illnesses. Illnesses such as autism and mental health issues are the two most concerning parents.

Quoted from the news story: Even though government-funded studies have found no link between vaccines and autism, loosely organized groups of parents and even popular cultural figures such as radio host Don Imus have voiced concerns. Most of the furor on Internet message boards and Web sites has been about a mercury-based preservative once used in vaccines that some believe contributes to neurological disorders.

You can look at this argument from both sides, the parents and the government. I’ve experienced both from being vaccinated since as my mother says it, “I didn’t know any better and would have chosen not to vaccinate you and your sisters,” to seeing close friends who were vaccinated and then becoming ill after a chicken pox vaccination which caused paralysis and long term physical disabilities.

Parents are aware of the risks they are taking by not vaccinating their children; but they are more scared of what the vaccinations can do to their children’s body chemistry both mentally and physically. This will be an on going debate in the eyes of the government but to give the parents the choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate is part of our American freedom.