Lisa’s SEO Ramblings

With great excitement I was asked to be a panelist at an AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo) event on Jan. 10. 2009 at the Venetian (Sands Expo Center). I will be on the 10:30am panel on Saturday morning discussing Adult Online Marketing and VERY excited to be sharing the panel with some great and known Adult businesses and gurus.

The moderator is Jay Kopita from YNOT and the Panelists are Jackie Strano from Babeland; Jax Smith from SugarDVD; Farley Cahen from Digital Playground; and Albert Lazarito from man about town. We will be discussing about how to stake your claim on the Internet using online marketing techniques including social media and many more!

Come by and check us out! Let’s get a drink and talk Adult online marketing and SEO.

Online Branding and Photos

I always thought that getting professional photos or headshots were for actors or well-known, famous people. After attempting to get a nice, decent photo taken of me by others, I finally made the decision to get professional headshots and avator pics taken.

I posted on Twitter for suggestions of a Phoenix photographer and Erica Lucci sent me Tyson Crosbie. I am grateful to both of my Twitter friends as the photo session went wonderful and Tyson is an artist! He made me feel comfortable and the shots came out amazing!

Here are some of the shots:

Although I tell our clients how online branding is important, I wasn’t following my own advice. With Tyson’s pics, I now can go forth and continue with online branding PearlyWrites as the woman who likes to make funny faces and Shirley Temple curls!

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

If you are interested in Internet Marketing, have you ever heard of MoreNiche?

One of my online networking connections pointed me to this site a few months ago and I didn’t give it enough time to review. The past two weeks I have been reading and reviewing the entire site more and they offer TONS of free information for their affiliates to use. From Webmaster ideas, forum support and the main Webmaster is always on the forums answering the newbie’s questions.

The members of MoreNiche are very supportive and it is a great place to learn about how to market your products and services online. If you are learning what SEO is or want to learn more about it, there are free resources, guides and articles to use.

If you have any questions about MoreNiche or want to learn more about how affiliate programs can bring you a consistent income, visit the site and read some of the available information.

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.

I just received exciting news that one of my clients, a software development company, was interviewed by the New York Times. The interview will appear in the paper and online the last week of September.

Now for even more exciting news! My client, who is very cool, asked if I could write an article that the hard link from the New York Times interview will be directed to. He felt rather than sending interested parties directly to his home page, having the traffic go to another page with more information about the topic would be ideal.

So the article I wrote will be linked to my client’s NYT interview!!! OK, it’s not an article in the NYT but at least its close…

This week has brought news from many different directions. Besides the phone ringing off the hook and lots of collaboration with Nicole Nash on three versions of Ad copy for a client, this week has brought rewrite projects. It seems to go in cycles where clients begin developing more subdomain names and want the sites to say the same thing but not with the same copy due to the penalties that Google will enforce.

I am getting a contract to write a new book; which details will follow once the contract is signed and its a definite go.

Then I got exciting news today that I was accepted into Simon Leung’s apprentice program so I am very excited to begin this journey of Internet Marketing and learn from the Google guru himself.

I accepted a position as a “Marketing Manager” for a new site called Little Pen Pal which is a great idea that brings the  joy of receiving a letter from a pen pal, back into the world.

A few new projects with possibilities of long term contracts and lots of marketing! (Can never stop in this business.)

Developed a MySpace account for PearlyWrites (Want to be my friend?) and making the last minute fixings on the new Website for PearlyWrites.com. The plan to launch is next week and hopefully it will be ready to go.

Wait but today is only Thursday and I still have tomorrow to get through…

As I battle back and forth every week about life, included in this battle is how to grow my business. When I began my full time freelance journey two years ago, I never imagined that freelancing would develop into having my own marketing and writing service.

I figured after three years, I would be able to sub-contract out some of the extra work I received but not within six months of starting at this full time! So this was my first accomplishment that took me by surprise. After business began growing, I needed to develop a new plan which included a business name, branding and a plan of action. PearlyWrites, LLC was born on Jan. 3, 2006 but Lisa Weinberger, the freelancer, started in the late 90’s. (Oy vey, I’m so old.)

Full time freelancing from June of 2005, I just celebrated my two year accomplishment of still pushing forward and growing. Two years ago, I would have never thought that I would have provided copy or instructional design to PBS or NAF but I have! I never thought that a large amount of Web copy would be ghostwritten over the Internet, but it’s out there. AND I never thought I would become a “blogger” sharing my thoughts over the Internet for anyone in the world to read.

Online marketing and SEO has been a blessing in disguise. Although I use the basic techniques like keyword research, meta tags, press release distribution, article submissions and changing Web copy, it has opened many doors for me as a business owner as well as many of the writers I collaborate with on projects.

So what is the time for change? Well every year I try to redesign my Website for a fresh new look. One client I provide copy to has been working on my new PearlyWrites site and hoping in the next month it should be ready to go live. (Bartering is awesome!) It is a very professional looking site with still my “creative” edge and I think many of you will be impressed with the Web designers work.

Once the new site is up and running, the plan is to push forward with a strong marketing campaign to see what results I will get. To keep consistent work throughout the year, marketing and sending out bids on projects and making long term client connections is VERY important in the freelance business.