Is the SEO Score 70% or Higher?
Is the post included in the correct category
Is the image sized and acreddited properly
Are there relevant tags?
Is the post internally linked?
Is the meta description action oriented?
Is the <--more--> tag in place?
Is the article scannable?
Is there a call to action at the end?

If yes, then let’s publish that bad boy!

Published, Now What?

• Submit it to Google through Webmaster tools to get indexed. Diagnostics > Fetch As Googlebot > Fetch > Submit to Index.
• Update the Keyword Tracking spreadsheet with published date, url, etc.
• Add the Keyword to Market Samurai for tracking
• Social Media: Post should automatically be syndicated with Facebook Page. Post on Twitter, Google +, Tumblr
• Switch up the title a little, rework the article slightly, and maybe rewrite the first and last paragraph. (Vary the length of your spun articles, Vary your link placements
, Link to different URLs in your articles). Submit to article directories. Link back with Primary URL and Primary Keyword in Anchor text – include a link to the original article first and then to my destination site or landing page second in the resource box.
• Once the article has been approved and published, copy and paste the link in to the keyword spreadsheet.
  1. Ezine Artices(PR 6)
  2. Go Articles (PR 4)
  3. Weebly (PR 8)
  4. Article Alley (PR 5)
  5. Squidoo (PR 8)
  6. Multiply (PR 7)
  7. Posturous(PR 7)
  8. Wetpaint(PR 7)
  9. WordPress.com (PR 9)
• Content Spooling Network
• The Link Juicer
• Social Bookmarking
• Onlywire
• Social Marker
• Record a Video Post to YouTube
• Create a PDF, Post to Document Sharing Sites

Manually Promote Each Post

Forums
Other Blogs, Comments
Link Wheel
Log into YouTube and accept friend requests

Track It

Run Rank Tracker each week, and manually update Ranking Scores in Keyword Spreadsheet
Each week, check the Actuals, and enter into spreadsheet.
View Search queries in Google Webmasters tools, check for changes
Check to see which posts are converting

Coding and Website Stuff

Here’s a thorough overview of SEO copy writing for your viewing pleasure.

Use High-Quality, Original Content On Your Site

“Original” means at least 25% different from any other content, and preferably 50% different. Any less and you risk having your content picked up as “duplicate content” and virtually excluded from search engine results because of this. High-quality content will keep visitors on your website for longer. Some search engines (notably Google) pay attention to this, and your page earns kudos for being so evidently interesting. If you’re not sure run it through Copyscape.

Use High-Converting Keywords

You’re not looking at words that are simply popular searches, but words that are profitable. For any website you have two kinds of keywords: Product-specific keywords and all the rest e.g. ‘Rocket Languages’ as keyword has less traffic than ‘learn French’ but will likely have higher conversion rate.

Insert Your Keyword Into The First 50 Words

When indexing your site, most search engines focus on the first part of your page so it’s important that this section is particularly relevant. For this reason it’s essential that you insert you main keyword phrase into the first 50 words of your article.

Have A Keyword Density Of At Least 1%

This means that you must insert your keyword phrase in the body of your article at a frequency of once every 100 words. We recommend a keyword density range of between 1% and 4%. Analyze the keyword density of any page is to use the Page Analysis tool in Traffic Travis.

Word your title tags carefully
No more than 70 characters. 2-4 keywords/keyword phrases per page.

Depth Of URL – 
No More Than Four.

Bad example: www.mysite.com/people/places/things/noun/danny/car

Include Your Keywords In Your Internal Links

The search engines use the words in your text link or anchor text to determine the nature of the page that you’re linking to. You can maximize your SEO by connecting the pages that focus on each keyword to create content silos. Internal links will help to:

   •    Ensure that your website gets properly indexed and that the search engines can find all pages

   •    Build the relevancy of a page to a keyword phrase

   •    Increase the PageRank of internal pages

Use H1 Tags And Use Them Well.


Your headline should be relevant to what the visitor is searching for. Matching the headline to the search term is the easiest way to do this. H1 tags are the first things that the search engines look at when indexing your page and ideally, they will give a good indication of what your page is all about. If your H1 tags contain your keywords, then your page will be seen as more relevant.

Unfortunately, many people don’t use H1 tags because the default style is a huge font that’s not very pleasing to the eye! However, it’s not too difficult to use CSS to alter the style of these tags and it’s well worth the effort.

Often with your less popular keywords you’ll find that you can get quite a high ranking just from an H1 tag, whereas a keyword with more competition might not give you so much benefit.

Another important place that keywords can appear is in subheads that aid the reader in navigating down the page.

Note: If you are using the Thesis Theme, like I do on most of my other sites, you don’t have to worry about H1 tags.

Meta Tags: Meta Keywords And Descriptions

Meta keywords: Don’t use a keyword in your keyword tag unless you will also use that word in the body of the content of your page. If you use keywords in your keyword meta tag then don’t use them in the content of your page you may raise a spam flag.

No more than 50, suggest up to 20, separate each keyword or key phrase with a comma. Bruce Clay suggests capitalizing the first letter of each word. The keywords must be relevant to your web page.

Meta description no more than 155 characters
Give Google a description of your page that it will use when it lists your website in the results pages (doesn’t show up on page). Expand on the title, establish the theme. A good rule of thumb is just to include words that the page is targeting for e.g. Spanish words, Spanish love words.

External Linking

Should use keyword anchor text to link. As a rule of thumb, if you’re targeting a competitive keyword, the page of your site that addresses that keyword needs to have roughly 100 pages pointing to it; for a less competitive keyword, fewer links are needed.

Getting Inbound Links

Use real content to educate prospects e.g. guide/tutorial/article.
Craft content so compelling that other people want to make note of it by linking back to you. The same emotional forces that prompt us to buy can also cause us to link, bookmark, and Digg.
Answer the question so much better and comprehensively than the competition does, and chances are better that your effort becomes worth linking to.

A few link sources you should consider:

   •    Links from blogs are helpful, particularly if the blogs are highly regarded and well-ranked.

   •    E-zine articles can be especially valuable because syndication can create 20-30 more pages from just one article.

   •    PR websites that publish optimized press releases with links can create a multiplier effect.

   •    Certain forums and directories that are oriented to SEO are highly regarded by search engines. SEOmoz and SEO Book are good resources for these types of directories.

Linking best practices include:

   •    The clickable link text contains your keywords, not the company name

   •    Descriptive text surrounding the link also contains keywords

URL Paths

Google also checks URLs, and it is a huge advantage to have a top-level domain that includes a relevant keyword or two. That extends to using keywords throughout a URL in sub-folders and page names. The longevity of a top-level domain also plays a role in rankings.

Keyword List

Make sure you do a thorough keyword expansion by scouring your competitor sites and noting any keywords you may have missed. You don’t want to leave any popular keywords out, but you also want to ensure you are getting high impact. Once you have expanded your keyword list, boil it down to the 10-20 key phrases that convert best for your leads.

When someone arrives at your website, blog or article, they should know immediately what to expect. Everything–even your microcontent–should be simple, succinct and scannable.
- Copyblogger.

Important Content Components

Be Succinct

Write no more than 50% of the text you would have used in a hard copy publication. Research has shown that 79% of web readers scan rather than read.

• Feature one idea per paragraph, and keep paragraphs short — three or four sentences at most. A simple way of testing for wordy or “run on” sentences, is the breath test:
  
  

  If your reader has to pause for breath in the middle of a sentence, it’s too long. Either cut out the fat, or whack the sentence into two or more manageable pieces. – Copyblogger

• Use highlighting and emphasis to make important words catch the user’s eye.
• Use hyperlinked text to split up long information into multiple pages.

Write for Scannability

Don’t require users to read long continuous blocks of text. Scannable copy will ensure that more readers will read what you have written.

• Use meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones).
• Try writing your headline and subheads first.
• Use numbered lists and bulleted lists as eye rests.

Use Active Words

If someone’s doing something, it’s active. If something was done by someone, it’s passive.

Passive sentences feel wordy, limp, and lifeless. Active sentences feel tight, energetic, and immediate.

For example:

• Passive: The magnificent copy was written by the copywriter.
• Active: The copywriter wrote the magnificent copy.

Passive voice isn’t always a bad thing, but just keep it to a minimum.

Can You Get the Gist Just From Subheads?

Once you’ve used subheads, numbers, bulleted lists and other formatting to highlight the key elements of your post, read through it again — looking only at the text you’ve called special attention to.

Does the reader get the gist? Have you pulled out the most interesting and relevant words, the words that will pull your scanner in and turn her into a reader?

If not, rewrite your article so that it does.

Article Structure

A good blog post is written in the inverted pyramid style, meaning the most relevant, or important information is displayed first. The basic structure of a blog article is composed of 6 parts in the following order:

1. Headlines

Any good piece of writing starts with a good headline.

If you don’t grab a readers attention with the headline, they won’t even bother reading your article.

Here are a few examples of great headline formulas:

• The [X] Factors That Drastically Increases Your [Desired Result]
• The Big Secret To _________? ___________
• Creating __________ that ____________(something unconventional) (And Why It Works)
• How to _________ So You Can ___________

Other formulas are also available here:

• How to Write Magnetic Headlines via Copyblogger.
• Headlines written by the copy writing master, Gary Halbert.
• 13 Awesome Headlines For Business Blogging Success by Hubpages.

Headlines are used to capture the reader’s attention, and it is also used to optimize the article for the search engines. Be sure to include the keyword in the headline.

2. Intro Paragraph

Use an attention grabbing statistic, question, quote, analogy, or phrase to pull people in to your article. For example:

• If________, then________
• Most people make mistakes when______
• If you are trying [X], then here’s how to save a lot of [headache/trouble/whatever].
• When it comes to [X], this is what every ["target audience"] should know.
• Here’s exactly what you need to know about [X]
• 74% of Adults struggle with [x]
• Did you know…[X]

3. Opening Paragraph

In your in your opening paragraph, also known as your summary paragraph, you prepare the reader for what they’ll be learning or gaining, etc by reading your article.

There are tons of great sites on the web that can help you learn Spanish. “Fast and Free!” is our mantra, so today I’m going to show you my personal favorite websites and tips to help you learn Spanish as quickly as possible.

This summary paragraph will most likely show in the search engines under the title/headline of the article.

4. Article Body

This is the meat of your article, and it is usually structured with an odd number of main points and backed up by subpoints. Each main point is a new paragraph.

Credibility suffers when users clearly see that the site exaggerates, so make sure to provide real value here. Make it interesting and appealing or the visitor/reader will leave. The keyword MUST be present in the body copy, but don’t flood it.

5. Conclusion

This is where you close the reader. Wrap up the article and tie it back to your introduction. Encourage readers to leave a comment by asking a specific question. Add the keyword one last time in this paragraph.

6. Call To Action

The most effectively written article directories end with a clear call to action. This is where you add the link to your affiliate or partner website, etc.

An example:

• “If you truly want to get the girl, go to this website now: [Insert Link in Anchor Text] It is the top resource on dating advice and tips courtesy of the leading dating guru.”

Google Loves Good Copy Too

That is the basic structure for a good blog post. Be succint, write for scannability, use action words and the appropriate article structure. Include the keywords in the right place for SEO and your copy just became a double threat, easy to read by humans, and google bots.

Sale Copywriting

If you are writing content for product creation, sales copy or something else. Check out the Copywriting Cheat Sheet.

A great resource for writing product reviews is the Affiliorama website.

For more information on SEO Copywriting click here.

Headlines & Subtitles

• Headlines, sub-headlines, and subtitles need to be in title casing. Meaning The Beginning Of Each Word Is Capitalized.
• Subtitles need to be encased in <h3>tags.

  <h3>This Is The Proper Way To Code A Subtitle</h3>

• Use short paragraphs, with subtitles as this is easier for the reader.
• The reader should be able to just skim the headline and subtitles, and get the “gist” of the article. Read This Article First.
• Use lists and bullet points to keep articles to-the-point and easy to read. If you don’t know what Eye Rests are, read this.
• Write a compelling headline that sucks the reader in. Need some help with headlines?

Images

• Images from the Creative Commons area of Flickrare used in each blog post and credited appropriately as follows.

  <em>Photo by: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26430891@N02/6565059041" target="_blank">StetsonHayes</a></em>

The link points to to the photographer’s profile page with the actual image we used in the post.

• Edit blog post photos in Picasa – crop to 4×6 aspect ratio, export as 400px, with normal quality.
• The post images link should be inserted at the bottom of the edit post page instead of inserted in edit content area.
  1. To do this upload the photo to WordPress as you usually would using the media uploader.
  2. But rather than insert the picture into the post, copy and paste the link to the image in the Post Image section further down on the page As shown in the image below.

• Post images should be no bigger than 375 pixels wide, framed, aligned right with wrap, and before post/page content.
• Thumbnail Images are 180x 180; framed, aligned left, above headline.

Links

• Include 1 internal link to another article or page on the Website within each post.
• Include at least 1 relevant outbound link to an authoritative high ranking (PR of 4 or higher) external website within the body copy of the post. For example, a news article on CNN, a Wikipedia reference article, or something similar. If you aren’t sure if the site you want to link to has a Page Rank of 4 or higher, use this tool: Free Google Page Rank Checker.
• Include the following code on outbound links so they will open in a new window:

  target=”_blank” rel="nofollow”

• Alt Tags should be the title of the article, for example:

  <ahref="http://www.google.com" alt="Free Language Learning" target="_blank"<Anywhere!</a>

• Encourage readers to click on one of the affiliate links listed in article.

Foreign Language Words

• Proper English grammar and spelling is expected at all times.
• Use USA spelling, slang and idioms as our audience is mostly from North America. This means making sure to use the spelling of “color” rather than “colour”, and “organization” rather than “organisation”.
• For foreign language words must have correct accent marks, punctuation and spelling! !Dámelo! , ¿Dónde? If in doubt use this.
• All foreign language words need to be italicized, like: ¿Dónde?.

Tags

• Each post should be tagged with the Language the post is about, for example: Portuguese
• If an affiliate link is use in the article, tag the post with the affiliate name, like Rocket Spanish.
• Tags should also be used to reference what the article is about. For example, learning Spanish, videos, radios, children, etc.

Categories

• In addition to the Tag, each post should be categorized by the Language the post is about. For example, a post about how to learn Portuguese would get tagged with Portuguese as well as be included in the Portuguese category.
• Typically each post only goes into one category.

Excerpts

• Use the Meta Description box below the post editor (150 words) instead of the excerpts box.  The meta description is the two sentences that show up in a SERP. Make it a good summary/call to action so that people click on it.

• Use the <–more–> tag, within the first 50 words, shows up in the preview boxes

Keywords and SEO

• You will be given a specific keyword to write the article about. Each keyword is also assigned a number, please keep track of the number, as you will use it when submitting the finished post.
• Make sure to use the exact Keyword in the post title. Google doesn’t read punctuation, so you can get creative with that.
• Use the Keyword throughout the body copy (7% – 10% of word count)
• Use Alternative Keywords (similar, rearranged keyword phrases) throughout the body copy (3% – 5% of word count)
• Update all “alt tags” to include the keyword.

Submitting Posts

• When submitting post for publishing, please email it formatted as a .txt or html file. Include the cropped and optimized image that goes with the post in the same email.
• Email subject will follow this naming convention:

[New Post] - [Keyword - Keyword #] - Title of post.

• In the first line of the body of the email, include the following information as it corresponds to the post.

[Keyword] - exact spelling, wording, and spacing of keyword.

[Keyword #] – the keyword number that was given when keyword was assigned to you.
[Title] – Title or headline of the post.
• Compose a separate email for all other forms of communication.

Content

• Reader focused language: Try to leave the word “I” out as much as possible.
  1. Instead of “I will teach you” use “you will learn”.
  2. Instead of “I speak both Spanish and Portuguese and I can attest to their many similarities, but there are important differences between the two languages.” use “There are many similarities, but there are important differences between the two languages.”
  3. Instead of “I’ve heard this linguistic insult many times…” use “We’ve all heard this linguistic insult many times…”
  4. Instead of “In all my travels, and I’ve been to over 50 countries, I saw that the better my accent was, the friendlier and more accepting locals were of me.” use “The better your accent is, the friendlier and more accepting locals will be.”

Questions, Comments, Clarity

If your post doesn’t follow these guidelines, it will be sent back to you to fix and resubmit. If anything is not clear, or if you need clarification on anything, please email me your question in writing so that I can make sure and update this page.

Knowing that I was going to skydive this year, was very terrifying for me. I wouldn’t really say I’m afraid of heights, but jumping out of a perfectly good airplane at 3 miles above the ground, definitely scared me. It’s not like Shark Diving where you could wait for hours in the cage and possibly not even see a shark. There’s no grey area about skydiving. I mean, you either jump out of an airplane or your don’t.

I DID! And it was totally amazing! It’s definitely something I hope to do again over and over, but I was SO scared to do it before hand.

When I left Santa Cruz to make the 2 and a half hour drive to Lodi. It wasn’t until I actually arrived at the Parachute Center, that I found out there’s a skydiving place here in Santa Cruz! Oh well, I’m glad I had the quite time to myself in the car to just drive, think, and remember.

Anytime somebody would ask me what I was going to be doing this day, I’d always answer “this year I’m going to go skydiving, but I’m really scared and trying not to psyche myself out about it.” That pretty much shut down any conversations about it. However, after paying my fee, and sitting down to sign the “I-promise-not-to-sue-you-if-I-die-and-my-family-promises-not-to sue-you-if-I-die” waiver, it started getting a little bit more real.

After signing the waiver I had a chance to go outside and watch some of the other skydivers land. It was such a beautiful autumn day, the sun was shinning, and the sky was blue…perfect conditions for skydiving, I was told!

Finally, my number was called and I went back to meet my Tandem Skydive instructor, Logan, and to get suited up. So, the first time you go skydiving, you get to be attached to somebody else that knows what they are doing. I paired up with Logan, and I’m really glad I was because he helped me feel really at ease and calm.

We boarded a little plane and then took off into the sky. It was pretty much like any plane ride, until the door just flew open and people “fell” out! I distinctly remember thinking, “hmmm, it’s cold, maybe I should have brought a jacket”. I also recall that that was when my palms started sweating! We flew up even hire, and the people in line in front of us jumped out. Before I even had a chance to think about it, we were up and moving to the door.

Then we jumped! Or fell…or stepped off….we were just simply in the air. It only felt like we were falling for a few seconds. You know, that “falling” feeling you get on a roller coaster, where your stomach seems to drop out from underneath you? We were falling, and spinning and rolling, and then…it was just super windy! It was like I was flying!

After about a minute of free falling we pulled the parachute and just kind of glided down. Logan pointed out some of the other people that had just jumped – they looked like dead bodies just falling. They were hurling down to the ground so fast, it kind of freaked me out, and for a second I thought they didn’t have a parachute, but then I saw that they did.

The 360 degree view is so much better than looking through an airplane window, once the chute was pulled, it was very serene and almost spiritual to just be on top of the world floating down.

But before I knew it we were coming in for landing, and the ride was over. Skydiving is definitely one way to remind yourself that you are alive! My heart was still pounding for quite a while, even after we landed!

I can’t wait to go Skydiving again! I know that Zach would have LOVED to do it. He often told me about dreams that he had where he was flying, and said that if he could choose a super power, he would choose to be able to fly. Now that I know there is a skydiving place right here in Santa Cruz, I think I’ll be skydiving again very soon! Skydiving is one very sick ride! :)

Click Here To Watch The Video.

http://www.byobwebsite.com/06/thesis-forum-answers/how-to-create-user-selectable-custom-templates-in-thesis/

Creating Context Sensitive SideBars in Thesis

http://www.byobwebsite.com/01/thesis-forum-answers/how-to-create-context-sensitive-sidebars-in-thesis/

Teasers One Across Instead of Two

http://diythemes.com/thesis/rtfm/customize-teasers/

Custom Thesis teasers
This provides a teaser, with content from a custom feild, or the excerpt if no field exists. Everything except the title and edit link need to be turned off in the options.

http://snipplr.com/view/14521/custom-thesis-teasers/

http://diythemes.com/thesis/rtfm/

http://diythemes.com/thesis/rtfm/customize-comments-intro/

http://diythemes.com/thesis/rtfm/change-0-comments-display/#remove_brackets

To Add a Facebook Like Button to Each Post
//Add a Facebook Like Button to Each Post//
function fb_like() {
if (is_single()) { ?>

}
//add_action('thesis_hook_after_post','fb_like');//

Step 1: Hosting

Your website has to ‘live’ somewhere, I use and recommend BlueHost. You pay for your hosting all at once, and it works out to something like $7 a month.

Step 2: WordPress

Great, now that you have hosting and a domain name, you can use SimpleScripts from within your BlueHost cPanel and install WordPress for free. Starting in your cPanel, scroll down until you find the SimpleScripts icon, this is what it looks like:

Click on the WordPress Icon, that looks like this:

And follow the prompts to install WordPress. Once your site is installed, you can go log into it. This is what the WP Dashboard looks like:

From here you can create posts, pages, change your theme and settings. For finding a theme, I recommend and use Thesis and ThemeForest. Thesis is more complex and robust, while ThemeForest has more templates that are more simple and less expensive. Both sites give detailed information on how to upload and import your theme into WordPress.

Here are a few other helpful links:
WordPress Codex

Step Three: Plugins

Plugins are little bits of code that you add on to enhance WordPress. These are the plugins I use:

• Akismet (v. 2.5.5) by Automattic.
• All in One SEO Pack (v. 1.6.14.2) by Michael Torbert.
• Jetpack by WordPress.com (v. 1.2.4) by Automattic.
• Picasa Image Express (v. 1.1) by Scrawl.
• Plugins list (v. 1.0) by Davide Benini.

You can find plugins to do pretty much anything, just google “WP [blank] plugin” (make sure to change the [blank] part to what you are looking for, of course.

Step Four: Promotion

Web site promotion is an industry in and of its self and too big for the scope of this post. The easiest and most effective way to start learning how to promote your website is to watch these free videos.

I’ve tried out tons of online marketing tools during this whole process. Here’s what I’ve found that works for me. I use and recommend all of the following:

Market Samurai is THE best all-in-one tool. I can search for keywords, track my rankings, look for content, and do any SEO research I need from this one program. I love it! It is so customizable that I can find anything I need. The knowledge base has been incredibly helpful in helping me understand the finer points of SEO.

Aweber is the application that I use to keep track of my subscribers and send out newsletters. It seamlessly integrates with WordPress, so setting it up is a snap! One of my favorite things is that it’s SO easy to create opt-in forms on the Aweber site, and then they are automatically updated on my site, so I don’t need to copy and paste code a million times.

WordTracker I do most of my keyword research in WordTracker because so fast and the user interface makes it so simple. I can save project lists and sort by the Keyword Effectiveness Index which weighs the keyword search volume to the number of competitors.

Pluggio saves my life when it comes to Twitter. I love that I can schedule tweets for later, subscribe to RSS feeds, manage lists, manage followers and friends and so much more. The friend suggester has helped me grow my Twitter followers exponentially.

SEO Scribe I didn’t even realize how much onpage SEO I wasn’t doing until I started using SEO Scribe. I put my article text in and SEO Scribe gives a grade to tell me how well or poorly I did. Not to worry, they also provide info on how to improve each article to achieve maximum SEO-ness (yes, I just made that word up).

He doesn’t have a grave, since we had his body cremated, but just visiting a grave doesn’t feel like enough for me anyway. I don’t know why, but the anniversary of his death is much harder for me, than his birthday or our anniversary. And the days and weeks leading up to the anniversary of his death are much harder for me than the actual day that he died on.

My mom says that it’s because in the weeks leading up to the anniversary of the day that he died, my subconscious sort of lives through the whole thing all over again. It’s like my subconscious is saying ‘two years ago, at this time, I had no idea that I’d only have one month left”. It’s not a day I can just overlook, nor would I want to. I have been trying to figure out a way to ‘mark’ that day, and honor his life at the same time. He wouldn’t want me or anybody else to curl into a ball and be sad for him (which, I will admit, is pretty much exactly what I felt like doing). I came to realize that that day is really about all of US…..those people that have been left behind. It’s a day we don’t look forward to – we dread it.

I started to think about what I would DO on that day each year. I wanted to do something in Zach’s name and in the spirit in which he lived his life. Anyone that knows Zach will recall the motto of his life: “Life, it’s all about the ride. If not now…when?”, But to “celebrate” that day sort of felt like celebrating the fact that he died- which, of course, I don’t want to do.

I don’t want to “celebrate” the anniversary of his death, so I choose rather celebrate my life, and how far I’ve come. I decided to do something that screams “I’M ALIVE AND LIVING – I’VE MADE IT 2 YEARS, WHEN I DIDN’T THINK I’D BE ABLE TO MAKE IT 2 DAYS!” because that is what that day is about. I chose to (as best as I can) stop dreading that day and embrace it, become better because of it. Because, really, I am proud of myself for making it this far, it hasn’t been easy.

So, from now on, every year on the anniversary of the day that Zach died, I am going to “fun nazi” myself into a once in a lifetime experience. What better way to grab life by the horns and really LIVE? I am going to push through fear and excuses and just do it! If not now…when? Right? I think Zach would like this idea, I think it’s what he would do.

This year (even though it wasn’t exactly on the 16th), I chose to dive into shark infested waters and get up close and personal with Great White Sharks. (Zach would have loved doing this, but even more so, I think he would have been tickled pink, and proud of me for doing it- he knew about my fear of the ocean).

For next year, I haven’t decided what I will do – I’m open to suggestions. I’ve started a list and it includes things like: skydiving, riding in a hot air balloon, running a marathon, running with the bulls, driving a monster truck, and heliskiing.

Some are things that he always wanted to do, and some are things I want to do. But I guess, the most important this is that I actually DO it, because life is all about the ride! :)

The answer: totally awesome! It was a long day (I had to get up at 3:30am to make it to the dock in Emeryville by 5:30), but totally worth it. I met some really great people that I hope to stay in touch with, pushed myself past my own limits, and came face to face with Great White Sharks.

Here’s how it worked, we road a boat out to the Farrallon Islands, which by the way is the most Great White Shark infested place on the planet. The only two other places that have high concentrations of Great Whites are in South Africa and Australia, but neither have as many as the Farrallons.

I, ever prone to motion sickness, was woozy the whole time! But, I didn’t let that stop me from suiting up and getting into the cage. Everybody tried to reassure me that it would be okay if I threw up into the regulator, but some how, that didn’t make me feel any better. We took turns 4 of us in the cage at a time, there were about 12 people there (plus the crew) so each group got about a half an hour at a time, and 3-4 turns each in the tank.

At first we didn’t see anything except jellyfish (I hate jellyfish…ever since I got stung in Costa Rica), but there were all kinds of jellyfish, some as small as your fist, and some as big as a steering wheel, and some that looked kind of like scrambled eggs. They are actually quite pretty to see swimming around, but I still hate them.

After an hour or so of jellyfish viewing, somebody spotted a “predation event”. That’s just a fancy way of saying that a shark was eating something. We quickly pulled the cage up and headed over. Sure enough, there was a huge pool of blood spreading out in the ocean. A HUGE pool of blood. We watched as a shark took down an elephant seal. It was pretty brutal.

The crew anchored the boat, so that we’d be inside the ‘scent stream’. They told us, that if we got lucky, the boat would drift over to the blood pool, and we could dive in the blood. Lucky? I’d say it was lucky that we ended up not in the blood pool.

This is when all the sharks came out. The guys in the tank got some amazing shots, and I saw a bunch of sharks from the deck. They were HUGE. I went in expecting them to be huge, but still I was shocked. They were so close to the boat, that I could have reached over and touched them as they swam by…if I was crazy!

There were some scientists out tagging the sharks. Apparently, they do this everyday, but the 18 foot long shark that was first to arrive at the boat wasn’t tagged, so later the scientists had to ‘bag it and tag it’. About 5 or 6 sharks came over to the boat in all. Not only were they soooo long, but wide too. They were like 3 feet wide.

I remember thinking that it was so hard to see them from the boat. They are so well camouflaged, it would have been impossible to get a picture of them. I also learned how to spot a shark. Contrary to popular belief, it’s pretty rare that they swim at you with their dorsal fin out of the water – like in Jaws. Instead, you need to watch for a ‘boil’ which is just a circular pattern of water displacement. Now that I know what to look for, you can bet any time I’m even near the ocean I’ll be watching for it.

I was really surprised how hard it was to find sharks. I mean, even in the most shark infested place on the planet, we had a hard time finding them. I used to think that if there were people or boats or anything in the water, that sharks would be drawn to it. Not so, I guess….which is reassuring!

The hardest part for me wasn’t the huge man eating fish, it was going down under the ocean. I had a hard time with the regulator and the cold! Holy Moly, it was cold! Zach would have been so proud!

All in all, it was a VERY cool experience and one that I’m very glad I did! I was the only single person there, everybody else came with a partner. I was also, by far, the youngest person there – so everybody sort of watched out for me and helped me.

I feel very lucky to have been able to do this. Not many people can say that they’ve seen a shark or dived in shark infested waters. I would do it again in a heart beat. It was very cool!

Watch On YouTube or Watched the Looped Version

I just finished importing all of the blog posts I have written from my other failed blogging attempts into this blog. Why….you ask? Well, I want to start over. Nothing I have done online has been successful. Not a one. Either I just didn’t love the topics, or the content, or I just didn’t care that much about them anyway, or I got so fed up with messing with the stupid wordpress theme that I eventually gave up all together….Whatever the case, they’ve all gone the way of the dodo bird.

Asia-Bird
Ah, my first blog. The memories….I started this blog because, I don’t know, everyone was starting blogs and it seemed like the thing to do. I think I had a blog before I had facebook. I put pictures up for my mom to see, and then she became motivated to start her won blog. I spent hours and hours learning html, php, and css so that I could make my theme look juuuuust right. When Zach died, it became my podium for which to address the sad masses. I think the sad masses watched the blog to make sure I didn’t post a suicide note. After that I stopped posting for a while, and then my mom made me promise to post more vacation pictures. It’s kind of a sad place to me now, but I can’t bring myself to take the site down.

Family sites for: brother, my sister, and my friend. I don’t think any of them logged into their brand, spanking new blogs more than once or twice. It was good practice, but at this point I was feeling a little burned out on building blogs, while at the same time, realized I could use them to make money. But how do I get a blog to make money, when the last think I want to do is build another blog? The solution, buy one on Flippa that somebody else already built!

MyBagPoint, KindlePop, and EasyGreenLivingGuide
These were all sites that I purchased off of Flippa. They seemed like they were going to be the next best thing to sliced bread. Each site, had a pretty theme, content, products, affiliates and seo. It was a complete package. So, I might as well have taken out a match and burned all those pretty green bills on fire because I didn’t do a single thing with any of them.

I don’t care about the Kindle. I don’t own a Kindle. All those Google alerts that I set up just got deleted the minute they landed in my inbox, I didn’t even care to read them, let alone write about them. Besides, I was secretly waiting for the iPad (admit it, you were too) so I don’t even think my site had any relevance.

The Green niche, overwhelmed me completely. Do I write about Green paper towels, green cars, green food, green eggs and ham? So I didn’t write anything. At least it came with an ebook for me to sell (an ebook which I never even read), which I thought was great, until I realized that every other Green Something website was selling the exact same one.

As for MyBagPoint, well, I’m about the most un-girliest girl of all the girls. I don’t think I even own more than one bag, let alone a purse! I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought that site, did I really think I was going to spend hours searching for ANYTHING relevant to bags? Really? [insert forehead slap]

AbbieWarnock
Another site I built for a friend. Ironically, this is the most successful website that I’ve ever built, except I don’t own it. Hmmm…maybe Abbie would let me put some Adsense on there! After all, I did build it for her for free.

I took a little break from blogs at this point, and I have to admit, I did not miss them. There was no love in my heart for blogging. But then I realized that I really needed to get something going with this online business idea or else, I’d have to get a …..dare I say it…..gasp…job!

I started learning more about keyword research, and micro niches, and bought a flurry of random domains.

WholeWheatHappiness and WholeGrainFoodSources
Never even put a site up, I bought the domain before my keyword research was conclusive. Smart, I know.

ArtDecoTableLamps
Another site that I bought. I thought $70 for a complete site was pretty good. Unfortunately, I think it was a scam, because I never actually received the site. Thanks WarriorForum people. I didn’t feel too bad about it though, because well, I don’t even think anybody wants an art deco table lamp. I wish I could say that I only bought that site because I was heavily sedated, or in the process of being unfrozen. But none of those things are true. I was just stupid.

Okay, well, at least I’ve learned a lesson here. I just just buy a money making machine of a website. There has to be some hands-on-ness to it.

TheSpanishFarm
This site was going to be it, the one that was both profitable and a passion of mine. I have been learning how to speak Spanish for a long time, and I can’t get enough of it. I love talking to people about learning spanish and I love speaking Spanish. I love all things Spanish. Spanish, Spanish Spanish. So because it was going to be the super, most awesome, best site ever. I had to get the theme just right. So I wrote a few articles and got some affiliate links up, and then I spent days and days and days…weeks even, messing around with the stupid wordpress theme that I was in love with. I eventually became disgusted at the sight of that website and moved on. Lesson learned here. The prettiness does’t have to be perfect. Good thing I bought up a backup domain for that website (SpanishMoo.com) – uugh.

KittyTravels
A few months later, I decided to follow along with with Caroline Middlebrook teaches, build a blog for adsense. I took my cat with me on a trip to Costa Rica, I learned a lot about flying with a cat on an airplane and taking a cat through customs, but as soon as I started article writing (which I again, hired a copywriter for) I immediately knew that I hated this project too. I didn’t care about telling people how to fly with their cat to another country. I’m not passionate about that, I can’t teach somebody that. All they have to do is type into Google: Fly with my cat to Costa Rica, and there is the answer. So, I’ve pretty much sworn off domains. I was frustrated and desperate and then Kevin told me about Eban Pagan.

Winglady
This has been my latest, and greatest project. After getting sucked into Eban Pagan’s Guru Blueprint Program, like a planet into a black hole, I took what I had learned and started to put it to practice. Don’t get me wrong here, I have a lotta love for Eban, I think he is brilliant, the material he teaches is good, but the bigger lesson has been watching him teach, and market his own products to me….which I buy, because I can’t help it. So from the nuggets I learned from Eban:

1. Pick a niche in the top 3 mega niches – check: relationships and dating

2. Refine niche – check: relationships and dating for guys

3. Refine niche further- check: dating and relationship training for guys to understand a woman from a woman’s perspective.

4. Okay, now what? WordPress or SwellCMS? Do I write blogs or do video blogs? Squeeze page or long form landing page? Ebook or training videos? Pen name or my own name – after all, I wouldn’t want my grandpa (who uses facebook daily? to read my advice for dating guys….awkward! Do I write my own content or outsource it?

So I try a little of both, find out, I don’t really want to write about all this stuff, I just know what I want it written about. Well, let’s try the copywriters….pay three for samples, pay one for a complete waste of time, aaaaand I’m back to square one, with holes in my pockets. I tell myself I can stick it out and just write one article day, but then instead spend all day researching and reading about relationships, and communication, and sociology of gender simply because I’m fascinated with it. I keep putting off writing my one blog a day, because I really do better when answering a direct question, so I clean the bathroom instead and then watch reruns of 24. This is going to take forever to get off the ground. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I paid $500 for that domain? Yeah. I know, I’m an idiot.

Saying Goodbye

And that’s where I am today. I’m not buying any more domains for a long time. If I start another website project, I’ll have to be with on of my existing domains. Probably this domain. I’ve now put all of the blog posts that I wrote myself on this site, and I’m publicly announcing the death of those other sites and starting over. I’m letting my old domains expire, except for maybe asia-bird.com and winglady.com. I’m done spending hours upon hours of theme fidgeting, and I’m done having copy written by somebody else that writes drivel. Instead I’ll write blog posts like these that really have no point, other than to get me to get in the habit of righting again. I’ll be writing the drivel thank you very much!

Goodbye failed blogs, I don’t think I’ll miss you much.