In case some of you noticed my site was down from Friday until Tuesday. This blog is hosted with DreamHost and they had a server problem, and somehow my site got lost in the shuffle.

They were really good about answering my e-mails and eventually things got sorted out. This is the longest outage I’ve seen and it could probably happen to any hosting provider. The good thing is my files weren’t lost.

If anyone is interested in a new hosting plan with DreamHost you can save 90$ with promo code Emma90. That means you could get hosting for one year for 29.40$ with no signup fee and a free domain thrown in.

This is a good plan for beginning bloggers or people wanting to test the water. It’s also good for those folks who have multiple hosting plans so that their sites will have different IP addresses. The only drawback for some would be that DreamHost doesn’t use cPanel. But unless you have a specific need for cPanel it’s not a drawback at all.

The DreamHost control panel, is actually easier to use then cPanel, and it has most of the functionality. Plus the one click installs and updates are actually faster then the ones you would get if you are using Fantastico. Which is what most cPanel users use for easy updates. In fact, DreamHost even has a one click install of OpenX, if anyone is interested in running their own ad server.

Hopefully stocking the bunker won’t be necessary and things won’t become as bad as many predict. One shining note, is maybe we can put all of the talk of race to rest. I’m happy for the African Americans who are old enough to remember being discriminated against. Maybe this election will be a reminder of how far our society has become.

I live in California, and the one proposition that I actively campaigned for and donated money to was the Humane Society sponsored Proposition 2. It was a moderate proposition designed to give animals in factory farms more room, so they can stretch out their limbs and turn around.

It’s unpleasant to think about what their current living conditions are for this proposition to even be necessary. And don’t even bother watching any of the videos.

Fortunately 2 passed by a large margin. Millions of farm animals won’t be subjected to entire lives filled with torture.

I love animals and have a lot of compassion for them. But this goes beyond caring about animals. A society that has compassion and doesn’t allow abuses in the name of greed. Is a thinking and caring society. Passing these moderate measures are not only good for our defenseless animals, but it is good for our society as a whole.

The best thing about DreamHost is they have great hosting, and one click installs and upgrades. They even give you one free domain a year and you can get great deals on your first year of hosting. For instance using a promo code like Emma90 can save you 90 dollars, so that’s an entire year of hosting for 29.40$.

Occasionally I consider consolidating and moving my DreamHost sites to my HostGator account. But it’s easier to pay for double hosting then going through the hassle of moving. But if I ever change my mind. Pat Doyle just moved her account from DreamHost to HostGator and changed her domain name.

I wanted to make a post about her post so I would have the directions handy, just in case. So here they are; How To Move a WordPress Blog.

When I found out that his first book Personal Development for Smart People was being published and he was looking for reviewers I jumped at the chance. I was excited when the book arrived in the mail. It was hardcover and a little bit thicker then I had anticipated.

251 pages, no pictures, and I had to wear my reading glasses. Like one of Steve’s Raw Vegan Meals, this book would take a while to digest.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one has 7 chapters focusing on the 7 Fundamental Principles of; Truth, Love, Power, Oneness, Authority, Courage, and Intelligence. Part two is the practical application of how these principles affect our Habits, Career, Money, Health, Relationships, and Spirituality.

When I read this, I kind of rolled my eyes, all of these abstract principles and applications. How is he going to pull this off? Well he found a way. Each principle builds on the other and they are all applied in the practical applications.

I found this book inspiring and encouraging. I felt and still feel motivated by reading it. Steve’s a smart guy and has not only devoted a lot of his life to personal development, but he is constantly experimenting to see if his conclusions are accurate.

To sum up my review of this book. I liked it! I was especially impressed with the principle of Truth. Such a simple concept. Being honest with others is a fine trait to have. Being honest with yourself is essential for building the life you desire.

You can use this principle along with your power of prediction to make decisions and create goals in your life. I already wrote about this principle in an earlier post about Making Better Decisions.

You can also use the principle of truth to guide your choices in life. How are you going to deal with your debt? How do you respond to an old friend or relative trying to get in touch with you? Do you attempt a career change?

If you are honest with yourself, and use the principle of truth your decisions and values will be aligned. You can trust your feelings and instincts to tell you if these things are in alignment. So many people are paralyzed with decision making, and yet we all have a fool proof method at our disposal.

I enjoyed reading Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growthand I intend to reread it, when I need motivation, for keeping my life in alignment. I would recommend this book to anyone who is encouraged by thoughtful discourse, and wants to gain control, of where their life path is leading.

I recently started a free book review section and thought I would attempt to rank for Free Book Reviews. Apparently this is a very competitive keyword and I currently rank number 502 for this term. Don’t be confused if you see Free Book Reviews where It’s Write Now used to be. It’s just an experiment with my ranking efforts.

Although, if I actually ranked well for free book reviews, I will probably have to take on some guest posters to help with all of the review requests. But for now let’s see how it goes.

Update:

Alright I probably don’t have to tell you guys this, but Griz was right. I changed my title from It’s Write Now to Free Book Reviews this morning and as of this evening (just a few hours later) my ranking went from 502 to about 150, just wait till I get some links.

Also because I understand the importance of link building I normally just delete comments I don’t care for instead of throwing them in the Akismet folder. So pretty much the dumbest spammer in town should be able to get a do follow anchored link from my site.

That is until online divorce records thought it would be easy to sneak in an anchored link just by cutting and pasting a previous comment into the post. Unfortunately the previous comment was by me, and sounded a bit mocking.

I know these links are diluting my page rank and also I am starting to attract a lot of spammers. Eventually I will probably stop being a do follow blog. But for now I’m leaving things the way they are. But for those folks leaving a comment don’t be a jerk about it. On a side note the newest version of snagit by TechSmith is awesome and you should all check it out. Till next time. Emma

One of the greatest abilities successful people have is the ability to make decisions. I believe making decisions is a learned ability and good decision making comes from practice.

When I was young making decisions seemed overwhelming to me, and I would often turn to my mother for advice. For some reason she felt like the ability to make decisions was important too. So instead of helping me she would say “hey, you’re on your own, you need to learn how to make good decisions.”

In retrospect, maybe giving me some useful decision making tools would of been helpful. But that’s OK, mom. I figured it out. Why mess with time saving shortcuts?

In spite of my own school of hard knocks training. I am still surprised by people who are unable or unwilling to make decisions. I’ve noticed it most in the corporate world. Where people in management positions aren’t able or willing to make decisions.

I thought making decisions and taking on responsibility was the whole purpose of going into management. Apparently these folks thought management would be a good way to get out of actually doing work. This logic will probably lead to a short lived career.

I am currently reading Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina. This is the second book in my Book Review series. I’ve only just began the book, and I have already stumbled upon some decision making gold.

He is talking about making your mind grow by doing new things, and goes on to say:

“The second way to apply your mind’s predictive powers is to make conscious, deliberate predictions and use those predictions to make better decisions. Think about where you’re headed and ask yourself, how do I honestly expect my life to turn out?”

The simplicity of this concept is brilliant. You can set goals, take charge of your life and be proactive plotting your future course with this simple concept.

It’s Write Now, is now offering free book reviews. If you are an author and would like your book reviewed, please use the contact form on my Book Review page to contact me. I recently reviewed Content Rich by Jon Wuebben, and I’m currently reading Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina, in order to create a review.

If you have a book you would like reviewed this is your opportunity. I’m hoping that this will be a useful, and mutually beneficial new offering on this site.

Once I got into this book it was a very easy read. He starts out with the basics such as what is SEO, and why does it work. Then he moves on to analyzing your site for SEO copy and usability. He talks about the how’s and whys of keyword research, and includes information about many current tools used for keyword research.

He also touches on, on page optimization, which includes using keywords, in titles, text and meta tags. And the all important off page optimization which includes getting links, promoting through articles, and social media, and web 2.0.

There are also chapters on writing press releases, pay per click ads, landing pages and banner ads. One of the things I enjoyed most about reading this book is that it got me excited about writing web copy. It helped get me motivated when it comes to creating optimized keyword rich content. Which is really what web writing is all about.

If you are already an amazing writer and an SEO expert, then you probably won’t find anything new in this book. Aside from sound advice and the motivation factor. But if you are a business owner who needs to create, or redesign a web presence for your business. Then you will hit the jackpot with Content Rich.

Most writers and web designers will find something of value in Content Rich, it covers all the bases and puts everything together nicely. It also contains case studies, tips for finding writers and outsourcing. Along with information on being a copywriter for a career and the future of copy writing.

Another valuable thing I discovered about this book, was the appendix. It contains links to tons of valuable web writing resources. From tools to keyword research, to the latest news, and forums.

This is a new book and all of the information and links are current. But we all know that on the web things change fast. Jon has taken care of that as well. Everyone who purchases Content Rich gets access to bonus materials to stay current on all aspects of web copy.

Some of the bonuses include, free online access to the next two editions, free access to the members only portion, of the Content Rich Book blog, a complimentary web site copy inspection, and more.

I found Content Rich to be a nice overview of web copy writing, and will be a valuable resource on my bookshelf that I will definitely refer back to. 

I recently found a comment on my blog by a fellow blogger asking some questions about Google. I am not an expert, but I should be able to shed some light with a little basic information. Instead of creating a long drawn out email. I decided to use the content and create a post.

The Comment:

“Hi, I just came across your blog tonight when trying to read up on Google. That one word to me just means “mixed up or maybe it should be googley”. When it was just a search engine for me before I had a blog I was fine with them. But now that I have a blog it is just a word that is messing me up. I bought the blog had a page rank of 4 I kept it  up to a 4-3 and then this week I guess I heard through the blog-line that Google did a revamp or whatever and I got shot down to 0!!! How the heck can that happen? And then you talk about the Google tools, I’m really not sure what or where these are. I hate to admit this but I need help with Google. I did have problems with my Feedburner because the prior owner did not give me her username and password for Feedburne, so when I went to sign up  it wouldn’t let me in and prior owner won’t answer my emails so I created a new username and password do you think this could of brought my Page Rank down? Maybe because it looks like MomsCashBlog, If you could answer any questiosn I’d love it. Or any hints….details or anything to do with Google Page rank? Maybe  you could email me at my blogs email above. Thanks sooo much”

The Reply:

Google’s primary function is a search engine. When people enter search terms in Google, the results are ranked according to importance. The ranking is determined by a mathematical formula or algorithim that Google purposely keeps secret so that webmasters and marketers cannot game the system.

Page Rank

One of the factors included in the algorithm is page rank. Page rank or the importance of the site is determined by links pointing to the site. The quality, quantity, and relevance of the links have an affect on page rank.

Google Tool Bar

If you would like to know the estimated page rank of your site install the Google Tool Bar in your browser. The google tool bar contains a page rank bar that will have a number between 1 and 10 if you hover over it, and will be completly gray if your page rank is 0 and will be completly green if your PR is a 10. Also by clicking on the toolbar you can see the number of links in Googles index pointing towards your site.

Keep in mind that the tool bar page rank is an estimate, that gets updated approximately every 3 months. But actual page rank is an ever changing thing.

SEO

Most new bloggers just start writing and don’t understand about page rank or ranking in the search engines. When you have some time, do some research on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and keyword research. Once you understand what these concepts are and how they work, you will understand how to rank higher, and increase organic traffic, which is traffic from search engines such as google.

Free Tools

If you look in my free tools section you will see links to WordTracker which has a free and a paid tool, that can help you with keyword research. They also have some great articles and tutorials, that are worth reading. Also check out the Google Keyword Tool, and Traffic Travis. These links can be found in my Free Tools section in my sidebar as well.

Page Rank Penalty

I took a quick look at your site and the Google toolbar does say PR0, but you still have 54 sites linking to your blog. I beleive your site may be penalized because of violating one of Googles terms of service you can find the Google TOS on their website.

Don’t Sell Links 

But, I think I know what your problem is, so let me try to explain. Google wants the most accurate search results possible. So they want to rank sites according to natural links. Not attempts to game the system. One common past practice that Google has cracked down on is people buying and selling links.

Yes webmasters used to be able to make a lot of extra money by selling links on their sites with anchored terms such as credit cards. Often times when Google suspects sites of selling links they will penalize the page rank with a 0 even though the actual page rank should be a 3 or 4.

From taking a quick look at your site I beleive that those six links under Featured Sites, are actually paid links. It’s possible they were put there by the previous owner and you knew nothing about it. Also check out the rest of your site for any Pay Per Post articles or other paid links such as those through text link ads. Google frowns on these as well.

Use No Follow Tags

This is what all of the hoopla over no follow links are all about. If your not sure what no follow is do some research on that as well.

Request Reinclusion

The good news is; you can get your page rank back. All you have to do, is remove the offending sections with suspect links, and do a reinclusion request with Google.

This is not as ominous as it sounds. Just go to Google Webmaster tools, and click on request a reinclusion. Then you need to explain what happened; You purchased a blog who had a previous owner who had been selling links. You have removed all of the offending links, and would like to request a reinclusion. Chances are you will get your page rank back once the request is reviewed.

Learn, Learn, and Learn

While your waiting for your reinclusion don’t get discouraged. Spend that precious time increasing your knowledge and creating quality content. Learn about SEO both on page and off page. If you do these things you’ll be competing with the big boys in no time. Best of Luck.

Feedburner

One other thing. It’s unfortunate you may have lost some original subscribers when you had to create a new feedburner feed. But that shouldn’t have any effect on your page rank.