Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

From a different direction
Today was an optimization day. I tackled some client pages that I've tried hard to get into the top 10 for several months, but that simply have never even gotten into the top 30. I stared at them bewildered for a while because every test I ran on them had them fitting very nicely into the parameters I felt should put them in the competition for the rankings they weren't attaining.

So after beating my head against the wall for a couple of hours and wondering how I could improve the optimization of pages on which I couldn't find anything to tweak, the lightbulb
went on. I was trying to improve what was on the page and completely neglecting to consider off-page elements.

And it's the off-page elements, specifically the links coming in to these interior pages, that are putting a lot of other sites way ahead of the pages I was targeting. I ended up doing a thorough check of incoming links and identified the pages in the best positions to make a move with a few tweaks to the page and a handful of added links.

Those will be the focus instead of the ones I've already optimized half to death. It's a relief to find that I wasn't so much losing my touch with optimization as I was just focusing too bullheadedly on one thing to the neglect of the other. But, hey, if I can (eventually) get the linking up to where it needs to be, those pages are going to be ready to make some big jumps.

I guess that's one of the hazards, though, of working on your own. No one there to bounce things off of and get another perspective when you get stuck. I guess that's the reason that search engine optimization forums are so valued. It's about as close as a self-employed, work-by-yourself person gets to having someone to kick around work problems with.

Update from last night
Joanne's (my wife) father is seems to be recovering. He'll be in the hospital for the weekend, but it looks likely that he'll pull through.
Jeff

The bad and the good
An unsettled day. My wife Joanne's father suffered a heart attack this morning. It looked for a while like he wasn't going to make it, but has been improving throughout the day. Things are still pretty shaky, though, and he will be closely monitored in the hospital for a couple of days.

So things were pretty unsettled here with calls and e-mails from family members and friends who are involved in watching out for Jo's parents.

But even as incidents were keeping us busy, an unexpected blessing came through, with the website posting it's most successful day yet for referrals. So it's been a day of highs and lows.
Jeff

Little things
You know how some little things can bug you and completely bog you down? Today was my day for getting a bunch of those off my plate. I feel better, but... I can't help but feel that the time could have been better spent on higher impact projects.

Well, higher impact is the schedule for tomorrow. I'm excited to get to them.
Jeff

Draining, but satisfying
Today I'm actually calling it quits well before the 10 o'clock news. It was a draining but rewarding day getting out the remaining newsletters for my client and getting this Sunday's One Stop Web Support newsletter written.

The newsletters are starting to take a lot less time, now—which is good because I have a bunch of them. Now I just have to get my site caught up with the newsletters. Tomorrow's task.
Jeff

A Monday type of Monday
Today was my office day. Once again, it feels strange how out of touch I've become with what's going on there. I was out of there by 2:45 and would have been out earlier if we hadn't spent the last hour and a half in strategizing future promotions and projects.

Once home, it was strictly maintenance, putting together last week's trends and tracking. Nothing particularly exciting, although I continue to enjoy watching my son Jon's creativity at work in his mystery auctions on eBay.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZpokey1299

Hmmm. Mentioning Jon's auctions seem to be a regular Monday feature of this blog lately.

Otherwise, I did some catching up on my favorite ecommerce forums. Basically, a Monday. What more can I say?

Making lemonade
What a bad day for our only car to die. My youngest son Joel was graduating from high school and we had planned a dinner out afterwards to celebrate his graduation and older brother Ben's 20th birthday last Thursday.

But as we headed to church, the alternator light came on and the car quickly died. We got a jump and headed toward our car repair, but that got us only eight blocks. So while I got it towed to the shop, the rest of the family got creative and found another way to get at least Joel, my wife Joanne, and me to the graduation.

Dinner out turned into delivery pizza and a video (in my opinion, one of the funniest ever made—Cat Ballou) with the possibility of still having our dinner out later this week. Yet with all that went wrong today, including at one point needed to push the stalled car up a hill to
get it out of an intersection, I feel great about the day. Tired, but great. It was nice to have challenges—both physical and mental—and succeed at them. And it was nice to overcome them as a family. Now to apply that mindset to business!
Jeff

I love days like this!
Today was a nice surprise. I got work I expected would take about 16 hours done in 6. Gotta love days like that. They make up for the ones where 6 hours worth of work stretches into 16.

The monthly round of newsletters has just about gone out. Just my client's affiliate customer newsletter and preferred customer newsletter remain. The newsletters have proven to be much more time intensive than I expected, but are starting to go faster now as I find shortcuts to accomplish my tasks.

I sorted through my accumulation today and found plenty more to do. I don't know how much will get done tomorrow, though. My youngest son Joel graduates from high school tomorrow and we plan to take the kids out to dinner to celebrate Joel's graduation and Ben's birthday last Thursday.

Should be a full day.
Jeff