Where I Receive And Throw in the Trash Promotional Pens

Got 4, count them 1,2,3,4 blue, promotional pens.  I will not tell you from who coz I don't want them to sue me for ruining their reputation.

Actually, my household got 4 blue, promotional pens.  Two of the members of my household are too young to be buyers of anything.  First strike.

But that's not the worst of it.  The worst of it is that these promotional pens are really cheap.  They don't write, they scratch.  So, I gave them to my daughters to play with.  That was around 1 o'clock.  At about 2, they gave them back to me: neither the dolls nor Teddy Bear nor Whiskers like them.

The whole thing has caused me grave emotional damage.  I think I shall sue them.  I want $40 million dollars for my hurt feelings.  I deserve better than cheap pens. 

I think someone should make it up to me.  Send me a personalized Ferrari, any Ferrari (as long as it's new) and I promise everybody in my world will see your logo.  Oh, heck, I'll take any promotional product as long as it's quality, even a promotional USB flash drive (which I will never use but always mean to).

Things Happen

First, the funnies.  Actually, not really funny.  Someone said, "Sweet justice!" But that's not it either.

Bank of America served foreclosure papers on a couple who did not have a mortgage with Bank of America.  The couple counter sued, won, foreclosed on Bank of America.  Yup.  They showed up with a sheriff and a moving van to a Bank of America branch to take desks and computers to the tune of the judgement against Bank of America.

Because, like so many other foreclosed upon, Bank of America had no money to pay!

Sunday Morning Work

You ever think about personalized water bottles?  I have to.  Right now.  I'm supposed to be working on a marketing campaign that involves personalized water bottles.  But it's Sunday morning and I don't feel like it, so I thought I'd take 3 minutes to create a post.  You know, recharge.

You, who have never thought about personalized water bottles don't know it, but they're a great thing.  If you own or run a business. 

Enough about bottles.  My daughters were looking forward to their favorite cousin's visit, scheduled for noon.  The cousin text me she can't make it: her sinuses are doing something they're not supposed to.

I've never head sinus problems, so I don't get it.  I know they can hurt, but till they hurt me it won't be the same.

Anyway, her non-presence forces me to do change plans for today, do something entertaining with my kids.  And they've started to be quite demanding when it comes to entertainment.

Backlinks vs Google Maps

You hear a lot about backlinks.  You hear that you need them. Which is true.  You hear that they need to be quality backlinks.  That's also true.  But how many quality backlinks do you need?  Take a look at the image below:

It's from Market Samurai, my favorite tool for finding out which keywords are too competitive, which ones are right for me.

BLP means backlinks to the page.  BLD means backlinks to the whole site (domain). 

Do you see how many #5, the Wikipedia has of both?  Yet it's not ranking #1.  If you look farther to the right, you see that the page from Wiki that shows on page 5 is not optimized for the keyword 'Chicago home insurance, " the keyword I asked Market Samurai to gather info for me.

But, the one that shows first on the page, is not optimized at all for this keyword, has no backlinks to the page that shows up, yet it shows up first.  How come?  For a lot of keywords, Google shows local businesses that have a map profile. 

So, one thing you can do for your business, if it's the kind where Google maps applies, is to get signed up with Google maps and be #1 there.  It's a lot easier to show up high in the ranks.

AC Dies, I Plug Along

A few days ago, I was on the Internet, looking at car insurance sites (here's one) when the air conditioning died.  Today we're having 70 degrees high.  My ac decided to die when we had 99.  Yup, 3 days does make that much difference in Chicagoland.

The AC people were prompt but not so good, took them 3 tries to get it going again.  In the mean time, I sweated like a pig (even though I went to work in a Barnes and Nobles coffee house, then a Starbucks.  By the way, Starbucks is better; Barnes and pal Nobles haven't figured out they need more than one outlet.)

Much has happened since my last post, like I got hired to do SEO for a couple of companies.  One of them is a promotional products company.  Quite an industry, promotional products, yet you don't hear about them unless you're in marketing.  Or running a company and someone sends you personalized coffee mugs or something to get you to buy from them.

I just started the seo work, so no ranking yet, so don't bust my balls.  Yet.

Furthermore, my 7-year old's decided I'm short and she'll be taller than me by the time she turns 10.  And I think she will.  Looks like she'll be a giant, she's taller than 95% of kids her age.  No, she's not interested in basketball.  She loves soccer and swimming pools.

Shutting Down The Government

No, I'm not going to go into politics.  I'm merely going to mention that I saw part of an interview with a congressman.  He happened to be a Republican, but I've seen the other side do the same.  He said that the Government doesn't have to be shut down.  All that's required is for Democrats to accept what he and other Republicans were proposing.  He did not seem to be aware that the opposite holds true, that all that's needed is that Republicans accept what the Democrats want.

And now to my request: can we elect people who at least have a modicum of self-awareness?

And that reminded me, don't ask how, of part of an interview I saw about a year ago.  Some congressman was asking some 4 star general about US putting 20 thousand soldiers on the west side of some 8 miles wide island.  The Congressman asked, honest to goodness, if the island wasn't going to capsize with that many soldiers on one side of the island.

The general answered with a straight face.

I'm done now.

Internet Marketing Tools

Haven't been here in a while.  I've learned a lot about internet marketing and affiliate marketing since then.  Particularly that tools like Market Samurai (good Market Samurai review) save a lot of time.  Market Samurai is great for finding keywords and figuring how hard it would be to make it on page 1 in Google for them.

Particularly that I know a heck more about internet marketing than all the small business owners, managers, presidents, chief financial this and chief executive that.  So, of course, I've started to propose my Chicago SEO services to them.  And they're saying, yes, man.

But some of them aren't working with.  Anyway, that's not what this post is about.

I've had reasons to look at a bunch of sites.  Accounting sites, mortgage sites, insurance sites, marketing sites.  Many are gorgeous and useless, many are ugly and useless.  But they're very much alike in what they say.  Check it out for yourself: a ton of small business owners have sites that say: We are great.  We love you.  We'll take good care of you.  Then there's a long list of services.

Not all of them.

Here are some of the sites I looked at today (including some good and some that need work):

http://www.swias.com
http://eurobankmortgage.com
http://www.callero.com
http://www.myadvanceddentistry.com

But the way to do it, is to look at all accountant sites, all dentist sites, etc.