New Business Start Up - in Record Time

Well...when we decide to do something, we don't mess around, hubby & I.

Thanks to the fact that hubby already had a business we are able to get up & running with very little lead time. We already have PST & GST numbers... waiting on his license - but that should get here any day... and in the meantime, we've got a good start on a webpage for Cottage Country Pest Control, and I'm working on backlinks, of course :)

One of our biggest advantages over DH & co. is that we have a whole lot more skill when it comes to the Internet and SEO - also, a much higher level of computer skills to handle the office management and organization end of things. I had made a database for DH but he ended up firing R. before I ever gave it to him ...so guess who will be using it now?

We also have our old video store database that includes a whole lot of customers that know R. well and will likely be willing to support him in his new venture .... will be having Tamara come up next week to do some telemarketing for us.

He's just back from picking up the equipment he needs to get started; the product is on its way, and we've already got a couple of customers lined up - - - so DH & co. can just go f.....well, I won't say it...but you can probably guess.

Stephanie even did a tarot card reading for R. re: his new business venture.

I wish I wasn't going to be away so much over the next month ...and that I didn't have so darn much of my own work to do ... but oh well... will get through ...and hopefully even enjoy myself while I'm away.

Tomorrow I'm off to Ottawa to attend The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences and to meet with my new employers at the National Archives of Canada about the project I will be working on .... then on Thursday I will be heading to Brampton to stay at my sister's and meet with some people about my research project on Friday. Hubby will pick me up there and bring me home for a week and then on June 6 he'll take me back, as that is the day my sister & I fly out to Victoria BC for a week long course in Digital Editing (for me; sis gets to do whatever she wants while I'm in class).

I expect I'll find time to do some blogging while I'm gone ... taking both my netbook and my Roger's stick with me... but doubt I'll manage to keep up my Entrecard dropping. But we'll see.

Anyway ... time to go figure out what I need to take with me and what the heck I'm going to put it in!

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Flitting on Ask Me Anything

In addition to writing my own blogs this week, I am also covering Stephanie the Rocket Scientist's Ask Me Anything blog.... so far I've posted three articles over there, if you're interested:

• Differences between Canadians and Americans
• Generating blog traffic
• Search Engine Optimization - Focus on KEYWORDS

I plan to continue with more articles about search engine optimization - and of course, will also answer any questions asked of me over there as well... so why not stop by and visit me there, too?

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Blog Promotion Tools - Twitter

Now that I can't use Entrecard with my Today.com blogs, I am even more motivated to look at other ways of building traffic to my blogs.

So one of the things that I intend to do with this blog is to experiment with various tools, and write about what works and what doesn't.

Of course, just because something works - or doesn't - for me doesn't mean that it will do the same for others.... twitter seems to be a really good example of that.

I know a lot of people use Twitter to generate traffic to their blogs. Me, not so much. I did sign up ...and am slowly building a ~following~ (253 as of today) ... but tweeting my blog posts generally results in no more than 1, maybe 2 unique viewers. Hardly seems worth the effort.

I have on occasion tried participating in conversations, or just tweeting other ~stuff~ ...but honestly, it is not a format I particularly enjoy. The more people I follow, the less the tweets interest me.... it's just a flood of junk that is of little interest to me.

I do try to follow links to other people's blog posts - but even the tiny URL thing irks me... so much more info if I could actually see the link text.

So...I'm not fond of twitter on the whole... perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

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My Blogs

I already have a number of them... and didn't really want another...but in order to use the gmail address I use in Firefox (which I don't want to change because it is connected to my Adsense and other various tools) to comment on other people's blogs without having to sign in all the time....

So .... if you've landed here through a comment I happened to make on your blog, welcome... but I'm not really here :)

I am over here, or here, or here ....

My most popular blog is Back to School for Grownups. It is intended for non-traditional or mature students, and includes support, resources, and me babbling on about my own experiences as a non-traditional student. I've got 2 college diplomas and a university degree, am working on my Masters in English (Public Texts) ...and in the fall will be continuing on to do a doctorate in Canadian Studies at Trent University, which I am very excited about.


My research interests centre around the function of fiction, especially for adolescents and emerging adults, and that is the focus of my second blog, flitting on fiction. It includes ~stuff~ about my own research, as well as book reviews and chat about specific topics I'm studying...right now, that means Canadian Literature, publics, and issues of viral contagion.


Both of those are today.com blogs - which means that I am paid for my blogging. You can be too. The deal right now is that new bloggers start out being paid $2 for every 1000 unique visitors to your blog... but there are bonuses to earn, affiliate products to sell (for which you receive payment), and regular reviews which can result in bloggers being promoted to the pay per post plan, which pays $1 (or more) for the first 100+ word post you submit each day. I don't earn enough to live on through Today.com ...but I make a heck of a lot more there than I do with adsense on my own blog.

And last - well okay ... not really last - but last among my active blogs - is flitting.org, which is where I blog about whatever happens to be on my mind after I finish posting on my more theme oriented blogs. Most recently, that seems to include a lot of ranting about the incredibly poor interactions I've had with the thieves at Nor-Don Collections and the incompetent people at TD CanadaTrust.



Or you might find me on Twitter, or Technorati, Orkut, Facebook, or StumbleUpon.

Or, if you happen to be on Gather, here.

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