I spend an insane amount of my time pitching to potential and current clients the sincere essentialness of search engine optimization. If I design a fancy new website for you, and the proper steps are not taken to optimize your site to be found in search engines, then, really, what's the point?

Spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on a nice website can easily go to waste if the right elements are not put into place, and then built upon, to get you found on search engines (think GOOGLE!).

I ran across this handy, short and really easy-to-follow ebook via Note and Point from Forty Agency that describes the elements of SEO (the things that I do for you, my dear client), and better yet, how to maintain it (the things that you do for yourself (or maybe I do this for you too)).

I feel like I should make this required reading, but instead I'll just whole-heartedly insist. It's short. I promise. (Ahem, pocket guide.)

Pocket Guide to SEO by Forty (633 KB)

I got in a freakin' new and exciting camera on Friday. And as a way to play, and for something fun to do, I decided I would blog about my entire weekend via photography. These were all taken with my new Olympus E-620, and the following images is mostly our whole weekend. And I find it really funny how most of my time obviously revolves around food. Fantastic.

I am in love with this camera though. Observe.

I've been doing some office cleaning and found some old photo discs from getting film developed. One such disk (and I know there's got to be more around here) was from a roll I took during my first European excursion, which reminded me of a very important personal goal of mine.

Number 20 on my list of things I'm going to accomplish by my 25th birthday is "Start a serious European vacation fund." Check.

I'm defining "start a serious fund" by having enough for a plane ticket. Check.

About a month ago I started taking a mere 10% of every bit of money I make and sticking it into a savings account. Easy enough. Well, it grew a lot more quickly than I anticipated, and within that month I now have the start to my serious European vacation fund. I could buy my ticket right now if I would like.

Now for the hard part. Do I want this vacation to be an international family vacation, where I invite David and Lily along? Or is this going to be a backpacking gift to myself? Definitely the hard part.

So, my serious fund has began, and as long as my car doesn't explode or we learn that Lily needs toddler braces (thank goodness those don't exist :-D or do they?!) then I soon start planning some logistics. Eek!

One of my list items of things I want to do by my 25th birthday is to train for and participate in 3 5k races. Yesterday began my training.

While on our shopping trip this weekend, I picked myself up a few toys to get me pumped, and therefore inspired, to get my widening butt out of this office chair and get my heart beating. I got a shiny new pair of Nike Lunarglides+ 2 and a Nike + iPod kit.

I love running. I began running in high school and for a very long time I ran daily, sometimes twice a day. It is a great stress-reliever and a perfect time for me to spend some time inside my head sorting things out and dealing with what's going on in my life. Running not only makes me physically fit, but also contributes greatly to my mental fitness as well.

After high school I had a knee surgery to fix some damage done over the years that began when I danced when I was younger. Then college happened with me working 2 jobs and taking a full load, not to mention the freshman 40. Then came Lily. Then another knee surgery to fix the same knee again.

It wasn't until I healed completely from this second surgery that I got back on the pavement. And I trained for my first-ever 5k, which I ran last Halloween, not to mention that I lost all that early-college weight as well as my baby weight (and boy was there a ton of that). Enter senior project, the holidays, and then our big move, and needless to say I haven't been back out.

Well it's time. Yesterday I headed out and did a bit over a mile before I almost killed over. Today I'm resting, as my legs are so sore that I'm sure watching me go up and down the stairs is at least a bit humorous.

To set a hard goal, I signed up for my first of three 5k races. I signed up for Free to Breathe, a 5k race in Boone on October 17th to raise money for lung cancer research. I will be doing the race as a non-competitor, as I will not delude myself into thinking I'll be up to par by then. That gives me about 7.5 weeks to getting a bit over 3 miles without dying. That is my goal.

Other than running, David and I have a tennis date set for tomorrow. Not to mention my weekly yoga classes. I'm feeling really good about this!

So, my first goal is set, and I'm ready to go. I have some other plans for this race that I will announce soon.

What do you do to get/stay fit?

Today is a big day in our house. David starts big-boy graduate school today.

We moved to the mountains a few months ago to get settled in for this very day: his first day of classes. And honestly, I think I'm feeling a little like what I expect sending Lily off to her first day of kindergarten might be like. I have butterflies in my tummy for him.

Are kids going to steal his lunch money? Is he going to be picked on? Will he be sent to the principal's office?

Ok, maybe that's not really what I'm worried about. More like I sure hope he doesn't get a parking ticket, and I hope he doesn't get stuck in traffic.

David has already met all his colleagues and professors, as he did spend a couple of weeks in Montana with them earlier this summer and he had orientation and a departmental picnic this weekend. So he's good to go.

I, on the other hand, am filling the role of full-time mommy from here on out. My design schedule is thinned out for this very reason, and I imagine I'll be working late into the night from now on as Lily is not conducive to a productive working environment. However, we have some fun things planned, like shopping (which is one of her favorite activities; she requests it often).

In preparation for today, we took yesterday to leave town and do some shopping at a monstrous shopping center in Greensboro. Holy. Cow. We hit up Williams-Sonoma, Barnes and Noble, a couple of outdoor outfitters, and The Apple Store, where all three of us fell in love with the iPads (which are the "big iPods" to Lily) and I decided that a MacBook Pro is next on my shopping list. Lily also got a whole fall wardrobe, so I'm a little jealous. And we had some freak-tastic sushi, which I have been craving.

Needless to say, I'm ready for my Mountaineer to start school, as I know he is too. Because the quicker he graduates, the quicker we're moving to Europe.

More on that later.

Woot!

One of my big personal projects is making a mobile-friendly version of my site. The first step is complete, and boy was it a baby step.

For those of you with iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches, you can now bookmark my site and have a perfectly nifty little icon on your home screen. Cool beans, huh?

This logo is currently used for both the design site as well as this-here blog. Once the design site is all mobile-friendly, I'll move to the blog and that may change.

Things are going well thus far. I can't wait to launch it!

 

Yup, Skype.

After having a great dinner with a super-techie friend back home (hi Mikey!) I decided to change directions on a couple of things.

For example, I'll honor my initial decision and wait and get a 2nd generation iPad, after coming very close to breaking down and buying one on the way back to our mountain home. Thanks, pal.

Also, he persuaded me that it's time to Skype. After perusing Skype for several hours when I returned home, I decided that this would be a fantastic business tool. I don't really care for the video chatting with clients as much, as I tend to work while not looking my best. However, the instant messaging, screen sharing, instant file transfer, and voice chatting are everything that I love about the Mac's iChat, but available to everyone. And it's all free.

So, I'm Skype-ing it up. If you would like to discuss a new project, or your current project, or just stop by for a chat, Skype me at emmarieDesigns.

Also, the studio now has it's very own phone number, so no more fear of dying cell phones or losing service in my little mountain town. You can see all my available contact-ness on the newly updated contact page.

Now Skype me. I want to play.