Many thanks to business and empowerment coach Maureen Letendre for facilitating the monthly blogging meeting today. In lieu of our usual blogging session, Maureen led a discussion which helped each of us get re-focused and re-devoted to our blogging efforts. We explored…

• Why we blog
• The payoff we receive from blogging / how we measure success
• The things (excuses and reasons) that stand in the way of us blogging as frequently as we would like
• Our visions of what we would like to be doing with regard to blogging
• The (SMART) commitments that we were willing to make today

Maureen sent us away with homework… To define who we are as a blogger and to choose 3 reasons from our lengthy list of “Reasons We Blog” and post them in a visible spot near our computers and laptops so that we can remain focused when we blog.

Maureen ran a wonderful session-focused, prepared, and kept us on track with regard to time.  Much appreciated!

Maureen Letendre is owner of In Demand Coaching, Marlborough, MA.

Today I will be participating on a three-person panel at the Women’s Business Council meeting of the Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce.  Emily Greenwood of EKG Networking in Marlborough, MA and Tracey Ingle of Ingle Law in Southborough, MA are the other two business professionals. (We have known each other, worked together, and referred each other for years, so, it will be a comfortable and fun panel!)

In preparing for the panel, I have been reflecting on Business Success; what that means, how you get there, what tools can help… Books for instance.  

Top three books that come to mind today are: 

1. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success – Deepak Chopra
2. The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
3. The New Rules of Marketing and PR – David Meerman Scott

I read these books after having been in business for a number of years. They helped me re-focus and re-energize my efforts. 

I particularly liked The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. Reading it and doing the mental exercises helped re-affirm that I am doing what I am suppose to be doing: website design and development. The answers to these two questions (paraphrased from the book) brought me to that conclusion.

1. What is it that you are doing when you forget to eat, forget to look at the clock, shrug off that pain in your shoulders, stay up until all hours of the night?
2. If everything in your life were taken care of… no money worries …no restrictions on you… what would you be doing?

There is one piece of the puzzle that isn’t in place for me to reach my “full truth” yet , but, I am aware of the piece that is missing and can make decisions that will bring me closer to it.

Armed with this knowledge, I move forward building a successful website business  that makes both me and my clients happy.

I’m filing this under Best Practices because there is nothing better than working in your core competency and smiling at the same time.

How about you? What books do you recommend? Are you working in your True Self?

Happy New Year to All!

Start the new year off feeling confident about your domain name; knowing that it is secure and that you will be notified if there is any activity around it.

How do you check your domain name record?
Go to the website of your domain name registrar. Log in and look at your domain name record. Check that all the contact information is correct, especially the information listed for the Registrant. Is the Registrant’s name correct? Is the Registrant’s e-mail address correct? Is the mailing address correct? If any of the information is incorrect, change it and save the record.

Not sure who your registrar is?
Well, you should have an e-mail that you saved from when you registered the domain name. Look for that. Maybe you printed it out and it is in your web folder. If neither of these work for you:

1. Go to domaintools.com
2. Enter your domain name in the box on the first page, next to Whois Lookup.
3. Scroll down to the Registry Data section and look at the ICANN Registrar.

Why is this important?
Internet companies will only deal with the “owner of record” of a domain name. So, if you want to do something like transfer your website to a new hosting company, transfer ownership of your domain name, or simply request the username and password, you will only be able to do that if your name and contact info (or designated person in your company) is on the record. Likewise, if the registrar’s policies have changed and it sends a mass mailing, you will be unaware of the changes, and may/may not miss important deadlines.

The person whose name and contact information is listed on the domain name record in the Registrant section is recognized as the lawful owner. If the record contains the name of a former employee, the Internet companies will deal with that person only. If the record contains the name of your web developer, the Internet companies will deal with the web developer only.

If you own the domain name, it is YOUR responsibility to ensure that all of the contact information is correct. Internet companies accept no excuses. [It's like your taxes and the IRS. Just because you are unaware of a rule, doesn't mean that you won't be penalized.]

TinyURL.com is good for your blog posts – actually, anywhere where you have limited space – Twitter comes to mind, and e-mails.  

From now on, when you have a long web address, go to TinyURL.com, paste the long URL into the box, let TinyURL.com create a short one, or enter your own, then copy the URL, and paste it into your blog post, e-mail, or Tweet. The address that is created for you, never expires.

TinyURL.com even has a browser plugin so that creating shorter URLs is right on your desktop.

For example, here’s a long URL [100 characters] to a story in the Wall Street Journal about which I wrote my last post. I spliced it into multiple lines.

http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB121803326363016929.html? mod=SmallBusinessTechnology_
feature_articles

With TinyURL.com, I was able to create this much shorter [39 characters] link:

http://tinyurl.com/wsj-creating-website

I’m filing this under Best Practices because I think it is a habit we should work on developing. For as long as we have services like TinyURL.com, shorter URLS are better! Plus you can give the URLs meaningful words like “creating-website” - and those are words that my audience understands.

Recently, the requests for content management systems have escalated. Website owners are wanting to save money by updating their own websites. I understand the need to save a few dollars, but, in my opinion, unless you are a web professional, updating your own website is a bad idea. Why? Because you want to get found on the Internet. 

If you are a client of Adventures Online, your website was developed with all the (current) search engine-friendly components built in. Or maybe you are not a client, but have paid SEO professionals to work on your website.

Now you want to update your website on your own – which sounds innocent enough, but, search engine optimization (SEO) is as intricate as calculating your taxes. One change over here causes a change in an amount over there, and your overall liability picture changes.

Are you capable of doing your own taxes? Yes, if you want to come up to speed every year on the new rules and laws. But don’t you always wonder if there is some little-known rule or law that a professional would have used to reduce your tax debt?  (I used to wonder.) Is coming up to speed each year a good use of your time? And, if you have the time, shouldn’t you be working on your marketing?

Getting back to SEO… In order for you to preserve, support, and enhance the search engine-friendly components that were built into your website, you need to come up to speed with the latest SEO techniques and apply those to your updating. Is coming up to speed each year a good use of your time?

 It is in your best interest to hire a professional who has deep knowledge of SEO in order to maintain your relationship (rank and categorization) with the search engines.

When is it okay to update your own website?
When no SEO has ever been applied to your website, and you don’t care about getting found on the Internet.