Char Bennett

Customizing your Facebook Fanpage

2010-07-09T13:14:00.005-04:00

Step by Step ways to make an out of the box awesome facebook page:

http://www.webdesignideas.org/2010/03/22/creating-a-facebook-fan-page-customizing-it-for-your-business/

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/development/customize-facebook-fan-page/

Examples of great facebook fan pages:
http://inspirationfeed.com/2010/04/30-great-examples-of-facebook-fan-page-designs/
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/facebook-fan-page-profile-images/

Top 10 Keyboard Shortcuts you should know

2010-07-01T15:43:00.001-04:00

Top 10 keyboard shortcuts you should know!

Are you spending too much time moving your cursor, pointing and clicking just to accomplish simple tasks on your PC? Did you know that you can use your keyboard to work more efficiently?

Below is a list of 10 keyboard shortcuts that will help you increase your productivity by eliminating the need to reach for the mouse.

CTRL + C will copy text after it has been highlighted.
CTRL + V will paste text that you have copied.
CRTL + Z will undo any change that you have done.
CTRL + ESC will bring up the Start Menu.
SHIFT + F3 will turn all capitalized text into lowercase.
SHIFT + DELETE will delete an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin.
ALT + TAB will bring up a Window with a list of icons representing programs which are currently running on your computer. While holding the ALT key, press and depress the TAB button to cycle between each icon task.
ALT + ESC will switch to the next task running on your computer. Hold down the ALT before pressing and depressing the ESC key to cycle to the next task.
CTRL + ALT + DELETE will bring up Task Manager and allow you to end a process (terminate a program) if it has crashed or has stopped responding. Select the process which has stopped responding, and then press "END PROCESS''.
SHIFT + INSERT will paste any text that is in your clipboard. Your cursor must also be placed in an area that will accept keyboard input for this to work.

About this article: Dennis Faas is the CEO and Chief editor of Infopackets.com: a daily, digital publication dedicated to MS Windows, computing, technology trends and solutions to real life computing issues: all written in simple English. Subscription to Infopackets Windows Newsletter is free. Visit them today! www.infopackets.com

How to Make Moving Fun

2010-05-28T09:27:00.000-04:00

How to Live Happily with your Website Designer

2010-04-02T15:54:00.002-04:00

How Many Links to Get to the Middle of Google Page One?

2009-11-03T11:20:00.002-05:00

I was perusing my email this morning and found this fabulous article from a SEO Expert that I subscribe to. Now I don't read every article he sends me but this one caught my eye because it is a question I get ALL of the time:

How Many links do I need to get to the first page of Google?

The answer is subjective and depends on your Site, your Competitors and the competiveness of your website.
You can read the full article here

So if you are looking into purchasing SEO this article might answer some of your questions.

Have a wonderful day!
Char
Real Estate Search Engine Optimization

10 Ways to use LinkedIn

2009-06-10T09:26:00.004-04:00

I have had a lot of people ask me about social networking and how it can help them. LinkedIn is one of the better Professional Social Networks that every Realtor, Loan Officer, etc should join. I was reading an article today that gave 10 tips on how to use LinkedIn and thought to myself that - you - my readers - would benefit from reading this article - and joining LinkedIn if you haven't yet.
It has tips that show you how you can use LinkedIn to:

Increase your visibility.
Improve your Google PageRank
Enhance your search engine results
Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks

And much more.

10 Ways to Use Linkedin

So check it out and let me know what you think. And OH for all of you that have a LinkedIn profile and you haven't completed it...there is no better time than today. =)

I hope you enjoy the article.

Thanks,

Char

Real Estate Website Design

Real Estate Search Engine Optimization

Mean Moms

2009-05-12T08:35:00.002-04:00

I will greet this day with love in my heart. For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. Muscle can split a shield and even destroy life itself but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of man and until I master this act I will remain no more than a peddler in the market place. I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend upon its force... my love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day. - Og Mandino

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAYTO ALL THOSE WONDERFUL, CARING WOMEN WHO GIVE OF THEIR TIME, EFFORT AND LOVE!

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.- George Washington - 1732-1799, First President of the USA

Mean Moms
Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:

I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.
But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.

Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.

And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the meanest mother in the whole world!

While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches.
And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison.

She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was.

I think that is what's wrong with the world today. It just doesn't have enough mean moms!
- Author Unknown

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. - Abigail Van Buren

Be a love pharmacist: dispense hugs like medicine - they are!- Terri Guillemets

Have a Fantastic Week and remember to make every hour in your life - HAPPY HOUR! - Mr. Positive

Thank you for this post to Jim Gentil Mr. Positive.

Organic Search Engine Results Vs. Paid For Search Engine Placement

2009-05-07T11:12:00.004-04:00

I read this great article today on why Organic Search Engine Placement is better than Paid for Placement. I am not saying that you SHOULDN'T do paid for placement - only that I think Organic search engine placement is more effective and gives you more visiblity.

The author of the article, Lee Odden, did some research and here is what he found:

iProspect did a study (pdf) on this in 2004 (scroll to page 16 and 17) “Across the 4 search engines - Google, Yahoo! MSN and AOL — 60.5% clicked on a natural (or “organic” or “algorithmic”) search result, while 39.5% clicked on a paid search advertisement.”
A recent study by iProspect and Jupiter Research shows that 2/3 of users click on the first page of results.
The Enquiro eyetracking study is always useful.
A study by OneUpWeb (pdf): “…search users are up to 6X more likely to click on the first few organic results as they are to choose any of the paid (PPC) results.”
Jupiter: ” Algorithmic listings in search indexes generate an estimated six of seven commercially natured search referrals”
2007 Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Survey
Chris Dohman pointed out this post from SEO Book citing data from Jupiter (5 out of 6 commercial purchases which originate from search originate from the free (or organic) side) and from Atlas on PPC stats.

You can read the full article here: http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/09/organic-versus-paid-search-results/

I would love to hear what you have to say!

Thanks,

Char

Real Estate Website Design, Real Estate Search Engine Optimization

Foreclosure Template for emails

2009-04-05T11:10:00.001-04:00

I found a great article for you Realtors regarding prospecting for people who are in foreclosure:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/488178/Foreclosure-Template-for-emails

Check it out and let me know what you think!

10 Ways to Crank out Killer Posts in 10 minutes or Less!

2009-03-17T10:31:00.003-04:00

I have a lot of clients ask me how to write a blog post and I came across this great blog post today that has some great tips to get you started.

If you are looking to learn how to post blogs - read this post:
http://michaelmartine.com/2009/03/10/ten-topics-in-ten-mins/

Let me know how you do!

Are you Throwing Away Good Leads?

2009-03-16T14:37:00.002-04:00

It came to my attention about an hour ago that not everyone looks at a lead the same way.
Let me tell you what brought me to this conclusion today.....
Many of my clients send me emails they receive soliciting them for different real estate products and ask me to check into them...knowing that I will do so and thoroughly. Today, one of my agents sent me a link to a company called RealtySoft.com that sells agents websites/design and offers a free IDX solution. He was interested in the FREE IDX they are offering since he is trying to cut costs - but was wary of the FREE offer. I went to the site and explored the idx solution looking into all of the features and what it involved. I liked what I saw and had more questions so i filled out a form to be contacted by someone in sales.
I received my call about an hour ago and the gentleman, Travis, introduced himself and I started asking him questions. I was mainly interested in if the FREE IDX allowed the agent to force a registration trigger after the visitor view a couple of homes. He explained his product briefly and I asked him for a sample site. At this point he started asking me if I was only interested in the Free IDX. I said yes and started telling him that I also had many other clients that might be interested as well since it was free and he immediately cut me off and told me that they only offered email support for the Free IDX. I understand that since its free and you cant really pay a tech person to talk to people all day on the phone to help them set up their IDX if it didn't bring in revenue to pay that tech person, but I went on asking him questions - not understanding for a moment that he meant that it also applied to the sales team. In other words - even people asking questions before they became clients had to do so via email. As I continued he quickly made it apparent to me that I needed to email my questions into support. I sputtered - "Are you telling me that I can't talk to you and ask you questions?" To which he said yes, we only offer email support. "Do you mean that even if I have other clients that might be interested - they can only email in?" "So you are unwilling to talk to me?" He sighed...and said ok that he would talk to me. I promptly said - "No thanks, I'm not interested anymore" and hung up. I will not be sending my good clients to them.
As someone who spent 7 years selling websites to Realtors, I was shocked. Even today - I have many people call me to talk about website design that never end up buying. I have many that call me and I will even help them make a few changes and I never charge them for the 30 minutes I spend talking to them or making a small adjustment that makes them OOHHH and AHHHH and solves a small problem that they have had trouble solving for some time. I establish my value in not only my willingness to help them upfront, but my willingness to spend time with them without charging them for just talking. I give to them, what I would give to a paying client. Do not mistake what I am saying - I am not devaluing my time by giving it away for free - rather I am showing them how important they are to me by letting them know that they are important enough to give them my time and sometimes a little skill. In doing so i am positioning myself as their go-to person. Their expert. Their designer. Because - as I have found out not to long ago - I am not doing them a favor by talking to them, but rather - they are doing me a favor by talking to me and possibly allowing me to build them a site. I value them for considering calling me to even ask about my services. They are in need of my expertise - my knowledge. I WANT to answer their questions and help them. Because of this attitude - many of the people I talk to come back for my services. I consider myself lucky. They could have chosen someone else.
Today's economy is tough people. You need to position yourself as the best by showing people - even the looky loos - that you are there to help them. You are going to listen with care and concern and do what you can to help. You value the fact that they came to you to get help. To buy a home - or to sell - or to get a mortgage - or whatever they are looking for when they call.
Ask yourself - when you get a lead and they are just calling you to ask a simple question - do you give it to them with a happy heart and are you excited to help them? Do you let them know before you hang up that they can call you for anything, anytime and that you are here for their needs? Do you make them feel as if their time is valuable and that they are valuable to you? When you are the customer - how do you want to feel and be treated when you are next in line? If you are next in line at the bank and the teller is blase and treats you as if you are nothing - just the NEXT person moving down the line...does it make you want to deposit your money in that bank?
Do you treat your customers the same way? Do you throw away a customer because they may be asking you a question that you consider wasting your time?
A lead is only as good as you make it. Everyone of them is valuable. It's all in how YOU handle it.
My suggestions:
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao
Read: http://www.smileandmove.com/

Real Estate Search Engine Optimization

2008-06-25T01:07:00.003-04:00

So you wanna know how to get on Page 1 of Yahoo, Google or MSN huh?

Well - lets mark this tutorial as step 1. Please note this is not the only thing you need to do to rank highly and effectively and STAY THERE. This is only the first part of my Tutorial - so make sure to check back and find out more :)

Link Building

What is it?
Simply put it is the process of creating a bunch of link-backs to your website.
i.e. You go to www.dmoz.com and sign up for your category with your website and waa laa - a link back to your site.

What good will it do me?

Well search engines count links to your site like Votes. The more votes, the more important you are, the higher you rank. Think of the upcoming election. There are different types of VOTES to consider - for instance your vote and a senators vote. Each is important but one IS more important than the other. Links pointing to your website are the same way. (I will explain types of links in more detail below) The more links you have pointing to your site, the more the search engines think - wow this site must be important because lots of sites are linking to it. The better the link, the better your position. So - number of links is important.

What are the types of links?

a) Reciprocal - you link to me, I will link to you

b) One way links of any kind - any site at all linking to you

c) One way links that are from a relevant site - same as above and being relevant to your industry, the more relevant the better.

d) One way links from a High ranking relevant site or High page rank relevant site - Google gives a site a page rank - if the site is high in PR - its a whammer.

e) One way Paid for Links - You pay money to be on a site and Google thinks - wow this guy must be serious about this site if he is actually paying for a link. He's in it to stay.

f) One Way, Relevant Paid For Links - I think you might be getting the picture by now

g) One Way, High Ranking, Paid For Links - If you DON'T get it by now - just stop reading and go pay someone.

Okey Dokey- so you get the picture with links. Now..........

How do you find the sites to link to?

Well you can go to google or yahoo or msn and type in "submit site" or "submit link" and you will get a ton. You can also search for "directories" and sign up for those. There are also the obviosul great places that as a realtor you should already be signed up for that allow you to put your website in your profile like Trulia, Zillow, ActiveRain - etc. (for free)

Or you can pay places Like LinkRe.com - they charge $995 to submit your site to a huge list of directories.

What do I do Next?

Plan on spending some time in front of the computer. For my clients, I pay my assistant to do this using a list I have compiled over the last 2 years of great sites. (NOOO i don't give THAT away for free, duh) and it takes her about 2 days to complete them all.

Remember, this is step 1. There is more to it if you want to rank high and stay there.

If you are interested in my Real Estate Search Engine Optimization SEO services - give me a call. My rates are the cheapest you will find. Go ahead, call me and find out. Price around. Oh - did I mention I also give you a guarantee ;)

Check out my Real Estate SEO portfolio to find out what I have done for past clients.

OR

Keep on reading and as long as you dont mind putting in the work and time yourself, you can help yourself get to the top!

Happy Linking!
Char

Free MLS Search, Search MLS Listings, MLS Property Search

2008-06-14T02:12:00.002-04:00

http://www.mlsmaps.com Free MLS Search of homes and properties. Use our MLS Property Search to connect to every MLS in the USA. Search homes on a Map to see where your property is at before you buy.

Stars & Carrots

2008-01-30T23:35:00.000-05:00

I read an article tonight that struck me as brilliant. It's funny how i never know when I am going to blog and then suddenly I read something that just hits home and i find myself so excited that I go straight to my blog and the words just start pouring out! That is what this article did for me tonight.

It started out like this:

"While on vacation recently, I was blown away by the millions and millions of stars that you do not see when you're in the city. As I pointed out the big and little dippers to my kids and identified the North Star, I had this wild thought: Having a web site in real estate is like having a star in the galaxy...who cares? Unless you have the Hubble Telescope pointed at your star, it just doesn't matter. "

It's so true. In fact, one of my clients asked me today;

"Do you really think that this website is going to bring me leads and people will come to it? Because I have never had a website ever bring me one bit of business before. "

To which I asked - what did you do with it? Did you market it in the search engines? Did you do any Pay Per Click Advertising? Did it have any Call-to-Actions on it? And the answer was No.

I wonder why so many real estate websites (stars) are out there sitting stagnant?

So what is the solution?

EDUCATE YOURSELF! Emmulate those that are successful! Read the latest and greatest and apply at least some of it to your business. FOLLOW THROUGH.

So easy to say, but not so easy to do?

The simple fact is you are wrong. The most successful agents are doing it right now. In the same market you are.

For instance, this same realtor showed me one of his top competitors today. Aparently she spent a LOT of money on her website. No doubt, it was filled with all kinds of fancy stuff. But not only that, it was apparent that she had some good methods in place.

1) She had the most important call-to-actions right there on the front of her site.
2) She had a killer IDX solution. Her sellers could not help but be impressed with how her site showcased their home.
3) BUYERS could search homes within 1 click.

NOW - with that said, it is all worthless if no one knows about her site. So I did a little research and sure enough she showed up in the search engines pretty high for some great keywords. Sponsored & Organic results.

So she is not just a star in the sky, she is a bright star that shines through even on the darkest and most cloudy nights.
And she had CARROTS.

What are carrots you say? Funny you should ask....I read another article yesterday that I found equally as brilliant as the first one. It was called "Carrots on a website? You're Hunting Rabbits"

It said:
My last article ended with the admonition: "Your website needs carrots, reasons for people to fill out forms." A reader disagreed, "Most people do not care to fill out forms." Okay, but I don't care about "most people," nor should you.
If people aren't willing to fill out the form on your website for the carrot you are offering, then they are helping you by not wasting your time. They are pre-qualifying themselves as not needing your assistance at this time.
If they go somewhere else online, and fill out a form, well, your carrots failed. Get better carrots. If you have good carrots, they'll fill out the form -- if they are worth you spending your valuable time on.

WOW. I love it. Again, this guy is RIGHT on the money!

He goes on to say that when his clients add IDX to their sites with NO FORM to fill out before they search homes, that their leads drop an average of 60%! WOW AGAIN!

The moral of his story -

"While carrots might not be appreciated by some, they will be greedily devoured by hungry rabbits. If you are a Realtor, you're hunting rabbits. "

So what do you do? Start listening to the same radio station that the consumers are listening to.

WIFM; What's in it for me?

Then, first, take a good look at your website.

Does it have the key fundamentals that consumers want when they get there? Can you search homes within a few clicks? Does it have Featured homes on the front page? Do you offer your consumers up little tidbits of information to whet their appetite and get them to fill in that form or do you give it all away for free?

Then get started. Take all that messy crap and get rid of it. The only reason you should keep it is if you have SOME type of ranking in the search engines. Then go ahead and create another page and copy it in and move on. Fahgeddabahdit.

Next: identify the keywords in your market that people are looking for. Dont just guess - that is just plain ignorant. Go to the search engines and type in KEYWORD TOOL - and find one that you can use to see what consumers are REALLY typing in.Then pic out 3 or 4 only and focus in on them for your site

Create an easy main section in the body that is clear and concise that points to a Buyer Search, some type of Property Saver or Email Alert - and a Seller Tool Center. Be creative with the names and descriptive about what they offer. Dangle the carrot.

Then underneath you need to start writing. If you are not good at it, hire an article provider to write it for you. Here is a good one that is also very search engine orientated: http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/ Have them write something for your front page with your target keywords.

Next find some good Carrots. What do consumers want? What can you offer them that they might be excited about enough to fill out that form? Find them. Get them. Use them.

Then hire someone for your Search Engine Optimization work. Don't try to do it yourself unless you have lots of time on your hands. And if you do have lots of time on your hands then maybe you are in the wrong profession. Buckle down and make a committment to do it right this time. Let us do what we do best so you can do what you do best.

I always encourage my clients to be involved in their website development and infact train them on any part of it that they are interested in. Its important because you need to know waht is going on with your website in order to be knowledgeable about the online community. And lets face it, the online community is where the consumers are. But don't go so far that you are spending more time online than doing business.

Next - sign up for all of those real estate portals out there like ActiveRain and START blogging! Give it a try - its really facinating and fun! Plus you will find that there are a lot of smart realtors out there who do blog. Smart SUCCESSFUL realtors. Hint Hint.

Now, you have a good start. Keep up with your website, add fresh information, keep up to day with the latest and greatest. Try new things. Get involved. Educate yourself. Emmulate success. Do it. Now.

1st Article: Website vs Web Strategy
2nd article: Carrotts on a website? You're hunting rabbits

Char Bennett
(517) 529-9010
charbennett@gmail.com
Real Estate Website Design
Search engine optimization

How many Domain Names do you have lying around doing nothing?

2008-01-24T12:47:00.000-05:00

What's in a name?

Everyone is buying up domain names like crazy these days. Many people have 2 or 3, some have 20 or 30. Personally I have 3. I probably should have more, but I never really got into the domain buying game. The question I want to bring up is - what is everyone doing with those domain names?

Many of you are just letting them sit, doing nothing in your GoDaddy account or Dotster account. What good does that do you? Nada. Even if you are planning on selling it, you are doing yourself an injustice. Those domain names are worthless just sitting there year after year when you could be building a page rank and driving more traffic to your website (if you have one).

SO - what do you do about this?

If you have a website and the URL is relevant to your market - you do a 301 permanent redirect on all of your URL's to your current web address. This can be found under the forwarding options in your hosting account. Usually free - but can be as much as $10 a year.

An important thing to note - if you own a website called widgetsforcars.com - then on the 301 permanent redirect page, it should let you set up a title and meta tags for that particular URL. Do not waste the time setting it up if you don't fill in these boxes. Go look up the particular keyword and see what the most relevant popular keywords are for your URL. Remember, the highest searches keywords are not necessary the best keywords. I will post more on Keywords in my next post.

What does this do for you? It adds to your SEO for your site and brings more traffic to your site for searchers looking for your product.

If you don't have a website, or your URL is not relevant to your current website - then you need to set up a free one or purchase a domain reseller account. There are many free hosting sites out there. Search Google for Free web hosting or Domain Reseller. GoDaddy has an excellent Domain Reseller account that will set you up with a web page with a shopping cart and all kinds of features.

What this will do is allow you to make your URL's active and therefor valuable. First if you are selling domains - you have to get the word out there. You need to tell someone that the domain is for sale, otherwise they will just think it is taken and being used. By having a landing page you are establishing the domain in the search engines and therefore making it more valuable. A simple page with Google Adwords ads showing up on it for relevant "widgetsforcars" will not only bring you money for being an Affiliate, but will establish the site as relevant to the "widgetsforcars" subject and help it rank in the search engines.

Google says:
"AdSense for search allows website publishers to provide Google web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages. "

You can sign up here.

Not only does it display ads for you, it keeps Google coming back to your site regularly to check it out which means it is indexed and added to Google.

Now imagine you set up this site, added some good keywords into the Title and Meta tags. Put the words : This domain is for sale. Email you@youremail.com to make offer. Then added in the Google Adsense below that. Tada - you have a fully functional domain that you spent an hour putting together and then you don't have to touch. It will be all set for the search engines, available to potential buyers, earn you money from Google Adsense, and over time accumulate a Google Page Rank which in turn will make it more valuable when you sell it! (A site with a PR of 5 is worth more money than a site with a PR of 1.)

So what are you waiting for? Go out and dust off those inactive domains and start using them to help yourself!

Char Bennett
Website Design
Search Engine Optimization
Link Popularity, Link Exchange

copyright 2008 Charra Bennett

The time to Relax is when you don't have time for it. - Sidney J. Harris

2008-01-21T12:25:00.002-05:00

We ALL need a break sometimes. Even if you love your job, you need a break.

I was talking to a friend last night about researching things online. She mentioned that she was looking up all this information on a certain subject and that she spent hours and hours just reading and copying down everything she could to prepare herself for a job she was going to do. She was in information overload and just had so much work to do she couldn't think straight.

And I heard myself saying....be careful, before you know it you have spent so much time working that you ignore all of the important things around you like kids and family and become immersed in your work and you forget what it is you are working for..

I can see you all shaking your heads - yep, been there, done that.

Well later that same night, I was reading some blogs on real estate widgets and SEO tactics, and i glanced up to see my husband walking past my open office door. I thought nothing of it and kept on reading. A little while later, as I was working on my website, I noticed him walking past and looking in again...hmmm.....and a bit later.....the same thing. Wasn't I just giving the "take a break" speech to my friend only an hour before? Wake up and smell the Mocha Latte Charra!

Ok, Ok. It's time to take my own advice.

So, I have come to realize that my family comes first. That I need to take a break and stop working at a specified time. No more late night love sessions with my monitor. I have family to attend to. ;) I need to refresh and restart my body so that I can appreciate the reason why I work so hard.

I read something the other day that I want to share with you. It suggested taking a break will help you work more efficiently. That we NEED to take breaks regularly and frequently.

The article - by HigherAwareness.com #8-24 - says this:

Rest periods and vacations break our work routines. They help shift our thinking from its habitual, stuck patterns. They create space from energy and creative flow. They give us time for reflection, so we can step back and look at whats happening in our lives with greater detachment. We become more sensitive and aware. And finally, when we balance DOING with BEING. All work and no play throws our life out of balance and endangers our health. Our bodies and minds need sufficient rest for recuperation. This is critically important with the level of stress in our lives these days.

"I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently." ~Ernest Hemingway

Char Bennett
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My MySpace got hacked!

2008-01-21T12:17:00.000-05:00

Well - I got about 10 messages from my faithful friends today letting me know that my MySpace got hacked. How did they know? Because apparently my account posted about 100 bulletons and comments advertising free cell phones. EEK!

So what does this teach me?

That when someone posts a comment or sends me an email that is an advertisement, contains a picture that I have to click on or contains a link in it that redirects me to sign in somewhere - that I should always double check that it was sent by that person - and not by a hacker. Because even I, being pretty careful of everything I do online, can get hacked!

Be careful of your email, blog comments, myspace, facebook, squidoo, active rain and any similar sites...hackers are always lurking.....

Hey I Won!

2008-01-20T17:08:00.001-05:00

I won the iPod from RedHotFranchises - waahooo! This just proves that creative blog posting can work! RIGHT ON!

Win an Nano Ipod

2007-12-11T18:23:00.000-05:00

While reading one of my favorite newsletters by NameCritic, I came across this mighty popular blog service called RedHotFranchises. They are giving away an iPod just for posting a comment about the contest on their blog... go figure, sounds easy right? Me thinks its an attempt to get you motivated to do yer own matey!

Click the link below to enter the contest yourself!

http://www.redhotfranchises.com/franchiseopportunities/win-a-video-ipod/win-an-ipod-nano-for-just-posting-a-comment/11/30/2007/

my post below:

Win an iPod Nano ...RIGHT NOW(Sung to the tune of Santa Claus is coming to Town)
Oh you better post a comment, you better not stop,
and blog about the iPod &Franchise Sizzle Biz Ops
to win an iPod Nano ...RIGHT NOW
Start making a post, spell checkin it twice
Gonna find out who took thier advice
Win an iPod Nano ...RIGHT NOW
You could win a real cool red iPod
Just leave a comment or two
it even benefits The Global Fund
so now you know what to do!
Oh you better post a comment, you better not stop,
and blog about the iPod &
Franchise Sizzle Biz Ops
Win an iPod Nano ...RIGHT NOW!