That’s me.  What about you?  Are you a bit OCD about your desktop?  Or does it get the best of you too?  If you want to share your desktop tips and tricks (or woes), I’d be so tickled to have company.  Let me know in a comment so I can check it out!

Here’s my completely unabridged, un-touched-up desktop this morning:

Desktop

Show me yours, if you dare!

I’ll do the research.  I’ll read up on the best sites.  I’ll read the Webmaster documentation straight from the horses mouth.  And I’ll present to you digestible bits.  If you have trouble actually applying these bits to your website, lets help each other in the comment section of each topic.  Lets avoid publishing yet another article on SEO for beginners, rather I hope to help you digest & apply the information that is already out there.

Last week my 9 year old daughter was complaining about how slow the desktop computer is.  And I am in complete agreement – the thing is a dinosaur.   It really hit me, that I was talking about an old computer that is only 4 years old!  Do you remember the TRS80?  Now that is old!  That thing was not even windows-based; we had a big black screen from which we could type commands like run, open, close.

Today computers are common-place.  Netbooks were on sale last week for under $300.  Then consider that last October, there were on average, 3,133,333 searches per day[1. ComScore.com] on Google.   My point is that I know there are people who want to read what you have written, or purchase what you are selling, but the question is – can they find you?? Unfortunately great content is no longer enough to get your site in google search results.  Our sites need to be “search engine optimized” or SEO.

So, after much angst, I have decided it is time. Yes ma’am, it’s time we learn a few things about Google and getting our sites ‘listed’, don’t you think?  First, we’ll go over the easy stuff – installing a plugin or two.  And then each week, I’ll present some new bits that I’ve learned in plain English, along with step-by-step tutorials for optimizing our sites for search engines.

I’m so excited about this!  I know that I write great content – and I know there are lots of bloggers who want to read this sort of thing!  How about you?  Do you have your niche defined?  Are you a good writer?  Do you have content to share with others?  Would anyone be glad they visited your site?  If so, we have some work to do!!  Why don’t you join me next week, when we start with the basics of search engine optimization, and I will help you install some plugins?

This is definitely the wrong order to do things in. But here I am, nonetheless. Take heed – it is much easier to put all the elements together in a graphics program, than live with html! I am referring to finding a place for networking profiles – twitter, facebook, subscribe, newsletter, etc. I had planned the top nav bar, I had planned the top of the sidebar – with the links to the Members site, I had planned the header. I had planned the background, and the page transparency. I completely overlooked where to put the profile buttons! So now, I’m back to the drawing board. For me, the drawing board is offline. It is where I look at magazines. I read websites (okay, thats online), and I think. Think, think, think. As Pooh would say. Got any ideas? Feel free to share!!

Step One – [[How to find the Best WordPress themes |select a theme]]

Step Two – strip it of identifiers, move sidebar content into place, and in this case – footer content.  Add custom fields to each post that will appear on the front page

Step Three – dream, twirl, sing, take photos, get into the creative groove and sketch a mockup.

Step Four – Today, I’m beginning to take apart the digital mockup and create little pieces that are compressed for fast load on the web and place them.  Also, I’m going to move the main division to encompass all design elements and move the nav bar from below to above the header.

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