Sitemaps are important to help search engines know where to roam on your website. While there are lots of ways to generate the sitemap, I’d like to show you how to move it to your website. I’ve also included adding your site map to Google’s Webmaster Tools. By the way, the file for your site map is usually called:

sitemap.xml

If you were able to make this work for you, enter your website in the comments below to let everyone know it worked!

After the basics of inserting an image, explore a little more information to help you format your image and create a better graphic experience on your blog.

While blogging is essential sharing your thoughts in words with the world, pictures inserted appropriately can enhance and brighten even the dullest blog.  And sometimes a good cartoon gets your point across best.  Learn the step by steps for inserting your first image into your blog. Part 2 will provide a few tricks to make your image shine even more.

It’s nearly the end of November and we’re all putting in the final push to complete our annual sales goals.  But have you started thinking about the coming new year?  Lots has changed dramatically in the online marketing arena in 2010.  Social media went from being a buzz word your savvy techy friends were tossing around to the tool driving your entire marketing plan.  Gone are the days when your business, local or global, could ignore the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

As the year comes to a close, be sure to take stock of your marketing dollars.  What has worked successfully for you in marketing online this year?  What has produced the most measurable results? (you did measure your results right?)  Is there a better way to use social media tools such Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to create a more effective and measurable result?  If you’re doing your social media marketing inhouse, is it working well for you?  Have you considered hiring someone to do your social media marketing for you?  If you have hired outside help, do you need to make any adjustments for the new year?

If you didn’t measure your marketing this past year, start a strategic marketing plan with measurable goals.

What will you be doing to improve your profitability in 2011.  Let me know in the comment area below

Thanksgiving here in the United States is a day set aside to remember to be thankful. Thankfulness should be a daily thought process, but I like the fact that we celebrate being thankful even if it is just once a year. Many of us spend the day roasting a turkey, watching football (and that’s American football for all you folks who call soccer football, too), and hanging out with friends and family.  Oh, and don’t forget the fabled pumpkin pie! (which I just remembered to get out of the freezer – yikes!).  Now all this thankful activity reminds me of what I am thankful about online.

1.  Recipes for Anything Imaginable

Used to be you had to call your mom to remember what temperature to cook the turkey.  Now you can go online.  I used www.butterball.com since I bought one of their turkeys.  I still called my mom, but we could talk about other things instead of turkey.

My neighbor brought corn pudding to our neighborhood gathering.  It was delicious.  Rather than trying to catch up with her for the recipe, I found a great selection of recipes at www.myrecipes.com Turned out there was a recipe for corn pudding in this month’s issue of Southern Living Magazine, but I haven’t had time to read through it yet.

2.  Sending Thanksgiving Greetings to More People

After I moved away from home and started my own family, we always call home on Thanksgiving to remind everyone why we were thankful for them.  It is great to talk with siblings, parents and grandparents – even if they were far away.  Today, we can connect with so many more people through email, facebook, twitter, and even this blog.  I am thankful to you for reading this today.

3.  Black Friday Preview

While the TV ads are blaring how early you must arrive to get the best deals on Black Friday, you can do most of your cost cutting research online.   You can find all the major department store flyers at www.blackfriday2010.com.  And even sychronize your watch!

Some online merchants are taking advantage of the anticipation and starting a week early.  Amazon started their Black Friday specials the previous Monday (so would that be light grey Monday?).  It’s nice to get a jump on the deals.

Enjoy your day of being thankful!

Comment below on ways you are online thankful

Here is a great interview with Mark Zuckerman, founder of Facebook.  He shares why Facebook is an important element of your marketing strategy.

Now that you have your Facebook Like / Fan page going strong, you’re probably noticing strange and sometimes offensive comments popping up.  In addition, Facebook’s spam filter may also be filtering out quality posts made by your fans. Mari Smith does a great job sharing how to control these posts:

I’ve been testing the waters to outsource some of the more tedious programming work I do. It’s been a stretch for me to release the details to someone else – especially someone I don’t personally know. In the past few months, the experience has been rewarding. With a little bit of supervision, the programmer relieved me of hours of work. However, this week, I didn’t have that same rewarding experience. In fact, it was frustrating. In hindsight, I found three mistakes I made.

Tired of each blog post taking the whole of your front page or your homepage? Try adding the MORE tag after the first paragraph or so. The MORE tag in WordPress allows reader to get a taste of your blog post and click on CONTINUE READING to read more of your post. I put this short video together for you to give you the step by step. Enjoy!