I have a dirty, not-so-little secret: I used to be fat. And by fat I don’t mean I had 20 or 30 pounds to lose. I mean fat as in I scorned the women who complained about having 20 or 30 lbs to lose. I was 331 lbs at my heaviest, and it was awful. On November 18th, 2009, I had gastric bypass surgery, and I have to tell you, it was the best health-related decision I have ever made. Now, gastric bypass surgery isn’t for everyone. There are many individuals who would do quite well under the guidance and supervision of a physical trainer orange county. There are others who do just as well by following a Weight Watchers plan, or their own calorie-restricted plan. And then there are some that have tried just about every diet out there to little or no avail.

My point is, no two weight loss programs are the same. Likewise, no two overweight individuals are the same. So please refrain from using blanket statements, options, judgments and “solutions”, because just as no two people alike, no two person’s “issues” are alike, either.

*steps off soap box*

Search engine optimization is where it’s at, baby. So without further ado, here are five great SEO tips for SEO newbies and novices alike!

1. Keywords should be present in every element of your webpage, from your title tag to your paragraph tags. And don’t forget about the meta tags — they’re great for primary and supportive keywords!
2. Did you know you can add ALT and TITLE descriptions to images, and TITLE descriptions to links? Take advantage of these for keyword placement.
3. When uploading files and other images to your website, use descriptive keywords and descriptions for the file names — great for SEO and visitors alike!
4. Build a network of quality back links to help boost you in the eyes of Google.
5. Quality content beats quantity content every single time.

My blogging supports my shopping, and in a way my shopping supports my blogging — shopping makes me happy, plus shopping gives me something to blog about.

But I digress. It’s a Tuesday night, barely 10:30pm, and I am tired. I’m telling you people, this is what happens when you have kids. Suddenly you’re so busy keeping a house clean and taxi-ing kids around and making three meals a day and working in between all of that, that by the time the night rolls around the kids are in bed for the night, you’re wiped out, with no energy to do anything but sit around for a while before falling asleep. Lesson learned? Don’t have kids. This especially goes for those of you who just shopped for long prom dresses a few months ago!

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we? In the world of blogging and personal domains, who remembers:

• Iframes
• Blinking text
• Javascript-powered rainbow links
• Javascript-powered fade-in & fade-out images
• Checkered backgrounds and celebrity-based header images
• Times New Roman and Courier fonts set to 8px with 0.1px line breaks
• Link exchanges
• Rings
• Tag boards
• Plug boards

Some of these go way back. Do you remember any of them?

While I am all about security updates, it seems like WordPress has been more than a little update-happy lately. Every time I turn around there’s a new update to install! But it pays to have an updated blog and a secure one, so while I’ll grumble about the frequent updates, I will ultimately go ahead and hit that annoying “Update” button whenever it appears.