Daily Thoughts 12/25/2010 (net profits, SEO, jack mcdevitt, echo, social media, library budget)

Houghton Mifflin and Company’s Holiday Books for MDCCCXCV, 1895, Chromoltihograph.  This is one of the few images that I have chosen to use more than once.

Daily Thoughts 12/25/2010

During the last week we've watched The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg several times.   It is an excellent christmas movie.  It is a break from watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. I really enjoyed the Polar Express.  It is also a childrens book which is very beautifully illustrated.  I am also fond of The Garden of Abdul Gasazi which is very beauftiful.  Chris Van Allsburg has a nicely illustrated website
http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/polarexpress.html


I have been reading more of Net Profits by David Soskin.  He is writing about how he opened his company in the United Kingdom and then expanded into Canada, the United States, and Europe. There is a lot to think about here.

I also read Jack McDevitt, Echo  which is a mix of archaeological science fiction, mystery, and disaster story.  It is a very complex story with lots of twists, turns, and skulduggery.

The week has been very relaxing.  I also watched something pretty mindless but entertaining, the series, Wolverine and the Xmen on dvd.  It is not Marvel's best stuff, but I enjoyed it.  The original Xmen series is much better.

The budget issue with the library has not ended.  There is going to be a revised budget announced on Monday, December 27, 2010, and a hearing on Tuesday December 28, 2010 about the budget.  If you are interested in the library please attend.  http://www.lohud.com/article/20101225/NEWS02/12250324/Mount-Vernon-sets-hearing-on-86-8M-spending-plan 

Web Bits

I have also been thinking of free SEO tools. It is a way to review free methods of search engine marketing.

There is Addme, which is a free tool which submits to 20 engines.

http://www.addme.com 

There is also Google Pagerank Checker

http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

Google Adwords has a free keyword analysis tool.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal free keyword analysis

Statcounter is a fairly reliable hit counter that is free.

http://statcounter.com/why_is_it_free.html

There is also Google Webmaster Tools which allows you to have free analyics.

www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html  

This is an automatic link checker which allows you to determine if you have broken links on your site.

The other thing which I am thinking of is social media campaigns.

There are the big three; Linked In, Twitter, and Facebook.  Depending on what I am thinking about in the near future with something more oriented towards books, there would also be Book Blogs on Ning, and a blog associated with various book sites.