Who Was Your First Foot Visitor?

Posted on January 4th, 2012 by njw

I like traditions, and I especially like traditions that I can incorporate or adopt as my own. New Years traditions are pretty basic with singing Auld Lang Syne and making a resolution so when I heard about the Irish tradition of ‘First Foot’ I was excited to quickly bring it into the fold of the New Years celebration.

The tradition basically revolves around whom crosses your threshold as a guest in your home first in the New Year. Your luck or misfortune for the coming year can be determined by whom this guest is.

I am going to keep my first foot visitor a secret this year but alas they were treated like royalty just in-case. May your first foot visitor bring you all the luck that you desire in 2012. Happy New Year!

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Google Tackles Original Authorship Head-On

Posted on December 19th, 2011 by njw

Authorship, or verifying the original author of an article or publication will go along way to reducing the benefits scrapers who often blindly scrape away your work will receive in Googles’ index.

Google with recent introduction of its authorship verification methods has begun tackling the issue head-on and I for one am excited at the possibilities this brings to the table.

Of course, verifying original authorship’s benefits are not only limited to the issue of reducing scraper sites and sites full of re-posts but of the more important timeline and social interaction that now receives indexing preferences.

+Nick J. West

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The Little Things in Life Add Up

Posted on December 4th, 2011 by njw

Year-end is a natural time to reflect on the past year or even past few years. Today I am doing exactly that and in doing so I came to the realization that I enjoy routine as much as I enjoy getting away from it all.

I recently returned from a short-jaunt to San Francisco. Do I love that city. Wouldn’t want to live there full-time but I enjoy the city fully every chance I can get. The visit to the city included a Sunday which is when I usually get a chai tea at 9th and 9th so my routine was changed, leaving me perplexed at how to deal.

In the past I may have substituted with a local coffee shop’s chai tea but that usually ends up just as bad, sorry 9th and 9th has it spot on!

So, this weekend we went to Bob’s Donuts. Delicious and I can’t recommend the place enough, Bob’s on Polk Street near Sacramento St.

Anyway back to the point of this post: Life’s little things matter. Take note of what your list of the ‘little things’ in your life is and reflect on them, just for a few minutes.

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Google + in a Nutshell

Posted on December 1st, 2011 by njw

Google + or Google Plus is here to stay. And why wouldn’t it with ease of use, cross posting and now with pages for businesses and other groups it makes sense to include it in your satellite of platforms and tracking products.

There are a number of tutorials on setting up a Google + page for your business or organization so I won’t repeat here. Early adoption is key to these new Google Tools so integrate them as soon as you can.

Using the Google Plus platform in conjunction with rel=author tags on your website can make a huge dent in reducing the number of scraper sites that repost your material.

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Filed under: Blogging, Google, Lead Generation

4-04-2010

Posted on March 16th, 2010 by njw

I’m a fan of numerology, and an event today made me pause like I usually do when coincidences stand out as boldly as today’s Los Angeles earthquake. What was fascinating is that it registered 4.4 and occurred at exactly 4:04 am PDST.

I know its just a coincidence but the fact that its so precisely at 4-0-4 has to make you pause to wonder.

If anything is to be learned from the recent catastrophes in Haiti and Chile is that every family needs an earthquake emergency kit that includes a tent or temporary shelter in addition to food and medicine.

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