What is this thing called . . . . mayonnaise?

We have all spent our adult lives living in abject fear that if we leave the potato salad out too long, we will get sick from eating it, because the mayonnaise will go bad. If we do, indeed, get sick after a picnic, wherein lay a suspicious bowl of potato salad, we immediately blame said potato salad.

Poor thing.

You know it's been falsely accused, don't you?

Years before Hellmann's and Best Foods arrived on the scene, mayonnaise was made fresh, rapidly whisking together oil, raw egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, and other optional ingredients. With this delicious condiment came the risk of salmonella poisoning, since raw egg yolks were being used. Once mayo became a hot commodity, around the turn of the 20th century, the companies mentioned above began mass producing it. But in order to safely seal mayonnaise in jars for long-term storage, the ingredients and the jars first had to be sterile. So commercial mayonnaise, when you open the jar, is sterile. Any possible trace of salmonella in properly canned mayonnaise is gone.

Naturally, mayonnaise, like just about any other food, can spoil if left out long enough, but generally speaking, you may officially feel safe when eating slightly warm potato salad at your next party. Isn't that life-changing? And if you do get sick after that party, blame the shrimp kabobs. They don't mind.

Golden Chicken and Dumplings

Here is an update to a traditional recipe that I created and have used the last few times I've made chicken and dumplings, one of my family's favorite meals. The big difference is that I brown the chicken first, making a nice golden, slightly thickened broth. It's really nice, and easy to do.

Per person you will need:

1-2 pieces of chicken (depending on appetites), with extra skin cut off (I use kitchen shears for this job, leaving some skin on, although you could remove all of the skin, if you don't believe in having any fun. Leaving the skin on, at least for this step, really improves the flavor of the broth. You can remove it before eating.). Cut breasts in half crosswise -- they'll fit into the pot better, cook in about the same time as the other pieces, and it will stretch your servings. I buy a whole cut up fryer, but you could buy all thighs or whole legs too, if you like dark meat.

1 carrot, plus 2 for the pot, peeled and cut into 1" pieces

1/2 medium onion, peeled and kept whole (breaking it into its layers will make it disappear into the dish, and we like to have chunks of onion on our plate!

1 piece celery, cut into 1" pieces, plus a few leaves if you have them

Remember the amounts above are per person.

Dredge chicken pieces in flour and place, skin side down, in the bottom of a large, heavy pot. Cook five minutes over medium heat. Add onions, still whole, finding a place for them to rest against the bottom of the pot. Cook 10 minutes more. Add carrots and celery, sprinkling on top of chicken and onions. (This combining of onions, carrots and celery creates a variation on a mirepoix -- MEER-pwah -- a traditional staple of fine cooking for centuries.)



Cook until onions and chicken are golden brown on both sides, but not completely cooked. Add celery leaves and enough hot water to cover everything and place a lid on top. Cook another 20 minutes, or until carrots are nearly cooked through. See the pretty broth? The browning of the chicken skin gives it it's warm color and rich flavor.



Meanwhile, mix the following for dumplings:

2 C flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1tsp parsley, fresh or dried

Separately, mix:

1 C milk
2 T. oil

When carrots are nearly cooked through, combine wet and dry ingredients for dumplings.** This should result in a very sticky dough, and you should feel a little like you are Brer Rabbit trapped against the tarbaby. Resist the urge to add more flour -- this will make the dumplings very dry. Drop large dollops (about the size of a goose egg) onto chicken pieces, letting the dough sink down slightly into the broth.



Cover and cook another 15 minutes, until dumplings have risen and are firm to the touch. It's quite possible that the broth will reduce, becoming more concentrated over this time, and if so, it's safe to add some water to increase the quantity without diluting the flavor -- perhaps 1 cup of water. Chicken and dumplings is only a shadow of itself without the broth.



You can cut the recipe for dumplings in half for 2-3 people. For our crowd, there are never enough dumplings! They warm up pretty well the next day, so some leftovers can't hurt. While eating, cut your dumplings in half and spoon some broth over them.

Enjoy!

**Why wait to combine dry and wet ingredients for dumplings? Baking powder begins its action as soon as moisture hits it, and this action has a limited lifespan. Best rising results are obtained if the dough is cooked right after the baking powder is moistened.

.

Use It or Lose It, Yo

I enjoy looking at today's events, habits and attitudes in the context of how they fit into history. Not that I know that much about history, mind you. My husband is a much better historian than I ever was, in fact I was always the one asleep in the back of the classroom during that class in high school. But I did wake up for periods of time, and during those precious moments I gathered enough information to seem knowledgeable on the subject (emphasis on the word 'seem'), so I'm going to lay some of this information on you now, and hope that it will skate by as authoritative!

I love seeing renderings of any kind that show the everyday life of common man through history. In particular, I enjoy seeing the architecture of their homes, but I am also interested in how they cooked, how they got around, how they dressed, how they wore their hair, what they ate, what they did for work. So whenever we see a historical movie or play, or if we go to a museum, or if I am reading a book or looking around on the web, I am drawn to those parts of whatever is presented. If it happens to be a movie, I have to keep asking others what just happened in the plot, because I was busy looking at the amazing dresses. It's SO annoying.

ahem.

To them, I mean.

As time has passed, all 'modern countries', especially those in Europe and North America, have evolved into societies whose culture is driven by comfort and convenience. Gone are silly things like corsets, powdered wigs, stiff, uncomfortable furniture and wagons with wooden wheels and seats. This is a wonderful thing, really. Clothes are comfortable and easy to launder, haircuts are designed for easy care, shoes are made with state-of-the-art materials for comfortable walking (if we choose them over fashionable shoes) and who can deny that the La-Z-boy is anything but comfy? Our homes are weather-proofed with the latest insulation, and can be built with long-lasting and low-maintenance materials, such as plasticized wood, asphalt shingles and long-lasting paint products. Roads are paved, thank goodness!

As middle class citizens, we have the kinds of comforts that the elite of history could only have dreamed of, even with all their servants, vehicles and conveniences of the day. If you can afford to have your yard mowed and your house cleaned once a week, you're even better off. While unlike the historical elite we still have to work for a living, grocery shop, do the laundry, make repairs to the house, and do our own cooking, these are usually not difficult tasks, with our modern conveniences. And we have indoor plumbing, comfortable air-conditioned cars to drive us everywhere, refrigerators to provide us with that midnight snack, washing machines, cell phones, computers, and all the rest, that make the logistics of life so much easier, servants or no.

Yes, today we can do almost anything more quickly and easily except sleep. As I write, I received a phone call from summer camp personnel, reminding me of the need to submit the online health form for our camper. Without removing my backside from the chair, and by moving approximately 20 small muscles in my hands, I went to the site, filled in the information and submitted it within moments, returning to my writing with this sentence. Now what duke of old could have ever accomplished that so quickly and easily, even with five servants to do his bidding? OK, there was no such thing as summer camp back then, but you get my point, right?

While it certainly is wonderful to be able to carry out the mundane tasks of life with such ease, there is a downside of this -- we feel able, almost compelled, therefore, to do more with our days. Not only that, but many of our conveniences in some ways create more work for us. Here is one example. Remember the expression 'laundry day'? It used to be that laundry took a while, without the machine. The common man did not have much in the way of clothes, because they were made by hand, and so were expensive. Bedrooms in homes back then didn't have closets because there was no need. Those few clothes in the family had to be washed regularly, and the washing process certainly took more physical effort than it does now. Nothing like a river, a good flat rock and some lye to get clothes clean.

Today, clothes are easy to come by, and we have washing machines, so one would think that that part of our lives must be simpler. But no-no-no! Because it is easy to own a lot of clothes these days, we do. So now we all have closets loaded with cheap clothing, creating the necessity of drying, folding, hanging, sorting, repairing and ultimately disposing of 100 pieces of clothing per person in any given family, not to mention the hours we spend haranguing our kids to pick them all up off the floor. For those of you who have ever carted five black trash bags filled with old clothes, to the second-hand shop, you know what I mean. Owning this many clothes takes a lot of work at times. To me it seems a bit unnatural to have so many clothes that we have to work for the clothes instead of them working for us.  And the biggest irony, speaking for myself, is that I wear perhaps 20% of the clothes that I own. I just told my 'camper' to go clean her room. Again. It looks like a cyclone has just swept through, so I'm renting a backhoe to help her. If the kid had three little muslin dresses to her name, life would be grand. Human beings were not meant to own 20 pairs of pants, 50 shirts, 10 skirts, 18 dresses and countless pairs of shoes (my own countless pairs of shoes are all black, oddly).

Here is another example. In days gone by, if you moved any distance away from your community, it usually meant that you might never see those friends, neighbors and relatives again in this life. The move itself was laborious and time consuming perhaps, but once in the new home, one made new friends and went on with life. Today, with the advent of regular mail, email, phone, video conference, and all the other modern forms of communication, we can stay in touch. So we begin to feel as though we should. And we feel guilty if we don't. Personally, I have moved many times in my life (because the aforementioned transportation makes it relatively easy, and there are jobs and modern communities everywhere), and I made friends all along the way. Same with my husband, before we were married, and since we've been married, we've moved no less than five times, not counting two more times within a community, and including a stint living overseas. (Which, by the way, took about 24 hours to travel to initially, compared to the six weeks on a freighter spent by the generation before us, traveling to the same country in the 1940's.)

So between us, we have amassed quite a list of 'friends to keep in touch with'. At one point, our Christmas list had nearly 100 names. Well, I'm sorry, but it just isn't rational to try to keep in touch with that many people. Even using a standard Christmas letter, and with Facebook, email and everything else, it just isn't rational. Period. I finally had to sit down one day and speak to myself reasonably about how important I really am to all those other people. Are they sitting by the mailbox or the phone just waiting for me to communicate with them and change their lives? No. So we started to let some of those 'long distance' friendships go, and I have to say that it does create a mixture of guilt, relief, and resignation for me, at just not being able to keep all the balls in the air.

Not to mention that a major move for a family today is, well, a major move. Our family has so much stuff, that in our last move I was reduced to tears. Seriously. I just could not pack and haul one more thing. Families in generations past simply didn't have all this stuff. Life was much easier that way. The irony today is that we can afford to have all this stuff, but we can't quite afford to have it all packed, moved, unpacked and put in place for us, unless you have a great corporate relocation package. Naturally, we don't, so I have informed The Husband that we will not be moving again.

Ever.

Unless, of course, he gets a great corporate relocation package.

Here is one more example. The range of activities, hobbies and special events available to us as a society is mind-boggling. And the web only introduces more options for us. This development in the world of 'optional activities' wreaks havoc with our kids, especially. There are so many great activities available for kids, and naturally our kids want to do all of them. It takes real self-control to say 'no' and force our children to pick one or two things that they like and just do those. And this is in addition to all of the socializing that they want to do, in person and by all means electronic, (which options are also many) and all the mountains of homework they have. Personally, I can say that my kids have been run ragged at times, and I've had to make them cut back just to live a semblance of a normal life.

Yes, now that we can do more, think about all the many things we cram into a day. We do our Pilates and tidy the house in the morning, run to the grocery store and spend $150 on groceries, bring them home and put them away in about 3 hours; we call to make an appointment to get the car repaired, and go online to pay the bills. Then we pick up the kids and take them to their after-school activities, squeeze in coffee with a friend, pick up the kids, come home and make that 30 minute meal, pop the dishes into the dishwasher and the laundry into the washing machine, make some calls about our meetings all week, watch a little TV, read a book, shower and head to bed. It's complicated, doggone it!

Generations before us could never have lived this way, without all the conveniences we have, and so life was simpler -- it had to be. One day for laundry and mending and changing beds. One day for shopping and food preparation for the next few days (read 'baking bread by hand'). One day to clean the house. A day or two to tend the garden or fields. A day for making repairs and general housekeeping. A day of rest. Repeat. Yes, life was simpler then, and that wasn't all bad.

After all this reading, you would think that I would have made my point by now, but inexplicably, I haven't! All of the blabbing above was just me getting sidetracked on the topic of cramming too much into life. Sorry you had to read all that, but consider it a bonus if you enjoyed it, and I hope it made some sense to you. I think I got sidetracked at the beginning of paragraph 6.

So let me digress a bit. Please go back up to the end of paragraph 5, and then come back here.

Thanks. Here is my real point:

All of that physical activity of bygone eras was good for those generations before us, because our bodies were built to be used.

Yes, they will run down in time as we become old, but in the meantime, lack of use has a very negative impact on the body. To remain strong, bones and muscles must be used regularly beyond what is easy for them, and joints also must be moved regularly to stay supple and lubricated. The heart and lungs must be pushed a little with regular activity to keep them healthy. Now think about all of the great conveniences we enjoy today. We have managed to completely short circuit all of the activities that the body needs to remain in top form. We no longer need to walk everywhere, in fact, we hardly need to walk anywhere. (I hate to admit it, but I drive from the Walmart to the grocery store in the same parking lot.) All the heavy lifting of wet clothes on laundry day is avoided. No need to carry the bags of groceries all the way home -- the car does that. We don't need to run over to the neighbor's house to ask a question -- we have (take your pick) land line telephone, cell phone call, text message, email, Facebook, video chat -- everything except mental telepathy it seems, which surely must be just around the corner. Lugging water from the river is definitely long gone (thank goodness!). Chopping wood? Right. Hand me that Husqvarna over there. Push mower? 'Don't make me laugh', you say, as you climb aboard your 'Nothing Runs Like a Deere' lawn tractor.

I'm sure you see what I mean.

So what is one to do? Why, introduce artificial exercise to compensate, naturally! Can you imagine the pioneers of our country hittin' the gym and grabbin' a latte at Starbucks before they went to the office in the morning? Their 'gym' was the land around their home. Their 'weight machine' was all that wood that needed splitting. Their 'spinning class' was a hurried trip to town, on foot, three miles away. So the Great Irony of all of our modern conveniences is that we must spend extra time each week to replace all of the activities that we have worked so hard to eliminate from our lives!

It is to laugh, as they say.

The irony of this has made me laugh for a long time, but it has never actually made me join a gym. And this is the danger. If we don't replace that natural activity needed by the body, we age prematurely and set ourselves up for all kinds of problems, like heart disease and diabetes, because it's so easy to become overweight. And this brings me to a related topic.

The other thing that works against us is the ready availability of tons of food, the kind of availability that no generation before us ever had. Food had to be raised at home or bartered for by many millions of people for thousands of years before us. Sweets, in particular, were always in short supply and sold for a premium, if they were available at all. Sugar was always expensive -- there were no 5 lb bags at the grocery store, for $2.49. For many countries, and for many centuries, honey was one of the few available sweeteners, and was hard to come by. Things like cake and cookies were for special occasions, a few times per year, if that. There was no 1/2 mile long wall of delicious carbohydrate-laden snacks in the grocery store -- everything from chips to candy, to baked goods, pastas, crackers and all the rest.

Dessert back then was an apple, and it was a wonderfully sweet treat to any kid, in part because they were seasonal and could not be had any day of the year in the produce department, preferably packaged in shrink wrap on a little styrofoam tray. Have you tried offering your child the choice between an apple or a cookie lately? Right. Thought so. I can honestly say that my son, up until he was about three, would take the apple, but those days are long gone now, I assure you.

Today we are faced continually with images of every kind of food everywhere we go. There is no escape. Open a magazine, turn on the TV, go online, drive past a billboard, and all that delicious food is waving, in its lascivious glory, right in front of our faces. (I'm proud to say that I wrote the words 'lascivious' and 'food', above, in the same sentence long before the term 'food porn' existed.) So of course we're getting fatter! And it's no surprise that heart disease and diabetes are a problem for us. The pancreas was not intended to process such a constant onslaught of carbohydrates, and the heart was not meant to support such large bodies produced by overeating, not meant to handle all the animal fats we consume -- another commodity hitherto scarce, but today to be found everywhere, and cheaply, regardless of those $7.99/lb. New York strip steaks. The very lack of all these kinds of foods in generations past, while difficult for the people living in those times, kept them healthy! A subsistence diet of home grown local, seasonal fruits and vegetables, the starch that would be common in the culture, and a smattering of meat and sweets when it could be afforded, was a way of life for the common man for thousands of years.

I had a nice lesson on this topic recently (not that it will alter my personal lifestyle, but it was a nice lesson). My oldest daughter has been in Costa Rica for nearly six months on a language and culture immersion program. She is staying with a wonderful, modern, middle-class family near a large city. I had the pleasure of visiting her for two weeks, and getting to know her family and see the country, which is beautiful. The night I arrived, dinner was:

Boiled potatoes
White rice
Fried bananas
Juice from fresh fruit put through the blender

No meat. Very simple, very traditional for that area. Meat is a precious commodity and is only eaten in small amounts 2-3 times per week, if that. And, although the meal was based on carbohydrates, vegetables are also included in most meals, and quantities are kept small, which is key. Their refrigerator is about 40" tall, with a tiny, tiny freezer. (Compare this to my 5-foot wide refrigerator/freezer combo, which I love). It was quite a culture shock, and a good one. Even in this modern day, in a modern family, they still practice subsistence eating. Hey! I think I just coined a new term! Someone take that and run with it, will ya? You can build a whole new diet industry off that term, and all I ask is a percentage.

Do you remember the movie 'Wall-e'? This little robot goes to a huge space community where everyone rides around on moving barcaloungers, and everything is automated for them. They have a video screen and computer on board that does everything they need done, they have all the food they could possibly want -- it's all there. They don't even need to walk anymore, so they don't. And all of the people in the space community are impossibly HUGE -- hardly able to move, because they no longer need to. I realized with horror while watching this movie that we are halfway there.

OK,I guess I've beat that subject to death, so I'll stop.

All the modernization is so good. SO good. I cannot imagine living back in those times myself, but they certainly did have their advantages. If only we could have all the conveniences of today, while maintaining a balance for ourselves that is healthy, in both mind and body. Fewer belongings. More physical activity. A nice reasonable approach to eating. Less busy-ness in our lives.

It's possible, but it really takes a change of heart to accomplish. I think maybe I'll start small. Maybe I'll walk in to Burger King instead of using the drive-through, and have a Buck Double instead of a Whopper. Yeah. That's a good start.

A Rose is a Rows is Arroz

There are certain words in the English language (many borrowed from other languages) that are routinely butchered by many of us. (You know who you are.)

No, wait. You don't know who you are--that's why I'm cluing you in.

There are a few that are of particular annoyance to me, so I thought I had better let it all come out, so that you can plainly see just how arrogant and elitist I truly am. My apologies. If you find yourself mispronouncing any of these, I hope you will kindly refrain from driving by my house armed with a carton of eggs.

First, and the most annoying for me, is the mispronunciation of the word

NUCLEAR

Many, including George Bush the Younger, say this incorrectly, often on national television, to my personal horror. Don't these people have handlers for this kind of thing? They must not, because right there in front of zillions of people they say

NEW-CYOO-LER

If you see that you may be saying it wrong yourself (gasp!) say the word this way, as if it were two words:

NEW + CLEAR

I tried to get this across once to a close relative who said the word incorrectly. I said 'new-cyoo-lar' and then explained that it should be 'new-clear'. She said, "Right! New-cyoo-lar. That's what I said!"

Sometimes you just have to pick your battles. I let that one drop in the name of familial peace, and she still says it wrong, 10 years later. This tells me that the desire to say words correctly is not genetic.

Speaking of which, next on my list is 'parmesan'. Nearly everyone I have ever known says it incorrectly, including (horrors) my own children, despite my arrogantly correct pronunciation of the word in front of them for the past 20 years:

PAR-ME-ZHAN, with the 'z' sound like we say "ZsaZsa Gabor"

(If you're young, you have no idea who or what that is, and therefore no idea how to pronounce the words. She was a semi-famous actress, but never mind that.) Say 'collision' and you'll be making the 'zh' sound like everyone does when they say 'parmesan'.

Yeah, that's wrong.

That would be correct if the word were spelled 'parmesian', similar to "Parisian", as in all things related to Paris. But you may notice that there is no letter 'i' in front of the 'a', and this makes the all-important difference. (Important to me and no one else, clearly.)

The word is pronounced just the way it's spelled. It is, simply,

PAR-ME-ZON

So ubiquitous is this mispronunciation that if you try saying it correctly in front of your peeps, they'll look at you like you've got three heads.

(Ya like that word 'ubiqitous'? That's a five-dollar word right there. I throw that in when I want to sound cultured and just a little douchey.)

Next, did you know that in the western parts of the U.S., words like 'provolone' and 'minestrone' are pronounced with the 'ee' sound at the end, like,

MIN-E-STRON-EE and PRO-VO-LON-EE

I grew up saying the words this way, but when I moved to the east, everyone drops off the last 'EE' syllable, making it a silent 'E'. I have heard that in 'low Italian' the last 'e' is often dropped, but in standard Italian, the 'e' is always pronounced. In fact, in nearly every other language besides English, there is no such thing as a silent 'e' at the end of a word -- this is something peculiar to English, French, and a few other languages.

And please remember it is not

ORIENTATE

Yes, there is a word "orientation" but this is based on the word "to orient" or to 'situate in a place with respect to a point of reference'. The extra syllable 'a' placed before the 'tion' is only there to prevent the word from becoming 'oriention' when rendered as a noun. When you shorten the word from its noun form, 'orientation', it becomes

ORIENT

Think about the word provocation. Do you say 'provocate'? Well, some of you might, but it shortens to 'provoke'.  See?

OK, I'm on a roll now. Try to keep up.

SHER-BET

not

SHER-BERT,



REAL-TOR

not

REAL-A-TOR,



and

MIS-CHIE-VOUS

not

MIS-CHEE-VEE-OUS.


Continuing.

The French words

MAUVE and TAUPE

are also a problem for some.  We're pretty good about saying

TAUPE correctly, as 'TOPE'

but as you can see, mauve also has the 'au' vowel combination, and in French this is always pronounced as a long 'o'. So that word should be pronounced

MOHVE, as in 'STOVE'

not

MOV



In addition,  it's

ASTERISK

not

ASTERIX

or worse

ASTERICK

Remember to use the word 'risk' at the end.



I had my dog

SPAYED

not

SPADED



and we went

ACROSS

the street, not

ACROST.



And it's hard hearing otherwise intelligent people say

ECK-SPECIALLY.

instead of

E-SPECIALLY

Do you see a 'C' or a 'K' before the 'S' in that word?? Hmmmm????


And the biggest irony of all is that so many people get the pronunciation of the word pronunciation wrong! They say

PRO-NOWN-CIATION.

There's a head scratcher fer ya.


And don't even get me started on all the people who say

AX

instead of

ASK

Whenever we are in New York and I hear someone say, "I have to ax my mother" I have to resist the urge to say, "But won't that hurt?"

Here. Pronounce each of these letters one at a time:

A.......................S.....................K

A..........S............K

A.....S.....K

ASK

There. Simple, right?

And that people actually say, "Youse guys" is beyond my understanding.

So get on the stick. Don't make me have to come over there and make you say it right. Nobody wants that.

Pork Chops over Apples and Onions

Here is a recipe that I just cobbled together tonight, from other recipes I saw on the web, and it is really fast and delicious, with few ingredients.

INGREDIENTS (or as we call them, "BAGREED-A-MENTS")

4 pork chops, thick-cut preferably
4-5 apples, peeled, cored and sliced about 1/2 inch thick
1 large onion, sliced fairly thick
1/3 C. sugar
2 T. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1T. dijon or honey mustard
3T Vidalia onion dressing (or honey dijon dressing)

Notes:  You will be par grilling the chops for color and flavor, then baking, so thicker cuts will stand up better to all this cooking without drying out. (A browned or grilled chop just looks nicer in the pan than a steamed, sickly grey pork chop, and tastes nicer too.) You can also sautee them in a pan when it's 30 below out on the deck. If sauteeing, be sure to deglaze the pan and pour the drippings over the chops before baking. What is deglazing? Simply add about 1/4 cup water or stock to the hot pan to liquify the drippings, and use a spatula to loosen the juicy tidbits. Pour all of this over the chops.) Cut apples and onions thicker, as suggested, to stand up better during cooking. I also find that a ratio of 2/1 cinnamon to nutmeg is about right when using them together for any recipe, for instance in apple pie or apple sauce.

INSTRUCTIONS (or as we say, "DESTRUCTIONS")

Put chops on the grill until browned on one side. No need to cook all the way through--you'll be baking them.

Meanwhile, slice apples and onions. Combine the flour, sugar and spices in a plastic bag, and toss the apples in this mixture. Place them in an 11 X 17 casserole dish, and top with the sliced onions. Dot everything with the mustard, and drizzle with the dressing. Top with par-cooked chops, pretty side up. Cover with foil and bake for one hour at 350 degrees.

I just love little piggies. They are so tasty.




Penny Rug Wool

Getting Your Site on Page One of a Google Search (SEO for Complete Idiots)

When I first started my online wool business, I went gaily along, dyeing wool, adding products, planning for the future, and I was even making some sales, too. Great, right? The problem is, though, that I had very big plans for my business, because we have three teens to put through college. Around Christmas (business was completely dead, and we were all home on vacation, with a little extra time on our hands) I decided to do some analysis on where my site fell in a Google search. The harsh reality was that for my three major search terms, 'hand dyed wool', 'penny rug wool', and 'rug hooking wool', I was on page six or LOWER! Only the most desperate rug hooker was going to find me there! So I made a firm decision to rectify that little situation ASAP. I concluded that it was no good dyeing all that wool and waiting for word of mouth to take hold. The kids will be graduated by then, for Pete's sake!

So the next morning I got up extra early, all psyched to 'ramp up my web presence'. I got an extra big cup of tea, and industriously sat down to take care of the problem. And . . . . . there I sat, scratching my head, wondering 'Where do I go? What do I do?" I really had no clue whatsoever. The community board at my site, eCrater, didn't help much, other than to give me a little terminology, and a few sellers had other sites where they would allow eCrater businesses to post a link back to their site. I knew that links were somehow important to the search engines, but, honestly, that was about all. So I started from scratch, finding a word here or there that seemed to be important, and googling it to learn what it meant. Then I would go from there, googling other terms that I learned along the way. Pretty soon I was finding some helpful information, albeit scattered all over the web. In the end I spent about six weeks on my virtual odyssey, and today I am pleased to say that I am on Page 1 for two of my search terms, and page 1 or 2 for another, and all are climbing. Not bad for a clueless wool dyer. So I will share with you, one website owner to another, what I have learned.

One important thing to know first is that the ease with which you will be able to get on Page One is determined in large part by how popular your items are, and how many other sites sell them. For instance, things like clothing, health products, games, electronics, and beauty items are highly competitive, and so it may take a longer term commitment to get towards the front of a search. My item is pretty specialized, so there were only about 20 other businesses to leapfrog over to get to page one. So you may need to prepare yourself for working on this consistently for a long time. That's OK--every business that you will own requires marketing effort on your part, and for the website owner, this is it. If you are faced with a lot of work to get to Page One, just commit to working on it for 1/2 hour each day, and eventually you will improve your ranking.

First, some terminology.

Keywords/Search Terms Step one is taking some time to evaluate your most important 'search terms', or 'keywords'. These are the important words that describe your goods or your topics and they are the terms that consumers will type in when searching the web for info or things to buy. The ones listed in the first paragraph are, for me, my most important keywords or search terms, particularly 'hand dyed wool'. So spend some time making a list of the top dozen or so terms you know are the most important to your site and focus on using those terms. You will use these a lot, and it can make your efforts pay off, or hamper you if you are not using the right terms. You might ask others what they would type in if they were looking for what you offer -- you may be surprised at the different terms they would use in a search.

Here is a great suggestion: If you don't already use it, go to the Google Analytics site, and sign up. It's a handy and free tool that is pretty easy to figure out. Once you sign your site up, the Google site will track all the traffic coming to your site, and spit out tons of information about it in report and graph format, right down to which search engine your visitors use, what city they live in, and whether they have dial-up or broadband, along with much more info. Included in this is a report on which keywords they have typed in when they found your site and visited -- this will help you to adjust your keywords properly over time.

Content is King. This means that there is no substitute for a good quality website, that has a lot of content, whether you are promoting your blog, or, if you are selling, many good products for sale that are of interest to consumers. For a commercial site, a big selection with keyword-rich descriptions, a blog on-site, FAQs, video feed from YouTube (which gives you more exposure), articles for customers to read (these can be found and used on your site for free at many sites like Ezinearticles) etc., all help. Use the search terms that you know customers will type in, and use them regularly on your site. But don't overdo this, because it is theorized that the search engines actually measure the amount of search terms in your text, and they know if you are stuffing your site with terms to increase your pagerank. They say that to have about 3% of your total text as keywords should be about right. This looks like regular, informative, on-topic conversation to the search engines, rather than keyword stuffing. If you are trying to improve the ranking of a blog, keep it interesting, with many keywords, and you may even want to import writing from others to keep it relevant and newsy. Use some of the widgets and other features and applications that the blog site offers to provide variety and lot of places to look around for info.

Use the most important words at the top of your homepage, which are the first words that the search engines see when they 'crawl' your site, or if there is a place for Title Tag and Meta Description on your site, put them there, in some logical arrangement. For me, my Title Tag is "Hand Dyed Wool, 1,100 colors for rug hooking, penny rugs, wool crafts" and my Meta Description is "Hand dyed wool fabric in every imaginable color -- primitive, country, modern, vibrant colors, for rug hooking, penny rugs, quilting, and other wool arts." See how I have strung together a lot of keywords, but in a logical, sentence or phase format, which is important. And I have used the most important words at the beginning of the phrases, (hand dyed wool) rather than in the middle, using a descriptive phrase to follow up those first words. These little things do matter, and most website owners don't pay attention to it, so you can capitalize on that, by paying attention to it yourself.

So when Google produces your site in a search, the words at the top of your site's homepage, or the Title Tag, is the tag line that the consumer sees on the listing for your site, right below the name. And more importantly, it is the information that Google sees when it responds to the consumer's search; it views me as relevant for a search for 'hand dyed wool' for instance, because of my initial phrase, and so it places me higher. And, very importantly, my description is phrased to make potential customers want to visit my site to see that many colors in one place, something I know they will not find anywhere else. The title tag will only be a few words long in the result that Google displays, so I want the best words at the beginning of the phrase. If you type in 'hand dyed wool ram' (I closed my site a while back, so I'm on page 5 now, unless you include the word 'ram') you'll see Ram In The Thicket (my business name) 1,100 colors for rug hooking, penny rugs... then it cuts off. But my most important words were there for the customer to see right up front.

Try not to hype this information -- forget the exclamation points, for instance -- keep it professional, but with some kind of hook in your keywords to pull customers in. Once you have set up these phrases on your site, wait a week or two and do a search on your keywords and find your site in the result, to see what phrases the search engines use in your site description. Then adjust the words on your site until it looks good on a search. Sometimes the fine tuning takes a few weeks, because you have to wait until the search engines crawl your site again (every couple of weeks) to pick up the changes you've made.

Backlinks are links on other sites that send people to your site, and they are the criteria that search engines use to determine how important you are, and therefore where to list you in a search. Imagine if someone likes your site, and puts a link on their blog to let others know about it. This is like a 'vote' for your site to the search engines, and the more backlinks all over the web you have, the more the search engines will like you.

The equivalent in the 'real world' would be the business owner who is deeply involved in his industry. Perhaps he has several offices, he belongs to the relevant associations in his industry, and he advertises regionally on TV, radio and print. He speaks at conferences on the subject, holds seminars, writes articles in trade magazines, or maybe he has written a book. As a result, he is often referenced in articles as an expert, or quoted on radio, etc. His name is out there. And he has lots of customers telling others about the business. Compare this to the business owner who hangs out a shingle in his little town and does nothing else. Who is going to do better in his business? No business owner can expect to do well by just opening up shop. It takes regular effort on your part to get things moving. But don't feel discouraged. Doing all this on the web is pretty easy, and can be done from your living room -- comfort yourself with the knowledge that at least you don't have to make a lot of cold calls, or pound the pavement looking for prospects. Certainly you may have to do some off-line marketing, as I did, but the online work is relatively straightforward once you understand it.

So on the web, putting many backlinks to your site, (and following the suggestions I make below) are the equivalent of that first businessman, both to customers and search engines--think of it as word-of-mouth. References to your site all over the web show that you are paying attention to your business. When you are backlinking using the methods below, you will look like that first businessman, in the 'virtual world'.

The bottom line is that you need backlinks to your site to get you higher in a search. To get backlinks, you have two options - let the backlinks occur naturally over time as people find you and tell others about you, (these are called 'organic links', and we are talking eons for that to happen) or you can produce the backlinks yourself in a shorter amount of time. Some people feel that this is a little dishonest, but from all my research, I know that it is absolutely ethical and certainly not illegal, so don't give it a second thought.

Backlinks from more important websites carry more weight than links from little sites. But don't worry about that. They all add up, whether they are counted for a little or a lot. And the websites that link to you don't need to be relevant to your goods, services or topics. For instance, I really tried at first to get my links on wool and craft sites, but there are not very many out there. Then I learned that it doesn't matter that much, ultimately. Just get all the links you can, anywhere!

Anchor Text If links are important, links using anchor text are even better. Anchor text is that little underlined phrase that you click on to get to the site it points to. So while I could put my 'URL' (the web address of my site -- http://raminthethicket.ecrater.com) as my link, it is better for me to put 'Hand Dyed Wool', so that when someone clicks on that phrase they will jump to my site. I don't understand why anchor text is important, but any SEO guru will tell you to use anchor text. I show you below how to format anchor text several ways. (Why can't sites all use one format?)

SEO This stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it simply means the process of getting your links and your name out there on the web to the point that when someone types in your major search terms, like 'Knitted Caps' you will come up early enough in the search to be found.

Reciprocal Links This is when two sites agree to link with each other, and apparently in the past this was abused. There were sites that were stuffed with links to other sites, which all had links back to the first site - with an obvious agreement between them to get links. All of this looks suspicious to the search engines, so too much of this is frowned upon. There seem to be mixed opinions about the value of reciprocal links, but I don't think a few will hurt, as long as the majority of your backlinks are 'one-way' - coming from another site to yours, without your site linking back to theirs.

Pagerank This is a measurement from 1 to 10 of how relevant, established, and quality your site is, based in large part on how well-linked it is. (By the way, Page does not stand for web 'page', but for Larry Page, who developed the algorithm.) For instance, sites like CNN and Facebook are rated 10. My site was a '0' when I started, and now I am a 2! Not bad. I would love to be a 4 or 5 eventually, if that is even possible with a small site.

RSS 'RSS' stands for 'Real Simple Syndication'. Wikipedia has some good basic information about this. In a nutshell, there are several programs, like Google Reader and Bloglines, that you can use to gather all the information that you want from the web in one place for you to visit and see everything. For instance, if you enjoy looking at CNN, and follow several blogs, you can use Google Reader to 'feed' updates from these places all to one place. Then you just visit there to get all the info, rather than having to find and visit all the sites individually. I have heard it said that this is a great way to market your site, but I have yet to see a good explanation of it, and I have not felt the need to venture into that area, since my other efforts have gotten me where I want to be. If it interests you, here is a list of the best 'feed readers' in addition to the ones above.

The Google Sandbox About three weeks into my journey towards Page One, I suddenly found myself back on page four! I had read about this phenomenon, called the Google Sandbox. The theory is that this is a test to see if you will stick with the program, or just fade away and give up. I have heard that Google denies doing this, but I certainly did spend about three long weeks on page four for no apparent reason, before leaping back up two pages, to page two. I just kept at it, and eventually found my way to page one. So prepare yourself for this possibility.

LAY THE GROUNDWORK

So how do you get links all over the web? I have found a few effective ways to do this with relative ease. Before starting, though, I suggest that you set up an email account that just collects the emails from all the sites you will be visiting, and use that when you join sites. Then you can avoid having your business email clogged with spam and marketing. Use gmail or some other more reputable email platform. A few sites will only allow a proprietary email address, like one linked to your web business, or Outlook, etc. but most will take any email address, as long as you respond to the email they send you once you sign up, confirming your desire to join.

Next, set up some bookmark folders to keep track of the websites you will be joining or putting links on. For instance, I have folders for the social sites I belong to, like Facebook and MySpace, and for the forums and blogs I like to visit and participate in (often leaving a link), a folder for helpful information related to SEO, and one for possible link places in the future -- this is where I put bookmarks of sites that I find but don't have time to set up a link for right then, or online lists of directories or sites that I might work through when I have time. In my bookmark titles, I also include my login info, to remind me what I used -- for various reasons, you may use different login info for different sites. Sometimes a site will request your email address as your username, others will ask you to set up special name, for instance 'raminthethicket' is what I use in those cases. Some sites want a password that is at least eight characters, with at least one number and one capital letter. So I suggest creating a password at the very beginning that will meet this most stringent criteria, and just always use that one (maybe omit the capital letter -- most don't require this). I didn't know this at first, so I have several different passwords that I use now, only because I'm too lazy to go back and change everything. And some sites have a limit of 10 characters for a special username, which I didn't realize at first, so for those I use 'ramthicket'. Had I known of this limitation for some sites at the beginning of my odyssey, I would have just used that everywhere to begin with. So you see, it can get confusing, so deciding these things up front is helpful, and putting your login info as part of your bookmark title is helpful when your 'cookie' file accidently gets cleared.

If you blog, great! Below you'll find suggestions for how to use that in your marketing. If you don't have a blog, but would be interested in doing one, at least set up the basics now, so that you have a web address to backlink to also, as you go along. Backlinking to your commercial site and blog is even better, letting them refer back and forth to each other as people visit them. More on that below, but for now just decide if you want to do it, and if so get the basic structure set up.

OK, so you've:

Set up a special email account to use when creating profiles on social sites

Decided upon a complicated enough password and unique, short enough username that will satisfy most sites

Set up some bookmark folders in your browser to keep things organized.

Set up a blog with the basics at least. If you feel like putting in a few posts, even better!

Now you're set to get going. Go get a cup of coffee!

GO STEP BY STEP

1. Ask your friends with blogs and websites to give you a link, especially without asking for one in return.

2. Submit your site to Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing and a few other larger search engines -- this is critical. 'Submitting' is simply letting them know you exist, so that they will put you in their list of sites to scan when they do a search. They will probably find you eventually anyway, but speed things up by submitting. Type in 'submit google', 'submit yahoo', etc. go to those sites, and they will walk you through the steps to submit -- it's easy. There are hundreds of search engines, and lots of online submission services that will submit your site to many of them, but the general consensus is that the ones you really need are these three, and maybe a few more if you like, like AOL search, and Altavista. The rest are probably not worth your time. When I look at the search engines my customers use (on Google Analytics) these top three account for nearly all of my search engine traffic. Another thing to know is that it is probably only necessary to submit once -- there are those who say to submit regularly, but I have read in many places that this is not necessary.

3. Look for business directories that give free links. If the directory is relevant to your site, it's even better. Type in 'free directories' or 'directories __________' and fill in the blank with something related to your industry. These searches will also turn up other sites that offer links or listings in their directories, just follow the rabbit hole a bit, and you will find a few places to put your link right away. There are many directories that require payment to list you, and it will be up to you whether you want to do this. If the directory is important in your industry, you may want to consider paying to get on, at least for a while.

A great place to start finding some basic free directories to list your site in is:

Top 100 Free Directories

4. Join Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Friendster, Netlog, Propeller, and a few other big name sites, set up a basic profile for yourself, and put a link to your website where it allows you to add one. There are many other sites, but I have found these to be among the best and most user friendly. When I first started, I did a search on 'largest social networking sites', and I turned up this review list. I visited every site on the list, and set up a profile, but the ones listed above are the only ones I ever visit and add info to. Be sure in the 'settings' sections of these sites to enable searchability of your profile by search engines. You can always specify separately who can contact you, to avoid unwanted approaches by strangers, especially those pesky suitors from Dubai! What is wrong with those people?

5. 'Social Bookmaking' sites are relatively new in popularity, and I don't have as much experience with them either, but, again, Wikipedia has some great history on the subject. Basically, these are sites that allow people to share bookmarks of web addresses where they have found interesting information, making these sites hubs for information from all over the web. Again, this is a venue to use judiciously and conscientiously -- participating in the community as you go, and placing links sparingly -- some of these sites resent overt marketing of commercial sites, and so these may be better places to promote a blog instead. I innocently blundered into Digg.com and put a link to my site, and was immediately blacklisted on that site. I couldn't even go in and put in my blog URL! They knew who I was and what I was up to! But if you were to only put in your blog, or an article you have written, that would be fine. Digg.com and Reddit.com are two of the bigger and more well-known sites, and here is a more complete list.

6. Try easybacklinkbuilder  I hate to pay for advertising, but I did subscribe to this link business, and was happy with it. With this company my site started to gain some momentum up the pagerank ladder. It is owned and run by Angela Edwards, and she is a small businesswoman, just like me, not some nameless internet corporate giant. Back when I subscribed, for $5 a month, she sent a list of 30 quality websites that have a 'membership' format, allowing you to visit each site and set up a very basic profile and include a link to your site as part of the info that you provide about yourself. She gave screenshots that show how to do it on each site. She selects sites that have a pagerank of 6 or higher.

Nowadays, I see she has given up her own site and she is working out of the warrior forum-- a computer geek forum--and she has an all-inclusive plan of $50 and I believe they put the links in for you. I also see other affiliates around the web offering her packets for the old price of $5. l'll have to do some more research, so for now I recommend her service with some reservations, as I have not used it as it is presented now. There may be others that have sprung up more recently, so maybe do some nosing around.

Easy Backlink Builder


7. Maybe try freetrafficsystem.com is a free service that I have been overall happy with, although it is a little harder to learn and you have to be willing to write short articles. This is owned by a man named Dim (short for Dimitri?) and while it has its glitches and I had some complaints in the beginning, I did move further up in the ranks after using it. Here is how that works. There are lot of members, and many of those who join set up an article site for the sole reason of accepting articles by other FTS members. (You don't have to create an article site, but they offer greater benefits if you do.) So you write a short article on any subject and within the article you can place up to two links to your site, and more if you set up an article site. Then you look through their large list of article sites owned by other members, and submit your article to any relevant site, up to 30 sites, which would give you 60 backlinks. Personally, I can say that my articles only made it onto about 18 sites each, but I still got over 100 links from this. They may reject an article if you don't take care in finding relevant sites from their list, and communications once this happens is nil, so be aware of this, if you decide to join. I can't vouch for how they might treat you, but it is worth trying -- I have written three articles with good results.

The hard part with this is learning how to 'spin' your article. Spinning is formatting your article so that the words are changed a little for each of the sites it gets posted to. This prevents it from looking like a spammy duplicate article that you are just writing to get links. With a little time and patience, it is relatively easy to learn, and there are video tutorials to help you. This method is looked down upon by sites like Wordpress, Blogger (sorry, Blogger) and Ezinearticles, who prefer 'original content', and some consider this "blackhat" or shady backlinking. But even the articles I write for FTS are informative and quality, so if I arrange to have the words changed slightly, I see nothing wrong with that. You will have to assess for yourself if you feel comfortable using this service.

If you do use it, don't write complete garbage -- participate in the web community. You can keep your articles short, but I suggest you try to make an honest contribution. Yes, you are writing so that ultimately the search engines will see your links, but don't forget that human eyeballs will also come across these, and your reputation should remain intact after they're done reading! I spent about three days total, a few hours here and there at a time, to give you an idea of the time commitment, although as you can see, my articles tend to get long. It's free, so I think I got a lot out of it, considering. If you don't write, have one of your teens write something, or a friend. Even three or four articles will help.

8. Blog   If you plan to, here is some more info. The best blog platforms that are free are this one, (Blogger.com) and Wordpress.com. As mentioned above, I maintain several blogs here at Blogger. I blog on topics that are important to me, and that I feel I have a lot to say about, and that makes it easy and fun. I sometimes include a backlink to my site, using anchor text, which I vary to hit the three major search terms for me. I place backlinks judiciously, so that it doesn't look like I am just using the blog to advertise, because I'm not. It's a good idea to also include links to other sites, as well, so things stay balanced. Writing on topic is good, because it will provide keywords in your blog that match up to your backlinks that lead back to your site with the same keywords. But you can write about anything, really, if you have a more general info blog. You can do more blogs, but it might become harder to maintain, and regular entries are optimal.

Blogging also makes you more personal to your customers, in a virtual world that contains no voices or faces. I know my customers still enjoy reading about what I'm doing and seeing pictures. It makes us into sort of a community, rather than my being an invisible merchant that they buy wool from--great customer relations. And I know I have enjoyed it very much!

However, blogging has limited value in adding backlinks, because it is always preferable to have backlinks in many different places rather than all on one site. It will, however, give you some credibility and presence in your own community in a way that backlinks won't, whether it be the world of sports gear, or theater, or whatever your topic, services or goods are. If you are blogging to help promote your commercial site, you may also want to do SEO for your blog, as well, which will help people find it more readily, and read more about your commercial site there. In many places, you can also add a link for your blog to each profile that you set up, while you're at it. So if you decide to establish a blog, do that first, as suggested above, then you can put links for that as well, as you go around the web backlinking for your commercial site.

9. Cross-link to your different sites  The web is ever-changing, and linking your information among sites has really become The Thing. Honestly, I find it confusing and overwhelming, but if you find a few basic ways to do this, it can be a valuable tool. For instance, on my commercial site, I suggest that my customers visit my blog, and I send them to a link that shows all three of my blogs, just to get some traffic at the others that also contain links back to my commercial site. In the articles that I write, of course I mention my commercial site, but I also mention my blog. I find ways on my blog to point readers to my website, like suggesting that they might like to see all the colors I produce in wool, etc. In one forum I frequent, they allow you to put a listing in for your blog, which I have done, and I suggest on my site that readers visit that forum. I get a lot of readers for my blog from that forum now, and I have several followers.  You get the idea. Over time, this will seed word-of-mouth, which will bring more customers.

You can also promote your site on your profile page at the social networking sites, using the different applications they provide. For instance, I created a profile for myself, and one for my wool site on Facebook, and then I added the 'Networked Blogs' application to both profiles, and linked it to this blog. After a few weeks, I looked at my FB wool site profile and I had some fans -- people that I didn't know that just FOUND me. And now when I add an entry to my blog (for instance, this very article) a link for it will appear on my Facebook profile automatically! I also added the 'links' application on Facebook and put my link as one of my favorites, on my personal profile page. You can also ask your friends on Facebook to add your link to their pages too. I get traffic regularly from Facebook.

10. Article Sites If you don't mind writing, consider writing articles for the best article sites. Here is a good list of the best articles sites to consider. Choose 2-3 that interest you. The ones I have settled on are: Ezinearticles, Searchwarp, and GoArticles. There is more information on these at this site. There are a few others highly regarded as well, such as ArticleCity, and ArticleDashboard, but I never did hear back from them about publishing two articles, and I can't find my articles anywhere, so I have stuck with the first three.

Submit to Ezinearticles first, because they don't like receiving articles that they can see have been submitted elsewhere. Each site has its own rules of engagement, so to speak, so adhere to those, or you risk having your article rejected. Some sites allow you one link in the body of your article, others want you to put your link into the 'resource box' that you will set up and which will appear at the end of each article that you write. That's the little box that says, "Susan Sylvia lives in New Hampshire with her family, selling wool at her website. Please visit! http://raminthethicket.ecrater.com, etc., etc." This info, once you set it up, will appear at the end of all your articles automatically, including your link. The article sites will give you some limited reports for free about who clicks on your links, and Google Analytics will also pick up when someone clicks on the link and visits your site.

The article sites allow anyone to come and take your article to use as they like, so understand that you have no recourse about how the article is used, and I have seen my articles used elsewhere with the links removed. Bummer. (That's what's good about Free Traffic System--this doesn't happen.) But regardless, you will get some additional links if the article is used elsewhere intact, and you get your name out there, as well. It all helps to increase your presence on the web, and it gives you some credibility.

There is a school of thought that says not to submit to too many article sites -- it's time-consuming, and theoretically, your articles will be distributed over time to other article sites without your help, because the articles that you write for article sites can be taken and used by anybody. Personally, I just don't have time to submit to more than two or three. They all have their own formatting rules, which means reformatting your article each time you submit to a site, and this is a real time drainer.

You can keep your articles short, but keep it informative and good quality, and consider your links as payment. If you don't write well, have someone help you, or ask them to edit your work. There are minimum requirements for quality by the article sites that you will have to meet.

11. Submit comments on forums, and article and blog sites Many of us love to tool around the web, looking for others who are like-minded. If you enjoy this, be sure to include a link to your website when you comment--many have a little box right there just for that purpose. It's not good to get into the habit of just leaving a tiny comment and then putting your link in. Make a genuine contribution to the conversation. If you decide to make a more organized effort in doing this, Google has a great tool to help you. This tool allows you to generate a list of blogs on any topic that you type in, which you can then visit and comment, if appropriate. You will notice that this tool generates a list of 'dofollow' links. This is a desirable type of link, vs. many sites that turn your links into 'nofollow' links that are of little use when backlinking. Look especially for those blogs that have a format that allows you to include a website URL as part of your comment. These have been invaluable to me in my backlinking efforts.

There are about a million open forums and message boards out there. One approach is to seek out forums using Google to search on various forum topics, find one or two each day that may be on-topic for you, or that simply interest you, and visit them, making thoughtful comments. For my own purposes, I will search for 'needlework forum' or 'quilting forum' or 'craft forum'. Most forums today are moderated, and if you don't contribute something meaningful, your comments may be removed by moderators. Many of the more organized forums that require membership allow you to set up a 'signature' to include in your posts, and/or a profile for yourself, both of which can include a link. A signature (including any link you include) will appear with any comment you make. Or you may be able to simply place a backlink at the very bottom of your comments. Personally, I have found several forums that I just like to participate in, and I visit regularly, putting backlinks here and there as I go, but not always. I want to be a participant, not a visitor there to place backlinks. Think of it that way.

Here is a little something I stumbled across while updating this article:

http://mgslogistics.co.uk/img/privacy_statement.pdf

A list of sites to put backlinks, with instructions. No extra charge for this.

HOW TO CREATE A BACKLINK IN 1,000 EASY STEPS

These days putting in links and anchor text has gotten easier -- often just a button to push. But for those times when that isn't available, here is the step-by-step for doing it from scratch. It took me HOURS to ferret this information out back in the day, so I give it to you to save the headaches that I had! I suggest that you copy and paste the formats below into a document that you keep on your desktop. Replace my URL and keywords with your own, then anytime you need to use them, you can just paste them in to the box you are filling in, without having to remember the formatting.

The most used format out there is html, which you surely have seen before, and it is the traditional language that programmers have used. To use html to put a link to your site, with anchor text, it will look like this:

[a href="http://raminthethicket.ecrater.com"]Hand Dyed Wool[/a]

(You will need to use the 'greater than' and 'less than' characters in place of the four brackets above, though. These are the characters at the top of the 'comma' and 'period' keys. Blogger formats backlinks with html, and I couldn't figure out how to display the formatting above as plain ole text, so putting in the 'greater than' and 'less than' symbols generated a finished backlink like the one below, so you can't see the formatting I want to show you. As you can see, my html skills are, shall we say, very specialized!)

For some profiles, the format above will always look like that. But for many places you go, like blogs, when you put in the information as above, that will run in the background, and what the reader will see is this:

Hand Dyed Wool

Plug in your URL (web address) where mine is, after the two slashes. The anchor text part is the 'hand dyed wool' phrase, and this is what the reader will see and click on to go to your site. You can use whatever words you want there. Be careful to copy this format exactly -- don't forget the little 'a' at the beginning, and don't accidently erase the quotes -- any change will screw it up.

Some sites have to be different and they use 'BB Code'. I have no clue what that is, but here is how you format your link that way, and this format does use the brackets as below, so this time you can keep the formatting as have it here, just plugging in your web address and anchor text:

[url=http://raminthethicket.ecrater.com]Hand Dyed Wool[/url]

You'll get the same result as the html example above.

As if that weren't enough, occasionally a site will use Textile, whatever that is.

Textile Set Up:

"Hand Dyed Wool":http://www.raminthethicket.ecrater.com

Again, you can keep the formatting exactly as you see it here, with the quotes and colon.

I have spent hours upon hours (probably several hundred) researching all this, and those who know me will tell you that I am a rabid web researcher. So trust me when I say that the suggestions and sites I have mentioned are among the best of those that will cost little to no money. So I have done most of the homework for you, and if you follow these few ideas, you will gain some pagerank. Remember to keep at it regularly, and consider it an investment in your business. (See my link below? Always working at it!)

Good luck!


Rug Hooking Wool