Alaska Pacific University went live with their new website and my flash accordion file is on their front page! Very cool. Sundog Media designed it but needed a flash contractor (me) to create it for them – check it out at http://www.alaskapacific.edu!
I’ve had some folks ask me how on earth people make money with their blogs. I haven’t actually had an interest in doing this, but I did find a set of articles on it from someone who is successfully doing it. The articles aren’t exactly easy to find, which is why I’m linking them all here. They are from Money Saving Mom.
And just for good measure, a post on how to avoiding work-at-home scams: http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/11/guest-post-avoiding-work-at-home-scams.html.
The Google Business Listing change was almost immediate as well. Here it is – http://tinyurl.com/websmitten-google-listing.
And here is Christie’s new listing: http://www.google.com/search?q=impacts+alaska. At least for right now it is the top listing when you search for impacts alaska. To go directly to her listing, you can use the following link: http://tinyurl.com/impactsalaska-google-listing.
Another thing I’ve learned with Christie’s site is how to edit your Google maps listing. In her case, the wrong address was displayed. She wanted to know how to correct that. After a bit of online sleuthing, I found that question had been answered on Google Help. To add a new listing or correct a current listing, you’ll need to login to the Google Business Center. If you don’t have an account there, you can create one. You enter your information and must validate it by receiving a phone call to your business phone (you can also get a postcard, but I’m not sure how long that takes). Phone verification is almost instant and completely automated. You enter the PIN number they give you on the screen. Then, it tells you your listing will be posted/edited in 1 business day. I went ahead and did my own listing today to see how it all works. If I find the listing tomorrow, I’ll post it here.
So, no listing yet for impactsalaska.com yet. From the Google Discussion group I’m hearing that it “could be tomorrow or it could be next month… it’s based on factors none of us are privy to…” Argh. The maddening thing here is not being sure that we’ve hit every problem. I really think we have, but I’ll just have to keep checking daily to see if we’ve made any progress.
I’m learning a lot with a new site I’m working on – http://www.impactsalaska.com. Christie had designed a static site and was used to typing “impactsalaska.com” into her Google search bar to get to her site. I have found this is not an uncommon practice. Anyway, after I converted her to a WordPress site, mysteriously the listing in Google disappeared. Christie was the first to notice, since that was the way she normally traveled to get to her site. I looked in all the obvious places to see what was causing the problem:
Well, how long are you supposed to wait on a non-existant Google helpdesk? I waited a couple of days. My client was understandably perturbed. Finally, I posted again on the Discussion group – which had now closed and moved to http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en. I believe I now have the answer I overlooked: the Privacy setting in WordPress. I hope to report back tomorrow with an index listing in Google!