No I'm not remarried. Based upon my past history I may never get married again. That is not a knock on my Judy who is the most wonderful, beautiful, understanding and compassionate women I have ever been with. Both of us have children who we love like there is no tomorrow. She has two boys and a girl, I have two girls. Judy's daughter Randi is married and is pregnant and working on a family of her own. Her other two boys are 22 and 19. Danny still lives at home, and Ben is a freshman at Dartmouth. Yeah, Ivy league. I have two daughters, Sarah and Grace who both live with their mother. Sarah is almost 17 and Grace is 11. Christmas has become a wonderful time for me. It wasn't always that way, but it is now. I love spending Christmas day with my kids, exchanging gifts and enjoying a wonderful Christmas meal that Judy always prepares. By the way Judy is Jewish so before she met me Christmas day meant a trip to the movies and a Chinese restaurant. Because she loves me and my children she makes Christmas at my house festive, joyful and a lot of fun for everybody.
That's how it is on my end on Christmas day. The problems comes in when I have to wrangle with my ex wife during the holiday season. I usually have the kids on Christmas, but because she really wants them she can have a tendency to make life less festive. She does have the kids on Christmas Eve, when they have dinner at their aunts? house. My kids love coming to my house on Christmas because they are the center of attention and receive their presents. It is an absolute blast for me to give them their gifts and see their eyes light up. The tension though of dealing with my ex wife can dampen their spirit and sometime mine, if I let it.
Now, some dads may be remarried, have kids from a previous marriage, have kids from their present marriage and have something called a blended family. Managing that crowd of people during the holidays may be something that you have to start preparing for right after the New Year. But, maybe not if you just make a few adjustments in your thinking as you deal with this complicated mess.
The thing I want most during the holiday season is peace. I don't want arguments during the year and I sure don't want them now. I can't control my ex wife's thought process, my God that would require a slide rule, but I can develop with my own perspective on the situation. During the Thanksgiving holiday I had my Thanksgiving dinner on the Friday after Thanksgiving. My kids were with their mother on Thanksgiving and it made it easier to manage everyone's schedule by having dinner the day after Thanksgiving. If Christmas is going to become the same type of problem for you, try to understand that you may have to break from tradition and celebrate Christmas the day before or the day after. Believe me you will have a better time and there will be far less tension, and running around.
The world is not a perfect place. The Christmas season can make us more aware of that then any other time. Small things can become big things if we let them. Let negative comments go and focus on the kids and what you can do for them. Try to avoid financial arguments that seem to always come up during the holidays. Do your best to discuss things in a calm manner and let go of the small stuff. Money always seems to be a problem for my ex wife, not because of my lack of giving, but because of her lack of work. Gift giving has always been my self imposed responsibility. Having different expectations of her during the holidays will only make me angry and destroy the joy that I have in giving to my kids.
Lastly, no matter how small your holiday celebration might be don't make it a downer for your kids. Kids by their nature love the holidays, whether it be Christmas or Chanukah. Try to keep you spirits up because you love them, and want them to enjoy the season. When your kids are with you the biggest gift that you can give them is a loving dad who has tried to do whatever was necessary to make their holiday a peaceful one.
Where Do I Work
It happens more frequently than you might think. People spend a lot of time and money getting their sites ranked highly in the search engines, but give little or no attention to converting their visitors into paying customers. What's their logic? From what copywriting prospects tell me, "I wanted to get my rankings in place before working on my conversions."
It may look as though I'm sitting firmly on the fence; however, I don't think SEO and conversions are separate entities. I believe you need to work on them together. Let me tell you why from a copywriting and marketing standpoint.
People mistakenly think search engine optimization is the one-step process of getting ranked highly on search engines. You "do" SEO and when you're finished *poof* your site is ranked highly. In reality, SEO has numerous steps, all of which intertwine with the foundation of your marketing plan. For instance, if you were creating an online marketing plan for a new site you wanted to launch, what would the process include? Certainly there are numerous steps, but let's focus on the three below for now.
> > > Creating An Attractive, User-Friendly Design
A recent study by MarketingExperiments.com found that using eight particular elements in your site design can improve conversions by more than 70%. You would want a design that instills trust and confidence while reducing anxiety.
> > > Organizing An Effective Navigation Structure
Obviously, you want it to be as easy as possible for visitors to find what they're looking for. If they aren't able to navigate the site quickly, they'll get frustrated and leave.
> > > Writing Persuasive Copy That Informs and Sells
Just having words on your pages isn't enough to connect with your visitors. You want specific copywriting about each product or service that entices, explains, convinces and converts.
Amazingly, these same three steps are fundamental to developing a solid search engine optimization strategy. So what's the problem? If you complete the steps with SEO tunnel vision - without giving any thought to your visitors along the way -- you may be doomed to repeat everything you've already finished. Here's why:
> > > Creating An Attractive, User-Friendly Design
Many times, sites designed strictly to rank highly in the engines neglect the design process. You can have a site that's at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and gets a ton of traffic, but causes visitors to immediately click away due to lack of trust. If this is the case, you'll need to change some or all of your design elements, which could possibly have a bearing on your rankings.
> > > Organizing An Effective Navigation Structure
I've read about companies who develop navigational structures specifically for the engines. They tell their clients to avoid cross-linking between certain pages or areas of the site so as not to "confuse" the search engines. Whether it confuses the search engines or not, if you want to make more sales, cross-linking and up-selling are excellent strategies that make it easier for your visitors to find -- and buy -- what they need. If you're ranking highly but not making sales, it may mean you need to radically improve your navigation, which could change your rankings.
> > > Writing Persuasive Copy That Informs and Sells
Keyword-stuffed, third-grade-level copy that is repetitive and boring won't make sales. If you've slapped up any old copy thinking you would improve it later, you're probably in for a rude awakening. Copywriting is a pivotal element in search engine optimization. Unless you're having great success with a massive linking campaign, copywriting will play a major part in your rankings. Changing copy can (and almost always will) cause either a negative or positive change in positioning. Oftentimes, pages fall, then return with higher placement -- but not always. If your copy is preventing your site from converting, it needs to be changed immediately even if that means a temporary drop in positioning.
The search engines do not make your site successful. The search engines don't buy anything from you. All they do is send traffic your way. Although there is no discounting the value of free traffic from the engines, you can get traffic from countless other online and offline sources. Your site is what makes you money and it needs to be developed for your visitors. But by focusing strictly on SEO, it is highly likely you'll be forced to change most of what you've built in order to improve conversions later on. That means spending more time and money on something that could have been turning a profit by now.
Both James Burns & Karon Thackston are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
James Burns has sinced written about articles on various topics from Web Development, Mobile Phone Reviews and Education Toys. Jim Burns is one of America's most inspirational educational speakers. His humorous and insightful presentations touch and influence his audiences in an unforgettable way. He is best known for his presentations on Bullying, Motivating Disaffected Students. James Burns's top article generates over 27100 views. Bookmark James Burns to your Favourites.
Karon Thackston has sinced written about articles on various topics from E Books, Marketing and Copywriting. Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO copy that impresses the engines and your visitors with Karon's Copywriting Course at. Karon Thackston's top article generates over 110000 views. Bookmark Karon Thackston to your Favourites.
