First, my apologies for the title and all horse-lovers out there! I often find myself using the expression, “You can’t swing a dead cat without…” However, I am lucky to have two wonderful feline friends and I try (seriously) to make sure they are out of earshot when I make the remark LOL!

So what THIS post is about is to refer you over to one I just made on the My Wizard Ads blog. It is very pertinent for all internet marketers, yet redoing it here would be… well redundant. And, I just finished that post up and if I say so myself I did a decent job

Now I’m off to work on the two newest members to our Whole-Hog-Blogs Network family – Joe’s Time Life Travels and Ron’s All About Alternatives. I just love blogging, don’t you? And getting people up and running and successfully driving traffic to a well-thought-out blog is gratifying. (Starting a blog often sounds easy; too often people just give up without proper blogging coaching, mentoring, and support.)

(BTW, Joe Eisenbeil’s travel stories are not to be missed! He’s been traveling the globe for more than 60 years and his perspective is truly unique!).

Now don’t forget to read the above post over at My Wizard Ads (or you could be very sorry).

Ciao!

More often than I’d like (okay I really enjoy it but you have to be careful), taking a trip around the root directory of one’s host and/or the admin areas of wordpress blogs (or any type of database-driven “website) means finding ways to cut back on the use of resources.

Recently, and forgive me but I cannot remember where I was or who said it, but they quoted Yanik Silver as saying if you are running more than (more…)

A long time ago, I listed myself in Guru as a writer. Being as busy as I am I have yet to bid on, nor take (obviously) any new jobs via their website. “Scott” on the other hand signed up as the seo/marketing type so we do have a great balance of what our combined “portfolio” is all about… content and seo (we’ve been doing it for others and ourselves for years now).

This post, however, is about an interesting email I received this morning from Guru. It’s a Promotional Newsletter with the subject line, “Save more green by going Green.”

What the heck does an online go-to spot have (other than being web-based) that’s green? The answer should be obvious…

… Talent!

Their email byline is “Freelancers can help you save money and help save the Earth.”

Now as badly as I’d like to “sell” Whole Hog Blogs to you, or even our word-of-mouth OIMConsulting (use the contact form over at My Wizard Ads if you need top-level marketing assistance for your brick and mortar business trying to make its presence known on the web since OIMConsulting is really word of mouth only), places like Guru and eLance also have a huge pool of talent to use. (Great run-on sentence there, sorry.)

Their “going green” message has to do with hiring Virtual Assistants, and their reasons why this is green include:

1. Reduced training costs
2. Less turnover in your brick & mortar business
3. Using less energy since you don’t supply office space
4. Less paperwork invoicing – they have an “escrow” payment

Everyone is talking about reducing their “carbon footprint” (but if you pay attention to Linda over at Forcedgreen and Barbara’s blog GoalForTheGreen, you’d understand it’s not so much carbon as perhaps methane giving us all fits and starts with global warming – follow them on this, they are the experts), and any time you outsource your advertising of course you’re doing your part to save the world – plus getting the job done right.

Five additional reasons why outsourcing is a great idea (paraphrased of course) are:

1. Gas consumption is reduced
2. Lessens the need to build new roads
3. Less energy consumption heating and cooling buildings
4. “Minimizing run-off and disturbance in natural habitats”
5. Reducing pollutants and greenhouse emissions.

(Frankly #4 has me slightly stumped, but I assume they mean you don’t have to add on that extra building to house more employees.)

Do NOT get me wrong! With unemployment this high, and our household a victim of these unfortunate times, too, I’m not taking all this “go green” stuff lightly.

By going green you’ll naturally cut down the costs of just running your own household.

By hiring green, you’re also doing your part to make this planet a healthy, even safer, place to live – not to mention cutting your business overhead costs thus increasing your bottom line.

During the past week, we’ve been super busy!

A great addition to our Whole Hog Blog family is the not-for-profit website and blog for ALS of Nevada. The entire state of Nevada coverage for ALS patients and their caregivers is provided by just three individuals (and an outstanding Board of Directors). Two people cover the state, with another fine individual up in the Reno area providing assistance to those in need suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

We’d like to ask you to please visit the site, comment on the blog, and help get their traffic and alexa rankings rolling.

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We’ve also added a blog to My Wizard Ads, an ezine advertising information blog. “Diane’s” first true business online after a several year stint as a publisher herself (weird talking about myself in the third, or would that be fourth (?) person). Day in and day out I field questions for not just the new but veteran internet marketer. Ezine advertising gives people the freedom to use other people’s lists as contact points to announce and promote the businesses and programs they join online.

Again, a visit to that new blog and your comments would be greatly appreciated, too.

Both of these new additions have do-follow linking, so your trip gains you that valued backlink in the process.

Enjoy!

After reading our friend and fellow Whole-Hog-Blogger, Judy at More Than Sew So and her current (at this time) post Who Is This Man, today I figured presenting some educational and highly enlightening new sources might be a better way to serve our Sunday readers (and beyond).

So I’ve compiled a short list of highly rated, highly regarded blogs whose sole purpose is to present news – current event style – on what’s really going on in Washington, as well as great pieces about the entertainment industry, sports, etc.

Here is the list:

The Daily Beast
Ana Marie Cox, writer and featured speaker on MSNBC news
The Huffington Post

Granted one must have an OPEN mind to read the above. I’ve heard them take all sides on all issues versus some out there that are strictly “old guard” trying valiantly to uphold that which clearly a majority of our nation turned down – emphatically – in November and celebrated – joyously – just a few days ago in Washington, D.C.

No one knows the future, but heading into the future without a plan, and flying on the old “wing and a prayer (and screw your fellow citizens) plan” obviously did not work. Wanting to stick to the same – for reasons unknown, but perhaps it is the “unknown” that scares some people – has moved our great country more than giant steps backward not forward.

My mind reels actually to hear most of what comes out of these news sources not because it’s BS, but what our government believes it can get away with (and until recently has) – and as We The People, we have let them.

I should at this point mention my two favorite news shows (television) which are programs over at MSNBC:

Countdown With Keith Olbermann and
The Rachel Maddow Show

But before I close, in the interest of maintaining a fuller spectrum of where to get your news, if you’re dead set on getting just the rhetoric of the die-hard GOP base, and feel it necessary to cling tenuously to the past, here are a few news sources online just for you:

Thinkgprogress.org (a misnomer, not much on “progress” but worth a laugh), along with FoxNews (which originally aired The Simpsons – a creative and very much “progressive” cartoon show for its time – but showed its true colors very early on – lopsided and biased and staunchly right winged – way right)

Enjoy your Sunday, and remember….

Give us your opinions – it is a free country let alone a “free” internet – your comments most welcome! Please comment!