I’m one of those who believes that you can always learn something from your mistakes or things that go wrong. In fact sometimes you don’t know how to get to the right solution without failing miserably in the process of getting there.

SEO is one of those things where you will fail the first several tries. It’s ok. A great example is on page SEO. Meaning everything from Title tags, to H1 headers, content etc. Chances are you will not get the perfect combination of all of these with the “best” use of your keyword the first time around. So if you are wondering, well what can I do each month to improve my site…one thing is to try/test different on page SEO variations.

So technically your first attempts are not a “failure”. Thus every change you make can lead to improvement. You have to try to get anywhere to begin with, and you have to understand that you will not reach your goal of page 1 in the first few months and there is plenty of work you can do to help you get there over time.

If at first you don’t succeed try and try again!

I just spent the last 8 days with my adorable 2 year old niece. What a handful! Kids are pretty resilient and amazing at observing new things every day…just what I love about online marketing, I thought, something new every day!

Here are 5 lessons to take away from even the youngest members of society:

5. That Baseball will leave a mark!
Lesson: Be careful what you say or do online. It’s pretty permanent. Choose your words wisely and don’t go around bashing others. Not only does it help to advertise them but it also causes distrust in your work and reputation.

4. Curiosity did not kill this cat.
Lesson: It’s an amazing thing to be curious and have a constant yearning to learn more. As adults we some times lose or stray away from our un-abandoned sense of curiosity. My recommendation, always remain curious and keep a passion for something. And if you fall remember to get back up.

3. A 2-year-old’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
Lesson: No one likes a loud mouth bragger…unless you are bragging about the qualities of someone else. Think about it, when was the last time that you shared something great about someone else. The more you share without beating people over your head with your message the more people will come back to you for information because unlike the two year old, it’s not cute when you shout.

2. When you hear the toilet flush and the words “uh-oh” it is already too late.
Lesson: A good sense of humor will get you through most problems in life.

1. Learn something new every day.
Lesson: It’s pretty clear! Make it a personal goal to notice something new each day. Follow a new person on Twitter, join a new network group, read a new blog…whatever it takes…do it! It keeps you young

I am a strong believer that social media tools should in part be used as “reputation management”. What you happens online, stays online…but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. Quite to the contrary, anything you say online will stay online forever…anyone can find it.

I encourage everyone who participates in any online mediums to think about the following:

• Think before you write
• Why are you sharing the information that you are
• What will you gain from sharing that information (not that there should be the expectation of getting something in return)
• Who could you hurt if you say something negative
• Is what you are saying factual
• Review what you wrote, check grammar and spelling (please!)
• Sit on it! Give it some time if you are writing a long piece, come back to it and then review it again
• Share your information with the appropriate niches

One person whom I follow online for great personal branding and reputation management advice is Dan Schwabel. Through his blog he shares advice on how to best manage how you present yourself to the digital world. Check it out.

Related Articles

• Scouting your reputation online
• When Trust Breaks

No I am not getting married…but I was feeling that itch for a change. Ughhh it’s a designers bain, constantly seeking something new. I don’t seem to have that problem with any client sites, however my site never seems perfect enough. I guess that makes me a good designer?… always seeking perfection, which can be a pitfall…

Getting the urge to redesign is probably the #1 reason that people change their site and the #1 problem with redesigning…this may sound hypocritical, but “don’t redesign your blog just because you are bored with it.” It’s actually a natural occurrence and so you need to stick with it, because as your boredom increases users actually don’t experience that same feeling. They are happy with what you have, as long as the content is good.

With that said, I did change my heading a bit. Here’s the hypocritical part: my change was not a “redesign” per se. Besides just needing something new, I changed the heading for the following reasons (reasons that make it ok to change things up a bit):

1. I felt visitors needed more guidance, at first glance, as to what my blog was about. A snappy headline in addition to “Food For Thought” would do the trick, hence “thinking. blogging. engaging … Web 2.0″
2. I shifted images to keep the overall feel the same. Originally the “[rc]” box was on the left and now I shifted it to the right (obviously), but the overall look is consistent.
3. I tied in the image of the thought cloud to the icon imagery that I use in conjunction with my post headers throughout the blog.

Lessons to be learned: There are good and bad reasons for making changes on your site. Make sure you evaluate why you are making those changes. Test before you implement those changes. Make sure those changes are consistent with your overall look and feel. Have fun with it!

Spring just invokes the need to clean (or maybe that’s just me). It’s also a great time to organize or reorganize yourself. Organizing all-together is an opportunity to become more efficient and with most online tools, the name of the game is efficiency and the ease by which you can communicate, follow and listen.

I recently took some time to organize my RSS streams. While I already have everything organized in folders through my outlook (which is the email program that I use), I also have a Google Account. To me efficiency means not having to go to too many sources for too much information. And so, when I come across great posts not only do I share it and leave a comment, I also subscribe to the blogs RSS feeds.

As I took a closer look at the Google applications I started to explore all that it has to offer. I recommend for you to do the same, especially if you find yourself trying to remember what that cool site was that you recently came across. While there are other tools out there (like Feed Reader) that allow to organize website subscriptions, I find Google tools particularly helpful because (a) it’s free, and (b) you’ll have an account through which you can check your email, your site analytics, and so much more.

Check it out. What kind of tools are you using? Which would you recommend?