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So why didn’t anyone tell me these things, huh? I was all excited to move over to WordPress and then last night, in the comfort of my couch I found out that WordPress wasn’t for me, the hard way! Despite advice from friends and colleagues that WordPress is the “cat’s meow” when it comes to things like layouts and plug-in’s, I must admit I was not impressed. Here are the turn-off’s for me.

1. While it easily imported all my posts from Blogger and automatically categorized them, I had tons of categories that I would have to manually edit. Um, I don’t have that kind of time. Why did it have to go and do that for? Why couldn’t I create my own on my time?

2. There is a charge for posting WordPress to my domain (lifeinmarketing) and yet again, it’s yet another process I have to manually go through getting servers to point here and there…I’m a marketer not a techie.

3. WordPress won’t allow any ads like AdSense or affiliate programs like Amazon on my blog. Hey I already have accounts with those two companies. I’m not blowing them off! Yet, WordPress tells me that from time to time, they will be putting ads on my site. What’s up with that?

4. Lastly, I want to keep it simple stupid. The good old KISS rule.

So it looks like I’m going to put more efforts into my existing Blogger account.

I have friends whose websites are built using WordPress and many others who swear by it. But for me and my needs, it doesn’t work for me at this point in time.

Any feedback would be great! I’m sure there’s so much about WordPress I still don’t know about.

The other day, my friend Heather, president of Mogul Mom and 2 Virtues, was thinking of doing some ads in Google and asked for advice. I thought I would post the advice I gave her in case others find it helpful.

Heather: “A quick question for my marketing guru amigo! I’m going to try out some Google Ads and I’m trying to think of good search terms for The Mogul Mom stuff. What do you think? Here are some I’ve considered: Mom inventors, Resources for mom inventors, Mom entrepreneurs, Work at home moms, Consulting for moms in business. Let me know what you think-you know more about this stuff than I do! Thanks! Heather”

Anna: “I know more about Google from the B2B side, but the same principals apply. First, I would check out the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator in the Campaign Management tab. They tell you how competitive those words are and the current PPC (pay per click) rates. It would probably take a week to go over the whole Google PPC but I tried to narrow it down in this email. We can talk more about this.

1. Don’t select highly competitive words unless you want to pay the high PPC rates! If you don’t pay those rates, most of the time you will be so far in the search, people will never see your ad.

2. Try to pick creative phrases you think mompreneurs will use or will be attracted by (know thy audience). The tools suggest phrases you may want to consider.

3. Monitor your budget like a hawk!! Do you have any idea of how much you want to spend? Google can easily clean you out. I have to be honest that I’m not a big fan of Google PPC because it’s highly competitive and can get very pricey unless you have a real niche, but you should experience it for yourself.

In addition, I would focus on making sure you’re entering into your blog daily and using keywords you think moms may search on throughout your content. For example, your Blankeaze is one of a kind and a niche, therefore, you would kick butt doing PPC on that. Google loves fresh, consistent, relevant content. Also, try linking with relevant web sites to boost your rankings. Pick highly visited, relevant sites and try to link to their web site content (such as articles, particular products, etc.) rather then their URLs (www.XXXXXX.com).

Try the tools and let me know if they help you out. If not, we can set some time aside for PPC 101 and SEO 101. I know them enough to be dangerous >:-). Lastly according to the tools, the words you chose are either very competitive or not competitive enough (no one has ever searched on them).

Here’s a summary I got with the tools. You will have the best luck with “mom inventors” and “mom entrepreneurs” than you will with the others, which are very competitive or not competitive at all.

Lastly, take advantage of Google’s radio and newspaper ads. Google rules the world…!! Anna”