This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Great Minds Design. All opinions are 100% mine.

When I started blogging two years ago through the encouragement of a friend, I thought it was just easy. I thought wrong. While I was setting up my blog, I realized I was in for some big challenge.

Putting up a blog was difficult enough for a newbie like me because I did not know how and where to start (thank goodness for the help and patience extended to me by my friend). It was also mind boggling because I did not know anything about HTML, Search Engine Optimization and etc; and these are the very things that will help a website get into search engines and subsequently, help increase traffic.

I have yet to meet a blogger or web site owner/developer whose goal is not to increase traffic and readership. If you ask them what should be done first, the answer would likely be the Web Design. It is the first thing that meets the reader’s eye. It should be eye-catching enough for the reader to get attracted to stay longer and explore but it should not be garish or too loud that could discourage the reader or potential customer.

Enter Great Minds Design. Putting up a website takes time, patience, perseverance and related knowledge. Unless you are an expert with some time to spare, your website will take a lot from you to get it up and running but with Great Minds Design, you will have more time to strategize for your product and even improve on it.

That’s actually a win-win solution.

 

Yes, jellyfish population is increasing and it's literally swarming the waters of Japan according to Yahoo News and likely, this is not an isolated case. It is also disturbing that the ones found lurking there are the big and venomous ones called Nomura's jellyfish.

I wouldn't worry much about jellyfish stings if they are the ones we found in Siargao; their jellyfish did not sting!

I have been more scared of jellyfish sting when I encountered some while on vacation with friendsin Palawan. We were swimming near the beach and suddenly a slight stingy almost electric feeling came to my leg. A friend felt it too so we immediately went out of the water feeling scared of something unknown. A few days after, we went swimming again on a different location and suddenly, a friend screamed in pain and hurriedly  went out of the water. We were worried and it was a good thing that there were experienced swimmers in that area and we were told to find some vinegar to pour on our friend's legs; that was when we saw this transparent jelly-like tentacles wrapped around her legs!

The tentacles left some red welts on her legs and she said she felt the sting like it was a painful electric current going through her legs up to her body. Her doctor told her she was lucky because some people died of heart attack because of these nasty jellyfish stings.

Our guardian angels were protecting all of us closely at that time. Thank goodness for that.

My aunt just called last week to check on us. She said she has been missing her old home. It was good to hear her again and I am quite relieved that she and my uncle have adjusted well in their new home. She promised to send us a Christmas box as soon as she can fill it and I am hoping that there is a pair of rubber shoes in there. She is hoping that that the black Friday ads she saw on the newspapers are as good as they promised. We told her that it is okay not to send anything but we know her well, she would likely send a box full of presents for all of her relatives.

A new retiree, my aunt is still adjusting with her new laidback life. Her present routine is a departure from her usual hectic schedule that she maintained for years working as a teacher. She was planning to have her own small business but got busy with her relocation that the said plan took a backseat. Lately, she is reading a lot and came upon options trading strategies. She realized that even if she cannot have her own business, she could try emini trading to invest some of her retirement money. She is getting apprehensive that if she will not invest that money, she would just lose it from unnecessary spending.

I understand her apprehension as based on her past experiences, she lost a lot of money because of my uncle’s selfish spending. Old age is already settling in for both of them and she knows that if she don’t use or invest her money wisely, it will be difficult for both of them to recoup it. It’s good that my uncle is still working but he is more concerned with his personal wants than save for the future.

Nowadays, she is keeping an eye on Forex Signals and studying how foreign exchange trading works. I am also curious with it. She did promise to keep me posted so I could learn something from it too. Who knows, I might get into it someday. Meantime, I am so excited to get my hand on that promised Christmas box.

Everybody's excited over the upcoming Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight this coming weekend. I am apprehensive of what the outcome might be. For sure, the fight will be an interesting one and it's too bad that we do not have cable TV at home. My father is quite excited to see the Pacquiao Cotto fight in real time and this is why I am now looking for free live streaming Pacquiao Cotto fight online. Justin.tv and Sopcast are the ones being recommended by some friends. I will have to check it before the fight day comes.

I am getting really confused with how Google’s Page Rank works. I have been reading some pointers and tips on how to get and increase page rank for blogs or websites. I tried and experimented the following:

In one of my blogs, I tried to follow the common pointers in getting higher page rank:

With daily blog posts and I must say, with good content and keywords. Did bloghop and left some comments on other blogs. Exchanged links with other blogs and created a blogroll for these links. Enrolled my blogs in blog directories to increase traffic.

While on the other hand, I have this 2-month old blog that has:

No daily blog post but instead I only posted twice or thrice a week. I never bloghopped nor left some comments for this blog. No blogroll or link exchange. Not enrolled in any blog directories.

I know, you would expect that the first blog has a page rank. Naw! The second blog has the page rank of 1 while the first one has zero page rank. This is quite surprising because what I did with the second blog was contradictory to what was being advised by the so-called experts of Google.

So, now am confused and this is why I am giving up analyzing and experimenting on Google page rank. For now, I’ll just write what I like when I like it. Of course, I will still keep an eye on the keywords from time to time.