Back home in the office, struggling, and two important SEO reminders

mmer holidays are great! - but spending extended time away from business can fog your thinking and dull your drive. How to get started again?

I always find time away and holidays a double-edged sword. The loss of momentum and time has to be caught up somewhere and seems to demand a doubling of effort and a determined focus on return and it is plain hard to get going again. It's sometimes not easy in the IM world being your own boss which demands self control and self discipline (being your own boss can be a double-edged sword too).

I have achieved very little in the past 6 weeks, firstly due to the demands of full-time teaching at examination time and the end of a school year and secondly taking time to go back to my home country to see family at my father's memorial service in Adelaide, where he died last month just before turning 94. He had just retired at the end of last year.

The Australian memorial service in the Adelaide hill's Thai Buddhist monastery and retreat for my father last month with 5 monks conducting the ceremony.

My father at 84 showing a visiting Australian Parliament Senator a science exhibit at the National Science Museum in Bangkok Thailand. My father worked at NSM for 14 years in science education beginning a whole new foreign based career at 79, retiring at 93. More than one million children and adults have been through his programs.

Memorial service at a Buddhist center in Bangkok for my father organized by NSM and staff with 9 monks officiating.

Time to move on.

After winter and family duties in Southern Australia I went to Bali on the way home to China for a total break. The Volcano obliged and stopped twice to let my flight through in both directions :) I needed recharging after some hectic months and Bali was paradise. I spent every day body surfing at Kuta and found sea turtles hatching.

Dawn in Paradise on Kuta beach

My surfing instructor had a wooden personality but a 'Jesus saves' smile :)

In the Hindu world there are many Gods: The Surfing God!

The Sea Turtle God!

Just hatching. Estimated one in one thousand will survive to adulthood.

Tiny Baby turtle on Kuta beach just after dawn...running away from the water! It's a big scary world past those waves!! We took this one back to the sea turtle sanctuary.

Sunset on Kuta

I tried to think of work occasionally...well...once. No real success. I am not one of those people that can swing in a hammock between two palms on a perfect beach, gazing out to the horizon with the sun setting while the laptop is open and ready....one half of the brain still working feverishly on the next blog and researching away......I man....who does that?? Are those images for real? I need my office - set and setting - to be in the zone and creatively productive. If I am at the beach I am in the water. As I mentioned...I did try and here is the evidence...success? errr..no :(

Bintang and blogging at the bar don't mix! Note the coconuts

Time to go home :( Ready for take-off!!

Back in Shenzhen

Now I have returned and I am sitting at my laptop doing my daily juggle with the VPN Vs ChinaNet and groaning while trying to avoid making every excuse not to face work and the huge catch-up I seem to be facing. WHERE DO I START!! I feel the way newbies do when that feeling of being overwhelmed sets in. I freeze facing the screen and then decide to head out for coffee instead, which for me means a subway ride to Starbucks at Seaworld in Nanshan. I have at least been dabbing at my Frappuccino laced guilt by using my Ipad to follow contacts on the WA site while I enjoy the AC in the Starbucks lounge. Guilty as charged!

Picking it up again! How I go about it

• Select one initial thing to do that will get you back on track at WA and in the IM mindset and ignore the crush of feeling there are a million things to do. I decided to watch this video training by Kyle to get my mindset re-engaged and my business drive going again:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/the-brain-dump-bonus-my-thoughts-on-creating-success-online

• Take a walk through your website(s). Check it out as it is currently is and note anything you think is 'clunky' and that can be improved while you have fresh eyes.

• Re-read or review the last training you did. Repeat if necessary.

• Get your 'to do' list in order and review old notes. I am now using OneNote for this based on Kyle's recommendation in his above "brain-dump" video above and also expanded by Edu (TopAchiever) in his excellent training for using OneNote to make blog writing and archiving much easier (I wrote this on OneNote):

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/best-quic...

• Take one step at a time as you get backup to speed and be careful not to let your time be side-tracked by the pull of immense social traffic and information on WA (such as this blog note:) LOL!) thinking that this directly counts as you doing work on your business (nice try....but still avoidance :(

Two important SEO reminders to help maintain best ranking.

Here are two SEO reminders I found in my notes that have been marked important as recent SEO issues:

1. Loes (Loes) wrote a good Blog recently in which she stressed the importance of internal links - at least one per post or page - to improve Google rankings. These are not links from other sites or social pages to your site but links you insert in a page or post to other pages or posts on your own site so that the post is not a 'stand alone'. From what I have read Google loves internal linking and it is very important for helping your Google rank of your post or page. See Loes' blog here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/structure-your-website-google-pagerank-system-gps-for-google
2. Robert (boomergp08) wrote about the important need to now remove the website URL link left by any visitors in their comments before approving them. Leaving a visitors website URL in place attached to the visitor's name, who has left a comment, can now really hurt your rankings with Google via comments interaction and are no longer to be considered important for trading back-links. Simply delete the URL only and the approve the comment. Review his blog note and Kyle's email to him on this important and potentially missed SEO detail here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/boomergp08/blog/ar...

Thanks to all that have added me for a follow.

Warm regards,

Eric (Shenzhen, China)