I love the work that I do as a writer and blogger for businesses. I think it allows me the chance to research many different interesting topics while working from the comfort of my own home. However, I also sometimes feel like I need a break.

You see, I don’t know if I want to be a full-time writer forever. Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think I’d like to write part-time and then do something else part-time (consulting, art, something else). On rare occasions, I think I’d like to do something else altogether.

The problem is that I can’t seem to figure out exactly what I want when I have to work all day every day. I feel like I need the space of not writing to just breathe into. In that space, I hope to hear myself echo back to me what it is that I specifically want to do with my writing.

So I’m planning for a sabbatical. I want to take a year off of writing professionally in order to just engage in some deep self-reflection. I won’t be doing this anytime soon. My goal is to write full-time for at least three more years. I’m working on some new writing goals to accomplish during that time. But then I want a full year sabbatical to just figure things out.

I think sabbaticals are important. They give you the chance to get to know yourself again. You can assess what you’re doing and how to do it better. Why don’t more people take them?

Tags: career, freelance writing, kathryn vercillo, sabbatical, writer, writing

YouTube is a site that I visit semi-regularly but I’m not terrifically active on it. I think that’s because the site has its benefits but I haven’t really been maximizing my use of those benefits.

Some of the things that I do use YouTube for include:

• Watching funny clips. I admit it, I’ll sometimes watch whatever links I’m sent just for entertainment.
• Watching shows I missed during the week. I don’t follow too many TV shows. The ones that I do, I can usually see online elsewhere if I miss an episode (either on Hulu or on the network’s channel). However, there have been times when I couldn’t find an episode online anywhere else except on YouTube so I watched it there.
• Researching information. There are things that I have researched which are much easier to understand through a video than through text (like how to blow smoke rings) so sometimes I research through the site.

What I think I should start using the site for more is:

• Promoting my work. You can definitely use YouTube to promote your business but I haven’t done it much myself.
• Networking. YouTube is a social networking site but I’ve never really taken advantage of that aspect of it.
• Learning about new shows that I might like. As far as entertainment goes, I could probably find clips of shows I might like on the site but I’ve never bothered.

What do you use YouTube for?

Tags: kathryn vercillo, Social Networking, videos, watch videos online, web 2.0, youtube

I’ve mentioned here a few times that I’m trying to stay active on Twitter. This can be hard sometimes because there are so many people on Twitter who are there just to spam you. (I can’t even count the number of posts I see about how to get more Twitter followers – more people who will just keep posting those same posts about getting more followers!)

However, there are some people on Twitter that I really enjoy conversing with. These people bring great thoughts to the Twitter table and I enjoy hearing what they have to say. They also offer good links that I actually want to follow.

Here’s a few of those people to check out if you want some good conversation on Twitter:

• @dragonblogger – I mentioned this Twitter user here not too long ago because he does a really cool thing where he gets random words from fellow Twitter users and writes Twitter poems with them.
• @Scout66com – This is the only music blogger or music site that I’ve seen so far that doesn’t just promote music but also engages in intelligent discussino on a range of topics!
• @kashicat – Check out the blog Confessions of a Cultural Idiot to learn more about this cool Twitterer.
• @marcandangel – They share life advice on their blog and through their Twitter account.
• @spreadingjoy – The name says it all but there’s a corporation to go along with this Twitter account.

Who do you recommend following on Twitter?

Another link that might be of interest to people on Twitter is this article with links to over 100 different Twitter tools including tools for analysis, information gathering, networking building and sharing.

Tags: great twitterers, kathryn vercillo, people to follow on twitter, Social Networking, twitter, twitterers

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on Twitter lately. After a lengthy period of adjusting to using the site, I’ve finally come to really like Twitter. I feel like it’s giving me a great opportunity to share links and ideas with other people.

One of the really fun things that I’ve gotten into doing on the site is participating in a daily poem project that @dragonblogger does. Almost every morning, he puts out a request for people to send in random words. These random words are then worked into a poem for the day which is posted on the Wanderer Thoughts blog.

These poems are always really interesting. Sometimes the words that are submitted are really challenging. For example, check out Unstoppable Disease which included a lot of medical words in it. (My word for that day was simpler: productivity).

This is just a fun little project to participate in when I think about it as I’m on Twitter. I think it’s inspiring to do little daily projects and this is an example of a good one.

Tags: fun, kathryn vercillo, poetry, projects, twitter, writing

Almost all businesses have websites. Businesses that want their websites to get noticed already know that they need to make sure that they use SEO / SEM practices to get the attention of online traffic as well as web search engines. It’s just a “must” in today’s business world.

Most businesses hire someone to handle their SEO for them. That is a really smart move since there are a lot of things involved in SEO. It’s really a full-time job to make sure that you’re staying on top of all of the content writing and social promotion that goes into promoting a website so that it stays active on the web.

However, businesses shouldn’t give the whole process over to someone else to handle for them. At least, not without knowing what the SEO situation is all about. A smart business person wants to be capable of doing the SEO work of (s)he has to even if (s)he plans on hiring someone full time to take care of the work.

For that reason, businesses should think about investing in SEO training. This is where an SEO company comes in and teaches you all about how to do proper SEO. This would empower the business to do some or all of its own SEO work if the company so desired. Empowerment is always good!

Tags: busines, internet, kathryn vercillo, sem, seo, seo training, Technology

I used to have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. Over time, that has changed. I lean a lot more towards the love side now. I suppose that’s because I’ve learned how to use Twitter in ways that make it fun for me. I meet people and share information there.

I actually do a lot of my research through Twitter, using it as a starting point to find news and articles about the topics that interest me. For example, I stay on top of the latest information and thoughts about mobile phones by following people on Twitter who write about these things.

There are so many people writing about this topic that it would be impossible to follow them all. I’ve found about 20 mobile phone Twitterers that really interest me a lot. These are what I would suggest as a starting place for people interested in researching that topic on Twitter.

Of course, you can make a list like this for any interest that you may have. I also follow people on Twitter who are interested in personal finance, simple living and creativity since those are topics that also interest me a lot. I think it’s worthwhile to take the time to find the people who are networking on these topics and to follow their activities online.

My Twitter account is at http://twitter.com/KathrynVercillo.

Tags: kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, research, Social Networking, twitter, Wireless

I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing lately about the topic of being more efficient with email. In discussing this topic with people, I’ve discovered that the majority of people who feel that they are not efficient with email have the same few concerns.

Those concerns are:

• Lack of understanding about their email program. Most of these people feel that they don’t fully understand the different things that they can do to sort, organize and utilize their email accounts most efficiently.
• Too-frequent use of email. One of the most common complaints from people is that they check email all of the time which reduces productivity in other areas of their work.
• Taking too long to respond. This means two things. First, people feel like they leave emails in their inboxes too long before answering them which clutters the inbox and stresses them out. And second, they feel like writing up their responses takes too much of their time.

What I have come to believe after talking with these people is that the solution is a fairly simple one:

Set aside time each day to deal with email.

During this time, you can commit to answering everything that comes through your inbox in a focused and efficient manner. You can also commit a certain amount of time each day to learning a new tool or trick for your email. (A good one is to learn about email templates which will reduce your response time!) And then you can forget about email the rest of the day.

Tags: efficiency, ehow, email, how to, kathryn vercillo, productivity, simplify, tips

I was one of the early members of MySpace. My account lay dormant for years since nobody I knew was active on the site. Then, all of a sudden, everyone that I knew was signing up for a MySpace account. For about a year, I communicated actively there. I even had multiple accounts – for work and for personal use. Then a couple of years ago Facebook seemed to take the place of MySpace and my activity on MySpace slowly dwindled down to almost nothing.

I’ve kept my account active just in case MySpace suddenly becomes big again but these days I mostly use Facebook and Twitter for social networking. Thinking about this got me wondering whether any businesses are using MySpace for marketing anymore? I did some research into this question and found that there are a few types of businesses that are still active on the site.

Music businesses are the main business that still seems to do okay here as compared to Facebook or Twitter. Other entertainment businesses, like comedians, are active on the site to some degree as well. And then there are the businesses that market specifically to the tween/teen demographic that is still regularly using MySpace to communicate. Other than that, most businesses seem to be focusing their social networking promotion elsewhere.

Does this mean that businesses who choose to reactive their attention on MySpace could potentially corner the market on users still regularly active on the site?

Tags: business, kathryn vercillo, marketing, myspace, promotion, Social Networking

One of the things that bloggers and web writers are always seeking to do is to drive more traffic to their sites. One of the key ways of doing this is to get links in to your site from other credible sites.

Here’s a look at some of the most common ways to get incoming links:

• Ask for them. Many sites are open to giving you reciprocal links if you are appropriate about asking the right people in the right way. Learn more about the right way to use reciprocal links.
• Writing link bait articles. Linkbaiting is the practice of writing articles that are likely to draw attention around the web. Controversial articles and Top 100 articles are examples of link bait.
• Write guest posts. You can volunteer your writing efforts to post articles on other people’s blogs in exchange for a link in the article back to your site.

There are many different ways to get incoming links but those are the three that I’ve used most often with varying degrees of success. What I’ve discovered is that writing great content and putting it out there around the web as much as possible is going to bring attention to my site. Guest posts and link bait are some of the best ways of doing that but I’ve definitely also exchanged links as appropriate.

What do you think are the top ways to get incoming links?

Tags: backlinks, blog links, get links, kathryn vercillo, linkbaiting, reciprocal links, websites

There used to be a big difference between general search engines (like Google) and mobile search engines (like Google’s Mobile Sitemaps). That’s because there has historically been a big difference in the architecture of regular sites as compared to mobile sites. However, that seems to be changing now that more advanced phones are becoming increasingly capable of handling improved web pages. Does that mean that mobile search engines no longer matter?

It may be something that won’t matter in the future but for the time being it’s still important to get listed in mobile search engines. In fact, it may be even more important than in the past since more people are using the mobile web. Despite advances in phone technology, most phones are still accessing mobile web pages rather than standard web pages. People interested in having their site found through mobile phone searches would do best to list themselves in both regular and mobile-specific search engine directories.

The whole thing is a matter of making sure the word about you is out there in as many places as possible. You want to have your website listed in as many directories and search engines as there are because this gives you maximum exposure to the people who are searching for things relevant to your site. Local search engines are another area that you may want to look at for this type of maximum exposure. At least for now, it all still matters.

Tags: business, internet marketing, mobile phones, mobile search, mobile search engines, search engines, Technology, web 2.0