I read sometimes about how some females feel slighted in their workplace b/c they are the only woman, and they may feel as though it’s much easier for men to move up, shmooze with the boss, and get preferential treatment.  Then I think about my situation and I feel lucky. I’ll agree that some women DO get hosed in a work envirnoment full of men, but I’m not one of them.

I’m lucky in that:

1. I’ve been with the company longer than most and proved myself
2. My bosses trust my judgment and skill
3. They often offer me new opportunities for growth b/c they KNOW I’m capable of so much
4. They curtail their otherwise wild behavior JUST for me

Yes, I know that on days I’m not in the office, conversation in probably QUITE different - as in juvenile and raunchier!  B/C we all like each other here, and we’re all pretty much friends, so it’s not quite as “corporate” an atmosphere as you’d think.  And I am TOTALLY okay with them curtailing some of their more…perverted tendencies around me.

B/C lets face it: most men are pigs. I know it, you know it, they know it but we love them anyway. And the few times I’ve bugged them enough to tell me stuff they may be giggling at - I wind up regretting it somewhat. So it’s okay that they act a little different around me. I prefer it that way! Luckily, I’m a very down to earth woman, and can be a lil’ raunchy or just blunt about things myself (to a point - I am uncomfortable acting too much myself at work).  I am a firm believer in separating my home personality from my work personality.  I don’t think the guys could handle me if I acted around them the way I act around my family and boyfriend.

I will however say, that it is probably easier for men to shmooze to their male bosses then for women. I love my boss, but there are still things I’d never say or ways I’d never act for fear of them being misconstrued. Nor do I want him to say certain things or act certain ways towards me b/c *I* may misconstrue it and feel totally uncomfortable.  I can’t elbow him and say “whoaaa check out that girl’s butt!” (oh wait, I should have used another example, b/c I totally HAVE done that before. Sheesh) but then again, it’s probably inappropriate for a male coworker to do so as well. There is a fine line between a friendly but professional work atmosphere and letting it all hang out.

In the end, humans are just humans, and if we always knew what our coworkers REALLY thought, or how they REALLY were…it might be a little harder to look them in the eye every day.

So to reiterate - I’m pretty blessed in the men that I work with, and I think they’re blessed with me, b/c unlike some women, I’m okay with being just one of the guys - I can take jokes, I’m fairly down to earth, and I don’t get huffy or offended easily.

And while I sometimes wish there was another female here, I’m realistic to know that I get along with guys easier and that it is very possible I would clash with any other woman we hired. What can I say…I can be just as catty as the next woman…even if I don’t want to be!

Oops, I mean who can make the most relevant and helpful page for users in need of information on Lancaster SEO.  Guess who I’m backing?

Call me a kiss ass, but sorry, he’s been my boss for 3 years…what do you expect??

Anyway, so there’s the background…the EXCITING part is that GetMyHomesValue.com made Inc. Magazine’s 2008 Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in the U.S! We’re actually # 386 - not too shabby if you ask me! There’s also a Inc. 5000 list, the top 10% of which are chosen for the Inc. 500. It’s just totally amazing to be working for a company that’s had so much success in a short period of time.

The even MORE exciting news…they also rated GMHV the 16th fastest growing real estate-related company across the country.  Do you KNOW how many major real estate companies there are?  ALOT. ALOT ALOT. Do #16 is fan-frickin-tastic!

So yeah, that’s the awesome news.

Oh, and on another note - we redesigned the GetMyHomesValue.com corporate website. It looks great, thanks to our videographer/designer’s hard work.  Nice job Adam - gotta love that last minute deadline crunch, huh?

Oh, and his very talented twin girls (yes, that’s right, TWO sets of twins!) made their acting debut as well - pretty awesome stuff. (Again, not sure which one, but either Emily or Haley had a GREAT fight scene!).

Oh, yeah, there’s some work related stuff on there…with more to come!

So yeah, go ahead and check out GetMyHomesValue.com on YouTube. It’s worth a few minutes of your time!

Coming in 2009…the intervention we held for our brick-licking addict coworker (hi Adam!).

Oh wait, he’s our videographer too…hmm, how’s this gonna work?

That’s why it’s so important to blog about a topic you love - so it’s not a chore, but a favorite hobby. Of course, my favorite hobby is reading. So maybe I should just say bump it and center this blog around books I’m currently reading. Just a personal rant blog with no professional association whatsoever.

Then people can see all the trashy fiction I read. YAY!

I don’t know. It’s a thought. I set some goals for myself a month ago and am no closer to reaching them. It’s a huge weakness of mine - I love to set goals, just not see them through. Pretty frickin’ stupid really.

Wish me luck getting my shit in gear…

I love what I do with ProspectMX - Internet Marketing is fun and always innovative, so it’s hard to get bored. However, a big part of me is still with GMHV - so much so that I find myself sticking my nose into GMHV’s business probably more than I should. But hey, screw it, I went through a lot as a CS rep - and if I can make it so that others don’t go through as much, then good for me!

It helps that we all still work in the same building…lol, it’s always interesting! And it looks like GMHV is going to be hiring more account managers and what not, if the GetMyHomesValue.com Jobs On MySpace page I found is any indication.

It’s about time is all I have to say! We’ve finally got a great team of people over there, being agent advocates and doing everything in their power to ensure that our agents have success with our service…but there’s too few of them, and too many agents! Add a few more key people to the team, and we’re close to having what we’ve always strove for - the most superb customer service dept. in the biz, making GMHV a service agents don’t want to live without!

I guess the first thing I need to do is decide on my site theme and concept. I want this to be an online portfolio of my accomplishments of course, but what should my actual BLOG focus on? That’s the question…I want it to be something I’m interested in, something OTHERS are interested in, and something that I could eventually monetize b/c, let’s face it, I WOULD like to generate some kind of income with this site eventually.

Once I know the theme/direction the blog is going in, I can sit down, make sure this WP theme is right for me and really start learning all about Wordpress. I’m thinking I need to invest in a Wordpress for dummies and what not - I want to understand all the programming language, the CSS, everything that goes in to Wordpress. (Tall order much?) But if other people can do it, I KNOW I can. I’m a sharp girl and a fast learner - to the point where I sometimes surprise myself at how capable I am of learning things.

By the end of the summer my goals are to:

• Be proficient in wordpress, from user interface to actual css and programing.
• Have a theme for my site
• Have a portfolio of my work up on the site.

These are the things I’m interested in blogging about (at some point, I’ll probably have multiple blogs)

1. SEO, Internet Marketing, PPC - but my company ProspectMX, already focuses on that…so I really should just blog about that stuff on our blog
2. Going Green - I’m really in to the “going green” phenomena, how we can be more eco-friendly, etc, and that is a BIG thing right now.
3. Copywriting and Content Development - I love to write, and I’ve done a lot of writing for the web and some for print, so I think I could definitely have a professional writing type blog.
4. Dogs/Animals - I’m a big animal lover, dogs and wolves especially, and I would love to come up with a blog all about dogs, pets, tips, home remedies, etc.
5. Book, Movie & Music Reviews - I’m a HUGE fiction bookworm, as in, multiple books per week (I wish I could read non-fiction, self-educating books that fast) as well as a movie and music buff. I just don’t know how good I am at “reviewing”.
6. God, Jesus & My Spiritual Path - (Last on the list but first in my heart ALWAYS)I was saved in Jan ‘07, so my growing relationship with God and Jesus Christ is VERY important to me. I am FAR from a good Christian at this point, but I’m working on it and praying daily for Him to change me into what I’m meant to be. I have a lot of “aha” moments that I’d love to share in a blog - for others AND for myself to be able to revisit it.

I mean, c’mon - a bar graph? How many searches does it mean when the bar’s half way green? All the way green? Does all green = a million searches per month?  100,000 searches per month?

Or maybe somewhere there was a key or legend explaining that and in all my years of using this tool, I never realized.

Boy would I feel stupid.

Either way, nice job with the numerical data Google - it’s about time!

What’s up with that? Hopefully Google’s already on their next generation of spam filter to combat this latest strain of spammers that are getting emails on through.

It’s kinda weird that SEO and Spam can kind of be compared to viruses. You come up with a way to get links or two spam (that method is your “strain” of SEO or spam) and then the Doctor or Scientists (Google, or a webmaster, or whoever is on the receiving end of that strain) has to come up with a vaccine, or an antibiotic or medication of some sort to fight the strain - be it rank penalties, a twist in the algorithm, etc.  But then the strain mutates, gets stronger or more crafty and the “docs” have to tweak their medication to fight the new strain.

I love metaphors. They help you get a grasp on concepts that you might not easily grasp otherwise. Though the concept above isn’t exactly a groundbreaking, earth shadowing idea. Just an observation.

So c’mon Google, c’mon! Get that spamfilter tweaked, b/c ya’ll had me spoiled! Now I actually have to check the email off and hit that Spam button…TOO MUCH WORK! Ok, that’s a joke, I’m not THAT lazy…

For a while I was setting up Google adwords campaigns for lead gen pages we made, and let me tell you - I was doing it ALLLLL wrong. From keyword research to how I grouped my keywords together, I laugh about how little I knew about adwords even back in Jan of 08.

Now…well, now, I definitely know what’s going on, thanks in part to my boss Dave, our programmer Alex, our girl Ashley over at Google and of course…thanks to SpeedPPC.

SpeedPPC is a program you can purchase for $400 to $500 for 2 licenses. It is basically a program that allows you to build indepth and LARGE ppc campaigns for Google, Yahoo, and MSN in minutes (once you get the hang of it that is).

It’s especially useful for national campaigns that may have locations attached to them and campaigns in which you want to hit the long tail keywords so that your cpc is cheaper. For example, if I had a national real estate company, I COULD market the keyword “real estate agent” in the whole United States on Google, but that terms is COMPETITIVE. Highly competitive terms = HIGH cost per click minimums.

However, the phrase “real estate agent in lancaster pa” is not going to have nearly the same amount of competition as plain old real estate agent, therefore you’ll keep a lower cpc when bidding on THAT keyword.

SpeedPPC not only allows you to combine your seed keywords with expansion lists (like U.S. cities), it also allows you to dynamically generate the ad text based on the particular keyword a person searches for (which is always good for the quality score of your Google adwords at least.
Well, this was supposed to be a short post just letting everyone know about what a good product SpeedPPC is for those working on HUGE PPC campaigns, or campaigns in which you wish to incoporate cities and states into the keywords. For the above mentioned reasons and many more, SPeedPPC is great tool for anyone who’s going to be spending weeks and MONTHS on a ppc campiagn.