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| Amazing life-like sculpture in the town square of Newark, Ohio. Yes, we had a lovely conversation!! |
Hello from Ohio! Ted and I visiting friends and touring Amish country. So we are taking a break this week!
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| The office building of Longaberger baskets. Gorgeous baskets. The building is empty now. Such a shame. Do you have the high-quality basket in your collection? |
Have a fantastic week! I'll see you next Wednesday!!
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| Tools and Tidbits for Writers #toolsandtidbitsforwriters by JQ Rose |
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| Keywords Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay |
Keywords are very, very, very, very important for readers to discover your books, blogs, writings and your book descriptions at online booksellers. These words are words people type into the Google search bar to find sites/books related to what they are looking for. These words are the targets used in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program.
SEO is a robot (bot) that combs thru every page of every thing online. When it spots a keyword like "cozy mystery" (yes, a keyword can be more than one word and can be a "long-tail" keyword,( a string of words e.g. a cozy mystery located in Michigan), the bot recognizes it when someone types "cozy mystery" into the search box. When your keyword pops up, the SEO bot directs the searcher to your book.
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| Keywords and information from the search word box |
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| Related keywords and People Also Search For keywords are also available on the right side of the page! |
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| Insecure Writer's Blog Hop |
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| Question mark Photo courtesy of geralt / 23304 images at Pixabay |
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| Memoirs and More |
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| Arranging a Dream: A Memoir by J.Q.Rose |
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| Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women by J.Q.Rose |
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| Long and Short Reviews 14th Anniversary Party |
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| The Rose Courier |
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| Book Hooks--excerpts from novels |
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| Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose Romantic suspense |
Lauren Staab knew there would be dead
bodies around when she returned home. After all, her family is in the funeral
business, Staab and Blood Funeral Home. Still, finding an extra body on the
floor of the garage between the hearse and the flower car shocked her. Lauren’s
plan to return to her hometown to help care for her mother and keep the books
for the funeral home suddenly turns upside down in a struggle to prove she and
her family are not guilty of murdering the man. But
will the real killer return for her, her dad, her brother? Her mother’s
secrets, a killer, a handsome policeman and a shadow man muddle up her
intention to have a simple life. Welcome home, Lauren!
EXCERPT:
What you need to know--The excerpt begins after Lauren ushered the "loved one's" family out the door after the visitation that evening. After they left, Gary, the police officer who was her childhood friend, shows up to check the house to be sure no bad guy sneaked in during the visitation for the public. Henry is the shadow man who seems to show up at the wrong times. Lauren's mother is in the memory care unit in the nursing home.
"You don’t need to prove how brave you are or offer any opportunity for someone to take advantage of a situation. You could be in extreme danger.”
“That’s what I thought we had you guys for, to protect us.” She folded her arms across her chest.
Locking his gaze on her, he said, “We can’t always be in the right place at the right time. So don’t give the bad guys any openings, okay?”
“Duly noted, Officer.” She could hear the concern in his voice, and she liked it. “Got time for a cup of coffee? I’ll make some fresh while you check out the house.”
“That sounds good. Let me take a look around.”
“Great. I’ll meet you in the family room. That’s where the coffee pot is.” He walked through the living room, checking for some creepy guy hiding behind the curtains she supposed.
Lauren hummed as she made yet another pot of coffee, but this time it was for her and Gary. She was looking forward to chatting with him and catching up. As she measured the water into the carafe, the temperature in the room dropped, and she sneezed three times, a sure sign Henry was lurking nearby.
“Hi Henry.” She never turned away from the counter. “Nice of you to wait till the family left for the evening. But Gary’s here now. No need for you to stay around, right?” Lauren caught his shadow out of the corner of her eye.
“I guess you’re right. Bad timing on my part. I don’t want to interrupt your rendezvous with your old sweetheart.” Henry bowed low, then stood and leaned on his umbrella. Lauren chuckled as she faced Henry straight on.
“Gary’s not an old sweetheart. He was a good friend in high school though. We were very close especially since he could work out those trig problems for me.”
“Oh, I guess I was mistaken. I thought you two were a couple.”
“Say what?” She wrinkled her nose at the thought. She and Gary, a couple? She put her finger to her chin to think about that. Well, he does look pretty sharp in his uniform, broad shoulders, and those eyes. Somehow the nerdy boy with the big glasses and zitty face had evolved into a muscular cop.
Henry interrupted her thoughts. “How was your mother today?”
“About the same. Still confused. But she remembers me, Henry. I’m hanging on to that. She still remembers me, but she doesn’t remember that Dad goes every day to visit her. I wonder if she doesn’t know him.”
“Oh, sorry, Lauren.” Was that Gary’s voice? Lauren spun around to see him standing in the doorway. As he walked into the room, he said, “I heard you talking to someone, so I thought I’d better check in.”
He looked around and returned her gaze with questions in his eyes. Her face flushed with embarrassment.
“Oh, uh, no. Nobody’s here. Just me talking to myself, I guess.” She searched Gary’s face to see if he bought it. Definitely a better explanation than telling him she was talking to a shadow.
“Come on in. The coffee should be ready in a minute.” Lauren motioned Gary to have a seat on the couch in the family room.
“I’ll be back after I check out the garage.” Gary smiled. “I take it black.”
“Oh, yeah, ok, the coffee.”
Her palm smacked her forehead with the knowledge Gary must have heard her talking to Henry. She glanced at the shadow and smiled back at him through clenched teeth.
Gary turned his back and headed down the hallway to the garage.
She felt as if Henry could see the steam escaping from her ears. She was so angry at that cocky shadow for staying to watch and see how she was going to explain her talking to him.
“Talking to yourself. That was good.” Henry stood up straight. “You’re pretty quick on your feet.”
“Henry,” she hissed in a whisper. “Go away. I don’t need you around here tonight. I have company,”
“I guess it’s a bad time for us to have a talk now that Lover Boy is here.”
Lauren bit her lip so she couldn’t yell at the annoying Henry. She certainly didn’t want Gary to hear her give that shadow a piece of her mind or he’d be back in a second with more questions.
Squeezing her eyes tightly closed, she said, “You’d better be gone when I open my eyes.” Not that she could do anything if he didn’t leave. Lauren squinted through her right eye. Not seeing the shadow, she opened both eyes wide and swept the room, sighing with relief. At that moment the basket full of sugar packets flew off the table onto the floor.
“Henry!” She couldn’t stop herself from yelling his name out loud. He didn’t respond. He had slipped through the slice of time into another dimension.
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Click the link below to download your copy of Deadly Undertaking from your favorite online bookseller.
Dear Friends, I am taking a break this week, but I will catch up with you this weekend! Have a great blog hop!! J
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↪Click here to visit bloggers participating in the #MFRWhooks Blog Hop!
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| Tools and Tidbits for Writers #toolsandtidbitsforwriters by JQ Rose What IS SEO? by J.Q. Rose Using SEO in your blog posts is like using a GPS to direct readers to your site. Popular keywords are used to drive readers to your website when readers put a keyword you use to describe your site or article in the search engine. The link to your post will be seen by readers wanting to learn about the information related to that keyword. Your ranking in the search engine improves every time someone clicks on your keyword hopefully landing you on the front page or at least one of the first pages of Google.com or other search engines. Think about how you would talk to your friend about the article you just finished (or your book, short story or product). Use words you naturally use and ones your readers would use when searching for a topic. Let's try "author resources" as the keyword--yes, you can use more than one word. In fact, I have heard contrary discussions about the length of keywords. I choose words that sound natural and that are short and to the point.  Notice how many links related to authors resources pop up. Can you see how SEO will drive traffic to your website if you can find the right keywords to use? How do you find popular keywords that increase Search Engine Optimization? The secret to finding words that readers look for is simple and free. Popular keyword research tools are Google, Amazon, Youtube, and/or Pinterest. Place a topic you are writing about in your blog post in the search box. The predictive text will give you searches made with that word. An example: Talking about keywords like I am today, I typed "keyword" into the search box on Google. The predicted word or phrases show up because users have selected these words to find articles and videos on the topic.  To make my blog post about keywords turn up on a Google page, I should include some of these words and phrases that came up when typing "keyword" into the search box. These have been used by folks searching for information about that topic. *Look back through this article to see if I snuck any of the suggestions in places where they are unobtrusive. You can't put keywords everywhere so they become obvious and annoying to the reader. *Don't overload your copy with the keywords, but add them where it's natural such as in the title of your post, subtitle and a few times in the article. And of course, in Blogger, labels are keywords to direct readers to your site. *Don't be afraid to try out adding keywords to improve the SEO for your online works. After 3 or 4 months of using keywords, see if you see an increase in traffic to your site. You may also like to go back to older posts that received a lot of interest and add keywords to get even more traffic. I hope I have simplified this complex method of getting readers to your website. If you have questions, please ask in the comments below. If you have information to add on SEO or keywords, please do so in the comment section. I'd appreciate that and so would the readers. Check out these articles below for more information and search for educational articles and videos using your favorite search engine. Click here for How to Use Keywords on Your Site by Nate Shivar. Click here for What Does SEO Stand For by William Alexander This post originally appeared on this blog in May 2019. ***
TODAY! Girls Succeed! is now available in a new, updated and revised edition, including new content! AND it is now in print! Yes, that eliminates the interactive attraction, but my 12-year-old granddaughter wanted the book in print. So, I gave in. NOW! The eBook and Paperback to inspire girls to dream big are ready for girls 10+ and older. EVEN BETTER! During this launch period, the eBook is only 99 cents! Click here to download it from your favorite online bookseller. Click here to order the paperback for the girl in your life.
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| Insecure Writer's Blog Hop |
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| Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women Non-fiction biographies of 16 contemporary role models for girls 10+ years old |
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| Meet these contemporary role models in Girls Succeed! a book to empower middle-grade girls |
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Amazing life-like sculpture in the town square of Newark, Ohio. Yes, we had a lovely conversation!! Hello from Ohio! Ted and I visiting fr...
