My Story As An Internet Pioneer …

This enigmatic place called the Internet sprung to view for me one unsuspecting day in early 1995.

To enter this strange vast-land, I learned that you had to have 2 things: a dial-up connection (which I had for email) and a web browser, whatever that is, I thought at the time.

My email provider CompuServe gave me that doorway to the Internet, bless them.

From there, I wasn’t sure where to go or what to look for. But I managed to search for something and somehow, magically, a list appeared of places called websites.

This place was a whole new world. And I just had to have one of those things called a website for my organizing business. I certainly didn’t know anyone personally who created such things, so I did what I just learned to do: search for it on the Internet.

I came across a website that said they design websites and I contacted them. They told me I had to have this thing called a domain, and told me how to get one of those.

So I went and got one at Network Solutions for $75.00 – and it was Organized-Living.com (later sold for $7,000 in 2008). I also thought I should have one for my company name, so I got HandyGirl.com too.

However, what I did was use the Organized-Living.com domain for my main website, which was to be a “portal” for my organizing services. Long story, not to be told here.

The web designer built a website for me, but then told me I had to have the website hosted, whatever that means!

He recommended a hosting service and then put my website on it (somehow, and I certainly wasn’t sure how he did that!).

Being the proud owner of a website now, I wanted to brag about that fact on anything I could – all my promo, my business cards, on flyers, you name it. After all, I was on the Internet and I wanted everyone to know about it!

A little later I learned I could also list my website in online web directories.

And so I did.

I seemed to be the only professional organizer with a website too. All my colleagues were so intrigued with the fact I had one, many of whom didn’t even have email yet.

As I watched my website traffic statistics diligently, I played a game with myself to double the traffic to my site each month. And boy, did I get excited when I saw that I had 1,000 unique visitors in such a short period of time. Where they all came from and who they were, I didn’t know, nor did I care!

By the end of the first year I had 10,000 unique visitors per month (and later, by the end of 2008 when Organized-Living.com was sold, the site was averaging 300,000 unique visitors per month with hundreds of inbound links to it).

After the first year my site was on the Internet however, I began to dislike the way my website looked and was ready to change it. I found out that I could do this myself if I had web design software.

So, I bought this web design software called Microsoft Frontpage.

I didn’t even have to know this thing called “HTML” (Hypertext Markup Language – the universal language of the Internet apparently). The software had the look and familiarity of Microsoft Word, and that was just fabulous in my book.

Soon after my learning curve was over in using the new software, I had a new web design. I was quite pleased with myself that I did this on my own. I was officially my own web designer now.

However, I did need help in replacing the old site with the new one on this strange service they called a web host provider. I had to get some sort of software known as “FTP” (File Transfer Protocol) software that enabled me to transfer my web pages to the web host.

Cool! Now I could view the Internet like I was viewing it from behind the scenes! I was totally a closet-techie!

As time moved on, my organizing colleagues became more inspired and were putting up websites of their own now. I knew this because more of them showed up in the online web directories, which was okay and didn’t feel threatening to me at all.

However I also realized that now I not only had competition in the “real world”, but competition on the Internet too. Now life was getting even more interesting.

So I pumped up my efforts to stay a step ahead of this new competition. I had, after all, been playing the game longer than they had.

I found places on the Internet that submits your website to hundreds of web directories at once easily and quickly. So, I listed my company in hundreds of other web directories.

I found digital communities, like UseNet, to get involved in. And soon thereafter, I found out about this thing called “a Blog”.

I wasn’t by any means the first Blogger, but I’m pretty sure I was an early one. I believe the Blogger service began in 1999, and I think I got aboard shortly thereafter.

One day I received an unusual call. The person said they found my website on the Internet and were interested in my services.

Holy moses, I felt like someone just told me that I won $10,000!

I managed to stay cool and calm as I set the appointment with this new client who found me on the Internet.

As time moved on, and more organizers were vying for the same attention on the Internet, I was still holding the number 1 position in search results for “professional  organizers.”

To hold that position, I learned more and more “tricks” and avenues to promote my website on the Internet. I decided to bring in my knowledge of marketing in general as further ammunition for my web promotion efforts.

By this time I had been utilizing every new trick in the book when it came to marketing on the Internet. I was sending out press releases online, submitting articles to article syndication sites, and partaking in anything I found as a resource to get more attention.

And, because I liked to  tinker around with the design of my website, I kept re-designing, adding more content, and improving the look of it as often as I got tired of looking at my furniture arrangement.

I kept myself up to date with anything new relating to marketing my website on the Internet. So now, I was not only a great web designer, but a great Internet marketer…an Internet “guru” or what I liked to call myself, the “Internet Queen.”

As time rolled forward, I felt like I ruled the Internet. I was what people called “Internet savvy.”

I continued to maintain my #1 position in search results, and never considered that this could change.

But it did.

The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) put up a website and quickly took my #1 spot for “professional organizers”.

I didn’t take offense to this, however I was curious how they jumped up to that spot so fast when other organizing businesses had failed to bump my spot.

The fact that me and all the other online organizers were now linking to NAPO’s new website should have been my first clue, dear Watson. But this analysis came later for me.

So, in my constant quest and thirst for more info on web marketing, I continued researching any latest and greatest Website promotion tactics.

Somehow, within the opulent territories of the Internet, experts were popping up giving advice on internet marketing techniques that I had not known about before. How they learned these things, I don’t know. And where did they come from anyway? I wondered.

Many of them started talking about this thing called SEO and algorithms that search engines used to place websites higher up in search results. They were speaking an unfamiliar language but I knew I had to understand it.

All this was different than just listing my site on as many web directories as I could. The new tactics involved something called code.

My head began to spin, but eventually I came to understand the language and what this SEO stuff was all about. Heck, I was just a professional organizer trying to stay ahead, and now I was in another world when it came to marketing my business online.

Then along came Friendster around 2002, and my daughter was on the Internet making friends. They called this place a social network and she was having a blast.

I had no purpose to be among that young crowd however, but when she moved from Friendster to a place called MySpace, I decided it was time for me to jump on the bandwagon (if for any other reason besides spying on my grown up kid).

About a year later, a more business-like social network came to view, and that was LinkedIn. I joined that right away and began engaging with friends I already knew. (The fact that they were there before me was a bit disturbing, but I lived with it).

Then another social network for causes popped up called Ryze (now something else), and so I joined that and set up my own groups to use as a way to promote my  business.

Engaging with people was great, and I was also doing that in message boards (or forums) too.

When I began seeing promo emails that looked like a web page with graphics on it instead of just text, well, I had to know how to do that, of course.

As the Internet improved this thing called bandwidth so web pages could load faster, and most of us now had DSL for faster Internet connection, more things came into play – like videos playing over at the new kid on the block – YouTube. I think we’re in the year 2005 now.

You know I had to have me one of those. And so I produced my first video (also a DVD) and put that up on one of my websites.

You see, by now I had purchased several (many) other domain names for marketing and other business purposes, and designing websites for these. Yes, I was becoming quite an Internet entrepreneur.

As more time moved on, I never stopped learning. I never stopped marketing. I never stopped re-designing my site. And I never stopped using new methods to get results.

Today, on this 3rd day of February 2011, my organizing business is holding the #1 position in Google’s organic search results (out of 150,000 search results for “professional organizers Los Angeles”). And, for the keyword phrase “professional organizers”, my company is #4, with my online training academy beating this ranking in the #3 spot.

(click for full view)

And now today I have 4 companies – my professional organizing business, a web design business, a video production business, and an internet marketing business.

The one thing they all have in common is that they all have to be marketed.

And so, I continue to spend my days on the Internet.

Yours truly,

Cyndi Seidler