$11.98 -  Register your own dot com web address / domain name (DomainDiscover.com pricing)  – forwarding you domain name to your free WordPress.com blog is currently FREE.

FREE -  Your own FREE WordPress web site.  Note you will want a custom banner – if you know Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Paint or Corel Draw you can do this yourself fairly quickly.

$5 – $25 -  Initial order of professionally printed business cards (OvernightPrints.com pricing)  or produce them yourself at Federal Express Kinko’s Office locations, Staples, Office Depot, etc.  Give people something of value to remember who you are, what you do and how to contact you.

FREE – Twitter account for your career or business letting people know where you will be appearing.  Include it on your business cards, web sites and signs.

$5 – $50+ -  Signs for public events, shop prices carefully.  Federal Express and Staples currently print full color 11 inch by 17 inch tabloid size paper signs for about $2 each.  Lamination costs vary, add cutting costs if the location does not have a high quality, self service roto trimmer.

Total Cost:  $25 – $50+ for your own DIY Marketing Machismo Makeover What’s stopping you, why not get started now?

Stories Sell – brief, beautiful biographies, vision or mission statements describing who you are and why you do what you do the way you do add distinctive, personal touches that build bonds with prospects and customers.

Remember the old marketing adage, Differentiate or Die?  People buy from people.  Sharing your story helps sell your work.

Copyright © 1999 -      Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Explore and Enjoy Happiness Habits!

Check out OvernightPrints.com – we think they offer the lowest cost, highest quality, best deal in business cards and post cards available in the U.S.

They also do a very nice job on business cards.

And NO, we do NOT have an affiliate deal, we make NO money from what you buy.

If you want to see this card in a larger size, visit our Happiness Habit web site and find the link that says…

Print your own Happiness Habit cards!

Copyright © 1999 -     Michele Moore.  All Rights Reserved.  Marketing Machismo is a Happiness Habit® company.

Let people know who you are, what you do and how to reach you.

Publicize your web site,  Twitter account, email address, telephone number and sales message.

These eye catching umbrella signs are fast, flexible, durable, inexpensive, light weight, durable, easy to produce, change and customize to your activities and appearances.

Warning – Be sure to test your signs on a windy day before you use them to make the signs stay secure!

Here’s how…

Find inexpensive, light weight beach umbrellas that match your professional or business brand colors.  Big box retailers sell them in early summer so look for them then or check yard sales.

Open up the umbrella and measure the distance between the spokes along the bottom hem – This gives you the length of the sign you need to create.

If the distance works out to be too long or too short for your signs, you can make adjustments with rubber bands, pieces of elastic, cutting down the sign length or by changing the ways you clip the signs to the umbrella.

Most umbrellas in the U.S. will use signs printed on 11 inch by 17 inch tabloid paper which is an inexpensive, standard large size.  You can construct signs in any dimensions but sticking to standard sizes cuts costs.

Use a drawing program like Adobe’s Photoshop, Microsoft Paint or Corel Draw to lay out your signs. You  can often put several signs on a single 11 by 17 page.

Print your signs on a color printer and cut them to size so you have plenty of room on the edges for the clips to grip them. Laminate the signs using standard tabloid size 11 inch by 17 inch laminating sheets.

In the United States, Staples and Federal Express Office locations can print, cut and laminate your signs inexpensively.  Some locations are self service, others do it for you if you describe exactly what you want.

Lamination makes your signs water proof and durable.  You can cut larger signs down, but be sure the laminated edges stay sealed to protect the sign.

If you are in a rush, use plastic clothes pins to clip your signs to the umbrella.

Here is a new source of much larger, stronger clips that grasp much tighter and work better in outdoor conditions:

Super Clever Clips – swivel clips with a super strong grip.  No 1565 From:  Better Houseware Corp. Long Island City, New York 11101

I like a more polished, professional look so I’ll show how to use two sizes of inexpensive plastic clips to secure your signs to the umbrella.  Try to buy these clips locally because the shipping cost often exceeds the price of the clips.

Sources for these clips are shown below.  You can slide the clips directly over the umbrellas spokes or if you need more length, loop a couple of rubber bands or a piece of elastic around the spokes and through the clips to extend the reach.

Warning!  On a breezy afternoon in Union Square the clips shown below did not grip or hold the slick laminated signs well – the signs flew off in a heavy gust of wind.  Grommets or double sided sticky tape on the signs may help or share your ideas in the comments sections below.

Be sure to test your signs beforehand in a strong breeze to be sure they stay secure! Little pieces of double sided foam sticky tape strengthen the grip.

Once you know how to make them, these eye catching umbrella signs can add timely, topical pizazz to your appearances and  activities.

Very best wishes,

Michele Moore
404-934-1755
HappinessHabit.com
MarketingMachismo.com

Linked to your own LOW COST WEB ADDRESS, your free blog looks very much like many professionally designed web sites.  MarketingMachismo.com is an example of such a FREE site.

Publicize your Business, Enhance Your Career, Communicate with Family & Friends, Share A Special Interest at NO COST!

You don’t need expensive software, monthly service charges or a lot of time or training.  Bring up your first website just like this in about an hour.  We’ll explain how to add your own LOW COST WEB ADDRESS in a separate listing.

Why not give it a try? Make a mistake?  Delete it and start over at no cost…

Go to WordPress.com – Explore the site. 

Find the heading: Express yourself. Start a  Blog. Sign Up Now

Follow the instructions to start a new FREE blog.

Be sure to confirm the new site by answering the email sent to the email address you input during the sign up.  Don’t worry, you can delete it at any time and they do NOT send you spam!

Begin playing with the blog, see how postings and pages work.  Add some photos to your posting.

Note that Postings appear chronologically by date down the home page unless you change the order.  Pages usually appear on a special section on the right hand side of the blog.

Play around and start adding content to a Posting – your contact information, links to special information you place on Pages, whatever you want to share with the world.

Go to Appearance and test out some different Themes - see how different Themes change the look and feel of your blog.

Custom Banner Headers – the graphics on top of the site (in our case the Marketing Machismo name and tag line on top of the green money) set the tone, look and feel of the site.

You will want to develop your own custom header with your name, photograph and an attractive background to advertise your business or profession.

When you are in the Appearance > Themes section, search on the words: custom header – this will give you all the themes that allow you to upload your own special custom header.  Note that different themes require different sized custom headers.  MarketingMachismo.com uses the MistyLook theme.

When you have decided on a theme you like, use a graphics program like Microsoft Paint or Adobe PhotoShop to create your own custom header in the size that theme requires.

Your custom header may be a photograph cropped to the right size with your name and contact information in an attractive typeface.  You can change your custom banner as often as you wish.

Be sure to put key information in writing on the pages so search engines like Google can find you! Search engines cannot “read” graphics or photographs, they need typed text on a page.

If you are familiar with graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw or Microsoft Paint, you will can develop and change your custom header quickly and easily.

You will want to play around with how the text looks on the page to grab your viewer’s interest and give them the information they need quickly and easily.

You now have you own FREE web site to expand and enjoy as you wish!!!

Michele Moore
HappinessHabit.com

Do you want a FREE, Professional Looking Website, Without Obnoxious Advertising, that is Easy To Maintain, that you can change Quickly and Easily from any internet connected PC, even one in a public library?

See directions for FREE WEB SITES (MarketingMachismo.com is an example of a free WordPress.com site.)

Want Your Own Dot Com Domain Name Web Address (Like MarketingMachismo.com)  linking to your FREE WEB SITE that you can also use for email to establish yourself and/or your company right now?  See LOW COST WEB ADDRESSES (NO tricks, it’s registered in YOUR name.)

FREE Office Software – Open Source equivalent of Microsoft Office in MANY languages at  OpenOffice.org

BE FOUND – See GOOGLE WISDOM for links to what Google says to do to be found by their search engines.  

Inexpensive UMBRELLA SIGNS broadcast your name, web address, Twitter account, special events and sales at eye level.  See UMBRELLA SIGNS below.

Marketing Machismo shares simple, INEXPENSIVE ways to publicize your business and career. If you like what we do, link to us and to our Happiness Habit parent site.

If you have trouble or need help with these ideas, Contact Us - we may help you for free or for a small fee.

Michele Moore – HappinessHabit.com

• You can forward your domain name to any web site.  You can start with a free WordPress.com blog and then move to a conventional web site  by redirecting your domain name to the new site.

• You can create many professional email addresses and they can be forwarded to other email accounts – even Yahoo if that’s what you normally use.  Every time someone types in and sends you an email they will be reminded of you and your company name.

• You can forward or copy your email to your email address at your current employer (this may not always be a wise idea.)  If you change jobs often, you change the forwarding and your email follows you!

• Isn’t it much more impressive to see an email address like  johndoe@yourcompanyname.com rather than johnd1971@yahoo.com?

BEWARE of TRICKS - Some dishonest web registrars actually register web domain names in their own name – not yours.  That means even though you have paid for it, they own your domain name.

Look for the best package of features, support, forwarding flexibilities and capabilities.  That may not always be the least expensive yearly cost, but the difference is usually only a few dollars a year.

Beware of low cost or free domain names that come with a monthly cost for a web site or other products.

If you are in the U.S., we have found that DomainDiscover.com offers the best combination of price and features for both domain name registration and email forwarding and they have good telephone technical support.

Before you begin, check to see if the domain name you want is already registered. Type it into your browser and see what happens.  Or check the InterNIC-WhoIs -  http://www.internic.net/whois.html listing.

Keep searching until you find an easy, memorable combination that is available.  You can often hyphenate words to get what you want – we did this for the Happiness-Campaign.com, Creating-Happiness.com and Healthy-Happiness.com sites.

To register your domain name you will need a credit card.

Go to DomainDiscover.com and open an account.  Please enter:  happinesshabit  where it says referred by, someday we may get credit for your business.

Domain Discover changes their page looks frequently so we will give general instructions here:

To Forward Your Domain, look for the Advanced Settings – Web Service heading and choose the Frame Forward or the Redirect my Domain Name to an existing URL option.

Follow the instructions and input the name of your WordPress blog which is usually yourblogname.wordpress.com

Be sure to enter the descriptions and key word fields – these help search engines like Google find your site.

To Forward or Create Email Accounts look for the Advanced Settings – Email Service and look for Add New Email Service – Select Email Forward and hit Add.  A new window will appear, put int the new email account information.

Note that you can set up email addresses say johndoe@yourcompanyname.com and forward mail to any existing accounts you are currently using like yahoo.com or gmail.com

It all may seem a bit boggling when you first begin, but the instructions are clear and straight forward.

You’ll be able to forward your domain name to your new blog and create email addresses and forward them, (even to multiple accounts) fairly quickly.  You can even give you mother or friends email addresses at yourcompanyname.com to help advertise your activities.

All for about a dollar a month!!!

Good luck and have fun!

Michele Moore and the
Happiness Habit Team

1) Google Yourself with the search terms your customers, clients or prospect would use.  If you can’t find your site, they won’t be able to either.

2) Choose appropriate, memorable domain names: choose web addresses/domain names that are easy to remember and describes YOU.

3)  Learn about SEO – Search Engine Optimization – the tools and tricks that make it easier for big search engines like Google or Yahoo to find you.  Some search engines allow you to submit your site, others find you.  The more sites that link to your site, the higher your ranking with the search engines.

4) Add Meta Tags “description” and “keywords” to your header
The “description” tag is especially important – it appears after your domain name in Google’s search results.  The “keywords” tag helps search engines define what search words will find on your site.

Here’s what the header code looks like:
<head>
<title>Marketing Machismo – Million Dollar Marketing for Shoe String Budgets</title>
<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”shoe string marketing, guerilla marketing, michele moore, happiness habit” />
<meta name=”description” content=”Million dollar marketing for shoe string budgets – Making building your brand, image and marketing fun, easy and inexpensive!” />
</head>

* If you are using a free WordPress blog with a Domain Discover web address /domain name like MarketingMachismo.com, the “keywords” and “description” meta tags are added on the Domain Discover Frame Forwarding page.

View Code: You can view code for any web site by clicking Page in Internet Explorer and choosing View Source.  If you are using FireFox, right click on the page and choose Page Source.  A new window with the code should appear.

Remember the world wide web is a huge place and there are billions of existing sites, links and domain names.

To Verify Your Website and Domain Name - See the Tools section on the left hand side of the WordPress Dashboard  and follow the instructions below:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/webmaster-tools/
http://www.onkarjoshi.com/blog/130/add-site-owner-verification-code-for-a-free-wordpress-com-blog/

In your Google Webmaster Tools area, find Verify A Site, highlight the meta tag code and paste it into the code section in the Tools menu like this  and hit save. Then try to verify your domain name from your Google Webmaster Tool menu.

Include A Site Map – Free WordPress blogs automatically have Google sitemaps enabled, but you have to tell your Google Webmaster account to look for them.  On your Google Webmaster dashboard, on the left side click Site Configuration then Sitemaps. Click Submit a sitemap and type in sitemap.xml  and submit it.  See: http://en.support.wordpress.com/sitemaps/

Here is some more Wisdom from Google:

Google – Submit Your Content
http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/index.html

Google Webmaster Central
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

There are many more sites – Google and explore them at your convenience.