It's been about three weeks since my last post on here and it's so baffling how quickly time passes us by. During my time away, I've made more progress on SetApartMedia.com, avoided falling behind on college assignments, and earned my first credentials in the SEO field.

These things wouldn't have been possible for me without mustering the courage for me to say no to things that don't help me achieve my goals. Whether it's extra tasks from my boss's boss, job offers on LinkedIn, or invitations to join a campus club, I'm beginning to realize that not all opportunities are created equal.

There is a battle going on for my time, and there are so many temptations to be distracted. I have a white marker board that lists 6 or my top priorities which I wrote more than 6 months ago! Every time I feel as if I have no direction, I look at my list of priorities and it helps me to sort out what's most important.

Ultimately, every habit; every task; every relationship that I engage in will either help me get closer to my goals or will push me farther away. The most important thing is that I remain honest with myself and not allow justifications and excuses for mediocrity.
"One step; one task; one day;
one experience at a time."

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My first website, Peace and Poetry (peaceandpoetry.com) has been around for years. It's gone through many layout changes, a few logo designs, an entire rebranding, etc., and for what? Part of it was just a learning experience. The site was my first venture in the world of graphic design, web design, and all that stuff. Everything I know now about website management– hosting, domains, CSS/HTML, CMS platforms (the list goes on)– all stemmed from Peace and Poetry. That was the catalyst.

However, in the grand scheme of things, search engine optimization is relatively new to me. Up until a year ago, SEO was not a concept that I consciously though about, let alone could even tell you what the acronym meant. Nine websites later, I finally see the importance of having a good SEO strategy to reach the audiences that I intend to reach for myself and for clients.

This past week I have been performing site audits on peaceandpoetry.com and the site's optimization is mediocre at best. There are years worth of images without alt tags, content without keywords, and, I admit, the homepage could be a little more thoughtful. I'm thinking about transitioning the site from the wordpress.com to wordpress.org platform (to save money) and to then start hashing out this SEO disaster which would be quite the project…

My most recent post on peaceandpoetry.com, titled: "Peace and Poetry: What's the point?" generated a lot of traffic. What made this post stand out as it did? Perhaps it was the use of new tags or the fast that I wrote it with SEO in mind. Surely these things played a role in it but I'd venture to say that the most important attribute was vulnerability.

When writing, or creating any type of content, people can sense whether it's genuine or not.
Not only is it good SEO practice to create human-focused, organic content, but it also opens the door for genuine connections.

Saludos to those who struggle with being vulnerable,

~Jermonté

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I've recently encountered that feeling again where I feel like I'm just faking life. Surely it stems from my subconscious tendency to doubt my own abilities. Even when clients verbally express the value they gain from speaking with me, I still have a hard time accepting it. A couple weeks ago, someone called me a guru and I laughed… I guess it's all about perspective.

On the flip side, I'm currently going through the price negotiation phase with another client. One question I received via email turned into an unintentional competitive analysis of her local industry. During my investigation, I discovered that some of the businesses she's up against pay to "steal [their] competitors' traffic" which is kinda messed up, but not surprising. The transportation industry is a dirty game.

I have some ideas for how we can bypass even her largest competitors without the need for shady practices (because I'm not about that), but it all depends on how proactive she wants to be in her business marketing strategy.

Apart from all that, the blog (setapartmedia.com) is coming along well. I've been making some changes to the site copy as I get a better idea of the direction I want to go. I decided that my target audience will be business owners and my posts will focus on the typical things they encounter when managing their websites. Hopefully I'll have my first post published this week!

Saludos to those who experience "Imposter Syndrome,"

~Jermonté

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