There is a new face in the Austin Personal Training scene, and he happens to be my brother. Brian Morris just finished his certification from PFTA here in Austin. He will soon be starting as a personal trainer on some lucky gym’s staff, but is also looking for clients.

Most personal trainers are all about finding the young people looking to prepare for bikini season, but Brian is hoping to reach people of all levels of life and fitness. We come from a family with a history of obesity, so Brian and I both know adversity when it comes to weight loss. He is even working with our mom right now. She has gone through a gastric bypass and thyroid cancer, making for an interesting combination of fitness and nutritional needs. No situation is too difficult with someone this dedicated to a healthier life for everyone.

For example, he wants to reach the baby boomers that want a better quality of life, not a beach body. Keeping up with grandchildren and traveling the world (that hike up St. Paul’s Cathedral in London is 1000+ steps!) are their goals.

I am very excited about this new part of Brian’s life because I can not only aide in this new venture, but it’s awesome to see him this excited about his career. Brian really does love helping people with their fitness goals. He has been telling me every week for the past 9 weeks about what he is learning in class and helping me change my habits for the better. (yes Brian, intervals are what I need to do, I’m working on it)

So as promised, if you are in Austin, and always wanted to work with a personal trainer, let me know. I’ll get you the hook up. *wink wink, nudge nudge*

A New Austin Personal Trainer is a post from: Kate Morris

What is the hunt? Raven started this game in which they hide clues across the interwebs. The clues are on their site and other Search Marketing blogs. They did one hunt last month (I was lame and didn’t participate that time), and the newest one just started yesterday.

The Second Clue is being released today at 1pm CDT.

Don’t think you can’t participate because you’re a day or two behind though. The other clues are still out there for you to find. And it ain’t over until the Raven is Found! This contest is open to everyone, not just search marketers, and you can join in any day. Oh, wanna know what you can win?An Apple iPad.

RavenHunt Quick Facts:

• RavenHunt is free for anyone and you can start playing at any time
• There are two RavenHunt clues released each day (Be Sure to Get Both!!)
• The object of RavenHunt is to collect the secret letters you find when you solve riddles
• On Friday, the second RavenHunt clue will include a form for you to input the unscrambled secret word
• You need to follow Raven’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to be updated on when clues are released

RavenHunt Prizes

First Place:

• Apple iPad
• 1 year Pro subscription to Raven
• Premium Membership to Search Engine Land
• Copy of The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg
• Copy of Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik
• Official RavenHunt t-shirt

Second Place:

• 6 month Pro subscription to Raven
• Official RavenHunt t-shirt

3rd-10th Places:

• Official RavenHunt t-shirt

Join The RavenHunt is a post from: Kate Morris

I have been saying that this is the year I would travel for me, do all the things I have been meaning to do, but couldn’t do while in class. I went skiing in Breckenridge in January, went to Seattle in February, and decided to make a road trip to Winnipeg, Canada in March.

You see, a flight from Austin to Winnipeg is really expensive! There are few airlines that make the trek at all, and it requires so many connections, it’s almost worth the drive. A few months out, I had decided to look into ticket prices, $700 at minimum, and they stayed that way. I calculated the gas required and it came out to $400 round trip. But driving is boring, and it’s 1500 miles one way up to Winnipeg.

Two things pushed me to do the trip. One was the fact that my brother mentioned he always wanted to go to Canada. And on top of that, one of my friend’s (Lyndsay Walker) birthday was coming up. That was it, I was going. But I wasn’t going to tell Lyndsay, it was a surprise.

The road trip was fine … please note though, Kansas=Nebraska=South Dakota=North Dakota. There is no change in the scenery on Interstate 29. That was until we got to Fargo, and thought we were in Florida. The fields were so flooded, it looked like we were in the swamps of Florida, for real. It was all due to the amount of snow melting. And I drove through a snow storm in my mustang. *almost had a heartattack*

The real story starts when we get to the Canadian border. It was 9:30pm on Friday night. I had our passports out and ready. He hadn’t done this before, but I’ve flown into other countries tons of times. Really annoying questions, not happy border agents, and a few sideways glances, and we’d be on our way. Okay, so maybe a car search, we did drive from that southern state. We might have drugs, what do they know? So when we were handed our passports back and asked to pull over, I figured that was it.

Nope.

The border agent not only told us to wait in the car, which was wrong, but we had to answer the questions again by an immigration officer. And can I mention how much I didn’t wanna get out of the car? You do NOT move when crossing borders unless they ask you to. I was so afraid of being arrested for getting out of my car!

The immigration officer was terse, but normal. She made assumptions about my brother’s life I wasn’t happy with, but then the kicker came. Had either one of us ever been arrested? Well I am lame, so no. I haven’t ever been. My brother on the other hand … well there was one small problem.

In 2003, he wrote a check for self storage and it bounced because he closed the account a few months later. The bank nor the  storage place mentioned this to him for a year. S0 2004 rolls around, and he gets a notice about the check. When going down to take care of it, the county court house officer tells him there is a warrant, and that he needs to be processed. Let me mention now, this was a $40 check.

So not knowing what was going on, he paid all the fines, and agreed to one year of probation. June 21, 2005 was the end of the probation period. Since he knew that there was a Class C Mideameanor on his record, he told the immigration officer. The look on her face gave it all away. He wasn’t allowed into Canada. Oh and it was recorded as a Class B Misdemeanor. Thanks Tom Green County.

But I was more than welcome to leave him at a hotel and go over myself. But who does that??? Really???

I spent hours (after the hour drive back to the nearest town) on the Internet, and sure enough, any criminal record is grounds for denial of entry to Canada. The only way around it was a waiver (only during the week between 8-4pm) or a “Criminal Rehabilitation” process. That would take weeks and court documents. And the process can only be complete 5 years after the end of the sentence. I’ll wait for you to count … June 21, 2010. Yep, even during the week there was no hope. All because of a misplaced check in 2003. *sigh*

I got Lyndsay to write a Letter of Invitation, and we tried ONE more time the next day. Didn’t work but the officer this time was much nicer. We never lied and they understood why we had to try again.

So three car searches later (2 US, 1 Canadian), 2 background checks, and a few hours with Lyndsay and Lyndon Reid in Grand Forks, ND, we turned around and headed back south. Thankfully, the trip wasn’t a total loss. We got to see Lyndon and Lyndsay, and stopped in Missouri to see some old family friends.

Now for the process of getting this stupid thing off his record. No, not going through rehabilitation, this thing needs to be GONE.

And to the US and Canadian Border Offices. GET ALONG! Stop giving decent citizens on both sides shit for no reason. This was just as stupid as Lyndsay’s denial to the US. I know we are all about border safety, but really? A bounced $40 check? 7 years ago?

Canadian Rejects Road Trip is a post from: Kate Morris

Background

I am not a tools type of search engine marketer. Well, in terms of PPC bid management tools. I love Raven Tools and SEOmoz and some of the newer PPC tools like WordStream. (Yes, some of those are affiliate links)

There are some tools developers in the PPC space that I keep hearing about but have never seen. For the most part I don’t have the clients that are large enough for them. But seeing as there are some new awesome tools, I’ve been more open to requests from tool developers in the PPC space.

The LiveBall Approach

I got an email from Kristina Allen at Ion Interactive on February 15th asking me to review a press release about their most recent developments. Normally these requests are dry when coming from PR people, but Kristina got it right. The title of the email was Leprechauns, Lattes and LiveBall. She got immediate bonus points for originality and attention grabbing.

Her email not only got my attention, but Kristina, whom I had never met, had taken the time to read my site and understand me. She talked about my SEM Cereals post and asked nicely if I’d look at the release. She kept things light and informal.

Girl should get a raise just for that.

LiveBall

I had heard of Ion Interactive, but had no idea what they did. I wanted to help, but I can’t talk about something I know nothing about. Within 24 hours they had a demo setup and were sending me everything I needed to review their tool. The CEO was even present for the demo to answer my questions. So thanks to Justin Talerico and Megan Leap for answering all of my questions.

And just to make it clear, they are not paying me to write a good review. I am highly critical of unnecessary tools and will tell you the way it is. But I do need to tell my readers that they did send me a copy of their book, Honest Seduction. (Warning: affiliate link) I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list now.

LiveBall Review

LiveBall is a landing page optimization tool that is hosted on the Ion servers. Basically they setup an environment on their servers in which marketing people can create landing pages to test in an easy interface. LiveBall is hosting on a dedicated IP address for each customer. The pages created by their system are cross browser friendly (I asked) and while are hosted on their domain, they are pointed at a subdomain on your root domain.

The team there aids in building themes based around your current site layout. So they start the account for you by coding everything to look like your site. Testing these pages allows you to keep the same look and feel as the rest of your site. Your marketing managers can add and subtract elements to test through their easy WYSIWYG editor.

One feature I loved is that the LiveBall system gives you image galleries to choose stock images to test. Right now they are organized into six categories including Active Life, Business People, Healthcare, Higher Education, Leisure People, and Meanings. I’ve done testing, and it can get expensive to buy all the images you need for pages that you might not even keep!

The greatest thing? All of the pages created are SEO compliant. (That’s what their release was about) You can use the canonical tag to point the search engines at the “real” version, or add a “noindex” if you don’t want these pages in the index. You can add in your own tracking code, but they have built in tracking as well to help aide in decision making about the best landing page possible. And the system passes query strings so that you can track what you need to for your system as well as collecting important keyword information.

Overall Thoughts

This is something I would recommend to a company that has a marketing department and needs a way to test landing pages on the fly without interrupting the IT and web development side. Ion makes it clear that this system is built with marketers in mind, not necessarily code-minded people. It’s simple and easy to use, but also builds nice code on the back end.

What a company can learn in this system can be pushed to web development once conclusions are drawn. LiveBall and Ion have no issue with their clients taking the information and code developed in the system and putting into use on the whole site, I made sure to ask. Most companies will want to take what is learned and use it on the whole site back on the home server.

In talking with their team they understand that landing page optimization is not just for PPC. That is why they released the SEO compliant features. They know that testing is not a one time thing, and over time even the best campaigns can use some optimization. You never know when one change to a page can result in a 10% increase in conversion rates.

LiveBall Review is a post from: Kate Morris

Success! Body scan is clear. Will have to run a staged test in September, but it won’t be like this one. Just have to stay on top of it. Happy Dance!

March 2 Update:

Ok, just “udderly” got tired of the weight gain from having no thyroid and now in isolation for radioactive iodine treatment. I needed exercise. Plus my speech was slurred!

So I started an exercise plan last night. Not sure if the pill has anything to do with it! May need new clothes. Don‘t think there will be any discipline problems at school next week.

Go ahead—send them to the office!

Too Much? I know—green never was my color!

March 1 Update:

“Home and glistening!  Not quite up to a full glow but building!  My tongue is tingling.  I read that some lose taste bud sensations for one to two weeks.  At 3:30pm I start sucking on lemon drops to make the salivary glands really work to keep them protected from exposure I guess since they are right up there where most of the radiation is going.  My brain too?????  HMMMMM.  Love ya!”

As my mom starts her single treatment for thyroid cancer (radioactive iodine), I thought I’d share her update she sent via email last week. Yes, that is her own art work. I love her. *smiles* This is my mom and her attitude towards life, and where I get my mild insanity.

Background: In January, she was diagnosed in surgery to remove part of her thyroid gland. They removed the entire thyroid, but testing is necessary to ensure all thyroid, lymph node, and cancer cells are gone. Thyroid cancer is one of the most localized cancers, and easily treatable. The thyroid feeds on iodine, so to target treatment, the body is denied iodine (think a diet with no salt at all, most has iodine in it). They then give a pill of radioactive iodine, a small dose at first to identify any remaining cells. This was sent after taking that small dose.

Went for my pill this morning. No big deal – feel normal – had my picture taken. Right as rain.

Can’t eat, drink or lay down for 2 hours. Don’t have to be isolated in my room but have to keep my distance. No kids under 8 and no pregnant women. I’m in the wrong job for that!

Have a wonderful day – it’s beautiful out there! Stay tuned for glowing reports!

Love, Bunny

Tomorrow, March 1, she goes in for the full dose of radioactive iodine. The body scan Friday did reveal some remaining cells, so they have to be obliterated (I love that word). She’ll be in isolation for 2 full days, we can only pass food through the door. After the two days, we can go near her, but still best to not have “contact” for a few days. By next weekend she will be radioactive no more. Well, she will, but won’t be putting off any radioactivity.

This has been a relatively easy cancer experience if there can be such a thing. I am blessed to have great friends all around me. If you think about anyone today, focus on those fighting the harder battles with cancer. My best friend in high school is about to lose his 45 year old uncle, Dale, to a rare form of cancer either tonight or tomorrow. All my thoughts go out to his family and their continuing fight.

As my good friend Kristy says “Fuck Cancer.”

My Radioactive Mother is a post from: Kate Morris

Taylor Pratt asked if cereal was allowed as a mid-afternoon snack today. A resounding yes was heard from what I saw, and that sparked my interest. What do search marketers (and any of my other followers) eat? Specifically, what is an SEO’s favorite cereal?

Winner: Lucky Charms

Voted on By:
Christa Watson, Joshua Sciarrino, Lyndsay Walker, Dan Perry

Seems like everyone loves the marshmallows. Forget the sugar covered oats, we want the marshmallows!

Runner Ups

Voted on By: Matt Siltala, Dan Perry	Voted on By: Casey Yandle, Andrew Woods	Voted on By: Taylor Pratt, Casey Yandle
Voted on By: Alan Bleweiss, Chiropractic	Voted on By: William Attwood	Voted on By: Ruth Burr
Voted on By: Matt Pellerin	Voted on By: Robert Brady	Voted on By: Jason Harrison
Voted on By: Clint Zink

Snack Time Cereal – SEM Edition is a post from: Kate Morris

This year has been full of ups and downs personally and professionally. 2009 will go down as a year of many adventures, love, and friendship. There have been many that have influenced my world, and I would never change a moment. Towards the end of the year, I found a freedom that I have been waiting for. With school almost complete (thesis needs to be finished, see more below), I find myself back with free evenings, and the time to watch movies and read books. Netflix is going to love me. I have tagged over 175 movies to watch, and intend to see them all.

More so, I have met some inspiring people, one recently pushed these thoughts over the edge. I have rekindled my romance with my truly creative side. Poetry, reading, drawing and writing has always held a special place in my heart. I don’t know where this year will lead, but I do know a few things, and the foundation is in creativity.

Thesis
I have a thesis to finish. That is a LOT of writing, and analyzing. To do my thesis any justice though, it needs some creativity. I want to be able to infuse some of that writing with pizazz.

Geography
I will live somewhere else. The place has changed innumerable times in the past 2 years. And while I am still not settled where, I do feel a need to move away from Austin for a short time. Read that last part again: short time. I am and will remain a Texas girl. I won’t put a number on the length of time I’ll be gone. I’ve learned enough about my life, it does not like to go as planned. But in my mind now, it will only be a few years. But who knows. This military brat needs a new adventure.

Travels
I am planning trips to Las Vegas, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Seattle, Canada, and more. This year will be a year of travels. I rather enjoyed that part of 2009, but worked a little too much in my travels. I want to be free to create when I travel. I am always open to ideas. I will do as much as my budget and time allow. I’ve been given this life, so I am living it to the max.

Jobs/Career
I am opening up to new jobs, anywhere. New adventures, new challenges. I’ve started talking with a few companies, but want to see where I really need to be. Have an idea? Send it on my way. No holding back in 2010. I might just stay on my own, join some friends in a rather rainy city. I love working on my own time, sometimes more than I should, sometimes less. So anything can happen.

Welcome 2010

In all of this, my 2010 will be filled with creativity of all kinds. No goals, no to do list. Just a promise to myself to let life happen as it will.

Thank you to everyone who has changed my life this past year. I look forward to more great times with all of you, online or IRL.

New Year Focus: Creativity is a post from: Kate Morris

Raven Team

A few weeks before PubCon, Jon Henshaw sent me the coolest shirt ever. I had the honor of getting a limited edition PubCon shirt before everyone else. I was stoked. Raven shirts are awesome. This one was much more so. They are always really comfortable and well designed.

Raven PubCon Design

Note the name of the designer. None other than Jon’s wife, Kathryn (awesome name spelling btw).

The issue with these shirts is that Raven didn’t make many. They ran out fast once they started giving them away, but I have a surprise. I have an extra one.

How to Win a Limited Edition Raven Tools PubCon Shirt

So it’s the guys shirt (read: Green) in XL. Sorry you don’t get to choose the size. This was a bonus shirt that was magically left over.

So to win the shirt, you need to comment on this post or write a blog post about what about Raven Tools is your favorite. Anything. My favorite comment or blog post will win. Don’t have a favorite because you aren’t using Raven? Umm, free 30 day trial much?

I’ll mail you the shirt and if you send me a pic, I’ll post it here. You have until Thanksgiving, November 26, 2009.

Raven PubCon Shirt Giveaway is a post from: Kate Morris

I was born prematurely and very sick due to my mom’s toxemia that she passed to me. The goal of the March of Dimes is to work toward identifying the reasons for premature birth and combat them. If a baby that is born prematurely can be carried to term, there is a marked difference in their ability to survive.

The March of Dimes is most known for their funding of the research that found the vaccine for polio. They have also funded research that developed surfactant, a solution that is sprayed into premature babies lungs to help them breathe because their lungs are not fully developed. They have also pushed for better health coverage for all children in the US (CHIP program) and the early identification of many diseases that can be treated at birth but are rarely tested for.

Another win has to do with mothers. The March of Dimes funds programs all over the nation to push for mothers to be aware of the risks of smoking and drinking during pregnancy, as well as the risk of using other drugs. They give out many grants to help teach women about the benefits of breast feeding, and most of all the need for Folic Acid. This product is now a required part of the US’s grain supply. A woman needs to have at least 400mg of it in her system at the moment of conception to aid in the development of a baby’s brain. Folic Acid has been shown to reduce the possibility of many types of brain development issues in fetuses.

Now, all of this is off the top of my head. I should go research all of this, but I think most of it is dead on. See I was the “Youth on Board” for the Killeen and Austin Board of Directors from high school through college. The March of Dimes has been a huge part of my life from the start.

See you all in Vegas!!

Favorite Charity: March of Dimes is a post from: Kate Morris

Running has become a love of mine, and once I found out that a 5k was part of the Livestrong Challenge, I was in. I set up my page … and kinda forgot. So a week out, I sent a Twitter update once a day, and an email to friends and family. The result was over $260 raised in a week! (I have three donations outstanding, so it could get bigger)

So I want to thank everyone that helped. The people that donated, retweeted, and supported me before and on race day. But most of all to the people that inspired me. Fighting cancer is one of the hardest things a person can go through. The people that have won, lost, and are still fighting this disease are what kept me running Saturday morning.

They inspired me so much that I broke my goal. Please note: I am not a fast runner. My goal was to run the 5k in 30 mins. I had been running about 32-35 minutes in training the week before. Well on race day I completed in 27 minutes. I not only broke my personal goal, I bested my time for the mile by a full minute.

Here are some pictures from the event and my shirt which I dedicated to those that have touched my life.

Thank you to all of you again.

Livestrong 5k Update is a post from: Kate Morris