Panda-taming search experts freshen up content to appease Google’s new demands.

Under Chinese tradition, 2012 ushers in the Year of the Dragon. For retailers and marketers hoping to boost their natural search rankings in the com- ing months, this new year could be dubbed the Year of Content. The relationship between original, updated and popular content on an e-commerce site, and potentially higher search rankings for a brand, merchant or product page, is hardly unknown. What’s new for 2012, however, is how Google Inc.’s latest major update to its search algorith—those mathematical formulas that carry so much weight in digital marketing—is pushing retailers to offer stronger content on their web sites, update that content more often and encourage those in-bound links that signal page quality to the search engine.

Retailers with relatively little original content are scrambling for more, while those web merchants that have long had staffers producing how-to articles, product demonstrations and the like are working toward improvements. Not even the most agile online retailer can just sit by and hope Google smiles favorably upon it, not with the latest major update—launched last fall and commonly called Fresh— promising to affect 35% of all search results, according to the search engine, which accounted for 65% of search traffic in November, accord- ing to comScore Inc.

“Google is getting smarter about how it crawls pages and updates rankings,” says Seth Besmertnik, CEO of Conductor Inc., a web marketing firm that specializes in search engine optimization, the art and science of moving up in natural search rankings frequently referred to as SEO. “Now Google is so fast, it wants its rankings to reflect that. Retailers will have to rethink pages that don’t change.”

Organizing Your Existing Kitchen and Pantry.

Good news: The kitchen is the easiest room to organize. Look around, what do you see? Stacks of mail, knickknacks, small appliances, cooking utensils, spices losing their taste. It’s easy to sort out what’s necessary and what’s not. Bad news: Because it is the busiest place in the house, batteries, pets stuff, papers and so on also tend to accumulate in the kitchen.

CLEAN SWEEP

Food prep is the focus of the kitchen, so your goal is to clear out everything that is not essential to cooking or eating. Start by clearing enough space to make cleaning your food-prep surfaces easy. You don’t have to tackle it all at once, in fact, it’s best to go slowly and methodically, so you get it right the first time. Think carefully about what you truly need in the kitchen and what can go elsewhere. 
Next, free up a small space on the countertop or the breakfast table, open the pantry and empty it entirely. This step is easy and fun once you get started!

Throw out or recycle:
• expired food items
• spices that have lost their zest
• anything that you can't remember when you used it last • containers without lids
• that heap of plastic bags (they won't be collector’s items)
Weed out the cleaning products area by disposing of toxic products that are old or just too toxic. Consider the variety of more natural cleaners currently available. To make room in your cabinets, get rid of any cracked or broken china that you wouldn't dare to use with guests; same goes for damaged silverware. Pull out odd the wedding gifts, those fast food toys (they may have been loved once but, you don't have to live with them forever). Do you have a second tea set, fondue pot or food processor? Put those in a box marked "duplicates” to be given away later on. Keep only what you truly like and use.

Next step is to clean cabinets inside and out, then store the kept items by function and shape. The placement of items has to make sense to you: for some of us, the mugs go with the glasses, for others, the mugs go with breakfast items. Invite a friend over and play your favorite tune, it will go faster!    

Resolving to Get Your Home in Order.

It’s the start of a new year and if one of your resolutions was to get organized, there’s no time to waste. Perhaps you have a kitchen pantry that’s so muddled and jumbled you don’t even know what food supplies you have. Or a clothes closet that’s such a mess it makes searching for that special jacket a stress every morning. No matter what the case may be, getting orderly will bring some much deserved peace and tranquility into your home.

“Getting organized is important because it saves you time,” says Shiva Nili, vice president, California Closets of Cranbury. “How many minutes do you waste a day because you’re looking for a matching shoe? That’s precious time that you can spend doing something you actually enjoy.” 

CLOSET CLUTTER

One of the first places people want to get organized is their closets and there are some very simple ways to start, says Melanie Schuetz, marketing manager, California Closets of North Jersey. “The first thing you should do is try to look at every garment in your closet,” she says. “Hold it up and examine it. If it has damage, it doesn’t fit or you don’t like it—get rid of it. It always makes sense to get rid of some items before you start organizing what you plan to keep, as it simplifies the job.”
Next, work on maximizing the space. “We can help with that,” says Schuetz. “For example, we have cubbies for shoes that allow you to actually see what you have instead of storing
them in the box. There’s a solution for everything.”
Once you start getting your closet organized, you may begin to feel better about your whole bedroom. Plus, you’ll appreciate the extra space you’ve created. “A lot of people like to try to eliminate some of their bulky bedroom furniture such as dressers, and get everything into the closet,” says Terri Fisher, owner, The Closet Gallery. “Just getting a bedroom closet organized can impact the whole room. Your bedroom should be a relaxing sanctuary, but a cluttered mess takes away from that. Getting everything organized will give you peace of mind.” 

Fiscal Fitness

It's another year, another series of resolutions. Each year many of us make goals to lose those extra pounds, spend more time with our family or just take time to enjoy life more. One goal that often gets put off year after year is our financial fitness. Cognitively, we know financial fit- ness is a simple math problemspend less, save more and get out of debt. It’s a problem so easy to quantify, and yet, incredibly difficult to accomplish. Money is more than a means of paying for things. Money is emotionally tied up in our personal history, memories, habits and reward system. Often, we forge ahead on the problem and settle on a budget – an unrealistic, overly stringent budget. And it fails. And we give up. So, how should we start? 

BUDGETING
First, we have to realize what money means to us. What role has it played in your life historically? Was spending highly encouraged in your house? Or was money never dis- cussed? Do you enjoy spending money, or does it bring you stress? Do you think your attitudes toward money are completely healthy, or should you step back to re-evaluate its im- portance in your life?
Once you walk through these questions, you can anticipate emotional roadblocks and approach your fiscal fitness goals with a much greater probability for success. Start by categorizing your spending habits for at least three months. Find out where your money is going; you might be sur- prised. Is dining out a larger portion of your spending than you thought? Or is your daily coffee habit adding up to a surprising annual amount? After you have a sense of what you spend, build a budget.

Texas-Sized Adventure

Beaumont, Texas is a surprising, busy little city (population 114,000), with more museums than you can shake
a stick at and easy access to some of America’s most unspoiled wilderness areas. It’s the perfect place to get away from it all – but have it all handy when you’re ready to roll. 

Museums Galore

Beaumont got off to a sedate start with an economy based on cattle, rice and lumber until Spindletop blew its top. The first great Texas oil strike (1901) turned the place on its head and Beaumont became an oil boomtown.
For a slick look at the petroleum industry, check out the Texas Energy Museum. Exhibits include geology, exploration, drilling and refining. Tough subjects are handled with great visuals and easy explanations, making the learning fun.
Just a short walk from the Energy Museum is the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, which focuses on American and regional art. The premier attraction is a collection of folk art by the late Felix “Fox” Harris. Unable to read or write, Harris nonetheless found an amazing way to express himself and filled his yard with an imaginative forest of constructions that are now housed in the museum.
The antithesis of Harris’ exuberant free expressions is the art and architecture of the 1907 McFaddin-Ward House. Four tall Ion- ic columns grace the formal façade of the three-story mansion. In- side, the house features beautiful antiques, vivid art glass and even an indoor fountain.
If you like house museums, visit the John Jay French Museum. The house, built in 1845, is the oldest in Beaumont. Among the city’s other museums are the Edison Museum, the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum, the Beaumont Children’s Museum and the Fire Museum of Texas. And that’s just a partial listing!