“I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see
The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
Art – William Degouve de Nuncques
“Most of the dandelions had changed from suns into moons.”
–Vladimir Nabokov
Art by James R. Eads.
Here are step-by-step instructions for boosting your client’s targeted traffic by 50% within four months:
Through various means such as emails, forums, and customer interviews, I was able to determine the topics that are of genuine interest to his customers.
I performed a keyword analysis to identify the most suitable keywords that had a good balance of high search volume and low competition.
I wrote a comprehensive pillar page that focuses on a specific topic and covers all the relevant information related to the broadest keyword.
I created and shared a series of 12 blog posts over a period of 12 weeks. These posts focused on subtopics related to the primary topic. Additionally, I made sure to include optimised images in each post.
Include a backlink to the pillar page.
Utilise guest posting and link-building techniques that direct traffic back to the main page.
The pillar page rapidly achieved a high ranking on Google for its targeted search keyword.
It is recommended to keep optimising this page by utilising data from Google Search Console.
Rinse and repeat as needed.
A pillar page is a very long a comprehensive post used to build links and drive SEO.
This is effective! As long as you’re writing to provide lasting value and not merely to generate content. My constant objective is to be as actionable and detailed as possible.
Art – Herbert Badham – Breakfast,1936.
“Each must look at himself through a black glass, at others through a rosy one.” –Alphonse Mucha
Art – Alphonse Mucha
Valentine’s Day, February 14th, is “sweetheart’s day,” when people in love express their affection for each other in merry ways. But in whatever form, the message is the same: “Will you be my Valentine?”
The custom of celebrating St. Valentine’s Day can be traced to those festivals called Lupercalia. There were games and dancing, and then each young man drew from an urn the name of the young maiden who would be his sweetheart for the coming year. February 14th, the Roman date of the festival, thus became a day for young lovers. After the introduction of Christianity, pagan customs were suppressed (or redefined), but the festival continued, and in the seventh century it began to be called St. Valentine’s Day.
The origin of the name remains in doubt. Some historians link it to Valentine, who became the patron saint of lovers after he was imprisoned by the Emperor Claudius for secretly marrying couples contrary to the Emperor’s orders. Others say the name is a corruption of the French word “galantin” (a gallant or beau). And one further theory is that February 14 was chosen because birds traditionally began to mate on that very day.
Whatever the origin, Valentine’s Day has had a long and romantic history. The Roman conquerors carried the celebration to England, where pagan and Christian customs combined to form some of the most enduring traditions. One was that the first person you saw on Valentine’s Day would be your valentine.
St. Valentine’s Day, with all of its colorful lore, was taken to the New World by the English settlers and lost none of its romantic appeal through the journey.
As for myself, instead of “butchering” an innocent Daisy, I would always take my chances with a Valentine.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn
Thomas Matthews Rooke – A London Garden, 1904.
Imbolc is a heathen celebration held on the 1st or on the 2nd of February. It is the first celebration heralding the coming of spring with snowy winds, misty blizzards, and delicate snowdrops.
More than a month has passed since the 22nd of December, the winter solstice, and the sun prolongs its journey around the world.
Imbolc is the feast of the poets, and their flame of creativity is celebrated. The goddess Brigid is especially honored at this time. One of the customs is the making of a Bridie Doll by dressing up a sheaf of oats in women’s clothing and later placing it in the earth. This is related to fertility rites.
Brigid or Brigit (meaning ‘exalted one’), also Bríg, is a goddess of pre-Christian Ireland. She appears in Irish mythology as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the daughter of the Dagda and wife of Bres, with whom she had a son named Ruadán.
She is associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, smithing and domesticated animals. Cormac’s Glossary, written in the 9th century by Christian monks, says that Brigid was “the goddess whom poets adored” and that she had two sisters: Brigid the healer and Brigid the smith. This suggests she may have been a triple deity. She is also thought to have some relation to the British Celtic goddess Brigantia.
Art – “The Coming of Bríde” by John Duncan (1917)
More information about Imbolc and the subsequent Catholic celebration of Candlemas can be found here.