These are ideas you can use to make your site an asset to yourself, as a writer, and a resource to bring others to your site.

Set up a blog on Blogger/ BlogSpot or WordPress. Pick a theme you can add a background and/ or header graphic to. Your blog should look like something you have done, not a clone from another site. Getting your own domain is a huge asset, if you can afford the cost. This will also give you an email address which will use your domain name.

The best thing about a blog on your website is keeping your site freshly updated and making it interactive without too much fuss on your part. You can update daily, or once a week. Quickly add an inspirational quote, a writing tip, jot down a new publisher/ market, load an image you found or scanned or photographed yourself.

However, a blog doesn't have to be the focus of your site. If you already have a main HTML based web site, make it sidebar blog, a secondary page or a secondary site. Turn a subdomain into the blog if you like. It really does help to keep traffic to your site if they can expect to have something to read when they get there. Avoid link rot, stagnating pages and a bland site in general by adding a blog. Be creative, that's what we do!

If you are not a great graphic artist a few simple text graphics are really all you need. Look for a font you like and make a banner to head your blog. Add some smaller text graphics as navigation links. You don't have to be a great artist to add a little colour and graphics to your blog.

Monitor your traffic, read and respond to comments, keep a guest book, a contact form or some form of message boards available. People are more likely to leave a quick note than send an email. Comments are preferred because they are quick (if you don't go overboard on CAPTCHA and word verification) and people can leave you their links and contact information too.

If you go with the blog plan and turn your site into a resource of some kind (for writers, hobbyists, or a niche topic) you will find it easier to get linkbacks if you are offering original content. If you have a voice of your own and something to say, they will come.

Consider ways of going out to your readers. Post your RSS feed link where it can be easily found. Add your URL to your email signature and your signature links on any forums you join too. Leave comments on other blogs too. Start a newsletter with your best content of the month/ week, depending on how much work you can put into it.

Set yourself up as an expert on your topic/ genre by reaching out to network sites like HubPages, Squidoo, About.com, Suite101 and EzineArticles. Don't copy and paste content right from your blog to the networks. Make some edits, add some new or different information and try a different slant on the topic. Shift things around.

Add surveys, quizzes and personality test type things to your blog now and then. It doesn't have to be rocket science. Keep them fun. Give freebies of some sort. Site awards were popular once. You can update that idea by offering gamification awards for people who visit your site and comment regularly. If you write books offer desktop wallpaper of the cover art from your latest book. Offer a free eBook with tips you've posted in the past.

If you make appearances or attend events keep a schedule available on your site. Of course, keep it updated. You can also keep readers up to date with what you are working on. Let them know you are writing a fresh chapter, proofreading copy, mailing out an article, hearing back from that promising editor, etc. Also, write about professional organizations you are a part of, as they relate to your work. Turn your blog into an information hub for your niche topic or yourself as a writer.

Make sure you also include all your essentials for any freelance business that comes your way: contact information, clips, your writing experience, the services you offer, and so on. Writing is a business, not just an art.

Laura Brown (AKA ThatGrrl) has been a web writer since 1998. She keeps the Word Grrls blog and writes for the HubPages network. In her own time she creates ASCII art and photographs old buildings.

This was originally published (by me) to EzineArticles.

It's great to 'be there' for a friend. But, what does it mean and how do you do it?

Some days you need a really, great friend. Some days you get to be a really, great friend.

Taking friendship is much easier than giving your friendship. You shouldn't expect anything in return, if you do, it's really not friendship. This is why it's so important to give appreciation and gratitude when you accept friendship.

Being a friend is not easy thing at times. No one can be a perfect friend. We make mistakes, we have our own selfish moments and moments of weakness. Forgive yourself and your friends when we make mistakes, those times we aren't the greatest of best friends. Then look ahead to the next day when we can try again, fix things, talk and make things work out better.

How to be a Great Friend

• Never lie to your friend. You can be kind while still being honest.
• Respect her opinions. Especially when it comes to dating, value that second opinion.
• Balance between listening and talking. Let friends talk about themselves, guilt free and without getting into a one one-upmanship contest.
• Work with each other's strong and weak points. Usually one friend is the leader and the other the follower. One is a planner and the other shows up late. Etc.
• Cultivate the friendship. Have your inside jokes, your shared past and the things you only do with just that friend.
• Don't offer advice too freely. It's often better to wait until asked, or to offer it carefully, just a bit at a time.
• Display some affection, reach out and touch a friend, literally.
• Don't think short term. Plan to keep the friendship going for the long haul.
• Don't be envious or jealous of a friend. Instead be happy for her and proud of her.

Paper flowers are more than rolled up newspaper or cut up bits of paper stuck together. There is a trick to getting the right look and shape to form flowers. But, you can use a variety of paper from tissue paper, crepe paper, newspapers to toilet paper even. You can also use paper quilling and origami as techniques in making your flowers.

Toilet paper was made into flowers and used to decorate the car the bride and groom would drive away in at weddings. Now people use tissue paper or fancier paper stock to create the "Just Married" sign and decorate the car. When I made flowers for my brother's "Just Married" sign I used plastic to form the flowers. I guess that's great for weddings which get rained on. But, it wasn't as nice as the old paper flowers we used to make.

Don't forget origami when it comes to making paper flowers. Give yourself some time to practice with different paper folding ideas. Don't expect every flower to work out your first time around. It takes some practice to work out the bugs, especially for the complicated looking flowers. One nice way to get started by making pinwheel flowers.

For pinwheels you need a square of paper and then you cut four times from the corners to the inside. Leave the centre uncut. Take one corner at each cut corner and pull it into the centre. Pin each of the corners to the centre with one pin and fasten them there. Now you need a stick for it to spin from.

Quilling is also known as filigree. I haven't tried paper quilling. But, I know you roll, shape and glue paper together to create flowers and other art.

Consider recycling gift wrapping paper as paper flowers. Magazines, with their glossy pages, make good flowers too.

I've read about haunted toys, as a concept, before. Each time I just think -- how gullible are these people? How badly do they want to believe in ghosts, spirits and hauntings? I don't believe you see, not to the point of overlooking common sense.

I do think there are ghosts, of some sort. Feelings and emotions left over from the past. Turbulence doesn't just disappear because the cause of the disturbance has gone. It's like having a huge fight with someone. You can feel it in the atmosphere.

But, I don't think that's all there is to the ghost thing. I don't know exactly what I do believe. I haven't quite pinned it down into so many little words. My Grandmother did see ghosts, her sister and her husband both appeared to her soon after they were gone. Gone in a permanent way, not just out of the room or out of town. Seeing ghosts scared her. Me too. I don't trust them all to be benevolent or casual or just want to come over for tea and a chat. So, like my Grandmother before me, I picked a day and spoke out loud and told everything (whatever everything is) that I don't want to see ghosts. My Grandmother was told to do this by a psychic and she said it worked for her. She stopped seeing anything once she clearly said she did not want to see anything, of that sort.

Anyway, the idea of haunted toys annoys me. Why take something simple and kind of innocent and turn it into something frightening?

When I watch the ghost hunting shows I can see through almost everything they do. I understand the difficulties with proving the existence of ghosts when others are watching and the people filming can't show they really didn't cause the camera to shake or prove they really do feel a cold air pocket. But, it seems to look so phony I just can't take it very seriously. It seems scripted, pre-planned.

So I don't believe in haunted toys. I don't believe children who have died would hang around an old toy and try to harm people or scare them with it. Children aren't like that, except in movies.

One good thing about the haunted toy thing, it's a great way to bump up the value of vintage toys. If you can show the toy as haunted... the interest in having the toy (even if just to prove or disprove the ghostly haunting) will help to sell it and sell it for a bigger price. Which just throws more doubt on the concept of haunted toys.

What do you believe? Have you had a haunted toy? Has an old doll given you the creeps? Do toys mysteriously move when you know no one and nothing is logically making them move?

I have felt creeped out by an old doll. I admit. But, I'm sure it was just my own doing. I let myself feel that way. It was based on nothing, just a suggestion by someone else. But, I can remember the feeling. I didn't like it.

One interesting side note... the haunted toys all seem to be dolls. Co-incedence? Not likely.

Robert, the Haunted Doll

Haunted Toys and Dolls

Haunted Doll Stories

Flickr: Creepy Dolls

Misbehaving Toys and People

Annabelle: The Haunted Doll

David's Haunted Dolls

Haunted America Tours: Real Haunted Doll Gallery

Haunted Dolls.net

YouTube: Scary Doll

I often see yards and yards of ribbon at the thrift store. Someone needs to find a use for all of that ribbon. Flowers would be a great way to repurpose ribbon. There are so many varieties of ribbon flowers too. I've seen a lot of carnations, daisies and of course, roses. But, once you get the basic method you should be able to come up with unique patterns for your own style of ribbon flower making.

Once you have made a few ribbon flower heads you can attach them to hair bands, use them when wrapping gifts/ presents and make them longer but attaching flower stems so they can sit in a vase. I've got an old one from days long ago which is still on my door knob, on the inside door where I seldom disturb it but get to see it often.

I've already written about ribbon embroidery. Making flowers out of ribbons is different because it's not embroidery. Instead of sewing with ribbon onto cloth, you are forming the ribbons into flowers, 3-D flowers rather than the (bumpy but mainly flat) 2-D flowers created with ribbon embroidery.

If you want to cheer up a friend, ribbon flowers are a good option. They can be taken into hospitals too because they have none of the qualities of real flowers, other than being cheerful, colourful and pretty.