About Me

My name is Coleen, and I’m the mother of three teenagers in Southern California. About four years ago I took a part-time job doing accounting for an online advertising agency. That’s where I first heard about Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of getting a website to come up as one of the top search results when someone searches on a relevant keyword in a search engine like Google. This kind of advertising really appealed to me because it’s a win-win. As a potential customer I’m happy to see a business that offers what I’m searching for when I’m looking for it.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I wanted to move to the SEO department. The trouble was that I didn’t know much about SEO. So I took a Dreamweaver class at the local community college to learn how to build a website that I would then optimize. At first I couldn’t think of a topic for my website, but pretty soon I was searching for an extracurricular activity for one of my kids. I wished there was a resource where I could find soccer leagues, art classes or place to go on a rainy day with the kids. And OrangeCountyKidsActivities.com was born.

I got the job in the SEO department, learned a lot about websites both at home and at work and I’m still there learning every day. With my Kids Activities project I learned to monetize websites using Google Adsense. I figured out the most efficient ways to find and post information about kids activities in my area. About a year and a half later I started San Diego Kids Activities.

As I worked on my Kids Activities sites, my wishlist grew.

• I wish I just had to check a box for each category an activity fit into and it would appear on that category page.
• I wish I could add cities and other place names and they would just appear in the footer of every page of my site.
• I wish my website had a professionally designed, consistent look and feel.

I knew it could all be done, but it wasn’t worth the expense for just two websites. Then I thought how much I would have loved it three years ago if I had been able to make a website without knowing how to find a profitable niche, write code, optimize for search engines, set up a website with a hosting service, write a privacy policy and terms of service, etc., etc. So I decided to make exactly that and sell it to others.

I hired a graphic designer who came up with this crazy orange and purple design, a programmer who turned the pretty design into a functional WordPress theme, and a lawyer to write the legalese.

Then I did all the keyword research and wrote the step-by-step manual that I wish I’d had three years ago. I tested everything by moving San Diego Kids Activities to the new format. Then I enlisted the help of two other moms to test the whole system – the program and the instruction manual – by starting them with empty websites exactly like those available for sale now.

I hope that every new owner of a Kids Activities website has as much fun as I’m having, learns a lot (hopefully faster than I did), and earns a lot of money while providing a valuable service to parents in their area.