#I usually have time to scroll through my dashboard really quick at least three times a day but today I've been on here like seven times

[kira-light0]

Don't forget to stay hydrated. Water is more important than cuddling.

I had a lot of free time today, so I decided to draw them. Unfortunately, I can not draw neither a table nor a glass of water, but at least Kirk and Spock are decent.

[b-does-the-write-thing]

Happy Bday!!!!!!!!!! Side of the road or speed trap?

As usual in this verse, I’ve decided to make an AU where they did not meet on the side of the road or by Gold getting David to pull Belle over. No, instead, they’re going to meet a new way because why not?

“Carpooling?”

Belle nodded. “The Mayor announced it this morning. All Storybrooke residents who work in the downtown area are being advised to join a new community initiative.” She added a little shrug at Ruby’s aghast face. “It’s for the good of the world. Cut back on carbon emissions, reduce oil intake, save on car repairs…”

She trailed off at Ruby’s expression changed from incredulous to mischevious. “What?”

“You’re only okay with this because you know Mr. Gold Cadillac has to sign up for it too,” Ruby pointed out. She kicked her feet up onto Belle’s desk, ignoring Belle’s grumble of disapproval. “So, tell me, did you sign up right away or…?”

Belle didn’t deign that with a response. She had signed up yesterday upon getting to work, and had already declined three different group requests but Ruby didn’t need to know that.

“He lives at least an exit or two further from me,” Belle reminded them both with a sigh. She nudged the few bites of Granny’s famous lasagna around her plate as she tried to avoid the awful truth of the matter. It was entirely possible he wouldn’t even sign up in the first place…

After all, the new carpool initiative wasn’t mandatory. It was just heavily encouraged along with a few tax breaks on vehicle registrations and the use of the newfangled community HOV lane the Mayor had pushed through almost overnight. Not every citizen would sign up, nor would they need to, but most of Storybrooke seemed to think it was harmless enough, even beneficial to the community in the long run.

“This is a tourist thing, isn’t it?” Ruby muttered as she scrolled through her phone’s newsfeed. “Look, even Boston’s paper picked the story up.”

“Really?” Belle said, craning her neck to see over Ruby’s shoulder. “That’s great!”

“For Regina,” Ruby scoffed. “She’ll run on re-election with this alone- ‘My Carpool Plan Was Mentioned in the Boston Globe, Page 10, buried beneath the obituaries’.”

“Think she’s ordered two hundred copies or just went ahead and bought the actual printing press?” 

“She’s probably down in Boston now, handing papers out on the street,” Ruby said with a giggle. “Think they’ll keep her?”

“Unlikely,” Belle admitted. She idly checked her email to see if she had any new messages on the carpool community page and nearly stopped breathing at the fourth post down.

East Storybrooke Victorian Neighborhood. 6:00 AM-5:00 PM. Cadillac. Punctuals Only Need Apply.

Belle hastily clicked on the link, missing whatever Ruby was saying about Regina’s heritage. The page had four or five posters, most of who lived in the Victorian district of East Storybrooke judging by their questions.

One asked if the end of the day time was at all flexible. It was not.

Another asked if they could eat in the car. They could not.

The last person asked how far the original poster would be willing to travel for the carpool, and the answer was as far as exit 112.

That was her exit.

With shaking hands, Belle typed a quick response as Ruby helped herself to leftover garlic bread. She expressed an interest in the hours, explained she drove a Mustang so she would only be able to drive one other comfortably, and asked if there was still room available.

An hour later, she got her answer.

–

“There had better be a good reason for this,” Ruby grumbled over the phone. Her voice was rough with sleep and the sound of something crinkling meant she was still horizontal in bed, the comforters pulled up over her head.

It was barely light outside, Belle’s phone the only light outside her apartment building. She stifled her own yawn with the back of her hand before replying,” Tell me this isn’t stupid,” she begged her friend. “Tell me…I don’t know! Tell me that this is the brave thing.”

“You should have called Ariel if you wanted a pep talk at- Jesus Christ, it’s not even 6 am yet!”

Belle’s eyes grew heavier at the reminder and she had to bite her lip to keep from yawning again. The thermos of tea in her hand, and the two cups in her bag was pleasantly warm despite the early morning chill of fall in New England. Around her, the trees were growing yellow and orange and the smell of bonfires still lingered in the evening air. Her neighborhood was at least ten miles from the shoreline and the downtown sea breeze rarely if ever made it this far to her door.

“He’s an early riser,” Belle said as if that explained everything.

“What business opens before sunrise?” Ruby hissed.

“The docks?” Belle suggested but Ruby grumbled something unintelligible. “What?””

“I said,” Ruby repeated, her voice growing fainter. “He wouldn’t drive a Cadillac if he worked on the docks.”

“Maybe he owns one of the fishing boats?”

“Ariel would have known who he was,” Ruby reminded her. “You already asked her about a middle aged guy in a Cadillac, remember?”

Belle nodded even though her friend was not here to see it. She had asked everyone in Storybrooke about the Gold Cadillac. No one knew any middle aged man with silver hair who drove such a car, nor had she been able to find the car while walking around Storybrooke on her lunch date.

“Do you think it’s really going to be him?” Ruby asked after a pause so long, Belle had almost thought she had fallen back asleep.

“Maybe?” Belle admitted nervously. “I’ve never seen him on the ride in…but he always on the road by 5:05, same as me…”

Mr. Gold Cadillac.

Belle couldn’t really remember when she had first seen him on the road, but she had grown accustomed to him. The way his hair flashed in the sun, or the way he held his steering wheel so casually, ass if the giant vehicle was an extension of himself…but really it was the way he smiled ass if he thought no one was looking. The way he nodded his head to his music….

Belle had lost count of the near misses over the past year and a half of commuting with the man in the gold Cadillac. He had become her own personal reward after a long day at the library, her way of unwinding and it had soon grown into a fascination bordering on obsession.

At the end of the lane, lights turned the corner and the hum of an engine broke the silence of the early morning. Dawn had yet to break through the sky was lightening. On the phone, Ruby made a noise of interest. “That him?”

“I can’t see the car,” Belle whispered as she clutched the phone closer to her ear. “It’s a sedan but-”

The car moved slowly, the color lost in the shadows of the street. Belle’s fingers were numb and Ruby’s was muttering something, but she couldn’t hear it over the hum of the engine. Let it be him, Belle prayed to whoever was listening Let it be him.

And when the car stopped at the curb just feet from her feet, she saw the flash of pale gold before the passenger window slow rolled down to reveal Mr. Gold Cadillac in all his glory.

–

The silence stretched into actual mass. It hung heavy in the air between them, consuming the oxygen until Belle felt faint.

“Is it too hot?” Mr. Gold asked politely, his hand already reaching for the knob on the dashboard. Belle shook her head a bit, and his fingers fell easily back onto the gear shift. Her throat burned with a million things to say, her teeth buried in her lip as she tried to resist the urge to ask him everything and anything about himself and her lips so eager to curl into an ecstatic smile at her own good luck she almost forgot it wasn’t even light outside yet.

He had introduced himself as Mr. Gold, and so caught up in her own private joke that Mr. Gold Cadillac was actually Mr. Gold, Belle had giggled. GIGGLED. He had looked so surprised, she had wanted to fling herself from the moving car. It wasn’t until they had gotten to the interstate that Belle had remembered to introduce herself.

“Oh!” she yelped and he cut his eyes over to her without taking his gaze off the road. “I’m such a- I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Belle. Belle French.”

His lips curled into a small smile. “Nice to meet you, Ms. French,” he said smoothly. Belle swallowed and nervously held up the thermos. “Tea?”

An eyebrow quirked in interest. “You brought tea?”

“And cups,” Belle said as she fished them out of the bag. “Do you like tea? I thought about making coffee but I just despise black coffee and you mentioned you didn’t like food in the car so I didn’t want to bring a jug of milk or sugar packets-”

“I prefer tea actually,” he said and he turned his head ever so slightly to toss her a warm smile. “It wouldn’t be any chance be Breakfast tea?”

“Earl Gray,” Belle said with a smile. “Be glad it wasn’t Lipton. Sprat’s Market was nearly out of everything else.”

“God forbid,” he said under his breath as he signaled on to the highway. Belle poured his cup, handing it over to him carefully as he effortlessly merged into the HOV lane. It was unnecessary, few if any other cars were on the road, but he relaxed as his fingers wrapped around the cup. “Fancy,” he added as he glanced down at the teacup.

Belle flushed. “I didn’t have anything else,” she admitted with a nervous laugh. “I thought as long as we were careful…”

“It was very thoughtful,” he said. Belle poured her own, the liquid still warm but not scalding as she held the cup between her hands. Mr. Gold used one hand to hold the wheel steady as he sipped his and Belle was rewarded with his eyes fluttering slightly in pleasure. “Perfect,” he said just as the dawn light rose behind them and caught the silver in his hair.

“It sure is,” Belle admitted as she gazed over at him. “It sure is.”

–

The day went by as slow as molasses.

Belle spent the whole day staring at the clock. By the time the latchkey kids left for the afternoon, it wasn’t even four thirty and Belle’s foot was jiggling impatiently as she sat at her desk watching the clock hands spin.

The Storybrooke Library closed at 4:00. Belle usually spent her time cleaning, organizing or doing some billing but she had nothing on her mind but the drive home. So, she was both thrilled and surprised when at 4:45, a familiar gold Cadillac pulled up outside the library and idled in the loading zone.

Belle grabbed her purse and the thermos, had a chance to check her hair before she strode outside as if this had been the plan all along. She must have surprised him because when she opened the passenger door, he was in the process of moving a cane into the backseat. His eyes widened when he saw her standing there in the sunlight, his gaze dropping guilty to the device in his hands but before either of them could say anything, Belle’s body rebelled and let out the largest yawn she had ever yawned in her entire life.

Both of them were frozen now. Belle with her hand clapped to her mouth and Gold with his cane in his hands as if caught red-handed. For a moment, neither of them said a word.

“Hey!” came a voice from nearby. “Loading and unloading only!”

Sheriff Nolan waved from his patrol car,  parked right behind the loading zone. He had a large grin on his face and seemed to be enjoying this immensely for some reason.  Mr. Gold recovered first, flinging the cane behind him before gesturing for her to take a seat. Belle folded herself into the car, and with one last glance at his rearview mirror, Gold pulled out into the traffic.

“A friend of yours?” Belle guessed by the way sheepish way Gold was holding his shoulders.

“We know each other,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t say friends…”

“You must not have a lot of friends,” Belle said before she could stop herself. He cut his eyes over to her and she hurriedly added,” I just meant…you know…”

He nodded. “I’m not…the easiest person to get along with,” he admitted with another of his self conscious grins.

“I haven’t noticed,” Belle said as another yawn threatened to crack her jaw. Some jazz played softly on the radio as the heat from the vents swirled into the car around them, creating a cozy cocoon and only increasing the heaviness of her eyes. “I didn’t ask, what is it you do, Mr. Gold?”

“I own the pawn shop off Main,” he said with a shrug.

Belle nodded. “Explains the early hours,” she said as she stretched her legs out. Her skirt, always shorter when she sat down, rode up a bit and she tugged it down self consciously. When she looked back up, he hastily averted his own gaze from her lap, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“I…have a confession,” he admitted ass Belle stared at his profile, trying to figure out what had just happened.

“Oh?”

Was it getting hotter in here? It was definitely too warm in here…

“The shop doesn’t open until 10 am.”

Belle shook her head. “But-”

“I didn’t really expect anyone to… I thought…”

Belle stared at him in growing understanding. “You were trying to get the tax break without having to actually join a carpool!” she said in shocked indignation.

He winced. “Not exactly-”

“And I was stupid enough to- Oh my god!” Belle exclaimed as she clapped her hand to her forehead. “I made you tea!”

“It was very good tea,” he added hastily. “I know it sounds ridiculous but-”

“Of course I was the only one stupid enough not to realize-”

“Belle.”

At the use of her first name, Belle stilled long enough to give him a chance to speak. “Belle,”  he repeated, clearing his throat slightly. “I wasn’t…I’m not trying to cheat the system. I was…I was …Christ, this is going to make me sound like a crazy person but I was trying to meet you.”

He kept talking. Belle could hear him, but her brain wasn’t processing it. It just sounded like white noise in the background of her own thoughts, the majority of which were not so much intelligent dialogue but a high pitched noise of utter and complete disbelief.

“You wanted to meet me?” Belle said, cutting of whatever he was saying about stalkers.

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“I agreed to wake up at four in the morning to catch a ride with you at 6 am because I wanted to meet you!” Belle breathed, a too large smile stretching across her face. “I’ve wanted to meet the guy who drove the gold Cadillac for the last year and all this time- you wanted to meet met too?”

Her exit was coming up, but he didn’t seem to see it. “You-you what?”

Belle laughed, a loud, loose laugh that tore free from her nervous excitement, her embarrassment, her exhaustion and her relief. “Oh, remind me to buy Mayor Mills flowers!” Belle exclaimed as she leaned her head back against his headrest.

Gold had not quite caught up yet. “You’re saying…”

Belle twisted her head around to smile at him. “I’m saying, I only agreed to your absurd ridesharing rules because I was hoping the punctuals only Cadillac was you.”

He didn’t blush but his head ducked a bit. “I knew you lived off exit 112-” His eyes widened. “Shit!” he swore. “I missed it!”

Belle shrugged. “It’s okay,” she assured him. “Want to grab dinner?”

“I can turn around up here-dinner?”

Belle sighed and reached over to cover his hand where it rested on the gear shift. “I know a great Italian place,” she said as he gently turned his hand to curl his fingers around her’s. He stared down at their clasped hands for a moment, only remember he was driving when someone honked behind them.

“Is this actually happening?” he said after another long beat. “I’m not dreaming right now, am I?”

Belle shrugged, a mischievous smile on her lips. “If we are, let’s not wake up.”

[thedanny522]

This is actually a reply I made to a question over on Quora but I wanted to share it here on Reddit too. I have only copy and pasted my reply over to Reddit and then readded the relevant images/videos. Due to this, some parts may seem a little off or have me referring to stuff as if this post is on Quora but it should still be able to provide value to some people with any luck :).Organic Search TrafficTo promote your blog via search engine optimization to pull traffic from search engines such as Google and Bing, you have to start with that goal in mind from the very start of the process with your keyword research. Your goal is to find low competition keywords that your domain should easily be able to rank for and pull traffic to your domain from the search engines.Although there are a number of keyword research tools out there that promise to make this process quick and easy, in my experience, they are a waste of money and deliver a large number of false positives and can potentially waste you a ton of time by publishing articles you will never rank for. Although there are a few different methods that you can use for your keyword acquisition, the main one that I have been using for my latest project is a tool called Answer The Public.Although it is a freemium tool, you get a few free searches per day that should be plenty for anyone just starting out and trying to get ideas for potential keywords. Simply head over to Answer The Public, put some initial seed keywords into the tool and let it do its thing. At this stage of the process, the broader the initial keyword the better as you want Answer The Public to pull as many potential keywords as it can.The image below shows an example of what Answer The Public will deliver for an example keyword search for the term “best pens” and ask you scroll down the page, it shows you many more ideas.https://ift.tt/2LnYIwZ the tool has finished coming up with keyword ideas for you, click the download to CSV button and it will download all of the ideas in a spreadsheet for you. You can save your time a bunch of time and effort at this stage if you use the Keywords Everywhere plugin for Chrome to get the predicted search volumes for your keywords to allow you to try and only target the ones that are getting monthly searches in Google so you can choose your potential articles better.The image below is an example of how using the Keywords Everywhere plugin will show the predicted search volume for a term from the “best pens” example pull from Answer The Public in the Google Search Results page shown by the Red arrow but you can also import keywords into the plugin for bulk searching too.https://ift.tt/3boVrbh you do opt to run the keywords from Answer The Public through Keywords Everywhere, delete all of the keywords that remain that are under the search volume limit that you feel is fit for you. Keep in mind though, this search volume is only a prediction and once ranked, your page will also be pulling traffic from secondary keywords, LSI phrases, and one time searches too meaning that even something with a predicted search volume of 10 can end up pulling over 100 hits per month to your domain.Next comes the long and boring task of manually checking the search engines for the competition for the list of keywords you have. Although this can initially take you a ton of time, as you get better at it, you can usually spend a few seconds looking at a search engine results page for a keyword and work out if it's worth targeting or not.https://ift.tt/2Wn68a3 For Reddit - I have this post on Reddit about one of my old keyword research methods that may be helpful if you are brand new to blogging. It has not aged well due to the Google search engine process evolving over the years but may be helpful to some but keep in mind, the method in my article will likley deliver a large number of false positives that may never rank in modern Google. I go into more detail on the weaknesses of the method in this post and show how that particular method is not really ideal and you should evolve your own method from it ASAP. Anyway, back to the Quora answer.Although the effectiveness of this first tip is becoming less and less relevant with each new update to the Google algorithm, one thing that you can look for when manually checking your keywords is predicted total results shown above. As you can see, in descending order from top to bottom for four example keywords from the Answer The Public pull for “best pens” have drastically different total results for the keywords as shown by the Red arrows.As I mentioned, this is becoming less and less effective with each new update to the Google algorithm as they are getting better at understanding searcher intent but at the time of writing this answer, the “About xx,xxx” result count is still helpful. The lower the count the better but you still have to check the actual websites ranking on the first page of Google for your terms.Although Moz definitely does have its flaws, the free Moz Bar plugin for Chrome can save you a ton of time for this stage of the process. Unfortunately, the Moz crawler is not as good as some of its competitors but its domain authority score (DA) can still be helpful with an example shown in the image below.https://ift.tt/2yEZvqI, it is from a search from one of the keywords for the example batch from Answer The Public but as you can see, the top domain has a DA of 17 while the second domain has a DA of 40. The higher the DA, the stronger that domain will be and the harder it is going to be for you to beat it usually. The more compeating domains with a low DA rating on the first page of Google the better the chances you have for your domain to rank.Go through all of the keywords in your spreadsheet from your Answer The Public pull for the niche that you have chosen. You can add two new columns to your spreadsheet and manually add the “About xx,xxx comparing pages” number as well as the number of low DA domains on the first page for each keyword to work out what the lowest competition pages are.Next you have to write your content for these keywords and this can take you hours of time depending on the type of content you are writing. The majority of my articles are at least 2000 words with some being over 5000 words depending on what I am targeting so each article will likely take you a few hours to publish. Thankfully though, I have shared 11 tips and tricks that you are able to implement in your own article writing journey in this post that are well worth implementing. They can help you save a large amount of time on each article you publish allowing you to publish more and more content in a shorter period of time.Another thing that I commonly see people make mistakes with is how they actually format their articles too. I have also made this post where I go over how I format both my informational intent and buyer intent content with examples to try and show people how they should be trying to format their articles for optimal income generation too, if you are planning on publishing content for a large amount of buyer intent keywords then it is well worth watching.Another thing that I would like to share is that if you are planning on publishing a large amount of content based around buyer intent keywords then in my experience, having comparison tables in your articles can help to increase your click-through rate to help increase your income potential. Unfortunately though, a large amount of the tools and plugins out there that allow you to quickly and easily make these comparison tables cost money but I have this post where I go over how you are able to make your own comparison tables quickly with free tools.Once you have published your article, you will still likely have to wait between four and eight months if your domain is brand new to see any traffic due to the Google sandbox effect. In my experience, this is unavoidable and something all new blogs have to deal with in Google these days.Even once your domain is out of this initial sandbox period though, any new articles that you do publish will still likley take around three months to get out of their own mini sandbox period too. This is totally normal and out of everyone I know who does this, there is not one single person who does not experience this effect. Try not to get down and give up before you have gave your content plenty of time to get out of the sandbox and start to pull traffic from Google.This is basically the process for how I am building my new domain but this new project is based around informational content with its income coming from display ads. Most of my older domains are based around buyer intent keywords and the Amazon Affiliate program and if you keep on scaling it up, you can earn a nice amount of income. The screenshot below is from my Amazon One Link dashboard and as you can see, the highest income day I have had to date from doing this is almost $345!https://ift.tt/2zutSA8 will now be quickly going over some of the other ways that you are able to promote your blog but to date, I have primarily focused on getting traffic from organic sources such as search engines like Google and Bing as covered above.Social MediaSocial media can be a minefield, a few years back Facebook reduced their organic reach for your content that you share meaning that even if someone follows your page, very few people will actually see it unless you pay for the Facebook ads to promote your content. Due to this, most people have moved away from Facebook that I know to use other platforms.Twitter and Instagram can potentially be solid sources of traffic depending on your niche but traffic leaking via hashtag search is becoming harder and harder to do. A common black hat technique for these two platforms was to use the mother and child system with your main account acting as the mother and a large number of automated accounts acting as the child account to promote the mother account but this does not work anywhere near as well as it used to.Pinterest is kind of a mix between a social media platform, a social bookmarking platform, and a image search engine. I am actually trying to for my new domain as I have seen some people pulling massive amounts of traffic from Pinterest but the niche of your blog will definitely play a large part in the amount of traffic you will b able to get.Social BookmarkingUnfortunately, in 2020, the majority of the popular social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon have all gone under. The main one with solid traffic is Reddit and depending on the sub-reddit admins, it can be a nightmare to traffic leak and promote your blog on there.I promote some of my content on Reddit with decent success but I have been a member of the communities I post in for years and have a good reputation and only promote high-quality content in there. Depending on your niche and the amount of time that you are willing to put into Reddit, it can be a decent traffic source but it is usually a one-hit-wonder rather than long term traffic.You will likley want some form of email opt in or browser notification plugin running to try and let you keep remarketing your content to the hits you can pull from Reddit. You can try to get your content ranking in the top section of the subreddit with the most upvotes as many people new to a niche and familiar with Reddit will organic the posts by top/all and result in residual traffic but this is niche dependent.ForumsNiche relevant forums can potentially be an excellent source of traffic but again, this will depend on your niche and your reputation on the forum. I have managed to do some excellent promotion in a number of forums relevant to some of my niches whereas in other niches for other projects it has failed massively.If you are an established member of some niche relevant forums then you can try to promote your blog there but again, it is often short term traffic similar to Reddit. You goal is to try and share some content that is so good that the admin team of the forum will pin it and result in residual long term traffic for years to come.Q&A SitesAs you have seen throughout this answer, I have shared some of my own content for my YouTube channel that goes into some specific aspects of some parts of the organic traffic process in more detail. This is essentially me promoting my content and although I am promoting YouTube videos, you can use sites like Quora and Yahoo Answers to promote your blog too.Depending on how well your answer does, you can sometimes get some solid traffic back to your own projects but again, this is going to be niche dependent as some niches will likley not do too well on Q&A sites whereas others can sometimes pull large amounts of traffic.Blog CommentingBlog commenting is an older method of promoting your blog that is nowhere near as effective as it used to be. The idea was that you would go to other blogs covering similar content to your own and publish a comment on their content with a link back to your own niche-related content. I have never actually tried this one myself but I have seen some blogs getting over 10,000 hits a month that friends who using this method on a large number of other blogs. via /r/Affiliatemarketing