May Cupcakes – Free Vector
May 6, 2009
Interesting SEO factbits
April 21, 2009
I’ve been extremly busy lately and keep thinking to myself, ”I really should post some of my interesting findings!’. Been getting a lot of questions about SEO, and incidentally I came across a great article that breaks it down it simple words. Excellent read for clients who don’t have much understanding of web works.
The article below is by Kurt D. Lynn, founder, cofounder, or senior executive of half a dozen enterprises in both the U.S. and Canada.
________***SEO***________
So Why All The Hubbub?
The excitement seems to be around the notion that SEO means “free advertising”, that it means, if you do it right, millions of people will be clicking through to your site willy-nilly having found you on some search engine and then will immediately do business with you. And behind all that excitement are thousands of overnight SEO “experts” that, variously, all claim to … (pick one):
- Have SEO secrets that will help you get an unfair advantage over the next guy;
- Guarantee you a first-page listing for an incredibly low monthly rate;
- Provide hundreds of high page rank sites that will link to your site;
- Give you 5/10/20 quick tips to immediately improve your rankings;
- Tell you what Google/MSN/Yahoo doesn’t want you to know about SEO;
- Tell you that whatever SEO you’re doing is all wrong; or
- Some other variant of the above.
To some extent, this notion of “free advertising” is not altogether inaccurate. SEO can result in your site being found – free of charge – and it can result in traffic to your site that may, in fact, result in new business. But the reality of SEO is not quite that simple.
SEO Is Far From “FREE”
SEO takes work… often, hard work. For those that aren’t familiar with what’s involved in SEO, below is a líst of some of the typical activities that (as the CREST commercials used to say) “when applied in a conscientious program of regular professional care” will result in higher search engine rankings.
- Researching and selecting keywords that are truly relevant to your desired audience;
- Researching competition for desired keywords;
- Researching and analyzing competitive websites;
- Re-writing and restructuring your website to address desired keywords, to be more accessible by search engine “crawlers”, to have appropriate label meta tags, headings, and inter-page links;
- Create a program to build links to your site from other sites (directories, exchanged links,article marketing, etc.)
- Create a program to keep content on your site regularly refreshed and synchronized with all the above.
- Regularly (daily or weekly) monitor all the search engines and your competitors positions
SEO Is Not Easy
Doesn’t quite sound as easy as some people suggest does it? That’s because it’s not. And it’s all the more complicated when you realize that every site on that first page, and on the second and third, is trying to do the same thing – but against you! You boost your rank above them. They go to work and boost their site back above yours. And so on and so on… It’s a war and the SEO “experts” are the arms dealers.
Your Goals And Those Of The Search Engine May Be Different
If you’re going to pay good money for SEO, it may also be worthwhile to keep in mind that search engines don’t necessarily have a goal of making you the most findable site on the web. The bottom line for them is making sure that their users find what they are looking for. Satisfying that requirement may mean that you don’t and should not come up first. Google is the number one search engine for a reason: Google users get results they want. Those may not be the results you want.
Short Term and Long Term
In the short run, there may be some serious benefits from investing in SEO to boost your search engine rankings. In the long run, however, there’s probably not much you can do beyond a certain point. Frankly, if you have a finite budget, altering the basic nature of your site and trying to boost how valuable your site is to others (as represented by links to your site) can only be taken so far. After a point, the perfect market characteristics of the search engine will prevail.
Balance SEO With Other Forms Of Traffic Generation
What this means is: yes, do make sure you do the essential SEO necessary to optimize your rankings in search engines. But do it in the context of an overall marketing program. Definitely use SEO to ensure that you get a fair and accurate appraisal by search engines. But also invest in other non-SEO lead-generation methods to bring traffic to your site and business to your table.
Above all, measure the results of your SEO and non-SEO activities carefully and frequently. When SEO reaches the point of diminishing returns, cut the rate in which you invest in it and boost your reliance on non-SEO marketing to reach your goals. In the long run, traditional non-SEO marketing may just be the most reliable and consistent way to boost traffíc to your site.
Free Vector March 2009 : Eggcellent Easter
April 7, 2009
HAPPY EASTER!!!
Free Vector For March 2009 is out! Right on time for Easter.
To download this free vector, click here.
For those who haven’t read my previous postings about Canaca, heres my opinion about them in a nutshell They are by far the worst business I have ever had the displeasure of working with and will rob you blind! And when you catch them, they will turn around and tell you to look into their ‘policy’ (that would be the tiny words at the very bottom of the site that say “we have the right to rob you” lol [Read their sorry excuse of a contract right here], well not those exact words, but if you see my previous posting you’ll know.)
I had signed up for web hosting with them on a clients behalf for ONE YEAR. Little did I know they’ve been charging my credit card every year since, without sending an invoice to me (they call it an automatic renewal, so customers aren’t bothered to renew or something like that). When you contact them about it, they tell you to read the fine print at the bottom!
Anyways this morning, I got an INVOICE! YES, that tells me I am ‘OVERDUE’ in my payment. So they wont send an invoice to say they are charging you, but they will send you an invoice to let you know you are ‘OVERDUE’ in your payments. So once again people of the world, STAY AWAY THIS COMPANY! Their office is located down the street from me and they are charging in US dollars! Jokers!
As you can tell, I have had an extremely bitter experience with these people and am doing everything in my ability to warn other non suspecting people out there who might want to use them!
Go Go Green & Ornamental Chocolate Wedding Invitation Sets
March 17, 2009
Available for sale at curlygomes.etsy.com
Paisley Wedding Invitation Set – Free Vector
March 10, 2009
Introducing the free vector for the month of February! A Paisley Wedding Invitation Set. Includes invite, RSVP and Save the Date, with crop marks!!! If you like this, check out the Etsy store for daily updates with new Wedding Invitation Designs~
New and some improved Wedding Invitations
March 7, 2009
Check out my new update on my Etsy.
2009 New and improved Wedding Invitation Sets
Facebook’s got our stuff :0
February 24, 2009
Although Facebook has been the fastest growing community site, connecting people from all over, old friends, new friends, far away family, exs’ etc, I’ve never been fully comfortable with it, mostly because so much drama comes from it…which I think I can do without, thank you very much. Drama from people who come across your page from a friend of a friend. But I neglected to examine facebook itself! Then I came across this….
The Consumerist has noticed a seemingly slight but very important (and disturbing) change in Facebook’s terms of service, regarding user-generated content.
In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way – even if you quit the service.
The TOS says the following:
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
It also used to contain another bit that is now missing.
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
This is also reinforced by the “Termination” section:
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
Sure, most users don’t really care (or think they don’t care) about all this, but the idea that you now cannot stop Facebook from using your content should you ever want to is frightening to say the least.
Looking at it globally, millions of people are uploading bits of information on everyone and everything, to a huge online database, and by doing so they’re automatically giving away the rights to use or modify this information to a private corporation. And not only that; they now also waiver the right to ever take it back from it.
Facebook should take a long, deep look into how it treats its users. Until now, users had options with regards to how the data they generated on Facebook was used. Now, they have no options whatsoever, rather than quit the service altogether. It’s a major difference; I’m not going to take it lightly, and neither should you.
Anyways, rather scary stuff. What am I doing putting all sorts of info about myself and other ppl on there?
CSS Tools that’ll make life easy!
February 18, 2009
Sometimes, CSS can be such a complicated thing, making sure it works on different browsers, fixing that darn IE bug, and just generally making sure it all works properly. This can be especially annoying if you are a newbie to CSS. But give it a chance, you will love it!
Below are a few tools I came across that will be easier on you and your time!
1. CSS Template Generator – with Source Code
2. YAML Builder
5. CSS Tidy
6. CSS Compressor- Use this utility to compress your CSS to increase loading speed and save on bandwidth as well.
7. Firebug- If you aren’t using this, now would be a good time to start 
8. Aardvark- This is by far one of my faves from Firefox, because it enables you to fix template problems by combing through the layout.
9. CSS Layouts
10. Collaborative Javascript Debugging
There’s more where this came from! Check out 60 CSS Tools.
0o00oh Wedding Gowns by Giambattista Valli
February 9, 2009
This is a beautiful collection by Giambattista Valli. So simple, yet fancy. However, I don’t know about the one big rose on the head thing, or #4, the cut is a bit unflattering, but that’s my opinion.
