Envision IT Creative

A new OOAK design has just been listed. This design will be sold just once, when it’s gone it’s gone! Hope you like it! To view the details visit Envision IT Creative.

Another custom design has just been completed for www.rfefiecollection.com.  I am so excited that she will finally be sharing her gorgeous designs via her new store, we have been anxiously waiting for her to make that leap.  Here are just a couple of her fabulous pieces, I can’t wait to see what she be offering in her store!

Have fun setting up your store RF and thank you for letting me design your site for you, I had a lot of fun with it!

I’ve been having some fun playing with fractals and wanted to share a few.  I love making these, I can get completely lost in them!  Some of them are giving me some ideas for new web designs too. : ) 

…and a Goth fractal. : ) 

…and one more.

Metropolitan

A new design has just been completed and posted.  Metropolitan is now available as an unlimited use design. 

Click here to view the full design, I hope you like it.  I just love those colors!!

I have had a lot of questions about domain names lately.  How do they work exactly?  Does it matter where you buy your domain name?  You can buy your domain name through any registrar, you are not then obligated to host your site there.  You will be able to host your site anywhere you choose, once you sign up for hosting you will have to tell your domain name where your site will be (basically) and you’re set.  One word of caution though, be careful where you buy it because it isn’t terribly easy to transfer to another registrar.  I don’t necessarily recommend buying your domain when you sign up for hosting.  If you ever decide to change hosts you will have to move your domain name to another registrar.  In my opinion it is a lot easier to buy your domain first then decide where you would like to host it. 

My favorite place to buy domain names is 1 and 1 Hosting, you’ll just need $6.99 a year and they make it super easy to control your domain name.  It is also fun to search for domain names at www.makewords.com.  They will help you come up with a domain name and let you know whether or not that domain name is available, once you find a domain name you like you can go purchase it through your favorite registrar.

You should try to buy a .com extension whenever possible.  Your customers will likely assume that your domain name is your businessname.com.  Most of the time they would be right, if that doesn’t work you will have to hope that they will be able to pull up your site through a search engine….that means you’ll need to do some research on SEO but that is a whole ‘nother post, or a lot of posts.  I won’t talk about SEO in this post but since I brought it up I will tell you that http://www.highrankings.com/forum/ is a great resource for current SEO information. 

Certainly, I haven’t coverered everything you need to know about buying a domain with this post.  The main point is to let you know that you can buy your domain name through any registrar and you will be able to host your site anywhere you choose.

Another site just completed for Mandy at Beadsme, you can visit her new OOAK design at www.beadsmeonline.com.  I had a lot of fun working with her, her work is wonderful and it was exciting to be able to set up her website and help her to get started putting together another showcase for her work.  Here are just a couple of her gorgeous designs.

 She will be adding products to her website soon but in the mean time you can see more of her work at www.beadsme.etsy.com.  Thank you Mandy!

Just completed, a new custom designed website for www.shinyadornments.com.  Shiny Adornments is a showcase for Kristy Smith’s gorgeous handcrafted jewelry.  I am certainly a fan of Kristy’s intricate wire wrapped designs, here are just a couple of my favorites! 

I very much enjoyed working with her on this project, feel free to visit her new site and check out her beautiful work!!  Thank you Kristy!

Two new designs.  Both of these designs are being offered as unlimited edition designs and are currently available on the website.  I was really happy with the way they both turned out.  With Rain Dance I really wanted to mimic the soft look of a water color painting.  Mystic River…well that was all about taking a hand drawn image and turning it into a graphic.  It took two days from start to finish but I think it was worth it!

Rain Dance

Mystic River

I hope you like these, they were a lot of fun to make!

Jen

Question: Is reciprocal linking still good for SEO?

The rule has been that link exchanging is a good thing as long as the links are on sites that contain relevant content. For instance if you have a jewelry site linking with gambling sites would do you no good, but linking with other jewelry related sites would be good. The best links have always been those that aren’t reciprocal (someone linking to you without asking for a link in return). I recently read though that link exchanging is dead and will no longer help you…the thinking is that the search engines have decided that anyone can exchange links. It seems that fresh content is the “in” thing now.

I notice when I run internet searches now I’m frequently taken to other forums, blogs or networking sites for answers. Search engines love content that is updated frequently because then the information is always current and up to date.

In reading Google’s “new” policy it appears that they are no longer giving much weight to link exchanging. Google’s link policy It appears as though one way linking is going to be given much more weight and link exchanging could actually hurt you if you over do it.

“The best way to get other sites to link to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page’s visitors?” ~excerpt from Google’s policy

So they are saying build good content that makes people WANT to link with you simply for the benefit of their visitors…that’s hard to do in every instance.  My best advice would be to be creative and think about what you have to offer that might set you apart from your competition and make others stand up and take notice. 

This is a very good forum for additional SEO information. http://www.highrankings.com/forum/