Digital Scrapbooking for You - But first you have to be able to find me!

I've been doing some research on optimizing my website, www.webajeb.com. How was I to know there's so much to learn?? I have had to learn terms like "keywords," "XML site map," "title tags," and "H1 headers," not to mention that I'm going to have to start tweaking the HTML code of my site. Yeah, the HTML code. We won't even go into that!

But, at the end of it all, I should have a website that is more frequently returned in the results list when people are searching for a service such as mine. That's been a big mystery. How to get noticed on the internet.

It's important because, so far, 90% of my clients have found me on the internet. So I have been studying up on what search terms people are using, how often, and how much competition there is for each term. Whew!

Not an exact science, by any means and, like the internet itself, it changes frequently. Someday I hope to have someone else do this stuff for me, like when my business has grown to the point where I have enough work to keep me busy 40 hrs/week. Until then, the extra hours I have available will be spent tweaking the html code of my website pages and believe me, I'd much rather be designing scrapbook layouts! Nothing's drier and more tedious than the html code behind a web page! If you are curious about what it looks like, go to my website, www.webajeb.com, do a right-click on the home page and then choose "View Source."

You'll be sorry you did. Welcome to my world!

October News

I'm a little slow these days getting everything done. My newsletter for October isn't even written yet, let alone sent out! But I did get the new calendar page done, and the template freebie, so be sure to visit my website to download them. I created the calendar page while I was visiting my mom in Simi Valley, CA., and then I just made the template yesterday, and got both uploaded to http://www.webajeb.com/. I've included directions on using both, so I hope you enjoy my freebies! I noticed this a.m. that a couple of people have already downloaded the calendar page so some of you must have been waiting anxiously, and I apologize for the delay!

The Nature Lover's template (pictured below) is based on a layout I did for my veterinarian, Dr. Brisbin. You can see his entire album on my website; just click on the "slideshows" link at the top of the homepage. The calendar pages have been so much fun to create that I'm thinking of creating an entire year's worth for 2008 and offering it on my website. Of course, it may not happen by January with everything else that is going on.

Many of you know, if you read my other blog (http://www.deztalkin.blogspot.com/), that my husband and I are heading out on an 8 week sailing cruise on the 17th of this month. So, needless to say, we are running around like crazy trying to get ready. Adding to the "fun" is my hubby's bout with strep throat, and me having pulled a muscle in my back 2 days ago. PLUS, our oldest son and his fiancee have planned a BBQ in southern california for their parents and grand-parents to meet and get to know each other. That's on the 14th which means a drive down there and back, using up 3 to 4 days of our preparation time.

All of these things are making is difficult for me to really concentrate on my little biz, and it's marketing needs. And, since we'll be gone and my internet time will be much more limited, I am going to have to defer any new work until I return. It's frustrating, yet it couldn't happen at a better time since, at the moment, I don't have any new work! I am mainly working on marketing ideas/strategies, creating the freebies & newsletters, updating blogs, as well as fine-tuning my website. There are bells and whistles I'd love to add to it (a counter, for one) but all these things take time and, in some cases, learning new stuff.

While we are on our trip I will be doing a LOT of layout work, using my own photos. It would be a good time, too, to work on the 2008 calendar. I'd also love to create lots more templates that I could offer individually and at a really good price. Internet access will be sporadic at best, so most of what I will work on will have to be offline. But keep watching this blog for updates, and visit my website often, too. I'll be updating both as I am able. And, as always, e-me anytime and for any reason; deborah@webajeb.com. I love hearing from you!

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Digi-Scrappin' Full-Time Now!

A long-awaited day has finally arrived. I am now "employer-free" and ready to devote a lot more time to my little business. It's exciting to think I can plan and portion my days in whatever way I want, and I'll have the time to do the marketing that's necessary to bring in more clients and more work.

I'll be doing some fine-tuning of my "new" website, as well as uploading lots of new samples of my work. More freebies, too! Calendar pages for October, November, and December, and digital scrapbooking templates, too.

I have follow-up work to do with former clients, the October newsletter to send out, as well as tons of learning to do now that I've upgraded my PhotoShop software to CS3. Boy, is that software cool! Not to mention also going on a long sailing cruise next month, but my laptop is going along, too, and most marinas now have free wireless internet (how cool is that?) so I'll still be able to spend time "on-line."

So stay tuned, and check back frequently, both here and at http://www.webajeb.com/!

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Website Woes

I'm far from a professional website-builder but, because my small business is still less than a year old, and barely in the black, I do all my own website work (http://www.webajeb.com/). There was a definite learning curve there but with the help of the technical folks at Crystal Tech (where my website is hosted) and their on-line web-building tool, I actually built quite a nice website. I even learned a little about html so that I could make a tweak or two to the source code. There were a few little flaws in my design that I wasn't totally happy with but I learned to live with them.

Well, yesterday I got it into my head that at long last I was going to fix one of those little flaws. I wanted all my main category links (like About Us, Pricing, and Specials) in the header of the website, instead of some up there, and the rest in the body of each page. It is during the "build" process that those links are created, and they are not directly editable once they have been created. Plus, I kinda wanted to change the template I was using to something a little simpler and cleaner looking. So I stepped through the build process using the tool provided by Crystal Tech, choosing a new template, and specifying the links I wanted to display in the header.

What I didn't realize was that the tool was creating BLANK pages for the header links and, since the names of those links (or web pages) were the same as before, my original web pages with all the cool content I had slaved over, were overwritten!!! AUGH!

Eighty percent of my website was hosed! Gone! Kaput!

After some spinning around the room and swearing (luckily my husband wasn't at home at the time), I tried to calm down and THINK. I realized I had back-up copies of a few of the lost web pages so I restored those. Then I simply sat myself down and plugged through re-creating the rest. Since I originally built the website and have tweaked it a hundred times over the last 8 months, I was able to dredge most of it up from memory. The build process didn't delete ANY of my image files so I didn't have to search them down on my hard-drive and re-upload, so that was a big help.

I'm 95% done now and, what do you know? I like the website better now than I did before! And I learned some new stuff, too, like always keep back-up copies of every website page! I actually have two backup copies of each page now: one on-line, and one on my hard-drive.

How much you want to bet I never need them???

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