by Linda | Oct 12, 2011 | my creative journal
Looking for a fast and easy way to share your voice, opinion or audio tidbit with the world? There’s this new audio social network called Audioboo that I’ve been seeing on various blogs and sites. It’s basically a way for you to record an audio tidbit with your smartphone, then post it into your account online for friends and family.
However, you can also record through the website itself…making it a little podcasting engine, if you choose to use it in that way. You can also set it up to auto post to Twitter or Facebook and/or embed the audio onto your blog. Seems like a great way to communicate with others online, showing more of your personality than writing, but not so up close and personal like video, for those who are especially camera shy! No special equipment needed, they pretty much do it all for you. Pretty cool. Now I wonder how I could use this…what to share?!
by Linda | Oct 8, 2011 | my creative journal
As my cravings grew stronger, I was soon compelled to write a love letter…to my dearest coffee and make it a scrapbook page.
Here’s what I wrote:
Dear Coffee,
I have tried to let you go, substituting my mornings with a variety of other liquid refreshments for a change. But I really miss you and I’ve come to realize that resistance is futile. I need and want to drink you, my dear coffee. I long for you every morning and as the weather turns cooler, I miss your warmth even more. You might be my drug for life, but why should I be denied something so simple and wonderful?
I should not have acted so rashly, wanting to rid you from my life in attempts to be healthier. In fact, I have since learned that you are not so unhealthy after all. You give me positive health benefits in fact…with relatively few drawbacks. Oh my wonderful coffee, what have I done?
I really adore you so…
– I look forward to you every morning
– you make me more alert and boost my ability to concentrate
– you have a protective effect on my central nervous system
– you lower the risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s amongst other issues
– you actually contain some good vitamins and minerals
You are more good than bad, when consumed in moderation. You are my beautiful, warm, soothing, wonderful, delicate, enjoyable, smooth, flavorful, satisfying, magical stimulant. You are an important part of my life, so I surrender myself to you, my dear coffee. I am sorry to have betrayed you. Please take me back. Please accept my love and devotation from this moment forward.
forever yours,
linda
October 2011
I used my coffee illustrations as stickers and created the page digitally, then I printed it out on canvas paper – very cool texture. Then put it all together on kraft paper with old school golden photo corners. Super simple layout that truly reveals how I feel at the moment. In withdrawal 🙁
by Linda | Oct 5, 2011 | my creative journal
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term that usually scares most people away. It’s that complicated techy nerd stuff and I agree that most of us don’t have time to fiddle around with. That’s exactly the reason why you should learn the basics and work it into the best practices of how you communicate online…because your time is so precious.
In reality, SEO is not rocket science…in fact, we know that technology changes constantly and there is no exact science to SEO. Optimization simply means you are striving for the most effective result and I think it’s a way of doing things in general – that is why I say SEO is good sense.
We all go to a search engine like Google and search for the information we are looking for. SEO is an attempt to make your content show up when people are searching for it. Of course, there are tricks out there and methods to push your website up the ranks, but the search engines can readily change their algorithms and scoring methods. In fact, it happens a lot and many of the tricks no longer work and sites lose ranking that they spent a lot of time tinkering around to create.
What doesn’t change is the fact that search engines are trying to give the people what they want. If someone wants to find a plumber in San Francisco, it’s pretty clear what they expect the search engine to list for them. So ultimately, as a creative entrepreneur, artist, whatever your business…you want people to find you when it pertains to your business. In the crafting world, a whole lot of people get traffic from posting tutorials because it’s exactly something someone would search for – “how to make” or “how to sew” something.
So what best practices do you need to pay attention to when it comes to SEO for your small business?
- Write for humans. Tips and tricks aren’t going to last…ultimately, you want people to consume your content, so write for real people reading your content.
- Use descriptive titles and sections. I know sometimes we want to be clever or cryptic with our titles and it’s okay for the occasional blog post, especially when it is something cryptic or personal. But if you are writing a tutorial or article about a specific topic, please title it properly. Don’t unnecessarily confuse readers or lead them astray.
- Try to be descriptive with your image file names and add those captions, alt and title tags as well. Again, it’s just goes back to being clear about your content. If someone happens to link directly to your image, will they have any idea what it’s all about? I get lazy with these things as well, but at least try to do it for those posts that are meant to attract users like tutorials and information articles.
- WordPress users, I recommend the All in One SEO Pack to ensure your basic meta tags are in place.
- WordPress users should change the default permalink structure. Basically, when someone goes your blog post, do they see cryptic numbers and symbols in the address bar? That doesn’t help anyone. It’s so much better to have the category, the postname or some combination that makes sense to a human reader. Again, it’s just good sense!
Although I’ve learned many tips and tricks in SEO for building websites, the ultimate goal is really about being clear with your content. If you do a good job with that in mind, keeping everything as clear and descriptive as possible…you are doing a service to your readers in general…not just trying to boost your rankings. The icing is that your content will naturally be optimized. Remember that you are not competing with the big shots who have the money to hire a team of SEO specialists…because yes, there are people who’s sole responsibility in their job is optimize a website, manage paid campaigns and all that jazz.
If you are interested in learning more about SEO, blogseo is filled with informative articles.
by Linda | Sep 29, 2011 | my creative journal
Just when I was getting into Facebook for my business and blogging about it, they go and announce a whole new interface of changes. Goes to show how fast technology forges ahead and how important it is for you to keep up or at least be aware of what’s new. Otherwise, you’ll be left behind and honestly, won’t be able to evaluate if you should or shouldn’t spend time on the latest and greatest thing. I think it pays to be informed. For Facebook there’s a great roundup of the latest changes on Mashable…very helpful read.
I’ve been slowly coerced into joining several other social media sites, sort of test driving to see how it turns out…from Google+ to Pinterest. I’m still not sure what will become the go to way to communicate and share with others, but I figure there’s no harm in more exposure.
You’ll certainly be hitting different people and having a standing set of profile-type information across the web really helps to build up your credibility and presence. I’m starting a keep a folder of basic information about me, avatar photos, etc…so whenever I have to set up a profile, it’ll only take a few minutes.
You should also remember that technology is constantly being updated. Twitter has added a @Username and Activity tab, as well as updating the ability to upload photos to include in tweets. These little changes can really change the way you communicate and it’s important to work them into your routine. No need for Twitpic anymore!
What about the up and coming normalcy of ipads and tablet-like devices? Is your website easily readable on those platforms? I know it’s a lot to keep up with and it’s impossible to cater to all…but to a certain extent, you have to be aware and catch up one day. It is said that tablets will outsell laptops and desktops soon…imagine that! Consider the smaller size of tablet screens and the fact that we click with fingers and sweep the pages up and down…hmm…totally different experience. Also, most tablet browsers don’t support Flash (yet) and more than ever, bandwidth is an important issue. Super heavy to download sites aren’t probably so convenient for those on the go or browsing wirelessly at a cafe. Yup, more to think about. To me it seems to signal more than ever, less is more on your website.
So have you given yourself time to catch up a bit with technology these days?
by Linda | Sep 26, 2011 | my creative journal
While doing a bit of scrapping last week, a spark of inspiration suddenly hit me and I created my very own sewn journaling cards. I’ve realized that these cards are super handy for recording little moments and joys in life. I can write something out quickly before I totally forget, then scrap about it later when time permits.
Although there are many journaling cards out there in the market, my issue is always access. Living in a small town in Italy means that nothing new is around and everything takes forever to be mailed to you, not to mention the shipping and customs costs. So I try to go the frugal way and make things myself.
Download colored journaling lines page ZIP
I decided to print out a page of rainbow colored lines – generally I like lines to help me handwrite straighter – you can go ahead and download the design for your own personal use above. Otherwise you could use lightly patterned papers or solid colors. I just sliced the page up into various sizes and combined them with solid colored cardstock. Nothing too difficult, but sewing the papers together adds a really nice touch of detail and decoration.
I created various sizes, experimented with sewing straight or zig zag as well as varying square corners and rounded corners. In the end, I had a bunch of cute journaling cards to use.
Here’s a photo of my first application, adding some stickers and string to dress it up. Pretty neat, huh? You can see the whole layout at 2ps btw.
Go ahead and try to make some of your own journaling cards! Do you have any other ideas? I’m loving them for my scrapbooking process these days.
