Optimizing your Blogs

I posted a blog about a week ago and proceeded to announce it in the usual places that one announces these things....especially for someone who is an admitted technotard.  I put it on both my face book pages and I  went to the forums on Artfire where I have my online shop and I posted it there.  Along with some nice comments, I got a response from a computer guru, Jim  Juris , who is on Artfire also, and he told me that I needed to optimize my blog titles so that they would be picked up in Google searches.  So I have just finished changing the titles of a number of my blogs - and I like my original titles much better than the optimized ones...but I must admit that optimizing them makes sense.

I love writing blogs - they're fun - it's fun to transfer my pre-retirement knowledge (professional practice management) to a new venue, making jewelry and the business involved in selling your jewelry.  I love sharing pictures of what I am currently doing and also, what I am currently thinking...which is sometimes scary to see in black and white...but still fun to share.  It makes sense to try to get more people looking at all this....but it's just like putting my jewelry in my shop...I'd love to have some cute name instead of  something that google is going to look at.  So much of what we do is predicated by the rules of the web and I truly wish it were otherwise....but, it isn't.

As I have said many times, I am truly a technotard - I survive in this new technical world but not without allot of blood, sweat, and tears.  I honestly thought that by putting good labels or tags on my blogs that Google would pick them up, but that is rarely the case. I am always amazed that almost 4000 people have read my blogs - but almost 70,000 people have looked at my shop on Artfire in almost the same amount of time...and I have tried very hard to optimize the titles of my jewelry, but not my blogs.  So I definitely feel that old Jim is probably on to something that we all should be aware of.. It's a cold cruel economy and world out there and any little edge that we can get to get more people looking at what we are selling is better than good...it may just be fantastic.

Those are my thoughts for today and I hope that they help...til next time

Returning to my Jewelry Work Bench

I have not made any jewelry to speak of since the middle of  May.  I had a large glitch in my health and am just now, four months later, beginning to feel like myself again.  I really do feel fantastic but I cannot get going at my bench again.  I have some great ideas , especially just as I am falling asleep, but so far I can't translate them into anything concrete.  It is becoming frustrating....but I'm confident that my muse will reappear shortly.  Hope that she didn't get as sick as I did! ! !

The one thing that I have made are with some beads from Kenya, Africa.  They are all hand made and hand painted making them somewhat irregular and I love them because of it.

I think that these are fun and colorful.  The company where they are made is a

"Fair Trade"  company and they figure that their 400 employees provide  a living wage that covers over 1600 people.  So not only can you have a great necklace, but help your fellow man at the same time, an all around winning combination.  If you didn't know, I am an elephant freak and finding good looking pieces that I can use in jewelry is a real prize for me and these are  definitely  good looking and not too heavy to be comfortable to wear.  These are in my Artfire  shop .

The  only other thing that I have made is  with a formed bead of brightly colored agate and resin and I combined them with  colored "O" rings to make a winning combo......

I wear these allot - especially the necklace as above but without the pewter center piece.  Only because I am really a plain Jane when it comes to my jewelry - give me color or bling or both, but keep it simple.  I admire complex, involved, difficult - I just don't want to wear it or make it...because I only make what I  would personally wear.

So that 's the extent of my output since May - rather skimpy and dismal...but I hope to correct that soonest.  My other problem is that my eldest daughter spent a whole day cleaning my studio - she did all that she could without me  and it looked fantastic.  I promised her that I would finish it...and  that is exactly what I have been doing with allot of my creative time...it's not very creative, but I have to refind everything in my studio and I have to fulfill my promise...when I get it done, it will be the best that it's ever been....I even purchased some new storage, but getting there is a real pain.

I hope that you all have a great day and hopefully, I will be returning here soon - One more thing to add to my "to do" soon list - blogging.  I've really missed it.....