Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

www.ladolcevitaonline.net is live! Check out my first attempt at webpage design, and brace yourself for a good laugh! I noticed that even after first previewing it, there are some formatting issues I need to resolve. (spacing mostly)

I'm pretty stoked! Now to set up the shopping cart, which I hope I can do through yahoo. I'm dreading that because I have a feeling that it's going to be hairy! We have a paypal account, business cards, a bank account, and just got the kit to be able to take credit cards at functions. So far so good.

I'd love to get suggestions on the site, but just keep in mind my abilities! Geoff, thanks for the tip on yahoo hosting--it was wicked cheap and gave me free user-friendly software to create the site.

GJ said 8 minutes later

You have a phone number on the site?? Where does that go?
Geoff said about 1 hour later

Looks good Kristen! Glad the Yahoo business helped! I've recommended it to a few people because it is a successful program for young business entrepreneurs like yourself (Safari needs a spell check like FireFox).

I think it is a great start and hopefully works out for you. If you find yourselves engulfed in customers (and cash), give me a call and we'll build you a custom website solution like nothing you've seen! Until then, rock on with the new site!
Kristen said about 2 hours later

the phone number goes to a phone line that we set up especially for the business.
Do you think that's ok?

Thanks Geoff, I don't see us getting engulfed in cash anytime soon, right now it's
just tooling around and all hoping to get the business off the ground. I'm hoping
that I'll be able to pick marc's brain about creating a shopping cart program if
I can't get something to work on my own. I have a creepy feeling that they are
complicated.
Kristen said about 2 hours later

the phone number goes to a phone line that we set up especially for the business.
Do you think that's ok?

Thanks Geoff, I don't see us getting engulfed in cash anytime soon, right now it's
just tooling around and all hoping to get the business off the ground. I'm hoping
that I'll be able to pick marc's brain about creating a shopping cart program if
I can't get something to work on my own. I have a creepy feeling that they are
complicated.
Steve said about 7 hours later

Web site looks really good Kristen! Looks like you undercut all the other resellers by $10 too!

So guys, what does it take to get Kristen's web site to show up when you do a Yahoo search? I found a few other resellers (including the original designer), but no links to Kristen's sight. Even when you search for Ladolcevitaonline, all you get is the .com website.
Kristen said about 7 hours later

I think I'd have to pay for this, unfortunately. I'd like to set up a "store" in ebay. I can't say that I expect to get a lot of looks from people just googling butler bag. It would be nice, but probably more expensive than we can afford. We mostly did it because when we mention it to people the first thing they ask is, oh, do you have a website? I'm hoping we'll be able to use it as a tool to spread the word by word of mouth at firt. That has worked well so far. I even had our first customer email today with this method.
GJ said about 7 hours later

There are some things you can do to the page to get you picked up by the spiders. The paid things you're talking about are sponsored search--you first want to get some ranking by normal search. Your bro Geoff can probably help with that, as I've been out of practice with that knowhow for more than a few years.
Geoff said about 18 hours later

It will take time to get your website up on the search listings. One of the things you can do is submit your site to the search engine for free. You can easily do this with Yahoo and Google by clicking on the "Advertise with Us" link or "submit your site." This is a first start. It can take up to 8 weeks before a crawler gets to your site, but typically they'll at least begin to visit your site within a week.

Some suggestions for you Kristen for SEO (search engine optimization)....make sure your pages have a Title. Your homepage just says "Home." That is no good, you want to have your company name in there, then a brief description about what your services are. Search engines will search through your title too, not just the content in your website. The trick is to have the "keywords" people are going to search for in your title, and in your text. The other trick is to have Meta Data in your website. I'm not sure if the Google builder gives you this option or not, but typically you put in "Meta Keywords" and "Meta Description."
GJ said 1 day later

Aw, Geoff, you don't know how to Googlebomb?
Geoff said 1 day later

That was so last year haha.
Eric said 2 days later

Great idea Kristen! I'm so proud!

Dad might be able to help you with the eBay thing, although he doesn't have a store. Are they selling very well on eBay?

I've really been trying to figure out a gimmick to sell on eBay; I'm so impressed that you and your friends came up with this!
GJ said 4 days later

I'd suggest memory water. Suckers are buying that stuff in droves these days.