Case Study-Hija4.com

Raquel is a fabulous jewelry designer. In a sea of jewelry designers, she needed to stand out. Her site was a do it yourself, and she used a black background because she felt it would display her pictures better.

She also had a lot of her jewelry in consignment, which meant she would only be paid if it sold. Her business had boomed in the past three years and now it was time to take it to the next level. She wanted her website to reflect that she is up and coming. She also wanted to get in big stores but she has no clue how to go about doing that.

We talked about the feel she wanted to convey. She wanted to look sophisticated, worthy of high end stores. Her packaging needed to be designed. She also needed a press release and intro letter.

Her web image needed some work, starting with the logo. The font was not communicating sophistication. The other color she used was a bright red. That particular shade was very bright and was contrary to her chosen image.

A designer was hired to do the website, and another for the logo. The red-pink color is richer. The font is an all caps serif font. The font resembles
Victoria`s Secret font, which we agreed was very sophisticated. Raquel is very please with her new look.



The new site is more indicative of her new found sophistication. Mrosewebdesign.com did a fabulous job. In order to design this site, we had to treat her creations as art pieces, and the site as a gallery. So, we visited designers like David Yurman and Betsey Johnson in order to get a feel for how they frame their work. Her new site not only frames her work but is worthy of her pieces.

After taking her pieces out of consignment she sent me this email:
"I just wanted to tell you when we talked you advised me to not do consignments. So I removed my jewelry from the store where it was on consignment. They now want to buy some of my jewelry up front. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee HAWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Thank you so much for your expertise! "

Why not be paid ahead of time? Consignments are great for used items, but not for new goods. Another thing we talked about is how is she treating her pieces? Her silent answer was evident she didn`t know what I was talking about.

Her designs are to be treated as pieces of art. I asked her if she had a site where she could display her designs as a portfolio site. I told her she is the one who gives her pieces value, not just in dollar signs, but as a wearable piece of art. The portfolio site will be a way to show off her work. She is now working on that!

I will update with a follow up post!

SEO Spam-Don`t do it!!

I love companies that guarantee listing on Google.com`s first page. I specially love the company, who after charging my client $500 a month, all they did was add keywords to her page at the bottom of her page in a different text color. But the one that takes the cake, is the one that called me and told me:"Do you know that your site cannot be found on the web?"
"Oh yeah," I said "I am #1 on google.com for X keyword, which is what I do. Did you try that?"

Although I am sure that there are good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) companies, I am wary of companies that call me out of the blue. My advice to you-Learn how to do it yourself! Google posts guidelines and even hosts free seminars for business owners.

Here are a few rules on what not to do:

1. Never hide text in your page by making it the same color as your background. If you want to be known on the web for selling chrome hub caps and you type that in, over and over and hide the text or make the text light, it will be considered spamming.
2. Never just add keywords to the bottom of the page. In order to benefit from even having keywords, you need to write about them on the page. Not all of your pages on your website will be about the same subject. So! Change the keywords on each page to reflect its content.
3. Never use irrelevant keywords. I once found a web designer using her competitor`s name in her keywords. Again, your content must match your keywords.
4. Never use crazy java scripts or flash. As good as technology is, only Google`s spiders are smart enough to crawl over flash and java scripts. Some scripts may be obsolete and not crawlable. So if you are not getting the hits you need, check the scripts and flash on your page.
5. Never clog up your alt tags. Usually designers will fill these up with your keywords or your name. Personally, I prefer them blank. If you know how to add alt tags, you do it. As your content changes, those tags will have to change to reflect your new content. How do you know your alt tags have content? Take your cursor and hover it over an image. If text pops up, you have an alt tag.
   
6. Never submit your site more than twice a month. Really! If you do, you will be blacklisted.
   

Case Study-Blog Good Girl Gone Shopping

Diary of a Personal Shopper gets a makeover!

Elana is a successful columnist and senior editor for Agenda Magazine and DP Mag. She is not just a great writer, she is a fashion guru in her own right.

She is trying a new venture. She is launching herself as an image consultant. She knows her stuff, but how to make sure her web image matches her expertise? Elana hires Business Trendista to style her web image.

She loves combining colorful things, adding a "splash of color". But her blog was a bucketful! The bright color was very distracting and detracted attention from her fabulous content.
Sample of Elana`s former blog.

Elana needed a couple of things-To establish a web identity with a logo or character, maximize the space on her blog as her old template has so much info it was too long, communicate with her readers with feeds, join other blogging communities, uncluttering some of the extra badges and monetizing her blog.

After getting a logo and a girly character, she had a three column template designed to match her style. We wanted to mimic the feel of Betsey Johnson`s web site.

Her site is very clean and has splashes of color that do not overwhelmed visitors. Color is used to accentuate areas of interest and the same was done here.

Her new template has three columns, allowing her to sell her space to advertisers, without making her page extra long. She also will have links across the page to important post that double up as"pages" for the relevant information her clients need to know. Just like a website would!

She burned her feed using a service that allows you to subscribe to the feed via email, which basically makes her blog a great newsletter. She already saw an increase on the amount of time that people are spending on her blog, which means people are actually reading her blog. She is establishing herself as an image consultant and creating a following.

Can her current presence be improved? Absolutely... more on that later!

Case Study-MyMimiPie.com- Follow Up

I am happy to report that Erika at mymimipie.com is reporting excellent news.

She recently asked her designer at Hip `N Chic Designs to review her front page in order to make it more accessible and easy to navigate for clients. The page was uncluttered and important links moved to the upper fold of the page.

After teaching her how to optimize her front page for the 5 keywords she wanted to be known for, she reported yesterday that she is on the first page of Google.com search engine! After an uphill struggle to climb the search engines, her web site is now crawled by search engines, and indexed properly.

She also rewrote, and optimized different pages. and had a professional writer proof her grammar and spelling. Erika is certainly on her way!

The Wish List Advantage

Have you ever stopped reading a book you like so much that you go and and fold the page or add a cute paper bookmark to your book? How about a catalog? Do you ever surf the net and find such cool sites you want to bookmark them? If you said yes to any of these questions, you like lists.

More specifically, wish lists!! I personally love wish lists, as it allows me to do a plethora of different things. From researching and comparing books at amazon.com, to saving my favorites things I will buy later at mychicthings.com.

Wish lists are not just for pregnant customers or brides. They make shopping easy when you may not have the cash but have the time. These lists also facilitate a gift challenged husband or boyfriend.

Personally, I prefer a well thought out-read:previously chosen-present over a gift certificate. So if you are a retailer ask yourself the following, Do I offer wish lists? If you don`t, does your system remember the contents the customer placed in the cart? If you do offer wish lists, how easy are they to switch the contents of the list to the cart?

Making the shopping experience easy for your clients will not only make you money on sales, but customers will come back to you and have repeat sales.

E-Parties Made Easy

Having an e-party is an effective way to have established customers bring new ones. Here is what you will need;

• your email template-optional
• your coupon mod
• your database of clients
  

1. First select a date for the party and a theme. Have a theme like a holiday, happy shopping hour etc. Use your email template or snail mail invitation. If you have a hostess, this will be her job.
2. Second -Make 2 discount codes, one to your hostess, the other for her guests- Make sure your hostess has these before she mails out the invites.
3. Third-offer the person who host the party host gets a nice reward. That is where the coupon mod comes in. A nice discount or free product.
4. Fourth-The other buyers get a discount. The higher the sale the better the reward to your host.

Why coaching?

Would you board a plane that has no pilot? Would you join a gym that has no trainer? Would you join a team that has no coach? So if you are new at the entrepreneur game, why not have a coach?

Any one can benefit from a coach. whether you have been in business for years, like me. Or you are a novice. A pair of fresh eyes and having the right business knowledge can help give your business direction and propel you to success.
For limited time Women Who WOW and Business Trendista are partnering up for the NEXT 7 DAYS ONLY you will receive my one on one consult FREE when you hire Michelle.

I have personally worked with Michelle. I casually had a conversation with her prior to hiring her in which she gave me advice on how to be more organized. I followed her advice and not only did I become more organized, but had twice as much time. She was so personable and kind, I had no clue she had just given me a "nodge" in the right direction.

Please visit Women Who WOW and let Michelle make you successful and let The Business Trendista make you look good!

Case Study-MyMimiPie.com

MyMimiPie.com is an adorable card business created by Erika Barnes. The site, designed by Hip N` Chic, is very visually appealing and frames her work well.
In speaking with Erika, felt people were coming but not buying. She spent a lot of money on the site and not made enough. We did three things;

• Search Engine Optimization
  
• Loss Analysis
  
• In-Business Business Plans

I sat down with her and explained what could be deterring the search engines from entering her site. I also explained the process of adding specific keywords to her content and hyperlinking the keywords to existing pages on her site that matched those words.

I also analyzed her time spent on her work. What she was charging for services offered and what was complementary. In studying the correlation of what she was being paid for and what she wasn`t, I determined that giving away services is what is causing her to loose money. A modest fee would be charged.
In order to simplify her process, she will decide what will be customized and what will not. That way she can concentrate on having sets ready when orders are placed. When customized orders come in, she will work on those and charge accordingly.
In about a week I will check in with her and see how she is doing!!

Bartering Dos and Don`ts

Sometimes when money is tight, bartering can be a nice way to trade services or goods needed to run your business. This however, if not handled carefully, may open up you up for an unpleasant experience if you don`t define up front what you are trading. Here are list of dos and don`ts when bartering;

• Do write on paper what the exchange is, be specific about what it entails and have both parties sign it. After all, would you enter into business with someone without signing a contract? Bartering is a business transaction and should be treated as such.
• Don`t accept goods for your trade at a retail value. Always trade what they cost you to buy and demand the same. Retail value is the price of an item on the market, not what the retailer paid. With that said, would you trade $125 worth of a service for a brush that cost $16 dollars? That clause if applicable should be written in.
• Do barter for equal trade. If you trade $100 in merchandise, demand the same trade. Uneven trades make bitter business relationship.
• Don`t leave the contract open ended. I once watched a TV judge show where the agreement actually called for whenever the one party was able to make restitution, to make restitution. The other party got tired of waiting for whenever and sued. Always have a time stipulation for goods to be delivered or services to be rendered. This will protect you from being gypped out of your shake of the deal, often called swaplifting.
• Do barter with friends. I often oppose doing business with those who you know well. But the truth of the matter is, is usually your good friends the only ones willing to try you out when you have no experience.
  

She À La Mode What I Do

Taking your business in the right direction!
My name is Elaine and I have been consulting businesses since 2004. In my repertoire of services, I offer,

• Press Release Writing
• Web Business Consulting
• Web Image Consulting
• Search Engine Optimization
  
• Loss Analysis-Where are your losses?
  
• In-Business Web Business Plans- Direction after your site is up
  
• Process Simplification-Make ordering easy
• Web Color Consultation
  
• Software Training-Photoshop,Illustrator

My consult rate is $35 an hour. Classes start $40. If you are ready to set something up, please email me at shealamode @ mail.com or call me at 206-202-0265.

Buy One Hour Consult with me-She À La Mode

Hire me!

One Hour Consult-She À La Mode $35.00