January: New Work

We show our Red, White, and Blue in our latest design for Liz and her E-Bay Boutique. Liz wanted a scooter-themed custom ebay storefront-made in mind for her 3 year old twins.

With the success of our her template we will be uploading several more E-bay templates for those who have been asking. Please contact TCG if you want a custom Ebay Storefront, Ebay Auction, or Ebay About Me page created for you or your business.

Boyz-N-Toyz Website

January Free Fonts: Too Girly

Visit Tres Chic Geek’s Free Fonts Page

We chose this month’s fonts for their ultra girly handwritten quality. Hand written font are generally used to create an informal look. However you must not over use these fonts and avoid using them in small font sizes because the letters can become obscure.

These fonts are perfect for romantic or girly logos and headers.

January Free Graphics: It’s All About the Bag

January Question: 1

Tres Chic Geek is all about helping out others to make their business grow. Instead of paying someone by the hour for web, graphic, and business related questions, TCG wants to help our visitors out for free! If you have a web, business, graphic, or print related question please Contact Us , email us at tcg@treschicgeek.com, or post your questions on our blog.

We will try to answer all your questions in a timely manner. Remember their are NO stupid questions, someone probably was wondering the same thing but was afraid to ask. . . Also, if we choose your question to answer on our blog, you will receive 15% off your future service from Tres Chic Geek.

Diane asks: I’d really like the most simple instructions to add links to website

Diane, the simplest way to add a link to your site is by using this HTML code.

External Link : A Web Site outside of your website

<a href=”URL of the Web Site to go to: http://www.site.com “>Text that will be the link</a>

Internal Link: A Page within your Web Site

<a href=”URL of the Page to go to: page.com “>Text that will be the link</a>

Graphic Link

<a href=”URL of the Web Site to go to: http://www.site.com or Page: page.htm“><img src=”IMAGE URL” border=”0″></a>

Remember:

<A> </A> are anchor tags and they create either hyperlinks or text referenceswithin an XHTML document

The closing</a> tag is always required.

Search Engine Optimatization: Going Organic

Organic search engine optimization (SEO) is really not as difficult as it may sound. The most important thing is going “green” or in other words not using unethical means to gain search engine popularity. Tres Chic Geek shares some useful tips on how to rank higher the Organic Way.

Linking: Be My Friend

One way to get many links to your web site is by having relevant information / content on your site so other sites will link to all your fascinating pages. Remember you don’t have to be #1 on the entire web, but you can rank quite high in popularity within your niche.

Idora Designs wanted a high ranking for their floral handbag web site and asked us to optimize their site (SEO) and also help them with their search engine ranking and marketing (SEM). Being #1 on Google for handbags, unfortunately was virtually impossible, but coming in 3rd for flower handbags on Google was pretty good, when we took advantage of niche marketing. Now their visitors have doubled, they are gaining popularity, and have 100s of links pointing to their site.

SEO Is a Process

As with the web, SEO practices and search engine ranking and algorithms are always changing. To stay on top, your site must change and grow. But how will you grow if you are a jewelry designer or a spa? Tap into your knowledge and the happenings of your business and share this information with your clients in the form of forums, newsletters, blogs, articles, and RSS feeds.

Get Seen Get Heard

You want to make a statement, but you want to look professional and sharp, not loud and trashy. Make sure that your web site is easily accessible and navigable by the search engines. Your site may have 10 to 100 pages but if your site is a mess spiders and robots will only go one page deep. Spiders and Robots form Google, Yahoo, MSN. . . may never explore the rich content your site is hiding if you make it too hard to find.

One way to help robots navigate your site is to clean up the code on your web site. Cascading style sheets (CSS) is the new way to design sites. The fancy images and HTML are neatly hidden away in external pages and all that is left is clean text ready to be gobbled up by robots.

But don’t forget that you also need a hearty meal of optimized content (keywords and phrases) for those hungry robots. The more they see your sites relevance, the higher your site will placed in the search engines.

So You want to be #1

Where to Start: Have a professional (hint hint- Tres Chic Geek) take a look at your site and optimize is so it can start bringing you visitors. ‘

Having a site out on the web is a step forward, but having a site bringing in clients is quite a leap ahead. Have in mind what kind of visitors you want to bring in, what is your niche market, what kind of services and products are you selling, or offering, and what is your competition doing? Tres Chic Geek can help answer all those questions and can help you start working your way up the ranks-and possibly to the number 1 position.

How to Choose Buy and Choose a Domain Name

So you’ve started a business and now need a website. But www.coolchic.com is taken. What to do?
If your domain is already registered and for sale. How much should you be willing to pay?

One of the most important considerations in valuing a domain name is the “TLD,” or Top Level Domain, such as .com, .net, .org, etc. A .com name will most likely sell for about four times the domain name with extensions, such as .net, .org, and .info. The .mobi extension, utilized for content to be delivered to mobile devices, is rapidly gaining popularity and value, especially for domain names suitable for such devices.

An extremely important consideration in the value of a domain name is the number of words it contains. Single word domain names can be very valuable, especially the .com extension. Two word domains can also be quite valuable. Values really plunge when you get to three words or more.

Domains containing misspellings, abbreviations, hyphens, characters not on a standard keyboard, and other oddities often have very little value.

The number of letters in a domain name can also affects its value. Three letter .com names can be quite valuable; Four letter .com names usually need to be pronounceable to have value, and they don’t always need to be real words in the dictionary (cool sounding four letter .com names can be very brandable, even if they are made up).

We could go on almost forever listing factors that impact the value of a domain, but the above gives you a sense of what to consider if you are thinking of buying your “perfect” domain name.

A place to look for “sold” domain names is WhoIs.com . This site tells who owns the site, their contact information andhow long the owner has owned the domain name and when the domain name will expire. Remember that people often forget to renew their domain names, so maybe you can get lucky and snatch that name up.

GoDaddy has Domain Buy Agents that will help you purchase “sold” domains. If you have the money and the need for a certain domain name, then GoDaddy can help you negotiate a price with the current owner.

Instead of Buying a Domain, Maybe Think of Something New!

So, coolchic.com is taken, but try coolchic.net or thecooleschic.com, be creative. This is your business and your website needs to tell visitors who you are and what you do. Do you you sell clothes-try coolchicclothing.com, make shampoo: coolchicshampoo.com. The name is a bit long but having what you do or sell in your domain name will help customers and search engines find your site.

Use Tres Chic Geeks Domain Name Tool if you need some help. With this tool you can get up to 20 available domain names to choose from. As stated coolchoc.com is taken, but some pretty hip names still exist: icoolchic, mycoolchic, coolchiplanet, and coolchicbiz.

When you are ready to buy that unforgettable domain name, you can do so at our Domain Name page for as little as $10 a year-and maybe someday that name will be ten times that to some other new business owner.

Adding a Background to Your Web Site

Find Free Backgrounds at Tres Chic Geek

Backgrounds are an easy way to add some personality and color to a drab web site. Once you find that perfect background it is easy to add it to your site using a few simple pieces of code.

Using HTML

When you see an a page with an image backgrounds, it is not one continuous .gif or .jpeg, it is actually a small .gif or .jpeg repeated.Sometimes iit will take some time for a background .gif or .jpeg to load, so you should put a color command before the BODY BACKGROUND command. It will then appear that your page is a a certain color and then the background wipes over that color.

body { background-image: url(\’image.jpg\’); background-color: #FFFFFF; }

Using CSS

The CSS background properties allow you to control the background color and image on your page.

The style tags goes between your <head></head> tags.

<style type=”text/css”>
body
{
background-image: url(’image.jpg’);
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
</style>

Make Your Business Work

How to Make Your Business Work

Contrary to what my clients think. . . your website will not become an instant overnight success. The best websites and best businesses work themselves!

Here are some ideas on how you can make your business and business website work for you: ; selling advertising on your site, create a blog and share tips or stories with your clients, create an e-book (if you knit give away some secrets, if you cook, make a cook book), send out an e-newsletter, have an online contest, link to other sites,join online networking, or have a sale.

As the business owner you can analyze your competition, see what they’re doing and what you’re not, become a certified business owner, go to events (craft shows, fairs, trunk shows), have a seminar, go to trade shows, join woman networking groups, give away freebies (pencil, pens, samples) to potential clients, and always changing and being open to new ideas.

Small Steps to Start a Successful Small Business

Starting a business can be quite a scary prospect, but starting an online one has some tempting features: instant clients and audience base, unlimited business resources, and low overhead. But the internet is still not without risks and confusions.Finding the Right Business for You

What are you good at, what do you like to do, and more important what is your passion? You make like sewing handbags but will you love sewing 100 of the same kind? If yes, then you definitely have a passion.

The all important question: will your passion make an income? Your neighbors, friends, and family all Love your earrings but do you think non-relations are going to be as crazy about them as you are? Before you try your hand at making a business out of your hobby you should try some craft fairs, or put your work in consignment stores to see if their is a real market for your wares.

Still Not Sure?

One word. . .google. If you think you have the all time best and most original idea, then google it and see who your competitors are. Most likely you’ll find a lot of like-minded individuals who found their niche and are making a business out of their passion.

Take a good look at their products, web site, and pay special attention to their about page. The about page may give you insights on how they transitioned from hobbiest to entrepreneur. If you are still not sure email them; business women (and men) love to share their success (and horror) stories with others. They too once had to navigate the wonderful world of entrepreneurship.