Hi Jennifer; I'm glad you enjoyed my post. Thanks. ================================ Remember that it takes at least several months for a new site to get properly installed in a good search engine (like google or MSN or yahoo) ================================ For most people this is probably true. However, results come from knowledge and experience, too. Most people take a long time to see results because they are not really sure what to do, so they stumble their way into whatever result they get. Your site is very attractive visually. However, one thing that concerns me with your site is that the search engine robots have NO way to travel from page to page of your website. Bots can not read flash, and your navigation is all in flash. So, if a robot did find it's way to your site, it would see any one page as a stand alone "one page website" and not know about the rest of your site, because it can't "see" the links. With any site, there are two ways to achieve optimization. One is "on site" optimization - meaning how search engine friendly the site itself is. The other is off site optimization, and that's things you can do - without ever touching the page - to increase ranking. Someone who knows both can escalate their results beyond people that know only one - or neither. Sadly, many web designers fall into the "one or neither" category. ================================ Getting it right is good and getting it wrong is usually very very expensive. ================================ You are very, very right. I have a saying on my site that says if you think hiring a professional is expensive, you should try hiring an amateur. It will cost MUCH more in the long run. : ) Linda P.S. You might want to talk to your designer about adding some text links so that the bots can see the links and travel from page to page. Also, a robot index/follow meta tag would help once the text links have been added.

Hello Jennifer, I enjoyed reading your post as I thought it was refreashing to see someone that did the due diligence required before setting out and having a website built and put on line. Then I went to have a look at the website. It is a nice looking site but has a few serious problems. From my perspective as a website designer I found a few things that might not be set up to work in your or your websites best interest. The main or introduction page is an image and a Flash file. These will make it close to impossible for the search bots to index the website. Bots cannot read an image or a Flash file, they read text and the page is void of any text that would give them any direction to proceed any further. Once I entered the main site I found that the navigation was also in Flash so that will make it impossible for a bot to know to go any further, should one ever land on the secondary page. The Meta tags, as used, have no relationship to the page content, they should set up a relationship in that the Meta Keywords should reflect the page content, this has not be achieved. The use of text links at the bottom of the pages would help to avoid the navigation problem, as would a good site map. It might just be better however to have the complete navigation replaced with proper text links and ger rid of the Flash navigation. The next item I found that could be improved upon was that in order to place an order one has to e-mail what they wish to purchase. This should be replaced with a fully functional shopping cart that allows for real time payment processing. Once you have a customer at the website making it more difficult to order can mean the loss of sales. I also think that the Pivacy Policies link on the bottom of the page is not functioning as it should, when clicked it reloads the current page. I would suggest removing the "Other Pages of Interest" comletely from the website, you work hard to capture whatever traffic you can and then to send it off to other websites is somewhat counter productive. I do understand that it is difficult for the person looking to have a website developed to know what does or doesn't work. Your website is a wonderful display of the designers talents but in my opinion, it does not fulfill what your or your customers requiremnts might be. One final note, the copyright as placed on your website should be your copyright and not the designers, once you pay for the work you own it not the designer. I think that you put a lot of time and effort into trying to have it done right but in the end the results are not what you might think they are.

Thanks Linda, It`s ok - it's not finished yet, we still have to add the text links, meta tags etc. But I'll pass the message on anyway. Jennifer

Hi Peter Thanks for your comments too. As I just said, we haven't quite finished - metatags and html titles are presently being put on. I have also passed on all the comments that you both made. I'm afraid that the page was put on the Web a bit too soon as my Webmaster was about to get married and, being a romantic at heart, I wanted her to finish and go and spend a couple of days getting herself ready. So I told her to put the page up and we'd sort out any problems later!! (I did NOT take my own advice on that one!) However, as she does have a colleague - it is being put right. One question though - the programmer tells me that he did put the title links at the bottom of each page (in spanish at present, but they are there) I mentioned your comments to him and he says that they can be seen in the Source Code - and was a bit surprised at your comments - and wonders if he had made a mistake! To all this i have to add a piece of further advice to non internet people like myself - listen to your Webmaster and let HIM/HER tell you when the page is finished -they know better than you.! Ouch!! My only consolation is that my webmaster cant paint angels and nativities like we do! Thanks again to you both I really appreciate constructive criticism Jennifer ps. The other pages of interest STAY! And I might add some more when some of my other artisan friends finish their pages. I help promote quality artist produced craftwork here in Granada. In this day and age of cheap shoddy imports from the far east, too many craftsmen are having to close their businesses, and some traditional craftwork is disappearing for ever! But thanks for the sentiment.

Hi Jennifer, I would like to start with your last comment about the Other Pages of Interest. I can and do appreciate the fact that you want to promote other quality artisans and not the cheap shoddy imports, we have those here as well. My only point was that once you capture traffic, you want to do everything in your power to keep it and not send it away. Perhaps if you were to create a second website that you could promote as an artisan community and use it to drive traffic to yours and other websites, that might be something you would want to consider. That way you end up with a win win situation, your webmaster should be able to explain the search engine benifits alone in that sort of a scenario. I was not aware from your post that the site was not completed so my comments were based upon the thought that this was a finshed and polished website. You mentioned "the programmer tells me that he did put the title links at the bottom of each page (in spanish at present, but they are there,I mentioned your comments to him and he says that they can be seen in the Source Code - and was a bit surprised at your comments - and wonders if he had made a mistake!" He is correct on both counts, the tags are visable in the source code and he made a mistake in the code, but remember a bot will not likely get to see the page or the source code, as the main page is FLASH and an image and it will not know to proceed past the main page. My last comment on this all is that I really like the look of your products and I hope that do very well with the site. Best of luck and continued success.