CWR: It's not showing up in my browser, I even downloaded Firefox/Mozilla and it doesn't show up in that either. I've extended the width of that box to be 20% larger than it needs to be on my screen, hopefully that fixes it.

Does anyone else see my email address wrapping to the next line on the About Us page in the left margin?

Pinkbutterfly: I have a business membership to Sam's Club (you need an EIN). Individuals can join as well. Not sure if the fee is the same, but at last renewal it was $40/year for me.

IndyDebi: I would rather not bake the cookies either . I will suggest they do the cake or cupcake option if they don't want to bake anything. I will keep that up charge in mind though if they really have their hearts set on cookies (and I really like them), but not offer it up front. I'm just not sure it would be worth my time to bake them.

Yes, I clicked on the link and it directed me to your site.

Thank you!

I had a couple of people pm me with questions about this, so here's a visual explanation. It might be easier to watch in full screen mode.

THANK YOU!

Thank you!

You're welcome. Whether you can change the code on your website or not depends on whether you can get into the code yourself, but if you can, just change the words where I showed you, and it should work fine.

Your Christmas ornament cupcakes are awesome! How did you get them so round? It doesn't look like there's a cupcake underneath at all. I though about making these with the kids this year.

Hello Full House,

I have a couple suggestions for you. If you are in NC please make sure you have product/business liability insurance, it is not mandatory, however if you are hosting parties it is recommended. You are also taking PI (personal information on your contact page) from your potential customer so you will want to include a privacy policy on your website. I would recommend signing up for Google Analytics so you know where you potential customers are coming from and how they are locating your site, plus you'll learn if exchanging links is actually working for you, web metrics (measuring your success) if something you can address later. I wish you the very best...

I'm computer dumb, how do you link to those sites ? Is there a cost? Good luck to you!!!

To use google analytics you can go to google.com/analytics and sign up. They'll give you some code that you have to put on the site, so if you have a template you'll need to do it by adding it through an html box. If someone does your site they can so it for you. Keep in mind that you'll need to add the code to every page of your site unless there's one part of the page that stays the same when people go from page to page. I have it installed on my blog, but not on my website. On the blog the only thing that changes is the entries, and there are sidebars that stay the same, so I put it there. For my website I'd have to add it to every single page, which would be a pain. Most web services have some form of statistics that you can look at anyway, so if you have that you might not need it. I use Yahoo for my website template, and they have a statictics section that I can look at.

You can also use statcounter.com the same way. Statcounter and google analytics tend to give you different results, so it's good to look at more than one service to get a couple of reports if you're going to do that.

Thank you homebasedbaking. I'm working on the insurance, but I hadn't realized the need for a privacy policy since it never occurred to me to share someone's information .

debster: I'm not sure what you are asking?

Navyempress: Thanks for the compliments. They are so much fun to make. The are cupcakes with a cake from the Wilton mini ball pan on top, thin coat of buttercream, then fondant, RI details. I got the idea from this site. There are so many beautiful ones in the gallery.

Another way to track visitors is with Feedjit. It's free. You put it on your website and you can track where people are from, how they got to your site, and even what web browser they are using. It's really neat and great information to have.

http://www.feedjit.com/

Hi Fullhouse!
I saw the on the first page of your post that it was suggested to get someone to do your logo. Well I have a graphic's person I can suggest to you in my area and he is really good and reasonable! He works by email mostly so you don't have to worry about not being in PA. I use him for everything and he did all of my shirts, business, postcards for my shop I just opened up. He has great pricing on full color fliers, business cards, etc. with great quality. If you are interested in getting his contact info just PM me and I will email it to you. He created my logo on my site www.kimakonfections.com. He works with you until you are completely satisfied something I enjoy very much. I hope this helps because I know from just opening up my shop money can be tight and you need to save wherever you can but I do agree having a great logo helps alot!
Kima

Hey Fullhouse,

I recently built a website for my girlfriend who has also just started a cake company and have done soooooo much reading on search engine optimisation, I thought I might share it with you. Everyone may have ideas on your fonts/colours etc but ultimately, that's generally a user like or dislike, not as relevant for moving up google although there are some design facets you need to consider.

Our site is www.customcakes.biz and we're based in the UK so I don't think we'll be stepping on each other toes. We made it up to pages 4 and 5 on google for our keywords in around 4 months. It might not be perfect but its also been a good learning curve for us to.

Your positives...
1. You have a lot of links coming into your site - this seems to be the biggest factor in a website doing well with search engines
2. You have registered with the search engines
3. You have lots of content in your site which is a very good thing

Some opportunities
1. Consider what keywords you think people will search for if you think they want to find you in google. For example, we think people search for us by "wedding cakes glasgow" or "cake makers glasgow".

Build your front page on these words.

Your site needs to have the following tags in the html code:
- Title - someone touched on this earlier - have these google keyords contained in it
- Meta Description - A short description of your site (limit this to 160 chars)
- Meta Keywords - Keywords that you think are relevant to your site. Note that these do need to be relevant and included in your site wording otherwise it can be deemed as spam.

You should also considering changing the wording on your front page so that you have a keyword density of between 2 and 5%, ie if rhere are 100 words on the page, your keywords appear between 2 and 5 times. Any less its not relevant, anymore its seen as spam.

You should also run an HTML validator to ensure that the code on your site complies with HTML standards.

Another major way of getting your site recognised is to sign up to Google Webmasters and register an XML sitemap for your site. This ensures google indexes your pages and then you move up the rankings

For the whole font/colour design, you should include <H1> tags at least once on your main page as these show headings and ideally include a keyword within this tag.

Finally, create a twitter account and a facebook page for your company and use them as much as possible - people love looking at pretty cakes!

I could go on lots more about this and I realise its pretty in-depth so feel free to email me if you wanna chat more.

Chris

Thank you for the contact info, Kima, I really like your logo.

Chris, I really appreciate the time you took to share your expertise. I will be looking into how to accomplish all those tricks . I looked at your site, your girlfriend does beautiful cakes.

I wish you guys the best of luck.

Love your idea and Love your site. Thanks for sharing. Can I ask you where you get your fabric and disposable aprons? I am in Canada doing a similar thing but really love some of your ideas and was hoping I could use some... if its ok with you.

Disposable aprons are from S&S Worldwide. I have a friend who owns an apron company and can sell you aprons in bulk: www.bishopaprons.com . The more you order the better the price.

Thank you... I'll check it out!

I just found (upon a quick google search) 2 sites that have copied my party packages & descriptions VERBATIM! Obviously, I am not claiming to own the idea of cake decorating parties, I'm not the first or the last to come up with the idea. I did, however spend countless hours figuring out my packages, working a budget and business plan and countless more hours writing and editing the text for my website. It is illegal to cut and paste text from one website to use on another (just ask Kara, she has some very thorough and informative blog posts on the subject). I'm sure some just don't realize that it is not ok legally, or morally to do so. Plus the fact, that what works for me financially and logistically may very well be a recipe for failure for someone else (depending on location, suppliers, etc.).

I have contacted the owners of the sites directly to request the removal of my intellectual property. I know I have the option of turning them in, but I preferred to give them the chance to remove it on their own. Especially since it may be they had no idea of this law.

The 1st person I contacted, apologized, explained that the site wasn't actually linked to anything and they hadn't launched their cake parties yet, were just using the text as a place holder. They very promptly and graciously removed my text.

I'll definitely be searching to be sure there are no other instances of my text being used. My main concern is that a customer may come across the other person's site and think I am the one stealing text, which would hurt my integrity and the integrity of my business.

If you stumble across this thread and/or my website and plan to offer your own cake parties I truly wish you the best of luck. I am even happy to help if you have specific questions, but PLEASE PLEASE don't just copy and paste what I have done.