How to Stay Close to the Top of Google for Designers and Artists

Posted on November 24, 2009 by itees

Recently, I had a new client call me about a book project. Whenever someone calls me, I always ask, how did you find me? It’s always important to hear about their search, whether word-of-mouth, print or online. In this case, she told me that she searched online for “book designer”, “layout designer”, and “book cover designer” in New Jersey. She said she searched quite a while and didn’t find any NJ book designers until she saw my website. It bothered me right away that it had taken her so long to find me, and I immediately realized my “book” design page needed updating.

I changed the title tag as well as the keywords in hopes that it will now turn up on Yahoo and Google faster. Each page of a website or blog has a page name, searchable keywords, a description, a title tag and may have other tags as well. Blogs also have many tags, and searchable words and links, which is what makes them so search engine friendly. Blogs also get updated almost daily which is what keeps their content fresh.

The problem we face as designers, rather than bloggers, is that our sites are mostly images because we’re displaying our work. The best thing we can do to make these gallery pages search engine friendly, is to name the pages something very specific, such as: green-book-publishing-designs(dot)html. We also need to update the pages of our website often, so the published date is current, and make sure the tags are specific and in order of importance. You can also put in some captions or put tags on the images. You might also create a few pages that are text content rich, and these pages may help send traffic also.

Another tip is, never leave a word space when naming a page. I see this all the time. For ex: green book publishing designs(dot) html. You must use either green-books or green_books (dash or underscore). The web does not understand an empty space, and will fill it with a (20%) and then your page title will look like this, green20%books.

Always remember that the internet is like a gigantic filing system, and the most current and the closest match to your search is what comes up, so update your sites and blogs often, and be as specific as possible.

Green Books Campaign: Hope and the Super Green Highway

Posted on November 10, 2009 by itees

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

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Hope and the Super Green Highway by Helen Moore and Louise Rouse
Children 7-11, however, adults will love it too! Eleven chapters with illustrations, 94 pages.

Throughout this story, everything about how this family lives is eco-friendly. They get their power within the house by riding a bicycle. Imagine, bicycle power to run the computer and more! When they need a car, they use a Go Car, and they trade in “carbon rationing” points for cash.

“In this story, the world has agreed to introduce a tax on carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and so by cycling to the market and cycling or taking a walking bus to school or work, Hope’s family had more carbon rations than they needed, so their first stop was the ‘Ice Cap X-Change.’”

Hope2_med

This story, which takes place in the UK, begins with a family out shopping for groceries at the local market. They have a chance encounter with a Red-eyed Tree Frog. What is a Red-eyed Tree Frog doing in the UK? You’ll have to read the book to find out. The next day they take the Frog to an amphibian specialist, at their local zoo.

Back at home, Hope is fascinated with the Red-eyed Tree Frog, and is curious to know more about him. She begins surfing the web and learns that he comes from the rainforest. She discovers an educational site where children can write their own stories and is asked about her favorite animals. The site then creates a story just for her.

Looking further she finds a page where kids have loaded their profiles and are looking for pen-friends. She sees a boy named Juan from a rainforest reserve in Paraiso Verde, Costa Rica, who is holding a Tree Frog. She writes to him and he writes back telling her about his search for the Golden Toad which has disappeared along with other species due to climate change. Hope and Juan continue to correspond and become friends.

Juan and Hope’s surroundings are so completely different and over the next few days and weeks, they will send each other stories and photographs, so they can share what the rainforests, woods, birds, and wildlife look like near each of them. Hope’s first trip to the nearby woods with her Grandmother, isn’t a pleasant experience. They see piles of trash, motorcycle riders who shouldn’t be there and dead Toads who were run down by speeding cars, as they were trying to cross the road.

The Grandmother decides the neighborhood needs to form the group “Friends of the Woods” to clean up and protect the woods and wildlife. She asks Hope to paint a sign and together they put it up. It says, “Watch Out! Slow Down! Toads Crossing the Road!”

What happens next starts Hope on a wonderful and educational journey about rainforests, the woods, her place in nature and how she can make a difference. She realizes that by cutting down woods for development, and sectioning off wooded areas, wildlife have no way to move freely from one area to another. My favorite quote from the book is, “Even people are part of Nature, although they don’t always act like it.”

This wonderful, engaging story written by Helen Moore, with illustrations by Louise Rouse is thought-provoking and shows what the effects of massive development are to plant life, birds and woodland creatures. By leaving only a square block (park) with a few trees, surrounded by buildings, here and there, we’ve cut out nature from our everyday lives. Now we have to travel to see “nature.”

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Hope and the Super Green Highway, by Helen Moore and Louise Rouse is published by Lollypop Publishing, a small independent book publisher based in the West Midlands, England, that specialize in both children’s and reference books on environmental, social and sustainable transport topics. It is their policy to use products that are recyclable and renewable, made from wood from sustainable sources. This book is printed on FSC-certified paper.

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For those who enjoy “Hope and the Super Green Highway”, I’ve read another book by Helen Moore and Louise Rouse called “Hope and the Magic Martian.” A charming book about a martian coming to Earth, and befriending Hope. After taking her to the north pole to learn about the animals in that region, he helps her understand how she can make a difference to global warming by just passing along good ideas to her friends, teachers, parents…

Environmental Blogging and Green Book Publishing

Posted on October 18, 2009 by itees

I am a member of various design, green and environmental groups on the site, LinkedIn, and recently joined “Green Publishing,” a subgroup of “Green.” I have seen discussions by those who are writing environmental blogs, and publishing green literature. Here are some of the sites I’m following and what they’re doing to help get some important information out there.

Greenprofs – Green Business Professionals Sharing Information, Insights and Best Practices On The Environment, Corporate Social responsibility and Climate Change

“Founded in August 2008, Greenprofs supports Green, a group of over 55,000 environmental professionals on LinkedIn. Greenprofs is a resource of information on ‘all things green’ a one stop shop for insights, employment and the sourcing of green business suppliers.”

GreenandSave.com - Green News, Tips, and Services for Saving Energy, Money, and the Planet

I found this site to be organized in a very easy, “find and click” way. Showing lead-ins to articles on a variety of topics, such as, most popular, discover, movers & shakers, podcasts & video, green columnists, and tips & lifestyle.

SEECFoundation.org – A Sustainable Future

From their site:
“The Social, Environmental and Economic Concerns (SEEC) Foundation is a sustainability-focused nonprofit organization that helps the community and businesses progress towards a sustainable future. To do this, we provide strategies and resources that address environmental issues, social conditions and realize financial benefits. The SEEC foundation was created to help reflect the positive synergy that exists when social, economic and environmental concerns are simultaneously addressed and work in unison.”

Her Guide To Green – A Better Living, For A Better You

Her Guide To Green is dedicated to incorporating eco-friendly products, people, and initiatives into the lives of women around the world.

The EcoSpheric Blog – Informing and inspiring those who want to live and laugh more sustainably

The most recent post title is: Don’t Leave Your Children A Dying Planet
I was just reading one of my National Geographic magazines and each page I turned was reporting on the decline of another species. Bees, fireflies… and if this wasn’t sad enough, the places with polluted water from the chemicals we put out there.

When I saw this post, I had to read it and I agree. We must do what we can now, so we’re helping, not destroying this planet and not leaving it to the next generation to fix.

Photo from Kids vs Global Warming

Also, check out Kids vs. Global Warming, a non-profit organization founded and led by 14 year old Alex Loorz.

Haddock Research & Branding – Understanding people’s relationship with climate change and the low-carbon economy

They are a full service market research agency with many years of experience in running international, quantitative studies.
From their site:
“The international Environmental Choices™ monitor is fully-owned by Haddock Research. Based on a very wide-ranging questionnaire, it provides a single-source to measure the interrelationships between people’s circumstances, attitudes and behaviour relevant to the low carbon sector. The survey provides both specific analyses and holistic understanding of people’s lives – particularly important given policymakers concerns about the ‘rebound effect’.”

Lollypop Publishing – Books For The way we Live

Lollypop Publishing Ltd is a small independent book publishing company in the West Midlands. They specialize in both children’s and reference books on environmental, social & sustainable transport topics.