Jewelry Trends for 2007

By: Louise Coulson

At the awards shows, the celebrities wore quite large tiered earrings with no neck adornment. The bracelets were large and intricate. If a ring was worn, it was large and frequently showed a colored stone. If the celebrity wore a necklace, it was usually paired with small solitare earrings.

During Fashion week, we didn't see the huge bohemian or gypsy jewelry of last year. The models wore only a couple of pieces of jewelry to acessorize their outfits. Clothing has gone more minimalist, feminine and even ladylike. The jewelry was worn to accent, not overpower, the clothing.

Models wore simple but chunky chains and layers of chains with a variety of shapes were seen. Some of the chains were sprinkled with beads, with others accented with small charms. Mixed metals, using gold and silver together provide a more casual look.

Cuff bracelets were seen on many of the models. Some of the cuffs are large but well fitted for easy wear and copper is being shown along with silver in some of these bracelets. Other cuffs were shown with a mass of brilliant beads.

Statement rings with lots of color are being seen everywhere from the runway to the red carpet and in magazines. Large colored stones are shown set in gold and silver, but even bead rings with a cluster of brilliantly colored glass and crystal beads are being worn in a more casual setting. Some of these rings are being worn on the index finger.

The big news in the jewelry catalogs is color. Swarovski has introduced out intensely colored crystals. Freshwater pearls in bright turquoise, fuchsia, lime and peach with unusual shapes are available for the jewelry designer along with a wide array of Millefiori beads for added color.

Brilliantly colored cords in leather, rubber and niobium are emerging to beused with the simple pendants being shown during Fashion Week. These simple pendants can be leaves, flowers or birds in gold or silver.

Save your big pieces from last year as they will eventually come back, but add a few large classic chains, cuffs and a big colored ring to update your jewelry wardrobe for 2007.

Kingfisher Designs
http://www.wireweavers.com

Louise Coulson along with her husband Don designs and creates jewelry from sterling silver and gold filled wire. Their jewelry shows the wire used almost as if it were a fiber. The fiber arts approach comes from Louise's long background as a weaver and the meticulous craftsmanship is due to Don's background in engineering. The pieces are one-of-a-kind or limited edition.

A Beginner Internet Marketers' Checklist

Hi everyone, I thought I'd write a topic that I have kind of noticed amongst everyone. A little checklist that will help you figure what you are doing and how to go about it.... You want to make money, you have either came here because you have a knack, a morbid fascination or you are desperate to make money. Now while having morbid fascinations & knacks are all fine and dandy, being desperate is not the way to go and I am sure a lot of the old timers will agree. When you are desperate, everything around you becomes a mess.

1. I want you to think before you step into the world of Internet Marketing and ask yourself..

a)Is this the right avenue?

It's ok if it isn't, there are many avenues to making money..

b)Are you here because of all the hype and the dollar signs?

If you are here because you have "seen" the bank statements, paypal accounts, etc, realize that it took these people hours and days and sometimes months & years to get where they are..

c)Can you afford the costs involved?

No matter what people tell you, there are costs involved, always a few costs whether you see it or not. You having an internet connection is a cost associated, just to show the glimpse I am going with this.

d)Do you have your goals in place, eggs lined in order?

Every successful business/marketer has a plan, a business goal, an idea. The end product, like for example, mine is to raise capital from doing this to start my own business. I have a business plan & idea that I want to follow.

e)Is there a backup plan if this shouldn't work?

Not everyone is cut out to do this, prepare a backup plan!

f)Are you setting your goals too high?

If you are, tone em down

g)Are you desperate for money, is rent due? Chase knocking on your door?

If this is a secret yes, then please contact a credit counselor, debt analyzer, We don't know your situation, but I'm sure we've all been there and we want success not doom!

If this has been said, well it's always great to get another angle on everything :)

Alison G.
My daily Blog

7 Web Search Tips for Online Business Owners

By: Donna Gunter

Most online business owners are conducting fairly regular web searches. Typically the kind of information that they're seeking include local and national competitors, keyword research, and searches for resources for a particular topic. I recently tried to find a simple tutorial to help my clients conduct better Internet searches. Unfortunately, many of the tutorials that I found were created by academic libraries and provided too much detail and too many options for the simpler kinds of searches that most of us do.

Below are some simple tips to make your online search more effective. Since I do the majority of my searches on Google, some of these tips are Google-specific:

1. Carefully select your search terms. Instead of using broad or general terms that will return thousands of possible sites, try to use terms that are very specific to your topic. One way to narrow your terms is to review relevant sites you've already discovered and identify search terms from those sites.

2. Use quotation marks. If you're seeking a specific phrase, like "Internet marketing coach", enclose the term in quotation marks. Called a forced phrase search, this tells the search engine to return only entries that contain these words in this order. Sometimes searches without the quotes return similar entries, but you could also get an unrelated entry like, "...Internet that makes it easier on marketing for the athletic coach.."

3. Use Boolean operators. Boolean operators are words that allow you to combine search terms in most search engines. The most commonly used ones are:

AND -- AND tells the search engine to find both terms on the same site. For instance, entering "business AND ethics" would instruct the search engine to find web pages that contain both terms, "business" and "ethics." You can also use the '"+" sign for this, as in "business" + "ethics"

OR -- OR tells the search engine to find one term or the other. Entering "business OR ethics" would cause the search engine to look for web pages that contain either the word "business" or the word "ethics," but not necessarily both words. If you use this combination, be prepared for the search engine to return thousands of sites.

NOT -- NOT tells the search engine to find pages that contain the first word but not the second. This instruction is helpful when you know your search term is likely to appear with another term that does not interest you, like "golf NOT cart". You can also use the "-" sign for this, as in "golf -cart".

4. Site search. This helps you search for a phrase on a particular site. The command for this is site:URL "keyphrase". So, if you wanted to search the Houston Chronicle for mentions of Anna Nicole Smith, you would enter the following: site:chron.com "Anna Nicole Smith".

5. Search within a URL. Many times as you're thinking about buying a domain name, you want to find who may be using a particular term as a part of their domain name. Use the inURL code for this. For example, if you wanted to find all the URLs that contained the word "career" in Google, you would enter the following: inurl:career

6. Use a metasearch engine. Instead of trying to search various search engines separately, use a meta search engine. My favorite is Dogpile.com, which searches Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.

7. Give yourself a time limit. I've started searches and have had hours disappear in what seems to be minutes. Set up a timer to notify you 15 minutes into your search. You can then determine if you are wasting your time on a particular search strategy, spending too much time or a site, or assess if you need to refocus the search.

About.com provides a full Google Cheat Sheet with more detailed search queries on their site: http://websearch.about.com/library/cheatsheet/blgooglecheatsheet.htm

Web research doesn't have to be a time-consuming task. You can find exactly the information you seek by using a few simple shortcuts to get the best results.

Copyright (c) 2007 Donna Gunter

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com

How to Get Free Traffic to your Website

By: Kevin Spence

So you have built your killer website, signed up with an affiliate program and now all you need is some website traffic to start your sales rolling in. In this article i am going to teach you ways you can get free traffic to your website without paying a dime. The web has numerous amounts of free communities all you have to do is just leave your mark and let the sales start rolling in

OK Lets get started.....

1. Writing Articles - This is one of the most effective ways you can start to increase traffic to your website. everyone has an expertise whether you believe it or not . We all have hobbies. Writing an article is not as difficult as it may seem all you have to do is just write like you are taking in person or on the phone with a best friend. Some of the best sites i know of are ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, servicewarp.com

Write an article that you like and post it to all of the three above. These are by no means all the article websites there are but these sre the major players. ezinearticles.com does not allow for affiliate links to be placed inside the article so you can link your article to a blog and later redirect the reader to a sales page. Please note do not do too much redirecting or your reader will get fed up and leave the site. Go to all three site and publish your articles. Rember to leave your url link in the bio section along with a small comment. JUST DO IT

2. Search Engine Submission - If you have not done so by now you should have . Go to the major search engines and submit you website. Most search engines have a URL submission page this allows the search engine to know about your website and start indexing it. This will allow your website to be picked up by users ewho type in keywords that are in the Meta tag Home Page Title etc of your website. Make sure you submit to the major seach engines like Google, Yahoo Search ,Overture etc

3. Classified Ads - I have used classified sites with alarming success. Classified sites allow you to publish an add based on category the beauty about this is that Google Loves certain Classified Ads site on of which is usfreeads.com, If you write an add with a good keyword (ie one that is searched for alot and have little competition) you will be picked up by Google on their first page free. Just make sure you include the keyword in your ad title

4.Link Exchange - You can ask a webmaster of a high traffic site if he is willing to do a link exchange with you. This helps both you and the webmaster as it increases the amount and quality of backlinks to your site which will result in a higher page ranking at the search engines such as Google. Checkout trafficswarm.com

5.Forum. Post your link in as many forums as you can. remember the whole idea is to get your link as popular as you can. There are many forums what you should do is to tactfully post responses to forum discussion and leave your affiliate or weblink with them. Do not do any outright selling in forums. Most users will just skip over your link but if you make a meaningful contribution to the discussion then they will pay your website a visit.

6. Testimonials- If you have used or experienced a product and you think it is good then you can ask the publisher to place you testimonial on their website then you can leave a link with the permission of the owner of the product. Remember we want to make our link popular.

7.Email Signature. Please do not overlook this one. Add a signature to all outgoing mails with your link. This ensures that everyone you email knows about your website or affiliate link. Most people would be tempted to try the link as most people who you email you probably know you personally.

8. Search Directories - Please not that a seearch engine and a search directory are not the same. Go to search directories and post your url link.

9. Blogs - Do as much blogs as you can to promote your affiliate link or website. Blogs are a cheap and easy way to do pre selling before the potential buyer moves on to the affilaite sales page

To learn more about to driving a huge unlimited amount of traffic to your website or Affiliate link. Checkout Instant Booster and many other affiliate marking products at http://www.wealthguideonline.com