Sorry it has been so long since I have updated the blog, I have very busy with a few other projects, but recently I have had some interesting events transpire at HB Shells & Sea.  Last month I had a very famous photographer buy several pieces of jewelry to be used in a photoshoot with some Olympic swimmers.  The work is going to be presented in a few magazines.  I will let you know when and where the jewelry will be featured.  I am very honored to have my jewelry used in the photoshoot, however, I do realize that many, many photos are taken and there in no guarantee that my jewelry will be used in any of the featured photos.  Once I learn more, I will pass the information on.

 

In addition to the photoshoot, I have been selling several different lots of seashells.  I would like to take the time to say thank you to all my customers again.  Also, if you are new to my website or curious about other sea shell products, I would like to mention that I am happy and willing to custom make different pieces of jewerly or sea shell products.

 

Finally, I will definitely be posting more frequently on my blog again.  For any of you that may be interested in information about stocks or financial markets, feel free to visit my free website at www.1stock1.com  It has hundreds of pages of information and articles on financial matters.

 

 

 

 

Congratulations to Gail F. of Hardin, MT and Michelle T. of Riverside, CA as they each won a $25 gift certificate to be used at HB Shells & Sea.  The next drawing will be held in December.  If you would like a chance to win stop by our contest page and enter.  As an update to my last post, I have been able to successfully remove my material from several sites unauthorized to use my copyrighted material.  It is a constant battle and a difficult one to regulate, but I hope to continue to work on protecting my original material as well as others.  Any comments can be sent to blog@hbshellsandea.com.

 

Sorry it has been so long since my last post.  I have been very busy at work along with a couple of other internet projects.  One of the things I have working on is researching ways to stop people from using articles and content without permission.  I have been contacting the top search engines as to the best ways to reduce internet plagerism.  I have also done a little research on the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).  I have learned the proper way to go about having copied material banned from search engines.  However, I believe this does little or no good, as many of these copied sites are generated from automated computer scripts.  For each site that is eliminated, 10 more can be produced.  I believe the best way to reduce copyright problems is to eliminate the revenue source of the illegal sites.  The best way to do this is to formally file a complaint to their advertising generator such as Google Adsense or Yahoo Advertising.  I will keep you updated on this ongoing project.  In the near future I will try to upload some new sea shell jewelry pieces as well.  Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Well I just got done adding a few items to the site.  I added a couple of snail earrings and I also added a new page on the site offering sea shells for sale.  In the future, I plan on adding pre-drilled sea shells as well as the standard sea shells.  Also, very few people have entered the monthly give away so far this month, so if you enter you will have pretty good odds of winning a $25 gift certificate.

 

 

Through my efforts of trying to learn more about the handmade jewelry industry I have come across some very nice people.  One of them that I recently met used to spend some of her summer days on the beaches around Huntington Beach.  Currently she has to suffer through all the miserable days that Hawaii has to offer (must be rough).  She also creates some wonderful handmade jewelry that can be seen at Anuenue Gems & Jewels.  Stop by and view her wonderful creations.  As a side note, I will begin listing a few different types of sea shells this weekend.  As always, feel free to contact me with and suggestions or comments at  blog@hbshellsandsea.com.

 

 

Today I started a monthly gift certificate promotion.  Feel free to sign up for it from the contest page.  In addition, I plan on selling some sea shells for those of you that wish to make things yourself.  I believe I will offer a few types of shells as well as some pre-drilled shells.  I know it can be difficult to make holes in the sea shells so I thought I would offer another alternative.  As this site continues to evolve, please let me know of any additions or items you would like included.  Thanks for stopping by, I will talk to you soon.

 

 

Hi again.  The last couple of days I have been thinking about doing a monthly give away of sea shell jewelry.  I may decide to give away a pair of sea shell earrings and a sea shell necklace each month.  My thoughts are that instead of spending a certain amount of advertising I may as well give away some free items and then promote the freebies.  I have been searching around on the web and have noticed quite a few sites that will allow posting of freebies such as contests and drawings.  Check back in the next day or two and I should have my site setup for the monthly drawing.  Feel free to send any comments or opinions to blog@hbshellsandsea.com.

 

 

Today I was checking out the progress I have been making with Google.  To my surprise, one of my articles is listed #1 when searching for "sea shell ideas."  In addition, I also have an article that shows up on the second page of search results for sea shell jewelry.  As a result, daily visitors to my site has steadily grown.  In addition, I have also added a "links" page to my website and exchanged links with a couple of sea shell sites.  I will continue to update my progress of building traffic and sales.  Finally, I did update the sea shell necklace and sea shell bracelet page.  However, I still have a few earrings and a couple of new sea shell mirrors I have to upload to the site.  Thanks for stopping by HB Shells & Sea Blog.

 

 

 

 

Well, I am back from the swap meet in San Diego.  I sold a few items, but it really wasn't what I had hoped.  I had a feeling that I might not be reaching the right market, but I thought I would give it a shot anyway.  In general, I believe most people attend a swap meet to save money on something they would probably purchase anyway.  Unfortunately, sea shell jewelry and crafts do not fall into this category.  The next show I do will be an art or craft show.  I believe the attendees of these shows are more apt to spend on "extra" items such as sea shell jewelry.  In the meantime, I will continue to try and attract more traffic to my site.  Thanks again for visiting my blog.

 

 

Today I want to talk about links.  I have been doing a little research on this topic and I have come to a couple conclusions.  First, incoming links are very good and obviously the more popular the site an incoming link is coming from, the better.  Secondly, reprical links are also positive to search engine rankings.  However, acquiring too many links too quickly can be viewed as negative.  If you have a rapid increase in links, the search engines may think your site is a link farm.  If this happens, it can be very difficult to overcome.  As a result, I have decided to work on my quality links rather than simply linking to every related jewelry and sea shell site.  Over time I will surely accumulate many links, but steady growth is my goal.  As always, if anybody has any suggestions or comments feel free to contact me at blog@hbshellsandsea.com.

 

I also wanted to mention the quanity and quality of sea shells I found today.  I stopped by the beach on the way home from work and found some wonderful shells.  I am very excited to work them into some jewelry pieces for the swap meet this weekend.  Have a great day and I will talk to you again soon.

 

 

This weekend I decided to take a little break from increasing web traffic and making jewelry, so Saturday I went surfing and attented a concert.  However, today I was in San Diego and I will have a spot selling my sea shell jewelry and crafts at the Kobey Swap Meet next Sunday, October 1.  If you happen to be in the San Diego area, stop by and say hi.  In the meantime, I have to start getting prepared for next weekend. 

 

Also, it was brought to my attention that many of my pictures do not show up when using the Netscape browser.  I will work on trying to fix this problem, but I haven't heard of any other browser issues so you may want to try a substitute until the problem is resolved.  If you do have any other problems or issues, please contact me at support@hbshellsandsea.com.

 

 

 

 

Well, it's day two of my blog and I would like to take the time to talk about a few of the tools I have started to use to bring more attention to my website.  I have written a couple of articles for www.ezinearticles.com, one is titled "Working for Yourself - Make Sure it is Right for You", the other is titled "Sea Shell Jewelry and Craft Ideas."  I have also frequented a couple of jewelry making forums and contributed some ideas as well as posted links to my website.  I think it is important to become a part of the forum and give input in order to be able to reap benefits.  I do not think a jewelry forum is my target market, but it is a great place to get some feedback and begin to bring a little traffic to my site.  Finally, I have begun a small advertising campaign using keywords on one of the major search engines.  I started this site in mid July, did very little promotion in August, and started to branch out in September.  Thus far, traffic has steadily increased, with a very big jump this month.  Hopefully this will begin to bring in more sales online, as the majority of my sales have come in person.

 

 

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time out of their busy day to check out my new blog.  I have started this blog for anyone who wishes to share in my experiences working with and creating sea shell jewelry and crafts.  In addition, I intend to share my successes and failures (learning experiences) of starting and building a new business.  Along the way I hope to be able to effectively describe my experiences, lessons, and insights learned.

 

Secondly, I would like to give a brief background about myself.  My name is Alan Reisch and I grew up in the beautiful state of Montana.  I earned a degree in finance from Montana State University.  After graduation, I worked for a couple of securities firms as a financial advisor until I purchased a lighting supply company.  In five years I tripled the sales of the company and sold the company to a friend of mine that still owns the company today.  After selling the lighting company, I moved around between Las Vegas and southern California while I decided what I wanted to do next.  This brings me to where I am today.  Currently I work in the financial division of a electronics recycling company in the metro Los Angeles area and recently I founded and operate HB Shells & Sea.