This week, Daria shares exciting news about her new article featured this month in Yummy Mummy magazine , entitled “Handmade is Hot”. We invite you to check out the article to learn more about Handmade Artisan clothing for your children, as well as gain some valuable resources in the hunt for the perfect designer. Thanks so much to Amy from ToteandTee.com for use of her beautiful images to accompany the article. Additional kudos to Emily our Contributing Editor for her mad editing skills and assistance in creating an informative article for those just introduced to the Boutique business.

The Portland Quilt Market is taking place May 16-18th at the Oregon Convention Centre. Boutique Cafe will be in attendance at this Trade Only event and will be covering it for our listeners. Look in the coming weeks for interviews with some your favorite fabric and pattern designers. If there’s someone you would for BC to interview at market be sure to let us know!

Boutique Cafe is also elated to have Aveeno Baby from Johnson & Johnson as our New Sponsor. To support us please visit Boutique Cafe often and click on the Aveeno Baby banner at the top of our page. Your clicks show them just how active and interested our community really is. Thanks so much for your help. We love Aveeno Baby and are excited to have a sponsor who’s products we use and enjoy! **If you use Aveeno Baby products leave a comment in our shownotes today and let us know which product is your Fave. Podsafe music in this episode from Lee Coulter “Photograph”.

Whether you have a blog or business, if you’re online then you’ve probably heard or seen the term “SEO.” SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is essential in driving traffic to your site. Wikipedia has a great definition of SEO:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via ‘natural’ (’organic’ or ‘algorithmic’) search results for targeted keywords. …SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure. …Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users.

Basically (and I mean basically–I’m still trying to grasp the concept) SEO is getting your site as high up as possible in the search results so you get lots of new traffic and visitors. Many companies offer SEO services…for a fee. So what do the rest of us do who are into saving money (which, sorry to say, often means spending time)? We read as much as we can about it so we can do it ourselves. Here are a couple great articles and resources on Search Engine Optimization that will hopefully help you understand the ins and outs of SEO and what you can do to help your site makes its way up the search results page.

• “How to Build Blog Traffic: Search Engines and SEO” by Elise Bauer at blogher
• SEO Training Class from GNC Web Creations (free)
• Wikipedia’s full entry on Search Engine Optimization
• “What’s an SEO?” by Google (short but sweet)
• “Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization” by Rand Fishkin (lengthy but worth it!)
• “Top 50 SEO Resources” from Pronet Advertising (includes information, tools, blogs, forums and conferences)

I’m off to do some more reading and some more optimizing! If you know of any great sites or resources, or even companies you’ve worked with who’ve impressed you, please share. We’re all in this together! –Emily

Thanks to Emily for allowing us to share her article on Boutique Cafe. Be sure to check out Emily’s Freshly Baked Blog for her dose of information and humor.