Welcome to the seventh issue of the Carolyn Hasenfratz Design and Carolyn's Stamp Store email newsletter.

Contents:

• New Route 66 Association of Missouri Blog


• Discovery Light


• How to Install Google Sitemaps on Your Web Site


• Show Off Your Art and Craft Projects


• Carolyn's Stamp Store Wholesale Pricing


• Featured Craft Project from Carolyn's Stamp Store: Stamped Muslin Bag

The Route 66 Association of Missouri is a non-profit corporation established to preserve, promote, and develop Historic Route 66 in the Show-Me State. I am a member, and serve as the Director of Internet Services. I recently launched a new blog for our organization. Here is a link if you would like to visit: Route 66 Association of Missouri Blog

Last month, I traveled to the Graph Expo trade show in Chicago to help launch a new book and invention - the Discovery Light and Discovery Light educational materials. Using a special printing process and innovative application of technology, reading becomes interactive.

To learn more:

• Discovering the Discovery Light at Graph Expo
• Image Personalization Used to Help Launch New Product at Graph Expo
• Photos from Graph Expo
• Discovery Light Web Site

Google Sitemaps has been around for awhile, and I finally got around to trying it out on the Webinar Resources web site and several of my own. The process helped me to find out that some of our web pages were not being indexed by Google, and should ensure that they will not be missed again. Google Sitemaps also includes some tracking tools, for example you can check how many incoming links you have and where they are coming from, and see what search terms people use to find your site. If you have not implemented the free service Google Sitemaps on your web site yet, I suggest you take the following steps.

1. Go to www.google.com, and click the "Sign In" link at the upper right. If you don't have a Google account yet, you will be prompted to obtain one.


2. Once you're signed in, click on "My Account" and then "Webmaster Tools".


3. On the Dashboard page, enter the url of your web site in the form field under "Sites" and click "Add Site".


4. Next, click "Verify your site."


5. From the drop-down box on the next page, select "Add a meta tag" as the verification method.


6. You will be shown a line of code to add into the index page of your web site. Open your index page in a plain text editor such as Notepad or Crimson Editor, and paste this line of code into the section of this page. Save your index page and upload it to your server.


7. Click the "Verify" button. If it worked, you will get a success message.


8. Open up another tab or another window in your browser, and go to the web site xml-sitemaps.com. Here you will find a free online generator for creating your sitemap file.


9. Fill out the brief form you see there and press "Start". Depending on how big your web site is, it might take a few seconds or a few minutes to run. While it's doing that, create a new empty document in your text editor. Save it in the same directory as your site's index page, and name it something like "nameofsitesitemap.xml".


10. When the XML Sitemaps Site Generator is finished working, scroll down to the window at the bottom of the page labeled "XML Sitemap content" and copy all the content in that window. Paste it into your document "nameofsitemap.xml". You can now close down the browser window containing the XML Sitemaps Site Generator.


11. Check over the urls listed in your sitemap document and if there are any urls you don't want indexed, remove the pertaining lines of code. Add new lines if there are web pages or files that you do want indexed that the spider may have missed.


12. Save "nameofsitemap.xml" and upload it to your web server in the same directory as your index page.


13. Returning to Google, click on the "Sitemaps" link in the menu on the left. Click "Add a Sitemap".


14. From the dropdown menu, select "Add General Web Sitemap". Complete the url under "My Sitemap URL is:" with the name of your sitemap file.


15. Click the button "Add General Web Sitemap".

You're done! You will see a report about the status of your Sitemap submission. It says it might take several hours to update, but in my experience it takes about 10-15 minutes.

Many of you are reading this newsletter because like me you are interested in rubber stamping and other arts and crafts. When you put a lot of work into something, it's satisfying to let a lot of people see it. If you are interested in showing off your finished projects, here are a few suggestions:

• Stampington & Company Calls and Challenges - Opportunities to get published in several magazines.
• Get Published in Vamp Stamp News
• Your Designs Rock 2009 - A contest for the best creations made from Rings & Things products. I sell a few items from Rings & Things here at Carolyn's Stamp Store. See their web site for the complete catalog.
• Paper Craft Planet - an online community for paper crafters. If you join, look me up!
• Carolyn's Stamp Store Gallery - If you've made something with at least one of my stamps, submit it to the Gallery and and I'll send you a mounted rubber stamp of my logo. Makes a nice collectable, because it's not something you can buy. If you have a web site, I'll be happy to include a link in your entry.

I am finally making my mounted rubber stamps available to stores with a physical location at wholesale prices. If you are interested, please contact me and I'll send you a price list and information.

Until next time,

Carolyn Hasenfratz

• Volume 1, Number 1
• Volume 1, Number 2
• Volume 1, Number 3
• Volume 1, Number 4
• Volume 1, Number 5
• Volume 1, Number 6

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