luk beautifood kitchen |a tool to build e-subscribers & prospects

www.beautykitchen.com.au 
My absence from blogging has a lot to do with building 'inhouse' my beauty kitchen blog | a place to learn and be inspired on how to Cook for Beauty so you can LOOK. FEEL.DO and 'be fabulous in the skin you are in'. The purpose of the beautifood kitchen blog is to build potential customers and pre-sales on the lippy range. It fits with my philosophy of 'the essence of a beautiful woman is beauti-ful food'.

As you know I have had a love | hate relationship with Wordpress, everyone says how simple it is to use and only take a few hrs, not for me and I thought I was was pretty techie. Well maybe my vision was too ambitious but I got so far down the 'homemade' path I just had to keep going and it took time, & time I really enjoyed. But I have time because my lipstick packaging got delayed yet again (I gave in and brought on board a luxury packaging/industrial designer to solve my issues) and launch is NOW mid year (the purchase order is in (LY) and project milestones are being met so it is all GO) I have also had my interns helping across their summer break, it has been a huge learning curve for all of us.

The good news is I'll be able to get a couple more sites up pretty quickly now because my knowledge level is high. I will transfer this blog to my domain Cindy Luken on a Wordpresss site + I will transfer the dedicated luk beautifood makeup site too rather than the path I was going down before using webeden. It is all just part of my need to keep everything streamlined to operate, use leading & connected operating systems etc that are easy to integrate and outsource content writing etc.

Are you interested in knowing how I pulled the site together? If so, comment below and I could do a blog on that subject.

tx - have a great weekend. :)

home page of www.beautykitchen.com.au 

Woohoo: 10,000 views and building

Oh the magic moment passed without me seeing it. I've had 10,041 views of this little blog in a year so thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. The 3 key things I have learnt about this online world are
 - you must be regular and consistent in your posting and sharing
 - takes time to build a loyal following
 - content takes a lot of time to create and does not fit into my 15 hrs pw work mantra

I know I have not shared much lately but it is for the good of it! :)

Changes - new blog layout and I can't go back!

Sorry about the blog layout - i clicked a button to look at some new thing called "dynamic" viewing and lost my old design forever! Where the content has gone that use to live down the sidebar (links, archive, my goal, slideshare docs etc) is beyond me and what about my pic with Ciara....guess that can be added to my "about Cindy".

Oh well ....maybe it is time to migrate the whole thing to Wordpress.....in a few months tho. I have enough on my plate.  :)

blogger gets a make over!

Somewhere in the last 2 weeks Blogger changed its look (very nice) and user interface (WHERE IS EVERYTHING?). It's feeling and looking a lot like WORDPRESS. I am sure the new one is better...I will try and get use to it B4 I revert back to the old one for habitual reasons!

feeling chuffed - blog being tracked by my google analytics

It's taken a few attempts to wrap my brain around it but finally i have added my blog to google analytics. If you do have a Blogger blog finding the right piece of advice was the linch pin to getting it working as according to their instructions i had to insert code into the site....insert what, where was my initial reaction (so I walked away - x2) but, yes, the instructions really were easy to follow once I went a bit further, and realised I had a template with a html code section to modify!  So, if you are not tracking ALL your sites via Google Analytics, get a glass of red wine, relax and start again following Google Analytics simple instructions as you go (not their forums or help searches)!

couldn't help myself - wordpress

Had to have a look at wordpress to do my blog so I could add those entires to each page......wasted 3 hours last night. Will take me forever to learn how to use it. Not intuitive like google's blogger. Should have listened to myself!!! Good lesson

not to plan, Jan!

Tres disappointed with a major facet of google blogspot.....after adding my pages (tabs) I discover just now that I can't add posts to them, only handles static information so need to re-think layout / how I use my kitchen bench (blog). Looks like i will have to do a website too as I don't want to swap to a Wordpress blog design as I like my google dashboard with gmail, picasa pics, webtools etc all together as it is easy and saves time.

Registered luk-bycindyluken.com domain name in about 5mins for  12.99 euro via Webeden.co.uk so will embark on creating that next. So there!!

creating 'my kitchen bench' blog design

I have been sitting here tonight working out how to create an inspiring log for my next business so you can share the highs and heartache involved in a startup.  It has taken just a few hours after dinner, sipping wine (an antidote for creativity and relaxation!) as I listen to ABC Classic FM - 92.9. The children and now hubby are sleeping peacefully and I am really quite happy with the results.

The hardest bits were
a)  working out how to add a toolbar with pages.....but I found a very useful 'blogger' who had the answer: see http://www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2010/02/create-static-blogger-pages-draft.html [copy & paste link if it doesn't go thru]
b) creating a welcome header with the picture & words positioned where I wanted them.......just DIY in a desktop program and upload the pic. The trick was making it the right size so that it positioned itself where i wanted it. Took 4 re-sizings!