in it together

hope you all had a very merry christmas. i spent mine with matt's family in hobart, eating seafood and cherries and enjoying the (occasional bit of) sun. it's funny that we complain about the temperature being less than 30 degrees celsius while singing along to "winter wonderland" and "white christmas". "chestnuts roasting on an open bushfire...". ah, got to love a good, hot aussie christmas!

since launching my website i've been learning about how search engines work and slowly monitoring my site's search performance. because it's in full flash, search engines don't read it easily, or it can take a little longer than regular html sites so they tend to skip right over it. having good links to the site really helps, and by good i mean sites with trustworthy, regularly updated and relevant content. it's almost like the referring site is telling search engines "yup, this is a good site about handmade soap" and when a website can't really do that on its own easily, it makes a big difference.

which brings me to this blog. i do believe that when search engines read it, they see a site with "handmade soap" in the domain, title and throughout the content. it links to and is linked from other sites with lots of soapy content and since 2007 it's been filled only with pictures of soap and ingredients, no cats, plants or food. as a result of all this, search engines may very well classify it as a site that is highly relevant to "handmade soap" (among others).

i should hope that when this blog links to other sites/blogs/stores it is actually suggesting to search engines that these are also very good, trustworthy sites. every link is like a recommendation and the more relevant a referring site is, the more likely it is to improve the referred site's search performance in relation to a search term, in this case "handmade soap".

so, if by linking to another site/blog/store we are promoting some other soaper's (and possible competitor's) business not just through the direct link, but potentially in their search engine relevance and performance, why do we do it? i think it comes down to this: for the most part, we small-scale soapers are all in it together. i don't think there is a whole lot of competition between us in the sense that it's unlikely that someone is going to only buy from one soaper and swear off all the rest. if this is the case it's usually related to geography and shipping costs more than anything else. we promote and support each other because ultimately we're all competing with the same big companies, especially the four letter L-word.

yes, there are some out there that are just happy to get to the top at the expense of others and never dream of putting up a small link or saying something nice about anyone else's products. to them i say: links and words of recommendation are easily deleted so maybe start playing nice like the rest of us. it doesn't just have to be a link on the sidebar;- even a small link embedded in your text like this or even a mention of a business name that can be searched shows you support other soapers.

now go to your site stats, pick one of your top referring sites and give back. or, thank someone for the inspiration or information they have given you, possibly without even being aware of it. my rant is over.

p.s. just a quick shout out to joanna and julia for all the support they give to others. xx