Barbie says 'It's cool to be geeky!'

Barbie has ventured into the realms of IT. Armed with her laptop, spectacles and sensible footwear, she is more than prepared for a career in Information Technology as reported in this BBC News article.

And knit4dolls are going to help her, and all the would-be geeks out there. We are bringing out a knitting pattern for a 'geeky' Barbie outfit, so that girls everywhere can see that all Barbie dolls, everywhere, can become leaders in the field of IT.

Obviously girls don't need special clothes to branch into IT, but they do need motivation, and an awareness that, whatever jeers might be thrown their way, they are free, and more than able to tackle any role they choose to embark on in life.

Action Man is advancing up the rankings...

knit4dolls does very well in Google searches involving knitting such as: action man knitting patterns. Searches for Action Man alone would produce nothing... I would give up looking after the first 30 pages, long after any potential visitors would have endured.

However it seemed to me that some people might be more inclined to buy my knitting patterns whilst they were in the market for the Action Man toy itself. So I determined to 'tap' into the toys market. After adjusting my keywords and phrases, and their positioning within the content of my website pages, I was delighted to see that searches for Action Man alone now produced entries on page 10 of SERPs, and on page 4 for Action Man clothes.

Look here for some of the possible combinations of clothing that are available for you to knit.

It also seemed to me that some people might be more inclined to buy an Action Man if they knew that there were knitting patterns available to make clothes for him, but that's another story... unless a toy company thinks likewise!

A great video of HM Armed Forces toys... in action!

Here is a shared video of HM Armed Forces action toys from http://www.character-online.com/



And here are some of the outfits that you can knit from our knitting patterns: http://bit.ly/HMAFclothes

Modern Tecnology...

I've got 2 issues:

1. I keep getting locked out of facebook... it doesn't seem to recognise my password. I might eventually get in , by which time I have forgotten what I was going to do anyway... AND then I can't get in again a few hours later. Such a waste of time... I won't bother any more.

2. The latest thing on Twitter seems to be Automated Tweeting. This is great for the twitters in that they can tweet, say, every hour and forget about it... but this raises 2 further issues in that they are not communicating with other Twitters, and are:
a. not corresponding with others, and
b. not RT (retweeting), which is a way that allows twitters to gain credibility.

It seems to me that Social Media is rapidly evolving into... something else... can't quite put my finger on it yet!

Think Summer, and Sunhats...

Sunhats..... Sunhats..... Sunhats..... Sunhats!
Well... Sunhat actually...
Here are Barbie's 4 different ways of wearing her same Sunhat:

Barbie is getting ready for the Summer and wants some more Barbie knitting patterns for clothes and accessories to go with her very versatile sunhat. She decided to recycle it from last Summer because she loved it so much and seemed to wear it every day.

Join our Latest News Mailing List on our website to get early information about when more Barbie knitting paterns are available.

Should I deviate from PayPal and accept cheques?

I realise the delimma that people have concerning the Internet. I have great concerns too, and that is why I like using PayPal. Customers don't have to have a PayPal account, just a debit, or even credit card, and PayPal deal with the money side of it. It is nothing to do with me. If customers don't have the money, it is PayPal's problem. I also have access to PayPal's invoicing system which records my sales, so I don't have to do any of that. Personally, I would be more concerned about sending money to an individual online than I would be to PayPal.

With regard to printing, I have no idea of the cost! With regard to postage, I would have to send things by Special Delivery so that I know that they were received. The cost would just be too high. That's why I set things up as a download. And it seems to me that if I were to start doing this for some customers then I would be legally obliged to do it for everyone who asks.

What do you think?

Redesigning website continues...

I am changing the design of the website so that it has a fresh, new look to it. It still keeps its knit4dolls banner, and banners for Bratz, Barbie, Action Man and HM Armed Forces. But a lot of other things are going. These things tend to slow down the loadtime of the page and Google doesn't like visitors having to wait too long!

There are several other things that need doing as I work my way through the site. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the buzz phrase at the moment. It means that, without good SEO, a site will very likely not appear on Google searches. And as this is how most people find things on the internet, it is important to try and get it right. Google doesn't like broken links either, and I've corrected a couple of those.

And I'm learning more and more about 'keywords', good ones and where to put them. From an SEO point of view, there is a world of difference between 'knitting patterns for barbie' and 'barbie knitting patterns'. Who'd have thought it!

Well... I'd best get back to changing yet another page...