Summer Hours (Memorial Day - Labor Day)

Just a reminder that during the summer our hours change to
Monday - Thursday 10am-6:30pm CT

We use the Fridays off as a way to pursue our quest for learning and our need to create :)

JameyB is working on a childrens book about a spider with red socks.
DavidB is working on taking his photography to the next level (be prepared to see more and more photos on our Flickr site)
Cat is working on new art pieces for upcoming shows (more details soon!) and
Atalee is rehearsing for an upcoming performance with her dance company Breakbone DanceCo.

(special note: If you find yourself in a website emergency please email jameyb@yourplanb.com with the subject line URGENT so we can assist you -- as you know we are addicted to our blackberries and will see the email faster than hear a voicemail - thanks!)

Enjoy your summer!

P.S. Happy Anniversary to Cat + John!!

New York Times and Spatulatta.com

On Wednesday, May 14, the New York Times' Food Section featured an article about kids in the kitchen. Kids cooking for their families is a phenomenon that is quickly catching on. Belle and Liv from Spatulatta.com are very proud to be featured in this article!

Check out the article online.

Happy Birthday Dave!

Join us in celebrating the Dave in our life by visiting officialdaveday.com. DavidB will be your host through the coming years of working on getting this "ODD" national holiday officially recognized.

CONGRATS! CHM and YPBCo team win with GreatChicagoStories.com

GreatChicagoStories.com : This two-year project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is the result of a collaborative effort between the Chicago History Museum, Chicago school teachers, a national advisory board, and professional writers. Area educators selected the topics, wrote unit plans, and tested the narratives and resources in their classrooms.

Great Chicago Stories has been honored with three prestigious awards: the 2008 Gold MUSE Award for Teaching and Outreach from the American Association of Museums Media & Technology Committee, the 2008 Award for Excellence in Published Resources, Student and Teacher Category, from the American Association of Museums Committee on Education, and the 2008 Best of the Web, in the Educational category, from Museums and the Web (the annual conference sponsored by Archives and Museum Informatics).

We enjoyed working with the CHM team (Heidi, Barb, Margaret + Enrique) on this super project! Thank you to CHM, AAM, the Museums and the Web!

DNS or Domain Name System

Domain Names are an important tool in your online marketing arsenal. They make your website easy to remember and offer the repetition that assists with sales. Your Plan B Company offers domain name registration along with their Web Design Services.

Your domain name (yourname.com) is the core of your Internet identity, your online brand. Your customers will remember this name and use it to find your website, your products or your services. No two parties can ever hold the same domain name (yourname.com) simultaneously.

Technically, a domain name (yourname.com) is an addressing construct used for identifying and locating computers on the Internet. While computers use Internet Protocol (IP) numbers to locate each other on the Internet, people find them hard to remember. Therefore, domain names (yourname.com) were developed to permit the use of easily remembered words and phrases to identify Internet addresses.

For example, the domain name (yourname.com) yourplanb.com represents one of Your Plan B Company's sites. When you type yourplanb.com into a web browser or send e-mail to someone at yourplanb.com, the Domain Name System (DNS) translates yourplanb.com into the IP numbers used by the Internet and connects you to one of our sites.

You can have multiple domain names for your website.
For example: www.awaytravelgear.com and theamiciway.com both direct users to one website about elegant solutions for women traveling in today's world (A-Way Travel Gear).

If you are interested in registering or parking a NEW domain name, please contact jameyb@yourplanb.com

Atalee (our fearless office manager) is performing in Russia!

Atalee and her dance company, BreakBone.com head to Russia this week.
She is excited, a bit nervous and feeling very fortunate to be able to have this experience! The flight from Chicago to Moscow is 13 hours, then they take an overnight train ride for 6.5 hours to Kostroma.

The dance festival that Atalee is performing in is called DiVersia and is hosted by Dialogue Dance Company. http://di_versia.livejournal.com

Atalee will be blogging about her experience while she is there. Check it out at http://breakbone.blogspot.com

We are very proud of Atalee and her BreakBone crew!
Safe travels! And take lots of photos!

Choosing your keywords PART FIVE

OK so you have used http://www.wordtracker.com, completed our Meta Tag Worksheet and we have implemented your new keywords into the site... now it is time to track the results!

We suggest Google Analytics!
Google Analytics can help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. Just send us an email or call JameyB to discuss adding this to your site. After a month or two of watching your visitor statistics we will all have a good idea of new keywords, possible adwords and which pages are getting the most attention - helping you to make the most our of your online marketing budget and time!

Take the Google Analytics tour to learn more: http://64.233.179.110/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html
Or schedule an appointment with JameyB to discuss how to better your online marketing plan.