This month's winner: Jen Cairns!
Long-time VisoVerbo player Jen Cairns wins a digital print featuring this one-of-a-kind design. Have a favorite quote or saying? Send it in! If your quote is chosen, you'll receive a digital print of your custom design, suitable for framing! Check out your competition here.

See the creative process for the design above

Web Smarts: Driving Traffic to Your Site—
Only 3 seats left!
The third and final installment of our Web Smarts™ series is coming up Thursday, 27 Feb. from 3:00-4:30 pm at The STAR Center at 216 W. Allen Street in Bloomington. Co-sponsored by the South-Central Indiana Small Business Development Center, "Driving Traffic to Your Site" will detail proven strategies you can use to get more visitors to your site. We'll touch on search engine strategies, but focus mainly on e-mail newsletters, on-line ads, affiliate programs, linking strategies, offline promotions, and more!

We only have 3 seats left, so phone The STAR Center at 323-7827 and register today! Learn more about the seminar by clicking here.

Web Smarts at Business Expo 2003
We have been invited to present Web Smarts: Search Engine Strategies as a special workshop at Business Expo 2003 on April 17th. Business Expo is south-central Indiana's largest trade show, attracting 5000 visitors annually, and features workshops throughout the day on topics of interest to business owners.

For those who missed the Search Engine Strategies seminar last August, this is a great opportunity to learn:

• How to get the best rankings in top search engines, directories, and portals
• Pay-per-placement, pay-per-click, and linking: What it means and how to use it
• Keywords: How to select, utilize, and bid on keywords for maximum results
• How to track your results
• When you don't need to worry about your site's ranking
• How and when to hire search engine optimization pros

Our focus is on giving you the tools you need to optimize your site's search engine rankings in the way that works best for your goals, market, and budget. We'll have more information on this seminar next issue!

Silicon Valley Coach Federation
Based in the San Francisco Bay area, the Silicon Valley Coach Federation is a professional chapter of the International Coach Federation with members serving clients around the world. Member coaches help businesses and individuals define and achieve their goals in a positive, supportive environment through one-on-one coaching sessions.

When it came time for the SVCF to upgrade its image and establish a more effective Web presence, Web Team Leader Maryam Webster came to Cairril.com Design. We developed a friendly yet professional logo and a striking Web site suited for tech-savvy professional and executive clientele, both locally and worldwide. The site features information about coaching for potential clients, as well as introduces interested coaches to the many benefits of joining the SVCF. We're in the process of upgrading the site to allow coaches to sign up and pay online for membership and events.

Check out the logo & site designed by Cairril.com Design

Waiting for your site to get listed
Once you've submitted your site to the top search engines, how long does it take for it to show up in search results? That varies depending on the search engine or directory itself. It also depends on whether you paid for submission or used the free option.

Paid submission policies are stated on each search engine and generally allow your site to be included within a week. Free submissions take longer to list:

MSN: Up to 2 months
Google: Up to 4 weeks
Fast: Up to 2 weeks
Excite: Up to 6 weeks
AOL: Up to 2 months
HotBot: Up to 2 months
Yahoo!/Open Directory: Up to 2 months

When you're planning a site revamp and are estimating timelines, make sure you have realistic expectations about how long it will take for improvements to be reflected in search engine results!