Sunday Link Love

I’d like to start off this weeks Sunday Link Love with a couple of congratulations. First up I’d like to say a HUGE well done to Bangs and a Bun who today completed the Paris half marathon along with a whole bunch of awe inspiring women to raise money for charity refuge. She really is an inspiration.

Secondly I’d like to say a big congrats to Leia for getting engaged and she gets married in just one month. Woo I love happy news.

Now onto the links I’ve been loving this week.



Arash has gone from strength to strength and his posts are always so well written. This week I absolutely loved his post on ethical fashion and he asked the question how ethical are you. He made some brilliant points and his is the only male written blog that I read.





The Loudmouth features yet again for a post where she talks about doing what makes you happiest. Leaving the security of a full time job that wasn’t fulfilling her in any way and taking control of her life. Truly inspirational.





Bella is one of my dearest blogger one friends and one of the most supportive. I can’t even describe how amazing I think she is. She also is one of the most creative bloggers and in this post she is rocking polka dots in a way that's truly original and amazing. I still find it hard to believe she’s not my age as she looks so young. LOVE HER!





Joanne Faith shares 50 tips for creating a killer blog is a wonderful resource for new fashion bloggers. She shares some really great tips and tricks and as a web designer she knows what she’s talking about. She’s fairly new on my radar but I’m sure we’ll hear plenty more from her.





Last but not least is a wonderful post from Kristy Elena of Full Time Fabulous. This post is about how she met Katy Perry. Wow. Is she lucky or what. And she more than matches Katy's beauty. Its all too obvious why she won the Sunglass Hut blogging contest and she’s created a wonderful network of bloggers who all uplift and support each other.

So those are the links I’m loving this week and hope you will too.

Before I go I’d just like to say a huge thanks to everyone who’s left me supportive comments on both my John Galliano post that was a hugely personal and a heart wrenching post to write and also on my change of direction for this blog and my buying practices in general. I hope I'll be able to show you all that you can shop ethically while retaining your style.

What is an Alexa Ranking? How is it Beneficial to My Blog?

 

What is an Alexa Ranking?

Alexa is a powerful well regarded (especially by a lot of advertisers) tool used to rank web site traffic. It allows you to discover how your traffic compares to other websites! A word of warning though – it is not 100% accurate. The lower the alexa ranking the higher your traffic. For example Google has a pagerank of 1 which means its the site with the highest ranking – unsurprisingly. Alexa allows you to check out not only your global ranking but also how your site ranks within any chosen country.

How do they work out your ranking?

Information is collated by looking at the browsing history of users who have the alexa toolbar installed mainly. Millions and millions of people all over the world have the toolbar installed and this is why I said that its not 100% accurate as not every computer user or blog visitor has the toolbar installed. Having the toolbar also allows you to find out the Alexa Rank of any site you visit.  The higher you rank the more accurate your ranking. Sites with a ranking under 100,000 are thought to have an accurate ranking.

Why Alexa is Beneficial to Bloggers?

Your site information on Alexa provides a lot of different information on visitors to your blog.

First up – top search queries. This is very useful for finding out which search terms bring people to your blog.

And what your high impact traffic searches are:

It also tells you how many sites with the toolbar installed are linking to your blog:

It has information on:

average pageviews per user. one month – calculated over 1 month of traffic and 3 month looking at 3 months of traffic and tells you the how much it has increased or decreased.

Bounce Rate:

Time on Site:

Typical Audience:

So as you can see Alexa really is a worthwhile and powerful tool for bloggers. If you have any questions about Alexa just ask?

Amelias Compendium of Fashion Illustration Launch

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the launch of attending the launch of Amelia Gregorys newest book Amelias Compendium of fashion illustration. The book features ilustrations and profiles by 30 of the hottest rising illustrators as well as profiles and information on some of the most innovative and creative eco conscious fashion designers. In case you don't know who Amelia Gregory is she is the brains and beauty behind Amelia Magazine (http://ameliasmagazine.com) an online magazine that looks at the best and brightest ethical fashion designers along side fabulous fashion illustrations it really is a must read.

The launch was attended by some of the UK's biggest bloggers and fashion designers. I grabbed the chance to purchase the book and wow its amazing. The illustrations are some of the best i've ever seen and I had the chance to meet some of the bloggers that i've forged relationships online with including Sarah of sarahs-scribbles.com, Nikki of nikkinakkilou.co.uk, Cherie of cheriecity.co.uk and Koral of koralxo.blogspot.com. I also met an amazing jewellery designer who makes Japanese style kawaii jewellery - expect a post on her very soon. She had the coolest bright blue hair and fashion sense and was super nice. It took me an hour to pluck up the courage to ask to take her photo.

All in all I had an awesome time but I wish i'd plucked up the courage to chat to more bloggers that I recognised.

[caption id="attachment_1493" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Photo provided by lira - http://www.lltheportmanteau.com/2011/01/amelias-compendium-of-fashion.html"][/caption]

And some images from the book (aren't the illustrations AMAZING)!!









If you'd like a copy of this awesome book take yourself over to http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/shop/ where you can also check out some of Amelias other awesome publications. Go on you know you want to!

I’m SO Excited!

As many of you already know I’ve had plans for a dedicated community for UK fashion bloggers in the works and i’m pleased to say I’ve now set up the site and got my first members. I launched it yesterday and so far so good. Obviously I still have a lot of work to do but the foundations are in place. It has forums, groups, profiles and each few days i’ll be showcasing a different blogger who’ll appear on the front page.



My aim is to provide somewhere for UK bloggers to congregate and share experiences for the benefit of all us. I want the uk fashion blogging community to become more close knit as there is a huge absense of a dedicated fashion blogging network for us brits. I love many other blogging communities and will still participate in them but feel that they tend to be USA centric.

I’ll be purchasing a custom URL but for the moment its at - http://ukfashbloggr.ning.com/