I hired a guy from Holland to update it and streamline its design. For some odd reason, I was under the naive impression that because he designed websites, I actually thought that he did indeed, design them.

So I handed him all the artwork, and documents he needed for the job, agreed on a price and felt like I had done my part! After all he was referred by a friend! Boy was I in for a big surprise! A couple of weeks later he showed up with a website that was truly shocking. I mean the epitome of kitsch! Instead of resembling a Cartier or a Burglary boutique, it looked more like a k-mart.

Can you imagine the look on my face! My chin must have dropped to my ankles. I was speechless, bitterly regretting the fact that I had payed someone to create something so utterly horrendous! My own naiveté may have been partly to blame! But at the time, the whole thing seemed like nothing more that a pain in the proverbial ‘you know what’!!!

Begrudgingly, I designed a layout and outlined a simple interface for him to tool up. Off he went again, and this time, when he came back he had something that wouldn’t win any awards but it was alright! At least from a visual perspective!

  Mr. smarty pants over here, had no idea that what was really important, like the engine of your car, is under the hood!

About six months later, towards the end of 2006, Bali had gone broad band, and surfing took on a whole new meaning! I was perplexed, amazed that such an extraordinary world existed, thriving like a giant cyber-city. Talk about being a nubie, overwhelmed doesn’t even come close to describing my awe-struck, bewilderment!

It took awhile but after breaking my virginity on Facebook, and discovering the power of web 2.0, I couldn’t believe the synergistic creativity and possibilities! Now I was getting really excited! I still hadn’t recovered from my rep running off, and even though I was well known, I had no way to get in touch with most of my clients! A light bulb lit up, and I began see a real potential for my jewelry on the net!

I figured that somehow my buddy who had for four years, failed miserably at marketing my Jewelry, had somehow missed the point! It seemed obvious that if presented to the right audience in the right way, my website ought to have an endless stream of orders.

  For the first time in the five plus years that my site had been online, I started taking it serious!

So you can imagine the horror that I felt when I discovered that since it had been UPDATED, http://www.zoeinjewels.com normal twenty to thirty thousands hits a month, had dwindled down to a few hundred! I new that the guy had done something terribly wrong, but had no idea what! Html was like Martian to me and didn’t even know there was such a thing as CSS!

Since then, the autumn of 2007,  I have been an outright maniac. You see, I have never been married, have no children and my whole life has been driven! I’ve got the time, am extremely passionate, a self confessed ‘create-aholic’ whose nuts about learning!  I devour books, video’s and anything else I can get my hands on, until I have mastered whatever I am studying!