Community Shout-Out

Hey, everybody!

First, congratulations on doing so well on the GCU Badges Campaign!

By now, everybody’s heard about Phase II and how you can refer your friends to the program. If you didn’t get the email, let me know and I’ll send you a copy. For those who do know, you’ve found out the requirements are a Google PageRank of 1 and to be cached by Google within the last 2 weeks.

How can you tell? Well, you could just submit sites to me and I’ll check for you. However, for the DIY-ers, there are various SEO plug-ins you can get for your browser of choice. Or you could use Google PageRank Checker. And to find out when the site was last cached, just do a Google search. See those light gray chevrons to the right of the site’s name in the results? Hover over that to get a preview of the page. Here you’ll see a Cached link. Clicking on it will bring up the site with an information banner on the top telling you the date the site was last cached by Google. Easy!

So BRING ON the submissions! And if you have any questions, fire away!

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Next, I’m going to be spending a little time compiling an Artist’s Resources list. If you’ve got Squidoo lenses, websites and/or blogs containing helpful information for artists, I’d like to add you to the list. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your site. What we’re looking for: sites with information about GCU; tips on photography, illustration and design; color schemes and inspiration; fonts; graphic editing tools and tips; anything else artists would find useful. Bring ’em on!

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Finally, tomorrow I’ll be announcing a very special Design Contest + Blog Carnival – it’s going to be a fabulously fun mash-up, and everyone’s invited!