Congratulations to Karen Hockensmith, founder of Pure Skin Essentials, LLC, on the launch of her newly re-designed website, PureSkinMakeup.com!

Karen wanted to upgrade her previous website to one that would use a powerful e-commerce platform and allow for easy ordering and marketing of her unique, all natural mineral cosmetics.

This site uses Big Commerce’s platform and features a customized design.

Small businesses with great products like PURE’s deserve to be able to compete with large businesses with large marketing budgets, and that’s getting easier to do!Look for additional features, photos, and design elements on this site soon!

Congratulations Karen!

Congratulations to Arabians Ltd. in Texas on the launch of their newly redesigned website!

General Manager Shawn Crews was looking for a site that would showcase the farm’s beautiful horses with displays of large photos, and would feature easier navigation for visitors. We also integrated the farm’s active Facebook page into the homepage and built it so that updates would be easy and painless.

We did a preview of the site at Arabians Ltd.’s Fall Client Seminar last weekend in central Texas, and the response was wonderful! I can’t wait to share it with you all. In the meantime, it’s back to work!

We were ringside for all of the classes that included Arabians Ltd. horses, giving exclusive descriptions of the action for readers from around the world! The farm and its clients had a great week that culminated in multiple championships in the finals, and it was all chronicled on their website! You can read the archived live blogs or view the results on their website.

Congratulations to Dr. Jay Jolley of Coyaba Farms, who has a new website and graphic identity to represent his amazing collection of Arabian horses and his beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee farm.

At the 2011 Egyptian Event, his young colt JLS Aayns Al Reegis, owned in partnership with friend Josh Heath, won the prestigious Junior Champion Colt competition! Look for more great things from Coyaba Farms in the future!

Congratulations to Louise and Dan DeRusseau on their farm’s new website, LDArabians.com!

Louise and Dan had done a great job of maintaining a website that had been up for several years, and they were ready for a new look that would showcase their small farm’s international accomplishments! The site also includes a custom slideshow intro!

It was important that Louise be able to update the site herself, so we’ve been training and she’s picked it up very quickly! Just days after the site launched, a filly that Louise and Dan bred won the Junior Championship at the 2011 Egyptian Event for her new owner, who lives in Switzerland! There are sure to be lots more updates of their foals’ success in the days ahead, and Louise will be making them herself!

Congratulations to Smith-Embry Insurance Associates, Inc. of Louisville, Kentucky, on their graphic identity makeover! Owner Beverly Smith-Embry wanted an updated, corporate look for her business, which specializes in equine insurance. Smith-Embry now has new letterhead (digital and print), envelopes, and business cards to complete their look!

Look for a newly branded email newsletter to launch soon, too!

Last month, I was honored to help with an interview with Papa John’s CEO and Founder John Schnatter for Awesome Inc.‘s documentary shorts, The Founders’ Series. The Series chronicles the journeys of all of the inaugural inductees into the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame and is set to be released starting this spring.

Because of my background in documentary, I was brought in by friend, mentor and Awesome Inc. co-founder Brian Raney to help with the prep for and execution of the interview. John Schnatter gave us a great interview, full of personal stories of how he got started and what has helped him build his business into a pizza empire. It was all shot in front of his legendary Camaro, which he sold in order to start his business and bought back decades later to celebrate his success. He then treated us to a personal tour of his impressive HQ/warehouse and lunch in the HQ cafe!

It is fun to be involved in such an inspirational project meant to help young entrepreneurs learn from very successful ones, and I’m looking forward to the next interview!

We launched a new site for custom home builder Top Choice Homes in Fredericksburg, VA, late last year, and Top Choice is making their new website the centerpiece of a new marketing campaign! We’ve been busy adding beautiful homes they have available as well as floor plans to help customers choose their dream house!

Our team is taking a deeper look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  and Search Engine Marketing  (SEM) for Arabians Ltd. as well. Google changes its measurement instruments for rankings often, so SEO is a moving target! We’re seeing improved organic search rankings and look forward to continuing to implement strategies to raise rankings among their chosen keywords!

Look for new sites, a new logo, and an e-newsletter to be revealed soon!

All throughout the month of December, I think about all the promise that a whole new year offers, and what I can accomplish. That’s right, it’s goal-setting time. Experts have found again and again that people who set clear, measurable and specific goals achieve much, much more than those who don’t, even if they amount of effort set forth is exactly the same.

Thanks to the many clients who have utilized Amerman Creative’s services in 2010. From websites to Facebook campaigns to logos, it’s been so much fun to be a part of the businesses of passionate owners across the country.

What do you want to accomplish with your business in 2011? Amerman Creative’s main purpose is to help clients achieve their objectives, whether that’s to build a better website, keep fresh the one they have, improve search rankings, increase sales, or become more visible in their target markets. So dream big! A new year lies ahead of us, and it is ours for the taking!