Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC

Did you know there is such a thing as a Page Rank Checker, a free tool to check Google™ page ranking of any web site page.  (It’s at prchecker.com.) Our web developers tell us page rank is an important piece of any site’s efforts to earn favorable Google rankings.  Each site is ranked 0-10.

Even a ranking of 0 isn’t the kiss of death. It at least means the site is recognized by Google.  If a site is not recognized at all, you do have some work to do to get recognized.  Apparently, only the very biggest, most well=-known sites get anywhere near a ranking of 9.  A ranking of 3-5 is pretty good. Anything higher is outstanding. 

When choosing which sites to link to, from your site, the experts tell me it’s important to avoid linking to sites that are not recognized, or that have a ranking of 0, 1 or 2.  Linking to sites with a ranking of 3 or better, however, can help your ranking and your traffic.  Once you establish links on your site – again this is the experts talking – they say you should ask that those sites consider a reciprocal link back to your site.  That way, everybody is happy. Everybody gets traffic. Everybody keeps the search engines happy.

At Snuzzlobun.com, we show up on prchecker.com as having a rank of 3. That’s pretty good for a five-month old site like ours.  Our short and long-sleeve casual button-down shirts for men in funky, vibrant prints are pretty popular and a respectable page rank doesn’t hurt.
 

The other day, when a friend wore a wild and funky long-sleeved shirt from Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC his nine-year-old son asked, “Dad, why are you wearing that?” Then he proclaimed, “You look ridiculous. You look like something from the 70s.”  My friend laughed and said that was the look he was going for.

And so it appears there is a fashion circle of life not too different from the Grand Circle of Life itself.  It goes something like this: Kids think their parents’ clothes are ridiculous, parents’ think their kids’ clothes are ridiculous and everyone is happy. 

Besides reinforcing the truth that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my friend’s astute nine-year-old helped me see another truth: That Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company shirts are, in fact, retro-ish.  It hadn’t really hit me before but the kid was right. Many of our fabrics are reminiscent of funkier times.  It’s why we now include vintage clothing and retro fashion among our website’s search terms.  It seems our long and short-sleeve casual button-downs appeal not just to those seeking liberation from boring solid, striped and plaid shirts, but specifically those seeking a link to their inner hippie.  Seek yours at Snuzzlobun.com.

Lately, the people of my hometown of Cleveland seem to be paying a lot of attention to arena football.  I don’t really know much about this sport. I know it resembles NFL football except that it’s played in an indoor arena and the field is somewhat smaller than the usual 100 yards.  I know plenty of rules also vary between the NFL game and arena football but since I don’t know even know too many NFL rules, I am certainly not about to bother about the rules of arena football.  I just know that a lot of people are watching it and talking about it.  And I think I might know why. 

It’s possible that the merits of arena football might stand on their own and might be attracting a following for no other reason than that it is a fun and exciting game. On the other hand, it might be because the Cleveland Indians are stinking up the MLB right about now.  See, when the Cleveland Indians stink, fans keep one eye on them and send their other eye searching for a team that might not cause quite as much pain and suffering.  While arena football might cause quite a bit of pain and suffering to the players whose bodies regularly meet with the unforgiving pavement that I’m guessing lurks painfully close to the surface of all that Astroturf, the win-loss record of any given arena football team surely cannot hurt as much as that of our beloved Tribe.  This is mainly because we haven’t been arena football fans for long enough to care that much. 

The point of all this, however, is the interesting facts about what it takes to get noticed.  Does it take a losing record of your favorite baseball team to get you to notice arena football?  Might it take the closing of one restaurant to get you to notice another?  Etc. 

As Major League Baseball approached their  mid-season break, the highlight of which is traditionally their All-Star game, I heard a news story about a contest associated with the event.  Regular folks were invited by the MLB to audition for the chance to lead the All-Star game crowd in their own rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”  Entrants includes those performing with bag pipes, kazoos, and everything in between.  I’m not sure who won but I am sure that contests are a good way to accomplish many things. In this case, the MLB generated publicity and goodwill, and maybe free entertainment (I don’t know if the winner was rewarded financially).

I have also heard of a company – a Mexican restaurant, I think it was – that invited patrons and fans to submit their own You Tube video that promoted the restaurant.  The winner received something like $500.  The restaurant, like the MLB, generated publicity and goodwill. They also got a You Tube video for less than they probably could have produced one themselves.

At Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC, we are also working on our first You Tube video. Actually, our 20-year-old nephew – a film-school student – is working on it for us.  It’s intended to capture the fun-loving casual aspect of wearing our funky button-down shirts.  We are aiming to debut on You Tube around the time we introduce our newest shirts (around September 2008).  Once we grow a little more and enjoy a little more regular traffic to our website, maybe we, too can invite our fans to submit their own You Tube videos about our shirts.  I can’t wait.

In order to let more people know about the fun and funky casual button-down shirts from Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC, we are taking advice from our web developer and posting press releases on our site and also on 1888pressreleases.com. From there, others find them, read them, share them and post the releases on their sites, too.  Most people who see our shirts really like them and agree that they are unusual in that they are made from print fabric ranging from subtle to wild, as opposed to the solid, striped and plaid casual button-downs available elsewhere.  The challenge is to lead people to our site. We are a new company and building website traffic takes time.  So, we will continue to do what we can to let men know we are here to help liberate them from the boring shirts they no doubt have in their closets now.  Life’s too short to wear boring shirts.

Yesterday we had our annual backyard party for neighbors, friends, and family. As usual, there were a little more than 100 people there. As usual, we had piles of food, a folk band, a visit from the ice cream man, a waffle ball game, smores on a campfire and other fun activities.  This year, however, we did at least one thing we’ve not done at our other backyard parties: We enrolled friends to model our Snuzzlo Bun shirts.

At Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC we make long and short-sleeve casual button-down shirts for men in bright, funky, abstract prints.  We are still in our start-up phase and need photos of men wearing our shirts, to use on promotional materials.  Our party provided a ready supply of eager modes. 

We photographed 15 men wearing about 10 different sample shirts. These are the shirts we are taking to trade shows to show retailers.  Taking photos was a blast. Our friends had fun posing and they – and their wives and other family members – really liked our shirts. Many wanted to buy them off our sample rack but we couldn’t let them, since these shirts are not yet for individual consumer purchase.  We got a good look at how our shirts fit on different body styles, and got lots of good feedback on what men like and might want to see changed in our shirts. Even some who considered themselves too conservative to wear our funky shirts, came away thinking our shirts were great and all found at least one style in which they looked really good. 

Hopefully, as we use their images to help spread the word about Snuzzlo Bun shirts – on our website, brochures, catalogs and more — more men will find their way to our funky fashion offerings and they can join the ranks of men  liberated from boring solid, striped and plaid shirts.

As you may know from reading previous entries in this blog, my husband and I started our men’s shirt business about a year and a half ago.  Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC offers long and short-sleeve casual button downs for men in bright abstract prints.  It took us a year to make 200 test shirts in three different fabrics.  People really seem to like them and welcome Snuzzlo Bun’s fun, funky fabrics as an alternative to solid, striped and plaid casual button downs available elsewhere.

Currently, our factory is busy making our next round of shirts which are sure will be popular, since we are making them from fabric chosen as a favorite by nearly 60 percent of respondents to an online survey. 

In the meantime, as we prepare to meet retailers at our first trade show, we just received sample shirts from our factory in 10 great new fabrics.  Swatches of these fabrics are available for viewing at Snuzzlobun.com. Soon we’ll also post some photos of real men wearing our sample shirts. It’s all coming together.

Have you heard about the new LZR swimsuit by Speedo?  According to Speedo.com,  an unprecedented 44 out of 48 world records have been set by athletes wearing the Speedo LZR Racer.  Olympic athletes, regular folks, and journalists can’t say enough about this amazing suit. Some say it makes them feel like a race car, or a rocket or a torpedo, when they swim. Another remarked it was like swimming downhill. Clearly Speedo is on to something and they have a new standard for the perfect garment-that-is-also-a-high-tech-piece-of-sports-equipment.

At Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC we also like to think we are on to something and that we have created the perfect garment-that-is-nothing-more-than-a-garment. With our long and short-sleeve casual button-down shirts for men in bright, abstract prints, we don’t want to change the world. We just want men to like their shirts.  And that’s perfect.

Did you hear the one about the polygamist clothing line?  It’s actually not a joke.  Some of the women who are part of the infamous polygamist sect in Texas are selling their unique style of modest clothing for children.  “We have to make a living the same as everyone else does,” said Maggie Jessop, a sect member, as quoted in a July 2 Associated Press story.

On the flip side of this very unique fashion option, is a completely ubiquitous fashion option: the T-shirt. There are so many clothing manufacturers selling T-shirts, it’s a wonder we haven’t met the world’s T-shirts needs already.  Can there really be that much difference among all these T-shirt styles?  Apparently so, because people keep buying more.

At Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC, we offer a fashion option different from both these.  Our casual long and short-sleeve button-down shirts for men in bright, abstract prints differ from the polygamists’ children clothing in obvious ways but, perhaps the biggest difference is that our shirts have a wider appeal. Our shirts are similar to their line, however, in that we both offer a unique product.  The only other shirts like ours, particularly long-sleeve versions, seem to be in the $100-$250 range while, at $50 (for long sleeve) and $45 (for short), our shirts are for the everyman who just wants a fun shirt.  The biggest difference between us and the vast armies of T-shirt companies is the vast army itself:  We have no army. We are a lone voice for the man looking for a fun and funky casual button-down shirt.

I guess that’s what makes the world – and the internet – great: something for everyone. 

In the 1997 film Devil’s Advocate, the devil, played by Al Pacino proclaims that vanity is his favorite vice.  Throughout the film, the devil takes advantage of the vanity of the characters played by Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron (the wife of Reeves’ character). The devil compliments and flatters Reeves’ and Theron’s vain characters until they let down their guard, end up living a fabulous lifestyle, courtesy of the devil, and find out too late that they have sold him their souls. 

It seems Al Pacino’s role could also have been played by any number of online hucksters.  They too, attempt to play on the vanity of regular people offering an honest product from a legitimate website. “Great website!” they proclaim in their emails. Once they’ve laid their false compliments on thick enough, they go for your soul, offering to help with any upgrades or changes you want to make.  Something tells me, if a person were to take these guys up on their offers, they’d get some sparkly bells and whistles, and a huge invoice with an option to opt out in exchange for no less than your very soul. 

You know very well they haven’t even seen your site, let along think that it’s great.  Some automated device on their end makes it easy to target new sites and blogs as a way to take advantage of our vanity. 

We won’t fall for it!  We just want people to know they can turn to Snuzzlo Bun Shirt Company, LLC as a reliable source of short and long-sleeve casual button-down shirts for men in bright, lively prints. No tricks, no gimmicks, no attempts to put a stake through your heart or steal your soul, although we do hope you’ll love your new shirt with all your heart and soul (insert evil laughter here and creepy organ music here….).  (Visit Snuzzlobun.com)