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[dee_liteful]

hiya everyone, please can somebody give me some tips on advertising my business? I have a website called 'zukiestyle' but havnt managed to sell anything off it yet! I'm also with tuggle.

i design and make handmade handbags and as i'm sure most people do, i would like to do it fulltime!!!

many thanks

dee:D:D

[Funkyhand]

Hi Dee,
I think this is a question every person with a website asks. It's a hard slog to get noticed on the web as there are so many other sites on it. When your site was developed were you given any advice about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? It's basically tuning your website with tags and content so that search engines will begin to trawl it and begin to index it for inclusion onto their search engines. I am no expert..thankfully I have a web developer as my OH so he deals with all of that stuff for me, but it is a constant battle to keep on the top of searches and getting people to come onto the site. A good way of interesting people in visiting is starting a blog, Use somewhere like Blogger to get started and it's free and pretty easy to do (I did it so it must be!!) It can have interesting items on it about your process for making Bags etc and have links to you site to buy your products.
As I have said I am no expert but hopefully someone who is will come along and this thread will be bumped for them to see!!
Good luck
Anice xx:):)

[Blooming Felt]

Hiya

I'd agree with Anice / Funkyhand. Get a blog going and make sure you post on lots of other people's blogs because people generally click on the comments and you will get hits that way.

I'd also consider opening a Flickr account as that's free advertising and people can then view your work and then click on your website link.

Join lots of forums like this and post regularly, people love to be nosey and view other people's sites and blogs.

Other than that, you might want to consider going down the Google Adwords route if you're just not getting hits on your own website. If you set a minimum amount each month (I don't think you have to sign up for a minimum period) of say £30 (or £1 a day) just to start getting traffic through - I'm not sure how much your bags sell for, but you'd probably only need 1 or 2 sales a month to get your money back.

Hope that gives you a few more ideas

Sarah x

[Fairs R Us]

Hi Dee,

Where are you from and do you ever attend craft/gift fairs or events??

Best Wishes,

Lindsay :)

[fragg1es]

Hi,

I found your website and I love the look of it. Very individual :)

With regards to advertising, attracting visitors I think some good tips have already been raised.

In particular make sure you have meta tags in place and maybe add a better description with keywords on the home page so the google spiders etc pick it up and index it. If this is done to its maximum potential you may never need to invest in adwords as it can be an expensive hobby, believe me I know lol

As said before, get yourself seen forums, blogs, business directories, make sure your site is submitted to the main search engines. If you sell on ebay, etsy make sure all sales have a slip pointing you to your website. If you sell on ebay be sneaky and add your web addy on your 'about me' page.

Just a little pointer and its my personal opinion - your bags are great but I felt that the photos could possibly have a bit more work done on them.

I hope this helps and good luck I hope you will be able to give up the 9-5 soon :)

[splatcat]

I honestly think that "Off Line" advertising is just as important, if not more so, than online.

Most of the big Craft Companies do a lot of online advertising but you will still see them at the NEC, SECC, Exeter etc etc... selling a few goods but more importantly promoting their websites.

If someone sees you at a CRaft Show, talks to you and hopefully buys one of your items (which will obviously have an information tag on it)...then they are highly likely to remember you when either they or even one of their friends wants to buy the item again... there is nothing like the personal approach :)

[dee_liteful]

wow!!!thankyou for you replys guys, that means alot. i shall try all of what you have suggested, to lindsay at fairs r us, i am based in leicester but regularly visit lincoln.
i am definetly going to attend more of the larger fairs this year, and this year will be the year for me!hee hee! unfortunetly i only managed one last year, but my business is only still a baby!

re: photos to fraggles, how do you think i could improve my pics? do you think its how they are taken or maybe they need some effects i.e photoshop?

The blog sounds interesting i had never thought of that before, thankyou i will keep you all updated as to how it goes!

good luck in 2008 everyone!x:mf::mf:

[TYP]

Hi Dee
I think your website is great, I like the background image. I think your photos are perfectly adequate. If you wanted to improve them, I would (i) improve the lighting - which can either be done in photoshop if you have it (move the curves) or buy a lightbox - cheap light tents can be bought on ebay for under a tenner and (ii) show some more close up details. Just a suggestion - I honestly think they're fine, and I want ALL of those bags!!

There is a website called craftjuice (you can google it) which people submit new items to, for others opinions, and I have found a little jump in my website numbers each time.
Good luck!

[fragg1es]

re: photos to fraggles, how do you think i could improve my pics? do you think its how they are taken or maybe they need some effects i.e photoshop?


hiya,

I really liked the way they were presented I think someone mentioned before they could do with brightening up a bit so the detail can be seen. You can do that in photoshop (which is what I do) or you can prey for a sunny day lol

It was trial and error when I started selling, once I found a good way of presenting my photos sales went up by a fair bit. I always think to myself that the buyer is taking a leap of faith. Whether purchasing a bag or a piece of jewellery the more information they have and the better the picture - the more likely they are to buy it.

Keep us updated on your progress fingers crossed for that elusive sale :D

[cherry nelson]

my friend uses facebook and send out notice to her friends and networks about all her new products... she said the feedback is pretty good.

[0103media]

There is a website called craftjuice (you can google it) which people submit new items to, for others opinions, and I have found a little jump in my website numbers each time.
Good luck!


Glad you like craftjuice :)

Of course you can advertise on our directory www.ukcraftwebsites.co.uk and on www.craftjuice.com (free to ad stuff but you can sponsor the site) oh and the forums too :D

[dee_liteful]

thankyou, i think i will try the lightbox idea. Glad you like the site TYP! I am currently using my day off to get some more clutch bags on site. I need more as i think the site is a bit empty- its just getting the time to do it! I will also try photoshop as i know there are lots of techniques to use.

Thankyou for everyones help, i will keep you all updated on my progress!!

:D:D:D

[Craftlets]

Another thing you could try is article marketing. It builds up your sites link popularity (which helps give a wee boost in search engine rankings as well as in your PR) and it also helps one build trust with customers.

It's free to do also, you simply write articles and submit them to article directories. Your authors bio has a link back to your website. There are literally thousands of article directories you can submit to, and programs that make the job easier.

I coded a program myself that lets me submit to 200 directories, automatically, it basically does the copying and pasting for me so all I have to do is hit submit at each directory. If you'd like a copy of the program, PM me (no cost of course, but it is not Vista compatible, only 95, 98 and XP), if you wish to give article marketing a try.

Another thing you can do is provide helpful information on PDF format and give it to a few people. Before long, if your information is any good, it will be passed along to others. Your PDF file of course also has a link in it.

I did this myself several years ago, the few PDF files I made are now being shared on more than 25,000 websites (each file grants redistribution rights, it's called viral marketing).

Open office lets you create free PDF files without the need to purchase the expensive Adobe program.

I hope this helps you a bit also, and good luck with your website!

[0103media]

I coded a program myself that lets me submit to 200 directories, automatically, it basically does the copying and pasting for me so all I have to do is hit submit at each directory. If you'd like a copy of the program, PM me (no cost of course, but it is not Vista compatible, only 95, 98 and XP), if you wish to give article marketing a try.


This is not a good idea as many site will ban you for using auto submitter and its oftern in the T&C's

There is not such thing as a free lunch.. You have to either pay or work hard you know!

Articles submission its not great anymore.. It been spam to hell and back and the last place you want to be linked with is a bad neighborhood sites..

All the above is in my opinion..

Its like spamming forums !

[Poppy4lee]

I don't know whether this is right, or, not but I heard, recently, that the more links you have to your site, the higher up you'll come in the search engine rankings. I understood it to mean that if (for example) lots of my friends put a link to my site, on their site, my site would benefit from it.
If this is the case, would it be possible for us to agree to have a page (on our own sites) where we put links to each others sites? In that way, we should all benefit.

[Craftlets]

Media I hate to disagree, but pasting the contents is completely different than using a program that does it all. The actual submission is still manual, as one still has to select the proper category manually as well as hit the submit button. I work with a lot of article site directory owners, and this program meets all of their terms of services. If it didn't, I wouldn't use it, because I'm no spammer. I am also top expert author on many of the directories I submit to.

And if one selects quality directories to submit too, and avoids the "bad" ones, then the results can be quite profitable. It's not a free lunch, one still has to work as they would have to with anything, but it sure is nice getting a top 10 ranking for an article, with ones selected keyword phrases, even the ones with a lot of competition, and getting this ranking within days.

It's an excellent way to get top rankings for your content, without having to pay for it. Sure, not all visitors will click on your bio link, but give me 10% of a thousand visitors per day, for every article submitted, and I'm happy with the results.

Now granted your articles will not maintain the top ten ranking, that is impossible to do, but if one submits one article per week, then 5 hours work is well worth the results. I frequently get 500 plus visitors from one article (some much more than that), with a plus 4% sales ratio. This is 4 or more sales per 100 visitors, so yes, I am happy with my results for my five hours work.

But of course, this may not be for everyone, but is it spamming, no, does my program go against directories terms, no, because although it does the pasting, one still has to manually do a few things.

My post was in order to help the original poster, she asked for methods, and if these aren't good enough results for most, then I am sorry if I have offended in any way.

This is one method that works for me, as well as many others.

No in your favor, you are correct, there are some programs that are designed to run completely on auto-pilot. You start the program, and let it run while you cook dinner etc. These are against most directories terms of services, because they usually select the wrong category or format the articles all wrong. So yes some submission programs are against TOS, but not all, and certainly not mine, I do not need to spam to market online, regardless of if it's article directories, emails, forums or blogs.

[0103media]

Auto form filler for firefox is here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/673

That is one I used to use..

I just want to make it clear that auto directory submitters are a bad thing!

A auto form fill is fine!


Regarding article submissions IMHO its not worth the time "anymore" ... That time imho it better directed towards writing articles on your own blog and submitting the page (not the article) to social sites such as stumbleupon etc..


The effectiveness of article directories has dropped over the years.. It used to be a killer way but again imho times have moved on..

Of course it can still work for non competitive stuff like "how to make a paper fishing rod with nothing but a small tree and a goat" we still work ;)

[nattynetty]

Media I hate to disagree, but pasting the contents is completely different than using a program that does it all.

Although I'm not a top expert author on directories I do know that duplicate content is a big no-no especially when it comes to Google. I've heard cases of where the original sites have been penalised heavily by Google when a competitor has copy and pasted chunks onto their site - thereby creating duplicate content. So I'd imagine if Google sees the same article numerous times they'll penalise the directory plus the site that's continually being linked from it, presumably this is why most directories ban auto submitters in the first place.

But then again I could just be talking out of my bum :confused:

[Craftlets]

Media I don't use firefox so I didn't know about that plugin, but yes, it would work as well.

And if one doesn't do proper research then article marketing is a waste of time. Title and first paragraph should have proper keywords in them, and they should be keywords people actually search for.

The one you give in your example is not anything anyone would search for, so of course anyone can get a top ranking for that phrase even if they post it on their blog.

I mean phrases people do search for, like "How to make a granny square".

And yes one should post articles on their sites as well, but instant traffic isn't obtained from ones blog if they have a site that ranks low. Over time traffic will come, surely, but using already established directories to get traffic is a good method.

And yes, the effectiveness of article marketing has decreased a lot over the past few years. This is due to so many people using crappy directory programs that aren't optimized well, and authors who write crappy content for those directories, and google noticing the footprints of such directories and banning them eventually, and admins of the directories not screening content and just letting it all in (including porn articles yes).

There are thousands of crappy directories, but a bit over 200 who do have admins that screen content, that do not use crappy programs, and that google absolutely loves. These are the ones I focus on.

And of course there is the one main directory, that demands unique articles, this one alone is worth writing an article for. If one submits to this one directory only, then it's better than submitting to 1,000 of the crappy directories.

Ok, sorry to get the thread off track, Media is correct in his main point about many submission programs, they are bad, but article marketing can pay off well, not as good as it used to I agree, but it can still pay off well.

I'll go back to the recycles forum now, hope to see more there, I love recycle crafts. That's why I came here, not may craft forums offer that.

[Craftlets]

Hi Natty, one would never want dupe content on their own site, but article directory owners know that they aren't getting unique content and most do not care. Those that want unique have that in their terms of services. But to get unique they have to offer a lot more than just a zero or 1 PR. Most authors will not write a unique article for a site with a zero PR. But they will for those directories that very good PR, and that are optimized well.

[Poppy4lee]

I don't know whether this is right, or, not but I heard, recently, that the more links you have to your site, the higher up you'll come in the search engine rankings. I understood it to mean that if (for example) lots of my friends put a link to my site, on their site, my site would benefit from it.
If this is the case, would it be possible for us to agree to have a page (on our own sites) where we put links to each others sites? In that way, we should all benefit.

Ahem.. did anyone notice my twopennyworth? I just wondered if the idea was correct & whether we could HELP eachother?

[fragg1es]

Ahem.. did anyone notice my twopennyworth? I just wondered if the idea was correct & whether we could HELP eachother?

hey, yes I believe that mutual links are a good thing. I dont know the technical 'ins and outs' but I hear it does increase spiders and bots that crawl your site for indexing.

I am currently setting a page up on my website for links, I am happy to add anyone that would like to do this :)

[Beadsage]

..............so...............where's the instructions for how to make a paper fishing rod with nothing but a small tree and a goat? ;) .................and does anyone have some triple velvet spare?:D