Tips on advertising

[Daisy]

Right the business is up and running and I'm hopefully going to be on Google at some point soon (Mr Site you have to wait 6 weeks) but how do you all advertise your business? And where do you think you get the most sales from?

Thanks in advance

[swirlyarts]

There's a whole thread somewhere about seo (search engine optimisation) that Mr M wrote - that's his day job! I also advertise on the crafts directory that is linked to the forum and on the forum itself down the side. I ensure I send out my business cards with lots of things and as I make my own envelopes I put stickers onto everything I send in the post. I belong to Etsy, Tuggle and Flickr (Flickr is good for just showing off your work).
I think that's it!!

[Daisy]

There's a whole thread somewhere about seo (search engine optimisation) that Mr M wrote - that's his day job! I also advertise on the crafts directory that is linked to the forum and on the forum itself down the side. I ensure I send out my business cards with lots of things and as I make my own envelopes I put stickers onto everything I send in the post. I belong to Etsy, Tuggle and Flickr (Flickr is good for just showing off your work).
I think that's it!!

Yes I'm interested in the crafts directory but haven't made the leap yet. Wasn't 100% sure how many people access it and how they find it. Obviously I know it from being on the forum here but how to others know.

I'll try to find the thread you're talking about. Thanks for that.

[0103media]

Wasn't 100% sure how many people access it and how they find it.

We advertise it... How did you find the forum..?

The idea behind the directory was a collective way to advertise crafts..

[Funkyhand]

I advertise in a couple of craft magazines every month and pay for google ads. I also send out press releases regularly to all the craft magazines retail and business to business to get the company name mentioned as often as possible. It takes a long time to get listed highly on the search engines and you have to keep on top of your SEO all the time because as soon as you do rank you can disappear again if you site isn't updated regularly etc.
My site has been live for year this month and now it shows up in pretty much all the search engines on the first page but it has been a hard slog!!
Good luck and enjoy working for yourself!
Anice xx

[JBJB]

Would be interested in reading Mr M's SEO thread as I don't think I appear anywhere on searches (!) Can anybody remember something from it so that I can do a search for it.....?

[swirlyarts]

It's a sticky on the general craft forum http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4205

[0103media]

ROI is the big... (return on investment)

You no only look for the buying traffic to sites but sites that can effect your rankings in search engines.. Its a hard sell the directory listings sometimes as people don't always understand the benefits...

[0103media]

You need to use yahoo btw to site links..

The crafts directory has over 26,000 links...

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com...&fr2=seo-rd-se

Try your site in the search box..

[Peter]

1032.....................oh well.

[zebra]

1032.....................oh well.

2427 for me

Are we low Peter or med or ?? Dunno whats average?

[Andamento]

I'd say you're doing pretty well, I scored 138 and the vast majority of these were from the craftsforum.