Boost Your Biz

boost your biz - badge, originally uploaded by passitonplates.

As you surf the internet, watch for this badge.

When you see it, click on it to visit another blog I write at www.PamHawk.com

There you'll find interesting, creative but practical, and very very inexpensive tips and tricks to hep you grow your own creative business.

If you use any tips, I'd love it if you would grab the badge for your sidebar to spread the word!
Thanks!

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So what will you show us on your video?

Last week at PamHawk.com you learned how easy it is to put video in your blog. Have you need wondering what you could do with it? ...or were you even wondering why I told you in the first place?

Imagine you're at an art fair or visiting an artisan's village. You wander from shop to shop, marvelling at all the wonderful things for sale. Some shops have the items displayed on shelves for you to look at, other shops have items on tables that you can pick up and examine more closely.

A few shops feature the artist at work. They talk to the growing crowd about their equipment, supplies, and technique, and look like they're genuinely having fun as they create more of the same art they are selling. It's fascinating to watch them work and explain the process, both technical and creative. As you watch them work, you notice there is always a crowd around their shop and the cashier is very busy, constantly ringing up purchases. After watching for a while, you decide you like this artist, their style, their sense of humor, and you just have to have one of their items. Not only because you love the item itself, but you are enjoying the complete experience of how your item came to be.

You buy the best piece in the shop and bring it home. The next time the art fair comes around or the next time you visit the artisan's village, you look for the same artist to see what new items they are selling this time. You also recommend friends to check them out and talk about your experience.

So now let's think about your business.

While you're thinking, hop over to PamHawk.com and see what totally creative, very easy, inexpensive big ideas I have for you. I bet you're going to love this post.

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One more little HTML lesson tutorial

You know how to make bold and italic text, right?
Those are just a quick little <b>before and a</b> after for bold, and a little <i>before and a</i> after for italic.

How about a strike out? My clever daughter just showed this one to me.
Just type in this text: <strike>strike</strike>

Want to see it in use?
Sure you do. Besides, it'll make you feel really good about your well behaved kids.

While typing this, my exuberant 12 year old nearly 13 year old (and old enough to know better) was sitting on the back of the couch, reading over my shoulder as I typed. Something brushed my right ear and there was a huge WHUMP! and a shriek as she fell over backwards, landing on the cushion of the couch.

Turns out my darling daring daughter nearly kicked me in the head as she lost her balance. I tried to scold her and she kept whooping and yelling, "That was fun!!"

She agreed to wait until I'm done before she tries again. She needs a ride to a friend's house later this evening.

AnotherQuick-n-EasyHTMLTutorial

Check it out - line breaks in the blog title!

Want in on the secret? It's four little characters of html code that indicates a line break. It's so easy.

Here's the code: <br>
The BR means "Break"

When I typed in the title to this blog post, it looked like this:
Another<br>Quick-n-Easy<br>HTML<br>Tutorial

Easy, peasy.
Now off you go, to let all hell <br> loose with your use of HTML.

Keeping everyone on the same page...an easy HTML tutorial

Have you noticed this? When you are visiting someone's blog or website and you click on a link, sometimes the link opens in a new window (or tab) and sometimes you leave the blog completely and jump over to the new link.

Staying or jumping has to do with how the html is written on the blog post or website.

Sometimes this is a good thing, jumping from blog to blog, and other times it's annoying because what you were initially reading was very interesting and now you have to hit the back button to figure out where you were before the link sent you shooting off to someone else's blog.

As for me, I like to keep my readers here, partly for their convenience, and (from a business standpoint,) partly so my brand is not forgotten too quickly. Would you like to do the same?

Without any foreign language instruction, here's how.
Denise, I'm going to use your blog URL as the example.
I hope that's ok.
Thanks!

1. Start a new blog post in a new window or tab on your browser so you can keep your eye on this tutorial.

2. Type in the name of the site you want to experiment with, then attach a link to it. Here's the example:
Denise Clenney's Changing Designs

3. Now flip over to your Edit Html tab on your blog post. Take a look at the code for what you just did. It should look like this: <a href="http://changingdesigns.blogspot.com/">Denise Clenney's Changing Designs>

4. If you are extremely unfamiliar with html, I'll explain the different parts here, and please pardon my lack of technical language. I may be geeky but I am not a geek.

a href= This tells the browser that this is a link.

"http://changingdesigns.blogspot.com/" Tells the browser where to go.

< > These brackets tell the browser that this is where the code is, and not to make it look like text.

Denise Clenney's Changing Designs This is the text link you see on the page. Sometimes it's underlined, sometimes it's a different color.

Since the first bracket started with an "a" this "/a" tells the browser that's the end and closes the code.

5. If you publish the blog post and click on the link, you will jump directly to Denise's blog. So let's go back to edit the blog post and modify the link you just put in.

6. Go to the Edit Html tab again and enter some extra code to tell the browser to open a new window or browser tab when this link is clicked. Here's the code again:
<a href="http://changingdesigns.blogspot.com/">Denise Clenney's Changing Designs>

7. In the spot between the end quote " and the end bracket > you'll need to enter the following code: target="_blank"
(There is a space before the word target.)

8. The link now looks like this:
<a href="http://changingdesigns.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Denise Clenney's Changing Designs>

Now for those of you who are anal retentive about this kind of stuff, there's more.
(You can't see me, but I'm sitting at the computer sheepishly raising my hand.)

If you feel the need to go back into any older posts, (and try to restrain yourself PAM HAWK,) you can do a quick fix on all those pesky links that could potentially take your readers away forever.

1. Open any blog post you can't resist the urge to fix and go to the Edit Html tab.

2. If you are using a PC, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the F key to open a Find dialog box. (If you have a Mac, sorry - I don't know how you initiate a search.)

3. In the search box, enter a href="
Yes, you can copy and paste from this blog post.

4. Now highlight and copy this code target="_blank"
Remember, there is a space in front of the word target.

5. Search the entire bit of blog post html, and every time you find a link, paste in the code. Just position your cursor between the "> and hold down Ctrl and V to paste.

6. Click search click search click search your way through the blog post until it's flawless. Or until you realize you really need to stop and do something more productive, *ahem* Pam.

Finding HTML Colors

Have you ever tried changing the look of your blog or website and wanted to use a very specific color? No matter what program you use, be it a website or blog development software, Blogger or some other blog platform, there is usually a set collection of colors available and that's it.

This was the case when I made a recent tweak to this blog. I was frustrated with my "Thisaway Rose" template loading slowly on my cable connection and knew something had to change.

The little light bulb cam on in my head over my morning coffee today as I realized I should just switch to the "Minima Stretch" template and just change the background color. Duh. Don't know why I didn't think of that before...

So I make the switch and click the pink button to change the background. I wanted the blog to look pretty much the same as before, and when talking to Donna, my Pass It On Plates partner in Wisconsin, I like referring to this blog as "The Pink Blog" and the Plate Diaries as "The White Blog." We have one other blog that we use, just between ourselves, that we call "Projects." It's marked 'private' and we chat back and forth there and post articles, business links that we use, and it's a great place to collaborate. Our "Projects" blog is the subject of another post, though.

Back to colors.The Blogger color choices were way too dark and I don't really understand the Hex Code used. I tried fiddling with the numbers and letters but nothing seemed to change. Enter a Google search on "Hex code." The site December.com was at the top of the list so I checked it out.

Wowie. If you have ever searched for hex codes, this is the place to go.
Mind you, these are only the named cool-pinks. There are other hues, other saturations, and a whole section of un-named colors. I did try some un-named colors and Blogger didn't recognize them, but with thousands of hex codes at my disposal, I was able to find exactly what I was looking for.

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Connecting with your readers

A couple of weeks ago I was surfing through my Technorati Experiment post to check out some of the blogs in the list and ask to have my links added to their list. I left a comment at one of the blogs and promptly forgot about it until later when I checked my email.
Here is what it said:

Hey Pam Hawk,

Just wanted to thank you for stopping by http://Bradblogging.com on August 3rd, 2008.

Your comment definitely helps me write better articles, and allows other readers to see your opinion about the article (http://bradblogging.com/more-traffic/give-and-go-technorati-authority-increase-anyone/) that you talked about.

I hope to see you back again soon! If you have a busy schedule, you could always subscribe to my R.S.S feed so that my posts are available at your convenience. Simply click this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/bradblogging or go to the main home page and click the corresponding button.

Cheers!
Brad @ Bradblogging.com

Now while I realize Brad has probably set up an auto responder to send this email the second I left his site, it left a positive impression on me, and I did go back to read more posts.

You know what? I found some valuable information on his blog and have since subscribed.

If the email hadn't been sent to me, I probably would never have returned to his blog. Instead, this tiny effort on his part gained him another regular reader. Pretty darned smart, if you ask me.

When people leave comments for me, I read them all and try to respond accordingly. I also visit the sites of my commenters and read their posts and try to leave relevant comments as well.

Connecting with your readers encourages a sense of community in your blog. It also makes you more human and it does increase your readership, whether it's through regular visits or RSS subscribers. In fact, if you enjoy reading my blog, I invite you to subscribe, as well. Just click one of these buttons in the sidebar and select your reader.

So tell me, what do you do to connect with your readers?

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Six steps to designing a Project Wonderful ad

Now that you have some info on buying and selling advertising with Project Wonderful, what ad will you use to advertise your site or hot new product? Today I'll show you how to make a great-looking Project Wonderful ad without any special computer programs.

You can create one in just 6 easy steps using your Flickr account.

1. Look at Project Wonderful and decide what ad size you want to make. This quick tutorial is for the 125x125 square ad.

2. Log into your Flickr account and choose an image. Click on it.
(I made an ad based on the image used for the giveaway blog post so they matched.)

2. Click Edit. Flickr's editing program, Picnik, will open. Be patient, it takes a moment. When it opens, you will see two tabs. One is Edit and the other is Create. You will start out in the Edit tab.

3. Crop your photo. If you are making a square ad, select the square from the drop down box. (These screenshots are from an upcoming blog post... You'll just have to bookmark this blog or subscribe so you don't miss my next Flickr tutorial.)

4. Resize your photo to the Project Wonderful ad size you want to make. In my case, I typed in 125 and Picnik did the rest. When the shape and size are to your liking, click OK.

5. Now for the fun part. Click the tab named Create. Type in your advertising word or words and play with the color, font, layout, and other settings until it's perfect.

..........

6. Save your work. Before you complete the save process, let Picnik know if you want to save a new copy or replace the original. I recommend always saving a new copy so you can use the original for other ads or projects. Save this image to a location on your computer so you can easily upload it to Project Wonderful.

Ta dah! Quick and easy.
And fantastic-looking.

If/when you make one, comment here with a link to your ad. I'd love to see how it turned out. Plus, if you send me a link to your ad, I'll write up a post to be published next week to show off all the ads. Hey, that's free advertising for you.

Ok, also... Come back tomorrow to find out who won the big giveaway!

Making money with Project Wonderful

Today we'll go over how you can use Project Wonderful to make a little moolah.

Like I said in an earlier post, you probably won't be able to quit your day job,
but at the very least you should earn enough to fun
your own Project Wonderful advertising efforts.

In order to make a little money with Project Wonderful, you'll first need to set up some ad space on your blog. If you have been following these posts for the past few days, you know these ad spaces are called Ad Boxes. It may take a little time (a day or two at most) to get your blog approved initially, since the PW staff needs to make sure your blog is valid and meets their criteria. (They don't like spam blogs or other bogus sites.) Once approved, you can set up your ad boxes based on your preferred size and location of the box on your site.

One last note, I have two ad boxes on this blog; one at the top and another in the sidebar. It took some experimentation to figure out that the best ad box size for this particular blog was to have one header ad at the top and one large skyscraper ad on the side. When I offer more ad boxes, I end up with fewer bids and the price drops. As my traffic grows, it may be worthwhile to increase the amount of ad space, but supply and demand has shown me that for now, two large ads work the best for me. What baffles me about this is that my personal blog, The Adventures of Pam & Frank, has very little traffic, maybe an average of 4 hits per day, but the ad box prices are generally higher there than they are here. My only guess is that different content from one site to another can also affect pricing. Oh. And for the record, I'm not saying the content over there is better than over here. It's just different.

Some things I recommend doing, especially if you're starting out are:

1. Be prepared to fiddle with your ad box over the next week or so until you find what size and placement work best for you. Keep in mind that the price your ad box demands is based completely on supply and demand. The more ad boxes you have available, the lower the bids will be. If you have a lot of traffic and only a few ad boxes, the price will go up as advertisers try to outbid each other for the coveted space on your site.

2. Regardless of how you set your preferences for approving ads, you will need to check your ad boxes every day for at least a few weeks. Why?

• If you set your ad boxes to auto-approve every ad, you will get a lot of bids and ads in your boxes right away, but you will need to check and make sure the the type of ads shown in your ad box(s) are of a nature that you want showing on your site.
  My ad boxes were set up this way and despite designating them to be "Safe for Children" I was still getting adult-oriented ads showing graphic renditions of T&A (ummm, that's breasts and bottoms.) I immediately put up a notice on my profile explaining that ads not save for children would be canceled and the bidders would be banned from placing future bids on my ad boxes. Then I did just that. I still occasionally ban bidders for not following these rules.
  
  
• If you set your ad boxes to approve every bid by hand, plan to check bids at least once a day to approve ads for your site. If you wait too long between checking bids, you run the risk of having no ads in your ad boxes, advertisers will retract their bids, or their funds could be depleted from other bids they have placed before the bid on your ad box is approved.
  

3. When you see an ad you like on your site, consider adding that advertiser as a buddy so at some point if you decide to only auto-approve ads from your buddies, their ads will continue to be approved for your site.

4. When you see an ad you like on your site, or if you have been earning steady payments on your site from a regular advertiser, go to your PW Admin page and click on their avatar. What you'll want to do next takes just a minute but can create a long term benefit:

Send them a message thanking them for advertising on your site and inviting them to continue bidding.

If you have any events coming up where you know your traffic will increase significantly, you may want to let them know ahead of time. Since a traffic increase can increase your ad price, your regular advertisers may appreciate knowing that their ad could be outbid and might want to adjust their bid accordingly to make sure that your extra traffic sees their ad.

This is a great way to develop a relationship with your advertisers and could pay off to your advantage in other ways.

Does your advertiser have a blog?

Do you think they may modify their bid to make sure they outbid any competition that comes along when your traffic goes up?
They may want to.

Do you think they may blog about your message, giving them a chance to get in on your extra traffic?
Possibly.

Knowing that you are keeping them in mind when conducting your business, do you think they would be more likely to continue advertising on your site?
Very likely.

What other kinds of things have you done or seen people do with their ad boxes or for their advertisers?

Next:
A quick and easy way to make PW ads (like the giveway one shown above)
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My August PW campaign

PW-8-08.JPG, originally uploaded by passitonplates.

I set up an ad campaign on PW specifically for the giveaway that runs through August 20. When setting up a campaign, I tell PW what kind of bids I want to make and it automatically does the work for me.

In this campaign, I specified that PW should look for adboxes that:

• Support square ads
• Support text and graphical ads
• Have at least 1 page views today
• Have on average at least 20 unique users over the past 5 days
• Have at least 80% of their hits from United States over the past 5 days.
• Describe itself using these tags: women, cooking, baking, cookies, craft, handmade

As you can see, I've had a few thousand views and a couple dozen hits, which gives me a nice CPC (cost per click).

I have two other ads that I'm bidding on by hand (same ad, same goal) on the website Corporette and Lipstick to Crayons. You can see how lower traffic and lower click rate affects my cost per click.

So why on earth am I bidding so much more on Lipstick than Corporette? I checked out their websites and see my target demographic there and I figured it would be worth the higher bid price to get my ad in front of their readers.

I hope that helps!

Oh - one more tip. You can click on each website with an ad box to find out their traffic stats. I feel like my figurative slip is showing by telling you this, because I wish my stats were a lot higher, but it's important for you to know how to see what kind of traffic a site has before you commit to placing a paid ad on their site.

(I guess I'm happy that my stats are not consistantly zero day after day!)

Advertising on Project Wonderful

Continuing from last Friday's post, let's talk about how to advertise your blog or online store through Project Wonderful (aka PW.) There are two ways to find the ad boxes that you want to bid on.

One way to find ad boxes to bid on is to surf other blogs and look for PW ad boxes. If they have one or more with a link inviting you to advertise on that site, just click that link to get to their bidding page. From there you can see their traffic stats and ad pricing over the last month, maybe learn a little about that site and their policies regarding advertising they allow on their site, and a link to see all their other ad boxes.

The other way is to go to the PW website and do a search based on your preferred ad box size, how much traffic the site gets, where the traffic comes from, etc. There are a lot of online comix sites, but you can tailor your search by keyword, so if you want to advertise on sites within a specific topic you can search for that. Just like any internet search, if you use general keywords you will have a long list of ad boxes to browse through, and if you use more specific keywords you will see ad boxes that are more in line with your desired niche. From there, you can sort your results based on the ad box price, amount of traffic, alphabetically, etc.

You may find it handy to use both techniques to find ad boxes.

Some things I recommend doing, especially if you're starting out are:

1. Bid $0 or $.01 on as many boxes as you can, even if the current bid is a few cents. When the higher priced bids expire, your ad will be shown in the space until the bidding price goes up again. It's a great way to take advantage of supply and demand pricing and get your ad seen on boxes you may otherwise not have budgeted for.

2. Set up an advertising campaign. You set the parameters, such as the level of traffic to the site, what country a certain % of traffic comes from, keywords used to describe the sites, price range of the ad boxes, etc. This will get your ads to a broad range of sites automatically and you don't have to babysit your ad to keep placing it here and there. This is quite simple to do, as PW walks you through the entire process. It's all point and click.

3. Send a message to the ad box owners where you are having success. Thank them for the opportunity to advertise on their site, point out what you like about their site, and let them know how you have benefited from their ad box. If you have ad boxes on your site, invite them to check it out and consider placing a bid on your ad boxes. It's kind of an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" approach, but joint efforts in advertising is almost always a win-win. If this first step develops into a nice conversation, you could blog about it and let them know about the blog post. They, in turn, may mention your blog post, driving more (free) traffic to your site.

4. Do you have a special sale or event going on? Make up an ad specifically to draw people to that event. Set up a campaign to have PW automatically bid on sites that compliment your event, and schedule your ad campaign to end just before your event ends. An example is the giveaway I have going on through August 20. I set up a campaign with the ad shown below. The ad linked to my blog post and the ads will disappear about 15 minutes before the giveaway ends.

Remember, the key to great advertising is patience and consistency. Once you place your ads, give it a few days, weeks, or maybe even a few months to really see how your efforts are paying off.

Coming up next:
Setting up ad boxes on your sites (or, making money with PW)
A quick and easy way to make PW ads (like the giveway one shown above)

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Interview with Laurie Beth Beggin

Dear readers, today we have another interview with my good friend and very talented stained glass artist Laurie B. I have mentioned her and linked to her several times here and now is your chance to find out more about her promotion techniques. If you're not familiar with Laurie B, please visit her Etsy shop to see her work. She is skilled in the Tiffany style of creating stained glass and her pieces range in style from flowers, craftsman, mosaic, abstract, and a collection of custom-made angels. Have you seen her Harry Potter? Wow.

Do you blog for the sake of blogging or do you blog to promote another activity? If you blog to promote another activity, please tell us a little bit about it.

My primary reason for blogging is to promote my store on Etsy, 27lauriebethbeggin.etsy.com. I do REALLY enjoy it though. I enjoy photography and as I go through my day I'm always thinking about topics to blog about, and picture to share on my blog.

Of all the blogging tools, blogging communities, blogging techniques, and widgets and gadgets, what do you think has made the biggest impact for you?

I'm still so new to blogging that this is a tough one to answer. I recently joined Interior Design Team and they seem incredibly organized. I'm really trying to dig my heels into that group. At this point I'd say Marmalade Pink has been the most supportive and helpful. Amy has great articles and she's so willing to share her knowledge.

What is Marmalade Pink and how does it help you?

Marmalade Pink is an online community for networking of artists all around the globe. It is a community on the Ning network that you join. It has a place for blogging, photo sharing and the main page has wonderful articles, a list of members who you can befriend and a spot for advertising.

How much time do you spend at Marmalade Pink?

I spend at least a 1/2 hour every day surfing Marmalade Pink to see who is new, what the articles have to say, read the marketing articles, new posts, etc.

What kind of results have you had?

I think with all marketing and networking it takes time to see the results. I've made a direct sale from this group but I think more importantly I've made consistant, wonderful friends. Since I'm so new I think it's going to be six months to a year before I see results from all of my hard work. I just keep connecting and trusting that it will bring results down the road.

Regarding your Etsy shop, what technique has been the most successful in generating sales?

I relist at least one item once or twice a week on Esty.

How do you relist an item on Etsy?

To relist an item you simply go to your expiration dates, click on the item you want to relist, and click renew. You're then charged the listing fee to relist the item. You don't have to wait for it to expire to relist it...

How much time do you spend doing this?

Oh, probably 10 minutes a week at most.

Has it increased overall sales for you?

I think this has helped my sales, but only slightly.

What one piece of advice would you like to tell other bloggers or Etsians who want to increase their traffic and/or sales?

Blog EVERY day, share interesting stories about yourself, your art, your life and SUPPORT OTHER ARTISTS! Commenting on THEIR life, their art and their blog is very important.
United we stand!
With gratitude, Laurie Beggin http://lauriebethbeggin.blogspot.com

And so, Dear Readers, please look for Laurie B on these various networks and visit her Etsy shop to see other breathtaking stained glass work that she has done. Is there one listed that you can't live without? Please visit her blog, as well. Like I've said in an earlier post here, visiting her blog is sure to inspire, inform, and entertain you - if you haven't been over there, please take a look. If you also have an Etsy shop please do check out Marmalade Pink and consider how becoming a member can help you promote your own shop.
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Promotion tips from Joanna Goldman

Dear readers, in following up with more interviews with Etsians and bloggers, I present to you some valuable information from Joanna Goldman. She is doing an outstanding job using many different places to market her Etsy store, and when she replied to my request for people to interview for this project, I immediately recognized her work from the car loaded with Ikea packages to the soulful little elephant with the big eyes. Perhaps you have seen her work here and there?
So Joanna, please tell us about the techniques you use to promote your Etsy shop.

As an Etsy seller, I'm basically trying to get my name and shop out "there" (the mega-giant world wide web!).

All my promos have a consistent branding feel to them. I think that this is important. I recently had a customer who saw my shop a while ago and liked my stuff, but didn't buy right away. What got her to purchase something was seeing one of my ads on majaba.org. It just goes to show that a strong presence makes a difference.

I use a number of different promo techniques to get recognized:

Blogs: http://www.joannagoldman.blogspot.com
I blog mostly for promo purposes. On my blog you will find my latest creations, articles that i was recently featured in, and coupons etc for my Etsy shop.

Website: http://www.joannagoldman.com
My website useful and more "professional" looking than my blog. It basically cuts out all the fat and shows who I am and what i do. I try and keep it as clean and simple as possible.

Other sites:
I use flickr, facebook, myspace, Etsy forums, other forums, (and a whole bunch of other stuff that I'm forgetting about) as promo tools. This kind of marketing doesn't usually lead to immediate sales, but I've had success months down the line.

There is a great forum post that lists a billion places to list yourself on the web. http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5703544
I'm am steadily making my way through this list, and I think it's helping!

In addition to the free promo-ing, I've been sponsoring events, donating my items to be sold for charity, and participating in online contests.
I've started doing paid advertising too. So far I've done majaba.org, project wonderful, and I have the handmade children's showcase on Thursday. All of these have gotten me tons of hearts and more exposure. I am sure they will pay off in a few months time.

In addition to Etsy, I am also consigning out my stuff to 3 stores: 2 in Toronto, Canada, and one online (http://www.trendyshoppes.com/)

It is important to keep in mind that building a business takes time. You have to plant many, many seeds before you can start to see any results. So far I've only sold 71 items off Etsy, but I'm still relatively new to this. I'm confident that this holiday season will be a successful one.

Stay positive, stay motivated, work hard and success will follow.


Thank you Joanna, for sharing your many different avenues for promoting your Etsy shop. I too, will go check out that Etsy forum post to work my way through the billions of places on the web to list my own shop.

Dear readers, when Joanna touches upon her consistent branding as part of her promotion (in her second paragraph) that basically means that once you see one of her promotions or ads or visit her shop, you recognize and remember her every time you see another promotion or ad. This is important, because it takes a while for a new advertisement to sink in. As long as your message is consistent, each view will work its way deeper into your customers' subconscious until they can't live without what you have to offer. This was true more than 120 years ago and is still true today. Joanna has figured this out and her consistency is paying off.

Now please go and check out her Etsy shop and her links! I bet you'll find a favorite or two!
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Interview with UneekDollDesigns

Today we have an interview with UneekDollDesigns, who makes the most amazing little dolls based on historical figures from all periods in history. Just visiting her Etsy store is an interesting history lesson. Each doll is one of a kind, as she does not use a pattern. This talented lady took a few minutes out of her busy day to talk about what she does to promote her Etsy shop.

Lady Jane Grey in Red

What online tool, technique, or activity has been the most successful in generating sales?

That's a good question! Being fairly new at this, I am sure there are better ways that I just haven't found yet, but thus far I would have to say photo sharing websites have been a help to me the most. Even though you can't blatantly advertise your wares with your pictures in most cases, you can get pictures of your items out there where many people can see them. That sparks curiosity, and that may lead to a sale. I also participate in forums. You don't want to get on there and seem like you're just there to advertise yourself- but participate in the actual topics and adding your URL if allowed also gets you out there!

Is is easy to get your pictures into photo sharing websites or participate in forums?

Not being computer savvy, blog savvy, or computer savvy, I'd have to say this activity(ies) as stated above are what I call "anyone can do this if I can". That is really what I look for- easy and uncomplicated tools to promote.

How much time do you spend doing this?

I would say a possible 15 minutes a day- give or take. If it takes too much time from me in creating my art, I just don't think it is worth it.

King Henry VIII Miniature Character

How has doing this increased product views? How about overall sales? How long did it take for you to see results?

It is really hard to say. I have honestly not tracked every sale to see how they found me in most cases. I did have a customer (repeat customer, by the way) find me by seeing my pictures I had posted on Flickr and seeing my profile there. Unless you ask every customer, you would have difficulty knowing what gets you the customers for certain. I do a little of whatever I can afford to do and figure it can't hurt. Just getting yourself out there as much as you can without being a nuisance is good. (By being a nuisance I mean forcing business cards for the umpteenth time on your friends to the point they run when you enter a room!)

Eliza Doolittle

What advice would you like to tell other Etsians who want to increase their traffic and/or sales?

First, make sure you have something that doesn't look like what 50 zillion other sellers have. Being different helps.

Second, watch your manners at all times, especially in the forums and to your potential customers. You'd be amazed how being polite and personably professional will help your business grow.

Look for every opportunity to let others know about your shop. Keep business cards handy at all times...if an opportunity knocks, answer it for Pete's sake! (smile!)

Lastly, keep your chin up. This really is an up and down type of thing. Sales come and go, they occur in clusters, or they may space out over weeks. Just realize each sale is one more step in a chain reaction- someone buys your item, they like it, they tell someone, and on it goes! Also, the less you grumble about lack of sales, the better your attitude will be and that will reflect in other areas, too.

Thank you for this opportunity, it is very kind of you!

And thank you, UneekDollDesigns, for sharing these promotion tips with us.

Dear readers, please take a moment and check out her Etsy store as well as her flickr photostream. I am sure you will be amazed at the talent, skill, and keen eye that went into creating these truly unique dolls.



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More Technorati tips

Laurie Beth Beggin and I often chat with each other through our comments. Both on her blog and on mine. We met a few months ago through a link exchange on Indiepublic and have had our eye on each others' blogs ever since. I look to her for inspiration for my creative process and ideas to polish and improve my blog. Yes, I know here we have a lady (me) who makes plates with a Betsy Ross kind of bonnet looking at stained glass to become inspired, but hey whatever works, right? Seriously, Laurie B's blog is a fun and down to earth mix of craft, talent and skill, family and pets, flowers and country life... Just go and check it out. Trust me, you'll love her.

Anyhoo, in one conversation she mentioned that she had added the Technorati thing on her blog and wanted to know how to get more reciprocal links. That can be the tough part. Technorati counts reciprocal links once per blog. This means that even if I was to mention Laurie B's blog in every one of my blog posts, Technorati would only count it as one, since my blog is only one (out or many) places mentioning her blog by name.

I believe that Google, on the other hand, counts the number of times a blog is mentioned. So if I was to include a link to Laurie B's blog with every post, that would increase her Google rank.

Participating in link exchanges is a good idea to help those within a group improve not only their Google rank but also their Technorati authority. When she and I participated in the link exchange, most participating artists and crafters added links to the blogroll on the side of the blog. This is helpful with Google, but sadly, I have discovered, does nothing for your Technorati rank.

**Promotion tip - if you participate in link exchanges, not only add the participants to your blogroll, but make a little mention in your blog about the fact that you're adding these blogs to your blogroll. In fact, take a minute and mention what you like best about the links you're adding, and invite all your readers to visit the links you're adding. This will do four good things:

1. It helps that blog's Google rank
2. It helps that blog's Technorati authority
3. It shows that you care about the quality of your content when adding only those links that are relevant to your blog to enrich your readers' experience,
4. It can also bring in more traffic when those whom you've mentioned visit your blog to see what nice things you've said about them, and post about it on their own blogs.

It's a win-win in so many yummy flavors.
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Interview with artist Jessica Simanowski

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Continuing to share what other bloggers and Etsians do to promote themselves, today's interview is with Jessie Simanowski, a talented painter and creator of plushies and fun accessories with two distinct Etsy shops: her paintings are sold at http://www.jessicasimanowski.etsy.com/ and her fabric designs are at http://www.jsartist.etsy.com/

If you are an Etsian, what online tool, technique, or activity has been the most successful in generating sales?

I think the best tool on Etsy is the renewing items function because it makes people find and see your stuff. Also the treasury is a great promotion tool. Making it on the front page is indeed the best promotion on Etsy.

In your opinion, what is the best way to promote yourself on Etsy? What method do you use?

To be added to treasuries it is best to make yourself known on Etsy. That works again with renewing your items everyday or show up in the Forums to connect with other Etsians.

How much time do you spend using this, per day? Per week?

Usually I spend around one hour a day on Etsy.

How has renewing items increased product views? How about overall sales? How long did it take for you to see results?

To renew your items makes more people come to your shop, therefore you automatically will get more views and more people who will heart your shop. If you are lucky some of these people put you in one of their treasuries and maybe you even make it to the main page. From there on many more people will heart you and put you in their treasuries.

Being on the main page has not always been a guaranty for me to sell something that day, especially not with my original paintings which are higher priced. If I had an item from my other Etsy Shop (JSartist.etsy.com) on the front page I sold something the same day.

What one piece of advice would you like to tell other Etsians who want to increase their traffic and/or sales?

I would say to renew everyday. And sometimes it helps to write in the Forums to make connections to other Etsians, that will always cheer you up.

One thing Jessie also mentioned is that she has a promo video about her paintings! She only mentioned this is passing, but this is a fun technique she has found to promote a lot of her paintings as if they're all part of a very curious dream.

Thank you Jessie, for taking the time to share some of your promotion tips and a lot of your creative work with us! Dear readers, please visit Jessie's two Etsy stores (links at the top of this post) and see more of what she has to offer.

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Interview with Jodie of Pretty Little Love Objects

Last week I posted a question to bloggers and Etsians, asking how they promote themselves. The response was tremendous and I'll be posting the interviews here as they come in. My hope is that this interview series will help a lot of newbies figure out where to start and also give seasoned bloggers/Etsians some ideas on where to focus their promotional energy for the best results.

Today's interview is with Jodie of Pretty Little Love Objects, an indulgent Etsy shop featuring her handmade jewelry and paper goods.

Do you blog for the sake of blogging or do you blog to promote another activity?

I blog over at 'Pretty Little Love Objects' http://prettylittleloveobjects.blogspot.com primarily to promote my Etsy shop http://www.blinkingmouse.etsy.com, where I sell individual love objects in the form of jewellery and cards. I talk a little bit about my general life but mostly I'm focused on my crafty side of life and I have my Etsy mini up at my blog permanently.

I also promote the beautiful things that other handmade sellers create. I have a Flickr group that I choose people from, regularly ask for tutorials at different crafty sources and have just got a big crop of seller interviews by appealing on the forums.

Of all the blogging tools, blogging communities, blogging techniques, and widgets and gadgets, what do you think has made the biggest impact for you?

I think when I placed the Buy Handmade button on my website that made a big impact in my blog traffic. I was getting 40 hits a day for about a month.

Also I find that when I do seller interviews with someone who belongs to a street team that massively ups my blog traffic as the whole team will pop along to see what's been said about a fellow member.

In terms of web search traffic most of my Google traffic comes from people looking for tutorials. Almost every day a few people will be brought to the blog by searching for a mini food tutorial or a way to make leg warmers.

What is the Buy Handmade button and how does it work?

I found the Buy Handmade button on Etsy. You sign up to take the Handmade pledge, stating that you will try to buy mostly handmade from now on. You just insert the code for the button in your blog layout and you get a pretty pink, green and white button.

As for finding tutorials and sellers to interview I usually post notice on the Etsy forums and at Craftster or Indiepublic to say I'm looking for someone interested in a little bit of exposure on a blog to help me out with some content.

How has the Buy Handmade button increased your blog traffic? How long did it take for you to see results?

Buy Handmade had results straight away but it's become less of a massive draw over time. It gets you a great amount of initial traffic though and shows that you really support the handmade movement, making you more popular with your fellow sellers.

How much time do you spend on blogging?

I try to have something new at my blog at least 3 times a week.

When selling on Etsy, what online tool, technique, or activity has been the most successful in generating sales?

Truthfully I think so far Facebook has been the best tool so far in terms of sales. I've made a lot of sales to friends by putting up pictures there and some of them have also agreed to hand out business cards for me.

Views have been generated by posting on Craftster, Myspace, Etsy forums, Flickr and various social networks as well as contributing articles to a few places. I'm also starting to do a lot of offline advertising.

How do you use Facebook to promote your Etsy?

I put pictures up at Facebook after I do a big product photo shoot. I put in my full Etsy description and a link to my shop. If someone wants to help me advertise they can find the link easily.

How often do you do this?

I don't do it that regularly, usually once a month.

How has using Facebook increased product views? How about overall sales? How long did it take for you to see results?

It's increased views and sales to friends are good as they boost my overall Etsy 'scores'. Friends tend to think of me if they need some fun and different jewellery now. I've also opened a business Facebook page to see if that makes a difference.

What one piece of advice would you like to tell other bloggers or Etsians who want to increase their traffic and/or sales?

Online advertising is all well and good, social networks are great places to meet other crafters and get fast, free advertising. However I think many customers are not viewing these adverts and are more exposed to traditional forms of advertising like fliers, business cards, bulletin boards so remember to diversify your marketing strategy.

Jodie, thank you for taking a moment to talk about how you promote your Etsy store. It looks like you are finding success using many different kinds of places to promote. Your comment to remember traditional forms of advertising, I think, is also one that many of us tend to forget about when working hard at promoting ourselves online.

Dear readers, please check out the pretty little love objects over at Jodie's Etsy and visit her blog to read some interesting interviews, find a tutorial, and learn about other very useful tips.

Thanks again Jodie, and I wish you continued success!

Do you use Technorati?

I've been seriously surfing blogs for the past couple of months and am incredibly impressed to see that so many artists, crafty people, SAHMs and WAHMs are online. Many, if not half of the blogs I read and creative businesses I visit (such as Etsy) are new this year. Reading various forums, I have started to notice a particular topic over and over:

How do I promote my blog and/or store?

The next several blot posts here will touch on some of the most commonly seen tools and techniques for blog and store promotion. Hopefully you'll find something new to help you out. Comments are encouraged - I'd love to hear how these tips have increased your traffic. Please comment with any other ideas, too.

Today's tip: Use Technorati.

What is it? Technorati is the mother of all blog tracking websites. It tracks who's saying what, who's blogging about whom, which blogs are linked to other blogs...

How do you use it? Go to www.technorati.com
Once you sign up, add your blog or blogs.
After you add your blog(s), you can click on "Blogger Central" on the right and get a little widget to put on your blog, like this:

Why do I need it?
1. Technorati tells you who is linking to you
2. Technorati ranks your blog according to how many other blogs link to you - the more blogs link to you, the higher your "authority."

View blog authority

3. Technorati tells you who is blogging about you

View blog reactions

4. You can search and chart any word(s) you like, and can search for blog posts using this word/words. Here is the graph for a search on Bayfield, a beautiful little town in northern Wisconsin.

Posts that contain Bayfield per day for the last 180 days.

Get your own chart!

Who is using it?
Well frankly, a LOT of bloggers. You'll find the Technorati widget on these fine blogs.
Flora at Bone Head Studios
Waterrose at Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions
Stacie at You Go Girl! Soaps (and check out her Technorati link to see how it looks)
Tanya of At The Honeysuckle Tree
Spincus of Considerations - The Art In Marketing

To sum it up:
Because Technorati finds blog feeds on its own, your blog may be listed without you even knowing it. Once you go there, and sign up/sign in, you can search for your blog and "claim it" as yours. You can also favorite other blogs. To boost the ratings of the blogs I read regularly, I have favorited all the blogs on my sidebar. The mention and link to the blogs in the paragraph above has increased the "authority" of each of them by one point. If I publish the links in the above paragraph a second time, their authority rank will increase by another point again. Authority is Technorati gold, so as you plan your blog posts, talk about other blogs and link to them to help their ratings.

For more information, you can check out Spincus's forum post at Considerations - The Art in Marketing.

Do you use Technorati? Please share how it has helped you!
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How do you promote yourself?

Reading various Etsy forums, I have started to notice a particular topic over and over:

"How do I promote my blog and/or store?"

I'd like to use my blog to post interviews with several Etsians/bloggers about their experience using various tools and techniques to help everyone else with this question.

By tools I mean those little badges you have on your blog sidebar, like:

• As seen on Delightful Blogs
• Blog Catalog
• The Mom Blogs
• Entrecard
• Advertising via Project Wonderful or Indiego

And techniques such as:

• Posting in the Etsy forums
• Commenting on other blogs
• Participating in communities like Indiepublic or MySpace

When publishing the interview with you, I'd like to include a little bit about you, share links to your blog and/or Etsy store, and show off some of your pictures.

Hopefully this info will help others figure out where to start and which direction to head with this overwhelming amount of choices for promotion.

If you are interested, please post a comment here with links to your blog and Etsy store, if you have one. I'll work my way through the list and contact everyone and start sending out interviews.

Sound good?
Good.
Can't wait to hear from you!
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Do you have a ™ ?

Last week I discussed how to create and start using a logo as part of your branding process. Part of the discussion included a bit on searching the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) to make sure nobody else was using your design. (Read that post here.)

Let’s expand on this a little and go into trademarks and service marks. (A trade mark is for goods and a service mark is for services.) These are often words or phrases that uniquely identify you, your business, or your products. I’m paraphrasing here, and for a complete description, visit the USPTO page on Trademarks or check out CIPO, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

According to the USPTO and CIPO, registration of your trademark is not required. All you need to do is start using it to establish that it is yours*. You can, of course, register your mark, which among other things will help you in the case you may need legal protection or if you plan to register your mark in countries outside the US.

* I should clarify that first you must make sure nobody else is using the mark you intend to use. Thank you Stacy for pointing this out!

Once you establish that a mark is yours, you can place the ™ behind it. (Or the ^SM symbol, if you are using a service mark instead of a trademark.)

Some of our own trade marks are:

• Pass It On Plates ™
• PlateWrap™
• Flying Plate™

Things you may be able to trademark or service mark could be:

• Your blog title
• Your Etsy store name
• Unique products you design - an example of this could be "Tina's Tiny Tiles" "MorningSun Farms Goat Milk Soap" or "Shoobidybop!"
• Your product names
• Your product attributes like color, scent, sizes...
• A DIY kit you create and package
• A regular promotion you have at your store
  (remember, though, the term needs to be unique to you)
• A specific online community that you manage

One note: in the USA, the ® symbol indicates a registered trademark or service mark and unregistered use of the symbol is illegal.

The USPTO and CIPO websites are well-written and easy to read. If you are interested in incorporating a trademark, service mark, or want more information about copyrights, check them out. If you live outside North America, you should be able to find your own country's trademark information by doing an internet search for the word "trademark" and your country name.

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