15 Minute Craft Website Tips

The New Year has begun! For many artists, the time period immediately after the holidays are a slow period...which is the perfect time to start on or fine tune marketing tasks that may have neglected during the busy season. In this episode, I'll go over what you can do now in order improve your marketing for the rest of the year

If you have an art business online, it's pretty much as must for you to have Facebook page. With over an estimated 500 million users, you definitely will want to be able to tap into the active Facebook market...and having a great Facebook page is the way to make your art known on Facebook. On this episode, I'll talk about how to get started with setting up a Facebook page and how to make stand out.

So you've built an email list for your art business and you're regularly sending out email newsletters and email alerts to customers and prospects. That means you've got one part of your art marketing covered, right? Not so fast! How do you know that your email messages are actually being read? Just because someone's on your list, doesn't mean they actually see your emails, or even open them. And you'd be downright shocked as to how often your email messages aren't even seen at all. On this episode, I'll talk about why your emails aren't being read or acted on and what you can do to fix it and make your email list more effective.

One of the most overlooked and underutilized pages on many artist's websites is the "about" or the bio page. In some cases you might be too shy, in other cases, you might not know what to write about, in other cases, you might feel that the art should stand on it's own. Any of those reasons are mistakes. Your about or bio page is one of the most important pages on your website. In this episode, I'll talk about About pages and how to make yours great.

Every art website should be helping you build a list of customers for your artwork. So how do you get people to sign up for your list once you set it up on your website? On this episode, I'll talk about different ways that you can get people to join your art email list.

Do you have a blog for your artwork? If so, you've probably already gone through the initial buildup stage, perhaps you've gotten some steady readers and traffic, maybe you're getting some comments on a regular basis, and now you've hit a plateau. How do you start taking your existing art blog to the next level where you're getting more traffic, more readers, and more potential customers. On this episode, I'll talk a bit about how to jolt some activity and excitement into your existing art blog.

If you gather any type of information like names or email addresses on your art website, you'll need to make sure that you have a privacy policy on your website not only to assure your subscribers, but also to be fully compliant with privacy laws. On today's show, I'll talk about why you need a privacy policy on your art website or blog and easy ways you can write one.

As an artist, there are a number of different products and services that you use on a regular basis, everything from supplies, magazines, books, web hosting, or other services. Did you know that you could get income simply by recommending products and services that you use already? In this show, I'll talk to you about affiliate programs, and how and why you should use them to expand your bottom line.

If you have a website for your art, how much thought do you give to where your customers "land" or enter your website? Most people assume that the first page a customer sees on their website is the homepage. But many times that's not the case. Is the rest of your website as compelling to "land" on as your homepage? In this show, we'll discuss the concept of "landing" pages, why it's important, and how to apply it to all of the pages on your website.

If you haven't yet heard of Foursquare, Facebook Places, or Gowalla, these services are a new type of social networking service called "location based social networking" that allows people to "check-in" to locations and share their activities with their friends. So what does this mean for you as an artist? If you have a location that your customers can visit, this can mean a new way to market your art business. On today's show, we'll talk about Foursquare and other "location-based" social networking services and how they can benefit your art business.

Marketing your art website through contests can be a great low cost way to get more people to your website and gain more visibility. However, you need to know how to do these contests right to be effective. In this show, we'll talk about the benefits of running contests and giveaways on your art website and what to consider and what to avoid.

Teaching art and various creative skills is also a great way to expose more people to your work and can be an additional source of income for your art business. And the Internet has never made it easier to teach people all over the world and never have to leave the comfort of your studio. On today's show, we'll explore the benefits of teaching online and how you can integrate online teaching into your marketing plan.

Labor Day signals the official end of summer, which means that the holidays will be here before you can blink. If you're like most artists, the majority of your sales occur during the holiday gift buying season. So need to make sure that you're prepared to make the most of it...especially if you sell your work online. On today's show, we'll talk about how to create a kick-butt holiday promotion plan for your website or online store.

If you're gathering the names and email addresses of the people that are visiting your art website, you're already ahead of the game. So how do you make the most of every name and every email address on that list? One of the biggest mistakes artists make with their list is that they're too timid with using that list to the maximum. On today's show, we'll discuss how to use your email mailing list to it's maximum potential.

There are a lot of things that can influence how visitors to your website interact and react to your website. One of these factors is the psychological phenomenon called "social proof", where new visitors get cues on how to behave on your website by what they see on it. On today's show, we'll talk about how to use social media services like Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr to influence new visitors to subscribe to your list, read your blog, or to purchase your artwork.