Learn how to market yourself and your books, articles or artwork - online! New hints, techniques and tricks are added each week, so be sure to come back on a regular basis for the latest updates.
Many of my clients are writers. As a result I'm sometimes asked how they can rework some of their written material to share it with the online community in the form of articles. When they do this, people who read their articles will follow the links they add to their bio section or resource box at the bottom of the article back to their website and bingo! Extra traffic...
After being asked a number of times which of the Article Submission sites would be the best ones to use, I decided to create a Top 50 listing for my clients' use. I've listed them here according to 1. how many unique visitors they receive (according to Compete.com which, truth be told, tends to give approximations rather than definite figures), and 2. what their current Google Page Rank is.
This list is up to date as of Wed, 1st of April 2009. If there's enough interest and/or specific requests, I may update these lists in a month or two.
Enjoy!
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
Recently, a client of mine emailed me the following key question: "I am depressed about our traffic... any ideas for getting more?" It got me thinking... So here's a mini-online marketing course for all of you who have the same question.
These 5 steps are the undisputed kings of traffic generation, no argument. If you put in the time implementing these steps, you'll get the returns, BUT they ALL have to be done AT THE SAME TIME. Doing one without the others will be nowhere near as effective unless you do it consistently for 6 - 12 months plus.
However doing steps 1. through to 5. regularly for a month or two will mean you'll end up with hundreds of visitors a day to the website. If a particular video or article becomes really popular and it goes 'viral' it could be thousands...
1. Create Promotional/Fun/Informational Videos and upload them to many different video sites at the same time (Youtube, Google Video, Video etc). They get picked up by more and more unrelated video sites, people embed them into their webpages, and you end up with a cascade of visitors coming to your website as long as you remember to put the website address in the video. Here's an example of a promotional video that I created for my delightful client, the writer Clarke Straughan: The New Book "Romancing The Impossible". It's worth remembering that nowadays 70+% of all surfers are now searching for, and watching videos. Give the people what they want!
2. Create Blog(s) as these are constantly are picked up and indexed by the search engines on a regular basis. Again, with consistent updates, Google et al will reward the site with higher rankings, which = more eyeballs = more visitors = more phone calls = more sales! I put blogs plural because those whose businesses rule the internet tend to have multiple blogs, websites and so on to capture different areas of their sales market. Yes, I know you don't have time for all that; I'm just letting you know...
3. Social Networking works nicely to bring in interest as long as you make enough friends/contacts to market to. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Sta.rtup.Biz, LinkedIn - there are loads out there. Choose just a few rather than killing yourself trying to add to all of the popular ones. Consistency and avoiding 'sales talk' is key! People hate it when you 'sell' to them, but love it when you chat and 'recommend' to them. Here's more info and a guide from one of my blogs on one of the social networking sites that I contribute to regularly: http://sta.rtup.biz/profiles/blogs/start-social-networking-online
4. Bookmarking Sites drop the URL of your choice into a listing that other people will browse through whilst idley surfing by. If your website/blog/video pages are all bookmarked, then they will click and visit them, hence more visitors, more eyeballs, etc. See AddThis.com for a comprehensive listing of all the big bookmarking sites. You cam add a URL once to addthis.com and it will automatically send it out to all of the others.
5. Write Some Relevant Articles If you write a few articles and upload them to the article farms on the web, people will read them and surf by your website to see who you are and what you're about. Hints: a. The more articles, the better... b. Do NOT use any article submission software that promises to send them out to 1,000 different sites all at once - Google will penalise you for spamming and can your website. c. Only submit to the top-ranking article websites as they'll be cosiest with Google and the other search engines.
Follow these 5 steps and your traffic will build nicely. Of course the more traffic you have visiting your website, the more eyes will see your pages, and the more sales you'll make!
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
Here's a list of useful resource sites that my clients find useful. Whether you're an author, a visual artist, a musician, performer or photographer, you'll probably find a resource worth checking out here too...
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
Back during the infancy of the internet, when we asked whether we'd get new customers by building a website we were told it would be simple. Just "build it, and they will come..."
But now? Oh no. If that's all you do then no, they will not come. You see there's a lot more competition out there nowadays. So there are quite a few extra steps you would be wise to take.
For a start you have to research what 'they' - your potential customers, readers, agents, fans - are interested in seeing on the website. Then you have to build the website, then you have to let the Search Engines know about its existence and then you have to network online and let as many people as possible know that it's there, and THEN.... hopefully yes, they will come.
Wait a minute. What was that? Network? Online?
That's right. Online networking is fast becoming just as important as that old traditional business activity of standing around at parties chatting, and connecting with as many people who may be interested in knowing about you and your services.
You'll find there are many sites that exist solely to allow people to rub shoulders in a huge virtual get-together (minus the wine and cheese cubes on a stick of course) that spans the globe.
Whether they are casual surfers, entrepreneurs, business professionals or multinational corporations, each member of these Social Networking sites usually have a page or two to say who they are, what they're interested in, and what their business is all about.
These profile pages act as the equivalent of a business card or cold-call telephone message, but they're friendlier. After all the point is to actually make new friends who want to know more about you, who will eventually learn to trust you, and will therefore be incentivized to come and visit your website and see what products or services you are offering them.
Just like at a party or other social gathering, members of Social Networking sites tend to gather together in groups. This means you can easily find members who share the same art interests, politics, likes and dislikes as you. Once you hang out online with a group of like-minded people, reading and adding comments becomes fun.
Why should you be interested in Social Networking? Here are 5 reasons why this area of web actively has become a hugely important part of the online experience, and is expected to explode during 2009.
Online networking can bring you a steady stream of extra visitors or recommendations to your website.
When you join in the discussions by adding comments or giving helpful advice to other members, you gain a reputation as an expert in your field as well as extra kudos for being an all-round good guy/girl. What a great incentive for people to come and visit your website!
Creating an interesting, fun and engaging profile page helps to put a human face behind the business/sales- oriented tone you may have to strike at your website.
When you join a social networking site you will often have an opportunity to create links that point to your website. Over time the search engines track down these links and give your site extra 'points' for popularity. Having lots of links pointing in to your site (they call these 'inbound links') gives Google an incentive to move you further up the ladder in their listings, and voila! More visitors arrive.
Taking an active part in Social Networks improves your website's visibility and reputation.
The thing to remember when you join these sites is to use a gentle approach, and gain trust by joining in with the community, and avoiding the hard sell.
After all, they're all about being social, not about being that hideous person at parties who thrusts their business card beneath your nose and shouts 'Buy my widgets! We should do business together now! Send me your money!"
Hmm, would you ever want to visit, talk to or buy from that kind of person?
Here are my recommended networking sites for those of you who are new to the internet and are looking for a guiding hand from some online old-timers like me.
I've also listed below a series of other popular social networking sites. Of course you don't have to join all of them to be successful. Blimey, you need to have a life outside of making hundreds of social networking posts! Just select three or four that you think you'll really enjoy taking part in, find groups that reflect you interests, and start from there.
Good luck!
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
If you can, include short sections or sentences summarising what visitors can look forward to reading on other pages of the site. These summaries can prove useful in drawing your surfer’s attention to the delights that await them if they choose to stay.
Create a really interesting 'Meet the Author/Artist/Me' section, and include a taster paragraph on the home page. No doubt about it, the better your Surfer feels they know you, the more likely they are to read other pages of your site. The more likely they are to read the other pages, the more likely they are to glean more information; to get in contact with you; to recommend you to their friends and colleagues; and ultimately, to buy whatever you have to sell!
Spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck!
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
Here are some of the things to consider when you are creating the text for your site. Firstly, put aside plenty of time to sit and ask yourself the following key questions:
Who's going to be visiting my site?
What are their interests, lifestyles, habits?
I'm putting myself in front of a lot of people. Who do I hope will, ultimately, buy something from me?
Have I identified my Unique Selling Position (USP)? Do I know precisely why people will be more likely to buy from me rather than from someone else?
What do I want to use this site for? Is it simply to enable people to find out basic information about me and see my work (Portfolio Website)? Or do I want to make sales (Online Sales Website)?
What do I need to include in my website? Do I need to include information about my services and products, my portfolio of work, contact information, hours, location map, frequently asked questions, contact forms, client testimonials, external links, a logo of my own, the logos of my professional associations, my CV/resume, documents to download?
Have I seen similar sites that have inspired me; that made me want to go back and read more or buy from them? What was it about these sites that I liked? Was it the text, headline, layout, colours, links, images, sounds?
Will I want to be able to add new stuff every day (e.g. new photographs, daily blogs)? Or will I be happy to make changes every week/month/quarter (e.g. monthly news, quarterly speaking schedule) without the site becoming dated? What will be my website's main Keywords - the hidden words that will be stored in the background of my website to help draw the interest of the search engines like Google.com and Yahoo.com?
Are they words and phrases that every other author / poet / musician / photographer / painter is likely to use? Or do I have something more unique that's specific to what I am offering?
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
Of course, every website needs a home page where people who are searching for you or the items/services you offer will eventually land.
Think carefully about exactly what you want to put on this page. Pay particular attention to the pictures and text that will be immediately visible at the top part of the screen when your visitors arrive. We computer geeks call this top bit of the page – the part you see before you have to start scrolling down - the ‘first fold’.
The text in the first fold needs to capture the interest of the visitor as quickly and as confidently as possible.
Why? Well, research shows that most surfers make a decision whether to stay and explore a site within 7 seconds. Seven seconds! That’s about how long it takes to read the first two paragraphs of this section, and it’s about how much time you’ve got before Suzy Surfer makes up her mind about you and what you have to offer her.
You can be pretty certain that if it’s not captured her attention in that time then... click! She’ll be gone. Presumably to one of the other 1,785,952 other search options Google.com offered her.
Another fact the research tells us is that once you’ve captured your surfer’s interest, you’ll probably have their attention for about 3 minutes on average. So your other pages will have to offer them something deeper and more interesting to keep them on your site.
Think about the last time you searched for a station you liked on the radio. Did you ‘surf’ from station to station, changing the dial every few seconds until you found something you liked the sound of? Did you perhaps change your mind about the station you chose after you'd listened to the first song?
Keep that experience in mind as you prepare the text for your website. Visitors to your website will respond in much the same way. Most will make a quick 7 second check of the home page to decide if they’ll stay. If they do, they’ll spend about as long as it takes to play an average pop song to decide if they like the website.
Now, let’s suppose your new website greeted Suzy Surfer with the words;
"Hi, and welcome to my website!!!!! I know I've got pictures of the blue widgets here, but please don't try to buy those as I've just run out. There are only green ones left now. This page isn't quiet finished yet, but please bare with me as I’m hoping to get the rest of the pictures up after I come back from my summer vacation (Disneyland, here I come!!!!!) Before you look round, here’s a pic of the Oficial Keeper of my website, Poochie. He’s a realy cute, like totally bossy Terrier/Chiwaawa cross, and he keeps me company while I do my work..."
Did you catch exactly what this website is showcasing or selling? Do you know where and how to buy the products?
Did you feel an immediate confidence in the business professionalism of the owner of this website? Did you get to see a picture of the owner's work to intrigue and entice you to stay? Are you bored yet? Or are you laughing instead?
If you are, is that because you’ve seen more than your fair share of this kind of badly-spelled, unprofessional, poorly designed text out there in cyberspace?
Question for you;just how long do you think the notoriously impatient Suzy Surfer would spend at this site?
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
Here are some of the things to consider when you are creating the text for your site. Firstly, put aside plenty of time to sit and ask yourself the following key questions:
Who's going to be visiting my site? What are their interests, lifestyles, habits? I'm putting myself in front of people who I hope will, ultimately, buy something from me.
Have I identified my Unique Selling Position (USP)? In other words, do I know precisely why people will be more likely to buy from me rather than from someone else?
What do I want to use this site for? Is it simply to enable people to find out basic information about me and see my work (Portfolio Website)? Or do I want to make sales (Online Sales Website)?
What do I need to include in my website? Do I need to include information about my services and products, my portfolio of work, contact information, hours, location map, frequently asked questions, contact forms, client testimonials, external links, a logo of my own, the logos of my professional associations, my CV/resume, documents to download?
Have I seen similar sites that have inspired me; that made me want to go back and read more or buy from them? What was it about these sites that I liked? Was it the text, headline, layout, colours, links, images, sounds?
How often do I plan to update the content of my website? Will I want to be able to add new stuff every day (e.g. new photographs, daily blogs)? Or will I be happy to make changes every week/month/quarter (e.g. monthly news, quarterly speaking schedule) without the site becoming dated?
What will be my website's main Keywords - the hidden words that will be stored in the background of my website to help draw the interest of the search engines like Google.com and Yahoo.com? Are they words and phrases that every other author / poet / musician / photographer / painter is likely to use? Or do I have something more unique that's specific to what I am offering?
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
One of the first things you'll have in mind when you decide to purchase your new Website will be the number and the type of pages you'd like your website to contain. This simplest of tasks can very quickly create a real quandry.
"There's so much to say about my work after I've slaved and sweated over it night after night! How do I know what to leave out and what to put in?"
It's important to remember however, that not every single page of your website will be used solely to display and discuss your work.
You must also consider adding in the information that your visitors will want to know, such as how you got started in your work (about me page), how long it will take for your items to arrive if you intend to post them out (shipping and delivery), and how you're going to treat private data such as their email addresses with courtesy (privacy policy).
Here are some example page titles to give you a few initial ideas.
Example Pages for a
WRITER
(eg. Author, Poet)
Example Page Names for a
VISUAL ARTIST
(eg. Painter, Photographer, Jewellery Designer)
Home
Home
Meet the Author, Who is John/Joanna Doe?, Author’s Bio
Meet the Artist, Who is John/Joanna Doe?, Artist’s Bio
Bookstore, Buy Books, Buy J. Doe’s Books, Store
Buy Paintings (Photographs, Jewelry, Sculptures, Tapestries, Dresses, Pottery, Fabrics etc.), Gallery, Available Paintings, Store
So, you now have the most perfect website known to man, woman or child. It is the ice-cool, minimalist art haven - or the colourful, multimedia extravanganza - you always dreamed it could be.
Surely now the world will hasten to your perfect pages and rejoice with you?
Er... no.
For one thing, they need to know that you are up and running before they can beat a path to your door. So, it would be helpful if you were to appear in the Search Engines that the vast majority of internet surfers now use to find their information.
Not always an easy task. It can sometimes seem as though there are as many techniques for encouraging the Search Engines to add your website to their lists, as there are websites! The mighty Google.com is famed for it's level of fussiness in terms of which websites it chooses to show in its Top 30 - the first 3 pages of listings it presents to you when you ask it a question.
Truth be told, this is far too big a discussion to hold in the few pages you'll find here. Though I do discuss in detail the best ways to market your website online with every client who purchases a Website Plan.
However, you will find plenty of advice on making your website as attractive and visitor-friendly as possible in these articles. I've even included resources that should come in handy once your website is up and running - like the the list of online Directories you can submit your web site link to.
Enjoy. And if you find any links, or have any suggestions for additions to these articles and listings, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Wishing you success and a great internet experience!
UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7617-7629 USA Tel: +1 (512) 377-6953 Fax No: +44 (0)7092-280231
Internet Creatives (UK), 4 - 6 Alpha Street North, Berkshire, United Kingdom, SL1 1RB
What we do as a company
We provide website design for authors, artists and other small business owners. Our creative, affordable websites can include a custom logo, a blog, photo gallery, ecommerce shopping cart for online sales, royalty-free music for your podcasts and newsletters for your customers and fans. Get a stylish web site to grow your creative business.
Book cover illustrations and image optimisation services are also available.
