internet marketing/getting links, ISGB listings, etc.

On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 20:02:42 -0500, Pam wrote (in message ):

I never have. I buy lampwork exclusively from the people that post here. Sometimes I'll look at the eye candy lists, but not that often. I have browsed listings from the ads in Bead and Button and Beadwork magazines.

Being an active participant here in RCB is probably the best bang for the buck you'll ever get in marketing. Answer questions, participate in the discussions, let people know about the cool things you're learning, and you'll have ready made customers rooting for you to succeed.

Just my $0.02,

Kathy N-V

Thanks Kathy, that helps (and is wonderful advice) especially if my market is only bead buyers, but I also make jewelry, so I need to find a way to market that besides to friends and family :)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Kathy N-V :

]I never have. I buy lampwork exclusively from the people that post here. ]Sometimes I'll look at the eye candy lists, but not that often. I have ]browsed listings from the ads in Bead and Button and Beadwork magazines.

SECONDED.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

(Jewelry) newest creations: ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

My $.02 worth on this is, offer to do link exchanges with other jewelry makers

*who use your beads* -- especially if you also use some of theirs in your own jewelry. That's legitimate advertising IMO.

However, also do not hesitate to refer a potential customer to a competitor, in person or in e-mail, if you don't have (and aren't likely to have) what they are looking for but said competitor does. A happy customer will remember not just where they found it, but your referral as well -- and may very well come back to buy from you later.

Celine

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@mindCHEMISEspring.com (Lee S. Billings) :

]A happy customer will remember not ]just where they found it, but your referral as well -- and may very well come ]back to buy from you later.

seconded!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

(Jewelry) newest creations: ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

For me, the single most important marketing tool is the search engines. However, don't expect results overnight - it often takes months to build up the search engine results. Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN return the most results for me. Make sure you have used META tags to the fullest extent that you can without overstepping the limits. For example - with META keywords, if you mention a word more than two or three times, that can get you kicked off many search engines for keyword spamming.

When I first started out, link exchanging really did help with traffic. However, it doesn't necessarily bring more customers - but you do get more visits to the site, and that does help with search engine results - but not as much as people think. META tags are more helpful in that regard. I no longer link exchange because it became really hard to keep up with requests - I was getting several per day. Plus I have Sooz's Links List.

The ISGB link did help me. I got a lot of traffic from their website, but again, this didn't necessarily bring customers, but general exposure is always helpful in the long run. However, they have increased their dues significantly lately, so I am nost sure if I am going to reapply this year. I haven't decided yet.

Putting beads on ebay really helps increase exposure - and the kind of exposure you really want - potential bead buyers. Create an About Me page and link to it from auctions - this really is a strong and uncomplicated marketing tool.

If you don't mind spending a little money, I fount the Craft Site Medic to be really helpful when first starting out. They do a lot of the repetative legwork that needs to be done when a site is first introduced to the web. I purchased their services way back when I first started back when I was making jewelry and such. Very helpful and not as expensive as other places. Plus, it's specifically geared towards craft sites and gets your site out to people who are looking for supplies.

Hope this helps!!

Oh, yes - very good point. Many of my customers come from here and some don't post - just read. This is a huge group - bigger than people think!

Thanks Kandice - You always have such good practical advice :) Thanks for that link - I'll look at that tomorrow when my brain is a little more alert.

It does seem that selling beads is going to be way easier than selling jewelry (assuming I can make nice beads ;) but... my first love is still the jewelry, so I need to find a way to make that work if I can.

You are right about the search engines - they take so much longer to get listed now than they did 3-5 years ago. I remember telling clients it would be a month or so before their site would show up - now it's MONTHS. META tags do work - here is a great link if anyone needs help:

I have a feeling though, when all is said and done, it will be the word-of-mouth that makes or breaks my little business - and if I do any shows or whatever - I'm not sure that this can all be done on the web. Will keep looking into things :)

I agree with you there - kind of like I linked up my Tink necklace to Tink's site.

Yes, that is great advice - something I used to do when I did a lot of websites - not just when I was too busy, but when I knew they wanted some design I couldn't handle or some technical thing that was too big for me. It's good to have a network like that. Now if it wasn't my MOM who asked me to make a rosary for her mother-in-law's 80th birthday, I would certainly have sent that out to the list to see if anyone was up for it... but she'll get it at cost from me so no one would want that job ;-) But look what I found for those of you who do like to make rosaries:

- aren't some of them wonderful?

Hi Pam:

This is an interesting thread and very timely for me as I am just beginning to "market" my site and it's offerings. Although I've been a business member of the ISGB for a few years, I just today added my site to their links. After having received a confirmation from Greg that the link was in place, I went by to see it and saw that it had been hit 13 times. I'm not sure if that is good or bad, however, it gives you a bit of quantitative data to look at.

On a separate note, I have a friend here in town that has a thriving jewelry business that has at its foundation lampwork by many artists throughout the U.S. and Canada. I know that she periodically visits the ISGB business links to see what artists are out there.

Having said all of that, the dues is steep. Especially with the increase this year.

Best of luck to you. It sounds like you are well >Well, I've spent a good part of the day doing keywords and descriptions,

thanks for the info Michelle - I still haven't decided - I think maybe I'll save that extra $50.00 for a year 'till I figure out how many beads I'm going to be able to make - I'm still searching for a baby sitter for a couple afternoons a week... I'm sure as soon as I find one, school will be out and everything will be up in the air again.

BTW, 13 hits is better than what I've gotten this afternoon on Artzee.net (5) !

:) Pam

I've done it before. ~~ Sooz

------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links

Oh, yes - word of mouth really does make or break a business these days. And right now it is easier to sell beads than jewelry. But no matter what, if you have a high quality, unique and interesting product, and you know how to market it, you have much more of a chance for success. :) That search engine watch link is great - thank you!!!

Ok, this is timely - I just found it on another list I belong to. I don't have a source, but it confirms some of my gut thinking about linking to other people's sites - you want to be thoughtful of who you link to as that link *could* harm you if that person does not know what they are doing and their actions are considered to be spamming the search engines. I know that a lot of those "top 100 craft list" type of places say they heavily submit to the search engines - some brag "we submit to 1000's of search engine" - well - that is spam - I don't need to be in 1000s of them, maybe 10-20 would fit my target market. So linking to them could get me dropped off the good search engines - just FYI.

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Googlebot Still Isn't Perfect. Some of the problems Googlebot has, according to Marissa, are JavaScript, session IDs, too many parameters, dynamic URLs, Splash pages, and frames. Also, if your site requires cookies to deliver content to browsers, then that's a serious problem because the Googlebot can't accept cookies and therefore won't be able to reach the content.

Froogle. Many of you have probably noticed Froogle results are now appearing at the top of listings in Google. Marissa also mentioned this

- which to me says, "If you are selling, get yourself into Froogle now!"

Froogle is becoming increasingly important.

An Exclusive Interview. Yesterday, I caught up with Marissa after her presentation. We walked through the hallway together and had a short but exclusive interview as she carried her suitcase outside to catch a taxi to the airport.

I asked, "What should people do if their sites were totally dumped from Google?"

She replied, "If you dropped in rankings, go back and look at who you linked to and who's linking to you. If any of these people are using spam techniques, they're the reason your site no longer appears on Google."

"Does this mean that new algorithm somehow measures the 'neighborhood' you're linked into more highly?"

Smiling, Marissa told me she couldn't answer that question, because it's a direct statement about the new Google algorithm.

We'll take that as a yes.

I asked the same question to Derrick Wheeler of Marketleap, and his response was, "Measure who's linking to you and see who you're linking to. Check keyword density. Check for duplicate content. Check for accidental spam. Don't try so hard to rank well. If you're taking a serious hit and losing money every day consider doing paid inclusion."

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was, "Measure who's linking to you and see who you're linking to. Check keyword density. Check for duplicate content. Check for accidental spam. Don't try so hard to rank well. If you're taking a serious hit and losing money every day consider doing paid inclusion."<

Sooooooo, how do you do that kind of measuring and documentation?

well... off the top of my head, you should be able to look at your website server statistics and see where people are coming to your site from - if they used to come from google, but stopped... then there is a problem there. If sales are up though, then maybe it doesn't matter... that's for you to measure. Site stats will also tell you what search terms are bringing people to your site, as well as of course how many visiters, how long they stay on the site, what pages they go to or don't. All useful info.

Keywords are the META tags Kandice and I were talking about yesterday - link to more about them here:

and like Kandice said - it can be considered spam to use the same keywords over and over - like if you said your keywords were "jewelry, handmade jewelry, designer jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, handcrafted jewelry, fashion jewelry" that would be considered spamming with the word jewelry. If you want to see who is linking to you - you can go here: (and it will show you a few other interesting things too) I think the "trying too hard" can be done many ways besides spamming. I suspect "submitting to 100s or 1000s of sites" is trying to hard - as is doing link exchanges with lots of unrelated websites. This search engine thing is NOT easy (like they used to be) - I'm finding most of the good search engines require payment for placement - or even payment for consideration (no guarantee) of placement. And they seem to be changing the rules every time I turn around. I'm just not ready to put out $300 for a yahoo listing right now. So I've got to find another way ;)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Pam" :

]it seems that perhaps the "keywords" meta tag is dead, but not the title and ]description meta tags. I'll leave mine in in case they come back in fashion ]though - doesn't hurt ;-)

no - they can't hurt - ever. you just can't depend on them. david has made a rather impressive independent study of what search engines and their bots will look for and use, since we depend on them so much.

[there are things he is useful for - daily living just isn't one of them]

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

(Jewelry) newest creations: ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Pam" :

]oh please don't take it that way!

okay - i misunderstood.

FWIW, i added Artzee to my index page last night, but since i don't plan an all-out campaign to get people to vote for it, i'm not sure how much good it will do. i do get hits from some of the webrings i belong to. i get some hits from Kandice's site [from her gallery section]. i get some hits from Google [and people's searches there]. and some from my link on Books 'n' Bytes.

but far and away above those are the "direct link" hits, either from my customer e-mail list or links from newsgroup posts and such, or people who have me bookmarked.

the search engines also pay attention to the sites that are updated the most often.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

(Jewelry) newest creations: ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

ok good - because I really didn't mean it the way I think you took it - and it wasn't supposed to be directed to you specifically :)

This pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? I think that for now, I'm done with my "internet marketing strategy" - will work on the person-to-person marketing and making pretty things and call it a day for now. Just needed to check that chore off my list (my least favorite part about making sites is promoting them) and really do feel like I've missed something. But I don't think it really matters, whatever it is I missed ;)

Thanks again, Pam