Internet Resources for Crafters Part 6: Make a Career out of Crafting with the Power of the Internet
Step 6: Teach to Sell You have to promote your storefront if you want to enjoy the
most success. Fortunately, you can do this without spending a dime.
As a crafter, you enjoy the capability of knowing how to make things that many
other people would like to learn how to make.
A series of how-to videos on a dedicated YouTube channel can also increase your presence. If you’re not familiar with You Tube visit www.youtube.com. You can upload videos
straight to the site. You’ll need to create an account with the
site.
Make sure your username matches your Etsy.com user name. You want to increase your exposure and make it easier for people to find you. You can click on your user name to go to your “channel.” Make sure that you don’t end up saving your favorite music videos here J. Use your personal account for the music videos and your business account for how-to’s. You can also go to www.tubemogul.com to submit videos to a whole bunch of video site services at once, for free, to increase your exposure even more. Other great tools include a how-to blog, how-to articles and how-to pages at www.Squidoo.com, all of which will allow you to drive
traffic to your storefront.
Always make sure you include your storefront URL somewhere in these teaching advertisements. If you want people visiting your site real quick you can use pay-per-click advertising, for example, with Google Adwords. Here you can invite people to look at your site and only pay if somebody is interested. You can learn more about this method on http://www.google.com/ads/. But be
careful with the keywords you choose, because they will cost you money per
click, and the amount can get pricey if you don’t choose well. You don´t want
somebody you pay for visiting your site because your keywords were too broad.
And start small. Don´t spend big amounts in the beginning. You’ll
soon learn what serves your business best. Once people know who you are and know
what you are capable of doing they will be more likely to trust you and purchase
from you, let alone find you in the first place. You can use Facebook,
Twitter, and other social networking resources to alert people when you’ve gone
ahead and placed an update.
You can post your articles on a free article directory and you can create a free Wordpress blog (see www.wordpress.com) with very little effort. Wordpress is very easy to use—simply create an account and you’ll be walked through the process of setting up a blog. You’ll be able to choose your themes and start updating right away. For an extra traffic boost visit www.pingomatic.com and let the web crawlers know every time you update. It of course helps if you have a dedicated domain name and an individually designed blog, but that’s not the end-all be-all. The most important thing is the content—in this
case the how-to articles or videos—which will encourage people to visit your
store.
Make sure the links to your store are prominent on every page of your Wordpress blog. You can do this by placing the link in your sidebar, which is always present. Others who try to go this route struggle for content, but you will never have this problem. You can post each project as a new video right online. People can actually watch you making the craft and then delight in finding it available in your online store. Crafters enjoy other people’s crafts. In addition, this kind of teaching often simply convinces would-be buyers that they’d rather enjoy someone else’s work than try to do it themselves.
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