Tips For Building a Home Based Craft Business Online

Tips For Building a Home Based Craft Business Online

Or, Any Type Of Business for that matter....

Tips For Building a Home Based Craft Business Online

Tips For Building a Home Based Craft Business Online

Or, Any Type Of Business for that matter....

TO DO WELL IN SELLING ONLINE, you need to get the word out about your product. That is not as easy as it sounds, especially if you are new to online marketing. Crafts are mainly a hobby for me, however, I do have an online business where I promote other products and services. I will share with you here what methods I use for online marketing that have worked very well for me.

Setting Up A Website. Where To Get A FREE Website. Learn How To Design A Web Site. Optimizing Your Site For The Search Engines. How To Receive Payment For Your Products? Submitting Your Site To The Search Engines. HOW TO FIND YOUR CUSTOMERS. FREE and PAID Advertising Options. RESOURCES For Building Your Website, Free Traffic Builders, Online Marketing Courses, etc.

SETTING UP A WEBSITE.

FIRST OF ALL, you will need a web site. You can use a free site, or the free site that comes with your internet connection (if that is part of your ISP package), or you can purchase your own domain. Owning your own domain is the best solution. I have registered my domains through 000Domains. The cost was only $27.00 USD for 2 years. They were very professional, helpful and the transaction went through quickly without any problems.

AFTER REGISTERING YOUR DOMAIN, you will need a place to host your site. For my web sites, I have chosen HostAssured. I found them to be very low cost and high quality. If I have any problems or questions, they are quick to answer my emails. Hosting packages start as low as $7.50/mo with no set up fees. I pay for my hosting in quarterly payments of $23.85 US funds.

WHERE TO GET A FREE WEB SITE.

If you can't afford your own domain right now, you can start out with a free site.

There are not many places where you can get a free website anymore, but here are a few suggestions:

http://50megs.com/

FreeServers

Blogger.com - You can set up a blog for free at Blogger. This may work just as well as having a website.

LEARN HOW TO DESIGN A WEB SITE.

If you would prefer to learn how to do this yourself without the help of site builders, here's some places that will teach you how. I much prefer to build my pages on my own. There's much more that you can do when you know the HTML tags. It's not very difficult at all. If I can do it, so can you!

PageTutor

• This site will give anyone a solid grasp of basic HTML and will teach you how to put together a web page from scratch.

The How To Guide To Learning HTML

• This informational resource is designed to teach you everything you need to know so that you can begin building your own customized web pages in standard HTML 4

HTML GOODIES

• Need help with Tables, Forms, Frames CGI, Form-Mail, and other HTML issues? HTML Goodies has some very helpful instructional tutorials. Even if you have NO experience with HTML, these tutorials will have you up and running in no time. An award winning site!

OPTIMIZING YOUR SITE FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES.

Now that you have designed a website, you will need to optimize it for the Search Engines. You can get a lot of Free targeted traffic to your site through the Search Engines, so this step is very important!

Meta Tags - You need to place "Meta Tags" at the top of every page on your web site. Meta tags include a description and key words related to your site's content. These are placed at the top of your page between the

This is how they will look at the top of your page.

Here is a handy resource that will create the Meta Tags for you. You simply fill in the description, keywords, etc and it will generate the completed tags for you to copy and paste at the top of your web page.

META TAG BUILDER - Use this Free Online Resource to generate HTML META Tags and increase your web site's search engine placement.

It also helps to get a good listing in the Search Engines if you choose the title of your page carefully. Be sure it concludes at least one good keyword. Be sure to have some of your best keywords in the text of your page, too.

Go easy on the graphics! This is especially important for your opening page. Graphics slow down the loading time. Most people will not wait for a lot of graphics to load. They will be off to another site within a minute or less if your page is slow loading.

Is is OK to have a few small, fast loading graphics. Save your larger pictures to use on another page. For example, if you are selling dolls, create a link to another page where your site's visitors and can view a picture of the dolls.

Another helpful tip in optimizing for the Search Engines is to provide keywords in the "Alt" section of your image tags. Here are examples using keywords and keyword rich description:

HOW TO RECEIVE PAYMENT FOR YOUR PRODUCTS?

You now need to consider methods of payment for your products. You could simply ask that payment be sent by check or money order. But..... you will lose the business from those who prefer to pay by credit card or direct payment from their bank accounts.

It's been proven that your business will greatly increase if you give your customers the option of paying with a credit card. Consider this, someone visits your site, sees an item they would like to buy but you only accept checks or money orders. The customer will have to purchase a money order or write out a check later. Most never get around to doing it. Credit card payments can made at that instant, while they are right there on your site. Can you see the benefit?

I have some payment solutions for you to consider.

You could set up to Accept Credit Card Payments on your site. This works well but can be very costly.

Or, You can use the PayPal Service. With PayPal, the basic service is free. To accept credit cards you can get a Business or Premier PayPal account. It only costs a small percentage of your sales. Over 9 million people today use PayPal, an online payment system. It's faster, safer, and easier than mailing a check.

How does the money get into your account? You can add to your account by using your credit card, get payments from other people (if you sell products online), or you can have money moved from your checking account to your PayPal account. Of course, you can transfer your money from PayPal back to your bank at any time.

Since the payment is handled through PayPal, you don't have to give your credit card to sites that you aren't familiar with. You can use PayPal as sort of a neutral third party bank.

Finally, PayPal has been around for quite awhile and they are getting bigger and bigger. Right now, they are running a special. If you sign up for a new account they'll give you $5.00 just for giving them a try.

SUBMITTING YOUR SITE TO THE SEARCH ENGINES.

To be sure of getting a good listing you need to submit your site to each Search Engine manually. Some search engines will penalize you if you use automated submission services so it's best to submit to each one individually.

Make a file where you can keep track of each Search Engine you had submitted to and the date of your submissions. You can re-submit your site every few months (I would wait at least 3 months). Submitting your site too often, especially if there has been no updates to it, will get you penalized and possibly banned from the Search Engines. You don't want that!

It's not all that time consuming to do manual submissions and it's well worth it. Here is a list of the Top Search Engines.

HOW TO FIND YOUR CUSTOMERS. FREE and PAID Advertising Options.

Now that you are ready to sell your product online, you need to focus on reaching a target market. A "target market" are those people who are looking for, or may be interested in, what you have to offer. For example, if you are selling crafts, you wouldn't do well advertising in an newsletter/ezine or on a classified site that mainly attracts people who are interested in cars.

The best way to find your customers is to pay for advertising. Free Advertising can be time consuming and not as effective as paid advertising, however I'll include some information on that too.

Pay-Per-Click Search Engines has become very expensive since I last updated this page. So I have not used any of them for quite awhile. I will update his section later if I find any PPC offers of good value.

Another good Paid Advertising resource is newsletters, also known as ezines. Of course, you would need to choose a newsletter that is geared toward your target market.

You could do a search on the internet for "Craft newsletters" that accept advertising. Be sure to compare their rates and subscriber base to find the best deals for your advertising.

FREE Advertising - There are a lot of Free Classified sites online where you could advertise. Here is a list of Free Classifieds sites where you could advertise. Most of these sites will have a "Arts and Crafts" Category. If not, you can post your ad in the "Products" or "Miscellaneous" categories. There may be other categories that pertain to your product, just look them over carefully.

If you are selling patterns, you can list here - Crafting-Patterns with no start up cost. They will only charge you a percentage of the sales at the time of the sale.

RESOURCES For Building Your Website, Free Traffic Builders, Online Marketing Courses, etc.

What has helped me tremendously is a book I purchased by Ken Envoy called "Make Your Site Sell". I learned a lot from that book and my business really took off after I used the information. This book will show you how to sell anything online. How to chose a products that sell well online, how to build a web site that sells, how to get traffic to your site and much more. The section on Search Engines is terrific! If you already have a Web site, this book will show you how to eliminate all the problems that are killing your sales. I can't give you any information from the book without violating copyright laws so you can read the details about this book by Clicking Here.

UPDATE: This book is now FREE!

Website Tools and Services

• Click on the banner below for over 26 FREE Services - GuestBooks, Web Forums, Hit Counters, Search Engines, Email Forms, URL Redirection, Mailing Lists, Instant Messenger, Classified Ads and Much More.

Setting Up A Website. Where To Get A FREE Website. Learn How To Design A Web Site. Optimizing Your Site For The Search Engines. How To Receive Payment For Your Products? Submitting Your Site To The Search Engines. HOW TO FIND YOUR CUSTOMERS. FREE and PAID Advertising Options. RESOURCES For Building Your Website, Free Traffic Builders, Online Marketing Courses, etc.

SETTING UP A WEBSITE.

FIRST OF ALL, you will need a web site. You can use a free site, or the free site that comes with your internet connection (if that is part of your ISP package), or you can purchase your own domain. Owning your own domain is the best solution. I have registered my domains through 000Domains. The cost was only $27.00 USD for 2 years. They were very professional, helpful and the transaction went through quickly without any problems.

AFTER REGISTERING YOUR DOMAIN, you will need a place to host your site. For my web sites, I have chosen HostAssured. I found them to be very low cost and high quality. If I have any problems or questions, they are quick to answer my emails. Hosting packages start as low as $7.50/mo with no set up fees. I pay for my hosting in quarterly payments of $23.85 US funds.

WHERE TO GET A FREE WEB SITE.

If you can't afford your own domain right now, you can start out with a free site.

There are not many places where you can get a free website anymore, but here are a few suggestions:

http://50megs.com/

FreeServers

Blogger.com - You can set up a blog for free at Blogger. This may work just as well as having a website.

LEARN HOW TO DESIGN A WEB SITE.

If you would prefer to learn how to do this yourself without the help of site builders, here's some places that will teach you how. I much prefer to build my pages on my own. There's much more that you can do when you know the HTML tags. It's not very difficult at all. If I can do it, so can you!

PageTutor

• This site will give anyone a solid grasp of basic HTML and will teach you how to put together a web page from scratch.

The How To Guide To Learning HTML

• This informational resource is designed to teach you everything you need to know so that you can begin building your own customized web pages in standard HTML 4

HTML GOODIES

• Need help with Tables, Forms, Frames CGI, Form-Mail, and other HTML issues? HTML Goodies has some very helpful instructional tutorials. Even if you have NO experience with HTML, these tutorials will have you up and running in no time. An award winning site!

OPTIMIZING YOUR SITE FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES.

OPTIMIZING YOUR SITE FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES.

Now that you have designed a website, you will need to optimize it for the Search Engines. You can get a lot of Free targeted traffic to your site through the Search Engines, so this step is very important!

Meta Tags - You need to place "Meta Tags" at the top of every page on your web site. Meta tags include a description and key words related to your site's content. These are placed at the top of your page between the

This is how they will look at the top of your page.

"Description of your site goes here"

"Your keywords go here">

"This tag is optional, you can place your location here, ex: USA, Canada"

Here is a handy resource that will create the Meta Tags for you. You simply fill in the description, keywords, etc and it will generate the completed tags for you to copy and paste at the top of your web page.

META TAG BUILDER - Use this Free Online Resource to generate HTML META Tags and increase your web site's search engine placement.

It also helps to get a good listing in the Search Engines if you choose the title of your page carefully. Be sure it concludes at least one good keyword. Be sure to have some of your best keywords in the text of your page, too.

Go easy on the graphics! This is especially important for your opening page. Graphics slow down the loading time. Most people will not wait for a lot of graphics to load. They will be off to another site within a minute or less if your page is slow loading.

Is is OK to have a few small, fast loading graphics. Save your larger pictures to use on another page. For example, if you are selling dolls, create a link to another page where your site's visitors and can view a picture of the dolls.

Another helpful tip in optimizing for the Search Engines is to provide keywords in the "Alt" section of your image tags. Here are examples using keywords and keyword rich description:

HOW TO RECEIVE PAYMENT FOR YOUR PRODUCTS?

You now need to consider methods of payment for your products. You could simply ask that payment be sent by check or money order. But..... you will lose the business from those who prefer to pay by credit card or direct payment from their bank accounts.

It's been proven that your business will greatly increase if you give your customers the option of paying with a credit card. Consider this, someone visits your site, sees an item they would like to buy but you only accept checks or money orders. The customer will have to purchase a money order or write out a check later. Most never get around to doing it. Credit card payments can made at that instant, while they are right there on your site. Can you see the benefit?

I have some payment solutions for you to consider.

You could set up to Accept Credit Card Payments on your site. This works well but can be very costly.

Or, You can use the PayPal Service. With PayPal, the basic service is free. To accept credit cards you can get a Business or Premier PayPal account. It only costs a small percentage of your sales. Over 9 million people today use PayPal, an online payment system. It's faster, safer, and easier than mailing a check.

How does the money get into your account? You can add to your account by using your credit card, get payments from other people (if you sell products online), or you can have money moved from your checking account to your PayPal account. Of course, you can transfer your money from PayPal back to your bank at any time.

Since the payment is handled through PayPal, you don't have to give your credit card to sites that you aren't familiar with. You can use PayPal as sort of a neutral third party bank.

Finally, PayPal has been around for quite awhile and they are getting bigger and bigger. Right now, they are running a special. If you sign up for a new account they'll give you $5.00 just for giving them a try.

SUBMITTING YOUR SITE TO THE SEARCH ENGINES.

SUBMITTING YOUR SITE TO THE SEARCH ENGINES.

To be sure of getting a good listing you need to submit your site to each Search Engine manually. Some search engines will penalize you if you use automated submission services so it's best to submit to each one individually.

Make a file where you can keep track of each Search Engine you had submitted to and the date of your submissions. You can re-submit your site every few months (I would wait at least 3 months). Submitting your site too often, especially if there has been no updates to it, will get you penalized and possibly banned from the Search Engines. You don't want that!

It's not all that time consuming to do manual submissions and it's well worth it. Here is a list of the Top Search Engines.

HOW TO FIND YOUR CUSTOMERS. FREE and PAID Advertising Options.

HOW TO FIND YOUR CUSTOMERS. FREE and PAID Advertising Options.

Now that you are ready to sell your product online, you need to focus on reaching a target market. A "target market" are those people who are looking for, or may be interested in, what you have to offer. For example, if you are selling crafts, you wouldn't do well advertising in an newsletter/ezine or on a classified site that mainly attracts people who are interested in cars.

The best way to find your customers is to pay for advertising. Free Advertising can be time consuming and not as effective as paid advertising, however I'll include some information on that too.

Pay-Per-Click Search Engines has become very expensive since I last updated this page. So I have not used any of them for quite awhile. I will update his section later if I find any PPC offers of good value.

Another good Paid Advertising resource is newsletters, also known as ezines. Of course, you would need to choose a newsletter that is geared toward your target market.

You could do a search on the internet for "Craft newsletters" that accept advertising. Be sure to compare their rates and subscriber base to find the best deals for your advertising.

FREE Advertising - There are a lot of Free Classified sites online where you could advertise. Here is a list of Free Classifieds sites where you could advertise. Most of these sites will have a "Arts and Crafts" Category. If not, you can post your ad in the "Products" or "Miscellaneous" categories. There may be other categories that pertain to your product, just look them over carefully.

If you are selling patterns, you can list here - Crafting-Patterns with no start up cost. They will only charge you a percentage of the sales at the time of the sale.

RESOURCES For Building Your Website, Free Traffic Builders, Online Marketing Courses, etc.

RESOURCES For Building Your Website, Free Traffic Builders, Online Marketing Courses, etc.

What has helped me tremendously is a book I purchased by Ken Envoy called "Make Your Site Sell". I learned a lot from that book and my business really took off after I used the information. This book will show you how to sell anything online. How to chose a products that sell well online, how to build a web site that sells, how to get traffic to your site and much more. The section on Search Engines is terrific! If you already have a Web site, this book will show you how to eliminate all the problems that are killing your sales. I can't give you any information from the book without violating copyright laws so you can read the details about this book by Clicking Here.

UPDATE: This book is now FREE!

Website Tools and Services

• Click on the banner below for over 26 FREE Services - GuestBooks, Web Forums, Hit Counters, Search Engines, Email Forms, URL Redirection, Mailing Lists, Instant Messenger, Classified Ads and Much More.

(5 cows top rating from Tucows.com - 5 star top rating from Suite 101 - #1 rating for top tried and tested webtools from Internet Magazine.)

FREE TRAFFIC BUILDERS! - These are Free and easy to set up and most will bring instant traffic to your web site:

Sell Your Stuff On eBay!

• you can sell anything at the eBay auctions - Buy or sell crafts, clothing, footwear, toys, magazines, computers, computer parts and accessories, DVDs, Playstation and all Electronics, cars, musical equipment, furniture, the list is endless! Click here for eBay.ca! (Canada)

BizyMoms has Home Business Kits. Many to choose from.

WebDecals

• This not a free resource, but it's A NEW, Low-Cost, Different and Effective way to Promote your Online Business or Website!

ONLINE MARKETING COURSE: The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet

• Learn from the best. The author of

this site, Corey Rudl (now deceased. Sadly he was killed in a car accident, but his business partner, Derrick Gehl now runs the company) gets over 6 million visitors to his websites yearly, does 5.2 million dollars in sales online each year, and personally makes hundreds of thousands of dollars from his online businesses. So listen to what he has to say as he knows what he is talking about when it comes to starting and promoting a business on the Internet. He reveals all his unconventional tips, trick and techniques with examples.

BizyMoms has Home Business Kits. Many to choose from.