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Archived
Newsletter Articles - 2005 |
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If you have a Work At
Home Mom Information Site or Page and would like to use some of
these articles, please email me at ffoadmin @ comcast.net
(without spaces). If your site is approved then you may use the
articles with credit given back to me at Faithful Friends
Online. Thank-you!
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See also Archived Newsletter Articles
for 2004 &
2006 |
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January 2005 -
It's a brand New Year!
I hope everyone had a very
wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to the coming
New Year! Let's take a look at what you can do to increase your
online business. I'm going to work on Valentine's Day and St.
Patrick's Day this month. People will be looking for these types
of items and if you have them on your site then they may also
look at other items you offer for future purchases.
1. You
should look at your business from a customer's point of
view. Is your site quick to load when going from page to
page? If it isn't you need to figure out the best way to
make it faster. This could be accomplished by a change
to a different host or limiting some of the
content/pictures on the pages are your site.
2. Plan
ahead for holiday promotions and sales. If you want to
have a special, order the inventory needed in bulk and
ahead of time in order to compete with other businesses.
3. Try
to limit your expenses to only what is necessary for
your sale or promotion. You want to make a profit with
your business so unnecessary expenses could take a bite
out of your profits.
4. Keep
in touch with your customers either by a monthly
newsletter or personal emails. If a customer purchases a
product and pays you for that products you need to let
them know when to expect the delivery of that product.
It's up to you to keep them informed. Also, DON'T
overload them with email solicitation. You could be
accused of spamming your customers if you send too many
emails or emails that were not asked for.
5. Use
some type of tracking to keep updated on your traffic.
Find out where it's coming from and going to. If you
receive a lot of hits from certain keywords then you
should zero in on those possible sales.
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February
2005 - Is Love In the Air?
February is a very romantic month of the year and also
my husband and mine wedding anniversary!
Make
sure to remember those "special valentines" in your
life! Whether it be your loved ones or just a little bag
of candy to a great customer! I like to put a bag of
instant cocoa, candy hearts and Hershey Kisses in a
cellophane bag tied off with a little hangtag card. I
then pass them out to my customers that order all year
round from me. They really remember little stuff like
that and appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness.
Start
working on St. Patrick's Day and Easter crafts now so
you're ready for orders! And, if you have a lot of shows
around October through December, you should be planning
all of your holiday crafts now so you can make a certain
amount per month. This will assist you without being
swamped too badly when that time comes around. Of
course, there are quite a few customers that shop for
the holidays all year round so always make sure to have
a little bit on hand.
Organize! Organize! Organize! If this is a slower time
for your business - use it to get organized now!
Purchase folders, files, bins, shelving... whatever
you've thought about that would make your business flow
easier and be more time-saving for you! Utilize the time
to make printed flyers or business cards. You will be
glad you did when things pick up and you get too busy to
do the "little things".
Now for
the bad news.... Yes, it's time to get all the paperwork
together to file the Federal Taxes. Hopefully, you've
kept good records and this won't be a traumatic time.
Have all your expenses together, all your sales, and
your mileage amounts. Ask your accountant if he needs
anything else and you should be ready to go!
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March 2005
- How do I start networking online?
Networking is done by a number of ways and there is no
better time to lay out your goals than now!
-
Start
looking for 4-6 message board communities with similar
goals and members as yourself. If you do decide to join
the board - BE A PARTICIPATING MEMBER! Don't just go to
multiple different boards and post about having your own
business! Join so that you can be an asset to the
community and give back what you are getting from there.
Search engines will also pick up your links if you use
your URL in your signature. And, just a word of caution
- NEVER post anything on a community that you wouldn't
want the entire world to know about!
-
Join
Top Sites Lists and make sure that your voting
information is placed correctly on your site. These are
gaining in popularity all the time when someone wants to
find a particular item. It's nice to just "shop" the
links.
-
The
number one person that needs to get the word out about
your business is YOU! Make sure to always keep business
cards with you to pass out to others and that they have
your phone number, email address, and website on them!
You'd be surprised how many people save these cards and
remember them when the time comes to purchase something.
Don't be left out of their possible shopping circles.
-
Create an informative newsletter for others to view. Ok
- so what exactly is "informative"? Don't go into a
selling pitch! Have a newsletter that is informative
about several things that you think others would be
interested in. Maybe your readers like recipes... find
some links for them to view with great recipes! Maybe
they would like some other sites to see new items - give
them some of your friends links that might offer
something you don't. Don't be afraid to steer them
somewhere else once they join your news group. But, keep
the newsletters current, archived if possible, and
informative. Also, only send them at a monthly rate.
There is nothing more annoying than receiving a
newsletter daily or sporadically. You will find that if
you succeed with these goals - your readers will look
forward to your newsletter! And it is ok to add if
you're having a special sale or added a new item to your
site too!
-
Networking is EVERYWHERE! Don't be afraid to put flyers
up at your grocery stores, Laundries, Dry Cleaners, or
anywhere they have a public bulletin board.
-
Print
up return addresses for your "snail mail" and include
your website address on it.
-
Join
networking groups! This could be a Small Business group,
local Chamber of Commerce, Expo group, etc. Find out
what others are doing to promote their business and
sales. Find out what's working for them and decide if
you could incorporate it somehow in your promotional
items. You may even be able to work out a "group
promotion".
-
Pick
out a description for your business that is easy to
remember for others. Then when someone asks "What do you
do in your business?" you just automatically say it.
-
Have
a few friends or family members that will help you
network. It's true that if you tell a friend - they tell
2 and so on. Make sure you use the resource at hand to
your best benefit. Give them extra business cards to
pass out so they have them on hand too.
-
Write
up a "mini brochure". One of my clients had me design
her brochure the size of a bookmark. It works out great!
She didn't go into an extreme amount of detail but just
listed the basic products she carries in her store, her
business address, and phone number. Of course, there
were some cute little graphics on it to make it "cute
keeping" material for saving and using as a bookmark.
-
There
are numerous ideas for networking and you need to use
whatever means you come up with to get the "Word OUT
about YOU!"
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April 2005 - Increasing the bottom line!
We all
know that we're in business because we want to make
money, right? OK! Here's a few tips and ideas to succeed
in that direction.
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You
need to decide what exactly it is that you want from
your business. Are you going to manufacture products?
retail products? wholesale products? provide services to
others?
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If
you find after a few months that a product is costing
you more than you are making - review it! You may want
to analyze it again or eliminate it all together.
-
Keep
RECORDS! I can't say this enough. You need to know what
your business is doing at all times! Run reports,
analyze products, and figure out if your making money or
losing money!
-
If
you are making money then you need to decide about
investing that money in future areas.
If you
have any ideas to increase the bottom line we are always
interested in hearing them!
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May 2005 -
Promote Your Site!
I am
thrilled to announce a special partnership with Toni of
Craft Biz Promotion! With Craft Biz Promotion you
will find affordable services for link exchanging, top
site listing, directory listing, contests, online
parties and more!
I have
been asked many times about link exchanging and
promoting websites. I know how extremely difficult it is
to offer promotions, advertise, make your product and
run a successful business all by yourself!
I know
how hard it is to be a One-Person Show and still have
time to cook, clean and have family time (let alone the
ME TIME I need!)
At
Craft Biz Promotion - Toni has offered a way for you to
link with other top quality websites without all the
hassles involved in doing it yourself.
IMPORTANT:
The following article
© 2005 was
written and contributed to Faithful Friends Online by
Toni of Craft Biz Promotion. You may link to this page
but do not copy, reprint or duplicate in any manner
without specific written permission from "Craft Biz
Promotion".
Free up your time
with services from Craft Biz Promotion!
With
all the time it takes to create new crafts,
it is difficult to find the time to do
any promotion.
Yes,
you can stop creating and begin promoting, but to keep
up with the current trends, and always producing
something new, which is what site visitors expect, it
requires you to continue making fresh products.
Now you
can have an entire store full of tons of great products,
but does anyone know you are there? Not without
promoting it! Sure, you talk to people, friends, and
neighbors and tell them that you are creating new
things. Or you get an
occasional email from someone requesting that you exchange
banners with them. But to target more traffic, you want
to rely on more than just those few people that are your
current clients.
To
target more customers, you need to promote your website.
Are you ready to work even more hours now? Probably more
than it takes to create your new crafts?
Link
Popularity
- A Banner/link exchange is one of the most important
methods of getting your site recognized with the search
engines. Google looks at how many other sites have
your link included on their site to determine where you
will rank in their search engines. When you link with
other sites, it is your way to show that
you approve of what that site offers. Having a lot of
links to your site will improve your link popularity.
In turn, it will raise your ranking in the search
engines based on the search inquiries that a person uses
and how relevant your site is with that particular
search.
Steps required for exchanging links with other sites:
-
Search for complimenting sites
-
Review the site for benefits of the exchange
-
View
their terms for exchanging. Some require that their
banner/link be placed on your site first before they
will consider exchanging with you. Which means you need
to save their banner, upload it to your site and include
the information they requested and have the banner
linked back to their site before contacting them.
-
Contact the person responsible for exchanging banners.
-
Wait
for a reply for approving the banner exchange.
Services:
-
This
is where we come in. Craft Biz Promotion works behind
the scenes to gather links to include to your site that
are complimenting of your site but not competing with
your site.
-
We
also offer services to include you in top site lists and
directories that are relative to the products or
services that you offer.
-
All
of these are free ways to promote your site and the most
popular methods for increasing your link popularity.
-
Once
those links have been gathered we take the necessary
steps to exchange links or banners with the other sites.
-
Once
all of that information is gathered, we incorporate all
of the necessary information together for you to add to
your site in a much easier method.
-
Our
objective is to provide you with more quality time for
you to devote to doing what you do best and allowing you
more free time to do what you most wanted to do in the
first place! Stay at home!
-
If
you are a
PrimMart.com client, the entire process is done
for you without any work from you.
Toni
also recently became the owner of
MomPack Auctions and that is a wonderful site to
auction your products in a real craft auction setting
filled with people really interested in your items
without having all the fees that are typical of some
auctions.
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June 2005 -
How Can I Succeed?
I
receive many emails from Work At Home Mom businesses
asking how they can compete on the internet, where
should they advertise, and how they can succeed with
their online business.
It's definitely a tough
market. Forget about the idea of getting your orders
online in the morning and having the rest of the day to
yourself. The bottom line is that every business needs
to find their "niche" and market it like crazy to
succeed! So, what exactly does that mean? It means that
there is a lot of work involved, a lot of research, and
a great deal of time. If you don't have the time, energy
or initiative then you may be very disappointed.
It's not an easy thing to accomplish and is in many ways
more difficult than opening a "brick and mortar" shop.
If you have decided to
open a website or small business online and find that
you have this "wonderful website" that no one is
visiting or ordering from... then you may understand the
let down that some people are experiencing in this new
venture.
I have found that since
I opened my business in January 2001, it seems that
anyone and everyone now has a website, is considering a
website, or creating a new website. Competition is
rampant and can sometimes be backstabbing. It's
difficult to know who you can trust. There is a great
deal of hacking, spamming, and scamming going on. And,
that makes it even more difficult for honest and sincere
business people especially small businesses and
work-at-home-moms.
Lately, it seems that
many products, including soy & wax candles, bath &
beauty products, personalized & gourmet products, have
become what everyone wants to sell. So what can you do
if that's your business? How can you create a great
product and be competitive online? You need to find some
way to market your product differently than everyone
else!
If you want to be
successful, you will need to be creative in your
marketing, packaging, and advertising. Don't be afraid
to go a different direction than what similar sellers
are doing. Do your homework and figure out if what you
want to do will be profitable and/or desirable if you
get hundreds of orders. For example, you might discover
a great packaging plan but if it takes hours to do a
small amount, it might not be something you will want to
put into practice. However, it might be something you
could offer for an extra charge. There are many people
that just love having that special touch.
If you find a great
"niche", be prepared to continue to be creative with
ideas, as others will follow your lead. Get ideas from
magazines, networking with others, asking questions on
your website, do polls, and make sure to keep track of
customer's email addresses. It's important to let them
know of new products, new ideas, new sales etc. If you
don't keep them informed - someone else will! |
July 2005 - Search Engine
Optimization
and What It Means To Me
It was with much
anticipation and joy when I joined the rankings of the Self-Employed!
After months of work setting everything up for my business, I designed
my own website and began promotions in that direction. It was
exhilarating to finally get everything set up and actually hit the
“upload" button to be LIVE online!!! Then I
set back waiting for someone to order from me (besides my mother). I
also promoted my business locally and had several articles written in
newspapers about my business venture.
Imagine the letdown feeling to find out that a website is, symbolically
speaking, like a piece of dust within a household, if
you don't know it's there, you just won't see it. So the frantic research ensued to figure
out how to get people to find my site. I realized that I could have the
prettiest and best site ever created but if I couldn't
get people to look at it, it really didn't matter at
all.
Here is my prioritized Top 10 list of optimization suggestions:
1. When you do a search online for something, you must remember that you
DO NOT enter the home page each time. A lot of people do not realize
this. It's similar to a book that you open up … you might look at the cover first, but you're able to start in the middle or end if you see
fit. This is important to understand because you need to create each
page in such a way that it will stand on it's own.
Hopefully, if a customer finds that page, they will want to see more
too! I'm sure by now you're asking how
you can do this. It's really not that hard when you
think of it as each page standing alone. When you create a page within
your website you need to concentrate on the text that you use to
describe your product. For example, say you have a lamp site and the
page you are working on is night-lights. When you write your
description, you need to figure out what people would search for if they
were looking for a specific night-light. Use the phrases, text, and
wording within the page to describe your product. Include size,
description, various choices people have, etc. This is important for the
customer that is looking at that page, but it's also
very important because when search engines “spider" your site, they pick up all the
text and categorize it. You also need to have keywords, titles, and meta
tags written to MATCH the text you write within the page. So if you were
writing about a blown glass night-light, you would add within the keywords tag,
"blown glass
night-light", "blown glass
lighting" etc., just as you would list that in the actual
text description of your page.
** These tags are located invisibly on the page but are up in between
the <heading></heading> category within your website. The format that I
use is as follows:
<HEAD>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta name="keywords" content="Your keywords and phrases here">
<meta name="description" content="A short description or Marketing
Message here">
<meta name="RATING" content="General">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="index,follow">
<meta name="REVISIT-AFTER" content="4 weeks">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<TITLE>The Title of your page here</TITLE>
</HEAD>
2. Your homepage is extremely important because it's
the entry way or address that you will promote for people to visit you
or go to see highlights of "what's inside". (Just as the entry area is to your home.) Put
pictures of products and include the text of what the picture is so that
search engines will pick up on it. You need to figure out what will
entice people to look deeper within your site. The average visit will be
less than 3 seconds, so unless you capture their
attention within 3 seconds, the chances are slimmer
that they will look further at your products. Give them a reason to
stick around. Make everything link to other pages within your site so
they don't have to look around trying to figure out
where something is. Give them information regarding important policies.
If you offer free shipping, make sure it says that on
the homepage. If you have a special, let them know. Remember, it's important to optimize your site with the idea to
get others to view your site, but what you do with them once they get
there is important also. The whole point of your site is to get people
to want to purchase your product or service. If you have links to other's sites put them on the very bottom of the page
AFTER you tell about all the great items you have to offer! You don't want the first thing they do to be clicking to go
somewhere else. It's really best to put most links to other's sites on a separate page because they can get
quite lengthy and cause your home page to slow down. But if you do have
something special on your home page, link it in such a way that it opens
in a new window so that the viewer will come back to your site when they
close the window. To do this simply add
target=blank‚ after the URL in the html
coding. For more help with html you may visit
http://www.htmlgoodies.com
3. Keep in mind also that there are literally 100's of
different search engines, so you won't be able to
please all of them or even be able to be rated high by all of them. Each
one has different criteria for rating sites. This is why it's so important to optimize as much as possible with
your text descriptions. And, it's also very possible to
rate in the top 10 one day for a particular keyword or phrase and be on
page 97 the next day. Search Engines change and evolve constantly so you can't really put all of your concentration into search
engines. You can't possibly add all the keywords that
someone may type in to find information, so it's very
important to research and figure out what people would think to type in
a search engine that could point them to your website. You would
probably be surprised at what words or phrases are typed in that bring
them to your site.
4. NETWORK!!! I can't say enough about networking! It's very important to network on business boards, with
friends, other business people, in your emails, utilizing newsletters,
etc. Many people have the idea that they can set up a website and then
watch the orders roll in. Unfortunately, that's not the
case. You have to work twice as hard with advertising and networking as
a brick-and-mortar store. And, be very careful with your networking
because you can get into serious problems if you start to be known as a
spammer. You need to give back to your networking resources and not just
expect to post your website information and then never come back again.
You also may want to manually submit your website to some search
engines. These are some that I typically manually submit to:
All the Web -
AltaVista -
Gigablast -
Google -
HotBot -
Lycos -
Teoma -
WiseNut -
Yahoo
5. Have PATIENCE! I know this can be terribly frustrating and
exhausting, but you need to be patient and keep working at everything!
Sometimes it takes months and months to establish your presence online.
6. Have a Marketing Message! Figure out approximately 6-12 words that
aptly describes your business or service, then USE IT
for everything from email signatures, message board signatures, top
sites listings, etc. This is extremely important because that's how people will start remembering you. Similar
to TV Commercials, products are remembered because of a certain phrase
etc. Don't make it too long and try to make it catchy!
7. Don't Give Up! When you get too frustrated or mind
boggled - take a break. Sometimes things are clearer
when you come back to them refreshed instead of stressing over them
constantly. If you need a day - take it! Try to look at
your business as your JOB and not as your HOBBY. It's
great to be able to enjoy what you do and have fun but you want to make
it profitable also. Set working hours and don't forget
to set some 'play' hours too!
8. You only have 3 seconds! UGH! It's true that you
usually have only 3 seconds to GRAB a future customer's
attention. Make sure that your website loads quickly. You may want to
downsize any pictures that could slow down your pages, or even make them
thumbnails with the customer's option to increase their
size. NO MUSIC!!! Yes it's cute at
times but can be the most annoying thing to a customer. Imagine their
aggravation when they are having a very quiet day, then click on your
site to BLARING music because they forgot to turn down their speakers.
Do you know how fast they click away, never to return? NO FANCY FLASH
EITHER! Flash is another distracting thing that some people have on
their sites. This can be appealing for certain types of websites but
there are many that it is more of a distraction than an eye catcher.
Make sure that if you utilize Flash, it's appealing to
what your site offers and gives a link to stop it.
9. Get buying customers! As important as search engine optimization is,
it's not going to matter how many visitors come to your
site if they don't stay, browse and eventually purchase
something. Make sure that you offer an 'about
us' type page so that they can get to know you a little
and have a contact page with your address, email address and phone
number.
10. Make your policies or frequently asked questions easily available to
view. If I'm interested in purchasing a particular
product, the first thing I look for is how much it will cost to ship to
me. I usually will NOT purchase something from a site that makes me
order first and then they will email me how much I will pay in shipping. It's much better to have your shopping cart calculate
it or include it in the price of the item. Make sure to give great
customer service too because if you neglect a customer or make a mistake
you don't correct - that will be
EXTREMELY bad advertising for you. If you give good customer service,
they will spread that information around and keep coming back to you!
All in all, you need to constantly keep track of your site; make
updates; delete items that are not profitable or outdated; and grow your
business year by year! Wishing you much luck and blessings with your
business website!
About the Author:
"Hi!
My name is Debbie and I am the owner of
www.debbiesgiftshop.com &
www.faithfulfriendsonline.com - I have over 20 years of computer
background experience and I've been in business online
since January 2001. I do not claim, in any way, to be an expert
regarding search engine optimization. I simply know what has worked and
what has not worked for me. This is what I'm going to
share with you today within this article. You may link to this page as a
reference but please do not copy or use any part of this article in
written or shared formats without my personal permission.
Thank-you."
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August 2005 - Writing
Effective Text for Your Website
Designing your
website can be mind-boggling to say the least but when it comes to
writing the text, sometimes that can just take you clear over the edge!
It's difficult to figure out what to say, how much to say, and what
wording to use to say it.
The easiest thing for you to do when your faced with this dilemma is to
search around for similar sites and figure out what things attract you
to those sites and what things turn you off. Chances are that these are
similar reactions from most people, so search through with an open mind
and take
notes.
I will list my 10 top
items that I look for and try to accomplish when designing websites.
1. One really big difference in writing effective text for the
internet and a printed book or article is the format it's written in.
ALWAYS give the conclusion of your copy first!
Most people only stay
on a site for a split second and if they don't see something that grabs
their attention immediately, they are off to another site before you can
even blink your eyes! Give them a reason to read further and see what
all you have to offer. For example, if you're giving away something
(this ALWAYS grabs attention), then put in FREE in caps and what they
can get. If it's something that will interest them - they will want to
read the rest of your text to see how to get something free.
Use bullets for
highlights and keep wording to a minimum. Only write what is absolutely
necessary! If they are interested, they will want to read more in depth.
Remember that most visitors will glance at a page, scan quickly and move
on unless something grabs them quick!
2. This
doesn't really have a direct correlation with 'writing' effective text
but is one of my biggest pet peeves online!
Make sure that your
text and items are clearly visible, easy to see and easy to read! Not
everyone has a computer monitor exactly like yours, so if you create a
page with a dark background - just because it's easy to see on your
monitor - it may appear as a big dark blob on someone else's. The last
thing you want to do is drive everyone away.
And, that's what
you'll be doing if visitors can't see the items or read the text well.
It can give people eyestrain and headaches when text is too bright or
too small also. So keep all this in mind when you start to work.
3. Along the same idea as #2, keep graphics to a minimum and make
sure that they aren't too large. If you need a picture to get an idea
across - by all means use it!
Try to stay away from
flash pages though unless there is a good reason to have one! There is
nothing more annoying, especially on a dial-up connection, than to get
to a site and wait, only to find out that you have to click again and
wait longer to even get to the main page!
Stay away from
'falling' graphics too. These can be distracting and annoying to a lot
of visitors and have no connection to what you want them to see.
4. Formatting pages... Try to keep all your pages of similar
design. This lets the visitor know that they are still on your site. If
all your pages are created differently, they will get confused as to
where they are or even what they were looking for.
5. Show and use product pictures but keep them small so that the
page loads quickly. Using thumbnails is a great way to enhance a page.
If the visitor wants to see the picture larger, they can click on the
thumbnail to do so.
Nothing attracts
someone quicker than a picture! But make sure to use visual text also
because search engines do not 'read' pictures. You have to tell what the
picture is of, or about, to get that text copy to search engines.
6. When writing your text, keep in mind what you would like to
know about the product or service. Make sure to include sizes,
descriptions, weights, colors, choices if available, length of time it
takes to receive, how much the shipping would be, etc.
Remember that you
want people to stay interested so keep the wording to the point and try
not to repeat yourself. Don't keep saying "This is so cool!" Use only
necessary and professional wording about your product or service.
I really hate going
to a site and not being able to figure out how much they are going to
charge me to ship a product, or something of similar importance that I
would want to know. If I'm aware of this information ahead of time, it
saves me time and could gain you a sale!
7. Another reason to give detailed descriptions is because many
search engines "spider" sites for text. The text is then filed away into
their data banks to give search results once entered by surfers as an
inquiry.
For example, if you
wanted to find information and you go to
www.google.com,
you might type in 'Personalized Books for children'. This would yield
tons of sites offering personalized books and these sites would come up
listed in a certain order because they were listed as keywords for those
sites, not only in the meta tags area but within the site's descriptions
also.
Now say you wanted to
find a particular personalized book and typed in 'Personalized Sesame
Street Books'. This would again give you many sites but would narrow
that search down to a particular type of personalized book. I'm sure you
can understand how important the text on the page is. So when you design
your page, you would list titles, descriptions, and all the information
regarding that product.
You would also list
these descriptions up in your meta tag keywords, (ex: 'Personalized
Sesame Street Books'). By doing this you have created several ways that
your site is now optimized for search engines to find your site if
someone types in this string of text as a search.
8. ALWAYS use proper wording and spelling on your website! If
this is hard for you have someone else proof read your text. Even once
you've read through your text - read it again and again. If you decide
on a better way to word something - change it, build on it, and grow
your site.
Continue to research
for similar sites and figure out what attracts you, what annoys you,
etc. It's important to research what the competition is doing but NEVER
copy or TAKE someone else's ideas and words. This is copyright
infringement and can get you in a lot of legal trouble.
9. Save extremely lengthy descriptions for product pages. Just
basically highlight what is within your website on the home page. If
something grabs someone's interests, they can click on that item for
further details.
10. Your home page should give the highlights of what is within
your website, pictures of popular items or best-sellers, sales you may
be having, freebies you may be offering etc.
Try not to have links
to "other's websites" right at the top of your page or you will be
turning all your traffic toward those sites instead of yours first.
Save additional links
for the bottom of the page or preferably specific pages within your site
designed for links, partners, top sites, etc.
|
September 2005 - Fundraisers
& Contests -
What You Need To Know
When it was suggested
that I write an article regarding contests, I thought it
would be a great idea! I even added fundraisers to the
topic. Well, it turned out that once I started
researching, it became clear that I wasn't qualified to
offer advice on this very controversial subject. I was
dumbstruck the amount of legalities regarding this
topic.
Since I do not have
any type of legal background, I can only summarize a few points and
strongly suggest that if you wish to offer a contest, fundraiser or
sweepstakes on your website you should consult an attorney and/or your
business accountant regarding procedures and laws within your state or
region for the event you wish to promote.
I found several very
good articles regarding the subject and have had some interesting
contact with others regarding the prospect of licensing, taxing,
legalities, profiting and more.
These are a wonderful
way to get potential customers to visit your website but I have
discovered that you must be very cautious with your wording.
A contest
requires some skill upon the entrants part and must NOT be confused with
a game of chance or you can find yourself in some very controversial
trouble.
A Sweepstakes
may be conducted by a random drawing but can NOT require a purchase for
entry AND you MUST make this perfectly clear for all to read.
For additional
information regarding these topics, I found these websites to be very
informative and useful:
-
Legalities
-
How To Advice
-
Library Weekly
This site offers some
great letters and guidance to doing fundraisers:
Fundraising Guide
I hope these
suggestions offer some assistance to you and your business. May you have
much continued success now and in the future. |
|
See also Archived Newsletter
Articles for
2004 &
2006 |
|
