How to Promote Your Internet Store

Your website is your gallery and your store. Treat it like it is a regular offline place where you exhibit and sell your pieces.

• Hold promotional events.  Celebrate a launch of your website, its first anniversary, letting go of your 100th piece, etc. Do not launch events spontaneously. Always plan ahead. It will take time to promote any kind of event online and to create, send out and publish press releases to announce an online event offline.
• Put together an online contest. Decide which significant piece you want to give away and what would be the rules of your contest. People love participating in the contests and this is great for you because they will let you collect their email addresses  for your mailing list. Put the contest information on your main page and promote the contest in newsgroups, forums, and everywhere where it is appropriate.
• Have seasonal promotions and special discounts and email them to your existing mailing list.
• Every day when you go online, make a point of promoting your website. Post classified ads in the free areas of forum. Every time include links to different pages of your website.
• Add new pages regularly. Make your website grow. If you do not have new pieces to put up, write an article and publish it on your website. Your website shouldn’t be static. You need to add new content at least once a month.

Be patient, most personal online galleries start up slowly. Commit yourself. If you do not make sales, doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. Your website is your name branding tool. So, stick to it.

Keywords For Search Engines and Directories

There are many services that claim they can get your website on top positions in search engine listings for chosen keywords. Usually it is not true. The most obvious place for a search engine to pick up key words from your website is in the text that you have on your site. Many search engine spiders read only around 200 words from your site. So, it makes sense to put all of your keywords right in the beginning of your page.

However absurd it seems, it still makes sense submit your website to the major search engines and directories. Google.com should be your number 1 submission priority. Google has one of the most complete indexes of the Web’s content. Here is Google submission page. Yahoo! is a king of web directories. Altavista.coma nd Lycos.com are also very influential.

There is no way you can anticipate every word people can use to find a business like yours. But, you can easily cover the most common ones in the two or three sentences.

It is also important to understand that search engines look not only for the keywords, but also for the keywords density in your text. Make sure you repeat your major keywords several times in the text. But, don’t overdo it, otherwise your site might disappear from the search engines until you make changes and resubmit it.

Search Engine Optimization for Your Website

Many artists think all they need to do is to get a website up and running. There mentality “If you built it, they will come!” is wrong. Sure you can find a designer and ask him to give your website the design that you want, but there is more to a good website than its look.

Here are some things you need to keep in mind:

• Talk to your designer about Search Engine Optimization. Do not use flash for your site. Search engines can not read the content in a flash site. Plus, flash is expensive to design. So, ask you web designer to do your site in HTML. Use clean design, so that your visitors can easily find their way through your website to the page they are looking for.
• If you plan to be found on search engines, you need to consider doing some on-site search engine optimization. In this case, SEO is about optimizing your site and its content so it can be found under certain keywords and phrases. On-site SEO should be planned before the web designer starts building your site. You will need to give him or her the keywords that you think people will use when searching on Google, Yahoo or Lycos for a product similar to yours.
• Remember to do Search Engine Submissions. When you finally decide to launch your site, keep in mind that it can take several months to get listed on search engines after you submit to them, and yes, you DO need to submit to them at least once.
• Just like with any business, you need to promote your site. You will need to build links to your website. It’s called organic SEO. You already know about classified ads, directories, forums, and newsgroups – when you have your website you will need to leave your links there as often as you can. Also, email to other artists and ask them for a link exchange. Post your profiles to a local directories and include a link to your site.

Sending out Holiday E-Mail Promotion

The time around Thanksgiving and Christmas is the best time to send a promotional email. During this time people are very receptive to specials because they are vigorously looking for gifts.

If you have a list of customers and prospects, you have already got people who are just waiting to buy from you. Remember, people who have bought from you or showed their interest in your pieces are much more likely to purchase from you now. You’ve already earned their trust.

You need to send out two different promotions: one to your customers and one to your prospects. This means that your emails to each group will have a slightly different twist.

People, who have already bought from you, will want to be rewarded for that. What better way to thank them than by giving them a great deal on your current pieces? They will be pleased about the fact that your offer is being sent to them and them alone. It will make them feel exclusive. In the email you must explain why your pieces would make fantastic gifts for their friends or family.

Your prospects should be sent a somewhat different offer. Tell them that this is a special promotion being offered only to the people who over the past years showed interest in your art. On holidays, we all look for original gift ideas. Don’t be shy to offer your prospects something, which they know other people aren’t going to get.

Increasing Online Sales with Testimonials

It is already common knowledge that the testimonials boost online sales. But still, not many artists have testimonials on their websites. That is not very clever because testimonials create sense of security for prospective online customers. When reading the testimonials, the website visitors learn that others have bought from your website, loved communicating with you, appreciated professional packaging, and found that the artwork they purchased is in reality as great as they expected. This kind of information can enormously influence buying decision.

Testimonials can also be helpful when you send out a promotional email. Remember, there is nothing wrong with sharing how much your customers love your work.

Here are some tips on how to ask for the testimonials:

• Whenever you sale a piece ask your new customer to email you a testimonial about their buying experience. Be straight with them: “I’d love to be able to share your experience with my prospects. Would you be willing to write a short testimonial for me?”
• To make it easy for them to write the testimonial you can ask two or three questions to help spark their thinking.
• Tell them you only need two or three sentences.
• Let them know that you will put their testimonial on your website.
• When you ask for the testimonial, request to use the name of the person providing the testimonial. It will help you enormously if you can make your testimonial provider a “real person” in the eye of your prospects.
• Thank your testimonial provider for extending a favor. Since you know their home address, you could send them a handwritten thank you card. It will make them feel special.