Archive for the Category »Being Web Savvy «

Oct
12
Writing About Me Pages – Round II
Posted by Michele on October 12, 2009

Dear Blogger Without an Informative About Me Page,

You might have the greatest blog ever. Your posts might be witty, informative or otherwise link-worthy. You might have designed the bestest-ever tutorial to make something. People enjoy your blog and often return to read more. And yet, after all that effort, you failed to provide any information about who you are and make it easy for people to help promote your site.

who are youThink about someone blogging about cats. Are you more likely to trust information from someone who has three cats living with them or someone who is basing their comments on what other bloggers say about living with cats? Crafting is no different; particularly if you are selling what you make.

Most blogging software makes it really easy to create an About Me page. Yet, you either didn’t create an About Me page or you posted something meaningless.

May I offer a few suggestions to get you started…

While you do not have to say exactly how old you are, it would be nice to know if you are say under 30, a working mom or a much loved grandmother. Even having a vague idea of how old you are can help people get to know you and appreciate where you are coming from.

If you write a blog about sewing, while it is nice to know that you have a wonderful husband and the sex and number of children you have, prospective buyers of your items or people like me who want to exchange links would much rather see stuff about how long you have been sewing, what inspires you and perhaps from whom or how you learned to sew.

Large corporations create Press Kits so that when someone wishes to write a piece about their company they have some background information to draw from. While most bloggers will never need a full-blown press kit it would be nice if more of you thought more about promotion when it came to putting something on your About Me page.

Signed,

Michele

owner of

Crafty Tips Arts & Crafts Directory

Yes, today’s post is a bit of a rant. Drives me crazy when folks are so busy trying to avoid providing personal information that they fail to provide trade or professional info. It’s so much easier to add sites to Crafty Tips when the site owner has taken some time to provide some information about how they came to be making what they do.

Would you rather have a link with text that says,

Blog about knitting with both free patterns and patterns for sale.

or

This self-taught knitter has been creating custom knitwear for over 20 years. While she no longer makes sweaters for sale, she shares her knowledge and expertise on this informative blog about knitting techniques and provides a number of free patterns and patterns for purchase.

So, if you are blogging in cognito and particularly if you are trying to promote your online business, get serious information on your About Me page so other bloggers and people like me can help you!

To learn more about writing about me pages, please visit my earlier post which includes ideas and tips for what to include and what to leave out or you about me.

Category: Being Web Savvy, Internet Marketing, Selling Crafts on the Internet, Selling Tips, Website Promotion  Tags: , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
Aug
06
Paypal – No Credit Cards Accepted
Posted by Michele on August 6, 2009

The transaction started much like any other. He wanted to hire me and agreed to pay a 50% deposit through Paypal. Like I’ve done countless times before, I sent him an invoice.

payment confusion on PayPalFor three days my client tried and tried and tried to make payment. And for three days he was told “This payment can not be funded with a credit card.” He finally emailed me. Why was I insisting he use an eCheck to pay the invoice? If I won’t let him pay with a credit card, we had a big problem.

After some back and forth and much frustration on both of our parts, I called PayPal. I told the first rep what had happened and that oh by the way, I also could not cancel or otherwise edit the invoice. She said I would need to speak with someone else and I was put on hold.

Rather than using music, Paypal has a series of informative messages for their folks on hold. I did learn that when PayPal emails customers they always will use your name in the salutation. Good to know, but after hearing it for the 4th or 5th time, I was longing for some muzak.

The $3,000 Limit

When the next rep came on the line, she listened to my tale of woe and then said that it was a problem with my client’s email and asked if I had a second e-mail for him. To make a very frustrating phone conversation short, it turned out that “This payment can not be funded with a credit card.” should read something like “This email address has exhausted the limit of payments without registering for a Paypal account. Please register for a PayPal account to proceed with payment.”

more…

Category: Being Web Savvy, Selling Crafts on the Internet  Tags: , ,  2 Comments
Feb
07
How long do websites and directories last?
Posted by Michele on February 7, 2009

A recent complaint by someone on a directory forum got me to thinking, how long do websites typically last and are directories more likely than average websites to disappear quickly? What sort of ROI can someone expect from directory submissions over the long term? Is it really 0% as one forum member reported?

Website Life Spans

Unfortunately, the only statistical information I could find about the life span of websites was from way back in 1998. The average lifespan for a website at that time was only 44 to 75 days. The article was unclear as to whether this related to uptime or popularity.

The article did clearly state that 44% of websites disappeared from the web within one year. It would seem likely that in 2009 that number is significantly higher.

My Directory Life Span Experiment

I wanted to know how many directories that I submitted to over a year ago still exist and still list my sites?

more…

Category: Being Web Savvy, Internet Marketing, SEO, Website Promotion  Tags: , , , ,  2 Comments
Nov
08
The Twenty Million Dollar Blog Entry
Posted by Michele on November 8, 2008

Ever had a bad experience with a company? unhappy faceI know I have. And I wanted to tell the whole world just how bad my experience was. In the past, I would tell my friends and family about the company and suggest they find another company to deal with. When I had my last apartment I had a list in my address book of companies that had cheated friends and co-workers and a list of companies that came highly recommended by those same friends and co-workers.

With blogs, anyone can instantly tell hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of strangers about their unhappy experience. That single blog entry has the potential to lead to lost revenue for the company being discussed and hurt that company where it matters most. If you think about it, isn’t that really the intent of telling others that a company should be avoided?

A clever marketing or business owner might find that blog entry, work with the blogger to resolve the issues and turn an unhappy customer into one of their happiest. That blog entry suddenly becomes a real-life example of how well the company deals with problems and how they fix them.

Or, the company being discussed could simply hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit looking for reimbursement for lost revenues and even ask for punitive damages. The blogger might feel they are simply relating a factual accounting of their experience and stating an opinion. Free speech and all that. Right? Maybe not.

more…

Category: Being Web Savvy  Tags: , , ,  3 Comments
Oct
03
Who’s Talking About Me?
Posted by Michele on October 3, 2008

In my last post, I talked about actively reacting to what other people are saying about our businesses and websites. Actively Reacting As A Marketing Strategy can be a time consuming task but there is one great way to make the task much easier.

In order to actively react to blog entries, forum posts and other conversations that relate to your website or business you first have to find those conversations. For small websites and businesses, it might be as easy as conducting a few Google searches for their company name. But, there’s an even better way to find out who’s talking about your site(s) and go directly to the page where the conversation is taking place.

Most every webhost provides some level of reporting on where traffic originates. In this case, we’re interested in the “referrer logs”. The referrer logs identify those websites that have a link to your site that brought someone to visit your site. By reviewing the referrer logs you can quickly see the number of visitors the site has brought you as well as which page or pages they are linking to.

Unfortunately, there is a bit of a catch here. Like so much about the web that’s good, the spammers have found a way to even corrupt referrer logs – its called referrer spam. These folks have a way of spamming your referrer logs to make it look like there’s a link on their site to yours. The reality is that there is no link to your site on theirs and the site appearing in your log more than likely is a site that should come with parental warnings. Thankfully the domain names alone often provide a clue to the nature of the sites.

The intent of these spammers is to get site owners who find those entries to visit the spammer’s site.

When I review my own referral logs, I look for sites that I am familiar with and ones where the domain name sounds like something related to my site. Anything that has body parts or sexual innuendos, I skip. What remains is gold when it comes to actively reacting to what people are saying about your website and business.

So, go log into your hosting accounts and start reviewing who has sent visitors to your website(s) and consider joining in the conversation to promote yourself. Most bloggers and forum owners will appreciate your participation and you’ll see even more visitors to your site!

Category: Being Web Savvy, Internet Marketing, Selling Tips, Website Promotion  Leave a Comment
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