It’s like running into a brick wall. A website has great information and would make a great addition to Crafty Tips or any other site for that matter. They might even have several pages of their own favorite sites but when it comes to linking to them, there’s absolutely nothing. No logo, no banner, no text, not even the suggestion to link to them.
Don’t make this mistake!
Invite people to give you backlinks. You might be surprised how effective this can be. more…
As I talked about in one of my first blog posts – Free Patterns Lead to Sales, it’s a fairly common practice for crafters to offer free patterns on their blogs and websites. Freebies can lead to a multitude of free links and advertising for your site. And it’s not a technique for garnering links and traffic that is solely utilized by crafters.
Where site owners are shooting themselves in the foot is when they remove a previously free article or pattern from their website and add it to their shop or store, make it part of a paid ebook or private area. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why someone would want to make money from their work. But, as those folks who have linked to that page realize that it no longer exists, you are going to lose all of those wonderful links to your site. more…
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.
Think 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.
Like this section of doily that is just about complete, a new advertising option for crafters is just about ready for its grand relaunch.
The Crafty Tipster, my free craft projects and patterns website, has undergone a major face-lift, change of software platform and is being updated with many new free craft projects and patterns.
The redesign isn’t quite finished as I still have to redo the logo. But, everything is working perfectly.
While I plan to continue adding my own free craft projects, free crochet patterns, free vintage knitting patterns and a myriad of other projects; I also hope to expand the site to include projects and tutorials from other crafters.
I was quite shocked when I heard that Yahoo! was discontinuing Geocities as we know it. While it seemed predictable under the current financial situation; it does seem a bit like they are shooting themselves in the foot. After all, all those Geocities sites are plastered with advertising that must be providing Yahoo! with more income than most of those small, and often abandoned sites cost to run.
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?
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.
I wanted to know how many directories that I submitted to over a year ago still exist and still list my sites?
Recent Comments