Blog About Crafts

I was looking at someone’s blog today and noticed a conversation on how to advertise a crafting business on the cheap. One of the things mentioned was to ask bloggers if they would be willing to interview artists or review their sites.

I’ve toyed with the idea to review each of the sites submitted and accepted to Crafty Tips Arts & Crafts Directory but my concern was trying to be fair and impartial. I mean, let’s face it not all sites are created equal. Some directory sites have started adding blog entries for sites being submitted but it would seem that could become a real black hole of time and frustration.

In the past, I’ve offered free profiles on several forums. I did ask for a link to this site or one of my other craft-related sites and was disappointed when only two artists took me up on that offer. My thought was that since my blog is not on the fast lane that it was simply a matter of not being popular enough to attract interested folks. The blog I was reading happened to have a comment from one of the editor’s in the jewelry section of a very popular crafting site. She too lamented that she could not find folks who wanted to participate and receive free reviews and profile pieces.

So, rather than try another round in the forums, I thought I would make the offer again here on the site where the profile would reside. Do take heed, that this is free advertising for your business and I take that very seriously. Your site or shop must offer something of value for sale or offer information and project tutorials that would be of interest to crafters.

Participants might also receive a bit of free business consulting advice along the way and when combined with a bit of free advertising both will hopefully bring a some new visitors/customers to your site.

Just let me know if you are interested. The profiles/reviews are free.

I’ve talked before about a variety of ways to get free advertising and backlinks. If you are a repeat visitor to this blog, you probably already know about Crafty Tips, my arts and crafts directory.

But, did you know that there’s a special category to showcase other websites that offer free or paid advertising to crafters? A recent submission reminded me that perhaps, as the last category on the main menu, many folks may not see this section. Other Advertising Options for Crafters is a place where websites that offer free and paid advertising can list their websites. Crafty Tips visitors should be sure to check out the sites listed there as they are all designed to help promote your website or online shop just like Crafty Tips does.

Additionally, I’ve recently launched Art Filled Days to advertise a number of Free Advertising Options for Crafters that are available on my crafting websites. I currently own this blog and Crafty Tips, as well as, The Crafty Tipster and Reusable Art. All four sites offer crafters free advertising opportunities. Those advertising opportunities are all discussed on Art Filled Days.

Why not visit Art Filled Days or one of the other three sites to learn how you can advertise you craft website or online shop for free?

One of the UK’s major newspapers apparently has a section of their site set aside for blogs. It would appear that their regular contributing authors are given the space on this quite large website to talk about a variety of topics relating to their regular columns.

Being in the US, can’t say as I usually follow either the paper or what it’s writers are thinking, but a friend of mine suggested I take a look at one of these blogs. The blog itself wasn’t the attraction. It was the resulting firestorm that was caused by a cheeky and irrelevant blog post by someone who is obviously a somewhat spoiled rich kid.

So often when someone lists one of their sites for sale, they mention the number of backlinks it has. The number of backlinks a site has does impact its ranking in the search engines and would appear to be a important factor in valuing a website.

After a little research, I will continue to seek out backlinks for my websites but I will no longer waste a single moment on counting them.

It’s so very tempting. Drop that link, stuff a signature, or spam people’s blogs. But, when does something migrate from promotion to shameless plug and should we even worry about if it does?

First let me define how I see the terms promotion and shameless plug as variations on a theme.

To me, promotion is when you tell someone about your product, service, or website. Promotion in most cases is synonymous with advertising.

A shameless plug on the other hand is a form of promotion that somehow takes advantage of a situation to push your product, service or website.

The question is, “Is there really such a thing as a shameless plug anymore or has society just come to accept them more than they did in the past?”