The Crafted Webmaster

Links for Artists [Nov 1 - 7]

2009-11-08T17:00:38Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about last week:

Now Reading: Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for November 2009- http://ow.ly/yUUW
Now Reading: Artist Website SEO Strategy #1: Help Google Read! - http://ow.ly/yV2E
Now Reading: Paying for Development: Hourly Rate vs. Fixed Cost- http://ow.ly/yV41
Now Reading: How to Market Handmade Jewelry Locally: Low Cost Ways to Sell More Handcrafted Jewels- http://ow.ly/yV5c
Now Reading: 10 Simple Ways to Build a Strong Artist Brand on Twitter - http://ow.ly/z3QF
Now Reading: How To NOT Flush Your Art and Money Down The Toilet- Avoiding The Scam Artists- http://ow.ly/z3TK
Now Reading: biz ladies 09: trademark 101 for designers- http://ow.ly/z3Vx
Now Reading: The Foundation of Your Online Art Marketing Strategy is- http://ow.ly/z3Ws
Now Reading: How to Take Great Photographs with a Flash (and a Diffuser, if you have one) - http://ow.ly/z3QR
Some great advice: 101 Ways to Promote a New Blog- http://ow.ly/z3ZI
Twitter Lists In Detail or, “Yo Dawg, I Heard U Like Lists!” - http://ow.ly/z9dD
Now Reading: Get More Mileage Out of Your Blog Archives with Twitter Teasers- http://ow.ly/z9cn
Great advice for artists: Why Higher Pricing Sells - http://ow.ly/zciM
Now Reading: 6 Mistakes to Avoid on Email Subject Lines- http://ow.ly/z425
RT @TGenDS: AWESOME article on pricing handcrafted jewelry. A lot of things people don’t take into consideration. http://bit.ly/12Sbou
Now Reading: 8 Things to Consider Before Using Twitter Lists- http://ow.ly/z9b7
Now Reading: 15 Reasons Why Consumers Will Leave Your eCommerce Site- http://ow.ly/zALq
Now Reading: WHY charge a handling fee? - http://ow.ly/zeAw
Some great artist advice: The Benefits of Gallery Representation- http://ow.ly/zAMQ
Now Reading: Turn Twitter Friends into Real Friends- http://ow.ly/zTjo
Now Reading: Sell on Etsy? The Number One Mistake Etsy Sellers Make and Three Ways to Fix It! - http://ow.ly/zTqu
Now Reading: The Trouble with Online Photography Portfolios- http://ow.ly/zTsL

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Website Design: Keeping ownership of your website

2009-10-26T19:53:47Z

This weekend I got a frantic email from a possible client that I had spoken to earlier last week. This client was unhappy with their current web designer and was interviewing me as a possible replacement. I asked the potential new client if they had ownership of their website and they said that they would check and get back to me.

Apparently, the talk with the old web designer didn’t go very well as the next email and phone call I got was panicked one asking me to please help them. The current web designer didn’t like the fact the client wanted to leave and had started to shut down parts of their various websites…and had threatened to erase them completely.

Now how could something like this happen? While most web designers I know are trustworthy and ethical, unfortunately this is not the first time I’ve witnessed something like this. If you have someone that’s helping you to design or maintain your website, you have to be very careful not to give them absolute control or allow them to own critical parts of your web presence…lest you might find yourself in the same situation as my unfortunate prospective client.

Here are some tips on how to keep control of your website:

1. Always purchase your own domain names- Never, ever allow anyone except yourself to purchase the domain name(s) for your website. Some designers will offer to buy the domain for you as a “convenience”. Don’t let them! It’s a simple matter for them to name themselves as the owner of the domain name which will make it impossible for you to do anything with it without going through your designer. That means that if you get into a dispute, then the designer can keep your domain name or refuse to allow you to transfer it over to another web host. You web designer can easily hold your entire website “hostage” this way.

Buying a domain name is not difficult. You can get one at My Namespot Domains in less than five minutes for less than $10 per year. Remember that your domain name is like real estate on the Internet and once someone purchases one, it’s theirs until they decide to give up ownership. Don’t delegate something that important to someone else.

2. Keep track of all your important account information- In most cases, your web designer will need to have access to your web hosting account information, or the log-in to your YouTube account or any kind of account that you might need to allow them access to do their jobs. Just like your domain name account, you need to be the primary contact for all of your online accounts. That means if anything goes wrong, the first person these companies will contact will be you…not your designer.

You also need to keep track of passwords, usernames, account numbers and you need to log on to these accounts on a regular basis to make sure that you have access to them. This will keep your web designer from locking you out of your important accounts in the case of a dispute.

3. Keep a copy of your website in your possession- Even if you’ve hired a professional to maintain your website for you, you should always have an up-to-date copy of your website in a place were you can grab it in an emergency like your computer hard drive, a CD, or a thumb drive. This is a good idea anyway just in case your web host starts having problems and you need to find a new host quickly. But it’s also a good way to keep an unscrupulous web designer from blackmailing you by threatening to shut down your website.

Also, if your website also uses a database of any kind…say your website has an online store like Zen Cart or OScommerce or you’re running a Wordpress blog, make sure that you also have recent backups of those as well…especially if these databases contains customer or financial information of any kind. It’s actually a lot worse to lose this information than it would be to lose your website. You can at least recreate a website…it’s much harder to recover customer information.

Ask your web designer to show you how to retrieve back ups of your website and databases if you have them and start getting backups of your website on at a weekly basis. If your web designer can’t (or won’t, which is a bad sign) show you how to retrieve your backups, contact your hosting company and have tech support show you how to do it.

4. Don’t allow your lack of knowledge get in the way- I’m always giving my own clients and potential prospects this advice and as a rule, I never register domain names or open hosting accounts for my clients, even if they ask me to. Some of the less technically savvy ones are always trying to get me to do stuff like this for them because they don’t want to have to deal with the “technical stuff”. But I always warn them that their lack of technical knowledge is the thing that makes them vunerable to getting ripped-off by someone less than honest.

The bottom line is that if you’re going to have a website, there’s going to be a certain amount of “technical stuff” that you’re going to have to deal with. It comes with the territory. And the more knowledgeable you are about this stuff, the less likely you’re going to be taken by an unscrupulous web designer. This doesn’t mean that you need to turn yourself into a tech nerd. But every small business owner who owns a website should know how to buy their own domain names, open up a web hosting account, open up accounts at YouTube, Facebook, etc, and how to make regular backups of their website. If you know how to do these things…you won’t find yourself in the position of the poor soul I talked to this weekend.

So what do you think? Do you have a web designer horror story you want to share? Leave your tips and stories in the comments section!

P.S. Some time back, I did a telephone interview on how to find and work with a web designer with marketing expert, Connie Green. You can listen to an excerpt of the interview here.

Marketing with Facebook: How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business on the Web

2009-10-21T20:48:59Z

I’ve been getting a bunch of questions about Facebook lately especially questions about Facebook pages and widgets and apps and so forth…so I’ve decided to do a teleseminar all about Facebook! So on Wednesday, October 28th, at 8:00 p.m. (EST) join me for a 60 to 75 minute call on how to use Facebook to promote your business online. We’ll be talking about Facebook Pages, widgets, apps, and the best strategic way to use Facebook to promote yourself. If you’re new on Facebook or even if you’ve been on Facebook for awhile you might be thinking…”Okay, now what?”. Well next Wednesday, we’ll talk about what to do next.

There’s over 250 million people on Facebook connecting with family, friends, and yes, even their favorite business and companies. Learn how to be one of the ones that your customers connect with. Interested? Click here to get more information about the teleclass. All you need is about an hour and a telephone. I can’t wait for you to join me on the phone lines next Wednesday!

Selling Art Online: Is It Really Necessary to Have a Website to Sell Your Art?

2009-10-20T19:00:26Z

I got this great question the other day from one of my readers about whether artists really need to create their own website to sell their art.

Is it really necessary to have a website to sell your art. Isnt it possible to achieve the same thing with other options such as zazzle, imagekind, blogger, foliotwist, fineartstudioonline.com, etc.,? Without all the management challenges of managing your own site?

- Jeremy

There are a ton of services out there that can help artists get a presence online. While they’re all great, I always tell artists to be sure that they keep at least a part of their website presence under their control. Here’s what I wrote back to Jeremy.

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for the question!

No, it’s not necessary to have your own website in order to sell online. You can use a service like FolioTwist, Etsy, or Artfire to sell your work and many artists do quite successfully using this route. The advantage of using one of these services is that you can start selling without going through the process of developing your own website.

Plus in most cases, you don’t need to know HTML or web design in order to start selling. You also will avoid dealing with the technical part of maintaining your website, although you still need to maintain your inventory and content yourself just like you would with your own website. Plus, you are still responsible for getting traffic to your site. While many of these services may also have some built-in traffic or marketing services, you are ultimately responsible for getting people to visit your website.

However, there are some distinct advantages to having your own website that’s completely under your control. One advantage of developing your own website is that you have control over all aspects of your website, how it functions, what kind of content you can post, and how it looks. Plus, you don’t run the risk of losing your web presence with little or no warning. Remember that services like FolioTwist, Etsy, or FineArtsStudioOnline can be sold, go out of business, change their fees, or terms of service at anytime. If 100% of your online sales comes from one of these services and they go under, then 100% of your web presence is suddenly gone. Just last year, thousands of eBay sellers were scrambling to find alternatives to eBay because a series of policy and fee changes negatively affected their businesses or put them out of business completely.

A lot of artists who sell online have both a presence on a third-party service and their own website. They use the website strictly for showing their work and directing them to their web store. The third-party service is used strictly for sales as many have a built-in ecommerce component. Some actually sell both places and use the service to direct traffic to their own site. While this can create some more work, there are several advantages to this approach. One, you avoid the risk of having all of your eggs in one basket. You keep a measure of control over your web presence while you’re also taking advantage of using a third-party service. Second, this gives potential visitors multiple places to find you. Those that may not stumble over your FolioTwist site may stumble over your other web presence…and vice versa. So it doesn’t have to be a case of either/or, but rather a case of both/and.

For most newbies, I recommend starting with a service in order to get their presence up as quickly as possible. And it’s also good for getting familiar with mechanics of maintaining a web presence. Once they get their initial presence operating on a web service, they should start building their own web presence that’s completely under their control…whether it be a blog or a simple website that has contact information or a simple gallery of their work. While it can be some extra work, if done correctly, it can greatly pay off in the end.

Do you have a burning question about websites or promoting yourself online? Click on the “Ask a Question” tab at the top of the page and send me your question. I’ll send you an answer to your question personally.

Links for Artists [Oct 4 - 10]

2009-10-11T17:29:09Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about the past couple of weeks:

RT @GreatTwitTips: 11 Tips for Promoting your Event on Twitter http://j.mp/3RiBOd RT (via @Twitter_Tips)
Some morning inspiration: A Call for Artists to Follow their Dreams - http://ow.ly/sJ0W
RT @HandmadeNewsorg: New Main Feature: Two Easy Defenses Against Business Identity Theft http://bit.ly/498npY #HMN
RT @urbancrafter: RT @coachcreative 10 simple steps to completely sabotage your creativity http://budurl.com/9w3d
Does your work have “The Triple Impact?” - http://ow.ly/sXfN
Now Reading: biz ladies 09: the nuts and bolts of getting your biz online- http://ow.ly/sZnd
Missed today’s show How to Shoot Images of Your Artwork That Sells? Here’s the replay! http://ow.ly/sWDP #handmade #artbiz #crafts
RT @femmesdefleurs: TIP | RT @mashable: 5 Ways to Write Retweetable Tweets - http://bit.ly/ovkmw
Some great advice: Shipping Schedules For Your Business Around The Holidays - http://ow.ly/t8zi
Now Reading: Photographing Handmade Jewelry: My Set Up- http://ow.ly/tcbF
Now Reading: How to build a Facebook community (14 levers you need to be pulling) - http://ow.ly/tchp
Now Reading: Incorporate Charitable Work into your Brand Identity- http://ow.ly/ti78
Now Reading: SEO Cheat Sheet: Anatomy of A URL- http://ow.ly/tixb
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS#11: Real Artists Paint!- http://ow.ly/tiyH
Missed today’s show How to Balance Marketing Your Art Website with Creating Your Art? Here’s the replay! http://ow.ly/tiIu
Now Reading: Eight Ways to Help Google “See” Your Images -http://ow.ly/tizd
Now Reading: Hosting Your Own “One Person Show”- http://ow.ly/tniu
Camera Modes 101: Understanding the Different Modes on Your Digital Camera- http://ow.ly/tG4I

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Online Tools: What the heck is Google Wave?

2009-10-07T16:00:05Z

You may or may not have heard that Google has been working on a new “collaborative tool” called Google Wave. I first heard about it this spring and have been monitoring news about it on and off. It’s not widely available yet, but I’ll be checking it out as soon as it is. If it turns out the way I suspect, I think it’s really going to change the way we use email and communications online.

So what is it? Instead of trying to explain it myself, here’s a video that illustrates what it does pretty well.

So what does something like Google Wave mean for you? Off the top of my head, there are a couple of situations I think it would be useful…

If you’re a member or an organizer of a group or organization, then something like this could make communications between members a whole lot easier. I’m currently organizing a Meetup group and something like this would be a lot more useful than the regular back and forth emails to group members
If you’re working on a project with a group of people (setting up a website, doing a collaboration, custom work, doing a large commission) something like this could keep exchanges between all parties from getting lost (and people getting ticked off)

Anyway…stay tuned.

Public Relations: Handling negative online criticism of your art

2009-10-05T18:06:14Z

I just ran across a new blog called Regretsy this morning that’s dedicated to poking fun at some of the more, er…”non-traditional” listings on the popular online handcraft marketplace, Etsy. Needless to say, this sparked a bit of anger over on the Etsy message boards as many sellers denounced the blog as cruel and mean-spirited.

Regretsy isn’t the only blog out there who’s only purpose is to poke fun at other people’s creations. And blogs and websites like these aren’t the only places online that people can criticize or poke fun at your work. People have been using message boards, email, and blog comments for years as platforms to criticize the works of creative people. The same tools that makes it easy for you to promote your artwork, also makes it easy for people to voice their opinions about your artwork, good, bad, and ugly.

Whether you think that these sites are clever and funny or mean-spirited and nasty, if you’re marketing yourself online, it’s possible that you might find your work or yourself as a subject of criticism or ridicule. What do you do then?

1. Grow a very thick skin- This is a lot easier said than done. You as an artist has probably put a lot of yourself into your work and when someone makes fun of it, it’s pretty much the same as someone making fun of you. The fact of the matter is that if you’re going to put your artwork out there, you also making yourself open to criticism…especially if your work is controversial or unusual in any way. If you want to succeed in selling your art, you’re going to have not let other people’s opinions make you want to run and hide. You’re never going to stop people from being critical or even from making fun of what you do. So it’s best just to let other people’s bad opinions roll off your back.

2. Be true to yourself- Don’t let negative criticism alter how you express yourself in your art. There are plenty of art geniuses out there that has suffered terrible ridicule for the things that they create. Yet, they keep creating because they had to remain true to themselves. And sooner or later, someone came to appreciate what they do. The same goes for you. There will always be someone that hates what you do and there will always be people that love your vision. Those who hate your work aren’t your customers anyway…concentrate on those who “get” you.

3. Resist the urge to attack the critic- While every fiber of your being is screaming for you to go online and berate the jerk that’s using your hard work as a punchline…demanding that they take down their offensive blog post or attacking them for their opinion is going to be counterproductive. Unless they are writing something that is patently untrue about your work, leaving a rant against the critic will only backfire on you. Storming in and calling the critic a jerk for criticizing you will give the other readers who may or may not agree with the critic the impression that you’re an overly sensitive artist who takes themselves too seriously. Unless they are writing something that’s untrue, which in that case you’re perfectly justified in calmly correcting the untruths, take the high road and the let the jerky critic continue to show how jerky they are.

4. Turn lemons into lemonade- The old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity sometimes appear to be true. Ironically, a lot of the Etsy sellers who found themselves featured on one of these blogs also found that they ended up selling the item that was being ridiculed. Remember, just because one person doesn’t get what you do doesn’t mean that everyone thinks that way.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think about this? How would you react? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Links for Artists [Sept 27 - Oct 3]

2009-10-04T16:00:17Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about the past couple of weeks:

Now Reading: Marketing Your Art- http://ow.ly/rgZb
15 Quick Tips For Selling Crafts, Sewn, Knit, Gift Or Jewelry Products to Stores - Crafts http://ow.ly/rh27
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS #8: You’re only a REAL artist if you’re ONLY an artist - http://ow.ly/rozA
Now Reading: Three Rules for Earning Good Word of Mouth for Your Photography Business - http://ow.ly/roA9
Fantastic advice: biz ladies 09: tax info for small businesses- http://ow.ly/roBz
RT @copyblogger: 5 Social Media Lessons I Learned from Working with a Hollywood Actress - http://bit.ly/TOOQp
RT @SmartBoyDesigns: Reading: “Going From 50 to 100+ Blog Visitors Daily” (http://twitthis.com/3o3a6w)
Now Reading: When to Break Gallery Ties- http://ow.ly/rBw0
Some really great advice: biz ladies 09: website design and user experience- http://ow.ly/rEHB
RT @barneydavey: Things a Gallery May Never Tell You http://ow.ly/ryKf
Did you miss today’s show, “6 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Website Copy”? Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/rGaB
RT @JewelryBizGuru: RT @Don_Crowther: 6 Tips for optimizing using #Google #Webmaster Tools http://ow.ly/rEQf
Make art for passion or for money? - http://ow.ly/s7Fc
Now Reading: Pricing Handcrafted Jewelry, Part 3 - http://ow.ly/s7Gh
Did you miss today’s show, “5 Ways to Use Your Art Website or Blog to Get More PR”? Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/sd6C
Some great advice: Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for October 2009 - http://ow.ly/sgF9
Now Reading: 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses - http://ow.ly/sgJb
Now Reading: When was the Last Time You Called a Collector….on the PHONE - http://ow.ly/slzo
Some examples of what NOT to write in your artist’s statement- http://ow.ly/slCw
Now Reading: biz ladies 09: the fortune in the follow up - http://ow.ly/st4E
Now Reading: Design Trends: The Single Purpose Homepage- http://ow.ly/stcX
Now Reading: Why they aren’t buying your thing- http://ow.ly/stxB
Now Reading: What else can I test…to reduce shopping cart abandonment rate? - http://ow.ly/steP
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS#10: You Have to Go to Art School to Be a Real Artist- http://ow.ly/stzs

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Online Video: How do you put a slide show up on YouTube?

2009-09-29T17:32:52Z

It’s been a while since I’ve put an Ask the Crafted Webmaster question up on the blog, so here’s one by K Henderson about videos.

K. Henderson

Do you have a good tutorial about how to put images/slide show on YouTube?

With the news that Google Video and YouTube are serving 10 billion (that’s billion with a B) videos to people a month, creating video slideshows of your work is a good way to start putting your videos out to this audience. There’s a number of different ways to create a video slideshow…but there are services out there that can make the process fast and easy:

Hi there!

I actually don’t have a tutorial prepared that shows how to do this (sounds like a great one to start planning in the future). However, there is a service that can do this that might interest you. Take a look at a website called Animoto . This is an online service that allows you upload photos and even brief video clips and arrange them into video slideshows. Once you have your photos or your videos uploaded to the service, you can arrange the videos however you want, add text and even add music. You can either upload your own music or you can choose from their music library. They have all genres of music…so the selection is not bad at all.

I literally created a brief slideshow of my jewelry in less than 15 minutes using Animoto. Plus you don’t need any special equipment or software to use the service. Once you’ve created your video, you can upload it to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or put it on your own website.

For videos up to 30 seconds long, the service is free. If you want something longer than 30 seconds you can get what’s called an “All-Access Pass”, which is a 1 year subscription that allows you to make as many full length videos (videos over 30 seconds) as you want. A 1-year subscription costs about $30.

Let me know if this helps!

Here’s the quick video I made using Animoto. And keep your eyes peeled for an instructional video on how to use this service

RSS subscribers click here to view

Links for Artists [Sept 21 - 26]

2009-09-27T16:00:53Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about the past couple of weeks:

RT @copyblogger: 6 Tips To Boost Your Home Business Despite A Recession - http://bit.ly/TEiym
RT @problogger: Reading: How To: Automate Quality Content for your Facebook Page - http://is.gd/3vgLd via @matpacker
RT @Yemoonyah: Reading: Art Marketing Action: Get your art out of the studio:- http://bit.ly/5KvA9
RT @daniellejewelry: RT @Donnie6DI: Huzzah! Turns out people don’t mind scrolling! http://bit.ly/d53i1
Now Reading: 5 Tips for Curating a stunning art event - http://ow.ly/qmxG
Interesting report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter - http://ow.ly/qsZd
Now Reading: Make Your Art a Priority- http://ow.ly/qt51
RT @abstanfield: Artist mistakes: Open studio gone wrong–on the Art Biz Blog http://artbizblog.com/2009/09/openstudiogonewrong.html
RT @doyouetsy: Backgrounds for Etsy Photos | HandmadeMarketing.org http://bit.ly/44kst3
Now Reading: 22 Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers - http://ow.ly/qvsl
RT @MyFreshPicks: RT @MarketHandmade Etsy User Demographics “Who Shops at Etsy?” - http://ow.ly/nFNJ
Did you miss today’s show, “Building a Online Store on Your Art Website- pt 2″? Listen to the replay - http://ow.ly/qvtI
Now Reading: Hey You! Stop Posting Naked Photos Online (it’s not what you think) - http://ow.ly/qEqK
Now Reading: Ten Steps to Extraordinary Success in Your Art and Business - http://ow.ly/qErs
Now Reading: WordPress For Beginners: Understanding User Roles - http://ow.ly/qH7u
RT @additionsstyle: RT @BloggingTipsCom Reward your Readers for Visiting Your Blog http://bit.ly/xQInL
RT @MixxMarlene: Wishpot is a wonderful promotional tool for your Etsy shop!.. http://twit.ac/xioZ
RT @reelseo- Web Video Marketing - 10 Common Marketing Mistakes http://bit.ly/1rZVzz
RT @KristinasPhotos: Did you know that you can get your custom facebook page name with only 25 fans now?
RT @Twitter_Tips: How to email your customers to let them know you’re on Twitter: http://j.mp/e3dqH –Share: http://bit.ly/UU0nW
Some great advice on creating good habits for artists- http://ow.ly/qRYI
Now Reading: What a Drunk Swiss Guy Can Teach You About Handling Criticism - http://ow.ly/qUpy
Now Reading: Be Ready for Unexpected Opportunities- http://ow.ly/qW8H
Did you miss today’s show, “Making Your Art Website Trustworthy?” Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/qW3H
Now Reading: How to Get Your Artwork Into the Public Eye - http://ow.ly/r1vG
Now Reading: Craft Sale Check Sheet - Items to Pack for Your Craft Show - http://ow.ly/r1w3
Now Reading: Building a Body of Work- http://ow.ly/r1wK
RT @SteampunkRings: RT @mashable WARNING: Facebook Worm Spreading via News Feed - http://bit.ly/4nPceE
RT @anddjournal: How to Use Google Images Without Getting Sued #legal #tutorial - http://bit.ly/13xkWq (via @tracitoguchi)

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Selling Art Online: Choosing a shopping cart

2009-09-23T17:22:19Z

Lately, I’ve been doing a regular radio show on Blog Talk Radio called 15 Minute Craft Website Tips on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Basically, I do a 15 minute show about some quick tips on a topic that pertains to artists who are promoting themselves online. The last two episodes was a two part series on what you need to know about starting your own ecommerce website and how to choose the right shopping cart.

If you’re thinking about creating your own ecommerce website to sell your crafts or artwork online, listen to both episodes to get some information on how to start the process. They’re both about 15 minutes each, so you don’t need a whole lot of time to listen:

In addition to the shows, there’s also a free ebook available that offers a great checklist of what you need to look for when you’re looking around for a shopping cart. You can download it for free here.

Web Design: Rethinking “Above the Fold”

2009-09-22T16:48:49Z

I found a really interesting link on Twitter yesterday that says the the myth of “above the fold” in web design is officially dead. If you’re not familiar with this term, it originally came from the newspaper world where newspapers are generally folded in half. The 50% of the content that fell on the upper half of that fold was said to be “above the fold”. If you look at any newspaper today, you’ll see that the main stories, major headlines, and basically anything that’s supposed to be really important are printed on the upper half of the fold.

This tradition eventually migrated over to the online world where all of the important content on the homepage (or any page for that matter) was designed to be “above the fold”. In the online world, “above the fold” meant the part of the web page that you can see without having to scroll down.

This sometimes made for some very messy layouts where designers sometimes tried to cram everything at the top of a website so that people wouldn’t have to scroll down. The logic was that people hated to scroll, so if you had something on your website that you really wanted people to look at, make sure that it was located at the top. Back when this principle was during it’s heyday, I had websites that were a nightmare to design because the client didn’t want people to scroll down at all!

According to this mini-report that’s no longer true today because:

Monitor sizes have gotten bigger (an Apple Cinema display anyone?)
Screen resolutions are getting smaller
Because of the different sized monitors and screen resolutions, there’s no certainty of where “the fold” actually is
People really don’t mind scrolling down after all…especially if you have a nifty scroll-wheel mouse

So what does this mean for you and your art website? Basically this:

It’s still a good idea to design your website so that your most important content is up at the top…but you don’t have to cram everything else up there too.
If your “above the fold” content indicates that there’s more good information if you just scroll down…people will do it.
Sprinkle your “calls to actions” or other important stuff on different positions throughout the page. My newsletter sign ups are located in three different pages on any part of my blog. At the top of a blog post, at the upper right hand corner…and on the footer of the blog. The top spot still gets 85% of the sign ups…but people still sign up from the footer too!

You can download the report here. It’s a really quick and interesting read.

Website Building: How to hire help

2009-09-21T16:35:46Z

In a previous blog post, I talked about the benefits of hiring someone to help you with some of your technical tasks, whether it’s a web designer to help build your website or a graphic designer to create an ad or a banner for your blog. If you can get the right someone to help you do tasks that you don’t have time for or have the adequate skill for, they’ll more than pay for themselves in time and frustration. But how do you find such a person? There’s several ways you can do so:

1. Know exactly what you want to get accomplished- One of the things that can cost you time and money when you’re hiring a graphic designer is that you contact them before you have a clear idea of what you want to get accomplished. A lot of artists think that if they just hire an expert, they’ll be able to tell them what to do. While an expert designer can build and wonderful looking website, but they can’t necessarily tell you what the business goals of your website should be. They can tell you that a dark blue background will look more soothing and professional than a bright patterned background, but they can’t tell you what art pieces you should sell on your site…or whether you should sell on your website.

Decisions like what the purpose of your website should be, what the goals of your ad promotion should be, or what kind of feeling you want your blog banner to convey has to come from you. You’re the business owner and you know better than anyone else in the world what you’re trying to accomplish with your business overall. You can’t outsource the vision for your business to a designer or any other person.

2. Get recommendations- The best way to find a graphic artist or web designer is to get recommendations from someone that you really trust that has hired them before. Friends, colleagues, family members, or mentors that have websites or has had the occasion to use the services of a graphic designer will be more than happy to recommend a good one if they were pleased with their work.

3. Do your homework- Even if you find a designer that was previously vetted by a friend, family member, or mentor, you still need to do your homework. That means that you want to check out the designers’ previous work. You want to ask them questions about projects that they’ve worked on before. You also want to get an idea of how much they charge and how busy they are.

4. Start small- If you’re working with someone new, try starting off with a small project…like designing a blog header or an online ad. This will give you a chance to see how this person works and if you can trust them to do bigger jobs like redesigning a brochure or building your website. You also want to make sure that whatever project you start them off on is not a mission critical rush job. Rush jobs put an extra level of pressure that you don’t need to deal with when you evaluating a new designer…plus you’ll likely get charged more on rush jobs.

5. Look towards the long term- One mistake that a lot of people make is trying to find someone for just right now. They look for the cheapest person they can find that can get the job done as quickly as they can and the relationship pretty much ends after the project is done, for better or for worse. I’ve been on both sides of the client/designer relationship and I can tell you that you’ll get a better quality and value for your work if you approach the hiring of your designer as the beginning of a long term relationship rather than as a one-shot deal. Remember that designers are small business people too and a repeat client is always a higher value to them than a one-time client. If the designer gets the sense that they can expect more jobs from you in the future, then they’ll be more likely to do great work. And the benefit for you is that you’ll have someone that you can turn to in future to help you out when you happen to blow up something on your website or when you have that rush job that you don’t have time to accomplish.

Also, look for someone who’s fairly flexible that has a wide range of skills that you may be useful to you in the future. A graphic designer that’s also well versed in designing for the web and building websites is a lot more useful that someone who strictly designs for print or vice versa.

So what do you think? What are your tips for finding a great graphic or web designer. Leave your tips and stories in the comments section!

P.S. Some time back, I did a telephone interview on how to find a web designer with marketing expert, Connie Green. You can listen to an excerpt of the interview here.

Links for Artists [Sept 13 - 20]

2009-09-20T16:00:34Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about the past couple of weeks:

Now Reading: Protecting Your Business When Accepting Payment - http://ow.ly/prML
Now Reading: Art Blogging Etiquette 101: General Rules for Linking and Using Images - http://ow.ly/prYZ
Now Reading: Social Media Helps Overcome Consumer Skepticism - http://ow.ly/ptMm
Now Reading: Amp Up Your Blog With These Add-Ons - http://ow.ly/pwzd
Missed today’s show, Building Your Own Art Website vs Using an Art Portfolio Site? Listen to the replay - http://ow.ly/pwyi
Now Reading: Coming up with prices. - http://ow.ly/pBXy
A very detailed but useful article on time management- http://ow.ly/pBZp
Some great Twitter advice: My Twitter Strategy: Business in the Front, Party in the Back - http://ow.ly/pBXW
A little (a lot) geeky, but useful for SEO- 17 Ways Search Engines Judge the Value of a Link http://ow.ly/pC0k
Heads up Hampton Road crafters! Check out this new Meetup group for artists and crafters - http://ow.ly/pDNR
Now Reading: Stop Feeling Guilty for Not Marketing Enough- http://ow.ly/pC2a
Very thoughtful article: I Hate the Word “Charity” - http://ow.ly/pC3r
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS #7: Real Art Doesn’t Match the Sofa - http://ow.ly/pC5J
Now Reading: @Mentions Are Now Live on Facebook- http://ow.ly/plMd
Now Reading: Marketing Monday:Pricing Theories Part I - http://ow.ly/pNsV
Now Reading: 5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook - http://ow.ly/pTaF
Missed today’s show, “Building an Online Store on Your Art Website”? Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/pRBl
Now Reading: Camera Tips for Photographing Your Artwork for the Web - http://ow.ly/pX1b
Now Reading: Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips to improve your blog traffic - http://ow.ly/pY2U
Now Reading: 3 Tactics to Get Comments on Your New Blog - http://ow.ly/pZjj
A great blog post by Seth Godin: Things to ask before you redo your website - http://ow.ly/pZm3
Here’s a neat idea: The 15-Minute Business Card Makeover - http://ow.ly/pZz1

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Website Building: Don’t be afraid to hire help

2009-09-18T16:00:01Z

I just read a blog post by my friend and jewelry designer, Luann Udell about a brand new web banner that she hired someone to do for about $30. She talked a little bit about wanting to figure it out for herself, but in the interest of saving time and frustration, she decided to spend the $30 and have someone with more graphic design experience than her do it. She’s well pleased with the results.

Now why am I bringing up this story? I write a lot about on this blog how there are a lot of things that you can do yourself. I get questions from readers on how to do this on Photoshop or how to tweak that page in Dreamweaver and I answer them as best I can. But at a certain point, you have to think to yourself, “Is it really worth doing everything myself?”. You can learn to build a website, but is that the best use of your time? You can cobble together a web banner for that blog ad you bought or for your Etsy store, but is it going to be the most effective banner possible?

Now I’m also web designer as well as a jewelry designer, so I might be a bit biased, but I’ve seen plenty of cases where my client would have been better off hiring someone to install that piece of software or to build that website or to design that ebook cover in the first place because the results were disastrous. I’m not saying that it’s not worth you learning how to do some things yourself. I’m saying that you need to know when it’s not worth it. Such as:

You’re in a hurry and you need it done well and quickly
You have no knowledge how to do something and really no interest in learning
You need to get something done and you’re already only sleep 5 hours a night because you’ve got so many other things to do.
You have just enough knowledge to be really dangerous and it’s a really big deal if you try to do it and mess it up

Now of course hiring someone to do something whether it’s building a website or designing a graphic banner, means spending money…which we really don’t like to do…especially when the market is tight. But getting help doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to be an ordeal to find a good person. And in the end it can be worth the money. For about $30 Luann got a brand new banner. She also saved hours of time and frustration. And I imagine that that was worth more than the $30.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you some tips on how to find help without breaking the bank or going crazy.

Links for Artists [Aug 30 - Sept 5]

2009-09-06T16:00:53Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about the past couple of weeks:

RT @brambleberry: Reading ‘Rethinking my Facebook Strategy’: http://bit.ly/azhWm
Now Reading: 3 Tactics to Increase the Number of Retweets on Your Blog- http://ow.ly/npuN
Now Reading: Letting Go: When It’s Time to Downsize- http://ow.ly/nz3q
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS #3: Artists Starve in Garrets- http://ow.ly/nzUM
Missed today’s show, “How to Pick a Color Palette for Your Website”? Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/nAVr
How To Have A Sale For Your Craft Business Online - http://ow.ly/nJ0x
Artfire Launches Coupon Codes For Verified Sellers - http://ow.ly/nJ1p
Now Reading: Artist Salons: 6 elements for a thriving group, part 1 - http://ow.ly/nJ4N part 2- http://ow.ly/nJ3X
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS #5: My Art Speaks for Itself - http://ow.ly/nJhL
Some good pricing advice- Value and Price - http://ow.ly/nJj9
Now Reading: Etsy - New Shipping Tool- http://ow.ly/nJmH
Now Reading: Do Long Blog Posts Scare Away Readers?- http://ow.ly/nSh7
Now Reading: 4 Ways To Promote Your Blog Offline- http://ow.ly/nSjn
Some great advice as to why you shouldn’t wait to experiment with trends- http://ow.ly/nSnn
Now Reading: Build Your Own Ultimate Press List- http://ow.ly/nSqL
Missed my show, “Sprucing Up a Neglected Art Website?” Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/nXuv
Now Reading: 4 Ways to Prevent Etsy Shop Neglect- http://ow.ly/nSxr
RT @RickDiBiasio: The danger of Facebook quizzes - http://ow.ly/nSB4
Now Reading: 5 Straw Man Arguments to Take a Pass on Social Media- http://ow.ly/o6uR
Web Design - How to Build a Website on the Cheap: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2796683
Online Sales - How to Plan a Profitable Online Holiday Promotion: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2796527

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Links for Artists [Aug 23 - Aug 29]

2009-08-30T16:00:31Z

Throughout the week, I like to share interesting links for artists on my Twitter profile. Here is a list of the links I tweeted about the past couple of weeks:

RT @nicholaspatten: 40+ Beautiful And Well Designed Blogs Powered By Wordpress. http://bit.ly/1zmPSM
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS #4: Artists Are Not Business People- http://ow.ly/lFDc
Missed today’s show, “What to Do If Your Web Host Stinks”? Listen to the replay- http://ow.ly/lzl7
RT @LenCafeHandmade: Have you listed your handmade business in the Find it Handmade Business Directory yet? http://www.findithandmade.net
Now Reading: Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teenagers - http://ow.ly/lxDn
Some mistakes to avoid with your Etsy shop- http://ow.ly/lxmO
Now Reading: 12 Ways to Use LinkedIn Today- http://ow.ly/lpya
Great advice for all artists: Eight Lessons My College Photography Instructor Never Taught Me- http://ow.ly/loXX
Now Reading: promoting & selling fine art online- http://ow.ly/lojJ
Now Reading: Marketing in This Economy -http://ow.ly/lo74
Missed today’s show 5 Facebook Tools You Can Use to Promote Your Website? Here’s the replay- http://ow.ly/lj2U
Now Reading: TEN MYTHS ABOUT ARTISTS: A Story Behind the Myths- http://ow.ly/lj70
Now Reading: How To Create An Online Ad With Your Photos- http://ow.ly/lfj3
Now Reading: 3 Things You MUST Have to Sell Art on the Web http://ow.ly/lbSa

Like this link list? Visit my Twitter profile and follow me to get these links daily!

Facebook Applications: Putting up a newsletter signup…without knowing HTML

2009-08-29T18:59:55Z

I got some great responses from people that watched yesterday’s video on how to put a newsletter sign up box on your Facebook Fan page. However, one question I did get from some was, “How can I do this if I don’t know HTML?” Fortunately…it’s possible to do this without knowing how to code HTML. If you are managing your mailing list through a company like AWeber, Kickstart Cart, or Constant Contact these services generate the HTML code for you. Then it’s just a matter of copying that code and pasting it into the right place, just like I showed in the video.

If you’re not using a mailing list service to run your list, and you’re using an email client like Outlook or Apple Mail, you really need to consider switching immediately. These programs aren’t built to run an email list appropriately and the ability to get simple code to paste into your web page, blog, or Facebook page so that people can easily sign up for your email list is one thing you can’t do with Outlook. If you want a better explanation of what these services are and how to set up a mailing list, subscribers can check out the article archive for my article series, How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter . If you’re not a subscriber, you can get the entire series in a handy PDF by clicking here.

Also, if you’ve had your website designed by a web designer, they’ll be able to send you the appropriate code if you ask them and tell them what you’re going to be using the code for. And of course, if you have any questions about the video, please feel free to send a message to Ask The Crafted Webmaster and I’ll answer your question!

Facebook Applications: How to put a newsletter signup box on your Facebook Page

2009-08-28T19:17:22Z

Yesterday I was poking around on one of my Facebook Fan pages and started using a very useful Facebook application called “Static FBML”. Basically, Static FBML allows you to put bits of HTML code on your Facebook Fan page. Since I’m always trying to get people to sign up for my mailing list, I used the FBML app to put a couple of sign up boxes on my Facebook Fan page so that people can join my newsletter directly from my fan page.

Static FBML is great for putting in sign up boxes and for adding graphic banners and other bits of HTML code that you might want to add to your Fan page. Here’s an example of what you can do with it.

If you want to learn how to put your own newsletter sign up box on your Facebook page, I’ve recorded a how-to video on just how to do it. You can watch it below:

RSS Viewers: Click here to see video

Website Marketing: How effective are your thank you pages?

2009-08-27T16:33:07Z

How much do you think about your thank you pages? You know, those pages that you’re sent to after you sign up for something like a mailing list or a contest or after you purchase something online? Most people never get more than the “Thank you for buying, have a nice day.” message. Even worse, some don’t have a coherent thank you page at all. If done correctly, thank you pages can be a great marketing tool that can help you sell more, get marketing information from your customers, or start connecting with them. Here are five ways to make your thank you pages more effective.

1. Connect- Are you on a social networking site like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn? Here’s a great way to encourage your customers to link to you. Ask them on join you on your thank you pages. Provide links that will allow them to easily friend, follow, or connect with you on your thank you page along with a brief description of why they should follow you. Don’t forget to also provide information on how to connect with you in other ways, such as by email and phone.

2. Offer instructions- Sometimes when customers sign up for something like and email list or an online class or seminar, there are some things that you’ll need them to do, like check their email, send a confirmation, or add your email address to their address books. A great place to put those instructions is directly on your thank you page. It helps ease the minds of those who might be anxious about what comes next, plus it can also cut down on customer service questions that you need to answer.

3. Give a free gift or a surprise bonus- Almost everyone loves a pleasant surprise or an unexpected gift. A sure-fire way to wow your customers is to offer them a surprise gift after they sign up for your mailing list or purchase something from you. This could be as simple as telling them that you’re adding a free thank you gift in with their purchase or offering a coupon for their next purchase. Whatever the surprise, you want to make it something that your customers will enjoy and you want to tell them about it on your thank you page.

4. Upsell- Once a customer has already taken action on one thing, it’s much easier to encourage to them to take action on something else. This is the “would you like fries with that?” tactic. So if someone has decided to sign up for your email list, you can “upsell” them by encouraging them to visit your web store to purchase something. Or if someone has purchase something from your web store, you can upsell them with another complimentary purchase. The upselling technique works especially well if you also give them an incentive like free shipping, discount, free gift, or coupon.

5. Ask questions- Surveys and questionnaires are a great way to learn more about your customers and about what they want and need. The only problem is that it can be terribly difficult to get them to fill them out. For better results on your surveys, try putting them on your thank you page. Again, it’s easier to get people to take action on one thing once they’ve already take action on something else. Plus, if you offer them a small gift or bonus for participating, that’s another useful push to get them to fill out the survey.

So what do you think? What do you have on your thank you pages?