A common question that I get on the blog is about building traffic to your website. Because let’s face it, a website is useless without visitors.

I don’t quite remember who said this, but the easiest way to get traffic to your site is to figure out where the traffic is, and then to put your website right in front if it.

Basically this means that you set up your website so that when someone goes on Google and searches for handmade letterpress stationary or birthstone jewelry for Mother’s Day, your website will be the one that’s at the top of the list.

I’ve been wanting to do a series on SEO because building traffic is something that anyone who has a website wants to know about. I’ll freely admit that I’m not as knowledgeable about this as a lot of other people. So what’s the solution? I’ll find someone who knows me than me and have them talk about it. And that’s exactly what I’m doing next week!

So, on July 8th at 8 p.m. (EST), I’ll be holding my first ever tele-seminar called, “How to Build Traffic to Your Art Website…SEO Secrets Revealed“. Since this will be my very first crack at doing one of these things, registering for the call is free.

Now there are a limited amount of spaces available for the call, so if you want to participate, you should register fairly soon. You can click here (again, registration is FREE) to register for the call.

Hope to meet you on the phone next Tuesday evening!

Photo by Leo Reynolds

One cool thing about the Internet is that anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection can visit your website no matter where they live. However, this worldwide access can be a bit tricky is especially when it comes to language.

It doesn’t even have to be a matter of people who speak or read and entirely different language. It could just be a matter of visitor’s from the UK that understand “British English” as opposed to “American English”. It’s very likely that you’ll have visitors from the UK, Canada, or Australia and you’ll run into that “translation” problem, like the fact that in the UK purses are “handbags” and backpacks are “rucksacks”.

The Storque has a really interesting article on a couple of things that you need to watch out for when tagging some of your items on Etsy for an international audience. Like why you don’t want to talk about “fanny packs” to your UK audience. A lot of these tips will also “translate” to your website, so check out the article on the Storque:
International Tagging, Yeah Baby!

Note: Actually, this is last week’s article..but due to problems with the blog, I did not put up this post until today…sorry for the delay!

This week’s newsletter article is the third article in a four-part series on, “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“, where I will go through how to choose what kind of content to put in your newsletter. To read the article sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here: http://www.craftedweb.com/subscribe.html If you subscribe now, you can get a free audio download on “Effective Ways to Market Your Website Offline“.

Photo by Ada Community Library

I’ve been doing a series of articles in my newsletter called, “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter” which is about how to develop your own email newsletter and I got this question about blogs and email newsletters from one of my subscribers.

Hi Nicolette,

In yesterday’s newsletter, you listed blog posts as content that you can include in a newsletter. Why would you put your blog posts in your newsletter? Wouldn’t most people have read it already? And why would you have a newsletter if you already have a blog? Aren’t you just making more work for yourself?

Linda-

Now if you are already blogging, you probably thought about whether it’s a good idea to also have an email newsletter as well. This is how I answered Linda’s question.

Hi Linda,

There are a couple good reasons why blog posts can be good content for your newsletter.

1. Subscribers to your newsletter may not necessarily also visit your blog (and vice versa). So this is content that’s new to them and having an example of what’s on your blog may encourage them to visit.

2. Even if your subscribers also read your blog, it doesn’t hurt to remind them of posts that they may have missed. There’s times that I’ve forgotten what I’ve read on a blog hour after I’ve read it (though this just might mean I’m absent minded). Plus you can use the opportunity to expand on a certain blog post in your newsletter or look at it from a different angle. In this way, you’re using your blog post as a jumping off point for content for your newsletter.

Now as for your question about having a newsletter when you already have a blog, it’s important to remember that it’s perfectly okay to have both…there are plenty of people (including me) that do both. Yes, it is more work to have both a blog and newsletter. You’ll need to be able to keep both of them up and to add content on a regular basis, but there are benefits to having both:

1. Not everyone likes reading blogs and not everyone likes reading email newsletters. By having both, you get to appeal to both types of people.

2. The benefit of blogs is that they are a lot more interactive than your typical email newsletter. Plus since you’re always adding new content to your blog, it’s good for getting search engine traffic. On the downside, there’s no way of keeping track of who’s subscribing to your blog unless you’re using a service like Feedburner or Feedblitz. You have no way of directly contacting the people that read your blog about that new piece you posted on your website. Yes, you can write a blog post about it, but there’s no guarantee that they’re going to return to your blog to read it.

On the other hand, the big benefit of an email newsletter is that you have that name and email address, so you can contact that customer directly if you need to. Also, those who subscribe to your newsletter are showing that they value what your saying enough to give you their contact information. Remember that above all else, your goal is to gather the contact info of people that visit your website…and email newsletters do much better than a blog.

3. You can make your blog and your newsletter work together. For example, I use my blog to encourage sign ups to my newsletter. Every time a new article goes out, I post a summary of it on my blog and encourage people to join in order to get the whole article. You can also use your newsletter to encourage more activity on your blog. If you have an article or a news piece in your newsletter which might make a good discussion topic, create a blog post about it and encourage your subscribers to submit their comments to your blog.

So, there’s plenty of reasons why a blog and a newsletter is a smart combination. Of course, if you only have time to do one, then it’s better to pick one thing and get really good with that. It’s better to keep up with one thing than it is to spread yourself too thin.

Sorry this reply was so long…hope it helped some!

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.

If you want to start reading the article series on “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“, you can sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here: http://www.craftedweb.com/subscribe.html If you subscribe now, you can get a free audio download on “Effective Ways to Market Your Website Offline“.

Okay, so it’s been what two or three days since I last wrote about Twitter? Well, I’ve finally finished two mini-projects about Twitter so I won’t have to yap about it on my blog every day.

The first one is that I’ve created a brand new Squidoo lens called “The Artist’s Guide to Twitter” that lists tells you all about what Twitter is, how to get a free account, and how you can use it to connect with other people and promote your website. I’ve also included a growing list of Twitter tools and programs that can help you Twitter better and you can also sign the guestbook and leave your own Twitter name so that people can follow you. You can check it out at http://www.squidoo.com/ArtistTwitterGuide

The second mini project is that I finished doing a video tour of Twitter so you can see what it’s all about, how it works, and what you can do with Twitter. You can watch that by clicking on the video below.

RSS users: Can’t see the video? Click here

So now…I’ll be writing about things other than how great Twitter is…if you want to continue the conversation, follow me at http://twitter.com/nikolena.