If you’ve started your art or craft blog on a blogging service and you’re switching either to another service or you’re switching your blog to your own website…don’t erase your old blog!

If it’s possible to keep your old blog active, consider keeping it available after you’ve switched over to your new service. Why? Because if you’ve had your old blog for any length of time, it’s likely that your blog posts are already indexed in search engines. Plus, it’s also possible that someone has either bookmarked or linked to your blog posts. If you delete your blog…all of those links and search engine results will just go poof, and visitors to the old blog won’t know where to find you…which is something you don’t want.

Instead, write a note on your old blog that redirects people to your new blog…so that way when people stumble onto your old posts, they can find your new posts. An added bonus is that your old blog counts as nice external link to your new blog, which can help you in search engine results.

Fine art and craft company The Guild has launched an art related social network called “The Artful Community”. It’s a place where artists and collectors can discuss topics like interior design, entertaining, craft collecting, and gift giving. There also appear to have a section where collectors can ask questions from Guild artists.

I haven’t had time to really explore it very much, but it looks like it will be an great place where art lovers and artists can talk to each other. You can check it out at http://community.guild.com. You’ll have to register before you can take a look, but registration is free, so feel free to check it out.

If you’re in the midst of building a website or you know that you’ll be needing help with building one, you may be thinking about hiring someone to help you out. But do you really need to hire someone? Or is this a job that you can do yourself?

In this week’s newsletter article, I’m including an excerpt from my upcoming ebook, “How to Hire the World’s Greatest Web Designer“, where I discuss the four situations when your really need to consider professional help for your website. To read the article sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here: http://www.craftedweb.com/subscribe.html

If you haven’t started your 2007 taxes for your art business yet, here are a few expenses that you don’t want to forget to include when it comes to your website:

• Domain name fees
• Web hosting fees
• Any online service fees related to your online business (blogging service fees, email services, mailing list service provider fees)
• Website design fees
• Software purchases used in designing or maintaining your website
• Clipart and template purchases used in designing your website
• Merchant and gateway fees
• Internet Service Provider (ISP) fees (if you operate your business in your home, a portion counts as a utilities)
• Computer hardware used in designing your website (scanners, digital cameras, computer systems)
• Online advertising fees (AdWords, banner ads, sponsorships)

Now here’s the usual disclaimer…I’m not a tax expert, so of course you should run this list by your tax preparer or your accountant before you submit your return. This is just a list of expenses that my tax professional suggested that I look out for when preparing my taxes.

One thing that attracts people to your art blog or your craft website is to have something…maybe a feature, a photo, or style that makes people stop and say wow! It doesn’t have to be big, just something different, memorable, and makes you stand out from everyone else.

One example of this is a tutorial series on stranded knitting done by knitter Jen Nashville on her blog 144 Inches of I-Cord. I’ve seen tons of tutorials on websites and blogs, but hers was on the few that made be stop and say “Wow! That’s really cool!”

Instead of the usual series of pictures, she turned her tutorial into an eyecatching comic book image that compelled me to visit her site and see more. How cool would an entire comic book of knitting techniques would be? It would certainly stand out from all the other books on knitting out there.

Superstar marketer Seth Godin calls this something that makes you stand out a “purple cow”. You see tons of black and white or white and brown cows in a field and don’t think to stop…but a purple cow will stop you in your tracks and make you go wow. He even demonstrated this when marketing his book “The Purple Cow” by distributing his first book run in limited edition customized milk cartoons. Seth and his book made the phrase “purple cow” part of the marketing dictionary.

So our job when it comes to promoting our website, our work, and ourselves to find our “purple cow”. As artists we’re already “purple cows” in the eyes of the public, so how to we portray that so people stop and say wow? What is it about your art that makes you different from other artists in the same medium? How does your craft make you different from other artists in general? What can people get from your website that they can’t get from the billions of other pages on the Internet? How will your booth stand out from the sea of white canopies at the big art fair?

How to Find Your Purple Cow:

1. Take a look around and see what’s out there. Don’t be confined to looking for the latest design or hottest style. Look at how people are doing the most ordinary things. A tutorial on a knitting technique isn’t remarkable…but one written like a comic book is.
2. Figure out how you can be different from everyone else. Everyone is different in some way…what’s your one thing that makes you different from everyone else?
3. Don’t be afraid to take a good idea and make it your own. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you need to create something totally original…if you see a great idea that would apply to you, take the parts that would work and make it your own.
4. Don’t confine yourself to the art and craft world. Some of the best ideas come from combining two totally different disciplines.
5. Read Seth Godin’s Purple Cow. As a bonus, you should also subscribe to his blog for a daily stream of stand-out goodness.
6. Read more in general. Some of the most creative people are insatiable readers…and the read on a wide variety of topics.

Thanks to Craftzine for the link to Jen’s blog!