Quick announcement. I’ve just finished a brand new audio download called “10 Steps to Getting More Traffic on Your Website“. This audio is a 10 step, 60+ minute plan on how to boost your traffic. You can listen to 2 minute excerpt here:

If you’re interested in hearing the rest of the audio, you can click here to subscribe my free newsletter. You’ll receive the link to the rest of the audio along with this week’s newsletter article.

Yesterday, I saw the first signs of holiday decorations at my local Sam’s Club. Even though it’s only September, it’s going to sneak up on you just like that. Now’s a great time to prepare for the holiday rush.

The Storque has a great post on how to prepare your Etsy store for the holidays. Some great information even if you don’t have an Etsy store. You can check out the post here.

Newsletter subscribers should also check out the article archive for my article on “Preparing Your Site for the Holidays“. It includes tips on how to create incentives for shoppers who are “early birds” and “last minute procrastinators”. Tips on how to create a great online holiday promotion and tips on how to make your website a great place to do holiday shopping.

If you’re doing a lot of holiday craft shows, you may also want to check out my article on “Using Your Website to Increase Show Sales” while you’re at it. Holiday shows are usually the most profitable time for those on the show circuit, learn how to make your website do double duty and increase your sales.

If you’re not a subscriber yet, just subscribe to the newsletter by filling out the subscription form on the right or by visiting this page.

Well, my very first teleseminar, “How to Build Traffic to Your Art Website…SEO Secrets Revealed” on Tuesday night went really well. Colin and I had a lot of fun and it was nice to be able to talk to some of you guys who visits the blog. I’m planning on doing more in the future, so if you have any ideas about what you want to talk about drop me a comment or an email.

Colin provided a lot of really good information on search engine optimization and how to use it to draw more traffic to your website. If you didn’t make the call, but still want to hear it, I’ve recorded it and I have it available as an MP3 download. You can get the download here. Lots of good stuff…be sure to check it out!

Photo by Leo Reynolds

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

…please remember to size your photos before you send them. You’re not going to make a good impression on a gallery if photos of your work clogs up their email. If you’re going to be sending photos to galleries through email on a regular basis, make sure that the photos you send are email-ready. That means that they should:

• be no more than 72 dpi resolution.
• be no more than 500 to 800 pixels wide.
• have file names that makes each photo easy to identify. If your digital camera or scanner names all of your photos 100039039.jpg, rename each image so that gallery owners can identify them quickly, like rakuvase2008.jpg or silvernecklace.jpg.
• be in the right format. A good format for email is .jpg.

Need more information about digital images? Check out my series on digital images and check out the link roundup on photographing your work.