Craft Business Marketing

When I first set up my blog I was under the impression that all I had to do was talk about what my interests were. I would post a daily journal of my passion and how I would go about picking embellishments and art paper.

To my surprise after 6 months I had not one visitor to my blog, I was puzzled and could not understand after more than 25 posts of content why no one was interested in my journey.

Well of course I started to search on the web for answers and I bought a few ebooks promising to teach me the secrets to google domination but in the end they just wanted to upsell more products for me to read.

Then in my desperation I found some free information about SEO and I was really grateful because then I learned the terminology and how the whole process really works.

After much reading and taking notes I was wondering why webmasters make the whole thing seem like a mystery or only something certain people are privey of knowing about.

That is why I am so glad my mother taught me how to read at such a early age. As a child I received a library card and spent time reading about any subject I wanted to know more about. It has come in handy years later because I really hate it when people try to act like they have the monopoly on a technique or method. Anyway enough of my ranting.

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So in a nutshell what SEO is for you is a method used to get your blog more visible in the search engines.

How this is done is from keyword phrases. Your job is to use those long-tail, exact match or broad match phrases in your content. Some argue that you have to include meta tags, avoid duplicate content in your categories section and add a sitemap.

Although those things are helpful what you really want to do is make sure that your blog posts are relevant to what is being searched for online. Every market has a group of people who are hungry for information about something.

Since my market is arts and crafts I am in the Scrapbooking niche and people interested in scrapbooking supplies or scrapbooking material will find my blog if I use those words.

It is important to note that related keyword phrases are just as valuable. For instance another word for scrapbook would be paper art, cardmaking, photo collage, or craft making projects. You get the idea you are not stuck only using certain phrases. Another thing is that not only can you do on-page SEO for your blog you can also add video's and pictures.

The way people connect and communicate on the web is changing and that is why you need to become more social on social media sites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. Google likes it when you add a link to your blog on these social platforms. Create a profile and add value to the discussion so others can get to know you better.

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It is alot to learn all at once and if you have to, I recommend getting help.

Find someone who is successful in the industry you want to be in and ask them to show you how to do it. You will save yourself much headaches and lost time, if you take instruction from an experienced professional. After I read alot of books and information it only got me so far and then I invested in some search training and it really has benefited me.

Never feel ashamed to ask for help. We all do not know as much as we like and it is a learning curve. Be open to new things and then take it and put your own spin on it. Nothing is carved in stone and once your learn the fundamentals you still want to make the process your own .

Learn about latent semantic indexing, make use of social situations, become part of joint ventures and keep learning how to drive traffic to your blog. After awhile it will become second nature to you and old hat. LOL

I used to get anxiety over the whole thing and now I realize I was just taking myself waay to seriously. Now I just be myself, through in a few keyword phrases and call it a day. You can do the same thing and make your blog a success, ranking high in the serps and experiencing daily traffic and sales.

Marketing is a skill that has to be learned and it is not something that will come easy. First you will have to understand your target market and know what they want so you can give it to them.

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Having a blog is just the beginning, you will also need to understand how to get traffic and rank in the search engines.

A couple of things I have noticed is that SEO goes through stages. Here is a list of at least 4 parts to getting more visibility for your blog.

1. On Page SEO is when you use your main and related keywords in your title, first paragraph and in your blog posts.

2. Linkbuilding and Backlinks is for long tail and local keywords that you put as anchor text in article submission or bookmarks.

3. Authority Links here you want to find related blogs in your industry and to be a part of blog networks.

4. Natural links is the holy grail of SEO if you can get readers to link to you voluntarily then you will rank higher in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

It is a science to getting visibility online and the more you study and learn about those techniques the better.

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I personally think that using social media can be helpful when your first starting out to let people know who you are and what you do.

It can also allow you to meet other people in your same industry. It just is best to not spend too much time on sites like Facebook or Twitter because it will start to hurt your business productivity.

You will need to have good time management skills when working from home. Your time if valuable so make the most of it, do not waste it on social sites unless it is for building your client base.

Remember to use SEO on social sites and post your blog links for more exposure. My favorite thing to do is to leave comments on blogs that are in the same industry as I am in.

The reason for this is because most of the time the readers of their blog will come and check out mine.As I have mentioned in previous lenses that you want to have a strong call to action when your readers come to your webpage.

The whole point of SEO is to get visibility of your blog to promote and market your services. You still need to have buyers to convert into sales for your products. Remember that you share information with online communities and you sell products on your blog. If you remember those two things you should do really well in your work at home business.

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