Advertising is one of the most – if not THE most - important details of running a business. Advertising locally is helpful but if you have an internet business you need to let the whole world know where you are. This isn’t always easy since the world wide web of crafting is inundated with advertising.

We all exchange links. That’s one of the fastest ways to start advertising and it’s free. But it isn’t the most reliable way to attract attention to your business. People first have to visit the links pages and if your business isn’t listed on the first page or two of someone’s links pages, chances are slim that you’ll be seen. Second of all, most people you swap links with will not type your URL into the description unless you remember to include it in your description that you supply them with. This is the only way web crawlers, spiders and bots will recognize your website and include it in search engines – which being found in the search engines is our main objective. They do not recognize hyperlinks. For the record, include your website link in the description when you submit your website to us for link exchange consideration at the following link: http://www.ecraftclasses.com/submit_link_form.php.  

Keep in mind that many people will not even receive your request for a link exchange because so many email providers view this as SPAM and block those requests from the server side so that the individuals never see those emails. It is best to use submission forms whenever possible to request link exchanges. E Craft Classes will receive your request if you use our link submission form. Only craft sites will be considered for link exchange.

Check the links on your links pages periodically. You don’t want to advertise for a business who is no longer on the internet and you don’t want to advertise for those who don’t have reciprocal links back to your website. Checking this once every month or two will assure that you are getting the advertising you’ve been promised and you aren’t sending visitors to dead links.

Moving on, directories and top sites are other ways people try to gain exposure for their craft businesses. However, after months of research, the results aren’t worth my time submitting the website to these places. Many will show the clicks in and out which I’m not very impressed with – for myself or for others. Still I want every customer I can get so we have paid a large firm a small annual fee to submit the ECC website to hundreds of thousands of search engines and directories for us every quarter. If you go this route, select your firm carefully so you won’t be scammed.

We have also paid a firm to add bookmarks to websites with high page rankings such as Digg, Twitter, etc. It’s too soon to tell if that has been effective. These are lifetime bookmarks so in the long run it should pay off.

Paid advertising is likely going to be the most effective. You must choose your advertising source wisely however. When advertising on websites, select sites that don’t have hundreds of ads all over the place. Your ad may never be clicked on if there are too many other choices. Often visitors will simply leave a website with an overwhelming amount of advertising.  This then becomes a waste of money. Select websites like E Craft Classes that limit the advertising so that your ad will stand out to visitors.

Newsletters are typically inexpensive and are likely to have less advertising in them which will grab the attention of the readers. This is the type of attention you’re looking for. Many of the online craft magazines also offer affordable advertising and limit the advertising space. Our ads in Creative Times Magazine generate a lot of visitors for us.

As you can see, there are many different ways to advertise your business. Some are slow, some cost more, and some are a gamble. A nice variety of each will bring visitors to your website as long as you do it effectively.