If you’re selling crafts online, one of the easiest ways to promote your craft business website is by writing great content. Search engines look for content-rich sites, and readers respond to great content by spending more time on your site, which in turn makes the search engines happy. Professional crafters tend to be more visually oriented people, so you may be tempted to focus on the look of your site. Of course, having a professional looking site that shows off your work to its best advantage is important, but don’t underestimate the value of good content for bringing traffic to your site.

For more free and inexpensive ways to promote your website, please see Tips for Selling Crafts Online.

If you are thinking about selling crafts online, you must have a plan for getting traffic to your site.

The biggest mistake people make when planning to sell crafts online lies in failing to develop a realistic plan to market their craft business website. Too often, people invest huge amounts of time and money in creating a gorgeous site, but fail to determine exactly how they will get customers to visit their site. It really doesn’t matter how creative, artistic and impressive-looking your craft business website is if no one is visiting your site.

Like any facet of business, selling crafts online will require some promotional efforts in order to build success. Luckily, there are several easy and free or inexpensive ways to promote your online craft business.

You can promote your online craft business by:

1. Getting related but non-competing sites to link to your site.
While you may get some direct traffic from these links (commonly called backlinks), the main value of these links lies in their impact on search engines. Getting good rankings at the major search engines are the key to plenty of free traffic on your craft business site. Search engines see backlinks as a “vote” for the quality of your site, so these links help your site to rank higher with the search engines.

2. Submitting articles to popular sites
This strategy is just one way to get backlinks to your site. Website owners are always looking for good content, and many sites accept articles from guest authors. Some sites specialize in providing these types of articles for other website owners to use. Normally the “payment” you receive for allowing another website owner to publish your article is a link back to your site. These links can be very valuable both for the direct traffic they generate and for their ability to help your craft business site to rank higher with search engines.

3. Writing plenty of great content
The more great content you write and post on your site, the more search engines will see your site as an authority on your topic. That results in good rankings with the major search engines.

In order to rank well with search engines, they must not view the articles on your site as duplicate content (i.e. it must not exist on some other website. For that reason, ensure that the content you write on your own site is different from the content you allow others to post in exchange for backlinks.

4. Trying social networking
Social networking sites such as Flickr, Squidoo and Twitter can provide good opportunities for you to keep in touch with your customers, for new customers to find you and to obtain backlinks to your main site.

5. Using good keywords
Include in your meta tags and in the information you include on your site, plenty of keywords that people would normally use if they were searching for a site like yours on one of the major search engines. You don’t have to guess at these keywords; there are actually several good tools, Wordtracker is one, that allow you to find out what keywords people are using in your particular niche.

With the right tools in place, selling crafts online can be a very cost effective strategy for building and promoting your home craft business. With the right tools, it is absolutely possible to build and market a craft business site that gets plenty of free traffic on a daily basis.

It takes commitment to sell your crafts online. If you’re willing to put in the work required to bring traffic to your site, it can be quite rewarding to sell your crafts online.

The biggest mistake people make when they create a website for selling crafts lies in failing to determine a strategy for promoting that site. They create gorgeous sites that are often works of art in and of themselves, but then they fall short on marketing the site. There are over 100 million websites, and that number is growing every day, so your work is not done once you craft business website is designed. Without a strategy to promote the site, an online craft business will not survive.

Luckily, there are great, cost effective resources that can help you to promote your online craft business. In fact, there’s no shortage on information about building an online business. The biggest challenge lies in separating the truth from the hype. I’ve written several articles about selling crafts online. You may also want to check out my favorite resource for building an online business, Site Build It! It’s affordable, it provides you with all of the tools, information and support you need to launch an online business from scratch, and my favorite thing about Site Build It! is the fact that the company is run with absolute utmost integrity.

If you are selling crafts online with your own site, you’ll need to find ways to promote your site so it ranks well at the major search engines. One fairly simple and free (or inexpensive) way to promote your site is through backlinks. A backlink is simply a link to your site from another site. Search engines like them because they see them as a “vote” for your site. That is, they assume that if another site links to your site, it is, in effect, saying ‘this is a good site’.

One simple way to get backlinks is through the Value Exchange program. It’s free to join. You simply enter in keywords that are related to your site, and you will be provided with a list of other websites and their owners who have also joined Value Exchange and are interested in exchanging links. You can also download the free e-book Make Your Links Work (scroll about half-way down the page) for more tips on promoting your site with backlinks.

For more free and inexpensive ways to promote your website, please see Tips for Selling Crafts Online.

There are plenty of good methods for selling crafts. Here are a few tried and true methods and some things to consider about each method.

Selling Crafts Online

If you plan to take your craft business online, you may do so either through a third party site (that is, a site that is not your own, like Etsy or eBay) or through your own site.

Some of the benefits of using a third party site are that it’s usually easy to set up your own store; you won’t need to learn about designing your own site. Also, popular third party sites like eBay or Etsy already have traffic coming to the site, so there are potential customers already on the site.

Keep in mind though, if you sell your crafts online at a third party site, there will be plenty of competition on the site. You will need to work to direct customers to your store; therefore, selling crafts online on a third party site does not eliminate the need to work at bringing traffic to your online craft store. Also, when you sell your crafts on a third party site, you are subject to rules of that site. If rules change, it could have a massive impact on your business.

If you decide to sell your crafts on your own website, you’ll need to learn learn how to set up and market your own site. There are plenty of great tools out there to help you do that; it’s just a matter of sorting through the hype to find the excellent service providers. When you own your own site, you own your own traffic and you control your business. You won’t be dependent on a third party or subject to their rules. Once people get to your site, you won’t be competing with others who are selling similar products. You’ll have full control over what customers see when they visit your site.

Selling Crafts on Consignment

Selling crafts on consignment is usually a matter of being brave, professional and assertive and networking with store owners who have a customer base that is a good fit with your products. When you arrange a consignment agreement, keep in mind, this person will be responsible for promoting and taking care of your items, so you probably won’t want to enter into a consignment agreement with just anyone. Be sure to build a good relationship with the store owner, and clearly define the terms of the consignment arrangement at the beginning of your relationship.

Selling Crafts at Art and Craft Shows

There’s a huge range of venues that would fall under the classification of art or craft show. Everything from small shows at your local high school to massive, big venue shows.

Small community shows can be a good way to get some experience selling at shows without risking a lot in terms of booth fees. You can develop your displays, network with other crafters and discover how your target audience reacts to your products. Often crowds are limited at these shows, and people are frequently looking for bargain items, so you may find it challenging to sell higher end items at small shows.

Larger juried shows are harder to get into. It will be important to create an excellent application package including unique products, a great craft display booth, and great photos that show your products and your booth in their best light. These shows typically draw bigger crowds and it is generally easier to sell higher end items at the better juried shows.

Selling Crafts at Home Parties

Home parties can be a low cost, high reward way to start selling crafts. Aside from your hostess incentive, you won’t have selling fees to deal with, and there will be no competition from other crafters. You may choose to offer a traditional sales party in which you demonstrate and sell your products. You may also consider, depending on the type of craft you make, offering teaching parties where you teach techniques used to make your crafts, charge guests to attend the party, and also sell your items and perhaps supplies to make the craft you taught. Both approaches to craft home parties can be fun and profitable.

There are plenty of ways to turn your hobby into a profitable craft business. As you try different methods for selling crafts, you’ll quickly discover what works best for you, your work preferences and your products. Not all venues are right for all craft businesses, so it’s wise to try a few approaches. With experience you’ll discover exactly who your target market is and how to reach them.

Discover more great places for selling crafts.