The following post was submitted by Laurie from Fine Art Collector Inc as part of this week’s Group Writing Project.
Early in the year I started an online gallery and art directory, where artists can sell their work and promote exhibits at shows, studios, and private galleries. I built the site and shopping cart first, and then started a blog in late May to help promote it.
Here are pieces of advice I’ll take away from the group writing project:
1. I would use the blog as my main page. Great advice, Bill. I wish I’d heard this in January when I started building my site. I would have approached my new business very differently. I may end up making significant changes anyway.
2. Read Problogger sooner. Leon, you’re not sucking up. I agree. My friend Jason, who has done the bulk of the programming on my site, recommended Problogger to me a few months ago, and I find that it’s one of the few blogs that I try to read every day. I keep Jason pretty busy, too, so don’t give him a hard time about his site not being quite ready.
3. Learn about the benefits of social networking sooner. I agree with Darren. Stumble Upon started sending me traffic a few weeks ago. Now, I plan to look for more social networks and monitor the tags, topics, and chatter. I spent a lot of time planning and designing my site for search engine optimization, but I wish now that I had done more research in the social networks before I finished my plans.
By the way, if you are an artist or if you know of an artist who would like to sell artwork online, please take a look at my gallery. I’ll give a free, enhanced package to the first 10 qualified artists who contact me. Send inquiries to: [email protected]. Include a couple of samples and a couple of paragraphs about yourself. This offer expires July 31, 2006.