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Plum River Marketing Newsletter - January 26, 2005
Establishing an Online Presence (part 2) -
by Brian Appell,
artsEfest.com
In the
last issue we touched on the
topic of why it is important to establish an online presence, whether you
build a presence as a way to market your work, sell to a larger audience, or
to build the professionalism that compliments your existing business.
Now that you have decided what you would like to use your web site for, you
need to decide how to put it online. In this issue, we will discuss a few
of the widely used options out there and provide a brief description of
their services.
What
options are out there?
Online
Craft Fair and Art Festival
This
sometimes can be confused with an online craft mall. Although they are both
similar, many online craft malls only provide their exhibitors with a page
or two to post their products. A major benefit to the online craft fair is
that it brings together a community of artists and crafters for the purpose
of promoting their work. It provides a one stop shopping area for consumers
looking to shop in a festival style atmosphere just as they would if they
were to attend their local craft fair. Another benefit to the online craft
fair is the site owner is advertising for the entire community, as is each
individual exhibitor.
www.artsEfest.com is an example of
an online craft fair and art festival. Here you are provided with the
opportunity to build your own stand-alone e-commerce web site as well as
being listed in the exhibitor directory.
Common research questions
•Can
you get your own domain name?
•Does
the site charge a flat fee per month, a commission, or both?
•Are
you charged each time you make a change?
•Are
you limited to the number of products you can put online?
•Is
there a secure shopping cart feature provided?
•What
is the company’s privacy policy?
•How
do you get paid?
Free Web Sites
There are
several places on the web that offer you a “free” web site. Many times the
cost of this is free, but it comes with some unsightly features that are
often times a turnoff to the web surfers. The main turnoff is that many of
these “free” sites put banner ads on your site as well as pop-up ads. This
is very frustrating to many users. Another drawback is that you are unable
to get your own domain name for your site.
As William T Lasley states, from the about.com Arts / Crafts
Business, “It's
worth noting that many search engines and directories will either not list
or limit listings from these places. There is a multitude of free site hosts
and the maintainers of indexes do not want them to become cluttered with
thousands of "sub-domains". This can severely limit free traffic from
portals like Yahoo.”
Although there are several drawbacks to the “free” sites, the
biggest benefit is that it is Free. There are no costs to building the site,
there is only time. Several small business owners find that they are
successful with the free service and don’t need to go any further.
Common research questions
•Are
there advertisements on my site?
•What
type of advertisements? Banner ads? Pop Ups?
•How
much disk space can I use?
•Can
I have my own domain name?
•How
much is it to upgrade my account so I don’t have ads on my site?
Your own Stand-Alone Web Site
You may decide
that neither of the above completely fit your needs and that you want full
control over the look and feel of your web site. Building your own web site
from scratch would fulfill this need.
If you choose this route, you will need to decide whether you wish to learn
HTML and programming languages or hire an experienced web developer to build
your site. Time and cost come into play when making this decision.
Oftentimes hiring an experienced web developer can cost hundreds if not
thousands of dollars to create and maintain your site and you will also be
at the mercy of when they can fit it into their schedule. Learning HTML on
your own doesn’t cost a lot of money, but it does take more time.
Common research questions
•How
much is the hosting for my site?
•What
is it going to cost to build my site?
In conclusion, there are several options for establishing your online
presence. Decide which one best fits your needs and do a more research on
that particular choice.
Copyright © 2004
by Brian Appell,
artsEfest.com, a
unique festival style atmosphere, where you may purchase or sell your
favorite arts and crafts from the comfort of your home.
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