Choose the right galleries

Visit local galleries in your area and find ones that appears to be a good fit for your handcrafted jewelry. Don't approach the big name galleries initially. You're more likely to get a positive response if you focus on smaller, lesser known establishments. One way to determine how well your jewelry will fit into specific galleries is to visit their website and look at the jewelry they have listed. Is your jewelry of similar style and quality? If so, add them to your list to contact.

Prepare your jewelry

Before attempting to sell handcrafted jewelry in a gallery setting, be sure you can produce sufficient quantities to meet the demand. Don't take on more commitment than you're prepared to handle. Approach one gallery at a time and determine what volume will sell through that outlet before approaching another one. Always have price lists and hangtags on each item when you meet with a gallery owner. It's up to you to determine the wholesale price for your jewelry. Don't ask the owner what she thinks she can get as this shows a lack of professionalism. Carry your jewelry in a professional carrying case and have attractive display boards for showing your jewelry.

Always make an appointment

Although you'll want to visit galleries to see how your jewelry might fit in, don't approach the owner for an appointment the first time through. Get a business card and call to set up an appointment when you return home. Once you get the appointment, always be prompt and professional. Be ready to answer questions about turn around time and payment procedures. Generally, a gallery will buy at fifty percent off the retail price and pre-pay for the first order. If they ask for thirty day terms, get credit references before agreeing. This is for your protection. Only agree to selling on consignment if the gallery is unwilling to take your items any other way. If you agree to a consignment arrangement, always create a consignment agreement. You can find help in creating this on the internet.

If the owner says yes

If the owner agrees to sell your handcrafted jewelry, be prompt in delivering your work. Check back frequently to see if they need additional items and to update them on your new work. Don't market your jewelry to other galleries in the immediate area. Most galleries want some degree of exclusivity when they sell handcrafted jewelry. Never sell your jewelry for lower prices at craft shows than the gallery is charging. Most galleries won't tolerate being undersold by the designer.

Once you've established a relationship with the gallery owner, she can be a helpful resource if you intend to sell handcrafted jewelry to a higher end market. Foster and nurture this relationship and you may be surprised at how your handmade jewelry profits grow.

Co-Op marketing is an agreement forged in person or sometimes by a chance encounter, to join forces and cross-promote each other's service, product or website. This can be accomplished in many different ways, but the most common approach on the Internet is when each partner in the agreement creates a hyperlink linking back to one another's website.

Another type of Co-Op marketing can take place if one or both of the marketing partners are bloggers or Internet content writers, as each of the partners could write about the other's website, blog, or service and establish a link pointing to their partner's website.

A type of Co-Op marketing that I personally enjoy doing, is to write about blogs, websites or businesses that are not in partnership with me, because in some cases I receive acknowledgment from those websites or businesses that I wrote about and you never know where this could lead in the future.

Depending on the type of Co-Op marketing that you are interested in partnering for, the costs could be totally for free or it could cost you, especially if your Co-Op marketing agreement includes joint paid advertising. Make sure that you understand the type of marketing that you are interested in getting involved with and read everything if any contracts are needed to be signed. Contracts really need to be looked over by a qualified attorney.

Co-Op marketing on the Internet could include joining a link-exchange that may include hundreds or thousands of other websites and webmasters whom have agreed to team up and cross-promote each other's websites and blogs from each individual's websites and blogs. Usually, link-exchange programs are not difficult to find using your favorite search engine and are equally easy to join. Some link-exchange programs do require a pre-determined number of visitors that each website currently receives or that the new websites must be completely finished, before the website is approved to join the network.

Organizing a Co-Op marketing partnership can be very easy to setup or very difficult depending on the size and scope of your marketing plan. Just be careful and avoid being rushed into an agreement, before you have had plenty of time to consider any offers.

When planning on building a network think about the places and the people that you already know and use what and whom you know to build the foundation of your new network.

Consider the places that you visit; the nightclub, the bowling alley, your college or the office, just for example, and use these opportunities to make new friends and invite them into your network. Don't forget to get their full name, email address and/or phone number, because this information will become part of the value of your network of friends and potential business partnerships.

Now, consider you friends and family and family friends, because these are people that you know on a personal basis and you know who they really are and what they really do. If you were building a network to exchange information about skilled trades such as; plumbing, painting, roofing, etc., then if you already know the person that you are dealing with, then you would automatically know where this person would fit in best in your network. The same would be true no matter what kind of network that you start.

Some people believe that any good network really needs is the person's name and a way to reach them and that pretty much sums it up. Whether your communication method is dialing a cell phone or sending an email or airmailing a message on the leg of a carrier pigeon, the object is still the same - make contact at all costs.

On the Internet, there are hundreds of ways to meet new people and make new friends, but when setting up a network you really need to fill it with people that will bring the results that you are expecting. You can always build more than one network with each focused on your other interests.

To setup a network using the Internet, all one really needs is a working email address (it is suggested that you use a secondary email address and avoid using your primary email address for networking purposes). Once you have established an email address to use for your network, then you need to join a forum, social network “MySpace or Facebook” (for example) or start playing live action games, where there are other players that you can communicate with while playing the games together.

You need to locate places where you will be able to meet the type of people that your network needs to have a solid foundation and yield the results that meets or exceeds you're marketing expectation.

Networking is all about people and any successful Networker will tell you the importance to be where people are and if you are not where people are, then move yourself to the places that they are at. Do not expect people to seek you out to join your network. It's your network, so you should be the “Seeker”.

If you ever meet a person that you feel uncomfortable being around and no matter how important you think the person, just pass on adding those types of people to any network that you might start. It is always more important that you put your safety first and move yourself to a safe well-lit place. If the person is on the Internet, just change your email or avoid the places where this person knows who you are.

If you are employed and you are able to invite your fellow co-workers to visit your website and read your writings is an excellent marketing opportunity. However, always make sure that you have permission from your employer, before you ever start marketing your writing at your workplace. Some employers do not allow these kinds of self-promotions, but some still do and may allow you to do so on your own time, just as long as you have asked your boss in advance.

School and college students have an excellent opportunity to reach hundreds or thousands of potential readers by networking to the student masses that are attending their school(s). Passing out business card or posting flyers on public bulletin boards are great places to start, but attracting the attention of the student newspaper staff would be an even better place to get your name out there in a very big way. If handled correctly, then you might be news enough to get interviewed by the school's newspaper and have your website address published, so that the entire student body will have easy access to the information.

Church is another great place to meet great people and kindly introduce yourself and your writings to those people that you fellowship with each week. Do not go to church only to promote your work to other Christians, but wait until the service is over and maybe in the parking lot or out in the hallway you can pass the business card that you should always have on hand to pass out.

Pass out your business cards and/or flyers when visiting your bank or credit union, as these places will usually have a bulletin board, so bank or credit union members can post a flyer or business card for other member's to see. When visiting a local coffee café or eatery, then another good idea would be to leave a couple of your business cards laying near any computer bays or pay phones. Leaving a couple of business cards on the table or counter that you were sitting at is an excellent way to introduce yourself to strangers and you never know, some of them may actually become curious enough to visit your website and stay long enough to read your writings.

Word of mouth is the best form of advertising and these ideas are where it usually starts.

Do you write about automobiles or extreme sports, if so, then you should be targeting an audience that would be interested in reading what you have written about these subjects. Joining a few forums that are focused on these subjects is one of the best and most direct ways to meet other people who are likely to read your articles or blogs about the subjects that you are writing about.

Besides, joining forums you can setup a MySpace or Facebook account and begin using these services as an extension of your marketing networks. These social networks already have millions of members who gather into their own specialized groups that are commonly found within these communities and joining these groups will help you meet those people that are part of the audience that your articles are targeting.

Another fantastic way to attract a growing audience is to write a few articles for a free article website, because what you do not earn in income - you will gain in exposure. The reason is because these free article and free content services cater to e-zines, magazines, bloggers and others that may have hundreds or millions of readers, who have subscribed to receive these publications. This marketing tactic gives a writer much needed exposure to different audiences that they may not have ever reached otherwise.

To become a successful Internet content writer, one must take the time to know who they are writing there articles, stories, and poetry for, and have some marketing plans in place to reach their targeted audience quickly. The best way to know your audience is to interact with a variety of online communities and participate in activities where the members share like-minded interests.

While it is true, that normally a writer's audience will choose them and not the other way around. It is true that the writer can and should also take steps to choose or at the very least know what type of writer that they are and what type of audience will be most likely attracted to their writings. Either way, it does take time to earn the respect and loyalty of your audience and as a writer it is so important to have patience along the way to success.

What does a writer have in common with a multinational cookware manufacturer? Both have created products to sell to the public. The cookware manufacturer normally charges upfront for their cooking products and the writer's products are generally free to read on the Internet, but the writer does get paid from advertisers who have purchased ads from third-party advertising brokers. The readers are not required to pay to read their favorite authors' writings.

When writing an article title to publisher on the Internet, it really should be written using descriptive words and phrases. If you have written a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) article about building birdhouses, then which of these article titles would draw your attention to it:

“How to Build a Birdhouse”

”Build Your Own Birdhouse In Six Easy Steps”

”Build an Awesome 5-Star Birdhouse Using Only Toothpicks”

Of course, we are assuming that the building instructions require toothpicks in the construction process.

The first article title is a very basic example that is written using the direct approach, but employs no high value descriptive keywords in the title.

The second article title is a bit more descriptive than the first article title, but does not pack a powerful enough punch to make the first impression memorable. The best keyword used in this title is the word “Easy”. This word alone would attract more readers to stop to read more. People just have a thing for learning easy things.

The third article title is very attractive as it uses three good keywords that if used together can create powerful results. The first keyword in the title is “Awesome”, the second keyword is “5-Star”, and the third and final keyword is “Toothpicks” and it is the last keyword that creates the curiosity factor, which is a powerful marketing tool within itself.

The “Awesome” keyword, tells the audience that this article is better than the rest. Using the “5-Star” descriptive word combination, informs your audience that the birdhouse are high quality and the third keyword “Toothpicks”, generates curiosity, because toothpicks are usually not a traditional constructing material.

Writing a winning article title for the Internet publishing market is kind of kin to how newspapers write their frontpage news headlines that are commonly larger than life. Boring titles will not take a writer anywhere, but add a splash of personality and showmanship, and then you are writing like a true Internet copyrighter.

Winning article titles do need a little seasoning and planning to write successfully, but adding too much extra flavoring to the descriptive word flow could cause a mess to happen. Avoid making too powerful of statements when writing your article titles and do not write an article title that does not have anything to do with the article that you have written. This is considered being deceptive and you as a writer will lose your credibility and your online reputation will be damaged in the process.

Before you can put yourself on the web, you need two things: a domain name and a hosting package. Both are easy to get, very affordable, and available today. Once you've got your domain and hosting package, you'll need to wait about two days for the domain to travel through various registration channels before you can publish to it, but that's the only delay.

A domain name is your URL, which is the www.yourbusiness.com address people will surf to once you've published your site. There are literally millions of URLs already out there, and there is a chance the one you wanted is already taken. It's best, then, to have a few backup names in mind when you go to register yours.

A hosting package is the space on someone's server that will hold your website. Servers are big super computers that maintain your website and enable traffic to find it. Hosting packages can vary from very basic services to extraordinary bells and whistles. Which package you choose should be driven by the needs for your website. If, as we're doing in this exercise, you are simply creating a “web presence” site, you only need very basic services.

Registering your domain is easy and cheap. If you Google “cheap domain registration”, you'll see that you can get a domain registered for as little as $2.85 per year…that's cheap. Make sure you read all of the details of the transaction before you give out your credit card number: sometimes you'll find a dirt cheap domain registration tied to a rather expensive hosting package.

Once you've registered your domain, go get your hosting package. The best combination of price and service I've found so far has been at GoDaddy.com. I paid just $3.89 per month for a year's worth of full service hosting from Go Daddy. Their tech support is excellent, and they make it easy to get started.

Download the Software

I Googled “Free web design software”, and found the site freeserifsoftware.com. There you can download their WebPage Plus SE software for free. When you install it, the software requires you to register it, which is also for free. You are quickly emailed an unlocking key, and the software becomes operational.

There are some limitations to the free version, which you can of course overcome by purchasing the full version. You won't need the disabled features in the software in the beginning, so you won't need to purchase it yet. I eventually paid the ridiculously low price of just $39.95 and got the additional features. More on that later.

Open "er Up!

When you first open the program, it asks you to choose from several options: create a site from a template, open an existing file, start from scratch, etc.

Choose Create Site from a Template. Select the template Coffee Shop and click on Open. As soon as you"ve opened it, click on File Save As, and key in the name of your new site. Now the template belongs to you!

The Coffee Shop template is very professional looking, but, unless your web is to be about a coffee shop, doesn't match your needs. That's okay for the moment. Let's look around:

On the right hand side of the template are three vertical boxes, each with a set of tabs across the top. The top and bottom boxes deal with formatting information on the page. The central box, however, deals with the organization of your site. Each of the buttons in that box represents a page in the site. Double click on any of them - you'll see that the button you clicked on now has the “eye” symbol on it, and the page has changed in the main screen. That means you've selected that page in your site.

At the top of the screen is a menu bar. Select View/Master Page. Look at what happens! All of the text and most of the pictures disappear! The Master Page is the backdrop for your site: whatever shows up here will show up in exactly that location on every page in your site.

Right click on the coffee cup picture at the top of the page. You can move it around, you can delete it, you can change it. If you want to put your own picture in there, delete it and then select Insert/Picture …now your picture will show up on every page.

If you have successfully completed these simple tasks, you are ready to start designing your site!

Web Design 101

Me, I'm a writer (that's how come I can use a sentence that simply says “me, I'm a writer”!) It took me a long time to figure out how to put together a website that showed both my written pieces and my interests. Eventually I got around to the idea of focusing the website on my primary interest, Christian drama.

You'll find the process easier if you center your main page on your primary focus. Your secondary projects can go on pages further down inside your site.

Think of your home page as the lobby in your online building. Your lobby tells your visitors what you are about, and guides them to the information they are seeking. The style, the colors and fonts and pictures, tell your customers who you are. Here are some simple design rules:

Use no more than three fonts on your home page. Using more than three fonts is confusing for the reader and makes you appear amateurish.

Break up large areas of text with boxes, pictures, and call outs. You can put large articles on other pages in your website…this is your lobby, remember?

Colored backgrounds are passé. Simple white is your best friend.

Don't use giant pictures. Even in today's high speed world they can take a long time to load, which imposes on your visitor to wait for you. Bad manners in the real world should not be repeated in the digital world!

Here's a secret to help you design your page: take a quick tour around the web, visiting the sites of people in your same business. Then visit the sites of the big guys, like General Motors and McDonald's. They are at the very forefront of corporate web design. You can use the same ideas on your website.

Adding Text

Now, you know what your lobby should look like. You know what you want to say. You're ready to go!

Double click on the Home button in the center box on the right. On the main screen is a little box that says “Coffee Club” on it. Right click on that, and select “Edit Theme Graphic”. Here you can change the words, the font, the font color, and even the background color. Make whatever changes you want, and click OK.

In the box below the graphic button you just modified is a large box filled with Latin characters. I don't speak Latin, but I'm sure this box says something! Right click on this box, and choose “Edit Story”. Here is where you can type in your text.

At the top of this box, you'll see Format on the menu bar. Selecting this allows you to change the fonts and colors of your text. It's rather like Word, and rather easy! When you've typed in your stuff and got it looking like you'd like, click on the little green arrow on the toolbar. Congratulations! You created your first piece of your web site!

To add a new text box, look over there on the left of the screen. In Word we'd call it a text box. In Serif we call it an HTML Frame Tool. Click on the little box with “H” in the upper left corner. Now go over to your page in the center of the screen and click/scroll out the box where you'd like it to go. Right click on your new box, and select “Edit Story” again. Congratulations! You've done it again!

Adding Pictures

Three icons below the HTML Frame Tool button on the left side of the screen is a little tiny photograph. Click on that, and it will bring you a navigation pane to find your picture. Browse for the picture you want, click on Open, and the click/scroll the picture into your site. Things are looking good now!

Moving Elements

You can move your HTML Frames and pictures wherever you'd like. If you can't move something, no matter how many times you click on it, the item is most likely on the Master Page, not the page you're working on. Click on View/Master Page to move that item.

Working with Additional Pages

Now that you've doctored up your home page, it's time to go after those other pages. Double clicking on any of those pages in the center right box will open that page in the central pane. You can edit the crackers out of them, if you'd like. If you right click over the button in the right center box, you'll see that you can delete them, insert or add them, and change their properties.

When you add a page, you get a little fill-in form to set up the page. The important thing about this form is the page name…it shows Page8. Change the name there and then click on OK. You get a page with nothing on it other than the stuff from the Master Page. Talk about your blank canvas!

Page Names, SEO, and You

Pop Quiz: why are you making a web site? Answer: so people can visit you on the web. You want your visitor to type “Your Business” into Google and come up with www.yourbusiness.com . Google uses a variety of tools to find your site, but chief among them is the name of the actual files in your site.

If you right click on the About Us page button in the center right panel, and then click on Page Properties, you'll see that the page name is About Us, but the actual file name is About.html. If you added a page, right click on the page properties for that page. The file name is Page8.html! There's an option to change it right there, and you want to make the file name match the page name.

The only exception to matching the page name and file name is on your home page. That file has to be called index.html for your hosting package to find it. It's critically important that you DON'T mess with the file name of your home page.

As long as were on the Page Properties box (if you're not, right click over one of the page names and go down to Page Properties and click on that), you'll see a series of tabs across the top of the box. Click on the Search tab. Here you'll find a blank box waiting for you to key something in. What goes in this box are the things your visitor is going to type in to find your site. If you make widgets, or write about widgets, you'll want to put the word “widgets” in the box. If your site is about dogs, you would put the words dogs, canines, puppies… as many dog-related search words as you can think of…into this box. When somebody types in canine puppies, you want the Google search engine to find those words on your page, so that your page comes up!

Hyperlinks

You can link the pages of your site together through the navigation bar on the Master Page. Go there, and right click the Navigation Bar (the one that lists each of your page names about ¼ of the way down the page). Here you can change how the Navigation Bar looks, and how it looks at your pages. Normally, the Navigation Bar should show the “Child” pages underneath your home page.

You can also link to your pages, to items like PDF or video files, even to outside web pages, using Hyperlinks.

Create an HTML Frame Tool and place it on your page. You can type anything you like in the Edit Story part…let's call it Hyperlink Test. Once you've placed it, right click on it and then click on Hyperlink. A plethora of options pop up, but look at the various boxes…it's really easy!

The easiest way to link to an online page is to open your browser and go to that page. At the top of the browser you'll see the actual address you're visiting. Highlight that and copy it to the Windows clipboard. In Serif, under Hyperlinks, select “An Internet Page”, and then paste the address into the “URL Address” beneath the Hyperlink Information title. The HTTP:// in the box will disappear when you paste your address in.

Let's Get Published!

Okay. We've designed our Master Page, fixed up our Home Page, added, deleted, and renamed all of the other pages in our site. We've double checked each page for typos. We've made sure our hyperlinks are correct. We're done with the design phase.

When you signed up for your hosting package, you were given access to a Control Panel for your domain. In your browser, visit that control panel now. You need the IP address of your domain, and you'll find that on your control panel.

With your IP address in hand, back in Serif, click on File/Publish Web, and then select Publish to Web.

You will be asked to identify your FTP account. Click on the Accounts button, and then on Add.

In the Add screen, type in the name of your domain…you don't need to add the www or the .com, just the name at this point. Type in the IP address you got from your control panel - it should be four groups of numbers, each separated by a “.” Key in your username and password (which you carefully documented when you signed up for your hosting package), and then the www.yourbusiness.com domain name of your website in the bottom box and click OK.

Select the Publish All Pages checkbox, and then click on OK. Congratulations! Assuming you keyed in your IP address, your username, and your password correctly, you've just published yourself on the web.

Next Steps

Next you have to get to work on Search Engine Optimization…SEO is critical to driving traffic to your site. Open Google in your browser, and then click on Business Tools. Click on Webmaster Tools, and you'll see a really nice suite of tools, all free, designed to help you improve your SEO.

You may, at some point, decide to “monetize” your website by adding advertising to it. It's very easy to do. Visit Google's AdSense to get started. Once you get the hang of it, take a look at www.cj.com, the web site for Commission Junction. There are tons of opportunities to put ads on your site.

Placing ads on your site, however, requires that you have access to the HTML coding your site. That HTML coding is available on the in purchased version of Serif. At less than $40, it's a no-brainer.

Good luck to you in your new venture. Once you've published your site, you'll want to change it. The first publishing takes a few minutes…updates only take seconds.

Pat yourself on the back and order another latte: you created your presence on the web for less than $100, in just an afternoon! By using just a few simple tools, by shopping for inexpensive domain and hosting tools, and the free Serif software, you've established your business on the Internet!

If you're to be successful selling handmade your handmade jewelry online, a web page is important, but it's not always enough. You need a means of driving traffic to your jewelry designs to show people what you have to offer. Although some jewelry designers have used Ebay to generate a regular list of customers they can refer to their website, selling on Ebay often necessitates accepting a less than satisfactory price for your designs due to the bargain mentality many Ebay shoppers exhibit. If you've worked long and hard on a jewelry design, you don't want to give it away. You need to attract the attention of motivated, knowledgeable buyers who understand the value of a handcrafted piece of jewelry.

A better option for selling handmade jewelry may be to display your designs in an online gallery. An online gallery can provide you with instant traffic for your jewelry designs without the necessity of keyword optimizing your site and waiting for it to be indexed by the search engines, if it ever happens. Online galleries draw a large universe of motivated shoppers who are visiting the gallery to buy jewelry and other crafts. They understand that handmade items cost more and are less likely to have a bargain mindset.

An online craft gallery also makes it easy to sell handmade jewelry. The majority of these sites handle the payment processing for you and give you easy to use templates to use for your online presentation. You can concentrate more on designing jewelry and less on marketing a website. Longer term, as you build up more customers, a website will become more important as customers will want to come directly to your website to see your full selection. A website also offers you the flexibility of offering promotions such as contests and newsletters. Plus, you can offer custom jewelry designs through your website.

Used together as part of a well thought out marketing plan for selling handmade jewelry, a website and an online gallery can compliment one another and help you develop a market for your jewelry designs more quickly and efficiently. You may want to consider whether an online gallery is the best choice for you and your jewelry business.

Imagine that you walked into an office reception area that included bare walls, a plain desk and seat where you could sit and wait. Perhaps there is another office next door. This office reception has awards on the wall, nicer furniture and small table containing business and news magazines. The second office entry way instills much higher confidence.

It is entirely possible that the more plain and unimpressive office belongs to a well-managed company, but their physical surroundings do not create that impression with you. This immediate office wait experience is a marketing opportunity.

How do you want your clients to perceive you? You need to create the desired impression with your office. The culture of your business needs to be expressed in your physical office surroundings. You want to advertise your vision, your commitment, and your history of satisfied clients.

If you have industry recognitions or have won awards, put them on the wall. If you have advanced degrees or certifications, have them displayed as well. Most importantly, if you've received thank cards or letters of appreciation from clients, proudly hang those on your reception area walls.

Remember, your office reception area can be a powerful marketing tool.

Most country clubs attract a number of women who come to play tennis, golf, and eat lunch. They also come to talk, socialize, and potentially to shop if the situation arises. Why not sponsor a trunk show of your handcrafted jewelry in the lobby of one of the local country clubs in your area?

Since many of these clubs are private, it helps if you're either a member or know someone who's a member they may be able to help promote you and your handcrafted jewelry to the country club staff. This isn't always necessary. Many of these clubs would consider what you offer a valuable service, particularly if you're donating a portion of the proceeds to their club. To maximize sales, it will be important to choose a high traffic area so you would catch the attention of the women as they head into the dining area of the club.

How should you approach these local country clubs to get permission to sell your handcrafted jewelry? To start, call and ask to speak with the events coordinator at several local clubs in your area. Let the events person know that you're a jewelry designer and would like to offer their club members an opportunity to purchase your unique handcrafted jewelry. If you know someone who belongs to the club, mention their name as a referral. This can often get you in the door. Then casually ask to set up an appointment with the events coordinator to show your jewelry.

When you meet with the events coordinator, you'll want to let her know the benefits a handcrafted jewelry trunk show would offer their members. These might include the opportunity to buy exclusive handmade jewelry by an artisan and the time saving aspect of having the jewelry brought to them so they can shop at their leisure without leaving the club. You could also work out an arrangement whereby you either lease the space for your trunk show or offer a portion of your profits to the club.

Trunk shows at local country clubs would be particularly lucrative around the holiday season. Why not contact your local country clubs and see if you can schedule an appointment to show you handcrafted jewelry?