Recently I’ve been putting extra effort into promoting my T-Shirts and Prints on RedBubble. To be honest, I haven’t seen any major results yet, but its early days still so fingers crossed.
But there are a number of things I have noticed about certain popular works on the site and a few things I know from my other career that I am hoping will help out.
So I thought I would share here the different things I have done. With the view of a follow up post in a month or two about what works and what does not.
First up, I made my own website
This is nothing special, mine is in fact just a WordPress blog, but I host it myself (my host is HostMonster in case you are interested). If you don’t want to, or don’t have the skillset to host your own site, you can get a free blog on WordPress.com, obviously though this is slightly more restricted than one you control yourself.
Why a blog? Simple really, it is a pre-made CMS (content management system) based website, once it is setup and running you have everything you need right there, plus there are lots of different blogs to try out, most are media rich (so posting RedBubble work is easy) and the majority are also free.
Another good aspect of blogs is that there are number of websites dedicated to searching and aggregating blog content, so some of the promotion is done for you, and as a related point, blogs have integrated RSS or Atom feeds and usually a tagging system, another thing you won’t have to create yourself but will come in very handy.
Finally on the website front, if you don’t want a blog, you can always use your BubbleSite. Not as flexible but at least it is a web presence. Even if you don’t use your BubbleSite as your main promotional tool, it is still a good idea to keep all its content up to date.
Once you have your website running next you need to get it connected. This basically means linking to it in every possible way and place as possible. Create links on your profile page, each artwork page and any other place you can think of. Add links to your site in email signatures, forum posts and on your instant messenger client status.
The final step in this process is to measure your performance, self promotion is no good unless you can see if it is working. Now my way here is to Google everything to the max, but there are other ways if you don’t like Google.
I am using Google Analytics to track my website traffic, Google Webmaster Tools to submit and track content in search engines, Google Adsense to monetise my site and Feedburner to enhance my sites RSS feed.
So I will monitor these services and see if my traffic improves and in what ways I can optimise my site and profile.
By the way, if anyone is trying to setup a site and having problems, or wants to ask a question, bubblemail me, I might be able to help
In the meantime, since this is shameless self-promotion, here are all my artworks so far:
Nuh Sarche
great tips! and thank you for sharing….!
I also have made a free website with the help of tumblr … this is a great place, because other people are also sharing my pictures (directly with links to the bubblesite) and make them more known!
and I have linked the pictures at my website directly with my bubblesite, so it looks professional and is completely free!
and thank you for the links to GoogleAnalytics, but I have a question.. is it really free? because there is something in the TermsOfUse, that they are taking money for this service – something about 5 million views and Adsense???
thank you again…. :)
greetings
Nuh
BlackEel
Hi Nuh, thanks for the link, that site looks like a good place to get stuff up, i’ll give it ago as well. As far as I know analytics is totally free, i’ve never paid anything for a google service.
Adsense allows you to put google ads on your site, when people clink them you make money, 5 million views might work out to a tidy sum of money, but paid to you, not the other way around. But I guess I will have a read through the terms anyway, although the terms are different is you are in the US, I am UK
Nuh Sarche
I’m in Germany… and about Tumblr I wanted to add, that it’s really a great place!!! I get a lot of visitors for my site and a lot of people are putting my pictures at their own sites (when they like them), together with the link to the bubblesite…. sometimes it spreads as fast as a bushfire….! ;)
and I made the website design an my own, you can design it as you like, when you know a little CSS…. I made already a lot of themes, which are also spreaded, with the link to my website…….. it’s really a great promotion place!! but I would like to make the Google Analytics too.. when it is really for free…. :)
thank you and I reccomend you really tumblr!!! I’m very happy with the site! it’s cool!!!
BlackEel
Yeah, I like it! Easy to setup and share stuff, plus there is an RSS so you can add that to feedburner too. Here is mine, I am adding all my stuff right now ""BlackEel Designs Tumblr":http://blackeel.tumblr.com/
Nuh Sarche
and another one +… :)
when you drag the Share on tumblr to your bookmarks bar, you just need to go to your bubblesite, click at “SHARE ON TUMLR” in your bookmarks bar, choose the picture you want to post and finished!!!
easy, fast and cool!!!!!!!!
Nuh Sarche
and here are great designed themes to change!!! just the choosing is difficult………. ;)