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EXAMPLES OF OUR ARTWORK-
All Handcut using a Jewelers saw
US Sacagawea Gold Dollars
pictured
  
  
You could be selling these!!
Nothing to buy, no inventory, no startup costs! Just list these on
your site, and sell. We ship to your customers, and assume all costs. Click
here for more information.
Effectively promote
your website!
As a service to our visitors, we decided
to create a page with helpful ideas, and links to bring more traffic
with little or no expense. This is a free listing. We have included only
resources we have found useful to us.
Bookmark this page now!
We will always have the best links
to FREE search engines, and other useful site promotion information.
Search
Engines
The world is changing
with respect to search engines. Most are now charging to list your site,
or give your site a priority listing. You could pay for a top listing.
However, it is expensive, and not cost effective for small or average sized
sites. There are thousands (yes I said thousands) of search engines out
there. Spend some time seeking them, and listing your site. Get on as many
engines as you can. Devote a couple days to this, and it will surely pay
off.
Try
some of these to submit to multiple engines or sites FREE.
Submit
Plus- Multiple engines
Search Links-Various
links to engines
Add Me- Submit
to 18 engines free, all at once
Promotion
World- Submit to 30 engines
101 Search Engines-101
engines, Submit one at a time
Mega
Search Engine Submitter- Submit to 55 engines,
Recommended!
iNeedHits- Submit
to 28 engines free.
Search
Engines Worldwide - Search Engines all over the world. The largest
collection we have seen.
Try
some of these single engines, and major indexes FREE.
Most
of these must be submitted to individually, as they are not easilly indexed
in groups.
Traffic Zap
Joe Ant
GoGuides
Open Directory Project
Lycos
National Directory
Search Hippo
Hotrate.com
InfoSpace
Link Master
OneMission
Open Here
Phatoz
Qango
Search King
Surf Gopher
IQSeek
Where2Go
Gimpsy
Here are some more search engines. About 70 in all. Check the drop down
list to go to the sites and submit your link.
Free JavaScripts provided
by The
JavaScript Source
Submit,
and re-submit!
It's a good idea to re-visit this site monthly and submit again. Many
search engines, and link lists drop your submission over time.
Have
a site you want to promote? Check out this site. It offers tutorials, and
automated submitting to over 100 sites. The site is free, but he does request
you pay if you like his service. You can also be paid for referring people.
Get
on a Safe List
Safe Lists are basically
targeted mass e-mails, sent only those who have agreed to recieve them.
They are not "Spam", as the user has opted to recieve them. For example,
this site uses one called "safelister.com". For this list, you signup free,
and are given an allotted amount of e-mail credits. Our membership started
at 50,000. This means, upon signup, We could send our e-mail ad to 50,000
other members of the safelist just for joining. You can earn additional
credits through various ways. It's a great FREE way to send an ad. The
possible downside is, you will recieve alot of return e-mails from others
on the list. It's best to use a unique e-mail just for the list. Below
are a few safelists. Most you can signup free. A few however have modest
signup prices.
KILLER
SAFELIST- This is a paid safelist, however we
recommend it. It's like $10 to join. Our site, recieves $5 for each one
we refer.
safelister.com-
50,000
e-mail credits on signup. Various ways for more credits.
BizWebLinks- Free
e-mail list members once a week.
isuperlist-
Free safelist with once a week posts.
Home
Town Heroes- Free or paid listings
Try
ClickThru
This is a decent
program. You get paid to suff the internet. You can then use the credits
to increase traffic to your site. The main thing I like about this one..
is each advertiser page must be viewed for 30 seconds before you a payout.
This means. the visitors will actually get a chance to see your site (With
your pictures).
ClickThru
Submit
to FFA Sites
FFA (Free For ALL)
sites can be a good way to get your web address on alot of pages, and quickly.
If you use the links below, your site link can be listed in "thousands"
of pages, in a matter of minutes. There are advantages and disadvantages
to FFA sites. You do get your link out there.. and very quick. However,
the links rotate off. As they get more links, your site will eventually
fall off. Usually, you will get a confirmation e-mail when this happens.
The other major problem is "confirmation e-mails". Expect ALOT of these.
Never use your real address to submit to an FFA site. Create an alternate
e-mail for the return replys.
You
may want to consider getting your own FFA page. The basic membership is
usually FREE, and requires almost nothing to set up. The advantage to this
is, the page will send an automatic e-mail with your ad to everyone that
posts to your page. Since FFA pages are usually part of a hugh network..
your page will get get hundreds of posts a day. That means, your ad is
sent automatically to those who posted. To us, owning an FFA page is far
more beneficial then posting. However, you may want to do both. If you
want an FFA site click
here or visit the link below.
Link
Station- Submit your link free to 8000 free link pages FFA sites.
SmallBizFFA
- Submit your site to over 100,000 FFA Pages Free!
Click Here to post to my FFA site,
or to get your own FREE FFA page!
"HAND
CUT COINS" FFA PAGE
eZines
and Classifieds
EZines are a good
way to reach alot of customers. Usually you have to subscribe.. but placing
1 ad can reach thousands of people. We have listed some of the larger eZines
and Classifieds here. They require a little more work to submit to.. but
the extra exposure is worth it. All sites we have listed contain FREE listings,
with widespread exposure. Most Classifieds and ads are weekly, so re-submitting
is a must.
Hand Cut Coins recommends
starting your own Classified ads site. Click this banner to add your classified
ad (free) to our site, and/or to start your own site.
Free
Biz Ads Direct- They allow 1 ad
per week.
Ad Land Pro
- Ads must be updated every 4 weeks.
Evie B News- 27,000
subscribers Free ads. You can submit 2 a week
Gooie.com-
Free ad submission
EDirect Online-
EZine
with a large audience. Free 1 line ads. One per week.
A Global Partner
Community- EZine
GHC's
Ezine- Over 6000 Subscribers. Weekly Ad.
Link
Exchanges
One of the best
helps for me has been "link exchanges". What I do is search out sites that
I feel my customers would be interested in, and request a link exchange.
It helps to look for sites that have high traffic, or are coming up high
in the search engines. It is also a good idea to look through the "craft
site listings" (or whatever catagory fits your site). Look to the high
traffic sites, and request a link exchange. You will be surprised how many
sites will respond. You can exchange banners, or text links. Both work
well.
To keep from re-typing
all the same letter to dozens of sites, create a "signiture e-mail" with
the request. When you find a site you wish to exchange links with, just
e-mail the site owner, and your e-mail with what you want to say will appear
automatically. If you wish to exchange links with this site "Hand Cut Coins",
visit our links page for information.
Create
a good banner
As mentioned above,
link exchanges are a great way to increase traffic. How you make your banner
will greatly affect how much traffic you get. Here are some suggestions.
1)
Keep
the file size down- Nobody likes these hugh banners in their sites,
hogging all their space. The slow the page loading, and take up valuable
server space. It's best to keep banners small in size. Under 15KB is a
good size for non-animated banners. Under 35KB for an animated one
2)
Put
your product pictures in the banner- It really helps if they can "see"
what you have before they enter your site. When creating a banner, copy
some pics to it. It will help draw customers in.
3)
Offer
alternate banners- Make 4 or 5 different banners. Animate some, make
some large, make some small. Offer webmasters a choice.
Banner
pop-ups
I hate them, you
hate them, everybody hates them. Pop-ups can definetely be annoying. With
that said, they can also be a useful tool to bring in traffic. If you are
going to use pop-ups.. keep them limited to 1 per site visit. It is best
to use a program where the popup loads after your site has been visited.
Hand
Cut Coins use 1 exiting popup called EzTraffix.
If
you sign up for this, please signup under us. We will get credit, and more
popups traffic.
EzTraffix
TrafficSwarm.com
Meta
tags, and keywords
Search engines look
for these. They are very important to have! Make sure your Meta tags, and
keywords are very descriptive, and complete.
It's also a good
idea to use different descriptions, and keywords on other product pages.
Submit several pages to the search engines if you have multiple content.
Add
more content
The bigger your
site gets, the more traffic it will generate. It is best to stay within
your catagory , and not get off subject, but also. The more you can add,
they longer they will stay. More chance of getting the sale. It's good
to add some small services.. like this page. It offers advice to promote
your site. It's free, and will generate traffic to this site. Just don't
clog up your site. Keep the "product pages" prominate, and easilly seen
from any page.
Get
on lists
There are various
"lists" in many catagories. For instance, this site is on several "Top
100" craft lists. Sign up for a few. They are free, and a great way to
get more exposure.
Find
a Good server
Find a server with
room to grow! You don't want to be limited as your website expands. This
site started very small. Now, after several years it has hundreds of files.
Make sure they have space, and other features you will need. There are
many "free" servers available, with various services.
Hand
Cut Coins searched the web for weeks looking for good FREE servers. You
may want to try the following:
Biz
Hosting
Free
web sites
Shorten
that address
If your not going
to purchase your own domain (.com ), at least shorten your address. There
are many re-direct services out there. They will take a name such as:
"http://your_ servers_
address/your_directory/your_page.html" and
re-direct it. Then
if a user types (as example) "http://yoursite.cjb.net" it has the same
effect as using the long address. It's a cheap, usually free, and gives
your site a much more professional look. The one we use is CJB.NET http://www.cjb.net
Join
a webring
Join a webring.
There are hundreds of them out there. You get targeted traffic to your
site by signing up for these. Be sure to check the "rings" popularity before
you sign up. Get on a good one.
Get
your card out
Put that web address
on anything you can think of! "Hand Cut Coins" does alot of trade shows,
and craft shows. We make sure every customer we have gets one of our business
cards, or fliers. These are proven customers who have already bought. It
is not always benificial to give your card to someone at a show "before
they buy". Sometimes this hurts your "at the show sales". It is however
always helpful to give customers a "return way" to buy again. Sometimes
discount vouchers, or other promotional items will ensure the repeat sale.
e-mail
You could get one
of those mass e-mail programs, and purchase a targeted e-mail list. You
will definetely get a response, but the world will surely hate you! It
is best avoid that, and create a targeted mailing list for your customers.
These are the people who like your stuff. They proved it by signing up
for your list. You can keep them coming back with frequent mailings of
specials, and various other offers.
For
lists, or mass e-mailings you will need a good Bulk mail Program. We recommend
you download a trial.
Group Mail (Free)
- Link to download page for Bulk mailer
Automatic Mail
Sender - This is a good bulk mailer.. uses an
internal SMTP server. Some, such as AOL users won't be able to use it.
Signiture
e-mails
You probably send
a dozen e-mails a day. It's a good thing to create a good signiture e-mail
describing your product. Then, everytime you send the mail, they get a
description, and link to your website.
Supermarkets
Don't forget the
obvious when promoting your site. Make up some fliers with pictures, product
descriptions, and your website address. Post them at your local supermarket.
Accept
Credit Cards
This should be obvious.
Get a merchant credit card account. If you have difficulty (As some small
businesses do), find a cheap server that offers it free, or signup for
PayPal.
Accept
PayPal
I really like PayPal.
I didn't realize how benificial it could be until I signed up. PayPal
offers a variety of services. You can put "add to cart" buttons on you
site, accept credit cards, transfer cash to your checking account, purchase
items instantly online without a credit card, withdraw money from checking,
as well as other services. If you can't get a merchant credit card account..
I surely suggest you get PayPal. It's
good to have, even if you have a merchant account, I suggest you signup.
Sell
on eBay
This is a really
popular online auction. I don't sell off eBay
directly, but I have retailers that sell my products there. It goes very
well for them. I suggest you try it.
Sell
wholesale
Not everyone likes
to wholesale, but if you can keep your profit high enough (with what you
sell), it is a good idea. It can bring in large checks from time to time,
that are always a welcome relief. You may also wish to purchase, and sell
other products. For those interested, "Hand Cut Coins" does sell "wholesale".
Click the link for more information.
Drop
Ship
This is a great
thing to do! Hand Cut Coins does it all the time, and is willing to do
more if you are interested. What we do is allow other websites to list
and sell our product. We get percentage of our retail price, they list
our products at whatever price they feel comfortable. They have no inventory
to purchase, and no expenses. All they do is sell our coins, e-mail us
the order, and we ship directly to their customer. We even use their return
address labels. You could set up "Drop Shipping" with your products, or..
if you wanted you could list and sell ours. Check our
"Money
Making Opportunity" link for more information.
Pay
for Submission
As much as we don't
like to hear it, we do get what we pay for. It's true, there are thousands
of free ways to promote your website, but most not without problems. Sometimes,
it is a good idea to look to a "paid" submission service to simplify things.
(Note: Bookmark
this page also. Hand Cut Coins will be adding links to various FREE resources
to help promote your website).
If you found this page on a search, please visit
our homepage.
We have a large collection of very unique items.
NEWSLETTER CONTENT ALWAYS FRESH.
VISIT OFTEN!!
For more useful ideas, read the following newsletters.
Come back often to see the latest. These are
automatically updated once a new newsletter appears.
If you haven't already, visit our homepage. We
got some real neat stuff!
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[Hand Cut Coins- Tips and tricks on web site promotion]
