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GCU Community Newsletter #9 – June 23, 2011

June 23, 2011
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The longest day of the year has passed… from now on it’s downhill to the darkness of winter. Still, no matter the season, there’s plenty to see and do and be inspired by!

Hidden Gems: Independence Day - artist William Martin

Last week, our  Critique Clinic was a huge success, so we’ll be continuing that feature as long as artists continue to participate. A guest blog by Tracie of Photography TK Designs told us how to harness the power of Facebook with some excellent tips. A new Nuts & Bolts feature explained the importance of inside verse and how to write effectively. Doreen Erhardt’s weekly column, A Dash of Inspiration – a Cup of Creativity gave us fractal art and tutorials. Our master post of links to Blog Carnival II: SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE proved a hit.  And in Inspiration Station, we talked about where we go on-line to get inspired and in the mood to create.

Until next time, don’t forget to pass the love around!

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Getting Visitors in the Door

You’ve been blogging, but nobody seems to notice even though your prose is polished, you’ve optimized your titles and keywords, promoted on Facebook and basically done everything right. Why is everyone ignoring you? Here are some tips that can help you understand what you’re doing wrong, and what you can do to improve your blog so it gets more attention from readers.

Diversify: A blog that’s nothing more than a tissue-thin excuse for self-promotion is never going to be a draw. People want to be informed or entertained, not read commercials. Put some meat in your blog by choosing actual subjects to write about. For example, a photographer might like to blog about camera reviews, nature photography, or photography tips, even giving links to on-line tutorials. Once you’ve got that nice meaty post together, slip in some self-promotion by using GCU cards as examples (easy using the Sell This Card tool). A post that doesn’t LOOK like an advertisement will get you a lot further in attracting visitors.

Hidden Gems: Independence Day - artist Mairin Studio

Decide Your Direction: A themed blog will always be more attractive to a specific audience than a blog that’s a collection of random things. Figure out your niche – what are you going to write about? What are your passions? What gets you going? Is it likely to get others going, too? And that leads me to…

Determine Your Audience & Be Relevant: Be honest about who you’re trying to attract to your blog. If you’ve decided to blog about your baking adventures in the kitchen, your audience will be primarily home bakers. They aren’t likely to want or need greeting cards aimed at businesses (like a corporate Employee Appreciation card). On the other hand, a post about a child’s birthday cake could highlight children’s party invitations. Choose to highlight cards that tie in with the theme of your blog post, don’t just pick something at random.

Bottom line? Don’t churn out advertisements that boil down to, “Hey, I make nice cards, come and buy them!” You’ll burn out quick and be disappointed by the results. Instead, focus first on creating blog posts that entertain and/or educate, that actually say something your audience will be interested in hearing, then decide how to tie in some promotion.

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A great way to get more traffic to your blog (and increase your page rank with search engines) is to comment on other blogs? Be sure the other blogs contain content relevant to your own, and include your store’s URL in your signature. Get in the habit today! You’ll find list on the right side of this blog with links to GCU artist blogs who will surely welcome your comments.

Hidden Gems: Independence Day - artist Mariana Musa

The Greeting Card Universe fan page on Facebook now posts the daily Design of the Day? If you haven’t “liked” the page, what are you waiting for?

There is a GCU artists’ group on Facebook? We encourage you to join, post cards for your fellow artists to admire, share news, and have fun!

DID YOU KNOW you can “like” this newsletter or any post on the GCU Community blog, or include them in your social bookmarks? Just click the title of the post, which takes you to the permanent link page. At the bottom of the page you’ll see buttons for social sites like Facebook, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc.

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There’s a new Custom Request Interface at GCU! An ongoing problem with custom cards was that customers were not aware they were making a request of an individual artist; many believed they were communicating with GCU, and often artist’s responses went to a SPAM folder. No more! This new tool keeps all communication between artist and customer in one place and it all goes through GCU. We’re long hoped to see a solution to this problem, and we’re glad to see it implemented. See the Forum thread for all the details.
The GCU Wiki now features a live chat box so you can speak to fellow artists in real-time. There’s also a Twitter box that showcases artist’s tweets.
Check out the Community Art thread on the GCU Forum – it’s fun! Artists post a picture for other artists to use to make a card, and the results are posted for everyone to see. If you haven’t gotten in on this yet, try it.

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The next Newsletter will be published on June 30, 2011

from → Newsletter 2011
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