Hi , I'd like to take this time to introduce myself.
My name is Margaret.  I'm new here and thanks to SiteReference Forum, I'm trying to find new inexpensive ways to advertise & promote my website.

I make handmade jewelry with all different types of jewelry making materials including sterling silver & gold filled wire. However, I don't have alot of money to put into all the expensive money marketing ways of advertising, being that I am disabled & live on limited income. I have a page on my website for visitors to sign up through so they can be added to my email list for when I update my website. But I am not having alot of visitors and just need to find ways of getting more traffic to the website. I hope to soon add a newsletter to the website, but again, if I'm not having many visitors, that's not going to do much good either. Therefore, I need to find a way to put my website out there (other than like this) for people to know it's there. My website is through Yahoo and they list it on their search engine along with Google and several others, but I'm sure it's not in the top pages being that it's not a sponsored website.

I would greatly appreciate any of you who reads this to check out my website listed here in my signature. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to either reply back to me here or see my email page on my website. If any of you know of any other places that I can place ads to promote my website, I'd greatly appreciate your input on that also. I hope to be able to do business with any of you who read this and who like to purchase handmade jewelry.

I'd also like to thank those who's post I just read for the email marketing websites that they have been satisfied with. I had checked into a few of these as well and found the one ConstantContact.com and where it offers Free Email Marketing newsletters from 0-50 emails on your list. So now that I know a few of you who said you had tried them before & were happy with them, I will more than likely give them a try. So thanks again for your positive post on them.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this new post and for allowing me to introduce myself.......

My first step would be to add text based navigation to all of your pages.

just like you have the navigation at the top made of images, add text-links to all your pages at the bottom of each page. this will allow the search engines to assign a 'reputation' to your pages (ie, what other pages say it is about). The search engines will then match the reputation to the topic (the text on the page). When the reputation and topic match - this will help, if only a little bit

Just to let you know, search engines cannot read text in images (if you click 'menu > view source' then you will see the 'source code' - this is all the search engines 'see' when they visit your page).

Next would be links - they're a whole resource on here about links, just takes a little digging. make sure you get your keywords in your incoming links.

keyword research is important as well, what words/phrases do you want to be found for?

Some more things you're going to want to do:

use alt tags on your images like so:
<img src="sitebuilder/images/HM-SET-01-2-62x100.jpg" width="62" height="100" border="0" alt="Sterling Silver Bracelet">
Just like Northie said, the search engines cant read text in pictures, but they can read alt tags, and you can use them to increase the keyword density on your pages.  Your design software should have a simple way of adding alt tags to the pictures.

Expand your titles.  "Home" doesn't tell your customers very much, and doesn't help your keyword density at all.

Add a Description Meta tag that gives a quick description of your site.  The description will usually be used in the search engine's description when customers view it.  It will also add keywords for the engines to evaluate.  It will usually look like this:
<meta name="description" content="Handcrafted jewelry designed to please any taste">


If you haven't caught the trend yet, it's getting your keywords out there.  You want to get a few of your strongest keywords used as often as possible while still keeping the text useful for your customers.

Wow! There is more java script on that page than I think I ever saw. Some really serious issues with the code!
You are not indexed by Yahoo!, Google or MSN so there really is no way of knowing if you have any links pointing to your website.
Here is a list of directories you can submit you site to, most are free, some want a backlink and some are paid(cheap).
http://www.viavite.com/directory.html
They may or may not bring you any traffic, but they will at least get you some backlinks.
Go through and read other sections of the forums to optimize your site for the search engines.
Find craft shows in your area and hand out fliers with your web address and a brief description of what you offer, and give them an incentive to go there like a 10% Off coupon or something(just an example).
Word of mouth advertising is the best and cheapest advertising you can get.
Good luck with your business.
Dan

A note about links

KEEP THEM RELEVANT

links from a sports directory could actually harm your indexing wrt search engines

hi Margaret. i just wanted to give you a word of encouragement. i'm on disability also. my websites are doing okay with some of the search engines. mainly thru dumb luck. now i just need to make money off them!!

you've received alot of good advice just in this thread.  a note on "keywords", go to a comparable business to yours that ranks well on Google. on your Browser, click on View, then on Source, compare the "meta keywords" to the text on the webpage you are viewing. you should see similarities. tim

G'day there margb1963. Welcome to the forum.

I've had a bit of a look at your website and read your two posts.

My assessment is that you are quite new to all this and have made a couple of little mistakes.

Not to worry. Please don't be put off.

Please understand that sometimes it happens that wishful webmasters are told or read that they need to post to some forums to get backlinks to help traffic along. Although your posts look a bit that way, I think you are simply struggling a bit with it all. I sugest that you post a reply, indicating:

1)  that you really would like some help with your website

2)  give an indication of how much of the advice you've been given already, you understand and have the ability to impliment.

I suspect it's all greek to you and that this may cause you to melt away, never to seen again on SR.

If you're for real, there are several good hearted people here who may give you quite a bit of help. And believe me, you need a good bit of help and you've got a good bit of study in front of you, to make this website hum. But it can be done!

Best wishes,
Laurie.

I have been selling jewelry online for the past 4 years and I wanted to share a litte of what I have learned selling online.  You didn't state how long you have had your website it appears that you haven't been online long.   I also have rsds and in a wheelchair, so I know exactly where you are coming from.  I am going to comment on your page about your disability and please don't take me wrong.  I myself think it is a bad idea to say to much about your disabilites, it can backfire on you.  I make a very short 2 sentence statement about it, mainly because  I started making jewelry to get my mind off my pain...I think it is very important to be show a postitive attitude on your website.

What will really help you, IMO, is writing better descriptions of your jewelry and also to take very clear close up pictures of your jewelry if you can add more than one picture of the piece that's even better!  If possible it would be great to take a picture of your jewelry up off the table, but if you don't have any props, point your camera 'down' on the jewelry so the customers will get a full view of the piece.  Light colored backgrounds are very good also, you want your jewelry to 'float' and not have to compete with different colored backgrounds.

Also, I was looking at a bracelet on your site, and at the top you state 'this bracelet was made professionally', are you saying you did not make this piece?  It makes your jewelry sound as if they were not made professionally.  I would just give the name of the designer.  You want to give the impression that you make high quality handcrafted jewelry..and that statement makes all your jewelry sound like they are inferior to that bracelet.  Also, your homepage should be full of your jewelry...that is what you are selling and that is what visitors are coming to see.

I agree that you need to add a links page and start adding links each day.  If you add just 3 links each day by the end of 12 months you will have over a thousand links!  That will really increase your page rank.

There are so many things you can do that don't cost money or very little money to improve your website.  Things take time, but if you are committed to selling your jewelry, it can be done.

I wish you the very best.