I've been working with e-commerce since 1999, when I began to sell books and start promoting the sales of my German Angora rabbits on-line. My first sales venue for the books was an on-line listing service that charged a monthly fee, plus commission. To sell my first litters of angora bunnies I relied on posting advertisements on the various lists that were fiber related. While both ventures were fairly successful, I soon learned from observing other people and their sales methods that having my own business web site would be both cheaper and more efficient. Although I still use on-line listing services (Biblio.com and etsy.com), I have been much more cautious in using this route and consider the cost closely. I'm still watching the crafting service where I have been selling yarn; so far it hasn't measured up to the web site in sales and I may drop that one as well.

Setting up and operating your own business web site isn't much more difficult that working with a word processor. There are programs that will help you put together your own web site and many community colleges offer classes in web site design. If you venture into e-commerce, being able to update your site yourself is vital; the expense and time involved in working with a web site designer may wind up costing more than you can justify by sales. I update my business web site nearly every day, adding items for sale, and often rework the look of the entire site to give it a freshness that I hope keeps people coming back. I knew nothing about html and web design when I started, but over the years I've learned a good bit, especially from working on my blogs. Even if you don't plan to use e-commerce, having a fresh web site that is updated at least a couple of times a year will be more valuable to your business. When I visit a business web site and notice that it hasn't been updated recently, I tend to look elsewhere for the services I need.

A web designer may be able to give you more flash and gimmick, but one of the most important things about having a useful web site is updating it frequently. Dead links and not changing content often will cost you with the major search engines, who seem to assign listing preference to large web sites with frequent updates. Having a web designer is great, IF you can afford the fees to update your web site frequently. Updating means putting up fresh content, deleting links that no longer lead to proper web sites, and most importantly, adding links to other sites that will list a link to your web site on their links page. By the way, having your own domain name is VERY important. Sites with domain names show up better than those that are hosted without one and are much easier to remember. For the cost, an average of $10.00 a year, a domain name is a valuable asset to your business. DON'T let it expire!

Having lots of links pointing to your web site also helps boost the ranking of your web site in the search engines. Wholinkstome.com (http://wholinkstome.com) provides a service where you can put in your web site address and find out how many other web sites link to yours. Checking this site occasionally can help you discover how well your promotional methods are working, or enable you to find out quickly if the web sites that have promised to trade links with you are fulfilling their obligation. As I travel around the Internet, I often request links to my sites when I find places that look interesting. I prefer links from sites that are related to the subjects of the web sites, however; I don't really want requests for reciprocal links from strange places, like Welisteverythingintheworld.com. Trading links, asking for links on appropriate sites, and web rings are all valuable methods of bringing visitors to your web site. And they are free!

I've also found that blogging is an excellent method of promoting my work and my business, and I don't have to be pushy about it. People that are interested in reading about my life in the beautiful mountains of Virginia will often follow the link from the blog to the business site, and often I make a sale. I think blogging has added an element of the very personal to my sites, and customers feel comfortable buying from a vendor that they feel they "know" through the entries I make about spinning the anogra or reading the books. I would blog no matter what because I love doing it, but the occasional sale resulting from an entry is an added bonus! Promoting the blog is even easier than promoting the web site. There are millions of bloggers out there, and every one of them loves to read other blogs and link to their favorites. Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) is one of many services that provides tracking of links and methods of finding other bloggers. And there are countless web rings for bloggers!

Free promotion will only get you so far in this world, however. Eventually, if you are serious about your fiber business, you will have to think about buying advertisements. Most of us want to be sure our advertising dollars are resulting in sales, or at least traffic. While it's often difficult to measure the effectiveness of printed advertisement, online advertising is a snap to track, and with a simple tool on your web site you can easily find out about the effectiveness of your advertising. This tool, called a web counter, is often provided by hosting services; just be sure you know how to access the information and that their service provides the information you need. If your hosting service does not provide a counter, there are several free counters available on the web, and more that charge a small fee. I use the counter service at Site Meter (http://www.sitemeter.com/) and find the free service is adequate for my needs. With an assigned code name and password and a bit of html code transferred into my web page, I can discover who is visiting my web site each week, and more importantly, how they are finding me. I can see how many visitors I am getting per week and if they are locating the web site from search engines or from other links. I watch the statistics closely any time I buy on-line advertising with a link, to see how many times the advertisement directs someone to my site. If I pay close enough attention I can generally determine when sales result from these visits.

Paying for advertising can be expensive, but you can be sure that your advertising dollars are well spent by tracking the results. It is a simple matter to track the hits your web site receives from your advertising, as long as you have a counter in place on your home page, or on the page that the advertising link will send your customers. E-commerce is becoming big business, even for those of us in the smaller world of fiber. I have been told many times that I can't make a living in fiber (or in the small town where I live) but I do, and much of my business results from my online resources. Tapping into this market by savvy advertising, promoting your web site well and updating your site frequently will help you achieve business success!