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Increase Your Sales! Are you constantly wondering how to bring more customers to your web site and increase your sales? Jeanne Neath and Paula Mariedaughter, the owners of QuiltProfessionals, are also the authors of the column, "Web Site Success", published in every issue of the magazine Quilting Professional (not related to QuiltProfessionals). We are now offering a free quarterly email newsletter to quilt business owners. Our email newsletter offers tips on designing and promoting your web site. Many web site owners find that their web sites are not bringing in the kind of business that they dream of. Our newsletter will help you make your web site the success you know it can be. To sign up for the newsletter, please go to this address. Be sure to indicate you want the "Web Site Marketing" newsletter when you sign up. You can unsubscribe at any time at the same address. Try out our newsletter now and start taking the steps that will bring more and more customers to your web site.

QuiltProfessionals Newsletter - January 2005 Newsletter

Update Your Listing on the QuiltProfessionals Directory
This is the third year the QuiltProfessionals Directory has been on the Web and our directory has become a valuable resource for quilters. We want to keep the information on the directory as current as possible. Please take the time now to review your listing(s) on the Directory. It is easy to do and both you your potential customers using the QuiltProfessionals Directory will benefit. To see and change your directory listing, please go to this address. Enter your first name and last name in the boxes provided. If you do not remember your password, don't worry. Just type anything into the password box. Then check the appropriate boxes to indicate which of the five directories are appropriate for your listing and submit the form. If the password you entered was incorrect, you'll be shown a question that will help you remember your password. This is a question that you came up with when you first signed up for the directory. Now fill in the correct password and re-submit the form. You'll see all of the information that you originally submitted to the directory. You can now update the information. Be sure to click the Submit button on each page as you proceed with modifying your listing. Please take the time today to update your listing. It is easy to do. We appreciate your help in keeping our Directory as useful to quilters as possible.

Advertising Opportunities: A New Feature
Bring new customers to your site by placing your ad in the QuiltProfessionals Directory. If you'd like your business to appear at or near the top of the QuiltProfessionals Directory, we now offer advertising opportunities. The ads are inexpensive, simple to place, and put your business listing where quilters can easily see it. Small ads are 4-5 lines and just $20 per month. Large ads are 8-9 lines and just $35 per month. If you sign up for 6 months, you'll get one month free. For more information, or to sign up, please go to this address. Please email us at paula@quiltprofessionals.com if you have any questions.

No Links, No Traffic: Creating Your Links Page
Many quilt-related web sites have links pages with lists of links to other quilting and sewing sites. Quilters find these useful in their explorations of the Internet quilt world. But, the real reason savvy web site owners choose to have a links page is to bring more traffic to their web site. Usually the links you see on a links page are reciprocal links. In other words, site owners are trading links with other quilting sites. These link exchanges do sometimes bring customers to your web site via a link partner's site. But, the primary reason for spending time getting link exchanges is to bring more traffic to your site from the search engines. Imagine you are the owner of a search engine. You want to figure out which web sites are the most relevant for people doing a search for the phrase "quilt shop". How are you going to decide which of the hundreds of quilt-related web sites should come up in the very first page of search engine results when someone types in quilt shop? Of course, this is a very complicated task for real search engines and they use many different criteria. But, one of the most important criteria used by all the major search engines is the number (and quality) of links on other web sites that point to your web site. The best way for most small businesses to get lots of links pointing to their site is to have a links page and trade links with other quilting sites. Because you want traffic driven to your site from the search engines, you'll need to either pay for it directly (with pay per click or other paid advertising) or you'll have to pay with your time arranging link exchanges and updating your links page. Getting link exchanges can be a lot of work, but it can help give you what you want - many customers on your web site!

Photo Tips
Remember that almost everything viewed on the Web is seen in a low resolution of 72 pixels per inch (ppi, or dots per inch, dpi). When you put pictures of products or other graphics on your web site, be sure that you use just 72 ppi. If you use higher resolution graphics, they will still be presented on the Internet at 72 ppi, but will take longer to load because of the higher resolution (and resulting larger file size). You don't gain increased clarity, and you lose in the race for speedy loading time for your graphics and web pages. Your customers do not want to wait around for your web pages to load. Give them what they want - fast loading pages!

Quilters' Guides
For lots more information on promoting your web site, please see our Quilter's Guide to Promoting Your Business on the Web at this address.

Easy Newsletter Mailout from Your Web Site
If you like this newsletter and would like to use a newsletter on your web site to keep in contact with your customers, please contact us. QuiltProfessionals has recently added newsletter software to the web site options we offer to quilt businesses. Our newsletter package includes: 1. a web page on your site to display a full color newsletter with pictures 2. a print version of the newsletter for your web site 3. a web page where your customers can sign up for your newsletter, update their email address, and unsubscribe 4. ability for you to view, add, change and delete email addresses from a private area of your web site 5. easy mailout of the newsletter to your mailing list done from a private area of your web site 6. one standard newsletter, plus four more specialty newsletters to be sent out to customers interested in that specialty area Please contact us for more information: Phone: (479) 677-2235 Voicemail: (888) 671-0636 Email: paula@quiltprofessionals.com

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