It occurs to me today - as I fill a large order for puppet eyes - that I'm perhaps the only Aussie puppet maker who is selling handmade puppet parts online. Perhaps even one of a handful that's doing it in the whole Asia Pacific area. With that in mind, it also occurs to me that I should find some way of promoting my site as such: The only place for puppet parts, patterns in products for the whole of Australia (or something to that effect).

My question is: what are some good ways to promote my site as such? I mean, I'm listed on a number of Australian culture sites, a couple of other links here or there, and come up almost always at the top of Google results (especially the top for google.com.au). But how can I improve things?

You know your site has been picked up by a lot of the spybots for all your research material. The key word to start adding thru out your site is part, parts, part of, more parts, how many parts, any part, that part, etc.

Would not take long for them to pick up on that. I'm working on the word " Supplies " & " Kits "

Billy D.

Thanks Billy - that's a good point. I'm just about to add puppet noses to my site, so that will help things. I've also got a blacklight puppet kit in the works, and am going to, at some point, get a marionette kit happening too. I hadn't thought of 'supplies'; I've been really tempted to order some antron fleece and reticulated foam, but it's too expensive. I may just go to my local craft shop and buy up some non-pill fleece and resell it :P

Maybe a different question is also needed: how do you go about getting noticed elsewhere? Do people get themselves linked on government or council sites, tourism sites, etc? I've noticed a toy/puppet shop here is pretty much on every Aussie tourism site you could think of, but many of them require some sort of advertising fee...

Naomi, when it comes to an advertisement fee, the good point is ask about so called: "button exchange". I do know that even a lot of professional sites/companies do that thing. I think you should contact some of them (better famous, well known ones) and ask about it. you should introduce your ideas well and be able to support your "application" too. everything is worth a try I think.
have you ever thought of contacting with the "art magazines" in Australia? you could also give them a proposal to write an article about puppetry and stuff like that (I think that would be something interesting for them to have a good article of a subject) and at the and of an article your site address could be shown. my polish friend did something like that once -- was worth it.

Yes, I've thought about doing a link exchange, but so far I've been fairly lazy about it... I think my biggest problem is that most puppetry companies in Australia don't have a website, and if they do, they're not going to want someone else's link on their site; not that I've contacted anyone here, but it's a small industry and I have a feeling I'd be seen as the 'competition'.

Art magazines is good - I did have a call ages ago from a doll and collectibles mag, but they were interested in advertising (which meant paying them money). I'm not sure, but I think all of the mags that might write about my stuff is collectible mags; art magazines here are in short supply (there's about 3 that I know of).

My country sucks when it comes to art networking.

so our countries are the same if consider puppetry...

hm... maybe would be good for you if you considered to contact with regular magazines then? I mean - a newspaper. a lot of people have access to them, and an edition is large. and maybe you could try that way too? I know you should get through to puppeteers (so especially through art magazines) but every opportunity is worth a try - who knows who reads the newspapers. I suppose they would ask for fee too, but, however, maybe you could try this? we've got one of the local newspapers here in my town in Poland and once I used it to announce something and I didn't paid anything, but it was just a local magazine. if the price for an advertisement would not be high, you could go for it.

It's sounds like your already doing most of the free or simple things.  I think what you need to work now is figuring out what kind of promotion would be most effective for you to invest in.  I would definitely invest the time and effort in link exchanges on sites that might produce traffic.  As to buying advertising, perhaps there would enough materials crossover for an add in a collectibles/dollmakers magazine would be effective.

I think you're doing a great job growing your business.  You seem to asking all the right questions.

Na - I just visited your site to remind myself what it looked like and I had a thought.  Other than being about puppets it doesn't really look like you have a particular focus for the sight.  Do you want it to be the front window for a puppet supply store or for a puppet information resource center.  If you want it to be the front for a store I think you need to make that aspect more prominent.  Feature new items on the front page along with other items you are looking to promote.

Your site is attractive and easy to use.  I think your logo is perfect.  The problem is that people usually decide in a matter of seconds if you have what they are looking for.  This means you need to have some of what they might be looking for right on the front page.

Is true, What you see in the beginning, count to the people to get it right there!

People likes:
"What you see is what you get"

Miguel!

hm... maybe would be good for you if you considered to contact with regular magazines then? I mean - a newspaper. a lot of people have access to them, and an edition is large. and maybe you could try that way too?

I generally avoid newspapers too... marketing anything arts related in Melbourne is incredibly difficult unless you have a huge budget. Newspapers only report on 'big' things, and it's difficult to get attention unless I've won an award, a competition, or something like that. I may at some point contact the smaller 'local' papers (think readership the size of a couple of suburbs), but even that is difficult. I'd be more inclined to contact a local paper if I was also currently offering a class or am at a craft fair or something.

Na - I just visited your site to remind myself what it looked like and I had a thought.  Other than being about puppets it doesn't really look like you have a particular focus for the sight.  Do you want it to be the front window for a puppet supply store or for a puppet information resource center.  If you want it to be the front for a store I think you need to make that aspect more prominent.  Feature new items on the front page along with other items you are looking to promote. Your site is attractive and easy to use.  I think your logo is perfect.  The problem is that people usually decide in a matter of seconds if you have what they are looking for.  This means you need to have some of what they might be looking for right on the front page.

Funnily enough, you hit the nail right on the head. After the class failed a few months back, I changed my attitude completely. I'm more at home online than being a brick-and-mortar shop (I've worked for two sites and made my own for a theatre publication before doing this stuff), so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. It's also, as mentioned in the first post above, pretty novel within Australian arts and online businesses. While I know of a few online sellers here, they seem to be mainly importers and do not heavily advertise online or offer online products (ie. patterns). So this is where I am heading.

Why does my site combine both a resource and a shop? Mainly because I make things up as I go. It was initially just a couple of articles, but then I realised I could use it to get better rankings from Google.  (More than two thirds of visits come from Google or some other search engine; a small percentage comes from links from other sites, an even smaller percentage are people actually typing in the url into their browser)

However, the Learn page drives most of my potential customers to the shop page, where they can buy patterns and parts, and use them to complement what they learn from my articles; and a little known fact is that I have recently changed my site so that at a certain point, you have to pay to see the rest of the content on it. I like being able to offer both information and supplies, and I think it's particularly important given that nobody in Australia really talks about puppetry in Australia like I do, with up-to-date links and events.

Additionally, I don't think it's too bad that depending on how you get to my site you see a different thing. Many, if not most, dot coms offer 'landing pages', according to what country you come from, what keyword or Google result has brought you to the site, etc. It's tailoring websites for your visitors, and while I'm not trying to do it, it seems to work ok. More people are likely to visit my shop via the Learn page than if they are from the home page; people coming in from an Aussie puppetry website are more likely to view the Home page, then the Gallery and then the Shop, than they are to visit the Learn page.... So it works out in the end. (Side note: most people actually don't ever visit the home page...)

Going back to the products, I do link the latest product on my home page (to the right of the logo), but it only just now (d'oh!) occurs to me that I should also include an image with the link.

But your last comment I only have this to say: you can please all of the people some of the time, and if people don't see what they're looking for, then it's either because I haven't done it yet (I've got about 10 products sitting in my head right now) or then it's likely that I'm not going to be able to accommodate them anyway. After all, if someone is looking for glove puppets and see that you only sell muppets, they're not likely to buy a muppet are they?

....

Thanks for all the advice and comments, it's helping me clear up a few thoughts that I've had. I think perhaps I need to rephrase the question. As I'm mainly focusing on making my business noticeable online, how can I better improve marketing within an Australia internet usership? ... And now I think perhaps, I should also talk to some net geeks too.