7.23.2008

Cafepress Marketing

I am becoming more fluent on SEO (search engine optimization), Affiliate Programs and other ways to market www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez. Cafepress and the people in the community do a great job of educating the new shop owner. There are a ton of tutorials and posts in the forums and message boards that are provided to help you sell your product.

As suggested by the community, I have signed up for two new Web services in the last week or so that I hope will increase my exposure:

The blog you are reading right now are the first of those attempts. The concept behind http://skeetzteez.blogspot.com is to attract an individual that has some interest in a particular topic that I have developed designs for and then drive them to http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez. It really is a slick site... and it is free. I don't think, however, that I have seen much action from it. 

From what I understand, though, it can take up to 3-4 months before some of the search engines will direct anybody to a new site. This is somewhat encouraging me as I do have some content that people are searching for so I will continue adding content in the hope that it will someday be read. Besides, it is fun to write, thinking that everyone is reading, and my wife thinks I'm funny sometimes.

The second one is: http://www.squidoo.com/cafepress/skeetzteez. Squidoo is more of a mystery to me as I have only been a member for a couple of days. From what I can tell, though, it is basically a networking portal like Facebook or MySpace. I created a lens for free-- a lens is, basically, what they call a web page-- and then added the provided modules to customize my page. I think there are two primary concepts behind this site:

1) They are an affiliate of cafepress so any shopper that finds my skeetzteez product through squidoo, they get a cut of my profits. I'm not exactly sure how it all works but I guess, in the long run, everyone comes out ahead.
2) There is a community of cafepress owners that each has their own page and they partner (for lack of a better term) by linking together to increase the exposure. This, I'm not too sure about. I don't want to partner with just anybody. I think it could be beneficial to both parties if you get in the right relationship but I think it is important to find a good match.

Anyway... I am looking for that good match. I would like to partner with someone who is fairly new to cafepress and is excited, like me, to get things going; someone with high-quality and creative designs that will complement but not clash with mine; and, most importantly, someone with similar visions, philosophies and goals.

Tall order? No... not really, but don't rush into anything. Do your research. Check out the site at: http://cafepress.com/skeetzteez and if you are interested, reply through comments on this site or on one of the others mentioned in this blog.

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