Anyone know how I can increase traffic to my website??

[pictureme]

Hi
I am a mum working from home and need to promote my product. I already sell through ebay and have made a website but its not getting much traffic.
Any advice would be gratefully received.
I know the product will sell I just need to get the word out!

I was advised to start a blog for my own small business (history research) and it has been a lot of work, but also a LOT of reward in terms of people seeing my website. You have to promote your blog too but there are loads of articles online about that and it is nothing too onerous. I have enjoyed writing my blog too.

join mumsnet

Get on Facebook and set up a free FB page - I have various friends who have set up businesses that way and I'm about to do the same myself. Also try putting the address on here when starting the thread!!! What do you do?

Have you got a link from your ebay listing to your website?

SEO? (Search Engine Optimisation)

My DH says that the best way is to get related websites that are popular to link with your website. This will help you feature more often in Google search results. The more sites you can get linking to your own, the higher you will get in Google search results.
You can also pay for search engine optimisation (SEO) but that can be very expensive.

Make sure that you use search terms relevant to your website within the text of your web pages (without overdoing it!).

Good luck with your website!

Oops -cross posted,blueshoes!

Try twitter, I've managed to get nearly 200 followers in just over a week.

My OH does SEO if you want someone to do it for you.

Agree with all of the above. Also make sure you are searchable from Google heres the link

also there is a similar step to take for other search engines eg Yahoo, Ask etc. Just search for "add my website to yahoo" etc. It doesn't guarantee you more hits but it can't hurt.

Thanks so much for all the responses.

I've tried most of the suggestions already, I'm on facebook, ebay and others, they all link to my site which is running well and I've got google analytics reporting my traffic but its still rubbish!!! I've added meta tags to the html too.

The only thing I haven't done until now is join mumsnet, but I can't advertise my services on here? Are there any other parent/mum sites where I can advertise what I do?

I'm not going to say what the URL is, as I don't want to fall foul of any trading rules on here, but if it helps with suggestions I make fairy/fantasy portraits out of people's children from their own photographs.

flickr is good. You are not allowed to openly sell from there but you can put a link to your website in your profile. You can pay to advertise on mumsnet and it is probably worth doing. A couple of years ago, somebody on here asked about a pattern for a draught excluder and I put a link to a picture on flickr of a pattern I had and it has had 1598 hits from mumsnet. etsy might be worth a look too.

pictureme have you thought about selling on Etsy?

I've been on Etsy for months and never got any work from it. Thanks for the suggestions though. Keep them coming.... :)

It is a very slow process. It doesn't happen overnight. How long have you been running your website?

You could advertise in parenting magazines. Again, it is a slow build. People might spot your ad but don't have call to use it for ages/

Have you tried Google Adwords? Doesn't have to be expensive - you can set a limit and leave it to run.

How many websites have you linked to? There are loads of craft ones out there, some you pay a small fee to be listed on and others you can list on for free.

Have you tried Folksy or Misi?

Make sure the Meta words cover as board a range as possible so that you get picked up by as many searchs as possible. I was told to have at least 50 although I have loads more than that now.

Craft fairs - have you done many? Word of mouth helps a bit although if you have a website it might not be global enough. At least you might make some sales.

Do you have much competition?

YOu could go to Mother and Child groups, NCT meets etc and then have a funky leave behind with the site address prominent. Word of mouth is v powerful. You could also approach a relevant crafty mag and offer an article or a project.

There's not much competition thank goodness, I've just listed in Misi and Folksy.

I've also asked for advise from an internet SEO company and they said I shouldn't use too many meta words and that every page should have a different set of words? Is that right anyone? At the moment I've got loads and they're the same on every page. I'm really confused now??

Crafty mag, good idea, will give that a go too.

Thanks for the input so far