This is how I stumbled onto the concept of Illustrated Weblog Marketing. I tripped over a $5000.00 rock– my website. A full-blown multi-page online store featuring photographs, cards and other paper products.
With the help of a truly fabulous web design service, we had launched and were waiting to become a visible, profitable, imposing presence on the web. And waiting. I wasn't exactly sure how it would go, but I had art to sell and a vague notion of facilitating those sales with a presence on the www. That, in and of itself, turned out to be a good move, although not in the way I had expected.
While I was waiting for internet traffic to swerve in the direction of my site, I began to blog. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, a blog, weblog or online journal is just a website that lends itself to frequent new entries (posts), and usually puts the newest first. In my case, I journaled about things that were important to me, threw in quotes by people who impressed me, included photographs (because after all that's what I do), and links because I am so excited about the things I learn and people I meet on the internet. It was creative, and it was fun. I blogged 60 posts in 120 days and here's a little of what I learned in the process:
• People would read my weblog; in fact, people from 38 states and 54 countries, according to my statistics counter.
• I could significantly increase my readership with links, keywords, tags, HTML tweaks, pings, frequent posting and reading other blogs. And illustrating (because that's what I do).
• Even though I stopped regularly posting on August 31st, readership didn't come to a screeching halt-- it continued to grow! As did the traffic directed to my website (that rock I tripped over) because all those things I had done to increase my readership work in perpetuity on the internet.
• I took some time to regroup, assimilate, and explore friendly new services by Paypal and others-- things that could redirect internet traffic in a focused way to facilitate exposure and sales. Via Illustrated Weblog Marketing.
• I figured as long as I was going that way, I might as well take some friends along. They would need their own weblogs, and those would need to be illustrated (what I do). Illustrated Weblog Marketing.
I now understand the concept of internet as conversation. It is as empowering to the individual as it is to the corporate giant--more so because of the vast numbers of individuals contributing their resources and utilizing yours. And weblogs are like billboards in the traffic of the web.
Stay tuned...
The photograph is a bookshelf in The Weary Club,
Norway Maine. The story goes...during long, cold winters, afflicted
with cabin fever and marital dysfunction, men would
retire to the Weary Club for spirits and manly
conversation--wives not allowed; the men were weary of them. What are you weary of?
The print is eight inches by ten inches on cotton rag art paper, matted in a gallery-white eleven by fourteen artcare mat. Email me to inquire about different sizes or presentations. Price includes shipping to continental U.S.
