Making Cool Stuff at Cafe Press

I have recently been enjoying making cool stuff at cafe press. This is probably the simplest way I know to sell your art online. You probably won't make a ton of money - but compared to the labor intensive - pocketbook breaking ordeal of art fairs and local shows, not to mention the potentially humiliating experience of gallery owners who  turn up their noses at your cool stuff - well, for me it's a no brainer.

All I have to do is come up with a sharp, high resolution graphic of art that I've made. Then it's a simple process to upload it to cafe press where I can put my art on everything from framed prints and calendars to mugs, mouse pads and stickers. And people have been buying! How cool is that?

Check this out, it's a recent email from Cafe Press:

Hi from CafePress.com!

You've made a sale! Way to go!
Here is a summary of the items you sold:

1 x Flower Peace - Daydream Necklace Circle Charm
   
Retail Price:    $15.60 each
Markup:          $1.56 each
Earned:          $1.56 total (Sales Source: Marketplace)

Log in to your account at http://www.cafepress.com and check out your Sales Report to see more info. Thank you for your contributions to the CafePress.com community and keep up the good work!
Happy Selling!
CafePress.com

15 Ways To Increase Traffic

From SelfGrowth.com, we have some really good advice on how to increase traffic to your website.

"To help all of you better understand what’s working for small to medium size websites, I have enclosed a list of 15 techniques we’ve used to help build SelfGrowth.com into a site that draws over a million visitors a month."


Here they are:

1. Create useful content on your website. Nothing else is as important.
   
   
2. Update your useful content regularly. Today’s web audiences expect to see fresh material, and having regularly-updated content will keep them coming back.
   
   
3. Build sticky and interactive pages on your website including discussion boards, comment capability and anything else that helps build community.
   
   
4. Create an e-mail newsletter. This is an extremely effective way to link back to your website and continuously drive traffic.
   
   
5. Seek out partnerships with other people with e-mail lists to promote your website.
   
   
6. RSS Feeds are a great way to keep visitors informed of fresh content on your site. For an explanation of RSS Feeds, see this video on YouTube.
   
   
7. Create an affiliate program to promote your products and services.
   
   
8. Use Search Engine Optimization techniques to get listed naturally at the top of Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Read more here: Search engine optimization
   
   
9. Podcasting. Podcasts are a great way to build a regular audience and keep them coming back. Watch this video on YouTube.
   
   
10. Invest in Pay Per Click Advertising (ie. Google Adwords and Yahoo) to drive targeted traffic to your website.
    
    
11. Submit your articles or book excerpts to other websites with links back to your website.
    
    
12. Blogging. Blogs are a fantastic way to create fresh content that builds a regular audience. You can use weblogmatrix to find out which blog software is right for you.
    
    
13. Social Networking. Build profiles on popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, or Linked In. You can use these profiles to connect to others with similar interests and send them to your website.
    
    
14. Social Bookmarking. For more on social bookmarking, you can watch this video on YouTube.
    
    
15. Invest in other forms of paid Internet advertising including banner advertising.
    

Thanks to: David Riklan, Founder - SelfGrowth.com