TCOLSON@raychem.com on wed 22 may 96
Hi All-
Sent this message last Thurs, but never saw it on the group. Here's try #2...
Tom Gray posted some questions yesterday that prompt me to wade into the
discussion with some comments:
>Are you creating your own pages or having someone do it for you?
Running Tiles On The Web I guess counts as both, as I create my own content and
do a lot of stuff for other artists as well. Most of them are too busy or not
interested in learning web stuff, even though it's not hard.
>If you are creating them yourselves-are you using helpers (netscape gold- >ms
word internet assistant-etc.)?
I use a plain vanilla text editor and just enter the commands. No rocket
scinece there. The html editors do have some cool features, but they don't
necessarily make things all that much faster. Check out Sausage Software's
HotDog if you want to see a good one.
>Are you getting any return on your investment other than the satisfaction of
>creating and having a web page? From what I've read on clayart & through
>private postings- not too many of you are selling pots on the web. Are people
>using your page as a resource when traveling to your area? Are you getting any
>responses at all?
My personal return from Tiles On The Web is strictly in the satisfaction
category (I've "met" some very cool people!). Some of the artists I've done
work for have had concrete responses to the web, ranging from picking up new
gallery affiliations to orders of work shown on the site. Nobody's getting rich
off it, though!
>I haven't seen any counters on your pages- how do you know whether anyone is
>accessing your page?
I put a counter on the page on demand. Actually getting an accurate hit count
of different visitors (as opposed to counting all the reloads a single person
might do) is a bit tricky, but the simplest counter gives you a general idea of
the traffic through the site. One reason you might see fewer counters than you
expect is that they take a bit more savvy to get running.
>The reason I'm asking (of course) is because we are considering the possibility
>of having a web page- but are concerned whether anyone will ever see it &
>respond to it! Our goal is not to sell pots over the internet. Our goal is to
>provide information to travelers coming to North Carolina & announce our
>workshops. Is this a viable means of doing so?
I think this use of the web is ideal. The key will be getting the info you post
linked at as many relevant sites as possible. Rob Kellenbeck at Deer Creek
Pottery (who is on Tiles On The Web) has done a great job of directing people to
his site and he gets a proportionally larger response. For your tourist info,
you'd want to get a link on all the local info oriented pages - your state and
local gov, the chamber of commerce, etc. Then go to the travel related sites
and see what you can do there. Finally, link your pages into Yahoo and the
other indexes as much as they will allow you to! To simplfy changes, you might
want to structure it as a main info page that you index in a lot of places and
then add and subtract stuff as sub-pages as things change. Saves a lot of
hassle resubmitting to the index sites.
>Do you feel that its important to get your foot in the door while the web is
>in its (relative) infancy?
This idea has merit, but I think the most important thing is to not let the
hypemeisters dazzle you with visions of huge profits and such while the web is
so young. Anyone who talks big profits to you is most likely thinking about
their own profits from selling you high cost web services! Bob Stryker's
remarks of yetesterday are dead on. An individual artist should think long and
hard about investing a big hunk of their promotion budget in the web if it will
reduce the amount they can invest in proven methods like shows, mailings, etc.
One of the reasons people are interested in Tiles On The Web is that the price
is right!
Hope this helps, sorry that its so long...
Tom Colson
tcolson@aimnet.com or tcolson@raychem.com
Tiles On The Web: http://www.aimnet.com/~tcolson/webtiles.htm
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