Something to think about...suppose...hmmm...:

 

You do extremely well and become well known on eBay and decide that You want your own website selling your creations, and you want to use you own name....but when you go to choose the name of your business which you have already been using on eBay, you discover that the Dot.com version has been chosen by another!

 

You find that it is not available and it is taken just like my own name, CherylCoccaro.com is right now. (It has been purchased by me.)

 

Now you need to shift gears and choose another name. All those people that have bought from you and know where to find you and know the name that you sell under...can't find you.

 

Whatever name you choose, you should secure it through  www.godaddy.com  so you are protected.  If you choose a name and do not do this, another seller can create a website and people looking for you will find them, not you!

 

EBay is a great place and you can earn good money there, but, other people use it as a place that 141 million people can see their product. They list only 1 or 2 items each week, create an about me page which links to their website, and sell MOST of their pieces from their own website.

 

Your postings on all forums with a signature created like I show below is one solid form of advertising not only your jewelry, but your name and website.

STEPS:

Decide on a Business Name:

You want to choose this now because everything else that follows will be based on using your name. Also decide on how you will keep track of all your passwords and sign in names. I bought a rolodex file and with each place I join or register I mark down on a new card the www.address and the log on user name and password. You also could use a small telephone A ,B, C name and address book.

Check to see if it is available ( http://www.GoDaddy.com) and check if the .com is not already taken.

If available, then purchase it.

 Go to a hosting site where your website will be stored for others to see (I use and recommend the following site:     www.dayanahost.com - Cost is under $15 PER YEAR, NOT PER MONTH) and you may should register your new .com address .  At this point it takes several hours for this hosting site to get set up and get all their ducks in a row, so I would plan to do this on a Friday and then by Monday everything is set up and you would be ready to upload your site. 

When creating your website in a Word Document please making sure each page a separate document. If you have purchased Front Page or Dream weaver, you should create it within that program.

·         You want to have an Index Page which is your first page where your banner goes and a few of your best pieces or a design element.

·         2^nd page can be your About Me page where you tell a little about yourself and your creations. I would include a photo of yourself and your PO Box address. Not your home address as we do need to protect what we have.

·         3^rd page can be for the type of jewelry you create…Earrings, Bracelets

·         Next page How to Order – tell which method of payments you accept, refund policy

·         Another page Contact Me – basically your email address

·         Links Page- this is where you list sites that you want to promote and have exchanged links with them

·         Legal Page – Internet Sales have to be restricted to adults, so you need a disclaimer about selling to children under the age of 18..

Paste the Word Document (s) into Front Page or Dream weaver each page separately.

If you do not have Front Page I have discovered a way to see how your webpage looks and how to “see” the HTML coding. – email me for more info off this site.

When you received a confirmation email from your hosting company that they are all set, you would go back to Go Daddy and change the present server location to the hosting one. This would be listed in their email as DNS #  .

Some terms that would be important to know about are:

(Domain Name Server or system)-- An Internet
service that translates domain names into IP addresses.

(Internet Protocol)-- A numeric addressing system
that is used by individuals and Internet applications to reach a specific computer.

There are usually 2 so you would want to mark them also down in your rolodex file. Go ahead change them and you are almost set to go.

You will need to go back into the hosting company’s cpanel (control panel) and set up all the necessary info like email address, forwarding emails to your most used one, etc

 Next we will upload FTP your pages to the proper location at your hosting site…you should look for the FTP address to use which probably came in your welcome email from them

(File Transfer Protocol)-- A method of moving files between two Internet sites

FTP - Using WS FTP program, you can do a Google search for FTP programs mostly FREE and download to your computer and then upload your pages to the hosting company site. Go to your new website typing in the complete name: http://www.YourSiteName.com and see how it appears on line.

Picture taking??? Scanning?? Everyone has a different take on which to use. I have used both. My camera is an Pentax Optio 30 model with a 3.2mp 3x zoom, 5.8mm-17.4mm lens, 16mb built-in memory chip with an optional slot for another memory card with a timer mode, white balance adjustable feature, and I use a tripod. This is my 3rd camera that I had purchased since I started my business. Like most people starting out, we spend what we can afford and upgrade when able.

I wrote an article called “My $15 Photo Studio”. Scroll down to my articles list to read it. Most important step  is to READ your manual and play around with the settings and become familiar with your camera's features. These new cameras have bells and whistles that remain hidden unless you discover them in the written manual text.

You need to have some jewelry items ready for picture taking so you can show what you are selling.

I would think that 2-6 items of each type would be just fine for starters. If you only want to create earrings, then your site could just show those. Most people believe that they need to have a huge site. That is not so, you can have a single web page site and do quite well. A good example of a simple single web page is http://www.myperfectear.com

Pricing - We can think that we can command a higher price for our creations. We want to sell them high so we can justify our “hobby”, or be able to tell our spouse…”look what this sold for” . Let’s be real about it. In the creation process of the item, you should already know what your material has cost you. So let’s say that a pair of earrings the material cost was $5 and it took all of 3 minutes to make…well I would price them near $20. Please note that the time involved in this creation was 3 minutes, so I am not including payment for my labor. On other articles that involve much more time, I figure the total cost to include extra for my labor costs. Being my business is an in home one, I do not have a huge overhead...rent, utilities etc that would figure into my asking price.

Using the concept that $19.99 is still really only in the seller’s mind as $19, not $20 is a good thing. 4 to 5 times your cost is a general rule that I use.

Merchant Accounts or Credit Cards – I use PayPal and I signed up as a Premier Account right from the beginning. As a Premier Account you are able to accept credit cards thru their shopping cart. I have found them easy to use, FREE BUY IT NOW BUTTONS, and for a $15 item, they charged me only .74 cents.

Here is a real quick introduction to using PayPal in just 4 steps:

Sign up for a PayPal Premier or Business Account in about 5 minutes! Premier - allows you to receive payments from credit cards, bank accounts, and PayPal accounts Business - all the benefits of a Premier Account, under your business name   Select PayPal as a payment option when listing an item     Your buyer pays you instantly with PayPal by clicking on the [inset image of "Pay Now" button] button that appears in your closed listing or the end-of-auction notice that's emailed to them     You're notified with an email from PayPal as soon as your buyer pays. You can then transfer the money to your bank account, withdraw it at an ATM with a PayPal ATM/Debit Card, or earn a return with the PayPal Money Market Fund   Fees for receiving payments from buyers in the United States: (taken directly from PayPal.com page)       Standard Rate Merchant Rate (qualification required) Monthly Received Payment (USD) $0.00 USD-$3,000.00 USD $3,000.01 USD-$10,000.00 USD $10,000.01 USD-$100,000.00 USD > $100,000.01 USD Fees per transaction (USD) 2.9% + $0.30 USD 2.5% + $0.30 USD 2.2% + $0.30 USD 1.9% + $0.30 USD

I think that if you are planning to sell at fairs, shows etc, then you need to have a Merchant Account and you can contact any sites that come up from a Google Search...especially VISA & MASTERCARD directly.

Item Title & Item Number – I would use ER for Earring, and put a number after it. i.e.: ER1001SS as your first item number. I would also call the photo ER1001SS.jpg. The “SS” after the number denotes Sterling Silver.  GF would be Gold Filled or use whatever abbreviation you like. Being consistent is extremely important later on when it comes time to remove items from your site and the hosting site also.

When you do get an order it will come from PayPal that you have received payment for item #ER1001SS and you will immediately know what item it is by it’s number. If this jewelry piece is a one of a kind, then you would go to the HTML text and mark it SOLD or remove it completely or create another page of SOLD ITEMS and put the photo there using the item code, but not the price.

Search Engines – You can submit your site yourself to the search engines, but it will take almost 6 months to a year before you even show up. There are places you can pay to speed things up, in this case, I chose not to pay and did it myself.

You can speed things up another way by link sharing with sites that come up on the first 5 pages when you do a Goggle search.

Keywords - Do you have any?  If you do not know what "keywords" are... you need to do a search on a site that is similar to yours and view the source code of that page. At the top you will see the word "Keywords" and a list of descriptive words that the designer has used. These words are helpful when search engines routinely crawl through sites and for others who type in words for what they are searching for...i.e.: earrings , or even your name, Cheryl Coccaro, or something related to your site. Yes, you definitely need them.

Index Files and Robots - You need to create text coding so that the robots and search engines and crawlers know how often to return to your site. Equally as important, you need the proper coding so that they DO NOT visit a page that you want private.