thank you so much for sharing
great post!

No problem at all! I love this stuff, don't you?

A former Tulsan! What a small world! Must have been a beautiful drive -- not to mention the obvious bonus of getting to stay there)

quote:

my suggestion would be to get your own domain going and submit it instead. Hope this makes sense.

At the moment, my own homepage is our logo (linked to CP) and a short "under re-design" message, plus another link to the CP shop. The meta-tags for the homepage are the same as the meta-tags for my CP shop.

Are you suggesting that the CafePress shop is ALREADY googled, so therefore I shouldn't bother submitting my own site until it's ready for prime time?

--William @ Tulsa Tees

P.S. Tulsa's building a new 18,000 seat arena downtown, next to the post office, and a lot of other projects are in the works as part of a huge "Vision 2025" tax package that got passed a few years back. A lot of interest in revitalization right now. Hope it works.

Yes, it was a beautiful drive.
Yes, Cafepress already submits themselves and have been spidered by Google, so your site will show up eventually.
The submission I was talking about was in case you had your own main website someplace.
I would suggest waiting on your own website until it is ready for people to see. You want a good first impression.
Take care and enjoy all the construction! I remember that about Tulsa. Luckily here, the roadwork only goes from May to Sept so we get a good, long break.
Take care and happy snowflakes from Alaska!
Lynne
You can see our story of how we got here on this webpage:
How we got to Alaska

Thanks for the info.

So far I've just got a few basic shops, but after reading your post, I'm seriously cosidering upgrading to a Premium shop.

You should. If you have plans to endure and make a go of CP. The cost is relatively small and in a couple months you'll probably at the very least have your monthly premium covered by the sales that you make. You can still make money with a basic shop or series of basic shops but though it's possible, I have yet to hear of a story of someone who made BIG money with a basic shop. It's too limited and just looks too.... well... free!

Best of luck in your venture!

Andy

Zap! You're the man!! Thanks for all the great info. And thanks to everyone who has posted here for all your tips and tricks. We are just getting started and looking forward to a long stay with CP.

Heh. I looked all over the place for this thread and couldn't find it, so I ended up posting my own version of it here. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to look in this forum -- I was so sure it was in the General Help forum. Now that I've found this thread again, it looks like I really did repeat much of your advice after all. Ah well....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Barry's World,

Tryin to steal my thunder Barry! Dang you Barry! Aaargh! Okay... no, really... not a big deal. Having the same advice repeated really does reinforce it and coming from a success story like you it's well heeded advice. You've done remarkably well in such a short period of time I think people would do well to heed your advice. The fact that you tried to duplicate this post is flattering in a way.

Good luck to you and everyone reading these posts. Listen to Barry, he's a smart bugger.

Andy

(did I just use the word Bugger?)

I tried to click on the link in Barry's post but it seems to be invalid. I'd love to hear his advice. I also have a question for anyone out there regarding setting up an off-site shop. I currently have a website for my graphic design business Checkman Design I am trying to decide whether it is better to set up a seperate section (or mini-site) within that site for my Wear My Dive Art! CafePress shop or if it is better to set up a completely unique shop just for the CafePress shop. I want to purchase the domain name (WearMyDiveArt.com) which would forward to the CafePress shop if I do it the first way.
This is a bit confusing. Any insight would be helpful
Thanks!
Wear My Dive Art!

quote:

Originally posted by SKiBabeNY:
I tried to click on the link in Barry's post but it seems to be invalid. I'd love to hear his advice.

Sorry about that. I fixed the link. I hope....

quote:

Originally posted by ComstockArt:
I just signed up with CP- and I'm wondering if anyone can tell me HONESTLY... are you making money?

When I started I had a regular shop and made not a penny. Now that I have a premium shop I've made six dollars from a clock sale that I used up myself buying one of my own coffee mugs. Right now I have probably less than two pages of images in my image basket.

I am working on an illustrated storyboard/screenplay/book project. 80 images will be created which will spin off approx. 560 products. The goal is to create a "shopping experience." Buyers don't like small shops with a few things. They like the experience of shopping and to do that you need a lot of different images and products. This is a guess on my part. Let's see in a year how I'm selling. Hope everything works for you.

SkiBabeNY:

If I understand your question, it's better to open a 2nd CP shop if your designs have completely different theme. If yours are chess related and then diving related.

Also you will get better ranking for each different theme in CP's directory than if you have several themes in one shop. At least that's my experience and I do it both ways.
Good Luck!

I would highly recommend AGAINST integrating your CP shop with your Graphic Design site, they are pretty much completely unrelated. I am also a graphic designer and have my own website for my design but wouldn't dream of combining the two. It would also make your design site look cheap and unprofessional in my opinion if you are hawking wares on it. Of course that's just one person's opinion but I really think it would end up turning off your potential design clients.

Thanks Andy. I think I am of the same mind. Although I do have a link on my design site to the CafePress shop for those of my clients interested. I do want the CafePress shop to look different (which it does). However back to my original question then do I really need another website or is just having a url for my CafePress site (WearMYDiveArt.com) that forwards to the CafePress site sufficient?