Ideas for new Blog Posts

[Bruce Hollingdrake]

Here is an idea shared by Diane at the Fort Bend Book Co.
It will probably grow into a new post soon, any comments or additional info?

The kids in the public schools in this part of Texas have a reading program called Texas Reader's Club--each grade had different requirements and the program stops about 6th grade for some arcane reason.

I printed up flyers offering a free used book--up to a certain value--to each child who brought in his TRC certificate to show me. I'd ask each child how many books he read to earn the award, what the best book was he read this year, anything to make the child feel special about his reading. Then each child would sign his name in my book and select a used book. Then off he'd go, pleased and proud to have earned a book for himself by reading. Teachers and librarians would come in to check my book and see who had come in to pick up the free book.

Children are my community's biggest product--the school district is the largest employer in the county. This introduced my store to entire families. I sold books to parents after they brought Junior in to pick up his free book. I sold Summer Reading List books to all the kids in the family because I had the books, used and new--and as Mom would say, "we're here. Get them now before they run out." I'd sell books to these families at Christmas because, "you always have what the kids need for school, so I knew you would have John Grisham or John Lescroart or Nora Roberts or...."

After two years, this was the only advertising I did. The TRC program is run by the school librarians. I'd call and ask how many kids had earned the certificate. I'd deliver that many flyers to the school and the notice would go home with the certificate at the end of the school year in the "Home" Packet.

Bruce, I think this kind of sharing is a great idea and I hope my experience helps someone.

Diane

[msager]

As a strictly on-line bookseller, I am always looking for ways to increase traffic to my website. 

One thing I have been told is that incoming links to a website (rather than mutual links or outgoing links), will improve the ranking of the website by the search engines.  With this in mind, I have been contacting on-line sites that are topic specific and requesting that they link to me.  I started with genre fiction, contacting mystery clubs, sci-fi clubs, comic collectors, military buffs.  So far I have had several link to me one-way after they perused the stock.     I also offer discounted shipping, sometimes free shipping, to club members.   My hope here is that when they get an item accurately described, carefully and quickly shipped, they'll be back or they'll bookmark my site.   My traffic has been steadily increasing, btw. 

[Bruce Hollingdrake]

You are absolutely right about incoming Links. The bookshop blog so far has a Google Page Rank of 5. Really excited about that as my own bookselling site only has a 3 which is more the norm for a smallish retail site. The blog does better, I think, due to the many incoming relevant links (links from other bookish sites).
We hope to have regular posts on generating web site traffic. Here would be a good place to ask others for tips. We are quiet right now as today marks only our first day of testing with the full launch on Sat. but would expect it to get busier as the weeks move on.

You could also list your web address both in your profile as well as in the Section about 'commenting on my web site';  2 more incoming links for you.

Bruce