This is a super idea - couldn't we form an Orchid Web Ring -
that way those of us with sites could help to expose everyone's
merchandise to the buying public.
Nina
URL: http://www.nina-sd.com : Email: ntaus@gate.net
(See how I leave your URL in when I quote you) I had some stuff
on webrings here somewhere… now where… oh yes Sorry about
all this text, but I thought it would help if I left it as is.
Brian
quote
The idea is to get a group together, say 6-12 sites that are all
about the same thing: for example, contemporary jewellery around
the world. Each site has a “next” or “previous” or “list” button
for all the sites in the group. It’s like a tour bus. A visitor
on my site might connect with the tour and see a few more
similar sites. (…)
Andrew
Webrings are a really neat idea. They provide a way for sites that
have viewers with a common interest to pass visitors directly to each
other.
Sites that join a ring are listed on a server at the
http://www.Webring.org site. When a visitor clicks on the Webring logo
at a member site, they are automatically sent to the next site in the
ring. If you were to continue to click on the Webring links you would
eventually end up back at the site you started from.
The original Webring was created in May of 1995 by Sage Weil. (Who was
then 17 years old!) The webring universe has since grown to include
over 8,000 separate rings and 50,000 individual web sites. Some rings
have only one or two sites in them, others have hundreds. If you don’t
see a ring that you want to belong to, you can start one yourself.
It’s all completely free.
There are lots of artist rings you can join. Under the category of
Arts and Humanities there are currently 377 rings. Joining a artist
ring, however, is likely to bring you other artists looking at your
site, not customers.
So how are Webrings especially relevant to you? What you want to
do is join a ring that consists of web sites that would attract
your customers.
For example, say you are an artist who paints horses. Searching
the RingWorld site at WEBRING - Unbiased news stories from around the web using the word
“horse” shows 58 rings that have the keyword horse in them. Of those
sites the largest is the Quarter Horse Webring with 130 sites in it.
If you join a ring that is full of people who are interested in what
you create, you are likely to get the kind of visitors who may turn
into buyers.
If you create work that is relevant to many different rings,
segregate it by type and create pages of similar work. Then join
the rings that will send those pages interested people.
Not all rings may welcome you as a member. The person who starts a
given ring sets the rules for membership in that ring. Some rings use
voting to select who joins, most seem to be run by individuals.
You may find that there are unexpected benefits of being connected to
a larger group of like minded people. One of the people I contacted
while I was researching this article, Chris Kawalek, credits the
Webring on his site with getting him his current job as a www page
designer.
So what do you think? Can you categorize your work in such a way
that Webring links will bring you the right kind of visitor?
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Copyright 1997 Chris Maher. All Rights Reserved.
Vision Art - PO Box 5 - Lambertville, MI, 48144 - USA
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B r i a n �� A d a m
j e w e l l e r
a n d �� e y e w e a r �� m a k e r
s i n c e ��1 9 8 1
http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~adam/