Crafty
PlugBoard Resource Center
sponsored by Craft
Site Medic
If you are new to plugs and plugboards, the
information presented below will help you to understand the program, and how to use it to
increase your own website visitor traffic.
Plugboards can be a great way to improve your visitor traffic, and
it’s a great FREE way to advertise your website on other
plugboards.
What is a plug board?
A plug board is a grid of
small advertising banners. Visitors can click on any of the banners
to visit the advertiser. Webmasters can submit their own advertising
plug graphic which
instantly appears on the board. Most plugboards limit the number of
graphics shown. As newer plugs are added, older plugs drop off.
What is a plug button?
A plug button is a small banner advertisement (88 X 31 pixels). Because of their small
size, many can be displayed on a board. Smaller images also mean faster page viewing (load
time). Plug buttons can be animated so as to more "attention grabbing".
sources for obtaining plug graphics are shown below.
What's so great about a
plugboard?
When people exchange plugs, they basically are exchanging links - but in a fraction of the
time. You do not need to get permissions, you do not need to copy and paste additional
text, your have no files to upload, etc. Plugboards are becoming VERY popular,
and they are a great way to promote your online biz! By adding a
board to your website, you automatically will see an increase in
visitor traffic as people come to look and post.
How do I get a plug
graphic? How much do they cost?
If you have a bit of graphics design experience, you can create your own. For those of us
who are "graphically challenged", many designers (list
below) will create them for you. Price
average a few dollars ($2-10) per image. They send you the image, you save it to your
server or web site. If you know of other good designers, please
let us know.
Sweet
Pea Graphics from $.99
Heartland Vintage Graphics
from $3.00
The
following designers MAY make plug graphics -
please check to be sure:
How do I find plugboards to
submit to?
If you visit a plugboard, it generally will have many plug buttons
already displayed, and many of those will have their own plugboard.
Some plugboards REQUIRE people plugging to have their own plugboard.
therefore, all posts theoretically will feature a plugboard.
Here are a few
VERY popular plugboards:
WAHM
Plugboard
Primitive
Handmade Directory
The
Plug Market
Primitive
Crossroads
We
are in the process of compiling an extensive list of craft, gift,
prim, and home decor plugboards. If you have a plugboard you would
like to have listed. please send us an email with its web address
(url). We do ask you place a link to Crafty Plugboard on your web
page.
We
will have two lists ... one on our top page
and one on this page. If you place our link on
your top page, we will do the same. The top
page of Crafty Plugboard has a Google PageRank
of "3" (rare with plugboards), so
that's an added incentive to place a link on
your top page (it will help your own PR).
Email us at: support@artcraftmarketing.com
and PLEASE put the word "Plugboard"
in the subject line so our spam filter does
not eat your message!
Get Your
Own PlugBoard
How do I
get a plug
board for my site?
Plugboard scripts are available from several sources, but the most popular in the arts and
craft circles seems to be from
WAHM
Plugboard
and Plugme.net. While some
systems are free, these may create "popups" on your page -
a definite "no-no". Others charge a token fee of about
$10.00 per year - a small cost to avoid those annoying popup ads. You just register for an account, do a quick "setup", and you
will have the script ready to copy and paste onto your web page. The "setup"
allows you to specify the size of the grid, as well as spam prevention options.
Are there any
negatives of having a plugboard?
1.
You absolutely need to monitor your plugboard
and delete or ban undesirables. It is very important
to maintain the integrity of your plug board. We've never had an
"adult" post to any of our boards,
but you will get off-topic posts and
non-English posts. We generally check our
board once per day.
2. Plug buttons are images, and too many on a page will increase the amount of time it takes
for your page to appear to visitors - especially noticeable if they are on
dial-up access. Most plugboards display 25-50 plugs at a time.
The Crafty PlugBoard
and Craft PlugBoard Resource Center are sponsored by Craft Site Medic, the Internet leader in Arts
and Crafts website promotion, advertising, and marketing services.
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