Internet Myth #2:  If you build it, they will come...  Once you've got your web site designed and have published it on the Internet, there's the very important issue of how viewers will come to know you exist, and how to find you.  With hundreds of thousands of new pages of content being uploaded onto the Net every day, this is a challenging task.

If you want visibility, it's essential to be registered with several of the major search engines such as Excite! (http://www.excite.com) or Google (http://www.google.com) or Hotbot (http://hotbot.lycos.com).  Some search engines will charge for a listing, and many will charge for a premium listing, but there are still many free options available.  In many cases, registration is simple:  go to the search engine and look for a button that says Submit a site or Add your URL.

Another valuable option is to establish links with other artists or arts-related sites, such as the galleries you may be associated with, or with organizational sites like CARFAC or the Saskatchewan Craft Council.  Often, their association with the search engines can bring additional traffic to your site.

Just being on-line with your web site however, is not enough.  If you want to enhance your site's visibility and make it easier for the search engines to find you out there in cyberspace, it's important to make careful use of your site's meta tags.  Meta tags are lines of embedded HTML coding that we don't normally see, but which provide important information about your site to other computers.

The most important meta tags are Title, Description and Keywords.  Good meta tags help make your site more findable by the search engines.  Your site's Title is the information displayed across the top of your browser, and is also the information captured when you bookmark a site or add it to your Favorites.  The Description meta tags contain the information that is displayed when your site is listed in an Internet directory, such as Yahoo.  Keyword meta tags are individual words that give you more prominent placement when those words are used in an Internet search.  Ironically, only about 20 percent of the web pages on the Net make use of their Description and Keyword meta tags. 

Next:  What about e-commerce?