Popping again at the Framingham Humane Society craft fair. This video is an excerpt from the video that is part of my How To Start A Kettle Corn Business guide. The event basically got rained out, so there wasn’t a lot happening.

Latest news is the framinghamfarmersmarket.com website. I banged this out last week. A couple of customers were hoping they could find out what veggies were being sold at the market so they could plan their food shopping for that day. I suggested to Elizabeth (the market mistress) that if we had a wordpress blog going, you can make posts to it via email through a secret account. By using Velma’s iphone, we can do updates right at the market while it’s going. Everything works like a charm. We’re desperate to get the word out for out little farmers market and any sort of marketing helps. I tried posting links to a bunch of websites that are associated with the town of Framingham, Massachusetts but they all seem indifferent to mentioning us.

I finally discovered a mailing list called framcom that goes out to only residents of Framingham would are interested in local things. Mailing lists are kind of old school, so I was surprised that one was still going. I asked a few questions to the moderator and he seemed kind of anal about running it. (Remember the old SNL skit with Jimmy Fallon called Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy?) I notice that people are posting mundane stuff like finding a pair of boat oars in the town of Framingham. I’m thinking, “Oh, then telling people about the farmers market in their town run by LOCAL FARMERS should be right on the money.” I send out a post mentioning the market. I get a reply from the moderator that I didn’t post the email to his specifications and now I’m only allowed one more mention of the farmers market. Oh great - finding a pair of boat oars is critical news, but a local farmers market which is enjoyed by many is something that needs to be suppressed. Jimmy Fallon is a genius, just watch the video to the link above to get an idea on what kind of people run these types of things.

I normally don’t gush over a product, but this is such a necessary thing if you’re selling stuff from under a tent. www.canopiesbyfred.com sells EZUP awnings, EZUP canopies and other things for your craft fair, farmers market tent. Someone on this site turned me on to them and I immediately bought one. They are the greatest thing. (see video) You get an extra 2 feet of overhang with your tent without going beyond your allotted 10′x10 space.

But I have to give some crap to Freds website.

His website optimization (SEO) stinks. I LOOKED REALLY HARD to find a canopy for my EZ UP tent. I knew these things existed by couldn’t find one online. This is why I got excited when I finally located one. If you do a search for “EZUP Awning” or “EZUP Canopy” Freds site doesn’t show up at all on Google. I think he’s listed as #37 on Yahoo. Fred is losing sales bigtime. In fact, because I’ve labeled this blog entry “EZ UP Canopy By Fred”, I’ll bet my video or this blog entry will appear first before his website.

Next day update: OK, I found Fred’s website. He’s on page 6 for the search term “EZ UP Awning”, this stupid little video on Youtube now shows up on page 4 for the search term “EZUP Awning” (no space). The point of all this is you’ve got to be explicit on your spellings and cover all the variations if you want to be found by Google. I would’ve bought one of Fred’s awnings years ago.

While we’re on the subject of SEO. In my book, “How To Start A Kettle Corn Business” I go into proper web optimization for your website. I had stated that if you want your kettle corn business to be found in your state, include your state in your URL. (i.e. kettlecornkentucky.com) Go ahead, do a search for “kettle corn kentucky” on Google. Guess who? Yup, that’s me on the first page.

Since I set up my Kettle Corn Directory page, Google is now listing me way up there for any search that goes by “kettle corn + state name” for all 50 states. This was never my intention, but this certainly explains why I’m getting people going to my website FROM my kettle corn directory page. OK, fine you guys, DON’T listen to me.

A few days later: I get this email:

Hey Eric!  What can I say????

I just received some orders and one of the customers said he heard about our

canopy awnings from you.  He was in California.  The next customer called me

and he also follows you.  He was in Washington.  I understand you have a

following. So I checked out your sight and was sent to You Tube to see the

video.

Thanks so much!! It looked great.  The best of luck with your business!

Thanks,  Marv 

Next in the THESE ARE ALL FAKED department: