Handmade Tile Association

Newsletter July 2007

Main Body
Google Analytical
Tile Tours
Next Handmade Tile Association Meeting

Side Bar
MN Tile Festival update
ASID mailing list
Tile Employment Seeker

Google Analytical
Have you ever wondered who is actually going to your website?  What pages they are really looking at and how they found you?  Google has created a free self tracking program that you can have linked to your own website and start the evaluation.  Google Analytical will help you discover what links are working for you, paid and unpaid.  The Handmade Tile Association has been tracking its site statistics for the past few months.  Here are some of the findings since April 1st 2007 to June 15th : the HTA has had 2484 visitors 1777 are completely new visitors and 707 are returning visitors.  The best way people find tile artists is by typing in what are called "keywords".  Keywords are what we all type in when we don’t know a web address and the top ten keywords that people use and how many people type that word that has lead them to the HTA site are

How people are finding a website is also very important if you plan on link advertising.  If you look at the report below, from Google Analytical, you will notice some interesting sources of how the HTA is found. Google searches are the number one way people find the HTA but those people only spend about 2:46 on the site, which is a lot when you think about it. But #5 is the tileheritage.org / referral and if you notice people who find us through there site spend almost double the time on the HTA site at 4:26. There are lots of ways to look at the statistics and many new terms to figure out.  The HTA does not track sales since we do not sell anything on the website but Google Analytical does help us figure out where we should try to spend our time building relationships.   One of the most interesting findings is the sites you have no idea that are linked to you and they drive traffic for you.  In the HTA’s case vickihardin.com is a website we have no connection to but she has listed us as a resource and we have received a large amount of referral from her site.

Other fun tracking Google Analytical offers is where in the world are people looking for handmade tile?  Graphs, pie charts, and maps of daily visitors by countries, states, counties and cities, how many and what pages are they looking at and a whole host of other business needs to help you.  Google Analytical is free and there are many other analytical programs, some free others you pay for. Talk to your web designer to set up the code to your website and you can start tracking your site.

Tile Tours
Norma Hanlon of SoMi Tileworks worked with her daughters to create a tile tour with the U of M for their Curiosity Camp. Twenty five people registered and took the tile tour and tile making workshop. I took the class myself to get a feel for who was taking the class and why. Robert Silberman, a professor at the U of M in Film studies was the lecturer he has been writer for American Craft and has stood in for Mary Abbe at the Star Tribune. Robert, who has written a lot on ceramics and is helping curate a show of ceramics and architecture at the Northern Clay Center for 2009, gave a very nice history and overview of tiles with a slide presentation.
Then we boarded a bus and were treated to tours of Our Lady of Victory Chapel and the College of St. Catherine's Batchelder installation (the largest of his commissions). They were amazed that the whole interior floor to ceiling was made from tile. American Swedish Institute, where we saw the fabulous tiled stoves. The group visited the Sears building and the Resource Center for the America's of which Lori Green, of Mosaic on a Stick, did mosaic work for both came and explained how she made the mosaics. We finished the tile tour with the Lakewood Chapel, the gem of mosaic work in the United States. After the tile tour the group was taken at SoMi Tileworks where Kirsten Hanlon-Walstead showed them the tile ropes on how to make tiles. Every one had a great time and said they learned a lot. All of the people who took the class were new faces to tile and I am positive will be new ambassadors of tiles for there city.
Norma and her daughter Laura expressed interest in having another tour at least on an annual basis and hopefully we can set one up for right after the MN Tile Festival so we can use it to keep people thinking and exploring tile. For me was a great moment that so many tile artists and groups worked together to reach out to the general public to educate and share all of our tile history finds. This was the second tour given by one of our members in the past two months. I see this as an excellent way to bring new people into the world of tile. It is also an excellent civic service to the overall community. Keep up the good work. If you have plans for doing a tour please contact the HTA and we will provide you with free maps and images to promote your tour.

Next Handmade Tile Association Meeting
When: Tuesday July 17th 2007
Where: Thomp Arts Lucy Grantz Studio
Northrup King Building 1500 Jackson St NE
Suite #394
Call for directions: 612-929-9490
Time: 6 pm
Potluck

Agenda:
Mn Tile Festival Marketing Committee report
Press releases - Nancy Sartor will talk about how to write a press release. Nancy did the publicity for Art - A - Whirl. She has worked for numerous newspapers and is a professional writer. Nancy is also the HTA's annual directory professional proof reader.
Ad Rates for 2008 directory will be available
Next meeting at Chad Fitch's.

MN Tile Festival update
The monthly magazine press releases have been sent. We will send another press release to the daily newspapers about one month out from the festival. The MN Tile Festival Committee has decided to take out a full page ad in the AM 950 Blue Green Directory, 20,000 copies will be handed out at the MN State Fair. Many of the members have been taking posters and postcards. We are requesting that everyone that has a website to create a link to the MN Tile Festival page. Here is the link.
http://www.handmadetileassociation. org/MNTileFestival.htm

Here is the MN Tile Festival image you can post on your website. By next month, the HTA will have $1 off coupons to get folks into the festival, that anyone can print off on the site.

ASID mailing list
The HTA hired Marcia Glancy a friend member to input these ASID members into our mailing list. Thanks to Marcia for doing this data entry, it will really help get our information out to the designers, and save us $200 per year to purchase the list.

Tile Employment Seeker
I am interested in working with a tile company/studio. I have two years of experience working with tiles and some hand building as a student. If you are in need of an employee please call Marcia 612-483-2512.

Recent Press

Article June 18th 2007 in the Star Tribune
Three mosaic artists, Sharra Frank, Mercedes Austin, and Sheryl Tuorila, among the best in the state, didn't set out to master that particular form, but once smitten, they have never looked back. Read the whole article

http://www.startribune.com /462/story/1248966.html

College of St Catherine's

Lakewood Cemetery