I have realized that success does not just come from how you use social media, how you advertise, or a thousand other "hot topics" on Etsy. All of those are useful and very important, but do not get at the "core" of creating a successful business venture. The "core" is YOU!
Your personality, strengths, skills, dreams, creativity, and encouragement levels are all key variables to finding your unique pathway to success on Etsy. Knowing yourself helps utilize your individual qualities for the greatest impact. This resource helps you discover your distinct path through a variety of fun, insightful, and engaging tests, quizzes, self-assessments, guides, workbooks, and practical tools.
Learn more about this brand new eBook brought to you by Handmadeology.
Over 33,000 words and 150 pages packed full of information to help you grow your creative business.
Planning out your promotions for the new year is important. Here are some great ideas from small business blog Smallerbox.net
Even though the Christmas tree might still be in your living room, it’s time to start thinking Valentine’s Day, at least if you have an online retail business. Marketing and merchandising for seasonal occasions is an essential part of boosting sales, and doing it effectively means planning ahead. That’s why it’s important to take stock of all the events throughout the year you could market for and set a schedule for when you’ll start doing your marketing for each.
Valentine’s Day:
At the latest you should begin your marketing by mid-January. If you are hoping for some print press remember that monthly publications work months in advance and you can start pitching them as early as November. Weekly, online and daily publications need less lead time, but you still want to get on their radar by early January.
If you plan to do a coupon, giveaway, or other promotion, you’ll want to start drumming up interest with your customers by mid to late January. Graduation
People start shopping for grad gifts as early as April, so if you have products that make good graduation gifts, come up with a plan to market them by early March and start pitching those products to monthly media outlets. Weeklies, dailies and online outlets can be pitched throughout April and into early May.
Here are 125 tips for building your brand from Copyblogger.
1. What drives you? Is there an emotion, need, desire, or past event that motivates you to take action? How can you infuse some of that energy into your brand? 2. What are you passionate about? What gets you excited, angry, or motivated to take action? How can you let your passion come through in your brand?
51. Who is your competition? Everyone in every niche has a competitor. Even if you don’t have someone in your niche that offers the same products / services / information as you do, there’s always someone you compete with in search engine rankings for your keywords. Know who they are. 52. What makes them a competitor? Are they offering the same things you are to the same audience, are they competing with you for the same keywords, or are they a friend that you compete with for fun? 53. How do they describe what makes them unique? What words and tone of voice are they using to convey what they do? How does their description differ from yours? Do you need to adjust your branding to make your description more appealing to your audience than theirs is?
To read the rest of these great tips head over to Coppyblogger..... HERE.
Take a look at these simple steps... They are all things that I have done to increase traffic and sales in my Etsy shop. Below you will find some articles I have written in the past few years.
I have found that Social Bookmarking to be the most effective form of FREE marketing for my online business. In this video I explain what Social Bookmarking is and how to apply it to your online business. I also so you step by step how to mark your sites and pages on 48 different social bookmarking sites in less what 20 mins..
I have had a blog for just over 20 months, and I have reached and passed 100,000 views.. and 70,000 unique visitors. I use my blog as a very effective tool for my business.
I want to share with you a few steps I have take to reach this goal..
Over the past few weeks Etsy Admin has been collecting the top blog posts of 2008. These blogs have been picked by the Etsy community as the most helpful for succeeding on Etsy. You will find topics like Google PageRank.. shipping... spreadsheets and blogging...
I had the privilege of interviewing Irene from Is Photography and asking her a few questions about successfully selling photography on Etsy. Irene is the top selling photographer currently on Etsy. I have included a few of photos in the interviews, so please take the time to check out her amazing work and learn from what she has to say.
1.When and how did you become interested in photography?
I first became interested in photography in the mid 1990s. I started traveling and wanted to learn about photography so that I could take decent photographs on my trips. I took a night course at a college to learn how to use my camera. I became much more serious about photography in 2005 when I purchased my first digital SLR and found flickr.
2. How did you find Etsy, and why did you start selling on Etsy?
I noticed that a couple of my flickr contacts were selling prints on a site with a weird name: Etsy. I wasn’t even thinking about selling prints at that time, but a seed must have been planted and the idea began slowly percolating in the back of my mind. About a year later, in early 2007, I opened a shop. Initially it was simply a means to make a little extra money to pay for all the photography gear I was coveting.
Read the rest of the interview HERE on Handmadeology!
Check out over 100 tips for Etsy sellers : Etsy Tips
Meet Lauren - Writer for Handmadeology
Having collected 47 stamps in my passport during a year-long volunteer experience around the world several years ago, I am now on the next leg of my journey: Stamp 48. Part blog and part consulting company: I can work with you to achieve the financial goals of your Creative business, so you can focus on your creative passion. My blog focuses on business tips for handmade sellers, featured artists, interior design, DIY ideas, art & inspiration, and hosting/entertaining ideas.
I spend my days working for an international development firm in Washington, DC developing forecasts and budgets with my head buried in Excel spreadsheets. It’s true: spreadsheets makes me giddy with excitement. However, not being limited to exercising my left-brain, I spend my nights (and lunch breaks when possible!) reading design and craft blogs, designing and sewing handbags, experimenting with new recipes,
connecting with friends from my church, snapping photos of Our Nation’s Capital, and concocting DIY endeavors.
Do you have a business plan for your handmade business? You should. It helps you wrap your head around each step of your business. You can’t plan for the future success of your business if you don’t know where you want it to go.
While I was visiting my mom in St. Louis over Thanksgiving, we began to reminisce over childhood adventures: school plays, soccer tournaments, cookie company order fulfillment, etc. Wait, you weren’t a co-owner of a chocolate chip cookie company as a 10-year-old? I suppose that is a little odd. Let me explain.
I’ve always been entrepreneurial at heart. Lemonade stands didn’t quench my thirst for business. I wanted to create something more. When I was 10, my best friend and I started the Sweeties Cookie Company. We took orders by the dozen from neighbors and family friends and spent our Saturdays whipping up quadruple (no joke) batches of my mom’s recipe of chocolate chip cookies, which may or may not have been the Toll House recipe, but don’t tell! We packaged the cookies in plastic wrap, then snuggled the stacks of cookies into brown paper lunch sacks tied with raffia. If my memory serves me correctly, we sold them for $9/dozen or. Not bad for a 4th grader.
Writing your own business plan helps you to think and analyze how all of the elements of your business come together. Every business, even a one-woman run handmade business, should have a business plan. It doesn’t have to be extensive or have fancy charts and graphs. You probably won’t be presenting this to a bank to obtain funding, but if you are at that stage of the game, you will need something more elaborate. The Small Business Administration is a great resource for more detail, but the general outline should have the following elements:
Business goals and strategy for achieving them: What is the mission of your business? Will it be eco-friendly or will it donate a portion of proceeds to charity? Whatever your goals are, spell them out here. Be as clear as possible.
Market Analysis:Who are you selling your products to? Why should a customer choose your product over a competitors? Are there regulatory restrictions in your industry? If you’re selling bath products, what laws do you need to adhere to for your state/country?
Marketing Strategy: How are your target customers going to find out about your wonderful products? Will you buy advertisements on blogs or other websites? Will you use social media such as Twitter or Facebook? What is the minimum number of followers/fans that you want to have? How will you track prospective sales? Once you collect prospective customers, how will you continue to interact with them? Will you have an advertising budget or use completely free techniques?
Products: Will you have one line of products or multiple lines? What is your value proposition (why should your customers buy your product)? Do any of your products require patents or trademarks? Who are your suppliers? If your supplier goes out of business, is there a comparable supplier? What is the cost of your product and what is the appropriate price?
Financials(my favorite part!): Include both historical and future data (Profit & Loss Statements, Balance sheets, and Cash Flow Statements). If this freaks out out completely, try to plan out how much profit (the money you earn from selling your products minus the cost of your products) you want to make each year. What do you need to do to achieve this? If this still freaks you out, contact me
Find more article to help your handmade business GROW over on Handmadeology!
We hit 5,000 sales a couple days ago and wanted to share a few of the things we've learned along the way. Some things are tried and true, others surprised us and made us wish we'd done them sooner...
* LIST OR RENEW THINGS EVERY DAY
Not only does it keep your store fresh and full, but listing/renewing a few things every day keeps your listings closer to the top of search results. Being at the top means buyers see your items sooner.
*GOOD PHOTOS
Most of us have heard it a million times but it couldn't be more true: good, clear photos taken in natural light that are accurate representations of how items look are photos that make sales happen. There are tons of sources and tutorials if you're not sure how to set up your shots that are all worth looking into (search the forums and the storque to start).
Taking advantage of being able to add multiple images to listings also helps sell items. Different angles and detail shots add to your listing and help give your customers an idea of what they're really looking at.
If you sell multiple colors of the same thing, consider including a color chart as one of your photos to show customers available options.
*RESPOND PROMPTLY TO CONVOS
Customers appreciate prompt responses. It shows you value them and their time and that you take what you're doing seriously.
*SHIP QUICKLY
We ship orders out within 2-24 hrs, the only exception being Sundays and holidays. Customers appreciate getting their items fast. It lets them know their business is valued and that getting purchases in their hands is a top priority. Quick shipping tells your customers they can count on you and increases the likelihood of building a repeat clientele.
*USE CLEAN PACKING MATERIALS
We're all about recycling packaging materials, and encourage it, but we never send out purchases in dingy or inappropriate packaging. For example, we recently received a purchase packed in a used food box. What should have been an exciting moment was instead became "Eew gross!" It's important that when a customer opens their package they're as excited as when they first saw it on Esty.
*DON'T GOUGE ON SHIPPING
Charging for postage supplies is more than fair, as is accounting for things like standing in line at the post office to mail international orders. But charging an exorbitant amount on shipping turns customers off. From the beginning, we've offered overage refunds for combined shipping on multiple items purchased. Customers appreciate and recognize fairness and will come back to shop again.
I’ve kept close watch of what works and what doesn’t since I started. Here’s what I know for sure:
♥ Give Stuff Away.
If you check out my shop, it will come as no surprise to you that I’m a real believer in karma. Share your product. If anyone I know personally shows interest in my product, they get a bracelet. I appreciate support in all forms. Before I started selling anything, I gave packets of bracelets to many of my friends. Their feedback was essential to my beginning, and it proved that I had a lovely little gift in each creation.
This reminds me of something written by Wayne Dyer, “When you say, ‘How may I share?’ the Universe responds, How may I share with you?” Let me be clear in that I don’t share for what I’ll get in return. I’m often thinking of someone when a new stone comes across my desk, and I love making a new bracelet with loving thoughts of someone I know. Having clarified that you don’t want to give just to get, here’s my point: Anytime I put an unexpected gift package in the mail, I see a huge increase in sales that week. How can you share?
With the recent SEO problems loads of Etsy sellers have lost the page rank that they have worked hard to gain. I have lost a page rank, falling from 4 to 3.
There are a bunch of ways you can start gaining your page rank back. One way is to list your Etsy shop in Link Directories. When you list your shop in a link directory it creates a permanent back link to your shop that Google loves! The more link backs you can create the better your Google Page Rank will can be. This is not a magic fix and will not change your rank over night. This is only one piece to the puzzle.
Here are a few of the link directories.. there are thousands out there.. and these are some FREE ones.
I totally agree that the views on Etsy are low... due to the batch listing and the recent SEO mess up....
I have seen the direct effects of the batch listings and the messed up SEO... My Etsy shop has dropped a page rank from 4 to 3 .... i have worked hard to get it to that point and I am losing views in the search engine area.
BUT!!!
I have said this before and will say it again... Take matters into your own hands.
Promote your SHOP....
My top 3 places I get traffic to my Etsy shop are Twitter, Facebok and Blogging. Search engines are next and dead last are views directly from Etsy...
You have to adapt with the changes that are happening. That is what owning your own business is all about. Your business's success is in your hands.. You make it happen not the selling venue you have your shop on.
If your views are low... do something besides complaining about it. That will get you no where and will only discourage you and the people around you. I am not saying not to voice our opinion to admin... just don't dwell on the issue... go make it happen for yourself..GET MOTIVATED.. not discouraged by the circumstances!!!
Tomorrow is the start of a new week, start it off right by taking steps to improve your views. Don't rely on anyone else...IT IS UP TO YOU!!!!!
Please join the Etsy Forum discussionHEREand tell us what you are doing to improve your views this week!
I have over 20,000 followers to my Twitter channel @timothyadam I am always looking for new ways to grow my following. I stumbled across this gem of a website called Twi.tter.me . I have gained over 500 followers just from this site in only 4 days… check out the short video below to see how easy this system is.. Oh did I mention that it is 100% free!!
Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 bytes in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon, TweetDeck and Feedalizr. The service is free to use over the web, but using SMS may incur phone services provider fees. {Wiki}
This is a new FREE site where all the members follow each other.. with ifollowback there is no more guessing whether or not someone you follow will follow you back or not. I am personally using this service and it is a great tool for building your Twitter followers.
Twitter Applications you can't live without: All FREE!
TweetStats lets you graph your twitter stats based on hour/month/timeline and a few others.The best part of the site is the ability to see your ‘Tweet Cloud’ and trending the current Twitter trend cloud.
Here is a nice graph showing the how many tweets per month I tweet.
Twitterholic is one of may faves because of the ease in which I can look at the top 1,000 Twitters based purely on their Followers. Though it does also give options to sort by Friends, Updates, and the date a person joined, and also breaks down the groups to 100 person blocks for easy reading. Another nice feature, is the backlinks to the persons Twitter channel and website.
With Twittercounter you can compare different Twitter Channels and see what your projection of followers will be. You can also add a button to your blog or site that tells your readers how many followers yo have.
Twitscoop will show youthe hotest topics on Twitter. I updates ever 20 seconds. You can also look at your channels for detailed info and search keywords to see how hot they are.
It is very important to have a blog profile on your blog. Your readers will click through to your profile so they can feel a personal connection with the author of the blog.
Why not have a profile page that informs the readers about you, but also helps promote your Etsy shop.
The profile page that is provided on Blogger.com is very limited in the information you can add.
I have created a new profile (about) page: On this page you will find a large picture of me, my story, all my important links, and a very large etsy mini! Check it out on the right side of my blog!
Here is the step by step on making a better profile page
1. The first step is to create a new blog post. If you take a look at my about page, you will see a picture of me and my story. I have also added links to some of the places you can find me around the web. You will also notice a large Etsy mini... check out this how to video on adding your Etsy mini to your blog>>>
For the best viewing Please allow the video to download completely.
Using hyperlinks gives your page a cleaner look.. I have created a how to video for that too>>>
For the best viewing Please allow the video to download completely.
Step 2: After you have your page the way you like it.. you can publish your page.. BUT WAIT. There is a very important step. In order to hide your post you have to bury the page. To bury the page you have to change the date to an earlier date. I like to bury it as far as possible...check out the pictures below. When you have changed the date you are ready to publish...Remember where you put the post so you can retrieve the url in the next step.
Step 3:
Creating the link on the side of your blog is the next step. Go to you layout page where you edit your blog.... you are going to create a "Gadget" or page element. You want to pick the "link list" option. see pic below>Here is where you will enter your profile page url and info.. below
In the title spot I have ::::Welcome::: .. In the site New site name spot I have "About".. .you can make these what ever you want. The new site Url... will be the link to your new profile page you created earlier.
Thanks for checking out this little tip.... it will give your readers a little insight into who you are and the other places they can see your work around the web.
If you decide to change your profile feel free to leave the link to your blog so everyone can check it out!
Time Trends
Do you want to know when what time of day your site is receiving the most traffic?
Google Analytics can provide that information for you. If you already have a Google Analytics account set up and your sites already loaded just follow the steps below!
Click on the screen shots to make them bigger
1. Go to your Dashboard for the site you want to view stats for. I have chosen my Etsy shop.
Find the Visitors tab pointed out by the BIG RED Arrow below! 2. After clicking on the Visitors tab look below for the Visitor Trending tab.
This will bring up the Visitors graph and some different graph options.
3. Next find and click the Visits option.
4. Next slide over to the right hand side of your page.. You will notice a niffty little clock.
Click it and your graph will change to the time trends!
5. Below your Time trend graph, you will see a bar graph. This shows you exactly
what time you are getting the most traffic to your site.
Let's apply this amazing information to our Etsy shops. As you can see in the bar graph above I get almost double the amount of traffic to my Etsy shop at 1 pm and 11pm. If you look at the lunch hour 11am-1pm.. that is a great chuck of my traffic. So with this information I can tell when I should be renewing items. During these times I should also be promoting off Etsy. Take a look at my Increasing your Etsy shop traffic articles.... In these articles I spell out how to promote your Etsy shop in many different ways...some free and some not.
Sign up for my INSIDER tips and tricks clickHERE
Also check out Handmadeology Class has already begun!
If you are an Etsy shop owner you know how we have been waiting for this day.. The day Etsy provides stats for our Etsy shops... The above video tutorial will show you step by step how to install Google Analytics for your Etsy shop. It also explains how to set up your Google account if you are a new user. This is also a preview of what is to come on my New site Handmadeology. Handmadeology is the science of handmade. This is an interactive video with links.. watch for the Handmadeology link at 3:22 on the video.. be sure to give it a click!
Once you have Google Analytics installed take a look at this video HERE. In this video I explain some of the many uses for Google Analytics. You will also want to check this screenshot tutorial out...HERE. I explain of to find what time of day you should renew items on Etsy!
Sign up for my INSIDER tips and tricks clickHERE Also check out Handmadeology Class Begins Jan. 26
I have found that Social Bookmarking can increase traffic. In this video I explain what Social Bookmarking is and how to apply it. I also show you step by step how to mark your sites and pages on 48 different social bookmarking sites in less than 20 mins.. I will show you how to use Socialmarker.com IMPORTANT NOTE: Please watch the entire video and read this post entirely ... There is an update about SPAMMING!!!!
What is SocialMarker.com?
Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness! That's where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website.
This tool should not be used to SPAM Social Bookmarking sites, rather to speed up your bookmarking process.
This video is very interactive.. you will find live links so you can click and follow along.. Brought to you by Handmadeology
For those of you using Internet Explorer that can't drag the SocialMarker button into your tool bar.. you will have to enter the info manually... you will only have to do this once per url that you mark. It will only slow the process down a few seconds!
What you want to do: 1. Read all the Terms of Service for any bookmarking site before you mark any link. Most bookmarking sites will not allow you to mark commercial sites, like Etsy. 2. Mark cool sites you find...blogs...videos..pictures..articles... 3. Provide the info.. Remember you are marking links so others can find them.. If they see a link with little text that is not interesting.. they will move on. 4.When you can add a picture do it.. this will grab attention to a mark. 5. Pick a few sites that you like and use these when you bookmark. (read the terms of use) Like stated in the Video PLEASE read the Do's and Don't of each site
You need to use words that have relevance in your shop. You can change words around to see what combination results in the best results.
Feel free to search my shop title and see the results.. My Etsy shop is in the top 10 with many different combinations of searches pulled from my title.
Good luck in 2009!!
Sign up for my INSIDER tips and tricks click HERE Also check out Handmadeology Class Begins Jan. 26
From Etsy Admin:
Sellers have pointed out that links within the Google Analytics Content reports redirect to their shop homepage instead of the proper listing page. This is a function of Google Analytics internal logic.
We have determined that there is a setting you can change on your Google Analytics profile that will fix this, without impacting data collection. If you already have your Analytics set up, here is how to fix this:
1.Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
2. In the upper right is a menu for "My Analytics Accounts" Select your Etsy shop account. This will take you to the Overview page for that profile.
3. Find the edit button for your Etsy shop profile and click it.(click screen shot below for a closer view)
4. In the screen shot below you will see the website url and the time zone. The time zone was set when you first set up the account. Click the edit button.(click screen shot below for a closer view)
5. Here is where you change your website url.. Change this to http://etsy.com
(click screen shot below for a closer view)
Sign up for my INSIDER tips and tricks clickHERE
Also check out Handmadeology Class Begins Jan. 26
