Etsy Shop Makeover Challenge Part 3

Alright, so, by this time you should be 10% up to speed on my Etsy Shop Makeover Challenge! You've studied popular Treasuries. You've reworked 10 of your listings. And your ready for the next step. The next step is a simple one. I would like you to comment on 25 or more active Treasuries.

Simple enough, right? Here, let me complicate it just a little for you. I want you to only comment on Treasuries that match the following criteria:

1. You are NOT featured in the Treasury
2. Your comment MUST be on the first page of the Treasury
3. Your comment MUST be relevant to the Treasury (No generic comment like "love it")
4. You MUST comment on one Front Page Treasury

Okay, of that list, the hardest one will more than likely be commenting on a Front Page Treasury, on the first page of comments with a meaningful comment. You have to time yourself to get it in there. Meaning, you may have to camp next to your computer at the turn of the hour. By 3 minutes after the hour Front Page Treasuries usually are already up to 2 or 3 pages of comments.

Step 5 which I did not mention above is an important step as well. Follow the curator and favorite their shop. Many people who have their Treasury picked for the Front Page get picked again and again! This is not so much favoritism by Etsy as it is people who seem to have a pulse on the Etsy Trends Heartbeat!

This part of the challenge is one that I would like you to repeat each day for a couple of weeks. Actually, it would be great if you could just do it every single day but I know how taxing that can be for you. So, just do it as often as you can. If you cannot hit 25 Treasuries aim for 5 to 10 a day.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments! See you all tomorrow!

Etsy Shop Makeover Challenge

I have a challenge for you! Don't worry, this is a relatively easy challenge and can greatly benefit you. Let me start over. I was reading article on the Etsy blog about how to attract more Treasury Curators so that more people will feature your items in their Treasuries so that you gain a better chance of being featured on one of the Front Page Treasuries...

The moral of the story was a simple one: Have great photos! Have great titles! Have great descriptions! Have great tags! Yada, yada, yada... I mean, I am not taking their message lightly. It is just everyone seems to push that same info down our throat on a daily basis. I too, promote those things on a regular basis. It just always seems so overwhelming that sometimes I don't even listen to the message and hear only the words.

I get put into a treasury about once every three to four days on average. That isn't many opportunities to get onto the front page. I have only ever had an item in a front page Treasury twice in the three years I have been selling on Etsy. I decided to go ahead and actively try to make my items more appealing so I could get into more Treasuries thus giving a better chance to get on the front page.

When am I ever going to get to the point, you're probably asking yourself. The point is simple, I want to challenge you to get into more Treasuries on Etsy by only doing a couple of simple things. No, I don't want you to join a Treasury team that would be just far too easy! I want you to make your shop catch people's eyes and cause organic want to feature your items in Treasuries.

Today I just want you to get into the planning stage. Go look at popular Etsy Treasuries. Go to https://www.etsy.com/treasury/ and sort by Hotness. Study these treasuries. See if you can figure out what makes them so hot. Look at the pictures in the Treasury. Look at the tags used to promote the Treasury. Study everything. Learn what you can. Come back tomorrow for the next part of this challenge.

Feel free to leave a comment or question.

Increasing Sales On Etsy

I have actually written a lot about how to increase your sales on Etsy. From taking better photos to my series and eBook on Facebook Advertising for Etsy. What I have not talked enough about is checking to see what is and isn't working for you. Some things are easy to check. Here are a couple of the easier ones to check to see if they are working for you:

1. Relevant Keywords - If you see an increase in people visiting your shop and items from Search on your Stat page of Etsy, chances are your key words are working for you. Please note that Etsy only shows incoming traffic from people that used one of your tags and clicked through. There is no way to tell how many people actually saw your item on the search page.

2. More Traffic  - If some of the things you are doing are working you should see in increase in traffic to your shop and item pages. If you are doing more on Facebook you'll see Facebook on your list of traffic sites. Being in more Treasuries will increase your traffic as well and will show under the Treasure heading under Traffic Sources on Etsy. **Please note that some traffic such as Twitter and some of Facebook will show under the generic source of Direct Traffic and isn't as easy to track**

More traffic does not always equate to more immediate sales. Sometimes people will favorite in Etsy or bookmark a page for later. It isn't as easy to track if a favorite or bookmark makes a sale later unless you want to go back and check all your hearts against all of your sales. More traffic does however equate to more potential sales.

I would like to hear more from you about what you can verify has worked and what you have verified has not worked for you. Feel free to leave a comment or email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Creating Treasuries and Collections

A Front Page Treasury on Etsy

Creating Treasuries on Etsy or collections on ArtFire can be fun. Not only can they be fun but they can help you and all the featured artists to gain more exposure. And if your treasury or a treasury you're in makes it to the front page, well, it can mean a lot of views and potential business.

There are trends on the Etsy front page treasuries that you may want to consider when creating your treasuries. First off and most important are good photos. Photos must not be blurry or out of focus. Solid backgrounds help. Tagging the treasuries is also very important. You want to think about tagging the treasuries in the same way you tag your items. Relevant tags make it easier to be found. Titles are not as important but you do want to try and give it a catchy name.

A Front Page Collection On ArtFire

ArtFire is a different animal in a lot of ways. Creating a collection is similar to a treasury on Etsy but you get the option to have your collection considered for the front page. Artfire is much smaller than Etsy but it is growing and maybe one day will be as big as Etsy. The ArtFire collections also have a rating system where users can rate if they like the collection or not. The same thing about photos applies here, as do the tags. 

One thing I like to do when I create treasuries is write to all of the featured artists letting them know that they have been featured. ArtFire has an option to send everyone a message. Sometimes a treasury does not make it to the feed and the featured artists may never know that they were featured. Here is a sample note:

"Hi there. I am writing to let you know that I have featured one of your items in my latest treasury: "Title of Treasury Here" <Link to treasury>

There is no need to reply but please feel free to share with your Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Blog readers, etc. Be sure to "Favorite" the treasury so that everyone in your circle will see.

Thank You,

Blah from Blah"

The treasuries that I create receive anywhere from 50 to 300 views without being on the front page. Many times the people that I feature return the favor and feature me in one of their treasuries or collections. Remember by helping your fellow artist out it helps you out in the long run. If you have any questions let me know.