Etsy Shop Makeover Challenge Part 2

Hello, everyone! Hopefully you had the time to spend looking at some of the HOT Treasuries yesterday. Maybe you even had time to look at some of the individual items in the Treasuries. So, it is time for Part 2 of my Etsy Shop Makeover Challenge!

I want you to take your BEST 10 items and edit them. Make sure your TITLE is enticing and contains strong KEYWORDS in your first 3 words. Re write all of your description, making sure the best parts of the description are at the beginning and will be shown in your Google Preview. Make sure that your TITLE and DESCRIPTION in the Google preview do not truncate words or leave partial sentences. Make sure your title has every word starting with an upper case letter. It looks clean and nicer this way.

Then redo all of your TAGS. Make each word in the Tags an upper case letter. So "yellow yarn" becomes "Yellow Yarn" and "red bracelet" becomes "Red Bracelet", etc. This adds a look of professionalism to your listing. You'll note that the tags now show at the bottom of each listing.

Next, once you have changed and published your listing, RENEW it. It will only cost you $.20 and will jump your item to the top of the RECENTLY LISTED section on Etsy. After you renew it, Tweet it, Pin It, Facebook it or post whatever social networks you have. This will help people to know that you have something new to show them.

Lastly, if you are a member of Etsy Forums and or Teams, post it to any thread that says new or renewed items. This will help provide you with a little visibility. Every little bit counts! Keep track of how many more views you get on the items and in the shop as well.

Come back next week to share your results and find out what the next part of the challenge is.

13 Tips And tricks To Increase Your Etsy Sales

From time to time we forget the obvious ways to spread the word about our shops. Here are a few Tips and Tricks to help you increase your sales on Etsy. Please feel free to add your Tips or Tricks to the comment section.

1. Make sure you have a link to your shop and all social media in the signature of your email. You'll be surprised at how many people will click on the link. Even friends and family will click and share your links.

2. Put a link to your shop or social media in your signature on message boards and forums. Be sure that you are active on the forum or message board and that you have permission to post links in your signature. (Join forums and boards that relate to your craft and be active)

3. QR codes are a great way to promote your shop offline. I wrote an article about How To Create QR Codes. Check it out, create your code then use it. I suggest using it to link over to your Facebook Page so that you keep that person. If you just link to your shop it may not be a lasting customer.

4. Offer rewards to all your customers. Whether it be a coupon code (my Coupon Code Article) or a free gift, when someone receives something special they will remember you.

5. Ask if you can add your customer to your newsletter mailing. When can you ask? I send out a convo when I ship items. I ask if it is okay to add them to my newsletter. It is hit and miss but I do gain about 50% of all customers that I ask. I also set up a sign up sheet when I am at shows.

6. Don't be afraid to advertise. Coke and Pepsi didn't get where they are today by sitting around waiting for sales. Weigh the pros and cons. If you cannot afford paid advertising there are tons of free options out there. Even if you can only set aside $25 a month for advertising you'll be shocked how much of a return you can get. I suggest Facebook advertising because once they become a "Liker" of your page you can put ads in front of them multiple time rather than a one time deal. (I have an eBook on how to use Facebook Ads for Etsy here)

7. Make sure people can find your products. Make sure you have plenty of solid usable key word and key word phrases. Ask your friends or your mom how they would search for your product. This will help you figure out your key words. Etsy calls these Tags.

8. Make sure your description is descriptive. You can have some fun stories or statements but be sure your descriptions accurately describe your product. Try to go through all your senses. Does the item have a certain feel to it? how does it make you feel emotionally to wear or use it? Does smell or hearing play a roll? Your customer cannot touch your product before they buy, try and make it so they do not feel they have to.

9. Titles are super important. Bland titles generally do not do as well as cute and fun titles. Just make sure your title makes sense. If someone reads it on Google is it going to make them want to click through? If you Tweet from Etsy does the title make sense?

10. Photos are everything. One good photo is far better than five bad fussy dark ones. Try to take pictures from as many angles as you can so the customer can see what it looks like from every angle  Remember they cannot touch it so you have to make them feel like they have. (I have several Photography Articles here)

11. Selling on Etsy is a job. The more you put into your job the better it will be. Take time to read everything you can including the Etsy Sellers Handbook. Etsy produces it for a reason- it works. Read the Etsy Blog too. Tons of great info is in there all the time.

12. Schedule your time and stick to it. If you have not posted something on the Etsy forums, rewrote a Title or Description, Taken a better photo, listed a new item or renewed something today you have not been doing your job. You need to try and do something every single day.

13. Never Give Up - Never Surrender! If what you are doing isn't working, try something else. If that doesn't work, try something different again! The beauty of Etsy is you can fine tune things and test them multiple time. Once you find something that works, keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore. Things change you have to constantly keep up with new trends and the like.

That is it for today. I hope these tips help you. Please feel free to share this with anyone you know on Etsy and get their feedback. As always if you have questions please send them my way and I will try my best to answer them. MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Two Helpful Tips For Etsy Users

I hope you all had a really great day yesterday! I just picked up Starting An Etsy Business For Dummies. Let me just say, I love "For Dummies" books. They really break things down so that anyone can understand. As someone who has been doing Etsy for a couple years I sometimes forget the pitfalls and struggles of the new Etsian. This book is really helping me connect back to when I was a new user!

The book has also sparked a few ideas for experimenting with Titles, Descriptions and Tags that I had all but abandoned. I have a lot of work to do reworking a few listings to see how things go. So, being as busy as I am today I am just going to leave you with a couple of general tips.

1.Visit your Library! There are literally hundreds of books written for starting a home based business, marketing and other business aspects. If you bought them all you'd have to add a Library wing to your house! Go to your library and see if they have the book/s you want to read. If not, request that they buy it or order it on Inter-Library Loan for you. Save a few bucks and still get the info you need!

2. If it ain't broken don't fix it! If you have some items selling better than others don't change them, change the ones that aren't selling! Study the ones you are selling on a regular basis and try to figure out the difference.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I will be back next week with more info and tips and tricks. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions or comments.