Ten With Tess – An Interview On SEO Success

Last week, I wrote an article, Do You Love To Talk? SEO for Comment Virgins, urging people to leave comments on other people’s blogs to increase their own SEO.

Among the 7 people who followed directions and commented on the post was this from Tess Richardson:

After months of procrastinating over the SEO thing, I downloaded your free guide and started getting busy. In the two days I’ve been searching out, and talking on, sites related to one of my Etsy products, Google analytics has shown a jump from 0 to 132 page views. I can send you a screen shot if you would like it.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, Conrad.

Click to see the whole chart.

This kind of feedback makes me crazy, so I had to follow up and find out more. Please visit her site. Here’s the interview she gave me. The book she refers to is The Simple Guide To SEO.

What prompted you to download the SEO book?

Tess Richardson

I was–until Dec. 31 of last year–a communications and marketing director for an employee benefits consultant. I am not new to some of these concepts, but I had never tried them before and did not have a comprehensive understanding of them until I read your free download. Before that my knowledge consisted of bits and pieces: use really good keywords, inbound links, converse on other’s sites/blogs in a meaningful way. I never had time to put this knowledge to work at my previous job. I really needed someone to put it all together in terms I understood.

When I saw the post in the Etsy forums, I thought I’d give it a look as it sounded like what I needed.

How would you describe the book? Good points? Bad points?

I love the glossary. I love the light, readable style. I love that it’s free! (I kept wondering, “What’s the catch?”)

I LOVE the checklist toward the back, but it doesn’t seem to be in the same order that things are discussed in the book. That bothered me.

I would also like to see the checklist broken up into “Things to do RIGHT NOW,” “Things to do next week,” “Things to do next month,” or something like that. For newbies it’s a lot to digest in one sitting, even if it is all well-explained. I have gotten a start, but I did skip over some of the “sign up for this account and that account” things. I mean to get back to them, but I just picked a couple of tips at random and jumped in. Many people are not comfortable doing that, I suspect.

What did you learn from the book? What stood out?

One thing jumped out at me right from the moment I skimmed it, before I downloaded and printed for later digestion: You must have a blog. Since I’d been hemming and hawing for months on whether I should start a blog, what would be the focus, what free blog site should I use, would it be a waste of time (and all the other second-guessing) that was like a bolt from above. I set up my blog 2 days after reading the book. http://homespunlife.wordpress.com

Another thing was about using bold and italic. I had never read that elsewhere.

Tess Richardson at her Ashford Spinning Wheel (aka My Precious)

How did you find the sites to comment on?

A little background on my Etsy site…I started with rosaries, then added homespun yarn, then got a great idea for a charm bracelet based on a young adult trilogy, The Hunger Games (THG) by Suzanne Collins. A friend turned me onto the books, which are really starting to gain traction and may be the next BIG THING, like Twilight, but there is almost no merchandising yet. Even though I hope to really establish myself in the homespun yarn market (hence my blog focus), the bracelets seemed like a way to bring in some early sales since it was an untapped niche with an eager market.

I thought about where I could find my target (tweens and teens who loved the books) and started Googling for fan sites. That got me a few hits, so I began visiting them, getting a feel for the audience, what was discussed and how open I thought they might be to shameless self-promotion. Some I had to join, like Facebook fan pages and Fanpop.com.

How many comments did you leave? How much time did you spend?

I was afraid I would have to spend weeks becoming a familiar and accepted visitor to these sites, but teens and tweens are pretty open to anyone with something to offer that strikes a chord. I seriously just posted once to the sites I visited this week. Since I’m a fan of the books, I was able to “speak the lingo” about characters, and be authentic, not fake. And I tried to be humble, not pushy; just another fan who wanted to share this great tip about something others might like. And if I had to register to post, I chose a fan-specific username.

It was time consuming, though. I spent an entire morning on it earlier this week and maybe posted on 4-5 sites total.

What was the biggest obstacle in starting from nothing to getting 132 page views?

Having to register for some of the fan sites. I’ve got enough usernames and passwords to keep track of!

What was the easiest part?

Actually, it was all pretty easy. I believe in my product and think there are a lot of girls who would love it. Since I am a fan of the books, it was not hard “hanging out” on the fan sites.

What surprised you the most?

The fact that my Etsy product page doesn’t show up on Google, but my one post on Fanpop.com make it to second place, on the first page overnight!

What advice would you give someone else with an Etsy shop?

Some niches will be much harder than others to see results on. For example, my homespun yarn is going to be an uphill climb because the market is so full of competitors. But it’s something I’m passionate about, so it’s no sweat to read and comment on other people’s spinning and knitting sites. Really, the challenge of developing a unique product and finding that “blue ocean” is harder than the SEO stuff.

Any other comments?

Having spent time chatting up my Hunger Games bracelets on fan sites makes me look at my future product offering with new eyes. I realize, for example, that I don’t really want to spend time chatting on Catholic sites and will probably drop rosaries from my Etsy shop. On the other hand, I’m thinking of maximizing my time spent in finding and joining Hunger Games fan sites by developing other products for HG fans. New products will give me more legitimate reasons to revisit and repost, so I’m not just the nag who keeps hawking her stuff over and over.

Another thing I’m really excited about, having tasted just a bite of success, is that I am in the progress of self-publishing my first novel–a historical fiction. My head is already buzzing with ideas for getting out there and making online connections with history fans.

Thanks, Tess!

If you want more information about Tess, please visit her sites:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ColdHandsWarmArt
http://homespunlife.wordpress.com/

What did you learn from this story? Did you learn that if you leave interesting comments on other people’s sites that you might end up getting a lot of attention for your site? Would you like to leave a comment now, after reading the interview, and tell us all what you learned? I thought you might. Thanks!

If you haven’t read the book yet, you can download it here:
The Care and Feeding of Search Engines, A Simple Guide To SEO

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