Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
I’ve gotten email asking about how to leave comments so that they are full of SEO goodness.
Blogs and forums have the best potential for leaving comments.
Blogs
In blogs, they usually ask for your name, email address, your web site address (URL), and your comment. When the comment is approved, they link your name to your web site, next to your comment.
If they do not ask for the website URL, they can’t link to it and you don’t get any goodness from the comment. Look at other comments on the site and check if any of them are linked to external sites.
It is possible to put your URL in the comment itself. Sometimes it automatically becomes an active link and sometimes it just sits there looking like text. At least someone could copy and paste it, but that’s 3 steps harder than a real link. Check other comments to see how it works.
If you just throw your URL in the comment, it looks kind of spammy, so I wouldn’t do that. If there was a legitimate reason to put your URL in there, you might get away with it.
In order of effectiveness: 1. a blog that links your name, 2. a good reason to put your URL in a comment that is linked, 3. a good reason to put your URL in a comment that is NOT linked, 4. no reason to put your URL in a comment that is linked, 5. no reason to put your URL in a comment that is linked, 6. writing your comment on a piece of paper and leaving it on the sidewalk.
The 10 for 10 Challenge
One thing you might be tempted to do, if you’ve read my SEO book, is use your keywords as your “Name”. The good thing is that your site gets the benefit of not only getting a link, but the link is for your keywords. The problem with this is that everyone knows you are playing the system if you say your name is “Handmade Jewelry”. You lose credibility with the readers and the blog owner probably won’t even approve that comment, so you’ve wasted your time and annoyed the owner.
If you are a FireFox user (and why wouldn’t you be?), there’s a plug named “easyComment”, for the browser that populates common blog comment forms automatically. Install it, fill out the preferences with your name and URL, then any time you are on a blog post with a comment form, click the button and your name and URL are put into the form.
easyComment can be downloaded from here: easyComment https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9095/
Forums
Forums are a bit different. Again, check to see what others are doing and how the links work. Usually, you will have to create a profile with a “signature”. The signature is a bit of text that is inserted at the bottom of each of your posts, like a signature. Put your URL in there. Link it using your keywords if possible.
It’s possible to put your URL into the body of your post, but again, don’t just throw it in there. Have a good reason for mentioning it. “I was just discussing that very issue yesterday on my blog. See my post here: http://www.yoursite.com/post.html”. That’s a reasonable thing to do.
Try to use your keywords, but not too blatantly. Make sure they are giving you a real, working link. Check the other comments and posts to make sure you understand how that site works. Be interesting, genuine, authoritive, humble, and helpful.
You do want links for their SEO goodness, but you also want real people to be interested enough to come check out your site and start a conversation. Write for real people first, then review for keywords for the search engines second.
Now, go out there and leave some comments!
Posted in web traffic |
Monday, June 28th, 2010
The 10 for 10 Challenge
The easiest and fastest way to build traffic to your site is to post comments on other sites, using your web address.
This does two things. First, it builds inbound links to your site, boosting your SEO and ultimately getting more traffic from search engines. Second, there’s an immediate effect of having the site owner, other readers, and commenters become aware of you, which might lead them to check out your site, using the link in the comment.
This works for both other blogs and for forums. It also works on Facebook and Twitter, but I’m not convinced that it works as effectively there. Maybe you can prove me wrong on that point. There are a lot of people who read this site that have Etsy shops. Their forums are a great place to post.
I want to help you out, my precious readers. I want you to have a direct benefit from reading this blog. So, here’s what I’m going to do.
The Challenge
I’m announcing the “10 for 10 Challenge”.
Post at least 10 comments on other people’s sites for 10 days in a row. That’s a total of at least 100 comments.
Document the number of visitors to your site on the day you start and at the end of the 10th day. That’s 10 full days of visitors.
The Prize
Whoever has the greatest increase in those 10 days will get a promotional article on my site, including an interview with you, a review of your site and your products, and a link in the sidebar on walton.com, (which is great for your SEO.)
The Rules
You need to have Google Analytics installed on your site, or another statistics program that can be verified.
The 10th and final day must be on or before July 12, which is 2 weeks from the day this article is published. That will give you a couple days to get the statistics program installed if you don’t have it already and you can do a little research for where you want to leave comments. If you want to start now and pick the best 10 days to get your maximum number, you can do that too.
Send me a screenshot of the statistics program, show the number of visits for each of 10 days in a row. The site with the greatest increase in the number of visits between the first day and the tenth day will win.
That’s not a percentage, it’s the number. It’s not the number of page views, it’s the number of visits. It’s not just the 10th day either. It’s the first day compared to any other day within 10 days. If you have a bump on the 7th day, then it declines, take the number on the 7th day. We’re looking for the greatest increase.
The actual comments that you leave are not verified. The only thing we’re counting to win is the increase in the number of visits.
Email me with your results. Show me a screenshot. The winner will be determined based solely on my judgement and my decision is final.
The Strategy
The way to make this work is to know your market. Research where they hang out. Search Google for your keyword and the term “forums” to find forums related to your product. Use your keyword and try searching for “best keyword blogs”. You can search for just your keyword, note the top 10 results, and see which are blogs or places that accept comments.
Once you have a good list of places to leave comments, hit them all, every day. See what people are talking about first. Don’t just jumps in with “Please visit my site”. No one cares about that. You need to be helpful. Answer questions. Be an authority. Give solid information. Ask great questions. Be that interesting person at the party that everyone wants to talk to.
The Benefits
If you are not using a stats application now, you should be, and this challenge might push you into doing that. Going through the process of looking for sites to leave comments, then actually leaving them, will get you into a great habit that will SEO your site for the long run.
If you leave 10 comments a day for 10 days, you WILL have more traffic, regardless of this challenge. You may not win this, but you will have more traffic. Everyone who attempts this challenge will have more traffic.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Posted in web traffic |
Monday, June 21st, 2010
As recently as a month ago, I was a victim of a state of mind I call Analytics Dismissal Disorder.
This mindset is common after hearing about the importance of analytics, installing the tracking code and then getting overwhelmed by all of the graphs and scary numbers.
When I suffered from analytics dismissal disorder (which my doctors called A.D.D. for short), I knew Google Analytics was important but avoided the extra effort necessary to learn how to get the most out of the software.
This post explains what I needed to learn to get over this.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/overcome-the-google-analytics-learning-curve-in-20-minutes?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+seomoz+%28SEOmoz+Daily+Blog%29
Posted in SEO |
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Michael Martine,
Blog Coaching & Consulting,
Remarkablogger.com
I’ve been reading Michael Martine’s blog, at
Remarkablogger.com for a while.
He’s always got great, solid, down-to-earth advice. You should check his whole site out if you are serious about blogging. His focus is on business blogging, actually making money from a blog. He’s a consultant and will help you through whatever questions you might have.
He’s one of the few blogging experts out there that will give you the real deal, without the hype.
Sometimes, I forget to cover the basics, like why blogging is the perfect small business marketing tool, then other people remind me and all I have to do is point at them.
Go read the whole article.
Blogging is the perfect small business marketing tool. If you’re selling and gaining leads via the web, then the web is also your main marketing super-channel. How to do people locate what they need online? Two ways:
1. Online search
2. Word of mouth through online channels like email, blogs, and other social tools (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
Read the entire article at:
http://remarkablogger.com/2010/06/01/why-blogging-is-the-perfect-small-business-marketing-tool/
Posted in marketing |
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
Here is the post that inspired this post. Thanks to Laura Roeder.
On video there’s nothing to hide behind. It’s your verbal stumbles and nervous laughter and futzing with the neckline of your shirt. It’s your face, your wrinkles, the miscombed part in your hair. Your crooked smile and teeth and glasses. Your weird mannerisms. Your messy office.
You’re not doing videos, because video is you.
But let me tell you my secret.
Letting everyone see you naked, in all of your imperfections, is exactly what make video so delicious.
I’m naked in every video I’ve posted online. In all of my dorkyness, everything I would love to improve via diet and exercise and a few intensive sessions with a voice and acting coach. Every bra strap foible, the phone ringing in the background, the fire trucks sirens on the street outside my apartment, the way I keep forgetting my train of thought, the annoying way I play with my hair.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.lauraroeder.com/2010/05/let-them-see-you-naked-on-video/
We watched the new Food Network Star TV show on Sunday. They picked a bunch of people that might be good for TV, then make a TV show about giving them challenges, and eliminating them one by one, until they get down to the one person they will give their own TV show on the Food Network. Everyone wants to be a star.
It was great to see all these fresh faces, trying to do a promo to a camera. I mocked and laughed as they stumbled and got nervous in front of the camera. I love watching reality TV, just to judge people, and to feel better about myself, while they fail.
Then I decided that I could do way better in front of a camera than they did. I’d make my own video for this blog. Ha!
Videos can help bring more traffic to your site. The technology is easy. That hard part is getting in front of the camera.
Here’s my first video blog post. Wow. Way harder than it looks.
Mock away. (Please tell me if you have problems playing the video.)
You can watch it on YouTube here.
At the end, I ask you to leave a comment and tell me what the most valuable thing I ever did for you was. I told you to ask your customers what their needs, wants and desires are, so I figured I better ask you that same thing.
The tribe has spoken. Please leave a comment. Thanks.
Posted in marketing |
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
Selma asked me on the Walton.com Facebook Fan Page “How do we get the SE’s to crawl the site again? (“SE” is search engines, if you didn’t know.) This is a great question and deserves a great answer.
I told her the best way to get them to find you is to submit a “sitemap.xml” file. WordPress can do this easily.
If that made no sense to you (and it probably didn’t 
, then go to http://www.google.com/addurl/ and submit your site that way. It’s quick and easy.
After you do that, get a “webmasters” account per the book. You can track there how your site is being crawled.
Now, that would have been a great answer except for the part where I brush over the “Worpdress can do this easily” part. I kind of forgot to explain that one.
To make the answer great, I want to direct your attention to the “Google XML Sitemaps” plug in for WordPress (and away from the fact I forgot to put this in earlier.) Download it from the WordPress site and install it as any other plug in. There are a few settings that are pretty self explanatory. It’ll be fine even if you configure it poorly.
Once it’s installed and configured, every time you add a new post or a new page or update an existing item, it will update the sitemap.xml file and ping Google to tell it that there’s a new map.
Don’t forget to get that Webmasters account and follow how often they crawl your site.
If good relationships are built on good communication, this is the best way to communicate with Google.
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently. The plugin supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages as well as custom URLs. Additionally it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post about the new content.
Read the entire article at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Posted in SEO |
Monday, April 26th, 2010
The math is magical: you can pile up lots of failures and still keep rolling, but you only need one juicy success to build a career.
The killer is the category called ‘neither’. If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you’ll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that’s easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you’re after.
And yet we market and work and connect and create as if just one failure might be the end of us.
Read the entire article at:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/04/failure-success-and-neither.html
I once had a sales job doing cold calls to sell advertising on phone book covers. I never made much money at it, but I learned very valuable lessons that I’ve used ever since.
I learned that I made one sale for every 3 calls. It just worked out that way.
It hit me that I shouldn’t be afraid of making the call, afraid of rejection. I should LOVE rejection because it meant that I was one step closer to a sale. More rejections equaled more sales. If I can get rejected twice, I’ll make a sale on the next one.
It got to be a game, to try to see how many rejections I got. I was happy when I got them. Store owners would be amused that I was so happy when they told me no.
Are you afraid of failure? What one thing would you do if you weren’t afraid?
Posted in business |
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
HubSpot recently published a study about marketing. One of the things they found was that companies who blog more often are more likely to acquire customers.
Read that again slowly. “Blog more often” correlates with “more customers”.
An underutilized blog means customers are being left on the table. The survey this year shows a direct correlation between blog post frequency and the chance that a company has acquired a customer through that channel.
Read the entire article at:
http://bit.ly/aewfHr
Posted in web site build |
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
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
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
Posted in SEO, featured |
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
Do you like to talk with people and build relationships?
Have you ever told someone how you feel about their blog post?
Have you ever left a comment on a web site?
If you have never written a comment on a web site, on a blog post, then you are missing the easiest way to get inbound links to your Etsy site and increasing your SEO.
The biggest factor in SEO is “inbound links”. The more, the merrier. You want as many links pointing at your site as you can get.
Almost every time you leave a comment on another web site, it will give you the opportunity to link back to your site. This works for your Etsy site. This works for your own web site.
I know you like to lurk, to read and not get involved. Most people do. It’s easier. It’s safer. No one will disagree with you if you don’t say anything. No one will make fun.
Remember being 13 and going to a school dance? It was scary. I stood against the wall and wished I had the nerve to ask someone to dance. When I finally did risk humiliation, I found out that it was kind of fun. It didn’t hurt at all. I actually liked it.
As you grow up, you find out that having friendships, talking to strangers, just any communication, it’s all pretty good. There are the occasional awkward moments, but you get through them. There’s much more benefit to talking than to staying silent.
In the Internet, the same is true. If you leave comments for people on their sites, they might check out your site and leave you a comment. They might start a conversation on their site.
Every comment you make links back to your site.
Now, if you talk too much, you can get a little overbearing, so don’t get carried away and make your self a pest. Be natural, like you would in real life. You know how to talk to people in real life, so do that same thing on web sites.
Also, not every web site offers the link. If you talk to someone, but they don’t want to talk back, then find someone else to talk to. Comment on the sites that allow you to input a link to your site.
Imagine improving your SEO, just by talking. How easy is that?
Posted in SEO, featured |
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Here’s a list of the 10 best places to look for great WordPress themes.
The best places to look first.
1. Official WordPress Site
2. Smashing Magazine
3. Inspired Mag
Premium, i.e., paid, themes that offer huge customizations you can do yourself.
4. Thesis Premium Theme Personal Option ($87)
5. Headway Premium Theme Personal Option ($87)
Other, kind of cheezy, but not too bad, sites that have a good selection.
6. WP Theme Spot
7. WP Snap
8. Themes Base
Specific “Best Of 2010″ blog posts.
9. bloggingexperiment.com Best of 2010
10. wparcade.com Best of 2010
Posted in Wordpress |
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
If you’ve read the book, you know the basics. I can tell you to work on getting more inbound links, but until you actually make a plan and then work that plan, your efforts will be haphazard and not as effective.
I suggest that you spend a set period of time, every day, to do some activity that will build more inbound links for your site. Leave comments on other blogs, post in forums, guest blog, submit articles to directories, the choice is yours, but the key is having a plan and doing it on a schedule.
Link building has, classically, been a tactic slapped on to a marketing campaign or website post-launch. I believe that those companies/sites that treat link acquisition as an afterthought, rather than building it into the product, will always lose out to those who treat link building strategically.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/strategic-link-building-how-to-productize-link-acquisition-and-dominate-your-niche
Posted in SEO |
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
This is the second in a series that I want to revisit. The original article outlines exactly the research we did on one shop’s competition so we can plan out how to beat them in the search engines.
Why Do They Rank So High?
Why are these ranked so high? Let’s use Yahoo’s Site Explorer to investigate them. We want to know how many pages and internal links they have on their site and how many people link to them externally, from other sites. These two factors are huge in determining search engine rankings.
westcoastseaglass.net
westcoastseaglass.net has 773 pages, more than I expected. It looks like every product has a page, using the same template, so they all link to each other. 773 pages is more than we can generate quickly.They have 2,149 total links, including internal links and 1,774 external links. That’s a lot. This will not be easy. Where do they get these links from? Browsing through their links quickly, it looks like they got picked up by 3 or 4 prolific blogs and put in their blogrolls. That means that there’s a link to their site from every page on these blogs. Every post on a blog can mean a lot of links quickly and easily. We’ll have to use the same strategy and maybe even target the same blogs. This looks like the top site to target.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.walton.com/2009/06/06/small-business-seo-%e2%80%93-sea-glass-jewelry-keywords-and-competition-part-2.html
Posted in SEO |
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Now that you have a list of keywords, we need to look at the competition for those keywords and create a strategy to beat them.
Do a normal Google search on each of your keywords. Write down the top 10 results. Names and URLs are enough. If you have 5 keywords, you should have 5 sets of top 10 results now.
Review those results. Do the same sites come up in more than one of them? Are there a set of sites that seem to “own” these keywords? Some might do a little better with these keywords and others might do a little better with those keywords, but generally, there’s a couple sites that seem to rule the results pages. These are your competition and we are going to crush them, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Now, you should have a feel for the best keywords and who your competition is. They are high on the results pages for these keywords. We need to ask why they are so highly regarded by the search engines. We’re going to dig in deep and find out what’s making them do so well.
We're going to dig in deep and find out what's making them do so well.
Look at their sites first. Look for keywords on the pages, in the links. How many pages do they have? Is it a template with a ton of content pumped through the same template? Is the content unique or published regularly? Does the content change? Is there a blog? Is there a list of links anywhere?
Review each of the competitor sites. Search engines love keywords. They love them in the links. If they have a menu, the menu links will contain these keywords. Blogs that are updated regularly are also great for search engines. Lots of pages and lots of content. Just having a bulk of content is good in the eyes of the search engines.
Now, let’s do a little mathematical analysis. It’s not really harder than anything you had in third grade, but I like using big words sometimes.
Go to the magic SEO site, SiteExplorer on Yahoo. Use the input at the TOP of the page that says “Explore URL”, not the one in the middle that says “My Sites”.
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Type in a URl from a competitor. First, let’s look at the total number of pages that they have on their site. You want “pages” for “all sub-domains”. Write down that number next to your list of competitors. Did I tell you to make a list of the top competitors? Go back and write that down, then add this total number of pages next to their names.
Step two is to find out who links to them. Inbound links are probably the biggest impact on page rank and SEO. If you can just get a bulk of inbound links to your site, then you’re probably going to do pretty well. There’s another button, up there at the top of the Site Explorer page that says “Inlinks”. You want to see how many “From all pages” to “Entire Site”. Write down the total number of inbound links to their site.
Repeat these steps for each of your competitors. At this point, you should have a bunch of list with names and numbers on them. You should have:
- List of keywords
- List of top 10 results for each keyword – name and URL
- List of competitors – Name and URL
- Number of total pages on each competitor’s site
- Number of total inbound links to each competitor’s site
Run this analysis on your own site. Do you see why they rank higher than you do? Yes, I thought you would.
Next, we’ll talk about how to do what they did and beat them at their own game.
Posted in sell on internet |
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
If you are new here because of the free SEO book promotion that I’ve offered, thank you very much! Over 60 people have downloaded the book since Warmth posted her thread in the Etsy forum.
Please take a minute and look around. Most of the site has been aimed at small businesses, but lately I’ve focused on the needs of crafters.
Regular readers of my blog know that I built a site for my wife’s friend, Deborah at www.mermaidspurseseaglass.com which opened my eyes to the needs of the whole crafting community.
I think there are some posts here that will be valuable for a crafter. I plan on writing more with crafters in mind. It seems like there’s a huge need for Internet marketing information here.
I see a lot of pleas for more traffic to your Etsy shops. I think I can take my experience and knowledge of small business (and large business, for that matter – read my “about me” page), and apply it to crafters.
I do plan on more good things for crafters, so please stick around. If you have a specific question, drop by the forum and ask it there. I’ll answer it as soon as possible.
Heartfelt Mouse
I’d love to hear what type of things you are interested in, and what you have problems with, so I can address those needs.
I want to especially thank Etsy seller Warmth for her kind review of my SEO book. That was beyond gracious. It means a lot to me to see someone say, “I am no longer feeling stupid and helpless regarding SEO.” Warmth warmed my heart with that.
If anyone wants a really cute mouse, you know where to go!
Stay tuned!
Posted in crafts |
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Timothy Adam Designs
I started reading the Etsy forums to see what people are talking about there that might apply to my products here.
One area popped out at me and that’s the problem with getting traffic to your Etsy site. There are 21 items posted every minute there! There are 135,000 new people joining every month! I was shocked. No wonder products get buried there.
The first post I read there was from Warmth, saying they were ready to pay someone to help get more traffic. There seems to be some real desperation. (If you like cute little felt mice, check out their store on Etsy.)
Of course, I think I have all of the answers, but that’s just my personality type. The answers would be having a blog and promoting it off site. There are things to do on Etsy, but I know more about the off site stuff.
I found this thread in the forum and they had a lot of great advice. There were 569 responses when I saw it.
Here’s a quote of a small part of the initial post. It’s worth reading the whole thing. Notice the mention of a blog and a mailing list. Key factors there!
By Timothy Adam Designs
I am only going to hit a few key types of off Etsy marketing.. There are so many, so i will share the 3 that I use the most. At the end I show how put all three together along with on etsy promo to get 500 views to my shop in just over 1 hour.
Blogging:
I have been blogging for a little over a year. My blog has played a very important role in the growth of my Etsy shop. With my blog I have grown an e-mail list through my monthly giveaway.. This list has grown to 1500 people.. Last spring I held a product test with the small list I had at the time, which was 250. Long story short.. I sold 15 of the product test necklaces in less than 2 hrs. E-mail lists are very powerful!
Your blog should include links to your Etsy shop. These link should be very visible so it is easy for your readers to navigate to your shop. The best method for acheving this is to use the Etsy mini that is provided by Etsy.. here is a how to video I created all about the Etsy mini.. CLICK HERE
Facebook:
I recently joined facebook, and I have found to be a very powerful marketing tool. I use my facebook for networking and marketing my business, but you have to tread lightly. Facebook is cracking down on accounts that are doing this.. make sure your main account is set up in your name and not your business. You can set up a group for your business.. where you can promote all you want.
Twitter:
Twitter is my big hitter right now.. it is very powerful.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. wiki
I am running a Lunch Time Shoppers Series, which generates great traffic. The most popular post is the Top 10 Monday post.
Tune in every Monday at lunch time (12pm) for my top 10 Etsy picks. This list is generated from the top 10 monday thread forums on Etsy, which starts at 11 am sharp. This is part of my “Lunch Time Shoppers” series… you can find these posts from 11:30 am to 12.30 pm. Check out more details HERE
Read the entire article at:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5959620
Posted in crafts |
Friday, February 5th, 2010
My apologies to Stanley Kubrick.
I was talking with a potential client the other day. They had been referred by someone else, so I asked if they had seen my web site. They replied “Yes, and you’re not going to get me to blog!”
I understand how much some people hate to write blog posts, people like me, for instance.
We all need to get past that.
The advantages of write blog posts on a regular schedule are huge. I know. I know. You don’t have time and you’re not a good writer and you have nothing to say and blah, blah, blah.
I don’t want to hear it. If you want to have any success at this stuff, you need to have a blog and you need to write on a regular schedule.
Google loves a “regularly updated” web site. You get points for not being stale. If someone is taking the time to update a site, it must be more valuable than one that’s not been touched in years. I love to blog.
If you have 5 posts written, publish one a day for 5 days instead of 5 all on one day. Google loves that too. I love to blog.
Google will come back and crawl your site more often if you publish more often. If nothing changes for a week at a time, why should they come back any sooner than that? I love to blog.
Every time you publish a new post, your blogging software creates a new page with that post on it. More pages equals more authority for your site. I love to blog.
On every one of those new blog post pages, you have a menu that links back to pages on your own site. More pages have more menu links that increases the number of internal links that your site has. I love to blog.
Every time you publish a new blog post, there are more words on your site. If those words are your keywords that you are trying hard to rank high for, then you will rank higher for them. More words equals higher rank for those words. I love to blog.
Every blog post that is interesting will draw in links from other people who are interested in it. More external links is good for search engine ranking. I love to blog.
There are probably other good reasons to write blog posts, but these are all I can think of off the top of my head on a rainy Friday afternoon.
Did you get my point? I love to blog! You should love it too.
Posted in SEO |
Friday, December 25th, 2009
It’s possible to sell crafts or art on the Internet without being slimy about it. You don’t have to “hard sell” anyone. All you have to do is tell people about how cool your stuff is. Tell a story about it. Help people understand why your stuff is as cool as it really is.
You’re not lying. You’re telling the truth and helping people get happy. How can that be bad?
People who want to sell their art, or their crafts, or anything that they created with love and care, should read this article.
Desdemona
Whenever you create objects by hand, the thing to remember is that it’s not the object you’re selling at the end of the day… it’s the stories behind the object. What’s important isn’t the object, but the process. And there’s nothing better than a blog for documenting this process. A lot of creators learn in school about the importance of process, but when it comes to their web presence or to the business side of their work, they seem to forget this.
The object you create (the product) is a symbol of the process (the story) that went into its making. And it’s that story that’s really the important part. You might think the aesthetics of the object itself are the most important, but they’re not, simply because taste is so subjective.
How to Document the Creative Process on your Blog
On the one hand, what I’m about to tell you is really simple. Absurdly simple. What’s hard about it is remembering to do it in the first place. You have to have a “documentary” mindset. Here’s the thing: you don’t know what others will find valuable, so just document and let others sort it out for you. This isn’t complicated:
Take pictures as you work through a piece, and take notes about why you’re doing what you’re doing, and what is the story behind that.
Shoot video in the same vein. Better yet, if you can get someone else to hold the camera and ask questions, the better. Otherwise, get tripod.
Make a time-lapse video of you working on the piece (setting it to some appropriate music is a nice touch).
Write about what you’re going through, thinking, and feeling as create a piece.
Tell the stories of where everything comes from in a piece, especially the sourcing of materials and ideas.
Read the entire article at:
http://remarkablogger.com/2009/12/22/artist-blogging-101
Posted in marketing |
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
I stumbled upon this advice on “how do I get more readers for my blog?” and thought it was worth passing on.
Businesses should blog. The search engines love it and your readers love it. It’s hard to start out without many readers, but if you follow this advice, you’ll soon have readers.
The trick is figuring out what to give them.
Stuff Christians Like
“How do I get more readers for my blog?”
That’s a great question, it’s just the wrong one to ask first.
Want to know the right question to ask first when you find yourself with a blog and a hope that people will read it? Want to know the secret that I start every day on Stuff Christians Like with? It’s pretty simple.
Don’t ask “How do I get more readers for my blog?”
Ask instead,
“How can I give more to readers?”
The distinction is subtle, but I think it’s an important one. At the simplest level, a blog is just a gift exchange. People you may never meet from countries you may never visit, show up at your blog and give you the most precious resource they temporarily have in their hands – time. Whether it’s 30 seconds or 3 minutes, they offer you something really special, minutes of their day that they will never get back.
In return, you give them something.
Read the entire article at:
http://stuffchristianslike.net/2009/12/1-secret-ive-learned-about-blogging/
Posted in marketing |
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Seth always seems to be in front of the people that seem to be changing the world. He brought together 70 people to share ideas on how we can turn things around, how you can turn things around and they contributed to this free ebook.
If you want to do business in 2010, if you want to be inspired in your own life, then you need to read this.
DOWNLOAD HERE
Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.
Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you’ll find it worth the effort.
Read the entire article at:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29
Here’s an excerpt.
G E N E R O S I T Y
When the economy tanks, it’s natural to think of yourself first. You have a family to feed a mortgage to pay. Getting more appears to be the order of business.
It turns out that the connected economy doesn’t respect this natural instinct. Instead, we’re rewarded for being generous. Generous with our time and money but most important generous with our art.
If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.
In a digital world, the gift I give you almost always benefits me more than it costs.
If you make a difference, you also make a connection. You interact with people who want to be interacted with and you make changes that people respect and yearn for.
Art can’t happen without someone who seeks to make a difference. This is your art, it’s what you do. You touch people or projects and change them for the better. This year, you’ll certainly find that the more you give the more you get.
Seth Godin is a blogger and speaker. His new book, Linchpin, comes out in January.
Posted in business |
