Lost in Etsy hunting

Hello dear friends! How are you? 

It's been about 3 months since i reopened my etsy shop. 

It had been closed for about 7 months (June-December'14).

To be honest, i had never spend a lot of time/money in my shop as i didn't have the time for. 

Althought since i reopened it, i decided to treat it like a full time job. 

I spent many days and nights reading several articles, editing my listings, fixing my seo, adding more items e.t.c. 

I'm certainly not an expert, but the fact is that i had a powerful begining and my fellow etsy sellers started contacting me for advices.  There was a period that my phone and my mail  was really on fire. 

So here i am, to share with you some etsy basic advices. 

Etsy sellers spend so many hours trying to improve their sales with several tips, but which are the really must do, and which are just waste of time?

DO'S: 

1. The most important thing that you always have to take care is the photos. Some months ago, the white backround was the safest choice, but since there is no front page any more, you can have any backround that you want. I always prefer the natural light so i get the pics at my balcony. Another photograph tool is the light box. But even if you can't have natural light or a light box, there are several free photo editing programs, just like www.picmonkey.com.

Try to upload all the 5 photos for every listing. If you don't have the time to edit all of your photos, then upload the best of them, even if they are less than 5. 

My suggestion for items like jewellery (this is what i made), is a photo with the item worn by a model.  A photo of the item on a flat surface. A photo of the details of the item. A photo of the item in an other selection (if exists). A photo of your package. 

2. Branding. When i take place in several local craft fairs, people always recognize my items, my brand and my logo. This is exactly what i'm trying to achive in the etsy community, by:

-watermark my photos with my logo

-adding a photo of my package (as writen before)

-adding professional cards and stickers in my packages

-even sending wishing cards at my best clients

us.moo.com is going to be your branding heaven. 

3. Promote. Promote, don't spam.
Share your new items on your social media. Share the treasure lists that your items have been featured. Make a social media planner and find the hours that best work for your promotion.
Make a mail list to inform your clients for sale, giveaways, new entries e.t.c.
Buy an add button on your favorite blog. Find a powerful blog that influence the audience.

4. SEO. There are sooo many tips and myths about seo. What i practicly do for my shop are just the followings: Strong product titles with keyword phrases. Copy and paste the tittle to tags. Make engagements. If your item has been featured in any blog, write the link on the discription. If not, write a link of another item that can be worn together, or even the link of your shop.
Another trick that can increase your views is to change your featured items twice a day.
Find the best hour to renew and add new items. My suggestion is between 9.30-11.30pm Eastern time. Althought this is something that you have to find by yourself. Take a sheet and write down the age, the countries and the style of your potential costumers. If you got the time, you can make a month expiriment, visiting your etsy stats daily and write down the hour that you had the most views.

DON'Ts :

1. Etsy favorite games. Search engines count those favorites like spam. What really matters on seo is views and real favorites. 

2. Treasure lists, are not that important since there is no etsy front page any more.

Well actually, both of the above, are not that forbitten, i just believe that is waste of time. What is really forbitten, is this:

3. Don't copy. Be original!

Check my shop out here!

Love,

Sophie