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1. Sign up with google analytics.
2. The longer your shop is open the better your SEO is with search engines like google which means you have to be sort of patient. After 2 years or so I get 150 hits a day without doing anything at all – not even renewing. But when I first started I was getting like 5 hits day.
3. Sign up for google places (I think that’s what its called) so that you will come up for people doing local searches. Its also helps your SEO in general.
4. Figure out how long you stay on the first page of your category on etsy after renewing. Only renew accordingly so you can stay on that first or second page.
5. Don’t bother with those pay for being featured in a category things on etsy. As far as I have seen and heard – they are totally not worth it.
6. Make sure you first picture of each listing is “treasury” fitting. Go to etsy treasury’s and see what kind of pictures they use. Usually you should try to have muted backgrounds, no added borders on the picture, and on some (not all) of them try to have a human or animal model.
7. Tags…besides your general category tags you will want to try to think of what people will actually be searching for. So for example, if I want to see handmade furniture I might type in “handmade artsy coffee table” or “decor steampunk inspired furniture” - So you look at those and you can make one tag “artsy coffee table”, “steampunk inspired”, “decor”, “handmade”. Also put in multiple names for certain colors if you have room – like teal can also be aqua, turquoise, bright blue, etc.
8. I’m going to give you a whole bunch of links that will change your etsy sellin life
9. Blogs, twitter, facebook fan page, this that, yadda yadda. Etsy people are huge on this stuff. Its also very time consuming. I know successful etsy seller who do not have any of this stuff…I have all. Lol. I wish I didn’t though I can tell you that much. It’s a personal choice. My suggestion would be to just do one. Twitter is the easiest and you can update from your phone.
10. OTHER bloggers love having stuff to feature. Find some blogs that feature stuff like yours and send them some pictures and a blurb about you or your new shop.
11. Use all 5 pictures in your listing even if it means using one slot for a logo and one for a picture of you working on a piece that is not the piece your selling.
12. Pricing….one jumping off point I tell people is this- materials x 5 = retail price. This can totally vary of course up and down if the price that the equation spits out seems totally wrong. BUT that is the equation that small businesses and stuff use. I would check out your category and look at the highest priced items and the lowest.
13. More pricing. Another trick for your shop is this. People like to buy things in the middle price rage. If you go to a restaurant and look at the wine list – one is $8, one $15 and another $25. Which one do most people pick? The $15. We don’t want bad, we don’t want extravagant, we just want good. So this basically means that you should take one or tow items in your shop and price them higher than you are comfortable with. Take a few and price them lower than normal. Then everything else should be exactly how much you want to sell them for.
14. Make sure you use all of your featured spots. And use your best photographed items in these spots.
15. Join an etsy team. This is the best way to a. get on the front page, b. get into treasuries, c. be featured on blogs, etc.
16. If you do any off etsy advertising, find a target market. Don’t bother doing an ad on some huge site – go for a well trafficked blog that is genre specific or something like that. Advertise to people who are already interested in products like yours.
17. Make youtube videos of you working on stuff. Or instructional videos of how to do simple stuff like “the right way to sand wood”, “how to make a treble crochet” stuff like that and then put your etsy shop address in there and in your youtube profile. You would be surprised how many people will view and then go to your shop. People love simple instructional videos! And again anything that links back to your shop will help you SEO become stronger faster.
18. Consider opening a second shop for supplies, scraps, etc. Supplies sellers make the most money and sales on Etsy hands down. BUT you need to think about whether or not you want to go that route. You may very well become busier in your supplies shop than in your creative shop.
19. Etsy puts out, on their blog, this thing every month called the merch report. In it are tags that they will be searching for for front page features. For example in January the big thing was garnet (the color and stone) – so if you had anything in your shop that you were tagging as burgundy you could add garnet to your list and come up in more search results. Sort of time consuming to keep up with so take that as you will.
20. Make sure you fill out everything in your profile and shop policies and all that. If you need help filling it out check out other peoples profiles and see what they have in there. There are people who have been doing this for 6 years and have everything perfected!
Ok links:
http://www.etsyhacks.com/ (download the most popular ones for sellers – These hacks SAVE SO MUCH TIME – seriously)
http://www.google.com/analytics/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color (scroll to the bottom for the easiest to use color chart/names – I use this for tags)
http://craftweasel.com/TagToolQuery.do (this is an easy way to find out median prices for items that are tagged the same way your are and to find tags that will help the perceived value)
http://www.craftopolis.com/ - just sort of a cool way to visualize your hearts and sales.
http://www.stylishhome.com/ - I’ve never used this but I just saw it on etsy as a place to get free advertising for “home goods” on etsy – might be useful.
http://metricly.com/signup/etsy - have not used this one either but it looks prettier than google analytics!
