Help for the Helpless Bloggers

Ok so this morning I somehow came across the idea of "Site Maps" and Verifying your site (blog) with Google and all this other stuff I had never heard of. I thought that my Google Base and Google Analytic's were enough...Nope.

As a side note, you do not need to do this for your etsy page. Hopefully one day we WILL be able to, but not yet. You can do this for your blogs and any other website you may have.

So here is what Ive learned...


Step One

• Go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
• Sign In (or sign up if you don't have a google user name)
• Click "Add a Site" and enter your URL in the pop up

Step Two

• Click the link called "Verify This Site"
• Now you will see a "Meta Tag" which looks something like this:

• Select and copy the entire tag beggining with <>

Step Three (For any web site you own)

• In a new window go to your site
• Find where you can edit your HTML sometimes known as your "Template HTML"
• *For Blogger go to "layout" and then "html"
• Look through your code to find your "Head" marks which will be inside these: < >
• You want to paste the "Meta Tag" code before your end head mark which has this mark before the word head: < / >
  
• Example:

• Save your Edits

Step 4

• Go back to your Google Webmaster Tools page where you were verifying your site
• Click Verify
• If you put the code in the right place Google should find it quickly!

When I figure out the "site maps" issue, i will post about that as well.
















Good Luck!

3 Tools You Should Be Using...and Why

• Craftweasel : Tag Finder - The trick with this tool is to know what your best tags are in the first place. If you just type in "hair clip" you are going to get a million tags that may or may not have anything to do with your item. But if you type in something like "goth fascinator" you are going to get color tags, description tags and other genre tags that you may not even have thought of otherwise. And by the way - the best way to use this tool is to type in your words - hit "find tags"- then "complete table of related tags" then "average views per day".

• Statsy : Featurator - e-mail every time you get featured on Etsy's front page. It's good to have something like this because being featured on the front page these days usually lasts about 4 minutes.

• Craftoplolis : Treasure Hunt & Gift Guide - All you have to do is type your shop name in and you can see if you are in any treasury's or gift guides. Easy peesy.

Working With Feathers 101

My top 5 tips to taking a good product picture

I am no expert...however I am often told that I take pretty good pictures for my etsy listings. Here are a few tips I have picked up along the way. (click the pictures to see a more detailed size)

1. Learn about the macro settings on your camera. If you do not have your user manual anymore you can most likely find information online. Just look up your model number and "macro settings".

Notice how the camera is trying to focus on everything in the "without"
pictures. In the "with" picture only what you want to showcase is in
focus the rest is nice and blurred. It may seem like a small difference...
but It really does make a nice photograph that is easier to look at.

2. Use as much natural light as possible. Open every window shade in the house. Or better yet, go outside!

3. Buy a large sheet of white paper. Using good lighting and white paper will give you a lit from all angles look. Take the sheet of paper and tape it to a wall or object so that the paper acts as the background and the flooring for your product with a nice curve.

You do not need a piece of paper this large, we just had this
around the house. Also, Set yours up on a table and wall to
save your back!

4. Use angles to your advantage. Extreme angle shots are a trick that even professional product photographers use. Think about shaving razor ads or cell phones, cars, even food products. Angle shots are a way to make your product look cool and larger than life. It's also a way to make something simple look artsy and a fantastic way to capture details.

5. Get to know a photo editing program. It doesn't need to cost $500 but you should find something that has the basics like contrast, cropping, and color/white balance.

This is a huge difference with just one command - Auto Levels. In
Photoshop thats - shift+command+L. Seriously thats all I did!

A few notes:
I recently started using a mannequin which has completely altered the way I photograph and edit my products. Be ready to try different things each step of the way. For example if you make white products, try shooting on a shiny black surface instead. Also, to safe yourself time and headache, make sure everything is clean. Your surface and your product should be dust free, hot glue stringy free and so on That stuff DOES show up when you use your macro settings.

I hope this helps!

Teneisha a.k.a. 10eisha