Lessons

Lesson Info

Bring Traffic to Your Etsy Through Blogging

So has a blogger who regularly uses their blogged, oh, you guys are awesome! Yeah, because they're a really good way, tio to kind of get you. Get yourself out there more. Get your brand out there more and we're going toe so share with me how you use your block too, to promote your your stuff, your business, anybody on my block, I have it. I have a schedule that I follow, so every day is a different theme and it's all postcard related on mondays, a post about my own postcards that I make himself tuesdays I always have to look at the schedule, but these days is about generally mailing thing, so about new stamps that came out or changes in postal rates, or how to get special postmarks. Wednesday is what to wear wednesdays so it's clothing or accessory items that air somehow postal related. Wow. So, like little purses that looked like airmail envelopes, things like that, you know, so every day is is a different thing, and I have a bit of a following because I try to post burton of things t...

o post card collectors like links. Where to find the most pope popular postcard stiles aren't mine, so I'm writing them information outside of my store, but it has brought people into my store, yeah. That makes sense because if you're offering information that's good for them than they'll continue to follow you and they'll just naturally be fed your monday post that air more product related right? And it doesn't feel like you're just shoving this sales thing at them you're really just building a community with your with your block what is the name of your block? How do find it it's max inco post dot com maxing post dot com yeah that's really great, I like how organized you are about that e s o how you use your black teo random stuff on it could be about products that were in just making or in development or the process of it like if we go to a hardware store to go source the wood locally um and you know, it's mostly me being a creeper, taking pictures of john like picking out the woods are, you know, teo and theme with our the name of our company six by six together we have six children and so people, you know, exploit one of our children on, you know, whatever somebody has to pay, you know, just random family stuff along, you know, it's more of a is it's like a elaborate version of instagram for us because you'll see process, you'll see product and then you'll see us really humans right like a personal thing tio but you're creating that personal connection yeah that's really great. Do you find that it drives traffic to your etc shopper yes, I actually I noticed down here going ahead way have square space and they have the metrics built in and we can see you know, the incoming traffic and what people are looking at and they are checking in her blood free my mouth is interesting someone else it's kind of nice when that happens, right? Yeah. Oh, look, I have more than just my mom like well yeah and it's nice you teo talk besides, you know something else besides your product because it gets boring for you is a maker too because it's like I talk about my stuff again it's nice to talk about an event that were attending and people that we've met your horn craft shows that you know, people might be interesting going tio yeah around it's kind of like using your block content as sort of a resource for the people that you're connecting with two right? Because that just keeps them coming back keeps them interested eso if you haven't started blogging yet you can check out some of the popular blogging platforms water is free on and it's easy and it's pretty much where everybody starts I think you know, because it's very user friendly very easy to understand but oftentimes people quickly outgrow blogger especially if they start building a following and they want to customize their shop a little more but if you're really really needed the blogging scene then you can check out blogger and just kind of develop the beginning block just to see if you like it because you know blocking isn't for everybody temblor does anybody have a tumbler yeah you know it's so weird like I know the tumblers super popular but I don't know very many people myself use it but I see tumbler out there all the time like theirs you know means that go on tumbler and yeah you have fifteen or younger oh yeah ok so that's good to know you know if that perceived market is on there then you know ifyou're if you're making things that really are attracted to that market than it might be worth it to check out you know how to get involved but it's kind of that you know in between twitter and blogging type thing and it's really easy to post pictures onto it it's sort of like an expanded instagram in a lot of ways but if your customer isn't on there than you know might not be the best platform I'm wordpress it's you know that one it's usually like the next step after blogger I think because word press is very easy to customize you don't need to know coding in order to make your shop play or your you're blogging great it's very very flexible there a lot of teams out there that you get for free or for pretty low cost squarespace so yeah you know, I've been hearing more and more about squarespace lately and I'm actually signed it for their free trial I was like wow, this is kind of pretty like everything's really so clean and sort of laid out for you and yeah it's like it must it looks like it's a really easy thing to sort of set up well it's you know it's like wow I could make a picture really big and that could be all that I post on this page and there's different templates and the usability is very, very easy yeah yeah well I like it is it really easy to use? Yeah so that's great so it's kind of sort of in competition with blogger now but like it's like a pretty your blogger maybe yeah shot yeah oh really? Ok eso it's like e commerce can be built into it as well that's really, really good that's really good I like that post your domain so oh yeah yeah, they dio goodness. Okay um so blogging it's you know you build you build your brand, you build your customer base you share with your customers aa lot of them are low cost or free when you create post on your blogged, make sure that you have back links to specific things on your shop if you're you know, I see a lot of bloggers like they have a certain word that is related to something that's in their shop and they'll just make that word hot link that goes over to the thing in your shop because, like if it's a link, sometimes I'll just click on it just see where it goes eso you can do that, you want to make sure that you are working on it consistently and if you know you can try it out and it's, not for everybody. Like I said, if you don't like writing, if you don't like sitting and thinking of words, then you know it's, it might not be the right platform for you. Maybe it more of a twitter, instagram or pinterest or something like that? It's not required that you have a blogged by any means yeah, yeah, a little backwards on that poops, so make sure that I'm somewhere in your blogged you have a link to your, your etc sorry backwards you have on your bell page a link to your block there's that little section on the bottom that has links to your your blog's and your social media account you can go into other people's blocks and comment on them normally you can put a girl that is attached to your comment so somebody clicks on your name for instance it will go directly to the euro it just creates another back link to your shop which back links again are all integrated when you do pin are you when you do you have a block post make sure that the image that you put on there is pitiable in other words something that somebody would want to share content wise a lot of people are doing that really need graphic thing where they have the relevant photo and then they have the words about the title of the block post kind of laid over the top of the photo that's a very pitiable kind of blogged picture feature other sellers on your block you know, kind of share the love kind of thing you were saying that you oftentimes we'll talk about people that you've met at shows and things like that you know I mean it's really all about kind of supporting each other as well, you know, so re tweeting and kind of repenting and all of that kind of stuff you can be a guest post on another block you know, maybe some of you can get together and kind of do guess post on each other's block to kind of do this cross promotion type of thing that's always fun to d'oh how many people you actually use an editorial calendar on your like kind of use an editorial oh yeah editorial calendars they can be really complicated I think in the in the class materials actually printed up sort of a beginning editorial calendar type thing it might be in the very, very back or something. Um but the editorial counter is a great way to sort of organize the way that you post your your posts oh, yeah, there it is super simple. I mean there's instructions on how to use it on the bottom that's in the workbook and you know, you just like heidi was saying she does normal regular recurring themes every week um and so you can use the calendar like that just to keep track of everything. Um so yeah, that calendar is really good to keep organized. Okay, so alternative marketplaces I definitely wanted to mention this because as far as branding your business goes, you know, being on etsy is great and it's definitely a great place to kind of build your business. But when you want to start growing your business and also in terms of ceo you want to be found your you want your brand to be found and as many different places as possible, so there are many other marketplaces out there that are that kind of cater to different kinds of customers is do do you use any of these other alternatives hopping I have used a few of them a big cartel most and I can tell that tell you that the google hits that I get from my big cartel shop which has been closed for about a year is more than anything else and sometimes even more than entity interesting hi, I used the same text and all of it but big cartel the ceo from that was just amazing wow and so you have like it do they have a you have like the free account so you just he just kind of have your branding up there in your big heart taliban you don't really there is there is one two products left in that account that I couldn't put on etsy just because of that they were postcards from other publishers but they're brand new, which is something else he wouldn't allow and they got left there because I didn't know where else to put him right, but they're actually bringing property they're actually bringing traffic and I actually sold off there forgetting that it was even there wow bad thing but you yeah okay so I'm just kind of going toe break down some of the other handmade marketplace is people ask you asking about this all the time there are definitely other places that you can sell your work art fire is one of them it's probably the may be the second oldest marketplace out there uh their base in tucson, arizona no sales commission fees but you do pay either twenty forty or so sixty dollars per month depending on how many, how much space and how much service you want from them no contracts you don't have to pay anything out front you can use them I haven't our fire account I will occasionally very occasionally get a random sail from art fire and oftentimes is people who are like you. I'm so glad you're on our fire because I don't chop on its anymore so you know it's worth it to kind of diversify your present do wanda is more the european customer base it's a free account you can list the same item in another category so instead of having multiple listings you can have that that same listing attributed to another category but you just have to pay a little extra fee for that listings only last one hundred twenty days and there's ten percent commission on all of your sales so you know if you find that your customer base is really in the european market than it might be worth checking this out store envy has anybody checked out story and yet yeah, I could not believe it when I read about story and the it is free like free free no listing fees, no commission fees you put your stuff on there you build a shop and it's free you can take that shop and put it on your website and it's free when you sell something through there you know in it they do have a marketplace that they are starting to develop that's kind of an etsy ish marketplace where they integrate all of the shops together and promote them like that and if you are a part of the marketplace and you pay ten percent if you sell anything through the marketplace so it's kind of another way too market your stuff it to another another crowd of people s oh, yeah kind of worth checking out just because of the free aspect of it um after cross have has anybody heard of that one? Um krizia is that what is that mitt word we jumble a word to spell something else? No, I can't think of it but anyway it's supposed it's crap, huh? Yeah. Is that it? Yeah. And it's so it's kurt a craft and they mixed up the words are mix of the letters it is based in milwaukee, wisconsin there's no fees, no fees toe list. They are nothing under ten dollars. They are very quality based and they only accept made in america products and they're very adamant about that have an interesting system they call after crap and if you see something on after that doesn't match their their system than you can flag it was that was that was keep that we hold out crab. It was like they really get so you know, it's, we're checking out. I started a shop on there just to see what it was like. It was fairly easy to set up so pretty familiar. So, michaela, they are based here in snohomish, washington. There's no set up, no listing or re listing fees. You can have up two hundred products for free in your basic storefront. One hundred products is a lot for a lot of people. S o free is pretty great. Two point seven, five percent plus processing fees on sales, which is pretty low. Um, and you have additional costs if your soul through markets now, what male it does a little bit differently is they allow people to develop kind of collections of stores. So say, for instance, if he wanted to do with seattle handmade mail a marketplace, then we would have people who have shops on male, a kind of underneath the seattle handmade umbrella, and it will be easier to market that collection of shops on mail and other places. So having that more direct marketing just costs a little bit more to have the the people who are curating that market put that together for us. So if you have a community of people or community of other crafters you might want to check out may lead to see if putting together a marketplace is good for your community. Zip it. So their base in sydney, australia, they have offices all over the world. No listing or selling fees. Unlimited listings. Uh, if you sell your first ten items, they're free. If you up to fifty items, then, uh, well, you can't leave me them five dollars months month, unlimited sales, ten dollars month month and the on ly accept paypal. Hey, I know a lot of people who find a lot of success on exhibit s so it's worth checking out the site to see how, how it's all set up, and if it's something that works for your branding. So these air hosted e commerce sites. These are sites that you can build, but they have really no community attributed to them are attached to them. It's really an easy way for you to set up an independent shop with an independent shopping cart. Shopify, one of the more popular ones has anyone you, shopify, it's, kind of a popular platform for people who are really kind of graduating beyond at sea, and the a collective marketplaces on building their own separate brand and identity away from all of that stuff, the thing about the the e commerce hosting is because they have a lot more functional on more customization they tend to be a little more expensive than being a part of a big marketplace eso shopify located ottawa canada monthly online transaction fees fourteen dollars a month and then they have the transaction percentages and per fee based on how many products that you have in your shop if I account um again I know a lot of people who really like shopify so if you're looking if you're researching different places to have your own standalone shopping cart then you might want to check that out uh big cartel yeah it seems like a good thing to check out bass in salt lake city utah they have a free account with five products so you khun just check it out put it five products and see if you have some look like heidi just like you know just kind of bring people in few shelf without doing anything that would be kind of cool if that was true for everybody but I think I think they're one of the reasons why that really works is because they are very focused people are probably searching for those is that brand you know and because it's a manufactured brand it can't be sold on etc but people are looking for it and then they're finding that they can find other postcards on your at sea shop so yeah, it was a big name yeah, okay, theo big big brand name it is one of the more expensive ones out there, but they offer a lot of customization for your shop to sign a lot of people lot of designers really, really like that too. Yeah, these are you are they hosted like by the e commerce website lists? They're not hosted out like if you have a domain, you can't like them on your own website or I think I think shop if I will let you do that, but it cost of feed for you, teo, use the shopify platform and have it hosted on your own domain because you know you're using their products so they have to charge you something I think they have their integrated hosting together, so they can kind of keep everything together and have the fees kind of tracked in one place. I've been hearing a lot about wic slightly no, maybe they're really good at advertising or something, but I figured it was it was good to put out there. It pops up on my facebook feed a lot so their race in israel with and they have ah offices in san francisco in new york, among others there are pretty low monthly fees and you can also get on actual domain name through them and they will host it along with your website I think it's a pretty easy platform like a drag and drop kind of interface eso if you're not really big into the whole design thing, it might be a good one to check out we believe there's another one that keeps popping up on my radar for some reason based in san francisco a monthly fees transaction fees zero and three percent on their basic host sted website so pretty low cost and you have a lot of different plans that you can look at through them and I think there another one of those drag and drop type of design website design I had to include clinton illusion because in all of my searches for these hosted e commerce sites like they they were really good with their google ads there at the top of every single e commerce website thing s o I just got to like, you know, hey, you guys are doing a good job because I had to pay attention to you they're based in austin, texas, and the interesting thing about it is as a crafter is an artist I go to their website it's like hello corporate website seriously like how am I going to you? But their rates are pretty comparable like there, you know and they have a whole different customer base so you know there's there's positives that can happen if you aren't fine finding your your exact right target market with all of the crafty things you might want to look to something outside of that to sort of gain that that other market so like all the stuff we just learned weii learned all about the keyword research and wow how to integrate social media your blog's in your web sites I mean, the point is is that s ceo is just all about bringing things together thinking like your customer putting the tag words and your key words out there that that your customer is looking for it's just it's worth it's a worthwhile investment of time and uh yeah hopefully hopefully we can I'll get up there in the search engines with our stuff um I added that to the list because it does it takes a lot of time but some it is worth it it is worth it okay, you guys are awesome. Thank you. Also one question that some of the folks in san francisco had how many of those like social media platforms should you be on like is it better to just hit all of them and be on all of them or is it better to like focus on the ones that you find working for you and just beyond a few or is it whatever works best for each individual person I really find that it is very much a personal style choice for instance I want to love twitter I really, really dio but it just isn't fit with my lifestyle, I'm just I'm not on my phone all the time. I don't check things all the time. I'm more of a facebook level of energy type person, I'll check it once or twice a day and that's kind of it. So as far as the social media platforms go, use the ones that work for your personality because if you're going to have to be on there all day every day, it has to be something that you really enjoy doing on def. You don't enjoy doing it, you're just not going to put in the right amount of energy toward it. So it's really okay if you don't want to use social media, but what you need to do is find other ways to get people to take notice of your shop so it's a worth while test sissy which one of the platforms really work for your personality, but yeah, I mean it's your business, I mean that's. The great thing about it. Is this your small business? You can do whatever you want to make it to make it work for you. So yeah, it's a good question.