Tess Richardson, handmade seller on Etsy.com, was interviewed by Walton.com about her experience using the website’s free SEO guide.

Tess’s Etsy shop started with selling rosaries.  “As a “cradle Catholic,” I’ve always been fascinated by rosaries. I enjoy pushing my designs beyond the traditional to create unique and very personal rosaries,” Tess shares in her Etsy shop profile.   Next, Tess added homespun yarn to her Etsy shop.

Recently, Tess said she found a great niche line of products to sell. The products are centered around “The Hunger Games”, a young-adult science fiction novel written by Suzanne Collins and published in 2008.

“I got a great idea for a charm bracelet based on the young adult trilogy,” Tess, from Wisconsin, said. “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.”

Although she hopes to establish herself in the homespun yarn market, Tess has found the bracelets seemed like a way to bring in some early sales. “It was an untapped niche with an eager market,” she said.

To take her shop to the next level, Tess knew she had to look to search engine optimization (“SEO”). After months of procrastinating over SEO for her Etsy shop, she came across a posting in the Etys.com forums for a free SEO download.

“I thought I’d give it a look as it sounded like what I needed,” she said.

Tess downloaded the free guide (called “The Simple Guide To SEO”) and started getting busy. In a short time, Tess saw success with her efforts to utilize SEO tips and tricks to drive traffic to her Etsy shop.

“In the two days I’ve been searching out, and talking on, websites related to my Etsy products, my Google Analytics has shown a jump from 0 to 132 page views,” Tess told Walton.com in her interview.

Although Tess isn’t new to the world of communications and marketing, she found the SEO guide provided valuable insight.

“Until last year, I was a communications and marketing director for an employee benefits consultant,” Tess said. “I am not new to some of these concepts, but I had never tried them before and did not have a comprehensive understanding of them until I read the free download. Before that my knowledge consisted of bits and pieces: use really good keywords, inbound links, converse on other’s sites/blogs in a meaningful way. I never had time to put this knowledge to work at my previous job. I really needed someone to put it all together in terms I understood.”

Tess told Walton.com that one of the first things that jumped out at her was the suggestion to 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,” she said. “I set up my blog 2 days after reading the book.”

Tess also picked up another small, but valuable, tip from the guide. The guide suggested using bold and italic. “I had never read that elsewhere,” Tess said.

The guide included a number of features that Tess found helpful including:

• A glossary
• Light, readable style
• The pricetag – “I love that it’s free!” Tess said.

After reading the guide, Tess started to focus on her target market for her Etsy shop. Her target market is tween and teens who love the books her items are centered around.

“I thought about where I could find my target buyer and started Googling for fan sites,” she told Walton.com. “That got me a few hits, so I began visiting them to get a feel for the audience, what was discussed and how open I thought they might be to shameless self-promotion. Some sites I had to join, like Facebook Fan Pages and Fanpop.com.”

“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,” Tess explained. “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.”

Tess found SEO groundwork does not come easy. “It was time consuming,” Tess shared. “I spent an entire morning on it and maybe posted on 4-5 sites.”

Tess found the registration process for some of the fan sites to be one of the most time-consuming obstacles. “I’ve got enough usernames and passwords to keep track of!” she said.

However, Tess found that SEO efforts on fan sites paid off for her more than her Etsy shop posts.  “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!” she said.

In the end, Tess admits that the entire process to utilize SEO practices for her Etsy shop was relatively 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,” she said.

Tess advises other Etsy sellers that some market niches will be much harder than others to see results quickly and without much effort.

“My homespun yarn is going to be an uphill climb because the market is so full of competitors,” she said. “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.”

In the end, Tess says her experience building good SEO for her Etsy shop made her look at future product endeavors 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,” she said in her interview with Walton.com. “On the other hand, I’m thinking of maximizing my time spent in finding and joining “The Hunger Games” fan sites by developing other products for 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.”

Tess is already thinking of future projects to test out her SEO knowledge.

“Having tasted just a bite of success, I am in the progress of self-publishing my first novel–a historical fiction,” she said. “My head is already buzzing with ideas for getting out there and making online connections with history fans.”

Keep up with Tess and her new projects by following her on Twitter @HomespunLife and reading her blog.

Thanks to Tess for sharing her recent SEO interview with Walton.com with HandmadeMarketing.org!  Download the free SEO guide from Walton.com here.

Our team publishes ideas from handmade sellers, artisans, and crafters.  Be sure to include links to your social media sites or handmade shop site in your article.  Sellers receive free press for lending their knowledge, and both new and experienced sellers alike get new ideas.  Share with HandmadeMarketing.org.

James Dillehay, from craftermarketer.com, shared his thoughts on how crafters can utilize SEO (search engine optimization) best practices to increase sales.

James Dillehay is a professional craft artist and author of nine books. He has been interviewed in The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Bottom Line Personal and has appeared as a featured guest on HGTV’s The Carol Duvall Show and Entrepreneur Radio. He served as a member of the advisory boards to the National Craft Association and ArtisanStreet.com.

“Properly done, SEO can enhance your Etsy, Artfire or personal domain website pages to help the search engines determine what your site is about,”  James told HandmadeMarketing.org.

He explains that SEO practices help search engines like Google and Bing rank you web pages high in results when searchers type in queries looking for items like yours.

James says effective SEO for increasing your crafts sales is generally concerned with two things.

1. “On-page” Factors.  “An example of on-page factors would be if you make handmade jewelry, you want that phrase and similar search terms throughout your content, like in your page title, URL (if possible), meta description, body text, heading tags, image names and alt image text,” he said.
2. Incoming Links. “Equally important, is getting the links pointing to your site to contain the popular keyword phrases you want to rank high for. So if you want to rank high for the search term “handmade jewelry”, you would first include the phrase as mentioned above and then set out to get incoming links where the linking text reads “handmade jewelry.” You will want to vary your incoming links and the words and phrases included in your content so as to appear natural to Google and the other search engines. Google has sophisticated tools that filter out sites they determine are attempting to artificially enhance their ranking results. As long as you get links coming in “naturally”, you can start improving your rankings by making link-getting part of your daily marketing,” James tells handmade sellers.

He suggests looking to social sites who are focused on supporting the “buy handmade” movement for help with enhancing your SEO.

“Craftsu, IndiePublic and Artists.Gawker.com let you set up a free profile and link to your Etsy, Artfire or other storefront,” he says.

For more information about how you can increase the number of potential buyers looking at your handmade crafts, be sure to take a look at James Dillehay’s blog.  He blogs craft business tips here.

Looking for other handmade business tips from pros?  Check out these HandmadeMarketing.org articles:

Tips From A Pro – Etsy Photography Inspiration

Tips From A Pro – Strike Gold in Etsy Treasuries

Tips From A Pro – Jewelry Photography Tips from Allyjoy

Tips From A Pro – Etsy Bag Team on Successful Etsy Teams

Do you have tips to share with readers of HandmadeMarketing.org?  Tell us your SEO tips for increasing handmade sales.  Be sure to include links to your blog, shop, and social media so we can link to you as the article author!

When the Etsy’s SEO Guide was released in September of 2009, Etsy seller Amy Vander Vorste published her own SEO tips with tools to help sellers on her website.  Amy sells handmade at Etsy’s Avlor’s Imprints and has shared her marketing and business tips with HandmadeMarketing.org before – from showing us how to create a form for customers and inventory to creating a Facebook user name. 

The SEO guide from Etsy.com aims to share great tips with sellers and offer insights into how to enhance Etsy shops for search engines and improve rankings.  Because search engine optimization is an evolving process, expect updates to this initial guide.

The guide advises sellers to focus item descriptions and as well as the shop title on the first 30 words.  This will ensure that the most optimized keywords will be displayed.

“[After reading the Etsy SEO guide], many of us are redoing our shop and item titles and descriptions to utilize those first 30 or 160 characters,” Amy says.

To help make this process a little less painless for sellers, Amy says sellers count their characters using Google Docs’ word count tool, which can be found under “Tools”, then “Word Count.”

“If you make a selection, it will count the characters in the selection. Then you can easily tune your titles and descriptions to the correct number of characters,” she tells other Etsy sellers.

What techniques have you used to help make your shop or website optimized for search engines?  What role do you think search plays in sales?  Have you noticed any changes in your SEO since Etsy published this guide?

Have you ever wondered about “PageRank”?  With the buzz word flying around the online handmade community, HandmadeMarketing.org wanted to share the scoop with our readers.

The term “PageRank” is actually a trademark of Google and is essentially a link analysis algorithm.  PageRank was named after Larry Page of Google and is used by the company’s Internet search engine.

Knowing a website’s “PageRank” will tell you a lot about the site.  PageRank is meant to measure a site’s relative importance compared to other sites within a particular set.

Still a little lost?  Here’s is Google’s explaination on their site:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”,” the site explains.

If you are wondering what your PageRank is for some of your sites – you handmade shop online, your blog, your Facebook page, etc. – try using this PageRank tool.   You can also read up about Google’s thoughts on PageRank on their website.

What is the PageRank for your website or blog?  What about your online shop?  Do you have any tips for helping handmade sellers increase their PageRank?

Share you thoughts with HandmadeMarketing.org!  Tell us what your PageRank is in a comment below so we can all check out your site!

HandmadeMarketing.org recently came across an article by Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, and creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress.   In the article, Clark answers a question that effects many handmade sellers:  “Is Commenting on Blogs a Smart Traffic Strategy?”

“If one of your primary traffic strategies is to leave fast comments on the posts of larger blogs in your niche just to get a few clicks from the passing traffic, stop,” Brian Clark writes.  He claims that a handmade seller, or anyone looking for traffic for that matter, can get more traffic from a well-written piece of content than months of that type of comment strategy.

Clark makes a logical, but often missed point.  “Without good content, there’s no reason to attract a few “curiosity clicks” anyway. What’s going to make them stick around after the click if your content sucks?  Nothing.”

In addition, the motivation for those curiosity clicks that a seller may snag is often bad to begin with.  He explains that some bloggers will try to be the first comment on the post of a larger blog.

“They do this because those positions in the comment stream get the most click-throughs, all other things being equal,” he writes. “The problem is, in the rush for “first,” the resulting comments are often incoherent and banal. Sometimes it’s quite clear the commenter didn’t read the post, or missed the entire point in the hurry for top position.”

Although harsh, Clark explains why the first to comment gets the curosity click.  “They are usually motivated by “I wonder just how bad this bozo’s blog is going to be?” It’s true… lame blogs are entertainment for the rest of us,” he writes.  Because these curosity clicks will have a high bounce rate, they are not quality hits for your blog or website.  For more information about how to determine your website’s bounce rate, take a look at how to read a Google Analytics report.

So, is commenting on blogs worthless for handmade sellers?  Clark says commenting on blogs is not worthless. “In fact, you can actually attract that traffic you want via a smart commenting strategy,” he writes.  For more ideas about how to leverage blog comments, check out an article by Etsy seller Tara Gentile from HandmadeinPA.net about why blog comments matter.

Beyond great content on your blog (Clark’s #1 rule), he suggests to focus your blog comments on establishing relationships.

“Think about it,” he writes. “It’s no secret that many of the people who comment on blogs are also bloggers. They simply have more motivation to take the time to comment.  So when you meaningfully participate in the community aspect of a blog, you’re creating meaningful relationships with people who can send you significant traffic-bloggers and other active social media users.”

Tara Gentile agrees with this idea.  “Just as in life, the more you give, the more you get,” Tara tells HandmadeMarketing.org in her recent blog comment focused article.  “Think about the blogs you visit regularly. Are you giving them the comments that you’d like to get? Leave a comment. Start a discussion. Point out something specific from the post you found helpful, eye-catching, or interesting.”

All handmade sellers utilizing the Internet to attract sales know snagging links, getting Twitter followers to re-tweet, having your site “dugg”, etc. all help your content (and handmade products) to spread to large audiences.  Clark suggests that creating a network that provides the payoff for all the effort you’ve put into your content is the way to optimize the number of potential buyers you reach each day.

“It takes time, but at least it actually works,” he writes.  “I find that the higher level of singular focus I place on content development, the better the content turns out.”

How do you take time to establish relationships with other handmade sellers on the Internet?  Do you receive traffic to your site from blogs you comment on?  Why do you think social media is importatnt for handmade sellers?

Share your thoughts!  Comment on this article or send us more detail about how to sell handmade online by clicking on our “Join” tab.  If we publish your tips submitted to us in an article, we’ll link to your handmade shop, blog, or site as the source!

HandmadeMarketing.org reader Caryn Stockwell recently told us why she likes to sell handmade on 1000 Markets.  Caryn’s shop (Second Star Designs) has selling space online at 1000 Markets, Etsy.com, and ArtFire.

Caryn told our team at HandmadeMarketing.org about the SEO work being done by 1000 Markets on behalf of the sellers.

“1000Markets.com is SEO linked through Amazon and Google. The description of your item for sale is automatically entered for categorizing in the Google search engine. Additionally, products found through an Amazon.com search are linked into the 1000Markets.com website, allowing you to place items into a Favorites list so you can return to purchase at a later time.”

The 1000 Markets “Merchant SEO Tool” is a brand new feature of the site and Caryn says it’s amazing! Caryn shared a section of their Marketing SEO instructions with us:

“Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fancy name for techniques you might use to increase your visibility within search engines. You may have heard of it because it is all the rage. Making yourself more visible in search engines is like free advertising. But to date, it has been an arcane and complicated art.”

“No more,” the 1000 Markets team continues, “At 1000 Markets, we aim to make it simple.”

The team at 1000 Markets tells the sellers their goal at 1000 Markets is not to give the sellers more work, but rather to give them the tools they need to make their businesses successful.  The team points out that having great SEO efforts not only helps the sellers, but the site as a whole.

“On each of your Products, Blogs, Product Collections, and a few other pages, is a special Merchant SEO Tool that lets you type in search-engine-friendly titles and/or descriptions. These titles and descriptions are exposed to search engines in special ways and help make your content more visible,” the section from 1000 Markets reads.

Not only is the tool effective, but it’s easy for handmade sellers as well.  “You can fill it in when you are creating or editing your products, blog posts, or product collections. Market Managers will also be able to use the SEO Tool to make Market pages more visible,” says the 1000 Markets team.

The site’s admins even go into detail about the anatomy of a search result!  “When you type in a search on a site like Google, Yahoo or Microsoft Live, the search engine examines its vast index and returns search results. Each entry in the search results consists of a Search Title and a Search Description,” they write.

Handmade sellers selling on 1000 Markets can customize this information to increase the search engine result rank.  “The 1000 Markets Merchant SEO Tool lets you customize what appears in the Search Title and Search Description fields.”  The site outlines how you can customize this information for products and even 1000 Markets blogs.

Caryn found this feature of 1000 Markets valuable to her efforts to sell handmade online.  “As a new business, I am trying to put my business in front of as many people as possible,” she said.

What role do you think your selling platform’s SEO efforts have in your shop’s sales?  Do you like the work your selling platform’s admins are doing to keep up with search engine standards?  Where do you fall with you search for your shop name or for products you sell?

Tell us why you think SEO matters when selling online!  Submit your ideas and experiences to HandmadeMarketing.org by clicking our “Join” tab.  The community grows when handmade sellers share their tips.  Plus, HandmadeMarketing.org will link to your website, blog, or shop as a thank you for your information!

When talking about valuable SEO practices, “reference worthy content” is a phrase you’ll hear a lot.  But what is reference worthy content?

When writing reference worthy content, bloggers are aiming to build content that is likely to be cited by others.  Getting links from other sites is important to increase the credibility of your site – both in the view of the readers and in terms of your rank on a search results page.

It may seem obvious for how to encourage others to link to your site or blog, but any SEO expert will tell you it may be harder than you think.  To build a portfolio of sites that link to you, consider the psychological catalysts that make others want to link.

Links from non-commercial site give your blog or website more power than you would think.  “It’s critical to describe those folks who are the targets of linkbait – or the “Linkerati“.  The Internet’s Linkerati love non-commercial content.

Randfish, SEOmoz’s CEO and co-founder, tells us which types of non-commercial sites to target to get the best results:

1. Bloggers.  Bloggers are a great source of traffic to your website.  Randfish says they are “probably the most targetable and directly influenced folks.”  Bloggers can also help in spreading your content in a viral manner.
2. Forum Posters.  Randfish says that targeting those who post in forums can help bring others to your site, and in turn other likely linkers.  “Although the links these folks put up don’t often result in great search engine value, the traffic can be positive,” he says.
3. Social Media Marketing.  Those who use social media are optimal people to target to help your SEO efforts.  Randfish says if social media users and their friends love you, you can potentially see thousands of visitors.  Networking with these users gives you the opportunity to be in front of hundreds of other bloggers.
4. Journalists.  Online or offline creators of news content provide an opportunity to help your blog or website.  “These influencers are among the most valuable of all the Linkerati,” Randfish writes.  A reporter for a major publication like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times has the reach and ability to create links to your site.  Many times, this is often done in a second-hand fashion, meaning the site may not link directly to you, but many bloggers who pick up news items will.

The importance of having your website or blog cited by others can been seen across the Internet.  ”It’s the reason Wikipedia is more likely to be cited than your ad-sponsored blog,” Randfish says, “and why your ad-sponsored blog will outperform the blog on your e-commerce or affililiate website.”

Randfish thinks bloggers can take steps to help bolster “non-commercial” street cred:

Keep Intentions Pure.  Website owners are becoming more and more aware that their intentions are becoming a major piece of link building.  ”SEO savviness continues to grow, and as it does, greater scrutiny is applied to microsites, linkbait and viral content of all types,” Randfish writes.  ”It’s why we have to tell clients and colleagues to “look natural” – 5 years ago, this was barely an issue, but 5 years from now, it will be even worse.”

Target Citation-Likely Audiences.  The audience of “natural linkers” is very different from the Internet’s standard demographic.  ”Appealing to this group with your content is critical to earning their references,” Randfish says.  “Though they’re growing in size and variety, it’s still essential to have some effort to reach the core of this group.”  Randfish says the best way to get your handmade shop noticed (whether through blogs or websites) is to segment visitors accurately and appeal to the Linkerati, or “natural linkers”.

Making Sharing Easy.  Although we all know this intuitively, here’s how Randfish explains why making linking easy will take your site to another level.  “Yes, people on the web are lazy,” Randfish writes.  “Make it easy for them to spread content with copy and paste HTML, short URLs, and social media sharing links.”  He says after making adjustments in how you encourage others to share, you’ll find the ratio of those who spread rises.

Find a Non-Competitive Market.  Randfish suggests finding a non-competitive market online.  Although sellers may think the online handmade market is competitive, the market is quite friendly compared to others.

Randfish demonstrates this with an example in his article.  “Let’s say you’re in the field of real estate, and you write phenomenal content about the real estate market in your city,” he says.  You may think this is something every broker and agent want to share. “Guess what? They’re not going to,” Randfish writes.  “They are your competition, and they’d rather staple their eyeballs together than help you rank better for keywords they’re targeting.”  He suggests recognizing when you have come across a market that won’t feel threatened to cite your works.

How do you inspire social media sharing of your handmade shop or blog?  Do you think your website or blog has “reference worthy content”?  Why do you share links or source information from other sites?

Share your ideas for making the most of your blog content.  HandmadeMarketing.org provides a unique opportunity for free handmade shop advertising.  When readers share their ideas, our editors create articles about their experiences.  We link to your blog or site – giving your shop another way to reach potential buyers!

The web design team at HandmadeMarketing.org is a big fan of the “All In One SEO” plug-in for WordPress.

All in One SEO is one of the most popular plug-ins for WordPress.  The plug-in does a bit of everything for a WordPress user.  Many bloggers in the handmade community like the All in One SEO plug-in because it creates new options.  A user can customize meta tags including the title, descriptions, and keywords of web pages.

• Titles.  The All in One SEO plug-in automatically optimizes your website’s titles for search engines.  The title is the text you see in your brower’s window bar, and this is one of the most important factors in SEO on your site.  It is very important your web page titles are optimized for search engine – and the All in One SEO helps you tweak this text.
• Descriptions.  When sifting through a search results page, users often ready the brief description of the site before clicking.  This text is called the “META description”.  The page title and the META description becomes vital to increasing traffic once your page begins to rank in search engines. The All in One SEO plug-in makes it easy to WordPress users to pay attention to this text and make sure it is used to increase a site’s traffic.
• Keywords.  The plug-in allows for custom keywords to be used, making targeting keywords for your blog or site much easier.  Identifying keywords allows you to provide additional text for search engines to index along with the body of your text.

This plug-in is a perfect fit with the entire WordPress platform.  It is user friendly and makes SEO practices a breeze.  Users find that giving more attention to the significant keywords and descriptions of a web page allows better search engine positioning.

A big thanks to Michael Torbert for creating this awesome WordPress plug-in!

Do you use the “All in One SEO” plug-in for WordPress?  How do you manage your site’s SEO with or without the plug-in?  What are features for SEO for your favorite blogging platform?

Tell us how you make the most of your blog or website.  Share your thoughts your favorite blogging platforms.  If we publish your information, we’ll cite your blog as the source!

HandmadeMarketing.org reader Tara Gentile, from Handmade In PA, is back bringing with her the third installment of her “HiP Blog Challenge” post number three.  To review her previous posts, check out Tara’s tips to write a mission statement and increase blog comments.

This week, Tara takes us through SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.  “SEO is the “art” of making your website easier for search engines easier to read,” Tara explains.  “Which means you get more random hits from people that are interested in your craft! SEO is a free and easy way to attract new customers – something that is normally difficult and expensive to do.”

Tara explains that there are many technical ways to achieve great SEO.  “I will discuss a few that I pretend to understand at the end of this post. Luckily there are also many effective techniques that require no technical knowledge and will actually improve your writing!”

Her first step is to take a look at your blog’s keywords.  “Are your posts full of specific, descriptive words? Or do you use a lot of pronouns?” Tara asks.

She suggests avoiding pronouns, i.e. “he”, “she”, “it”, and other non-descriptive words, such as “piece”, “project”, “art”, “do”, “make”.  Instead, Tara says to try incorporating keywords that actually describe your work.  “Not only will this make your blog more attractive to search engines, it will make you write better! Writing better equals better content equals more [engaged] readers!” Tara says.  “Describe your craft, your style, colors, techniques, etc… and do it often. Don’t just assume that your readers know what you do. Some might, many will forget, and hopefully you’re getting new readers daily.”

Next, Tara explains the role of a “permalink” in a blog’s SEO.  “Don’t forget that search engines will also bring you traffic to specific posts – a permalink. A permalink displays a single post on a single page,” she says.  A permalink, or permanent link, is a URL that points to a specific blog entry or web page. Once a blog post, or web page, is not accessible on the front page of the site, users can find that post using the permalink.

HandmadeMarketing.org likes to think of the permalink as an address in a large neighborhood.  Just because your house is no longer at the very front of the growing subdivision does not mean it cannot be found – it’s simply a matter of navigating through the streets to get there.  Understanding that your information can be searched even after leaving the front page of your blog can help a blogger understand every post matters.  Moreover, each post can be a “stand-alone” body of text for readers.

“A permalink will show any comments to that post and all of your usual formatting. But it won’t include the posts before or after so there won’t be any context for your readers if you don’t provide any,” Tara explains.

“Now put your keywords where they’ll be noticed!” Tara says.  “Maybe you’ve noticed that I like using headings, bold and italic formatting, anchor text for links, bullet lists. Each of these formatting options provides special clues to search engines. Words contained in this formatting have more value to search engines,” she explains.

There is a second benefit to Tara’s tip.  “Using different formatting options also make your posts easier to read! When we read writing on the internet, we skim,” Tara says.  “The sites that we remember most, the ones we’ll come back to time and again are those that make it easy to absorb the message while skimming. Putting your keywords in headings or bold text will alert your readers to key points in your writing and allow them to fully comprehend what you’re saying without reading word for word.”

“Using anchor text properly when inserting links will also help readers and popular search engines find out what your site is about,” Tara tells us.  “Anchor text is the words you choose to make up your hyperlink. “Click here” has become so cliche…and it’s also bad SEO form. Tell people what you’re linking them to – and use those words to create your link.”  Check out a previous article about writing better anchor text to learn more about how to use anchor text to optimize your site traffic.

Tara’s next tip for increase your blog’s SEO is to “share link love” with others.  “Link love is simply linking to those sites you find useful, inspiring, and interesting and sharing them with your readers,” Tara explains.  “Sharing links to other sites (i.e. handmade sellers, helpful blogs, or tutorials) will gain you credibility in your field. It will also endear you to those that you link to! Then, they’ll link back to you, which is the action that increases your standings with the search engines.”

HandmadeMarketing.org reader Jim Juris told us in an online photography tips article, “Taking good photographs of your handmade products is essential for selling products online.”  Tara agrees.  “Images have become a key way to increase search engine traffic, as well,” Tara says.  “Because what you are trying to sell is image based, your posts should be full of bright, clear images that display your craft. Make sure that you are using descriptive, keyword-based “ALT” text – the text that appears if your image takes a while to load – for your images. ALT text is another clue for search engines!”

“If you don’t mind delving into your code a bit and you have a Wordpress.org blog – which is what I recommend, by the way – check out this article on optimizing your blog for search engines,” Tara told us.  “I would also suggest using the All-in-One SEO plug-in which will help you do many of the things in the aforementioned article without using code.”  For more information about the All In One SEO plug-in for Wordpress, have a look at HandmadeMarketing.org’s summary of the WordPress plug-in.

Check out Tara’s homework assignment for this week:

“Write a review of a blog/post/shop you think your readers would appreciate,” Tara says.  “Make sure that sharing that site is in line with your mission statement and the purpose of your blog. Consider keywords that are relevant to your post. Make use of text formatting to let search engines know what’s important. When you’ve finished your post, bring us the link and leave it in the comments on this post!”

Have questions about information Tara discussed regarding SEO?  Tara encourages readers to post questions on her handmade in PA blog and she will answer them.  HandmadeMarketing.org readers can also check out our “SEO” tab in the site navigation to learn more about how to read a Google analytics report, finding the web’s most searched keywords for your item category, and much more!

Over the past few weeks, Petronella Luiting, from the Etsy shop Kraplap and blog, has shared an experiment she conducted to take a close look at the Google Analytics numbers from 21 Etsy shops to find trends.  Petronella asked her Etsy Team, the European Street Team (“EST”) to help her find the answers.

HandmadeMarketing.org is happy to present the third part of Petronella’s Google Analytics Survey of 21 EST members done in January and February.

In Petronella’s first article, she outlined the method she would use to compare Etsy shops and gave graphs for three characteristics: the number of daily visits to the shop, the percentage of visits that are from new visitors, and the duration of each visit in minutes.

In part two of the Etsy Google Analytics survey, Petronella looked to the relation of these traits with the shop size.  She showed us graphs for the number of daily visits per shop item and the duration of each visit per shop item.

Next, part three of her survey will show more information about how to increase traffic of potential buyers to an Etsy shop.  “A higher visiting frequency and/or duration tells of course nothing about the height of the selling frequency in these shops, therefore I will give here the relation of visit frequency and duration with selling frequency,” she told us.

“The first graph shows the selling performance, expressed as the number of sold items over the period we had the Google Analytics running, against the shop size expressed as the number of items listed per shop,” Petronella explains. “The dashed pink line is the trend line, which indicates an increase in the tested period of the number of sold items with the shop size.”

Petronella found the two Etsy shops with the highest number of sold handmade items lay far away from the rest of the shops.  This influences the trendline enormously.  To help show readers the true trend without these outliers, Petronella also made a trend line for all the Etsy shops without those two shops included.  This is represented as the solid pink line.

“The result is almost a disappearance of the positive trend between the number of sold items and the shop size,” Petronella said.  The solid line shows us 1 sold item more for every 33 extra listed items.

“The second graph shows the selling performance against the number of daily visits per shop, averaged over  the same period we had the Google Analytics running. The dashed pink line is the trend line, indicating an increase in the tested period of 10 sold items per every 100 extra daily shop visits,” Petronella explains to us.

Again, Petronella makes sure outlier data doesn’t skew the entire survey.  However, we can see by the solid pink line that leaving out the three Etsy shops with the highest number of daily visits does not make a big difference in the trend.  When looking at this solid pink line, the data shows an increase of 12 sold items for every 100 extra daily shop visits.  “There is a strong positive relation between the selling performance and the shop visit frequency,” Petronella concludes.  This would make sense – the more potential buyers that visit your handmade shop, the more chances you have for a sale.

“The third graph shows the number of sold items against the duration of the visits per shop in seconds,” Petronella explains to HandmadeMarketing.org.

We can see that this graph is similar to the first graph.  The trend lines show a positive relation between selling performance and visit duration.

The dashed pink line shows an increase of 8 sold items for every 100 extra seconds of shop visits.  Petronella explains further, “But this number is halved when the two Etsy shops with the highest number of sold items, laying far away from the other shops, are removed from the trendline.”  This solid pink line shows an increase of 4 sold items for every 100 extra seconds of shop visits.

Because of the positive relations of the number of visits and the visit duration with the Etsy shop size, which we saw in part two of the Etsy sales comparison, Petronella is also giving the last 2 graphs adjusted for shop size.  This means Petronella will use the average number of daily visits and the average visit duration, per item and not per shop.

This change brings us to Petronella’s fourth graph.  This graph “shows the selling performance against the number of daily visits per item, averaged over the same period we had the Google Analytics running,” she explains.

The dashed pink line is once again the trend line and indicates an increase of 36 sold items in the tested period per every 10 extra daily item visits.

Petronella again left the two Etsy shops with the highest number of sold items out to determine the solid pink line. This solid pink line shows an increase of 14 sold items in the tested period (circa 2 months) for every 10 extra daily item visits.

“In conclusion, the positive relation between the selling performance and the shop visit frequency remains positive after adjustment for shop size,” Petronella tells us.  “In contrast, the positive relation between the selling performance and the visit duration seen in the third graph disappears after adjustment for shop size (no graph given because no trend visible anymore). Hence, that relation was fully explained by shop size.”

Petronella adds she didn’t include graphs with the percentage of visits that are from new visitors because no or only very weak relations were found.

What is Petronella’s overall conclusion after conducting the survey to find trends in the average Etsians analytics?

Visiting frequency, or number of daily visits per item, and Etsy shop size, or number of items listed, both lead to more sales!  On the other hand, visit duration and the proportion of new visits do not seem to be important for handmade sales.

Thank you for your hard work on this survey Petronella!  We appreciate you allowing HandmadeMarketing.org to share this information with our community.  Be sure to check out Petronella’s DaWanda Shop and postcard collection!

What do you think of Petronella’s findings?  Do you think your shop falls in line with the trends?  What do you think are the average sales on Etsy.com and other handmade selling platforms online?

Share your thoughts with HandmadeMarketing.org! Submit your thoughts on this article and selling on Etsy in general. If we like your tips, we will post them (along with a link to your shop!) for others in the community to see.