Great Shop Promo Advice from BrickHouseFabrics

I was doing some reading on the Etsy Forums the other day,  when I stumbled on this fount of great advice on promoting your Etsy shop from Barbara of BrickHouseFabrics .
Brick House Fabrics is an online fabric store that specializes in novelty home decorating fabric, and they carry fabrics that showcase a person's loves and interests, including  Braemore, Covington, Duralee, P.Kaufmann, Ralph Lauren, Robert Allen, and have Laura Ashley, Schumacher, Thibaut, and others.


Barbara was kind enough to let me blog about it, so the following is a quote from BrickHouseFabrics: 

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" BrickHouseFabrics says:
The first thing I would do is to step back.
Renewing does not work for me, and it is only good for people on etsy.  Here are my basics:

My basics for being found on the net, and places I use:

The shop title is searchable. Fill it w/ keywords about your product.

Get your announcements set for search engines: fill the first paragraph w/ keywords about what you make/sell. Move everything down below it- no one googles hello, or welcome.

Titles: the title should be what a person would google to find the item. 54-56 characters are pulled by search engines. Fill them w/ keywords. The first 2 words are the most important. Remove words like and, the, or, they lower searchability.

Reuse the keywords in the first sentence of the listing.

Give measurements in both inches and metric. I use an on-line metric convertor:
http://www.worldwidemetric.com/Measurements.html

Write the description as if there weren't a pic. Take the pics as if there weren't a description.

The thumbnail is crucial to being successful: the average buyer on the net spends 3-5 sec. before clicking or moving on. Take pics of everything about the item.

Use an photo editor: pic nik, picassa, photoscape are all free.
And use a tripod! It eliminates a lot of issues!

Artists- most people show a picture of the item very cropped. Take another one of the item on an easel- table or full sized, to give a sense of scale, and to let the buyer know exactly what they are gettting.

Make certain, if you sell internationally- to have a disclaimer that the buyer is responsible for all customs fees, duties, and import charges that are levied at the time of delivery.
I have it on every listing, and add a link to http://www.sloanefox.freeserve.co.uk/importukduty.htm

Make certain your policies are filled out, and your profile, and location.

Join twitter; even if you don't tweet- you can use twit pic to upload a keyword filled message, and link it back to the shop w/ Bitly. That message is searchable, and the link is good.

Upload items to Kaboodle.

Do a Squidoo lens about your shop:
http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-use-the-etsy-module

Then do another about your things, your craft, whatever, and link it back as well.

These are all fast, free ways to do some promoting.

Also remember- the net works off of new. Once a month change the announcement, or titles, or shop categories. If you do a lens, or publish anything on the net, make certain to tweak it, or add to it, even a RSS feed, anything to keep those bots happy and coming back for more!


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Here's another sample of just one of the gorgeous fabrics available at BrickHouseFabrics:

Wonderful advice, and all things you can do for free!  I'm a major fan of Twitter, I've found great info there, made some internet friends, and bought some lovely items from people I would probably never have know about otherwise.

Hope you've found something in this post to help you achieve the success with your Etsy shop that you're working towards!  Wishing you prosperity and the joy of creativity.

Pocket Shop Widget!

If you're like me, you're always looking for new and fun ways to market your Etsy shop.  And the kind folks at CraftCult have come up with a great new widget.

To see what it looks like, take a peek to the right of my blog, it's the black widget that looks like a cell phone.  Pretty cool, yes?  And getting your own is as easy as pie, and completely free (yeah!).

Just click on the "Pocket Shop" logo at the upper right of the CraftCult page.

Then you just follow the simple directions -- enter your Etsy shop name, pick your preferred background, follow the detailed instructions, and when your done, just cut and paste the code and follow the directions to install it in your blog.  It's really easy to do, honest!  :)

Pocket Shop is compatible with the following blog formats:

Blogger, Typepad, Tumblr, self-hosted Wordpress blogs, and your own website.

I really like my new widget and hope you'll have fun with your new "Pocket Shop" too!

Promoting Your Shop Via Facebook

Facebook is a useful social networking site for promoting your online shop. I've had a Facebook business page for about 7 months, and found it to be an effective and cost effective (free!) way to get the word out about Dalkullan Jewelry.

After I set up my FB business page (it's also called a fan page, it's the same thing) I fanned myself. Yes, I know, a bit pathetic, but then I can see everything that the future fans are receiving, which I find helpful. I like to know what my fans are getting on their personal page about my shop. And at least I had one fan, lol.

The next step was letting all my Facebook friends know about my business page, so they could fan me if they liked. I actually set up a new personal page to use to create my business page from, instead of using my Facebook page I'd set up a couple years earlier to keep in touch with family and friends. I want to keep my personal and business doings separate, but that's just me. And I like to use a picture of my jewelry for my profile picture on my business page.

I started putting up a link to my FB fan page on the promo section in the Etsy Forum, and got some fans that way. I also have a link in my profile at my Etsy shop. Having a contest, in which each fan who got a friend to become a fan could each win a pair of earrings, was a successful way to add fans.

Gradually people will start fanning because they see your work on a friend's page, and it appeals to them. Also mentioning the fan page on your blog and using twitter to promote it are good ways to garner new fans.

So, now you have some fans, what's next? Here's my list of FB does and don'ts. This is just my opinion, please comment and add your own!

1.) Try to post only once or twice a day. People are following other businesses, and their friends and family, and don't want you to monopolize their news feed.

2.) Try to read and comment a few times a week on the businesses you are following. Nobody likes to feel ignored. :) It's fun to see what others are doing, and being an encourager is always a happy thing!

3.) Remember, it's very easy to block someone, so it looks like you're following them, but you actually don't receive any updates from their page. The more spammy stuff you post, the more likely this unhappy event will occur.

4.) Your page is promoting your business, keep it professional. There are those who are offended by swearing, off-color comments, etc.


How effective is FB on getting sales? I don't have a lot of sales, so I've got a pretty small data pool to extrapolate from. But I have made sales to my Facebook Fans, and I've made purchases from businesses I'm a fan of. Businesses I heard of only because they had fanned me, and I fanned them back.

Facebook is free, it doesn't take a lot of time, and it is a useful marketing tool. I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking to increase their online sales.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Wishing you happy crafting!
Heather