Relevancy comes to Etsy

Anyone else scared by the whole Relevancy search thing on Etsy? Obviously I am. I can see it as being a great thing in the long run, but in order for it to not crush me, I need to get with the times. My shop has been hovering around 250+ items for the past couple of months though...so this is a bit overwhelming.
Couple this with the fact that I've been rolling my eyes at SEO anything, and you've got yourself the perfect storm.
However! Not to fret, the internet has got your back.

I enjoyed this article by Handmade Spark on how to optimize your content for relevancy. It really made relevancy seem simple and doable.

And if you're looking for something more in depth, Etsy has your back with a 25 page pdf about SEO. SEO for Etsy Shops.

Statsy is a wonderful tool. You can check what page your items are at with it. (Among many other things!)

This is actually a little far of the mark for Etsy relevancy, but it's too good not to post. It's a very excellent forum post about increasing your blog traffic, and then hopefully sales.

Does Renewing on Etsy Work? An Experiment.

It used to be that you could renew an item on Etsy and receive a bunch of views. Then they changed some things around in the caching process and Etsy got a lot more crowded. Maybe evil elves got involved. I don't know. Point is, views received from renewing went down. Way down. Does renewing still work? I had to find out.

First up, a little explanation. I am not a techie. Nor a great Etsy seller of astounding greatness and sales magnitude. Technical explanations tend to wash right over me like water off a duck that has been rolling in an oil slick on roller skates.
So. Not a techie, not an expert. Moving on.

Now, the parameters.
I decided I would renew, list something new, or relist totalling 10 times a day for 30 days.
- Why 10 times? Because it's a nice round number and easy to keep track of. Also, it seemed like a LOT. (I tend to list/relist/renew only once-four times a day normally.)
- Why 30 days? Because things take time.
- What defines the success of renewing? Ultimately, sales. Views and hearts are nice, but unless they lead to sales they're meaningless.

As you know, every time you renew something, it costs .20 US. It's really not much...unless you do it a lot. By comparison, a Showcase spot will run you $7/$15 a day. (In my experience, I've never got more than a handful of hearts and 50 views from doing that. No sales. Not great.)

I began on 12/28/09.
Here were my starting statistics:
On 12/28/09-
Total Sales: 261
Items in Shop: 245
Shop hearts 12/28: 1220
*GA Unique Visitors: 990
*Visits: 2,171
*Pageviews: 6,504
*Pages/visit: 3.00
Twitter followers: 3338
Fanpage: 168
Blog followers: 140

*These stats are for the past 24 days, to keep things matched up.

I was also featured in one Gift Guide. The item hasn't sold, and it had been there for awhile.

Traffic sources according to Google Analytics (top 5):
Direct (Etsy): 676
Google: 404
Twitter: 277
Craftlandshow.com: 163
craftleftovers.com: 109


Field Notes:
12/29 - Listing/renewing 10 items a day is hard! Low views on the listings that don't make it onto Twitter. (I use TwitterFeed to automatically send one listing to Twitter every 12 hours.) I'm scared this won't work, but Dan encourages me to stick with it. Maybe there will be a cumulative effect.

12/30- Featured in a Chicken treasury. And then a Star Trek treasury later the same day. This after not being in any treasuries for months.

1/1 - Sold 6 items to a returning customer. Sweet!!

1/2 - Another sale, this time a Squid.ro (generally slow selling, just relisted 12/31.) Also in another treasury.

1/3 Another sale! Another new person.

1/4 - My South Bay hoodie guy gets featured in a Squidoo lens by someone I've never met before. Recently renewed items sometimes get new hearts. (Thanks, Statsy.org!) Older items do too, of course, but at a much slower rate.

1/5- Here comes a hiccup. I got word from the lovely lady of Regretsy that the pillows I made for the book were going to be featured on the site the next day. Listed 6 extra listings today for the Regretsy pillows, in anticipation of the article tomorrow.
STATS: 271 sales, 1251 shop hearts at end of day 1/5.

1/6- Regretsy article posted. 278 sales, 1268 shop hearts at end of the day.

1/7- Featured in a treasury...the item featured was just renewed, but it was also tweeted, and the treasury was made by a twitter person.
Also featured in another treasury about monsters. So 2 treasuries.The item in question was renewed 12/31.
ALSO: Made it onto the Etsy front page...with a Blythe hooded capelet, which was renewed 1/4...it was in a special Etsy made treasury.
ALSO, ALSO: My spreadsheets were featured in the Etsy Success email, huge traffic boost to my blog. And also my shop apparently. Lots of new hearts, but so far no direct sales (yet!). The image they used in the email was one of my dogs...which was renewed on 1/6.

So holy cow, did this experiment ever have some one stick their finger in the petri dish. Two amazing things happened, two days in a row. (And they had absolutely nothing to do with renewing.)

1/8- Small feature on an etsy blog that was new to me. Nice.

1/11-1/17- Sales slow to a crawl. Only 2 sales all week. 1 to a new person, 1 to an existing client.

1/18- Sold 2 items to a family member who I had just seen.

1/19- Sold 2 items...2 vintage items which were on the verge of expiring.

1/20- Honestly, not much has happened since the Regretsy/Etsy Finds email week. Renewing/listing 10x a day is a chore. I feel like I'm chained to the computer, as I need to renewed something basically every hour. Which means I have to stop whatever I'm doing, come back over here, and renew. And likely get distracted by something or other. And at 1 item every hour, I am totally chained to the computer ALL DAY. My productivity is way down. My internet shopping is way up. My Twittering is way down. (As are the hits coming in from it.) I am really not sure that this is working, and I am terrified to look at the bill. EXPERIMENT OVER! EXPERIMENT OVER!

TOTAL DAYS OF EXPERIMENT: 24. So close!

On 1/20/10-
Total Sales: 290
Items in Shop: 268
Shop hearts 1/20: 1380
GA Visitors: 2,084
Visits: 7,639
Pageviews: 26,409
Pages/visit: 3.46
Twitter followers: 3,529
Fanpage: 206
Blog followers: 258

Traffic sources (top 5):
Regretsy.com - 2,379
(direct) - 1,356
bronto (etsy success email) - 1,040
google - 662
twitter - 400

Sales not definitely from Regretsy/Etsy finds/other known source: 8
Now let's look at some charts.
Here's the view of the month o' renewing. The blue line represents this month's traffic, the green line shows last month's. Click on the images to actually be able to read them.



And here's looking at an entire year:


Does renewing work to increase sales?
For the first 9 days, it really seemed to. I was in treasuries! Sales from new people! After that (taking away the Regretsy/Etsy Finds days of debacle), things seemed to fall off entirely. This month wound up being far from average. Even if you take away the Regretsy & Etsy Finds numbers, views went up a little. Was this due to Twitter, blog posts, or other normal marketing efforts? It's very possible. I do those things every day, and have been for a long time. Looking at my Google Analytics data for the past year, I can see views very, very slowly picking up. If I squint.
Interestingly, views coming in from Google itself went up by about 200. That's got to be directly related to renewing. Over time (more time than a month!), that could really be something.
Bottom line: If your goal is to get into treasuries, then renewing works. Then again, so does hanging out in the forums and joining treasury teams. If your goal is increased sales...renewing constantly may help a little. But it's going to cost you.
I listed/renewed a total of 212 times. (That's $42.40. Uh, ouch.) (Listings: 55. Renews: 157)
Honestly, you can get better views on your items if you promote them yourself. You'd be better off spending your time and money developing a solid social network and marketing. Renewing alone is likely to be a disappointment.

Renewing frequently as a short term marketing blitz might still be a nice injection of views and energy to your shop, however. Think of it as running an ad- seeing the same ad over and over and over again makes you block it out, if not actively hate it. On the other hand, a cleverly crafted ad run once in awhile for short bursts can make you pay attention.

If you decide you want to try your own renewing rampage, go for it! And let me know how it works for you.

Best wishes for you and your Etsy shop!

3 Ways To Make 2010 the Best Year Ever - Part Three

Okay. You've set your goals. You've plotted them out with a project planning sheet. Now it's time to set things in motion.
First, a wee disclaimer. Managing time is NOT something that comes naturally to me. I really have to work at it. I'm really not an expert, but I am always researching and trying to get better. Here's a few things that I've picked up that help.

✯ What to do with those Project Planning Sheets?
You've filled them out! Awesome. However, they will do you no good at all if you just stuff them in a drawer somewhere.
Start making those projects real by writing onto your calendar the tasks you broke down. It's okay if you don't know how long a task will take. You can always adjust. The important thing is to give them the time and attention they deserve.

✯ Overscheduling:
I am queen of the over schedulers. Maybe you are, too. I finally realized that while there may indeed be a million things that need to get done, it's only physically possible to do a few of them a day. This year, I am trying very hard to keep my to-do list for the day to 5 items or less. If I can get more done, great. If not, that's okay too. It might be nice to feel like I've 'finished' work for the day once in awhile. ^-^

✯ Lists:
Lists are my friend. Oh, how I love lists. However, sometimes things stay on the list forever and never seem to get done.
One thing that seems to help is putting due dates on tasks. Another thing that helps is putting a time estimate on each task. That daunting email/phone call doesn't seem quite so bad when you realize it will only take you 15 minutes.

✯ Stay inspired!
Keep your goals in front of you. Literally. Write/print them out. Make 'em pretty. Tack them up where you can see them every day.

One site that I really find helpful for organizational inspiration is 43 Folders. The aim of the site is to help you to do what you do better, and not waste your time. (That said, of course you can waste hours there. But that's not the point.)

Go forth and be awesome!

3 Ways To Make 2010 the Best Year Ever - Part Two

Yesterday I talked about the Etsy Goal Spreadsheet, and the importance of setting and tracking goals.
Okay, you've got goals. Now what?
If you're anything like me, you probably have more goals and ideas than you know what to do with. And maybe you follow through isn't *ahem* always the best. (Or is that just me?) I've found that simply writing these goals down on my to do list does not get them done. They're too big and overwhelming. So I took a page from traditional project planning but made it less boring and easier. You need to get the goal out of your head, onto paper, and then one more thing. You've got to break it down into do-able steps.
Enter the Project Planning Worksheet. Don't let the capital letters fool you, this is simple.

Here's what you do.
□ In the Project line, write down your goal/project/thing you want to do.
□ In the Description line, write down (briefly) your idea for the end product/effect/what you hope to accomplish.
□ In the Steps section, you start breaking it down. What is the first thing you would need to do to accomplish this? What's the second? And so on. It might help to work your way backwards if you have no idea. (i.e. start from the end project and work your way in steps back to the beginning.) Try to make each step a do-able chunk: something you could put down on your calendar/to-do list and actually accomplish.

Click here to download the Project Planning Worksheet.
When the new window pops up, click on Download (At the top left of the page). Then print it out & use it! As always, feel free to print & share & forward willy nilly, but tell 'em http://chickenpants.net made it.

3 Ways To Make 2010 the Best Year Ever - Part One

This is kind of a follow up to the post I published much earlier about the Etsy Goal Spreadsheet. I actually stuck to it for the whole year(!), and it has been my best Etsy sales year ever. Coincidence? Maybe. I definitely feel that it helped me to not only set a goal, but to keep working at it all year long. Although I *ahem* did not actually reach my audacious goal, I got a lot farther than I think I otherwise would have.
And here's the really awesome extra benefit. I was feeling sort of down on myself: "Why isn't my marketing working? What am I doing wrong? What's wrong with me?" etc etc. Then I did the numbers. I tallied up all my Etsy sales that I had made in 2009 (so far!). And then, just for fun, I went back and did the previous two years. It was an eye opener.
Without divulging my (pretty modest) numbers, here's the result:
2009 - I nearly doubled my sales over 2008
2008 - Over 3 times the sales of 2007
2007- I was just getting started, and sold 25 items.
In other words, whatever the heck I'm doing is actually working, albeit maybe not always as fast & dramatic as I'd like.

HERE'S WHERE IT APPLIES TO YOU: Keep records of your goals! You might be quite happily surprised at the end of a seemingly crummy year just how well you did, and how much better than the year before. Go back and tally up your sales for previous years (yes, I know this is a pain. It's worth it!). Become conscious of just how well you've done, and grateful. Set a goal for 2010. And then, we're going to kick 2010's butt.

And I have a little present for you. It's the 2010 Etsy Goal Spreadsheet. Enjoy it and use it!
Click here to download.
(This will take you to a new window. Click on FILE, then DOWNLOAD AS. Feel free to share & change this willy nilly, but please let people know you found it here: http://chickenpants.net Thanks!)
For instructions on using the spreadsheet, check out the earlier post.
The goal is set at 500, but feel free to change that to whatever your goal actually is.

***UPDATE 1/4/10- The weirdness with the dates has been fixed. They are now accurate and for the current year. Sheesh! Crazyness.***


Tomorrow, I'm coming back with a new tool to share with you. Stay tuned.

Etsy Marketing...the non snarky version, with just a dash of sarcasm

Oh, we had some fun talking about Etsy at the Etsy Marketing people's expense, didn't we? Good times, good times.
As promised, I'll be positive and have something useful to say today. Well, I'll try anyway. But first, a disclaimer: I am so not any sort of marketing expert. I don't spend my free time pouring over papers full of data about target markets or anything. Possibly because I don't have any free time. And if I did, I'd probably just take a nap.
So here's a few things I've learned from listening to people who know what they're talking about, mixed with a healthy amount of trial and error.
I figured there was going to be an awful lot of text and no photos, so I filmed myself fumbling through a few of the tips. I wound up just talking about Twitter and re-listing. Talking takes a really long time!

Yeah. Five minutes long, and lots of background pug snorting. Maybe I should stick to the typing of words.
Here's a few things that I should have said:
♛ If you don't like Twitter, don't use it. Seriously. If any given social networking tool rubs you the wrong way, just leave it. There are others.
♛ A hundred followers is probably not enough. A few hundred followers is probably not enough either. More is better...to a certain point.
♛ Thank people who re-tweet you. Comment on things people tweet, and when they comment on your stuff, comment back (when possible). Be sweet.
There's more. Two and half year's worth of more. But let's just leave it at this for today.

Here are the links I promised:
Twitter Karma - Lets you follow/unfollow people who you are following...but in bulk! Follow.
Buzzom- Like Twitter Karma, but with stats. Less buggy, too.
The Etsy Goal Spreadsheet- Something I made up.
@absolutelysmall - Me, but on Twitter
The Needle- Collaborative plush blog extraordinaire, with generally very cheap PW ads.