How to give your shop a review on your own! After asking a bunch of people to review my shop and tell me what they think I need to change – I decided to do a little research of my own to figure out how to give myself a shop review. So here I am, passing on the knowledge:
1. About Me (front page)
This tends to be one of the first sections that people see. The information you want in this sections is:
Who you are
Where you come from
What got you started making/selling what you have in your shop.
Why you make/sell what you have in your shop.
The more you share in this section the better. People like to buy from shops they know – and what better way to get to know you than sharing a little bit about yourself where they can find it.
2. Banner
Your shop banner is like an identity to your shop. People will remember it when they think of your shop. You want this to be original, be an example of what your shop is about, and show some of your personality in it.
3. Shop Announcement
The first 160 characters are used in search engines like google. You want those first 160 characters to list exactly what you sell so the people that are searching using Google or any other search engine are finding you. After the first 160 characters if you want to put shop coupons, sales, or other information about what’s going on in your shop – this is a great place to add those details.
4. Shop Sections
The first 24 characters are used in search engines & SEO. If you get to a point where you have a bunch of items in one shop section – you can separate them into different sections. Using detailed section like: Hair Bows or Headbands, instead of joining them together in Accessories could benefit you being found in search engines & SEO.
5. About Page (shop page)
This is your place to shine. Use the pictures to show who you are, your work space, some custom orders you did, your materials, and anything else to show who you are. Use the description space to really let them know about you. Take your front about me page and go ten times deeper. Make them remember you!
6. Policies
Make sure you use this page to give them all the information they’ll need about shopping from you. Keep this positive. Negative terms can create a negative attitude – a negative attitude may make them second guess purchasing from you. Be precise and clear about what you state in this section. Be sure to include:
What payments you accept.
How you ship your items – what carrier you use – is there an option to ship priority or express mail.
Refund & Exhange policy. My biggest tip to you in this section is to say what you WILL accept/do – do not list what you don’t do because that’s considered a negative term. Let them know if they have any questions they can contact you. That also allows you to make exceptions – if you do not do refunds but will exchange an item and only list that you allow exchanges, then someone emails you and you decide you want to refund them – the option was left open and you have the right to make that decision based on the situation.
If you have anything else you want to state – do so in the additional policies & faqs seciton. If you have not stated they can contact you with questions or concerns – I would put that here. They need to know that you are reachable if anything goes wrong.
7. Pictures
Pictures need to be clear, well lit, and the more pictures the better. Your pictures are what make people decide if they want to buy the item or not – I can’t stress enough how important picture quality is! A great website to look at for cheap lighting for pictures is here: www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Inexpensive-Photography-Lightbox or find a space in your home (like a closet) that has no windows. Put a florescent light in it and use that has your picture space. Florescent lights are normally really cheap and they create a really bright white light so that all your pictures will come out consistently bright without having to edit them much.
8. Descriptions
The first 160 characters are used in search engines & SEO. The more information the better and when the information is split into categories it’s easier to follow (for examples: size, materials, wash instructions, shipping, etc.) Things I might add: A link to your policies page, a link to the section that it is in and you might say if you like this you can find others here: and add the link. Adding links to your shop keep people in your shop longer so there’s less of a chance they’ll find another shop to look at. Also if it is a one of a kind you might want to state that! People love a one of a kind!!
9. Item Titles
First 140 Characters are used in search engines and SEO. Make sure they accurately describe your item and make it easy to read.
10. Tags
Use all the tags you are given. Sometimes it’s hard to think of tags for your items – if you need help there are two places that can help you. The first easy peasy one is thesaurus.com/ – make a list of all the tags you think fit your description and plug them in one by one to thesaurus.com. For example: if you have the tag red – you can use cherry, wine, scarlet, rose, ruby, garnet, crimson, blush, maroon – depending on what kind of red yours leans too! This will attract shoppers that are trying to match specific shades of red.
The second website is adwords.google.com/ This one you need to set up an account for if you don’t already have one but it’s worth the time and I’m 99% sure it’s free! What you’ll do is you’ll sign up then you will hover or click on the top menu bar that says Tools and Analysis, then click on Keyword Tool. In the box that says word or phrase you will type in the keywords you use like this:
red
rose
blush
baby blanket
newborn
crochet
Then click search. It will then list all the words you typed in, your competition level (how many people you are competing with on google to get seen), global monthly searches, local monthly searches. After you’ve checked that out – click on the tab that says Keyword Ideas right above where all your results are that you just submitted. It then goes to show you other keyword ideas and their results for competition and searches. What you’ll want to do is find the keywords that best describe your item with highest amount of searches and least competition. Note these things will change so I try to check mine every once in a while!
Use the keywords that you think will bring you the most views – check your stats page on your shop and see if people are using certain tags are getting you better views. The ones that aren’t bringing in anything can be switched out with other keywords.
11. Pricing
If you feel you need help with pricing etsy offers a ton of Online Labs you can listen to. To find those go to the top of your page, click Community, then on the left hand size click Online Labs. Go below the video on the main screen and click Etsy Success Videos – Read through the titles to find The Art of Pricing! http://www.etsy.com/community/online-labs When I first saw this video and did what they told me to do to find my price point I laughed hysterically. No one would spend over $100 on a baby blanket – and even if they did there was no way I was selling it for that much. But after watching this and going through the motions of it – I realized that I had these baby blankets priced at $20.00 it and it barely covering the cost of supplies and fees. I wasn’t even charging myself for any of the time it took to make them. So although this video seemed useless after the prices came out too high – it did make me step back and realize I needed to change my prices. Pretty darn helpful!
If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to comment below!
Love Always,
J
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