The New Website

So as I announced last week I am working on building a site for my Etsy shop. After having read Jordan's post on websites, I decided that I had put it off too long. In honest I had. I have been working on building sites for others since high school, but I found it very intimidating to work on my own. My favorite college professor said once that the hardest person to design for is yourself. I agree. I always see the flaws and what else I could do to make it better. This means it is never done enough to put content on. But I finally did it. I created a site I am happy with. I am working right now on embedding my blog. I am not sure how I am going to do this yet.

So I want you to think about your business.
Do you have a site?
Have you considered having one made?

I took Jordan's advice to heart. You need to think about the end user. Take into consideration that this site is a promotional platform for your work. You want the user to come and stay for a while. So work backwards. As a shopper in your store what features would you want to see. If it is easier go to someones shop and do this exercise. I prefer a well laid out gallery with links to the product. I enjoy a blog to read that involves subject matters related to their art and their life.

(This is not officially a Business Sense, but I am tagging it that way so that it is easy to find.)

Website Building:

So in my real life I build websites and make things pretty. It is the easiest way I know to explain Graphic Design with Web Design skills. I am also currently working on a second Etsy store where I am going to start offering websites for a reasonable rate for other artist. But, for now I am building a site for Strung Out Creations.

I heard the quote once that "the cobbler's children never have shoes." It was a designer talking about how she does all of these amazing designs for everyone else, but her own site always seemed to become neglected or downright out of date. I have to admit I am guilty of this. It is really hard to find time for your own adventures when you are helping to guide everyone else. So I am starting with mine.

I am almost done with the site. I am mainly just working on the blog section. I don't want to loose my blogger, but I also want people to be able to read my work on my store. I have found a wonderful cheat that allows me to embed my Blogger into my site. But I am having to reformat some of the images I have used before.

Right now, I don't have a date for the site release. But, I promise to keep you informed.

Business Sense: Advertising with Craftcult.com

Craft Cult is a "Etsy helper" style site. They are the proud Heart-o-matic service, which allows you to monitor the popularity of your store and single items. It is a prettier more friendly version of Analytics. It allows you to track the flow of visitors, but unlike analytics that is the only information you get. Now the real amazing part is it allows you to separate the views an item might get and the hearts. I use this is a way to gauge the actual popularity of an item.

This is a very popular tool used by many Etsians. I know I learned about it through several shop owners and I like them pass it on to others. So this is a high traffic site.

Pricing
Craft Cult offers two styles of ads. There is the top carousel rotating image gallery. Then there are the two sidebars that have a list of eight images that switch out. (I myself have only done the side bar.) Craft Cult offers a variety of flat-rate packages starting at $15 going up to $55.

What was my experience?
I went with a seven day sidebar ad for $15. I figured this would be a great starter. Since they offer a flat rate, I didn't have to worry about surprise fees. This made this test run seem safer to me. Also, knowing that they are high traffic made it more appealing.

Here is the ad I ran:

I am in the bottom right.

Trackable Results
Here is the important stuff.

My average hits per day when I have not listed a new item is anywhere between 1 and 14. To me this seems like normal average visits if you are not promoting your store. So I consider this my base line of comparison.

I ran my ad from September 25th through August 31st. As per my google anayltics, there is a huge jump in visits. After having talked to the wonderful people at Craft Cult, they let me know that the busiest days for them are Monday and Tuesday. I assume this is because those are the first scheduled days for people after having been out all weekend.

Here are the number:
Wednesday the 25th = 21 unique visits and 2 shop hearts
Thursday the 26th = 29 unique visits and 1 shop heart
Friday the 27th = 30 unique visits and 5 shop hearts
Saturday the 28th = 12 unique visits and no shop hearts
Sunday the 29th = 29 unique visits and 3 shop hearts
Monday the 30th = 23 unique visits and 3 shop hearts
Tuesday the 31st = 10 unique visits no shop hearts

I didn't think to track item hearts. I intend to on my next trial with them. Now I didn't get a sale out of this. But, I did manage on the slow days (the 28th and the 31st) to still almost hit the high end of my non-advertising visits per day. And, on the busy days it doubled and sometimes almost tripled.

So final verdict is that this is a great site to buy on-line advertising. Since money for my store mainly comes from sales in my store I will use this advertising mainly near holidays. I am currently looking for some free sites to advertise on. If you know of any please let me know.

Business Sense: Online Advertising

I will admit that I don't have a lot of experience in this field. In fact, I am learning this in a very hands on manner. So I figured I should write about my experiences as I go. This way people, who may also be looking into but a little cautious, can see what I have done. So first there is the learning the jargon section of it. Here is the Wikipedia Article that covers it. Now for my basics:

Methods of Payment

CPV (Cost Per View):
This means that every time your ad is displayed on the website you will have to pay for it.

CPC (Cost Per Click)
This means that every time your ad is displayed on the website and someone clicks on it you will have to pay for it.

My preference at this point is a flat rate or a CPC (Cost Per Click) situation. I am going to be doing articles on different sites that offer advertising as I go. So this will be an on and off again article chain, but they will all by tagged with Online Advertising

What sites do you advertise on? What are your preferences?

Gearing up for the holidays

I am back to blogging. (And I know the irony that this is the second or third post in a row to say that.) It is amazing how you will suddenly not having anytime when you find a project you want to work on.

So as the title of the post suggest the holidays are around the corner. Along with present buying, wrapping paper, and holiday dinners. I have to admit that I still go into the holidays with a child like enthusiasm. I always have this clear feeling of love and family at this time. Since it was only my Mom and Sister we tend to be really close. It was kind of like living in an all girls club house. My Mom is also huge on Christmas. She has a curio where she houses her expensive Santa figurines year round. My favorite is a Santa kicked back in a wooden beach chair with a palm tree, sunglasses, beach shirt and a coconut with colored umbrella.

But for Etsy sellers this can become a very stressful time. So I want you to check out this amazingly useful booklet: 2010-2011 Holiday Marketing Planner

It is a 21-page document that is designed to help you layout your holidays from September 2010 to February 2011. (I can't believe it is around the corner.) I signed up, printed and sat down with it last night. The package is simple to use. I set up my scheduling and goals I have for myself. I then scaled them back a tad bit knowing how busy I am going to be. But it was a feeling of piece of mind. I like being organized. I like having a plan. This booklet will give you both. If you are looking to take advantage of all of the gift buying this year. I suggest start planning now.

My birthday was on the 24th. It was wonderful. I spent the day before swimming and canning homemade preserves. I am going to list a few of my recipes on here in case this is something you have ever considered getting into. Then I spent the day of my birthday with my friends hanging out and eating cake. And, I spent the day after at my favorite cajun restaurant with my roommates parents. All and all... it is a good way to spend the changing of time. Take a few days and make an event of it.

So I learned a few things in my birthday month off from Etsy and blogging:
1. When you blog make sure that you don't over do it. This means I am going to blogging on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

2. Everyone should celebrate their birthday like it is an event. You managed to survive another year and gain wisdom. This is a feat to be met with copious amounts of celebration.

3. Taking too long to get back to your hobbies will effect your personality. All of that creative energy has to go somewhere. If it doesn't you will most likely begin to express it negatively.

4. You should probably only take one custom order at a time if it will take more then two or three days to complete.

Current Projects

I just finished up two custom orders. One was a wonderful butterfly cuff that has a steampunk look. It had a first for me. The embroidered section of the cuff is not a solid piece. It is two pieces that are bridged by a brass metal work butterfly. It actually looks really amazing with section of a copper blank behind it.

I also completed a custom plaid bracelet for a wonderful woman on Etsy. It is a variation of the bracelet with the colors of her family tartan. It actually turned out more amazing then I thought it would be. I am actually really happy about it.

Now I am working on another cuff. It has a large hematite cabochon in the center. It is fastened down with black hex delicas, then surrounded with light gun metal delicas. So at this point I thought it was going to take on a similar feel to the Metalicuff. But every other type of delica or bead seemed wrong. Then I found these round rough cut quartz crystal beads. Now the cuff has this crazy traditional victorian style feel. So I am going to go with it.