Advertising your Etsy shop!

[mirela]

Paypal, checks...free shipping in the US on all items.
I spread around business cards I made using Qoops printing service from Flickr...
I upload my photos on Flickr and discuss sometimes in this forum.
I keep a blog and have the RSS feeds from Etsy in the sidebar.

3sales so far...

[motleycruiser]

I can answer the credit card question I work for one of the biggest credit card companies in the US. Yes the vendor (aka you) are charged back for fraudulent charges. It the credit card companies way of trying to get vendors to verify ID. Some credit card companies will just write off a balance if its low enough as a loss like $300 or less.

People will use credit cards more & I recommend them more for online transactions because you can always dispute a charge on a credit card. If they get your bank info from a check you are SOL until you discover it so they can pretty much clean you out. Atleast on credit cards the most you would be liable for is $50 & thats only IF you can't prove the purchase wasn't made by you which is rare.

As for advertising. Instead of just handing out plain old business cards if you can afford it try to hand out things people will use (ie bookmarks, pens, mini calendars) people tend to keep those longer than a plain business card.

Here in Ohio we have things called Entertainment Books where they collect coupons from various companies & then sell the books you can print in something like that.

Volunteer items for auctions or raffels & include a bunch of business cards. My mother once won a certificate for a free hair cut & stayed with that stylist for the last 15+yrs. People who attend charity auctions usually have more disposable income & you may get bonus points in their eyes for helping the charity.

[swaggerdesign]

Anybody doing Ezines or the like to advertise? I was thinking of trying to get a bunch of local crafters together to try this?

[suriart]

Hey Etsy community,
I recently joint a internet marketing community and they had a report for sale with how to drive traffic to your site i thought of sharing it with etsy.
i've used these and have noticed that it works by people sending me emails and me asking them how they found my shop.

1.Write and submit articles . It is a classic, but it works. This will be indefinite traffic stuck in the search engines for you. Write quality unique articles, not articles that are rehashed or provide no insight to readers, which is a huge problem these days.

2.Write and submit press releases, think prweb after you do one.

3.Write and ping blog entries. Always make sure to link back to your etsy shop with your blog posts. Try making multiple blogs and have them all link back to your etsy shop.

4.Make sure your website is listed in DMOZ: http://dmoz.org/.(try to register a domain that redirects to your etsy shop).

5.Advertise your etsy in the appropriate categories at Craigslist. Try posting your ads in the most populated cities in the world.

6.If a niche related forum that you frequently visit allows signatures, then make sure to add your website url in there.

7.Review websites in your niche on Alexa to try to take some of their traffic by including a reference back to your etsy.

8.Review some related products on epinion.

9.If you purchase a product that you actually like, then feel free to give an individual respect when respect is due and leave a testimonial. You should be able to get some traffic from that website if your testimonial is left with a url.

10.Whenever you send an email to someone, always add your website url as a signature.

11.Keep updating content on your websites/blogs� try at least once per week.

12especially at http://del.icio.us/.

13.Add photos to your blog with appropriate keywords.

14.Tag blog photos at Flickr.

15.Sponsor a charity, most charities will link back to your website, and you are also doing a good deed

16.Sell an item on eBay as a charity auction. Most charities will link back to both your auction and your main website.

17.Get a custom t-shirt made with your website url on it, and wear it often.

18.Buy traffic from the search engines by utilizing one of their PPC campaigns.

19.Open up a myspace account and find targeted friends so that you can promote your services to them. Do not spam people, myspace is cracking down on spammers and are starting to sue people.

20.Solicit a link from your local chamber of commerce.

21.Have an easy to remember domain name. If your domain name is too long or not memorable then people may forget your site.mine is www.suriart.com

22.Stay up to date on what is going on in the world, you can monetize off hot topic trends.

23.Answer people's questions on Yahoo! answers with a link to your website in the sources area.

24.Make and upload a viral video to you tube. Use appropriate keywords in the video description for your target audience.

25.Offer good customer service, you may be surprised on how many referrals you get just be having a reliable one.

don't just read this put it in to action!!!

Suriart

[reese52]

Thanks for all the great suggestions.  I will have to try a couple of them and see if it helps.

[woodenpenworks]

Thanks, you certainly put some effort into that post.
Some very good advise. I've done a couple of the things on your list, but will have to try the rest

[SonjaBoo]

The Craigslist suggestion really does work -- I posted an ad and got a sale the same day!   

[Saor]

Thank you for the great ideas. I'll be trying some of them out for sure.

[itscribe]

One biggie that was left out was getting quality links to your site.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a bit more difficult for an Etsy shop than a typical website (less control over the content and format of the page's coding); but, you should still chase getting links from blogs, signatures (already mentioned), and from sites that specialize in providing free or paid links and advertising.

Directories are a type of site that function like a phone book does. They are divided into categories and site owners can request their site be included in the appropriate category. Unlike the link farms of old, directories also contain descriptions of the site and some directories also have additional information you can provide.

There are 2 types of directory sites - general and niche. General sites accept any type of website as long as it fits in their general guidelines - typically they won't list sites full of ads and no content, sites that have stolen content, and unfinished sites. Niche sites are directories that only list sites from a particular topic.

Etsy sites owners will have to work a bit harder at getting links because many see sites hosted on a larger site like Etsy as transitory in nature. The good news is that many sites will accept sites like Etsy shops - read a directory's terms of service you want to see if they accept subdomains and shared sites.

Directories can bring visitors directly to your site, but their ultimate power is that they can help you rank better in the search engines. Because directories use link text that either has your company name or a keyword phrase, they can help you rise in the search engine results for those words.

Niche sites and some of the bigger general directories are going to be more apt to send your site visitors directly. There are a number of crafting-related niche directories and I would encourage everyone to take some time and submit to them. (Keep in mind some will accept only full-fledged websites and some will accept both websites and shops like Etsy. I accept both on my site - see signature.)

There are tons of free directories out there and I would encourage Etsy shop owners and website owners to consider directories when looking for link building and SEO strategies => read strategies to get more site visitors.

DMOZ is a general directory. Many of the big search engines use the listings from DMOZ to provide search results and this is why a listing can be such a great boost to websites.

DMOZ is edited by volunteers and acceptance rates are highly dependent upon whether or not the category has an assigned editor, if the editor is actually doing anything, if the editor has not gone over to the dark side and manipulating the listed sites to promote their own or to get bribes for inclusion (trust me the bribes aspect is sadly true). Many professional webmasters take the approach of submit and forget; as sometimes getting listed can take years and many times sites are never accepted. It's not all bad as their are some editors that are very dilligent and believe in the original spirit of the site and submissions to those categories stand a much better chance of being included. Go ahead and submit your site, but, you'll stand a much better chance of getting some return on the investment of your time by submitting to other directories as well.

[swaggerdesign]

itscribe, I took a look at your directory and would love to sign up but couldn't figure out how. Any suggestions?