I guess it worked. . .

Ok so I had been working on my SEO and rankings for over a week, doing a few listings each day.  I noticed a slight improvement in views, like I was actually get views daily. *LOL*  So this weekend I spent hours and hours making sure I did all 65 listings and reworking them over and over until I hit "A" ranking on all of them and overall for the whole shop.  It was a lot of work but when I had all A's I felt really good like I had accomplished something.  o:-)

Yesterday I had over 40 views and 4 favorites in just one day, that's a frickin' record.  Seriously I don't think I've had that much activity in a single day the whole year it's been open.

I hope it keeps up and I hope I get some sales from all that work.  I have shipped a couple of custom orders and while I got an email form one of them saying he really loved what he ordered I really hope that eventually they will take the time to write me some nice reviews.  

Victory !!!

I have conquered Etsy SEO, at least I think I have have for now.  :-/

I know SEO is an ever changing animal dancing on shifting sands but right now at least all my listings have A grades and my shop is typo free.  ~woo-hoo~

Pardon my happy dance but I am thrilled to have accomplished such a huge task and glad to move on to other things.

I made an adorable tree yesterday so I am hopeful that I can get a few more finished quickly and add the new section to the shop.

EtsyRank. . . .

OMG!?!?   EtsyRank makes me want to cry, seriously it is a helpful tool I guess but I have worked so hard to use all 13 tags and re-do my titles and make sure all the right words are in my descriptions.  I really thought I had made great progess but then EtsyRank upgraded and changed format and I checked again only to find I have an overall C rating, many of my tags are not scored well and my attempts to cover all the spellings of chainmaille (chain mail, chainmaill, chain maille, etc.) are counted as spelling errors.  :-(

In the "external links" section it for some reason doesn't count the links from this blog or my Facebook page, but maybe that's because there is a separate section for "social" stuff.  However, since I don't use Pintrest, Twitter, LinkedIn or other sites my sad little Facebook page and this underutilized blog don't fare well in comparison.  :-(  

So while I am planning to expand my listings and know that I need to re-shoot most of my photos I now know that I also need to re-do most of what I thought was done to improve things I apparently suck at.  ~sigh~

Expanding the line up . . .

I have decided that I am going to expand the line up in my shop and list the wire tree sculptures for sale.  Everyone seems to like them so much and I really do enjoy making them so it makes sense.  I am working on a couple of custom order chainmaille necklaces at the moment but I hope in a couple of weeks I'll be able to add new listings for the wall art.

This will mean a whole new "section" in the shop and a whole new set of tags and search terms to work on but I am hopeful that it will increase views and sales by reaching more people looking for something other than jewelry. 

Pricing vs. value

There are a lot of jewelry crafters in the world, tons of them have Etsy shops.  There are a lot of styles of jewelry, I only make chainmaille and simple leather.  I can appreciate the intricate beading, braiding, weaving, metal smithing, etc. but that's not what I do.

When I look at other shops with chainmaille I am often shocked at the huge price variations some use sterling silver and charge a fortune and some sell so cheaply I don't know why they bother to sell it at all.  I am flabbergasted by $5 bracelets, seriously I spend hours and hours making each piece, depending on the pattern an 8" bracelet can easily be 100 rings or more.  

Ok so maybe some of the cheapies are made with cheap rings or the person making them can throw them together in a flash but is that a good thing?   I try to use quality rings, nickle free findings and make sure my closures are tight and well aligned so as to not snag on things.  So my rings may cost more and I take my time that is reflected in my pricing, I am not a sweatshop worker I have to place some value upon my time.  

Testing Etsy Mini. . .

Never-ending process . . .

I shot some new photos and separated the braided chokers from the embellished braided chokers but honestly I don't feel like I made a lot of progress.   The idea of selfies wearing them didn't work so well, I am not one for taking selfies normally so I'm not good at it.   Most of the photos I shot were not good enough to use.  :-/   

I only tried the leather stuff though not the chainmaille.  There is still a whole long list of things I should re-shoot but with vacation coming up I kind of need to clean the RV and start packing so I guess I'm stuck with what I've got for a while longer.

I have been really enjoying the new wire sculpture work.  I have made over a dozen of them and they are in nearly every room of the house now.  Every time I post a photo of one there is a very positive response, many people have said they would like to buy one, some people want to request specific colors or special beads even.  I said at the beginning I wasn't going to sell them but I do enjoy making them and eventually I'm going to run out of places to hang them. ~LOL~   

So it makes sense that eventually I'll have to give up a few or stop making them and I don't want to stop making them so . . . I guess one day I will open a whole new section in the Etsy shop and list some of them for sale.  However, that opens up the whole can of worms of trying to figure out pricing structure and value, shipping costs, packaging, etc.  Let's just say I'm not in any hurry to start a whole new thing which will need photos, and tags, and keywords.  More never-ending work. . . ~sigh~   I like the crafting part a lot more than the business-y part.