Mini Angels: Using Your Blog to Promote Your Etsy Shop {B.L.O.G.}

Monday, October 17, 2011

Using Your Blog to Promote Your Etsy Shop {B.L.O.G.}

Posted: 17 Oct 2011 04:06 PM PDT

Welcome to this week’s post in our current ten week series on blogging for your online business:

{B.L.O.G.} – Blogging Leads to Online Greatness (new to the series? start here)

We’ve talked about how to set up a WordPress blog, how to use social media, and how to create great blog content. What we haven’t talked about is how any of that can actually help you sell on Etsy.

Let’s look at that.

Five Ways to Use Your Blog To Promote Your Etsy Shop

Etsy Mini – I use this method extensively. If you look at the lower right side of this very blog, you’ll see three huge Etsy Minis for my three shops. I get hundreds of clicks each month to my shops from those alone.

If you sell on Etsy and you have a blog, then you really need to be using an Etsy Mini. Combined with the use of good photography of your items, this tool can catch the eye of visitors and result in direct sales. It also reminds regular visitors to your blog that you actually have something to sell. You want them to keep that in mind!

Posts – Write posts about your items! These posts have great value in a number of ways.

Show off your work
Good photography enhances your blog
Link-building to your Etsy shop or item
Keeps your blog relevant to your target audience
These are the most effective SEO tools you have

Posts about your items can be just "show-off" posts, they can be informative posts, and they can be educational. Lots of great posts that support Etsy items actually teach people how to make it themselves. Mix up various ways of writing about your items and see what you like best.

SEO – If you’re planning on staying in online sales for a long time, time that’s measured in years not weeks or months, then SEO will eventually be of great importance to you.

Your blog is a potential SEO goldmine. All of the things we teach about Etsy Shop SEO apply in just the same way to your blog. Post titles, keywords, and link-building are all important components of building a search-engine friendly blog.

{Tid-Bit} Blog vs. Post-

If you’re going to be in the game, you want to know the lingo! A blog is the whole thing. The website. It includes pages, sidebars, a header, a footer, etc.

It also includes "posts" which is what you’re reading right now. When you publish a new article on your blog, that’s called a post – not a blog.

It’s not a big deal, but when you hear someone say, "Did your read my latest blog?", that’s not exactly correct, though I’m sure we all have more important things to worry about.

The beauty of search traffic to your blog is that once you start ranking for keywords relevant to your niche, you can direct that traffic to your Etsy shop, using the other methods in this post.

Pages -

One of the advantages of a self-hosted WordPress blog is the ability to create pages. Pages are different than posts in that they don’t appear in the "timeline" of your blog. pages are subject related and are usually not time-sensitive in any way.

You can create all kind of pages on your blog that transform your site from a regular every day blog, to a "resource" {very key word to remember} for your target audience. If there is nothing else you learn from the whole {B.L.O.G.} series, remember that you want to create a resource.

Useful page types:

Lists of links to relevant resources in your niche
Photo galleries of beautiful and inspiring items related to your niche
Commonly used tutorials and step-by-step instructions
Contact forms and contact info for customers and readers to reach you
About You pages {they say that long about pages help people get to know you}

If your blog software allows pages, use them liberally! You won’t regret it.

Relationships -

Try to imagine it this way: Every time someone visits your blog, it’s the same thing as if you were talking to that person face-to-face.

Of course we know it’s not exactly the same, but the more we look at it that way the better the blog will be. This idea encourages the use of words like "you" and "we". It helps you to apply the social etiquette you know so well to your blog.

This keeps you from talking all about yourself, but it also reminds you to do the online equivalent of giving the visitor a business card, or offering a coupon to your shop.

Ways to build relationships with your blog:

Ask for comments and engage in conversation
Invite your new friend {reader} to other places you like to hang out such as Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. {video on using social media}
Pay attention to what your friend likes and try to provide that {tracking analytics and site use patterns}
Go visit your friend at their place. {comment on other blogs}
Learn your friends goals and try to help
Share real insight into your life without forgetting it’s a website {be quick about it}

Real-life friendships are started this way and this is probably the most effective use of your blog for promoting your Etsy shop. Your blog is the same as attending a social function every night, but you don’t have to get dressed up and you can still feed the kids while you’re at it!

Once you get into the groove of blogging you'll love it!

~Kim & Tim