Interesting

I have been spending a good portion of the last week trying to get my SEO in line so that everyone can find me when they search on Google.  Now that is no easy task, as any small business owner on the internet will tell you because, we cannot afford to hire another company to do this for us like the "big boys" can.  However, this is essential to growing our companies, our brands and our sales.  Without proper tagging, keywords and descriptions written for the search engines to find us, we are literally dead in the water.

To that end, I have been researching and researching and researching from one corner of the internet to the other, all over Etsy and everything in between for information on how to make my business more "searchable".  Just when I think I have it right, I find out that I am completely wrong!  But, I keep doing because it is so vital.  So, I keep working at.  It is never something that is done, it is a job that will always need tweaking.

That then turns into customer service and relationships.  I liken it back to when the dimestores started and they had to make sure that every customer they served, waited on, and kept a tab open for, was satisfied, even treated like a family member.  This was how they built their businesses.  In our generation, we have less and less contact with our customers, which is truly a shame in a lot of cases, but setting that aside, we have to find the customers and they have to find us.  SEO is what makes that happen.  Once SEO makes that happen, then it is up to us as business owners to become those old fashioned dimestore proprietors. 

I want you to find me in Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Once you find me there, I want my customers to find me hospitable.  Don't you?

Amazing metal artist

I have been doing a lot of research this past week on how to improve the traffic to my Etsy shop.  In doing so, I have been to blogsite after blogsite.  I somehow stumbled upon the following blog and I have to tell you, this man is amazing. The best thing about it, he lives within an hour and a half from me!  What luck!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TimothyAdamDesigns
http://timothyadamdesigns.blogspot.com/

Timothy Adam has written several posts for fellow Etsians on how to boost traffic to their Etsy stores and tweak the titles and tags in order to increase views and ranking in Google searches.  This is something he does not have to do, but does.  That says a lot about a person, especially about an artist, because it is hard enough to have a unique talent such as his, but then to put it out there for possible copying, well, that is selfless in my book.

I highly recommend that anyone out there looking to increase their Etsy traffic take a look at his site and give these tips a try.  I also seriously recommend that you check out TimothyAdamDesigns, because he has an asethetic that is comparable to none.

Musings

It has been an interesting week or so.  I decided to take a huge leap of faith.  I went to get a haircut (that was NOT the leap of faith in case you were wondering) and afterwards, the stylist pointed out that maybe I could put my jewelry in their salon.  I had already noticed that they had a really nice jewelry display in the salon.  However, knowing that this was a pretty high-end salon, for which I usually save up my money and only get my hair cut about 4 times a year, I did not think that they would even consider my jewelry something worth putting in their salon.

Needless to say, I was very excited to hear that my stylist and several other employees loved my work.  The leap of faith comes in because they told me to talk to the store manager about setting up a time to showcase my work and possibly set up a wholesale arrangement. 

Those of us that sell our wares on the internet, such as Etsy and Artfire, or even an independent website, know that we don't make most of our money from those sites.  We do make our living from craft shows, art fairs, judged shows and home shows.  An opportunity to do wholesale does not just fall into your lap like this, especially when you are just starting out.  Who am I to walk away?

I have spent the majority of this weekend trying to decide on what to make so that the right price point is available for me to present to them, the right items are available that are quick to make, but show my style and yet are those items that say "I have to have this NOW!" to the customers.  My jewelry will be sitting beside pieces that are commercially made and I want them to stand out and customers to be proud to have any item that is not only uniquely theirs but is also...knotted and twisted.

This is me stepping out of my comfort zone, meeting people and taking a huge leap of faith that I CAN DO THIS.  If I can, so can you, in anything Life throws at you.  Grab it by the horns, the collar, the shirt tail or the panhandle and let's go!

WOOHOO

Okay, so this is the first time I have decided to write openly and honestly (alright, maybe not so honestly, I don't want everyone in the blogosphere to think I am totally incompetent!) about my jewelry making and design work.

I have been dabbling in the bead and string craft for hobby for many years.  Now, mind you, I never thought that in any sense or stretch of the imagination that I would ever start designing my own jewelry line, or that I would start selling said jewelry.

However, here I am.  I started putting together designs of beads and the like, then I started messing around with wire work. 

At this point I started taking myself a little more seriously.  I started researching wire working and wrapping. I became ravenous, buying and reading every wire working magazine my budget would and still will allow for. 

At the same time, my mother and I decided to start this little business venture to open a small online jewelry outlet where she could make a few things and then sell them.  Well, here we are 6 months later, 4 selling outlets later and she is making rings, necklaces, earrings and pendants.  I am making traditional rings, necklaces, pendant, earrings, bracelets and wire worked, wire wrapped and starting to get into wiresmithing.  Wiresmithing is a mix of wire working and metalsmithing, if you want to learn more you can visit here http://www.macjewels.com/.

So, this is an open invitation to those of you brave enough to laugh with me, cry with me and even enjoy the fruits of my labors.

This is going to be knotted and twisted!