Changes... Part 2

It's been awhile & I've been in kind of a transition stage in many areas, including my shops, so I thought I'd talk about editing & tweeking your shops & mine.
I've talked about photography before & it's vital. The first impression someone will get of your shop will be visual & if you don't capture their attention right away, they won't generally move forward, disappearing into the ether, with a single click. Photos should be sharp, clear, & convey a sense of the item. They should be uncluttered & focus on the item you are selling.
The shop banner & arrangement of listings also play a role in the visual appeal of the first impression. The banner should convey a sense of your shop & it's goals. The shop arrangement can lead the viewer through the shop & make browsing easier for the shopper. Alternating light & dark items can make it easier on the buyers eye, you can tell a story with each line of listings, grouping them in a theme or you can arrange your shop in blocks by type of item or color. All are good ideas, so it's really up to you, which one you decide to use, but whatever you decide, the shop should have some kind of organization, to make it easier on the shopper.

Beyond the surface, you have shop & item titles, item descriptions & tags. This is what I've been working on more recently.
I'd come to an epiphany of sorts, realizing what I'd really been saying all along, that my shop items tell stories. My creations have stories to tell, each one arranged in a very specific manner to create a story, in color & materials. Vintage items, well they come from different times & places, styles were different & the wearers followed those styles or created their own, so vintage items have stories to tell, as well.
I've been rearranging titles & item descriptions to better tell those tales & give the shop more of a cohesive feel.

Here is one of my original item descriptions:
Vintage. 50's. Beautiful

Dress up all your clothes in vintage style, with this lovely bit of history. Feel like you're on the set of "Mad Men" or in a great old classic film, even if you never leave the house! SAM

5o's
triple strand necklace
crystal
black bakelite beads
faux pearl
glass
gold color findings
hook closure
made in Japan
about 17.5" from end to end
Very good condition


It's ok, gives all the little details, but doesn't add to the 'True Stories, Tall Tales' cohesive style that I am now aiming for.


Here's a newer version:


Vintage Triple Strand Necklace

True Story:
Dress up all your clothes in vintage style, with this lovely bit of history. Feel like you're on the set of "Mad Men" or in a great old classic film, even if you never leave the house! SAM

5o's
triple strand necklace
crystal
black bakelite beads
faux pearl
glass
gold color findings
hook closure
made in Japan
about 17.5" from end to end

Vintage. 50's. Beautiful


Here, I've mirrored the item title at the beginning of the description, adding strength to the key words & then I have mirrored the True Stories/Tall tales (this particular item doesn't have a 'tall tale,' at least not yet) from the shop description & the banner.


Most descriptions now have a "tall tale," a little short story that goes with the feel of the item & all have a "true story" the facts behind the item, materials used, repurposed, recycled or new. I moving more toward organic, recycled or locally sourced for the new item components & that is reflected. Most of my pieces have a vintage, recycled or found component & this is listed in the "true story" portion of the listing, along with sizes & any other little facts the buyer needs to know.
I've struggled with whether or not to put the "true story" or the "tall tale" first. The "tall tales" are fun  & add a sense of personality, so, for now, I've put them first. Maybe it's better for SEO to have the facts or "true story" first..

"True Stories & Tall Tales" has been added to the shop banner & the shop description, to create the cohesive feel, that I referred to above. I've also added it to the individual item descriptions.

One other change that I've made, for relevancy, is that I've been playing around with the arrangement of the words in the title, putting the more descriptive words, the words that hopefully customers would use to search for my items, first. I didn't get rid of the fun titles, the 'personality,' they're just at the end, rather than the beginning of the title. How do these changes look & work?

Here's the original title in one of my vintage items, from my ArtFire shop:

Vintage Black and White Triple Strand Necklace

It's descriptive, to a point but how many customers are searching for this necklace using the terms "Vintage Black & White?" I'm guessing not too many.

Here's the current title, from the Etsy shop:

NECKLACE VINTAGE TRIPLE Strand Mid Century 

Mad Men Hollywood Style Fifties Black and White

Also descriptive, looks a little funny, but there's more information about the style & era this is from & more important words are up front, so it's more likely to be found by customers looking for this type of item as it's more user friendly in terms of SEO. If you find that you are not getting hearts or visits for your items, it's possible that you are using the wrong combination of words to attract the right visitors. You can always go back & change this, experiment until you come up with the right combination.

What else have I done? I've been changing item tags, editing & re-arranging, so that the more important, searched for terms come up first, other terms, like team tags or location come at the end, as they are less likely to be searched for by the average buyer looking for my items, more likely to be used by specific users, like team members, putting together treasuries.

So these are some of the things that I've done, but what does this have to do with your shop? What  I'm attempting to do is to create a feel that ties the whole shop together. You might be able to do this merely by selling one type of item, but I don't & even if I did, I would still go through the same process to tie everything together:

1. Choose a theme- a mission statement, something that describes what you do, what your shop is about
2. Create a tag line that describes that theme- a  very short, catchy statement that narrows the focus, something memorable that describes your shop, your work & hopefully, makes the customer want to know more.
3. Add that tag to your banner & to your store description. Don't bury it, put it right at the beginning.
4. Play around with your item titles- put the terms that customers will be searching for first. I don't know much about SEO or relevance, but I know this. Also, if you are on Etsy, the Relevancy default makes this super important. The items that have the terms customers are searching for in the beginning of the title, will come up first in the searches. Make sure that those terms are relevant, though. Don't put terms in your title that have nothing to do with your item, they may be popular terms, but if your item has nothing to do with what the customer is actually searching for, they'll still click on past.
5. Put those same terms at the beginning of the item description. This is more for SEO than anything else. Customers have already read this, in the title
6. Add your shop theme into your item description. This may have a little to do with SEO, but it also helps to make your shop memorable. It's the old 'If you want someone to remember something, repeat it at least three times.' It work for speeches & meetings, so it works in shops, too.
7. There's nothing like re-arranging to highlight some big editing errors of the past, like spelling errors, better photos, buried in the thumbnails or items with only a few tags ;) so take time to change those, too. It's a great time for editing of all kinds

When I first started, I did little of this, made all the mistakes & wondered why others didn't notice me or see the stories that I thought my items were almost shouting. The basic answer was that no one knew I was there, but beyond that I wasn't giving the stories a chance to shine, few saw them, let alone understood. I've come a long way, but it's a long road & things change along the way, so nothings ever really finished.

The result of these types of changes?  More views & traffic? I would say that general traffic doesn't increase & that's ok, better than ok, really. Traffic & views are more targeted to your store's specific items & so your store receives more of the right traffic, not just traffic in general. Items receive more hearts in fewer views & this, to me is better than having higher, general traffic numbers.

The new year is a time for change. How about you? Have you made any changes, lately?

One Day in Mexico....

Actually, this may have been Baja, not Mexico, but I was very young. I don't remember everything. We lived in California, on Vandenberg AFB, my parents my brother & I. My grandmother must have been visiting, but I remember that she was there. This was back before, or at the beginning of the 'hippie' movement, right about the time when "Hell's Angels" by Hunter S. Thompson was first published, before animal rights activists. Bull fights where spectacles of color & sound, events of interest, if not wonder, exotic & otherworldly. We drove South to the border, then took a taxi ride to the stadium. The city seemed big & filled with movement. The taxi was uncomfortable & the ride, through the streets of Tijuana was fast. There seemed to be no rules, when it came to driving, streetlights more guidelines than absolutes. Scary & exhilarating, it was difficult to know whether to keep your eyes open, so you might know if you where about to die or whether it was best to shut your eyes as tightly as possible, better off not knowing of your inevitable fate. I think I did both, one moment eyes shut & the next open, off & on until the ride was over. What I saw when my eyes where open was truly frightening & I tried to focus on the city, but my eyes would be drawn back to what was going on in the car & on the road, as if I could will it to stop. The stadium was, to me, more like a Roman coliseum, than a sports stadium. It wasn't finished & dust was everywhere. It was open & the surface was dirt, seats where wood. The bullfighters where all in traditional garb, those with more status wore fancier clothes & their bulls had fancier coverings.The bulls where covered in fancy garb, as well. The people yelled & cheered for their favorites, some even cheered for the bulls, if the fighter was not popular. Capes where flourished, fighters avoided being speared by bullhorns & bulls avoided being speared by the fighters, for the most part. I remember asking, when I saw a bull actually speared by a fighter, why they would do this. I thought that the object was just to avoid the bull, but there was more to it than that. Bulls weren't just covered for show, but to keep the crowd from seeing any blood caused by the spears.The more a fighter was able to get past the bulls defenses & score a blow, the higher in the rankings he would go. The day that we where there, no bulls died, though that did occasionally happen & no fighters died, though that, also, on occasion happens. I'm sure that I don't remember everything perfectly, I was very young. The traditions  & spectacle was fascinating to see, but my family & I left feeling bad for the animals. No, I didn't necessarily feel hatred for the bullfighters, this was their tradition, their job, they didn't see it in the same way as we did. This was something that had been carried through possibly centuries of tradition, from yet another time & continues, though not exactly in the same way, to today. I did feel a little odd about the crowd watching this event, the reason for spectacle to continue. This, though was their tradition. It would take a societal change to make a difference & that change, whether you might see it as good, bad or indifferent was, as they would say, "blowing in the wind..."

* The photo is my grandmother wearing a mantilla. I believe she is in front of a Catholic church in Tucson, AZ, though it's possible that this is in California. I'm not sure of the year. It doesn't say on the back. You can kind of get an idea of the time period from the cars.

About my lists...

Shop news:
new listing- D is for... Vintage letter D pin
renewals- What Direction? Messenger bag
Red Esprit jacket

So, today I first wanted to explain a little about the list I started a couple of days ago. These are all people that I 'miss' in one way or another. At some point in my life, they have had an effect. Some have made me laugh (a lot), some made me cry, at least once or twice, but all have good memories attached, even if they eventually made me sad, whatever the reasons might of been. A few aren't even people, though they may have liked to think they where! All are people that I would be interested to know where they've been or what they've been up to. Most I don't know, anymore. They may be totally different than they once where. That's ok, it would still be interesting to find out where they are now. Most, if not all, where good people, so I doubt that they've become the opposite. You never know. Time changes us all & circumstances can take the best or the worst out of us & change they way we are, not necessarily forever, but for a time. sometimes, like in one of my stories, our perceptions weren't completely right in the first place. That's what makes us complex beings. Don't we all have people we remember, fondly (or not so fondly) that we are curious about, that pop into our memory, from time to time? The photo, by the way, is of one of the 'people' I miss most, my dog Sam. I miss my dog.
I think the next list will be of my favorite book/films, on a totally different note.
I hope all is well with everyone, until next time.
samsstuff