Style

I invited a few local creative clayfolks over to my studio to show them  tricks that have made me successful on Etsy. These are people who already have a unique body of work. That’s the #1 thing. I believe that the second most important element for success is how you style your photos.

Above is a One Clay bead necklace from my My Tribe collection. I used natural sunlight, a vintage looking Boho shirt, and a model with no makeup and carefree hair. This one is all about natural beauty. It’s for a woman who wants that look, and meant to draw her in to look at the close up photos that are second in the listing.

Here are a few other successfully styled photos from the Artisans Gallery Team. Notice how each one is so much more than a catalog shot. The photos make a statement about the work, and tell us who the target audience is for that artisan. (Click on any photo to learn more).

From Birribe, the scarf pops against a subdued palette and the rustic bowl says ‘handmade, and ‘timelessly fashionable’.

 

From Starbags, a playful, fun and energetic styling photo says that this is for a woman who is light hearted and adventurous. She needs a bag that has personality but is made well enough to withstand her capricious and active lifestyle.

From Polestar, this conveys a message that the necklace will be front and center, a focal point for your outfit. Simple and powerful presentation.

From WolfArtGlass, the recycled shot glass is shown emerging from the bottles- a clever way to convey the process and its eco friendly nature. The target market- eco conscious buyers- are defined instantly.

From Ileaiye, the styling shows us a comfortable and flattering shawl in the easy going pose of the model. The white textured brick background also says urban. The styling successfully says that it is made for a woman who needs hip current styling but demands comfort.

From LeshasWorkshop, “turn your shoes into boot” is perfectly conveyed. The buyer is modern, youthful, sexy, and confident.

As Rod Stewart once sang “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”  I enjoy styling my pottery. it’s another artform unto itself.

the TuckooandMooCow story

I met up with Sarah-Lambert Cook at the Big Crafty in downtown Asheville. She’s using her drawing talents to capture a niche audience with quirky miniature jewelry based on literary and film characters. If you enjoy The Hobbit, Monty Python or Shakespeare, her zany meets cute world will wow you.

Here’s how she went from unemployed to full time artisan, in her own words:

I began listing items in May 2010, selling art and the hand painted jewelry. In the first few weeks, sales were few but steady. Since it was mostly the jewelry, I decided I ought to focus all of my energy on that. But life threw a curve-ball in August when the store I was working at in Kansas closed. My husband and I decided it would be the perfect time to pick up and move east. My parents were living in Atlanta and offered us the front room of their house until we could get settled. For seven months we lived in one room as storage space, bedroom and studio simultaneously.

Emboldened by reaching 80 sales by the end of October I stopped looking for work and focused my energy on Tuckooandmoocow. Researching, networking, renewing, and creating new designs paid off! I had almost 200 new sales the next month! Business stayed steady through Christmas, and when things didn't slow down much for the rest of winter, I knew I had it.

Now, we live in beautiful Asheville, NC and are able to depend on sales from TuckooandMooCow to support us. There have been things that didn't work: shipping UPS express international is a cluster-cuss for everyone involved, staying up all night for more than 3 nights in a row will cause a massive migraine and creative burnout, and with made-to-order items there must always be time budgeted for unforeseen circumstances. Some things have been godsends: Etsy is a community of artisans, not just solely a venue, so getting involved in some aspect of that can be very helpful to your business and your sanity. As TuckooandMooCow grows, I'd like to eventually be much more self-sufficient and not purchase settings, but make them myself.

I haven't had a full day off since November, but I'm happy and the rewards have been worth the effort.

Pottery Loved by a Potter

I’ve always been opinionated, especially about what looks good, and really, there should be some sort of syndrome named for how opinionated I am about what is good or bad in pottery. Maybe 2% of all pottery made qualifies as even good, and then only maybe 10% of that qualifies as something I like. So there may be worthwhile pottery that doesn’t make my list but you cannot convince me of that, so don’t even go there!
So here are pieces by a few claymakers whose work enthralls me at the moment:

By Romy and Clare, it’s the organic shapes that push  the barriers of function without being unfuctional that really awe me. And the modern version of hand painted fruit. I just love it, and everything they do!

From HodakaPottery, it’s how harmonious and quiet this piece seems, while using so many design flourishes. Really quite stunning.

By JustMare, it’s the soft, subtle glazes paired with the twig handle- such an original interpretation of a mug!

You know I'm a fan of MarciG! Even if she wasn’t my daughter…. I’d be in awe of this huge emerging talent. Her pieces are magical and functional.

By peifferStudios, the organic shape that utilizes both stained and glazed areas is alive with that peace that comes from knowing nature intimately.

This is someone to watch! She has always had a unique vision and she’s really coming into her own lately. Keep your eye on DBabcock!
By WhitneySmith, this pine cone inspired set of nesting bowls is visually sophisticated and flawlessly executed. Whitney is a creative giant whose work evolves in new directions as if a fine geneticist is cross breeding nature with clay.
When I look at pottery, which has been made by human hands for over 10,000 years, the words of Werner Erhard come to mind:
“Any idiot can walk the path when shown it. But out here, there is no path. The path is made by your walking. “
And that’s what I love to see. Someone following their own muse, forging their own path, speaking in an ancient tongue but saying something that takes you into a yet uncharted inner terrain.

Cover Girl

I received so many appreciative and encouraging replies to my interview with Handmadeology, which was first published on Marketing Creatively. Thanks, Lisa! It is an honor and pleasure to have my interview  chosen for the April cover.

Pottery is a path of irony in that shaping clay day after day shapes you. Centering the clay on a wheel centers you. The zone of pottery making requires a zen attention to mastery of simple tasks. It is no wonder that success, as a potter, is rich in intangibles, and financially modest. My stepsons have BA’s and are on fine career paths. My daughter will be attending a private university, thanks partially to my pottery income and that of her own. I own a home furnished with fine art and collectibles, with gardens and views that are daily gifts of inspiration. My marriage is happy.

I wake up most days eager to explore a bit of new territory with clay. It’s a good life, overall.

Graduation 2011

When I first held my beautiful newborn girl, I thought of all the milestones in her life to come. Her eyes, so large and inquisitive, told me that her smile would be an answer to my every question, and that one day she would walk beyond my home and into a life of her own imagining and dreams. Eighteen years have passed, and I watched her walk across the stage to graduate high school, with honors. In a few short months Marci will begin college at High Point University, as an interior design major. She makes me proud!

Here are some of our friends and family who came over to celebrate Marci’s graduation.

SEO for your Etsy Shop

That’s right- Search Engine Optimization. Don’t let your eyes gloss over! If you can upload a photo to Etsy without making a piece of jewelry resemble a squid, then you have the capacity to make Google results work for you. Or you can ask Cindy of cindylouwho2. She has researched Etsy and SEO, and I will be a customer of hers when her SEO shop opens, because Google changes the rules more often than the ref at your daughter’s soccer game.
The last big change was in late February, when Google demoted “content farms”- which have content that was copied from other sources. In articles across the web, Etsy was consistently named as a winner in this new shift! My views from Google, and consequently my sales, have benefitted from this! If yours have not, read this! I asked Cindy for practical changes we all can make to use Etsy’s higher ranking for own own shops.
Lee: Why did Etsy come out as one of the 5 top winners from Google's recent decision to penalize the content farms?
Cindy: Legitimate shopping sites did well overall with the changes, & Etsy was one of the top in that group.
If you are putting your Etsy content anywhere else online, make sure you change the titles & descriptions at least a bit to avoid this duplicate content problem.
Lee: Does the new motivation to make and click links in treasuries boost Etsy's SEO overall? Does it boost the SEO of often featured shops who get clickthroughs from the treasuries?
Cindy: Yes, in general, having pages well-linked internally is good for SEO, so if one of your listings is in a lot of treasuries, that definitely helps! Any internal link back to your shop – in a treasury, in the forum, comments in the Storque, on public team threads – is helping the page linked & helping Etsy overall. It takes a lot of these little internal links to make a real difference. However, it is usually easier than getting the higher-value external links, so internal links are an SEO tactic that should not be ignored.
Lee: One of my teams has a blog with static pages that are the copy and pasted bios of team members. Are these duplications of content hurting the blog's ranking and/ or authority? Should we all be looking to reduce duplicate content on our promotional sites across the web?
Cindy:
Those sorts of cut & paste pages might hurt in at least two different ways.
1) There is the possibility that Google will consider the copies to be the authoritative page, & give the copies a higher ranking than the originals.
2) If you have links on many pages that are of low value in Google’s eyes, it can actually hurt the original page.
It doesn’t usually hurt you, especially if there is unique content on the page with the copies, & the pieces copied are a small part of the original pages. Be careful to link back to the original pages on the copied page! Teams often include links directly to the shops, rather than the links to the page where the bio came from (usually the profile page). Including the link to the original tells Google that the content had another source. Additionally, you can link to the shop, for extra SEO benefits.
Here is a level-headed discussion of duplicate content, although most readers will find it more relevant for blogs & free-standing websites than for Etsy:
www.searchenginejournal.com/duplicate-content-phantom-dont-be-duped-be-inform...
Lee: Is there a different formula to come up in Google images search?
Cindy: Yes, the search algorithm for each part of Google is different. There’s not a lot we can do on Etsy to make our pics rank on Google Images, other than what we already do to help the rank of the listing page itself.
Lee: Is it good or bad to put  links (to our own shop) in our shop listings? How about outbound links to another shop?
Cindy: Linking to a shop section or your shop home page is good for those pages, in terms of SEO.
Linking to another shop helps out that other shop. It is not entirely clear to me that linking within Etsy is good for the page with the links on it, but the scant evidence I have seen points to “Yes!
Additionally, Kathy of OhYum advises us to use the renew/sold option rather than creating a new listing each time when we can.

Kathy:The more often a specific page (ie: URL) is looked at,  the higher Google wants to display the page.
Here’s one more tip from me: Google rewards new content. I make incremental changes in my shop announcement and listing copy weekly. Two years ago I didn’t know the difference between a keyword and a corkscrew, and here I am giving sage advice and selling like I actually understand anything on the internet!

I’ve been eating my staging props

In order to show the size of my pottery, I've been using food as staging props. I scour the produce and bakery sections for food that looks good. I've gotten quite anal about it, actually.

I know I’m starting to sound eccentric in the grocery, but when I saw these great looking radishes, I picked through every bunch to get the perfect color. It sort of annoyed another woman, but hey! I need my radishes to be bright RED, ya know?!

I’m glad that Valentine’s Day has passed. Because my diet has gotten healthier. How would you like to have this on your counter staring at you after you’ve used it for staging?