EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival - for 1/23/12 thru 2/5/12

Hope the year is off to a great start for all of you! Welcome to this edition of the blog carnival.

Here are the topics from which to select:

1. What do you want help with for your shop? what would you like tips on?
Write about what you'd like help with and the rest of us can comment with suggestions on your post. Or what has been the most important thing you have learned?

2. What's your favorite part of running an Etsy shop? What comes easiest for you pertaining to your shop? Are you good with numbers? Are super neat and organized in your craft room? Do prefer to create or 'run the business'?


Please be sure to checkout the comments here on this post, so that you can visit the blogs of the other participants!


Posted for the EtsyBloggers team by: LizsWares.etsy.com See EtsyBloggers team membership requirements here: etsybloggers.comGot a blog? Love Etsy? Check us out!

Guest Blogging for Success

It is Wednesday again and I welcome you to yet another post of the How to Blog Like a Pro series, originally published on Kanelstrand Organic Living.  Read the rest of the posts: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4

To be successful online we all try to market our brands in the most prolific manner and are always on the lookout for productive ways to advertise and get seen. And advertising can be done in many subtle ways without annoying our readers.

Guest blogging is one of the most cherished (and rightfully so) ways of popularizing ourselves and our brands, regardless of which side of the fence we are at - the guest blogger's or the host's. If you have noticed, the most successful blogs on the net regularly invite guest bloggers. I also love my experience as a guest blogger and as a host equally well and here are some of the reasons why:

From the guest blogger's point of view: 

Get backlinks

It is considered good manners when you are invited to guest blog to be allowed to add a link to your blog/website/etsy store and this is great because it is a wonderful way to create backlinks and make your blog's rating higher. By writing a guest post you get the chance to have a permanent link pointing back to your own blog!

Show yourself in a different light
Guest writing for another blog makes your brain change the frequency it works on and you may come up with great new approaches or themes. This will ultimately have a great effect on the development of your writing style, and it can lead to amazing new personal discoveries! 

Get quality traffic

When you offer your expertise to a new readership you get not only exposure but new fans as well! People are naturally curious and if you manage to catch their attention, many of them will click on your link to find out more about your knowledge and interests. What better way to gain even more followers!

Spread the word

When you guest post you take advantage not only of the readership but also of the distribution network of the host and your article may get quite popular. Consider the host's Twitter and facebook followers and you will get a rough idea how many people you didn't know will be able to read your words and probably re-distribute them!

From the host blogger's point of view 

Break the routine

As much as your readers love you, they would appreciate a new "voice". Opening up for guest bloggers will allow you to make a change in your blogging routine and maybe even give you new ideas. It will also provide you with time to work on your SEO or anything else you deem valuable for your blog.

Get fresh content
A guest blogger will offer a different perspective on a theme you and your readers are passionate about. This will inevitable raise the interest towards your blog and very soon you will be able to see a change in your Stats.


Have new conversation points

By inviting guest bloggers to your blog you offer your readers diversity and new themes. What is more, a guest writer can have a slightly different point of view which will invariable sparkle discussions and will liven up your blog.

Gain new readership

Guest bloggers are also social! They would love to brag about their latest article, published on your blog, thus creating more links for you and bringing more traffic your way. They will also mention their post on their own blogs, so this is a wonderful way to attract new followers and backlinks.

Original content

A very important aspect for both guest bloggers and blog hosts is publishing original content. Many people are willing to copy and paste a previously published article on your blog but  since February 2011 Google stopped indexing duplicate information. You can read Google's point of view and reasons why they consider duplicate content spam here.

So, quite in line with this information I must admit that I love my guest writers and have so far had great experience with their contributions! If you want to become a part of the Kanelstrand community, don't be shy and look at the submission guidelines. I am very easy to talk to and more importantly, I am open to new ideas!

Posted for the EtsyBloggers team by: Kanelstrand See EtsyBloggers team membership requirements here: etsybloggers.com Got a blog? Love Etsy? Check us out!

How to Find Free Photos for Your Blog

It is Wednesday again and I welcome you to yet another post of the How to Blog Like a Pro series, originally published on Kanelstrand Organic Living.  Read the rest of the posts: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3 

Maintaining an impressive blog which attracts many followers inevitably has to do not only with the content but with the illustration as well. We humans, are visual creatures and having that in mind, the smart blogger should take care to provide an additional reason for her readers to keep coming back!

I recently talked about how important eye candy is in creating quality blog posts and in attracting more traffic to your blog. If your photo archive doesn't cover the theme of your latest blog post, you can find photos and illustrations shared freely on the Internet. Believe it or not, a lot of photographers and graphic designers are not driven by money. They want to share their work with the world, under specific conditions, which almost always include being credited for their work.

Below I have listed in alphabetical order 15 sources of quality free photos and images on the Internet. Whatever source you decide to use, ALWAYS credit the artist, link back to them and, when possible, send a link. This is the best and easiest way to thank someone who has been so generous as to offer her creative work to you for free. By taking the time to be courteous and polite you will allow the artist to link back to your site and not only to show potential customers how her work has been used but to direct even more traffic to your blog! 

Creative Commons

Creative Commons helps you search through Google Images, Flickr, etc. to find free photos. It offers you to search according to your need - for commercial purposes or to modify and build on the photo. I often use photos whose modification is allowed and add a little something from me, like change the hue or brightness, or crop the image the way it suits me. But be careful because you should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link of the photo displayed. 

EveryStockPhoto

EveryStockPhoto is a search engine for free photos that come from numerous Internet sources and are license-specific, currently searching through more than 10 million of photos. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos. Membership is free and allows you to rate, tag, collect and comment on photos. 

Flickr

In Flickr there are always plenty of images available for free use. To search for them, in "Everyone's Uploads" you need to type in your keyword and under "Advanced search" you will have to click on "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content". Of course, it would be good taste to link back to the original image. I usually do that in the caption of the photo.

FreeDigitalPhotos

FreeDigitalPhotos.net offers free images for use in corporate and personal projects. Downloading is made easy by instant download and lack of registration requirement.

You need to credit the person who created the image and instructions for publishing credits can be found to the right of every image. If you don't want to do that, you can purchase a license, starting at just $3 per image.

FreePhoto

FreeFoto.com is made up of more than 130 000 images organized in sections and categories.According to  the site, it is the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet.

The easy to navigate site offers images that are free for online use, with higher quality versions available for sale. FreeFoto.com also features exclusive images found nowhere else on the web with new pictures being added every week. It is required that you link back and attribute the images you use. 

FreePhotosBank

You can search the site by keywords in various fields and you can download files in two different ways, as a .jpeg file or as a .zip file. The first option is suitable if you wish to open the image or media file in your browser for viewing, but also for saving it on your hard drive. The zip download is better if the image or media file is very large and you wish to save it on your hard drive. However, this option requires that you have a zip extractor program available.

FromOldBooks

FromOldBooks is run by Liam Quin, who says he owns a lot of old and antiquarian books with really neat pictures in them. He says: "I thought it was a shame that no one but me could see them, so I started putting them online." 

On his website you will find over 3,000 high-resolution free images scanned from more than 180 different old or rare books, with extracts. The author of the site requires that you let him know if you use any of the pictures by linking back and sending him a link of your post.

ImageBase

ImageBase is a collection of high quality photos of nature, people, cities, and objects taken by David Niblack. The site clearly states that all images are 100 percent free to use. You can use the images on the website for whatever you want, personal, commercial or non-profit use for free. They are licensed under the "Attribution (by)" Creative Commons License.  In short, you are free to distribute and modify the files, commercial or otherwise, as long as you attribute its author (David Niblack).

PDPhoto

PDPhoto.org is a repository for free public domain photos. As the owner of the site puts it: "Unless something is clearly marked as being copyrighted, you can assume it is free to use. But if you intend to use an image you find here for commercial use, please be aware that standards for such use are higher."

If you use pictures from the site, PDPhoto requires you to put the text "Photo courtesy PDPhoto.org", link back and/or give credit to the author. Anyway, the owner continues: "But you don't have to. Feel free to leave a message in the comment area for the image you're using if it's something you can link to. The pictures are free for you to use and you should feel good about doing so."

PixelPerfect

Pixel Perfect offers more than 7 000 photos and 3D graphics by 13 000 photographers. You can rate and see how many times an image has been viewed. You can download and use photos as long as you credit the author and keep them for non-commercial use.

Photo Rogue

Photo Rogue is a non-profit web site whose main goal is to increase the amount of free visual media on the Internet. Currently they offer about 700 photos organized in 94 albums

The cool addition to Photo Rogue is that you can even request a picture and volunteer photographers will go out and attempt to take it. It's entirely free, although the owners of the site cannot guarantee that your request will ever be filled.

Stockvault

Here you will find over 25 000 free amazing photos for personal and non-commercial use by various photographers, both professional and amateur.

You can rate photos, see their EXIF, see the date they were taken and much more.

Stock.xchng

One of the best resources of free images online, launched in 2001 as an alternative for expensive stock photography. The site has developed a lot and currently offers about 400 000 high quality photos from amateur photographers from around the world. The photographers establish the use terms, and most images are available for immediate reuse.

Unprofound

Here you can find free photos categorized by color! Of course, you may not redistribute them to any other websites or offline buyers because they are still the intellectual property of their owners who have given you permission to use them in your designs, art, personal and professional projects, or even as your desktop backgrounds. No signup is required to download photos from the site.

Woophy

Woophy is a Dutch website offering almost 1 million free photos from around the world for non commercial use. You can search by city, highest-rated photos, country, category keywords, or member to find photos. The categories are animals, culture, landmarks and buildings, nature, objects, and people.

Where do you find your photos and images? Is there any other website you use which you don't see in the list? Share, so we can learn from each other.

Posted for the EtsyBloggers team by: Kanelstrand 
See EtsyBloggers team membership requirements here: etsybloggers.com 
Got a blog? Love Etsy? Check us out!

How to Attract More Traffic to Your Blog

It is Wednesday again and I welcome you to yet another post of the How to Blog Like a Pro series, originally published on Kanelstrand Organic Living.  Read the rest of the posts: Post 1, Post 2, Post 4,

Today I am going to tell you how to attract more traffic to your crafty blog. Of course, there is no magic formula and it is not easy but once you decide to develop your blog you will find yourself yearning for more and more traffic, which will of course lead to more popularity of your etsy shop, and eventually will lead to more sales. Because, let's admit it, creating your fabulous items is not enough, you have to market them!

It would be great if you have already built a faithful readership before you start your etsy store, but even if you haven't, it is never too late, why don't you start today! Running a blog is a totally different experience than creating with your hands but it can still be considered hand work, which means that you can do it!

It is worth putting effort in your blog because that will inevitably direct more traffic to your etsy shop. People love to know more about the real person behind the creative facade and your blog is the most powerful tool you can use for that purpose.

Increasing the traffic is not as hard if you follow some basic rules which have already proven prolific:

Determine your audience

Even if your blog is new and you still don't have an audience you need to envision it, so as to know in what tone to write. Knowing your audience will help you determine what they are interested in. Be consistent and try to write in the tone appropriate for the theme you have chosen.

Write often

Try to write at least every other day. Bloggers who seldom update their blogs quickly loose their readership because in the Information age people easily find another source of inspiration. Strive to be interesting and versatile. Don't be afraid to experiment this is the only way to find your true style.

Answer your email and comment

Be punctual in your communication. To win someone's trust you need to prove that you are trustworthy. You don't gain gain anything if you procrastinate answering emails, on the contrary, you would rather loose.

Comment on your posts. By setting an example you encourage your readers to comment and you create a community feeling. We humans are herd animals and subconsciously try to be part of a group. 

And please, please, please, take the word verification off your comment form!  Make commenting easy and pleasant for your readers by ensuring they can do it quickly and effortlessly. After all, it is more important to know what they think, right?

Here is how to take word verification off: in your Blogger dashboard go to Settings|Comments and there on the Comment Form Placement (the 3rd option from the top) choose Embedded below post. 

For everyone having spam problems I recommend two solutions:

• If you already have spam comments, go to your Blogger Dashboard and there choose Comments|Published and manually mark the spam comments. In this way you help blogger identify spam messages and eliminate them in the future. Once you do that, the marked comments will move to your Spam Inbox.  
• But I believe that the most powerful tool is to disallow anonymous posting by going to Settings|Comments and on the second option, which is Who can comment? choose Registered users instead of Anyone.

Be a part of an online group or etsy team

By joining and actively participating in online communities and groups you ensure yourself yet another source of inspiration and a place where you can share your ideas and communicate with like-minded individuals. You can promote your blog by adding your blog link to your signature or profile.  While there are no signatures in etsy you can still direct traffic from the forums by writing engaging content! If you do so, many people will want to learn more about you.

Use big pictures

Illustrate your posts! People love beautiful images. In photos size really matters. A big photo attracts the viewers' attention and makes them stay longer on your blog. I catch myself ignoring small photos and lingering more to the bigger ones.

Offer DIYs

People are crazy about DIYs, there are lots of crafty websites such as I share crafts and Upcycle Magazine who serve as DIY hubs and have submit forms. Once you have written your DIY just go on promoting it. Those sites will direct traffic to your blog for longer than you can imagine.

Tag your posts

Take your time and tag your posts accordingly. Tags help search engines to find and classify your blog posts.

Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites

By adding your posts to Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon or Digg you increase your chances to be seen by people with similar interests and to quickly boost the traffic to your blog.

Use your blogroll widget

Adding blogs to your blogroll and regularly updating them will direct traffic to those blogs and their authors will check you out. Maybe some of them are your future fans! 

Make sure your blog loads quickly

Get rid of widgets that slow the loading time of your blog. People don't have time for your blog to load even if it is worth the wait. If they really want to see your products they will click on your etsy link instead of waiting for your etsy mini to load. If they don't care about them, they will ignore your widget even if it is XLarge.

Make sure that the most important content of your blog  loads quickly! You can easily determine the loading time your the items on your blog require with the help of Stopwatch. Just type your blog address and click "Start StopWatch". It will then record the time it takes for everything on your blog to load, including images, videos, widgets, etc. Modify the parts of your blog that take longest to load. My result was 5 sec.

Control the number of blog posts on your front page

The loading time of your blog is in direct correlation with the number of blog posts appearing on a page. In the Formatting tab of your Settings you can change that number. Bear in mind that from Blogger recommend that you display 10 or fewer posts on the main page. 

Organize the information on your blog

Take care to make your blog reader friendly. Organize your most important information in the top section of your blog because that is the segment that gets the most views.

Don't be afraid to guest blog

Guest blogging is a great way to promote your blog. By writing valuable guest posts you expose yourself to a completely new readership.  You will get a lot of followers from that effort too. There are a lot of people who are looking for guest bloggers in the etsy forums. Some bloggers, like me also openly advertise for guest bloggers. If you stumble upon a blog with guest posts you can always write an email and offer your expertise. After all, even the most successful blogger is a human whom you can approach.

Posted for the EtsyBloggers team by Kanelstrand 

See EtsyBloggers team membership requirements here: etsybloggers.com Got a blog? Love Etsy? Check us out!

8 Tips for Writing Quality Blog Posts

As I promised you last Wednesday, today I start with my blogging guide, originally published on Kanelstrand Organic Living. Read the rest of the posts: Post 1, Post 3, Post 4,

So everyone around you has a blog, you constantly read in all the etsy forums and on every other website about the benefits of having a blog not only for you but for you business as well. There are so many people who appear to always know what to write and when to write it, and you wonder how on earth do they do it? How do they come up with so many interesting posts and even have plenty of comments?

There comes the day when you finally succumb to the idea, regardless of your prejudices or fears. You sign up for a blog, come up with the cutest name and there you are, all alone in front of the vast Internet empire with the empty space of your brand new blog. Feel inspired?

Photo: churl

The truth is that people are not born with the knowledge. It takes hard work, a lot of research and consistency to become successful in any field of life. But hey, don't feel intimidated, everybody has started small! Take every life challenge one step at a time and you will be surprised when you turn back and see how far you have reached by simply following yourself!

Before I give you the 8 tips for writing quality blog posts, let me stress on the fact that people come to your blog to take something from you. Be aware of that and give it to them! Whatever it is - fun, information, tutorials, etc. And don't be afraid - the more you give, the more you will get in return!

Here are the 8 tips for writing quality blog posts:

1. Target

Determine your target audience. Which groups of people would be interested in your blog and what would their expectations be? Pick up an appropriate tone for your audience.

2. Read

Every successful writer is a very experienced reader. Read extensively blogs and websites with a similar theme to yours, learn from them and put to practice what you have learned.

3. Write

Share your own opinion, don't risk of being accused of plagiarism or violating copyright laws. There is no point to copy and paste text from another website. The problem is that not only the author will soon find that out but that once Google finds duplicated content, your page rank wouldn't have a chance to get high.

4. Link

If you find something interesting on the web which you would like to share, do so! But don't just post links! Talk about your experience, and your point of view.

5. Illustrate

Everyone loves eye candy! Strive to have at least one picture on every blog post. If you haven't taken appropriate pictures yourself, the web is full of photographs licensed under Creative Commons, i.e. free to use as long as you link back to their author.

6. Interact

Do not limit yourself to posting. If you want to encourage your readers to comment, do that yourself! Reply to their comments on your blog, visit their own blogs and take the time to comment as well, everybody loves feedback! Plus, out of that interaction you will get many ideas for new posts!

7. Schedule

If you know in advance when the holidays are, you can easily prepare appropriate posts not only about Christmas and Easter but for Mother's day or any other special international or national occasion.

8. Keep it simple

Your blog's appearance is even more important than its content. You can create brilliant content but if you don't present it in a pleasant way it will not be read. Try to have a clean and uncluttered blog template. The more widgets and gadgets you put, the longer it takes for your blog to load which can turn readers off. Try to have your posts reasonably long and with short paragraphs. In the age of information you need to get to the point quickly and sharply if you want to attract your readers' attention.

Is there a tip that you follow and don't see in the list? Please, share it with us in the comments!

Posted for the EtsyBloggers team by: Kanelstrand

See EtsyBloggers team membership requirements here: etsybloggers.com. Got a blog? Love Etsy? Check us out!

How to Blog Like a Pro

Most people believe that quality blogging is only for professionals with much time on their hands. Yes, you do have our own blog, you invest time and efforts in it, you update it maybe 3 times a week but most of the time you feel lost and as if you are talking to the vast nothing. But let me tell you, you CAN blog like pro, you CAN gain loyal readership, you CAN get your blog high in Google's search results and you CAN even make money blogging.

Parada Creations

Although getting to the level of a pro blogger won't happen in a day, once you set your mind to it, you are well on the way of achieving surprising results. I am sure that by now you already know that very often you need just a little push, a system to follow, in order to realize you are actually better than you thought; and that is quite the same with blogging.

Whether you started blogging because of your etsy business, or as a way to learn more about yourself, or to share your exquisite crafty designs with the world, you are out there not only because you are a selfless human being that needs to share knowledge with the world for free but because you also need to be appreciated, and why not get some money out of your awesomeness!

Starting next Wednesday, October 26th, I will share with you the 7-part blogging guide I have devised to help you take concrete steps to organize your blogging time, enhance your blog, and write better and more effective blog posts.

The guide will include:

1. 8 Tips for Writing Quality Blog Posts
2. How to Attract More Traffic to Your Blog
3. 15 Places to Find Free Photos for Your Blog
4. Why Guest Blogging is a Win-Win Situation
5. To Blog or Not to Blog While on Vacation 
6. How to Attract Readers to Your Blog and Keep Them 
7. Blogging for Success

If you want to know more about me and why I am sure that you will achieve success, read my blog, Kanelstrand Organic Living.

Are you ready to set on that journey with me?

Posted for the EtsyBloggers team by: Kanelstrand
See EtsyBloggers team membership requirements here: etsybloggers.com. Got a blog? Love Etsy? Check us out!