You’ve got a blog, you’re written a mission statement, you know how to build a community, and now you’ve started making it easier for search engines to find you.

So what are you going to write about?

The next time you’re stuck for a post, consider one of these options:

• Photo – sometimes we forget that, often, simple can be beautiful! Post a picture of your last project, your studio, your inspiration/muse, or a work in progress.
• Tutorial – don’t think that by posting a how-to on an aspect of your work that you’ll be losing business. Quite the opposite! Your readers will gain a new appreciation of your process. You’ll gain readers by posting useful information. And you’ll inspire your readers to create themselves!
• Extend – pick up a previous post where you left off. Follow-up, offer new insights, and be sure to link back to your previous post (makes your blog sticky and boosts your search engine rankings!).
• Inspiration – choose a piece and tell everyone the background story. Where did you get the idea?
• Collection – choose a piece and put together a collection, outfit, or gallery of pieces from other sellers that have a similar style but don’t compete with your piece. Be sure to email/convo the other sellers so they can link back to you and help you promote the post! This is one of my favorite kinds of posts to do – takes a little time but well worth it for page views!
• Links – list links that you’ve found helpful in the last week.
• Host a Giveaway – giveaway one of your own products. There are some really helpful tips below!
• Events – let your readers know what events you’ll be vending at. They might also want to know where you’re taking classes.

Here’s more some help from Problogger on coming up with post ideas. And here’s another tip from Problogger about solving a reader’s problem. The post is concerned with more “information” problems but you can utilize the same techniques to identify the gap between search engine queries that point people to your blog & the actual merchandise in your shop.

Chris Brogan, a social media powerhouse, wrote this post detailing 40 ways to deliver killer blog content.

What types of posts do you come back to when you’re stuck?

tips for hosting a giveaway

Giveaways are, of course, a great way to boost traffic to your blog and to your shop. But how do you get the most from a giveaway?

Jessica from JessicaKnows.com offers tips on how to get more out of a blog giveaway: more traffic, more exposure, more buzz, more street cred, more sales!

Tsh from simple mom and Darn Good Blogging offers these tips for hosting a great giveaway and staying sane!

To boost traffic for giveaways here on Handmade in PA.net, I submit all giveaways to Etsy Giveaways, Mom Giveaways, and Everything Up Close. There are plenty more giveaway clearing house sites out there where you can list your giveaway for free – it’s generally not worth it to pay to list! – and they’ll help you promote your site.

I also use Facebook to promote giveaways. Of course, you can post the link to your profile. But have you considered creating an event? You can create an event from your profile page, business page, or group page. Then you can invite all your friends & fans and ask them to share the giveaway with their friends – it can go viral fast!

homework

Check out the list of post idea above. Which have you not written before? Which have you not written for awhile? Pick one that you don’t normally use and, well, use it! Be sure to leave a comment here with a link back to your post!

special announcement

As you know, Handmade Marketing.org has been sponsoring this series, cross-posting the HiP blog challenge to expand its audience to a whole new group of crafters! Well, since this series has become such a hit – they’ve asked me to partner with their design team, White Label Graphics, to offer web site marketing services to handmade sellers.

Interested in re-vamping your blog? Increasing your social media presence? Investing in a website to sell your handmade products? Contact me at tara@handmadeinpa.net or White Label Graphics at info@whitelabelgraphics.com for a free consultation for ideas to help boost your marketing efforts.

Thanks for following along with the HiP blog challenge! There’s so much more to say…so stay tuned for more information on improving your blog to sell more.

SEO can help you write better posts

“Werd” hand-bound book by Emily from Subu, Inc.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the “art” of making your website easier for search engines easier to read. Which means… you get more random hits from people that are interested in your craft! SEO is a free and easy way to attract new customers – something that is normally difficult and expensive to do.

There are many technical ways to achieve this and I will discuss a few that I pretend to understand at the end of this post. Luckily there are also many effective techniques that require no technical knowledge and will actually improve your writing!

consider your keywords

Are your posts full of specific, descriptive words? Or do you use a lot of pronouns?

Avoid pronouns (he, she, it) and other non-descriptive words (piece, project, art, do, make) in favor keywords that really describe your work. Not only will this make your blog more attractive to search engines, it will make you write better! Writing better equals better content equals more [engaged] readers!

Describe your craft, your style, colors, techniques, etc… and do it often. Don’t just assume that your readers know what you do. Some might, many will forget, and hopefully you’re getting new readers daily.

And don’t forget that search engines will also bring you traffic to specific posts – a permalink. A permalink displays a single post on a single page. It will show any comments to that post & all of your usual formatting. But it won’t include the posts before or after so there won’t be any context for your readers if you don’t provide any.

now put your keywords where they’ll be noticed!

Maybe you’ve noticed that I like using headings, bold & italic formatting, anchor text for links, bullet lists. Each of these formatting options provides special clues to search engines. Words contained in this formatting have more value to search engines.

The good news is they also make your posts easier to read! When we read writing on the internet, we skim. We all do it – it’s okay. But the sites that we remember most, the ones we’ll come back to time & again, are those that make it easy to absorb the message while skimming. Putting your keywords in headings (<h1> <h2>, etc…) or bold text (<strong>) will alert your readers to key points in your writing and allow them to fully comprehend what you’re saying without reading word for word.

Using anchor text properly when inserting links will also help readers & search engines find out what your site is about. The anchor text is the words that you choose to make up your hyperlink. “Click here” has become so cliche…and it’s also bad SEO form. Tell people what you’re linking them to – and use those words to create your link.

give some link love! and get some in return

Another way to make your content more engaging and increase your SEO is to share link love. Don’t worry HiP isn’t going R-rated! Link love is simply linking to those sites you find useful, inspiring, and interesting and sharing them with your readers.

Sharing links to other sites – whether other Etsy sellers, helpful blogs, tutorials, etc… – will gain you credibility in your field. It will also endear you to those that you link to! Then, they’ll link back to you, which is the action that increases your standings with the search engines.

taking SEO to the next level

For more information on how to use social media & links to improve your SEO, check out this article from Handmade Marketing.org. Handmade Marketing.org also has a whole category of posts dedicated to SEO for both your shop & your blog.

Images have become a key way to increase search engine traffic, as well. Hopefully, you know a tiny bit of HTML for images. (No? Check out this resource on code for images) Because what you are trying to sell is image based, your posts should be full of bright, clear images that display your craft. Make sure that you are using descriptive, keyword-based “ALT” text – the text that appears if your image takes a while to load – for your images. ALT text is another clue for search engines!

If you don’t mind delving into your code a bit and you have a Wordpress.org blog – which is what I recommend, by the way – check out this article on optimizing your blog for search engines. I would also suggest using the All-in-One SEO plug-in which will help you do many of the things in the aforementioned article without using code.

Homework Assignment

Write a review of a blog/post/shop you think your readers would appreciate. Make sure that sharing that site is in line with your mission statement and the purpose of your blog. Consider keywords that are relevant to your post. Make use of text formatting to let search engines know what’s important.

When you’ve finished your post, bring us the link and leave it in the comments on this post!

And I know this was a lot of information…if you have any questions that would be helpful to our community here, please post them and I’ll answer them for you right in the comments!

This week’s HiP blog challenge homework was to ask a question of your blog readers. So I figured I better take a little of my own medicine!

What crafty or DIY project are you working on now? Anything new in the works?

Feel free to link to your shop, Flickr photos, Facebook page, etc… I’m so excited to see what you’re doing!

When I asked Jessica Smith, of Wish Pot & JessicaKnows fame (among many, many other things…), what one tip she would give someone just starting out in social media, she replied:

“Talking with people” may be easy to put into practice with sites like Facebook and Twitter. But you probably use your blog just to “talk to people.” It takes a bit more thought & a tiny bit of effort to turn your blog into a conversation – but it’s well worth it!

Community = Conversation = Comments

How do you feel when you receive a comment on a blog post? Pretty jazzed, right? Are you doing anything to encourage comments?

Comments are the currency of the blogosphere. Sure, impressions, page views, & unique hits are great – but if you’re not engaging your readership, what is your blog really worth? Engaging your readers means that they’ll keep coming back whether they’re ready to buy from you that day or not. They’ll be more likely to keep you in mind for a special gift or a personal splurge! Inviting & encouraging comments will keep your readers engaged.

Just as in life, the more you give, the more you get. Think about the blogs you visit regularly. Are you giving them the comments that you’d like to get? Leave a comment. Start a discussion. Point out something specific from the post you found helpful, eye-catching, or interesting.

Comment to Get Noticed

Commenting on others’ blogs is also a great way to get noticed by people who are in a position to promote you & your business. You read all your blog comments, so do I. And so do editors whose blogs have more readership than we could ever dream of! To encourage reader loyalty, you can even respond to your comments – by email, on your blog, or on the reader’s blog.

Ways to Encourage Comments

Encouraging comments starts with providing excellent content (that always keeps in mind your mission statement, of course!). New projects, special features, tours of your studio…anything that your customers can’t find elsewhere – these things all encourage comments by making your readers feel valued.

You can also increase the interactivity of your blog by asking for design ideas. girlscantell does an excellent job of this! Sara regularly collects reader input and then creates new designs based on the ideas! You can also have polls or ask for readers’ personal experiences. ProBlogger has even more ideas for increasing comments.

The readers who comment are most often your best customers & biggest fans. You certainly want to take every opportunity to reward them for being a part of your business! Add a link to their site in your sidebar. Thank them publicly, by name, in posts. Offer to answer reader questions in an open comments thread. Give your readers a piece of homework and have them report back to you ;)

What have you done to increase a sense of community on your blog?

Homework

Your homework for this post is really easy.

Craft a question for your readers to answer. Make this post 200 words or less. In other words, a little background information is fine but really make the question the feature of your post.

Let your readers know that you would really like to read their answers.

Then come back here and leave a comment with the permalink for your question post. Visit other HiP blog challenge participants and answer their questions.

Next week we’ll talk about writing better posts by incorporating the principles of search engine optimization.

While this blog may be geared towards Pennsylvania crafters and handmade lovers, this challenge is open to anyone interested in improving the effectiveness of their blog!

blogging your brand
and branding your blog

Knowing your brand is central to the way others perceive your work. Strong branding can make good work look great – and make a potential customer much more likely to return to your shop to make a purchase.

Too often, I see blogs that are quite disconnected from the shops they are designed to promote. On the most basic level, your blog should share the same color scheme, banner, & general feel (modern, traditional, deco, abstract, etc…) as your shop. But on a more organic level, your blog should allow you to express your brand through what you write & choose to share with readers.

A mission statement can help you strengthen your brand.

an example

For instance, take a look at Lion Brand Yarn – its main page and its blog.

Lion Brand has created excellent…well…branding between sites. The colors are soft & neutral so that they don’t clash with the vibrant projects that they highlight. The blog header includes both the logo & an image of yarn to remind you what site you’re on.

When you dig deeper, Lion Brand describes their mission, “With this blog, the Lion Brand Notebook, we’re hoping to connect with you in another way, bringing you regular updates on what’s happening inside Lion Brand, taking you with us when we travel, and sharing our discoveries about what’s happening in the yarn world with you.”

If you read through the content of the Lion Brand blog, you’ll see that, of course, many of the entries are about their products, other facets of their online media, and events that they have participated in. But their blog also highlights things of interest to fiber lovers in general. This builds their brand by promoting fiber arts as a craft, not just Lion Brand Yarn. While blogging, Lion Brand is fulfilling it’s mission as a company.

what’s your mission?

Identifying your brand and its mission is key to formulating a blog that is both worth reading & great marketing for your business. In this case, your mission statement is a public statement of what fuels your passion for craft and what you hope others will gain by consuming your brand.

HiP’s mission is this, “Handmade in PA seeks to be the premiere site for bringing Pennsylvania artisans & shoppers together. We feature interviews, host giveaways, publish tutorials, and offer business & shopping advice – all in the name of supporting the handmade movement in Pennsylvania.” Does HiP fulfill it’s mission?

homework

Your homework for this part of the HiP blog challenge is to write or revise a mission statement in order to strengthen your brand. Remember that a good mission statement describes your motivation for your craft & what you hope others will gain by consuming your product – specifically. Don’t settle for “beautiful hand-crafted goods” or “great customer service.” Identify the work you do, the style you work in, the benefits of owning your work, etc…

Then, going forward, each post you make on your blog should go towards furthering this mission. That’s not to say that you can’t post on a variety of topics but they should all, somehow, point back to your mission.

So where do you put this mission statement? On your “about” page! You don’t have an “about” page? Then you have two pieces of homework. Your “about” page should include your mission statement, some biographical information, your shop links, your contact information, and any other background information that you’d like to include.

In Wordpress, this is very easy – just add a page. In Blogger, it’s a bit tricky – but not hard. This post will show you how it’s done.

So…this week, you’ll write or revise a mission statement for your blog and post it on your “about” page – also, if you don’t mind sharing, post your mission statement as a comment on this post. You’ll also carefully consider your posts this week to make sure that they are furthering your mission and strengthening your brand. Good luck!

Are you ready for a challenge? I’m proud to announce the spring HiP blog challenge! If you’re looking to make your blog a little HiPper, or at least make it reflect your business and gain readership, tune in every Saturday in April to learn about “blogging your brand,” blog networking, microblogging, search engine optimization, and what to write about.

Each post will have both basic & more advanced tips and a small homework assignment to take back to your blog.

If you’re up for the challenge, feel free to add this button to your blog! Just copy & paste the code below (the code makes the button smaller). And tune in for the first post this Saturday, April 4.

<a href=”http://handmadeinpa.net/category/blog-challenge” title=”the HiP blog challenge”/><img src=”http://handmadeinpa.net/images/blogchallengesm.jpg” alt=”i took the HiP blog challenge” /></a>

Or in Blogger, add a “Picture” gadget and enter “http://handmadeinpa.net/category/blog-challenge” as your link and “http://handmadeinpa.net/images/blogchallengesm.jpg” in the box labeled “from the web.”

If you participate in the challenge, be sure to shoot me a link to your blog (tara AT handmadeinpa DOT net) and I’ll add it to my sidebar under the blog challenge button!

this week’s @weeklyblogpost: TOOLS

Marissa Rojas’ tools – Check out her shops Yay For Fidget Art, MJ Rojas Photography, and Marissa Joanna Rojas.

Avocado Creations (on top) and Rosie’s Whimsy (on the bottom) shared their sewing tools. And yes, that’s FOUR sewing machines in Rosie’s picture!

Finally, Melissa Lobach, aka @theIllustrator, shared this gorgeous picture of her knitting needles! Melissa is a talented illustrator & graphic designer working out of Reading.

*Update*

A last minute submission from Erin over at RuJu! I couldn’t help but post this pic, which features a very special creative “tool!”

If you’re participating in this week’s @weeklyblogpost, be sure to post the link here!