I'm a newbie with the whole Etsy store, and I must say that it can be overwhelming to see how fierce the competition is on Etsy. I really thought I had no chance at all. I've decided to give it a year. I would do everything I could, find the tricks of the trade and put them into practice.
As any type of business, I realize success does not come overnight and does not happen by accident. It takes time and lots of hard work and I'm ready to do these.
First of all, after registering my etsy store, I immediately intergrated google analytics into my backstore - this enabled me to monitor what's really going on with my store; who was visiting, where are they visiting from, how long are they staying and so forth. This little tool is a MUST if you're want to have any kind of success with Etsy or any other website for that matter.
After monitoring my website for a while, I had to do something about my bounce rate. What is a bounce rate? Bouncing is when a person goes into your store and bounces right back out unto someone elses website. My bouce rate was high. I mean really high. I was in the mid 80's to high 70's. I needed to do something to keep these potential clients in my store longer. So, what did I do? I googled, of course. And I found tips and tricks to lower your bounce rate. I applied them and I'm now down to low 60's, which is considered good. How did I do it? This is so easy and it's quite ingenious as well, I placed internal links into my descriptions. Each description has a link to another item in my store. It's easy and it works. The goal is to keep your visitors interested. This method has worked for me and I know it will work for you.
Another thing that I'm doing is working harder on my pictures. It's difficult to get an interesting picture that'll entice people to click. So, before I begin clicking away with my camera, I look around the house, even my closet, for interesting textures and neutral backgrounds. The combination colors and background of your photograph are very important because people choose treasury items based on these photographs and if your photos are blah, chances are you might loose out on being featured in a treasury, thus losing potential sales.
So, these are the things I've been working on and so far, I've been seeing some success. I will be adding more details on what I do to succeed with Etsy.