Transcript:

AngelaCP: hi everyone!

DafnaCP: Hi guys!

The Shadow: Hello all

BrittaCP: Thanks for joining our chat.  Today, were covering Basic Shop Marketing.

BrittaCP: This is a part 2, to a chat we held a few weeks ago, for newer Shopkeepers.

BrittaCP: Here today is Dafna, our Top Shop Account Rep

DafnaCP: Hello all

DafnaCP: For those of you who don't know me, I work with the top shopkeepers on

Teesed: As in... marketing for Basic Shops, or Basic Marketing for Shops? :P

BrittaCP: Marketing for all shops, but at a easy and basic level

thomascarlson: The top shop keeper are doing fine, what about us little guys?

AngelaCP: that's why we're here today ;)

BrittaCP: If youre a new Shopkeeper, we hope you find this chat helpful in getting your shop up and going.

BrittaCP: For those that have been around awhile, we hope that youll share your experiences as we open the chat up for questions and comments.

Teesed: It's nice to see people that I consider to be good marketers in here to take part. It shows you can never get enough info!

BrittaCP: Well do a little recap of what we talked about in the last chat. The Basic Shop Marketing Part 1, that is.

riahsworld_2: Im always open to new ideas

BrittaCP: For the full version, you can read the transcript here: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/community/workshop_marketbasics1

The Shadow: Marketing is probably one of my worst skills to be honest

Dooni Designs: I would like to see new ideas... hey maybe even "newbies" have some =)

BrittaCP: Its always good to introduce someone's fresh perspective on something, no matter what skill level they may be at

BrittaCP: So to recap what we covered a few weeks ago

BrittaCP: Learning some basic marketing skills is important to your shops success.  Once you upload your images, and create products you need to get the world to notice them and more importantly BUY them.

BrittaCP: 1. Tag Your Images: Make sure that your images are showing up in our Marketplace. By tagging your images correctly with relevant terms searching customers will be able to easily find designs and products you have to offer.

AngelaCP: Yes, our Marketplace is a great distribution channel

riahsworld_2: i always go into the shop and type in something related to my images to make sure they are showing up

riahsworld_2: and if something isn't showing up right I retag them

LoveJML: Do you have to have 20 tags per image, or can you do just as well with less so long as the tags you choose are relevant?

AngelaCP: You do not have to have all 20 tags.  In fact, only put tags you need.  If you only have 5 relevant tags, it's better to have 20 with many irrelevant ones.

BrittaCP: 2. Upgrade to a Premium Shop: Basic shops are great for learning how to set up and create products; but with a Premium you get a lot more bang for your buck. Heres a really good chart listing out what a Premium has to offer:

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/shops/premium4

DafnaCP: 3. SEO: Search Engine Optimization: Get your shop and products to show in search engines like Google and Yahoo.

DafnaCP: Make sure that you have plugged plenty of relevant keywords into your Shop Description, Section Teasers, Section Descriptions, and Product Descriptions.

DafnaCP: Basically anywhere you can plug content into your shop.

DafnaCP: Since Basic shops only give you room to add Shop and product descriptions, this is one of the reasons why its recommended to go with Premium.

DafnaCP: Remember, content is king, and Premium allows for more content.

thomascarlson: text = content = happy Google!

DafnaCP: yes, premium shops make Google happy

riahsworld_2: thats the reason I upgraded

DafnaCP: Is there anyone here is who is not using a Premium Shop, presently?

BrittaCP: Tropicando: if you're interested, take a note of Dafna's email address that she just put out, and take her up on the offer

tropicando: me

DafnaCP: Does anyone have any basic questions about SEO?

Cartwright: Are section descriptions "searchable"?

DafnaCP: Yes, section descriptions are searchable -- text in general is searchable

tropicando: Is SEO more important for premium shops?

DafnaCP: SEO is important for basic and premium shops but in premium shops you have a lot more opportunity to use text.

tropicando: Does Google penalize you if your store description, page description and product description all look the same?

AngelaCP: I don't know the exact answer to this. Anyone?

AngelaCP: I don't believe they penalize you, but I do think you want to optimize your content pages

AngelaCP: To do this, you may not want to use the same copy everywhere.  Instead, you want to use the same top keywords and variance of the same type of words.

DafnaCP: I've heard conflicting information on this so it's likely a safer bet to mix things up a little

thomascarlson: I would say no it doesnt, but it doesnt help either

The Shadow: There are a lot of factors that come into play with Google... there are over-optimization penalties that can come into play

Cartwright: I am going to assume no, because that is what I do most of the time

Dooni Designs: I have experienced that it doesnt help to copy section, product descript and teasers... actually long teasers just drop down things below the fold and annoy customers Ive been told

Teesed: BabyDave had a very nice post today on SEOing shops for a beginner trying to understand it. http://tinyurl.com/2my8py

BrittaCP: Thanks Teesed... and thanks BabyDave

The Shadow: if your descriptions are all keywords and not complete sentences, Google doesn't like that... since it can appear to be keyword stuffing

AngelaCP: So when I say variance, I mean, you might want to say merchandise in one content area, but in another call it apparel and on the go gear, clothes, etc...

AngelaCP: so why call it merchandise everywhere, if you can call it clothes, t-shirts, apparel, etc in other places... you get the idea.

thomascarlson: how much weight does the bold tag carry?

Sag: Small weight but don't over use it.

AngelaCP: Thanks Sag!

The Shadow: the bold tag carries some weight... but it also depend on what else is on the page and the various search engines do tend to weight things differently

thomascarlson: so bold one or two keywords?

BrittaCP: Alright so onto the things that we werent able to cover last time.

BrittaCP: let's talk about getting the word out about your shop...

BrittaCP: Promote on your website using a banner and persistent link on the navbar

graphicdeeziner: what do you mean by a persistent link?

AngelaCP: A persistent link is basically a link on your navigation that's always there.  For example, on CafePress, persistent links are: Start selling now, shop the marketplace, etc.... this links on the top navigation bar are always on the CP site no matter where you go... they do not disappear if you go into the About Us page, or the Help pages.

thomascarlson: stumblupon is a social bookmarking site that has been sending a bunch of hits to my site

BrittaCP: If you use a banner, be sure to use alt tags, this will help with SEO

BrittaCP: If you're not sure about alt tags... check out the tutorial we have here: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/learn/tutorial_seo_opt

BrittaCP: Blog it.  If you dont have a website, or even if you do, get a blog so you can have fresh content.

BrittaCP: I know some of you here, are heavy blog users already... care to share where you do your blogging at?

LoveJML: Blogger

ne@1512blvd: blogspot.com

chm: Blogger.  Also getting into Facebook and Digg.

BrittaCP: Send a newsletter.

BrittaCP: You can either use the newsletter option built into your shop, or you can use a third party newsletter system

BrittaCP: I think one of the obstacles some SK's feel challenged with is getting folk to subscribe to their newsletter

BrittaCP: Has anyone here been successful in getting a good list, and care to share what you did? or perhaps you just got lucky?

TexxasFiddler: anyone using 3rd party newsletter systems here?  Which ones?  how are they working out?

BrittaCP: Next method...

BrittaCP: Promotion offline

BrittaCP: Wear t-shirts, carry bags

BrittaCP: Bumper stickers, buttons

BrittaCP: Create fliers and business cards

BrittaCP: Try a craft fair

ShopaholicChick: dont forget to mention your shop when ever you can and always have cards ready to hand out

DafnaCP: So in part 1 of this chat Britta touched upon shopkeepers having their own website.

DafnaCP: I strongly encourage that you set up an external website for your store.  A simple redirect is usually sufficient.

PreggoPrincess: Own domain - wordpress

DafnaCP: The benefits are additional places to put text (SEO purposes) and the ability to compete for Search Engine ranking on two fronts.

DafnaCP: Plus, going back to some of the other techniques we talked about, there are things that you can do on an exterior site that may not always fit in to your Cafepress shop.

DafnaCP: Such as a blog where you can even feature accompanying merchandise.

DafnaCP: For example a t-shirt that says what you were really thinking last week when your boss chewed you out or your sister did that thing that drove you crazy.

DafnaCP: Another idea I'm fond of is creating an About Me page where you discuss how you became interested in your particular niche/subject.

DafnaCP: Both options are great places to work in additional keywords.

Cartwright: do you mean a off site store or just a domain name with redirect

DafnaCP: It can be as simple as a redirect and as complex as additional pages that redirect to the store section.  It's up to you.

Dooni Designs: my off sites serve two purposes. Promoting my stores and being able to affiliate other shops.

tropicando: What about a blog that was all done on t-shirts -graphically :)

DafnaCP: While that's a really cool idea it defeats the purpose a little because the graphics can't be read by search engines.

DafnaCP: Still, I would think it would be very useful and frankly a fun experiment!

Sag: Tropicando - you need content = text for search engines. Graphics are nice and you can add alt tags but content is King!

ne@1512blvd: Tropicando, Why not do the t-shirt as the background, so that when you blog, the text can be read by the search engine?

armymom: which external sites do you recommend?

BrittaCP: anyone have recommendations?

cyi: Blue host

thomascarlson: godaddy

thomascarlson: 3.99 a month for hosting

Dooni Designs: I have a yahoo site and a hostgator site

ShopaholicChick: if your not good with HML try yahoo small business

ShopaholicChick: the yahoo small business has a very simple page builder - no HTML required...but you can add HTML if you need it (and know it)

cyi: Can you run CP shop on your yahoo site?

thomascarlson: i have a full domain site that uses the cafewish script to display all my products.. http://thomascarlson.com

The Shadow: the SEO benefits to an external site are important because of limitations induced with on-CP pages

Sag: I would personally recommend websitegrader.com to grade your shops performance. It gives you a rating in all departments in effectiveness of your shop up to a perfect 100 grade.

BrittaCP: Alright... next topic

BrittaCP: Shop Maintenance (no brooms and mops needed)

BrittaCP: Basically you want to keep that shop fresh and tidy

TexxasFiddler: that's my downfall

BrittaCP: Offer new designs regularly.

BrittaCP: Create new designs and retire designs that do not sell as well.

tropicando: I've erased 1 or 2 old designs :)

BrittaCP: Shoppers dont want to come back to the same designs month after month.

BrittaCP: By retiring designs, you are helping in keeping your shop neat and tidy for shoppers, who may feel overwhelmed when there is to much to sift through.

BrittaCP: If you don't want to retire your designs... you can put them in another section, and just make sure that you always have your newest upfront and it's "fresh" for the shopper

BrittaCP: To "retire" you don't have to delete the product; you can simply hide them in your shop

Cartwright: hmm, I never thought of deleting

Stratman: Google doesn't like broken links, don't delete.

DafnaCP: So I consider this to be a pretty important part of managing your shop.  Have you ever shopped in a really messy department store -- say around a big sale?  It can be really overwhelming.  By clearing out old and/or outdated designs you're providing a better shopping experience for your customers.

tropicando: they should  pass the "would I wear this?" test, some of them I mean.

ShopaholicChick: I will also retag old designs and retool the descriptions....but I still never delete

Sag: You can also re-design an image that needs it for a fresh approach to the old design. Just simply replace it with something new.

ne@1512blvd: good idea, Sag

LoveJML: What counts as "regularly?" Once per day? Per week? Bi-weekly?

DafnaCP: I'd say once a month is good enough.  Just go through and hide things that aren't selling or even better do as Sag is suggesting and re-design your images.

graphicdeeziner: when you hide a section are you changing their links?

ne@1512blvd: no

BrittaCP: Drive last minute sales for your retired designs with a message that conveys a sense of urgency

BrittaCP: (Ex: Last Chance to Get this Design) via your shop, Web site, and/or newsletters.

BrittaCP: You can also Offer Limited Edition/Time designs.

armymom: hummm, I like that idea BrittaCP

BrittaCP: Let your customers know your Limited Edition designs are available for a limited time. It creates urgency, encouraging customers to buy now, rather than LoveJML: You could called the old designs "Limited Edition"

The Shadow: All my stuff is limited edition...once I sell a million of them...that's is

PreggoPrincess: How many designs do you recommend putting into one section before splitting them into several sections?

BrittaCP: How much is to much, to some you SK's?

ne@1512blvd: I prefer having at least 9 designs in a section

The Shadow: Well I have some very large sections....200+ designs in one

ne@1512blvd: no maximum for me yet though

DafnaCP: I usually recommend around 40 designs in one section but I've seen it work with more.

TexxasFiddler: I prefer being able to see most of the products in a section on a single screen, but I'm never successful at that.  They range up to 25 or so designs each section.

FJS: I'm with Shadow some more than 200 designs to a section. But I'm working on breaking those down into finer categories.

BrittaCP: Alright... so we're going to spend some time now, to answer some questions that came in that we haven't answered yet/

Dooni Designs: what about meta tags? Should they be sentences or keywords?

AngelaCP: Meta tags are usually phrases.

thomascarlson: I think its a good idea to stress the good points about buying from you rather than someone else.  Like Any shipping promotions going on, the 30 day guarantee, unique products.  All these things should be displayed proudly on all your pages.

AngelaCP: the 30 day guarantee is definitely a strong selling point

AngelaCP: risk-free

AngelaCP: original designs, etc

tropicando: Does anybody know about any free business card websites?

Sue D: vistaprint

ShopaholicChick: www.vistaprint.com you pay shipping only for business cards using thier templates

TexxasFiddler: vistaprint's the only one I know, but they put their own ad on the card as well, don't they?

tropicando: I have a question from the last meeting, when someone said something about "kiss me I'm Irish". Is there a gov't website where you can check if a slogan is trademarked?

Pfoinkle2: http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm

AngelaCP: thanks pfoinkle!

tropicando: thanks for that one, the govt site

tropicando: Don't search engines notice if you have things in bold or in bulleted lists, do I have that word right?

AngelaCP: Search engines notice text.... so if you have it in a paragraph or bullet lists, you're fine.

AngelaCP: if you are using images, use alt tags.  However, the weight of alt tags are not as important as text.

AngelaCP: Keep that in mind....

TexxasFiddler: bold....definitely.  I don't know about bulleted lists

Sag: Yes they notice but overuse of bold can hurt as well as help.

AngelaCP: all in moderation right? ;) Thanks Sag

AngelaCP: Definitely use alt tags.  It's better than not having anything text related for your images.

graphicdeeziner: I've been hearing a lot about how FaceBook adds spies to your comp, do I do use FaceBook do others feel safe being there?

The Shadow: FYI...for those that use affiliate links... CJ links don't help with your ranking

TexxasFiddler: Im probably missing something, but Ive never used FaceBoolk...my face might scare folks off.  Ive sure not had much success with myspace though

cyi: Google image search has been sending a lot of traffic to my site & others.  Alt tags have been really helpful.

Dooni Designs: shadow it does if the affiliate uses old cp links that link to cj.. er.. u know what I mean

Pfoinkle2: I think the issues with spy ware and FaceBook are related to 3rd party applications that Facebook offers (such as "Secret Crush")

ShopaholicChick: I use chat rooms to advertise - my links are on my profiles and my name is in a random chat room

AngelaCP: Or make friends on message boards/forums where your target customers hang out.  Be sure not to spam.

ne@1512blvd: I am afraid of people finding my site with images because I feel they may be looking to steal my image and not be interested in buying from me.

BrittaCP: Ne: I think this is a natural fear for any artist, or seller... it's a risk; but when you're hard work is rewarded it's one worth taking

thomascarlson: people are scared of image search hits because people might rip-off there image, but these images are the same ones from your shop that anyone see when they go there so get the free traffic!

Pfoinkle2: My husband uses Google images to SHOP for all sorts of things.

Dooni Designs: i get hits from Google image searches too and i dont have alt tags on most of my personal images that are not hosted by cp per say.. some buy some dont.... graphic they can steal are low quality

AngelaCP: alright everyone looks like we got most of the questions answered....

DafnaCP: g'night

AngelaCP: thanks again everyone!

BrittaCP: have a good evening everyone!