Tips on How to Use Craftori.com

[#1]

Tip 1 - Best Products

Craftori is a showcase site, upload only your very best items to attract people to your store. Ensure that your images are great qualtiy.

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Tip 2 - Best Results from Paid Sections

If you're thinking of paying for a front page spot, or have paid, ensure you have several items in the free categories. Your username will be shown on the front page and shoppers can click on this to go to your author page which will show all of your items.

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Tip 3 - Promotion

Use your author page for promotion and sharing online. You'll look less like a spammer if you promote your items from different venues and people are more likely to check it out as it will appear to be something new. StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest give us the most traffic so try those if you haven't yet.

To find your author page, hover your mouse over the login link and go to your profile. There you will find 'my posts'. This will take you to your author page showing all of your items. Make sure it looks really pretty.

Alternatively, you can also promote your individual posts.

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Tip 4 - Shopping/Browsing

When shoppers need to find specific items following a theme or color, they can either use the tag cloud at the bottom of the page and click on one of the tags or use the search function, also at the bottom of the page.

Ensure therefore that your tags are relative to the item. Do not add tags about etsy or teams as this serves no purpose on the site.

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Tip 5 - Titles

Ensure that your titles are around 70 characters and that they contain the main keywords relating to your products. Also ensure that they are not over-punctuated. Google marketplace does not like very long titles or titles that look like tags. The search function on Craftori.com searches from the titles and is why this is important.

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Tip 6 - Deleting

If you have made an error in your upload, you can delete it and start again. To delete an item, go to your author page which will take you to the individual item, click on the item image to be deleted and at the bottom you'll see X delete. Click here and your item will be deleted. You can then re-upload.

The reason we do not have an edit function on Craftori.com is because we need to keep control of the site and ensure that it looks the best it can. Good looking sites that do not look spammy is what attracts the most traffic.

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Tip 7 - Our Badge

Use our badge on your websites or blog pages. This is good for SEO and shows inward bound links to your blog.

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Tip 8 - Favoriting

If you're shopping or browsing, be sure to use the favoriting function. You can then go back and visit them later. You can find your favorites by hovering your mouse over the login/logout link and going to 'my profile'.

The 5 most favorited items will show when anyone views an individual item.

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Tip 9 - Why Pay?

Why pay on Craftori.com? The paid sections are more exclusive, ie there are less items which means that your items will be more visible. The front page is the most visited page on the site.

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Tip 10 - Randomize

All the pages on Craftori.com are totally randomized giving everyone a chance of being visible. This means that you do not have to worry about posting several similar items as they will never appear in a block.

If you have uploaded and do not immediately see your item when you go to the category, then refresh the page as this will randomize all of the items again. All pages currently show 60 items.

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Tip 11 - Tutorials

If you have a free tutorial, you can post one image and a link going to the tutorial in our Tutorials Section. Free tutorials attract the most amount of traffic and this is why it is a good idea to post them to the site.

Also ensure that if you have items for sale that you add them to the free categories so that if anyone clicks on your username when viewing your tutorial, they will arrive on your author page and see all of your items.

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Tip 12 - Supplies

Uploading to the supplies section is a great way to be seen by our users. Because this is a paid section of the site, it is exclusive and you will not therefore be buried as you may be on your selling venue.

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Tip 13 - FREE Front Page Features

Occasionally we use seasonal and topical items to go on the front page. If your items are well presented and fit in with current trends, they may be chosen to get a free front page spot for a few days.

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Tip 14 - Descriptions

Description characters are kept to 300 so that you can use wording to quickly hook people in. Keep it short as people do not read the same way online and large paragraphs are often skipped. Make it interesting and catchy to ensure that people will click on the item. The first few words are the most important.

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Tip 15 - Categories

Placing your items in the correct categories is very important. When people shop around the site and click on a category, they do not wish to see items that do not fit and this could be irritating.

It is not going to benefit you to place your items in lots of different categories and your items could in fact be missed altogether. Someone who is looking for a specific item, will go to that category so please ensure that you add your item to the category that best describes your product.

Remember too that the free categories are not gift guides. Your item must be in the category that best describes your product, not who it could be given to or for what occasion.


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If I can think of any more tips, I will add them later. In the meantime, I hope you find these useful.

[EurekaGuides]

@Fiona, OK, no worries. :-))

[Former_Member]

Thank you for the tips. They are very helpful and your site is lovely, i appreciate the opportunity to show my jewels there and be seen!

[Former_Member]

Thanks for the tips ...

[Former_Member]

Thank you for the tips!

[Pamelajonesartstudio]

Thanks for letting me join your group....just getting to know the site

[VickieDumas]

I just posted an item. This is a wonderful site! Should I add a craftori tag on my etsy listing? Thanks for the help!

[TheButlersPottery]

Thank you for this

[EurekaGuides]

@Vickie The team tag is craftoriteam. You are not obliged to add it as there is no requirement to do Team treasuries. Many members are still using the team tag and are still curating team treasuries, so it may be an advantage to do so.

[VickieDumas]

Thanks you!!

[Former_Member]

I've just started using Craftori and have a couple of questions. I followed a link from Twitter to a jewellery page and saw something I wished to favourite. However, I wasn't logged in so I dealth with that then looked again for the item but it was gone (randomised!) Thinking the Twitter link would take me back, I tried again. No luck. Then I tried looking for a search bar. I didn't see one. Now someone has missed out on my Favourite. How do you find an item again?

The other thing is again about Favourites: does My Posts show if and how many people have favourited your items?

I intend next year to pay for some gift guide slots, budget allowing, but am in that catch 22 situation of needing customers to get cash to promote to get customers. So, Freebies it is, for now. Any advice on best use of the site would be appreciated. Please take a look at The Navigatrix on Craftori and let me know if you have any pointers, thanks!

[EurekaGuides]

@Sally-Ann, The search bar is at the bottom of the page. I'm not really sure how we can get over the issue of someone not being logged in. People need to register in order to favorite things as otherwise they don't have a profile. If we do not randomize, then this is not going to be very good for sellers to get exposure.

We do not have counters on the favorites in 'my posts'. You can see the top 5 most favorited posts on individual item pages. Those do show the number of favorites.

We occasionally add seasonally themed items to the front page so if you have any of those and your photography is good, then you may be lucky to get a spot for a few days. :-)

[Former_Member]

Thankyou. I think the randomization idea is great! I'll go back and search.

I've a lovely red beaded bauble...

[HowCuteAreYou]

I posted two items the other nigh and they were on the site immediately. Today I checked and they are no longer on the site and they weren't in my posts.
Why do items get removed? Thanks

[EurekaGuides]

@Debra, your items were removed because you have legible logos on your images. Please check our faqs for reasons why images are removed here http://cratori.com/faqs

[Former_Member]

Thanks for the Great facts page for an "Easy button" approach to Craftori. I just signed up today under my mystic2awesome personality and am excited to give my crafting a new "edge" to start 2013 out like a rocket!! I'll be checking back for more question and answers, trials and tips on Craftori from friends, fans and favorites.

[judygovintage]

Hello, I also have a few questions as I stumble my way around- but happily..!
I posted two vintage clothing items which I saw right away. Then I posted a set of chairs and didn't see them up so I went to the clothing site just to check and didn't see the clothing anymore...Does that mean it will be posted eventually?

[CustomBearHugs]

Great tips. Thanks so much for all your work to type that up for us!

[MaineCoonCrafts]

Wow, good to know, I already posted in the paid and uploaded to the free, love the site, simple to use and you don't get lost in the shuffle...

[EurekaGuides]

@Judy, if you go to your profile, you will see all of your submissions there and the categories they are in. If your items have been removed, this could be because there was an issue with your uploads. Check our faqs page here http://craftori.com/faqs

[EurekaGuides]

Thanks for the compliments everyone! :-))

[freelandfolkartsigns]

Thanks for all of the tips! I just posted quite a few of my items on the site, thanks again!

[EurekaGuides]

Please do not use this thread to promote, thanks.

[MaineCoonCrafts]

thanks for the info, love the site, will link my other sites, thanks

[LuLiLoLa]

Hello,

I'm trying to upload my first item but I get an error regarding the Website URL page. How should I enter this?

[EurekaGuides]

@Luli, Have you checked that you don't have http:// twice in the url field? This is often the problem. If it still doesn't work, contact us via the contact form on the site and someone will help you. :-)