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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.

*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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.


*.-~·*’˜¨¯`·¸*¸·`¯¨˜’*·~-.*

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

[LuLiLoLa]

Thank you so much for the help, I was able to post my first item.

[Former_Member]

I just posted my second item and I'm about ot upload some free tutorials!
Thanks for the tips at the first page of this thread, I didn't know that we can upload tutorials

[FablesandFoliage]

Hi,
I just joined this team..but i've been on Craftori for a while. Each piece I posted on there just has a link to my etsy listing, so I'm confused as to what a 'badge' is, or how viewers would be directed to this team specifically from my Craftori. Also, wondering why it's recommended to link the Craftori page to my FB page, as my FB page already links to my Etsy shop.
Sorry, just a bit confused.
Glad to be here though! :)

[EurekaGuides]

@LayeredCanvas, the Craftori badge is for use on websites or blog pages to direct people to the website and spread the word. The more traffic we get, the more traffic you all get. The badge is not designed to direct people here to the Etsy team as we accept all kinds of sellers from all kinds of different venues. Craftori is not Etsy specific.

Linking to different venues helps you with SEO, the more relevant sites you have your Etsy listings on, the better your rankings will be.

It can be more interesting for your followers to link to a different website from time to time. Most followers get irritated if they always see the same links so linking to a different site from time to time is good practice. Also, sometimes seeing an item on a different website in a different context can make your items look a little different and therefore attract someone's attention.

Many of the team members here who also post to the site tweet the links to their author pages @Craftori which we then retweet. This can also help drive more traffic to your items.

[Former_Member]

Thank you for the tips. I've just started using Craftori and I love it!

[Former_Member]

Thanks so much for all these tips! Really are very helpful!
I´ve a lot of work. ;-)

[VENDecorHandmade]

Very helpful! Thank you!

[Former_Member]

Thanks for the info!

[Former_Member]

Hi! Thank you for the invitation! :)
I'm looking around to understand well how the website works, your advice look very useful! If I find any problem, is this the right place to ask for information?
thanks again! ;)

[CathySavelsArt]

@Francesca, yes, you can ask here or you can send me or the Captain a message.:-)

[Former_Member]

OH please bear with me as I'm really not a computer person, so I'll apologize in advance! LOL
Since I need to resize my photos to fit the Craftori format, I need to upload the image from my computer, but then I put in the url of the actual listing on etsy? Or the url of my home page? And with the description, do I basically say how I made the original art illustration, or just what the image is? Or maybe both, in as brief a way as possible?
It's really a beautiful site and I so want to get this right!

[Former_Member]

OH, one more thing. I keep seeing reference to 'taking off the prices' but I don't think my pictures have prices on them, so I guess I don't know what that means. I understand not adding prices, but taking them off?

[Former_Member]

Well, I think I have the uploading thing down. But I still don't quite understand the 'take the price OFF' thing.

[EurekaGuides]

@Peg, you do not need to resize your images for our site, if you use the image from your Etsy shop, it's fine. We just suggest that 800x800pixels is optimum for the site. The link must go to either the item (for sale) or your shop. This is the link that you want to direct customers to. The description should be a brief description of the item, ie a shortened version of what you have in your Etsy listings description.

As for 'taking the price off', this does not relate to uploads to the Craftori site, only to the Craftori Pinterest Boards. When you pin an item to one of the boards, click pinit, then remove the $ amount from the description box.

[Former_Member]

Oh! Ok, great. Thanks.

[EarthEnergyGemstones]

Very helpful info! Thank you!

[Former_Member]

Hi! I'm totally new here. Joined Etsy just over a month agao and joined this team today.

Have a lot to learn and a bunch of reading to do.

Glad to be here.
:)

[etradeindia]

Thank you for the tips!

[Former_Member]

I will work on all of this when I have a little more time. Thanks!

[Former_Member]

Interesting tips! Thank you.

[EurekaGuides]

This is an informational thread, please do not promote, thanks.

[ArtworkbyLindy]

Great info. Thanks for the tips. I just posted my first items. Fun to shop around and see what is there.

[Former_Member]

I've just started uploading new photos and thought I'd do a stock take of what is on my Craftori page. I kept a written list of what I'd uploaded and somehow, over ten items seem to have vanished, most of which are still available on my Etsy shop. I have about 20 things up at the moment.

What happened? Is there a limit to how many free entries you can have?

When you pay to feature items, and the ad runs out, does the item vanish from your entire profile?

[EurekaGuides]

@Sally-Ann, All free items expire after 4 months. This is necessary to stop items being buried and also to remove sold items since many sellers do not remove these from our site.

Paid items run the amount of time paid for and are then moved to the free categories where they remain for 4 months.

You do not need to write down what you have listed since you can go to your profile page and see all of your items listed there. Click on 'my profile', then 'my posts'.

[Former_Member]

Thanks for the clarification.