Considering starting a blog

[Former_Member]

I am running out of ideas for generating more traffic to my shop (especially at a low cost). Twitter works well but it mostly attracts other shop owners and I have very few "regular" people followers to my twitter account.

I am considering starting a blog. I'll talk about my products, my weight loss journey (hopefully this will make me stick with it) and my natural hair journey. I will also do some features of other Etsy shops. Not sure how often yet.

Any suggestions on how to be a successful blogger?

[ResaWilkinson]

Blogs are a great way of reaching out and sharing more about you and your shop. They can be fun too, in that you get to express yourself beyond just your shop. I use blogger and find it rather easy, plus google feeds into it, so that's huge. Most of my hits have been on posts that show photos of a step by step process of creating something and my travels to different shows.

Your ideas sound wonderful and make me want to go there now, so you're on the right path!! Yay! Will you post when it is up and running?

[PamGeorgeArt]

My daughter and I just started a blog together. I am hoping for the same thing. You need to attend blog parties so you can attach your Etsy avatar. I just did it this weekend on one site. Many sites do it and I need to continue finding these invites. We are http://familystyleliving.wordpress.com/

I'm a Esty newbie and a blog newbie!

[Former_Member]

I sure will!! Thanks for your encouraging response.

[TheDorothyDays]

Hi :),
I run a blog called The Dorothy Days http://thedorothydays.blogspot.co.uk/ and I find it a really great tool to generate more traffic to my shop as well as a nice way to connect more with my customers.

I also run a team called the Interactive blogging team which is a group of bloggers who advise each other on blogs, help with each others blogs, work at ways to promote our blogs (we are working on twitter at the moment to advertise) and also are starting up a team blog with guest posts. You would be more than welcome to join if you would like and we can give you some tips on how to have a successful blog :)

The link is http://www.etsy.com/teams/9104/interactive-blogging

The Dorothy Days

[Former_Member]

I use just started to blog and I use blogger through google. A lot of people do also. I know also that some use tumblr, but I can't seem to figure that one out. I have also connected with several other etsians and we have swapped blog posts. It is really neat to do and I would be willing to swap with you- just send me a convo when you get started. My goal for Guest post is one every week to two weeks (I have about 5 people lined up so far!) And even being a newbie, I have seen some hits from it in my stats page!

http://sofiasroses.blogspot.com/

[Former_Member]

Dorthy, I just applied to your team. I will be starting my blog by week's end.

Bobbie, how does swapping post work?

[Former_Member]

There have been several threads in this team on this exact topic lately. You could try searching for those to see what else has been posted.

[PamGeorgeArt]

We use Wordpress. It is very user friendly.

[StudioBloomIowa]

I have also considered starting a blog, but don't know the first thing about them.
Does anyone have any good links for a blog tutorial of sorts so I can wrap my brain around the whole thing and get it figured out?

[Former_Member]

google blog tutorials.

I figure I would just write about some of what I write about in my journal, but with spell check! lol

[Former_Member]

I just started my blog. I have only and introductory post up now. but the link is www.porshadeunscorner.blogspot.com

It was really easy since I had a Google+ account. A lot of my information automatically fed in.

[Former_Member]

Yes, blogs are great! When I started on Etsy a year ago, I had several friends in the same boat, just beginning, asking me "How do you do this and that to build an Etsy shop?"

So instead of emailing each and every thing I was learning to multiple people, I started a blog about it - specifically what it takes to set up and work a shop on Etsy.

It's been fun. It's a different approach than blogging about my artwork, but has really helped me connect with other Etsy sellers and learn from/with them! As I learn stuff, I share. I do promote my own paintings (a bit) but mostly Imy blog promotes the work of other Etsy sellers (via illustrations on my blog posts).

I'm at myetsyblog.com/
I use a simple WordPress with a unique domain name - really easy to learn and do.

If any of you want to be featured in my blog, just convo me.

Kim (BlueOtterArt)

[Former_Member]

I like blogging. My tip is to add your links to StumbleUpon and write a bunch of posts at one time ---- then schedule them to show through the week.

I write two blogs: one for my shop, and one for my natural hair journey (that Google now pays me to write for lol):

Shop: hopestarbound.com/blog
Natural Hair: thelionhairblog.com