If you are like me than you already have an idea about what SEO is and how to use it but you may feel as I do that you don't use it very well. I decided to see what I could learn about it this morning and here is what I think I now know.
1) What is relevant today may not be tomorrow. Case in point I read in an eBook that I should sign up for Google Authorship to improve SEO. I thought fabulous I will check into that and what I found out is that Google discontinued the project in June of this year. To be fair to the author of the eBook had updated the book in 2014. So you blink things change.
2) I learned the term long tail keyword. I have forever wondered if I should use strings of keywords together or singly. Apparently when you string keywords together like "how to upcycle a t-shirt" this is called a long tail keyword. Here is the definition I found. I know this is painfully rudimentary but since I never heard the term before it was hard to know the definition.
Web definitions
(Long Tail Keywords) Long tail keywords are keyword phrases composed of three or more words that collectively are more specific than a single keyword. Long tail keywords are more likely to convert to sales than shorter, more generic keywords because there is less competition for them. ...
3) I learned the difference between a title tag and a post title. I haven't been using my title tags when I blog so they have defaulted to use my post title which I guess is ok if your post title has good usable keywords but not so much when they are rambaly like this sentence.
I have no idea what difference this will make but at least now I know the difference between a title tag and I post title and I will try to make sure I optimize my title tags particularly when I feel the need to have a cryptic or cleaver post title.
As a bit of an after thought I have decided to activate the recommended links button for this post. Do you find all those links to be annoying or helpful? In the photo below you can see all the words that are being recommend for links. Do they help with SEO? I sure don't know. :-)
One final note.
I use Typepad for my blogging format. If you google Typepad and SEO in the same search you will find mostly results about why you shouldn't use Typepad or how to migrate your blog to Wordpress. Discouraging but I am not ready to jump ship just yet.
Happy Blogging,
If you have a blog or an online business you probably already know that there is pretty unanimous agreement on the value of maintaining and growing your email list. Well if you are like me you may have stuck your head in the sand hoping the advise would go away and you really wouldn't have to figure out the technical side of your blog. But I recently decided to open the hood and try to see how my blog engine runs. I hope to give it a well need tune up and increase my readership. It is tedious and slow and often frustrating. I am learning as I go.
Yesterday I figured out how to map my domain name to my blog, a task that had thwarted me for a long time. Sadly the accomplishment didn't make me feel like I could go out and conquer the blogging world but it did encourage me to continue.
Today I accomplished this.
I added that little piece of code to my blog. Not very impressive is it? I don't even know if or how it works yet. But there it is. Isn't it pretty? You can see it live on my blog page Upcycled Design Lab. Don't be confused I am writing on this blog about stuff I am changing on a different blog. If you feel like subscribing you can help me figure out how it works. :-)
A few details. I do not currently have an email list so I am starting today at zero. I signed up with mailchimp this morning. They have a base plan that is free which is the only cost I can justify right now. Hopefully I won't be spoiling all the fun of you going on over there and trying it for yourself but holy cow there is a whole big lot of stuff to learn over there too. It kind of makes my head hurt. So enough for now.
Happy Blogging,
Hello,
Is anybody out there? Not likely I know, but I am back anyway. Due to a broken foot I find myself, most often, in a sitting position but also in a position to do more blogging. A few days ago I decided that I would spend my new found leisure time trying to get my Upcycled Design Lab Blog spruced up and more SEO friendly what ever that means. I have soooooooooooooooo much to learn and at times I feel very discouraged.
I thought it might help to chronicle some of my attempts at improving my crafting blog. But I don't want to clutter Upcycled Design Lab with things I am doing behind the scenes. I want to keep it strictly about Upcycling. So I have decided to come back here to my humble beginnings and test out a new series of posts on trying to increase my traffic to Upcycled Design Lab and maybe even make a little cash.
First a little but of background about Upcycled Design Lab.
1) I started the blog in January of 2011
2) I post when ever I have time / feel like it / infrequently (I am working on addressing this issue more on that later)
3) I set up a FB page also in January of 2011 at the time of this post the FB page has 573 likes.
4) I also have a pintrest account not sure when I set it up. Today I change it from a personal account to a business account. At the time of this posting I have 922 pintrest followers.
5) The only other thing I have done to generate traffic is to post occasionally to linky parties and submit a few of my posts to different websites.
6) I have never paid much attention to my blogs traffic (there isn't much). When I do check into it I have only used the Typepad overview page which indicates a fairly consistent range of views per day between 45 and 150. I have no idea how many visitors these numbers represent or how long they are on a page.
7) I purchased the domain name upcycleddesignlab.com from Godaddy a few years ago but have not used it. Currently the web address for my blog is http://reachingformore.typepad.com/upcycled_design_lab/ not very user friendly and not recommended by anyone.
8) I have tried to map my domain name over (for lack of a better way to describe it) this cumbersome URL on several different occasions with no success. I tried again today keeping fingers crossed.
Sorry to bore you with the dull details but I am trying to gauge my progress and a record of the starting point seems necessary.
One note. I have read on more than one occasion that wordpress.org is the best / only way to go if you are a serious blogger. As stated above I am currently a TypePad user and for the time being I intend to stay where I am.
If anyone out there is plodding along on this same journey and happens by this post I would love to have your comments, tips or questions.
As I finish this post it looks like my domain mapping was successful. You can now find my blog at www.upcycleddesignlab.com. I have no idea what difference it will make but I am pretty excited anyway.
Until next time,
Happy Blogging,
I haven't posted on this blog for a long time, but my thoughts are still reeling about my experience last Saturday and so I have decided to write about it here.
I have stood at the top of Mt Bierstadt, Grays, Torries, Quandry, Mt Massive, Evans, Sherman and Holy Cross but they can not compare to the experience of Longs Peak.
Sunrise on the Boulder Fields.
The trip up was long and arduous. But it was nothing compared to the trip down. Down the home stretch was by far the scariest part for me although their were other spots that caused momentary lapses into panic. It is the most extreme thing I have ever done. We started just before 2am and finished 19 hours later. While this must be one of the slowest times on record it is no small accomplishment for me. But this is not a blog post about the play by play of the hike. For that I have borrowed other peoples videos below.
The Keyhole
This post is about what the experience has taught me. I wish I could remember it in every detail. It took more of me than I even knew I had.
It has taught me that I can do things that scare me, the futility of panic, the power of focus, the serenity of motion and the need to simplify.
My ankles are blistered. My knees, wrists and hands are scraped and bruised. I feel tested and proud of each of these minor injuries they will heal and fade but for now they show me proof that I was there. I have some photo's too but none can do justice to the experience. They do not tell the story of having no sleep due to pre-hike jitters or of the fatigued muscles in your legs, arms and back. They can not show the pounding your feet have taken or the chilled to the bone feeling you have when you break to eat a few bites of some high energy food at sunrise. You are sweaty and almost immediately cold but you must eat. Your body tells you. The message is clear. You have pushed hard enough and now it's time to refuel.
Through the keyhole on the way to the trough.
You are literally and figuratively miles away from it all. You don't think about paying the mortgage. You think about the mountain. You don't think about next year or even tomorrow. You think about were to put your foot. You don't worry about yesterday. You focus on what is in front of you. The goal is out there clear in your mind; to reach the top and get back down in one piece, but your attention is given only to the next two, three or four feet.
Out of the Trough and ino The Narrows
In those moments of panic when you think "maybe I can't do this" the simplicity of the situation saves you from your own self-doubt. You have to figure out how to move and so you do. You can't stop. You can't give up. There is no place to comfortably wait for your helicopter rescue and no one is going to carry you down. You swallow the fear because you must. You re-evaluate the spot you think you can not navigate. You check all the angles again until you tentatively make a move. You don't think beyond that tricky point you must navigate because that is all there is until you move. After that you think about and make the next move. You are calmed by finding a good hand hold or reaching a spot large enough to stand, rest and regroup for a moment, and then you move on. You think "I can do this". My hand goes here my foot goes there. I pull my self up this way or lower myself that way."
It is mentally challenging, physically challenging an emotionally challenging but as difficult as Longs Peak is, it is also simple.
Get up.
Get Down.
Stay Alive.
We live in a world that is evermore distracting. A world where we are accessible to friends, family and work 24/7 via our cell phones and computers. A world where multi-tasking is revered as the must have skill on every job application and marketing messages invade every corner of our lives. But I propose that we could all use a little more focus and simplicity. For my part I would love to shut out some of the noise and distractions in my own life. Not only the external things but my interanl thoughts that distract me from my goals. The thoughts that question my efforts and slow me down or convince me to stop altogether. I am not terribly good at focusing but Longs Peak has tought me that I am at least capable of it.
This mountain demands your complete attention. I have a grapefruit sized bruise on my hip to to remind me of what happens with one split second of loosing focus. Thankfully, I suppose, everyday life does not send us tumbling down a mountain when we get distracted from our goals but I am reminded that there are consequences to all of our actions. And I hope that I will improve my ability to focus on the things that matter and tune out more and more of the noise. Perhaps we would be better suited if our lives didn't afford us with so many opportunities to give up or quit. We need to learn to be as unyielding as the mountain toward the things that matter to us. To quite our fears and move ahead.
The home stretch.
But I want this experience to be more than a metaphor. I need to not make light of the experience any more than I need to glorify it. I don't want to be humbled by it or revered for it. I merely want to be changed by it. To be better for it. To be more because of it.
In one months time I will have spent 50 years on this planet. It is the time in your life when you ask yourself what have I done and what do I still want to do. In all likelihood more of my life is behind me than ahead of me and I feel the need to be more efficient, productive and decisive. I will try to employ the lessons of Longs Peak.
Don't Panic.
Keep Moving.
Keep it Simple.
Stay Focused.
As amazing as the experience was I am troubled by these burning questions. If I had known what I was getting myself into, would I still have gone? Would I have let the fear disable me from going? What have I already missed because of my fears and mis-givings and will I choose more boldly in the future?
I don't know the answers and I guess that it doesn't really matter because we never know what is around the next corner we just choose to go or not. Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Nonconformity has written this piece called The Quest. It is a lovely explanation of why we choose to go.
Most people may not understand the call of Longs Peak but for those of us who delight in hiking adventures this is one that should not be missed. It was truly a great adventure.
Do I look calm or completely freaked out? :-)
If hiking is not in your blood I hope that adventure is. It is the spicy delicious part of life.
"Adventure is only a state of mind. Adventure is stretching yourself; mentally, physically or culturally. It is about doing what you do not normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability."
Alastair Humphreys
(I would add stretching yourself creatively and emotionally to the list as well.)
There is very little chance that I will every climb this summit again. Even so I don't think this mountain is finished with me. Years from now I will remember, and I hope, live my life just a little more fully because of it.
It is in me now. The experience is tucked away in some private and special place in my psyche. And I ask myself what is my next adventure.
Something a little less death defying?
Maybe.
My your life be filled with adventures.
As I mentioned before none of these videos are mine but I am thankful to the folks who shot them. They help me to remember what an amazing experience it was. I watch them and smile when I think, "I remember that rock and yes I did climb along right there."
Unbelievable!
(But yes I did do this.)
Behind the Keyhole
The Narrows and the homestretch
The whole enchilada
A place I will never sit again. (?)
Well, all the hoopla is over and and the campaigns have ended and I find myself in a position of having so many questions. I will admit up front to having been a sporadic voter, by that I mean there have been several elections in which I did not cast a vote. My primary reason was time. Not the time it took to vote but the time it took to get informed enough to vote. Even now I feel my votes where based on just the tiniest bits of actual information and mostly gut feeling. I am going to step out on a limb here and guess that I am not alone in this voting style.
But none of that matters until the next election and so, for me, today is more about trying to learn more about the impact of what has happened and to see if I can boil it down into pieces that 1) I can understand and 2) To determine what that means to me individually. This may sound completely self serving and in some ways it is but I am also the only test subject that I have complete access too. Having said this I will admit to this being one persons completely biased opinion right up front. However in order to be completely self serving I do owe it to myself to try to look at things from every angle don't I?
I know this morning and in the days ahead the economy will most likely continue to take center stage but my focus for this post is the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. To be honest I don't know what to call it. It seemed to me that the GOP originally coined the name Obamacare to discredit the Presidents plan but then Democrats decided to embrace the term and use it as their own and it is certainly the more well know name for Obama's Health Care Reform Bill, but in the interest of accuracy I will from here on out refer to it as the Affordable Care Act.
First a bit of history about me and health insurance. For most of my adult life I have had health insurance. There have been short periods and longer periods from a few months to over a year that I have gone without insurance. The longest stretch was the most recent and it wasn't until I started writing this that I started thinking about all the other times. When I graduated from college but hadn't found a job yet. I don't think I had any coverage then. Every time I changed jobs I lost the insurance coverage from my previous employer and had to wait the average 3-6 months before taking coverage and most recently having left the traditional job market. I am currently part time self-employed and part time waitress with health insurance coverage recently obtained under my husbands insurance. I will also note here that I pay the full amount with no contribution from my husbands employer. No judgement was meant by that statement I am just trying to lay out the facts.
Presuming that with Obama's re-election the Affordable Care Act will be fully implemented, here are some of my questions which I will attempt to research and answer for myself over the next few weeks. In an effort to answer the bigger questions of; Does this plan help me? And, do I think it helps America as a whole?
1) What are the basic components of the plan?
2) How will the plan be implemented and monitored?
3) What is the effect if any on small business?
4) Will part-time employees be covered under their employers insurance?
5) Is everyone covered?
6) How will gaps in employment be covered?
7) Will our elected officials be participating in this program?
8) What happened in the Supreme Courts Ruling?
9) What can we learn from other countries?
10) When does it all happen?
I fear already that this list may be more than I can handle and that my research will inevitably spark many more questions but I would like to know at least some of the answers and so I will begin here.
My EBay Life
(A series of essays about what it is like to sell stuff on EBay)
I have come to a few important decisions over the last couple of weeks. If you saw my last post you already know that I have been working on a new and improved logo, banner and tagline. So after a little re-working and living with the the results for several days. I have adopted this new artwork for my branding campaign.
Square Logo
Banner Logo
Banner Logo with tagline
I have already updated my EBay Store Front and my Facebook Fan Page to the new logos.
The other decision I came to was that this will be my last post on this blog. Going forward I will post about EBay on my Clothesline Apparel and More blog. I might be a little crazy to try to maintain three separate blogs but I have given it some thought and I feel confident that this is the right decision.
Blog Banner
Happy Ebaying,
My EBay Life
(A series of essays about what it is like to sell stuff on EBay)
I have decided I need a logo, a new banner and a tagline for my Ebay store. I like the concept of the clothes hanging on a line but I think there are about a million and one better ways to execute the design. A few weeks ago I listened to this webinar on branding your business and while I can't imagine implementing all the things that were recommended I do want to work on a new logo and a tagline to help me solidify my brand at least a little bit.
Here is what I have so far:
What I know about my business
I know that I want to keep my product line primarily clothing but I don't want to pass up the ability to sell other things when the opportunity arises.
For the foreseeable future I will be selling primarily pre-owned items with some new and some vintage items when I find them.
I like the imagery of a clothesline for branding purposes and my store name "Clothesline Apparel and More" while not very exciting seems appropriate.
These are the two concepts for banners that I have so far.
They both still need some work and I don't know what to do yet for a smaller square shaped logo. I think I like the second banner better. But I guess I will see how I feel in a few days. I was hoping to have more accomplished a this point but that is it for now.
Happy Ebaying,
My EBay Life
(A series of essays about what it is like to sell stuff on EBay)
I have been hearing a lot lately about how sales slow down in the summer. My sales information from years past would also tend to support this phenomenon. Recently I listened to an EBay Radio segment with Lynn Dralle better known as The Queen of Auctions. Lynn was giving some of her tips on how to keep selling through the slower months. Happily for me I found that I was already doing some of those things.
This June ended with about 15% higher sales volume than last June and so far I am on track to be close to doubling my sales from last July. (Keeping fingers crossed since you never know what will happen.)
Anyway here are some of the things that I believe have helped me avoid the full impact of the summer slump.
1) Markdown Manager - First let me say that I can believe I only started using this tool a few months ago. It is a little embarrassing. Anyway I think that I avoided it for so long because I thought that my margins were already too tight and I couldn't take any less than my original price. But the truth is when I step back and look at all of my sales and the average profit instead of worrying about one item at a time I haven't really lost any ground on my total profit. It is a bit of a balancing act and you certainly don't want to just be giving stuff away but it is worth testing out if you haven't already.
2) List higher value items - I don't know how people sell items for thousands of dollars on Ebay. So far I just don't have the nerve or the financial resources for that kind of business but I have been purchasing higher cost items to resell at a higher sale price as with a better profit. Once again it is a balancing act but again worth testing.
3) Free Shipping. I resisted Free shipping for a long time. I just started listing items with Free shipping in May. But it has proved to be quite successful so much so that since I started testing it I haven't listed any new items with a shipping charge and I firmly believe that it is a contributing factor in easing the pain of slow summer sales.
4) Know that it is coming. - Planning for slower sales in the summer is helpful for a lot of reasons. Mostly it helps you to be able to sleep at night. But if you are prepared for the worst and working to alleviate some of that slump you will be two steps ahead of the game.
If all your efforts fail and you still have dismal summer sales there is a silver lining. The holidays are just around the corner and if you keep listing through the slower summer months you will have your store nicely stocked for the busier holiday season. Read this article for tips on for preparing for the holidays.
Happy Ebaying,
My EBay Life
(A series of essays about what it is like to sell stuff on EBay)
***
It's probably one of Ebay's most frequently asked questions. So what is the best day to sell stuff or end your auctions? I have heard that for auctions you should try to end them on Sunday evening. I can't really comment on this since I don't do many auction style listings. I have also heard that Saturdays are one of the slowest days for sales. To be honest I never really worried about it much but recently I have started playing with the markdown manager more and more so I decided it might be prudent for me to know what were my busiest and slowest sales days in order to better incorporate the sales that I decide to run.
Briefly here is what I found:
First a few qualifying statements.
1) All data is from the last 6 months
2) All sales during this time period were Fixed Price Good Til Canceled listing.
It turns out that for me Saturday was the best day to sell items over the 6 month time period. Not only did it finish first over all but month to month it finished in the top half of the week 4 out of 6 months (2 of those months it finished first.) And the two months that it dropped into the bottom half it's lowest finish was 5th place.
Wednesday it turns out is my slowest day overall finishing last over the 6 month period and finishing in the bottom half of the month 5 out of 6 times.
This is the over all ranking from best to worst for the 6 month period with the percentage of sales for each.
1) Saturday = 16.21%
2) Thursday = 15.71%
3) Friday = 14.96%
4) Tuesday = 14.46%
5) Sunday = 13.97%
6) Monday = 13.47%
7) Wednesday = 11.22%
So what does this mean exactly? It appears that Friday, Tuesday, Sunday and Monday which are all only separated by roughly half of a percentage point could trade their ranks around quite easily. On the other had there are 5 percentage points between the top Saturday and the bottom Wednesday.
Does this mean that I should run more sales on Wednesday to try to increase sales on Wednesday? Should I spend my time listing more on Wednesdays and try to sell even more on the weekends? Does this information even matter? To be honest I don't know but I am curious now to see what the numbers will be for the rest of the year.
Thanks for stopping by and
Happy Ebaying,
My EBay Life
(A series of essays about what it is like to sell stuff on EBay)
***
You may think that you have to be a great photographer and have all kinds of expensive equipment to take photos for your Ebay listings. If you don't feel that way you can watch this video from Ebay on Location in Denver and then you may understand what I am talking about. I just finished watching and it gave me a little bit of an inferiority complex.
I already knew that I didn't posses any fancy lights or backgrounds or cameras. And I am well aware that I am not a professional photographer. But the good news is that over the years my pictures have gotten better and more importantly I do actually sell items with my inferior photos. Not that I wouldn't like to have some of the stuff that they talk about but that is not going to be in my immediate future.
Here is what I do and don't have.
1) I don't have a fancy camera. Technically I don't even have a camera. I use the camera on my phone.
2) I don't have any special lights. I use mostly natural light.
3) I don't have any backdrops or the space for a photo studio. But I do have white walls.
4) I don't have a tripod.
5) I don't know anything about white balance.
6) I do try to frame my shots so that no cropping is required.
7) I do have a mannequin that I use for some items and a white formica board that I found in the garage that I use for other items.
8) I do have Adobe Photoshop to edit my photos but I don't use it very much and there are plenty of other photo editing software choices.
It is all pretty low tech. Anyway my point is that even with Ebays new photo requirements my minimal photography skills and equipment are sufficient.
So watch the video and work toward getting better equipment and skills but don't wait to get started listing. You probably already have everything you need to take a decent photo for your listing.
Happy Ebaying,
