Etsypreneur

Over at EverythingEtsy.com, we recently posted a video showing how to set-up hosting and install WordPress.

Here is that video:

We received a question to the video from an Etsy seller with a Tumblr blog asking why “our way” was better. It’s not really “our way” per se, Kim even has a Tumblr blog herself, but it is better and here’s why.

Why Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs are Best for Business

Anyone (which is almost everyone) who has a Facebook account knows how easy it is for a free service to make changes on you. All of these free services include terms-of-service that pretty much say they can do what they want with the site itself and often give them quite a bit of leeway with your data.

So free services can do what they want, when they want.

From a purely business perspective, this is reason enough. Your business needs an “anchor” online that can’t change without your permission. If you’re going to “do this” it means a really substantial amount of effort on your part. If you hire a designer to make your blog look better, it means money too. (never forget that time is money as well)

(image above from marismith.com post on Facebook Changes)

Pointing Your Brand to Your Online Real Estate

Let’s say, for example that you work hard and build up a following to your blog. This takes many months of effort and you’ll turn around one day and see that you have years into it.

Just like Etsy is doing right now with search ads, all owners of websites are always looking for ways to make money from that property. Their property!

What if they decide they want you to sell your handmade good on their platform rather than on Etsy? What if they ban Etsy items? What if you don’t like the options they offer? Or if they decide to charge a fee for “business use” of the site? If all of your years of established online loyalty is pointed at that location, then you’re kind of stuck.

When you own the domain, and you’re on your own hosting account, you own that real estate. There is no doubt about this. You can turn it on, turn it off, change from WordPress to something else, sell what you want, say what you want, do what you want. It’s your property.

From a business perspective, that’s all the reason you need to have your own domain and your own hosted website. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Don’t let the world of free Internet services fool you into thinking their is.

When you’re starting out, it’s hard to imagine the amount of work you’ll put into your site. So you don’t see that as an asset. You have to think ahead and realize that you’re laying the groundwork now to put a valuable asset (the result of all your writing, tweeting, SEO, and relationship building) into the hands of someone else. With no recourse.

The Future of Online Sales is Personal Brands

We are seeing this trend over and over and over. People build a following online and they become a “personality” at a small scale with a group of people. As time goes on and many months pass, the effect of continued effort compounds and that small scale grows.

People who continue to push this over time and do it well, will establish an online brand for themselves, in addition to the brand they build for whatever product they sell.

This personal online brand can be leveraged in innumerable ways. Once you have an audience, you can sell anything that’s truely of value. If you find a product that’s great, you can sell it.

(That’s what we do with affiliate programs such as Bluehost Hosting)

Your life will be better/easier/cheaper/faster for you at that point if you’ve established your own domain. Here are a few things you can do with your own domain on your own hosting that you can’t do with hosted services:

Sub-Domains -

For example, Directory.EverythingEtsy.com, is a sub-domain that we created to offer directory listings to Etsy sellers. It leverages the brand of EverythingEtsy and it couldn’t be done without our own hosting account.

Sub-Directories -

For example, RemodelingGuy.net/Answers is technically a completely seperate blog than RemodelingGuy.net, but (this is really important) it has the SEO pull of the RemodelingGuy.net domain from day one, and when new posts in Answers get some SEO traction, the whole domain benefits.

SEO -

This should be at the top of the list. Every time you write a blog post you’re building some SEO value of that blog. Even if you don’t do a good job of SEO or don’t think about it at all, you’re going to get some search traffic.

If you pay attention to easy SEO steps, you’ll get good search traffic.

That traffic has value and you might want to place ads in very particular places on some of your high-traffic posts down the road. Most bloggers find that they don’t worry as much about the “too many ads” impression on old posts that are getting traffic for particular search terms.

This is a monetization opportunity that you can miss with platforms that limit ads in posts, or your ability to insert certain types of code.

Besides direct monetization, the overall SEO Mojo of your domain has great value for all of your endeavors on that domain, and that value builds over time. The smart move is to own that domain.

Freedom To Change Everything!

Finally, there is the simple fact that you can totally control what apears at your domain.

• If you get sick of blogging and just want to forward the domain to your Etsy shop, so be it.
• If WordPress becomes yesterday’s news and you want to switch to a new platform, go for it.
• If you want to…. whatever, it’s your property.

The bottom line is that if you’re looking at this from a business perspective and you’re going to be at this for the long-haul, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t have your own domain.

The price is so low. Bluehost charges like $6.00 per month! It’s just not worth the savings.

If you want to learn more about blogging before taking the plunge, check out our post series on EverythingEtsy.com entitled: B.L.O.G – Blogging Leads to Online Greatness – it’s ten weeks of audio, video, and written posts that cover all the major points of blogging. All for free!

Required Disclosure: We’re affiliates for companies that we use ourselves and recommend highly, such as Bluehost. When you click on our link and then make a purchase, we get a referral fee. That helps pay the bills, so we really appreciate you using these links. – Kim & Tim

Intro To Link Building For Etsy Shop SEO from Everything Etsy on Vimeo.

We’ve just started a new team on Etsy called Etsypreneurs. We’re open to suggestions on how the team can best be used and would love some help from any Etsy Team Guru’s in our midst.

First Step: Join the Team! Etsypreneurs Team on Etsy

This is an in-depth demonstration and the video lasts 22 minutes.  But the tips could prove to be very valuable to you in the long-run, so if you have questions about how to optimize your site for search engines, you’ll love it.

Everything Etsy University – Basic Etsy Shop SEO from Everything Etsy on Vimeo.

For more information, check out the post from last year that spells out the details of keyword research.

We just sent out an email announcement to the Etsypreneur.com email list telling about this great free opportunity.  Check out the new directory!

Directory.EverythingEtsy.com

——————-

If you didn’t get the email, it probably means you’re not on the mailing list.

Click Here to Get on the Email List

Your business growth is in your hands!

1. Join the Facebook Group
2. Join the Twitter Group
3. Participate in special interest Groups
4. Participate in the Forums
5. Complete your Profile
6. Complete your Signature
7. Start a Group
8. Upload an Avatar Picture
9. Put your Etsy Mini in a Gallery
10. Join the Etsy Hearts Group
11. Join the Blog Lovers Group
12. Every time you see the name, remember: You’re an entrepreneur!

Er, an Etsypreneur!

Groups – Over 65 groups! Interests range from geographic areas, to business topics, to dozens of special interests such as wire wrapping, jewelry, needles & thread, and more! We’ve also got groups for Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, Treasuries, and Etsy Hearts!

Expanded Profiles – Just added! Vastly expanded profile fields now give members the chance to share links to their blogs, shops, social media, favorite resources, and more! Also share your favorite groups so your friends know where to find you! The easiest way to navigate to the profile editing area is under the “My Account” menu at the very top of your screen.

New! Expanded Member Profiles!

Group Galleries – Clicking on the little smiley tab in to tab menu above will bring you to the home page of all of the new group galleries where members can include their Etsy Mini! See the Group Gallery home page for a link to include your mini!

Sharing Updates – I’ll be writing a blog post here tomorrow about how easy it is to share an update done here, with all of your other networks. Just look for the little “Share” button. It works for personal updates, group updates, and forum posts!

Etsypreneur Blog – There is soooo much going on here that there really is a need for individual entries on how to use the features of the site. We’ve decided to just do that right here on the front page. We’ll probably keep a small introductory post “sticky” at the top, but underneath that, normal blog posts will just roll like any other blog. We’ll have an email sign-up widget available tomorrow for that.

Welcome to Etsypreneur! 

It’s exciting to see all the energy and positive attitude everyone is sharing!  At the time of this writing, we’ve got 20 30 55 groups and 70 140 360 members who are all looking to collaborate and share.  The ways we can help each other succeed as Etsypreneurs are limitless!

We’ve heard some of your early requests and added a few features today that should be helpful.  Just scan the list below to see if these are of interest to you.

The General Discussion Group:

This group is a good one for everyone to join because it gives you the ability to post in the forums without forming a new group even if your subject doesn’t fall within another group.

Signatures Now Available!

Under your profile settings, there is now an option to create a signature.  This can include links to your blog, website and Etsy shop(s).  Please be considerate and don’t be all spammy about this, but use this opportunity!  That’s what the site is all about.

Group Email Subscription Options:

When you’re on the group home page of a group you’re a member of, you’ll see a new link to options for group emails.  You can get none, daily, weekly, or even every time someone comments.  This will cover group activity both on the group page only, and within the forums (for that group).  Of course, you can change this at any time.

Share Posts via Twitter, Facebook and more!

While we hope you spend time here talking to other Etsypreneurs, we know you also love your Facebook and Twitter freinds!  If you would like to share a forum post with them, there is a button available now to do that.  Just look for the little button that says “share”.  When you click on that, more options appear.

Thanks for Sharing Etsypreneur.com!

You’ve been spreading the word like crazy and that’s exactly what it takes to make a community like this really become the uplifting and helpful place we hope to see it become!

We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re working at it with you! Let us know in the Forums if you’ve got any suggestions or problems!  (you can also comment here!)

An Encouraging Community for Etsy Sellers!

From the bloggers behind EverythingEtsy.com, we’re building a new community here that will be completely focused on the needs and support of Etsy sellers, known here as Etsypreneurs!

We’re looking for charter members now to help us work out the kinks!  Please use the sign-up link to the right to get started. 

Groups and Forums (What’s The Difference?)

Okay… first thing you should know is that we’re NOT total experts at the workings of this.  We’re kind of winging it.  But we do have a clue, so that’s something, right?

Groups – Can best be related to something like an Etsy Team.  This would be a place to get to know and identify with people of like mind on some subject or another.  it might be the type of things you sell, the area of the country you live in, or your favorite color.  As long as it’s within the rules of decency (not yet posted!) it’s fine for you to start a group.

When you post an “update” people who are part of your group(s) will see it.

It’s okay to ask questions in groups, but that’s not the main focus.  For in-depth discussions or questions, use the forums.

Forums – Forums are pretty well known to most.  You start a thread and people talk.  Sometimes its a question, sometimes it’s about a tv show.  As long as it’s within our rules of decency (still not posted) it’s good to go.  Obviously the idea is to center the commentary on the subject of doing business on Etsy.

One caveat… we’re not looking to police anyone, but we really hope to keep this particular forum a happy and uplifting place.  We’re really not looking for a bunch of negative complaining with no remote potential for an upside!  And we certainly don’t want to see anyone discouraged.

In the end, though, it will be up to the members of the community to control all that.

Thanks for being here! We’re looking forward to talking Etsy with you!