SEOhmygoodnessthisisgoingtotakeforever.

Yesterday, I started on a project I've been putting off for a while -- doing Search Engine Optimization (aka SEO) on my Etsy shop. It started out easily enough... Changing up my shop title, the names of my shop sections, and the welcome announcement. Just little re-writes here and there to take advantage of how Google and other search engines actually work. Go ahead and visit Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs and have a look-see.

But then I hit the hard part... re-writing all of my item titles and descriptions!

I currently have 70 items in my shop, and my method of presenting them is about as un-Google-friendly as you can get without doing it on purpose. Little did I realize that by trying to make myself stand out from the crowd with lyrical item names and short story snippets at the start of each description, I was actually lagging way behind the crowd. In fact, I was probably in an entirely different country from the crowd. Maybe a country with no Google.

I may continue to tweak things as I watch my site stats to see what actually works, but for now I'm working the title into the description, and placing the stories at the bottom of the listing -- I do not want to get rid of them entirely, because some people come to my shop specifically to read them. Check out Her Airship Sailed Through Time Steampunk Necklace to see the difference. Please let me know if you think the new format is too awkward or see room for improvement.

And now, a little apology in advance. Apparently the most important step in SEO is building lots of links to your store. Blog posts count towards this, even if they're your own blog, so I will be promoting my shop a little bit in every post from now on. I will try to keep it minimal, and make it an addition to what I'm already writing instead of the focus. I want to keep this blog interesting for those of you who've decided you like to know what's going on in my life. Please whack me upside the head if I go too far in the wrong direction.