SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

Sunday - Coffee and Cake

I'm Back!!!

After an astonishingly awkward few weeks, I can hope that this is the beginning of a most definite return without disruption!

Wow things have been hectic. Infact that is a slight understatement really, so much has happened it's any wonder I haven't lost the plot yet but to my relief I think things surrounding our life at home will return to normal fairly soon.

Unfortunately my other half's very poorly dad passed away about a week ago, so in amongst everything that has been the saddest part of our busy few weeks. However it's good to know that he is no longer suffering. I commend Elric for being as strong as he is being about it. He has had such a difficult time lately, I am really glad that he's now ready to move forward.

As for me and my pregnancy, things are going well of which I am glad about. No scans booked yet but I shall be seeing a midwife for the first appointment in a week or two so hopefully I'll know more about what's to come then, including which hospital is willing to take me! I'm excited as unlike my first two pregnancies with my first ending prematurely, this one minus the morning sickness seems to be going pretty well to our relief! I only hope that things continue this way, minus the morning sickness LOL!

So let me inform you of my plans... I intend to bring back Monday Magic tomorrow, and my Friday finds interview this week also. As for Sunday Coffee and Cake, I will be continuing the post however because of time and planning that is involved with the articles, I will be intergrating normal posts like todays as an example into the updates each week. So Sundays may not necessarily bring an article, but sometimes just a normal blog post about whatever may inspire me at the time! It means I can be an organised lady and reserve just the 3 days I usually use for the blog instead of 7 days which was what I had to do before (mainly for the Sunday posts... planning and writing!). With a busy family life and busier one to come, I think this is a fair deal on everyone at home, and still allows me to help new sellers on Etsy without any changes in how I do things on both Mondays and Fridays. I look forward to doing this again :)

I'd like to announce that I now offer flat rate FREE POSTAGE worldwide on all photography in my store. I am due to make some new price changes too, to make the process of understanding how much different sized print costs more easy to understand as I know at the moment my prices can be one of two things depending on the work put into the photograph during editing. I intend to make this cost flat rate for the size, without taking the time of working nor the type of paper into account. This will make my work more affordable and a lot more straightforward when it comes to choosing what you would like me to create for you. This change should come into effect shortly!

I also have lots of new prints coming into the store that I have been diligently been working on lately. They are perfect for the halloween and colder seasons as they are very mystical and gothic in ways. My work always seems to reflect my moods so understandably you'll know where the inspiration is derived from considering recent events, when you get to see them.

All in all I think that is all I wanted to say. I am off now to search for my Monday Magic peeps for tomorrow! If you're a new seller with 0-19 sales, then get in touch and I'll be straight over to your store for a peek :)

All the Best everyone and thanks to those who have left such lovely supportive messages lately, my love to you all.

moonangelnay x x x

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

New Prints On Etsy - Click Images to Visit Listing




Sunday - Coffee and Cake



Hello!

I'm a bit rushed today, as so far my week has been a mixture of battling through a never ending crashing PC, new ideas for my Etsy store, and tasks unrelated to the stuff I do online. So being VERY behind is an understatement. In the long run however I'm hoping that I shall achieve peace with my computer and digital files on my Etsy store. For now my focus is today's article which I know is a week late! Apologies!

For today this is more of an opinion than anything that is of the record, but I hope that my little insight is worthy of consideration. I'm certain that what I am going to write about has been said before as with most things everyone has their own way of taking on board information and then displaying it for others to see. So this is just my take on things.

Objective Thinking : I am one of those people who have a firm belief in what is known as "The Secret", although I have been well aware of the Law Of Attraction for many years having being blessed with the freedom to find my own way through my mind. My mum is a very Spiritual person so naturally for me I was left open to think objectively about the world, without too much influence of my mums ideas but having the freedom to choose to take them on board if i wanted to.

Without thinking about it consciously, I always found myself taking on board new ideas without taking them on board, if that makes any sense? I think in order to have a point of view that is unhindered by bias or immediate belief, you must have a strong sense of self. Not necessarily eradicating self consciousness which in New Age society is the "thing" to do in order to be completely "self aware", but to have love for your ideas is actually part of the journey to loving yourself. The thing that is most important about having "your own" ideas is that any incoming ideas trigger conscious thinking on your part, and not any sort of immediate lemming response "without" conscious thought. Not to say that everyone is a lemming, but in a lot of instances when you think about it no-one really has an idea that is their own as we are born into a world that likes to impose itself on us from birth, and we have to rely on our teachers and elders to show us the path to making the right choices in our lives. In order to do that, we also have to be able to 'identify' with these people in order for their ideas/ways etc to have that sort of impact on us. Even if you're the most lonesome person in the world that doesn't really talk to anyone that maybe does form ideas of your own, the place that you're in didnt happen by mistake and more than likely your life events, choices and surrounding entourage from the earliest of your days will have lead you to that point of existance (or non existance if you find yourself completely absent from any social interaction.)
It's not something we think about either, as we all know babies are like sponges, and you too were once a squidgy porous little thing that literally sucked up everything that displayed itself infront of you. So I guess the first thing to realise when trying to work out the beginnings of where you may pick up things from is truely within yourself. Unfortunately as a baby you can't really stand up and know who you are to the point where your ideas can really do great things, but 'Knowing' who you are and having confidence in that is where you can say that maybe more than a person that follows the crowd, you have more potential to be a dream weaver and know that your ideas are influential to others. Until you can think for yourself you are not really able to think objectively. Without being able to think objectively you will more than likely always have finality, bias and judgment ready to leap out and do the talking, when in reality being able to embrace both polarities from a neutral perspective without being clouded by immediate responses will lead you one step closer to freeing your mind and helping you feel more confident in your descisions. Ultimately without a mindful attitude, how can you be sure of anything?

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

New Note Cards and Prints On Etsy - Click Images to Visit Listings




Sunday - Coffee and Cake



Hello again :)

My son is currently asleep, and the other half is a busy bee dealing with some things that have cropped up this week, which has left me this short space of time to get on with todays article.

I have spend 5 weeks so far discussing the various things I have found to be helpful throughout my networking journey, to bring awareness of my work and other things like this blog for example. I think that I have pretty much covered everything i have tried and tested, and have found that some of these things have worked for my readers too, after getting some lovely responses to my posts ^_^ So for that I'm glad, that's what makes sharing this info so worthwhile! Unfortunately I have come to an end (new topic starting next week), with today being the last of the Networking articles but you can always catch up with the past Networking posts by clicking here, or searching for the tag "Coffee and Cake" within my blog.


Today, I will focus on something that initially won't help you spread you name around online, but in the long run will do just that. That is "Tagging" appropriately, whatever it is you are trying to bring to peoples awareness, be it an item in your Etsy store or a blog post, Tweet, or even MetaTags for a website.


Networking Part 6 : Tagging, for good SEO (search engine optimisation) is essential if you want to get yourselves listed into the search engines, to put yourself close to the top of the pile and to make easy navigation in things that may have it's own internal search engine. I think nowdays that the search engines automatically search around for pages to link to with the use of spider bots, which is why it's important to be prepared by tagging appropriately, as lack of tagging or bad tagging isn't going to do much for you in the competative world of website listing. You still get the option to manually list sites anyway, but even still, if these spiders think you site is spammy (based on how you incorporate SEO), or if it thinks the content is lacking, you'll find yourself in the back of the queue (or worse, blacklisted) when your ultimate goal should be to aim as high as you can! Tagging is pretty easy and like I say, can even help people navigate your pages/sites/items much easier than to have them go through pages and pages to find what it is they're looking for.


With Meta tagging for example (on a website) you'll find there are 2 places in the HTML coding that is worth putting a few words about your site. Those are literally the Meta Tags, and Meta Descriptions. You don't want to write paragraphs as the spider bots only pick up a small amount of text from what is left there. I'm uncertain of the exact number but think Twitter and call it 140 characters for each... it may be more, it could be less... but it's not a lot when you could go on for days about what it is you're trying to describe! So you need to be clever about it. Use words that aren't too unsual and infact try and think of what you reckon people will will look for that is relatable to your content, but also try and make a name for yourself. Summerise your business or site, and throw in as many keywords as you can in the description. The more "keywords" you can use, the better really.


Some people, when writing on the body section of their homepage like to include a more detailed welcoming description that I believe can also be used to optimise your pages for searching. This applies to everything I guess, like with Etsy you get a measly 14 tags per item, yet if you can use a bit of flair with your descriptions, or better yet try and put yourselves in the shoes of a search-ready customer, predicting what kinds of words someone would use to lead them to your product, something like that could change the way you would initially have written your tags to begin with. Tagging is more than just describing and catagorising your item, it should be about identifying with what your customers want.


On Etsy, Artfire, Misi, etc... the shop home should be reasonably descriptive, but not necessarily over done (not just for SEO but I found a lot of people get put off by reams and reams of writing before they see your items. Only recently!). That will help your shop gain more web presence for sure. and anything else really that gives you opportunities to tag and write descriptions, use them! you dont have to be a poet, but an intelligent use of descriptive words will always help. There are so many places to take advantage of for this. Blogger is one of them! Myspace! Indiepublic and We Love Etsy on Ning.com! I've even caught Tweets in the search engine, and particularly picked up via third party twitter sites! At the end of it, the way people find things online is if they search for it, unless they already know where they are going! If they don't then they will describe what they want and click search, and you want to be nearest the top of the end of that search as you can be! Remember you don't have to write novels. Just give good descriptions and tags!


That's all. Until next week, Coffee and Cake will be introducing a new topic of discussion! Look forward to it. :)


moonangelnay x

Monday Magic! - Near Undiscovered Wonder

Monday Magic...green

1000roads	CoraDesigns	RedCatArtBeads
barbarix	Alphachic	StaciaMarie
allstrungout1	meego	XauXauSummer
niminami	BejeweledArts	ImogenPhoenix

Introducing my 2nd installment of my new weekly feature, Monday Magic! These Etsy.com sellers all share something special... Fabulous work! Yet, somehow like many sellers on Etsy are wondering where all their admirers are! So this is where I feel it's time to showcase the undiscovered talent of Etsy, on Monday each week so they have a chance to shine like the best of Etsy do :)

All of the sellers names can be typed into the navigation bar on your browser followed with ".etsy.com" (dot etsy dot com) to take you to their stores. Otherwise click on an image to go directly to their listing!

I am now taking requests for next weeks Monday Magic Expo. If you would like to be a part of it, you are required to have less that 20 sales in your Etsy store, and the theme this week is Orange Glow! contact me via convo @ http://moonangelnay.etsy.com to send in your requests, plus a link to your suitable item :)

Have a fab week!

moonangelnay xxx

SUNDAY - Coffee and Cake

Relisted on Etsy - Click image to visit the listing

Dunno about people overseas but it's approaching midday here in the UK and I am ever so slightly behind with my first Sunday feature, what with promising that it'd be a morning thing; but I guess that if you're part of my main following that are 5+ hours behind GMT then I guess the timing will be perfect! The reason I'm behind is pretty pathetic really... Paper. I spent about 6 hours last night until 2.30am looking at paper. Not just any old paper! Noooooo I wouldn't use just ANY old paper in my sparkly gorgeous new printer (here I go), no it's quite amazing actually that I have stumbled across this fab idea whilst I was trying out it's loveliness yesterday on Lustre Satin paper (which is GORGEOUS omg). After testing the quality and having one of those DOH I should have realised moments, I came up with an incredible plan for my prints both 5x7 and 8x12 that will not only make them archival lasting a lifetime but now that I have the right gear, I can purchase the most optimum papers and still offer the same prices on my Etsy store which in turn means the ultimate value for my customers for quality Giclée prints (and soon ACEO prints). No more photolab, waiting for millions of years and expensive postage for my customers for these sizes! Hurray! That's what I wanted all along for my work, and considering I can make this leap at home it's any wonder the photolab don't offer the same printing ability (that's what happens when you can only think about making money! Shame on them). I find it amazing that I can print Giclée now that I use pigmented inks and using the best of papers I have found that have accredition from the Fine Art Trade Guild for the papers archival nature and museum-like quality, means that my work is going to look AMAZING where ever it hangs. I'm hoping to use 315g 100%cotton rag although I have never seen my work on such quality paper I'm for some reason hesitant about the leap! LOL! What it'll mean though is I'll have to take my Etsy shop down for a while so I can readjust the print info on all of my work. In the long run I'll be spending more to make this happen and earning less to keep value for my customers, but ultimately as good as matte or glossy archival paper goes I think that if you're an artist and you want to give your customers the best of your work you need to use the best media to showcase what you do. Now this is just coming from the fine artist in me. I wondered when it'd creep into my photography LOL!


NOW! enough blabbing. The point to my Sunday - Coffee and Cake articles is simply to give back to the handmade community a little something of where and how I have come so far with my work with the purpose of hopefully guding others that may be wondering what the hell to do in the right direction. I'm not one of those Etsy sellers that has thousands of sales, I'm still pretty new myself, but I do know how to drive traffic into my world online, and that I know is quite possibly the most time consuming and difficult thing any person that attempts this can manage. So I want to be able to help by mentioning my trials and errors along the way and also leave useful articles or advice I have come across to hopefully turn any new home workers in the handmade community into established workers. I have found a notable change in my Etsy traffic and my web presence through the hours (sometimes tears lol) i have put into marketing my work. Today I'll discuss part 1 of a big thing that seems to stump a lot of people online (even in the real world). Networking as I see it happening a lot both in and outside of Etsy, sometimes done well and a lot of the time done without a mindful attitude. Let me explain what I mean.

Networking PART 1 - Commenting This is probably one of the least considered form of marketing that is thought of but spreading yourself around with meaningful notes in relevant places not only will expand your web presence without the need to set up millions of networking sites, blogs etc, but it also can be a useful way of showing potential customers what your made of, particularly if you write something people can identify with. Unfortunately commenting on anything nowadays is either a race for the top spot or a lazymans ground for spamming links. Or at least from what I've noticed it is. For everyone in the world, sparing time to read and write to people regarding their posts whatever they are is something that is almost like giving away a limb when time is particularly precious to you (I'm a mum, and I can struggle with that even in the world outside of the web). However, trying to get in the first comment by writing a few words that aren't necessarily meaningful to the posts curator will in the long run be bad for both parties and there are a whole host of reasons as to why. The main one being a high bounce rate means that anyone coming in to look at your page pretty much does only that and doesn't intereact with it at all. So the higher the bounce rate, the less people are clicking away browsing all your hard work. Therefore people with their mini "woop" comments, you're drawing that to the curator and also to yourself! It is a killer and these short posts are magnets for a higher bounce rate. Whereas, meaningful posts encourage people that like to read interesting things to check out just how interesting you are. Yeah you're only leaving a comment, but come on you are doing the right thing by showing your genuity and people that spot your words will see that. Oh also, "link spamming" which for some reason people think that if they leave it there it's bound to get clicked on. Well if people don't know what they're clicking on then they're more than likely to close the window (high bounce rate). You could be leaving a link to your toaster decorating website on somebody's post about their summer holiday. If someone is reading about a summer holiday they're not likely going to want to check out pretty toasters, even if they are amazing. Whereas if you tell the curator just how interesting their post is to you, say why, give them some time to discuss their post, and if you like maybe relate it to yourself (it's not necessary), even those people that have no idea what you're about will have a higher chance of giving you some of their time as they will see in your comment more than just a link. Your potential livelihood IS more than just a link so give it some credit. Links not only looks like you haven't shown a real interest in a curators post but it looks awful on their page having reams of unrelated links flying down the page. There is an etiquette to making yourself known to the world and I have done the above things and experienced the lack of acknowledgement in return (I think we all do, because it's quick and easy), yet found that once I actually made a point of reading things properly, and only commenting when I GENUINELY wanted to in related fields or completely random ones, and maybe leaving links in places where it was of reference or relevant (ie: Etsy promotions forum), meant that suddenly people noticed I existed and to be fair this all should be obvious because we only read stuff that is meaningful to us anyway don't we? Why not leave something that is mindful and meaningful for OTHERS to enjoy? And heck, not for the marketing aspect but because it's nice to interact with the world? To have a business you MUST like people! And show them that you're personable and prepared to make time for them; it's no different from building relationships in person. This means that for time scrooges like I was once, you must have the inclination to find more time to inject into communication. But there is no gloom about it. People across the world have pretty interesting things to say about their craft or their lives, and you'll find that you can make good friends with people as you build rapport through your interest in what they do. THIS is what drives traffic to you. If you make yourself known to the world as being human, someone who actually likes to communicate with people (which will reflect on how they see you as a business owner and them as customers), other people outside of the immediate communication will notice your genuity and will more than likely give you a moment of their time to check out what you are about. Whatever you give out you get back. Stick a post it note of that as an affirmation on your computer screen if it helps, that is a seriously big thing to remember when it comes to any kind of relationship, not only in business. I mean we all hate those door to door sales people don't we? Getting their script done before you slam the door in their face and money is all they think about. And to me leaving these short "woop first comment" like messages is no different as the intent of them is never about the curators post (I don't mean to offend but really... they're not). Be personal, make the time (yes I am staying up later but it's worth it as I WANT my business to work, and I want to meet great people across the globe), have the right intentions, and be genuine. You'll meet some fab people out there along the way.

Right! so next Sunday I'll continue with Part 2 of this series of articles that I hope can be helpful to anyone wanting their online business to work. I'm not a money making fatcat, nor am I a huge business but I am coming from a place where I know a lot of people are stuck in at the beginnings of their new venture as I have been and I'm still learning. I hope this can make me relatable to people and my articles will be of help!


REQUESTS - right on Monday and Friday are other days I would like to be of help to the handmade community which is why I want to introduce the following things. On Monday the 3rd of August I am going to bring in Monday Magic! An expo, similar to Etsy's treasury where I will feature a themed treasury of my own. The difference is I want Etsy sellers with 20 or less sales to take part and I want you to show me your work! The theme for the first expo will be breathe, so send me items in white! As it's a new thing I'm introducing breathe seems to be a good theme. So If you would like to take part and you have the right credentials please send a convo to me on Etsy with a link to your active item you want to feature so I can review it for approval. This will be limited to 12 features so first come first serve!

Friday will be reserved for a single artist and an interview. Like Etsy's featured artists, but we all know those artists are doing great, I'd like to see artists who WANT to do great and to have the opportunity to show off their skills to the world. So Friday the 7th of August is Friday Finds! Send me a convo on Etsy and tell me why you would like a feature. I may surprise you with an interview :)

Look forward to working with you again!

moonangelnay x x x