Tutorial Series How to Prepare Your Item for Treasuries #2

Chainmaille Choker in Copper Brutal Ribbon by Stygian Chains

Treasuries are a huge promotional tool for Etsians.  There are some shops whose items are featured all the time.  Some shops never have items in a Treasury.  If you are part of the second group, do you know why?  And do you want to know how to become a member of the first group?

This series of articles started as a tutorial type blog post but there is just too much information for a blog post.  Each post in the series will discuss tips that will raise the odds of your item being included in a Treasury.  Most of these tips will also help you make sales because buyers are looking at the same things that a Treasury curator looks at.  I will be using "Awareness" as my theme for examples, but you can substitute any theme that your items fit in and follow the tips using that theme.

Tags: part 2

Everyone has different ideas about how to tag your items in regards to color.  Some say you should stick to the basics, green, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, black, white and brown.  Others say that you need to be more specific because it helps if you are in a smaller group.

Golden Bracelet with Rainbow Flash by 88Links

I think you should split the difference.  You should use that general tag but whenever possible you should qualify it.  If your item is violet why not tag it as violet and purple.  That way you will show up in both searches and both tags are true.  If I am looking for an item somewhere in the purple range for my Treasury, I am going to use purple as a search term.  The computer looks for purple as a tag.  Your item is tagged violet.  The computer does not know that violet is a purple, it only knows that the first letters are not the same.  To it that means your item is not purple and will not be included in my results.

The reverse is also true.  Your item is tagged purple.  I am looking for something violet for my Treasury.  I use the search term violet.  Once again the computer does not know about the relationship between purple and violet.  It just knows that the letters do not match and I don't use your item in my Treasury.

If you tagged the same item as violet and purple, both true, you would have had two opportunities to be in a Treasury.


Tags: part 3

There are 14 tags available.  If I laid 14 perfectly good lottery tickets on a table and said "Take as many as you want.  If you don't use them, they will not be used."  Are you seriously going to tell me that you will take 2 or 3 and let the rest get tossed in the trash.  That is what you do each time you use less than 14 tags.  The additional tags that you do not use may be the tags that I use to search for items for my next Treasury.

Funny White Braided Leather Bracelets by Laura Bijoux

I admit that I don't use all 14 all of the time.  Sometimes I am listing something quickly and can't think of all the tags I could use.  I promise myself that I will go back and correct the tags.  And I will, someday.  In the meantime, someone who is looking for my item can't find it because I didn't use all my tags.

I think the next topic will be pictures.  If you have questions feel free to ask them in the comments.  I moderate comments so if you don't want your comment published just tell me.

I want to thank Stygian Chains, 88 Links and LauraBijoux for answering my plea on twitter so quickly.