No Longer an ArtFire Virgin...

That's right...I got my first sale on ArtFire during the Christmas in July promotion offering 15% off all items in my studio.

As it happened, I received a notice that I had a sale, but I hadn't received payment as yet...contacted the buyer thanking her for her order and reminded her that payment had not been received...no response! Waited another day and contacted buyer again to let her know that I would be cancelling her order if payment or a response was not received within 24 hours...no response...so I cancelled the order...needless to say I was a bit disappointed!

Just about the same time, I received another notification that I had a sale on a different item...along with that came a message from the buyer (from Canada) that they had an issue with checkout...so I went to check my PayPal settings and lo and behold...I had some settings that restricted purchases from unregistered buyers, non US buyers and the use of foreign currency... immediate made the necessary changes, issued a PayPal invoice and notified the buyer to proceed with payment using the invoice...yay...payment received.

I wish I had taken the time to check these settings with the first buyer, but I didn't know if she had a problem with checkout because she never tried to contact me nor did she reply to my communications. She was more than likely an unregistered user on PayPal and couldn't process her payment because of the settings I knew nothing about...oh well, live and learn...I'm just happy to be seeing some activity in my studio...a virgin no longer...and lusting for more sales!

My Current Obsession

This month I am joining in on the Starving Artist Team monthly Blog Carnival. This month's topic is "My Current Obsession" which is exactly the reason I decided to join in.
I have been spending lots of time researching what is required to get my ArtFire Studio and my item listings to show up in search results...well not just show up, but show up in the first three pages of results.
Yes, my current obsession is getting to understand and implement good "Search Engine Optimization" so that I can improve my sales results through my Artfire Artisan "Pro" Studio, http://amdesignsbyangela.com .
One of the ways, as I understand it, is to blog. Search engines will crawl blog posts and find the links I've included to my shop and index the keywords I use that are relevant to my shop contents. So, I have made a renewed effort to blog more often and about a variety of topics. I can also improve SEO by having backlinks that search engines will find on other websites...well the "Blog Carnival" allows for an exchange of links among on the participants so my blog will have links on quite a number of blogs as well as the SATeam Blog
Another important element of improving SEO is having relevant titles and keywords in product listings and descriptions...I have been doing a lot of editing of my item listings lately....reworking titles, adding content to the descriptions, adding keywords as they occur to me...it has been a lot of work...and I would really like to see some positive results from it...
So here is one of my current ArtFire listings: What do you think of the title and description? Do you think it is relevant content...good SEO? I hope so!
                         

Handcrafted Artisan Lapis Chrysocolla Sterling Silver Pendant Necklace

                    

 

Product Description:

Handcrafted Artisan Lapis Chrysocolla Sterling Silver Pendant Necklace

A very elegant, contemporary teardrop pendant starring a beautiful Lapis Chrysocolla cabochon. The handcrafted bezel setting is punctuated by a textured background bordered with a square wire rim. The pendant measures approx. 2.25" and dangles from a 20" fancy bead chain.

Artfully Handcrafted Jewelry by AMDesignsbyAngela

You may be interested in reading what other participants' Current Obsessions are:

Galadryl Design

Jewelry Art by Dawn

Bead Sophisticate

Studio DTQ