t-shirtlinks.com & AOL

t-shirtlinks.com have sent several visitors my way today. Their site records 37 hits and currently has the link listed second from the top under animal shirts. I expect that will drop as the listing ages? Something to keep an eye on.

Saw the first visitor from aol today. Came from the search term 'dutch rabbits', which is quite general but the description in the listings is good:

Dutch Rabbits Design themes aimed at the dutch rabbit owner (or lover). Do you love dutch rabbits? Let the world know with these cool designs. ...

New Descriptions

I've been adding descriptions to the products, hopefully good for search engines as well as visitors:

Don't be shy, let the world know you love lop rabbits! This lop-eared bunny tee is perfect for rabbit lovers. Give as a gift or get one for yourself.

This lop-eared bunny bag is the perfect gift for any rabbit owner. Just what you need to take shopping with you when your buying your rabbit supplies.

This cute little Netherland Dwarf bunny tshirt is the perfect gift for any rabbit owner. Or maybe you'd like one for yourself?

Mixed in different terms such as rabbit,bunny,breed name, tshirt and gift. These description's go along side the product names which adds a few more keywords.

Still more descriptions to add, particularly custom ones for products that aren't tshirts.

Cre8tasite

Just posted in the hospital at Cre8asite. If you haven't visited them before, do soon. It's an excellent site and I'm sure I'll get some great advice.

New Stats & Google

I just installed the free (invisable) counter from statcounter.com it provides a nice run down of different information. It only logs 100 records but shows search terms, entry pages, visitor paths etc.

It shows google has picked me up with hits from google.com, google.co.uk and google.ca

T-Shirt Directories

Wow, there are actually sites/directorys purely for t-shirt designs! Could be handy... so I've submitted to:

tshirtlinks.com
t-shirt-directory.com
t-shirtcountdown.com

Tam

First Search Visitor

My first visitor from a search engine came today! From MSN and for "rabbit breeds". A quick look shows me 7th. Perhaps my visitors will increase now.

My stats for the weekend show no more than half a dozen visitors per day!

Affiliate

Cafepress' affiliate scheme is a little confusing. I think I've got the hang of it though. I've started with a banner encouraging people to upload their own design/photo for those who find having a picture of their own rabbit appealing.

Adsense

200 odd impressions and no click throughs... hasn't done anything to help my total. Either I'm not getting enough visitors (some of those impressions will be me making changes) or the ads are wrong. Might give it another couple of days whilst I research some other possible options.

Shop Page Header

I've finally got around to adding a custom header to the store. Nothing to fancy, just added a background colour - selected one of the template colours and adjusted it slightly. I've also added two image links:

This one links to my email address and will hopefully encourage some feedback and possibly more sales if people request a design they want and go ont o buy. I'm not sure whether 'suggest a design' or 'request a design' is better... might need to experiment with that.

The other link goes to the shipping information and highlights international shipping - hopefully this will help me gain some customers in the UK.

Setting Prices

I've changed my mark up from $2.00 to $2.50. What was the point in that. I've sold 5 items and only made $10 (£5). That's not bad but it will take an awful lot of sales to make any sort of cash.

It might seem a bit pointless to just add a few cents (pennies) but they can soon add up to pounds when multiplied by a lot of purchases.

I'm stil unsure about prices - dealing in dollars isn't helping... I need to do some research into what prices are considered good in the states and how mine compare.

Current Total: $10

Update

I've been busy with other projects. Time for a quick update though...

2 more items sold bringing my total up to $8 (enough to pay for another month on the premium shop). Both were the lop design - seems popular that one. Maybe I should add some variations.

Adsense... not one click through.

Google... hasn't picked up the cafepress store link yet. Maybe I should set up a page on my domain name and use that as a front page for the store? Maybe I'm just not being patient enough.

Had a brain storming session with my sister and came up with some slogans. Some that might appeal to a more general audience rather than just rabbit lovers.

Suggest A Design

Another way to find out what designs people are looking for: ask them. By inviting suggestions hopefully I'll get an idea of what people would like to see but can't find and I might make more sales by producing something that's specific to what someone wants.

Suggest A Design: Would you like a variation on one of the designs - a slogan added or removed, or maybe you'd like a different image? Email your design idea and we'll let you know if it goes on the site.

Suggestions that are only relevent to the suggestor - "I Love my rabbit Barney" will not be such good use of time as they are only likely to generate one sale. However they will help boost initial earning whilst I built up the number of general designs. A personal service like this might be the sort of thing people tell their friends about too.

Hopefully I'll also get some suggestions for designs that might be popular with lots of visitors.

Getting UK Sales

Most of my connections are UK based so links would generate alot of potential customers from the UK. Currently the site is quite US focused (prices in dollars) so I need to encourage people to buy. I think a currency converted and highlighting the fact international shipping is offered may help.

XE.com offer a handy pop up currency converted tool - I've added that in on the frontpage:

International Shoppers
Don't be fooled by the US prices, we ship internationally (and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg either). Need help working out prices in your currency? Try the XE.com Personal Currency Assistant

It might need to be duplicated across the store or highlighed in some other way at a later point.

Adsense

Just added some adsense ads, I've used them before and they seem to work well so may add the the cash flow. I need to add the text now to help keep the adverts relevent. At the moment they are picking up on tshirt rather than rabbit. Someone looking at rabbit tshirts may be interested in other rabbit gifts, products & services, but their desire for an 80's t-shirt is abit more questionable.

Summary Day 2

First sale! That's got to be a highlight. Started some linking and got a big selection of products up.

Next step, add a hit counter, think about prices and finish of the text.

Where to Focus Next

So much to do still, my first sale has been very encouraging. It's nice to have it at this stage to spur me on to keeping up the pace.

As there hasn't been time for the search engines/adverts to pick up, this sale must have come through the product search on the cafepress homepage. Thanks Cafepress! Do I focus on extending my product range or writing the product descriptions? Still need to think about prices too?

It's a shame Cafepress don't offer any statistics letting you track which products are most viewed. I need information on what my visitors want so I know how to extend my product range. If everyone is looking at a particular breed, then more designs featuring it could mean more sales.

How can I get this...

1. Track what they're looking at (hit counter?).
2. Ask them, can I add a 'request a design' form/link?
3. Ask people I know what they would buy/like.

My first Sale!

'scuse me whilst I pick myself up off the floor. I just got an email through telling me I'd made my first sale!!! Less than 24 hours in I'm $4 richer!!!

1 I Heart Lop Rabbits Jr. Ringer T-Shirt
1 I Heart Netherland Dwarf Rabbits Jr. Ringer T-Shir

Go me!

Advert (Image)

I'm quite pleased with this:

Simple but loooks good. I've just taken the product image Cafepress generates and the colour is picked from the store template. I'll need to make some variations on banner/button size but a good start.

This can go on my sites that are rabbit related and start driving some traffic to the shop. When I have a look at google adwords they might come in useful there too.

Thinking about search terms/keywords

Need to think about how people wanting rabbit themed t-shirts are going to look for them. If I was looking I'd try searches like:

Rabbit t-shirt
Bunny t-Shirt
Rabbit Top
Bunny Top

I also want to catch people who are interested in a particular breed that might not be looking for a t-shirt to buy but on seeing one advertised might be tempted. So searches for particular breeds:

Angora Rabbit
Angora Rabbit gifts - is this too specific?

Overture offers a free keyword suggestion tool that gives information on number of searches per month and a list of alternative suggestions.

It tells me:

Count/Term
217 rabbit t shirt
429 rabbit gift
29 gift lop mini rabbit - it's suggestion which shows some interest in individual breeds
2330 happy bunny t shirt - that's more like it, adding a happy rabbit design could be a good step.
516 bunny t shirt
140 playboy bunny t shirt - this is copyright so no good to me
128 funny bunny t shirt
92 bug bunny t shirt
34 energizer bunny t shirt

So as a t-shirt term, bunny is more popular that rabbit - need to remember that when writing copy.

On to breeds:

2257 angora rabbit
196 angora bunny

739 lop rabbit
420 bunny lop
1045 holland lop rabbit
784 mini lop rabbit

1233 dutch rabbit
253 dutch bunny

So when it comes to specific breeds, rabbit is more popular than bunny.

That's given me somewhere to start with keywords in my product/page descriptions and also a couple of ideas for new images.

Google

Having added a few products now I need some people to buy them. In an attempt to get google to crawl it asap I'm going to add some links from three of my existing (relevent) sites which I know are well crawled. That's helped with a speedy pick up from google before.

I wonder how long it will take?

Mass Edit Feature

I think the mass edit has got to be the best feature on Cafepress. Once I'd set up one category I can import a copy of those products. Then select them all with one click and in a couple more clicks swap the image and name to match the new category. Done by hand that would take hours! That means I've already got several hundred products (8 designs times 30-40 different product types).

Summary Day 1

I have a shop! As far as selling online goes that's quite a speedy setup. Unfortunately, no sales over night but that may have been a little hopeful. I worked out sub-sections last thing yesterday, so it's looking more organised today.

Things to do today:

Think about prices
Add more categories & product designs
Write the copy
Work out how to start driving traffic to the shop

Signed Up

I've signed up! The Rabbit House the name matches up to a domain I already own. I'm using it for something else at the moment but if I need I could always create a subdomain. The content is relevant anyway.

It's a little confusing at first navigating around the Cafepress account setup. It didn't take too long to work out the basics though. There are some handy features, like the ability to select products and mass rename them - saves a bit of time. Got to watch out because it will let you select products that don't fit the uploaded image size (cutting off the edges).

I just went with a standard template for now. It's simple enough not to cause offence and I'm sure my time is better spent on other things.

So next step is uploading more designs and filling in all the descriptions and customizing the text that appears on the front/section pages. Give the search engines something to get their teeth into.

Note to self

That other idea you had, the one that was quite good and a bit more unique... that's on a post-it note on the back of your monitor. Once you've played about and worked out how to do things you should really give that one ago.

Getting Started

I don't want to use up my 15 days free trail so as much as I'm keen to get signed up and have a play, designs come first.

Starting with the most popular breeds:

One down, angoras, netherland dwarfs, hares, giants and lionheads to go.

Target & Focus

What can I learn from SEO (search engine optimisation)? General terms are very competitive but you might be able to sneak in near the top with more specific ones.

1 Designs about "dutch rabbit" on 38 Products
8 Designs about "angora rabbit" on 50 Products

Well, it's not like it's costing me anything and I'll probably learn something. Plus I don't have any other ideas ;)

3,807

3,807 Designs about "rabbit" on 43,069 Products
- Cafepress

Maybe I should re-think my theme.

Product theme

Forgot to mention the theme! Rabbits, bunnies, bunny-rabbits. I know the target audience (I probably am the target audience) and I've got a few connections. I'm going to stick to what I know, hopefully saving some research time. I've also got a few drawings lying around that might save some time on putting the products together.

Cafepress

Is it just me or are the Cafepress help files a little basic? The size/format guidelines are well presented but I can't fine anything about colour. I've done very little print work but enough to know that the colours on my screen look different to the same colours printed. Do I need to prepare my images in CMYK rather than RGB to make the colours right?

It took me quite awhile to work out what their shipping costs to the UK were too. A pet peeve of mine - I don't want to go looking for shipping prices make the link obvious!

I did find out that 2000px x 2000px png format files would suit most things. I'll start of with that and adjust as I need.

Next question, basic or premium shop? I don't know yet exactly what products will be prefered by my customers - until then confining the choice to one type (basic store) seems a little too constraining. That 15 day free trial looks tempting. After that $6.95 (what's that? about £3.50?) isn't bad for a month. If I haven't sold anything after 6 weeks then I probably need to re-think anyway.

Zero Cash, A Little Talent and 30 Days

Jennifer Laycock (thejenn) recently (well 12 days ago) started an experiment titled Zero Cash, A Little Talent and 30 Days in which she challenges herself to start a business and turn a profit in 30 days.

Over the latest 12 days she's founded The Lactivist, a cafepresss store selling shirts with slogans promoting breastfeeding and turned $93.70 profit.

I, and I'm sure many others, are following the experiment thinking "I could do that". I decided to take that thought a step further a do that rather than just thinking about it.

Why the blog? I don't expect anyone to read it but hopefully it will help spurr me on and stop it turning into one of those half complete projects you dig out every now and then and play with before tucking them back away again.

Right so, step 1... better go and read the instructions on cafepress and put together some images for the products.