November 1, 2012

Amazing Pillows from Zazzle creators and more!



Hello again fellow Zazzlers and friends! Are you ready for another Affiliate Junction Group Promotion? I am kind of enjoying doing this. Guess what:

it saves me a lot of time because I find the produts already selected by their creators instead of doing the search myself;
it brings a lot more diversity to this blog every new week;
it brings a point of view other than mine to these blog's showcases;
it might bring me referrals;
I know that these bunch of Zazzle creators are promoting for me also so I feel more responsible about sharing what they create. I think I tweet these more times than my own previous Zazzle products selections.


How is this happening? Each Group member presents four links to the Facebook Group. Sometimes I pick one, sometimes two, sometimes I pick all their products suggestions. Today I enjoyed DigiGraphics and Diane Clancy's pillows particularly. These two Zazzlers have different styles but I can easily imagine their captivating pillows laying a cozy living room sofa. But check all the products below and their creators' words - we have mugs, Ipad Sleeves, iPhone cases, calendars, magnets, t-shirts, plates...take a look!




Browse other Colorful Pillows



Amber Goddess resonates with the Goddess within that we each have. This brilliant painting shows a Goddess of healing, love and passion as she dances through life. Swirls of amber, purple, orange, ginger, violet, plum, wine, maroon, brown and black play together to create the form of a woman with her arms raised. Periwinkle blue, tan and peach fashion an accent for her waist. The total effect is a Goddess with power emanating from her whole being. - Diane


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The Power of Love - Underground is a fun and whimsical image that will take you on a journey into a land of love. This is a tribute to the power of love that supports and carries us through the hills and valleys of life. Romantic red, blue and lime hearts weave through rainbows of rich royal, Maya and sapphire blues, violet and indigo purples, creamy and lime yellows and a variety of mossy, sea and olive greens. Hints of rivers, mountains, valleys and skies grace this painting. -Diane



Browse Zazzle for a different throw pillow



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View more throw pillows


More Can't Mugs



Humorous quote to tickle your funny bone, reads, "If you can't say anything nice about someone, come sit by me." Sure to make everyone laugh. - Laugh Stuff







Create custom made bags
This cute reusable organic grocery tote bag has a fun kitty saying "I'm Going Green!" on a green background with a small green border. What a fun way to go green. Great for a cat lover or anyone that is going green. - Flamin Cat Designs



Have you ever seen blue worms before? Look closely because these Blue worms are having a party! The design shows a dark grunge orange and purple background to set off the lime colored circle of which blue worms pop out. They are having a blast, some wear party hats, some shiny lipstick and a couple of them are ready for a big smooch. - Zandiepants



Browse more Winter Magnets

Very cute magnet where you can place your own photo to make it the perfect christmas gift. Retro colored snowflakes on a beige background and pretty pink bow. - Zandie Pants




See more Grapes Coasters

These grapes were photographed in the vineyard shortly before harvest in Templeton, California. . CaWine Country


Create unique custom plates online at Zazzle. 

Autumn is the season when Paso Robles vineyards dress up in colorful leaves. This picture was taken from Oakview Lane near Highway 46 West. - CaWine Country



Using titles, descriptions and tags on Zazzle to sell more



Dear Zazzler! Ours are you? Lots of sales going your way? I wish so! Christmas is coming and usually, the Season is our best chance to get plenty of sales!! Our sales on Zazzle are made in two places, inside Zazzle's marketplace and outside. Just imagine you have the best product available, the perfect product for your customer. Still, it will not sell if your customer can't find it. Each seller needs also to work to get a good conversion rate, there is, a ratio of visitors to a site who end up buying. One important aspect of it is keyword optimization - we have to determine what keywords are relevant to our business. Obvious suggestions include the names of our products, the store categories of products we sell and the brand names we pic to our store.

How we use titles, descriptions, and tags on Zazzle will affect our sales. It's worth to think about it. There is a limit of 500 characters for all our tags combined on one product. Zazzle only considers the tags that are chosen - pick just 10 - as Power Tags for site search. The other ones, however, are relevant for external search engines.


In simple words, here's how it works. In the marketplace: it's a huge marketplace, there's the good, the bad and the ugly in it. Ok, you have a pretty nice mug with Santa. Problem is there are lots and lots of mugs with Santa in the Zazzle marketplace! A customer arrives Zazzle marketplace and sometimes it might not be that easy to find your mug. Outside the marketplace: your store must be Google, Yahoo and Bing's sweetheart! These search engines will send your customers. When customers perform a search on it by specific keywords maybe your Santa mug will show up on the searches. The secret that is no secret in SEO - search engine optimization. This is something you should care about if you want a customer to find your Santa Mug. SEO is the continuous process of trying to rank first on search engines for a set of keywords relating to the subject of your website. There is plenty of information on the internet about it.


Some articles you may want to read about SEO:

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Keeping it simple, how to use titles, descriptions, and tags on your Zazzle store?

1. USE THE BEST KEYWORDS POSSIBLE!

Mainly you have to be savvy with keywords. Just keep in mind that keywords are words which people use to search for things in search engines. How to use keywords well?
take some time and brainstorm Keywords and Phrases: ask yourself: What is it? What type of product? To what person, adult, kid, an animal is it for? What colors does it show? What technique did I use: vector or traditional illustration? Photography? Is it a product to display on the house? Is it something to wear? It's a seasonal product or not?
take time to use Google’s Keyword Tool to generate a list of the most popular related search words and phrases Read about it here.
here's another keyword tool (not free) http://www.wordtracker.com/
use accurate and relevant terms
not stuff multiple words into a single tag without sense
don't spam, there is, don't use words that have nothing to do with your product
search for synonyms of the product
enter variations of words such as singular and plural version
avoid keyword stuffing! Example: (a Google example)

Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example: We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

2. DEFINE THE PRODUCT'S IDENTITY!


Some products are easier to define than others. Take an abstract painting image or tabby cat with a hat on. But no matter what is your product there are only three ways to define it so your customers can find it. You must give your product a good title, a good description and provide accurate tags.

TITLE - use keywords that people use to search for your product. Use keywords that describe your product. Use keywords that make sense.

DESCRIPTION - search engines need full descriptions of your products. Google looks for unique content. When you produce exclusive content Google qualifies your page as valuable and this will make it rank higher. The higher it ranks the more traffic it gets. Well-written content makes your visitors pay attention to what you are selling. It's the way to get conversion rates. So make your product descriptions Google valuable. Example. How would you describe this magnet?

1. Polar bear round Christmas magnet. Or...

2. Christmas Polar bear with glasses, hat and muffler magnet in red and green stripes.

TAGS - using good tags will help you be found in the Zazzle marketplace and outside. There are two kinds of tags: single words and phrases. Example: if I want a polar bear I'll search for a polar bear. But if I want a polar bear with a hat this tag must be in your product if you want it to be found by me.

3. IMPROVE YOUR COPYWRITING SKILLS!

I have plenty of difficulty with English as it's not my mother language. But do good copy isn't just about having great vocabulary and grammar rules. It's to know who are your customers, what are their interests and how they think and talk. You must write in a way that they understand.

October 31, 2012

Life is better with art!





Browse more Life Pillows

Loved this pillow and had to share it! Art adds color, imagination, inspiration and beauty to our lives. Life is Better With Art. Fun, unique and creative painting and text design by Victoria Lynn Hall.


"While my designs are unique, I like to think that each of them represents something universal in the human experience. The biggest compliment I ever get on my designs is when someone sees one and declares, "that is SO me!" Every time that happens, I feel a little less alone in the world."
Victoria Lynn Hall
Today's Best October 25, 2012

All I want for Christmas is...




Hello friends and followers!


As I shared with you before, this October month I joined a Facebook Group called Affiliate Junction. I liked it because it's a new one. The Group has a small experience going on. Example. The Group created a Christmas Promotion Thread to highlight some products specially created for the Season. Now the Group members are promoting these products any way members want so it gets some extra-visibility online. Then the Members share in the Group if there were any results out from those efforts. The Group wants to provide an opportunity for members to interact and to learn how to get more sales and referrals. I am happy to say that I've already learned some new things about promoting products on Zazzle and I got sales that I have no doubt are a response to the collaborative efforts.


So I am creating my second Affiliate Junction Promotion Thread and this one is all about Christmas. What do you want for Christmas? I am sure that many of you just wish for a blessed day with family, or at least the ones close enough, to get together around a nice table, with good food, on a cozy home. Other ones no doubt will go for a Christmas full of twinkling lights, glistening gold, and shimmering silver! But many, many other longs for the Season so they can exchange gifts - electronics and perfumes and toys and sweets, books and clothes, anything goes! Usually, I create a lot of handmade gifts to exchange because I do love crafts. And then there's always the Zazzle gift possibility! To help you choose within such a big market, I bring you some of this Group Zazzle's products. Check it all!






October 30, 2012

I survived Sandy Storm of the century tshirts


Few things in nature can compare to the destructive force of a hurricane. The term hurricane is derived from Huracan, a god of evil recognized by the Tainos, an ancient aboriginal tribe from Central America. In other parts of the world, hurricanes are known by different names. In the western Pacific and China Sea area, hurricanes are known as typhoons, from the Cantonese tai-fung, meaning great wind. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Australia, they are known as cyclones, and finally, in the Philippines, they are known as baguios.Click on the above link to understand how hurricane is formed.

Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Hurricanes/

Last week I read about a hurricane called Sandy on the internet. It was moving from the Bahamas into the Atlantic Ocean. Americans were calling it Frankenstorm because of its arrival on the eve of Hallowe’en.I remembered Katrina and what it did to New Orleans, a city I allways wanted to visit. I learned the storm could move toward major U.S cities. If that happened Hurricane Sandy could be one of the most destructive hurricanes to strike the U.S. East Coast in many years. The storm was expected to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, which ranks storms from one to five based on maximum wind speeds and destructive potential.


Hurricane Sandy has caused significant damage in New York City and along the Mid-Atlantic coast. Flooding has been reported and lots of snow falling too. Nearly eight million people were without power this morning up and down the East coast. Today I watched several videos and photos showing a great deal of destruction on New York City. It's just too sad to loose what we have, our belongings, our house, a pet. Or, worse, a friend, family. There are at least 100 persons dead. I also watched photos of destruction in Cuba, Domenican Republic and Haiti. Hurricane Sandy’s toll in the Caribbean amounts to at least 69 dead, thousands homeless and few funds available to rebuild. Yet, the Caribbean picture does not have the media spotlight as USA does. In Portugal we don´t have to deal with this unfortunate experience but some meteorologists say that the future can be different. As you know we have a long coastline.I really wish that all my American Zazzle friends are ok.

Meanwhile I found lots of tee-shirts about Frankenstorm ready to shop online.I might consider to design one Hurricane Sandy tshirt if any fund to help American or Caribeean people rebuild somewhere comes to my knowledge. Maybe you remember that I did it for japanese people and kiwi. Normaly I would not have designed two tshirts motivated by natural disasters, it's just too sad. But I designed a tshirt to Japan Earthquake Relief Fund and another to Christchurch Earthquake Relief Fund in New Zealand where my friend Ross was trying to raise some money.I think there are already enough propositions to choose from on Zazzle. Slide down to discover Sandy Storm tshirts some Zazzlers have created already.


October 26, 2012

October 25, 2012

Do you feel like shopping today?



I recently joined a Group on Facebook that's called Affiliate Junction. I did it for several reasons: to get help and to help other fellow Zazzlers to achieve more sales. Willingness to cooperate is all that you need if you want to join too! This is very important if we want to succeed in the market. Visibility means you have to reach your audience and get your products out there. This is a demanding task and to join efforts on promotion seemed to me like a very good idea.

Many times I have written about the loneliness of the creative process. Time and detachment are needed but sometimes I feel like I'm in my own cocoon!! So I also joined this and other Facebook groups so I have some company around.

This is my first contribution. Take a look of some of the work created by Affiliate Junction Group! Do you feel like shopping today? If you're looking for a gift, this might be it! Christmas is coming, it's time to start looking! We have beautiful calendars about beautiful digitally remastered photography of classic Woody Cars, kaleidoscopes color, yummy chocolate! We have pillows inspired by romantic Paris, roses and warm colors! We have iPhone5 Cases with flowers, damask, electronic memories, and animals! And more! Enjoy!