Could use some feedback

[Maralane]

Hi all,

I have been toiling away and have made over 300 products for my store and I have spent a lot of time trying to make the store look good and complete.

So far I only have a couple sales so needless to say I know I need to do more social media, but before I begin doing that more I would like to insure my store looks ok. 

If anyone has the time, would you mind terribly to take a look and let me know if you see any glaring issues?

I really appreciate it

PS: I am aware that my site could use more paper products as that seems to be what is favored on Zazzle. I am slowly working on that.

[northpolenomad]

Hey there! You have a lot of great designs. Have u tried using mockups to help some of your items stand out in the search results? There are a lot of inexpensive ones on Etsy and even some free ones on Canva. Just a suggestion. Best of luck with your store. 😊

[Maralane]

@northpolenomad thank you very much for the suggestion. I have pondered that a lot. I was waiting until I started to get sales before I took that step. I wonder if I need to make that step now though. Anyone have any thoughts?

[xzendor7 · Accepted solution]

Hi Maralane

Your cover image looks nice, but that huge blank space needs to be filled

And some typography using your shop name in script, as I think it would flow nicely with the flowers.

If you have a website add it below your shop name.

Or you can add some of your artwork in that space.

Your dog artwork blended in with some of your abstract art, like the Rainbow & Gold would look nice

You should also create categories based on your specific designs; so that a visitor can see the variety of products that the design is on.

As far as sales go, remember there is a lot of competition in the POD space and it is only going to get more competitive as the labor market shifts to one that is more self employed oriented; therefor marketing is very important.

Building a social networking presence is essential on all of the major platforms, Instagram, Twitter(X), Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube...

If you don't have a website I would suggest you get one.  If you don't know how to do web hosting, getting a domain, or setting up a CMS like wordpress; there are plenty of free and paid platforms that are available to get you started and that deal with all the heavy lifting.

The advantages of having your own online presence is that you can do what ever you want on it; write about the artwork you create, show people how you go about the creation process using video or snapshots, send people from the site to different POD platforms where they can purchase your artwork; as well as promote other things related to your artwork.

I currently prefer to use the Wordpress platform.  It's easy to use there are lots of plugins to extend its capability and best of all in 99% of situation no coding is required.  I use to code my own sites, and using Wordpress is the best way to go.

Having your own websites is advantageous, as the search engines are more likely to discover who you are (If you have done a proper job with your SEO) and you will also tend to build worldwide exposure; and if you ever decide to do paid marketing like PPC, PPI or eMail, having potential customer to your site first is essential, as you don't want to be promoting the POD platform, by sending visitors to your shop.

Hope some of this information helps.

[Maralane]

@xzendor7 wow thanks for taking the time to do this.

My first question as I start to read through:

You said: "Your cover image looks nice, but that huge blank space needs to be filled"

Are you referring to my main page banner?

[Maralane]

I created and uploaded a new banner. Not sure how I feel about it.

Will keep working on going through your notes over the coming days.

Thank you once again

[xzendor7]

Much better; I would also include below your shop name some the designs that can be found in your shop in smaller letters.
Say something like:
A Beautiful Realm Of
Puppy Art, Floral Decorations, Dynamic Abstract Creations
Or
Beautiful Art Decor Featuring
Dynamic Abstracts, Puppy Artwork, Enchanting Floral Creation
Or
Beautiful Art Decor For Home & Office
Floral Artwork, Mesmerizing Abstracts, Puppy's Of Love

You can see what I am going for with this.

In you about and your bio page also include of mirror this, so that potential visitors know what you have to offer.

If you have Social Networking accounts that are already setup for promotion make sure to include, or convey the type of artwork you produce.

If your accounts are personal accounts create some new ones to focus on your artwork.

If you have several POD accounts on different platforms; then either create a page with links to those shops or use a platform like linktree to put your account links in.

I create my own pages as this allows me to add images and videos that can increase interest on the artwork that I produce.

[Maralane]

Thank you. I will keep working through this stuff over the weekend 

[xzendor7]

Ok; and continued success with your shops.

One more thing if you can keep up the schedule uploading a new piece of art daily can help you in getting notice on the platform or at least 3 times a week.

Remember there are roughly 900,000 creators on Zazzle, so uploading frequently and trying to create trend designs is vital when you are first starting out - and do not forget about your marketing; then later you can look into advertising.

[Maralane]

This makes complete sense, Will try to do so

Thank you!

[xzendor7]

The Home Landing Page Looks Very Good.

Another thing I would suggest Maralane, when using your Pinterest account, is to include trending keywords related to the type of art you are creating in the post.

A tool that can help with this is Keywords Everywhere.  It is a browser extension (FireFox & Chrome) that when activated, lets you enter a keyword or phrase telling you the amount of traffic the keyword/keyphrase receives and the other related words that you can use in your title and descriptions for the post.

If I remember correctly it cost $10 for 100,000 credits and each keyword/keyphrase search cost one credit.

The tool pulls in trends from Pinterest and Google.

Look at this video from the creators of the tool to see how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3qchwVuAUQ&t=498s

The tool also has a built in ChatGPT prompt generator to help you create content.

[Maralane]

Thank you!

Will take a look at Keywords Everywhere

[Maralane]

Here are my responses

Much better; I would also include below your shop name some the designs that can be found in your shop in smaller letters.

Say something like:

A Beautiful Realm Of

Puppy Art, Floral Decorations, Dynamic Abstract Creations

Or

Beautiful Art Decor Featuring

Dynamic Abstracts, Puppy Artwork, Enchanting Floral Creation

Or

Beautiful Art Decor For Home & Office

Floral Artwork, Mesmerizing Abstracts, Puppy's Of Love

You can see what I am going for with this.

I had originally added this to the Banner, but then moved it to the tagline under my shop name. Let me know if this is incorrect

In your about and your bio page also include of mirror this, so that potential visitors know what you have to offer.

If you have Social Networking accounts that are already setup for promotion, make sure to include, or convey the type of artwork you produce.

If your accounts are personal accounts create some new ones to focus on your artwork.

Both my Instagram and Pinterest are Business accounts. I just need to really start using them more. Started to use Pinterest in the last week or so

If you have several POD accounts on different platforms; then either create a page with links to those shops or use a platform like linktree to put your account links in.

Only the one shop at this time. Will look at doing a Link tree for what I do have currently

 I create my own pages as this allows me to add images and videos that can increase interest on the artwork that I produce.

Will keep this in mind when I begin creating my page

[xzendor7]

Yes I am.
The cover image or banner will mostly like be captured by search engines so it should convey a message of who you are and what can be found on your site.  Also there are other automated tools from various companies that scan the internet building up profiles, that also look at these header images and can get an idea of what your account is about.  This then is added to various databases which starts to build up some back-link juice.

[Maralane]

Hi @xzendor7, I was able to work through your first bit of feedback. See my responses in Italics

Your cover image looks nice, but that huge blank space needs to be filled

And some typography using your shop name in script, as I think it would flow nicely with the flowers.

Re-worked both my store banner and my personal page banner as well as the logos. I think I finally landed on something I like and I believe it looks a lot better than the original. Let me know if I missed the mark

If you have a website add it below your shop name.

Are you speaking of the tagline? Will work on this as I have time

Or you can add some of your artwork in that space.

I may revise my banner again to include some product images. Will likely come back to this

Your dog artwork blended in with some of your abstract art, like the Rainbow & Gold would look nice

Will experiment with this

You should also create categories based on your specific designs; so that a visitor can see the variety of products that the design is on.

Are you referring to the overall Category image? Or Collection image?

As far as sales go, remember there is a lot of competition in the POD space and it is only going to get more competitive as the labor market shifts to one that is more self employed oriented; therefor marketing is very important.

Building a social networking presence is essential on all of the major platforms, Instagram, Twitter(X), Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube...

This is an area I need to improve upon. I have Instagram, although it is a pain to post on and have begun doing Pinterest and some people are looking at my designs, occasionally they will click through, but no sales as a result yet

If you don't have a website I would suggest you get one.  If you don't know how to do web hosting, getting a domain, or setting up a CMS like wordpress; there are plenty of free and paid platforms that are available to get you started and that deal with all the heavy lifting.

The advantages of having your own online presence is that you can do what ever you want on it; write about the artwork you create, show people how you go about the creation process using video or snapshots, send people from the site to different POD platforms where they can purchase your artwork; as well as promote other things related to your artwork.

Will focus on creation of a website after my products are in a place I want them to be

I currently prefer to use the Wordpress platform.  It's easy to use there are lots of plugins to extend its capability and best of all in 99% of situation no coding is required.  I use to code my own sites, and using Wordpress is the best way to go.

Having your own websites is advantageous, as the search engines are more likely to discover who you are (If you have done a proper job with your SEO) and you will also tend to build worldwide exposure; and if you ever decide to do paid marketing like PPC, PPI or eMail, having potential customer to your site first is essential, as you don't want to be promoting the POD platform, by sending visitors to your shop.

Thank you. I will check this out for sure

Hope some of this information helps.

I will take a look at your follow up feedback and let you know if I have any questions.

Thanks again

[xzendor7]

I forgot one thing to add Maralane.

In the home page of the members section, you only have an about.

In your settings also add your stores here, latest products sold and latest products created.

You want to have as little blank space on your account pages as possible; your pages should look dynamic with as much of your artwork as possible.

If you checkout my mbr page you can see what I mean.

[Maralane]

Here are my responses

I forgot one thing to add Maralane.

In the home page of the members section, you only have an about.

Fixed – Thanks for catching that

In your settings also add your stores here, latest products sold and latest products created.

Fixed – was not even aware of this. I excluded Latest products sold until I get a few more sales

You want to have as little blank space on your account pages as possible; your pages should look dynamic with as much of your artwork as possible.

Are you referring to the page with my name and not my store name?

 If you checkout my mbr page you can see what I mean.

Will do