Best Loved Child Site & Shop Improvement

There is nothing like getting some sales to get me motivated. I've been doing alot of reading on Search Engine Optomtimization (SEO). This is a scary bunch of words that just means that I'm trying to get my little Etsy store and thus my Arks & Stuff seen by folks that might want to buy them. As a result of this I've taken the advice of the sage experts and done the following:

1. Changed my Etsy Shop Title. I'm still Best Loved Child but the Shop title is the first line after the banner and is what Google and others use in their searches. Mine now reads "Wooden Noah's Ark Sets, Handpainted Decor".  Before it was something fluffy and irrelavant- even I can't remember what it was.

2. Changed all my listing titles. All the Ark stuff listings start with "Wooden Noah's Ark" then tell exactly what the item is.

If you're like the me I was yesterday you are saying "?" or "Who Cares" or other things less flattering. But as a result (This is the Big TA-DA) If you open our best friend Google and type in "Wooden Noah's Ark Set" I'm on the first page. (You have to do "Set", without it I'm MIA. Working on it.) On Etsy if you search Noah's Ark my listings appear easily. Big improvement. I was so excited I called the BL Hubby.  He was properly proud.

I also had an Etsy Showcase today and I wanted to feature my Wooden Noah's Ark Basic Set but  I needed new pictures as I had sold the other Basic Set.  I've been struggling with my photos.  I've never been great with the camera (always wanted to be).  The BL Kids have been some of the least photographed children in America.  Back to research.  Etsy had a blog post that was full of pointers (and made me feel better as some Etsy pros showed their early "bad" pics).  

One of the suggestions was that natural light was the best light for your photos.  Natural light is a problem for me.  When I say I live in the woods, I mean my  house is on a lot with literally a forest of trees.  It gets pretty dark in the summer with all the leaves, etc.  BL Hubby had built me some screens and some clamp on and overhead lights that I've been using but my pictures kept comming out dark - even with computer editing.  I tried to take a pic of my set-up last night but the pictures were so dark you can't see anything.  This morning I had good light from my east kitchen window so I set up my background screens and went to work.  I've been using a white cloth background but it often looks gray.  Looking at my fabric stash I chose a couple and snapped away. The how-to articles were also enlightening as to EV and White balance.  Mine were set completly wrong so I played around with them.  See what you think.

 Original Photo- This was the 2nd set of pic I'd done. I still wasn't happy with it.

This morning's Pics.  Here I used two different fabric backgrounds.  Looking here I like the green one the best but I used the blue clouds in my listing. Got me so delighted I took some more angles. 

This view I used for the listing.

This I used to redo the blog heading and I made some business cards.

Improvement is slow and hard won! Is there such a thing as a personal trainer for the camera?