Shop Basics: Tips On Using Your Blog to Advertise Your Shop

You have a shop and wonder if you should have a blog to share your work and creations? Yes!
Advertising is key to every business; if you don’t advertise how would anyone know who you are? Blogging is great for getting your name and product out there and a way to show people who you are behind the machine, glue gun, camera or jewelry pliers {in my case!} I am going to share with you some tips on how to utilize a blog as free (yes, free!) advertisement for your shop.

Here’s my Top 10:
1. Make sure your shop and blog have the same name. It’ll be easier for people to remember and find you.
2. Build a relationship; you need to interact with your readers. Don't be afraid to be yourself.
3. Find your Community and join Blog link ups. If you don’t know where to start remember Google and Pinterest are your friends. Find those creative link ups to gain more views by people with similar interests. {We will be sharing a list of blog hops and link ups next week, so look for those!}
4. Get a button for your blog or shop. You can make one on PicMonkey like Ashley showed you here. If you don’t have time to make one, you can find a Seller on Etsy to design one for you inexpensively. You’ll be able to use it to advertise on other blogs and readers can grab it off your blog and put it on theirs.
5. If you want to swap buttons with other bloggers make sure you do your research. Don’t agree just because they asked you. You want to make sure their blog reflects the same values as yours and shares a similar audience.
6. It does take Money to make Money. Find a blog you have the same views with and see if they have an option of advertising on their blog. I do recommend this, but don’t go out and buy ad space on every blog you come across. It’s not Monopoly; you need to make sure you’re not spending more than you’re making in the long run.
7. If you decide to offer advertising for other blogs don’t sell yourself short. A popular hosting website to use is Passionfruit Ads. It’s easy to put the plugin on your blog with your prices of ad space you offer next to it.
8. Periodically have giveaways. It doesn’t have to be an expensive item from your shop. This will drive traffic into your blog and shop. For my giveaways I use Rafflecopter it’s a great tool to use and free.
9. Be consistent, you get back what you put in to it.
10. Get Google analytics; it's a free tool that shows what search keywords they searched for to get to your blog, what website they entered your blog from, how long they were on your blog, and so much more. It will help you put together your posts more efficiently in that more posts will get more hits when you research the information that brought them to your blog in the first place. People on your blog=people in your shop=sales!

Do you have a shop you'd like to share? A blog as well? Let us know below so we can come check you out!