Seller Handbook

When their first child was born, Lee Golden asked her husband, John W. Golden, to design art with a tin toy robot theme for the nursery. The look that John created for his son's room has become the foundation for the signature style of his eponymous Etsy shop, John W. Golden, which is stocked with retro-inspired images of robots, animals, cities and outer space, along with a family-friendly collection of cheeky “by the order of the management” signs.

John opened his Etsy shop, which is based in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 2006. Two years later, when the shop started to generate as much income as his freelance animation and illustration work, he decided to focus on the business full time. These days, it's a family affair: Lee, the studio manager, acts as a sounding board for John's ideas. She's also in charge of packing and shipping orders and prepping materials, allowing John to focus on creating the artwork and made-to-order products at the heart of the business. John and Lee now have three children ranging in age from nine to 17.

In the past eight years, John has racked up nearly 15,000 sales on Etsy. “I was very lucky to get established before the downturn in the economy,” he says. “By the time that came, we were able to hold on tight and come out the other side.” One of his secrets to success is an intricate system for pinpointing tags and keywords to draw relevant shoppers into his shop. One such fortuitous visit came from McGaw Graphics, a publisher that has been pivotal for helping get his name out into the world. The company represents his work and has brokered deals with catalogs, including Garnet Hill and Land of Nod, for new collections, including bedding and sleepwear printed with his artwork. John's artwork has also adorned the sets of television shows and movies, including One Tree Hill and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel. John recently spoke to Julie Schneider, writer-editor for Etsy’s Seller Handbook blog, to discuss what he has learned along the way.

How do you balance running a business and raising a family?

Fortunately, I married well. My wife and I can spend 24 hours a day together and not get sick of each other. Right from the very beginning, I saw running my own business as an opportunity to see my kids more. They’ve have never had a dad who worked outside of the home, and sometimes I wonder if they know that other kids’ dads leave and don’t come back till just before bedtime. Over the years, they’ve learned that if they come down [to the studio] and ask me questions, it might take a second before I start paying attention. One of these days I’d like to have one of those big white airy studios with lots of windows. But I guess that means I couldn’t be home any more. I’ve made do with the old garage as the tradeoff for being able to be around more. The five of us have worked out a system where we know what to do in order to have this lifestyle.

What’s your secret sauce for selecting tags?

Once I know what my product is, I think about who it’s for and ask, “How would I search for that if I was this person?” With the the predictive typing in the search bar on Etsy, you can find suggested tags. I’ll even just type the first letter and see what it suggests because words might show up that I hadn’t even considered. If I’m tagging for “dog art,” I’ll see what happens if I just type “dog a” and go through the alphabet like that. I’ve opened up new tag phrases for myself by doing that. Google Adwords Keywords Planner is another good place to get ideas.

I also use a system that involves Excel spreadsheets: I start out with a blank sheet. In one column, I’ll add what I call the “root tag.” This column is dedicated to the word “children,” for example. In the column to right of the root tag, I add what I call “tag phrases,” such as “art for children” and other modifying tags. Rather than writing “art for children’s room” all the way out, I use different cells in the spreadsheet to add or remove a modifier and work out different tag phrases based on the root tag. And I don’t use single word tags if I can help it. This system might sound complicated, but it actually simplifies it for me; I don’t spend time writing out long tag phrases and I’m able to just add what’s different from the tag above it. Also, I refresh tags regularly. Even if I think that I’m flush with the best tags, I’ll go back and see which tags aren’t really performing. It’s an ongoing process.

How do you measure the success of your tags?

I aim to have first-page placement of an item in search results. I have the best success with tags that appear on the first, second and third pages of search results. If a listing doesn’t show up there, I will try to find a better tag. One tag might yield 85,000 search results, while tagging it for something else might yield 3,000 results. Just because there are only 3,000 results for a term doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable tag. I value tags based on where they rank in the actual search results. A tag that’s a little more specific puts a listing in front of people who are more likely to be looking for it. I also use Shop Stats quite a bit to look at tag effectiveness.

What challenges have you encountered?

I had a real struggle when Etsy’s default search results switched from sorting by recency to sorting by relevancy. I had established enough of a presence where people were still finding my stuff, but it was declining. It was a huge day for me when I realized that it wasn’t that the change caused this — it was me; I had to be accountable. A lot of the decline happened because I hadn’t taken the time to really get up to speed on the new search results system. When the day came that I thought, “I get this now. It can be fixed,” I was re-energized. That's when I developed my current process of identifying tags that are going to put my work in front of the people who are looking for it. And, I got a chance to sit down with my older Etsy friends, and as I explained it to them, that helped me to understand it more.

How has helping other entrepreneurs helped your business?

It’s funny, I didn’t really realize how much helping other people was a part of my business. But I’m very willing to help other people, because if you want success for yourself, you’ve got to embrace it anywhere you can find it. Helping someone else be more successful — besides being a good feeling — puts a little money in the karma bank. I’d like to get a group of Etsy sellers together and let them pick my brain. I’ve got to tell somebody this stuff or else it’s a very isolated existence working from home in the garage.

How do you stay motivated?

We’re at a level where I need to always be making stuff, especially since we make our products on demand. Unfortunately, that feeling you get the first time that somebody buys something from you on Etsy doesn’t last forever. The more times it happens, the more it becomes part of the routine. So, I work hard to be grateful for every order that comes in and try to keep as much of that first-time feeling. I put a lot of my heart into what I do and try to keep it as emotional as possible, in terms of what I put into the business. I heard somebody refer to it as a heart-based business, and that’s really what I strive to maintain.

What was a pivotal moment for your business? Share what you discovered in the comments.