I write regularly for Handmadeology, a blog about all things handmade, and the blog is strongly connected to Etsy sellers. As I am trying to REALLY work at having a good holiday season this year, rather than letting it fly by me, I took all the advice I found in these sites!

It’s almost October, and if you’re an artist of handmade, you are gearing up for the holiday buying season. It seems early…but it isn’t. I thought it might be helpful to see what else others have written about the holiday shopping season. I scoured Handmadeology to collect a set of articles relevant to holiday buying. Some good stuff in here!

Preparation H – H is for “Holidays!”  Packing materials, your mail carrier/s, feeding your family – all things to keep in mind as you get very busy and start to run out of time.

The Holiday Rush Etsy Marketing Formula – this is a free 5-day course. I just read through Day 1, and even though I consider myself pretty savvy about online marketing, there are definitely a couple of things I can do to improve visibility. I’m headed out to look at Digg and Kaboodle today.

25 Things to Do on Your Lunch Break to Further Your Handmade Business – while not directly holidays, there are some good ideas for when we are pressed and thinking there is ot enough time. I really like this one: make lists of your key words – that definitely saves you from writer’s block when you are doing your descriptions.

Etsy Sellers Can’t Afford to Ignore Pinterest – true, true, true. I started pinning a month ago and have seen a definite increase both in traffic and sales. This is a really interesting stat: American users spend an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on Pinterest compared to Twitter at 36 minutes, LinkedIn at 17 minutes, and Google+ at 6 minutes. In terms of the holidays, set up a Pinterest account and start pinning your holiday items.

Your Blog Post Promotion Checklist – for those of you who write a regular blog, here are some great ideas for getting the most out of a post, plus a listing of additional articles on promoting your blog. One of the best tips? Comment on other blogs. I need to get back to doing this regularly. And….REPLY to every comment you get!

Promotesy: this is a new app from Handmadeology to help your organize and maximize your online presence for your Etsy shop. It’s easy to sign up for, and at $5.00 a month, it’s a deal. I’ve just started using it (as of yesterday), so I will keep you posted on how it’s working.

Three Steps to Freshen Up Your Etsy Shop and Be Found Again – wasn’t aware of the “Trending Now,” and this is definitely something I will be checking out.  Also, change some of your descriptions to match the coming holiday season…..good idea, and I’m off to do that!

As I’ve been doing the research for this post, I realize that even if we think we know a lot about marketing on line, there is always more to learn!! I’d love to hear your insights, so feel free to leave a comment: what’s been working for you?