How to get on the coveted Front Page

So many folks wonder how to get on the FP. I thought I'd write a little tutorial to point you in the right direction. Granted, I've only been on there a few times and it was totally a stroke of luck, but I've done some research and think I've figured it out.

1) Have great photos. Yes, you know this already. But it's not just great photos. It's great photos that fit the Etsy opinion on what is a great photo. That means extreme close ups of certain types of items, well staged photos- meaning not just your super crisp item on a white background- it has to create a sense of space in the photo- the less two dimensional, the better.

2) Use the merchandising report. Yes, Etsy pretty much flat out tells you what they are going to be featuring on the FP. They say what colors, what ideas, etc. You must correctly tag your items for these themes. Meaning, if you have earrings with deep purple beads on them, tag them with 'plum' if that is a color tone that is fitting the merchandising report. If fall/autumn is a merchandising theme (like uh, right now) tag your items accordingly. Therefore if you have something that is orange, tag it 'pumpkin orange'. That is a shade that they may be looking for. This is also how those who make treasuries will possibly find you if they are making collections based on merchandising- and if they want their treasury to be on the FP, they are likely doing just that.

3) Make treasuries. Yes, same old, same old. But it's not just making any old treasury. It has to be beautiful. It should contain a wide variety of items with a wide variety of prices. It should fit the merchandising report and be tagged accordingly.

4) Promote these treasuries until the cows come home. We all know that views, clicks and comments make a treasury hotter (along with probably some unknown stuff). Now, having a hot treasury isn't a guarantee of getting on the FP. But surely admin are more likely to see it if it's within, oh I don't know, the first thousand pages of the treasury.

5) Join a treasury team (or start one if you'd like) Power of the people here folks. Get on a team and put each other in treasuries all the time. Cross promote. Comment on each other's treasuries. Yes, IT IS A SYSTEM AND IT CAN BE MANIPULATED. Use that to your advantage should you so choose. Sure, folks can point to this activity as mafia-like, but the mafia was a very successful business (yes, yes they killed people and it was horrible, I know, I know, but all those bastards made a ton of money). So take what you can from those who manipulate the system and learn.

All of this of course has luck play into it, which you cannot control. And of course, maybe you don't have enough time to do all this shit and that's fine too.

But if you want to get on the FP, you can just wait for it to happen, or you can optimize the chances of it happening. The FP is TONS of exposure. I don't care that people say it doesn't lead to sales all the time. If you are getting on the FP twice a month, or twice a day as some folks do, you are going to get a bunch of free advertising. And that can in fact make a huge difference.

If your time is better spent elsewhere, so be it. But then don't worry about who is getting on repeatedly. Those folks are working the system and are getting rewarded for it.

Posted at 11:49am Aug 21, 2010 EDT