Optimizing Your Maker Profile

You're a maker with a lot of impressive work to share on CustomMade. But how can you make sure that customers see it? It's actually pretty simple. There are two key factors in optimizing your maker profile: volume and visibility. Let's explore each.

Volume

It's a fact -- the more projects you upload to your profile, the higher your chances are that a prospective customer will find you on CustomMade. Not sure how to upload projects to your profile? Learn more here.

Visibility

Although volume is important,  volume plus visibility is the combination that leads to a truly optimized CustomMade presence. When we say "visibility," we're talking about search engine visibility. About 75% of all visitors to CustomMade arrive on the site through search engines such as Google and Bing. These visitors use keywords in the search engine that ultimately land them on one of the webpages that make up CustomMade.com. Here are a few ways to increase your chances that a prospective customer lands on a page displaying one or more of your items:

Give your project a descriptive title. When writing a title, it is important to think like a customer. Which keywords might a customer use to search for your project? Here's an example:

• Good: Modern Table
• Even Better: Modern Mahogany Table and Chair Set

In this brief title, we've identified the style, material, and function of the item. This increases the chance that our project will match one or more keywords that a customer is using to search for an item.

Use additional keywords in the project's description. The project description is the best place to tell the story and inspiration behind the piece. Imagine that your project doesn't have a photo or a title. How would you describe the project to a person who can't see it? If you answered, "using a story with descriptive words," then you are correct!

Take a look at this description of a chest:

 “This piece ended up on the cover of Fine Woodworking, issue 203, along with a how-to article. It was inspired by a photo of a 17th century English chest added to my remembrance of an old pine tool chest that was around in my folks' house when I was a kid.

The lid, panels and sliding, dovetailed tray are ash; the frames are shagbark hickory. I spliced an eye into each end of the lid stay.

The main photo shows a recently completed commission that grew out of the article. There are a few minor design changes to the battens and lid. For this one I used flatsawn cherry for the frames and quartered cherry for the panels.”

By using more than 15 descriptive keywords, this particular piece has a better chance of appearing in a search query and attracting potential customers.