An introduction to needle felting

So to practise for a possible online TV show (nothing written in stone, dont get too excited) I decided to make a series of needle felting tutorials. Here is the first one, an introduction to the equipment needed to needle felt
I hope you all like it, if you are interested in trying felting I also included some links to some of the shops I use for my felting supplies

http://www.winghamwoolwork.co.uk/
www.mohairbearmakingsupplies.co.uk
http://www.worldofwool.co.uk/
http://www.glasseyesonline.com/

and of course please have a look at my Etsy Shop if you are interested in your own felted sculpture or my bookmark tutorial

Etsy and Google SEO's - trying to improve the Shetland Pony Sculptures ranking

So for the past year in my Etsy shop I have been working really hard to learn Etsy SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
And I really feel that I have got quite a good grip on that, I can take an item, think of the important tag and get that item to the front page of the search every time I have tried it. I have tested my methods on my shop many times and on family and friends shops (If anyone would be interested I can do a tutorial on this, just request it in the comments)

That has been really great, my views are 5 times what they were a year ago and sales are way way better

But I was thinking
This is only really bringing in people who are already on Etsy
What we REALLY want is to hit that massive market of people searching for things on Google, that would help everyone with a shop as it gets Etsy known.

So I decided to focus on one easy tag and see if I could get it to the front page on google

My first thought was to try and optimise this item

Needle felted Shetland pony 

And to use the tag 'Needle Felted Shetland Pony'

So I went onto Google to see where my starting position was there and I hit a bit of an unexpected problem (in a good way) For that search that image comes up 2nd in google images and in the first 3 hits my horses in my shop are in two of them :D 

A fab problem, without trying on a specific term like that my wee pony is doing great :) 

So it seems SOME Etsy SEO does help a whole lot with Google SEO

Great start

OK so lets pick a wider search

'Shetland Pony Sculpture' 

So searching that I am quite amazed to see this listing is 2nd down on page two and it is on the first page of the images

So far so good :) It seems that Etsy SEO isnt quite so horrible for Google SEO - but still I am getting no clicks from Google so lets see if we can improve that position and get some traffic.

So here are my stats for this week

7 Views!! 

71 Favourites (I was involved in a hearts game) 

All views came from Etsy with the tags 'horse' or 'horse sculpture'

So lets see if we can improve that focusing on the tag 'Shetland Pony Sculpture'

First thing I have done you can see ^^ up there the line 'Shetland Pony Sculpture' is a click-able link

Shetland Pony Sculpture

And on this image the Title and caption is 'Shetland Pony Sculpture' and its clickable back to my shop. I am just about to pop over to my shop and try and focus my tags for that search too.

This is where everyone else comes in, can you share my tag and link? and let me know where in the comments below and I will share what you want and try and help each other

The more we help each other to drive traffic to our shops the more traffic we drive to Etsy itself and that is good for all of us :)

Im off to share this everywhere I can :) I will let you know the results and what else I learn about Google SEO

Why dosent the dog just move away?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152936315227506
In a group I am in people are chatting about this video (sorry Im not sure how to put it up here so just click the link)

It is a confusing video, to start with it looks like the dog is really enjoying licking the baby, when the baby moves there are loads of signs from the dog that he is not wanting the baby there, leaning away, ears back, whale eye etc
But the argument most people use is that the dog must be happy because there is nothing stopping him moving away

This really got me thinking
I often say to Ben 'you can just move away' when a male dog gets a little over friendly with him, even if the other dog is on the lead Ben will not just move away, instead he will start giving out warnings. I try and step in before this point but sometimes Im not quick enough and he starts freezing, whale eye, lip wrinkles, growls and sometimes even a air snap

I actually dont think dogs see an option to move away - all their signs is to tell the other dog/animal to move away
The only time I can think of I have seen a dog move away is actually in fear (and even then only some dogs move away due to fear, many more try and make the other thing go away)
Its almost like moving away is an apology so the dog being 'wronged' is not going to say sorry, he is going to make the other dog (baby) do that

So please do not assume your dog is OK with something because they havent chose to move away - perhaps they dont see the option of actually moving away