Road Trip to Nimbin

I don't need much of an excuse to take a road trip....I've been doing it all my life and love it, but now with Ethikl, I have plenty of reasons to pack up the car and hit the highway on a road trip. This weekend we headed down to Uki and Nimbin in Northern NSW on our search for new ethical designers to come and join our growing community.

It was a beautiful drive down, I am still awestruck by the natural landscape that was all around us...

http://www.markets.nimbincommunity.org.au/

Our first stop was the Nimbin Markets where we discovered some amazing jewellery designers as well of lots of other amazing and colourful people. I had some delicious organic coffee and homemade thai coconut cake...Mmmmm

We stopped in at the Nimbin Environment Centre and had a chat with the inspirational and dedicated volunteer staff there. They told us about all the great work they have been doing since they opened their new head office in the main street

Our next destination where we stuffed ourselves silly was the legendary Sphinx Rock Cafe, an amazing cafe nestled at the base of the mountains with mouth watering organic food, great music and a sandpit for the kids to play and heaps of space for them to run around. Situated at Mt Burrell between Murwillumbah and Kyogle, it’s a great destination to relax and take in the positive energy of the rainbow region.

http://www.sphinxrockcafe.com/

After we rolled out of there we took the back roads over to Stokers Siding and stopped at Stokers Siding Pottery, where we had a long chat with the Wife of Bob Connery (the world famous potter) about local designers.

http://www.stokerspottery.com.au/  

A lot of fun things are happening online with Ethikl, but as often as possible we try to take advantage of trips like this to get offline and hang out with all the great people that make our products.

What are Tags?

Tags (keywords and meta tags) are words sellers attach to their items in the item listing process. When searching for the perfect handmade, organic or natural item on Ethikl, a shopper will browse Categories or use Search to find their items. Since tags are keywords for Searching, and they are also used to organise items in Categories and Subcategories, it's important to understand how to tag your items correctly and effectively so that buyers can find them!

The step-by-step guide below will give you ideas for good tags to help buyers find your item and help it get featured. If you are having a hard time thinking of tags, look in your title and description for keywords.

Tagging ideas

Who is it for?
You may pick as many correct ones as you want. Eg. women, men, baby, children, boy, girl, adult, pets, dog, cat.

What is the main material?
Add the major material to your tags, if it is something you think a buyer might search for to find your item. Add minor materials or component materials Eg. leather, cotton, canvas, felt, metal, 14K gold, sterling silver, glass. If there are two words to describe a material, use them both, as separate tags. Eg. cotton, canvas. metal, 14K gold. mahogany, wood. merino, wool.

What is the main colour?
Buyers are not likely to look for minor colours in your piece, so stick to the main colour(s) or important colour combos! Eg. white, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

What method or technique did you use to make it?
Only relevant for some items. Hammered (for metal jewellery), burned (for woodworking), appliquéd, embroidered.

Where will the item be used?
kitchen, hair, office, beach, garden, car, nursery.

What size is it?
small, extra large, 7mm, 18in, 8x10.

What style is it?
goth, victorian, hippie, punk, impressionist, post-modern, feminine, sophisticated, southwestern, sweet, spicy, salty.

Imagery or motifs that are on the item.
Dog, landscape, nature, Elvis .

Don't put multiple words in one tag box, unless they are a phrase.
Do tag with "sterling silver". Don't tag with "silver earrings", these should be two different tags.

So there is a little help with understanding tags. So now you can go nut and list a while heap of amazing artisan items!