Comparing My Life to Frozen 2
Does anyone know the song from Frozen 2 called "The Next Right Thing?" That song resonated with me the first time I heard it, I mean, I could really relate to Ana as her life was dramatically crumbling to pieces and she lost all hope in a dark cave. Then she realizes she has the power to do just one more thing. The next right thing. This blog story kind of reminds me of that.
Being Like Ana in a Dark Cave
Background info, I was trained to be an SEO Specialist (search engine optimization aka showing up on search results without paying for ads). Because of this rare and bizarre skill that I have I decided to make myself my own client. I would optimize Kimmie Designs dot com.
When I was trained at my agency we had zero artist clients. In fact, most of our clients were industrial welders and such. Snooze fest. What that means though is there wasn’t a terrible amount of competition in the search landscape and if there was, we could quickly rise our clients to the top. Has that been the case for art? NOPE. Do you know how many abstract artists there are? How many artists just in Houston? How many people make Texas art work? Way too many. Either in search listings or image search my content was just being buried and mainly by Etsy accounts.
Doing the Next Right Thing
I didn’t let all this stop me, I knew the things I needed to do and I knew it was not going to do anything over night. As lots of time passed though I was like dang, I dunno if I can ever rely on this to bring in a profit for me. The leads that were coming in were sometimes spam. I get people via Instagram and my contact form looking to either buy items in bulk or come do a mural. But when we get to talking about payment finally “something messes up” and their accountant can only send a money order with all this “over payment” that I am to “give to the movers” who are coming to pick up the art or letting me in the house. I’m so sorry but that will not be the way that I die.
All this to say that I could never really get excited about leads that came in. Let me throw in some positive vibes though, two of my murals did come through an organic search so yay me. But never ever a print or painting inquiry (positive vibes over).
I have added different image alt texts, done all my page titles, headings, meta descriptions, internal linking, user friendly nav, pages to hit every type of searcher, the whole shebang! Really all to feel like the only way I am going to sell is through markets and I only have a website as like, a pretty little thing to have, and a way to keep track of taxes.
The Light at the end of Tunnel - Or in This Case, Cave
Until one day, I got a notification on my phone from Shopify that someone placed a $100 order. Say word???? I thought it must have been someone I know, that’s also typical. But I looked at the name and it was a total stranger. This perfect stranger bought my 16x20 matted print of Texas. Like, what?!?!? And this is not something I should be squealing about, like seriously, if things went as projected my prints would be flying off the shelves daily, amiright?!
Let’s recap though, this was a stranger, who was not out to involve me in money laundering, who actually came to my website through a blog post, who then ventured over into my products, and MADE A PURCHASE. #goals.
I actually almost cried cuz it was just a little something that I needed to happen to give me that little nudge saying to keep on keeping on. I also recorded myself with the excitement and you can kind of hear the tears coming so please enjoy this little gem.
Anyways, I ramble on and on not to brag, but to show you a glimpse of my reality that once again, nothing is perfect, nothing is coming easy, I have to work my butt off, I have to remind myself daily what my goal is, and I have to keep pushing. I know y’all had to have felt the same, especially during this wonderful year of 2020. Have you been able to find a little diamond in the rough? If so, please share in the comments!