My First Front Page

Yesterday turned out to be a very exciting day for me.  Frankly, it was a day I was beginning to believe would never happen.  After nearly 9 months of setting up shop on Etsy, I made it to the front page for the very first time.   
Started as a pretty normal day.  We were heading out of town to my family's annual Memorial Day picnic in Erie, Pennsylvania.  I checked my stats online and headed out for a quick grocery store run with my little guy.  We were gone long enough to get stuck in a parade route (happens to me every year, you would think I would learn the route by now) and buy 3 bags of candy.  Return home and I have enough time to obsessively check my stats one more time.  I check my views at Craftcult and suddenly in the time I've been at the grocery store 1/2  mile down the road, I have 30 brand new hearts.  I reload the page thinking there has clearly been an error.  Still 30 new hearts.  Realizing I must have entered someone else's shop name, I retype and reload the page.  30 new hearts.  Puzzling.  Suddenly it all clicks, I made it to the front page.  Go to the front page--nope, not there.  Maybe I missed it...what's the name of the site where you find out if you've been in a treasury?  Craftcult?  Do they have a link?  Yes, they do. I enter my name and sure enough, I MADE THE FRONT PAGE.  So freaking exciting I can't catch my breath.  And it's really a pretty treasury, too.  My head is spinning.  I made the front page.   Pretty cool. 

So here's what I learned from my first official "made it to the front page of Etsy" experience.

1. The treasury I was in hit Etsy's front page at 10:00 a.m. est on Monday, Memorial Day morning.  Curious if the holiday was a good thing or a bad thing.  Wonder about the time of day as well. 
   
2. From what I can gather, it had 30 minutes of air time.
   
3. I received 30 shop hearts in this time.  That's one heart per minute.
   
4. The item featured in the treasury (wedding reception rock poster guest book) received 25 hearts, several other items in my shop received hearts as well during this time.
   
5. I had 3 times the amount of traffic in my shop yesterday than my busiest recorded day ever on Google Analytics.
   
6. 314 hits to my shop during the 10:00-10:30 a.m. time
   
7. Traffic came from 30 countries.  The most hits from any single city?  New York.  14 visitors from the Big Apple during my front page exposure.
8. Most important stat of all?  To me it's sales.  Not one sale yesterday, but many conversations that I hope will result in sales in the next few days.

So all in all, an interesting day.  If nothing else, it answered the "wonder what it's like to be on the front page" mystery.  

Lastly, I do have to give a shout out to the wonderful designer that created the lovely treasury I was included in.  Petits Metier is her shop. Hope you'll visit.  While you're there be sure to check out her adorable crocheted owl camera case.  Too stinking cute!