Boost Etsy Sales in 2019 with my Etsy SEO Secrets

Do you want to get more sales in your Etsy shop? Today I'm going to talk about the tips trick secrets and SEO advice that have taken my shop so that last year my sales were a thousand times what they

were five years ago not only that but I have grown a year-on-year since I started implementing these tips.

And it looks like my 2019 sales are going to be even better again!!

Five years ago, for example my 2018 sales were a hundred and fifty times what they were in 2017

Don't you want that for your shop?

So what are the secrets that cause one shop to be successful over other shops? Is it games, tricks, special adverts? Are they doing something secret that you don’t know about?

Actually its ‘simple’ to sell online you need two things

1.       You need to be found by the right people

2.       You need to have the things that the people who find you want to buy

There are many ways that big shops might be getting found by their customers. Blogs, Social media, websites or even traditional media.

How can we, the little Etsy shop, compete with that?

Well for the little guy like us, for anyone just starting out with online selling before you have that online presence, before you have fans sharing you our secret sauce that give is the edge in getting seen is SEO.

SEO, Search Engine Optimisation is taking your listings and optimising them by explaining to the search engine exactly what our listings are in a way that we have identified our customers are searching for.

Etsy tells us that when a buyer enters a query (that is when they type a term into the Etsy search box) Etsy then searches through all the matching items on Etsy and ranks them according to a number of factors.

then searches through all the matching. The point of this ranking is so that when someone searches, Etsy shows the person the items that they are most likely to buy.

This is the most important metric; Etsy wants to give shoppers the items that they want to buy because simply put this means Etsy gets money and people keep coming back to Etsy because it is an enjoyable experience where they can easily find items.

So this tells us you could have all of what you consider all the best SEO practises in the world, your listings could follow the perfect structure that Etsy outlines we should use, in your mind doing things so much better than your competitors shops but if their listing is just more likely to sell when a customer sees it than your listing is then their listing is likely to rank higher than your listing.





Or if you are trying to fool the system, for instance if you are trying to rank for a misleading term (if you consider that might get you seen by a bigger audience)  say you are selling a baby hat but have decided you want to rank it under the search for ‘Wedding Ring’ if someone searches for a wedding ring and your baby hat turns up, that is NOT what they wanted and they are not likely to buy it. Etsy will see this and accordingly you will drop down in the rankings.

This is where listings that don’t look as well optimised at yours might actually rank better.

The information that we give Etsy is to give it an idea of what our item is, but if it performs badly then its going to drop down in the rankings however good SEO you have.

Telling Etsy what we think our items is is a good start in getting ranked. But what are these secrets to good Etsy SEO?

Most people actually miss the very first step!

Identify your target before you even make a listing (Or even better a series of listings) or before you go out and look for the vintage items you want to buy, or kits and supplies you want to create.

The very first thing you want to do is to have decided on what your keywords are going to be, what you are aiming for before you even create your listing

But what are keywords?   

Keywords, or keyword phrases are simply the query, the words that potential customers are typing into the search box

We want to aim for one phrase that buyers are using that we think we might be able to rank for. If you try and rank for many keyword phrases at once the chances are that you are going to rank for none of them partially because you are not being clear to Etsy exactly what you think your item is. So we want to hone in on one phrase, in the future if this phrase did well for this items then we could aim for more later, if you manage to rank for one and your item is doing really well then It might be easier to rank for more things as Etsy has a good history of how customers interact with your item.

What you are wanting to do is to think up a whole load of phrases that you think might be relevant to the items that you are thinking of making

Ask friends what they would search for if they were looking for something like your item

Brainstorm different word, different phrases, different synonyms for the words that you are planning and then focus in on the most descriptive ones.

You want to investigate how much competition these items have (How many shops are selling similar items that Etsy might show them in the same search results.
How optimised the other listings are for that search term (how exactly the titles and tags say the exact phrase compared to slightly different wording or wording in a different order)

How much it is searched for on Etsy

The Google adsence the cost per click to advertise for that term

And also if it’s a time sensitive term like Valentine’s day, Halloween or Christmas, and when does the search volume for those terms really pick up? (you would want to if possible, to get your items listed just before customers start searching for those terms)

Equally important is how descriptive of your item is this search term? What you want the most is for someone searching for this term to have a really good idea in mind of what they want to buy.

For example

If someone is searching for the word ‘ring’ they really don’t know what they want, this is a very broad keyword term, so if they search they are going to see a page of lots of different rings and they might get a better idea of what they are actually looking for, but they are unlikely to actually BUY at this stage. So even if your items were able to show up for the term ‘ring’ and lots of people are searching for this term it is actually unlikely your item will get clicked on and even less likely that your item will get purchased.
The next step for the customer here is likely that they will search for a more descriptive term.

So if your keyword is more descriptive, for example ‘Amethyst, Steampunk engagement ring’ this is VERY descriptive and the person searching for this has a really good idea of what they are looking for and are far more likely to click on items and likely to buy if what your listing is matches exactly what they were thinking of.

So that’s step one

Find your target

Step two is

Lock your target

You want to create your listing around that target keyword phrase that you have identified where your title is as brief as possible, with the keyword phrase and as little else

Etsy tells us OFTEN that they are looking for short descriptive titles so you want to have that phrase at the beginning of your title in the exact order

So

‘Amethyst Steampunk Engagement ring’

Or

‘Steampunk engagement ring, amethyst’

Are not the same.

You have to put your keyword in your title in the exact order you identified it to be considered an exact match for relevance (Etsy tells us they consider relevance in ranking listings)

I have seen some evidence in testing my listings that the least other terms you have in your titles the higher your listing ranks for that keyword you were aiming for, it is again more relevant so

‘Amethyst Steampunk Engagement Ring’

 instead of

‘Amethyst Steampunk Engagement Ring, Gothic Gift for her, gift for bride, wedding ring’

Simply put the second title has the chance to rank in several searches and you might see many items on Etsy with titles like this, but it is less relevant for each phrase so the ranking power for each individual phrase is likely to be less than for just focusing in on one phrase.

So if you really want to rank well for a keyword you want to test the one keyword phrase you want to focus in on and first get ranking for that one phrase because that will give you a SEO boost because its such an exact match, Etsy totally understands what your item is

And super-secret bonus

Do you know who else likes short, specific to the point titles? Google does, so if you aim for the short titles that is just the keyword phrase then Google is more likely to rank you as well. If you bring traffic from google then guess what, Etsy is going to like your item better too so it’s a win-win.

Step three is

Take that shot

And you really want to pay attention to this section because we have EVEN MORE secret tips here

You have your keywords, you know what you are doing, you have made the listing.

Let’s publish it.

You can increase your shops relevancy for this tag by adding it in your shop’s description, creating some more similar listings that contain in a tag the keyword phrase you were aiming for and also linking from those slightly less optimised listings to this most optimised listing.

All this can help, especially with google search but they also all help with Etsy as well. So for your less optimised listings what you can do is think about ‘Nested Keywords.

Nested Keywords are keyword phrases that contain your main keywords within them.

For example, if I was aiming for a needle felted dog as a keyword term then several listings with specific dogs.

For example

Labrador Dog

Needle felted pit bull dog

Needle felted Staffie dog

Or if your keyword was ‘steampunk ring, then you could look at

‘silver steampunk ring gemstone’

‘steampunk ring silver gemstone’

All these could be separate listings that are slightly different for slightly different items but they all feed into this one keyword phrase with your main ‘hero’ item being the most focused for this keyword phrase. They all help boost each other’s ranking by telling the search engine that you are an ‘authority’ for that subject but they also really help boost this one special listing.   

So you are not just creating one item from this keyword phrase that you have found, you are creating a series that are all focused in on this keyword phrase.

You do not want to publish this series all on one go on the same day, it is much better if you drip-feed this out over the course of a week or so, you are posting a new item once or twice a day.

The reasons for this are

1.       And item gets a newness boost in the search for being new, and quite often you can get quite high, even to page one of a competitive search term in the first day or so of your listing but that drops off quickly the more the term is searched. So posting over a period of time gives each new listing a few hours in the Sun, a few hours on page one for you to see what listings and what pictures do best with your target customers

2.       It keeps you to the front of your followers feed, if people are favouriting your shop, they will see your new listing right there on their Etsy homepage

If you were to list every item at once they will be buried within a few minutes are other people add their listings but if you post one item every day you have more chance to be seen and be in front of the feed when someone logs on

3.       You can also build up excitement on social media and your mailing list if you know you are just about to launch a series then making it an event to tell people you have collection of new items coming out over the next week you can make people excited. You can even make this a limited time event by saying these items are only going to be available for a short time

So now your listings are out there you want to give Etsy some good data. Sadly, no matter how good your items are if its not getting any traffic to it then Etsy can’t tell if its any good or not. For instance even if you rank well for a keyword term If its up there at a time when there are just less people searching then the information Etsy sees it is going to be hard to tell if its really a quality item or not and it might drop you out of search before people have really had a chance to see your item

So to help that

If your listing is something you can make multiples of, if someone messages you in a private message or a custom request asking if you can make something and it is pretty much that item then rather than creating a custom order for them then link them to that item.

I do that with my custom dog sculptures. When people mail me to ask if I can make a specific breed of dog I tell them I can and link to the specific custom listing I am trying to build up and tell them that is the listing they need to purchase and that way the  listing I have chosen gets a lot more engagement and sales.
And the same if friends are wanting something, instead of selling direct of making a special listing for them with ‘mates rates’ (if that is what you are doing)  then you can give them a link and a coupon code for the discount.

I know some people will be saying ‘But this means I have to pay Etsy fees for the sale’ and yes of course this is true, but it is giving you a little boost in SEO which might be worth it if it brings you more customers.

It also gives you more experience of dealing with sales and if you are new can give you some extra feedback scores. (It is against the rules for friends and family to give you fake feedback but its fine if they were looking to buy anyway and are giving an honest review) This helps with your customer experience score which can help your entire shop look better for Etsy.

Also consider in a blog or social media or in your shop updates some posts about how your item is made, a sequence of posts about your idea for the listing, what inspired you, how you found it, a little of your process of how you created it (people love to see the artist creating their work) or how people can use or display the item and remember to link to your item.

Bonus tip especially if you are wanting to rank better on Google you can choose the text so that you link to an item that’s hyperlinked text. If you can choose it use your keyword phrase so the link that people click on to take them to your item is your actual keyword phrase.

Although some SEO experts say this is out of date advice, many people who have been testing this still find it works in Google and it certainly cannot hurt your shop if the exact phrase is in the link you have clicked on.

Another thing to consider for the future on Etsy but works for Google is if you right- click your picture and do a image search for this picture you can find what Google’s clever robot thinks your image is so for example if your item is a Needle felted Labrador and Google recognises it as a Labrador or a needle felted Labrador then your item might show up in image searches for needle felted Labradors and you are giving extra information to Google that your item is exactly what you are telling them it is.

So consider when you are choosing your main photograph that it is a clear and uncluttered image, this might help in the future tell the search engine even better to understand what your item is. (Etsy does not have this feature yet but where Google goes so often other search engines follow)

Wait! You are not done yet!

A few weeks after you have put your listing up you want to check where your item is ranking, you want to check if all the work you have done is actually working for you. Obviously, sales are a great indication but Etsy gives us so much more information to help us tweak and improve listings.

Check in your shop dashboard under ‘Marketing’ then ‘Analytics Beta’ You can search for the search query the keyword you were aiming for an this gives you loads of information.

Impressions give you an idea of how many people were searching and were shown your item in their search results. This tells you not only were people searching but your item is ranking well enough to be shown to them.

This is fantastic information; we are so lucky Etsy gives us this data.

We can see the average place your listing is ranking for that exact search term and also how many clicks, how many times people were shown your listing and then clicked on it.

This gives you a ‘click through rate’

How to use this data?

If our impressions are low but you are ranking really high then this tells us that perhaps this wasn’t a great keyword, not enough people are searching for it at this moment in time so perhaps we want to try again with a more searched for keyword term.

If the impressions are high but the position you are ranking at is pretty low then this might be a search term that is a little too competitive for you at the moment. If you have done all the best practises to rank for it and you are just not ranking then perhaps try for a slightly easier keyword term and come back to this one at a later date. However, you could experiment a little more if its got high impressions to try a better image and try and focus even more on this keyword and perhaps if customers start responding well to your item then you might rank higher for this keyword term and get seen by even more people.

If your impressions are high and your position you are ranking at is high then its time to work on optimizing that listing to encourage people to want to buy it. Compare your prices to the other items in this search term, look at your photographs for how you can improve them so they really pop and stand out against all the competition. Sort out your description so it’s a really compelling read for people who click on this and it makes them really want to buy it

If impressions are high, ranking position is high, click through rate is high and you are getting decent sales then leave this item alone, you have done fantastic, move on to your next keyword and your next series of items.

These are the secrets that have brought me massive growth which is awesome, but SEO, especially Etsy SEO is not just about blindly following what people are saying, its about researching to find good keywords, aiming for that keyword, checking if you are ranking for those keywords and seeing if you need to optimise further.  Keep checking your data to make sure what your doing is a good thing and keep testing

eRank.com is an AWESOME free Etsy SEO tool with tools to help you identify good keywords and find out where your items are ranking (although I do work with eRank these posts are not sponsored by eRank and all advice is my own)

I hope this has given you some ideas to inspire you and hopefully start you growing your Etsy shop