When you are selling on Etsy it can be confusing to know where to spend your time, what things actually HELP you rank higher in Etsy and even more importantly what things do not help you? In this video I cover some of the factors that do not help your Etsy SEO at all, not saying they are not useful, but they dont directly help you rank
Etsy Descriptions
Descriptions are for your customer, all the things they need to know to be able to buy your items so make sure and add any useful information and descriptions of sizes, care instructions and uses here Google does read your descriptions but its so hard to rank for google its really not worth stressing about
The Number of your Etsy Listing Photos
Again photos are for your customer, the Etsy algorithm will not favour a listing with 10 photos over a listing with 9 photos, the number of images you need for your buyer to understand your item is the number of images you need
Etsy listing videos
Can you guess what Im going to say here? yup these are for your customers. You wont rank higher by adding a video but if a video helps customers be more likely to buy your item then in the long run this will improve your listing
Using ALL 13 tags
Etsy tags are part of the metadata, that is how we explain to Etsy what our item is, but so long as you have the keywords the buyer is searching for the other words wont help you rank higher for that one keyword
BUT they give you the chance of ranking for MORE keywords so get more views and chances of sales so it is worth using all your tags
Multi word tags
If you can fit the full keyword phrase in one tag then that is great and will help you rank higher by being an 'exact match' but if the keyword is too long for one tag then it does not matter for ranking if you split them up into single word tags or multi word phrases in the tag. One word tags tho means you can just have less words in your tag spaces so you have less chance of ranking for OTHER keywords
Klicks and Hearts from Etsy Team games
This is a thing that used to work on Etsy but as it is not helping customers in any way and it does not tell Etsy your listing is good this no longer impacts how you rank. Do not try and game the algorithm, make great listings
If you are looking to Craft your Career as an artist in 2021 it can really help to get an idea of what things are likely to be popular this year.
Of course we cant just jump onto every trend if what we make does not fit, but it is possible to gain some inspiration about styles and it may even change how we photograph our items for the year. For example one trend this year is still cottagecore - could our items be photographed in a room that has more of a nod to that style rather than a minimalist themed space. Or even being aware and sensitive to the world situation could mean that just now photographs of big gatherings of people might not be very good lifestyle images and it may be better to have singles or couples.
Hobbycraft and Etsy both released style guides recently and looking at this and using a little common sense we might be able to get an idea of what the trends for 2021 may be
Of course there are always things in the future that we cannot predict but we can make educated guesses
And of course Hobbycraft and Etsy both have the power to make the trends become a reality as they can feature items and listings that follow these trends and as people see a similar style more often they start to love it and are more likely to buy it.
eRanks trend buzz is a good way to time travel to past months to see what buyers were searching for in any given month and the Keyword Explorer shows us the search trend over time for any keyword phrase, did you know for example that even though Christmas obviously has a peak in searches at the end of the year but all through the year it has thousands of searches and Etsy tell us that last year sales for Christmas gifts actually started in April!
Looking at Etsy and Hobbycraft reports I can clearly see some ideas that we can think about.
Firstly thinking of styles Etsy has mentioned that its colour of the year will be sky blue. They say the feeling is to evoke freedom, health, vitality and hope. Something I think we can all get behind.
Looking at the reports I think we can break it into 4 trends
Fabric
Home
Care
Handmade to last
and as a bonus
Carer Change
Fabric
Fabric trends for 2021 are in 3 themes really, cozy nesting, handmade and make do and mend - but also luxury fabrics are showing more and more as people want to buy a quality item once rather than cheep items again and again
New home, improved home, work from home, home schooling, inside activities and nesting with fabrics
Also with this cooking and baking along with anything personalised especially to do with this - think personalised wooden spoons or chopping boards. Cake decorating was in Hobbycrafts top 3 crafts
Care
Showing people you care with care packages, cards and luxury gifts. Of course these trends all overlap with the styles so the gifts could be kits or personalised baking goods for people who have just started cooking in the past year.
Also Etsy is planning to start promoting Valentines day around now, and that is not just gifts for partners but can be for friends or even pets!
Handmade to Last
This trend is about personalised luxury and most importantly who the maker is. Think of yourself as a master craftsman and show yourself making the items. The minor imperfections but greater quality of handmade over mass produced
In Etsy your about me section is a great place to add more about you as the maker and you can include in your listing photographs or even listing videos
Carer Change
Sadly this next year is still likely to be difficult with people losing jobs and some perhaps wanting to start selling arts and crafts.
This is not a bad thing and can actually have us in a positive place as we could sell supplies, kits or monetise tutorials.
Also crafters are way more likely to be buyers and understand the quality of the work - and of course their friends might buy crafty gifts for them
I hope this has inspired some ideas for the year ahead. We cant and should not put them all into practise but what things can you take away from this?
One question I get asked ALL the time is 'How do I start a shop on Etsy? Can you show us step by step?'
And although I think its a great idea it has been 11 years since I opened my Etsy shop
Things will totally have changed in that time, I dont really actually know how to open an Etsy shop in 2019
And I didnt want to just create advice in general 'Do this, this is good practise'
I wanted to be able to give the best advice I could
So I decided to create a roadmap of the step by steps that go into creating a shop, all the thought process, all the fails, all the wins
And what better way to do that than putting my 'money where my mouth is' by creating a brand new shop and then documenting the process
So this is the start of my series
The very first step in starting to think of selling online with Etsy is to consider WHY you want to open an Etsy store
It sounds a very basic question but when you nail this down it helps answer so many questions about pricing and if you even should open an Etsy shop
So why do you want to open and Etsy shop??
To free up space so you can create more
To make a little extra money
To build up to a part time or full time future business
To make a little money right now?
so starting at the end :D
To make money right now
If your reason for opening a Etsy shop is you genuinely need money RIGHT NOW then simply
Dont
If money is urgent right now then opening an Etsy shop is not the best way to make money quickly. Etsy is a massive learning curve and unless you have a great background in marketing and photography and all the things then it is very unlikely you will be making a steady income for quite a while.
Look into getting some kind of steady work then potentially have an eye to opening your shop and slowly building it up so in the future it becomes that business you dream of
To Build a potential business
Think of finances here, how much money do you need to make, how many hours are you able to put into working on your Etsy business? What can you make?
Research how long it takes to make what you make - then double that figure for all the time for marketing and dealing with customers, see if there is a market for it and how much the top and average items sell for
Can you add extra value with extra skill or more quality materials.
If you go for items that can be mass produced then someone else will be able to make them cheaper. Stand out and make something unique that you can be proud of
To make a little extra
If you have extra time and just want to make a little extra there is less pressure for you. You still need to make sure you get fair money for your time but you dont need a living wage from it. So what things do you enjoy creating that are low stress?
To Clear up space
If your art or craft is your love but you dont have a real need to make money then congratulations, that really is so awesome. Even so it is still important to take time to learn SEO and other research on what you are wanting to sell. Just putting items up sadly will not likely sell on Etsy, you need to work to get sales. So if you are not up for that then perhaps selling on Etsy is not right for you
So for me
I decided obviously to open a new shop for research but also because I have thought for a while that my digital art does not belong in my felting store
And it is not something I am very experienced with so I feel the skill level does not quite match my felting skill
So I thought that building up a shop based on my digital work - likely digital stamps, but we will see how the research goes - could be a fun challenge
I have a long way to go to get good at this but I enjoy it, but also creating digital items that I do not have to do anything when I sell, people just download them. So its passive income, even if I am ill and cant needle felt hopefully a doodle I created months or years ago could make me some money
So really my 'why' is to hopefully build slowly up to a supplemental income
I know that likely I am not going to get many sales in the beginning but hopefully it will be interesting to document the wins, the failures and all the steps of creating this new shop
If you enjoy learning new things Skillshare has some awesome courses and if you click my link you get a extra month free to watch any of their courses (you only have to remember and cancel before the end of your free period and they wont bill you. Click my (affilate) link for that free learning
When we are talking about Etsy SEO what on earth are Superstar
Keywords?
Etsy have mentioned ‘Superstar Keywords’ before I explain
what they actually are we have to talk about what keywords are.
Many people mistakenly think keywords are your tags, or your
titles or what you put in your description, but this is not the case. Keywords
are simple the terms, the words that BUYERS type into the search area of the
search engine.
In General, there are two types of keywords
Broad and Narrow keywords.
Broad Keywords
These are not particularly descriptive, they are words like ‘ring’
these are words that are going to have massive competition and quite a high
number of people searching for them so you might look at them and think that is
something you should be aiming for, lots of people are searching for it so
there are lots of chances for people to find your items.
The things is this term is not very specific, a person searching for the word ‘ring’
does not really know what they are looking for, this might just be possibly to
narrow down their ideas or have a look at the competition on Etsy, but they are
not thinking about the occasion, what material, what type of ring so that
search term is going to return a whole load of random rings and the chance of
any of them being the one you want to buy is pretty low.
So a searchers behaviour could quite often be they would
search for this broad term to get some ideas of what they are looking for and
then narrow down and refine their search term until they get an idea of what
they are really looking for.
Narrow keywords
Narrow keywords are often called longtail keywords. These
are the more specific terms with the narrower focus.
They tend to have more words in their phrase (but not always)
but if you imagine instead of ‘ring’, ‘steampunk emerald engagement ring’
This is much more specific, the person searching for that
has a fair idea exactly what they are looking for so when they see the items,
they are much more likely to be buyers rather than just browsers. So actually,
it is a better strategy especially for us little guys.
If you go for too broad keywords then you are up against a
majority of shops, for example anyone that has ‘Emerald steampunk ring’, ‘Wedding
ring’. ‘engagement ring’ will also all rank somewhere for the term ‘ring’ they all
contain the term ‘ring’ so the competition is HUGE but your chance of ranking
on the front page, your chance of ranking somewhere that someone can see you, is
pretty low.
Whereas when you narrow it down to something way more
specific your chance of ranking for it is much higher and the chance of someone
seeing your item and then clicking on it and BUYING IT is equally much higher so
we want to find those most specific phrases that really identify what the
searcher is searching for.
This is very different for every different shop, niche, for
every customer, for every time period, and for every season.
Its always different, its always fluctuating so what Etsy
mean by ‘Superstar Keywords’ are the keyword phrase that you have identified
that does the very best for your shop, it’s the very thing that resonates the
best with your customers and once we have identified what our superstar keyword
is we want to use our titles and our tags to explain to Etsy that that is
exactly what our item is.
The most important way to do this is with our title, this
superstar phrase is descriptive of your item so chances are the best thing to
do is just put that entire phrase in your title, then you can add anything else
that explains it a little more if you need extra added, but don’t go crazy
trying to ‘keyword stuff’ the title. You only need the one or two really
descriptive superstar keywords.
With your tags you want to focus again on explaining a
little more. If you can use the superstar keyword as the whole phrase in your
tag then that is the best way to explain to Etsy that your item is very ‘relevant’
for that phrase then that is the best, but its possible that the keyword phrase
might be longer than tags can allow but that’s OK because everyone else will
have the exact same problem, so you can chop up that phrase and pop it into a
couple of keyword.
Then for your other keywords you can look at synonyms of the
same word (personalised or custom) the people who will use it (bride, mother,
sister) and of course what materials and what occasions.
But the most important thing is that you are specifically
telling Etsy in all the ways possible that this item is exactly what you say it
is.
Don’t try and spam, don’t try and fit in different keywords that
are not quite related. There is no point putting ‘necklace’ in your keywords if
the item is a ring. You might sell necklaces but that is not what this item
is.Similarly, do not put other peoples
shop names in there hoping that you will rank because they are doing well.
Do not try to game the system, just put the most descriptive
things to tell Etsy what your item is. If you are correct and have found good
phrases that resonate well with people and we tell Etsy exactly what it is then
Etsy will likely give us a chance, show us, and our item could do relatively
well. If your item starts to do well for one keyword phrase then it might
actually rank for other phrases as well that you hadn’t even thought of.
Check back often into your Etsy stats and make sure that
everything is still working, tweak when necessary and make sure that your
superstar is still a superstar.
Etsy have told us enough times now that they don’t want a
keyword stuffed title. They have even given examples of decent titles in some
of their latest articles
For more Etsy SEO Secrets you need to check out this article
packed with tips
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 thelisting 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
eRank, IMO the best tool for helping you with your Etsy shop SEO has come up with a new tool to help track your shop changes
and on a first look Im loving it!!
This is a pro feature, so not at the moment available for the free accounts
You get to it with the 'listings' tab
The tool can only track changes from when you actually click on the button on each listing, and it can only track a limited amount of listings, not every one in your shop so choose the listings you want to track first and then come back in a few days
Once a day eRank takes a snapshot of each of your listings that you are tracking and shows you the changes
If you have added something to the title or tags then this shows up in green, if you have removed something then that shows in red. It also tracks changes in likes etc
This will be so powerful to be able to see if any changes you made reduces the number of views to your listing and also remind you of the exact title and tags you had when it was working so you could change them back again
Here is a video of me showing my first look thoughts of this
For more tips on being an etsy seller dont forget to check back often or subscribe to me on youtube
Congratulations!! If you have been selling well on Etsy and are heading towards that 1000th sale you are doing really amazingly well
Honestly, you are now well into the top 10% of sellers on Etsy
And that means that things can be different. You have an idea of keywords and how to rank and what your customers want, you know your photographs are pretty OK and you know how to give good customer support
You are doing fantastic, I really mean it
So what different thing can you think of doing now??
You can Diversify
Consider kits, a 2nd shop, trends and even affiliate marketing (for things you really believe in)
You can be an Expert
Create tutorials, give advice on forums and blogs, create videos and podcasts or get involved in interviews (some of these things you can even make money out of as well as driving traffic to your shop - and doing something different that keeps you motivated)
You can spread out to New Horizons
Etsy is amazing but its good to not have all our eggs in one basket so consider mailing lists, websites or even getting your items in real stores and galleries
So Etsy released a document 'The ultimate guide to SEO' in September 2018 and this had people freaking out everywhere
'Etsy has changed'
'Its not fair'
'I cant do that'
So lets deep dive the document and see what actual SEO changes there have been and how this will affect our ability to rank in 2018, 2019 and beyond
Firstly lets have a look at what they actually said
Here is my very first look at the document
The first thing to take from this document is
Its not really a document telling us things have suddenly changed - its telling us the best practises for just now taking into account the constant changes that ALWAYS happen on the platform
Good SEO is still good SEO - in fact more so they are making sure to point out practises we have been talking about for years
Short concise titles
Not only does a buyer only see the first few words of the title when they search but also you are sending the strongest signal to Etsy what you thing the term your item should rank for is (more about ranking later)
Exact matches still get a boost
Baby wool hat would get more 'ranking power' for a search of 'Baby Wool Hat' than a tag of 'Wool hat baby' because the term is exactly what a buyer is searching for
also having your most important keyword in the title and also repeated in the tag
But there are also the 'new' things - or the things that SEEM new
Free Shipping
More about this later but in the document Etsy is talking about the fact they have discovered that BUYERS respond better to items with cheep shipping - even if the item is more expensive - so they are giving a slight boost to items with free shipping
Repeating words
This is the most missunderstood item in the document with people now thinking you might be penalised for having the same word more than once in the tags of your item
'Baby hat' 'Baby headgear' 'Blue hat' - would this be a problem (short answer - nope, not at all - long answer in a future post'
So overall the advice is
DONT PANIC
This is not a document saying you have to get out there and change all your Etsy SEO right now. If your listings are working and driving views and sales then leave them exactly as they are - just when you are creating new listings or changing failing listings this might be something to consider
If you want more ideas on Boosting your Etsy sales check out my latest Etsy SEO advice article
Have you seen the trend just now? Making a polished mirror ball from aluminium foil. Roll it into a ball and hit it thousands of times to form a smooth dense ball, then sanding and polishing
But I thought this would be a great fun challenge for needle felting, to look at how the reflections and light and shade work to make a shape look super reflective
And I think it actually turned out quite well :) - dare I say better than some of the tin foil balls :)
But I think its a great project to work on for needle felting to try and see if we can add even more dimensions to a piece with a little extra shading
In something reflective like eyes in 2d and 3d needle felted works
I actually learnt a lot about shading and highlights learning to sketch with the pro marker pens
Which you can see in the different levels in black needed to make this black Lab sketch
A friend of mine recently mentioned that I haddnt done any pom pom needle felted tutorials for a while
And for some reason I couldnt get the idea of a mushroom out of my head
Being brave I just went with the idea and didnt know until I cut it open if the pattern would work, if I would have nicely spaced out spots or just a mess
Its really easy too
Side 1 of maker
make 3 evenly spaced out semicircles in white
Cover everything in a few layers of red
In the dips beside where the white semicircles are make two circles in white
fill with red
Side 2
Fill with white - dont overfill
Cut open and tie off
Felt up one layer of white into red to make underside of mushroom
felt down remaining white to become a stalk
It is so tempting when you are a creative person to make 20 different types of things - and then when you start trying to sell online you might want to try and sell them all in the same shop
But does this help or hurt us?
At a craft fair you have an audience walking past us and if you have several different things displayed attractively (not a jumble sale) people might spot one thing and then browse
So it makes sense to have several things for them to pick from.
But this is not the same on the internet.
On the internet people are not walking past your shop, if you are not shown to them in a search there is a high chance they will just never see you at all.
So the goal is to be the top of a search
And in most places on the internet search engines favour you if you are an authority on a subject. If someone is looking for 'baby hats' and your shop has lots of really popular baby hats then it is more likely to push you forwards than a shop that has baby hats and mens shoes and ......
Also if someone starts following you because they fell in love with your baby hats, if all you make is baby hats then every time you post them might love seeing your hats, giving you positive feedback and lots of traffic up to the point where someone they know has a baby and they are looking for a gift - and up pops you, this shop they have been loving for ages.
Compared to the shop where they loved a baby hat - then the next thing that comes up on their feed is mens shoes - something they are very much not interested in so they unfollow you at this point and dont remember you when their friend has a baby.
So
If you have the time to spare it might be an idea to open a 2nd shop and move all your shoes over there
If you dont have the time, it could actually be better for your shop to just remove all the shoes and just be an expert on baby hats, in the long run you might well have lots more sales doing that
In the third in my series teaching you how to needle felt a dogs head today we look at the brachycephalic dog The Boston Terrier, the French Bulldog, any dog with these delightfully smooshy faces (although for all dog lovers it is worth being aware of the health problems that can occur with the dogs if we go to extreme with these features)
Like all my small dog sculptures the head starts with a ball, If you dont know how to make a ball check out this video for details
Then you want to create a small thin tube, Squish the ball to a slight oval shape and apply the tube towards the bottom of your oval
felt this nub firmly down to approx the length you want the muzzle to be
Now to make the jowls you need a 1-2 inch piece of fleece
Make sure the length is even each side and felt the middle of this ontop of the nub you made for the muzzle like a crazy moustache
fold the ends under to create the jowls
Pinch these bits between your fingers and carefully felt - adjusting the shape depending on the breed of the dog
At this stage you can add any shading to the muzzle
For the lower jaw pinch an inch or two of fleece between your fingers and carefully felt a U shape.
Add shading if needed and keep measuring your lower jaw against the upper so you know if you need to adjust the shape. Poke extra into areas that need to be made smaller
Carefully felt the lower jaw into place.
Adding eyes, ears and any shading depending on the breed and you are done
for the full Boston terrier video check it out here
Click on the image to check out some needle felting kits (affiliate link to amazon)
Yesterday youtube announced a change and it has people freaking out. I thought I would take a little time to address this as on whatever platform you are on online there are always changes and there are always people freaking out.
What is the Change?
To allow a creator to be part of the partnership program, which allows you to be able to put adverts on your videos and hopefully generate a little revenue, they are adding some new requirements you need to meet.
You already had to have had 10,000 channel views, now (as of the end of Feb) you will also need
1k Subscribers
and
4k HOURS of watch time over the past year
Does YouTube hate the little guy?
NO!
I understand why it can feel like that but these hurdles are actually in place to help us in the long term
Over time on any platform people try and learn how to 'game' the system, to try and get noticed, views, money, by using methods that are really against the spirit of the platform - or even hurt the platform
Youtube has been hurt quite alot in the past year by channels with not so nice content being shown next to advertisers or in the wrong places, this might have been controversial content or also non age appropriate videos shown in child friendly areas.
And of course the Logan Paul thing - but this is really not what this change is about!
When people try and game the system in a way that makes advertisers unhappy then the advertisers pull out
and there is no money for anyone.
These Changes are a GOOD thing?
Strange to say it but yes I think they are
This weeds out the lazy people, the people who dont want to work to grow their channel, anyone who really wants to grow their own channel with good practises will be able to. It might take a little while, I believe most people who use good practises can have grown to this level within a year
As you can see from my graph it can seem really difficult to build up in the beginning, but just like most things on the internet each new view/like/subscriber/sale makes the next one that bit easier. Growth tends to be exponential.
So anyone who really works and sticks with it, using good practises has a great chance of growing
And in a fit of great timing my good friend Brian G Johnston has just made a most useful video on strategies to boost your videos - the right way.
