Day 5

What is SEO And How Does It Apply To Your Etsy Shop?

Hey Etstians! I wanted to put together something super cool and decided to share some Etsy tips within an entire series. For the next 12 days, I will be sharing tips to help you grow your Etsy shop. Day 1 | 4 Insanely Simple Steps To Start An Etsy Shop Day 2 | How to Achieve Stellar Photos For Your Etsy Shop Day 3 | What You Need to Know About Etsy Branding Day 4 | An Easy Way to Write Listing Descriptions Day 5 | What is SEO And How Does It Apply To Your Etsy Shop? Day 6 | Google SEO for Etsy Day 7 | How Adding New Items Gets You More Sales Day 8 | How To Use Social Media to Promote Your Etsy Shop Day 9 | 5 Ways to Market Your Etsy Shop Day 10 | 10 Epic Tips For Selling On Etsy Day 11 | 3 Major Mistakes Etsy Sellers Are Making Day 12 | 5 Tools To Help You Grow Your Etsy Shop Yup, it’s Day 5 and today I’m giving you the Etsy SEO feels. If you’ve hung out with me before, search engine optimization (or SEO), has come up a time or two. A pretty major staple around here. If you’re new here, new to SEO, or simply need to polish up on your knowledge of Etsy SEO you are certainly in the right place. You’ve just opened your shop and your goal is to sell your products. Which now leads you with a problem to solve – how do I get shoppers to my Etsy shop? Sure, Etsy is a well-known marketplace that serves millions of shoppers every day. You’ve chosen the right marketplace to start your business. Here’s where the problem lies -- people don’t know you’re there. To help with that, you would use SEO to improve your search rank for your shop. Resulting in customers easily finding your products. We are going to talk about what Etsy SEO is and some basic steps you can take to optimize your shop.

What is SEO?

When shoppers search for an item on Etsy, a variety of information is drawn from all of the shops within Etsy to populate a rank list. Etsy’s search determines which shops are the most relevant to the search term used and then displays the results in the order of the most relevant. How does Etsy determine what is or isn’t relevant? There are several factors that contribute to that:
  • Relevant terms (keywords) used to generate traffic
  • Listing quality, listings that are being clicked, favorited, or purchased
  • Structure and set-up of your shop
  • Customer experience
  • Recency
The simplest way to get traffic to your shop organically (no paid ads or promoted listings) is to optimize your listings in order for Etsy to recognize it as relevant to searches related to your products. Welcome to the wonderful world of Etsy SEO.

Why can’t I be found without implementing Etsy SEO?

As smart as Etsy’s search is, it still requires some help. Etsy is always working to make improvements with the technology used to crawl through shops to provide better results to shoppers. Can you say algorithm changes? However, there is only so much Etsy search can do. But if you have the right SEO in place you can attract tons of visitors and eyeballs on your shop. And if you haven’t guessed it by now, making the wrong moves -- such as the wrong keywords -- will prevent you from getting the visibility you deserve.

Can I REALLY do this on my own?

There is no doubt that SEO is complex, but for the most part, it is pretty simple to understand the basics. Which is all you need right now. And I have to be honest, even a small amount of Etsy SEO knowledge will make a world of difference. As long as you understand the core basics and you give it some practice, you are well on your way to acing this thing.

What steps should I take?

To optimize your shop, follow these basic steps:
  1. Find keywords that are relevant to your products. These keywords should accurately describe your items and should be terms that shoppers are searching for.
  2. Add keywords at your listing title, tags, and descriptions.
    1. Place the most important keywords at the beginning of your title to maximize search rank.
    2. Use every available tags and mix them with broad and long-tail keywords.
    3. Descriptions should be appealing that a customer can’t resist making the purchase.
  3. Add attributes to your listings.
  4. Take clear, quality photos.
  5. Ensure shop policies and the About section is completed.
  6. Use keywords for your shop sections.
  7. Communicate with potential and past customers in a swift manner.
What Next? Implementing Etsy SEO was quite a game changer for my shop and I have to tell you, my friend, it is a foundation piece for your business. Should you rely 100% on SEO to grow traffic to your shop? YOU SHOULD NOT! But you SHOULD make this a top priority. Skipping steps only sets you up for failure, and leaves you questioning where you went wrong. Not to mention, you can’t possibly use other methods of growing your shop if your foundation is weak. Until tomorrow… How do you feel about Etsy SEO? Is it intimidating, or do you feel you can make this work? Let me know in the comments below.
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