sweetsyncraft - Tumblr blog

sweetsyncraft · 3 years

Text

SweetSyn’s Guide To Etsy

(I will add more as I learn more)

When I officially started my Etsy in 2018, I had no idea what I was doing. I’ve constantly had people asking me what tips I had for getting started. Unfortunately, I told them you needed a following to make sales. Boy was I wrong. SEO is the key. Buckle up, I’m going to learn you a few things. (I’m Texan don’t judge me for that sentence.)

“Search Engine Optimization”, which is the reason when you search for something on Etsy, you see a bunch of bland titles. Being Creative with titles will only hurt you. You need to have targeted, keyword-based titles and tags, to make sure you end up at the top of the food chain.

Listing Titles

This part is long due to the fact that I never knew how important this was.

The best way to do this is to start typing in what you’re selling into the Etsy search bar. Any related autocomplete phrases that are related to the pop-up list, is what should be in your title. (Keyword 1 - Keyword 2 - Keyword 3 - Keyword 4) and so forth. For example, I simply clicked on the search bar and it gave me a list of the current most popular searches. One of them was marble earrings, and the first listing had the best selling badge. Their title was “Handmade Polymer Clay Marble Triangle Earrings | Minimalist Geometric Earrings | Hypoallergenic Surgical Steel Stud | Multiple Size”. The second listing, from another shop, was “Marble Stud Earrings, Marble Jewelry, Round Stud Earrings, Wedding Stud Earrings, Marble Studs, Statement Studs, Minimalist Studs”.

I know how tempting it is to come up with a clever name for your listing, but Etsy doesn’t like that. Putting a long title full of keywords makes it more likely for someone to see your listing without searching through 240 pages. Yes, there were exactly 240 pages of marble earrings. The last one, way at the end was simply titled “Rosé Marble Earrings”. I don’t know about you, but I have no idea how to put that little mark over the ‘e’ when typing on a computer.

The second part of this is being more specific than just ‘marble earrings’. If someone is looking for something more specific than marble earrings they’re going to search more of what they want. This is how you separate yourself from everyone else on those 240 pages. The two listings I found were round studs and the other was geometric triangles. Maybe I hate circles, and I specifically want triangles, so I search “marble triangle earrings”. That’s in the title of the first listing, I’m going to find that listing.

DO NOT PUT YOUR SKU’S IN YOUR TITLES! You will lose sales because of this. Your title is very important, no one is going to be searching “866798Q”

Additionally, Etsy will not show more than one or two items per seller on any given page of search results. That way smaller shops have a bit more of a chance. Make sure you’re targeting different keywords per listing, or you’ll be competing with yourself.

After a few months, go into your listing analytics to see which keywords are getting that listing more views. You may find that your main keyword, or the first few words in your title, isn’t working as well as another one. If something is working better, make it the first part of the title, and you should even more views.

Adding titles in other languages will not help your listing. Etsy automatically translates for other languages.

I’ve seen a few people say that Etsy has changed and that they don’t like ‘title stuffing’. However, that’s not the case in what I’ve seen. The entire first two pages of marble earrings were nothing but long ‘stuffed’ titles.

This is a comment from an admin of one of the Etsy Facebook groups I’m in, he is a social media marketer:

“YES title stuffing is bad and you should not do it, because Etsy & Google do not count that as quality SEO.

However, we must first understand exactly what "Title Stuffing or Keyword Stuffing" really is.

Keyword stuffing is when someone fills a webpage (in this case an Etsy title) with the same keywords they want to rank for, over and over again in hopes that the more times they use the keywords the more relevant Etsy and Google will see their page or listing.”

...

“Now as far as your Etsy title goes you should absolutely use your keywords, but not repeated over and over again, while also keeping a non-robotic tone.

2 examples of title stuffing:

Basically stuffing the same word over and over again.

2. Title stuffing for the maximum keywords: Comfy Baby Shirt, comfortable, for boys, for girls, gifts, cheap, organic, cotton, romper, jumpsuits, newborn, baby clothes

Both of these examples are using spammy tricks to rank high. But this will not work and both Etsy and Google will ignore you.

You want your title to sound fluent and not like a robot while using your keywords.

Also, you want to avoid changing up your titles too much, because your listings SEO needs to season a bit for maximum effectiveness.”

Tags

A major thing that I have learned over this process is that your tags must be written in sentences and not individual words. For example instead of marble, earring, earrings, geometric, geometrical, your tags should be Marble Earrings, Studded Earrings, Geometric Jewelry. MOST IMPORTANTLY! Use ALL 13 tags! Think about what makes your product unique, you don’t need to repeat categories and attributes. You also don’t need to use the same keywords as your title, unless you want to highlight a certain keyword. Tags and titles that do not relate to your listing, can have a negative impact on your visibility.

Fill out everything you can on the listing, such as categories and attributes, which also act like tags. The more you fill out the more likely someone will find your listings.

Adding tags in other languages will not help your listing. Etsy automatically translates for other languages.

Pricing

Be mindful of everyone else’s prices, customers are not only going to look for quality, but also the best deal. Though, you don’t want to end up making a negative profit.

Cost of goods (per product) + Profit (I like to do the cost of supplies x2) + Shipping (if you’re doing free shipping) = Price

The reason I double the dost of supplies for my profit is for in case something goes wrong, I still made a little money for my time. You made need to adjust this to compete with other sellers.

Shipping

Etsy gives priority to listings with free shipping in the search results, it also sounds a bit better to the customer. Don’t worry you won’t lose out on money by offering it, all you have to do is include the shipping cost in the price.

However, if you do plan on offering international shipping, I recommend charging for it. I live in Texas, and it costs $8 dollars to ship a sticker to Canada. Whereas shipping to Maine only costs 70 cents.

Play around with shipping options, it took me a long time to learn that sending stickers as a letter, instead of a package or flat envelope, is MUCH cheaper. The downside, there is no tracking number. So I only recommend this for items that are very cheap to remake.

Photos

Your product photo is the first thing that is going to be seen when someone is searching for an item. I made the major mistake of not caring what my photos looked like for the longest time. From lazily taking a screenshot of my Cricut design space for a decal listing, to setting my mugs on my tacky paint-covered table. Don’t do this, make your photos look professional. Now I’m not saying go hire a photographer to take your photos. Simply lining a bix with paper, or draping a sheet over a chair can create a perfect backdrop.

Put your best photo first.

A 2017 survey showed that 90% of Etsy shoppers said the photo quality was very important in their decision making. Think about it as, if you don’t take the time for quality photos, that most likely means you’re not taking the time to make quality products.

When posting your photos on the web browser version of Etsy, your image needs to be at least 2000 pixels wide. A simple way to fix this, the way I do, is resizing the photo in Paint 3D or a photo editor. Another way is simply making the listing on the mobile app because it won’t have that requirement.

Description

I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard it from a few people, repeat your title in the description.

This is yet another thing I struggled with. I felt that the title said enough, what more was there to explain about a car decal, other than the size? Well, a lot. Now I’m not saying be one of those annoying recipe pages, that gives their life story before getting to the ingredients and the actual recipe. Just make sure it tells exactly what the customer expects to receive.

Don’t copy someone else’s description, develop your own voice. Give all the details you can about your product, because just like policies, this can save you from something going wrong. The customer isn’t able to touch your product and get a full feel of what it is. A well-written description can be the make or break of a sale.

Play 20 questions with yourself.

Reviews

You’re bound to get a bad review at some point. Don’t let it be the thing that shuts you down, and ruins your shop. Message the customer and see what you can do to change their review. If you can’t change it, don’t worry. Learn and improve from it. When looking at reviews, I hardly ever take the negative ones seriously, unless there’s a lot of them. If you have 50 good reviews and 5 negatives, you’re going to be okay.

Sometimes you have to take the hit and lose some profit. Say their package gets lost in the mail, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. You may have to refund them or send them another. Something I’ve always done to keep customers happy, if something goes wrong I send a small freebie with the replacement. Usually, it’s something extra that I have laying around.

Marketing

Social Media is your best friend! Use everything you can, and HASHTAGS! HASHTAGS! HASHTAGS! Before I even started TikTok or Etsy, I wanted to have a huge Instagram following. I ended up with 1,000 followers, just by using a ton of hashtags. No matter what site you’re using, if it allows you, use every hashtag under the sun. This is where you can get extra with it, especially Instagram and Tumblr where you don’t have a limit. Just make sure you separate it from your caption.

Using social media to grow a following can help so much! I would never have made it through 2020 without my following. Seeing a more personal side of you can help a lot, and you’ll even make some amazing friends along the way! The most rewarding thing is when you’re told you inspired someone to start making arts and crafts or living their dream.

Other Information

Make sure your policies are clear. If you do not offer refunds or returns, and a customer reports you for not refunding them, this will save you!

Experiment with things, see what works best for you! Having a following and ignoring all of this worked for me for two years. Eventually, my TikTok views dwindled, meaning sales went with it.

The more items you have listed, the more likely you are to be seen. Try to post something new once a month. Additionally, the more you have the more likely someone that found exactly what they wanted, will buy more from you. If they see something else they like while looking at one item, you’re making more money.

Categories are much easier to do on a web browser. All you have to do is type in what your listing and it will give you suggestions. Mobile Etsy is nearly impossible to figure out where to list decals and stickers. You’d never guess to look in electronics, would you?

Helpful Sites

https://keywordseverywhere.com/

https://www.thesaurus.com/

https://erank.com/

https://www.keysearch.co/

https://www.keywordtooldominator.com/

https://seller.tools/

Resources

https://printify.com/blog/2020-etsy-seo-secrets-all-you-need-to-know/

#etsy #etsy seo #seo #search engine optimization #search engine organization #etys seller #small business #sweetsyn #sweetsyncraft

3 notes · View notes