As you may be able to tell from my SEO-heavy reading list a few days ago, I’ve been playing with the SEO on my Etsy business of sealife art, Harbor Hangings.
The big problem was that I was spending time and energy putting together and sharpening new products, but nobody was looking at them!
This is just the paid impressions and even they’re only in the 400’s. The actual listing stats are even crappier: single-digit visits per day.
But then I found the light. I saw the way. I read everything on my SEO reading list and took it to heart. And then this happened:
That’s an 11x increase in promoted listing views!
So what did I do? I thought like Etsy shoppers.
“The Goldfish Vintage-Style Print” became “Orange Goldfish Art – 8×10 Fishing Print Poster Beach Lake House Warming Gift Decor Housewarming Ocean Fish Wall Art Dad Christmas Present“.
“The Pickerel or Federal Pike” became “Blue Northern Pike Art – 8×10 Print Fishing Poster Minnesota Lake House Warming Gift Housewarming Engagement Ocean Art Dad Christmas Present“.
When someone is going to Etsy to look for a unique piece of lobster art, they’re not typing in “The American Lobster”. According to my site search stats, they’re searching for “maine boston lobster print” or “lobster art 8×10” or “framed maine“.
I was getting 0 views because the majority of Etsy engagement (and engagement on the Internet) is search – and I wasn’t helping people find my stuff! The ultimate goal of search engine optimization is to appear in result 1 on page 1 of a search that relates to you item. According to this tool to determine Etsy search engine relevancy, I wasn’t appearing in the first 10 pages!
So to increase my search views, I:
- Used all 140 characters available to me in my Etsy item title to include phrases people are likely searching for. It appears that Etsy uses the item’s description as the heaviest weighted data source when searching, so fill your title up with search terms! I think it looks spammy, but looking around Etsy (and even at the items that I eventually purchased for myself), the most successful stores are doing it. I have to assume that buyers are used to it.
- Take that same, keyword heavy title, and translate it exactly into your 13 listing keywords. It appears that Etsy’s second heaviest weighted data source when searching is the keywords. If your title has search phrases and your keywords match, your listings are going to get a high search score and you’ll appear higher in search results.
Titles and keywords won’t grow your Etsy business entirely, though. According to my short test this week, Etsy also takes listing age into consideration (which opens another whole debate about Etsy activity driving search relevancy). Additionally, I continue to have a problem with people seeing my item in search, but not clicking on it. But more on that in a future post.