There have been some big changes on the Etsy platform this year and the biggest
one by far is the recent changes in the search algorithm that was announced last
month in September by the Etsy team. So what are those SEO changes and what
does it mean for your handmade shop? Let's dive in.
When it comes to Etsy SEO, one thing is for sure - it always comes
with some speculations, some forum talks,
some rumors and really that's not what we want to do here.
We finally have some clarity because we finally have an official statement and a
brand new shiny SEO guide from the Etsy team themselves,
so we're not going to speculate. I'm not going to dive into some crazy
SEO strategies. I really want to take the time though
with you to understand what really changed and what really is going on with
Etsy SEO these days. And to do that,
I want to review five very important points.
The first one is CSR or context specific ranking.
Now we knew that before September, before the announcement in September,
but it's still important to understand what it is and to note that Etsy now
uses a technology called CSR or context specific ranking.
And in plain English it means that Etsy tracks and analyzes shoppers' behavior
on the platform and that the results they will display for each shopper or
for each visitor will be different.
So if you type in 'minimalist bracelet' on Etsy and I type in the same keyword
on Etsy search and we compare our result pages,
we take a screenshot and we compare to see what's going on,
this would actually look very different. And that's because Etsy with the CSR
technology is able to know what I'm most likely to click on,
what I'm most likely to like and to purchase,
most importantly, purchase really.
And same for you. And so they are going to display
different results to each of us so that we can see things that we're most likely
to actually purchase. So there is no such thing as ranking
number one because everyone has a different number one result for each
keyword search. Number two is to focus on long tail
keyword. Now I want to put this graphic on the
screen for a second and it's actually a graphic that is part of the Etsy SEO
guide on their website. And what this represents really is the
search volume on the vertical axis and the conversion rate on the horizontal
axis for a given keyword. And the part of that arrow of that
graphic that's orange are long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords, don't get as much volume as the general
keywords, but they get a much higher conversion
rate.
So in plain English: people don't look for these keywords as
often, but when they look for them,
they're more likely to purchase and that's really what we want.
And again, that's something that we knew before the
announcement that Etsy made in September,
but now they've really officialized it by saying that you should focus on long
tail keyword. Now,
what is a long tail keyword? Well,
a general keyword would be, for example,
'baby gift'. Now,
a long tail keyword would be 'baby romper dinosaurs',
and the reason why 'baby romper dinosaurs' is a better fit is that
although not as many people are going to look for this specific keyword,
people who are searching for something like 'baby romper dinosaurs' are much
more likely to buy because they know exactly what they're looking for.
If you think about how someone wanting to purchase a baby gift might behave on
the Etsy platform, the first thing they might type into a
search as a keyword will be probably a more general broad keyword like 'baby
gift'.
That's when the visitor or the shopper is just really trying to find even just
an idea of what to get as a baby gift. And then they're going to see results
and they're going to notice a few rompers there and maybethe think,
'okay, you know what?
That's actually a good idea. Let's get a baby romper' and maybe
they're going to start a new search with that keyword instead.
And as they're browsing the results from that specific research,
they start noticing a few rompers with dinos on them and they're thinking,
'Hey, that's a great pattern.
My friend Karen would absolutely love that.
She would think it's so cute. This is what I want to get'.
And then they were type in the search 'baby romper dinosaurs' and so that is a
much more targeted, much more specific way to search for
something to purchase on Etsy.
And that's why Etsy is advising you to actually focus on those keywords because
it will help you rank better and also because it will help you make more
sales, which in turn will help you rank better.
So it's really a virtuous circle. So to sum up with a long tail keyword:
less volume in search, but more conversion is good an you need
to add long tail keywords to your listings.
It's good for SEO, it's good for sales and it helps Etsy
understand what it is really that your product does and what your product is so
that it makes it easier for Etsy to put it in front of the right people,
the people that are ready to purchase your products.
Our next point is titles. Now this is part of actually getting
your listing clicked on when it shows in search because that is going to actually
boost your SEO score when someone clicks on your listing because Etsy thinks,
'oh, this listing is working,
we want to show that a bit more'. And we already know that to get your
listing clicked on your images, and most importantly,
your featured image, the main image of your listing,
of your product is super important. So I'm not going to dive into the
details of how to take pictures in this video,
but Etsy said something else about how to get your listing clicked on that they
pay attention to and recommend you pay more attention to,
and it's your titles. Now,
it's always been important for Etsy SEO but what they've said is that they
recommend they'd be short and easy to read.
Now, let's break that down:
short. You can use up to 140 characters for
your titles, but Etsy is pretty much saying you don't
need to necessarily use all of those characters for your titles.
Instead, they want you to keep in mind that those
titles need to be easy to read and there's two reasons for that.
The first is mobile friendliness. Most people are now using the app to
shop. So they're using their mobile,
they're not using a desktop and it doesn't show the same amount of
characters than on the desktop one on the website.
So you want to keep that in mind in your title because mobile shoppers really are
a big chunk of the visitors on the platform.
And then the second is that you want titles that are created and written by
humans for humans and not by humans for computers.
And let's be honest, when you find a listing and the title is
something like 'Mug Coffee Cup, large Coffee Cup,
fine time gift gift for her cute mug Sarcasm Mug,
coffee Mug, Coffee Mug 12 ounces' this isn't really
human friendly. This is a human,
a shop owner that has decided to put as many keywords as possible in the title
so that Etsy, the computer behind the algorithm will
pick that up and score their SEO, score that listing higher.
But really it is not really human friendly,
and so when Etsy's saying 'short and easy to read',
that's part of what they mean.
You want to have a title that people feel like they can click on because it
resonates with what they're looking for. So be descriptive of what your products
are, but don't start stuffing your title with
keywords and trying to use absolutely those 140 characters.
The title like 'set of four Ceramic Espresso Cups Ruby red' is a good title.
It's more human, it's short,
it's easy to read and it will play nicely on mobile as well.
The most important thing, it will get you more clicks,
which will one more time help you with your SEO score for that listing.
Point number four is all about the shipping.
Now this one is a touchy one and it has made a lot of makers and a lot of Etsy
shop owners really quite upset, and here's what Etsy actually said:
to make it easier for shoppers to find listings with competitive shipping
prices,
Etsy search factors shipping price into search ranking.
Lowering your shipping prices makes your items more likely to rank higher in
search". Fact.
It is now official. If you can lower your shipping prices,
it will help you rank better in the Etsy search results.
Now, there are a few things you can do here,
but I won't get into the details too much because I want to stay very factual
with this video rather than diving into the strategy,
but very quickly here are a few things you can do.
Add the shipping to your item price, split the shipping cost between your
item price and the actual shipping fee so that you can decrease the shipping
fee. Set a minimum order amount,
set a minimum order quantity, and finally only allow for free shipping
to local area or local orders so that if I'm in Australia,
I want to ship for free in Australia -
that's fine, but I'm not going to ship for free to
the US because that is just too expensive and I can't recoup the cost
myself. I know it's not easy for every shop and
every niche and depending on the type of products that you're selling,
I know for those of you who are selling bigger,
larger items, it might be complicated to actually
decrease that shipping fee. But do try to take it into consideration
because not only it helps you rank better because of the algorithm change,
but it also gets you more sales, which again,
that virtuous circle, more sales = better conversion rate;
better conversion rate = better SEO score.
Number five, and that's the last point today,
and I want to talk about renewing items a little bit.
Now it appears that renewing your item isn't quite as useful as it might have
been in the past.
Etsy does say in their SEO guide that items that are new or renewed get a
small temporary boost. They also say that it might not be
entirely worth it. Let me read exactly what they have to
say about it. '{Renewed listings} get a temporary
boost {that} can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days,
depending on how often people are searching for a particular item.
Regularly renewing your items or creating new listings just to get this
small boost isn't an effective search optimization strategy.
Instead, we recommend focusing your time and
efforts on improving your tags or working to help increase your conversion
rate." This is really a nice way of saying
The effort isn't really worth it compared to all the other points that
"don't bother".
we've mentioned in this video and that they mentioned in their SEO guide that
are really going to make a difference in your SEO game.
Now, before I let you go,
there's one last thing I want to mention and then I want to give you three quick
tips. The thing that I want to state before I
go is that pro and premium account on Etsy do not get preferential treatment
when it comes to SEO score. I know that's something that is being
discussed widely all over the Internet, in forums on Reddit and on Facebook
groups, and it is simply not true.
Etsy has confirmed that themselves and I really don't think they're lying to you,
so don't feel that if you don't upgrade your pay plan on Etsy,
your item won't rank as well because it has nothing to do with it.
Now, 3 tips.
Number one, SEO is important to make sure that your
item get found, but once your item is actually displayed
in the search results, you have to make sure that people click
on it and that they will purchase it, so really pay attention to the quality
of your product images because that is key to more sales,
a better conversion rate and a better SEO score.
Number two, don't put all your eggs in the Etsy SEO
basket. I know it's tempting because it feels
like it's so important and because everyone seems to be talking about when
you sell on Etsy, but really it isn't.
It's important to pay attention to it. It's important to take note of those
changes and to make adjustments if necessary,
but really you want to be driving your own traffic to your store as well.
My recommendation has always been and still is to use Pinterest and an email
marketing strategy to do so. So it would really recommend you look
into diversifying your sources of traffic so that you don't rely only on
the traffic that Etsy sent you. And then my last tip is to read the SEO
Guide. If you're watching this video,
if you're selling on Etsy, if you think that Etsy SEO is important
and you're about to make changes to your listings to accommodate for the new
announcement that Etsy made, but you haven't read the Etsy SEO Guide
I believe that it is way worth your time to actually sit down for 45 minutes -
it's really not that long - and to read it from a to z.
Now I've summed that up for you in this video so it's better than if you didn't
know anything about it, you definitely know more now,
but I would still recommend you go and read every single thing in this guide
before believing anything that you read on forums,
Facebook groups, or anywhere else on the Internet.
It's important that you use facts and when Etsy releases an official
announcement, pay attention and take the time out of
your week to actually read it. I'll put the link to it below in the
comments so that it's easy for you to access.
If you liked this video, make sure to subscribe to the channel
and just below the video, I'm putting the link to my free resource
library full of guides and checklists to help you grow your handmade shop.
It's completely free to access it, so make sure to check it out as well as
the free facebook group, the Tizzit circle,
where myself and thousands of other makers are there to answer your
questions and support you in your handmade business journey.
I will see you next Tuesday. I have a lovely week.
Bye Bye.
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