Selling on Etsy used to be a fairly easy way to make some money. You simply opened an Etsy store, designed a great product, and waited for the customers to come flocking in. These days though, with the massive amount of competition involved, it’s no longer so easy to sell on Etsy.
You may have a great product, even the best in its category, and still see sluggish sales. If you want to increase sales and get your product on the first page of an Etsy search you need to understand Etsy SEO best practices. This is the best, and maybe only, way for you to get noticed ahead of your competition.
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What you Need to Know About Etsy SEO
There are three areas in your Etsy listing that you should have optimized so that your products show up in a search, in front of your competition. These areas include the:
- Tags
- Title
- & Product Description
Let’s take a look at each area individually. Understanding how different search engines use each of these areas will help you sell on Etsy much more efficiently than your competition.
Keyword Optimization for your Etsy Tags
In-depth keyword research, for quality Etsy tags, is the best way for you to get your product in front of an Etsy shopper. On the other hand; choosing a poorly researched tag for your Etsy product could actually hurt your chances of making a sale on Etsy.
Let’s assume for now that you own a jewelry store on Etsy. You’re brainstorming Etsy tag ideas and decide, like very many Etsy jewelry store owners do, to use the Etsy tag; Best Jewelry. You may actually have the best jewelry for sale on Etsy. It won’t matter though. Using the Etsy tag “Best Jewelry” will make sure almost no one knows that’s the case.
We’re able to offer top-notch services at Word-Brokers by having access to a number of different paid, and free, tools to help our clients with their Etsy SEO. One of the tools we use almost exclusively for Etsy SEO tag research shows exactly why your jewelry may not sell on Etsy when using the “Best Jewelry” tag.
A Bad Etsy Tag will Ensure a Hard Sell on Etsy
As you can see, based on Etsy’s search history, there are three problems with the “Best Jewelry” tag:
- Engagement – Customers on Etsy who search for “Best Jewelry” are low engagement customers. They’re looking around for jewelry, but they very seldom interact with any of the products (not clicking on specific jewelry, liking an item, or even asking the seller questions). They are even less likely to purchase anything even if they to happen to click on a store using this tag.
- Competition – As we mentioned previously; this is a very popular tag for Etsy jewelry store owners. Based on search history, competition is very high for this tag; over 50,000 products are using this tag. Most likely many, many more. Using a tag with very high competition makes it extremely unlikely that your product will show up on the first page (or even the first 10 pages) of an Etsy search.
- Category Page – When Etsy customers search for your “Best Jewelry” tag they run a high risk of being taken to one of Etsy’s category pages. A category page is what Etsy displays when a shopper uses a search term that’s too vague. Once the user sees the category page appear they, more often than not, refine their search to specify exactly what they’re looking for. You should never use a tag that has a high risk of landing shoppers on a category page.
If you’re seeing sluggish sales on Etsy, even though you have a great product, poor choice of Etsy SEO tags is the most likely reason. We’ll be happy to analyze your existing tags, on one product, for free for new customers. This is a $10 value. If you’d like to see how your tags are rated in Etsy, please feel free to contact us.
Finding Quality Tags Gives your Product a Better Chance of Selling on Etsy
When working with new clients, whose tags are less than stellar, the first thing we do is research new SEO Etsy tags for them. First, we get rid of under-performing tags, such as the above-referenced “Best Jewelry” tag. We then start to focus on what the product is they’re selling, and what we think shoppers may be using as a search term to find that product. From “best jewelry” we may decide to research the Etsy SEO tag, “diamond ring”.
Well, that didn’t work. The shoppers who search that tag are high engagement shoppers, which is good. The problem is that there is very high competition for that tag. The shopper also runs a high risk of ending up on Etsy’s category page. So we’ll leave that one out, and move onto researching, “gold engagement ring”.
Again, another road block. “Gold engagement ring” has a low risk of the shopper ending up on the category page, which is good. Unfortunately, shoppers using this search term are low engagement shoppers, which is bad. There is also very high competition for that keyword which makes it unlikely that shoppers will find the product we’re researching tags for. Let’s research something a little more specific, like “2 carat forever one”.
Bingo. After researching a few different tags we find one that’s perfect.
- The tag is specific to the product being sold.
- The person searching that tag is a very high engagement shopper.
- The competition for this tag is very low.
- And there is a low risk that the shopper will end up on Etsy’s category page.
This is definitely a tag that will help our client’s product sell on Etsy. Feel free to contact us for a quote on our Etsy SEO tag research.
Keyword Optimization for your Etsy Title
If you do thorough research, on quality Etsy SEO tags, creating an SEO title for Etsy is a breeze. Etsy uses the exact same search algorithm for titles, as it does for tags. When writing Etsy SEO optimized titles simply take the best performing tags that you have researched and make them into an easy to read, 140 character, title.
Here is an example of a title we wrote for a client recently. The owner of the shop hired us to find five, high-performing, SEO tags for her product. We then used those tags to create the following title:
2 Carat Oval Cut Engagement Ring, Forever One Oval Moissanite Certified Ring, Custom Made Moissanite & Diamond Engagement Ring for Her 2 Ct
Included in the above Etsy product title are:
- 5 high-performing SEO tags.
- 1 existing, medium-performing, SEO tag.
- A few filler words to make the title read well.
Now our client has five, highly optimized, tags for her product. She also has a highly optimized title to go along with them. This will ensure that she shows up in Etsy searches ahead of her competition.
We offer free Etsy SEO titles to all clients who purchase at least five SEO tags.
Keyword Optimization for your Etsy Product Description
Believe it or not, Etsy’s search algorithm doesn’t even bother to look at your Etsy product description. No matter how good, bad, or indifferent your product description is, it has no bearing on an Etsy search. That doesn’t mean a good SEO product description isn’t important though.
Even though Etsy doesn’t bother looking at your product description, Google does. Chances are someone shopping for your product is going to be searching on Google for it, as well as Etsy. This is why it’s so important to have a well-written, keyword optimized, product description. Showing up on a Google search for a “2 Carat Oval Cut Engagement Ring” is going to drive a TON of traffic to your Etsy store.
Whether shoppers are getting to your Etsy page though a Google, or Etsy, search, a good product description will convert shoppers into buyers. Let’s take a look at a typical product description that can be found on Etsy. We’ll keep going with the jewelry theme here:
The above description may give some info on the ring. It’s not exactly reaching out to the seller though. We offer high-quality product descriptions that convert. All of our Etsy descriptions are SEO optimized for Google. We use a combination of Google’s free Keyword Planner Tool, as well as our paid version of Moz Keyword Explore to find the best keyword possible for our clients. We then craft an elegant product description, complete with call-to-action.
Can We Help YOU Sell More on Etsy?
Getting onto the front page of an Etsy search takes a lot of hard work. Increased sales is quite a reward for that hard work though. Making sure that you have high quality, SEO optimized, tags, titles, and product descriptions will ensure that more of your products are selling on Etsy.
We can help you with that.