Search engine optimization is at the heart of every successful e-commerce brand. The same mantra applies to Etsy stores as well. One of the most efficient ways to make the most of Etsy is by maximizing the chances of a customer finding your products from the search listings. But, how can you identify if your SEO efforts are paying rich dividends or not? Do you feel you need to revamp your Etsy listings but have no clue how to get started? Fret not, here’s a comprehensive guide to auditing your Etsy listings successfully.
Why do you need an Etsy Listing Audit?
Before we get to the matter at hand, let’s figure out why you might be considering an audit in the first place. The reasons are multifold, but here are some of the most common ones.
- You rushed into setting up an Etsy shop without thinking about SEO and whether it was user-friendly.
- Your brand went through a major rehaul and is now looking to shift focus to a different demographic or divert attention towards another product.
- You’re just getting started and are in the process of understanding the ins and outs of the webpage development space.
Benefits
The biggest advantage of performing an audit on the product listings is that it provides a valuable insight into the minds of customers and what exactly it is they expect from your brand or company. An audit also helps to break down large chunks of information into smaller sections like attributes, descriptions, statistics, and relevant tags that can be easily comprehended. You now have the resources to evaluate every section and pay more attention to one if found to be below par. It’s also a great way for a beginner to learn about all the facets of a successful SEO campaign, understand its most important moving parts, and eventually apply the same learnings in their own business.
Seller Way Listing Audit
Keeping this in mind, Seller Way offers a one-of-a-kind listing analysis tool that is intuitive and easy to use. You can make use of this tool to check the SEO and Competition Grade of your listing. In addition to this, this tool also enables you to analyze keywords to drive more traffic to your page.
How to use it
It’s fairly simple to use Seller Way’s Listing Analysis tool. You’ll get the hang of it in a couple of tries. Navigate to the “Listing Audit” button present close to each of the listings mentioned in the comprehensive report. Once you’ve done that, you can further click on “See on Etsy” to see the same on your Etsy shop. Pressing the “Refresh” button will help you take a look at the updated listing once you’ve made a couple of changes.
Analyze Listing
Now that we’re fairly acquainted with Seller Way’s Listing Analysis tool, what should you be even looking for? What are some of the clear-cut indicators that your listing is doing well? At what point do you intervene and make alterations?
Check Keywords
One of the first things that you should be concerned about when it comes to listings is keywords. Keywords, in simplified terms, are the central ideas or topics that your content is all about. They’re extremely important in terms of SEO since search engines specifically look for this phrase or collections of words while ranking search queries. More the number of keywords, the better the chances of your listing appearing higher up in a customer’s search inquiry.
Keywords should be chosen carefully keeping in mind the products you’re advertising and, more importantly, the search trends of potential customers. To attract organic traffic to your Etsy shop, you must begin to understand the needs of the visitors and how they communicate the same. Try frequenting customer forums or directly conversing with consumers to process the kind of language they use.
Yet another important aspect of keyword research is the frequent use of long-tailed keywords instead of single words. While single words may appear to reap rich rewards, they can be incredibly vague at times and is a heavily contested space. Long-tailed keywords, on the other hand, are a much safer bet. Think of the difference between just “screens” and “projector screens for the best cinematic experience”.
Lastly, there are some unwritten rules when it comes to the usage of keywords. Never repeat the same keywords across multiple product listings as you’ll only end up competing against yourself. You’ll familiarize yourself with the rest as and when you start using more and more keywords.
Check Relevant Tags
Tags are yet another important aspect of Search Engine Optimisation. They’re essentially morsels of code that prompt search engines how to properly read your content. Similar to keywords, they can help to vastly improve the visibility of your Etsy shop amongst hundreds of competitors. So, take complete advantage of tags to boost your organic marketing efforts.
Etsy provides you with more than 10 tags for each listing, so it’s up to you to use them appropriately in order to craft a tale to attract consumer attention. So, you could target close to 13 different keyword phrases using these tags. All that you need to do is find those relevant keywords that seem to be trending off late.
Analyzing competitors
The purpose of auditing your listings isn’t just to optimize yours but to evaluate how it performs with respect to your immediate competitors. You’re offered a rare chance to see what they’re doing right and also in what areas they might be lacking in. This practice provides valuable knowledge that could be applied to ensuring that your Etsy shop attracts maximum interest.
Here are some of the factors that you should be looking into while analyzing the listings of your competitors.
Grade
Grades can greatly determine the success of your SEO efforts. They define how closely your listings seem to adhere to Esty’s market practices, hence playing a crucial part in your marketing campaign. A report regarding Grades can help you understand if your or a competitor’s listing complies with Esty’s preconceived idea of what a listing should be like.
But, this idea has been hotly debated since the grade of a listing need not always be an accurate predictor of the effective usage of keywords. At the end of the day, a listing with a poor Grade can still perform exceedingly well, provided it’s backed up with a positive history of sales and trustworthy reviews. So, make it a point to use the Grade report in conjunction with other factors mentioned below to infer learnings as opposed to treating it as a single entity.
Statistics
This section provides information regarding the performance of a listing in terms of conversion rates. Moreover, you can also use Seller Way’s Compare Shops tool to compare the number of sales, sales per day, and other such indicators to see how your Etsy shop is doing in comparison to a key rival.
Title
Etsy prescribes that for a title to be successful, it needs to be descriptive, conversational in nature, and brimming with keywords. There isn’t a specification when it comes to the number of characters, but it would be wise to stay away from lengthy titles. Try to keep in mind what a consumer might type into the search bar while looking for your product and compose your title accordingly. Go through a couple of other listings to understand how they’ve made use of the title tag.
Keywords and tags
The importance of keywords and tags has already been elucidated in the earlier section of the article. Keeping that in mind, make sure to take a keen look at the keywords that your competitors are making use of. It’ll give you a fair idea of what seems to be working and understand the recent trends in the marketplace that you may not be aware of.
Image and Videos
Your customers do not have the time or attention span to read large blocks of text, so entice them with demonstrations of your product in action through attractive visuals. They’re likely to stay in the minds of a consumer and are hence more likely to remember your brand. Your competitors are sure to be using the same tactic to boost brand recognition, so try to figure out what seems to be working in their favor and apply the same to building your brand image.
Conclusion
So, there you have it, a comprehensive guide to the process of auditing your Etsy listings. It might be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process but is integral to maximizing web traffic. Always keep an eye out for your competitors and be aware of their marketing efforts so that you can always stay a step ahead.
