When selling on Etsy, SEO is one of the most important parts of increasing sales on it. It’s not a secret that search engine optimization has become one of the biggest topics of discussion around internet marketing. In order to be seen on Google, Bing and other search engines, you need to have really strong SEO. Although the algorithm is different on every platform, we will dive in on what it takes to rank really well on Etsy.

Etsy SEO

When it comes to Etsy SEO, many people will promise you the world and under deliver. The first thing to understand is that no one should promise they can get you any result through SEO. However there are steps to take to make sure you have a really good shot at ranking well.

If you’re trying to increase your Etsy sales with SEO, keep in mind there are other factors that will impact your conversion rate besides how well you rank. Some of those factors include prices, shipping price, feedback, shipping times, picture quality, etc.

One of the greatest benefits of selling on Etsy is that it has become a BIG marketplace. Every day, a massive amount of customers are going to Etsy with a strong buying intent for an incoming birthday, anniversary, party gift, or simply to find something beautiful and special for themselves.

Etsy buyers are confident that they will find unique designs and reactive sellers. So, they do their product searches directly on Etsy.

Ranking high in the internal search engine of Etsy is an incredibly powerful tool to get more visits and more sales. Like all search engines, Etsy has its own preferences and SEO optimization. Good use of best practices on SEO increases the chances of ranking high on the first page of searches.

What is SEO on Etsy

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is simply how Etsy's search works. In other words, it’s the algorithm that defines what the first, second, third, etc. ranking position listings are. It does this by taking a variety of different data points, puts it all together and figures which listing has the perfect score. Although not all of the data points are revealed, the majority of them that move the needle are revealed.

The true algorithm changes for different platforms but the core idea stays the same. You want to give the audience/customer the best listing by having the right data points. Some of those can include the right keyword, the best user experience, relevancy etc.

How SEO on Etsy Search Works

Although it can change over time as the platform gathers more data to become smarter, it generally stays the same.

When it comes to how Etsy search works, always remember that it breaks down into query matching and ranking. Query marching is how well your listing matches up to the searcher's intent. The way the platform knows if it's matching the query correctly is by looking through every listing's titles, categories, tags, and other features that match up with the keyword the customer typed in. Over time, the search will understand the keywords and buyers intent better so it can match it up with the right products.

Keywords in Title

Keywords play a very important role in SEO, whether it’s on Google or on Etsy. The keywords are the main words that people type in to find certain products. Keywords can be very specific or it can be super broad. The more specific the word is towards that product, the better of a chance the buyer has at finding the product they’re looking for.

As a seller, you want to make sure you put all your main, relevant and high volume keywords in the beginning of the title. The more searched a keyword is, the more competition you will generally have. However, you want to try to rank for keywords in the sweet spot. These are usually high volume keywords with low competition. That’s why it’s important to spend time finding the right words to use by using Seller Way.

Etsy Title

It is recommended by Etsy to use titles readable by a human. This is rather important for the first 3-4 words, which are the only ones displayed in the search front page results. In my opinion, the rest of the title should stay readable, but with less focus on grammar and more on niche keywords people are searching for. And it seems the type of separators does not matter, so you can use any of, / -.

Also try to not spam the same keyword again and again, and instead get creative for smaller, less competitive keywords. This way you can catch different types of searches and get more visits and more sales. Do not forget to mention useful elements too, like materials used, production method, etc…

So less “Poster for wall, printed poster for wall, wall poster printing, colorful poster, glossy poster”. And more “Wall Poster, Housewarming Party Gift, New York NY Cityscape, City Line Skyscrapers, Glossy Printing”.

Oh, and do not hesitate to use all the characters available if possible. I have never had, over the years, one client complaining that a title was too long. The majority of buyers will not read the full title and judge your listing from its picture. The truth is, many do not even read the product descriptions and buy on an impulse. Beyond the beginning of the title, confirming to buyers it is the right type of item and making them click, the title is mostly for the search engine, not humans.

Relevant Tags

You always want to use all 13 tags and make sure they’re all relevant to your product. Relevant means it can be the size, color, style, pattern, design and even the different names the product goes by. The more descriptive and specific you are, the better chance it will get found. When you type the relevant tags, always be descriptive while using a variety of keywords. Also make sure you use multi-word phrases rather than one-word tags. For example, if you’re selling a necklace, the tag shouldn’t just be “necklace”. Make it longer by using other descriptive words like “blue opal chain necklace”.

Also use synonyms and regional phrases that might be local in certain regions. This helps if most of your audience is from a specific place that uses a different word. Once you create your listing, try to revisit the listing stats to revise the tags once you get more data on it. Also try to target long tail keywords as most people use long tail keywords to find something more accurately. Long tail keywords also have stronger buyer intent because it shows the customer knows exactly what they want.

Etsy Tags SEO

Tags are a pure SEO tool. Virtually no buyer will ever pay attention to them, as they are buried at the very end of the product listing. However, they are very useful for the search algorithm to understand what it should understand from your title and description. So do not hesitate to repeat a lot of your title keywords and group keywords into the tags. This is even recommended.

Tags are also a great tool to start ranking higher on small, niche searches. Every shop is trying to rank high on general keywords like jewelry, Tshirt, etc… Considering that hundreds of thousands of listings try to be on the first page for these searches, this will be an incredibly difficult task to manage for a small or new shop, almost impossible.

So the key is to think of what YOU would search if you were looking to buy something. It is unlikely that anyone is searching for your shop name or some technical terms that only craftsmen know about. But they are likely to search for things like “husband gift ring”, “Yosemite sunset”, “cute dragon tattoo”, etc…. Dig deeper into how your buyers are thinking, and why they buy such items, at a personal and emotional level, not technical.

This is related to the old marketing saying that you never sell a drill, you sell the hole. No one wants a drill, they buy it to get the hole. No one is buying a “landscape poster”, they are buying a “red sunset beach” or a “housewarming gift” poster.

Shop Section

It’s not the biggest impact on SEO but changing your Etsy shop sections also helps you rank your listings better. Each section has its own landing page and naming the title of each page with the right keywords will help you. You get allotted 66 characters for each page title and each section name gets 24 characters.

Pro Tip: Describe the type of items in each section using a category style name. Use an adjective or two along with the main category name of your item. This helps describe the page and items along with helping the buyers navigate through your shop.

You can edit your shop sections by going to Shop Manager > Listings. Find Sections in the right toolbar and click Manage to edit them.

Categories

It’s hard to find a product if it’s not presented in the right category. Finding and submitting your product listing into the right category can get your items found much quicker.

ETSY SEO Tips

Before we go into detail on the SEO methods, let’s determine how you should design your global SEO strategy.

Anytime you want to learn about something, there's always helpful guides, tricks and tips you can use to scale your results. Fortunately, this is one of those that has many tips and tricks you can use. Although there are revisions or changes you can make that will give you dramatic changes, there are many small changes you can make that will move the needle a bit. This can be the difference between getting consistent daily sales and barely making a sale a day.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is definitely not the way to go. A lot of people find the right keywords and continue to use it over and over again. This won’t help you rank any better for a certain keyword because Etsy sees this as spamming their pages. When you do SEO, you always want to ask yourself, “How will what I’m doing benefit the buyer?”. It’s no secret that repeating the same words over and over is not helpful. Repeating the same main keywords over and over will also give you less space to fill up other keywords. There is only a certain amount of word you can fill the title and tags up with.

Use All 13 Tags

Although many Etsy sellers will use the space for all 13 tags, many sellers leave it open. They put up a few relevant tags and forget or don’t bother writing out more tags. Always remember to fill it up with all 13 available tags so your buyers are able to find your listings through various keywords. Start with the most searched and related keywords and then start using more descriptive words.

Backlinks Can Help

Although backlinks don’t help your Etsy listing as much as it does for your website, it can still send different signals to Google to crawl your listing more. This will help you get featured on Google's first page, which will bring you more traffic.

Ultimate Guide to SEO

When you understand how the inner workings work with SEO, you want to get yourself well-versed on how keywords work in the Etsy search. One advantage you have is using the auto-search terms that Etsy gives. Once you start typing, it gives you the most popular searches related to your current search. Although these are the main keywords, it doesn’t mean you will want to use those right away.

How Keywords Work in Etsy Search

When you first start, you will want to focus on low competition keywords. These are the types of keywords that the majority of the buyers are not targeting. You may be wondering, “But do those keywords get a lot of sales?” This is the exact reason you want to go after these. Using keywords that others are not using will get you more sales because you will appear on top when someone does use that keyword. The best ranking to have is on top of high search volume keywords but that’s not easy at all. To be blunt, the absolute best position to be in, is ranking #1 on a high search keyword with low competition but those are super hard to find. They aren’t impossible either!

Going after low search volume keywords on low competition is best for beginners because this will bring in more consistent sales. Not everyone thinks the same which means different people will type in different words to describe their product. Your unique keyword might be one of them!

Keyword Research

You need to use the right keywords to be found by the buyers. The ideal keyword has a lot of people searching it every day, and almost no other sellers mentioning it. Remember, on Etsy, a lot of searches have a strong buying intent, they are not browsing Google images for ideas, they are already looking for a product to buy.

Try to think of keywords as “what people write in their search”. Are they searching for specific needs, special materials, some gift thematic? Each product and category will have different relevant keywords. And sometimes the buyer thinks of it in a very different way than the seller.

This is because as sellers, we KNOW our product in excruciating details. We care about the quality grade or sourcing of its raw materials, if it’s created in a way or another. Buyers know very little about it, they just know they like how it looks and feels. So, they will search for what they know and feel.

The “Keywords” Tool from Seller Way can help you get accurate data on the competition on a keyword. This way you will avoid the keywords on which every shop tries to rank, and actually get very few visits. And you can find which of these keywords have a lot of views/day/listing.

Etsy SEO Checklist

Visibility and searchability. So, these are two significant elements for successful sales and business running in general. We can definitely state all businesses are eager to get benefits from good SEO implementation.

And you will get all these juicy results without ad campaigns or some other marketing tricks. Buyers usually visit the site with the intention to find an exact item. So, logically, they will enter their queries into a search bar. Then, the algorithm of Etsy shows results in a list.

If the keywords, tags and titles contain just word by word what people are looking for, this very listing will most likely be on top of Etsy search. As well we need to remember and take into account that buyers rarely will go to the second or even farther pages.

Here is the conclusion – the more effective and winning keywords sellers use, the higher position they get. As this ranking is relevant to criteria how likely sellers’ keywords and buyers’ queries are.

And to make your Etsy SEO easily just grab one of these Etsy SEO Checklists we prepared for you. It's a short guide for optimizing your every listing. Enjoy!

Navigating Through Etsy SEO

If you already have products, you should decide how you want to sell them. Are these wall posters for housewarming parties or anniversary gifts? If you do not have existing products, I recommend you read our articles about The Best selling items on Etsy and the 10 best selling digital items on Etsy.

You can use our software to analyze how well other shops are selling, how much they earn per month, etc… like “Tracking Shops Plus” Tool from Seller Way.

You can also analyze deeper whether you are making the right choice with the “Shop Analysis Plus” Tool, where you can see other data, like the average price for the shop’s listings, sales per day, etc. Also, you can check your Shop's Grades.

This way, you know that other people are already selling in this niche. Better go fishing where the fishes are, that always helps.

And finally, you should calculate how much profit each sale will bring, so you are sure you can make a decent living once good SEO has boosted your sales. For this you will need to calculate your production costs, and look at selling price from similar shops. Online help, like the Calculator Tool from Seller Way can help you to be sure to calculate it well and not have a bad surprise with fees or taxes eating away your margin.

I hope this will help you to boost your sales and build durable success on Etsy. SEO is a lot of work, but this is also the best investment you can do in your shop, as it will keep bringing more buyers to your craft items. Also, more clicks from searches and more purchases per visitor will boost your shop ranking in general. With the right tools, you can find the perfect niche and make your work more visible to the world.

Seller Way gives you beneficial Etsy SEO Strategy for Success

Anytime you want to learn about something, there's always helpful guides, tricks and tips you can use to scale your results. Fortunately, this is one of those that has many tips and tricks you can use. Although there are revisions or changes you can make that will give you dramatic changes, there are many small changes you can make that will move the needle a bit. This can be the difference between getting consistent daily sales and barely making a sale a day.

Are you aware of this double feelings of being extremely enthusiastic about Etsy and at the same time struggling to cope all this SEO stuff?

The philosophy of Seller Way means really helpful support for all Etsy sellers to free time and energy resources for your favorite business. Seller Way tools are organized the way you need just several clicks to get the necessary results.

No Etsy Sales? You need a Strategy!

Whoever you are on Etsy, Seller Way has prepared an effective and flexible formula to boost your shop business. Based on tons of experience and hours of practice, 5 - Stage SEO Strategy demonstrates really juicy results, while every seller can identify how many stages are required personally for his or her shop.

Effective Tools for Your Etsy SEO Strategy

Seller Way developed unique tools to meet all the needs on each stage of your Etsy SEO Strategy. Seller Way tools serve as a brilliant assistant for all Etsy sellers nowadays.

As dealing with such challenging period, the aim of Seller Way means help for everyone to try working online successfully and enjoying the process in general.

Advantages of Seller Way Subscription

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