Etsy. It’s the home of indie print makers, handmade earrings, personalised gifts, vintage home décor and everything in between. With at least 2.1 million sellers stocking their custom-made wares, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd… but not impossible. In our eyes, the answer to this dilemma is relatively simple: it lies in learning what exactly is SEO on Etsy and ways to implement it yourself. Let’s get to it!
Jump to
- What is SEO on Etsy?
- How Etsy search works
- Why use SEO tactics on Etsy?
- How to optimise your Etsy for search
- Conclusion
What is SEO on Etsy?
SEO is short for search engine optimisation and is a powerful (and free!) digital marketing technique that helps customers find your webpage through search engines.
Big businesses use it to promote their sites. Top bloggers use it to get their posts noticed. And Etsy shop owners can use it too.
So what does it involve?
To give you a bit of an overview, SEO refers to the strategy by which you increase the visibility of a page in search engines like Google and Yahoo, or even Etsy’s internal search system.
Etsy SEO is a set of processes specifically geared towards improving the visibility of an Etsy shop on the platform itself and in search engines like these. It’s all about getting the right people in front of your products and giving them what they want: relevant information and great products.
On a more granular level, this means implementing SEO best practices such as researching and using the correct keywords across your page to ensure they match your target audience’s search queries. This, in turn, will increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website via organic searches and boost its rankings.
Unsure about this last bit? You can read up on some of these crucial terms below. If not, you can skip past our quickfire glossary here.
Quickfire glossary
Before we dig any deeper into what is SEO and how it benefits Etsy shop owners, there are a few terms worth being familiar with.
- Search query: A phrase entered into a search engine to find specific information or things of interest.
- Keywords: A word, or group of words, matching the word(s) users search for.
- Search engine results page (SERP): The list of results that appears when you search in Google.
- Ranking: Where your page appears in the SERP. The higher the ranking, the higher up it will show up on Google.
- Backlinks: These are incoming links from other websites that signpost users to your site.
How Etsy search works
Although Etsy doesn’t operate completely independently from Google – this creative online marketplace has a powerful PageRank, which puts you in a solid position to siphon off search engine users – its internal search mechanisms are important to understand. You’ll want a site that is optimised for search engines and Etsy shoppers.
Etsy’s inbuilt search function is designed to make the consumer experience as smooth as possible by matching buyers with the products they’re searching for. They do this by deferring to two unique factors: ranking and query matching.
Query matching
Query matching is pretty straightforward: it refers to how effectively a user’s search query measures up with Etsy’s inventory listings by sifting through attributes, categories, tags and titles to pair them up with the searched term.
Ranking factors
Numerous ranking factors are at play within Etsy’s search algorithm and these will determine which results are returned for a query and in what order. They are as follows:
- Relevance – Do your products pair well with the Etsy keywords and attributes in their listings?
- Listing quality – How do users interact with your page? How many views does it get and for how long are users viewing for? Do they make a purchase?
- Recency – New products get a small, temporary boost when added. As do relisted items, albeit to a smaller degree.
- Customer and market experience – Do you have positive reviews? Have you completed the ‘about’ section of your shop?
- Post and packaging prices – Are your postage fees affordable and competitive?
- Language and/or translation – Does the information across your Etsy shop match your shop language?
- Personalised search – This will draw on past consumer behaviour to predict the current probability of purchasing.
Why use SEO tactics on Etsy?
Is SEO worth it for small businesses on Etsy? Our swarm of marketing professionals give a resounding yes, and here are a few of the main reasons why.
Broaden your customer base
8.5 billion searches are made on Google each day, so making sure your brand and products are discoverable through search is paramount. Achieve this and you can funnel an influx of new and potential customers towards your Etsy shop.
Maybe your ideal customer who’d love your product is out there, but they’re not on Esty; this is your ticket to cast out the line and catch their attention.
Keep shoppers loyal
Etsy SEO can also help existing customers find your site again, and (music to small biz ears!) make repeat purchases. While you might not see results instantly, cultivating your Esty listings, shop page and backlink profile will pay off in time as users return to your page. It’s just a matter of ‘bee-ing’ patient.
‘Evergreen’ potential
Think of it like a garden: once the roots have taken hold, you will have strong foundations for your site to blossom season to season and for years to come. And over time you can reshape, refine and prune your Etsy keywords and tactics as and when search trends fluctuate. With a good bedrock in place, you’ll half the work when you next want to optimise your Etsy shop.
How to optimise your Esty for search (on Google and Etsy)
Our top 10 Etsy SEO tips
1. Match your Etsy shop name and products
The best place to start when implementing SEO on Etsy is with your shop name as this will be the first thing a user will see when they navigate to the page.
A strong shop name will both indicate the type of products you sell or brand ethos, and include competitive Etsy keywords that you expect your ideal customer to search for.
This being said, don’t throw all creativity to the wind in favour of SEO – remember you’re writing for people, not just robots! You can name or rename your Etsy shop with a title up to 55 characters, so be sure to be mindful of this limit too.
2. Craft your SEO keywords to perfection
Keywords are an important piece in the SEO puzzle for search engines and that is no different for Etsy.
You may even want to do some competitor keyword analysis to work out what other shops in your niche are doing to entice customers. This could be as simple as visiting competitors’ Etsy shops and making a list of
3. Front-load your listings with your chosen keywords
Relevant and easy-to-read titles are Etsy SEO best practice. Positioning the most relevant Etsy keywords at the start of your title will help users know exactly what it is they’re buying, encouraging more clicks, favourites and more time spent on your shop – all of which boost your likelihood to rank on the platform.
You will also want each individual listing to have a unique, specific title. So no copying and pasting, please! Like Google, which allows for a max of 60 characters in meta titles, Etsy listings that are too long will only show part of the title in the search results.
4. Exploit all 13 tags in every listing
From Etsy keywords, we move on to tags. Make sure to use the maximum 13 tags when you set up your Etsy listings this will help your products to be found by prospective buyers. The same goes with attributes and categories, which essentially act as extra tags – so don’t forget to fill them out!
Remember when we talked about relevance as one of Etsy’s ranking factors? Well, this factors into that as the more tags, categories and attributes you use, the easier it is for the algorithm to parse the data and match your listings with user queries.
Top tip: When using categories, aim for the most specific subcategory relevant to the product as this will increase visibility in Etsy’s search.
5. Regularly update and tweak your listings
Etsy SEO isn’t a one-off fix, but rather an ongoing process that you can tailor as search trends ebb and flow. Make sure to review your keywords every so often and check how your selected keywords are performing; this will help them and the site receive an injection in their rankings.
6. Polish up your company branding
When you start up an Etsy business, you want it to be unique and memorable. You can do this by creating and following a cohesive set of brand guidelines. With these in place, you’ll be able to build a name for yourself and your brand and improve user experience of your shop.
7. Offer unmatched customer experience
From personalised messages with every order and brilliant customer service to offering free or competitive shipping, there are so many things you can do to ensure one-off customers become repeat customers.
A core part of this is writing clear shop policies, so that buyers know what to expect if they make a purchase. Not only will this make your shop more reputable, but it will help boost your Etsy ranking score.
8. Try out paid advertising services
While free social media campaigns and word of mouth can prove effective, they can only get you so far. Paid advertising strategies such as PPC management can help you widen the reach of your listings and increase your visibility for chosen terms.
9. High quality content
It’s a saying as old as time: the number one driver for search engine rankings is high-quality, relevant and authoritative content. This encompasses a slew of things from well-written copy, precise and specific information and good-quality images. These will all keep users on your site for longer.
Top tip: If your photos are of varying qualities, place your best ones first – this will be one of the first things users will see, so you’ll want it to be especially enticing.
10. Get others to shout about your shop!
This last one is a big one. The best way to grow your visibility, influence and sales is by organically acquiring backlinks. The more relevant and high authority backlinks you gain, the higher your site is going to rank. You can gain these by doing the following:
- Build an affiliate programme for your shop
- Reach out to other shops to explore cross-promotion
- Set up free listings on business directories
- Share items on your store on social media, such as Instagram and Pinterest
- Write useful and high-quality content on a blog incentivising other sites to link to it
- Contact other sites with guest posts, sponsorship opportunities or press releases.
Several beginner’s mistakes to avoid
Irrelevant and redundant keywords
People generally shut down after reading poor-quality or repetitive content. Right?
So it’s within reason that including badly chosen or irrelevant keywords will hamper your SEO efforts. Whatever you do, don’t stuff your listings with too many keywords, otherwise, it will appear spammy to readers.
Broken links
High-quality links are the cornerstone to online success according to SEMrush expert Greg Gifford. And this means broken and poor-quality links are an absolute no-no. Not only will this put off potential customers, but it might negatively affect your rankings on search engines. So make sure to check they’re all working.
Top tip: if you want to speed things up, you can use SEO tools such as Ahrefs’s free broken link checker to automate this process.
Optimise beyond search sites
The examples we’ve explored so far are engineered for Etsy search, but many of these general principles can be applied beyond this online market. And by this, I mean websites, blogs and social media. Every piece of content should be relevant and geared towards potential buyers.
Forgetting to fill out categories and attributes
Completing your shop’s ‘about’ section can help improve your customer experience and market score, thereby increasing your ranking on Etsy. On Etsy, it’s particularly important to share your values and story – and the more personal the better!
Another thing not to miss, is filling out your shop owner bio with information about you and including your links to social media.
Leap onto that learning curve
Congratulations on making it to the end of this guide. Now the next time someone asks you what is SEO on Etsy you’ll be equipped with all the answers, including how easy it is to get a head start over your competitors by growing your visibility.
By implementing a foolproof SEO strategy on Etsy, you open the door to a whole new world of possibilities. Your market will become so much broader as users stumble across your shop when they’re browsing the web for adjacent products.
Now if you like the sound of this, but it all sounds like too much work, why not recruit our hive of digital marketing experts to help you? Learn more about SEO strategies for small businesses on the WebHummel blog today.
