Etsy SEO ✽ Search Engine Optimization Part 1

All of these baby dresses are available on Etsy... just search Crocheted Baby Dress :)!

The most important way to get your listings in front of buyers is to have your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) working in your favor. Your SEO is your listing title, your tags, the first three lines of your listing description, your shop description, your section titles, and even your shop name if it includes a word that describes what you do (like Carrie's Knit Hats). These are all the places that you can use the keywords that people will be typing into the Etsy search bar, which can cause you to get your listing viewed by others, if they decide your picture stands out to them and they want to click through for more information :).

It is very important that you use each of these spots to their full advantage, on each and every listing. Each keyword you have inncreases your chances of being seen, because it gives you a wider range of searches to be seen in. It's also important that you use phrases, rather than single words; there is a middle ground you have to find. If you have the word "Knit" listed as it's own title, people who search for "Knit" are going to be shown 724,680 results. This is wayyyyyyyyy too broad. Nobody is going to go through all of those pages, and out of all those results, if you are just starting out, you are very unlikely to get shown within the first few pages. You can be too specific, though. Title your item as "Kitty Cat Quilled with 100% Recycled Paper Mounted in a Black Shadowbox", and you are the only person with that title. True, that means no competition! It is also means it is highly unlikely that anybody is going to look for such a long titled item without ANY variation in the wording, leading them to someone else's listing instead. Titles of 2-4 words are best :).

Don't just come up with 2-4 word titles and slap them in your listing title section, though. Do some research and make SURE it is a good title! I recently looked for keywords for a Crocheted Baby Dress while talking about keywords with Ashley from "Ashley's Yarn Works" of Etsy, and this is what I did...

Looking at the dress, some of the things I thought of were, crocheted baby dress, crocheted baby sundress, crocheted purple baby dress, crocheted newborn dress, purple and pink crocheted baby dress, crocheted baby shower gift, and crocheted baby girl outfit. I wrote those down and that gave me a good starting point, so I looked up each of those phrases, and any others that I thought of, or saw other people using, as I looked through the Etsy search pages. If you are stumped for ideas on what to title something, look for the basic idea of what it is -say, Pumpkin Magnets- and see what other people who are selling pumpkin magnets are calling them :). It will help you get ideas on where to start, which usually leads to having a good idea of where to go from there :). My research for the crocheted baby dress led me to find these stats for the keywords  I came up with...

• Crocheted Baby Dress: 17,763 results.
• Crocheted Baby Sundress: 420 results
• Crocheted Purple Baby Dress: 1,381 results.
• Crocheted Newborn Dress: 4,075 results.
• Purple and Pink Crocheted Baby Dress: 1,830 results.
• Crocheted Baby Shower Gift: 62,343 results.
• Crocheted Baby Girl Gift: 46,417 results.
• Crocheted Baby Girl Outfit: 9,961 results.
• Crocheted Baby Girl Dress: 11,652 results.
• Baby Summer Dress: 17,728 results.
• Crocheted Baby Summer Dress: 1,735 results. (I wondered if results would change if I changed the wording on this one, so I looked for....
• Crocheted Summer Dress for Baby: 1,735 results. That changes nothing, so I might as well save on my title limit of 140 characters by leaving out that “for”! I typed “Newborn” into the search bar for ideas right now, and I saw “Newborn Girl Coming Home Outfit” listed as a suggestion for a quick click; I’m going to see what that gives me!)
• Newborn Girl Coming Home Outfit: 23,401 results.
• Crocheted Baby Girl’s Coming Home Outfit: 1,481 results.
• Crocheted Newborn Girl Outfit: 7,201 results. 

See how this helps you see which keywords are a good viewing range? I wouldn't use Crocheted Baby Sundress in my title, because it has only 420 results. That means sellers don't think of that phrase often, which means buyers probably won't either. And I won't use Crocheted Baby Shower Gift, because competing with 62,343 results isn't something that as a smaller/newer seller right now, I can do very well. I can include those in my description, maybe my tags if I need more, because they are great phrases for what I am selling! But it is important that your title includes the best keywords, the ones with that middle range that get you the best chances of being seen! I can't give you the perfect number to look for... Etsy SEO is something I truly only started learning about this summer. I had heard a lot about it before... but I'd gotten a completely wrong idea about it and didn't know to check my titles before that, so they needed a totally new do when I took an online class for it this summer (because I injured my wrist and couldn't create new product as I had planned; that might have been a blessing in disguise ;).)! I do know that I personally am featured on one of the first 4 pages, usually the very first page, if my keyword is 4,000 results or smaller. But I'm also on the first page with my second best acting keyword, which is one of about 15,000 results! Try some things out, see which keywords are your best, see how many results they have, and maybe that would give you an idea of what range works really well for you :). Tomorrow I'll show you how I would use the keywords we researched today!

What range do you try to stay in when doing your tags? Do you like the challenge of finding the perfect phrasing to get you results?