An Ultimate Etsy SEO Guide

There are over 3.68 million active sellers on Etsy and you’re amongst them, so it is indeed daunting to think about brand visibility and exposure.

To get discovered on Etsy by your target customers or potential buyers, there are optimization practises required to apply on your Etsy store.

Etsy SEO is something you need to learn over time to rank your product listing in Etsy searches.

Good news is Etsy SEO is not as complicated as any other search engine optimization such as Google SEO.

However, it does require customization and consistent practise to make your product listing show up in high-ranking keywords.

Contents

Step-By-Step Search Engine Optimization For Your Etsy Store

Step 1: Make Sure You Have A Quality Product

With Etsy, it becomes highly essential that you’re selling something unique, exciting, interesting, and relevant in the first place.

Any level of search engine optimization won’t work if your product doesn’t stand tall against the competition and market demands.

Don’t rush to put your product. Be confident about what strengths you’re are playing with.

SEO brings your exposure and reach to your product to the targetted potential customers but if your product fails to attract, it won’t be translated into sales.

Have something different from other Etsy stores out there. Keep improving and adhering to the updating needs and demands of your customers.

Step 2: Choose Keywords

One of the most crucial steps in the success of a search engine optimization strategy is selecting the best keywords that define your store.

Here you have to think like your buyers! Think what words you would search for if you were looking for the products you sell or the kind of Etsy store you have.

Brainstorm particular search terms and phrases that are highly relevant to your store.

These keywords also help when you will be selecting tags for your item listing. It will make your products get found on the Etsy search.

Step 3: Deciding Your Etsy Shop Title

The Etsy shop title will be a description in the form of text visible just right under your shop name on the store homepage.

The title for your shop is going to also become the page title of the store as well. This will be what your prospective buyer will see on the SERPs to click on it.

It will determine whether after reading it, the prospective buyer clicks on it or not to further reach your store via the given link.

Image Source: Cicero Leather

It must be highly relevant, serving the buyer’s intent, and descriptive enough to make buyers give it a chance.

Now, to edit your Etsy shop title, go to the “Shop Manager” and click on the pencil icon you see just next to your shop name.

Step 4: Edit Your Shop Sections

Go to the “Shop Manager”, click on “Listings” and look for the “Sections” visible in the right toolbar.

Now, click on “Manage” to edit your shop sections.

The section names will also be used to create page titles for each of your sections which will appear in search engine result pages as well.

The page title that appears on the SERPs is what makes a potential buyer click on the link to reach your landing page.

What you need to remember is search engines such as Google only show 66 characters as page titles and Etsy gives you only 24 characters.

Also, Etsy will automatically add your shop name to your page titles.

Make sure you describe what kind of items you are selling in each particular section.

Step 5: Customizing Your Item Listing Pages

You need to customize your item listing page to optimize your store for better exposure on search engine result pages..

There are two essential elements to edit in your item listing pages :

Item Title
Item Description

To edit both, you need to go to the “Shop Manager” and then click on “Listings” visible on the right side of the page.

Keyword Optimization 101 For Your Etsy Store

How does Etsy Search work With Keywords?

You need to understand how Etsy optimizes the search results and decides the placement of item listings.

Etsy shows the only results that match the search terms the user has entered. It places the item according to the relevancy of the match found in the results.

So, the items that match the most with the search term placed at the highest, and items that match least towards the lowest.

Etsy Ranking the Items in Search Results

If a buyer searches “ dog shirt”, the Etsy search algorithm will find all the items that match with tags and titles of “dog” and “shirt”.

Then, the list in the search results will be ordered as per the relevance to the search term as a phrase or keyword.

Exact Phrase Over Individual Words

Etsy will prefer the exact phrase or keyword typed as a search term in comparison to individual terms in it.

So the items with the “dog shirt” keyword will be placed higher than any item matches with “dog” or “shirt”.

Appearance In Both Title And Tags

If the item title and tags both contain the words or whole phrase of the search term, Etsy will consider it more relevant than others.

So, appear in both title and tags, make your item appear higher or highest in the search result listing

Best SEO Tips For Etsy

Finding The Best Keywords For Your Etsy Store

Keywords are the foundation of any search engine optimization strategy for a given platform.

Whenever a potential buyer enters a search term on Etsy, the first thing it does is look throughout the inventory of all product listings and find the best matches that serve the particular search query.

How the search term is apt and relevant to the available products determines its visibility.

That means, if you want your product to be discovered, you need to find the best keywords for your Etsy product listing.

Make Sure You’re Choosing Right Shop Title

The shop title you choose is surely going to be brief but it does describe your store, and what kind of products you sell.

Any potential buyer gets a clear idea of what you sell. It doesn’t just describe your store but also can be utilized to improve Etsy SEO.

Your selected title is going to be the page title of your landing or homepage and will appear on search results as the same.

If you select a name for your Etsy store that is descriptive and more around the actual search terms that your target customers might search with, your chances to be found is much higher.

So, an ideal shop title for your Etsy store will be including the relevant search terms or keywords in your title.

Also, you can only go upto 55 characters long. If it is already available, you can always add, remove or change a few things here and there.

Brainstorm Different Set of Names For Your Items

You can always rely on one primary keyword to optimize your listing or page for your Etsy store.

For Example, adding your primary keyword in the Etsy page, product, or listing titles at the beginning optimizes it for search engines.

But you cannot just keep repeating the same primary keywords, so it becomes necessary to come up with multiple names of your item, even if they are the same or similar.

Keep Updating Your Listings

Updating and renewing your Etsy listing helps your website get better in its SEO.

How recent your listing on Etsy determines the SEO ranking in the search results.

Etsy’s search algorithm recognizes recency as an essential SEO ranking factor for stores to get discovered and grow.

Whenever a new list is created or updated, your Etsy store gets a little and temporary boost of SEO, so it becomes more likely to appear in search results.

Image Source: Dummies

A renewed listing can last for a few hours and even for a few days depending upon how much buyers are looking up for those particular items.

However, Etsy does not recommend continuous renewing or re-listing your items as an effective long-term search engine optimization strategy.

But you can surely update your listings every once in a while as standard Etsy SEO practices to give a little boost.

Especially in the cases where the keywords for your product items are highly competitive.

So here it helps your items get to reach the target audience easily, especially when more people are searching about it, such as in holiday durations.

Loading The Fronts Of Your Listing Elements With Keywords

To make your item listing even more optimized according to the keywords, you need to front-load the listings with a particular keyword.

You need to place the keyword at the starting of every field in your new listing. This is just another way to boost your Etsy store listing.

Also, it appears more attractive and promising for users helping them to decide whether the item is fit for the user’s requirement as per their search term.

You need to optimize different segments of your product listing with the keywords to make it more credible for the purchase.

Here you how you use the keywords in different segments of product listing :

Title: Make sure you use your keyword in the descriptive title so people looking for it and see it in the title itself.
Description: Meta description of your listing page appears beneath the page title in search engine results. It is basically the first 160 characters of your item description. So, make sure you make it highly relevant with the required keywords.
Sections: Your Etsy shop can have upto 20 sections that are highly customizable and even have their own landing pages.

Avoid Going For Cute or Creative Names For Your Product

You might be tempted to go for extremely creative, unique, or a very cute name for the products you sell.

And, that surely goes with the product identity as well but still, it is a bad SEO move for Etsy store owners.

Such cutesy, creative, or made-up names can make your product hard to be discovered or relevant to the search results.

So it is better to name them as basic, simple, and relevant that your target prospective buyer can reach your product very easily.

Add more relevant search terms, related words, functionality, or feature to your product title to boost its ranking.

Assuring Extraordinary Customer Experience

Etsy primarily focuses on providing a great customer experience to their shoppers and that’s what they advocate in their policies as well.

So if you want to increase the chances of your product listing appearing higher in the ranking of their search result pages, it is best you comply with it.

Make sure your store stands tall on the policies and guidelines of Etsy.

Image Source: The Verge

You need to take care of all different sections such as About, Payment Options, Shipping, Returns, FAQ, Exchanges, Privacy Policy, and Terms & Conditions as well.

It potentially increases your chances to appear in Etsy search results and also boosts your ranking in search engines as well.

The SEO of your Etsy shop also depends upon the quality of customer service you provide, and the customer experience you offer.

So the negative feedback, late responses to your customers, inefficiency in customer assistance, and other fatal customer-based flaws can be lethal to your store SEO.

Make sure you deliver on the customer promises and meet customer satisfaction to add positive remarks to your store, improving your store SEO as well.

Always Add Category In Your Listing Titles

Image Source: Youtube

It is important to be clear, concise, and to-the-point with your titles on Etsy stores. And when you include the category in your titles, it helps the cause.

Adding a category to your titles makes it more susceptible and informative for prospective buyers.

Since you are making your titles more relative and relevant, it boosts your SEO for listing.

It most certainly increases the chances for your listing to be found in the relevant Etsy search results.

Make Sure You Are Using All 13 Tags In Each Listing

While setting up your product listing, there are different fields you need to fill up such as title, description, category, etc.

You can see that these fields are mandatory to fill up as there is an asterisk mark above them.

Image Source: Fuzzy & Birch

All this information is required to be mentioned as it helps your store display in the search results.

And, then you might see that the tag section is not mandatory but it is important to add a different variety of tags.

It helps in the optimization of your product listing. Make sure you use all 13 of them to give it your best.

Add Only High-Quality Images

Images are always a crucial element for landing pages.

Especially in the case of Etsy stores, your images decide quite a perception in your buyer’s mind about products.

Image Source: Amy Takes Pictures

Since people cannot actually see the products in reality before buying, images need to be of utmost convincing to convert customers.

Product photos play an integral role in the sales of that product, so make sure you choose only high-quality, relevant, attractive, and communicative images only.

You can add up to 10 photos for an item, so make sure you give your customers utmost satisfaction through these images.

Promoting Your Shop Will Get Your More Inbound Links

One of the ways to boost your Etsy store SEO is to display the pages or links linked from other sources.

You need to understand which inbound links are highly relevant and contextual to your content or product.

The search engine algorithm looks for the search results that are relevant, updated, and informative.

If your listing or pages are linked to the required resources, it’s only going to boost your store SEO.

Tips For Reaching Out For Link Building Opportunities

Avoid linking your own websites like personal blogs or other portfolio websites.
Get influencers to review your products in exchange of a free giveaway or another incentive.
Find out bloggers and websites that can promote your products.
Share your item listings on social media websites for easy re-shares.
You can also start a referral program for your Etsy store as well.

Make Sure You Are Not Repeating The Same Keyword

It is important to know about de-clumping if you are dealing with Etsy SEO for your store.

Whenever a buyer searches anything on Etsy, the search algorithm won’t be showing more than one or two listings from the same seller even if it matches the search term.

This is called de-clumping where Etsy assures that search results offer variety to their prospective buyers.

Image Source: Indiemade

So, make sure you use your primary keywords for a certain item only for a few times more, the less will be better.

Else, your own items will be competing against each other to show up in particular search results.

It is better if you try to come up with variable keywords to your primary keyword or the kind of product you sell.

For Example, if you cannot use “sport shoes” for all or any of your items, you have to come up with other relevant keywords such as “athlete shoes” “running shoes” etc.

Give A Lot Of Thoughts To What You Are Naming Your Store

You already know how naming your store goes to the title of your Etsy Shop, and also into the meta title of your homepage.

It is surely important as it tells people what you sell, so choosing a name around your primary keyword or search term is best for the SEO of your store.

Image Source: Pinterest

However, there are other aspects you need to know while naming your store

The best strategy is to name your store by blending your primary keyword with some unique term or element to it.

This way, you still get a brandable name for your Etsy store but not lose its search engine optimization value as well.

Do Consider Running Ads For Your Etsy Store

There are organic ways to boost your SEO such as page optimization, keywords, image optimization, etc, and then there are paid ads.

Running Etsy ads for your item listing will give an adequate amount of SEO boost to your Etsy store every once in a while.

Image Source: Mediapost

It increases your chance to be in the search engine page results for a set of keywords you choose.

You will be charged on the basis of pay per click for the promoted item under the campaign.

Once it boosts your brand visibility and increases sales, even for that period of time, take advantage and build social proof of your items.

Ask your customers to leave reviews and build an overall reputation for your brand in these brief cycles.

Collecting As Much Reviews As Possible

Online reviews also play a crucial role in the optimization of your product listing or the Etsy store. It helps you boost your brand authenticity and credibility through social proof.

Today, nobody buys anything without checking the reviews of the product. You know, as you do that too.

Image Source: Mrs H

97% of customers check online reviews before making the purchase.

So, if you leverage the customer feedback to promote your products or optimize your store, it can boost your exposure tenfold.

Social proof and brand authority helps to increase the SEO quotient of your Etsy store as well.

What you need to do is ask your customers to share their feedback for the products and their overall shopping experience with you.

Use emails to make them remember and give gentle reminders about leaving a quick review.

You can also mention it in your “thank you” note after the purchase. Social media is another place to connect your customers and ask for reviews.

Just be careful with asking reviews. Don’t be pushy or too quick to ask.

In case you get a negative review, just get in touch with them, try to resolve their issue. This can be your chance to turn their negative experience to a positive one.

How Etsy SEO Works?

Etsy SEO or Etsy search tool is designed in a way where the online shopper’s set of preferences are determined by their search terms.

The search terms when entered go through two different phases called :

Query Matching
Ranking

Both factors are complex where hundreds of factors are in effect to interpret by the Etsy search algorithm.

However, they are still dependent on limited query matching factors primarily. You need to understand how these factors influence the search results.

This will allow you to optimize your Etsy store according to Etsy search algorithm to drive more visitors to your shop.

Image Source: Keyword Tool Dominator

Query Matching

Query matching is the process where how well the search term entered by users matches with the inventory listing results is determined.

It basically checks the relevancy quotient of the search term to the respect with available inventory listings.

There are various factors accounted for in finding the matches such as titles, categories, tags, keywords, attributes and others as well.

Ranking

Once the relevant product listing is sorted, the second phase which is ranking begins.

Image Source: Code as Craft

The algorithm uses the information available to determine which display item should be placed at the top towards the bottom.

It sorts the list in an order calculating the possibility on which items are most likely to be purchased. The higher the chances of the purchase, more top placements they get.

Here are all the factors that determine the ranking process in the search results of Etsy :

How much Relevant are they? : The relevancy is the utmost important factor in the ranking where tags, titles, attributes, content etc are matched with the search term. Keywords play a crucial role here.
How Recent is the Post? : The date of the item listing created plays a significant role in ranking. As Etsy prioritize the new or new listing at the top.
How much Shipping costs?: Shipping price is a crucial factor in the purchasing decision. Etsy prioritize the product listings that offer free-shipping guarantees to their buyers.
Where is your Shop located? : Usually the local items depending upon the location are prioritized or preferred according to the Etsy search results. However, location is only a crucial factor for countries like Europe, Canada and Australia.
What is the Customer & Market experience score? : Every shop has a score based on their “About” section, customer reviews, negative feedback and other factors.
What is the Listing quality score? The listing quality means the efficiency of the product conversions. More people view the listing and buy it, it will increase the listing quality score.
What are Shopper’s habits? Search results depend upon the individual buyers. Etsy search algorithm is to keep learning about what buyers are interest in, what their purchasing habits etc.
What are Translations and language? : The language of all the titles, tags and information must be in the language you opted while creating the account.

Context-Specific Technology (CSR)

Etsy search algorithms also utilize the ranking mechanism called Context-specific technology (CSR).

It actually learns about the buyers’ preferences, tendencies, interests, inclination and purchasing habits as well.

It customizes the search results according to the particular individual on the basis of what data their history is providing to the algorithm.

So, you and your friend’s Etsy search will show different results, even for the same keywords.

It keeps learning and adding new information about the users through saving the cookies.