First step in SEO optimizing your Etsy listing is to research popular search terms related to your product.
There are several ways to learn which keywords buyers use. The first way is free, but time-consuming and doesn’t give you number of searchers.
Go to Etsy, Amazon Handmade, or other online marketplace. Begin typing words that describe a product like yours into the search bar. The search bar will auto-complete your phrase after you type in the first four or five letters, or display a drop-down box with suggestions.
Though you cannot copy and paste those suggestions, you can type them into a list. The drop-down of suggested keywords come from previous buyer searches that resulted in a sale, so they are the exact phrases you want to use in your listings.
You can also get these buyer phrases, the number of searches per month, and more a lot faster by using a keyword research tool. Here are the most popular and useful apps for handmade sellers:
- EtsyRank.com (for Etsy, limited free plan, basic account around $10 per month)
- Marmalead.com (for Etsy, around $19 per month)
- MerchantWords.com (for Amazon, basic account around $29 per month)
- Ubersuggest.com (for Google searches, free version and basic account around $10 per month) Google searches are the last place to look because it doesn’t reflect buyer searches, whereas the others above do.
If you are just starting your business and on a limited budget, you can subscribe to one of the services for one month and then cancel. During your month, use the tools as much as you can to accumulate a list of keywords and other data related to your products. When you are ready to expand your product line, come back to the tool to get ideas based on shopper data.
After you have a list of the most popular search terms, here are the areas of your Etsy product listing to be strategic for SEO:
* Title: The first 30 characters (first few words) of your title are the most important for SEO, so include the most popular buyer keywords at the beginning.
* Description: Create a product description that promises benefits to the buyer. Insert popular keywords and tags throughout.
* “About” page: Your artist’s story is an often-overlooked area to include your keywords. Weave them into your personal narrative.
* Shop announcement: Yet another area where you can include popular search terms.
* Tags: Tags is another word for search terms. In your Etsy listings, use all allowable tags. The tags should differ from each other. Optimally, tags should match as closely as possible to the words in your product’s title. You won’t be able to fit all your tag words in your title, but get the most popular ones in first.
* Categories: Categories act like tags, so choose categories relevant to your product line. But if you sell scarves under the category “Scarves” don’t waste one of your tags with the word “scarves.”
* Shop policies and terms: Include your popular search terms in your policies content. Though this area isn’t important for Etsy search results, the content on these pages gets read by Google and may appear in their search results.
Let’s say you make and sell an item that has several popular search terms. You can copy an existing Etsy listing and then alter the title and tags to match a different search term.
For example, for a listing for a knitted, black men’s scarf, you would have one listing title that begins with “Mens Scarf,” a separate listing with a title beginning with “Black Mens Scarf,” and another listing with a title starting with “Mens Knit Scarf.” Now you have tripled your chances of being found in search results. You have three listings, each optimized for a separate keyword phrase.
Note: if you create three listings for basically the same item, have three black scarves on hand or be able to make them fast should you get orders from all the listings on the same day.
Some of the above is excerpted from my new book: Sell Your Crafts Online