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The appearance of Covid 19 has made a change in the economy and the way of making money. More and more people have altered to make money online with different approaches and selling print on demand products is the choice of many people. Did you know that the active buyers on Etsy, one of the popular eCommerce marketplace, have dramatically increased from 46.35 million in 2019 to 81.9 million in 2020. Obviously, more buyers are trooping in online shopping in different eCommerce marketplace including Etsy.
Number of Active Etsy Buyers From 2012 to 2020 in Millions (Statista)
As a seller, are you having trouble getting your products or brand visible with the right customers? If so, it’s time to review and beef up your Etsy SEO strategies and boost the presence of your collections.
Let’s get cracking some tips and tricks to optimise your Etsy SEO with Merchize right now!
Why Is Etsy SEO Important?
As mentioned before, the active shopper on Etsy has grown fast with the avenger household income of $ 56.000 annually. This illustrates that more and more buyers are shopping online on this site.
On the one hand, more shoppers equal more chances to sell and more revenue to gain. Though, this also means that it’s more difficult for sellers to be invisible with the right consumers. That’s why Etsy SEO is important and should be used
Etsy SEO: What Is It and How It Works?
Etsy SEO is a powerful set of techniques that can improve the visibility of your brand and products in the search Etsy’s search function. SEO is an opportunity and can be a challenge for sellers, especially since the search engines are constantly changing the way it works. So, sellers need to understand either basic SEO or Etsy SEO to optimize the stores to search and get products in front of as many potential buyers.
According to Etsy, its algorithms use 2 criteria to determine shoppers’ results when they run a search query. They are:
1. Query Matching
This is a straightforward process on Etsy SEO. When a customer searches for something, Etsy will run through every available product listing and then get together the ones that match the customer’s search query. This criterion is run by examining the following factors:
- Titles
- Tags
- Categories
- Attributes
2. Ranking
Once the query matching process is done, Etsy will rank all the listings based on the buyer’s probability of purchasing the items. This phase requires more effort of the sellers to push products and brands in front of the right customers.
Here are some factors that are put into consideration for the Etsy SEO result ranking:
- Relevance
To figure out the alignment between buyer’s demand and the product listings, Etsy will take a look at titles, tags, categories and attributes. The closer the match, the higher rank you gain. - The quality score of the listing
Etsy will score the quality of the listing based on the conversion rate of the seller’s store. That means the higher your conversion rate, the higher your listing score – which in turn leads to a higher ranking for the store. - The experience of customer and market
Since more customers are trooping in eCommerce platforms for a great online shopping experience, Etsy always wants to offer buyers a smooth browser and purchasing experience.
To achieve this, Etsy search engine will review the customer service history of the seller’s store as well as the seller’s content including the About page, Policy, Ratings and Reviews. Then, based on these factors, Etsy will score shops and reward high-scoring sellers by ranking the listings in search results. - Shipping fees
The shipping cost plays an important role in the buying decision process of customers, this factor, therefore, is also important with Etsy. Through a survey, Etsy illustrates that shoppers will be less likely to buy an item if it comes with a higher shipping cost.
Therefore, the shipping fee is now one of the ranking factors on Etsy. You can see the sellers with the lower shipping cost, or even better, who offers free shipping will have the higher rank of listings on search results. - Context Specific Rankings (CSR)
Etsy will study and analyze all customers’ behaviors, such as what products they clicked on or their purchasing journey, with a tool called Context Specific Rankings (CSR). This tool later will personalize search results based on the buyer’s browser history. - The new listings
Once you run a new listing on your store, Etsy will give a slight temporary boost for this new one. Though, this boost will last a few hours or days only, depending on the search volume of this listing. This will help Etsy understand how consumers interact with each listing, which then impacts the listing quality score.
Master Etsy SEO: Tips and tricks
Research For An Effective Keyword Listing
Keywords play an important role in Etsy SEO strategy. The first thing that Etsy does when processing a buyer’s search query is comparing the listing library. And then Etsy will look for the ones that best match the shopper’s search terms.
That’s why sellers have to focus on figuring out the best keywords for product listings. Here are some tips for sellers in researching keywords:
1. Act like a customer
Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes to understand what customers think and why they are searching for the products. Then you will know the right keywords to help your listings become invisible.
On the other hand, Etsy SEO tools can gather and generate a long list of keywords with a huge number of choices which can take a lot of time to review and organize. Therefore, understanding your customers and their purpose helps you save time and easier in researching keywords.
2. Start with Etsy’s search box
Etsy’s search suggestion should be the first l that you can consider for your keyword research. It’s free and easy to use, but don’t depend on them only when researching. Since Etsy will make the recommendations based on customers’ recent searches, they cannot reflect the overall volume of a keyword.
3. Optimize your keyword research with Etsy SEO tools.
It has many SEO tools that can support you in getting more search term ideas and determining the priority of the queries. Here are some suggestions for you, choose one of them based on your demand and budget:
- Google Keyword Planner
This is the free tool which is provided by Google. You can find the search volume of a keyword, review the difficulty level or the competition of this keyword in a country or over the world in a specific period. Based on this information, you will gain insight into what customers are typing into the search engine.
- Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most popular and amazing SEO tools. It’s big data that can help you analyze your competitor’s website, marketing and keyword research, gaining the chance to increase website traffic, etc. The big data library of Ahrefs will help your keyword research process faster and easier.
- Esty Keyword Tool Dominator
This tool is ideal for sellers who want to look for long-tail keywords or more specific buyer’s queries. This tool doesn’t offer search volumes or Etsy ranking, but it’s a great tool for finding long-tail search term ideas that you can use to stand out from competitors and reach more potential customers. This tool provides 3 days of trial. If you want to use unlimited features of this tool, you can purchase the full version for $69.99.
- eRank
Keyword research is a process that can take a lot of time and effort. Fortunately, eRank has a couple of features for quickly getting data for multiple search terms. Basically, this is the bulk keyword tool that finds the search volume and performance of keywords on Google as well as Etsy.
4. Check out the Etsy analytics
Do you know that Etsy’s native tool offers valuable insights into how people find your listings. Utilising this feature to check out the page views, traffic sources, and search terms led to your listings.
Optimize The Key Factors For Query Matching
- Title
Etsy lets you use up to 140 characters in your title. Though, you should focus and set the important words first since Etsy will put more weight on the first few words.
Remember that Etsy just allows the title to contain up to 3 words in all caps. In terms of special symbols, the percentage symbol (%) and ampersand (&) can only be used once, the dollar sign ($) and caret (^) aren’t allowed at all.
These are some tips for you to optimize your title:
- Use a diversity of keyword phrases for your title
Even Etsy claims that the shorter title, which is easily read and understood by customers, can convert the sales better. It has to keep in mind that a title with 75 to 120 characters is a perfect long since it is not so long for buyers to read, but also gives sellers plenty of space to add in some important keyword phrases. - Separate the keyword phrases for readability
Including the keywords in your title will help your listing score higher. This means you want to fill in your title as many keywords as possible. Therefore, make sure that they are readable by separating keyword phrases with commas, dashes, slashes or the pipe symbol. - Give your title a professional look
A title with a professional look will impress your customers at the first glance. Either a title with full capitalization or all lowercase letters won’t look as professional. So that, it recommends using a title case that uses only capital letters for the principal words. - Prioritize the relevant keywords at the front of your title
Did you know that customers can view only the first 20-40 characters of your title from the search results. The rest will be truncated and will only be visible if buyers click on your listing. Therefore, the first few words need to be the most relevant words that will tell the customers what it is they will look at.
2. Tags
Etsy allows sellers to add up to 13 tags for each listing with two main functions:
- Help Etsy in the query matching process.
- Help shoppers discover similar or related products.
Each tag can add up to 20 characters which can uniquely describe your products. So that, it is better if you use several phrases than single words. In addition, you should use long-tail keywords, which can help your store reach the right customers with related words
3. Attributes
Etsy attributes are the detailed information that you use to describe your products. This component has 2 purposes. That is making buyer’s actions easier by allowing them to filter search results and letting Etsy match queries effectively.
To optimize this component, you can add as many relevant attributes as you have when submitting your listing. The more relevant attributes, the higher the chances that your products are invisible on the search results.
4. Categories
You might think that categories are used to help buyers browse the site and narrow down their search only, though the categories also play an important role in SEO. Categories have the function of Etsy tags to match the listings with search queries. And try to be as specific as possible to optimise your categories.
Set A Competitive Shipping Fee
Etsy understands that customers are likely to buy products with less shipping cost or even without shipping cost. Therefore, the site tends to favour listings with lower shipping costs since it wants customers to complete the purchase.
Though, setting shipping costs at a lower price can be tricky, especially when you don’t have a high-profit margin. Here are some tactics that can you do to have an attractive shipping cost:
- Free shipping: Doing this strategy can make your listing attractive with either buyers or the Etsy search engine. To reduce the tricky, you can incorporate the shipping fee into the listing price or by implementing a conditional fee shipping, in which you will fee ship for customers if they meet the requirements.
- Add shipping cost into the product pricing: Estimated shipping fee and mix in a portion of or a whole of into your pricing, so that you can lower your shipping fee.
Improve The Listing Content
While an optimised keyword listing is a must to reach customers, having strong visuals and context is also important since they will lead to conversions. As mentioned above, the algorithm of Etsy impacts the listing’s conversion rate when determining its place in search results. So, the more shoppers click on a listing and subsequently buy the product, the higher the quality score will be. As a result, your rankings will be increased.
Here are some suggestions for you to improve your product listing content:
- High-quality photos: Etsy allows you to upload up to 10 photos per listing. Grabbing this opportunity to showcase your products with the best possible quality and light. And this should be better if your images give buyers a clear view of the item’s size, textures, etc.
- A clear description: This factor plays an important role in rising conversions that can help to boost your Etsy ranking later. Etsy has no word count limit for your product description, so the length of content depends on your product’s complexity and the story you want to tell your customers.
Though, you have to remember to put the most important information first since it will decide how your product impresses customers. - Customer reviews: This can increase the trust of your customers and push them to take the purchasing action. Fortunately, Etsy automatically nudges customers to share their reviews and feedback. Moreover, to encourage customers to share their thoughts, you can make a note in your shipment thanking your customers and inviting them to review your products. You can give them an offer or a discount for this feedback, but be careful with your message.
Boost Customer Experience
This is one of the most important components to get a higher rank on Etsy since this is the metric that gives Etsy an idea of how satisfied buyers are with your store. Here are some factors can that impact your listing score:
- Customer reviews: It does not only increase the trust of your customers but also directly impacts on customer market experience score. By gaining lots of positive reviews, your store will have better placement on Etsy search.
- About us section: Part of satisfying your customer shopping experience is letting them know more about your store. The about us section is a place where you can show off your personality and build the trust of your customers.
- Store Policies: A clear policy will help your customers make purchase decisions quick and fast. The good news is that Etsy provides the template for shipping policies, payment options, return and exchange and user policy that you can use for your store policies.
Print On Demand SEO Tips
If you are selling print on demand products on Etsy, this part is specialised for you.
If you don’t know which keywords are relevant for doing SEO, you can start by putting in a keyword, such as “product name + printing”. And then Google will suggest you other keywords. Make sure you check the performance and search volume of the keywords with the suggested SEO tools in the last part.
To help you save time and effort, Merchize will suggest some type of keywords that can help you reach more potential customers:
- Customized + product name
- Personalized + product name
- Product name + printing
- Make your own + product name
- Design your own + product name
- Custom + product name
Otherwise, you should also focus on the signature word of each upcoming holiday to optimize your keywords since shoppers tend to add these words to find the goods for the holiday. For instance, you can use the keyword “custom Halloween sign” or “Halloween shirt designs” for your keyword list for the Halloween sale.
eRank, 2022
One more tip is incorporating the keywords into the product listing content. For instance, in the store bio, you can say something like “[company name] is a “product name + printing” business…”. And remember to avoid keyword stuffing. You might think that adding a keyword as many times as space will rank your store better, though the Google algorithm will punish this behaviour.
By the way, the relevancy of your keywords is not set in stone. Every few months, you want to refresh your keyword research and update your print-on-demand store accordingly.
