SEO (search engine optimisation) is how shoppers can find you on Etsy.

It involves finding the right keyword to use for your products and implementing those keywords in the right places like title and tags.

Mastering Etsy SEO can help you maximise the chance of showing up in front of the right customers.

‍

How Does Etsy Search Work?

After a shopper types in a keyword in the search box, Etsy first finds all the listings matches the search term, and then rank them by a number of factors.

‍

Query Matching

Etsy listings that have the search keyword in any one of these places will be eligible to rank.

• Title
• Tags
• Categories
• Attributes
• Listing Description

Ranking Factors Of Etsy Search

After Etsy has all the products that are eligible to rank for a query, Etsy algorithm uses these extra factors to determine the final search ranking. Here are the most important ones:

‍

Relevancy - This is how well your listing's titles, tags, etc match what shopper searches for. Exact matching of keywords will improve the ranking.

‍

Product Description - Etsy looks at your product description to further determine the ranking of your listing in Etsy search. Aim to write a short paragraph in the beginning of your listing description that includes 3-5 keywords and describe the benefits and features of the product.

Listing Quality Score - This looks at how well a particular product sells/converts. Etsy takes into account the percentage of people clicking, favoriting and buying a product to determine the score. Etsy wants visitors to actually buy the products. The higher the conversion rate, the higher your Etsy ranking will be.

Recency - A new or just renewed product will get a small boost in ranking, but the effect is very small. So renewing all your products constantly will not be helpful, especially because it costs money to renew listings.

Shop's Age - New Etsy store gets a boost in ranking for a period of time. That's one of the reasons I encourage my students to create more listings in the beginning to take advantage of this.

Customer And Market Experience Score - Etsy also looks at your shop’s review, policy and more. Achieving these will help your ranking:

• Good reviews for the particular products
• Good reviews for your shop
• Finished About page
• Completed shop policy
• No cases open against your shop

‍

Shipping Price - Etsy ranks shops higher if they offer free shipping to the US for orders over US$35. This doesn't matter for digital products as there's no shipping fee.

‍

‍

What Factors are In Your Control?

Most of the factors mentioned above are in your control, either directly or indirectly.

Product title, tags, product description, the about section, shop policy and so on, are completely in your control.

And for other factors like the customers and market experience score, you can actively improve them so that your products can rank higher.

For example, having a listing photo that clearly show the purchase process, providing after-sale services and asking for positive reviews from customers can improve the market experience score and therefore search ranking.

Other improvements include clean product photos to increase click rate, and more compelling product description to increase the conversion rate.

For now, it’s good to keep in mind the ranking factors that are in your control, so that we can have the specific strategies to improve them to boost views and sales of your shop.

What Factors are Out Of Your Control (Or Takes A Lot Of Effort/Time)?

However, there are a few ranking factors that are out of your control or very difficult to affect.

Shop location - I don’t think you will be moving country just to gain higher ranking for your Etsy shop.

Translation and language - Time consuming to learn a new language and rewrite your whole shop just for a small boost.

Shop’s age - Although starting a new shop is an option, giving up your original shop can mean losing all the reviews and reputation you’ve established.

‍

‍

Finding Long-Tail Keywords - The A-to-Z Method

The keywords generated by this method should have decent demand generally. This is because the keywords suggested by the Etsy search bar are based on real shoppers' data. That means if the keyword is suggested by the Etsy search bar, the demand is probably decent.

‍

Step 1 - Put in your ‘seed’ keyword in your search bar. A good seed keyword should be specific to your product and about 2-3 word long, like “digital planner”, “birthday invitation”, “candle label”.

Step 2 - Add a space to the end and start adding on a letter. Once you added a letter, the search bar should come up with suggestions of other popular keywords. For example, when you type “digital planner f”, it should come up with keywords like “digital planner for students” and “digital planner for moms”.

Step 3 - Go through this process from A-to-Z and mark down all the keywords that are suitable.

Step 4 - Repeat the process with other ‘seed’ keywords. For example, once you finish with “birthday invitation”, you can go on to related keywords like “editable invitation” or “party invitation”.

‍

Another way to do keyword research is with Etsy SEO tools like Alura and eRank.

‍

‍

Optimising Your Listing For SEO

Title

Put your most descriptive keyword at the front of the title. The front of the title is given more importance in search ranking. Separate keywords with commas, dashes and other symbols to make it easy for shoppers to read.

‍

Example listing title from my shop: "Custom Tea Packaging Label Template - Printable Label Design, Square Product Label, Tea Label Editable, Minimalist Product Label Template"

‍

Tags

Use all 13 tags. They should be multi-word/long-tail and make sense. Let me explain with examples:

‍

First, come up with tags that are in your title. Using the example above, "Custom Tea Packaging", "Tea Packaging Label" and "Square Product Label" are in the title and can be used as highly relevant tags.

‍

Keep in mind that the tags should make sense. For example, "Custom tea" and "Editable minimalist" appear in the title but not relevant.

‍

Afterwards, there are two methods to get additional tags to fill up all 13 spots:

1. Mix-and-match keywords in your title. e.g. "Square tea label" doesn't appear as a whole in the title but is relevant
2. Add extra words that is relevant or from your keyword research. It could be style, size, use case, colour, etc. For example, "pastel label design" is a possible relevant tags.

‍

Description

Because Etsy now considers keywords in your description as well. Aim to write a short paragraph in the beginning that includes 3-5 keywords and describe the benefits and features of the product.

The majority of your traffic should come from Etsy search (optimise it with Etsy SEO above) and from new listings (so that you can target new long-tail keywords), but there are additional strategies that you can use to get more shoppers into your shop.

‍

Etsy Ads

Etsy ads is a good way to generate views and sales in a short time, and can be very useful for smaller shops at the start of the shop. Just keep in mind that ads fee can add up very quickly if you are not careful.

‍

Before turning on the ads, it's a good idea to optimise your listings (clickable photos, strong selling points, branding, etc.)

‍

After that, here are the 7 steps to test profitable Etsy ads:

1. Choose 10-20 initial items - They can be bestsellers, recently sold products, products with high margin, products in many shopper's carts, etc.
2. Test for a week - I use a budget of $5 daily. Many sellers set the budget too low or the testing period too short, making it impossible to make informed decisions to improve their Etsy ads performance.
3. Analyse & improve - Keep high conversion rate listings (>3%), improve photo of low click rate listings, optimise listing of high click rate low order rate listings. And if the view, click and conversion rates are low, turn the ads off for them.
4. Add new products to test if necessary - They could be products recently sold, products on sale, etc.
5. Test for another week and analyse again
6. Turn off listings that still have low conversion rate or click rate. You should be left with the best performing listings
7. Scale up
   

‍

Product scarcity

Sometimes, Etsy puts “only 3 available and it’s in X people’s cart” to create scarcity and urgency for shoppers. It makes them feel if they don’t act soon, they may lose the chance of buying that popular product.

You can take advantage of this by putting the quantity of your bestsellers to 3 or lower. It increases the chance of that sentence showing underneath your listing, which creates a powerful sense of urgency for your potential shopper at 0 cost to you.

Follow potential customers on Etsy

Follow 20 people who favorited your product or your shop. The follow could trigger an email from Etsy to tell them you are following them. It’s a subtle reminder for them to encourage potential sales.

Create product bundles

Combine some of your products together to create new bundle listings. Even better if the products make sense to be together (e.g. same color, frequently used together). This way you will be able to create more listings to cover more long-tail keywords, potentially reaching more customers.

Additional traffic is always good, but one thing to keep in mind is to not overwhelm yourself and spread yourself too thin.

A lot of successful Etsy shop, including mine, is built without much social media presence, posting on forums, etc. If your foundation is good, you may be surprised of how little you need from external traffic.

But if your shop is ready, here are ways that you can bring in traffic from outside Etsy:

Social media

I would recommend learning the basics of 1-2 social media. If you have a platform that you use regularly and are already familiar with, start with that. 

The main aim for social media is to build better relationship with your followers by providing useful content for them. Useful content can include educational (like infographic about your niche), behind the scene (especially good if your product requires skills to produce), or even just entertainment (think funny, trendy reels on Instagram). 

Forums and Quora

By forum, I’m referring to forums external to Etsy’s like Quora, Reddit and other sites. Don’t waste your time promoting on Etsy forum as most people there are sellers, not buyers.

To promote your shop on forums, you need to be a helpful expert in your niche. Use your expertise and skills to answer your potential customers’ questions. Show them that you are a trustworthy advisor. Show them you are an expert. 

You can ‘soft sell’ your shop by mentioning it inside your answer/post, but pushing your shop shouldn’t be the main focus.

Starting your own blog

Starting your own blog can be a big commitment if you don’t have the experience. It can take months before you see any decent traffic to your blog. 

You will need to spend quite a bit of time to learn how to build a website. Options like Squarespace, Wix, Shopify are relatively easy to pick up, but if you want more control, you may look into options like Webflow and Editor X (Growing Your Craft is built on Webflow FYI).

Also, you’ll need to find the right topics to research and write. Remember keyword research from the Etsy SEO course? You will need to do the same for your blog articles. Only this time, instead of trying to rank on Etsy, you are trying to rank on Google. Write something that your potential customers will care about. For example, if you sell planners for students, write about “10 Creative Ways to Use Digital Planners in Your Busy Student Life".

Despite the work that you’ll need to put in for starting your own blog (or even your shop outside Etsy), there are a lot of positive sides.

You will have a lot more control over the design of your website compared to your Etsy shop. A successful blog can bring in a lot of traffic, and the traffic is generally more consistent over time. Also, it gives you more opportunity to collect emails from potential customers.

I would recommend giving it a try as many website builders have free trials available and learn how to build and customise a website.

First of all, congratulations! You've completed the Etsy Digital Product Launch: 5-Day Masterclass, and I couldn't be more happy for you. Thank you for investing your time and energy into this course!

‍

I hope you're now feeling more confident and prepared to run your own profitable digital product Etsy shop. You now know the foundation of a successful Etsy shop, and I'm genuinely excited to see where this journey takes you.

‍

However, while we've covered a lot in this Masterclass, there are still quite a few topics I haven't had a chance to teach you:

• Running sales effectively to promote your shop
• Pricing your digital products for profitability
• Customer service for long term success
• Dealing with constant changes on Etsy
• And so much more!

‍

If you're ready to skyrocket your Etsy shop to new heights and learn all these vital skills, I'm here to help you every step of the way. By upgrading to a GYC Etsy Academy membership, you'll have access to an even richer pool of resources to fast-track your success.

‍

The best part? You're already on your way to the Academy. As a thank you for joining this masterclass, I've taken the price of this masterclass off of your Academy subscription.

‍

To upgrade:

1. Click on 'Account' in the menu on the left
2. Click 'Edit options'
3. Choose the plan that suits you best

‍

With the Essential plan, you'll unlock access to all 13 courses available in the Academy (including our full digital product course - Passive Income Playbook), the 6-Figure Etsy Success Roadmap, and 6 awesome bonuses (which includes the rest of the Canva template library).

‍

And if you want feedback directly from me, consider joining the Growth plan. In this plan, you'll be able to ask me any questions about your Etsy shop, and I'll give you my best advice. You'll also get access to everything in the Essential plan plus extra tutorials and a question & answer bank filled with valuable insights from previous student questions.

‍

Remember, your success on Etsy is not a sprint but a marathon. With GYC Etsy Academy, you'll have access to valuable tools, insights, and expert advice to help you navigate your Etsy journey.

‍

Thank you again for joining me in this Masterclass, and I hope to see you in the GYC Etsy Academy!