Sep 19, 2018 - You'll also learn how to improve your search ranking by optimizing your listings for conversion and following Etsy's customer service best. Apr 17, 2019 - Then, when customers search using those specific keywords, you want the Etsy search engine to find your listings and to rank them at the top of.
In this tutorial I will share my process on how to get more traffic to your Etsy store with search engine optimization. You will learn how to get your items to the top of Etsy search which should result in more sales!
Over the years I have made many mistakes with my shop - Zebrano Wood Craft, but after months of research and testing I finally found a great 3 stage plan to get my items onto the first pages of Etsy search.
SEO doesn't need to be complicated, confusing or time consuming and all you need to do is follow guidelines that Etsy has set out, use a little common sense and RESEARCH!
Why Is SEO Important For My Etsy Store?
Over the years SEO has become somewhat of a corporate buzz word and to the uninitiated the whole subject can seem overwhelming. However optimising your listings and shop for the Etsy search engine is the easiest way to attract traffic to your store.
Selling on Etsy is a numbers game and (simply put) the more people find your work, the more chances you have to sell it! You can drive traffic through social media posts or advertising, but by optimising your shop for search you will attract customers while you sleep for free.
It is also more likely that the visitors will be looking to buy stuff (they wouldn't be searching for it otherwise!) so you will convert more of them into paying customers - WIN!!
Grab a cup of tea and let's begin!
Imagine what would happen if your product showed up on the first page of Google search (or Etsy search) for a keyword searched by thousands of people every day…
You will get tons of views/traffic every single week.
More traffic = more conversion into sales.
It is a no-brainer that you should always optimize your pages (and listings) for one key purpose: ranking right on top of the search results.
While social media marketing lets you build your Etsy shop brand, SEO brings you tons of relevant traffic. Traffic that you can convert into sales.
But for most online sellers, SEO is still something that involves too many technicalities.
Do you feel like that? Do you think SEO is too much hassle and too much techie?
If yes, this post is for you.
Don’t worry: I’m not here to outrageously lie to you that SEO is totally non-techie and that everyone can do it effortlessly.
Here’s the truth: there is some effort involved, there is some tech-stuff involved, and everyone can’t do SEO like the pros.
The good news is that there are a lot of tools – and just knowing how to use the tool will save you a) time, b) effort, and c) money. And you will know how to do SEO for your shop.
So that’s exactly what we’re going to look at:
- the best (mostly free) SEO tools
- and how to use them to do things that will optimize your shop for high-quality traffic
Let’s get started!
1. Etsy Search (For quick keyword variations + suggestions)
Have you noticed how Etsy (or Google or any search engine for that matter) suggests a lot of keywords the moment you start typing something in the search bar?
That’s your first source of keyword suggestions.
These are broad but they are a good starting point. But why?
They’re a good starting point because those suggestions are actual keywords people use when they search for something on Etsy.
If you typed ‘silver earrings’, Etsy suggests 4 more keywords related to that. Those are keywords people used on Etsy!
Note that Etsy’s suggestions can get you only so far. This is because Etsy only suggests broad keywords (no long-tail).
Nevertheless, it’s a good start. You can build a lot from here.
2. Google Keyword Planner
This is one tool that you have heard a million times about already, right?
![Etsy tags Etsy tags](/uploads/1/2/6/2/126261824/597931746.jpg)
But almost everyone makes it sound like some really complex tool that has a huge learning curve. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Sure, Google Keyword Planner has so many things for advanced users but it’s a very powerful tool for the simplest of things:
- for getting a lot of keyword suggestions (with information on how many people search for the keyword every month)
- to find out what keywords other sellers use
- to find out more relevant keywords that you won’t find anywhere else
Here’s how to use the Google Keyword Planner for each of these.
2.1 For Suggestions
Google Keyword Planner suggests a ton of keywords related to one or two keywords that you give it.
It’s a great way to figure out a lot of relevant and useful keywords which have:
- enough searches per month (which means people are interested in it)
- good data on competition (a very low competition typically means the keyword is not profitable but a very high competition means it’s going to be hard to rank).
To figure out many suggestions, here’s what you need to do:
- Open up Google Keyword Planner
- Click on “Search new keywords using a phrase….”
- Enter one keyword (silver earring) in the first text box
- Optionally, pick a country under the “Targeting” section. (We picked United States).
- Click on “Get Ideas”
Google will show you two things: Ad group ideas and Keyword ideas.
Click on Keyword ideas and you will notice that it shows you the monthly search volume for the keyword you just picked.
You will also notice a lot of other keyword suggestions. This is your starting point. You can export the entire list as a spreadsheet document and do a lot of things.
First off, you can sort the list based on search volume.
Once you do that, you can start looking for good, relevant keywords that have decent search volume (depends on what kind of a product you’re selling).
And then you can optimize your shop SEO for these keywords.
Here’s a complete guide to SEO from Neil Patel that you can tap into to learn more about using Google Keyword Planner for keyword suggestions.
2.2 To Snoop on a Competing Listing / Shop
To understand your keywords better, you need to understand your competition too.
In most cases, the best-performing competitor has keywords figured out better than you and that’s why he/she ranks better.
Luckily, Google Keyword Tool lets you figure out what keywords are optimizing your competitor’s shop.
And that’s a big resource you should definitely lean on to figure out how you can outdo your competitors.
Let’s look at one example.
I want to figure out keyword suggestions for “silver earrings” based on the top-ranking product on Etsy for the same keyword.
Here’s what I did:
- Open Etsy and search for “silver earrings”.
- Click open the top search result (not the Ad).
- Copy the URL of this item.
- Go to Google Keyword Tool
- Paste the URL I just copied into the text box under “Your landing page”
- Click on “Get Ideas”
As you can see, this throws a lot many keywords that you can start from.
2.3 To get more latent keywords (through Blogs)
It’s not just the competitor’s listing that you can tap into.
You can also paste a blog’s link (or any handmade jewelry website’s link) to get suggestions that you’d otherwise not find elsewhere.
Here’s why we’re doing this:
Keywords are nothing more than what people type when they’re searching for something. Keywords are people’s words. If you listen to someone talk about “handmade silver earrings”, you’ll notice that you can get a lot of keyword ideas just from the words they use.
Keywords are nothing more than what people type when they’re searching for something. Keywords are people’s words. If you listen to someone talk about “handmade silver earrings”, you’ll notice that you can get a lot of keyword ideas just from the words they use.
That’s exactly what happens when someone blogs about handmade earrings (or any product).
And you can use this to get more keyword suggestions.
3. Keywordtool.io (For simple keyword suggestions and brainstorming)
If you still think the Google Keyword Planner is overwhelming you, here’s a simpler alternative – keywordtool.io.
This one is a watered-down version of Google’s Keyword Planner and only shows you more keyword suggestions (good for longtail keywords).
All suggestions are actual keywords people search for on Google. They are not permutations/combinations. They are real keywords used by real people.
The free version won’t tell you how competitive the keyword is, how many people search for it etc. But it will show you a sizeable chunk of long-tail keyword suggestions based on what you type.
The reason I like keywordtool.io is that I can get started with some good keyword suggestions quickly.
There’s another reason to like this tool. You can find keywords people use on YouTube (or Bing) too.
4. Etsy Trends
If you’re selling on Etsy, you’re probably signed up with Etsy Finds.
Here’s how Etsy describes Etsy Finds:
“Our newsletter for fresh trends and editors’ picks.”
Trends. That’s some hot keyword there.
Etsy picks up these trends from patterns of a lot of people searching on Etsy for specific items.
For instance, it’s the month of Christmas and you’ll notice that Etsy Finds is all about “Gifts”.
Each page of Etsy Finds is a goldmine of keyword ideas that you can plug into your new and existing listings to keep up with the trends of the season.
If you sell silver earrings, you can plug the keyword “winter gift”, or “giftable” into your title, tags and description.
This won’t necessarily get you featured in Etsy Finds, but this increases the chance of your item showing up in search.
And that’s because you have now optimized your listing for trends that people search this season/period of the year.
5. Google Trends
Google Trends is a powerful alternative to Etsy Trends because:
- you get more data
- you get many more suggestions
For example, the image you see above is a search for “silver earrings” in Google Trends.
I tweaked the date-range to show me the trend analysis for the “Past 30 days”.
Google Trends will tell you how popular / active the keyword is in the given date range. The visual graph helps you figure out – quickly – if your target keyword is being searched for or not.
But the kicker comes at the bottom of the page.
Under the “Related searches” section, you will notice a few suggested “Queries” with some number right next to them.
These are “Trending” queries that people are looking at right now. More keyword suggestions that are timely!
(pro-tip: if you install the Chrome extension “Keywords Everywhere”, you will also know how many times the keyword is searched for every month.)
6. Etsygadget.com (Advanced snooping and analysis)
![Etsy Search Ranking Etsy Search Ranking](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53e5b04ae4b07d0e4c490c41/t/5b1de5e088251b8e2e35e92b/1528686113000/ETSY+1Q2018+Presentation+slide+9.png)
This is one tool a lot of Etsy seller pros swear by.
Etsygadget.com is a very simple-to-use tool that gives a lot of information on keywords, tags, ranking etc.
There are a bunch of apps within the tool (like Hearts Counter, Auto Favathon, Treasury, Searchaton etc.) but we’re not looking at those. What we need is the “Listings in Search” tool.
The tool is meant to help you figure out where your products show up (rank, page # etc.) for a given keyword.
But you can just tweak a little and find out tags that the top-rankers use.
Here’s how to do that:
- Go to Etsy and search for your keyword (“silver earrings”)
- Find out the shop names of the first 2-5 shops that show up in the results
- Open Etsygadget.com
- Click on Listings Search
- In the “Shop Name” field, enter the first competitor/shop.
- In “Search Word”, enter your keyword
- Click on “Submit”
Etsygadget.com takes a bit of a time to show the results.
Once it does, you’ll notice three things:
- It shows all the tags that the shop uses (relevant to the keyword you typed).
- It shows all the products that are showing up in search results (along with information like tags, position #, page #).
- It shows you the best tags that you can use for your listings (of course, these need refinement but it’s a good place to start).
You can start picking out tags that you will want to use on your listing from here.
7. Marmalead.com (high-level keyword analytics)
Marmalead is probably one of the most powerful Etsy SEO tools around.
Guys at Marmalead will convince you to throw away Google Keyword Tool and use Marmalead instead.
The feature I like the most about Marmalead is that it shows you the most comprehensive data that you’ll need to figure out how to get started with SEO-ing your listings (yeah, excuse me, I just made a verb out of SEO).
I’m going to point you to this article that explains how Marmalead can help you in Etsy SEO.
8. Google Adwords Ads
I know what you’re thinking: whaaaat? Google Adwords?
Yes.
Google Adwords ads can give you some suggestions that are useful. Here’s one example:
I searched for “ceramic coffee mugs” in Google. Here’s some of the Adwords ads that show up on the right side.
If you notice the text in the ads, you’ll notice that you can find some interesting words that you can then add to your keyword bucket for research. Words like:
- promotional [coffee mugs]
- photo [coffee mugs]
- coffee mugs with logo
These are not high-volume keywords (~1000 people search for each of these keywords a month).
But together, all that adds up and you can hit a sweet spot where you are targeting a lot of people.
It’s not just the keywords used in the ad-copy that is of use. Notice the URL of the ads too. They reveal some more suggestions like “custom coffee mugs”.
9. LSIGraph.com (For latent semantic index keywords)
A latent semantic index keyword is a word that’s associated with a main keyword.
For example, if you searched for “silver earrings”, LSI keywords would be words like “handmade +”, “wholesale +”, “clip on +” etc.
Words that people often use along with your primary keyword or words that appear frequently on pages that have your primary keywords go up as LSI keywords.
And why are we talking about them?
Because Google (and other search engines) value LSI keywords too. That’s a ranking factor.
If your listing page has relevant LSI keywords, your chances of ranking higher increase.
The problem is that LSI keywords are hard to find. LSIGraph makes it a tad easier – I’m not saying it’s the ultimate weapon of choice. But it helps a lot.
How important are LSI keywords? Do you necessarily have to put in more effort to find these keywords and add them in your listing?
May be not. But if you do, that’s an advantage point for you.
10. Seedkeywords.com
Seedkeywords is like asking your friend a question and listening to her answer to get keywords.
Like, literally.
You can use Seedkeywords to create scenarios like “If you are looking for earrings on Google, what would you search for?”
And then you send the scenario (as a link) to your friends who see this page:
Save the scenario link because that’s where the link for results is. Click on “See the results for the scenario here” and you will see what keywords your friends use to search for “earrings”.
It’s not heavilyhttps:>
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