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How To Optimize Etsy Listings

Updated on February 17th, 2023
notebook with colorful seo-related notes

You know what type of excellent products you want to offer, you’ve got a stellar shop name, and you have your Etsy shop account set up and ready to rock n’ roll! Now what? Every Etsy seller has at least one thing in common – we want success!

To make money by selling things online from the comfort of your own home or designated space is a dream for most e-commerce sellers. But it’s not exactly as easy as opening a shop and watching the profits come streaming in. It takes a little bit of know-how, consistency and some solid strategies to get from aspiring seller to that highly coveted spot in the top 1% on Etsy.

We’re going to cover for you in this article exactly how to start getting found on Etsy by potential buyers and how to maximize your shop’s potential by developing winning SEO (search engine optimization) strategies.

Etsy SEO

Of course, we must begin with defining exactly what SEO is and why it’s so important for you as an Etsy seller. What’s the big deal? Well, search engine optimizations are the things that get you ranking in search (hopefully the first 1-2 pages of search where most items are found and then purchased!).

SEO is what we use to capture these potential buyers, and turn them into our customers!

The things that count towards the overall ranking of any one listing are plenty, but in general the aspects focused on most that carry a majority of the weight are your photos, titles and tags, and description. Once these things are thoughtfully completed and your listing begins to pick up momentum with views, favorites, and “add to cart” clicks, those things begin to boost your item up in search even further, but it always begins with the optimizations that you can control.

Etsy Keywords

The focus of this article is going to be on keywords – which are the terms or phrases you’ll use in your listing titles and tags. Keep in mind that certain things that work for one seller in a particular market may not be the best fit for another seller in a different market, so experimentation is always going to be a big piece of the success puzzle in order to find what works best for your shop.

One of the key areas to begin when diving into find the best keywords for your shop is to utilize a database resource like Marmalead.com or Erank.com. These websites offer Etsy sellers a way to gauge the quality of specific keywords before putting them to use. They’re also a great tool to use to find new winning products! We’re going to use Erank.com as the example in this article, but Marmalead.com is just as useful – it’s simply a matter of seller preference.

There are many features available to sellers on Erank.com, all ranging from keeping tabs on competitors to seeing where your listings rank on Etsy search pages. Because the scope of this article is focused on keyword optimization, however, we will unpack this particular Erank.com feature – the Keyword Tool!

To begin the process of creating a list of potential keywords for any given listing, you want to enter a somewhat general term for your item in the search bar. Once you do, you will see a number of different analytics show up for this keyword – and down further you will see a list of similar keywords for you to analyze and compile!

Etsy CTR – It’s Important!

The most important parts of the analytics you’ll want to pay attention to when compiling a keyword list is the Average Searches (per month), Clicks, CTR (click- through-rate), and Competition. The Clicks and CTR are an overall measurement of general engagement the potential buyers have once on the search pages. All of these points are not as important standing alone as they are as a whole. The entire picture must be considered when analyzing the quality of a keyword.

For example, a keyword may have extremely high average monthly searches, but also very high competition. Or it may have a good amount of searches, moderately low competition, but close to no engagement. While both of these could still be good keyword options and help you rank in search, you may decide to prioritize lower competition keywords, with perhaps a slightly lower monthly search volume. The strategy here depends on your market and requires a fair amount of experimentation. The best thing to do is test, test, test and adapt your titles and tags as you continue to discover what is and isn’t working.

Sellers can also use Erank.com to develop their product lines and find keywords with high searches but low competition – this is likely a winning product that has the potential to do very well on Etsy! A high amount of searches with low competition could be demonstrating an untapped market – where there is high demand (searches) and few competitors, there is a gap in the market that you could fill! You can set aside time to look through keywords specifically for new item ideas, or you can weed them out and create a running list as you’re working on finding keywords for existing titles and tags.

Etsy Search? Yup

Using an Etsy search database to find keywords for your titles and tags is a pretty fool-proof way to get ahead of your competition and closer to reaching your goals as a seller. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with whichever one of these sites you decide to utilize, and develop your own ways of tracking and deciding on keywords. Each seller is unique and should tailor their decisions to do the most good for their own shops – this takes some time and testing but pays off well in the end.

Erank.com is available both as a free resource or with a PRO membership which is less than $10 a month.

Disclaimer: We have no partnership with Erank.com or its affiliates

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