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| SEO - stop resisting it! |
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SomewhatHip says: |
Okay, so amidst all of the talk about how Etsy was messing up everyone's search engine optimized sites, I learned many things about SEO here on the forums. I have to say, I resisted it, but now I'm a believer.
I updated all my listing titles and pushed my cutesy interpretive titles to the back and keywords to the front. I didn't think it would make a huge difference, as Etsy's internal engine still defaults to newest items first. But this must have a serious effect on Google results, because I have gotten hearted faster than ever before - at totally random times and by random people - and I got a sale the day after I made the changes. So I would like to share some of the ideas that helped me make the jump, because I actually LIKE the changes now that I have made them.
These are the things I have learned:
1. Both your shop "tagline" and announcement are very important to search. They are what form your shop's description for google. Include what you sell, and be brief about it. Search engines penalize super long descriptions. Plus with a short announcement, people can see your items right away without scrolling through pages of text. I think browsing shoppers really appreciate that.
2. What are your most descriptive keywords that a shopper is likely to search for? These NEED to go at the front of your titles. I hated the idea of marginalizing my "creative" titles, but no one cares about these titles if they can't find you. As a compromise, I had wanted to put the creative title into quotation marks, but this is an illegal character. But you know what does work?? Two apostrophes!
3. If you are curious about what search engines "see" you can right click on any page of your shop and hit "view page source."
4. Section titles are also super important. They should also say what you sell. They form the tags for your shop page. I never knew that you could basically have unlimited characters for shop section names, but you can - as long as you don't use the "shop sections" link directly off the control panel of Your Etsy.
Here's what you do - delete the shop sections you want to replace (there's a limit of 10 sections, so this just ensures that you don't hit the limit). From YOUR ETSY, hit EDIT for ANY of your listings, then click to edit your PRICE. On this page of the listing process, you can ADD NEW SECTION - this is a blue link next to a drop down menu that I had never used before. Type in your new title, and hit the ADD TO NEW SECTION button. Keep repeating this until you have added all your new sections. Then hit LAST and FINISH to reactivate your item in your shop. Then it's just a matter of batch sorting your items back into the new sections.
I think that's it for the new changes I have made. Please feel free to leave comments here, especially if you have other ideas for improvements!
Hope that helps! |
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Posted at 1:36 pm, June 23 2009 EST - Report this post
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twistedsisterarts says: |
Wowser, you are certainly helpful. Clear, concise, and creative. Thank you so much for helping everybody out.
Marking, to say the least. |
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Posted at 1:40 pm, June 23 2009 EST - Report this post
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BargainHeadbands says: |
My etsy store used to come up on 1st page of google search results, google ranking of 3/10
Most of my buyers came from that search, new buyers that register here to buy my products.
That was until Etsy started its SEO "Efforts", it sent my store to page 6.
I started a thread about this, and soon etsy made some new SEO changes, now I'm on page 4, still not satisfied, but disappointed. |
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Posted at 1:57 pm, June 23 2009 EST - Report this post
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CrowBiz says: |
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Fortunately, my sections and taglines, etc were pretty plain spoken (I save the creative writing for the blog)... so I didn't have that much to fix. Made a clear shop announcement and cleaned up a few things.... waiting & wondering. |
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Posted at 2:03 pm, June 23 2009 EST - Report this post
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SomewhatHip says: |
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bargain - I'm really sorry to hear that happened to you. I know a lot of people aren't happy about Etsy's internal changes that affect SEO. My goal in posting this thread was to give out some pointers that might help out some shops within the framework that us sellers cannot change. But with your previous expertise that landed you on the first page, I'm hoping maybe you will be willing to share some of your tips and tricks, even if they are less effective now than they were before the Etsy tweaks? |
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Posted at 2:03 pm, June 23 2009 EST - Report this post
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