SEO For Etsy And Google Part 1: Tags and Keywords

It does not matter if you are talking about a webpage from your website or a product page on Etsy. You need to be thinking about SEO or Search Engine Optimization.  Tags and Keywords are one of the most important starts to a successfully optimized page. Choosing the right words to optimize for may mean the difference of coming up on page one of the search or page 50. You need to come up in the first 10 pages of any search to be found!

When talking about Tags and Keywords you need to understand some basic ideas. First off Tags and Keywords do not need to be single words. For proper SEO you need Tag phrases and Keyword phrases. In fact single words can and will actually hurt your chances of being found.

Take this example: Blue, Crochet, Hat are all words that you want to be found for. However they are all generic terms. But if you search for just Blue or just Crochet or just Hat you are very unlikely to be found in any search engine!

Now if you use the phrase Blue Crochet Hat you stand a very good chance of being found. Think of it in the sense of you using a search engine. If you were looking for a hat that was crocheted and blue what would you type to find it? You would not expect to find it if you just typed in the word blue would you? Try to think like your customer. What would they type to find you?

On Etsy you have 13 slots to fill with tags/keywords phrases. Use them all wisely. Use phrases that describe you product. Make sure the words accurately describe your items.

Tomorrow I will talk more about tags and keyword phrases and the different ways that Etsy and Google look at them. In the meantime let me know if you have any questions.

More About Etsy Titles And Tags

It has come to my attention that some people still do not understand keywords in general. That is okay, this is a very difficult concept to get. Keywords are used in your TITLE, TAGS and DESCRIPTION. The more important the keyword is the more prominent it should be. You should use your most important keywords in the first three words of your TITLE.

Let's use one of my items as an example: http://www.etsy.com/listing/99617992/facebook-ad-guide-for-etsy-shop-owners?ref=ss_listing

The title of the item is: "Facebook Ad Guide For Etsy Shop Owners" It is short, concise and to the poit and describes exactly what the item is. Anyone typing "Facebook Ad Guide" into Etsy will find my eBook. Typing "Facebook Guide" also brings my item up in search as the very first item after paid search.

Here are my Tags: Everything Else - Educational - facebook guide - facebook ads - fan page - facebook marketing - market my shop - advertising - facebook how to - facebook - social media - tutorial eBook - etsy shop guide - marketing

Here is my description:
Facebook Ad Guide For Etsy Shop Owners - Tutorials by Market My Shop
This easy to use guide will help you to understand and implement a successful Facebook Advertising Campaign. The guide is 10 pages long and has handy images and detailed instructions on how to set up your first Facebook Ad. Start gaining more Facebook Fans immediately.

The PDF eBook will be delivered to your email address associated with Etsy within 24 hours of your purchase. I you would like it emailed to a different address please list it in the notes at time of purchase.


What questions my title may not answer I answer in the description. What keywords I don't use in my title get put in my tags. Anyone searching for exactly what I typed in the title and tags will eventually find me. 

It really is a game of what phrase would you use to find my item. Sit down and think about it for a bit. Write down four or five phrases that you think someone would use to find your item. Type those phrases into the Etsy search and Google and see what you come up with. Also, remember to look at the title and tags of what you find when you search on Etsy, someone else may have a better title and tags!

Hope this clears things up a bit and doesn't confuse further. I will be back tomorrow to talk about photography. Until then please feel free to comment, leave questions or email me: MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Google and Etsy Revisited Part 2 - Tags

Yesterday I talked once again about using your title to the fullest potential. Today I want to revisit how tags and keywords are used.  Google doesn't even really look at your keywords. In fact, most search engines completely ignore them. On the other hand Etsy uses them in their search.

First off, let me just say that tags and keywords are the same thing. If you look at the source code from pages generated by Etsy you will see your tags in the keyword section. So, from this point forward I will call them tags. Tags are very important for multiple reasons. So important in fact I always do my tags first.

Why do I do my tags first? Because I build my title and description around my tags. I choose what i am going to optimize for from my list of tags. I am in a pretty competitive market - jewelry. I know better than to just optimize for "jewelry" or "necklace" or "earrings" because those are just too broad to ever be seen. This is one reason that multiple word tags are so very important.

The difference between "jewelry" and "steampunk jewelry" is 3,060,513 items for jewelry and 72,366 items for steampunk jewelry. Shaving off about three million items really helps people find you. That is just on Etsy. I'll let you compare the searches on Google. The more precise you can get in your tags the easier someone can find you.

When you are creating your tags here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Multiple Spelling - such as "steampunk" and "steam punk" or "jewelry" and "jewellery" - European spelling should be included if you are marketing to the UK or even Canada. Sometimes there is more than one accepted spelling of a word. You may even want to take into consideration adding common misspellings. More than a few people have made money by registering misspelled domain names and putting advertising on them.
2. Multiple Color Names - such as "red" "rose red" "blood red" "crimson red" - Try and think like a customer. If you are marketing an item to someone who is into the Gothic subculture they may look for "blood red" while those into Fantasy may look for "crimson red"
3. Order of Words - such as "Victorian Steampunk" and "Steampunk Victorian" - Etsy uses EXACT TAG MATCH in their algorithm. So "Victorian Steampunk" is NOT the same thing as "Steampunk Victorian" and yes, people search in different ways using the same words.

That is all for today. Tomorrow I will look back at writing descriptions that search engines like. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com or leave a comment here.

Be sure to check out the archived articles, you'll find much more information there.

Relevancy Revisited: Part 3 Descriptions

This week we have been revisiting relevancy with a focus on Etsy. We talked about how to come up with good tags that answer questions about your item. We also talked about how to use the tags you come up with to create a relevant title. Today we are going to explore descriptions. Please note that Etsy all but ignores the description in their search algorithm. It pulls from tags and titles with a few other variables.

Optimizing your description helps with Google and other search engines as well as describes your item for your customer. Today we are going to use my little Teddy Bear Knight Wearing Chainmail as an example. Note the title, it is optimized for several terms. Artist Bear, Teddy Bear being the most prominent, with Knight Wearing Chainmail and Chainmail Costume being used as well. Also note that my bear is photographed with a white background with nothing that could take your eyes away from him. (Be sure to read my article on taking better pictures for your handmade or vintage items)

Though it may be a little hard to see in this snapshot you can see that the first thing I put was "Teddy Bear in Chainmail - Chainmail Home Decor by Tangled Metal" and what that does is give a keyword rich statement of what the item is and who made it. Part of the reason for this is keywords near the beginning of the text is weighed a little heavier than further down in the text and part of it is for the purpose of branding.

I go on to answer questions like, what is it, who is it for, what occasion is it good for, what materials were used, etc. I use keyword phrases where ever I can fit them in without sounding like a list of key word phrases. I try to make it sound as conversational as possible.

Writing copy is not my strong part and I struggle with it every time I list a new item. The one thing I try to do is make it so that it will come up in Google search. Google gives a lot of weight to key word phrases. Using the same keywords throughout the description is fine. How many times is too many times to add a keyword? Read it out loud and see if it sounds awkward, that should help.

Questions? Comments? That is it for today. Come back tomorrow for a list of tips to help make your life a little easier when listing an item.

The Importance Of Tags And Keywords For Relevant Searches

Recently Etsy went to "Relevancy" as their default search. When they did this it made tags, titles and descriptions even more important than they already were. Now Etsy sellers do not have to rely on renewing their items many times a week to be seen. It has leveled the playing field, so to speak.

The biggest impact is the need to rework your listings to be found. Your shop needs a makeover. Today I want to discuss the first step- Tags. Tags have a lot of weight in Etsy search but they are the not the most important. However, because they are the foundation in which you build your entire listing from, they are very important in the long run.

Why are tags so important? Because in Etsy's Relevancy search if someone types one of your keyword phrases exactly like you have it in your tags, you have a good chance of being found. If you have the words "red crochet hat" as one of your keyword phrases and someone types "red crochet hat" into the search, Etsy's search algorithm says that you have exactly what they are looking for and puts you in the list of results with everyone else who has used that exact phrase in their shop.

Before they went to relevancy search default, Etsy encouraged you to use single word tags with few exceptions. They have rewritten their policy on this. They now encourage you to use multiple word phrases as long as they describe your work and are not keyword stuffing. Basically if your phrase makes a statement as to what it is, who made it, what is it made from or who it's made for then it is fine to use. If you just use multiple words stuffed together that do not relate to each other it called tag stuffing and it is not okay.

Here is an example. If you have a rainbow colored crochet hat for sale you could tag it as "rainbow colored hat" but not "red orange yellow" and "green blue indigo" because you are just listing colors. Do not confuse this with common color word combinations like "black and white" which could be used to describe a photograph accurately.

I always do my tags first, then my title and then my description. This way I can pick the words that I want to be found with. I am fortunate to be in a pretty small niche so it is a little easier for me to come up with keywords that are used to find items similar to what I make. I do however try to do as much keyword research as I can. In fact I recently found that one of my items, a chainmail and bead handflower, was searched for as a slave bracelet 60 times more often than a handflower. So I adjusted my tags, titles and descriptions to put more weight on slave bracelet.

How do you do keyword research? Start by coming up with a list of 20 keywords or keyword phrases you would use to find your product. Next sign up for a Google AdWords account. You do not have to actually start an advertising campaign to use their tools. Type your keywords into their keyword tool and see how they do. You want to try to concentrate on words and phrases that have less competition and fewer monthly searches. Look for the ones that have 1000 to 10,000 monthly hits. Ignore ones that have over 25,000 hits for now. I will go into all of this in greater detail very soon.

Next week, I will be talking more about keywords, titles and descriptions. If you have questions, please feel free to post them here and I will be happy to answer them. I hope you all have a great weekend.