Etsy SEO and how to get ready for the future
hey I'm Pam Duthie and I have been an Etsy seller for 11 years almost now so
I'm here with the tips and tricks that helped me grow my channel and right now
we're in the middle of a series on SEO on etsy so if that's something you're
interested in don't forget to stay to the end and check out the other videos
in this playlist but today we want to talk about how to prepare for the future
the only thing that is constant is change
things change they always do and they always will and we can either sit around
and cry about it or we can expect it's get ready for it stay on top of it ride
the wave and do better and better and this is a little secret tip just between
you and me over the 11 years I've been on Etsy there has been several
changes I won't deny it sometimes I have sat back and cried
about it a bit complained about it but whenever I've knuckled down learnt about
the changes worked with them every single time my shop has grown out the
other end so change is not a bad thing in fact is awesome that Etsy are
constantly trying to keep up with things constantly testing to see what's working
and train to improve things themselves it's what we should all be doing and we
should be happy that Etsy is always trained to do better okay it's a bit of
a pain when things change and you've got to learn them but that's life
so one of the most important ways to keep current with Etsy is to keep an
eye on their articles it's the unlike many other platforms in
the past few years have been really great keeping as updated with things
like their ultimate guide to SEO they tell us what they're looking for they
have experts from their teams come in and create articles explaining what
they're looking for so if they're giving us this information so it seems rather
daft if we don't try try and pay attention to this information and not
only that but we have the chance to message Etsy if you want to you can
contact Etsy now they can't give you exact answers to certain questions what
can I do to rank they can't tell you what
can I do that might possibly help me rank is a better question but the more
specific a question you ask them ask just one narrow topic they might be able
to help you out they may give slightly vague answers you might have to read
between the lines but the people there are there to help you so if you're stuck
on something don't be afraid to ask directly from the horse's mouth another
great place you can stay on top of things and get inspired and get ideas is
groups now I'm not gonna lie the Etsy forums are not too great just
now they redesigned them and yeah not many people like them but Facebook
groups are pretty awesome I'm gonna completely recommend a ranked group if
you're not on it I'll put links below and of course
Pam Duthies crafty friends my little group if you want to join any of those
there's good discussions and lots of help there one thing to be really
careful of is there's lots of groups out there but you want to make sure that you
join groups that are giving good advice that are giving advice based on best
practices from Etsy and they're not just an echo chamber of negativity I get it
when things change then you're having a bad day you want to sit and complain
about it but it doesn't do anyone any good to be sitting just saying this has
changed this is terrible everyone let's hold hands and complain
to the gods of Etsy what you want to do is be able to say something's
happened what has changed what can I do about it so look for the more positive
groups and the more evidence-driven groups rather than just people making up
ideas of what they think it can also really help to keep up to date with
technology what's going on in the world now Etsy has moved on to a Google based
sort of search engine a couple of years ago they purchased a Google type search
engine so if you keep an eye at where Google's going it sees likely to follow
certain technologies like Google can now identify what pictures are to an extent
they're not perfect so this is something that we might expect in the future from
Etsy so it's a really important thing to make
sure that your photographs are clearly what they say they are and we can
actually check on this this can be kind of amusing if on your listing you
right-click on your picture from a PC if you right click and go to search Google
for image this can actually give you a fun idea of what Google thinks your
image is sometimes it's really frightening ly spot-on
sometimes it's miles away so if your picture isn't quite so clear about what
your item is then that might be something to think of for in the future
now at the moment I don't think Etsy is looking at our pictures like that but
it's something that could happen in the future and also it helps if it's super
clear what the image is then that helps for buyers any way they want to see what
your item is not so much beautifully artistic fluff that you can't even tell
what it is that the item is that you're supposed to be looking for and also look
into things like as eetzi increases the resolution the size you're allowed
pictures to be if they make your change like this think about getting in in
front and making sure that your listings are the size they tell it tell them you
to be check that your banners and thumbnail pictures are actually the size
they tell you because as they up technology as they up the quality of
things you can put up there who knows they might actually prefer the items
that follow their rules over the small greeny pictures so importantly keep a
look out and your stats this is the biggest thing that you've got if things
die off however we look and see what's happening
our terms that used to be super searched for not being searched for so much
anymore do you need to tweak things because buyers are changing our trends
changing keep an eye out on announcements for the year's colors the
year's trends what's selling well what craftspeople are in to see what's coming
up and see don't just jump on all the trends willy-nilly but see if your shop
can fit into that tree into that trend and check out that competition see where
you're ranking and regularly check that you're ranking where you think you
were ranking the if you've gone up or going down
you can track things like this on-ear ank again so pop over to e ranked comm
set yourself up with a free account there and you can use the rank checker
to find out where you to find out roughly where you're ranking on eetzi
and if you're starting to drop down in the rankings maybe it's time to work a
little bit on improving that SEO improving the pictures see how your
prices and everything compared to all the other listings on that page and make
sure I not have all of your eat see items focused all in on the one thing
okay it's good you find keywords that are working for you you found a way to
make listings that are working for you but don't have them all exactly the same
one thing is to think of what might be coming up for example if your keyword
stuffy titles are working just now don't change those ones leave them alone but
we know that eetzi is mentioning a lot about having short titles so how about
some of the newer listings that you're making focusing in on the shorter titles
focusing in on a different way of doing SEO then if things suddenly change if
your best items suddenly fall off the map you've got some completely different
ones that might have been bubbling away not doing too great that might step in
and take over I found this to happen several times when some of my top
listings get hit with a neat C flip when eat C changes things up to give other
items a chance thankfully I had some other guys waiting in the wings
so when the one item went off the front page there was another one with kind of
different SEO that hit the front page so I've not got hurt so badly with an easy
flip because my items are not all eggs in one basket and finally super super
important is set up ways to contact your superfans your followers off of Etsy I'm
not talking about some kind of spamming campaign but if you can create for
example a Facebook group or a page a mailing list Instagram page any of these
things where you followers are going to be able to find
you then if the worst happens and you fall off the map on eat see or even
worse let's face it it could happen that your shops shut down due to a mistake
well then at least you have a way to get in touch with some of your followers so
not having all the eggs in one basket make sure you don't have all your
followers just in one place work on branching out a little bit
don't spend way too much effort on building up obviously your focus is on
making your shop awesome but this is a little something different as well
okay so if you want to see the rest of the videos in this playlist have a click
on the card there and don't forget subscribe and come back often for more
videos thank you so much