LONG. TAIL.
KEYWORDS.
What are these exactly? If you’re an Etsy
seller trying to optimize your shop’s SEO, you would naturally have heard of the now
famous “long-tail keywords”... except maybe you’re not exactly sure what they
really are OR how to use them in your SEO strategy. And that’s exactly what we’ll
unpack and clarify together in this video.
Let’s dive in!
Hi, I am Deb, founder of Tizzit.co, a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners
- and today I want to talk about long-tail keywords!
The best is probably to start from the beginning and go over what they REALLY are.
As with everything Etsy SEO related, there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation out
there.
Also not helping is the fact that they are called “LONG” tail keywords because the
truth is how LONG a keyword is NOT what makes it a long-tail keyword. It’s related, yes,
but the length of a keyword phrase or how many words it has in it is not what makes
it long-tail.
I know - kinda confusing. To understand what “long-tail” means, take a look at this
cute little graph I created for you:
* The horizontal axis represents the conversion rate for a given keyword (or how likely an
item is to sell per 100 views when found using a particular keyword), and the vertical axis
is the search volume (or how many people search for this keyword or phrase each month). And
this is your keyword curve. At the top here, we’ve got broad, unspecific, often short
keywords. These are keywords that have a high volume of search but a low conversion rate,
meaning a LOT of people search for it but they rarely purchase an item off the back
of that direct search. These are keywords like “jewelry”, “wall art” or “candle”.
And on the other side, right here in the bottom right, we’ve got specific, often longer
keyword phrases: these are phrases and keywords that aren’t being searched for all that
much but that, when they are, are much more likely to turn into a sale. For example ”french
stripes cotton t-shirt” which is incredibly specific - chances are not many people type
this into search every month, but when someone does they sure know what they want, and they
are a lot more likely to turn into a customer. Now … here’s the important part: this
section of the curve right here are your long-tail keywords. Why? Because this section of the
curve actually looks like a LONG TAIL. YEP, just like that. And yes, I am pretty happy
with myself for managing to place a dinosaur in an Etsy SEO video.
But seriously, I hope this helps you understand that a long tail keyword is a specific search
phrase with lower search volume but a higher conversion rate.
It is LIKELY to be a longer phrase, which is why a LOT (too many if you ask me) of people
out there oversimplify the definition by saying “long-tail keywords are phrases made of
3 or more keywords”.
Although it’s true that a phrase with 3 words is likely to be more specific than a
simple one word keyword, this is a dangerous generalization because what makes it long
tail is the relation between the search volume and the conversion rate - not the fact that
it has 3 or more words.
Example: “Gold wedding ring” is 3 words but it
is NOT a long-tail keyword, because it has a high volume of search and is not specific
enough to lead to more conversions. On the other hand, “recycled rose gold wedding
ring” is a long-tail keyword. Not that many people search for it - but when they do, they’re
likely to buy.
This is why sometimes Marmalead or eRank, if you’re using one of those, will tell
you this is a long-tail keyword and it only has 2 words, and then tell you a 3-word phrase
is not long-tail. It’s because they look at the volume of search and the engagement
for each phrase, not how many words the phrase has.
OK, now that we know what a long tail keyword is, let’s keep going.
The reason you want to focus on long-tail keywords, and the reason Etsy recommends you
do so, is because doing so increases your chances at getting sales.
This is because of the Etsy’s shopper journey - which you MUST understand to create a good
keyword strategy for your Etsy SEO titles and tags.
Most Etsy shoppers do NOT know what they are looking for. They might have a vague idea
of what they want and who for, whether it’s for them, a gift for someone else, whether
they want something to decorate their office or piece of clothing - but they don’t really
know the specifics when they start searching.
Because of this, they will naturally go on a journey from the top of this curve I showed
you, to the long-tail part of the curve.
And actually YES, let’s bring back the graph.
Let’s imagine someone just moved into a new apartment, and is looking to decorate their
guest bedroom. They might start with something as broad as
“wall art”. Etsy will show them a random assortment of
“wall art” listings and this person is going to start realizing what she likes VS
doesn’t. Maybe she’ll notice a lot of “abstract wall art” and realize she’s
not all that into it, this forces her to ask herself “well what am I into?” and maybe
there’s this one floral painting there that she feels more attracted to.
So she goes back to search and adds botanical to her search, searching now for “botanical
wall art”. And maybe she thinks “yes that’s better” - in fact she notices a few yellow
flowery illustrations and she likes those the most out of all the results …
...so she goes back to the search bar and refines her search again, this time to “yellow
flower wall art” and then even more as she notices some cool vintage-looking illustrations,
to “vintage yellow flower wall art” and BOOM - perfect, this is exactly what she wants
- she makes a purchase.
That my friend is an Etsy shopper’s journey or customer journey.
And that’s what you need to tap into when developing your keyword strategy which we’re
going to do RIGHT NOW.
Let’s bring it ALL together. What does it mean for YOU and for your Etsy SEO strategy?
How can you use long-tail keywords to get more views and more sales?
And how are you meant to do that if your tags can’t be longer than 20 characters which
for most long-tail keywords is simply not long enough to fit?
Well to answer that, and to craft your Etsy SEO strategy around long-tail keywords, we
need to define two more concepts which are relevancy and the difference between an exact
search match and a broad search match.
This is something I have previously explained in another video on “How to do your titles
and tags and the 5 most common mistakes" sellers make around repeating keywords in their titles
and tags - and if you haven’t watched it, I really recommend you do so as it’ll clarify
some key ETSY SEO concepts and I’ll link to that video below this one. I also have
a video that breaks down exactly how the algorithm works for you which is worth watching as well,
but for now, what you need to know is that when someone types a keyword phrase in the
Etsy search bar, Etsy uses many different data points to decide which listing will show
first, second, etc. in the list of results (commonly called ranking). One of these data
points is what’s called RELEVANCY.
When a shopper types in keywords into the Etsy search bar, Etsy compares them to your
titles, tags, categories, and attributes.
The more closely they match what this shopper typed into the search bar, the more likely
it is that your item will show up higher in the search results because it is more “relevant”.
Now, practically… what does this mean? It means that your listing can match a shopper’s
search EXACTLY or “BROADLY”.
Let’s look at an example:
Imagine your listing title is
“Recycled Gold Ring, Engagement Band, Rose Gold Wedding Band”
and someone types in “recycled gold ring” in search => You have an EXACT match, because
this exact phrase appears in your listing, with the words in this exact order.
This tells Etsy your listing is more relevant than someone else’s listing who does not
have these exact words in this exact order.
On the other hand, if someone types in “recycled rose gold wedding ring” you will still show
up in search, because “recycled” “rose” and “gold” and “wedding ring” are
all keywords appearing in your listing, except this time it isn’t an EXACT match, but a
“BROAD” match.
This means that if another shop has “recycled rose gold wedding ring” as an exact match
in their listing… that listing is, in the algorithm eyes, more “RELEVANT” than yours.
Of course you can’t hope to be an EXACT match for every keyword phrase you’d like
to show up for because there’s simply not enough room in your tags and titles for this.
You also don’t want to repeat keywords unnecessarily between your titles and tags because that’s
a missed opportunity to add more variety to your keyword strategy but YOU DO want to repeat
in your tags and title the 1 or 2 keyword phrases that you most want to be “relevant”
for - also commonly called “FOCUS KEYWORDS”.
Which brings us to the question: should these “focus keywords” be long-tail keywords?
Given that Etsy said:
“Do target “long tail” keywords. Instead of trying to compete for popular, generic
searches, like “tote bag” or “diamond ring,” prioritize less popular phrases that
describe what’s really special about your products.”
The first thought is YES FOR SURE, let’s ‘exact match’ long-tail keywords and make
THOSE my focus keywords, the ones I match in my tags so I'm real high on the RELEVANCY
scorecard for those. But sadly… that’s not necessarily true,
and let me explain why with - you’ve guessed it, admit it you’ve missed it - our favorite
graph!
Let’s sum up what we know so far and proceed by elimination.
First is this section, our broad, not really specific keywords. We know it’s kinda pointless
to focus exclusively on those broad, unspecific keywords like “silver jewellery” or “wall
art” because even though a lot of people search for them, they don’t really lead
directly to sales AND often the competition is also through the roof for those - so you’re
unlikely to show up very high in the search results if you only focus on this - so trying
to “EXACT MATCH” for those is not necessarily your best bet.
OK then, what about our dear long-tail keywords then? Should you make THOSE your FOCUS KEYWORDS?
By definition, long-tail keywords are very specific, and have less search volume. For
these reasons, they often also have a lot less competition - so you don’t necessarily
NEED to make them your focus keywords to show up high in search.
For example, if we look at the search results for our previous example “vintage yellow
flower wall art” - if I type this on Etsy I'm going to get just under 4000 results.
And if we scroll past the ads at the very top here, we can take a look at what's happening
below. Some listings get pretty close to that search like this one which has “yellow flower
wall art”. It's almost exactly my search and SURPRISE because of that it also shows
first, but then we have some that really don't have it all so this one here for example just
has vintage and yellow from what I can see, and this one only seems to have wall art.
Now let's actually click on that one to see what else they have in the title and tags.
So we do have wall art, we have yellow, we have vintage, and we have flowers, so the
words are there they're just not an exact match.
And if we look at the tags, it's also not matched in the tags for that specific long-tail
keyword of “vintage yellow flower wall art”. We have "wall", we have "vintage", we have
"flower" - but again it's not an exact match and there's no match between tags and title
data for that specific long-tail keyword. YET, this is super high in search. At the
top of the 4000 or so listings.
Why does this matter? Because it shows you that you do not need to have the full exact
match for that long-tail keyword in your title or tags to show up for them in search. So,
when thinking about long-tail keywords, rather than obsessing over being an exact match and
trying to repeat them all between title and tags, you want to ask yourself instead: “can
all your broader or slightly broader keywords (in your tags, attributes, categories and
title) be combined in a way that can help you for long-tail searches?”
With that in mind, you’re free to focus on what I like to call the happy medium. This
is where your focus keywords, and as many keywords as you can really, but certainly
your focus keywords - should be. Not too broad, not too specific.
Remember, these here are probably too competitive to be worth using as a focus keyword, and
they will naturally be in your listings, even if not as an exact match by way of your categories
and attributes.
These ones you can show up for more easily without needing to exact match as we just
saw, and so these ones are more likely to be where the gold is and worth your precious
“focus keyword” space.
Something you must remember though: every niche and every shop is different. If something
is working for you, keep doing it and PLEASE keep a close eye on your shop’s stats which
hold YOUR truth and the key to YOUR best strategy. Some niches are small enough that even broader
keywords might be worth competing for and trying to use as a FOCUS KEYWORD, there is
no real one perfect formula here.
Also, different tools will define and categorize long-tail keywords differently, because they
each calculate the ratio between engagement and search volume slightly differently. Both
eRank and Marmalead for example might use a different algorithm to tell you if a keyword
is long-tail or not. So don’t go trying to avoid using all long-tail
keywords as focus keywords, or opposite trying to only focus on exact matches for long-tail
keywords - use common sense: you won’t get a perfect keyword with high search volume,
high engagement and low competition, just remember that you want to be as close as possible
to this “happy medium”: long-tail enough that this keyword is likely
to lead to sales, but not sooo long-tail that it’s way too specific and not worth using
as an exact match.
“BUT DEB, you didn’t talk about the 20 character limit in the tags”! RIGHT. I almost
forgot about this! Well, good news, you can absolutely split those!
So if you want a tag that’s “minimalist wood stud earrings” for your stud earrings,
you can absolutely have two tags instead, one “minimalist wood” and one “stud
earrings” and you’re all set - in fact I talk about tags and repeating them and matching
them with titles and all that good stuff in my “How to do titles and tags” video which
I recommend you go and watch right now, by clicking this thumbnail right here which will
take you to my Etsy SEO video playlist”
Hope you learnt a few things, thank you and aurevoir!