If you’ve ever found yourself stumped by Etsy SEO, check out this guide for practical tips to optimize your sales.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a small commission if you purchase through my link–at no additional cost to you.
Whether you’ve been selling on Etsy for a while, or you’re brand new to the platform, if you’re finding it difficult to make sales you might be neglecting your shop’s SEO.
Some people find it exceptionally hard to make sales. Often it has nothing to do with the quality of their product. When they go to the Facebook groups asking, “Why is no one buying?”, they’re often told to fix their SEO.
But wait, what the heck is SEO? And how does one fix it?
The answers you get can be varied, complicated, and often a cover for some sort of SEO optimization service they’re trying to sell you.
You don’t need to pay someone to fix your Etsy SEO. You can do it yourself. I believe in you!
This guide is a long one, but full of practical examples so buckle in for the ride.
Don’t have a lot of time right now, or want to take it in stages? Don’t forget to bookmark this page so you can come back to it later!
And, if you want a way to organize your SEO research, I’ve created a super simple little fillable PDF just for you! It’s free, and you can use it to track your research as we go through the guide together.
Okay, now that you’ve got your keyword planner it’s time to dig in. Let’s go!
What is Etsy SEO?
SEO is, simply put, “search engine optimization”. Different platforms have different algorithms for their SEO—Etsy SEO is not the same as Google SEO, Pinterest SEO, etc. They’re similar, but not the same.
In this guide, we’re specifically talking about optimizing your shops and listings for Etsy SEO.
Why is good SEO important?
If your Etsy SEO Is bad, or non-existent, you make it so much harder for people to find you. You will struggle to get found in the Etsy search and will have to drive all your traffic yourself.
If you’re going to go to the effort of driving all your own traffic to your shop, why are you on Etsy? The biggest benefit of selling on Etsy is that people who’ve never seen you before can find your products by utilizing Etsy’s search to find something perfect. If you’re not utilizing that, you’re missing out on all that free traffic you could be getting! (Which means you’re missing out on sales!)
Do I need a paid subscription to something like Erank or Marmalead?
No! If you’re willing to put in the work to find good keywords on your own, you can do this without paid programs like Erank or Marmalead. This guide does not utilize Erank or Marmalead in any way, and you can follow along without either.
Many Etsy sellers love these programs because they can provide more data than a simple search can, and if you’re interested in fine-tuning your keywords, you may want to consider one of these programs in the future.
I don’t use either currently, although I have used both programs in the past. I didn’t like either of them enough to keep using them—or I guess I just didn’t get enough out of them.
If you’re new to Etsy, or just new to thinking about Etsy SEO, I recommend learning the ins and outs of SEO without a paid subscription to an SEO service. If, at that point, you want to level up your SEO game, then go for it!
What parts of my shop and listings need to be optimized for Etsy SEO?
You might assume that good Etsy SEO starts with the item you’re trying to sell, but it starts with your shop! I’m going to show you where in your shop you need to optimize, as well as where in your listings you need to optimize.
Let’s start with shop optimization.
Shop Optimization
If you’ve never taken a look at your shop page, now’s a good time to do it. Whether you have one listing or one hundred listings, your shop needs to look good—and be algorithm-friendly!
Here are the places we’re going to focus on:
- Shop banner
- Profile picture
- “About” text
- Shop Policies
- Shop Announcement
Optimizing these five spots for success is the first step to good overall Etsy SEO, so let’s dig into each one of them individually.
Banner & Icon
Let’s start with the icon. It should be square, and Etsy recommends a size of 500 x 500 pixels. Your icon can be your logo or an image that represents your shop in some way. It should be unique to you, memorable, and a good representation of your business. It also needs to look okay scaled down; your icon will show up in various places on Etsy and in a variety of sizes.
Shop Icon
I make my shop icons in Canva. And yes, Canva has a free version! I use Canva so heavily that I pay for the pro version, but if you aren’t going to use it often or for anything too involved, the free version is perfectly fine. (Click here to be taken to Canva.)
Shop Banner
There are two banner types—mini banners, and big banners. Mini banners are 1200 x 160 pixels. Big banners should be 3360 x 840 pixels.
Big banners take up a lot of room at the top of your shop, whereas mini banners are a lot smaller (obviously) and don’t show up on the mobile version of your shop.
In my shops, I always opt for big banners. I just like the look better. You can choose whichever one is better for your shop. According to Etsy, “mini banners are best if you’d rather your shop icon and listings take primary focus … mini banners will shift your listings higher up when viewing your shop home on desktop.” (Source Here)
Your shop banner should represent your shop and might feature images of your products or highlight a sale or promotion that you’re running. (Canva has some Etsy shop banner templates!) When someone clicks into your shop from one of your listings this is one of the first things that they’re going to see so you want to make sure it makes a statement that reflects what your business is all about.
Profile Picture
This is simple. Make sure you have a profile picture! People on Etsy want to know they’re buying from an actual person. Your shop banner & icon are business-related, but your profile picture should be you!
About
Let your shoppers know about you! Why do you make what you make? How do you make what you make? You don’t need to give away all your industry secrets of course, but do you source the ingredients to your products locally? Do you prioritize small businesses when buying supplies?
Shop Policies
Make sure you have your shop policy section filled out. This lets your customer know if you accept cancellations, returns, exchanges, etc.
You don’t need to work your keywords in here; just having them filled out will help you in Etsy’s algorithm.
Announcement
The announcement bar is a great place to highlight sales. Make sure you keep it updated, especially as customers can see the date that it was last updated. It reassures customers that your shop is active, and you’re checking in.
I almost always keep a 10% off coupon code in there as well. A sort of “thanks for checking out my shop” sort of thing. If you can’t or don’t want to do this, that’s fine, but make sure you have something in there!
Listing Optimization
Next up, and the thing that people tend to focus on the most (for good reason!) is your listings. People find you, and your shop, through your listings, so we want to make sure they’re Etsy SEO-friendly and well-put together.
The most important part of this is keyword selection. SEO is keyword-focused, and you want to utilize this in the creation of your listings. We’re going to start by going over how to find optimal keywords, and then we’ll move into where to use them.
In particular, we’re going to focus on:
- Choosing keywords
- Your listing title
- Your listing photos (note: this is not a guide to good product photography, but there are some tips!)
- Your listing description
- Your listing tags
To best show you how to do this, I’m going to list a new item in one of my shops—and take you along on the process, step by step!
We’ll then wrap up the post with a couple of important extra Etsy dos and don’ts for your continued success!
Let’s jump in.
Choosing Keywords
Keywords, keywords, keywords. I can’t overstate the importance of good keywords.
But how the heck do you find good keywords? And what makes a keyword (or key phrase!) “good”?
Before we start searching keywords, I want you to take a few minutes and write down words or phrases you might use to describe your product.
Let’s take a look at this product. I have a pair of earrings that I’ve made with book beads. Book beads are, just like it sounds, beads made with books. Book pages, more specifically. I take the pages of used books, turn them into beads, and then turn those beads into jewelry like this pair of earrings.
Describing the Product
Get a piece of paper and a pen, or the fillable PDF that I created for you.
I’m going to think of words and phrases that describe the product and write them down. How it’s made, what it’s made with, what it looks like, etc. Here’s my preliminary list:
Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen, Earrings, Dangle Earrings, Book Pages, Made With Book Pages, Book Page Earrings, Jane Austen Earrings, Pride & Prejudice Earrings, White and Black Earrings, Stainless Steel Earrings, Silver-Colored Earrings, Statement Earrings, Classic Novels, Classic Books, Book Page Art, Book Page Jewelry, Repurposed Books, Recycled Books, Used Books
There are probably lots of other ways I could describe it, but that’s a decent start.
Buyer/Receiver
Now it’s time to come up with a list of words/phrases that would describe the ideal buyer or recipient. Etsy is pro-gift buying these days, so I’m going to think about those kinds of phrases as well.
Gift for Booklover, Gift for Librarian, Gift for Teacher, Gift for Reader, Jane Austen Gift, Pride and Prejudice Gift, Bookish Gift, BookTok Gift, Christmas Gift, Birthday Gift, Gift for Mom, Gift for Sister, Reader Earrings, Teacher Earrings, Librarian Earrings, EA Earrings, Author Earrings, Writer Earrings, Booklover Earrings, Novel Gifts, Novel Earrings, Novel Jewelry
Again, I’m sure there are lots of other ones I could use, but this is a good start. Now let’s refine the list.
Note: In this example, I’m coming up with a listing for a pair of earrings. The use for earrings is obvious. Earrings. However, if your listing is for something with a less obvious use, or multiple uses, I would recommend that you also make a list of keywords that describe the use. Like, if you make rope baskets you might want to come up with keywords like, “blanket storage, toy storage, craft storage,” etc. Show people how versatile your product could be, which will help them more easily envision how it can fit into their lives and homes.
Now that we have our list, it’s time to figure out whether people are searching for these keywords.
Are People Searching for It?
What we want is to utilize keywords that people are already searching for. If there is already a demand for an item, it’s 10x easier to get found than if you have to first create a demand.
Even if you have a totally unique, never-before-made, 100% new, product (and let’s be honest, most of us do not), you can still utilize keywords people are already searching for. You might just have to think more creatively to link your product to something that already exists.
Now, the best place to see if people are searching for your product on Etsy is… well, Etsy of course!
When it comes to SEO research, the Etsy search is your best friend. Does it have limitations? Yes. But can it steer you in the right direction? Yes, it can.
TIP: When you’re doing this stage of your product research, open a PRIVATE browser to search Etsy. We don’t want our searches to impact the algorithm, or show you things tailored to you, vs. what a new prospective shopper would see. To do this, right-click on your browser icon. If you use Chrome, it’ll say, “New Incognito Window”. If you use Firefox, it’ll say, “New Private Window”. And if you use Microsoft Edge, it’ll say, “New InPrivate Window”.
Carrying on.
This part is a tiny bit tedious, but, important.
Remember all those keywords/key phrases we brainstormed? We’re going to start searching for them on Etsy.
One of the things we’re looking for is whether the phrase “auto-populates”. This means, when you start typing it, does it pop up? If yes, people are searching for it! If no, they’re not. This doesn’t mean you can’t use the phrase, but it might not be the best one for you.
If it does auto-populate, put a checkmark next to it or highlight it in some way.
Doing this might also help you find other keywords that you might be able to use. If you find new keywords this way, add them to your list! Or if you search one of your keywords and find that it’s a little different in the Etsy search bar (or more detailed), you might want to change what you have to what Etsy is showing.
If it auto-populates, click on it. Now look in the top right-hand corner. How many listings are using this tag? It’ll only give you an approximate number, but it’s good to know because it gives you an idea of your competition.
Edit: as of March 2024, Etsy only shows “1000+” for larger numbers, even though it used to be more specific, like “80,000+” or “250,000+”, etc. This change is quite annoying in the context of tag research, but I’m going to leave this section here in case Etsy changes it back to the old system. Based on the old system, I tried not to use tags with less than 5,000 results, or more than 100,000 results. This isn’t always possible, but it helps narrow in on tags being searched, but not over-saturated. This is one point in favor of paid software like Erank and Marmalead, as I think they still provide these numbers.
Now, look at your list. Do you have a good variety of highlighted keywords/phrases? I do!
Now we’re going to write a title for this product.
Your Title
Good Etsy listing titles aren’t “pretty”. It won’t suffice to write something like, “Pride & Prejudice Book Page Earrings”. It looks nice, it tells the shopper what the item is, but it likely won’t get found in Etsy’s search.
Let’s make a title that’s Etsy SEO-friendly.
Your Etsy title can be no longer than 140 characters, so we have to work within that limit. Your title should be a string of keywords and phrases, divided by commas.
Yes, commas.
Some people swear by the backslash, but the issue with this is that you need to leave a space on either side of it—wasting precious character space. With a comma, you only leave a space on one side. People who use the backslash (/) have less space for keywords. We want to optimize everything, including the amount of room we have to pack that title full of descriptive keywords!
Using only my highlighted keywords/phrases, and picking the ones that I think will best represent this item to prospective shoppers, this is the title that I’m going with.
Pride and Prejudice Earrings, Jane Austen Earrings, Recycled Books, Gift for Booklover, Pride and Prejudice Gifts, Gift for Teacher Friend
It describes the product and comes in at 138 characters. It is optimized for Etsy SEO and is search-bar friendly.
So now we can move on to our photos!
Photo(s)
I’m terrible at product photography, and I won’t pretend any differently. What I can tell you is that the Etsy algorithm wants your whole product to be visible in the main listing photo.
You also want to make sure that you have lifestyle photos—show your product being used/worn where possible—and that your photos demonstrate size/scale and color accurately. (You’ll notice that I don’t have lifestyle photos of my earrings. Again, I’m terrible at photography.)
You should make sure to utilize all ten photo spots. If you don’t have enough product photos, add info-graphics about usage, shipping, returns, custom orders, etc. I do this all the time!
The other important thing to note is that when you upload your photos, MAKE SURE you’re adding descriptions to the photos (utilizing those keywords!) and a title. These things affect your Etsy SEO score, although they’re often neglected by people who are in a hurry to just get the listing up.
Pay attention to the little details; it’ll serve you well!
Description
Your description is incredibly important—unfortunately, it’s often not read by customers.
Nonetheless, creating a customer-focused description is important as it factors into your SEO score. It also helps those customers who do read descriptions know what your product is and isn’t, and what they should expect if they order from you.
The first 50-60 characters are some of the most important, as this is what will show up in a Google search. You must pack your keywords in here. However, they need to be there in a readable, human way. Don’t resort to “keyword stuffing”. This means that you shouldn’t just copy and paste your title there. This works against you, as algorithms have learned to filter these sorts of attempts at gaming the system out.
Instead, write a short, snappy sentence that will hopefully hook interested customers.
For this example, I might start my description with,
One-of-a-kind book bead Pride & Prejudice earrings for book lovers.
Then I’ll move on to the body of my description. Remember, we want to utilize our keywords here.
I like to use a lot of lists and include emoticons/images where possible. I also use this space to include other important details that my customers might want to know, including shipping details, care details, and links to other products (of mine) that they might love.
When you’re happy with your description, you can move on to your tags—another important place to optimize your Etsy SEO.
Tags
Your listing’s “tags” are going to be those keywords/key phrases you settled on earlier. In this section, I repeat the keywords I used in my title and then add more as I have room for them.
Your tags can be no longer than twenty characters, and you can have thirteen. Make sure you are using all thirteen!
A Few More Etsy SEO Do’s And Don’ts
If you’re in the Etsy seller’s Facebook groups, you’ll often see people posting “likes for likes” and “follows for follows”. This means that you’ll click on their link, follow their shop, and they’ll follow your shop in return. Or you’ll like one of their items, and they’ll like one of yours.
Unlike on social media, our goal is NOT to get likes and follows on Etsy. Those things are great if they are authentic, but they HURT your shop if they aren’t.
That’s because Etsy likes something called “conversion”. They want to see that when people open up your listing page, they buy.
If you have 100 people open up your listing page as part of a like-for-like train, and NONE of them buy, that means you have a conversion score of 0%. Etsy doesn’t like to see that. They decide it means that your item isn’t appealing to people who look at it, and they have no incentive to drive people to that item. If your item doesn’t sell, Etsy doesn’t make money.
However, if four people find your listing on their own, and one of them buys, that means that item has a conversion score of 25%. Although fewer people are looking at it, the Etsy algorithm is going to favor that listing more—because 25% of the people who look at it are so in love with it that they click purchase!
So, for the health of your listings/shop, don’t join in on those follow-for-follow or like-for-like trains. I promise you, it doesn’t help.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t promote your shop! Don’t be afraid to post it in groups where buyers are looking for products like yours. Views/likes aren’t bad; no shop will ever have a 100% conversion rate. (In fact, in retail, the goal is usually 3%-10%.) Someone may look at a product now, and buy it later. Or tell their friends about it.
Just don’t try to artificially boost your views through games. It will hurt you in the long run.
Keep these Etsy SEO tips and tricks in mind and be seen in Etsy search!
I should add a small disclaimer—good SEO doesn’t matter if you’re not selling quality products. Make sure that whatever you’re selling is made well, and is properly represented so your customer gets what they expect they’ll get when they order.
Etsy is a place for handmade, or at least hand-designed, goods. Do a lot of people sell mass-produced items on Etsy? Yes. Do a lot of people sell stolen art? Yes. Do a lot of people sell AI art? Yes.
That doesn’t mean you should.
Although Etsy lets people get away with a lot, buyers—and sellers—are pushing back.
When you sell on Etsy, think long and hard about whether the product you’re selling belongs on Etsy. (For the record if you’ve made it, or designed it, it does.)
What more information about selling on Etsy? Check out my series, “I Want to Sell Handmade Products… But I Don’t Know What to Make!” Even if you DO know what to make, there is lots of great information there about pricing, packaging, and selling.
I’d love to see what you sell on Etsy! Link your shops in the comments!