The maker’s Roadmap Your Ultimate A to Z Guide to Starting and Growing a Profitable Handmade Shop.
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before you start
I am Deb! The founder of Tizzit.co, handmade business coach, cheese lover, and determined to help you turn your handmade skills into a profitable business. Over the years, I’ve helped thousands of handmade shop owners start, grow and profit from their handmade shops with my training videos, online courses, and programs. Now, it’s your turn. I believe (in fact, I am sure!) that with the right training, the right advice, and a supportive community who won’t let you quit, you can build a wildly successful handmade business - and that’s exactly what Tizzit is all about. My flagship system, The Maker’s Roadmap, will take you through each stage of starting and growing a successful and profitable handmade shop so you can get back to doing what you love most (making) and worry less about the rest (business and ugh... marketing). Are you ready? Let’s do this.
before you start know the facts There is A LOT of info out there about Etsy SEO, some great…. some ill-informed and downright dangerous for your shop’s success. My biggest piece of advice is to always, always check the facts. What I am about to share in this video isn’t an opinion piece, it’s factual information from the horse’s mouth. I am not making any of this up, and you can find this information on Etsy’s website. In fact, I highly recommend you take the time to read the Etsy Seller Handbook and its section on SEO - but because I love summing up stuff and because you’re probably too busy to go read the whole thing anyway, here’s what you need to know about Etsy search, and how it really works.
how etsy search works They are two main phases to any Etsy search: 1. Query Matching 2. Ranking
phase one: query matching This is how Query Matching works: Someone types a few keywords in the search field of Etsy, looking for a product to buy. For example, that person might type in “baby socks”. This is called a “search query”. Etsy will use this information and look in their database for items that match this search query, hence the name “query matching”. All this means is that Etsy scans all the products listed on their platform looking for a keyword match for “baby socks” in the • • • •
Product Titles Product Tags Product Categories Product Attributes
phase one: query matching So far so good. Someone typed “baby socks” on the platform and Etsy found a list of items that might be relevant. At this stage, there are still thousands and thousands of listings that Etsy could show to this shopper. So how does Etsy decide which listing to show first? In other words, how does Etsy rank works? Etsy #1 goal is to shop shoppers listings or products that they are likely to buy. To do that they look at a few things:
how etsy search works • • • • • • •
Relevancy Listing quality score Recency Cutomer and market experience score Shipping price Translations and languages Shoppers habits
Let’s look at each of them and what they mean for you as a seller:
relevancy Put simply, the more closely your title, tags, attributes, and categories match the search query, the more likely it is that your item will show up higher in the search results because it is more “relevant”. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? Use ALL 13 tags Add relevant attributes options
Pick specific categories for your products
Listing quality score Etsy wants people to buy, and so they want to show potential shopper product listings that they know sell well. As soon as you list a product in your shop, Etsy keeps track of how well it is performing. How many people who click on your product listing end up purchasing it? That’s called your listing conversion rate, and the higher it is, the more Etsy will want to show your product to potential shoppers.
how etsy search works On the other hand, if a lot of people click but no one ever purchases, Etsy will start showing your listing less. That’s why it’s important to keep your conversion rates up. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? Spend some time making sure your listings are optimized for sales: your product photography should be of a professional standard, your product descriptions should highlight benefits and not just features, and focus on the quality of your traffic rather than on the volume.
recency Etsy likes new products. When you list a new item, it gets a temporary little boost lasting from a few hours to a few days - during which Etsy will rank this particular product a bit higher in search results. Why does this happen? Well sasdly, it isn’t necessarily to help you out. Sorry! By momentarily giving more visibility to this product, Etsy can see how shoppers interact with it and gather data for that “listing quality score” with just mentioned. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? Yes, newer items do get a boost but NO, this is not a viable Etsy SEO strategy. In fact, Etsy has said black on white “Regularly renewing your items or creating new listings just to get this small boost isn’t an effective search optimization strategy.” It is much more important to pick the right tags and to focus on your “listing quality score” or “conversion rate”.
Listing quality score
how etsy search works Customer and market experience score Another score! Etsy want people to have the best possible experience on the platform to maintain their brand standards and encourage repeat buyers. For this reason they look at your reputation. Bottom line: If you have a lot of great reviews, you’re more likely to rank higher than if you have a few open cases against your shop. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? Provide excellent customer service to encourage 5 star product reviews (reply to convo quickly, ship quickly, represent items accurately so there’s no surprise when they receive item, etc.) Make sure you have complete shop policies Make sure you craft a great about section for your shop
shipping price People don’t like paying for shipping and are more likely to buy if the shipping is cheap or even better, free. Etsy knows that from studying shoppers behavior, and because just like you - they want sales, they use shipping in their algorithm. Items with lower shipping fees rank higher in search. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? When and if possible, try to lower your shipping fees. I know this isn’t always possible, but again, I am just giving you the facts - and this is a part of the algorithm.
how etsy search works translation and languages This one is pretty straight forward and most useful for those of you who want to sell to more than one country/language. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU?
If you set up your shop’s language as “Spanish”, don’t write your tags in English. And vice versa. Etsy will translate them for you. If you can, add manual translations - they will often be better than the automatically generated one from Etsy and help you get found (rank higher).
shoppers habits OK this is the last one, and it’s a BIGGIE, so pay close attention. All the ranking factors we just covered help Etsy decide in which order to display search results, but there is NO SUCH THING as a unified “rank” anymore - meaning that if I type in “baby socks” and you type in “baby socks”, we will not see the same results, and not in the same order. This is called Context Specific Results or CSR and was added to the Etsy search algorithm in September 2018. Etsy uses past behavior data on the platform to show each shopper results that they are more likely to buy. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? You simply can’t aim at being #1 - there is no such thing anymore. Don’t “check your rank” by typing your keywords to see where your products show up because every shopper sees different results - that’s not goint ot help you achieve or understand anything. Instead, use your shop stats to discover which keywords are driving the most traffic.
thank you! For further help, support and training to help you start, grow and profit from your handmade shop, check out Tizzit HQ 4-STEP MAKER’S ROADMAP SYSTEM LIBRARY OF IN-DEPTH COURSES AND TRAINING LIVE MONTHLY COACHING SESSIONS A SUPPORTIVE ONLINE COMMUNITY
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