10 Quick Tips to improve your Etsy shop

When starting an Etsy shop, there are many things to consider. It’s unlikely you have given any thought to SEO. Here are ten Etsy shop tips you can complete today.

Most new sellers struggle to get traffic into their shop – myself included. But as long as you know what you can improve and put in a little extra effort than your nearest competition – you should see things develop over a short period.

Let’s get started on improving your shop.

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Improve your Etsy Shop Sales with these 10 Quick Tips

Follow these very simple Etsy shop tips to get a sales boost.

1. Update your shop announcement using your Etsy shop keywords.

The first few lines of your shop announcement should contain all the keywords you want your shop to be known for.

So mine should contain the words, digital, Clipart, Papers. Until Feb 2017, I hadn’t updated my shop front page announcement for over a year. Advising everyone who comes to the shop that I’m not there, not listening, and not even alive.

Your shop’s announcement does count towards your SEO. There is some argument that you should not update your announcement too often as it can take four weeks or more for it to take effect for SEO.

Does your shop need better branding? – find out what to do to improve your branding.

Does your shop announcement need updating?

If your current announcement is no longer relevant, it needs updating right now. Add some keywords to your first few lines related to the items you sell. Get more help on writing your Etsy announcement here.

You can also add a link to sign up for your email list, and promote your social media handles. Some shops showcase their best sellers here and sales dates or coupon codes. Put in the links to my other shops here also.

If you have more than one Etsy shop – you must declare this to your buyers so they can easily see you have another store on Etsy.
You can do this in your shop announcement or your descriptions. As long as you declare it.

Even if you have more than one shop selling the same items, i.e., two shops selling invites, one digital and one printed and shipped. Etsy doesn’t mind as long as you are not listing the same items in two shops. Read our post before selling on Etsy..

You can list the same item twice in 1 shop, though. I’ve never done this, but it is ok to do so as long as they are not a complete repeat of each other.

2. List new items in your Etsy shop regularly.

Adding new items for sale will help your Etsy shop stay active in search and add another layer of SEO to your shop front. If you can, try to add a new item every week. You could try batching your new listings and only posting them for sale at regular intervals.

Add your listings to Etsy with these simple steps

After the first initial two sales, I went off to drink coffee for eight months. I know I’m not the only person out there guilty of this. But it tells Etsy that you are not willing to invest any time in your shop. Result = no traffic or sales.

Another useful Etsy shop tip is to use different titles for each listing.

Adding new items is excellent, but if the title of each one begins with the same words, you are competing with yourself.

Take each item and target one keyword for it. Don’t begin each title with Digital Paper, try to be more targeted, such as Floral Digital paper, or Spotty Digital paper.

Etsy aims to have only one item from each shop on individual search pages; therefore, you want to be on page 1 for each target keyword, not seven pages for the same keyword.

For example, I have three items of Blue Digital paper; I could have given each one a focused Keyword such as Sky Blue Paper, Navy blue paper, and Stars blue digital paper.

Below is an image of what my shop currently shows as tags. Notice how some have the same words at the beginning of the description. These need amending to something more targeted and individual.

image from Etsy shop of items for sale

3. Use Etsy listing categories correctly.

When I first started selling on Etsy, I placed all my items for sale in the shop category Paper. If I were listing them today, I’d list them as Craft Supplies and Tools, Scrapbooking supplies, Scrapbooking clip art or premade papers.

Make sure you list your items in the correct category on Etsy and there is no reason you can’t use 2 or 3 different ones and experiment.

When Etsy updated their categories, I then put them on Canvas surfaces. So that wasn’t correct either.

Keep an eye on your categories and ensure you haven’t missed an update.

Here you can view the current Categories on Etsy for you to see where you should be.

4. Watch for spelling mistakes.

Ok – so no major issues with this. But if you wanted to buy a chocolate cake and someone can’t spell chocolate, the buyer might think, well, if they can’t even spell correctly, is their product good, is it even chocolate.?

There are folks out there who will not buy from your shop if you haven’t taken the time to spell correctly.

You can combat this by creating your listing details in google docs, which helps with spelling and standard errors. I got caught out quite a bit by the dreaded ‘copy and paste’ and copied my spelling errors to the next listing.

I’ve now invested in Grammarly, which helps enormously with the details which can be easily overlooked when you have listed your 15th item that day.

5. List each item as a new item.

When posting a new item for sale, add it as a new item for sale. Ensure you don’t overuse one keyword or have the same titles copied over and list your items on Etsy correctly the first time.

In the beginning, I copied and pasted my listing titles from one item to another because they were so similar. Alarmingly I thought this was ok because the more listings I had which sounded alike, the more Etsy would love me.

All I achieved by doing this was to have the same title for four listings and compete with myself over titles and tags. Another point to make here is that when you do list a new item, you can copy the old item on the listings page, then swap out the images and descriptions, helping with SEO as well.

So if you have five listings in your shop (you should have more, of course), but one of those items receives ten times more views than any other listing – copy this item and change out the pictures and details. Always remember to treat it as a new listing. Don’t cut corners by using the same keywords in the same place.

For each item, you need to have an idea of how you will list it.

I keep a sheet of paper for each of my listings which I can easily see when it was first listed and what keywords I was targeting, as well as what I named it in Etsy, and give it the number you can use within your listings so you can find it again. It’s called the SKU. So I can quickly see what number the listing relates to. I also keep a list of the keywords I want to target and how many times I have used them in the shop.

6. Improve your Etsy shop Search Engine Optimisation

Target SEO within each listing description

The first paragraph is the most vital for SEO when writing your item descriptions. You are telling the buyer how this will benefit them or solve a problem. Put on your sales hat and add in a few shop keywords and also the long keywords you wish to target for that item, as this is potentially the only paragraph a buyer will read, so make it count.

I had taken all the advice I had read and managed to get over 100 listings ready to be posted for sale. I was on fire. But in my haste, I forgot to read the paragraph about SEO, and it does matter if you copy one listing over to the next listing because Google looks at this repetitiveness. Not great.

Even though you have many listings of basically the same thing, try to vary how you write your copy in the descriptions of the items. Vary the wording a little and reconstruct the same first paragraph so you can benefit from a bit of google juice.

Linking and interlinking

Also, I failed to link to other listings inside my item descriptions, and when I did, I put in a long link instead of a short one, which makes it look a bit messy. Some people prefer to link to several items at the bottom of their listing, this keeps the buyer hanging about in your shop, and they are more likely to stumble upon a listing and then purchase it. Especially if you have hinted at a saving.

You can link to other listings by recommending them i.e. click here to find similar items you might like or click here to see the item in different colors.

You can link to your categories also this way.

If you are going to link to other relevant listings, please do so using a link shortener such as bitly

Etsy has now made this easier, and it’s not necessary to copy the whole URL, just the item number.

Utilize your shop sections

The shop sections are those you name yourself and categorize your listings for the buyer to find them easily. These form part of your shop’s SEO and can be found with the search term.

I had one called Digital (doh) and one called clip art.

Lots of thought went into that.

Some shops place their items into categories based on search terms; some do it via colors, or even what the items are used for. Trial and error, and you probably need to spend time figuring this out in your shop.

7. Make your Etsy shop personal with these tips

Fill out your About Page correctly.

Your about page should give the buyer a brief overview of who you are and what you do. Not that you have ten cats and came in late every Friday. It should tell the buyer professionally why you are here and include some helpful info on how you started and your mission statement.

Include keywords in the title of your about page too.

Do not copy other listings

Copying someone’s hard work is not only unfair, but it’s also bad for SEO. You need to build your SEO bricks and make your shop better than the next, even if you are selling very similar items.

I didn’t copy anyone’s listings, but I still have listings that are more than a nod to someone else’s listing, either in description or tags. It wasn’t done deliberately, but there are only a few ways to show three feathers together.

I’ve never had anyone tell me off or approach me, so I don’t think they closely resemble anyone. Please be mindful when doing your research on Etsy and be unique. Of course, if you use the search function to look for tags, it’s likely you will have the same tags as someone selling the same or similar item.

This leads me to the next point.

Don’t keep selling the same thing.

Moving along with the times and trends will gradually build your shop from the ground up. There will be items that no longer are on trend or sell, but don’t get hung up on the same item repeatedly.

I had some items that were mainly the same; believe me, after spending days making them, only one ever sold with any great regularity. It is much better to build upon your best sellers rather than thinking everyone wants that strange shade of pink and must have it 38 times more.

If you have a particular item that does well, then build on it. The item may have done well because it’s genuinely what buyers want right now, and it’s your job to give them more of the same.

Besides, if you make 38 items all the same, by the time you come to list them, the trend will have passed anyway.

Avoid using non-words

Using trend words in your item descriptions may be acceptable for a short while, but try to avoid them if possible as they don’t help later on.

I’ve only ever done this once, and it sounds terrible. If your local language uses words that your 13 years old thinks is cool, that’s fine – but please do not use them in your shop. Because what is trendy today will be gone tomorrow, who wants to amend 300 listings with a U in the correct place.

8. Change the description of your item.

Your item title should not appear in your description.

The purpose of your title is to help the buyer understand what they are buying in a brief sentence. The description should persuade the buyer to purchase it by going into more detail about the item.

I thought it was ok to copy my item title straight into the first three lines of my description. I’d read somewhere that it was good for SEO to repeat the same words in my description as those in my title.

Ok, this is half true; you should have your keywords somewhere in your description, but maybe only have three keywords in your description nicely sprinkled naturally throughout a few lines at the top, not 60 times.

As of today, I probably have 400 listings that are guilty of this. I have been in amended a few, but gosh, this is hard work. Some mistakes cost you more time in the future. Even though SEO is always changing on Etsy – you can avoid catastrophic errors in the first instance.

Link to other items in your shop

Within your description, link to other relevant items in your shop. Often I leave this until the last paragraph, but the buyer has to read all the way down to see these, so maybe midway would be better.

It will keep your buyer in your shop for longer, and they will see more of your beautiful items – thus leading to more sales hopefully.

9. Use all ten pictures.

By filling in all ten picture images for each listing, you are giving the buyer the best visual idea before they even go on to read your description. Ensure your item looks its best here.

Why I thought it was ok to use one photo of my item is beyond my explanation. But there you go. Use all of your picture slots. If you are struggling with ideas, you can use them to do any of the following instead

What can I use in my Preview pictures?

  • Promotion code
  • Close-up of the same picture
  • Sign up for an email advert
  • Similar listing side by side – e.g., four images of matching items
  • Photo of how you made it
  • Pinnable image for Pinterest
  • Further information about the product in use
  • Photo from a previous customer using the item – please get permission from the buyer first.
  • Great review of the item

If this can seem like hard work, try batching. Spend a week ensuring your photos are the best they can be.

You can read more helpful articles on Etsy marketing

How to use your Etsy preview

Need help with email marketing – moving to Flodesk

10. React to the Etsy market – I carried on making chevrons.

Ok, so yes, there was a trend where chevrons appeared everywhere, and I wanted to be part of that too. I made chevrons, but while I was perfecting my product, the market moved on to minimalistic black and white, and then I kept wondering why my chevrons were not selling.

Like a chicken with my head on the computer, everyone else in the office had moved on to the next new thing, and I was left behind.

We don’t like chevrons because of this. They are a bit annoying now.

Make the most of each listing.

Listing your items for sale on Etsy is a great way to sell a product. But each one is a shop window to your product, so ensure you have done everything on each listing to maximize its effectiveness to the buyer.

Use all the pictures, and optimize your descriptions to say precisely what the item is about and how it will improve their lives, not yours.

Use Marmalead.

This tool wasn’t around when I started. But it has helped me immensely since I started using it. Before this, I just stalked many shops and tried to emulate what they were doing.

Marmalead will help you with tags, giving you plenty of alternative ideas. The battle is halfway won by thinking like a buyer and having a long list of suitable tags to get into your items. Check out Marmalead today

10.1 Don’t put your shop on vacation.

Big fat huge no-no.

No one wants to lose potential sales by actually leaving their shop unattended, so conveniently, you can put your shop in holiday mode.

However, it affects your SEO score, and a non-active shop is not great. Etsy doesn’t know you will only be away for three nights visiting your Granny or have charted a boat to go on a product-finding tour in Hawaii.

They drop your shop’s SEO, and it will take a while or maybe longer to get back up to speed.

Alternatively, extend your delivery times, or put a notice in the shop and message to buyers. This way you haven’t thrown off your SEO, and everyone knows you are coming back to attend them.

So – there you have it. Just a few ways in which you can easily improve your Etsy shop today. Why not make a note to try and put 1 or 2 on your todolist.

Let me know any other ways you have improved your shop below.

If you enjoyed this post on Etsy shop tips – why not save it to your Pinterest board on Etsy shop tips? Simply click the image below.

10 simple ways to improve your etsy shop today

If you enjoyed this post, why not check out our other posts for Etsy sellers?

What is Flodesk and why it’s changing email marketing

Why you should use Pinterest to promote your Shop

Where to begin collecting Emails from your Etsy shop

Thank you for reading

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6 Comments

  1. What happened to the resource library. I signed up for it but apparently I’m getting the planner instead.Which is awesome but not what I wanted.

    1. Him the links to the resource library are in the email. But you can log in Library And use the password create.

      Thanks
      Trina

  2. This info was great! It helped me figure out the strategy for my brand new Etsy shop!

    1. Thank you – I’m so glad you found it useful. Trina

  3. Thank you for this article. I’m kind of in a crisis situation and need to improve my sales. This article is full of actionable items that I can tell will help me a lot. I can see a lot of things I can improve at my shop. I know what I’ll be busy with on my days off this week. I’m glad I found your site. Thanks again!

    1. Hi Cindi
      That is great. Even if you can work on a few things a day – you will feel better moving your shop forward. If you make a list of all the things you would like to change and estimate the time they will take – it’s a good way to tick off 15 mins here and there also.
      Good luck and let me know if you need more help
      Trina

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