Why your Titles and Tags are so Important!
By Cloe Cessna of Cloes Closet and Shae Willhite of Sweet
Beads
The
titles you give your listings is one of the most crucial parts of getting Etsy
SEO right. Common sense tells us that when we want to rank for certain keywords
in the search engine, we need to mention these keywords in the title. Without
these keywords, Etsy would have no clue as to what our listing was about and
how to rank it. The key
here,
though, is not how many times this word appears in your title, but rather the
order of importance. Here’s a very
important thing to remember: the first word in your listing title will weigh
the heaviest and will have the biggest chance of ranking in the search results.
For example, my stats tell me
that “Vogue Pattern” or “Vogue Patterns” are one of my highest search terms or
keywords… so you will notice that I put it as near to the first, second or
third word of my title.
Your
Etsy listing title has a maximum of 140 characters, and you should use them
wisely. This is why for one, you shouldn’t repeat keywords. For your ranking, it doesn’t matter if a word
appears one, two, or three times in your listing title. What does matter is the
position you put it and which word is at the very beginning of your listing.
Also make
sure
to have your title sound like a natural sentence. It should be easy for buyers
to read about your listing without having to skim through a long list of
keywords. Also, remember that people are
searching by phrases now, so make sure that your title is fairly readable, and
can be broken down into phrases, such as “womens shift dress” “vintage 1960s simplicity”, because you may
not be able to get a whole phrase into tags, and you have valuable real estate
with your title.
Along
with your listing title and tags, your description is by far one of the most
important elements of your Etsy SEO. If you get your description wrong, chances
are high that you’re not going to be found.
in both Etsy and Google’s search engines. The trick here is the same one
that is working very well with the title: sort your words and sentences in
order of importance. Both Etsy and
Google weigh heavy on the first words you mention in your description, so make
sure you write about your listing using highly relevant and narrowed down words
to describe it, and work your way down using more general descriptions about
it. You may have a lovely story about your item
and how it was inspired, but leave it for the end of your
description. When it comes to the number
of times you use a keyword, your listing description does in fact have a higher
chance of boosting your Etsy ranking when you use targeted keywords about three
times in your
descriptions.
Make sure to use natural sentences and don’t put the keywords close to each
other – but mentioning a keyword you’d like to rank for in the beginning, half
way through and finally at the end has been proven to improve rankings in Etsy’s
search engine. Next to using your target keywords, your description should be
all about describing your listing in the best way possible, giving a potential
customer a good idea of what owning your piece will be like. If you were buying
this item, what would you want to know?
When
you want to be ranked for a certain keyword, frankly when you want to be ranked
at all, you need ‘tags’. Tags are keywords that Etsy asks you to add to your
listing when adding it to your shop. With these keywords, Etsy will know how to
rank your items and understand more of what your listing is about. Along with
your listing titles and descriptions, these tags will determine if and when you
show up in the search results. Just as in your listing title, these keywords
need to be chosen accurately and with care.
You
have 13 tags and you should use them all! The reason why we’re making our
keywords very specific, is because it’s a lot easier marketing to a highly
targeted audience than to literally everybody. For this reason, you shouldn’t
use very broad keywords when ‘tagging’ your listing, but terms that are
narrowed down to the buyers that will have a much higher possibility of
actually seeing and then buying your item. Think about it: when somebody finds
you this way, your listing is exactly what they were looking for, and they had
the possibility of finding you because you took care of being very precise in
your keywords, instead of being buried down in a sea of immense competition. When adding tags to your listings, take into
consideration that the more precise your keyword matches the search phrase used
by the Etsy shopper, the higher you will rank.
While being very specific and narrowed down to the very essence of your
products is a good way to market your Etsy listings, some terms that are more
broad could help you get exposure as well. Some shoppers might not even know
what they are looking for when they head over to Etsy – they’re just looking
around and getting ideas.
Here
are some examples of broad terms to add to your keywords:
•
Moods: Anything that conveys a certain setting or mood, such as;
‘Romantic’,
‘Happy’, ‘Quirky’, ‘Corporate’, ‘Cute'
•
Colors: What color scheme could it belong to? Pastel, bright, vintage,
dark,
pink, grey, black.
•
Events: Is your work suitable for a certain event, such as weddings,
birthdays,
anniversaries, holidays?
