Advice Team

https://www.etsy.com/shop/payalcreations/ ... View more

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Hey everyone, I've started my shop in the middle of the summer, and at first I was doing good because my friends and family were ordering from me. I was posting on twitter every time I uploaded a new listing, I was using tags and keywords, I was taking pretty photos for my listings, etc. however for the last 2 weeks, I've been getting some traction but no orders. I'm doing all the same things, and I've even updated some of my listings with more tags and extended the titles. Are there any more tips that anyone can give me? Am I missing something? Thanks ... View more

None of these statements about SEO are true. I have included notes that include the FACTS behind each MYTH. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: The first 160 characters of your shop announcement are picked up by Google. The first three words of your item titles are crawled, the top three tags are crawled, your top three shop sections are crawled, and your shop title (the words under your shop name on the left hand column) are crawled. All that stuff is super-duper important to increasing your Google rankings. FACT: Google reads crawls every bit of text on every Web page and your tags. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: The first three words of the description are the most important words. FACT: Google reads all of the words in the listing description - they are all important. The first 140 characters of the listing description are very visible to Google. It's a good idea to place at least one of the keyword phrases in this area. Use the rest of the keywords in the rest of the listing description. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: For Google, the listing title must be copied into the first line of the listing description FACT: Copying the listing title into the first line of the listing description is better than nothing but this may not pass Google's Low Quality Content Filter.The keywords in the listing title should be used in the listing descriptions but not copied word for word into the first line. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Keywords in the listing title should be in descending order of importance. title like this: necklace, beads, green scarf, crocheted, cotton booties, red, baby earrings, wire wrapped, gorgeous prints, flower, outdoor FACT: This is "backward speak"(thanks, Grace, for this term) and it does not work very well on Etsy or on Google. Use real "forward speak" keyword phrases, such as, green bead necklace cotten crocheted scarf red baby booties wire wrapped earrings ("gorgeous" is not a keyword used in searches) (I am not sure what the last one what intended to be, possibly a photo print or an Art Print?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Your title must be in all capital letters to be searchable by Google MYTH: Word posted in your title with all CAPS appear quicker in searches. FACT: All the search engines, including Google and Etsy, read small letters and caps exactly the same way. It does not matter to Google if the title is in all CAPS, although Etsy will not allow more than four words in all CAPS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Your title must NOT contain any capital letters to be searchable by Google. MYTH: You should NOT capitalize the words in your title with the exception on the first and or second word. FACT: All the search engines, including Google and Etsy, read small letters and caps exactly the same way. It does not matter to Google if the title is in all small letters of a mix of CAPS and small letters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Then I heard that your Tags have to start with a Capital letter to show up and the first tags are the most important. FACT: It does not matter to Etsy search engine whether you use caps or small letters: all tags are treated equally. Google does not "see" the listing tags. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Do NOT to use punctuation in Titles, etc. FACT: Punctuation can be used in shop titles, section names and listing titles as long as there is a space before of after the punctuation. ALWAYS use a space before or after the punctuation and everything will work fine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Google doesn't like certain words like: burgundy (because it's a type of wine), gun, free, merlot (again, b/c it's a type of wine) FACT: Google has restrictions like this on Google Shopping but there are no restricted words on Google's natural, organic search results. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Etsy did not have the ability to tag images, and the name of your images were irrelevant to SEO's. FACT: Etsy assigns a number to every image that is uploaded into the database of photos, therefore it does not matter what name you give the photo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: I remember reading a long time ago that Etsy uses an item's title as the meta tag for its photos. If you hover over the photos while viewing a shop, you'll see a pop-up box that has the item's title. I'm pretty sure what's in that pop-up box is the meta tag. MYTH: Any image that we upload to Etsy in our listings should have a descriptive title. For example, if I upload a picture of a hat, the .jpg should be named "Purple Knt Hat." This helps with SEO especially when the image is then reposted on Pinterest, Wanelo, Google+ etc. FACT: Etsy creates an image "alt" tag for every image, using all the words in the listing description. These are the words that you see when hovering over the photo with the mouse pointer. This is also the tag that works well when reposted on Pinterest, Wanelo, Google+ etc. Use good descriptive keywords in the listing title for this to work. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Use the same words in our title and tags as we have named our photo when we saved it on our computer. FACT: No. Use good, effective keywords you have researched in one of the keyword databases that are available for research on the Internet to find the keywords that are at least somewhat popular in searches on Google and other search engines. People do tend to use very similar words over and over again when searching for products or services anywhere on the Internet including Etsy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: You should submit your shop to all the search engines for good rankings. FACT: Submitting Web sites to search engines is something that worked for SEO 15 years ago when Recency played a big role in search results. This stopped working when Google came along with Relevancy search. Sunmitting to search engines is a waste of time and money. Big search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing ignore repeated submissions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Low, Medium and High competition codes or percentages on Google Adwords shows the competition for the keywords on Google searches. FACT: Although, anyone can use this tool, Google Adwords keyword research tool was created for Google PPC Advertisers. The competition information, words, numbers or percentages, refers to the competition for the PPC ads for each keyword and has nothing at all to do with Google natural organic search results ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: I have heard that shops must keep up with promoting on sites like twitter and fb, etc on a regular basis. And that if you stop for a time it takes a while for the web crawlers to find you again. Is this true? What sort of time frame are we looking at? FACT: Social Networking Signals are becoming a factor in search engine rankings but they have nothing to do with how often Web crawlers and search engines visit a Web site. Google does NOT penalize you if you do not post regularly to Google+ or other social networking Web site. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: I use googles keyword search tool but thought it was bad seo to call every crochet hat of mine a crochet hat since google would skip over that. Is that wrong then? FACT: Google will not skip over your listings if you use the same keywords in each listing. The keywords can be the same in each listing . There are thousands of pages on the Web with the same keywords and this is fine with Google. The listing description has to be unique in each listing for Google to index each listings. Duplicate listing descriptions will not pass Google's Duplicate Content Filter. Google picks out the Web pages with the best and unique descriptions for higher rankings. All duplicated Web pages are relegated to the back of Google search results. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: Do you get better visibility if you post ITEMS and TREASURIES in the morning rather than the evening. I'm usually posting late at night because I also have a full-time day job. I don't know if the time of day is important to treasury views or not. FACT: The time that you post a new item has very little to do with views since most views come from Relevancy searches. Relevancy search results show listings that are both current and up to four months old. -------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: Also I read that google will not pick up listings that have dividers like this ++++++++++++++++++++++++ etc in the item description.. is this still true? FACT: Google skips over any special characters and punctuation but using these will not keep your listings from getting included in Google's natural organic search results. Using a lot of special characters to create dividers can be a waste of important keyword text space if the divider is within the first 140 chacters of the listing description or shop welcome text. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTHS: I have read conflicting info about the relationship between the title and the description for search engines (excluding Etsy's). Which one is correct: 1. The first few words in the title should be repeated in the same order at the start of the desc 2. The first few words should NOT be repeated in the desc FACT: The keywords that are in the title should be repeated in the listing description but not in the same order at the start of the description (such as, copying the title into the first line or two of the listing description). The keywords work best for SEO when they are added to the description in real sentences that are interesting to read. The listing description has to pass Google's Low Quality filter and it might not if the keywords are just repeated in the first sentences in the description. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: Hyphens in titles: If a hyphen is in front of a word like -dog, does that effect the SEO? I've heard over and over that it will result in that word not being included in the keywords. Now I know that's the way it works for searches, but is it a problem in titles? FACT: Search engines IGNORE special characters and punctuation and only read words. Using a hyphen in front of a word means nothing . . . unless you are on ebay using negative words or on any Web site that allows the use of negative words. Google does not pay attention to negative words. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH (OR QUESTION): Looking at the list on google ad words puts wooden bowl(s) with about 8100 hits globally, but if I get more specific to what I do (carving, texturing, etc) the hits are either non existent or range about at 12! So where is the happy medium for things handmade not in the mainstream? FACT: Keep in mind that if you use a keyword phrase that includes one word that is not used in searches, such as, "carved wooden bowls", your listing will come up in search results for the keyword phrase, "wooden bowls." You can leave in the "carved" for marketing purposes for your buyers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: Overuse of a keyword in spammy, as in "Red Earrings, Beaded Earrings, Red Hoop Earrings, Beaded Hoop Earrings" and using them in tags because the word 'earrings' is repeated too many times? MYTH: You shouldn't repeat the same word in a title because when Google crawls, I think it may reject those. MYTH: Using the same word more than once in a title, which is considered spam by search engines. NEVER use a word more than once in a title. MYTH: Google prefers Titles that do not repeat words. For example, this Title would be favored: "silver dolphin hanging earrings, ladies fashion jewelry, dress up accessory" as opposed to this title: "silver dolphin earrings, hanging ladies earrings, ladies fashion earrings, ladies dress up dolphin earrings, ladies fashion accessory". I believe Titles that use words only once are ranked higher than Titles that repeat keywords (google considers it keyword stuffing). TRUTH: Using the same word three times in the title, as well as in the listing description and in the tags would not be considered spammy by Google or Etsy. Etsy does not care at all how many times you use the same word(s). Google is concerned about INTENTIONAL keyword spam. Google's formula or algorithm that is used to determine keyword spam is very complex and it is not about a certain number of uses of the same word. There are very long web pages with a lot of text that could use the same word 50 times and it would make sense on that page and not be considered keyword spam by Google. Google is very good at identifying INTENTIONAL keyword spam. Use all the keywords in the listing description in a way that makes sense and gives the shopper plenty of good information about your listing and you will be fine. Always research every keyword phrase on Google Adwords to see if there is a record of searches using that phrase. If there is no record of searches for "scarlet earrings" then it might be a waste of keyword space to use it. In order to work on Google, these keywords should all be used in the listing description. Leave out any words that have few or no record of use in searches from the listing title and description and only use them in the listing tags if you really want to cover every possibility. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: LIsting tags are more important than listing titles. TRUTH: Listing titles are more important for Google searches and they seem to be more important for Etsy searches. Using the same keyword phrases in BOTH the listing title and tags works best for Etsy and Google searches. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: From what I understood, the first three words in your title are very important. It seems the rest don't come up when searched for. I'm guessing you have to be real specific in those first three words. TRUTH: For Google, the first few words of the listing title are more important than the rest or the keywords but all the words in the listing title are read by both Etsy and by Google. Use the best keyword phrase in the first few words and add other keywords to the rest of the listing title -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: Is a link from one listing to another in your store a backlink, or is that something that harms Google search, (I saw something about them not liking "click here" links?) For example, a link in a silver earrings listing to another listing in your shop of the earrings in gold. TRUTH: Google likes links/backlinks. Links can use any words, such as "click here" and Google will follow the links. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: I just read on another thread that if you have the word "welcome" in your shop announcement google will overlook your shop...true? TRUTH: Absolutely not true. Google will not overlook any shop on Etsy for any words that are used. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYTH: Google only reads the first two lines of the listing description TRUTH: Google reads every word on every Web page no matter how long it is. The first two lines of a listing description are usually the text that is displayed on Google search results but all the text is read by Google. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MYTH: SEO gives me a headache, I will never learn it. FACT: Learning something new and very different can seem overwhelming at first. There are more complex parts to SEO but the basics of SEO can be learned by anyone. Just give yourself time and allow for some trial and error as you go along. Experience really is the best way to learn SEO. ... View more

Hello. It seems I found something incredible! Today I have 2 sales! This is something new and I think it will explode your sales! I created a document in Google Docs, so that you are sure that this is not just spam! This is my new find! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gO2c7tdgbttdSarWJI8B38qPMnqs2KcA7ifDyQB3Ab8/edit?usp=sharing   ... View more