Confused about repeating words and SEO

[Former_Member]

I have read that repeating key words can actually hurt your SEO. What exactly does this mean? The more I read, the more I am confused. Where should you not repeat key words. Are they referring to tags? I hope it doesn't mean my shop as the same key words are all over the place if you sell many of the same type items. Can someone please clear this up for me? Please be as specific as possible as I don't think I am getting this and I am certainly not getting sales!! :)

[ScrapsofLuv]

@Boomer-
Wow all I can say is that you really want people to know your items are unique and vintage! Unfortunately the search bots don't know what that means. Think about relevancy this way. Searches use basically the first 3 words to index and rank items. So using your items, they are using "unique and vintage" for two of the three words in almost all of your items. Now what kind of item is that? Hmmm....see what I am getting at.

Starting at the top of your shop page with your shop title lets remove the unique and vintage and change it to-MidCentury Modern Housewares and Vintage Jewlery. Moving on to your shop announcement- there's that pesky "unique and vintage" again. Send it packing and reword your sentence using the phrase we just put in your shop title.

Item titles- Wow, Mr Unique and Vintage has lots of relatives! Tell them to go visit another family member and invite words such as- Antique Baby Card, Announcement , 1940's. I personally have a problem with using the word "vintage" in the vintage category. It seems redundant to me. However, it is done all the time so if you want to you could use it here, but only "vintage", make sure cousin unique goes on his way.

Item description- this looks good to me, I would remove the words "this is an" because the first 3 words in your description are critical and should reflect your item title.

Tags- you have actually done a very nice job with your tags. You have used phrasing and have duplicated (unknowingly) your item title which is very important.

In answer to your initial question, yes constant repetition of the same words can affect your search and SEO results. One or two uses OK, more than that is spam to the search bots.

Hope this helps, you are close but please ask your unique and vintage company to go home!!!

-pat

[Former_Member]

Thank you, Pat for all this great information! I have been diligently trying to change and focus on seo as I relist items. If I had tags that were something like wedding earrings, formal earrings and prom earrings-would that be repetitive since I used the word earrings more than once? This is where I really get confused!! Thanks so much for all your help!!

[Former_Member]

Dear Pat,

I would be forever grateful if you could take a look at my shop and offer constructive criticism. Not only am I new to relevancy SEO, I'm also completely new to Etsy. I have been doing lots of reading (articles from Etsy, articles from Eric of Tangled Metal) and asking advice of successful sellers.... I would love your opinion of whether or not I'm headed in the right direction. One of my main concerns is if the search bots find my listings to be spam!! I have mostly been listing what my items simply ARE, without embellishing titles too much, so I'm wondering if this counts as spam.

Thank you for all your time,
Mary, from A Look of Love

[Former_Member]

Good to know this. Thank you.

[ScrapsofLuv]

@AlookofLove-

I am confused...are you selling invitations or digital files? If you are selling files there is no mention of that in your titles, descriptions or tags.

Please send me an email and we can discuss it in that forum instead of here.

-pat

[Former_Member]

I LOVE your humorous help Pat!

[worldvintage]

I'm looking at Pat's first response. Does this mean I should remove vintage where I have it in my item titles (because I have it in a lot)? I also have tags like vintage book or vintage dress because I thought it would help with relevancy. Am I misunderstanding this? I find it all very confusing.

[Former_Member]

i was told to leave vintage in some but not all. but i'm not entirely sure either and honestly i think i was doing better before i removed vintage from some. so confusing!! :(

[Former_Member]

and yes, pat, your comments make me laugh! :)

[ScrapsofLuv]

Hi All

Thanks for your kind comments. I'm glad you appreciate my humor. As far as the vintage conundrum. The jury is split on this issue. As I stated before, it seems redundant to me. I just did searches on "vintage bed linens" and "bed linens". The results were essentially the same. So I would think you could safely remove it from your titles and use another keyword instead. The choice is yours. Perhaps the best way to cover all bases would be to incorporate it into 1 out of every 3-4 listings. You could also place it at the end of your titles. However, make sure to include it in at least one of your tags.

-pat

[khmetalwork]

Pat, wouldya, couldya - take a look at my shop?

[HersandHisVtg]

Help! I need some constructive criticism, okay maybe alot. I have been open for a while. but since I have first opened I've done some revamping and not doing as much handmade pieces as I started with. I am now full blown into vintage clothing. I have grown since I have started and I have a fan page, twitter but I'm not seeing the sales quite as often as I would like. There is definitely more traffic. What am I doing wrong? I don't want to get lost in the shuffle.

[Former_Member]

thanks pat! appreciate the kind advice!

[ScrapsofLuv]

@khmetal and the very thought-

khmetal- more than happy to do a review. Same for you "thought" if you would like me to. Running a little behind with my consults, but I can probably get to your shops sometime tomorrow.

Convo me if you are interested "thought"

-pat

[Former_Member]

pat,

if, and only if, you have time could you look at my shop too and let me know if you have any suggestions? if you don't have time i totally understand!

thanks!

[Former_Member]

Hi All!

If you're working on improving your titles & tags I've put together
a few articles that might be of help. Here's the one that everyone seems to like:

Let me know if you have any questions!

-ARTICLE-
Read This or
Stop Selling on Etsy
I’ve compiled a list of everything you need to know for Etsy Shop SEO. It’s the best list you are going to find anywhere. Period.

Here is what you HAVE to do if you are going to sell on Etsy AND be extremely successful:

Requirement #1. Meet Ashley
Meet Ashley. Who is she? Ashley is your customer. Do you need to meet her face to face? No, it might help, but no. What you do need to do, is think about what ashley likes and does every time you EVER want to sell anything.

You MUST know who your customer is, what they want, and what they do. If you don’t then honestly, all the SEO in the world won’t help. Find out who likes your stuff, get to know them, know what they like and learn it so that you can reach out to everyone else like them i.e. All of your customers who are out there waiting for you to find them.

Requirement #2. SEO Your Tags and Titles
Your tags and titles MUST be optimized for Etsy’s New Relevancy Search. The biggest factors that YOU PERSONALLY can affect in the new Etsy Relevancy Search are titles, tags, & timing. We’ll ignore timing, as it doesn’t have as significant of a return and focus on the big two for the moment.

1) Titles
Here’s how you need to write ...click below to continue reading

http://newbluemarketing.com/blog/read-this-or-stop-selling-on-etsy/

-Mike
mike@newbluemarketing.com

[KrysTees]

Pat you give GREAT constructive advice!! Very helpful! I wish I could write good descriptions, titles, and shop titles!! I'm off to see what I can do to improve my shop and search status. If you have time, I'd love a few min of critique in my shop! Thanks!

~Krystina

[OceansideCastle]

@lotsoflove,

I've been following your illuminating and funny posts! Yes, I admit, I'm a lurker! LOL I've found your instructions and advice the most helpful and believe me I've been reading and researching in my sleep! Thanks for adding a smile and stress relief to this madness.

The vintage issue in or out remains my quandary. If you would critique my shop I'd be forever grateful and will pay it forward. :) Thanks for all the help so far.

Laura

[OceansideCastle]

PS @ lotsoflove, Happy to get a the end of the line! :)

[OceansideCastle]

ooops lotsulove!

[Former_Member]

Another very confused esty seller..:(. Well my shop was doing quite well in july, right before my vacation and big remodeling that happen on etsy in august...so when i came back, i totally freaked out and changed / optimized most of my titles, tags etc. ...and now my sales totally suck! no convos ( that was my big thing- i used to have tons of custom orders) not that many lookers and buyers...:( PLEASE I NEED HELP, I'm slowly loosing my mind over keywords, and I think i have a serious word duplicating issue. I would tremendously appreciate some critic or few hints .

[ScrapsofLuv]

@ Metal, Ocean, Oliver, et. al-

I am running about a day behind in my shop reviews. But have no fear, for I will be coming to your shop in a day or two! Thanks for all the very kind words, and warn your shop "visitors" I'm coming soon to a shop near them.
-pat

[Former_Member]

no rush pat. just whenever it's convenient for you... thanks!

[OceansideCastle]

Awesome! The warning has been sent!