Daily SEO Tip Thread

[Former_Member]

This is a publically viewable thread.

Each day, I or a guest poster will aim to post one teeny tip you can do to improve your SEO or Page Rank. I'm hoping this will become a great resource for new members to the team :-)

[Former_Member]

23/1/10

Let's start out Daily Tips resource with something everyone can do right away.

Link your main shop page in every single item description. This will give you a relevant backlink for every item you have, boosting you up the search results!

[Orangies119]

Ahh... love this tip! Just added this to all my listings, very easy and quick fix.

[Former_Member]

Please bare with me I am very new to all of this. When you say link to the description, do you mean to use one of our tags and put our shop name in it? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I don't know how all this works. Or did you mean that our shop name should be in our description. Thanks for your patience and help.
Jaon

[Former_Member]

Great tip! I have added my link to all my descriptions.

Joan, I used the url to my shop front page, so they can click on it and it will take them right back to the front page.
My link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/mrnglry

[Orangies119]

Joan... put your keywords or phrase at the beginning of the listing. I have this:

* Vintage and Recycled Shabby Chic Cottage Decor and Fun Funky Gifts *

And then the link to the front page of your shop at the end of the listing... I have this:

For more Vintage and Recycled Decor and Gifts visit my shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/OrangiesAttic

[Former_Member]

Thanks for your help, as you can tell I need help:) I appreciate you taking time to make my shop better. I'll get to work on linking today. Thanks again.

Joan

[Former_Member]

Thanks for answering her questions guys, that's exactly the type of help I was hoping we would be able to offer people, I'm so thrilled!

(That's exactly right, by the way guys. Linking your main shop page from your listings gives you lots of relevant backlinks to boost your google result position)

Daily Tip #2

From your Info And Appearance editor, you can change the title of your shop. Whatever you type in this box shows up like this:

la la la special amazing crafty things by yourusername.

You don't need to put your username in again. Instead, use this valuable space to describe your shop - you should be able to squeeze in a few really strong keywords here.

I had internet outage yesterday *grr* So I'm posting a tip now and one a little later.

[Former_Member]

I can't say I totally understand why we linked back to our individual profiles in our listings, but I'm game & did it! PS no need to explain why, the point is I did it, right? lol

[Orangies119]

I also linked it in my "message to buyers"... the little message I guess they get when they are invoiced. Seemed like a logical place to put it and to remind them to come back?

[Former_Member]

Mammamyst:

I'm not going to make the aim of this group to plug my SEO course, promise!

But you might have a read here:

http://twinklyspangle.blogspot.com/2011/01/twinklys-beginner-seo-day-4.html

Where I explain why links to your shop from relevant sources are important.

Basically, you can improve your keyword frequency and things as much as you like, but SEO isn't just based on that. What will boost you up the pages to those fun page 1 and 2 spots on Google, are backlinks.

So, if you can get your main Etsy shop page linked from a really popular craft blog, thats a much more relevant backlink than say, a football news page.

Your items couldn't be more relevant to your own Etsy shop.

Does this make sense?

[Former_Member]

All right, I'm pretty sure I understand that! Thanks for explaining it, & I'll make sure to read your plug ;) Thanks for clarification & the link!!

[ErikaPrice]

Great tips, thanks twinkly! I've done both, and can;t wait for Day 3!

[Former_Member]

mammamyst:

no worries, please don't ever do anything to your shop that you don't know the meaning behind. It is, after all, *your* showcase for *your* work.


Daily Tip #3


The section links are a great different thing to share on facebook or twitter. Often promoting your shop constantly will get people skimming over if you are sharing the same link over and over. But with your section titles you are sharing a new link with a new little statement about it. We talk more about what your section titles should be in the Shop Specific Advice thread.

Share a section link today *somewhere* anywhere!

[Former_Member]

Regarding using your shop name as a link, I came across this helpful article today that explains the difference in SEO terms of using:

www.KitzieG.etsy.com
vs
www.etsy.com/shop/KitzieG

Hope you find it helpful!

[Former_Member]

Here's the article:
http://www.taragentile.com/quick-tip-linking-to-your-etsy-shop/comment-page-1/#comment-1803

[Former_Member]

Kitzie:

That's super interesting, thank you. I think I've been using the wrong url when I link my shop from my blog. Off to change that right away!

[Former_Member]

That's easy to do kitzieg, but is there anywhere to link off of or do we type it manually?...both my addresses say people or shop on them but when i type mammamyst.etsy.com in the bar it finds my page. thanks for posting that :)

[songinmyheart]

Thank you for this tip. I started adding it to all my descriptions. But I went one step further, hope it works....
not only did I put a link in that redirects people to my main shop page, but I put another one to the section where they find more of the same item. For example, if the item is a digital stamp, i put "for more digital stamps go here:" and then copied and pasted the URL to that section of my shop, which I had open in another tab to make it easy.

I am brand new here, so I am still learning, too. I do ALOT of reading and exploring on top seller's sites, too. I see them doing this alot.

[songinmyheart]

@mammamyst...to get the "longer" shop URL, go to your public shop page and copy and paste whatever is there in your browser window. Especially if you want to redirect them to a specific product page or section. Then you can edit every item you have and then just "paste" the same info into every description without having to type it in. Hope that makes sense!

[Former_Member]

Songinmyheart:

I think that's a great idea. I think section links are a marvellous way to get people clicking around your shop. However, I wouldn't recommend doing this until you have SEO'ed your section names.

Google looks at your section titles to find Metatags. This describes to google what your shop is about. I'm thinking - a GREAT place for some lovely keywords. BUT if you change your section titles, the link changes too.

Make sure that when you DO change them, you change all the links to sections in your descriptions too!

So, that leads me on to today's daily tip.

***

Daily Tip 4

Section titles. Remove empty shop section titles that don't actually have anything in them. They could be leading people looking for something else into your shop. That's annoying for shoppers, and they won't bother clicking around, raising your 'Bounce Rate' (This refers to how many people take one look at your shop and go elsewhere. Urgg. We don't like those people!)

[songinmyheart]

oh wow! i didn't think of that!! ugh!! i should have tested my sections first. oh well. at least i only have a few products to fix. Thanks!

[Former_Member]

Glad to be of service!

Daily Tip #6

Using & instead of 'and' saves you two characters. This won't actually affect what google sees, as it will cut off after the last valid whole word. But, it might make your titles look more professional in your listing as Etsy doesn't have the same system in place. This means if someone links your item, the item link might cut off the last few letters of a word. SEOing your shop sometimes means it looks a little less pretty, but tricks like this will make it look like you've put real effeort into your titles x

[Former_Member]

Daily Tip #7

This is a quick way to make a vast improvement on your section titles.

When thinking of your section titles. try adding in a 'generic' word. Such as Handmade, Artisan, Unique, Original. These are the sort of words that can apply to pretty much everyone on Etsy, but remember, you are aiming to snare people OUTSIDE Etsy.

So,

Embroidered Jewellery

Becomes

Unique Embroidery Jewelry

(More people search for Embroidery. I know it looks a little funny, but I thinhk it gives my shop a quirky edge AND improves my SEO. The USA spelling of Jewellery also gets more hits)

This is a really easy way to improve your shop sections without putting in a huge amount of work.

Before, I would only have been found by people searching Jewellery, Embroidered (Or embroider)or "Embroidered Jewellery" (which has a very low monthly search, obviously)

Now I'm grabbing people searching for:

Unique Embroidery
Unique Jewelry
Jewelry
Embroidery
Embroider

ALL of which have relatively HIGH monthly searches.

[songinmyheart]

Thanks again Twinkly...going to work on that over the weekend!