Daily SEO Tip Thread

[#1]

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]

DAILY TIP

Okay. Let's get back to business. I'm trying to go too heavy on the SEO with the daily tips, as I hope and assume that some of you have been reading the information provided with my SEO e-course (it's free!)

But today, we are going to do something useful to your SEO and that I keep seeing in the shop specific advice. You might have done this already, if not, today is the day!

Shop Title.

Head over to Your Etsy, then scroll down the navigation bar on the left until you see Shop Info and Appearance.

If you HAVE had time to use the Keyword tool and have a bunch of keywords, here is a format for you:

{KEYWORD}, {KEYWORD} & {KEYWORD} {GENERAL CATAGORY OF YOUR ITEMS} & {KEYWORD} Gifts

So mine would be:

Fun, Girly & Original Jewelry & Sweet Gifts

If you haven't had time to use the Keyword tool yet, I would probably suggest something like:

Original Handmade {CATAGORY} and {SECONDARY CATAGORY/KEYWORD OR 'GIFTS'}

So mine would be:

Original Handmade Jewelry and Girly Gifts

Or, if I sold hats aswell as jewellery:

Original Handmade Jewellery, Fun Hats & Gifts

This is only a temporary fix until you have time to look seriously at your shops keywords. I don't think it's going to do anything great for SEO, but it's a small change that you can make.

[Orangies119]

Twinkly... how do I batch edit? Trying to add an additional link in my listings and I know you mentioned being able to do it all at once?

[Orangies119]

And let me just say... every day I look at my google analytics the percentage of visitors from search engines is going UP! WOO HOO!

[TreasuresUNeedNow]

Twinkly, the only thing different I did was follow all your tips, except today's. I am not sure if the sale can be contributed to the updates, but I think the # of views can...I have no other explanation. Either way I am glad :-)

[Former_Member]

Google analytics shows an increase in search-engine traffic to my shop, which makes me happy (yay twinkly for explaining SEO!) But confused, bc they are finding my shop with "cherokee wedge boots," "baby headbands," etc. Is this due to my treasuries (only thing i can think of) bc these are not my tags

[Former_Member]

Mammamyst - in a break with convention I am going to answer your question first. Just to shake things up, you know. Live on the edge and all that.

I tend to completely ignore that part of it. The reason those hits are coming is because someone has used that as an entry path to Etsy, and ended up at your shop (via treasuries, favourites, forum posts etc.). It's not very helpful!!

Orangies:

You can batch edit here:

http://www.craftopolis.com

Beaware of two things:

Sometimes it takes a while, don't leave the page before you have checked in another window that the last of your items has been changed.

You can't DELETE things. You can add them though - so be very careful not to make a spelling error and you are changing it to what you want. BEcause otherwise you'll have to go right back through and change every single one!

And I'm really glad that everyone is seeing an increase in their search engine visits!!

[Orangies119]

mamamyst... glad you asked that question because I was wondering the exact same thing. Another question... I am getting lots of my traffic from referring sites? What might those be?

[Former_Member]

You can find out what they are easily.

Log into Google Analytics

From the Overview page, scroll right down to your pie chair of Traffic Sources

Click View Full Report

So you should now be on Traffic Sources Overview

Scroll down to where it says 'All traffic sources sent a total of...."

and then there are three links, click Referring Sites

That should tell you where clicks are coming from x

[Orangies119]

Ok... that was very interesting and thought I would share because I think some of you would be interested to hear, I would love to hear where others are with this report and where their traffic is generating... maybe a thread, Twinkly, where we can post our results periodically?

Anyway, I am getting 28% of my traffic from Referring Sites. When I look at the detail I find the majority of that traffic is coming from my Facebook fan page, which I think is AWESOME because I spent a little time generating some fans (I am up to 140) and I post about 1 or 2 status updates per day. Not much time for a decent return in my opinion.

The next highest is my blog! WAHOO... I JUST started my blog a week ago, but I have been heavily promoting it and trying to generate some traffic through the blog... I also see that the bounce rate for visitors through my blog is EXTREMELY low, so I am apparently targeting people who are actually interested in what is in my shop.

Point to this is I feel like I am putting my energy into the right places and am encouraged to continue... would love to hear some others take on their reports.

[Former_Member]

OK, Backing up here to page 2 for some of the newer folks.
URL's
So there are many ways we can type in an address and get to the same place
ForestAcademyAlpacas.etsy.com
etsy.com/shop/ForestAcademyAlpacas
www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAcademyAlpacas
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAcademyAlpacas
http://etsy.com/shop/ForestAcademyAlpacas
All of these will get to my shop. The question is, what one do I need to use to nail it to my shop so Increase ranking.
One thing I do know, I will be using ForestAcademyAlpacas.etsy.com on my Biz cards

[Former_Member]

Well I just learned one new thing, etsy.com/shop/ForestAcademyAlpacas will take you to my shop, just not as a hyperlink Good to know now

[monkeyandfriends]

I just found this Blog:

http://etsymentors.blogspot.com/

Tips for keywords and more!

[Former_Member]

Thank you monkeyandfriends !

[Former_Member]

OrangiesAttic....how and where are you promoting your FB page and blog? I have been trying but not having any luck. I would like to eventually to giveaways and drawings but need more fans and followers. Any suggestions?

[Orangies119]

Well, I joined the Etsy Blog Team... and I have been doing a little posting on the Unofficial Etsy Forum... not as much as I did when the forums were here, but I hit the promotions sections once a day maybe.

[Former_Member]

Thanks Orangiesattic....I think I will look for the blog team and join. I just started to join a few teams since they axed the forum sections.

[monkeyandfriends]

Something is working...I have worked on keywords alot and this morning I'm in a treasury on Pure Handmade. My item is the green jumper (not a great pic in my opinion) But I'm out on another site!

http://www.purehandmade.com/2011/02/looking-for-something-to-wear-today/

[songinmyheart]

I'm bumping this to the top as I think it is my favorite thread

[Former_Member]

Twinkly, I am reading your blog lessons. I cannot find the Google Toolbar that I've installed, along with the suggested Firefox update and the Flash.

I have a Mac on Snow Leopard Safari (latest version of Safari).

Suggestions?

[SpecificallyRandom]

I just found this thread and it is SO HELPFUL! Thanks so much for sharing this information. I'll definitely be stopping back by often!

[Former_Member]

Some Tips for blog promotion!

Follow instructions on Twitterfeed.com. This will auto post the title of your blog entry to Twitter. I also have twitterfeed set up for when I add items to my shop.

Comment on other peoples blogs! I'm so far behind on returning blog comments, but I usually do it and so do most people with smaller blogs. It's fun to follow a little trail of blogs from peoples 'Currently Reading' type lists, and leave comments.

I gained over a 100 followers from this SEO course, and I also got quite a few from submitted tutorials to whipup.net and oneprettything.com. Tutorials and information are great ways to draw in readers!

Take tips from bloggers you love. I especially like http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com it's one of my favourite blogs.

Pick a random theme and find 4-10 great items in that theme. Only chose fabulous photos and beautiful things, and your blog wil become known for your great taste! Convo people you have included so that they can tell their friends too! You'll find this is a good way to get links back to your blog. Always thank anyone who mentions you aswell, with a link.



There is NO hard and fast way to get people to follow your blog. Posting relevant content, tutorials, promotions, promoting other Etsy artists all help, but there is no hard and fast rules to gettingg blog followers, sadly. It's a lot of effort and work!

[Former_Member]

I promoted both songinmyheart & threadsandthings1
On My Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Grateful-Gifts/158260477529054

[Former_Member]

I too am way behind in my homework!
Sorry class. I did find this little tip and now I need to go and re-read all of my title descriptions.

Title tags are seen by many as the most important on site SEO reason, Your title must describe the content and don’t use stop words (is, are, and, most, best etc) in the title.

[Former_Member]

faithnhope:

I agree. I basically just make super long phrases. What I'm finding is that cutting out those words is being more more acceptable and easy to read, only someone with no real knowledge of computers would find it hard to understand :-)

[Former_Member]

twinklyspangle ~ Oh good, thank you for saying something. I read it but thought, hmmmm, knowing you can't believe everything you read.
I'm glad to know that it is good,
thanks again!