Solved: Re: New Etsy Format - Early Bird Writing Tips! - Page 7

BCCopywriting · ‎03-22-2016

If you’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on with Etsy's update (final switch due in April, but small changes are being made every day), it might look a little confusing. Things have been moved around, sections that used to be at the top are now at the bottom, and, on the desktop, many images are now much larger. How will this affect the writing in your shop? Let's take a look.

SHOP ICON and SHOP TITLE
The name of your shop, your icon, your personal photo and your shop title (looks like a tag line) now appear at the top of the Home page. This puts a huge amount of pressure on your shop title and icon to deliver powerful messages that instantly engage buyers. Revisit these two items if you aren’t sure that you’ve fully optimized them.

Note: If you opt for a banner or cover photo, that image will appear across the page at the very top. If you decide to use a banner, make sure it’s gorgeous, and gives visitors a very clear, very appealing idea of what you sell and what makes your products so special. It’s extremely “in your face” when you land on your Home page, so you might consider leaving it out unless it adds real value.

REVIEWS INFO
Everyone seems to have noticed that your star rating and review count now appear at the top of the page. This will be difficult for new shop owners who by definition have had few sales so far. It also negatively affects anyone who has run into a difficult customer or two and has suffered from negative reviews that perhaps they didn’t deserve. Nothing much to be done about it, unfortunately.

On the other hand, this is good news for successful, long-term sellers with lots of great reviews and high sales volume. Here, as well, though (and the same was true in the past), sellers with lower-priced items that sell in large volume will get a break compared to higher-end sellers with expensive items and lower per-item sales overall.

FEATURED PRODUCTS
Your four featured product images come next on the page. This means that buyers will see some product photos before they get to your shop announcement. Keep this in mind when planning your strategy for overall marketing or for special sales. For example, suppose you have a limited promotion going on and have decided to use your shop announcement to highlight it. In this case, you might want to feature photos with a “SALE” notice on them, because buyers won’t see the “sale” message in your announcement unless they scroll down.

SHOP ANNOUNCEMENT
The visible portion of the shop announcement is very short, so use the opening sentences for your most powerful, most engaging messages. As mentioned above, you can also use the opener for special sales or promotions. The visible portion is even shorter on mobile devices, so you might want to investigate how your announcement looks on several different popular platforms.

PRODUCT PHOTOS
The next thing that buyers see moving down is a set of product photos and, to the left, a list of your categories/sections. These photos are huge now on the desktop, so your photography could make a big difference. Great photos will sell even better. Bad photos will hurt even more.

Good news: A little more of the listing title shows up underneath each photo in the desktop display, so you might be able to use that to your advantage.

REVIEWS
Next in line scrolling down are your latest reviews. I don’t know how many reviews will show up before the “see more.” These reviews are also quite large and conspicuous on the desktop, so a lot might be riding on how generous your buyers have been recently.

SHOP ABOUT INFORMATION
All the text that was previously on your shop About page now appears under the reviews on the Home page. You can also add a video or photos above the text. Whether or not to use photos/video depends on how strong a story you can tell visually. If your photos or video add a tremendous amount of appeal and value, and strongly support your selling messages, then by all means use them. Otherwise, you might consider going straight to the text.

The visible portion of the About section only contains a few paragraphs, so use the opener to deliver your most important messages. Readers won’t always click on “Read more.”

EXTERNAL LINKS
Links to your outside website, Facebook, and so on, previously appeared in the right-hand column of the shop About page on the desktop. In the new format, they’re located after the shop About information. Not as convenient as before, although this was already the case on mobile devices.

SHOP MEMBERS BIO(S)
The little bio blurbs that used to appear at the top of the shop About page have been moved to a lower position on your Home page, following the external links. Will anyone ever read this material? I’m not sure, but you should fill it out anyway.

POLICIES
Finally (this is a very long page!) your Shop Policies are listed. You can keep your current policies language or opt to use Etsy’s new policies template. Take a look and decide if Etsy’s template is better than your own wording. My guess is that there will be tweaks to the template over time as sellers begin to use it and provide feedback.

Note that clickable links at the top of the Home page can take a visitor directly to the About section, reviews or policies. We’ll have to wait and see if buyers actually use these links.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS
Product descriptions evidently look the same in the new format, but the editing area for each listing now lets you view a preview of what supposedly will show up in Google search results. Unfortunately, testing has revealed that this preview isn’t entirely reliable (at least not at this time), so the information might not be especially useful.

The opening couple sentences of your product description remain the most important. Use your top selling points to engage buyers immediately. Also include your top one or two SEO keyword phrases to improve your chances of being seen in buyer searches.

I'll keep tabs on the update as Etsy continues to implement changes, and will let you know if I spot anything new that affects the writing in your shop.

By the way, If you'd like me to take a quick look at your shop, just post below. I might be able to offer some quick tips.

Note: Feel free to view this article and previous posts for Etsy sellers at http://www.facebook.com/chaconsulting.

ZuzkasDesigns · ‎04-12-2016

Barbara thank you bunch for your advice. I had no idea I was missing story in my public profile. I fixed it already and contacted Mary as well. One more question: How do we change order of items in our stores in the new setting? How do we rearrange? Thank you

ZuzkasDesigns · ‎04-12-2016

Never mind Barbra, I find the rearrange button:)

COLDHAMCUDDLIES · ‎04-13-2016

Barbara- I'd be grateful if you could give my Shop a look-see. All comments (good or bad) gratefully received.

www.COLDHAMCUDDLIES.etsy.com

Thanks in advance.

SeasideRoseCreations · ‎04-13-2016

I haven't read thru this thread to see if this has been touched upon yet.

Over in the forums, I've read conflicting things regarding the Shop Announcement being part of SEO anymore and part of us being found in Google.

Has this been figured out yet regarding the new shop layouts?

TIA!

BCCopywriting · ‎04-13-2016

Roselle: Thanks for your question! I've sent a request to Mary to respond here or elsewhere about this. As far as I understand it, there have been some changes in the background that involve the shop announcement, but inserting SEO keywords in the announcement is still helpful to optimize the search process. Mary can clarify.

Former_Member · ‎04-14-2016

Hi Roselle,

The shop announcement is still important for SEO. Here is my new article on SEO for the new shop design - https://www.etsy.com/teams/11352/etsy-seo-google-seo-copy-writing-small/discuss/17637769/page/1?ref=...

I have looked through the source code of the pages in the new design and the data for Google is still all there.

ChristyKeysCreations · ‎04-23-2016

Hi Barbara,
Could you give my shop a look. I would be very grateful.

-Christy

BCCopywriting · ‎04-23-2016

Christy: Hi! Took a quick look. The first thing I noticed is the long strings of words at the beginning of your announcement and in the descriptions. That could cause problems with searches, and might get your listings and even your shop downgraded on Google. It's a better idea to weave your keywords into natural sounding sentences. It's more comfortable for buyers, too, which keeps them in your shop longer. Also, no need to repeat your shop name in your title.

There's a lot of related information on descriptions in the thread about Product Descriptions here in the team, and also in the new post: "Writing to Sell (Part 1)." To view those posts with some helpful graphics, go to: http://www.clavan.net/blog

If you're interested in some ongoing writing tips and advice, feel free to visit: http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach

For SEO tips and help: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1686821111533696/

Best of luck to you!

EveArtCandles · ‎04-24-2016

Hello Barbara,

I'm new on ETSY and in this team. Would appreciate your quick look at my shop and your comments.

Thank you - Eve

BCCopywriting · ‎04-24-2016

Eve: You've got a great shop, gorgeous candles, and there's a lot of really interesting information in your descriptions. So there's huge potential, I think. However, there's room for improvement on a lot of levels. Definitely take a look at your SEO, based on information you can find here. One quickie: When you use commas in your titles, make sure you leave a space after each one, just as I did in this sentence. Otherwise, you'll have problems getting found in searches.

You might consider getting some editing help for your text. Grammar, punctuation and similar issues make it harder and less comfortable for buyers to read your descriptions, and can also cause problems with outside search engines in terms of SEO.

There are a couple threads here with excellent information that you might find useful. There's one on Etsy Product Descriptions, which you can also view on video at http://www.facebook.com/chaconsulting (scroll down).

Also the new post here "Writing to Sell (Part 1)" will be very helpful. Feel free to read here, or see the article with a helpful graphic at: http://www.clavan.net/blog

If you're interested in ongoing help for your writing, including tips, advice, critiques and support, free on Facebook, take a look at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach

Hope these few comments and resources help!

ChristyKeysCreations · ‎04-24-2016

Thanks Barbara. I'll take your advice and work on making those changes. I'll also check out those links.
Thanks again :)

-Christy

EveArtCandles · ‎04-24-2016

Barbar thank you very much for your advice. Will improve.

suemako · ‎04-26-2016

With so many listings the same I tend to have mostly the same descriptions. I find it very hard to come yup with separate listing for each towel when so much of the info is the same and I have so very many of them listed (with more to list).

BCCopywriting · ‎04-26-2016

Sue: Yes, this is a fairly common challenge, and one that doesn't have an easy fix. It takes some creativity and ingenuity to make each description at least unique enough to keep the outside search engines happy. By the way, make sure to match your title and description in terms of how your keywords are phrased. For example, in one listing you have "microfiber dish towel" in the title, but the opener of the description says "microfiber towel." For better results, start by putting your best SEO phrases (the ones that you've selected through research with Google AdWords) in your title, and then weave those exact phrases into your description. They reinforce each other.

Best of luck to you! If you're interested in some ongoing writing tips, advice and support, feel free to check out - free on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach

BrinDAromes · ‎04-26-2016

Hi Barbara, thank you for the information. Really beneficial. I recently opened my store and have been reading as much as I could to improve it. I've been struggling with writing marketable content that's unique for each product description and make it more compelling.

The other challenge is coming up with SEO phrases that can fit within the 20 limit characters, especially for a foreign language (I have my shop both in French and English). Oftentimes, the keywords in English either are too long in French if I use the translated version and/or those terms are not used in French. I've spent a lot of time looking for the phrases/keywords that are used in French for my products, and they don't match the English ones (e.g., Mad hatter tea party is common for the US but this is not a common term in French). I don't know if this affects my search or if I should continue with that strategy given the cultural differences that I have to take into consideration.

If you could take a look at my shop and provide some feedback that would be great, thank you!
Shop link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BrinDAromes

BCCopywriting · ‎04-26-2016

Brin: Your writing as a whole is actually pretty good. But watch those long strings of keywords in places like your announcement. That can cause problems with search engines. Also, you'll need to work on making your descriptions different from each other. Opening with the exact same words for every description could cause outside search engines to consider them duplicate content and remove some of your listings from search results.

I agree that it does look as though you could use some help with your SEO. Single word phrases aren't going to help very much. And some of the choices look a little random. I think Mary would be the best person to ask about that. Here are some links to helpful Facebook groups for you:

(Mary) The SEO Salon: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1686821111533696/
(Me) The Copywriting Coach: http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach

If you aren't on Facebook, you can start a new thread here in the team asking for SEO advice.

Hope these few comments help!