New Etsy Format - Early Bird Writing Tips!

[#1]

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.

[SpringsteenMania]

Does anyone besides me obsess about how your items are arranged? This new way of rearranging your items is a huge pain in the butt, so i am curious how you all do it. Do you just have them organized by most recent, which sounds the simplest, or do you do custom like I do? I try to show items from various sections on each page so buyers can get a sense of the diversity of pieces. But now i'm rethinking this strategy because of the new format. Also, if buyers can choose how they want to view the items themselves, maybe I am just spinning my wheels.

Any thoughts/strategies would be greatly appreciated. I know this isn't about SEO, but i am hoping it's ok to post it here. This is the smartest team on Etsy!

[Former_Member]

so glad i found his team... Ive been selling on Etsy for about 5 months now. I only have a few sales and a few reviews. I really need to increase you my views and now with the new format I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with where to start to help my shop. If you have time I'd appreciate any advice you have to offer.

Thank you

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Balmed?ref=hdr_shop_menu

[BCCopywriting]

BalmedLips: You've got a lot of great items in your shop, so I think you can do well over the long run. But you have a lot of work to do!

1) You'll need lighter, more exciting and colorful photos.
2) All your listings are very short - short titles, few tags, short descriptions - which means you're missing a lot of opportunities for being found in searches both on Etsy and Google. Have you sold elsewhere? These look like typical listings you might find on eBay or a standard website. OK for that venue, but on Etsy it's whole different story.
3) Some general thought would be useful regarding how to stand out among competition.

RESOURCES
There are a couple very helpful videos on 1) Etsy shop overview (writing throughout your shop, all the sections) and 2) writing Etsy product descriptions (all parts of the description, with tips) at: http://www.facebook.com/chaconsulting (scroll down).

Ongoing writing help, including writing tips, critiques, personal guidance and support, free on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups.copywritingcoach.

Ongoing SEO help, free on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1686821111533696

Look into some of these resources and see if they help get you going! Best of luck!

[Former_Member]

Thank you so very much Barbara for taking the time to look and offer your help..... I will check out the videos etc you sent. I really appreciate it...... !

[Ankleknits]

Thanks, very helpful information! I made a banner and updated shop policies, but I think I need to figure out how to get more sales, how to attract more customers.
Great team, I'm glad I found you guys.

[AlinYerushalmi]

Barbara hi, I am new here and I am interesting to know about the Profile and About shop something about keywords.
I am understand that Google start to read this parts. It's mean that we need to put there keywords.
My question is where is the part that Google read. This is the 2-3 sentences in the beginning?

[ARexrodeCreations]

Hi Barbara! It is so nice of you to offer your services. I'm a little late on the draw, but I have been working on numerous things trying to get my shop ready. I do have a change on the present banner... it will say "Jewelry" instead of "Innovative". I've been really working hard on my SEO, but could really use a shop review for better preparation for tomorrow.
Thank you so much for your assistance. =)

[BCCopywriting]

Alin: Thanks for your question. Google reads most of the copy throughout your shop. You do need to put your best messages into the visible part - but that's because buyers themselves might not go further. However, Google sees it all.

Hope this helps!

[BCCopywriting]

Arleen: Go to "Preview new shop" and cut-and-paste the URL into another message here and I'll take a look. Thanks!

[ARexrodeCreations]

Thank you so much Barbara. Here it is:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ARexrodeCreations/neu?ref=shop_home_edit

[AlinYerushalmi]

Thank you Barbara!

[ARexrodeCreations]

I have another question in regard to the new shop format.
In my other team they said that hyphens and slashes in you titles will be affected negatively in the new format. Is this true?

[BCCopywriting]

Arleen: I just got another question about this elsewhere (problem with hyphens and slashes). I haven't heard anything about it (and I can't see how that would happen) so it might be just a rumor. However, now that I've been asked twice, I'm going to check again. I'll get back to you.

[BCCopywriting]

Arleen: That issue with the hyphens appears to be just a rumor. I would ignore. As Mary suggests: To use a hyphen properly in a title, just make sure to put a space on both sides. "Long sea glass earrings - sea glass teardrop earrings." Thanks!

[BCCopywriting]

Arleen: A lot of really lovely item in your shop! Fun to browse. The main thing I noticed immediately in your listings is that your SEO phrases don't match up. Have you done the research? Figure out which SEO phrases to use, make those your title, then use the exact same phrases in your description. Also, the descriptions could be better organized, with a little more power up front. Have you read the Etsy Product Descriptions post? Also, there's a new post on "Top 5 Fixes" for your copy which I'll probably post here a little later this week - but you can get an early preview!! The new post is available at: http://www.facebook.com/chaconsulting

There's a video for the product descriptions on the same page (scroll down).

Also, for professional writing tips, critiques, and ongoing support, consider the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach

Hope these few comments and resources help!

[ARexrodeCreations]

Thank you so much Barbara for checking into the hyphens and the shop review. Looks like I still have some work to do. I will check these out ASAP.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration. =)

[BsCozyCottageCrafts]

Hello Barbara, I'm wondering, if you could also take a look at my shop:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BsCozyCottageCrafts/neu?ref=shop_home_edit

Thanks in advance and thank you for all your detailed information.

[BCCopywriting]

Bianca: Gorgeous shop! Great photos in general, and your updates are terrific! But you've got a lot of work to do with the writing throughout. Mostly you're spending too much time chatting at the beginning of each chunk of text - you've got to engage buyers immediately, or they might not go further. Previously on Etsy a lot of welcome messages might have been appropriate, but with Etsy changes and the new format, you'll need to get those big messages right up front, quick, strong, captivating. Then follow up with background information, details, friendly anecdotes, etc. This applies to your shop title, listings, about section and so forth.

You might get a lot of good information from the thread on Etsy product descriptions here (also on video at: http://www.facebook.com/chaconsulting (scroll down). There's also a new post on that page about "Top 5 Fixes" for your copy. Great tips for you!

Also see free on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach

Hope these few comments and resources help! Best of luck to you!

[Former_Member]

Hi Barbara,
Thanks for all this info!
Will you please have s look at my shop? I would love some feedback.
Many thanks
Www.etsy.com/shop/retroMagz

[BCCopywriting]

Troy: Glad the information has been helpful! I'll be happy to give you a few comments tomorrow, since it's late here. Your shop looks interesting!

[BCCopywriting]

Troy: Fab banner! Really fun! Couple things:

Your announcement is kind of cool, and does spotlight your sale. It could also be used to provide a little bit of "why us" information (there are a lot of vintage sellers out there), but it's a choice.

You've got a very specialized set of items, so if you attract the right kind of customers, you can probably get away with your bulleted descriptions. Those aren't usually advisable, but again, if you're managing to pull in hard-core collectors who know exactly what they're looking for, it will be fine (since they're probably going to be scanning the info anyway looking for specific facts).

However, this all means that your SEO must be perfect. I'm not sure the listings are fully optimized in that direction. Possibly consider an SEO critique before going further, unless you've done the research yourself already.

"This print was carefully rescued from it's original publication." (That's "its" without the apostrophe.)

So, in general, good job. Just get on that SEO because you need to reach the right people in order to sell these things. If you go for a broader audience, then we can talk again, because I would advise some changes in that case.

Hope this helps!

[SiggyJewelry]

I thought the changes were going to take place on the 5th. I updated a new banner which I actually like better than my old one and it's only showing up on my mobile device. What's the scoop?

[SiggyJewelry]

Hi Barbara,
Thanks for all the useful info. I would greatly appreciate your two cents about my shop if you have the time.
Many thanks in advance,
Siggy

[umeone]

I am with you Siggy, I was looking forward to my new cover photo. What is going on with the new changes?
If we do not sign up for the Etsy website will we be penalized in search results?

[BCCopywriting]

Siggy and Linda: About the Etsy update, Etsy issued the following memo about the delay on Tuesday:

12:31 pm, Tues, April 5th
"In just a few moments we will begin showing the new shop design to buyers, as planned. Some of you will begin to see these changes as we release them to buyers, while others may not see any changes over the next week. We introduce big changes like this in small segments to make sure things are working properly. We’ll be sure to give you an update once the new design is out for everyone."

If you'd like to stay fully informed about the latest Etsy developments, and are on Facebook, feel free to visit: http://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritingcoach. There's an ongoing weekly schedule, plus responses to new issues when they come up.