Advice, please

[Former_Member]

I've had two sales since I relaunched last November and am getting discouraged.

I've added to my listings, now up to 150. I've reworked my titles and tags, an ongoing effort. I've reduced the part of my description that goes on everything to bullet points. I've reorganized my sections, and added a new under $20 section for small prints. I participate on a treasury team, doing at least seven treasuries a week. I blog, pin, etc., on a regular basis. I've been accepted into Etsy a Wholesale but haven't published my line sheet because I don't want to throw $100 away.

I don't know if I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff wrong, or if my images just aren't what people want to buy. I'm getting to the point where I don't know why I even bother.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated.

[Former_Member]

Wow, that would be discouraging. I took a brief look around your shop and your work is lovely. I especially like you urban and architectural shots. You have such a variety of subjects that something should appeal to just about everyone.

Have you considered putting your photos on note cards? printing ready-to-hang-canvases? including a mat and frame? I wonder if people would be quicker to buy something that they can immediately put up on the mantle rather than just a photo that still needs to be framed. People are lazy and lack imagination. Fill the gap for them.

Cristal

[Former_Member]

I love your banner, and shop...it is hard to know what the consumer wants/needs/is looking for from season to season. The card idea is a great one. Don't get discouraged...do what you love, it shows in your work...and other's will love it too! (And hopefully buy it! ☺️)
Good luck, and best wishes

[EAGERforWORD]

Definitely try cards. I for one would never buy a photograph but if someone sent me a card of one of your fabulous images it would stay on the mantelpiece. My other Etsy shop sells little frames and only has 2 in it at the mo. as so few view. Etsy if very much gift orientated and perhaps what people hang on their walls or not is more personal choice. Also think about pillow covers... diversify!

[Former_Member]

Hi Nancy! I'm gonna shake things up a bit relative to your keywords. Your products are awesome, and yes, I agree with branching out into new products, but keywords are what I've been ranting about lately, so here goes.

I took a quick look at your first item. First, people who are searching for "leafy trees" and "brick sidewalks" aren't looking for black and white photographs of those things. You need to think more about how YOU would search if you were looking for your products.

Next, I find that most of the advice given here on Etsy by experts is missing some key information. I've learned a method for picking keywords that gets the right people -- people who want what you sell -- seeing your store. We use it at the company I work for, and our clients LOVE the results they get.

Here's how I explained it to my fellow FEST team members:

Let's start with the Keyword Tool. You plug in the phrases you're thinking of using, and it tells you how many people search for that phrase every month. It will also give you a list of phrases that are related to the ones you typed in.

If you go to the SEO & Relevancy team, that's what they advise you to do. No mention of going further.

Now please forgive the bad formatting. I don't know why Etsy makes this so hard. But here's what happens when I plugged in some keywords for a new listing. These are monthly search numbers.


wooden wall clock 720
cool clock 1000
wood wall clock 590
country clocks 260

Based on that small sample, you would think that "wooden wall clock" and "cool clock" are the best choices on that list, right?

But they're not. Here's why relying only on the Keyword Planner is a mistake. Google also tells you another key piece of information, and that's the number of website pages out there that already use that term. And that is your competition!

When I do a Google search for "wooden wall clock," up on the top left is the number of results. I get 351,000. You know the theory of supply and demand... and the supply of competitors for "wooden wall clock" is pretty high, while demand suddenly doesn't look so awesome.

What my company does (we have a person who does nothing else but create enormous spreadsheets for our clients, and I know how to do it, too) is take the number of searches and divide it by the number of existing pages with that phrase. We actually use the annual number of searches, so we multiply the Keyword Planner tool number by 12.

That means that "wooden wall clock" gets 8,640 searches annually. Divide 8,640 by 351,000 and you get 0.02. That's what we call the Keyword Competitive Index (KCI) number. Trust me, 0.02 is terrible.

For "cool clock," with 12,000 searches annually, I divided 12,000 by 242,000 pages that are out there, and get 0.5. Not much better.

We advise our clients to focus on phrases that get 0.5 or more. And if you find one that's above 1.0 -- meaning that there are more people searching for that keyword than there are web pages supplying it -- you're golden!

So here are those same phrases from above with their KCI number, based on the research I just explained.

wood wall clock 0.02
wooden wall clock 0.02
cool clock 0.05
country clocks 0.25

So the one that looked the puniest in terms of searches has a better number, because the competition isn't so huge. Of course it's not that awesome either but it beats 0.02! On Etsy there are a lot of markets that are just so competitive you'll never get much over 0.25. Jewelry is brutal! Purses, too. But here are some of purse phrases, too, for comparison.

cute purses 0.37
turquoise handbags 0.36
teal bandbag 0.21
turquoise handbag 0.29
cool handbags 2.56

Guess which phrase I use for ALL my purse listings, LOL!!! The best part about that one is that unlike some of the others, it also has HUGE search numbers. 97,200 people search on that phrase every year, but only 37,900 web pages use the phrase.

"Shoulder bags," for example, gets a healthy 52,800 searches per year. But there are over 14 million pages with that phrase, so the KCI number is actually a negative.

And yes, the next purses I make will be turquoise. Because you can also use this research to help you decide what to make in your niche.

Now here's what I just found out for you, Nancy. I did a quick look at one of your items, the Portsmouth urban street scene.

Here's what I found out:

Zero people are looking for "urban street scene", which is one of your keywords. You just won't get any views, and without views, you won't get sales, of course!

And unfortunately, "black and white photography" has a relatively decent KCI of .47, but it's too long to fit into Etsy's tag field. Still, it should appear several times in your descriptions themselves.

So once you rethink your keywords, take those phrases and do some research like I explained. I think that would help you tremendously!

[maydaylabels]

Mary, not only does the SEO team you mentioned directly suggest, in the first keyword research post, checking the relative competition for/ number of searches for various phrases, but it also explains some ways to research these comparisons within Etsy.

The thing is, for the vast majority of shops, google will not be as large a source of revenue and views as Etsy's internal relevancy search.

We've always had a lot more success optimizing for Etsy's relevancy search than for Google, and for this you have to do research specifically related to Etsy.

[Former_Member]

Mary Van, you just gave me the complete course! I have a lot of work to do, obviously, but I thank you. I'll be copying your response so it will be easier to work with. There goes the rest of the month, lol.

Ah, cards and other products. I just started on Fine Art America today for that. I can't make my own, it's just not economical u less you print a lot (ink dries out fast, so you need to use it up quickly). I'd have to order cards in packs of 25. That's a lot if cards that might never sell.

I hesitated posting this. In past, I've gotten some pretty hateful responses, all criticism but no constructive! I'm going to re-read all this tomorrow and figure out how to make this work.

Thank you, all.

[maydaylabels]

You can have the printing outsourced if you get your manufacturer approved by Etsy, I think. If you decide to go the diversifying product lines route, there are a lot of options once you get a manufacturer approved - postcards, notecards, screenprinted totes, pillows, etc.

Photography is a really saturated category on Etsy, so you have to work extra hard to stand out from the crowd.

[Former_Member]

Another thought, Nancy. i've been playing around with "gift" phrases for some of my items that just don't have a lot of people searching for them.

So for my pet pouches, there's no one searching for "pet pouches." I made those back in the days before I found out how to find out what people want, and I"m gonna stop making stuff just because I feel like it ... but in the meantime, I've got this stuff to sell, LOL.

Anyway, I researched phrases like "cat lover gift" and got some decent stuff there. So you might research phrases like "art lover gift." Etsy is very much oriented to gift-buying.

BTW, as far as Google vs. Etsy goes, yeah, you may never get ranked on Google, thought I've managed it. But the point is, search behavior is the same everywhere, because people are people. The things people are searching for on Google (and Bing, and Yahoo, etc.) are the same things people search for specifically in Etsy.

Oh, and one other trick I've started playing with: Once I find keywords with decent KCI, I search for them myself on Etsy. If there's not a lot of competition on Etsy, that tells me I'm on to an underserved product, and it becomes a product I will make going forward. Thus, I will stop making pet pouches, and start making chenille pillows. :-D

[Former_Member]

Diversification: on it, just not on Etsy. Cards, framed pieces, phone cases, etc., are on Fine Art America; pillows and totes via Society 6 will be added by the end of the year. I will need to let people know where they can get things that won't be on Etsy, and work the SEO for those venues.

As to SEO in general, I have to think about what my subject is on a basic level, which means getting away from how I think of it. Photogs are pretty specific as to where an image was captured, but people planning to buy don't care unless the location is important, like Paris, Las Vegas, New York, etc.

As I understand it, if my SEO is correct it will be specific to the image genre, but not so specific that no one is searching with those terms. Specific SEO for the basic type of image will have a much better chance of being found by someone who is actually planning on buying, because they will be looking for something specific.

In Mary's example, the image falls under street photography. My first foray into Etsy search turned up the following number of hits:

Photography: 774,992 (major category within art)
Black and white photography: 83,834 (major category within photography)
City photography: 23,000
Street photography: 14,537
Night photography: 11,005
Street photo: 8,500
Night photo: 6,929
Urban landscape: 5,433
Street photograph: 4,452
Street scene: 3,843

The minute you start talking about image content but not specific details, the better the numbers get.

So, I need to research for each kind of image how to use titles, tags, and descriptions to reel in the people looking for specific types of images, without ignoring the broader terms for surfers who might buy on a whim. That means getting away from the very specific (High Street at Night, Olde Towne, Portsmouth) to something more generic that people are looking for (street photograph, street scene, night photography). I'll also need to tag for seasons and colors as people do search that way.

[Former_Member]

Nancy -- that is EXACTLY right. I know it's a lot of work, but hopefully it will help you lots! Wishing you many new sales!

[Former_Member]

I think using PHOTO as your first word may be hurting your listings.

My rule of advice for titles is, if I was blind, what are three words you can use to completely describe your item to me. Those three words, should be the first three words in your title.

[Former_Member]

Sara, I've been moving the "photo" from the beginning of everything; it takes awhile; I've got over 150…

You would not believe how many people think they're buying the subject, not a photo of the subject. Trying to head them off at the path, so to speak.

[Former_Member]

Sara, your three word idea sounds like a good way to think about titles. Thanks!