Etsy is hiding my most popular items!

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Good Morning everyone.

For the past few months I have watched my sales, views, and search results tank.
My most popular coaster sets which used to show up on page 5, are now buried deep into the search results around page 50 or 80 for a general search of "coaster." Just 2 weeks ago some of my best selling sets were showing up on page 2 & 3 for the search term "drink coaster" now only 1 item is a showing, an item that has never sold, has very few favorites and views (compared to my other sets) and I just don't understand why.

Can anyone please help? I have been struggling to get back on the map here and no matter what I do, it's just not working. I do promote offline, and online.. I believe that search however, is important. Think like Amazon.com, individual shops and sellers do not advertise their shops there.. they are simply found in search. I have read all of the guides Etsy has posted, and I do belong to Relevancy and SEO teams, nothing is working. I'm doing teams and treasuries, everything I am supposed to -- adding new items..

It's just like one day, Etsy decided that they no longer wanted me be found and buried me in the results! :) I know it is hard to be at the top of the results and everyone wants to be, but come on, this is ridiculous. When I was found in the first few pages, I was making sales like crazy.

As I browse the results, I see COUNTLESS "coasters" which hold copyrighted images, and otherwise unoriginal content. I see irrelevant results, words like "roller coaster" which are appearing before my items..There are even shoes! (I understand no system is perfect so some items will appear in wrong places, but still) I see multiple items from the same sellers, and again I just cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. As I examine other items, my sets have more views, favorites, sales, .etc from those appearing before mine, and the tags and whatnot are similar.

I have been pumping so much money now into search ads, and renewing (hoping that would help) with no return. Does anyone have any ideas, hope, suggestions, similar situations? I am at my wits end, and becoming super disheartened with Etsy, not with my work. What could I possibly do to go back to being relevant around here?

[Former_Member]

I'm sorry you are having such a rough time. I don't know what to tell you. It sounds like you are doing everything right.

[LakesideQuiltsMaine]

Jennifer, I know how you feel the same thing is happening to me. All Etsy will tell me that it's the slow down after Holiday.. That's BS.. I have done all the things you have, SEO teams etc.. they tell me they see no difference. that's not true.. I was finally seeing my work pay off and then it's like I am in la la land.. I am looking at going to Art Fire and Amazon to sell.

Etsy only lets the top sellers be found in search.. well how are we supposed to be a top seller if the field isn't fair?
I was having several sales a day and doing well then I fell off the Etsy cliff!

I doubt we will get any help, I am not "relevant" enough for Etsy.

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Brenda, just yesterday I brought up the page on Amazon to start selling there. I'm going to set up some of my prints as a trial run and see how it goes this weekend. That's where I do the majority of my frivolous online shopping anyway, it's just such a huge vast website with everything under the sun.

The fact that hearts and views play a part in the relevancy search really bothers me. I can see the benefit for Etsy because well, popular items that sell, are popular for a reason I guess. However, there is SO MUCH inorganic searching, favoriting, and viewing going on by so many Etsy sellers, treasury makers, teams, etc that the data is skewed for "real shoppers". I think it would be impossible to tell the difference without a WHOLE lot of work.

I do a lot of shopping on Etsy, and i know that i am both the consumer and the product, but I still do not think that system is fair. It is true that my coaster sets were selling like crazy because they were in the first few pages of the search, and then of course, as my "relevancy" dropped, or rather others "improved" and my stuff got further down the list.. so did my numbers. I also read the results were "random" but who knows if that is true, because when I do my search to see where I am (daily) it is the same shops and the same items in the same top places, and still without recent sales.

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Thanks Veronica.. I think I am too! Just trying to figure out what might be causing this. I changed some tags and titles a while back, but have had them fixed for the most part for several weeks, enough to get reindexed, and reconfigured in search. I've even had 4 sales since then, but still i am not showing up anywhere decent in the results.

[Former_Member]

Hi Jennifer, Same thing happened to me. I could not figure it out! So this is what I did
I re-did my titles and tags. It was hard to because I thought they were on target. I thinned out my titles and descriptions. Took out commas and added dashes space before and after dash. Don't know if that helped but it looks better. I also re-did my tags. I went to my stats and copied all the key word searches that got me views
I double spaced my descriptions to make it more readable friendly for the customer
My totes are landing on page 1
got a sale yesterday.

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Kathy, I tried that too. Maybe I need to do it more. See i made a lot of changes like adding bullets, shortening descriptions, making titles longer. So many directions.. For instance, this is an item I recently changed back to the old format description (this has also sold alot!)

https://www.etsy.com/listing/104323578/coasters-california-polaroid-big-sur-set?ref=shop_home_active

Here is one of my newest listed items, and also using the new description format recommended by Etsy.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/124254226/4-polaroid-drink-coasters-spring?ref=shop_home_active

Personally, I think the second description looks better.. what do you think? BUT I listed this item after my shop search tanked, and not one sale yet, the old descriptions were up when I was doing very well.

[Former_Member]

My titles were very long and it looked like I was grasping at anything to get in the search. I am not sure if word order helps but I think it did for me. I am having a hard time comprehending how difficult this title and tag thing is. But there are many other shops competing for the same thing so it makes sense. Maybe try this: Coasters - set of 4 - flowers
I did look at your shop but didn't notice how many items you have. One thing I took note of was the shops with most items, thinned out titles and descriptions, and tag words make it to the front page
I know most people say 100 items but my "research" shows anything between 50-75 makes it. I have to continue re-listing

[Former_Member]

Hey Jennifer,

That sounds frustrating. I did type in "beach coasters" and you were one of the first listings to come up...?

I love your photography and your shop. Super cool vibe.

[LakesideQuiltsMaine]

Jennifer did you try using google ad words tool? See if this link works

http://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD...

I just looked up coasters, tile coasters and picture coasters
the word coasters got the biggest hit with 2,240,000 global searches.

So I would use that word first in your title.
I am wondering if we are experiencing the effects of Etsy not paying for google searching anymore. I heard it stopped in Jan/Feb and takes a few months to filter out.. I was doing wonderful then like I said bam everything stopped.
I did give you a few hearts and I totally agree with you that those totals don't make sense since most are probably done by other teams on Etsy.

[Former_Member]

Hi Jennifer. I know how you are feeling, that happened to me about a month ago. I read on one of the SEO threads that it does happen sometimes. There are so many listings on here in each category, that Etsy rotates them around as to who shows on the earlier pages, and who doesn't. But...I did tweak some of my titles and tags, and my views are back up (and sales too). Based on everthing I have researched (and I have spent hours and hours on the forums here researching SEO), I believe your titles are actually too long. Kathy K mentioned long titles and it looked like she was grasping as anything to get into search. Well from my research (and stats experience) this is actually what you want to do. The more key words you have in your title that match your tags, the better the relevancy in each search. The listing I have attached has been my most popular this month, after some of my tweaking. Notice how in the title I use every possible phrase and key word that my item could possibly be called. Then I repeat them in the description, and it the tags.

https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/MaggieMayeDesigns/stats/listing/118472789#


Anyway, not an expert by any means, but this has been my experience. I have only been on here since late December, but I am working towards 100 sales this month. Hope this helps!

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Good looks Kathy, I've got over 100 listings between my coasters (over 40) and 10 pillows, the rest are all prints. That number hasn't mattered a bit for me. I did add more prints after reading the 100 listing myth, and then reading it debunked. I've seen many fantastic shops with like 15 items, do very very well, so I'm not sure why I even gave that silly idea a second thought, aside from, variety will equal a greater success rate.

@John & Rebecca, Thank you! Yup, Beach Coasters is one of the searches where I am doing well, there's actually a few targeted phrases where I appear on the first or second pages. The problem is that I think people really are just searching for "coasters" vs. a particular style.. When I look back at my stats from 2011, "Coasters" or "Coaster" brought in just about all of my sales -- once the new year hit, My shop literally fell out of the search results, so I made some changes.. which didn't help at all, then made changes back and just cannot get back anywhere near where I was.

Does anyone think creating all new listings would help? I know my views will suffer. I could just duplicate a few items and test it out, I suppose.

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Hi Brenda,

I did use the ad words tool, I even ran a paid campaign last year (I had free credits from my web host) so i am familiar with how it works. I do optimize for my searches on Etsy, rather than on Google or other search engines.. That might be foolish.
I found terms like "drink coaster" and decided to start using "home decor" (disaster, btw) from the tool. Thanks for the hearts, Brenda, I did see that. Had to run to a DR's appt though.... I sent some back your way too, but that is all hidden so I'm not sure if those matter for anyone :(.

Most of my traffic from Etsy, then direct traffic, and then Google. it's been pretty consistent since i started in 2010.

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Hey Stephanie :) I can't see the link because it looks like it might be to your stats page on a particular item, which i would need to be signed into your account to see! Here's the thing, after my sales stopped (jan & feb have always been slow for me) around the middle of february I noticed I was down to getting like 11 views a day.. then when I started searching to see where I was coming up in results.. I changed to really long titles with multiple keywords "coasters" "polaroid coaster" "home decor" "ocean" "blue coasters" "coastal decor" ... and I thought that is what RUINED my search results, I haven't been able to recover. At the suggestion of one of the regulars here on the forums, I reverted my titles back exactly to how they were when business was booming. I'm going to go in again, I guess, and change to some longer titles then..


"That Etsy rotates them around as to who shows on the earlier pages, and who doesn't" <---- That is very interesting. Do you know where you heard or read that? That actually makes perfect freaking sense. I noticed that some of the people who were on the first few pages with me also were down lower in the results... but some around a handful still appear on the very first page.

[Former_Member]

Oops sorry about that! Here it is again:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/118472789/girls-hair-bow-and-headband-organizer

It was in one of these two teams that I read it:
https://www.etsy.com/teams/10713/cindylouwho-team
https://www.etsy.com/teams/11352/relevancy-and-seo-for-all-etsy-shops\

They have both helped me tremendously, although I think the first one is better (although at first most of it was waaaay over my head -lol).

I don't know, it may not work for everyone, but it sure worked for me! One thing they suggest in both teams, just change a few listings at a time, and watch those for a while before you change anymore, to see what happens. If you can get at least a couple of your listings to come up higher in searches, that should help to drive more traffic to your shop. I would definitely not go with all new listings. That will hurt you more than help I think, because you will lose all those faves, views, and if Etsy uses those for relevancy, you will probably make it worse. Although duplicating could help, because the more listings you have, the better your chances of being found.

Just my two cents!

[Former_Member]

Wow Stephanie, Crazy how different things work. I will make a couple of my listings longer (again) and see what happens. Thanks
BTW I am pretty sure Etsy is still paying for Google ads.
As a matter of fact, if you click on Google ads it says so
This past month is the first time my listings have made it to Google ads

[PIXELGRINphotography]

I'm in both of those teams too. I have been doing SO much reading on Cindy's team, and opened a thread not to long ago about this same issue. I'm going to have to really sit down with a fine tooth comb and go through everything. Im not a quitter, so I won't give up -- but this will make me insane until I fix it. :)

[LakesideQuiltsMaine]

Keep us posted Jennifer, be interesting what you learn. I have written and asked for help, I am very disappointed and at the end of my patience. I am getting vocal with that disappointment hoping they pay attention. It's not something a few of us are having trouble with I see it mentioned on all my teams.
I am on the SEO team also.
good luck everyone

[HeidiKarni]

I've had similar problems with search. I make jewelry and I have so many key words in my titles that it looks silly. The problem is that the search tool seems to take your title as-is and not pull out the words even if you also have them in your tags.

For instance, I had a pair of peridot drop earrings so I wrote in my title "peridot drop earrings". What I noticed was if I searched "peridot drop earrings" my earrings came up in the first few pages. But if I typed "peridot earrings" my earrings weren't there at all. The Etsy filters couldn't pull out "peridot" and "earrings" from the title even though I also had "peridot earrings" as one of my 13 tags.

So now all my titles have as many variations as possible even though I'm repeating myself and it looks silly. At least people can find me!

[PIXELGRINphotography]

I feel much better now knowing that it is not just me. I still do not have an explanation as to why all of a sudden all of my handwork is not paying off, and my shop is getting buried. If Etsy really is rotating shops out... I have no idea how I feel about that. I will, I was just reading that it can take a few weeks for all of the changes to go through, so I will see where I am. Thanks for the support and if you need another voice.. you can count on me!

[RubyRobinBoutique]

Hey, sorry to hijack the thread, but could somebody link me to these new description guidelines please? Thanks :)

[PIXELGRINphotography]

@Kay here is the guide from the Seller Handbook, which is what I was referring to when I said "descriptions recommended by etsy"

http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/how-to-write-enticing-item-descriptions/

[PIXELGRINphotography]

Precious Sweet Things from PreciousSweetThings says Edited on Apr 9, 2013
...
For instance, I had a pair of peridot drop earrings so I wrote in my title "peridot drop earrings". What I noticed was if I searched "peridot drop earrings" my earrings came up in the first few pages. But if I typed "peridot earrings" my earrings weren't there at all. The Etsy filters couldn't pull out "peridot" and "earrings" from the title even though I also had "peridot earrings" as one of my 13 tags.

======
Okay this makes perfect sense. It is always something that I wondered, and originally I thought that when I had added so many different keywords to my titles, it was confusing Etsy's search as to what I was selling. Thank you SO MUCH for this.

I think I will create more listings of the same item, and use the variations..and pay upfront, rather than setting a high quantity on one item, that way I can incorporate more variations in the front of the title, where it means more.

Ahh, this will be a grand experiment indeed.

[Former_Member]

You will have to come back after your experiments and let us know what you learned:)

[WebAndRock]

First off, those are super cool coasters. On to SEO... My experience is limited, I am not a long timer here, but I agree with longer titles. I have experimented with shortening some and it did seem to hurt search views.

Another suggestion that you might think about is varying your tags/titles a little more between listings; I.e., barware, beverage coaster, tableware, whatever you might come up with. I have found that some of the terms I thought were really reaching have actually gotten me some views.