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I’m excited to bring you Part 2 in our series directed at Etsy Shop owners. This is a guest post from Natalie Gowen, a marketing expert who focusing on helping Etsy shop owners increase sales and visibility.
So without further adieu, take it away, Natalie…
Customers get on Etsy with a picture in their mind. They’ve imagined the perfect party for their kiddo and they have to somehow translate that picture into words to begin a search. If you can get inside their mind and figure out what words they’re going to use – you have hit the search engine jackpot!
In my last post I talked about coming up with a list of possible keywords. There are undoubtedly some golden phrases on your list – but how do you separate the good ones from the duds?
Google It! Of course.
Google is a treasure trove of Internet data. Every day millions of people enter searches on their site – and Google, being a smart little cookie, keeps track of this data.
Then, because Google is great at sharing information, it lets you see just how many searches are performed on any keyword or phrase you can dream of. And even though it’s Google’s data, you can bet if people search for it on Google, they search for it on Etsy too.
To access the data you need to visit Google AdWords. This is where Google sells the ads that appear at the top and side of your search results. Their keyword research tool is going to tell you how popular a search term is and give you ideas for alternatives.
Take your list of keyword ideas and go to Google AdWords Keyword Tool. For the sake of this example I’m going to be searching keywords for my delicious cake pops. (Photo courtesy of The Sweet Source Cake Pops)
When you open up the keyword tool:
- Take the most basic description of your item as your first keyword to search
- Enter it in the “Word or phrase” box
- Select “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms”
- Jump throw the CAPTCHA hoop and prove you are a human being
- Hit “Search”
Understanding your results
The first row shows you the results for your exact phrase. In the case of cake pops – 368,000 people search this term on Google every month. This is a lot of people! Granted, not all these people are looking to buy, but it’s a great indication of the popularity of my product.
The next set of information is Keyword Ideas. This is the area where you can find alternative keywords for your title listing.
The cake pop results tell me a couple of things.
- Most people are searching for recipes or tutorials on making cake pops
- When searching for cake pops, people like to enter in the occasion they are shopping for
- Baby boy cake pops, bridal shower cake pops, etc.
- They also like to look for the ingredients – red velvet cake pops, chocolate cake pops, etc.
This little window into the shoppers mind is priceless.
When I go back to Etsy to write my product title, I’m going to try and incorporate the last two search methods as I come up with my title. I should also repeat the process with a variety of keywords to see which one yields the best results.
Actual Title Options
- “Cake Pops.” This is a hugely popular term. A general rule of thumb is to make sure you have about 5,000 monthly searches. In this case we have over 300K.
- I want to tell people what the occasion is. So I could add “Baby Shower” to the title
- People want to know what’s inside that pretty frosting. So my title becomes “Baby Shower Cake Pops, Dark Chocolate Cake Pops”
Adding this last bit to the listing not only tells people what’s in it, but it gives me a chance to sneak my keyword into the title a second time. This plays right into the search engine bots hands. The more times it sees the phrase in your title, the higher ranking you’ll get.
Keep in mind that the closer the keywords are to the front of your title, the more weight it gets. So I might want to rearrange my title to put cake pop at the front: Cake Pops: Baby Shower Cake Pops made with Dark Chocolate.
And that’s it! No need to be cutesy or creative with your titles. Pour all your creativity into your product and the product photo – that’s what pulls people into your listing. The title is more for the robots – so speak their language with tons of key phrases!
Thank you, Natalie, your posts are always so enlightening!
And stay tuned for Part 3 of our series…
Natalie is a craft-a-holic with a wickedly nerdy marketing streak. Her blog, MoxieTonic.com is the love child of her two passions – educating, enlightening and empowering Etsy-shops owners towards greater success through tried and true business practices. Check out the blog or follow her on Facebook.
Also, if you are an Etsy shop owner and haven’t joined our Catch My Party Stuff Etsy team, please do so! We have a lot of great stuff planned.
Awesome information! I had no idea. Thank you so much!