Etsy Listings: Learn to Create Etsy Product Listings That Get Seen. For beginner Etsy sellers

1. Etsy Listings: Learn to Create Etsy Product Listings That Get Seen. For beginner Etsy sellers: Hello. Welcome to my latest class, Etsy listings. Learn to create Etsy product listings that get seen and sell. I created this class because in a couple of my previous classes, I talk and teach a lot about selling on Etsy, especially passively. But I never really covered how to actually set up a product listing that will not only get found on Etsy, but that will help convert browsers into buyers. That's where this class comes in. I hope you find it helpful, in case you've never taken one of my classes before. Hi, I'm Jules. I'm an artist, a creative business coach, a long time Etsy seller, and a proud Skillshare teacher and student. You can find me at JulesTillman.com, my blog at CreatingBeautifully.com, and all of my Skillshare classes at the URL. You'll see on the screen. In this class, we are going to cover some Etsy SEO basics. We'll talk about connecting with your potential customers and then we'll get into the deep dive of your Etsy listings, your title, your description, your keywords, aka tags, your photos and of course, then we'll wrap it up and talk about your class project, which is going to be really fun. Basically just making a new or revamped at the listing based on what you learn in the class plus if you complete the class project, I have a free extra goodie just for you. Let's get to it. Shall we? 2. Etsy Listings: Etsy SEO Basics: Let's start with some SEO basics. What is SEO? Well, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. For our use today, Etsy itself is the search engine. If you think about it, people go there to search and shop for all kinds of different products, handmade, vintage, and even some supplies. Etsy takes information from a variety of different areas in your Etsy listings, as well as your Etsy shop, and uses that information in an algorithm that will hopefully help you come up in customer searches. All that information, that's SEO, and that's what we're going to work on today. In the case of Etsy, there's one thing that's really vital and that is to think like a customer, or more importantly, think like a customer searches. Luckily, Etsy does some of this customer-thinking guess work for us, and I'll go into more detail about that in the Keyword module, but for now, just know that it's important to concentrate on the following things, which we're going to cover in this class, but titles, that's both your product titles and your shop titles, your product descriptions, your keywords and tags, your shop sections, and most of all, having amazing products and photography of those products, because let's face it, no matter how great your SEO is, if you're not making high-quality products that people really want, they're not going to sell. We're going to go into all of these in great detail, but first, let's cover another important topic in the next lesson. 3. Etsy Listings: Connecting with Potential Customers on Etsy: Let's talk really quick about something that I think is often overlooked especially on Etsy and that is connecting with your potential customers. I feel like it's especially important on Etsy because people enlarge part buy on Etsy because they value hand made goods. Sure, they could buy a bowl from the dollar store or a candle that was made in China for a fraction of the price, but they would rather pay more and know that a real human, a crafts person, and an entrepreneur made what they are purchasing. There's just something about handmade that is so special. It's important to foster that connection. Of course, you can do that in other places too, like your social media. But there are a few simple ways that you can do this on Etsy as well. The first is, in your profile. I'll use my art shop profile as an example. First, you want to make sure that you either have a photo of yourself or a photo of your logo here. I chose this artsy photos myself because I think it represents what I'm selling. You should also choose a photo that represents you and, or your brand and what you're selling. Again, a photo of yourself or a logo works great. But what you don't want, is the default image that Etsy uses as a place holder. This in no way helps your customer feel connected to you and that's what we're going for here. Back to the profile bit, I just want to point out a couple of things. In case you didn't notice, Etsy doesn't include a link back to your shop anywhere on your profile. That is the very first thing I've done in mine right here. If somehow somebody comes to your about page before going to your shop, they're not going to know where your shop is. That's why I include that there. Next step, I've made a brief shop announcement and linked to my favorite social media Instagram, because I want my customers and potential customers to follow me there. Then, I go deeper into my art and art making practice, as well as share some fun and personal information about myself. One note, everyone has their own comfort level about how much, and or what they want to share in profiles like these. Of course, you'll have to decide for yourself where that comfort level is for you and your business. But again, people like to connect with you, especially on Etsy, as a maker or an artist, etc. They want to know a little bit about your process, as well as maybe a little bit of personal information. When I say personal information, I'm not talking about your social security number. I'm just saying something like why you make what you make? Or maybe some small details about your life if you're a mom or if you live in a tiny town in the mountains or if you live in a big city, or maybe like mine, how I've shared some of my favorite pastimes and hobbies. Finally, at the end there, I do mention my other Etsy shop. It's actually one of Etsy's rules about one person owning multiple shops. If you do have more than one shop, you must disclose all shops in all of your profiles. I just want to point out really quick that there are a couple of different places where you can also connect with your customers, especially your shop announcement here can give you another place to connect with customers. Then if you scroll down, updates are a great way to connect with customers. They're also almost a freeway to advertise Etsy within Etsy because every time you do an update Etsy shares that with people who follow you. Then finally, the About section, which goes into more detail than your profile might. You can have these scrolling images at the top that people can see and then more detail about yourself and some different ways I've included some different ways people can follow me, as well as my art website. Etsy is even nice enough to include all of these links right here. You can talk about your different shop members or production partners, etc. Now, people might not read all of this, but it's there if they want to and I think that's great. 4. Etsy Listings: Your Titles: Welcome to lesson three, where we are going to cover both product and shop titles. We'll start with your shop title because, that is something you'll generally write onetime and be done with it. But it doesn't hurt to tweak it from time to time, especially if you feel like you could improve your SEO that way, but for the most part, it's a one and done. Again, I'm using my own shop as an example, and I've used modern abstract paintings, prints, and portraits as my shop title. Going back to what I mentioned earlier, you want to think like your customer, what are they searching for? That they will actually find it in your shop that you can put here, you're limited to 55 characters for your shop title at the time of this recording anyway. You'll want to pack as many keywords in there as you can without sounding spammy. I'm going to show you really quick where to do that on Etsy. I've logged into the Etsy shop manager, and I went under Settings, Info& Appearance and right here at the top is where I can adjust my shop title. You can do the same. Your listing titles will vary from product to product, and you can test different titles to see which work best for which products. Luckily with product titles, you have a bit more space, in this case, a 140 characters, but just so you know, of those 140 characters, search engines only show about 66 characters. But regardless, I recommend using as many of those 140 characters as you possibly can with relevant keywords. What is a relevant keyword anyway? Let's say that you are listing this set of botanical art prints. I don't really know much about them, but let's just assume that they are watercolor prints, not originals for this example. Some relevant keywords the person listing this might use, would be Green Art Prints, Botanical Art, Set of art prints, Beautiful wall art, Watercolor art prints, and some not so relevant keywords you would not want to use in this product listing would be Pink Art Prints, Floral Art, Set of three art prints, Original wall art, Oil painting on canvas. Now, you may be wondering Jules why would anyone say Pink Art Prints in this listing? Well, maybe Pink Art Prints are more popular than Green Art Prints. I'm not saying that's really true, I'm just using this as an example. But if people are searching for pink art and they come across your green botanical prints, they're going to just move right past it, and Etsy sees that, they see the habits of their customers are watching very closely and they're watching you, and the more your art does not get clicked, the more likely it is to show up lower and lower in search. It's a double whammy. Then how do we find the right keywords for our particular products? If you want to find the best keyword for your titles, we're going to try searching like a customer, and see what Etsy suggests, and then use some of those for our keywords. Let me show you what I mean. I'm back over on Etsy and I'm going to think like a customer who is looking for some Green Botanical Art. I'm going to just start by searching for just that. You can see Etsy is already starting to suggest different things, but I'm not looking for any of those. I'm just going to start with Green Art. Now, you can see some really great suggestions that Etsy has for us. Green art print, green artwork, green artwork spelled differently. That's something that's really interesting to me because I wouldn't have thought of that. As you can see, some of these other things aren't as related. I'm going to go ahead and type in print. Nothing else is really coming up with that, and that's fine. Let's try botanical. Here are more suggestions. Botanical print, botanical print set, which is what we are selling in this fake example. Botanical wall art, botanical art, botanical illustration. That might be fitting and botanical art prints. It's a good idea to write all of these ideas down somewhere, or copy and paste them into a Word doc or a Google Doc just so you have them and you can play around with this. This is especially true for products that you can make once and sell over and over. I could make two different listings for the same product using different keywords, and a different main image, and really test to see which one is working better. Let's talk a little bit about exactly how to word those keywords into your listing titles. We're going to use a this versus that scenario. Some people like to use keywords within a readable sentence or sentences, something like this title, Green Botanical Art Prints Set By Joey, The Artist. Beautiful and minimal wall art for your home. Large Green Art Prints, Modern Tropical Art. While you're using lots of keywords, it's very readable and I feel like it's very pleasing to the eye. Other people like to use the keywords alone, like this title, Green Botanical Art, Art Print Set, Joey The Artist, Beautiful Art, Minimal Wall Art, Home Decor, Large Green Art Prints, Modern Tropical Art. They're using some of the same information, but it's just like keyword, keyword, keyword. Personally, I've actually seen both ways be successful, in that they ranked high for their intended keywords. The second example reads more spammy to me. I don't really like it. I try to stick with a more readable structure for my titles. I think it's just more appealing when people come across it in Search. But whatever you decide on, try it, wait for a month or so because it takes about 30 days for Etsy SEO to really kick in and see how it's working for you, one way or the other. If it's not working, go back to the drawing board and see if another style of keyword rich title gets you more traction. If it is working for you, great. You have hit the nail on the head. 5. Etsy Listings: Your Product Descriptions: Now let's talk about your product description. In this lesson, I have some important news and a little bit of good and bad news for you. Nothing too dramatic. We'll work through it. No worries. Let's get to it. The first important news is that Etsy gives the first 125 characters of your product description the most weight when deciding how your listing will rank along with your title and tags. One thing that's really important that you want to do is choose a master or focus keyword, or keywords that is in all three. It's at the beginning of your product title. It's within the first 125 characters of your product description, and that you include it in your tags, which we'll get to later. If we were using the botanical print example again, and you decide your master keyword is botanical art print, you'd want to use that at the beginning of your title, at the beginning of your description, and in your tags. When it comes to tags, one thing to note is that the order there doesn't matter. You get 13 places for tags. You can put it at one or 13 as long as it's included somewhere in there, you're good to go. I do know some people spend some extra time to make sure that their master keyword is at the top of the list. As far as I am aware, it doesn't make a difference. That's time you could spend doing more important things, like creating new products. Back to your description. Now that you know that you need a master keyword or keywords, and you want to use it at the beginning of your description, let's talk about what else you want to include in your description. You get a lot of space here, and personally, I like to include as much information as I can about any given product. That might include things like a complete description of the product. Who the product might be for: a gift for dads, or brides, et cetera. The dimensions of the product, colors that are actually in the product, or colors that might be available, color variations, the weight of the product, how it was made, a bit about me and my process. Again, I use this to connect with my customers or potential customers. I don't go into big detail here, but a little bit of information is really nice. I might also include what materials I've used, the production time if it's a made-to-order product, especially shipping time, how they might contact me for more information or if they have questions, as well as links to similar products that they might be interested in. Now Etsy does this a little bit, but I also like to include links of my own. Again, keep your customer in mind as you write your product description, do keep that customer in mind all the time. Help them to imagine buying your product either for themselves or as a gift. Write to them as if you're talking to them. Help them feel confident in their purchase from you. How is it going to feel to own, or wear, or use your product? These are just some of the good things you include in your product descriptions. All right, let's get to the good news. The good news is, some of your customers or potential customers will read every single thing you write, and therefore will be informed and enthusiastic buyers. Then the bad news is, many more won't read anything and are likely to e-mail you and ask you questions that are already answered in your description or elsewhere in your shop. This happens to me all the time and it can be super frustrating. But alas, this is part of being in business. It's customer service. Just be prepared to answer questions that are already answered. When I get questions like this, like, what size does this print come in? I like to answer the question, but also to let them know that that information and more can be found in the product listing itself. They just need to click that little read more link. When I respond to a question like that, I do it in a very polite way. Obviously, I'm dealing with potential customers and I want to please them. But I feel like if I've explained to them exactly where they can get more information, they can't really complain to me later if they order for me and then get something unexpected. Like a different size, or the shipping takes longer than they expected, or something like that because I gave them a chance to read all of those details. Luckily, I hardly ever get complaints on Etsy. I've been selling there many years in multiple shops. This is rarely an issue, but it can happen. I just want to give you a heads up on that. All right, let's move on to keywords. 6. Etsy Listings: Keywords and Tags: Keywords you may be thinking, Jules, didn't we already cover keywords? Well, yes and no. Let's just go over this real quickly. On Etsy, your keywords are called tags and towards the end of your new product listing, they give you 13 slots for these keyword tags. Obviously, as we discussed before, you'll want to use that master keyword or keywords that we talked about and you definitely, definitely want to use all 13 tags. That's where the other list of keywords suggestions from doing the searches come in handy because, while you might not use them all in say, your title or your description, you can use some of those in your tags. Tags can go up to 20 characters, so it's the shortest of all, and that includes spaces. If you've chosen a longer keyword or keyword phrase, you may have to break it down into smaller bites, so to speak, when coming up with more tag ideas, you can think of things like describing the product itself, say like who is it for? Is for a Mother's day gift? Is it a child's dress? Et cetera, or where might it go in their house? Is it kitchenware? Is it bedroom art? What part of their wardrobe would it be? Is it a summer dress? Is it an evening gown? But in this case, you don't have to worry about the materials used because just below the tags, Etsy actually gives you an additional 13 slots for materials. I like to be as descriptive as possible with the materials tags as well, including things like colors or paint type, if you are making other products that might include things like fabrics, patterns, different metal types, et cetera. I mentioned this briefly before. But another place you'll want to use relevant keywords is in your shop sections. This is part of the Etsy SEO. The keywords that you sprinkle in here in your shop sections are another really important part of that SEO. Think about the word or words or even short phrases, again, that people might use when shopping for what you sell. This is a little more closely related to your shop title, where it's a little bit more general than say, a product listing title. But as you can see in mine, I've included abstract watercolor art, abstract portraits, modern and minimal art, botanical art prints, abstract art, original art on paper, modern digital abstracts, and then I have myself section and some canvas prints. Those are all things that I have checked within Etsy search to make sure people are actually searching for it. Let's say you sell kid's clothes. You might want to use sections like girls dresses, sizes to 2t to 4t, or toddler dresses or flower girl dresses, of course, depending on what you make. But again, it's just important to note that your shop section titles are really important and key part of Etsy's SEO. 7. Etsy Listings: Your Photos: Let's talk about your photos. This is so important. So product photos are extremely important on Etsy for a variety of reasons. Obviously, one is that buyers want to see what they're getting. Really from pretty much every possible angle. Now in our print might just have really one angle. But for instance, when I was selling vintage, I would photograph it from the front, from the side, from the back, and even flip it over and show what was underneath because a lot of important information is on the bottom of vintage products. But if you sell clothes, you can shoot from multiple angles. Of course, you want to see the front and the back. If you sell mugs, people want to know is what you've added to the mug on both sides of the mug or just one, you get the idea. Plus, when you can put your products in a lifestyle shot, like in a way that it might actually be used like art on a wall, rings on fingers, or a scarf wrapped stylishly around a woman's neck. It really helps people see how they might use what you are making and selling. In some cases, things like print on demand products, you don't have to purchase an example of every single one and photograph it. You can use things called mock-ups. These are great for prints, any art really; mugs, T-shirts or sweatshirts, almost anything that can be printed on demand, you can find a mock-up for. I will include a link to some of my favorite mock-up supplies in the class PDF, which I'm also including a checklist for your listing so that when you go to create your own listings, you can remember all the details from this class. Anyhow, another couple of things to note is that even if you do sell a variety of items, it's nice to have photos that create an all-around cohesive look for your shop. If you sell candles and shoot them in a moody way, and you sell incense and you photograph that in a funky, hippie style, then maybe you sell fragrances with bold and flashy, splashy colors all in the same shop, it's going to look a little disjointed and will turn off some buyers, and sure, there are buyers who won't care at all about that. They might not even look at the rest of your shop. They might just find what they want, buy it and go. But there are other people that will look at your shop and if they feel like it's disjointed, they're going to leave. So why not appeal to both? After all, the more people who like your stuff, the more people will buy your stuff. So for example, in my creating beautifully shop, I sell e-books, mugs, and printables, and a little bit more generally for entrepreneurs. So that's a lot of different types of products. But I use my photography, and mock-ups, and my entrepreneurial niche to tie all of those things together for a cohesive shop. When I started selling with Etsy, they only offered five photos slots, and now they have 10 photos slots. I think that some people started to feel a little bit overwhelmed with like what 10 photos I'm going to share with my customers? So I really think it's a great idea to take advantage of this anytime you can. Now, I have two shops and a whole lot of listings, so I don't have 10 product photos for every single product in both of my shops. But if you can, it is a great idea to use every last one. So Etsy itself offer some suggestions when you're creating a product listing and you see those 10 little photo slots, it will say a main photo, which you can actually adjust for thumbnail mode. I like to use that main photo as a narrow and tall photo, about 600 by 900 pixels, even though the thumbnail is more of a square size, that 600 by 900 is great for Pinterest. So somebody does pin your product, it's going to look great on Pinterest and hopefully somebody will, but hopefully also you will pin it to Pinterest because it's a great way to get more buyers to your shop. But I digress. Anyhow, so Etsy offer some suggestions, the main photo, every angle, details in use, scale and size, style, scene and variations, which are all great suggestions. I also use one of those photo slots for this image that I created to encourage people to sign up for my e-mail list. You can definitely get creative with this. I use it as my last image and I do hope that people notice it and take advantage of it because giving them 10 percent author order is great for them and getting them on my e-mail list is great for me. You can definitely get creative with different ideas of what to include, like showing a size chart, or different color options, or even a photo of you working on something in your shop. Of course, if it's the exact item that you're selling even better. If you're shy, don't worry. I'm shy too. I don't ever include works in process photos, but it's just an idea for those of you who like to take center stage. I mentioned earlier that the people who finish the class project will get a freebie and this freebie will definitely help with this area if you're struggling. I'll tell you more about that in the next lesson. 8. Etsy Listings: Important Final Tips and Class Project: Congratulations! You have made it to the end of the class. You should be proud of yourself seriously. So many people start these classes on Skill Share and elsewhere and never finished, but you did it. So give yourself a high five. All right, just a couple more things as we wrap this up and of course, let's talk about your class project. First, I just want to add that things do change on Etsy pretty often. So it's important to test and see what is working for you and your shop. While I try to keep all of my classes here on Skill Share up-to-date, Etsy sometimes makes changes without even mentioning it. Especially when it comes to SEO and their algorithms. They're pretty secretive about that stuff. They do give you a little bit of information and I'm going to give you one more tip on that in just a second. But I just want to mention that this class is not produced or endorsed by Etsy in anyway. What I've shared here is my opinion and just what I've learned and have seen working for people since I've been selling on Etsy since 2011 and I've had several different types of shops. What I'm sharing here has really worked for me and I hope that it works for you as well. So a couple other tips from Etsy itself. One of the things that they really like is in-bound links that will help you in search and everything you can do to get help found in search is a good thing. So, an in-down link means links from outside of Etsy or pointing directly to your shop and, or your specific products. This could mean links from your blog or blogs, other blogs and websites, etc. I've seen people get featured in magazines and the magazines themselves and the online version will also link to your shop or products. Also just remember to be patient that changes that you are making in your listings can take up to 30 days for Etsy to really recognize. So give these changes time to take effect. One thing to know is that there is a real thing for many shops on Etsy unfortunately, and it's called the summer slump. A lot of people are away vacationing, etc, playing with their kids and they're not really shopping on Etsy as much. Now, some shops specifically cater to summertime items and they will continue to be busy throughout the summer. But if you're a shop is not one of those, don't be too surprised that things slow down or if things slow down during the summer. Most of the Etsy sellers that I know make about half of their income around Christmas time. Even though it's only a few months of the year. So don't worry too much at that point. But, if after say, 30 or 60 days, you're not seeing positive results from the changes that you've made, go back and tweak and see what may need improvement. Again, it's probably going to be in your title, your description, your keywords, your photos and of course, you really want to make amazing products to sell to the world. While all these changes that you're making are really the foundation of a successful Etsy shop, there is more that you can be doing to promote your shop. Like being active on social media. You don't have to be active on every social media. Choose one or two that you love and just put your heart into those or that one, like, I really love Instagram. That's my jam also Pinterest. Pinterest is huge for my business, for both Etsy and my blog, Pinterest is either the number one or number two source of traffic. I do have a class on Pinterest, I will say, here's a little shameless self-promotion here a little shout out to my Pinterest class. It's got great reviews. People love it. It's very helpful, especially if you're new to Pinterest or even if you've been using it for awhile. Especially if you've been using it for a while just for personal use. It's a great class for using your Pinterest to really drive traffic to your Etsy shop and, or your blog. Anyway, but you could also be blogging about your products. You can get featured on other people's blogs. In fact, just about once a month, I feature other artists and makers on my blog on creating beautifully. You can also try paid advertising, both within Etsy itself or off of Etsy. You can start an opt-in email list. You may have noticed earlier, I offer a discount for people to opt in to my list. Selling to people who have already purchased from you is so much easier. It's great. I will note that you cannot add your Etsy customers' emails to your list without their permission. It's against Etsy's terms of service. It's probably against Spam Act too. But anyway, it's against Etsy's terms of service and you don't want to get kicked out of Etsy just for something like that. So they do have to opt into your list, but it's a great way to keep in contact with your customers and sell to them again and again. In other words, you really need to be proactive to get more sales. You can't just wait for Etsy to bring in all the customers directly to you. But if you've done all the things in this class that we've talked about, they will send you buyers. Okay, let's talk about your class project. So your class project is to create a new Etsy listing or revamp an Etsy listing based on this class. Once you're done, post about it and a link to it. Make sure you link to it in the class project section. Everyone who completes the class project in the first 30 days of this class will get a free copy of my e-book 80 Instagram Post Ideas, especially for artists, makers and creatives. It's free if you do your class project in the first 30 days. Honestly, you could probably finish this class project in the next 30 minutes. Once you've uploaded your class project and linked to your new and, or updated listing, I will send you the e-book to your Etsy within a few days. Give me just a little bit of time, but I will send it to you. I will also say that within these 80 Instagram Post Ideas, you'll find some really creative ways to fill up your ten Etsy slots as well. So it's a win-win. Speaking of the class project section, be sure to go there to grab the PDF checklist that I've created just for this class. That way as you're creating your new Etsy listings, you won't forget a single-step. Plus I've included a couple of extra links to things that I think that you may find very helpful for your Etsy business. Finally, I want to sincerely thank you for taking this class, and any of my classes I love to teach here on Skill Share. I love helping creatives, just like you. If you have any questions for me, please feel free to share them in the class discussions. I will answer them as soon as I can and to be automatically notified of any of my future Skill Share classes, please follow me here by clicking the Follow button. Let's see next to my name above this video on a desktop or below the video on your phone or other devices or wherever they might have put it today. I truly appreciate it and I also really love it if you gave this class a thumbs up, if you found it helpful. All those positive reviews really helped other creatives find my classes too. Again, thank you. Thank you for watching this class.