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Etsy Shop Critiques with Lisa and Tim

I want to thank you again, Tim, for joining us. I couldn't talk Etsy without bringing you on, and having a little bit back and forth with you because we've come such a long way together. I love your success and I wish you the best, so I'm gonna hand it over to you so you can teach us some SEO. Awesome, thank you, Lisa, and I love that story because it was just this random I was just looking for content, looking for those five articles a day, and I was like, man, this is an awesome post. I'm gonna take that from the public space, and credit it to Lisa. I didn't even know who you were so that was awesome and here we are today. Yeah, you better recognize, no. Right, right, exactly, all right, all right. Can't see my face so. All right, guys, so today we have some shops that you guys submitted, some of you guys in the audience, I don't know who you are. I have your names and I have your shops, but what we're gonna talk about today this shop is Vanessa's. We're gonna check this out. W...

e're gonna check out some SEO tips. These SEO tips are going to be SEO, so search engine optimization for the Etsy search, and also at the same time it's gonna be for Google, and search engines and things, so as you're doing these things like the Etsy search, and getting all in there and they change it all the time, just like Google does, but there's some key things that we want to look at, and understand right away. The very first thing you want to look at is getting in here and checking out your ... I don't know how this is gonna show up on that screen, but I hope it looks good. It's showing up well, it's showing well. Okay, awesome, awesome. Our very first thing is gonna be our shop title. This is so super important for SEO because this is actually telling Google search engines what your shop is all about. Let's look at this one really quick just kind of critique it. For the self-expressive soul living on the fringe. That really doesn't tell anything to Google like what this shop is all about. The key here, guys, there's only, I think, it's 70 characters or something it's really small, but you can only put in a little bit there, but you want to be sure ... It might be 60 characters, but you want to make sure that your keywords that you're trying to rank for are in there. When I say rank I mean when somebody types in like fringe hangings or something like that. That's an example on the site here, but when they type that in you want to be found, so you want to make sure that this makes sense for your keywords. We're gonna look at these key things, and I'm gonna actually go into the page source, and show you where these things actually exist. The next thing that we want to take a look at, yes? Can I ask you a question? If we're looking in this shop, and this is Vanessa's shop Crafturday, so if we're looking at this, and we're looking at that tagline it's okay to get a little creative there, right? You can say wall hangings, you can say fringe wall hangings for the self-expressive soul. You're still doing it with creativity, but you're also appealing to the SEO of it all. Exactly, and you want that to make sense because in the Google listing of your shop it's gonna be a sentence, and you want to see how that shows up. I think Etsy has it in the admin area where it shows you what it's gonna look like, but, yeah, you can be creative there, but you want it to make sense. Yes, I would say I would put a keyword in there whatever that is maybe it's fringe hangings, like you said for the self-expressive soul. Check that out, change that up, get those keywords in there. The next place we want to look at, this is super important, guys, this is your shop announcement. Everybody loves to mess around with this, and change it up, and put their fancy little icons in there. They're not even icons they're just dots and things and lines, but this is the actual meta description of what your shop really is. When you put these in there it doesn't really make sense in Google's eyes at all, or any search engine for that matter. So this here and the first 120 characters in this shop announcement we want to have, we want to tell Google, we want to tell people, what our shop is all about. I like how she has some links here, actually, right to her shop that's fine, but the thing is, guys, everybody likes to put in their sales and things right at the top, right at the beginning, so people can see it, but the problem is every time you change that it changes your metadata information. Then, therefore, Google has to come back, and when they re-crawl it you're gonna lose ranking because you're changing that data. Can we stay right there for a minute? Sure. A lot of people do this, and I like the way it looks down below because it's really block lettering, it's really helping her other links stand out. Is the entire shop announcement going to be read, or are we just worried about the top? Can she do this down below, but then just make the top more relevant? Yes, that first 120 characters, whatever it is, it's 120, 160 something like that, but if you keep that the same all the time it will not be affected because it's the same information. It's not gonna be re-crawled. The stuff that's below it Google doesn't even really look at it because it's just not in those characters. For sure have the follow me stuff. Have links to I don't know some of your things that are on sale. Do whatever you want to do. Link to your about page whatever that is in that shop announcement. Just keep it below those 160 characters. Just to hit that tip because I liked what you said that the first two ... You said 120 characters. I'd say maybe like the first one or two sentences that's all business that needs to be keyword rich. That needs to be descriptive, but we're allowed to play down below. It doesn't matter what we do because, also, how often do shop announcements get opened and read? It's also not that common that you do. Can you think of the last time you opened up somebody else's shop announcement? I've done it but I don't do it very often, so as long as you make that you can play down below. I think that's important for us to know because I like to segment, I like to put characters. I like to do things like that as well. Absolutely, and make it look good, too. Yeah, that stands out. All of her different links stand out really nicely for me. I would be able to find I'd pick my platform and go to it like that so I like how that plays out. I like that we're able to play a little bit down below. Please, oh, one second, Tim. I have a question, Tim. Is it the same on the mobile platform, or does it not matter? It's not gonna matter. Your mobile is gonna be exactly what you put in to your Etsy shop like right now, so it's not gonna make any difference at all. Thank you. Awesome, all right, so let's go onto the next tip. This is a tip that I've talked about for a long time, and it's interesting so let's look at your shop sections here so you can see these shop sections. You might think these might not matter for anything at all, but guess what, these are actually the keywords, the meta keywords, and the tags for your shop. Jewelry, home decor, weaving and fringe hangings. I'll show you this in the backend here in a minute, but these are so important, and they're so important to use all 10. You're saying that if somebody was looking at Crafturday the search engines associate Crafturday the storefront with fringe hangings, jewelry, home decor, weavings because they're put right there together. Yes, they're the actual tags, the keywords, the tags for that shop for this Crafturday homepage for your shop. They're super important. I see a lot of times where people are putting in fancy all the little numbers and dots, and whatever you guys do like smiley faces and stuff that is not helping you at all. It might look good, but it's not helping you at all anywhere, also, we are able to have 10 shop sections. You got to use all 10 as much as you can. Maybe split things up. I'm not opposed to people having a sales section, that's fine, put it at the bottom. Put it at the bottom, but make sure that these sections are all the keywords that you want Google and people and whatever to associate with your Etsy shop. Those are the key things. We've got our title, we've got our announcement, and we got our shop sections. What I'm gonna do here, guys, I'm gonna show you where this all is, and this is gonna get all funky and technical, but you're gonna love it I know you are. Anywhere on your Etsy shop it doesn't matter what browser I'm using Chrome you can use Firefox they all have it I'm gonna right-click in the white space, and I'm gonna view this page source. You're like what in the world just happened? This is all the stuff that's going on backend. It's not even really HTML it's just what Google sees, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna look here. We're gonna look, meta stuff, meta stuff. Look, meta, here's the title, look at that. There's the title so for a self-expressive soul living on the fringe buy Crafturday. It's always for some reason Etsy puts in there this buy Crafturday day, so you want it to make sense. You want this to form a sentence at the end, so this is why your shop title is so important because it actually is the meta title for your shop. You just said something really important. You want this sentence to make sense. You want to remember that they're gonna add buy, your shop name to the end of that sentence, so it's not just your tagline, it's not someplace to just get clever, but you want it to be a sentence that makes sense, and then know that they are gonna add buy, shop name to whatever sentence you put there. Absolutely, so let's look at the next one, guys. We've got the meta keywords. Look, fringe hangings, jewelry, home decor and weavings. If you remember those are all shop sections over here. That's why they're so important. If you have all those crazy things in there it's just not making sense to Google, and there they sit right there. Tim, one more second. Let's say this we're a website not an Etsy store. Let's even say this was a blog. We're saying when we have those two things the title and then the content we're basically saying that this is what that website is about is that right? The shop categories are basically telling search engines that this is what this site is about. If you land on it it's about fringed hangings, jewelry, home decor and weaving. Absolutely, 100%. Important to know. I think people are getting their minds blown. Lily, are you getting any feedback about that? We have some questions to define that. Yeah, it is mind blowing. We are getting people. They're like, okay, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Let me finish the description part, just talk about that for a minute, and then we'll take questions. Absolutely, we're following your lead. Awesome, so we've got title, keywords and description so look at this, guys. Sorry, Vanessa, but you could see all these little hearts, these fancy little dots and things. It's not good for search engine observation at all because it's just not. They'll mean nothing in search engine. Basically, they get taken out you read it it's Crafturday handcrafted home decor and jewelry for the self-expressive soul living on the fringe, but I kind of like this sentence, but you can add a little bit more, so home decor and jewelry. I think for you, your fringe hangings are super important because, look, you got 27 of them so add that in there. Home decor, jewelry, fringe hangings for the self-expressive soul living on the fringe. That totally makes sense so I think that's great. I would say get the fringe hangings in there to grab that because you have so many of those. Google is saying where this fringe hanging I don't see it. Those are the keys, guys, of just when you're thinking about your shop when you're thinking about all this is just your shop, though, we haven't even looked at a listing and how that works. If you have any questions I'd be happy to take them. Hey, Tim, everybody in the chatroom is like this is really amazing interesting stuff, so thank you so much. Awesome. Handmade by Edwella asks you mentioned briefly how to get to that page, but people missed it so if you could go back and repeat how to get to that screen that you were working on. Absolutely, so whatever browser you're in it doesn't matter I'm not a Mac user I'm sorry, but somehow you can do it on Mac, but if you're on any browser you right-click on the white space you kind of see that come up, and you see this thing called View page source, and you click on it, and it's gonna open it up in a new tab, and you could see it all there. You see stuff like you're logged in, user name, and all that kind of stuff, and you see other things like links and things, but right down here we're gonna start seeing it blocked off is where all your data is that you want to see, so right there. I see , so for Mac users they could probably go online and Google how to view the page source, right? Yeah, page source. Okay, great. A couple other questions. Also, one more by Handmade by Edwella her or his question is should your keywords match your title description? Yes, your keywords should be like we're doing here for Vanessa here we're gonna say add fringe hangings in there because I see that's the most thing that she's selling that's what she wants to rank for. Yes, get fringe hangings possibly in if you can fit it in the title, and clearly let's put it in the shop announcement, and can get it in there. Everything is all tying together, and then when we start getting into listings you still want to use as much as you can the same 10 keywords that are your shop sections if you're using 10 for sure. Okay, great, and I have another question, but before I get there Parish Productions had an answer for us. For the Mac it's right-click, and then you right-click and go to inspect. It works the same in the Mac with the right-click mouse. That's for everybody who has a Mac. Erin's question is if you change any of that information how long does it take the crawlers to recognize it? Great question. It's a funny question. I'm sure the information is out there, but I would say weeks really. I guess you just don't really know because it really could affect you in a way, so that's why do it now. Do it after we talk today and just do it. Figure out what you want to do. Find your keywords and find the things you want to rank for. I recommend I'm just gonna pull it up we won't get into it today, but, obviously, the keyword planner just type in Google keyword and you'll find this planner, but you can see what keywords are being searched, volume, all that kind of stuff. I mean, that's another day. We won't have time to get into that today, but just use that and find out what makes sense for your business, what makes sense for your Etsy shop and stick with those. Stick with words that have high search volume maybe low competition. You'll see all that stuff in there, but that just means that a lot of people are searching for it, and there's not a lot of pages that are actually trying to rank for it out there. Also, too, do some research on Etsy. Go on Etsy, go into the search, and see who's using what out there in your niche in your space, but there's no reason to see what everybody else is doing, and maybe just tweak it a little bit do something different. There's one more thing, too. You talked about the importance. You talked about how long it takes to get it recognized on there it does take a long time, so I'm gonna toss this question because people might not be asking it, but it needs to be answered. I'm going on vacation should I change my shop announcement to tell everybody about it? No, do not change it. Do not go in there and change your shop to say, oh, I'm gone, or whatever it is, on vacation. This is something that, I mean, I've seen, I grew up on Etsy and we didn't have vacation mode. I actually tell people don't put your shop on vacation. Figure out how to do it when you're on vacation. Maybe you're telling people shipping is gonna be a little bit later or whatever it is, but I recommend it. I don't know what you think, Lisa, but I will not put my shop, or did not put my shop on vacation because, hey, if somebody finds me on Pinterest, somebody finds me on Google, somebody finds me on Facebook somewhere, and they can't buy something from me you just lost a sale. They're not gonna fill out a form and say contact me when you get back, I mean, that's my feeling. Okay, a couple of things because I really want to drive that point home. First of all, we've talked about this it was a long time ago, but, also, putting the shop on vacation shuts down all the keywords. Now you have to rebuilt all of that whenever you get back. There's no reason to take down a site, and then try to rebuild it every time you come back. There are alternative things that you can do. Second, I know we've said it, but I'm gonna say one more thing about the shop announcement. It's not the place to announce sales. It's not the place to take advantage of announcements you want to see don't go all caps there. For example, free shipping from Vanessa that's not the place to put don't make free shipping the first words you say there because you want your users to see it. They're already more interested in the storefront altogether by itself. They're more interested in your shop cohesion. They're not so much interested in that, and that's not the place to announce sales, so don't do it there. Once you set it and you know it's keyword rich, and you know it's gonna attract the right customers leave it alone, and let it start to gain traction with search. Let it get a foothold. Yes, please. Where should we make those announcements? Let's talk about that, but Tim won't tell us where to do that. I want to use our time with him with SEO, but let's talk about that for sure. Okay, two quick questions. I didn't want to put fringe hanging in all the titles that have the fringe hanging because I don't think people are searching that. I think they're searching wall hanging or tapestry because no one really knows what a fringe hanging is, so I don't know if I really want to be popular with that term, so it's kind of like hard with that. I don't know what you guys recommend. I'm gonna let Tim answer. Tim, that's Vanessa the actual shop owner, but you're saying wall hangings, wall hanging is what you want to stick. Fringe it was so unique about that, so I would recommend having fringe in there because it's unique, but in that case it's not exclusive, it's not excluding people looking for wall hangings. It's inclusive of everybody looking for wall hangings, but it is categorizing that, and adding that special unique touch that it's fringe, but I'm gonna turn that back over to Tim. Wall hangings, I'm just going off of what I think I know there's got to be a huge, huge, huge search volume for wall hangings, and also there's got to be tons and tons of competition out there, so ranking for wall hangings is probably not gonna happen. If you go on the Google keyword planner, keyword tool, whatever you want to call it, and you search in fringe hangings if you see that maybe there's a good 2,000 searches per month, or something like that whatever it is, imagine if you could control and get your items. I mean, you have 27 fringe hanging items imagine you could give those up on Google, and control all of those searches for fringe hangings because you're not gonna rank for wall hangings it's not gonna happen because it's such a broad thing, but fringe is so unique and so drilled down that it's just different. I would say just do the research and figure that out, and figure out what's gonna be better for you. Yeah, and if it's not fringe because you have a lot of really cool wall hangings carve your own niche with something, and take advantage of that niche. Absolutely. By the way, one of our students online, Rowan said they just googled fringe wall hanging, and Crafturday came up number three in Google. Awesome. That's awesome. So that's great. Tim, if you want to move to the next you have some more websites to look at, right? Absolutely, yeah, we have some other shops that we're gonna look at for a little bit, yeah. We have some other shops here. We might as well just do a little bit of critique with them, and just show you guys. The next one here I think this is Kaitlynd I'm pretty sure she's in the audience. Let's just look at this really quick. We're kind of gonna talk about the same thing, but just kind of just to drill this into your guy's head, and just say, yeah, this makes sense like shop sections necklace, bracelets, key chains, earrings those are very, very broad keywords, so not why not make it a little bit more unique. You could even add boho in there or something like that. I'm just kind of just getting an idea. Add something in there that makes that more unique because I'm sure that Google wants to know that it's about necklaces, but maybe just make it a little bit more, yeah, Lisa. Let me clarify for everybody. We're saying don't get clever, don't be too generic, but be specific and add a little bit more definition to those shop categories then feels natural because you are appealing to search. Absolutely, then just looking here at her shop title right here you're just being redundant where you're saying it again, so get in there and get those keywords in there whatever those are gonna be and make that sentence because really what you're saying right here let's look and see what it says. Y'all know what it's gonna say. Oh, I see, yeah. You see what it's gonna say. It's gonna say asset ASETdesign and jewelry by ASETdesign on Etsy. So, really, you're just saying it again, and right above that it says ASETdesign. So get in there change that up. Here's her shop announcement. We've got get ready to go on an adventure, and let your spirit roar. That tells a little bit of a story, but it doesn't grab those keywords, and then, also, too, even though we say that people might not click on that just add some more stuff in there that you might want to add in there whatever that might be. You saw an example, Vanessa's example was pretty cool. Tim, let me just while you're there, actually, if you don't mind scrolling down just a minute for her listings because I can now see on her listings now she's using very descriptive, so for anybody in the same boat I just want to give them a few examples. If you need to expand your tagline where she's saying things like boho chic, one of a kind jewelry, stones, beads. Those are all keyword rich. Those can now become sentences for taglines by ASETdesign. Then the same thing with her shop categories. Now it could be stone sets, it could be bead sets, it could be stone necklaces that type of thing, so you're basically just adding in you're making it a little bit specific, more specific, more specific than seems natural, and you're creating a tagline that would make a good sentence for your search results. That's awesome. Since we're sitting here on this let's look at this really quick. You've all heard about stuffing your titles, and all that kind of stuff, and Lisa and I love this topic. Basically, Google doesn't want to see it, and neither does the shopper. If someone is searching on Etsy, or they're finding you on Google, and you have this enormous long title with like a lot of people put lines and commas. If you're gonna tell somebody about this necklace would you call it this big old long thing with commas just trying to describe it. No, you're gonna call it something in particular, and give it a name. I mean, a lot of people go back and forth like naming things a specific name, or giving it all the keywords. I think she's done an okay job here. What do you think, Lisa? Yeah, it doesn't offend me. It's a little run-on, but it doesn't necessary offend me because at least if I read it as a sentence at least it goes together. I would clean it up always because I always really enjoy if I name something, if I name a product and it's three to five words I enjoy then searching my product, and finding my product in Google results. I feel like I'm doing a good job when I'm the first thing that comes up whenever I search that product title. I like a little bit more specific. I noticed, also, that you used boho chic, boho chic, should I say boho chic? I'm having such a hard time reading the word chic, and then saying chic. No, you spelled it absolutely right, but you say boho chic and I don't know I would rather that in your tagline, and sometimes in your listings versus like every listing, but I'd like maybe a little bit more specific, maybe it's a little run-on. I'm not entirely offended by it as a stuffed title though. Right, when I first looked at it I felt the same way. I want to say one more thing. I like your price point I like it, and it's a strong value. You're saying something very strong about the quality of it. You're saying there is something very strong about how much it costs. Now your title has to match that. As far as if I'm looking at that price point I want something more specific and stronger, and with more clarity. I like that idea. Since we're sitting here on a listing let's go ahead and look at so search engine for a listing because a lot of times when you're finding things on Google you're finding a listing and not an actual entire shop. Let's do the same exact thing, and we're gonna look at the page source for this listing right here. We're gonna find the data. The title is obviously the title, but, look, you guys, boho chic, lapis, I can't even pronounce all this, but one of a kind long hanging, and then it cuts it off and it says by ASETdesign. When everybody is stuffing these titles to this certain point it doesn't even matter. This right here this is the end this is the end of what Google is actually looking at. Brilliant. There's arguments and things that say, well, it matters in the Etsy search. I'm gonna say that it doesn't because I don't think that Etsy wants listings like that. I don't think Etsy wants people to stuff their titles because they want what looks good on Google, what looks good in the shopper's eye, so I'm go ahead and say that Etsy is gonna do the exact same thing in their algorithm. I don't know that. I don't think anybody really knows that. Maybe (mumbles) from EBSpreneurship does, a little plug there, but, yeah, this is what it is, guys, this is your title right there. How many characters is that? I can't count right now, but that's it that's all that matters. The next thing we want to look at is the description. The description is this right here, so let's see where that it is in our shop. See that sentence right there and see where that sits. Obviously, guys, this is going to be right here. What was it? It goes down to when worth it. This is all that you get right here for the description of your item. When you're not including the same keywords that you're using in your title, and you're not using them in this same chunk of lettering there's a disconnect between what Google has seen what this page is all about. For the record that actually looks like one to two, no, I'm gonna say two solid sentences of your product listing. I don't know how many characters are in there, but you can pretty much assume that your first two sentences your first 1-1/2 sentences you use in your product listing is what it's reading right there. In these descriptions I'm not saying go and completely repeat what you have in your title because it doesn't look good, but use the same keywords. Write that sentence and make sure that it looks good and it makes sense, and incorporate those keywords that you used in this title right there. Let me ask you a question right there. Let's say that she calls this a lapis lazuli long hanging necklace. Should she, because we see this a lot, too, because we know that's keywords we all think we know a little somethin' somethin' about SEO let's be honest. Should she, we see this a lot, then go say lapis lazuli one of a kind long hanging necklace as the first sentence, period, because a lot of people just take their title, and then they repeat it in the first paragraph is that helpful or should we start to talk to our customer there SEO wise? SEO wise I would do both. I would incorporate that long tail meaning like a longer phrase. Like work it into a sentence then. Work it into a sentence because that first sentence is important, and I'm sure Lisa has talked all about engaging your customer with your descriptions. If she hasn't yet she will, but this is what they're reading. I've seen descriptions that are just ridiculously long, and nobody is reading that, but they're reading maybe a little bit about it at the beginning and engaging. We don't want it to not make sense, and that's kind of like the theme of everything that we've talked about today. You want everything to make sense in Google's eyes and your shopper's eyes as they're reading it. That's great. I have a quick question. Tim, we have a quick question. Why would you repeat words from the title to the description? Wouldn't you use the description to add more keywords? I'm gonna speak, but please, Tim, correct me if I'm wrong, but you are trying to create a concrete base that this is what this page is about. Don't think about it as an Etsy storefront. Don't think about it as a product listing. You're basically telling the Internet that this page is about this content. You're basically saying if I land on this page I'm gonna get a lapis lazuli one of a kind hanging necklace. When your content when those words are sprinkled in all the important parts, or mixed into all the important parts you're giving the search readers reason to believe that that's a relevant place for them to land because you're telling them this content this is all the page is all about this particular content. Great point, Lisa. Let's take a look at it's Kaitlynd's shop so we're just gonna go back and look. Right away Kaitlynd has automatically one page that can be found on Google and that's her shop. Now she has 40 pages. Just think of your listings as pages that can be found by a Google search. She has 40 pages that can be somehow ranked for, and found on Google in search engines, so that's really super important. I actually noticed something that Kaitlynd doesn't have an about page and that really bothers me. Hey, Kaitlynd, and everybody whose starting an Etsy shop, or has an Etsy shop make sure you have your about page because I don't see her little link here for the about page. Make sure you have that about page filled out. Now we can put video in there which is absolutely amazing, and you can put pictures in there and tell your story, but guess what? There's another page that can be found on Google, and have your keywords in there. Think about this, guys, I always say let's say you have two of the same listings that are pretty close you can do one or two things. You can actually try to have the same keywords, rank for those same keywords, or you can go after different keywords that might be a little bit different, but still explain that item, and now you're ranking this page for more than one keyword. I think like Lisa was saying sprinkling these keywords in and out throughout beyond this point is not gonna matter. It doesn't matter because Google is not even going beyond that. It looks and sees that there's that content there, but it's going to stop at that point. You don't want to try to rank just one listing for 10 keywords it's not gonna happen because you don't have the space, and Google is not even gonna do that, so you want to try to rank it for one, one keyword per item and this is blowing people away because they're like I want to put all these keywords, and I'll rank for everything, but it's not gonna happen. You want to really highly focus on one keyword per listing, and then get listings. They always say that there's this magic number of 100 listings, but I mean that's, sure, whatever, but the more listings you have the more traffic you're gonna get from outside. The more traffic you're gonna get from inside Etsy the more listings that you have. Obviously, manage it the way you can manage it, and if you have more listings that's great. Another thing I just thought of because I'm scatter-brained and whatever, but if you have listings and you have the ability to add more than one to the quantity, and you're remaking these things what I'm saying is if they're not one of a kind make sure you put five quantity or whatever it is so that listing does not go away. As soon as that listing goes away because you ran out of the quantity then when you relist that listing you have to start over from scratch. Let's stay there for a minute because not only that, but we've been talking about how you have to really take your time to invest in those listings to really take your time. I love a repeatable listing. I love a re-makable product it saves so much time because the listing is done, and if you've invested in a listing you know that it's gonna sell well. When you say that and again we've put this into terms of this is a website basically. This is a webpage and Google wants to know about it, and wants to know on that webpage, so just like when you put your shop announcement on vacation you shut everything down you take it off you pull it back from Google saying don't worry about looking for this anymore. Same thing when you let your listings sell out they're gone, they're down. Google's not looking for them anymore because you told Google it doesn't exist anymore. That's key that's important. I know a lot of people are getting a lot from that tip that's really important. Absolutely. Tim, did you have another example to show us? Yeah, I have one more shop if we want to take a look at it. Why don't we walk through everything you talked about with that last shot to really bring it home I think that will help. Right, let's do it. This next one is gonna be Erika, and I know she's in the audience as well. Number one, I might say a little bit more because I see some things, but there is no banner we don't have a banner. We need a banner there we need branding. We haven't heard from you about the images, and what those mean at this time either. Right-right, We haven't even got into that. Every single image that you upload including your banner has metadata to it, and what that metadata is gonna be it's gonna be actually your shop name. Obviously, if you're blogging or something the alt tag for that image is actually gonna be your shop name. Anytime that we can add images we want to do that use all five. Obviously, we want to have our banner up here because that's adding branding. You could put call to actions up there. Actually, another great place where people ask, hey, where can I put free shopping? Where can I put sale or whatever? Throw it on your banner. Maybe not make it so overpowering, but if you want to add free shipping add it in your banner as far as on a picture. I also like when people put in their graphics follow me they put in their shop banner follow me, and then they point cute curly swirly arrows down to their likes and follow buttons because that's a great way you're capturing their attention there, and that's a great way to use that space at the top. That's a great call to action for people to say, yeah, okay, I love this shop. I'm gonna follow them and all of a sudden they follow them on Twitter and Facebook, but that's great. Let's go ahead and check this out. We're just diving into the shop sections here. We've got three sections definitely want to get as many as possible here, and then clutches, pouches and key fobs very, very general just got to get more specific as you can. Then, again, your shop title there's nothing there, nothing there helping you. I just want to show you what this looks like because y'all know what it's gonna say. Again, look at that that's silly, right? Thread and wanderlust by thread and wanderlust on Etsy. Yeah, and so many of us have that as well. So many of us do that because we just think we're just filling it out. We're filling it out we're not really sure what they're asking us. We're not sure what it means to our shop, so I think that's a common mistake. I think a lot of people are doing that. Absolutely, so get in there, Erika, and get that changed. Maybe do that from your phone right now. No, I'm just kidding. I actually like this stylish and versatile handmade accessories for those who want to stay organized whenever adventure takes them. I like that I really like that a lot, but maybe there's not the keywords in there. I don't know I really like that. Let's see how that reads on Google. How about instead of handmade accessories you're actually using key chains or key fobs which are prevalent on the storefront. Right, and you can see she has some extra room because like follow me on she has some more characters there that she can play with for that description, yeah, add those in there. I love that I was hoping there was gonna be a good example like a well-written shop description I like that a lot. Let's take a look at one of these listings. I think I opened this earlier. Let's look at the about page really quick just because she has one and I talked about it earlier. Look, Erika doesn't even have anything on her about page. You're missing out on a lot. She does have her Facebook and Instagram, and Pinterest connected which is great, but, man, get those pictures in there. Get this whole story about who you are there, and if you can get a video in there, too. I know that's just a new thing that Etsy added, but get that filled out because right now this page is doing nothing for your SEO, even just for someone who says, hey, what's this shop about? Nothing, I'm kidding, it's not about nothing, but this is telling me that there's nothing there, and really it's telling me that they didn't take the time to fill this out and I want to know more about them because I just clicked on that and I can't because there's nothing there so do that. Get that information in there. Get some pictures of your awesome key chains. Get pictures of you in your studio making these things. Tell that story get those people more interested in you, and your brand right now. Let's look at this listing. I think I pulled this one up earlier for myself. This one is interesting. Key chain, key fob, key wristlet, and then she's telling what the color and everything is. In all fairness Erika hadn't taken my class yet, but she's here now. Awesome, awesome. Well, you're getting the full critique, Erika. If I was gonna go up to somebody and say, hey, I have this awesome item for sale it's a key chain, key fob, key wristlet, short lanyard, multicolor chevron Fiona, and that's what I'm trying to sell you, I mean, that's a mouthful. Really this isn't like the most stuffed title that I've ever seen but it really is one because you're trying to rank for a key chain, you're trying to rank for a key fob, this one, this one and the color, too. I say just leave the color out, I mean, they can see it right there. They can see the color in the picture, right? Wait, let's stay right there because I actually just talked about product titles. What will happen is how this can work is that you'll call this a multicolor chevron key chain, and then you'll call the next thing a flowery, brown and pink key fob, so you're just gonna keep using the same things, but just get them all out of the same title, and it still will work, and you'll still have everything that you need to bring people to your storefront you'll still have that searchability. Awesome, also, too, guys, she's only using three pictures so get two more in there, and I like how she's showing the size that's great. That looks good there but let's get two more in there. Here's the thing she did good here. Actually, this is the one that I liked and I read it first. With these cute padded key fobs, maybe that's what she's trying to rank for, maybe not, but she's actually engaging them. I love what Lisa says you're trying to get them to picture I'm gonna totally butcher this, Lisa, but you're trying to get people to picture them holding the item and bringing it into their house, into their home, basically, so I think that's pretty good. With that she's saying see padded key fobs. Padded gave me a visual in my mind that the picture didn't even make me think of yet. When you say that that really sparks. I now am imagining something soft in my hand. When you say looking for your keys at the bottom of your purse, oh, my gosh, everybody has that image. Everybody has that memory right now, so you did a fabulous job of bringing that product to life, and remembering that they're trying it on in their mind right there it's really good. Yeah, I love it and I think, too, I mean, I'm not an expert on key fobs, but I'm pretty sure if you did the keyword search for key fobs there's gonna be tons and tons of competition. Why not try to rank for a longer keyword phrase like padded key fobs, I mean, that's awesome. Right, again, it does not exclude anybody. It does not exclude people looking for a key fob, but at the same time it gives you niche ranking, and that's what you want to go for. I love it. Guys, let's just kind of recap. I know we blew through these three Etsy shops or whatever, but this in SEO I think a lot of people are like it's so scary and it's like I just don't know how to do it, but if you go back there is really only for your entire shop there's really only three places you need to focus on. It's your shop sections, your title and your announcement. That's all we have the flexibility in when we have an Etsy shop, that's all we can really do and that's enough because it's really the entire metadata that you really need for a website. If you had your own website you could do a few more things, but this is really what it is so remember that, focus on those three things. Then in our listings you want to do the same thing so we're looking at the title, and we're looking at description and that is it for your SEO, but I think the key is when you start figuring out what those keywords are, and ranking for those in those listings, and sticking with it doing those things where you're not putting your shop on vacation. You're not letting those listings run out. You're not changing that shop announcement. You're not doing anything that's gonna hurt that SEO once you have it built. Tim, you've really, I mean, I don't even need to ask really I know that you've given us some incredible tips today. I know that people are gonna be able to take action on these things right now right today, and make good improvements to their searchability. We have a question here, but before we go on I want to thank you so much because I know that's gonna be very valuable to Etsy sellers everywhere. There's things in there that we don't think about we're not sure how to fill out and that really helps us. That's really gonna work wonders for everybody watching, so thank you so much. Kaitlynd has a question. First of all, Tim, thank you. I had no idea and that's why I'm here today because I'm like, oh, my goodness, but the question that I have is regarding posting when creating a listing in Etsy you have 13 tags that you can associate your listing with in Etsy. Where do those fall in? I thought like I was under the mindset that those would come up in SEO. Oh, I see. Right, so that's where I put my effort into was like I'm gonna get my 13 tags in and that's gonna be what. I know, look at them scroll and look at how great. It's interesting because these tags they really meant something years ago. As far as the actual search engine they're not even in here as far as the metadata they're not even in here. That means that those tags actually don't mean anything for the actual search engine as far as Google and things like that but. I think the chatroom has probably just exploded. But, listen, they actually do mean something for the actual Etsy search. I know we didn't even get into it, but as you can see let's look at these. Accessories, key chains, lanyards, key chains, all these things you actually do want to put those in there, and fill out all 13 because it does have something to do because, look, they're clickable. That does actually stink for us as Etsy sellers because as soon as I click on that it completely took me away from that shop, and I'm not even there anymore. Still fill those out, and the reason I didn't focus on that is because they are important for the Etsy search just fill them out, but they're not important for SEO as far as the search engine is concerned, and as far as I'm concerned, I keep saying concerned, I really want to focus on the SEO for search engine. I want to be found on Google. Etsy is only whatever it is, I mean, they have literally a billion page views in a month or whatever, but I'm really focused on getting that traffic outside of Etsy because, listen, when I started listing things on Etsy in I could list a listing and get 100 views in an hour, but that was all traffic from Etsy. Now as you guys know we can list something, and get no views ever, but it's all about we've already talked about it today, but it's social media getting it out there, and doing those things, and driving traffic to certain listings, and all these things that I teach people, but, yes, going back to the question because I went on a rabbit trail, but fill those out, and put the keyword that you're trying to rank for in number one, yeah, number one. You can customized those, right? Yeah. You can customize those, but for this one I would change this I'd say padded key fobs, and put that as number one because in Etsy's search algorithm relevancy whatever you want to call it that's gonna be most important so put that in there. Great question, I know we didn't cover it, but it's kind of a lost thing. It's a smart strategy. So I wanted to ask all of you who got your websites critiqued including Erika and Vanessa we heard from Kaitlynd a little bit how it felt and what you learned how you think it will inspire you to evolve your website or your Etsy store, Kaitlynd? I already have a homework list for tonight. Good. Nice. Like, honestly, what's on my mind right now is like I wish that I just had focused on my Etsy shop instead of expanding to my own personal website. It was on Handmade as well because now I'm thinking I have to change this on everything you know what I mean because I had the dots and the lines, and all these irrelevant keywords. I'm really glad to hear what you pointed out. I would have never known about all these meta tags, and how the tags in the bottom don't even matter for Etsy. It's really helpful and I'm gonna go home, and fill out that about me page. Great, super and valuable information, Tim. We have just have three quick questions for you Tim before we let you go. One student asked should I have my logo, or my actual headshot for my profile photo? Good question. It depends on what you want. I think everybody does something different. This is just a space that really doesn't matter as far as SEO is concerned it doesn't do anything, but, I mean, whatever you want to do. I used to switch it around and put an item in there, or one of your best shots or something of your items, and you could put your face in there. Hopefully, you're gonna have that about page that's filled out that is gonna tell your story, and show your face and all those kind of things. It depends on what you want to put in there. How do you feel about that, Lisa? Yeah, I think that's a personal choice, and not so relevant to the overall shops cohesion. Right, because the only place like that if you're in the Etsy forums, and if you're doing treasuries and things like that that little picture is gonna show up. I mean, I remember back in the day when everybody is on the forums, and you knew them by their picture that's not even relevant to what we're talking about. Good question. Bob has a question what about naming your images with Google keywords that represent the picture does Etsy change the image names when you upload? No, let's see if we can look at it really quick so I can show you. Let's see if we can inspect this picture. This is another aspect. This picture this is just something even crazier, but I actually inspected this item just like in the ... But look what it's doing. You can see the image right there it's showing it. This is funny, so look at this, this is the actual title. Our title and I actually told you guys wrong it's actually our shop name because I haven't looked at this stuff in a while, but your title of your item is gonna be the alt tag for this picture, and it's gonna be the same exact alt tag for everyone of your pictures, so that's another reason that we want to make sure that these titles are really good making sense, and have your keywords right in there because the alt tag Google can't look at a picture, and see what a picture is. Maybe they have that technology now, but this alt tag is telling those Google spiders or bots, whatever you want to call it this alt tag right here is telling Google what this picture is all about. You can't change it you can't do anything it's always gonna be in your title. Yeah, there you go because that's one more reason to make that a powerful, strong, specific title. Yes, exactly, exactly. Then, Tim, the final question we have from the online students is does it matter if category titles are in all caps does it help with SEO? All caps, I say don't do all caps because it's gonna look like that on Google, it's gonna look like that in your shop. I think it does affect it because Google does like proper grammar and proper spelling, and things like that so you want to make sure that it looks good. I've never liked all caps so if you're doing that just change it back to normal because shop home is written capital and then lower case and then lower case, so write it like that keep that cohesion. Even inside of your shop sections make that look all the same. I agree and something that just occurred to me that I was thinking about is when you go into the shop categories a lot of people get creative over there so they might do not only all caps, but put a space in between each letter to kind of draw out the category then what's that doing? That's no longer a word. That's not even gonna be relevant, so it's something to be really careful for, and really watch for. Correct, like special characters and spacing, and things like that just take them all out of there, put those words in there and you're going to be good. When you have these shop sections like everything else when you have them set don't change them. I say, okay, fine you can have one down there at the bottom I'll let you have one for like a sale or whatever it is you can change that one around because like 10, yeah, all right, but maybe you want to change that last one around maybe have a holiday sale you're having some kind of sale save that for the very last one. Change that one around that's not gonna affect you very much. That's fabulous, Tim, I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing these tips with us. I know that was a powerful lesson. I know that a lot of people got a lot out of that. I want to thank you so much. I feel like we've all learned so much here today. Where can people find you where do you suggest they go? Yeah, guys, the best place to find me is Handmadeology.com or just search it there on Facebook, and just connect up, I mean, we're growing like mad. We post content all the time all our content even beyond what we do and just connect up, and share us all over. We want to try to hit a million fans and that's coming, but, I mean, it's a while off, but I love this community, guys, just helping people succeed reach those goals whatever that is maybe it's quitting your job, or paying a bill with your Etsy shop that's what we're here for so, thanks, Lisa. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Tim. All right, guys, see you. So, again, everyone at home you can find Tim at Handmadeology.com. It's Handmade O-L-O-G-Y all one word .com