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Etsy Shop Critiques with Lisa and Tim

I want to thank you again, Tim, for joining us. I think there's, I think, 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 and 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, 'cause 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 and I didn't even know who you were so, that was awesome and here we are today. Yeah, you better recognize, no (chuckles). Right, right, alright, alright, you can't see my face, so. Alright guys, so today, we actually have some, we have some shops that you guys submitted and 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 to...

day, so I have, this shop is Vanessa's, and we're gonna check this out. We're gonna check out some SEO tips and these are gonna be, 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 for the Etsy search, 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 that you wanna look it is getting in here and checking out your, and I don't know how this is gonna show up on that screen but, oh, it looks good. It's showing up well, it's doing well. Okay awesome, awesome, so our very first thing is gonna be our shop title and this is so super important for SEO because this is telling, this is actually telling Google and search engines what you're shop is all about. So let's look at this one really quick and just kind of critique it. For the self expressive soul living on the fringe, so, that really doesn't tell anything to Google, like what this shop is all about, so the key here guys, there's only like, I think it's like 70 characters or something, it's pretty small, but you can only put in a little bit there but you wanna make sure, it might be 60 characters but you wanna make sure that your keywords that you're trying to rank for are in there and when I say rank, I mean when Google, when somebody types in like, fringe hangings or something like that, like that's an example on the side here but when they type that in, you wanna be found, so you wanna make sure that this makes sense for your keywords, and then we're gonna look at these, 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. So the next thing that we wanna take a look at, yes? Can I ask you a question? So, if we're looking at this shop and this is Vanessa's shop, Crafturday, so 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, so like, yes, I would say, I would put a keyword in there and whatever that is, maybe it's fringe hangings, like you said, for the self expressive soul. Yeah, so check that out, change that up, get those keywords in there. So the next place we wanna look at, so this is super important, guys. So this is your shop announcement and everybody loves to mess around with this, okay and change it up and put their fancy little, these little icons in there, they're not even icons, they're just dots and things and lines but, but this is the actual meta description of what your shop really is and so, 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 and so, I like how she has some links here to her, actually right to her shop, that's fine but the thing is, guys, everybody likes to put in there, they could put in their sales and things right at the top, or right at the beginning so people can see it but the problem is, every time you change that, it changes your metadata information, so then, therefore, Google has to come back and when they recrawl it, you're gonna lose ranking because you're changing that data. Can we stay right there for a minute? Sure. So, 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, 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 recrawled, so yes, the stuff that's below it, Google really doesn't even look at it because it's just not in those characters but yeah, for sure, have the follow me stuff, have links to, I don't know, some of your things that are on sale, so whatever you wanna do, link to your about page, whatever that is in that shop announcement, just keep it below those 160 characters. So just to hit that tip because I like 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 and 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 somebody else's shop announcement? I mean, 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 stands out really nicely for me, so I know 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 it that, does it not matter? Yeah, it's not gonna matter. Your mobile's gonna be exactly what you put into your Etsy shop right now, so it's not gonna make any difference at all, so, yep. Thank you. Awesome, alright, so let's go on to the next tip and this is a tip that I've talked about for a long time and it is, it's interesting, let's look at your shop sections here. So you can see these shop sections and so, you'd like to 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, okay? So, jewelry, home decor, weaving and fringe hanging, so those are actually and 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. So you're saying that if somebody was looking at Crafturday, the search engine associate Crafturday, the storefront, with fringe hangings, jewelry, home decor, weavings because they're put right there together? Yes, yeah, they're the actual, the tags, the keywords, the tags, for this Crafturday, like a homepage for your shop, so they totally are, they're super important. I see a lot of times where people are like putting in fancy, all the little numbers and dots and whatever you guys do, like smiley faces and stuff, well, that does not, that is not helping you at all. It might look good but it's not helping you at all anywhere and so, also, we are able to have 10 shop sections and so, you gotta use all 10 as much as you can, maybe split things up. I'm not opposed to people having a sale section, that's fine, but put it at the bottom, put it at the bottom but make sure that these sections are all the keywords that you want people to associate, Google and people and whatever to associate with your Etsy shop. So those are the key things, so we've got our title, we've got our announcement and we got our shop sections and so, 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. So, anywhere on your Etsy shop, it doesn't matter what browser, I'm using Chrome, you can use Firefox, they all have it but I'm gonna right click in the white space and I'm gonna view this page source and so, you're like, what in the world just happened? So 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, alright, meta stuff, meta stuff and look, meta, here's the title, alright, look at that. There's the title, so for self expressive soul living on the fringe by Crafturday, so it's always, for some reason, Etsy puts in there, this by Crafturday, so you want it to make sense. You want this to form a sentence at the end and so this is why your shop title is so important because it actually is the meta title for your shop. Okay, you just said something really important. So you want this sentence to make sense, you wanna remember that they're gonna add by your shop name to the end of that sentence and so it's not just your tagline, it's not some place to just get clever but you want it to be a sentence that makes sense and then know that they are gonna add by shop name to whatever sentence you put there. Yep, absolutely. So let's look at the next one, guys. We've got the keywords, the meta keywords and look, fringe, hangings, jewelry, home decor and weavings, if you remember, those are all the shop sections over here. Alright, so, that's why they're so important and if you have all those crazy things in there, it's just not making sense to Google and there they sit, right there. Let me stop you right there. Tim, one more second. So, let's say this were a website, not an Etsy store, let's even say this was a blog. So 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 fringe 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. Yeah, but it is mind blowing. We are getting people, they're like, okay, that's what I'm supposed to be doing (chuckles). Gotcha, let me finish the description part and then, just talk about that for a minute, and then we'll take questions. Absolutely, we're following your lead. Awesome, alright, so we got title, keywords and description, so look at this, guys. Sorry, Vanessa, but you can see all these little hearts and fancy little dots and things and it's not good for search engine optimization at all 'cause it's just not. Those mean nothing in search engines, so then it's like, basically they get taken out and it just says, you read it as Crafturday, hand crafted home decor and jewelry for the self expressive soul and living on the fringe but I kind of like this, this sentence but you can add a little bit more. So, home decor and jewelry and 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, what are they called? Fringe hangings for the self expressive soul living on the fringe and then, yeah, so that totally makes sense so I think that's great but I would say, get the fringe hangings in there to grab that because you have so many of those and so, Google is saying, yeah, where is this fringe hanging, I don't see it. So those are the keys, guys, when you're thinking about your shop, when you're thinking about all, this is just your shop, we haven't even looked at a listing and how that works. Alright, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to take them. Hey Tim, yeah, everybody in the chatroom is like, this is some really amazing, interesting stuff, so thank you so much. Handmade by Adwowa asks, they weren't sure, 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, alright so, whatever browser you're in, doesn't matter, I'm not a Mac user, I'm sorry, but somehow you can do it on a Mac but if you're in 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 can 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 are all your data is that you wanna see. So, right there. So for Mac users, they could probably go online and Google how to view the page source, right? Yep, page source. Okay, great. A couple other questions, also one more by Handmade by Adwowa, his question is, should your keywords match your title description? Yes, your keywords should be in, like we're doing here for Vanessa here, we're gonna say, okay add fringe hangings in there because maybe, I see that's the most thing that she's selling, that she wants to rank for but 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 get it in there. So yeah, everything is all tying together and then when we start getting into listings, you still wanna 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 and it works the same on the Mac with a right click mouse. That's for everybody who has a Mac and Ann'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 'cause I don't think anybody, I'm sure the information's out there but I would say weeks, really and 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 and figure out what you wanna do, find your keywords and find the things you wanna rank for and I recommend, I'm just gonna pull it up. We won't get into it today but I, 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. 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 and also too, do some research on Etsy. Go on Etsy, go onto 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 tweak it a little bit, do something different. And there's one more thing too. So 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 go in there and change your shop to saying, I'm gone or whatever, on vacation and this is something that I've, I've seen, I grew up on Etsy and we didn't have vacation mode and so, I actually tell people, don't put your shop on vacation. Figure out how to, figure out how to do it when you're on vacation, alright? Maybe you're telling people shipping's gonna be a little bit later or whatever it is but I recommend and I don't know what you think, Lisa, but I don't, I will not put my shop or I did not put my shop on vacation because, hey, if somebody finds me on Pinterest, if 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, oh, contact me when you get back. I mean, that's my feeling. Okay, a couple of things, 'cause I really wanna 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 rebuild 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 and second, I'm gonna keep, 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. Like, 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? So, where should we make those announcements? Instagram. (audience mumbles) My own thing, let's talk about that but I don't wanna wait, Tim won't tell us where to do that, I wanna use our time with him with SEO but let's talk about that for sure. Okay, I have two quick questions. So, I didn't wanna 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 'cause no one really knows what a fringe hanging is so I don't know if I really wanna be like, 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 and Tim, that's Vanessa, the actual shop owner but you're saying wall hangings, wall hanging is what you want to stick, fringe is what's 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. So, wall hangings, I'm just going off of what I think I know. There's gotta be a huge, huge, huge search volume for wall hangings and also there's gonna be tons and tons of competition out there. So, ranking for wall hangings is probably not gonna happen, so if you go on the Google keyword planner, keyword tool, whatever you wanna call it and you're searching fringe hangings and you see that, okay, if you see that maybe there's a good like 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 if you can get those up on Google and control all of those searches for fringe hangings because you're not gonna rank for wall hangings, it's just not gonna happen, 'cause it's such a broad thing, but fringe is so unique and so drilled down, 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. And if it's not fringe, 'cause 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, Roan said, they just googled fringe wall hanging and Crafturday came up number three in Google (laughs). Exactly, that's awesome. So that's great and Tim, if you wanna move to the next, you have some more websites to look at, right? Absolutely, yeah, we have other shops that we're gonna look at for a little bit, yeah. So, we have some other shops here, we might as well just do a little bit of critique with them and just show you guys. So the next one here, I think this is Kaitlyn, I'm pretty sure, she's in the audience and so, let's just look at this really quick. We're kinda gonna talk about the same thing but just kind of drill this into you guy's head and just say yeah, this makes sense. So like, shop sections, necklace, bracelets, key chains, earrings, those are very, very broad keywords, alright, so why not make it a little bit more unique, you could even add boho in there or something like that, I'm kinda just giving you an idea. Add something in there that makes that more unique because sure, Google wants to know that it's about necklaces but maybe just make it a little bit more, yeah, Lisa? So let me clarify for everybody. So 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 than feels natural because you are appealing to search. Absolutely and so then just looking here at her shop title, so right here you're just being redundant when 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. You all know what it's gonna say. Oh, I see, yeah. You see what it's gonna say? It's gonna say ASETdesign and jewelry by ASETdesign on Etsy. So really, just like, saying it again and right above that it says ASETdesign, so get in there, change that up, here's her shop announcement and so we've got get ready to go on an adventure and let your spirit roar, so 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 wanna add in there, whatever that might be, you saw an example, Vanessa's example was pretty cool. Yeah Tim, let me just, while you're there, actually if you don't mind scrolling down just a minute for her listening, because I can now see on her listings, now she's using very descriptive, so for anybody in the same boat, I just wanna give them a few examples. So 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 keywords rich, those can now become sentences for tagline by ASETdesigns and then, the same thing with her shop categories. Now, it could be stone sets, it could be beat sets, it could be stone bracelet, stone necklaces, that type of thing, so you're basically just adding in, you're making a little bit 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. So you've all heard about stuffing your titles and all that kind of stuff and Lisa and I love this topic and basically, we don't want, Google doesn't want to see it and neither does a shopper, so if someone is searching on Etsy or they're searching, they're finding you on Google and you have this enormous, long title with, a lot of people have like lines and commas, if you're gonna tell somebody about this necklace, would you call it this big old long thing with commas and just trying to describe it, no, you're gonna call it something in particular and give it a name and a lot of people go back and forth in like naming things a specific name or giving it all to 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 necessarily offend me because at least, if I read it as a sentence, as least it goes together but yeah, I would clean it up always because I always really enjoy 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, the first thing that comes up whenever I search that product title. So I like a little bit more specific and I noticed also that you use boho chic, boho chic, should I say boho chic, I have such a hard time reading the 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 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. But oh, I want to say one more thing. I like your price point. I like it and it's a strong value, so you're saying something very strong about the quality of it and you're saying something very strong about how much it costs. Now, your title has to match that. So 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 our listing, let's go ahead and look at, okay 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, so let's do the same exact thing and we're gonna look at the page source for this listing right here and we're gonna find the data. So, 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's 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's actually looking at. So there's arguments and things that say, well, it matters in the Etsy search and I am 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 shopper's eyes, so I'm gonna go ahead and say that Etsy is gonna do the exact same thing in their algorithm, I don't know that and I don't think anybody really knows that, maybe Jason Malinak from Etsy-Preneurship knows, a little plug there, but yeah, this is what it is, guys. This is your title right there. I mean, how many characters is that, I can't count right now but that's it. That's all that matters. So, the next thing you want to look at is the description. So the description is this right here, so let's see where that is in our shop. You can see all that sentence right there and see where that sits, so obviously guys, this is going to be right here. So, what was it? Goes down to when worth it, so this is all that you get right here for the description of your item and so, when you're not including the actual, 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 is seeing what this page is all about. Okay, so for the record, that actually looks like one to two, no, I'm gonna say two solid sentences of your product listing. So, I mean, I don't know how many characters are in there but you can pretty much assume that your first two sentences, your first one and a half sentences you use in your product listing is what it's reading right there, okay? Yeah and I say, so in these descriptions, I'm not saying like go and completely repeat what you have in your title, 'cause it doesn't look good but use the same keywords. So write that sentence, make sure that it looks good and makes sense and incorporate those keywords that you used in this title right there. Let me ask you a question right there. Yes? So let's say that she calls this a lapis lazuli long hanging necklace, should she, 'cause we see this a lot too, because we know that's keywords, we all think we know a little something something about SEO, let's be honest, so 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, maybe that's that long tail, long tail meaning a longer phrase. Like work it into a sentence then? Work it into a sentence and I mean, because that first sentence is important and I'm sure Lisa's 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's reading that but they're reading maybe a little bit about it at the beginning and 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. So I have a quick question. Tim, we have a quick question. So 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, so 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 and so you're basically saying, if I land on this page, I'm gonna get a lapis lazuli one of a kind hanging necklace, so when your content, when those words are sprinkled in all the important parts or mixed into all the important parts, you are giving the search readers reason to believe that that's a relevant place for them to land because you're telling them this content, the page is all about this particular content. And so, when you think about, a great point Lisa is like, so let's take a look at, it's Kaitlyn's right, Kaitlyn's shop, so we're just gonna go back and look, so right away Kaitlyn has automatically one page that can be found on Google and that's her shop, now she has 40 pages, just think of like your listings as pages that can be found by Google search. So she has 40 pages that can be somehow, can be ranked for and found on Google, in search engines, so that's really super important and I actually noticed something that Kaitlyn doesn't have an about page and that really bothers me, so Kaitlyn and everybody who's starting an Etsy shop or has an Etsy shop, make sure you have your about page, 'cause I don't see her little link there 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 just have your keywords in there but 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 them have the same keywords and 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 your ranking this page for more than one keyword and I think like Lisa was saying, sprinkling these keywords in and out throughout this, beyond this point is not gonna matter because it just doesn't matter because Google's not even going beyond that. It looks and sees that there's the content there but it's going to stop at that point. You don't wanna try to rank this one listing for like 10 keywords, it's not gonna happen, 'cause you don't have the space and Google's not even gonna do that, so you wanna try to rank it for one, one keyword per, really, per item and it's blowing people away because they're like, oh, I wanna put all these keywords on and I'll rank for everything but it's not gonna happen. So you wanna really highly focus on one keyword per listing and then get listings. They always say there's this magic number of a 100 listings, but I mean, 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 and obviously, manage it the way that you can manage it. If you have more listings, it's great but, but another thing I just thought of 'cause I'm scatterbrained 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 that 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 the quantity, than when you relist that listing, you have to start over from scratch. Okay, 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, so really take your time. I love a repeatable listing. I love a remake-able product. It saves so much time because you know the listing's done and if you've invested in a listing, you know that it's gonna sell well, so when you say that, and again, we 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 and 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. Tim, did you have another example to show us? Yeah, I have one more shop if we want to take a look at it. Yeah, why don't we walk through everything you talked about with that last shop to really bring it home, I think that will help. Alright, let's do it. So this next one is gonna be Erica and I know she's in the audience as well and so, so number one, we're gonna go ahead, I might say a little bit more 'cause I see some things but there's no banner. We don't have a banner and I think 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, okay so, we haven't even gotten into that but 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. So I always see, 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 wanna do that. Use all five, obviously we wanna have our banner up here because that's adding branding, you can put call to actions up there. Actually another great place, people ask, hey, where can I put free shipping, where can I put sale or whatever, throw it on your banner, alright, maybe not make it so overpowering that it's, but if you wanna add free shipping, add it in your banner, as far as like 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 'cause that's a great way. You're capturing their attention up 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. So let's go ahead, let's check this out. So we've got, we're just diving into the shop sections here. We've got three sections, definitely wanna get as many as possible here and then clutches, pouches and key fobs, I mean, very, very general, you gotta get more specific as you can and then, again, your shop title. There's nothing there. Nothing there helping you. I just want to show you what this looks like because you all know what it's gonna say, again, I mean, 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 'cause 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, Erica and get that changed. You can do that from your phone right now. (audience laughs) I'm just kidding, and so, I like her, I actually like this stylish and versatile handmade accessories for those who want to stay organized wherever your adventure takes you, 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. I mean, let's see how that reads on Google. How 'bout instead of handmade accessories, you're actually using key chains or key fobs, which are prevalent on the storefront? Right and you can see that she has some extra room, she has some more characters there that she can play with for that description, so yeah, add those in there. I love that, I was hoping there was gonna be a good example of a well written shop description and I like that a lot and then let's take a look at one of the listings. I think I opened this earlier. Let's look at the about page really quick, just 'cause she has one and we talked about it earlier. Oh, look, Erica doesn't even have anything on her about page, this is, 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 for just someone who says hey, what's this shop about? Nothing, I'm kidding, it's not about nothing, this is telling me that's there's nothing there and really, it's telling me that they didn't take the time to fill this out and I wanna know more about them 'cause I just clicked on that and I can't 'cause there's nothing there. So, do that. Get that information in there, get some pictures of your awesome keychains, 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. So, let's look at this listing. I think I pulled this one up earlier for myself. Alright so, so this one, let's see, yeah okay, so this one is interesting. So key chain, key fob, key wristlet, and then, she's telling what the color and everything is. In all fairness, Erica hadn't taken my class yet but she's here now (laughs). Awesome, awesome, well, you're getting the full critique here, Erica. But listen, so 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 and 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 key chain, you're trying to rank for key fob. This one, this one and the color too, I say, leave the color out. I mean, they can see it right there. They can see the color in the picture, right? Let's stay right there because I actually, I actually just talked about product titles and what will happen is, how this can work is that you'll call this 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 search-ability. Yep, awesome and then, also too, look guys, she's only using three pictures. So, get two more in there, and I like how she's showing the sizes, great. That looks good there but let's get two more in there. So, here's the thing. She's actually, she did good here because, actually this is the one that I liked and I read it first, but these cute, padded key fobs, maybe that's what she's trying to rank for, maybe not, but she's actually engaging them and 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, right? I mean, basically. So I think that's pretty good. Yeah and 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, so when you say that, that really sparks. I'm now 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'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. Well, why not try to rank for a longer keyword phrase like padded key fobs? I mean, that's awesome. 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. Yep, I love it. Alright, so guys, let's just kind of recap. I know we blew through these three Etsy shops but in ESO, I think a lot of people are like, oh, it's so scary, I just don't know how to do it but if you go back and just, there's really only, for your entire shop, there's really only three places you need to focus on. Come on, get off there. It's your shop sections, your title and your announcement and that's all. 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. So focus on those three things and then in our shop, I'm sorry, in our listings, you wanna do the same thing, so we're looking at the title and we're looking at the description and that it is for your SEO but I think the key is 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. Yeah so, Tim, you've really, I didn't even need to ask Lily, 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 search-ability. 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. Kaitlyn has a question. First off, Tim, thank you, I had no idea and that's how I'm here today 'cause I'm like, oh my goodness, but the question that I have is regarding when 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, I was under the mindset that those would be, would come up in SEO, right? So that's like where I put my effort into, I'm gonna get my tags in, my 13 tags in and that's gonna be what? Look at them scrolling. Right, so? So it's interesting because these tags, they really meant something years ago and as far as like the actual search engine and I don't even actually, they're not even in here as far as the metadata, they're not even in here and that means that those tags actually don't mean anything for the actual search engine, as far as like Google and things like that but-- I think the chatroom probably just exploded. (audience laughs) But listen, they actually do mean something for the actual Etsy search, okay? I know we didn't even get into it but, as you can see, let's look at these so, accessories, key chains, lanyards, key chains and 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 and that does actually stink for us as Etsy sellers because as soon as I click on that, it totally took me away from that shop and I'm not even there anymore. So, still fill those out and the reason that I didn't focus on that is 'cause they're really, they are important for the Etsy search, just fill them out but they're not important for SEO as far as search engine is concerned and as far as I'm concerned, I am super concerned, I keep saying concerned, I really wanna focus on the SEO for search engine, I want to be found on Google. Etsy's only, whatever it is, I mean, they have a billion, literally a billion page views 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 2007, I could list a listing and gain 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 don't even talk about it today but it's social media, getting it out there, doing those things and driving traffic to certain listings and all these things that I teach people but yes, going back to the question 'cause 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 customize those, right? Yeah. You can customize those, for this one, I would change this. I would say padded key fobs and put that as number one because in Etsy's search algorithm, relevancy, whatever you wanna call it, that's gonna be most important. So put that in there, so great question. I know we didn't cover it but it's kind of a lost thing, so yeah. That's a smart strategy. So I wanted to ask, all of you who got your websites critiqued, including Erica, Vanessa, we heard from Kaitlyn a little bit, how it felt and what you learned, how you think it'll inspire you to evolve your website or your Etsy store? Kaitlyn? I already have a homework list for tonight. (everyone laughs) Honestly, I wish that I just had focused on my Etsy shop instead of expanding to my own personal website and now I put it on Amazon Handmade as well 'cause now I'm thinking I have to change this on everything, you know what I mean, 'cause I had the dots and the lines and all these irrelevant keywords. I'm really glad to hear what you pointed out. I would've never known about all these meta tags and how the tags on the bottom don't even matter for SEO. It's really helpful and I'm gonna go home and fill out that about me page (laughs). Super invaluable information, Tim. We 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 and this is just a space that really doesn't matter, as far as SEO's concerned. It doesn't do anything but I mean, whatever you wanna do, I used to switch it around and put an item in there or like what are your best shots or something of your item, you can 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 all those kind of things so it really just doesn't, 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 shop's cohesion. Right because the only place that that, if you're in the Etsy forums and if you're doing treasuries and things like that, that little picture's gonna show up but eh, I remember back in the day when everybody's on the forums and you knew them by their picture. That's not even relevant to what we're talking about, yeah, good question. And 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? Let's see if we can look at it really quick so I can show you. The actual, let see if we can inspect this picture. This is another aspect but, alright so this picture, this is just something even crazier but I just actually inspected this item but look what it's doing so, you can see the image right there, it's showing it and this is funny, so look at this. This is the actual title. So when our title, Aniah actually told you guys wrong, it's actually your shop name 'cause I haven't looked at this stuff in awhile 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 every one of your pictures, so that's another reason that we wanna 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 your title. Yeah, there you go, 'cause that's one more reason to make that a powerful, strong, specific title. Yes, exactly, exactly. 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 and I think it does affect it because Google does like proper grammar and proper spelling and things like that so you wanna make sure that it looks good and I've never liked all caps, so if you're doing that, just change it, just change it back to normal, 'cause you know, shop home is written capital and then lower case and then lower case, so write it like that because that's, keep that cohesion, even inside of your shop sections, make that look all the same. I agree. Something that just occurred to me that I was thinking about is when you go into shop categories a lot of people get creative over there and so they might do not only all caps but put a space in between each letter to kind of draw out the category and then, what's that doing? That's no longer a word, that's not even gonna be relevant. So it's something to really be careful for and really watch for. Correct, special characters and spacing and things like that, just take them all out of there, put those words in there and you're gonna be good and when you have these shop sections, like everything else, when you have them set, don't change them and I say, okay, fine, you can have one down there at the bottom, I'll let you have one for a sale or whatever it is, you change that one around, 'cause 10, yeah, right, maybe you want to change that last one around, maybe have a holiday sale, you're having some kind of sale or something. Save that for the very last one. Change that one around, that's not gonna affect you very much. That's fabulous. Tim, I wanna thank you so much for coming on and sharing these tips with us. I know that was very a powerful lesson. I know that a lot of people got a lot out of that. I wanna 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? The best place to find me is handmadeology.com or just search it there on Facebook and just connect up. We are growing like mad and 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 it's awhile off but I love this community, you guys, and just helping people succeed, reach those goals, whatever this is, maybe it's quitting your job or paying a bill with your Etsy shop, that's what we're here for. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Tim. Alright you guys, see ya. So again, everyone at home, you can find Tim at handmadeology.com. It's handmade O-L-O-G-Y, all one word, .com.