Etsy Jam Episode 1: Q&A

Welcome to the first episode of our weekly Etsy Jam! We have asked a couple of questions inside of our FB Group and people jumped in with their own questions. We picked them up and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

1. With Patterns now, are the SEO algorithms for websites separate from Etsy SEO formulas? Do they market the websites more for search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo?

With Pattern, they’re serving up a separate website. The SEO for that will be completely separate than the SEO you’re used to for your listings to be found inside Etsy. The separate website is going to be on the internet. Of course, the SEO will be separate for that and people will be finding Pattern sites using search engines and the SEO for that is gonna be driven by how the SEO works for those search engines which is very different from how SEO on Etsy works.

Keep in mind with Pattern, also, is a way to be able to have a little bit of extra creative control over what your Etsy shop looks like without going to fully owned hosted like WordPress type solutions. Your normal Etsy shop not using Patterns also gets picked up by search engines, so you’re going to see that optimization for Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

2. I have a vintage jewelry shop and it’s very difficult to find optimal keywords in Marmalead for my items. It seems that market is very refined. Any suggestions for non-handmade items?

Its a lot of the same as with handmade items. You have to find and kind of step out of the uniqueness and start to think about the way people are gonna start finding your items. I know a lot of your stuff is one-of-a-kind, maybe it IS one-of-a-kind for your shop, but its not a “one-of-a-kind” in the world. I am sure there’s a problem that it solves – some solution that is gonna be consistent across other products. I would try to find those.

3. I would like to know if there’s a plan to somehow connect by correlation (maybe a factor or something) Marmalead engagement with Google Keywords. Any 3+ word strings seem to have Low or Very Low Engagement and the 2 word string ones are just too broad and there is too much competition to be realistically seen in a market like ‘jewelry’.

When you’re attacking one of these really broad keywords, typically these ones that we see like ‘jewelry’ have extraordinarily high engagement and competition level on those keywords is excruciatingly high. This spaces are super competitive and super crowded and there’s a lot of people vying for attention for keywords like jewelries. To succeed in this markets, aim for more niche sections. People are able to compete in this super duper crowded spaces but it often relies on something more than just putting the keywords at the beginning of your title and inside your tags and renewing your listings. Those are the 3 main factors which will influence your rank on Etsy.

Since this places are so crowded and so many people are doing those things, Etsy has to rely on something else to decide how to rank these listings. It could be your review scores, it could be number of sales that you have, it could be the percentage of people that convert to be customers after they visit your listings. These are the kind of details that Etsy doesn’t directly share with us – how they’re algorithm works. We know those are factors; we don’t know how they play into things. So for those really broad keywords that have a lot of competition, you might not be able to jump in right off the bat and compete in those spaces so attacking those longer string keywords is going to be your best bet even though they might have lower engagement. You’re going to be seen there more than you will if you attack those really generic keywords. Once you build up a history of reviews, sales, repeat customers, and things like that – you can try attacking those broader keywords and you might have more success in those spaces.

Furthermore, if you get ranked on page 10 for a highly engaging keyword, then you’re not really getting that true engagement. You’re not getting the views because you’re so far back. You’d be better off being on pages 1 or 2 of something not as highly engaged.

4. Is there a threshold for views per week which is a number that we share with you guys in Marmalead that would determine whether it’s good or bad? Or is this factored in with competition/listings featuring this keyword?

When we score engagement in Marmalead, we factor everything together. We’re looking at “Views per Week” which is the clearest indicator of engagement that we have from Etsy versus the amount of competition that you’re seeing in those areas. If you’re in a competitive area, that’s gonna require more views per week to drive the engagement score up. There isn’t necessarily a threshold that you should be looking at that “Views per Week” number. You should just be balancing that with the number of results that are showing up and the number of shops competing in that space to get a sense of which keywords that you’re looking at have the highest engagement against the competition.

This is the thing we’re trying to do with Marma-meters. The scaling you see there (from Very Low – Very High) is weighted to account for the crowdedness of the space you’re looking at.

5. What would you say is a good conversion rate from views to sales?

Etsy suggests that 3% conversion rate is a good target and in our Shop Fitness Calculator we’re seeing about 1.1%. The average that we’ve seen with the Shop Fitness Calculator is right around 1.1% and this is from sellers just like yourselves on Etsy reporting how many views they’ve had and how many sales they’ve had over a certain time period.

There’s a misconception about the Shop Fitness Calculator that people are saying it’s biased because the only people that are taking it are doing really well on Etsy. That’s not true. We actually have people from all walks coming to Marmalead and taking their Shop Fitness Test. So whether you’re just starting now, been here for a long time, or maybe you haven’t found success yet it’s really a mix of everybody. It’s an accurate sample.

6. Discussion about results when using refined words vs. more common words. Why it is important to use both?

Generic keywords and long tail keywords, if you think about it, they are stages of a customer’s buying cycle. If you’re the shopper, chances are you’re starting with something pretty broad, maybe you need some ‘wall art’. After you start looking at some wall arts, you’re gonna start to get more refined with your search. You might go with something more particular – like an ‘oil painting print’. You’re going to be more and more specific about the item you want and the more specific someone is about their search – the closer to buying they are. That is why it is important to use different types of keywords because you’re reaching different stages of people in search of an item.

7. Difference of views based on Etsy search page vs. Marmalead and why there is a discrepancy.

There are a lot of reasons for this now, and Etsy keeps giving us more reasons for this. If you’re logged in Etsy and you’re doing some searches, the results you’ll see are personalized to you. The general order are gonna stay roughly the same but here and there they’re going to sprinkle some things: maybe listings you’ve visited before, or shops you purchased from before etc. So if you go to Etsy and search that same keyword and go to Marmalead and do the same, the results they’re delivering to you are personalized for you and the ones you’re getting back from Marmalead are a generic set of results – since we’re not passing your identity back to Etsy to pull custom results for you. Marmalead shows you generic set of results that haven’t been altered in any way.

If you’re not logged in to Etsy or you’re using Incognito Mode, you can still see some small discrepancies in the way search results are returned to you versus returned through Marmalead. The reason this happens is because Etsy likes to play with their search algorithm to keep each search result fresh for potential shoppers.

The other reason why this happens is because the results Etsy is returning to us through their API is much closer to how they deliver results through their mobile app. If you do a comparison of what you see in the mobile app vs what we show you in Marmalead, those two are much closer than what you would see in their website.

8. The right way to use the Marma-meter. Is this really just green-green-green?

Yes, those are ideal. Those are great scenarios but if you find something that has lower competition and has decent engagement, and you think it’s something that’s gonna start to sprout; feel free to invest in that. If we’re thinking long term, it’s okay to invest in some keywords that you think will grow over time as far as engagement goes. Especially if they have small competition to boot with.

When you look at the Marma-meters, the number one thing that you should consider is Engagement. You always wanna be finding keywords that have High Engagement. If you’re targeting keywords that people aren’t engaging with (i.e. they’re not viewing, they’re not favoriting) then you’re going to have a tough time finding sales in that area.

Bonus: Is it Working Tracker

We’ve been hearing a lot from people that they’re enjoying Marmalead and they are getting addicted doing a bunch of searches and stuff (thanks a lot guys!).

But how do you know it’s working? We have put together the simplest way of measuring this.

It’s called the “Is It Working Tracker”. You can get a copy of the PDF file here and the instructions are available as well. Hopefully it’s not too hard for you folks.

Closing:

That’s been it everyone. I hope you enjoyed our first episode. You’re welcome to attend next week! Etsy Jams every Thursday 9AM PST / 12PM EST