Deciphering the S.E.O code

Have you ever googled or binged your etsy product? (Go on, do it now, you know you want to). I’m not talking about your exact store title, I’m talking your product. Now if you are one of the lucky ones, who has wittingly mastered the art of the S.E.O, congratulations! You can go back to making your handcrafted goodies knowing that you have conquered one of the biggest Etsy selling hurdles. However, if you are sitting in front of the computer with your mouth hanging open and a heavy heart wondering “how can this be, why did this Etsy shop pop up and not mine?”; you are not alone.

Etsy wants it’s sellers to be successful. So much so, that they have teamed up with Search Engine Optimization experts, SEOmoz to help Etsy sellers decipher the S.E.O code. SEOmoz has put together an “Etsy guide to S.E.O”. This concept is very different from “Etsy Tagging”. This concept is about getting your store to be on page one of the Google search return when someone Googles the product you sell. Impossible? Maybe. Am I going to try…definitely!

Now, if you don’t understand the concept of computer interfaces and how they translate computer language (code) the SEO guide can be a little daunting. They do give offer a quick explanation on how it all works and why it’s so important to understand it. You will need to dedicate some serious time to read the guide and alter your shop accordingly.

Here is a bit of what I learned-

Title tag- The most important piece of info that the search engine reads. Be sure to fill the title tag full of “keywords” that will not only describe your item but keywords that are popular on the internet for searches. ie; handmade, chic, affordable. Google has a tool, Google Adwords that can help you sort out which keywords will work best for your description. You’ll want to choose words that have over 1,000 searches but very little competition.

Meta description- also known as your shop announcement is almost as important as the title tag. Again, fill it with those keywords that Google Adwords suggested that will help reinforce your title.

Pictures- (you’re going to see a pattern here) Name your pictures with a keyword filled description. The guide states that “Recently, we’ve found that the use of keyword rich image alt text correlates with higher rankings in the search engines.” Every little bit helps.

So what does this all mean? Hopefully, more sales. Both my stores are relatively new and I’m just not getting the traffic that I’d like. I really feel that this is one more step in the right direction. I implemented these afore mentioned changes to my site about a month ago. Thanks to Google Analytics, I found that most of my RoyalicingLV traffic comes from Google searches. I even got an order today for 3 dozen cookies. I asked how she found out about me and she said “google”.