How to list on Etsy the right way in 2023
Jun 21, 2023Today I am going to be talking about the NEW Etsy more streamlined listing experience, don't worry if you didn't know there was an old and new version, I am going to cover it all especially if you are a beginner in 2023 or 2024.
On your new Etsy listing page you will see you have a load of tabs at the top of the page which means you can jump to different parts of the listing page. I personally work from the title section down the page.
So the first thing you will see on the page is title, this is essentially one of the most important places for you to add your key words. Key words are basically the thing that tells Etsy exactly what your item is, the search on Etsy doesn't really have eyes or ears so you can't exactly directly tell it or show it what it is.
An exercise I like to do here to get the ball rolling is to think about a little green alien that has come down from Mars and has no idea what a necklace, or a scarf, or crochet table runner actually is. So its your job to find keyword phrases that is separated by a comma for you to explain what your item is A) in a way that Etsy can understand it and B) in a way that your customer is actually searching for it.
There are various tools and I have a bunch of SEO videos on my YouTube channel so if you want to know how to find keywords and where to put them then definitely go and watch one of those.
So the first thing to complete is your title. Etsy has said they want a short title, however when me and my students have done tests, we have found that using longer titles is best because Etsy is giving you all of this yummy SEO space, so I bet your bottom dollar you have got to use it. So make sure to do something like for example -Elephant silver necklace,..... and carry this on with your other keyword phrases separated by a comma because that means you can exact match for that phrase which obviously as we know if you go and watch my SEO videos, exact match always ranks higher than broad matching. Broad matching is where you have a title like this - elephant silver necklace, gift for birthday (obviously this is a bit short so you will need to add more keyword phrases) but Etsy will take the word silver and the word birthday and if you then search silver birthday this listing will still show up but because its not an exact match it will show up on like page 25 or something like that.
The next section to look at is your photographs. So I will add 4 or 5 pictures from different angles, so maybe from the top down, being worn, being held etc. I add a graphic with how to order, this is helpful if your order process is a bit more in depth then you want to add some kind of instructions and info to make it easier for the person looking at it.
I've also added a graphic with the best reviews, why us, because basically pictures is one of the places Etsy pushes people to go to, so they are going to be scrolling through all of your pictures so make sure you fill all of your photos.
Then we had the description. I would recommend sprinkling in some of your keywords into the top bit of your description. Don't make it too long, I include things like, what makes us different to other Etsy shops, how to order instructions as well but it's not too long and I add headings to separate it out to help customers see the information.
You can add personalisation to your products as well. So if you offer a custom printed message, or different options. So I offer personalisation to my cards and this is where customers can leave their message. So if you offer personalisation to the actual product this is the place to add it, it is not a gift message or anything like that it is to change the actual product.
You can add variations to your items as well. So if you offer different lengths, different colours this is where variations come in. Etsy allows for a maximum of 2 variations currently, I have 2 variation boxes, personalised card yes or no, necklace style with different prices for each product as well if the cost for each variation is different. You can link your photos to the variation, you can also add quantities for each variation as well.
So pricing your item, there is a box for you to add the price - if you offer variation with different pricing then you will not need to add a price here. I have plenty of pricing videos on my YouTube channel as well if you want to check them out. If you don't want to hop around between different videos, I would recommend to buy my book, it is a best seller on Amazon, people love it and it is going to walk you through the whole thing of starting your own handmade business.
The next sections to look at is details. This is where you will add in if you made it, is it a physical or digital item, a finished product. This enables Etsy to put you in certain categories and if you are selling digital files this will enable you to add your file and not have to manually fulfil anything. You can add edit your production partner here as well, you can add if it vintage here as well.
You can change your categories here as well, just start typing what your product is in the box and it will suggest some categories for you to choose the closest one to what your product is. The categories act like tags (which we will get to later) but they act as keywords as well as your attributes.
So your titles, tags and your attributes are really important for SEO as well as your description.
Attributes are things that describe the qualities your items have, so for example lets say its copper, cork and faux leather, you can tick these materials and it will add them as tags under materials. You also have the colour of your item and you can add in the sizes of your product as well here. The attributes actually show up above the description so if there is important information you want people to know about please make sure you put it in the attributes as well as the description.
You can click on show all attributes where you can also choose the shape, style of your products etc. this is something you may not want to fill out but I would certainly have a look at them. Some of the options do not apply to my products but if you scroll down you will come to occasion and celebration. Now only use these if they are very specifically for this occasion and cant be used for other occasions for example if you have a Birthday card you can add the occasion as birthday as its not for like Christmas or a christening.
Then we have tags. I would experiment with copying and pasting in your title here, you may get an error message and this means that the tag you are trying to use is over 20 characters but thats fine. We can then split those tags and Etsy will still put them together as if it's a longer tag.
The delivery section. If you go into your shop settings you can set up different shipping profiles, you can add how long it takes you to process items and all this sort of details. You can change and edit that on the listing and add one of your shipping profiles. You can also add in a tariff number in here as well if you are planning on shipping abroad you can add in your information here to make it so so easy. And if you duplicate the listing that information is going to be copied over to make it so easier if you are selling a lot of the same items.
You also have your policies here as well. You can create your policies and link them to your listing. I would recommend that you use the Etsy recommended one as they have said you do get a small boost in search as well.
You can also set up your shop into Shop Sections so you can add your products to different categories to make it easier for your customers to find what they are looking for.For example if you have wedding products you can a wedding section. I would recommend using these categories especially if you have over 100 listings you really need to be using these.
You can feature a listing, by selecting this option that will make it featured at the top of your shop page.
You can also select Etsy Ads from here - I have videos on my YouTube channel all about using Etsy ads.
You can set your listing to automatically renew or annually renew. Personally I always use manual because if it is automatically renewing it is not giving you a chance to go in and review and tweak things if things aren't really working. So every 4 months I go into my expired listings and I go through and tweak, change and edit them because at the end of the day if its not selling then there is something wrong there and it needs editing.
You can then save as a draft, publish it or preview the listing.
If you'd prefer me to visually teach you this blog post, then you can watch it HERE.
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