With so many handmade products and supplies out there, it can be exhausting to try and figure out how to stand out and show up on that first page. It can be hard to compete amongst thousands of similar products out there: How can I show my product’s quality is better? How can I persuade my audience to spend that extra dime on my product? How can I get more reviews? How can I get repeat customers?
Let’s go over some of the things that you can do that will help you get more sales on Etsy.
1. SEO
Let me be very honest – if you have everything right in your store but your SEO is not setup correctly, then there is no way for you to grow on Etsy, especially when you are new. SEO (aka Search Engine Optimization) not only gets your product’s in front of your potential customers on Etsy, but also on platforms such as Google. However, there is a trick to this – and that’s the secret that everyone’s not telling – you’ve to set it up based on your shop’s current ranking / popularity. What does this mean? This means that if you are a new seller, you’ll need to set it up so that your shop is showing up for the keywords that are in ‘low’ or ‘medium’ competition and if you are an already established seller you can have a mixture of low – medium – high competitive keywords.
If you’re new to SEO, keywords are really words that people are searching for when they type something in the Etsy or Google’s “Search” bar. I do have a book that goes into step-by-step strategy that I used to reach 1% Etsy rank in a highly competitive niche. However, you don’t need it if you understand the basics or methods of research of SEO, which I will go over in a bit.
It’s important to understand that on Etsy, there are various places that you have to place your keywords in. These sections are:
- Product’s Title: Mainly the first 5-7 words of your title are “key”.
- Description: Again, those first 5-7 words of your title needs to be in the beginning of your description and then you’ll try to include all other keywords within the title that you have throughout your description.
- Tags: This is where you will include those 5-7 words along with your other keywords.
For these keywords it’s important to understand what type of keywords to use. Let me share the best way to increase traffic to your shop:
2. Long Tail Keywords
Long Tail Keywords are your best friend! Before we go into long tail keywords though, let’s understand what they are and how they differentiate from short tail. Short tail keywords are ones that are very simple searches and not too specific – such as “jewelry”, “black sweater”, “mini planner”, etc. Anything that is one or two words long. Now, because these are not very specific, the competition on these keywords are extremely high as MILLIONS of other sellers on Etsy may be selling jewelry. This is why it is very important, especially when you are a new seller or not seeing an increase in sales on Etsy, that you replace all your short tail keywords with a long tail one.
Long tail keywords are phrases that are three words or more. These are what will get you your sales! These are what will get you traffic! For example: “White Pearl Jewelry”, “Black Sweater For Mom”, “Emotional Gift For Sister”, “best gift for my grandma”, etc.
I promise you, the moment you switch to long tail keywords – that are also low in competition – you will start to see traffic grow! However, remember, that these Etsy SEO strategy can take one to three months for you to start seeing some results. It took me one month and I applied this to all of my 200+ listings. Yes, it’s a lot of work and a lot of research goes into which long tail keywords will be the best – but if you are serious about getting traffic to your store, it’s totally worth it!
Now, like I said, research is important here too! You can’t just ‘come up’ with these long tail or even short tail keywords. You will need to research which long tail keywords people are searching up and would be best to include. I go in depth on these in my book but basically you can find these through websites such as eRank and Marmalead and the process is fairly simple: You go to the website, search for keywords and you’ll see specific keywords along with their search rank and competition and you choose ones that are low in competition and high in search rank. It will also tell you how your current listing ranks, how each keyword looks like in terms of competition, if you have any spelling mistakes in your listings, and other feedback that may be helpful to increase your listing’s exposure.
3. Referral Program
Yes, it is possible to have a referral program with Etsy! Whether you have your own website or just Etsy, or both, having a referral program will automatically increase the chances of getting new customers! A referral program allows your customers to earn some commission or discount if they refer your products to others. This not only increases your potential of getting new customers but also of your current customers in staying loyal and eventually increasing sales having repeat customers.
One way of doing this is through an app that integrates well with Etsy called Referral Candy. Yes, it is paid but you can try it FREE for 30 days before committing to it. This way for each customer, you can share the link with them that they can use to refer other’s to your shop. Each time they do that, they either get a discount or money in return. Make this offer extremely exciting for them to keep them coming. Think of this as a marketing effort that you’re investing in. You can use the same account for your website or even your email – Referral Candy integrates with all types of e-commerce integrations.
This is definitely one of the simplest and easiest way to increase your sales and get new customers to visit and buy from your store. You can also promote this on your social media and get affiliates – especially if you’d like to have some influencers start sharing your products. Instead of paying them to advertise your products, you can include them into a referral program which pays them for each referral.
Source: ReferralCandy
4. Email Marketing
Okay, so you may not know this but you actually can create an email list using Etsy and use that list to promote your shop on a periodic basis. I can’t emphasize how important this is as this lets you “own” your customers and not just be connected to them via a third party application like Etsy.
Etsy has integration with Aweber and GetResponse (recommended!) which has both options of free and pro account that you can create. If you don’t have this setup, DO IT NOW! It will really give you that edge over your competitors! All you have to do is create an account with one of these, once your account is created:
For GetResponse:
- Go to “Integrations and API”
- Find the Etsy integration and click Connect.
For Aweber :
- Visit this link (for Aweber)
- Click “Connect” to connect with Etsy.
Each time a customer buys from your store, it sends out a confirmation for your customer to opt-in to your email list. If you’d like to import your previous customers into this list, you can simply reach out to them and they will do it for you!
Why I prefer GetResponse?
They have some amazing features such as built in Facebook ads feature that you can use to create ads in minutes. They also have lead magnet funnels pre-built that you can use to target the correct audience and use it for growing your list! You can build things like pages, sign up forms, emails, surveys, etc. Best part is their automation options – you can segment your audience based on how engaged they are, if they are a loyalty member or if they have been with you for X amount of time and target audience specifically based on that.
Let’s say you want to promote your new fragrant soap to everyone in your list who purchased soap from you before, but you want to avoid messaging those who only have purchased towels from you – then you can target them using that specific targeting method. Their landing pages are all SEO-optimized and most of the marketing automation is already in place for you through various ready-made templates. For Etsy, specifically, you can do upselling – that is recommend a similar product to what your customer has already purchased from you. This is definitely a great way to grow your sales on Etsy!
It’s that simple! Not a lot of people on Etsy are using this method and email marketing can really increase your revenue to over 4400% so don’t miss out on this! I’ve seen a HUGE increase in sales as well as return customers ever since I started using Aweber.
You can send out emails about your new products, you can also create a email flow where you start by welcoming customers, then sharing your story, sharing any special discounts, news, and other promotional emails that you’d like to send out. This is a really effective way to engage with your customers and keep them up to date with what’s going on with you and your shop.
Also, if for any reason, you decide to move your business elsewhere or add a website in future, you can take this list of customers with you everywhere you go!
5. Sell on Facebook!
Selling on Facebook Marketplace will not just increase your sales but also increase your customer base as you will be getting exposure to new platform altogether, if you are not selling there already. And, again, this is not a manual process – you can simply integrate your Etsy shop to sell on Facebook. In your shop, go to “Settings” and then near the end you will see “Facebook Shops” and there you will see all the instructions to start selling on Facebook. This way, when anyone clicks on your products, they will go directly on your Etsy product listing to purchase. If you can’t figure out or run into any issues, you can always reach out to me and I’ll be willing to help out to my best capability.
6. Get More Reviews For Your Products
More reviews you get on Etsy, more chances of your product showing up and also more people buying your products. Reviews helps buyers trust your shop and have confidence in buying from you. If your shop is fairly new or does not have enough reviews, this is extremely important! So, one simple way of doing this is to include some kind of a sweet Thank You note with each purchase sharing the story of you / your shop. You can easily create this for very cheap using site like Vistaprint. Story = emotions = a good chance of a nice review! 🙂
One thing that I started doing when I was struggling to get reviews was also to be more proactive in my communication. I created a template that I sent for each order that came saying thank you and also letting them know the shipping timeline, cancellation policy, etc. Short and simple! How did this help me? Most of the customers do not read instructions or policies of your shop when they’re on Etsy. So… if your timeline to ship is really 5 days and they are expecting a quick 24 hr shipping, this let’s them know right away what to expect. And, surprisingly, although this communication might be my only communication with the customers, I started getting reviews such as “great communication” or “quick shipping” (because I’d say 5 day processing time and really ship in 2-3 days). So, based on what you sell… see what you can do that might help you gain more reviews. But, honestly, story is the best way!
7. Add more products
The more products you have in your store = increase in your sales!
Now you can simply do this by bundling your products too and as Etsy sees your shop as most favorable search for example for “Mother’s Day Gifts”, it’ll start showing it up more often. You can also add “Add On” products for folks to add to their regular purchase for a discounted price versus those products by themselves would probably cost more, combining shipping.
Lastly, I’d just say focus as much as you can on #1 – SEO ! No matter what you do, if you have SEO in your favor, that’s your best bet! Of course, making sure that listing has description, good shipping timelines, nice pictures, and exceptional customer service are all needed – but once you have those basic stuff in place, SEO is really what will make a huge difference in your traffic. When I wrote my book , it was only because in just few months and overall as I saw the trend, my traffic grew by over 3000% JUST because I figured out the SEO game. I couldn’t wait to share it with everyone because personally having so much student loan + debt + ambitions… I knew the struggle of getting to this kind of information and I realize how important this can be for others who might be in similar or perhaps worse situations than me. So, use the info in this blog – focus on SEO! – and see your shop grow to new heights! 🙂
You got this!
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that I may earn a small commission from, at no additional cost to you.
