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SEO Partner guide

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

for your shop

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Welcome to the Etsy School workbook! It will guide you, your partner and your Team through the programme. We’ve suggested an activity and resources for each week of the month.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 WHAT IS ETSY SCHOOL?

In 2014, we’ve got loads of fun, educational projects and programs for your Team to participate in. We’ll have 4 educational modules that will have your Team partner up, read articles, and do exercises together to improve their shops. Alternating with these educational seminars will be a Team project where your Team can work together on an activity or event. There are 4 of these Team Projects throughout the year.

All in one, these modules form the Etsy School, a program developed exclusively for Teams to improve the member’s shops and strengthen team spirit!

1.2 A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN SELLERS

We’ve designed the Etsy School SEO program for at least two people. Pairing with other sellers is the best way to progress faster and stay motivated throughout the month. Everyone brings their own strengths to the partnership as well as their own questions. Working with a partner allows each person to share what they’re good at as well as to learn from their partner’s expertise. There’s also less chance of getting stuck when there are two minds working on every problem!

Chatting with your partner allows you to have an external point of view on your shop

and to get outside advice. This is valuable help; often, when we make things, we’re too close to the process to know how people are searching for something, how to improve our photos, etc.

Your Team captain has more information on finding a partner. He or she will tell you your partner’s name before the beginning of the month. If you have no news, contact your Team captain.

Once you have a partner, contact him/her by convo and see how you can work together. You can organise daily online hangouts, phone calls, or meet in a coffee place once a week depending on the time you can dedicate to the programme. It’s up to you how often but do make sure you schedule some time on your agenda to work together each week..

1.3 TEAM WORK

All together, your team members are an incredible collective pool of knowledge. Make sure you stay connected with the group.

It’s great to share your individual experiences with the whole Team. Share your goals, your favourite handbook articles, tag ideas, and marketing tips.

• Your Team may organise a kick-off event online or offline before the beginning of the month. Make sure you check your Team discussion forums to attend the event

• Your captain has received a guide with more resources and exercises that he or she can share with you. Keep an eye on your Team forum. If you need help on the programme or if you get stuck on anything tricky, feel free to ask your Team.

• Make sure you subscribe to the Team digest email to receive a summary of the Team’s most recent discussion activity straight to

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your inbox (only one email per day). See how to subscribe in this video.

1.4 A FEW WORDS ON SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION)

The aim of search engines is simple: to report the pages most relevant to the search first so that the person searching finds the best possible answer quickly.

Creating unique, interesting and desirable products is the first step towards attracting buyers' attention. In order to improve your results from search engines, this month you’ll work with a partner tol help you get objective insight and constructive advice on your products and how you can improve them and make them even more unique and attractive, whether in terms of the presentation of your listings (photo, description, etc.) or your product itself (colours, patterns, personalisation, etc.).

The search engines take a lot of parameters into consideration and use complex algorithms to work out the best classification order.

While we don’t know all the parameters exactly and the exact method by which search engines work out the order of results, the guidelines given by the search engines and various experiments have enabled us to define the most relevant factors for optimising your content and improving your visibility. This is what is known as SEO.

Some of the parameters are purely technical and there is nothing for you to do on that front. Etsy will look after it. But the rest depends on you alone!!

1.5 THE TIMELINE FOR THE MONTH

Etsy School starts on the 1st of the month.

• First week – Meet your partner and analyse your shop based on its statistics

• Second week – Research keywords for your shop and your listings

• Third week – Edit your listings and your shop to improve relevancy

• Fourth week - Improve your popularity by increasing the number of links to your shop.

• Finally - Finishing touches, organising the end of month event

And then, let’s party! At the end of month, we encourage each Team to celebrate together. For exemple, you could do a coupon sale, or a meet-up. It’s your choice. Join your team discussion to help with your Team planning.

Before you start, if you have a little time before the beginning of the month, you could start by contacting your partner and introducing yourself!.

We would like to feature the best improvements made and follow your progress. Take screen captures of your shop before and after. We’ll ask you to send them at the end of the month.

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Stats UNDERSTANDING WHERE YOUR TRAFFIC COMES FROM AND DEFINING AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT Roll up your sleeves, contact your partner and together you can start to get to grips with your statistics to get an overview of your traffic and define the most effective steps to take.

. WEEK 1

MY TO-DO LIST

Contact my partner and introduce myself

Explore the statistics for my shop and analyse my figures

Define my target

Think about my plan of action with my partner

Share it with the team

LEARNING

This week, we are going to study the statistics for your shop in detail. This page is accessible from the menu under Your shop > Statistics and gives you are range of useful information to help you optimise your shop, define an objective and see the results of your actions.

This is a glimpse of the information you will find there and you can analyse it with your partner in the week's practical exercise in order to produce a status report.

The statistics will also allow you to see the effect of your actions on your results.

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a. The key figures The number of views, favourites, sales and your revenue are indicated at the top in the form of a total, but also in the form of a graph which allows you to see how the indicators have progressed over the period selected. You can easily modify the period selected using the drop-down menu at the top of the page. You will see little green triangles below the graphics. These correspond to events taking place at this point (creation of new listings, renewal of listings, sharing on social networks, search ads, etc.). These figures are indicators of how healthy your shop is. Two other figures can also help you improve your shop. These are indicators that are interesting to monitor long-term. They may not be relevant if you have not made many sales yet.

• your shop's conversion rate: this shows you the percentage of visitors who make a purchase. This is an important indicator when you are trying to increase your views as it identifies the quality of this new traffic. There is no point having lots of site visits if nobody buys anything. Use the formula below to calculate it: :

Number of orders / Number of views x 100

As a general rule, this percentage is below 3 %: don't worry, that is normal.

• the average order value, which tells you the average amount spent by each customer. All you need to do to calculate it is divide your revenue by the number of orders

• Revenue / Number of order

This figure gives you an idea of how much each of your buyers spends on average.

b. Main traffic sources The two tables below show you how people find your shop and your products. These are mainly websites and search engines. Would you like to know how the buyers already on Etsy find your shop and your listings? Would you like to know if these buyers come via your team, your activity thread or a good old search? The table on the left entitled "Etsy traffic sources" can give you the answer. This information allows you to identify whether your efforts to optimise your shop for searches are working, if bloggers have been talking about your shop or if giving out business cards at an event translates into views of your online shop.

If you click on a specific traffic source in these two tables, you can see more details: a graph showing the views coming from this source and which page of your shop this traffic source sent its visitors to.

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c. Keywords These are the keywords most often used to find your products via the Etsy search engine, Google and others. It is a good insight into your best search

terms. Click on the keywords to see more details, as above. This section is very important for optimising the keywords that you use in your shop.

d. Pages visited The table allows you to define the most popular pages of your shop.

You can get more details on the statistics on this page by clicking on the title.

This is particularly useful for optimising product listings in particular and seeing the keywords that are already bringing traffic to this listing in particular.

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e. Other information At the bottom of the page, there are three tables that show you:

• the items most often added to favourites • the items most often added to treasuries • the treasuries that contain at least one of

your items

You will then find a table relating to search ads if you have activated them at all for your shop (even if you subsequently deactivated them)

f.

The map At the very top of the page, you can switch from the "Overall" view tab to the "Map" tab. On this page, you can see the countries from which you get the most views and orders.

This page is particularly useful if you have promotions targeted at certain countries or if you want to know if it is time to translate your shop into another language.

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PRACTICAL EXERCISE

This practical exercise to complete with your partner will allow you to analyse your traffic sources and understand how you can improve your visibility.

ADD THE 3 KEY FIGURES FOR THE LAST 30 DAYS FOR YOUR SHOP ABOVE.

VIEWS TOP 5 TRAFFIC SOURCES

FAVORITES 1.

SALES 2.

REVENUE 3.

AVERAGE ORDER OF VALUE

4.

CONVERSION RATE 5.

TOP 5 ETSY TRAFFIC SOURCES TOP 5 COUNTRIES

1. 1.

2. 2.

3. 3.

4. 4.

5. 5.

VIEWS COMING FROM ETSY SEARCHES

VIEWS COMING FROM GOOGLE VIEWS COMING FROM YOUR OWN BLOG

BLOGS THAT HAVE LINKED TO MY SHOP

1. 2. 3.

TOP 10 KEYWORDS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

MOST VIEWED LISTINGS LISTINGS MOST OFTEN ADDED TO FAVOURITES

LISTINGS MOST OFTEN ADDED TO TREASURIES

1. 1. 1.

2. 2. 2.

3. 3. 3.

4. 4. 4.

5. 5. 5.

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Swap your figures with your partner and discuss all the listings that are most viewed and most added to favourites and/or treasuries.

Why do you think they are more successful? Do you and your partner agree?

If you notice something surprising (an unbelievable number of favourites this month, for example) or if an important event has taken place at your shop (the launch of a new product range or a load of new listings going online, for example), document it below.

MY TARGET

Set out your target for the next few months: what would you like to do? Where do you think you could increase traffic to your shop? We advise you to start with the action you think is the most effective.

I would like more views from:

� Etsy � Blogs � Pinterest

� Facebook � Google ▢ my own blog

� other

� a particular part of the world

Don't forget to set realistic targets that you think you can achieve in the time available. Achieving them will help you stay motivated and you can set a new target next month and so on.

Keep in mind that hits on Google and non-Etsy search engines can take some time and your actions will not be visible from one day to the next.

Share your target with your partner: does he or she think this target is realistic and feasible in the time available? Then discuss the measures to take to achieve your respective targets. Be specific and precise.

MY PLAN OF ACTION TO ACHIEVE MY TARGET

Avoid actions that are too vague and concentrate on those that are specific and precise.

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TEAM BONUS POINT

Share your targets and your action plan with the Team. Other sellers are bound to have the same target as you and have perhaps thought of interesting actions that you could add to your list of things to do!

FURTHER READING

What are shop statistics?

Etsy Success: Shop Stats Insights

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Keywords FINDING KEYWORDS

This week, we’ll find out about how powerful well-chosen keywords can be when it comes to increasing your visibility on Etsy and other search engines. We suggest that you research and define the terms and expressions that will attract the "best" buyers to your shop. Next week, we’ll then see how to edit your listings in order to insert these keywords into your listings and other shop pages as effectively as possible.

WEEK 2

TO-DO LIST

Understand how search engines work

Brainstorm keywords for my shop with my partner

Use tools to find new ideas for keywords

Rank them according to their relevance from a buyer perspective

LEARNING

When buyers run internet searches, they use words to describe what they are looking for and type them into the search box. Search engines like Google scan the web over time to collect all sorts of information about each page and list the pages that are most relevant to the initial search. The most important criteria are the words on the page, which help the search engines understand the content.

In the case of an Etsy shop, if a buyer types, for example, "silver chain" and you sell silver chains but none of these words appears in your listing, there is very little chance that your shop will show up in the search results.

Essentially, the search engines do not have powers of deduction : they are not capable of working out what your pages are talking about if you do not help them. To understand what your listings are talking about, they mainly use the words you have written.

So what you have to do is give the search engine some good information so that your listings jump out when a buyer is looking for a product like yours!

Finding keywords is one of the most important things to do and, if you get your keywords right, they’ll give you the best return on investment in terms of visibility. Don't forget that it isn’t just about attracting more visitors, it’s about attracting more visitors who place orders. So finding your keywords is about having a good knowledge of your target buyers, why they’re buying and how they’ll search for products like yours. Put yourself in their place and imagine what they might type in to the search engine. Initially, our advice is not to limit yourself, write down everything that comes into your head. What is it about? What are the specifics? Who is the item aimed at? How is it made (techniques, raw

PLEASE NOTE

A keyword doesn’t necessarily have to be a single word, it could be a group of words such as "2014 diary" or "gold wedding ring" likely to be used in this order by buyers.

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materials)? What colour is it? How big is it, what are its dimensions? How is it used? What style is it? What is the name of the pattern? Also think of things which are specific to certain types of product: the scent of a beauty product, the period of a vintage item. For each word, look for synonyms (you can use an online thesaurus). Do this for all the languages you have activated for your Etsy shop. We would advise

that your shop should at least be in English as well as your default language.

The second stage is to break down the keywords and define the most important terms, i.e. the ones that will bring you the most buyers (and not necessarily the most traffic).

The following two elements need to be taken into consideration when prioritising keywords.

.

RELEVANCE SEARCH VOLUME AND COMPETITION

WILL PEOPLE TYPING THIS KEYWORD BE HAPPY TO ARRIVE AT MY LISTING AND COULD THEY BUY SOMETHING FROM MY SHOP?

IS THIS KEYWORD LIKELY TO BE TYPED IN TO A SEARCH ENGINE BY A BUYER AND IS THERE A LOT OF COMPETITION FOR THIS KEYWORD?

Be specific! Terms that are too generic, even if they are relevant, are not necessarily the best idea. For example, the keyword "jewellery" is very generic but people typing jewellery in to a search engine are going to come across all sorts of different results: rings, necklaces, earrings, etc. Either they don’t know exactly what they want and are perhaps not ready to proceed to a purchase, or they are likely to refine their search by adding more precise terms to find what they want. By contrast, someone typing "gold phalanx ring" has a much better idea of what they want to buy.

Also avoid keywords that are only remotely associated with your product. For example, if you sell cookies, don’t use the keyword "tea" as those searching for tea will definitely want to buy tea and not cookies!

Don’t use all the terms that everyone searches for! Lots of people want to use the most popular keywords, but there is often a lot of competition so it is more difficult to appear in the top search hits.

Try to choose words that are less competitive and less searched for: these are normally more specific terms. They may have a lesser search volume, but they will definitely bring you more targeted traffic. Think of synonyms and more specific terms.

Also avoid terms that are too technical and that only professionals will understand. Don't forget to think like a buyer :) Your partner can really help you pick out the keywords which are too technical and those that would be entered by an average buyer.

There are some tools that can help you find and prioritise keywords.

Etsy search suggestions To access this tool, change your language preference to English (this functionality will soon be available in other languages). This article explains how to change your language settings.

Go to the home page and start typing the search terms you have found in English. You will see some suggestions appear: these are the terms used by buyers on Etsy.

Don’t hesitate to add potential keywords to your list if they apply to your products.

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Google keyword planner

To access this, you need an AdWords account. You can create one free at https://adwords.google.fr.

This tool was originally designed for people who wanted AdWords advertising campaigns on Google but it does offer various handy tools to allow you to research keywords without creating a campaign.

Once you have registered, click on the "Tools" drop-down menu at the top and select "Keyword planner".

Use the option “Search for new keyword and ad group ideas” to search for new keywords related to an expression, a website or a product category.

There are three options available:

- Under 'Your product or service', type the keywords you have already found, separated by a comma if you have more than one.

- Under ’Your landing page’, you can ask Google to analyse a page on your site (or that of a competitor) to build a list of keywords to analyse.

- You can also just indicate 'Your product category".

Note that you can also target keywords by country or language.

Then start the search by clicking on ’Get ideas’. The tool then suggests ideas for ad groups that each combine various keywords. You can click on the "Keyword ideas" tab to see the keywords suggested by Google in detail.

For each keyword, there is information on the search volume and the competition. This last parameter relates to Google adverts and does not necessarily apply to search on Etsy.

Your Etsy Shop Stats

The statistics for your Etsy shop also allow you to see the most effective keywords for your listings. Be careful not to delete existing keywords that are already bringing you traffic when you edit your listings.

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PRATICAL EXERCICE

This practical exercise to do with your partner will help you to brainstorm together in order to find the most effective keywords for your shop and your products.

1) Find generic keywords for the whole of your shop and that of your partner.

Then discuss the words you have chosen with your partner, are they the same or not? Discuss your different points of view on your shops. Don't forget that your partner has an objective view on your shop, just like a buyer arriving in your shop.

YOUR SHOP

YOUR PRODUCTS (E.G. CHILDREN’S CLOTHING)

YOUR STYLE (E.G. COOL, COLORFUL)

YOUR VALUES (E.G. ENVIRONNEMENTALLY-FRIENDLY)

YOUR PARTNER’S SHOP

THEIR PRODUCTS (E.G. CHILDREN’S CLOTHING)

THEIR STYLE (E.G. COOL, COLORFUL)

THEIR VALUES (E.G. ENVIRONNEMENTALLY-FRIENDLY)

2) Choose a listing from your shop and send just the photo to your partner. Choose the first product on your listing, the one the buyers will see in the search results or on the home page of your shop.

If you have a listing that works very well, avoid choosing it. Instead, select a listing which has potential but struggles to achieve as detailed above.

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3) When you have received the photo of the item from your partner, fill in the table below:

IN YOUR LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH WHAT IS IT? (IN NO MORE THAN 3 WORDS)

AND MORE PRECISELY?

WHO IS IT FOR?

MATERIALS

COLOURS

TECHNIQUE, METHOD

PLACE AND CONTEXT OF USE

SIZE

STYLE

PATTERN, IMAGES

SCENT, FALVOUR

(COSMETICS, DELICATESSEN)

ERA (VINTAGE)

ASSOCIATED OCCASION (ANNIVERSARY, VALENTINE'S DAY…)

It may be that you struggle to answer some of the questions based on the photo alone, but try to answer as many as you can. If your partner does not manage to answer even very simple questions (such as what it is), it may be that your photo is not explicit enough (if the whole product is not visible on the image, for example) and you need to think about organising a new photo shoot.

4) Once you have received the list of keywords from your partner, finish them off by looking for :

SYNONYMS

ETSY SEARCH SUGGESTIONS

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GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER

KEYWORDS THAT ARE ALREADY BRINGING YOU TRAFFIC

Wow! What a brilliant list of keywords !

5) Then define the most important keywords; remember that they must be the keywords which could be entered into the search engine by a buyer and that a keyword can consist of multiple words to target buyers with specific needs. Write down the 20 keywords you think are most important below.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Draw a circle in blue around the 10 most important keywords on this list.

Of these, draw a circle in red around the 3 most important keywords for this listing!

Discuss with your partner to find out whether he/she would have made the same choice as you and adjust your list if required.

TEAM BONUS POINT

Not everybody searches in the same way and having lots of different objective views of your shop will definitely give you new ideas. Share your listing with the members of your team and ask them to suggest a keyword to get a greater range of ideas. Give your opinion on the other members' listings: everyone benefits by cooperating!

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Edit your Shop INCREASING THE RELEVANCE OF YOUR SHOP

You now have your list of keywords. It’s now time to swing into action and optimise your shop for Etsy and search engines like Google by adding your most relevant keywords in the right location!

This week, we’ll look at how to edit your shop and your listings to improve your visibility.

WEEK 3

A FAIRE CETTE SEMAINE

Identify the elements of my shop to be optimised

Edit my home page

Edit my listings

Edit my About page

LEARNING

We will look at each page of your shop and see the key elements to be optimised for search engines.

• But before you start, here are a few things you need to know to avoid errors in terms of search results. Firstly, be aware that search listings take time and it is a question of gentle experimentation and trial and error. Unfortunately, there is not a magic formula.

• Search engines are not capable of reading the content of your images. Avoid including text in images, especially if they are important words to describe your items. If you include a colour chart in your images, consider including the words in your description too so that they can be seen by search engines.

• Google loves unique and original content. Avoid copying and pasting your listings and using the same titles, the same descriptions and the same tags. It takes more time but it does pay off: not only does it allow you to be visible for different searches on Etsy, but you will also not be penalised by Google, which hates what it calls "Duplicate Content".

• Google does not like the abuse of keywords and prefers content that seems natural. Avoid titles and descriptions that are just strings of keywords one after another without logic. Instead, it is better to concentrate on 3 or 4 carefully chosen words in your titles and to make the description readable and attractive.

• Don’t forget that you’re selling products to human beings and don’t neglect the emotional aspect of your contents. In terms of sales, especially on Etsy where buyers are searching for unique products, human and emotional aspects play a crucial role. Think of the experience of buyers arriving at your shop and don’t give them the impression that it was designed for and by a robot!

a. Your shop home page The most important elements:

• Your shop title (which appears underneath your shop name)

• Your shop announcement,

• The name of your

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The first two elements are used to present your site in search results and are therefore the first contact buyers have before they even land at Etsy.

Pro tips

• Insert keywords that relate to your shop in general: the type of products you sell, your style and your values.

• Put the most important words in your title and at the beginning of your shop announcement. While search engines scan all of your content, they will only display the first 65 characters of your title and the first 160 characters of your shop annoucement.

• Avoid using spaces between each letter to write out the names of your sections, as you will lose out on the chance of these words being very useful for your place in the search results.

• Don’t forget to amend the translations if you have activated additional languages.

Where to amend them?

• Your shop title: in Your shop > Info & Appearance

• Your shop annoucement: in Your shop > Info & Appearance

• The name of your sections: in Your shop > Listings > Sections

b. Your listings The most important elements:

• The title of your listing • Your description • The tags (particularly useful for Etsy

searches; they are currently visible to

Google and other search engines using the new listing presentation)

Pro tips

• Insert the 3 or 4 most important words relating to your product at the beginning of your title.

• The first 160 characters of your description are the most important, but the search engines can see the whole description. Use the most important keywords at the beginning and insert the other keywords you have defined in the remaining text.

• Be as natural as possible and create user-friendly titles. Avoid a stream of keywords that makes no sense to a human reader.

• Make sure you fill in the 13 tags that are currently visible to the search engines (don't forget a tag can be made up of multiple words).

ETSY SEARCH RELEVANCY

The Etsy search engine primarily scans the title and the tags of your listings. It is important to use a descriptive title that contains the words that could be entered into the search box by buyers and to use the 13 tags available.

Other parameters are taken into consideration, such as: - the order of keywords, i.e. if the words contained in your title are the same order as the buyer's search or if your tags include these keywords in the same tag and in the same order. - the position of the keywords in your title: it is better if the keywords are at the beginning! - the date of your listings: buyers love new products, items put online or renewed recently are therefore considered more relevant.

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• Don’t use the same titles and descriptions

for all the listings, even if the product is virtually the same. Google doesn’t like identical pages ("Duplicate Content") and can penalise these pages and make them less visible in the search results. In addition, by varying the keywords you use in your listings, even if the item is identical, you are multiplying the chances of being seen by different searches.

• If you have products that sell very well and that have good stats, we advise you not to change them much. First, concentrate on the items with more potential (good product, lovely photo) but which are struggling to take off.

• If you have an item that has sold well, renew it if possible. You’ve already made an effort to make it visible; don’t put this effort to waste.

• Create new listings on a regular basis. Google loves new content!

• Don’t forget to amend the translations too if you have activated additional languages.

Where to amend them?

Your shop title: in Your shop > Listings manager Click on the listing you wish to edit.

c. Your About page The most important elements:

• The story header • The first few characters of your story

Pro tips

• Creating an ‘About’ page allows you not only to present the members of your shop, your story and your manufacturers, if applicable, but also to insert new keywords. Make sure you have added an ‘About’ page. You can find some tips on creating one here.

• As for the listings, insert the 3 or 4 most important keywords relating to your brand at the beginning of your Story header.

• The first 160 characters of your About page text are the most important, but the search engines can see the whole text. Use the most important keywords at the beginning and insert the other keywords you have defined in the remaining text or into your biography.

Where to amend it?

On the page Your shop > About us > Story

A few tips:

• If you use tags made up of multiple words, these will appear more relevant in these searches. For example, if a buyer enters "gold ring" you will come higher in terms of relevance if you have the tag "gold ring" than if you have two separate tags "gold" and "ring".

• Insert the name of your shop into the tags from time to time so you can be found more easily with your brand name.

• When you choose categories, they are added to your tags directly, there is no need to repeat them.

• There is no need to add the singular and the plural: the Etsy search engine is intelligent enough to know that "spiral notebook" is identical to "spiral notebooks".

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PRATICAL EXERCICE

The aim of our practical exercise is to use the keywords you defined last week and to insert them into a good place in your product listings. 1) Contact your partner and look at how you can improve your search results based on what you have just learned.

ELEMENTS QUESTIONS YES NO

YOUR HOME PAGE

YOUR SHOP TITLE

Does it describe what your shop offers in a maximum of 4 to 5 words?

Are these words likely to be searched by a buyer?

SHOP ANNOUNCEMENT

Does it contain keywords relating to your brand in general, what you sell, but also your values and your style?

SHOP SECTIONS

Are the names of your sections keywords?

Are they written without spaces or other special or unnecessary characters?

LISTING TO BE OPTIMISED

TITLE

Does it include words searched by buyers?

Are the most important ones at the beginning of the title?

Can it be read by a human?

DESCRIPTION

Does your first phrase present your product and include important keywords?

Are the other keywords included in the rest of the text?

Have you provided information on the colour, the size, the dimensions, the style, the materials, the era, the perfume, etc.

TAGS

Are you using all 13 tags?

Are you using tags that are likely to be searched by a buyer?

Do you have any tags that are redundant or duplicate category names?

ABOUT PAGE

Do you have an ‘About’ page?

Are you using keywords at the beginning of your header and in the first lines of your About page text?

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2) Come back to the keywords you defined last week and insert them into your shop home page and your ‘About’ page if necessary.

KEYWORDS ABOUT YOUR SHOP IN GENERAL

If you do not have an ‘About’ page, create one!

3) Include the keywords you defined for the listing that you wish to optimise.

KEYWORDS FOR THE LISTING TO BE OPTIMISED

TOP 3 TOP 10 TOP 20

1. 3. 11.

2. 4. 12.

3. 5. 13.

6. 14.

7. 15.

8. 16.

9. 17.

10. 18.

19.

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Following the elements you need to optimise, think with your partner about how to insert these keywords into your home page, your listings and your ‘About’ page.

For your product listing, for example, you can pick between:

• the 3 most important keywords for your title, your tags and at the beginning of your description,

• the 10 most important keywords for your description and your tags,

• the 20 most important keywords to complete your tags or your description. There are also places where you can insert seasonal tags that are not intended to remain on your product listing all year (like Valentine's day), words that relate to a seasonal trend that is relevant to your items, etc.

Don't forget that you need to do the keyword research and editing for each listing.

TEAM BONUS POINT

Insert your team's tag into various listings!

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Authority INCREASING THE POPULARITY OF YOUR SHOP

You now have your list of keywords, you have inserted them into your shop, but your SEO work doesn’t stop there. Now you need to show the search engines that not only is your shop relevant for specific keywords, but also that it is attractive!

WEEK 4

MY TO-DO LIST

Learn how search engines use lists along with the criteria taken into consideration

Define a self-promotion programme for my shop on my blog and/or my social networks

Add links between the listings on my shop

Identify the blogs that could talk about my shop

LEARNING

As well as the keywords on your pages, another very important parameter taken into consideration by search engines is the signals to indicate that your content is liked! The more it is liked, the more chance it has of appealing to the buyer doing the search. For this, the search engines use the links pointing at your shop. These are used to analyse the popularity of your shop based on different parameters. a. Popularity and number of links Not all links are equal: having a link on a blog or a quality, popular site has a greater impact than being added on a smaller site, but all links are useful for ranking purposes. Overall, the more links you have to your shop, the better!

Even though they are not taken into consideration in the same way as external links, internal links within your shop are also useful. They allow a transfer of authority between one page and another, giving the search engines indicators that the pages form a group. Add links between the pages of your shop in your listings.

You can benefit from this by promoting your other codes, including coupon codes or reduced postage costs for multiple orders:

For exemple

- This product is available in different colours and sizes. - See all the options available: (followed by a link to the section where all the products are visible)

- This product can be used with this other product (link to listing) Buy both and get reduced postage.

- I offer free delivery for orders over €50 using coupon code XXXXX. Why not have a look around the rest of my shop (insert a link to your shop).

b. Words used for the link When someone (or you) makes a link to your shop based on keywords, this gives the search engine another clue tas to your relevance for these keywords. Links on words such as "click here" or "more info" don’t provide information: more precise links to your shop are better.

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For example:

If you write an article about your new collection on your blog, the link:

"Find out about my new handmade recycled gold rings” is better than "To find out about my new collection, click here"

c. New links The search engines need to constantly update their classifications in order to report the best results first. In order to guarantee yourself good results on a long-term basis, you need to avoid resting on your laurels: new links tell search engines that your shop remains just as popular over time.

d. Social networks Signals from social networks are also taken into consideration. Although they are taken into consideration differently according to the search engines, they are becoming increasingly important. If you use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin and/or Google +, use these media to promote your shop or your listings. This is also a good way to get links to other people who know you from social networks.

e. Site quality and credibility The search engines do their best to combat those who attempt to exploit the system to artificially improve the rankings of a site in the search results. Never buy a sponsored link and don’t use spamming methods such as increasing links to your shop by spamming forums and automatically signing yourself up to dozens of link directories. If these links are referenced, you can quickly be penalised.

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PRATICAL EXERCICE

Our practical exercise will help you to increase links to your shop.

1) View your partner's online presence (blog, social networks, etc.) He/she will do the same to your shop.

DOES YOUR PARTNER HAVE:

A BLOG Y/N YOUR ADVICE

Does the blog only talk about the Etsy shop and new products or does it talk about other things too?

Do you think the editorial style and the design of the blog are in line with the style and the values of your partner's Etsy shop?

Is there a link to his/her online shop?

And vice versa, is there a link to his/her blog from his/her Etsy shop? (‘About’ page or somewhere else)

A FACEBOOK PAGE

Do you want to like or share the contents?

Does your partner seem to interact with his/her community?

Does your partner promote through his/her shop?

Is the Facebook page linked to the Etsy shop?

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A TWITTER ACCOUNT

Do you want to like or retweet the contents?

Does your partner seem to interact with his/her community?

Does your partner promote through his/her shop?

Is the Twitter account linked to the Etsy shop?

OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

Pinterest

Instagram

Linkeldn

Google +

Others

Contact your partner to share your observations and discuss your advice for each other together. Define how each of you could self-promote your shop better by creating attractive content. 2) Look after the ones who already like you.

Have specific blogs already added links to your shop? List them below and try to see whether they have brought in any traffic. (consult the stats to find out)

BLOG NAME TRAFFIC LAST YEAR

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Consider with your partner ways of benefiting those who have brought you the most traffic (obviously if you think the visitors they have brought are good ones).

Contact them again. If they have mentioned you recently, don't forget to thank them. You can also follow them on social networks and thank them directly via Twitter or Facebook. This is a good way to start

interacting with bloggers and building up a community around your shop!

3) Contact new sites.

Work with your partner to list 3 blogs that could promote your products and 3 blogs for your partner's shop..

BLOGS THAT COULD TALK ABOUT YOUR SHOP

Blog name Author's first name and e-mail address

Does the blog present products like yours?

What do you like about the blog?

BLOGS THAT COULD TALK ABOUT YOUR PARTNER'S SHOP

Blog name Author's first name and e-mail address

Does the blog present products like your partner’s ones?

What do you like about the blog?

Swap blog names with your partner: and now you have 6 sites to contact! Use this article to help you send them a friendly, personal message to present your products, offer them a free sample or whatever you want.

Before you do, make sure your photos are top quality: bloggers are more likely to share products if the photos are good.

4) Don't forget to add links between your listings.

TEAM BONUS POINT

Choose a member of the team whose work you particularly appreciate and promote his/her shop or one of their listings on your blog or your social networks!

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Finishing touches We’ve already said it, but don't forget that your buyers are not robots: you can be wonderfully visible and still not sell anything. Readable titles and descriptions that are attractive to a human being, good photographs, well-reasoned prices and appropriate shipping costs are important to finalise a sale.

A good exercise is to define your target market and make sure you are answering all the questions that your ideal buyer could have about your listings. Useful links 20 questions your buyers are asking

How to find your target market

Re-evaluate and optimise your search ranking efforts regularly!

Check your stats to evaluate your progress on a regular basis. Put new listings online, regularly promote your shop using your communication media, keep getting new external links.

Checking your statistics once a month is a good way to start. Identify the keywords that are not working in order to test new ones.

Don’t forget to keep yourself up to date on the best practices in terms of search results: the rules could change!

Be patient and don't get obsessed with SEO

SEO takes time to be really effective, so be patient.

Search engines love new things, but that doesn’t mean you need to change your page every day. Keep your pages relatively static (and only change them where necessary) in order to have the time to see the effects of your changes and draw conclusions.

Tools and resources on search rankings/SEO

• SEO Teams on Etsy

• SEOMoz’s Beginners Guide to SEO

• Search Engine Land’s SEO section

• Search Engine Journal’s SEO Beginners Guide

WELL DONE ! YOU’VE FINISHED!

Please, send us your feedback-in this form. It helps us decide what are the most important things to work on with the next version. Thanks !