So, you spend all this time making a product and you slap it up on Etsy and nothing. You check every day, maybe you got a couple views, but it’s crickets. Etsy is changing all the time and what might have worked two years ago has changed.

I started my first laser cut Etsy shop in 2014 and it still brings in thousands of dollars a month. I’m even about to open yet another shop because once you understand what is working right now, you become unstoppable. So, let’s go over common things people get wrong when making an Etsy listing and how you can fix it so you can get those sales.

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Listing Juice

First, you need to know about listing juice. I’m not just telling you to stay hydrated, but to keep your listings hydrated, too.

Every time you make a new listing or improve an old listing, it gets a little juice. And what does the algorithm like? Well, not a dry old wrinkly listing, I’ll tell ya!

So, if you have some listings that have been up a while, we have a couple of juice options. One is to make a new listing or the other is to edit an old one. Both are juicy options.

If you have made a sale and have some positive reviews on a listing that has stopped selling, let’s edit the listing. If it has never sold ever, let’s make a new listing for the freshest juice possible.

Now let’s go over a few points of what you may be doing wrong to sabotage a great listing. Your listing is the salesperson for your product, and we want them to work hard for us.

A Good Etsy Title

Your title should answer the first question any customer has.

“Why?”

This is where your most valuable keywords should be. But be careful you are not focusing on the “what”. Most people, especially at the start, think they should title things very literally.

Like this, “A laser cut and engraved finished wood sign that says, “love is a four legged word” with an engraving of a saint Bernard dog face above the letters.” Which is what it is, and the exact ai prompt I used to generate this image.

But that is not WHY someone would buy this. Think about people whose whole identity is their dog. Their friends buy them dog things. They buy themselves things for their dog and things that makes them think about their dog. Probably anytime their friends are looking for a gift, like a table runner, necklace or sign to hang on their door, they are going to throw “Saint Bernard” in there.

So, try something like this: Funny Saint Bernard Door Sign, Gift for Dog Mom or Dad, Front Entry Housewarming Welcome Plaque

Here’s the beauty of this title, no words are duplicated and all the search terms are present.

Search engines are getting smarter and your title doesn’t need to work so hard to be found.

And, if you are thinking that this could easily be an indoor sign and isn’t even a welcome sign, that’s why you would want to make a duplicate listing with different product positioning. (After we finish this one, of course.)

For that next listing we can try a different “why” that customers are looking for an item like this. We could go down pet memorials or even just Saint Bernard indoor decor.

You just might find that people are buying this product for a different reason that you originally thought, and you get multiple listings under different categories with just one product.

Types of Etsy Pictures

One thing you absolutely need when it comes to the picture you are going to use for your main listing image – it needs to stop the scroll. If you haven’t searched up similar listings of your product yet, do that.

Are everyone else’s picture more neutral colors? Have a bright red background in yours. Everyone else have a dark background, yours should be white or maybe yellow, whatever stands out and compliments your product. People are swiping through product listings super-fast, and you need them to stop.

We get 20 pictures and a video on Etsy now, so use them up. You don’t need a fancy camera and setup. Just use natural light or get a cheap lightbox like this one. The main thing to making sure of is that the pictures will work for all of Etsy’s image layouts.

Depending on where you are looking, Etsy will show your product as 1:1 scale, as well as portrait and landscape.

I like to call this hotdog and hamburger style because it’s more fun and I like food. So, make sure you leave a little room around the product in your image for the hotdogs and hamburgers.

If you product is getting cut off, people will pass it by. Pictures are the first thing people see before they even read the description, so make it your #1 priority. If you have to get your wife’s cousin who’s trying to start a photography business involved, then do it.

Whatever you do make sure your pictures aren’t just the same picture over and over again from the same angle and backdrop.

Plus, we want our pictures to answer questions. How big is it? How heavy is it? Where can I put it? Things like that. You can even overlay text on your images so people can read the main details they need to know.

A Readable Etsy Description

The product descriptions I used to do when I opened my Etsy shop were crap.

We are past the days of keyword stuffing. No more wacky freaking sentences that read like you just discovered words.

“Give the best dog mom gift for her present for Christmas or Birthday gift for woman who loves dogs!” No.

Try to talk like a human person, and if you are good at that, then the SEO of your description should come naturally.

Instead of thinking about SEO as Search Engine Optimization, think of it as Search Engine Opportunity.

This is your opportunity to set the scene of how your product belongs in your customers life.

If you engrave Mr and Mrs champagne glasses for instance, say something like, “Your wedding is a magical day, and you deserve a keepsake that will last the rest of your lives together in matrimony heaven.” We’ve got keywords like wedding, keepsake and matrimony. Let it flow.

Next, include the boring or “need to know” information as bullet points in the middle of your description. Size, weight, finishing options and shipping expectations. This will likely be the same information you want to overlay on your images, as well.

This next tip is so overlooked and most people don’t even know about it. You can include live links to other products in your Etsy shop IN your product description.

Simply copy and paste the etsy link. You actually just need up to the listing number for the link to work, so you can keep it short and sweet.

If you want a shorter link and are using a website like tinyurl or bitly, make sure that the shortened url is in etsy.me format for the link to work. You might need to pay for this feature on those websites. Any non – Etsy urls will not be turned into links, and you could get flagged for trying to get people off Esty.

Tags

If you haven’t been spying on your competition yet, you have to for this step. Unless you just happen to know search terms people are using to find similar items, you are going to want to do some poking around. Here’s how to do it.

Open an incognito window and search for like items on Etsy. Find one that seems to be selling pretty well. Scroll down to the bottom where it says, “Explore more related searches”. These searches have been linked to this product. I wouldn’t have thought about “Saint Bernard Garden” as a tag, but that could be a good tag to pursue for our outdoor sign listing.

Again, just like the title and just like the description, we don’t want to be repeating ourselves like crazy and we want to include how real people search for things, especially on Etsy.

We don’t want to just describe what it is again. So tags that repeat are redundant, like: dog sign, saint bernard sign, house door sign, dog door sign, sign with dog on it, wood sign, laser engraved sign, sign sign sign…. Plus, who is actually searching for laser engraved sign? That is a complete waste of a tag.

Consider tags like; Saint Bernard Sign, Pet Memorial Plaque, Doghouse Decoration, St. Bernard Decor, Large Breed Dog, Bernard Mom Birthday, Mountain Dog Present, and other grouped words that people might search for, because just “dog mom” or just “wood sign” has already been factored into what the algorithm will already assume for this product.

The less repetition the better, the more actual search terms, the better. Once you have a listing that’s been around a little while, you can go into the analytics and see what people are actually searching for and adjust if needed.

When it comes to the Materials tags, here’s where you can get specific. People don’t search for “Mahogany Dog Sign”, but if it happens to be mahogany, this is where you should put that, but keep the idea of your method of making similar to the tags above. Laser Engraved, Hand Painted, Tungsten Oil Finish, Easy Hang Wall Hook, things like that, not: laser, wood, varnish, hook.

The One Thing You Should Always Include

Always always always, include variations. It doesn’t matter what you make, include some sort of variation. This is a great chance for an up sell.

If you make signs, it could be something as small as choosing from a sawtooth hanger or string hanger, or both. Be sure to charge accordingly.

If you make jewelry it could be hooks or clip ons.

If you make coasters it could be a set of 4 or 6.

Even if you think there is nothing that would make sense to include as a variation, you’re wrong. You could add a gift card for a few bucks more or have an option to upgrade the packaging. If you have a lot of scraps laying around, what kind of little thing could you make that could be an add on?

If you sell cutting boards or kitchen wares, make some bag tie holders as a way to use up your scraps and as a $5 upgrade to like items in your shop. You’ll be surprised how many people upgrade their orders.

I don’t want to dive into the whole psychology about it here, but there is a billion-dollar reason certain places ask if you want to upgrade your drink for 75 cents, and it’s because people say yes.

In fact, knowing what to charge is the main thing holding people back from succeeding at this whole business thing. If you’d like to know more about pricing psychology and how you can utilize that information to maximize your Etsy variations, check out this article next.

Happy Crafting!