The Ultimate Etsy SEO Strategy for 2019

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is such a buzzword these days. Especially in the Etsy community, where it’s often touted as the holy grail of shop success, SEO has taken on this sort of mystical quality: it’s both impossible to understand and vital to crack if you want to succeed. And while I’ve found that understanding Etsy SEO is important for getting found, it won’t necessarily lead to more sales.

Unless you put in the work to test, tweak and update your keywords consistently.

Choosing strong keywords and using them correctly can help any shop move up in the rankings, but it’s really SEO maintenance that matters when it comes to creating a business that lasts. If Etsy makes an algorithm change or if your search terms go out of style overnight, your traffic can disappear faster than you can say holy sss…earch engine optimization. So instead of obsessing about your rank, you need a consistent plan to stay relevant and at the top of search over time without constantly erasing your hard work and destroying your traffic.

I learned this the hard way when my traffic plummeted nearly 50% year-over-year thanks to an algorithm change. I woke up one morning a few months ago and realized I hadn’t made a single template sale in days.

So I did what any shop owner would do.

I panicked.

Like a lot of folks on Etsy, I was treating my SEO as a set-it-and-forget-it task rather than a constant project. And it came back to bite me. Hard.

Now, instead of focusing on keywords bi-yearly (or let’s be honest, yearly), I tackle my SEO every day as part of my daily shop maintenance checklist. And I’ve slowly noticed my traffic picking up and my sales coming back. I’ve also gotten to know my Etsy customers in a way that I didn’t before: what they want, how they find me, and how I can tailor my products and copywriting to connect with them on a deeper level.

It’s a game changer.

A note about how Etsy SEO works

In 2016, Etsy started moving toward context-specific ranking, meaning Etsy shows customers items that match their search intent as closely as possible. Just like Amazon shows you items it thinks you’ll like based on previous searches and purchases, Etsy now does the same thing.

The good news: Because search results are specific to individual users, you can no longer search for yourself to see where your listings are ranking on Etsy. The results YOU see are completely customized compared to the results SOMEONE ELSE sees (even if they’re searching for the exact same keywords). This means you no longer have a set rank in Etsy search (and you can stop obsessing about it now!)

The bad news: Because you don’t have a set “rank”, you can no longer use your place in search as a measuring stick for how effective your SEO strategy is. In other words, you can no longer work the system.

Etsy now gives each listing a quality score based on your sales history, search performance and attributes. And that quality score affects where you show up in search. So It’s not enough to have “the best words”, you also need amazing customer service, listing descriptions that convert and photos that really show off your product and doesn’t leave you with disappointed customers.

If your listings are high quality and you’re still not getting found on Etsy, it might be time to tweak your SEO and find words that work for your shop.

Here is my SEO strategy for staying relevant in search. It’s broken down into daily, weekly and monthly tasks so you can group ‘em together and tackle in batch.

An Etsy SEO Strategy that Works

Monthly

Industry analysis (10 minutes)

Spend some time looking around Etsy to see what the big players in your niche, or in a similar niche, are doing. Are they using any new keywords that might be causing them to show up at the top of your search results? Can you think of any upcoming holidays that you can capitalize on? Are there any new trends or buzzwords that might fit your products and get you found more easily?

Keyword research (15 minutes)

Use Marmalead, or another Etsy SEO research tool, to look for keywords that are trending. Also, research your most-used keywords with Marmalead to see if they’re still getting optimal search traffic and competition.

Based on your research, keep a running list of keywords that will work for your niche.

Analyze your shop metrics (5 minutes)

Typically it takes 2-3 months to see any results from updating your keywords, but it doesn’t hurt to check more often. I like to take note of any month/month and year/year changes when it comes to my listings. I also like to see what listings are getting views but not making sales, since this tells me my keywords are fine but I might need to tweak the listing descriptions.

Weekly

Review your under-performing listings (5 minutes)

Every week, look at your Etsy analytics and pick 3-4 listings that aren’t selling and that you haven’t touched in over 3 months (about how long it takes to see results from updated SEO). Ideally you want to choose listings that don’t have any traffic, because that means they’re not getting found or clicked on in search. 

If you have different products in your shop, it’s best to choose 3-4 listings for the same type of product, (ie. all wedding invitation templates), that way you can make updates in batch and save time researching keywords.

Choose a new Long Tail keyword (15 minutes)

In years past, Etsy would only show 1 listing from a shop on each page. So if you had 100 listings all selling the same thing (wedding invitations for instance), only 1 listing from your shop would appear on page 1, 1 on page 2, 1 on page 3, etc. Now Etsy does something called “clumping” which simply means you can have multiple items from the same shop shown on the same page. So don’t be afraid to use the same target keyword on a few different listings.

To make updating easier, I choose 1 new long tail keyword a week (from that list I compiled earlier), and use it in all the listings I’m updating that week. I just run it through Marmalead at the beginning of the week to make sure traffic and competition are still okay, they I use it across several listings at once.

Daily

Update 1-2 listings (5 minutes)

You don’t want to make too many changes at once. Not only is it stressful trying to change alllll your listings in one go, but it could do more harm than good if you’re no longer getting found in search at all. A good rule of thumb is to update 1 listing a day, max 2.

Note: I never, ever, fiddle with my Etsy SEO for listings that are getting found in search and bringing me sales. I only update listings that aren’t selling, because at that point, I have nothing to lose.

Lastly, make sure to fill in all your Etsy attributes! Primary color, secondary color, holiday, etc. are now included in Etsy search and not having them filled in can keep your listings from being found.

Get this free One-Month checklist to track all your SEO changes during the month.

Track your changes using this free tracking sheet (item name/SKU, old target, new target keyword, new tags, notes about what else you updated, old traffic, new traffic). This is the only way to figure out what’s working and what’s not.

The information contained on this Website and the resources available for download through this website are for educational and informational purposes only. I am only sharing what worked for me, and as such, I cannot guarantee that any products or processes will give you the same results.