Etsy Search: getting found in late 2016

Our tags and titles are the best way to get found on Etsy. A buyer enters search terms. We will be seen in search results only if we have put all of the words the buyer uses in our titles and/or our tags.

Where will our item be within the search results? On the front page? Or buried way at the end? What determines that? How do we improve our placement within search results?

First, be sure to place your items into the proper category. That's a shortcut to getting found because buyers so drill down when searching. I know that I do.

In the results of a big search, we will have a maximum of one item on the first page. That is, until every shop has had their chance to shine. That's how Etsy de-clumps results and provides a measure of fairness to all shops. 

The better our title and tags match up with the buyer's search terms, the higher within the results we will be. Also helpful is if the item has a higher degree of buyer engagement. Shoppers click on it and buy it at a higher rate than other items they are presented with.

The only way to guarantee high results is to pay for Etsy ads. Our featured items have automatic placement toward the beginning. (Ads show up differently on PC's vs. mobile devices. And of course, there are caveats. That's a subject for another day.)

But you're determined not to do that. 

What else can be done besides paying ad fees for preferred placement on Etsy?

My sad license plate is near the end of search.

If a search has one page of results and we are 1/3 down, our buyer only has to scan 1/3 page before finding us. What if the search returns 100 pages of results and we are 1/3 down, at page 33? Not much hope of being found. What do we do?

When a buyer enters only a few search terms, say, one or two words, getting found can be difficult. We shouldn't assume that it is impossible to be found that way, but harder.

If our buyer enters 3-5 keywords, that is better. A group of that many words is called a "long-tail" keyword. Be sure to consider what longer keyword combinations potential buyers may use. It is not a bad thing to include both types of keyword types, both the shorter and longer.

All right, enough for today. My next post will be about the basics of test searching. After that... (drum roll, please) The Algorithm.