July 2017 Admin Update for Sellers

On July 20 an update was held for a few Etsy sellers in positions of team leadership. Admin answered some questions. This is a condensed version.
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Etsy remains committed to Etsy teams. More team captains and leaders will be invited to join the Fellowship program [which is located on Facebook] this year.

Q. What effect do hearting games have on Etsy's search algorithms?
A. (The information provided by admin duplicates what was said during the public Q&A post on Etsy.) If a buyer clicks, favorites, or purchases an item found in search results, that has a positive effect on that items search ranking.

• If a product is clicked on or favorited outside of search results (for example, from social media), that has no impact on search ranking - neither a negative or positive effect.
• If an item receives a favorite, regardless of there it came from, that product will show up in the Recommended Items area on the front page - so there is a benefit there. But no benefit on the search algorithm.
• Better tags and titles can improve search ranking.
• Driving traffic to your shop via social media is still the best way to get exposure.

Q. Do conversion rates affect search ranking?

Lower conversion rates are better

A. Yes, conversion rates do affect search ranking.

Q. Is a fee increase in the works for sellers?
A. No.

Q. Regarding the 10 photos per listing, if not all 10 photos are used, will this reduce search ranking?
A. No. The number of photos used has no impact on search placement.

Q. Why have sales have plummeted for sellers this year?
A. Etsy admin understand that fluctuations in sales are scary. Unfortunately, there are many causes. There is no general trend; it is SHOP specific.

Concerned shops that have decreasing sales may contact Etsy. A team of Etsy admin can do a 15 minute shop critique to increase sales. The link is in the Help pages. Shop owners should click on the contact button in that Help section to request a critique.

Q: (Re-questioned): you are saying that there is no Etsy trend that is affecting sales… It goes back to the individual shops? That the experimenting that seems to be affecting sales, is not having an effect on sales?
A: As part of the recent realignment, Etsy now has a dedicated group of admin (called Voice of the Consumer) who are listening to all channels to hear from sellers…

Q: Some feel that morale among sellers on Etsy is at an all-time low. Shop owners could use more timely information from Etsy.

A: We are currently working on better communication plans. We will communicate better with our sellers. This week there are lots of meetings going on at Etsy about being more transparent to sellers. We are working to be better at letting sellers know testing and experiments, ones that are working and not working.

😎 Thanks to long-time Etsy vintage sellers Gail and JD for the above information!

Etsy Sells Vintage - social media initiative

Social Media Image - Etsy Sells Vintage

You are already aware that Etsy sells vintage items. However, many potential buyers are not.

There is a movement afoot to advertise that vintage is thriving on Etsy (as well as handmade and crafting/DIY).

The hashtag is #etsysellsvintage. Feel free to use the image here.

Post it on whatever social media you use: Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Google+. Even on the Etsy Forum threads. Share this on your Etsy teams. Blogs, too.

Some have even changed their social media avatars.

It would be so nice for Etsy to advertise that vintage thrives along with handmade and crafts... but if they do not, at least WE can. 

Give Etsy vintage a bump. Please join other vintage sellers in this social media campaign to get the word out!

Etsy Listings, Renew or Copy?

Which is more beneficial, renewing or copying our expiring Etsy listings?

Copy our expired listings or just renew?

This is an interesting question. We must take two or three facts into consideration.

Renewing gives your expiring item a bump while keeping any social media links active.

Let's say that your item has been on over a year and it doesn't have a lot of action. It falls to the bottom of search. (I call this the “stale item effect”). Renewing will bump it up, making it more relevant. However, it again takes a rankings dip.

In that case, I would consider copying the listing. As long as it is not getting hits from social media.

How do you know if your listed items are being found via social media?
1. If you're not doing it, that is unlikely but not impossible.
2. Look at your individual items stats, a poorly understood stats feature of Etsy. Here's how.

Etsy stats can be hard to figure out when determining the level of social media activity. Here is why.

Can you tell which items are ranking poorly?

Testing for item placement used to be easy, but now it is not.

The only other factor I can think of is your shop updates. You will lose the shop updates for items that you copy rather than renew. I do not view that as a major issue. (I have well over 100. Here is more information on shop updates, including 40 ideas for vintage sellers.)

To recap, if you are doing social media, use care when choosing to copy your Etsy listing rather than renewing it. However, if the item is "stale," then copying rather than renewing it may result in it ranking higher in search over a longer period. May. For now.

Any beneficial effect of copying rather than renewing is only temporary.

The whole subject is really about how Etsy's algorithm is working. That is a closely guarded secret. And the algorithm always changes. Here is Etsy's latest information on search.

What do your listing stats tell you? Renew or copy?

Stay tuned for more help with running your Etsy shop.

(On a related topic, is it better to renew an item for 20 cents, or pay for a promoted listing campaign?)

SEO: 2016 admin update - does social media help?

We have been encouraged to use social media to promote our Etsy shops. Not everyone is on board with this idea. Do I have enough time and energy? Which form of social media is best? Will I enjoy promoting my shop via social media?

Does social media drive traffic to our listings?

A fundamental issue, though, is whether social media for our shops will even have any effect. For an answer to that question, let's consider Etsy admin's answer to a question asked during an Etsy SEO seminar in late 2016:

Q: I heard that relevancy on the search is based on the amounts of views/favorites/sales an item gets after is searched. Am I right?  

Now, I understand that because teams where playing some favorite games, the direct "favoriting" items won't affect his rank. My question is: I share a lot of my listings in social media, and I know for my views that many people are clicking on those links and favoriting some of them. Will this improve in what page my items are shown on the search, or it only gets affected by favoriting through Etsy search engine? 

Can we get some extra tips on how to make it work better for us (ones that aren't on the seller handbook)... 

Admin: Yes you are correct, any external likes or shares outside of Etsy will not affect your visibility on Etsy.com. On the other hand, Google has said that while there isn’t a direct correlation between social and SEO rankings, studies have shown there is correlation between SEO rankings and social signals.

You are also correct in saying favoriting listings or click farming won’t have an effect on your rankings. On the contrary I would think of it as, the more buyers engage with your listing, the more positive signals your listing will send that factor into your visibility on Etsy search.

As for extra tips, we would recommend adding as much relevant content on your listing and shop page as possible. Attributes such as color, size, material and gender would be examples of more descriptive content.

So admin is saying here that Social Media helps with SEO, which is getting traffic into our shops from outside of Etsy. Not directly, but "studies have shown" that it helps... Is that enough assurance to commit to social media?

Each shop owner must decide for themselves.

Stats 9 - How Etsy counts social media

This post is an effort to clear up a cloudy area of Etsy's stats. How are seller stats counted when traffic comes into our Etsy shop via social media?

On Etsy, social media use can be counted in two ways:

• Direct Traffic (left column, see my blog post on the subject)

• The exact social media. (These would be Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and likely others.)

Let's say that someone uses the web browser version of Instagram. If they click through to your shop, then it will show as traffic from Instagram.com.

On the other hand, perhaps they use the Instagram app. If they click through to view your shop in a browser or the Etsy app, then it shows more generically, as "direct traffic." That’s because the apps can't pass click-through referral data from one app to another.

From Etsy Admin: similarly, “a direct traffic shop stat can occur when clicking a link from a mobile social media app like Facebook or Twitter. Phone apps often do not pass referrer information. Additionally, this can also occur when going to a non-secure (http) site from a link on a secure (https) site, as the secure site won’t pass a referrer to the non-secure site. For instance, if someone clicks a link on example.com to go to example2.com, the analytics for example2.com will show the session as direct. Etsy links are generally https.”

“If you’d like to track all of the clicks from your social posts, I would suggest using a link shortener like bitly (bitly.com) to shorten links to your listings. This way, you’ll be able to look up those numbers at a later date with more clarity. Hope that helps! – Jessica”

I use shortened links from https://goo.gl/ in my blog posts so I can track any traffic better. It seems to work well. It tells you how many times the unique link has been used, which is nice.

Is it brighter?

I hope you have enjoyed delving into Etsy's stats. Stay tuned for more posts on how to better sell on Etsy.