Selling On Etsy: How To Get Started In Just 10 Days
Day 3: Study the Etsy Policies Relevant to Your Store
Opening a store of any kind, online or otherwise, comes with its own set of rules and regulations. Familiarize yourself with Etsy’s policies to better understand how your shop works, how you get paid, and how your store is protected.
Etsy Charges Per Listing
Etsy sets a fee of $.20 per listing when the listing is created, regardless of whether the product sells.
But that’s not the end of it: listings for most products expire after four months. Etsy does provide an auto-renew feature that enables sellers to easily keep their listings active longer than four months.
Once the four-months is up, you will automatically be charged the $.20 to renew your listing. This is a helpful way to keep track of inventory without having to recreate listings.
You do not have to pay a listing fee if you are editing a preexisting listing. There are slightly different rules for creating a private listing for certain types of products, but this limits your customer exposure on Etsy.
The Etsy fee structure is fairly labyrinthine: for a more comprehensive education, consult our complete guide to Etsy fees to learn more about how, why, and when Etsy’s fees are charged.
Reviews Can Make or Break Your Shop
Reviews are very important on Etsy. They determine not only whether or not a customer will choose your shop over similar shops but also how many eyes Etsy will put on your shop.
Etsy employs a five-star rating system that customers can use once their product is marked as “delivered.”
Now, here’s the rub: reviews expire after 100 calendar days. This is done by Etsy to provide up-to-date quality information for new customers, but it also means you can’t rest on your laurels. Consider adding “please review your experience” or a similar message at the end of all of your customer communication and confirmation emails.
Ensuring that customer service and shipping are hassle-free will help manage the kind of bad reviews that are focused on the process rather than on the product itself. It is helpful to include up-to-date shipping information in your listings and purchases so that people who feel their item arrived late don’t leave a negative review.
You can see their reviews by going into the “Shop Manager,” clicking the name of the shop in “Sales Channels,” and then clicking on “Reviews.” You can also find your rating there. A high rating not only adds to your shop’s authority but also determines whether or not you have access to Etsy’s Seller Protection Policy.
Etsy’s Seller Protection Policy Helps Resolve Disputes
Etsy does have a seller protection policy, which most shops will qualify for and which requires no outside application policy. In order to qualify for the seller protection policy, your shop must be in good standing and use basic features, such as Etsypay.
The protection policy allows for the seller to receive help from Etsy corporate if there is a case that needs to be resolved. This generally means helping to mediate disputes between buyers and sellers over product quality concerns, shipping issues, chargebacks, and other payment disagreements.
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Day 4: Visit the Etsy Forums
Creating and managing an online store can be a lonely business — take advantage of the Etsy community to learn from the pros and maybe create a network of helpful contacts.
Forums are a great way to get questions answered, especially for an Etsy newbie. Forums can include almost anything, from latest trends with your products to expert tips from sellers. The Etsy forusm community is diverse and knowledgeable; exploring forums when you create your shop will undoubtedly lead you to some useful information.
Be sure to contact other sellers for cross-promotion. The sellers you choose to cross-promote should provide something similar to your product, but one that you do not provide yourself.
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You next step is to spend a day learning about SEO — search engine optimization. The text on your website — also called copy — is crawled by Google, which then uses that information to guide users toward or away from your site. Making your copy as search-engine-friendly as possible is paramount.
You don’t have time to become an SEO expert in a day, but a few quick lessons can help Google (and future customers) find your Etsy store.
Find Your Keywords
One of the most basic principals of SEO is to find a useful, descriptive keyword that people are proved to be searching for.
If you’re selling furniture, keywords to look for might be “couch,” “reclining chair,” or “end table.” For custom jewelry, it might be “crystals,” “homemade jewelry,” or (surprise) “custom jewelry.”
There are free tools that can help you do a little keyword research beforehand. Wordtracker, Google Trends, and Keyword Generator can tell you whether people are searching for your terms, and even how hard it might be to grab Google’s attention with your own products.
Plug some keywords about your product into these research tools and see what they turn up. Then, you can adjust your writing accordingly, adding those keywords into all of your product descriptions and marketing material.
Don’t Be Afraid to Brag About Your Expertise
Another principle of SEO is called “EAT,” or “Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.” In your product copy, your store description, and your marketing, you need to at least touch on all three pillars. It wouldn’t be unwise to start a blog as well, with personal or product-related topics that sneakily improve your shop and brand’s SEO.
You should showcase your expertise — why are you selling or making this product and why should we care? Authority is a little tougher when you’re starting out; this is basically a measurement of your clout, your established credentials, or how beloved your brand or product is. You’ll be working on that. Third is Trustworthiness; this is where reviews and testimonials come in.
Some high-quality pictures can at least showcase how expertly made or sourced your product is, which can help with all three pillars.
Day 6: Take High-Quality Product Photos
A product photo provides shoppers with a first impression, so make it a good one. Most visitors to your shop will look at the product image before they read anything but the name. We have a few basic tips to help you get the most out of basic lighting and even just a camera phone for photography.
Invest in Lighting
It is helpful for pictures to look consistent (same lighting/background) and even include matching labels to look professional.
Early-morning light or even outdoor light helps showcase products, but you can also purchase a ring light so that you can create listings indoors at any time.
Listing photos should be well- lit and clear. Avoid shadows or blurriness. If you’re using a camera phone, be sure to adjust your settings to avoid things like flash or panoramic views. Flash will generally wash a product out, flattening all details and making it look two-dimensional. In fact, when lighting any product, try to light it from multiple angles to soften hard shadows, to help the product stand out from the background, and to make it appear more three-dimensional.
In addition, you can purchase lighting and backdrop equipment for a reasonable price if you prefer a clean white background and professional-looking lighting.
Up Your Photography Game
Your phone’s camera will work fine if you have decent lighting and a little patience, but you can improve your photography dramatically with a few reasonably priced accessories. There are several lenses you can purchase for a camera phone, depending on the look you want for your product listing. Moment, Olloclip, and Nelomo make excellent and affordable lenses that snap right onto your current phone.
If you want to provide clarity on the size of your product, you can include a photo “to scale” with something the consumer can reference, like a quarter. So if you’re selling lip balm in one-ounce tins, including a quarter next to the tin in the listing picture will help the customer get a good idea of how much product your listing includes.
If you don’t want to become an expert on product photography, you can also hire an expert to touch up your basic photos for minimal costs. They can be found pretty easily on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer. This will ensure a professional look without as much work on your part.
Day 7: Create Your Listings
On the seventh day, you won’t be resting. Instead, you’ll be doing one of the most important steps — creating the listings for selling on Etsy.
To create a listing, you must have a photo, choose a price, describe your product, and determine shipping details. Sign on to your account, click “Shop Manager” and then “Listings” to start adding your product listings.
If you have more than one product photo, you must choose a thumbnail photo, which will be the photo that appears when customers search for your product.
Price your product. Research Etsy and Google to see what other sellers are asking for products similar to yours, and then gauge yours accordingly. You may want to offer special pricing or introductory sale pricing to get your shop more traffic at first.
Name, categorize, and describe your product. First, give your listing a title — the name of your product. Then, choose the appropriate category — just begin typing your category (“women’s shoes” or “custom jewelry”) and the box will suggest relevant categories.
Then, describe your product. This is another opportunity for your personality to show and to describe any details for the products that buyers might find helpful. For instance, if you’re selling plants, are the plants rooted, or are they cuttings? This transparency increases the likelihood customers will trust your shop.
Set up shipping. This is available in the “Settings” section under “Shop Manager” and then “Shipping.” There are lots of options based on size and weight and international versus domestic. If you have questions about which type of shipping would work best for your shop, it’s a great time to consult forums and ask fellow Etsy sellers.
Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are lots of tools available to help your listings go further or to help you handle the more complex aspects of listing, such as Etsy’s taxonomic structure. Services like Sellbrite offer multiple listing platforms (googleshop +etsy) or listings integrated with other apps specific to your business.
Day 8: Download the Etsy Mobile App
The Etsy mobile app isn’t just for buyers — you can manage your entire store from a phone or tablet.
Go to the App Store or Google Play on your device, and download the Etsy mobile app for free.
Sign in to your seller account; from there, you can manage listings, reviews, and orders, as well as increase your social media presence for your shop.
The mobile app allows for notifications so that you can respond to buyers or questions instantly, ensuring that you have solid customer service at your shop. Fast response time to customer questions will also boost your good standing.
Day 9: Launch Your Shop
Day nine is the time for you to officially launch your Etsy shop — to send your new child into kindergarten and hope they make friends.
If your profile and listings are ready to go, and you’re happy with how everything looks, it’s time to open your shop. To make your shop “live,” simply sign in to your seller account and click “Open Your Shop.” A successful launch is not only based on having all of your ducks in a row but also usually includes some social media and marketing. Be sure that those campaigns are in place to create a buzz and help customers find your shop.
Opening your shop means you are live and ready to sell your wares. Customers can contact or buy once the shop is open, so make sure you are opening at a time when you’re ready to take on the commitment of regular customers.
Day 10: Market Your Etsy Shop Everywhere
The 10th day is where the real selling starts — selling your brand, selling your products, and, most importantly, selling yourself. Now it’s time to channel your inner Don Draper and get to marketing.
There are many easy, effective ways to promote your shop on social media.
Share your best products on social media. If you’re looking to employ social media marketing yourself, you’ll want to choose some of your most impressive products as well as a create a brief description of your shop to share on social media. Most of the keywords you chose for your SEO campaign can be used as a hashtag on Instagram.
Consider buying ads. Social media marketing can consist of buying ads and setting up a campaign with social media providers or services. Facebook ads and Twitter ads are extremely easy to set up, and you can set any level of budget (per day or per click) you want to make sure you don’t get surprised with a huge bill.
Join the community. There are also lots of communities on social media for small-business owners. Find one based on your area, product, or socioeconomic background to link up with other businesses. Look for hashtags related to your product or industry, and peruse them for frequent posters.
Use video on social media. And of course, don’t neglect the power of video on social media. Consider creating videos for your most striking products — even five-second clips with some dynamic editing and fun music.
Launching Your Shop Isn’t the End
In just 10 days, you can learn all of the basics of selling on Etsy, creating your brand, and launching both your store and your marketing campaign.
What happens next is up to you (and a little bit of fate). You never know until you try. Your Etsy shop could be the seed of an ecommerce empire. Good luck in the days ahead.
The rest of your journey is up to you.
What’s The Best Way To Improve Your Page Speed?
Google’s recent algorithm updates have largely focused on gaining a better understanding and insight into the queries that search users make, and as an extension, the content that best serves these users’ needs.
While high-quality content marketing and SEO strategies are a top priority for brands for this reason, it is important not to forget about the technical aspects of a website that can help to convert hot prospects and drive better returns from existing organic audiences.
Google’s recent launch of a new ranking signal addressed the balance somewhat, reminding webmasters that its Core Web Vitals and basic mobile-friendliness and safe browsing should be taken seriously.
The Core Web Vitals are directly linked to the technical quality of a website. The ‘Largest Contentful Paint’ factor, for example, determines how long it takes for the main content on a page to load. Google says that anything above 2.5 seconds “needs improvement”, while four seconds or more is “poor”.
While page speed is not a like-for-like metric for this core web vital, improving it will stand you in good stead ahead of the 2021 launch of the new ranking signal. It will also make an impact in the here and now.
A recent study by Moz found that conversion rates take a hit when page load speeds fail to live up to users’ expectations. Pages that were usable in less than one second delivered a much higher conversion rate compared to those that took five seconds or more to load. The average conversion rate for between 0 and one second was 31.79% compared to just 9.68% at five seconds.
It is easy to view this as a case between fast and slow speeds, but this is not the case.
Brands that are able to optimise their pages with “very fast” speeds of less than one second saw a 2x hike in conversions compared to pages that were merely “fast” at around two seconds. Marginal gains in speed can lead to a big uptick in meaningful metrics.
With small “wins” potentially making a big difference, you can start with basic, low-difficulty tweaks before moving on to changes that may take more effort and resources to implement.
Optimise images
Unoptimised images are commonly flagged as an issue when running a website audit. This is because webmasters often rely on content management systems to resize an image for a page even though this process just changes the image size and does not compress it accordingly.
Files processed in this way can still be around 30% larger than images that have been compressed before being uploaded.
Fortunately, all it takes is a simple WordPress plugin install to automatically optimise images and video before they are uploaded into an article or blog.
You can use dedicated software for this. Compressing and resizing images correctly will reduce the weight of your pages and support better page load times.
Remove unnecessary characters from code
Minification is defined as the process of making source code more efficient by stripping out the spaces within it without changing its functionality.
You can do this for programming languages such as JavaScript, HTML and CSS using online tools to shave off a few kilobytes. This is a low-impact tweak in isolation, but when implemented across a site, it can really make a difference.
Put JavaScript aside
JavaScript can weigh down pages at first, but you can ease the load by using a tag management platform that puts it into a container.
This will allow it to load as and when it is needed without it having a detrimental impact on the speed and functionality of your webpages. Tag managers such as Google Tag Manager are simple to operate for general staff.
The previous fixes can be quickly adjusted at the micro level. You can also broaden the scope of your page speed optimisation by making changes to your IT systems and settings.
You will probably need to consult with a professional web developer and a cloud provider, so these are definitely more of a medium to advanced difficulty level in terms of implementation.
Reduce redirects and use browser caching
Redirects can delay page rendering by triggering more HTTP request response cycles than are necessary. Google’s own ‘PageSpeed Insights’ explicitly urge webmasters to “avoid” landing page redirects as part of guidance to “make the web faster”.
Most SEOs can find out information about server-side redirects, but things get more complicated when these are client-side facing and use JavaScript. Try to make changes here if it is possible to do so.
You can also leverage browser caching if website resources are generally static and don’t change much over time. A third medium-difficulty tactic that you can deploy is enabling compression in Apache, though this does require server access.
Improve server response
These two final changes are the most difficult to implement but will have a high impact on your page speed times. You can improve server response time by switching to a better web hosting service and optimising databases that act as a foundation for your site functionality.
Like enabling compression, this falls into the realm of IT and will require decision-making outside of the marketing department.
Key takeaways
Page speed is a technical factor that you should keep a close eye on even if you are publishing a regular stream of excellent content and copy on your webpages.
As Google notes: “The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile.”
Faster speeds will enable you to convert in an environment where users are demanding the very best user experiences.
With the adoption of 5G and ultrafast broadband, you will need a fully optimised web infrastructure that will serve content immediately, exactly when visitors want it.
Elevating Your Analytics: A Guide For SEO Beginners
Analytics can be daunting for many business owners and decision-makers.
Heck, it can be daunting for seasoned SEO veterans.
I’ve been working in SEO for longer than Google’s offered analytics, and I still find myself stumped at times, trying to think of how to best measure something.
Google Analytics is a complicated system with seemingly endless features and functions.
One can easily get overwhelmed and what’s worse, it’s easy to miss some important data points – often by simply not knowing how to access it or even that it exists.
Or as I like to think of it, not knowing the right questions to ask, because you don’t know how to frame it.
Over the years I’ve chatted with clients either over the phone, via reports, or more often – over a screenshare – and I’ve noticed a common trend where my go-to actions differ from theirs: Which configurations of data that I view as a default, that isn’t necessarily obvious to everyone.
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I can’t count the number of times I’ve casually navigated in a way that prompts the exclamation, “You can do that?!”
And thus, this article.
Below we’ll explore a few of the more common areas of analytics that I view as “given”, that beginners might not even know exist.
1. Exclude Parameters
One of the most common issues I see in analytics is FBCLID and other, similar parameters.
FBCLID is a tracking parameter that Facebook adds to URLs.
And it’s annoying in your analytics, especially if you get a lot of traffic from Facebook, as illustrated above.
All the pages you see listed here are actually the same page.
Each time the page was shared or posted, a new FBCLID was used by Facebook.
This means that when we’re trying to look at stats for how that page performs across channels, or just how it performs at all, the data is spread across multiple URLs.
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In this case, literally hundreds.
Thankfully, the fix is easy, though a downside is that it only works moving forward.
That is to say, it will fix your future data, but not your past.
So set it up now.
Removing FBCLID
Click Admin in the left-hand navigation.
Then go to View Settings.
Go to Exclude URL Query Parameters and enter “fbclid”.
Click Save.
And you’re done!
With this completed, all fbclid parameters will be removed, and all the page metrics will report at one URL … the actual URL of the page.
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Want to see whether you have any other parameters cluttering your data?
Simply head over to your Landing Pages in the left nav.
Click Advanced next to your filter, and include all the pages with a question mark in them, excluding those with “fbclid” to get those out of the way as they’re already addressed.
Personally, I don’t worry about parameters I rarely see or that have negligible impact.
If it won’t affect my data analysis then it doesn’t matter.
But it’s worth periodically checking and make sure your data is as clean as you need it to be.
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2. Baked-In Segments
Segments are the unsung hero of Google Analytics.
Segments can help you dig and clarify data points.
I find them especially valuable when I’m walking into environments where things are not set up properly.
They allow me to literally segment what I’m looking at, for a clearer view.
Segments are right in front of everyone, and I can’t count the number of folks I chat with who have never adjusted which one they’re looking at.
Most people seem to use one:
If you click Add Segment, it opens up a world of opportunity to better understand your traffic.
For example, a person wanting to understand their organic search traffic.
You can view some pretty limited data going through the Acquisition > Source/Medium reports:
Where you can click on the one you want data on (google / organic, for example) and pull the metrics you’re interested in.
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Quite limited in what you can access (though less than you might think … more on that below) so …
Simply click Add Segment which you will find beside the All Users segment that you’re using.
You’ll be taken to the segments screen, where you’ll find a number of baked-in segments including:
Once selected, either click Apply, which will leave you with two segments (All Users and Organic Traffic), or you can scroll the top and remove the All Users.
Having multiple segments is very useful to compare different traffic types, but a single segment is a great place to start.
Having selected Organic Traffic, I can now navigate through the rest of my analytics, seeing just what this traffic did, answering questions like:
What devices does this segment use?
Where do they enter?
How long do they stay?
What’s their demographic (especially handy with social)?
And about a million more things.
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As noted, you can also have a few segments selected at the same time, to easily compare differences in how they interact with your website.
Let’s say I want to know the difference between my paid and organic traffic in the ages of the visitors through each, and how they convert.
I’d select the two segments, head over to Age in the left nav and voila …
I can now see how my traffic sources compare.
The use of this goes far broader than just seeing ages, but it’s core details like that I find are a good place to start.
3. Custom Segments
While the stock segments can open the door to significant insights, it’s in the custom segments you can answer some real questions.
In the first image at the top of this article, you may have noticed the segment I was using was Social – FB or IG.
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That was an accident as I was creating the image, but I left it in as some of you will now scroll up to check and then come back, and that’ll improve the metrics on this article. 😉
That segment is a custom segment, I created it to answer specific questions about a campaign the client was running, where we wanted to gather traffic data for the two combined.
To create this segment you click on Add Segment as you did to adjust which segment you were looking at, and instead of selecting one, you click New Segment:
You can then choose from an array of options that can be overwhelming.
If you’re just getting started, you may want to stick to the default setting:
But personally, I find it easier to just click Conditions and choose manually what I want.
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For example, for the Facebook and Instagram segment, I knew I wanted to combine traffic from facebook.Com and Instagram.Com, so I created a segment that looked like:
You will notice the OR. You can choose either “or” or “and”.
“And” requires both to be true, “or” requires one.
While “and” would be problematic in this case, it allows for segments that answer questions like, “Who is visiting my site from Facebook on mobile, and what are they doing?”
Which would look like:
And Conversions…
Probably my biggest use of custom segments though, is in understanding conversions, especially when goals haven’t been set up properly.
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If you haven’t set up goals properly, or are walking into a scenario where they weren’t done or were done but not properly, you create a segment for the goal “thank you page”.
This obviously only works where the conversion triggers one.
I was dropped into such a scenario recently and created the following segment.
I can now navigate their analytics, looking just at those who converted, or comparing conversions with other segments.
Ideally, you will have goals set up, that’s far better than segments for this purpose.
But like filters, goals only report forward from the time they were set up.
When you need data from a time when you didn’t have goals set up, this method is backward compatible.
4. Secondary Dimensions
Sometimes the answer is right in front of you, hidden in plain sight.
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Secondary Dimensions are often that answer.
In most pages of analytics, you’ll notice (or more often – not notice) the secondary dimensions. Without them, pages can look pretty useless.
When I click on my Source/Medium and then click google / organic, I land at a page like:
Why would I even want to go there?
There’s nothing on this page that I couldn’t get on the previous page, and with the same data for all the other sources as well.
The answer is:
That Secondary dimension drop-down is the key to unlocking a cornucopia of information.
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What it provides depends a lot on the primary dimension.
In general, though, all you need to know is the question you’re trying to answer.
What did I want to know when I clicked on google / organic?
Did I want to know what kind of mobile device, users entered with?
Do I want to know the time of day they visit?
Basically, the Secondary dimension is where you uncover the data you probably got to a page to find.
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To Be Continued
We’ll be continuing with more beginner (plus) analytics tips next month, as we uncover more ways to get the data you need, to answer the business questions you have.
In the meantime, explore.
In this piece, I could only cover how to access some areas of Google Analytics I see folks overlook frequently.
As far as how it’s used and what lies within, if the data these techniques unlock was an iceberg, the examples given above would amount to an ice cube.
While I highly recommend exploring, just looking at what options are available, I can’t stress enough to be constantly asking yourself the following question, “What information do I need to make better business decisions?”
Whether that’s collecting past conversion data to understand what sources, landing pages, or demographics are more profitable – or knowing how different age groups, from different sources, engage with specific types of content – knowing the question guides figuring out what site metrics you need to answer that.
Day 3: Study the Etsy Policies Relevant to Your Store
Opening a store of any kind, online or otherwise, comes with its own set of rules and regulations. Familiarize yourself with Etsy’s policies to better understand how your shop works, how you get paid, and how your store is protected.
Etsy Charges Per Listing
Etsy sets a fee of $.20 per listing when the listing is created, regardless of whether the product sells.
But that’s not the end of it: listings for most products expire after four months. Etsy does provide an auto-renew feature that enables sellers to easily keep their listings active longer than four months.
Once the four-months is up, you will automatically be charged the $.20 to renew your listing. This is a helpful way to keep track of inventory without having to recreate listings.
You do not have to pay a listing fee if you are editing a preexisting listing. There are slightly different rules for creating a private listing for certain types of products, but this limits your customer exposure on Etsy.
The Etsy fee structure is fairly labyrinthine: for a more comprehensive education, consult our complete guide to Etsy fees to learn more about how, why, and when Etsy’s fees are charged.
Reviews Can Make or Break Your Shop
Reviews are very important on Etsy. They determine not only whether or not a customer will choose your shop over similar shops but also how many eyes Etsy will put on your shop.
Etsy employs a five-star rating system that customers can use once their product is marked as “delivered.”
Now, here’s the rub: reviews expire after 100 calendar days. This is done by Etsy to provide up-to-date quality information for new customers, but it also means you can’t rest on your laurels. Consider adding “please review your experience” or a similar message at the end of all of your customer communication and confirmation emails.
Ensuring that customer service and shipping are hassle-free will help manage the kind of bad reviews that are focused on the process rather than on the product itself. It is helpful to include up-to-date shipping information in your listings and purchases so that people who feel their item arrived late don’t leave a negative review.
You can see their reviews by going into the “Shop Manager,” clicking the name of the shop in “Sales Channels,” and then clicking on “Reviews.” You can also find your rating there. A high rating not only adds to your shop’s authority but also determines whether or not you have access to Etsy’s Seller Protection Policy.
Etsy’s Seller Protection Policy Helps Resolve Disputes
Etsy does have a seller protection policy, which most shops will qualify for and which requires no outside application policy. In order to qualify for the seller protection policy, your shop must be in good standing and use basic features, such as Etsypay.
The protection policy allows for the seller to receive help from Etsy corporate if there is a case that needs to be resolved. This generally means helping to mediate disputes between buyers and sellers over product quality concerns, shipping issues, chargebacks, and other payment disagreements.
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Day 4: Visit the Etsy Forums
Creating and managing an online store can be a lonely business — take advantage of the Etsy community to learn from the pros and maybe create a network of helpful contacts.
Forums are a great way to get questions answered, especially for an Etsy newbie. Forums can include almost anything, from latest trends with your products to expert tips from sellers. The Etsy forusm community is diverse and knowledgeable; exploring forums when you create your shop will undoubtedly lead you to some useful information.
Be sure to contact other sellers for cross-promotion. The sellers you choose to cross-promote should provide something similar to your product, but one that you do not provide yourself.
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You next step is to spend a day learning about SEO — search engine optimization. The text on your website — also called copy — is crawled by Google, which then uses that information to guide users toward or away from your site. Making your copy as search-engine-friendly as possible is paramount.
You don’t have time to become an SEO expert in a day, but a few quick lessons can help Google (and future customers) find your Etsy store.
Find Your Keywords
One of the most basic principals of SEO is to find a useful, descriptive keyword that people are proved to be searching for.
If you’re selling furniture, keywords to look for might be “couch,” “reclining chair,” or “end table.” For custom jewelry, it might be “crystals,” “homemade jewelry,” or (surprise) “custom jewelry.”
There are free tools that can help you do a little keyword research beforehand. Wordtracker, Google Trends, and Keyword Generator can tell you whether people are searching for your terms, and even how hard it might be to grab Google’s attention with your own products.
Plug some keywords about your product into these research tools and see what they turn up. Then, you can adjust your writing accordingly, adding those keywords into all of your product descriptions and marketing material.
Don’t Be Afraid to Brag About Your Expertise
Another principle of SEO is called “EAT,” or “Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.” In your product copy, your store description, and your marketing, you need to at least touch on all three pillars. It wouldn’t be unwise to start a blog as well, with personal or product-related topics that sneakily improve your shop and brand’s SEO.
You should showcase your expertise — why are you selling or making this product and why should we care? Authority is a little tougher when you’re starting out; this is basically a measurement of your clout, your established credentials, or how beloved your brand or product is. You’ll be working on that. Third is Trustworthiness; this is where reviews and testimonials come in.
Some high-quality pictures can at least showcase how expertly made or sourced your product is, which can help with all three pillars.
Day 6: Take High-Quality Product Photos
A product photo provides shoppers with a first impression, so make it a good one. Most visitors to your shop will look at the product image before they read anything but the name. We have a few basic tips to help you get the most out of basic lighting and even just a camera phone for photography.
Invest in Lighting
It is helpful for pictures to look consistent (same lighting/background) and even include matching labels to look professional.
Early-morning light or even outdoor light helps showcase products, but you can also purchase a ring light so that you can create listings indoors at any time.
Listing photos should be well- lit and clear. Avoid shadows or blurriness. If you’re using a camera phone, be sure to adjust your settings to avoid things like flash or panoramic views. Flash will generally wash a product out, flattening all details and making it look two-dimensional. In fact, when lighting any product, try to light it from multiple angles to soften hard shadows, to help the product stand out from the background, and to make it appear more three-dimensional.
In addition, you can purchase lighting and backdrop equipment for a reasonable price if you prefer a clean white background and professional-looking lighting.
Up Your Photography Game
Your phone’s camera will work fine if you have decent lighting and a little patience, but you can improve your photography dramatically with a few reasonably priced accessories. There are several lenses you can purchase for a camera phone, depending on the look you want for your product listing. Moment, Olloclip, and Nelomo make excellent and affordable lenses that snap right onto your current phone.
If you want to provide clarity on the size of your product, you can include a photo “to scale” with something the consumer can reference, like a quarter. So if you’re selling lip balm in one-ounce tins, including a quarter next to the tin in the listing picture will help the customer get a good idea of how much product your listing includes.
If you don’t want to become an expert on product photography, you can also hire an expert to touch up your basic photos for minimal costs. They can be found pretty easily on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer. This will ensure a professional look without as much work on your part.
Day 7: Create Your Listings
On the seventh day, you won’t be resting. Instead, you’ll be doing one of the most important steps — creating the listings for selling on Etsy.
To create a listing, you must have a photo, choose a price, describe your product, and determine shipping details. Sign on to your account, click “Shop Manager” and then “Listings” to start adding your product listings.
If you have more than one product photo, you must choose a thumbnail photo, which will be the photo that appears when customers search for your product.
Price your product. Research Etsy and Google to see what other sellers are asking for products similar to yours, and then gauge yours accordingly. You may want to offer special pricing or introductory sale pricing to get your shop more traffic at first.
Name, categorize, and describe your product. First, give your listing a title — the name of your product. Then, choose the appropriate category — just begin typing your category (“women’s shoes” or “custom jewelry”) and the box will suggest relevant categories.
Then, describe your product. This is another opportunity for your personality to show and to describe any details for the products that buyers might find helpful. For instance, if you’re selling plants, are the plants rooted, or are they cuttings? This transparency increases the likelihood customers will trust your shop.
Set up shipping. This is available in the “Settings” section under “Shop Manager” and then “Shipping.” There are lots of options based on size and weight and international versus domestic. If you have questions about which type of shipping would work best for your shop, it’s a great time to consult forums and ask fellow Etsy sellers.
Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are lots of tools available to help your listings go further or to help you handle the more complex aspects of listing, such as Etsy’s taxonomic structure. Services like Sellbrite offer multiple listing platforms (googleshop +etsy) or listings integrated with other apps specific to your business.
Day 8: Download the Etsy Mobile App
The Etsy mobile app isn’t just for buyers — you can manage your entire store from a phone or tablet.
Go to the App Store or Google Play on your device, and download the Etsy mobile app for free.
Sign in to your seller account; from there, you can manage listings, reviews, and orders, as well as increase your social media presence for your shop.
The mobile app allows for notifications so that you can respond to buyers or questions instantly, ensuring that you have solid customer service at your shop. Fast response time to customer questions will also boost your good standing.
Day 9: Launch Your Shop
Day nine is the time for you to officially launch your Etsy shop — to send your new child into kindergarten and hope they make friends.
If your profile and listings are ready to go, and you’re happy with how everything looks, it’s time to open your shop. To make your shop “live,” simply sign in to your seller account and click “Open Your Shop.” A successful launch is not only based on having all of your ducks in a row but also usually includes some social media and marketing. Be sure that those campaigns are in place to create a buzz and help customers find your shop.
Opening your shop means you are live and ready to sell your wares. Customers can contact or buy once the shop is open, so make sure you are opening at a time when you’re ready to take on the commitment of regular customers.
Day 10: Market Your Etsy Shop Everywhere
The 10th day is where the real selling starts — selling your brand, selling your products, and, most importantly, selling yourself. Now it’s time to channel your inner Don Draper and get to marketing.
There are many easy, effective ways to promote your shop on social media.
Share your best products on social media. If you’re looking to employ social media marketing yourself, you’ll want to choose some of your most impressive products as well as a create a brief description of your shop to share on social media. Most of the keywords you chose for your SEO campaign can be used as a hashtag on Instagram.
Consider buying ads. Social media marketing can consist of buying ads and setting up a campaign with social media providers or services. Facebook ads and Twitter ads are extremely easy to set up, and you can set any level of budget (per day or per click) you want to make sure you don’t get surprised with a huge bill.
Join the community. There are also lots of communities on social media for small-business owners. Find one based on your area, product, or socioeconomic background to link up with other businesses. Look for hashtags related to your product or industry, and peruse them for frequent posters.
Use video on social media. And of course, don’t neglect the power of video on social media. Consider creating videos for your most striking products — even five-second clips with some dynamic editing and fun music.
Launching Your Shop Isn’t the End
In just 10 days, you can learn all of the basics of selling on Etsy, creating your brand, and launching both your store and your marketing campaign.
What happens next is up to you (and a little bit of fate). You never know until you try. Your Etsy shop could be the seed of an ecommerce empire. Good luck in the days ahead.
The rest of your journey is up to you.
What’s The Best Way To Improve Your Page Speed?
Google’s recent algorithm updates have largely focused on gaining a better understanding and insight into the queries that search users make, and as an extension, the content that best serves these users’ needs.
While high-quality content marketing and SEO strategies are a top priority for brands for this reason, it is important not to forget about the technical aspects of a website that can help to convert hot prospects and drive better returns from existing organic audiences.
Google’s recent launch of a new ranking signal addressed the balance somewhat, reminding webmasters that its Core Web Vitals and basic mobile-friendliness and safe browsing should be taken seriously.
The Core Web Vitals are directly linked to the technical quality of a website. The ‘Largest Contentful Paint’ factor, for example, determines how long it takes for the main content on a page to load. Google says that anything above 2.5 seconds “needs improvement”, while four seconds or more is “poor”.
While page speed is not a like-for-like metric for this core web vital, improving it will stand you in good stead ahead of the 2021 launch of the new ranking signal. It will also make an impact in the here and now.
A recent study by Moz found that conversion rates take a hit when page load speeds fail to live up to users’ expectations. Pages that were usable in less than one second delivered a much higher conversion rate compared to those that took five seconds or more to load. The average conversion rate for between 0 and one second was 31.79% compared to just 9.68% at five seconds.
It is easy to view this as a case between fast and slow speeds, but this is not the case.
Brands that are able to optimise their pages with “very fast” speeds of less than one second saw a 2x hike in conversions compared to pages that were merely “fast” at around two seconds. Marginal gains in speed can lead to a big uptick in meaningful metrics.
With small “wins” potentially making a big difference, you can start with basic, low-difficulty tweaks before moving on to changes that may take more effort and resources to implement.
Optimise images
Unoptimised images are commonly flagged as an issue when running a website audit. This is because webmasters often rely on content management systems to resize an image for a page even though this process just changes the image size and does not compress it accordingly.
Files processed in this way can still be around 30% larger than images that have been compressed before being uploaded.
Fortunately, all it takes is a simple WordPress plugin install to automatically optimise images and video before they are uploaded into an article or blog.
You can use dedicated software for this. Compressing and resizing images correctly will reduce the weight of your pages and support better page load times.
Remove unnecessary characters from code
Minification is defined as the process of making source code more efficient by stripping out the spaces within it without changing its functionality.
You can do this for programming languages such as JavaScript, HTML and CSS using online tools to shave off a few kilobytes. This is a low-impact tweak in isolation, but when implemented across a site, it can really make a difference.
Put JavaScript aside
JavaScript can weigh down pages at first, but you can ease the load by using a tag management platform that puts it into a container.
This will allow it to load as and when it is needed without it having a detrimental impact on the speed and functionality of your webpages. Tag managers such as Google Tag Manager are simple to operate for general staff.
The previous fixes can be quickly adjusted at the micro level. You can also broaden the scope of your page speed optimisation by making changes to your IT systems and settings.
You will probably need to consult with a professional web developer and a cloud provider, so these are definitely more of a medium to advanced difficulty level in terms of implementation.
Reduce redirects and use browser caching
Redirects can delay page rendering by triggering more HTTP request response cycles than are necessary. Google’s own ‘PageSpeed Insights’ explicitly urge webmasters to “avoid” landing page redirects as part of guidance to “make the web faster”.
Most SEOs can find out information about server-side redirects, but things get more complicated when these are client-side facing and use JavaScript. Try to make changes here if it is possible to do so.
You can also leverage browser caching if website resources are generally static and don’t change much over time. A third medium-difficulty tactic that you can deploy is enabling compression in Apache, though this does require server access.
Improve server response
These two final changes are the most difficult to implement but will have a high impact on your page speed times. You can improve server response time by switching to a better web hosting service and optimising databases that act as a foundation for your site functionality.
Like enabling compression, this falls into the realm of IT and will require decision-making outside of the marketing department.
Key takeaways
Page speed is a technical factor that you should keep a close eye on even if you are publishing a regular stream of excellent content and copy on your webpages.
As Google notes: “The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile.”
Faster speeds will enable you to convert in an environment where users are demanding the very best user experiences.
With the adoption of 5G and ultrafast broadband, you will need a fully optimised web infrastructure that will serve content immediately, exactly when visitors want it.
Elevating Your Analytics: A Guide For SEO Beginners
Analytics can be daunting for many business owners and decision-makers.
Heck, it can be daunting for seasoned SEO veterans.
I’ve been working in SEO for longer than Google’s offered analytics, and I still find myself stumped at times, trying to think of how to best measure something.
Google Analytics is a complicated system with seemingly endless features and functions.
One can easily get overwhelmed and what’s worse, it’s easy to miss some important data points – often by simply not knowing how to access it or even that it exists.
Or as I like to think of it, not knowing the right questions to ask, because you don’t know how to frame it.
Over the years I’ve chatted with clients either over the phone, via reports, or more often – over a screenshare – and I’ve noticed a common trend where my go-to actions differ from theirs: Which configurations of data that I view as a default, that isn’t necessarily obvious to everyone.
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I can’t count the number of times I’ve casually navigated in a way that prompts the exclamation, “You can do that?!”
And thus, this article.
Below we’ll explore a few of the more common areas of analytics that I view as “given”, that beginners might not even know exist.
1. Exclude Parameters
One of the most common issues I see in analytics is FBCLID and other, similar parameters.
FBCLID is a tracking parameter that Facebook adds to URLs.
And it’s annoying in your analytics, especially if you get a lot of traffic from Facebook, as illustrated above.
All the pages you see listed here are actually the same page.
Each time the page was shared or posted, a new FBCLID was used by Facebook.
This means that when we’re trying to look at stats for how that page performs across channels, or just how it performs at all, the data is spread across multiple URLs.
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In this case, literally hundreds.
Thankfully, the fix is easy, though a downside is that it only works moving forward.
That is to say, it will fix your future data, but not your past.
So set it up now.
Removing FBCLID
Click Admin in the left-hand navigation.
Then go to View Settings.
Go to Exclude URL Query Parameters and enter “fbclid”.
Click Save.
And you’re done!
With this completed, all fbclid parameters will be removed, and all the page metrics will report at one URL … the actual URL of the page.
Extra
Want to see whether you have any other parameters cluttering your data?
Simply head over to your Landing Pages in the left nav.
Click Advanced next to your filter, and include all the pages with a question mark in them, excluding those with “fbclid” to get those out of the way as they’re already addressed.
Personally, I don’t worry about parameters I rarely see or that have negligible impact.
If it won’t affect my data analysis then it doesn’t matter.
But it’s worth periodically checking and make sure your data is as clean as you need it to be.
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2. Baked-In Segments
Segments are the unsung hero of Google Analytics.
Segments can help you dig and clarify data points.
I find them especially valuable when I’m walking into environments where things are not set up properly.
They allow me to literally segment what I’m looking at, for a clearer view.
Segments are right in front of everyone, and I can’t count the number of folks I chat with who have never adjusted which one they’re looking at.
Most people seem to use one:
If you click Add Segment, it opens up a world of opportunity to better understand your traffic.
For example, a person wanting to understand their organic search traffic.
You can view some pretty limited data going through the Acquisition > Source/Medium reports:
Where you can click on the one you want data on (google / organic, for example) and pull the metrics you’re interested in.
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Quite limited in what you can access (though less than you might think … more on that below) so …
Simply click Add Segment which you will find beside the All Users segment that you’re using.
You’ll be taken to the segments screen, where you’ll find a number of baked-in segments including:
Once selected, either click Apply, which will leave you with two segments (All Users and Organic Traffic), or you can scroll the top and remove the All Users.
Having multiple segments is very useful to compare different traffic types, but a single segment is a great place to start.
Having selected Organic Traffic, I can now navigate through the rest of my analytics, seeing just what this traffic did, answering questions like:
What devices does this segment use?
Where do they enter?
How long do they stay?
What’s their demographic (especially handy with social)?
And about a million more things.
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As noted, you can also have a few segments selected at the same time, to easily compare differences in how they interact with your website.
Let’s say I want to know the difference between my paid and organic traffic in the ages of the visitors through each, and how they convert.
I’d select the two segments, head over to Age in the left nav and voila …
I can now see how my traffic sources compare.
The use of this goes far broader than just seeing ages, but it’s core details like that I find are a good place to start.
3. Custom Segments
While the stock segments can open the door to significant insights, it’s in the custom segments you can answer some real questions.
In the first image at the top of this article, you may have noticed the segment I was using was Social – FB or IG.
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That was an accident as I was creating the image, but I left it in as some of you will now scroll up to check and then come back, and that’ll improve the metrics on this article. 😉
That segment is a custom segment, I created it to answer specific questions about a campaign the client was running, where we wanted to gather traffic data for the two combined.
To create this segment you click on Add Segment as you did to adjust which segment you were looking at, and instead of selecting one, you click New Segment:
You can then choose from an array of options that can be overwhelming.
If you’re just getting started, you may want to stick to the default setting:
But personally, I find it easier to just click Conditions and choose manually what I want.
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For example, for the Facebook and Instagram segment, I knew I wanted to combine traffic from facebook.Com and Instagram.Com, so I created a segment that looked like:
You will notice the OR. You can choose either “or” or “and”.
“And” requires both to be true, “or” requires one.
While “and” would be problematic in this case, it allows for segments that answer questions like, “Who is visiting my site from Facebook on mobile, and what are they doing?”
Which would look like:
And Conversions…Probably my biggest use of custom segments though, is in understanding conversions, especially when goals haven’t been set up properly.
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If you haven’t set up goals properly, or are walking into a scenario where they weren’t done or were done but not properly, you create a segment for the goal “thank you page”.
This obviously only works where the conversion triggers one.
I was dropped into such a scenario recently and created the following segment.
I can now navigate their analytics, looking just at those who converted, or comparing conversions with other segments.
Ideally, you will have goals set up, that’s far better than segments for this purpose.
But like filters, goals only report forward from the time they were set up.
When you need data from a time when you didn’t have goals set up, this method is backward compatible.
4. Secondary Dimensions
Sometimes the answer is right in front of you, hidden in plain sight.
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Secondary Dimensions are often that answer.
In most pages of analytics, you’ll notice (or more often – not notice) the secondary dimensions. Without them, pages can look pretty useless.
When I click on my Source/Medium and then click google / organic, I land at a page like:
Why would I even want to go there?
There’s nothing on this page that I couldn’t get on the previous page, and with the same data for all the other sources as well.
The answer is:
That Secondary dimension drop-down is the key to unlocking a cornucopia of information.
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What it provides depends a lot on the primary dimension.
In general, though, all you need to know is the question you’re trying to answer.
What did I want to know when I clicked on google / organic?
Did I want to know what kind of mobile device, users entered with?
Do I want to know the time of day they visit?
Basically, the Secondary dimension is where you uncover the data you probably got to a page to find.
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To Be Continued
We’ll be continuing with more beginner (plus) analytics tips next month, as we uncover more ways to get the data you need, to answer the business questions you have.
In the meantime, explore.
In this piece, I could only cover how to access some areas of Google Analytics I see folks overlook frequently.
As far as how it’s used and what lies within, if the data these techniques unlock was an iceberg, the examples given above would amount to an ice cube.
While I highly recommend exploring, just looking at what options are available, I can’t stress enough to be constantly asking yourself the following question, “What information do I need to make better business decisions?”
Whether that’s collecting past conversion data to understand what sources, landing pages, or demographics are more profitable – or knowing how different age groups, from different sources, engage with specific types of content – knowing the question guides figuring out what site metrics you need to answer that.
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