Podcast Episode 2: How to get your Etsy listings seen by more shoppers today

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Oh my goodness--- I can still totally remember those days early on in my Etsy shop when I felt almost panicked because I had no idea how to get my listings seen by shoppers—my views were so low. My sales were next to nothing.  I remember exactly what that felt like --- so if that’s you right now—take heart—today I want to give you some pointers that will help get your Etsy listings seen by more shoppers today.

So back in 2015 when I first launched my shop, I had a few listings live--- you know, I took my photos, filled in all the details, decided on my pricing, and did everything I could think of (or so I thought) – but it was just crickets.

I think the worst part was not knowing what on earth I could even do about it.

I’m always stressing to clients or just any new entrepreneur I come in contact with---- it is SO critical to have an attitude of resilience. You know? You just have to decide--- this may not happen quickly or easily, but my goals and dreams for this business are important enough that I’m just going to keep trying. I’ll learn what I need to learn, I’ll keep tweaking, I’ll keep testing, I’ll keep researching and studying until I figure it out. And that’s exactly what I did…. And looking back now—gosh--- I had not done all the things to optimize my listings—I didn’t understand how to find the right keywords to get my signs to show up in the search and I didn’t know how to do the research to figure out what my products and listings needed to include to entice a shopper to buy. My photos could have been SO MUCH BETTER. There was a lot to learn and I’m still learning and optimizing and changing with the trends and demands.

Now is a great place to mention-- If you find yourself in that early stage of trying to figure out how to get your shop to the next level—I created a free resource for you—it’s a PDF download called 4 Strategies I used to grow my Etsy shop from $25 to $6000+/month

https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/site/4-strategies-opt-in

and you can grab it over on my website howtosellyourstuff.com – and it’s linked in the shownotes for you!

But when it came to getting my listings seen—I just thought I could plug and play with what I had, but what I didn’t understand back then is that I would need to “prime the pump” to start getting some traction in my shop. There were some simple steps I could take to get my Etsy listings seen by more customers right away.

 1) Renew your listings

This refreshes their expiration date and in my experience gives them a bump in the feed. There are some people who say that renewing your listings has a negative effect—but I haven’t seen that at all. In fact—I’ve tested it multiple times and you can try this too—I would do a search that I knew my listing would show up in and count how many pages and rows in it was, then renew that listing, wait 10-15 minutes, do the same search, and every time it would be further up in the results. Maybe not a ton, but it did make a difference.

Now when I’m working to generate more sales, I renew my best sellers every day. Sometimes you just need to be patient. If I have a new product I’m launching or I’m just coming off of vacation mode, it does take a while to get into the algorithm.

And I will say--- if you don’t have the right keywords on your listing that the right shopper would use to find your product—it won’t help to renew. I think your keywords and your pics are the two most important pieces—so if you know you need help in those areas—I have a course over on my site called Listings that Sell where I will show you exactly how to strengthen your keyword game and the quality of your photos—so feel free to check that out at HowtoSellYourStuff.com

 2) Create more listings

One of the ways that I really got traction in my Etsy shop was to add more listings. There are two different ways you can do this:

1. You can create more products to sell
2. You can create more listings for the products you have

-Create a new listing with a totally different Primary photo to draw the attention of potential buyers who prefer a different style or appearance from your initial listing

-Create a duplicate listing of an existing product with a different title and tags to leverage a different set of search terms

3) Turn on (or bump up) Etsy Ads

You can find the Etsy Ads page by visiting your Shop Manager Dashboard. Click "Marketing" on the left side menu and you'll find "Etsy Ads" in the submenu. 

If you’re just starting out with advertising, you’ll want to start with a low and conservative daily budget! Etsy has some good safeguards in place to prevent you from overspending—which is super helpful! It will give you a lower maximum daily ad spend when you first start out and that number will increase with time.

I have found Etsy Ads to be an EXTREMELY powerful tool to boost my visibility and sales. There’s not a hard and fast dollar rule since all shops and products are different, but I’d recommend keeping your ad spend at around 20% (or less) of your gross revenue. (Gross revenue is the total amount of money you make before expenses.)

The key to Etsy Ads working for you is to have outstanding key words on your listing and attractive photos that will grab a potential customer’s attention.

*PRO TIP—The most important place to have strong keywords that customers are searching for is in your product title. The second most important place is in your tags. And the third most important place is throughout your product description. 

So if views or sales are a bit low, consider trying Etsy ads for the first time starting at a few dollars a day, or test out bumping up your ad budget a bit.

4) Post them on social media

Want to get some additional “off-Etsy” eyeballs on your listings? Post a few to social media using your individual Etsy listing link.

(You can find a product link by visiting your Shop Manager Dashboard. Click "Listings" on the left side menu and all of your listings will populate on the main page. If you click the little gear icon at the bottom right corner of a listing, a submenu will appear. Click "Share" on that menu and a new box will pop up with social media links and field where you can copy the product link.) 

Pinterest is exceptionally handy for circulating your products to new and interested customers-- and in my opinion it takes the least amount of work! But of course, there are ways to get creative on all the different platforms

1. Pinterest 
2. Instagram
3. TikTok
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
6. Even LinkedIn – what FB was 10 years ago—easy free reach. Just position your post to someone in business mode

So there you have it! If business is feeling slow or not enough people are seeing your product listings, give one or all of these suggestions a try. Your Etsy listings should start getting seen by more customers TODAY!

Good luck, friend! YOU GOT THIS!

Warmly,

Lizzie Smiley

EPISODE NOTES:

Are you a beginner seller on Etsy? I’m so excited for you! Today I’m sharing 4 ways to get your listings seen by more shoppers today. I love sharing Etsy tips with new shop owners.

**“How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy” is not affiliated with or endorsed by Etsy.com

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Free PDF Download Mentioned:

“4 Strategies I used to grow my Etsy shop from $25 to $6000+/month”

https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/site/4-strategies-opt-in

FREE ETSY MASTERCLASS: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/masterclass

Course Mentioned:

Listings that Sell: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/offers/Xo52uqVF

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 HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF WEBSITE: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/

HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/howtosellyourstuff/

HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF SHOWNOTES: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/blog/podcast-episode-2-how-to-get-your-etsy-listings-seen-by-more-shoppers-today 

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