Etsy rarely makes huge algorithm changes but when they do it's crucial for us sellers to be in the no so we can make sure that our listings are still able to rank high in the search results and not get left behind Etsy recently announced some major changes that are taking effect very soon so today we're talking about what those changes are and what you'll need to be doing on your end to ensure they don't negatively impact your shop we're talking Etsy SEO algorithm changes and new features so let's dive in Etsy recently rolled out the
new Etsy search visibility page and you probably already seen it in your dashboard around the time they rolled out this new page they started also making several different new announcements some regarding some new changes to the algorithm itself and some just bringing to light things that were already in place that did already affect our search rankings but now etsy's being a little bit more transparent about that and bringing it to the Forefront so we can know how to better optimize our listings to rank in the search this new Etsy search visibility page is a tool
for sellers to be able to see what factors might be at play in their listings that could be hurting their ranking and also see where they have already optimized well and have good visibility in the search before we would optimize the best we could according to what we knew the search ranking factors to be but now Etsy is actually showing us listing by listing exactly what they recommend and giving us insights into how we are appearing and ranking so on that page you'll both see suggestions for improvement in your listings and Etsy is going to
be really specific about what those suggestions are and areas where you're optimized well already now this search visibility page is taking into account three main areas those three areas being your shop your listings and your customer service so we're going to go ahead and dive into each of these three and talk about exactly what Etsy says you'll need to do to optimize each of these areas for visibility but before we jump into the first one if you are an Etsy seller who hasn't seen the amount of sales that you like or maybe you haven't even
started a shop yet and you're just researching and thinking about becoming an Etsy seller I have a free quick start guide for you that's going to be super helpful in getting your Etsy Shop up and running and set up the right way to make true income the success guide gives you just the crucial steps that you need no fluff based on years and years of my own personal learning and growing on Etsy and the strategies that have brought my shop to multiple six figures so that's a completely free guide for you you can download it
by clicking the link in the description box below and use it as a tool to level up your shop okay let's jump into area number one here for maximum visibility and this is your shop itself in the article that Etsy released this your shop section is actually the smallest of all three and it doesn't give much information except for stating by buyers want to know who they're purchasing from which is important when you're building trust in your shop and building your brand for example your shop should have a shop icon which helps to represent your
business so the only thing really concrete that this section gives us is telling us we need to make sure we have a shop icon that represents our business and it hints at the fact that they want your whole shop to appear very trustworthy incredible though it's not stated in my opinion that comes also from your branding having a banner making sure that the whole shop page feels aesthetically pleasing and cohesive but for sure having a really Prof professional and trustworthy feeling shop icon is going to play into this now the next area that they talk
about is your listings themselves so the article lists out several different things you can take into account when optimizing each individual listing the first being that you want to use multiple highquality photos in a separate article that Etsy released called creating listings that convert Etsy team goes a little more specific with this and talking about using as many of those 10 photo slots that are available to you as possible making sure that you're giving the buyer different angles detail images and maybe even some text Graphics they also specify that your first photo which is your
thumbnail photo should be at least 2,000 pixels or more on the shortest side and at least a minimum resolution of 70 to PPI which is pixels per inch this tells me that your listing is probably not going to convert very well or show up high in the search if you've got a really low resolution blurry grainy small file as your thumbnail image they also state for your thumbnail image that it shouldn't be a generic photo with a your text here place folder even for customized items and it shouldn't be dimly lit it needs to be
well lit and clearly display what's for sale now there's another separate Etsy article called listing image requirements which goes into this a little bit deeper and it states when creating your listings you must use your own photos either photos you took yourself or had someone take for you these photos should showcase the actual finished product that you made design handpicked or sourced by accurately portraying the condition quality and quantity of your items you'll help build trust with with Buyers so this gets into the question of are Etsy sellers allowed to use mockup images in general
Etsy is saying here that you should be using your own photos that you took or you had someone take for you of the actual item itself but the article continues on with some exceptions to this rule it states in certain situations using original photos of the exact item may not be possible you can use stock photos in some limited circumstances where you're offering either personalized or customized items or an item made with a production partner as discussed below so then it continues with these two sections that talk about these exceptions it basically states that for
customized or personalized items your first image which is your thumbnail image needs to include either the item itself or something similar to what buyers will receive some examples of these types of items that it's talking about here are customized drawings monogrammed accessories or t-shirts featuring a buyer's custom text the article says in this section that it's prohibited to use a photo of the blank product or a mockup with place holder text for example your text here as the main image however computer generated mockups may be used in additional listing images to Showcase customization options just
make sure your first image is the real deal so that's the first exception section now the second one talks about photos of items made with production Partners which would include print on demand companies the article states that when you're working with a production partner the requirements for listing photos vary depending on the item if you design a unique item like a a piece of furniture clothing or a book and a production partner manufactures it for you you need to use the real photo of the physical end product I.E not a mockup if you create an
original design such as artwork or a pattern that a production partner prints onto a base item like a t-shirt or a mug you may use a stock photo mockup to illustrate the end product buyers will receive buyer personalized items must follow the guidelines in the personalized or customized section above which is the section we just talked about so this is basically splitting up this production partner section into two different types of items the first one is an item that you are actually creating and having manufactured for you it's not something that's being printed on a
base item it could be a book or a piece of furniture or something that is totally unique that you have created and had manufactured the second category here talks about those designs that are being printed on base items like t-shirts mugs sweatshirts tote bags and for those you can use a mockup for your thumbnail image however remember if it's a customizer person ized item it does need to adhere to that section before about the customized items where it said that you can't use placeholder text that says your text here your first thumbnail image has to
be an actual photo of the physical end product showing an actual customized version of it the next one on the list for optimizing our listings themselves is actually the brand new algorithm change that eie just announced which has to do with shipping they've announced that starting on October 1st listings that have a shipping price of under $6 will receive priority placement in the SE results now a few things to note here number one is this applies only to us domestic listings and it does also include those that already offer free shipping etsy's research shows that
once a listing goes above $6 for shipping buyers are much less likely to purchase so this is actually a very significant change to how the algorithm is going to rank listings the listings that this won't affect include digital listings listings shipped from us sellers to non us destinations listings shipped by sellers from outside the US listings priced over $35 from shops that offer a free shipping guarantee and listings that use calculated shipping so if your listing fits into any of those categories those are excluded and won't be affected by this new algorithm change as also
announced that they're rolling out a new feature to help you bulk edit your listings shipping prices and build some of that into the actual item price itself if that's what you'd like to do to get those shipping prices down all right next on the list to optimize your listings for more visibility is having a complet return policy now let's make sure to be clear about this you don't have to accept returns unless it's required where you live but you do need to have the return policy completed so that buyers know going into it if you
do accept returns or not this is a super easy and quick way to go ahead and optimize your shop if you don't yet have your return policy section completed go ahead and fill that out and that'll automatically give you a boost invisibility and the last one here for the individual listings is optimizing your listings description some tips it gives us for listing descriptions are aim to incorporate relevant keywords in the first few sentences avoid copying your title verbatim or simply listing your top keywords instead you want to craft a sentence or two that casually incorporates
a few of your top keywords in a way that sounds human and written in your Brand's voice and continue to include important information that will help buyers best understand your product so the main thing here that I want to encourage you is you want to make sure you're using highly search keyword phrases not only in your title and tag section but also here in the description specifically in the first few sentences now if you're like how do I find these highly searched keyword phrases that would accurately describe my product you can do this kind of
research on Etsy Itself by just using the search bar or you can take it a level up and use an Etsy specific research tool like sales Samurai on sales Samurai you can come to the Search tool and type in a phrase that you think describes your product so for example here I've typed in funny mom mug and then it's going to give me all of the data on this specific search term so for the search term funny mom mug I can see that it has an estimated monthly search volume on Etsy of over 16,000 I
can also see the click-through rate and the competition but I can come down here and look at etsy's most trending to see keyword phrases that are related to this and also to see the search volume click your rate and competition for each of those related phrases so here I've got my funny mom mug keyword phrase but I can see here underneath if we rearrange the words mom mug funny actually has a higher search volume so i' probably want to use that phrase as opposed to the other since that one is searched more on Etsy there's
lots lots of other data too that I can get from sales Samurai not just on Etsy but also Google so if I'm wanting to take into account Google's most trending keywords that are related to what I typed in and I can scroll down and see the top listings on Etsy that are actually using and ranking for the keyword phrase that I typed in I can click through on these to see the actual listing to see things like the price the number of shipping days how many photos they've used in their listing how many views how
many likes and I can also look over here to the right side and it gives me a tags section which is similar but it just gives me different ideas for variations of similar keyword phrases so I've got gift for mom Mother's Day mug mom coffee mug and again for each of these I can see the estimated as the search volume per month this is a great way to do some research before I fill out my listing especially for my title tags and description sections so I'm making sure that I'm weaving in these highly searched keyword
phrases into those sections for the algorithm to accurately be able to determine what my listing is about and rank it high in the search for that phrase so if you think Sal Samurai might be helpful to you in your business I do have a free 3-day trial Linked In the description box below you can click on that to try it free for 3 Days try out all the capabilities and features and see if you think it would be a good resource for you and you can also use the code kate2 when you sign up to
get 20% off of your subscription if you decide to continue using it beyond the free trial I absolutely think you're going to love it and want to thank sales Samurai for sponsoring this portion of today's video all right let's move on to the third area here that we're taking into account for visibility and this is customer service there's a few things that Essie announced in their article that they look at in regards to customer service the first one being good reviews not only can having a lot of four and five star reviews help your conversion
rate but that higher conversion rate will help your listings to rank higher in the search as well so having as many of those good four and five star reviews coming in as possible is going to drastically help your visibility they also talk about your message response rate which means that you should be responding to any initial messages that come into you within 48 hours now just to clarify here you don't have to be responding to every single additional message within 48 hours but every single first or initial message from a person that comes into you
should be responded to within that 48 hours if you're not responding to messages or it's taking you longer than 48 hours to get back to people in that initial message and that could be hurting your search ranking so you definitely want to stay on top of this as much as possible next on the list with customer service is taking into account your case rate how many cases have been opened against you by buyers who were not happy or something went wrong in the transaction now Etsy was very clear to state in the article that it's
not all cases that are open against you but only the ones where a refund was actually taken out of your account not including any that were covered by Etsy so again customer service is huge here if you get someone that's reaching out to you they're not happy with their order they're not happy about the way Something Turned out try to resolve it within your messages so that you can avoid actual official cases being opened against your shop and the next thing that Etsy mentions in this section is ontime shipping and tracking now they do state
that currently ontime shipping and tracking doesn't directly affect your search visibility but it is an important part of the Etsy seller service standards that every Etsy seller agrees to when they come on board as a seller so Etsy expects you to be keeping your shipping times that you've promised to your buyer and including tracking where appropriate though this doesn't directly affect your search rankings again it can affect how many good reviews you're receiving and your conversion rate which then affects your search ranking so though it's not a direct contributor it's definitely important in a roundabout
way to make sure that your listings are optimized the best they can be and to encourage that high conversion rate now if you're ever wondering how you're doing with customer service you can always check your customer service stats tab in your Etsy dashboard to get actual analytics and insights to see your daily progress toward Meeting those customer service standards so there you go those are the new announcements that Etsy recently made I hope this is helpful for you in optimizing your listings in your shop and your customer service to be able to rank higher and
gain more visibility don't forget to click the link in the description box below to download your free Etsy quickart guide and a try out S Samurai for free for 3 Days happy [Music] selling and I'm Dy to tell you
