Hello! I took a look at your Etsy shop and you have wonderful products, but I noticed you're not optimizing your listings as well as you should, which is why your listings are performing so badly. With my help, I can get your listings on page one of Etsy search. Yeah, no. If you've been selling on Etsy for a while, you've probably had messages like this before.
services or experts who promise to help you rank page one on Etsy. But today I'm gonna tell you exactly why they're wrong and how you can keep yourself from being scammed. Can you help me to rank page one of Etsy? Yes. How do you check a listing search ranking?
You will search your product on Etsy and check your store how it rank. Oh, but... I thought Etsy applied a layer of personalization to every search query, meaning that every user will see different results on a search page, meaning that no two people will have the same page one experience.
When we make a search of your product and we will checking how your product is ranked. But how do you search my product without that layer of personalization being applied? I'd like to know how to do that.
Ooh, I can check your profile and see that you are not on Etsy. Thank you for your time. I'm not here for this.
For those who are new here, my name is Starla Moore, founder of the Handmade Alpha Academy for Etsy sellers and manager at erank.com, Etsy's most popular SEO tool. And over the years, SEO has changed a lot. A lot, a lot.
So when I hear supposed Etsy SEO experts using outdated terminology and explanations of Etsy's algorithm, I automatically go on red alert. Especially when it comes to ranking on Etsy. Yes, you can rank on Etsy.
And yes, you can technically rank on page one, but not by the means that most coaches teach, and not with a magical strategy. And hopefully by the end of this video, you'll be able to outsmart the scam artists who assume that you don't know better. Because the way I see it, the more that you waste their time by running them in circles, the less time that they'll have to scam someone else. Especially since most of them don't actually know what they're talking about when it comes to Etsy SEO and Many of these individuals target vulnerable sellers such as newbies or elderly sellers.
Which is super uncool and is exactly why I teach SEO strategies for free on my channel, so that everyone has access to this information. To fully understand what it means to rank on Etsy, you first need to know how Etsy's algorithm works. Because what those scammers don't expect you to know is that there's a lot more to success on Etsy than just keyword optimization. Some factors we know about, and some factors Etsy keeps a secret. But there are seven specific factors that Etsy does share with us.
And if you're interested in knowing more about the specifics of those seven factors, I recommend watching this free course up here. Of those seven factors, there's one very specific factor that you need to be aware of when taking Etsy SEO advice online, and that's personalization. Sure, a few years ago, it was easy enough to type in a few keywords associated with your listing into the Etsy search bar and see what page you showed up on.
But then, Etsy started catering their experience to each unique shopper, based on their location and past habits on the platform. The incorporation of machine learning technology meant that for sellers like us, we could no longer measure our own ranking with the Etsy search bar. What I see on Etsy will be different than what you see. And while many Etsy gurus will tell you that you can remove Etsy's layer of personalization by logging out of your account, using an incognito window, or using a VPN, none of these strategies will eliminate personalization.
This information is increasingly important to know because as someone who manages customer success at Etsy's biggest SEO tool, I cannot tell you how many emails I receive from sellers who have reported being scammed by coaches and services who promise a page one rank. And even as a coach, I get around five to 10 messages a week on Instagram from Etsy SEO specialists who took a look at my shop and noticed I have major problems with my SEO. Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie, just stop, okay? Look, I know everyone wants an easy answer or a magical solution that will help them to be successful faster. But when it comes to Etsy's algorithm, there is no shortcut or magical success button.
And anyone who says that they have one likely doesn't have your best interest in mind. So just be sure to keep your BS detectors on high alert. And be cautious of any terminology that alludes to promises of page one rank on Etsy. On the flip side, a lot of Etsy gurus out there say that ranking on Etsy is an obsolete concept, or that rank checking tools are useless and outdated. But that's not exactly true either.
You just have to know what the purpose of rank checking tools are, as well as why you're using them. As I always say, you can't brew a latte with a hammer. And you can't get mad ...get the hammer for not brewing your latte.
A tool doesn't work if you use it incorrectly. To see for yourself, start by choosing a keyword from one of your listings that you're trying to optimize for. Ideally, this should be a long-tail keyword that describes your item. For example, if you're selling this gray tabby cat mug, you'd want to select the keyword tabby cat mug, opposed to just mug, because ranking for mug in a marketplace of millions of competitive listings is gonna be hard. After selecting your longtail keyword from your listing's title, head over to erank.com, click on the tools tab, and type that keyword into the rank checker tool.
From there, erank will show you your exact rank and position on the search page minus personalization. And this data comes directly from Etsy's API, which means it's always up to date and accurate. It's just naked.
So look at it as a guide for what the average shopper will see in search. If you're seeing that you have listings ranking on pages 1, 2, or 3 for a desired keyword, it means that your SEO for this listing is probably pretty good. If you have listings ranking further back on low search pages and those listings aren't selling at all, these are the listings that you should plan to improve by finding better keywords to add to your listing's tags and titles in order to rank higher.
Just don't forget my golden rule of Etsy SEO while making changes. Never touch the tags and titles of a listing that's already selling. even if your SEO isn't the best.
Tweaking a high-performing listing can actually hurt it more than help it, so stick to the listings that aren't bringing in sales or traffic. We live in a weird era of the internet where anyone with a camera can produce videos online, or create an Instagram account that looks super professional. With enough confidence in their voice, anyone can seem like an expert. But when it comes to your business, it's important to always, always work with verifiable sources and take caution when you hear advice that seems a little too good to be true. Especially when it comes to anyone who promises to rank you on page one.
Often these specialists will take advantage of Etsy sellers by making you think that they've helped you rank after working on your SEO for you. But often this isn't due to anything that the specialist has actually done. When you list a new item on Etsy, Etsy gives that listing a small boost in search in order to gather data about how people interact with it. The boost in your rank can last up to 90 days before you actually begin seeing your more organic rank. So, though it looks like the specialist helped you, they've actually just triggered Etsy's natural boost to make it appear that they were responsible for that jump in rank.
And eventually, your rank will fall back down. In short, if a specialist handled your SEO, it can take 90 days to even know if what they did actually worked, or if you're just seeing the normal boost from Etsy. And by the time your listing begins to fall into its natural position, the specialist will either be long gone, Or they'll continue selling you more big promises, throwing you into an endless money-spending loop.
I know Etsy SEO is hard. If it was easy, everyone would be successful. But here on my channel, I try to make things as easy as possible so that sellers like you can succeed on Etsy without falling victim to common SEO scams.
And if Etsy SEO is still super confusing for you and you just want to learn how to master it once and for all, I recommend watching my 14-minute step-by-step Etsy SEO tutorial, linked right up here. And I guarantee, by the end of it, you'll probably know more about listing optimization than most of the scammers in your inbox. But if you still feel lost after watching it, I'll also have a huge list of even more free Etsy SEO resources down below. Stay safe, stay data-focused, and seriously guys, give these scammers hell. Cue the funky lo-fi beat.