Figuring out Etsy SEO is one of the hardest parts of running an Etsy business. “SEO” stands for "Search Engine Optimization." On Etsy, “optimizing” means improving how your listings rank in relevant shoppers' search results. To achieve it, your first step is doing keyword research. Because you need to find out if shoppers search with the words you’ve got in your listings. And that requires a data-driven keyword tool.

For this tutorial, we'll be using eRank’s Keyword Tool. It’s in eRank’s Main Menu under "Keyword Research." Ideally, when doing keyword research, you want to “start broad and niche your way down.” For example, let's say we’re selling a beige wool chunky knitted blanket. It's better to begin with the broad keyword “blanket.” That lets Keyword Tool find more of those “niche” specific ideas we need.

Having entered our broad keyword, let’s spend some time at the top of the results page. Here, eRank displays several useful pieces of information. First, let’s look at the "Keyword Statistics" bar chart at the top of the page. Note that all metrics here are based on the past 12 months of Etsy data.

“Average Searches” shows the average monthly Etsy shopper searches for blanket. “Average Clicks” is the average monthly clicks that listings in searches for that keyword get. “Average CTR” (Click-Through Rate) is the ratio of clicks to searches, expressed as a percentage. “Etsy Seller Competition” indicates how much competition you can expect on Etsy search results pages.

As you can see, all of these are really high. That’s because the keyword we entered is broad. So, we won’t worry about these high numbers; most broad searches have them.

Next, let’s scroll down the page to the "Keyword Ideas" table. This is where we're going to find good keyword possibilities to experiment with in tags and titles.

Are you on any of eRank’s paid plans? If so, I recommend using the Keyword Lists feature here to save anything interesting. It makes keeping track of keywords and their data so much easier.

Click the star next to any keyword to add it to one of your Keyword Lists. Take a shortcut to your most recently edited list by clicking the floating green button in the bottom left corner of the page.

Then, whenever you want to work with them, they’ll be ready. Best of all, this tool updates all of your keywords' search data in real time.

Writing listing titles: low-hanging fruit

When choosing keywords, we recommend a combination of low-hanging fruits and one or two high-hanging fruits. "Low-hanging fruits" are keywords that aren’t searched as much. They may not have the best click and click-through rates. But their competition is lower, which means we can hopefully rank for these sooner.

Terms that could be low-hanging fruit:

As we’ve seen, the broad keyword “blanket” has far too much competition to rank for it in search. But perhaps we can rank for some of these more specific terms.

Attracting shoppers with exact matching

To optimize for Etsy’s search engine, there are two sides of the algorithm we want to appeal to. One side likes to see listings' keywords be exactly as the shopper types them in. This is called "exact matching." And strong keyword-matching gives a powerful boost to your rank in search.

Example: a shopper types "chunky knitted blanket" into Etsy’s search bar. For an exact match, we’d have "chunky knitted blanket" in order and intact in the listing's titles and tags. We like to call these “superstar keywords” because they are the VIPs of your listings.

Choose your superstar keywords with care. First, they should be the search phrases you want your listings to be known for and to rank highly for. Let’s say “chunky knitted blanket” describes exactly what you sell. Next, you need to check the search volume data. Are shoppers using this exact phrase to search? If so, this would be a superstar keyword for you.

​Optimizing with broad matches

The other side of the algorithm is a little less powerful, but still helps your listings rank. It's called "broad matching." During its broad-matching process, Etsy will mix and match. That is, it puts together words that appear anywhere in your tags and titles.

In the keyword phrase "cozy beige chunky knitted blanket," we exact-match for "chunky knitted blanket." And we also broad-match for:

And more! Given Etsy's broad-matching capabilities, it’s unnecessary to repeat the same words over and over in the title. Rather than "Beige Knitted Blanket, Chunky Knitted Blanket, Cozy Blanket," we can have "Cozy Beige Chunky Knitted Blanket." Because we will exact-match for the superstar keyword, chunky knitted blanket. And we'll also broad-match for "cozy blanket," "beige blanket," "beige knitted blanket," and so on.

Adding closely related keywords to your title

Without the needless repetitions of “blanket,” the title now has lots of room for other keywords. Etsy allows up to 140 characters, and there are 110 left! Ideally, you’d want to find terms closely related to your product that you could broad-match for. The term "wool blanket" is low-hanging fruit, so we’ll add “wool” to make the title "Cozy Beige Wool Chunky Knitted Blanket."

Targeting shoppers

Etsy suggests having up to four keyword phrases in your title. But what if you’ve adequately described your item and can’t come up with another good descriptive phrase? In such cases, I recommend trying one related to your target customer. These typically won't bring in a lot of traffic. But they are good to experiment with when you have room in your title.

For instance, we could complete the demo title by targeting buyers who are shopping for gifts for particular recipients. Let’s start by entering the broad search "gifts for" in Keyword Tool. It will generate a list of related suggestions for us.

From here, we scroll down to find “low-hanging fruit” keywords. At the time of this writing, "social worker gift" and "matron of honor gift" have okay search volume and competition levels. So, we’ll save them both to the Keyword List to keep an eye on.

Maybe we’ll test "matron of honor gift" in a different listing. We’ll see how its data holds up. For now, let’s add "social worker gift" to our title. It reads: "Beige Wool Chunky Knitted blanket, Cozy Gift for Social Worker."

​Selecting tags for your listings

Now that we've got a title, we want to head down to the "Tags" section and begin filling them out. The "Tags" section is another area that Etsy will use to make both exact matches and broad matches. Remember, exact matches are more powerful. Therefore, we'll prioritize keeping the superstar keywords together where possible.

For instance, the superstar keyword "chunky knitted blanket" is 22 characters. I’s too long to fit in a tag on its own. So, we'll need to split it between two tags. We could either break it into "chunky knitted" or "knitted blanket." A quick check in Keyword Tool tells us that no one is searching "chunky knitted" on its own. That means your best bet will be entering it as "knitted blanket."

Next, we can add "chunky wool," "social worker gift," and "cozy beige" to the tags. And having used all the words from the title, we see we’ve still got room in the tags to experiment with. Great! This is where to put keywords from the initial search that didn't make the cut for the title. While they were too broad or competitive for the title, they will be a goo addition to the listing's tags.

Testing and experimenting

So, let's go back to the original search for "blanket" in Keyword Tool. We saved:

Let's add some of these into the tags.

Wait...didn't we say that we don't need to repeat the word blanket because Etsy will broad match it?” And yes, this is true. But often, you'll run out of keyword ideas before you fill all 13 tags. In such cases, it's better to aim for an exact match. Rather than adding a one-word tag like "boho," aim to rank for an exact match with “boho throw blanket.” This is all about testing and experimenting to see what works for you.

Publishing your listing

Once you've published your listing, be patient! It's important to remember the following. Etsy's algorithm can take 60 to 90 days to build a quality score for your listing. Every time you add a new listing, Etsy begins collecting data based on how shoppers interact with it. And after a period of 60 to 90 days, Etsy is able to decide where in search that listing should be ranked.

Therefore, do not edit this listing again during that 60 to 90-day window! Don’t interrupt Etsy as it assesses your listing quality. Give your listing plenty of time to climb.

Search trends

Last but not least, let's go over how to monitor your keywords so that you'll know when search trends change. What’s popular this year may not be popular next year. Accordingly, you need to keep a close eye on the search volume of the keywords in your listings.

If you’re on one of eRank’s paid plans, you have access to the Keyword Lists tool that we mentioned earlier. You can access it by going to "Keyword Research" in the main menu and then selecting "Keyword Lists."
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From there, you can select which list you want to review. I'll choose my "blanket" list. From here, you can see the current search data for each saved keyword. eRank updates this data in real-time. This way, when trends change, you'll be the first to know. Ideally, you'll know before your competitors do!

See these three? Their trend graphs show that these aren’t being searched anymore. “Tweed blanket” appears to have been just a one-month fluke. Time to replace it with a search term that’s trending now.

SEO: the map that leads customers to your listings

We’ve covered how keywords optimize your listings for search engines. And that process is a necessary, powerful factor determining rank (that is, being found) on Etsy. But keywords are just one element in Etsy's search algorithm.

To grow your shop on Etsy, you’ll need other ranking factors working for you as well. Some of the strongest signals Etsy's algorithm gets come from your sales and reviews. Together, these tell Etsy whether it’s profitable and safe to recommend your products to more shoppers.

Using data-driven tools for keywords and help from the team here at eRank, you'll be well on your way to Etsy success.