I love selling on Etsy because the platform has millions of people searching it daily and they’re ready to buy. That gives you a much better chance of getting eyes on your digital products than if you started out by listing them only on your own website.
Once you get the hang of creating and listing products, you’ll want to turn your attention to some strategies that will get even more traffic to your Etsy shop.
More traffic gives you more opportunities to make sales, so yeah, you see why this is worth your time, right?
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4 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Etsy Shop
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and Etsy works in a similar way to any other search engine (like Google). Buyers type in what they want to buy in the search bar and then Etsy provides all of the items that it thinks the buyer is most likely to purchase.
To let Etsy know what you’re selling, you need to use the best possible keywords to describe the products you’re selling.
It’s best to use a combination of short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords.
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Short-tail keywords are keywords that are short, broad, and general: Coloring pages Planner. Instagram templates.
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Long-tail keywords are longer (shocking, right?) and more specific: Dragon coloring pages. Printable planner for teachers. Real estate Instagram templates
There are a few places to put these keywords inside your product listing.
Titles
Pay extra close attention to the first 40 characters in your product title. Etsy will use the keywords in those first 40 characters to help rank your product.
You can use your main, general keyword followed by more specific keywords to get a variety in the title.
Tags
You can include up to 13 tags in each Etsy product listing. Be sure to use them all! You can copy over the keywords that you used in your title and then keep adding more until you hit the limit.
Some simple keyword research on E-rank can help you choose the keywords that buyers are actually searching for in relation to your product.
Descriptions
Lastly, Etsy will notice the keywords that you use in the product description.
You can reuse the keywords from your title and tags. Try to fit them in more toward the beginning of the product description.
Make sure your sentences sound natural – just stuffing a bunch of keywords into the description won’t help. Your shop policies and other details can go further down in the description after you’ve incorporated your keywords.
Photos
When you’re shopping on Etsy, you probably notice the pictures before anything else, right? The better your photos are, the more traffic your shop will get.
With digital products, mockup images can be especially helpful because they make the product you’re selling feel more tangible and the buyer can picture themselves using it.
I create all of my product images in Canva. I like to add text to some of the images to give more information about the product, other items I sell, shop policies, and more.
Buyers are more likely to scroll through all of the photos than they are to read a long product description, so your photos can provide a lot of valuable information.
Social Media - Pinterest
Leverage the power of social media platforms to promote your Etsy digital shop. Since Pinterest is essentially a visual search engine, it is one of my favorite social media platforms for marketing my Etsy digital products. When someone clicks on one of my pins, they get sent directly to my Etsy product.
It’s fairly quick and simple to transform your Etsy product images into Pinterest pins. The recommended pin size is 1000 pixels wide x 1500 pixels tall.
Pinterest also pays attention to the keywords that you use in the title and description. Many of the keywords that you use on Etsy will help your pins get seen on Pinterest, though you can also dive deeper into Pinterest keyword research if you choose to.
Along with keywords, Pinterest rewards people who pin consistently. To make this easier, you can batch-create a bunch of Pinterest pins and then use a free scheduler (like Tailwind) to schedule the pins to get published at regular intervals automatically throughout the month, saving you tons of time.
Setting Up Email List/Marketing
An email list allows you to build longer-term relationships and communicate directly with your potential buyers.
Imagine if someone bought one of your digital products and you were able to let them know every time you release something new or have a sale. They’d probably be excited to buy from you again!
Unfortunately, you can’t take the email addresses of your Etsy customers and add them to your email list. But you can entice them to join your email list with a free mini-product, which is called a lead magnet. I’ve used this method to create an email list of buyers over over 8,000 in just a few short months and I can safely say this is one of the most under-used ways of marketing an Etsy shop.
You can directly message your customers on Etsy and let them know about the free product and give them the link to your opt-in page. You can also add an automatic message to their order receipt.
You’ll be able to share your lead magnet on all social media platforms. Don’t forget to create Pinterest pins to direct people to your opt-in page.
People who opt-in to receive your free lead magnet might not be ready to buy anything yet, but once they’re on your email list, you can let them know about upcoming products and convert them into paying customers later on.
Conclusion
By implementing these strategies - optimizing your shop for search engines, tiles, tags, description, utilizing social media, and email marketing, - you can significantly increase traffic to your Etsy shop. Remember that building and sustaining traffic is an ongoing effort, so be consistent with your marketing efforts, analyze the results, and adapt your approach to ensure long-term success. With dedication and creativity, your Etsy shop will gain more visibility and attract a steady stream of potential buyers.
Whew, that was a lot! But don’t panic. I recommend that you choose just one of these methods at a time to focus on – SEO is the best place to start.
Once you get into a comfortable routine with your SEO, you can move on to learning and incorporating another method into your seller routine.
You’ll see more and more traffic heading to your Etsy shop when you implement these strategies!