#116 - Etsy For Beginners: Why Your Listings Aren’t Selling Yet

So point number one here is stop blaming Etsy first, okay? I cannot tell you the amount of times someone has said to me, "Steph," like, "I don't understand.

I've got all of these listings up.

I don't understand what's going on.

I have put my heart and soul into these products, but they're not selling." Whilst I sympathize and I completely under- Etsy can literally only work with what you give it, okay? So let's say your photos, I'm just gonna grab my iPad up on screen.

Let's say your photos are, like, a two out of 10.

Let's say your SEO, which is your search engine optimization, let's say that is, like, a three out of 10.

And these are things like your title, tags, and your description, okay? Just in case you're wondering what on earth I was talking about, let's say your description is, like, a one out of- out of 10, okay? What does all of that equal? All of that is gonna pretty much say, even if people land on your listing, they are probably not gonna buy from you, okay? Because they can't actually see what the product really, truly is.

Maybe they have questions about it that are not being answered, hence why the photos are really, really important.

And maybe the description, maybe it's just not really selling it to them.

As you know, when people are reading your description, and please don't tell me that people do not read, because they do.

People who are 80% of the way to buying actually read your product description, so that is why they are super important.

Now let's talk about the titles here for a hot minute, okay? If you have a title that says something like, "The Anna Collection Silver Elephant Bracelet," I hate to break it to you, but that is actually doing you damage, okay? Because no one is typing in, "The Anna Bracelet Collection," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever I just said, okay? No one is literally typing that in.

So if you're saying, "I'm not getting traffic, Steph.

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong," you have to actually go into your title.

Which leads me on to point number two really nicely.

Sellers often use names and words and jargon, really, let's call a spade a spade, that means something to them.

But your average buyer, your target market, does not know what they are, okay? So let's say your average buyer is going into a search box and maybe typing in this, but you as a maker, you know the words.

You know, like, the technical words for it.

So you're writing in something like that.

You know, you're using words like hammered finish and, and, and hand fired and roasted and all that kind of stuff, you know? Things that, like I said, your average Joe is not gonna know what that is.

They are not using those words to type into the search box exactly what they are looking for.

Your buyer is not searching, "The Anna Collection Silver Elephant Bracelet." Your buyer is literally typing in, "Silver elephant bracelet," okay? And then they will change their search, and they'll add words to it.

So then they'll go, "Silver elephant bracelet 925," okay? And they might revise their search completely.

They might go, "Kids silver elephant bracelet 925." Does that make sense? So you wanna be looking at how your target market searches and how people are actually using the platform, AKA Etsy, that you are using.

And by the way, this is where actually knowing who your target market is is so important because as you can imagine, all of this stuff, your photos, your SEO description, titles, tags, all those kinds of things, very much pivots and rotates around your target market, okay? So we have your target market here.