Search Engine Optimization

For someone who really just wants to focus on creating jewelry, the business side of things can be overwhelming. Marketing, promoting, tracking...ugh. Yet, if I am ever to reach my goal of supporting myself as an independent jewelry designer, then I need to get a handle on the business side of my business.

With that in mind, I have spent a lot of time the past two days reading about SEO (search engine optimization). I was happy to find a great deal of useful information on the Etsy forums. There are a lot of people who use Etsy as a hobby, but I am also finding that for many people, they DO make a living from their art and Etsy serves an important function for them. So, why not take the advice of people who are doing what I want to do?

After reading through posts on SEO, I realized just how ineffective many of my titles and tags in my Esty shop were. Clever names, like you might find in the Sundance catalog, are not going to get my products on the first page of a Google search. I need to think like a shopper would think and use those search terms. Therefore, what I had just listed as "Eternity Necklace" became "Eternity Chain Necklace":

and one of my previous listings, which I really thought would have sold by now has gone from "Shades of Brown" to "Shades of Brown Chunky Charm Bracelet":

I changed the tags, too. We shall see if it makes a difference, but it makes sense to me that I need to think like a buyer, not like a seller.