How to Be Successful on Etsy

A Complete Guide to Learning How to Be Successful on Etsy

Etsy is a great place to sell items you’ve created with your own hands. It has grown significantly in the last few years. After launching our Etsy business in May of 2015, we were able to use the money as a downpayment on our first home. Since then, our business has quadrupled. Granted, we didn’t know exactly what we were doing the first 8 months. We were constantly seeking to answer the question “how to be successful on Etsy?”. But by the beginning of 2016, our shop started to start seriously taking shape and we began seeing a huge uptick in sales. I owe the success to a few special resources. Below, I’m going to explain some points that have been extremely effective for our business. We sincerely hope that you find the same value we have.

1. Understanding How Etsy Works

There are a few important things to consider here.

1. Etsy is a Search-based eCommerce site. People search for key phrases and then shop which items that catch their eye and that may be a potential match for what they had in mind. Having this said, you must have some knowledge about SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the practice of optimizing your product listing so that it will show up higher in the search results (often referred to as to “rank” higher). The easier it is for the shopper to find what they are looking for (without having to browse through pages and pages of products), the happier the shopper is. This will make the person more likely to come back to Etsy for future purchases. This means that it is in Etsy’s best interest to make sure Etsy shows the shoppers the best, most popular, most relative products first in the search results. There are a number of ways to optimize your listings which we can save for another post. 
2. Limits exist. This is a very important point to make. If you have more than one product that you are trying to rank for the same keyword… meaning the main keyword for the product is the same… you will be limited by Etsy’s search algorithm. Etsy only shows one product per page of the search results for any specific key phrase search. This means that if you have two products and you have a heavy focus on the phrase “vintage wood mallet”, even if both products are fantastic and you sell a lot, Etsy will only show one of them on the first page. If your second best product for the same keyword truly is great, it will be near the top of the 2nd page in the search results for that specific search term. Therefore, you may want to put your focus for product #2 on a different keyword that has an equal or similar amount of search volume. To find the search volume of a key phrase, you can use Google Keyword Planner. However, if you’re not running any ads on Google, they will not give you good estimates on how much searches per month are given. Instead, they’ll give you a range such as 10-100, 100-1000, or 1k – 10k. When it comes to this, it’s really not helpful. The only way to get around this is to pay Google for some advertising. Then, they will give you more accurate numbers like 80, 120, 500, 1700, etc. Albeit a great tool to use, take the information with a grain of salt as Google search volume does not equal the same numbers as Etsy. We recommend using this primarily for exploring new words and getting an idea on what keyword is more popular than others.

2. Stay Up to Date on New Things Etsy Related

Make sure that you’re keeping up with new trends on Etsy as well as new features Etsy rolls out. Etsy focuses on creating a better environment for both their sellers and buyers. Keep a close eye out for changes.We also recommend checking out the subreddit for Etsy here:

We also recommend checking out the sub-reddit for Etsy here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/. There, you’ll find a community of Etsy Shop Owners that like to discuss common topics, discuss scenarios, get advice, and get critiques on their shops. You’ll find a mix of beginners, amateurs, and a few advanced members. Either way, it’s a great way to learn how to improve your shop. Just don’t get caught up in people complaining about how things used to be. Accept and adapt to changes thrown at you and move on!