How to Survive the Etsy Search Changes - 2016 Edition

There are a lot of questions going around about the recent changes Etsy made to their search; so I want to explain my take on it and some facts that can help you understand it and how to survive it.

Calm down: As you probably know a rumor surfaced recently about etsy changing their

search, and people are starting to make it into something that it is not. So the first step to

understand this change and how it is going to affect you is to calm down.

Is this new?: They already announced it in November 2015 that they are looking to make online commerce more human through authentic interactions between buyers and sellers. Now, if you do not remember it or miss this announcement, don't worry, I am here to help you with that and be you your eyes and ears in the etsy news world. You can also catch their accouncement here:

What is going on?: So etsy is conducting tests to see if they can tailor the search results to individual shopping experiences. For example: if Sally searches for "personalized stationery" and Mary searches for "personalized stationery", chances are that they MIGHT get different search results. They started some tests this month to tailor search results to individual shoppers based on their history on etsy. So if you go now and check your views and find them going dramatically low, chances are that this low number is not due to the new search “tweaking” test that etsy is running. Remember that the goal of the test is that to understand why they are showing Sally a different search results than Mary. What makes my listing of "personalized stationery" more relevant to Sally than to Mary? Also, remember that it is in the interest of etsy that both sellers and buyers have a good experience on etsy and the they both feel comfortable doing so on etsy. They don't really wake up and one day and decide to mess up with everybody’s search results and confuse us. Even though that some people that I know may be negatively affected by this change,

it is however, an improvement for etsy as a whole and will generate more revenues. So technically speaking this should help etsy as a whole, on the aggregate level. etsy announced that their goal is to identify signals that best match individual shoppers to individual items. However, they do not have a clear understanding of how to do that, and as they see results, they will see what makes better conversion rates, what makes the buyers interact better with listings and hence they will show the buyers what they think the latter might like.

Is it rolled down to the entire site?: No it is not officially rolled down, this is just a testing

phase. let us assume that their hypothesis is that they think that Mary will probably benefit from seeing listings that were favorited by people that she follows. So post testing, they actually find out that she is actually interacting more with those listings, then that is one criteria they want to keep testing. If not, then they will tweak it in a different way and test it it in a different manner. That is my understanding of this announcement. So this is about testing hypotheses to study how to improve etsy as a whole, and the key words here are “hypotheses” and “improve”.

How to make my listing relevant to each buyer? Etsy's goals is to to have more

engagement with listings, more views and possibly more sales. So understand that SEO is not changing but they are trying to figure out ways as to make buyers interact more with the listings, particularly transforming this interaction into a sale. They are trying to increase conversion rates, the number of views, your favorites etc by figuring out what Mary would probably buy when she searches for an item.

How does it affect your shop? Etsy makes it very clear that the number one factor in

listing visibility remains the relevance of your titles and tags; in a nutshell proper application of SEO. Overall listing placement in search may change because etsy tries to connect shoppers with the listings that they are most likely to purchase. “If you would like to see search results unaffected by targeting search approach, you can log out of your etsy account or use your browser in incognito mode.” You will be able to see where you are in general search, and it will not show you what other buyers see. Well how does that affect you when and if you want to figure out your ranking. You can have a general idea of the ranking, but particular buyers may see different things. So a certain percent of the buyers will see those results that are unbiased and then others will see more tailored ones. You will not see the same results as Sally or Mary does. I have a feeling that etsy potential buyers, or neutral buyers that have not interacted or shopped much, will probably see the unbiased results, so there is more reason for you to understand where you fall in rank in general. The unbiased results are almost a foundation that etsy uses and then tailor

them to shoppers based on their “habits”. Now, if your are on the 10th page, is there a chance that you will end up on the first or second pages of Sally and Mary? Possibly. So the proper application of SEO will allow you to build a good foundation and have higher chances for etsy to place your listing in the search pages of potential buyers according to their “habits”. So the SEO webinar and Marmalead are still relevant, your items can not be placed in front of Sally for "personalized stationery" if you have not applied SEO correctly in the first place for your listing to be relevant in the personalized stationery. It is not going to magically appear in her search results. You can not control what etsy will show buyers based on their tailored needs, however, you can become relevant in those keyword searches. In addition, you still want to be relevant to the people who are new to etsy and those unbiased shoppers.

Everybody does it: Amazon does that too, they give their shoppers great terms and

wonderful shopping experience so they can come back and shop again at Amazon. The same trend is going with etsy, they want to improve their shoppers experience. Etsy wants to improve Sally’s shopping experience so whenever Sally shops, she will end up buying somethings. Technically speaking if your shop is in a good shape, you will start to have a better conversion rate and higher views. It is better to show your item to 5 people who

have higher probability of buying it, rather than to 100 who don't. Having higher views is great, but not so great when these views don't translate into sales. (Remember those favorite sales games on Facebook and how they potentially hurt your business). You need to trust the system because you use the platform to sell. Instead of complaining about the changes, you better understand them and find a way to work with them. It is now important more than ever to hop on the SEO bandwagon, to understand your target market.

So if you are complaining after one day that your views are low, it is too soon to assign this

to the etsy search testing. There has not been enough time of testing to attribute this decline in views to the new etsy testing. Remember it is the the nature of the our business, sometimes we have good days, and other times, we have slow days. It is too early to panic and even if there is a reason for you to do so, I suggest you use this time to figure out what you need to do instead of wasting your energy panicking.

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Here's to a more successful online business!

Dalia Abdalla

#SEO #etsy #Searchchanges