I am Julie Siomacco owner of the Southern Charm Wreaths where we make beautiful wreaths

and we also teach you how to make and sell them.

So in this video it's my business tips for the week.

I want to just go over some 10, just 10 mistakes most Etsy sellers make.

So we did a shop critique in my success circle group, which is my business group, this month

and, you know, just about every one of them were making the same mistakes.

So I thought I'd come on here and just go over with you the top 10 mistakes that I see

most Etsy shop owners making.

So you have to keep in mind that when you open up an Etsy shop, it's not as easy as

you think, okay.

So there is a system to it.

There are certain things that you must do.

You can't just upload your beautiful items and wait for people to come by.

That's not how Etsy works.

There is a lot of things that you have to factor in, including what they call SEO.

So if you're new to selling online, you're probably thinking, "What the heck is SEO?"

SEO stands for search engine optimization.

Basically it boils down to how to get found.

Alright, so we go to you, I'm sorry, we go to Google and we type in something.

Let's say we type in red shoes, well, we're gonna get a lot of information about red shoes,

aren't we?

But let's say we need red shoes for prom so we're gonna type in red shoes for prom, now

that search from shoes to red shoes, okay, let's say shoes from red shoes and then red

shoes to prom narrows down the search results that Google shows to you.

So you have to do the same thing with your Etsy shop.

Those words that we put in Google shoes, red shoes, red shoes for prom, are called keywords.

Those are what we have to incorporate into our Etsy shop in order to get found because

think about it, the algorithm for Etsy right now does not look at the photos, it looks

at the words for you to show up in searches.

So when a customer goes in and types in spring wreath for front door, looking for a wreath,

and you don't have spring wreath for front door as a keyword you're not gonna get shown.

If you are just uploading your beautiful wreaths, or your afghans, or whatever you're making

onto Etsy and you're coming up with your own cutesy names, you know, blue moon rising wreath

or, you know, something like that, that's not gonna help you.

That's not gonna help you get found in search results.

You must use words that your shoppers are using, okay.

So I'm gonna go through that in just a few minutes.

Hi, Kathleen, how are you?

Welcome, welcome Lynette.

Alright, so these are my top 10 tips, are you ready?

For Etsy shop owners, I've gone over this with my success circle group and I've gone

in it through with my wreath of the month club, but I really feel compelled to come

on here and help everybody succeed on Etsy and then this will also give you a little

taste of what I do offer in my groups.

Alright, so the first thing that I see Etsy shop owners not doing is completely filling

out their Etsy shop.

If you don't have your shop policies completely filled out, guess what, Etsy is gonna ding

you for that.

They're gonna hinder you being seen to the shoppers.

So go through, fill out everything.

If they give you a place to put a video, guess what, I want you to put a video.

If they give you a place to put an image, guess what, I want you to put an image.

I want you to fill out everything possible.

You know that big pretty cover photo?

I want you to put something there.

That's prime real estate but make sure when you do put your photos in, that you go to

your mobile device and you look at it on your mobile phone.

You wanna make sure that you're seeing what your buyers are seeing.

It might look really pretty on the desktop, but then you open it up on your mobile device

and it doesn't look so good.

So you wanna make sure that it looks good on both mobile and your computer or laptop.

So fill everything out.

The about section, why did you get started?

What inspires you?

Put some keywords in there.

Your cover photo, I said that.

You're gonna have your shop name, everything, you're gonna fill out, okay?

Because if you don't fill it out, you're just leaving business on the table, alright, and

so I just want you to incorporate everything Etsy offers you.

Can't wait for them to add more video, I hope they do that soon.

Alright, so that's tip number one, completely fill out your Etsy shop.

Tip number two, make sure you have clickable cohesive looking product images.

What does that mean?

I mean, you can't, it's harder for if a buyer is going to your shop and they see an image,

you know, that's dingy or hard to see or blurry or there's, you know, not enough images, you

know, they're not gonna make the sale.

Also, keep in mind, that when you do get down those keywords and you're being found in search

results, a lot of times images are so dark and blurry and dingy that people don't even

wanna click on them.

So you want clickable images, you want bright.

You wanna see the product, what are they gonna get.

Sometimes if you stage it, you get better click through rates.

So in other words, instead of just putting a wreath on a door, put it on, you know, a

mantle, hang it over a mirror, prop it up on a fireplace, do some other different ways

to stage your wreath or your product so that it's a little bit more clickable.

People might want to click into it, that's what I mean clickable, you want people to

click.

So, I'm going to show, if I can figure out how to share my screen, I wanted to share

with you this shop and I love her shop and whenever I train anybody how to do Etsy, I

always pull up her shop because she's just rocking it.

So I'm just gonna show you a shop that has beautiful shop photos, really quickly, very

cohesive, meaning they all look the same.

If you just give me a quick second to open it up.

Alright.

Share my screen.

Just give me a quick sec and I am on monitor two.

Share, okay.

This is not the one, this is, I'm sorry, I went to the wrong one.

Here we go, here, so Khalea, sorry Khalea I'm always showing yourEtsy shop.

If you sell wreaths, look at this.

Alright, do you see the background?

It's chippy door, it's got really pretty vibrant color photos, you can see the whole design

in that one icon of that product image.

It's just very pretty, I love the chippy door look.

So that to me is what I say is has a cohesive look.

Also, if you're selling bath bombs, look at this.

Do you se how all the images have this one background?

I like that, that's cohesiveness but then if you go down here, it's got all these different

images that are very bright, colorful, a lot of white on the background, that to me is

a cohesive look as well.

So that's what I mean is when you wanna have a cohesive look for your items.

Alright, so other things that I want to show you or to encourage you to do.

So that was, let's see, what tip was that, was I on?

So a cohesive shop look with your product images is tip number two.

So tip number three, use all or most of your Etsy shop photos.

So, for example, Etsy gives you I think 10 photo slots.

You wanna use as many of those as you can.

It doesn't have to be 10 individual photos, it could be five individual photos and then

you duplicate four, you know, duplicate two or three, duplicate another two or three,

in order to fill them up because what's gonna happen is when you put in your key rich title

for that product, it's gonna attach it to that image so anybody who's going into Google

and looking for spring summer wreath, you're gonna have 10 images that fit that keyword,

spring summer wreath, does that make sense?

So you want to incorporate as many photos as you can and making sure you have your keywords

down.

So use as many photos, zoom in, zoom out, crop, not crop, take from the side, take from,

you know, staging it on, like I said, all these different areas you can stage your products,

how can users see your product being used?

The more information you give them, the better chances you have of being, making the sale.

Alright, so let's see, that was tip number three.

So tip number four, for your Etsy shop, the mistakes that most people make is to do your

keyword research.

So, we talked about keywords just a few minutes ago in the beginning of the series.

Let me share my, the beginning of this video, let me just share my screen one more time

and I will show you what I'm talking about.

Okay, so we're over here on my other screen and I just wanna show you when I put in summer

wreath, here's what comes up, 30,000 results.

Do you have a chance to get seen?

Very slim, very slim chance, okay.

But they do give you these keywords up at the top of the screen, which you can use,

because these keywords up here are what shoppers are already using but I wanted to show you

when I typed in summer wreath, do you see how it drops down right here?

These are all keywords buyers are already using.

Why not see if they work for you and use the same ones?

Alright, so we have summer wreath right here but let's say we type in summer wreath which

we already saw it had 30,000 results and we have a slim chance of getting seen, what if

we typed in that summer wreath for door, hey, our wreath is for a door, maybe that will

work, let's look at that, we get 24,000.

Alright, so it's not quite 30 but there's 24,000 results still we're gonna have a hard

time getting seen because, listen, I'm just saying if I'm a shopper, I'm gonna scroll

down and do you think any buyer is going to go through 250 pages of wreaths?

They're not, they're probably gonna go through the first three or four and then they're gonna

say, "Okay, I'm not finding what I want."

So either they're gonna buy what they see from those pages or they're gonna try to refine

their search results.

Alright, so let's go instead, let's think of something else we could do.

So let's say we do, let's see, there's for front door, alright, so summer wreath for

front door, matches what we are selling and it does narrow it down so now we've got 11,000.

Do you see how I'm using my keywords and I'm coming up with ways in order to narrow down

the search in order to have a better chance of getting seen?

Listen, I know a lot of you are thinking, "Yeah, but there's so many, you know, "there's

a lot of results."

There are a lot of results but the chances of you being found through all of the noise

is too great.

Instead, narrow it down as much as you possibly can.

So let's think about this, alright, so let's say we have a grapevine wreath and let's just

type that in, summer grapevine wreath, comes up, we're working, we're working, and let's

say we click on summer grapevine wreaths for front door.

Jackpot, do you see how now I've got my results are 2,800?

It's even less, so if I'm using summer wreath for a keyword and I have to compete with 30,000

other results, versus I have summer grapevine wreaths for front door as my keyword, I'm

only gonna have to compete with 2,800.

Do you see I'm upping my chances of being found through all of the noise?

So this is exactly what I'm talking about and if you can narrow that down even further,

that would be good.

So, it's good to have some keywords that are, for example, if I switch over, let's see if

I can find my Etsy shop, right here, so for example, if I have my main keyword at the

beginning of my title, then I can find other keywords.

I could also use summer wreath for like maybe part of the second keyword in my title then

I'm gonna put a comma, and I'm gonna put another keyword, and then I'm gonna put a comma, and

another keyword.

So my title right here should have tons of keywords in it.

Remember I just showed you how to find the keywords.

So do the same thing until you get several different versions of keywords to go into

your title and I don't mean one word, I mean long tail keywords, meaning multiple words.

So for example, summer wreath with bow, that's a long tail keyword.

Alright, so that's how you can find the keywords that people are already using.

Alright, so the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about was tip number five,

use the keywords in your shop title.

Let me go back to sharing my screen again and show you other places, you're gonna use

them in your title, you're gonna use them in your description, you're going to use them