etsy search

How Does Etsy Search Work?

You have high-quality products and great product photos, but you’re not getting enough traffic on your Etsy shop. Understanding SEO is a crucial factor in being successful on Etsy. Once you’ve figured out what people really wanted and integrate them into your keywords, sales will start coming in.

Etsy SEO will definitely help improve your shop’s visibility as well as your products in Etsy search and even on Google and other search platforms. It can be challenging, but it’s really important that you have at least a basic understanding of how SEO works. This way, you can optimize your shop for search resulting in getting your products in front of more buyers.

Factors that Affect Etsy SEO

The search tool of Etsy is designed to offer online shoppers with products they are looking for. There are two factors to how this works – query matching and ranking. They seem complicated but understanding them helps you learn how to influence them, increasing traffic to your listings.

Query matching is how well the search term of a user matches the inventory listings on Etsy. Etsy will sort through the listings’ categories, tags, titles, and attributes to search for the best match.

On the other hand, to determine the ranking of the listings, Etsy utilizes information about each shop and listing to show items that online shoppers are most likely to buy earlier in the results. Here are the factors that affect ranking:

Listing Quality Score

This means how well a product listing converts. Etsy searches for clues to decide if the listing is appealing or not. The quality score of a listing increases when shoppers view the listing and purchase the product.

Relevancy

A listing is relevant if the categories, titles, tags, and attributes match the search term of a user. A listing appears higher if it exactly matches the keyword.

Recency

Etsy will temporarily boost a newly created listing in the search results. This will help determine the quality score of a listing.

Shipping Price

One of the main factors of a shopper’s decision to purchase is the shipping price. Etsy prioritizes stores that offer free shipping guarantee to U.S. shoppers.

Customer and Market Experience Score

Every shop has a score that is based on how complete the About section is, customer reviews, and negative feedback.

Translations and Language

Shop information including each listing’s titles and tags have to be in the language you chose when you created your account.

Shoppers’ habits

Etsy search results are customized for each shopper. Etsy learns what shoppers are interested in and displays the products they are likely to buy.

Shop Location

In Australia, Canada, and the EU, the location of the seller is taken into account, and local items are a bit more prominent in search results. Searches done within other countries isn’t really a factor.

Additionally, Etsy ranks product listings using CSR or context-specific ranking technology. It learns what shoppers are interested in and it will show them the products they’re likely to purchase. For instance, another person is searching for the same thing as you are – you won’t receive the exact same results because they are customized for each user.

About Charles Curry

Charles founded his Etsy shop Wall Decal Source in 2012. He opened his decal shop and decided to create a nursery decal for his sisters new baby. Funnily enough he published the decal as an item for sale on his Etsy shop and people really liked it. Well a few years later and his shop has been almost completely taken over by nursery wall decals. He must still be a kid at heart. As Charles tested and tried all sorts of methods to expand his shop he stumbled upon a few simple formulas for consistently growing Etsy sales and views.
Back to Courses