Day 4: Getting Seen in Search on Etsy

Every few months it seems, Etsy changes their search algorithm. For shop owners this equates to frequent shop updates and a frustrating guessing game: changing titles, re-doing descriptions, testing whether renewing and advertisement dollars still result in sales.

In November, 2015 etsy announced they were changing how search works, with criteria now including:

- Relevance of titles and tags
- Listing quality
- Customer and marketplace experience
- Recency
- Shop Location
- Shop Diversity

According to the related etsy help article on search, listing quality...increases "if a buyer clicks, favorites, or purchases an item after they’ve seen it in search results." In other words, the higher the number of hearts or purchases per view, the better.

So in addition to listing a new item today, I also joined a marketing team that focuses on swapping hearts. I discovered this concept recently when I kept seeing items with 500+ hearts and only 200+ views and tried to figure out how that happens. Basically, you join a view/heart sharing team, post your item, and then favorite X number of people and they'll favorite you back.

It feels a bit pyramid-scheme-y, to be honest. But I'm trying to throw everything possible at this etsy re-vamp, so figured it's worth a try. At least for today, hearts are up, but sales are still down, so we'll see how it all goes.

Day 4 - December 4rd
Etsy sales: $0
Etsy Views: 195 (Down, but 50+ new favorites)
Total Etsy Items: 405 (+1)
Updated Etsy Items: 3/405 (+1)
Facebook Likes: 318
Instagram Followers: 499 (+1)