How To Increase Your Etsy Shop Traffic (No Ads Required)
I’ve been selling on Etsy for around 7 years now and have thankfully managed to get most of my customers just from Etsy traffic. So, in this post I will talk about how to drive traffic to your Etsy shop without using any ads, the process of how I get customers to my shop and what has worked the best for me over the past few years.
To find out how… watch the video or have a read below ….
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The first thing to consider:
Will a customer want to buy this product?
I'm quite lucky as I now have a much better understanding of what my customer wants and what's popular. And I know where to look.
In the beginning, I would sometimes put things up and see if they sold or not and then figure it out from there. And still now actually I have the odd thing that I think people are really going to like and not many people buy it. But for lots of things, they have been added because my customers have requested them.
For example, if I've got a product for which more than one customer asks me to create a custom item, I will add that new item as a separate listing, and then hopefully other people will see that and buy as well.
So before you make and list anything it's really important to consider whether your customer really wants to buy it.
What will my customer be searching for?
Once you've figured out something that you know your customers will want to buy, the next thing is to work out what they will be searching for when they're looking for it.
Sometimes it will be really specific and really easy to find out what your customer wants if, for example, it's like a gift for a one year old girl. At other times it will be a little bit more niche and unusual, in which case you might have to do a little bit of outside research into a keyword planner or go on Erank to see what people have been looking for. Or even just typing on Google for your item and seeing what comes up can sometimes help.
You just need to find some keywords that you can include in your listing which will give you a better chance of showing up in search results. Because Etsy has such a massive audience, there is no need to spend time on all the work involved in marketing your products yourself. You want your customers to see your product when they search for this specific item and the only way to do that really, is to get those keywords in your listing.
I do have another video showing you how to add a new Etsy listing. Check that out as well, as I go into a little bit more detail of where I add keywords how I set up a listing etc.
Stand out from the crowd
You also want really clear pictures and good descriptions so that when people are scrolling through all the items on Etsy after they've done their search, you want yours to stand out against other traders’. Unless it's really clear and obvious what the item is in the image, the title and description, the item might not sell.
So in order to get traffic, it is really important to entice customers to click on your item and not just show up in those searches.
Price it right
Another point to consider that will make customers want to click is a good price and this can be a balancing act.
I'm not talking about going really cheap and not making any money because people don't seem to respond to that well on Etsy anyway they don't want the cheapest thing. Customers also don't want the most expensive item either, though obviously if your item is so much more expensive than another one which is similar they're probably going to go for the more competitively priced item. It's about getting the balance.
You don't want to underprice or overprice yourself and it does take a little bit of kind of figuring out. There are Etsy calculators out there that you can use to help you work out the price but also look at competition and consider how long it takes and how much it costs for you to make items, taking into account the cost of raw materials etc.
Reviews
Once you've shown up in a search and you've got a clear image and description, you have a good price and someone has decided to buy your item, the best way to get more traffic is to get a good review.
There are a few different ways to do this:
Send an instant message once your item has been bought to remind them to give you a review.
Message them when the item has been sent (which is what I tend to do). Give them instructions on how to apply their decal and also give them a little nudge just to say if you like the item please do leave me a review.
You can also add something in your package to kindly ask them if they wouldn't mind leaving a review.
Etsy does send an email as well after a certain amount of time to remind the customer to leave a review but I wouldn't count on that alone. I would also ask the customer personally to leave a review if they are happy with the product. This also gives you a chance to check in with the customer to make sure everything's okay.
You could also perhaps give customers a code with money off a future purchase to try and get them to re-buy from you.
There are a lot of ways you can do it but your aim is to try and foster a good relationship with your customers so that they will give you good reviews. The more reviews you've got the better your shop looks, and the more likely new customers are going to click through and have a look at it.
Recommendations
Recommendations are also a really good way to get new traffic. For example, offering a customer 15-20% off if a friend they refer makes a purchase. You can offer a code or some kind of incentive to pass your deals along to a friend and even if you have to take money off, it's still a customer that you wouldn't have had otherwise.
This is a much easier organic way of growing traffic than having to pay for ads because if a customer has a recommendation from a friend, they're more likely to buy from you over someone who only sees your ad somewhere out in the internet wilderness.
Social Media
Once you've done all those things, think about social media. This isn't really my speciality because I'm lucky enough to get enough views and customers just from Etsy, referrals and recommendations,
However, there are a number of things I do on social media.
This is more of a search engine than social media but I am going to include it here as I have used Pinterest from the start and it has helped me get a bit of traffic. Pinterest is great for my audience because I do wedding and event stuff and there is a ton of wedding things on Pinterest. It might not work as well for your niche but I'd be surprised as literally anything you can think of is often found on Pinterest.
The way I work with Pinterest, rather than just pinning straight from my Etsy shop, is to make a long pin using Canva. If you click on ‘Create a Design’ and scroll down to ‘Pinterest Template’ in Canva you will find one to add your own photos to. You can also add text and edit the template to make it how you like it. And you can do it all for free!
Once you have downloaded the pin you can upload it to Pinterest. Make sure it links to your Etsy shop, write a good description and remember to add in quite a few of those keywords from before. But also make it readable and not just like a computer has done it.
You will also need to ’pin’ a lot of other people's pins and follow people, but it's a really good place to get inspiration, so you should probably be doing that anyway in your chosen niche to get ideas and to stay on top of what's current.
There are lots of different ways of using Facebook to promote your business and I don't think the ‘buy my stuff’ approach works at all. I've got a Facebook group and there are a lot of sellers in there who are all always pushing a sell. I've tried it myself to be honest and I don't get many sales whenever I do that.
I actually think it's better to start a page and add the products you've been making, a little bit of behind-the-scenes stories and customer reviews etc. Get friends and family to share it and like it. Build an audience from there and then link back to your Etsy shop. You can add a shop on Facebook with all your items so when people click on it, they will be taken to Etsy.
Facebook is a good place to showcase your work and find new audiences and it's also good to join Facebook groups that are within your niche. Sometimes groups will offer a day where you can promote your products, such as a Friday deal day where you can add a link to your shop, which can be helpful. But again, rather than selling, I actually think it's better to just show up and be helpful and be known and get to know people in the group. Then if they click on your personal profile you can link back to your business page where they can find your products.
Instagram is a place to share your behind the scenes a bit about yourself, what you have been working on lately etc. It’s also a place to build up an audience base who are interested in you as a person, rather than just trying to shove things down people's faces.
You can also meet some really lovely people within your niche and other businesses you can work with. I've found like a few wedding suppliers who use my decals, through Instagram. Not from trying to sell my products but by having conversations and getting to know people.
These are the methods I found helpful for my business, although it might be different for you depending on what niche you're in. It's one of those things you've just got to try.
I think it's also the same with TikTok - it's better to take videos of your processes and what you've been doing, such as ‘a day in the life of, and ‘how you work’.
I think when it comes to social media the best thing is to just hang out where your customer base hangs out, get to know people and what they want to buy, and learn about current trends.
I hope some of these tips have helped you, please remember to ‘like’ and ‘follow’.
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