One of the most important things any Etsy seller has to do is increase the views that their listings get. More views mean more sales!
Learn my tips and ideas for using your listings, stats and other sources to get more buyers looking at your listings! Focus on only things that matter to save time and effort.
If no one sees your listing, no one can buy your listing.
So who is this post for? A brand new Etsy seller who is sad that they aren't getting any views on their new shops at all.
A seasoned Etsy seller who is sad that Etsy changed the rules and their views have dropped. Or finally someone like me who is just obsessed with finding the best way to sell on Etsy.
What Are Etsy Shop Views?
So let's get down to brass tacks here. Views in Etsy are, “The number of people visiting your listings and shop over a set date range.” source Etsy
So those are people who have specifically looked at your stop or your listings.
Here are my shop stats for my digital products store, Paperly People, last month… (screen grab from my own traffic in the past)
So that is nice, I have gotten 9,000+ views this month on all my product listing and shop. You should start by checking your shop view stats to see what your average is. Take the last three months and average them out to figure out what your baseline is to start.
You can also compare your shop stats from this year to last by clicking the “compare to this time last year” at the bottom.
My views and visits in my Etsy stats are up year over year…
but my orders and revenue are down…
Things that effect these numbers…
- Number of listings in your shop (you have more chances to rank for different search terms)
- Positive feedback growth (Etsy knows you are a good seller with great customer service)
- You have more past customers who will see your new items in their feed
- You have sold things in the recent past
So let's break this down.
1. Number of listings in your shop
I have had a shop owner come to me and ask why they don't get more views. I ask to see their shop and they have 6-10 listings. Well OF COURSE they don't have many views. That is only 10 chances to get found in in the Etsy search engine.
Check out my post about How Many Items Should You Have In Your Etsy Store to see the averages. The awesome thing about this one is that you can change this number by listing more.
2. Positive feedback growth
This one seems ripe for manipulating but I wouldn't. Yes, you can include a little card in your packages asking for a great review, but overall you will get about 20-25% of your customers leaving good reviews.
That number will grow the more you sell. I am not so sure I would mess around too much with this, except to sell more!
Now I get it, Etsy shop owners who sell high price listings might have fewer opportunities for getting reviews, but I would still allow this to happen naturally rather than trying to force it!
Addition Resource : Pricing Your Etsy Products For High End Buyers – some great high-ticket product ideas!
3. You have more past customers
This is where having customers helps! Etsy shows things from your favorite shops and past purchases on the “home page” and in the emails they send out.
This is a frustrating one as you can't get this until someone buys, and you can't get someone to buy until they see your listing. Just be patient!
4. You have sold things in the recent past
The more you sell things the more you will sell things. I know this seems super hard if you are not selling anything right now, but Etsy rewards shops that sell things.
You can control this a little by doing social media promotions, emailing your list to manage your discounts (promo link, you will get credits to try a sale for free!)
So now you have done the basics. What is next?
Related Post :: USPS Priority Mail – Free Boxes, Sizes and Flat Rate
Advanced Views On Etsy
If you are just starting out, head back up, most of this will not work unless you have loads of views to be able to reference them!
When you start digging into your Etsy stats, you see that there are lots of different places you can find information that will help you to understand what your shoppers are doing.
Etsy > Your Shop > Stats > Traffic
This is full of fun data about where your views are coming from. Again I try and focus on things that I have control of since this is a productive use of my time!
Here two of my top three sources are my own emails I send out (Direct) and then social media platforms.
You Generated Views
I have 5K visits total over the month. I SO appreciate that Etsy drives some of that traffic (Etsy and “Direct” which is generally the Etsy app on the phone), but I feel like the more I can do to bring awareness the better!
About 20% of my views come from my two websites…
And about 25% from Pinterest…
All in all about 1/2 of my views are “me generated”.
I deliberately left in that Facebook stat… I drove a whopping 4, yep 4 views from Facebook last month… I can hear the gasps from here! Isn't that where you are supposed to get the most traffic?
Now, you might not have a website that you can use (yet) or a huge social media presence (yet), but you do have to have a plan to start somewhere.
I am good at blogging and Pinterest so I do those almost exclusively marketing wise for my shop. You might be good at Facebook groups or Linkedin or even have an amazing email list you use.
The point of looking at your stats is to see what is working and either do more of that if there is room in you schedule OR to learn different ways to drive views.
For example, if I wanted to really increase my views, I bet I could do so by trying at least a little bit on Facebook, but since that is not fun for me, I don't do it!
Figure out what you are good at and start working to drive up the views you get to your shop! You will have a better chance of succeeding if you like what you are doing!
Etsy Internal Shop Views
I find this one to be an interesting place to look. Oftentimes you can use the internal parts of Etsy to get even more views to your listings!
How To Increase Internal Etsy Shop Views
There are a bunch of different “tweaks” you can do to get more internal views!
- Make sure that there are links out to other related products in your listings
- Put a “general testimonial picture” in all new listing so that I am getting potential customers to buy in on liking me and my stuff instead of trying to sell this exact page
- Do Etsy shop updates to get views from the Etsy homepage
- Research what Etsy thinks is “hot” by checking out the newsletters and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a couple of listings in the hopes of being featured
Update! A reader asked what a general testimonial picture is… it is a graphic you make that shows a great testimonial you got that you can include in your pictures, like this!
Finding these gems in your stats is like knowing a secret code. Optimize just a few of these and you will be able to keep more of those people on your shop instead of going somewhere else!
Know Your Listings
This really only works on evergreen shops like digital or handmade. For this one you are going to go to the top and click “listings”…
Here you will see your top visited listings…
Here you want to look at what is happening with your best listings first… I see that I get A LOT of orders to the Poshmark product, but the sales revenue is less than I get on the real estate planner… interesting! But what about views? Where are they coming from and how can I get more?
I had to add some time (jan-mid april) to get the stats numbers to show up… Etsy is weird sometimes! But here are the sources for my real estate planner…
So first Etsy and then social media (which for me we know is Pinterest!)
And then for the Poshmark worksheet…
Krikeys… I am driving almost ALL of the views to this product from Pinterest! Now, what does this mean to you and getting more views?
Say you are great at Instagram… you could check your listings and see which are getting the most views from social and share more of those kinds of pictures.
It is tempting to think that all of our listings get traffic from the same places but it is worth taking the time to look in each and see which ones are doing the best on which marketing channels so we can use our time wisely as shop owners!
Trying To Rank For As Many Etsy SEO Keywords As Possible
Okay this is my last one, but I feel like it is often overlooked. STOP trying to get every one of your listings to rank for the same top keywords!
I see so many people trying to rank for the main keyword that is top in their niche. YES it is worth it to take a couple of your listings and try to get them to rank for a top word in Etsy's search engines.
Even if you did get seen, the conversion rate (views divided by sales) would be low because there is so much competition!
But then branch out and try to get people to your shop through other related keywords on your different listings.
Many “seasoned” sellers who used to get lots of views are complaining that their views are down (I was following a thread on this exact topic when I got the idea to write this post). One reason for this is that Etsy now only will have one listing per shop per page.
So if they have all their listings optimized for “silver jewelry” for example, they would get one listing on page one for that search, one listing on page two, etc.
I KNOW it is frustrating when things change and what you used to do no longer works, but there is no sense crying over spilled milk. That is how Etsy search works now and if we want to get more views, we have to rank for more and different keywords!
Whether you are a vintage Etsy seller, handmade or digital products seller this strategy works great!
Note: I thought I would pop in here and talk about things I don't think work that well…
Changing your product description to rank in Google search… the competition for Google rankings is crazy right now and spending your time going through and re-writing all your product descriptions is folly.
Speaking of “redoing” all your listings… NEVER listen to someone like me and go in and redo all your listings at once. If you are going to change things start with your #10-20 top sellers. Test those and leave your “good” listings alone!
Checking your search results without using an incognito window. I have had gals say that they rank on page one but don't get views. That is because Etsy is showing them their own listings, that is not what the general users will see.
Not doing keyword research… sigh. In this day and age of oversaturated listings and AI, you HAVE to know what your keyword strategy is. I like using Marmalead to find low traffic, high volume keywords. (affiliate link)
Last but not least, not making sure that new products will be winners. Either base your new listings on old products that have done well, or new products that you have found in the trends reports. You will have a better chance of getting views if you are selling something that is already popular in the zeitgeist!
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR ETSY SELLERS
- Free Etsy SEO Course on Skillshare – https://marketingartfully.com/etsyseossfree
- Free Etsy Shipping Course On Skillshare – https://marketingartfully.com/etsyshippingssfree
- Selling Vintage On Etsy Ebook – https://marketingartfully.com/vintagesellerebook
- Check out all my Etsy articles! – https://marketingartfully.com/category/etsy-marketing/
- Get 40 Free Etsy Listings When You Sign Up! – https://marketingartfully.com/Etsy
