Twinkly's Beginner SEO *day 3*

Hi :-)

I know a few of my students have taken the initiative and made some changes to their shops already, which is awesome! But if you haven't taken that step yet, today should help you out. Then tomorrow we are going to talk about how linking from relevant sites will improve where you appear in the listing and how you can get your link out there. On Friday I'm going to sum up how to watch out for changes on Google Analytics, and post a little Q & A session of some of the questions I have encountered.

First, a little challenge. Take your list of five to ten phrases from yesterday. We are going to make what I like to call (in my head. Probably not out loud just in case anyone is listening) a SUPERPHRASE!

This SUPERPHRASE should go on the end of every description. It should be the keywords 'niche' you found by studying all those words yesterday. Take two, or even three of your best phrases, and combine them into one (with no repetition)

So for me, I had:

Sweet jewelry
Fun original jewelry
Handmade gifts

I made this phrase:

"Sweet, fun handmade jewelry and gifts "

All five words individually are *highly searched* In combinations of pairs they have over 1,000 searches and low competition. This gives me a great chance of snaring someone from Google who is looking for some fun jewelry. Or a sweet gift. Or an original gift. Personally I chose three that sounded nice together, but you could just as easily use the highest searched, lowest competition words if you wanted to get serious.

It's worth saying here that there isn't much point in getting hundreds of people into your shop if they are not actually looking for your products, or at least to buy -something-. Keywords need to be relevant or people are just going to click straight back to Google for a different result.

So! We've got everything ready, now, what on earth are we going to do with them?

There are different places you can put your phrases. I've taken this screenshot to show you. You can repeat phrases, combine them, or use different ones. There are differing opinions online which is the best thing to do and that's why I suggest combining the phrases as above to make one really awesome one which you repeat over and over.

(click to enlarge)

A & D
B. Shop titles are METATAGS which Google searches for. Pick them and stick to them, then link to them from everywhere you can (but then bear in mind that if you change the titles, the links will stop working, thereby undoing all your good word) Include TWO keywords or ONE of your phrases. Don't worry about making them look pretty with funny spacing - squeeze in those keywords!

C. Here is a formula for your shop description. It's not the only one that will work, but it's one that you might like to try for a month and has bought me great results.

Short Title Of Item including strong descriptive word / Category of item e.g Necklace / SUPERPHRASE


E. Google will display the first 40 odd characters of your shop description. Delete that "Hello, Welcome to my shop" and replace with either your SUPERPHRASE or three of your keyword phrases. I've seen people separate them with hearts, which is what I have done in my shop. Or you could form them into a sentence if you are feeling brave! This is what is going to draw people into your shop from Google. It' needs to be relevant to your items, appealing to potential customers, and informative for people browsing Etsy. It's a hard challenge!

So basically, today is all about getting those keywords and phrases into your shop. Here's a few tips:

• Have the Keyword Tool open in another browser window. The updated version is better for individual words, you can access it here.
• The first line of your shop description is a great place for repeating your SUPERPHRASE.
• Don't be afraid of making your item titles too long. Just keep the actual title quite short, relevant, and searchable.

Good luck!!

Katie x

CATCH UP:

Intoduction and PageRank info
Day 1 - Word-Storming for your shop
Day 2 - Using Keyword Tool To Establish Useful Keywords