June 02, 2011

A Discovery Of SEO Treasure Leads To Changes In My Etsy Shop

While treasure hunting in the Etsy forums, I made a discovery I had no idea about. This is where I hit the jackpot here .  Basically this has to do with duplicate content, having an Etsy shop with multiples of the same listings. One reason to have the same item listed more than once is for testing, to see what is working and what is not. Another reason is I’m very blessed to be on several awesome treasury teams and having more choices for treasuries makes it easier due to my product which is little girls dresses. Girls special occasion dresses are a bit of a narrow niche. Why not make more product you ask, well it’s me. I’m a perfectionist and it’s a lengthy process before I’m finally satisfied and ready to show the world. Not only is it a lengthy process, but very expensive in terms of supplies needed to produce my dresses. Once I'm more established I can invest much more into the product line.

Here is a quote from the link I posted by post author SEOWebDesign, “In February, duplicate content became a bigger issue with Google than ever before - Google stopped index Web pages that it considered duplications of other Web pages. Ecommerce Web sites were affected simply because so much information in each product listing is the same from one listing to another. This recent algorithm change is called Panda or Farmer.” [sic]  Some may not know but there are websites that copy and steal content from other websites for SEO purposes. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimizer. The goal is to be on the first page for Google searches related to your website. It’s easier to be seen on the first page than on page 108 where no one may ever find you, sigh.

There were some great suggestions from the Etsy post and a very huge thank you to SEOWebDesign! Sometimes your content is the same in all your listings that are not identical. A solution is to put a note with a link to your policy page and put the information there instead of duplicating it. All my items are custom and come with the same set of instructions and information, such as construction, what measurements are needed and how to take them. Another great suggestion was to update your listings, Etsy store announcement and policies regularly to keep them fresh. By doing this you are adding new and original content to your shop. Putting my creativity skills to the test, I made two different descriptions here (lovely dress 1) & here (lovely dress 2) .  There is still some work to do, what do you think?

4 comments:

Tess said...

That is great information to have, thanks for sharing! I will have to take some of those tips like changing up the announcement and policies. Your descriptions are great!

Vintage Precious said...

Thank you Tess! Love reading the forums on Etsy, there is much to learn. :)

Rustika said...

Yes, I've been reading about this and have been trying to change my content. Great post :)

Vintage Precious said...

Another thing to add to the list. ;) Thank you Rustika!