Tips For CraftersPromoting Etsy Shops
URLs, SEO & Branding for Etsians
Just like any website, there are tons of ways to promote an Etsy Shop. While listing them all would probably fill a book, I thought I would just talk about one that I see quite frequently with submissions made by Etsians to Crafty Tips.
Canonicalization
A big giant word to discuss what is hopefully a simple concept.
The first page of any shop on Etsy has three different addresses. There’s the two versions that includes your shopname – shopname.etsy.com and www.shopname.etsy.com. And the version – www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=######## where ######## represents your account number.
Using any of the three addresses will get you to the same place.
Etsy seems to prefer the version that includes the user id and most frequently displays that address in the address bar; unfortunately it also displays the shop name version from time to time as well. The trouble is that Google, Yahoo and all the other search engines see the shop name and user id based addresses as pointing to as many as three different pages.
The mistake many Etsians are making is when they promote their shops and use either the address with the user id or switch between the two falsely thinking it will gain them more traffic.
Two addresses, half the links.
When it comes to search engine optimization and ranking well in the search engine results (SERPs), much depends upon links from other websites, which are called backlinks. While not the sole consideration, quite often the site with the most backlinks vaults to the top of the SERPs.
If you promote your Etsy shop using both the URL with your shop name and the URL with your shop number, your are in effect competing with yourself. Instead of having say 450 links to your shop, you end up with 150 going to shopname.etsy.com, 150 going to www.shopname.etsy.com and 150 going to www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=########.
What that means is your competitor, who maybe only has only 200 total backlinks to their shop, could end up outranking you if all of their backlinks are going to the same address.
Branding Etsy Shops with URLs
Now that you see why linking to both types of addresses for your Etsy shop can work against you, let’s talk about which URL you should use.
It should be fairly obvious which address would make a better choice. Let’s look at them together, www.shopname.etsy.com, shopname.etsy.com and www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=########. The last one does more to promote Etsy than it does to promote your shop. How easy will it be for a potential or repeat customer to remember your 8 digit shop number?
So, that leaves www.shopname.etsy.com and shopname.etsy.com. Both help promote your brand and both are much easier to remember. In the long run, it doesn’t really matter all that much which one you choose as much as that you are consistent in your link building efforts. My suggestion would be to leave off the www and just use shopname.etsy.com. While the www did at one time have a purpose, most no longer bother with it. Dropping the www also looks cleaner and helps to make your shopname the focus of your online address.
Promote your Etsy shop for Free
Now that you know which URL you want to use to promote your Etsy shop, why not start using it right here on Crafty Tips?
9 Comments
[...] sure you understand Canonicalization and how it can negatively impact your marketing strategy. Read Promoting Your Etsy Shop to learn more about Canonicalization and promoting web [...]
Wow, I had no idea about any of this! Thankfully, I have only been using “http://stichesintime.etsy” when link building and none of the other ones. I thought they were all one and the same and it didn’t matter. Thanks for the info!
You are most welcome. It was something I had to learn the hard way. Makes sense really but I think many folks think it’s better to spread out all of the names without realizing that they are undermining everything they’re doing.
Thank you for the comment and good luck promoting your Etsy Shop!
Thank you for this timely advise. I just stumbled on this site during a search for tatted lace and it couldn’t be more useful. I am designing, in my head so far, my etsy shop for my wirewrapped and pmc jewelry. This will give me a good start in how to put up my shop and what address to use. Thanks for the info.
Hi Beverly,
Thank you for letting me know you found my article helpful.
I wish you much success with your jewelry venture!
Warmest Regards,
Michele
Thank you so much for this CLEAR explanation. I had some idea that there was an issue with search optimization, but I didn’t know what it was or how to go about correcting it. Now I know.
Hi there and thank for letting me know you found this article useful. I wish you much success with your Etsy shop!
Anyone have any other ideas on how to promote your etsy shops… other than Facebook, Twitter and blogs?
Gee, Jay, there is a great option right here on this site – free submission for a listing in our directory. And, Crafty Tips isn’t the only great directory out there – you might also want to check out Craft Site Directory. They’ve been online even longer than us and also offer free listings. But, they don’t offer all of the cool crafting tips that we do.
Also be sure to check out our other blog, Blog About Crafts for tons of great ideas on Selling Crafts on the Internet, Website Promotion and Search Engine Optimization along with a variety of other ideas to help your crafting business.