Does Focusing on Keywords Increase Sales?

We know that including keywords early in the title of an item in your Etsy shop or in the title of a blog post is good for search engine performance.  But does it increase sales?

Take a look at this screenshot of the Etsy home page today:

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These beautiful items were hand-picked for any number of reasons, great photography not least among them.

So they made it to the front page of Etsy, an accomplishment to be proud of.  But you want it to equal sales right?  The question is, does the use of keywords early in your title make a difference?

If you take a look at the items above, I think you’ll find that it absolutely does make a difference!

Express What Your Are Selling Immediately

The amount of viewer attention you get is so small as to be nearly immeasurable.  The time a visitor spends on the front page, which isn’t much, is divided between lots of items and links competing for attention.  You have a split-second to catch that attention and draw the viewer to an action.  At the very least to hover over your item so the rest of your title will appear.  At the best, a click.

Seven out of the twelve items here don’t tell me exactly what is for sale.  More than half!  Of course the pictures give me a clue, but pictures can be deceiving too.  At first glance I thought for sure I could buy some ruby red high-heels, but it turns out that is a photograph.

Direct Keyword Usage Helps

It’s fun to use creative titles but it doesn’t help sales.  You can always get creative in your item descriptions.  The goal of the title is to get a click.  People click if they’re interested in learning more.  The only way they can know that is if they know what you’re selling.

Vintage Sunglasses Round

Button Down Dress in Pink (though it is clearly not all pink)

Moroccan Coffee Pot…

These are good titles because they get the “what are you selling?” question answered right away.

Straightforward Titles are Good SEO

This is simple.  If you have good stuff for sale on Etsy, you have huge potential for success.  You have part of the battle won just by being on Etsy, because Etsy is a good place to sell.  If you actually have goods that people want to buy, be they handmade or vintage, then you have even more of the battle won.

Why not go for the gold and set yourself up to be found in non-etsy search engines too?  Take a look at what I see on Google Shopping when I look for “Vintage Sweater”:

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I can’t get a screenshot of the whole results page but here are some key points:

• 20 Items
• Four are from Etsy! (20% – which is more than any other site, Amazon.com is second)
• Almost all of the titles include the keywords I searched for

I encourage you to do a few searches like this in your niche.  Don’t the titles that are less wordy and more closely aligned with the Keyword Search seem most relevant to you?  When your eye scrolls the page of search results don’t you tend to focus more quickly on the listings that have titles that ONLY include the search term?  Such as simply “Vintage Sweater”.

I guess my bottom line opinion is clear: Focusing on keywords in your item titles will increase sales.  No doubt it will improve search performance and I have little doubt it will result in more clicks from within Etsy.

Give it a shot and let me know how it goes?  Or you already have a secret formula for your item titles, let’s hear it!

~Kim

Related Post: Using Keyword Research to Improve Etsy Sales