{The Watcher, photo by Alice Lily.}
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the three most high profile spots for sellers on Etsy.com are the Featured Seller, Front Page, and Gift Guides. These are high visibility parcels of Etsy real estate where you are guaranteed to get a few hundred views over the course of a very short time (and possibly a few hundred sales if you’re a Featured Seller.)
Though there is no guaranteed method of getting featured in one of these desirable spots, you can take some steps to improve your chances. What do all of these things have in common? They’re all curated by Etsy staff members (with the exception of the Front Page which is sometimes chosen by other Etsy members.)
To get exposure, you need to make your shop known to the taste-makers on the Etsy staff who are in the position to raise you to front page status. A spot in one of these curated sections means more eyes will see your work and potentially make a purchase, heart you or consider adding you to a Treasury. In the Etsy game, it’s all about raising the visibility of your shop, so listen up and I’ll tell you 7 ways to get the Etsy Admins to take note:
1) Participate in the Forums
Make sure to reference my last post regarding the etiquette of posting in the Forums. As long as you keep your comments respectful and professional, your regular contributions in the forum may get you on the radar of the Etsy Administrators who regularly monitor it. Occasionally Admin will post threads requesting experts in a certain category or specific types of products. Don’t hesitate to speak up and promote your shop when you see this.
2) Purchase ad space on an Etsy-themed blog or site
Many Etsy staff members are also sellers and therefore take advantage of the resources outside of Etsy that they have at their disposal. Popular sites like Craftcult (Where you can see if you've recently been on the Front Page or a Gift Guide) and Craftopolis (Where you can see if you're in a Treasury) offer reasonable ad rates and allow you to reach a targeted Etsy audience. Even if an Etsy staff member doesn’t see your ad here, your ad just may be viewed by another seller who is in the process of putting together a Treasury.
3) Leave comments on Storque articles
I consider the Storque the respectable older sister to the Etsy Forum’s bratty younger brother. The comments sections following the articles are usually more civilized than some of the comments in the Forums. The article and all of the comments are laid out on one page so even if you’re the 50th comment, your input and avatar will be visible on the page. If the Etsy Admin who wrote the article comes back to review some of the comments, she just might stumble over yours and be intrigued to take a further look. Which brings me to my next point…
4) Have a stand-out avatar
When you’re leaving your comments on the Storque and the Forums, you’re also leaving a visual marker of yourself with your avatar. Make sure it represents your product and is eye-catching. You want your avatar to encourage anyone who sees it to take a closer look at your shop.
5) Renew often
Renewing allows your shop to be at the top of the results list for a search at any given time. There may be 500 results for painted wooden toy, but renewing regularly ensures that your wooden toy will have a better chance of being seen on the first few pages of search results.
6) Tag appropriately
How many times have you seen Front Pages curated around a specific color (yellow!) or holiday (4th of July!) or theme (Michael Jackson!) Think of any imaginable way someone would search for your item and then use those words to tag your item. Tagging the colors in your item makes it easier to find for color-themed front pages and tagging for holidays or events (i.e. graduation) makes you easy to find for Gift Guides around a specific theme.
7) Take great pictures
Once you’ve gone through all the trouble of driving Etsy staffers to your shop, make sure you’ve got front-page worthy pictures ready for them to use!
Shannon Riffe has written Make It, a blog about
building a craft business, since 2006. She is currently based in Ann
Arbor, MI and makes handmade soap with screenprinted paper wrappers for
her business, Rifferaff.
