Product Keywords & SEO

The goimagine search algorithm considers many aspects when fetching customer results. Some of these include time on the marketplace, the number of views, the number of hearts, the number of sales a listing has, and of course relevance of search keywords. Search Keywords holds the most weight in determining which listings appear at the top of the search. Exact matches will appear first, followed by partial matches. Doing research on what common phrases people search to find your item will help you greatly.

Setting Up Search Keywords:

There are 2 ways to enter search words:

1. Entering your search words or phrases, separating them by a comma:
   
   Your most important keywords should be listed first. There is a 30-word limit using this method. This method allows the algorithm to match words from any phrase together based on the customer's search to provide the best results. With that said, an “exact match” will always appear higher in search than a “partial match”. It is OK to repeat words, especially if it is a very common search phrase. 
   
   

Example: If a customer searches for “Serving Board” this item will appear at the top of the search. If the customer searches “Serving Platter” it will still appear in search, but will not be as high in the results.

2. Entering your search words using underscores within phrases:
   
   
   This is what your Search Keywords will look like if you do an Etsy Import. A comma is still used to separate each phrase. The search algorithm reads the underscores between words within a phrase as spaces. This will allow you to have 30 phrases BUT will not match words from different phrases as it would in the above. So an “exact match” phrase will appear at the top of the search, but a “partial match” of a phrase will appear much lower. Your phrases should still be listed in order of importance, with the first words being the most important.
   
   

Example: If a customer searches for “Serving Board” this item will appear at the top of the search. If the customer searches “charcuterie” it will still appear in results since it’s a partial phrase but may not be ranked as high. If the customer searches “serving platter” (words matched from 2 phrases) it may not appear in the results, or will appear much further down as 2 partial phrases.

New Dashboard:

When the new dashboard is released, Search Keywords will become "Search Tags". This will turn phrases or words into their own Search Tags. We are making this improvement in preparation for updating the current algorithm to be more sophisticated. The tag limit in the new dashboard is 20. This information is good to remember when creating listings in the old dashboard.

Please note the new dashboard is currently in BETA and will be released to all in the near future. This information is being provided in preparation for the release.

Setting up your Product Listings with good SEO for Search Engines:

Search engines such as Google or Bing are also crawling the site regularly, so here are a few other things to keep in mind when optimizing your listings:

Product Title:

The product Title should be a good description without “keyword stuffing". Search algorithms such as Google are getting smarter by the day and know when you’re trying to trick them by stuffing keywords into places they don’t belong. Your titles should be short but descriptive and read like a human would talk. Consider what a sign in a physical store would say.

Example: "Opal Necklace with Gold Chain" is a great example of a good Product Title

“Opal Necklace, Gold Chain, Gift for Mom, Summer Necklace, Boho Inspired” is too wordy, subjective and reads too much like a disjointed list.

Any holiday or event you think your item would fit (such as a wedding, Mother’s day, Christmas, etc) should be included in your Search Keywords and/or your Product Description. Please note, there are a few exceptions to this rule… For example, if you’re selling “Mother’s Day Cards,”... it would be acceptable (and recommended) to include “Mother’s Day” in the title.

Product Description:

Product Descriptions should be as detailed as possible. Combining full sentences and bullet points is best for search engines like Google. Full sentences should read as a real human would talk. Bullet points should be the key information about your product.

The product description is where you should describe your product and/or tell a story. Give the customer a reason to purchase this product. Since they can not hold the product in real life, describe it so they can visualize holding it. 

If this was an in-person sale, answer questions you think the customer would ask. 

For example:

If you sell ceramic mugs… are they dishwasher safe?

If you sell soap… does it contain allergens?

If you sell earrings… what are the posts made from?