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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Some Notes about SEO and Meta Tags

If you have been around the Etsy forums recently you more than likely were bombarded with lots of posts, questions and complaints about the SEO related to Etsy. I am going to be doing a few articles about SEO over the next couple of weeks and this first post will serve as an introduction.

Question #1: What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a process used to improve the traffic to a website from search engines. For your Etsy shop it means improving the number of people that find your shop from a search engine.

Question #2: How do I set-up SEO for my Etsy shop?

There are so many different answers to this question and I will explaining a few of them over the next couple of weeks.

Question #3: What does meta mean?

Meta is a prefix used when a concept is an abstraction of another concept.

Question #4: What is metadata?

Data about other data. In the case of your Etsy shop this is data that describes your shop.

Question #5: What is the metadata of my Etsy shop? How do I change it?

To see your metadata please follow the instructions below:
  1. Navigate to your shop
  2. In your browser menu click "View"
  3. Choose "Page Source"
A new window should open that shows you the html of your page. If you look at lines 5 and 6 you should see
< meta name="keywords" content= ...
< meta name="description" content= ...

If you look closely at this meta data you should see that the keywords are your shop sections and your description is your shop announcement. These are the two major sources of data that search engines will look at when deciding to return your shop in a search.

Only the first 150 characters of your shop announcement will be used for you description. This means that if you have a long announcement you should write the first 150 characters in a way that they stand on their own. Additionally your section names should be keywords that describe the products in your shop.


Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.
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11 comments:

  1. FairiesNestJune 21, 2009 at 10:09 AM

    Awesome info, Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. cserpentDesignsJune 21, 2009 at 2:37 PM

    Hmm - for some reason I can't view source - maybe because my IE version is getting a bit old? I do view source and nothing happens...

    thanks for the info though!

    susan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Felicia KramerJune 21, 2009 at 4:39 PM

    Great info and in plain English too! I'm looking forward to more SEO articles.

    ReplyDelete
  4. HeidiJune 21, 2009 at 7:52 PM

    I was wondering what you would have to say about all this! I need a translator:) Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. gypsy moon designsJune 21, 2009 at 8:21 PM

    Thanks! Very helpful! I have been working on my SEO for days now.

    http://www.Gypsymoondesigns.etsy.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. MagnetGamesJune 21, 2009 at 10:39 PM

    cserpentDesigns, what version of ie are you using? do you have pop-ups enabled?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tubby Tabby's JewelboxJune 22, 2009 at 7:49 AM

    Really need to understand this stuff, can't wait for the next posts!
    Thx so much for the info.

    ReplyDelete
  8. PassionArteJune 26, 2009 at 2:22 PM

    Really helpful! I have changed something on my shop! Thank you very much!

    ReplyDelete
  9. JennyJune 27, 2009 at 3:51 PM

    Thank you soooooooo much.
    I have read so many etsy articles about all this stuff and along the way have slowly figured things out and made the necessary changes to my shop. But this particular artical the way you wrote it, the instructions, I totally understand and I am in my etsy shop right now tweaking even more, because it is so much clearer now. Thank you!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fancy Me MadJuly 1, 2009 at 4:50 PM

    Finally, I understand! My sincerest thanks, Susan.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2014 at 11:39 AM

    Thank you so much I've been trying to figure out why the description under my page came up so ugly in google and why when I went into the view source I didn't have the metatags, I now realize its because I don't have a shop announcement or shop sections yet, I am very greatfull that you have provided clarity.

    I really appreciate it

    ReplyDelete

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