Etsy's New Algorithm

Etsy is a growing company, so of course things are going to change...so it was no surprised they announced on November 4th of 2015 they were Improving their marketplace through searches.
The new criteria includes:

• Relevance of titles and tags 
• Listing quality
• Customer and marketplace experience
• Recency
• Shop Location
• Shop Diversity

With the goal of revamping Calico Collage I will first start by focusing on "Relevance of Titles"

The first thing I did was play around with the first image that shows on each of my listings.  I've had the same promo style since 2009 so it is definitely time for an update.  Below is the progression I had with my promo image.

You can see I first started out using 2 tiles from my collage sheet to showcase and used the whole collage sheet as a faded background.  Pretty bland now that I look at it.  Second, I tried a mock-up idea of placing 1 image in a bezel, this idea is becoming popular with other collage sheet sellers and actually theirs looks much better than mine.  So I quickly retired this idea and focused on a more scrapbook style and here is the outcome.  I feel that it does better showcasing the collage sheet & by 1st glance you know you are looking at a listing for a digital collage sheet.  So from this point on I will be changing all my listings to look like this.

Simply Spring in 1x1in Squares

The next thing I focused on was my Titles and Tags.  This has never been a strong suit of mine.  I defiantly had to do some research on this.  After reading a few helpful posts in the etsy forums I learned that titles and tags need to match as close as possible.   
Ex:
Title: Spring Collage Sheet 1x1 Inch Inchies Collage Sheet 1x1 inch Size Printable Download for Pendants Magnets Paper goods Decoupage Paper
Tags: Springtime, Collage Sheet, 1x1 Inch Inchies, Collage Sheets, 1x1 Inch Size, 1x1 Collage Sheet, Printable Download, Bezel Tile Images, Paper Goods, Calico Collage, Printable Crafts, Pendant Images, Decoupage Paper

As you can see I pretty much copied my title into my tags.  Since I have done this I'm seeing more and more people find me with out the help of etsy ads (I turned etsy ads off as a test to this)
Also as an added bonus sales picked up shortly after I started re-working the tags. My biggest tip for anyone trying to sell on Etsy is to try to use at least 80 characters in your title and use ALL 13 tags.  Your tags are what helps people find you and will buy from you.

Lastly I focused on the description of my items.  While all my descriptions are pretty much all the same, I did need my writing proof read & modified to fit the new changes that Etsy has made such as Digital Downloads.  Thankfully I have a wonderful husband for this sort of thing.  He spent about an hour working on that for me while I worked on Social Media advertising and more way to get my name out there, I'll do a post later on this topic.


I will closing for now & I hope that you found my information helpful.
Thank you for reading & have a crafty day!