#94 - BEST OF 2025 - #1 - The Beginner's Guide to the Etsy Algorithm

Holiday Replay: Best of 2025 ☃️

We’re re-running our most-downloaded episode of the year - the no-fluff beginner’s guide to the Etsy algorithm. No scare tactics. No clickbait. Just how it actually works and what to do next.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
        •        The two-step search process: query matching → ranking (and why “Page 1” isn’t universal anymore)
        •        The 7 signals Etsy uses: relevance, listing quality score, recency, customer & marketplace experience, postage price, translations, shopper habits
        •        Why changes take 60–90 days to settle (so stop tweaking every week)
        •        How reviews + conversion rate nudge you higher
        •        A simple postage strategy (when to roll shipping into your price)
        •        Why exact-phrase keywords beat jumbled ones and quick tools to research them
        •        The manual-renew trick so you actually revisit and improve listings

Perfect if you’re tired of feeling at the mercy of “the algorithm” and want clear actions that move the needle.

Come say hi on Instagram @handmadebosses and hit follow so you don’t miss the next replay drop.

Steph 🎄

Insta CTA

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If you’ve made somewhere between zero and twenty sales on Etsy… or you’ve made sales but they feel completely random and you have no idea why they happened…

I need you to listen for a second.

Because I’m about to run something I only do a couple of times a year.

It’s called Listathon.

And it’s a completely free, live challenge starting 16th March where I’m going to walk you through fixing the foundations of your listings properly.

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The titles.

The photos.

The structure.

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If you’re tired of refreshing your dashboard and hoping something changes… this is the moment you stop hoping and start fixing.

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Transcript

The world of handmade business can be tough When trying to monetize what you love We've got truth bombs and motivation too To help you find your way through Passion to profit, let's start today Cause the world needs what you create Tune in right now, it's your shot To learn how to be a Handmade Boss Hello everyone and welcome back to this podcast, which still feels really weird saying that. I had a podcast, it feels like many, many moons ago and now it's back and now it's better. And yeah, it is really weird to not be on video right now.

I keep looking at the camera kind of being like, oh, there's people there and there's not. So you're just listening to me, which is actually really, really nice. Means I don't have to worry if I have bags under my eyes or my eyebrows are a little bit unruly today. So yeah, it's really, really just a bit of exhaleness I feel like when it comes to content creation.

So today we are going to be talking about the beginner's guide to the Etsy algorithm. Okay, and I know that this is like a real buzzword and To be honest with you, it's one of the reasons why I am semi-migrating away from YouTube, because I don't know if you've really noticed, but all of the videos about Etsy, about handmade businesses, are all very much clickbait. They are basically scaring you with the thumbnail, with the title, things like, Etsy's big changes, or what on earth is Etsy doing now, or You know, and it's all designed to make you scared, to make you think you have to watch the video to know what's going on,

to understand things. And that is really the reason why I'm kind of falling out of love with the whole YouTube sphere. And it is because for me to get viewers, which is literally what YouTube is for, I have to make content around four topics. One of those being SEO, the second one being things like Etsy updates, the third one being Etsy trends.

And to be honest with you, like me and my students, we are not down with the whole Etsy trends thing because I believe in being a little bit more sustainable when it comes to business and not being all about creating products that are just based on trends that are inevitably going to disappear or stop and then you're left with all of this bunch of stuff which yes, might have sold well once but then isn't selling again and then you just end up with a waste of time, effort, energy, money. Anyway, back to today's episode. So this is why basically the podcast has become a thing because I don't want to be a part, I don't want to contribute to the problem which is misinformation being spread around YouTube.

I really just don't think that that's a game I want to play anymore. I don't want to gaslight you guys into watching a video because you think you have to or you're going to be left behind in the dust or something bad's going to happen. So that being said, today I am going to be talking about the Etsy algorithm, which as you know, is probably one of those videos that you've seen floating about and it probably has a thumbnail like get ranked or how to be number one on page one, you know, all these kinds of things.

And again, like the thumbnail is very much designed to make you click, to make you watch, right? But today I'm actually just going to straight up talk to you about how the algorithm works and in the hopes that you can take this away with you and you can actually plug it into your business, into your mindset today. To be honest, all of this is taken directly from the horse's mouth. There's nothing here that I'm sharing which is like cool new SEO hacks that might be a bug that might work for like two, three days.

None of this is stuff that I've tried, tested and it hasn't worked. All of this stuff is things that, like I said, has come from Etsy itself or is something that I have actually tested in my own business and my students as well, right? So let's talk about Etsy just for a minute. So unlike having your own website or selling from a platform such as Facebook or Instagram or something like that, Etsy already has a huge loyal fan base of customers who are wanting to buy from you.

And that, to be honest with you, is what makes Etsy good, is what makes Etsy work. And a lot of the time, you know, you do see these new platforms pop up, don't you? You might get ads on your feed or you might see it in a Facebook group. Oh, there's this new platform that's just crop cropped up that says it's for handmade products.

Is it worth a go? And my answer to that is always the same. It's always like, okay, Etsy is spending millions, billions even, to bring the right direct warm customers to their platform. And those are people who are looking for something unique.

They are looking for handmade goods, right? So it's literally like, plonking your business in the middle of the world's busiest craft fair, okay? You are there, you have your product, your pricing's right, your photos are right, everything is good, hopefully, fingers crossed, and if it's not, I can certainly help you with that. There is the book, there is, well, this podcast, and the Facebook group as well, right?

And it's literally, like I said, plonking yourself in the middle of all of those people and saying, hey, I'm open for business and getting a flood of people, a queue even, to your store. And that is basically what Etsy is like. Now, not only that, But imagine that it is a massive craft fair that will refund you if things don't go right, where you can always be in contact with the shop, where you can also easily, 24-7 if you like, browse their other products and their other offers and look at reviews and things like that.

So all of this is to say that Etsy does have that household name, that know, like and trust factor. So it's really difficult for me, especially when people say, right, I have an Etsy shop, it's going really, really well, and I want to open up my own website, right? And a lot of the time, I think that's a really good idea. But I think it's a really good idea if you already have a fairly large email list, social media following, if you already have that fan base, that audience base behind you.

Because if you don't, driving your own traffic, it's going to be expensive. Whether that's monetarily expensive with things like Facebook ads, sponsorships, influencers, all that kind of thing. or whether it's time expensive, aka you having to blog two, three times a week, writing emails out, blah, blah, blah. Now, is it something that I say it's a good idea for you to do once you are reaching your revenue goals with your Etsy shop?

Yeah, sure. If you've got the time, if you have the money behind you to be able to invest, in having a website presence, then great, fine, do it. But again, this is where Etsy really wins, okay? Because they already have that loyal fan base, alright?

The next problem for Etsy though, as you can imagine, it's not just you on there, right? There are 7.3 million Etsy shops, which might make you go, eek, that's a lot. Oh my God, what is going on here? Now that number has actually fallen since 2021.

Now that doesn't include active Etsy shops. That number is purely just accounts that are linked to some kind of shop. So you've got to imagine a fair few of them, in fact, I would hazard a guess to say probably a good 70% of them are people who opened a shop maybe during COVID, thought, yeah, I'm going to add some things to it, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that and then never actually get there, right?

We've all been there. We've all been there where we are opening something and thinking, yes, I'm going to actually integrate this into my everyday life and I'm going to list things, I'm going to make things and then actually it turns out to not happen. 7.3 million Etsy shops, now that's not active Etsy shops. You might think that's a fairly big number.

However, there are 95 million buyers. 7.3 million Etsy shops, 95 million buyers. That is a big difference. That is a massive difference.

Even if you spread the buyers evenly, throughout the 7.3 million Etsy shops every single month, you would still get a fair amount of sales, right? And as we know, they're not split even evenly and the algorithm is what we're going to be talking about today, right? During Q1 in 2023, Etsy attracted, now that's just in Q1, That is just in those beginning months. Etsy attracted 7 million new buyers.

That is on top of the existing buyers. In 2021, habitual buyers spent an average of $200 and during that period, the number of habitual buyers grew 26% year on year. Etsy also remains in the top 10 websites, just straight up the top 10 websites alongside eBay and Amazon. As you can see, there is 7.3 million Etsy shops, so they all might have 10 listings, they all might have 100 listings.

The next problem for Etsy is how do we sort these listings and show the ones that the customer is most likely to buy? Contrary to popular belief, Etsy actually wants you to make sales. Etsy wants you to get sales because then it gets its fees, right? And Etsy wants the customer to get exactly what they want and have a pleasant experience doing it so that they keep coming back to the platform because when you make sales, Etsy makes money.

You make money, but Etsy makes money too, right? So it's a selling cycle for the platform too, all right? And the more great experiences a person has buying something on Etsy, which is why they have the purchase protection program, why they really put reviews front and center, why they are always talking about the star seller and all that kind of thing. It is why they do that, it's because they want people to have a great time on Etsy.

To the more great experiences a person has at buying something, the chances are that they will come back and spend more money with you and other small business owners as well, which to be honest, I know some people say, why are Etsy showing similar items when people are looking for my items? But it's a tit for tat, right? It's a I scratch your back, you scratch mine.

And you get traffic from competitors' listings as much as maybe Etsy sometimes might show something with a better picture, a better title, that better fits what that person is actually looking for. And it swings in roundabouts, it really, really does. So don't ever think that the reason why you don't want to sell on Etsy, the reason why Etsy is not going to work for you is because you get other people's products. potentially shown around your listings.

Because at the end of the day, that's the same on your own website. That's the same on Google. That's always going to be the same. And if your pictures are not great, your SEO isn't great, which is search engine optimization, in case you didn't know.

If all of this stuff isn't great, sooner or later down the line, it is going to show and it is going to turn people off. that might be on Etsy, that might be on your own website, that might be somewhere else, right? So just bear that in mind because I have seen that kind of floating around as well where people say, I'm not going to sell on Etsy because they show other people's products. And I'm afraid that is what Google Shopping is, that is what Amazon Handmade is, that is what Amazon Normal is, that is what Not on the High Street is, that is, you know, that is what every platform, whether it belongs to you or not, will do because it

wants people to spend more time on there. It's the same as social media, right? If people do not interact with your posts, they will send them somewhere else because it's in the platform's best interest to keep people on there, right? So back to Etsy then.

So there are basically seven main factors and a lot that Etsy doesn't actually tell us. So if someone says to you, I am an SEO expert, I have the inside scoop, run away, because they don't. Only a very few select people on the planet knows exactly for a fact how it all works. And as we know, if you are playing around with your listings, you know, you're changing SEO, you're changing your titles, you're changing your tags, you're changing this all of the time.

It doesn't give it time and chance to rank, right? So in case you didn't know, it takes between 60 and 90 days for whatever changes you make to a listing, whether that is a new listing, an old listing you've changed, it takes between 60 and 90 days for those changes to come to some kind of fruition in terms of results, right? So if you are changing things, like I said, every freaking week, two weeks, months, you're actually not going to see anything because you're not going to be giving it a chance to do its thing.

And that has a lot to do, a lot of people say, why is that a thing? Well, it's to do with the seven main factors because depending on what the category is that you are in, you might have not a lot of search traffic and the reason why it is that 60 to 90 days is because Etsy wants to essentially see how people interact with your listing but that's going to be very different for someone who sells a gold heart necklace that gets thousands and thousands of views every single month versus someone that's selling a recycled kimono lampshade that might get two or three views every month. So that is the reason why the bracket can be quite large because it really depends on A, how much traffic you are getting with that keyword in order for Etsy to see how people interact with that particular listing and also B, it depends on the category in which

you list them. So, seven main factors. Let's get back to that. So, all of these ranking and sorting factors are just as important as one another.

So, I don't want you to think that only one is important, you only need to focus on this or this or this. You might need to revisit them often to make sure everything is staying afloat. And I want you just for a minute to imagine seven floaties, you know like those rubber rings, those inflatable blow-up things that you get in pools, right? And I want you to imagine there's seven of those holding up a car.

right? Within a pool. So the car is floating on top of all of these seven floaty things, right? If one starts to deflate the whole car might sink and that is literally the best way that I can visually in your mind right now just like describe it.

So when someone searches for something in the Etsy search bar, two things happen in that millisecond that they click that go button, that they click that search button. So there's two things. Number one, which is query matching. So query matching is where Etsy will look at the titles, tags, descriptions, categories, attributes.

And they will basically create a nice little list. It's not a list that we can see. Well, we can see it, but it's then sorted. But for now, let's focus on the query matching.

So that is where you get a nice list. And this list must match the keywords with what the customer is searching for in that search box. So if someone is typing in Silver Elephant Bracelet, Etsy is coming up with a list, it's going to its database and saying, okay, I'm going to look for all of the info that Etsy sellers like you have put in the titles, the tags, descriptions, categories, attributes, when they listed the item and I'm going to go through all of these in milliseconds.

and create a nice little list that matches the search term, Silver Elephant Bracelet. But as you can imagine, you get a list of, well, probably, I mean, let's do this search now real, real quick in real time. So 5,150 results, right? That is a lot.

So that's 5,000 plus listings for Silver Elephant Bracelet that you have to go through. So can you imagine if the search stopped there? Can you imagine if the search completely stopped there? There was no sorting, there was no ranking.

It was just, here is a list. People would get very bored very quickly. There would be a lot of stuff that's not relevant to their search because people do tend to do things like describe it as a silver elephant bracelet if it is a silver elephant necklace or a silver elephant ring or something like that in the hopes that they will get ranked and seen, right?

And I think it really demonstrates why it's really important to make sure things, your keywords, your titles, your tags are relevant to what you sell. So you have 5,000 plus results here. The second stage of this, so the first stage was query matching. The second stage is ranking.

So this is where we are sorting those 5,000 plus results. So once Etsy have gathered all of the listings that match from that search, silver elephant bracelet, they use the seven ranking factors to sort the listings, basically trying to rank them by what has sold the best before, what is the customer most likely to buy, what shop has got good reviews, all this kind of stuff. I am going to be going through them with you.

So it's basically like getting scores in a race and being on a leaderboard, right? You have first, second, third, fourth, fifth. Now, all of this to say, as well, is that there is no such thing as Page 1 anymore. Because Page 1 is different for everybody depending on where you live, depending on the search history, there is no such thing.

Back in 2015, Page 1 was a thing. If you ranked on Page 1, you ranked on Page 1 for most people. However, that is not the case anymore. So if you ever hear someone say, I'm going to help you rank higher, They're not necessarily talking about being on page one because page one is different for everybody.

It doesn't matter if you go on incognito mode, it doesn't matter because it will find out where you are searching from roughly, it will know what you've searched for before on the platform and it will also be showing you shops that are more than likely going to attract you. All right, so just a caveat there. So, seven ranking factors.

Number one is relevance. Number two is listing quality score. Number three is recency. Number four is customer and market experience score.

Number five, postage price. Number six, translations and language. And number seven, shopper habits. So let's just go through them real quick.

I'm not going to do like an in-depth dive, but I want to just quickly run through them with you. So, relevancy. Relevancy is basically looking at how relevant your listing is to what the buyer typed in the search bar. So people who are looking for silver elephant bracelets, they don't want to see anything else because they have an image in their mind.

You have to think about how you shop, right? When you're going onto, and this can be Etsy, it can be Amazon, it can be eBay, whatever. When you're searching for something, you have an image in your head as to what you want this thing to look like. And you're searching with intent.

If you're just browsing, that's very different, because you might not know what you want to buy. And that is where you might type in elephant gift, or gift for her, or bracelet for her, or something a bit more generic. But if you are searching with intent, you have an idea in your head as to what you want that thing to be. So someone searching for a silver elephant bracelet in their head, they know what they want to find.

This is why when you have found a keyword phrase that works well, use the exact phrase. Don't split it up. And this is where sometimes this will trip people up. And actually, I've seen loads of people claiming to be Etsy SEO experts that say you don't have to repeat words.

And no, you don't. However, if you have found two phrases, okay, one that's silver elephant bracelet, and one that is nine to five silver lucky elephant bracelet and you have researched these two phrases and they are phrases that are getting a very high search volume, they don't have a lot of competition and they are overall doing well. Exact matches always rank better, okay?

So if you then start to split those up because you're like, well, I don't have to repeat the word bracelet, then that is doing you a disservice because exact matches always rank better. All right. So that tends to trip people up at times because I do find that people will often like try to split things up and then wonder why that phrase isn't really working for them. And it's because exact matches always rank better for your superstar keyword phrases.

And by the way, Researching keyword phrases, E-Rank's really good. I also like just using the Etsy search bar as well. That's really good. My favorite, I think at the moment, is a plugin and it's a Google Chrome plugin.

It is a paid thing. I think it's like $10 for 100,000 credits or something like that. It's crazy. And it's called Keywords Everywhere.

and it does what it says on the tin. You can go onto Google, it will show you competition, it will show you this, it will show you that, but it also works on Etsy. So this Google Chrome plugin works on Etsy, works on Google, works on Pinterest, works on Amazon, works on Not on the High Street. There's just a lot of different places that this thing works, so I just thought I would just mention that here.

But anyway, like I said, where exact matches always rank better, okay. So, like previously mentioned, Etsy wants people to find items they actually want to purchase. So Etsy will basically look at clues as to what items you might like based on your shopping habits and how your listing was historically performing with people searching for what you sell. A little hint here, reviews and conversion rate are paramount in this.

Now, conversion rate is something that a lot of people, again, get quite tripped up about, they get quite confused about. And I actually do have an amazing free training that goes into this in extreme detail. And also, it is designed, this whole training is designed to get you more Etsy sales within seven days. So I just thought I would mention that here.

The link for that will be in the show notes. If not, it is handmadebosses.com forward slash conversion. So handmadebosses.com forward slash conversion. Just type that into your phone, save it on a tab for later.

But I would say really to sign up for that because it is going to help you with your listing quality score here. So, listing quality score. Like I said before, Etsy will look at clues as to what you might like depending on your shopping habits and how your listing was historically performing with people searching for what you sell. And like I said, reviews and conversion rate are really important in this.

And this could include things like geographical location and things that you've clicked on or bought before will change your search results as a buyer. So new shops in this do have a neutral score. So don't be disheartened if you are new. Basically all this means is that when you are brand new, it might take again 60 to 90 days before the listings that you've put up even start to get seen.

So don't be disheartened if it gets to three or four months and you've not made a sale, that's actually completely normal. And if you've made a sale before then, then jolly good. That means that your listing quality score is starting to go up, which is what we want. So, when you do a search, and I would say if you can right now, whilst you're listening to me, do a search for silver elephant bracelet.

and the shops that you see on the top two or three rows, excluding ads of course, you will see shops that have plenty of reviews, the item arrives quickly, it will probably be based near you, and there's just a bunch of like, it's basically a listing that has proven to sell over and over again to similar people like you, same geographical location, yeah, all that kind of stuff, right? And this is why you might see at times people with really bad SEO or I don't know, something might be off with their listing and you might be sat there saying, well why are they ranking higher? Like their photos are really bad and their SEO isn't good and it's not following Steph's advice and why are they ranking higher?

Well, And this also answers the question as well, why you will not sell this one particular listing for weeks, months, maybe even years. And then all of a sudden, it's like, boom, you get a sale, and then a review. And then within two weeks, you get two more sales, and then two more reviews. And then within a month, you get five sales.

And you're sat there thinking, this listing has been on here for ages, why is it starting to sell now? And it is because as soon as that review is left, It's giving Etsy a thumbs up saying, this person really liked this thing, so therefore I am going to put it higher in similar people's search results. Because as we know, page one is not the same for everybody. So that is where the quality score, it is a bit of a sort of shrouded in mystery type of thing.

But we do know sales reviews definitely help with this. So now let's move on to recency. So if your listing is new and it has no reviews at all, you've never sold it, you might be being like, well, how do I build my listing quality score then for new listings? Well, that's okay because Etsy helps new listers or new listings out by implementing something called recency.

And this is where listings get a very small boost in search so that they can see how shoppers react to it. Because at the end of the day, we don't want new listings to get buried by the ones with a higher listing quality score, right? We don't want that, that's not fair. So this is where basically Etsy will boost it and observe it.

And this is where the 60 to 90 days thing really comes into play here, okay? So really when you think about it, for new listings, recency then gets overtaken by listing quality score once the newness wears off. So then there is Customer and Marketplace Experience Score, and you might have heard people reference this as ODR in the past. I think they called it ODR.

Do you know what? I can't actually even remember what ODR stood for, but basically now it is the Customer and Marketplace Experience Score, which is kind of a little bit more self-explanatory than ODR, right? Etsy doesn't want the negative vibes of a scorned customer at the end of the day. So that's why your shop has a secret score that very few people on the planet actually knows about and how it works.

But it's there always watching. So things like great reviews and they do take an average of the last 12 months as well. So this is why if you have had like a hiatus from your shop or you haven't sold anything within the last 12 months, that little reviews bit goes like grey or it just kind of disappears or the stars are still five but they become empty. It's because Etsy is basically saying, we are taking the average from the last 12 months to determine your customer and marketplace experience score.

If they don't have anything to go on, they're not saying it's like your shop is now a one-star shop, but they're saying, we've not had anything in the last 12 months. As long as you are getting reviews within a 12-month period, that's fine. So, great reviews completed about section and shop policies are all things that Etsy have said helps. You don't want recent cases, copyright strikes or intellectual property notices.

Those are all things that go against you, so to speak, in the customer and marketplace experience score. Now, don't worry if you have ever had any of these because Like I said, it's really something that is more a recent thing, but if you have had one of these in the past, I don't know, week, month, two months, you might find that it might affect you, okay? So, postage price, pretty self-explanatory here, but surveys and Google forms and research have always said, and it's always come back the same, that buyers were more likely to buy something with free postage or a really low postage cost.

Items with the free US shipping guarantee. So if you are in the UK or any other country and the US free shipping guarantee is turned on, you might find that you have higher search rankings. I've had pretty mixed reviews myself on this, but Etsy have said that they will give you a boost. So that's me reporting back to you what Etsy have said to me.

All right. But not only this, but items with free shipping are also shown to convert better, helping your listing quality score eventually So, when you are searching on Etsy, I personally think the reason why free postage works on Etsy so well is because the price that you are being shown on the grid, on the search results, is the price you are going to pay. Okay, what I think turns people off and why you might have quite a lot of abandoned carts or a little badge that says 43 people have this in their car and you're thinking, why aren't people buying?

Look at your postage price because it could be that people are getting to, they're like, yes, I like this thing. I'm gonna consider buying this thing. And yes, I am. looking at the postage price I'm thinking, ah, that's like another £5, £10, £20, $50, whatever, and it's turning me off, like that is just an additional wall, an additional objection that I now have, okay?

My general recommendation is that if your postage price is under £10, put it in your item costs and instead charge free postage. I, nor Etsy, really want you to lose out on postage money. I'm not saying you just have to swallow the postage cost, not saying that at all, but instead increase your item costs and do free postage, okay? Right, so let's move on to language and translations then.

Quite a quick one. Your main language should be the one that you list your items in. I get a lot of questions on this, but what if I speak two or three different languages? First of all, well done.

That blows my freaking mind how you can do that. The second thing is that you can get a slight boost by translating listings yourself for Etsy because these translations will basically override the automated Etsy ones which are not very good. Now I do predict that in the future AI tools will make this a lot easier so I think that maybe there might be a chance that this ranking factor might actually become a little bit obsolete, really. Will AI replace someone who fluently speaks that language?

No, it won't. But I do think that Etsy's like standard ones will get better. However, like I said, if you do speak different languages, then you can translate listings yourself, which is awesome. And you do get a bit of a leg up there.

The next ranking factor is shopper habits. Have you ever wondered why you click on one ad for Nike shoes and then you start to see them everywhere? It's not magic. It's a common cookie tracker that's been placed on your browser that monitors what you look at and shows you personalized ads and items that you're more likely to click on.

And that is based on what you've shown interest in in the past. So more specifically for Etsy, This is cool, now don't get scared by this term. Context-specific ranking or CSR technology. It's basically a nifty bit of AI kit that serves up what you like today based on what you showed interest in yesterday.

That is definitely something that is working all of the time within Etsy. If you are clicking on one person shop, it's going to show you more products that are the same. within that shop or not, okay? So that has been the beginner's guide to the algorithm and hopefully this might have kind of really opened your eyes a little bit more as to how it all works and one thing I would say is don't obsess over controlling all of these things because at the end

of the day if you are trying to control everything you're going to drive yourself insane. It is not something, you know, even like, for example, the language or translations. If you don't speak French, then it's not worth fretting over because you can't speak French, right? It is what it is, right?

Focus instead on the things that you can control. So this is things like listing quality score, relevance, customer and market experience scores, all that kind of thing. So, if I was to say there were three to focus on as soon as you can, I would say relevance, I would say your listing quality score and I would say your customer and marketplace experience score as well. And also postage price, because that's like a really easy fix.

If you can just do that as free and then put that in your item cost, that is great. We recently had someone said that that wasn't allowed under some kind of trading law. We did actually do some research into that ourselves. We actually contacted them and said, hey, in this instance where, you know, you have something that's £10 postage, you put it in the item cost, are we allowed that?

The guy said, yes, you are. However, if you are worried about it, if you're not really sure, if you've seen something in one Etsy group with someone saying, oh, this isn't allowed, then honestly, just literally email them, research this yourself. Obviously, I am in the UK, so I could only speak for what I have learned being in the UK. But to be honest with you, I know millions of shops.

I've seen it happen for years and years and years being in the e-commerce industry and the retail industry. I've seen this happen hundreds of thousands of times myself and it is not something that I've ever known to cause issues. So that is one thing that I will say is that we have actually contacted I can't remember what the body was, but we contacted them and said, hey, is this allowed? And they were like, yeah, as long as you are not misrepresenting things, like, you know, you see these ads are like, get a free book and you click onto it and it's like, ah, you get a free book, but you have to cover the postage price and the

handling and all that kind of thing. I think these were really big around the kind of 90s era where it was like, get a free video, get a free DVD. It's, you know, you can't say that the postage is free, the item is free when it's not, okay? I just thought I would just say that in there just because, yeah, we had a person who was a little bit concerned about that and we actually contacted them ourselves.

So, I really hope that this episode has helped you really get into SEO, how it all kind of works, and how you can start in real time to implement this within your own business. As I said, it's not all about keywords. There's so much more that goes on behind the scenes. However, keywords are a great place to start.

And it's why mainly I will say don't have your listings on auto-renew, because what this is, is this is basically Etsy's just renewing, renewing, renewing, and it doesn't give you chance to edit it really, because trying to keep track of like 50 plus listings is ridiculous. It's really hard to do, right? So it's why I will put all of my items on manual renew and then when they expire, they go obviously in the expired listings bit and then that gives me a chance to go through them and edit the keywords, edit the attributes, edit the tags into something that's going to work a little bit harder for me.

So again, just another little tip there for you. Don't have your things on auto renew because it doesn't allow you a chance to go in and change things up. So I really do hope that you liked this episode and if you did, I would love it so much if you would consider leaving a review for me because the more reviews I get, it's like my very own little podcast listing quality score, right? The more reviews you guys leave, the more chance that this podcast will be found by others who need help.

And follow me as well. I don't know what that looks like for wherever you are listening to this on. It could be follow, it could be called something else, but consider doing something so that you get pings every time there is a new podcast episode. As you can see, they're going to be a bit longer.

They're going to be a bit more informative rather than the eight minute cap on YouTube video minutes that I seem to have. Otherwise, no one watches them or gets clicks on them. So yeah, thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you so much for tuning into how to be a handmade boss.

And if you're eager to boost your Etsy sales within just seven days, then be sure to join my most popular free training at handmadebosses.com forward slash conversion. You can also find the link in the show notes as well. Keep an eye out for our next episode where we'll be continuing our journey towards handmade business success together. And until then, keep crafting and stay inspired because the world really does need those special creations that only you can make.

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