Starting an Etsy shop is all about putting your hands on small business to growing business model. Etsy provides the full capability to grow with achievement. So I am glad as you finally decided to start an Etsy shop. Etsy is the great marketplace of art and craft so you are on right place to transform your dream into reality.

By the way, I am a big lover of Etsy and a few years back I was just looking the right concept to start my Etsy shop as part time. After 2.5 years, today, I compiled this mini guide for new Etsy sellers who wants to start with growing sales.

This guide is fruitful for:

  • Small business entrepreneurs
  • Stay at Home Moms
  • Art and Craft professionals
  • Enthusiast looking to start online business
  • People interested in growing income stream as full/part time

First Step: Research Your Niche before Starting an Etsy Shop

Whatever you are going to sell make a complete plan before starting like:

  • What do you love to sell?
  • Calculate the market demand for your product or service
  • Assess the worth of your product?
  • Who are your target audience
  • How many competitors existing with the same idea at the same marketplace?
  • Research competitive pricing

Believe me, the data of above question is very important for you to judge your business worth before starting.

Search engine is the best place to do your research then compile result and make your decision to start.

Let’s understand this with the example; you want to start a T-shirt design business for global customers. First, you will review the existing T-shirt seller in the market and their way of selling. Be remember, you need to be unique in your selling concept! So you will plan your shop product in such a way that should be trendy, classy, exotic, and quality based. In this way, you can easily get the market attention of target customers with growing sale.

Step 2: Get ready with Cool and Catchy Shop name

Naming conventions are always important and on priority. In fact, it creates a big impact on your brand or business. I follow these words of wisdom that the first impression is the last impression. As I believe, when people heard about your shop they should feel engaging and interested in having a look. Like, you have t-shirt design shop so the shop name should communicate the concept of your business to your target customers.

Points Need to Remember before Naming:

  • It should be easy and comprehensive.
  • Must encourage people to take action when the first see.
  • Short names are always recommended.
  • Easy to pronounce.
  • Memorizing
  • Try to avoid special characters or numbers until or unless it became a requirement.
  • It should not be a name of other shop or famous brand.

Be remember, naming is the foundation of your shop. It will be the main identity of your business so take a time to get the good business name.

Step 3: Focus on Shop Branding

In the previous step you worked hard to get a good name so now you have to be creative to design that name with the eye-catching concept. Let me say, this is a very important step as it will help people to make a decision to stay at your shop. Now in this step, you will present your shop idea through engaging design. Your shop brand communicate people that who you are? What do you do? And how caring are you about your product? Actually, it’s a process to get customer satisfaction and loyalty towards your business brand.

For effective shop branding, start with:

  • Choosing colors based on your business concept
  • Pick a right font
  • Make a complete shop theme

What will be the branding elements?

  • Shop Logo/Avatar
  • Header or Banner
  • owner picture (don’t hesitate to add it as It will create trust and reliability about your product)
  • Product listing theme design

Branding look should be:

  • Sharp and clear (It should not be blurry in look)
  • Images should be consistent(Take help with professional photography camera or just use your mobile camera
  • Edited with professional software like photoshop or illustrator

Make sure the brand attributes fully matched and in the same theme as it will create professional touch to your shop. Shop branding is the most important part of brand positioning so be careful in all steps.

Step 4: Work on SEO based Content

SEO – Search engine optimization is an integral part of your shop success. If your shop content is optimized with targeted keywords then you are on right track to grow your sale. By optimizing the shop content, your product will be visible to target audience as per their search keywords. My recommendation is to learn about SEO if you are new to this field as the SEO knowledge will help you boost your sales.

Learn How Etsy Search Works:

Etsy search has so much variation as compared to other search engines. First of all, focus on learning “how the etsy search works”. I spent my time to understand how Etsy crawl results and I discussed all these details in my Etsy help article. You can read the article here.

Here is my complete article on ETSY SEO 2017

By using targeted keywords in your listing your product will be visible to search engine both on Etsy and Google.

Let’s start doing this:

Complete Your Etsy Profile with Keywords:

When you create your profile on Etsy make sure you know about your targeted keywords. For this, you can use Marmalead or Google Keyword Planner tool to get results about related keywords.

Now where to place keywords in Etsy Shop profile:

  • Add keywords in your shop title
  • Write keywords in your Shop Announcement
  • Also, Make keyword based sections
  • Add keywords in your images

Now Next Part is to add keywords to your product listings.

  • Add keywords in listing title (55 characters long)
  • Place keywords in listing description
  • Make keyword based tags related to your product. (Almost add 15 tags)

Publish the post and give it a little time to appear on the search.

In next phase, verify your listing placement from Etsy search.

Understanding the Etsy SEO is very important so don’t ignore the importance at any place. If it seems complicated to you so here is the ETSY SEO Service that you can take for your product listing.

 Step 5: Don’t Ignore Product Pricing

As you already done the research about product pricing in the first step so you know the exact worth of your product. Keep your cost according to market standards.

Don’t make it cheap otherwise, you will lose your revenue.

And don’t make it expensive enough to lose customers.

Make a standard rate with quality service.

This is the key of pricing for your Etsy shop.

Many people ask me, our shop daily visit rank is high but buying is low so above is the answer”. If your shop visits showing good stats it means your shop is visible to targeted people but due to some other reason, they are not purchasing. It could be design, pricing, reviews or other reason that people not staying to buy.

Step 6: Pack shop with Product

Make sure, you have a shop and shop always have product or items. So pack your store with the product. Initially, if you don’t have the option to create many then just try with 10 product listings.

Starting an Etsy shop is easy! I initially started my shop with 10 products and after getting sales I listed few more so you can start Etsy shop with the limited product listing.

Step 7: Use Social Media Marketing      

Connect your social media account with your shop. It will help people to stay connected with you through social tools. You can run a variety of social media marketing campaigns that will engage the new audience to become your customer.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are the perfect tools to connect with people. In the same way, Etsy placed social sharing option to promote your shop listings. Start with you and promote the items using those links. Don’t forget to pin your listing on Pinterest. It’s a powerful social tool that will keep your listing alive on a search engine.

One more step to add the link to your website to Etsy shop or as best option you can integrate your Etsy shop to your website to get more exposure. Writing a blog about your shop product is also insightful for growing business.

Looking to start your own blog. Here are the complete step to start over.
How to start your own blog

Step 8: Connect with Email Marketing

If you want to grow your sale beyond your expectation then use Email marketing service. Through effective email marketing campaign, you can easily grow your sale by offering product discount and sharing freebies. It will keep your customer engage about your product or service.

Starla Moore the owner of ArtbyStarlaMooe reveal her success secret in her Youtube interview is email marketing.

Best idea to create opt-in form and place it on your website and on Etsy shop to collect emails. You can also ask your customers to join the list to get future offer, freebies and discount codes.

Later you can create engaging email campaigns and give the opportunity to people to take your product as per their interest. This is an amazing way to rock your Etsy sale.

Let me give you my example; I created a Graphic Design Support Club to provide graphic help, discount codes and freebies to my customers and list subscriber. You can also connect with me to get this opportunity to get graphic help and support by subscribing my Graphic Club: Click here to subscribe my Graphic Design Support Club

Click here to subscribe Graphic Design Support Club

Step 9: Keep Focus on Communication

Effective Business Communication is another important factor. So take your time to eloquently reply to people queries. Be soft and gentle in your reply. Be quick in your communication process. As a best practice, I noticed people wants to take a quick decision on Etsy. If you are late in your replies most probably you can loose the sale saying on the basis of personal experience.

Step 10: Timely Delivery with Quality Service

Timely delivery is important to keep your customer intact for the future order. I recommend my Etsy SEO customers to focus on timely delivery as it will help you to grow with good reviews and feedback about your shop. People recommend you to their friends, family, and colleagues about your best service so be focused in this area as it’s extremely important. If you have some issues or delays in shipping then notify this to your customer to make them satisfy.

So now you are ready to start your own Etsy shop. You can take this guide how to open an Etsy shop. Please have a look!

Click here to open Etsy shop with 40 Free listings

You can also let me know in case of any question regarding starting an Etsy shop and Etsy SEO. It will be my pleasure to assist you as per your query.