Create Custom Sections in your Etsy Shop

Etsy limits you to ten sections in your shop, and items can only beling in one section. However, you can "roll your own" sections - as many as you like - if you get creative with Etsy's search capabilities.

The trick is to use tags or title words to indicate the section, then create a link to all the items in your shop with that tag or title word. Etsy has a search type that will limit the search to items within one shop. This is a tags and titles search.

So, for example, here's a link to all of the items in Mannequin Reject's shop that have "pendant" in the title or tags:


www.etsy.com/search_results_shop.php?
search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_5512963&search_query=pendant

To make your own links, put your own user ID where it says user_shop_ttt_id_XXXXXX and put the tags or words you want to use after where it says search_query= (if you want to use more than one word in the search, connect them with plus signs. search_query=pendant+purple will list all items with both "purple" and "pendant" in the tags and/or titles) To include an item in one of these collections, you just need to include the search word or words in the title and/or tags.

You could then list your "sections" somewhere in your shop. Because they are inter-etsy links, they'll be live and visitors can click them to go directly to the section.

You might put them in your profile, as a list, like:

Pendants: www.etsy.com/search_results_shop.php?
search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_5512963&search_query=pendant

Buttons: www.etsy.com/search_results_shop.php?
search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_5512963&search_query=buttons

Steampunk: www.etsy.com/search_results_shop.php?
search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_5512963&search_query=steampunk

Then, in your shop announcement, you could put a line with something like Browse all my sections: www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=5512963

Or you could just list the sections in the shop announcement directly.

One drawback is that the link to these kinds of sections don't appear in the sidebar with the other sections. You might want to include a link within the item listing itself, at the bottom, so people could continue to browse through the section. Something like:

More Pendants: www.etsy.com/search_results_shop.php?
search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_5512963&search_query=pendant

It isn't a pretty solution, but it is very flexible. By using tags and title words, you can include an item in as many of these "sections" as you like.

Campaign Tracking with GA

I try to encourage merchants to use GA as a tool to measure their own efforts rather than just a way to view the behavior of people who "happen" to view their shops.

Here's one way to take charge - use Google's ad campaign tracking tools.

You have probably noticed how 1KM and Etsy add information to the URLs of your products that show where people found them from within the site. You can add similar information to the URLs you use when you create links to your shop that you place on your blog or website, in e-mail newsletters, Project Wonderful ads, etc.

If you use Google's specific method for adding information to your URLs, Google Analytics will pull the information from your ad campaigns and organize it so you can focus on it, make adjustments, and measure the results.

I've put together a Google Presentation that explains more about how to put together an ad campaign that will give you hard data you can use to improve your efforts.

Tracking your 1KM Appearances on the Home Page

1KM inserts a little bit of code into the link of products that are shown on the home page. When someone clicks on a product, that information is passed along to Google Analytics, making it possible to see if you have received any traffic from products of yours that were on the front page.

Here's the simplest way to check - look at the URL in your Content report. Home page items will include the code site_medium=homepage. Like this:

http://www.1000markets.com/products/84467?site_source=1000markets&site_medium=homepage

You can search through your content reports using the little search box at the bottom of the report. To use it to search your report for page views from the home page, first go to your Top Content report, under the Content tab in the menu on the left sidebar.



Then look at the bottom of the list of URLs for the Filter Page box.



Enter the word homepage into the box and click Go.

Google will search your content URLs and return any that have the word homepage in them.

If you find that one of your products has been linked from the home page, you can drill down even further by clicking on the URL. This will tell you the day on which the link was clicked, how long people who found you on the home page spent looking at your site, and so on.

Note 1KM currently only puts the homepage code in the links to individual products that appear on the home page, not in the links to featured shops or markets.

Turn on your 1KM Site Search

With Google Analytics now enabled for our 1KM sites, there is plenty of information that can be extracted about how people are finding your site. One of the first things you might want to turn on is Site Search, which will track the search terms that people are entering into 1KM's search box to find your items. Here's how to do it:

Open your Google Analytics account and find the line for your 1000 Markets account. Click on the Edit link on the right.

Click on the Edit link in the upper right of the Main Website Profile section

Scroll down to the section that says Site Search

Fill it out as it shows in the image:

1. Select Do Track Site Search

2. In the Query Parameter box, enter site_term all in lower case with an underscore between

3. Select Yes, strip query parameters out of URL

4. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes

Now open your Analytics report and find the Content tab in the left hand sidebar. Click it and find the Site Search tab. Click it.

You will see an overview of the visits to your page that came through the
search function at 1000 Markets. To see a list of the search terms they
used, click on the Search Terms tab:

You will get a report showing ranked by the most common search terms. These
are reported whenever someone clicks on one of your items in the search
results and tells you what search terms they entered to find your item.
You can click on individual search terms to find out more, such as the
actual items they found with those terms.

It will take a little while for data to start flowing in, so be patient!

Google Shutting Down Shop Feeds

Many handmade sellers are receiving the following e-mail today:

Hello,

We're happy to let you know that as of September 3rd, individual sellers on marketplaces no longer need to submit feeds to Google Product Search. Going forward, marketplaces will be responsible for submitting a feed of all their sellers' items, so we will be retiring your account to avoid duplicate entries on Product Search. Your marketplace will also be responsible for ensuring that your feeds are up-to-date and compliant with our policies.

In most cases, marketplaces already submit feeds of their sellers' items. If you have any further questions about your items or Google Product Search, please contact your marketplace. We look forward to continuing to display your products, and hope you enjoy the new streamlined submission process.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

What does this mean? According to Google's blog, it means that sites like Etsy, 1000 Markets, and others that do not currently submit product feeds for their individual sellers will have to start doing so if they want their items to continue being searchable in the Google Product Search.

At this early date there are still many questions sellers have. Will these sites be taking over product submission for us? Will we still have access to statistics?

The deadline for the new policy is December 1, 2009. Most individual shop feeds are still live at this point, but Google says it will start shutting them down beginning today.