Heads up! This post may contain compensated links which means I get a small tip for telling you about awesome stuff I love!🤘
Etsy is magical for those who have figured out how to make daily sales on it… 🪄💸
It’s a place where multi-passionate creatives can turn their hobbies into a thriving, self-reliant AF business that’ll support their alternative lifestyle DREAMS.✨
But there’s an ugly dark side to Etsy. Most shops never get ranked in the Google Search Results (SERPs)!
Listings get buried, algorithms punish guesswork, and some sellers can waste months working their hineys off with nothing to show for it.
Without the right up-to-date SEO strategy, even the best products can vanish into the digital nethersphere. 🤷♀️
Hexotica was an Etsy shop for 8 years before I started working as a freelance social media manager and SEO content marketer.
I switched from making handmade gothic-burlesque jewelry and accessories to a location-independent alternative lifestyle so that I could fly to the US to see my family as often as I liked. So Etsy is where it all started!
Hexotica’s blog now ranks at #2 on Google for “alternative lifestyles” here in Australia, where I’m based.
And I’ve even been able to make an Instagram Reel go viral and get over 61,300 views using my SEO skills (and a few other tricks I learned as a social media manager over 9 years!) 😉
So, I know how SEO marketing magic works.
And today, I’m going to reveal to you what the Etsy witches who are killing it with sales are doing that separates them from the sellers that get buried.
I’m covering the most common mistakes that bury shops, and an Etsy SEO tool that you can start using today for FREE to become an SEO Marketician.🪄🌪️
By the end, you’ll understand what’s involved in optimizing your shop so that you can start learning how to attract buyers without just guessing.
So let’s get ritualistic about Etsy SEO, my lovely Etsy witches!
Continue reading, OR if you prefer listening because you’re busy crafting your next batch of Gothmas wreaths, click below for the podcast version 🪄 🎧💫
Prefer to watch instead of read? Watch the YouTube version here.🪄 📺💫
The Brutal Truth About Etsy SEO (and What It Takes To Get Sales)
From a seller’s POV, the Etsy marketplace appears oversaturated, right? Even the uber-niche of Etsy witches is overflowing with a million printable grimoires, cute witchy hats, smelly witchy candles, and an overwhelming number of options.
Yet the stats reveal the ratio of buyers to sellers in 2025 is 16:1!
This is like the crazy 1% stat of content creators. It’s so easy to assume everybody is out there making content, but the reality is 99% of people on social media are just scrolling!
So if you’re an Etsy witch or a content creator, well done, hon, you’re a legit badass, statistically speaking.
The Etsy online marketplace drives a LOT of traffic, so it’s a smart online marketplace to flog your witchy wares.
Etsy raked in $2.8 billion in revenue in 2024. It continues to thrive year after year, despite a slight dip this year, in 2025. That’s no surprise given the current U.S. economy.
Etsy continues to thrive, despite all the naysayers and haters you see in forums.
Naysayers such as the sellers who haven’t worked out that you’re meant to factor fees into the cost of your sales…
Or who gripe at every big change the company makes.
And even despite all the AI slop (which they REALLY need to freakin’ DO something about, I will add!)
But driving traffic to YOUR Etsy shop and not all your competitors means knowing how to play the game.
MOST of that game is simply keeping at it.
For Hexotica’s Etsy shop, for example, that meant getting up to 130 products before I saw consistent daily sales.
It is essential to stay resilient with a solid product listing and marketing system and strategy. Week after week, month after month.
And to keep learning how to increase all of the most important sales and traffic metrics.
The good news for ambitious witches is that most sellers quit because they don’t understand how Etsy search really works.
A large number of the listings you see on Etsy are corpses, never selling. It might be because the seller hasn’t provided enough detail, quality photos, or clear shipping and refund policies.
Or their marketing lacks a proven strategy.
So now that you know the rules of this game are up-to-date SEO skills and a Marketician’s mindset, let’s look at what some witches get wrong.
The SEO Mistakes Successful Etsy Witches have Learned To Avoid
The common mistakes may include not researching keywords, not writing titles correctly using those keywords, and not including those keywords within the product descriptions.
You know, the same basic mistakes that new bloggers or Pinterest pinners may make when they are completely new to SEO.
But I want to focus on a few Etsy-specific, lesser-known SEO mistakes here…
1. They Don’t Throw Random Products Into Their Shops
Mixed, unfocused shops confuse Etsy, which is exactly how SEO works on Google. Limiting either the type of product or the aesthetic of your products is one of the biggest arguments for niching down on a blog, YouTube channel, or podcast. Check out episode 7 of Hexotica’s podcast and YouTube channel to learn how to effectively niche down.
If you’re an Etsy witch, niching down does not mean you have to sell only one type of thing. Witchcraft IS your niche. You just have to keep all the products in your store cohesive in the sense that they make sense being sold alongside each other.
Cohesive niches make it easier for the search engine digital minions to categorize you, which makes it easier for people to find you.
If Etsy cannot categorize you, it doesn’t know who to show your listings to.
This search distinction is more important than it used to be with Etsy’s 2025 search updates.
Etsy’s most recent search algorithm changes have made the search less mechanical. By mechanical, I mean simply based on titles, tags, and keywords in the descriptions.
Now the search engine works more like TikTok or Pinterest: it’s keywords PLUS shoppers’ past preferences, their shop likes, and their past purchases.
The search engines are more nuanced.
This is why sellers are seeing such a huge shift in their metrics and sales. It’s not that Etsy has made it harder for buyers to find you, but that they have changed the search pathways. This take is backed by many sellers who report increased sales since the changes, not less.
Resilience to weather the changes and study them more closely here is the magic key.🪄 🗝️
2. They Don’t Underprice Their Products
Low price doesn’t make you competitive. It just triggers Etsy’s “race to the bottom” algorithm.
It signals low quality, but also that you’re targeting the bottom of the market.
So lower-priced items get shown to lower-paying customers and bargain shoppers.
This wasn’t as true before the recent SEO updates, when search results were more mechanical, but this is another example of how the algorithms are far more nuanced nowadays.
Never compete with price – compete with positioning.
Savvy Etsy witches understand that the power of sales is not WHAT they are selling, but HOW they are selling it. People are not buying a witchy daily planner because they need that exact kind of planner, right?
They are buying a WITCHY planner because of how it makes them feel.
Learning how to position your products through branding and messaging not only elevates your products to sell at higher prices, but it signals the search engines to place your products among the higher-priced end of the market.
3. They Don’t Ignore SEO Just Because They Plan to Move to Shopify Later
SEO is one of the most valuable, long-term marketing skills you can ever learn. And it’s ideal for beginners because it can give you FREE traffic without any upfront costs.
So savvy Etsy witches understand that learning SEO isn’t just for Etsy. It is a long-term growth strategy.
If you plan to build your own witchy website like Shopify, for example, you should still learn SEO.
Shopify requires you to generate your OWN traffic, which is why I always advise opening your own shop after you’ve learned the marketing strategies you’ll need to drive traffic to it.
Etsy is a training ground for learning what works. Most of my SEO skill base started with the foundations I learned from running my Etsy shop for 8 years.
These are valuable marketing skills that are not only useful for your shop…
They are worth the up-front investment of your time and money because they can save you time and make you more money for YEARS to come.
A great strategy is to inform all of your buyers that they can purchase your products at a slightly lower cost or with other bonus incentives if they make their next purchase directly from your own shop.
That way, you are using Etsy’s massive marketing engine and traffic as a spoke on your own marketing flywheel.
The Number One Etsy SEO Tool I Recommend For Driving Traffic To Your Witchy Shop
Now let me introduce you to my good friend, *grabs good friend by the collar,* Ubersuggest.
Whether you are a complete noob at SEO and everything about it sounds like jargon and confuses you, OR you’re a seasoned SEO Marketician who has already successfully ranked her content, Ubersuggest is the one tool I recommend above anything else.
Like most SEO tools, Ubersuggest gives you the exact keywords your ideal customers are already searching for.
You can track keyword difficulty (so you know which terms your small shop can actually rank for), spy on competitor listings to see what’s working in your niche, and get super-clear content ideas for your product descriptions, blogs, and Pinterest pins.
You can also change the results by country, allowing you to work on ranking in just your own country or work on ranking elsewhere.
I genuinely love and recommend Ubersuggest if you’re looking to invest in an Etsy SEO tool. It has been one of my favorite secret marketing weapons, giving me back a thousand times more dollars than what it cost me. Literally.
Some of the key features that made me love Ubersuggest above other Etsy SEO tools include:
- Affordability. You can use it for free for up to 3 keyword searches a day while you get your head around SEO. That is exactly how I used it for nearly 6 months before I purchased it.
- User-friendliness. It has tiny information bubbles beside each feature in case you don’t understand what something is. Each bubble can take you down a fun little learning vortex.
- They send you a weekly update of the keyword changes to your site. If your keyword ranking went up or down, it tells you exactly how much and what to do to fix any downturns.
- The weekly emails also include site audits, a continuously running list of all the items that you need to fix. And with links to blogs and videos that show you exactly HOW!
Plus, Ubersuggest’s keyword suggestions go way beyond Etsy’s internal search, helping you tap into Google traffic so your witchy creations can be discovered everywhere, not just on Etsy.
That means that you can use the same keywords you use for a product in your Etsy shop to create a Pinterest board, an Instagram reel, or a YouTube video.
You can dominate the search results for ”black lace jabots” if that is your dark heart’s desire! 🖤
For witches who want simple, powerful SEO magic without the overcomplicated tools, Ubersuggest is the closest thing to a crystal ball you’ll ever find!
Ready to Learn How to Use Ubersuggest as an Etsy SEO Tool?
If you’d like to get an easy-to-follow, neurodivergent-friendly crash course, I’ve created an Ubersuggest mini-training for Etsy witches like you.
Of course, you’re going to need to WATCH it because I can’t explain in just words how to navigate the dashboard or show you what’s inside!
So it’s in VIDEO form, and it’s 100% FREE. 🪄🎁
I’ll walk you through everything that you can use UberSuggest for with online marketing.
And you can get started all for free, as I did, until I fell in love with it and bought the lifetime deal.
To get the free training, sign up using the form below and use my affiliate link to sign up for Ubersuggest.
If you’re already an Ubersuggest user or you’re using another Etsy SEO tool and you just want to see why I’m raving about THIS ONE, that’s fine, too.
I’m including lots of juicy, witchy bonus resources and tools that you’ll find extremely useful for getting your witchy shop SALES poppin’ off in time for the Gothmas season! 🎁🕷️🕸️☠️🎉
Sign up below 👇
