Etsy Shop Announcement
Anyone visiting your shop homepage will see your latest shop announcement. The first few lines are visible on both desktop and mobile, and the reader needs to click to read the full announcement. It is therefore vital to highlight the most important details right at the start of your announcement as a lot of visitors will just scan past without clicking to read more. You can make the first few lines inviting to encourage clicks.
The date that the announcement was last updated is displayed, so it is good to update this regularly to show signs that you have an active shop. I try to update mine monthly as a general rule, and more often as needs dictate.
All of the text on your Etsy homepage is read by search engines so make sure you use your keywords in your shop announcement to describe what you sell. Ideally, keep a section of your announcement the same every time you update it to remain consistent for search engine readers, and pack it with your favourite keywords (formed in to lovely sentences of course – don’t spam it).
It’s up to you what to write in your announcement but primarily use it to inform your customers of final shipping dates for holidays, temporary increases in production times, any known shipping delays (severe weather etc.), any upcoming periods of shop closure, planned sales or active discount codes that might apply to their purchases.
You are allowed to type links to external sites and social media handles if you wish, although external links won’t be clickable. Etsy links, however, will automatically turn in to orange clickable links so you can easily direct readers to any section or listing in your shop by copying and pasting the url.
There doesn’t appear to be a character limit for the shop announcement, but it’s probably a good idea to keep it short and sweet. Use blank lines to space out the details to make it easy to read at a glance. Try to avoid too many paragraphs as you will have other places for more detailed information which we’ll discuss in the coming days and weeks.
It is important to note that not everyone will see your shop announcement. Those finding your listings directly through the Etsy search or by other means can buy that listing directly, without seeing your homepage. If you have important information in there, you should consider repeating it in several places to give it the best chance of being seen – again, we’ll find out more options as we continue through the month.
End of Day 2
FURTHER READING – http://www.handmadeology.com/quick-etsy-tips-from-real-etsy-sellers-shop-announcement-tricks/
With a fresh announcement your shop will be looking up-to-date, and hopefully the highlighted information will be useful to your potential customers.
Let me know if you have any contributions or corrections for this post!
Etsy Overhaul 