How to list a digital item on Etsy

Many times for my students, Etsy is a scary monster. It’s intimidating. Its a venture into the unknown. It’s scary to hit that last “Open a shop button” and even more scary to move forward with listing new products and keep going. 

I hear my students struggle and feel overwhelmed with “all the things” Etsy requires or asks when opening your shop. This was the one thing that I did right when I first launched my shop and replaced my income within 6 months. I didn’t get overwhelmed because in my mind, this was alll an experiment. I made the decision to not care whether it was successful or not. I made the decision to tread lightly with launching a shop and really had zero expectations, which made it so my decision making for my name, logo, listing images, etc. wasn’t a big deal and more of an after thought. 

I see sooo many of my students and newbie Etsy shop owners focus A TON on the fine details without realizing that these “fine details” can all be tweaked, altered and improved later. Many times they overwhelm themselves so much they 1) don’t end up launching their shop altogether or 2) end up launching their shop but then are burnt out when all the important “post launch” work begins. 

My suggestion to you and what also helped me is to breeze through the launch part without a ton of thought. Push that “go” button and don’t hesitate or overthink it. You will have plenty of time to overthink it and make adjustments later. But for now, get your shop up. Get it live!

The main part to getting it live is listing new products. This as I mentioned, can be overwhelming and confusing with “all the things”. SO this post is to be an aid for you and will hopefully help relieve this for you. Use this post and video I’ve made for you as your guide while you go through the process. 

Listing your first item on Etsy

From your dashboard on Etsy you’ll want to click on “Listings” on the left hand side of your account. This will bring you to your listings page where you will manage your products. If you are a new shop, as I assume all of you are, then this page will be blank at first.

Click the “plus” button in the top right. This will add a new listing.

Follow the process in the video above, it provides some juicy insight to how we list our products every single day! But here’s a few highlight points:

• Add as many photos as possible
• Fill in as much information as possible
• Make an SEO keyword rich title
• Add a descriptive first paragraph
• Add SEO keyword rich tags
• Cross promote in your description

The important thing to remember with listing your items on Etsy is SEO. You want to build your product and describe your product FOR your customers. What are they using it for? What search terms will they use to find this product? What do they need to know about this product? 

These are all important things to remember while listing your item and are good to mention in the description. SEO is a big part of our listing strategy. This is what I did for years and what I contribute my success on Etsy to as mentioned in the video. Have great SEO (search engine optimization) in your listing, and customers will find your product.

Product optimization (SEO) also helps when promoting your item on Etsy because if you ever promote it using the paid advertising feature then it uses the SEO to know where to promote it! Many new shop owners don’t realize this so I thought I’d mention this as well. 

Once you have one product listed, listing the others is easy because you can just copy this existing product to build the rest and use much as the same information.

If you found this helpful you may also find my free guide “10 Tips to Launching an Etsy Shop Successfully” also helpful. This is more for the post launch process but just as or even more valuable than the pre launch guide mentioned earlier! So be sure to click the ad below to grab your copy.

I hope this blog post and video help all you newbies. I have loved owning an Etsy shop. It has opened up a world of possibilities for me and my business and was my first step into online business. I hope it does the same for you!

Cheers,

Kasey