The things is, whatever works for getting items onto the front page, as soon as people find out about it lots will do the same, as everyone wants to be on the front page. So those who currently include certain key words about 3 times now to get visibility, as soon as they’re knocked off, will add the word a fourth, and then a fifth, and then a sixth time - it will be never ending.
That’s why I would rather do my publicity on Facebook, and point people directly to my shop or specific items within my shop, rather than spend time keeping on editing items to reach the front page,
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It’s very disheartening not to be on the front page of listings, but as I understand it, most sales on Folksy are generated from people who have searched on google and then found the item, clicking through directly to a product page, and not from using Folksy’s internal search engine.
The number of searches on google vastly outweighs the number of searches via Folksy’s internal search engine too, so whilst it’s a good way of checking where you theoretically are in respect of rankings for a given phrase, that’s not the whole story as that phrase you are optimising on may not be the phrase which buyers are using.
There’s something called the Long Tail in search engine optimisation, which is basically the art of attracting all the searches that might be appropriate to your product from people who are looking for something very niche.
So a basic example might be a red woollen scarf with tassels that someone sells. Optimising the high level phrase ‘red scarf’ repeatedly in your descriptions and tags etc might eventually rank your scarf in the first page, but you’d have to ask yourself is that the phrase your buyer would use?
You might find you have a lot more luck optimising on the phrase ‘Red woollen winter scarf with tassels’. In this example, there may only be 2 people searching for the longer phrase via Google, but if your item matches that person’s requirements exactly, they are far more likely to see your item and then buy it.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that yes it’s annoying when your item doesn’t show up on a given search, but Folksy’s page ranking, plus the gift guides etc etc are all just a part of the overall picture when it comes to reaching your target audience. If you focus your efforts on more niche phrases, that’s where you can often see better results.
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