Some googling for Folksy

Shop Talk
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I was looking at an old forum post here called ‘Getting Views’ which was posted a couple of years ago after the Folksy site updates - and it sparked me to do some digging…

I just opened an incognito Google page and searched ‘golden anniversary gift’ - just to see how Folksy performs. (This was a term someone on the old forum post mentioned that they’d used.)

Page 1: It’s all E, Amz, NOTHS plus other sites - nothing showing for Folksy on either search results or shopping results

Page 10: I found the first mention of Folksy in search results

However, interestingly it threw up discussion and forum results on page 1 - nothing for Folksy, but when I clicked for more forum results I got to Page 2 and found “Ideas for Golden Wedding cards and gifts - Showcase” from the Folksy forum. Interesting because I’m thinking maybe showcase-style forum posts on here could potentially be used to increase search results - if they’re well named for search, and if (big if) someone clicks on ‘Discussion and Forum’ results (seems unlikely?). But it made me think maybe our showcase posts need to be well named.

I then added the word ‘personalised’ at the beginning of my search, so ‘personalised golden anniversary gift’…

I got to Page 14 before I saw any mention of Folksy - and that was for the same forum post mentioned above.

Then I searched for ‘handmade golden anniversary gift’… that found Folksy, but not until Page 3 (and that was for ‘Anniversary cards on Folksy’ - which isn’t ‘gifts’, it’s cards. Again nothing showing on Shopping.

Being even more specific, I then searched ‘handmade golden anniversary gift for parents’… and found Folksy on page 3, but again, this was for a card. I did however find a Folksy listing on Page 1 of the Image results.

I then tried searching for ‘personalised newspaper print’ - this is something I sell, both on my own website and Folksy so I just wanted to see what came up.

Page 1: my own website
Page 4: my own website
Page 5: Folksy

Shopping results:
Page 1: Folksy (4 times)

Images:
Page 1: Folksy and my own website

  • so Folksy is to be found on shopping results, but doesn’t seem to get anywhere near more competitive search times like, I guess, ‘handmade golden anniversary gift’.

I’m not really sure what any of this means, other than:

  1. If you’re selling a personalised handmade anniversary gift for parents, then you need to have that in your title (and/or on the first sentence of your product description?) I’m guessing. Are the cards showing up because they’re described as pretty much exactly that (except they obviously don’t have the word ‘gift’ in their title/description)?

  2. Should we be really specific and longtail-keywordy when we name our forum posts (and also bear in mind that they may well bring the public over to the forum, so be aware the public could be reading the posts)?

Is there a reason why Folksy isn’t showing anywhere for shopping results - I’m just not seeing them! I appreciate what I’m searching for is a crowded term, and there’s lots of competition - but I’m seeing small independent-type sites listed on both search results and shopping results far in advance of Folksy. Which is strange.

Maybe I’m searching all wrong?!

I know we may not all be optimising our wording in the right way, but there are quite a few sellers that are both here and on E (or just on E) that are probably using the same wording style, yet the E results are showing all over the place, both organically and presumably paid for. A search term like ‘golden anniversary gift’ is going to be expensive to advertise, and obviously E has bigger pockets than Folksy - is this the reason why Folksy is showing up so low/not at all in shopping results?

Is it just a case of David and Goliath, and Folksy will never be able to compete in search results - shopping or search? And if that’s the case, how come other smaller sites are showing?

Sorry for the waffle!

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I suspect the problem is deeper than the words we are using in our listings.
Current Google requirements for good workable SEO are to have both a short and a long description . Folksy does not have this. What is currently has is one description which is repeated which in many ways is worse than just having one as Google does not like the two descriptions to be the same. It really does not.
Ask Google AI or Grok and you will see what i mean.
I wish I could work out when the description was changed to ‘pretend’ to be a short and a long but can’t… if around March/ April then it would absolutely explain why my Folksy sales suddently nosedived around then and have never recovered.
I really don’t quite understand why the Inspiration field was not used instead to become the full description as that field already existed but who am I to wonder why anything is the way it is !

PS change was there in July not sure when it started though and of course before that there really was only one description which is why i assume it was changed

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Folksy has been dragging it’s feet for years. No buyer app. No video facility for sellers. Terrible search results. No advertising. It seems to be getting worse.

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Sorry Joy, I’m no doubt being slow here - what do you mean by short and long description? Do you mean on our individual listings?

I don’t think the Inspiration field is as noticable for buyers as it used to be - I doubt buyers even notice it’s there to be honest.

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Google will explain it well enough. Important information as far as SEO is concerned and SEO is what determines if sales platforms are prominent, or not, in search results.

In mentioning the inspiration field i was simply suggesting that it could have been used as the long description and of course it would have been made more prominent than currently. As you suggest it is not really used at present so would have been ideal. :slight_smile:

SEO, a “short description” refers to a concise summary of a webpage’s content, typically used in meta descriptions, while a “long description” provides a more detailed explanation, often found within the actual page content itself, allowing for more in-depth keyword usage and information delivery; the key difference lies in the length and level of detail provided, with the short description aiming to quickly capture user attention in search results, while the long description offers a deeper dive into the topic.

Key points about short and long descriptions in SEO:

** Short Description:*

    • Usually around 150-160 characters long.*
    • Appears as a snippet under the page title in search results.*
    • Should be compelling and entice users to click.*
    • Focuses on key keywords relevant to the page.*

** Long Description:*

    • Can be significantly longer, depending on the content.*
    • Located within the webpage itself.*
    • Offers a more comprehensive overview of the topic.*
    • May include more detailed keyword usage and related information.*
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Doesn’t our title on an listing, ie. ‘Mohair artist bear, one of a kind collectable bear’ …act as the short description and our full in depth description of the item act as the long one or am I not on the right wave length here lol :laughing:…

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This (I believe) is a short description, you have your normal item description, then the Short Description, which normally shown 8n search results, first is the website name , followed by the page title, followed by the Short Description, so when looking at the search results, you can read a cut down version of the item description. Well thats how I interpret it, its how I used to do my framing business website before I retired.

Screenshot_20250227-133159_Chrome
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Opps forgot to add image :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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I am also not sure…i know to those who are tech savvy it sounds simple but for those of us (like me :laughing:) that don’t always understand … do we write those short titles ? or is that something that comes from Folksy ?

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Any ideas @Folksyadmin why I was getting poor search results, especially in the shopping category of Google? Images seem to work better than search results, but that’s only helpful if people click for images.

And any thoughts on the idea of forum posts being capable of sending buyers to the site? Is that something to be encouraged (bearing in mind there’s also a lot of help/moany/problem/technical type posts, and that the forum is really only used by sellers!). Could the forum be organised in a way that utilises those search results for the general public, but can ‘hide’ the more private seller type posts?