I know I’ve posted about this before, but it bears repeating…
Are your handmade item titles on etsy written in a way that your items can be easily found by your potential shoppers in google search results?
Ask yourself: If you were a shopper, what search terms would YOU use to find your stuff?
Ask your friends..what words would THEY use if they were searching for your items? Show them a picture of your work without telling them it’s name or materials. Ask your friends what words they’d use if they were using Google to find something similar. TAKE GOOD NOTES. 
After you have your list of search terms, utilize them in your item titles. And be consistent. With EVERY item. Optimally, you will use the same format for each and every title.
And when I say consistent, I mean that your item title structure follows the same pattern ALWAYS. Depending on what kind of handmade good you sell, you may want to mix it up a bit, but for me, my handmade jewelry titles take this format:
ARTSY FARTSY NAME – Handmade (or Artisan or both) and then the Descriptive Phrase that a buyer would use to find it when searching so for instance. Make sure you include color in this phrase as well as the materials.
Want before and after examples? I browsed some actual item titles on etsy and artfire for inspiration.
Example 1
Before: Three Dragonflies Bracelet
After: Three Dragonflies – Handmade Fine Silver and Blue Turquoise Dragonfly Charm Bracelet
Example 2
Before: Thank You Blue Hypnosis Card
After: Blue Hypnosis – Handmade Japanese Black and White Floral Print Thankyou Greeting Card
Example 3
Before: Flowers a Glow Clutch
After: Flowers a Glow – Handmade Yellow, Gray and Light Blue Clutch Wallet
Don’t forget to include the entire title as the first sentence of your description. Google picks this up too.
By the way, after you’ve edited all your item titles, don’t forget to add you shop items to Google Base, Google’s shopping search tool. Here’s an etsy forum thread to walk you through the options and configurations.
Good luck! And check out your Google Analytics stats in about a week to determine what words are working for you.
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This is a really good article. Thanks for sharing your tips. Your jewelry is so pretty!
This is a great post. I think people forget that the words you use in your title is part of the search process on etsy.
Great post. Thanks so much for the tips.
This is a really good post. I did “redo” my titles once, but I think they can be updated again. Thanks for the reminder.
Great post!
Great advice. I linked back to you on my blog and shared this post with my team on our NING forum.
BIG BAG OF LUCK GIVEAWAY
http://carriedawayteam.blogspot.com/2009/03/big-bag-of-luck-giveaway.html
Kristy you had told about this in a former post and after I read it I re-did some of titles and now I pay more attention to the title as well as the tags to my surprise I wasn’t that far off the mark. I remember you were saying you have changed some of your title without making it boring or not your style. This is a really good post again thank you.
Debra
This is a very informative article. Thank you for answering my questions. Now I need to get busy and change some things around.
Wow, thank you so much.. I really haven’t thot I cd get that many words in my titles .. I have noticed esp w/handbags it’s getting harder and harder to get any hits just thru posting an item.. it’s been frustrating. I’m definitely going to try yr method out.. AND check out the google base info..
great advice – thanks. I’ll have to go and look. Didn’t know I could write so long a title.
I wanted to thank you again for these useful tips. I blogged about your post today to spread the knowledge. Here is the link:
http://lenoxknits.blogspot.com/2009/03/cool-diversions-vs-improving-your-shop.html
Thank you for this. I am deeply tired of stupidly LONG titles covering every last shred of different items used to create an item. Your advice is sensible and to the point – and the examples first class – I hope people take notice.
If I find a lovely piece with a 99 word title I won’t buy it no matter how much I like it. The description has to make sense and not drag on and on and on and on…..
[...] 9. Etsy and Artfire item titles: Are yours configured the best way for Google? [...]