Get Your Store Found
Everyone wants to know how to help search engines and new customers find your online store. While it's true that many shoppers will go to their favorite online marketplace and search for specific products, it is also true, that some shoppers will turn to Google, Yahoo, StartPage, Duck Duck Go, or a similar search engine to look for products to buy. This is especially true if they can not find what they are looking for on a particular marketplace.
So what can you as a seller on a marketplace like eBlueJay, Mercari, Etsy, eBay or Offer-up become more visible on the internet?
I recommend using a third party free directory website like Mercari Shopping Directory, Every Place I Sell, or even Linktree. The key once your store is accepted, is to create "back links" to those directories. So let's say you sell on Mercari, and you get accepted to have your Mercari store listed into the Mercari Shopping Directory. On the Mercari Shopping Directory, your store receives its own page. I recommend giving out your Mercari Shopping Directory store page link when you post images of products you are selling on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or wherever. By using your stores link, you help encourage the bigger search engines to follow your Mercari store address and list it with your store name.
Mercari Shopping Directory
Mercari Shopping Directory is for Mercari sellers, but it also allows accepted stores to include a link to your top social media that features the products you are selling. It also allows you to include an additional non-Mercari marketplace you sell on that you use the same store name.
Store Directory Page Sample
Every Place I Sell
Every Place I Sell is a directory for sellers on any marketplace. Similar to Mercari Shopping Directory, you will get your own store page showing the stores you sell on, with links to your stores, and other information. While it isn't as modern looking as the Mercari exclusive - Mercari Shopping Directory, it has been around for a long time, so it has a high placement in search engines, which in turn helps your stores get found by those search engines.
Store Directory Page Sample
Linktr.ee
Linktr.ee was the first link referral service of its kind and originally made for those of us who use Instagram, to provide an easy way for followers, friends and customers to find all of our websites, social media and stores on a single page. Unlike the Mercari Shopping Directory or Every Place I Sell, you have full control over what links you provide. It can be to any kind of website, social media or store that you want. You can update it yourself anytime you want. That is a big advantage over the other two, which are specifically targeted at helping shoppers find your stores.
So link directory should I list my store(s) on?
You should list your online stores on all three of them if they apply to the marketplace where you currently sell online. All three of them have their own benefits in helping search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing to find and show your store higher up in their search results. All three of them have their own unique features. Mercari Shopping Directory is the newest of the three. Every Place I Sell is the older of the three and has recently purged out its old stores prior to 2022, so it's a great time to get a top listing in their directory. LinkTree is the second oldest and has lots and lots of users. It also commands a high placement in search engines, which is what you want. If possible use your Store Name Consistently across all three directories.
Do free store link directories actually work?
You might be wondering if listing the store and marketplaces you sell on actually works. The answer is 100% yes. The majority of online sellers are very inexperienced when it comes to marketing their stores. They will spam their social media accounts until everyone hates them, but search engines never see those social media posts, and if they did, they wouldn't pick them up because it's spam.
Using a free link directory like Mercari Shopping Directory, Every Place I Sell or Linktr.ee is different. They contribute to the whole internet community by being a place where shoppers can locate active sellers and stores on marketplaces. They provide a page with your store name, details you have provided about your store or selling experience and links to your spot on the actual marketplace.
In this example video created by Mercari Shopping Directory on their YouTube channel, it explains how a directory like those I am recommending works to help your store get picked up, keyworded and shown on a search engine compared to a store on the same marketplace that isn't in a directory.
Final Thoughts
As a mentor to several thousand Mercari sellers, eBay sellers and others since 2013, I have observed there are two kinds of online sellers. There are go-getters aka hustlers who utilized every possible option available to bring more customers to their stores on eBay, Mercari, Etsy, Poshmark, Depop, EblueJay, etc. The rest either do not know how to market their stores, are to lazy to bother to learn, don't care enough to bother if they actually have learned from an article like this, or simply have no passion or vision.
The key is not just flooding the internet with your store. The key is choosing the right options that actually work to accomplish your goal. Like I previously mentioned, some sellers hustle and spam social media like closed Facebook Groups. That is fine if you have something that all the other sellers in the group want to buy. But usually, everyone in such a group wants to sell, not shop. So it defeats the energy exerted.
Some smart and experienced sellers have created their own Facebook Group when they give free advice, but they also promote their own stores and YouTube channels to get more subscribers. This can work pretty well at times, but it is very exhausting and sometimes associating your store with a YouTube channel can be devastating, due to "Cancel Culture".
I once observed an online seller named Nikki. She managed to start a successful group on Facebook, and then carried her popularity over to YouTube. Being a young and beautiful woman, her YouTube Channel quickly gained a high volume of subscribers. She provided a link to her eBay store on you YouTube channel and began making a whole lot of sales for about a year. Then one day she said something in a YouTube video that provoked the "Cancel Culture Mob", and within a month, they had totally destroyed her business. An extremely large community of those she offended followed the link to her eBay store, bought from it, and then filed a dispute with eBay. In response eBay and PayPal locked Nikki's accounts and the negative feedbacks received on her ebay store forced her into closing and moving to a new marketplace.
Why did it matter? Because her real genuine customers only had her eBay store name and eBay store link. When she was forced to create a new eBay store and start from scratch under a new store name, her loyal customers were unable to find her, because her original store name no longer existed and her original ebay store link no longer works.
Had Nikki had her store listed in a directory like the Mercari Shopping Directory, Linktree or Every Place I Sell, she could of used one of those as the link she placed on her YouTube channel. That would have allowed her to update the link and stores for her customers to follow. For example, on Mercari Shopping Directory in particular, you can request to have your original store page on their directory, redirected to a new page and link if needed in case you change your store name.
Forward Vision
As a seller on online marketplaces, you should always be forward thinking, even if your store is small and even if you are not sure if you will continue selling online. These marketplace directories allow you to already have your store becoming established with a presence on search engines while you are deciding. It things change in your life and you decide you want to go fulltime into selling online, your store will greatly benefit by already being establish on a directory. It will help your newly listed products get found easier by search engines. If you haven't already established your stores presence in a search engine via a directory, and wait until you being selling a lot of items on a store, those new listings will have no impact in reaching the search engines.
Are there other ways to get my store listed in a search engine?
Yes, there are other ways to help search engines find your store online, but they require a whole lot of work and effort. More than even I as an experienced veteran marketplace seller want to do. These directories I have mentioned take only a few minutes of time to get set-up with. I've tested all three of those I am recommending over the past five years. If they didn't work, I wouldn't recommend them. Using one of these free directories doesn't guarantee you'll get a lot of new shopping traffic right away. It takes time for the search engines to trust your store enough to recommend it. However your association with a directory gives your store more credibility.