A recent question popped-up in one of the Etsy Team forums that was essentially “What is my shop address?”
It reminded me that things that seem second-nature to me now, aren’t quite as obvious to those just getting going on Etsy. I remember what it was like, and I still call “uploading” photographs “downloading”, to the great annoyance of my wonderful, sweet, and patient husband.
So, here are a few simple tips on sharing the website link to your Etsy shop with others.
1. Use the “sub-domain” address to your shop.
When you see a website, like our Everything Etsy Directory, that has words, then a dot, then more words, followed by a .com, or .net (or whatever type of domain it is) then that address is known as a sub-domain address. The directory, for example is: directory.everythingetsy.com and it is a sub-domain of everything etsy called “directory”.
When you get an Etsy shop, you automatically have an address like this and your username/shop name is the first part of it. So, for my shop: Kimberly Layton, the sub-domain address is kimberlylayton.etsy.com
This is the address you should always use for two important reasons. It’s easy to remember and it puts your name in front which is good branding and subliminal marketing.
2. For Print Documents – Don’t worry about the WWW
Believe it or not, the address www.EverythingEtsy.com and EverythingEtsy.com are two different addresses. It’s entirely possible to put two totally different websites on each. In fact, you’ll sometimes find that you type in a website and nothing comes up (an error screen), but you know you’ve been there before. Often adding or deleting the www from the address you typed in will fix it.
Most well-built websites will automatically forward to the correct domain. Etsy uses the www, but you don’t have to type it in to get to the site or to your shop.
On print documents it’s easier to read and takes-up less space without the www. It works without it, so leave it off.
3. To Capitalize or not to Capitalize?
It’s totally up to you. There is a strong movement, of which I am not a part, that seems to think capital letters have gone the way of the DoDo Bird (or is it dodo bird?) If that’s your thing, feel free to leave all capitals out. I usually prefer to highlight the individual words in a website address with a capital at the beginning of them. EverythingEtsy, for example.
But the bottom line is that it does not matter. You can type in everytHInGetsY.CoM and it will work, so you can write it however you wish, but not everyone knows that it doesn’t matter, so you pRobabLy dOn’T wanT tO GeT tOo CUTE!
4. When creating a link online use the HTTP://
If you’re commenting on a blog or putting your website into a form online, you always want to use the preceding http:// before your address unless otherwise indicated. From a computer’s perspective, this is a very important part of the link and many times the link will not work without it. (trivia to make you look like a smart nerd: http stands for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol)
5. What about redirects?
You’ll see, as you browse around, that some snazzy folks have figured out how to get a domain that they own to forward to etsy. So you would type in myshop.com and get myshop.etsy.com. That’s just a simple redirect of the URL (uniform resource locator – or website address) to the Etsy shop. This is done through your hosting company and is a great marketing tool.
The advantage of doing this is that you can buy your domain and hosting for relatively low cost early on in your business, and get your customers used to going to your own domain. This way, if you ever decide to expand from Etsy in the future, you already have people coming to your website address.
We have a tool to check and see if the name you want is available at our post on Picking a Name for Your Etsy Shop
Have a great day! I’m going to Disney World for Tim’s birthday!
Tim’s Facebook Page
– Kim
Love the http:// reference, my husband will think I am so smart….
I have often wondered about the print form of my name and you are a hundred percent right, nobody cares about the www. it is redundant.
Cheers and have a great day.
Good article, Kim! I agree with your advice about the yourshopname.etsy.com instead of etsy.com/yourshopname. I’ve often wondered why people wouldn’t want their name first and foremost.
Very often, when a person is just starting out, they don’t even know what questions they *should* be asking. This article is great for that!
Have a great time at Disney World!
Thank you so much, I didn’t know that about the sub-domain address… now to buy new business cards…
Kim, Can I borrow your husband? Mine has no clue. I have a godaddy account with my FancieStrands name. Now what? I have it directed to my blog but can I direct it to more than one place? Where is Tim when I need him? lol. Thanks for making me think about this again. I really need to get snappy on all this stuff.
Oh my gosh, thank you! www is on my business cards, but luckily they are handstamped and I don’t make too many at once so I will just pluck the 3 w’s off of there!
You and Tim make a great team!
Well I learned something new! Well a lot, but most importantly, you can put your shop name first! I had no idea! THANK YOU!
Well, poop…I just had business cards made up with the http://www.etsy.com/shop/jennsgemsdesigns. At least I do have my own domain that has a etsy mini in it. http://www.jennsgems.com. I know better for next time.
Kim, thank you for taking the time to inform us of all this tech stuff, very much appreciated.
I hope I don’t have to remember what the initials stand for for http, too much for my brain. 🙂
thank you again.
Great article. I thought I was fairly web savvy, but I have been copying my ety url, like it shows in the browser…which is not the way you explained. It makes much more sense to have the shop name first. thanks for the great information!
I always learn something new here… and I am usually reminded of something I have forgotten, as well. Thanks so much for all the tips! 🙂
Informative and concise post. Thanks!
Gosh… I just realized this was an old post! See? It’s all still relevant! 😉
Thanks Kim! I also wasn’t aware about the domain – very informative!
great tips 🙂
I didn`t know that I have to use it this way
http://www.labarradulce.etsy.com
I have my etsy shop up and I can;t find it. It is prints of my watercolors.
What to do? I worked so hard to set everything up. For some reason they made me change my password 3 times.
I thought everything was ok. They put a grand opening banner at the top of my page. What’s going on?
Again good article. Thanks for that.
Omg the sub-domain name is incredibly helpful! I loved this post, as I love all the Everything Etsy posts, but seriously, THANK YOU! I’ve been struggling with an easy way to send people to my shop on small social screens like Instragram, Facebook etc. Love this, thanks again!
Yes, great article. I printed up cards with the address and give them out at every opportunity 🙂
https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheEclecTiqueRaven
Thanks for this great article.
Great article. We love your site and are always looking for ways to feature our shop. Well done! Look forward to learning more from you.
Hi there! Do sellers automatically get an email adress with the name etsy in it? I am having little cards made but I have virtually nothing to put on them except my logo and my etsy shop web address. I would like to include and email that has my shop name in it rather than my personal account so it looks better. Do I need to just get another google or yahoo account with my email address?
Hi Gina!
You would need to set up an email address on your own or use your personal one. I also suggest adding any social media accounts if you have them set up. You can just list it like this… Facebook – @everythingetsy {or use the social media icons for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and then @yourname}.
I hope that helps a bit!
~Kim
looking good
nice post
wonderful article I thought of myself as being fairly knowledgeable about the internet, but I’ve been copying my ety url precisely as it appears in the browser. which is different from what you said. It makes much more sense to list the store name first. I value the insightful information.
wonderful article I thought of myself as being fairly knowledgeable about the internet, but I’ve been copying my ety url precisely as it appears in the browser. which is different from what you said. It makes much more sense to list the store name first. I value the insightful information.