There are two main things that determine how your items would show up on Etsy's Search Results: 1) Listing Keywords & 2) How well people like your items.
1. Listing Keywords. You can easily rank higher for targeted keywords if you optimize each of your listings. For example if you are selling "burp cloths", you add those exact words on different areas of your item listings: title, first sentence of your description, tags, and materials. It also helps if the items you are selling is part of our shop's name (i.e. BurpClothShop)
2. How well people like your items. This one has to do with "favorites" on Etsy and how many people have bought the exact item in the past. It happens naturally to your items. Overtime, people will add add your items as their favorites and add them to their "treasuries", which could be featured on the frontpage of Etsy and lead to a lot of sales. I had a bracelet featured once about 9 months ago and it has be come one of my best sellers that my customers keep on reordering. The key to be "favorited" is to take "etsy-style" photos. They're usually clean and artsy shots of our products. You can visit Etsy's homepage for ideas.
Hope that helps and good luck to you and your wife!