Filling our Etsy shop with print-on-demand products is moving along for us. We now have 62 listings and I have 2 designs to add to that which will put us at 68. The only disappointing thing is the views and visits. They’re basically non-existent.
Everyone I follow on YouTube that does print-on-demand says to be sure you do your SEO. So, I guess I need to get on the SEO bandwagon.
The other thing I need to do is practice some patience. Again, back to YouTube, everyone says it takes six to eight weeks for the Etsy algorithm to start ranking your listings and for people to really start seeing them. We’ve only been listing for one week since the suspension delayed things one week (see my post about our Etsy Suspension).
Etsy Keyword Tools
Patience aside, I felt the need to do something about SEO, so, I decided it would be a good investment to use one of the keyword helpers. It seems there are a few to choose from:
- Sales Samurai
- eRank
- Alura
- Marmalead
- Everbee
After doing a quick Google search, I found there are quite a few more Etsy keyword tools, but the ones I hear about most often are the ones listed above. I really don’t know why, but the first one I chose to try was Sales Samurai. A YouTuber had an offer with a monthly fee of $7.99, it sounded like a deal.
Sales Samurai
At first, it worked just fine, that is until I actually got down to business. I couldn’t believe how slow it moved. Every time I needed to make a search, I’d enter the keyword and then wait for what seemed like forever. I decided to leave when I didn’t get an answer to my support ticket asking about the slowness. Poor customer support is unacceptable.
eRank
So after canceling Sales Samurai (but I still got to use it till the end of the month I paid for), I was off to find the next best thing and landed on eRank. They have been around for a while as when I signed up I realized that I already had another Etsy account connected. That’s the account I’ve had for over 10 years where I’ve sold everything from jewelry and beads to vintage dishes.
I connected our new account and got to work. The speed was much, much better, but the search results were at least 80% different than those found by Sales Samurai. It felt like the searches on eRank were more focused and stayed within the scope of my request, whereas Sales Samurai’s list was all over the place.
Alura, Marmalead & Everbee
I didn’t do much research with these tools, but I did check out Alura and Everbee. Alura seemed more focused on making sure your listings were set up correctly, but I didn’t look too deep.
Everbee was interesting. They are a chrome extension that adds a column to the left side of your browser. When you find a page when browsing Etsy that you want to analyze you click and it gives you the keywords and tags. I didn’t think that was what I needed except maybe seeing the tags that other listings (bestsellers) were using, but I quickly found that all the other tools give you that info as well.
What Do You Do With a Keyword Tool?
I’ll be the first to admit that SEO and keyword tools are hard for me. I search for a term, get a list of more terms, and then I’m not sure how to use all the data. It feels scattered. I get overwhelmed. And I’m feeling that way with eRank as well.
I needed to decide how to use the tool and then just stick to the plan. So, I decided to use it to find new niches to create for. And then once I’ve created something, I will use it to write my title and define my tags.
Here’s how I will use it. I’ll first look up a broad keyword, like “nurse tshirt”. Then I will look through the results to find keywords that:
- are more specific
- have a sufficient number of searches each month
- and lastly, have low competition
So, what are the numbers? How many searches are sufficient, how many listings is too much competition?
I’ve been making sure there are at least 500 searches a month and less than 50,000 other listings using that term.
As an example, when I search “nurse”, I get a pretty long list. There are a lot of terms that meet the criteria but I can’t use, like “nurse svg”, “nurse report sheet”, and “nurse headband with buttons”. I just ignore those, but… in all the data there is also gold.
Here are a few really good keywords I found:
“nurse in the making” – 5623 searches per month and 29,063 listings.
This is a great tag for designs geared toward nursing students. The next step would be to search “nurse in the making” to get more keywords that work for nursing students.
“pediatric nurse” – 1168 searches per month and 23,366 listings.
I would need to do some more searching to see if this is worth designing for but I imagine it could be. Things like “I like little hands and little feet” or “baby nurse” could make some really cute designs.
“future nurse” – 1078 searches per month and 19,857 listings.
This goes with the “nurse in the making” term above further proving this to be a good niche to work in.
So now I need to keep doing searches, proving niches, and making designs. I’m happy to have a tool to help me identify potentially profitable areas to design for and eRank seems to be doing a great job.
I noticed that the service also allows you to analyze your current listings. Maybe I’ll dig into that soon and write a post with my results.
Until next time,
Reba
