To find the best and most relevant keywords for your Etsy shop, you must first know how to research Etsy keywords. With a little thoughtful research and the right set of tools, you can be sure that you’ll grow your business, get more sales, and simply make more profit.
Researching Etsy keywords can be complicated and confusing, even if you’ve got experience with general keyword research, digital marketing, and SEO in other forms.
This article will touch on Etsy keyword research and use some nifty tools to find the best keywords for your brand and product.
You’ll also see:
- What are Etsy keywords, and why are they relevant?
- How to use keywords in your Etsy store
- Different approaches for finding the best keywords
Before we begin
This article is a part of our Complete Guide for Everything You Need to Know to Succeed on Etsy! If you just stumbled across this article, we recommend you start back at the beginning: Everything You Need to Know Before You Start an Etsy Shop.
Or, if you’d like to check out each article in the series, click through the links below:
8 Steps to Starting an Etsy Shop
We created the Complete Guide for Everything You Need to Know to Succeed on Etsy to teach you how to start an Etsy shop the right way. You can position your Etsy shop for longterm success by following these core principals.
- How to Do Etsy Market Research for Your Products
- Know Your Etsy Shop Branding Before You Open
- How to Create & Maintain an Etsy Shop Aesthetic
- How to Master Your Etsy Product Photography
- How to Research Etsy Keywords
- Etsy Shipping Costs and How to Calculate Them
- A Crash Course to Etsy Taxes & Accounting
- The New & Improved Quick and Dirty Guide to SEO for Etsy
At Marmalead, we strive to offer real, practical advice for Etsy sellers right here on our blog and on our YouTube channel. The world of Etsy is constantly evolving, so if you have a question you can’t find an answer to, reach out to us at success@marmalead.com.
What are Etsy keywords?
When buyers search on Etsy, most of the time, they have a rough idea of what they want:
“Vintage tap shoes’”
“Baby Yoda T-shirt”
“Flamingo pillow cover”
These are things that you’d type into Etsy to find the products you’re looking for. These are also keywords.
Note: While each of these searches has three words, any amount of words used in a single search is often referred to as a single keyword.
But what if buyers describe your product with different words?
“Tap dancing shoes”
“Cute Grogu shirt”
“Flamingo pillowcase”
If you were selling any of these three products, your product would be just as relevant to the first search as it would the second one.
While Etsy’s search algorithm is good, it’s not perfect. And with just a little bit of Etsy keyword research, you can be sure your products will appear in search when buyers use relevant keywords.
What about long tail keywords?
You’ll often hear us refer to long tail keywords, but what are they? These are more niche and/or specific search phrases. With long tail keywords, you can niche down on a super-specific product.
This likely means that there will be less competition when searching for your product. And if a buyer finds your product using a long tail keyword search, they’re more likely to buy since they’ve already narrowed in on their search terms.
Here are a few examples showing how you can get more specific/niche with the keyword examples used above.
Getting more specific gives you a better chance of making that keyword long tail:
“Leather tap dancing shoes”
“Girls cute baby Yoda T-shirt”
“Pink flamingo pillowcase”
How to research Etsy keywords for your shop
Etsy itself is pretty vague when it comes to “official” keyword research.
The seller handbook simply states to “brainstorm ideas for all 13 of your tags.” Now, while that’s not bad advice if you’re brand new, it’s still quite vague.
As tags are an essential place to use your keywords, you want to make sure that all 13 are keywords that have the most people searching for them.
But using a keyword as a tag is no good if no one searches for it.
That’s where tools like Marmalead become incredibly powerful.
Why finding the right keyword is so important.
It’s vital that you use keywords with a reasonably high search volume to get more views. But it’s also crucial that you know how competitive that keyword is.
Etsy will choose to display sites in the best working order or optimized for search when a high-volume and a highly competitive keyword is searched.
If you’re a new Etsy store, it can be tough to compete with finely-tuned listings.
But when you do in-depth keyword research, you can find other keywords more specific to your product, and often because the keyword is more niche, it will have lower search volume but also much lower competition.
Optimizing your shop for keywords that have a reasonable level of search volume and lower competition, makes it easier for you to appear higher in search, get the click, and get the sale. Using long tail keywords is often how you achieve this, and this method is fantastic for both new and struggling Etsy stores.
But again, you need to do your Etsy keyword research.
Got two keywords in mind but can’t decide?
Use Marmalead’s keyword comparison tool. You can quickly put your two keywords side by side, and at a glance, see everything you need to know to make the right decision. `
Maybe you’ll discover that your low-volume keyword is low-volume because it’s seasonal.
Or you may see that the average sale price for a product associated with your high-volume keyword is lower than where your product is priced.
These are all things that have a massive impact on your traffic and your sales. And you can only find out this information by taking a deep dive into your Etsy keywords with Marmalead.
Research Etsy keywords with Marmalead
Using Marmalead, you can simply type in your keyword and get an overview of important data for that specific keyword.
- Real search volume – Shows you how many searches a keyword is expected to have from genuine shoppers over the next 30 days
- Real engagement – How many unique visits a keyword is expected to generate over the next 30 days
- Long tail status – Shows if this keyword will help put your store at the top of a search result
- Competition – A scale of how many other Etsy products rank for this keyword
- Engagement over time – Explains that if a keyword has more searches and clicks over a certain time of year
- Similar keywords – Similar keywords that have different metrics that may also be beneficial to your store
Remember earlier when we explained that Etsy themselves suggested that you should brainstorm?
Using your collection of keywords, Marmalead can help generate massive lists of keyword ideas. What’s more, you can easily see how likely this keyword will get your product found, added to a cart, or favorited.
Reseach Etsy keywords to find out more about your customer
One example you read earlier was “flamingo pillow cover” and “flamingo pillowcase.” But what about the keyword “flamingo pillow slip”? Or “bird decor” or “flamingo merch”?
All these keywords are relevant to your product. Often, when we get so focused on calling something by a specific name, we forget that other people call it different things.
Look at the regional uses of the word “soda,” “pop,” and “soft drink” in the US alone.
And when you, the Etsy seller, focus on calling your product one thing, you let a lot of opportunity slip. Good, in-depth keyword research can help you solve this. You’ll get a wave of ideas, see how else you can describe your product, and even learn entirely different phrases you can use.
Simply put, good Etsy keyword research can make or break your Etsy store. So use the right tools for the right job, and you’ll get the right results.
Over to you
Researching your Etsy keywords can be intimidating if you’ve had nothing to do with marketing before. But with the information you’ve read above, as well as valuable tools like Marmalead, you’ll be able to set your Etsy store up for more and more traffic and more sales.
Interested in more things you should know before you start an Etsy shop? Are buyers finding your shop and browsing your products, but you still can’t make the sale? Well, making the sale is that much easier once you know How to Master Your Etsy Product Photography.
If you’re ready for the next article in our Complete Guide for Everything You Need to Know to Succeed on Etsy, then here it is:
↓ ↓ ↓
Etsy Shipping Costs and How to Calculate Them
