eRank’s Keyword Lists: A Demo

Today, we’ve got a demo on how to use Keyword Lists. It’s one of eRank’s most popular Etsy SEO tools. Just a couple clicks will save any keyword to a list alongside its latest search data. (Data that updates automatically: yay!) You can view 15 months of search-trend history for each keyword. Sort, color-code, filter, add and save notes.

Then use the onboard Listing Builder to gather your tags and compose the title for your next Etsy listing. When you’re done, just click the clipboard icon to move them to your Etsy listing. Now then, let’s get you out from under all those sticky notes!

In this demo, we’ll create a keyword list together. You’ll see how this feature neatens, streamlines, and speeds the task of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Freeing you to do more of the fun stuff!

Creating our first list

You can access this tool two ways. From the Main Menu, select Tools, then Keyword Lists. Or just click the “Keyword Lists” button in the top left corner of any eRank page.

Next, you will see this page.

As shown above, for this demo we’ve already made a few lists. So, we’ve got columns populated with data already. List names, the number of keywords each list contains, and when each list was last updated. There’s also a column labeled “Flags.” These you can use to color-code your lists (more about that in a bit).

We’ll click that orange “Create New List” button there in the upper left corner to give our new list a name. Let’s say we are doing research today for our new pet-themed digital art shop on Etsy, “MiasPawPrints.”

Finding keywords with good Etsy SEO for our list

When we enter “digital dog drawing” in Keyword Explorer, this is what we find.

Hmmm. This term does have an excellent click-through rate (CTR). On the Search Trend graph, we see it had two bumps in popularity over the past 15 months – good to know. However, glancing back at the Keyword Statistics bar chart, we notice Average Searches and Average Clicks are both low. So, we’ll skip this term for now.

While we’re here though: notice that blue widget in the lower left corner? On any eRank tool page, the Keyword List you last used will be floating there. To switch to another Keyword List, just click it. A blue window will open with a menu of your lists from which to choose.

Next, let’s scroll down the Keyword Explorer results page to the Related Searches table.

The first three entries are all one-word keywords. Now, we don’t recommend putting a one-word search term by itself in a listing tag. But they can be worth adding to your Keyword Lists. Why is this? Here are just two reasons.

Check the Character Count column. You can fit all three of these into one tag. This helps get your listing in front of shoppers using any of those words to search. And you can also use these one-word searches to monitor trends right from your Keyword List! Want to know when this year people might search for “digital,” “dog,” and “drawing” the most? Just click the gray stars next to those terms to add them to your Keyword List. Then it will keep an eye on them for you.

Let’s find some long-tail keywords!

Next, we’ll enter “custom dog painting” in Keyword Explorer.

Compared with our first search, “digital dog drawing,” this one has spectacular stats! Much lower Etsy competition, sky-high CTR, and quite good average searches and clicks. We’ll definitely add this one to our Keyword List!

How about “dog portrait custom painting?” Again, excellent keyword statistics, as well as several spikes in popularity over the past 15 months. This one is worth adding to the list as well.

Scrolling down the Keyword Explorer page to Related Searches, we can pick out more keywords to try. Of course, the more popular search terms usually have daunting competition. But if you see what Etsy calls a “superstar keyword” for your item, then it’s worth striving to rank for it. Here’s how Etsy defines a superstar keyword.

…“the most descriptive phrases and keywords that best describe your products, or the ones that have been most successful in matching shoppers with your listings in the past. For example, in our [Etsy’s] shop stats tool or Search Analytics, you can see exact phrases that shoppers have used to find your listings and make sure that those superstar keywords are included in both your titles and your tags.”

from “Your Search Questions Answered,” Etsy Seller Handbook

All about using flags

Let’s take a look at what we have so far. We’ll click our blue Keyword List widget floating in the lower left of our screen. The blue window opens and this time we’ll select “View List.”

Remember those flags we mentioned? These are for color-coding your keywords. Color-code them according to popularity, seasonality…it’s up to you. Whatever works best for your needs, what you want to see at a glance. Red for “dead trend,” for example. (Tip! There are eight colors. You could take a minute to jot down a quick key in the Keyword Lists field in the upper left of the page.)

Here, we’re employing flags to mark the single-term keywords we’re using to monitor seasonality.

What months do people search for “digital,” “dog,” and “drawing” the most? Oh, and another tip! You can see search volume by month: just hover your mouse over the bars in the 15-mo Trend Graphs.

Tips for using the Notes column

Another convenient feature in the table is the Notes column. Click the pencil to add a note about that particular keyword. The Notes column is sortable by the first word you enter there. So, if you like that kind of thing, plan your entries there around it.

You could make a habit of starting each note by whatever filter words work for you. For example, “Down Mar 2023” for a keyword that loses search volume following Valentine’s Day. Then later, you can sort by Down, or search your Notes for “Down” or “2023” or “Mar.”

Grab and drag the lower right corner of the text box; that will enlarge it to fit lots more text if you need it. Control+find will find any words or numbers in these – but only the first five or so that are visible when the text box is collapsed. Therefore, also plan your entries with that facility in mind.

Save time making new Etsy listings with Listing Builder

In the top right corner, you’ll find Listing Builder. This ingenious feature is exactly what it sounds like – a tool you can use to create your tags and title for a new Etsy listing.

Tip: Clicking the padlock beside the name “Listing Builder” allows this section to follow you down the page as you scroll. Super helpful if you are browsing a lengthy Keyword List. (And conversely, to make it stay put when you prefer it out of the way!)

Another tip: doing tags first is easier!

Let’s select a keyword on our list; we just click its checkbox. When we do, we see four new orange buttons appear on the right above the table.

• Copy to another list
• Remove tag from Listing Builder
• Add tag to Listing Builder
• Delete keywords

We’ve clicked “Add tag to Listing Builder” to do just that. It now appears in the Listing Tags section in Listing Builder. (Incidentally, you can also add tags to Listing Builder any time you’re working in the table. Just click that keyword’s “Add / Remove” button in the table’s last column, labeled “Listing Builder.”)

Back up to Listing Builder now, did you notice that little “2” after the word “painting” there? Super useful: that tells us our keyword phrase exceeds Etsy’s 20-character limit for tags. No problem! And yet another excellent reason to save one-word entries to our Keyword Lists. Let’s fit one of our single-word keywords in there next to painting. “Digital” works. Remember, word order in tags doesn’t matter to Etsy’s algorithm.

Working with your Keyword Lists

Want to create another list? Yep: just click the orange “Create New List” button in the upper left corner of the table. Beside it is the “Add Keywords” button. That’s for when you come across a keyword you want to add to this list.

Just to the right of those is the “Filter keyword” search box. That helps when you want to see only search terms containing a given word.

And to the right of the Filter box, see the US flag? That’s the default. Click there to switch to any of Etsy’s other top-buying countries. You’ll see their data on trends, searches, clicks, and competition. Always interesting! Even if you don’t currently sell outside the US or to, say, Australia.

The quota there beside the country field is a counter that tracks how many keywords are in this particular Keyword List.  Free members can save one keyword to one list, Basic members can save up to 25 keywords to up to 25 different lists, Pro members can save up to 50 keywords to up to 50 different lists, and Expert members can save up to 100 keywords to up to 100 different lists.

Bulk Rank Checker and Exporting

Who doesn’t love eRank’s Bulk Rank Checker? Like Rank Checker, Bulk Rank Checker searches for your listings on the first two pages of Etsy search results – but Bulk Rank Checker does it for up to 20 different search terms at once! Want to see whether you are ranking well for your superstar keywords? This is how to find out!

And that’s why there’s a handy shortcut right here in Keyword Lists to take you to it. To use Bulk Rank Checker from here, we just hit that “Export” button, and select “Export as CSV.” That will download your Keyword List to whatever spreadsheet program you use. From there, copy the first column (just the keywords) and paste into Bulk Rank Checker. And voila: your list of keywords will auto populate there.

And of course, you can also use the Export button to copy, print, or export your Keyword List and results to CSV, Excel or PDF.

Wow: that’s a lot! Overwhelmed?

Is viewing all the data in the Keyword Tool table a bit much? We know it can be until you feel familiar with how it all works. Or maybe it’s just that for some tasks you don’t require every field. Not a problem! You can remove some columns. Just click that white gear icon right beside the “Export” button, and then hit “Apply Changes” there at the bottom of the window.

And whenever you want, you can always add them back!

Got questions?

See the eRank seedling logo circled in red below? It always floats in the bottom right of any eRank page. Just click that; a text box will open and you can send a message. One of us here at eRank will get right back to you.

Or, stop by eRank’s private Facebook community. With over 24,000 members around the world, someone friendly is always around to help.

 

RESOURCES

Here are some Etsy SEO articles from our blog library

Etsy SEO Basics

7 Factors that Affect Rank on Etsy

Etsy SEO: These Factors Help Your Etsy Search Ranking

 

Here are some from our YouTube channel

Listing Helper Uses AI to Simplify Etsy Tags Titles and Descriptions

Etsy Ranking Secrets: Unveiled!

How To Optimise Etsy Listings With eRank’s Listing Audit Tool

 

And here’s that Etsy article we quoted: Your Search Questions Answered,” Etsy Seller Handbook