Published: October 22, 2024
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
The busiest shopping season is near, and now is the time to polish your Etsy shop and make any necessary tweaks to your listings. To catch the eyes of buyers and help your listings rank higher in search, take some time to research last year’s trends as well as understanding the most popular keywords for this year.
Use eRank’s tools—like the Monthly Trends Report and Keyword Tool—to gain valuable insights to improve your listings and get your products in front of more holiday shoppers. Let’s dive deeper into how these tools can help you this season as well as some additional tips to improve your listings just in time for the holidays!
Summary (TLDR)
- Use eRank’s Monthly Trends Tool to identify popular holiday keywords from previous years.
- Find trending holiday-related keywords with eRank’s Keyword Tool to track when they start trending.
- Apply holiday-specific attributes—if they truly fit—to ensure better visibility and customer satisfaction.
- Add holiday-themed visuals to your online shop and inform buyers about gift wrapping options and shipping cut-off dates to make your shop holiday-ready.
Research Past Holiday Trends
To best prepare for the holiday season this year, it’s important to research the past. Finding the keywords that were popular last year can help you optimize your Etsy listings this year. Use eRank’s Monthly Trends Report to see the most popular keywords for up to 15 months in the past. You’re even able to drill down in this tool to see only Christmas-specific keywords.
If you look at the trending Christmas keywords from November 2023 in the US on Etsy, you see which products were popular last year. Items such as ornaments, shirts, cards, and stockings had thousands of searches in 2023. When planning your future products, explore these types of products, if they fall within your craft or niche.
Find Popular Holiday Keywords
It is critical to look at the search trend graphs for holiday keywords to learn when they begin trending. In general, the best practice is to have your items listed about three months before the actual holiday to give buyers time to make those purchases.
For example, look at the keyword “Christmas.” Although the holiday is in December, this keyword began trending upward in September. In that month alone, the keyword “Christmas” had over 60,000 searches on Etsy in the US.
Use eRank’s Keyword Tool to perform research to see when any keyword began trending. This knowledge can give you a competitive edge by allowing you to plan your products, launches, and marketing ahead of time. Once you find the keywords that buyers use during the holiday season, add them to your own listings to match shoppers’ searches.
Use Holiday Attributes
When listing products for the holiday season, it is tempting to categorize them as “Christmas” items with Etsy’s Holiday Attribute. You may think, “This item could be given as a Christmas gift, so I am going to categorize it as a Christmas item.” While it seems like an ideal way to drive more traffic to your listings, mis-categorizing listings can lead to a disappointing experience for shoppers.
Use the Holiday and Occasion attributes only if your listings are specifically for that purpose. For example, a plain blue mug—while it could be gifted for Christmas—does not qualify for the “Christmas” attribute. However, a white mug with a Christmas tree on it does qualify as a “Christmas” item, and the “Christmas” attribute should be used.
For an in-depth look at how to use holiday attributes correctly, check out the eRank blog Using Holiday Attributes Effectively, as well as the Add Attributes to Help Increase Your Shop’s Visibility section of the Etsy Seller Handbook.
Spruce Up Your Shop
Now is the time to plan your marketing for the holiday season. This includes “decorating” your Etsy shop to make it more appealing to holiday shoppers. Think about the feeling you get when you walk into a brick-and-mortar store that is decked out for the holidays. Imagine how to give your buyers this same sense of awe and wonder when they visit your online Etsy shop.
Consider adding winter graphics to your shop banner or listing thumbnails. Include some splashes of holiday colors or props in your listing photos, videos, and social media posts. Add a listing photo displaying gift wrap options or how your items are packaged. And very important—don’t forget to include information about holiday shipping cut-off dates.
For more ideas on how to spruce up your shop, read The Power of “Decorating” Your Etsy Shop on the eRank blog.
Get Your Shop Ready for the Holidays
Getting ready for the holiday season on Etsy is all about planning ahead and making informed decisions based on solid data. With a little research and time spent making little changes to your shop, you can set yourself up for success this holiday season.
This advice applies not only to the holiday season, but other holidays as well. Whether you market for Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, these tips are universal and can help you get an edge over your competition this winter.
Now’s the time to take action—start optimizing your shop today and make this holiday season your most successful one yet! 🎁
