We’re back with Canada’s top Etsy keywords for March 2024. Let us take the guesswork out of your Etsy SEO. We’ll show you the most popular Canadian shopper searches. Then we’ll analyze what these trending keywords tell us about what’s selling best on Etsy in Canada now.
Reading time: 16 minutes
Rather watch a video summary of this report? Our Pam Duthie’s made one for you!
Tip: See what Canada’s top Etsy keywords were yesterday (or last week, or for the past thirty days), as well as on dozens of other marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping.
Want to read the US report first? Here you go!
March’s Top 20 Etsy keywords in Canada
- decor
- wall art
- stickers
- kitchen
- gift
- necklace
- handmade jewelry
- personalized gift
- womens clothing
- easter gift
- furniture
- mug
- ring
- handmade furniture and decor
- earrings
- home decor
- clothing
- tote bag
- keychain
- wedding gift
As always, we’ll begin our analysis with what’s on this Top 20 list that was not on last month’s. It’s one indicator of how much instability there is in current trends. Benchmarks: a turnover of fewer than five new is stagnant. (We only saw this early in the pandemic.) More than nine new is quite a volatile rate of change.
Back in your February Top 20, you had seven climbers. Just enough to keep it fresh. And only one of those hadn’t made your previous month’s Top 1000.
Which brings us to March and what the heck, Canada? You guys are back on the roller coaster! You have 12 climbers, and FIVE of them are screamers! We call them that because they seem to scream into the Top 20 out of nowhere. And five is a LOT. So, let’s get right to them, shall we?
Hottest keywords with Canada’s Etsy shoppers in March
Here are your 12 climbers, listed with current search rank first.
#4 kitchen, up from #242
#6 necklace, up from #39
#7 handmade jewelry, up from #81
#8 personalized gift, up from #49
#10 easter gift (didn’t rank in February’s Top 1000)
#11 furniture (didn’t rank in February’s Top 1000)
#12 mug, up from #91
#14 handmade furniture and decor (didn’t make February’s Top 1000)
#17 clothing, up from #52
#18 tote bag, up from #28
#19 keychain (didn’t make February’s Top 1000)
#20 wedding gift (didn’t make February’s Top 1000)
Now, some of these are not as crazy as they appear at first glance. For instance, #12 “mug” ranked down at #91 in February, but the plural “mugs” ranked way up in fourth place. 14th-ranked screamer “handmade furniture and decor” didn’t rank in February, but “furniture and decor” did, at #292. Nineteenth-ranked screamer “keychain” didn’t make February’s Top 1000, but “keychains” did; it placed 84th. March screamer “wedding gift” in plural form ranked 90th in February.
So those don’t pose much of a mystery. Let’s look first at those that do.
#4 kitchen
Up from ranking #242 in February, here is “kitchen” in Keyword Tool. And check out this Search Trend line chart here on the right.
That’s a spike alright. Month on Month, kitchen is up by 644%. And that seems like a wow until we look at Year on Year: YoY it’s up by 1,423%. Holy cow, right?
But before we get too excited, let’s take a closer look at that Keyword Stats chart. The third bar down, for Average CTR (click-through rate) is not promising: 85%. Calculated just for the month of March though, the current CTR is 112%. Hmm.
Yet there are no other keywords with “kitchen” in your Top 1000. And in its related-keywords table, there’s a dearth of trending shopper searches. All in all then, maybe just add it to a Keyword List and let that monitor this one for awhile.
#6 necklace
Necklace ranked #39 in February. You’d think with Valentine’s Day well passed, it would have sunk since rather than climbed. Interesting!
At least this data looks more reasonable than kitchen’s. Average CTR is 106%. Nice. Competition from your fellow Etsy sellers is practically half (55%) what it is for “kitchen.”
And yet Canadian kitchenware sellers are competing for 4,675 average monthly searches. Whereas over the past 12 months, “necklace” has gotten an average of 19,425 Canadian shopper searches. (12,750 in March. As you can see above right, this keyword is still in recovery mode from that odd 15-mo low in February.)
Where we also see promise is that there are 28 other search terms with the word “necklace” in your March Top 1000. As we mentioned, “kitchen” had none. And here is the related-keywords table for “necklace.”
New to eRank? Here’s how to find Canadian shopper searches related to “necklace” that are currently trending highest. First, we filtered the Keyword Ideas table by Broad. (We added a yellow arrow beside it.) Then, to view highest search volume by current month, we clicked the sort icon beside the Search Trend header. (Where the second yellow arrow points down.)
And there are some good leads here! While competition for necklace is almost 300,000, the very next keyword, “cross necklace” has just 8,184! And in March it had 5,500 searches with a CTR of 118%.
Compare that table with poor kitchen’s.
It’s sorted the same, high to low by most recent search volume. The shopper search after “kitchen” is “kitchen decor.” It had 1,150 searches in March. Not terrible. But the third-ranked search is “kitchen island” with a measly 250 searches. And they drop precipitously after that.
Are you are new and looking for what to sell on Etsy?
This is a helpful way to research the viability of a niche. Don’t let your head be turned by a broad keyword’s current rank! You need to dig a bit, and this is one worthwhile way to start your treasure hunt.
As a rule, all the Top 20 keywords are too broad for mere mortals to rank for. If you see one that interests you, type it into Keyword Tool, then study the Keyword Stats bar chart. Review the Search Trend line chart to see how it’s performed over the past 15 months.
Then “niche down.” Scroll down the Keyword Tool page to see which of the related searches you might be able to rank for. Be sure to sort your results by the Search Trend column to see how they are doing now. And there are so many other ways to filter and sort the Keyword Ideas table. You’ll discover lots of leads! Just click the star beside each one you like. That will add it to a Keyword List.
Meanwhile, let’s move on to our next March climber – as it happens, it’s another in the Jewelry category.
#7 handmade jewelry, up from #81
Here it is in Keyword Tool. And it’s another that’s interesting.
That is quite the spike a year ago in March. We know Canada celebrates Mother’s Day on the same day as the US (May 14 in 2023). So what the heck was driving that mad high March surge? Nearly double that of February with its last-minute Valentine’s Day shopping. January – when Valentine’s Day Etsy gift shopping typically peaks – saw 16,800 searches. Which was excellent: it just got dwarfed by March 2023’s search volume.
Intrigued, we had a quick peek at last year’s trend report for March. And aha: of Canada’s top Etsy keywords that month, “handmade jewelry” was No. 1. It was No. 2 in Australia and the US. Back then, we assumed it was an organic shopper search. By “organic” we mean a keyword that shoppers typed into Etsy’s search bar.
We’ve learned a lot since then. For one, Canada’s Etsy shoppers are far more likely to use their standard (British) spelling, “jewellery,” in searches. Which brings us to…
The Ghost in the Machine (Etsy, that is)
Here’s an Etsy promo you get when you click the “Gifts for Mum” prompt on Canada’s current Etsy homepage.
As we circled here in yellow, the word “jewellery” appears three times. But our sharp-eyed Pam Duthie spotted something. While the word on the page has the British spelling, up in the browser bar it shifts to “jewelry” (US spelling). And in this next screenshot, you can see what happens when Canadian shoppers select “Jewellery” from the side menu.
Etsy’s been doing this for awhile. When a shopper clicks any of these “call to action” (CTA) prompts, Etsy records it as a click – and uses the US spelling. Was there an Etsy CTA prompt labelled “handmade jewellery” in March? If so, its clicks got recorded as “handmade jewelry.”
Another thing we’ve been seeing with some CTAs like “handmade jewellery” and “gifts for mum”…
Their click-through rates tend to be lower than organic shopper searches. Understandably: lots of those shoppers are on Etsy looking for something else entirely. Then get diverted by that enticing prompt. They click it out of curiosity, but don’t go on to click any resultant listings. Why not? Because they’re not shopping for those products. Therefore, they lack “purchase intent.”
New to online selling? Here, each time shoppers use a particular “call to action” keyword, it gets recorded as a search. If they click a listing in the search results, that factors into the keyword’s click-through rate. We care about these because clicks and click-through rates signal purchase intent. That is, how close a shopper is to deciding to buy as opposed to one who’s still browsing. (Or one who just clicked that promotional prompt out of curiosity.)
But Etsy knows that some of those curious browsers remember later what they saw. The next time they need a gift, they may well think, “Hey, handmade jewellery!” We do believe this must happen a lot. Why? Because we know Etsy has a positively stupefying amount of data on shopper behavior. And Etsy plays the long game. While that CTA may not result in a click-through and purchase today, we bet Etsy knows it will pay off eventually. And your handmade jewelry sales will improve.
#8 personalized gift, up from #49
Geez Louise, here’s another search using the American spelling. All that we just said regarding jewelry/jewellery applies to the spelling of personalized and personalised. Here is “personalized gift.”
That bright Kelly-green banner indicates this search has also been popular with Canada’s Etsy shoppers this week (April 6-12). In March there were 10,800 searches. Again, they only appear low due to that giant Christmas-shopping spike that peaked at 99,900 in November. Both Month on Month and Year on Year, “personalized gift” is currently well up.
For those of you offering personalization, here are eight more searches in Canada’s top Etsy keywords. In rank order, personalized gifts, personalized gift for her (high CTR!), personalized jewelry, personalised jewellery (high CTR!), personalized baby blanket (good CTR), personalized hip flask (high CTR!), dog tags for dogs personalized (good CTR), and personalized gifts for women.
Not to mention the 20 more keywords in your Top 1000 searches with the word “custom/customized.” A lot of shoppers currently seem to use personalized and customized interchangeably. It’s a good niche to be in if you’re looking for what to sell on Etsy.
Canada’s top Etsy keywords that climbed fastest in March
These are your five “screamers:” shopper searches on your March Top 20 list that didn’t even chart in February.
#10 easter gift
Another what the heck, eh? Zero search volume this time last year. Despite its current spike of 10,400 searches, “easter gift” has a CTR for the month of 65%. We call shenanigans: we think Etsy’s got its mitts in this. Apparently, their algorithm hasn’t learned yet that humans don’t exchange gifts much at Easter. (Let’s just move on.)
#11 furniture
Furniture has been popping up on Top 20 lists in all four of Etsy’s top-selling countries (and France!) It’s been happening for at least a couple of years now. Let’s have a look at your stats.
It’s another keyword that’s been popular with Canada’s Etsy shoppers this past week. And it looks pretty sweet at present. Average CTR 109%, and for such a broad search term, competition from your fellow Canadian sellers isn’t bad: 26,150. Over on the Search Trend line chart, we can see it’s now at its second-highest peak in 15 months.
Furniture is also a US climber this month, ranking 12th on their Top 20. And in our inaugural quarterly trend report, it ranked 17th. In the US market though, search volume hasn’t dipped below 50,000 in the past five months. Yours dropped to just 300 in February.
And given Canada’s higher shipping costs? And the possibility of customers filing cases that leave you on the hook for return shipping? Brr. Furniture isn’t a niche we’d recommend entering; at least not yet. Let’s watch it awhile longer to be sure it’s worth the risk.
#14 handmade furniture and decor
This one smells like Etsy, too. In March it got 9,150 searches but only 1,406 clicks; that’s a CTR of only 15%. Ouch! Let’s take a quick look at the data in Keyword Tool.
We chose to show you the pie chart because A) the bar chart’s keyword stats were abysmal. And B) that pie chart. The US and Canada sharing nearly all the world’s Etsy traffic for any organic shopper search is rare. “Handmade furniture and decor” is verrrryy likely a search Etsy promoted via a homepage CTA. Having apparently decided two years in a row that March is the prime time to do so.
A year ago in March, 50,850 Canadian Etsy shoppers were curious enough to click that CTA. Which made it your No. 2 search that month. But only 34,434 shoppers clicked on any listings shown them. That’s a CTR of 68%.
This March though? Looks like lots of them weren’t falling for it twice. Not that we’re suggesting Canadian shoppers aren’t interested in handmade products, or furniture items, or decor. We know they are! But you don’t have to worry about squeezing “handmade furniture and decor” into the prime real estate of your title. Nor (at 28 characters) tying up more than one tag. Niche down!
#19 keychain
We were surprised to see this as a screamer. For a few years now, “keychain” has been a frequent flier on lots of Top 20 Etsy Keywords lists.
Nevertheless, on the line graph we see that “keychain” plunged in February. Huh. No idea how come. Because the same graph shows just how strong a product this is. It’s only fallen much below 5,000 shopper searches that once in the past 15 months. And it’s exceeded 12,500 searches a month four times.
Now it has eRank’s bright green banner waving that it’s currently trending. Along with an admirable CTR of 106%. Of course, keychains have a low barrier to entry (being easy and cheap to make), so competition is daunting. You’ll need to niche down.
When we scrolled down to its related searches and sorted by the Search Trend column, look what we found.
We see that in March 2024 “name keychain” had 1,250 searches and only 3,681 shops use this keyword. But search volume is mostly nil – apart from two spikes, curiously enough both in March.
Etsy at it again? Maybe park this one in a Keyword List and let that mind it awhile for you.
#20 wedding gift
Last one!
“Wedding gift” is way up both Year on Year and Month on Month. And it’s got the trend-alert banner. Last year, this keyword only began really climbing in May and peaked in August. Is it getting an early start this year? This is a roomy niche to get in on!
And you know we could go on and on…
But we know you’re busy! If you’d like more inspiration, check out the US report, the UK’s, and Australia’s (up next). Also, here’s that Etsy Q1 trend report; we’ll be doing these quarterly. If you’d rather listen while you work, Pam Duthie’s making video summaries of all these, too. They’re on eRank’s YouTube channel.
As always, we love hearing what you think. You’re welcome to join us in eRank’s private Facebook group. With over 28,000 members from around the world, someone friendly is always up and about. And don’t miss our weekly live Q&As on YouTube, where you’ll also find dozens of eRank tutorials, demos and more! Finally, here we are on TikTok with lots of fun and quick how-tos.
RESOURCES: eRank’s Trend Buzz and Keyword Tool have 15 months of historical Etsy search data to help you understand trends in what’s selling on Etsy now, what did well this time last year, and to help you spot what’s new. Together, they are the best way to track what’s popular with Canada’s Etsy shoppers now.