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While many people *love* coming up with new designs and have no shortage of new LHS ideas, sometimes it’s fun to optimize what you’ve already got working.
See, a big part of the Low Hanging System involves throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks (i.e. what sells well and what doesn’t).
And after you’ve got that going, one of the best ways to figure out what direction to take with your items is to analyze what’s worked in the past and then go from there.
Below, you’ll find four easy strategies to optimize your Amazon and Etsy stores’ earning potential by looking at your stores’ bestselling items and top search queries.
Let’s take a look…
Create variations of bestsellers using a similar phrase
Do you have any best-selling items in your stores? If so, awesome! If they’re text-based, take a look at the phrases you used. Then, see if you can come up with different variations.
If your initial designs resonated with customers, chances are the variations will resonate too. Keep the variations close to the original phrases. They should convey the same sentiments. But change enough so the designs are definitely different.
For example, if you have a design that says…
You are the best mom ever. No other moms come close. If I had another mom, I’d put myself up for adoption and come find you.
You could create a new variation of this that says something like…
You are the greatest mom in the world. There’s no one else like you. If I had another mom, I’d run away from home and look for you.
Additionally, while I usually tell people to keep their designs simple (i.e. text-based using a single black font), another way to create variations of your bestsellers is to use the same phrase but make it with a different font and/or font color.
For example, if your original design has black text with Arial font, make another design using blue text with a script font, like Pacifico, shown below.
Create variations of bestsellers using different products
Similarly, if you have a best-selling design on a particular product — for example, a coffee mug — take that same design and apply it to different items.
CustomHappy offers a variety of products, including…
- mugs
- t-shirts
- socks
- face masks
- coasters
- journals
- ornaments
- pillowcases
- posters
- beer steins
- water bottles
- shot glasses
- and more
When you create designs for one of these products, you can put those same designs onto pretty much any of the other products as well. For example, if you have a best-selling design on a coffee mug that says…
I like pit bulls more than I like most people.
…you can put that same design onto a shot glass, pillowcase, face mask, water bottle, t-shirt, et cetera. If customers like the design on one product, odds are they’ll like it on other products too.
Search analytics inside Etsy
Inside your Etsy Shop Manager, you can check out your Etsy analytics to view the top keywords shoppers have been using in their search queries. Then, you can come up with text-based design ideas based on these keywords.
To view your Etsy analytics, click where it says Marketing inside your Shop Manager then select Search analytics. Here, you can adjust the timeframe to look at analytics from…
- this month
- last month
- this year
- last year
- or custom
Then, look at the section that says…
You can filter the columns however you think makes the most sense to find the top search queries for your shop. According to Etsy, this is what each of these columns represents:
Impressions = “Total appearance in search”
Position = “Average position of your listings when appearing in a search”
Visits = “Total visits to your shop and listings”
Conversion Rate = “% of visits that turned into a sale”
Orders = “Number of purchases”
Revenue = “Your gross revenue resulting from Etsy search”
Average order value = “Average amount paid per order”
Listings = “Listings that appeared for this search query”
The keywords used in your shop’s top search queries let you know what customers are searching for to find your listings. They also tell you how customers are interacting with those listings — for example, if they’re just clicking on the listings (impressions) or if they’re also purchasing (conversion rate and revenue).
You can use these findings to steer the course of any subsequent designs you create, not only for Etsy but for Amazon and any other selling platform you sell on as well.
For example, when I review my Etsy analytics for the last month and sort the columns by impressions (highest to lowest), these are the top search queries I see:
These particular keywords give me a better idea of the types of products people are most interested in. I can also look for other words – for example, with my results, the word “funny” shows up a couple of times and gives me a more specific idea about what shoppers are looking for.
Then, if I sort by visits, I can see what search queries are actually getting people to click through on my listings.
From these results, I can learn more about the topics people are interested in.
Another interesting way to sort the columns is by revenue, which shows the top search queries for shoppers who actually made purchases.
This is the most useful metric and gives me a really good idea of the types of niches I should create more products for in the future.
All in all, this is a pretty helpful feature. :)
And by the way – if you’d like to add Google Analytics to your Etsy shops for even MORE data, you can learn how to do that here.
Gather ideas from your best-selling items with the search bar
After creating designs based on the exact keywords customers are using to find your listings, you can continue to follow the Low Hanging System, focusing on the niche categories related to your best-selling items.
For example, if you have a best-selling item that includes the keyword phrase “teacher gifts,” you can plug that phrase into Etsy’s search bar to see what else appears in the dropdown…
You might try selecting “teacher gifts beginning of the year” and check out those product listings. Here are some examples…
Then, based on the results you see, you can come up with fresh spins and create new designs for your store. Etsy is great at helping you to figure out what shoppers are actually searching for, which takes some of the guesswork out of optimizing your store.
I hope you found this quick list of easy strategies to optimize your Etsy and Amazon listings useful. If you have any other pieces of advice to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below! And if you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with your friends and followers.
