People come to Etsy all year round to shop for meaningful gifts. There are times of the year, where a large majority of the population is looking for a gift for the same reason. Some of Etsy’s biggest holidays for shopping are Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the holiday season. As Etsy sellers we hope that our items will land at the top of the shopper’s search results and they will purchase from us! There’s strategies that successful Etsy sellers use to target their listings for top holidays and events. We will cover tactically actions that you can take to increase your search ranking and conversion rate throughout the year. With the use of an Etsy Holiday Promotional Calendar you can have a focused effort on targeting shoppers around specific holidays throughout the year. Access the calendar here.

POPULAR SHOPPING HOLIDAYS AND EVENTS

First, let’s look at the some of the most popular holidays that Etsy shoppers are purchasing for. This isn’t a complete list; however, it’s a place to start!

January – Home Decorating, Mother’s Birthday 

February – Valentines Day 

March – Family Vacation, New Pet, Mothers Day (UK)

May – Mothers Day (USA)

June – Wedding & Wedding Anniversary 

September – Having a baby, back to school

October – Halloween

November – Holiday Shopping 

December – New Years Eve

UPDATING YOUR ETSY LISTINGS

When a holiday or event aligns with what you are selling as an Etsy seller, it can be a magical match! You just have to tell the Etsy search engine that you have a listing that a shopper is looking for, telling the search engine at the right time is key. Using the Etsy Holiday Promotional Calendar will help you stay organized! Access it here.

It takes about three months for Etsy search to really learn your listing’s keywords and determine its place in search. If you think about using Etsy search to it’s max potential, you will want to give it time to learn your listing’s new tags. With people shopping earlier and earlier for gifts, you will need to capture shoppers early. You need your targeted listings to gain momentum in search ranking. After three months of momentum the event tag will be at its best. When people are searching for their purchase your items will be ready to be seen in their search results. 

CHOOSING YOUR KEYWORDS

I suggest picking around the events or holidays that you really want to rank for and reserve 3 tags for your strategy.  You can certainly do more; but I like to keep it simple to start with. Look at the events above and pick your top three, or add holidays/events your business aligns with, trust me my list isn’t all encompassing.

Now, write down three key phrases that correspond to your event/holiday, make sure your keywords are less than 20 characters long. You’ll use these key phrases in your tags. If you want a template that helps you do this, the Etsy Keyword Template is a life saver. It helps keep your keywords within the character limit, saving your time and keeping you organized, access it here. 

When doing this exercise of coming up with your key phases, if you want to rank for the Mother’s Day event, one of your tags could be, “Mothers day gift”. If you have any describing words that fit in the character limit, it’s great to use those as well. For example, if you make custom or personalized items you could include the words “personalized” and “custom” in your event tag.

Remember, Etsy search uses a combination of words in your title, categories, attributes, and tags. When you add event/holiday key words in your tags it’s a part of that equation. Etsy will pull from your other keywords in those areas to create a search result back to the shopper. For example, if you are selling necklaces, when you tell Etsy that this would be a great “mothers day” gift via your keywords, you are giving our necklace a good chance to display when a shopper searches for “mothers day” items especially searches that also include the word necklace.

WHEN TO UPDATE YOUR ETSY LISTING’S KEYWORDS

So when should you start using those event/holiday based tags? I suggest four months ahead of the scheduled event, this way you give the etsy search algorithm the three months it needs to really learn your listing’s keywords and determine their place in search. After three months of momentum, the event/holiday tag will be at its best. When people are searching, your items will be ready to be seen in their search results. 

Here’s the event schedule, it now shows the months in which you should implement the corresponding tags. Remember, when you are first starting, pick the top three events that your target customer is likely to be searching on. 

Start implementing your tags in these months for the corresponding events: 

Adding Keywords & Tags:

January – Mothers Day (USA)

February – Wedding & Wedding Anniversary 

May- Having a baby, back to school

July – Holiday Shopping 

August – New Years

September – Home Decorating, Mother’s Birthday 

October – Valentines Day 

November – Family Vacation, New Pet, Mothers Day (UK)

When it’s time to remove your tags here’s key months to do so. You can of course give yourself a reminder to remove the tag the day after specific holidays, like valentines day. 

Removing Keywords & Tags: 

January – Holiday Shopping & New Years

February – Home Decorating, Mother’s Birthday 

March – Valentines Day 

April – Family Vacation, New Pet, Mothers Day (UK)

June – Mothers Day (USA)

July – Wedding & Wedding Anniversary 

October- Having a baby, back to school

November – Halloween

HERE’S YOUR CALENDAR REMINDERS

To help keep you organized I’ve made a google calendar for the above holidays and events, you can access the Etsy Holiday Promotional Calendar, here and then import it into your own google calendar and voila you will always remember when it’s time to add and remove tags for a popular event or holiday! Use this as a base and add in or remove any event/holidays that align with your shop.

If you’d like to learn more about how to find the right Etsy keywords and use them effectively in your Etsy Listings using the Etsy keyword template, check out this blog post. 

Shoppers are coming to Etsy throughout the year to purchase gifts, now we have a targeted strategy to align our keywords and tags for the event or holiday that shoppers are coming to Etsy to purchase for. With this type of planning ahead we will be able to use the Etsy Holiday Promotional Calendar, access here, to optimize our listings so they are ready to be seen when a shopper is ready to purchase! Cha-Ching!