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Coming up with new designs for LHS products is one of the things people struggle with the most. I always tell people “simple sells.” But sometimes, people overthink the process or they have a hard time finding profitable niches.
In this post, I offer five suggestions for how you can come up with new design ideas based on what’s trending. That way, you’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall. You’re taking a more pointed approach, which is more likely to result in sales.
These suggestions are all Etsy-related. But you don’t have to use them for only your Etsy designs. These suggestions also work for the products you list on Amazon and eBay.
That said, let’s take a look at how you can discover what’s trending now for your new design ideas…
Use Etsy’s search bar
One of the simplest ways to search for what’s trending is to use Etsy’s search bar. Go to Etsy.com and simply start typing keywords or phrases into the search bar.
You’ll notice that as you begin to type, Etsy shows you a list of related, popular keywords in a dropdown. You can use this list as inspiration for new design ideas.
For example, if you type the word “mom” into the search bar, this is what you see:
Not every keyword will lead to inspiration, but from this list, the keyword that stands out to me is “mommy and me.” If you click through on that keyword phrase, you’ll find a bunch of product sets with one item aimed at moms and the other aimed at children.
For example…
As you scroll, you’ll find a lot of design inspiration that would make great product bundles.
To get even more out of this technique, you can use the plugin Keywords Everywhere. I haven’t used this plugin myself, but one of my assistants told me about it.
You do need to purchase credits to use the plugin, but my assistant said she will spend $10 at a time to get 100,000 credits (aka keyword searches), and she says it’s definitely worth the investment.
You can install the plugin for Chrome and Firefox. Just click the install button on whichever browser you prefer. Then, follow the prompts to add and install the plugin.
Once you do that, when you type keywords into the Etsy search bar, you’ll be able to see search volume, how much the keywords are worth, and a graph of the keywords’ popularity. For example, if you type “funny birthday gift,” you see…
Using the plugin is great for finding design inspiration that also factors in keyword popularity and for performing keyword research, helping you find the best keywords to add to your listings’ titles and descriptions.
Without this plugin, you can still find great design inspiration. You just won’t be able to tell how popular the keywords are.
Look at competitors’ designs
One of the easiest ways to research your competitors is to type a keyword phrase you’d like to rank for into the Etsy search bar — for example, “funny mug for mom.”
Then, you can arrange the results by “top customer reviews.”
This allows you to view the top-rated products and designs for that particular keyword phrase so you can get a sense of what customers are looking for and like.
Of course, you never want to copy any of the designs you see exactly. This is just a means of getting inspired and gaining a sense of what works well.
Use Erank’s trending feature
Erank is a great tool. You can use the trending feature to see the hottest daily and monthly keywords on Etsy, Amazon, and Ebay.
Daily
It might be hard to see in the image above, but the top trending daily keywords for Etsy are…
- handmade jewelry
- home decor
- coffee
- gifts
- bridesmaid gifts
The top trending daily keywords for Amazon are…
- desk
- tv stand
- wireless mouse
- iPhone 11 case
- desk chair
And the top trending daily keywords for eBay are…
- vintage
- refrigerator
- gaming PC
- mannequin
- Dungeons and Dragons
Monthly
I recommend looking at both the daily and monthly trends. But you’ll likely get more out of the monthly option, as it allows you to browse specific categories so you can find more relevant results. I like clicking the Home & Living category
When I do that, I see the following results:
- wall decor
- prints
- mugs for him
- neon sign
- outdoor and gardening decor
Obviously, not all of the results you find will be super relevant to your business. But a keyword phrase like “mugs for him” can be a good starting point, although that particular phrase was likely trending last month due to Father’s Day so it may no longer be as popular.
Check Marmalead’s forecast feature
To use Marmalead, you need to sign up for Marmalead Entrepreneur, which costs $19 a month. Generally, I try to recommend free tools and resources, so this suggestion isn’t super “low hanging.” But there is value in it if you decide to make the investment.
After signing up, input a keyword phrase into the search bar. Using the previous suggestion, you might try “mugs for him.”
Marmalead will then analyze your keywords, letting you know things like…
- “the number of unique searches the keyword is expected to generate over the next 30 days”
- “the number of unique visits the keyword is expected to generate over the next 30 days”
- and the level of competition your keyword is expected to have
If you continue scrolling, you’ll see the amount of engagement your keyword has had over time. This is where you’ll also see Marmalead’s forecast for your keyword’s future popularity.
Here are the results for “mugs for him”:
As you can see, there was a big spike in June 2021, which makes sense. Erank said this phrase was trending last month and it was over Father’s Day.
Looking at the forecast, though, it doesn’t look like this keyword is going to remain popular in the coming months.
You can experiment with different keywords and keyword phrases until you find some with upward trending forecasts. These would be good keywords to use for designs in your upcoming product launches.
Look at Etsy’s Seasonal Tips
When you click the link above, you arrive at a page in the Etsy Seller Handbook that contains a bunch of articles (currently, there are 78) sharing “trends and advice to help you capitalize on peak shopping seasons, online and in person.”
You can sort the articles by relevance, newest to oldest, or oldest to newest. Here are some of the titles you’ll find in there now:
Not all of the tips laid out in these articles will apply to the products you sell. But you can usually tease out a bunch of ideas to use as foundational elements for your designs.
I really hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any tips or advice that you can share about coming up with new design ideas, please leave a comment below. Also, if you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with your friends and followers.
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