I discovered a simple trick to improve your product's visibility and probably sales

[JimCarnicelli]

I’ve been working recently on improving our Niche Analysis tool. These “niches” are searches customers do on Zazzle, filtered and transformed by Zazzle to send to Google in hopes of bringing more people in. Some of our users and I have noticed that there are many of these niches (Zazzle searches) that should naturally match their products but for some reason don’t. Here’s an example of a frustrating Niche Analysis of one of our products:

This list is my site trying to simulate hundreds of thousands of searches on Zazzle all at once to see what might match this product. That “Actual?” column is the site going and performing each of those listed searches on Zazzle immediately. All those “Nope” values are exactly what they seem to be. Not found!

I made a simple change I’ll describe in a moment. But here’s the result of that change:

For the “black white new york postcards” niche/search this product now appears to be the 4th search result. It’s actually 9th if I do the search by hand, but close enough:

But yeah. Suddenly this product is matching most of those Zazzle searches. What’s the magic change I did? I added the word “postcards” as a tag.

Say what? Yeah. I deleted one of the tags (“usa”) and added “postcards”. And suddenly all those searches match. So what’s going on here? As usual Zazzle added “Postcard” to the product name (“Manhattan Street New York USA Travel Vintage Art Postcard”). But it turns out that Zazzle’s search is more sensitive than I thought to singular versus plural versions of product type names (“postcard” versus “postcards”).

One of our users also stumbled into another example of this disconnect where the product name includes “mouse pad” but the niche uses the word “mousepads” instead. Not only is it a disagreement in singular vs plural, but it’s a two-word phrase versus a single compound word. Zazzle’s search has zero chance of knowing that “mouse pad” and “mousepad” are the same thing. Want another screwy example? Your tee shirt’s name will have “T-Shirt” added. But for niches the term “tshirts” will be used instead (eg “long island iced tea tshirts”). No dash.

But this finding also brings out something I know other Zazzlers have noticed and discussed along the way. Your products will be more visible in Zazzle’s search if you include product type info in your tags. Remember that Zazzle’s search apparently only cares about your product’s name and tags. It does not seem to care about your lengthy description. Clearly your product name will have a product type in it. But it’ll be the singular form. The take-away here is that you should seriously consider adding the pluralized form of the product type (eg “postcards” or “tshirts”) as a tag.

If you worry if Zazzle will consider this gaming their system, don’t worry. They want you to sell more stuff. They want their customers to find your stuff. They just want it to be honest and not try to deceive customers. This is helping Zazzle’s search engine work better and should result in Zazzle increasing their sales. And yours too.

Taking a step back, you should ask “why should I care about these niches?”. Do people really search for “tshirts” instead of “t-shirt” or “tee shirt”? I honestly don’t know. Zazzle has their own process for (I believe) transforming customer searches into these niches. But I want to point out here that these niches do matter to Google. Zazzle tells Google that these hundreds of thousands of search-results pages are “real” pages like your store home or product detail pages are. As though they are static pages. Google doesn’t know any differently. But Google will index some of those niche pages. And some people searching for things via Google will stumble on those niche pages in search results. My own research suggests that your products may be more likely to show up in Google searches via these niche pages than directly as product pages. I am not done researching this hypothesis yet. But the takeaway here is that this trick can help vastly increase your product’s visibility to Google at least. And very likely to Zazzle’s customers too.

So I’ve made changes to a few of my agency’s products as an experiment. Clearly I’ve significantly increased their visibility with this trick. Will that translate to more sales of those products? I can’t say for sure right now. Time must pass. But I believe it’s very likely. I chose to focus on products that we have already sold because it is more likely that they will sell again than products that have never sold.

You don’t need to set up your stores at SnuggleHamster.com to benefit from this neat trick. I could have kept this big discovery within our small community. But I wanted to share it with other Zazzlers too. Still. I think you should consider joining us anyway and even paying for Premium features like the Niche Analysis tool. Not only have we proved there a nearly 100% chance your stuff will show up in more Google searches. But our niche exploration and analysis features will let you experiment with improving your products’ texts and visiblity in real time. There’s also way more tools and conveniences there than I can discuss in this post.

There’s a lot here worth discussing. What have you observed? Do you currently add product type indicators to your tags? Have you noticed differences between singular and plural nouns in your sales? If you do experiment with making this change to some of your products, please do us a favor and share your results here. Cheers.

[MOM]

Excellent observation and post, it’s highly appreciated!! Kudos to you.

[Barbara_at_Array_Sto]

Very interesting info @JimCarnicelli . You’ve definitely given us something to think about. I’m going to try experimenting a little with the tags on a few products and see what happens. Since I’ve got so many products and, in most cases, have used all 10 tags, it’s going to be a slow process to change them, but it does seems like it might be worth the effort. Thanks for sharing!

[ColsCreations]

It’s always been said here to NOT use product type as a tag, reasoning being that Zazzle adds it for you so it’s a waste of tag characters. I have always added the product type to at least one tag though, for my own reasoning.
I don’t know how Zazzle’s search works with the invisible product type, but I have a very basic understanding of searches and believe (maybe incorrectly) that order and exact-phrasing counts a lot. So if I have “green floral pillow” as a tag, it might come up higher in results for [green floral pillow] than something with just [green floral] + “pillow” whereever Zazzle invisibly adds it making it not an exact-phrase match. Also, I know from countless searches of getting product types that shouldn’t be there but are because the designer included, perhaps inadvertently, an incorrect product type in the tag, that product type as tag is used by the algorithm same as any other tag. This why you could get say a coffee mug in a search for “something something pillow” - because “pillow” was in the tags on the mug. And I try to consider what a user might be searching for so sometimes use more than one product type tag, like working in both ‘accent pillow’ and ‘throw pillow’.  Sure, ‘pillow’ is used twice but if a searcher types in “accent pillow” or “throw pillow” - I want to be in the results for that exact phrasing.

As far as “getting in trouble” with Zazzle for going against best practices and including product type in tags, I don’t think that’s anything to worry about. (If I did I wouldn’t be making this reply, LOL.) Reason being, there are thousands of products in the MP where there is no design to describe and thus the tags are all describing the product type & uses. ID badges are what first made me realize this. I was looking at the Best Sellers page and a good portion of them were ID badges. And for the most part, there isn’t much to describe on them, it’s all about customizing with your picture, your company logo, you name … So the tags are mostly different ways to describe an ID badge, not the “design”.

modern ID badge, name tag badge, professional logo badge, identification ID, security ID, staff ID, lanyard badge, photo ID card, event badge,  employee badge …

Likewise with items that are photo collages which seem to dominate top results in many categories, be it a pillow or apron or clock or anything … if the ‘design’ is all templates for the user to replace with their own image, again there is no design to describe. So the the tags all end up being ‘custom photo pillow’, ‘photo collage pillow’, ‘12 photo pillow’, ‘create your own pillow’, ‘personal photos pillow’ etc etc … Same with the ‘your logo here’ type designs. A good lot of them are template designs where the user adds their own image and text and there’s nothing else really unique about them. So again the tags are used for various ways to call the product type as there’s no real design to describe.

I want to make it clear that I am NOT knocking Creators who tag like this or their designs. Quite the opposite. I understand that if they couldn’t use product type in their tags, they’d have nothing else to tag about. I see this type of product & tagging all over, including on Editors Picks and from very high-level designers. Which tells me that Zazzle is not going to remove your product just because you used product type in the tags, even if repeatedly in different ways.

So while I am not capable of doing all the in-depth analytics you run, I totally agree that including product type in tags is not just OK but beneficial. Your post seemed mostly about plural forms of product types and spacing and that’s great info, I just wanted to chime in about using product type in general.

[JimCarnicelli]

Excellent insights as always. BTW. I’d love to have you come join us whenever you’re ready. Nobody has been more helpful in the forum with analysis than you have. You’d be a welcome hamster in our warren. Cheers.

[GagCartoonist]

Yes, this is not a new discovery, it’s just the case we can’t promote something that Zazzle terms expressly advise against. Whether we do it as individuals is one thing - we take the risk upon ourselves, but when Zazzle expressly say (and they do) don’t add plurals, don’t add product names … it’s not something we can recommend. 

I have seen cases of Google homing in on specific tag phrases, so while Zazzle doesn’t recommend using the same word more than once, hypothetically there is good reason to include it more than once in a variation of a search phrase. And many do for this exact reason, but because Zazzle advises against, we can’t actively promote this as a strategy.

That said, Google changes how it does things almost as often as Zazzle ( 😋 ) so what worked one day might not work the next and so on.

Meanwhile working on things that have sold rather than things that have never sold, (to quote you) kind of leads to a stale environment that doesn’t keep up with the ever evolving landscape of customer demand and trends. And of course we 'd have no products, because they were all new at some point.

But whatever increases sales is all good, new, old … there is definitely room for both and both are important. If you want to hit the big time, you introduce a new (upcoming, popular elsewhere) niche. Speaking from experience as someone who’s done this many times to good effect. Once niche earned me a six figure income one year. Of course others hopped on board and that is no longer a niche! A great example is facemasks, Some sellers earned a few thousand a month with this ‘new niche’. And yes a new niche can be a product, it can even be a ‘word’. I call these words ‘unicorn tags’. Interesting read, thank you for sharing.

[calartcreations]

Thanks for your time and thanks for share what you have analyze! Thank you so much! May this knowledge that you are sharing multiply for you!

[ColsCreations]

, it’s just the case we can’t promote something that Zazzle terms expressly advise against. Whether we do it as individuals is one thing - we take the risk upon ourselves, but when Zazzle expressly say (and they do) don’t add plurals, don’t add product names … it’s not something we can recommend.

I get where you are coming from which is why I was apprehensive about replying as I did. Last thing I want is to jeopardize my Zazzle account. But I did because I don’t believe this is all that black & white.

You can find the “best practices” for tagging here. And it says

If you don’t consider yourself an expert on tagging and search yet, don’t worry! Here are some >> tips << on how you can maximize the potential of your tags and get some eyes on your work:

Tips. Tips are not hard & fast rules so we’re already in a gray area.
Then we have to consider that all five “Don’ts” are encountered ad nauseam in the MP, alone or as multiple ‘don’ts’ in one tag set, from obvious spammers all the way to Diamond level sellers. If you look at the all-time best sellers page, many of the top products A) include product type as tags (often with more than one way of naming the product type), B) repeat keywords through out the tag set, and C) use multiple versions of custom, customized, personalize, personalized, gift, create your own … I am not saying this type of tagging is helping them, I couldn’t know if it is or isn’t; what I’m saying is that it isn’t hurting them, Zazzle obviously isn’t removing the products or forcing them to re-do the tags. How could they? As explained in my other reply, there are designs where there is little to nothing to describe except for the product type. It’s a round clock - with your picture on it. It’s a rustic wood sign - with your picture on it. It’s a 2" button - with your logo on it.

The “don’t” tip about product type says this

DON’T use product types as tags, unless they are relevant to your design.

and I honestly have no idea how we’re supposed to interpret that as when wouldn’t  the product type be relevant?

If we look at the actual terms (Creator License Agreement here) and scroll to the section about tagging, the only mention of product type is this

You should only state what the Product is, not what the Product may become or potential uses for the Product.

That seems to be directly OK’ing using product type, which contradicts their own “tip” to not to unless relevant. And then there’s the situation when the kiss-cut stickers came out, Zazzle themselves encouraged us to break this rule by asking us to tag them for uses such as on a skateboard or phone case or suitcase. I remember posting in the forum at that time asking if they really meant that, since we sell skateboards and phone cases and suitcases, wouldn’t that muck-up search results? I don’t recall ever getting a response from a Mod, but other designers said yeah, I thought we were always told not to do this?

There’s nothing on the Terms page about using plural variations of keywords, but there is this

Tags or attributes that are duplicates are not allowed.

and that’s the only thing in all of this that actually concerns me as it’s in the actual Terms page as a rule not just a tip. Assuming this means not to repeat a word anywhere within the same tag set, this is not being enforced in any way as there are infinite products in the MP violating this one including many of my own.

Whatever the actual rules are, they are very blurry and not enforced. My feeling is that all these things listed as a tip or rule are meant to discourage real tag spamming (stuffing and use of irrelevant tags) and even then, there are thousand’s of products in the MP by spammers intentionally breaking all these rules to get into search results where they shouldn’t be, and Zazzle isn’t even removing those.

I don’t think an honest designer using a product type or repeating a word or using “gift” or “custom” occasionally has anything to worry about. This is all obviously just my opinion though. If the Mods feel I or Jim are spreading bad info I’m sure they’ll step in and say so or remove the posts.

[Connie]

“You should only state what the Product is, not what the Product may become or potential uses for the Product.” I think they mean that they don’t want people making a mug, and then using tags like “Christmas gift, birthday gift, retirement gift, Mother’s Day gift, Father’s Day gift, etc.” Unless of course, it was specifically a Christmas mug, or Mother’s Day mug, or whatever. I use those kiss-cut stickers for guest address labels, so that product actually becomes a guest address label, not just a cutout- sticker. So it’s perfectly fine for me to tag it as “guest address labels.”

[ColsCreations]

 I think they mean that they don’t want people making a mug, and then using tags like “Christmas gift, birthday gift, retirement gift, Mother’s Day gift, Father’s Day gift, etc.”

But they do. I see that kind of tagging all the time.

I use those kiss-cut stickers for guest address labels, so that product actually becomes a guest address label, not just a cutout- sticker. So it’s perfectly fine for me to tag it as “guest address labels.”

I think that’s totally acceptable and sensible. And it’s no different than tagging a piece of cheap stationary paper as “budget wedding invitation” which with barely looking you can see being done by Diamond & Platinum level sellers. Because while it’s not the product Zazzle classes it as, it IS the product it is being marketed as. So if someone is searching for budget wedding invitations, it will be appropriate in search results.
The thing with the kiss-cut stickers was, they are just stickers, no matter what design you put on them they wouldn’t be a skateboard or suitcase. Including such product types in the tags means someone searching for an actual suitcase is also going to get stickers in their results. When it comes to discouraging using product types in tags, I believe it’s that kind of mess Zazzle wants to avoid.

Also, the other thing that stands out in my mind is phone cases. Since the shopper can select from all kinds of different phone models on the product page, Zazzle did specifically say at some point not to specify a model type in tags for phone cases as it mucks things up.

Another dilemma with product type is the descriptor that’s also accidentally a product type. Like ‘football’. Super common theme so rightfully used in countless tags for things that aren’t actually footballs. So you can search for [yellow football] wanting an actual football but 1/3rd of the first page of results are not actually footballs. I don’t see how Zazzle or any other SE could solve that type of situation.

So again, I don’t think Zazzle has any real rule about including product type in tags in general, I think they just want us to tag wisely and appropriately and not intentionally engage in practices that would get your products in results where they don’t belong.

[ColsCreations]

@JimCarnicelli  

Thankyou. :grinning_face:
I’d love to be a hamster but the thing is, I know I’d never subscribe as a Premium member so I would feel guilty using your site as a free member using your resources while knowing I never intend to upgrade. (And please don’t get me wrong, what you have to offer is extremely valuable but I am just not at that level of Zazzling where I treat it as business that would justify the expense. )

[ColsCreations]

I needed time to come back and re-read through your original post 'cause my first reply kind of went off-topic on using product type in general, and here’s what I am pondering. (This is not in any way a criticism, just me thinking out loud about this trying to work it out.)

In your first test that did not produce good if any results, [postcard] or [postcards] were not in the tags at all.

In your second test of same product, you added [postcard**s]** to the tags. You got much better results and are crediting that to postcard being plural with the s in the tags. But I’m thinking, maybe it’s just because you added [postcard(s)] to the tag which is a term that wasn’t there before in any form. It’s being assumed that since Zazzle appends [postcard] to the title that it’s being treated same as a tag so [postcard s] plural as a manual tag must be the key difference maker. I’m thinking though that if you had added just [postcard] no s as a manual tag, results would have improved the same way, because postcard was not in the tags at all before with or without an s.

Could you do this same experiment on another product where the product type as appended by Zazzle, say ‘clock’,  is not included in any form, plural or singular, in the tags? Then you’d have to add ‘clock’ to the tags, wait for it to index, and run your search testing again. Then you’d need to delete ‘clock’ and add ‘clocks’, wait for the change to index again, and then run your test again. Would those tests show any difference between adding ‘clock’ or ‘clocks’ plural?

[JimCarnicelli]

Most of our users will use the free level of service. We expect that. And we welcome you. Even if you never spend a dime on us. In any case we benefit. Especially if you join our community and help share some of your wisdom. You are most welcome. Cheers.

[JimCarnicelli]

That’s a solid hypothesis. Here’s a test of it. As you can see here the product did not match either search on Zazzle at this moment:

I was curious to know if the mere act of making a trivial change (adding space) and saving the change would cause either of these searches to match. No change after the save. So I added the singular “postcard” as one final tag, per your suggestion:

Bingo. One of them matched. I didn’t expect the other to match, given the large number of matches and the vagueness of “city postcards”.

So this is very intriguing. Adding a literal duplicate of the product type “postcard” that was already part of the name of the product caused a measured change in visibility in search. Interesting!

I should note that the problem remains of significant differences in spelling. Like with “mouse pad” vs “mousepad”. And “t-shirt” vs “tshirt”. But the trivial case of a stemming difference of adding “s” to pluralize may be murkier like this. I should do more tests of this with alternations of the options.

[ColsCreations]

Then we have to consider that all five “Don’ts” are encountered ad nauseam in the MP, alone or as multiple ‘don’ts’ in one tag set, from obvious spammers all the way to Diamond level sellers.

Was searching out some of my products tonight that I haven’t tried search for in a very long time and encountered a good example of this. Using a common keyword + product type, it said there were over 290K results. The product in the 6th spot - #6 out of over 290K and also an Editor’s Pick from a Diamond level seller - was a photo collage type design, no text or other elements,  where there is nothing to describe as it’s meant for the shopper to upload their own photos to it. So I clicked on it to look at the tags. They included all five “Don’ts” plus a 6th.

• ‘photo’ repeated 6 times, both in singular and plural form
• product type repeated 5 times with no variation
• ‘collage’ used twice
• ‘custom’ used twice
• ‘personalized’ used once
• brand name irrelevant to design used once

Did it get to one of the top ten spots out of nearly 300,000 results because of these tags? Probably not, the product has been in the MP for almost six years. Point is, it’s from a Diamond level account and has been anointed as an Editor’s Pick despite not abiding by any of the “best practices” for tags. So I don’t think one is going to run afoul of Zazzle by using a plural or product type etc; I think tagging honestly and appropriately is the main concern

[Mistica]

Wow. This thread got really busy while I as doing life. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. I will need to go through it again…and again:) I am not creating so much lately, but do plan to get back.
Thank you Jim for further explaining niche syntax. So much to learn.