Case Study: Systematically Approaching a Design and Tags with RedBubble Part 1
Hello Passive Owls,
This blog post will be done over the course of a week in order to establish the efficacy of:
1.) Choosing a shirt design based on what's trending, and
2.) Systematically choosing keywords based on search volume seen in Google's Keyword Planner and the number of results from searching relevant tags.
Step one will be easy enough. I will check out what's trending on Redbubble and create a shirt design based on one of those trending designs.
Step two is a little more involved. First, I will compile a list of relevant keywords from the trending design as well as other relevant designs. Second, I will put each keyword through Redbubble and see what number of results I get for a particular item. For this particular case study, I will focus on t-shirts only.
Once I have a list of relevant keywords, I will list them by search volume. Then, I will go to Google's Keyword Planner and check their Google search volume.
The goal for the keywords is;
Minimize the Redbubble Search Volume
Maximize the Google Search Volume
Once this is done, I will have a compiled list of up to 25 keywords, all of which I will add to the new product design. Again, only shirts will be considered for this product. I do this for experimental control.
What is the ultimate objective here? There's two things that turn a design into a selling design (besides, you know... people liking it but that's ART damnit! Be a good artist, of course! But for right now, we are focused on the SCIENCE!).
1.) Exposure. The more views you have, the more likely you are to get a sale. Views in the SEO world are better known as traffic. more traffic = greater likelihood of making a sale. If you're selling snakes and sparklers in the desert, you'll make fewer sales than in Times Square. Get it? Awesome.
2.) Relevancy. You could have 40,000 people view your cute kitty design, but if all 40,000 are looking for dogs, they will pass your design right up without a moment's notice. Sure, maybe one or two might buy, but you're still shot in the foot because of this:
UNTARGETED TRAFFIC = MINIMIZED CONVERSION RATE.
Conversely...
TARGETED TRAFFIC = MAXIMIZED CONVERSION RATE.
That's the ticket.
What's a conversion? Well in an ideal scenario, someone will happen across your design. That's called an Impression. If they like what they see, they will click on it. That's a view. If it is what they were looking for, they will buy it. That's a conversion.
So, what's the conversion rate? I'm glad you asked.
Simply, Conversion Rate = (Number of Sales/ Number of Clicks) X 100
This will give you a happy little percentage like 42%. You want that number to be as high as possible. This is the O in SEO; Optimization. An optimized design is a design that sells well.
So, let's start.
First thing's first, I'm going to the Redbubble Men's T-shirts area and I'm going to pick something that's both trending and evergreen (meaning that it's not a seasonal product, and it should likely sell year round).
How would you know for sure if it's evergreen. Simple. Use some of the tags and look on Google Trends! For Example...
Cats:
The interest is pretty stable year round. This doesn't indicate merely search volume, but interest. Cats are not a seasonal thing. They can exist outside of Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas...
Christmas Cookies:
Unless you're a weirdo, nobody gives a sh*t about Christmas Cookies except in one month: December. That's the big dip upward in interest you see on this graph. You don't want this for something you want to make money all the time.
Most of this is common sense, but if you want some data on how your tags will trend year round, check out Google Trends and look at their interest graphs. Choose evergreen niches, because we want to make money All the time!
Moving Right Along...
Okay, I'm going to choose my design. Let's take a look at what we got here. Hmm... How about Stupid but popular Meme #400,000,555,653?
Great. It's on the trending list and it's something on trending I have seen for a while now. How about Google Trends?
No. That doesn't make me feel happy. Interest will wane over time. Unless you want a quick buck, It's probably best not to do memes. Let's find something else.... How about LAIKA THE SPACE DOG FROM THE SOVIET UNION!!!!!
And the Google Trends says:
Hmm... I'm more comfortable with this. Other related tags I know will have similar trends, so this shirt could theoretically sell all year.
Okay, TIME TO MAKE AN ART!
I won't go into the minutiae of say, navigating GIMP or design practices. So, hold on a sec and I'll brb with some decent art....
...
...
...
Okay I'm back. Check this sh*t out:
Heck Yes. I'm not the most awesomest artist ever, but a little posterizing and font research goes a long way.
Now, for the research. Crazy enough, all the tags I looked up on Keyword Planner both have low competition based on their metrics as well as really high search volume:
Good, the search volume is sufficient. Now for the Redbubble research. I busted out my spreadsheet and listed the number of results per tag:
Nice. Now what I'll do is take the top 25 of these with lowest results and make them my tags. I'll add a little description and then BOOM. Uploading!
Whew, That took a quick minute. But, without hard work no money is gained!
Stay tuned for part two when I go over the results. Hopefully this will be something that works well. Next time, I will also try for more long tail keywords (keywords with multiple words) and maybe that will make a change too.
Thanks! Hope you enjoyed.
This blog post will be done over the course of a week in order to establish the efficacy of:
1.) Choosing a shirt design based on what's trending, and
2.) Systematically choosing keywords based on search volume seen in Google's Keyword Planner and the number of results from searching relevant tags.
Step one will be easy enough. I will check out what's trending on Redbubble and create a shirt design based on one of those trending designs.
Step two is a little more involved. First, I will compile a list of relevant keywords from the trending design as well as other relevant designs. Second, I will put each keyword through Redbubble and see what number of results I get for a particular item. For this particular case study, I will focus on t-shirts only.
Once I have a list of relevant keywords, I will list them by search volume. Then, I will go to Google's Keyword Planner and check their Google search volume.
The goal for the keywords is;
Minimize the Redbubble Search Volume
Maximize the Google Search Volume
Once this is done, I will have a compiled list of up to 25 keywords, all of which I will add to the new product design. Again, only shirts will be considered for this product. I do this for experimental control.
What is the ultimate objective here? There's two things that turn a design into a selling design (besides, you know... people liking it but that's ART damnit! Be a good artist, of course! But for right now, we are focused on the SCIENCE!).
1.) Exposure. The more views you have, the more likely you are to get a sale. Views in the SEO world are better known as traffic. more traffic = greater likelihood of making a sale. If you're selling snakes and sparklers in the desert, you'll make fewer sales than in Times Square. Get it? Awesome.
2.) Relevancy. You could have 40,000 people view your cute kitty design, but if all 40,000 are looking for dogs, they will pass your design right up without a moment's notice. Sure, maybe one or two might buy, but you're still shot in the foot because of this:
UNTARGETED TRAFFIC = MINIMIZED CONVERSION RATE.
Conversely...
TARGETED TRAFFIC = MAXIMIZED CONVERSION RATE.
That's the ticket.
What's a conversion? Well in an ideal scenario, someone will happen across your design. That's called an Impression. If they like what they see, they will click on it. That's a view. If it is what they were looking for, they will buy it. That's a conversion.
So, what's the conversion rate? I'm glad you asked.
Simply, Conversion Rate = (Number of Sales/ Number of Clicks) X 100
This will give you a happy little percentage like 42%. You want that number to be as high as possible. This is the O in SEO; Optimization. An optimized design is a design that sells well.
So, let's start.
First thing's first, I'm going to the Redbubble Men's T-shirts area and I'm going to pick something that's both trending and evergreen (meaning that it's not a seasonal product, and it should likely sell year round).
How would you know for sure if it's evergreen. Simple. Use some of the tags and look on Google Trends! For Example...
Cats:
The interest is pretty stable year round. This doesn't indicate merely search volume, but interest. Cats are not a seasonal thing. They can exist outside of Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas...
Christmas Cookies:
Unless you're a weirdo, nobody gives a sh*t about Christmas Cookies except in one month: December. That's the big dip upward in interest you see on this graph. You don't want this for something you want to make money all the time.
Most of this is common sense, but if you want some data on how your tags will trend year round, check out Google Trends and look at their interest graphs. Choose evergreen niches, because we want to make money All the time!
Moving Right Along...
Okay, I'm going to choose my design. Let's take a look at what we got here. Hmm... How about Stupid but popular Meme #400,000,555,653?
Great. It's on the trending list and it's something on trending I have seen for a while now. How about Google Trends?
No. That doesn't make me feel happy. Interest will wane over time. Unless you want a quick buck, It's probably best not to do memes. Let's find something else.... How about LAIKA THE SPACE DOG FROM THE SOVIET UNION!!!!!
And the Google Trends says:
Hmm... I'm more comfortable with this. Other related tags I know will have similar trends, so this shirt could theoretically sell all year.
Okay, TIME TO MAKE AN ART!
I won't go into the minutiae of say, navigating GIMP or design practices. So, hold on a sec and I'll brb with some decent art....
...
...
...
Okay I'm back. Check this sh*t out:
Heck Yes. I'm not the most awesomest artist ever, but a little posterizing and font research goes a long way.
Now, for the research. Crazy enough, all the tags I looked up on Keyword Planner both have low competition based on their metrics as well as really high search volume:
Good, the search volume is sufficient. Now for the Redbubble research. I busted out my spreadsheet and listed the number of results per tag:
Nice. Now what I'll do is take the top 25 of these with lowest results and make them my tags. I'll add a little description and then BOOM. Uploading!
Whew, That took a quick minute. But, without hard work no money is gained!
Stay tuned for part two when I go over the results. Hopefully this will be something that works well. Next time, I will also try for more long tail keywords (keywords with multiple words) and maybe that will make a change too.
Thanks! Hope you enjoyed.
Very interesting, thank you!
ReplyDeleteI really like this type of analytical post, thanks for writing! I’m a Redbubble artist, and always looking for advice on increasing sales. I even pinned this blog post on Pinterest (making my own pin graphic), you can see it here https://pin.it/oghjvwbz4szud2
ReplyDeleteThis was a well written article but without the follow up, it goes no where. What happened? It would be great to even analyse failure as well as success
ReplyDelete