How A Multi Six-Figure Shop Owner Tells You How To Use eRank for Etsy Print on Demand

ByJ.B. Updated on
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If you have been googling “how to use eRank” and landing on posts that tell you to use every single feature, connect all your integrations, monitor your competitors obsessively, and basically live inside a dashboard all day long, I want you to close those tabs.

Because that is not what this is.

This post is about how I (a multi six figure shop owner) actually use eRank in my Etsy print on demand shop, in plain English.

Here is the thing about the Etsy POD world: there is so much noise. So many tools. So many gurus promising you the framework, the formula, the five-day challenge that will unlock everything.

And meanwhile, you are sitting there with a shop full of listings that are getting zero views and wondering what you are doing wrong.

I have been there. A lot of us have been there. And the answer is almost never “you need a more expensive tool.”

The answer is usually “you need to understand what people are actually searching for and make sure your listings give them those things.”

That is where eRank comes in. And that is exactly what I want to walk you through today.

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What Even Is eRank and Why Should You Care

Before I get into the how, let me give you a quick rundown on what eRank actually is, just in case you are brand new here. eRank is an SEO and keyword research tool built specifically for Etsy sellers.

It pulls data directly from Etsy’s platform using its API to show you what people are searching for, how competitive those searches are, and how search trends shift throughout the year.

There are other tools out there, sure. EHunt is one that I also use in my research (you can check it out here).

But eRank holds a very specific place in my workflow, and the reason is simple:

It is affordable, it is not overcomplicated, and it gives me exactly what I need without making me feel like I am studying for the bar exam.

The Pricing Breakdown (Because Affordability Is Part of the Freedom-First Vision)

Let me talk pricing because I think this matters a lot, especially if you are just starting out or you are bootstrapping your Etsy shop while still working a nine-to-five.

eRank has a free plan, and while it is not completely useless, it is pretty limited.

On the free plan, you only get five keyword lookups per day, and those lookups only give you data on the exact keyword you typed in. There are no additional suggested keywords, no bulk tool, no expanded data.

It is fine for dipping your toe in, but you will hit that ceiling fast.

Then there is the basic plan at $5.99 a month. This is the plan I am on. This is the plan I recommend.

At $5.99, you get 100 keyword lookups per day, access to the bulk keyword tool (which is honestly the feature I use the most), and all the data you actually need to do solid keyword research.

There is also a pro plan at $9.99 a month and an expert plan at $29.99 a month. If you pay annually, those prices drop to $5.50, $7.92, and $22.50 per month respectively.

I have never felt the need to upgrade. The basic plan does everything I need it to do, and I am not leaving money on the table by staying on it.

There is also a 14-day money-back guarantee if you want to test the waters before committing.

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The Only eRank Feature I Actually Use (And Why That Is Enough)

Here is where I might lose a few people who are expecting a long walkthrough of every single feature eRank offers. I am going to disappoint you, but in a good way.

I do not use the competitor monitoring. I do not use the listing audit. I do not spend time in the Shop Insights tab. I am not in there running reports and comparing myself to other sellers. None of that.

What I use is the Keyword Research section. Specifically, the Bulk Keyword tool. That is it. That is my whole eRank practice. And it has served me well.

I think a lot of sellers, especially newer ones, fall into the trap of thinking that more data equals more success. But that is not how it works.

More data often just means more paralysis. More confusion. More time spent in a dashboard instead of actually creating and listing products.

The goal of a freedom-first business is not to become a full-time analyst. The goal is to understand your market well enough to make smart decisions and then go live your life.

How the Bulk Keyword Tool Actually Works

The Bulk Keyword tool lets you input up to 20 keywords at a time and get data back on all of them simultaneously. This is a massive time saver compared to looking up keywords one at a time.

On the basic plan, you can run up to 100 of these searches per day, which is way more than enough for most sellers doing regular research.

When I sit down to do keyword research for a new product or niche, here is my actual process.

I start by doing my broader research first. That might mean scrolling TikTok to see what is trending, poking around in the Etsy search bar to see what auto-completes are popping up, or just getting a general feel for a niche I am interested in.

Once I have a sense of the direction I want to go, I open up ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to give me 20 keywords related to that niche, formatted as a comma-separated list or with line breaks so I can copy and paste them directly into eRank.

This step alone saves me so much time because I am not sitting there brainstorming manually.

Then I paste those 20 keywords into the bulk keyword tool, hit search, and let eRank do its thing.

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What the Data Actually Tells Me

When the results come back, eRank shows you a table with a bunch of columns. And here is where I want to save you from a rabbit hole: I turn off most of those columns.

Tag occurrences, character count, average clicks, average click-through rate. All of it. Gone. Hidden. I do not need it, and looking at too much data at once is how you end up staring at a screen for three hours without making a single decision.

The only two things I am looking at are average searches and Etsy competition. That is it. Two columns. Clean and simple.

I’m looking for what is actively being searched with relatively low competition. That is it!

This framework is simple, but do not mistake simple for unsophisticated. Understanding supply and demand in an Etsy niche is genuinely powerful, and this two-column approach cuts straight to the heart of it without all the noise.

How I Actually Organize My Keyword Research

One thing I want to mention because I think it gets overlooked in a lot of eRank tutorials is how I store and organize my keyword research after I have done it.

I keep keyword lists sorted by product type.

So if I am researching mugs, I have a list for mugs. If I am researching tote bags, there is a list for that too. eRank has a built-in keyword list feature that I use for exactly this purpose.

When I find keywords that meet my criteria, I save them to the relevant product list right inside eRank. That way, when I am ready to create a new listing or refresh an old one, I am not starting from scratch every single time.

I have a curated bank of validated keywords ready to go. This is one of those small habits that adds up to a lot of saved time over weeks and months.

And, I share my recent winning keywords in a subscription service called The Opportunity Report. It is done for you Etsy print on demand research delivered to you every Tuesday.

learn more here

I also typically start my research broad. If I am exploring a new product category, I will literally just type in something like “mugs” and see what surfaces that meets my criteria. From there I get more specific.

Maybe I find “funny cat mug” has solid numbers, so I go deeper into that niche. How? By clicking on that keyword, and then eRank provides a list of other related keywords. Then I look through that list to see if any other words match my criteria.

This process of starting wide and narrowing down is how I find keywords and niches that are not already completely saturated, and it all lives in eRank.

The Trend Buzz Feature (I Check It Sometimes, But Not Every Day)

eRank also has a feature called Trend Buzz, and while it is not a daily stop for me, it is worth mentioning because it can be genuinely useful when you are in niche discovery mode.

Trend Buzz basically shows you what is trending on Etsy (and other marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, but for our purposes, we care about Etsy) in the past 30 days. You can filter by keywords, colors, product types, recipients, styles, and materials.

Sometimes I will pop in here just to get a general temperature read on what people are interested in right now. Is botanical art having a moment? Are people searching for retro-themed gifts? Are a certain color palette or aesthetic dominating the searches? Trend Buzz gives you a fast, visual overview of that landscape.

That said, I want to be real with you: some of what you find in Trend Buzz is not all that actionable. Like, yes, floral is always trending. It is Etsy.

Of course handmade is a popular style. So take the broad category trends with a grain of salt and look for the more specific or unexpected finds. Those are usually where the real opportunities are hiding.

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The Monthly Trends Tool Is Also Useful

Within eRank, there is also a monthly trends feature that I think a lot of sellers sleep on. This one shows you the most popular search terms on Etsy from the prior month, and you can look back through almost a year’s worth of monthly data.

Now, it is not real-time, but trends have momentum. What was popular last month usually stays relevant for at least another month or two, which gives you a window to act on that information.

The monthly trends tool gives you a trend graph and average searches, but it does not give you competition data directly. What I do is take any promising keyword I find there and run it through the bulk keyword tool so I can check the competition.

Easy. The tools work together well, even if I am only using a small slice of what eRank offers.

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Why I Do Not Use the Other eRank Features (And Why That Is Okay)

I want to address this directly because I know someone reading this is going to feel a little guilty for not using every single feature of a tool they are paying for.

Friend, Let go of that guilt.

eRank offers competitor monitoring, listing audits, shop insights, and other features, and none of those are bad things. But using them has not been part of my workflow, and my shop has still grown to multi six figures.

More features are not always better. Targeted focus usually is.

I would rather stay in my lane and focus on what my customers are searching for than spend mental energy tracking what someone else is doing.

The listing audit feature audits up to 50 listings and gives you optimization suggestions. I am not saying it is bad, but I have my own process for optimizing listings, and I have not found I needed eRank to do that part.

This is not me telling you never to explore those features. It is me giving you permission to start simple, get results, and add complexity only when it genuinely serves you.

Final Thoughts: Simple Tools, Real Results

I want to close with this because I think it is genuinely important: you do not need a complicated system to build a successful Etsy print on demand shop. You need clarity. You need to understand what people are looking for and make sure your listings speak that language.

eRank, specifically the bulk keyword tool on the basic $5.99 plan, gives you exactly what you need to do that without breaking the bank or melting your brain.

The dream of building a freedom-first business, one that funds your travels, your time, your choices, does not require a $300 software stack and six hours a day in a dashboard. It requires smart, consistent action and tools that make that action more effective. eRank is one of those tools for me.

It is straightforward, powerful, and honestly just makes the keyword research part of this business feel less like a chore and more like a strategy.

If you are ready to take your Etsy shop more seriously and want a full roadmap, not just the keyword piece but the whole thing, head over to Freedom Unclocked.

That is my Etsy POD Membership that houses an Etsy Strategy Course that walks you through building your Etsy POD shop from the ground up with the same freedom-first approach I bring to everything I teach.

Inside, the Membership, you also have access to live group coaching sessions, the Freedom Lounge private community, Tutorial Library, Promptessa Unclocked my custom GPT that creates hyperdetailed design and mockup prompts, and The Opportunity Report mentioned above.

And if you want free actionable advice now, grab my free Etsy Self-Audit Cheat Sheet. It is a fast way to identify what might be holding your shop back and what to fix first. Because clarity always beats hustle.

You have got this. Now go do the keyword research.

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The Best Resources for Your Print on Demand Business:

These are the resources I use for my multi six-figure Print on Demand business!

Canva: Canva is the most amazing tool. It is user friendly, and always improving! The tools that Canva has have evolved so much since I first started using it in 2022 for the better. I use it almost everyday. I use it to create designs, to edit AI designs, and to create product mockups.

Ideogram: Ideogram is an AI design tool that generates high-quality graphics with exceptionally accurate text rendering, making it ideal for creating quote-based and typography-focused designs. I also use the prompt based editing for mockups, making it a wonderful alternative to Photoshop, which is expensive.

E-Hunt: E-Hunt is fantastic for competitor research and some light keyword research. My favorite aspect of E-Hunt is the Chrome extension that allows you to see the sales amount for an individual item on Etsy. Check out this article to see an example.

eRank: eRank is an SEO data tool that also allows you to search the competition and will also give you key words for your Etsy listing. It is also a low cost tool that will help you find low competition and highly searched niches.

Printify: Printify is a print-on-demand (POD) service that allows individuals and businesses to create and sell custom-designed products without needing to manage inventory or handle fulfillment. I put my designs on products offered by Printify. When an item sells, Printify prints and ships to my customer.

ProfitTree: is the tool I use for profit analysis and AI-powered analysis of all of my Etsy shops. I use ProfitTree’s MCP connect to ChatGPT/Codex to my account and can run all sorts of analyses using my own data! I can even do demand research all inside ChatGPT (also works inside Claude).

AnywherePOD: AnywherePOD is the tool I use for automation and diving into personalization. I can bulk upload products to Printify, which is a game changer. AnywherePOD also has an AI Assistant that can bulk upload designs, multi-design and multi-variant listings! If you want to list and grow faster, you need AnywherePOD.

Vela: Vela is the bulk editing tool I use to manage hundreds of Etsy and Shopify listings without losing my mind. You can update videos, photos, titles, tags, descriptions, and prices across your entire shop in minutes, and your VA can build listings inside Vela without needing your Etsy login. Read more about Vela here.

Shopify: Shopify is what I recommend when you are ready to scale beyond Etsy and diversify where your products sell. The fees are lower, you own your customer data (emails), and it integrates directly with Printify and Vela. It is the easiest way to build a standalone storefront that you control. Read more about Etsy v Shopify here.

FAIRE: FAIRE is the wholesale marketplace I use to sell my products to retail, brick and mortar stores. If you want to scale your shop and add a wholesale revenue stream to your POD business, FAIRE is a great option. Read more about FAIRE here.

Looking for more information on print on demand? Check out these articles:

The information shared on my blog is for educational and informational purposes only. They reflect my personal experience building an online business and are not guarantees of earnings or financial results. They also reflect revenue and not profit. Your results may vary and will depend on factors such as your effort, niche, product quality, strategy, and market demand.

Janeen is a former attorney and Etsy print on demand coach who started her shop at 40, retired early from corporate life at 42, and moved her family to Portugal. She now teaches others the strategic path to building portable income, while exploring and documenting the most beautiful country she gets to call home.