Introduction
I’ve been uploading art to Zazzle for about five years. Over that time, I’ve learned a lot about what makes a product sell, from choosing a niche to the design process to making text customizable. But with all the knowledge I’ve gained, I also have a big backlog of products I made in my early days, that have barely any views. Does this mean they were bad designs, or can they be reinvigorated with some work? Let’s find out together!
I Paused My Game T-Shirt
The first design I am going to work some magic on is my Paused my Game t-shirt.
I created this design on 20 Nov 2021. I did try editing the title in June 2024, to “Paused My Game Funny Girls Gamer Slogan T-Shirt,” but it hasn’t helped – the product hasn’t been viewed in 19 months, 5 days.
Time to do some Zazzle research.
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Question: Is It a Viable Niche?
For a design to be a viable niche, we need a good number of search results for the main ‘theme’ of the design. In this case, gamer girl t-shirts. We want at least 1,000 other products selling in that niche on Zazzle to call it a good niche.
I searched on Zazzle for ‘girl gamer t-shirt’ and I got 20,305 results – so that seems pretty viable!
But when I click to filter by shirts for girls, as in children, the number drops to 602. So that shows that it’s not as popular as I thought. With a search number that low, it means it’s not a niche that Zazzle are gonna promote themselves, and people are probably not going to look on this website for shirts in that niche.
What if we make the niche broader, not just for girls but any child? I did a search on Zazzle for “kid gamer t-shirt”? That gives me 26,394 results – which is much better! So it’s better for my title to refer to kids than girls.
Seeing the difference in girl vs kid is prompting me to make some changes to my product listing. I will change from a ‘fine jersey t-shirt’ which has a girl model, to a ‘kids basic t-shirt’, which has a boy model. I will also change the recipient category from kids > girl to kids > any child.
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Product Keywords
Next, keywords. Here are my current keywords on this product:Â
paused my game to,
be here you’re welcome,
nerd geek daughter,
calligraphy girly feminine,
video gamer gaming console pc,
funny joke sassy sarcastic,
text phrase slogan typography
Are their other keywords I could use for this design? I should check what others are being used by Zazzle and by other designers, in those niche search results.
One example is ‘computer’. How do we test this keyword, to see if its actually gonna help us? Just search for that word, plus the product, and person it’s for. So “computer kids t-shirt.” The higher the number of results, the better. When I searched “computer kids t-shirt”, I got 1,910 results – that’s good for me! In contrast, if I search ‘feminine kids t-shirt’, I only get 757 results, which is too small.
Tip: Write down your keyword research results so you can refer to it later, knowing what words to use, and what words to avoid.
So most of my keywords are pretty good for the number of results they are getting. But the order needs to be worked on. The very first keyword phrase is what Zazzle values most highly. And mine is ‘paused my game’ which is not that great, it relies on people already knowing this slogan and searching for it. No, I need to put my niche first.
video game,
gamer nerd geek,
kid son boy,
calligraphy ,
computer,
funny joke sassy sarcastic,
text phrase slogan typography,
Product Title
Using the keyword research, I can now pick my title, using words that are part of this niche.
Video Game Paused Funny Typography Kids T-shirt
Product Description
Here’s my old description:
Another funny gamer t-shirt by JessicaAmber – ask about custom orders! This design features the bold slogan ‘I paused my game to be here – you’re welcome’ in white and pink. Calligraphy gives the bottom line a girly touch. Great gift for your sister or girlfriend who loves video games. For more gamer tees, visit my store zazzle.com/jessicaamberartist | For custom orders, message me on Zazzle
I am going to edit the audience references – they were just plain wrong, an artefact of copy pasting the design on multiple products. I will edit the first line a bit too, to make it’s marketing clearer.
Your kid will love this funny gamer t-shirt by JessicaAmber. This design features the bold slogan ‘I paused my game to be here – you’re welcome’ in black and pink lettering. Calligraphy gives the bottom line a sassy touch. Great gift for a son or daughter who loves video games. For more gamer tees, visit my store zazzle.com/jessicaamberartist | For custom orders, message me on Zazzle
Checking Back 3 Months Later
I have heard that 3 months is about the minimum time frame for a new or edited product to make its way into Google search results. So that’s about how long I waited. It is now 29th January 2025. So let’s check in on the edited product and see what – if anything – has changed.
Well. That’s pretty definitive. When I look at the back-end of my store, I see the product has not been viewed in 3 months. So the changes I made had no affect on views or sales.
That’s disapponting, but understandable. While I am marketing the shirt to kids now rather than just girls, it still does look a bit unfitting on a boy. And the design is not terribly creative or unique.
Ultimately, you can make a lot of changes in the back end, but your design still has to be aesthetically interesting and useful for it to make an impact.
Conclusion
This experiment may have failed, but even that gives useful knowledge. And it illustrates the importance of doing good niche research before making a whole lot of designs.
The best place to learn about effective niche research for Zazzle are the courses by Jen and Elke Clarke, particularly their Profit by Design Academy. They have heaps of videos and documents, as well as group coaching calls, and one-on-ones to help you reach your full potential.
If you have any questions or comments about doing your own product audit, please leave them below!
Peace, love & sunshine,
Jessica
  Amber
