Shop Resources

Why your Titles and Tags are so Important!

By Cloe Cessna of Cloes Closet and Shae Willhite of Sweet Beads

The titles you give your listings is one of the most crucial parts of getting Etsy SEO right. Common sense tells us that when we want to rank for certain keywords in the search engine, we need to mention these keywords in the title. Without these keywords, Etsy would have no clue as to what our listing was about and how to rank it. The key

here, though, is not how many times this word appears in your title, but rather the order of importance.  Here’s a very important thing to remember: the first word in your listing title will weigh the heaviest and will have the biggest chance of ranking in the search results.

For example, my stats tell me that “Vogue Pattern” or “Vogue Patterns” are one of my highest search terms or keywords… so you will notice that I put it as near to the first, second or third word of my title.

Your Etsy listing title has a maximum of 140 characters, and you should use them wisely. This is why for one, you shouldn’t repeat keywords.  For your ranking, it doesn’t matter if a word appears one, two, or three times in your listing title. What does matter is the position you put it and which word is at the very beginning of your listing. Also make

sure to have your title sound like a natural sentence. It should be easy for buyers to read about your listing without having to skim through a long list of keywords.  Also, remember that people are searching by phrases now, so make sure that your title is fairly readable, and can be broken down into phrases, such as “womens shift dress”  “vintage 1960s simplicity”, because you may not be able to get a whole phrase into tags, and you have valuable real estate with your title.

Along with your listing title and tags, your description is by far one of the most important elements of your Etsy SEO. If you get your description wrong, chances are high that you’re not going to be found.  in both Etsy and Google’s search engines. The trick here is the same one that is working very well with the title: sort your words and sentences in order of importance.  Both Etsy and Google weigh heavy on the first words you mention in your description, so make sure you write about your listing using highly relevant and narrowed down words to describe it, and work your way down using more general descriptions about it. You may have a lovely story about your item and how it was inspired, but leave it for the end of your description.  When it comes to the number of times you use a keyword, your listing description does in fact have a higher chance of boosting your Etsy ranking when you use targeted keywords about three times in your

descriptions. Make sure to use natural sentences and don’t put the keywords close to each other – but mentioning a keyword you’d like to rank for in the beginning, half way through and finally at the end has been proven to improve rankings in Etsy’s search engine. Next to using your target keywords, your description should be all about describing your listing in the best way possible, giving a potential customer a good idea of what owning your piece will be like. If you were buying this item, what would you want to know?

When you want to be ranked for a certain keyword, frankly when you want to be ranked at all, you need ‘tags’. Tags are keywords that Etsy asks you to add to your listing when adding it to your shop. With these keywords, Etsy will know how to rank your items and understand more of what your listing is about. Along with your listing titles and descriptions, these tags will determine if and when you show up in the search results. Just as in your listing title, these keywords need to be chosen accurately and with care.

You have 13 tags and you should use them all! The reason why we’re making our keywords very specific, is because it’s a lot easier marketing to a highly targeted audience than to literally everybody. For this reason, you shouldn’t use very broad keywords when ‘tagging’ your listing, but terms that are narrowed down to the buyers that will have a much higher possibility of actually seeing and then buying your item. Think about it: when somebody finds you this way, your listing is exactly what they were looking for, and they had the possibility of finding you because you took care of being very precise in your keywords, instead of being buried down in a sea of immense competition.  When adding tags to your listings, take into consideration that the more precise your keyword matches the search phrase used by the Etsy shopper, the higher you will rank.  While being very specific and narrowed down to the very essence of your products is a good way to market your Etsy listings, some terms that are more broad could help you get exposure as well. Some shoppers might not even know what they are looking for when they head over to Etsy – they’re just looking around and getting ideas.

Here are some examples of broad terms to add to your keywords: 

• Moods: Anything that conveys a certain setting or mood, such as; 

‘Romantic’, ‘Happy’, ‘Quirky’, ‘Corporate’, ‘Cute'

• Colors: What color scheme could it belong to? Pastel, bright, vintage,

dark, pink, grey, black.

• Events: Is your work suitable for a certain event, such as weddings,

birthdays, anniversaries, holidays?