If you’ve been pulling your hair out trying to piece together the different bits and pieces
of Etsy SEO advice the internet is throwing at you to figure out what to do with your
titles and tags, this is the video for you.
First I’ll show you 5 very common mistakes many Etsy sellers make and why they might
be seriously getting in the way of your products getting found in Etsy search.
Then we’ll make a little plan for what to do instead when picking your Etsy titles and
tags the right way. Let’s dive in.
Hi I am Deb, founder of Tizzit.co, a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners
- just like your fantastic self - and today we’re chatting Etsy SEO...
… and I want to make clear that none of what I am going to explain is stuff I “made
up” or “tricks” to get you to “hack” the algorithm. There is no such thing. These
are all facts learnt directly from Etsy, and I’ll make sure to quote them and to link
to further resources below that I strongly encourage you to take a look at as you learn
more about Etsy SEO.
There is a LOT of misguided information getting passed around online around Etsy SEO and the
Etsy algorithm is also always changing - so for this reason I think you should always
fact-check what you learn rather than blindly follow a tactic that worked for ONE person
in isolation and that might not be right for you - or at all.
Speaking of, let’s dive straight into mistake #1.
The first mistake is so wide-spread, and so
many people will still recommend you do this EVEN though Etsy has multiple times said that
this was NOT a good strategy.
It’s the idea that “Your titles MUST match your tags”. This is NOT true AND if you
are trying to repeat all your keywords in your titles and in your tags you are
1. Going to go crazy and 2. Going to kill your chances at getting found
on Etsy
…yet so many sellers do this.
Now, the reason this mistake is being made is because of this statement made by Etsy
that has been taken out of context and mis-interpreted by wayyyy too many people:
“The most descriptive and relevant keywords for your listings should appear in both your
titles and your tags.”
OK at this stage you’re probably a bit confused: “Deb you just said DON'T MATCH THEM but
then Etsy just said it should appear in both titles and tags. So which one is it?”
Fair enough, it does sound confusing but the simple answer is… you should match ONLY
the MOST relevant keyword or phrase in your title and tags, but absolutely NOT all of
them.
There are 2 main reasons why repeating your tags in your title is a bad idea:
1. It’s a missed opportunity to save space for a broader variety of keywords and phrases
and to increase your chances at getting found. If you don’t repeat all your tags in your
title, then you have more space in your title for more keywords you couldn’t “fit in”
before.
2. You will end up doing what’s called “keyword stuffing” your titles, meaning they will
look like they were written to “trick the algorithm” and written for a computer rather
than for human beings.
Or in Etsy’s words: “Given that you have 13 spaces for tags
for each listing, all of the keywords that you use as tags don't necessarily need to
appear in your title, too. A long title stuffed with a bunch of keywords might make it difficult
for shoppers to quickly find the items that you’re selling when they’re scanning search
results. Instead for your title, think about prioritizing the most descriptive phrases
and keywords”
So remember, you do not need to match ALL your tags to your title, you will STILL be
found in search for tags, attributes, and categories that are NOT repeated in your title.
Speaking of tags and attributes… let’s take a look at mistake #2.
MISTAKE 2 - Repeating attributes and categories in your title and tags unnecessarily
Another easy mistake to make is forgetting that the attributes and categories that you
selected when you created your listing ACT as tags.
So when we think about tags and titles, we often only think about the 13 tags you can
manually pick, but we forget about attributes and categories.
That’s a huge missed opportunity also.
Meaning that if you have an item listed under the category “stud earrings”, you don’t
need to repeat “stud earrings” as one of your 13 tags. It’s already in there.
And not only that… but all the parent categories of the sub-category “stud earrings” will
ALSO act as tags for this listing.
So in this case, “jewelry” and “earrings” will also act as tags for your listing, you
do not need to repeat them in your 13 tags.
Same goes for attributes. Once you select your category in your listing, Etsy offers
you a bunch of other options, which will look different based on the category you picked,
that they will then use to help shoppers filter the results. These are things like size, material,
color, etc.
All these extra attributes ALSO act as tags, so you do not need to repeat them in your
13 tags. So if you have “bronze” or “silver” as an attribute, you do not need to repeat
“silver” in your 13 tags.
Or in Etsy’s words: “Search uses your titles, tags, categories,
and attributes when trying to match you to buyers, so when a buyer enters a query, we’re
looking for all the keywords that you’ve added across those four dimensions. Adding
the exact same phrases that appear in your categories and attributes is actually a missed
opportunity to maybe add an additional tag that’s unique to the item you're selling.”
Now onto mistake #3 => this one is also pretty wide-spread and is a huge missed opportunity
to use MORE keywords and add variety to your keywords to be found by more people.
Imagine a title for a necklace that reads:
“sterling silver minimalist necklace, silver pine tree necklace, minimalist necklace, dainty
silver pendant, minimalist tree necklace”
At first, it sounds ok, but there is a lot of repetition in there. Let’s highlight
all the keywords that are repeated:
“sterling silver minimalist necklace, silver pine tree necklace, minimalist necklace, dainty
silver pendant, minimalist tree necklace”.
And chances are… the tags are also repeating those keywords… this is space you could
use to have MORE variety and try more keywords like “nature lover” “wanderlust” “mountain
inspired” etc.
You will still show up for “minimalist tree necklace” even if your title doesn’t have
those exact words in this exact order. For example, you would still show up for it if
your title was:
“Sterling silver minimalist necklace, pine tree pendant” - because the words are there, just not in the exact order.
So instead of repeating the same keyword multiple times in your title (and in your tags!), add
different keywords to broaden your reach.
Similarly, and that's mistake #4, you do not need to repeat the same keyword over and over again in your tags.
For example, you don’t need to write “Boho wall art” “floral wall art”
“botanical wall art” The keyword “wall art” does not need to
be there 3 times. You could instead, again, broaden the possibilities
of getting found by using different keywords such as
“Boho wall art” “botanical print” “floral home decor” and give yourself
more chances of getting found by more people because they all use different search terms.
Now mistake #5! I don’t see it all that often anymore but I thought it was still worth
mentioning here: Etsy is smart and will account for misspelling and plurals.
You don’t need to add misspelling, US vs UK variations for words like say “jewellery”
or plurals as keywords in your tags and titles.
For example, Etsy will show a listing with the word “diary” to someone who typed
in “diaries”, so don’t lose space trying to cover those!
Other examples they give are: Favor and flavor;
Hat and Hats. Don’t waste precious space and use those
“saved” characters to add more keywords instead.
Ok so now that we’ve covered the most common mistakes, let’s move on to what you should
do and how to think about your tags and titles instead.
There’re many different factors that come into play in the Etsy search algorithm for
Etsy to decide which items will show first when someone types a few keywords in the search
bar.
If you need a refresher on exactly how the Etsy search algorithm works, I do have a video
called “Complete Guide to Etsy Search” that I’ll link below and strongly recommend
you watch but FOR THIS VIDEO and when it comes to picking your TITLE AND TAGS, the most important
criteria you need to keep in mind is what’s called “RELEVANCY”.
When a shopper types in keywords into the Etsy search bar, Etsy compares them to 4 things:
your * Titles
* Tags * Categories
* Attributes
And then it asks itself: how relevant is this listing to this shopper’s search?
The more closely your title, tags, attributes, and categories match what this shopper typed
into the search bar, the more likely it is that your item will show up higher in the
search results because it is more “relevant”.
Now, practically… what does this mean? It means that your listing can match a shopper’s
search EXACTLY or “BROADLY”.
Let’s look at an example:
Imagine your listing title is
“Black oversized jumper, organic cotton sweater, personalised hoodie sweatshirt”
And someone types in “black oversized jumper” in search => You have an EXACT match, because
this exact phrase appears in your listing, with the words in this exact order.
This tells Etsy your listing is pretty relevant.
If someone types in “black oversized hoodie” you will still show up in search, because
“black” “oversized” and “hoodie” are all keywords appearing in your listing,
except this time it isn’t an EXACT match, but a “BROAD” match.
This means that if another shop has “black oversized hoodie” as an exact match in their
listing… that listing is, in the algorithm eyes, more “RELEVANT” than yours. This
doesn’t mean this listing will necessarily show up BEFORE yours, because as I said there
is more than “relevancy” that comes into play in search ranking, but this is one of
the different points of data Etsy looks at.
So… why is this important?
Because as we’ve seen looking at the top 5 mistakes just before… you can’t possibly
hope to be an EXACT match for all your keywords and phrases… because to do that you’d
have to repeat them unnecessarily in your titles, tags, attributes and categories and
as we saw this is a missed opportunity to diversify your keywords and to get more reach
for your listings - which is exactly what you’re trying to do!
So instead…
* ONE ----- Pick 1 or 2 phrases that best describe your item and are the most relevant,
the ones you most want to be found under. Pick phrases that are not too broad - and
not too specific here (more on that in a second). * TWO ------ Try to aim for “exact match”
for those key phrases and to do so, you’ll want to repeat those 1 or 2 key phrases in
your title and in your tags. These are your 1 to 2 FOCUS KEYWORDS: keyword phrases exactly
matched in your title and tags. * THREE ----- After that use all the room/characters
you’ve got left in your title and tags to add different search terms/different keywords
so you have more variety and better chances of being found by MORE people.
Now... you’re probably left with one (very good) question which is…
When I am picking my “key phrases” or “focus phrases”... how do I know what’s
too broad and what’s too specific?”
I have a video just about this and the famous LONG TAIL KEYWORDS (what they are, how they
work, how to use them) that explains this in great details and that’s coming up in
the next couple of weeks. By the time you’re watching this, it’s probably live already
so click the ETSY SEO playlist thumbnail you can see showing on the screen right now to
watch it next :-) I think you’ll find it super helpful.
If you’re watching this video as it’s being released, make sure to subscribe to
my channel to get notified when this video comes out!
===> Thanks for watching and aurevoir!