The chances are, if you found this article, you’re interested in starting an Etsy shop and are looking for some top secret Etsy seller tricks to help your listings get found. Am I right?

Well, as I promised, no gatekeeping here. Many of my listings appear on the first or second pages in Etsy searches, even though they sit in oversaturated categories. I’m an Esty top 0.1% seller and I’m about to share exactly what I did to get there.

In typical Emma-fashion, I set up our Etsy shop and did nothing with it for about 6 years. Don’t do that. I only really started putting any effort in to our shop when I had the realisation that all our eggs were in one basket. 99% of our income came from NOTHS (Notonthehighstreet), and if anything were to happen to them we’d be totally screwed. So I started consistently putting in the work and it paid off. Etsy likes it when you are consistent, you show up and add listings regularly.

Here are my top Etsy selling tips to help customers to find your listings:

1- Choose Your Product Title Carefully. Etsy titles are a tricky one. Some people tell you to throw keywords at them like confetti, separating each keyword with a comma and thus appeasing the Etsy algorithm Gods. Although some of this does make sense, the most important thing is to make sure they make sense for the customers. After all, it’s them you’re writing it for, not the algorithm.

You should choose the most important keyword for your listing and include this somewhere near the beginning of your title. Let’s take an example of a mermaid birthday card. Your title might be “Personalised Mermaid Birthday Card For Her”. Some sellers get quite carried away here and add things like “Personalised Mermaid Birthday Card For Her, Granddaughter, Daughter, Friend, Bestie, Birthday Cards For Girls, Boys, Kids” but this does not read nicely and, in my experience, it adds nothing to the listing in terms of discoverability.

2-Take decent product photos. Each listing can have up to 10 photographs and 1 video. Use them all. The Etsy algorithm loves it when you use all of the image slots. Add a selection of photos that show your product from different angles, a lifestyle image and any variations such as colour. When you upload your images, be sure to add Alt text by clicking on the photo in the listing editor and fill in the Alt Text box. Be sure to add a relevant keyword in your description.

For example, if your product is a birthday card with a mermaid on it, your Alt Text description might say “A photograph of a personalised mermaid birthday card featuring a cute drawing of a mermaid with a pink tail and red hair. The recipient’s name is written across the top of the card”. This text provides a detailed description for visually impaired customers, but it also tells the algorithm that this is a ‘personalised mermaid birthday card’.

Side note- I’d put money on the fact that most Etsy sellers don’t fill in their alt text descriptions, so make sure you do this to give yourself an advantage.

3- Use all 13 tags. There is such a thing as a good tag and a bad tag. In listing editor, scroll down until you find the “Tags” box. Etsy allows you to add up to 13 tags- these are keywords that will help you to get found, so they are super important. The algorithm loves longtail keywords, i.e. with 2 or more words, but beware- you only get 20 characters per tag.

Using our mermaid card as an example, you might go for tags like ‘personalised cards’, ‘mermaid birthday’, ‘birthday cards’, and ‘cards for her’. This will do far more in terms of helping the algorithm to place your card when someone searches for “mermaid birthday” than single-word tags like ‘birthday’ or ‘card’. I hope you can see the difference!

4-Write brilliant product descriptions. Why would I put this after the point about tags? Well, there’s a good reason for this. You need to include (at least some of) your tags in your item description if possible.

Again, think about the customer, your description needs to be written for them, not for the algorithm, so only include the keywords or tags that fit nicely. Be sure to put the most important one (the one in the title) at the start of your description. This shows the algorithm that it is the main event, the real deal, the one to notice.

Also make sure you include relevant product information such as size, colour, materials, options etc. Write in a way that is professional (no spelling or grammatical errors) but friendly.

Etsy customers are there because they have an appreciation of handmade products and small businesses. They want to hear your story, your inspiration behind the design, or even where you make your items (e.g. “I create all of my illustrations in my design studio overlooking the Cornish coast. This particular mermaid birthday card was inspired by an old Cornish poem I read on my lunchbreak”). Remember, as a small business owner, your humanness is your secret sauce. Big brands simply can’t bring that kind of small business magic to the table.

5- Fill in all the blanks– The attributes are there for a reason, and that reason is to help you get found and your customers to find you. The more information you can provide, the easier it is for the algorithm to know where to put your listing, and for your customer to get all the information they need.

These are my top 5 tips for Etsy listing discoverability. Is there anything you’d like to add? Let me know in the comments or drop me a message.