When you create a product listing in Etsy, you can add up to 13 product tags. It really helps your listing to get found by customers if you use all of these tags, but there is such a thing as a good tag and a bad tag. We’re going to talk about this today.

What makes a product tag ‘bad’?

Well, the short answer to this is a generic, single-word tag.

Let’s say you’re listing a green handmade matcha bowl. If you use the tag ‘bowl’, that’s very non-specific. In fact, according to eRank, in the 12 months of 2024, there were 3080 searches on Etsy for the word ‘bowl’ and 554,014 Etsy search results. Ouch. The chances of your bowl being discovered are slim-to-none.

This is the same for colours, materials, sizes, shapes etc. If you use tags that don’t say much about your product, they are not helping you.

Here’s how to make Etsy product tags more effective

Use 2-3 word tags instead. You get 20 characters so try to be as specific as possible to help get your product in front of the people that are searching for it.

Let’s look at our matcha bowl again. In the 12 months of 2024, there were 4016 searches on Etsy for the phrase ‘Matcha Bowl’, and 1616 Etsy search results. Suddenly, your chances of being discovered are much higher.

Can you see the difference? If I were to create 13 tags for my matcha bowl, I would go with something like this:

1- Matcha bowl, 2- Matcha bowl gifts, 3-Tea bowl, 4-Matcha gift, 5- Matcha lover, 6- Handmade bowls, 7-Tea lover gifts, 8-Ceramic gifts, 9-Matcha Tea, 10- Matcha accessories, 11- Handcrafted bowl, 12-Tea ceremony, 13- Green Matcha Bowl

How to Supercharge Your Etsy Tags

This one is so obvious when you know it. Include them in your product description. Pick the most important one and put it at the start of your listing description and in the start of the product title.

A word of warning. Yes, include the product tags in your description, BUT, make sure it makes sense! Don’t shoehorn them in- it must read naturally.

If you want help with Etsy keywords and tag suggestions, get yourself over to eRank. They have a free option but the basic plan costs about the same as a posh cup of coffee a month.

As always, I hope this helps!

Emma x