Etsy Tags vs Title: Which Matters More for Search Ranking

Neither wins on its own. Etsy uses your title, tags, category and attributes together to decide which searches your listing can appear in. Then shoppers' behavior, such as clicks, favorites and purchases, decides how well it ranks. The title also has a second job: getting the click.

What the title does

• Helps Etsy match your listing to searches.
• Is what shoppers read in search results, so it affects whether they click.
• Can be up to 140 characters, but Etsy recommends short, clear titles that say what the item is, with the most important words first.

Write it for a person: "Personalized Leather Dog Collar, Engraved Name Plate" beats a string of every keyword you can think of.

What tags do

• Up to 13 tags, each up to 20 characters.
• Cover the other ways shoppers search: synonyms, styles, occasions, recipients and materials.
• Multi-word phrases work better than single words.

Categories and attributes count too

Choosing the most specific category and filling every attribute, such as color, material, occasion and size, lets your listing match those searches and filters without spending tags on them.

How to use them together

1. Title: the clearest description of the item, using the phrase most buyers would search.
2. Tags: fill all 13 with different phrases. Use the title's main phrase as one tag, then spend the rest on other ways people search.
3. Attributes: fill them all in.
4. Description: write it for buyers; it helps them decide.

What else affects ranking

• Listing quality: how often shoppers click, favorite and buy after seeing it.
• Photos: the first photo drives clicks more than anything else.
• Customer experience: reviews, and how you handle orders and messages.
• Shipping: cost and speed.

Common mistakes

• Repeating the same phrase in several tags. Each tag should open a different search.
• Single-word tags like "gift", which are too broad to help.
• Leaving tags empty. Every unused tag is a search you can't appear in.
• Changing everything at once, which makes it impossible to tell what helped.

Research tools

Etsy Keyword Extractor shows the tags on any listing, so you can see how successful sellers use theirs, and the free Etsy tags tool turns your ideas into 13 tags within the 20-character limit. Then watch Etsy's Stats for the search terms that bring you visits. See Etsy keyword research for beginners.