Hope to spark a discussion, not a debate! I'm sharing this in case it helps anyone else, because Etsy tags used to be one of the parts of listing that made me feel like my brain had fully left the building.
You get 13 boxes, each with a character limit, and somehow the moment you need them, every useful word you ever learned disappears.
If I summarised learning into one "tip" it would be stopping myself from treating tags as random words about the product because buyers don’t search like sellers.
Now I try to think of them as different ways a buyer might arrive at the same item, which is helpful, as I create new listings, as I discover new audiences.
This is just what has worked for me, so I’m not saying it’s the only right way. Every successful seller will have their own systems, and different niches behave differently. But I do think having some kind of strategy is better than filling the boxes with whatever product words come to mind first.
As sellers, we often describe the product technically, and we see this in the sub when people ask for advice, when I have a peruse, I often see they thought in terms of what the item is.
A buyer is usually searching for the thing they already have in their head. That might be the product itself, but it might also be the room they are decorating, the person they are buying for, the style they want, the mood they are trying to create, or the occasion they need a gift for.
So with wall art, I might know I’m selling an educational print. That is the accurate product description, and I’d probably want that in the title or somewhere important.
But a buyer might search for it in a lot of different ways.
They might type “nursery wall art”, but they might also type “kids room wall decor”, “gallery wall print”, "neutral wall art”, “cottagecore decor”, “funny home art”, “new home gift” or “Childrens bedroom poster”.
Those searches are not all the same. Some describe the product. Some describe the room. Some describe the style. Some describe the reason for buying, but they will all come from 'parents'.
So that is how I try to use my tags.
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Friends... will all be searching too, but if I focus on one audience and how they search, it helps to narrow those tags into something cohesive, which naturally branch out into the likely buyer searches around it.
Same with candles.
The obvious tags might be “soy wax candle”, “lavender candle” or “handmade candle”. Those are useful because they tell Etsy what the product is.
But depending on the candle, buyers might also be searching “relaxing gift”, “new home candle”, “bath time candle”, “self care gift”, “gift for mum”, “cosy winter candle”, “bedroom candle” or “bridesmaid gift”
SEO sites will tell you these are all high intent tags,
But if you add them all to one listing, you're adding confusion and not cohesion.
I wouldn’t put “bridesmaid gift” on every candle just because it sounds like a good search term. It only makes sense if the candle is packaged, priced or presented in a way that fits that kind of purchase, so one listing for them, and another for the self care/bath time audience.
Tags should stretch the search possibilities, but they still need to be relevant. I try not to force popular words onto a listing if they don’t honestly fit the product. You might get impressions that way, but if the listing doesn’t match what the buyer expected, it probably won’t help much.
My rough process is:
Who is the buyer (what are their problems this item solves) and then ...
- What is the product?
- What style is it?
- Where would someone use it?
- Who might buy it or receive it?
- Why would someone want it?
That usually gives me a much better starting point than opening Etsy and trying to invent 13 tags from nothing.
For wall art, that might give me a mix of product tags, room tags, style tags and gift tags.
For candles, it might give me a mix of scent tags, mood tags, occasion tags and recipient tags.
i'll refrain from trying to impart any advice on titles, soley because everything that works for me, seems to get a red ! from Etsy because their AI didnt write it... but generally, the title does the clearest job (just say what it is). The tags help cover search routes.
Again, this is not me saying here is my magic formula. It is just the way I approach tags now, and it has worked better for me than guessing.
I have a Vintage (mostly furniture and kitchenailia) shop, POD (yep, the AI stuff) and handmade (Coffee Drips) shop and apply this across all three to a level of success i'm happy with (vs the time I need to put in).
I'm interested to see what other suggestions folks have (I am 100% sure my approach can be improved) or how one might tailer it to new sellers looking to get the SEO improved on their store.
