Tags
Etsy tags: thirteen slots and how to waste them
Every listing gets thirteen tags of up to twenty characters, and they are free. Most print on demand listings spend six of them badly. Here is what the rules actually are, and what a wasted slot looks like.
The rules
What Etsy actually states
These four are published by Etsy. Everything further down this page is judgement, and is labelled as such.
| Rule | Value | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Tags per listing | 13 | There is no way to buy more |
| Characters per tag | 20 | Including spaces |
| Multi-word tags | Allowed | And usually better than one word |
| Cost | None | Tags are free; unused ones are simply wasted |
Etsy does not publish how its search weighs tags against titles, attributes or anything else, so nobody can honestly tell you the formula. Anyone who does is guessing with confidence.
Judgement, not rules
Five ways a slot gets wasted
None of these break anything. They just quietly return nothing.
Single words
“Shirt”, “gift”, “funny”. You are entering a pool with hundreds of thousands of listings and no way to stand out in it. A slot spent on one word is a slot that will never return anything.
Repeats of your own title
Putting a phrase in the title and again in a tag does not double anything. It spends a slot on ground you already hold, when you could have covered a phrase you do not.
Near-identical variations
“teacher shirt”, “shirt for teacher”, “teachers shirt”. Three slots, one idea. Pick the phrasing a buyer is most likely to type and spend the other two somewhere else entirely.
Words nobody searches
Your design's internal name, an aesthetic you invented, an abbreviation only you use. If you have never seen it in Etsy's search suggestions, no one is typing it.
Empty slots
The most common waste of all. A listing with six tags has thrown away seven free chances to be found, and nothing about that shows up as a problem on the listing page.
Free research
Where real tags come from
Etsy will tell you what people type if you ask it the way a buyer would.
- Open Etsy and start typing your product into the search bar. Do not press enter.
- Write down every suggestion it offers. Those come from real searches.
- Type the same thing with a different opening word and collect those too.
- Search one of them and read the titles that rank. The vocabulary is the point, not the wording.
- Fill all thirteen slots from that list, using phrases your title does not already carry.
The part tags cannot do
Tags get you shown. They do not get you chosen. A listing that appears in search and then fails to convert slides back down on its own, so the work does not end at thirteen good phrases — it ends at a listing page a buyer is willing to act on.
FAQ
Tag questions
- How many tags can an Etsy listing have?
- Thirteen. Each can be up to 20 characters including spaces, and they cost nothing, so a listing using fewer than thirteen is leaving free slots on the table.
- Should tags be single words or phrases?
- Phrases. A single word puts you in the largest possible pool with the least possible relevance. Multi-word tags describe the thing a buyer is actually looking for, and 20 characters is enough for most useful phrases.
- Should I repeat my title words in the tags?
- Generally no. Repeating a phrase you already have in the title spends a slot on ground you already cover. Use the thirteen to reach phrasings and angles the title does not.
- Where do I find tags that people actually search?
- Etsy's own search bar. Start typing your product and write down the suggestions it offers. Those come from real searches, which makes them better than any guess and better than most paid tools.
- Do tags matter more than photos?
- They do different jobs, and you need both. Tags decide whether you appear at all. Photos decide whether anyone clicks, and whether they buy once they do. A listing that ranks and does not convert falls back down, so tags alone do not hold a position.
- Should I copy the tags of a best-selling listing?
- It is the most common advice in this niche and it is weak. Copying puts you in the crowded pool that seller already dominates, and none of their sales history transfers with the words. Use their tags to understand the vocabulary, then find the phrases they have not covered.
Tags get the click. Photos get the sale. Browse the catalog