Etsy SEO in Action: Before & After Listing Optimization
Recently, I made my first sale on Etsy, a small but exciting milestone.
The best part? It came about a month after I rewrote the titles and tags for all 18 of my art printable listings. It was a pleasantly surprising moment.
One of the listings that sold in my first sale
Here’s a closer look at one of the listings that sold:
Item: Floral purple beetle (with frame)
Original listing date: 01/15/2025
Listing titles & tags updated on: 03/17/2025
item sold: 04/13/2025
Original title:
Cute Beetle, Printable Art, Gouache Illustration, Bedroom Art, Instant Digital Download, Wall Art, Cute Decor, Girly Aesthetic, Kids Nursery
Original tags:
Insects, home decor, digital download, art print, gouache art, pink, trendy, kids art, nursery art, purple, cute art, modern art, coquette room
Updated title:
Bright Floral Beetle Wall Art, Summer gouache Illustration, Contemporary Instant Digital Download Nursery Wall Art, Kid's Bedroom Decor
Updated tags:
Insects, home decor, digital download, art print, coquette room, spring, nursery, kid's room, wall art, modern, trendy, baby shower, gardener
A screenshot of the listings titles/tags before and after being updated
What I changed and why
After researching Etsy SEO best practices, I realized my original titles and tags weren’t doing much to help buyers find my listings, and the titles were poorly formatted.
During the update I focused on a mix of:
“anchor” keywords (what the item is)
“descriptive” keywords (describing the item)
for example:
Bright Floral Beetle Wall Art
(descriptive keyword, descriptive keyword, descriptive keyword, anchor keyword)
For the tags I focused on answering the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when why)
Who is using the product?
What are they doing with it?
Where are they using it?
When are they using it?
Why are they using it?
***
The 5 W’s in action
Listing tags: Insects, home decor, digital download, art print, coquette room, spring, nursery, kid's room, wall art, modern, trendy, baby shower, gardener
Who: gardener
What: home decor, art print, digital download, wall art
Where: coquette room, nursery, kid’s room
When: baby shower
Why: insects, modern, spring, trendy
What this taught me
Etsy rewards active shops: Posting new listings and updating old ones signals to Etsy that your shop isn’t dormant, which may help with visibility.
SEO doesn't have to be perfect to be effective: Etsy cross-matches keywords across your titles, tags, attributes, and categories, which means you don’t need to stuff or duplicate words to get results.
Tags aligned with buyer intent help your listings appear in more relevant search results
Etsy analytics Highlights:
From March 17-April 13 (the time between updating the listing and the first sale) 90% of shop traffic came from my art website, not Etsy’s internal search
Next Steps
This small win encouraged me to continue with:
A full SEO audit of my art website
Launching a new fruit-themed printable art collection