How to get your Etsy listing on the first page
Last update: 9 April 2025
If you run a business that sells on Etsy, one of your biggest challenges will be to get your listings to rank on the first page of customers’ search results. If you don’t appear on the first page, you’ll be noticed by fewer customers – and you’ll sell fewer products as a result.
But with over 8 million active sellers, all vying to appear at the top of the results, Etsy search is really competitive.
So, among all this competition, how can you get your Etsy listing on the first page? In this guide, we’ll share some official advice from Etsy, as well as some additional tips, so you can drive stronger sales for your e-commerce business.
We’ll also introduce WorldFirst, our platform designed to support e-commerce businesses like yours to grow globally. With a World Account, you can connect with 100+ marketplaces, including Etsy, and receive and manage your global revenue in 20+ currencies.
In this article, we cover:
- The factors that determine Etsy search listings
- Three strategies to make your Etsy listing perform better in search
- How to grow your Etsy presence globally and save money with a World Account
Want a better way to manage your profits from Etsy sales – and grow your e-commerce business internationally? Sign up for a World Account today.
The factors that determine Etsy search listings
Etsy built its search tool so that it’s as easy as possible for potential buyers to find and purchase high-quality products. To ensure that customers see relevant, quality results, the Etsy search engine uses two main factors:
- Query matching, which simply pairs up the buyer’s search term with the listings that feature that term
- Ranking, which determines the order in which the listings appear to the customer. There are a number of factors that affect this, including the quality of a listing, its product, and customer service
Let’s take each one of these factors in detail, to help you understand how to rank higher on Etsy.
Query matching: Ensure your listing has the right titles, descriptions and tags
For your listing to show up when a customer makes a search, the listing needs to include the terms that the customer is searching. Effectively deploying the keywords or search terms that customers are using is fundamental to successful Etsy SEO (search engine optimisation).
There are five main ways that Etsy enables you to match your listings to customer queries:
- Titles: The title of a listing should include the main keyword that best matches your product, as it’s the first thing customers will see
- Description: The product description is the longer text shown in your listing. It should include all relevant queries that customers might be searching, ideally with the best keywords in the first few lines
- Categories: When you create a listing, you’ll add it to categories and subcategories, which help Etsy understand where to feature your product. For instance, you can add products to large categories “Outdoor & Gardening” or get more specific with “Decorative wreaths”
- Attributes: Attributes provide extra details about your product once you’ve chosen a category. For instance, attributes can describe the colour, pattern, or material of the product
- Tags: You can add up to 13 tags to each listing to better describe the product. These tags are multi-word phrases. Ideally, they should match other relevant keywords that you haven’t included elsewhere in the listing
These five factors represent the basic architecture of Etsy search. Each one of these parts of a listing should be optimised in order for you to rank on the first page.
Ranking: Maintain the overall quality of your listing
Once you’ve added accurate titles, tags, categories and descriptions, Etsy will use other factors to determine where your listing ranks in the search results.
The most important factor here is the quality of your listing and shop. If Etsy doesn’t believe your listing is high quality, you won’t perform well in searches.
Here are the key ranking factors to be aware of:
- Relevance: If your listing title is an exact match for a particular query, then the listing is likely to rank highly in the search, as it will appear more relevant. That’s why accurate titles and descriptions are really importan
- Shop quality: The quality of your offering is another key determinant of rankings. Having a completed profile helps to build trust in your brand – and will impact how highly you rank
- Listing quality: Etsy is keen to ensure the best-quality listings rank highest. Aside from having clear, trustworthy information, listings with quality photos and a clear returns policy perform better
- Customer service quality: Shops that meet Etsy’s customer service standards are prioritised in search. Factors like your reviews and your message response time impact your rankings
- Listing engagement score: Etsy uses information such as how many people look at and then purchase from a listing to understand whether customers are interested in that listing. If your listing has a low conversion rate, then it won’t rank as highly
- Recency: When a listing is first created, it enjoys a temporary boost in search rankings, in order for the Etsy algorithm to assess how well it performs.
In short, Etsy prioritises listings that are relevant and of high quality. To rank well, it’s important not just to optimise the listings themselves, but to ensure you’re delivering quality products and quality customer service.
Does having Etsy Plus help my visibility?
Etsy currently doesn’t consider Etsy Plus subscriptions when determining search results. So, the only way to improve your rankings is to include relevant keywords and deliver a consistently excellent service.
- Open 20+ local currency accounts and get paid like a local
- Pay suppliers, partners and staff worldwide in 100+ currencies
- Collect payments for free from 130+ marketplaces and payment gateways, including Amazon, Etsy, PayPal and Shopify
- Save with competitive exchange rates on currency conversions and transfers
- Lock in exchange rates for up to 24 months for cash flow certainty
Four strategies to make your Etsy listing perform better
By now you know the factors that Etsy considers in their ranking algorithm. But what do you have to do to get your listings to rank on the first page?
Try these Etsy SEO tips to get seen by more customers and boost your sales.
1. Do Etsy keyword research to identify relevant long-tail keywords with low competition
Whatever it is you’re selling, there’ll be many different ways to accurately describe the product, with different customers using different search terms. For instance, to find “bed linen”, potential customers might search for “duvet covers”, “pillowcases”, or “bedding sets”.
Some of these terms will be more competitive than others, making it harder to rank your listing on the first page. But you may be able to spot keyword opportunities that are less competitive, making it easier for you to rank.
How do you find keywords that are less difficult to rank for? Use a keyword research tool such as eRank, Alura, or KeySearch. These tools use search data to help you spot opportunities that other sellers might be missing.
Typically, it’s longer, more specific keywords that are less competitive. For instance, rather than trying to rank for “duvet cover”, optimise your listing for “200 thread count pure cotton duvet cover”.
2. Test different options for titles, tags and descriptions
When choosing less competitive keywords, it’s important to ensure that your listing remains clear and accurate, so that potential customers can find what they’re looking for.
To this end, Etsy advises that you use the most descriptive set of keywords in your product title and tags. But it’s critical that you avoid keyword stuffing, where you use lots of keyword variations to try to game the system and rank highly. Remember that Etsy rewards quality listings – not just listings that use relevant search terms.
One way to improve your rankings is to test different titles, descriptions, tags and category variations and track which perform best. For instance, you might find that you rank better when you use particular tags.
Typically, the greatest diversity of tags is best in order to show up in more searches. So, rather than using similar tags, such as “woollen jumper” and “knitted jumper”, try to include a broader range of keywords such as “cosy winter clothes” or “sustainable fashion”.
Ultimately, it’s relevant, informative and clear listings that perform best, rather than listings that try to manipulate Etsy’s search algorithms.
3. Take steps to improve your customer service and overall quality
We shared above that to rank on the first page on Etsy, it’s not enough to optimise the wording of your listing. You also need to ensure you’re delivering an exceptional product and service.
Two critical factors to improve as much as you can are your customer reviews and your message response rate. Even just answering customer queries as quickly as you can has an impact here. So does the number of customer cases that are open against you.
Overall, you should be aiming for average customer reviews of at least four or five stars. This will show customers that they can trust your service and purchase from you with confidence.
But good reviews don’t always just happen – sometimes you need to nudge them along. You can increase your chances by adding a handwritten thank-you note or small freebie, use Etsy’s built-in tools to send polite reminders after a sale, or follow up with a message once the order’s been marked as delivered.
If you’ve just set up an Etsy shop and you don’t yet have reviews, don’t worry. Recently published listings enjoy a temporary boost in rankings. Just make sure that your listings are complete, with quality images, an “About” section, and a full description.
4. Keep your listings up to date
In line with its factor of recency, Etsy actively promotes newer listings. This way, it helps to keep content and products fresh on the platform.
One way to maintain high rankings is to regularly optimise your listings, add new products and variations, and ensure your store is up to date. It can help your store stay at the forefront of Etsy’s product rankings as it experiments with new content for customers.
Now, this won’t guarantee that your listings will appear on the first page. However, it will ensure customers get the most accurate information and are served the most recent range of products – things that are rewarded in the Etsy search results.
How to grow your Etsy presence globally and save money with a World Account
If you’re looking for ways to maximise your profits from your Etsy store, you can do much more than optimising your listings for Etsy search.
For instance, one critical strategy is to use a payment solution that can support you to grow your presence internationally. With a multi-currency account that connects directly with marketplaces such as Etsy, you can reach new global markets without needing a local banking relationship.
At WorldFirst, we enable e-commerce businesses to connect with 100+ marketplaces across the world – including Etsy – and receive money in over 20+ currencies. With a World Account, you can bring your products to even larger global audiences.
To end this guide, we want to share a few ways that a World Account can help you maximise your profits from Etsy and other marketplaces.
Open 20+ currency accounts to get paid like a local all over the world
One issue that many e-commerce sellers encounter when expanding their operations globally is that they require a separate bank account in each country or region in which they sell in order to withdraw money they’ve made from sales.
It means that scaling businesses have to manage a lot of admin to open local accounts across the world. This slows down their growth and adds costs in labour and bank account fees.
This is one of the key problems that a World Account can solve. With a single account, sellers are able to set up receiving accounts in over 20 different currencies, including GBP, USD, CAD, AUD, CNH, EUR, HKD, JPY, NZD and SGD.
It means that you can scale your Etsy business into new geographies without hassle. For instance, if you’re based in the UK but you’re selling on Etsy in the US, you can get paid into your local USD receiving account with WorldFirst.
It couldn’t be easier to open a new currency account in your WorldFirst account. Each one comes with local account details, so you can get paid like a local.
Access the best foreign exchange rates to bring your Etsy sales proceeds back home
For businesses operating in multiple geographies, it can be really difficult to keep track of foreign exchange rates. That challenge is only exacerbated when conventional banks charge additional fees on top of foreign exchange margins.
At WorldFirst, we help you get the best rates for your currency exchange. You can choose to exchange different currencies at today’s rate, lock in a rate for future transactions, or set a rate that you want to wait for.
This way, you can convert your earnings at the best price to help you maximise your e-commerce profits, wherever you’re selling.
You also don’t need to manually monitor ever-changing exchange rates yourself. Instead, we’ll send you live alerts when the rates reach your target, so that you can take advantage of the best deals.
Get started in a matter of minutes
It’s easy to open a World Account and start benefiting from faster and more affordable global payments.
If you have the right business information to hand, it only takes a matter of minutes to register for an account. Once your account is active, head to your Etsy account, visit the payment settings, and change your receiving account to your World Account. Your earnings will be automatically paid into your World Account in accordance with your deposit schedule.
And if you already have a bank account connected with Etsy, it couldn’t be easier to switch. You can simply download an account verification letter to prove your account ownership.
From here on out, you’ll benefit from fast domestic transfers, so your Etsy earnings will be paid to your account on the same day.
Maximise your Etsy profits with WorldFirst
At WorldFirst, we can help you build a more profitable, global Etsy business.
With a World Account, it couldn’t be easier to withdraw your sales revenue from your e-commerce marketplace, wherever in the world you want to operate. You can create a receiving account in 20+ currencies – and benefit from some of the most competitive exchange rates on the market.
Ready to give your Etsy profits a boost? Open a World Account today.
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