Listings & SEO · P-01 — The Listing Builder
How to write an Etsy listing that ranks and still reads like English
“I finished the thing. Now I have to write a title, thirteen tags and a description, and I'd rather remake the product than do that.”
You are an Etsy listing copywriter. You write titles that match how buyers
actually search AND still read like a human wrote them.
Write a complete Etsy listing for the product below.
MY PRODUCT
- What it is: [e.g., 12 oz speckled ceramic mug with a hand-painted cat face]
- Materials / how it's made: [e.g., stoneware, hand-thrown, food-safe mint glaze, dishwasher safe]
- Who buys it: [e.g., cat people, usually buying a gift for a friend or for themselves]
- Occasions it sells for: [e.g., birthdays, Christmas, housewarming]
- Price: [e.g., $28]
- Variations: [e.g., mint / oat / charcoal glaze — or write "none"]
- What makes mine different from the 500 similar ones: [e.g., every cat face is
painted freehand, so no two are identical]
RULES
1. TITLE — 140 characters maximum. The strongest phrase a buyer would type goes
in the first five words. Readable English, separated by commas. Not a pile of
keywords. Show me the character count.
2. TAGS — exactly 13. Each one 20 characters maximum INCLUDING spaces. Every tag
must be 2+ words, phrased the way a shopper types into a search bar. No single
generic words. No tag may repeat another tag's exact phrase. Show the character
count beside each tag.
3. OVERLAP — at least 6 of the 13 tags must appear word-for-word inside the title.
4. DESCRIPTION — open with two lines that sell the feeling and contain the main
search phrase. Then "Why you'll love it" as benefits, not specs. Then a plain
specs block. Then care/shipping. Then one warm line about the shop.
5. Write for the shopper. Make no claims about how Etsy's search works, and do not
invent shipping times, fees or policies — leave those as [I fill this in].
OUTPUT
A. Title, with character count
B. The 13 tags as a table: tag | characters | appears in title? (yes/no)
C. The description, ready to paste
D. One line: which search phrase you built the listing around, and why you chose
it over the more obvious one.
What it produced
Run on *Maple & Moss, 12 oz speckled stoneware mug, freehand-painted cat face, mint glaze, $28, three glaze colors.*
A. Title (138 characters)
Speckled Ceramic Cat Mug, Cat Lover Gift, Hand Painted Mug, 12oz Stoneware Coffee Mug, Mint Green Mug, Gift for Cat Mom, Cat Birthday GiftB. Tags
Tag Chars In title? cat lover gift 14 yes hand painted mug 16 yes stoneware coffee mug 20 yes mint green mug 14 yes gift for cat mom 16 yes cat birthday gift 17 yes speckled ceramic mug 20 no handmade cat mug 16 no cat coffee mug 14 no unique cat gift 15 no pottery cat mug 15 no cat gift for her 16 no 12 oz ceramic mug 17 no C. Description
Some mugs hold coffee. This one has opinions. Every speckled ceramic cat mug is hand painted one face at a time, which means the cat staring back at you at 7am belongs to nobody else.
Why you’ll love it
- The face is painted freehand, so yours is genuinely one of one — no transfer, no decal, no second identical mug anywhere.
- Thick stoneware walls keep coffee hot long past the second distraction of the morning.
- The handle is sized for a whole hand, not two polite fingers.
- It’s the gift that gets photographed and texted to you later.
The details
- 12 oz hand-thrown stoneware
- Food-safe mint glaze (also in oat and charcoal)
- Dishwasher and microwave safe
- Roughly 3.6” tall — small variations are the point, not a flaw
Care & shipping — Wash however you like; it can take it. Ships in [I fill this in], packed in recycled padding that has survived worse.
Made in a small studio where the kiln runs on Tuesdays and the cats supervise.
D. The phrase I built around:
gift for cat mom, notceramic mug. Someone typing “ceramic mug” is browsing a category of thousands. Someone typing “gift for cat mom” has already decided to buy something and only needs to pick which one — and your product is a better answer to that question than to the first one.
Run it twice — once describing your product to a friend, once describing it to a stranger. The two titles you get back will disagree on one phrase. That phrase is the one worth testing.
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