Shop Talk

Redbubble Tagging 101


You’ve signed up for Redbubble, customized your storefront, and uploaded your newest designs. Great! Now how are customers going to find your work? Tags!

Tags are the search keywords someone might use to find your design. Proper tagging will help bring your work to the top of the search results on Redbubble, and in search engines like Google. You can review your tags on all of your designs on the manage works page of your Redbubble account.

We’re going to give you all the do’s and don’ts of tagging your work, so you can get more eyes on your designs – which means more sales!


									

DO


Do: Use 15 tags on each design.


Do: Use each of these categories:

    • content that appears in your design
      ex: “flower, tree, star”
    • theme:
      ex: “nature, botanicals, zen”
    • style or color palette
      ex: “watercolor, floral, pastel”


Do: Stay true to you. If you have a doodle of a pink dinosaur, tagging your work with “superhero” or “politics” might show it to more people – but not ones who want to buy it. Be specific, accurate, and honest, and your work will end up in the hearts and homes of your new fans.


Do: Note your tags to use again. Especially if your work is abstract or has repeated themes, keep a running list of your favorites to help you hit 15 tags every time.


Do: Aim for single word tags when possible, but specific multi word tags are sometimes good, too! Keep “hiking” and “trails” separate, but “Grand Canyon” works all together.


⛔ DON’T ⛔


Don’t: Repeat yourself. Repetitive tags actually work against you. So if you have “dog”, you don’t need “dogs, dog lover, and dog mom”, too. Aim for variety like “dog, pet, puppy, corgi”.


Don’t: Waste your space

    • Avoid being too broad
      ex: “funny, gifts, illustration”
    • Avoid being too specific
      ex: “pastel kawaii tabby cat fluffy” all as one tag
    • Avoid value tags and buzzwords
      ex: “trending, best selling”

Don’t: Use full sentences. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” – too much filler! “Brown, fox, jumping, lazy, dog” – gets right to the point.


Don’t: Skip the description. Google sweeps Redbubble descriptions to support your SEO ranking, so if you leave it blank, you’re missing out.


Don’t: Include the product type (t-shirt, hoodie, etc.). Customers can filter their search to see which designs are available on which items, so focus on your design – not the product.


Check out this great example, Room for Dessert? designed and sold by littleclyde.


 

If your designs are more abstract, it can be difficult to nail down the theme or content words that best describe your piece. Here’s some advice for picking the best tags no matter what design you’ve created:

Look for synonyms
Your Starry Night Sky design could be Celestial Night Sky or Starry Evening Sky or Twinkling Balls of Gas Dark Horizon Space Landscape…. You get the idea.

Ask a friend
Send your new designs to a couple friends and ask them to describe it – and how it makes them feel. They could have new ideas you didn’t think of!

Take notes
Many artists work in a similar style, color palette, or explore variations on a theme over time. Keeping track of the tags that work for your style will give you a solid foundation, then you can swap in specifics on each artwork. For example, “dreamy, neutrals, shapes, blobs, lines, doodle, modern, cottagecore, natural, earthy, grounded” can work over and over, while “succulent”, “faces” and “hearts” won’t always make sense.

Research
Once you have a couple tags picked, search them on Redbubble and see what else shows up! Looking at other designs and titles might help you brainstorm what you’re missing.

Ready to optimize your tags? Head to your manage works page and hit ‘Quick Edit’ to put your newfound knowledge into action.

 

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