Tagging - Yes I know another newbie question

[peanutfarm]

I'm just not getting the tagging concept at all!  Should I be making them as simple as possible ie butterfly, orange...?  Or gift use ie nature lover, gardener?  Combination of both?  What? What would you tag a magnet that has a monarch butterfly with a name underneath it?  I think I've incorrectly tagged all my products and I'm ready to fix them but need help.  I definitely need a store audit but unable to pay the $1000 one-on-one coaching.   

[Wollastonite]

Imagine yourself as a customer looking for a product. You find Zazzle's main page and you're presented with the search box to find whatever you're looking for. Who are you as a customer? Are you a fan of butterflies who wants to find butterfly products? People like that exist. Maybe you're a gardener, looking for general designs, but you aren't quite sure what you want. You just know you'll know it when you see it. Focus on both of them.

What are they going to type in that search box? The butterfly fan is probably going to go with "butterfly." They might not type "orange," because they probably aren't specifically looking for something that's orange. They want butterflies. They might be specific and want monarch butterflies. Realistic ones. Cartoon ones. Whatever that butterfly fan is likely to type in that box, that's the tag you want to include.

What is the gardener going to type? They might not specifically search for butterflies, but what might they search that could turn up a butterfly design?  Maybe they would search for things related to "nature" or "outdoors" or "gardening," which a butterfly design might fit. It might take some brainstorming and research to make that link.

You have tools available to you to help find useful tags. One of them is Zazzle itself. If your design is a butterfly with a name, type "butterfly name" in the search and see what comes up. There are some categories in circles that pop up based on the popular tags other shopkeepers are using. Borrow the ones that apply. I see vintage, floral, pretty, butterflies, blue, girly, baby shower.  Do any fit? "Pretty" and "girly" might? A customer might see that category, click on it, and you want your magnet to be there. [Bonus: Is the design floral? If not, is there something you could add to make a floral version? If "blue" is popular enough to show up there, maybe you want to color swap a blue version of your butterfly.]

In this day and age, you could also ask ChatGPT. Tell it it's a print-on-demand shopkeeper and SEO expert and it needs to produce twenty different SEO-optimized long tail keywords that would help a customer find a butterfly magnet through a search engine. Of those results, which actually apply to your design and which will a living person actually type into that Zazzle search box? Which will that butterfly fan type? Which will that gardener type? 

[peanutfarm]

I greatly appreciate your thorough answer.  My goal today is to go through all my items to tweak the tags.  I originally used ChatGPT but didn't have the exact wording you suggested and didn't have very good results.  I was asking more for gift use type tags.  But when searching other products, sellers seem to have a lot of 1 word tags.  Thank you for your valuable insight.  

[Jadendreamer13]

I looked at this product to see your tags: Funny Rooster Two-Tone Coffee Mug. And here are my thoughts:

• The design and colors are beautiful. However, the rooster only has one leg, which I noticed immediately, and so will potential buyers.
• The design only appears on one side of the mug. The other side has only a name. You want the design to show on both sides of the mug, so both lefties and righties can see it.
• The text above the design should be customizable, too. Give buyers an opportunity to change that text, too, not just add a name - which should appear underneath the design.
• The title is very generic. Try adding more descriptive words.

Here are your tags:

farmhouse kitchen decorfunny coffee mugmorning coffee cupnovelty mugcoffee lover giftbackyard chickenchicken ownerroostercountrypoultry lover

I, personally, would not search for “farmhouse kitchen decor” when I’m searching for a coffee mug. I would search for “funny customizable watercolor rooster mug.”

Funny mug, novelty mug, morning coffee cup are basically the same tag repeated three times. Use that space to describe your design, the design style, who your design is for, etc.

Coffee lover, and chicken/rooster lover are good tags. Poultry lover says “meat eater” to me. Maybe use “chicken farmer or chicken keeper” instead.

Your tags aren’t awful, and you don’t need to completely redo them. Just look for duplicate descriptors, words, etc. Eliminate those to make room for additional tags that better describe your design.

[peanutfarm]

Awesome feedback.  Thank you so much for pointing out my one legged chicken.  It has been deleted.  Your comment about left hand-right hand mugs is definitely something I have been concerned with but wasn't sure if I should have the same design on both sides or something different on both sides.  I will be analyzing all my products for image and tags.  I appreciate your thorough explanation and I'm writing notes!  Thank you!

[Jadendreamer13]

So, for the rooster, you can isolate and copy its leg in photoshop, and then place it behind the chicken (make it a little smaller and position it a bit higher than the leg in front), and you’ve got a two-legged bird. I don’t know if chickens have an obvious left and right foot (I’ve never looked that closely), but that should do the trick. It’s a beautiful piece of artwork, and the colors are divine. It’s worth fixing.

For the tags, I do a mix of single words and long-tail key words.

[CreativeLeahG]

I have a FREE guide re this and a couple more detailed guides(under $2 each) see here

FREE Guide to Zazzle Tags 2025

To learn how to find great tags using Google Autocomplete enter here

To learn how to find great tags using Google Trends enter here

[ColsCreations]

I think when we talk about tags its good to clarify what we mean by "tag".
Do we mean one word, or one tag field where we can enter multiple words?

Zazzle gives us 10 fields where we can enter up to 40 characters (including spaces) each. 

If we go beyond 40 characters per field we get an error message. (And it's a weird one that says something about Fan Merch - that's an oddity Z needs to fix). So while the note says we have a max of 500 characters, it's actually only 400 (40 x 10). 

Additionally, each tag field will only accept a max of 5 words each. If you try to enter more you get error message of "Each tag is required to be 5 words or less". 

Previous testing has shown me that search treats your total tags as one long unbroken string so the last word(s) on one field + the first word(s) of the next field is treated same as an exact-phrase match as if you had put that exact-phrase in one field. But I digress. Point being, we get 10 tag fields and each one has a limit of 5 words and 40 characters max regardless of how long each individual word is. So when we say we have 10 "tags" of up to 5 words each, it's important to be aware of this 'fine print'.  😉

[CreativeLeahG]

I can see from my records that  you downloaded my free tagging guide. Knowing you've done so I'm not sure if your comment is feedback or just reiterating some of what the guide said? You didn't reference my guide so I'm not sure what the context is. 

Meanwhile what Zazzle calls tags is what the rest of the world regarding seo calls keywords and keyword phrases so perhaps that's related? 

[ColsCreations]

Hi Leah,

I downloaded your guide out of curiosity and thought the big graphic showing 10 tags, 5 words or less, could use some clarifying. People occasionally ask why they are getting the Fan Merch warning so it's probably not a bad idea to include in your guide that 'tags' are limited to 40 characters including spaces, not 50 as one would think given Zazzle's note about having 500 characters.

So it was feedback for you, but also just an opportunity to inform people of this important detail they might not be aware of.

[CreativeLeahG]

Oh I see what you mean now! Yes 'characters' is something I missed! Thank you for that. 

[Windy]

Whatever you do, do NOT go back and fix everything. Just keep creating, and use any new tagging strategy on your new items. This way you will have a "control group" of products done one way and you can see if it makes a difference for you. That's the side effect benefit of NOT going back to rework everything. The main benefit, is that you will not wear your mind out fixing past issues. We have to do that  A LOT at Zazzle when Zazzle makes a change, and I have seen people desert the platform as a result. Going back to fix things is NOT a rewarding experience.