A complete guide to using tags on Artfinder

Tags are one of the data points an algorithm will use in order to surface relevant results to a specific search. It is not always easy to understand what terms would retrieve the best results, so we compiled this handy guide on how to make the most of tags on your listings.

Tagging allocation and rule on Artfinder

Artists get a defined number of tags depending on the Seller Plan they are on.

Core Plan: 10 tags

Premium Plan: Unlimited tags

There is also a limit on two words maximum per tag. 

How tags impact search results

Tags are one of the data points an algorithm will use to surface accurate search results. Algorithms will also take into consideration the artwork title, classification, subject, medium, the artist name and the artwork description, all weighed differently. 

Tags should therefore reflect the most common keywords a customer will type in the search to find the artwork they want. 

Tips on tags

• Use words only: Do not use any special characters, such as hashtags, or even emojis, for your tags. This is not only a waste of the tags potential but will also bring zero benefits to the search, as no customer would use emojis for their artwork search. It’s also important to remember that the majority of customers on our platform will likely be based in the UK or the US, so using other languages or different alphabets in your tags will likely not bring as many results as English words. 

• Use a space between the two words: Do not use hyphens or commas between words, but use a space instead. Hyphenated words and special characters render the word less effective in searches, i.e our system won’t recognise what the word after it is, unless this is a common customer search.

• Single words are better than word combinations: Word combinations will still score on searches, but single words will often bring more accurate results. This is because the algorithm searches for an exact match first. 

• Think like a customer: Customers are not all art experts, in fact very few of them are. Customers are far more likely to look for simple keywords than complex ones, and for technical terms will use filters (for example search for paintings, then filter by surrealism, rather than typing surrealism in the search bar). Instead, opt for words around the following criteria:
• Locations - if you painted a specific place or location, or even where you think the work could be displayed, such as “Bedroom”.
• Moods - art is about emotional connection so play to those connections by picking adjectives that characterise the mood of the artwork, say romantic, sad, joyful etc..
• Subject matter - The subject matter will help narrow down the search, so if you painted a horse for example, use horse as a tag.
• Colours - A lot of customers come with specific ideas about size or colour they want, but no clear idea of what style or even subject they want. Isolating a few main colours from your work and having them as single tags will make you visible to a wider audience.
• Connecting words are unnecessary: Due to the limitation of 2 words per tag, some location names for example will be difficult to add (for example, “Isle of Wight”). A good workaround for this is to remember that algorithms do not consider connecting words if they have no relevance to the search. So words like “on”, “in” “and”, “St”, etc.. can be removed from the tag, to fit the word limitation, without negatively impacting the search result. In this case, “Isle of Wight” can be “Isle Wight”. 

• Use tags for the right keywords: Because other data points are taken into consideration, repeating some keywords in all places may not necessarily help your search score well. Some keywords may work best in description or title, and will also give you more options to extend the reach of your search through tags. Some words like “paintings” or “oil” will not bring more results because they are already part of the artwork classification so are already served in the search for these terms. If every artwork has a “painting” tag on it, then it will not do a good job of narrowing down the search. As another example, you have painted a landscape of “Welwyn Garden City”. Tags will not allow you to have three words in a tag, so you could first split it into two, “Welwyn” and “Garden city”.

You must also consider that, although “Garden City” will still make you appear in searches for this term, your search will rank less well than those who have “Garden” and “City” in their tags. This is because these terms will likely be searched far more individually by customers than “Garden City”. So always try to go for what is most likely searched by customers, which is often not at all how an artist would search for their own works.

So in this case, the most likely set up to retrieve many results is to have “Welwyn”, “Garden” and “City” as single tags, and have “Welwyn Garden City” either as the title or in the artwork description. 

• What applies to tags does not apply to artwork descriptions: Using single words in description will not work well for searches. Adding a series of single keywords will also be penalised by Google in terms of SEO as it is likely to see this as spam. Adding a ton of keywords that are not relevant to the artwork will likely frustrate customers and give them a false view of our website search accuracy. In your artwork description, you therefore should aim to use a few relevant keywords, placed organically in sentences. 

We hope this advice is helpful but feel free to send us any questions you have at either community@artfinder.com or sellers@artfinder.com.