Why your Etsy listings aren't getting found (and the free tool that fixes it)

Anders Dahl Rasmussen — Sun, 31 May 2026 11:25:57 +0000

The one thing killing most Etsy listings

If you sell on Etsy — or know someone who does — here's something that might explain a lot.

Most listings are written from a maker's perspective. The seller describes what they made:

"Handmade ceramic mug. Blue glaze. 12oz. Food safe. Dishwasher safe."

But buyers search from a buyer's perspective:

"coffee mug gift for boyfriend"
"handmade pottery coffee cup"
"unique ceramic mug blue"

The gap between those two things is where most Etsy listings disappear.

A listing optimized for Etsy search looks more like this:

"Handmade Ceramic Coffee Mug | Blue Stoneware 12oz | Pottery Gift for Coffee Lovers | Microwave & Dishwasher Safe"

Same product. One gets found. The other doesn't.

I built a tool to fix this automatically

ContentBase rewrites your listing for search. Paste your current title and description, pick your platform (Etsy, Shopify, Amazon), and get back:

An optimized title with keywords placed correctly
A rewritten description that leads with buyer benefits
A complete set of 13 keyword-targeted tags

Takes about 10 seconds. Free for 5 uses/day. No account required.

→ Try it: contentbase-crw.pages.dev

For sellers who want a deeper look

ShopScan is a $19 on-demand audit of a specific listing — full score (A-F), keyword gap analysis, and everything rewritten. Delivered to your email within 24 hours.

→ shopscan-eff.pages.dev

Why this matters

Etsy has 90M+ active buyers. The sellers who win aren't necessarily the ones with the best products — they're the ones whose listings match what buyers are actually typing into search.

This is fixable. It just requires writing for the buyer first.

If you know any Etsy sellers who struggle with visibility, both tools are free to try and might save them a lot of frustration.

I built two Etsy SEO tools in 14 days — full stack breakdown (Cloudflare Workers + KV + Stripe)

Anders Dahl Rasmussen — Sun, 31 May 2026 11:23:02 +0000

I built two Etsy SEO tools in 14 days — full stack breakdown

I spent the last two weeks building two products targeting the 5M+ Etsy seller market. Here's the honest story — what worked, what didn't, and the full technical stack.

The problem

Most Etsy sellers write listings from a maker's perspective. They describe what they made. Buyers search for what they want to find.

"Handmade ceramic mug, blue, 12oz" gets almost no search traffic.

"Handmade Ceramic Coffee Mug | Blue Stoneware 12oz | Gift for Coffee Lovers" ranks for a dozen buyer searches.

Same product. One gets found. One doesn't.

What I built

ContentBase — AI listing optimizer. Paste any Etsy, Shopify, or Amazon listing. Get a rewritten title, description, and 13 keyword-targeted tags in ~10 seconds. Free for 5/day, no signup. Pro is $9/month.

→ contentbase-crw.pages.dev

ShopScan — on-demand Etsy SEO audit. Pay $19, submit your listing, get a 12-page report (score, keyword gaps, full rewrite, action plan) by email within 24h.

→ shopscan-eff.pages.dev

The stack — all free tier

Cloudflare Workers — API layer, keeps Anthropic key server-side
Cloudflare KV — rate limiting + Pro token storage
Cloudflare Pages — static frontend
Brevo — transactional email (300/day free)
Stripe Payment Links — no checkout page to build

Total monthly infrastructure cost: $0.

Pro activation without webhooks

Most people implement Stripe webhooks for post-payment activation. I found a simpler pattern.

After payment, Stripe redirects to:

https://contentbase-crw.pages.dev?session_id={CHECKOUT_SESSION_ID}

The frontend POSTs the session_id to /activate-pro on the Worker. The Worker validates the format (cs_live_ prefix — unguessable), generates a token, stores in KV, emails via Brevo.

No webhook endpoint. No signing secret. No HTTPS concerns. Works perfectly.

async function handleActivatePro(request, env) {
  const { session_id, email } = await request.json();

  if (!session_id?.startsWith('cs_live_')) {
    return json({ error: 'Invalid session' }, 400);
  }

  // Prevent replay attacks
  const existing = await env.CB_TOKENS.get(`session:${session_id}`);
  if (existing) return json({ token: existing, reused: true });

  const token = generateToken();
  await env.CB_TOKENS.put(`token:${token}`, 'active');
  await env.CB_TOKENS.put(`session:${session_id}`, token);

  await sendEmail(env, { to: email, subject: 'Your ContentBase Pro access is live' });
  return json({ token, success: true });
}

Rate limiting with Cloudflare KV

No database needed:

async function checkRateLimit(ip, env) {
  const key = `rate:${ip}:${new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0]}`;
  const count = parseInt(await env.CB_RATE.get(key) || '0');
  if (count >= 5) return { allowed: false };
  await env.CB_RATE.put(key, String(count + 1), { expirationTtl: 86400 });
  return { allowed: true };
}

Keys expire after 24h automatically. Cleanup is free.

What I learned

Cloudflare is absurdly good for this use case. Worker + KV + Pages covers serverless functions, key-value storage, and static hosting — all free, globally distributed.

Zero-friction free tier matters. No email required to use ContentBase. No account. Just paste and get. The conversion to Pro happens after people see the output.

Distribution is harder than building. The technical side took days. Finding actual Etsy sellers to try it is taking weeks. If you've solved Etsy/niche community distribution, I'd genuinely love to hear how.

Live

ContentBase (free): contentbase-crw.pages.dev
ShopScan ($19 audit): shopscan-eff.pages.dev

Happy to answer questions about the architecture or the Etsy seller market.

DEV Community: Anders Dahl Rasmussen