1: Inside your listing, give viewers
a reason to call back later if they are in a hurry now
or not quite ready to bid. Ask them to visit your ‘About
Me’ page for a free eBook or newsletter and be sure
they give their email addresses for you to contact them
later.
You can also begin a mailing list for later
sales outside of eBay. Remind them, too, to add you to
their Favourite Sellers list.
2: Choose keywords to describe your items and
use them in the heading and body of your listings. People
can choose to search according to heading (title) or by
checking body text too, but few remember to check the
box to include this second option.
Most people will find your product by either going directly
to category listings and clicking through to their appropriate
sub-category or, most likely, by simply keying words to
describe the item into eBay’s search tool.
This means if your title does not include those keywords
your listing will be missed. Check what keywords are most
common when people search for items like those you are
listing by going to http://pulse.ebay.co.uk (or .com or
other) and continue through the sub-categories until your
product type appears.
Now check the most commonly keyed search terms at the
left of the screen. Alternatively, go to ‘Advanced
Search’, top right of screen and on the next page
use keywords to describe your item and tick the ‘Completed
Auctions’ box. From the results choose ‘Price:
Highest First’ to locate similar items, check the
keywords used in the heading on which to model your own.
Be careful not to breach eBay’s stringent rules on
‘Keyword Spamming’.
3: Avoid using too many bells and whistles in
your listings. One that is guaranteed to make me move
away really fast is the wizard that flits about the screen
thanking me for visiting and generally getting in the
way of everything I am trying to see. Music, flashing
lights, moving conveyor belt pictures of other products
from which to choose a selection – if you’re
quick enough - have roughly the same effect, as do many
other totally useless and generally hugely frustrating
devices.
4: Use colour, sparingly, in your listings, as
well as experimenting with different fonts and font sizes.
It all adds interest for the visitor while also creating
a professional image for your business.
5: Never write titles in full upper case –
CAPITALS. IT LOOKS AWFUL, UNPROFESSIONAL, AND FAR FROM
ATTRACTING ATTENTION IT MAKES YOUR TITLE MUCH HARDER TO
READ. IT IS OKAY TO USE UPPER CASE ON ONE OR TWO WORDS
IN YOUR TITLE.
6: Try using html to create a more professional
appearance especially in highly competitive product fields.
For old postcards and other rare, sometimes one-off collectibles,
basic text is fine. Where similar or identical items are
available from numerous sellers, such as CDs, modern jewellery,
make up, improving the appearance of your listing will
help distinguish your business from others with hastily
created listings packed with spelling mistakes, poor descriptions,
and so on.
7: Basic html is very easy to use and stunning
auction templates can be created in Microsoft Word or
FrontPage. Alternatively, choose from thousands of free
and low-cost auction templates available online.
8: Use templates where possible, it saves listing
time later, and can create a more professional appearance.
They can look especially good with subtle use of colours,
different fonts, background designs; subtle meaning delicate,
not garish or gaudy. In future issues we will include
news of free to download templates for our subscribers
only.
9: Use light coloured backgrounds, not vivid red
or dark blue with black text (Yes, I saw one like this
only yesterday where the text was completely unreadable).
If you must use patterns, use simple pastel patterns,
not bold tartans or flashing backgrounds or dazzling stripes.
10: Use fonts that make reading easy. Never make
it too hard for visitors to read your listing or they
will do the most intelligent thing. Click out and look
somewhere else to buy! Most popular fonts are Times, Times
Roman, Arial, New York, Verdana.
11: When you find a font you like, stick with
it, don’t change fonts between templates. It isn’t
worth it and time wasted would be better spent on listing
new items. Avoid using too much italic or other embellishing
device such as embossing or shadowing in your listings.
12: Do not use large fonts in your listings, except
for headings and sub-headings, and even those do not need
to be more than two or three sizes bigger than body text.
Size 12 or 14 is adequate for body text, 18 for main headings,
16 for sub-headings.
13: Very large text is a big put-off and is also
difficult to read, while also absorbing more memory and
taking longer to upload and download.
14: Use a maximum two or three different colour
fonts (including basic black or navy or other appropriate
choice) and never use different colours within the same
word. I know major companies like eBay do it but they
are well-known, their logos are professionally created,
anything less would look trashy and cheap. Not to mention
hugely unprofessional.
15: Keep text aligned to the left, sometimes to
the right where the graphic is placed extreme left. Don’t
center or justify a column of text without good reason.
And there are few if any goods reasons for doing so. Centre
text is difficult to read and creates odd lengths that
create a totally amateurish appearance. Justified text
is even worse with lengthy gaps between words which themselves
are longer than average.
16: Keep listings fairly narrow especially when
using html. Wide listings are okay on wide screen computers,
but on narrow screen computers the entire right side will
be missing and few people will scroll left and right every
few seconds to get the gist of your listing. eBay’s
own listing boxes, that is where you type directly into
eBay, and those created in Turbo Lister, are just the
right size, never too long, never too short. When using
html or creating your own designer template, practice
using eBay’s systems first to get the desired length.
17: Keep paragraphs short and always with a gap
between them. And actually USE PARAGRAPHS where text extends
beyond two or three lines. Notice how some listings containing
hundreds, sometimes thousands of words, are created in
one L – O - N - G chunk which no one in their right
mind would read. Others with long, long descriptions actually
use paragraphs though the effect is hardly noticeable.
18: Try to stagger listings even if you list just
once a week. This helps people who are bidding on several
of your items and might want to check last minute bidding
against them on those items. Too many of their chosen
items ending within seconds of each other is confusing
and frustrating for them, and means you lose out on last
minute impulse bids. Using Turbo Lister you can choose
how many already listed items to upload at any time, say
in units of 20, and you can also alter the order of items
to hopefully prevent ‘same item’ products selling
within seconds of each other.
Get more tips about making money on Bay
at Avril
Harper's Website...
