Ideas to make the most of your listings (from an idea from BLOXBOOKS)

[tonyreddevil]

Can you look at my listings and be able to critise if you want?
cheers tony

[raindropsies]

Can you look at my listings and be able to critise if you want?
cheers tony

As I know nothing about fishing, all I would say is rather than having all listings on run-til-sold have them on 7-10 day listings with re-post set to 10 to get a bit more visability

[tonyreddevil]

thanks Sarah
cheers tony

[Armstrongs]

Hi Tony

Try and think like a buyer.....if they were looking for a rod, I suspect they would do a search on "fishing rod"
Key words, play a huge part in the search engines finding your products ...include as many as you can in your auction titles

I'd also include Google Checkout in your payment options

Yvonne x

[bykimbo]

Reporting in as requested to repeat something a few of us have just been saying elsewhere...

Your "title" is your most valuable space on any listing. It's not just what's shown in search lists, it's what's actually searched, and it's what's passed to google base (when it's working!) so it needs to be used to maximum capacity *without* compromising sense and spelling.

While you might be able to read

greatBOOKbargainJackieCOLLINSblockbuster

... searches can't because it's all one word. So give keywords their own space and only compromise once you've got the essential message across. And words like "great", "wow" etc might be eye-catching (or deeply annoying, depending on your taste!) in returned lists, but they do nothing to make sure your item is returned in that list in the first place. Think about what your customers will actually be searching for. State the obvious... when it reaches Google words like "book", "bag", "DVD" come into their own - even if they can look like a waste of space inside ebid where buyers might be browsing by category.

Don't let valuable title space go unused. If you have a lot of space left in the title after putting in what you think is essential, consider what else you can add. Blank space doesn't add value. Add the colour, size, genre or whatever is appropriate while there's space to do it.

[Gothicina]

While I think of it
DON'T use the @ anywhere in the body of your listings, eBid do not allow you to put your email address there, so if the system finds a @ they remove it, plus some information around it automatically.
This could mean a whole chunk of your listing goes with it.

[johnwash1]

... State the obvious... when it reaches Google words like "book", "bag", "DVD" come into their own - even if they can look like a waste of space inside ebid where buyers might be browsing by category.

I'd underline that because it's not just relevant when buyers are using Google. I've often seen it said (and strongly believe it, based on my own behaviour) that people rarely browse categories compared with doing searches across all categories. So the title is all-important.

And if that behaviour (not browsing categories) seems illogical, on the contrary, some of my best bargains have been the result of someone putting their item in an inappropriate category.

Edit: which is curious, now I think about it. That would seem to show that the buyers that weren't competing against me were indeed searching within categories.

If this were New Year I'd make a resolution to think more carefully before posting!

[bykimbo]

Bump, for our new sellers.

[bykimbo]

I think you're right! To give it a little extra push I've facebooked it, tweeted it, and added it to my FAQ.

Not that this will be considered sufficient by some.

[Gothicina]

I have always hated listing titles, that are in all capital letters, or full of L@@K, W@W, etc etc.

Well now there is a really good (or maybe I should say G@@D )
reason for not doing this.

Google base doesn't like it.

From the Google Base Guidelines. US (I couldn't find it in the UK ones, but that doesn't mean it's not there, or isn't used.)

Use Standard Spelling and Grammar.
Avoid any repeated and unnecessary use of punctuation, capitalization or symbols.
Don't use exclamation points in your item titles.
The use of symbols, numbers, and letters should adhere to the true meaning of the symbol.

US
http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=61118

UK
http://base.google.co.uk/support/bin/answer.py?hlrm=en&answer=61118