All of us online sellers want to make more sales, and to do that we need to get more potential buyers looking at our listings. There is one simple step that you can take each time you create a new eBay listing to really help increase the traffic to it, and all it involves is putting yourself in the shoes of your buyers. Ask yourself this question:
“What words would I put into Google to find the products that I’m selling”?
It sounds really obvious, but so many sellers today don’t think carefully enough about the keywords that they’re using within their eBay titles, and they therefore miss out on potential sales. I’m going to give you a few pointers to help you put together great titles to entice buyers to your sales pages.
1. Include all relevant information – Think brand name, colour, material, size, condition, style, make, model, and any particular words that you think your buyers might put into the eBay search bar to find what you’re offering.
2. Don’t worry about using the Queen’s English – Your title should certainly be free from any spelling errors, but you don’t need it to read exactly like a sentence in a book. Let me give you an example, you might be tempted to create a title along these lines to advertise a bag that you have for sale:
A beautiful and brand new large black leather hobo style ladies handbag, complete with silver clasps and a long shoulder strap. A black dust cover is also included.
It may be grammatically correct, but some of the key details can get lost in the description, and with a limited number of characters available within your listing it’s important not to waste them on words that don’t add anything. The above could be greatly simplified, to read:
NEW Ladies Large Black Leather Hobo Shoulder Handbag Silver Clasp + Dust Cover
It might not look quite so elegant but think about it, when was the last time you put words such as ‘a’, ‘beautiful’, ‘complete’ or ‘also’ into eBay? I’m betting you never have. The eBay search bar is used for specific details about the product that you want, and your title needs to include those details in an easy to absorb fashion.
3. Take a look at what other sellers are saying – I would never suggest that you directly copy and paste the listing title of another seller; it could get you into trouble and it won’t help you to stand out from the crowd. You can certainly use existing titles for inspiration though, so have a browse around through your niche category, or try searching for items similar to those that you will be stocking. Keep your eyes peeled for hot keywords that are particularly relevant to the product in question.
4. Keyword research – Knowing the best keywords to use within your eBay titles is a bit of a practiced skill, but there is a website that can help you out. eBay has pulled some of its useful resources that helped sellers to know exactly what words potential buyers were using within the search bar, but the Popular Items page provided by eBay can still help you to spot relevant keywords to incorporate within your listings. Head to eBay and click into the category most appropriate to your eBay store. Some of the answers will be obvious, specific brand names and whatnot, but other items that people are really searching for could stand out to you to use within your listing titles.
5. Avoid irrelevant words – If you’re selling an unbranded MP4 player with no official Apple accessories then don’t include iPod in the title. Including phrases such as ‘Not iPod’ is just likely to aggravate your customers, so be completely honest and don’t lie about what your product actually is.
6. A recap – Putting together great titles on eBay will do wonders for your selling business, so cross check all of your existing or new listings with this list to make sure you’re making the most of your titles.
- Make sure you include the brand name if there is one. If there’s no brand don’t include any.
- Use descriptive keywords that cover the main elements of what your item is and what it looks like. Keep it relevant.
- If you have the character limit left consider alternative variations within your title, for example if you’re selling an iPod you may want to include MP3, for a jumper you could also include sweater.
- Get rid of pointless words. WOW, LOOK, BEAUTIFUL, AWESOME – these aren’t words that people actually search for so get rid of them.
- Check your spelling! Misspelt words will cost you money.
- Don’t waste characters on grammar; you don’t need commas or full stops because it doesn’t need to read like a sentence.
- Fill your character limit. If you have space left think of some variations of words already included. The more keywords, the more likely searchers are to find what you’re offering.
A great title will make for a highly visible eBay listing, so make sure you’re sticking to the rules to see your sales soar.