Insider Tips To Rocket Your Listings To Page One on eBay

Those of you that already sell on eBay, will probably be aware that finally, at the end of April this year and after months of testing, the old default eBay search based on ‘time ending soonest’ was retired.

Consequently, all searches are now automatically sorted according to what eBay terms ‘Best Match’. I cannot stress enough, the huge importance of understanding the factors concerning ‘Best Match’ because this is the key to securing a top spot in the search. I am sure that like me, you want to sell on eBay successfully and so you need to understand exactly how the system works so that you can use it to your advantage. This way you will immediately increase the visibility of your listings, which ultimately leads to more sales.

‘Best Match’ takes into account a number of factors which, at least for the moment, are considerably more important for those of us who sell on eBay using ‘Buy It Now’ listings. This is because auction listings still appear in the search based on ‘time ending soonest’ order.

If you are running ‘Buy It Now’ listings there are 7 things that you need to take into consideration to ensure you have optimised your listings for ‘Best Match’. These are:

• Title Keywords / Relevance
• Recent Sales
• Postage Price
• Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR’s)
• Item Specifics i.e. new, used, branded or non-branded (indirectly)
• Listing Duration
• Item Cost

Each of these factors can have a positive or surprisingly, a negative effect on the ranking of your items in the search, so you need to be very careful with your listings. Your aim should be to get to the top of the search results or at the very least to appear on the first page of results for your particular product. I will explain below how you should use these factors to your advantage.

Title Keywords / Relevance

The number one thing to remember is that the ‘Best Match’ search results will always send potential buyers to the listings with the most relevant keywords. This is based on previous keyword popularity for a particular product. So, for example, if hundreds of people have searched for ‘BT Baby Monitor’ and added the listing with those exact keywords to their ‘Watch List’ and all those people have then gone on to purchase the item from the listing, eBay sees those keywords as being popular and relevant. This is because lots of people have taken action on those keywords. This in turn has a positive effect on those keywords so the search ranking of listings that include these words in their titles, will rise. On the other hand, if your keywords are not relevant - i.e. no-one is searching for or clicking on your keywords, then eBay sees this negatively. The knock on effect of this is that if your keywords are deemed irrelevant then your search placement will go down. So, there is absolutely no point in including irrelevant keywords in your listing title even if you are under the impression that words such as ‘Wow’, ‘Look’, ‘Gorgeous’ and ‘Brilliant’ will attract more buyers. Quite simply, they won’t! For example, how many people do you know that specifically search using the keywords ‘Wow BT Baby monitor’? Very, very few I would imagine! But how many sellers still use words like this in their listing titles? Many!

If you use irrelevant keywords, your products will not show in the search results because quite simply your keywords will not match the search criteria. If your listings are not showing, no-one will view and if no-one views you won’t make any sales. If you don’t make any sales you will slide further and further down the search.

This is why you must think carefully about the keywords your potential buyers will search for so that you can tailor your listing titles to reflect exactly what the buyers want. You only have 55 characters to work with in your listing title so don’t waste them. Think about the words that you would type in to the search box if you were looking for your own product. Search for products that are similar to yours that appear on page one and take note of the keywords in use. Look at everything through the buyer’s eyes and this will give you a good idea of the kind of words you should be targeting.

Recent Sales

Every time an item sells on eBay, the ‘Best Match’ search sees this as a positive. So, if you have a ‘Multiple Item Buy It Now’ listing and you sell every item of your stock of 50, then you are giving your listing a massive boost in the search results!

This is the reason that it is advantageous to run a 30 day or ‘Good Till Cancelled’ (GTC) listing if you are selling a product that you can restock with no problem. Simply leave your listing running, let sale after sale build up which will raise your search standing and revise the quantity of stock available when required. (You can revise quantities even if you have already sold items on 30 day and GTC listings).

What you must not do however is change the title, category or the condition of your item because you will ruin all your hard work in one devastating moment! If you do this, your sales history will be wiped completely clean and you will have to start again. Not recommended! Remember that every sale you make helps with your search position, so once your listing has been running for say 60 days (probably less), you will have dozens of sales and your search placement will be high. In the event that you do run out of an item, as long as you relist it within 7 days (without any changes as mentioned above) then your sales history will be kept intact and your search standing will remain unchanged.

Postage Price

‘Best Match’ search loves free postage even though you might not! eBay do actually state that items with reasonable postage charges will feature higher in searches. By ‘reasonable’ this means that your postage charges should be roughly in line with other sellers listing similar items. You should not list an item with a ridiculously low price and a huge postage charge because this will not help your search placement and is classed as fee avoidance too! Those items listed with free postage do get better results in the search, but as we all know, there is no such thing as free postage as it is usually incorporated with the price of the item itself. However, if you can offer free postage then it will help your search placement according to ‘Best Match’ results.

Detailed Seller Ratings

Detailed Seller Ratings, or DSR's, will also affect your search placement. If you are unfortunate enough to allow any of your 30 day DSR's to fall below a rating of 4.4, then your listings will appear lower in the search results. Make sure you give good customer service, reasonable or free postage, dispatch fast and answer any questions promptly to keep your ratings up so that your search position is not affected.

Item Specifics

Item Specifics are the details you need to fill in on the ‘Sell Your Item’ form that state whether your item is new or used, a particular brand or model, colour etc. These item specifics do not directly influence your search standing with ‘Best Match’ as the results are sorted after the actual search is carried out, but you should fill in as many details as possible anyway, because this will increase your chances of your listings showing higher up in the search. The more specific you are then the more information ‘Best Match’ has to be able to work on.

Listing Duration

Here is a simple rule: The longer your listing runs for, the better it will perform in the search. As long as you are making multiple sales from your eBay listings then your sales history will continue to increase and your ranking will rise. This is why you should always consider ‘30 day’ and ‘Good Till Cancelled Buy It Now’ listings.

Item Cost

This is a bit of a tricky one! For ‘Best Match’ purposes, your item should be priced at around the same price as similar items with free or very low postage. As mentioned before, you should not over-inflate your postage charges because a product that is listed at £9.99 with £1.50 postage will be classed as better value and therefore a better ‘Best Match’ than a product that is listed at £1.50 with £9.99 postage! If you price your products too high in comparison to other sellers, eBay may decide that your items are not good value and your search standing will automatically be lowered. So as long as you price your items and your postage costs at a competitive price you will achieve a high position in the search. So, here is a quick summary:

• Only use relevant title keywords
• Use ‘30 day’ listings or ‘Good till Cancelled’ for a continual sales history
• Never use ‘Sell Similar’, use ‘Relist’ unless you are changing details
• Offer free or very low postage
• Offer good customer service so that your DSR's stay high
• Fill in all item specifics accurately
• List only in the correct category
• Write detailed, accurate, spell checked descriptions
• Do not inflate your postage price
• Look at other similar items that sell well and take a look at the keywords

If you do not combine each of those 7 factors that I talked about earlier, your listings may never find their way on to the first page of the search. But if you use them correctly, you will see your search position rise pretty quickly. It might take a little time spent on research but it will definitely be worth it. Happy eBaying!

by Amanda O'Brien - June 2009

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Amanda O’Brien is a successful eBay Powerseller and author of The £2,500 Per Week eBay Powerseller Secrets. Want to learn more about starting an eBay business or simply want to improve your eBay sales? Claim your free report and free sample chapter from The £2,500 Per Week eBay Powersellers Secrets. Available from www.powersellerprofiteer.co.uk