Using Keywords To Get Your Products Noticed

Any market is only as good as the as the amount of customers it brings to the venue. The job of a market manager is to bring customers through the doors, that’s what sellers pay for, once the customers are in, then the market has done its job, it’s then down to the sellers to sell their products. EBay has done its job.  Millions of customers come to the site daily, as sellers it’s now up to us to get our products in the sights of potential customers.  It’s no good listing hundreds of products if no one can find them. So how can we increase our chance of getting our products noticed?

One of the simplest yet overlooked ways to make our listings more visible is the use of keywords. Keywords in the title of our listing will help to get our products under the noses of potential customers. So what exactly are keywords? Website owners and those familiar with search engine optimization seek to maximize their use of keywords because they know it’s an effective way of getting their products noticed. For the uninitiated, keywords are basically the words people type into searches to find a product.

When you list an item on eBay the first thing you fill in is the title. This is important. What you put into the title will determine how visible your product becomes and how easy it will be to find for potential customers.  Writing your title is a skill and you need to take your time over it. You have 55 characters and you need to use them all effectively to enhance the chance of your listing being seen. Let’s say for example, I’m selling an in car DVD player.  I’ve seen one where the seller had just put “DVD player” as the title. This is not the way to sell an item.

Remember you have 55 characters to get your listing noticed; you’ve paid for them so make them work for you. Back to my DVD player. If I was selling one I would list the full model:

Philips 7in twin screen in car DVD

Now I’ve listed exactly what it is I’m selling. If someone is looking for a Philips in car DVD player, my listing will show up in their search results. I have also though used keywords to spread my net wider. What if someone just types in “in car DVD player”? I’m still covered in my title. If someone types in “DVD player”, I’m still covered and my listing should show up. I haven’t put “player” on the end because I don’t want to waste my remaining characters which I can use for other keywords. Now think, what other words could people use to search for an in car DVD player? Maybe “in car entertainment” I can add this to the title:

Philips 7in twin screen in car DVD in car entertainment

Now you’re probably going to say, it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t matter; you can make it nice and neat in your description. Your title is to get your listing coming up in the searches. Use every character if possible. Think out of the box. Once you’ve written what your product is, model, name, tech details etc, use the remaining characters to add other descriptions that people may refer to your product as.

Don’t waste your title by describing your product as “new” or “great” etc. These are all things that you can explain in the description; with only 55 characters you can’t afford to waste them. Notice I used the number 7 and didn’t spell it out. By doing so I saved four characters. The objective of utilising keywords in your title is to get your listing hit by hungry buyers not to win a grammar test.

Here’s a few essentials when using your title:

• You don’t need to use plurals. EBay’s search engine will find the item whether singular or plural
• Write numbers rather than spell them out
• Don’t waste characters by using adjectives like “great2 2good” etc. You can mention this in your descriptions.
• Check your spelling. Some people search eBay for misspelled titles, looking to get things cheap. If you’ve got an auction running and you’ve mis-spelled the word few people will find it. Those who do may get it cheaper than you wanted to sell it for.
• Can’t think of alternative descriptions. Look at the titles of other eBay sellers, especially the successful ones. Copy them
• Think outside of the box, use your imagination.

More Focus Pays Off

I’ve been allowing myself to get overwhelmed recently with too many projects. I’m working on rebranding my eBay shop, this involves relisting every item, between 250 and 300 products.

I’m using a standard template for all my products so they will look more attractive and contain all the information about the product and terms clearly stated. It also requires me taking new pictures.

This is all a part of my rebranding strategy. I’m also doing some work on my website, keeping my blog going and I’m working on some internet marketing which involves me learning new things about building sites. It’s all so time consuming.

Over the last week, I’ve become a little frustrated because I was trying to do a bit of everything but felt like I was achieving nothing. So, on Friday, I decided to take some decisive action. From now on, I’m only going to concentrate on one project at a time.

I’m going to focus on it totally until it is completed. I will of course, still have to do day to day things, like keep my blog up to date and deal with eBay, but as far as projects go, I’m going to pin them down until they are done, finished, before I move onto another one.

I’ve implemented this new system this weekend and I’m pleased with the results. The hours that I’ve been working I’ve focused totally on one project, forgetting everything else. The project in question involves me building a little site, which has meant I’ve had to do some learning as I’ve been going along. I’ve now reached the position where I’ve almost completed the site. I’m amazed! I’ve done this by focusing for small amounts of time on one thing only. I broke my time down into forty minutes of total focus on the job I was doing. After forty minutes, I took a break then started again.

I now actually feel like I’m accomplishing things. I feel like I’ve achieved a lot this weekend without impinging on my family time. I also took some time out to do some housekeeping on my computer.

I had accumulated over a hundred EBooks on various subjects; I decided to throw them all off along with everything else that was sucking time from me. I’ve unsubscribed from all but a handful of my favourite business and life interest blogs.

So, it’s been a good weekend, I’m writing this post with my feet on the desk after just returning from an hour and half cycle ride. I can feel the sweat running down my neck and my body is encased in a warm glow, one of my dogs is staring at me, wanting to go out, and my wife and son are arguing downstairs.

Life! Love It! Live It! Well better take the dog out then.

Multiple EBay Accounts

Having a number of different eBay accounts is a good idea and allows you more flexibility in selling. Many of the top eBay sellers operate multiple accounts. The idea behind it is simple, it allows you to use one account to specialize in a certain niche where your shop can become recognized as selling to that niche and repeat customers will come to you.

You can then use another account to sell general items that would dilute your brand name if you put them through your niche shop. For example, if I sold dinky toy cars from my niche shop. Toy car collectors would visit to check my items. I could brand myself as an authority in this niche.

After a while, people would start to trust me and come to my shop for their cars. If I then started to add unrelated items, like camping equipment, MP3s and other products. I would lose my branding as a toy car specialist; I would become more of a general seller. Toy car enthusiasts would desert my shop because I would have diluted my brand. They would no longer see me as an authority.

The way round this is to have separate accounts. If I did sell toy cars, I would have a shop specifically for that product and stick with it. Looking to build up credibility as an authority on this subject. Once you gain that credibility, you are guaranteed repeat custom to your shop.

I also want to keep my options open however, and have the flexibility to sell general items. If I see a local auction that’s selling items I think I can sell on eBay to build up some cash, I want to be able to do that. Without damaging my toy car shop. The way is to just open another account on eBay. Use this account for general selling and the other account for niche selling. You get the best of both worlds.

Once you’ve got yourself some experience on eBay then opening another account is a good idea to give you more selling flexibility and build that pension money quicker.

Distaster Averted

Almost a disaster last week with my blog. I was sweating for a few days. It started when I noticed that loading my blog had slowed down. When you typed the address in it took ages to load and sometimes timed out. As I pay good money to host it I got onto my hosting company and asked them what the problem was. They apologized and were very nice about it. They explained that the database I was using was overloaded and the remedy was simply to move to another database.

Ok, no problem I thought. Simple matter. I went into my PHPAdmin section and backed up my database. I had to do this because before I could create another database I had to delete the existing one. With almost a year’s work gone into my blog losing it would be a disaster from which psychological recovery would be slim. So I made sure I had everything backed up. I even did it twice to be doubly sure. I think this is just a sign of middle-aged uncertainty. You know what it’s like when you reach a certain age all the things you believed in start to crumble and you begin to question everything, even if you really did just back up a database ten minutes ago.

Anyway, once I was satisfied that I had backed everything up I then took the next step of deleting my existing database. The database that contains all the settings and posts of my blog. I admit, I was nervous. I felt a bit like a sniper taking his first shot, my finger hesitated over the mouse, taking the pressure slowly then releasing it as a little voice yelled “NO!” in my head. Sweat trickled down my temples. I let go of the mouse. Went to the folder that contained my backup file and checked it was still there and hadn’t escaped through the back of my computer.

Satisfied, I fortified myself put my hand on the mouse and clicked “delete” The computer then questioned the wisdom of my decision by asking me if I was really sure I wanted to do this. Before this question sent me into a whirlwind of uncertainty and more philosophical questioning like how many angels can dance on a destroyed blog, I clicked yes.

And it went.  Gone to the great computer file heaven in the sky, or wherever deleted files go. No problem, it was now a simple matter of going back into PHPAdmin and importing my saved database. Before I did this I checked my blog domain and saw a white page with nothing there except an error message. So it was done. A year’s work had disappeared.

I wasn’t worried it was a simple enough job to restore it. I went through the restore process. Found the saved database on my computer and clicked “restore”. All that should happen now is that the database would be restored on a new server and I am ready to go. Only it didn’t. It came up with an error message telling me the database already existed. The database didn’t exist though because I’d deleted it.

My blog had gone and I couldn’t restore my backup. Ho shit! Now I’m a great believer that life is meant to be hard and we are supposed to get hit with things every day. Our job is to stay calm and logically fight our way through these slings and arrows.  So I put into process of logical damage limitation and phoned the help line.

I got through to a woman who was very nice but I had some difficulty understanding her and she me. Which resulted in me spelling everything I said out. Once she was satisfied she knew what my problem was she told me she’d pass it to their technical team and contact me later. Now I thought she was the technical team. When I asked how long before I heard anything, she was vague.

This is a long story and I’m not going to bore you with the rest of it. It was resolved by my son. I’d invested money sending him to computer college a few years ago and he had a working knowledge of SQL. I called him into my room and he sprawled all over my desk and took control of my computer, with a “what’ve you done now” When I explained he said; “You shouldn’t have done that” I said; “I know” he said “You should have asked me to do it” I said “I know”

Anyway I’m glad to say he rescued me, after a few hours of flicking through his SQL book. So I’m back. IIt’s a nice sunny Saturday afternoon and I’m about to go swimming with my granddaughter before going for a few pints.

Have a nice weekend

The Game

I used to spend hours playing computer games. I loved them, especially the strategy games.  A few years ago, I was hooked on a game about building a business empire, I can’t remember what it was called now, I just remember how engrossing it was. I used to make plans on bits of paper about what strategy I was going to pursue in the, then spend hours trying to enact them in the game.

The success or failure of each strategy was measured by the number of points accumulated or lost. While the game itself was addictive, the result was always an anticlimax. Just earning some points, which was supposed to represent money.

I started to think about the game, and thought to myself, instead of playing a computer game, why don’t I play the game for real. Set up a real business and treat it like a game.

I thought about all the hours I’d spent playing the computer game, and wondered what I could really achieve if I devoted all that time to a real business. This became my game. A game I play every day.

The game is building a business on a part-time basis while working in a full-time job. The objective of the game is to create a business that will support me when I decide to leave full-time employment. A business that will help me to build my own wealth, my own pension fund.

Although I’m playing for real, in the real world, subject to real business conditions, I look at it like a game. My game. I’m the main character. I stand or fall by my decisions. I have times of elation when a strategy I deploy is successful and times of despondency when things start to slow down and don’t respond to my efforts to kick-start it all.

What I get most of all though is a feeling that I’m accomplishing something. Creating something, moving forward and achieving something. When I turn off my computer at night. I look forward to the next day when I can get back into the game.

I look forward to the challenges it will bring, the highs and lows. I look forward to learning and practicing what I’ve learned.  My objective each day is to do something that will move my business forward, strengthen my position, and increase my knowledge. Because growing is what the game’s about. Not just the business, but myself, mentally, spiritually and psychologically.

This is my game. I love it. Why don’t you start your game? It’s more fulfilling than a computer game. By the way, I haven’t played a computer game for nearly two years. I’m too busy.

« Previous Page — Next Page »