eBay Tips and Auction Tools
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eBay auctions are fun and represent a HUGE opportunity for profit.
Auctions are easy to do. There is no financial risk. And they generate great income -- you know, the enough-to- save-for-kids-college-education type of income.
Welcome! My name is Doug and I'll be your guide throughout this site. I've been selling and bidding on eBay & online auctions for a number of years now. When I started, there were no sites like this to help either beginners or experienced auction users. So I decided to create one. Since 1999, it has been my goal to provide sane, free eBay secrets and unique tools for eBay and other online auction sites. I sincerely hope you find it useful.
Bottom line?
AuctionInsights provides you the tips and tools you need to make eBay work for you!
What's New:
Never Worn?
Filed Under Miscellaneous | 3 Comments
Never Worn?
Something tells me they’re fibbing!
Following eBay’s lead, Etsy has put its hat into the search-and-sort-by-”relevance” ring. On Thursdays for the next three weeks, Etsy will be sorting their search results using algorithm that attempts to determine the relevancy of listings to the customer. According to Etsy’s blog:
Etsy’s Most Relevant Search is a living feature in active development, and it will evolve over time as we monitor its performance and make improvements to the listing process.
Etsy’s search and sort algorithm currently considers three main factors:
- Tags
- Titles
- Descriptions
Tags are the 14 keywords Etsy allows sellers to categorize and describe the item they are listing. This is the most heavily weighted part of the algorithm. Guidelines on effective Etsy tags are here.
Descriptive and short titles are the next most important factor in the Etsy relevance algorithm. The algorithm seems to relate lengthy titles with keyword spamming, thus penalizing longer titles. According to Etsy:
Super long and unnaturally written titles don’t work well for Most Relevant, and they are unappealing to shoppers. A good, accurate, buyer-friendly title can help your relevancy; a super-long title, jam-packed with keywords — or, conversely, a short title with no descriptive information — will hurt it. Aim for the “sweet spot” in the middle here. Make sure to put very important search words, such as what the item is, in the title.
Finally, a keyword filled and lengthy description is the third key to ranking well in Etsy’s relevance search and sort. Don’t skimp on the description, because the algorithm is looking at the words and phrases you include here. What words you take out of the title should be included in the description.
Having inadequate descriptions for your items will bring down your relevancy. Think about what keywords your ideal buyer would be using in her searches, and try to weave that into the story you’re telling.
Unlike eBay rolling out Best Match, Etsy has given sellers a few weeks to experiment and prepare. Now is the time to act. Make the recommended changes to your listings and see how they fare on “Relevance Thursdays.” Take note of what works and what doesn’t and make tweaks for the following week. Wash, rinse and repeat.
What tips do you have to share regarding Etsy’s “Best Match” experiment?
Template-O-Matic Sold
Filed Under Auction Tools | 2 Comments
I sold template-o-matic.com and relinquished control of it over the weekend. You can still find the same free auction templates here.
Experiment: Getting Your eBay Listing On the First Page of Google
Filed Under Miscellaneous | 5 Comments
I’m playing around with techniques to get your auction listings show up in the Google results. As such I’m including a link for a book that I have listed currently on eBay:
Introduce Your Child to Classical Music 52 Easy Lessons.
My listing is currently showing up at position 6 on the first page of the Google search results. My intent is to create some text links to the listing that the Google spider will find and follow – improving the listings position in the search results using a search engine optimization (SEO) technique called link popularity.
Here’s a little bit about the book in case anybody is interested in reading more about it:
Introduce Your Child to Classical Music 52 Easy Lessons will introduce your child to some of the most famous pieces in classical music. These lesson plans open the door to the instruments, musicians, periods, and musical forms of the classics. Each work included has background for the parent, followed by tips on introducing it to your child (at four different levels, beginner to advanced) including a “What to listen for” section which contains questions you can work through with your child. What sets this book apart from anything out there in the market is that it is designed to study entire pieces of classical music.
Hopefully, the book will stay on the market long enough to have some discernible results for the experiment!