You’ve probably wondered at some point or other how some eBay listings seem to get hundreds of page views and others get barely any despite advertising the same product at the same price on the same page.
Well, this puzzled me for ages until I discovered a simple reason for it – keywords.
But you may be interested to know that there are other strategies available that can make all the difference to the number of hits your listings receive…
One such strategy is to utilise the power of eBay’s reviews and guides because this is an excellent tool often used by buyers looking for extra information about a specific product, topic or niche.
Make eBay’s Reviews and Guides your new traffic building weapon of choice
eBay’s Reviews and guides are a tragically under-promoted tool and so you may not realise just how useful they are in building credibility and driving traffic to your listings.
You’ll find eBay’s Reviews and Guides section here: http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/
This is where you need to go to in order to post information about a product or service and is where you can publicise yourself!
You can’t actually add links to your own website here but that’s not what you want to do anyway – this is purely to advertise your own eBay listings, products or shop and direct potential buyers to your goods.
So, how does it work? Well, have a think about the type of products you sell…
Do you sell a certain brand of product on a consistent basis? … a particular beauty product or an electronics accessory?
It’s very likely that you specialise in a particular niche and have several different products that all compliment each other or that are connected to each other in some way…
Congratulations! You are an expert!
Now, you might be thinking that this is entirely beside the point – yes you sell relevant products, yes you know all about them and yes that might make you an expert, but how is that going to get you extra traffic?
Well actually your knowledge can be put to excellent use and can really help you build up your business. All you have to do is confirm to potential buyers that you are indeed an expert and in doing so you instantly become more credible, more trustworthy and more genuine as a seller.
How do you do this? You write reviews of your products or you write a guide about something to do with one of your products which then becomes easily accessible to people searching for information on that product.
And not just if someone searches for a review or guide using eBay: if someone types in review + baby monitor into Google search, for example, your particular review or guide will appear in the results!
Your eBay ID and shop name will be displayed at the top of your guide or review because it’s written by you and also – and this is a really big plus – some of your current listings will also display on the page – so hey presto, instant advertising and all absolutely free!
What does this mean for you?
If you have a decent, well-written review on a particular product and a potential buyer sees that you have a current listing for the very same product, there is every chance that they will click through and purchase your product rather than searching for another seller.
It’s the same concept with ‘guides.’
For example, let’s say that you sell pest control products: a guide that will help someone get the best out of using ‘mole repellent’ is going to be very relevant to your target buyer.
Or, you sell baby goods: a guide that will help new parents with their newborn would be relevant as would a ‘new parents checklist’ detailing things needed for a new baby in the first 12 months and so on.
Do you get the idea?
The thing to remember is to make sure you stock and list the products you are writing about so that they appear within your review or guide as this is where you’ll get the click-throughs from.
But, whatever you write, you must be totally honest and ensure you list the pros and the cons. You’re not writing a sales letter here, it’s a review or a guide and should tell both sides of the story.
Your main aim is to write informative, helpful, professional guides and reviews about subjects where you have expertise or lots of experience because ultimately you want your readers to see you as an expert, respect your information and then click on your link to visit your shop or product listings.
To ensure every chance of getting a sale, you need to place a link within your actual eBay listing sending people over to your reviews and guides. This is a huge credibility builder, especially as you’ll start to get ‘helpfulness’ votes from the readers of your reviews and guides.
When a reader is pleased with the information you have provided, they will vote on them using the ‘Was this guide helpful?’ button. The guides with the most votes are shown as the ‘Most Helpful Member’ Guides.
So, assuming you’ve written a really great guide or review, this number of votes rises and as it rises you might find yourself placed as a ‘Top Reviewer’ and this will be stated alongside your eBay ID.
There are endless amounts of topics you can cover in reviews and guides; if you are a seller of genuine designer handbags you should consider writing a guide about how to spot a fake handbag (I’ve actually done this in the past and it proved extremely successful). This will prove to buyers that you are genuine, honest and helpful; after all it’s highly unlikely you would tell someone how to spot a fake handbag if you were selling fakes yourself!
In a similar niche such as ‘clothes’ you could write a style guide or a sizing guide to help potential buyers choose well fitting items. You could even target a real mini-micro-niche within a category such as Computer Accessories, such as ‘How to choose the best quality compatible ink cartridges’.
It’s totally free!
Remember, this doesn’t cost you anything at all apart from your time. You don’t need to write reams and reams, just 500 words or so (that’s about the same as one A4 page using 12pt font size) but make it quality content that people will be interested in and that confirms you as an expert in your niche – this is the key!
Don’t be afraid to showcase your knowledge and expertise because this is exactly what will bring you more customers, more loyalty, more business and ultimately more profit!
The more reviews and guides you write, the more pages your ID or shop name will appear on, so if you do just one extra thing to give your page views and sales a boost during a quiet period, make it this little technique.