How to get your eBay listings seen! These 7 tips can help you get your eBay listings higher up the search results
It’s so frustrating to see other sellers nabbing the top spots in the search results especially when you feel that you’ve got a better product and have created a better listing than them.
How do they do it?
Well that was the question asked by a member of The Source Report within our exclusive forum this week. So today, to benefit everyone, I’m going to tell you what you need to do to your listings so that you can start tweaking them immediately and get your own products into those top, hot spots.
All eBay search results are automatically sorted according to ‘Best Match’ and I really can’t stress enough the huge importance of understanding the factors concerning ‘Best Match’ because this is the key to securing a top spot in the searches.
Understand how the system works and then you can use it to your advantage and increase the visibility of your listings, which ultimately will lead to more sales.
‘Best Match’ takes into account a number of factors which are very important when it comes to ‘Buy It Now’ listings.
So, 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 affect the ranking of your items in the search, so you need to be very careful with your listings and make sure you use these factors to your advantage.
Keywords are key!
Pretty obvious really, but are you aware of just how important your title keywords are?
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 ‘silver photo frame’ 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.
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 or your products won’t appear in the search results at all. So, there is absolutely no point in including irrelevant keywords in your listing title.
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.
Recent sales are important
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 ‘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.
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.
Postage price counts
‘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.
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.
Give a 5-star service
Detailed Seller Ratings, or DSR’s, will also affect your search placement. 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 shouldn’t be overlooked
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 will help your search ranking
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.
Don’t try and cheat!
Don’t 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 keep your postage costs at a competitive price you will achieve a higher position in the search.
Combine each of these 7 factors and you could see your search position rise pretty quickly. It might take a little time spent on research but it will definitely be worth it.