KeywordsPhew! What a week…

Like all businesses I have extremely busy periods and also times when things are a little more relaxed. And whilst those chilled out times are lovely, I do enjoy being busy. It’s simply that adrenalin rush I get when I’m under pressure – and then the feeling of getting lots of tasks done and being satisfied with a good job!

Right now I’m entering an extremely busy time with my newly launched mentoring programme, which once again I had to close early due to the amazing response. I can’t wait! I’m so excited, and am really looking forward to meeting my new students and helping them to achieve successful online businesses.

Now, even when I’m really, really busy I still ensure I make time for all the other aspects that come with running an online business. This includes researching and uploading content to my membership website The Source Report, sourcing hot products and of course keeping a close eye on ebay and Amazon – what the competition is doing, tweaking listings and of course advertising new products!

And when it comes to ebay especially, you should be keeping a close eye on your own keywords, just like I do.

This is one of the things that I always stress – the importance of the keywords you choose to advertise your products. Your keywords play a hugely important role in your ebay selling, yet I am truly astounded by the number of sellers who simply ignore this fact and ultimately are throwing sales away every day – not to mention their listing fees – on a regular basis.

I think you’ll agree with me when I say that there really is very little point in advertising your products for sale on ebay unless potential buyers are going to view your listings and buy your items.

So why then, do I see so many listings that will never, ever get page views? Some sellers are merrily listing away not realising that in fact they have totally wasted their fees before they have even finished writing their product description! Eager to write a stonking description full of pretty colours and swirly writing they overlook the simple process of using the correct keywords in listing titles and descriptions.

The listing title is the part that you complete on the ‘sell your item’ form before you get to the main description so I can see why it might be rushed or passed over. But the reality is this:

If your keywords in your title and description are not effective, it doesn’t matter how amazing your listing looks because potential buyers won’t even get that far.

But let’s go back for a moment.

What exactly are keywords and why are they so important?

A keyword is simply a popular word or phrase that potential buyers use, to search for a particular item.

So how does this apply to your title? Well, each and every word you use in your ebay listing title is a keyword and therefore is a potential word that buyers might search for. These keywords are the main way in which potential buyers will actually find your listing and is probably the most important part of the sell your item form!

Keywords sell products – this is an undisputed fact.

So, if you make sure your title includes keywords that are searched for and relevant to your product then it stands to reason that you will dramatically improve the search standing of your listing and most importantly – the visibility of your product. If you don’t include the search terms then your listing won’t display in the search results. What use is that to you?

If your product doesn’t appear in the returned search it won’t be clicked on. And if it isn’t there to be clicked on, then no-one can actually view or purchase your item.

To put it bluntly and rather obviously, if your product is invisible you won’t sell it. This is why it’s important to use the correct keywords within your title.

The whole of ebay’s ‘Best Match’ default search system relies on matching searched for keywords with listing titles. And that’s exactly where the secret power of your listing titles i.e. your chosen keywords, comes into action.

What you need to know about keywords

I have researched long and hard into just how big a role your listing title and keywords play in the success of your products and what you can do to make sure your products always get seen, but before I go into this further you need to know a few facts:

  • 70% of searches by buyers on ebay are completed using the search box at the top of a page which means that your title keywords are ultra important.
  • These words that a potential buyer searches via the search box are compared with the titles only of listings, not the description.
  • If you use a sub-title and pack it with keywords this won’t significantly help your cause. Subtitles are not included in the search unless a potential buyer has ticked ‘search title and description’ in advanced search.
  • The order that you write your keywords in is not important. As long as each keyword is in the title it will be recognized by ebay. So ultimately your title does not necessarily have to make complete sense as long as potential buyers can understand it once they reach it!
  • A poor title will definitely result in fewer visitors and less sales.
  • You get 80 characters to work with in your listing title, so use them! The more keywords you can fit into your title the more often you will appear in the search results.

So, how can you increase your page views and make more sales?

First, you must decide on the keywords to use, so you have to think like a buyer and remember you only have 80 characters to work with. Which words would you use to search for your product? Write all the words down that you can think of that are relevant and then narrow down the list to the strongest ones. These are the keywords you will use in your title. It doesn’t matter if your title doesn’t read like a sentence. For example, the proper grammatical way of writing might be:

Lovely Brand New MP3 Player In The Colour Black Also With An 8GB Memory And A Black Leather Case Also Included.

This is far too long and doesn’t include enough keywords. Plus there are characters wasted by the inclusion of the words Lovely, Brand, In, The, Also, Colour, And, Black Leather, A, Also, Included and With.

It would be far more effective if it simply read:

NEW 8GB MP3 Portable Music Player Black + Leather Case

All the necessary details are there (colour, product, condition, accessories etc) and importantly they are all keywords that are likely to be searched for. When have you ever heard of anyone searching for the word ‘lovely’ or ‘and’?

You can also look at other sellers listings for ideas for hot keywords. Look at listings that have got lots of bids or lots of sales history and use the same keywords in your own title – obviously don’t copy someone else’s listing word for word, that is just wrong!

Make sure the words in your title convey exactly what the item is because that is what is required of a powerful listing title.

Now here’s a secret…

Here’s a big secret that you may not know about, simply because ebay have made it quite hard to find!

Go to http://keyword-index.ebay.co.uk/keyword-index.html and you’ll be able to view the weekly top overall searched for keywords on ebay.

Even better…

Go here: http://category-keyword.ebay.co.uk/default-category.html and you can break it down by categories and even sub-categories – how brilliant is that!

So you’ll have no excuse for using poor keywords any more! Just as an aside, I hope it goes without saying that you must not use an irrelevant keyword when advertising your products – this is keyword spamming and may result in your listings being removed – then no-one will find them anyway!

So there you are. Get your keywords right and you will reap the benefits. Get it wrong and your listing may as well be invisible!