eBay Tips Newsletter October 2009

Ramp Up Your Profits with eBay's new "Search Visibility Analysis" Tool eBay Drops Some Optional Listing Features... and Blogs Too! Share Your eBay Listings with Facebook and Other Social Sites in a Single Click Have Your Listings Taken a Nose Dive?

1. Ramp Up Your Profits with eBay's new "Search Visibility Analysis" Tool
Last week our in-house eBay expert burst into our office, exploding with excitement over eBay's new "Search Visibility Analysis" tool. Carson calls this tool, "the number-one application eBay has come out with in months" and strongly urged us to tell you about it in this month's issue of Bidding Frenzy.

Carson says this tool is going to "help a lot of new sellers dramatically increase their listing performance." So without any more fanfare, let's talk about how you can use it to improve your listings and increase your auction profits!

A Better Way for Beginners to Level the Playing Field

One of the great things about the Search Visibility Analysis (SVA) Tool is that it's available to all sellers. You don't need to have a store to be able to access it, which is why it's especially useful for beginning sellers.

You'll find the SVA tool under the link for "Seller Dashboard" on your account drop-down menu. Here's what it looks like:


In order to see how one of your listings is doing, enter the item number into the search bar on the SVA page and run the report:

... and prepare to be blown away by all the information you get!

Let's take a look at all the information section by section...

Best Match Factors



This section shows you how different elements of your listing are affecting your search standing:

• Item and shipping costs: eBay will like your listing better if you offer competitive pricing. If your item is too expensive or your shipping costs are too high, your search standing will suffer.
  
  
• Free shipping boost: In many categories (but not all), you will get a Best Match boost if you offer free shipping for your item.
  
  
• Sales per impressions: This looks at the number of sales you get compared to the number of times your listing is seen. This one is huge! If you're running a multiple item listing, or relisting the same listing for different items, eBay will reward you with a big boost in your search ranking if your listing has proven to be successful.
  
  
• Seller performance: This one looks at your Designated Seller Rating. If you're a Top-Rated Seller your listing may get bumped to the top of the ranking in eBay's Best Match. But if you don't meet the minimum standards eBay expects from its sellers, then your listing will probably get bumped lower in the search results.

Other Factors

• Impressions: This shows you how many people see your listing in the search results.
  
  
• Click-throughs: The SVA tool shows you the number of unique click-throughs you get as well as the unique click-through ratio. This information tells you how many people who SEE your listing title think it's relevant and compelling enough to check out further. Low click-throughs could mean you're in the wrong category, your wording is too general, or your photo isn't enticing.
  
  
• Watchers: Shows you how many people are actively watching your listing -- a great sign of interest.

How You Rate

Now you can drill down even deeper by clicking on the "Find Your Listing by Keyword" feature -- and find out how your listing stacks up against the competition. Type in one of the keyword phrases someone might use to find your product:



Now look at all the information eBay gives you...



(NOTE: You should see a line that shows your actual rank in Best Match. It looks like: “Rank: Page 2 (position 28) of 238." The day we published, this feature was temporarily turned off because of bugs. It will return when it's fixed.)

• Price range: How much are your competitors charging for their product? If your price is significantly higher than average, that could be hurting your sales, as searchers are more likely to click on listings that offer a better price. And that's going to hurt your search standing.
  
  
• Shipping cost range: Shows you how much your competitors tend to charge for shipping. If your shipping costs are higher than average, that could have a negative impact on your position in the search results.
  
  
• Free shipping: How many competitors offer free shipping -- and earn themselves a boost in the rankings? Now you can find out. If you see a lot of competitors offering free shipping, then think about offering it too. Otherwise you're going to have to work a lot harder in other areas to get a decent ranking in the search results.
  
  
• Auction versus fixed price: You can see how many listings are auctions versus fixed-price sales. Auctions get placed high in the search results when approaching their end time, so they can prove to be tough competition if you're running a fixed-price listing that hasn't been well optimized.
  
  
• Top-rated sellers: How many Top-Rated Sellers are you going up against? These guys are your toughest competition. They're going to get a boost in the search results by sheer virtue of being a proven customer pleaser, and that "TRS" badge next to their listing title is going to get them extra eyes on the page.
  
  
• Product details: How many competitors include pre-filled product details in their listing? eBay is actively encouraging sellers to use this standard product information in their listings... and rewarding sellers who do with an extra jolt of search exposure. If eBay doesn't have product details for what you sell, you're encouraged to suggest your own to the eBay catalog. On your Sell Your Item form you'll find a "Submit a Catalog Addition Request."

All this data is pure gold. And if you're running multiple listings in the same category, you can check to see how they're all doing by entering the category number in the search bar and run a new report:



But it gets even better! Once you've analyzed all your data, eBay gives you explicit tips on what you can do to improve your listing's search ranking and lets you make changes to your listing right on the same page by clicking the "Revise Listing" button:



... And eBay will walk you through the steps you need to take to make your listing more appealing to your buyers.

"The information this tool gives you is incredible!" Carson says. "If I find out my listing is on page 9 all the time, this information is going to tell me exactly what I need to do to get a better ranking and increase my exposure in eBay's search results!"

The Search Visibility Tool isn't available for all listings. You can check out the exclusions -- and anything else you need to know -- on this page.

To get more tips on how to create listings that will get a good ranking from eBay's search spiders, check out eBay's useful help page.


2. eBay Drops Some Listing Features... and Blogs Too!

eBay has just dropped a number of popular listing features, and they're getting rid of the eBay Blogs. So if any of these have been working for you, it's time to start thinking of new ways to get the edge on your competitors.

Some Listing Features Gone as of October 1

Here are the changes eBay made to its Optional Listing Features:



The biggest changes are that now you can't highlight your listing title or put a border around it. Looks like eBay wants better listings and more relevant titles to be the main reasons people click on titles instead of visual gimmicks such as borders and highlighting.

One surprise -- especially with the holiday shopping season coming up -- is that eBay has dropped the gift services feature. You can still offer gift wrapping and cards as part of your packaging service -- you just won't have eBay's standardized template option to advertise that fact.

We think that makes offering such perks even MORE important. If it's harder to advertise gift services, your competition might drop them.That means you stand out if you advertise them in your listings.

"Featured Plus" is gone-- which is too bad because it was a strategy our PowerSellers experienced a lot of success with. However, its replacement, "Featured First," looks like it too will be a great way to encourage more browsers to click through to your listing.

The bad news is, it's only available to Top-Rated Sellers. However, the good news is that it's easy for conscientious sellers who provide stellar service to attain Top Rated Seller status relatively quickly, as long as you stay away from those dreaded 1-star and 2-star Designated Seller Ratings.

To learn more about the changes to Optional Listing Features and how they might affect you, click here now.

Your eBay Blog Disappears on October 31

Scary!

If you've been keeping up an eBay blog to grab visitors from both on and off eBay... no more. eBay's getting rid of it members' blogs. Not just leaving them sitting there, either. eBay is actually taking all the blogs down.

Better save your blog entries somehow by October 31, or they're gone forever.

If you've gone to the trouble to create interesting content for your eBay blog, don't lose it. You might be able to use it somewhere else to increase your traffic:

• Consider revising some of your posts as Reviews and Guides.



• Can you use some of your blog content on your About Me Page or My World Page?



• Start your own blog off eBay and use it to drive potential customers from the big search engines like Google. It's easy with Google's free Blogger program.

So... use it or lose it! What's it gonna be?


3. Share Your eBay Listings with Facebook and Other Social Sites in a Single Click
Here's a neat application you might want to add to your eBay toolkit...

Page Mage is an eBay-compatible application that allows you to create customized, professional listings to which you can easily add video, images, moving text, and slide shows in order to convert more browsers into bidders and make more money on eBay.

And now you can use it to share your eBay listings with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social networking sites, as well as your own website or blog. It sounds like an effective way to get more eyeballs on your listings! Plus, if you already have your own online business, you can use Page Mage to easily integrate your eBay listings into your "regular" offline store, which means you can get your regular site traffic working overtime for you.

Interested in taking this tool for a test drive? Page Mage offers new users a 60-day free trial. When the fees kick in, you'll have to pay 50 cents per listing to use all of the service's features. Or, if you're a big seller, you can sign up for one of their subscriptions: pay $9.95 a month for 40 listings, $19.95 a month for 200 listings, or $34.95 a month for 1,000 listings.

If you decide to try this tool, let us know what you think!


4. Have Your Listings Taken a Nose Dive?
Have you noticed any dramatic changes to the ranking of your listings?

If so, it could be due to the fact that on October 1st, eBay stopped using "Recent Sales" as a criterion for top rankings. Instead, they're now looking at your ratio of impressions to sales (as we mentioned above in the lead article).

That means if your listing doesn't do a good job of converting browsers into buyers, you could go down in the rankings. Yikes!

If you have noticed a drop in your search rankings, let us know! We're curious to discover how many sellers have felt an impact from all the changes that have taken place this month.

Drop us a line at questions@marketingtips.com and let us know how the changes have affected you.

And if your search ranking is suffering, then now is the time to use the Search Visibility Analysis Tool to see where you're going wrong -- so you can improve your listings and get them back at the top of the search results, where they belong!
Until next month...

The Internet Marketing Center Team