TIPS: How to get your listings on search page 1

[aussie.grazing.boards]

I've been doing some research on Google, and here are some tips for getting your listing high up on search page one. If you can add to this, please feel free to share.

The first trick I found, was to upgrade your store from standard, to featured. One listing went from page 4 to page 2 within the hour. Is it fair? No, but that's the way the cookie crumbles

Create attention grabbing titles, the more clicks you get, the higher up the list it goes

Be prepared to sell at cost price, or below for several weeks, again, you will get more clicks and sell through, lifting it higher up the totem pole.

Over a period of weeks, slowly raise your price to where you think it should be, or sell by volume (more items at a lower price, as opposed to selling less items for a higher profit). Again, the less you sell (less clicks), the lower the listing will appear.

Never run out of stock, or you will have to start all over again, this happened to me. uuggh

When you're about to run low, think about raising the price to a level no one will purchase it at, then restore it back to your usual selling price once your new stock has arrived. Don't leave it too high for too long, as you will get less clicks, and it will slide down the totem pole again

Offer free postage, (absorb postal price into the buy it now price). Nobody wants to do mathematics when they buy, I don't anyway.. IE buy it now price is 9.99 plus $7.20 =  Trust me, they will get sick of trying to figure out the total price, and will just buy one with free postage that just has the total price to pay. (all though shipping is not free, we all know that). Note: There are products that can get away with postage costs listed separately, this is not a hard and fast rule

When you get a new product, always have one in auction format for the first month, and consider adding a second subject line (extra $1.50) and put: "Don't wanna wait? Buy It Now in my eBay store for just $9.9 Free Shipping". This is free advertising back to your fixed price items, and take into account that Auction format listings climb up the totem pole every hour, until end of auction, putting it in a better position as the days progress. Consider having an auction format listing for the first month, and cease listing it once sales begin to pick up, and believe me, it will

I have used these tips, and my business really turned a corner

That's all I can remember right now, let me know how you go, or if you have your own tips, feel free to share them.

Bye

[phorum_junkie*]

Never run out of stock, or you will have to start all over again, this happened to me. uuggh

When you're about to run low, think about raising the price to a level no one will purchase it at, then restore it back to your usual selling price once your new stock has arrived.

This no longer applies as you can set your listing to continue with zero available.

Subtitles cost $2 and are not searchable so IMO area waste of money unless some essential information will not fit in the title. Add that to a $1.50 x 4 listing fee for an auction every week and I doubt if it would up your sales at all. When they have the occasional free auction listings for stores I have often used them and have seen no overall increase in my sell through rate.

[aussie.grazing.boards]

Subtitles cost $2 and are not searchable so IMO area waste of money unless some essential information will not fit in the title. Add that to a $1.50 x 4 listing fee for an auction every week and I doubt if it would up your sales at all. When they have the occasional free auction listings for stores I have often used them and have seen no overall increase in my sell through rate.

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 I have to disagree, it takes a fixed price product 6 weeks to become established, and having an Auction Format listing promoting awareness of a fixed priced item is a cheap, but valuable way of achieving customer awareness. I'm not saying everyone is going to buy it, but it will encourage people to click on the Fixed Price Listing, which ultimately brings the FPL further up to page 1, which is what you are wanting to achieve

[imastawka]

Someone's had a lot of time on their hands.  

Which search page are you referring to?  

Best match ?(laughable - does anybody really use it)

Newly listed? list every day and you'll be on page 1 anyway

  Please explain which search page for me, will ya. 

[aussie.grazing.boards]

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@imastawka wrote:

Someone's had a lot of time on their hands.  

Which search page are you referring to?  

Best match ?(laughable - does anybody really use it)

Newly listed? list every day and you'll be on page 1 anyway

  Please explain which search page for me, will ya. 

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I'm talking about getting your listing on the first page when people do a "default" search. Customers rarely go beyond page two.If your listing is on page 3 or higher, your not going to have the results you ultimately desire.

Also, listing a fixed priced item everyday doesn't mean the listing goes straight to page one. There are a number of factors that determine its position, but unarguably, clicks, and successful sales determine where it will be, if it is popular, (lots of views and sales) it can be the fourth listing from the top, or even the first listing, but it takes a lot of time and effort to get it there

Listing everyday is not going to get the traffic, and is simply a waste of time and money IMO

[imastawka]

Firstly, the 'default' search is 'best match' and only numnuts use that search option.

Secondly, you're talking page numbers. Default makes that 25 listings per page.

Again - only numnuts wouldn't change that number for searching. You'd be on the

first page at 200 listings per page, I'm sure.

Thirdly, you can only talk on behalf of your own category re listings and traffic.

All categories are not the same to all buyers

Buyers in my category (paper collectables) search daily under 'newly listed'

so they don't miss something.  And I'm betting it's not just my category either.

A featured store has 500 listings.  Listing everyday costs nothing,

and gets buyers in your store

[aussie.grazing.boards]

@imastawka wrote:

Firstly, the 'default' search is 'best match' and only numnuts use that search option.

Secondly, you're talking page numbers. Default makes that 25 listings per page.

Again - only numnuts wouldn't change that number for searching.

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Most buyers are "numbnuts," never assume they are going to approach a product search in the same manner you do. Most buyers rarely read the listing properly, let alone adjust default search filters

I did not "invent" these tips, they have been gathered, and shared by very successful Power Sellers and analysts from Terapeak. I am more inclined to heed their suggestions, but I appreciate your personal observations.

[digital*ghost]

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@aussie.grazing.boards wrote:

never assume they are going to approach a product search in the same manner you do. 

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Which is exactly why many of your tips won't work for everyone, though I'm sure you are aware of that. 😉

I'm not saying these tips have no merit at all, but just to highlight how they could hurt, rather than help, in some cases...

Take for example, the tip about selling at a loss - I can't do that, especially not with my handcrafted items - selling them at below their value hurts my brand far more than it could possibly help it in the short or long term. And it has the potential to do so for much more well-known brands / items, too. 

Cassini, and best match, aren't supposed to like clicks without the item selling - if a listing gets a high number of clicks but little purchase activity, that is supposed to work against it and drop it lower in the rankings (sales to impressions was also another big thing that was supposed to push listings down in rankings - meaning if it appeared high up in search results often, but didn't get any clicks or sales, it would lose place quickly).

Free post - tried that more than once, for a good period of time, and sales screeched to a halt, even though the price was often lower than it was when I had postage listed separately. The second I put postage back in separately, sales started up again.

What does that mean? It means search results only take you part of the way, buyer preference takes you all the way.

Re: subtitles, I believe they do have value - searchable keywords is one thing, and they're all good and stuff, but once a listing is visible in a search and on the page in front of a buyer, a long list of similar items, with one that has a subtitle offering extra deals or anything else of interest, is bound to get more attention. (I don't use them myself, but just wanted to say I understand how they can be an advantage). 

[aussie.grazing.boards]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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Hi, thanks for that, I certainly appreciate the points you have made.

I think at the end of the day, different products require a different approach, and you may be lucky that your selling a product that has not been done-to-death.

I am still seeking that type of niche

[clarry100]

We have tried most of what you say without seeing any change in rankings of our products.

The only thing we can see that makes a very noticeable difference is sales.

If one of our items has been languishing low down the list for a time the minute someone does find it (somehow) and buys it we see an immediate climb up the rankings. If then one or two other buyers also buy it or someone buys a multiple quantity of it then suddeny we find it right up in the top 10 in our category. Then we will get a run on that item for a day or two and then just as suddenly it will disappear off the scale again.

This kinda thing happens often enough for us that we are convinced that the biggest single factor to Cassini is sales.

It's a bit self-defeating really since items that rarely sell never come up the list and therefore never sell.

Cassini needs to give your items some kind of cyclic boost so that people can see it from time to time.

But this is just wishful thinking on our part.

We are convinced that in our particualr category that our buyers use default search (best match). Since when sales are up on an item so is the search ranking of that item and vice-versa.

So we believe there is little you can do to influence the Cassini search engine apart from landing sales and that is entirely up to buyers.

Seems that trying to influence Cassini is a bit of a time-waster to us.

We have thought of cross-buying between our IDs to see if that gets results but its a bit of a no-no to do such things. So we have not done it. Of course to do this you would suffer the fees associated with the sales but if it worked it could be considered as cost of advertising.