How to rank high on eBay listings?

[AaronJones]

I never seem to get my listings near the top. They are always near the bottom of the first page or on the second page when there are only two pages in my niche.

I make sure my titles have the proper keywords. The same as the top ones and even more.

Yet my listings are always down.

Is there a method to this sort of like how people rank higher in seo?

[freudianslip27]

Do you mean ebay's internal listings, or google listings for an ebay page?

If you really want to get a lot of exposure, you could opt for a featured listing. That will get you at the top (and if you aren't paying for it, you will never rank above featured people, even with good SEO)

Matt

[digitalproductreporter]

if you mean ppc then bid higher

if you mean google natural rankings, seo, get more good quality links pointing to you ebay affiliate site

plus add some unique content to the page

[AaronJones]

Originally Posted by freudianslip27

Do you mean ebay's internal listings, or google listings for an ebay page?

If you really want to get a lot of exposure, you could opt for a featured listing. That will get you at the top (and if you aren't paying for it, you will never rank above featured people, even with good SEO)

Matt

Yes, ebays internal listings. I didn't know about the featured listing option. That would explain how these guys are getting ahead of me.

[joblythe]

Aaron

Featured listing are the way to go - because anything else depends entirely how your buyer lists his choices.

I tend to sort by time ending soonest - so if your listing had 3 or 4 days to go - I probably wouldn't see it!

Some people list by cheapest first etc., etc, - so YOU have no control over where your product is.

Look at featured listings.

[garyv]

eBay also now uses your Detailed Star Rating - as well as other customer satisfaction formulas in an algorithm to determine your items rankings in their search engine.

They average your star ratings over a 30 day period for their search engine algorithm. So if you have any bad ratings within the past 30 days bringing your score down, then you could suffer in the search engine until that bad rating drops out of the formula in 30 days. This makes it much harder for the small sellers, where one bad rating will effect their average much more than that of a large seller.

[bobsstuff]

I've been selling on ebay for 10 years, making my living there.
Ebay has changed the rules. Some you can read about and others are hidden rules ebay doesn't tell you about.
There are now a lot of things you need to make it to the top of a listing page and even following ebay's guidelines you will often be on page 2 or 3 of the listings.
A better place to learn about this is in the ebay discussion groups.

[IMChick]

There are a few tricks I stumbled on by accident in the ebay world, and the rules there keep changing, so it gets confusing.

1. Make sure that you are searching 'completed listings' for past auctions on your similar product. Sort the list by price and analyze the top 2 or 3 auctions that closed for more $ than the other listings. Try to figure out their key words and presentation.

2. Keep an eye on shipping and handling. Ebay seems to be moving to a "free shipping" model and a media flat-rate model for books, cd's & DVD's, similar to what is in place at Amazon and Half.com. Remember the days when a 2 ounce DVD shipped for $14.99 on a $2 sale? Or a $75 shipping fee on a $5 widget? Well, that game is playing itself out in poor listing results for those who list excessive fees. It's called 'best match'. Read ebay's rules, and consider a slightly higher initial price with free shipping.

3. When you're looking at active items similar to the one you want to list, make sure that you are signed in so you can change one of the viewing columns so you can see shipping and handling fees. While you're there, look at the top auctions in the category and see what they are doing differently other than paying for a featured auction listing. Re-sort the list (from best match to newly listed to whatever) and note what has changed and why the top guy is up there.

4. go into the community boards and read what others have been doing on your subject.

5. your feedback now counts in the ranking mix. get that number of transactions up there, and keep your positive % number as high as you can, at least above 98% so your listing isn't dropped in the search ranking.

[AaronJones]

I am trying to find how to get my featured listing but it looks like I need 10 feedback before I can. I have not found a way to order yet, so hopefully some of my auctions sell, but no one is finding them despite my keywords and attention grabbing headlines.

[sambaz]

Originally Posted by AaronJones

Yes, ebays internal listings. I didn't know about the featured listing option. That would explain how these guys are getting ahead of me.

Hi Aaron,

To have access to use the featured listing option, you have to be a top rated seller.

Hope that helps

[massiveray]

The only way I have ever found is to sell some items, the more you sell the higher you appear in rankings.

For example if you have something for sale, you could hypothetically list 2 of them and either buy 1 yourself from a friends account or have a friend do it.

I've never done this myself but if you're desperate it could be a way to go.

Selling 1 is usually enough for a pretty decent ranking. I used to sell DVDs full of scanned xmen comics. I'd list 50 of them at a time and the more I sold the higher in rankings I was.

[eBayer]

Originally Posted by AaronJones

I never seem to get my listings near the top. They are always near the bottom of the first page or on the second page when there are only two pages in my niche.

I make sure my titles have the proper keywords. The same as the top ones and even more.

Yet my listings are always down.

Is there a method to this sort of like how people rank higher in seo?

Ranking high on eBay internally is an important aspect in grabbing as many sales as possible. If your listings appear very low in pages it might not get enough views to convert to sales. I have done research over the years in this field and implemented the things into my eBay selling and learnt from it.

What you basically should do is. Use eBay Research Lab tool to find out which are the GOOD keywords and which are the BAD keywords.

Good - People use to search for the product.
BAD - People don't use it.

If you have Bad keywords in your title the listing is going to appear low on search.

Secondly, try to list items as GTC ( Good Til Cancelled ).
Especially when you have unlimited supply. You should have a high quantity and as you keep selling, keep feeding your listing quantity, just don't let the listing end. eBay wants to display those listings up on their search which will convert to sales. This is the most important reason as to why listings are listed high for some people and not for others according to my experience.

It's also important to monitor your views per sale ratio. Do a manual examination on how many views it takes to convert to sales. Try to reduce this view count before a sales occur. Try to play around with the descriptions, make it more attractive, cancel out unneeded words/sentences. Include important sentences. For example: Size, color, material, shade etc..

Play around with the title until you get hold of the perfect title for your eBay listing.

It is of paramount importance to include best possible pictures of your products. As a buyer, I would personally not buy from someone who has stock photos on their listings. It's important to take REAL pictures.

It's also important to have the right price for your auctions/BINs. Don't aim for excessive profits and on the same time not too low. Stay inline with competitors, just try to work your way up the ladder by having a little extra that will trigger sales from buyers. Descriptions, pictures etc..

These will reduce your views per sales, which means you'll have your SOLD: 100 ( example ) quickly build up and this means you are on top climbing.

Other than this, you'll notice eBay TOP RATED SELLERS who have a badge are on top of of search. eBay gives them an extra push on search, you need to aim to become a top rated seller ASAP. I personally did it by starting infinite number of auctions and kept on break evening and even sold items at a loss but I got my top-rated sellers status.

There are many other factors that lead to higher search exposure on eBay. You'll understand these other factors as you gain experience selling on eBay.