Ebay and SEO?

13 years ago

It's possible, but in my professional opinion, open up a basic Wordpress eCommerce store or contact someone on Fiverr to do this for you, list up your items since you are using GtC fixed price listings anyways. There are tons of pages found on Google about adwords and eCommerce. If you look at how much money spend each month (if you eBay items are selling, that is) on eBay fees for your items, use this amount to test adwords to drive traffic your items.

There's really no point in paying to drive traffic to eBay if you are still going to pay eBay fee's.

Thanks
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ttcbird 13 years ago

I was considering that but for now I want to focus on just eBay some day I will use my own site. I wasn't planning on paying for traffic to go to eBay. All I want to do is send my traffic to ebay from different traffic sources. I wasn't sure if building backlinks and web 2.0 sites would help. I was also considering forum marketing as well.
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BadMab

13 years ago

I started by operating solely through Ebay. The best thing I ever did was to open my own e-commerce site. It allowed me to drive traffic to my own site from Ebay instead of the other way around, saving A LOT of money from Ebay FVCs. Plus, it gives you more credibility if you have your own site.

How many products do you have? Are you worried about taking on a large project (creating a site)?

Let me know if you need any help.

Thanks
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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by BadMab

I started by operating solely through Ebay. The best thing I ever did was to open my own e-commerce site. It allowed me to drive traffic to my own site from Ebay instead of the other way around, saving A LOT of money from Ebay FVCs. Plus, it gives you more credibility if you have your own site.

How many products do you have? Are you worried about taking on a large project (creating a site)?

Let me know if you need any help.

I have a total of "182" items in my store but that's including different variations. So it probably more around 120 different items or so. I'm not worried about creating a site. I have built a few websites for myself before.

So you think I should create a site and drive traffic to my site from ebay and then do SEO and other traffic methods?

Thanks

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islander9

13 years ago

Be careful.

First, eBay has more than 100 millions active users; very few, if any, personally owned ecommerce sites can match that inflow of new and willing customers each day. Don't walk away from that just because of the fees that eBay charges. Think of those fees as a very reasonable charge for access to a huge audience of potential buyers, as well as access to all of its commerce tools and its own SEO efforts.

Second, be careful of those who advise you to use eBay as a tool to market your site. Most, if not all, of the usual methods of doing this by linking to your own site from eBay are violations of the eBay terms of service and will get you thrown out of eBay. Yes, there are more subtle ways to go about this but it' s not the slam dunk I'm hearing here.

Thanks
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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by islander9

Be careful.

First, eBay has more than 100 millions active users; very few, if any, personally owned ecommerce sites can match that inflow of new and willing customers each day. Don't walk away from that just because of the fees that eBay charges. Think of those fees as a very reasonable charge for access to a huge audience of potential buyers, as well as access to all of its commerce tools and its own SEO efforts.

Second, be careful of those who advise you to use eBay as a tool to market your site. Most, if not all, of the usual methods of doing this by linking to your own site from eBay are violations of the eBay terms of service and will get you thrown out of eBay. Yes, there are more subtle ways to go about this but it' s not the slam dunk I'm hearing here.

Thanks for your input. I dont think he was telling me to walk away from ebay. He was simply saying if I had my own site to drive traffic there from SEO. There is legitimate ways to link ebay to my website without violating their policy. I have already called and talk to them and they told me what was ok and what isn't ok.

I don't worry about the fees on ebay and I intend to keep my ebay store. All I'm looking for is a way to build more traffic to ebay.

Thankyou.

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BadMab

13 years ago

Originally Posted by ttcbird

Thanks for your input. I dont think he was telling me to walk away from ebay. He was simply saying if I had my own site to drive traffic there from SEO. There is legitimate ways to link ebay to my website without violating their policy. I have already called and talk to them and they told me what was ok and what isn't ok.

I don't worry about the fees on ebay and I intend to keep my ebay store. All I'm looking for is a way to build more traffic to ebay.

Thankyou.

Your 100% correct. I'm not telling you to walk away from eBay. I still have every item I sell on there. But by also having your own store you will increase your margin by about 10% per sale outside of eBay. And it's a lot easier to promote your own store in the future as opposed to eBay.

So I would keep everything on eBay and start the eshop as well. At least it worked out really well for me.

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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by BadMab

Your 100% correct. I'm not telling you to walk away from eBay. I still have every item I sell on there. But by also having your own store you will increase your margin by about 10% per sale outside of eBay. And it's a lot easier to promote your own store in the future as opposed to eBay.

So I would keep everything on eBay and start the eshop as well. At least it worked out really well for me.

I completely agree with you. I think I will start building my own site now and see what I can do. I'll always leave my items on ebay tho.

I can't figure out why people worry about the fees so much. If you're paying for ads you might dish out a few hundred dollars in a week and not get any sales. At least with ebay your getting your items exposed for a very very cheap price. I currently have a $16/month store so I'm only paying .20 a listing.

MY goal is just to expand outside of ebay. I have some knowledge of SEO, web 2.0, video marketing, article marketing, forum marketing etc. So it's a waste to know all that and not use it to my advantage. I just want to be able to push traffic to my items without having to worry about other people on ebay and their prices as much.

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paulgl

13 years ago

Originally Posted by islander9

Be careful.

First, eBay has more than 100 millions active users; very few, if any, personally owned ecommerce sites can match that inflow of new and willing customers each day. ...

I think you seriously misread the post. No matter. We all do it.

If your livelihood depends on your ebay store, and you are in it for the
long hall, why are you not spending money?

Does not ebay have ways to become a featured store and even buy
advertising? Can't you bid on keywords or something?

Ebay has internal ways of available to make your stuff show up on
ebay searches.

This forum is full of free ways to get traffic.

Paul

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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

If your livelihood depends on your ebay store, and you are in it for the
long hall, why are you not spending money?

Does not ebay have ways to become a featured store and even buy
advertising? Can't you bid on keywords or something?

Ebay has internal ways of available to make your stuff show up on
ebay searches.

This forum is full of free ways to get traffic.

Paul

Not that I really know of, ebay has it's own algorithm just like google or any other search engine. Their algorithm is based on a lot of different things, but nothing to do with paid ways. For example: Views/Buys ratio, Top rated seller or not, Keywords in Title, the amount of inventory you have, the return policy, shipping time etc Thats how ebay's algorithm works I have done a lot of research on ebay traffic and paying for it is not one I have ever seen. It's mostly done on Merit and proper listing set up.

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tinknocker

13 years ago

Originally Posted by ttcbird

Not that I really know of, ebay has it's own algorithm just like google or any other search engine. Their algorithm is based on a lot of different things, but nothing to do with paid ways. For example: Views/Buys ratio, Top rated seller or not, Keywords in Title, the amount of inventory you have, the return policy, shipping time etc Thats how ebay's algorithm works I have done a lot of research on ebay traffic and paying for it is not one I have ever seen. It's mostly done on Merit and proper listing set up.

Terapeak has a partnership with Ebay Terapeak | Item Pricing, Online Sales Reports | eBay Research Tools & Market Data which is a paid service but it gives you a wealth of information on Ebay, competition and how to rank higher in Ebay searches etc...

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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by tinknocker

Terapeak has a partnership with Ebay Terapeak | Item Pricing, Online Sales Reports | eBay Research Tools & Market Data which is a paid service but it gives you a wealth of information on Ebay, competition and how to rank higher in Ebay searches etc...

Thankyou very much for the information. I'm Proud paid member of terapeak for over a year

Definitely worth every penny at $25/month

Thanks
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palpap 10 years ago

it's worthy .. am also accept it
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comparative

13 years ago

Search for off-site SEO.
Considering your ebay pages are well made.

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Craig B

13 years ago

Personally, I would not waste time and money in sending search engine traffic to my Ebay store. Since you are double teamed by PayPal and Ebay fees, the purpose of your Ebay store should be to take advantage of Ebay traffic.

You should consider building your own e-commerce site in addition to your Ebay store. Then concentrate on sending search engine traffic to your e-commerce site so you don't get double whammied by PayPal and Ebay fees.

Also, just think of all the extra money you could have from the Ebay fees to spend on advertising for your e-commerce site. Having your own site will give you more freedom, such as building a list and emailing them promotions, coupons, etc.

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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Craig B

Personally, I would not waste time and money in sending search engine traffic to my Ebay store. Since you are double teamed by PayPal and Ebay fees, the purpose of your Ebay store should be to take advantage of Ebay traffic.

You should consider building your own e-commerce site in addition to your Ebay store. Then concentrate on sending search engine traffic to your e-commerce site so you don't get double whammied by PayPal and Ebay fees.

Also, just think of all the extra money you could have from the Ebay fees to spend on advertising for your e-commerce site. Having your own site will give you more freedom, such as building a list and emailing them promotions, coupons, etc.

That has always been my idea in the back of my head of something I would like to do. The niche I'm in has huge competition on Ebay and its a tough niche but the profit margins are so high it's hard to turn away. I want to sell at least consecutively 15-20 items a day on ebay. Then concentrate my attention to my own site.

I actually called eBay and asked them if they had any coupon discount programs and they said no but they like the idea and said they may make one up. I can't believe they don't have an application for that. It would help bring my facebook fans over to rebuy if I gave them a better deal and it would help bring a higher CTR from ebay to my facebook fanpage.

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tinknocker

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Craig B

Personally, I would not waste time and money in sending search engine traffic to my Ebay store. Since you are double teamed by PayPal and Ebay fees, the purpose of your Ebay store should be to take advantage of Ebay traffic.

You should consider building your own e-commerce site in addition to your Ebay store. Then concentrate on sending search engine traffic to your e-commerce site so you don't get double whammied by PayPal and Ebay fees.

Also, just think of all the extra money you could have from the Ebay fees to spend on advertising for your e-commerce site. Having your own site will give you more freedom, such as building a list and emailing them promotions, coupons, etc.

This is good in theory but the only place you can list your website in order to capture traffic is in the about us page. It's against Ebay TOS to put a link in the auctions as the OP probably already knows, if this is what you were referring to? Ebay put a stop to this years ago and Google stopped listing Ebay auctions in thier top serps a few years ago. I remember when you could optimize your auction listings and within a few hours be on the first page of Google and dominate the serps....the good ol' days.

Ebay classifieds is a place you could put a link to an e-commerce site the last I knew. I've never actually done this but I read about it and it sounded good but that was a few years ago so I don't know if that still works or is allowed.

I've given up on Ebay for the most part. I use Ebay for mostly used items/antiques kind of stuff I have to sell which is still the best place for this sought of stuff.

I will say this, if you are making a living on Ebay, I tip my hat to ya because it's not as lucrative as it use to be. If your selling new items on Ebay then I would think about also branching off into Amazon too.

I would look into Amazon's FBA (fullfillment by Amazon) . It does take some planning using FBA. Amazon doesn't change their TOS every 6 months like Ebay does. But it's not for everyone or every business plan.

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Craig B

13 years ago

Originally Posted by tinknocker

This is good in theory but the only place you can list your website in order to capture traffic is in the about us page. It's against Ebay TOS to put a link in the auctions as the OP probably already knows, if this is what you were referring to?

No, I was referring to keeping them separate. That way you could still take advantage of Ebay traffic to your Ebay store and SEO traffic to your e-commerce site (without the Ebay fees).

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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by tinknocker

I would look into Amazon's FBA (fullfillment by Amazon) . It does take some planning using FBA. Amazon doesn't change their TOS every 6 months like Ebay does. But it's not for everyone or every business plan.

I would like to get into Amazon. I haven't really researched how to do it yet, but I already know how to build a decent looking site for myself so I may tackle that project first then head over to amazon.

Can you point me in the right direction for amazon? Also what do you mean it's not for everyone or every business? Like what isn't good for amazon.

Everything I sell is brand new either from a closeout or a manufacture. I don't drop ship anything either.

1.) Because I like having so called "equity"

2.) I want full control over when my items ship. I own all my products and they ship out in less then 24 hrs.

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tinknocker

13 years ago

Originally Posted by ttcbird

I would like to get into Amazon. I haven't really researched how to do it yet, but I already know how to build a decent looking site for myself so I may tackle that project first then head over to amazon.

Can you point me in the right direction for amazon? Also what do you mean it's not for everyone or every business? Like what isn't good for amazon.

Everything I sell is brand new either from a closeout or a manufacture. I don't drop ship anything either.

1.) Because I like having so called "equity"

2.) I want full control over when my items ship. I own all my products and they ship out in less then 24 hrs.

While I don't know exactly what your selling, it does sound like the stuff your selling would be a good fit to sell on Amazon. Namebrand & closeouts are a winner with Amazon. What I would do is take some of my products and try Amazon out to get the hang of it. In fact you would be in a great position to split test which products sells better on each platform.

Amazon FBA is similar to drop shipping but it's your inventory that gets shipped as they do all the shipping. All you do is ship your stuff to them and they inventory it, list it and do the boxing and shipping when you sell something.

The way it works is you get setup with Amazon as a FBA seller and then you setup your SKU codes for each of your products that you will be selling through Amazon.

Amazon sets up a special UPS shipping account so you can send all your items to Amazon at special Amazon discounted shipping rate to stock in their warehouse. When your products sell, Amazon packs it in their Amazon box and label, then ships it out and you don't have to deal with anything other than replenishing your stock.

One drawback would be a product that doesn't sell well. See if you have inventory in their warehouse too long then you could incur storage fees that can bite into your profits. So if your not on top of everything it could cost you that's why I said it's not for everyone.

I think it's after 6 months if I remember correctly. If I have time tomorrow I'll try and dig up some more info if your interested.

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BadMab

13 years ago

Exactly, if your margins are so close that you can't make money on Ebay then you shouldn't sell it. I would prefer customers buy from my site, but if they don't it's not a big deal because I'm still turning a profit.

Good luck and if you need any help feel free to let me know!

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ttcbird

13 years ago

Originally Posted by BadMab

Exactly, if your margins are so close that you can't make money on Ebay then you shouldn't sell it. I would prefer customers buy from my site, but if they don't it's not a big deal because I'm still turning a profit.

Good luck and if you need any help feel free to let me know!

Whats the best theme and plug in to use with wordpress in order to do every simple as possible? Also I print my labels through ebay with a thermal label printer. Whats the fastest way to do it through a eCommerce store? Paypal?

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JensonChong

13 years ago

You can take help of forums, and blogs too.

You can create your own blog based on eBay product and you can point visitors to your eBay store!

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Prowebstakht

13 years ago

if you want High quality SEO, then you have to pay a lot in order to get High Quality BackLinks.

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MarketingAce

10 years ago

eBay traffic is really the best way though. If you know which keywords to use & how to beat your eBay competition, then you will ALWAYS be at the top of eBay search results on page #1 out-ranking your competition & stealing ALL of the traffic. Just learn how to gather keywords from the eBay search engine & start using those keywords.