eBay: How to Add Images and Photos To Your Listings For FREE and Boost Your Profits

Adding images and photos to your eBay listings will create more interest in what
you are selling and therefore hopefully more bids and more sales. The process of
adding images may seem complicated at first but it looks more difficult than it is.
A little practice and it will become second nature to you. So, let's not waste any
more time and get on with it.

The first thing you need of course are your images, these can be photos you've
taken yourself, product images, clip art etc. I store mine on my computer Desktop
and number them so that I know which ones are which.

Your second requirement is your item description, type it into Wordpad, Notepad
or whatever you use. You can type it all in the same font size for now and edit it later
Save your description text for later.

The third thing you need is a Photobucket account which is free. You can open
one here at: www.photbucket.com when you have opened your Photobucket
account it's time to upload your images.

At Photobucket you will see a Choose files button and to the right of it, it says
from with a selection to choose from, select 'my computer'. Click on the 'Choose
files' button and you will see the contents of your computer, select where on your
computer your images are stored, mine are on my Desktop. Select your image
by highlighting it and clicking on Open. The image will now upload to your
Photobucket album. If you are uploading several images, which you will be, you
can use the bulk uploader, look for the link. This uploads all of the images that
you select from your computer at once - saves time and effort.

Now go to: www.onlineauctiontrader.com to get a free eBay template.
There are other sources of free eBay templates but for now we will use this one.
Take a look at all of the templates they offer and decide which one you are going
to use. It's probably a good idea to use one of the more basic ones until you get
the hang of it.

Click on the link to get your HTML code for the template of your choice, it will
show you where to place your image links and text. Where it indicates where the
image link is to go take a look (usually towards the end of the line) and check
what size the images should be.

When you know what size (width and height) your images need to be, go back to
Photobucket and resize them in turn. If you need help, Photobucket have
instructions for you to follow. Basically, click edit and from there resize. It is
important to make your pictures the right size, give or take a millimetre or two,
you may have seen some eBay listings that have a horizontal scroll bar at the
bottom. This is often because the images are too large to fit the screen. This
makes it difficult to read the item description when you are scrolling backwards
and forwards; it also looks ugly and unprofessional so be sure to resize your pics.

Next thing to do is open a text editor e.g. Notepad or Wordpad. Copy and paste
the whole of the HTML code for your chosen template into this page. Now add
your images and text to the template where indicated.

You will see in bold text where to add your images; you add the image links
between the quotation marks,
"enter your image link here" be sure to add the image links between these
marks after first carefully deleting the directions between them.

To get your image links, go back to Photobucket and below each images, you will
see various codes. Put your cursor on the Direct Link code and left click on it
once - a box will open saying Copied. You now go back to your template HTML
page, delete the directions between the quotation marks and then right click and
select Paste. Your first image is now embedded within the HTML code. Carefully
do this for each image. You will need to have uploaded enough images for the
template you are using. If you are selling just one item, you will probably want
pictures of it from different angles. If you are selling a package of several items
you could have an image of each one.

The next thing to do is to insert your item description text in the places where
indicated in the template script, >usually between chevrons like this<.

Follow the instruction given with the template, e.g. where to place item
description, where to place payment details, where to place delivery details etc.
Where these elements go depends upon which templates you are using.

Once you have added everything to the template script save it.

You can now upload your template to eBay. First of all though, you need to check
that you have set up your template HTML correctly. To do this, login to eBay as
usual and click on Sell. You will need to select a category to proceed; any will do
to test your HTML code. Once you have done this go to Describe the item
you're selling section. Click on the HTML tab.

Now highlight and copy the template code that you have saved and paste it into
the item description field.Next click on the Standard tab then click on the Preview
link to see how it all looks. If it has errors, then you have entered the codes incorrectly.

You can go back to the item description field and check through the code to see
if you can detect where you made the error, or you can start again.

Hopefully, if you took care when entering the image links and you entered your
text correctly, everything should look fine. If the template doesn't fit the page and
there are scroll bars present, then your images may be too large.

Assuming everything looks fine, you can now improve the look of your item
description. Using the Standard set up in the Describe the item you're selling
section, you can go through your description and make changes such as put your
headline in bold type, change it's color, center it, change type size, fonts etc.

You might want to split your text up into paragraphs, make certain words or
phrases bold, add underlining or italics etc. You can do all of this within the
Standard editor. When you have finished editing your text, click on the Preview
link to see how it looks, if ok, close the preview.

Now you can save the entire HTML code for your listing. Open a new Notepad
or Wordpad document then click the HTML tab above your Item Description.
Copy and Paste all of the HTML code displayed there and save it to your new
Notepad or Wordpad document and save ready to paste straight into your
eBay listing.

That's it! List your item/s in the usual way filling in the required fields to complete your
eBay listing and add your HTML to the item description field.

Reading these instructions might make it sound complicated but it really is easy
once you have had a go. You can't learn to drive a car by just reading about it -
you have to have a go at it.

Before you commit anything to eBay, you can play around with it as much as you want and get a feel for it.

Adding images and photos to eBay listings does make a real difference to bidding and it's well worth that bit of effort involved, people like to see what they might be buying.

So, have a go and see your auctions take off.

More free how-to articles at: www.smarterwork.info/