How To Make Your Auction Listings Look Fantastic

When it comes to playing around with your description, it helps to know a little bit about HTML.

What's HTML? The Wikipedia definition goes something like this: "HTML, an initialism for Hypertext Mark-up Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, etc. and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. HTML is written in the form of "tags" consisting minimally of "elements" surrounded by angle brackets. HTML can also describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a document, and can include embedded scripting language code (such as JavaScript) that can affect the behavior of Web browsers and other HTML processors."

Or in simple terms, it is a set of instructions. Instructions are contained within angle brackets and could be anything from which font, its size and colour to where to find an image on the web. Having a basic understanding of HTML will help you to manage how your listings appear. If you know what you can remove and what you can add to your description you will be able to work magic with your listings.

Why not try a tutorial and give it a go?

Are you keen to sell on ebay but don't know what to sell? Why not give this a go?

These guys have a huge range of templates for all kinds of uses.

Still stuck for products to sell? Why not give this a go?

First of all you need image hosting. This is basically a website which will store your images and provide you with the URL which you can then use in your listings. For many buyers, one image simply isn't enough to really get them involved in a product so if you can offer a range of photos which add to a detailed description this will give buyers more confidence to place bids. A good number of photos is between three and five. Using ebay's hosting for five images will cost $1.00 plus $0.59 if you use Gallery, which you should if you want people to click through to your item. Add to this your fees for listing, your final value fee and your Paypal fee and there goes a fair chunk of any profit you thought you'd made.

One of the biggest hurdles to success on ebay is finding good products to sell. Have a look at what these guys have to offer.

There are a few sites which will host your images for free. I like Photobucket for no particular reason other than I've been using it for a while now and it suits my purposes.

Here are the steps to uploading an image, grabbing the URL and placing it in your ebay description.

1. Open an account with Photobucket.

2. Once you have your account and log in, the screen you will see will look something like this:-

3. Click on the blue button "Upload Images And Video". A window will open where you can browse your images on your computer. Select the images you wish to upload then confirm.

4. Once your images have finished uploading you will see a screen which looks similar to this:-

Enter titles for your images as well as a description and tags if you wish.

5. Now open your ebay description and go to the tab marked HTML.

6. Go back to Photobucket and move your mouse over the image you wish to grab. A drop-down box will open under the image. Click on the box next to HTML Code. This will highlight and copy the code for your image. Paste the code inside the description box on ebay. It must go into the HTML box not the standard box otherwise it will appear exactly as you have copied it.

Congratulations! You have just placed an image in your ebay description. If you want more images, simply repeat the process.