USA eBid Online Auctions

Inspire Your Customers to Buy

When writing product descriptions for your auction listings or web store, go beyond pure information. You must inspire action. If all you want to do is tell prospects about your products, your descriptions are not working for you.

Writing effective copy is about conducting business, not just stating facts. You must do more than just tell. You must sell. Your writing must persuade, motivate and build desire to purchase the item.

The difference between just describing a product and selling it is:

* Focusing on Product Benefits - The things your product does of value. Describe how your product benefits your prospects. What does it do for your customers? Why would they want to own it?

* Making Offers - Selling is deal making. Present your deal. What do they get for how much?

* Committing to your Customers' Point of View - Embrace their needs and wants. Consider their best interests and what is important to them.

Think of every product description you write as an agent of action. Make sure the goal is not just to give information, but to stimulate interest and make sales. You should present all the information your customer needs to make a decision and persuade her to buy your item.

You don't need to be a great writer to write product descriptions that sell. But, there are proven principles you need to apply to write persuasive, customer-motivating copy that turns your web store visitors into active customers.

Headlines set the bait. Body Copy hooks them. Calls to Action reels them in.

* Promise Benefits - Use a headline to make a promise that appeals to customers' self-interests.

* Make Offers - An offer is the promise of an exchange. A discount or special sale price can be a particularly strong offer.

* Deliver Relevant Information - Provide interesting information about your product, then relate that information to something your customers value. Explain how your product makes them more attractive, healthier, safer, sexier, etc.

* Inspire Action - Ask them flat out to press the 'Add to Cart' button. Create a sense of urgency by emphasizing limited quantities, or deadlines for special prices.

Definitions of Phishing on the Web:
is the act of tricking someone into giving them confidential information or tricking them into doing something that they normally wouldn't do or shouldn't do. For example: sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

As a general rule you should be careful about giving out your personal information over the Internet.

* Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information

- unless the email is digitally signed, you can't be sure it wasn't forged or 'spoofed'

- phishers typically include upsetting or exciting (but false) statements in their emails to get people to react immediately

- they typically ask for information such as user names, passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, date of birth, etc...

- phisher emails are typically NOT personalized, but they can be. Valid messages from your bank or e-commerce company generally are personalized, but always call to check if you are unsure

- Don't use the links in an email, instant message, or chat to get to any web page if you suspect the message
might not be authentic or you don't know the sender or user's handle

- instead, call the company on the telephone, or log onto the website directly by typing in the Web address in your browser

* Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for personal financial information

- you should only communicate information such as credit card numbers or account information via a secure website or the telephone

* Always ensure that you're using a secure website when submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser

- Phishers are now able to 'spoof,' or forge BOTH the "https://" that you normally see when you're on a secure Web server AND a legitimate-looking address. You may even see both in the link of a scam email. Again, make it a habit to enter the address of any banking, shopping, auction, or financial transaction website yourself and not depend on displayed links.

- Phishers may also forge the yellow lock you would normally see near the bottom of your screen on a secure site. The lock has usually been considered as another indicator that you are on a 'safe' site. The lock, when double-clicked, displays the security certificate for the site. If you get any warnings displayed that the address of the site you have displayed does NOT match the certificate, do not continue.

- Not all scam sites will try to show the "https://" and/or the security lock. Get in the habit of looking at the address line, too. Were you directed to PayPal? Does the address line display something different like "http://www.gotyouscammed.com/paypal/login.htm?" Be aware of where you are going.

* Consider installing a Web browser tool bar to help protect you from known fraudulent websites. These toolbars match where you are going with lists of known phisher Web sites and will alert you.

- The newer version of Internet Explorer version 7 includes this tool bar as does FireFox version 2
- EarthLink ScamBlocker is part of a browser toolbar that is free to all Internet users - download at http://www.earthlink.net/earthlinktoolbar
- Ensure that your browser is up to date and security patches applied

* Regularly log into your online accounts
- don't leave it for as long as a month before you check each account

- Regularly check your bank, credit and debit card satements to ensure that all transactions are legitimate

- if anything is suspicious or you don't recognize the transaction, contact your bank and all card issuers

* Always report "phishing" or "spoofed" e-mails to the following groups:

- forward the email to phishing-report@us-cert.gov

- forward the email to reportphishing@antiphishing.org

- forward the email to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov

- forward the email to the "abuse" email address at the company that is being spoofed (e.g. "spoof@ebay.com")

- when forwarding spoofed messages, always include the entire original email with its original header information intact

- notify The Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: http://www.ic3.gov/

For more information, check some of the following sources:

What to do if It Happens to You at http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17a.htm

Read the information and tips put out by the Federal Trade Commission about phishing at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/phishingalrt.htm.

Read the Department of Justice's recent whitepaper "Special Report on Phishing" at http://www.antiphishing.org/DOJ_Special_Report_On_Phishing_Mar04.pdf

visit the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team Website

Search Engine Simulator

The Search Engine Simulator tool shows you how the engines "see" a web page.

Why this is important:

Search engines are limited in what they can index on a web page. For example, they cannot read or analyze text displayed in gif or jpeg graphic files. Nor can they meaningfully interpret text shown in Flash files.

Search Engine Simulator

There are lots of things sellers can do to get shoppers to come into their online stores, but it takes Work. You have to be willing to look with wide open, constructive eyes and be honest about the presence you are portraying online.

Poorly written copy, run-on paragraphs, spelling mistakes and dark or blurry pictures will make a great deal less appealing to shoppers..

I do believe these things Make a Difference.

Selling your goods on eBid is a little different than selling on eBay. On eBay you just list your item and hope for the best as there are thousands of people going there looking for things.

For eBid you will need to do a little marketing or advertising to let people know where you are and what your sell. This is not to say that eBid doesn't have buyers but to be realistic they don't have the numbers that eBay has, but neither does any other auction venue.

Pointers that people can use to help get their individual auctions and also eBid Store pages higher in the rankings.

1) Most important is to include, where possible, the keywords that you think buyers will use on google within your auction title.

2) When adding links in your auction descriptions make sure the "anchor text" is something that google can read and relate to the destination page.
e.g.
For antiques and collectables click href="my" store="store">here

In this example google will see a link to your Store and will associate the word "here" as a relevant keyword describing your Store. As we all know no-one is going to use the word "here" on google as a search term so this is a wasted chance for you to gain a "vote" for your eBid Store that would help boost its ranking. A better example would be:

Click here for href="my" store="store">quality antiques and also href="my" store="store">collectables

Here you can see I have used relevant keywords that I think people will use on google as my anchor text.

3) When adding links to eBid anywhere on your own site, on other forums and in blogs eBid management would appreciate it if you used the words "eBid Online Auctions" in the anchor text to help boost our relevance to these keywords on google.

The next ones aren't anything you can do but is something that eBid is currently doing to enhance google listings.

4) To save you time adding a relevant title to each photo you upload they are using the auction title as the ALT tag for your photo

5) They added the TITLE tag to all photo.

6)THey add the auction title and the first 50 characters from your auction description into the META DESCRIPTION tag for each individual auction page.