SEO for Ebay Stores

Ebay auctions index beautifully in search engine results. Type in something like "Nautica shirt XL" and you are bound to get some eBay listings mixed into the results. Right now as of writing this, I see the top two results are Ebay auctions! How is this important to you? EBay is only a small fraction of your potential buyers. There's a whole other world of internet users out there! You can bring buyers into your eBay listings by using the appropriate keywords in your title and listing.

-The proper keywords
-Plenty of copy, at least a few hundred words
-Multiple use (but not overuse) of keywords throughout your listings, especially the top
-eBay's Reviews & Guides
-About ME Page
-eBay Blogs
-Your own personal blog
-Outside links to your eBay user ID or store
-Online articles
-Squidoo! Set up a page for yourself and promote your store.

Your Ebay About Me page can bring in considerable traffic and be a great landing page for your store if you utilize it correctly. There's no character limit to the amount of text you can put on your page, so fill it up!

Why should you create a great About Me Page? First off, customers on Ebay expect to see an About Me page. If you don't have one, that kind of raises a red flag. It will also produce that little "me" symbol next to your user ID. Believe me, it gets loads of clicks. Your about me will also be a big landing page for your business in search engines. When someones searches for the name of your store through Google, the first two results will be your store and your about me page, or sometimes your My World page (which is equally important).

So what should you put on your About ME page? Keywords, of course, are very important, but you'll want to put information on the page that will make readers want to stick around, read it, and head to your store. Go ahead and include a little information about yourself, but people are more interested in the products that you sell and your business. They want to find out if you're trustworthy, and read your policies. They also want a good example of what you sell, so include photos of some of your best items (along with links to that section of your store) on your me page.

Still having trouble creating your page? See more tips on making an about me page here.

This site is a good place to get free About Me Page templates for your account.

I know I've stated this elsewhere about Reviews and Guides, but used properly, they can really be a big traffic earner. While Ebay owns the content of your Reviews and Guides, search engines love them. The reviews section of Ebay will help you build your reputation in the reviews and guides field, boosting your number, while the guides are where the real SEO comes in.

Ebay allows 4-5 custom pages in your Ebay store, which isn't really enough to properly market your store. That's why the Guides section will help you expand your SEO efforts. For the best results, you'll want to create guides on a topic that has something to do with the products that you sell. If you sell camping gear, pick a brand that you sell regularly, and tell them the features of the tent. Text link to your store (specifically the section that contains the product) with the anchor text being the name of the product, and you will definitely receive some traffic. You'll also be boosting your search engine presence, and adding incoming links from the Ebay site to your store.

You'll have more flexibility with the HTML on your Ebay blog than with Guides, but used in combination, you'll have a lot of luck with these. Just completed an Ebay guide? Blog about it, and link to your guide. Not only will you get some votes, but you'll be creating a link to your guide, increasing your chance for success.

So what should you post in your Ebay blog? Tell the world about your newest auction items, and describe them until your fingers bleed. Use descriptive words, link to your store, include photos, and link to some of your other blog posts.

At first, you may notice that you won't have much traffic to your blog, but it takes time for search engines to notice your blog. After a few weeks of regularly posting, your posts will be indexed quickly with search engines, and outside buyers will begin to find you. You can also interact with the Ebay blogs community, but remember that your customers can read everything that you write! Keep a business focus.

The places listed above are excellent ways to get inlinks to your Ebay store, but they are all within the Ebay domain. It's not a bad thing, you need these types of links for good search engine optimization as well, but backlinks are even more important.

Most websites build backlinks over time as other websites naturally link to them, but many implement their own SEO campaign to start link building. A great place to start creating links to your store is through Squidoo. Squidoo is the site you are on right now. You can create free focused pages called "lenses" on your store, the products you sell, the different niches that you focus on, and a little about yourself. Squidoo also has the Squidbids format to help sellers start their lenses quickly.

You can also start your own external blog (separate from your Ebay blog). The benefit of this is that an external site will be linking to your store, and will provide additional SEO advantages. Whether you'd like to host your own blog or use one of the free blogs that are offered by sites like Blogger is up to you, but most people see better results by hosting their own.

Forums are another place to advertise your niche and gain some links. With forums, it's more about the traffic than the link. Visit forums related to your niche, and find a way to creatively (hint: be helpful, don't spam) work your link into the forum. You can always add your signature link so every post will link to your store.