Ebay was one of the first and most popular assisted selling sites. It started out as an online auction site and then morphed into a behemoth selling site. This transformation was a meteoric rise with acquisitions along the way of other great giants like PayPal and Magento.

While once this was the online wild wild west of selling online it is now littered with the carcasses of old mom and pop sellers and the haven of and controlled by big business. Still there are some great opportunities on eBay if you take the time to rise above the corporate sellouts.

To do this you HAVE TO do the following to make sure you stand out on eBay.

Develop these things to stand out in regards to your eBay account. See our article on how to create an effective eBay account.
Learn to write good titles and descriptions.
Learn to write titles that sell products and get more auction views.
Learn how to optimize your titles to get more sales.
Understand the terminology in eBay and best writing practices.
If you are selling popular items and a title builder site may be your best option.

While we will tell you the effective way to write eBay titles to get more views and sales, there are a few things that you must know. These things you must not write or allow in your titles. These are the rules from eBay and should be followed strictly. Sometimes eBay will allow you to do certain things and the later on require you to go back and edit all of your listings for compliance. The current scenario is image quality where if your images do not meet a minimum of 500px you may have the listing closed.

According to eBay this is what to avoid in your titles:

• Don’t include false or misleading information.
• Don’t include website addresses, email addresses, or phone numbers. The exception is the sale of domain names.
• Don’t use profane or obscene language.
• Don’t use the following words in an attempt to market or advertise your item:
o Prohibited o Banned o Illegal o Outlawed
• Don’t use any other descriptive word that may bring into question the legality of an item by either governmental or eBay standards.
• Don’t include brand names other than the specific brand name used by the company that manufactured or produced the item you’re listing. This is called keyword spamming and isn’t allowed on eBay. These types of listings will be ended and the insertion fee for the listing automatically credited.

The Online Business Reef way to Write Effective eBay Titles for more Sales and Auction Views

Each Title Should have the Product you are selling + One Great Feature+and One Real Customer Benefit

So this is all about selling your PRODUCT right? So then why not use keywords and put this first in the title, remember do not use crap like characters, needless words, or spam words. If it is not a keyword of the product or a searchable term dont use it…period.

EXAMPLE:

“2 Inch Polyurethane Spacers BLACK Jeep Cherokee XJ Lifetime Warranty”

Our old title was “Jeep Cherokee XJ 2″ Black Poly Spacer 1984-2001 in Black”

Some reasons we made the change are for these reasons. First we wanted to emphasize that they spacers were for sale and not a Jeep Cherokee. Also we wanted t0 capitalize the beginning of some relevant words and capitalize some emphasis words, like BLACK. Because spacers come in different colors this listing will stand out for people trying to make a quick decision.

A good thing to do is make sure you do some keyword or competitor searches. Use only good keywords for the product, use the brand name if possible, for example “Rukse 2 Inch Spacers”. Use search terms and keywords known in the industry for your product.

Is your title highlighting at least one great FEATURE? This is what the product attributes are, the things that the buyer needs to know to distinguish your product from others. Things like color, size, thickness and other attributes. List one in the title and use the most relevant for your product. For instance for a computer hard drive you want to list the hard drive size.
Don’t worry if you have more because you can list the rest in the listing description, as many as you want.

You should highlight at least one great feature and normally I put it in all caps like “BLACK” or “500GB” so it stands out in the title.

At least one super BENEFIT should also be listed on your product title. These are what is in it for the buyer, things like free shipping, lifetime warranty, free gifts, and other things. Again list one if you can in your title and put the rest in the listing description.

Again like the feature I usually will put the benefit in all caps like “FREE SHIP” or sometimes I just put the first letter in caps if the benefit is long like “Lifetime Warranty”.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

Don’t use any fluff words in the title like AWESOME, get it now, LOOK, or other such words.
Don’t use anything that is not a keyword or that you don’t think the customer will search for.

A word about FREE SHIPPING – it seems eBay buyers like free shipping even if they have to pay more. So keep that in mind when writing titles.

A word about PRICING– it is better to price your items at .99 or .98 or .97. There is a psychological difference when a person looks at a price between $9.99 and $10.04 or $19.98 versus $21.32 and $29.97 or $31.61 we usually use $.99 and it has worked well.

A word about re-writing TITLES and PROFITS. Let’s say we rewrite a lot of our titles and we get an increased click through and buy rate of 2% instead of 1% that would mean a double in our profits!

Here are some examples of some titles I redid on our TEST eBay account motomomentum.

Jeep (Various Models) 4.0L Engine Aluminum Valve Cover – RED TO: 4.0L Engine Aluminum Valve Cover – RED for Jeep XJ YJ TJ ZJ (Various Models)

Jeep Black Hi-Lift Jack Handle Isolator | Poly-Rubber Blend TO: Hi-Lift Jack Handle Isolator | Poly-Rubber Blend in Black for Jeeps Off-Road SUV

Rear 18mm Polyurethane Sway Bar Bushing Set 2004-2005 Mazda 6 TO: Rear Sway Bar Bushing Set Red Polyurethane for 2004-2005 Mazda 6 – 18mm Size

THE FOCUS was to take the product and list it first since when they search the vehicle information will already be in their search criteria. So then they can see the product first at a quick glance and hopefully choose ours first.

CONCLUSION

In the end writing great titles on your eBay auctions is not a difficult process. It can easily be re-done if you already have a lot of eBay listings up or if you are just getting started then use these tips to develop good title writing habits. If you do this and see a click through rate that increases by 10% with a 1% increase in the buy rate can literally add thousand to your bottom line.