eBay Auction Keywords that Sell - Creating Winning Titles

By Steve Myers

If they don't find your listing, they can't bid on it. My kids went out trick-or-treating a while ago. The streets were full of kids in costume. We wanted our kids to stand out in the dark. My wife found some fun necklaces with beads the shape of ghosts and pumpkins that lit up. From clear down the street, I could tell which kids were mine.

It got me thinking. What can you do to make your eBay listings stand out from the crowd? My first thought was to use bold, highlight or other eBay listing features. But everyone can do that. Besides, they increase my listing fees. What options do I have to get an "unfair advantage?" What does the competition lack that I have access to?

An auction research tool like HammerTap gives you an edge. Its keyword research features help you identify words to use in your auction listing title to place it in the spotlight. Better yet, some specific keywords can also make your product sell for more.

How To Hog the Spotlight

A friend of mine is quite a fan of the outdoors. He especially likes mountain bikes. Since he only has a car to get him to the hill, he accumulated several bike racks. When he had to move, it was time to get rid of some of them. eBay came to his rescue.

Bike racks aren't rare on eBay. He'd need to find a way to get his listing noticed if he wanted to get top dollar for his bike racks. He wanted his listing to "hog the spotlight." What do I mean by that? To hog the spotlight means to use keywords which target your most likely buyers and draw their attention more than competing listings.

We found many bike rack listings. All had different keywords in their titles. So which keywords do people search with when they look for bike racks? Let's see what insights HammerTap can uncover.

Utilizing eBay Keyword Analysis

We did a quick query in HammerTap on the keywords "Yakima" and "rack." Since Yakima also sells ski and other kinds of racks, we excluded keywords "ski" and "kayak." Figure 1 shows the results.

You can see that I have the data sorted by the # of Auctions, and have arranged the columns to have the # of Auctions column next to the Auction Success Rate and ASP/Item columns.

To do this with your own product:

1. Make sure the data is sorted in descending order for # of Auctions.
2. Scroll to the right of the screen until you find the Auction Success Rate column.
3. Left-click and hold on the Auction Success Rate column and drag it to the left of the window.
4. Drop the Auction Success Rate column next to the # of Auctions column. Green arrows will appear to show you where to drop it. Let go of the mouse to drop the column.
5. Now drag and drop the ASP/Item column next to the Auction Success Rate column.

Now that we have the data in front of us, we are ready to build that title that will hog the spotlight.

Building that Winning Title

We want to find a good combination of words that give us both a high Average Selling Price and Listing Success Rate. When we accomplish both goals, we are using the best keywords shoppers use when searching for that item. How do you know this is the case? Because items with the highest ASP and LSR have the highest demand. This means they have the most bidders competing for a product in short supply.

Tip: You might find keywords that will also help you pinpoint hot-selling products using this same method. For example, if you sell clothing, you might use this window to check out which brands, colors, and styles are in greatest demand from the highest-paying buyers.

For this item, the Average Sales Price was $121.08. Its Average Success Rate was 74%. So we want to use keywords which perform better than these averages.

In this example the keywords ROOF, Q, and TOWERS had the highest LSR (at 90.00%, 80.65%, and 80.52% respectively). Likewise the word LOCKS had the highest Average Selling Price per item at $134.80. These words all match the product I’m selling (a roof-mounted Yakima Q Towers bike rack with locks).

It is important to pick the highest-selling, most successful keywords in your results—but make sure the words you choose represent the product you sell.

Make the most of your auctions with research!

Try HammerTap FREE for 10 Days and remove the guesswork!

Determining what works and what doesn't when it comes to your listings requires research. Anything less puts you at risk of not making the sale or not making as much as you could be on each sale. A research tool like HammerTap helps you bypass the costly trial and error process by quickly giving you the key information you need for profitable online auctions.

Why not take HammerTap for a FREE test drive? We'll give you 10 days to put HammerTap to work for you. Use its power to determine:

• Successful Keywords
• Best Auction Type For Your Products
• Best Listing Duration
• Which Listing Features Improve Your Chance to Sell and Which Increase the Closing Price
• Optimal Start Price to Use
• Best Day of the Week to Start and End Your Auctions
• Seasonal Trends
• And much more!

As a bonus, you'll receive 10-lesson Power to Profit course to help you immediately see the effects research can have on your auctions. We'll also throw in selling tips from Industry Experts in our members-only Auctionography newsletter.

You owe it to yourself to take the guesswork and risk out of your auctions. Try HammerTap free for 10 days. If you are not absolutely sure you'll increase your eBay profits by the $19.95 subscription price, you're free to cancel. It costs you nothing to prove to yourself there's a more profitable way to eBay.

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