A Guide to Driving Sales & Traffic with eBay Guides!

There is some discussion on the chat boards about how to best drive traffic and sales by writing eBay Guides. As an author of 275+ guides, I'd like to write one about how you can write eBay Guides to help your listings.

As an example, I am planning on selling a Ben Coates' Jersey next week and wrote a guide to assist: Ben Coates Jersey Guide

Now I've written that guide tonight and am giving it a few days to get indexed in Google. Once it is indexed in search engines, I can drive targeted traffic to the guide from non-eBay traffic... a big plus! Here are some hints on driving search engine traffic and eBay.com / reviews.ebay.com traffic:

Useful & Relevant Content

They key to anything is having useful content. In my Ben Coates guide I write content about Ben Coates, about the New England Patriots, and about the New England Patriots jersey. This is useful for any reader and useful for search engines who value lots of content and related content (for example, Ben Coates is related to the Patriots). If you are a seller, don't be pushy or overly obvious - be helpful! If someone is on your guide page, remember that they have chosen to be there - so be engaging!

Keywords

You use your most important keywords in listings... use them in guides! Someone interested in my Ben Coates Jersey, will probaby search for Ben Coates, Ben Coates Jersey, New England Patriots, Patriots Jersey, etc.... well make sure that you use those keywords and phrases throughout your guide and title.

Formatting

Use the formatting options in the guide tool. Google and search engines value formatting - your most important keywords and content should appear in header 2s, the next level of content can be a level 3, and the least important can be 'normally' formatted.

Title

Your title is important! If you are on reviews.ebay.com - its what draws the reader in! Its always what appears as the heading in a Google search. Be sure to use your related keywords and have it make sense! My Ben Coates title is "Ben Coates Jersey - New England Patriots Coates Jersey". That is relevant, obvious and will hopefully draw in traffic!

Tags

Tags are very important - use them wisely! The first tag helps determine the listings on your guide - so make sure they match the content! If you are writing a guide to Hello Kitty, the tag should be related to Hello Kitty. Also, make sure the tag is specific (Hello Kitty Doll) and not too generic (collectibles). Additionally, use all 5 tags as they give a greater probability your guide will make it into Google!

Links

Finally, add links to your guide. If your first sentence mentions Ben Coates, you should use the link tool to add a search link to http://search.ebay.com/Ben-Coates. Additionally, you might want to add a signature at the bottom of your guide and a link to your store or about me page. Remember also that authors have all of them links and icons appear in the top right box!