088: So You Wanna Sell On eBay - Dave Snyder

Dave Snyder is an advanced eBay SEO consultant and creator of the Listing SEO Score (SM). He has been providing hands-on optimization services and leading eBay marketing strategies to select sellers since 2013 at ListingSeoScore.com. Dave and his wife, Heather, have been selling on eBay at TheEcoBunny.com since 2009. Prior to selling on eBay, Dave was a commercial, industrial, and residential property tax consultant for a firm in the Chicago Loop. Combining his love for eBay and natural bent towards analysis, Dave has become the eBay SEO expert of choice to sellers large and small. Interesting Notes After college, Dave got himself a job as a commercial tech analyst. He got the job because of the reputation of the school he got from. He also did a job as property tax consultant but found it boring. His wife nudged him to look at working for himself because that is what he wants to do. So they began selling on eBay. They started selling with his wife's handmade things. But, they realized that it would take forever to make everything that they are going to sell. They had a handful of hiccups, including some dropshipping. And they finally landed on the concept of recycling. Dave hated walking into a thrift store. He sees half of the things that he knew would sell, but he could not buy it because he only sells toys and games. Dave and his wife love thrifting, especially on estate sales. They dropped the dropshipping because they wanted to have complete control over the process. They realized they spend so much time building a brand and they would not want to hand it over to someone else. They did it full-time for a couple of years, and they had fun. While selling on eBay, Dave studied SEO to build an affiliate marketing site. He opened his own tax firm from his home. He was able to get their company's website ranked the first page in Google. He had learned some things in SEO. And it was not until the second year of selling that he realized that he can apply it to eBay. Dave transitioned to SEO because people need the service. He is the developer of Listing SEO Score (SM) for his clients. He assigns a ratio of every keyword relative to a specific product type. He can tell based on the score, which phrases are the most likely to get your listings seen, not sold. He is also writing an article on the problems of market saturation on eBay. He gathered from most of the eBay sellers that they are pushed out from their market because of the saturation. The hilarious thing Dave observes on eBay sales is that the new items sell poorly on eBay. But the used ones sell tremendously well. Dave pointed out the need to differentiate yourself with branding and pricing. You need to target the person who is going to pay for the price, not the cheap market. That person would be your happiest customer. He also pointed out one of the biggest myths on eBay. That is "save your photos with keywords and the name". This comes from a handful of pages that are uploaded to eBay eleven years ago. They are still there, online. The truth is, when you upload your images to eBay, eBay renames your photos so your keywords are gone. The purpose of associating keywords with your images is so that they can be found in the search engine. The content of the image can be known. Google does it with the keywords that are directly associated with the ALT tag or the alternate text tag. If you go to your eBay listing, hover your cursor over the main photograph. The zoom white box will pop up with text on it. That comes from your ALT tag. eBay inserted it for you. It is your title. So, your photos are automatically found in image search just by creating the listing. There is nothing special that you have to do . Dave is a consultant by trade. He used to get the hard clients when he used to do consulting in property taxes. Now, he is a consultant of eBay sellers. He likes talking to eBay sellers. He is always learning the eBay market from them. He recommends to eBay sellers to go to Google and type eBay, Inc events. The first page that will pop up is the page for the earnings. Through it, they will learn a lot of things about eBay. If sellers are going to base their income on eBay, they need to have as much of a stake in understanding where eBay is at. They will learn tremendous things about the direction eBay is heading. They will also learn the challenges eBay is facing. Dave has a lot of hope for the future of eBay because of the direction Devin Wenig is taking. After reading this, give a call to Dave. He is giving you 10 minutes for a FREE Consultation. Dial his number and ask him anything you want. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Good Ways to SEO for your listing: 1. Your keywords need to be driven by buyers not by the sellers. One of the basic principles of SEO is that search is driven by buyers. So if a buyer uses a certain term, you need to be using that same term. Your keywords have to come from buyers. Dave's tool of choice is Ubersuggest.IO which aggregates Google auto complete. 2. When you do your item specifics, you need to include your entire title in your item specifics. You are going to have default options with your item specifics. The default options you get from eBay are essentials to show up for structure data pages. eBay's structure data pages are pushing out to Google and other search engines. You need to use those default fields to show up on the structure data pages. You need to use the optional item specifics to include the rest of the terms from your listing title. You get 80 characters. You spend all this time choosing the right keywords. You want to replicate those keywords in your item specifics. The reason for this is because the item description is currently hidden in an iframe. Google cannot see your item description. You have to have your whole title in your item specifics. Doing so makes your keyword repetition seen well in Google search. Some points for those that are just starting on eBay: 1. Make sure you know what your item is because you don't always know what you've got. Going to other listings can be helpful to find out what you have got. 2. Look at what the main terms are for that item. 3. Research narrowly. Start with the fewer number of words you can. 4. Use the sold listings on eBay to research actual sales. 5. When you are doing the keywords research, start with the Ubersuggest.IO tool. Start with the fewest keywords possible. This is because you don't know what someone is going to search. Don't assume that you know three or four words. Dictate as few words as possible. If you get too many results, then you can start to refine your search. Quotes "Most interviews are pure talk and valueless. An interviews, as a rule, man seems to talk like anybody but himself." Mark Twain "There are ways to sell well that has nothing to do with the quality of the product nor with the quality of the listing." "The SEO community does not know eBay. And eBay does not know SEO." "Search is driven by buyers." "People search weird things!" "It is surprising sometimes what people will search." "It does not matter what sellers call some things. What matters is what do your buyers call that same thing." "If you want keyword repetition to be found well in Google search, you have to had your whole title in items specifics." "You can't have a lousy listing and do great SEO, and expect to sell." "Everything else has to be in place." "People forget what sells on eBay." "If people can't find you, there's no point." Tools Ubersuggest.IO Contact Information eBay Store: http://www.TheEcoBunny.com website: ListingSeoScore.com Phone Number: 773-987-6947 Sponsors Premium DIY eBay Template M2E Pro ecomdash