Ebay SEO

Any tips on Ebay seo for main keywords like "Flower vase"
I know I can use long tails, but if I could rank my products for the main keyword then I could make a lot of sales.

Does ebay's algo mainly use CTR(impressions to Click ratio) and Conversion rate to determine rankings for a particular keyword?

I had a strategy of keeping the price super low and selling the item about 5 times then bringing the price up. So far this isnt working for me b/c even at the low price im barely getting sales.

I think eBay puts the best converting sellers at the top.

I'll share my experience with ranking in a super competitive computer keyword (we're talking thousands of listings). I didn't really try doing any sort of keyword research. I simply made my title what the product was. Then I had multiple unique photos and had every relevant property of the listing filled out (all the specs, model #s, etc), along with a full HTML description body. I think the kicker was this though: free shipping and free returns. When I enabled those two, along with doing the above, I found my listings at the top of search results without any sales yet. Your mileage may vary and this may not be possible for your product but my experience is eBay ranks free shipping/free returns listings very highly.

I know you hear click through and conversion rate a lot but most of this is from people who haven’t actually tested it. Or they know fine we’ll and would rather you waisted your time rather than actually competed with them.

I’ve been out of eBay for a while so unless things have changed all that really matters is sales. Throw a bunch of shit traffic at it and get 0.05% to convert and you’ll still increase ranks. Low price to start, pick up sales and increase it later.

If you hook up these public API dropshipping repricers your account is never going to rank well. Avoid like the plague.

SEOMadHatter said:

I know you hear click through and conversion rate a lot but most of this is from people who haven’t actually tested it. Or they know fine we’ll and would rather you waisted your time rather than actually competed with them.

I’ve been out of eBay for a while so unless things have changed all that really matters is sales. Throw a bunch of shit traffic at it and get 0.05% to convert and you’ll still increase ranks. Low price to start, pick up sales and increase it later.

If you hook up these public API dropshipping repricers your account is never going to rank well. Avoid like the plague.

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You contradict yourself by saying the conversion rate is just people who are inexperienced talking rubbish then you go on to say only sales matter which is the conversion rate.
Think about it is eBay going to try to squeeze the most money they can from there visitors or not... of course they are which means sell-through rate is what they favor the most.

lewwy789 said:

You contradict yourself by saying the conversion rate is just people who are inexperienced talking rubbish then you go on to say only sales matter which is the conversion rate.
Think about it is eBay going to try to squeeze the most money they can from there visitors or not... of course they are which means sell-through rate is what they favor the most.

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No, I didn't. The conversion rate can be 0.00001% or 100% it doesn't matter. If you push sales your rank will increase. Read it again.

You're not thinking this through fully. Yes, eBay wants the top convertors at the top but if they use that metric then people will game it to fuck. I've done more than thought about it - I've worked with some big stores building bespoke shit for them and I've tested it.

Or believe as you'd like. It makes no difference to me.

@OP Hit the obvious stuff like keywords in the title etc... just look at what the competition is doing. Then hammer it with eBay ads and whatever traffic you can find until it ranks.

SEOMadHatter said:

No, I didn't. The conversion rate can be 0.00001% or 100% it doesn't matter. If you push sales your rank will increase. Read it again.

You're not thinking this through fully. Yes, eBay wants the top convertors at the top but if they use that metric then people will game it to fuck. I've done more than thought about it - I've worked with some big stores building bespoke shit for them and I've tested it.

Or believe as you'd like. It makes no difference to me.

@OP Hit the obvious stuff like keywords in the title etc... just look at what the competition is doing. Then hammer it with eBay ads and whatever traffic you can find until it ranks.

Click to expand...

If your conversion rate is 0.00001 as soon as the new listing has had its honeymoon period which is eBay testing its ctr and str it will be put so far back that it will get no exposure.
There are the exceptions but overall that's how eBay judges which will earn them the most money.
People do game it by selling break even or even at a slight loss to climb the pages.
Then they sneak the price up slowly.
Was drop shipping for 4 years I was in all the drop shipping tool groups and it is widely accepted by the big sellers that it was the most important factor to to getting more sales.
Not the only factor but the strongest.
If you push sales you will climb up the ranking as you say.. Yeah because you are improving str.

lewwy789 said:

If your conversion rate is 0.00001 as soon as the new listing has had its honeymoon period which is eBay testing its ctr and str it will be put so far back that it will get no exposure.
There are the exceptions but overall that's how eBay judges which will earn them the most money.
People do game it by selling break even or even at a slight loss to climb the pages.
Then they sneak the price up slowly.
Was drop shipping for 4 years I was in all the drop shipping tool groups and it is widely accepted by the big sellers that it was the most important factor to to getting more sales.
Not the only factor but the strongest.
If you push sales you will climb up the ranking as you say.. Yeah because you are improving str.

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I think maybe the confusion is coming from what you're considering conversion rate.

If I make 100 sales it's going to help but it isn't going to matter if my conversion rate is 0.01% or 100%. It could be 100 views or 100,000 it's going to have the same effect either way. It's the sales volume they look at and not the conversion rate.

Is that making more sense?

Selling at a low price to get the rankings up works - because it gets sales. Not because it improves the conversion rate.

And trust me some guy in a public Facebook group is far from a credible source. If he told you conversion rate matters he's either parroting some shit he heard without testing or he's misleading people to waste their time.

I've tested this. A lot. Conversion rate doesn't matter - throw a bunch of cheap traffic at your listing and if it converts at all it'll help.

SEOMadHatter said:

I think maybe the confusion is coming from what you're considering conversion rate.

If I make 100 sales it's going to help but it isn't going to matter if my conversion rate is 0.01% or 100%. It could be 100 views or 100,000 it's going to have the same effect either way. It's the sales volume they look at and not the conversion rate.

Is that making more sense?

Selling at a low price to get the rankings up works - because it gets sales. Not because it improves the conversion rate.

And trust me some guy in a public Facebook group is far from a credible source. If he told you conversion rate matters he's either parroting some shit he heard without testing or he's misleading people to waste their time.

I've tested this. A lot. Conversion rate doesn't matter - throw a bunch of cheap traffic at your listing and if it converts at all it'll help.

Click to expand...

Sorry mate going to have to agree to disagree. If you sell one item in of 100,000 clicks on your product eBay would drop-kick your arse to page 25. It would make no sense for them to keep sending traffic to such a shit converting product when there is another 300 products with a better sell-through rate. They would lose a fortune in sellers fee's.

Are you really telling me that eBay will keep sending traffic to an item that has only sold 1 in 100,000 views?

When you say cheap traffic, are you talking about random traffic like porn traffic or some cheap ass traffic as long as it converts?

SEOMadHatter said:

I think maybe the confusion is coming from what you're considering conversion rate.

If I make 100 sales it's going to help but it isn't going to matter if my conversion rate is 0.01% or 100%. It could be 100 views or 100,000 it's going to have the same effect either way. It's the sales volume they look at and not the conversion rate.

Is that making more sense?

Selling at a low price to get the rankings up works - because it gets sales. Not because it improves the conversion rate.

And trust me some guy in a public Facebook group is far from a credible source. If he told you conversion rate matters he's either parroting some shit he heard without testing or he's misleading people to waste their time.

I've tested this. A lot. Conversion rate doesn't matter - throw a bunch of cheap traffic at your listing and if it converts at all it'll help.

Click to expand...

lewwy789 said:

Sorry mate going to have to agree to disagree. If you sell one item in of 100,000 clicks on your product eBay would drop-kick your arse to page 25. It would make no sense for them to keep sending traffic to such a shit converting product when there is another 300 products with a better sell-through rate. They would lose a fortune in sellers fee's.

Are you really telling me that eBay will keep sending traffic to an item that has only sold 1 in 100,000 views?

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Entirely fine. At the end of the day, this is a zero-sum game so I'm not going to try and convince you.

I know where you're coming from and in an ideal world under lab conditions you'd be right. In the real world 99% of sites don't trust these kinds of metrics because they're too easy to game. It's a lot easier to bounce 100,000 visits on your listing to tank your conversion rate than it is to get a dozen accounts to review my own listing.

At the end of the day, I wish you were right but I have a lot of data which disagrees.

elodavid said:

When you say cheap traffic, are you talking about random traffic like porn traffic or some cheap ass traffic as long as it converts?

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Hah! Honestly, if you throw enough porn traffic at it and it eventually sold then I think it would improve your rank but I don't think that's going to convert well enough to be worth your time.

Make sure your keywords etc... are in the listing properly then drop your price and run some ads at it. eBay ones are the obvious start. If your price is low enough you can also pick up some easy social traffic (which can be a gold mine for ranking a listing). If you run at a loss for a while it can be worth it to pick up the organic traffic later on.

SEOMadHatter said:

If you hook up these public API dropshipping repricers

Click to expand...

What are dropshipping repricers?

SEOMadHatter said:

If your price is low enough you can also pick up some easy social traffic

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How is that working? People sharing the product with others as it is so cheap?

draco02 said:

What are dropshipping repricers?

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Google it but the public ones will hammer your account. eBay was slow to react but they don't want dropshipping to rank there when it makes them Amazon with an extra margin.

draco02 said:

How is that working? People sharing the product with others as it is so cheap?

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It doesn't even get that complicated or require them to share. People like cheap shit that's marketing 101. The technical term is loss leader but basically sell your shit cheap so you're probably at a loss to begin with but as your organic ranks improve you can increase that price.

If you go to a Facebook group about football with your 50% football shirt (and I don't mean some shirt from China down from $1000 to just $37.77 but a genuine shirt at a low price) they're going to buy.