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Now that you’ve attracted bidders with your auction title, you have to get them to bid on your item by telling them why they should bid. What you are essentially doing is writing sales copy. You want to get them excited about what you are offering.

You should start off with a headline and a sub-headline. This is something that most eBay sellers fail to do is use a headline to begin their description. A good headline should create a problem that the reader can identify with and stress the main benefit of your product in solving that problem. It should also generate excitement and a desire to learn more about your product.

After the headline, you introduce your product with an overview. The overview shows the value of what you are offering and shows them why it’s a great solution to the problem you introduced in your headline. Then you describe your item in detail. You want to include all pertinent details of your item, such as brand, make and model, condition, warranty, packaging details and any other relevant information. Tell any interesting features about the product that make it stand out, what you can do with the item, and so on. All this will help demonstrate the value of the item.

After you describe the features of the product, you should translate these features into benefits. A feature is an attribute of an item. A benefit solves a problem for its owner. In other words, benefits answer “What’s in it for me?” for the buyer. It answers why they should bid on or buy your product.

It’s very important to establish your credibility in the eyes of potential bidders. There are several ways this can be accomplished. If you are positioning yourself as an expert, back up everything you say with details of your experience, qualifications, or awards in your chosen category or industry. Do this by placing a link to your About Me page or My World Page where you can include details about your background. Be honest when describing your items and don’t leave out anything. Be up front about any defects will boost your credibility. Use testimonials from people who have bought from you before by using your eBay feedback. Last but not least, use proper spelling and grammar. If you present a sloppy image with bad grammar, you won’t encourage people to bid on your item.

Make use of as many images as you can get of your item. The more the better. Make sure you use good lighting and make certain the images are clear. This especially true for high value items. It is a good idea to acquire some good lighting equipment and a good quality digital camera. The picture don’t have to be professional quality, but they need to show as much of the product as possible. If you are having items drop shipped for you, ask the supplier to provide you with several pictures of the item to use in your description. Or you can order one item as a sample and use it in your pictures.

It’s also important to give clear terms and conditions. List your terms and conditions such as payment options, bidding and shipping restrictions, shipping and handling fees, taxes and duty, warranty and refund policy, feedback guidelines, contact information, and delivery details(clearly state when you will ship the item).

Add a strong guarantee. Offering a money back guarantee is a proven marketing technique that is an excellent way to increase bids and sales. It may be tempting to place a time limit on your guarantee, but these guarantees don’t carry much weight. It is far better to not include a time limit because it will send a strong message that encourages more bids and sales. If someone has had an item for more than 30 days they are not likely to suddenly turn around and send it back. If someone does send it back, it’s usually because they have a genuine problem with the item and it’s only right they get a refund. You may get a few returns, but they will be outweighed by the extra sales you will generate with your guarantee.

Create a sense of urgency to encourage immediate bids. Auctions are urgent by their very nature but it’s a good idea to create a sense of urgency in your auction. One way to do this is to repeat the benefits of your item. If your item is no longer being made or is hard to find, emphasize its rarity and the fact this might be the last chance to buy it.

Now that you’ve written your description and offered a guarantee, you now need to ask for the sale. You’ve convinced the buyer they want the item and you need to ask for the sale. It doesn’t need to be long, just compelling. You can restate the benefits of the item and ask for the bid.

This is by no means a complete course on writing sales copy, but it will give you a good place to begin writing auctions that will improve sales.

Allen Owen is an enthusiastic home business entrepreneur and engineer. Have a look at his eBay tips e-zine: http://www.thedigitalresevoir.com

Most SEO’s will agree that Blogs are an important part of their Toolkit. Blogs offer both on page and off page benefits for our client’s sites.

Implementing a Blog is relatively simple to do…the tough part is getting the client to agree to one.

This is the first in a 5 part series looking at Blog Strategy with a focus on Clients. In this post, I’m going to look at some of the typical objections clients have to implementing a Blog Strategy, and how to answer them.

The Client: Why would I think about implementing a Blog Strategy?

Blog growth is exploding. If you do a search on Technorati for “blog” you’ll receive over 15 Million search results.

There is a good reason for this.

Blogs are becoming the de facto source for news and information for our culture.

Here is a case in point. A couple of years ago, I heard that there had been a recall on Polly Pockets. Given that I have a baby who puts everything in her mouth and these toys in the house, I headed straight to the computer to find more information.

What struck me as incredibly interesting is that the only information available that quickly was through Blogs. Although I couldn’t find the actual news source, I was able to find a link to the information I needed (including the companies recall) through a Blog.

The Client: We have always resisted a Blog because we’re not sure anyone would read it. Who wants to read an online diary about plastic products / rugs / or the petroleum industry <insert client industry>?

What? You don’t have a Burning Desire to tell your online story about Plastic Products/ Rugs / or the Petroleum Industry <insert client industry>?

Are you crazy?

Of course not. Chances are your industry doesn’t lend itself to an online diary.

So why is a Blog a Good Idea?

Don’t think of it as an online diary. It’s much more than that. In addition to it being an opportunity to talk to your client in a different tone than the rest of your site, it’s a very Search Engine friendly, Social Media friendly infrastructure.

Blogs provide an opportunity to add a great deal of content to your website. And search engines love content.

If you look at the analytics of your website a few months after implementing a Blog, you’ll typically see a large increase in the number of search phrases that people are finding your site with.

Unlike typical SEO where you’re optimizing specific pages for specific keywords, a Blog allows you to talk about your product, services and industry in very natural language.

This is critical because if you’ve ever examined the long tail of your search results, you’ll know that you will never in a million years anticipate all of the “wild and wacky” search phrases that searchers will use to find your site.

(To the reader) It’s important that you don’t sell the Blog solely on the reasons that we as the SEO want to implement a Blog.

We all know that blog content can get indexed quickly; that it provides another method of link building; various plug ins make things like RSS and Social Media easy to use; etc.

But that’s looking at the Blog from our perspective as SEO’s.

Instead of using SEO jargon and technical terms, try to provide the client with real life examples that they can relate to (although I must say, many of my clients are so Internet Marketing savvy, they could be SEO’s )

The Client: That makes sense but I’m also worried about running out of ideas for posts. My biggest concern is the potential resource requirement that a Blog might create.

That’s a very important point. Implementing a blog can be like getting a new puppy. You’re really excited at first about it and then you realize just how much work this is going to be.

Coming up with post ideas is one of the Key Success Factor for your Blog. As such, before the final decision to launch is made; and before the Blog is built, we will brainstorm at least 30 ideas for future Blog Posts.

When implementing a Blog for our clients we often think of 7 to 10 potential categories for the posts then come up with 3 to 5 ideas for each category. This is important for two reasons. First, this exercise will help you (the client) to realize that there are hundreds of potential post ideas.

Second, these post ideas become the foundation of your editorial schedule. Once we’ve agreed on 30 to 50 post ideas, then we’ll plan out who will write the posts (us, ghost writers, the client, delegates with in the clients company, guest bloggers, etc).

And we’ll put a schedule to it so everyone knows what is expected of them in advance. By knowing in advance who is going to do what and by when, Blog the posts done.

(To the reader: I like to speak to my clients about process. I find that outlining the steps involved in what we do helps to demystify the process. Although it sometimes seems like we just magically press the “easy button” in actuality most of what we do has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with hard work.

Also, outlining the process helps to manage the clients expectations. If they know what the next steps are then they can become a part of the solution. Also, by focusing on how you are going to do what you are doing, it demonstrates to the client that you’ve done this before.

Most clients understand why a Blog Strategy will benefit them. Its usually more of an issue to explain how we will make it a success. From large companies to SME’s most firms have resource constraints that must be addressed.

This is the first in a 5 part series on Blog Strategy with a focus on clients. This series will explore:

1. How to Sell your Client on a Blog Strategy
2. How to develop a Blog Strategy? What makes it a ‘Strategy’ versus just implementing a Blog?
3. How to Come up with Blog Post Ideas for Challenging Industries
4. What are realistic measures of success for your Client’s Blog?
5. How to get your Blog Traffic to Convert

Jennifer Osborne writer and marketer for Search Engine People.

Tags: blog marketing

Gone are the days of running an ad in the yellow pages or local newspaper and crossing your fingers that the right eyes would pass over it. Your customers look to the instant gratification of online search, sometimes even through their mobile phones, when they’re ready to make a purchase. Implementing local search best practices will ensure that these qualified customers find you.

In a 2007 Nielsen and WebVisible, Inc. survey of people who had searched for a local service vendor in the last 90 days, 6% reported they would visit a vendor in-person, 11% would make contact through a website form, 16% would write to an email address and 68% use a phone number posted on a website to contact the vendor. Make your phone number and contact information highly visible on your website, and assign trackable URLs and phone numbers to each advertising referrer that you use. Keep track of what’s working and what isn’t in an analytics program. This allows you to keep your program measurable and to continually optimize for leads and conversions.

Here are the tactics (and measurement methods) that turn a local marketing effort into a lead generation machine:

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Tags: local search, Marketing