Resource Guide
eBay’s Cassini and Search Engine Optimization
www.SocialSandi.com
Table of Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 1
Key Definitions .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Search Engine .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Cassini ............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Google Search ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)................................................................................................................. 2
Query ............................................................................................................................................................... 2
Filter ................................................................................................................................................................ 2
Algorithm ........................................................................................................................................................ 2
Score ................................................................................................................................................................ 2
Weight ............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ............................................................................................................... 2
Inbound Link ................................................................................................................................................... 2
Web Page ......................................................................................................................................................... 2
Organic Search Results.................................................................................................................................... 3
AdWords Ads .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Paid Listing Advertisements (PLAs): .............................................................................................................. 3
Google Search .................................................................................................................................................... 4
Background ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Mission ............................................................................................................................................................ 4
6-Minute History of Google ............................................................................................................................ 4
PageRank: The First Algorithm....................................................................................................................... 4
Google Hummingbird...................................................................................................................................... 5
Other Key Google Algorithms ........................................................................................................................ 5
Content Relevancy Algorithm ..................................................................................................................... 5
Vince Algorithm .......................................................................................................................................... 5
Panda Algorithm.......................................................................................................................................... 5
Penguin Algorithm ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Important Ranking Factors for SEO ............................................................................................................... 6
On-Page SEO Ranking Factors ....................................................................................................................... 6
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Content ................................................................................................... 6
SEO Ranking Factors Related to HTML ..................................................................................................... 6
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Site Architecture ..................................................................................... 6
Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors....................................................................................................................... 7
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Links ....................................................................................................... 7
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Trust........................................................................................................ 7
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Social ...................................................................................................... 7
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Personal .................................................................................................. 7
Action Steps: The Three Pillars of SEO .......................................................................................................... 7
SEO Action Steps: Content ............................................................................................................................. 8
SEO Action Steps: Inbound Links .................................................................................................................. 9
SEO Action Steps: Social Media ..................................................................................................................... 9
eBay’s Cassini Search...................................................................................................................................... 11
eBay’s Mission .............................................................................................................................................. 11
eBay’s Best Match Algorithm ....................................................................................................................... 11
Key Points: eBay ........................................................................................................................................... 12
The Three Pillars of Cassini Optimization .................................................................................................... 13
Cassini Optimization: Trust ........................................................................................................................... 13
Cassini Optimization: Value.......................................................................................................................... 13
Cassini Optimization: Relevancy .................................................................................................................. 14
Cassini Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 14
HTML in Descriptions .................................................................................................................................. 14
Best Match ................................................................................................................................................. 14
Mobile ....................................................................................................................................................... 14
SEO ........................................................................................................................................................... 14
Buyer’s opinion ......................................................................................................................................... 14
Final Action Steps ............................................................................................................................................ 15
Action Steps: Optimizing for Search Engines ............................................................................................... 15
Action Steps: Optimizing for Cassini Search ................................................................................................ 15
Key Takeaways ................................................................................................................................................ 15
Homework ........................................................................................................................................................ 16
Content: Keyword Research .......................................................................................................................... 16
Links .............................................................................................................................................................. 16
Social ............................................................................................................................................................. 16
Introduction
This guide is intended to help you understand the fundamental concepts of how search engines
work, and give you some simple resources to optimize your eBay listings to be findable inside
eBay’s Cassini Search engine and in other external search engines such as Google. We focus on
Google Search because it has at this time a staggering 68% market share.
Increasingly, the search “recipe” is proprietary and protected by a sea of lawyers and countless
patents. This is true of all search engines. We may learn some of the “ingredients” from time to time
but we will never get the “recipe”.
Another dynamic of search engines is they are constantly evolving. At any given time there may be
more than 200 different factors of varying importance determining search results. Changes to the
core algorithms will affect how any given page ranks, and not all these changes are announced.
Melih Oztalay, CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing, frequently gives the advice “expect change
and accept change”. As a small business owner in e-commerce, it is important to understand that
the operational flow through which you execute your business must always be ready to adapt.
“Trying to fight the dynamic and fluid environment of the web is not logical for your
business, nor is it fruitful use of your time. Keep emotion out of it, press forward and
adapt to the changing environment.” -Melih Oztalay, Search Engine Journal
This guide should serve as a starting point. It’s a tool to help you understand the way search
engines “think” to enable you to create more effective eBay listings. Stay current as search engines
evolve, and regularly read industry news to learn what the changes are as they unfold.
The last section of this guide contains action steps you can take now to improve your ranking in
both eBay’s Cassini search engine and in external search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. If
you want to understand the “why” read the entire guide. If you just want to know “how” you can skip
to the end.
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Key Definitions
Search Engine
A program that searches for and identifies items in a database that correspond to keywords or
characters specified by the user.
Cassini
The search engine inside eBay.com.
Google Search
The search engine product of Google.com.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Strategies, techniques and tactics to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a
high-ranking placement in search results.
Query
A query is the text you enter into the search box to look for something.
Filter
A mechanism which allows you to narrow search results. Checking boxes for Item Specifics when
searching inside eBay is one way to apply a filter.
Algorithm
A procedure or formula for solving a problem (usually a mathematical equation or set of equations).
Score
The results after an algorithm or algorithms have been applied.
Weight
Different levels of importance assigned to the “ingredients” in an algorithm.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
Web page that displays the result of a search in ranked order.
Inbound Link
A link that points to your web page or website.
Web Page
For the purposes of this guide, a web page is one of your eBay item listing pages.
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Organic Search Results
The listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search
terms, as opposed to their being advertisements. When you apply SEO tactics, you are attempting
to improve your listing’s result in these organic results.
AdWords Ads
Paid advertising that display on SERPs (search engine results pages). These ads are text-only.
Paid Listing Advertisements (PLAs):
A form of paid advertising that appears when someone searches for products on google.com and
google.com/shopping. Google will show the customer a picture of your item, its price, and the store
name.
It’s important to note that for eBay listings, only eBay.com can purchase AdWords ads or PLAs. It is
not possible for eBay sellers to purchase this type of advertisement.1
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Etsy.com, on the other hand, will let sellers pay an extra fee to be included in PLAs. This is done inside Etsy.com.
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Google Search
Background
Google was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were students at Stanford
University2. The two met in 1995. By 1996, they had built a search engine that used links to
determine the importance of individual webpages.
Mission
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful.
6-Minute History of Google
An internet connection is required to view. Click and you will be taken to YouTube to watch the video.
PageRank: The First Algorithm
The PageRank algorithm (still in use today) was the original search algorithm for google.com. It is
Google’s link quantity algorithm which helps determine how influential any given web page is.
PageRank worked by having small programs called “spiders”3 crawl from website to website
through links. The spiders record data about inbound links and keywords. The more inbound links a
site has, the more influential it was deemed and the higher it
was scored in the PageRank algorithm.
This information was catalogued (indexed) in a database at
Google. When someone performs a Google search, it is this
index that is searched (not the entire internet) which allows for
near-instant search results to be recalled and displayed.
Today, over 200 data points in multiple algorithms are
considered when determining SERP rank and over 500
algorithm changes per year are implemented.
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Image credit: www.seomastering.com
Random Google fact, the first name of the search engine was “BackRub”.
Spiders are sometimes referred to as crawlers, robots, or bots.
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Google Hummingbird
Google started using the Hummingbird algorithm August 30,
2013. Hummingbird is a major evolution in search
technology, as it tried to decipher context when someone
enters a search query and does not merely try to match
keywords. Danny Sullivan, a founder of Search Engine
Land, describes Hummingbird as follows:
"Google said that Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query,
ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning —
is taken into account."
This new evaluation of context has radically altered which items may be recalled in searches. Steve
Masters of Red Rock Media wrote an excellent analysis of what the smart marketers4 need to know
to understand Hummingbird.
“In a nutshell, think about why people are looking for something rather than what
they are looking for.” Steve Masters
Danny Sullivan describes the change in this way. “Unlike previous search algorithms which would
focus on each individual word in the search query, Hummingbird considers each word but also how
each word makes up the entirety of the query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning —
is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do
better, rather than pages matching just a few words.”5
Other Key Google Algorithms
Hummingbird is not Google’s only important algorithm currently in use. Several of the other
important ones are described below.
Content Relevancy Algorithm
When Google’s Content Relevancy algorithm was released, per-page optimization became
possible. This means that instead of an entire website receiving a ranking score, individual pages
on the website could be scored independently.
Vince Algorithm
The Vince Algorithm helps determine if a brand is notable & trusted. To score well in Vince, brands
need a multi-channel approach to marketing. You can learn more by clicking here.
Panda Algorithm
Panda is Google’s quality website content algorithm. With the Panda 4.0 update, Google is working
to remove websites with “thin” content from search results. You can learn more by clicking here.
Penguin Algorithm
Penguin is Google’s link quality algorithm, it works to remove spammy sites from search results.
You can learn more by clicking here.
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All eBay sellers are marketers, even if they don’t realize it.
http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816
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Important Ranking Factors for SEO
Given the complexity of the algorithms Google uses to determine ranking in search results and their
proprietary status it is simply not possible to know exactly how any given page will rank. There are
general themes, however, which we can bear in mind that do tend to drive better optimized results.
There are two types of ranking factors for SEO. There are on-page factors (things you can control
because they are on your own web page or eBay listing page) and off-page factors (ranking
influence resulting from other web pages linking to you, for example).
The exploration of on-page and off-page SEO ranking factors that follows next draws heavily from
the Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors produced by Search Engine Land in 2013. While this
source is already a year old, it is still accurate from a macro perspective.
On-Page SEO Ranking Factors
On-Page SEO factors fall into three general categories: content, HTML, and the site’s fundamental
architecture. When you sell on eBay, there are only certain items you have control over and most
are related to content. The rest of the factors are controlled by eBay.
The factors in bold print are the ones over which eBay sellers have some influence.
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Content
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Are your pages (listings) well written with high-quality content?
Have you researched your keywords?
Does your choice of keywords and phrases in the title and description match what a
shopper might enter into the Google search box?
Is your content engaging? Do visitors spend time reading or bounce away quickly?
Are listings fresh and about “hot” (popular, trending, or highly relevant) topics?
Is content “thin” or “shallow”, lacking substance?
Is your content ad-heavy (especially above the fold)?
SEO Ranking Factors Related to HTML
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Are you using title tags with keywords?
Are you using Meta description tags?
Are you using Header tags with keywords?
Are you using structured data? (Use Item Specifics, it’s a type of structured data)
Are you keyword stuffing (loading a webpage with keywords, often in a list/group or
out of context and not with natural language)? DON’T
Hiding KW with color/design (e.g., white keyword text on a white background)? DON’T
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Site Architecture
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Is the page or site easy to crawl?
How do you manage duplicate content issues?
Does the site load quickly?
Are URLs short w/ meaningful keywords?
Is the site mobile optimized?
Do search engines see same page as shoppers?
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Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors
Sellers only have (limited) influence over the factors below in a bold font. How you can assert
influence will be described in the action steps section later in the guide.
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Links
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Inbound links are from trusted, quality, or respected sites?
Do links pointing at your item pages use words you hope they’ll be found for?
Do many links point to your pages?
Have you purchased links? DON’T!
Many links from spamming blogs, forums, or other places? DON’T!
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Trust
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Do links/shares/other make your site a trusted authority?
Does eBay.com have a long history?
Does eBay.com verify the identity of authors?
Has eBay.com been flagged for piracy?
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Social
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Do those respected on social networks (influencers) share your content?
Do many people share your content on social networks?
SEO Ranking Factors Related to Personal
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What country is someone located in?
What city or local area is someone located in?
Has someone recently visited your site (eBay Store) or favorited it?
Have your friends socially favorited the site (eBay Store)?
Action Steps: The Three Pillars of SEO
We can narrow all the variables just discussed even
further. Jayson DeMers, founder of Audience Bloom,
recently published in Forbes.com the Three Pillars of
SEO for 2014. Some of his key points are summarized
here and they’ve been adapted specifically to selling
on eBay.
DeMers’ three pillars include content, links, and social.
We’ve already explored these factors in detail. Ways
to take action inside of your eBay listings to be
optimized with these three pillars in mind follows next.
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SEO Action Steps: Content
eBay sellers have tremendous opportunity to optimize for SEO. You control the content found in the
title and description, and unlike eBay’s Cassini6 (internal search engine) the description field (in
part) is read by search engine spiders.
Keyword Research is a MUST. For eBay sellers, there are two primary tools to help you with this.
They are the Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool (free, you need a Google account) and
Terapeak (paid subscription).
When you write your listings, put a keyword-rich sentence at the top of your description that gives
context for the item, explaining how it can be used, why it is useful, or how it can add value to the
life of the buyer. This is important so your page is optimized for Google’s Content Relevancy and
Panda algorithms.
Avoid putting any text in your descriptions that does not describe the item or how it is used. Going
forward, remove terms & conditions from your description field and start using the new eBay policy
fields instead (as soon as they become available to you). The presence of this non-descriptive page
content could hurt your Google ranking, as it could confuse the spiders with regards to what the web
page is about.
Google’s spiders do not usually crawl the entire title or the entire description field, so make sure the
most important keywords and your rich content is at the beginning of each field.
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At this time, eBay’s Cassini is only searching descriptions when there are few or no results with matching parameters
are initially recalled by searching just the title. Source: Hugh Williams, “Search at eBay” webinar, June 5, 2013.
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SEO Action Steps: Inbound Links
The quantity and quality of inbound links are also major factors in the organic search ranking
algorithms; this is what the PageRank and Penguin algorithms ascertain.
eBay sellers have less control over who is linking to their items and sharing links over the internet
since the links are public. Google will not penalize you because a “bad” site or page is linking to
you, but you will be rewarded with a better rank the more that high-quality pages link to you.
Some ways you can increase inbound links are:
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Blogging or Microblogging
Guest blogging
Comment on other people’s blog posts IF AND ONLY IF the blog relates in some way to
your products and you can add value with your comment (include link)
If you do blog, bear in mind the SEO ranking factors we discussed earlier also apply to blogging.
eBay sellers should avoid utilizing “bump sites” to build links to their items and other SEO black-hat
tactics. Google now recognizes these sites for what they are (link spam) and gives no credit to them
in search results. You may not be downgraded in search, but you are absolutely wasting your time if
you push listings to them.
One factor to consider is that driving traffic with an inbound link strategy takes time. You may want
to send this type of traffic to your eBay Store home page or to multi-quantity fixed price items that
are listed Good ‘til Cancelled (GTC) which you can restock as your inventory sells.
SEO Action Steps: Social Media
Determine who your target customer is, then build a presence on the social media network(s) s/he
uses.
“Social media gives companies an additional platform to interact with customers,
build their brand, and create a community, all while also driving traffic to their
website.” Jayson DeMers
“Social signals” are now the fastest-rising search engine ranking factor. These signals include:
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How often do you share content on social channels?
How often do people visit your website for social channels?
How many fans/followers do you have?
Does your website have social sharing elements available for visitors?
What’s the ratio of followers to people you follow?
Which influencers are sharing your content?
Bing.com integrates your Klout.com score into ranking
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It helps to understand why social media is an important search factor. Stephanie Frasco, VP of
Social Media with Convert With Content, recently published 6 Reasons Social Media is Critical to
your SEO in Social Media Today; they are summarized here.
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Link building was always about social proof
Social Media allows you to “crowd source” your link building
Being social is the fastest way to multiply your presence online
“Social signals” is a real thing
Social links bring real traffic to your website
Google hates link building (i.e. link spam)
Google+ has a fun feature called “Ripples” which makes it easy to
visualize the reach a link post may have on social media. If a Google+
post has been shared on the network you can select “View Ripples” from
the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the post.
To the right is a post recently shared by Wil Wheaton regarding his new
TV show, the Wil Wheaton Project. It had already been publicly shared
93 times and +1’d (Google’s equivalent of a ‘Like’) 749 times when the
image was captured.
The bubble-like image below is showing us the ripples. Each circle
represents a Google+ user who shared the post while its size represents
the relative influence of that person. The lines between the circles are a
map of the sharing.
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eBay’s Cassini Search
Before we dive into the details of eBay’s Cassini search engine, it’s important to understand eBay’s
objectives. This will give the context for why Cassini does what it does.
eBay’s Mission
“At eBay, our mission is to provide a global online marketplace where practically
anyone can trade practically anything, enabling economic opportunity around the
world.”
eBay’s mission is simple. eBay is a platform to facilitate global trade. The Cassini search engine is a
key tool for fulfilling this mission. To facilitate trade, Cassini needs to effectively match the buyers
with the products for which they are looking. It is more sophisticated than its predecessor, the
Voyager search engine, because Cassini attempts to factor buyer characteristics such as shopping
behavior and buying history into the algorithms to increase the likelihood of a sale.
Cassini is a search engine and the primary purpose of all search engines is to find and deliver the
most relevant content to the person who is seeking it. Cassini functions to try to get the most
relevant item in front of a buyer who is seeking that specific item.
eBay’s Best Match Algorithm
Best Match is the name of the primary algorithm used by Cassini. Before Cassini was introduced,
Best Match was fairly simple and straightforward. eBay generally let the public know what the
important ranking factors were (and there were very few) and the sellers who paid attention could
optimize for those factors easily and stay in the top of search results.
With the Cassini rollout (officially announced in June 2013), there are now an estimated 100-200
ranking factors at any given time. These factors change frequently as new methods to increase
buyer behavior and the ‘spend’ of each buyer (the amount of money each buyers spends at eBay
for a given transaction or period) are surmised.
eBay, Inc. is more than a marketplace, it is quickly becoming one of the largest data companies in
the world (eBay, Inc. owns eBay.com, PayPal and Magento, among other companies, and the rights
to all transactional data from those sites). eBay does not make program changes without exhaustive
research first, so be assured that if eBay has determined some factor will increase the spend for any
given buyer it will be factored into Best Match. To prevent sellers from “gaming the system” and
staying at the top of results (which could lower the potential spend for a given buyer), eBay keeps
the “ingredients” of the Best Match algorithm extremely confidential.
“From a search engineer’s perspective, [Hugh] Williams says to imagine eBay as a
collection of buckets, each holding a specific variety of data, such as sellers, buyers,
images, text and user behavior. Cassini’s job is not just to incorporate more data
from more buckets than Voyager, but to learn which new pieces of data inform
search result rankings in a way that correlates with success.” –Wired.com
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The defect rate is highlighted because we know for a fact that effective August 20th, 2014, the defect
rate will be a factor in Best Match. “In general, the lower your defect rate, the better your position in
Best Match search results.”
Key Points: eBay
That’s a lot to process! Hopefully these key points can help sum it up succinctly.
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eBay is a data company
If it can be measured, it can be a factor in the Best Match algorithm
Best Match “ingredients” change regularly
Buyer data now factors into eBay search
eBay search’s primary goal is to facilitate as many transactions as possible while generating
the highest possible spend from each buyer in a manner that maintains buyer satisfaction
(happy buyers come back and shop again)
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The Three Pillars of Cassini Optimization
While we will never have the full list of ingredients in
the Best Match recipe, we do know the underlying
tenets that eBay has determined are strong drivers of
buying behavior. These Three Pillars of Cassini
Optimization are Trust, Value, and Relevance.
Trust and Relevance should be familiar by now, as
we explored them when learning about SEO. Value is
a new variable. eBay is fairly tight-lipped about what
constitutes “value”. For commodity items with ISBNs
and bar codes, value must be heavily influenced by
price. This becomes less clear for items that cannot
be tracked through a single bar code (such as
clothing, collectibles, and antiques).
Cassini Optimization: Trust
By now it should be apparent why trust is so critically important as a signal in search engines, so
let’s not waste time re-exploring this. Instead, here are some simple ways to optimize your listings
for eBay’s Cassini search for Trust.
“Study what it takes to be a Top Rated Seller on eBay; it is our definition of the key
tenets of being a trusted seller on eBay, and we use those trust signals in search.”
– Hugh Williams, former head of eBay Search
Some specific actions you can take to help with Trust are:
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Avoid “Item not as described” cases by carefully describing your items.
Under-promise and over-deliver.
Accept returns, opt-in to Hassle-free Returns
Upload tracking information same-day
Use a lot of high-quality images
Carefully describe your items; use the “Item Condition Description” field for used items
Cassini Optimization: Value
As we’ve already discussed, what constitutes “value” for Best Match is a little murky. After extensive
research, the actions described below seem to be the best candidates for making Beast Match
happy with a “Value” determination.
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Make sure your item is competitively priced, check both completed sales and active listings
when setting your price
Offer free shipping when possible; when that is not possible make sure shipping is fair
Offer fast shipping and international shipping
Accept returns
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Cassini Optimization: Relevancy
The key to relevancy is making sure the way you describe your item accurately reflects the nature of
the item. These simple steps make this easy.
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Make sure you are listed in the correct category
Make sure your title accurately identifies the item listed
Complete item specifics as thoroughly and as accurately as possible
Don’t keyword spam
Cassini Summary
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Every shopper now gets a different set of results;
you can never be #1 to 100% of the shoppers again (either on or off eBay)
eBay relies heavily on data to drive business decisions.
If it can be measured, it could be scored in Best Match.
Make sure the most important keywords are always in your title.
Cassini reads titles, item specifics, item condition, images, and (in rare cases) descriptions
At this time, Cassini is only reading descriptions for search queries with few or no results.
HTML in Descriptions
There is a lot of confusion with regards to how SEO factors into search. Hopefully the notes below
can help clarify what happens with HTML in listings.
Best Match
The presence (or lack of) HTML in listings is not necessarily a factor, but excessive html may give a
poor buyer experience.
Mobile
HTML may not render properly on smart phones, tablets, or in the eBay Apps.
SEO
A small amount of HTML (an embedded YouTube video or outbound links offering more information
about the product) can make your listing page more valuable to search engines, but make sure
there is also text above these elements for the search engine spiders to crawl and index.
Buyer’s opinion
Too much HTML (busy templates, distracting gifs, and different font colors/sizes/types) can lead to a
very poor visual experience for the buyer. Strip templates down to the bare minimum to deliver the
best possible experience and increase the possibility of a conversion.
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Final Action Steps
Action Steps: Optimizing for Search Engines
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Write eBay Guides & eBay Reviews
Use social media marketing
Do keyword research before writing titles & descriptions
Use item specifics; fill in EVERY one you are prompted for, even if answer is “Unknown”
Add relevant custom item specifics when appropriate
Put a keyword-rich sentence at the top of your description that gives context for the item
(how it can be used or useful to the buyer)
Stop using eBay vocabulary in titles (NWT, OOAK…)
Find a source for new, multi-quantity items to offer in your store and freshen the page from
time to time
Action Steps: Optimizing for Cassini Search
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Follow eBay’s Best Practices
Do keyword research before writing titles
Use item specifics (fill in EVERY one you are prompted for
Strive for the lowest possible defect rate and TRS status
List with a mixture of both auction (with BIN) and fixed price items
I send new listings to auction Weeks 1-2 then move to Good ‘til Cancelled if it hasn’t sold
Find a source for new, multi-quantity items to offer in your store and limit the quantity eBay
can see (either manually or with the KiQuantity eBay app)
Use Markdown Manager and/or Promotions Manager tools
Price competitively
Key Takeaways
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eBay is a data company and all decisions are data driven
Search algorithms evolve constantly; changes are not always announced
Search Engines have become effective at filtering out spammy & black-hat SEO techniques
Relevance and Trust are now key factors in ALL search engines
There is no “easy” button for SEO and Cassini Optimization
Do the research
Offer exceptional customer service
List new content frequently, update non-performing listing pages
Everyone sees a different SERP (both inside & outside eBay);
You will never again be the #1 search result for 100% of customers
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Homework
If you haven’t already, take the following actions to improve your search rank placement in both
external search engines and eBay’s Cassini.
Content: Keyword Research
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Sign-up for Terapeak’s (Free 14-day trial) www.Terapeak.com
If you can’t afford Terapeak, learn how to use the free (but more time consuming) Google
AdWords Keyword Planner (URL?)
Links
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If you have the time and the writing skill, create a blog and publish weekly
Visit other blogs related to your products and comment, include the link back to an FP multiquantity item you can restock or to your eBay store
Social
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Open at least one social media account (Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest)
Note: Instagram does NOT use links in posts; it will NOT help you with SEO
Learn how to promote your business effectively with social media
Post once per day on social media to keep your account active
Great free resources at PageMage.com/education and SocialSandi.com/education
A special thank you to Sally Milo of Milo Design for her assistance with editing.
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